Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/57

 Who is really poor that may refresh his eye upon the terrace of the Tuileries, across the Concorde Place, and take his airing along the boulevards, or in the lovely, old-fashioned Luxembourg Gardens? What point of Paris is dull to look at? Where are the shop-fronts that do not fascinate? Take even one of those old aristocratic streets of the noble Faubourg Varenne, or of Saint Dominique. At first glimpse it looks a long, dull harmony of stone,—a uniform grey, with high emblazoned gates and closed lodges. But note the peeps into flowery old courtyards, the charming tufts of garden foliage lifting their green branches above the high walls. Glance down the sudden break in the street, where a kind of tall walled terrace runs, trellised, rich in leafage, as silent as the street of a dead city, where wealth shelters itself from envy by its tone of subdued and sober elegance. And yet it is not more trim than are the haunts of commerce, the abodes of labour. Who would not envy the flower-women of the Quai des Fleurs, with their glorious vista of stone and waterway? The curving Seine, ribboned round its beautiful old island, grey-walled, upon the river's brink; the spire of the Sainte Chapelle, painted gold, upon a soft or brilliant sky, and the magnificent gates of the Palace of justice, as much theirs as are the rich man's priceless possessions in his own house. The pleasure of possession alone is