SKETCHES IN PARIS IN 1825:

FROM THE TRAVELLING NOTE-BOOK OF

GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.

THE PARISIAN HOTEL.

A GREAT hotel in Paris is a street set on end: the grand staircase is the highway, and every floor or apartment a separate had itation. The one in which I am lodged may serve as a specimen. It is a large quadrangular pile, built round a spacious paved court. The ground floor is occupied by shops, magazines, and domestic offices. Then comes the entre-sol, with low ceilings, short windows, and dwarf chambers; then succeed a succession of floors, or stories, rising one above the other, to the number of Mahomet's heavens. Each floor is a mansion, complete within itself, with ante-chamber, saloons, dining and sleeping rooms, kitch en and other conveniences. Some floors are divided into two

or more suites of apartments. Each apartment has its main door of entrance, opening upon the staircase, or landing-places, and locked like a street door. Thus several families and numerous single persons live under the same roof, totally independent of each other, and may live so for years, without holding more inter

course than is kept up in other cities by residents in the same street.

Like the great world, this little microcosm has its gradations of rank and style and importance. The Premier, or first floor with its grand saloons, lofty ceilings, and splendid furniture, is decidedly the aristocratical part of the establishment The second floor is scarcely less aristocratical and magnificent; the other floors go on lessening in splendor as they gain in altitude, and end with the attics, the region of petty tailors, clerks, and sewing girls. To make the filling up of the mansion complete, every odd nook and corner is fitted up as a joli petit appartement à garcon, (a pretty little bachelor's apartment,) that is to say, some little dark inconvenient nestling-place for a poor devil of a bachelor.

The whole domain is shut up from the street by a great portecochère, or portal, calculated for the admission of carriages. This consists of two massy folding doors, that swing heavily open upon a spacious entrance, passing under the front of the edifice into the court-yard. On one side is a grand staircase leading to the upper apartments. Immediately without the portal, is the porter's lodge, a small room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the concierge, or porter, and his family. This is one of the most important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and consent. The porte-cochère in general is fastened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into the porter's lodge. Whoever wishes to go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immedi*ely drawn, as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar,

the visitor pushes it open, and enters. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter's little chamber: the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a visitor is at hand. The stranger in the mean time ascends the great staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door, equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his friends. Beside this hangs a bell-cord, with which he rings for admittance.

When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter's door, and is told, "Montez au troisième, au quatrième; sonnez à la porte à droite, ou à gauche;" ("Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the right or left hand door,") as the case may be.

The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets and the domestic history of every member of the little territory within the porte-cochère.

The porter's lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, where all the private affairs of this interior neighborhood are discussed. The court-yard, also, is an assembling place in the evenings for the servants of the different families, and a sisterhood of

sewing girls from the entre-sols and the attics, to play at various games, and dance to the music of their own songs, and the echoes of their feet; at which assemblages the porter's daughter takes the lead; a fresh, pretty, buxom girl, generally called “La Petite," though almost as tall as a grenadier. These little evening gatherings, so characteristic of this gay country, are countenanced by the various families of the mansion, who often look down from their windows and balconies, on moonlight evenings, and enjoy the simple revels of their domestics. I must observe, however, that the hotel I am describing is rather a quiet, retired one, where most of the inmates are permanent residents from year to year, so that there is more of the spirit of neighborhood, than in the bustling, fashionable hotels in the gay parts of Paris, which are continually changing their inhabitants.

I often amuse myself by watching from my window (which by the by is tolerably elevated) the movements of the teeming little world below me; and as I am on sociable terms with the porter and his wife, I gather from them, as they light my fire, or serve my breakfast, anecdotes of all my fellow-lodgers. I have been somewhat curious in studying a little antique Frenchman, who occupies one of the jolie chambres à garçon already mentioned. He is one of those superannuated veterans who flourished before the revolution, and have weathered all the storms of Paris, in consequence, very probably, of being fortunately too insignificant to atract attention. He has a small income, which he manages with the skill of a French economist: appropriating so much for his

lodgings, so much for his meals, so much for his visits to St Cloud and Versailles, and so much for his seat at the theatre. He has resided at the hotel for years, and always in the same chamber, which he furnishes at his own expense. The decorations of the room mark his various ages. There are some gallant pictures, which he hung up in his younger days, with a portrait of a lady of rank, whom he speaks tenderly of, dressed in the old French taste, and a pretty opera dancer, pirouetting in a hoop petticoat, who lately died at a good old age. In a corner of this picture is stuck a prescription for rheumatism, and below it stands an easy-chair. He has a small parrot at the window, to amuse him when within doors, and a pug-dog to accompany him in his daily peregrinations. While I am writing, he is crossing the court to go out. He is attired in his best coat, of sky-blue, and is doubtless bound for the Tuileries. His hair is dressed in the old style, with powdered ear-locks and a pigtail. His little dog trips after him, sometimes on four legs, sometimes on three, and looking as if his leather small-clothes were too tight for him. Now the old gentleman stops to have a word with an old crony who lives in the entre-sol, and is just returning from his prome. nade. Now they take a pinch of snuff together; now they pull out huge red cotton handkerchiefs, (those "flags of abomination," as they have well been called,) and blow their noses most sonorously. Now they turn to make remarks upon their two little dogs, who are exchanging the morning's salutation; now they part, and my old gentleman stops to have a passing word with the porter's wife: and now he sallies forth, and is fairly launched upon the town for the day.

No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring and portioning out his time as he whose

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