CHAPTER XII

.

THE BOULEVARDS (_continued_).

La Maison Dorée--Librairie Nouvelle--Catherine II. and the Encyclopædia--The House of Madeleine Guimard.

At the corner of the Rue Marivaux stands the Café Anglais, now the only one remaining of the historical Paris restaurants, which for the most part date their reputation from the years 1814 and 1815, when the European Allies had their head-quarters in the French capital. The invasions which restored the French Monarchy, and which had been undertaken with no other object, brought defeat, but at the same time prosperity and gaiety to Paris; whereas the invasion of 1870 and 1871 caused nothing but misery to the vanquished. During the early days of the Restoration such houses as Les Trois Frères Provençaux, in the Palais Royal, La Maison Dorée, the Café Riche, and the still extant Café Anglais, did a magnificent trade, thanks to the number of Prussian, Russian, Austrian, and English officers who frequented them, and who, after the toils of war, abandoned themselves willingly to some of the joys of peace.

Most of these famous restaurants sprang from wine-shops; for it is a fact that every celebrated dining-place in Paris has owed its reputation primarily to the quality of its wine. The three brothers from Provence who started the restaurant known under their name were simply three young men who, having vineyards of their own and a connection with other wine-growers, maintained an excellent cellar. But when people came in to taste its contents it was absolutely necessary, in order to render appreciable the flavour of the wine, to give them something to eat. Then, as they spent their money freely, it was found possible and even desirable to engage a first-rate cook; until at last the reputation of the cellar was equalled by that of the kitchen.

Who has not read of Les Trois Frères Provençaux in Balzac's "Scenes from Paris Life"? It was in one of their upstairs rooms, moreover, facing the garden of the Palais Royal, that the hero of Alfred de Musset's "Enfant du Siècle" had his last sad interview, his last sad meal, with the young woman from whom he was about to separate for ever.

La Maison Dorée, too, was a famous house. The scene of many an orgie, it kept its doors open continuously. Here it was that M. de Camors, in Octave Feuillet's novel of that name, at the end of an extremely late supper threw a gold piece into the mud and told a ragpicker who happened to be passing that if he would pull it out with his teeth he could have it for himself; and who does not remember how, so soon as the _chiffonnier_ had performed this feat, the dissipated but not altogether degraded gentleman begged the poor man to knock him down in return for the insult offered to him.

La Maison Dorée used to be kept by a proprietor named Hardy, and the fact that the neighbouring café and restaurant, of almost equal celebrity and dearness, belonged to a Monsieur Riche, whose name it bore, gave rise to the saying that a man must be "_très riche pour dîner chez Hardy, et très hardi pour dîner chez Riche_."

The Café Riche used to be the favourite dining place of Jules Janin on evenings of first performances. Here on these interesting occasions he was always to be seen; and the usual genial tone of his criticisms was possibly attributable to the excellence of M. Riche's chef. Not, however, that Janin wrote his notices of new plays the same night. He published them week by week in the _feuilleton_ of the _Journal des Débats_, afterwards to be corrected and published under the title of "Questionable History of Dramatic Literature."

The Café Riche was never such a late house as La Maison Dorée, which went on day by day and year by year, never closing, regardless of the clock. Thus it was at once the earliest and the latest of Paris taverns; and if it was possible to get supper there at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning after a dull evening party, a traveller was equally sure that the place would be open when, arriving at Paris by train at, say, 6 in the morning, the vacuum in his stomach demanded an immediate breakfast.

A story is told of a gentleman who, living immediately opposite the side entrance of La Maison Dorée, dedicated to this famous hostelry all the time he did not spend in bed. Rising extremely late, he turned into the Maison Dorée towards four in the afternoon to look at the papers, converse with some of the frequenters, take a preparatory glass of absinthe, and finally dine--this being, of course, the great event of his well-spent day. His dinner began at an advanced hour of the evening, and lasted well into the night. Then he was joined by friends from the theatre bent on supping; and it was not till towards sunrise that he returned to his apartments over the way.

Unlike the Temple of Janus, which was never shut in time of war, the Maison Dorée could only keep its doors open in time of peace. Such war, at all events, as the Prussians brought to the gates of Paris and to Paris itself in 1870 and 1871 was fatal to its existence. Since those terrible years Paris has lost something of its gaiety and frivolity. The Café Anglais still exists; but even at this celebrated supping-place of former years supper is now an unknown meal. Nothing is served in the Café Anglais after nine o'clock. This café, oddly enough, seems to have been named after a nation which in the year 1815 can scarcely have been popular among the French. Its origin, or at least its name, dates from the year of the Waterloo campaign, and, strangely enough, it is the only great restaurant of that period which to this day survives. Possibly the establishment was not called Café Anglais merely by way of invitation to the English portion of the occupying forces. The title may have been meant to indicate that the service of the table was conducted after the English rather than the French fashion. The French, it must be admitted, preceded us in the matter of napkins, and also, if their boast on the subject can be admitted, in the earlier use of four-pronged forks, made by preference of silver. But in the year 1815 the French knew nothing of salt-spoons; and though plates were changed frequently enough, the same knife and fork served throughout the various courses, the diner cleaning on a piece of bread a knife which did duty for every dish which came on the table. It replaced the salt-spoon, and was frequently used for conveying food to the mouth. Not only English dining-places, but English hotels were highly esteemed in 1815; and Dr. Véron, in his "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," speaks of cleanliness as an English invention unknown to the French until the peace which followed the Napoleonic wars.

In the art of living the French have generally been considered by the rest of Europe to have reached the greatest proficiency; and their methods and customs have accordingly been more imitated than those of any other nation. Of their cookery there is but one opinion; for every man in Europe who can afford a great table keeps either a French cook or a cook educated in the French school. The variety given by French cooks to the very simplest dish is too well known to require emphasis; and even Macaulay quotes the story of that Parisian chef who could make twelve different dishes out of a poppy-head.

In the matter of table as of drawing-room etiquette the French in Arthur Young's time seem to have been both superior and inferior to the English. It is true that the French artisan would not dine without a clean napkin on his knee; but it is equally true that the French aristocrat would sometimes spit about the floor in presence of a duchess with a freedom which would be resented in any English tap-room.

If Paris be really "the Tavern of Europe," the Café Anglais is at this moment the Tavern of Paris. Scarcely any foreigner of distinction visits the French capital without dining, perhaps even by special arrangement supping, at the Café Anglais, which is now under the management, not of an enterprising landlord, but of a well-regulated Limited Liability Company.

* * * * *

At the corner of the Rue de Grammont, separated from the Café Anglais by the Theatrical Bureau, or "Office de Théâtre," which supplies tickets for every playhouse in Paris, is the Librairie Nouvelle, where, exhibited for sale, may be seen all the latest novels in vogue and most of the standard works which, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, their ancient fame, still find readers. Books are published at much lower prices in Paris than in London. Lending libraries are now quite out of date in the French capital, and persons really interested in a new work do not get it to read at so much a volume or a subscription of so much a year, but buy it once and for all. Forty or fifty years ago the circulating library system had been pushed further in Paris than any point it has yet reached in London. Novels by popular authors were issued in six or eight volumes with from eighty to one hundred words in each page; a sore temptation to the Belgian pirates, who, in the days before International Copyright Conventions, vexed the soul of every French author by reproducing his works at so low a price that he had no more chance of selling his editions in Belgium than has an English author of to-day of vending his in the United States. Instead, however, of being separated from France as America is from England by thousands of miles of sea, Belgium was conterminous with the country it loved to despoil. It was impossible to prevent the fraudulent imitations of Belgium entering France; and to put an end at once to Belgian piracy and to the absurd circulating library system, a spirited and intelligent Paris publisher, Charpentier by name, introduced the novel at three and a half francs--a price which, as originally fixed, or at a reduction of half a franc, is still maintained. Copyright affairs between France and Belgium are now regulated under the clauses of the same International Convention which binds all other countries, with the exception of Russia and Holland on one side of the Atlantic, and the United States of America on the other.

