"Toutes sortes de choses," he answered; and when pressed for an explanation he again added, with a shrug of despair, as if I was torturing him with most difficult questions, Enfin, Monsieur, je ramasse tout ce qu'il y a!"† 66 At last, by slow degrees, I extracted from him that "toutes sortes de choses" was composed of the following articles, sold by the chiffonniers at the undermentioned prices :— The rest of the rubbish, consisting principally of salad, cabbage, beans, refuse of vegetables, straw, ashes, cinders, &c., considered by chiffoniers to be of no value, is, at about eight o'clock, carried away in the carts of the police. If He told me that sometimes the chiffonniers pick up articles of great value, which they are required to return to the houses from which the rubbish had proceeded, in failure of which the police deprives them of their plaquet. A few weeks since he himself had restored to a lady a silver spoon, thrown away with the salad in which it had lain concealed. Some years ago, a chiffonnier, he said, found and restored to its owner a portfolio containing bank bills amounting in value to 20,000 francs. they find coin, they keep it. He informed me that on an average he found a silver ten-sous piece about once a fortnight; "Mais!" said he, very mildly, with a light shrug, "ça dépend de la Providence." He added that the chiffonniers of Paris worked during the hours at which people put out their rubbish, namely, from five in the morning till ten; and at night from sunset till eleven; that the latter hours were contrary to the regulations of the police, but that, as it was the habit, they were always in attendance. Lastly, he informed me that the unmarried chiffonniers principally lodge in the Faubourg St. *All sorts of things! In short, Sir, I pick up all that there is! But that depends on Providence! Marcel, where they obtain half a bed for from two to four sous a night, which they are required to pay in advance. I asked him how much the chiffonniers obtained per day. He replied that the value of the refuse depended a good deal on the district, and that accordingly they gained from ten to thirty sous per day, according to the localities in which they worked. He added that for several years he himself had gained thirty sous a day, but that since the departure of Louis Philippe he had not, on an average, gained fifteen. "In the month of February," he said, "we did nothing, parceque le monde s'était retiré." "But now that tranquillity is restored," said I, "how comes it that you do not gain your thirty sous as before? "Monsieur," he replied, " depuis la révolution le monde est plus économe; la consommation est moins grande dans les cuisines; on jette moins d'os et de papier dans les rues." He added that some families that used to consume ten pounds of meat a day subsisted now on only four, and consequently that the chiffonnier loses like the butcher. "Si la tranquillité vient, nous ferons peut-être quelque chose; mais," he added, very pensively, and apparently without the slightest idea of the important moral contained in the words he was about to utter, "quand il n'y a pas de luxe, on ne fait rien !" (a shrug). "What a lesson," said I to myself,-looking at his brass plaquet, faded blouse, and pale, sunken cheeks, which, beneath his thin whiskers, kept quivering as he talked,—" am I receiving in the Capital of the Republic of France from a poor, halfstarved chiffonnier! What would the Radical Members of both Houses of the British Parliament, who unintentionally would level the distinction and wealth they themselves are enjoying, say, if they could but hear from the lips of this street scavenger the practical truth that, when they shall have succeed-, ed, they will deprive, not only the lower, but the very lowest classes of their community, of one half of the sustenance they are now receiving from the 'luxury' of the rich !" Because everybody had left. Sir, since the revolution people have become more economical; the consumption in their kitchens is less; people throw less bones and paper into the streets. If tranquillity comes, we shall, perhaps, do something; but when there is no luxury we can do nothing. MY LODGING. ON my return from my stroll, at about ten o'clock P.M. of the day of my arrival in Paris, to Meurice's well-appointed hotel, I was conducted by one of the waiters to my "appartement;" and as on introducing myself to, or, to speak more correctly, into its bed, I found it to be a particularly warm, comfortable poultice, which seemed to draw from my body and bones every ache or sensation of fatigue, I soon ceased to admire it, France, England, or indeed, any body or any thing. "Heaven bless the man who first invented sleep!" The next morning early, awakening quite refreshed, and with a keen appetite for novelty of any description, I was amused to find not only that I myself had become, and as I lay in my bed was, a great curiosity, but that apparently the whole hotel was looking at me! My room, an exceedingly small