Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 Excerpt:... floor, the walls, the low ceiling, the clothes, the shoes of these poor creatures, their hands, their hair, their beards, their faces--everything is of one color, the color of dried mud. What an immense compassion tightens the heart in the face of such misery, apparently so hopeless! And yet these wretches are sleeping in a way to be envied by many a rich insomniac. They scarcely move as we carefully slip " bonds"---to-morrow's soup and lodging--into callous hands, open pockets, broken-visored caps. Our "bonds" exhausted, we empty our cigarette cases. It would seem that the odor of tobacco alone has the gift to awaken these sleepers; outstretched hands emerge from the shadow, lips murmur thanks, eyes--those pitiful eyes as of a beaten dog--glisten with longing. We go up stairs suffocating! Emile kindly does the honors of the dwelling, showing first a series of his own photographs as a wrestler--proud trophies, recalling his encounters with the most redoubtable "heavy weights" and "feather weights." He exhibits his enormous biceps, and Mme. Emile, justly proud, gazes tenderly upon the stout fellow who is her good husband. It is two in the morning. We pause a moment to inhale with relief the cool night air, then direct our steps to the Cellar of the Halles, 15, rue des Innocents--one of the most curious burrows of nocturnal Paris. We have already depicted this thieves' pothouse, where an ingenious landlord has converted the ancient cells of the monks of the League, in centuries past the guardians of the charnel house of the Holy Innocents,1 into assignation rooms. We descend the narrow stone staircase, the walls of which are covered with inscriptions engraved by the knives of the special patrons of the place. In the ce...