, had
interviewed one of his friends, an important contractor, whose six
hundred workmen had followed the example of their comrades, gone on
strike, and been compelled to abandon it by the prudent action of the
civil and military authorities in protecting all those who were willing
to labor. "I expressed to my friend my surprise that workmen earning, at
a minimum, six francs, and some of them, masons and rough-casters, eight
and ten francs a day, should have ceased work under pretence of
insufficient pay. I showed him the instructive table published by an
evening journal, and according to which the rough-casters earned from
eleven to twelve francs a day; the stone-cutters, eight francs; the
journeymen masons, eight francs; the apprentice masons, five and a half
francs; the bricklayers, eight francs; the stone-sawyers, nine to eleven
francs,--in a word, as much as a lieutenant in garrison in Paris, and
more than a lieutenant in garrison in the provinces.

[Illustration: QUEEN OF THE WASHERWOMEN AND HER CORTEGE, DURING
MI-CAREME.

From a drawing by A. Lozos.]

"'All that is perfectly true,' replied my friend. 'Never have the
workmen on buildings had such a fete. Since Paris has become a vast
ant-hill in which the work of preparation for 1900 goes on without
ceasing, the workmen make magnificent working-days and have no fear of
being "laid off." They have before them three magnificent years. But you
are not aware of the conditions of a workman's life in Paris. They bear
no resemblance to those of the life in the provinces, where similar
wages would insure a comfortable living. In Paris, you see, the workman
lives at a great disadvantage, and, in reality, it may be said that he
is obliged to meet the expenses of two establishments.... Paris is an
immense city, in which the distances are very great. The laborers, the
diggers, and shovellers live, nearly all of them, on the heights of
Clignancourt and of Belleville; the masons, for I know not what reason,
prefer the quarter of the Gobelins. Well, work is carried on in all
parts of Paris, is it not? The laborer from Belleville, the workman
hired by me or by my overseer, arrives at his field of labor at six
o'clock in the morning. This spot is at Auteuil, at the Trocadero, at
Passy, anywhere. It will be absolutely impossible for him to return to
Belleville for his meals. He will have to eat on the spot, there where
he works.

"'Well, arrived at the _chantier_ at half-past