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Market, I see upon a card conspicuously posted, "Fresh meat from America. Mutton. Prices of the day." The prices run as follows: leg seventy-five centimes the half kilo, or about fourteen cents the pound English; cutlets the same; fillet about twelve cents; and shoulder about eleven; but I see no rush of people to buy it. At the Farmers' Market in Philadelphia the different stalls are conspicuously labelled in this manner: Stephen Darlington, Virgil Eachus, Isaac Evans; but at this Batignolles Market there are small signs or plates, with the names thus: Mr. Goujon, Mr. Blanc, Mme. Ve. Pierre, or Mrs. Widow Pierre, and so on. I begin to reflect that the title monsieur (as addressed to the lord of the manor) must have fallen since the old times; but possibly these are as much of gentlemen as some of the ancient ones. Anyhow, Batignolles Market is not one of the charming places of Paris.

After passing through the market, I soon come to a handsome public garden, the Square des Batignolles. It has chairs and benches, fine grass, handsome trees, beautitifully-kept flowers, and it is a good place to banish the disgust which one is likely to feel after leaving untidy, squalid surroundings. There is a piece of water in the square; it flows over the gravelled path and among large stones, and upon it there are ducks. Birds twitter overhead, children prattle, and I feel that it is a beneficent government that provides such a place; for, besides being out of sorts, I have just left a third floor where lives a working-woman and passed through the disagreeable market.

While, however, I am complacently seated, a woman comes up to me in a business manner; and she means business, for she demands four sous for the use of the chair, which

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cools my enthusiasm. I have thoughtlessly taken an armchair, which costs more. When I pay her, she gives me a little colored picture or card, such as shopmen give out in Paris, foolish things perhaps, but artistically done; my colored picture is "Marriage in minjature; asking consent of the father." It says also, "Most precious discovery of the age: dentifrice of cresses." The back of

the card narrates the virtues of this dentifrice, and is stamped with the price of my chair,--twenty centimes: it is my receipt. Near me sit two ladies; the elder one has an umbrella, and the younger is making tatting with a shuttle; two little ones are with them, a boy and a girl, tidily dressed in French fashion, but not expensively. They have little wooden shovels and tin buckets, and are playing with the gravel. The boy is so pleased that he looks up at the younger lady and says, "Good-day, mamma." "Good-day, my little one," she replies. Soon the elder lady takes the children away, and they come back with wafers or thin rolled-up cakes. The water is introduced under large rocks to resemble a spring; it has a little fall from pool to pool; it attracts children, as water always does. A gardener comes in wooden shoes, bringing flower-pots. What a quantity of manure upon this bed of geraniums! Where do they get so much? A man comes with a wheelbarrow-load of fine stable manure, and then another. A little girl comes up to where we are sitting, accompanied by an elderly man. She has a hoop; she joins the other two children, and they begin to play hidehide,-cache-cache,-which we call hide-and-seek. Then the new-comer takes a pebble in one hand, and holds out both for her companion to guess in which hand it is. She has let the little boy have her hoop, and now she begins to repeat verses,—as our children say when at play, “One

ery, oo-ery, ickery, an; bobtail, vinegar, who began?" But this is what the little French girl says:

"Une souris verte, qui courait dans l'herbe,

Je la prends par la queue, je la montre à ces messieurs."

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(A green mouse that was running in the grass: I take it by the tail; I show it to these gentlemen.) Thus she decides who shall hide the handkerchief. Now the poor-looking boys are coming from the public school; see the names on baskets they carry. A quarrel arises; one picks up a pebble, as if going to throw it at another, but he concludes by throwing it into the water. Before long the man in authority appears, the big man in uniform; he can keep children in order. He wears a dark green coat and cap; he carries a stick and wears a sword; he has a decoration on his breast doubtless he was long a soldier. I get up to walk, and meet a very neat-looking girl, about twelve years old, without a bonnet, walking with a woman in a cap. The girl wears a high black woollen apron, and on her breast are two medals—one white, one yellow-attached with black ribbons. A lady tells me that they are probably the medals of her class: the nice girl wears them much as the military man wears his decoration. I make an inquiry from a woman who joins me in my walk. She tells me of an acquaintance, who was in Philadelphia, who paid twelve francs for a beefsteak. (Let us at least hope that it was a large one.) She tells me that her daughter teaches; she speaks of the Park Monceau, where she very often goes, and she conducts me thither. It is more elegant, and so are the people; upon it is the house of Menier, whose advertisement is so often seen upon the streets,Chocolat Menier; he is a rich man.

CHAPTER XII.

Tuesday, June 18th.-A friend in America gave me a souvenir to take to one of her French friends. He does not live in Paris, but I can hear from him through Mr. Letellier, who does. To-day I proceed to find this gentleman, and, reaching the right number, I go up six flights of stairs, until I come to his neat apartment. He seems to live alone; he is a childless widower. He calls my attention to a carved cabinet, which he says is of the time of Henry II. It is the piece of furniture which the quiet gentleman seems proud of,-a gift to his wife from her father, who was an artist. Mr. Letellier, as I call him, is connected with a newspaper, but not a political one; nevertheless, this seems a good opportunity to obtain some information about the press, which Mr. L. gives me nearly as follows: "If you desire to establish a political newspaper in France, you must apply for authority to the minister of the interior, who will give his orders to the prefect of police of Paris (or, in another department, to the prefect of that department). The prefect of police sends you to the governor of Paris, who is the military governor (this was the rule two years ago; perhaps it has become more liberal since). When you have obtained permission of the military governor, you must go to the treasurer, or minister of finance, to give bail. This is always high; the minimum, I think, is eighteen thousand francs. This must be readymoney, which will be returned when the journal ceases to exist; the money is always restored to the individual, or to

his heirs, if he has not lost the whole by proceedings against the paper. These proceedings may be in the form of fines exacted by the government."

While in Paris, I call again upon this gentleman, and in leaving I open a wrong door. It is that of a little room containing canaries. I remark that Parisians want something to love (I could not then give the word for pets), and that often they have little dogs. He answers that he has only his birds. He has a brother, but he lives in the provinces; and, as I have before said, Mr. Letellier is a childless widower. Loneliness in a crowd! If he is taken sick what will be his refuge ?-a hospital?

I call again to-day upon the liberal Protestant gentleman before mentioned, and have further conversation with him. Out of the thirty-eight millions of people in France, about four hundred thousand are Protestants. There are two hundred and fifty liberal churches in France, the greater part being village churches. (In opinion, I understand that they resemble the late Theodore Parker.) The gentleman adds that the average number of members in these churches is two hundred; and the conditions of membership are, to be baptized, to have made the first communion, and to have had one's marriage blest in the church. (Thus it will be seen that even liberals demand something beyond the only legal marriage, which is in the mayor's office.) All these liberal churches are recognized by the state but one, that of St. André, in Paris, the only one of the kind in this city. As I have before told, this church was deprived of all government aid by the action of Guizot, the historian, towards Coquerel, the former pastor, now dead. Here I propose to give an anecdote, an exceptional one,

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