traditions; and even the little children who make it their playground on account of the absence of both vehicles and equestrians, pursue their sports in a subdued, tranquil way, hanging about the fountain’s edge, and dabbling in the water with their little fingers. Monsieur Panpan’s residence was not difficult to find. We entered by a handsome porte-cochère into a paved court-yard, and, having duly accounted for our presence to the watchful concierge who sat sedulously peering out of a green sentry-box, commenced our ascent to the upper regions. Seeing that Monsieur lived on the fourth floor, and that the steps of the spacious staircase were of that shallow description which disappoint the tread by falling short of its expectations, it was no wonder that we were rather out of breath when we reached the necessary elevation; and that we paused a moment to collect our thoughts, and calm our respiration, before knocking at the little backroom door, which we knew to be that of Monsieur Panpan.
Madame Panpan received us most graciously, setting chairs for us, and apologising for her husband, who, poor man, was sitting up in his bed, with a wan countenance, and hollow glistening eyes. We were in the close heavy air of a sick chamber. The room was very small, and the bedstead occupied a large portion of its space. It was lighted by one little window only, and that looked down a sort of square shaft which served as a ventilator to the house. A pale child, with large wandering eyes, watched us intently from behind the end of the little French bedstead, while the few toys he had been playing with lay scattered upon the floor. The room was very neat, although its furniture was poor and scanty; and by the brown saucepan perched upon the top of the diminutive German stove, which had strayed, as it were, from its chimney corner into the middle of the room, we knew that the pot-au-feu was in preparation. Madame, before whom was a small table covered with the unfinished portions of a corset, was very agreeable—rather coquettish, indeed, we should have said in England. Her eyes were bright and cheerful, and her hair drawn back from her forehead à la Chinoise. In a graceful, but decided way, she apologised for continuing her labours, which were evidently works of necessity rather than of choice.
“And Victor, that good boy,” she exclaimed, when we had further explained the object of our visit, “was quite well! I am charmed! And he had found work, and succeeding so well in his
affairs? I am enchanted! It is so amiable of him to send me this little cadeau!”
Monsieur Panpan, with his strange lustrous eyes, if not enchanted, rubbed his thin bony hands together as he sat up in the bed, and chuckled in an unearthly way at the good news. Having executed our commission, we felt it would be intrusive to prolong our stay, and therefore rose to depart, but received so pressing an invitation to repeat the visit, that, on the part of myself and friend, who was to leave Paris in a few days, I could not refuse to comply with a wish so cordially expressed, and evidently sincere. And thus commenced my acquaintance with the Panpans.
I cannot trace the course of our acquaintance, or tell how, from an occasional call, my visits became those of a bosom friend; but certain it is, that soon each returning Sunday saw me a guest at the table of Monsieur Panpan, where my couvert and serviette became sacred to my use; and, after the meal, were carefully cleaned and laid apart for the next occasion. This, I afterwards learned, was a customary mark of consideration towards an esteemed friend among the poorer class of Parisians. I soon learned their history. Their every-day existence was a simple, easily read story, and not the less simple and touching because it is the every-day story of thousands of poor French families. Madame was a stay-maker; and the whole care and responsibility of providing for the wants and comforts of a sick husband; for her little Victor, her eldest born; and the monthly stipend of her infant Henri, out at nurse some hundred leagues from Paris, hung upon the unaided exertions of her single hands, and the scrupulous and wonderful economy of her management.
One day I found Madame in tears. Panpan himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry hands spread out upon the counterpane. Madame was at first inconsolable and inexplicable, but at length, amid sobs, half suppressed, related the nature of their new misfortune. Would Monsieur believe that those miserable nurse-people, insulting as they were, had sent from the country to say, that unless the three months nursing of little Henri, together with the six pounds of lump sugar, which formed part of the original bargain, were immediately paid, cette pauvre bête (Henri that was), would be instantly dispatched to Paris, and proceedings taken for the recovery of the debt? Ces miserables!
Here poor Madame Panpan could not contain herself, but gave
way to her affliction in a violent outburst of tears. And yet the poor child, the cause of all this sorrow, was almost as great stranger to his mother as he was to me, who had never seen him in my life. With scarcely a week’s existence to boast of, he had been swaddled up in strange clothes; intrusted to strange hands; and hurried away some hundred leagues from the capital, to scramble about the clay floor of an unwholesome cottage, in company perhaps with some half-dozen atomies like himself, as strange to each other as they were to their own parents, to pass those famous mois de nourrice which form so important and momentous a period in the lives of most French people. Madame Panpan was however in no way responsible for this state of things; the system was there, not only recognised, but encouraged; become indeed a part of the social habits of the people, and it was no wonder if her poverty should have driven her to so popular and ready a means of meeting a great difficulty. How she extricated herself from this dilemma, it is not necessary to state; suffice it to say, that a few weeks saw cette petite bête Henri, happily domiciled in the Place Valois; and, if not overburdened with apparel, at least released from the terrible debt of six and thirty francs, and six pounds of lump-sugar.
It naturally happened, that on the pleasant Sunday afternoons, when we had disposed of our small, but often sumptuous dinner; perhaps a gigot de mouton with a clove of garlic in the knuckle; a fricassée de lapins with onions, or a fricandeau, Panpan himself would tell me part of his history; and in the course of our salad; of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or currant jelly; or perhaps, stimulated by the tiniest glass of brandy, would grow warm in the recital of his early experiences, and the unhappy chance which had brought him into his present condition.