In the Days of My Youth Part 38

_Vive la grisette_! Shall I not follow many an ill.u.s.trious example and sing my modest paean in her praise? Frown not, august Britannia! Look not so severely askance upon my poor little heroine of the Quartier Latin! Thinkest thou because thou art so eminently virtuous that she who has many a serviceable virtue of her own, shall be debarred from her share in this world's cakes and ale?

_Vive la grisette_! Let us think and speak no evil of her. "Elle ne tient au vice que par un rayon, et s'en eloigne par les mille autres points de la circonference sociale." The world sees only her follies, and sees them at first sight; her good qualities lie hidden in the shade. Is she not busy as a bee, joyous as a lark, helpful, pitiful, unselfish, industrious, contented? How often has she not slipped her last coin into the alms-box at the hospital gate, and gone supperless to bed? How often sat up all night, after a long day's toil in a crowded work-room, to nurse Victorine in the fever? How often p.a.w.ned her Sunday gown and shawl, to redeem that coat without which Adolphe cannot appear before the examiners to-morrow morning? Granted, if you will, that she has an insatiable appet.i.te for sweets, cigarettes, and theatrical admissions--shall she not be welcome to her tastes? And is it her fault if her capacity in the way of miscellaneous refreshments partakes of the nature of the miraculous--somewhat to the inconvenience of Adolphe, who has overspent his allowance? Supposing even that she may now and then indulge (among friends) in a very modified can-can at the Chaumiere--what does that prove, except that her heels are as light as her heart, and that her early education has been somewhat neglected?

But I am writing of a world that has vanished as completely as the lost Pleiad. The Quartier Latin of my time is no more. The Chaumiere is no more. The grisette is fast dying out. Of the Rue de la Harpe not a recognisable feature is left. The old Place St. Michel, the fountain, the Theatre du Pantheon, are gone as if they had never been. Whole streets, I might say whole parishes, have been swept away--whole chapters of mediaeval history erased for ever.

Well, I love to close my eyes from time to time, and evoke the dear old haunts from their ruins; to descend once more the perilous steeps of the Rue St. Jacques, and to thread the labyrinthine by-streets that surround the ecole de Medecine. I see them all so plainly! I look in at the familiar print-shops--I meet many a long-forgotten face--I hear many a long-forgotten voice--I am twenty years of age and a student again!

Ah me! what a pleasant time, and what a land of enchantment! Dingy, dilapidated, decrepit as it was, that graceless old Quartier Latin, believe me, was paved with roses and lighted with laughing gas.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FETE AT COURBEVOIE.

"_Halte la_! I thought I should catch you about this time! They've been giving you unconscionable good measure to-day, though, haven't they? I thought Bollinet's lecture was always over by three; and here I've been moralizing on the flight of Time for more than twenty minutes."

So saying, Muller, having stopped me as I was coming down the steps of the Hotel Dieu, linked his arm in mine, drew me into a shady angle under the lee of Notre Dame, and, without leaving me time to reply, went on pouring out his light, eager chatter as readily as a mountain-spring bubbles out its waters.

"I thought you'd like to know about the Tapottes, you see--and I was dying to tell you. I went to your rooms last night between eight and nine, and you were out; so I thought the only sure way was to come here--I know you never miss Bollinet's Lectures. Well, as I was saying, the Tapottes.... Oh, _mon cher_! I am your debtor for life in that matter of Milord Smithfield. It has been the making of me. What do you think? Tapotte is not only going to sit for a companion half-length to Madame's portrait, but he has given me a commission for half-a-dozen ancestors. Fancy--half-a-dozen ill.u.s.trious dead-and-done Tapottes! What a scope for the imagination! What a bewildering vista of _billets de banque_! I feel--ah, _mon ami_! I feel that the wildest visions of my youth are about to be realized, and that I shall see my tailor's bill receipted before I die!"

"I'm delighted," said I, "that Tapotte has turned up a trump card."

"A trump card? Say a California--a Pactolus--a Golden Calf. Nay, hath not Tapotte two golden calves? Is he not of the precious metal all compact? Stands he not, in the amiable ripeness of his years, a living representative of the Golden Age? _'O bella eta dell' oro_!'"

And to my horror, he then and there executed a frantic _pas seul_.

"Gracious powers!" I exclaimed. "Are you mad?"

"Yes--raving mad. Have you any objection?"

"But, my dear fellow--in the face of day--in the streets of Paris! We shall get taken up by the police!"

"Then suppose we get out of the streets of Paris? I'm tired enough, Heaven knows, of cultivating the arid soil of the Pave. See, it's a glorious afternoon. Let's go somewhere."

"With all my heart. Where?"

"_Ah, mon Dieu! ca m'est egal_. Enghien--Vincennes--St.