[Illustration: MARIVAUX.

(_From the Bust by Mlle. Dubois-Davesne in the Comédie Française._)]

To offer new books for sale in London at the strangely high prices fixed for the benefit of the circulating libraries would be out of the question; but at the Librairie Nouvelle all the latest works produced in Paris may be seen, partially read, and finally, if such be the desire of the reader, purchased. Many a Parisian, however, or visitor to Paris, whether from love of literature or merely to pass the time, strolls into the Librairie Nouvelle and looks through book after book without buying a single volume. Some day such an institution as this will possibly exist in London; not, however, until the prices of our new books are considerably lowered. But although the frequenters of the Librairie Nouvelle are not called upon, or even expected, to make purchases, only a small fraction of them leave the establishment without doing so; and it is as astonishing as it is interesting to see with what rapidity copies of a new novel of genuine popularity will sometimes go off.

No trade has made such progress in France since the Great Revolution as that of bookselling. This result is due alike to the increase in the number of readers through cheap, gratuitous, and obligatory education, and to the liberty of the Press enjoyed by the French, with some interruptions (as under the First Empire and a few years of the Restoration), for an entire century. "How I should like to have Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot writing for me in one of my garrets," a French bookseller is represented as saying in Mercier's "Tableau de Paris," published only a few years before the Revolution. "I would feed them well, but, by Heaven, I would make them work! Why is one of them too rich, and the others too independent to write at so much per sheet?"

It is noticeable that not one of these three authors whose works sold so largely was able to publish in France everything he wrote. Even the volume in which the above story is told was published in London. Many of Voltaire's works were brought out in London or Amsterdam. More than one of Rousseau's books were prohibited in France; and the publication of the "Encyclopédie," to which Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot all contributed, was not only prohibited, but cast materially into the Bastille, where the volumes were found on the destruction of the building; which gave the despotic, but in regard to literature, liberal-minded Catherine II. an opportunity of offering to continue the publication of the work in Russia.

[Illustration: PARIS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]

Until the time of the Revolution nearly the whole of the book trade was in the hands of hawkers. "The business of these people," says a writer of the 18th century, "is to be the itinerant beasts of burden of literature, as the booksellers are its caterpillars. Illiterate, and hardly able to read, the hawkers may be said to deal in a ware as perfectly foreign to them as the business of mixing up colours would be to the blind. They only know the price of each book they offer for sale. They are haunted everywhere by police-runners, and such is their apprehension of falling under the censure of the despotic magistrate, and, altogether, their ignorance, that some sell even prayer-books under the cloak with as much care and circumspection as if it were an immoral or political pamphlet. These poor harmless hawkers, who give circulation to the clandestine works of the writers of every denomination without being able to read a single line; who, though far from suspecting it, are the asserters of public freedom, and with no other view than to procure to themselves a scanty subsistence--these are the first to feel the resentment of the offended great. It would be, perhaps, if not dangerous, at least impolitic, to attack the author himself; but a hawker sent to the Bastille or fastened in the public market by an iron _carcanet_ is a matter of too little importance to be noticed by the public."

The very method employed to prevent the spread of ideas amongst the French people helped to overthrow the despotism by which it had been devised. This is well shown by Arthur Young, writing about the same time as the author whose account of the persecution in France of literature in all its forms has just been quoted. Such ignorance in Young's time was imposed on the French nation by a tyrannical censorship that, for aught the country knew to the contrary, their representatives were in the Bastille; and the mob was accustomed to pillage, burn, and destroy from sheer want of knowledge. Even in the large provincial towns Young could not see a newspaper. At the cafés there was nothing to read but the _Gazette de France_, a sheet in which the professed "news" was so dished up that "no man of common-sense" would attempt to digest it. The consequence was that the frequenters of cafés and restaurants could be heard gravely discussing news a fortnight old.

On the first floor of the house of which the ground-floor is occupied by the Librairie Nouvelle, we find the Club of the Two Worlds, or "Cercle des Deux Mondes," established in an abode which was occupied for some time by the Jockey Club, until this latter, after deserting the mansion built by the Farmer-General de Lange on the Boulevard Montmartre, continued its western progress, to reach ultimately the domicile it at present inhabits on the Boulevard des Capucines.

At the corner of the Rue de Choiseul is the well-known establishment of Potel and Chabot, who keep what, in London--for want of a better name, and probably in virtue of some tradition on the subject--is called an "Italian warehouse." This firm, however, does not confine itself to the lighter description of comestibles and dainties. In these it deals largely enough; and among the tempting delicacies offered to the passer-by are early vegetables, fruit, olives, ham, sausages of rare manufacture, and game pies. But besides selling stray articles to the chance epicure, the house of Potel and Chabot undertakes the supply of dinners on a very large scale, and employs a number of chefs, sous-chefs, scullions, roasters, pastry-cooks, and other functionaries of the kitchen. It was the firm of Potel and Chabot which, in July, 1888, supplied in the Champ de Mars the banquet offered to 10,000 mayors from all parts of France, furnishing it hot, so that many of the guests declared they had never before been anywhere so well served. The dinner was simple, but it is said to have been excellent. The ten thousand guests had one glass and two plates apiece; 500 waiters flitted about with the wines and the dishes.

The end of the Boulevard des Italiens is marked by a circular pavilion, which has lost something of its original shape through the repairs necessitated by the ravages of time; though it still bears a number of sculptural ornaments which are much admired, including certain masks, reputed to be masterpieces. It is called the Pavilion of Hanover, and is so named from having been erected and adorned by the architect Cheveautel for the Duc de Richelieu at the end of the garden attached to his mansion, after the campaign of Hanover, in 1757, which he terminated by securing the capitulation of Closterseven. Under the Directory and the Consulate, in the first years of the Empire, the Pavilion of Hanover and a portion of the grounds belonging formerly to the Duc de Richelieu were the scene of public assemblies, balls, and concerts; and it was here that Tortoni established his famous ice-shop and café in partnership with another Italian, named Velloni. The latter is now forgotten; but Tortoni, who continued the business on his own account, is, in the world of cafés, an historical figure.

