mas something after the English custom is gaining
ground in Paris every year. Thus a good deal of mistletoe now makes
its appearance on the boulevards and in the shop windows, and it is
evident that the famous Druidical plant, which is shipped in such
large quantities every year to England from Normandy and Brittany, is
fast becoming popular among Parisians. Another custom, that of
decorating Christmas trees in the English and German style, has
become quite an annual solemnity here since the influx of Alsatians
and Lorrainers, while it is considered _chic_, in many quarters, to
eat approximate plum-pudding on the 25th of December. Unfortunately,
the Parisian 'blom budding,' unless prepared by British hands, is
generally a concoction of culinary atrocities, tasting, let us say,
like saveloy soup and ginger-bread porridge. In a few instances the
'Angleesh blom budding' has been served at French tables in a soup
tureen; and guests have been known to direct fearful and furtive
glances towards it, just as an Englishman might regard with mingled
feelings of surprise and suspicion a fricassee of frogs. But
independently of foreign innovations, Parisians have their own way of
celebrating Noel. To-night (Christmas Eve) for instance, there will be
midnight masses in the principal churches, when appropriate canticles
and Adam's popular 'Noel' will be sung. In many private houses the
_boudin_ will also be eaten after the midnight mass, the rich
baptising it in champagne, and the _petit bourgeois_, who has not a
wine cellar, in a cheap concoction of bottled stuff with a Bordeaux
label but a strong Paris flavour. The feast of Noel is, however, more
archaically, and at the same time more earnestly, celebrated in
provincial France. In the south the head of the family kindles the
yule-log, or _buche-de-Noel_, which is supposed to continue burning
until the arrival of spring. Paterfamilias also lights the _calen_, or
Christmas lamp, which represents the Star of Bethlehem, and then all
repair to the midnight mass in those picturesque groups which painters
have delighted to commit to canvas. The inevitable _baraques_, or
booths, which are allowed to remain on the great boulevards from
Christmas Eve until the Feast of the Kings, on January 6, have made
their appearance. They extend from the Place de la Madeleine to the
Place de la Republique, and are also visible on some of the other
boulevards of the metropolis. Their glittering contents ar