Cloud--Versailles ... anywhere you like. Most probably there's a fete going on somewhere, if we only knew where,"

"Can't we find out?"

"Oh, yes--we can drop into a Cafe and look at the _Pet.i.tes Affiches_; only that entails an absinthe; or we can go into the nearest Omnibus Bureau and see the notices on the walls, which will be cheaper."

So we threaded our way along the narrow thoroughfares of the Ile de la Cite, and came presently to an Omnibus Bureau on the Quai de l'Horloge, overlooking the Pont Neuf and the river. Here the first thing we saw was a flaming placard setting forth the pleasures and attractions of the great annual fete at Courbevoie; a village on the banks of the Seine, a mile or two beyond Neuilly.

"_Voila, notre affaire_!" said Muller, gaily. "We can't do better than steer straight for Courbevoie."

Saying which, he hailed a pa.s.sing fiacre and bade the coachman drive to the Embarcadere of the Rive Droite.

"We shall amuse ourselves famously at Courbevoie," he said, as we rattled over the stones. "We'll dine at the Toison d'Or--an excellent little restaurant overlooking the river; and if you're fond of angling, we can hire a punt and catch our own fish for dinner. Then there will be plenty of fiddling and dancing at the guingettes and gardens in the evening. By the way, though, I've no money! That is to say, none worth speaking of--_voila!_... one franc, one piece of fifty centimes, another of twenty centimes, and some sous. I hope your pockets are better lined than mine."

"Not much, I fear," I replied, pulling out my porte-monnaie, and emptying the contents into my hand. They amounted to nine francs and seventy-five centimes.

"_Parbleu_! we've just eleven francs and a half between us," said Muller. "A modest sum-total; but we must make it as elastic as we can.

Let me see, there'll be a franc for the fiacre, four francs for our return tickets, four for our dinner, and two and a half to spend as we like in the fair. Well, we can't commit any great extravagance with that amount of floating capital."

"Better turn back and go to my rooms for some more money?" I exclaimed.

"I've two Napoleons in my desk."

"No, no--we should miss the three-fifty train, and not get another till between five and six."

"But we shall have no fun if we have no money!"

"I dissent entirely from that proposition, Monsieur Englishman. I have always had plenty of fun, and I have been short of cash since the hour of my birth. Come, it shall be my proud task to-day to prove to you the pleasures of impecuniosity!"

So with our eleven francs and a half we went on to the station, and took our places for Courbevoie.

We travelled, of course, by third cla.s.s in the open wagons; and it so happened that in our compartment we had the company of three pretty little chattering grisettes, a fat countrywoman with a basket, and a quiet-looking elderly female with her niece. These last wore bonnets, and some kind of slight mourning. They belonged evidently to the small bourgeoise cla.s.s, and sat very quietly in the corner of the carriage, speaking to no one. The three grisettes, however, kept up an incessant fire of small talk and squabble.

"I was on this very line last Sunday," said one. "I went with Julie to Asnieres, and we were so gay! I wonder if it will be very gay at Courbevoie."

"_Je m'en doute_," replied another, whom they called Lolotte. "I came to one of the Courbevoie fetes last spring, and it was not gay at all. But then, to be sure, I was with Edouard, and he is as dull as the first day in Lent. Where were you last Sunday, Adele?"

"I did not go beyond the barriers. I went to the Cirque with my cousin, and we dined in the Palais Royal. We enjoyed ourselves so much! You know my cousin?"

"Ah! yes--the little fellow with the curly hair and the whiskers, who waits for you at the corner when we leave the workshop."

"The same--Achille."

"Your Achille is nice-looking," said Mademoiselle Lolotte, with a somewhat critical air. "It is a pity he squints."

"He does not squint, mam'selle."

"Oh, _ma chere_! I appeal to Caroline."

"I am not sure that he actually squints," said Mam'selle Caroline, speaking for the first time; "but he certainly has one eye larger than the other, and of quite a different color."

"_Tiens_, Caroline--it seems to me that you look very closely into the eyes of young men," exclaims Adele, turning sharply upon this new a.s.sailant.

"At all events you admit that Caroline is right," cries Lolotte, triumphantly.

"I admit nothing of the kind. I say that you are both very ill-natured, and that you say what is not true. As for you, Lolotte, I don't believe you ever had the chance of seeing a young man's eyes turned upon you, or you would not be so pleased with the attentions of an old one."

"An _old_ one!" shrieked Mam'selle Lolotte. "Ah, _mon Dieu_! Is a man old at forty-seven? Monsieur Durand is in the prime of life, and there isn't a girl in the Quartier who would not be proud of his attentions!"

"He's sixty, if an hour," said the injured Adele. "And as for you, Caroline, who have never had a beau in your life...."