CHAPTER VI

Children

CHILDREN OF PARIS IN THE LUXEMBOURG GARDENS.

"Every one knows our dreadful college," writes M. Demolins, "with its much too long classes and studies, its recreations far too shortand without exercise, its prison walks a monotonous going and coming between high heart-breaking walls, and then every Sunday and Thursday the military promenade in rank, the exercise of old men, not of youth."

The boarder at thelycée, of course, feels the harshness of the régime to a degree that the day-boy never experiences, home hours mitigating the severity of the long working day.

As a whole, it may be said that the ideal of the educational system has been intellectuality rather than that of character building, and in the former France is superior to England, the system producing a higher average of intellectual capacity. If both countries could take to themselves the strong features that each possesses it would be very materially to their advantage. Changes in the right direction are already taking place in France. It is quite probable that thepionwill be suppressed before long, and cricket, football, and other manly and health-giving games are beginning to take the place of the old man's stroll under supervision. The fact that the Boy Scout is appearing all over France seems to herald the dawn of a growing sturdiness and manliness in the youth of the nation. At thepresent day the average boy has an undoubtedly girlish softness in his dress and general appearance. He wears sailor suits at an age which would produce laughter amongst Anglo-Saxon boys. He appears in white socks for several years longer than the English boy would tolerate, and his thinly-soled boots suggest the promenade rather than any form of strenuous game. His clothes do not appear to have been made for any hard wear, and as a rule the knickerbockers of soft thin grey material so generally to be seen are unfit for any rough use whatever. Even the large black leather portfolios in which books and papers are carried to and from school seem to receive as careful handling as though they belonged to a Government official rather than that most destructive of creatures—the schoolboy. In England one is familiar with the sight of four or five books dangling at the end of the strap which secures them, enabling the owner to convert his home-work into a handy weapon of offence, but the soft leather case of French boys and girls, which must be carefully carried under one arm, offers no such fascinating by-purpose.

If parents keep their boys in socks for a longer period than seems rational to the Anglo-Saxon,they frequently go farther with their girls, who often enough may be seen with bare legs until they are nearly as tall as their mothers.

Very much stress is laid on the examinations, which commence at the age of fifteen or sixteen, when thelycéeand college training terminates. The system since 1902 has consisted of a period of seven years divided into two parts. At the expiry of the first, which consists of four years, the pupil can choose one of four courses. The first is Latin and Greek, the second Latin and sciences, the third Latin and modern languages, and the fourth sciences and modern languages. Having passed three years on one of these courses, he should be ready for the two examinations by which he can obtain the degree known as theBaccalauréat de l'enseignement. This is the outer gateway to be passed through before the scholar can enter the citadels of any of the great professions, such as law, letters, medicine, or Protestant theology.

The State provides the higher education in its universities and in its specialised higher schools, and since 1875 private individuals and bodies, so long as they are not clerical, have been permitted to take part in the advanced educationalwork of the country, but the State faculties alone have the power to confer degrees. The five classes of faculties associated with the various universities confer degrees in law, science, medicine, letters, and Protestant theology.

Auvergne

LE PUY-EN-VELAY IN THE AUVERGNE COUNTRY.

The keystone of the arch of learning in France is theInstitut de France. It embodies the five great academies of science and literature, but omits that of medicine, which stands apart.

In England some social importance attaches to a man on account of his having been educated at Eton or Harrow and having afterwards taken a degree at one of the two mother universities, irrespective of his having shown himself an indifferent scholar, but south of the Channel the scene of a man's education counts for naught in later life. The moral and social sides of the English system would seem to have crowded out to a great extent the intellectual side, which, with the essentially practical people of France, forms the whole structure. From the teacher in the primary school to the heads of the universities no effort is made to influence character: "As soon as the student leaves the lecture hall he is free to return to the niche he has constituted for himself, to its probable triviality and itspossible grossness, or to the vulgar pleasures of the town.... We lose the advantage of that peculiar monastic, thoughtful life which is offered to the young Englishman."[3]

[3]W. L. George.

