last twenty-five years these rooms had had no other occupants
than the mountebanks, the merchants, the vendors of quack medicines who
came to the fair, or else commercial travellers. During the fair-time
they were let for four francs a day; and brought Socquard about two
hundred and fifty francs, not to speak of the profits on the consumption
of food which the guests took in his cafe.

The front of the house on the square was adorned with painted signs; on
the spaces that separated the windows from the glass door billiard-cues
were represented, lovingly tied together with ribbons, and above these
bows were depicted smoking bowls of punch, the bowls being in the
form of Greek vases. The words "Cafe de la Paix" were over the door,
brilliantly painted in yellow on a green ground, at each end of which
rose pyramids of tricolored billiard-balls. The window-sashes, painted
green, had small panes of the commonest glass.

A dozen arbor-vitae, which ought to be called cafe-trees, stood to the
left and right in pots, and presented their usual pretensions and sickly
appearance. Awnings, with which shopkeepers of the large cities protect
their windows from the head of the sun, were as yet an unknown luxury in
Soulanges. The beneficent liquids in the bottles which stood on boards
just behind the window-panes went through a periodic cooking. When the
sun concentrated its rays through the lenticular knobs in the glass it
boiled the Madeira, the syrups, the liqueurs, the preserved plums,
and the cherry-brandy set out for show; for the heat was so great that
Aglae, her father, and the waiter were forced to sit outside on benches
poorly shaded by the wilted shrubs,--which Mademoiselle kept alive with
water that was almost hot. All three, father, daughter, and servant,
might be seen at certain hours of the day stretched out there, fast
asleep, like domestic animals.

In 1804, the period when "Paul and Virginia" was the rage, the inside
of the cafe was hung with a paper which represented the chief scenes
of that romance. There could be seen Negroes gathering the coffee-crop,
though coffee was seldom seen in the establishment, not twenty cups of
that beverage being served in the month. Colonial products were of so
little account in the consumption of the place that if a stranger had
asked for a cup of chocolate Socquard would have been hard put to it to
serve him. Still, he would have done so with a nauseous brown broth made
from tablets