serted by all but the infirm and incurious, neither of them belonging to an interesting section of human nature; so I walked away quietly down the avenue of chesnut trees to the parterre, which at that moment was fast filling with the aristocratic population of the little ladies of Paris. For it was just the hour of respite from study, as pursued at the different cours, and M. Levi and Mdlle. St. Clair and the great M. Saitout had all just finished their early classes of universal instruction in every language and every science, and the juvenile aristocracy were left to digest the light and frothy meal of intellectual nourishment, which the above-named professors know so well how to cook up at the slow fire of their own intelligence, to suit the delicate appetite of the customers. In the Petite Provence I had beheld the "germ" which my friend Delbrück had advised me to consider, and thought it wise to contemplate the bud and blossom, as I should find them, at that moment, assembled in the parterre.

CHAPTER II.

THE PARTERRE: BUD AND BLOSSOM.

THE square space before the double parterre was literally crowded with the world of fashion in miniature, every member of which seemed to be so full of eagerness in the search after pleasure that the indifferent observer might have mistaken it for the pursuit of more serious business.

I felt at once that I was in far better company than in the Petite Provence. Here all was dignity and aristocratic pride. Few bonnes, many surveillantes and institutrices. No child of the people was suffered to destroy with plebeian blouse and cotton nightcap the harmony of the picture which, if photographed as it broke upon me when I emerged from the shade of the trees, might have served as the illustration of the manners and customs of the juvenile France of modern times. As usual, the

girls were gathered in groups, the grouping being evidently dependent upon social equality, not upon age or similarity of taste. The most unobservant eye could not fail to be struck with this strange classification. The critical glance directed by the girls in any one particular group when a strange playmate approached with a petition to join the game going forward at the moment, the manner in which they would take in at one single glance the whole figure of the new-comer, from the crown of her hat à la Watteau to the sole of her tapotte Dubarri, and with experienced connoisseurship would accept or reject the petition at once without excuse for the judgment or appeal against it when pronounced, was most instructive and curious to behold. Every description of childish vanity might be said to have been here unfolded to the sun. This square space between the last quincunx and the wire trellis fence of the parterre has been long known as the Parc des Princesses, to account for the turning up of little chins, and the curling up of little noses, at each other, and the whole world besides.

It was curious to remark that even the baby world of Paris is undergoing the strange transition which is observable in every other section of the community; for in the very midst of the pure circle of the future marchionesses and countesses of the Faubourg St. Germain, whose ancestors shouted "Montjoie St. Denis!" on the walls of Ascalon, might be seen some of the future bankers' wives of the Chaussée d'Antin, whose ancestors may have bawled forth "Oranges à la douce!" in the streets of Marseilles; and the lawyers' ladies of the Marais, whose only battle-cry was À la Bazoche!" But the world has many ways of moving forward, and the little roturières claim admission into the exclusive precincts of the Parc des Princesses, first of all by right of their irreproachable toilet, and then by contact at the same cours, whereat both classes acquire the universal knowledge I have before alluded to, and where

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cacy I turned aside and directed my attention to the group of little maidens gathered round the chair next to mine, where numerous small heads packed close together, and tongues wagging in shrill tones, were discoursing and commenting upon a lot of coloured prints laid out upon a chair before them. These coloured prints, "for the improvement and edification of the rising generation of France," are all from the vile factory at Epinal. Gross in conception, horrible in execution, I could not but wonder as I gazed, that the French, who boast of their immense superiority in taste over every other nation, should risk the precious gift by suffering their children to imbibe such notions as those contained therein, or to contemplate the horrible illustrations used to render their immoral meaning as clear as possible to infantine capacity. The first sheet of flaming pictures represented "The Story of Finfin, Lirette, and Mirtis," in a series of twenty-five fiercely coloured plates. An old woman's flock has strayed; she goes out in search of it, and finds three lovely children. She takes them home. Finfin the boy is just eight years old; he betrays such a marked preference for Lirette, that the old woman, believing them to be brother and sister, becomes quite uneasy at sight of their affection! and thinks it her duty to watch them. Here the illustration, red, yellow, and pink, is of the old woman peeping over the hedge while Finfin, the boy of eight, is whispering to the girl of six. Then a good fairy tells the old woman that the pair are not brother and sister, and she has no longer any need to spy their actions as before. And so on to the end.