An almost childlike simplicity seems to be the keynote of the religion of that portion of the French people which still adheres to the observances of the Roman Church. The nation, until recent years, professed the Catholic faith and worshipped the Virgin as the mother of the Saviour of the world. In her honour, and to keep her presence ever in mind, to envisage her to mortal eyes, they erected statues and placed little figures at street-corners, by the road-side, and upon the altars of churches, and these are still objects of veneration among the people. One of the largest and most imposing representations of the Virgin is Notre Dame de France, a colossal figure cast from guns captured in the Crimean War, which is erected on the summit of the basaltic cliff which towers above the ancient town of Le Puy-en-Velay (Haute Loire). The figure is so gigantic—it stands forth gilded by the rising or the setting sun high above one's head, even when standing on the top of the rockupon which it has been erected—that one can scarce forbear to look upon it without some admiration, irrespective of its merits as a work of art. The features are of a sweet and simple beauty, although of a stereotyped order, and even to those whose religious ideas do not lean in the direction of the veneration of representations of deities it is easy to see how a simple peasant, trained in the religious system which erects such images, can fall into the attitude of prayer by merely looking on such an achievement.... Gazing at the figure standing high in the midst of an amphitheatre of picturesque mountains, one feels some explanation for the attitude of the religious towards the immense figure; ... and then one turns away to descend from the rock, and passing behind the pedestal of the effigy one observes a door, and above it a notice to the effect that on payment of ten centimes one may ascend within theVierge, and when the maximum fee has been paid one may actually place oneself within the head and gaze out upon an immense panorama from a position of wonderful novelty.... Where is the vision, where the sense of fitness, where any atmosphere of sanctity? Does the incongruity of such an arrangement strike no oneamong the religiously-minded people who visit Le Puy?

La Roche

LA ROCHE, A VILLAGE OF HAUTE SAVOIE.

It would appear that the French prefer to have all that is outward in their religion as much a part of their daily lives as any other objects of common use. Thus the coverings of the inner doors of a French church are almost invariably worn into holes or discoloured with the frequent handling of those who every day spend a few minutes in the incense-laden atmosphere of their parish church. The floors are dirty with the constant coming and going from the streets, and the need for doormats does not appear to be observed. On week-days, apart from the clergy, it is exceptional to see a man in a church unless he is there in some official capacity. One will find men carrying out repairs, and it does not seem to occur to them to remove their hats; one will see them as tourists with guide-books in their hands, or, as at St. Denis in the suburbs of Paris, a man in uniform will conduct visitors through the choir and crypt, and he too finds it unnecessary to uncover his head; but one goes far to find any other than women and children kneeling in prayer before the altars or stations of the cross on any otherday than Sunday. It is the women whose religious needs bring them into places of worship in the midst of the working hours of the weekday, men rarely coming unless their steps are directed thither for a wedding or a funeral. And on Sundays few churches would be required if the women ceased to attend.

Funerals have not yet lost their impressive trappings as is the case in England, where even the poor are beginning to find it less a necessity to have the hearse drawn by horses adorned with immense black plumes and long black cloths coming down almost to the ground. In France these things are still much in evidence, and imposing black and purple hangings studded with immense silver tear-drops are put up in the church if the estate or the relatives of the deceased can afford such melancholy splendour. Before leaving the church after the funeral service, friends and relatives pass one by one to the bier, and there each takes a crucifix and makes the sign of the cross.

The interior of a French church is, as a rule, so dark and shadowy that the clusters of candles burning before the shrines sparkle brilliantly in the cavernous gloom of its apsidal chapels,casting an uncertain and mystic light on pictures and effigies of saints and apostles, on shining objects of silver and gold, and on gaudy ornament and tinsel. Looming out of the obscurity, the ghostly representation of the crucified Christ is faintly illuminated; a few inky figures are grouped before the altars, their blackness relieved only by the white caps of the peasants—for it is the custom for women to wear black when they go to church; the air is heavy with incense, and one feels that superficial glamour which makes its strong appeal to those who find satisfaction in the mainly sensuous emotions caused by these surroundings. When an organ pours forth its sonorous and mellow notes and men's voices chant Gregorian music before the brilliantly lighted altar sparkling with golden ornament, when the solemn Latin liturgy is recited and the consecrated elements are raised by the priest, the average religious requirements of the French would seem to be satisfied. Those who do not find any satisfaction in watching and listening to these offices of the Roman Church as a rule drop into a state of agnosticism, if not of complete irreligion. To be logical one must do so, and a growing majority of Frenchmen seem to find no other courseunless they belong to the comparatively small body of Protestants or the Jewish communities.[4]There can be no doubt at all that the Roman Church has lost its hold on a vast proportion of its adherents, and those who are still numbered among the "faithful" are every year shrinking in numbers.

