out.

always communicative-ces dames ci, and never veracious). Presently a young gentleman comes out of a side door, at which he surprises sua innocenza listening! Suzette and he are thus found (we suspect, not for the first time, though so they instruct the pit) publicly. Presently she falls to talking again about her innocence, when" le cher Monsieur Edouard" insinuates a liberal proposal to take the incumbrance off her hands at her own price-an offer which she very decidedly declines in a song, partly addressed to the polisson in question, and partly to the pit,-which, or whom, it now seems our Suzette intends to make her confidant throughBut the young Moustache is a soldier; the song has no other effect than that of causing him to attempt familiarities, which compel her once more to remind him of her virtue. More empressement on the part of M. Edouard, who appears quite incorrigible-his arm is round her waist-a stage resistance follows selon les regles; in vain she invites him to be reasonable; he upturns his head, and swears by the gods (in the gallery) that But hark-at this new, touching, and unexpected proof of his devotion, the lady breathing at the rate of forty inspirations per minute, and putting, we must think, to rather an unfair trial the laces of her corsets elastiques (you know, reader, that a brass knocker on the stage is often appealed to in the straits and difficulties of female virtue)—a stormy discharge of double knocks is directed to one of the side doors, before the audacious youth has had time to understand his advantage,-knock, knock, knock, knock, knock! The whereabouts to hide has been vainly sought, as in those cases, passim, between the impracticable cupboard, shallow firescreen, and a table that would not conceal a cat.-Come, come, sir, you must really let the old gentleman (it is his father) in, in common decency. (Scene shifts.) The brown Suit enters accordingly, and a jolly old fellow he is, and wherefore comes he? Not

to scold, or to talk big-wig morality, as you suppose, to the young people, but merely, it seems, to sing to them and the audience! To do which more majorum, he tucks an arm respectively of Suzette and the gallant under his own, and leading them in front of the stage, full in the

flare of the lamps, the patriarchal man, smiling now on her and now on him, acquits himself of the said song with prodigious success! But the object of his visit is yet a mystery: he comes then, it appears, to propose to Suzette, not M. Edouard, of whose energetic and summary way of making love he cannot be supposed to know any thing, but a certain brave militaire, with a wooden leg, who had been wounded in Spain, in his son's defence, and has loved said mademoiselle, in secret, for two years odd! On this communication, Suzette, a reasonable young woman, first cries a little, but on reflection consents, and the pit cries bravo! On fait les noces—and the evening of the marriage ceremony arrives. Act 3d, Suzette comes alone, and is making up her mind to try to love her new husband on French philosophical principles, and has nearly succeeded, when who should tap at her window (which she opens) at this hour, but that incorrigible Edouard? Neither gods nor knockers should be invoked for nothing, and certainly the dignus vindice nodus does appear to be arrived. Our old friend of hinged brass, “good at need," is a second time in exercise, and our gallant lies perdu, while admission is given to a female cousin, who comes (at this unseasonable hour, when every body is going to bed), to congratulate her on her mariage de raison; she finds occasion, in the course of the conversation, to relate many things to the advantage of the accepted spouse, and not a few of an opposite kind, for the adification of M. Edouard, who, becoming assured, from behind the screen, of his own pretty character, takes the earliest opportunity to bolt. And now, nothing hindering the mariage de rai son being consummated, a nuptial dialogue takes place in public, coram populo, in which the husband manages his procemial part so well, that Suzette is fairly birdlimed into a new affection, and, coming forward, assures the audience, as the curtain modestly falls on his marital privileges, that she has determined to live henceforth the blameless spouse of her "brave Henri ;" and the pit as instantly determining that, such being the case, she shall receive its most unanimous support, white kid gloves are shaken in the boxes, and coloured cotton streamers wave from the gallery!-They call these things Vaudevilles!

