floor of one of these lofty buildings. that on mentioning to my colleagues There they swung helplessly on their where I had been since we parted on nails high up against the summer sky. the Saturday, I was met with remarks Of the Hôtel de Ville the blackened savoring of incredulity. There were no walls were standing; but the less solidly "club trains," it must be remembered, built Tuileries was a mass of débris, a quarter of a century ago. still smoking. The latter building could indeed well be spared. Its historical memories were neither very ancient nor very splendid; and its removal, with the consequent opening up of the view from the gardens into the Place du Carrousel, was from a picturesque point of view a great improvement. As to the Ministry of Finance, about which there was some discussion at the time, each side trying to lay the blame of its destruction on the other, I can only say that, in spite of Ferré's famous despatch: "Faites flamber de suite finances," it had all the appearance of having been burnt from the top downwards. In most of the other buildings the débris lay in a heap within the walls, having fallen inwards, as the floors successively gave way; here it had all littered out into the street. It is a small matter enough, the Commune having fires in plenty on its conscience; but I felt convinced at the time that in the case of "finances" its intentions had been anticipated by a "Verseilleux" shell, probably from Mount Valérien.

One curious little detail of Parisian life during the first siege was pointed out to us by Mr. C. He took us into the Cercle des Chemins de Fer, of which he was a member, and showed us a book containing the daily bills of fare of the "club dinner." It is, or was, a tradition of this club that beef in some form should appear every day in its menu; and this custom appeared never to have been pretermitted for a single day, even at the time when the food supply of Paris was at the lowest. Of course we suggested that the animals which had yielded the so-called beef had never worn horns; but he assured us that it was not so, and that for those who knew where to go for it there never was a day throughout the siege when genuine beef was not obtainable.

That night I returned to London, and made my appearance duly in Whitehall on Monday morning. I regret to say

Three weeks later I started for my annual holiday, and was able to take rather more time in Paris. I spent a good deal of it in wandering about St. Cloud, Le Bourget, and other places of which the names were then in all men's mouths. At St. Denis, which was occupied by the Prussians, I wanted to obtain permission to see some of the forts which had held out so many months against the army which was now in temporary possession of them; and to this end I accosted a German soldier whom I met in the street, asking him to whom I must address my request. My German was scanty, his seemed scantier still. At last, after vain attempts to understand and be understood, he timidly inquired: "Können Sie besser Pölnisch sprechen?" I had to admit that my studies had not yet extended to the Slavonic tongues. However, I found the Commandantur at last, and was shown in to the Platz-Major, a courteous and mild-mannered officer. I never heard a "swear word" uttered with such a gentle intonation as the "Gottes Donnerwetter" with which he received some piece of intelligence brought in by an orderly while I was there. One could see that he used the expletive merely from a sense of what was proper to his position, and not in the least as an outlet for irritation. He at once gave me the necessary permit. I have it to this day, but have never succeeded in reading it. It procured me instant admission to some of the battered forts, where I remember the soldiers were very anxious to have the names of the guns-for each gun bore a name, "Bijou," and the likeinterpreted to them.

In Paris itself, as I have said, a wonderful clearing-up had taken place in the last three weeks. The splintered trees, the shattered kiosques and other edifices on the boulevards-does any one remember Cham's sketch of the veteran boulevardier gazing sadly on the ruins of one of the latter, and sighing

narrow

fourth was the plage, seen through a tall iron railing whose rusty gates stood always half-open, deep in sand.

The hotel was roofed with red tiles, shabby, white, three-storied, with plaster peeling off its walls, and sunblistered shutters fastened back from its white-screened, balconied windows. Shrimp-nets leant against the wall by the open doors of the long salle à manger, croquet-hoops were stuck in the sand, mallets and balls lay about, and rigged up from the house to the railings a new striped awning flapped in the wind and threw a patch of welcome shade at our feet.

air was genial, and the trees, though of which the hotel was built. On the small, were not warped out of shape. Soil yellowish sand, no rocks to speak of, but a low, crumbling beach-line of chalk, full, as we found, of fossil shells. East and west stretched miles of level sands, from which the tides receded far. Crossing the main street of the village, leading down from the church to the sea, our train stopped at Langrune Station, and we gathered our possessions together and disembarked. A commissionaire was in waiting for us, and led the way. Down a street, the street, we followed, enjoying the clean, strong, salt breeze on our faces. On either hand were low houses of all sizes, one with both vine and figtree flourishing in an enclosure not more than four feet square. Flowerboxed windows and balconies, tiny gardens crowded with bright blooms, and little shops, mingled together anyhow, made up the street. Far across the end of it was a deep-blue strip of sea. The shops began to display luxuries as we went on-gaily striped peignoirs and costumes, sun-hats, shrimping-nets, and dangling bunches of espadrillesthe indispensable shoes, with rope soles and canvas uppers, which make French bathing so comfortable.

