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CHAPTER VIII.
THE BANKS OF THE SEINE

The city of the ancient Parisii is the one particular spot throughout the length of the sea-green Seine – that “winding river” whose name, says Thierry, in his “Histoire des Gaulois,” is derived from a Celtic word having this signification – where is resuscitated the historical being of the entire French nation.

Here it circles around the Ile St. Louis, cutting it apart from the Ile de la Cité, and rushing up against the northern bank, periodically throws up a mass of gravelly sand, just in the precise spot where, in mediæval times, was an open market-place.

Here the inhabitants of the city met the country dealers, who landed produce from their boats, traded, purchased, and sold, and departed whence they came, into the regions of the upper Seine or the Marne, or downward to the lower river cities of Meulan, Mantes, and Vernon.

At this time Paris began rapidly to grow on each side of the stream, and became the great market or trading-place where the swains who lived up-river mingled with the hewers of wood from the forests of La Brie and the reapers of corn from the sunny plains of La Beauce.

These country folk, it would appear, preferred the northern part of Paris to the southern – it was less ceremonious, less ecclesiastical. If they approached the city from rearward of the Université, by the Orleans highroad, they paid exorbitant toll to the Abbot of St. Germain des Prés. Here they paid considerably less to the Prévôt of Paris. And thus from very early times the distinction was made, and grew with advancing years, between the town, or La Ville, which distinguished it from the Cité and the Université.

This sandy river-bank gradually evolved itself into the Quai and Place de la Grève, – its etymology will not be difficult to trace, – and endured in the full liberty of its olden functions as late as the day of Louis XV. Here might have been seen great stacks of firewood, charcoal, corn, wine, hay, and straw.

Aside from its artistic and economic value, the Seine plays no great part in the story of Paris. It does not divide what is glorious from what is sordid, as does “London’s river.” When one crosses any one of its numerous bridges, one does not exchange thriftiness and sublimity for the commonplace. Les Invalides, L’Institut, the Luxembourg, the Panthéon, the Odéon, the Université, – whose buildings cluster around the ancient Sorbonne, – the Hôtel de Cluny, and the churches of St. Sulpice, St. Etienne du Mont, and St. Severin, and, last but not least, the Chamber of Deputies, all are on the south side of Paris, and do not shrink greatly in artistic or historical importance from Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Tour St. Jacques, the Place de la Bastille, the Palais Royal, or the Théâtre-Français.

The greatest function of the Seine, when one tries to focus the memory on its past, is to recall to us that old Paris was a trinity. Born of the river itself rose the Cité, the home of the Church and state, scarce finding room for her palaces and churches, while close to her side, on the south bank, the Université spread herself out, and on the right bank the Ville hummed with trade and became the home of the great municipal institutions.

Dumas shifts the scenes of his Parisian romances first from one side to the other, but always his mediæval Paris is the same grand, luxurious, and lively stage setting. Certainly no historian could hope to have done better.

Intrigue, riot, and bloodshed of course there were; and perhaps it may be thought in undue proportions. But did not the history of Paris itself furnish the romancer with these very essential details?

At all events, there is no great sordidness or squalor perpetuated in Dumas’ pages. Perhaps it is for this reason that they prove so readable, and their wearing qualities so great.

There is in the reminiscence of history and the present aspect of the Seine, throughout its length, the material for the constructing a volume of bulk which should not lack either variety, picturesqueness, or interest. It furthermore is a subject which seems to have been shamefully neglected by writers of all ranks.

Turner, of the brilliant palette, pictured many of its scenes, and his touring-companion wrote a more or less imaginative and wofully incorrect running commentary on the itinerary of the journey, as he did also of their descent of the Loire. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, accompanied by a series of charming pictures by Joseph Pennell (the first really artistic topographical illustrations ever put into the pages of a book), did the same for the Saône; and, of course, the Thames has been “done” by many writers of all shades of ability, but manifestly the Seine, along whose banks lie the scenes of some of the most historic and momentous events of mediæval times, has been sadly neglected.

Paris is divided into practically two equal parts by the swift-flowing current of the Seine, which winds its way in sundry convolutions from its source beyond Chatillon-sur-Seine to the sea at Honfleur.

