Produced by Chris Curnow, Sonya Schermann, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
Transcriber's Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_. The oe ligature has been represented
by the letters oe.
Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected. These are described
in more detail in a second Transcriber's Note at the end of the book.
[Illustration: IN A CHEAP CAFÉ-CONCERT, MONTMARTRE
_Drawing by_ SUNYER]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW PARIS AMUSES ITSELF
By F. BERKELEY SMITH
_Author of “The Real Latin Quarter”_
[Illustration]
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
AND OTHER ARTISTS
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
NEW YORK AND LONDON MDCCCCIII
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1903
by
Funk & Wagnalls
Company
——
Registered
at
Stationers’
Hall
London, England
——
Printed in the
United States of America
——
Published in
May, 1903
——
Second Edition
June, 1903
——
Third Edition
August, 1903
TO MY FRIEND
CHARLES W. GOULD
Contents
Page
Introduction 7
Chapter
I. The Shows of The Champs-Élysées 17
II. Paris Dines 40
III. Some “Risqué” Curtains with Serious Linings 78
IV. Bars and Boulevards 109
V. Montmartre 143
VI. In the Cabarets 185
VII. Circuses and Fêtes Foraines 222
VIII. Grease Paint and Powder Puffs 255
IX. In Parisian Waters 285
Envoi 333
Introduction
It is the small boy who crawls under the circus tent who most keenly
enjoys the show.
He has watched while the big double-top canvas was being raised and
staked taut, transforming the familiar pasture-lot into a magic realm,
more alluring and seductive than the best fishing-hole in the town
creek.
Following the parade, a cavalcade of golden chariots, caparisoned
horses and swaying elephants, the small boy has walked on air, buoyed
by the thump and blare of the brass band. Weeks before he had reveled
in every detail of the show as revealed in posters on the barn-doors:
the lady with the fluffy skirts bounding through the paper hoops from
the well-rosined back of her white horse; the merry, painted clown; the
immaculate ringmaster in glistening boots; and, last of all, the
showman!—generous, genial and big of heart, whose plain black cravat,
fitted neatly under his collar as in the lithographs, and whose beaming
blue eye seemed an open guaranty of all he promised at the single price
of admission.
Should the small boy grow up to be a connoisseur in much that glitters
in life besides golden chariots, and yet manage to keep young enough to
preserve a kindly feeling toward the lady of perennial youth upon the
white horse, should boyish love of the picturesque still abide in him,
he will find within the gates of Paris a city after his own heart, a
place where gaiety never ceases, where the finesse of amusement has
been brought almost to a state of perfection.
To this great pleasure-ground the whole world flocks for amusement. It
is upon this exquisitely fashioned spider-web of Europe that many rare
butterflies have beaten their pretty wings to tatters, and in it that
many an old wasp has entangled itself and died.
Paris! the polished magnet which attracts the spare change of countless
thousands in payment for the wares of folly and fashion, of the
dressmaker and the cook!
When the sun shines, the city is _en fête_.
Rows of geraniums flame in the well ordered gardens of the Tuileries.
Masses of flowers, gay in color as the ribbons streaming from the
bonnets of the nurses, lie in brilliant patches along gravel walks or
within the cool shadow of massive architecture. Brown-legged children,
in white socks and white dresses fresh from the _blanchisseuse_, run
screaming after runaway hooples, or watch in silent ecstasy the life
and exploits of Mr. Punch at the Théâtre Guignol.
Under a vault of turquoise sky the Alexander Bridge, emblazoned with
its golden horses, spans the Seine, crowded with traffic sweeping
beneath the great arc. Sturdy steam-tugs with vermilion funnels tow
long sausage-like lines of newly varnished canal-boats, whose sunburned
captains with their sweethearts or families lounge at _déjeuner_ under
improvised awnings stretched from the roofs of cabins shining in fresh
paint. Down the great vista of the Seine each successive bridge is
choked with thousands of hurrying ant-like humanity. Swift
_bateaux-mouches_ dart back and forth to their floating stations. For a
few sous these small steamers will take you to St. Cloud or beyond,
past feathery green islands, past small rural cafés perched upon grassy
banks where all day long old gentlemen wearing white socks and Panama
hats wait patiently for a stray nibble.
This bright morning in Paris the boulevards are crowded with a passing
throng which is gazed at for hours by those who fill the terraces of
the cafés to linger over a morning _apéritif_. At one café a party of
_commerçants_ are transacting business.
It is the fat cognac merchant now who is gesticulating to the rest of
the group, pausing at intervals to wipe the perspiration from his oily
neck. Near them, four Arabs, swathed in spotless burnooses, their bare
feet encased in sandals, sip in silence their steaming _petites tasses_
of _café Maure_. Omnibuses lumber by. The air is vibrant with strident
cries and the cracking of whips. An automobile passes, sputtering and
growling through the _mêlée_ of the broad boulevard, taking advantage
of every chance space as it threads its way out to the green country
beyond with its begoggled occupants to _déjeuner_ at Poissy or
perchance to dash farther on at a devilish pace to the sea and
Trouville.
At another table on the terrace is a pretty blonde, her dainty feet
resting in high-heeled slippers upon the little wooden footstool which
the _garçon_ has so thoughtfully tucked under them, and her eyes shaded
by the brim of the reddest of hats. She is engrossed in writing a note,
which she finally slips in its envelope. Then this dainty Parisienne
calls the _chasseur_, that invaluable messenger attached to every big
café, and gives him a few cautionary parting instructions. He springs
upon his bicycle and in half an hour returns with another envelope,
this one plain and unaddressed and containing a hastily scribbled line
in pencil. The corners of the pretty mouth curl upward in a little
satisfied smile as the answer is read.
