And the band! If the dancers didn't care, it was bien égal to the band? Parbleu. Every blower blew his hardest, and arranged his time to his heart's content; every scraper scraped for novelty of effect, letting harmony take care of itself; and the drummer in his shirt-sleeves, contemptuous of all besides, spanked the sounding drum with a rollicking energy that put all other effects in the shade. How he did drum, that drummer! and smile, and cock his hat!
Then the great Exhibition of 1867, and my childish wonder and delight in its cosmopolitan crowds and dazzling prodigality of uniforms! By the same token I remember that my first literary attempt was a composition written at M. Duvernoy's Protestant School, in the Rue Madame, setting forth my impressions of a grand review upon a brilliant Sunday in the Bois de Boulogne, where three emperors and the Sultan of Turkey watched the manœuvres of what was then believed to be the finest army in the world; and I remember—these little things cling to one's memory sometimes to the exclusion of important events—how the Prince Imperial, Napoleon's ill-starred son, riding past our landau at the head of his glittering regiment in the Avenue de l'Impératrice, paused to smile at me, a boy little younger than himself, as my hat's protecting elastic hindered my salute.
Yet another radiant Sunday I remember, and a splendid cavalcade escorting Napoleon III, and the Sultan from the Palais de l'Industrie back through the Champs-Élysées through the then spick and span, and glitteringly white Rue de Rivoli, to the luxurious Palais des Tuileries; and I remember how amongst the hurrahs and waving of hats, there burst out one loud "A bas l'Empereur," which caused the conqueror of Solferino to look furtively sideways under his heavy eyebrows, whilst his ubiquitous mouchards pounced upon the bold republican with their loaded sticks and dragged him off to jail.
But now when I visit Paris I see no more the pomp and glitter of unsurpassed opulence, nor splendour of architecture, nor infectious gaiety.
Scowling St. Antoine I see all the time—in the bullet marks left on the buildings from the Commune massacre, and in the faces and gait of the tired and melancholy Parisians.
The glitter of Haussman's buildings is faded, their whiteness tarnished, the whole place is like the scene of an orgie as seen by the revellers on the dismal morrow.
The books and pictures in the shop windows are infamous; the plays in theatres and music-halls are unspeakable; and the smells—ah, mon Dieu? the smells!
Looked Paris so in '70? and smelt so? Pah!
My acquaintance with atmospheres is extensive and peculiar. I have essayed Widnes on a summer's afternoon; I have sniffed the fiery soot, smithy cleek, and wheel swarf of Sheffield in August; I have dwelt upon the fragrant banks of Irwell and within scent of Barking Creek; but—a sultry day in Paris, ugh!