Bohemian Paris of To-day, by W. C. Morrow

THIS volume is written to show the life of the students in the Paris of to-day. It has an additional interest in opening to inspection certain phases of Bohemian life in Paris that are shared both by the students and the public, but that are generally unfamiliar to visitors to that wonderful city, and even to a very large part of the city's population itself. It depicts the under-side of such life as the students find,—the loose, unconventional life of the humbler strugglers in literature and art, with no attempt to spare its salient features, its poverty and picturesqueness, and its lack of adherence to generally accepted standards of morals and conduct.

As is told in the article describing that incomparably brilliant spectacle, the ball of the Four Arts, extreme care is taken to exclude the public and admit only artists and students, all of whom must be properly accredited and fully identified. It is well understood that such a spectacle would not be suitable for any but artists and students. It is given solely for their benefit, and with the high aim, fully justified by the experience of the masters who direct the students, that the event, with its marvellous brilliancy, its splendid artistic effects, and its freedom and abandon, has a stimulating and broadening effect of the greatest value to art. The artists and students see in these annual spectacles only grace, beauty, and majesty; their training in the studios, where they learn to regard models merely as tools of their craft, fits them, and them alone, for the wholesome enjoyment of the great ball.

It is a student that presents the insight which this volume gives into the life of the students and other Bohemians of Paris. It is set forth with the frankness of a student. Coming from such a source, and having such treatment, it will have a special charm and value for the wise.

The students are the pets of Paris. They lend to the city a picturesqueness that no other city enjoys. So long as they avoid riots aimed at a government that may now and then offend their sense of right, their ways of living, their escapades, their noisy and joyous manifestations of healthy young animal life, are good-naturedly overlooked. Underneath such a life there lies, concealed from casual view, another life that they lead,—one of hard work, of hope, of aspiration, and often of pinching poverty and cruel self-denial. The stress upon them, of many kinds, is great. The utter absence of an effort to reorganize their lives upon conventional lines is from a philosophical belief that if they fail to pass unscathed through it all, they lack the fine, strong metal from which worthy artists are made.

The stranger in Paris will here find opened to him places in which he may study for himself the Bohemian life of the city in all its careless disregard of conventions. The cafés, cabarets, and dance-halls herein described and illustrated have a charm that wholesome, well-balanced minds will enjoy. The drawings for the illustrations were all made from the actual scenes that they depict; they partake of the engaging frankness of the text and of its purpose to show Bohemian life in the Paris of to-day without any effort at concealment.

W. C. M.

BOHEMIAN PARIS

OUR STUDIO

WE were in wonderful Paris at last—Bishop and I—after a memorable passage full of interest from New York to Havre. Years of hard work were ahead of us, for Bishop would be an artist and I a sculptor.

For two weeks we had been lodging temporarily in the top of a comfortable little hotel, called the Grand something (most of the Parisian hotels are Grand), the window of which commanded a superb view of the great city, the vaudeville playhouse of the world.

Pour la première fois the dazzle and glitter had burst upon us, confusing first, but now assuming form and coherence. If we and incomprehensible at could have had each a dozen eyes instead of two, or less greed to see and more patience to learn!

Day by day we had put off the inevitable evil of finding a studio. Every night found us in the cheapest seats of some theatre, and often we lolled on the terraces of the Café de la Paix, watching the pretty girls as they passed, their silken skirts saucily pulled up, revealing dainty laces and ankles. From the slippery floor of the Louvre galleries we had studied the masterpieces of David, Rubens, Rembrandt, and the rest; had visited the Panthéon, the Musée Cluny; had climbed the Eiffel Tower, and traversed the Bois de Boulogne and the Champs-Elysées. Then came the search for a studio and the settling to work. It would be famous to have a little home of our very own, where we could have little dinners of our very own cooking!

It is with a shudder that I recall those eleven days of ceaseless studio-hunting. We dragged ourselves through miles of Quartier Latin streets, and up hundreds of flights of polished waxed stairs, behind puffing concierges in carpet slippers, the puffing changing to grumbling, as, dissatisfied, the concierges followed us down the stairs. The Quartier abounds with placards reading, "Atelier d'Artiste à Louer!" The rentals ranged from two hundred to two thousand francs a year, and the sizes from cigar-boxes to barns. But there was always something lacking. On the eleventh day we found a suitable place on the sixth (top) floor of a quaint old house in a passage off the Rue St.- André-des-Arts. There were overhead and side lights, and from the window a noble view of Paris over the house-tops.

A room of fair size joined the studio, and from its vine-laced window we could look into the houses across the court, and down to the bottom of the court as well. The studio walls were delightfully dirty and low in tone, and were covered with sketches and cartoons in oil and charcoal. The price was eight hundred francs a year, and from the concierge's eloquent catalogue of its charms it seemed a great bargain. The walls settled our fate,—we took the studio.

It was one thing to agree on the price and another to settle the details. Our French was ailing, and the concierge's French was—concierges' French. Bishop found that his pet theory that French should be spoken with the hands, head, and shoulders carried weak spots which a concierge could discover; and then, being somewhat mercurial, he began floundering in a mixture of French and English words and French and American gestures, ending in despair with the observation that the concierge was a d——— fool. At the end of an hour we had learned that we must sign an iron-bound, government-stamped contract, agreeing to occupy the studio for not less than one year, to give six months' notice of our leaving, and to pay three months' rental in advance, besides the taxes for one year on all the doors and windows, and ten francs or more to the concierge. This was all finally settled.

As there was no running water in the rooms (such a luxury being unknown here), we had to supply our needs from a clumsy old iron pump in the court, and employ six flights of stairs in the process.

Then the studio had to be furnished, and there came endless battles with the furniture dealers in the neighborhood, who kept their stock replenished from the goods of bankrupt artists and suspended ménages.

These marchands de meubles are a wily race, but Bishop pursued a plan in dealing with them that worked admirably. He would enter a shop and price an article that we wanted, and then throw up his hands in horror and leave the place as though it were haunted with a plague. The dealer would always come tumbling after him and offer him the article for a half or a third of the former price. In this way Bishop bought chairs, tables, a large easel, beds, a studio stove, book-shelves, linen, drapings, water pitchers and buckets, dishes, cooking utensils, and many other things, the cost of the whole being less than one hundred and fifty francs,—and thus we were established. The studio became quite a snug and hospitable retreat, in spite of the alarming arrangement that Bishop adopted, "to help the composition of the room." His favorite cast, the Unknown Woman, occupied the place of honor over his couch, where he could see it the first thing in the morning, when the dawn, stealing through the skylight, brought out those strange and subtle features which he swore inspired him from day to day. My room was filled with brilliant posters by Chéret and Mucha and Steinlen,—they were too bold and showy for the low tone of Bishop's studio. It all made a pretty picture,—the dizzy posters, the solemn trunks, the books, the bed with its gaudy print coverings, and the little crooked-pane window hung with bright green vines that ran thither from a box in the window of an adjoining apartment. And it was all completed by the bright faces of three pretty seamstresses, who sat sewing every day at their window across the passage.

Under our housekeeping agreement Bishop was made cook, and I chambermaid and water-carrier. It was Bishop's duty to obey the alarm clock at six every morning and light the fire, while I went down for water at the pump, and for milk at the stand beside the court entrance, where fat Madame Gioté sold café-au-lait and lait froid ou chaud, from a sou's worth up. Then, after breakfast, I did the chamber work while Bishop washed the dishes. Bishop could make for breakfast the most delicious coffee and flapjacks and omelette in the whole of Paris. By eight o'clock all was in order; Bishop was smoking his pipe and singing "Down on the Farm" while working on his life study, and I was off to my modelling in clay.

Bishop soon had the hearts of all the shop-keepers in the neighborhood. The baker's dimple-cheeked daughter never worried if the scales hung a little in his favor, at the boucherie he was served with the choicest cuts of meat, and the fried-potato women called him "mon fils" and fried a fresh lot of potatoes for him. Even Madame Tonneau, the marchande de tabac, saw that he had the freshest packages in the shop. Often, when I was returning home at night, I encountered him making cheerily for the studio, bearing bread by the yard, his pockets bulging with other material for dinner. Ah, he was a wonderful cook, and we had marvellous appetites! So famous did he soon become that the models (the lady ones, of course) were eager to dine avec nous; and when they did they helped to set the table, they sewed buttons on our clothes, and they made themselves agreeable and perfectly at home with that charming grace which is so peculiarly French. Ah, those were jolly times!

The court, or, more properly, le passage, on which our window looked was a narrow little thoroughfare leading from the Rue St.-André-des-Arts to the Boulevard St.-Germain. It bore little traffic, but was a busy way withal. It had iron-workers' shops, where hot iron was beaten into artistic lamps, grills, and bed-frames; a tinsmith's shop; a blanchisserie, where our shirts were made white and smooth by the pretty blanchisseuses singing all day over their work; a wine-cellar, whose barrels were eternally blocking one end of the passage; an embossed picture-card factory, where twoscore women, with little hammers and steel dies, beat pictures into cards; a furniture shop, where everything old and artistic was sold, the Hôtel du Passage, and a bookbinder's shop.

Each of the eight buildings facing the passage was ruled by a formidable concierge, who had her dark little living apartments near the entrances. These are the despots of the court, and their function is to make life miserable for their lodgers. When they are not doing that they are eternally scrubbing and polishing. They are all married. M. Mayé, le mari de notre concierge, is a tailor. He sits at the window and mends and sews all day long, or acts as concierge when his wife is away. The husband of the concierge next door is a sergeant de ville at night, but in the early mornings as, in a soiled blouse, he empties ash-cans, he looks very unlike the personage dressed at night in a neat blue uniform and wearing a short sword Another concierge's husband fait des courses—runs errands—for sufficient pay.

Should you fail to clean your boots on the mat, and thus soil the glossy stairs, have a care!—a concierge's tongue has inherited the warlike characteristics of the Caesars. Rugs and carpets must not be shaken out of the windows after nine o'clock. Ashes and other refuse must be thrown into the big bin of the house not later than seven. Sharp at eleven in the evening the lights are extinguished and the doors locked for the night; and then all revelry must immediately cease. Should you arrive en retard,—that is, after eleven,—you must ring the bell violently until the despot, generally after listening for an hour to the bell, unlocks the catch from her couch. Then when you close the door and pass her lodge you must call out your name. If you are out often or till very late, be prepared for a lecture on the crime of breaking the rest of hard-working concierges. After the day's work the concierges draw their chairs out into the court and gossip about their tenants. The nearer the roof the lodger the less the respect he commands. Would he not live on a lower floor if he were able? And then, the top floor gives small tips!

It is noticeable that the entresol and premiers étages are clean and highly polished, and that the cleanliness and polish diminish steadily toward the top, where they almost disappear. Ah, les concierges! But what would Paris be without them?

Directly beneath us an elderly couple have apartments. Every morning at five the old gentleman starts French oaths rattling through the court by beating his rugs out of his window. At six he rouses the ire of a widow below him by watering his plants and incidentally drenching her bird- cages. Not long ago she rose in violent rebellion, and he hurled a flower pot at her protruding head. It smashed on her window-sill; she screamed "Murder!" and the whole court was in an uproar. The concierges and the old gentleman's pacific wife finally restored order—till the next morning.

Next, to my room are an elderly lady and her sweet, sad-faced daughter. They are very quiet and dignified, and rarely fraternize with their neighbors. It is their vine that creeps over to my window, and it is carefully tended by the daughter. And all the doves and sparrows of the court come regularly to eat out of her hand, and a lively chatter they have over it. The ladies are the widow and daughter of a once prosperous stock-broker on the Bourse, whom an unlucky turn of the wheel drove to poverty and suicide.

The three seamstresses over the way are the sunshine of the court. They are not so busy sewing and singing but that they find time to send arch glances toward our window, and their blushes and smiles when Bishop sends them sketches of them that he has made from memory are more than remunerative.

A young Scotch student from Glasgow, named Cameron, has a studio adjoining ours. He is a fine, jovial fellow, and we usually assist him to dispose of his excellent brew of tea at five o'clock. Every Thursday evening there was given a musical chez lui, in which Bishop and I assisted with mandolin and guitar, while Cameron played the flute. For these occasions Cameron donned his breeks and kilt, and danced the sword-dance round two table-knives crossed. The American songs strike him as being strange and incomprehensible. He cannot understand the negro dialect, and wonders if America is filled with negroes and cotton plantations; but he is always delighted with Bishop's "Down on the Farm."

Life begins at five o'clock in our court. The old gentleman beats his rugs, the milk-bottles rattle, the bread-carts rumble, Madame Gioté opens her milkstand, and the concierges drag the ash-cans out into the court, where a drove of rag-pickers fall upon them. These gleaners are a queer lot. Individuals and families pursue the quest, each with a distinct purpose. One will seek nothing but bones, glass, and crockery; another sifts the ashes for coal; another takes only paper and rags; another old shoes and hats; and so on, from can to can, none interfering with any of the others. The dogs are the first at the bins. They are regularly organized in working squads, travelling in fours and fives. They are quite adept at digging through the refuse for food, and they rarely quarrel; and they never leave one bin for another until they have searched it thoroughly.

The swish of water and a coarse brush broom announces the big, strong woman who sweeps the gutters of the Rue St.-André-des-Arts. With broad sweeps of the broom she spreads the water over half the street and back into the gutter, making the worn yellow stones shine. She is coarsely clad and wears black sabots; and God knows how she can swear when the gleaners scatter the refuse into the gutter!

The long wail of the fish-and-mussel woman, "J'ai des beaux maquereaux, des moules, poissons à frire, à frire!" as she pushes her cart, means seven o'clock.

The day now really begins. Water-pails are clanging and sabots are clicking on the stones. The wine people set up a rumble by cleaning their casks with chains and water. The anvils of the iron-workers are ringing, and there comes the tink-tink-tink of the little hammers in the embossed-picture factory. The lumbering garbage-cart arrives to bear away the ash-bins, the lead-horse shaking his head to ring the bell on his neck in announcement of the approach. Street-venders and hawkers of various comestibles, each with his or her quaint musical cry, come in numbers. "J'ai des beaux choux-fleurs! O, comme ils sont beaux!" The fruit- and potato-women come after, and then the chair-menders. These market-women are early risers. They are at the great Halles Centrales at four o'clock to bargain for their wares; and besides good lungs they have a marvellous shrewdness, born of long dealings with French housewives.

Always near eight may be heard, "Du mouron pour les petits oiseaux!" and all the birds in the court, familiar with the cry, pipe up for their chickweed. "Voilà le bon fromage à la crème pour trois sous!" cries a keen-faced little woman, her three-wheeled cart loaded with cream cheeses; and she gives a soup-plate full of them, with cream poured generously over, and as she pockets the money says, "Voilà! ce que c'est bon avec des confitures!" Cream cheeses and prayer! On Sunday mornings during the spring and summer the goat's-milk vender, blowing a reed-pipe, invades the passage with his living milk-cans,—a flock of eight hairy goats that know the route as well as he, and they are always willing to be milked when a customer offers a bowl. The tripe-man with his wares and bell is the last of the food-sellers of the day. The window-glass repairer, "Vitrier!" passes at nine, and then the beggars and strolling musicians and singers put in an appearance. In the afternoon the old-clo' man comes hobbling under his load of cast-off clothes, crying, "Marchand d'habits!" of which you can catch only "'Chand d'habits!" and the barrel-buyer, "Marchand de tonneaux!" The most musical of them all is the porcelain-mender, who cries, "Voici le raccommodeur de porcelaines, faïence, cristal, poseur de robinets!" and then plays a fragment of a hunting-song.

The beggars and musicians also have regular routes and fixed hours. Cold and stormy days are welcomed by them, for then pity lends activity to- sous. A piratical old beggar has his stand near the entrance to the court, where he kneels on the stones, his faithful mongrel dog beside him. He occasionally poses for the artists when times are dull, but he prefers begging,—it is easier and more remunerative. Three times a week we are treated to some really good singing by a blind old man, evidently an artist in his day. When the familiar sound of his guitar is heard all noises in the passage cease, and all windows are opened to hear. He sings arias from the operas. His little old wife gathers up the sous that ring on the flags. Sometimes a strolling troupe of two actors and three musicians makes its appearance, and invariably plays to a full house. There are droves of sham singers who do not sing at all, but give mournful howls and tell their woes to deaf windows. One of them, a tattered woman with two babies, refused to pose for Bishop, although he offered her five francs for the afternoon.

We all know when anybody in the passage is going to take a bath. There are no bath-tubs in these old houses, but that difficulty is surmounted by a bathing establishment on the Boulevard St.-Michel. It sends around a cart bearing a tank of hot water and a zinc tub. The man who pulls the cart carries the tub to the room, and fills it by carrying up the water in buckets. Then he remains below until the bath is finished, to regain his tub and collect a franc.

Since we have been here the court entrance has been once draped in mourning. At the head of the casket of old Madame Courtoise, who lived across the way, stood a stately crucifix, and candles burned, and there were mourners and yellow bead wreaths. A quiet sadness sat upon the court, and the people spoke in whispers only.

And there have been two weddings,—one at the blanchisserie, where the master's daughter was married to a young mechanic from the iron shop. There were glorious times at the laundry that night, for the whole court was present. It was four in the morning when the party broke up, and then our shirts were two days late.

Thus ran the first months of the four years of our student life in Paris; in its domestic aspects it was typical of all that followed. We soon became members of the American Art Association, and gradually made friends in charming French homes. Then there was the strange Bohemian life lying outside as well as within the students' pale, and into the spirit of it all we found our way. It is to the Bohemian, not the social, life of Paris that these papers are devoted—a life both picturesque and pathetic, filled with the oddest contrasts and incongruities, with much suffering but more content, and spectacular and fascinating in all its phases. No one can have seen and known Paris without a study of this its living, struggling artistic side, so strange, so remote from the commonplace world surging and roaring unheeded about it.

On New Year's Day we had an overwhelming number of callers. First came the concierge, who cleaned our door-knob and wished us a prosperous and bonne année. She got ten francs,—we did not know what was coming. The chic little blanchisseuse called next with our linen. That meant two francs. Then came in succession two telegraph boys, the facteur, or postman, who presented us with a cheap calendar, and another postman, who delivers only second-class mail. They got a franc each. Then the marchand de charbon's boy called with a clean face and received fifty centimes, and everybody else with whom we had had dealings; and our offerings had a steadily diminishing value.

We could well bear all this, however, in view of the great day, but a week old, when we had celebrated Christmas. Bishop prepared a dinner fit for a king, giving the greater part of his time for a week to preparations for the great event. Besides a great many French dishes, we had turkey and goose, cooked for us at the rôtisserie near by, and soup, oysters, American pastries, and a big, blazing plum-pudding. We and our guests (there were eight in all) donned full dress for the occasion, and a bonne, hired for the evening, brought on the surprises one after another. But why should not it have been a glorious evening high up among the chimney-pots of old Paris? for did we not drink to the loved ones in a distant land, and were not our guests the prettiest among the pretty toilers of our court?

THE ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS

IT is about the fifteenth of October, after the long summer vacation, that the doors of the great École des Beaux-Arts are thrown open.

The first week, called "la semaine des nouveaux," is devoted to the initiation and hazing of the new students, who come mostly from foreign countries and the French provinces. These festivities can never be forgotten—by the nouveaux.

Bishop had condescendingly decided to become un élève de Gérôme—with some misgivings, for Bishop had developed ideas of a large and free American art, while Gérôme was hard and academic. One day he gathered up some of his best drawings and studies (which he regarded as masterpieces) and, climbing to the impériale of a Clichy 'bus, rode over to Montmartre, where Gérôme had his private studio. He was politely ushered in by a manservant, and conducted to the door of the master's studio through a hall and gallery filled with wonderful marble groups. Gérôme himself opened the door, and Bishop found himself in the great man's workshop. For a moment Bishop stood dazed in the middle of the splendid room, with its great sculptures and paintings, some still unfinished, and a famous collection of barbaric arms and costumes. A beautiful model was posing upon a rug. But most impressive of all was the white-haired master, regarding him with a thoughtful and searching, but kindly, glance. Bishop presently found a tongue with which to stammer out his mission,—he would be a pupil of the great Gérôme.

The old man smiled, and, bidding his model retire, inspected carefully the array of drawings that Bishop spread at his feet,—Gérôme must have evidence of some ability for the magic of his brain and touch to develop.

"Sont pas mal, mon ami," he said, after he had studied all the drawings; "non, pas mal." Bishop's heart bounded,—his work was not bad! "Vous êtes Américain?" continued the master. "C'est un pays que j'aimerais bien visiter si le temps ne me manquait pas."

Thus he chatted on, putting Bishop more and more at his ease. He talked of America and the promising future that she has for art; then he went into his little office, and, asking Bishop's name, filled out the blank that made him a happy pupil of Gérôme. He handed it to Bishop with this parting-advice, spoken with great earnestness:

"Il faut travailler, mon ami—travailler! Pour arriver, travailler toujours, sérieusement, bien entendu!"

Bishop was so proud and happy that he ran all the way up the six flights of stairs to our floor, burst into the studio, and executed a war-dance that would have shamed an Apache, stepping into his paint-box and nearly destroying his sacred Unknown. That night we had a glorious supper, with des escargots to start with.

Early on the fifteenth of October, with his head erect and hope filling his soul, Bishop started for the Beaux-Arts, which was in the Rue Bonaparte, quite near. That night he returned wise and saddened.

He had bought a new easel and two rush-bottomed tabourets, which every new student must provide, and, loaded with these, he made for the Ecole. Gathered at the big gates was a great crowd of models of all sorts, men, women, and children, fat, lean, and of all possible sizes. In the court- yard, behind the gates, was a mob of long-haired students, who had a year or more ago passed the initiatory ordeal and become ancients. Their business now was to yell chaff at the arriving nouveaux. The concierge conducted Bishop up-stairs to the Administration, where he joined a long line of other nouveaux waiting for the opening of the office at ten o'clock.

It is only in this government school of the four arts that the typical Bohemian students of Paris may be found, including the genuine type of French student, with his long hair, his whiskers, his Latin Quarter "plug" hat, his cape, blouse, wide corduroy trousers, sash, expansive necktie, and immense cane. The Ecole preserves this type more effectually than the other schools, such as Julian's and Colarossi's, where most of the students are foreigners in conventional dress.

Among the others who entered Gérôme's atelier at the same time that Bishop did was a Turk named Haidor (fresh from the Ottoman capital), a Hungarian, a Siamese, an American from the plains of Nebraska, and five Frenchmen from the provinces.

They all tried to speak French and be agreeable as they entered the atelier together. At the door stood a gardien, whose principal business is to mark absentees and suppress riots. Then they passed to the gentle mercies of the reception committee and the massier within.

The massier is a student who manages the studio, models, and masse money. This one, a large fellow with golden whiskers (size and strength are valuable elements of the massier's efficiency), demanded twenty-five francs from each of the new-comers,—this being the masse money, to pay for fixtures, turpentine, soap, and clean towels, et pour payer à boire. The Turk refused to pay, protesting that he had but thirty francs to last him the month; but menacing stools and sticks opened his purse; his punishment was to come later. After the money had been collected from all the nouveaux the entire atelier of over sixty students, dressed in working blouses and old coats, formed in line, and with deafening shouts of "A boire! à boire!" placed the nouveaux in front to carry the class banner, and thus marched out into the Rue Bonaparte to the Café des Deux Magots, singing songs fit only for the studio. Their singing, shouting, and ridiculous capers drew a great crowd. At the café they created consternation with their shouting and howling until the arrival of great bowls of "grog Américain," cigarettes, and gâteaux. Rousing cheers were given to a marriage-party across the Place St.-Germain. The Turk was forced to do a Turkish dance on a table and sing Turkish songs, and to submit to merciless ridicule. The timid little Siamese also had to do a turn, as did Bishop and W———, the American from Nebraska, who had been a cowboy at home. After yelling themselves hoarse and nearly wrecking the café, the students marched back in a disorderly mob to the Ecole. Then the real trouble began.

The gardien having conveniently disappeared, the students closed and barricaded the door. "A poil! à poil!" they yelled, dancing frantically about the frightened nouveaux; "à poil les sales nouveaux! à poil!" They seized the Turk and stripped him, despite his desperate resistance; then they tied his hands behind him and with paint and brushes decorated his body in the most fantastic designs that they could conceive. His oaths were frightful. He cursed them in the name of Allah, and swore to have the blood of all Frenchmen for desecrating the sacred person of a Moslem. He called them dogs of infidels and Christians. But all this was in Turkish, and the students enjoyed it immensely. "En broche!" they yelled, after they had made him a spectacle with the brushes; "en broche! Il faut le mettre en broche!" This was quickly done. They forced the Turk to his haunches, bound his wrists in front of his upraised knees, thrust a long pole between his elbows and knees, and thus bore him round the atelier at the head of a singing procession. Four times they went round; then they placed the helpless M. Haidor on the model-stand for future reference. The bad French that the victim occasionally mixed with his tirade indicated the fearful damnation that he was doubtless dealing out in Turkish.

A circle was then formed about him, and a solemn silence fell upon the crowd. A Frenchman named Joncierge, head of the reception committee, stepped forth, and in slow and impressive speech announced that it was one of the requirements of the Atelier Gérôme to brand all nouveaux over the heart with the name of the atelier, and that the branding of the Turk would now proceed. Upon hearing this, M. Haidor emitted a fearful howl. But he was turned to face the red-hot studio stove and watch the branding-iron slowly redden in the coals. During this interval the students sang the national song, and followed it with a funeral march. Behind the Turk's back a second poker was being painted to resemble a red-hot one.

The hot poker was taken from the fire, and its usefulness tested by burning a string with it. Haidor grew deathly pale. An intense silence sat upon the atelier as the iron was brought near the helpless young man. In a moment, with wonderful cleverness, the painted poker was substituted for the hot one and placed quickly against his breast. When the cold iron touched him he roared like a maddened bull, and rolled quivering and moaning upon the floor. The students were frantic with delight.

It was some time before Haidor could realize that he was not burned to a crisp. He was then taken across the atelier and hoisted to a narrow shelf fifteen feet from the floor, where he was left to compose himself and enjoy the tortures of the other nouveaux. He dared not move, however, lest he fall; and because he refused to take anything in good- nature, but glared hatred and vengeance down at them, they pelted him at intervals with water-soaked sponges.

The Hungarian and one of the French nouveaux were next seized and stripped. Then they were ordered to fight a duel, in this fashion: they were made to mount two stools about four feet apart. The Hungarian was handed a long paint-brush dripping with Prussian blue, and the Frenchman a similar brush soaked with crimson lake. Then the battle began. Each hesitated to splash the other at first, but as they warmed to their work under the shouting of the committee they went in with a will. When the Frenchman had received a broad splash on the mouth in return for a chest decoration of his adversary, his blood rose, and then the serious work began.

Both quickly lost their temper. When they were unwillingly made to desist the product of their labors was startling, though not beautiful. Then they were rubbed down vigorously with turpentine and soiled towels, and were given a franc each for a bath, because they had behaved so handsomely.

Bishop came next. He had made up his mind to stand the initiation philosophically, whatever it might be, but when he was ordered to strip he became apprehensive and then angry. Nothing so delights the students as for a nouveau to lose his temper. Bishop squared off to face the whole atelier, and looked ugly. The students silently deployed on three sides, and with a yell rushed in, but not before three of them had gone down under his fists did they pin him to the floor and strip him. While Bishop was thus being prepared, the Nebraskan was being dealt with. He had the wisdom not to lose his temper, and that made his resistance all the more formidable. Laughing all the time, he nevertheless dodged, tripped, wrestled, threw stools, and did so many other astonishing and baffling things that the students, though able to have conquered him in the end, were glad to make terms with him. In this arrangement he compelled them to include Bishop. As a result, those two mounted the model throne naked, and sang together and danced a jig, all so cleverly that the Frenchmen were frantic with delight, and welcomed them as des bons amis. The amazing readiness and capability of the American fist bring endless delight and perennial surprise to the French.

The rest of the nouveaux were variously treated. Some, after being stripped, were grotesquely decorated with designs and pictures not suitable for general inspection. Others were made to sing, to recite, or to act scenes from familiar plays, or, in default of that, to improvise scenes, some of which were exceedingly funny. Others, attached to a rope depending from the ceiling, were swung at a perilous rate across the atelier, dodging easels in their flight.

At half-past twelve the sport was over. The barricade was removed, the Turk's clothes hidden, the Turk left howling on his shelf, and the atelier abandoned. The next morning there was trouble. The director was furious, and threatened to close the atelier for a month, because the Turk had not been discovered until five o'clock, when his hoarse howls attracted the attention of the gardien of the fires. His trousers and one shoe could not be found. It was three months before Haidor appeared at the atelier again, and then everything had been forgotten.

Bishop was made miserable during the ensuing week. He would find himself roasting over paper fires kindled under his stool. Paint was smeared upon his easel to stain his hands. His painting was altered and entirely re-designed in his absence. Strong-smelling cheeses were placed in the lining of his "plug" hat. His stool-legs were so loosened that when he sat down he struck the floor with a crash. His painting-blouse was richly decorated inside and out with shocking coats of arms that would not wash out. One day he discovered that he had been painting for a whole hour with currant jelly from a tube that he thought contained laque.

Then, being a nouveau, he could never get a good position in which to draw from the model. Every Monday morning a new model is posed for the week, and the students select places according to the length of time they have been attending. The nouveaux have to take what is left. And they must be servants to the ancients,—run out for tobacco, get soap and clean towels, clean paint-brushes, and keep the studio in order. With the sculptors and architects it is worse. The sculptors must sweep the dirty, clay-grimed floor regularly, fetch clean water, mix the clay and keep it fresh and moist, and on Saturdays, when the week's work is finished, must break up the forty or more clay figures, and restore them to clay for next week's operations. The architects must build heavy wooden frames, mount the projects and drawings, and cart them about Paris to the different exhibition rooms.

At the end of a year the nouveau drops his hated title and becomes a proud ancient, to bully to his heart's content, as those before him.

Mondays and Wednesdays are criticism days, for then M. Gérôme comes down and goes over the work of his pupils. He is very early and punctual, never arriving later than half-past eight, usually before half the students are awake. The moment he enters all noises cease, and all seem desperately hard at work, although a moment before the place may have been in an uproar. Gérôme plumps down upon the man nearest to him, and then visits each of his élèves, storming and scolding mercilessly when his pupils have failed to follow his instructions. As soon as a student's criticism is finished he rises and follows the master to hear the other criticisms, so that toward the close the procession is large.