“Madame was in,” explains the _chasseur_ in a low voice. “It was
madame’s maid who wrote it for monsieur!”
An hour later, in quite a different café, in a jewel-box of a Louis
XVI. room, a well-groomed monsieur gazes in adoration across the
snow-white cloth of a breakfast table at a wealth of golden hair, a
pair of blue eyes and what is now the sauciest of little mouths. The
scarlet hat has been tenderly laid upon the Louis XVI. clock, its brim
discreetly covering the dial. The aged _garçon_ allotted to these
indiscreet people has just served the _hors-d’oeuvre_.
There are many other just such _déjeuners particuliers_ in Paris over
which no one bothers oneself.
A long line of carriages is ascending the Champs-Élysées. Here and
there among them you will see the glitter of smart turnouts. In the
cool Bois nearby, the deer from their noon-day hiding-places hear the
trot of equestrians passing in the feathery alleys. Upon some grassy
corner of the wood a family party have spread themselves and laid out
their bread, cheese and wine for a day’s outing. Like a yellow pearl
shimmering far up in the azure, a balloon sails briskly toward
Vincennes.
All these things happen when the sun shines. When it rains, Paris is in
mourning. Cozy corners of café interiors are sought. Here, at least,
one can forget for the time the chill, rain-swept city. Somber
_fiacres_, drawn by dejected steeds, splash along the glistening wood
pavements, with hoods up, their occupants stowed under huge waterproof
aprons, the _cocher_ muffled in his coat to the edge of his yellow,
glazed hat.
Susanne, she of the madonna-like eyes, and the painter—their small
stove, with its pipe traversing the ceiling, having failed dismally to
warm even the cat beneath it—have come from their apartment across the
Seine to the café, and are snug in a corner over a game of dominoes.
The café is a refuge in raw, dreary weather. Only the wretchedly poor
must needs pass by its welcome door. Now and then one does pass: an
outcast, pale and hopeless, wrapping her soaking skirts about her
shrunken hips with something of her old-time grace; or a man with
matted hair, hungry and bitterly cold. Last night, after running a mile
behind a closed cab with a trunk strapped on top, he had had the good
luck to stagger beneath its weight up five flights of stairs, for which
service he had received a franc. He had rushed with it down the winding
stairs to the street. Ah, he remembered how happy he was!—how drunk
and warm he had been for ten hours! And so among the cheerlessness of
leaden roofs and deserted streets the smile of the city has gone.
Suddenly there is a break in the dull gray overhead and the downpour
ceases.
“_Ah! Sapristi!_ It is going to clear!” predicts the _garçon de café_,
as he glances up at the scudding clouds, and nods his assurance to
those within. Instantly the café becomes animated with good humor. A
tall man and a brunette in new high-heeled shoes are the first to
venture out. They laugh over the incident of the rain very much as
those who have luckily escaped an accident.
In half an hour the boulevards are steaming in warm sunshine. Again the
crowd pours by. All Paris is smiling.
If you are an epicure with a fortune, you will find restaurants whose
interiors are marvels of refinement and good taste, whose cellars hold
priceless wines, and whose cuisines would grace the table of a king;
or, if you are a bohemian, there is good-fellowship and a cheering dish
awaiting you at a price within the means of even poets and dreamers.
But it is after one dines that Paris throws open the doors of her
varied attractions. There are the ever-moving _fêtes foraines_—mushroom
growths of tawdry side-shows springing up in the different Quartiers
in a night—with their carrousels and menageries, and the smarter
circuses, like the Cirque Médrano, the Nouveau Cirque and the Cirque
d’Hiver. There are the cheap shows of the small Bouis-Bouis, and the
big open-air café concerts of the Champs-Élysées, the Concert des
Ambassadeurs and the Alcazar d’Été, and that exquisite music-hall, the
Folies Marigny, the Jardin de Paris, the Folies Bergère, the Casino de
Paris and the Olympia, and, in contrast to these, the Opéra, the Opéra
Comique and the Bouffes Parisiennes. There are serious concerts and
little serious concerts like the Concert Rouge. There are the shows and
cabarets of Montmartre and those of the _rive gauche_, the Noctambules,
and the Grillon. There are the cheap dramas of the bourgeois theaters
in remote quarters of the city, and the risqué plays of the Palais
Royal; the daring, independent Théâtre Libre, and the Châtelet, famous
for its scenic wonders; the lighter plays of the day at the Vaudeville,
interpreted by Réjane; the splendid new theater of the divine Sarah;
and the historic Français, with its finished acting in perfect French.
The list is endless.
Where shall it be? To roar with the rest at the latest song of Polin or
listen to a sadder tale at the Odéon, or, perchance, enjoy your second
cigar in the front row under the sparkling eyes and pert nose of that
most charming _chanteuse_, Odette Dulac, at the Boîte à Fursy!
If you have finished your liqueur and have retained the enthusiasm of
the small boy who squirmed his way into the circus tent, raise your
finger at a passing _cocher_. He will take you anywhere.
F. B. S.
Paris, 1903.
