If a French workman buys wine he must buy it at a low price, and in Paris, where the octroi duties are so high, it is impossible that cheap wine can be unadulterated. I will not presume to say what the “wine” is made of, I do not pretend to know, but at present prices it cannot be the juice of the grape. [Sidenote: How the Cafés are maintained.] [Sidenote: Differences in drinking Habits.] Now, let us pass to the pleasanter subject of French temperance. It is very commonly believed in England that every Frenchman must have his café to go to and his theatre. As a matter of fact provincial French people go very little to the theatre, and the cafés, though flourishing, are maintained by a remarkably small number of _habitués_. Many Frenchmen never go to a café at all, unless perhaps occasionally when travelling. Amongst the daily visitors there is an immense difference in drinking habits. I remember a middle-aged gentleman who confined himself to one tiny glass (like a thimble) of pure cognac per day, an allowance that he never exceeded. Another visits the café every day regularly at six in the afternoon and takes his absinthe, a third drinks only ale, a fourth confines himself to coffee with the _petit verre_. [Sidenote: The half-bottle Persuasion.] [Sidenote: Peasants like pure Wine.] With regard to the consumption of wine, there are great numbers of half-bottle drinkers at each meal. The women generally belong to this sect, and half a bottle of light wine, taken whilst eating, is but a gentle stimulus, especially if mixed with water. The use of water with wine varies very much. I never in my life saw a French peasant mix his wine with water; there may be peasants who do it, but I have never met with one. The peasant will drink water abundantly by itself, but when he gets wine he seems to think that to water it would be a sin against the rites of Bacchus. When there is wine on a peasant’s table, the water-bottle is not to be seen. [Sidenote: Wine and Water.] On the contrary, in the middle and upper classes, it is the general custom to mix water with the _vin ordinaire_ whilst people are eating, but the finer wines are never watered. Then you have all degrees of watering. You have the gentleman who puts three drops of water in his wine in deference to custom, though it is a mere form; you have the conscientious man who mixes the two liquids carefully in equal quantities; and you have the drinker of _eau rougie_, who would probably be a water-drinker, like an English teetotaller, if he had not before his eyes the dread of the French proverb “_Les buveurs d’eau sont méchants_.” [Sidenote: “Reddened Water.”] [Sidenote: Jean le Houx.]