Bishop's first criticism took him all aback. "Comment!" gasped the master, gazing at the canvas in horror. "Qu'est-ce que vous avez fait?" he sternly demanded, glaring at the luckless student, who, in order to cultivate a striking individuality, was painting the model in broad, thick dashes of color. Gérôme glanced at Bishop's palette, and saw a complete absence of black upon it. "Comment, vous n'avez pas de noir?" he roared. "C'est très important, la partie matérielle! Vous ne m'écoutez pas, mon ami,—-je parle dans le désert! Vous n'avez pas d'aspect général, mon ami," and much more, while Bishop sat cold to the marrow. The students, crowded about, enjoyed his discomfiture immensely, and, behind Gérôme's back, laughed in their sleeves and made faces at Bishop. But many others suffered, and Bishop had his inning with them.

All during Gérôme's tour of inspection the model must maintain his pose, however difficult and exhausting. Often he is kept on a fearful strain for two hours. After the criticism the boys show Gérôme sketches and studies that they have made outside the Ecole, and it is in discussing them that his geniality and kindliness appear. Gérôme imperiously demands two things,—that his pupils, before starting to paint, lay on a red or yellow tone, and that they keep their brushes scrupulously clean. Woe to him who disobeys!

After he leaves with a cheery "Bon jour, messieurs!" pandemonium breaks loose, if the day be Saturday. Easels, stools, and studies are mowed down as by a whirlwind, yells shake the building, the model is released, a tattoo is beaten on the sheet-iron stove-guard, everything else capable of making a noise is brought into service, and either the model is made to do the danse du ventre or a nouveau is hazed.

The models—what stories are there! Every Monday morning from ten to twenty present themselves, male and female, for inspection in puris naturalibus before the critical gaze of the students of the different ateliers. One after another they mount the throne and assume such academic poses of their own choosing as they imagine will display their points to the best advantage. The students then vote upon them, for and against, by raising the hand. The massier, standing beside the model, announces the result, and, if the vote is favorable, enrols the model for a certain week to come.

There is intense rivalry among the models. Strange to say, most of the male models in the schools of Paris are from Italy, the southern part especially. As a rule, they have very good figures. They begin posing at the age of five or six, and follow the business until old age retires them. Crowds of them are at the gates of the Beaux-Arts early on Monday mornings. In the voting, a child may be preferred to his seniors, and yet the rate of payment is the same,—thirty francs a week.

Many of the older models are quite proud of their profession, spending idle hours in studying the attitudes of figures in great paintings and in sculptures in the Louvre or the Luxembourg, and adopting these poses when exhibiting themselves to artists; but the trick is worthless.

Few of the women models remain long in the profession. Posing is hard and fatiguing work, and the students are merciless in their criticisms of any defects of figure that the models may have,—the French are born critics. During the many years that I have studied and worked in Paris I have seen scores of models begin their profession with a serious determination to make it their life-work.

They would appear regularly at the different ateliers for about two years, and would be gratified to observe endless reproductions of their graces in the prize rows on the studio walls. Then their appearance would be less and less regular, and they would finally disappear altogether—whither? Some become contented companions of students and artists, but the cafés along the Boul' Mich', the cabarets of Montmartre, and the dance-halls of the Moulin Rouge and the Bal Bullier have their own story to tell. Some are happily married; for instance, one, noted for her beauty of face and figure, is the wife of a New York millionaire. But she was clever as well as beautiful, and few models are that. Most of them are ordinaire, living the easy life of Bohemian Paris, and having little knowledge of le monde propre. But, oh, how they all love dress! and therein lies most of the story. When Marcelle or Hélène appears, all of a sudden, radiant in silks and creamy lace petticoats, and sweeps proudly into the crowded studios, flushed and happy, and hears the dear compliments that the students heap upon her, we know that thirty francs a week could not have changed the gray grub into a gorgeous butterfly.

"C'est mon amant qui m'a fait cadeau," Marcelle will explain, deeming some explanation necessary. There is none to dispute you, Marcelle. This vast whirlpool has seized many another like you, and will seize many another more. And to poor Marcelle it seems so small a price to pay to become one of the grand ladies of Paris, with their dazzling jewels and rich clothes!

An odd whim may overtake one here and there. One young demoiselle, beautiful as a girl and successful as a model a year ago, may now be seen nightly at the Cabaret du Soleil d'Or, frowsy and languishing, in keeping with the spirit of her confrères there, singing her famous "Le Petit Caporal" to thunderous applause, and happy with the love, squalor, dirt, and hunger that she finds with the luckless poet whose fortunes she shares. It was not a matter of clothes with her.

It is a short and easy step from the studio to the café. At the studio it is all little money, hard posing, dulness, and poor clothes; at the cafés are the brilliant lights, showy clothes, tinkling money, clinking glasses, popping corks, unrestrained abandon, and midnight suppers. And the studios and the cafés are but adjoining apartments, one may say, in the great house of Bohemia. The studio is the introduction to the café; the café is the burst of sunshine after the dreariness of the studio; and Marcelle determines that for once she will bask in the warmth and glow.... Ah, what a jolly night it was, and a louis d'or in her purse besides! Marcelle's face was pretty—and new. She is late at the studio next morning, and is sleepy and cross. The students grumble. The room is stifling, and its gray walls seem ready to crush her. It is so tiresome, so stupid—and only thirty francs a week! Bah!... Marcelle appears no more.

All the great painters have their exclusive model or models, paying them a permanent salary. These favored ones move in a special circle, into which the ordinaire may not enter, unless she becomes the favorite of some grand homme. They are never seen at the academies, and rarely or never pose in the schools, unless it was there they began their career.

Perhaps the most famous of the models of Paris was Sarah Brown, whose wild and exciting life has been the talk of the world. Her beautiful figure and glorious golden hair opened to her the whole field of modeldom. Offers for her services as model were more numerous than she could accept, and the prices that she received were very high. She was the mistress of one great painter after another, and she lived and reigned like a queen. Impulsive, headstrong, passionate, she would do the most reckless things. She would desert an artist in the middle of his masterpiece and come down to the studio to pose for the students at thirty francs a week. Gorgeously apparelled, she would glide into a studio, overturn all the easels that she could reach, and then shriek with laughter over the havoc and consternation that she had created. The students would greet her with shouts and form a circle about her, while she would banteringly call them her friends. Then she would jump upon the throne, dispossess the model there, and give a dance or make a speech, knocking off every hat that her parasol could reach. But no one could resist Sarah.

She came up to the Atelier Gérôme one morning and demanded une semaine de femme. The massier booked her for the following week. She arrived promptly on time and was posed. Wednesday a whim seized her to wear her plumed hat and silk stockings. "C'est beaucoup plus chic," she naively explained. When Gérôme entered the studio and saw her posing thus she smiled saucily at him, but he turned in a rage and left the studio without a word. Thursday she tired of the pose and took one to please herself, donning a skirt. Of course protests were useless, so the students had to recommence their work. The remainder of the week she sat upon the throne in full costume, refusing to pose. She amused herself with smoking cigarettes and keeping the nouveaux running errands for her.

It was she who was the cause of the students' riot in 1893,—a riot that came near ending in a revolution. It was all because she appeared at le Bal des Quat'z' Arts in a costume altogether too simple and natural to suit the prefect of police, who punished her. She was always at the Salon on receiving-day, and shocked the occupants of the liveried carriages on the Champs-Elysées with her dancing. In fact, she was always at the head of everything extraordinary and sensational among the Bohemians of Paris. But she aged rapidly under her wild life. Her figure lost its grace, her lovers deserted her, and after her dethronement as Queen of Bohemia, broken-hearted and poor, she put an end to her wretched life,—and Paris laughed.

The breaking in of a new girl model is a joy that the students never permit themselves to miss. Among the many demoiselles who come every Monday morning are usually one or two that are new. The new one is accompanied by two or more of her girl friends, who give her encouragement at the terrible moment when she disrobes. As there are no dressing-rooms, there can be no privacy. The students gather about and watch the proceedings with great interest, and make whatever remarks their deviltry can suggest. This is the supreme test; all the efforts of the attendant girls are required to hold the new one to her purpose. When finally, after an inconceivable struggle with her shame, the girl plunges ahead in reckless haste to finish the job, the students applaud her roundly.

But more torture awaits her. Frightened, trembling, blushing furiously, she ascends the throne, and innocently assumes the most awkward and ridiculous poses, forgetting in that terrible moment the poses that she had learned so well under the tutelage of her friends. It is then that the fiendishness of the students rises to its greatest height. Dazed and numb, she hardly comprehends the ordeal through which she is now put. The students have adopted a grave and serious bearing, and solemnly ask her to assume the most outlandish and ungraceful poses. Then come long and mock-earnest arguments about her figure, these arguments having been carefully learned and rehearsed beforehand. One claims that her waist is too long and her legs too heavy; another hotly takes the opposite view. Then they put her through the most absurd evolutions to prove their points. At last she is made to don her hat and stockings; and the students form a ring about her and dance and shout until she is ready to faint.

Of course the studio has a ringleader in all this deviltry,—all studios have. Joncierge is head of all the mischief in our atelier. There is no end to his ingenuity in devising new means of torture and fun. His personations are marvellous. When he imitates Bernhardt, Réjane, or Calvé, no work can be done in the studio. Gérôme himself is one of his favorite victims. But Joncierge cannot remain long in one school; the authorities pass him on as soon as they find that he is really hindering the work of the students. One day, at Julian's, he took the class skeleton, and with a cord let the rattling, quivering thing down into the Rue du Dragon, and frightened the passers out of their wits. As his father is chef d'orchestre at the Grand Opéra, Joncierge junior learns all the operas and convulses us with imitations of the singers.

Another character in the studio is le jeune Siffert, only twenty-three, and one of the cleverest of the coming French painters. Recently he nearly won the Prix de Rome. His specialty is the imitation of the cries of domestic fowls and animals, and of street venders. Gérôme calls him "mon fils," and constantly implores him to be serious. I don't see why.

Then there is Fiola, a young giant from Brittany, with a wonderful facility at drawing. He will suddenly break into a roar, and for an hour sing one verse of a Brittany chant, driving the other students mad.

Fournier is a little curly-headed fellow from the south, near Valence, and wears corduroy trousers tucked into top-boots. His greatest delight is in plaguing the nouveaux. His favorite joke, if the day is dark, is to send a nouveau to the different ateliers of the Ecole in search of "le grand réflecteur." The nouveau, thinking that it is a device for increasing the light, starts out bravely, and presently returns with a large, heavy box, which, upon its being opened, is found to be filled with bricks. Then Fournier is happy.

Taton is the butt of the atelier. He is an ingénu, and falls into any trap set for him. Whenever anything is missing, all pounce upon Taton, and he is very unhappy.

Haidor, the Turk, suspicious and sullen, also is a butt. Caricatures of him abundantly adorn the walls, together with the Turkish crescent, and Turkish ladies executing the danse du ventre.

Caricatures of all kinds cover the walls of the atelier, and some are magnificent, being spared the vandalism that spares nothing else. One, especially good, represents Kenyon Cox, who studied here.

W———, the student from Nebraska, created a sensation by appearing one day in the full regalia of a cowboy, including two immense revolvers, a knife, and a lariat depending from his belt. With the lariat he astonished and dismayed the dodging Frenchmen by lassoing them at will, though they exercised their greatest running and dodging agility to escape. They wanted to know if all Americans went about thus heeled in America.

There is something uncanny about the little Siamese. He is exceedingly quiet and works unceasingly. One day, when the common spirit of mischief was unusually strong among the boys, the bolder ones began to hint at fun in the direction of the Siamese. He quietly shifted a pair of brass knuckles from some pocket to a more convenient one, and although it was done so unostentatiously, the act was observed. He was not disturbed, and has been left strictly alone ever since.

One day the Italian students took the whole atelier down to a little restaurant on the Quai des Grands-Augustins and cooked them an excellent Italian dinner, with Chianti to wash it down. Two Italian street-singers furnished the music, and Mademoiselle la Modèle danced as only a model can.

TAKING PICTURES TO THE SALON

EVER since New Year's, when Bishop began his great composition for the Salon, our life at the studio had been sadly disarranged; for Bishop had so completely buried himself in his work that I was compelled to combine the functions of cook with those of chambermaid.

This double work, with increasing pressure from my modelling, required longer hours at night and shorter hours in the morning. But I was satisfied, for this was to be Bishop's masterpiece, and I knew from the marvellous labor and spirit that he put into the work that something good would result.

The name of his great effort was "The Suicide." It was like him to choose so grisly a subject, for he had a lawless nature and rebelled against the commonplace. Ghastly subjects had always fascinated him. From the very beginning of our domestic partnership he had shown a taste for grim and forbidding things. Often, upon returning home, I had found him making sketches of armless beggars, twisted cripples, and hunchbacks, and, worse than all, disease-marked vagabonds. A skull-faced mortal in the last stages of consumption was a joy to him. It was useless for me to protest that he was failing to find the best in him by developing his unwholesome tastes. "Wait," he would answer patiently; "the thing that has suffering and character, that is out of the ordinary, it is the thing that will strike and live."

The suicide was a young woman gowned in black; she was poised in the act of plunging into the Seine; a babe was tightly clutched to her breast; and behind the unspeakable anguish in her eyes was a hungry hope, a veiled assurance of the peace to come. It fascinated and haunted me beyond all expression. It was infinitely sad, tragic, and terrible, for it reached with a sure touch to the very lowest depth of human agony. The scene was the dead of night, and only the dark towers of Notre-Dame broke the even blackness of the sky, save for a faint glow that touched the lower stretches from the distant lamps of the city. In the darkness only the face of the suicide was illuminated, and that but dimly, though sufficiently to disclose the wonderfully complex emotions that crowded upon her soul. This illumination came from three ghastly green lights on the water below. The whole tone of the picture was a black, sombre green.

That was all after the painting had been finished. The making of it is a story by itself. From the first week in January to the first week in March the studio was a junk-shop of the most uncanny sort. In order to pose his model in the act of plunging into the river, Bishop had rigged up a tackle, which, depending from the ceiling, caught the model at the waist, after the manner of a fire-escape belt, and thus half suspended her. He secured his green tone and night effect by covering nearly all the skylight and the window with green tissue-paper, besides covering the floor and walls with green rugs and draperies.

The model behaved very well in her unusual pose, but the babe—that was the rub. The model did not happen to possess one, and Bishop had not yet learned the difficulties attending the procuring and posing of infants. In the first place, he found scores of babes, but not a mother, however poor, willing to permit her babe to be used as a model, and a model for so gruesome a situation. But after he had almost begun to despair, and had well advanced with his woman model, an Italian woman came one day and informed him that she could get an infant from a friend of her sister's, if he would pay her one franc a day for the use of it. Bishop eagerly made the bargain. Then a new series of troubles began.

The babe objected most emphatically to the arrangement. It refused to nestle in the arms of a strange woman about to plunge into eternity, and the strange woman had no knack at all in soothing the infant's outraged feelings. Besides, the model was unable to meet the youngster's frequent demands for what it was accustomed to have, and the mother, who was engaged elsewhere, had to be drummed up at exasperatingly frequent intervals. All this told upon both Bishop and Francinette, the model, and they took turns in swearing at the unruly brat, Bishop in English and Francinette in French. Neither knew how to swear in Italian, or things might have been different. I happened in upon these scenes once in a while, and my enjoyment so exasperated Bishop that he threw paint- tubes, bottles, and everything else at me that he could reach, and once or twice locked me out of the studio, compelling me to kick my shins in the cold street for hours at a time. On such occasions I would stand in the court looking up at our window, expecting momentarily that the babe would come flying down from that direction.

When Bishop was not sketching and painting he was working up his inspiration; and that was worst of all. His great effort was to get himself into a suicidal mood. He would sit for hours on the floor, his face between his knees, imagining all sorts of wrongs and slights that the heartless world had put upon him. His husband had beaten him and gone off with another woman; he had tried with all his woman-heart to bear the cross; hunger came to pinch and torture him; he sought work, failed to find it; sought charity, failed to find that; his babe clutched at his empty breasts and cried piteously for food; his heart broken, all hope gone, even God forgetting him, he thought of the dark, silent river, the great cold river, that has brought everlasting peace to countless thousands of suffering young mothers like him; he went to the river; he looked back upon the faint glow of the city's lights in the distance; he cast his glance up to the grim towers of Notre-Dame, standing cold and pitiless against the blacker sky; he looked down upon the black Seine, the great writhing python, so willing to swallow him up; he clutched his babe to his breast, gasped a prayer....

At other times he would haunt the Morgue and study the faces of those who had died by felo-de-se; he would visit the hospitals and study the dying; he would watch the actions and read the disordered thoughts of lunatics; he would steal along the banks; of the river on dark nights and study the silent mystery and tragedy of it, and the lights that gave shape to its terrors. In the end I grew afraid of him.

But all things have an end. Bishop's great work was finished in the first days of March. Slowly, but surely, his native exuberance of spirits returned. He would eat and sleep like a rational being. His eyes lost their haunted look, and his cheeks filled out and again took on their healthy hue. And then he invited his friends and some critics to inspect his composition, and gave a great supper in celebration of the completion of his task. Very generous praise was given him. Among the critics and masters came Gérôme and Laurens at his earnest supplication, and it was good to see their delight and surprise, and to note that they had no fault to find,—was not the picture finished, and would not criticism from them at this juncture have hurt the boy without accomplishing any good? Well, the painting secured honorable mention in the exhibition, and five years later the French government completed the artist's happiness by buying one of his pictures for the Luxembourg Gallery.

But about the picture: the canvas was eight by ten feet, and a frame had to be procured for it. Now, frames are expensive, and Bishop had impoverished himself for material and model hire. So he employed a carpenter in the court to make a frame of thick pine boards, which we painted a deep black, with a gold cornice. The whole cost was twenty- five francs.

Next day we hired a good-sized voiture-à-bras at eight sous an hour, and proceeded to get the tableau down to the court. It was a devilish job, for the ceilings were low and the stairs narrow and crooked. The old gentleman below us was nearly decapitated by poking his head out of his door at an inopportune moment, and the lady below him almost wiped the still wet babe from the canvas with her gown as she tried to squeeze past. The entire court turned out to wish Bishop good success.

The last day on which pictures are admitted to the Salon, there to await the merciless decision of the judges, is a memorable one. In sumptuous studios, in wretched garrets; amid affluence, amid scenes of squalor and hunger, artists of all kinds and degrees have been squeezing thousands of tubes and daubing thousands of canvases in preparation for the great day. From every corner of Paris, from every quarter of France and Europe, the canvases come pouring into the Salon. Every conceivable idea, fad, and folly is represented in the collection, and most of them are poor; but in each and every one a fond hope centres, an ambition is staked.

Strange as it may seem, most of these pictures are worked upon until the very last day; indeed, many of them are snatched unfinished from their easels, to receive the finishing touches in the dust and confusion and deafening noise of the great hall where they are all dumped like so much merchandise. We saw one artist who, not having finished his picture, was putting on the final touches as it was borne ahead of him along the street on the back of a commissionnaire.

And all this accounts for the endless smearing everywhere noticeable, and for the frantic endeavors of the artists to repair the damage at the last moment.

One great obstacle to poor artists is the rigid rule requiring that all tableaux shall be framed. These frames are costly. As a result, some artists paint pictures of the same size year after year, so that the same frame may be used for all, and others resort to such makeshifts as Bishop was compelled to employ. But these makeshifts must be artistically done, or the canvases are ignored by the judges. These efforts give rise to many startling effects.

It was not very long, after an easy pull over the Boulevard St.-Germain, before we crossed the Seine at the Pont de la Concorde, traversed the Place de la Concorde, and turned into the Champs-Elysées, where, not far away, loomed the Palais des Beaux-Arts, in which the Salon is annually held in March. The Avenue des Champs-Elysées, crowded as it usually is in the afternoons, was now jammed with cabs, omnibuses, hand-carts, and all sorts of moving vans, mingling with the fashionable carriages on their way to the Bois. The proletarian vehicles contained art,—art by the ton. The upper decks of the omnibuses were crowded with artists carrying their pictures because they could not afford more than the three-sous fare. And such an assortment of artists!

There were some in affluent circumstances, who rolled along voluptuously in cabs on an expenditure of thirty-five francs, holding their precious tableaux and luxuriantly smoking cigarettes.

The commissionnaires had a great day of it. They are the ones usually seen asleep on the street corners, where, when awake, they varnish boots or bear loads by means of a contrivance on their backs. On this day every one of them in Paris was loaded down with pictures.

Many were the hard-up students, like Bishop, tugging hand-carts, or pairing to carry by hand pictures too large to be borne by a single person. And great fun they got out of it all.

Opposite the Palais de Glace was a perfect sea of vehicles, artists, porters, and policemen, all inextricably tangled up, all shouting or groaning, and wet pictures suffering. One artist nearly had a fit when he saw a full moon wiped off his beautiful landscape, and he would have killed the guilty porter had not the students interfered. Portraits of handsome ladies with smudged noses and smeared eyes were common. Expensive gold frames lost large sections of their corners. But still they were pouring in.

With infinite patience and skill Bishop gradually worked his voiture-à- bras through the maze, and soon his masterpiece was in the crushing mass at the wide entrance to the Salon. There it was seized and rushed along, and Bishop received in return a slip of paper bearing a number.

While within the building we reconnoitred. Amid the confusion of howling inspectors, straining porters bearing heavy pictures, carpenters erecting partitions, and a dust-laden atmosphere, numerous artists were working with furious haste upon their unfinished productions. Some were perched upon ladders, others squatted upon the floor, and one had his model posing nude to the waist; she was indifferent to the attention that she received. Thoughtful mistresses stood affectionately beside their artist amants, furnishing them with delicate edibles and lighting cigarettes for them.

Some of the pictures were so large that they were brought in rolled up. One artist had made himself into a carpenter to mount his mammoth picture. Frightful and impossible paintings were numerous, but the painter of each expected a première médaille d'honneur.

It was nearing six o'clock, the closing hour. Chic demoiselle artistes came dashing up in cabs, bringing with them, to insure safe delivery, their everlasting still-life subjects.

Shortly before six the work in the building was suspended by a commotion outside. It was a contingent of students from the Beaux-Arts marching up the Champs-Elysées, yelling and dancing like maniacs and shaking their heavy sticks, the irresistible Sarah Brown leading as drum-maior. She was gorgeously arrayed in the most costly silks and laces, and looked a dashing Amazon. Then, as always, she was perfectly happy with her beloved étudiants, who worshipped her as a goddess. She halted them in front of the building, where they formed a circle round her, and there, as director of ceremonies, she required them to sing chansons, dance, make comic speeches, and "blaguer" the arriving artists.

The last van was unloaded; the great doors closed with a bang, and the stirring day was ended. All the students, even the porters, then joined hands and went singing, howling, and skipping down the Champs-Elysées, and wishing one another success at the coming exhibition. At the Place de la Concorde we met a wild-eyed artist running frantically toward the Salon with his belated picture. The howls of encouragement that greeted him lent swifter wings to his legs.

The pictures finally installed, a jury composed of France's greatest masters pass upon them. The endless procession of paintings is passed before them; the raising of their hands means approval, silence means condemnation; and upon those simple acts depends the happiness or despair of thousands. But depression does not long persist, and the judgment is generally accepted in the end as just and valuable. For the students, in great part, flock to the country on sketching tours, for which arrangements had been already made; and there the most deeply depressed spirits must revive and the habit of work and hope come into play. Year after year the same artists strive for recognition at the Salon; and finally, when they fail at that, they reflect that there is a great world outside of the Salon, where conscientious effort is acceptable. And, after all, a medal at the Salon is not the only reward that life has to offer.

And then, it is not always good for a student to be successful from the start. Just as his social environment in Paris tries his strength and determines the presence or absence of qualities that are as useful to a successful career as special artistic qualifications, so the trial by fire in the Salon exhibitions hardens and toughens him for the serious work of his life ahead. Too early success has ruined more artists than it has helped. It is interesting also to observe that, as a rule, the students who eventually secure the highest places in art are those whose difficulties have been greatest. The lad with the pluck to live on a crust in a garret, and work and study under conditions of poverty and self-denial that would break any but the stoutest heart, is the one from whom to expect renown in the years to come. Ah, old Paris is the harshest but wisest of mothers!

"H! ah! vive les Quat'z' Arts! Au Molin Rouge—en route!" the lamplit streets of Paris as cab after cab and bus after 'bus went thundering across town toward Montmartre, heavily freighted with brilliantly costumed revellers of les Quat'z' Arts. Parisians ran from their dinner- tables to the windows and balconies, blasé boulevardiers paused in their evening stroll or looked up from their papers at the café-tables, waiters and swearing cabbies and yelling newsboys stopped in the midst of their various duties, and all knowingly shook their heads, "Ah, ce sont les Quat'z' Arts!"?

For to-night was the great annual ball of the artists, when all artistic Paris crawls from its mysterious depths to revel in a splendid carnival possible only to the arts. Every spring, after the pictures have been sent to the Salon, and before the students have scattered for the summer vacation, the artists of Paris and the members of all the ateliers of the four arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving—combine their forces in producing a spectacle of regal splendor, seen nowhere else in the world; and long are the weeks and hard the work and vast the ingenuity devoted to preparations,—the designing of costumes and the building of gorgeous floats.

During the last three weeks the élèves of the Atelier Gérôme abandoned their studies, forgot all about the concours and the Prix de Rome, and devoted all their energies to the construction of a colossal figure of Gérôme's great war goddess, "Bel-lona." It was a huge task, but the students worked it out with a will. Yards of sackcloth, rags, old coats, paint rags, besides pine timbers, broken easels and stools, endless wire and rope, went into the making of the goddess's frame, and this was covered with plaster of Paris dexterously moulded into shape. Then it was properly tinted and painted and mounted on a chariot of gold. A Grecian frieze of galloping horses, mounted, the clever work of Siffert, was emblazoned on the sides of the chariot. And what a wreck the atelier was after all was finished! Sacré nom d'un chien! How the gardiens must have sworn when cleaning-day came round!

The ateliers in the Ecole are all rivals, and each had been secretly preparing its coup with which to capture the grand prix at the bal.

The great day came at last. The students of our atelier were perfectly satisfied with their handiwork, and the massier made all happy by ordering a retreat to the Café des Deux Magots, where success to the goddess was drunk in steaming "grog Américain." Then Bellona began her perilous journey across Paris to Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge.

This was not an easy task, as she was fifteen feet high; signs and lamp- posts suffered, and sleepy cab-horses danced as their terrified gaze beheld the giant goddess with her uplifted sword. Crowds watched the progress of Bellona on the Avenue de l'Opéra, drawn by half a hundred students yelling the national hymn. The pull up the steep slope of Montmartre was heavy, but in less than two hours from the start at the Ecole the goddess was safely housed in the depths of the Moulin Rouge, there to await her triumphs of the night.

Bishop, besides doing his share in the preparation of the figure, had the equally serious task of devising a costume for his own use at the ball. It was not until the very last day that he made his final decision,—to go as a Roman orator. Our supply of linen was meagre, but our only two clean bed-sheets and a few towels were sufficient, and two kind American ladies who were studying music and who lived near the old church of St. Sulpice did the fitting of a toga. The soles of a pair of slippers from which Bishop cut the tops served as sandals, and some studio properties in the way of Oriental bracelets completed his costume. I was transformed into an Apache Indian by a generous rubbing into my skin of burnt sienna and cadmium, which I was weeks in getting rid of; a blanket and some chicken-feathers finished my array. Our friend Cameron, next door, went in his Scotch kilts. After supper we entered the Boul' Mich' and proceeded to the Café de la Source, where the students of the Atelier Gérôme were to rendezvous.

The Boul' was a spectacle that night. Time had rolled back the curtain of centuries; ancient cemeteries had yielded up their dead; and living ghosts of the ages packed all the gay cafés. History from the time of Adam had sent forth its traditions, and Eves rubbed elbows with ballet- girls. There was never a jollier night in the history of the Quartier Latin.

We found the Café de la Source already crowded by the Gérôme contingent and their models and mistresses, all en costume and bubbling with merriment and mischief. It was ten o'clock before all the students had arrived. Then we formed in procession, and yelled and danced past all the cafés on the Boul' Mich' to the Luxembourg Palace and the Théâtre de l'Odéon, to take the 'buses of the Montmartre line. These we quickly seized and overloaded in violation of the law, and then, dashing down the quiet streets of the Rive Gauche, headed for Montmartre, making a noise to rouse the dead. As we neared the Place Blanche we found the little streets merging from different quarters crowded with people in costume, some walking and others crowding almost innumerable vehicles, and the balconies and portes-cochères packed with spectators. The Place Blanche fronts the Moulin Rouge, and it was crowded and brilliantly lighted. The façade of the Moulin Rouge was a blaze of electric lights and colored lanterns, and the revolving wings of the mill flamed across the sky. It was a perfect night. The stars shone, the air was warm and pleasant, and the trees were tipped with the glistening clean foliage of early spring. The bright cafés fronting the Place were crowded with gay revellers. The poets of Bohemia were there, and gayly attired cocottes assisted them in their fun at the café tables, extending far out into the boulevard under the trees. At one corner was Gérôme's private studio, high up in the top of the house, and standing on the balcony was Gérôme himself, enjoying the brilliant scene below.

As the Bal des Quat'z' Arts is not open to the public, and as none but accredited members of the four arts are admitted, the greatest precautions are taken to prevent the intrusion of outsiders; and wonderful is the ingenuity exercised to outwit the authorities. Inside the vestibule of the Moulin was erected a tribune (a long bar), behind which sat the massiers of the different studios of Paris, all in striking costumes. It was their task not only to identify the holders of tickets, but also to pass on the suitability of the costumes of such as were otherwise eligible to admittance. The costumes must all have conspicuous merit and be thoroughly artistic. Nothing black, no dominos, none in civilian dress, may pass. Many and loud were the protestations that rang through the vestibule as one after another was turned back and firmly conducted to the door.

Once past the implacable tribunes, we entered a dazzling fairy-land, a dream of rich color and reckless abandon. From gorgeous kings and queens to wild savages, all were there; courtiers in silk, naked gladiators, nymphs with paint for clothing,—all were there; and the air was heavy with the perfume of roses. Shouts, laughter, the silvery clinking of glasses, a whirling mass of life and color, a bewildering kaleidoscope, a maze of tangled visions in the soft yellow haze that filled the vast hall. There was no thought of the hardness and sordidness of life, no dream of the morrow. It was a wonderful witchery that sat upon every soul there.

This splendid picture was framed by a wall of lodges, each sumptuously decorated and hung with banners, tableaux, and greens, each representing a particular atelier and adorned in harmony with the dominant ideals of their masters. The lodge of the Atelier Gérôme was arranged to represent a Grecian temple; all the decorations and accessories were pure Grecian, cleverly imitated by the master's devoted pupils. That of the Atelier Cormon repre sented a huge caravan of the prehistoric big- muscled men that appeal so strongly to Cormon; large skeletons of extinct animals, giant ferns, skins, and stone implements were scattered about, while the students of Cormon's atelier, almost naked, with bushy hair and clothed in skins, completed the picture. And so it was with all the lodges, each typifying a special subject, and carrying it out with perfect fidelity to the minutest detail.