Chapter One
THE SHOWS OF THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
If you wish to buy your tickets in advance for the evening performance
at the Alcazar d’Été, the open-air café concert of the Champs-Élysées,
you go there some afternoon, and are ushered by a waiter through a
narrow corridor of the adjoining restaurant, past little rooms, shining
in copper pots and pans, and pungent with steaming sauces, through a
pair of swinging doors well worn by hurrying waiters, and into a square
room piled high with snow-white linen, pyramids of lump sugar, and rows
of glittering silver. Half hidden in a corner among this spotless
collection you discover a desk presided over by madame, who greets you
pleasantly and produces for your inspection from beneath a litter of
dinner checks and bills the seating diagram of the Alcazar.
“Does Monsieur wish seats for the evening, and in what location?”
madame asks.
You suggest two in the third row.
“_Bon_,” replies madame, approvingly. She dips a pen in violet ink and
writes carefully upon a checklike document the numbers of the chosen
seats, tears this check from its stub, blots it, and scratches the
corresponding numbers from the diagram. “_Voilà, Monsieur_,” and she
hands you your ticket. Then she dives into the pocket of her petticoat
for the key to a money-drawer from which to make your change. Finally,
as you raise your hat to go, she adds, in parting assurance, with a
little shrug of her shoulders beneath her worsted shawl: “I am sure
Monsieur will find the seats excellent; I should have chosen them
myself.”
All this takes time, but I must confess that I like the pantry method
better than having my change blown at me through the pigeon-window of a
draughty box-office, with the last rear seats in the house slapped out
to me, all the desirable ones being in the mercenary hands of a band of
sidewalk pirates.
[Illustration:
LAMY IN “LA CAROTTE” AT THE PALAIS ROYAL
_Drawing by_ BARRÈRE]
Meanwhile, several newcomers are crowding about the table, among them
three well-groomed men in top hats and frock coats, evidently having
strolled over from their club, and a faultlessly dressed old baron,
with a tea rose in his button-hole, who is now leaning over the desk,
poring over the diagram through his black-rimmed monocle.
It is the first night of the new _revue_. This well-fed old baron! His
beard is grizzled now and his bald pate shines beneath the rim of his
stove-pipe hat. How many _revues_ has he seen in his Parisian life! How
many capricious _débutantes_ of café concerts and the theater has he
known! How many has he seen flash into brilliant stars and then grow
old and fade away! Some of them are staid old _concierges_ now knitting
away the short remnant of their lives. Some of them died young as roses
will under gas-light. _Les petites femmes!_ Ah! the good old days of
the Palais Royal! The Orangerie! or the Tuileries and the Jardin
Mabille! The days of brocades, of cashmeres, and pendent jewelry of
malachite and old mine diamonds! What famous beauties then! and how
they could wear their flounces and furbelows—the little minxes! What a
reckless riot of costly gaiety! How much baccarat at the clubs! How
many suppers at Bignon’s and the Maison Dorée! How many years of all
this! and yet on this sunny afternoon this old baron is as eager as a
schoolboy over the new burlesque, and so he strolls out with his ticket
up the Champs-Élysées, stopping for a full half hour to watch the
Guignol and the children and the nurses. Later you will see him rolling
through the Bois in his victoria, a queenly woman in black by his side,
the tea-rose stuck jauntily under the turquoise collar of a sleek red
spaniel in her lap. The baron is smoking. There is no conversation.
You will hear Polin at the Alcazar. He comes on at the end of a
preliminary program of excellent variety before the _revue_. Fat jolly
old Polin, whose song creations portray the happy-go-lucky lot of the
common soldier. He reels in from the wings, convulsed with laughter
over some recent adventure, the result of which has put him in the
guard-house for ten days. He is fairly bursting his red-trousered
uniform with merriment as he begins his first verse. He tells you every
detail of his experience, painfully even, for he is now crying with
laughter, his voice rising in little squeaks like the water in a pump
and bubbling over as he reaches the point. He is manipulating the while
a red cotton handkerchief, which is never still; now it mops his round
genial face, now it is twisted nervously into a rope and jammed into
his trousers’ pocket, and as speedily taken out to dust his knees. His
last verse is smothered in chuckling glee; little jets of cleverly
chosen words manage, however, to get over the footlights to his
listeners. The song ends amid a thunder of applause and Polin bows
awkwardly and retreats with his back to the audience, his cavalry boots
combined with his red trousers flopping as he goes.
[Illustration:
Photo by Reutlinger, Paris
POLIN]
Parisians delight in caricature. It is as inborn with them as the art
of pantomime. The political topic of the day, a new phase of the law or
the government, the latest scandal, all come to the net of the writers
of these _revues_.
Eve, the daughter of Madame Humbert, that shrewdest of modern
swindlers, is presented as a Juno-like creature of lisping innocence.
Shrewd, politic and extravagant Madame Humbert, the brains of that
colossal robbery of millions of francs, steps on the stage. The
brother, Daurignac, who posed as a painter, and the famous empty safe
which played such an important role in the Humbert _ménage_, have been
the theme for a dozen clever burlesques.
“Les Apaches,” a notorious band of cutthroats, who have lately infested
Paris, and their beautiful accomplice, known as Casque d’Or, a term
befitting her wealth of golden hair, have also furnished a well-worn
topic for the _revue_ writers. So, too, the capture of Miss Stone has
inspired a clever _revue_, containing a whole stageful of pretty and
shapely brigands. The book is by de Cottens and the music by Henri
José, and it is presented in six tableaux at the Marigny with that idol
of Paris, Germaine Gallois, in the principal role.