[4]The Protestants number about 600,000, the Jews 70,000, and the nominal Catholics 39,000,000.

"French Protestants," writes Mr. W. L. George,[5]"and French Jews are as devout, as clean-living, as spiritually minded as our most enlightened Churchmen and Nonconformists; a visit to any Parisian synagogue or to the Oratory will demonstrate in a moment that the French have not forgotten how to pray. The congregations are as large as ever they were, and they contain as great a proportion of men as in England." And he adds: "This distinction of sex must everywhere be made, and particularly in France, where Roman Catholicism flaunts a sumptuous aestheticism, voluptuous and worldly, capable of appealing both to the refined and to the sensuous." Mr. George believes that French Catholics have not turned against Christ, but against the ministers of the Christian religion inhis land because they have been discovered to be unfaithful servants. It is his belief that the Church is dying—"dying hard but surely"; and who can quarrel with his statement that the people have turned their backs on its ministers, that they are on the threshold of agnosticism, and that the Church is putting forth no hand to stay them? The next two or three generations can scarcely fail to witness the death by atrophy of the Roman faith in France; but the French are not an irreligious people, and perhaps a wider faith may spring up from the ashes of the creed which is so fast growing cold.

[5]France in the Twentieth Century—an admirable work.

One might compare religious systems to the unresponsive edifices in which public worship is conducted, for they seem equally incapable of spontaneous adaptability to the needs of the people, and only the stress and labour of the laity ever produces any adaptation to the changing needs of those for whom the structure exists.

Because the accumulated resentment of the French people as a whole against the shortcomings of their national Church has resulted in a complete divorce from the State, and because the clergy have rebelled against the laws which have recently been passed, and have therefore becomein a certain sense outlaws—servants, as it were, of a discredited section of the community—it has been easy for superficial observers to come to the conclusion that the French nation has virtually assumed the garb of atheism. This is always the arrow which strikes the legislative body determined to dissociate itself with any form of religion, but as in England, where devoted Churchmen are ranged on the side of disestablishment, so in France the national voice that spoke for a severance between Church and State was not that of a people without religion, but rather that of a people unwilling to maintain a system which had fallen away from its duty and its ideals. Atheism and agnosticism would appear to be phases in the religious development of the human race, the positions into which various types of mind are driven when dissatisfied with the explanation of the purpose, duty, and future of the individual as set forth by a particular Church. That some new development of the truth will supersede that which has been cast aside seems inevitable.

In this period of upheaval what is the attitude of the people, of the peasant, toM. le Curé? Social intimacy between priest and parishionersis very great, and thecuréis often a very good fellow whose practical religion is much broader than the ecclesiasticism he represents. He is, roughly speaking, of the peasant class and is regarded as socially inferior by the equivalent to the "county" circle of his neighbourhood. Unlike the English clergy, who are often distinguishable from the laity by little besides a distinctive collar and hat, he is always to be seen in hissoutaneand with white-bordered black lappets beneath his chin. He is, as a rule, anti-Republican, and is therefore out of sympathy with the people and the whole apparatus of the government of to-day. To a huge mass of the people he is nicknamed thecalotin.

