While the streets are still comparatively empty, let us follow the first abroad—the little midinette (shop-girl) and her mother—to mass. They will choose one of the old, unfashionable churches, like St. Roch or La Trinité; though on Sundays they go to the Madeleine to hear the music, and revel in splendid pomp and pageantry. France at heart is agnostic; a nation of fatalists, if anything. But the vivid French imagination is held in thrall by the colour and mystic ritual of the Catholic church: by the most perfect in ceremonial and detail of all religions. When the curtain rises on the full magnificence of gorgeous altar, golden-robed bishop and officiating priests; when, in accompaniment to the sonorous Aves, exquisite music peals forth, and the whole is blended, melted together by the soft light of candles, the subtle haze of incense: into French faces comes that ecstasy with which they greet the perfect in all its manifestations. They are dévotes of beauty in the religious as in every other scene.
But now our midinette and her maman enter a dusky unpretentious old church, where quietly they say their prayers and listen to the monotonous chanting of a single priest, reading matins in a little corner chapel. The two women cross themselves, and go out. In the Place, the younger one stops to spend twopence for a spray of muguet—that delicate flower (the lily-of-the-valley) that is the special property of the midinettes of Paris, and that they love. On their Saint Catherine’s Day (May 1st), no girl is without a little bunch of it as a “porte-bonheur” for her love affairs during the next year.
But the midinette calls, “au ’voir”; and the maman returns, “à ce soir!” And they disappear, the one to her shop, the other to her duties as concierge or storekeeper, and we are left in the Place alone. What about coffee? Let us take it here at the corner brasserie, where the old man with his napkin tucked in his chin is crumbling “crescents” and muttering imprecations at the government—which he attacks through the Matin or Figaro spread upon his knees. A young man, with melancholy black moustaches and orange boots, is the only other client at this early hour. He refuses to eat, though a café complet is before him; and looks at his watch, and sighs. We know what is the matter with him.
Considerate of the lady who is late, we choose a table on the other side—all are outdoors of course, in this Springtime of the year—and devote ourselves to discussing honey and rolls and the season’s styles in hosiery, which young persons strolling towards the boulevard benevolently offer for our inspection. Occasionally they pause, and graciously inquire if we “have need of someone?” And on our replying—with the proper mixture of apology and admiration—that all our wants seem to be attended to, pass on with a shrug of resignation.
Motor-buses are whirring by now, and a maze of fiacres, taxis, delivery-boy’s bicycles, and heavy trucks skid round the slippery corner in dangerous confusion. The traffic laws of Paris are of the vaguest, and policemen are few and far between; all at once, the Place seems unbearably thick and full of noise. We call for our addition, exchange complaisances with the waiter, and depart—just as the young man with the orange boots, with a cry of “enfin!” tucks the hand of a bewitchingly pretty young lady (doubtless a mannequin) within his arm, and starts towards the Rue de la Paix.
The Rue de la Paix at half past nine in the morning does not intrigue us. We prefer to wait for it until the sensational heure des rendez-vous, in the evening. Why not jump into a cab and bowl leisurely out to the Bois? It will be cool there, and quiet during the hour before the fashionable cavaliers come to ride. With a wary eye for a horse of reasonable solidity, we engage a blear-eyed Gaul to tow us to the Porte Dauphine. We like this Gaul above other Gauls, because his anxious flop-eared dog sitting next to him on the box gives every sign of liking him. And though, even before we have turned into the Champs Elysées, there have been three blood-curdling rows between cabby and various colleagues who presumed to occupy a place in the same street; though whips have been brandished and such ferocious epithets as “brother-in-law of a bantam!” “son of a pigeon-toed hen!” have been brandished without mercy by our remorseless Jehu, we take the reassuring word of his dog’s worshipping brown eyes that he is not a bad sort after all.
He cracks us out the Champs Elysées at a smart pace; yet we have time to gloat over the beauties of this loveliest of all avenues: its spacious gardens, its brilliant flower-plots, its quaint little guignols and donkey carriages for children. Vendors of jumping bunnies and squeaking pigs thread in and out the shady trees, showing their fascinating wares; and one does not wonder at the swarm of small people with their bright-ribboned nurses, who flock round to admire—and to buy.
This part of the avenue—from the Concorde to the Rond-Point—is given over to children; and all kinds of amusements, wise and unwise, are prepared for them. But by far the most popular are the guignols: those theatres-in-little, where Punch and Judy go through their harassing adventures, to the accompaniment of “c’est joli, ça!” and “tiens, que c’est chic!”; uttered by enthusiastic small French throats, seconded by applauding small French hands. For in Paris even the babies have their appreciation for the drama that is offered them before they can talk; and show it so spontaneously, yet emphatically, that one is arrested by their vehemence.
But we can take in these things only in passing, for Jehu and the flop-eared dog are carrying us on up the suavely mounting avenue, beyond the haughty portals of fashionable hotels and automobile houses de luxe; round the stately Arc de Triomphe, and into the Avenue du Bois. Here a sprinkling of governesses and their charges, old ladies, and lazy young men are ranged along in the stiff luxury of penny chairs. On a Sunday we might stop and take one ourselves, to watch the parade of toilettes and the lively Parisian jeunesse at its favourite game of “faire le flirt”; but this morning the terrace is half asleep, and above it the houses of American millionaires and famous ladies of the demi-monde turn forbidding closed shutters to our inquiring gaze. Jehu speeds us past them, and we alight at the Porte Dauphine, the principal entrance to the Bois.
Green grass, the glint of a lake, broad, sandy roads and intimate slim allées greet us, once within the gates; while all round and overhead are the slender, grey-green French poplars, fashioned into gracious avenues and seductive pathways, with its gay little restaurant at the end. Of all styles and architecture are these last: Swiss châlets, Chinese pagodas, Japanese tea-houses, and the typical French pavillon; they have one common trait, however—that of serving atrocious food at a fabulous price. Let us abjure them, and wander instead along the quite expansive lake, to the rocks and miniature falls of Les Rochers.