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Chapter X.
Rollo's Narrative

One evening, when Rollo had been making a long excursion during the day with his uncle George, and had dined with him, at the close of it, at a restaurant's in the Boulevards, he went home about eight o'clock to the hotel to see his father and mother and Jennie, and tell them where he had been. He found his mother in her room putting on her bonnet. She said she was going to take a ride along the Boulevards with a gentleman and lady who were going to call for her.

"And where is father?" said Rollo.

"He has gone to bed, and is asleep by this time. You must be careful not to disturb him."

"And Jennie?" asked Rollo.

"She has gone to bed, too," said his mother; "but she is not asleep, and I presume she will be very glad to see you. You can go in her room."

"Well, I will," said Rollo. "But, mother, I should like to go and ride with you. Will there be room for me?"

"Yes," said his mother. "There will be room, I suppose, in the carriage; but it would not be proper for me to take you, for I am going on an invitation from others. The invitation was to me alone, and I have no right to extend it to any body else.

"But this you can do, if you please," continued his mother. "You can take our carriage, and let Alfred drive you, and so follow along after our party. Only in that case you would not have any company. You would be in a carriage alone."

"Never mind that," said Rollo. "I should like that. I would put the top back, and then I could see all around. I should have a grand ride. I'll go. I wish Jennie had not gone to bed; she could have gone with me."

"No," replied his mother; "Jennie is not well to-night. She has got cold, and she went to bed early on that account. But she will be very glad to have you go and see her."

So Rollo went into Jennie's room. As soon as he opened the door, Jennie pushed aside the curtains, and said,—

"Ah, Rollo, is that you? I am very glad that you have come."

"I can't stay but a little while," said Rollo. "I am going to take a ride with mother."

"Are you going with mother?" asked Jennie.

"Not in the carriage with her," replied Rollo; "but I am going in the same party. I am going to have a carriage all to myself."

"O, no, Rollo," said Jennie, in a beseeching tone. "Don't go away. Stay here with me, please. I am all alone, and have not any body to amuse me."

"But you will go to sleep pretty soon," said Rollo.

"No," replied Jennie; "I am not sleepy the least in the world. See."

Here Jennie opened her eyes very wide, and looked Rollo full in the face, by way of demonstrating that she was not sleepy.

Rollo felt very much perplexed. When he pictured to himself, in imagination, the idea of being whirled rapidly through the Boulevards, on such a pleasant summer evening, in a carriage which he should have all to himself, with the top down so that he could see every thing all around him, and of the brilliant windows of the shops, the multitudes of ladies and gentlemen taking their coffee at the little round tables on the sidewalk in front of the coffee saloons, the crowds of people coming and going, and the horsemen and carriages thronging the streets, the view was so enchanting that it was very hard for him to give up the promised pleasure. He, however, determined to do it; so he said,—

"Well, Jennie, I'll stay. I will go out and tell mother that I am not going to ride, and then I will come back."

For the first half hour after Mrs. Holiday went away, Rollo was occupied with Jennie in looking over some very pretty French picture books which Mrs. Holiday had bought for her that day, to amuse her because she was sick. Jennie had looked them all over before; but now that Rollo had come, it gave her pleasure to look them over again, and talk about them with him. Jennie sat up in the bed, leaning back against the pillows and bolsters, and Rollo sat in a large and very comfortable arm chair, which he had brought up for this purpose to the bedside. The books lay on a monstrous square pillow of down, half as large as the bed itself, which, according to the French fashion, is always placed on the top of the bed. Rollo and Jennie would take the books, one at a time, and look them over, talking about the pictures, and showing the prettiest ones to each other. Thus the time passed very pleasantly. At length, however, Jennie, having looked over all the books, drew herself down into the bed, and began to ask Rollo where he had been that day.

"I have been with uncle George," said Rollo. "He said that he was going about to see a great many different places, and that I might go with him if I chose, though he supposed that most of them were places that I should not care to see. But I did. I liked to see them all."

"What places did you go to?" asked Jennie.

"Why, first we went to see the workshops. I did not know before that there were so many. Uncle George says that Paris is one of the greatest manufacturing places in the world; only they make things by hand, in private shops, and not in great manufactories, by machinery. Uncle George says there must be as much as eight or ten square miles of these shops in Paris. They are piled up to six or eight stories high. Some of the streets look like ranges of chalky cliffs facing each other, such as we see at some places on the sea shore."

"What do they make in the shops?" asked Jennie.

