F. Berkeley Smith

“ A year ago the veteran chef of a celebrated Parisian restaurant resigned his position. Prices had been affixed to the menu. With this deplorable change the famous maison had sunk below the dignity of this august personage. To attach to so noble a creation as a “filet d’ours à la François-Joseph” a fixed price as one would to a pound of butter, made his further connection with the house an impossibility. “Parbleu!” he cried, “Had Paris become a gargotte for the grand monde that he should have lived to see this?” ”

“ Her eyes shine, her cheeks burn, the champagne and the lights seem to madden her, a madness of sheer ecstasy. Life for the moment is en rose. She feels herself a queen, defiant, seductive, dangerously beautiful. Four dancers from the Casino de Paris arrive amid screams and applause. Claudine is dancing on a table; an instant later she is being carried on the shoulders of a howling mob around the room. The music is drowned in the cries of “bis, bis!” One see through the whirl and glitter and smoke, flashing gems, the shimmer of silk hose, and the glint of bare arms. ”

“ Upon the topmost pinnacle of this apotheosis of color stands a woman, nude, her hair glittering in jewels.
In the royal box before which the cortège has passed rests the hero for whom the fête has been given. He is still in his spotless leggings. He accepts the homage of the conquered city condescendingly. With him it is a nightly matter of fact. The fair Zuléma is by his side. Her maid has had time to don a Paris hat, but Zuléma clings to her tea-gown and gazes in adoration at the hero. A delicious waltz swells up from the orchestra. ”

“ If you wish to buy your tickets in advance for the evening performance at the Alcazar d’Été, the open-air café concert of the Champs-Élysées, you go there some afternoon, and are ushered by a waiter through a narrow corridor of the adjoining restaurant, past little rooms, shining in copper pots and pans, and pungent with steaming sauces, through a pair of swinging doors well worn by hurrying waiters, and into a square room piled high with snow-white linen, pyramids of lump sugar, and rows of glittering silver. ”

“ A rustic stairway leads to a rambling gallery above.
The whole resembles the interior of some quaint, half-timbered tavern filled with artistic productions of men of genius. The interior of the Quat-Z’Arts was not made to order; it grew, and it walls are hung with souvenirs gathered from its clientèle of comrades whose work as sculptors and draftsmen is known the world over.
The singers whose songs and satires have made the Quat-Z’Arts famous are men of rare genius and fine intellect, and by no means the idle bohemians you might expect to find. ”

“ It is a boulevard of the people, a rendezvous for the thrifty and the hard-working, the thoroughfare of the outcast and the unfortunate. It is sordid, but it is intensely human. It is this distinct character of Parisian thoroughfares, each one differing from its neighbor, which makes the highways and byways of the city so interesting to those who delight in walking abroad with their eyes open.
There is not a street one turns down but which is unique in itself. ”

“ Should the small boy grow up to be a connoisseur in much that glitters in life besides golden chariots, and yet manage to keep young enough to preserve a kindly feeling toward the lady of perennial youth upon the white horse, should boyish love of the picturesque still abide in him, he will find within the gates of Paris a city after his own heart, a place where gaiety never ceases, where the finesse of amusement has been brought almost to a state of perfection. ”

“ Like a live coal in the ashes it burst into gentle flame when breathed on by approbation. Soon the flicker became a blaze of glory; the names of those who had left their distasteful situations in the commercial world were heralded with praise by thousands.
These bards of the Butte thenceforth consecrated the remainder of their lives to the Muses. Nightly they sang to the listening throng. All of intellectual Paris came to applaud them, and their stuffy little cabaret of the Chat Noir was jammed nightly to the doors. ”

“ The Concert des Ambassadeurs with its revue and variety adjoins the Alcazar. One can dine leisurely on the balconies of either of the two restaurants adjoining these cafés, and watch the performance during dinner.
Near by is the Jardin de Paris enclosed by lattice and hedge, and ablaze at night with festoons of colored lights and crimson lanterns. Within, the crowd pours round the promenade thronged with demi-mondaines, in décolleté gowns flashing in jet, in picture hats flaming in scarlet, their white hands glittering to the knuckles in showy rings. ”

