he period dealt with by the author
in this work is that of 1857-60, when the new Halles Centrales were
yet young, and indeed not altogether complete. Still, although many old
landmarks have long since been swept away, the picture of life in all
essential particulars remained the same. Prior to 1860 the limits of
Paris were the so-called _boulevards exterieurs_, from which a girdle of
suburbs, such as Montmartre, Belleville, Passy, and Montrouge, extended
to the fortifications; and the population of the city was then only
1,400,000 souls. Some of the figures which will be found scattered
through M. Zola's work must therefore be taken as applying entirely to
the past.

Nowadays the amount of business transacted at the Halles has very
largely increased, in spite of the multiplication of district markets.
Paris seems to have an insatiable appetite, though, on the other hand,
its cuisine is fast becoming all simplicity. To my thinking, few more
remarkable changes have come over the Parisians of recent years than
this change of diet. One by one great restaurants, formerly renowned for
particular dishes and special wines, have been compelled through lack
of custom to close their doors; and this has not been caused so much by
inability to defray the cost of high feeding as by inability to indulge
in it with impunity in a physical sense. In fact, Paris has become a
city of impaired digestions, which nowadays seek the simplicity without
the heaviness of the old English cuisine; and, should things continue
in their present course, I fancy that Parisians anxious for high feeding
will ultimately have to cross over to our side of the Channel.

These remarks, I trust, will not be considered out of place in an
introduction to a work which to no small extent treats of the appetite
of Paris. The reader will find that the characters portrayed by M. Zola
are all types of humble life, but I fail to see that their circumstances
should render them any the less interesting. A faithful portrait of a
shopkeeper, a workman, or a workgirl is artistically of far more value
than all the imaginary sketches of impossible dukes and good and wicked
baronets in which so many English novels abound. Several of M.
Zola's personages seem to me extremely lifelike--Gavard, indeed, is a
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of portraiture: I have known many men like him; and no
one who lived in Paris under the Empire can deny the accuracy with
which the author has delineated his he