30 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



excess of this peculiar power, and will eat at a single meal 

 sufficient to support him for a week. In the wild solitudes of 

 which he is a native, he probably is equally abstemious during 

 the time of repletion. The cage system for the feline animals 

 exists here as elsewhere ; it would be evidently dangerous to 

 keep them in any other way. Day after day the Insect-Hunter 

 visited this interesting place, and always found something new, 

 something worthy of observation, that had before escaped him. 

 He could almost have been willing to take up his abode in 

 Paris for the pleasure of continually visiting the Jardin 

 du Roi. 



Sunday in Paris every one knows is a complete holiday. A 

 few of the Parisians go to mass in the morning, and only a 

 few, but in these few there is more appearance of sincere reli- 

 gion than we even meet with in our large congregations. The 

 attenders of mass, however, are generally of the working 

 classes : the lowest tribe of mechanics, or people from the 

 country — men in blue frocks, and women in the high caps of 

 Normandy and Bretagne. These people are scattei'ed about 

 the churches, kneeling most devoutly on the cold stones. In 

 the afternoon all is gaiety. In September, during three suc- 

 cessive Sundays, is a fair at St. Cloud. Thither the Insect- 

 Hunter repaired, mixed in the scene, and enjoyed it with the 

 rest. A person of the name of Charles was in the crowd, 

 moving continually from place to place ; staying for a moment 

 before the beautiful water-works, then surveying the young- 

 sters who rode in the wooden roundabouts. Charles ap- 

 proached the Insect-Hunter, who pressed forward to see 

 him. " A bas les chapeaux ! " shouted the gigantic Swiss 

 mercenaries. There was Charles, and a little laughing boy in 

 the costume of a colonel of guards, and a sweet, smiling woman 

 holding the latter, that he might not fall out of the carriage. 

 These three persons, a king, a prince, and a duchess, have since 

 that time risen into notice, have played a conspicuous part in 

 the politics of the day, have disappeared, and are forgotten. 

 Sic transit gloria mmidi ! 



France is a merry nation, a restless nation, a dancing nation. 

 Of all people the Insect-Hunter has seen, the French dance 

 the best, and walk the worst. The grace with which the 

 peasants and the lower class of tradespeople dance beneath 

 the fine old trees at St. Cloud is unequalled by any class 



