NOVELS

BY

Paul de Kock

VOLUME VII

THE   BATH   KEEPERS;
OR,
PARIS   IN   THOSE   DAYS
VOL. I

THE JEFFERSON PRESS

BOSTON NEW YORK

Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons.

THE BATH KEEPERS;

OR,

PARIS IN THOSE DAYS

CONTENTS

I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII

I

RUE COUTURE-SAINTE-CATHERINE

It was two o'clock on a cold, damp morning; the fine snow, which melted as soon as it touched the ground, made the streets slippery and dirty, and Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine,—then called Couture-Sainte-Catherine,—although it was one of the broadest streets in Paris, was as black and gloomy as any blind alley in the Cité to-day.

But these things took place in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-four; and I need not tell you that in those days no such devices for street lighting as lanterns, gas, or electric lights were known. The man who should have discovered the last-named invention, which, in truth, savors strongly of the magical, would surely have been subjected to the ordinary and extraordinary torture for a recompense.

Those were the good old times!

Everything new aroused suspicion; people believed much more readily in sorcerers, the devil, and magic, than in the results of study and learning and the reasoning of the human intellect.

Was it that men were too modest in those days? If so, they have reformed most effectually since then.

In those days, very few persons ventured to be out late in the streets of Paris, where the police was most inefficient and often worse.

The young noblemen sometimes indulged in the pastime of beating the watch; that diversion was permitted to the nobility. To-day, the prowlers about the barriers are the only class who undertake to beat the gendarmes from time to time; but the gendarmes are not so accommodating as the watch of the old days.

There were not then some thirty or more theatres open every evening for the entertainment of the people of the capital and of the strangers drawn thither by its renown. A single one had been founded and was patronized by Cardinal de Richelieu, who, unfortunately for his glory, had undertaken to add to his other titles thereto the title of author.

But all great men have had their weaknesses. Alexander drank too much, which was infinitely more reprehensible than to write wretched verses; Frederick the Great insisted that he was a talented performer on the flute; and Louis XIV danced in the comédies-ballets which Molière composed for him.

The farces which were then being performed by Turlupin, Gros-Guillaume, and Gauthier-Garguille ended with the daylight, their theatres being in the open air. People dined at noon and supped at six o'clock; and when a worthy bourgeois remained at a friend's house as late as nine o'clock, he looked upon it as a genuine revel, as a youthful escapade, and hurried home at the top of his speed, carrying a lantern, and shuddering with terror many a time as he passed through the lanes which were then called streets, and in which, if he should happen to meet any