in calling the Palais Royal Palais National; the force of
habit being in this instance too great to efface old recollections. Few
foreigners have ever penetrated into the Rue de 24 Fevrier, though it
forms one of the external galleries of the Palais Royal, and one may see
there the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks, the night-side in fact, of the
splendid restaurants, whose gilt fronts attract attention inside.
Rubicund apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans, deck the one
side; smoke, dirty plates, rags, and smutty saucepans may be seen on the
other.

It is from an office in the Rue de 24 Fevrier, almost opposite the dark
side of a gorgeous Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000 copies of
a daily print, entitled the "Constitutionnel."

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are always to be found in odd holes
and corners. To the mass in London, Printing-house square, or
Lombard-street, Whitefriars, are mystical localities; yet they are the
daily birth-places of that fourth estate which fulminates anathemas on
all the follies and weaknesses of governments; and, without which, no
one can feel free or independent. The "Constitutionnel" office is about
as little known to the mass of its subscribers as either Printing-house
square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look about the interior of
newspaper establishments, in whatever country you may find them. For
rusty dinginess, perhaps, there is nothing to equal a London office,
with its floors strewed with newspapers from all parts of the world,
parliamentary reports, and its shelves creaking under books of all
sorts, thumbed to the last extremity. Notwithstanding these appearances,
however, there is discipline--there is real order in the apparent
disorder of things. Those newspapers that are lying in heaps have to be
accurately filed; those books of reference can be pounced upon when
wanted, on the instant; and as to reports, the place of each is as well
known as if all labeled and ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a
public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the appearance of a French
newspaper office; but how different the aspect of things from what you
see in England!

Over the office of the "Constitutionnel" is a dingy tricolor flag. A few
broken steps lead to a pair of folding-doors. Inside is the sanctuary of
the office, guarded by that flag as if by the honor of the country: for
tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he