copper buttons, which, just as the head of a man who is guillotined falls neatly into the canvas bag placed on purpose to receive it, kept dropping out through a spout into a little sack, into which they arrived coined on both sides, also beautifully milled round the edges. The rate at which they fell I counted to be one per second. There were in the room before me thirteen of these machines. The largest and stoutest, which stood eight feet high, were for coining fivefranc pieces; the rest, only five feet, were for smaller gold and copper money. At the time I visited the Mint it had refrained for about a fortnight to coin silver, in consequence of the National Assembly not having decided as to the new coinage; they had, however, been stamping about a million of francs in gold per day, and a trifling quantity of small copper money, the form and impression on which are to be altered as soon as the Assembly can devise the means of overcoming the inconvenience that would arise from the necessity of calling in all the old copper of the monarchy. In fact, like the population of France, a republic of bags of buttons, gold, silver, and copper, are quietly waiting to know, if possible, which way the political cat of their destiny next intends to jump. The Hôtel des Monnaies, which has the exclusive privilege of coining medals, gained by the monopoly, in 1848, the the sum of 25,637 francs. In that year it coined At the hôtel are also performed the various operations for assaying articles of jewelry, of gold and silver, which, until duly stamped, are not allowed to be offered for sale. On quitting the Hôtel des Monnaies I found my mind so uncomfortably full of a confused mass of rumbling, indigestible, windy recollections of all I had witnessed; of gold busks; silver bars; of conjuring machines, which stood swallowing buttons, and handing out bullion; of long histories in copper, of battles, conquests, revolutions; of military government, civil government, glory, and all of a sudden no government at all; in short, a series of chronological events,― "Never ending, still beginning, Fighting still, and still destroying," that, to change the subject, turning to my right, I stood with my face to a dead wall, to look at a quantity of cheap prints and pictures hanging on strings upon it; and as among them was one the subject of which I had often before observed, and had wished to obtain, I managed, without rudely pushing any of my fellow gapers, to get before it. As soon, however, as I began to copy what I wanted, so many eyes were fixed upon me, that, shutting up my little book, I went away. In a few minutes the crowd I had left, having been satiated, were replaced by another set of idlers; accordingly, as a stranger to them all, I walked up to the old man that owned the pictures, and who, like a spider watching his net, was sitting concealed in a little wooden shanty just big enough to hold his chair, and, describing to him the one I wished to look at, I gave him half a franc for permission to turn him out of his habitation, and to occupy his chair; in short, for a few moments to reign in his stead. The proprietor was quite delighted with the reckless liberality of my proposal; and accordingly I had scarcely been seated a minute when I saw him at the door with the print in question, entitled as follows: "TABLEAU DES PRINCIPAUX Qui se sont illustrés dans toutes PAR LEURS BELLES ACTIONS, LEUR TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL Who have made themselves illustrious in all BY THEIR GREAT ACTIONS, THEIR Beneath this heading was of course a large picture of the Temple of Fame, upon the pediment of which there appeared inscribed On both sides of this Temple was an alleged portrait or likeness, with a short history, of each of the following list, which had tickled my fancy, not so much for the names it contained as for those it omitted : WASHING BOATS. On the south wall of the line of "Quais" that overlook the Seine are neatly arranged for sale a great quantity of secondhand books, ticketed in batches, from two sous a volume to a franc, a franc and a half, two francs, and occasionally more. I had bought and sent to my lodging a few of them, and was sauntering along the banks of the Seine on the Quai de la Mégisserie, when I observed beneath me in the river, hauled alongside of the wharf and of each other, several barges laden with charcoal; and as in each of these boats was a gang of men whose profession it is to unload them, I walked down to look at them. Their faces. clothes, and hands were of course all professionally begrimed with black. On their heads were immense broad-brimmed wideawake hats, several of which, to my astonishment, were ornamented with a long ostrich feather, full of the black dust of charcoal. "Are there many of you that wear feathers like that?" said I to one of them. "Mais oui, Monsieur !"* replied the republican, quietly spitting into the water. "What would our London coalwhippers say to such a fine hat?" I muttered to myself as I walked away. Along the banks of the river, moored close to the quay, were several long, covered boats, full of women washing clothes. On stepping into one, the chef, a short, intelligent-looking man of about forty, walking up to me, inquired very civilly what I wanted? and as soon as I told him, with the greatest kindness and politeness he said he would have much pleasure in showing me everything. On each side or gunwale, 104 yards long and about two feet above the water, was a table fifteen inches broad, before which, under cover of a flat zine roof, containing in the centre a series of glass frames, I found, every one separated from her neighbour by a small compartment, 320 women, in the act, * Oh yes! flagrante delicto, of belabouring, beating, and scrubbing to death clothes of all descriptions. Each pays eight sous (fourpence) a-day for permission to wash with cold water only from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night; her implements of torture, such as brushes for scrubbing, and flat boards like battledores for beating, she finds for herself. For permission to boil her clothes (if she wishes to do so) the cost is two sous a bundle. The charge for washing for a single hour is one sou and a half. The 320 women were all dressed in clean caps. Besides the narrow tables on the gunwales, was a parallel and broader one within the boat, on which they completed their work; and accordingly, they were to be seen, first, with their faces towards the city. dipping their linen into the Seine, rapidly running beside them, and then lustily beating it on the narrow board; and afterwards with their backs to the metropolis, smoothing and laying out their clothes on the opposite boards of their cell, within each of which was just room enough for an industrious, lusty woman to turn herself round. In that portion of the Seine which flows through Paris there are no less than twenty of these boats, large and small, in which the linen of the poor and some of that of the wealthier classes is pummelled till it is clean. As the chef was conducting me to a portion of the boat in which was a little steam-boiler for heating water, one of the 320 women suddenly stopped in the act of belabouring an aged shirt, and, with it in one hand, and with her wooden battledore uplifted in the other, she made to me a very short, shrewd remark, indirectly expressive of thirst. "C'est une malhonnêteté," said the chef to her, with a very angry countenance, "de vous adresser comme ça à un étranger !"* The woman, with great humility and volubility, assured him she did not mean the slightest harm. He told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, that it was not her first offence, that she was much too fond of talking, that she talked to everybody. "Si le bon Dieu viendrait abord," said he to her, shaking his hand close to her face, " vous lui parleriez !"† The chef, kindly accompanying me to the gunwale of his boat, now took off his hat and gave me his "adieu;" and as it *It is very uncivil of you to speak to a stranger like that! + If the Almighty were to come on board you would speak to Him! |