ON MONTMARTRE
One night at the Ambassadeurs', when Duclerc had finished the first verse of her song, a man rose suddenly in the front row of seats and insulted her. Had he used the same words in any American or English theatre, he would have been hit over the head by the member of the orchestra nearest him, and then thrown out of the theatre into the street. It appeared from this man's remarks that the actress had formerly cared for him, but that she had ceased to do so, and that he had come there that night to show her how well he could stand such treatment. He did this by bringing another woman with him, and by placing a dozen bullies from Montmartre among the audience to hiss the actress when she appeared. This they did with a rare good-will, while the rejected suitor in the front row continued to insult her, assisted at the same time by his feminine companion. No one in the audience seemed to heed this, or to look upon it as unfair to himself or to the actress, who was becoming visibly hysterical. There was a piece of wood lying on the stage that had been used in a previous act, and Duclerc, in a frenzy at a word which the man finally called to her, suddenly stooped, and, picking this up, hurled it at him. In an instant the entire audience was on its feet. This last was an insult to itself. As long as it was Duclerc who was being attacked, it did not feel nor show any responsibility, but when she dared to hurl sticks of wood at the face of a Parisian audience, it rose in its might and shouted its indignation. Under the cover of this confusion the hired bullies stooped, and, scooping up handfuls of the gravel with which the place is strewn, hurled them at Duclerc, until the stones rattled around her on the stage like a fall of hail. She showed herself a very plucky woman, and continued her song, even though you could see her face growing white beneath the rouge, and her legs twisting and sinking under her when she tried to dance. It was an awful scene, breaking so suddenly into the easy programme of the evening, and one of the most cowardly and unmanly exhibitions that I have ever witnessed. There did not seem to be a man in the place who was not standing up and yelling "À bas Duclerc!" and the groans and hisses and abuse were like the worst efforts of a mob. Of course the stones did not hurt the woman, but the insult of being stoned did. They put an end to her misery at last by ringing down the curtain, and they said at the stage door afterwards that she had been taken home in a fit.
When I saw her a few months later at Pastor's, I was thankful that, as a people, our self-respect is not so easily hurt as to make us revenge a slight upon it by throwing stones at a woman. Of course a Frenchman might say that it is not fair to judge the Parisians by the audience of a music-hall, but there were several ladies of title and gentlemen of both worlds in the audience, who a few months later assailed Jane Harding when she appeared as Phryne in the Opéra Comique with exactly the same violence and for as little cause. These outbursts are only temporary aberrations, however; as one of the attendants of the Ambassadeurs' said, "To-morrow they will applaud her the more to make up for it," which they probably did. It is in the same spirit that they change the names of streets, and pull down columns only to rebuild them again, until it would seem a wise plan for them, as one Englishman suggested, to put the Column of Vendôme on a hinge, so that it could be raised and lowered with less trouble.
Of the public gardens and dance-halls there are a great number, and the men who have visited Paris do not have to be told much concerning them, and the women obtain a sufficiently correct idea of what they are like from the photographs along the Rue de Rivoli to prevent their wishing to learn more. What these gardens were in the days of the Second Empire, when the Jardin Mabille and the Bal Bullier were celebrated through books and illustrations, and by word of mouth by every English and American traveller who had visited them, it is now difficult to say. It may be that they were the scenes of mad abandon and fascinating frenzy, of which the last generation wrote with mock horror and with suggestive smiles, and of which its members now speak with a sigh of regret. But we are always ready to doubt whether that which has passed away, and which in consequence we cannot see, was as remarkable as it is made to appear. We depreciate it in order to console ourselves. And if the Mabille and the Bullier were no more wickedly attractive in those days than is the Moulin Rouge which has taken their place under the Republic, we cannot but feel that the men of the last generation visited Paris when they were very young. Perhaps it is true that Paris was more careless and happy then. It can easily be argued so, for there was more money spent under the Empire, and more money given away in fêtes and in spectacles and in public pleasures, and the Parisian in those days had no responsibility. Now that he has a voice and a vote, and is the equal of his President, he devotes himself to those things which did not concern him at all in the earlier times. Then the Emperor and his ministers felt the responsibility, and asked of him only that he should enjoy himself.
SOME YOUNG PEOPLE OF MONTMARTRE