The event of the evening was the grand cortège; this, scheduled for one o'clock, was awaited with eager expectancy, for with it would come the test of supremacy,—the awarding of the prize for the best. For this was the great art centre of the world, and this night was the one in which its rivalries would strain the farthest reach of skill.

Meanwhile, the great hall swarmed with life and blazed with color and echoed with the din of merry voices. Friends recognized one another with great difficulty. And there was Gérôme himself at last, gaudily gowned in the rich green costume of a Chinese mandarin, his white moustache dyed black, and his white locks hidden beneath a black skull-cap topped with a bobbing appendage. And there also was Jean Paul Laurens, in the costume of a Norman, the younger Laurens as Charlemagne. Léandre, the caricaturist, was irresistible as a caricature of Queen Victoria. Puech, the sculptor, made a graceful courtier of the Marie Antoinette régime. Willett was a Roman emperor. Will Dodge was loaded with the crown, silks, and jewels of a Byzantine emperor.

Louis Loeb was a desperate Tartar bandit. Castaigne made a hit as an Italian jurist. Steinlen, Grasset, Forain, Rodin,—in fact, nearly all the renowned painters, sculptors, and illustrators of Paris were there; and besides them were the countless students and models.

"La cavalcade! le grand cortège!" rose the cry above the crashing of the band and the noise of the revellers; and then all the dancing stopped. Emerging from the gardens through the open glass door, bringing with it a pleasant blast of the cool night air, was the vanguard of the great procession. The orchestra struck up the "Victor's March," and a great cry of welcome rang out.

First came a band of yelling Indians dancing in, waving their spears and tomahawks, and so cleaving a way for the parade. A great roar filled the glass-domed hall when the first float appeared. It was daring and unique, but a masterpiece. Borne upon the shoulders of Indians, who were naked but for skins about their loins, their bodies stained a dark brown and striped with paint, was a gorgeous bed of fresh flowers and trailing vines; and reclining in this bed were four of the models of Paris, lying on their backs, head to head, their legs upraised to support a circular tablet of gold.

Upon this, high in air, proud and superb, was the great Susanne in all her peerless beauty of face and form,—simply that and nothing more. A sparkling crown of jewels glowed in her reddish golden hair; a flashing girdle of electric lights encircled her slender waist, bringing out the marvellous whiteness of her skin, and with delicate shadows and tones modelling the superb contour of her figure. She looked a goddess—and knew it. The crowd upon whom she looked down stood for a while spell- bound, and then, with a waving of arms and flags, came a great shout, "Susanne! Susanne! la belle Susanne!" Susanne only smiled. Was she not the queen of the models of Paris?

Then came Bellona! Gérôme, when he conceived and executed the idea embodied in this wonderful figure, concentrated his efforts to produce a most terrifying, fear-inspiring image typifying the horrors of war. The straining goddess, poised upon her toes to her full height, her face uplifted, her head thrust forward, with staring eyes and screaming mouth, her short two-edged sword in position for a sweeping blow, her glittering round shield and her coat of mail, a huge angry python darting its tongue and raising its green length from the folds of her drapery,—all this terrible figure, reproduced with marvellous fidelity and magnified tenfold, overwhelmed the thousands upon whom it glowered. Surrounding the golden chariot was a guard of Roman and Greek gladiators, emperors, warriors, and statesmen. From the staring eyes of Bellona flashed green fire, whose uncanny shafts pierced the yellow haze of the ball-room. Under a storm of cheers Bellona went on her way past the tribune of the judges.

Following Bellona came a beautiful reproduction of Gérôme's classical "Tanagra," which adorns the sculpture gallery of the Luxembourg. The figure was charmingly personated by Marcelle, a lithe, slim, graceful model of immature years, who was a rage in the studios. Gérôme himself applauded the grace of her pose as she swept past his point of vantage in the gallery.

Behind Tanagra came W———, also of the Atelier Gérôme, dressed as an Apache warrior and mounted on a bucking broncho. He was an American, from Nebraska, where he was a cowboy before he became famous as a sculptor. He received a rousing welcome from his fellow-artists.

The Atelier Cormon came next,—a magnificent lot of brawny fellows clothed in skins, and bearing an immense litter made of tree branches bound with thongs and weighted down with strong naked women and children of a prehistoric age. It was a reproduction of Cormon's masterpiece in the Luxembourg Gallery, and was one of the most impressive compositions in the whole parade.

Then came the works of the many other studios, all strong and effective, but none so fine as the three first. The Atelier Pascal, of architecture, made a sensation by appearing as Egyptian mummies, each mummy dragging an Egyptian coffin covered with ancient inscriptions and characters and containing a Parisian model, all too alive and sensuous to personate the ancient dead. Another atelier strove hard for the prize with eggs of heroic size, from which as many girls, as chicks, were breaking their way to freedom.

After the grand cortège had paraded the hall several times it disbanded, and the ball proceeded with renewed enthusiasm.

The tribune, wherein the wise judges sat, was a large and artistic affair, built up before the gallery of the orchestra and flanked by broad steps leading to its summit. It was topped with the imperial escutcheon of Rome—battle-axes bound in fagots—and bore the legend, "Mort aux Tyrants," in bold letters. Beneath was a row of ghastly, bloody severed heads,—those of dead tyrants.

The variety and originality of the costumes were bewildering. One Frenchman went as a tombstone, his back, representing a headstone, containing a suitable inscription and bearing wreaths of immortelles and colored beads. Another, from the Atelier Bon-nat, went simply as a stink, nothing more, nothing less, but it was potent. He had saturated his skin with the juice of onions and garlic, and there was never any mistaking his proximity. Many were the gay Bacchantes wearing merely a bunch of grapes in their hair and a grape-leaf.

At intervals during the evening the crowd would suddenly gather and form a large circle, many deep, some climbing upon the backs of others the better to see, those in front squatting or lying upon the floor to accommodate the mass behind them. The formation of these circles was the signal for the danse du ventre.*

* The danse du ventre (literally, belly-dance) is of Turkish origin, and was introduced to Paris by Turkish women from Egypt. Afterward these women exhibited it in the Midway Plaisance of the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, and then at the California Midwinter Exposition, San Francisco. As danced by Turkish women it consists of astonishing control and movements of the abdominal and chest muscles (hence its other name, muscle-dance), varied with more or less graceful steps and gyrations, with adjuncts, such as castanets, scarfs, etc., and the seemingly perilous use of swords. Such clothing is worn as least obscures the play of the muscles. It is danced to a particular Turkish air, monotonously repeated by an orchestra of male Turkish musicians, with Turkish instruments, and the dance is done solus. A dance closely analogous to it, though of a wholly independent origin, is the hula-hula of the Hawaiian women; but the hula-hula lacks the grace, dash, and abandon of the Turkish dance. The danse du ventre, as danced by French and American women who have "picked it up," is very different from that of the Turkish women—different both in form and meaning. Whatever of suggestiveness it may be supposed to carry is, in the adaptation, grossly exaggerated, and whatever of grace and special muscular skill, evidently acquired by Turkish women only from long and thorough drill, is eliminated. W. C. M.

The name of some favorite model would be yelled, and the orchestra would strike up the familiar Oriental strain. And there was always a model to respond. Then the regular dancing would be resumed until another circle was formed and another favorite goddess of the four arts would be called out.

It was three o'clock when supper was announced by the appearance of two hundred white-aproned waiters carrying scores of tables, chairs, and hampers of plate and glassware. The guests fell to with a will and assisted in spreading and setting the tables; almost in a moment the vast hall was a field of snow pricked out with the brilliant costumes of the revellers. Then came a frightful din of pounding on the tables for the supper. Again marched in the two hundred waiters, loaded with cases of champagne, plates of creamy soup, roasts, salads, cheeses, creams, cakes, ices,—a feast of Bacchus, indeed. The banquet was enjoyed with Bohemian abandon.

The twelve wise judges of the Tribune now gravely announced their award of prizes, and each announcement was received with ringing applause. The Atelier Gérôme received first prize,—fifty bottles of champagne, which were immediately taken possession of. The other ateliers received smaller prizes, as their merits deserved, and all were satisfied and happy. The banquet was resumed.

Now here was Susanne, not content with her triumph of the early evening, springing upon one of the central tables, sending the crockery and glassware crashing to the floor with her dainty foot, and serenely surveying the crowd as it greeted her tumultuously, and, seizing a bottle of champagne, sending its foaming contents over as wide a circle of revellers as her strength could reach, laughing in pure glee over her feat, and then bathing her own white body with the contents of another bottle that she poured over herself. A superb Bacchante she made! A general salute of popping corks and clinking glasses greeted her, and she acknowledged the compliment with the danse du ventre. Susanne was so sure of the adoration and affection of the ateliers! Her dance was a challenge to every other model in the chamber. One after another, and often several at a time, they mounted the tables, spurned the crockery to the floor, and gave the danse du ventre. The Moulin was indeed a wild scene of joyous abandonment, and from an artistic point of view grand, a luminous point in the history of modern times. Here were the life, the color, the grace of the living picture, with a noble background of surrounding temples, altars, statues,—a wonderful spectacle, that artists can understand and appreciate.

The feast wore merrily through the small hours until the cold blue dawn began to pale the lights in the ceiling. Strangely beautiful was this color effect, as the blue stole downward through the thick yellow glamour of the hall, quickening the merry-makers with a new and uncanny light, putting them out of place, and warning them thence. But still the ball went rolling on.

Though the floor was slippery with wine and dangerous from broken glass, dancing and the cutting of capers proceeded without abatement. The favorite danse du ventre and songs and speeches filled the night to the end of the ball, and then the big orchestra, with a great flourish, played the "Victor's March." This was the signal for the final procession. The vast concourse of students and artists poured forth into the cool, sweet morning air, and the bal was at an end.

Paris was asleep, that early April morning, save for the street-sweepers and the milkmaids and the concierges. But the Place Blanche was very much awake. The morning air was new wine in stale veins, and it banished fatigue.

"En cavalcade! en cavalcade!" was the cry; and in cavalcade it was. A great procession of all the costumers was formed, to march ensemble across Paris to the Quartier Latin. Even the proud Bellona was dragged along in the rear, towering as high as the lower wings of the now motionless red windmill. She seemed to partake in the revelry, for she swayed and staggered in an alarming fashion as she plunged recklessly down the steeps of Montmartre.

The deserted Rue Blanche re-echoed the wild yells and songs of the revellers and the rattling of the string of cabs in the rear. The rows of heaped ash-cans that lined the way were overturned one after another, and the oaths and threatening brooms of the outraged concierges went for nothing. Even the poor diligent rag- and bone-pickers were not spared; their filled sacks, carrying the result of their whole night's hunt, were taken from them and emptied. A string of carts heavily laden with stone was captured near the Rue Lafayette, the drivers deposed, and the big horses sent plunging through Paris, driven by Roman charioteers, and making more noise than a company of artillery.

When the Place de l'Opéra was reached a thousand revellers swarmed up the broad stairs of the Grand Opéra like colored ants, climbed upon the lamp-posts and candelabra, and clustered all over the groups of statuary adorning the magnificent façade. The band took up a position in the centre and played furiously, while the artists danced ring-around-a- rosy, to the amazement of the drowsy residents of the neighborhood.

The cavalcade then re-formed and marched down the Avenue de l'Opéra toward the Louvre, where it encountered a large squad of street-sweepers washing the avenue. In an instant the squad had been routed, and the revellers, taking the hose and brooms, fell to and cleaned an entire block, making it shine as it had never shone before.

Cabs were captured, the drivers decorated with Roman helmets and swords, and dances executed on the tops of the vehicles. One character, with enormous india-rubber shoes, took delight in permitting cabs to run over his feet, while he emitted howls of agony that turned the hair of the drivers white.

As the immense cavalcade filed through the narrow arches of the Louvre court-yard it looked like a mediaeval army returning to its citadel after a victorious campaign; the hundreds of battle-flags, spears, and battle-axes were given a fine setting by the noble architecture of the Pavillon de Rohan. Within the court of the Louvre was drawn up a regiment of the Garde Municipale, going through the morning drill; and they looked quite formidable with their evolutions and bayonet charges. But when the mob of Greek and Roman warriors flung themselves bodily upon the ranks of the guard, ousted the officers, and assumed command, there was consternation.

All the rigid military dignity of the scene disappeared, and the drill was turned into such a farce as the old Louvre had never seen before. The officers, furious at first, could not resist the spirit of pure fun that filled the mob, and took their revenge by kissing the models and making them dance. The girls had already done their share of the conquering by pinning flowers to military coats and coyly putting pretty lips where they were in danger. Even the tall electric-light masts in the court were scaled by adventurous students, who attached brilliant flags, banners, and crests to the mast-heads far above the crowd.

To the unspeakable relief of the officers, the march was then resumed. The Pont du Carrousel was the next object of assault; here was performed the solemn ceremony of the annual sacrifice of the Quat'z' Arts to the river Seine. The mighty Bellona was the sacrifice. She was trundled to the centre of the bridge and drawn close to the parapet, while the disciples of the four arts gathered about with uncovered heads. The first bright flashes of the morning sun, sweeping over the towers of Notre-Dame, tipped Bellona's upraised sword with flame. The band played a funeral march. Prayers were said, and the national hymn was sung; then Bellona was sent tottering and crashing over the parapet, and with a mighty plunge she sank beneath the waters of the Seine. A vast shout rang through the crisp morning air. Far below, poor Bellona rose in stately despair, and then slowly sank forever.

The parade formed again and proceeded to the Beaux-Arts, the last point of attack. Up the narrow Rue Bonaparte went singing the tired procession; the gates of the Ecole opened to admit it, cabs and all, and the doors were shut again. Then in the historic court-yard of the government school, surrounded by remnants of the beautiful architecture of once stately chateaux and palaces, and encircled by graceful Corinthian columns, the students gave a repetition of the grand ball at the Moulin Rouge. A strange and incongruous sight it was in the brilliant sunshine, and the neighboring windows and balconies were packed with onlookers. But by halfpast seven every trace of the Bal des Quat'z' Arts had disappeared,—the great procession had melted away to the haunts of Bohemia.

BOULEVARD SAINT-MICHEL

OF course the proper name for the great thoroughfare of the Quartier Latin is the Boulevard Saint-Michel, but the boulevardiers call it the Boul' Mich', just as the students call the Quatre Arts the Quat'z' Arts, because it is easier to say.

The Boul' Mich' is the student's highway to relaxation. Mention of it at once recalls whirling visions of brilliant cafés, with their clattering of saucers and glasses, the shouting of their white-aproned garçons, their hordes of gay and wicked damsels dressed in the costliest and most fashionable gowns, and a multitude of riotous students howling class songs and dancing and parading to the different cafés as only students can. This is the head-quarters of the Bohemians of real Bohemia, whose poets haunt the dim and quaint cabarets and read their compositions to admiring friends; of flower-girls who offer you un petit bouquet, seulement dix centimes, and pin it into your button-hole before you can refuse; of Turks in picturesque native costume selling sweetmeats; of the cane man loaded down with immense sticks; of the stems a yard long; of beggars, gutter-snipes, hot-chestnut venders, ped- lers, singers, actors, students, and all manner of queer characters.

The life of the Boul' Mich' begins at the Panthéon, where repose the remains of France's great men, and ends at the Seine, where the gray Gothic towers and the gargoyles of Notre-Dame look down disdainfully upon the giddy traffic below. The eastern side of the Boul' is lined with cafés, cabarets, and brasseries.

This is historic ground, for where now is the old Hôtel Cluny are still to be seen the ruins of Roman baths, and not a great distance hence are the partly uncovered ruins of a Roman arena, with its tiers of stone seats and its dens. The tomb of Cardinal Richelieu is in the beautiful old chapel of the Sorbonne, within sound of the wickedest café in Paris, the Café d'Harcourt.

In the immediate vicinity are to be found the quaint jumbled buildings of old Paris, but they are fast disappearing. And the Quartier abounds in the world's greatest schools and colleges of the arts and sciences.

It was often our wont on Saturday evenings to saunter along the Boul', and sometimes to visit the cafés. To Bishop particularly it was always a revelation and a delight, and he was forever studying and sketching the types that he found there. He was intimately acquainted in all the cafés along the line, and with the mysterious rendezvous in the dark and narrow side streets.

American beverages are to be had at many of the cafés on the Boul',—a recent and very successful experiment. The idea has captured the fancy of the Parisians, so that "Bars Américains," which furnish cocktails and sours, are numerous in the cafés. Imagine a Parisian serenely sucking a manhattan through a straw, and standing up at that!

The Boul' Mich' is at its glory on Saturday nights, for the students have done their week's work, and the morrow is Sunday. Nearly everybody goes to the Bal Bullier. This is separated from the crowded Boul' Mich' by several squares of respectable dwelling-houses and shops, and a dearth of cafés prevails thereabout. At the upper end of the Luxembourg is a long stone wall brilliantly bedecked with lamps set in clusters,—the same wall against which Maréchal Ney was shot (a striking monument across the way recalls the incident). At one end of this yellow wall is an arched entrée, resplendent with the glow of many rows of electric lights and lamps, which reveal the colored bas-reliefs of dancing students and gri-settes that adorn the portal. Near by stands a row of voitures, and others are continually dashing up and depositing Latin-Quarter swells with hair parted behind and combed forward toward the ears, and dazzling visions of the demi-monde in lace, silks, and gauze. And there is a constantly arriving stream of students and gaudily dressed women on foot. Big gardes municipaux stand at the door like stone images as the crowd surges past.

To-night is one-franc night. An accommodating lady at the box-office hands us each a broad card, and another, au vestiaire, takes our coats and hats and charges us fifty centimes for the honor. Descending the broad flight of softly carpeted red stairs, a brilliant, tumultuous, roaring vision bursts upon us, for it is between the dances, and the visitors are laughing and talking and drinking. The ball-room opens into a generous garden filled with trees and shrubbery ingeniously devised to assure many a secluded nook, and steaming garçons are flying hither and thither serving foaming bocks and colored syrups to nymphs in bicycle bloomers, longhaired students under tam o'shanters, and the swells peculiar to le Quartier Latin.

"Ah, mon ange!" and other affectionate greetings made Bishop start guiltily, and then he discovered Hélène and Marcelle, two saucy little models who had posed at the École. There also was Fannie, formerly (before she drifted to the cafés) our blanchisseuse, leaning heavily upon the arm of son amant, who, a butcher-boy during the day, was now arrayed in a cutaway coat and other things to match, including a red cravat that Fannie herself had tied; but he wore no cuffs. Many other acquaintances presented themselves to Bishop, somewhat to his embarrassment. One, quite a swell member of the demi-monde, for a moment deserted her infatuated companion, a gigantic Martinique negro, gorgeously apparelled, and ran up to tease Bishop to paint her portrait à l'oil, and also to engage him for la prochaine valse.

The musicians were now playing a schottische, but large circles would be formed here and there in the hall, where clever exhibitions of fancy dancing would be given by students and by fashionably gowned damsels with a penchant for displaying their lingerie and hosiery. The front of the band-stand was the favorite place for this. Here four dashing young women were raising a whirlwind of lingerie and slippers, while the crowd applauded and tossed sous at their feet.

Next to us stood a fat, cheery-faced little man, bearing the unmistakable stamp of an American tourist. His hands were in his pockets, his silk hat was tipped back, and his beaming red face and bulging eyes showed the intensity of his enjoyment. Without the slightest warning the slippered foot of one of these dancers found his shining tile and sent it bounding across the floor. For a moment the American was dazed by the suddenness and unearthly neatness of the feat; then he emitted a whoop of wonder and admiration, and in English exclaimed,—"You gol-darned bunch of French skirts—say, you're all right, you are, Marie! Bet you can't do it again!"

"Why," he exclaimed, joyously, "Paris is the top of the earth! You artists are an enviable lot, living over here all the time and painting— Gad! look at her!" and he was pushing his way through the crowd to get a better view of an uncommonly startling dancer, who was at the moment an indeterminate fluffy bunch of skirts, linen, and hosiery. Ah, what tales he will tell of Paris when he returns to Cincinnati, and how he will be accused of exaggerating!

The four girls forming the centre of attraction were now doing all manner of astonishing things possible only to Parisian feminine anatomy. In another circle near by was Johnson, the American architect, stirring enthusiastic applause as he hopped about, Indian fashion, with a little brunette whose face was hidden in the shadow of her immense hat, her hair en bandeau, à la de Mérode. Could this really be the quiet Johnson of the Ecole, who but a week ago had been showing his mother and charming sister over Paris? And there, too, was his close friend, Walden, of Michigan, leading a heavy blonde to the dance! There were others whom we knew. The little Siamese was flirting desperately with a vision in white standing near his friend, a Japanese, who, in turn, was listening to the cooing of a clinging bloomer girl. Even Haidor, the Turk, was there, but he was alone in the gallery. Many sober fellows whom I had met at the studio were there, but they were sober now only in the sense that they were not drunk. And there were law students, too, in velveteen caps and jackets, and students in the sciences, and students in music, and négligé poets, littérateurs, and artists, and every model and cocotte who could furnish her back sufficiently well to pass the censorship of the severe critic at the door. If she be attractively dressed, she may enter free; if not, she may not enter at all.

The gayety increased as the hours lengthened; the dancing was livelier, the shouting was more vociferous, skirts swirled more freely, and thin glasses fell crashing to the floor.

It was pleasanter out in the cool garden, for it was dreadfully hard to keep from dancing inside. The soft gleam of the colored lamps and lanterns was soothing, and the music was softened down to an echo. The broken rays of the lanterns embedded in the foliage laid bright patterns on the showy silks of the women, and the garçons made no noise as they flitted swiftly through the mazes of shrubbery.

At one end of the garden, surrounded by an hilarious group, were four wooden rocking-horses worked on springs. 'Astride of two of these were an army officer and his companion, a bloomer girl, who persistently twisted her ankles round her horse's head. The two others were ridden by a poet and a jauntily attired gri-sette. The four were as gleeful as children.

A flash-light photographer did a driving trade at a franc a flash, and there were a shooting-gallery, a fortune-teller, sou-in-the-slot machines, and wooden figures of negroes with pads on their other ends, by punching which we might see how hard we could hit.

We are back in the ball-room again,—it is hard to keep out. The gayety is at its height, the Bal Bullier is in full swing. The tables are piled high with saucers, and the garçons are bringing more. The room is warm and suffocating, the dancing and flirting faster than ever. Now and then a line is formed to "crack the whip," and woe betide anything that comes in its way!

Our genial, generous new friend from Cincinnati was living the most glorious hour of his life. He had not been satisfied until he found and captured the saucy little wretch who had sent his hat spinning across the room; so now she was anchored to him, and he was giving exhibitions of American grace and agility that would have amazed his friends at home. For obviously he was a person of consequence there. When he saw us his face beamed with triumph, and he proudly introduced us to his mignonette-scented conquest, Mad-dem-mo-zel Madeleine (which he pronounced Madelyne), "the queen of the Latin Quarter. But blamed if I can talk the blooming lingo!" he exclaimed, ruefully. "You translate for me, won't you?" he appealed to Bishop, and Bishop complied. In paying compliments thus transmitted to Madeleine he displayed an adeptness that likely would have astounded his good spouse, who at that moment was slumbering in a respectable part of Paris.

But the big black Martinique negroes,—they haunted and dominated everything, and the demimonde fell down and worshipped them. They are students of law and medicine, and are sent hither from the French colonies by the government, or come on their private means.

They are all heavy swells, as only negroes can be; their well-fitted clothes are of the finest and most showy material; they wear shining silk hats, white waistcoats, white "spats," patent leathers, and very light kid gloves, not to mention a load of massive jewelry. The girls flutter about them in bevies, like doves to be fed.

At exactly a quarter-past midnight the band played the last piece, the lights began to go out, and the Bal Bullier was closed.

Out into the boulevard surged the heated crowd, shouting, singing, and cutting capers as they headed for the Boul' Mich', there to continue the revelries of which the Bal Bullier was only the beginning. "A la Taverne du Panthéon!" "Au Café Lorrain!" "Au Café d'Harcourt!" were the cries that range through the streets, mingled with the singing of half a thousand people.

In this mob we again encountered our American acquaintance with his prize, and as he was bent on seeing all that he could of Paris, he begged us to see him through, explaining that money was no object with him, though delicately adding that our friends must make so many calls upon our hospitality as to prove a burden at times. He had only two days more in Paris, and the hours were precious, and "we will do things up in style," he declared buoyantly. He did.

Bishop's arm was securely held by a little lassie all in soft creamy silks. She spoke Engleesh, and demurely asked Bishop if "we will go to ze café ensemble, n'est-ce-pas?" and Bishop had not the heart to eject her from the party. And so five of us went skipping along with the rest, Mr. Pugson swearing by all the gods that Paris was the top of the earth!

When we reached the lower end of the Jardin du Luxembourg, at the old Palais, the bright glow of the cafés, with their warm stained windows and lighthearted throngs, stretched away before us. Ah, le Boul' Mich' never sleeps! There are still the laughing grisettes, the singing and dancing students, the kiosks all aglow; the marchand de marrons is roasting his chestnuts over a charcoal brazier, sending out a savory aroma; the swarthy Turk is offering his wares with a princely grace; the flower-girls flit about with freshly cut carnations, violets, and Maréchal Niel roses,—"This joli bouquet for your sweetheart," they plead so plaintively; the pipe man plies his trade; the cane man mobs us, and the sellers of the last editions of the papers cry their wares.

An old pedler works in and out among the café tables with a little basket of olives, deux pour un sou. The crawfish seller, with his little red écrevisses neatly arranged on a platter; Italian boys in white blouses bearing baskets filled with plaster casts of works of the old masters gewgaw pedlers,—they are still all busily at work, each adding his mite to the din.

The cafés are packed, both inside and out, but the favorite seats are those on the sidewalk under the awnings.

We halted at the Café d'Harcourt. Here the crowd was thickest, the sidewalk a solid mass of humanity; and the noise and the waiters as they yelled their orders, they were there. And des femmes—how many! The Café d'Harcourt is the head-quarters of these wonderful creations of clothes, paint, wicked eyes, and graceful carriage. We worked our way into the interior. Here the crowd was almost as dense as without, but a chance offered us a vacant table; no sooner had we captured it than we were compelled to retreat, because of a battle that two excited demoiselles were having at an adjoining table. In another part of the room there was singing of "Les sergents sont des brave gens," and in the middle of the floor a petite cocotte, her hat rakishly pulled down over her eyes, was doing a dance very gracefully, her white legs gleaming above the short socks that she wore, and a shockingly high kick punctuating the performance at intervals.

At other tables were seated students with their friends and mistresses, playing dominoes or recounting their petites histoires. One table drew much attention by reason of a contest in drinking between two seasoned habitués, one a Martinique negro and the other a delicate blond poet. The negro won, but that was only because his purse was the longer.

Every consommation is served with a saucer, upon which is marked the price of the drink, and the score is thus footed à la fin de ces joies. There are some heavy accounts to be settled with the garçons.

"Ah! voilà Beeshop!" "Tiens! mon vieux!" "Comment vas-tu?" clamored a half-dozen of Bishop's feminine acquaintances, as they surrounded our table, overwhelming us with their conflicting perfumes.

These denizens of the Boul' have an easy way of making acquaintances, but they are so bright and mischievous withal that no offence can be taken; and they may have a stack of saucers to be paid for. Among the many café frequenters of this class fully half know a few words of English, Italian, German, and even Russian, and are so quick of perception that they can identify a foreigner at a glance. Consequently our table was instantly a target, principally on account of Mr. Pugson, whose nationality emanated from his every pore.

"Ah, milord, how do you do? I spik Engleesh a few. Es eet not verra a beautiful night?" is what he got. "You are si charmant, monsieur!" protested another, stroking Bishop's Valasquez beard; and then, archly and coaxingly, "Qu'est-ce que vous m'offrez, monsieur? Payez-moi un bock? Yes?" Mr. Pugson made the garçons start. He ordered "everything and the best in the house" (in English); but it was the lordliness of his manner that told, as he leaned back in his chair and smoked his Londrès and eyed Madeleine with intense satisfaction. In the eyes of the beholders that action gave him the unmistakable stamp of an American millionaire. "Tell you, boys," he puffed, "I'm not going to forget Paree in a hurry." And Mademoiselle Madeleine, how she revelled! Mr. Pugson bought her everything that the venders had to sell, besides, for himself, a wretched plaster cast of a dancing-girl that he declared was "dead swell."

"I'll take it home and startle the natives," he added; but he didn't, as we shall see later. Then he bought three big canes as souvenirs for friends, besides a bicycle lamp, a mammoth pipe, and other things. A hungry-looking sketch artist who presented himself was engaged on the spot to execute Mr. Pugson's portrait, which he made so flattering as to receive five francs instead of one, his price.

At a neighboring table occupied by a group of students was Bi-Bi-dans- la-Purée, one of the most famous characters of the Quartier and Montmartre. With hilarious laughter the students were having fun with Bi-Bi by pouring the contents of their soup-plates and drinking-glasses down his back and upon his sparsely covered head; but what made them laugh more was Bi-Bi's wonderful skill in pulling grotesque faces. In that line he was an artist. His cavernous eyes and large, loose mouth did marvellous things, from the ridiculous to the terrible; and he could literally laugh from ear to ear. Poor Bi-Bi-dans-la-Purée!

He had been a constant companion of the great Verlaine, but was that no more, since Verlaine had died and left him utterly alone. You may see him any day wandering aimlessly about the Quartier, wholly oblivious to the world about him, and dreaming doubtless of the great dead poet of the slums, who had loved him.

Here comes old Madame Carrot, a weazened little hunchback, anywhere between sixty and a hundred years of age. She is nearly blind, and her tattered clothes hang in strips from her wreck of a form. A few thin strands of gray hair are all that cover her head.

"Bon soir, Mère Carrot! ma petite mignonne, viens donc qu'on t'embrasse! Où sont tes ailes?" and other mocking jests greet her as she creeps among the tables. But Mère Carrot scorns to beg: she would earn her money. Look! With a shadowy remnant of grace she picks up the hem of her ragged skirt, and with a heart-breaking smile that discloses her toothless gums, she skips about in a dance that sends her audience into shrieks of laughter, and no end of sous are flung at her feet. She will sing, too, and caricature herself, and make pitiful attempts at high kicking and anything else that she is called upon to do for the sous that the students throw so recklessly. There are those who say that she is rich.