"O, all sorts of curious and beautiful things. They have specimens of the things that they make up, put up, like pictures in a frame, in little glass cases, on the wall next the street. We walked along through several streets and looked at these specimens. There were purses, and fringes, and watches, and gold and silver chains, and beautiful portemonnaies, and clocks, and jewelry of all kinds, and ribbons, and opera glasses, and dressing cases, and every thing you can think of."

"Yes," said Jennie, "I have seen all such things in the shop windows in the Palais Royal and in the Boulevards."

"Ah, those are the shops where they sell the things," said Rollo; "but these shops that uncle George and I went to see are where they make them. We went to one place where they were making artificial flowers, and such beautiful things you never saw. The rooms were full of girls, all making artificial flowers."

"Why did not you bring me home some of them?" asked Jennie.

"Why—I don't know," replied Rollo. "I did not think to ask if I could buy any of them.

"Then, after we had gone about in the workshops till we had seen enough, we went to the Louvre to see the paintings; though on the way we stopped to see a crèche."

Rollo pronounced the word very much as if it had been spelled crash.

"A crash!" exclaimed Jennie. "Did a building tumble down?"

"O, no," said Rollo, "it was not that. It was a place where they keep a great many babies. The poor women who have to go out to work all day carry their babies to this place in the morning, and leave them there to be taken care of, and then come and get them at night. There are some nuns there, dressed all in white, to take care of the babies. They put them in high cradles that stand all around the room."

"Were they all crying?" asked Jennie.

"O, no," said Rollo, "they were all still. When we went in they were all just waking up. The nuns put them to sleep all at the same time. Every cradle had a baby in it. Some were stretching their arms, and some were opening their eyes, and some were trying to get up. As fast as they got wide awake, the nuns would take them up and put them on the floor, at a place where there was a carpet for them to creep upon and play."

"I wish I could go and see them," said Jennie.

"You can," replied Rollo. "Any body can go and see them. The nuns like to have people come. They keep every thing very white and nice. The cradles were very pretty."

"Did they rock?" asked Jennie.

"No," replied Rollo; "they were made to swing, and not to rock. They were up so high from the floor that they could not be made to rock very well. We stayed some time in this place, and then we went away."

"And where did you go next?" asked Jennie.

"We went to the Louvre to see the famous gallery of paintings. It is a quarter of a mile long, and the walls are covered with paintings on both sides, the whole distance."

"Except where the windows are, I suppose," said Jennie.

"No," replied Rollo, "there are no interruptions for windows. The windows are up high in the ceiling, for the room is very lofty. There is room for two or three rows of paintings below the windows. It is a splendid long room."

"Were the pictures very pretty?" asked Jennie.

"Not very," said Rollo. "At least, I did not think so; but uncle George told me it was a very famous gallery. There were a great many other rooms besides, all carved and gilded most magnificently, and an immense staircase of marble, wide enough for an army to go up and down. There were several large rooms, too, full of ancient marble statues; but I did not like them very much. They looked very dark and dingy. The paintings were prettier than they.

"There were a great many persons in the painting gallery at work copying the paintings," continued Rollo. "Some were girls, and some were young men. There was one boy there not much bigger than I."

"I don't see how so small a boy could learn to paint so well," said Jennie.

"Why, he was not so very small," said Rollo. "He was bigger than I am, and I am growing to be pretty large. Besides, they have excellent schools here where they learn to draw and to paint. We went to see one of them."

"Did it look like one of our schools?" asked Jennie.

"O, no," replied Rollo; "it seemed to me more like a splendid palace than a school. We went through an iron gate into a court, and across the court to a great door, where a man came to show us the rooms. There were a great many elegant staircases, and passage ways, and halls, with pictures, and statues, and models of cities, and temples, and ruins, and every thing else necessary for the students."

"Were the students there?" asked Jennie.

"No," replied Rollo; "but we saw the room where they worked, and we saw the last lesson that they had."

"What was it?" asked Jennie.

"It was a subject which the professor gave them for a picture; and all of them were to paint a picture on that subject, each one according to his own ideas. We saw the paintings that they had made. There were twenty or thirty of them. The subject was written on a sheet of paper, and put up in the room where they could all see it."

"What was the subject?" asked Jennie.

"It was something like this," replied Rollo: "An old chestnut tree in a secluded situation, the roots partly denuded by an inundation from a stream. Cattle in the foreground, on the right. Time, sunset."

