Speaking of grisettes, there are some writers who try to make us believe that there are none now; that they have gone out of fashion, like pug dogs; that the mould is broken. With due deference to those gentlemen, we maintain that the grisette still exists and always will exist in Paris. For, if you please, what are all the flowermakers, seamstresses, burnishers, illuminators, laundresses, waistcoatmakers, shirtmakers, trousermakers, etc., etc.?--They are neither coquettes, nor those exceedingly free and easy beauties who are always in evidence in the proscenium boxes of the smaller theatres, and are called, I do not just know why, lorettes; nor are they kept women, for it very often happens that their lovers can give them nothing but love; lastly, they are not virtuous bourgeois women, who never go out except on the arm of a father or brother. They are grisettes, genuine grisettes! Pray let us not demonetize them, they are such pretty coins! Why insist that they shall cease to be current? I wish that you gentlemen, who will have it that there are none left in Paris, would go now and then, during the summer, to the Closerie des Lilas, the favorite ball of the students who love dancing and love; you will see there grisettes of all categories, you will see them laughing, capering, fooling, dancing a cancan as graceful and much less indecent than the Spanish dances which are allowed at the theatres; you will hear them talk, making fun of one another, envying this one her lover, ridiculing that one's lover; and amid the brief sentences and bursts of laughter that fill the air on all sides, you will catch some piquant, clever remarks, original expressions, which you hear nowhere else, and which make it impossible for you to keep a serious face--unless, that is to say, you belong to that school which insists that no one shall laugh, and which dares to say that "laughter is a grimace"! What a pitiful school, good Lord! Take my advice and never send your children to it! You must surely see that the results are not desirable. Dupont, arriving in Paris during the carnival, began his bachelor life by betaking himself to the Opéra ball. "The doctor ordered me to enjoy myself, and I can't fail of it in the midst of that crowd, largely composed of pretty women who are not absolute Lucretias, who ask nothing better than to make acquaintances, who, in fact, go to the ball for that sole purpose. I will take my choice, I will try to find a woman shaped like a Venus--yes, a Bacchante even, for all the Bacchantes I ever saw in pictures were of perfect shape; I will play the agreeable, the gallant; I have wit enough when I am started; to be sure, I have some difficulty in getting started, but with perseverance and punch I shall succeed; and I won't go to bed at ten o'clock, for I won't go to the ball till midnight."