. Here is one. A
dissipated-looking loafer is leaning against a lamp-post, contemptuously
staring at the spruce, trim bourgeois out for his Sunday walk with his
wife. The loafer is smoking a short clay pipe, and some of the fumes of
the tobacco come between the wind and the bourgeois' respectability.
"Voyou!" says the latter contemptuously. "Voyou tant que vous voulez,
pas epicier," is the answer.

In those days, when M. Thiers happened to be in power, many members of
the Opposition and their journalistic champions made it a point of
organizing little gatherings to the table-d'hote kept by Mdlle. Thiers,
the sister of the Prime Minister of France. Her establishment was at the
entrance of the present Rue Drouot, and a signboard informed the
passer-by to that effect. There was invariably an account of these
little gatherings in next day's papers--of course, with comments. Thiers
was known to be the most wretched shot that ever worried a gamekeeper,
and yet he was very fond of blazing away. "We asked Mdlle. Thiers,"
wrote the commentators, "whether those delicious pheasants she gave us
were of her illustrious brother's bagging. The lady shook her head.
'Non, monsieur; le President du Conseil n'a pas l'honneur de fournir mon
etablissement; a quoi bon, je peux les acheter a meilleur marche que lui
et au meme endroit. S'il m'en envoyait, il me ferait payer un benefice,
parcequ'il ne fait jamais rien pour rien. C'est un peu le defaut de
notre famille.'" I have got a notion that, mercurial as was M. Thiers up
to the last hour of his life, and even more so at that period, and
sedate as was M. Guizot, the French liked the latter better than the
former.

M. Guizot had said, "Enrichissez vous," and was known to be poor; M.
Thiers had scoffed at the advice, and was known to be hoarding while
compelling his sister to earn her own living. It must be remembered that
at the time the gangrene of greed had not entered the souls of all
classes of Frenchmen so deeply as it has now, that the race for wealth
had as yet comparatively few votaries, and that not every stockjobber
and speculator aspired to emulate the vast financial transactions of the
Rothschilds. The latter lived, in those days, in the Rue Lafitte, where
they had three separate mansions, all of which since then have been
thrown into one, and are at present exclusively devoted to business
purposes. The Rue Lafitte was, however, a comparatively quiet street.
The favourite loung