worth looking at, when as straight as a bull-dog rushes at a bull there advanced towards me, whisking the tail of a white napkin as if to intimidate me, a very respectable man of about thirty years of age, dressed in a white neck-cloth, a very well-made dark cloth jacket, but without any trowsers, breeches, or pantaloons.—at least I could not see any, because the region they inhabit was completely covered with a white apron. * As my object was to appear quite at my ease, I determined to receive him without at all events showing-the slightest emotion; as soon, however, as he reached me, he laid down on the table before me, not only a long rigmarole written paper, but a very large book, and, submitting to me these data to compound an answer, he asked me in beautiful French, and with another whisk of his napkin, what I would desire for my dinner? Now, six-and-thirty years ago, it was, I recollected, considered as rather a dashing thing to answer a query of this nature by saying negligently, and apparently with unshaken reliance on the "honour" and good taste of the chef in a white nightcap below, “A cinq francs!" I accordingly tried very hard not only to say but to look the words as youthfully as I had used to do. Instead, however, of receiving the grateful bow I had expected, the gentleman in waiting, with a shrug which I feared told everybody, everywhere, that I was making to him some very mean unconscientious proposal, replied he would rather I would name what I would desire to have. Of course I instantly consented, observing, with a wave of my hand for the purpose of getting rid of him, that I would let him know, upon which turning on his heel, and thereby averting from me his white apron, -which gave me an opportunity of observing that he wore black trowsers—he darted away to another table. Now, although, when left completely to myself, I knew perfectly well that I wanted a good dinner, indeed, that with malice prepense I had come on purpose for it,—yet, on looking into the encyclopædia of dishes he had laid before me, I really did not know, and I therefore felt I should have considerable difficulty in letting him know, "what I would desire to have." It was, however, a vast comfort to me to For five francs! reflect, as I laid hold of the important volume, that I was about to draw tickets, in a lottery composed of all prizes and no blanks, and so, without fretting on the subject, I tapped my table gently, and when my waiter, obeying the summons as readily as if it had been his own dinner-bell, stood erect before me, I pointed to some description of soup; "Bien, Monsieur !"* he replied ;-to an odd named fish; “bien, Monsieur ! ;"-to cutlets of apparently an extraordinary nature; "bien, Monsieur !;"-and lastly pointing to something I considered would he pastry, I then, looking as if I had been born in the room, closed the book. "Tres bien, Monsieur !" said my attendant, making me a slight bow, and then carrying off the volume to its temporary resting place. As I had now delivered my judgment, and had nothing to do but to await the execution of the delightful sentence I had passed upon myself, I enjoyed the luxury of quietly looking about me. Round a small table at my right sat three Frenchmen, with beards black, blacker, and blackest; on my left three smooth-chinned modest-looking English young ladies, with their husbands, or, with what among travellers is generally termed, their cousins. In the fore and back ground of the picture there continually crossed and recrossed, in various directions, and at various angles with the equator, a number of respectable, attentive, well-behaved waiters, of from twentyfive to forty-five years of age, with hair plastered by oil close to the head, in white neckcloths, and otherwise dressed as I have described. Among them there occasionally appeared a being of a higher order, distinguished by a black apron. This personage was altogether above bringing in books, dishes, changing plates, or wiping forks. His sole, serious, and important duty was to deliver to the occupier or occupiers of each table whatever wine, through the medium of the common white-aproned-waiter, had been required from him; and he not only brought it, but with great dignity uncorked it; and in the case of its being champagne, or wine that required to be cooled, I observed that, as carefully as a young mother lays her first infant in its cradle, he placed it on ice, almost horizontally, in a wooden frame resembling a ship gun-carriage, Very good, Sir! * Good, Sir! the neck of the bottle being elevated, as nearly as I could guess, at an angle of about ten degrees. As dishes upon dishes, with hurried steps, were brought to the numerous tables of the octagonal paradise in which I was seated, the buzz of conversation very sensibly increased, besides which the human mouth, like a regiment at review, went through all its most difficult movements. Sometimes it ate a good deal; then it drank a little; then it smiled; then it ate a little more; then it talked humorously; then it drank off a glass of champagne; then in a serious tone it called out GARÇON!" then it sipped; and then talked much more vehemently than before. 