ys
put the _pot-au-feu_, as they call it, which means that they make soup,
or literally translated, that they put the pot on the fire. Henry IV
declared that he should not feel satisfied until he had so ameliorated
the condition of the poor, that every peasant should be able to have a
fowl in his pot every Sunday; had he not suddenly been cut off by
assassination, he might have lived to have seen his benevolent wish
accomplished. Many of the wives of the working people contrive to muster
some soup for their husbands when they get home at night, and almost all
manage to have a little wine in the course of the day. On the Sunday in
the summer time they contrive to have a degree of pleasure, and go to
one of the houses round Paris called _guinguettes_, something in the
nature of the tea-gardens about London, but in Paris and most parts of
France the husband takes his wife and even his children with him if they
are old enough; indeed, you generally see the whole train together. At
these houses they mostly take beer which is not very strong, but they
make it less so by mixing it with water, as they do almost every
beverage; sometimes they have wine, lemonade, or currant juice, which is
called _groseille_, and that from the black currant _cassis_; there they
will sit looking at the dances, in which they sometimes join, and return
home about ten o'clock. This is pretty much the routine of a _regularly
conducted_ working-man in Paris, and it must be admitted that they form
by far the greater number, particularly those who are married.

Amongst the middle-classes, both husband and wife keep very steadily to
business, particularly the latter, and as they live frugally, they
generally calculate upon retiring from business in ten or twelve years,
and mostly effect their object, as they are perfectly contented when
they have amassed enough capital to produce three or four hundred a
year, which is the case with the major part of them; many are not
satisfied until four or five times that sum; but they are seldom
ambitious, nor care to get out of their class, as the persons with whom
they associate and are intimate, are mostly relations and connexions to
whom they are attached, and do not seem to fancy any pleasure in
extending their acquaintances. But before they retire from business they
have their occasional recreations; in fine weather they are very fond
of spending their Sundays in the country; in the winter they frequently
visit