reached its apogee, that the proletarian had been forever freed, and the iron arms of indefatigable machinery substituted in place of the feeble arms of man. Therefore in the sunny spring days we see the citizens of this modern Athens exclusively employed in watching the bursting of the buds in the tree-lined avenues of the city, admiring the groups of statuary that adorn the public gardens, or examining curiously the graceful movements of rare exotic birds and beasts that are kept for their diversion in the menageries of the republic. We see citizens, accompanied by their wives and children, strolling through the galleries of the Louvre, where the masterpieces of art of all ages and of all countries have been collected together for their edification. Those who are of a devout turn of mind find the temples open, and through the fumes of incense they see the walls decorated with sumptuous paintings. On the Seine, swift steamgondolas shoot through the arches of the bridges, carrying calm citizens to and fro. In the garden of the Tuileries the fountains dance in the sunlight, and their basins are not covered with bits of floating orange-peel, nor are they surrounded by dirty and expectorating boys. In the Champs Elysées the black branches are tipped with tender green buds, which give to the masses of the trees, when seen from a distance, the delicate powdery appearance of pastel. Spring has come. Paris has awakened to a new life. The city is full of sunshine and flowers, and the air is redolent with the perfumes of nature and of art, of violets and of opopanax. What an incomparable spectacle is that offered by the Avenue des Champs Élysées on the first sunny afternoon of spring! From the immense Place de la Concorde, with its majestic fountains, the obelisk, and the surrounding lines of well - proportioned architecture and garden terraces, up to the Arc de Triomphe on the distant height, with its outlines softened by the blue silvery mist, all is animation, gayety, and splendor. Under the trees the bellicose young Gauls are building sand castles or driving chariots drawn by teams of goats, while the nursemaids listen to the soft confidences of their attendant soldiers. On the benches and chairs sit peaceful citizens reading newspapers, or sunning themselves with the indolent calmness of a tortoise in a lettuce bed. Near the Rond Point the rival Punch and Judy shows represent before mixed audiences of youth and age the irony of life and the majesty of the law. Then, between rows of palaces where the wealthy dwell in bliss, we mount gently towards the monument that celebrates the victories of the great Napoleon, the hero of our own century, whose glory seems already as much lost in the far and mysterious past as that of Achilles and Agamemnon. So here we are in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, at the head of the famous promenade, Jacob's ladder, as it were, with angels ascending and descending, going to the Bois or returning from the Bois-angels with yellow wigs, angels with ravenblack switches, angels who wear their hair in flat bandeaux, like the virgins in Perugino's pictures, angels whose heads suggest those of the dancing maidens of Tanagra, or of the Spanish majas that Goya loved to paint. With huge hats or minute toques, mere garlands of sweet flowers, with garments that seem like a foam of lace and frills emerging from beneath long mantles of silk, velvet, and brocade, the angels lean back voluptuously in elegant carriages, and graciously accord to mortals the calm spectacle of their various beauty and of their perfect toilets. From the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne the throng of carriages leads us to the Avenue des Acacias, the drive which fashion has selected in preference to more sunny, open, and picturesque avenues. And there, between the gnarled and fantastic trunks of the acacia-trees, the carriages advance slowly and with difficulty up and down, dazzling the eye with the radiant beauty of blondes and brunettes, of angels ascending and descending, the joy of men. Mingled with the carriages of the angels are the carriages of mortals-the landaus of the noble faubourg, the victorias of clubmen and ambassadors, the carts of sportsmen, the buggies of adventurers-the parade vehicles of all those who are afflicted with momentary or stable wealth. On foot, too, may be seen the young bloods, the pseudo-worldlings, the pannés, their eye-glasses fixed, correct and stiff, lounging with weary air, cackling, and uttering flutelike squeaks of admiration as they watch the horses and the women, and waft salutations that are never returned. The afternoon drive in the Bois brings together, to see and to be seen, all the notabilities of fashionable Paris, the celebrities of society and of the stage, of leisure and of talent, of glory and of scandal. In the programme of the spring life of Paris, the first item is the Concours hippique, a horse-show held in the Palais de l'Industrie in March and April, which, perhaps, renders more social than hippological services. The Concours hippique is frequented by mondaines, demi-mondaines, and fashionable people in general, who utilize it for various purposes. Every afternoon the tribunes are crowded, but more especially on the days when gentlemen riders and cavalry officers compete for the prizes. Then you see thousands of men and women of leisure watching the performances of gentlemen and officers who force unwilling horses to jump over artificial rivers and hedges. Some of the spectators hold papers in their hands on which they write from time to time, murmuring, "One fault.... a quarter of a fault." As it is fashionable nowadays to take an interest in sport and in all matters thereunto appertaining, we are not surprised to see the old duchesses with saffron wigs and highgrade mondaines surrounded by their marriageable daughters just fresh from the convent-blond, lacteous, lilial maidens-all watching the riders, programme in hand, and conscientiously marking with a pencil the faults and fractions of faults committed at the bar or the waterjump by the aristocratic lieutenants and quartermasters from the military training-schools of Saumur and Fontainebleau. Other visitors, however, seem to pay no attention to horses or riders, but form family groups of papas, mammas, and bonny daughters, who are presently joined by young men dressed in their Sunday best, and extremely voluble in commonplace remarks and formulæ of politeness. These, we may conclude, are discreet rendezvous arranged by the kind parents in order to give the young people an opportunity of inspecting one another in view of possible matrimony. In the central reserved tribune, upholstered with red velvet and gold fringe, may be seen men and women of high degree-dukes and duchesses, pale-faced and fine-featured, some of them reminding one of Clouet's portraits, with their cheeks so delicately tinted with anæmic waxen