boa-constrictors, for the first time in their life; not
to mention the man who cuts your portrait
in black paper, with the Arab who jumps
into the air like a goat and lights on his forefeet
like a sportive tomcat, on their way
to compete with the giantess, the learned
pig, and the fortune-telling pony at the
foot of the bridge of Austerlitz. From
all these mundane follies the Halle-aux-
Vins is secluded, in monastic style, by a
light railing covered with stout iron
network, which allows it to gaze at the
Vanity Fair, while it separates it from too
familiar contact with the world. It is in
the crowd—without being of it—a convenient,
friar-like, differenceless distinction.
Exclusiveness, however, of whatever kind,
is more apparent than real. At the bottom
of Rue Cuvier, turn to your right, and
you may enter at once, unless you prefer
walking along the Quai to the principal
entrance, where there is a letter-box, in case
you have a billet-doux to post. The
principal restriction imposed upon a stranger is,
that he is forbidden to smoke amongst the
eaux-de-vie.

Well, now that you are inside it, what do
you think of it? Is the wine-market of Paris
like any thing else? The name of the
establishment puts the London Docks into your
head; but, beyond their commercial use and
distinction, there is no more analogy between
the London Docks, and this little bit of
fairy-land, than there was between the
caverns of Ætna, where Vulcan made pokers
and tongs, and the slopes of Parnassus where
the Muses danced. The Halle-aux-Vins is
not a building, nor a labyrinthine cellar; it is
a complete town, as perfect and unique in its
way as Pompeii itself. Once a week, indeed,
it resembles the city of the dead; it is silent,
solitary, and closed. No business is transacted
there on Sundays, save only by the
restless spirits which will work unseen, and
which contrive to make their escape invisibly,
however fast they may be imprisoned.

The Halle is the very concentration and
impersonation of French vinous hilarity. It
would not do for port and sherry, which
require a more solid and stately residence;
nor is it sufficiently whimsical and mediæval
to serve as a rendezvous for Rhenish,
Austrian, and Hungarian volunteers in the grand
army of Jean Raisin. Rudesheimer, Voeslan,
Gumpoldskirchen, or Luttenberg, could not
well sojourn comfortably in any place that
had not a touch of a ruined castle in its
architecture. But the Entrepôt, whose first
stone was laid little more than forty years
back, no more pretends to an elderly and
dignified mien than does the Bal Mabille
(by daylight) or the Château des Fleurs. It
is as tasteful and as elegant as if intended to
serve as a suburban luncheon-place, where
you might call for any known wine in the
world, to be sipped under the shade of
flowering shrubs, to the accompaniment of
sandwiches, sausage-rolls, and ices, handed to
you by white-aproned waiters or rosy-cheeked
and smart-capped damsels.

Great part of this town consists of houses—
summer-houses, dolls-houses,—of one story,
with one door, one window, and one
chimney; with room in each, for exactly one
more than one inmate. An extra apartment
is sometimes contrived, by means of a bower,
which serves instead of a garden—there
is none—though a great deal of gardening
is done in the Halle, in tubs, flower-pots,
and mignonette-boxes, wherein luxuriant
specimens of the culture are observable;
myrtles, oleanders, lilacs, orange-trees,
bay-trees, and pomegranates, all a-growing and
a-blowing. Favoured mansions possess a garden
—sometimes as much as three or four mètres
square—bedecked with roses, dwarf and
standard, lilies of the valley, violets double
and single, irises displaying some of the
colours of the rainbow, hollyhocks, gilliflowers,
blue-bells, and oyster-shells all in a row.
There is an abundant supply of excellent
water; of course to serve no other purpose
whatever than the refreshment of the aforesaid
favourites of Flora, though people say
more wine is drunk in Paris than ever comes
or came into it.

The Halle-aux-Vins houses, which put
you in mind of Gulliver's box in Brobdingnag,
are raised from the ground on separate
blocks of stone, to keep them dry, which
suggests the further idea of the possibility of
their being flown away with by an eagle or
roc, if they had only a convenient ring in the
roof. Of course, the houselings,—detached,
and separate; no quarrelling with next-door
neighbours, nor listening to secrets through
thin partition walls,—are ranged in streets,
the perusal of whose simple names is sufficient
to create a vinous thirst. What do
you say to walking out of Rue de Bordeaux
into Rue de Champagne, thence traversing
Rue de Bourgogne, to reach Rue de la
Côte-d'Or, and Rue de Languedoc, before
arriving at Rue de Touraine! The Barmecide's
guest would have been in ecstacies, in
defiance of the koran, at such a feast.

Moreover, to make things still more pleasant,
every one of the euphonious alleys and
streets is planted with trees of different
ornamental species,—the lime, the horse-chesnut,
and other arboreal luxuries. It is a
pity that the climate does not permit the
growth of cork-trees, bearing crops of ready-cut
corks, including bungs, long clarets, and
champagne-stoppers. The happy mortal to
whom each little lodge belongs, is indicated
by a legible inscription, giving not only the
number of his isolated square counting-house,
according to its place in the alley which it
lines, whether in single or in double row, but
also bearing the town-address of its tenant,
and specifying the special liquors in which
he deals; thus:—"21, Mossenet, Senior,
& Cie.; Quai d'Anjou, 25. Fine wines of