evigne
prophesied an ephemeral popularity. Taken immediately after meals, it
removes the fumes of the claret and champagne he has drunk, and leaves him
feeling as clear-headed as Plato and grateful as a pensioner of the king.

Just before meal-time the cafes are crowded with people indulging in one
of the renowned trio of appetizers, one of the great triumvirate of
anteprandial potations--_bittere_, _vermouth_ and _absinthe_. Bittere is a
clear grateful drink of Hollandic derivation, considered more wholesome
than either of its fellows; vermouth is a wormwood wine the drinker does
not like at first (please draw the inference that he becomes immensely
fond of it at last); whilst absinthe--what shall we say of it? It is
execrable stuff--the milk of sirens mingled with sea-water. Of a
dirty-green color, pungent, all-powerful, it heats up the stomach,
expending itself at the extremities in half-developed throbs, perpetual
wavelets of rankling sting that break upon the shores of flesh. It mounts
to the hair-roots, fills the entrails with a furnace-glow, goes
everywhere. It is the worst of French drinks, representing and standing
for what is worst in French character, worst in France. It cannot be
tossed off at a throw: it must be toyed with, sipped. Stimulating,
enervating, poisonous, horrible--all the more so perhaps because it is not
intoxicating exactly--God has put a barrier against its use by making it
distasteful; but, strange to say, all those things men run after: rum,
tobacco, opium, absinthe, are always distasteful at first, if not for a
long time afterward.

But the French do not drink rum, gin, whiskey or _water_ to any great
extent. With the exception of absinthe and considerable brandy, their
drinking occupies a middle ground. They revel in a multitude of subtile,
delightful mixtures--_liqueurs_, _cremes_ and _sirops_. Very dear to the
heart of refined sensualists is the famous monks' liquor called
chartreuse, which deservedly ranks at the head of the long list of
liqueurs--anisette, curacao, maraschino, rosolio, alkermes, ratafia,
genievre, etc. It is made by the monks of the Grande Chartreuse, near
Grenoble, of certain aromatic herbs and brandy, the former gathered by
them in their summer wanderings amongst the Jura Mountains. It is a
sticky, sweet compound of a green or yellow color, and of such a fiery
nature that it must be sipped, not drunk. Many a hater of the priesthood,
holding up one of the little th