the
Tuileries, and made my way, in company with a crowd of citizens of all
classes, through the apartments occupied but a few months ago by the
ex-Emperor and Empress. The printed invitation announced that we might
see the rooms in which the "tyrant" had lived, for the modest sum of 50c.,
but that, should we think proper to take tickets for the concert,
"whereby these saloons might be at length rendered useful to the
people," we should be permitted to enjoy the extra show gratis. I took a
ticket, and joined myself to a thick stream of people who belonged to
every nationality and rank of life, and whose remarks and criticisms
were most edifying. There were shopkeepers and their wives, only too
delighted to take advantage of the mildest dissipation; gentlemen whose
National Guard trousers were rendered respectable by the gray jacket or
blouse of a citizen; humdrum housewives who approved everything, and
gaped their admiration of so much gorgeous wall-colouring; there were
flaunting ladies in bonnets of the latest fashion and marvellous
petticoats, who criticized the curtains and pointed the parasol of scorn
at faded draperies; people who felt the heavy hand of the spectre of
departed glory, and people who exulted at beholding the hidden recesses
of an Imperial mansion laid bare to the jokes and ribaldry of
Belleville and La Villette. Every class of Parisian society was
represented in the throng that swayed and hustled through the rooms, but
the saddest sight of all was a knot or two of decrepit veterans from the
Invalides who leant against the balustrade of the grand staircase, and
gazed with pinched-up lips and dry eyes at the National Guards on duty,
lounging and carousing down below. The stairs were littered with bedding
and cooking utensils, shirts and stockings hanging to dry over the gilt
railings, while in the square at the stairs' foot were ranged benches
and boards on trestles, and there the soldiers of the Guard sat in
picturesque groups enough, contrasting in the carelessness and dirt of
their general appearance with the lavish ornaments of marble and gilt
work which served as a background to their figures. Marching orders,
more or less thumbed and torn, hung in fragments from the panelled
walls; names in pencil and names in ink, and names scrawled with a
finger-nail, defaced the doors and staircase wall. A sentry stood at
every door to see that the citizens behaved themselves--a precaution by
no means unnecess