66 While my French companions, especially the three with black beards, which at every movement of their mouths kept irregularly vibrating, were munching, drinking, or expounding something which appeared almost invariably to end through the nose; shoulders, in all directions, began to shrug, hands began to act, and, as if in spite of ice, faces gradually became pinkish-pink-red-redder,-hot and hotter. Indeed even the three young English ladies' lips looked, I thought, a very little warmer; and although for the life of me I could not perceive within the little octagonal room any additional cause for merriment, for some reason or other they certainly did giggle much oftener than at first. Indeed I was beginning to think whether the gentleman in the black apron ought not to have iced the wine-drinkers instead of the wine, when my reflections, all of a sudden, came to an end. My mind must surely have had a fit of apoplexy; for I remember nothing further that occurred, except that I found myself placidly, and in good fellowship with all men, lapping up with a spoon some very nice soup, which had scarcely vanished when I became the proprietor of some turbot, which, I rather believe, by some accident must have been ground to death in a mill. The composition, however, was most excellent. In due time I was nourished with cutlets luxuriously floating in the essence of asparagus; and at last came my "tart," which turned out to be a small pastry bandbox, with a handsome lid, full of cockscombs, beautifully serrated and plaited, with a variety of oddlooking things, of all sorts of shapes and consistency. In fact, there must have been a little of every delicacy in creation; * Waiter! and the dish would have been a complete and most excellent dinner. Not wishing to appear eccentric, I ordered a pint of champagne, and observing, when I had dismissed my tart, that when I took the little bottle from its icy bed, and tilted it up, it seemed—although to my knowledge I had really done nothing to offend it-rather disposed to decline to hold any further communication with the glass beneath it, I tapped my table, and as soon as the gentle sound brought, as it instantly did bring, a waiter's face close to my own, I asked for my bill. While it was preparing. I acknowledged to myself, without hesitation, that I had very much enjoyed all I had seen, all I had heard, all I had eaten, and all I had drunk. The room, however, was so over-lighted, the glare from the lamps and looking-glasses was so oppressive, the feat I had performed, and the feast I had enjoyed, were altogether so unsuited to the fixed regimen of my life, that, as I had now not only witnessed but had assisted in the process of dining at a restaurateur's at Paris, I determined I would not do so again; and accordingly, excepting three days on which I accepted invitations of ceremony I could not decline, seated at an open window, I dined quietly in my lodging by myself, during the whole period of my short residence in the bright, gay, and happy metropolis of France. PLACE DE LA BASTILLE. ON descending from an omnibus I found myself in a large, long, irregular, uncomfortable-looking open space, called the Place de la Bastille, formed by the junction of the Quai du Canal St. Martin, of the Boulevart Beaumarchais, of the Rue de la Roquette, Rue de St. Antoine, Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, Rue de Charenton, Rue de Lyon, and of the Boulevarts Bourdon and Contrescarpe, leading to the Pont d'Austerlitz. At the point of concentration at which all these cross-roads met, I saw before me a lofty bronze column, surmounted by a perfectly naked, lengthy, thin, herring-stomached, long-backed, flying-Mercury-looking mountebank, with a pair of wings on his shoulders, the whole newly gilt all over, as if it had just flown, and for a moment-merely to take in wind-had perched there from California. On the outside of the column, from the bottom to the top, in three strata, each representing the result of one day's revolutionary havoc, were inscribed in letters of gold, so small that at a few feet elevation they were to my eyes utterly illegible, a variety of names. On the base was legibly engraved the following inscription, which briefly told me the whole story of the column:: "Loi du 13 Décembre, 1830, Art. 13. Un monument sera consacré à la mémoire Loi du 9 Mars, 1833, Art. 2. Ce monument sera érigé sur la Place On the other side was inscribed: "A la Gloire Des Citoyens Français, Qui s'armèrent et combattirent Des 27, 28, 29 Juillet, 1830." + The monument was surrounded on all four sides by massive iron railings, within which, at the foot of the column all * Extract from the law of the 13th December, 1830, Article 13. A monument shall be consecrated to the memory From the law of the 9th March, 1833, This monument shall be erected on the Place |