I went last night with my good little hostess to a neighbouring church, where there is service every evening. It was well lighted round the central altar, but in every direction the lofty aisles stretched away into the darkness, with an occasional lamp illuminating some saint, and small groups of dark figures kneeling on the pavement. The people were assembled in the centre—mostly the lower classes, women in their white caps, and little children dressed like miniature women; they knelt or stood, or sat on chairs and benches as the service required, generally with the utmost devotion. The little children used the holy water, crossed themselves, and knelt with their mothers, and regarded the bright lights, the flowers round the golden Virgin, and the impressive music with eager, wondering faces. The service was sung or chanted entirely in Latin; occasionally a pause in the music would be broken by the sudden, deep tones of a man’s voice away in the darkness, or a choir of boys’ voices would burst forth apparently from the clouds. The walls were covered with enormous pictures partially illuminated. I felt fully the impressiveness of this scene to the uneducated people; no thought awakened, but the emotional religious sentiment powerfully addressed; and this every night, when the solemn ceremonial contrasts so strongly and soothingly with the traffic of the day. The children are nursed in this atmosphere until it becomes a part of their nature that no reasoning can ever change. My first introduction to Paris institutions was through the visit of a public official, who brought a registration paper to be filled up. I put myself down as _Etudiante_. The man stared, and then standing in front of me began to make the most extraordinary grimaces, opening his eyes until the whites showed all round them. My first astonished thought was—‘You ugly little brute, what on earth are you doing that for?’ when, his manner suddenly changing on my look of astonishment, he tapped me benevolently on the shoulder, saying, ‘_Mon enfant_, you must not put yourself down as student—_rentière_ is the word you must use!’ In later life, with larger experience, I came to the conclusion that I had been interviewed by the Police des Mœurs! Fortunately at that time I knew nothing of the corrupt system of accepting and regulating female vice.