Let us not hurry past the former Hôtel Choiseul, where, during the Reign of Terror, Pace, Minister of War, resided; where, under the Directory, the staff of the Army of Paris was established; and where Murat afterwards lived in the capacity of Governor. When the Restoration came to pass it was turned into the headquarters of the National Guard. Finally it was put up for sale, when, after the assassination of the Duc of Berri on the steps of the Opera House in the Rue Richelieu, it was determined to pull down the lyric temple and erect another on the site occupied by the Hôtel Choiseul. We shall see in the proper place that the demolition of the Opera House of the Rue Richelieu was due to the representations of the Archbishop of Paris, who refused to allow the last sacrament to be administered to the dying prince unless he received a promise that the profane building, in which so holy an act had to be performed, should immediately afterwards be destroyed. The Hôtel Choiseul was bought by the City of Paris, and close to what remained of the ancient mansion rose the new Opera House, opening on to the Rue Le Pelletier, where, between the years 1821 and 1823, so many great works were brought out, including Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, Auber's _Masaniello_, as it is called in England, Donizetti's _Favorite_, Verdi's _Vêpres Siciliennes_, and Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_, _Prophète_, and _Africaine_. On the night of Tuesday, October 20, 1873, the eve of the hundredth representation of Ambroise Thomas' _Hamlet_, flames burst out in the wardrobe, and the next day the Opera House was a heap of ruins.

It is a curious fact, not hitherto noticed, that the destruction by fire of the Opera House in the Rue Le Pelletier took place precisely two hundred years after the production of Lulli's earliest opera, the first lyrical piece ever performed in Paris under the royal patent which authorised the establishment of a regular opera house. Lulli has been represented, in a famous picture, receiving his "privilege" from the hands of Louis XIV. as a reward and encouragement for services rendered. It can scarcely be said, however, that Lulli, though he established opera in Paris, was the first to introduce it. Cardinal Mazarin brought Italian opera to Paris in 1645, when Lulli was but a child; and the French opera named _Akébar, Roi de Mogol_, written and composed by the Abbé Mailly, was represented the year afterwards in the episcopal palace of Carpentras under the direction of Cardinal Bichi. A public performance, moreover, was given of _Pomone_, words by Perrin, music by Cambert, in 1671; but though _Pomone_ was the first French opera offered in Paris to a general audience, Lulli's _Cadmée_ was the first of that long series of lyrical productions given at the State Opera House which extended, with but two short breaks, from 1673 to 1873.

The new Opera House, which was to replace the one burnt down in 1873, had already, on a scale of unprecedented magnificence, been designed, constructed, and all but finished under Napoleon III. But 1873, scarcely more than two years after the disasters of the siege and Commune, was not the time at which to complete and inaugurate a sumptuous Opera House; and it was not until 1875 that the famous edifice, which may challenge comparison with any other of the kind in Europe, threw its doors open to the public.

Another celebrated building in this neighbourhood, at the corner of the Rue Taitbout, is the former Hôtel de Brancas, built by the architect Bélanger, a devoted friend of the famous Sophie Arnould, to whom he was faithfully attached until her death. His endeavours to obtain for her, in default of a pension that was never paid, a portion of the large sum due to her from the directors of the Théâtre Français show him to have been a man of energy as well as heart. It was in the character of architect that Bélanger first became acquainted with the brilliant and witty actress; and when he made her an offer of marriage, which she did not accept, she at once observed that no one was better fitted than an architect to build up her damaged reputation. From the family of Brancas the mansion erected by Bélanger passed to the wife of General Rapp, then to the Marchioness of Hertford, to her son Lord Seymour, and to Sir Richard Wallace. Under Napoleon III. magnificent entertainments were given there by the late Khalil Pasha. On the ground-floor of the edifice appeared and disappeared the Café de Paris, celebrated in the reign of Louis Philippe, and for some years afterwards, as the rendez-vous of celebrities in literature, art, and the world of fashion. It was in time to be followed by other excellent restaurants, now vanished, but not forgotten.

The last house on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, occupies the site of the old Military School, founded, for 200 officers' sons, under the name of Dépôt des Gardes Français; where for twenty years of his life Rossini lived on the first floor, and whence he moved to the villa at Passy offered to him by the City of Paris. It was in this retreat that he ended his days.

[Illustration: RUE DE LA CHAUSSÉE D'ANTIN.]

The Chaussée d'Antin, formerly a high road leading from the boulevards into the open country, is full of interesting associations. In the Chaussée d'Antin, or close to that thoroughfare in its present form, stood the celebrated Temple of Terpsichore built for Madeleine Guimard, the dancer; which so excited the jealousy of Sophie Arnould, the vocalist, that she insisted on having a mansion of equal magnificence side by side with that of her operatic friend and rival. Madeleine Guimard, according to one of her biographers, excited as much admiration and scattered as many fortunes as any woman that ever appeared on the stage. She was, nevertheless, ugly, thin, of sallow complexion, and marked with the small-pox. She is said to have preserved, in a marvellous manner, her youth and a certain indescribable charm which constituted her chief attractions. She possessed, moreover, such a perfect acquaintance with all the mysteries of the toilet that by the arts of dress and adornment alone she could still make herself look young when age had crept upon her. Queen Marie Antoinette would often consult her about matters of dress, and especially the arrangement of her hair; and once when, for her rebellious attitude at the theatre, she had, in accordance with the strange customs of the times, been ordered to prison, she is reported to have said to her maid: "Never mind, I have sent a letter to the queen telling her that I have discovered a new way of doing the hair. We shall be out before the evening." But to return to the Temple of Terpsichore, which, built in the finest architectural style, and magnificently furnished, was decorated internally by Fragonard, one of the most famous painters of that day. In his wall-pictures he never failed to introduce the face and figure of the light-footed divinity of the place: until at last he became enamoured of his model, and, presuming on one occasion to show signs of jealousy, was promptly discharged, to be replaced by the most unsuitable artist that can be conceived--by David, the painter of heroic figures, of Republican subjects, and of Napoleon in all his glory. The celebrated painter of the Consulate and the Empire was, in Madeleine Guimard's time, a very young man--a mere student, in fact. But he was a stern Republican, and when the luxurious but sympathetic dancer saw that the work of decorating her voluptuous palace did not accord with his lofty aspirations, she gave him the sum he was to have received for covering her walls with fantastic designs, in order that he might continue his studies in the style which best suited him.

[Illustration: Mont Valérien and the Arc de Triomphe.--Church of St. Augustine.

VIEW FROM THE ROOF OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]

The house built by Sophie Arnould next door to Madeleine Guimard's Temple of Terpsichore bore no distinctive name. But it was of the same size as the "Temple," and on the portico, which was supported by two Doric columns, could be seen the figure of Euterpe with the features of Sophie Arnould. The first floor contained the reception rooms, with spacious ante-chambers for the servants. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the children, who, at a later period, were acknowledged by their father, Count Brancas de Lauragais, and bore his name. In the National Library of Paris several drawings and plates are exhibited of the different portions of Sophie Arnould's house; and the representation of the façade bears this inscription:--"Façade of a projected house for Mlle. Arnould in the Chaussée d'Antin. To be constructed side by side with that of Mlle. Guimard, and of the same dimensions.--Bélanger."

[Illustration: MLLE. CLAIRON.]