“ Here at the apéritif hour the crowd comes en bicyclette and automobile, and at night the hurrying waiters serve parties dining cozily in the glow of shaded candles. The Chalet du Cycle is a charming place in which to breakfast some sunny morning with the Seine gliding close by under the trees.
Another segment of fairy-land, even more exquisite in its mise en scène, is the Café de Madrid. Here a low, rambling, half-timbered house forms a courtyard which is as brilliant at night with the haut monde at dinner. ”

“ If you wish to see every type of Parisian go by in an endless stream of swarming humanity, seat yourself upon any of the terrasses of the grand cafés that line the sides of the grand Boulevards stretching from the Madeleine to the Théâtre du Gymnase. It is of all Paris the most frequented—the broad highway of this vast city into which pour the inhabitants of thousands of connecting byways. ”

“ At her home I found Mademoiselle Dulac a very gracious and charming woman, unspoiled by the applause that nightly rings in her little ears.
It took the genius of Capiello to caricature Odette Dulac and to give in a few clever lines all of this amusing artiste’s personality. When Dulac laughs, her eyes close like tiny half-moons through which the pupils sparkle—very small windows to a big merry soul.
There are some women who never seem to grow old and to whom youth seems ever constant. To be merry yourself and to make others merry is surely one secret of keeping young. ”

“ CIRCUSES AND FÊTES FORAINES
Fifteen years ago all of idle Paris applauded “La Goulue,” a can-can danseuse whose beauty and abandon made her notorious. In every sense of the term “La Goulue” was of the kind of quadrille dancers which were to be found at the old Mabille when it was at the height of its blaze and glory.
She had jewels in those days, and lingerie of Valenciennes lace. She was the incarnation of all that was reckless and extravagant. ”

“ This quaint town upon the bank of the Seine would be a drowsy little hamlet indeed were it not so close to Paris that its cobbled streets are filled on Sundays and holidays with tuff-tuffs and formidable red racers, which rattle and roar in their endeavor to stand still long enough to deposit their dust-begrimed occupants at the door of Monsieur Dalaison’s inn, the Esturgeon. ”

“ At the private view her residence is crowded with the curious of the grand monde. These women of the most exclusive society cross her threshold and block her stairway and pry into every open corner of her domicile—women who would have been shocked to find themselves in front of her doorstep at any other time. So much for the moral hypocrisy of the virtuous.
And while the stairways at this private view are thronged with the fashionable world, Mimi and her most intimate friends are laughing over champagne and biscuits in the kitchen, the only room that has not been turned over to the public. ”

“ There is no more fishing. Yvette and Jacques go for a walk; the danseuse and the villain start in their tuff-tuff back to Paris; the old gentleman with the scarlet tie takes a nap; Suzanne and Gaston row down the river, and the officer returns to his barracks. Only when the moon floods the garden with its light do the lovers return. In the garden the roses pale in the glow of candles from the windows of the villa, nodding their heads sleepily in the night breeze. ”

“ Trumpets blaze from the ramparts of the city, a red fire burns in the wings, and down comes the curtain.
Such is the Châtelet.
As a spectacle it is as perfect as the best choreographic brains can make it.
Half an hour later, in a nearby café, I came across the hero and Zuléma slaking a tropical thirst with two tall steins of beer. The beautiful princess carried her stage shoes with her, wrapped in a newspaper. Presently I caught sight of the faithful maid hurrying to a cabinet particulier upstairs with a gentleman in a silk hat and a fur-lined overcoat. ”

