of gambling makes the card-table more interesting than feminine small talk. Young Frenchmen are now becoming too old, too _blasés_, to enjoy dancing, which is one of the pleasures of healthy and natural youth. As to conversation, it is difficult to maintain it with ladies in a country where they have such a small share in the political and religious opinions of men, and where literature has little interest for either. In Paris there are the theatres, and the Salon whilst it is open. Perhaps the best subject in common between men and women in modern France is business, for which the women often have a natural aptitude. [Sidenote: The Want of Amusement in France.] [Sidenote: The _Cafés_.] The great want in French provincial life is amusement of a cheap and innocent kind, that might bring people together. The men have their _cafés_, but they are only frequented by one sex, and not universally by that. The clergy, of course, avoid them, and so do the gentry who pretend to some degree of rank. They are frequented by the middle, including the professional, classes; and the very existence of _cafés_ is evidence of the small amount of intercourse going on in private houses. They are at the same time an effect and a cause of the separation of the sexes. So far as I know, the upper classes are more sociable in the sense of having more intercourse amongst themselves than the middle, but they are exclusive, and even amongst the richer nobles I doubt if there is as much hospitality as in England. [Sidenote: Balls and Theatres.] [Sidenote: Rarity of Public Amusements.] An idea is prevalent in England that Frenchwomen are constantly going to balls and theatres. In Paris, no doubt, rich women have these amusements, but in the provinces, where most French people live, there is very little of them. The provincial town that is best known to me is situated in an aristocratic neighbourhood, and although the theatre is very pretty and very well kept, the gentry will not patronise it at all, and are never to be seen there. Even the middle classes are by no means regular in their attendance, for the actors often play to empty benches. There are never any public balls, and those in private houses are very rare. The only public entertainments patronised in any way by the upper classes are the charity concerts, which occur perhaps twice in three years. [Sidenote: Lunch.] [Sidenote: The Formal Call.]