THE ARC DU CARROUSEL.
Of course they have children born to them, for there must be heirs to the estate. Madame loves them very much, or appears to, but she sees very little of them. She puts them out to nurse at once. Children are tiresome and wearying to a woman whose day is divided into so much for dressing, so much for riding, so much for eating, and so much for balls or opera. She sees them and admires them, and when they are old enough, marries them off. The father is pleased to see that Henri is growing into a fine boy, or Marie into a fine girl, but he has his business and pleasures to attend to, and besides, there is invariably some woman, somewhere in Paris, that he does love, and she has children also. And so the children grow up, Monsieuring their father and Madaming their mother till they escape from under the paternal and maternal charge, only to go and do the same things for themselves.
MARRIAGE IN LOW LIFE.
Curious notions “our lively neighbors, the Gauls,” as Mr. Micawber says, have of domestic life. There is no such thing in Paris.
This among the upper classes. Jean and Jeannette, the baker and the milliner, are not so particular about the dot, and for a very good reason—neither of them or their parents have a sou to give more than the wedding clothes and a holiday, with an extra bottle of wine on the occasion of the wedding. They dispense with the dot, and, in very many cases, with the legal and religious ceremonies, which are considered necessary among other classes, and among all classes in other countries. Having nothing else to marry for, they marry for love, and very good husbands and wives they make. True, Jean goes to his café every night, to save the country in his way, and Jeannette expects him to, but as they do not inhabit large houses they are naturally brought closer together, and, consequently, are more in sympathy with each other. Jean, with two francs a day, even with the help of Jeannette, who may earn quite as much, cannot afford the luxury of separate rooms or separate beds. One answers them both, and not infrequently they have not that one.
But with their cheap wine and their very cheap bread, and, above all, their careless, happy-go-lucky dispositions, they manage to get along very comfortably. So long as they can work, and they do work, both of them, they live very well; and when sickness or old age comes there are excellent hospitals to go to, and after that—why, the church has fixed their hereafter, and so everything is smooth with them.