Lippincotts Magazine, January 1875 | Page 8

spoken ten consecutive words. The ears of the baron were this morning quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his hair, which he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap and water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists.
It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the steamer, where I had left them when surprised by Charles's indisposition. My tin box would possibly yield me a button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat my breast, like the wedding-guest in the _Ancient Mariner_, for I heard the summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two must take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels.
Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. It was a grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, which had floated into my chamber with the entrance of Hohenfels, were in full cadence outside. Everybody was pouring out to the city-gate, or returning from thence, where, in honor of some visit from the king of the Belgians and count and countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in imitation or rehearsal of the grand annual kermesse. These festivals, retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the customs of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better than the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, copying principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives to peep at everything, with an interest whose amount is in ratio with the square of his distance from his master), to give a few features of the scene, which he spread in detail before the attentive Josephine during many an evening after.
[Illustration: COALS vs. COATS]
The principal fair-ground--though the occasion crammed the whole city with revelers--was just outside the gate. It was a veritable town in miniature, with a pattern of checker-board streets--Columbine street, Polichinelle street, Avenue des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of the Chanson, and the like. There were more than five hundred booths, all numbered--shops and restaurants. There were the Salon Curtius, the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Café Bataclan, the American Tavern. From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles--with a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have expected--managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch. The above establishments were near the entrance, to the right.
At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap of ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by France, a gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" confectionery. Farther on, in the Théatre Casti, was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by His Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; then the Théatre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, where receptions were given by a little creature who should have sat under a microscope: she was "the Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at Clotat, near Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring forty-six centimètres--a ravishing figure, admirably proportioned in her littleness and _tout à fait sympathique!"_
The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to the very centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped hair was shouting, "Messieurs and ladies, come and see--come and see the theatre of the galleys! The only one in the world! This is the place to view the real instruments of torture used on the prisoners---chains four yards long and balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and ladies. You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who killed his father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, come in, gentlemen and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given away! You enter and go out when you like. Come in! It is educational: you see vice and crime depicted on the faces of the criminals!"
[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.]
In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy betwen een spinnekop and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais of the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming.
The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that sort on this eventful journey), a