Chapter 8 - Page 2

young
students from all parts of France, were ironing their shabby cocked
hats, or inking the whity seams of their small-clothes, prior to a
promenade with their pink-ribboned little grisettes in the Garden of the
Luxembourg.

Long ago the haunt of rank, the Latin Quarter still retains many old
buildings whose imposing architecture singularly contrasts with the
unassuming habits of their present occupants. In some parts its general
air is dreary and dim; monastic and theurgic. In those lonely narrow
ways--long-drawn prospectives of desertion--lined with huge piles of
silent, vaulted, old iron-grated buildings of dark gray stone, one
almost expects to encounter Paracelsus or Friar Bacon turning the next
corner, with some awful vial of Black-Art elixir in his hand.

But all the lodging-houses are not so grim. Not to speak of many of
comparatively modern erection, the others of the better class, however
stern in exterior, evince a feminine gayety of taste, more or less, in
their furnishings within. The embellishing, or softening, or screening
hand of woman is to be seen all over the interiors of this metropolis..
Like Augustus Caesar with respect to Rome, the Frenchwoman leaves her
obvious mark on Paris. Like the hand in nature, you know it can be none
else but hers. Yet sometimes she overdoes it, as nature in the peony; or
underdoes it, as nature in the bramble; or--what is still more
frequent--is a little slatternly about it, as nature in the pig-weed.

In this congenial vicinity of the Latin Quarter, and in an ancient
building something like those alluded to, at a point midway between the
Palais des Beaux Arts and the College of the Sorbonne, the venerable
American Envoy pitched his tent when not passing his time at his country
retreat at Passy. The frugality of his manner of life did not lose him
the good opinion even of the voluptuaries of the showiest of capitals,
whose very iron railings are not free from gilt. Franklin was not less a
lady's man, than a man's man, a wise man, and an old man. Not only did
he enjoy the homage of the choicest Parisian literati, but at the age of
seventy-two he was the caressed favorite of the highest born beauties of
the Court; who through blind fashion having been originally attracted to
him as a famous _savan_, were permanently retained as his admirers by
his Plato-like graciousness of good humor. Having carefully weighed the
world, Franklin could act any part in it. By nature turned to knowledge,
his mind was often grave, but never serious. At times he had
seriousness--extreme seriousness--for others, but never for himself.
Tranquillity was to him instead of it. This philosophical levity of
tranquillity, so to speak, is shown in his easy variety of pursuits.