horses. The
most knowing in these matters are supposed to be Pierre, the host of
the Grand Cafe, right under the rooms of the Jockey Club, and the
rotund Henry, keeper of the Restaurant Bignon, Avenue de l'Opera, the
confidant of certain turfmen, who may favor him with invaluable hints
if their _salmis_ of woodcocks should have been a success or their
_cotelette double_ be done to a turn. Charles, of the Cafe Durand,
Place de la Madeleine, and Henry, the barber of the Boulevard des
Italiens, are also posted in the quotations and keep themselves well
informed.

On Sunday morning by ten o'clock the Bois de Boulogne is filled with
pedestrians, who take their breakfast on the grass to while away the
time of waiting. The restaurants Madrid and the Cascade, where the
tables are spread amidst flowers and shaded by trees--a feature that is
duly remembered in the bills, like an _hors d'oeuvre_--are turning
visitors away. Toward half-past two the enclosure of the paddock is
absolutely full: not a vacant chair is to be found, and a fearful
consumption of iced champagne begins at the buffet. For, strange to
say, the weather is always fine on this day, and the Encouragement
Society is as notorious for its good-luck in this respect as the
Skating Club and the Steeple-chase Society are for quite the opposite.
By degrees--and perhaps helped by the champagne--the vast throng will
be observed, as the supreme moment approaches, to depart from its
habitually staid and calm demeanor, and finally to show some signs of
enthusiasm, though without growing in the least noisy and turbulent,
like that at Epsom on the Derby Day. Once in a year, however, I as the
French say, doesn't make a custom, and the Parisian crowd, to quote its
own expression, "croit que c'est arrive." The applause, in case the
winner is a French horse, comes from patriotic motives: if he happens
to be English it is given from a feeling of courtesy; and the crowd
having done its duty in either case, the famous "return," that has
often furnished a subject for the painter, begins. And a wondrous sight
it is. Up to six o'clock the innumerable carriages continue to defile
upon the several routes that lead to the city, forming a procession of
which the head touches the Place de la Concorde, whilst the extremity
still reaches to the tribunes of Longchamps. And when evening comes on,
and bets are settled, and heated brains seek to prolong the day's
excitement far into the night, su