So much care did the amorous architect of the new house bestow on his work, and so agreeable did he make himself to the lady for whom it was being built, that he was asked to share it with the owner; and there was at one time a serious prospect of Sophie Arnould becoming Mme. Bélanger. To serve some purpose of her own she spread the report that she was married to the architect, who showed himself quite disposed to give reality to the fiction. He was a merry man, and pleased Sophie as much by his ready wit as by his agreeable manners. After a time she got tired of him, and having formed an attachment for the actor Florence, wrote Bélanger a letter of dismissal, at the same time addressing to Florence an avowal of her love. Bélanger, however, found an opportunity of changing the envelopes, so that Florence the actor received the letter intended for Bélanger the architect. The next time Florence saw Sophie he was naturally somewhat cold in his demeanour towards her, and this coldness was naturally resented by Sophie, who had written to him with much warmth. Bélanger triumphed, and his triumph was of long duration; Sophie, indeed, remained attached to him throughout her life. Of all her former friends the only ones who showed genuine solicitude for her in her latter days of poverty and sickness were Bélanger and Lauragais.

Many years afterwards, in the gloomiest and most sanguinary days of the Revolution, when Bélanger was poor and Sophie Arnould still poorer, the architect begged the actress and singer to accept, as from an old friend, a piece of two louis which he at the same time forwarded to her. Sophie replied that she did not desire his money, but that she was deeply obliged to him for such thoughtfulness, and in memory thereof would wear the gold piece next her heart. When she was on her death-bed, the famous architect, himself without means, wrote to the Minister of Fine Arts a letter in which he reminded him that a considerable sum of money was due to Mlle. Arnould from the Opera; of which, now that she was in the greatest distress, it was impossible for her to obtain payment, even to the extent of a few louis. "This unhappy woman," he continued, "of whom Gluck said, 'Without the charm of the accent and declamation of Mlle. Arnould my _Iphigenia_ would never have been accepted in France,' finds herself without even the means of prolonging her life."

In October, 1802, Sophie Arnould died, after receiving absolution from the curé of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the parish in which she was born.

Another remarkable personage who lived in, or rather close to, the Chaussée d'Antin, was that devoted lover of Mdlle. Clairon, Monsieur de S----, who succeeded in inspiring the famous actress with esteem, but not with any warmer feeling; and who, according to her belief, as well as that of several of her friends, paid her visits of complaint and menace after his death. "His humour," writes Mlle. Clairon, in her "Memoirs," "was gloomy and melancholy. 'He was too well acquainted with men,' he would say, 'not to despise and shun them.' His desire was to live only for me, and that I should live only for him. This last idea

## particularly displeased me. I might have been content to be restrained

by a garland of flowers, but could not bear to be confined by a chain. I saw from that moment the necessity of destroying the flattering hope which nourishes attachment and of disallowing his frequent visits. This determination, which I persisted in, caused him a serious indisposition, during which I paid him every possible attention; but my constant refusal to indulge the passion he entertained for me made the wound still deeper."

Afterwards, when the young man had partly recovered, Mlle. Clairon, convinced that his absence from her would be to his advantage, constantly refused his letters and his visits. "Two years and a half," continues Mlle. Clairon, "passed between our first acquaintance and his death. He entreated me to assuage the last moments of his life by repairing to his bed-side. My engagement prevented me from complying with this request, and he expired in the presence of his domestics and an old lady whom he had alone for some time suffered."

The house in which M. de S---- died was the one previously referred to in the Chaussée d'Antin; and at eleven o'clock the same night Mlle. Clairon, who was living far off in the Rue de Bussy, near the Rue de Seine, was startled--as were also, she declares, several friends in company with her at the time--by "the most piercing cry" she had ever heard. "Its long continuance and piteous sound," she continues, "astonished everyone. I fainted away, and was nearly a quarter of an hour insensible." Every night at the same hour Mlle. Clairon heard the same bitter wail. "All of us in the house," she writes, "my friends, my neighbours, the police even, have heard this very cry repeated under my windows at the same hour, and appearing to proceed from the air." She was recommended by an incredulous acquaintance to invoke the phantom the next time it announced its presence. She did so, when "the same cry was uttered thrice in succession, with a degree of rapidity and shrillness terrible beyond expression." Poor Mlle. Clairon was persecuted in this manner at an hour before midnight for days at a stretch; until, at length, in lieu of a piercing cry, she heard every night, and always at eleven o'clock, the explosion of a gun. Fearing there might be some design upon her life, she communicated with the Lieutenant of Police, who, accompanied by proper officers, carefully examined the house next door, but without discovering any ground for suspicion. "The following day," says Clairon, "the street was narrowly watched; the officers of police had their eyes upon every house; but, notwithstanding all their vigilance, there occurred the same discharge, at the same hour, and against the same frame of glass for three whole months, though no one could ever discover from whence it proceeded." "This fact," she adds, "is attested by all the registers of police."

One day a lady called on Mlle. Clairon and made herself known as the best friend of the late Monsieur de S----, and the only person he had suffered to be with him during the last moments of his life.

"To condemn you," she said, "would be unjust ... but his passion for you overcame him, and your last refusal hastened his end. He counted every minute till half-past ten, when his servant positively informed him that you would not come to him. After a moment he took my hand in a paroxysm of despair which terrified me, and exclaimed, 'Cruel woman! but she shall gain nothing. I will pursue her as much after my death as I have during my life.' I endeavoured to calm him, but he was no more."

The words had a terrible effect on the unhappy Mlle. Clairon; and the cries and threats from her distressed lover gradually ceased to afflict her, and in time this excellent woman--who could scarcely be expected to love by order--became pacified.

The first building on the Boulevard des Capucines at the opposite corner of the Chaussée d'Antin is the Vaudeville Theatre, built to replace the old playhouse on the Place de la Bourse, and opened to the public on the 1st of October, 1867. Anciently this theatre seemed to be placed beneath the auspices of Collé des Augiers and Scribe, whose names mark different phases of the Vaudeville style, once exclusively cultivated by this theatre. Of later years, however, especially since the production of the younger Dumas' _Dame aux Camélias_, some forty years ago, it has often thrown gaiety on one side for the pathetic and dramatic. The Vaudeville, like all the Paris theatres, has frequently changed its habitation, though it has always retained its original name. Founded in 1792, when the Revolution was approaching the Terrorist period, at a building in the Rue de Chartres, between the Place du Carrousel and the Palais Royal (since pulled down), the Vaudeville was, after a life of half a century, driven from its first abode by the usual fire. In 1838, the year of the conflagration, it sought a temporary refuge on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, to move in 1840 to the Place de la Bourse, where it took possession of the house previously occupied by the Opéra Comique. Here, where it remained from 1840 to 1867, it changed its style, and instead of comedies and comediettas interspersed with songs, produced with immense success a series of dramas of the most moving kind, such as the already named _Dame aux Camélias_, Octave Feuillet's _Dalila_ and _Roman d'un jeune Homme pauvre_, Barrière's _Filles de Marbre_, Sardou's _Nos Intimes_ and _Maison neuve_. It is not indeed at the Théâtre Français, but at the Vaudeville and the Gymnase, that in modern times the masterpieces of French dramatic literature have been produced. The first representation of _La Dame aux Camélias_ forms a turning point in the history of the Vaudeville Theatre. The play--which was soon to become celebrated throughout France, and in its operatic form, set to music by Verdi, throughout Europe--was not produced without serious objections on the part of the censorship; and it was only through the intercession of the Duke de Morny, Napoleon III.'s unacknowledged brother and chief adviser, that permission to represent the piece was obtained. When the performance at last took place, the success of the drama, owing a good deal to the pathetic acting of Mme. Doche in the part of the heroine, was marvellous; and it was made the occasion of innumerable articles in all the French journals at this period, not only on the play and on the novel from the same pen whence the play was derived, but on the unhappy young woman whose life and death the author had more or less faithfully depicted in the leading character. To show that light-minded Frenchmen were not alone capable of being moved by the tragic end of the fascinating Marie Duplessis, it may be mentioned that our own Charles Dickens was as much touched by it as the numerous French writers, who, more or less perfectly, have put their feelings on the subject into literary form. "Not many days after I left," writes Mr. Forster, in his "Life of Dickens," under date of 1847, "all Paris was crowding to the sale of a lady of the _demi-monde_, Marie Duplessis, who had led the most brilliant and abandoned of lives, and left behind her the most exquisite furniture and the most voluptuous and sumptuous _bijouterie_. Dickens wished at one time to have pointed the moral of this life and death, of which there was great talk in Paris while we were together. The disease of satiety, which, only less often than hunger, passes for a broken heart, had killed her. 'What do you want?' asked the most famous of the Paris physicians, at a loss for her exact complaint. At last she answered, 'To see my mother.' She was sent for, and there came a simple Breton peasant woman, clad in the quaint garb of her province, who prayed by her bed until she died."

