It does seem as though we can take our ease
more in our café than in our inn. Here again
is a mysterious problem: our great hotel having
a vast café of its own, spacious, light, glittering
with white and gold, and its ceiling elaborate
with fine painting. When shall we reach to this
sort of decoration—this adorning of our public
places with painting for the million? We sit
on velvet sofas, the service is charming, the
waiters bright, clean, as though all their earnings
went in washing. The old fallacy of the
"dirty foreigner" has long since gone to the
Capulet tomb of vulgar prejudices. Yet with
all this luxuriance, a draft for a single franc
will be respectably "honoured" in the shape of
a most delicious bowl of chocolate and cream,
with attendant rolls, "breads," and butter as
delicious. A workman in a blouse would perhaps
hardly be tolerated, but yet humbler orders,
from individuals more humble, are made
welcome. There do we see also that wonderful
mystery, the rusty-looking Frenchman in seedy
clothes, who yet orders a breakfast of six or
seven francs, taking an hour and a half over it,
and reading every newspaper in the place.
What in short are these eating Frenchmen who
take their hour to breakfast, who sit out at the
tables and smoke, and sip, who dine with
similar deliberation, who go to the play, and
sit again, and dress, and smoke? How do they
live? Who supports them? Do they work? Do
they sow or spin? It seems highly improbable;
yet the thing might be worth inquiring into, for
as a mode of life or profession such must be
highly agreeable.

III. THE PARIS STAGE.

A Parisian lives, it may be said, in three
rooms—his bedroom, his café, and his box at
the theatre. Three roofs thus cover his head.
Naturally, "a profession," which does so much
for him, is handsomely recognised. Players are
"known to the state;" its eye sees them
officially, as it were, in the same way as it does
the soldier. With us, they were once "his
majesty's servants," and wore his majesty's
uniform—scarlet and gold; but, through
indifference or ill desert, that slender hold on royal
favour has been relaxed and is out of date.
The French theatres themselves show, by their
bearing, the effect of this wholesome
encouragement. They do not skulk in mean streets
or show squeezed fronts, their old brick faces
covered up with mean plaster; they stand out
proudly and boldly, shake off all latent support,
disdain to be elbowed by mean houses
pressing on their shoulders, "The new French
play-houses are noble massive structures, lift
their heads like museums and churches, and
have a "Place" to themselves, with space all
round. In every town in France and Germany
the theatre of the place has respect; and
it may be a question whether this mean and
scurvy treatment of our places of amusement
has not something to do with the inferior social
caste of our players and their profession.

There are some few things we might copy
with advantage as regards the theatres. That
gathering together of all the play "posters" on
one large sheet, at several fixed points, in the
same type, livery, and colour, commends itself
at once. Charles Lamb would have been delighted
to read the eager pondering faces,
wistful yet doubtful, drawn to this piece by
inclination, distracted by so many other pole
stars, and who are gazing at these radiant and
glorified proclamations through all hours of the
day. Such a coup d'Å“il is vastly convenient
for the playgoer, and very necessary; for the
theatres are not rigorous in enforcing a long
run of a successful piece, and of a Sunday
night a popular play is often withdrawn to
make room for the re-entry of a favourite actor
and another piece; so that this fatal upas, "the