e that not a single one of these productions
fetched less than fifty francs--mere crayon studies; while there were
several that sold for two hundred and three hundred francs, and two
studies in oil brought respectively eight hundred francs and twelve
hundred francs. Nearly every one of the young men who had signed these
portraits had made a name for himself. The latter two were signed
respectively Paul Delaroche and Tony Johannot.

Nevertheless, to those whose love of peace and quietude was stronger
than their artistic instincts and watchful admiration of budding genius,
the neighbourhood of "La Childebert" was a sore and grievous trial. At
times the street itself, not a very long or wide one, was like
Pandemonium let loose; it was when there was an "At Home" at "La
Childebert," and such functions were frequent, especially at the
beginning of the months. These gatherings, as a rule, partook of the
nature of fancy dress _conversaziones_; for dancing, owing to the
shakiness of the building, had become out of the question, even with
such dare-devils as the tenants. What the latter prided themselves upon
most was their strict adherence to the local colour of the periods they
preferred to resuscitate. Unfortunately for the tranquillity of the
neighbourhood, they pretended to carry out this revival in its smallest
details, not only in their artistic productions, but in their daily
lives. The actor who blacked himself all over to play Othello was as
nothing to them in his attempted realism, because we may suppose that he
got rid of his paint before returning to the everyday world. Not so the
inmates of "La Childebert." They were minstrels, or corsairs, or proud
and valiant knights from the moment they got up till the moment they
went to bed, and many of them even scorned to stretch their weary limbs
on so effeminate a contrivance as a modern mattress, but endeavoured to
keep up the illusion by lying on a rush-bestrewn floor.

I am not sufficiently learned to trace these various and succeeding
disguises to their literary and theatrical causes, for it was generally
a new book or a new play that set the ball rolling in a certain
direction; nor can I vouch for the chronological accuracy and
completeness of my record in that respect, but I remember some phases of
that ever-shifting masquerade. When I was a very little boy, I was
struck more than once with the sight of young men parading the streets
in doublets, trunk hose, their f