Afterwards the proceedings became almost immodest.
So I do not recommend the Moulin Rouge, though I fear that this failure on my part will not detract from the rush of strangers who are visiting in Paris and who might go to the Y. M. C. A. But I will say in passing that it is no place for a man unless his wife is with him, and it is somewhat distracting even then.
Returning to the boulevard. It changes its name to the Poissoniere, and on this part is the office of the Matin, the great newspaper, which has 750,000 circulation, prints only six pages, and pretends not to care for advertising. The Matin differs from most Parisian newspapers in really printing news. The general run of papers here are purely political, and put their editorials on the front page. They are very abusive, and the editor has to fight frequent duels. The fighting is done with pistols at a safe distance, and after an exchange of shots with nobody hurt, the principals rush together and clinch, but it is to kiss each other on both cheeks and rejoice that Honor has been Satisfied. I wouldn’t mind the dueling, but I positively would not kiss these Frenchmen, and so far as I can learn the society editresses do not duel.
The Matin is the paper that cleared Dreyfus after his trial and conviction a few years ago. The story is interesting. Dreyfus was made the victim of a conspiracy, and a document showing details of the French army was attributed to him as a German spy. Everybody remembers the trial and the fuss at the time. It became a contest between the Honor of the French Army and Dreyfus. The Matin took little part, but, like most of the French, sided with the army. One evening at a dinner an officer of the court exhibited the original of the document which Dreyfus had been convicted of writing. Mr. Bueno-Varilla, editor of the Matin, was present, and as the paper was passed around he looked at it carelessly. That night when he reached home he remembered that a few years before this same Dreyfus had written him a letter about some engineering, and he dug up the letter. The handwriting was not at all what he had seen that evening. He rushed to the telephone and got the official who had shown the document, who promised to bring it to him in the morning. They compared the spy information and the Dreyfus letter which Bueno-Varilla had, and they were utterly unlike. Next day the Matin printed a photograph copy of the document, and appealed to anyone who knew the handwriting to advise the Matin. In a day or two a gentleman wrote and said it was the writing of a drunken bankrupt army officer, named Esterhazey, inclosing letters from the latter which proved it. Dreyfus was brought back from prison and pardoned, Esterhazey skipped the country, and the honor of the French army was flyspecked. All of this because Bueno-Varilla happened to keep an old letter, and because he owned the Matin.
The boulevard next becomes the Bonne-Nouvelle, and then St. Denis and then St. Martin, and has several other names before it reaches its end in the Place de la Bastille.
This place is even more important in French history than Independence Hall in ours. The 14th of July is celebrated every year, just as we do the 4th of July as Independence Day, because on that date in 1789 the Bastille prison was destroyed by an uprising of the people which became the French Revolution. The Bastille was especially odious because political prisoners were confined there, and it only took an order from the police to send a man or woman to its dungeons. Its use for this purpose was so flagrant and so despotic that the first fury of the revolution was directed against its walls, and it was entirely destroyed, and the jailers and soldiers defending it were killed. The place is now a large square surrounded by business houses and ornamented by a statue of Liberty on a column 150 feet high. From the beginning to the end of this great boulevard with the many names, are places made historic by great men and hard fights. Now it is a peaceful, broad avenue, with shops and cafés and handsome buildings, the promenade-ground for the Parisian and of tourists from all countries.