In the rear end of the café the demoiselle who had anchored herself to the Martinique negro at the Bal Bullier was on a table kicking the negro's hat, which he held at arm's length while he stood on a chair. "Plus haut! plus haut encore!" she cried; but each time, as he kept raising it, she tipped it with her dainty slipper; and then, with a magnificent bound, she dislodged with her toe one of the chandelier globes, which went crashing with a great noise to the floor; and then she plunged down and sought refuge in her adorer's arms.

The night's excitement has reached its height now. There is a dizzy whirl of skirts, feathers, "plug" hats, and silken stockings; and there is dancing on the tables, with a smashing of glass, while lumps of sugar soaked in cognac are thrown about. A single-file march round the room is started, each dragging a chair and all singing, "Oh, la pauvre fille, elle est malade!" Mr. Pugson, tightly clutching his canes and his Dancing-Girl, joins the procession, his shiny hat reposing on the pretty head of Mademoiselle Madeleine. But his heart almost breaks with regret because he cannot speak French.

I began to remonstrate with Bishop for his own unseemly levity, but the gloved hand of Mademoiselle Madeleine was laid on my lips, and her own red lips protested, "Taisez-vous donc! c'est absolument inexcusable de nous faire des sermons en ce moment! En avant!" And we went.

It was two o'clock, and the cafés were closing, under the municipal regulation to do so at that hour, and the Boul' was swarming with revellers turned out of doors.

At the corner of the Rue Racine stands a small boulangerie, where some of the revellers were beating on the iron shutters and crying, "Voilà du bon fromage au lait!" impatient at the tardiness of the fat baker in opening his shop; for the odor of hot rolls and croissants came up through the iron gratings of the kitchen, and the big cans of fresh milk at the door gave further comforting assurances.

Lumbering slowly down the Boul' were ponderous carts piled high with vegetables, on their way to the great markets of Paris, the Halles Centrales. The drivers, half asleep on the top, were greeted with demands for transportation, and a lively bidding for passengers arose among them. They charged five sous a head, or as much more as they could get, and soon the carts were carrying as many passengers as could find a safe perch on the heaped vegetables.

"Aux Halles! aux Halles! nous allons aux Halles! Oh, la, la, comme ils sont bons, les choux et les potirons!" were the cries as the carts lumbered on toward the markets.

Mr. Pugson had positively refused to accept our resignation, and stoutly reminded us of our promise to see him through. So our party arranged with a masculine woman in a man's coat on payment of a franc a head, and we clambered upon her neatly piled load of carrots. Mr. Pugson, becoming impatient at the slow progress of the big Normandy horses, began to pelt them with carrots. The market-woman protested vigorously at this waste of her property, and told Mr. Pugson that she would charge him two sous apiece for each subsequent carrot. He seized upon the bargain with true American readiness, and then flung carrots to his heart's content, the driver meanwhile keeping count in a loud and menacing voice. It was a new source of fun for the irrepressible and endlessly jovial American.

Along the now quiet boulevard the carts trundled in a string. All at once there burst from them all an eruption of song and laughter, which brought out numerous gendarmes from the shadows. But when they saw the crowd they said nothing but "Les étudiants," and retreated to the shadows.

As we were crossing the Pont-au-Change, opposite the Place du Châtelet, with its graceful column touched by the shimmering lights of the Seine, and dominated by the towers of Notre-Dame, Mr. Pugson, in trying to hurl two carrots at once, incautiously released his hold upon the Dancing- Girl, which incontinently rolled off the vegetables and was shattered into a thousand fragments on the pavement of the bridge—along with Mr. Pugson's heart. After a moment of silent misery he started to throw the whole load of carrots into the river, but he quickly regained command of himself. For the first time, however, his wonderful spirits were dampened, and he was as moody and cross as a child, refusing to be comforted even by Madeleine's cooing voice.

The number of carts that we now encountered converging from many quarters warned us that we were very near the markets. Then rose the subdued noise that night-workers make. There seemed to be no end of the laden carts. The great Halles then came into view, with their cold glare of electric lights, and thousands of people moving about with baskets upon their backs, unloading the vegetable carts and piling the contents along the streets. The thoroughfares were literally walled and fortressed with carrots, cabbages, pumpkins, and the like, piled in neat rows as high as our heads for square after square. Is it possible for Paris to consume all of this in a day?

Every few yards were fat women seated before steaming cans of hot potage and café noir, with rows of generous white bowls, which they would fill for a sou.

Not alone were the market workers here, for it seemed as though the Boul' Mich' had merely taken an adjournment after the law had closed its portals and turned it out of doors. The workers were silent and busy, but largely interspersed among them were the demi-mondaines and the singing and dancing students of the Quartier, all as full of life and deviltry as ever. It was with these tireless revellers that the soup- and coffee-women did their most thriving business, for fun brings a good appetite, and the soup and coffee were good; but better still was this unconventional, lawless, defiant way of taking them. Mr. Pugson's spirits regained their vivacity under the spell, and he was so enthusiastic that he wanted to buy out one of the pleasant-faced fat women; we had to drag him bodily away to avert the catastrophe.

In the side streets leading away from the markets are cafés and restaurants almost without number, and they are open toute la nuit, to accommodate the market people, having a special permit to do so; but as they are open to all, the revellers from all parts of Paris assemble there after they have been turned out of the boulevard cafés at two o'clock. It is not an uncommon thing early of a Sunday morning to see crowds of merry-makers from a bal masqué finishing the night here, all in costume, dancing and playing ring-around-a-rosy among the stacks of vegetables and the unheeding market people. Indeed, it is quite a common thing to end one's night's frivolity at the Halles and their cafés, and take the first 'buses home in the early morning.

The contingent from the Boul' Mich', after assisting the market people to unload, and indulging in all sorts of pranks, invaded the élite cafés, among them the Café Barrette, Au Veau Qui Tête, Au Chien Qui Fume, and Le Caveau du Cercle.

At this last-named place, singing and recitations with music were in order, a small platform at one end of the room being reserved for the piano and the performers. Part of the audience were in masquerade costume, having come from a ball at Montmartre, and they lustily joined the choruses. Prices are gilt-edged here,—a franc a drink, and not less than ten sous to the garçon.

The contrast between the fluffy and silk-gowned demi-mondaines and the dirty, roughly clad market people was very striking at the Café Barrette. There the women sit in graceful poses, or saunter about and give evidence of their style, silk gowns, India laces, and handsome furs, greeting each new-comer with pleas for a sandwich or a bock; they are always hungry and thirsty, but they get a commission on all sales that they promote. A small string orchestra gave lively music, and took up collections between performances. The array of gilt-framed mirrors heightened the brilliancy of the place, already sufficiently aglow with many electric lights. The Café Barrette is the last stand of the gaudy women of the boulevards. With the first gray gleam of dawn they pass with the night to which they belong.

It was with sincere feeling that Mr. Pugson bade us good-by at five o'clock that morning as he jumped into a cab to join his good spouse at the Hôtel Continental; but he bore triumphantly with him some sketches of the showy women at the Café Barrette, which Bishop had made.

As for Madeleine, so tremendously liberal had she found Mr. Pugson that her protestations of affection for him were voluble and earnest. She pressed her card upon him and made him swear that he would find her again. After we had bidden her good-night, Mr. Pugson drew the card from his pocket, and thoughtfully remarked, as he tore it to pieces,—"I don't think it is prudent to carry such things in your pocket."

BOHEMIAN CAFÉS

VERY often, instead of having dinner at the studio, we saunter over to the Maison Dar-blay, passing the wall of the dismal Cimetière du Montparnasse on the way. The Maison Darblay is in the little Rue de la Gaieté, which, though only a block in length, is undoubtedly the liveliest thoroughfare in the Quartier. That is because it serves as a funnel between the Avenue du Maine and five streets that converge into it at the upper end. Particularly in the early evening the little street is crowded with people returning from their work. All sorts of boutiques are packed into this minute thoroughfare,—-jewelry-shops, pork-shops, kitchens (where they cook what you bring while you wait on the sidewalk), theatres, cafés chantants, fried-potato stalls, snail merchants, moving vegetable- and fruit-markets, and everything else.

In the middle of the block, on the western side, between a millinery- shop and a butcher-shop, stands the Maison Darblay, famous for its beans and its patrons. A modest white front, curtained windows, and a row of milk-cans give little hint of the charms of the interior. Upon entering we encounter the vast M. Darblay seated behind a tiny counter, upon which are heaped a pile of freshly ironed napkins, parcels of chocolate, a big dish of apple-sauce, rows of bottles containing bitters that work miracles with ailing appetites, and the tip-box. Reflecting M. Darblay's beamy back and the clock on the opposite wall (which is always fifteen minutes fast) hangs a long mirror resplendent in heavy gilt frame; it is the pride of the establishment, and affords comfort to the actresses when they adjust their hats and veils upon leaving.

M. Darblay is manager of the establishment, and when it is reflected that he weighs two hundred and sixty pounds, it may be imagined what accurate adjustments he has to make in fitting himself behind the small counter. When a boarder finishes his meal he goes to M. Darblay and tells him what he has had, including napkin and bread, and M. Darblay scores it all down on a slate with chalk and foots it up. After the bill is paid, the tip-box is supposed by a current fiction to receive two sous for Marie and Augustine, the buxom Breton maidens who serve the tables; but so rarely does the fiction materialize that, when the rattle of coins is heard in the box, the boarders all look up wonderingly to see the possible millionaire that has appeared among them, and Marie and Augustine shout at the top of their voices, "Merci bien, monsieur!"

At the opposite end of the room, in full view, is the cuisine, with its big range and ruddy fires. Here Madame Darblay reigns queen, her genial, motherly red face and bright eyes beaming a welcome to all. She is from Lausanne, on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, and the independent blood of her race rarely fails its offices when M. Darblay incautiously seeks to interfere with her duties and prerogatives, for he retreats under an appalling volley of French from his otherwise genial spouse; on such occasions he seeks his own corner as rapidly as he can manage his bulk to that purpose. She is a famous cook. The memory of her poulets rôtis and juicy gigots will last forever. But greatest of all are her haricots blancs, cooked au beurre; it is at the shrine of her beans that her devoted followers worship.

And her wonderful wisdom! She knows intuitively if you are out of sorts or have an uncertain appetite, and without a hint she will prepare a delicacy that no epicure could resist. She knows every little whim and peculiarity of her boarders, and caters to them accordingly. The steaks and chops are bought at the shop next door just when they are ordered, and are always fresh.

There are eight marble-top tables lining the two walls, and each table is held sacred to its proper occupants, and likewise are the numbered hooks and napkins. An invasion of these preserves is a breech of etiquette intolerable in Bohemia.

Even the white cat is an essential part of the establishment, for it purringly welcomes the patrons and chases out stray dogs.

Situated as it is, in a group of three theatres and several cafés chantants, it is the rendezvous of the actors and actresses of the neighborhood. They hold the three tables but one from the kitchen, on one side, and they are a jolly crowd, the actresses particularly.

They are a part of the Quartier and echo its spirit. Although full of mischief and fun, the actresses would never be suspected of singing the naughty songs that so delight the gallery gods and so often wring a murmur of protest from the pit. There are ten who dine here, but from their incessant chatter and laughter you would think them twenty. On Friday evenings, when the songs and plays are changed, they rehearse their pieces at dinner.

Bishop is openly fond of Mademoiselle Brunerye, a sparkling little brunette singer, who scolds him tragically for drawing horrible caricatures of her when he sits before the footlights to hear her sing. But it is always she that begins the trouble at the theatre. If Bishop is there, she is sure to see him and to interpolate something in her song about "mon amant Américain," and sing it pointedly at him, to the amusement of the audience and his great discomfiture; and so he retorts with the caricatures.

Upon entering the restaurant the actresses remove their hats and wraps and make themselves perfectly at home. They are the life of Darblay's; we couldn't possibly spare them.

One of the actors is a great swell,—M. Fontaine, leading man at the Théâtre du Montparnasse, opposite.

His salary is a hundred francs a week; this makes the smaller actors look up to him, and enables him to wear a very long coat, besides gloves, patent-leather shoes, and a shiny top-hat. He occupies the place of honor, and Marie smiles when she serves him, and gives him a good measure of wine. He rewards this attention by depositing two sous in the tip-box every Friday night. Then there are M. Marius, M. Zecca, and M. Dufauj who make people scream with laughter at the Gaieté, and M. Coppée, the heavy villain of the terrible eyes in "Les Deux Gosses," and Mademoiselle Walzy, whose dark eyes sparkle mischief as she peeps over her glass, and Mademoiselle Minion, who kicks shockingly high to accentuate her songs, and eight other actresses just as saucy and pretty.

The students of the Quartier practically take charge of the theatres on Saturday nights, and as they are very free with their expressions of approval or disapproval, the faces of the stage-people wear an anxious look at the restaurant on that evening. The students will throw the whole theatre into an uproar with hisses that drive an actor off the stage, or applause, recalls, and the throwing of two-sous bouquets and kisses to an actress who has made a hit.

Promptly at six-forty-five every night the venerable M. Corneau enters Darblay's, bringing a copy of Le Journal. He is extremely methodical, so that any interruption of his established routine upsets him badly. One evening he found a stranger in his seat, occupying the identical chair that had been sacred to his use every evening for six years. M. Corneau was so astonished that he hung his hat on the wrong hook, stepped on the cat's tail, sulked in a corner, and refused to eat until his seat had been vacated, and then he looked as though he wished it could be fumigated. He has a very simple meal. One evening he invited me—a rare distinction—to his room, which was in the top floor of one of those quaint old buildings in the Rue du Moulin de Beurre. It could then be seen what a devoted scientist and student he was. His room was packed with books, chemicals, mineral specimens, and scientific instruments. He was very genial, and brewed excellent tea over an alcohol-stove of his own manufacture. Twenty years ago he was a professor at the Ecole des Mines, where he had served many years; but he had now grown too old for that, and was living his quiet, studious, laborious life on a meagre pension.

At one table sit a sculptor, an artist, and a blind musician and his wife. The sculptor is slender, delicate, and nervous, and is continually rolling and smoking cigarettes. His blond hair falls in ringlets over his collar, and he looks more the poet than the sculptor, for he is dreamy and distrait, and seems to be looking within himself rather than upon the world about him. Augustine serves him with an absinthe Pernod au sucre, which he slowly sips while he smokes several cigarettes before he is ready for his dinner.

The artist is his opposite,—a big, bluff, hearty fellow, loud of voice and full of life. And he is successful, for he has received a medal and several honorable mentions at the Salon des Champs-Élysées, and has a fine twilight effect in the Luxembourg Gallery. After dinner he and M. Darblay play piquet for the coffee, and M. Darblay is generally loser.

The blind musician is a kindly old man with a benevolent face and a jovial spirit. He is the head professor of music at the Institution des Aveugles, on the Boulevard des Invalides. His wife is very attentive to him, taking his hat and cane, tucking his napkin under his chin, placing the dishes where he knows how to find them, and reading the papers to him. He knows where everybody sits, and he addresses each by name, and passes many brisk sallies about the room.

One poet is vivacious, not at all like the dreamy species to which he belongs. True, he wears long hair and a Quartier Latin "plug," but his eyes are not vague, and he is immensely fond of Madame Darblay's beans, of which he has been known to stow away five platefuls at a meal. Often he brings in a copy of Gil Bias, containing a poem by himself in the middle of the page and with illustrations by Steinlen.

A strange, solitary figure used to sit in one corner, speaking to no one, and never ordering more than a bowl of chocolate and two sous of bread. It was known merely that he was an Hungarian and an artist, and from his patched and frayed clothes and meagre fare it was surmised that he was poor. But he had a wonderful face. Want was plainly stamped upon it, but behind it shone a determination and a hope that nothing could repress. There was not a soul among the boarders but that would have been glad to assist in easing whatever burden sat upon him, and no doubt it was his suspicion of that fact and his dread of its manifestation that made him hold absolutely aloof. Madame Darblay once or twice made efforts to get nearer to him, but he gently and firmly repulsed her. He was a pitiable figure, but his pride was invincible, and with eyes looking straight forward, he held up his head and walked like a king. He came and went as a shadow.

None knew where he had a room. There were many stories and conjectures about him, but he wrapped his mantle of mystery and solitude about him and was wholly inaccessible. It was clear to see that he lived in another world,—a world of hopes, filled with bright images of peace and renown. After a time his seat became vacant, and I shall presently tell how it happened.

These will suffice as types of the Maison Darblay, though I might mention old M. Decamp, eighty-four years of age, and as hearty and jovial a man as one would care to see. In his younger days he had been an actor, having had a fame during the Empire of Napoléon III. And there were a professor of languages, who gave lessons at fifteen sous an hour, a journalist of the Figaro, and two pretty milliner girls from the shop next door.

The great event at the Maison Darblay came not long ago, when M. Darblay's two charming daughters had a double wedding, each with a comfortable dot, for M. Darblay had grown quite rich out of his restaurant, owning several new houses. The girls were married twice,—once at the Mairie on the Rue Gassendi, and again at the Eglise St. Pierre, on the Avenue du Maine. Then came the great wedding-dinner at the Maison Darblay, to which all the boarders were invited. The tables were all connected, so as to make two long rows. The bridal-party were seated at the end next the kitchen, and the front door was locked to exclude strangers. M. Darblay was elegant in a new dress suit and white shirt, but his tailor, in trying to give him a trim figure, made the situation embarrassing, as M. Darblay's girth steadily increased during the progress of the banquet. He made a very fine speech, which was uproariously cheered.

Madame Darblay was remarkably handsome in a red satin gown, and bore so distinguished an air, and looked so transformed from her usual kitchen appearance, that we could only marvel and admire. Then came the kissing of the brides, a duty that was performed most heartily. Madame Darblay was very happy and proud, and her dinner was a triumph to have lived for.

Bishop sat opposite the wicked Mademoiselle Brunerye, and he and she made violent love, and behaved with conspicuous lack of dignity. M. Fontaine, the great, had one of the chic milliners for partner. Old M. Decamp told some racy stories of the old régime. When the coffee and liqueurs came on, the big artist brought out a guitar and the poet a mandolin, and we had music. Then the poet read a poem that he had written for the occasion. The actresses sang their sprightliest songs. Mademoiselle Brunerye sang "Ça fait toujours plaisir" to Bishop. M. Fontaine gave in a dramatic manner a scene from "Les Deux Gosses," the heavy villain assisting, the cook's aprons and towels serving to make the costumes. Bishop sang "Down on the Farm." In short, it was a splendid evening in Bohemia, of a kind that Bohemians enjoy and know how to make the most of.

There was one silent guest, the strange young Hungarian artist. He ate with a ravenous appetite, openly and unashamed. After he had had his fill (and Madame Darblay saw to it that he found his plate always replenished), he smiled occasionally at the bright sallies of the other guests, but for the most part he sat constrained, and would speak only when addressed,—he protested that his French was too imperfect. It was so evident that he wished to escape notice entirely that no serious effort was made to draw him out.

That was a hard winter. A few weeks after the wedding the Hungarian's visits to the Maison Dar-blay suddenly ceased. The haunted look had been deepening in his eyes, his gaunt cheeks had grown thinner, and he looked like a hunted man. After his disappearance the gendarmes came to the restaurant to make inquiries about him. Bishop and I were present. They wanted to know if the young man had any friends there. We told them that we would be his friends.

We followed them to the Rue Perceval, where they turned us over to the concierge of an old building. She was very glad we had come, as the lad seemed not to have had a friend in the world. She led us up to the sixth floor, and then pointed to a ladder leading up to the roof. We ascended it, and found a box built on the roof. It gave a splendid view of Paris. The door of the box was closed. We opened it, and the young artist lay before us dead. There were two articles of furniture in the room. One was the bare mattress on the floor, upon which he lay, and the other was an old dresser, from which some of the drawers were missing. The young man lay drawn up, fully dressed, his coat-collar turned up about his ears. Thus he had fallen asleep, and thus hunger and cold had slain him as he slept. There was one thing else in the room, all besides, including the stove and the bed-covering, having gone for the purchase of painting material. It was an unfinished oil-painting of the Crucifixion. Had he lived to finish it, I am sure it would have made him famous, if for nothing else than the wonderful expression of agony in the Saviour's face, an agony infinitely worse than the physical pain of the crucifixion could have produced.

There was still one thing more,—a white rat that was, hunting industriously for food, nibbling desiccated cheese-rinds that it found on the shelves against the wall. It had been the artist's one friend and companion in life.

On the Rue Marie, not far from the Gare Montparnasse, is the "Club," a small and artistically dirty wine-shop and restaurant, patronized by a select crowd of musketeers of the brush. The warm, dark tones of the anciently papered walls are hidden beneath a cloud of oil sketches, charcoal drawings, and caricatures of everything and everybody that the fancies of the Bohemians could devise. Madame Annaie is mistress of the establishment, and her cook, M. Annaie, wears his cap rakishly on one side, and attends to his business; and he makes very good potages and rôtis, considering the small prices that are charged. Yet even the prices, though the main attraction, are paid with difficulty by a majority of the habitués, who sometimes fall months in arrears. Madame Annaie keeps a big book of accounts.

Of the members of the club, four are Americans, two Spaniards, one an Italian, one a Welshman, one a Pole, one a Turk, one a Swiss, and the rest French,—just fifteen in all, and all sculptors and painters except one of the Americans, who is correspondent of a New York paper. At seven o'clock every evening the roll is called by the Pole, who acts as president, secretary, and treasurer of the club. A fine of two sous is imposed for every absence; this goes to the "smoker" fund. Joanskouie, the multiple officer, has not many burdensome duties, but even these few are a severe tax upon his highly nervous temperament. Besides collecting the fines he must gather up also the dues, which are a franc a month. All the members are black-listed, including the president himself, and the names of the delinquents are posted on the wall.

The marble-top tables are black with pencil sketches done at the expense of Giles, the Welshman, who is the butt of the club. He is a very tall and amazingly lean Welshman, with a bewhiskered face, a hooked nose, and a frightful accent when he speaks either English or French. He is an animal sculptor, but leaves his art carefully alone. He is very clever at drawing horses, dogs, and funny cows all over the walls; but he is so droll and stupid, so incredibly stupid, that "Giles" is the byword of the club. Every month he receives a remittance of two hundred and fifty francs, and immediately starts out to get the full worth of it in the kinds of enjoyment that he finds on the Boul' Mich', where regularly once a month he is a great favorite with the feminine habitués of the cafés. When his funds run low, he lies perdu till mid-day; then he appears at Madame Annaie's, heavy-eyed and stupid, staying until midnight. Sometimes he varies this routine by visiting his friends at their studios, where he is made to pose in ridiculous attitudes.

The "smoker" is held on the last Saturday night of each month, and all the members are present. Long clay pipes are provided, and a big bowl of steaming punch, highly seasoned, comes from Madame Annaie's kitchen. Mutually laudatory speeches and toasts, playing musical instruments, and singing songs are in order. The Spaniard, with castanets, skilfully executes the fandango on a table. Bishop does the danse du ventre. Joncierge gives marvellous imitations of Sarah Bernhardt and other celebrities, including Giles, whose drawl and stupidity he makes irresistibly funny. Nor do Gérôme, Bouguereau, and Benjamin Constant escape his mimicry. Haidor, the Turk, drawls a Turkish song all out of tune, and is rapturously encored. The Swiss and the Italian render a terrific duo from "Aida," and the Spaniards sing the "Bullfighters' Song" superbly. Sketches are dashed off continually. They are so clever that it is a pity Madame Annaie has to wipe them from the tables.

On Thanksgiving-day the Americans gave the club a Thanksgiving dinner. It was a great mystery and novelty to the other members, but they enjoyed it hugely. The turkeys were found without much trouble, but the whole city had to be searched for cranberries. At last they were found in a small grocery-shop in the American quarter, on the Avenue Wagram. Bishop superintended the cooking, M. Annaie serving as first assistant. How M. Annaie stared when he beheld the queer American mixtures that Bishop was concocting! "Mon Dieu! Not sugar with meat!" he cried, aghast, seeing Bishop serve the turkey with cranberry sauce. A dozen delicious pumpkin-pies that formed part of the menu staggered the old cook. The Italian cooked a pot of macaroni with mushroom sauce, and it was superb.

"The Hole in the Wall" eminently deserves its name. It is on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, within two blocks of the Bal Bullier. A small iron sign projecting over the door depicts two students looking down at the passers-by over bowls of coffee, rolls also being shown. It was painted by an Austrian student in payment of a month's board.

The Hole is a tiny place, just sufficiently large for its two tables and eight stools, fat Madame Morel, the proprietress, and a miniature zinc bar filled with absinthe and cognac bottles and drinking glasses.

The ceiling is so low that you must bend should you be very tall, for overhead is the sleeping-room of Madame Morel and her niece; it is reached by a small spiral stair.

A narrow slit in the floor against the wall, where the napkin-box hangs, leads down to the dark little kitchen. It is a tight squeeze for Madame Morel to serve her customers, but she has infinite patience and geniality, and discharges her numerous duties and bears her hardships with unfailing good-nature. It is no easy task to cook a halfdozen orders at once, wait on the tables, run out to the butcher-shop for a chop or a steak, and take in the cash. But she does all this, and much more, having no assistant. The old concierge next door, Madame Mariolde, runs in to help her occasionally, when she can spare a moment from her own multifarious duties. Madame Morel's toil-worn hands are not bien propre, but she has a kind heart. For seven years she has lived in this little Hole, and during that time has never been farther away than to the grocery-shop on the opposite corner.

Her niece leaves at seven o'clock in the morning to sew all day on the other side of town, returning at eight at night, tired and listless, but always with a half-sad smile. So we see little of her. Many nights I have seen her come in drenched and cold, her faded straw hat limp and askew, and her dark hair clinging to her wet face. For she has walked in the rain all the way from the Avenue de l'Opéra, unable to afford omnibus fare. She usually earns from two to two and half francs a day, sewing twelve hours.

The most interesting of the frequenters of the Hole is a Slav from Trieste, on the Adriatic. He is a genius in his way, and full of energy and business sense. His vocation is that of a "lightning-sketch artist," performing at the theatres. He has travelled all over America and Europe, and is thoroughly hardened to the ways of the world. Whenever he runs out of money he goes up to the Rue de la Gaieté and gives exhibitions for a week or two at one of the theatres there, receiving from fifty to sixty francs a week. The students all go to see him, and make such a noise and throw so many bouquets (which he returns for the next night) that the theatrical managers, thinking he is a great drawing-card, generally raise his salary as an inducement to make him prolong his stay when he threatens to leave.

But he is too thoroughly a Bohemian to remain long in a place. Last week he suddenly was taken with a desire to visit Vienna. Soon after he had gone four pretty Parisiennes called and wanted to know what had become of their amant.

D———, another of the habitués of the Hole, is a German musical student. Strangers would likely think him mentally deranged, so odd is his conduct.

He has two other peculiarities,—extreme sensitiveness and indefatigable industry. He brings his shabby violin-case every evening, takes out his violin after dinner, and at once becomes wholly absorbed in his practice. If he would play something more sprightly and pleasing the other habitués of the Hole would not object; but he insists on practising the dreariest, heaviest, and most wearing exercises, the most difficult études, and the finest compositions of the masters. All this is more than the others can bear with patience always; so they wound his sensibilities by throwing bread and napkin-rings at him. I hen he retires to the kitchen, where, sitting on the cooler end of the range, he practises diligently under Madame Morel's benevolent protection. This is all because he has never found a concierge willing to permit him to study in his room, so tireless is his industry. If I do not mistake, this strange young man will be heard from some day.

Then there is W———, a student in sculpture, with exceptionally fine talent. He had been an American cowboy, and no trooper could swear more eloquently. He has been making headway, for the Salon has given him honorable mention for a strong bronze group of fighting tigers. His social specialty is poker-playing, and he has brought the entire Hole under the spell of that magic game.

Herr Prell, from Munich, takes delight in torturing the other habitués with accounts of dissections, as he is a medical student at the Académie de Médecine. The Swede, who drinks fourteen absinthes a day, throws stools at Herr Prell, and tries in other ways to make him fight; but Herr Prell only laughs, and gives another turn of the dissection-screw.

The glee club is one of the features of the Hole. It sings every night, but its supreme effort comes when one of the patrons of the Hole departs for home. On such occasions the departing comrade has to stand the dinner for all, after which, with its speeches and toasts, he is escorted to the railway station with great éclat, and given a hearty farewell, the glee club singing the parting song at the station. Bishop is leading tenor of the glee club.

LE CABARET DU SOLEIL D'OR

IT is only the name of the Cabaret of the Golden Sun that suggests the glorious luminary of day. And yet it is really brilliant in its own queer way, though that brilliancy shines when all else in Paris is dark and dead,—at night, and in the latest hours of the night at that.

My acquaintance with the Golden Sun began one foggy night in a cold November, under the guidance of Bishop.

Lured by the fascinations of nocturnal life in the Quartier Latin, and by its opportunities for the study of life in its strangest phases, Bishop had become an habitual nighthawk, leaving the studio nearly every evening about ten o'clock, after he had read a few hours from treasured books gleaned from the stalls along the river, to prowl about with a sketchbook, in quest of queer characters and queer places, where strange lives were lived in the dark half of the day. His knowledge of obscure retreats and their peculiar habitués seemed unlimited. And what an infinite study they offer! The tourist, "doing" Bohemian Paris as he would the famous art galleries, or Notre-Dame, or the Madeleine, or the cafés on the boulevards, may, under the guidance of a wise and discerning student, visit one after another of these out-of-the-way resorts where the endless tragedy of human life is working out its mysteries; he may see that one place is dirtier or noisier than another, that the men and women are better dressed and livelier here than there, that the crowd is bigger, or the lights brighter; but he cannot see, except in their meaningless outer aspects, those subtle differences which constitute the heart of the matter. In distance it is not far from the Moulin Rouge to the Cabaret du Soleil d'Or, but in descending from the dazzling brilliancy and frothy abandon of the Red Mill to the smoke and grime of the Golden Sun, we drop from the summit of the Tour Eiffel to the rat-holes under the bridges of the Seine; and yet it is in such as the Cabaret of the Golden Sun that the true student finds the deeper, the more lastingly charming, the strangely saddening spell that lends to the wonderful Quartier Latin its distinctive character and everlasting fascination.

Though Bishop spoke to me very little of his midnight adventures, I being very busy with my own work, I began to have grave apprehensions on the score of his tastes in that direction; for during the afternoons ridiculous-looking, long-haired, but gentlemannered persons in shabby attire, well-seasoned with the aroma of absinthe and cigarettes, would favor our studio with a call, undoubtedly at Bishop's invitation. They brought with them black portfolios or rolls of paper tied with black string, containing verses,—their masterpieces, which were to startle Paris, or new songs, which, God favoring, were to be sung at La Scala or the Ambassadeurs, and thus bring them immortal fame and put abundant fat upon their lean ribs! Ah, the deathless hope that makes hunger a welcome companion here!