The _Dame aux Camélias_ called into existence a whole series of pieces, produced either at the Vaudeville or at the Gymnase, in which the true character of women in certain difficult positions was treated controversially, with examples in support of arguments; and at this moment the last kind of play one would expect to see at the Vaudeville is precisely that to which the theatre owes its name. The situation of this theatre in the most fashionable, most frequented part of the boulevard renders it, apart from its own special attractions, the favourite resort of foreigners living at the excellent hotels in this neighbourhood. The house, with its 1,300 seats, is only of moderate size, but it is much more commodious than the old theatre of the Place de la Bourse.

The theatres of Paris, generally, are, indeed, far less commodious than those of London. The Parisians will go anywhere and submit to any discomfort in order to see good acting and a good play. In England we are much more particular; and the narrow ill-ventilated theatres of Paris would certainly be objected to by English audiences. The Paris theatres, however, are steadily improving, as one by one they get burnt down; and the new ones springing from the ashes of the old are often attractive without and convenient within. In the ancient days before the Great Revolution, the Parisians were as passionately fond of the theatre as they are now, but their playhouses, according to the author of "Le nouveau Paris," were abominable.

"I shall say nothing of the nastiness," he writes, "that distinguishes these places of general resort, because I would not wish to injure the property of the comedians; nor shall I inveigh against the insolence of the box-keepers, and other servants of our theatres, as it would give to the world a bad opinion of the proprietors themselves, to whom some censorious readers might apply the proverb, 'Like master like man,' and think it a truism. I intend to confine myself to those points that more materially concern the spectator when he has once got in and has the good fortune to procure a clean seat. First let us survey the pit. Here everybody stands. You will imagine that its inhabitants are the formidable umpires of taste and dramatic productions; this may or may not be, just as it suits the caprices of the police, or the Lords of the Bedchamber, who, from making the master's bed, have raised themselves by degrees to judge of things which they hardly understand. Hence an actress is palmed upon the public. Whether she is good or bad is not the question, but whether she has had the good fortune to please one or the whole of those gentlemen; and everyone knows what price she has paid for her admission. Not a play is represented here without a guard of thirty men with a few rounds each to quiet the spectators. This internal guard keeps the frequenters of the pit in a kind of passive condition; and whether you are tired, crowded, or bruised, beware of giving any sign of uneasiness or discontent. Yet the unfortunate public pays to take, not what they desire, but what is given them. Surrounded with armed men, they must neither laugh too loud at a comedy nor express their feelings at a tragedy in too pointed a manner. Hence the pit, except in some fits of a transient excitement, is mournfully dull. If you venture to give any sign of your existence, you are collared by one of the guards and carried _pro formâ_ before a Commissionaire. I say for form sake, because everyone in the play-house is really under martial law; the civil magistrate is only there to hear and approve the sentence passed upon the culprit by the officer of the guard; who upon the report, seldom exact, but often groundless, of the soldier, orders the accused party to prison; and the Commissionaire, without inquiring into the merit of the charge, or so much as daring to hint at the least objection, signs the _mittimus_."

[Illustration: Entrance to Rue du Quatre-Septembre.--Avenue de l'Opéra.--Entrance to Rue de la Paix.

VIEW FROM THE BALCONY OF THE OPERA.]

The Boulevard des Capucines seems on both sides entirely new; its houses are white, bright, and in perfect condition. If the crowd one sees on the Boulevard Montmartre is a Parisian crowd, that which animates the Boulevard des Capucines is a cosmopolitan one. It touches what in the artistic, if not in the general, sense must be looked upon as the heart of Paris--the New Opera, that is to say, standing in the centre of the place which bears its name and the streets called after those operatic celebrities, Scribe, Auber, Halévy, and Meyerbeer; one librettist and three composers.

The Place de l'Opéra is, indeed, the heart of Paris, communicating by great arteries with all the most important organs of Parisian life. The magnificent Avenue of the Opera leads straight to the Louvre; in another direction the Rue du Quatre-Septembre goes to the Place de la Bourse. Look along the Rue de la Paix; at the end you will see La Place Vendôme, with its column in memory of the Grand Army standing out in its dark bronze against the fresh green of the Tuileries Gardens. Here all that is most Parisian in Paris may be seen: the finest shops, the most brilliant equipages, with all the glitter of fashionable life. The expensive jeweller and the exorbitant milliner here have their establishments side by side with hotels, restaurants, cafés, and clubs.

[Illustration: AVENUE DE L'OPÉRA.]

The Opera in France had much to go through before it attained its present artistic development, or, as regards the French form of grand opera, found its present capacious and splendid home. It is the proud boast of Frenchmen that Le Nouvel Opéra--as the existing Grand Opéra in Paris has been called for the last sixteen years, and as it will probably be called for a long while to come--covers thirteen times as much ground as the Royal Opera House of Berlin. It is, indeed, superior by its commodiousness as well as its magnificence to every other opera house in Europe; though what above all distinguishes it is its admirable site, and the wide open space in which it stands. In many capitals the theatres, even the finest, are only portions of a street. At Moscow, it is true, the Great Theatre stands by itself in a vast square--a square which, compared with the Place de l'Opéra, is a desert space. From its very origin the Opera in France has always been regarded as an institution of the first importance. It enjoyed special privileges from the Crown, it was managed like a department of the State, and an attack upon the Opera was punished like a treasonable offence.

"Before I tell you," wrote Rousseau towards the end of the eighteenth century, "what I think of this famous theatre, I will state what is said about it. The judgment of connoisseurs may correct mine if I am wrong. The Opera of Paris passes in the capital for the most pompous, the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. Its admirers declare it to be the most superb monument of the magnificence of Louis XIV., and one is not so free as you may think to express an opinion on such an important subject. Here you may dispute about everything except music and the Opera; on these topics alone it is dangerous not to dissemble. French music is defended, too, by a very rigorous inquisition, and the first thing intimated as a warning to strangers who visit this country is that all foreigners admit there is nothing in this world so fine as the Opera of Paris. The fact is, discreet people hold their tongues, and dare only laugh in their sleeves."

