The fortunes of Fifi

THE FORTUNES OF FIFI
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
The author of Francezka The Sprightly Romance of Marsac Children of Destiny
THE ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. DE THULSTRUP
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1903 Molly Elliot Seawell Copyright 1903 The Bobbs-Merrill Company October All rights reserved PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.
CONTENTS
THE FORTUNES OF FIFI
Although it was not yet six o’clock, the November night had descended upon Paris—especially in those meaner quarters on the left bank of the Seine, where, in 1804, lights were still scarce. However, three yellow flickering lamps hung upon a rope stretched across the narrow Rue du Chat Noir. In this street of the Black Cat the tall old rickety houses loomed darkly in the brown mist that wrapped the town and shut out the light of the stars.
Short as well as narrow, the Rue du Chat Noir was yet a thoroughfare connecting two poor, but populous quarters. The ground floor of the chief building in the street was ornamented with a row of gaudy red lamps, not yet lighted, and above them, inscribed among some decaying plaster ornaments, ran the legend:
THE IMPERIAL THEATER. DUVERNET, MANAGER.
Imperial was a great word in Paris in the month of November, 1804.