Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/223

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LIFE IN THE OLD WORLD.
239

wretchedness, showed themselves unvailed, side by side. Along the boulevards passed a splendid procession of carriages or people on horseback; spectators thronged the side alleys, whilst miserable wretches displayed there, their open sores and decrepit limbs; women lay on the ground covered with black clothing, and surrounded by pale, half-naked children. The young gentlemen of the boulevards leaped over them. Well-dressed young men followed the ladies begging; dissolute women laid hands upon the gentlemen. The streets swarmed in the evening with human night-butterflies; the Palais Royal blazed with lights, gambling houses, and splendid shops; but after four o'clock in the afternoon, it was dangerous for a young lady to go across its inner court, even by her mother's side. More than twenty theatres were open every evening, to crowded houses; the great French scenic artists, Talma, Duchenois, Mile. Mars, were still alive; Pasta and Mainville Feodor, sang at the opera; every theatre had its stars, and all had their passionate worshipers. Laughing pajazzas skipped along the promenades; jugglers and pickpockets swarmed; old women boiled their soup under the open sky, and educated their children by blows; every where there were outcries, noise, laughter, dancing. The fountains of the Tuileries played refreshingly in the stillness of the morning, and delighted children might be seen there at mid-day, skipping about and dancing in rings, whilst the gay world circled in splendid attire through the beautiful alleys. Paris was a grand melo-dramatic spectacle, which almost turned the head of the young