Bishop would cleverly entertain these aspiring geniuses with shop talk concerning literature and music, and he had a charming way of dwelling upon the finish and subtlety of their work and comparing it with that of the masters. It usually ended with their posing for him in different attitudes of his suggesting. Why waste money on professional models? As Bishop's acquaintances became more numerous among this class, we finally set aside Tuesday afternoons for their reception. Then they would come in generous numbers and enjoy themselves unreservedly with our cognac and biscuits. But ah, the rare pleasures of those afternoons,—as much for the good it did us to see their thin blood warmed with brandy and food as for their delightful entertainment of us and one another.

The studio was warm and cheerful on the night when Bishop invited me to accompany him out. I had been at work, and presently, when I had finished, I flung myself on the divan for a rest and a smoke, and then became aware of Bishop's presence. He was comfortably ensconced in the steamer-chair, propped up with pillows.

"Why, yes. Let's see the time. A little after eleven. That's good. You are finished, aren't you? Now, if you want a little recreation and wish to see one of the queerest places in Paris, come with me."

I looked out the window. A cold, dreary night it was. The chimney-pots were dimmed by the thick mist, and the street lamps shone murkily far below. It was a saddening, soaking, dripping night, still, melancholy, and depressing,—the kind of night that lends a strange zest to in-door enjoyment, as though it were a duty to keep the mist and the dreariness out of the house and the heart.

But the studio had worn me out, and I was eager to escape from its pleasant coziness. And this was a Saturday night, which means something, even in Paris. To-morrow there would be rest. So I cheerfully assented.

We donned our heaviest top-coats and mufflers, crammed the stove full of coal, and then sallied out into the dripping fog.

Oh, but it was cold and dismal in the streets! The mist was no longer the obscuring, suggestive, mysterious factor that it had been when seen from the window, but was now a tangible and formidable thing, with a manifest purpose. It struck through our wraps as though they had been cheesecloth. It had swept the streets clear, for not a soul was to be seen except a couple of sergents de ville, all hooded in capes, and a cab that came rattling through the murk with horses a-steam. Occasionally a flux of warm light from some café would melt a tunnel through the monotonous opaque haze, but the empty chairs and tables upon the sidewalks facing the cafés offered no invitation.

In front of one of these cafés, in a sheltered corner made by a glass screen, sat a solitary young woman, dressed stylishly in black, the light catching one of her dainty slippers perched coquettishly upon a foot-rest. A large black hat, tilted wickedly down over her face, cast her eyes in deep shadow and lent her that air of alluring mystery which the women of her class know so well how to cultivate. Her neck and chin were buried deep in the collar of her sealskin cape. A gleam of limp white gauze at her throat lent a pleasing relief to the monotone of her attire. Upon the table in front of her stood an empty glass and two saucers. As we passed she peered at us from beneath her big hat, and smiled coquettishly, revealing glistening white teeth. The atmosphere of loneliness and desolation that encompassed her gave a singularly pathetic character to her vigil. Thus she sat, a picture for an artist, a text for a moralist, pretty, dainty, abandoned. It happened not to be her fortune that her loneliness should be relieved by us.... But other men might be coming afterwards.... All this at a glance through the cold November fog.

As we proceeded up the Boul' Mich' the cafés grew more numerous and passers-by more frequent, but all these were silent and in a hurry, prodded on by the nipping cold fangs of the night. Among the tables outside the Café d'Harcourt crouched and prowled an old man, bundled in ill-fitting rags, searching for remnants of cigars and cigarettes on the sanded sidewalk. From his glittering eyes, full of suspicion, he turned an angry glance upon us as we paused a moment to observe him, and growled,—"Allons, tu n' peux donc pas laisser un pauv' malheureux?"

At the corner, under the gas-lamps, stood shivering newspaper venders trying to sell their few remaining copies of la dernière édition de la presse. Buyers were scarce.

We had now reached the Place St.-Michel and the left bank of the river. We turned to the right, following the river wall toward Notre-Dame, whose towers were not discernible through the fog.

Here there was an unbounded wilderness of desolation and solitude. The black Seine flowed silently past dark masses that were resolved into big canal-boats, with their sickly green lights reflected in the writhing ink of the river. Notre-Dame now pushed its massive bulk through the fog, but its towers were lost in the sky. Near by a few dim lights shone forth through the slatted windows of the Morgue. But its lights never go out. And how significantly close to the river it stands! Peering under the arches of the bridges, we found some of the social dregs that sleep there with the rats. It was not difficult to imagine the pretty girl in black whom we had passed coming at last through dissipation and wrinkles and broken health to take refuge with the rats under the bridges, and it is a short step thence to the black waters of the river; and that the scheme of the tragedy might be perfect in all its parts, adjustments, and relations, behold the Morgue so near, with its lights that never go out, and boatmen so skilled in dragging the river! And the old man who was gathering the refuse and waste of smokers, it was not impossible that he should find himself taking this route when his joints had grown stiffer, though it would more likely end under the bridges.

The streets are very narrow and crooked around Notre-Dame, and their emanations are as various as the capacity of the human nose for evil odors. The lamps, stuck into the walls of the houses, only make the terrors of such a night more formidable; for while one may feel a certain security in absolute darkness, the shadows to which the lamps lend life have a baffling elusiveness and weirdness, and a habit of movement that makes one instinctively dodge. But that is all the trick of the wind. However that may be, it is wonderful how much more vividly one remembers on such a night the stories of the murders, suicides, and other crimes that lend a particular grewsomeness to the vicinity of the Morgue and Notre-Dame.

We again turned to the right, into a narrow, dirty street,—the Rue du Haut-Pavé,—whose windings brought us into a similar street,—the Rue Galande. Bishop halted in front of a low arched door-way, which blazed sombrely in its coat of blood-red paint. A twisted gas-lamp, demoralized and askew, depended overhead, and upon the glass enclosing it was painted, with artistic flourishes,—"Au Soleil d'Or."

This was the cabaret of the Golden Sun,—all unconscious of the mockery of its name, another of those whimsical disjointings in which the shadowy side of Paris is so prolific. From the interior of the luminary came faintly the notes of a song, with piano accompaniment.

The archway opened into a small court paved with ill-fitted flint blocks. At the farther end of it another gas-lamp flickered at the head of a flight of stairs leading underground. As we approached the steps a woman sprang from the shadow, and with a cry, half of fear and half of anger, fled to the street. At that moment memories of the cosiness of our studio became doubly enticing,—one cannot always approach unfamiliar underground Paris with perfect courage. But Bishop's coolness was reassuring. He had already descended the steps, and there was nothing left for me but to follow.

At the foot of the stairs were half-glass doors curtained with cheap red cloth. A warm, thick, suffocating gust of air, heavy with the fumes of beer, wine, and tobacco, assailed our cold faces as we pushed open the doors and entered the room.

For a moment it was difficult to see clearly, so dense was the smoke. It was packed against the ceiling like a bank of fog, diminishing in density downward, and shot through with long banner-like streamers of smoke freshly emitted.

The human atmosphere of the place could not be caught at once. A stranger would not have known for the moment whether he was with thieves or artists. But very soon its distinctive spirit made its presence and character manifest. The room—which was not a large one—was well filled with an assortment of those queer and interesting people some of whom Bishop had entertained at the studio, only here their characteristics were more pronounced, for they were in their natural element, depressed and hampered by no constraints except of their own devising. A great many were women, although it could be seen at a glance that they were not of the nymphs who flitted among the glittering cafés, gowned in delicate laces and sheeny sculptured silks, the essence of mignonette pervading their environment. No; these were different.

Here one finds, not the student life of Paris, but its most unconventional Bohemian life. Here, in this underground rendezvous, a dirty old hole about twenty feet below the street level, gather nightly the happy-go-lucky poets, musicians, and singers for whom the great busy world has no use, and who, in their unrelaxing poverty, live in the tobacco clouds of their own construction, caring nothing for social canons, obeyers of the civil law because of their scorn of meanness, injustice, and crime, suffering unceasingly for the poorest comforts of life, ambitious without energy, hopeful without effort, cheerful under the direst pressure of need, kindly, simple, proud, and pitiful.

All were seated at little round tables, as are the habitués of the cafés, and their attention was directed upon a slim young fellow with curling yellow hair and a faint moustache, who was singing, leaning meanwhile upon a piano that stood on a low platform in one corner of the room. Their attention was respectful, delicate, sympathetic, and, as might be supposed, brought out the best in the lad. It was evident that he had not long been a member of the sacred circle. His voice was a smooth, velvety tenor, and under proper instruction might have been useful to its possessor as a means of earning a livelihood. But it was clear that he had already fallen under the spell of the associations to which accident or his inclination had brought him; and this meant that henceforth he would live in this strange no-world of dreams, hopes, sufferings, and idleness, and that likely he would in time come to gather cigar-stumps on the sanded pavement of the Café d'Harcourt, and after that sleep with the rats under the bridges of the Seine. At this moment, however, he lived in the clouds; he breathed and glowed with the spirit of shiftless, proud, starving Bohemianism as it is lived in Paris, benignantly disdainful of the great moiling, money-grubbing world that roared around him, and perhaps already the adoration of some girl of poetic or artistic tastes and aspirations, who was serving him as only the Church gives a woman the right.

There was time to look about while he was singing, though that was difficult, so strange and pathetic a picture he made. The walls of the room were dirty and bare, though relieved at rare intervals by sketches and signs. The light came from three gas-burners, and was reflected by a long mirror at one end of the room.

No attention had been paid to our entrance, except by the garçon, a heavy-set, bull-necked fellow, who, with a sign, bade us make no noise.

When the song had finished the audience broke into uproarious applause, shouting, "Bravo, mon vieux!" "Bien fait, Marquis!" and the clapping of hands and beating of glasses on the marble-topped tables and pounding of canes on the floor made a mighty din. The young singer, his cheeks glowing and his eyes blazing, modestly rolled up his music and sought his seat.

We were now piloted to seats by the garçon, who, when we had settled ourselves, demanded to know what we would drink. "Deux bocks!" he yelled across the room. "Deux bocks!" came echoing back from the counter, where a fat woman presided—knitting.

Several long-haired littérateurs—friends of Bishop's—came up and saluted him and shook his hand, all with a certain elegance and dignity. He, in turn, introduced me, and the conversation at once turned to art, music, and poetry. Whatever the sensational news of the day, whatever the crisis in the cabinet, whatever anything might have been that was stirring the people in the great outside commonplace world, these men and women gave it no heed whatever. What was the gross, hard, eager world to them? Did not the glories of the Golden Sun lend sufficient warmth to their hearts, and were not their vague aspirations and idle hopes ample stimulants to their minds and spirits? They quickly found a responsive mood in us, and this so delighted them that they ordered the drinks.

The presiding genius at the piano was a whitehaired, spiritual-looking man, whose snowy locks gave the only indication of his age; for his face was filled with the eternal youthfulness of a careless and contented heart. His slender, delicate fingers told of his temperament, his thin cheeks of his poverty, and his splendid dreamy eyes of the separate life that he lived.

Standing on the platform beside him was a man of a very different type. It was' the pianist's function to be merely a musician; but the other man—the musical director—was one from whom judgment, decision, and authority were required. Therefore he was large, powerful, and big- stomached, and had a pumpkin head, and fat, baggy eyes that shone through narrow slits. He now stepped forward and rang a little bell, upon which all talking was instantly hushed.

"Mesdames et messieurs," he said, in a large, capable voice, "J'ai l'honneur de vous annoncer que Madame Louise Leroux, nous lira ses dernières oeuvres—une faveur que nous apprécierons tous."

A young woman—about twenty-three, I should judge—arose from one of the tables where she had been sitting talking with an insipid-looking gentleman adorned with a blond moustache and vacant, staring-eyes; he wore a heavy coat trimmed with astrachan collar and cuffs, which, being open at the throat, revealed the absence of a shirt from his body. A Latin Quarter top-hat was pushed back on his head, and his long, greasy hair hung down over his collar. Madame Leroux smiled affectionately at him as she daintily flicked the ashes from her cigarette and laid it upon the table, and moistened her thin red lips with a yellow liqueur from her glass. He responded with a condescending jerk of his head, and, diving into one of the inner pockets of his coat, brought forth a roll of paper, which she took. A great clapping of hands and loud cries of her name greeted her as she stepped upon the platform, but it was clearly to be seen from her indifferent air that she had been long accustomed to this attention.

"Il était une Fois," she said, simply. The pianist fingered the keys softly, and she began to recite.

The room was as still as a chapel. Every one listened in profound absorption; even the stolid bull-necked waiter leaned against the wall, his gaze fastened upon her with respectful interest. She spoke slowly, in a low, sweet tone, the soft accompaniment of the piano following the rhythm of her voice with wonderful effectiveness. She seemed to forget her surroundings,—the hot, close room, crowded with shabby, eccentric geniuses who lived from hand to mouth, the poverty that evidently was her lot,—even her lover, who sat watching her with a cold, critical, half-disdainful air, making notes upon a slip of paper, now nodding his head approvingly, now frowning, when pleased or displeased with her performance. She was a rare picture as she thus stood and recited, a charming swing to her trim figure, half reclining upon the piano, her black hair falling loosely and caressing her forehead and casting her dark eyes in deeper shadow, and all her soul going forth in the low, soft, subdued passion of her verses. She reminded one greatly of Bernhardt, and might have been as great.

During her whole rendering of this beautiful and pathetic tale of "other times" she scarcely moved, save for some slight gesture that suggested worlds. How well the lines suited her own history and condition only she could have told. Who was she? What had she been? Surely this strange woman, hardly more than a mere girl, capable of such feelings and of rendering them with so subtle force and beauty, had lived another life,- -no one knew, no one cared.

Loud shouts of admiration and long applause rang through the room as she slowly and with infinite tenderness uttered the last line with bowed head and a choking voice. She stood for a moment while the room thundered, and then the noise seemed to recall her, to drag her back from some haunting memory to the squalor of her present condition, and then her eyes eagerly sought the gentleman of the fur-collared coat. It was an anxious glance that she cast upon him. He carelessly nodded once or twice, and she instantly became transfigured. The melancholy of her eyes and the wretched dejection of her pose disappeared, and her sad face lit up with a beaming, happy smile. She was starting to return to him, all the woman in her awaking to affection and a yearning for the refuge of his love, when the vociferous cries of the crowd for an encore, and the waving of her lover's hand as a signal for her to comply, sent her back on guard to the piano again. Her smile was very sweet and her voice full of trippling melody when she now recited a gay little ballad,—also her own composition,—"Amours Joyeux,"—in so entirely different a spirit that it was almost impossible to believe her the same mortal. Every fibre of her being participated in the rollicking abandon of the piece, and her eyes were flooded with the mellow radiance of supreme love satisfied and victorious.

Upon regaining her seat she was immediately surrounded by a praise- giving crowd, who shook hands with her and heartily congratulated her; but it was clear that she could think only of him of the fur collar, and that no word of praise or blame would weigh with her the smallest fraction of a feather's weight unless this one man uttered it. She disengaged her hand from her crowding admirers and deftly donned her little white Alpine hat, all the while looking into the face of the one man who could break her heart or send her to heaven. He sat looking at his boot, indifferent, bored. Presently he looked up into her anxious eyes, gazed at her a moment, and then leaned forward and spoke a word. It sent her to heaven. Her face all aglow and her eyes shining with happiness, she called the garçon, paid for the four saucers upon the table, and left the room upon the arm of her lover.

"Do?" he echoed. "Nothing. It is she who does all. Without her he would starve. He is a writer of some ability, but too much of a socialist to work seriously. In her eyes he is the greatest writer in the world. She would sacrifice everything to please him. Without him her life would fall into a complete blank, and her recklessness would quickly send her into the lowermost ranks. When a woman like that loves, she loves—ah, les femmes sont difficiles à comprendre!" My friend sighed, burying his moustaches in a foaming bock.

Individual definition grew clearer as I became more and more accustomed to the place and its habitués. It seemed that nearly all of them were absinthe-drinkers, and that they drank a great deal,—all they could get, I was made to understand. They care little about their dress and the other accessories of their personal appearance, though here and there they exhibit the oddest finery, into whose possession they fall by means which casual investigation could not discover, and which is singularly out of harmony with the other articles of their attire and with the environment which they choose. As a rule, the men wear their hair very long and in heavy, shaggy masses over their ears and faces. They continually roll and smoke cigarettes, though there are many pipes, and big ones at that. But though they constitute a strange crowd, there is about them a distinct air of refinement, a certain dignity and pride that never fail, and withal a gentleness that renders any approach to ruffianism impossible. The women take a little more pride in their appearance than the men. Even in their carelessness and seeming indifference there abides with nearly all of them the power to lend themselves some single touch of grace that is wonderfully redeeming, and that is infinitely finer and more elusive than the showy daintiness of the women of the cafés.

As a rule, these Bohemians all sleep during the day, as that is the best way to keep warm; at night they can find warmth in the cabarets. In the afternoon they may write a few lines, which they sell in some way for a pittance, wherewithal to buy them a meal and a night's vigil in one of these resorts. This is the life of lower Bohemia plain and simple,—not the life of the students, but of the misfit geniuses who drift, who have neither place nor part in the world, who live from hand to mouth, and who shudder when the Morgue is mentioned,—and it is so near, and its lights never go out! They are merely protestants against the formalism of life, rebels against its necessities. They seek no following, they desire to exercise no influence. They lead their vacant lives without the slightest restraint, bear their poverty without a murmur, and go to their dreary end without a sigh. These are the true Bohemians of Paris.

Other visitors came into the Soleil d'Or and sought seats among their friends at the tables, while others kept leaving, bound for other rendezvous, many staying just sufficiently long to hear a song or two. They were all of the same class, very negligently and poorly attired, some displaying their odd pieces of finery with an exquisite assumption of unconsciousness on its account, as though they were millionaires and cared nothing for such trivial things. And the whimsical incongruities of it! If one wore a shining tile he either had no shirt (or perhaps a very badly soiled one), or wore a frayed coat and disreputable shoes. In fact, no complete respectable dress made its appearance in the room that night, though each visitor had his distinctive specialty,—one a burnished top hat, another a gorgeous cravat, another a rich velvet jacket, and so on. But they all wore their hair as long as it would grow. That is the Bohemian mark.

The little bell again rang, and the heavy director announced that "Monsieur Léon Décarmeau will sing one of his newest songs." Monsieur Léon Décarmeau was a lean, half-starved appearing man of about forty, whose eyes were sunk deep in his head, and whose sharp cheek-bones protruded prominently. On the bridge of his thin, angular nose set a pair of "pince-nez," attached by a broad black cord, which he kept fingering nervously as he sang. His song was entitled "Fleurs et Pensées," and he threw himself into it with a broad and passionate eagerness that heavily strained the barrier between melodrama and burlesque. His glance sought the ceiling in a frenzied quest of imaginary nymphs, his arms swayed as he tenderly caressed imaginary flowers of sweet love and drank in their intoxicating perfume instead of the hot, tobacco-rife smoke of the room. His voice was drawn out in tremendous sighs full of tears, and his chest heaved like a blacksmith's bellows. But when he had ceased he was most generously applauded and praised.

During the intervals between the songs and recitations the room was noisy with laughter, talking, and the clinking of glasses. The one garçon was industriously serving boissons and yelling orders to the bar, where the fat woman sat industriously knitting, heedless, as might have been expected of the keeper of the Cave of Adullam, and awakening to activity only when the stentorian yells of the garçon's orders rose above the din of the establishment. Absinthe and beer formed the principal beverages, though, as a rule, absinthe was taken only just before a meal, and then it served as an appetizer,—a sharpener of hunger to these who had so little wherewithal to satisfy the hunger that unaided nature created!

The mystery of the means by which these lighthearted Bohemians sustained their precarious existence was not revealed to me; yet here they sat, and laughed, and talked, and recited the poetry of their own manufacture, and sang their songs, and drank, and smoked their big pipes, and rolled cigarettes incessantly, happy enough in the hour of their lives, bringing hither none of the pains and pangs and numbing evidences of their struggles. And there was no touch of the sordid in the composite picture that they made, and a certain tinge of intellectual refinement, a certain spirituality that seemed to raise them infinitely above the plane of the lowly strugglers who won their honest bread by honest labor, shone about them as a halo.

Their dark hours, no doubt, came with the daylight, and in these meetings at the cabaret they found an agreeable way in which to while away the dismal interval that burdened their lives when they were not asleep; for the cabaret was warm and bright, warmer and brighter than their own wretched little rooms au cinquième,—and coal and candles are expensive luxuries! Here, if their productions haply could not find a larger and more remunerative audience, they could at least be heard,—by a few, it is true, but a most appreciative few, and that is something of value equal to bread. And then, who could tell but what fame might unexpectedly crown them in the end? It has happened thus.

"But why worry?" asked the musician. "'Laugh, and the world laughs with you. If we do not live a long life, it is at least a jolly one,' is our motto and certainly they gave it most faithful allegiance."

I learned from Bishop that the musical director received three francs a night for his services. Should singers happen to be lacking, or should the evening be dull for other reason, he himself must sing and recite; for the tension of the Soleil d'Or must be kept forever taut. The old white-haired pianist received two francs a night, and each of these contributors to the gayety of the place was given a drink gratis. So there was at least some recompense besides the essential one of appreciation from the audience.

Glasses clinked merrily, and poets and composers flitted about the room to chat with their contemporaries. A sketch artist, deftly drawing the portrait of a baritone's jolly little mistress, was surrounded by a bantering group, that passed keen, intelligent, and good-natured criticism on the work as it rapidly grew under his hands. The whitehaired pianist sat puffing at his cigarette and looking over some music with a rather pretty young woman who had written popular songs of La Villette.

The opening of the doors and the straggling entrance of three men sent an instant hush throughout the room.

It was indeed the great poet of the slums,—the epitome and idol of Bohemian Paris, the famous man whose verses had rung throughout the length and breadth of the city, the one man who, knowing the heart and soul of the stragglers who found light and warmth in such places as the Soleil d'Or, had the brains and grace to set the strange picture adequately before the wondering world.

The musical director, as well as a number of others in the place, stepped forward, and with touching deference and tenderness greeted the remarkable man and his two companions. It was easy to pick out Verlaine without relying upon the special distinction with which he was greeted. He had the oddest slanting eyes, a small, stubby nose, and wiry whiskers, and his massive forehead heavily overhung his queerly shaped eyes. He was all muffled up to the chin; wore a badly soiled hat and a shabby dark coat. Under one arm he carried a small black portfolio.

Several of the women ran to him and kissed him on both cheeks, which salutations he heartily returned, with interest.

One of his companions was Monsieur Bi-Bi-dans-la-Purée—so he was called, though seemingly he might have been in anything as well as soup. He was an exceedingly interesting figure. His sunken, drawn, smooth- shaven face gave terrible evidence of the excessive use of absinthe. A large hooked nose overshadowed a wide, loose mouth that hung down at the corners, and served to set forth in startling relief the sickly leaden color of his face. When he spoke, a few straggling teeth gleamed unpleasantly. He wore no overcoat, and his jacket hung open, disclosing a half-opened shirt that exposed his bare breast. His frayed trousers dragged the ground at his heels. But his eyes were the most terrible part of him; they shone with the wild, restless light of a madman, and their gaze was generally flitting and distrait, acknowledging no acquaintances. Afterwards, when Verlaine was dead, I often saw Monsieur Bi-Bi-dansla-Purée on the street, looking most desolate, a roll of white manuscript in his hand, his coat and shirt wide open, exposing his naked breast to the biting cold wind. He seemed to be living altogether in another world, and gazed about him with the same unseeing vacant stare that so startled me that night in the Soleil d'Or.

When Verlaine and his companions were seated—by displacing the artist—the recitations and songs recommenced; and it was noticeable that they were rendered with augmented spirit, that the famous poet of the slums might be duly impressed with the capabilities and hospitable intentions of his entertainers; for now all performed for Verlaine, not for one another. The distinguished visitor had removed his slouch hat, revealing the wonderful oblong dome of his bald head, which shone like the Soleil d'Or; and many were the kisses reverently and affectionately bestowed upon that glistening eminence by the poet's numerous female admirers in the throng.

A reckless-looking young woman, with a black hat drawn down over her eyes, and wearing glasses, was now reciting. Her hands were gloved in black, but the finger-tips were worn through,—a fact which she made all the more evident by a peculiar gesture of the fingers.

As the small hours grew larger these gay Bohemians waxed gayer and livelier. Formalities were gradually abandoned, and the constraint of dignity and reserve slowly melted under the mellowing influences of the place. Ceremonious observances were dropped one by one; and whereas there had been the most respectful and insistent silence throughout the songs, now all joined heartily in the choruses, making the dim lights dance in the exuberance of the enjoyment. I had earnestly hoped that Verlaine, splendid as was his dignity, might thaw under the gathering warmth of the hour, but beyond listening respectfully, applauding moderately, and returning the greetings that were given him, he held aloof from the influence of the occasion, and after draining his glass and bidding good-night to his many friends, with his two companions he made off to another rendezvous.

Monsieur le Directeur came over to our table and asked Bishop to favor the audience with a "chanson Américaine." This rather staggered my modest friend, but he finally yielded to entreaties. The director rang his little bell again and announced that "Monsieur Beeshup" would sing a song à l'Américaine. This was received with uproarious shouts by all, and several left their seats and escorted Bishop to the platform. I wondered what on earth he would sing. The accompanist, after a little coaching from Bishop, assailed the chords, and Bishop began drawling out his old favorite, "Down on the Farm." He did it nobly, too, giving the accompanist occasion for labor in finding the more difficult harmonies. The hearers, though they did not understand a word of the ditty, and therefore lost the whole of its pathos, nevertheless listened with curious interest and respect, though with evident veiled amusement. Many quick ears caught the refrain. At first there came an exceedingly soft chorus from the room, and it gradually rose until the whole crowd had thrown itself into the spirit of the melody, and swelled it to a mighty volume. Bishop led the singers, beating time with his right arm, his left thumb meanwhile hooked in the arm-hole of his waistcoat. "Bravo! Bravo, Beeshup! Bis!" they yelled, when it was finished, and then the room rang with a salvo of hand-clappings in unison: 1-2—3-4-5—1-2-3- 4-5—1-2-3-4-5—1—2—3!! A great ovation greeted him as he marched with glowing cheeks to his seat, and those who knew him crowded round him for a hand-shake. The musician asked him if he would sing the song in private for him, that he might write down the melody, to which Bishop agreed, on condition that the musician pose for him. Bishop had a singularly sharp eye for opportunities.

The sketch artist sauntered over and sat down at our table to have a chat with Bishop. He was a singular fellow. His manner was smoothed by a fine and delicate courtesy, bespeaking a careful rearing, whose effects his loose life and promiscuous associations could not obliterate. His age was about thirty-two, though he looked much older,—this being due in part to his hard life and in other part to the heavy whiskers that he wore. An absurd little round felt hat sat precariously on his riotous mane, and I was in constant apprehension lest it should fall off every time he shook his head. Over his shoulders was a blue cape covering a once white shirt that was devoid of a collar. His fingers were all black with the crayon that he had used in sketching. He said that he had already earned twelve sous that evening, making portraits at six sous a head! But there was not so much money to be made in a place like this as in the big cafés,—the frequenters were too poor.

I asked him where he had studied and learned his art, for it could be easily seen that he had had some training; his portraits were not half bad, and showed a knowledge of drawing. He thereupon told me his story.

He had come to Paris thirteen years before from Nantes, Brittany, to study art. His father kept a small grocery and provision-shop in Nantes, and lived in meagre circumstances. The son having discovered what his father deemed a remarkable talent for drawing when a boy, the father sent him to Paris, with an allowance of a hundred francs a month, and he had to deny himself severely to furnish it. When the young man arrived at Paris he studied diligently at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for a while, and became acquainted with many of the students and models. He soon found the easy life of the cafés, with the models for companions, more fascinating than the dull grind of the school. It was much pleasanter to enjoy the gayety of the nights and sleep all day than drone and labor at his easel. As his small allowance did not permit of extravagance, he fell deeply into debt, and gave more heed to absinthe than his meals,—it is cheaper, more alluring, and brings an exhilaration that sharpens wit and equips the soul with wings.

For a whole year the father was in total ignorance of his son's conduct, but one day a friend, who had seen the young man in Paris, laid the ugly story in his father's ear. This so enraged the father that he instantly stopped the remittances and disowned his son. All appeals for money, all promises to reform, were in vain, and so the young madcap was forced to look about for a means of subsistence. And thus it was that he drifted into the occupation of a sketch artist, making portraits in the cafés all night and sleeping in daytime. This brought him a scant living.

But there was his mistress, Marcelle, always faithful to him. She worked during the day at sewing, and shared her small earnings with him. All went fairly well during the summer, but in winter the days were short, Marcelle's earnings were reduced, and the weather was bitter cold. Still, it was not so bad as it might be, he protested; but underneath his easy flippancy I imagined I caught a shadow,—a flitting sense of the hollowness and misery and hopelessness and shame of it all. But I am not certain of that. He had but gone the way of many and many another, and others now are following in his footsteps, deluding self-denying parents, and setting foot in the road which, so broad and shining at the beginning, narrows and darkens as it leads nearer and nearer to the rat- holes under the bridges of the Seine, and to the grim house whose lights forever shine at night under the shadow of Notre-Dame.

Had monsieur a cigarette to spare? Monsieur had, and monsieur thought that the thanks for it were out of all proportion to its value; but they were totally eclipsed by the praises of monsieur's wonderful generosity in paying for a glass of absinthe and sugar for the man who made faces at six sous apiece.

The quiet but none the less high tension of the place, the noise of the singing, the rattling of glasses and saucers, the stifling foul air of the room, filled me with weariness and threatened me with nausea. Things had moved in a constant whirl all night, and now it was nearly four o'clock. How much longer will this last?

"Till five o'clock," answered the musician; then all the lights go out, and the place is closed; and our friends seek their cold, cheerless rooms, to sleep far into the afternoon.

We paid for our saucers, and after parting adieux left in company with the musician and the aesthetic poet. How deliciously sharp and refreshing was the cold, biting air as we stepped out into the night! It seemed as though I had been breathing molasses. The fog was thicker than ever, and the night was colder. The two twisted gas-lamps were no longer burning as we crossed the slippery stone-paved court and ascended to the narrow street. The musician wrapped a gray muffler about his throat and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. The poet had no top-coat, but he buttoned his thin jacket tightly about him, and shivered.