[Illustration:
Photo by Stebbing, Paris
LISE FLEURON OF THE ALCAZAR D’ÉTÉ]
The Parisian _revue_ is in structure traditionally ever the same, and
the receipt for these musical puddings is never altered. There are two
important characters which are never to be departed from—the _commère_
and the _compère_. The first fifteen minutes are occupied with the
introduction of a young man of leisure, the _compère_, who has just
inherited a colossal fortune from a dying uncle. He brings with him an
exaggerated outfit of clothes, all brand new, consisting of a sack suit
of dove gray, lined with red satin; a voluminous red satin tie to match
the suit, clasped with a heavy turquoise-studded ring; a gold-buttoned
embroidered vest; a soft gray felt traveling hat; lemon kid gloves, and
a rattan cane. He stalks about the stage, smiling—the stage picture of
good health—and squaring his shoulders and curling the ends of his
long mustache with that debonair air supposed to be consistent with
good luck. His ecstasy over what fortune has bestowed upon him would
put in the shade even the enthusiasm of the “found at last!” gentlemen
of the Eureka advertisements.
[Illustration:
Photo by Reutlinger, Paris
GERMAINE GALLOIS OF THE MARIGNY]
Before he gets half way down the village street of the first act, the
_commère_, a statuesque fairy queen in silk tights, with real gems that
are the talk of Paris, who has been hunting for him all over the town,
suddenly comes upon him in the village square, and, touching him with
her wand, makes him her _protégé_.
The _compère_ may come upon the stage as an old _roué_, weighted with
years and careworn. In this case, the good fairy immediately bestows
upon him joyous youth and the satin apparel. She is running over with
benefactions and, causing to appear suddenly a score of comely young
grisettes and hard-working peasant girls who have been loitering around
the town pump, arrayed in silk hose of assorted lengths, she urges him
to select from these his mate. Just at this moment a plain little
seamstress, in passing, runs into this barricade of village beauties,
and at once becomes the victim of their badinage. Our youthful Crœsus,
seeing her distress, straightway chooses her for his bride, amid the
discontented reproaches of the rest of the girls and to the inward
satisfaction of the good fairy.
[Illustration:
Photo by Cautin & Berger, Paris
A COMMÈRE]
The plain little seamstress turns out to be superlatively beautiful,
and as naïve and witty as she is charming, especially if it is Lise
Fleuron who plays the part.
It takes only a short time, in the second act, to clothe this stray
Cinderella in a Paquin or a Worth creation, while her old gray and
white clothes are neatly folded and laid away in the basket with which
that very morning she had started early to market to buy a _poulet_ and
a _salade_ for her sick grandmama. After this public shopping the happy
pair is ready to start upon the honeymoon. Cinderella adds to her
wardrobe a blue silk parasol, stuck in a rolled up traveling rug, while
her happy companion decorates himself with a field-glass and dons an
English shooting hat of impossible plaids.
In the third act they are joined by the good fairy and the _revue_
passes before them. This is a hodgepodge of burlesques upon the topics
of the day, ballets representing flowers and perfumes and the history
of fashion, and choruses representing the different journals, the arts,
inventions and manufactures. The costumes are superb and the massing of
color exquisite.
Before the finale, an apotheosis of gorgeous color, with a stageful of
kicking, giggling, romping gaiety, I catch a glimpse of the old baron.
He has bowed to someone on the stage and is applauding vigorously. So,
too, is the young _vicomte_ with a scar across his cheek where a ball
ploughed itself one chilly morning on the outskirts of Surennes, all on
account of just such a _cocotte_ as the good fairy who is now glancing
under her stenciled eyelids at a swarthy little Italian in the front
row.
And the Comte de B—— is shouting “Bravo!” from his box. It is he who
has paid so highly to see Ninette included nightly in the program. She
has been permitted by the amiable management, after the transfer of
certain crisp bank-notes from the purse of the count to the pocket of
the manager, to announce, in the third act, the approach of the
soldiers, “as a personal favor to the Comte and because Madame is so
beautiful.” To be in a _revue_ and flattered by the press is as
necessary to Ninette as to have a new gown for the _Grand Prix_. For,
tho she is fair to look upon and has little bills springing up along
the Rue de la Paix as thick as a field of bachelor’s-buttons, Ninette
is not an actress. But Ninette enjoys her theatrical career. She takes
the stage seriously, enjoying even the rigid discipline, because of its
complete novelty. The old playgoers come to her salon, gravely kiss the
tips of her fingers, and tell her how charming she has been in the
_revue_. Then the journalists! Ah! how amiable they are! For the crisp
bank-notes of the Comte which placed the crown of Thespis upon the
blond head of Ninette did not all of them go into managerial pockets.
But Ninette has begun to sing; listen! Yes, it is the line faintly
announcing the soldiers. A final chorus, the curtain falls and the
crowd rises and pours slowly out under the trees.
[Illustration:
Photo by Reutlinger, Paris
A BEAUTY OF THE REVUE]
It is starlight. Passing and repassing like fire-flies the cabs go
trundling by. Here and there in the shadow one is stopped and a fluff
of lace and sheen of silk is bundled in. The baron walks home, the end
of his cigar glowing cheerily. The _revue_ is a success.
The Concert des Ambassadeurs with its _revue_ and variety adjoins the
Alcazar. One can dine leisurely on the balconies of either of the two
restaurants adjoining these cafés, and watch the performance during
dinner.
Near by is the Jardin de Paris enclosed by lattice and hedge, and
ablaze at night with festoons of colored lights and crimson lanterns.
