The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 377, June 27, 1829Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 377, June 27, 1829
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
I do not think that amongst the readers of these Memoirs one will be
found who, even by chance, has set foot at Guillotin's.
"Eh! what?" some one will exclaim, "Guillotin!"
Ce savant médecin
Que l'amour du prochain
Fit mourir de chagrin.
"You are mistaken; we all know the celebrated doctor, who ----;" but the
Guillotin of whom I am speaking is an unsophisticated adulterer of wines,
whose establishment, well known to the most degraded classes of robbers,
is situate opposite to the Cloaque Desnoyers, which the raff of the
Barriere call the drawing-room of la Courtille. A workman may be honest
to a certain extent, and venture in, _en passant_, to papa Desnoyers's.
If he be _awake_, and keep his eye on the company, although a row should
commence, he may, by the aid of the gendarmes, escape with only a few
blows, and pay no one's scot but his own. At Guillotin's he will not come
off so well, particularly if his _toggery_ be over spruce, and his
_pouch_ has _chink_ in it.
Picture to yourself, reader, a square room of considerable magnitude, the
walls of which, once white, have been blackened by every species of
exhalation. Such is, in all its simple modesty, the aspect of a temple
consecrated to the worship of Bacchus and Terpsichore. At first, by a
very natural optical illusion, we are struck by the confined space before
us, but the eye, after a time, piercing through the thick atmosphere of a
thousand vapours which are most inodorous, the extent becomes visible by
details which escape in the first chaotic glimpse. It is the moment of
creation, all is bright, the fog disappears, becomes peopled, is animated,
forms appear, they move, they are agitated, they are no illusory shadows;
but, on the contrary, essentially material, which cross and recross at
every moment. What beatitudes! what joyous life! Never, even for the
Epicureans, were so many felicities assembled together. Those who like to
wallow in filth, can find it here to their heart's content; many seated
at tables, on which, without ever being wiped away, are renewed a hundred
times a day the most disgusting libations, close in a square space
reserved for what they call the dancers. At the further end of this
infected cave there is, supported by four worm-eaten pillars, a sort of
alcove, constructed from broken-up ship timber, which is graced by the
appearance of two or three rags of old tapestry. It is on this chicken
coop that the music is perched: two clarinets, a hurdy-gurdy, a cracked
trumpet, and a grumbling bassoon--five instruments whose harmonious
movements are regulated by the crutch of Monsieur Double-Croche, a lame
dwarf, who is called the leader of the orchestra. Here all is in
harmony--the faces, costumes, the food that is prepared; a general
appearance is scouted. There is no closet in which walking-sticks,
umbrellas, and cloaks are deposited; the women have their hair all in
confusion like a poodle dog, and the kerchief perched on the top of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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