e "Childebert" was lighted
_a giorno_ from basement to roof, and the Childebertians held high
festival. The inhabitants of the streets adjacent to the Rue Childebert
spent as many sleepless nights, though their houses were perfectly
wholesome and clean.

I had the honour to be a frequent guest at those gatherings, but I feel
that a detailed description of them is beyond my powers. I have already
said that the craziness of the structure would have rendered extremely
dangerous any combined display of choregraphic art, as practised by the
Childebertians and their friends, male and female, at the neighbouring
Grande-Chaumiere; it did, however, not prevent a lady or gentleman of
the company from performing a _pas seul_ now and then. This, it must be
remembered, was the pre-Rigolbochian period, before Chicard with his
_chahut_ had been ousted from his exalted position by the more elegant
and graceful evolutions of the originator of the modern cancan, the
famous Brididi; when the Faubourg du Temple, the Bal du Grand
Saint-Martin, and "the descent of the Courtille" were patronized by the
Paris _jeunesse doree_, and in their halcyon days, when the _habitues_
of the establishment of Le Pere Lahire considered it their greatest
glory to imitate as closely as possible the bacchanalian gyrations of
the choregraphic autocrat on the other side of the Seine. No mere
description could do justice to these gyrations; only a draughtsman of
the highest skill could convey an adequate idea of them. But, as a
rule, the soirees at the "Childebert" were not conspicuous for such
displays; their programme was a more ambitious one from an intellectual
point of view, albeit that the programme was rarely, if ever, carried
out. This failure of the prearranged proceedings mainly arose from the
disinclination or inability of the fairer portion of the company to play
the passive part of listeners and spectators during the recital of an
unpublished poem of perhaps a thousand lines or so, though the reciter
was no less a personage than the author. In vain did the less frivolous
and male part of the audience claim "silence for the minstrel;" the
interrupters could conceive no minstrel without a guitar or some kindred
instrument, least of all a minstrel who merely spoke his words, and the
feast of reason and flow of soul came generally to an abrupt end by the
rising of a damsel more outspoken still than her companions, who
proposed an adjournment to one of th