Within, the crowd pours round the promenade thronged with
_demi-mondaines_, in décolleté gowns flashing in jet, in picture hats
flaming in scarlet, their white hands glittering to the knuckles in
showy rings. Some of these women are pretty and gowned in chic
simplicity, some of them are coarsely bedizened and heavily rouged,
with small cruel eyes and strident voices.
The variety performance at the end of the garden has just ended, and a
fanfare of hunting horns announces the quadrille. The passing throng
crowds about the _estrade_ to watch the dancing. Another fanfare from
the horns, and the orchestra commences a lively can-can. The crowd
presses close against the low balustrade. “Grille d’Égout” gathers up
her skirts, and a second later her black stockings are silhouetted in
billows of cheap _lingerie_. The band crashes on. The other dancers
execute _pas seuls_ with their traditionally voluminous display, which,
from its very boldness, is neither suggestive nor vulgar—it is if
anything rather a common exhibition from which all illusion has
vanished. They are a type unto themselves, these can-can dancers; half
of them might easily pass for middle-aged housemaids, but there are
some who unmistakably have been gathered from the riff-raff of such
places as the “Ange Gabriel” and the _cabaret_ of the “Rat Mort” in
Montmartre.
An old man in a long coat of rusty black and a straight-brimmed top hat
now joins the quartet. He is tall, square-jawed and clean-shaven, with
twinkling gray eyes. He is seventy years old and has been a
professional quadrille dancer all his life. Laying the smoldering stump
of his cigarette in a safe corner of the balustrade, he flings himself
into the measure. His gaunt Mephistophelian frame seems tireless as if
hardened by the dancing of a lifetime. He executes with a certain
precision and gravity the steps of a _pas seul_. When he finishes, he
recovers the butt of his cigarette, smiles sardonically at the
applauding crowd, and sits down to refresh himself over a “bock.”
“Grille d’Égout,” passing, good-humoredly tips his hat sideways with
the toe of her slipper, and his satanic majesty rises and leads her
into a maze of steps, evidently in revenge, since she begs off,
exhausted at the end of a quarter of an hour. The crowd cheers.
A shooting-gallery pops and cracks away at one end of the promenade,
while next to it a much-mirrored bar dispenses so-called English and
American drinks, villainous all, with a bottle of warm champagne, on
tap and sold by the glass, as a questionable alternative.
Below the level of the garden, almost immediately under the orchestra,
is the Crypte, where there are varied attractions.
There are two ways of getting down to this Crypte; one is by the
stairs, and the other by a polished board-chute. Both are free, but the
chute is the more popular. Here an amused crowd stands about waiting
for some Mimi or Cora or Faustine to plant her neat patent leather
boots on the board and slide to the subterranean regions beneath. Here
there are living pictures, two pink samples of which stand guard at the
entrance of this side-show, while within, a gray-haired pianist thumps
out the incidental music to the tableaux from an ancient piano with a
sleighbell tone.
At intervals the sentinels without change guard with Spring and Summer,
while Autumn and Winter pass the hat, and Venus rising from the Sea
tarries in the dressing-room to curl her hair and gossip with the
leading victims of the Deluge.
Certain tremulous cries emerge from the other side of the Crypte to the
accompaniment of a desert tom-tom and the tread and sway of Oriental
dancing.
Yes, the Jardin de Paris with all its noise and glare was built
especially to attract most of the smoking-room list of the incoming
ships. It appeals in some mysterious way to that natural prey of the
Parisian landlord, the traveler who allows himself to be held as a
hostage in exchange for his pocket-book at one of the large dismal
hotels built solely for his capture. Here in a heavily upholstered and
silent reading-room he may read the papers and watch other unfortunates
of his kind prowl about him, until at seven he is ushered by an
overbearing _maître d’hôtel_ into an even more elaborate hall of fame
to the table d’hôte, an occasion representing in gaiety a feast of
refugees after a flood. If during his stay in Paris he has the good
fortune to see anything Parisian he may count himself lucky.
The Théâtre Marigny is to the Jardin de Paris what a cozily lit
dinner-table glowing in shaded candles is to a bar-room, aglitter with
brass and glass and electric lights. This jewel-box of a theater in the
Champs-Élysées was fashioned for all seasons, but in summer it is in
full bloom.
[Illustration:
Photo by Reutlinger, Paris
ÉLISE DE VÉRE OF THE MARIGNY]
The approach to it among the trees is much the same as to the others,
only that the roadway in front is packed at night with private
carriages. Here a Parisian _équipage de luxe_ of an eastern prince
crowds a new coupé, with a rhinestone clock and hidden cases of doeskin
lined with silk, a tiny mirror, a diminutive powder-puff in a box with
a golden top, a little of this and a little of that. It is the carriage
of Julie la Drôlesse; with this gilt encased arsenal one feels safe to
look one’s best in any emergency thinks Julie—that is, if Julie ever
really does any thinking. Does the little golden-puff remind her, I
wonder, of the days when two sous of _poudre de riz_ applied in a jiffy
with a corner of her jupon sufficed to charm the _habitués_ of the Rue
Blanche? _Ah! mes enfants!_
Seen through the trees the Théâtre Marigny looms like some gigantic
flower of light, the reflection from the edge of its circular promenade
illuminating in a hazy light the surrounding foliage. And such a
promenade!—aglow with fairy lamps thrust in a setting of shining
leaves, and with comfortable rattan chairs encircling the mosaic floor
which during the intermission is brilliant with the passing throng.
