but one entirely away from every
haunt of foreigners as well as from foreign influences,--a _pension_ as
French as French could be, where we were not merely the only foreigners
present, but the only ones who had ever penetrated there.

It was a large white house, standing in its own grounds, not far from
the Bois de Vincennes, pre-eminently a _pension bourgeoise_, and without
pretensions higher than the widows of shopkeepers and the relicts of
small government employees that formed its support. Not counting
ourselves, there were twenty Relicts and one Maiden, all with handsome
incomes and diamonds, but with the habit of running far and wide upon
the open boulevard in caps, loose sacques, and list slippers, and of
boasting of the cheap bargains they made in stockings and gowns. Their
toilets were always _tout ce qu'il y a de plus bourgeois_, their
conversation ran upon public scandals, private gossip, and fluctuations
of trade (almost all of them had kept shop with their departed
consorts), their reading was Paul de Kock's novels and the _feuilletons_
of "Le Petit Journal." The youngest widow was fifty, the Maiden
ninety-and-nine. The latter was daughter of a man who had been
_concierge_ of the Tuileries during the reign of Charles X. She was
dusky and shrivelled as any daughter of the Pharaohs, but her faculties
were marvellously preserved and her memory rich with interesting
personal gossip of a former period. We Americans should have delighted
to draw upon that memory, but one thing hindered us: that was the
insatiable, indomitable, unparalleled coquetry of our ancient Maiden.
She would never talk with any woman when any man was in the room. She
descended to the stuffy little _salon_ only in the evening, when the
Relicts were gathered to their gambling for sous and the atmosphere was
an imitation of the Black Hole of Calcutta. She descended _en grande
tenue_, the grandest ever seen there, frizzled, jewelled, and muffled
to the throat in fleecy clouds of white wool. She came all quirks and
quivers, all flutters and smiles, for there she met our only
Monsieur,--Monsieur Boulanger, our landlord. She invariably took her
seat beside him, and devoted quirks and quivers exclusively to him,
tapping him with her fan, calling him "_Mechant! mechant!_" "_farceur_,"
or "_quel diable d'homme!_" twittering and carolling in her old broken
voice, like a senile canary dreaming of its far-off youth. M. Boulanger
was of peasant origin