e statues, I cared little or nothing; I
hardly even heeded the column of the Place Vendome or the mighty mass
of the Arc de Triomphe. But the Frenchiness of it all captivated me.
The throngs in the streets were kaleidoscopic in costume and character:
priests, soldiers, gendarmes, strange figures with turbans and other
Oriental accoutrements; women gayly dressed and wearing their dresses
with an air; men with curling mustachios, and with nothing to do,
apparently, but amuse themselves; romantic artists with soft felt hats
and eccentric beards; grotesque figures of poverty in rags and with
ominous visages, such as are never seen in London; martial music,
marching regiments, with gorgeous generals on horseback, with shining
swords; church processions; wedding pageants crowding in and out of
superb churches; newspapers, shop-signs, and chatter, all in French,
even down to the babble of the small children. And the background of
this parade was always the pleasant, light-hued buildings, the majority
of them large and of a certain uniformity of aspect, as if they had been
made in co-operation, and to look pretty, instead of independently and
incongruously, as in England. These people seemed to be all playing and
prattling; nobody worked; even the shopkeepers held holiday in their
shops. Such was my boyish idea of Paris. Napoleon had been emperor only
five or six years; he had been married to Eugenie only four or five;
and, so far as one could judge who knew nothing of political coups
d'etat and crimes, he was the right man in the right place. Moreover,
the French bread was a revelation; it tasted better than cake, and
was made in loaves six feet long; and the gingerbread, for sale on
innumerable out-door stalls, was better yet, with quite a new flavor. I
ate it as I walked about with my father. He once took a piece himself,
and, said he, "I desired never to taste any more." How odd is,
sometimes, the behavior of grown-up people!

But even my father enjoyed the French cookery, though he was in some
doubt whether it were not a snare of the evil one to lure men to
indulgence. We dined in the banquet-hall of our hotel once or twice
only; in general we went to neighboring restaurants, where the food was
just as good, but cost less. I was always hungry, but hungrier than ever
in Paris. "I really think," wrote my father, "that Julian would eat a
whole sheep." In his debilitated state he had little appetite either for
dinners or for w