“Mar-ga-rita” sing gayly the Neapolitans to the strum of guitars. A
woman with an olive skin whose lithe body seems to have been poured
into a delicate mold of Valenciennes lace, glides by on the arm of a
Russian. Her jewels have bankrupted a prince.
Sundry old Frenchmen, in straight-brimmed hats with ribbons in their
button-holes, pass; one is a senator, another a famous sculptor. At
one’s elbows is a pretty blonde, her white neck encircled by a band of
turquoise reaching nearly to her small pink ears, ever listening like
tiny shells to the flattering murmur of the human sea about her.
Pop! goes a bottle of champagne in the bar. Crack! rips the spangled
train of Thérèse Derval under the clumsy heel of her admirer. “Fifty
louis for your awkwardness, idiot!” snaps the quick-tempered Thérèse.
“Mar-ga-rita” strum the guitars. But the bell is ringing for the
curtain. The spectacular _revue_ following the excellent variety is
quite different from the _revues_ of the other café concerts; at the
Marigny they are poems of color—costumes which are the creation of
artists. Nowhere is scenic art brought to a higher perfection than at
the Marigny.
One sees a ballet in tones of violet and gray that is as delicate as an
orchid. Again the stage is blazing in Spanish yellow and red as rich as
a pomegranate crushed in the sun. Now the tableau changes to a scenic
night bathed in pale moonlight with a ruined _château_ harboring purple
shadows and framed in a grove of cypresses.
From this grove may flutter a ballet of bats, or the summer night may
vanish in a twinkling and in its place appear a garden of Maréchal Niel
roses blooming at a signal into another ballet.
Now enters a procession representing the history of fashion. Here are
the exaggerated costumes of the Middle Ages, ermine and miniver, and
those impossible head-dresses, the cornettes, hennins, and escoffions
of the time of “Louis the Fair.” Then follow the grand apparel of the
Medicis, and the transparent sheath-like tunics of the _merveilleuses_
of the Directory, slit at the side and fastened with a cameo brooch,
and the toilettes of the balls of the Restoration. Even more ridiculous
costumes were worn, you remember, by women of society a hundred years
ago openly in this very Champs-Élysées, the days when all Paris went
mad over the costumes of the Athenian maidens. What a contrast are the
creations of the present age to those seen during the Reign of Terror
at Frascati’s! And yet I am sure that if any of the celebrated beauties
of the Marigny had entered the court of Louis XVI. in a perfect gown of
to-day, she would have been welcomed with wonder and delight.
[Illustration]
The curtain falls on the _revue_, smart equipages outside are being
shouted for by the _chasseur_. Julie la Drôlesse has just stepped in
her boudoir-like coupé. It has begun to drizzle. I call my own
conveyance, a dingy _fiacre_ with a green light and a jingly bell, the
_cocher_ swathed about his middle with a yellow horse-blanket. He
wheels his raw-boned steed to the door.
“_Chez Maxime, cocher!_”
“_Bien, Monsieur!_”
Chapter Two
PARIS DINES
The famous chef, Vatel, before a dinner given to Louis XIV., killed
himself because the fish was late.
Nowadays he might simply have shrugged his shoulders in apology, a mode
of reply most popular in France, and against which all argument is as
useless as so much steam in the air.
Boil with rage if you will; plead with the ingenuity of a defending
lawyer, or berate him in language which would inspire renewed effort in
a government mule, the Frenchman’s shrug will disarm you as neatly as
an expert duelist sends your foil spinning out of your grip, and you
will be conscious of how useless your tirade has been only when you
perceive the delinquent monsieur with the elevated shoulders bowing
himself politely out through the door.
A year ago the veteran chef of a celebrated Parisian restaurant
resigned his position. Prices had been affixed to the menu. With this
deplorable change the famous _maison_ had sunk below the dignity of
this august personage. To attach to so noble a creation as a “_filet
d’ours à la François-Joseph_” a fixed price as one would to a pound of
butter, made his further connection with the house an impossibility.
“_Parbleu!_” he cried, “Had Paris become a _gargotte_ for the _grand
monde_ that he should have lived to see this?”
There still remain a few smart restaurants where there are no prices on
the menu, but even in these there is a second edition of the bill of
fare with the prices thereon which the _maître d’hôtel_ will
apologetically hand you when he discovers you are neither a millionaire
nor a fool, even tho your French may be not so good as his own. If you
have the leisure, the best plan is to order your dinner for a _partie
carrée_ in advance and for a certain fixed sum, as most Parisians do.
[Illustration: AROUND THE HALLES]
In no city in the world are there so many and so varied places to dine
as in Paris. One can hardly look right or left from any corner of any
street and not find restaurants, from little _boîtes_, where a _plat du
jour_ and a bottle of wine are to be had for a few sous, to those whose
cuisine and rare vintages are adapted only to the well-filled purse of
an epicure. There are numberless resorts frequented by the vast army of
bohemians, some the rendezvous for students and _grisettes_, others for
the poets, the pensive, long-haired devotees of the symbolistic school,
and kindred souls in the realm of art. There are those patronized by
jolly, devil-may-care young doctors, sleepless night-owls, who discuss
till graying dawn their latest operations with a complacent sense of
superiority over the other half of the human world, who, they are
convinced, without their medical aid would be left as helpless as a
mass of struggling white bait in a net. And there, too, buried away in
the dingy alley of Montmartre and fringing the ill-reputed
neighborhoods of La Butte and the great Halles, are the feeding places
of thieves, reeking from the odor of decaying vegetables and bad
cheeses, yet, they say, supplied with some of the rarest wines.
