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of carriages proceeding there. As my coachman, however, was for the occasion gifted with an ambassador's pass, we were permitted to break the line, and we accordingly at once drove into the court, in which I found assembled a strong guard of honour. On walking up the long steps, and entering the great hall, I saw in array before me, in very handsome liveries ornamented with broad lace, several stout, finelooking, well-behaved servants, one of whom took my hat, for which he gave me a slight bow and a substantial round wooden counter. I then proceeded into the first of a handsome suit of small rooms, in which I found Prince Louis Napoleon, surrounded by a circle of people, principally in uniform. He looked pale and, generally speaking, pensive, but he had something kind to say to everybody; his manner was exceedingly mild, affable, and gentlemanlike; and yet it was interesting and at times almost painful to me to observe that, although at every new introduction his countenance beamed with momentary pleasure, it almost as invariably gradually relapsed into deep thought; indeed, his position-from what is termed the mere showing of the case-was evidently an impracticable one.

For a considerable time his visitors, of their own accord, appeared around him in a formal circle, of which he was the ornamental centre, and then all of a sudden-like the change in a kaleidoscope-the party broke into little groups, and he stood almost alone: nay, in the mere act of bowing, at one moment the scene, as it were instinctively, represented monarchy-and the next, as if the visitors had suddenly and uncomfortably recollected something, a republic.

Nevertheless, throughout the whole of the rooms, there existed that striking anomaly which characterises the French nation-a crowd without pressure. In conversing with one of the principal aides-de-camps I asked him which was the room in which Napoleon had passed his last night (I did not say slept) before he took leave for ever of Paris. In reply he was obliging enough to take me into a private chamber, when, pointing to the ceiling above our heads, he said to me "Le voilà !"*

On returning to the suit of rooms which, constructed in 1718 for the Count d'Evreux, had since been the residence of

* This is it!

Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV., of the Marquis de Marigny, of M. Beaujon, (a great banker), of the Government Printing office, of Murat, of Napoleon, of the Emperor of Russia, of Napoleon again, of the Duke of Wellington, of the Duke de Berri, of the Duke de Bordeaux, and now of Prince Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic, I stood for some lime close to two of the bearded party called Red Republicans, and, having thus rapidly glanced at all I desired, I retired into the entrance-hall, where I received my hat from one richly-dressed servant, just as another liveried menial of Democracy, with a magnificent voice, was calling out very lustily and with becoming importance—“La Voiture de Madame la Comtesse de . . . . . ! !”*

As the strange political history of the building I was leaving flitted across my mind,

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"WHAT do you lack? What do you lack ?"-" Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez, Monsieur ?" said a young woman to me very sweetly: "Qu'est-ce que vous désirez?" repeated one of my own age, rather hoarsely, qu'est-ce qu'il vous faut ?"|| "Dites donc, Monsieur !" said another.

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What I really wanted was to be allowed to walk through the busy hive I had entered unmolested, but that I soon found was utterly impossible. I had evidently come to buy something, and innumerable mouths of all ages, on my right and on my left, one after another, and occasionally half a

*The Countess of . . . . . .'s carriage stops the way!

+ Rag-market.

§ What do you desire?

What are you looking for?

What do you want?

66

dozen together, were anxiously inquiring of me what that something was: Qu'est-ce que c'est que Monsieur désire ?"* The ancient Temple of Paris built in 1222, originally contained-besides the Palace of the Grand Prior of the Order of Knights Templars of Jerusalem, with hotels, gardens, and dwellings in which debtors might seek refuge from arrest -a large tower flanked by four turrets, in which Louis XVI. and his family were not only imprisoned, but from which, on the 21st of January, 1793, he was separated from them for ever, to be murdered on the Place de Louis XV.

--

In 1805 the tower-every dog has its day-was demolished, and in 1809 Napoleon, whose extrordinary mind in the middle of all his victories conceived the formation at Paris of a ragmarket! converted a portion of the ancient Temple into the present "Marché du Vieux Linge," which consists of an establishment of 1888 little low shops, about the size of an English four-post bedstead, covering a space of ground 580 feet in length by 246 in breadth, divided by a cruciform path, in the centre of which, isolated from the hive, is a bureau full of Argus-eyed windows looking in all directions. Besides the four divisions I have mentioned, this rectangular space, covered by an immense wooden roof, is subdivided lengthways into thirtysix alleys or paths, barely broad enough for two persons to walk together; and breadthways into thirteen passages of the same narrow dimensions. Each little shop is usually composed of two large sea-chests, which at night contain its property and by day form its counter.

