It has already been seen that domestics have at different periods been employed in Paris as spies.--According to Léon Gozlan, writing of his own period, “the police of Paris is almost entirely occupied with the misdeeds of domestics. Nearly all domestics are thieves or spies, and they get more so as they grow older. The most honest amongst them steals at least ten sous a day from his master.” It is to be hoped that if they steal in this amusingly regular fashion, they at least observe the kind of morality which has been noticed in some of the inferior state officials of Russia. One of these complained that a colleague of his was dishonest and helped himself to things which belonged to the State. “But you do the same thing yourself,” suggested a friend. “True,” was the reply; “but this fellow steals too much for his place.” Let us, however, turning from drollery and from Léon Gozlan--who can hardly have been quite serious--glance at the household servant of Paris as a factor in the Parisian community. The French domestic, whether valet, lackey, or lady’s-maid, is more important and influential than the domestic of England. It is true that occasionally in an English house some servant practically rules the family, and that the relationship between employer and employed becomes so reversed that the mistress is afraid to ring her drawing-room bell. As a rule, however, in England the domestic is a nonentity. The man-servant or maid-servant who waits at an English table is absolutely ignored, and is not even supposed to understand the conversation which accompanies dinner, nor to laugh at jokes indulged in by the host or his guests. An English servant nowadays who shook with laughter at what he overheard in the dining-room, like black Sambo at Mr. Sedley’s, would be cautioned if not cashiered. The French domestic is a personage and a power. The “trade of lackey,” according to Fabrice, in “Gil Blas,” requires a man of superior intellect. The true lackey “does not go through his duties like a ninny; he enters a house to command rather than to serve. He begins by studying his master: he notes his defects, gains his confidence, and ultimately leads him by the nose.... If a master has vices, the superior genius who waits upon him flatters them, and often indeed turns them to his own advantage.” Awaiting the day when he shall himself be great, the liveried aspirant takes the name of his master when he is with other lackeys, adopts his manners and apes his gestures; he carries a gold watch and wears lace; he is impertinent and foppish. “Bon chien se forme sur maître,” says the French proverb, and the Parisian domestic religiously takes after his master, even though, as far as intrinsic resemblance goes, he might simply be an ape in his master’s clothes. [Illustration: A FAIR.]