Paul Sabatier explains how the association of the Church with politics affects the relations of priest and parishioner:—

At election times, especially, how great an impression is made on the mind of the simple by the defeat of one who has been put forward as the candidate ofle bon Dieu, and the triumph of the candidate of "the satanic sect"! When such coincidences recur over forty years with increasing frequency, the most pious countryman begins to ask if Satan be not stronger than the Almighty. The artisan, meeting his parish priest, speaks in a tone at once commiserating and mocking of God's business, whichis not going well. Blasphemy! thinks our good priest. But no; they have only blasphemed who taught him to identify a political party with religion. His rudeness is not very different from that of Elijah, chiding on Carmel's summit the priests of Baal.... But this rudeness, like that of the prophet, disguises an outburst of religious feeling, still awkward in its manifestation, and even, perhaps, expressing itself by deplorable means——....[6]

[6]France To-day: its Religious Orientation.M. Sabatier proclaims himself a Protestant who has sought to love both Catholicism and Free Thought.

Since 1882, when the undenominational schools were established, there has been a fierce battle between Church and State, which has scarcely come to a close at the present hour; but emerging from the din and dust of the prolonged warfare there is one salient fact, namely, a growing desire among the great mass of teachers for increasing the undenominational moral teaching in the schools. A compelling force is obliging the school to build up a strong moral training for the young, entirely independent of clerical influence.

The reckless driving and the wonderful lack of regulation in the streets of the capital and the majority of the cities of France do not prevent the streets from possessing a character encouraging sociality and relaxation. This is due to a great extent to the ever-inviting café, which contrives to keep clean table-cloths and the opportunity of a comfortable meal in the open air within six feet of a rushing and tempestuous stream of wheeled traffic. In addition there is much marketing in France, which adds colour and human interest to what might otherwise be a featureless street or square. In walking as a mere visitor through the streets of a French town, one seems to witness more of the intimate life of the place in a few hours than one would do in England in aweek. From the baking of bread to haircutting and shaving and the eating of food, there is much more of work and play visible from the curb-stone. In England the staff of life seems to reach the dining-room table by invisible means, so seldom does one see bread carried through the streets, but among the French—a nation of bread-eaters—long loaves as well as circular ones are to be seen tucked under the arm of almost every tenth person one meets. The working classes seem to be continually buying bread freshly baked, and one loaf at a time! And those who may be seen carrying bread or vegetables, or whatever they have just purchased at the market, are more at home in the street than are Anglo-Saxons, who are apt to regard the common highways of their towns as channels for coming and going to and from business or pleasure whereon lingering or conversation is undesirable, indiscreet, and not without danger, for it is generally recognised that those who pass hours of rest or idleness in the streets are persons without homes or of undesirable reputation. But in a French city one is invited at every turn to buy a newspaper or periodical at a kiosk and to take a seat at a table close by, where, havingordered a bock or a cup of coffee, one is free to read undisturbed for hours.

In Paris the gossip of theboulevardsis part of the life of a big section of the people, and yet to the casual and superficial observer it might be thought that there was less opportunity for chatting in the streets than is offered in London. The Frenchboulevardis in reality no more free from danger than the English street, but the people have accustomed themselves to the conditions. Among Latin peoples there is a time-honoured weakness for throwing out of the window all sorts and conditions of rubbish, and those who are chatting in a patch of shade in some quiet corner of a street may be rudely disturbed by the fall of a basinful of old cabbage leaves or other kitchen ejecta. Worse than this are the strange and often offensive odours that assail one in the streets. Imperfect sanitation is commonly the cause of the noxious atmosphere of so many streets in French towns. The artist sometimes pays a heavy price for the picture he obtains of some picturesque quarter on account of the contaminated air he is obliged to breathe. In Caen, where splendid Norman and Gothic churches thrill those who appreciate mediaevalarchitecture, the malodorous streets often frighten one away.

Sanitation has improved enormously in recent years, and is still making great strides forward, but the people have a great deal to learn in the use of the new appliances that are provided. This leeway is less easy to make up than that of mechanical contrivance, and much time will no doubt elapse before every one is educated up to the proper appreciation and use of sanitary arrangements. Municipal authorities have also much to learn. There should not exist the smallest loophole for an architect to erect a modern building without providing a direct outlet to the open air to all the sanitary quarters, and yet in a recently erected hotel in the Étoile district of Paris, such a cardinal requirement of health is ignored, the only ventilation being a window that lights a cupboard for hot-water cans, and that in turn is the sole ventilation of a bathroom, outside air reaching neither the first nor the last! London, which before the Great Fire was a city whose smells had become proverbial, is now the cleanest and healthiest city in the world, its sanitary by-laws leaving no loopholes for slipshod work; but Paris, theworld centre for the choicest and most exquisite of perfumery, has still much progress to make before complete enjoyment of its cheerful, busy, richly coloured street life can be experienced.

