If you can come but once, do not come in July or August, the tourist season. Paris is a dream of beauty at all seasons, but the charm of any city is obscured when it is crowded as Paris is during those months.
Come in May. Do you not remember what Victor Hugo said in "Le Proscrit"?
"Le mois de mai sans la France,
Ce n'est pas le mois de mai."
We did a wise thing in choosing from among our numerous addresses a pension "downtown." It saves us time, strength and money. It is not one of those pensions Longfellow used to tell about, which had inscribed on its front:
"Ici on donne à boire et à manger;
On loge à pied et à cheval!"
Literally, "Here we give to drink and to eat; we lodge on foot and on horseback." Our pension only gives to eat and to lodge "on foot." I do not mention the drinking, for seldom, I find, can one get a good cup of coffee anywhere. The chocolate and tea are perfect, however, and the little crescent-shaped rolls and the fresh, unsalted butter are delicious.
We are on the Rue de la Bienfaisance, just off the Boulevard Haussman, not far from the beautiful église Saint Augustin, where many of the weddings of the Paris four hundred are celebrated, and only a few minutes' walk from the Gare Saint Lazare.
We call each morning for our English friends, who live in the Rue des Pyramides, near the Rue de Rivoli, at the place where stands the bronze statue of Jeanne d'Arc.