she really felt well, she was
genuinely alarmed.

The _fiacre_ by this time had emerged from the Rue de Rivoli and
was rolling smoothly along the fine wooden pavement in front of
the historic Conciergerie prison where Marie Antoinette was
confined before her execution. Presently they recrossed the Seine,
and the cab, dodging the tram car rails, proceeded at a smart pace
up the "Boul' Mich'," which is the familiar diminutive bestowed by
the students upon that broad avenue which traverses the very heart
of their beloved _Quartier Latin_. On the left frowned the
scholastic walls of the learned Sorbonne, in the distance towered
the majestic dome of the Pantheon where Rousseau, Voltaire and
Hugo lay buried.

Like most of the principal arteries of the French capital, the
boulevard was generously lined with trees, now in full bloom, and
the sidewalks fairly seethed with a picturesque throng in which
mingled promiscuously frivolous students, dapper shop clerks,
sober citizens, and frisky, flirtatious little _ouvrieres_, these
last being all hatless, as is characteristic of the workgirl
class, but singularly attractive in their neat black dresses and
dainty low-cut shoes. There was also much in evidence another type
of female whose extravagance of costume and boldness of manner
loudly proclaimed her ancient profession.

On either side of the boulevard were shops and cafes, mostly
cafes, with every now and then a _brasserie_, or beer hall. Seated
in front of these establishments, taking their ease as if beer
sampling constituted the only real interest in their lives, were
hundreds of students, reckless and dare-devil, and suggesting
almost anything except serious study. They all wore frock coats
and tall silk hats, and some of the latter were wonderful
specimens of the hatter's art. A few of the more eccentric
students had long hair down to their shoulders, and wore baggy
peg-top trousers of extravagant cut, which hung in loose folds
over their sharp-pointed boots. On their heads were queer plug
hats with flat brims.

Shirley laughed outright and regretted that she did not have her
kodak to take back to America some idea of their grotesque
appearance, and she listened with amused interest as Jefferson
explained that these men were notorious _poseurs_, aping the dress
and manners of the old-time student as he flourished in the days
of Randolph and Mimi and the other immortal characters of Murger's
Bohemia. Nobody took them