Paris, too, is well served by her tramways propelled by horses,--which have not yet wholly disappeared,--and by steam and electricity, applied in a most ingenious manner. By this means Paris has indeed been transformed from its interior thoroughfares to its uttermost _banlieu_. The last two words on the subject have reference to the advent and development of the bicycle and the automobile, as swift, safe, and economical means of transport. The reign of the bicycle as a pure fad was comparatively short, whatever may have been its charm of infatuation. As a utile thing it is perhaps more worthy of consideration, for it cannot be denied that its development--and of its later gigantic offspring, the automobile--has had a great deal to do with the better construction and up-keep of modern roadways, whether urban or suburban. "_La petite reine bicyclette_" has been fêted in light verse many times, but no one seems to have hit off its salient features as did Charles Monselet. Others have referred to riders of the "new means of locomotion" as "cads on casters," and a writer in _Le Gaulois_ stigmatized them as "_imbéciles à roulettes_," which is much the same; while no less a personage than Francisque Sarcey demanded, in the journal _La France_, that the police should suppress forthwith this _eccentricité_. Charles Monselet's eight short lines are more appreciative: "Instrument raide En fer battu Qui dépossède Le char torlu; Vélocipède Rail impromptu, Fils d'Archimède, D'où nous viens-tu?" Though it is apart from the era of Dumas, this discursion into a phase of present-day Paris is, perhaps, allowable in drawing a comparison between the city of to-day and that even of the Second Empire, which was, at its height, contemporary with Dumas' prime. If Paris was blooming suddenly forth into beauty and grace in the period which extended from the Revolution to the Franco-Prussian War, she has certainly, since that time, not ceased to shed her radiance; indeed, she flowers more abundantly than ever, though, truth to tell, it is all due to the patronage which the state has ever given, in France, to the fostering of the arts as well as industries. And so Paris has grown,--beautiful and great,--and the stranger within her gates, whether he come by road or rail, by automobile or railway-coach, is sure to be duly impressed with the fact that Paris is for one and all alike a city founded of and for the people. CHAPTER VIII. THE BANKS OF THE SEINE The city of the ancient Parisii is the one particular spot throughout the length of the sea-green Seine--that "winding river" whose name, says Thierry, in his "Histoire des Gaulois," is derived from a Celtic word having this signification--where is resuscitated the historical being of the entire French nation.