Paris by Day and Night. By " Anglo-Parisian." (Ward and
Downey.)—The author of this volume describes it rather skilfully as "a book for the Exhibition ;" but there is comparatively little about the Exhibition in it, and it is not in the ordinary sense a guide to Paris. The author is evidently familiar with the subject of which he treats. He knows all about the sights and the heroes and the novelists of Paris, about journals and cafes-concerts, about slums and salons, financiers and detectives, the theatre and the Morgue. He can command a smart, flaneurish style, and can tell a thousand stories. Nor is he too French in the Zola, or even in the Dumas sense. Thus, although he has in his second chapter, which bears the title, " Find the Female ; a Synopsis of French History," to skate over very thin ice, he does this very skilfully and without giving offence. There is probably no better work of its kind than this. We confess, however, that almost every book about Paris recalls to us what the late Mr. Rathbone Greg said about its " banquets of alcohol and spice."
Previous page
