ALONG THE PARISIAN BOULEVARDS. BY THEODORE CHILD. I. perfect pavements of flag-stones, wood, THAT admirable prototype of modern and bitumen, the feet of the Parisians Prussian, Heinrich Heine, likened France to a great garden where the finest flowers have been culled to make a bouquet, and that bouquet is called Paris. All that is great in love or in hatred, in sentiment or in thought, in knowledge or in power, in happiness or in misfortune, tends to become concentrated in Paris, insomuch that when we consider the great assembly of distinguished or celebrated men who are found there, the city seems like a veritable Pantheon of living glory. It was Heine, too, who explained so daintily why French actors are superior to all others, and the reason is that all French people are born comedians. They have the talent of learning their parts so well in all the situations of life, and of draping themselves so advantageously, that it is a pleasure to watch them. Among the French, alike in life, in liter ature, and in the plastic arts, the theatrical element dominates, and that, too, so pre-eminently that Heine was inclined to look upon the whole history of France as a grand comedy represented for the benefit of humanity in general. shiny. Indeed, the streets of Paris are so nicely washed, swabbed, and swept that the shoeblacks cannot live by their unaided profession, any more than lyric poets, and therefore, unless they happen to possess independent means, they are obliged to eke out a modest existence by carrying love-letters or shaving poodles. With its great boulevards, its urban parks, squares, and gardens, its avenues lined with stupendous architecture, its vast hotels and gorgeous cafés, its trees and flowers and great promenades, its shops and its restaurants, Paris, the Paris of Baron Haussmann, has become the headquarters of the luxury of Europe. and of the whole civilized world. For luxury invites luxury, and if Paris had remained the picturesque, miserable, and prodigious city which Victor Hugo has described in his novel Notre Dame de Paris - the city whose narrow streets and mysterious gables were impressed with the tragedies and struggles of ten centuries of history and with the souvenirs of twenty revolutions-it would never have attracted those countless visitors In the huge magazin of men and ren- from the Old World and the New, who are, dezvous of forreners," as old James Howell as a rule, neither poets nor thinkers nor called Paris nearly three centuries ago, artists, but who, nevertheless, contribute one may always see an amusing comedy to the wealth and splendor which make being played in beautiful scenery. The Paris what it is, the modern Athens, or spectacle of Parisian life is as excellently the modern Byzantium. organized as the city itself. Everything is neatly and precisely arranged by times and seasons; the succession of incidents is fixed with a certain suave monotony; and from year's end to year's end the whole play is so lucid that the visitor may drop in at any moment during the performance and immediately catch the thread of the argument. During the spring days, when the sunshine seems real once more, and when the air has that tepid quality which the imaginative poet Thomson has celebrated in his "Seasons," there is no city more beautiful than Paris, or more appropriate for the enjoyment of curious and meditative lounging. Gray Paris has the first of all material conditions requisite for pleasant loitering-it is well paved. Thanks to More completely than any other city, Paris realizes the conception of the Athenian Republic, full of light and joyous hum, sung by the poets, sculptured by the statuaries, idealized by the painters, employing for the happiness of its children all the resources of the sciences and the arts, offering to all feet alike its staircases of white marble, and presenting against the background of a tranquil blue sky the pediments of its palaces and its temples. The illusion is all the more complete because Paris seems at first sight to be wholly given up to pleasure. The number of people of leisure in Paris is so great that unless we made a very thorough and minute examination of the facts, we might be tempted to imagine that the emancipation of humanity had 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 pannes, their eye-glasses fixed, correct and stiff, lounging with weary air, cackling, and uttering flutelike squeaks. of admiration as they watch the horsesand 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 I'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 waxen cheeks so delicately with anæmic 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 |