The praises of the winding river which connects Havre, Rouen, Vernon, Mantes, and Paris has often been sung, but the brief, virile description of it in the eighty-seventh chapter of Dumas’ “Le Vicomte de Bragelonne” has scarcely been equalled. Apropos of the journey of Madame and Buckingham Paris-ward, after having taken leave of the English fleet at Havre, Dumas says of this greatest of French waterways:

“The weather was fine. Spring cast its flowers and its perfumed foliage upon the path. Normandy, with its vast variety of vegetation, its blue sky, and silver rivers, displayed itself in all its loveliness.”

Through Paris its direction is from the southeast to the northwest, a distance, within the fortifications, of perhaps twelve kilometres.

Two islands of size cut its currents: the Ile St. Louis and the Ile de la Cité. A description of its banks, taken from a French work of the time, better defines its aspect immediately after the Revolution of 1848 than any amount of conjecture or present-day observation, so it is here given:

“In its course through the metropolis, the Seine is bordered by a series of magnificent quais, which in turn are bordered by rows of sturdy trees.

“The most attractive of these quais are those which flank the Louvre, the Tuileries, D’Orsay, Voltaire, and Conti.

“Below the quais are deposed nine ports, or gares, each devoted to a special class of merchandise, as coal, wine, produce, timber, etc.

“The north and south portions of the city are connected by twenty-six ponts (this was in 1852; others have since been erected, which are mentioned elsewhere in the book).

“Coming from the upper river, they were known as follows: the Ponts Napoléon, de Bercy, d’Austerlitz, the Passerelle de l’Estacade; then, on the right branch of the river, around the islands, the Ponts Maril, Louis-Philippe, d’Arcole, Notre Dame, and the Pont au Change; on the left branch, the Passerelle St. Louis or Constantine, the Ponts Tournelle, de la Cité, de l’Archevêche, le Pont aux Doubles, le Petit Pont, and the Pont St. Michel; here the two branches join again: le Pont Neuf, des Arts, du Carrousel, Royal, Solferino, de la Concorde, des Invalides, de l’Alma, de Jena, and Grenelle.

“Near the Pont d’Austerlitz the Seine receives the waters of the petite Rivière de Bièvre, or des Gobelins, which traverses the faubourgs.”

Of the bridges of Paris, Dumas in his romances has not a little to say. It were not possible for a romanticist – or a realist, for that matter – to write of Paris and not be continually confronting his characters with one or another of the many splendid bridges which cross the Seine between Conflans-Charenton and Asnières.

In the “Mousquetaires” series, in the Valois romances, and in his later works of lesser import, mention of these fine old bridges continually recurs; more than all others the Pont Neuf, perhaps, or the Pont au Change.

In “Pauline” there is a charming touch which we may take to smack somewhat of the author’s own predilections and experiences. He says, concerning his embarkation upon a craft which he had hired at a little Norman fishing-village, as one jobs a carriage in Paris: “I set up to be a sailor, and served apprenticeship on a craft between the Pont des Tuileries and the Pont de la Concorde.”

Of the Seine bridges none is more historic than the Pont Neuf, usually reckoned as one of the finest in Europe; which recalls the fact that the French – ecclesiastic and laymen architects alike – were master bridge-builders. For proof of this one has only to recall the wonderful bridge of St. Bénezet d’Avignon, the fortified bridges of Orthos and Cahors, the bridge at Lyons, built by the Primate of Gaul himself, and many others throughout the length and breadth of France.

The Pont Neuf was commenced in the reign of Henri III. (1578), and finished in the reign of Henri IV. (1604), and is composed of two unequal parts, which come to their juncture at the extremity of the Ile de la Cité.

In the early years a great bronze horse, known familiarly as the “Cheval de Bronze,” but without a rider, was placed upon this bridge. During the Revolution, when cannon and ammunition were made out of any metal which could be obtained, this curious statue disappeared, though later its pedestal was replaced – under the Bourbons – by an equestrian statue of the Huguenot king.

The Pont des Arts, while not usually accredited as a beautiful structure, – and certainly not comparable with many other of its fellows, – is interesting by reason of the fact that its nine iron arches, which led from the Quai du Louvre to the Quai de la Monnai, formed the first example of an iron bridge ever constructed in France. Its nomenclature is derived from the Louvre, which was then called – before the title was applied to the Collège des Quatre Nations – the Palais des Arts. In Restoration times it was one of the fashionable promenades of Paris.