The

carpet-bag and umbrella. The card being held on each side by a string, and twirled rapidly round, the images on the two sides come together, and the exclamation printed beneath, "Oh Ciel! mon mari!" sufficiently explains the meaning of the picture. The little maidens seemed to enjoy the joke immensely, and to understand it too, and my mind reverted immediately to the nurse's song in the Petite Provence, "Qui frappe? qui frappe? mon mari est ici ! "

Many other funny illustrations of the like tendency were submitted by the little girls to each other. But my attention was suddenly diverted from this minor peep-show of juvenile morals to the grander exhibition of the same on a more imposing scale, which was taking place among my friends Emmeline and Lucile, Malvina and Melanie, who, suddenly breaking up their game, rushed past me like the whirlwind. Away they flew, kicking up the sand, across the alley, towards the gate, uttering shrieks of delight, as their thin legs sped over the ground. "Les voici! Les voici!" was the cry, and presently approached a bevy of excited little Amazons, with much agitation of voice and gesture, much bobbing of feathers and fluttering of ribbons, who were literally rushing to the front with such a valiant charge, that no one dared to oppose their advance. Every girl carried a roll of copybook, or else one of those black leather writing-cases which have grown almost a feature of the small girl population of Paris. These dauntless damsels seemed in as great a fever of excitement as the young friends who had gone out in such frantic haste to meet them. "Victoire! victoire!" exclaimed they, as if with one .voice; "we have won the day!" and straightway were copybooks and handkerchiefs tossed into the air: "Come along, dear friends, and hear the tale of our triumph!"

"Who are these young ladies ?" in quired I of an elderly gentleman who sat near me, gazing on the scene with a sarcastic smile.

"They are the girls belonging to the

terrible schism in the chapel, and I am sorry to find that the sole individual possessed of the sense and reason indispensable for the government of the frothy mass of vanity and affectation of which our future wives and mothers are composed, should have been defeated."

I was not familiar with the Paris "Catechisms." I had beheld "the germ" in the Petite Provence, and was glad of the opportunity of contemplating "the bud and the blossom" at the same time, and to get initiated into the action of the Catechism upon the young girls of our generation. I listened, therefore, with the greatest attention to the next exclamation which escaped the breathless lips of the leader of the expedition: "Yes, dear friends; the Abbé Fauvel is beaten, and the Abbé de Villars reigns for ever!" The announcement was received with a

shrill scream of delight. "A bas Fauvel!" and "Vive De Villars!" burst from the dainty little throats with as much energy as the “ À bas l'Empereur !" and "Vive la République !" a few weeks before by the gamins on the day of the plébiscite. And the clapping of hands and the skipping to and fro on the tips of the fashionable boots can better be imagined than described.

"But who dared to manage such an important matter as this?" cried a timid voice amongst the listeners.

"Oh, Helène de Montraville, to be sure; you know she has vowed revenge against the Abbé Fauvel ever since he admitted the charity children to our class on the same day and hour as ourselves. Good heavens, mesdemoiselles! just fancy those nasty children from the Sisters' school, with their filthy cotton caps and clattering sabots, in our chapel it was not to be borne." And the orator turned with a gesture of infinite disgust, and spat upon the ground; and the whole bevy of little girls, in imitation of the master spirit, turned aside and spat upon the ground! Encouraged by this mark of adhesion, the orator continued: "Helène de Montraville refused to answer the Abbé Fauvel's

