The custom of making New Year's gifts became at length so general that servants murmured if their masters neglected them in this respect; and an amusing story is told of the stingy Cardinal Dubois, who, on his major-domo asking for his _étrennes_, replied, "Well, you may keep what you have stolen from me during the last twelvemonth." This, however, occurred a long time ago; and had the cardinal lived in the present century, he would scarcely have dared to make such an answer. The Frenchman who nowadays ventures to refuse to his servants, or to any other dependants, the expected annual gifts must be prepared to bear the bitterest sarcasm, which will possibly not cease to assail him even beyond the grave; for it may be his fate to have inscribed on his tomb some such epitaph as the following quite authentic one:-- "Ci-gît, dessous ce marbre blanc, L'homme le plus avare de Rennes; S'il est mort la veille de l'an C'est pour ne pas donner d'étrennes," which may be roughly rendered in English thus:-- "Here lies, beneath this marble white, The miserliest man in Rennes; If New Year's Eve he chose for flight, 'Twas that he need not give _étrennes_." Towards the end of the eighteenth century an edict was published in France forbidding New Year's gifts; but without avail. The _étrennes_ only became more numerous and more costly as the greed of the recipients grew more and more insatiable; and in the present day the meaning of the word _étrenne_ will be only too well understood by any Englishman who, in Paris at the time of the New Year, may venture to have dealings with the waiters at the cafés, with hair-dressers, drivers, or any other set of men who delight in certain traditional customs. [Illustration] CHAPTER XI. THE BOULEVARDS (_continued_). The Opéra Comique of Paris--I Gelosi--The Don Juan of Molière--Madame Favart--The Saint-Simonians. The Boulevard des Italiens derives its name from the so-called Comédie Italienne, the original Opéra Comique of Paris, which owes its existence to letters patent granted to it as far back as 1676. One of the most celebrated establishments on this boulevard is the Café Cardinal, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu. It justifies its title by exhibiting the bust of the famous political prelate, concerning whom the great Corneille, after receiving, first benefits, then injuries, at his hands, wrote these lines:-- "Qu'on parle mal ou bien du fameux cardinal, Ni ma prose, ni mes vers n'en diront jamais rien. Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal, Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien."[A] [A] "Whether good or evil be spoken of the famous Cardinal, neither my prose nor my verse shall say a word of him. He has done too well by me for me to speak ill of him; he has done too ill by me for me to speak well of him."