We had not gone far when it gave me a start to recognize a figure that we had seen in the Boul' Mich' on our way to the Soleil d'Or. It was that of an outcast of the boulevards, now slinking through the shadows toward the river. We had been accosted by him in front of one of the brilliant cafés, as, trembling and rubbing his hands, a picture of hopeless dejection and misery, and in a quavering voice he begged us to buy him a drink of brandy.

It probably saved him from an attack of delirium tremens that night, but here he was drifting, with a singular fatality, toward the river and the Morgue. Now, that his day's work of begging was done, all his jackal watchfulness had disappeared, and an inner vision seemed to look forth from his bleared eyes as their gaze strained straight and dull toward the black river. It may have been a mere fancy, but the expression in his eyes reminded me strongly of similar things that I had seen on the slabs in the Morgue.

We crossed the Rue du Haut-Pavé again to the river wall, and arrived at the bridge leading back of Notre-Dame and past the Morgue. On the farther end of the bridge, propped against the parapet, was a small stand, upon a corner of which a dim lamp was burning. In front were a number of milk-cans, and on a small counter were a row of thick white bowls and a basket of croissants. Inside, upon a small stove, red with heat, were two kettles from which issued clouds of steam bearing an odor of boiling milk. A stout woman, her face so well wrapped in a shawl that only the end of her red nose was visible, greeted us,—"Bon jour, messieurs. En voulez-vous du bon lait bien chaud?"

She poured out four bowls of steaming milk, and gave us each a roll. For this luxury we paid three sous each; and a feast it was, for the shivering poet, at least, for he licked the hot bowl clean and ate the very crumbs of his croissant.

As we were bound for widely separated quarters, our Bohemian friends bade us an affectionate good-night, and were soon swallowed up in the gloom. We turned towards home and the Boul' Mich'. All the cafés were closed and dark, but the boulevard was alive with canal-boatmen, street- sweepers, and rumbling vegetable- and milk-carts. The streets were being washed clean of all evidences of the previous day's life and turmoil, and the great city was creeping forth from its lair to begin another.

THE CAFÉ PROCOPE

IN the short, busy little street, the Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, which runs from the Boulevard St. Germain, in a line from the Théâtre National de l'Odéon and connecting with the Rue Mazarin, its continuation, the heavy dome of the Institut looming at its end, is to be found probably the most famous café in Paris, for in its day it has been the rendezvous of the most noted French littérateurs, politicians, and savants. What is more, the Procope was the first café established in Paris, originating the appellation "café" to a place where coffee is served, for it was here that coffee was introduced to France as an after-dinner comforter.

That was when the famous café was in its glory. Some of the great celebrities who made it famous have been dead for nearly two hundred years, though its greatest fame came a century afterwards; and now the café, no longer glorious as it was when the old Théâtre Français stood opposite, reposes in a quiet street far from the noise and glitter and life of the boulevards, and lives on the splendid memories that crowd it. Other cafés by the thousand have sprung into existence, and the word has spread to coffee saloons and restaurants throughout Christendom; and the ancient rive droite nurses the history and relics of the golden days of its glory, alone in a quiet street, surrounded by tightly shut shops, and the calm of a sleeping village.

Still, it retains many of its ancient characteristics and much of the old-time quaintness peculiar to itself and setting it wholly apart, and it is yet the rendezvous of littérateurs and artists, who, if not so famous as the great men in whose seats they sit, play a considerable rôle in the life of modern Paris.

The front of the café is a neat little terrace off the street, screened by a fanciful net-work of vines and shrubbery that spring from green painted boxes and that conceal cosey little tables and corners placed behind them. Instead of the usual showy plate-windows, one still finds the quaint old window-panes, very small carreaux, kept highly polished by the tireless garçon apprentice.

Tacked to the white pillars are numerous copies of Le Procope, a weekly journal published by Théo, the proprietor of the café. Its contributors are the authors, journalists, and poets who frequent the café, and it publishes a number of portraits besides, and some spirited drawings. It is devoted in part to the history of the café and of the celebrities who have made it famous, and publishes portraits of them, from Voltaire to Paul Verlaine. This same journal was published here over two hundred years ago, in 1689, and it was the means then by which the patrons of the establishment kept in closer touch with their contemporaries and the spirit of the time. Théo is proprietor and business manager, as well as editor.

The following two poems will give an idea of the grace of the matter contained in Le Procope:

Here is a particularly charming little poem, written in the musical French of two or three centuries ago:

UN BAYSER

The modern gas illumination of the café, in contrast to the fashion of brilliant lighting that prevails in the showy cafés of the boulevards, must nevertheless be a great advance on the ancient way that it had of being lighted with crude oil lamps and candelabra. But the dim illumination is in perfect keeping with the other appointments of the place, which are dark, sombre, and funereal. The interior of the Procope is as dark as a finely colored old meerschaum pipe. The woodwork, the chairs, and the tables are deeply stained by time, the contrasting white marble tops of the tables suggesting gravestones; and with all these go the deeply discolored walls and the many ancient paintings,—even the caisse, behind which sits Madame Théo, dozing over her knitting. This caisse is a wonderful piece of furniture in itself, of some rich dark wood, beautifully carved and decorated.

Madame Théo is in black, her head resting against the frame of an old crayon portrait of Voltaire on the wall behind her. A fat and comfortable black cat is asleep in the midst of rows of white saucers and snowy napkins. The only garçon, except the garçon apprentice, is sitting in a corner drowsing over an evening paper, but ever ready to answer the quiet calls of the customers. For in the matter of noise and frivolity the Café Procope is wholly unlike the boulevard cafés. An atmosphere of refined and elegant suppression pervades the place; the roystering spirit that haunts the boulevards stops at the portals of the Procope. Here all is peace and tranquillity, and that is why it is the haunt of many earnest and aspiring poets and authors; for hither they may bring their portfolios in peace and security, and here they may work upon their manuscripts, knowing that their neighbors are similarly engrossed and that intrusion is not to be feared. And then, too, are they not sitting on the same chairs and writing at the same tables that have been occupied by some of the greatest men in all the brilliant history of France? Is not this the place in which greatness had budded and blossomed in the centuries gone? Are not these ancient walls the same that echoed the wit, badinage, and laughter of the masters? And there are the portraits of the great themselves, looking down benignly and encouragingly upon the young strugglers striving to follow in their footsteps, and into the ghostly mirrors, damaged by time and now sending back only ghosts of shadows, they look as the great had looked before them. It is here, therefore, that many of the modern geniuses of France have drawn their inspiration, shaking off the endless turmoil of the noisy and bustling world, living with the works and memories of the ancient dead, and working out their destiny under the magic spell that hovers about the place. It is for this reason that the habitués are jealous of the intrusion of the curious and worldly. In this quiet and secure retreat they feel no impinging of the wearing and crippling world that roars and surges through the busy streets and boulevards.

M. Théo de Bellefond is the full name of the proprietor, but he is commonly known as M. Théo. He is a jolly little man, with an ambitious round stomach, a benevolent face covered with a Vandyke beard, and a shining bald head. A large flowing black cravat, tied into an artistic négligé bow, hides his shirt. M. Théo came into possession of the Procope in 1893, a fact duly recorded on a door panel, along with the names of over a score of the celebrities who have made the Procope their place of rest, refection, and social enjoyment. M. Procope was a journalist in his day, but now the ambition that moves him is to restore the ancient glory of the Procope; to make it again the centre of French brains and power in letters, art, and politics. To this end he exerts all his journalistic tact, a fact clearly shown by the able manner in which he conducts his journal, Le Procope. He has worked out the history of the café, and has at the ends of his fingers the life- stories of its famous patrons.

The Café Procope was founded in 1689 by François Procope, where it now stands. Opposite was the Comédie Française, which also was opened that year. The café soon became the rendezvous of all who aspired to greatness in art, letters, philosophy, and politics. It was here that Voltaire, in his eighty-second year, while attending the rehearsals of his play, "Irène," descended from his chaise-à-porteur at the door of the Café Procope, and drank the coffee which the café had made fashionable. It was here also that he became reconciled to Piron, after an estrangement of more than twenty years.

Ste.-Foix made trouble here one day about a cup of chocolate. A duel with the proprietor of the café was the immediate result, and after it Ste.-Foix, badly wounded, exclaimed, "Nevertheless, monsieur, your sword-thrust does not prevent my saying that a very sickly déjeuner is une tasse de chocolat!"

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, after the successful representation of "Le Devin de Village," was carried in triumph to the Procope by Condorcet, who, with Jean-Jacques on his shoulders, made a tour of the crowded café, yelling, "Vive la Musique Française!" Diderot was fond of sitting in a corner and manufacturing paradoxes and materialistic dissertations to provoke the lieutenant of police, who would note everything he said and report it to the chief of police. The lieutenant, ambitious though stupid, one night told his chief that Diderot had said one never saw souls; to which the chief returned, "M. Diderot se trompe. L'âme est un esprit, et M. Diderot est plein d'esprit."

Danton delighted in playing chess in a quiet corner with a strong adversary in the person of Marat. Many other famous revolutionists assembled here, among them Fabre d'Eglantine, Robespierre, d'Holbach, Mirabeau, Camille Desmoulins. It was here that Camille Desmoulins was to be strangled by the reactionists in the Revolution; it was here that the first bonnet rouge was donned. The massacre of December, 1792, was here- planned, and the killing began at the very doors of the café. Madame Roland, Lucille Desmoulins, and the wife of Danton met here on the ioth of August, the day of the fall of the monarchy, when bells rang and cannon thundered. It was later that Bonaparte, then quite young and living in the Quai Conti, in the building which the American Art Association now occupies, left his hat at the Procope as security for payment for a drink, he having left his purse at home. In short, the old café of the Rue des Fossés-St.-Ger-main (its old name) was famous as the meeting-place of celebrities. Legendre, the great geometrician, came hither. One remembers the verses of Masset: "Je joue aux dominos quelquefois chez Procope." Here Gambetta made speeches to the reactionist politicians and journalists. He engaged in more than one prise de bec with le père Coquille, friend of Veuillot. Coquille always made sprightly and spirited replies when Gambetta roared, thundered, and swore.

Since then have followed days of calm. In later times Paul Verlaine was a frequenter of the Procope, where he would sit in his favorite place in the little rear salon at Voltaire's table. This little salon, in the rear of the café, is held sacred, for its chair and table are the ones that Voltaire used to occupy. The table is on one side of the small room. On the walls are many interesting sketches in oil by well-known French artists, and there are fine ceiling decorations; but all these are seen with difficulty, so dim is the light in the room. Since Voltaire's time this table has become an object of curiosity and veneration. When celebrated habitués of the café died this table was used as an altar, upon which for a time reposed the bust of the decedent before crêpe-covered lanterns.

During the Revolution Hébert jumped upon this table, which had been placed before the door of the café, and harangued the crowd gathered there, exciting them to such a pitch that they snatched the newspapers from the hands of the news-venders. In a moment of passionate appeal he brought down his heavy boot-heel upon the marble with such force as to split it.

In the café are three doors that are decorated in a very interesting fashion. On the panels of one, well preserved in spite of the numerous transformations through which the establishment has gone, M. Théo conceived the happy idea of inscribing in gold letters the names of the illustrious who have visited the café since its founding. Many of the panels of the Avails are taken with full-length portraits by Thomas, representing, among others, Voltaire, Rousseau, Robespierre, Diderot, Danton and Marat playing chess, Mirabeau, and Gambetta. There are smaller sketches by Corot, d'Aubigny, Vallon, Courbet, Willette, and Roedel. Some of them are not fine specimens of art.

M. Théo is a devoted collector of rare books and engravings. His library, which contains many very rare engravings of the eighteenth century and more than one book of priceless value, is open to his intimate friends only, with whom he loves to ramble through his treasures and find interesting data of his café.

LE MOULIN DE LA GALETTE

BISHOP had been industriously at work upon a large black-and-white drawing. The subject was a ball-room scene,—of evident low degree, judging from the abandon of the whirling figures and the queer types that were depicted. White lace skirts were sweeping high in air, revealing black-stockinged ankles and gauzy lingerie in a way unknown to the monde propre.

In contrast to the grace and abandon of the female figures were the coarseness and clumsiness of their male partners.

The work was nearly finished, but Bishop professed to be dissatisfied with the foreground architecture and with the drawing of a hand belonging to one of the male dancers. After boring me at length with a speech on the necessity of having a model for that hand, he sheepishly asked me if I would pose for the elusive member. It was then that curiosity prompted me to inquire where he had found the original of this remarkable scene.

"Mon enfant sculpteur," he replied, with the patronizing air of a man of the world, "this is the Moulin de la Galette."

To-morrow would be Sunday. When it had passed and the evening was come, and after we had enjoyed two courses of Madame Darblay's juicy gigots and irresistible beans, with the incomparable sauce afforded by the presence of the sunny actresses who were there, we walked over to the Boulevard St.-Jacques and waited for the Montmartre 'bus to come along. These small, ancient omnibuses are different from the other vehicles of that breed in Paris, in that instead of having a narrow curved stairway at the rear leading up to the impériale, there are but three or four iron foot-rests against the outside of the rear wall, with an iron rod on either side to cling to in mounting. Now, the traveller who would reach the impériale must be something of either an acrobat or a sailor, because, first, as these 'buses do not stop, a running leap has to be made for the ladder, and, second, because of the pitching and rolling of the lumbering vehicle, the catching and climbing are not easy. If you carry a cane or a parcel, it must be held in the teeth until the ascent is made, for both hands have all they can do in the ladder exercise.

The gleam of the red lamp coming down the street prepared us for a test of our agility. As only one could mount the ladder at a time, and as I was the first to attack the feat, Bishop had to run behind for nearly a block before I could give him the right of way up the ladder. The conductor registered deux sur l'impériale as we swung to the top and took seats forward, just behind the driver. Ladies and fat gentlemen are rarely, or never, found riding on the impériale of the Montmartre line.

We wrapped up in our big warm coats and lay back smoking three-sous cigars (always three-sous ones on Sunday), and as the driver cracked his whip and the heavy machine went rolling along, we enjoyed the wonderful treat of seeing gay Paris of a Sunday night from the top of an omnibus. There is hardly anything more delightful, particularly from the top of a St. Jacques-Montmartre 'bus, which generally avoids the broad, brilliant streets and goes rolling and swaying through the narrow, crooked streets of old Paris. Here there is hardly room for such a vehicle to pass, and one is anxious lest one's feet sweep off the gas-lamps that fly past. An intimate view of the domestic life of Paris presents itself likewise, for, being on a level with the second story windows, you have flitting visions of the Parisian ménage in all its freedom and variety. At this time of the evening the windows are wide open and the dinner-tables are spread near them, for a view of the street below.

On, on we rumbled, through seemingly interminable miles of crooked streets, over the gay Boul' Mich', and the Place St.-Michel; across the river, which reflected the myriads of lights along its walls and bridges; past the Halles, the greatest marketplace in the world; past the grand boulevards, a confusing glitter of colors and lights; past the Folies-Bergère, where flaming posters announced Loie Fuller in the throes of a fire dance; and at last to the steep grade of Montmartre. Here a third horse was added to the pair, and slowly we were dragged up the slope.

At the Boulevard Clichy we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a terrific uproar; bells, steam-whistles, hand-organs, bands of music, drums, and calliopes made the bedlam. The streets were blocked with moving masses of laughing people, and the scene was gayly illuminated by rows of lamps overhead and on hundreds of stands, merry-go-rounds, theatres, circuses, museums, and all kinds of catchpenny attractions that lined the boulevard. For this was the Fête de Clichy. Far down the street, almost hidden by a curve, could be seen the illuminated arms of the Moulin Rouge slowly revolving through the night.

Still on and up crawled the 'bus, now in the very heart of Montmartre, through the lively, crowded, bright streets on the great hill of Paris. Here are hot-chestnut venders at the corners; fried-potato women, serving crisp brown chips; street hawkers, with their heavy push-carts; song-sellers, singing the songs that they sell, to make purchasers familiar with the airs; flower-girls; gaudy shops; bright restaurants and noisy cafés,—all constituting that distinctive quarter of Paris, Montmartre.

At last the summit of the hill was made, and the panting horses must have been glad that it was all down-hill ahead. Bishop gave the signal to alight a block before the desired street was reached, for by the time we could touch the ground the 'bus had covered that distance on the down run. Bishop led the way up a dim little street,—the Rue Muller, I noticed on the wall. It was very steep, and at last ended at the bottom of a flight of stone steps that seemed to run into the sky. Their length was marked by lamps glowing one above another in long rows. It was hard work climbing to the top.

The top at last! We seemed to be among the clouds. Far below us lay the great shining city, spreading away into distance; and although it was night, the light of a full moon and untold thousands of lamps in the streets and buildings below enabled us easily to pick out the great thoroughfares and the more familiar structures. There was the Opéra, there the Panthéon, there Notre-Dame, there St.-Sulpice, there the Invalides, and, uplifted to emulate the eminence on which we stood, the Tour Eiffel, its revolving searchlight at the apex shining like an immense meteor or comet with its misty trail stretching out over the city. The roar of life faintly reached our ears from the vast throbbing plain, where millions of human mysteries were acting out their tragedies. The scene was vast, wonderful, entrancing.

Far above us still a maze of rafters, beams, and scaffolding fretted the sky,—the skeleton of that beautiful but unfinished Church of the Sacré- Cour, crowning the very summit of Montmartre.

There seemed to be no life here, for not a soul did we meet, and not a light shone except that of the moon. Bishop guided me through a maze of steep stony passages, between the walls of dark gardens, turning now to the right, again to the left, through archways and courts; and I wondered how he could remember them all. Before I could fully comprehend our position we were confronted by two black, gaunt, uncanny objects with long outstretched arms that cut across the sky like giant skeleton sentinels forbidding our farther advance. But the sounds of lively music and the glow of rows of white-globed lamps quickly banished the illusion and advertised the fact that we were in a very material and sensual world, for they announced the Moulin de la Galette at the foot of the passage. The spectres against the sky were only very, very old windmills, relics of the time, three centuries gone, when windmills crowded the summit of Montmartre to catch all the winds that blew. Now they stand, stark, dead, silent, and decaying; their stately revolutions are no more; and the skeleton frames of their fans look down on a marvellous contrast, the intensely real life of the Galette.

We fell in line with many others at the ticket office, and paid the fifty centimes admission fee (ladies twenty-five centimes). We were relieved of our hats and canes by a stout old woman in the vestiaire, who claimed two sous from each. Following the up-hill passage of the entrance, the walls of which are painted with flowers and garden scenes, we entered the great ball-room. What a brilliant scene of life and light!—at first a blur of sound, light, and movement, then gradually resolving into the simple elements composing it. The floor was covered with dancers, and the girls were making a generous display of graceful anatomy. A large band at the farther end of the room, on an inclined stand, was the vortex of the din. The promenade encircling the hall was crowded with hatless laughing girls and smooth-faced boys wearing caps or flat-brimmed low-crowned hats; their trousers fitted tight at the knees, and their heads were closely cropped. These were strolling in groups, or watching the dancers, or sitting at the rows of wooden tables drinking. All within the vast hall had gone to enjoy their Sunday night as much as possible. To most of the girls this was the one night in the week when, not tired out from the drudgery of hard work, they could throw aside all cares and live in the way for which their cramped and meagre souls yearned. This is a rendezvous for the humble workers of the city, where they may dress as best they can, exchange their petites histoires, and abandon themselves to the luxury of the dance; for they are mostly shop-girls, and blanchisseuses, and the like, who, when work fails them, have to hover about the dark streets at night, that prosperous-looking passers-by may be tempted by the pleading of their dark saucy eyes, or be lured by them to some quiet spot where their lovers lie in wait with a lithe and competent black slung-shot. No mercy for the hapless bourgeois then! For the dear Henris and Jacques and Louises must have their sous for the comforts of life, as well as the necessities, and such luxuries as tobacco and drink must be considered; and if the money wherewith all this may be bought is not produced by Marcelle or Hélène or Marie, she will get a beating for her slothfulness or lack of skill, and will be driven into the street with a hurting back to try again. And so Henri, Jacques, or Louis basks in the sun, and smokes cigarettes with never a care, except that of making his devoted little mistress perform her duties, knowing well how to retain her affection by selfishness and brutality.

This night, however, all that was forgotten. It was the one free, happy night of the week, the night of abandon and the dance, of laughter, drinking, and jollity, for which one and all had longed for a whole impatient and dreary week; and Henri, Jacques, and Louis could spend on drinks with other of their feminine acquaintances the sous that their mistresses had provided. The band played lustily; the lights shone; the room was filled with laughter,—let the dance go on!

Stationed in different parts of the room were the big soldiers of the Garde Municipale, in their picturesque uniform so familiar to all the theatre-goers of Paris. They were here to preserve order, for the dancers belong to an inflammable class, and a blaze may spring up at any moment. Equally valuable as a repressing force was a burly, thick- necked, powerful man who strolled hither and thither, his glance everywhere and always veiling a threat. He wore a large badge that proclaimed him the master of ceremonies. True, he was that, which was something, but he was a great deal more,—a most astonishingly prompt and capable bouncer. The male frequenters of the place were evidently in mortal terror of him, for his commanding size and threatening manner, and his superbly developed muscles, contrasted strikingly with the cringing manner and weak bodies of Henri and his kind; and should he look their way with a momentary steadiness of glance and poise of figure, their conversation would instantly cease, and they would slink away.

We seated ourselves at a vacant table that commanded a sweeping view of the floor and the promenade. A seedy-looking garçon worked his way through the crowd and took our order for beer; and mean, stale beer it was. But we did not care for that. Bishop was all afire with enjoyment of the scene, for, he protested, the place was infinitely rich in types and character,—the identical types that the great Steinlen loves to draw. And here is an interesting thing: The girls all were of that chic and petite order so peculiar to certain classes of Parisian women, some hardly so high as Bishop's shoulder, which is itself not very high; and though they looked so small, they were fully developed young women, though many of them were under twenty. They wore no hats, and for the most part, unlike their gorgeous sisters of the boulevard cafés, they were dressed plainly, wearing black or colored waists and skirts. But ah!—and here the unapproachable instinct-skill of the French-woman shows itself,—on these same waists and skirts were placed here and there, but always just where they ought to be, bows and ribbons; and it was they that worked the miracle of grace and style. And the girls had a certain beauty, a beauty peculiar to their class,—not exactly beauty, but pleasing features, healthy color, and, best of all and explaining all, an archness of expression, a touch of sauciness, that did for their faces what the bows and ribbons did for their gowns.

Near us a large door opened into the garden of the Moulin; it was filled with trees and benches and tables, and amidst the dark foliage glowed colored Chinese lanterns, which sifted a soft light upon the revellers assembled beneath them in the cool evening air. On one side of the garden stretched Paris far down and away, and on the other side blazed the Moulin de la Galette through the windows.

A waltz was now being danced. Strange to say, it was the one dismal feature of the evening, and that was because the French do not know how to dance it, "reversing" being unknown. And there was an odd variety of ways in which the men held their partners and the dancers each other. Some grasped each other tightly about the waist with both arms, or similarly about the necks or shoulders, and looked straight into each other's face without a smile or an occasional word. It was all done in deadly earnest, as a serious work. It was in the quadrille that the fun came, when the girls varied the usual order by pointing their toes toward the chandeliers with a swish of white skirts that made the by- standers cry, "Encore, Marcelle!" The men, yearning for a share of the applause, cut up all sorts of antics and capers, using their arms and legs with incredible agility, making grotesque faces, and wearing hideous false noses and piratical moustaches.

Securing a partner for a dance was the easiest thing possible. Any girl was eligible,—simply the asking, the assent, and away they went.

Bishop's pencil kept moving rapidly as he caught fleeting notes of faces, dresses, attitudes—everything—for his unfinished piece at the studio. A number of promenaders, attracted by his sketching, stopped to watch him. That dance was now finished, and the dancers separated wherever they stopped, and turned away to seek their separate friends; there was no waste of time in escorting the girls to seats, for that is not fashionable at Montmartre. The girls came flocking about Bishop, curious over his work, and completely shut out his view. "Oh!" exclaimed one saucy petite blonde, "let me see my portrait! I saw you sketching me during the dance."

"Et moi,—moi aussi!" cried the others, until Bishop, overwhelmed, surrendered his book for the inspection of bright, eager eyes.

"Has not monsieur a cigarette?" archly asked a girl with a decided nez retroussé. "Oui," I answered, handing her a packet, from which with exquisite, unconscious daintiness she selected one. The whole bevy then made a similar request, and we were soon enveloped in a blue haze.

"Vous ferez mon portrait, n'est-ce-pas?" begged a dark-eyed beauty of Bishop, in a smooth, pleasant voice. She had a striking appearance. A mass of rebellious black hair strove persistently to fall over her oval face, and when she would neglect to push it back her eyes, dark and melancholy, shone through its tangle with a singular wild lustre. Her skin was dark, almost swarthy, but it was touched with a fine rosy glow of health and youth. Her features were perfect; the nose was slightly romanesque, the chin firm, the lips red and sensuous. When she drew our attention with her request she was standing before us in a rigid, half- defiant, half-commanding posture; but when she quickly added, "I will pose for you,—see?" and sat down beside me, opposite Bishop, her striking native grace asserted itself, for from a statue of bronze she suddenly became all warmth and softness, every line in her perfect, lithe figure showing her eagerness, and eloquent with coaxing.

It was clear that Bishop was deeply impressed by the striking picture that she made; it was her beautiful wild head that fascinated him most.

"No, I am first," insisted a little vixen, hard-featured and determined. "Jamais de la vie!" "C'est moi!" protested others, with such fire that I feared there would be trouble. The turmoil had the effect of withdrawing Bishop's attention momentarily from the beautiful tigress beside me. He smiled in bewilderment. He would be happy to draw them all, but—— At last he pacified them by proposing to take them in turn, provided they would be patient and not bother him. To this they poutingly agreed; and Bishop, paying no more attention to the girl beside me, rapidly dashed off sketch after sketch of the other girls. Exclamations of surprise, delight, or indignation greeted each of the portraits as it was passed round. Bishop was seeking "character," and as he was to retain the portraits, he made no efforts at flattery.

All this time the dark-eyed one had sat in perfect silence and stillness beside me, watching Bishop in wonder. She had forgotten her hair, and was gazing through it with more than her eyes as his pencil worked rapidly. I studied her as well as I could as she sat all heedless of my existence. Her lips slightly curved at the corners into a faint suggestion of a smile, but as Bishop's work kept on and the other girls monopolized him, the lips gradually hardened. The shadow of her chin fell upon her smooth throat, not darkening it too much for me to observe that significant movements within it indicated a struggle with her self- control. Bishop was now sketching a girl, the others having run off to dance; they would return in their order. The girl beside me said to me, in a low voice, without looking at me,—"Monsieur est Anglais?"

"Is he——" but she suddenly checked herself with odd abruptness, and then quickly asked, with a shallow pretence of eager interest, "Is America far from Paris?" And so she continued to quiz me rather vacantly concerning a great country of whose whereabouts she had not the slightest idea. Then she was silent, and I imagined that she was gathering herself for some supreme effort. Suddenly she turned her marvellous eyes full toward me, swept the wild hair from her face, looked almost fiercely at me a moment, and, rigid from head to foot, asked, half angrily, and then held her breath for the answer,—"Is he married?"

The question was asked so suddenly and so strangely, and with so commanding a manner, that I had not a moment to consider the wisdom of lying.

She sank back into her chair with a deep breath, all softness and grace again, and her wild hair fell back over her face.

She had lost all interest in the ball. While her companions were enjoying themselves in the dance, she sat motionless and silent beside me, watching Bishop. An uncomfortable feeling had taken possession of me. Presently I abruptly asked her why she did not dance.

She started. "Dance?" she replied. She looked over the hall, and an expression of scorn and disgust came into her face. "Not with that espèce de voyous," she vehemently added; and then she turned to watch Bishop again.

I now noticed for the first time that a group of the human vampires, standing apart at a little distance, were watching us closely and talking in low tones among themselves. My attention had been drawn to them by a defiant look that the girl had shot at them. One of them was particularly repulsive. He was rather larger and stronger than the others. His garb was that of his species,—tight trousers, a négligé shirt, and a rakish cap being its distinguishing articles. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his head thrust forward. He had the low, brutal face of his kind. It was now pale with rage.

Oh, just Hélène. Sometimes it was Hélène Crespin, for Crespin was her lover's name. All this with perfect frankness.

"C'est lui avec la casquette," she answered, indicating the brute whom I have just described, but I had expected that. "I hate him now!" she vehemently added.

No, she had neither father nor mother; had no recollection of parents. Sometimes she worked in a printing shop in the Rue Victor Massé when extra hands were needed.

After the girl who had been posing was dismissed another took her place; then another, and another, and others; and still others were waiting. The girl beside me had been watching these proceedings with increasing impatience. Some of the girls were so delighted that they threw their arms round Bishop's neck and kissed him. Others called him endearing names. At last it was evident that the dark girl could bear it no longer. She had been growing harder and harder, more and more restless. I continued to watch her narrowly,—she had forgotten my existence. Gradually the natural rich color in her cheeks deepened, her eyes blazed through the tangled hair, her lips were set. Suddenly, after a girl had been more demonstrative than the others, she rose and confronted Bishop. All this time he had not even looked at her, and that, while making me uneasy, had made her furious.

We three were alone. True, we were observed by many, for invasions by foreigners were very rare at the Moulin de la Galette, and we were objects of interest on that account; and the sketching by Bishop had sent our fame throughout the hall.

In a low, quiet voice the girl said to Bishop, as he looked up at her wonderingly,—"You promised to draw mine long ago."

I had never seen my friend more embarrassed than he was at that moment. He stumbled over his excuses, and then asked her to pose to suit her fancy. He did it very gently, and the effect was magical. She sank into her chair and assumed the indolently graceful pose that she had unconsciously taken when she first seated herself. Bishop gazed at her in silence a long time before he began the sketch; and then he worked with a sure and rapid hand. After it was finished he handed it to her. Instantly she was transfigured. She stared at the picture in wonder and delight, her lips parted, her chest hardly moving from her nearly suppressed breathing.

"Do I look like that?" she asked, suspiciously. Indeed, it was an exquisite little piece of work, for Bishop had idealized the girl and made a beautiful portrait.

"Did you not see me draw it while looking at you?" he replied, somewhat disingenuously.

Bishop cheerfully complied. Then she took it, kissed it, and pressed it to her bosom; and then, leaning forward, and speaking with a richness and depth of voice that she had not betrayed before, and in the deepest earnestness, said,—"Je vous aime!"

Bishop, staggered by this forthright declaration of affection, blushed violently and looked very foolish. But he rallied and assured her that her love was reciprocated, for who, he asked, could resist so beautiful a face, so warm a heart? If he had only known, if I could only have told him! The girl sank back in her chair with a quizzical, doubting smile that showed perfect white teeth and changed to bright dimples the suggestion of a smile that fluttered at her mouth-corners. She carefully folded the sketch and daintily tucked it away in her bosom.

