Below the level of the garden, almost immediately under the orchestra, is the Crypte, where there are varied attractions.
There are two ways of getting down to this Crypte; one is by the stairs, and the other by a polished board-chute. Both are free, but the chute is the more popular. Here an amused crowd stands about waiting for some Mimi or Cora or Faustine to plant her neat patent leather boots on the board and slide to the subterranean regions beneath. Here there are living pictures, two pink samples of which stand guard at the entrance of this side-show, while within, a gray-haired pianist thumps out the incidental music to the tableaux from an ancient piano with a sleighbell tone.
At intervals the sentinels without change guard with Spring and Summer, while Autumn and Winter pass the hat, and Venus rising from the Sea tarries in the dressing-room to curl her hair and gossip with the leading victims of the Deluge.
Certain tremulous cries emerge from the other side of the Crypte to the accompaniment of a desert tom-tom and the tread and sway of Oriental dancing.
Yes, the Jardin de Paris with all its noise and glare was built especially to attract most of the smoking-room list of the incoming ships. It appeals in some mysterious way to that natural prey of the Parisian landlord, the traveler who allows himself to be held as a hostage in exchange for his pocket-book at one of the large dismal hotels built solely for his capture. Here in a heavily upholstered and silent reading-room he may read the papers and watch other unfortunates of his kind prowl about him, until at seven he is ushered by an overbearing maître d’hôtel into an even more elaborate hall of fame to the table d’hôte, an occasion representing in gaiety a feast of refugees after a flood. If during his stay in Paris he has the good fortune to see anything Parisian he may count himself lucky.
The Théâtre Marigny is to the Jardin de Paris what a cozily lit dinner-table glowing in shaded candles is to a bar-room, aglitter with brass and glass and electric lights. This jewel-box of a theater in the Champs-Élysées was fashioned for all seasons, but in summer it is in full bloom.
Photo by Reutlinger, Paris
ÉLISE DE VÉRE OF THE MARIGNY
The approach to it among the trees is much the same as to the others, only that the roadway in front is packed at night with private carriages. Here a Parisian équipage de luxe of an eastern prince crowds a new coupé, with a rhinestone clock and hidden cases of doeskin lined with silk, a tiny mirror, a diminutive powder-puff in a box with a golden top, a little of this and a little of that. It is the carriage of Julie la Drôlesse; with this gilt encased arsenal one feels safe to look one’s best in any emergency thinks Julie—that is, if Julie ever really does any thinking. Does the little golden-puff remind her, I wonder, of the days when two sous of poudre de riz applied in a jiffy with a corner of her jupon sufficed to charm the habitués of the Rue Blanche? Ah! mes enfants!