A Parisian hotel is a street set on end, the grand staircase forming the
highway, and every floor a separate habitation. Let me describe the one in
which I am lodged, which may serve as a specimen of its class. It is a huge
quadrangular pile of stone, built round a spacious paved court. The ground
floor is occupied by shops, magazines, and domestic offices. Then comes the
_entre-sol_, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers;
then succeed a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the
other, to the number of Mahomet's heavens. Each floor is like a distinct
mansion, complete in itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and
sleeping rooms, kitchen and other conveniences for the accommodation of a
family. Some floors are divided into two or more suites of apartments. Each
apartment has its main door of entrance, opening upon the staircase, or
landing-places, and locked like a street door. Thus several families and
numerous single persons live under the same roof, totally independent of
each other, and may live so for years without holding more intercourse than
is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.
Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations of rank and
style and importance. The _Premier_, or first floor, with its grand
saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, is decidedly the
aristocratical part of the establishment. The second floor is scarcely less
aristocratical and magnificent; the other floors go on lessening in
splendor as they gain in altitude, and end with the attics, the region of
petty tailors, clerks, and sewing-girls. To make the filling up of the
mansion complete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a _joli petit
appartement à garçon_ (a pretty little bachelor's apartment), that is to
say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for a poor devil of a
bachelor.
The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great
_porte-cochère_, or portal, calculated for the admission of carriages.
This consists of two massy folding-doors, that swing heavily open upon a
spacious entrance, passing under the front of the edifice into the
courtyard. On one side is a spacious staircase leading to the upper
apartments. Immediately without the portal is the porter's lodge, a small
room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the
_concierge_, or porter and his family. This is one of the most
important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the
establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and
consent. The _porte-cochère_ in general is fastened by a sliding bolt,
from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to
go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without
gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immediately drawn,
as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the visitor pushes it
open, and enters. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter's
little chamber; the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to
seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or
second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a
visitor is at hand. The stranger in the meantime ascends the great
staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door,
equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his
friends.
Beside this hangs a bell-cord, with which he rings for admittance.
When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in
some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is
given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter's door, and is told,
_"Montez au troisième, au quatrième; sonnez à la porte à droite ou à
gauche."_ ("Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the
right or left hand door"); as the case may be.
The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the
mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms,
lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they
receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with
the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers
and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets
and domestic history of every member of the little territory within the
_porte-cochère_.
The porter's lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, where all the
private affairs of this interior neighborhood are discussed. The courtyard,
also, is an assembling place in the evenings for the servants of the
different families, and a sisterhood of sewing girls from the entre-sols
and the attics, to play at various games, and dance to the music of their
own songs, and the echoes of their feet, at which assemblages the porter's
daughter takes the lead; a fresh, pretty, buxom girl, generally called
"_La Petite_," though almost as tall as a grenadier. These little
evening gatherings, so characteristic of this gay country, are countenanced
by the various families of the mansion, who often look down from their
windows and balconies, on moonlight evenings, and enjoy the simple revels
of their domestics. I must observe, however, that the hotel I am describing
is rather a quiet, retired one, where most of the inmates are permanent
residents from year to year, so that there is more of the spirit of
neighborhood than in the bustling, fashionable hotels in the gay parts of
Paris, which are continually changing their inhabitants.