And yet, while laughing at himself, and at all things round him, the Frenchman offers us the ideal of an indefatigable worker in whatever road he has elected to run his career. If he can talk well, he can work hard, and no race seeks so strenuously as his to achieve perfection in every path. The alacrity and precision of his speech he brings into all he does, and I know no men who have won renown able to wear it so simply, with such a delightful absence of pompousness, as distinguished Frenchmen. Victor Hugo was, of course, the big exception indispensable for the proof of the rule, for Victor Hugo sat in pontifical state on his Throne of Letters, and posed as a sort of Napoleon. But that was a part of his flamboyant genius, which had to make a life apart for itself. Renan, with his delicate scepticism, his good-humoured tolerance, was a much more convincing figure of French genius; he was more in keeping with the urbane, gentle traditions of his race. The French language lends itself to such a daily dignity of existence, that this may partly be the reason there always seems to me something peculiarly and indescribably harmonious about intimate life in France, as well as in its larger social phases. Everybody about you, beginning with your servant, speaks so well, that long intercourse with them unfits you for latitudes where speech is less admirable and less choice. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XI THE “LITTLE PEOPLE” OF PARIS The “little people” of Paris are not confined to any particular quarter of the city. They are to be found everywhere, in spacious avenues, in streets of heraldic renown, in the sinister neighbourhood of La Roquette, through the noisy length of St. Denis. Opposite the palace of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld in the Rue de Varennes will you see an old curiosity shop, and close by work a mild-eyed cobbler and his wife, a little sempstress. Excellent types, both of these indefatigable little people of Paris, living in two tidy attics of this aristocratic street, with an air of quiet independence. The little people are of all sorts: beginning with the “little” _bourgeoise_ and ending with the rag-picker and the _marchand de quatre saisons_. The little _bourgeoise_ is a curious study, and to penetrate into the precincts where she breathes and thrives, the foreigner must be her boarder. Else will he obtain none but a superficial view of her; and as her aspect is generally cheerful, her manners pleasing, he will be disposed to think better of her than she altogether deserves. The thrift of the little _bourgeoise_ must be given its real and ugly name, avarice, for it is nothing else. It has turned its back upon the virtue of economy, and has assumed the coarseness of a vice. And so when she furnishes a spare room, it is that she shall exploit mercilessly the stranger at her gates. The traveller in search of experience may drop in upon her, but those not supplied with patience,