Parisian theatres yield a handsome revenue. by
being converted into expansive advertising
media. The well-worn Grecian temple and
bank opposite, separated by a river and flanked
by a wood, no longer descends to beguile
audiences between the acts. The "drop" now
tells them where to go to have their teeth
drawn, their boots made, their corns cut,
their coats fitted, or their collars sent home
at so much per dozen, prices fixed. Neither
is the picturesque wholly sacrificed for this sort
of useful information. The scene is a wharf;
time, the busiest part of the day. A flashy
barge, gaudy as Cleopatra's argosy and clumsy
as a lighter, is lashed alongside, laden with
barrels flamingly heralding the virtues of
Mr. Nègre's inimitable blacking. There is
a crowd in the foreground; a lady carries an
elegant parasol, marked in big letters with
the name and address of the maker; while a
huge umbrella is held up by a neighbouring
figure, to vaunt the achievements of a rival
manufacturer. That Nature should not be
wholly outraged by appearing to send sun
and shower at the same moment, a rainbow
intersects the upper part of the curtain,
to inspire the female part of the audience
with a knowledge of the number and street
of an extensive ribbon-shop. Two of the
canvas dramatis personæ are in the act of
shipping a huge iron safe, in order that Mr.
Serrieur (not having the fear of Mr. Hobbs
from the United States before his eyes)
might offer a reward of ten thousand francs to
any gentleman who. shall succeed in picking
his patent lock. A triumphal car is being
navigated through the crowd by a man in a
Greek costume. His cap is covered with an
entreaty that you will "buy your Casques at
Mr. Tuillieur's, in the Rue Montmartre."
The car is laden, you are told by the inscriptions
on the panels, with innumerable bottles
of the Elixir of the Grande Chartreuse; which
is an infallible cure for everything. Bales full
of Vichy lozenges, directed to every quarter of
the globe, so choke up the way, that a truck
of Mr. Dentois' tooth-powder is obliged to
stop in order that the spectators may have
time to "copy the address."—Fully to describe
the pictorial department of this expansive
puff, would require a volume; and we can
only add, that its border consists of medallions
let out to various manufacturers and
shopkeepers, to make themselves and their wares
notorious, at so much per mouth.

Some professional gentlemen, dentists, and
others, stencil their huge advertisements
against the sides of public thoroughfares. This
system of advertising is more permanent than
paper, paste, and print.—Speaking of
permanency, I discovered lately, that the universal
inscriptions of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, are,
nowhere, I believe, in all Paris, to be found
sculptured in the stone they are usually
displayed upon; that they are merely painted
up, as they paint up inscriptions in a
pantomime, to be changed by the Harlequin:
nor can there be any doubt that the whitewash
of legitimacy might remove them
altogether to-morrow.

Now-a-days, the philosopher has always
a text for any amount of reflection in the
external "Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité,"
that, go where he will, it is impossible to
avoid. Of the so-called dead walls of the
theatres, of the churches, of the newspaper
offices, of every possible public building, do
these mighty watchwords form a part. There
is only one public building in Paris on which
these words are not to be found; and that
building is an important one—the Elysée.
But if their absence from the Elysée has some
significance, their presence "in another place"
has still more. Imagine a father going to
seek his missing child in that gloomy dwelling
of the dead, where he most fears to find her;
imagine him entering the Morgue with these
words staring him in the face—"Liberté,
Egalité, Fraternité! " We read the inscription
elsewhere as a piece of political pedantry;
it is here alone that it becomes a solemn and
mysterious truth.

The word "Royal," again, in republican
Paris, is continually turning up uninvited and
in unexpected places. At the corners of
streets, on public buildings, or wherever it
happens to have been employed as part of a
name or inscription—it is in vain that the
sturdy word " National " has been painted
over it—the colours are all traitorously
transparent, and the "Royal" still shines through,
as if conservatism and tradition were really
rooted in the land. Tell a cabman to drive
you to the Palais Royal or the Pont Royal,
and in nine cases out of ten he will drive you
to the proper place without remark. Now
and then, a fellow will good-naturedly correct
you, especially if you be a foreigner; and I
have heard such a thing as a growl under
similar circumstances; but I doubt the
probability of Cocher refusing his fare, if you
proclaimed yourself anything short of the
devil or Henry Cinq.

Politicians would doubtless draw some very
wise deductions from these signs; but, alas,
for the wisdom that pretends to prophecy
anything concerning a nation like the French!
Who shall say that the tattered tri-colors
which float from every public building in
memory of '48 will endure until the next
revolution? who shall say that the young trees
on the Boulevards will ever grow middle-aged
before stern necessity again devotes them to
barricades?

Yet if we ask—

      "Who fears to speak of Forty-eight?
            Who blushes at the name?"

—we may be answered on all sides by persecuted
journalists and public speakers, that
thousands do fear to speak—not exactly of
'48, but certainly of the spirit—the great
principle—which directed and consummated
its great event. Ask the representatives of