(the other day a notable lot of Hindoo idols
of bewitching ugliness, more directly from
Brummagem), if the unhappy Mexicans have
anything left more saleable than Jecker bonds—
which may be labelled diplomatic curiosities
now—you may look for assortments next winter
in the Rue Drouot. It is the constant reservoir
of private collections of virtuosi, whose
heirs are sometimes agreeably surprised at the
profitable nature of the queer investments they
were used ignorantly to grumble at. When
you saw your not sufficiently respected uncle
buying for a hundred francs a piece of old
crockery that your aunt* would not have lent
two francs on, you little thought that ten years
later it would sell for a thousand at public
auction! It is also the constant reservoir from
which private collectors and museum directors
draw. A famous piece of armour, formerly one
of the gems of Strawberry Hill, said to be
engraved by the inevitable Benvenuto Cellini, and
to have once belonged to Francis the First, was
sold last January out of the Demidoff collection.

* The Mont de Piété is fondly called Ma Tante
in France.

Miaou! cock-a-doo! quack! cluck! bow! oodle!
wow! doo! qrr! chatter, clack, snarl, and the
"dumb inarticulate" rest of it. In the large
hall on the ground floor, is imminent, or in
progress, a sale of gallinaces, volatiles, dogs, cats,
monkeys, rabbits, or other animals of the smaller
classes—either useful domestic, or useless, or
destructive of all domestic quiet and good
neighbourhood.

Pictures and engravings form the most
attractive feature of the place, and shall have more
notice further on. Enough cataloguing for the
present of the infinite variety of merchandise,
which custom cannot stale, for fast as the
commissaires clear off their stocks, so fast are they
replenished with

                    Alle manere of chaffare,
Apes, and japes, and marmosettes taylede,
Nifles, trifles, that littelle have availede,
And thynges with which they fetely blere our eye,
With thynges not endurynge that we bye;
Ffor rnuche of thys chaffare that is wastable
Might be forborne for dere and dyssevable.

The population of the Hotel is to be classified
as fixed, habitual, and floating. At the head of
the fixed class stands the master of the house,
member of the ancient and honourable
company of licensed commissaires priseurs. Their
honours, which are in other men's mouths, are
sometimes disputed by querulous parties, who
make bargains with them. Their profits they
take care of themselves, and no one questions
their importance. They number eighty souls,
to speak figuratively. They drive their trade
otherwheres than at the Hotel: as at Bercy, in
wines; at the Tattersall's in the Rue Beaujon,
in horses; at the Maison Silvestre, in books;
but this is their central house of business—
twenty million francs' worth in a year. The
commissaire is a sort of public functionary, and,
like all "ministerial" persons in France, is,
when on duty, black-dress-coated and close
shaven. It is curious that a full beard is never
official costume in France; it has been for the
last dozen or two of régimes, at least, a sign of
opposition, a badge of the dangerous class.
Those liberals under the Restoration, who
officially attached themselves to the younger
branch of the Bourbons, after July, straightway
shaved. When that broke down, beards
sprouted again; but the coup d'état was a
coup de rasoir, and the barber reduced many a
hirsute republican to a smooth courtier of the
rising Empire. With the hair of the head, the
capillary law is different: so that a certain close
shorn bristling cut is known as the style à la
malcontent. But here extremes must be avoided
lest they meet; for over-long locks are supposed
to indicate inflammable political and social
deposits in the underlying brain. It is noticeable,
that shrewd political aspirants, the best advised
waiters on revolution and providence, keep
themselves well trimmed at all times.

The commissaire presides at the sale at an
elevated desk. In the crisis of bids and attendant
excitement, he rises to command the situation.
In his right hand he holds the hammer,
which is Demosthenic in its eloquence of action.
Now, it is poised expectant, high in air; now,
waves in undulating lines, persuasive; now,
exhorts, projected; now, jerks, in argument;
anon pauses, as if to listen—falls with menacing
rapidity to within an inch of the desk, swoops
up a "bid, then up again—surprising judgment,
keeping short-pulsed fears and hopes in a
dangle. At last, the theme exhausted, perorating
with an impressive ping! His eye is swiftly
rotatory, penetrating, prehensile—catching and
interpreting the slightest wink of yours, of your
neighbour's—noting that the indifferent man
back in the crowd still fingers his watch-guard;
that the man yet more indifferent at the back
of him again, strokes his moustache or gives a
preconcerted scratch to his nose. This eye of
his has, beside, a magnetic quality which, as its
interrogative glance meets yours, sets you a
winking affirmatively in almost involuntary
sympathy. And his smiles! You feel as though,
he were a friend of yours—not of the other
fellow who is bidding against you—having your
interest at heart, appreciating your taste and
judgment; so that when at last, what with the
sentiment of complaisance and your mutual
regard, and crescendo exhilaration of bids, you
say or nod five hundred francs, and the hammer
knocks the Corregio into your possession at that
price—plus five per cent for the house—you
consider that man as an ornament to his sex.
Next day, in the streets, the commissaire does
not hasten, to foster your bidding look of
intimacy by the opening warmth of his countenance
—does not know you. By his side (the
auctioneer's, when on duty) sits his clerk,
also in black integuments and close shaven; he
records the order of the goings, and makes out
duplicate bulletins, one of which is stuck, by a