It is a crowd of people amongst the trees, some of whom, at the rate of five centimes per shock, per person, are about to take a dose of electricity in public, whilst others, detected by the keen-eyed owner of the apparatus contriving to filch a little of it on the sly, are informed that his wheel does not brew electricity without materials. Walking round his ring of bystanders with electric cord in hand, he offers it liberally, to all and sundry, for a farthing a shock, while many a brave moustache, not afraid of gunpowder, turns away his head from the unknown agent, not exactly feeling the courage to accept, till some curiosité from the country steps forward, and asks boldly for a whole sous worth of the product of the wheel-him the "physicien" salutes with courteous bow, and, presenting the magic string, nods to his attendant. When a sufficient accumulation to stun an ox has been produced, "touch," says the man in black to his hob-nailed customer, and " "go" says Electricity, as she flings him back in terror amidst the admiring crowd! He is now offered, with becoming gravity, another charge without further expense; but, thinking the amusement rather overcharged, he slinks away, with aching shoulders, to pastimes better suited to his physical and intellectual capacities. A hundred such shall not be missed from that gay arena, where tinfoil and gold leaf, and brass-knobbed phials of different dimensions, the enchanted house, the dancing paper, the horse-shoe magnet, the pith balls (now rubbing shoulders, now standing aloof, from each other, like dear friends in difficulties), and many other marvels, afford their thousand attractions! But when the "physicien," emboldened by an increasing auditory, flocking from all sides, begins to tell of the medical virtues of the agent to which he is Agent, then, not Punch himself, in any act of his brief and eventful careernot even when it comes to his "last squeak," when the battered head of the hero leaning over the stage of his agonistic exploits against the " Adversary," exhibits all the symptoms of incurable concussion-not even then can he compete for public attention with the mar

vels which are related by the man of that wonderful wheel!-of wasting muscles restored to strength and size; of sightless eyeballs filled with instantaneous light; of ears that never heard before becoming avenues of sound; of palsy, touched by that life-giving spark, starting up to run after an omnibus! Such are his themes, and they are, of course, backed by a suitable display of electric power, well calculated to make the hair stand on end, and extort for the peripatetic exhibitor as many sous as there be fools or philosophers to hear.

Near this monopolizer of so much of the public money, but out of his dangerous atmosphere, roulette tables rattle away to the wooden ball, or small metal discs ring upon a copper floor, over which knives, candlesticks, and cork-screws hang as prizes for the successful discobolus. Plaster cats, stuck upon skewers, fall victims to ambitious archery-a yielding cushion measures the strength of your forearm-the Gondole, confronted by a mirror, clicks your weight, and shows you how you look, for the same penny. Here is the facile princeps of puppetshows, in which, pull but the string, you may say your prayers in St Peter's, or fight at Eylau or at Wagram. But make way for a troop of young schonobatists; and don't mind that stentorvoiced tooth-extractor who wishes you for a customer. To refuse the syrens who sell the bad gingerbread called "plaisir" is no great act of virtue or frugality, but the indefatigable chairletters are not to be resisted. tinkling limonadier's bell may be a cheerful sound to the thirsty; but dare we here affirm αριστον μεν ύδωρ, or trust that his lemons ever had a peel upon them? The turbaned venders of the date of Egypt or the fig of Smyrna, want not their customers; but for those whose whole commerce is the smouldering pastille of many a detestable aroma, one is at a loss to conceive how they get on ;-in short, go where you will, it is the same scene; every body looking merry but one's self, and that affrighted cur that yelps at his adventurous master carried round and round on ship or wooden nag. But who can put down a tithe of the provisions

The

made by a bountiful government to keep people merry-and quiet? And there be greater things than these :The giant's strength, which succumbs not to a pyramid of pigmies, and the fat woman's charms, proclaimed in stentorian tone, with drum and cymbal: look along that line of canvass which records in glowing colours, the acta et gesta of Napoleon; or, scarcely less attractive, that group of bold Europeans engaged in rescuing Circassian loveliness (for two sous it is to be

You start on this journey from the Porte St Denys, the arch of "Gladness and of Sadness," as kingloving chroniclers have styled it, through which all the early monarchs made at least two journeys. By this portal they entered Paris en rois; through the same, their funeral cortége proceeded to the church of the acephalous saint, in the cold vaults of which they are deposited. To count, on a fête day, the arrivals and departures, during only a few minutes, from the Porte St Denys, were as impossible a task as that imposed on Cinderella by her ball-going sisters!

Around this spot is generally collected, as now, a large stationary crowd, of what the journalists and play-wrights call canaille, when the law and the soldiery have the upper hand; but when blood and rapine have secured to this canaille more respectful consideration, they obtain the endearing name of enfans du peuple. Here you see fellows waiting for a job with gold ear rings and a doubtful physiognomy; here halts the bas. ket-burthened countryman to breathe under the shadow of the huge architecture; against its walls lounges the dissatisfied labourer, with hands in a dangerous state of inactivity; here congregate the knights of industry to speculate on the probabilities of untried pockets, which they do with an instinct that rarely misleads. Here the shoe black offers an assistance which is rarely declined in a city where clean shoes are " de rigueur," and the frequent polish still embellishes the deformed or cracked leather of the superannuated boot, whose wearer, perhaps, never exhibited a shirt front, but who pays ungrudgingly more, in a

year, for an amalgam of tallow and blacking, than it has cost him for half his life in soap. See how complacently he looks on the shining surface now in progress, and with what satisfaction he pays the coin which requites the indispensable, and the only indispensable item of his toilet. Here, too, you are annoyed by the street merchandise of little sluts of thirteen, who look you audaciously in the face, and try hard to seduce you with violet and rosebud nosegays, and of course generally succeed.

