Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/223

Rh wretchedness, showed themselves unvailed, side by side. Along the boulevards passed a splendid procession of carriages or people on horseback; spectators thronged the side alleys, whilst miserable wretches displayed there, their open sores and decrepit limbs; women lay on the ground covered with black clothing, and surrounded by pale, half-naked children. The young gentlemen of the boulevards leaped over them. Well-dressed young men followed the ladies begging; dissolute women laid hands upon the gentlemen. The streets swarmed in the evening with human night-butterflies; the Palais Royal blazed with lights, gambling houses, and splendid shops; but after four o'clock in the afternoon, it was dangerous for a young lady to go across its inner court, even by her mother's side. More than twenty theatres were open every evening, to crowded houses; the great French scenic artists, Talma, Duchenois, Mile. Mars, were still alive; Pasta and Mainville Feodor, sang at the opera; every theatre had its stars, and all had their passionate worshipers. Laughing pajazzas skipped along the promenades; jugglers and pickpockets swarmed; old women boiled their soup under the open sky, and educated their children by blows; every where there were outcries, noise, laughter, dancing. The fountains of the Tuileries played refreshingly in the stillness of the morning, and delighted children might be seen there at mid-day, skipping about and dancing in rings, whilst the gay world circled in splendid attire through the beautiful alleys. Paris was a grand melo-dramatic spectacle, which almost turned the head of the young