Every one knows the difficulties of looking at and observing with seeing eyes the everyday objects with which one is surrounded. A little girl paying a visit to London from the country once pointed out to the writer what a number of blind horses there were to be seen in the streets, and he was obliged to confess that he had never noticed any. Such limitations seem to debar one from making comparisons between one's own form of urban civilisation and another, but allowing for a certain lack of observation in the land of one's upbringing, there are some features of French town life to which one may draw attention.

Cocher

A TYPICAL COCHER OF PARIS.

Very early in his first experiences of Paris the visitor discovers that the rule of the road is to keep to the right, and that there is little certainty of what may happen where the great streams of traffic meet. The policeman of Paris may hold up his baton, but it is not in the least likely that a complete check to the traffic behind him will result. After an exhaustive study of Londonmethods the Parisian authorities have come to the conclusion that it is the French character which prevents their officers from carrying out the same methods in Paris. Notwithstanding the quiet way in which the French submit to certain laws which would not be tolerated in England, they appear to resent control in this department of life. The police of Britain are a bigger, more solid and imperturbable type than those of their neighbours across the Channel, but an east-ender might make impertinent comments if the policeman who held up his donkey-cart had patent leather toe-caps to his boots—a by-no-means unusual sight in Paris!

The quaint, noisy omnibuses pulled by three horses abreast have been replaced by heavy motor-propelled vehicles which still, however, preserve the old features of first-and second-class sections, and the standing accommodation for eight or ten persons. One mounts and alights from the middle of the rear of the vehicle, the opening being guarded by a chain controlled by the conductor—a method offering less opportunity for dropping off before the 'bus has come to a standstill. Although the motor-cab is present in considerable numbers, the horse-drawntaxi still holds its own. It is cheap, and although, through the close coupling of the front pair of wheels, it can be overturned quite easily, it is a decidedly pleasant means of conveyance, with less anxiety for the fare than the auto-taxi, but the drivers seem to desire to out-do the chauffeurs in giving as much thrill and sensation as skilful and often reckless driving will provide.

His hatred of thebourgeois—the "man in the street"—in spite of, and indeed because of, his being a potential client, is expressed at every yard. He constantly tries to run them down, which makes strangers to Paris accuse the Paris cabman of driving badly, while in point of fact he is not driving at all, but playing with miraculous skill a game of his own.... The cabman's wild career through the streets, the constant waving and slashing of his pitiless whip, his madcaphurtlementsand collisions, the frenzied gesticulations which he exchanges with his "fare," the panic-stricken flight of the agonized women whose lives he has endangered; the ugly rushes which the public occasionally make at him with a view to lynching him, the sprawlings and fallings of his maddened, hysterical, starving horse, contribute as much as anything to the spasmodic intensity, the electric blue-fire diablerie, which are characteristic of the general movement of Paris.[7]

[7]Rowland Strong,The Sensations of Paris.

No doubt the hansom-cab—the gondola of London as some one termed it—would havesurvived if it had accepted the limitations of the taximeter, but refusing to adjust itself to circumstance its numbers steadily diminished.

Among the omnibuses and taxis of both types and the numerous private motor-cars there passes at all times of the day a wonderful stream of country vehicles. Vegetables are conspicuous, but these might be overlooked, whereas the hay and straw carts assail the eye by their immense proportions. They might almost be dubbed lazy men's loads, for they have the appearance of moving hay-stacks and require the most skilful manoeuvring in the midst of so much impetuously driven traffic. These country carts almost give the streets of Paris a provincial flavour, their horses and drivers being more essentially rural than anything one sees in London, even in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. Riding quietly through the wheeled traffic the sight of half a dozen members of the semi-militaryGarde républicaineis a very familiar one. Their uniforms are so military in character that visitors to Paris generally mistake them for soldiers.

