"Ces messieurs iront à l'Elysée ce soir? On dit qu'il y aura beaucoup de masques.'

While saying this she indulged in a most significant smile, and I plainly saw that the word "masques" was intended as a cut at us.

A l'Elysée! how grand that sounds, and evokes reminiscences of the Consulate, when Napoleon gave his great balls at the Elysée.

But we could not remain long here, for it was nearly eight o'clock, and consequently high time for us to dine, and this we intended to do at the Petit Ramponneau, the Véry of the Barriers, or the Véfour of the Blouses, as it is also called. Grand Ramponneau would be the more correct name, for it is one of the largest eating-houses in the whole of Paris. In the lower rooms congregate workmen and many country people, especially from the plain of St. Denis, who come to Paris by thousands every day with their vegetable carts; on the first floor there is a large room for "finer persons," though still only workmen : for the bourgeois proper rarely comes here, and we did not see a hat anywhere. We were conducted up-stairs, and asked whether we would like a cabinet particulier, or precisely as in Paris. But we naturally declined this, and remained in the large room, where numerous guests were already assembled, and where, after the French fashion, there was such an uproar that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.

The menu was very soon read through. In these restaurants you only find, in addition to soup and boiled beef, three or four dishes, les plats du jour. Of course, you can have anything you like to order, but you act much more wisely in sticking to these dishes, which are always excellent. Ragoût de mouton, saucisse fumée à l'Allemande; that is to say, with sauer-kraut, omelette aux confitures-a dinner for a king, to which we did hearty justice.

The wine was also good, at sixteen sous; but afterwards we ordered a bottle with the yellow seal at one franc and a half, quite as good as what one pays four francs for in the Passage de l'Opéra. At a table near us some workmen were seated with their grisettes: there champagne was drunk, though it was neither Cliquot nor Röderer, but the corks popped, and that was the chief thing.

We preferred drinking coffee in the large, room down stairs, where the company were more numerous and mixed, and the noise was consequently greater. In all these Barrier places of amusement the wandering minstrels and musicians cannot be kept out, however miserable their performances may be. In large establishments, such as the Petit Ramponneau, they are even given food, and many of the guests throw them a piece of money. If only one singer performed at a time it might be endurable, but three or four at once is really too much of a good thing. A harp girl was strumming at the entrance and singing a romance in a ropy voice; in the centre, two boys of from six to eight years of age were playing the violin; farther back, a street singer was standing on a chair, and bellowing at such a pitch that his melody reached all ears and hearts. "La manière de traiter les femmes comme elles méritent," met with great success, and was so loudly and heartily applauded that suddenly several sergens de ville became visible (gendarmes everywhere in beautiful, happy Paris !), but disappeared again as soon as they saw that no element dangerous to the state was the cause of this tremendous

hilarity. The singer, in the mean while, had sold some fifty copies of his ditty, but no objection could be raised to that either, for the "poem" displayed the prescribed police stamp, and had consequently passed the censorship. Still, our artist was unable to continue singing, for a grimacer had already taken his place, and was cutting such frightful faces that the "ladies" shrieked loudly, and several " gentlemen," through consideration for the fair sex present, threw the fellow some sous so that he might leave off.

Like the dinner up-stairs, the coffee below was excellent; but, for all that, we were compelled to think of making a start. For the Little Ramponneau was merely a station in the programme of the evening, although we had amused ourselves excellently there.

Jones alone was rather out of temper, and was continually growling to himself. He felt annoyed that we created hardly any sensationneither he, nor Saville, nor my humility. Here and there a transient glance was thrown at us, but as we looked exactly like the rest in this mixed company, no further notice was taken of us. The worthy doctor wanted some slight adventure, as he said, so that he might have some reason for his disguise.

66

Pray have patience," Saville said. "Who knows what is impending over us?"

A tap on the shoulder. On turning, old Krautheimer was standing before me, shaking with laughter on seeing me disguised in a blouse. He had recognised us at once, but, on receiving a slight hint, pretended

not to know us.

Old Krautheimer is so well known that I feel sure the reader knows him. An absurd supposition, Jones would say. As if the renown of a Parisian gargotier, no matter how celebrated he might be, ever spread beyond the Barriers.

Krautheimer is most assuredly the Vatel of the exterior boulevards. "Tell the story," Saville remarked. "I will give you five minutes, but then we must be off."