“ It is a paradise of things that squeak and wind up; rattling railroad trains which swing around tin curves and under painted tunnels with a rapidity sufficient to suffocate the helpless toy passengers within; toys for poor little good children and rich little spoiled ones, dolls whose deportment is faultless and whose vocabulary is limited to “papa” and “maman” and those who can not say a word, but whose clothes, from the tiny hat to their walking-boots, with an accompanying trousseau containing a summer and winter automobile coat, goggles and all, might have been fashioned by a Worth. ”

“ For a few sous these small steamers will take you to St. Cloud or beyond, past feathery green islands, past small rural cafés perched upon grassy banks where all day long old gentlemen wearing white socks and Panama hats wait patiently for a stray nibble.
This bright morning in Paris the boulevards are crowded with a passing throng which is gazed at for hours by those who fill the terraces of the cafés to linger over a morning apéritif. At one café a party of commerçants are transacting business. ”

“ Horses never climb the rue Tholozé, and pedestrians going up to the ball pause at the landing stages for breath. Those living along this mountain highway must needs step out of their residences with their sea legs on, for the declivity which slopes past their doorways resembles somewhat the angle of a promenade deck in a gale. The hill begins to ascend in earnest after you pass the dingy little bohemian restaurant of the Vache Enragée on the rue Lepic, an intime rendezvous of bohemians of the Butte. ”

“ Besides these there are a few dominoed ladies in the boxes who may once have graced the ball in the old days, and now and then a pretty woman in black silk tights passes through the foyer, and is ogled by the remnant of the aged roués who stroll about comparing the present with the glitter and beauty of the Opéra ball when it was one of the sights of the world, frequented by the most celebrated and beautiful of women. All this has gone; the crowd is motley, noisy and common. The leading feature at the Opéra ball this year was the cake-walk, over which all Paris has suddenly gone mad. ”

“ Everywhere about you there are flowers—banks of geraniums and fragrant roses. When you have dined, you can turn your armchair and watch the beauty about you and the victorias coming and going.
It is characteristic for Parisians to sit for hours over dinner. The Café de Madrid at night resembles closely a garden party given at the château of some private estate. It is the absence of the feeling of publicity that makes it so charming. ”

“ Near them, four Arabs, swathed in spotless burnooses, their bare feet encased in sandals, sip in silence their steaming petites tasses of café Maure. Omnibuses lumber by. The air is vibrant with strident cries and the cracking of whips. An automobile passes, sputtering and growling through the mêlée of the broad boulevard, taking advantage of every chance space as it threads its way out to the green country beyond with its begoggled occupants to déjeuner at Poissy or perchance to dash farther on at a devilish pace to the sea and Trouville. ”

“ If her jealous mate growls in his cups during their dinner in some favorite café, it is she who averts the row, pacifies the offended gentleman at the next table, quiets her amant with a kiss, calls for the bill, sees that it is just, and continues by her alert brain and her intuition to please her quarrelsome lover by distracting his pugilistic mind towards a more peaceful mood. ”

“ In no city in the world are there so many and so varied places to dine as in Paris. One can hardly look right or left from any corner of any street and not find restaurants, from little boîtes, where a plat du jour and a bottle of wine are to be had for a few sous, to those whose cuisine and rare vintages are adapted only to the well-filled purse of an epicure. ”

“ But the bell is ringing for the curtain. The spectacular revue following the excellent variety is quite different from the revues of the other café concerts; at the Marigny they are poems of color—costumes which are the creation of artists. Nowhere is scenic art brought to a higher perfection than at the Marigny.
One sees a ballet in tones of violet and gray that is as delicate as an orchid. ”

“ There are whole forts full of Germans ready to be blown to smithereens by the gallant advancing force of Les Français, and formidable cannons mounted on sanded ramparts with pill boxes containing enough ammunition for the most glorious of victories, to say nothing of the gorgeous pièce de résistance, the satin pantalooned balanceur with violet eyes that close like an owl’s, who accomplishes the most difficult gymnastics by little fits and starts to the accompaniment in liquid tones of a music-box tearing through the overture of William Tell in waltz time. ”