On the pavements of the streets a striking feature is the number of women who go abouttheir business without wearing hats. In the dinner hour of themidinette, between twelve and one (from which she derives her name), this is particularly noticeable, the streets and public gardens overflowing with this hard-worked and underpaid class ofParisienne. These girls and women are the "labour" of the dressmaking establishments wherein is produced all that is most admired by the well-dressed women of the world. The majority are very underpaid, the young and inexperienced earning about 1 fr. 50 a day, thepetites couturières, as a rule, having a wage between 1 and 3 francs a day, which does not go far in Paris, where the cost of living is roughly double that of London. In the leading establishments themidinettemay earn from £35 to over £50 a year, but these are the highly skilledouvrièresand do not represent a very large proportion of the whole, whose incomes have been roughly estimated in three divisions, each representing one-third of the whole number. The most poorly paid third receives less than 5 francs a day, the intermediate section attains the 5-franc level, and the most prosperous third exceeds it to the amount already mentioned. A small number of women become what is knownaspremièresin famous houses in the Rue de la Paix, the classic street from which the fashions in woman's attire for the whole of the civilised world are believed to emanate. These clever French women are endowed with a very high degree of taste and skill, and their gifts reach a comparatively high market value, bringing in an annual income of about £150.

Autumn

AUTUMN IN THE CHAMPS ELYSÉES, PARIS.

The work-girls who take sewing to their homes can earn from 75 centimes to 2 francs a day. In her interesting book on Paris life Mlle. de Pratz gives the following two budgets ofmidinettesreceiving £34 and £48 per annum:—

850 fr. per annum1200 fr. per annum(£34).(£48).Lodging100£4150£6Food550£22750£30Clothes100£4150£6Heat, light, washing, and recreation100£4150£6________8501200

The struggle to make ends meet on the smaller incomes is no doubt great, for Paris, it must always be remembered, does not provide cheap living for any one, not even in its poorest quarters. As a whole themidinetteclass is badly fed and therefore delicate and too often a prey to consumption. It does not produce a high averageof good-looking girls, for, being fond of amusement, late hours are indulged in very generally, with the result that when the hour for work arrives insufficient rest has been obtained. No doubt in so large a class—they are computed to number about 110,000—there is a wide range of character and morals, but there seems little doubt that, as a class, the chastity of the most poorly paid does not rank high. In a moral atmosphere such as that breathed by Parisians as a whole, it would be almost impossible for girls subjected to so much temptation on account of poverty to resist. And there is commonly no loss of self-respect when the downward step has been taken, for even when a girl convicted of such moral laxity is blamed, she merely replies with calmness that it is quite natural.

The Apache class lives in its own particular quarter of the city, and its members are not easily recognisable by the general public. The fraternity tattoo a certain arrangement of dots on the forearm by which recognition is instantly obtained. These dots indicate the motto of the Apache,Mort aux vaches!by which is intended their perpetual warfare with the police. This strange class of anti-social beings is recruitedfrom many grades of Parisian life, all suffering from some abnormal mental condition unless drawn into the grip of the strange brotherhood by mischance when very young, as will sometimes happen with girls at an immature age. In spite of the national training in arms of the young men of France, this incredible class continues to exist and to perpetrate outrage, murder, and robbery. How many of these outlaws of society have experienced military service, and to what extent it has modified or accentuated their abnormality, are questions to which one would like to have answers.