[Illustration: A BUSY MORNING]
It was a famous French sociologist who declared, from extended personal
investigations of the private life of the Parisian mendicants, that the
best _champagne brut_ he had yet encountered he had found on the dinner
tables of professional beggars.
Along the lighted streets and boulevards are the great _brasseries_ for
Munich beer and German dishes, and the richly decorated taverns, some
of them in black oak shining in pewter and ornate with medieval
decoration and stained glass. These are swarming with eddies from the
passing world until long after midnight. Many of these are the habitual
rendezvous of journalists, like the Café Navarin. Others, like the Café
des Variétés and the Taverne de la Capitale, are the favorite places
for actors, and still others for painters and musicians. There is
hardly a resort in Paris which has not its distinct clientèle, from the
_buvettes_ of the _cochers_ to Maxime’s.
And of soberer kind are the innumerable, perfectly kept establishments
created by Duval and imitated by Boulant. They are big places for small
purses; everything is of excellent quality, well cooked, and served by
respectable women in spotless white caps and aprons.
There are hundreds of other restaurants besides, with _dîners_ and
_déjeuners_ at a _prix fixe_, in which a secondary quality of food is
turned into a clever imitation of the best, and where the wine is plain
and harmless and included with a course dinner _au choix_ for two
francs fifty and less. On _fête_ days and Sundays these well patronized
_petits dîners de Paris_ are crowded with bourgeois folk: clerks with
their sweethearts, _commerçants_ and their families, economical
bachelors, and others, frugal-minded, from out of Paris who have come
into the metropolis to spend a long-anticipated holiday.
[Illustration]
And in contrast to all these dining places are the smart restaurants,
filled with the correct _grand monde_ and the chic _demi-monde_—the
Café de Madrid, the Maison Anglaise, Paillard, Arménonville, La Rue,
Joseph, Ledoyen, Voisin and the Café de Paris. There are serious old
places, such as the Tour d’Argent, plain and unadorned, where all the
wealth is in the _casserolles_ and the cobwebbed bottles. Then, too,
there is the ancient Restaurant Foyot, with its clientèle of senators,
academicians and military officers, and the Restaurant La Pérouse on
the quay of the Seine, where resort savants and magistrates and others
less grave—an old-fashioned place with a narrow stairway leading to
quaint, low-ceiled _cabinets particuliers_ and excellent things
simmering over the kitchen fires below stairs and certain rare old
Burgundy lining the walls of the cellar.
Just such a place of seclusion and good cooking is the “Père La
Thuille” in Montmartre. It is often a pleasure to dine in a room devoid
of gilt and tinsel. The Père La Thuille is restful in this respect. The
cuisine is perfect and the wine very old.
[Illustration: THE KITCHEN OF A CHEAP TABLE D’HÔTE]
At one of the tables in the rectangular dining-room a celebrated diva
whose bodice glitters in gems is dining with monsieur, the aged
director of a gas company. Several empty tables away another elderly
gentleman is filling Mademoiselle Fifi’s glass of champagne. Half
hidden in another corner of the long leather settee a lady with
delicate features and frank, intelligent eyes pours forth her soul and
the remainder of a bottle to a well-groomed man at her side. The light
from the shaded candles shows more clearly his strong fine hands. Now
the little finger of his companion touches his seal ring quite
unconsciously, as one would give an accent by a gesture to a
confession. For a moment he covers her tiny hand with his own. Poor
devil! he must return to his regiment to-morrow and, what is still
sadder, the lady is married.
The New York Dairy Lunch, with its mirrored and marbled bathroom
decoration, its elevating Bible texts, and depressing “sinkers,” and
its dyspeptic griddle-cakes cooked in the window, would never make a
success with Parisians. One of the most doleful sights I have seen in
Paris was a sad-looking gentleman in black sitting at a cold
marble-topped table of an expensive _patisserie_ lunching on a weak cup
of tea and a plate of cream-puffs—_Chacun son goût!_
There exist here, however, “Express Bars” along the boulevards, where
by dropping two sous in a slot you are permitted to rob the
nickel-plated chicken house installed beneath of any of a dozen
different articles, from a _baba au rhum_ to a glass of beer. But
Parisians stop at these places very much as they would to hear a
phonograph, or as French children stop for their _goûter_ at four
o’clock in the cake shops, or as men and women of all classes drop in
for the celebrated fruits in spirits dispensed at the famous solid
silver bar of La Mère Moreau.
The French never hurry over dinner. The pleasure of dining must not be
spoiled by haste. It is an hour which nothing postpones. If anything
serious is to be decided upon, Parisians dine first and then think the
matter over. Perhaps after all they are right, for are we not at our
best in heart and spirit when we have dined wisely? Anger, hatred, even
the green monster jealousy, fade away with the progress of a good
dinner.
[Illustration:
Drawn by Sancha
LE PLONGEUR]
Into the Restaurant Weber comes an old _bon-vivant_ growling. He stands
for a brief moment surveying the tables, chooses one of the few
unoccupied ones and plants himself savagely in front of the snow-white
cloth. “The devil!” he mutters to himself. “She’ll get my letter
to-morrow. _Bon Dieu!_ to think I have been imbecile enough to trust
her!”