Among signs and ensigns on the houses which surround this ομφαλος γης, who can fail to be attracted by yonder vast portrait of a green Lady, in whose arms a winged messenger is depositing a young nursling, on whom the painter contrives to make her look with such affectionate interest, that you almost wish you were its papa! But do not suppose the sage femme, whose tenderness this production unequivocally attests, has it all her own way; for opposite, a younger rival, equally captivating, unbonneted, and in pink, stands over two eggs, on a richly painted carpet, out of which eggs two oviparous babes are making their way, at a huge destruction of shell

in the background a languid female, half hid under the quilt. Between these rival midwives you may read, and doubt for a moment if you understand, an intimation that dolls' eyes are manufactured within, and that children's playthings may be mended on the lowest terms.

In this quarter, too, you can scarcely move your own length without being confronted by a smartly-dressed man, placed conveniently to intercept the crowd that passes betwixt him and

sous, and where hungry carters (who are καρτεροι ανδρες of course) assemble to toast sausages on their forks, and swill unoctroyed but sour wine with abounding approbation ;-be

yond all, behold that seemingly interminable avenue which is to end with our short journey, and place us before the Abbey Church of St Denys.

There's a bit of true French roadmaking for you! Straight and flat as need be, and with nothing to draw off your attention from the chaussée itself. A double row of young trees on either side, make two geometrical boundaries, which the eye may follow for miles, with practical illustration of the axiom that two parallel straight lines never can become one. The long line of lamps hung in the mid road; the clean-cut formal parallelograms by the way-side (for what use intended we could never guess) now half filled with water; the rectangular off-walks into the fields; the flat unhedged country, where the frequent poplar needs no training, and towers high above the apparently naked soil; the miserable wickets of the few cottages by the road-side, covered with rags drying in the sun and dust, are all un-English; while the utter absence of all vegetable barriers, the land's best covering, explain the striking absence of birds, which elsewhere adorn the sorriest rural scenery ;-in short, you are soon tired of the whole thing, and look forward to the objects that are approaching or passing you, the suburban carriages, which rejoice in the name of coucou (a nest of strange birds may usually be found there in incubation); the à volontés, the going

of which depends on the separate and sometimes opposite wills of wheel, driver, passenger, and team, and many others with or without distinctive names. Curious it is to see those gaunt, Holbein-looking horses, scampering away under the thundering blows of the gnarled whip-handle, or suddenly halting, or rolling groggily to one side, or shuffling knee deep, in dust of their own raising, dragging their little friend, the associated donkey, through it,—such as these, and many others, meet or pass you in long succession, two, three, four, at a time, with right jovial crews inside, who sing, smoke, and make the most of their short drive; while, at the distance of several miles off, o'ercanopied, or emerging each from its cloud, the towering roof, the herculean build, and the approaching thunder of rival diligences freighted from England and Boulogne, approach, arrive, and pass with all the honours, privileges, and concessions of the road, leaving the cloud of dust which has dredged us like millers to be slowly dissipated. Again we are able to look about us, and find we are at the bridge of the Canal de l'Ourq; the Rubicon is passed, and we descend with both noise and speed into the very centre of St Denys!

And here we are at the door of our friend the Abbé *: an excellent man he was, and this we said even before the excellent dinner he gave us. His age might have been seventy; he had seen much of the world, with out having become on that account less benevolent or less indulgent to its frailties-all this you saw, or might see in his face-all this you heard, or might hear in his every remark, and all this you learned in his eventful history. He had been a chaplain in the army in early life-an official, for whose existence in the French armies we suppose the English reader is un

prepared-and had there duly impressed upon his own mind the importance of discretion and self-command. Old enough to insure respect, he was sufficiently urbane to dispel reserve; his good temper won an easy confidence, and his unaffected humanity was such as to lead him to sympathize with all human suffering. He was dressed in full canonicals, the blackribbed cap fitting closely to his skull, the black bands with the narrow white edge perfectly adjusted, and not one button of that long. front row of a priest's walking attire, out of its button-hole. While he went to give