An interesting feature of the general administration of the Parisian hospitals is the arrangement made by the _internes_, the graduates in medicine and pharmacy in the in-door service of the institution, for providing themselves with the necessary meals. These young men are paid by the Assistance Publique the modest sums of from six hundred to a thousand francs a year, from the first to their fourth year, out of which they have to provide for themselves until they are _de permanence_. They therefore make provisions for dining in common, and their _salles de garde_ are cheerful and very informal gathering-places, gay and hospitable, liberally adorned with inscriptions, engravings, and paintings, permeated with the souvenirs and traditions of the institution to which they are attached. At the Hôtel-Dieu, owing to the size of the hospital and the number of clinics, the number of _internes_ and _externes_, _bénévoles_ and _provisoires_, and their friends, is so great that the social character of the salle de garde naturally suffers; each one dines hastily, occupies himself only with his invited guest, and, after coffee, if his duties do not claim him, goes off in search of some shady promenade, which the cloisters of the Hôtel-Dieu--unlike the green courts of the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière--do not offer him. Consequently, the gastronomical qualities of the repast assume a considerable importance, and the duties of the _économe_ become proportionally heavy. [Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM THE "DÉPÔT" FOR THE HOUSE OF DETENTION--LA PETITE-ROQUETTE. After a drawing by E. Vavasseur.]