The Pont au Change took its name from the changeurs, or money-brokers, who lived upon it during the reign of Louis le Jeune in 1141. It bridged the widest part of the Seine, and, after being destroyed by flood and fire in 1408, 1616, and 1621, was rebuilt in 1647. The houses which originally covered it were removed in 1788 by the order of Louis XVI. In “The Conspirators,” Dumas places the opening scene at that end of the Pont Neuf which abuts on the Quai de l’École, and is precise enough, but in “Marguerite de Valois” he evidently confounds the Pont Neuf with the Pont au Change, when he puts into the mouth of Coconnas, the Piedmontese: “They who rob on the Pont Neuf are, then, like you, in the service of the king. Mordi! I have been very unjust, sir; for until now I had taken them for thieves.”

The Pont Louis XV. was built in 1787 out of part of the material which was taken from the ruins of the Bastille.

Latterly there has sprung up the new Pont Alexandre, commemorative of the Czar’s visit to Paris, which for magnificent proportions, beauty of design and arrangement, quite overtops any other of its kind, in Paris or elsewhere.

The quais which line the Seine as it runs through Paris are like no other quais in the known world. They are the very essence and epitome of certain phases of life which find no counterpart elsewhere.

The following description of a bibliomaniac from Dumas’ “Mémoires” is unique and apropos:

“Bibliomaniac, evolved from book and mania, is a variety of the species man —species bipes et genus homo.

“This animal has two feet and is without features, and usually wanders about the quais and boulevards, stopping in front of every stall and fingering all the books. He is generally dressed in a coat which is too long and trousers which are too short, his shoes are always down at heel, and on his head is an ill-shapen hat. One of the signs by which he may be recognized is shown by the fact that he never washes his hands.”

The booksellers’ stalls of the quais of Paris are famous, though it is doubtful if genuine bargains exist there in great numbers. It is significant, however, that more volumes of Dumas’ romances are offered for sale – so it seems to the passer-by – than of any other author.

The Seine opposite the Louvre, and, indeed, throughout the length of its flow through Paris, enters largely into the scheme of the romances, where scenes are laid in the metropolis.

Like the throng which stormed the walls of the Louvre on the night of the 18th of August, 1527, during that splendid royal fête, the account of which opens the pages of “Marguerite de Valois,” the Seine itself resembles Dumas’ description of the midnight crowd, which he likens to “a dark and rolling sea, each swell of which increases to a foaming wave; this sea, extending all along the quai, spent its waves at the base of the Louvre, on the one hand, and against the Hôtel de Bourbon, which was opposite, on the other.”

In the chapter entitled “What Happened on the Night of the Twelfth of July,” in “The Taking of the Bastille,” Dumas writes of the banks of the Seine in this wise:

“Once upon the quai, the two countrymen saw glittering on the bridge near the Tuileries the arms of another body of men, which, in all probability, was not a body of friends; they silently glided to the end of the quai, and descended the bank which leads along the Seine. The clock of the Tuileries was just then striking eleven.

“When they had got beneath the trees which line the banks of the river, fine aspen-trees and poplars, which bathe their feet in its current, when they were lost to the sight of their pursuers, hid by their friendly foliage, the farmers and Pitou threw themselves on the grass and opened a council of war.”

Just previously the mob had battered down the gate of the Tuileries, as a means of escape from the pen in which the dragoons had crowded the populace.

“‘Tell me now, Father Billot,’ inquired Pitou, after having carried the timber some thirty yards, ‘are we going far in this way?’

“‘We are going as far as the gate of the Tuileries.’

“‘Ho, ho!’ cried the crowd, who at once divined his intention.

“And it made way for them more eagerly even than before.

“Pitou looked about him, and saw that the gate was not more than thirty paces distant from them.

“‘I can reach it,’ said he, with the brevity of a Pythagorean.

“The labour was so much the easier to Pitou from five or six of the strongest of the crowd taking their share of the burden.

“The result of this was a very notable acceleration in their progress.

“In five minutes they had reached the iron gates.

“‘Come, now,’ cried Billot, ‘clap your shoulders to it, and all push together.’

“‘Good!’ said Pitou. ‘I understand now. We have just made a warlike engine; the Romans used to call it a ram.’