Probably the average Parisian of the middle classes is more aware of the enormities of theconciergethan of the Apache. The one is an ever-present annoyance, and the other a thing read about in the evening newspapers, but not encountered personally. Not soLa Concierge. This individual is employed by a landlord to act as his watchdog in a block of flats. His duties are connected with showing the flats to prospective tenants, collecting rent, keeping the staircases clean, and delivering letters, the last being required because the Paris postman does not climb the stairs in flat buildings—all the lettersfor the building being delivered into the hands of theconcierge. It is this matter of one's letters which gives the caretaker his power. He uses it to extort liberal gratuities for every small service, as well as a handsomeétrenneon New Year's Day. It is the landlord who is at the fountain-head of the trouble. How seldom is it otherwise! He pays theconciergean entirely inadequate sum for his services, and as he has to supplement his income in some other way he, as a rule, leaves his wife in charge for a large part of the day and earns a supplemental sum elsewhere. The Frenchwoman is too often inclined to avarice, and it seems to be the exception to find in Paris aconcierge'swife who will not levy a form of blackmail on the tenants whose letters come into her hands. She will make herself familiar with the character of the correspondence that each tenant receives, and if insufficiently tipped will not hesitate to hold up any letters that she believes are of importance. The opening of letters with steam is not beneath the moral plane ofMadame la Concierge, and by various means she obtains such an intimate knowledge of the concerns of each tenant that peace and freedom from endless petty annoyancescan only be bought at the price which she deems satisfactory. Mlle. de Pratz gives a vigorous picture of this bugbear of flat life in Paris, telling of the scandals that are circulated concerning entirely innocent people who have failed in the liberality of theirétrennes, and how the residents of ill-reputation buy immunity from these baneful attentions by their liberal tips. How long, it may reasonably be asked, will Paris consent to this iniquity, which could be remedied by the delivery of letters direct to the door of each flat?

It is often a matter of discussion how far the proverbial politeness of the French goes beneath the surface. Generalising on such a topic is hedged about with pitfalls, and the wary are disinclined to enter such debatable ground. Compared to the British, whose self-consciousness or shyness too often leads to awkwardness in those moments of social intercourse when dexterity is needful, the French are undoubtedly ages ahead. The right phrase exactly fitting the requirements of the moment comes easily to their lips, and with it, as a rule, the right expression and attitude; and yet one must travel often in the underground railways of Paris to see aman give up his seat to a woman who is standing. It is understood that a young man cannot offer his place to a young woman, because it would suggestarrière-pensées; but if this regrettable state of affairs does exist, the restriction to such action does not apply when an old woman carrying a bundle is standing beside a youth, who could not be accused of anything but courtesy if he rose to save her the discomfort of standing. But no one seems to think such action a requirement of common politeness. While one finds great charm and civility among the assistants in shops, which often add very much to the pleasure of shopping, a disagreement on a business matter may be handled with much less courtesy than in a British shop. A hard, almost angry expression will come uponmadameormademoiselle'sface, where over the Channel one would meet a look of mere anxiety. But Paris shopkeepers no doubt have a very cosmopolitan world to attend to, and they perhaps encounter many rogues. There is unevenness in manners everywhere, and while one class of workers may be soured by adverse conditions and lose their natural charm in the economic struggle, another will expand in the sun of easy and pleasantconditions. The Parisian horse taxi-cab driver with his picturesque shiny tall hat and crimson waistcoat is not conspicuous for his politeness unless hispour-boireis very liberal, and the railway porter can easily be insulting if he is dissatisfied with a tip. In London there is much unmannerly pushing on to trams and omnibuses during the morning and evening hours, restricted here and there by the method of the queue, but in Paris all the chief stopping-places of the omnibuses are provided with publicly exposed bunches of numbered tickets. On a wet day a little girl or a cripple has merely to tear off one of these slips of paper, and when the 'bus arrives the conductor takes up his passengers in the numerical order of their tickets—all unfair hustling being thus eliminated.

The Parisianbonne à tout fairehas been diminishing in numbers for many years. In the thirty years between 1866 and 1896 the total was nearly halved, leaving about 700,000 of this overworked and underpaid class. The day of frilled caps has gone, and even a bib to the apron is considered an out-of-date demand. It is no doubt the need for stringent economy in the flats constituting the greatest part of home lifein Paris, which is responsible for the dislike to domestic service on the part of the young women of the capital.

An undesirable arrangement in flat buildings is the housing of all the maids of the building in very small bedrooms on the top floor. In the hours in which the girls are free from duty they are able to do more or less as they please on their floor, and the result is that the natural protection of the home is missing in the hours of rest and leisure, when their need is most pressing. The averagebonne à tout faireis not disinclined to hard work, and she is clever and willing to put herself to any trouble in an emergency or when there are guests to be entertained. Boredom however, seems to settle upon her during the normal routine of life, and her buoyant nature makes her inclined to sing and talk loudly about her work. She is in a great proportion of cases more intimate with the family than the servants in London flats, and on this account her manner assumes a familiarity that in the circumstances is fairly inevitable. A man visitor will commonly raise his hat to the maid and call her "Mademoiselle."

