hat Madame Bernard monopolizes all
the young beaux. A young man of about twenty, tall, well-made, with
handsome features, whose intelligent expression announces that he is
intended for higher things than perpetually to be measuring yards of
calico, is seated at the right hand of Eugenie. That young man, whose
name is Adolphe, is assistant in a fashionable warehouse where Madame
Moutonnet deals; and as he always gives good measure, she has asked him
to the fete of St Eustache. And now we are acquainted with all the party
who are celebrating the marriage-day of M. Moutonnet."

We are not going to follow Paul de Kock in the adventures of all the
party so carefully described to us. Our object in translating the
foregoing passage, was to enable our readers to see the manner of people
who indulge in pic-nics in the wood of Romainville, desiring them to
compare M. Moutonnet and _his_ friends, with any laceman and _his_
friends he may choose to fix upon in London. A laceman as well to do in
the world as M. Moutonnet, a grocer as rich as M. Dupont, and even a
perfumer as fashionable as M. Gerard, would have a whitebait dinner at
Blackwall, or make up a party to the races at Epsom--and as to admitting
such a humble servitor as M. Bidois to their society, or even the
unfriended young mercer's assistant, M. Adolphe, they would as soon
think of inviting one of the new police. Five miles from town our three
friends would pass themselves off for lords, and blow-up the waiter for
not making haste with their brandy and water, in the most aristocratic
manner imaginable. In France, or at least in Paul de Kock, there seems
no straining after appearances. The laceman continues a laceman when he
is miles away from the little back shop; and even the laceman's lady has
no desire to be mistaken for the wife of a squire. Madame Moutonnet
seems totally unconscious of the existence of any lady whatever,
superior to herself in rank or station. The Red Book is to her a sealed
volume. Her envies, hatreds, friendships, rivalries, and ambitions, are
all limited to her own circle. The wife of a rich laceman, on the other
hand, in England, most religiously despises the wives of almost all
other tradesmen; she scarcely knows in what street the shop is situated,
but from the altitudes of Balham or Hampstead, looks down with supreme
disdain on the toiling creatures who stand all day behind a counter. The
husband, in the same way, manages to cast off every re