one, on the middle floor of six stories, owned only one blindless, shutterless, window, upon which, from above, from beneath, from the right, and from the left, glared, stared, and squinted, the oblong eyes of the windows of three sides of a hollow square, so narrow that it appeared like an air-shaft, excavated in the middle of the enormous building of which in fact, it was the lantern. On each side of my window, like the lace frills on either side of a lady's cap, there elegantly hung a slight thin muslin curtain; but, as in point of fortification this was utterly inadequate for the defences I required, I ventured after breakfast to ask for a larger room that looked anywhere but into that square. Nothing could be more polite than M. Meurice was on the subject, but eighty thousand strangers had flocked to Paris to attend the grand Fête of the Republic: his hotel was perfectly full; and as it was evidently impossible for him to alter figures or facts, I sallied forth to seek what I wanted elsewhere. My applications were at first to the best hotels, then to the middling ones, and at last to the worst; but good, bad, or indifferent, they were all full. "Monsieur, il n'y a pas de place!"* with a quick shake of the head, and with or without a shrug, was said to me not only everywhere, but usually on the threshold. Finding it impossible to obtain shelter in a caravansary, I determined to take refuge in a lodging, and observing on a board close to me the very words I was in search of, namely, "Chambres à louer," rang at the bell. On the door opening of itself I walked into a clean-looking court, and addressing the concierge I had scarcely said two words when, as if she had become suddenly and violently disgusted with me, she shook her head, waved her hand before my face, and said, "Non! Non!! Non!!! Monsieur !" and turning on her heel left me. I had scarcely proceeded along the same street-the Rue de Rivoli-fifty yards, when I had come to an exactly similar announcement, and as, on ringing the bell, I was very nearly, as before, interrupted by the same signs, the same actions, and the same demonstrations of disgust, I asked the porter, with a very small proportion of his own impatience, why, if he had no lodgings, he continued to display his board? "Pas garnies, Monsieur !" he briefly replied, and he then very civilly and good-humouredly explained to me that, had I not been a stranger, I should have known that, from his advertisement being on white paper, whereas, by an order of the police, rooms to be let furnished must invariably be placarded in yellow. Brimful of knowledge, I now felt myself to be a Parisian, and accordingly, shunning the alluring invitations of several white boards, I determined with an air of importance, to pull Lodgings to let, Not furnished. * No room, Sir! at the bell of a yellow board. In vain, however, I searched for one; and although I was quite determined to emanci pate myself from the domination of those three Argus-eyed walls, the windows of which were still haunting me, I was beginning almost to despair, when, on passing a commissionnaire sitting reading a newspaper at the corner of a street, I enlisted him in my service, and then told him what I wanted. 66 Menez, Monsieur !"* he said with a smile which at once promised success; and sure enough, after walking and talking for some little time, he suddenly halted before a yellow board, on which were beautifully imprinted the words I wanted. By the daughter of the concierge I was conducted up a broad stone staircase composed of innumerable short flights of steps and little landing or puffing places up to the very top of the house, where I was introduced to the proprietress, a pleasing-looking, respectable, short lady, aged about forty, to whom, without hesitation, apology, or preliminary observations of any sort, I at once, in French, popped the important question, "Have you, Madame, a furnished apartment to let ?" Not only her mouth, but her eyes, and every feature in her healthy countenance, said "Oui, Monsieur !" On my asking her to allow me to see the room, she conducted me towards a door on the upper floor, on which she herself resided. On opening it I saw at a glance that its interior possessed all the qualifications of the simple hermitage I desired. Nothing could overlook me but the blue slated roof of the houses on the opposite side of the broad, clean, handsome Rue de -, one of the finest streets in Paris. Outside the window, which opened down to the floor, was a narrow promenade, that ran along the whole length of the street, and which, in case of fire, would, said I to myself, fully atone for the extra trouble in ascending to such a height. A secretaire with shelves, two chests of drawers, a cupboard, and a clock, were exactly the sort of companions I wished to live with; and accordingly, without a moment's hesitation, I told the landlady I should be delighted to engage her apartments. As, however, instead of looking as happy as I looked, there *This way, Sir! |