Turning to the left along a winding road, we suddenly came upon the hotel of The Little Paradise from the back, entering it on its inland or garden side. We were ushered into a garden gay with dazzling geranium beds, the vivid green of acacia-trees, and big bushes of broom, whose yellow flowers were as large as sweet-peas, filling the air with a strong sweet odor. Under the trees were the coffee tables and two swings (the gymnase!); on the low walls were various plats, and piles of plates gathered in readiness for the forthcoming déjeuner. it was now eleven o'clock, and several kitchen minions were running to and fro, too busy to heed us. However, a cook's cap popped for a moment from a doorway at the side of the garden. Madame Bertrand was shouted for, and soon made her appearance in the archway that led under the main building from the garden to the sea-front.

She led us through the arch, and out into the sandy court, round three sides

Favored pensionnaires had possession of the ground-floor rooms, each with its own broad doorstep, on which sandy espadrilles lay about drying. The upper rooms were reached by steep narrow staircases. At the top of one of these, in a set of tiny rooms much resembling bathing-boxes, we were lodged. Quarters so primitive rather dismayed us at first. The roofs were low; the wall-papers were hideous; the boards were bare, though snowy-white, and with their island bits of carpet were kept liberally sanded by the wind. (At Langrune everything is sandy.) The scanty furniture was old and odd, of that seaside species that is equally unwilling to open or to shut. And the beds? The beds were comfort itself. Roomy, downy, spotlessly fresh and clean; no English lodging we had ever known could provide such bowers of dreamless ease as we found there. We had scarcely time to look round us before one urgent bell after another summoned us to the first of the two public events of the day-déjeuner. From the beach, from the garden, from lower rooms opening off the court, from upper rooms opening off a long wooden balcony (now gay with peignoirs and bathing-dresses, hung to dry in the sun and wind), people came trooping across the deep sands of the court, into the diningroom, vast and beautiful, which we had so often pictured to ourselves. It proved to be the flimsiest of long dinner-boxes. On one side three doorways gave access from the court, and air; on the wall opposite were pinned two

gaudy poster advertisements of bicycles. At one end a window looked across the promenade to the glittering sea, and at the other sliding panels communicated with the kitchen. We had eaten but by snatches for the last twenty-four hours, with our loins girt, and in more or less haste; and the satisfaction with which we now sat down to a restful meal, was at first damped by the menu. Alas! this was Friday. We had hunger-and, behold! a dish of cockles, swimming in a strange liquor, daunting us at the outset. Then flageolets, then cheese, then, as we despaired, beefsteak, on which we were thankful to stay our emptiness. Cider flowed ad lib., and fruit was plentifully provided-pears, peaches, grapes, and

gages.

After déjeuner weariness asserted itself with most of us. The rolling of the steamer still seemed to sway our tired brains, we were far from everything known and restful (being still ignorant of the comfort in store for us in bed); a glare of light reigned without, and closed windows did not exclude the merry clamors of the shore, where the French laughed and jabbered, and flew kites, or played meaningless games of croquet; they seemed a hollow nation; we were too tired to go back that day, as homesick nature prompted, but tomorrow, perhaps.

waves roling in at high tide over half a mile of sun-warmed sands, carrying you in on their crests like a bit of seaweed, and knocking you down with invigorating playfulness as you turned to wade out again for another glorious swim. Often a porpoise would come harmlessly tumbling shorewards, perhaps to have a nearer look at the dancing family circles who disported themselves in the shallow water, or to mockingly imitate, it almost seemed, in his harmless humor, the bolder swimmers who dived, and rose, and disappeared, farther out, beside the anchored boats.

Then, when we must at last come out, there was a search for the peignoirs, which perhaps a sportive wave had reached and floated off the sand, a scampering race up the sea-washed steps across the promenade, inside the rusty gateway of our courtyard, and over its drifted sands, up the rickety staircase, to dress in our tiny rooms, where good Marie had always placed in waiting cleansing foot-baths of hot water.

the

Marie was the good genius of our happy days-quite, we all agree, most wonderful woman we have ever known. She was major-domo, chambermaid, head waitress, confidante, and general adviser in one. A neat, little, bent figure, ubiquitous and untiring, with wiry brown hair under a frilled cap, a loud voice, a charming smile, and By to-morrow we were acclimatized, a quick, kind soul. From dawn to night and our thoughts had incontinently she ran about, responding instantly veered to the idea of buying a house with a piercing "Voilà!" "Ici!" "Me and coming annually. Everything was voici!" from some upper window or one interesting, most things delightful. of the many doorways, at the front or The pure, warm wind lulled every nerve back of the warren-like building. to rest. Law-courts, class-rooms, shop- There were no bells; every one who ping, housekeeping, faded from mem- wanted anything simply shouted ory as if we had never known them. "Marie!” from door or window. Every We elders became to each other what order was received with a ready the Langrunnais called us, simply Mon- "Bien!" "Beau!" And even while you sieur, Madame, Mademoiselle; while spoke with her some distant summons our schoolboys major, minor, and would elicit an ear-splitting, explosive minimus, were known as Le Grand shriek of "Ici!" "Voilà!" as she flew to Monsieur, Monsieur Jean, and Le Petit. the next caller, yet managed to satisfy We flew instinctively to the smiling your demands en route. She not only Veuve Lemoine, whose bright eyes had praised our French, she paid the far marked us for her prey as we passed higher compliment of understanding it, her door yesterday, and who made and did not smile with more than haste to outfit us for the sea. And how obedient comprehension when Monsieur delightful the sea was! Big, crystal told her that, as the morning was so