being quite willing to get up
and dance, himself, with some of these slim-waisted, pretty French
maids.

[Illustration: A POCHARD BETWEEN GARDIENS-DE-LA-PAIX.

From a drawing, in colors, by Pierre Vidal.]

As the official fete of 1898 had a new feature added to it, the
celebration of the centennial of Michelet, it naturally took on still
another diversion, that of the election of a Muse of Paris, selected
from among the most beautiful young working-girls of the capital. Her
official functions consisted in being crowned, in presiding at the
ceremony before Michelet's bust, set up in front of the Hotel de Ville,
and in strewing flowers before it. Then there was chanted before her:
"Good people, Rich and poor, Hasten hither! Come all to admire, The Muse
of Paris! She is a nice little working-girl, Whom the poet-kings of
poverty, Have anointed queen of their chimeras," etc. The election of a
queen of the washerwomen, or, rather, of a _reine des blanchisseuses_,
has long been one of the important ceremonials of the Mi-careme
festivities, and grotesque accounts are given of the intrigues, the
rivalries, the heart-burnings, which this choice entails, of the
adventures of the sovereign and her attendant ladies in assuming their
somewhat unwonted toilettes for this great occasion, and of the still
greater efforts of the _garcons_ of the _lavoirs_ to accoutre themselves
as d'Artagnans and Henri III's. However, everything passes off for the
best; and it is a dull lane that has no turning.

Among the less praiseworthy diversions, neither rat-baiting nor
cock-fighting have much favor in Paris. A pair of game-cocks were
imported from England in 1772, but the "sport" was not appreciated. In
the country parts of France it is more practised; and one of the most
important of the establishments, affected by the Parisians, devoted to
the murderous combats of dogs and rodents, is the Ratier Club of
Roubaix, whose modest wooden facade, rising at the back of a court which
is entered through a sufficiently common-place cabaret, is shown in the
illustration. On the left is a great lantern to light the dingy
approach, and on the right, full of noise and tumult, the office and the
weighing-stand. In the interior, the arrangements are those usually
adopted,--the wooden benches are ranged around the _parc_, or pit, a
large wire cage nearly five metres long and two and a quarter high,
elevated on a platform about a metre from the floor. It has n