charcoal are brought up by men; and, by the
way, the water-carrier is generally one of the
honestest men of the quartier, and may be
trusted like a commissioner, or the horloger
who winds up the clock in an hotel. And it is
our little woman's supreme delight, after she
has dusted all the ornaments in her rooms,
and superintended the second déjeûner, to
dress herself smart and gay, and sit at the open
window and work; an amusement varied
in the summer by leaning out of the window,
which she will do many times in the day;
especially if it commands a street. After
dining she may be invariably seen there, side
by side with her husband, who is probably
smoking, and frequently, if it be very
warm, in his shirt-sleeves. After they have
lounged there for half-an-hour, they stroll
into the Champs Elysées, or on to the
Boulevards, and, if he is in a good humour, they
take chairs at a café chantant, and sip a
glass of sherbet, or a cup of black café ;
and thus for a few sous—perhaps she
saved them between the butcher's and the
greengrocer's to-day—they enjoy music, fresh
air, society, and gaiety, in their most innocent
and attractive forms. Or they go to the
play: especially on Sundays, after they have
done their duty at the eleven o'clock mass.

Our government employé is poor, it is
true. He has only about a hundred pounds
a year,—perhaps he may make up three
thousand francs, or a hundred and twenty
pounds; but thousands of well-dressed young
married people have no more, and many who
look every bit as well as they, have not so much.
They think their fine toilettes and their
theatre tickets well purchased by a few
stinted dinners, and a little extra handiwork.
They would rather slave in the
mornings, and enjoy themselves in the
evenings, than spend a monotonous existence
of dull idleness and lazy respectability.
Perhaps they are not so far out in
their code of social philosophy.

Nothing can be more innocent than the
pleasures of a French family, and nothing
more domestic, if domesticity mean family
union, and not house incarceration. A
French father and mother take their children
with them wherever they go. Into the
Tuileries gardens, that paradise for little
people; into the Bois de Boulogne, and
under the shadow of the stately trees of
Saint Germains; or through the royal
avenues of Versailles. Wherever they are,
there is mon fils of six or seven years old,
and ma fille of two or three. They see no
degradation in amusing even their youngest
children; and you will often observe a stalwart
fellow, six foot high, dandling his baby as
deftly as a professional nurse; and that
before the open eyes of the whole Tuileries
world. People don't laugh at him for it;
some respect him, but most take it as a
matter of course—they do just the same
themselves. This does not look like that
universal renunciation of family ties which
has long been a popular idea among us
concerning the French. Indeed, they live
more with each other than we do; and
are both more respectful to the aged and
more careful of the young. The affectionate
respect paid to parents is peculiarly delightful,
and must strike every English person
who mixes in French society. As for the
children, they live entirely with the parents.
After a certain age, generally after they are
four years old, they dine with them at six
o'clock, and they are never absent from the
mother's side until they go to a college or a
convent to be educated. Thousands of
young French girls have never slept a
night away from the paternal roof; and,
if thoroughly well brought up, their
bedrooms open into, and are only approached
from, the mother's. French nurses and
mothers are exceedingly indulgent, and have
a great horror of Englishwomen, whom they
believe to be harsh and cruel. Only those
deeply bitten by the Anglo-mania, which
Béranger reprobates, would place an Englishwoman
near their children. It is a common
saying that those who keep an English servant
must keep a servant to attend on her.

However, it is certain that a little wholesome
discipline might not be thrown away
on the Adolphes and the Eulalies of our
acquaintance; and a strong-hearted Saxon,
of good sense and vigorous mind, might
work a salutary reform among many of
those tiny Gallic rebels who set at naught
all law, and utterly despise all order. Still,
if the result be that the children are
overspoiled, at least it proves the kind-heartedness
and patience of the parents. It is a
strange and at first sight an anomalous
fact, that a nation so free and individual
as the French in many things, supports such
stringent parental discipline as their code
allows. Up to the age of twenty-one, a son may
be imprisoned by his father for vicious, or, as
we should term it fast, habits—gaming,
contracting debts, and so forth. At no time of his
life, if he be not a widower, can he marry
without his parents' consent, unless he have
recourse to three judicial citations. A mother
has power over her daughter to the end of her
life, if she be not married; and it is a common
form of punishment for unworthy mothers, to
deprive them of this power for a term of
years. Again, the practice, universal even
among the poorest, of saving up marriage
portions for the daughters, shows that the
parental affections can take the form of self-
sacrifice as well as of over-indulgence. Then,
as to the more purely domestic habits. In the
middle class, once a week certainly, perhaps
oftener, they have family réunions of fathers
and brothers, and sisters and mothers, and
they make dinners, and form parties, only
among themselves, with wonderful zeal and
constancy. Our little woman, for instance,
has a married brother, and her husband has