s to descend, he will find the
stairway blocked by the recumbent forms of late arrivals for whom no
space has been left in this wretched dormitory. At two o'clock in the
morning the establishment closes, and all the sleepers are aroused and
turned out into the street. For this transient hospitality each of them
pays two sous.

Curiously enough, the building seen at the left of the Chateau Rouge,
with its balustraded stairway under the arch and its arched windows
filled with innumerable little panes, was the residence of Gabrielle
d'Estrees, the _belle amie_ of Henri IV. It may still be seen, but the
railing of the stairway at the present day is a simple iron one.

The Place Maubert, now forming part of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and
ornamented by a statue of Etienne Dolet, was at the period shown in our
illustration, in 1889, a rendezvous for the professionals of that
peculiar street industry who are known as _ramasseux de megots_,--those
highly unpleasant individuals who slouch about the cafes on the
boulevards and pick up the butts of cigars and cigarettes. They claim to
be several thousand in number, and they have definite hours for the
exercise of their profession, hours in which their harvest is the
greatest and just before the street-sweepers come along, at two o'clock
in the morning, when the establishments close, at noon, and at nine
o'clock in the evening. An industrious man, who has pretty good
eyesight, may pick up a hundred to a hundred and fifty grammes of
tobacco on each round. A good day's work will bring in as much as fifty
sous; a rainy day, not more than twelve or fifteen. The best localities,
which it is, of course, very important to know, are the surroundings of
the Halle aux bles, the Bourse, the Louvre, the cafes on the boulevards,
and in summer the public gardens and the crowds around the military
bands. This tobacco which is thus saved from the street sweepings is--it
is painful to relate--dried, assorted, made over again, and sold to
other smokers. When one reflects on the quality of ordinary French
tobacco at its best, this consideration tends to add another ease to
death. And yet an ingenious chronicler, who extracted these details from
a professional, declares that upon examining, with his eyes and his
nose, a package of the best of this resuscitated weed, a package of
"_theatre_," these faithful organs gave him no reason to suspect its
origin. The _theatre_ is made from _londres_ exclusive