ntertain an army of
servants. "Do the best you can" is the motto of Parisian life. And
so it often happens that in a small room, up half a dozen flights
of stairs, with a cup of tea for sole refreshment and music or
conversation for sole amusement, one will find some of the pleasantest
society in Paris. You do not get champagne and boned turkey and the
German, but you hear sometimes a little music, such as one pays untold
gold to hear at the opera, or a fragment of declamation by some noted
elocutionist, or a new poem fresh from the pen of some celebrated
writer. And you have always conversation; that is to say, the wit and
sparkle of the wittiest and brightest nation on the face of the earth.
In a world that is becoming more and more a Paradise of Fools the
charm of sheer brain and brightness is irresistible. To live in such
an intellectual centre is in itself delightful. Paris is a veritable
_Foire aux Idees_. Its criticism, keen as the sword of Saladin,
overwhelming as the battle-axe of Coeur de Lion, is in itself a
study. It is not so much the intellectual productions of Paris as the
comments they call forth that are at once instructive and fascinating.

When we turn from the world of intellect to that of ordinary life
the same charm haunts our footsteps. Everything is so well done,
so gracefully and so winningly presented! The exquisite perfume of
refinement hangs about every trivial detail. Your washerwoman is a
lady, and your coalman a Chesterfield. If a Frenchman is ever rude, he
is rude with malice prepense and aforethought. He knows better, we may
be sure. Patrick may err on the score of politeness from ignorance,
but Alphonse is a beast only because he chooses to be bestial. All the
traditions of his race run counter to his conduct when he forgets the
supreme suavity that should characterize a Gaul.

And yet it is possible for an American--or rather an Anglo-Saxon--to
live for years in the midst of this brilliant, polished, fascinating
people, and never to feel specially interested in them, either
individually or nationally. What is the reason? Why is it that, loving
Paris like a second home, we do not take the Parisians to our hearts
as brothers and sisters, or at least as dear first cousins? The causes
are many and various. In the first place, the Parisians do not like
us. The popularity which Americans were said to possess in Paris has
vanished with the Empire--that is, if it really existed. It probably