, shuts off the upward gaze in one of the other
_salons_, whilst all around medallions large and small of heads and
figures, male, female and infantile, with a variety of vine-wreathed
Bacchuses and bow-drawing Cupids, which are considered especially fit to
decorate cafes, cluster along the mouldings, encumber the panels or fill
up the niches. Huge mirrors reflect the pea-green walls, the crystal
chandeliers, the gilding, glass and divans; cats perambulate the
apartments; people come and go--black, elegant fellows, with broad-rimmed
hats, pretty canes, good clothes, good fits; absinthe-drinkers, with heavy
jaws and dreamy, evil eyes. Billiard-balls are clicking in the back room;
cards and dominoes are being played; cold-blooded, demoralized people lean
forward, gossip and gesticulate--men who would man a barricade on occasion
or put a sword-blade through a stomach.

With a very few exceptions, all the leading cafes of Paris have become
restaurants. You breakfast, dine and sup there; and in place of coffee
being the sole or leading article of consumption, an infinite variety of
drinks is now at the disposal of the thirsty wayfarer. Mocha, that product
of the East the preparation of which, like the making of bread, is the
stumbling-block of housekeepers in both hemispheres, is served in three
ways--as a _capucin_, a _mazagran_ or a _demi-tasse_. A capucin (the name
is but little used) is our cup of coffee--coffee with milk in it; a
mazagran is coffee in a glass, accompanying which a decanter of water is
brought. The name is derived from a village in Africa where the French had
a brilliant feat of arms, and where the soldiers, in the absence of milk
or brandy, had to water their coffee or drink it _au naturel_. The coffee
itself is precisely the same as that furnished for the demi-tasse, which
is served in a small china cup, accompanying which is a little decanter of
cognac, with a fairy glass for measuring it; for the French, in place of
cream, take brandy with coffee and rum with tea--to us an incomprehensible
mixture. After breakfast and dinner the Frenchman desires coffee, and if
he does not get it at home he goes to the cafe for it. To do without it,
or to do without claret at meals, would be a dreadful alternative to which
he would not long submit without, it might be, losing his reason and
taking his life. Strong, black and fragrant, he would die without that
beverage for which--and for Racine, by the way--Madame de S