ate years been
entirely reconstructed; the old haunts of the Empire have gone and
nothing has come to take their place.

Then came another class of establishments which burned brilliantly in
the second rank and were, in a way, political rendezvous also--the Cafe
de Chartres and the Cafe de Valois. Of all these Palais Royal cafes of
the early nineteenth century the most gorgeous and brilliant was the
Cafe des Mille Colonnes, though its popularity was seemingly due to the
charms of the _maitresse de la maison_, a Madame Romain, whose husband
was a dried-up, dwarfed little man of no account whatever. Madame
Romain, however, lived well up to her reputation as being
"_incontestablement la plus jolie femme de Paris_." By 1824 the fame of
the establishment had begun to wane and in 1826 it expired, though the
"_Almanach des Gourmands_" of the latter year said that the proprietor
was the Very of _limonadiers_, that his ices were superb, his salons
magnificent--and his prices exorbitant. Perhaps it was the latter that
did it!

Another establishment, founded in 1817, was domiciled here, the clients
being served by "_odalisques en costume oriental, tres seduisantes_."
This is quoted from the advertisements of the day. The cafe was called
the Cafe des Circassiennes, and there was a _sultane_, who was the
presiding genius of the place. It met with but an indifferent success
and soon closed its doors despite its supposedly all-compelling
attractions.

In the mid-nineteenth century a revolution came over the cafes of Paris.
Tobacco had invaded their precincts; previously one smoked only in the
_estaminets_. Three cafes of the Palais Royal resisted the innovation,
the Cafe de la Galerie d'Orleans, the Cafe de Foy and the Cafe de la
Rotonde. To-day, well, to-day things are different.

The Theatre du Palais Royal of to-day was the Theatre des Marionettes of
the Comte de Beaujolais, which had for contemporaries the Fantoches
Italiens, the Ombres Chinoises and the Musee Curtius, perhaps the first
of the wax-works shows that in later generations became so popular. The
Palais Royal had now become a vast amusement enterprise, with side-shows
of all sorts, theatres, concerts, cafes, restaurants, clubs,
gambling-houses and what not--all paying rents, and high ones, to the
proprietor.

In the centre of the garden, where is now the fountain and its basin,
was a circus, half underground and half above, and there were
innumerable booths and k