shirts, obscure, dim-eyed old Government officials, Apaches on their good behaviour, cabmen and chauffeurs (off their boxes), conscripts with permits, concierges hastened from their lodges in slippers, street gamins—Victor Hugo’s Gavroche—with his inimitable sarcasms and repartee—all turn out to behold the Royal guest of Republican France pay his State visit to the Opera. But what with the police and the troops and the closed carriage of the sovereign, all these kinds and conditions of Parisians do not behold even so much as the eyebrow of his Majesty. They remain there until the performance is over, but with no happier success. Away goes the Royal carriage, without affording the crowd the view of an ear-tip, a chin or the nape of the neck. Still, in spite of the crowd having seen nothing, what cheers! I have heard them raised for the Tsar; for the Kings of Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Italy; for the late ruler of Portugal; for the highly popular Alfonso of Spain; for the greatest favourite of all, the idol of the Parisians—King Edward the Seventh. King Edward’s State visit took place eleven years ago. The result of it, twelve months later, was the consummation of the _Entente_. Thus the present month of April will see Paris celebrating a “double” event: the visit of King George and Queen Mary, and the tenth anniversary of the Cordial Understanding. And it is safe to affirm that when the cheers break out afresh in honour of their Majesties, they will not fail to surpass in spontaneity and enthusiasm all the cheers of the past. Royal visits to Paris never vary. They last four or five days, and during that brief period the foreign sovereign, the French President, the Cabinet Ministers, the array of high State officials, the troops, the police, the Press and the greater part of Paris public have so much to do and to see that at the end of the whirl they cannot but confess to a condition of exhaustion. Both the Royal visitor and the President hold brilliant State banquets. Most probably there is a third banquet at the Quai d’Orsay. The gala at the Opera (or sometimes at the Français), a Military Review, an expedition to Versailles, a reception at the Hôtel de Ville, a special race-meeting, presentations of Addresses: such are the traditional items in the strenuous “programme.” Then, speeches to make; and since they are eminently “official,” they must be carefully considered, and thoroughly mastered, beforehand. As, on the other score, the “official” toasts and speeches are invariably stereotyped in substance and sentiment, they cannot demand much inventiveness or exertion. They must be mutually polite and complimentary—a repetition of one another.