Copyright, 1901 by Funk & Wagnalls Company Registered at Stationers’ Hall London, England Printed in the United States of America Published in November, 1901...

“Cocher, drive to the rue Falguière”—this in my best restaurant French. The man with the varnished hat shrugged his shoulders, and raised his eyebrows in doubt. He evidently had never heard of the rue Falguière. “Yes, rue Falguière, the old rue des Fourneaux,” I continued. Cabby’s face broke out into a smile. “Ah, oui, oui, le Quartier Latin.” And it was at the end of this crooked street, through a lane that led into a half court flanked by a row of studio buildings, and up one pair of dingy wax

Like a dry brook, its cobblestone bed zigzagging past quaint shops and cafés, the rue Vaugirard finds its way through the heart of the Latin Quarter. It is only one in a score of other busy little streets that intersect the Quartier Latin; but as I live on the rue Vaugirard, or rather just beside it, up an alley and in the corner of a picturesque old courtyard leading to the “Lavoir Gabriel,” a somewhat angelic name for a huge, barn-like structure reeking in suds and steam, and noisy with gossip

F ROM the Place St. Michel, this ever gay and crowded boulevard ascends a long incline, up which the tired horses tug at the traces of the fiacres, and the big double-decked steam trams crawl, until they reach the Luxembourg Gardens,—and so on a level road as far as the Place de l’Observatoire. Within this length lies the life of the “Boul’ Miche.” Nearly every highway has its popular side, and on the “Boul’ Miche” it is the left one, coming up from the Seine. Here are the cafés, and from 5 P.M.

There are all types of “bals” in Paris. Over in Montmartre, on the Place Blanche, is the well-known “Moulin Rouge,” a place suggestive, to those who have never seen it, of the quintessence of Parisian devil-me-care gaiety . You expect it to be like those clever pen-and-ink drawings of Grevin’s, of the old Jardin Mabille in its palmiest days, brilliant with lights and beautiful women extravagantly gowned and bejeweled. You expect to see Frenchmen, too, in pot-hats, crowding in a circle about Fifi

Of all the balls in Paris, the annual “Bal des Quat’z’ Arts” stands unique. This costume ball is given every year, in the spring, by the students of the different ateliers, each atelier vying with the others in creation of the various floats and cortéges, and in the artistic effect and historical correctness of the costumes. The first “Quat’z’ Arts” ball was given in 1892. It was a primitive affair, compared with the later ones, but it was a success, and immediately the “Quat’z’ Arts” Ball was p

If you should chance to breakfast at “Lavenue’s,” or, as it is called, the “Hôtel de France et Bretagne,” for years famous as a rendezvous of men celebrated in art and letters, you will be impressed first with the simplicity of the three little rooms forming the popular side of this restaurant, and secondly with the distinguished appearance of its clientèle. As you enter the front room, you pass good Mademoiselle Fanny at the desk, a cheery, white-capped, genial old lady, who has sat behind that

J UST off the Boulevard St. Michel and up the narrow little rue Cujas, you will see at night the name “Marcel Legay” illumined in tiny gas-jets. This is a cabaret of chansonniers known as “Le Grillon,” where a dozen celebrated singing satirists entertain an appreciative audience in the stuffy little hall serving as an auditorium. Here, nightly, as the pièce de résistance—and late on the programme (there is no printed one)—you will hear the Bard of Montmartre, Marcel Legay, raconteur, poet, music

Drunkards are not frequent sights in the Quarter; and yet when these people do get drunk, they become as irresponsible as maniacs. Excitable to a degree even when sober, these most wretched among the poor when drunk often appear in front of a café—gaunt, wild-eyed, haggard, and filthy—singing in boisterous tones or reciting to you with tense voices a jumble of meaningless thoughts. The man with the matted hair, and toes out of his boots, will fold his arms melodramatically, and regard you for so

I N this busy Quarter, where so many people are confined throughout the day in work-shops and studios, a breathing-space becomes a necessity. The gardens of the Luxembourg, brilliant in flowers and laid out in the Renaissance, with shady groves and long avenues of chestnut-trees stretching up to the Place de l’Observatoire, afford the great breathing-ground for the Latin Quarter. If one had but an hour to spend in the Quartier Latin, one could not find a more interesting and representative sight

T HERE are many streets of the Quarter as quiet as those of a country village. Some of them, like the rue Vaugirard, lead out past gloomy slaughter-houses and stables, through desolate sections of vacant lots, littered with the ruins of factory and foundry whose tall, smoke-begrimed chimneys in the dark stand like giant sentries, as if pointing a warning finger to the approaching pedestrian, for these ragged edges of the Quarter often afford at night a lurking-ground for footpads. In just such d

Scores of men, celebrated in art and in literature, have, for a longer or shorter period of their lives, been bohemians of the Latin Quarter. And yet these years spent in cafés and in studios have not turned them out into the world a devil-me-care lot of dreamers. They have all marched and sung along the “Boul’ Miche”; danced at the “Bullier”; starved, struggled, and lived in the romance of its life. It has all been a part of their education, and a very important part too, in the development of