Often at the Punch and Judy show near-by, you will see two old gentlemen,—who may have watched this same Punch and Judy show when they were youngsters,—and who have been sitting for half an hour, waiting for the curtain of the miniature theater to rise. It is popular—this small “Théâtre Guignol,” and the benches in front are filled with the children of rich and poor, who scream with delight and kick their little, fat bare legs at the first shrill squeak of Mr. Punch. The three who compose the staff of this tiny attraction have been long in its service—the old harpist, and the good wife of the showman who knows every child in the neighborhood, and her husband who is Mr. Punch, the hangman, and the gendarme, and half a dozen other equally historical personages. A thin, sad-looking man, this husband, gray-haired, with a careworn look in his deep-sunken eyes, who works harder hourly, daily, yearly, to amuse the heart of a child than almost any one I know.
The little box of a theater is stifling hot in summer, and yet he must laugh and scream and sing within it, while his good wife collects the sous, talking all the while to this and to that child whom she has known since its babyhood; chatting with the nurses decked out in their gay-colored, Alsatian bows, the ribbons reaching nearly to the ground.
A French nurse is a gorgeous spectacle of neatness and cleanliness, and many of the younger ones, fresh from country homes in Normandy and Brittany, with their rosy cheeks, are pictures of health. Wherever you see a nurse, you will see a “piou-piou” not far away, which is a very belittling word for the red-trousered infantryman of the République Française.
Surrounding the Palais du Luxembourg, these “piou-pious,” less fortunate for the hour, stand guard in the small striped sentry-boxes, musket at side, or pace stolidly up and down the flagged walk. Marie, at the moment, is no doubt with the children of the rich Count, in a shady spot near the music. How cruel is the fate of many a gallant “piou-piou”!
Farther down the gravel-walk strolls a young Frenchman and his fiancée—the mother of his betrothed inevitably at her side! It is under this system of rigid chaperonage that the young girl of France is given in marriage. It is not to be wondered at that many of them marry to be free, and that many of the happier marriages have begun with an elopement!
THE PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG
The music is over, and the band is filing out, followed by the crowd. A few linger about the walks around the band-stand to chat. The old lady who rents the chairs is stacking them up about the tree-trunks, and long shadows across the walks tell of the approaching twilight. Overhead, among the leaves, the pigeons coo. For a few moments
the sun bathes the great garden in a pinkish glow, then drops slowly, a blood-red disk, behind the trees. The air grows chilly; it is again the hour to dine—the hour when Paris wakes.
In the smaller restaurants of the Quarter one often sees some strange contrasts among these true bohemians, for the Latin Quarter draws its habitués from every part of the globe. They are not all French—these happy-go-lucky fellows, who live for the day and let the morrow slide. You will see many Japanese—some of them painters—many of them taking courses in political economy, or in law; many of them titled men of high rank in their own country, studying in the schools, and learning, too, with that thoroughness and rapidity which are ever characteristic of their race. You will find, too, Brazilians; gentlemen from Haiti of darker hue; Russians, Poles, and Spaniards—men and women from every clime and every station in life. They adapt themselves to the Quarter and become a part of this big family of Bohemia easily and naturally.