From the name which this market bears I had fully expected to find within it nothing but a sort of rag-fair, instead of which, its little shops contain an infinite variety of cheap millinery, linen, clothes, boots, shoes, and iron-work, old and new.

As, like Gulliver, I strolled through the strets of this Lilliputian city, which appeared to be almost exclusively inhabited by females, I was pleased to find as much propriety and politeness within it as could exist in the Rue St. Honoré; and accordingly, although everybody was bargaining for rags, &c., with more or less energy, I heard "Oui, Madame !" "Non, Madame resounding from various directions.

In one tiny shop as I passed it I observed a lusty paysanne, with a good deal of agony in her countenance, sitting

*What does the gentleman desire?

with her sturdy right leg cocked out and up as if it had been of wood. "Ca vous va très bien, Madame !"* observed the lady of the shop, who had just succeeded in forcing her customer's big foot into a little narrow shoe, at which, with wellfeigned admiration, she kept bowing her head with delight.

As I was sauntering through the next alley I saw a woman all of a sudden dart out of a shop and whip a diminutive, new, bright blue satin cap on the head of an infant in the arms of a very short countrywoman, who for some time had been demurely waddling on before me, and who, indeed, was so stout that there had been hardly space enough for me to pass her. The poor good mother had no more intention of buying a little bright blue satin cap than I had, but her child looked so beautiful in it that she evidently had not heart enough to take it off, and I left her firmly fascinated to the spot, which I have no doubt she never quitted until she had been persuaded to buy the cap.

Again, a milliner had inveigled in a shop, about the size of a sea-steward's cabin, a young lady who, as I passed, was in the dangerous attitude of looking into a large glass, while the woman, with a delightful smile on her face, was gracefully tying under her victim's chin the strings of a new bonnet.

For a considerable time I wandered between shops full of old iron, locks, thousands of old keys, warming-pans, saws, sauce-pans, rat-traps; then through a region of old and new slippers, shoes, half-boots, boots, and jack-boots. Then I got into the latitude of darned stockings, as clean as new; shirts, old and new; empty stays that had, once upon a time, evidently been brimful; faded handkerchiefs, washed till the spots had almost disappeared; gloves, blankets, coloured gowns, that had-as if in the river Styx-been washed into the pale ghosts of what they had been. In one of these shops I observed an old woman trying to sell an old sheet to another old woman, whose shrivelled forefinger was unkindly pointing to a great hole in it.

On changing my longitude I found myself amidst new millinery, artificial flowers, fine gold sprigs: "Qu'est-ce qu'il vous faut, Monsieur ?" said a pretty milliner, screwing up her mouth, to me as I passed her. Then I came to parasols, and my mind finally rested on a whole world of mattresses.

*It fits you beautifully.

As soon

On entering the little isolated glass "bureau," or office, in the middle of the establishment I had just visited, I found two officers, one of whom, to a question that I put to him, briefly replying, "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur,"* walked out. as he was out of sight the other officer, with great politeness, expressed to me his regret that, as a stranger, I should have received an answer "si malhonnête;" he begged me to pardon it, to give myself the trouble to sit down, and to allow him to afford me every information in his power. Accordingly, he told me that the 1888 shops committed to his surveillance, and open from sunrise to sunset throughout the year, are let by the week at one frank and forty centimes each, with an extra charge for insurance of five sous a-week, for which the chef of the establishment not only furnishes guards by day and four watchmen by night, but holds himself responsible for theft, which he added had, although a large portion of the goods are left on the counters at night, scarcely ever been committed; indeed, the demand for these shops is so great that there are many respectable people who have been applying for one to the police for upwards of three years.

He added, that the four squares formed by the two cruciform roads, which in each direction bisect the establishment,

are

1. The "Palais Royal," containing modistes, soieries, robes de bal: in short, said he, it contains "tout ce qu'il y a de beau !"

2. Le Carré-Neuf, containing "modistes et lingeries."§

3. Le Carré, containing "batteries de cuisine en lingerie."|| 4. The Forêt Noir, containing shoes, with old ironmongery of all descriptions.

He informed me that in the establishment many persons had occupied their stalls since they were originally constructed by Napoleon in 1809, and that several had made "fortunes colossales."** Lastly, he told me that underneath the "Marché du Vieux Linge," in the centre of which we were sitting, are subterranean vaults which for many ages had been used as prisons. At a short distance eastward from the market just de

* I don't know, Sir.

+ So uncivil.

Milliners, silks, ball dresses, every thing that is beautiful.

§ Milliners and linen.

T The Black Forest.

Kitchen utensils and linen. **Colossal fortunes.

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