“Has monsieur le comte ordered?” interrupted quietly the _maître
d’hôtel_ Léon.
The count glowers over the menu.
“Some _filets de hareng saurs_.”
“_Parfaitement, monsieur_,” replies Léon, and he repeats the order to a
waiter.
There follows a pause, during which the count’s irate eye (the one not
occupied with his monocle) wanders absently over the list.
“Perhaps monsieur would like an excellent purée of peas to follow?”
Léon naïvely suggests.
“_Bon!_” gruffly accepts the comte. “And a _homard_, and a roast
partridge with a good salad, and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, ’93,” adds
the count.
“_Bien, monsieur_, I will season the salad myself.” And Léon, with an
authoritative gesture, claps his hands twice, stirring into increased
activity the already alert waiters, gives a final touch to the
appointments of the count’s table, and hurries off to attend to another
dinner, a jolly party of four who need no further cheering up.
[Illustration:
Drawing by Sancha
LE MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL]
“She has the innocent eyes of a child when she lies!” mutters the
count, returning to his thoughts.
But the tiny _filets de hareng_, with their tang of the sea, sharpen
his appetite, and the wine quiets his nerves and refreshes his brain,
and the purée warms him and the lobster steaming in its thick, spicy
sauce cheers him. The hatred within him is growing less. That lump of
jealousy buried so deep half an hour ago has so diminished that, when
the fat little partridge arrives, garnished and sunk in its nest of
fresh watercress, this gives the fatal _coup_ to ill humor. Again the
champagne is rattled out of its cooler. Léon, whose watchful eye is
everywhere and whose intuition tells him when a patron wishes to talk,
now comes to the count’s table.
The count has by this time become the soul of good humor. He
compliments Léon on the dinner and Léon compliments him on his taste in
selection of viands, and so they talk on until Léon goes himself for a
special liqueur.
The count gazes peacefully on those about him and admires, with the
critical eye of a connoisseur of beauty, the pretty woman at the corner
table. Silent waiters lay the fresh cloth and bring him an extensive
choice of Havanas. All these final accessories have little by little
taken away the remnants of his ill feeling. He puffs reminiscently at
his cigar. His very spirit of revenge seems to have been steamed,
sautéed and grilled out of him. Now he takes from his waistcoat pocket
a thin gold watch—the one he bought at a round sum in Geneva years ago
and which has been faithfully ticking away the seconds of his turbulent
life so long that he has come to regard it somewhat with awe, as one
would the change from his last dollar.
The delicate hands have crept to nine o’clock and two tiny bells within
strike the hour. The count writes upon his visiting card a short line,
seals it in its envelope, calls the _chasseur_ and, giving him the
note, directs: “Stop on your way at Véton’s for the red roses.”
[Illustration: LE CHASSEUR
Drawn by Sancha]
Ah, mesdames et messieurs, how many of your little troubles have been
settled by the doctor with the _cordon bleu_ and the shining saucepans!
The Taverne Pousset is famous for its beer, its _écrevisses_ (crawfish
boiled scarlet and served steaming), and its _soupe à l’ognon_, a
bouillon redolent with onions and smothered beneath a coverlet of brown
cheese.
Parisians flock to Pousset after the theater. At night its richly
decorated interior is ablaze with light and crowded with those who have
stopped for supper after the play.
There are dozens of just such _tavernes_ and _brasseries_. These German
institutions have oddly enough become most popular with the French, who
have grown in recent years critically fond of good beer. I might add,
however, that it is the only thing German that has become popular. That
little affair of Sedan is still in the gorge.
The Coq d’Or, on the rue Montmartre, is one of the oldest taverns in
Paris. Its clientèle during dinner is composed of _commerçants_ and a
mixture of _bourgeoisie_ and Bohemia, but after midnight, as happens in
scores of other such places, the Coq d’Or is filled by a veritable
avalanche of _demi-mondaines_ of the surrounding quarter.
If you dine at Marguery’s, order a _sole au vin blanc_ and let Étienne
bring it to you.
If it is summer you will find a table in the covered portico brilliant
with hanging flowers, or you may choose a snug corner behind the cool
green hedge that skirts the entrance of this famous rendezvous of rich
_bourgeois_ and _commerçants_.
The restaurant Marguery is unique. It is a magnificent establishment,
perfect in its cooking, its wines, and its service. I know of no
restaurant where for this perfect ensemble one pays so moderate and
just a price; the proof of this is that here you will see the true
Parisian; neither is there any supplementary charge for any of the
_cabinets particuliers_ or the private dining-rooms. It is the only
_maison de premier ordre_ I know of which does not tax one more or less
heavily for the right of seclusion.
You will have hardly finished your sole before a distinguished old
gentleman with a decoration in his lapel and a crumpled napkin in one
hand, will pass your table, bowing graciously to you if you are a
stranger and stopping to say a few pleasant words if you are a friend.
He is slightly bent with age, massive of frame, with silvery locks
combed back from a broad forehead, and his face is illumined with
kindliness and intelligence.
[Illustration: “VOILÀ, MONSIEUR!”
Drawn by Sancha]
Such a personage is Monsieur Marguery, whom the French government has
decorated in recognition of his skill as a _restaurateur_, a man who
still directs personally every detail of this superb establishment
where one can dine for a few francs with an excellent bottle of wine,
or give a dinner fit for an emperor, including, I have not the
slightest doubt, the famous peacock tongues should you wish them, and
with a choice of wines from a cellar whose contents are valued at three
millions of francs.