Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/62

 climbed up the stairs of your flat, there is no more climbing, no futile running up and down stairs. Everything is at hand. You walk from your dining-room into your salon and across a level floor into your bedroom; and it needs no excessive labour to keep all things straight, and polished, and spotless. If you are fond of experimental cooking and light housework, you can dispense with the trouble and cost of a servant; avail yourself of the services of a femme de ménage, in a land where women of the people are admirably competent and honest, and potter about your doll's-kitchen to your liking. Fuel you will find much cheaper than in London, thanks to the little charcoal furnaces in enamel fireplaces, which can be lit and extinguished at will, at a nominal expense. And so a poor lady, a teacher, or a student, can live respectably and agreeably in Paris on an income that would mean squalor and misery in London. A flat consisting of three bright rooms, a kitchen, several presses, a closet large enough to stow away endless boxes in, and serve as well as a hanging-clothes closet, plenty of water, and excellent sanitary arrangements may be had in an enviable spot, with pleasant outlook and good entrance, for six hundred francs a year (£24); a femme de ménage who will cook, market, mend, and clean up as a French woman knows how, for six sous (threepence) an hour; and if you treat