gnated discreetly as
_Tolerances_ or _Gros Numeros_; in the popular slang they are _claques_
or _boxons_. Many of them have special designations, as the celebrated
_Botte de paille_ mentioned by Edmond de Goncourt in his _Fille Elisa_;
one of the noisiest was known as the _Perroquet gris_; and another, from
its specialty, _Au Telescope_. "But at Paris all these _maisons
chaudes_," says an expert in these matters, Rodolphe Darzens, "have a
special physiognomy,--they are not, as in the provinces, discreet
localities, with an atmosphere of familiar conventionality, in which the
father brings his eldest son to pass the evening with the notary of the
quarter and the pharmacien of the public square, in an interminable game
of billiards or of _piquet voleur_. Houses very _comme il faut_, in
which no incongruity would be tolerated, from which a Parisian was even
chased one day for having pronounced a gross word. Neither do they
resemble those vast establishments in the seaports or in the commercial
cities, in which the rutting assumes a character of savage eagerness and
of primitive fury.

"Excepting in the houses of the exterior quarters of the city which are
frequented by soldiers and by coarse peasants, who quickly recover from
their first bedazzlement at the fine salons ornamented with mirrors and
gilding, illuminated by gas or by electricity, and in which the usual
visitors are composed almost exclusively of workmen, which constitutes
them rather a species of brasserie, the prostitution in Paris has been
refined by luxury. The _viveurs_ enter them, no longer to finish the
night in them, but to pass a few minutes, to yawn and to drink champagne
in the company of some young women lightly clad, indifferent and
passive, pretty sometimes, bestial almost always. You can rarely avoid
hearing confidentially from one of them her story, the eternal story of
love betrayed. There are sometimes to be found among them some who have
received a real education,--these speedily acquire an influence over
their comrades, who listen to them, admire them, ask their advice. They
are the queens of the household, and _Madame_ treats with them on a
footing of equality.

"Frequently an inmate of one of these convents of the Devil will seat
herself at the piano, and then some revery of Chopin will rise,
melancholy, through the air, while the tears will appear in the eyes of
her hearers.

[Illustration: RAMESSEUR DE MEGOTS. From the painting by Eug