Other pastimes of the people, besides fairs and picnics, are the cheap excursions down the river with inexpensive refreshments on the water-edge, the public dancing of the 14th of July, and the illuminations, carnivals, and the feast of the washerwomen with the coronation of their queen, the free afternoons at the state theatres. All these are edifying sights, for they show you how decorously and charmingly the French people can take their diversions and how good-humoured and well-mannered a French crowd can be. If you venture up to Montmartre, the hill of impropriety, you will find a different quality in the entertainment offered. You will be less convinced of the moral and mental value of the nation. A great deal of hot blue wine is consumed, and the desperadoes of misprized genius meet to shock and shake the foundations of the hill by their stupid ruffianism in verse. Ladies display their underwear, and their havoc of virtue is gauged by the length of their laundress’s bill. Tenth-rate journalists, unread and unreadable authors, penniless, whose talent consists in their indecency, inane and flatulent “masters,” pose here and enjoy in their several ways the sensation of going to the dogs in a body. They drink out of skulls, and count themselves original. A waiter dressed as a devil addresses them, _Que veux tu, damné_? Satan at the counter, with hoofs, horns, and tail, welcomes them to hell, and they think they have accomplished unheard-of villainy when they get drunk. It is not unusual to hear that these amiable gentlemen live upon the profits of prostitution, while awaiting their merited recognition from a dense and ungrateful world. Sometimes, but rarely, real talent has travelled down to the Boulevards by way of Montmartre and the dull Red Mill of Folly. Maurice Donnay is a brilliant example. He dwelt awhile on his high perch of misprized genius, but he was speedily valued at his worth, and carried in triumph into a cleaner and more intelligent atmosphere. There is nothing drearier in Paris than its resorts of vice, such as the Moulin Rouge, Bullier, its “halls of brandy and song.” They are quite as vulgar as elsewhere, and infinitely more disgusting. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV THE ARMY AND THE NATION