Many years have elapsed since first I saw Mère Casimir in the Café Procope—“le café de M. de Voltaire,” now, also, no more. It was one o’clock in the morning. The olive-man and the nougat-merchant had paid their last call; the flower-woman had said good-night; the next visitor was Mère Casimir. So feeble was she that she could scarcely push open the door: and when a waiter let her in, she curtsied to him, then curtsied to the customers. No one bought her matches: but she was given _bock_. Sous were collected on her behalf by a student; they were to persuade her to dance. But Mère Casimir had grown stiff with time. She could do no more than hop and curtsy, bob and bend, smile and crow, kiss and wave her withered old hand. “Il était une fois,” she protested, at the end. “Once upon a time.” Invited to seat herself at my table, Mère Casimir told me how she had shone at the Opera; how she had attended notorious, extravagant suppers and balls; how she had broken hearts; how Napoleon III. himself had noticed her; how she used to sing Béranger ditties.... She would sing one now ... one of her favourites.... “Listen.” Rising, she piped feebly again. Ah, the Elysée! Mère Casimir compared it contemptuously to the Tuileries, and sighed. What was a President to an Emperor? What was the Opera to-day? and the Bois? and the Jockey Club? “The vulgar Republic has changed all that,” she complained. “It disgusts me—this Republic.” Suddenly the old woman became silent. Bent in half behind the table, she was scarcely visible. Minutes went by, but she remained motionless. And at last the waiter, thinking her asleep, called out: “Eh bien, la vieille?” Then, Mère Casimir started, and nodded her head, and rose, and thanked the customers with a last curtsy, and told them she hoped to dance to them on another occasion; and, before going out into the darkness, murmured again: “Il était une fois.” A few nights later I met her on the Boul’ Mich’ whilst she was passing from table to table on the terrace of the Café d’Harcourt. The students were kind to her; so were Mürger’s daughters, Mesdemoiselles Musette and Mimi. And she was given olives and nougat, and a number of sous, and even a rose. And the waiters were friendly also; and so was the stout, black-coated proprietor. In return, Mère Casimir sang her song and danced her dance, and was applauded and encored—even by the policeman at the corner. At two o’clock in the morning, when the Latin Quarter cafés close, the old woman disappeared. No one knew where she lived. But she could be seen feebly making her way up the Boul’ Mich’ and, turning, to pass the Panthéon. There the streets soon become narrow and dim. Apaches and _chiffonniers_ abound. One or two sinister-looking wine-shops remind one of those in the _Mystères de Paris_. Through the grimy windows, one can watch the customers, seated at rude tables within.