Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/66

 adore the cavalry, and have a decided taste for the dress of the whole army; but nothing so much pleases them as mustachios, and a broad red cap adorned with leather of the same colour.

In this assembly, a beaver hat, unless napless and brimless, would be very rare; no one ever remembers to have seen a coat there, and should any one dare to present himself in a great coat, unless a family man, he would be sure to depart skirtless, or only in his waistcoat. In vain would he ask pardon for those flaps which had offended the eyes of the noble assembly; too happy would he be if, after having been bandied and knocked about with the utmost unanimity as a greenhorn, only one skirt should be left in the hands of these youthful beauties, who, in the fervour of gaiety, rather roar out than sing these characteristic words:—

Desnoyers' is the Cadran bleu de la Canaille, (the resort of the lower orders;) but before stepping over the threshold of the cabaret of Guillotin, even the canaille themselves look twice, as in this repository are only to be seen prostitutes with their bullies, pick-pockets and thieves of all classes, some prigs of the lowest grade, and many of those nocturnal marauders who divide their existence into two parts, consecrating it to the duties of theft and riot. It may be supposed that slang is the only language of this delightful society: it is generally in French, but so perverted from its primitive signification, that there is not a member of the distinguished "company of forty" who can flatter himself with a full knowledge of it, and yet the "dons of Guillotin's" have their purists: those who assert that slang took its rise in the East, and without thinking for a moment of disputing their talent as Orientalists, they take that title to themselves without any ceremony;