Among the most common in France was that of _La Truie qui file_, or the Spinning Pig, in vogue among merchants of provisions. _A la Marmite de Gargantua_ and _Aux Moutons de Panurge_ were favourite signs of restaurants. The frequent _Lion d'Or_ of hotels and taverns often represented a traveller asleep--_au lit on dort_. _Au Cheval blanc_, a very popular title, was usually accompanied by the traditional phrase, _Ici on loge à pied et à cheval_. The traveller who has visited the smaller towns of France and who remembers his dinners will associate many an excellent table d'hôte with the shield of the white charger. _Au bon Coign_ was a sign in favour with wine-shops situated at a corner of a street, while _Au Saint Jean-Baptiste_ was a common device of linen-merchants. A wine-merchant opposite Père-Lachaise had these words printed on his ensign, _Ici on est mieux qu'en face_. A not unfrequent Parisian signboard was that of an ox dressed with bonnet, veil, and shawl, to signify _bœuf à la mode_. A pastry-cook's manifesto depicted a little girl climbing up to reach some cakes in a pantry, with the title, _A la petite Gourmande_. A corset-maker's sign was accompanied by a large corsage, with this explanation of its office, _Je soutiens les faibles, je comprime les forts, je ramène les égarés_. The emblem of a stocking-maker represented a grisette trying on a new pair of hose and exhibiting her nether charms to an admirer--with the motto, _A la belle occasion_. Among the wittiest of old enseignes was that of a Paris boot-maker named Nicque, who had for his device a splendid bouquet of flowers, with the inscription _Aux Amateurs de la Botte à Nicque_. Representations of the sun and the moon were among the oldest and most common signs both on the Continent and in England, the sixteenth-century French poet Désiré Arthus writing in his "Loyaulté Consciencieuse des Taverniers": "Sur les chemins des grands villes et champs, Ne trouverez de douze maisons l'une, Qui n'ait enseigne d'un soleil, d'une lune. Tous vendant vin, chascun à son quartier." (On roads that wind through town and field, Not one in twelve but flaunts the shield Of sun or moon, whose beams benign Proclaim an inn dispensing wine.) Early in 1800 the rue Vivienne was celebrated for its numerous artistic signs, some of which were suspended from the lintels, and others painted on the door-posts and window-frames. These, with the picturesque street-criers and the olden sun-dials, have gradually become more and more a thing of the past in the French capital, though they still add to the charm and quaintness of some of the old provincial towns, where modern ways have been more slow to intrude. How, of a gusty day or on the rising of the wind, the old signs creak on their rusty hinges in the dark vaulted streets, telling of the roysterings that have been held within--of the flashing of rapiers and clash of swords, the draining of bumpers and clink of louis d'or!