[Footnote A:  The very description of her enthusiastic admirers suggests that such were the original traits and the special character of Rachel.  At first we are told by the patron who earliest recognized her genius, ’a delirious popularity surrounded the young tragedienne, and with her the antique tragedy which she had revived.’  How different from the original relation of Kemble, Kean, or Siddons to the Shaksperian drama!  Then the manner in which she prepared herself for artistic triumph is equally suggestive of the artificial and the conventional:  ’Elle se drape,’ we are told, ’avec un art merveilleux; au theatre elle fait preuve d’etudes intelligentes de la statuaire antique.’  It was in the external form rather than by sympathetic emotion that she wooed the tragic muse.  Veron compares her to Thiers.  ’C’est la meme nettete de vues, la meme ardeur, les memes ruses vigereuses, la meme fecondite d’expedients, la meme tableau phllosophique que ne la comprend ni la vengeance ni les haines, qui se contente de negocier avec les inimities, d’apaiser les rancunes et de conquerir toutes les influences, toutes les amities qui peuvent devenir utiles.’]

Although thus destitute of great central principles, nowhere is human life more enriched by minor philosophy; it may be a fate, a routine, a drudgery, and an accident in other parts of the world, but in Paris it is or can easily be made an art.  The science of substitution, the law of compensation, nowhere more obviously triumphs; taste cheaply gratified atones for limited destinies; manners yield a charm, which, for the time, renders us oblivious of age; tact proves as good a resource as learning, wit as beauty, cheerfulness as fortune.  The boudoir, by means of chintz, gauze, and human vivacity, is as prolific of fine talk and good company as the drawing-room.  A bunch of violets or a box of mignonnette suggests to sensitive imaginations the whole cornucopia of Flora.  Perhaps the eclectic provision for enjoyment in the French capital was never more apparent than during the sojourn of the allied armies there after the battle of Waterloo.  It was as good as a play illustrative of national manners and taste, to note how Russian, German, Cossack, and English, hussar, diplomat, and general, found the dish, the pastime, and the observance each most coveted, when that vast city was like a bivouac of the soldiers of Europe.

The communicative habit and social tendency of life, under every aspect, in Paris, often promotes success by making individuals famous,—­a process far easier of achievement there than in any other metropolis.  A poor fellow who opened a cafe, and had so little patronage as at the end of his first quarter to be on the verge of bankruptcy, resorted, one day, to the expedient of firing a heavily-charged musket in the midst of his neat but unfrequented saloon.  The report instantly brought half a score of policemen, two gens d’armes, and a crowd of idlers, to the