Soon after the revolution of July, Krautheimer came to Paris just as he stood; he had brought two florins with him from home, but could not even spend them, as no one was willing to change the foreign coins. He became a marmiton, omnibus, and eventually waiter, and finally set up on his own account-that is to say, he hired a shop at the corner of a street hardly large enough to admit his stove and a couple of fryingpans, and sold pommes de terre frites. He always remained in front of the Barriers, in the vicinity of Montmartre, which is the Boulevard des Italiens of the working classes. Hundreds of workmen daily passed his corner, and Krautheimer's potatoes ere long became renowned. A year later, he also began to fry small fish, and, owing to the increase of his customers, he was obliged to enlarge his shop. When another year had passed away, he purchased a real restaurant (içi on donne à boire et à manger), and thus became a gargotier. When I add that it was the same establishment in which he commenced his career as marmiton, it sounds like poetical exaggeration, but I am bound to add that it is true.

He was now established in the correct sense of the term, and the first thing he did, when he had become a master, was to return to Berg

zabern and fetch his betrothed. He had been true to her for six years, and she to him. He had written to her once annually at Christmas. At last he was in a position to marry. The story is certainly not very romantic; it is merely a specimen of honest German fidelity in fickle, windy Paris.

:

Ten years have elapsed, and Herr Krautheimer has become a well-todo and respected man, and if he had only consented to be naturalised, he would have been chosen into the municipality. But he refused to become a Frenchman. His establishment had grown considerably in the mean while he had bought the adjoining houses, and a large garden in the bargain, where people dined during the summer. Only workmen and factory hands, and sauer-kraut and sausage, with the addition of the eternal ragoût de mouton for his French customers, and two or three dishes of a similar nature; such was the unchangeable bill of fare all the year round. Beer and the problematical red wine, which has already been introduced to the reader's notice under the name of " le petit bleu," were the sole beverages. Years ago I dined there in summer, and excellently too, frequently with six hundred workmen on such occasions. old Krautheimer (he had become gradually old) would wait on me in person, spread the napkin, and sit down for a moment's gossip. At times he would call up his children, and say, "Shake hands with these gentlemen; it is a great honour for us that they visit us!" At last he had twenty-five waiters to serve the guests, and twelve women in the kitchen, nearly all German; for he always displayed his affection for everything Teutonic, and never denied his country. In the starvation year of 1856, of sad memory, during the three winter months he daily gave fifty dinners to the poor of his quarter. The Maire of Montmartre reported the fact to Paris, and obtained for him the great gold medal. Had Krautheimer been a man of importance, he could easily have secured the cross of the Legion; but, for the sake of decency, it was impossible to decorate a gargotier.

Last year the gargotier retired from business, and it is said with a yearly income of twenty thousand francs. Although he was known to be rich, not a soul could comprehend this: for his portions were always the largest, his meat the best, and his prices the lowest. But in this consisted his grand secret. He much desired a son to continue the business, but Heaven cannot give a man everything he wishes, especially when it has bestowed so much on him already. His two daughters are naturally excellent matches, and have made the mouth of more than one bachelor water. But the father is looking out for German sons-in-law, and will not hear of frivolous Parisians.

"It is half after nine," said Saville, and we started, after shaking hands with old Krautheimer, and arranging a meeting at the Elysée for the same evening.

"I wish the old fellow would bring his daughters to the ball," Jones remarked, as he pulled on his white cotton gloves again, and looked in the glass to see whether his blouse was properly arranged. And thus we set out for the Elysée Montmartre.

The stay at the Petit Ramponneau has been rather long-winded as an introduction, and yet we should have done better by remaining there

longer for what is now coming is anything but jolly. Indeed, I am hesitating about going on, and whether I ought not to break off here, under the pretext of seeing the festal procession of the carnival ox, which on this day has attracted the whole of Paris to the boulevards. But, as everybody thinks that it is not worth the while to run after the bœuf gras, the evasion would not hold water for a moment.

Be it so; I will take my courage in both hands and tell the whole sad story.

*

Au violon! as the Frenchman says-or, in other words, locked up.

Saville was the only one of us who retained his good humour. He wore, as before, his false nose, in order to retain his incognito, and hoped for a speedy release. Jones had grown extremely despondent, and made no answer when Saville shouted to him:

"Now you have the desired adventure, and can no longer complain about no notice being taken of you. You are, bel et bien, locked up."

"Don't let us have any bad jokes," the doctor answered; "we must send some one to the embassy, and try to get out as soon as possible."