Rousseau then, speaking in the person of St. Preuz, the hero of "La nouvelle Héloise," describes the performance as it took place at the Opera. "Imagine," he says, "an enclosure fifteen feet broad, and long in proportion; this enclosure is the theatre. On its two sides are placed at intervals screens, which are crudely painted with the objects which the scene is about to represent. At the back of the enclosure hangs a great curtain, painted in like manner and nearly always pierced and torn that it may represent at a little distance gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Everyone who passes behind this stage or touches the curtain produces a sort of earthquake which has a double effect. The sky is made of certain bluish rags suspended from poles or cords, as linen may be seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. The sun, which is here sometimes seen, is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars of the gods and goddesses are composed of four rafters squared and hung on a thick rope in the form of a swing or see-saw; between the rafters is a cross plank on which the god sits down, and in front hangs a piece of coarse cloth, well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the magnificent car. One may see, towards the bottom of the machine, two or three stinking candles, badly snuffed, which, while the great personage dementedly presents himself swinging in his see-saw, fumigate him with an incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed of long angular arrangements of cloth and blue pasteboard strung on parallel spits, which are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy cart rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of resin thrown on a flame; and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fusee.

"The theatre is, moreover, furnished with little square traps, which, opening at need, announce that the demons are about to issue from their cave. When they have to rise into the air little imps of stuffed brown cloth are substituted for them, or sometimes real chimney sweeps, who swing about suspended on ropes till they are majestically lost in the rags of which I have spoken. The accidents, however, which not unfrequently happen are sometimes as tragic as farcical. When the ropes break, the infernal spirits and immortal gods fall together, and lame or occasionally kill one another. Add to all this the monsters which render some scenes very pathetic, such as dragons, lizards, tortoises, crocodiles, and large toads, who promenade the theatre with a menacing air, and display at the Opera all the temptations of St. Anthony. Each of these figures is animated by a lout of a Savoyard who has not even intelligence enough to play the beast.

"Such, my cousin, is the august machinery of the Opera, as I have observed it from the pit, with the aid of my glass, for you must not imagine that all this apparatus is hidden, and produces an imposing effect. I have only described what I have seen myself, and what any other spectator may see. I am assured, however, that there are a prodigious number of machines employed to put the whole spectacle in motion, and I have been invited several times to examine them; but I have never been curious to learn how little things are performed by great means."

When our musical historian, Dr. Burney, visited Paris and heard at the Opera the works of Rameau, successor to Lulli, under whose direction the French Opera was founded, he found the music monotonous in the extreme, and without either rhythm or expression. He could admire nothing at the French Opera except the dancing and the decorations; and these alone, he says, seemed to give pleasure to the audience. It was not, at that time, the custom in France to name the singers in the programme; and throughout the eighteenth century no singer in France attained such eminence as was reached by numbers in Italy, and by not a few in England, some of Italian, some of English birth. Naturally, then, in the eighteenth century French Opera singers were not well paid; and chroniclers relate that a Mlle. Aubry and a Mlle. Verdier, being engaged in the same line of stage business, had to live in the same room and sleep in the same bed. Apart from the obscurity naturally resulting from the suppression of the names, inconvenience was caused by the uncertainty in which the public found itself of knowing which singer, on any particular evening, would appear. Shortly before the establishment of the Republic, when, for the first time, the names of singers were printed in the bills, an _habitué_ rushed out of the theatre in a high state of indignation, and began to beat one of the money-takers in the lobby. The poor man at once understood the reason of his aggressor's wrath. "How was I to know," he exclaimed, "that they would let Le Ponthieu sing to-night!"

The initial step towards high melody at the French Opera was taken when, some fifteen years before the Revolution, first Gluck, then Piccini, were invited to Paris to produce adaptations of former successes, or original works, fitted in either case to French libretti. While praising the melody of the Italians as much as he condemns the solemnity of the French, Rousseau expresses the highest admiration for the genius of Gluck, the great reformer of the French operatic stage. After the arrival of Gluck in Paris Rousseau is said never to have missed a representation of _Orphée_. He said, moreover, in reference to the gratification which that work had afforded him, that "after all there was something in life worth living for, since in two hours so much genuine pleasure could be obtained."

The next great assistance to the French Opera, and this a permanent one, was given by the Republic, through the establishment of a large music-school, known as the Conservatoire, where a course of gratuitous instruction is given to all comers capable at the stipulated age of passing the indispensable test examination. Before, however, the Conservatoire, destined to produce so many excellent vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers, had time to bear fruit, Napoleon had done much to encourage and develop French musical art. Napoleon, as a young man, was one of the first admirers of the afterwards famous Mme. St. Huberti; and when Mme. Mara refused an engagement pressed upon her at the time of the Empire, Napoleon would have arrested her and forced her to accept it had she not fled from Paris. Then, another cause of improvement at the French Opera was the frequent visits paid, early in this century, and especially since the Peace of 1815, by foreign artists to the capital which, in former days, had set its face both against vocalists and composers from abroad. Lulli, the founder of opera in France, was an Italian by birth, though after his naturalisation he got to be looked upon as a Frenchman. His successor, Rameau, was no doubt a Frenchman. But the French tradition was so completely broken by the advent of Gluck and Piccini that the French have never since exhibited any of their ancient prejudice against foreign composers; and it is to these that for the last seventy or eighty years the Grand Opera of Paris has owed most of its success, that is to say, to Spontini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and, above all, Meyerbeer.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE DOMES OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]

A highly interesting account of the rehearsals of Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_--one of the typical works of the modern repertoire of grand opera--is given, in his "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Dr. Véron, for some time manager of the Opera House. "It was not," he tells us, "until after four months of orchestral and other rehearsals that the general rehearsals were reached. These latter," he continues, "caused great fatigue and great excitement to everyone; to the composer, the singers, the chiefs of department, and the manager. When a general rehearsal takes place, with choruses, principal singers, and full orchestra, but without scenery, without costumes, and without full light, the musical execution gains much and produces always a great effect. In the darkness and silence of the empty and more sonorous house, without any distraction for the other senses, one is, so to say, all ears; nothing is lost of the fine shades of expression in the singing, of the delicate embroideries of the orchestration. But at the first representation the disappointment is great. In the immense, splendidly lighted theatre, filled with an excited crowd, all the rich and elegant details of the score will be lost through the stuff of the women's dresses and the diminished sonority of a building crowded in pit, boxes, and gallery. Great musical ideas, grand orchestral effects, will now alone produce an impression. Thus it happened that at the first representation of _Robert the Devil_, the public, after applauding the first two acts, was only impressed and deeply moved by the chorus of demons."

[Illustration: EASTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]

After describing the anxieties and perplexities which throughout the long series of rehearsals harass the unfortunate director, Dr. Véron proceeds to tell us how this gentleman's last and worst experience was this inevitable final conference, held in his own private room, at which the author of the words and the composer of the music had to be prevailed upon to accept some necessary "cuts."

[Illustration: THE PUBLIC FOYER, OPERA HOUSE.]

