out at the Tuileries, sweeping so majestically before them and mocking their fate with the irony of its grandeur. You may return and cross the boulevard and walk a little way toward Montmartre, and see the house where Napoleon lived when he returned from Egypt. It is on the Rue de la Victoire. When he went to live there with Josephine it was called Rue Chautereine, but in his honor it was named the Street of Victory, and is so named until this day; and you may see his home, where was planned the Eighteenth of Brumaire, with its open

court-yard, which has a general appearance of dinginess and looks like the court-yard of a livery stable. While in this vicinity you may see where Mirabeau lived and died, and in the room underneath you may now suit yourself with hats and caps; or you may continue your inquiries and discover the house where John Paul Marat, "the friend of the people," was taking his bath one day when Charlotte Corday stabbed him.

Two institutions around which our colony centers harmoniously are the circus and the Bon Marché. Saturday is the evening given to fashion; and upon every Saturday evening you will find the high benches and uncomfortable seats crammed

with the American colony. Here all distinctions are lost. Here the lords of the Washington Club and the commoners of the Congress, in the Grand Hotel, assemble in strength. Next to

the circus, as an institution, is "Au Bon Marché." If there are fond husbands who, having visited Paris, read these words, I know what memories they recall. O fellow countrymen, who love and honor and have vowed to protect and cherish, when you come to Paris avoid "Au Bon Marché"! Who

enters here with a full purse, and wife and daughter in train, must leave all hope behind, at least while the money holds out. "Au Bon Marché" is a magazine for the sale of everything that woman can crave. When you compass what is meant by this definition, you will know its dangers and temptations. I mention it as one of a class-a vast class. You run against stores of this character all over Paris. They are named like the cafés and the taverns, but with a wider sweep of fancy. "The Scottish Mountains," "The Carnival of Venice," "The Spring," "The Great House of Peace," "The Good Devil,"

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"The Infant Jesus," "Old England," "A Thousand and One Nights." These are some of the names given to the dry-goods stores, or rather shops, containing all that woman can need or crave, and where Americans are expected to come and squander their fortunes.

Our countryman when he comes to Europe not as a colonist, but as a sojourner, finds a fascination in Paris. He plans his continental trip, and you bid him farewell at the railway station,

and see him disappear with hat-box, cane, shawl, umbrella, soft felt hat, and guide books, and say again "Good-by," as though In a week or two you you would not see him for a season.

run against him on the boulevards, most probably wearing a new style of hat, and learn that he has "done" the Continent, and means to have another "go" at Paris.

During the midsummer months the self-constituted Congress in the Grand Hotel is well attended, and the home-sick American will have his heart gladdened by the sharp cockatoo accent in which he hears the English language spoken, reminding him

so noisily of home.

"THE CONGRESS.”

This Congress is easy of access.

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Social

distinctions are overlooked. I have seen the Congress in full session, attended by a gambler, a doctor of divinity, two or three bankers, a general officer of the army, and one or two fraudulent bankrupts. The members were harmonious and discoursed in company, they drank out of the same wine-bottle, and talked at the top of their voices, and almost quarreled as to who should pay for the wine. But as the summer dies But as the summer dies away the Congress thins out. Some hurry home; others go to the south; and whoever enters the high and stately room toward November will see a painful spectacle. The last American of the season, deserted by his companions, sits over his third bottle of wine, vainly looking for a familiar face, smoking a mammoth cigar, his feet spread over a chair, his eye looking dismally at the carving and the decorations and the equipages that come and go. The familiar faces have fled. There is no one to whom he can express his contempt for the French nation-no one to whom he can impart his information as to what Bismarck ought to have done. He is stranded and alone. On mail days he has his American paper as a comfort, and the eagerness with which he reads that journal would delight its editors. Down to the last, the very last items, marriages and deaths and ship news and advertisements, beginning with the personal column, he ruminates and reads again and again, until nature summons him to his champagne.

If we asked this belated American what he thought of Frenchmen, he would state his opinion that they were vastly overrated in the accomplishments which all the world assigns to them. No Frenchman, strange to say, can cook. He may make a little salad, or some inefficient sauce, but for a "square meal" give our American friend a good old-fashioned Virginia negro grandmamma, who understands hoe-cake. There are no oysters in France, and the few that may be had for their weight in hard money are a poor consolation for the body accustomed to saddle-rocks and blue-points. Our friend will confound you on this cookery question by showing that there is not an oyster stew in all this great city. There is champagne, to be

sure, so dear to the heart of the American abroad as well as at home; but champagne, according to his theory, is made by Germans and German capital. Cheese is a grievance to him. How any human being can eat French cheese, and why every French waiter will insist upon offering our compatriot cheese at various stations of the meal, is something he cannot understand, unless there be some hidden insult to all the world in the composition of the cheese-a circumstance he is disposed to believe.

This same countryman believes that, as a general thing, French ladies are in the habit of dancing at the Jardin Mabille. Have I described Mabille? I am half afraid of that shrine. Well, Mabille is a garden just off the Champs Elysées, where you pay a moderately large fee for entrance. There are one or two small fountains, wooded walks, a shooting gallery, little alcoves, where you may sip coffee or what not, and a profusion of colored lanterns blaze everywhere, on painted canvas, that looks like endless forests, and innumerable mirrors flash the light to and fro. In the center is a band of musicians and a