“‘Now, my boys,’ cried Billot, ‘once, twice, thrice,’ and the joist, directed with a furious impetus, struck the lock of the gate with resounding violence.

“The soldiers who were on guard in the interior of the garden hastened to resist this invasion. But at the third stroke the gate gave way, turning violently on its hinges, and through that gaping and gloomy mouth the crowd rushed impetuously.

“From the movement that was then made, the Prince de Lambesq perceived at once that an opening had been effected which allowed the escape of those whom he had considered his prisoners. He was furious with disappointment.”

CHAPTER IX.
THE SECOND EMPIRE AND AFTER

The Revolution of 1848 narrowed itself down to the issue of Bourbonism or Bonapartism. Nobody had a good word to say for the constitution, and all parties took liberties with it. It was inaugurated as the most democratic of all possible charters. It gave a vote to everybody, women and children excepted. It affirmed liberty with so wide a latitude of interpretation as to leave nothing to be desired by the reddest Republican that ever wore pistols in his belt at the heels of the redoubtable M. Marc Caussidière, or expressed faith in the social Utopia of the enthusiastic M. Proudhon. Freedom to speak, to write, to assemble, and to vote, – all were secured to all Frenchmen by this marvellous charter. When it became the law of the land, everybody began to nibble at and destroy it. The right of speaking was speedily reduced to the narrowest limits, and the liberty of the press was pared down to the merest shred. The right of meeting was placed at the tender mercies of the prefect of police, and the right of voting was attacked with even more zeal and fervour. The Revolution proved more voracious than Saturn himself, in devouring its children, and it made short work of men and reputations. It reduced MM. de Lamartine, Armand Marrast, and General Cavaignac into nothingness; sent MM. Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and Caussidière into the dreary exile of London, and consigned the fiery Barbés, the vindictive Blanqui, the impatient Raspail, and a host of other regenerators of the human race, to the fastnesses of Vincennes. Having done this, the Revolution left scarcely a vestige of the constitution, – nothing but a few crumbs, and those were not crumbs of comfort, which remained merely to prove to the incredulous that such a thing as the constitution once existed.

The former king and queen took hidden refuge in a small cottage at Honfleur, whence they were to depart a few days later for England – ever a refuge for exiled monarchists. Escape became very urgent, and the king, with an English passport in the name of William Smith, and the queen as Madame Lebrun, crossed over to Le Havre and ultimately to England. Lamartine evidently mistakes even the time and place of this incident, but newspaper accounts of the time, both French and English, are very full as to the details. On landing at the quai at Le Havre, the ex-royal party was conducted to the “Express” steam-packet, which had been placed at their disposal for the cross-channel journey. Dumas takes the very incident as a detail for his story of “Pauline,” and his treatment thereof does not differ greatly from the facts as above set forth. Two years later (August 26, 1850), at Claremont, in Surrey, in the presence of the queen and several members of his family, Louis-Philippe died. He was the last of the Bourbons, with whom Dumas proudly claimed acquaintanceship, and as such, only a short time before, was one of the mightiest of the world’s monarchs, standing on one of the loftiest pinnacles of an ambition which, in the mind of a stronger or more wilful personality, might have accomplished with success much that with him resulted in defeat.

After the maelstrom of discontent – the Revolution of 1848 – had settled down, there came a series of events well-nigh as disturbing. Events in Paris were rapidly ripening for a change. The known determination of Louis Napoleon to prolong his power, either as president for another term of four years, or for life, or as consul or emperor of the French, and the support which his pretensions received from large masses of the people and from the rank and file of the army, had brought him into collision with a rival – General Changarnier – almost as powerful as himself, and with an ambition quite as daring as his own.

What Louis Napoleon wanted was evident. There was no secret about his designs. The partisans of Henri V. looked to Changarnier for the restoration of peace and legitimacy, and the Orleanists considered that he was the most likely man in France to bring back the house of Orleans, and the comfortable days of bribery, corruption, and a thriving trade; while the fat bourgeoisie venerated him as the unflinching foe of the disturbers of order, and the great bulwark against Communism and the Red Republic.

Still, this was manifestly not to be, though no one seemed to care a straw about Louis Napoleon’s republic, or whether or no he dared to declare himself king or emperor, or whether they should be ruled by Bonapartist, Bourbon, or Orleanist.