rose. These are the members of the Hippic Society and their wives and daughters, the descendants of the Crusaders and of the warriors and nobles of the past, great aristocrats, who bear with diminished splendor the illustrious historic names of ancient France. Elsewhere, in the corner familiarly known as the "Parc aux Cerfs," you see spectators who during most of the time turn their backs to the spectacle of the arena, and seem to hang upon the lips of garrulous maidens, who look charming in a perverse manner, and are generally blond like Milton's Eve, blond like ripe corn that bows before the breeze. The function of these fair maidens is to try the effect of the more audacious inventions of the milliners and dressmakers, and to promote the distribution of wealth by dilapidating inherited fortunes. Finally, amidst the fair ladies of all categories, you see the celebrities of the "Tout Paris passing to and fro, and giving the newspaper reporters a chance to note their presence in the fashionable gazettes of the next morning. After the Concours hippique follow, in the order of events, the picture exhibitions and the "varnishing days" of the Salons of the Champs Elysées and the Champ de Mars, which take place when, spring is in all the splendor of fresh verdure and the chestnut-trees are decked with delicate cones of blossom. During May and June worldly Paris reaches the acme of brilliancy. There are fêtes, balls, garden parties, and social meetings all over the town until the season ends with the great racing fortnight, of which the chief incidents are the Chantilly Derby, the Auteuil steeple-chase, and the Grand Prix de Paris. The two months that succeed the mitigated austerities of Parisian Lent are the hardest in the year for the worldlings, who are doubtless quite happy in spite of their great exertions, for, according to the Ecclesiast, the secret of happiness consists in work accomplished freely as a duty. Lætari in opere suo, as the Vulgate hath it. This is the whole theory of the worldlings; they make pleasure a task and a duty, and rejoice in its accomplishment. Towards the end of the season their tasks and duties are multiplied beyond conception, and their joy in consequence becomes delirious. Even to read about their doings makes one's head dizzy. Grand marriages, soi rées of betrothal, meetings of four-inhand clubs, four thousand guinea balls given by the Princesse de Sagan and the Princesse de Léon, amateur acrobats and fancy riding at M. Molier's private circus, play-acting at the "swell" clubs, receptions here, garden parties there; and so fêtes succeed fêtes, and the days and the nights are too few for their multitude. At last, however, the Grand Prix is lost and won, and the worldlings cease to labor, at Paris at least. Aix-les-Bains, Luchon, Trouville, the seaside resorts and the inland watering - places, invite their presence, and they accept the invitation either really or nominally. During the summer months Paris remains the beautiful city of marvels, and although the "Tout Paris," or the Upper Ten, are supposed to have migrated to the mountain, the ocean, or the baronial hall, the city continues to be animated in a calm way. Summer is the season of that open-air life in which the Parisians particularly delight, when the popular restaurants in the city place their little dinner tables on the sidewalk, and when the restaurants of the Champs Élysées spread snowy cloths for the weightier purses in the vicinity of plashing fountains and brilliant flower beds. Then it is pleasant of a warm and still evening to dine at Laurent's or the Ambassadeurs, and to recognize many of the notabilities of the capital as they sit at the neighboring tables, on each of which is a little lamp that casts opaline reflections on the faces of the women. Gradually the glow of sunset fades away; overhead you hear President Carnot's rooks returning in loquacious bands to their nests in the garden of the Élysée Palace; little by little the mystery of darkness seems to issue from and envelop the landscape; and then, by the time we have reached the moment of coffee and cigars, we see festoons of gigantic pearls whitening into luminousness beneath the trees, and lighting up brilliantly the under side of the delicate green chestnut leaves. A few minutes later there is heard a clashing of cymbals and a flonflon of commonplace music, dominated at the regular intervals of the couplet by the voices of singers-Paulus, Elise Faure, Yvette Guilbert--summoning the amateurs to the gaudy joys of the cafés concerts. The cafés concerts, the Cirque d'Éte, the Hippodrome, such are the amuse ments of elegant Paris during the summer, when the theatres are closed, with the exception of the Opéra and the Comédie Française. In September the theatres reopen their doors, and the intellectual and frivolous life of Paris is resumed with renewed ardor. The summer holidays are over. In October everybody is back, and the dramatic authors imperiously claim attention for their new pieces. It is the season of "first nights." The first performance of a new play is always somewhat of an event in Paris. The French stage has a prestige that no other stage possesses, and the French audience dispenses greater glory than any other European public, insomuch that those who have not danced, sung, or acted before Paris can scarcely be said to have danced, sung, or acted at all; their fame, however great it may be elsewhere, requires the ratification of Paris before it can be considered to be absolute. Paris, as Victor Hugo said, is the starting-point of success, the anvil on which great renown is forged. Therefore the privilege of being present at the "first night,” particularly if the piece be by an author of supreme celebrity, is highly esteemed and persistently solicited. A "première" is, in a way, a social function, and constant attendance at such ceremonies constitutes a patent of Parisianism. Certainly a "first night" is interesting; it has the charm of novelty and uncertainty, the attractions of a plot yet to be disentangled, of a witticism that bounds across the foot-lights for the first time, of a scene that will be the talk of the town for the next nine days, of a costume that will be the fashion of to-morrow. But, above all, one is interested by the house itself, by the animation of the lobbies during the entr'actes, the exhibition of well-known faces, the presence of the great glories of literature, art, war, and politics, the consoling spectacles to which the eye has become accustomed, the avantscènes that reveal the latest arrangements made between wealthy seigneurs and distinguished Cythereans, the baignoires full of mystery, the balcony radiant with powdered beauty, the whole audience vibrating with lively scepticism, and with that passion for movement and life which characterizes the élite of adventurers, fools of fortune, and men and women of genius who compose what is called the "Tout Paris." |