Bishop had now quitted work,—Hélène had seen to that. She had moved her chair close to his, and, looking him straight in the eyes, was rattling away in the untranslatable argot of Montmartre. It is not the argot of the slums, nor that of the thieves, nor that of the students, but that of Montmartre; and there are no ways of expressing it intelligibly in English. Presently she became more serious, and with all the coaxing and pleading of which her ardent, impetuous nature was capable, she begged,— "Let me be your model. Je suis bien faite, and you can teach me to pose. You will be kind to me. I have a good figure. I will do everything, everything for you! I will take care of the studio. I will cook, I will bring you everything, everything you want. You will let me live with you. I will love no one else. You will never be sorry nor ashamed. If you will only——" That is the best translation I can give; it is certainly what she meant, though it indicates nothing of the impetuosity, the abandon, the eagerness, the warmth, the savage beauty that shone from her as she spoke.

Bishop rose to the occasion. He sprang to his feet. "I must dance after that!" he exclaimed, catching her up, laughing, and dragging her upon the floor. He could dance superbly. A waltz was being played, and it was being danced in the stiff and stupid way of the people. Very soon Bishop and Hélène began to attract general attention, for never before had Montmartre seen a waltz danced like that. He reversed, and glided, and threw into the queen of dances all the grace and freedom that it demands. At first Hélène was puzzled and bewildered; but she was agile both of mind and body, and under Bishop's sure guidance she put them to excellent use. Rapidly she caught the grace and spirit of the waltz, and danced with a verve that she had never known before. Swiftly and gracefully they skimmed the length of the great hall, then back, and wherever they went the dancers watched them with astonishment and delight, and gradually abandoned their own ungraceful efforts, partly in shame, partly in admiration, and partly with a desire to learn how the miracle was done. Gradually the floor was wholly abandoned except for these two, and all eyes watched them. Hélène was happy and radiant beyond all ways of telling. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled, her lithe figure developed all the ease, grace, and suppleness of a cat.

Some muttered expressions of contempt spoken near me caused me to listen without turning round. They were meant for my ears, but I gave no heed. I knew well enough from whom they came,—Crespin and his friends. And I realized that we were in for it. True, there were the big guards and there was the capable bouncer, and they would glance my way now and then, seemingly to let Crespin know that all was understood and that it must be hands off with him. There was no danger here, but afterwards—The waltz came to an end, and the two were vigorously applauded. This was a critical moment, but Bishop handled it adroitly. He conducted Hélène to a seat remote from our table, bowed low, and left her, and came over to me. I told him of my fears, but he laughed. He had got rid of Hélène with perfect address, and perhaps she was nursing an angry and aching heart after her glorious triumph; perhaps Bishop had whispered to her something of the danger and suggested that they have nothing more to do with each other that evening.

Presently I saw her start and look round. Crespin was behind her, livid with rage. She promptly rose and followed him into the garden. Bishop had not seen the movement. We were near the door leading into the garden, and by turning a little I could see the couple outside, not far away. Crespin was standing with a bullying air, and was evidently cursing her. She had tossed back her hair and was looking him defiantly in the face. I saw her lips move in speech. Instantly the ruffian dealt her a violent blow upon the chest, and she staggered back against a tree, which prevented her falling.

"Come, let us stop that," I said to Bishop. "Hélène's lover is beating her in the garden." Bishop sprang to his feet and followed me. As he glanced out the window at the couple, whom I pointed out, he saw Crespin approach the dazed girl and deal her a terrible blow in the mouth, and he saw the blood that followed the blow.

We arrived in the garden as a crowd was gathering. Bishop pushed his way ahead and was about to spring upon the brute, when Hélène saw him. With a supreme effort she leaped forward, thrust Bishop aside with a command to mind his own affairs, threw herself into her lover's arms, and kissed him, smearing his face with her blood. He glared at us, triumphant. The guards arrived, and Hélène and her lover disappeared among the trees in the darkness.

"Oh, another unfaithful cocotte!" laughed one in the crowd, explaining to the guards; and they returned to their drinking and dancing, remarking, "Beat a woman, and she will love you."

They had all missed the heroism and devotion of Hélène's interference. It was to keep a knife out of the body of the man she loved that she smeared her lover's face with her blood. We saw her no more.

We returned to the hall and strolled round the promenade, for we needed that to become calm again. And the girls mobbed Bishop, for he had passed out the word that he wanted a model, and that he would pay a franc an hour. A franc an hour! And so they mobbed him. Was not that more than they could hope to earn by a whole day's hard work? Yes, they would all pose gladly, but only in costume, bien entendu! So Bishop was busy taking down the names of Marcelle, Lorette, Elise, Marie, and the rest, with the names of the queer and unheard-of streets in which they lived, mostly in the quarters of Montmartre and the Batignolles.

The can-can was now raging on the floor, and the tired garçons were dodging about with their glassladen trays. Dancing, making love, throwing lumps of sugar, the revellers enjoyed themselves.

We left. The moon cast gaunt shadows across the streets from the old windmills and the trees. We struck out briskly, intending to catch the last St.-Jacques 'bus home, and with that purpose we threaded the maze of steep passages and streets on our way to the Rue Muller. Upon reaching the top of the hill, behind the great skeleton of the Sacred Heart, where all was silent and still as the grave, we suddenly discovered the shadowy figures of men slipping out from a dark little street. We knew what it meant. With a common impulse we sprang forward, for it was now a run for our lives. I had recognized Crespin in the lead. With headlong speed we dashed down the steep incline, swinging our canes to check an attack in the rear. We had dodged out of our proper way to the Rue Muller, and now it was a matter of speed, endurance, and luck to reach blindly some street where life and protection might be found.

A man clutched my coat. I beat him off with my stick, but the skirt of my coat was hanging loose, nearly ripped off. A cord went whizzing past me and caught Bishop's hat, but he went sturdily on bareheaded. Stones flew past us, and presently one caught me a terrific, sickening blow in the back. I did not fall, but I staggered in my flight, for a strange heaviness came into my legs, and my head soon began to ache violently.

Crespin was desperately active. I could hear him panting heavily as he gained upon us. His long shadow, cast by the moon, showed that he was about to spring upon Bishop. I swung my cane blindly, but with all my might, and it fell upon his head and laid him low; but he quickly scrambled to his feet again. The ruffians were now upon us,—they were better used to the hill than we.

"Separate!" gasped Bishop. "It is our only chance." At the next corner we suddenly swung apart, taking opposite directions. I plunged on alone, glad to hear for a time that footfalls were following,—they meant that the pursuit had not concentrated on Bishop. But after a while I realized that I was no longer pursued. I stopped and listened. There was no sound. Weak and trembling, with an aching back and a splitting head, I sat down in a door-way and rested. That luxury was quickly interrupted by my reflecting that possibly Bishop had been overtaken; and I knew what that would mean. I ran back up the hill as rapidly as my weakness and trembling and pain permitted. At last I found myself at the corner where we had separated. There was no sound from any direction. I could only hope for the best and search and listen blindly through this puzzle of streets and passages.

Presently I realized that I was near the fortifications of Paris, close to St. Ouen,—that is to say, at the other end of Paris from the Quartier Latin, which was eight miles away. There was nothing to do but walk home. It was nearly four o'clock when I arrived. And there was Bishop in bed, nursing a big lump on his head, made by a flying stone. He had reached a street where a gendarme was, and that meant safety; and then he had taken a cab for home, where he was looking very ridiculous poulticing his lump and making himself sick fretting about me.

A NIGHT ON MONTMARTE

NEAR the end of a recent December Bishop received a note signed "A. Herbert Thomp-kins," written at the Hôtel de l'Athénée, saying that the writer was in Paris for four days with his wife before proceeding to Vienna to join some friends. It closed by asking, "Could you call at the hotel this evening, say at seven?"

This note created great excitement at our studio early one morning, the facteur having climbed six flights of stairs (it being near to New Year) to deliver it; for Mr. Thompkins was one of Bishop's warmest friends in America. His unexpected arrival in Paris at this unseasonable time of the year was indeed a surprise, but a most agreeable one. So Bishop spent the whole of the afternoon in creasing his best trousers, ransacking our trunks for a clean collar to wear with my blue-fronted shirt, polishing his top-hat, and getting his Velasquez whiskers trimmed and perfumed at the coiffeur's. It was not every day that friends of Mr. Thompkins's type made their appearance in Paris.

Bishop, after hours spent in absorbing mental work, at last disclosed his plan to me. Of course he would not permit me to keep out of the party, and besides, he needed my advice.

Here was Mr. Thompkins in Paris, and unless he were wisely guided he would leave without seeing the city,—except those parts and phases of it that tourists cannot keep from stumbling over. It would be both a duty and a pleasure to introduce him to certain things of which he might otherwise die in ignorance, to the eternal undevelopment of his soul. But here was the rub: Would Mr. Thompkins care to be so radically different here for one night—just one night—from what he was at home? I could not see how any harm could come to Mr. Thompkins or any one else with sense, nor how Bishop could possibly entertain him in anyway that would be disagreeable to a man of brains. But Bishop was evidently keeping something back. For that matter, he never did explain it, and I have not bothered about inferences. What Mr. Thompkins was at home I do not know. True, he was very much confused and embarrassed a number of times during the evening, but one thing I know,—he enjoyed himself immensely. And that makes me say that no matter what he was at home, he was a gentleman and philosopher while exploring an outlandish phase of Parisian Bohemian life that night under our guidance. He had a prim, precise way of talking, and was delightfully innocent and unworldly. My! it would have been a sin for him to miss what he saw that night. So I told Bishop very emphatically that no matter what Mr. Thompkins was at home, nobody who knew him was likely to see him in Paris at that time of the year, and that it was Bishop's duty as a friend to initiate him. Bishop was very happy over my advice; but when he insisted that we should take a cab for the evening's outing, I sternly reminded him of the bruises that our funds would receive on New Year's, and thus curbed his extravagance. He surrendered with a pang, for after all his preparation he felt like a duke, and for that night, while entertaining his friend, he wanted to be a duke, not a grubbing student.

We met Mr. Thompkins at the hotel, and I found him a delightful man, with a pleasant sparkle of the eye and a certain stiffness of bearing. It was his intention to have us dine with him, but Bishop gently took him in hand, and gradually gave him to understand that on this night in a lifetime he was in the hands of his friends, to do as they said, and to ask no questions. Mr. Thompkins looked a little puzzled, a little apprehensive, and withal not unwilling to be sacrificed.

The first thing we did was to introduce Mr. Thompkins to a quiet restaurant famous for its coquilles St.-Jacques; it is in the old Palais Royal. This is the dinner that Bishop ordered:

Mr. Thompkins's enjoyment of the meal was as generous as his praise of Bishop's skill in ordering it, and he declared that the wines particularly were a rare treat. By the time that dinner had been finished he was enthusiastic about Paris. He said that it was a wonderful city, and that he was entirely at our disposal for the night.

"I suppose, gentlemen," he suggested, "that you are going to invite me to the opera. Now, I have no objections to that, and I am sure I shall be delighted,—it is only one evening in a lifetime, perhaps. But I shall insist that you go as my guests."

Bishop laughed merrily, and slapped his friend on the back in a way that I never should have employed with a man of so much dignity.

"The opera, old man!" cried Bishop. "Why, you blessed idiot, you act like a tourist! The opera! You can go there any time. To-night we shall see Paris!" and he laughed again. "The opera!" he repeated. "Oh, my! You can fall over the opera whenever you please. This is an opportunity for a tour of discovery."

Mr. Thompkins laughed with equal heartiness, and declared that nothing would delight him more than to be an explorer—for one night in a lifetime.

Never had the Avenue de l'Opéra appeared so brilliant and lively as on that cold, crisp December night, as we strolled towards the boulevards. Its thousands of lights, its dashing equipages with the jingling harness of horses drawing handsome women and men to the Opéra, its swiftly moving cabs and heavy 'buses rolling over the smooth wooden pavement, the shouts of drivers and the cracking of whips, the throngs of gay people enjoying the holiday attractions, the endless rows of gaudy booths lining the street, the flood of light and color everywhere, the cuirassiers of the Garde Municipale mounted on superb horses standing motionless in the Place de l'Opéra, their long boots and steel breastplates and helmets glistening,—these all had their place,—while the broad stairs of the Opéra were crowded with beautifully gowned women and fashionable men pouring in to hear Sibyl Sanderson sing in "Samson and Delilah,"—all this made a wonderful picture of life and beauty, of color, motion, vivacity, and enjoyment. Above the entrance to the Opéra red marble columns reflected the yellow light of the gilded foyer and of the yellow blaze from the Café de la Paix across the way.

We mounted a Montmartre 'bus and were pulled up the hill to the Boul' Clichy, the main artery of that strange Bohemian mountain with its eccentric, fantastic, and morbid attractions. Before us, in the Place Blanche, stood the great Moulin Rouge, the long skeleton arms of the Red Mill marked with red electric lights and slowly sweeping across the heavens, while fanciful figures of students and dancing girls looked out the windows of the mill, and a great crowd of lively, chatting, laughing people were pushing their way toward the entrance of this famous dance- hall of Paris. Mr. Thompkins, entranced before the brilliant spectacle, asked somewhat hesitatingly if we might enter; but Bishop, wise in the ways of Montmartre, replied,—"Not yet. It is only a little after nine, and the Moulin does not get wide awake for some hours yet. We have no time to waste while waiting for that. We shall first visit heaven."

Mr. Thompkins looked surprised, but made no response. Presently we reached the gilded gates of Le Cabaret du Ciel. They were bathed in a cold blue light from above. Angels, gold-lined clouds, saints, sacred palms and plants, and other paraphernalia suggestive of the approach to St. Peter's domain, filled all the available space about the entrée. A bold white placard, "Bock, i Franc," was displayed in the midst of it all. Dolorous church music sounded within, and the heavens were unrolled as a scroll in all their tinsel splendor as we entered to the bidding of an angel.

Flitting about the room were many more angels, all in white robes and with sandals on their feet, and all wearing gauzy wings swaying from their shoulder-blades and brass halos above their yellow wigs. These were the waiters, the garçons of heaven, ready to take orders for drinks. One of these, with the face of a heavy villain in a melodrama and a beard a week old, roared unmelodiously,—"The greetings of heaven to thee, brothers! Eternal bliss and happiness are for thee. Mayst thou never swerve from its golden paths! Breathe thou its sacred purity and renovating exaltation. Prepare to meet thy great Creator—and don't forget the garçon!"

A very long table covered with white extended the whole length of the chilly room, and seated at it, drinking, were scores of candidates for angelship,—mortals like ourselves. Men and women were they, and though noisy and vivacious, they indulged in nothing like the abandon of the Boul' Mich' cafés. Gilded vases and candelabra, together with foamy bocks, somewhat relieved the dead whiteness of the table. The ceiling was an impressionistic rendering of blue sky, fleecy clouds, and stars, and the walls were made to represent the noble enclosure and golden gates of paradise.

"Brothers, your orders! Command me, thy servant!" growled a ferocious angel at our elbows, with his accent de la Villette, and his brass halo a trifle askew.

Mr. Thompkins had been very quiet, for he was Wonder in the flesh, and perhaps there was some distress in his lace, but there was courage also. The suddenness of the angel's assault visibly disconcerted him,—he did not know what to order. Finally he decided on a verre de Chartreuse, green. Bishop and I ordered bocks.

"Two sparkling draughts of heaven's own brew and one star-dazzler!" yelled our angel.

Obscured by great masses of clouds, through whose intervals shone golden stars, an organ continually rumbled sacred music, which had a depressing rather than a solemn effect, and even the draughts of heaven's own brew and the star-dazzler failed to dissipate the gloom.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the head of St. Peter, whiskers and all, appeared in a hole in the sky, and presently all of him emerged, even to his ponderous keys clanging at his girdle. He gazed solemnly down upon the crowd at the tables and thoughtfully scratched his left wing. From behind a dark cloud he brought forth a vessel of white crockery (which was not a wash-bowl) containing (ostensibly) holy water. After several mysterious signs and passes with his bony hands he generously sprinkled the sinners below with a brush dipped in the water; and then, with a parting blessing, he slowly faded into mist.

The royal cortège of the kingdom of heaven was now forming at one end of the room before a shrine, whereon an immense golden pig sat sedately on his haunches, looking friendly and jovial, his loose skin and fat jowls hanging in folds. Lighted candles sputtered about his golden sides. As the participants in the pageant, all attachés of the place, formed for the procession, each bowed reverently and crossed himself before the huge porker. A small man, dressed in a loose black gown and black skull- cap, evidently made up for Dante, whom he resembled, officiated as master of ceremonies. He mounted a golden pulpit, and delivered, in a loud, rasping voice, a tedious discourse on heaven and allied things. He dwelt on the attractions of heaven as a perpetual summer resort, an unbroken round of pleasures in variety, where sweet strains of angelic music (indicating the wheezy organ), together with unlimited stores of heaven's own sparkling fire of life, at a franc a bock, and beautiful goldenhaired cherubs, of la Villette's finest, lent grace and perfection to the scheme.

The parade then began its tour about the room, Dante, carrying a staff surmounted by a golden bull, serving as drum-major. Angel musicians, playing upon sacred lyres and harps, followed in his wake, but the dolorous organ made the more noise. Behind the lyre angels came a number of the notables whom Dante immortalized,—at least, we judged that they were so intended. The angel garçons closed the cortège, their gauzy wings and brass halos bobbing in a stately fashion as they strode along.

The angel garçons now sauntered up and gave us each a ticket admitting us to the angel-room and the other delights of the inner heaven.

"Youarre Eengleesh?" he asked. "Yes? Ah, theece Eengleesh arre verra genereauz," eyeing his fifty-centime tip with a questioning shrug. "Can you not make me un franc? Ah, eet ees dam cold in theece laigs," pointing to his calves, which were encased in diaphanous pink tights. He got his franc.

Dante announced in his rasping voice that those mortals wishing to become angels should proceed up to the angel-room. All advanced and ascended the inclined passage-way leading into the blue. At the farther end of the passage sat old St. Peter, solemn and shivering, for it was draughty there among the clouds. He collected our tickets, gave the password admitting us to the inner precincts, and resented Bishop's attempts to pluck a feather from his wings. We entered a large room, all a glamour of gold and silver. The walls were studded with blazing nuggets, colored canvas rocks, and electric lights. We took seats on wooden benches fronting a cleft in the rocks, and waited.

Soon the chamber in which we sat became perfectly dark, the cleft before us shining with a dim bluish light. The cleft then came to life with a bevy of female angels floating through the limited ethereal space, and smiling down upon us mortals. One of the lady angel's tights bagged at the knees, and another's wings were not on straight; but this did not interfere with her flight, any more than did the stationary position of the wings of all. But it was all very easily and gracefully done, swooping down, soaring, and swinging in circles like so many great eagles. They seemed to discover something of unusual interest in Mr. Thompkins, for they singled him out to throw kisses at him. This made him blush and fidget, but a word from Bishop reassured him,—it was only once in a lifetime!

After these angels had gyrated for some time, the head angel of the angel-room requested those who desired to become angels to step forward. A number responded, among them some of the naughty dancing-girls of the Moulin Rouge. They were conducted through a concealed door, and presently we beheld them soaring in the empyrean just as happy and serene as though they were used to being angels. It was a marvel to see wings so frail transport with so much ease a very stout young woman from the audience, and their being fully clothed did not seem to make any difference.

Mr. Thompkins had sat in a singularly contemplative mood after the real angels had quit torturing him, and surprised us beyond measure by promptly responding to a second call for those aspiring to angelhood. He disappeared with another batch from the Moulin Rouge, and soon afterwards we saw him floating like an airship. He even wore his hat. To his disgust and chagrin, however, one of the concert-hall angels persisted in flying in front of him and making violent love to him. This brought forth tumultuous applause and laughter, which completed Mr. Thompkins's misery. At this juncture the blue cleft became dark, the angel-room burst into light, and soon Mr. Thompkins rejoined us.

As we filed out into the passage Father Time stood with long whiskers and scythe, greeted us with profound bows, and promised that his scythe would spare us for many happy years did we but drop sous into his hour- glass.

There was no conversation among us when we emerged upon the boulevard, for Mr. Thompkins was in a retrospective frame of mind. Bishop embraced the opportunity to lead us up the Boulevard Clichy to the Place Pigalle. As we neared the Place we saw on the opposite side of the street two flickering iron lanterns that threw a ghastly green light down upon the barred dead-black shutters of the building, and caught the faces of the passers-by with sickly rays that took out all the life and transformed them into the semblance of corpses. Across the top of the closed black entrance were large white letters, reading simply: "Cafe du Néant"

The entrance was heavily draped with black cerements, having white trimmings,—such as hang before the houses of the dead in Paris. Here patrolled a solitary croque-mort, or hired pall-bearer, his black cape drawn closely about him, the green light reflected by his glazed top- hat. A more dismal and forbidding place it would be difficult to imagine. Mr. Thompkins paled a little when he discovered that this was our destination,—this grisly caricature of eternal nothingness,—and hesitated at the threshold. Without a word Bishop firmly took his arm and entered. The lonely croque-mort drew apart the heavy curtain and admitted us into a black hole that proved later to be a room. The chamber was dimly lighted with wax tapers, and a large chandelier intricately devised of human skulls and arms, with funeral candles held in their fleshless fingers, gave its small quota of light.

Large, heavy, wooden coffins, resting on biers, were ranged about the room in an order suggesting the recent happening of a frightful catastrophe. The walls were decorated with skulls and bones, skeletons in grotesque attitudes, battle-pictures, and guillotines in action. Death, carnage, assassination were the dominant note, set in black hangings and illuminated with mottoes on death. A half-dozen voices droned this in a low monotone:

"Enter, mortals of this sinful world, enter into the mists and shadows of eternity. Select your biers, to the right, to the left; fit yourselves comfortably to them, and repose in the solemnity and tranquillity of death; and may God have mercy on your souls!"

A number of persons who had preceded us had already pre-empted their coffins, and were sitting beside them awaiting developments and enjoying their consommations, using the coffins for their real purpose,—tables for holding drinking-glasses. Alongside the glasses were slender tapers by which the visitors might see one another.

There seemed to be no mechanical imperfection in the illusion of a charnel-house; we imagined that even chemistry had contributed its resources, for there seemed distinctly to be the odor appropriate to such a place.

We found a vacant coffin in the vault, seated ourselves at it on rush- bottomed stools, and awaited further developments.

Another croque-mort—a garçon he was—came up through the gloom to take our orders. He was dressed completely in the professional garb of a hearse-follower, including claw-hammer coat, full-dress front, glazed tile, and oval silver badge. He droned,—"Bon soir, Macchabées! * Buvez les crachats d'asthmatiques, voilà des sueurs froides d'agonisants. Prenez donc des certificats de décès, seulement vingt sous. C'est pas cher et c'est artistique!"

* This word (also Maccabe, argot Macabit) is given in Paris by sailors to cadavers found floating in the river.

Bishop said that he would be pleased with a lowly bock. Mr. Thompkins chose cherries à l'eau-de-vie, and I, une menthe.

"One microbe of Asiatic cholera from the last corpse, one leg of a lively cancer, and one sample of our consumption germ!" moaned the creature toward a black hole at the farther end of the room.

Some women among the visitors tittered, others shuddered, and Mr. Thompkins broke out in a cold sweat on his brow, while a curious accompaniment of anger shone in his eyes. Our sleepy pallbearer soon loomed through the darkness with our deadly microbes, and waked the echoes in the hollow casket upon which he set the glasses with a thump.

"Drink, Macchabées!" he wailed: "drink these noxious potions, which contain the vilest and deadliest poisons!"

The tapers flickered feebly on the coffins, and the white skulls grinned at him mockingly from their sable background. Bishop exhausted all his tactics in trying to induce Mr. Thompkins to taste his bran-died cherries, but that gentleman positively refused,—he seemed unable to banish the idea that they were laden with disease germs.

After we had been seated here for some time, getting no consolation from the utter absence of spirit and levity among the other guests, and enjoying only the dismay and trepidation of new and strange arrivals, a rather good-looking young fellow, dressed in a black clerical coat, came through a dark door and began to address the assembled patrons. His voice was smooth, his manner solemn and impressive, as he delivered a well-worded discourse on death. He spoke of it as the gate through which we must all make our exit from this world,—of the gloom, the loneliness, the utter sense of helplessness and desolation. As he warmed to his subject he enlarged upon the follies that hasten the advent of death, and spoke of the relentless certainty and the incredible variety of ways in which the reaper claims his victims. Then he passed on to the terrors of actual dissolution, the tortures of the body, the rending of the soul, the unimaginable agonies that sensibilities rendered acutely susceptible at this extremity are called upon to endure. It required good nerves to listen to that, for the man was perfect in his rôle. From matters of individual interest in death he passed to death in its larger aspects. He pointed to a large and striking battle scene, in which the combatants had come to hand-to-hand fighting, and were butchering one another in a mad lust for blood. Suddenly the picture began to glow, the light bringing out its ghastly details with hideous distinctness. Then as suddenly it faded away, and where fighting men had been there were skeletons writhing and struggling in a deadly embrace.

A similar effect was produced with a painting giving a wonderfully realistic representation of an execution by the guillotine. The bleeding trunk of the victim lying upon the flap-board dissolved, the flesh slowly disappearing, leaving only the white bones. Another picture, representing a brilliant dance-hall filled with happy revellers, slowly merged into a grotesque dance of skeletons; and thus it was with the other pictures about the room.

All this being done, the master of ceremonies, in lugubrious tones, invited us to enter the chambre de la mort. All the visitors rose, and, bearing each a taper, passed in single file into a narrow, dark passage faintly illuminated with sickly green lights, the young man in clerical garb acting as pilot. The cross effects of green and yellow lights on the faces of the groping procession were more startling than picturesque. The way was lined with bones, skulls, and fragments of human bodies.

"O Macchabées, nous sommes devant la porte de la chambre de la mort!" wailed an unearthly voice from the farther end of the passage as we advanced. Then before us appeared a solitary figure standing beneath a green lamp. The figure was completely shrouded in black, only the eyes being visible, and they shone through holes in the pointed cowl. From the folds of the gown it brought forth a massive iron key attached to a chain, and, approaching a door seemingly made of iron and heavily studded with spikes and crossed with bars, inserted and turned the key; the bolts moved with a harsh, grating noise, and the door of the chamber of death swung slowly open.

"O Macchabées, enter into eternity, whence none ever return!" cried the new, strange voice.

The walls of the room were a dead and unrelieved black. At one side two tall candles were burning, but their feeble light was insufficient even to disclose the presence of the black walls of the chamber or indicate that anything but unending blackness extended heavenward. There was not a thing to catch and reflect a single ray of the light and thus become visible in the blackness.

Between the two candles was an upright opening in the wall; it was of the shape of a coffin. We were seated upon rows of small black caskets resting on the floor in front of the candles. There was hardly a whisper among the visitors. The black-hooded figure passed silently out of view and vanished in the darkness.

Presently a pale, greenish-white illumination began to light up the coffin-shaped hole in the wall, clearly marking its outline against the black. Within this space there stood a coffin upright, in which a pretty young woman, robed in a white shroud, fitted snugly. Soon it was evident that she was very much alive, for she smiled and looked at us saucily. But that was not for long. From the depths came a dismal wail:

"O Macchabée, beautiful, breathing mortal, pulsating with the warmth and richness of life, thou art now in the grasp of death! Compose thy soul for the end!"

Her face slowly became white and rigid; her eyes sank; her lips tightened across her teeth; her cheeks took on the hollowness of death,— she was dead. But it did not end with that. From white the face slowly grew livid... then purplish black.... The eyes visibly shrank into their greenish-yellow sockets.... Slowly the hair fell away.... The nose melted away into a purple putrid spot. The whole face became a semi- liquid mass of corruption. Presently all this had disappeared, and a gleaming skull shone where so recently had been the handsome face of a woman; naked teeth grinned inanely and savagely where rosy lips had so recently smiled. Even the shroud had gradually disappeared, and an entire skeleton stood revealed in the coffin.

"Ah, ah, Macchabée! Thou hast reached the last stage of dissolution, so dreadful to mortals. The work that follows death is complete. But despair not, for death is not the end of all. The power is given to those who merit it, not only to return to life, but to return in any form and station preferred to the old. So return if thou deservedst and desirest."

With a slowness equal to that of the dissolution, the bones became covered with flesh and cerements, and all the ghastly steps were reproduced reversed. Gradually the sparkle of the eyes began to shine through the gloom; but when the reformation was completed, behold! there was no longer the handsome and smiling young woman, but the sleek, rotund body, ruddy cheeks, and self-conscious look of a banker. It was not until this touch of comedy relieved the strain that the rigidity with which Mr. Thompkins had sat between us began to relax, and a smile played over his face,—a bewildered, but none the less a pleasant, smile. The prosperous banker stepped forth, sleek and tangible, and haughtily strode away before our eyes, passing through the audience into the darkness. Again was the coffin-shaped hole in the wall dark and empty.

He of the black gown and pointed hood now emerged through an invisible door, and asked if there was any one in the audience who desired to pass through the experience that they had just witnessed. This created a suppressed commotion; each peered into the face of his neighbor to find one with courage sufficient for the ordeal. Bishop suggested to Mr. Thompkins in a whisper that he submit himself, but that gentleman very peremptorily declined. Then, after a pause, Bishop stepped forth and announced that he was prepared to die. He was asked solemnly by the doleful person if he was ready to accept all the consequences of his decision. He replied that he was. Then he disappeared through the black wall, and presently appeared in the greenish-white light of the open coffin. There he composed himself as he imagined a corpse ought, crossed his hands upon his breast, suffered the white shroud to be drawn about him, and awaited results,—after he had made a rueful grimace that threw the first gleam of suppressed merriment through the oppressed audience. He passed through all the ghastly stages that the former occupant of the coffin had experienced, and returned in proper person to life and to his seat beside Mr. Thompkins, the audience applauding softly.

A mysterious figure in black waylaid the crowd as it filed out. He held an inverted skull, into which we were expected to drop sous through the natural opening there, and it was with the feeling of relief from a heavy weight that we departed and turned our backs on the green lights at the entrance.

What a wonderful contrast! Here we were in the free, wide, noisy, brilliant world again. Here again were the crowds, the venders, saucy grisettes with their bright smiles, shining teeth, and alluring glances. Here again were the bustling cafés, the music, the lights, the life, and above all the giant arms of the Moulin Rouge sweeping the sky.

"Now," quietly remarked Bishop, "having passed through death, we will explore hell."

