: Sans-Cravate; or The Messengers; Little Streams by Kock Paul De - French fiction Translations into English

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NOVELS BY Paul de Kock

SANS-CRAVATE; OR, THE MESSENGERS

VOL. I

PRINTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH

GEORGE BARRIE'S SONS

THE JEFFERSON PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK

SANS-CRAVATE;

THE MESSENGERS

THE IDLERS.--BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS

Three young men, arm in arm, were walking, or, to speak more accurately, loitering, along Boulevard des Italiens, looking to right and left, scrutinizing the women at close quarters, especially when they were pretty; commenting aloud on the face of one and the bearing of another, interspersing their reflections with jests, puns, foolish remarks, and bursts of laughter; and, lastly, smoking cigars, an accomplishment which is now indispensable to the young men of fashion whose ordinary promenade is the Boulevard de la Chauss?e d'Antin.

It is a little world in itself that frequents Boulevard des Italiens, a fashionable, aristocratic, eccentric boulevard, where, none the less, many of the promenaders affect manners, dress, and language which remind us forcibly of Diogenes. Each portion of a large city has its quarters, with their habitu?s and their residents, whose dress, language, and manners have their own peculiar characteristics. Thus, there is a marked difference between the costume of an annuitant of the Marais and that of the ex-young man of the Chauss?e d'Antin; between the dress of a grande dame of Faubourg Saint-Germain and that of a bourgeois housewife of the Cit?; between the grisette of Rue Saint-Jacques and her of Place Br?da, who has lately taken the name of lorette. Of course, the residents of one quarter do not remain altogether on their own territory, and they may sometimes be met with in a neighboring section. But, even then, a practised eye never makes a mistake; it recognizes the strangers at once, and does not confound them with the natives of the quarter. In vain do the former try to assume the bearing and manners of the latter--the natural instincts, when we try to drive them away, return at a gallop, and it would be as difficult for a government clerk who lives on Rue Saint-Antoine to resemble a clerk in a banking house on Rue Laffite, as for a siren of Place Maubert to copy the manners of a young lady of Faubourg Saint-Honor?.

Boulevard des Italiens is no ordinary promenade; it deserves the attention of the observer; indeed, it is worthy of a chapter in the history of Paris, for it has changed its name more than once in accordance with political exigencies.

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