if I wanted any more money before I left
London, he would let me have it. I thanked
him very kindly.

STUDENT LIFE IN PARIS.

THE first impression of the Student of
Students in Paris is one of curiosity. " When
do the students find time to study? " is the
natural inquiry. The next impression solves
the mystery, by leading to the satisfactory
conclusion, that the students do not find time to
study. To be sure, eminent physicians, great
painters, and acute lawyers, do occasionally
throw sufficient light upon society to render
its intellectual darkness visible. And the
probabilities are that these physicians are not
born with diplomas, as children are,
occasionally, with cauls; nor the painters sent
into the world with their pencils at their
fingers' ends; nor the lawyers launched into
existence sitting upon innate woolsacks. The
inference, then, is, that education has done
something towards their advancement, and
that they, necessarily, have done something
towards their education.

But the lives of great men are the lives of
individuals, not of masses. And with these
I have nothing now to do. It is possible that
the Quartier Latin contains at the present
moment more than one " mute inglorious"
Moliere, or Paul de Kock, guiltless, as yet, of
his readers' demoralisation. Many a young
man who now astonishes the Hôtel Corneille,
less by his brains than his billiards, may one
day work hard at a barricade, and harder still,
subsequently, at the galleys! But how are
we to know that these young fellows, with
their long legs, short coats, and faces patched
over with undecided beards, are geniuses,
unless, as our excellent friend, the English
plebeian, has it, they " behave as such? " Let
us hope, at any rate, that, like glow-worms,
they appear mean and contemptible in the
glare of society, only to exhibit their shining
qualities in the gloom of their working hours.

It is only, then, with the outward life of
the students that I have to deal. With this,
one may become acquainted without a very
long residence in the Quartier Latin—that
happy quarter where everything is subservient
to the student's taste, and accommodated to
the student's pocket—where amusement is
even cheaper than knowledge—where braces
are unrespected, and blushes unknown—where
gloves are not enforced, and respectability has
no representative.

If the student be opulent—that is to say,
if he have two hundred francs a month (a
magnificent sum in the quarter) he lives
where he pleases—probably in the Hôtel
Corneille; if he be poor, and is compelled to
vegetate, as many are, upon little more than a
quarter of that amount, he lives where he can—
no one knows where, and very few know how.
It is principally from among this class, who
are generally the sons of peasants or ouvriers,
that France derives her great painters, lawyers,
and physicians. They study more than their
richer comrades; not only because they have
no money to spend upon amusement, but
because they have, commonly, greater energy
and higher talents. Indeed, without these
qualities they would not have been able to
emancipate themselves from the ignoble
occupations to which they were probably born;
unlike the other class of students, with whom
the choice of a profession is guided by very
different considerations.

It is a curious sight to a man fresh from
Oxford or Cambridge to observe these poor
students sunning themselves, at midday, in
the gardens of the Luxembourg—with their
sallow, bearded faces, bright eyes, and long
hooded cloaks, which, notwithstanding the
heat of the weather, "circumstances" have not
yet enabled them to discard. Without stopping
to inquire whether there really be anything
"new under the sun," it may be certainly
assumed that the garments in question could
not be included in the category. If, however,
they are heavy, their owners' hearts are light,
and their laughter merry enough—even to
their last pipe of tobacco. After the last pipe
of tobacco, but not till then, comes despair.

The more opulent students resemble their
poorer brethren in one respect:—they are
early risers. Some breakfast as early as
seven o'clock; others betake themselves by
six to their ateliers, or lectures—or pretend to
do so—returning, in two or three hours, to a
later meal. This is of a substantial character,
consisting of two or three courses,
with the eternal vin ordinaire. When living
in a hôtel, the student breakfasts in the
midst of those congenial delights;—the buzz
of conversation, the fumes of tobacco, and
the click of the billiard-balls. By means of
these amusements, and sundry semi tasses
and petits verres, he contrives to kill the
first two or three hours after breakfast.
Cards and dominoes are also in great request
from an early hour, and present to an
Englishman a curious contrast with his own
national customs. In England, he is
accustomed to find card-playing in the morning
patronised only by the most reckless; in
France it is the commonest thing in the
world to see a pair of gentlemen with grey
hairs and every attribute of respectability,
employed, at nine o'clock, upon a game of
écarte, enlivened by little glasses of brandy and
the never-failing pipe. If a young Englishman
in London, instead of an old Frenchman
in Paris, was to addict himself to such
untimely recreations, he would probably be cut
off with a shilling.

When the heat and smoke of the café
become too much even for French students,
they drop off by twos and threes, and seek the
fresh air. The Luxembourg Gardens are close
by, and here they principally congregate.
Amusing figures they look, too, in their
present style of costume, which is a burlesque