n of his good opinion of French manners, no doubt. In
observing the blouse wearers of Paris in their hours of ease and
relaxation, I have been struck with the great prevalence of a certain
unforced courtesy of manner, even among the coarsest. No one would
dream what a howling demon this creature could and did become in the
days of the Commune who should see him enjoying himself at his ball,
his concert, his theatre or his dinner.

I suppose no one not in the confidence of the managers of these places
would readily credit to what an extent the public masquerade-balls of
Paris are the peculiar possession of the blousard. The gaping crowds
of English and Americans who go to the disreputable Jardin Mabille and
the like resorts in summer to gaze at what they imagine is a scene of
French revelry, do not know that the cancan-dancer there is paid for
his jollity. The men who dance at the Jardin Mabille are not there for
revelry's sake: they are earning a few sous from the manager, who
knows that he must do something to amuse his usual spectators--viz.,
the tourists--who go back to Manchester or to Omaha and astonish their
friends with tales of the goings-on of those dreadful Frenchmen in
Paris. The women who disport in the cancan at the same place are
simply hired by the season. It is not at the Jardin Mabille that the
visitor to Paris need ever look to see genuine revelry: the place is
as much a place of jollification for the people as the stage of a
theatre is, and no more. Very often the dancer at night is a blousard
by day. So at many of the masquerade-balls which rage in the winter,
particularly during the weeks just preceding Mardi Gras. These are
less purely tourist astonishers than the Jardin Mabille. They are
largely visited by the fast young men and old beaux and roues of
Paris, but these are almost never seen to go upon the floor and dance.
In the crowded ball-room of the Valentino on a masquerade-night you
may have observed with wondering awe the gyrations of an extraordinary
couple around whom a ring has been formed, giving them free space on
the floor for their wild abandon of exercise. The man is long, lank
and grotesque; he wears a tail coat which reaches the floor, and upon
his back is strapped a crazy guitar with broken strings; his false
nose stands out from his face at prodigious length; his hat is a
bottle, his gloves are buckskin gauntlets, and his trousers are those
of a circus-rider. The woman does not h