vilized globe. And yet, I do not
think that he consumes less alcohol than the average Englishman or
German. The Frenchman's alcohol is more diluted; that is all. A drunken
woman is a very rare sight, either in Paris or in the provinces;
nevertheless, there is, probably, not one in a thousand women among the
lower classes who drinks less than her half a bottle of wine per day;
while ladies of high degree generally partake of one if not two glasses
of chartreuse with their coffee, after each of the two principal meals.
_Un grog Americain_ is as often ordered for the lady as for the
gentleman, during the evening visits to the cafe. I am speaking of
gentlewomen by birth and education, and of the spouses of the well-to-do
men, not of the members of the demi-monde and of those below them.

So far, the question of drink, which, after my visit to the wine-depots
at Bercy, assumed an altogether different aspect to my mind. I began to
wonder whether the plethora of wine would not do as much harm as the
expected scarcity of food. My fears were not groundless.

Frenchmen, especially Parisians, not only eat a great quantity of bread,
but they are very particular as to its quality. I have a note showing
that, during the years 1868-69, the consumption per head for every man,
woman, and child amounted to a little more than an English pound per
day, and that very little of this was of "second quality," though the
latter was as good as that sold at many a London baker's as first. I
tasted it myself, because the municipality had made a great point of
introducing it to the lower classes at twopence per quartern less than
the first quality. Nevertheless, the French workman would have none of
it.[83]

[Footnote 83: Goethe, in his journey through France, noticed
that the peasants who drove his carriage invariably refused to
eat the soldiers' bread, which he found to his taste.--EDITOR.]

Even in the humblest restaurants, the bread supplied to customers is of
a superior quality; the ordinary household bread (pain de menage) is
only to be had by specially asking for it; the roll with the
cafe-au-lait in the morning is an institution except with the very poor.

As for meat, I have an idea, in spite of all the doubts thrown upon the
question by English writers, that the Parisian workman in 1870 consumed
as much as his London fellow. The fact of the former having two square
meals a day instead of one, is not sufficie