Pamphlets and other ephemeral productions usually make their first appearance in the _Palais du Tribunat_; and strangers may rely on being plagued by a set of fellows who here hawk about prohibited publications, of the most immoral tendency, embellished with correspondent engravings; such as _Justine, ou les malheurs de la vertu, Les quarante manières, &c._ They seldom, I am told, carry the publication about them, for fear of being unexpectedly apprehended, but keep it at some secret repository hard by, whence they fetch it in an instant. It is curious to see with what adroitness these vagrants elude the vigilance of the police, I had scarcely set my foot in this building before a Jew-looking fellow, coming close to me, whispered in my ear: "_Monsieur veut-il la vie polissonne de Madame--------?_" Madame who do you think? You will stare when I tell you to fill up the blank with the name of her who is now become the first female personage in France? I turned round with astonishment; but the ambulating book-vender had vanished, in consequence, as I conclude, of being observed by some _mouchard._ Thus, what little virtue may remain in the mind of youth is contaminated by precept, as well as example; and the rising generation is in a fair way of being even more corrupted than that which has preceded it. "_Ætas parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem._" Besides the shops, are some auction-rooms, where you may find any article of wearing apparel or household furniture, from a lady's wig _à la Caraculla_ to a bed _à la Grecque:_ here are as many puffers as in a mock auction in London; and should you be tempted to bid, by the apparent cheapness of the object put up for sale, it is fifty to one that you soon repent of your bargain. Not so with the _magazins de confiance à prix fixé_, where are displayed a variety of articles, marked at a fixed price, from which there is no abatement. These establishments are extremely convenient, not only to ingenious mechanics, who have invented or improved a particular production of art, of which they wish to dispose, but also to purchasers. You walk in, and if any article strikes your fancy, you examine it at your ease; you consider the materials, the workmanship, and lastly the price, without being hurried by a loquacious shopkeeper into a purchase which you may shortly regret. A commission of from five to one half per cent, in graduated proportions, according to the value of the article, is charged to the seller, for warehouse-room and all other expenses. Such is the arrangement of the ground-floor; the apartments on the first floor are at present occupied by _restaurateurs_, exhibitions of various kinds, billiard-tables, and _académies de jeu_, or public gaming-tables, where all the passions are let loose, and all the torments of hell assembled.