"And did all the pictures have an old chestnut tree in them?" asked Jennie.

"Yes," said Rollo; "and the roots were all out of the ground on one side, and there were cows in the foreground of them all. But the forms of the trees, and the position of the cattle, and the landscape in the back ground were different in every one."

"I should like to see them," said Jennie.

"Then," said Rollo, "when we came away from this place we walked along on the quay by the side of the river, looking over the parapet down to the bank below."

"Was it a pretty place?" asked Jennie.

"Yes," said Rollo, "a very pretty place indeed. There were great floating houses in the water, for the baths, with wheels turning in the current to pump up water, and little flower gardens along the brink of the stream. At least, in some places there were flower gardens; and in others there was a wall along the water, with boys sitting on the edge of it, fishing. Presently we came to a place where there was an opening in the parapet and stairs to go down to the water. You go down two or three steps first, and then the stairs turn each way. At the turning there was a man who had fishing poles, and nets, and fishing lines to sell or let. He had some to let for three sous an hour. I proposed to uncle George that we should hire two of them and go down and fish a little while."

"And what did he say?" asked Jennie.

"He laughed, and said that for him to spend his time while he was in Paris in fishing in the Seine would be perfectly preposterous. He said that his time in Europe cost him not less than a dollar for every hour."

"A dollar for every hour?" exclaimed Jennie.

"Yes," replied Rollo. "He says that his two passages across the Atlantic will have cost three hundred dollars, and the other expenses of his tour as much as five hundred more, which makes eight hundred dollars, and that he will not have more than one hundred days, probably, from the time of his landing in England to the time of his sailing again. That makes it about eight dollars a day. Now, there are not more than eight hours in a day suitable for going about and seeing what is to be seen; so that his time in the middle of the day costs him a dollar an hour; and he could not afford, he said, to spend it in fishing.

"However," continued Rollo, "he said that I might look at the man's fishing apparatus; and if I found that it was different from that which the boys used in America, I might buy some of it to carry home."

"And did you?" asked Jennie.

"Yes," replied Rollo. And so saying, he put his hand in his pocket and took out a small parcel put up in a piece of French newspaper. He unrolled this parcel and showed Jennie what it contained. Jennie sat up in bed very eagerly in order to see it. First there came out a small net.

"This net, you see," said Rollo, "is to be put upon a hoop or a ring of wire when I get to America. I did not buy a hoop, because it would fill up my trunk too much. But I can make one when I get home.

"Then here are the fishing lines," continued Rollo. "I bought two of them. They were very cheap."

The fishing lines were very pretty. Each had a small round cork upon the end of a quill. The corks were red, touched with blue. There was a sinker for each, made of large shot.

"The man put in several spare sinkers for me," resumed Rollo, "in case these should come off." So saying, he opened a small paper and showed Jennie several large-sized shot, each of which had a cleft in the side of it for putting in the line. The intention was that the lead should be closed over the line, after the line had been inserted in it, by means of a light blow with a hammer, and thus the sinker would be secured to its place.

"I like a net best to catch fishes with," said Jennie, "because that does not hurt them."

"True," said Rollo, "a net is a great deal better on that account. You see I put a hoop around to keep the mouth of the net open, and then fasten it to the end of a long handle. Then you stand on the bank of the brook and put the net down into the water, and when a fish comes along you dip him up."

"Yes," said Jennie, "that is an excellent way."

"Then you could put him in a small pail of water," said Rollo, "and carry him home, and then you could put him in a bowl and see him swim about."

"Yes," said Jennie, "I wish you would give me this net."

"Well," said Rollo, "I will. I shall go down by the river again some day, and then I can buy another for myself."

"So you can," said Jennie: "or, if you don't get another, I can lend you mine when you wish to fish with it."

So Rollo put up his fishing tackle again, and then Jennie asked him where else he went.

"Why, we walked along the quay," said Rollo, "a long way, past several bridges, until at last we came to a bridge leading over to an island in the river, where there was a great cathedral church, which uncle George said he wished to see. It was the Church of Notre Dame. It was an immense great church, with two towers very high; but it was very old. The outside of it seemed to be all crumbling to pieces."

"Did you go in?" asked Jennie.

"Yes," replied Rollo. "It is open all the time, and people are all the time going and coming. We went in. There was an old woman sitting just inside the door, with a string of beads in her hands, counting them. There were two or three other old women there, knitting. I could not see much of the inside of the church when we first went in, there were so many columns; but I could hear the birds flying about and singing away up high among the vaults and arches."