But how had we contrived to get into the violon, after our excellent dinner at the Petit Ramponneau and the hearty leave-taking from honest Krautheimer ?

"Speaking accurately, it was your fault," I said, turning to Jones; "if you had not had the unlucky idea of going into the Poule Noire to try your luck at the roulette-table, nothing of this sort would have occurred."

"Abuse me hereafter as much as you please," the doctor angrily interrupted me, "but now reflect on some way of getting out of this confounded place as soon as possible."

"The greatest men, after all, have been imprisoned," Saville began, pathetically, though he still wore the false nose. "I will not allude to Columbus and Galileo, or to Louis XVI., but just think of Thiers and Cavaignac at the time of the coup d'état, and they, too, were confined in Mazas. We are only in the violon of St. Lazare, and hence far better off."

"Saint Lazare!" I suddenly exclaimed, and a glance of hope flashed across my mind. "Why, Saint Lazare belongs to the Faubourg St. Denis, and I am very well acquainted with the police commissary of the quarter. I even did him a service once (by translating an English document), and he is in my debt. Give me pen and paper at once; we are saved!"

But where to get pen and paper? The sentry (Jones persisted in calling him the gaoler), who walked up and down outside, and whom we asked for the articles through the small grating in the door, replied to all our applications with the stereotyped phrase, "Attendez jusqu'à demain matin."

"I have a pencil !" Jones exclaimed.

"All right," I cried; "in that case we are saved."

I took off my shirt-collar, which, as the reader will remember, was made of paper, smoothed the creases, and folded it as well as I could into a note. Then I wrote: "Monsieur Chevalier, on m'a arrêté avec

deux amis. C'est une erreur. Venez nous délivrer, je vous priè, et venez vîte!"—and added my name.

Just as I had finished, we heard the lieutenant giving some orders outside. I took advantage of the opportunity, and handed him my paper, with the words, "Pour M. le Commissaire." The word commissaire is a magical one in the whole police world of Paris-a thorough Open, sesame! The lieutenant at once sent off an orderly with my note. He seemed himself to see that there was some mistake, and treated us with a certain amount of indulgence. At least, we came to this conclusion from the fact that he confined other prisoners brought in after us in a separate cell. Thus we had only two Pierrots with us, who had been there before our arrival-two young fellows, whose sole crime consisted in having drunk a little too much, for they had been picked up in the street; ramassé, as the French say. They were lying on a bench and snoring, and if they could legitimate themselves on the next morning, they would be dismissed with a caution, after paying a fine of two francs fifty centimes. The police of Paris are so indulgent and humane! In the next cell, however, the delinquents were making a frightful din. Judging from the row, they must have been very numerous; but then, we must remember, it was only two days from Ash Wednesday. The number of persons arrested daily at this season is estimated at thirteen hundred, as Monsieur Chevalier afterwards assured us. What reason, then, had we for complaining?

Let us take advantage of the time which must elapse before the commissary's answer arrives to give the reader the requisite explanation. I can do it in a very few words, and it will at once be seen that we were "perfectly innocent," as everybody who is taken up says.

At the Elysée Montmartre there was a merry, mixed party, plenty of masks, no better or worse than elsewhere; and here Jones had the misfortune not to attract attention. Master Saville, with his false nose (we had also put on ours), soon engaged a little grisette, and joined in a quadrille.

A slight remark is necessary here, so that my friend may not be condemned as a mauvais sujet. The grisettes of the Barriers are more respectable (this comparative is certainly rather suspicious) than those of the Quartier Latin; for the latter are frivolous, reckless girls, most of whom have come from the provinces to make their fortune in Paris, and usually die miserably in the hospital or elsewhere at the end of a few years. "Plaignons et passons," says Méry. The grisettes of the Barriers, on the other hand, are daughters of the citizens of the quarter, who certainly attend balls, for the women of Paris want amusement as much as the men, but never without their parents. These grisettes, as a rule, have their "prétendu," or, if the consent of father and mother has been obtained, and a real betrothal has taken place, their "futur," who, after the French fashion, is allowed to take a great many liberties; but an eventual marriage makes all right again, et il n'y a plus rien à dire. In order to obtain his partner's hand, Saville had been obliged to request her lover's permission.

Altogether, it was quite respectable at this Barrier ball. The wild Pierrots, Chicards, and Pochards, male and female, carried on their games chiefly in the galleries and side-rooms, which rendered the great hall more