architecture does prevail in our house, it is
the higgle-piggledy. We have rather a
super-abundance of lath and plaster, too, compared
with party walls, and in wet weather you had
better look out of window as seldom as
possible, as there is a species of Penelope's we
of waterspouts outside, which produce
perplexing cascades from window to window.

There is a porter's lodge just inside the
porte cochère, within whose marble halls
(stuccoed brick, in plain prose) the porter
of the hotel has his abode. His name is
Monsieur Stidmann, and to his high and
responsible post of porter, he adds the
supplementary calling of tailor. A print of the
fashions for 1824 hangs over his porcelain
stove, which, if the illustrative portraits
thereof are to be taken as evidence, would
prove him to be an adept in the confection of
habiliments for the dignitaries of the Church,
the State, and the Army, of ladies' riding
habits, and of liveries of the highest style
and fashion. I rather think, though, that
Monsieur Stidmann, if he ever exercised the
above-named branches of the profession, has
long since abandoned them; for I cannot
discover that he exercises any more important
branch of the sartorial art, now, than the
repair of dilapidated galligaskins, and other
garments rent by accident or by age. I have
even heard his skill as a " botcher " (if I
may be allowed to apply that familiar term
to the mystery of clothes' mending) called
into question; for M. Adolphe, the notary's
clerk, on the fourth floor, assures me that,
confiding to him, on an emergency, a dress
coat for purposes of repair, he absolutely
sewed a green cuff on to a black sleeve,
besides leaving a box of lucifer matches in the
left tail pocket, which together were the
means not only of M. Adolphe's becoming a
subject for universal risibility to a select
society in the quarter of the Marais, but also
very nearly caused him to set fire to himself
and the company in the most critical portion
of the Pastorale. Adolphe, to be sure,
laughed at the mistake and forgave it; but
for reasons which I may afterwards feel
myself called upon to explain.

This unsuccessful tailor is always known as
Father Stidmann, probably from the habit the
Parisians have of attributing paternity to
every man above the middle age, but he
also rejoices in the appellation of father to
Mademoiselle Eulalie Stidmann, a remarkably
pretty little blonde (Stidmann is an Alsatian),
eighteen years of age, who, to the confusion
and envy of all the grisettes of the quarter,
has lately abandoned the little round lace cap,
as distinguishing a mark of the grisette as the
yellow head-dress of the Jews in Turkey, and
has taken to wearing a real bonnet, in which,
and with a roll of music under her arm, she
goes daily to the Conservatoire de Musique, of
which institution she is a pupil. Her generous
father bought her a dreadful old square
piano (Piaclet, 1802), which I should like to
see broken up for fire-wood, confound it; but
which she punishes tremendously every evening,
setting Meyerbeer and Thalberg to hard
labour till my ears are pierced through and
through, and the old porter weeps with
pride and pleasure. Besides the piano and
the stove, and the print of the defunct fashions
I have spoken of, the lodge boasts also a
framed and glazed portrait of Beranger, an
old caricature by Carte Vernet, representing
some notable intrigue of some notable
political personage, whose intrigues and whose
notability have been smoke as his body has
been dust, these thirty years; and a print
crimped like a fan, presenting at one point of
view an effigy of Napoleon, and at another,
that of the Duc de Reichstadt. Above hang
a rusty sword and cartouch belt (for Stidmann
has served, and in the grand army too);
round the pipe of the stove are twined some
palm branches, which here remain from Palm
Sunday to Palm Sunday; and from nails on
the wall hang two withered laurel wreaths,
old trophies of prizes for good conduct and
application, won by pretty little Eulalie
when she was at school. Then, close to the
door, a considerable portion of the wall is
covered with the keys of the different
occupants' castles, here deposited (if they like) when
they go out; underneath these is a, little shelf
for the respective wax night-lights (wax
candles are cheap in France, and even the
tenant of a garret would blush to consume
vulgar tallow). Monsieur Stidmann is of an
indefinite age, and has a face so seamed with
the small pox, that it is all holes and knots
like a cane-bottomed chair. I am inclined to
think that he wears a fur cap, but I could not
undertake to point out which is his cap, and
which his natural head of hair, both are so
curiously alike. He is a decent man to speak
to, doing all sorts of things for you, and about
the house, without ever seeming to move his
short pipe from his lips or himself from his
stool, or a greasy number of the Constitutionnel
from before his eyes. I think his political
opinions verge towards Orleanism. Orleanists
are good tenants, and give handsome New
Year's gifts. Socialists he looks upon with
abhorrence, as persons who run away the day
before their rent is due, and burn, in the
composition of pestilential works, wax candles,
which they never pay for. A lodger without a
trunk he always sets down, before-hand, as a
rank socialist. Carpet bags and republicanism
are inseparably connected in his mind. He
grumbles a little if you ring him up after midnight,
and has a weakness for losing letters sent
to you by post, and for telling you that somebody
has called to see you a week or ten days
after the visit has taken place. But this is
an advantage if you wish to be retired.

I can but spare a line to Madame Stidmann,
who wears a preposterous cap, and is
always muddling over a pot au feu or some
other savoury dish, the smell of which
continually pervades the lodge and its approaches.