"The librettist maintains that to take away one phrase, one word, is to render the work unintelligible, so cunningly is it constructed. The composer resists with no less obstinacy. His score, he says, cannot be broken up into fragments. It is all combined and prepared in such a manner as to form a perfect whole. One piece serves as indispensable contrast to another. A chorus which it has perhaps been suggested to leave out is essential for the effect of the succeeding air. The discussions on such points are interminable. I had ended by showing myself impassible in presence of the storms and tempests that were raging around me; and I devoted the time during which these quarrels lasted to a polite and engaging correspondence with all the newspaper editors. I was still labouring for the success of the work. At last a conclusion was arrived at, and a general understanding established. The chief copyist was making the necessary changes and suppressions in the score; and the public at least never found fault with the words and music that were now suppressed. But when a director has prepared, like a good general, everything necessary for the success of the work on the stage, his troubles begin with the front of the house. Everyone wants something from him on the occasion of a first representation; and that of _Robert le Diable_ was exciting public interest to the highest degree. Everything and everyone must be thought of. It is necessary, in assigning places, to displease no one, and above all to avoid exciting jealousies, so as to have no irritated enemies in the house. Such and such a journalist will never pardon you for having given his fellow-journalist a better place than himself. The author and composer, the leading artists, the _claqueurs_ must be satisfied. The care, the foresight, the conferences, the instructions, indispensable to secure the efficient working of the _claque_ at each representation, and

## particularly on great critical occasions, will be dealt with elsewhere.

One must remember, too, the number of the box that Madame---- would like to have, the number of the stall preferred by the friend of a minister or of the editor of some great journal. One must respect, moreover, the omnipotence of the unknown journalist, as of the journalist in vogue; and on the critical day the existence is revealed of a crowd of newspapers not previously heard of."

It was in the old theatre of the Rue Le Pelletier that Rossini's _William Tell_ and Meyerbeer's great works were brought out. Gounod, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet, have all written for the New Opera, though it cannot be said that any of them has yet produced on its boards a work of the highest merit.

Opened under the Third Republic in 1875, the New Opera House must be acknowledged to owe its existence to the Emperor Napoleon III., whose Minister of Fine Arts opened a competition for architectural designs in view of a new lyrical theatre as long ago as 1860, thirteen years before the old Opera House was burnt down, and fifteen years before the new one was completed and thrown open to the public. The successful competitor is known to have been Charles Garnier, who was almost unheard of at the time when, with rare unanimity, his design was accepted by the Commission, and approved with enthusiasm by the Press. The building of the Opera cost, from first to last, some 36,000,000 francs (nearly a million and a half sterling), 675,295 work days having been furnished, during its construction, to masons, bricklayers, carpenters, etc. The manager of the Opera House receives from the State the free use of the building together with a subsidy of 800,000 francs (£32,000) voted annually by the Chamber. Employed at the Opera are some five hundred persons, among whom may, in particular, be mentioned twelve in the administration, in connection with the archives, the library, the secretarial department, and the treasury; three orchestral conductors, four directors of singing, two directors and one assistant-director of the chorus; forty-five vocalists; and one hundred orchestral musicians. There are about one hundred men and women in the chorus, and the same number in the various divisions of the ballet. Scene-painters, scene-shifters (or "carpenters," as they are technically called), dressers, call-boys, box-openers, and so on, form another hundred. The inauguration of the New Opera took place on the 5th of January, 1875, in the presence of Marshal Macmahon, Duke of Magenta, at that time President of the Republic. All the great officers of State were present, besides a number of foreign notabilities, among whom may be mentioned Queen Isabella of Spain and the young King of Spain, Alphonso II. It is remembered, too, with satisfaction, that the Lord Mayor of London, accompanied by his mace-bearers, trumpeters, and powdered footmen, gave dignity to the occasion.

One of the most interesting parts of the New Opera is the _foyer_, corresponding more or less to the refreshment room of our operatic theatres, but quite incomparable in the way of elegance and splendour. In the accompanying illustration the artist has made a point of introducing, amid well-dressed persons in evening clothes, an English lady in a morning gown and a sea-side hat, accompanied by two of her countrymen in shooting coats and pot hats. It is, indeed, a standing grievance with the Parisians that, whereas at our opera house no one is admitted to the boxes or stalls unless in evening dress, we ourselves, when we visit the Paris Opera, think any description of garment good enough to wear. One of the characteristic sights of Paris has, for nearly two centuries past, been the Masked Ball of the Opera, which, though it has doubtless lost much of its gaiety since the days when it inspired Gavarni with so many subjects for his witty pencil, is still worth seeing, simply as a picturesque display. No one any longer dances there unless paid to do so. It was, in fact, the introduction of hired dancers when the public were just beginning to show a disinclination to take an active part in the revels that put an end to spontaneous dancing altogether. The antics of some of the hired dancers may interest for a time; and the music of the large orchestra, conducted successively by Musard, Tolbecque, Strauss, Métra, and Arban, has always merited a hearing. Throughout the Carnival--that is to say, from Christmas until Lent--a masked and fancy dress ball (the wearing both of masks and fancy dress being optional) is given every week at the Opera, where the great ball of the year takes place on the night of Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Lent. One other ball of the same kind is given in the middle of Lent--_la Mi-carême_ as it is called--and thenceforward there is no dancing at the Opera until Christmas has once more come and gone.

The Opera Ball dates, like the Opera itself, from the reign of Louis XIV. But the license for musico-dramatic performances had been issued forty years before it occurred to the Chevalier de Bouillon to apply to the King for permission to give masked balls. The King hastened to grant the Chevalier's request; and was indeed so pleased with it that he assigned to him a pension of 6,000 livres (francs) for the idea, which had simply been borrowed. What is still more remarkable is the fact that an Augustine monk, Nicholas Bourgeois, invented the mechanism by which, in half an hour, the floor of the auditorium could be raised to the level of the stage boards. Although the privilege or patent was given to the Chevalier de Bouillon at the beginning of January, 1713, it was not until January, 1716, that the first opera ball took place. From that year until 1830 no masked or fancy dress ball could be given at any other theatre. On the accession, however, of Louis Philippe, the Opera lost its dancing monopoly, and there are now numbers of Paris theatres at which, during the Carnival, masked balls occur. The receipts at an Opera Ball are said to average 50,000 francs (£2,000).

Close to the Opera lie all the fashionable clubs of Paris, beginning with the Jockey Club at the corner of the Boulevard de La Madeleine. The English Jockey Club is known to be an association of horse-owners and others interested in racing, who frame regulations and decide cases in connection with the Turf. The Jockey Club of Paris, while founded on much the same basis as the English institution of the same name, is also a club in the ordinary sense of the word, and an exceedingly good one. The Jockey Club, which boasts of numbering on its books members of all the reigning families of Europe, is, by its formal title, a "Society of Encouragement for the Amelioration of Breeds of Horses in France." It was originated in 1833, under the auspices of the Duke of Orleans, eldest son of Louis Philippe, in order to popularise racing, regulate it, and obtain for it subsidies from the State and the Municipalities. A committee of thirteen members is exclusively entrusted with the organisation and superintendence of races. The code of the Jockey Club is adopted as a basis of regulations by nearly all the other racing societies of France. The Jockey Club itself directs the racing of only three courses, those of the Bois de Boulogne, Fontainebleau, and Chantilly. This club, first established at the corner of the Rue du Helder, and then transferred to the Hôtel de Lange on the Boulevard Montmartre, moved in 1857 to the corner of the Rue de Grammont, where the Cercle des Deux Mondes now has its headquarters, and finally, in 1860, to its present abode, for which it pays an annual rental of 100,000 francs. Not one of the Paris clubs seems, like the principal London clubs, to possess its own house. As a rule the annual subscription to the Paris club is high, amounting in some cases to 500 francs. On the other hand, the large sums charged for entrance to the London clubs, ranging from 30 to 40 guineas, are unknown at the clubs of Paris, which consequently find themselves without much available capital.