Mr. Thompkins seemed too weak, or unresisting, or apathetic to protest. His face betrayed a queer mixture of emotions, part suffering, part revulsion, part a sort of desperate eagerness for more.

We passed through a large, hideous, fanged, open mouth in an enormous face from which shone eyes of blazing crimson. Curiously enough, it adjoined heaven, whose cool blue lights contrasted strikingly with the fierce ruddiness of hell. Red-hot bars and gratings through which flaming coals gleamed appeared in the walls within the red mouth. A placard announced that should the temperature of this inferno make one thirsty, innumerable bocks might be had at sixty-five centimes each. A little red imp guarded the throat of the monster into whose mouth we had walked; he was cutting extraordinary capers, and made a great show of stirring the fires. The red imp opened the imitation heavy metal door for our passage to the interior, crying,—"Ah, ah, ah! still they come! Oh, how they will roast!" Then he looked keenly at Mr. Thompkins. It was interesting to note how that gentleman was always singled out by these shrewd students of humanity. This particular one added with great gusto, as he narrowly studied Mr. Thompkins, "Hist! ye infernal whelps; stir well the coals and heat red the prods, for this is where we take our revenge on earthly saintliness!"

"Enter and be damned,—the Evil One awaits you!" growled a chorus of rough voices as we hesitated before the scene confronting us.

Near us was suspended a caldron over a fire, and hopping within it were half a dozen devil musis dans, male and female, playing a selection from "Faust" on stringed instruments, while red imps stood by, prodding with red-hot irons those who lagged in their performance.

Crevices in the walls of this room ran with streams of molten gold and silver, and here and there were caverns lit up by smouldering fires from which thick smoke issued, and vapors emitting the odors of a volcano. Flames would suddenly burst from clefts in the rocks, and thunder rolled through the caverns. Red imps were everywhere, darting about noiselessly, some carrying beverages for the thirsty lost souls, others stirring the fires or turning somersaults. Everything was in a high state of motion.

Numerous red tables stood against the fiery walls; at these sat the visitors. Mr. Thompkins seated himself at one of them. Instantly it became aglow with a mysterious light, which kept flaring up and disappearing in an erratic fashion; flames darted from the walls, fires crackled and roared. One of the imps came to take our order; it was for three coffees, black, with cognac; and this is how he shrieked the order:

"Three seething bumpers of molten sins, with a dash of brimstone intensifier!" Then, when he had brought it, "This will season your intestines, and render them invulnerable, for a time at least, to the tortures of the melted iron that will be soon poured down your throats." The glasses glowed with a phosphorescent light. "Three francs seventy- five, please, not counting me. Make it four francs. Thank you well. Remember that though hell is hot, there are cold drinks if you want them."

Presently Satan himself strode into the cavern, gorgeous in his imperial robe of red, decked with blazing jewels, and brandishing a sword from which fire flashed. His black moustaches were waxed into sharp points, and turned rakishly upward above lips upon which a sneering grin appeared. Thus he leered at the new arrivals in his domain. His appearance lent new zest to the activity of the imps and musicians, and all cowered under his glance. Suddenly he burst into a shrieking laugh that gave one a creepy feeling. It rattled through the cavern with a startling effect as he strode up and down. It was a triumphant, cruel, merciless laugh. All at once he paused in front of a demure young Parisienne seated at a table with her escort, and, eying her keenly, broke into this speech:

"Ah, you! Why do you tremble? How many men have you sent hither to damnation with those beautiful eyes, those rosy, tempting lips? Ah, for all that, you have found a sufficient hell on earth. But you," he added, turning fiercely upon her escort, "you will have the finest, the most exquisite tortures that await the damned. For what? For being a fool. It is folly more than crime that hell punishes, for crime is a disease and folly a sin. You fool! For thus hanging upon the witching glance and oily words of a woman you have filled all hell with fuel for your roasting. You will suffer such tortures as only the fool invites, such tortures only as are adequate to punish folly. Prepare for the inconceivable, the unimaginable, the things that even the king of hell dare not mention lest the whole structure of damnation totter and crumble to dust."

The man winced, and queer wrinkles came into the corners of his mouth. Then Satan happened to discover Mr. Thompkins, who shrank visibly under the scorching gaze. Satan made a low, mocking bow.

"You do me great honor, sir," he declared, unctuously. "You may have been expecting to avoid me, but reflect upon what you would have missed! We have many notables here, and you will have charming society. They do not include pickpockets and thieves, nor any others of the weak, stunted, crippled, and halting. You will find that most of your companions are distinguished gentlemen of learning and ability, who, knowing their duty, failed to perform it. You will be in excellent company, sir," he concluded, with another low bow. Then, suddenly turning and sweeping the room with a gesture, he commanded, "To the hot room, all of you!" while he swung his sword, from which flashes of lightning trailed and thunder rumbled.

We were led to the end of a passage, where a red-hot iron door barred further progress.

"Oh, oh, within there!" roared Satan. "Open the portal of the hot chamber, that these fresh arrivals may be introduced to the real temperature of hell!"

After numerous signals and mysterious passes the door swung open, and we entered. It was not so very hot after all. The chamber resembled the other, except that a small stage occupied one end. A large green snake crawled out upon this, and suddenly it was transformed into a red devil with exceedingly long, thin legs, encased in tights that were ripped in places. He gave some wonderful contortion feats. A poor little white Pierrot came on and assisted the red devil in black art performances. By this time we discovered that in spite of the halfmolten condition of the rock-walls, the room was disagreeably chilly. And that ended our experience in hell.

Bishop then led us to the closed, dark front of a house in front of which stood a suspicious-looking man, who eyed us contemptuously. Bishop told him that we should like to enter. The man assented with a growl. He beat upon the door with a stick; a little wicket opened, and a villanous face peered out at us.

"Enter, you vile specimens of human folly!" hissed the inside guard as we passed within. "D———all three of you!"

We had no sooner found ourselves inside than this same person, a short, stout man, with long hair and a powerful frame, and the face of a cutthroat, struck a table with the heavy stick that he carried, and roared to us,—"Sit down!"

Mr. Thompkins involuntarily cowered, but he gathered himself up and went with us to seats at the nearest table. While we were doing this the habitués of the place greeted us with this song, sung in chorus:

"What are they saying?" asked Mr. Thompkins; but Bishop spared him by explaining that it was only the latest song.

The room had a low ceiling crossed by heavy beams. Wrought-iron gas lamps gave a gloomy light upon the dark, time-browned color of the place. The beams were loaded with dust, cobwebs, and stains, the result of years of smoke and accumulation. Upon the walls were dozens of drawings by Steinlen, illustrating the poems of low life written by the proprietor of the café; for we were in the den of the famous Aristide Bruant, the poet of the gutter,—Verlaine had a higher place as the poet of the slums. There were also drawings by Chéret, Willett, and others, and some clever sketches in oil; the whole effect was artistic. In one corner was an old fireplace, rich in carvings of grotesque heads and figures, grilled iron-work, and shining copper vessels. The general impression was of a mediaeval gun-room.

Near the fireplace, upon a low platform, was a piano; grouped about it were four typical Bohemians of lower Bohemia; they wore loads of hair; their faces had a dissipated look, their fingers were heavily stained by cigarettes; they wore beards and négligé black cravats. These were all minor poets, and they took their turn in singing or reciting their own compositions, afterwards making a tour of the crowded tables with a tin cup and collecting the sous upon which they lived, and roundly cursing those who refused to contribute.

Bishop was so delighted with the pictures on the walls that he proceeded to examine them, but the bully with the stick thundered,—"Sit down!" and shook his bludgeon menacingly. Bishop sat down.

Then the brute swaggered up to us and demanded,—"What the devil do you want to drink, anyway? Speak up quick!" When he had brought the drinks he gruffly demanded, "Pay up!" Upon receiving the customary tip he frowned, glared at us with a threatening manner, and growled, "Humph! c'est pas beaucoup!" and swept the money into his pocket.

"Goodness! this is an awful place!" exclaimed Mr. Thompkins under his breath. He seemed to fear being brained at any moment. Retreat had been rendered impossible by the locking of the door.

The great Bruant himself sat with a party of congenial Bohemians at a table near the piano and fireplace; they were drinking bocks and smoking cigarettes and long-stemmed pipes. On the wall behind them was a rack holding the pipes of the habitués of the café, mostly broken and well browned. Each pipe was owned by a particular Bohemian, and each had its special place in the rack. The other tables held a general assortment of lesser Bohemians and sight-seers, all cowed and silent under the domination of the bawling ruffian with the stick. Whenever he smiled (which was rare, a perpetual frown having creased a deep furrow between his eyes) they smiled also, in great relief, and hung upon every word that his occasional lapses into an approach to good nature permitted him to utter.

The poets and singers howled their productions in rasping voices, and put a strain upon the strength of the piano; and the minor Bohemians applauded them heartily and envied them their distinction.

In the midst of this performance there came a knock upon the door. The bully walked up to the wicket, peered out, and admitted an elderly gentleman, accompanied by a lady, evidently his wife. These the habitués greeted with the following song:

The gentleman, somewhat abashed by this reception, hesitated a moment, then sought seats. The two had hardly seated themselves when the burly ruffian with the stick began to recite a villanous poem reflecting upon the chastity of married women, emphasizing it with atrocious side remarks. The gentleman sprang from his seat in a rage and advanced threateningly upon the brute, who stood leering at him and taking a firmer hold upon his stick; but the visitor's wife caught the outraged man by the arm and restrained him. A wordy war ensued (for the gentleman was a Frenchman), in which the choicest argot of Montmartre and La Villette was exhausted by the ruffian. He closed by shouting,—"You were not invited to enter here. You asked the privilege of entering; your wish was granted. If you don't like it here, get out!"

The gentleman flung down a franc upon the table, the bolts were withdrawn, and he and his wife passed out while the roysterers sang,—

Aristide Bruant now rose from his table and strode to the centre of the room. A perfect silence fell. He is rather a small man, slender, and of delicate build; he has a thin, sallow face, with piercing black eyes, prominent cheek-bones, and long raven-black hair falling over his shoulders from beneath a broad black slouch hat down over his eyes. His unbuttoned coat showed a red flannel shirt open at the throat; a broad sash was about his waist; his trousers were tucked into top-boots,—the ensemble reminding one of Buffalo Bill. He glared sullenly round upon the people, and then sprang lightly upon a table. From that perch he recited one of his poems, selected from his book of songs and monologues. It does not bear reproduction here. For that matter, being written in the argot of Montmartre, it could hardly be understood even by French scholars unfamiliar with Montmartre.

Happily Mr. Thompkins understood not a word of it, smiling perfunctorily out of politeness while Bruant was uttering things that might have shocked the most hardened Parisians. There were several young women present, and while Bruant was reciting they ogled him with genuine adoration. The other poets hung reverently upon his every word.

A mighty burst of applause greeted the finish of the recitation; but Bruant slouched indifferently to his seat, ignoring the ovation. The bully with the stick immediately stopped the noise by yelling, "Silence!" This he followed up with the contribution-cup for the benefit of the idol of Montmartre. With the cup he brought the volume of Bruant's poems from which he had given the recitation,—a cheaply printed pamphlet. No one dared refuse to buy, and no change was returned. Was not this the great Aristide Bruant, the immortal of Montmartre?

He was followed by other poets with songs and the banging of the piano. We presently rose to leave, but the bully shouted,—"Sit down! How dare you insult the young poet who is now singing?" We submissively resumed our seats. After a while, in a lull, we respectfully rose again, and the bully, shouting, "Get out!" unbarred the door and we were free.

Mr. Thompkins was more deeply puzzled than he had been before that night. He could not understand that such a resort, where one is bullied and insulted, could secure patronage.

"But this is Paris, Mr. Thompkins," explained Bishop, somewhat vaguely; "and this particular part of Paris is Montmartre."

Midnight was now close at hand, but Montmartre was in the height of its gayety. Students, Bohemians, and cocottes were skipping and singing along the boulevard,—singing the songs of Bruant. The cafés were crowded, the theatres and concert halls only in the middle of their programmes. Cabs were dashing about, some stopping at the Moulin Rouge, others at the Elysée Montmartre, still others picking up fares for more distant attractions.

Bishop halted in front of a quiet-looking house with curtained windows, and bluntly asked Mr. Thompkins if he would like to go to church. Mr. Thompkins caught his breath, and an odd, guilty look came into his face. But before he could make reply Bishop was leading the way within. The interior of the place certainly looked like a church,—it was fitted to have that significance. The cold, gray stone walls rose to a vaulted Gothic ceiling; Gothic pillars and arches and carved wood completed the architectural effect; statues of saints appeared in niches, some surmounted by halos of lighted candles; and there were banners bearing scriptural mottoes.

The heavy oaken tables on the floor were provided with stiff, high- backed pulpit-chairs, beautiful in color and carving, and of a Gothic type, the whole scene suggesting a transept of Notre-Dame. Mr. Thomp- kins had reverently removed his hat. It was not long afterward that he quietly replaced it on his head. No notice was taken by us of these movements.

At the farther end, where the church altar belonged, was indeed a handsomely carved altar. Above it sprang a graceful arch, bearing a canopy beautifully painted in blue, with yellow stars. In the centre was a painting of Christ upon the cross. The altar was the bar, or caisse, of this queer café, and behind it sat the proprietress, quietly knitting and waiting to fill orders for drinks. The walls of the café were almost entirely covered with framed drawings by Rodel; all were portraits of well-known Bohemians of Montmartre in characteristic attitudes,—the star patrons of this rendezvous. Many women figured among them, all Bohemian to the bone.

This was the Café du Conservatoire, famous for its celebrities, the poets of Bohemian Paris, among whom Marcel Legay is eminent. It was evident that the habitués of the Conservatoire were of a much higher order than those whom we had seen elsewhere.

True, there was much long hair, for that is a disease hard to shake off; but when it did occur, it was well combed and oiled. And there were many flat-brimmed "plug" hats, as well as collars,—clean ones, too, an exceptional thing in Bohemia, laundering being expensive. But the poverty-haunted Bohemians in the Soleil d'Or are more picturesque. That, however, is in the Latin Quarter: anything exceptional may be expected at Montmartre.

When we had finished our coffee we approached the patronne behind the bar, and bought billets for the Salle des Poètes at two francs each. This was a large room crowded with enraptured listeners to Legay, who was at that moment rendering his song.

LES CLOCHES.

Legay had quite a distinguished appearance as he stood singing before the piano. He wore a generously cut frock-coat, and his waistcoat exposed a spacious show of white shirt-front.

His long hair was carefully brushed back, his moustaches neatly waxed; altogether he was dainty and jaunty, and the ladies in the room made no concealment of their adoration.

The accompanist was a picturesque character. He was forty-five or fifty years of age; he had long white hair and a drooping moustache, and his heavy protruding eyes were suffused with tears evoked by the pathos of the song. While he gazed up into the singer's face with tear-filled eyes he was in another life, another world, where there was nothing but music and poetry unalloyed to constitute his heaven. For Legay sang charmingly, with an art and a feeling that were never obtrusive; and his audience was aesthetic. When he had finished he was cheered without stint, and he clearly showed how much the attention pleased him.

His song was only one of the numbers on a very interesting programme. This was the training school of the young poets and song-writers of upper Bohemia; this was where they made their début and met the test of that discriminating criticism which decided them to advance upon the world or conceal themselves for yet a while from its cruel glare; and were they not but repeating the ordeal of the ancient Greeks, out of which so many noble things passed into literature? These critics were as frank with their disapproval as generous with their acceptance.

Among those who sang were Gustave Corbet, Marius Geffroy, Eugene Lemercier, Xavier Privas, Delarbre, and Henri Brallet, men as yet unknown, but likely to make a mark under the training, inspiration, and severe checks of the Café du Conservatoire. One of the goals for which these writers strive, and one that, if they win it, means to them recognition, is to have their poems published in Gil Blas, with illustrations by the peerless Steinlen, as are the works of Legay, and also of Bruant, le Terrible.

Marcel Legay is a familiar figure on the boulevards, where his dainty person is often seen after nightfall, hurrying to one or another of his haunts, with a small roll of music under his arm, and his fluffy hair streaming over his shoulders. On certain nights of every week he sings over in the Latin Quarter, at the Cabaret des Noctambules, Rue Champollion, near the Chapel of the Sorbonne.

The other singers that night at the Café du Conservatoire each affected his peculiar style of habit, gesture, and pose that he deemed most fetching. The entire programme was of songs: hence the name, Café du Conservatoire.

After we had deft, Bishop bought some Brevas cigars; thus fortified, we headed for the Moulin Rouge.

It was evident that Mr. Thompkins had reserved his enthusiasm for the great dance-hall of Montmartre,—Le Moulin Rouge,—with its women of the half world, its giddiness, its glare, its noise, its naughtiness.

Here at last we should find all absence of restraint, posing, sordidness, self-consciousness, and appeals to abnormal appetites. Mr. Thompkins visibly brightened as we ascended the incline of the entrance and came within the influence of the life and abandon of the place. Indeed, it must have seemed like fairy-land to him. The soft glow of hundreds of lights fell upon the crowds in the ball-room and balconies, with their shifting streams of color from the moving figures of dancing women in showy gowns and saucy hats, and its many chatting, laughing, joyous groups at the tables along the passage and the balconies, enjoying merry little suppers and varied consommations that kept scores of garçons continually on the move. A placard announced American Bar; American and English Drinks—as bald and unashamed as that. Here on high stools, American free-lunch fashion, ranged along the bar, were English and American tourists and French dandies sipping Manhattan cocktails with a cherry, brandy-and-soda, Tom-and-Jerry, and the rest. Along the walls hung vivid paintings of some of the famous dancing-girls of the Moulin, their saucy faces half hidden in clouds of lacy white skirts.

High up on a pretty balcony at the end of the huge ball-room were the musicians, enjoying their cigarettes and bocks between pieces. A small stage occupied the opposite end of the room, where a light vaudeville performance had been given; but that was all over now, and attention centred in the tables and the dancing.

The Moulin Rouge resembles very much the Bul-lier; but at the Moulin the cocottes are much more dashing and gaudy than over in the Quartier, because the inspector at the door of the Moulin maintains a more exacting standard on the score of the toilettes of the women whom he admits free of charge. Women, women, women! There seemed no end of them; and each was arrayed to the full limit of her means. And there were French dandies in long-white melton coats that were very tight at the waist, and that bore large brown-velvet collars; their hair, parted behind, was brushed toward their ears; they strolled about the place in numbers, twirling their moustaches and ogling the girls. And there were French army officers, Martinique negroes, longhaired students and Montmartre poets, artists, actors, and many three-days-in-Paris English tourists wearing knickerbockers and golf-caps, and always smoking bulldog pipes. There were also two parties of American men with their wives and daughters, and they enjoyed the spectacle with the natural fulness and responsiveness of their soil. For the Moulin is really now but a great show place; it has been discovered by the outside world, and, unlike the other quaint places mentioned in this paper, has suffered the change that such contact inevitably imparts. It is no longer the queer old Moulin, genuinely, spontaneously Bohemian. But the stranger would hardly realize that; and so to Mr. Thompkins it seemed the brilliant and showy side of Bohemian Paris. By reason of its change in character it has less interest than the real Bohemian Paris that the real Bohemians know, enjoy, and jealously guard.

Many light-footed young women were amusing circles of on-lookers with spirited dancing and reckless high-kicking; and, being adepts in their peculiar art, were so flashing and illusory that an attempt to analyze their movements brought only bewilderment. No bones seemed to hamper their swiftness and elasticity. The flash of a black stocking would instantly dissolve into a fleecy cloud of lace, and the whirling air was a cyclone; and there upon the floor sat the dancer in the "split," looking up with a merry laugh, flushed cheeks, and sparkling eyes, twinkling from the shadow of a twisted toque; then over her would sweep a whirlwind of other dancers, and identities would become inextricably confused.

An odd-looking man, with a sad face and marvellously long, thin legs in tights, did incredible things with those members; he was merely a long spring without bones, joints, or hinges. His cadaverous face and glittering black eyes, above which rose a top-hat that never moved from place, completed the oddity of his appearance. He is always there in the thickest of the dancing, and his salary is three francs a night.

We suddenly discovered Mr. Thompkins in a most embarrassing situation. A bewitching chemical blonde of the clinging type had discovered and appropriated him; she melted all over him, and poured a stream of bad English into his ear. She was so very, very thirsty, she pleaded, and Monsieur was so charming, so much a gentleman,—he was beautiful, too. Oh, Monsieur would not be so unkind as to remove the soft, plump arm from round his neck,—surely it did not hurt Monsieur, for was it not warm and plump, and was not that a pretty dimple in the elbow, and another even prettier in the shoulder? If Monsieur were not so charming and gracious the ladies would never, never fall in love with him like this. And oh, Monsieur, the place was so warm, and dancing makes one so thirsty!

Mr. Thompkins's face was a picture of shame and despair, and I have never seen a more comical expression than that with which he looked appealingly to us for help. Suppose some one in the hall should happen to recognize him! Of course there was only one thing to do. Mademoiselle Blanche's thirst was of that awful kind which only shipwrecked sailors, travellers lost in a desert, and café dancing-girls can understand. And so four glasses of beer were ordered. It was beautiful to see the grace and celerity with which Mademoiselle Blanche disposed of hers, the passionate eagerness with which she pressed a long kiss upon Mr. Thompkins's unwilling lips, and the promptness with which she then picked up his glass, drained it while she looked at him mischievously over the rim, kissed him again, and fled.

Mr. Thompkins sat speechless, his face blazing, his whole expression indescribably foolish. He vigorously wiped his lips with his handkerchief, and was not himself again for half an hour.

Innumerable bright little comedies were unconsciously played in all parts of the room, and they were even more interesting than the antics of the dancers.

We presently strolled into the garden of the Moulin, where a performance is given in the summer. There stood a great white sheet-iron elephant, remindful of Coney Island. In one of the legs was a small door, from which a winding stair led into the body of the beast. The entrance fee was fifty centimes, the ticket-office at the top of the stair. It was a small room inside the elephant, and there was a small stage in the end of it, upon which three young women were exercising their abdominal muscles in the danse du ventre. Mr. Thompkins, dismayed at this, would have fled had not Bishop captured him and hauled him back to a conspicuous seat, where the dancing-girls, quickly finding him, proceeded to make their work as extravagant as possible, throwing him wicked glances meanwhile, and manifestly enjoying his embarrassment. Of course the dancers came round presently for offerings of sous.

We returned to the dance-hall, for it was now closing-up time, and in order to feel a touch of kinship with America, drank a gin fizz at the American bar, though it seemed to be a novelty to Mr. Thompkins.

The streets were alive with the revellers who had been turned out by the closing of the cafés, dancehalls, and theatres, and the cries of cabbies rose above the din of laughter and chatter among the crowds. But the night was not yet quite finished. Said Bishop,—"We shall now have coffee at the Red Ass."

That was below the Place Pigalle, quite a walk down to the Rue de Maubeuge, through that suddenly quiet centre of artists' studios and dignified residences. At last we reached L'Âne Rouage,—the Red Ass. It has a small and unassuming front, except that the window-panes are profusely decorated with painted flowers and figures, and a red ass peers down over the narrow door. L'Âne Rouge has no special distinction, save its artistic interior and the fanciful sketches on its walls. It is furnished with heavy dark tables and chairs, and iron grilled into beautiful scrolls and chandeliers,—like the famous Chat Noir, near by. In fact, L'Âne Rouge resembles an old curiosity shop more than anything else, for it is filled with all imaginable kinds of antiques, blackened by age and smoke, and in perfect harmony. It, too, has its particular clientèle of Bohemians, who come to puff their long pipes that hang in racks, and recount their hopes, aspirations, achievements, and failures, occasionally breaking into song. For this they bring forth their mandolins and guitars, and sing sentimental ditties of their own composition. There is a charming air of chez soi at the Red Ass; a spirit of good-fellowship pervades it; and then, the café is small, cosey, and comfortable, as well as artistic.

It was in a lively commotion when we crossed the threshold, the place being filled with littérateurs of the quarter. A celebration was in progress,—one of their number had just succeeded in finding a publisher for two volumes of his poetry. It was a notable event, and the lucky Bohemian, flushed with money, had settled his debts and was now treating his friends. Although we were strangers to him, he cordially invited us to share the hospitality of the occasion, and there was great applause when Bishop presented him with a Brevas cigar.

"Bravo, les Anglais! Ce sont des bons types, ceux-là!" and then they sang in chorus, a happy, careless, jolly crowd.

There was a small, thin young sketch artist making crayon portraits of the successful poet and selling them to the poet's friends for fifty centimes apiece,—with the poet's autograph, too.

In response to a call for une chanson Anglaise, Bishop sang "Down on the Farm" as he had never sung it before, his shining top-hat pushed back upon his curly hair, his jovial face beaming. At its conclusion he proposed a toast to the successful poet, and it was drunk standing and with a mighty shout.

We looked in at the Cabaret des Quat'z' Arts,—a bright and showy place, but hardly more suggestive of student Bohemianism than the other fine cafés of the boulevards.

And thus ended a night on Montmartre. We left Mr. Thompkins at his hotel. I think he was more than satisfied, but he was too bewildered and tired to say much about it.

Montmartre presents the extravagant side of Parisian Bohemianism. If there is a thing to be mocked, a convention to be outraged, an idol to be destroyed, Montmartre will find the way. But it has a taint of sordidness that the real Bohemianism of the old Latin Quarter lacks,—for it is not the Bohemianism of the students. And it is vulgar. For all that, in its rude, reckless, and brazen way it is singularly picturesque. It is not likely that Mr. Thompkins will say much about it when he goes home, but he will be able to say a great deal in a general way about the harm of ridiculing sacred things and turning reverence into a laugh.

MOVING IN THE QUARTIER LATIN

THE Quartier Latin takes on unwonted life about the fifteenth of July, when the artists and students change their places of abode under the resistless pressure of a nomadic spirit.

Studios are generally taken for terms ranging from three months to a year, and the terms generally expire in July. The artists who do not change their residence then go into the country, and that means moving their effects.

It is a familiar fact that artists do not generally occupy a high position in the financial world.

Consequently they are a very practical lot, attending to their own domestic duties (including washing when times are hard), and doing their own moving when July comes; but this is not a very elaborate undertaking, the worse of them for that.

One day in July Bishop and I sat in our window overlooking the court, and observed the comedy of a

A STUDENT MOVING

No one thinks student in the throes of moving. The old building at the end of our court was a favorite abiding-place for artists. Evidently, on this day, a young artist or art student was en déménagement, for his household goods were being dragged down the stairs and piled in the court preparatory to a journey in a small hand-cart standing by. He was cheerfully assisted by a number of his friends and his devoted companion, a pretty little grisette. There were eight of them in all, and their laughter and shouts indicated the royal fun they were having.

The cart was one of those voitures à bras that are kept for hire at a neighboring location de voitures à bras at six sous an hour. In order to get locomotion out of it you have to hitch yourself in the harness that accompanies it, and pull the vehicle yourself; and that is no end of fun, because your friends are helping and singing all the way.

Into this vehicle they placed a rickety old divan and a very much dilapidated mattress; then came half a sack of coal, a tiny, rusty, round studio stove with interminable yards of battered and soot-filled pipe, a pine table, two rush-bottomed chairs, and a big box filled with clattering dishes, kettles, pots, and pans. On top of this came a thick roll of dusty, faded, threadbare hangings and rugs, and the meagre wardrobes of the artist and the grisette; then a number of hat-boxes, after which Mademoiselle looked with great solicitude. Last of all came bulky portfolios filled with the artist's work, a large number of canvases that were mostly studies of Mademoiselle au naturel, with such accessories as easel, paint-boxes, and the like, and the linen and bedding.

The fat old concierge stood grumbling near by, for the ropes were being tied over the load, and she was anxiously waiting for her dernier adieu, or parting tip, that it is the custom to give upon surrendering the key. But tips are sometimes hard to give, and Bohemian etiquette does not regard them with general favor. After the load had been made snug, the artist approached the concierge, doffed his cap, bowed low, and then in a most impressively ceremonious manner handed her the key, avowed that it broke his heart to leave her, and commended her to God. That was all. There seems to be a special providence attending upon the vocabulary of concierges in their hour of need. The shrill, condemnatory, interminable vocalization of this concierge's wrath indicated specific abilities of exceptional power.

But the artist paid no attention. He hung his coat and "plug" hat on the inverted table-leg, got between the shafts, hitched himself in the harness, and sailed out of the court, his friends swarming around and assisting him to drag the toppling cart away. And this they did with a mighty will, yelling and singing with a vigor that wholly obliterated the concierge's noise. The little grisette closed the procession, bearing in one hand a lamp and in the other a fragile bust. And so the merry party started, possibly for the other end of Paris,—the greater the distance the more the fun. They all knew that when the voiture had been unloaded and all had fallen to and assisted the young couple in straightening out their new home, there would be a jolly celebration in the nearest café at the moving artist's expense.

So the start was made fairly and smoothly; but the enthusiasm of the crowd was so high and the little vehicle was so top-heavy, that at the end of the passage the comedy seemed about to merge into a tragedy. It was announced to all the court in the shrill voice of the concierge, who exultingly screamed,—"The stove has fallen out! and the coal! The things are falling all over the street! Oh, you villain!"

To the movers themselves it was merely an incident that added to the fun and zest of the enterprise.

My plans carried me to Concarneau, and Bishop's took him to Italy, where I would join him after a while. And a royal time we had in our several ways. The autumn found us fresh and eager for our studies in Paris again, and so we returned to hunt a studio and establish ourselves in new quarters. We had stored our goods with a kind American friend; and as we had neither the desire nor the financial ability to violate the traditions of the Quartier, we greatly scandalized him and his charming family by appearing one day with a crowd of students and a voiture à bras before his house and taking our effects away in the traditional fashion. Of course our friend would have gladly paid for the transport of our belongings in a more respectable fashion; but where would have been the fun in that? I am pleased to say that with true American adaptiveness he joined the singing and yelling crowd, and danced a jig to our playing in our new quarters after a generous brew of punch had done its share in the jollity of the event.

Ah, dear old Paris! wonderful, bewildering Paris! alluring, enchanting Paris! Our student years are now just ended, and Paris is already so crowded with workers who cannot bear to leave it that we must seek our fortune in other and duller parts of the world. But Paris has ineradicably impressed itself upon us. We have lived its life; we have been a part of its throbbing, working, achieving individuality. What we take away will be of imperishable value, the salt and leaven of our hopes and efforts forever.

THE END

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bohemian Paris of To-day

BOHEMIAN PARIS OF TO-DAY

By W. C. Morrow

From Notes By Edouard Cucuel

Illustrated By Edouard Cucuel

Second Edition

Philadelphia & London J. B. Lippincott Company 1900

INTRODUCTION