ourcelles,
quarante-huit. Mais monsieur aura la bonte d'observer--Si le convoi
arriverait a Amiens apres le depart du convoi a minuit, il faudra y
rester jusqu'a l'arrive d'un autre convoi a trois heures moins un quart.
En attendant, monsieur peut rester au buffet (_refreshment room_), ou
l'on peut toujours trouver un bon feu, et du cafe chaud, et des tres
bonnes choses a boire et a manger, pendant toute la nuit.--Est-ce que
monsieur comprend parfaitement toutes ces regles pour sa guidance?--Vive
le Roi des Francais! Roi de la nation la plus grande, et la plus noble,
et la plus extraordinairement merveilleuse, du monde! A bas des Anglais!

"CHARLES DICKENS,
"Francais naturalise, et Citoyen de Paris."

We passed a fortnight together, and crowded into it more than might seem
possible to such a narrow space. With a dreadful insatiability we passed
through every variety of sight-seeing, prisons, palaces, theatres,
hospitals, the Morgue and the Lazare, as well as the Louvre, Versailles,
St. Cloud, and all the spots made memorable by the first revolution. The
excellent comedian Regnier, known to us through Macready and endeared by
many kindnesses, incomparable for his knowledge of the city and
unwearying in friendly service, made us free of the green-room of the
Francais, where, on the birthday of Moliere, we saw his "Don Juan"
revived. At the Conservatoire we witnessed the masterly teaching of
Samson; at the Odeon saw a new play by Ponsard, done but indifferently;
at the Varietes "Gentil-Bernard," with four grisettes as if stepped out
of a picture by Watteau; at the Gymnase "Clarisse Harlowe," with a
death-scene of Rose Cheri which comes back to me, through the distance
of time, as the prettiest piece of pure and gentle stage-pathos in my
memory; at the Porte St. Martin "Lucretia Borgia" by Hugo; at the
Cirque, scenes of the great revolution, and all the battles of
Napoleon; at the Comic Opera, "Gibby"; and at the Palais Royal the usual
new-year's piece, in which Alexandre Dumas was shown in his study beside
a pile of quarto volumes five feet high, which proved to be the first
tableau of the first act of the first piece to be played on the first
night of his new theatre. That new theatre, the Historique, we also saw
verging to a very short-lived completeness; and we supped with Dumas
himself, and Eugene Sue, and met Theophile Gautier and Alphonse K