Close to the Opera, on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of the Rue de Grammont, is Le Cercle des Deux Mondes; at the corner of the Rue de la Michodière, the Railway Club, or Cercle des Chemins de Fer; on the Boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of the Rue Louis le Grand, the Yacht Club. Just opposite the Yacht Club "Le Cercle de la Presse," celebrated for its literary and artistic evenings, suggests in the first place that no like institution exists in England, where the newspaper world, though less sharply broken up by political and personal animosities than that of France, is bound together by no such _esprit de corps_ as that which animates the authors and journalists of France. In England not only are we without a Press Club worthy of the name; we have no Société des Gens de Lettres, or Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Close to the Cercle de la Presse is the Sporting Club, with its English name. On the Place de l'Opéra is the Franco-American Club called the Washington Club, or Cercle Washington, and at the other corner of the square, the Cercle des Éclaireurs, or Scouts' Club, a survival from the war of 1870. On the Place de l'Opéra are the offices (as staring titles sufficiently proclaim) of the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Daily News_, and the _New York Herald_. The corner house, separating the Avenue of the Opera from the Rue de la Paix, has been occupied since 1886 by the Naval and Military Club, known as the Cercle des Armées de Terre et de Mer, and founded under the auspices of General Boulanger in the days when he was War Minister, with the eyes of all Europe upon him. Advancing towards the Madeleine, we come first to the Racing Club (Salon des Courses), then to the Union Club (Cercle de l'Union), the most artistic and most exclusive of all these institutions. Close by is the new Cercle de la Rue Royale, formerly known under the familiar name of "Cercle des Moutards;" whilst a little further on we find the Cercle des Mirlitons and Cercle Impérial, now combined, and the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire.

[Illustration: WESTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]

[Illustration: THE STAIRCASE OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]

More recently established than the best London clubs, the clubs of Paris possess some slight advantages over ours. There is but one London club at which a member can get shaved or have his hair cut, but at many of the fashionable Paris clubs the hair-cutter and barber play as important a part as at an American hotel. The best Paris clubs have private carriages always in readiness. At a London club members who have not their own private carriage content themselves with a hansom, or, if infirm, with a humble four-wheeler. The Paris clubs, moreover, are in constant communication with the theatres; and each club can command so many tickets for a first representation, which are distributed among the members according to the order of application. Some of the Paris clubs, too, have a box at the Opera or at the Comédie Française. One strange characteristic of the Paris clubs--strange at least to Englishmen--is that every member is supposed to know, more or less intimately, every other member. In Paris the newly-elected member of a club is formally introduced to the other members by his proposer and seconder. Nothing of the kind takes place in London; though a new member of a London club is allowed, if not expected, to invite his proposer and seconder with a few friends to dinner. Though there are still famous restaurants in Paris, dining-houses and cafés have alike suffered by the introduction of clubs, which, though fewer as yet than in London, are yearly increasing their number.

The last of the boulevards on the western side is that of the Madeleine, with the Church of the Madeleine as its principal edifice. The Place de la Madeleine, in the centre of which stands the beautiful but most unecclesiastical church, becomes twice every week, on Tuesday and Friday, a large flower-market, the finest in Paris. Standing by itself in the place named after it, is the beautiful Greek temple, of which the first stone was laid, in one of his pious moods, by Louis XV. in 1764. But the building was not proceeded with until after a delay of some years. It was begun in its present form only twelve years before the Revolution; and when Napoleon became emperor it was still unfinished. Judging, no doubt, from the character of the architecture, that the edifice could scarcely have been intended for a place of Christian worship, Napoleon had it finished as a Temple of Glory under the direction of the celebrated architect Pierre Vignon. Like the Pantheon, however, which has sometimes been thus named, and at other times called the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, Napoleon's Temple of Glory was only for a time to be known in that character. Under the Restoration, in 1814, Louis XVIII. determined to restore the building to the Church; and, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, it was duly consecrated. La Madeleine, as it is called, was, however, still uncompleted when, in 1830, Louis Philippe came to the throne; and it was under his reign that, in 1842, it was opened for public worship in the precise form and with the elaborate ornamentation now belonging to it. The architecture of the Madeleine is partly Roman, partly Greek; or rather it is Greek with Roman adaptations. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns, of which there are eighteen on each side. Sixteen, moreover, enclose the southern portion, and eight the northern. The building is without windows, and is entirely of stone. The niches in the colonnade are occupied by thirty-four statues representing the most venerated martyrs and saints. On the principal façade will be remarked a high-relief of huge dimensions by Lemaire, representing our Lord as Judge of the world. The figure of the Saviour is seventeen feet high. On His right are the Angel of Salvation and the saved; on His left the Angel of Punishment and the condemned, with Mary Magdalene interceding on their behalf. The interior is brilliant with gold and colour. The sanctuary, with its vaulted roof, exhibits a vast fresco by Zugler, representing the history of Christianity. Mary Magdalene, receiving Christ's forgiveness, is surrounded by the Apostles and Evangelists; and among the illustrious men who in successive ages have protected the Christian Church may be recognised Constantine, Godefroi de Bouillon, Clovis, Joan of Arc, Dante, and Napoleon. The principal altar supports an enormous group in white marble, generally known as the Assumption, though the central figure is that of Mary Magdalene. The Assumption in this case is that of Mary Magdalene into Paradise, whither she is being borne by two angels. Under the organ is the Chapelle des Mariages, with a marble group by Pradier, representing the marriage of the Virgin; and the Chapelle des Fonts, with a group by Rude, the subject being the Baptism of Christ. To the right of the altar we see illustrated the spread of Christianity in the East during the early centuries and the Crusades; and again, in modern times, through the uprising of the Greeks against the Turks. As leading Crusaders, Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Godefroi de Bouillon occupy places. The personages exhibited as having greatly contributed towards the progress of Christianity in the West are the early martyrs, Charlemagne, Pope Alexander III., Joan of Arc, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Dante. In the centre of the picture stands Henri IV., who, after uttering his celebrated exclamation, "Paris is well worth a mass," goes over to the dominant religion. Then come Louis XIII., Richelieu, and finally Napoleon I., who not only was crowned by Pope Pius VII. in Notre-Dame, but really deserves credit for having restored Christian worship in France.

In the first chapel, on the right as one enters the church, is a pillar bearing an inscription to the memory of the Abbé du Guerry, curé of the Madeleine, a man of remarkable piety and benevolence, who, with other hostages taken by the Communists, was shot on the 24th of May, 1871, in retaliation for the execution of Communist prisoners by the troops of Versailles.

The Church of the Madeleine is famous for the eloquence of its preachers, the taste in dress of the fashionable ladies whom these preachers attract, and the excellence of the music. At the organ of the Madeleine a sound musician and a perfect player is always to be found.

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