"Tut! it quite blinds one!" says the mamma of Sophonisba. Christofle's window is startling. It is heaped to the top with a mound of plated spoons and forks. They glitter in the light so fiercely that the eye cannot bear to rest upon them. Impossible to pass M. Christofle without paying a moment's attention to him. And now we pass the asphaltum of the boulevard of boulevards—that known as "the Italiens." This is the apple of the eye of Paris.
"Now, my dears," says Sophonisba's mamma, "now we can really say that we are in Paris." The shops claimed the ladies' attention one by one. They passed with disdain the cafés radiant with mirror and gold, where the selfish men were drinking absinthe and playing at dominoes. It had always been the creed of Sophonisba's mamma that men were selfish creatures, and she had come to Paris only to see that she was right. They passed on to Potel's.
Potel's window is a sight that is of Paris Parisian. It is more imposing than that of Chevet in the Palais Royal. In the first place Potel is on "the Italiens." It is a daily store of all the rarest and richest articles of food money can command for the discontented palate of man. The truffled turkeys are the commonest of the articles. Everybody eats truffled turkeys, must be the belief of Potel. If salmon could peer into the future, and if they had any ambition, they would desire, after death, to be artistically arrayed in fennel in the shop-window of Potel. Would not the accommodating bird who builds an edible nest work with redoubled ardour, if he could be assured that his house would be some day removed to the great window on "the Italiens?"
Happy the ortolans whom destiny puts into Potel's plate of honour! Most fortunate of geese, whose liver is fattened by a slow fire to figure presently here with the daintiest and noblest of viands! The pig who hunts the truffle would have his reward could he know that presently the fragrant vegetable would give flavour to his trotter! And is it not a good quarter of an hour's amusement every afternoon to watch the gourmets feasting their eyes on the day's fare? And the gamins from the poor quarters stare in also, and wonder what those black lumps are.
Opposite Potel's is a shop, the like of which we have not, nor, we verily believe, has any other city. It is the show-store of the far-famed Algerian Onyx Company. The onyx is here in great superb blocks, wedded with bronze of exquisite finish, or serving as background to enamels of the most elaborate design. Within, the shop is crammed with lamps, jardinières, and monumental marbles, all relieved by bronzes, gold, and exotics. The smallest object would frighten a man of moderate means, if he inquired its price. There is a flower shop not far off, but it isn't a shop, it's a bower. It is close by a dram-shop, where the cab-men of the stand opposite refresh the inner man. It represents the British public-house. But what a quiet orderly place it is! The kettle of punch—a silver one—is suspended over the counter. The bottles are trim in rows; there are no vats of liquid; there is no brawling; there are no beggars by the door—no drunkards within. It is so quiet, albeit on the Boulevard, not one in a hundred of the passers-by notice it. The lordly Café du Cardinal opposite is not more orderly.
Past chocolate shops, where splendidly-attired ladies preside; wood-carving shops, printsellers, pastrycooks—where the savarins are tricked out, and where petit fours lie in a hundred varieties—music-shops, bazaars, immense booksellers' windows; they who are bent on a look at the shops reach a corner of the Grand Opera Street, where the Emperor's tailor dwells. The attractions here are, as a rule, a few gorgeous official costumes, or the laurel-embellished tail coat of the academician. Still proceeding eastward, the shops are various, and are all remarkable for their decoration and contents. There is a shop where cots and flower-stands are the main articles for sale; but such cots and such flower-stands! The cots are for Princes and the flower-stands for Empresses. I saw the Empress Eugénie quietly issuing from this very shop, one winter afternoon.
Sophonisba's mother lingered a long time over the cots, and delighted her mother-eye with the models of babies that were lying in them. One, she remarked, was the very image of young Harry at home.
And so on to "Barbédienne's," close by the well-known Vachette.
Sophonisba, however, will not wait for our description of the renowned Felix's establishment, where are the lightest hands for pastry, it is said, in all France. When last we caught sight of the young lady, she was chez Felix, demolishing her second baba! May it lie lightly on her—!