Probably the Paris maid-of-all-work is notworked any harder than the single servant in London—the only real difference being the morning marketing, which she regularly undertakes. There is attractiveness in the life she sees in the streets and markets, and in addition there is the tradesman'ssouwhich finds its way into her pocket for everyfranc'sworth of goods purchased. If honest the girl's commission begins and ends with thesou du franc, but if she is otherwise she will make little alterations to the amounts in the household books, and thus add by these petty but perpetual thefts a considerable sum to her annual wages. How far such dishonesty is practised it is impossible to say, and in the absence of any figures one may hope that a few cases are the cause of much talk.

Rents in Paris are high, and the tendency is to mount still higher. Blocks of flats that have been let at a quite reasonable rent are frequently "modernised" with a few superficial improvements and renovations and relet at vastly increased prices. This is much the case with those formerly let at from £60 to £100 a year, and the restriction in the number of cheaper homes available for the poor has been going on so steadily that the problem has become one whichit will be necessary for the State to tackle. The increase in rents has, in some instances, been only 10 per cent, but in many instances it is more than that, and here and there the upward bound has reached three or four times that amount.

One is sometimes puzzled to know how the Parisian struggles along, for besides his ascending rent he has to pay much more for all household stuff, whether it is curtains for his windows (which are taxed), a cake of soap, or an enamelled iron can. No wonder that the best sitting-room is kept shut up on certain days of the week, and that polished wooden floors are so frequently seen in place of carpeted ones.

Tenants having large families are in a most awkward predicament, for landlords on all hands discourage them, and if the Government wish to go to one of the root causes of the diminishing birth-rate, they must see to it that the housing of the middle and lower middle classes is a less difficult and precarious feature of their struggle for existence. Perhaps, now that the United States has set the example of lowering and in some instances sweeping away the protective tariffs on certain articles, France may follow suit. If the heavy duties on cotton goods were removedthere is no doubt whatever that the burden of housekeeping in France would be instantly relieved. But the relief in this respect would be trifling compared to that which would be felt in the food bill. Tea costs from 4s. to 6s. per pound. Sugar averages 5d., rice 6d., and jam 10d. per pound. A remarkable instance of the working of the tariff is given by Mlle. de Pratz in her interesting work already quoted. "In a small village I know near Paris," she writes, "thousands of pounds worth of fresh fruit and beet-sugar are exported each year to England. But this village uses English-made jam made from their own fruit and sugar, which, after being exported and reimported, costs half the price of home-made French jam."

As recently as March 1910 the protective system of 1892 was strengthened, duties being raised all round. In support of the changes it was argued that foreign countries were adopting similar measures, and that fiscal and social legislation were laying new burdens upon home industries. With Great Britain still maintaining its system of free imports and the United States moving in the direction of Free Trade, the first argument begins to lose its force.

These questions of rent and the cost of food do not, of course, press upon the very considerable numbers of wealthy residents in Paris, but they are not on this account less vital to the well-being of the mighty cosmopolitan city. And if these features of urban existence were overlooked in any book, however slight, which aims at putting before the reader some salient aspects of French life, the blank would leave much unexplained. Bearing in mind the expense of living in the large towns a thousand little things are at once interpreted.

It has been said of Paris that the population belongs less to France than that of any other city in the country, for the proportion of residents of other nationalities has gone up prodigiously in the last half century. There is a glamour about the city which seems to act as a magnet among all the civilised nations of the world. "The aristocratic class," says Mr. E. H. Barker,[8]"nominally so much associated with Paris life, is becoming less and less French. The old Legitimist families, so intimately connected with the Faubourg St. Germain under the Second Empire and a good while afterwards, who atone time held so aloof even from the Bonapartist nobility, have greatly changed their habits and views of social intercourse. The two nobilities now intermarry without apparent hindrance on the score of prejudices, and mingle without any suspicion of class divisions. But all this society helps to form what is calledLe Tout Paris, which is almost as cosmopolitan as French."

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