There is no drunkenness. It may be that the Frenchman does not want to get drunk, but I am convinced that the nature of the regular beverage of the country is to be credited with this delightful exemption from the great curse that devastates other countries. I am compelled to this conclusion, for I have noticed that the French in America and England, where spirituous liquors are the rule, come to be as frightful drunkards as anybody; and, per contra, I know scores of Americans in Paris who at home drank whisky habitually, and in consequence rarely went to bed sober—so seldom that when it did happen their wives needed an introduction to them—I know scores of these men here who have fallen into the French habit, and drink nothing but wine, and are as sober as the French themselves. They are getting to be so good that some of them have felt justified in taking on other sins to keep them down to the true American average. They have discovered that they can get on very well with wine, and do not crave the fiery liquid they considered so necessary at home.
A WOEFUL LACK OF MORAL.
I made a point of investigating this very thoroughly, for in days past I have seen some drunkenness and the effects thereof. I have seen the dead bodies of women murdered by drunken husbands; I have seen the best men in America go down to disgraceful graves; I have seen fortunes wrecked, prospects blighted; and I have perused a great many pages of statistics. There are crimes on the calendar not resulting from rum, but, were rum eliminated, the catalogue would be so reduced as to make it hardly worth the compiling. Directly or indirectly, rum is chargeable with a good ninety per cent, of the woes that afflict our country.
The moral to all this is—but come to think of it I am not here to point out morals. I have made a true statement, and each one may extract from it any moral he chooses. This is all there is of it: The French drink all the wine they want, and the French are a sober people. It hasn’t much to do with foreign travel; but to see thousands of men sitting and drinking without a fight, an angry word, a broken head, or a black eye, was so delightful an experience that I felt it must go upon paper.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PARISIAN LIVING.
THE Parisian family, unless it be one of the bloated aristocrats and pampered children of luxury, do not occupy separate houses, as families do in American cities. Rents are somewhat too high to permit that luxury, and besides they never were used to it, and it wouldn’t suit them at all. They have been accustomed to living up stairs for so many generations that I doubt if a genuine Parisian of the middle classes could be happy on or near the ground floor.
The first floor, and, for that matter, the second and third, in the heart of the city, are devoted to business purposes. Above the third floors the residences begin, and they continue to the very top. As a rule, each floor constitutes a dwelling by itself, with halls, parlor or drawing-room, dining and sleeping rooms and kitchen, all compactly and very conveniently arranged. True, some of these apartments are small, not large enough to swing a cat in; but, as Mr. Dick Swiveler wisely observed, “You don’t want to swing a cat, you know.” The French housekeeper finds a kitchen five feet wide and six feet long quite large enough for the preparation of the food for the family, and the sleeping rooms, being only used for sleeping, may be very comfortable, if they are only large enough to hold a bed and the other necessary furniture.
HOW YOU GET INTO YOUR HOUSE.
The entrance to these buildings is on the ground floor, and is a wide gateway with a diminutive suite of apartments on one side, which is habited by the concierge, or, as the English call it, the porter. This personage, usually a woman, receives all messages from the different flats above her, answers all calls and gives all the information concerning the various families inhabiting it. It is she who cleans the main staircase which goes to the top of the house, and has charge of the buildings.
At night, say at eleven, the great doors guarding this common entrance are shut, and whoever desires to enter thereafter finds a bell-pull, the other end of which is at the head of the concierge’s bed. She doesn’t bother herself to get up and see who it is, but she merely pulls a wire, the bolt of the great door is withdrawn, you enter, and shutting the door after you—it fastens with a spring lock—go to your floor, and enter your own house.