Bohemian Paris of To-day / Second Edition

by W. C. Morrow; Edward Cucuel

It was two o'clock, and the cafés were closing, under the municipal regulation to do so at that hour, and the Boul' was swarming with revellers turned out of doors.

At the corner of the Rue Racine stands a small boulangerie, where some of the revellers were beating on the iron shutters and crying, "Voilà du bon fromage au lait!" impatient at the tardiness of the fat baker in opening his shop; for the odor of hot rolls and croissants came up through the iron gratings of the kitchen, and the big cans of fresh milk at the door gave further comforting assurances.

Lumbering slowly down the Boul' were ponderous carts piled high with vegetables, on their way to the great markets of Paris, the Halles Centrales. The drivers, half asleep on the top, were greeted with demands for transportation, and a lively bidding for passengers arose among them. They charged five sous a head, or as much more as they could get, and soon the carts were carrying as many passengers as could find a safe perch on the heaped vegetables.

"Aux Halles! aux Halles! nous allons aux Halles! Oh, la, la, comme ils sont bons, les choux et les potirons!" were the cries as the carts lumbered on toward the markets.

Mr. Pugson had positively refused to accept our resignation, and stoutly reminded us of our promise to see him through. So our party arranged with a masculine woman in a man's coat on payment of a franc a head, and we clambered upon her neatly piled load of carrots. Mr. Pugson, becoming impatient at the slow progress of the big Normandy horses, began to pelt them with carrots. The market-woman protested vigorously at this waste of her property, and told Mr. Pugson that she would charge him two sous apiece for each subsequent carrot. He seized upon the bargain with true American readiness, and then flung carrots to his heart's content, the driver meanwhile keeping count in a loud and menacing voice. It was a new source of fun for the irrepressible and endlessly jovial American.

Along the now quiet boulevard the carts trundled in a string. All at once there burst from them all an eruption of song and laughter, which brought out numerous gendarmes from the shadows. But when they saw the crowd they said nothing but "Les étudiants," and retreated to the shadows.

As we were crossing the Pont-au-Change, opposite the Place du Châtelet, with its graceful column touched by the shimmering lights of the Seine, and dominated by the towers of Notre-Dame, Mr. Pugson, in trying to hurl two carrots at once, incautiously released his hold upon the Dancing- Girl, which incontinently rolled off the vegetables and was shattered into a thousand fragments on the pavement of the bridge—along with Mr. Pugson's heart. After a moment of silent misery he started to throw the whole load of carrots into the river, but he quickly regained command of himself. For the first time, however, his wonderful spirits were dampened, and he was as moody and cross as a child, refusing to be comforted even by Madeleine's cooing voice.

The number of carts that we now encountered converging from many quarters warned us that we were very near the markets. Then rose the subdued noise that night-workers make. There seemed to be no end of the laden carts. The great Halles then came into view, with their cold glare of electric lights, and thousands of people moving about with baskets upon their backs, unloading the vegetable carts and piling the contents along the streets. The thoroughfares were literally walled and fortressed with carrots, cabbages, pumpkins, and the like, piled in neat rows as high as our heads for square after square. Is it possible for Paris to consume all of this in a day?

Every few yards were fat women seated before steaming cans of hot potage and café noir, with rows of generous white bowls, which they would fill for a sou.

Not alone were the market workers here, for it seemed as though the Boul' Mich' had merely taken an adjournment after the law had closed its portals and turned it out of doors. The workers were silent and busy, but largely interspersed among them were the demi-mondaines and the singing and dancing students of the Quartier, all as full of life and deviltry as ever. It was with these tireless revellers that the soup- and coffee-women did their most thriving business, for fun brings a good appetite, and the soup and coffee were good; but better still was this unconventional, lawless, defiant way of taking them. Mr. Pugson's spirits regained their vivacity under the spell, and he was so enthusiastic that he wanted to buy out one of the pleasant-faced fat women; we had to drag him bodily away to avert the catastrophe.