"The birds inside the church!" said Jennie. "I should think they would drive them out."

"I don't know how they could drive them out," said Rollo, "it was so high up to where they were flying. The arch of the ceiling seemed like a stone sky. There were so many pillars to keep up this roof, that, when we first went in, we could not see any end to the church at all. However, we walked along, and after a while we came to the end.

"There were a great many curious things to see in the church," continued Rollo. "There were a great many little chapels along the sides of it, and curious images sculptured in stone, and people doing curious things all about in different places. We walked about there for half an hour. At last we found a congregation."

"A congregation!"

"Yes," said Rollo, "we came to a place, at last, which was divided off by a kind of railing; and there was a congregation there, sitting in chairs. Some were kneeling in chairs, and some were kneeling on the stone floor. They were reading in little prayer books and looking about."

"Was any body preaching to them?" asked Jennie.

"No," said Rollo, "but there were some priests at the altar doing something there; but I could not understand what they were doing. We stopped there a little while, and then we came away. We walked along to another part of the church, and at length we came to another enclosure, where a great many people were collected. Mr. George went up to see what it was, and he said he believed it was a baptism; but I could not get near enough to see."

"And what did you do next?" asked Jennie.

"Why, we came out of the church, and crossed over by a bridge to this side of the river, and then walked down along the quay till we came to a place where there was a tall bronze column, somewhat like this column in the Place Vendome. Uncle George said that he wished to see it, because it stood on the place where a famous old castle and prison used to stand in former times, called the Bastile. He said that the people made an insurrection and battered the old prison down, because the government was so cruel in shutting up innocent prisoners in it. They built fires against the doors, and battered against them with heavy timbers until they broke them in, and then they let the prisoners out and set the prison on fire. Uncle George said that I should take great interest in reading about it one of these days; but I think I should like to read about it now."

"I should, too," said Jennie.

"They afterward took away all the stones of the Bastile," continued Rollo, "and made this tall bronze column in its place. There is a figure of a man on it, standing on tiptoe."

"I should think he would blow down in a high wind," said Jennie.

"I don't know why he does not, I am sure," rejoined Rollo. "I wanted to go up to the top of the column and see how he was fastened there; but uncle George said he was too tired. So we came away. In fact, I was very willing to come away, for I saw a great crowd at a certain broad place on the sidewalk, not far from there, and I wished to go and see what it was."

"And did you go?" asked Jennie.

"Yes," replied Rollo, "and I found it was a man who had made a great ring of people all about him, and was trying to get them to give fifteen sous to see him shut himself up in a small box. The box was on the pavement, all ready. It was quite small. It did not seem possible that a man could be shut up in it."

"How big was it?" asked Jennie.

"O, I don't know, exactly," said Rollo. "It was quite small."

"Was it no bigger than that," said Jennie, holding her two hands a few inches apart, so as to indicate what she would consider quite a small box.

"O, yes," said Rollo, "it was a great deal bigger than that. It was only a little smaller than you would think a man could get into. The box was square, and was made of tin, but painted black.

"There was an organ at one end of the ring, with a man playing upon it, to draw the crowd together. In front of the organ was a woman, with a baby in her arms, and another little child playing about her. The man said that this was his family, and that he had to support them by his experiments. In front of the woman was the box. In front of the box was the man, who stood there, generally, telling what he was going to do, and calling upon the people to throw in their sous. In front of the man was a carpet, on the pavement, and in the middle of the carpet a tin plate. From time to time the people would throw sous over into the circle. The man would then pick them up and put them into the plate, and tell the people how many there lacked. There must be fifteen, he said, or he could not perform the experiment. He kept talking all the time to the people, and saying funny things to make them laugh.

"At last all the fifteen sous were in, and then the man went to the box. He brought out a soldier who was standing among the people, and placed him near the box, so that he might shut the cover down when the man was in. The man then stepped into the box. The upper edge of it was not higher than his knees. He then began to kneel down in the box, crossing his legs under him; and then he crouched his body down into it, and curled in his head, and then–

"Jennie!" said Rollo, interrupting himself. He observed that Jennie was very still, and he was not sure that she was listening.

Jennie did not answer. She was fast asleep.

"She's gone to sleep," said Rollo, "without hearing the end of the story. However, the soldier put the lid down, and shut the man entirely in."

Rollo thought that, as he was so near the end, he might as well finish the story, even if his auditor was asleep.