These were truly perilous times for France; and, though they did not culminate in disaster until twenty years after, Louis Napoleon availed himself of every opportunity to efface from the Second Republic, of which he was at this time the head, every vestige of the democratic features which it ought to have borne.

At the same time he surrounded himself with imposing state and pomp, so regal in character that it was evidently intended to accustom the public to see in him the object of that homage which is usually reserved for crowned heads alone, and thus gradually and imperceptibly to prepare the nation to witness, without surprise, his assuming, when the favourable occasion offered, the purple and diadem of the empire.

For instance, he took up his residence in the ancient palace of the sovereigns of France, the Tuileries, and gave banquets and balls of regal magnificence; he ordered his effigy to be struck upon the coinage of the nation, surrounded by the words “Louis Napoleon Bonaparte,” without any title, whether as president or otherwise, being affixed. He restored the imperial eagles to the standards of the army; the official organ, the Moniteur, recommended the restoration of the titles and orders of hereditary nobility; the trees of liberty were uprooted everywhere; the Republican motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” was erased from the public edifices; the colossal statue of Liberty, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, which stood in the centre of the Place de Bourgogne, behind the Legislative Assembly, was demolished; and the old anti-Republican names of the streets were restored, so that the Palais National again became the Palais Royal; the Théâtre de la Nation, the Théâtre Français; the Rue de la Concorde, the Rue Royal, etc.; and, in short, to all appearances, Louis Napoleon began early in his tenure of office to assiduously pave the way to the throne of the empire as Napoleon III.

The London Times correspondent of that day related a characteristic exercise of this sweeping instruction of the Minister of the Interior to erase the words “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” from all public buildings. (The three revolutionary watchwords had, in fact, been erased the previous year from the principal entrance to the Elysée, and the words “République Française,” in large letters, were substituted.)

“There is, I believe, only one public monument in Paris – the Ecole de Droit – where the workmen employed in effacing that inscription will have a double duty. They will have to interfere with the ‘Liberalism’ of two generations. Immediately under the coat of yellow paint which covered the façade of the building, and on which time and the inclemency of the seasons have done their work, may still be traced, above the modern device, the following words, inscribed by order of the Commune of Paris during the Reign of Terror: ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Unité, Indivisibilité de la République Française!’ As the effacing of the inscription of 1848 is not now by means of whitewash or paint, but by erasure, both the inscriptions will disappear at the same moment.”

Among the most important demolitions and renovations of the sixties was the work undertaken on the Louvre at the orders of the ambitious emperor, Napoleon III. The structure was cloven to the foundations, through the slated roof, the gilded and painted ceiling, the parqueted floors; and, where one formerly enjoyed an artistic feast that had taken four centuries to provide, one gazed upon, from the pavement to the roof, a tarpaulin that closed a vista which might otherwise have been a quarter of a mile in length.

Builders toiled day and night to connect the Louvre with the main body of the Palace of the Tuileries, which itself was to disappear within so short a time. Meanwhile so great a displacement of the art treasures was undergone, that habitués knew not which way to turn for favourite pictures, with which the last fifty years had made them so familiar.

To those of our elders who knew the Paris of the early fifties, the present-day aspect – in spite of all its glorious wealth of boulevards and architectural splendour – will suggest the mutability of all things.

It serves our purpose, however, to realize that much of the character has gone from the Quartier Latin; that the Tuileries disappeared with the Commune, and that the old distinctions between Old Paris, the faubourgs, and the Communal Annexes, have become practically non-existent with the opening up of the Haussman boulevards, at the instigation of the wary Napoleon III. Paris is still, however, an “ancienne ville et une ville neuve,” and the paradox is inexplicable.

The differences between the past and the present are indeed great, but nowhere – not even in the Tower of London, which is usually given as an example of the contrast and progress of the ages – is a more tangible and specific opposition shown, than in what remains to-day of mediæval Paris, in juxtaposition with the later architectural embellishments. In many instances is seen the newest of the “art nouveau” – as it is popularly known – cheek by jowl with some mediæval shrine.

It is difficult at this time to say what effect these swirls and blobs, which are daily thrusting themselves into every form of architectural display throughout Continental Europe, would have had on these masters who built the Gothic splendours of France, or even the hybrid rococo style, which, be it not denied, is in many instances beautiful in spite of its idiosyncrasies.

