my first days in Paris to see the popularity of Cooper as a novelist. His stories are for sale at every book-stall, and are in all the libraries. They are sold with illustrations at a cheap rate, and I think I may say with safety that he is as widely read in France as any foreign novelist. This is a little singular when it is remembered how difficult it is to convey the broken Indian language to a French reader. This is one of the best features of Cooper's novels—the striking manner in which he portrays the language of the North American Indian and his idiomatic expressions. Yet such is the charm of his stories that they have found their way over Europe. The translations into the French language must be good.
Another author read widely in Paris, as she is all over Europe, is Mrs. Stowe. Uncle Tom is a familiar name in the brilliant capital of France, and even yet his ideal portraits hang in many shop windows, and the face of Mrs. Stowe peeps forth beside it. Uncle Tom's Cabin was wonderfully popular among all classes, and to very many—what a fact!—it brought their first idea of Jesus Christ as he is delineated in the New Testament. But Mrs. Stowe's Sunny Memories was very severely criticised and generally laughed at—especially her criticisms upon art.
Walking one evening in the Champs Elysees, I found a little family of singers from the Alps, underneath one of the large trees. You should have heard them sing their native songs, so plaintive and yet so mild. Father and mother, two little sisters and a brother, were begging their bread in that way. They were dressed very neatly, although evidently extremely poor. The father had a violin which he played very sweetly, the mother sang, the two little girls danced, and the boy put in a soft and melancholy tenor. I hardly ever listened to sadder music. It seemed as if their hearts were in it, saddened at the thought of exile from their native mountains. After singing for a long time, they stopped and looked up appealingly to the crowd—but not a sou fell to the ground. Once more they essayed to sing, with a heavier sorrow upon their faces, for they were hungry and had no bread. They stopped again—not a solitary sou was given to them. A large tear rolled down the cheek of the father—you should have seen the answering impulse of the crowd—how the sous rattled upon the ground. They saw instantly that it was no common beggar before them, but one who deserved their alms. At once, as if a heaven full of clouds had divided and the sunshine flashed full upon their faces, the band of singers grew radiant and happy. Such is life—a compound of sorrow and gayety.
The Parisian omnibus system is the best in the world, and I found it very useful and agreeable always while wandering over the city. The vehicles are large and clean, and each passenger has a chair fastened firmly to the sides of the carriage. Six sous will carry a person anywhere in Paris, and if two lines are necessary to reach the desired place, a ticket is given by the conductor of the first omnibus, which entitles the holder to another ride in the new line. The omnibus system is worked to perfection only in Paris, and is there a great blessing to people who cannot afford to drive their own carriages.
THE BOURSE—GALIGNANI'S, ETC., ETC.
The Paris Exchange is on the Rue Vivienne, and is approached from the Tuileries from that street or via the Palais National, and a succession of the most beautiful arcade-shops in Paris or the world. If the day be rainy, the stranger can thread his way to it under the long arcades as dry as if in his own room at the hotel. I confess to a fondness for wandering though such places as these arcades, where the riches of the shops are displayed in their large windows. In America it is not usual to fill the windows of stores full of articles with the price of each attached, but it is always so in London and Paris. A jewelry store will exhibit a hundred kinds of watches with their different prices attached, and the different shops will display what they contain in like manner. There are, too, in Paris and London places called "Curiosity shop". The first time I ever saw one of these shops with its green windows and name over the door, memory instantly recalled a man never to be forgotten. Will any one who has read Charles Dickens ever forget his "Curiosity Shop," the old grandfather and little Nell? When I entered the shop—the windows filled with old swords, pistols, and stilettos—it seemed to me that I must meet the old gray-haired man, or gentle Nell, or the ugly Quilp and Dick Swiveller. But they were not there.
But I have been stopping in a curiosity shop when I should be on my way to the Bourse. The Paris Bourse, or Exchange, is perhaps the finest building of its kind on the continent. Its magnificence is very properly of the most solid and substantial kind. For should not the exchange for the greatest merchants of Paris be built in a stable rather than in a slight and beautiful manner? The form of the structure is that of a parallelogram, and it is two hundred and twelve by one hundred and twenty-six feet. It is surrounded by sixty-six Corinthian columns, which support an entablature and a worked attic. It is approached by a flight of steps which extend across the whole western front. Over the western entrance is the following inscription—BOURSE ET TRIBUNAL DE COMMERCE. The roof is made of copper and iron. The hall in the center of the building where the merchants meet is very large—one hundred and sixteen feet long and seventy-six feet broad. Just below the cornice are inscribed the names of the principal cities in the world, and over the middle arch there is a clock, which on an opposite dial-plate marks the direction of the wind out of doors.
The hall is lighted from the roof—the ceiling is covered with fine paintings, or as they are styled "monochrane drawings." Europe, Asia, Africa, and America are represented in groups. In one, the city of Paris is represented as delivering her keys to the God of Commerce, and inviting Commercial Justice to enter the walls prepared for her.
The hall is paved with a fine marble, and two thousand persons can be accommodated upon the central floor. There is a smaller inclosure at the east end, where the merchants and stockholders transact their daily business. The hours are from one o'clock to three for the public stocks, and till half past five for all others. The public is allowed to visit the Bourse from nine in the morning till five at night. A very singular regulation exists in reference to the ladies. No woman is admitted into the Bourse without a special order from the proper authorities. The cause for this is the fact that years ago, when ladies were admitted to the Bourse, they became very much addicted to gambling there, and also enticed the gentlemen into similar practices. It is not likely that the old stockholders were tempted into any vicious practices, but the presence of women was enough to attract another class of men—idlers and fashionable gamblers—until the exchange was turned into a gambling-saloon. The matter was soon set to rights when women were shut out.
Paris was formerly without an Exchange, and the merchants held their meetings in an old building which John Law, the celebrated financier, once occupied. They afterward met in the Palais Royal, and still later, in a comparatively obscure street. The first stone of the Bourse was laid on the 28th of March, 1808, and the works proceeded with dispatch till 1814, when they were suspended. It was completed in 1826. The architect who designed it died when it was half completed, but the plan was carried out, though by a new architect. It is now a model building of its kind, and cost nearly nine millions of francs. In comprehensive magnificence it has no rival in Paris—perhaps not in the world. The Royal Exchange of London, though a fine building, is a pigmy beside this massive and colossal structure. The best view can be obtained from the Rue Vivienne. From this street one has a fine view of the fine marble steps ascending to it, and which stretch completely across the western part.
The history of all the great panics which have been experienced on the Paris Exchange would be an excellent history of the fortunes of France. The slightest premonition of change is felt at once at the Bourse, and as each successive revolution has swept over the country, it has written its history in ineffaceable characters on Change. Panic has followed panic, and the stocks fly up or down according to the views outside. The breath of war sets all its interests into a trembling condition, and an election, before now, has sent the thrill
