full-grown patriotism—a love of the whole country, democratic and republican. The finished American colonist has acquired a thorough knowledge of the side streets-he is the discoverer of the oddest out-of-the-way places for dishes, or queer prints, or books, or odds and ends. You see in time what underlies the French varnish of Paris life-that French varnish which foreign eyes so frequently see and nothing else. You have glimpses of the true life in France and learn what it is that has made this people, with all their faults and misadventures, the richest and thriftiest in the world. This edge of colonial life is full of interest; but has it no drawback? I have spoken of what is called the European habit, and of the advantage that one finds in foreign travel when he has it upon him. “Ah, my friend," said a wise man that I know, who has lived many years here, to one who spoke with him in a hopeful bright way about coming to live in Paris and making it a home, "Ah, my friend, don't; you will never have any true home elsewhere should this Paris fever come upon you. It will not come at first. Madame your wife will see many things to annoy her. If she is religious and has our Puritan notions, as most women have, whether Catholic or Protestant, she will not understand the theaters being open on Sunday and races at Longchamps on the same day. Then there are social and personal freedoms permitted to men and women which fall rudely upon eyes that have always looked at such things behind a veil. This never-ending panorama of life and brightness and activity— these boulevards, the passage Choiseul, the Palais Royal, the Champs Elysées-where do you find a counterpart? If you are poor you can dine at Duval's for two francs; if you are rich you can pay a hundred at Bignon's. You can live in the Rue du Bac at fifty francs a month, or in the Avenue Gabriel at a thousand, and you will neither lose nor gain in respectability. You select your café. You give John a few sous now and then, and the café is your home. So in time the habit grows upon you. Life is so smooth! The Government being of the paternal kind, does so many things for you that you lapse into easy ways. Then the people are so pleasant. But this is not

THE DISSATISFIED COLONIST
COLO

161

surprising. A Frenchman is always pleasant, but it is only courtesy. You know him twenty years, and he is as agreeable in the end as in the beginning-no more! It never is home. You like the city, you grow attached to certain ways and places. You form a sincere regard for your concierge; but it is not home. You never take root. But what are you going to do? You cannot go home. Who are you going to see? Then you have your European ways, which are not the ways of America. You want your coffee so, and so it

never comes, and life begins
to fret you.
One home has

gone, and you have not gained another. This ever running, rippling stream of life, manytinted as the rainbow and as full of joy as a summer wind, this is not home! Then think of dying here, and of being buried in a hearse with plumes and coachmen with mourning garments-garments that have mourned over three generations, and will mourn over three more, perhaps. No, my friend, do not let this European habit come upon you, or you will one day be, in a dreary sense, a man without a country and a home."

THE DISGUSTED AMERICAN.

These are the words of a colonist who knows France wella satisfied colonist, no matter what his griefs may be, one who loves Paris well. But we come to the dissatisfied colonistthe American who sees in New York the consummate fullness of all civilization. He cannot leave Paris. He must educate his children or attend to certain business, or what not. He is always angry with the French people. He reads the American newspapers with hungry eagerness, and is in a state of constant excitement over events in New York. You meet him on the boulevard, and he flashes into speculations upon

home news, and surprises you with his averments that the jury will never agree to convict that negro of arson down in Arundel County. His French is not of an illuminative, descriptive quality, and he supplements it by swearing at the coachmen, who take his speeches for compliments, and smile in answer. He has had a quarrel with his concierge, with his bootmaker, with a florist. It was a question of ten francs with the latter, and it was taken before one justice of the peace and another, and after paying

five hundred francs in costs, he won his case. "Ah," he said to the writer, "you can never trust the French. Bismarck should have exterminated them. They are all cowards, all hypocrites-all-worse than that. I have lived here five years, and I tell you I never saw a Frenchman who would not steal. They are monkeys and barbers. I was at a French party the other night, and it shows just what they are. None of your square-up-and-down parties-champagne and cards in the back room, and boned turkey and terrapin, like civilized peoplebut ices and meringues and thin little cakes and liquors; and

THE COLONIST WITH A MARQUIS.

163 you rush out into the corridor and smoke a cigarette and hurry back, and then a young chap with a stubby mustache stands up and reads an original poem, and you cannot understand what he says except that it is about France and Germany, and Alsace and Lorraine; and it ends Revenge! Revenge!' and they all shout and cry, and the men rush up and kiss him on both cheeks—yes, on both cheeks, the fools. If I had my way— but let me tell you about a bill I got last month, and a charge for candles."

But is there any society abroad for the colony? Oh, yes; very charming circles-French, English, and American. The colonist who can speak French, to begin with, is an object of envy and reproach to those who cannot. I discover also that it is a great card to know a nobleman. I have heard of one family who entertain largely, especially floating Americans in summer, who, it is said, keep a marquis. This nobleman was in distress, and had a dismal home down in Montmartre. But an enterprising American found him out, and during the summer when he gives a dinner, the marquis, with a red ribbon in his lappel, is present and presented. This gives dignity to the dinner, and has a majestic effect upon the American guests. Before he arrives it adds to the zest of the conversation to discuss whether the marquis will come, whether his engagements will allow him to come, whether the rumor is true that he was suddenly summoned to the Count de Chambord. After he goes (which is early, his highness not finding the average American conversation stimulating) comes the discussion of the marquis and his pedigree-Montmorency at least-grandfather guillotined by Robespierre. The circumstance of the marquis being actually under contract to wine and dine at so much a day,. for the benefit of free and independent American travelers, I do not guarantee. It came to me as gossip from a satirical, slighted colonist, who had not been asked to meet the marquis ;: and who, not being much in the society of French noblemen, has the conviction that they are very poor and know nothing. except to play on the violin and lie in wait for the daughters of wealthy American gentlemen, who, having garnered in their

millions in the development of our petroleum industry, or in furnishing supplies to our brave boys in the field, crave a coronet for their family, if even only a French one.

But hold! for now I come upon enchanted ground, and before me stretches a vista that would lead far beyond the patience of the most industrious reader. When I begin to speak of counts, I fear lest, in telling tales that have been told to me, words would fall wounding where I have no right to wound. So long as Americans are vain of title and rank and have marriageable daughters, so long as our petroleum and bonanza dowagers see in a coronet a glory exceeding the glory of the sun, or the moon, or an army with banners, and to be prized even above true, genuine American manhood, so long will our maidens dear be bought and sold in a strange sad way.

It was in this colony that General Grant lived for a month or so until the winter days came, and early in December he left for the South of France. The American Government had placed at his disposal the man-of-war "Vandalia," which was cruising in the Mediterranean, and she had arrived at Villefranche to await the General. On the 13th of December, 1877, at five in the afternoon, General Grant, his wife, his son Jesse R. Grant, and the writer of this narrative embarked on the “Vandalia,” amid cheers from the other American ships in the harbor, and kind wishes from the many friends who came to see us off. We at once steamed out to sea toward Italy, Egypt, and the Holy Land.