To those who are familiar with the “sights” of Paris, there is nothing left but to study the aspects of the life of the streets, the boulevards, the quais, the gardens, the restaurants, and the cafés. Here at least is to be found daily, and hourly, new sensations and old ones, but at all events it is an ever-shifting scene, such as no other city in the world knows.

The life of the faubourgs and of the quartiers has ever been made the special province of artists and authors, and to wander through them, to sit beneath the trees of the squares and gardens, or even outside a café, is to contemplate, in no small degree, much of the incident and temperament of life which others have already perpetuated and made famous.

There is little new or original effort which can be made, though once and again a new performer comes upon the stage, – a poet who sings songs of vagabondage, a painter who catches a fleeting impression, which at least, if not new, seems new. But in the main one has to hark back to former generations, if one would feel the real spirit of romance and tradition. There are few who, like Monet, can stop before a shrine and see in it forty-three varying moods – or some other incredible number, as did that artist when he limned his impressions of the façade of the Cathedral of Nôtre Dame de Rouen.

Such landmarks as the Place de la Bastille, the Pantheon, – anciently the site of the Abbey de Ste. Geneviève, – the Chambre des Députés, – the former Palais Bourbon, – the Tour St. Jacques, the Fountain des Innocents, St. Germain l’Auxerrois, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Louvre, and quite all the historic and notable buildings one sees, are all pictured with fidelity, and more or less minuteness, in the pages of Dumas’ romances.

Again, in such other localities as the Boulevard des Italiens, the Café de Paris, the Théâtre Français, the Odêon, the Palais Royal, – where, in the “Orleans Bureau,” Dumas found his first occupation in Paris, – took place many incidents of Dumas’ life, which are of personal import.

For recollections and reminders of the author’s contemporaries, there are countless other localities too numerous to mention. In the Rue Pigalle, at No. 12, died Eugene Scribe; in the Rue de Douai lived Edmond About, while in the Rue d’Amsterdam, at No. 77, lived Dumas himself, and in the Rue St. Lazare, Madame George Sand. Montmartre is sacred to the name of Zola in the minds of most readers of latter-day French fiction, while many more famous names of all ranks, of litterateurs, of actors, of artists and statesmen, – all contemporaries and many of them friends of Dumas, – will be found on the tombstones of Père la Chaise.

The motive, then, to be deduced from these pages is that they are a record of many things associated with Alexandre Dumas, his life, and his work. Equally so is a fleeting itinerary of strolls around and about the Paris of Dumas’ romances, with occasional journeys into the provinces.

Thus the centuries have done their work of extending and mingling, – “le jeu est fait,” so to speak, – but Paris, by the necessities of her growth and by her rather general devotion to one stately, towering form of domestic architecture, has often made the separation of old from new peculiarly difficult to a casual eye. It is indeed her way to be new and splendid, to be always the bride of cities, espousing human destiny. And, truly, it is in this character that we do her homage with our visits, our money, and our admiration. Out of gray, unwieldy, distributed London one flies from a vast and romantic camp to a city exact and beautiful. So exact, so beautiful, so consistent in her vivacity, so neat in her industry, so splendid in her display, that one comes to think that the ultimate way to enjoy Paris is to pass unquestioning and unsolicitous into her life, exclaiming not “Look here,” and “Look there” in a fever of sightseeing, but rather baring one’s breast, like Daudet’s ouvrier, to her assaults of glistening life.

The Paris of to-day is a reconstructed Paris; its old splendours not wholly eradicated, but changed in all but their associations. The life of Paris, too, has undergone a similar evolution, from what it was even in Dumas’ time.

The celebrities of the Café de Paris have mostly, if not quite all, passed away. No more does the eccentric Prince Demidoff promulgate his eccentricities into the very faces of the onlookers; no more does the great Dumas make omelettes in golden sugar-bowls; and no more does he pass his criticisms – or was it encomiums? – on the veau sauté.

The student revels of the quartier have become more sedate, if not more fastidious, and there is no such Mardi Gras and Mi-Carême festivities as used to hold forth on the boulevards in the forties. And on the Buttes Chaumont and Montmartre are found batteries of questionable amusements, – especially got up for the delectation of les Anglais, provincials, and soldiers off duty, – in place of the cabarets, which, if of doubtful morality, were at least a certain social factor.