the Moulin de la Galette, of the Montmartre quarter, is
here illustrated, with a touch of the picturesque. It may be reached by
the Rue Lepic, more circuitous and possibly more safe than the acrobatic
ladders which lead directly to its door. Its usual customers vary from
workmen's families through many varieties of painters, strangers,
_filles_, and _marlous_. Its dances are not of a kind to recommend
themselves to the conventional. It is even customary, before each one,
for each couple to pay four sous, and it is usually the lady who pays
for her cavalier. The beer-shops, or _brasseries_,--"more properly
_embrasseries_,"--were invented in the Latin Quarter, but have since
multiplied more on the lower boulevards. It is asserted that they were
better at the beginning; M. Maurice Barres declared at one time: "The
_brasserie a femmes_ is quite truly a salon." He appreciated them for
the severe discipline maintained in them by the proprietor, or, at
least, for the restraint imposed upon the more enterprising clients
and servitors by the example of the others. "There was coquetry and
flirtage, without much more." He considered this institution necessary;
its influence was, in his opinion, beneficent. These superficial
endearments, this amiable tone, this care to please which was there
displayed, "relaxed the mind and restored the neglected faculties of our
sensitiveness." Since then, he has asked himself whether the
_brasseries_ have changed or whether he has grown older. Certainly, the
qualities which he discovered in them no longer exist. The institution
does not seem necessary; the salon is usually a hole; the attendants
appear to be the refuse of those places of entertainment the character
of which is revealed by the unusual size of the house number over the
entrance. Even the Parisian gilding of vice sometimes wears off.

[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF HOT SOUPS BY THE SOCIETY OF THE "BOUCHER
DE PAIN."]

More of these unfortunates, of various shades, may be seen displaying
themselves in the open streets, in the public fiacres as in their
salons, during the Carnival, and especially on the day of Mardi
Gras,--arrayed as Pierrettes, clownesses, _rosieres_ [winners of the
prize of virtue], and avocats with very open robes, their bared arms and
shoulders defying the weather. Their proper establishments are known by
a great variety of appellations, the old word _bordel_ being now
considered gross. More commonly they are desi