question when it came to her turn to explain the mystery of the Incarnation; and when he inquired the reason of this silence, she replied haughtily that she was waiting for the Abbé de Villars. Thereupon we all sat down convulsed with laughter at the Abbé Fauvel's astonishment, and the little red-haired 'Sisters' girl' burst into a howl of despair, for she had been the first in the class, and knew she would lose her place with the Abbé de Villars, who has no fancy for calico caps and clattering sabots.” Here the speaker, pale with excitement, was forced to pause, and one of her companions, who had been on the watch, took up the wondrous tale in a deep, husky contralto voice, contrasting finely with the shrill tones of the former speaker. "And so the Abbé Fauvel was forced to retire, and the Abbé de Villars came forth, looking, oh! so sweetly, with his bran-new soutane and his lovely white hair, like floss silk, hanging over his shoulders. And he dismissed the 'Sisters' girls' at once, putting them off to another day. And when they were gone, he prayed so divinely! His lovely voice, how tender it seemed, after the rough, rude tones of that odious Fauvel. And then he bowed so gracefully all down the benches, and gave us one of his blandest allocutions, 'Love ye one another, even as Christ has loved you!' And it was heavenly to hear him imitating the bleating of the lambs in the meadows, who gambol together, and love each other, never caring whether their coats be white or black, or their wool soft or coarse. And he made us laugh so at the funny way in which he tried to show us how the lambkins frolic among the flowers, and the little birds whistle in the branches, when all is peace and harmony, as it should be, amongst Christians."

"And did he walk amongst you?" asked a listener, in an envious tone.

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Yes, he actually came down from the reading-desk, and glided amongst the benches, and we all gathered round him, and he was so much overcome with our welcome that he did not perceive how Helène de Montraville had jumped

upon the form and had drawn her scissors from her pocket, with which she had cut off a lock of the darling old Abbé's beautiful silver hair. But in her fright she let the scissors fall, and I picked them up, and quick as lightning snipped off a piece of his new soutane; and then all the girls along our form snipped off a piece wherever they could. So you can just imagine, when the dear old Abbé turned round, what a sight his bran-new soutane presented. For me, look here-I got the best of all-this bit of fringe from his sash, which I shall hoard and bless and pray to as long as I live."

And with this the little maiden pressed the precious relic to her lips, and kissed it with rapturous fervour; and then it was handed round. Each girl kissed it with closed eyes and bent forehead, murmuring a few inaudible. words as she did so.

This little sensation closed the scene. The relic was replaced within the tight bodice of its owner, and in a few moments the Abbé Fauvel and all the religious scruples he had originated were forgotten. The knots of ribbon, the length of the feathers, the height of the heels worn by each of the girls, became the subjects of interest; and then a game was proposed. As in the Petite Provence, a ronde was chosen. The French display in childhood that same sociability which is characteristic of their race, and the favourite games are always those which demand the greatest number of players. As the gaily-dressed, highly refined little band took their station side by side, holding each other by the hand, until the ring was completed, I became deeply interested through the mere instinct of comparison, sure of finding a favourable contrast to the ronde sung by the infantine population of the Petite Provence. "These are all of them girls of elegant and refined education," thought I; "from their rank they must have been protected from every kind of baleful influence. Their age, too, makes them almost what in England would already be called by strangers and dependants young ladies,' no longer

absolute children. In a very few years they will be given in marriage; they will be wives and mothers as soon as a man rich enough can be found to suit their parents."

Much discussion had to be gone through before a choice could be made amongst the various roundelays proposed. "La Tour prend garde" was voted too romping for tight sleeves, "La Marjolaine" too trying for highheeled boots, and some similar objection was raised against many others, until at length the small husky-voiced damsel who had related the unctuous portion of the Abbé de Villars' story, and who was evidently of a melancholy turn of mind, proposed "The Old Woman's Burial" (L'Enterrement de la Vieille), by which no risk would be incurred to either flounce or feather. And so, after a general drawing themselves up to "settle" their waists, and bending forward to balance their poufs, and rising on tiptoe to feel their feet, the whole assembly started in quite as loud and joyous a manner as the Petite Provence had done before them; and, as I live! this was the song piped, rather out of tune it must be confessed, by the scions of the aristocracy :—

""Tis Paris, the gayest city of France.

For there the young men have the merriest

dance;

They twirl, and they whirl the young lasses among,

And they sing, while they turn, their merriest song.

Old woman! old woman! begone, away! The old and decrepit have had their day. "An old woman gazed on the young fellows dancing,

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And her sore eyes grew moist with their amorous glancing;

She took by the hand the handsomest lad, And swore he should kiss her, and make her heart glad.

Old woman! old woman! begone, away! The old and decrepit have had their day.

Young fellow, young fellow! be not too rash,

The old woman's pockets are brimming with cash.

What say you so, truly?' the young fel

low cried;

"Then old she may be, she shall still be my bride.