THE BATH KEEPERS;
OR,
PARIS IN THOSE DAYS
CONTENTS
[I, ] [II, ] [III, ] [IV, ] [V, ] [VI, ] [VII, ] [VIII, ] [IX, ] [X, ] [XI, ] [XII, ] [XIII, ] [XIV, ] [XV, ] [XVI, ] [XVII, ] [XVIII, ] [XIX, ] [XX, ] [XXI, ] [XXII, ] [XXIII, ] [XXIV, ] [XXV, ] [XXVI, ] [XXVII, ] [XXVIII]
I
RUE COUTURE-SAINTE-CATHERINE
It was two o'clock on a cold, damp morning; the fine snow, which melted as soon as it touched the ground, made the streets slippery and dirty, and Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine,—then called Couture-Sainte-Catherine,—although it was one of the broadest streets in Paris, was as black and gloomy as any blind alley in the Cité to-day.
But these things took place in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-four; and I need not tell you that in those days no such devices for street lighting as lanterns, gas, or electric lights were known. The man who should have discovered the last-named invention, which, in truth, savors strongly of the magical, would surely have been subjected to the ordinary and extraordinary torture for a recompense.
Those were the good old times!
Everything new aroused suspicion; people believed much more readily in sorcerers, the devil, and magic, than in the results of study and learning and the reasoning of the human intellect.