nd
with no mark of difference for her who wears it, or way to tell which
may be mistress and which the servant. It is not well for one or the
other, madame; it is ill for both. Then, too, many must stand aside who
would learn, since it is always the machine to sew that needs not many.
It is true there are still houses that care for a name, and where one
may be _artiste_, and have pride in an inspiration. But they are rare;
and now one sits all day, and this one stitches sleeves, perhaps, or
seams of waists or skirts, and knows not effects, or how to plan the
whole, or any joy of composition or result. It is bad, and all bad, and
I willingly would see the great shops go, and myself urge well their
destruction."

These words, and a flood of more in the same direction, came as hot
protest against any visit to the Magasins du Louvre, an enormous
establishment of the same order as the Bon Marche, but slightly higher
in price, where hundreds are employed as saleswomen, and where, side by
side with the most expensive productions of French skill, are to be
found the _occasions_,--the bargains in which the foreigner delights
even more than the native.

"Let them go there," pursued the little _modiste_, well on in middle
life, whose eager face and sad dark eyes lighted with indignation as
she spoke. "Let those go there who have money, always money, but no
taste, no perception, no feeling for a true combination. I know that if
one orders a robe that one comes to regard to say, 'Yes, so and so must
be for madame,' but how shall she know well when she is blunted and dead
with numbers? How shall she feel what is best? I, madame, when one comes
to me, I study. There are many things that make the suitability of a
confection; there is not only complexion and figure and age, but when I
have said all these, the thought that blends the whole and sees arising
what must be for the perfect robe. This was the method of Madame
Desmoulins, and I have learned of her. When it is an important case, a
trousseau perhaps, she has neither eaten nor slept till she has
conceived her list and sees each design clear. And then what joy! She
selects, she blends with tears of happiness; she cuts with solemnity
even. Is there such a spirit in your Bon Marche? Is there such a spirit
anywhere but here and there to one who remembers; who has an ideal and
who refuses to make it less by selling it in the shops? Again, madame, I
tell you it is a debasement so to d