The Portland daily press., 1878-12-24
THE PRESS.
From the London Daily News.l
Christmas in Paris.
With the Dainty Suggestion of n Love
=. ~
Story.

Story.
My name is CASTOR de Beauvoir, and my
friends call me Gobemouche, because am
an idler by profession. l have got on very
smoothly in life without perplexing my mind
by any sort OF business. | have about fifteen
thousand francs year, which is still a good
bachelors income with great deal of spend
ing in 1t. if well managed in the French way I;
and were it not for festival and saint days l
should enjoy myself quite luxuriously. Feel
ing much depressed, as always do when l
think of my responsibility on these suspicious
occasions, 1 started out last year, remem-
Der, on the feast of that great doubter, st.
Thomas, which happens to be the shortest
day. to prepare for the inevitable sacrifices of
the coming Christmas. The first thing that
impressed me as / did so was the remarkably
low bow which my concierge made me as
went out, though he is sulky fellow eleven
months in the twelve. His wife, stout,
blaek-eyed vixen from Reims in the Cham
payne country, who seems often to have
some of the heady wines of her birthplace in
spiriting her discourse, eagerly pulled the
checkstring of the street door as put my
foot on the first downward step of the stair
case; her husband held the door wide open
girl, who reminds me, under her ordinary
circumstances, of pair of tongs rolled in
jack towel, now darted forth, all smiles and
new ribbons, with sharp expectant glance
at my right hand, and Papa, here is that
handsome M. Gaston," quite loud enough for
me to hear. Indeed, I think the little mink
was hooking me, for presently she added,
Handsome; that depends on what you mean
by handsome" an aside which would not
have reached my ears but that 1 dropped my
cane to avoid stumbling over the exceedingly
bent back of her august father.
had turned the corner of the Rue de
Grammont, and was going down toward the
Rue Louis lie Grand, when looked into one
of the old courtyards, formerly part OF all
French dwelling places in this neighorhood
till land became so valuable. There, seated
at little window on the ground floor, with
the pleasing prospect of geranium and
pump was my young friend Leonie Montjoie.
ana now she stitched and now she ironed,
and now she stitched again, as busy as bee
10 hive or an ant in its nest. ''What must
I give you, you small creature?" 1 asked my
self, for the sight of Leonie put me in good
spirits. do not know why that the mere
aspect of some people acts upon me like
glass of good wine or a Whit at laughing gas.
I am not an imaginative man, and thought
as watched the glowing stove and Clearly
surroundings of the seamstress that perhaps
pair of fat-irons or coal seattle would be
really the most appropriate present for the
little maid with the fairy fingers which were
always at work. Yes, always, early and late,
whenever had seen her, she had been as
thrifty of time as she was then; diligently
toiling for small wage to profit fat old
firm in the Rue des Petits-C arreaux, where
the cravat-makers dwell; her pale face so
bright, and yet so thoughtful, bent resolutely
over her task. 'tPoor little maid; poor little
dropping snowdrop, why does not the prince
of some fairy tale come and choose you for a
Cinderella before the cruel night lamps have
spoiled your kind eyes, and the early chils of
winter mornings have turned your soft
hushed cough into galloping consumption,
as foresee it will ?" I muttered half aloud !;
and as these thoughts were passing through
tune from the ''Fille de Madame Angot,"
which kept jostling them, the girl glanced
upward and said "Bon jour, Monsieur Gas
ton" Her manner was so frank, her voice
was so gentle and melodious that the idea Of
giving her coal scuttle went clean out of
my mind. What could be nice and smart
enough for the little maid? asked myself
mentally again and again, and at last l de-
cided that at all events 1t must be something
that would take her out of the hard confines
of fact into the regions of romance and fancy.
I had seen only the day before in M. Rous-
selle's window a statuette in terra Gotta of
the tDream of JOY" which would just do
for her. Heaven knows her 'sleep of sor-
row" was real enough. The statuette could
not cost much. and, if it did-why, Icould
give up my own desire for seal-skin waist
coat, and all would be we'll. So it happened.
Leonie got her statuette, and l made my
great coat do double duty.
The story of Leonie Montjoie Is common
one, and have often thought of it as among
the Inconvenience of a surfeit of national
glory. She comes Fl ON an obscure village in
Franche Comte, not far from the old Roman
city of Besancon. The village even bears her
name, and her family have been probably
settled there for centuries. An old ruined
Montjoie, may still be seen upon height
which hectors all the country round, and it
was once, doubtless, the stronghold of some
baronial robber of the middle ages. It may
or may not have belonged to Leonie's pro-
genitors, for many a fine runaway, who wore
the order of the St. Esprit upon his coat on
gala days. and migrated to swell the follow
ing of the Comte de Provence at Coblentz or
at Hartwell, left such scared and penniless
relatives behind him in old feudal keeps that
they were glad to hide fro m famine among
the very dregs of the populace. Joseph
Montjoie, Leonie's father, obtained some
smallish place in the public service, and
heard that he had caught cold in the trenches,
and died during the seige. Soon after his
wife died also, leaving two daughters, the
wise, motherly child of II, who was my friend,
and another, a size smaller, whom she scolded
and patronized in a sweet way which often
amused me. They had lived during their
parents lifetime at Auteuil, in some buildings
belonging to the ministry for. it is common
practice in France to exc out a slender salary
with free quarters. My uucle's villa was near
them, and thus 1 came to follow their for
tunes with certain interest. Leonie or her
sister, had forgotten which, was to have
been married to certain Gotran Latour, al
so from Franche Comte but he was sudden
ly seized with such a mania for soldering
that he conld do nothing else, so that when
his regiment was disbanded, after peace had
been concluded between France and Germa-
ny, Carlst agent got hold of him and
tempted him away to the wars of Spain. The
two orphan children were then left quite
alone. knew, however, that Joseph Mont
joie, their father, had sister married to one
Monsieur Lapineau, a thriving night-cap max
er in the Faubourg st. Denis, who had
much finer house at Auteuil than ours, as I
used maliciously to point out to my uncle in
order to impress him with the superiority of
commerce over politics,-when he would an
swer, gravely looking at the red ribbon in his
button-hole, "Gaston, you forget honor"
WONDERED that the night-cap maker and
his wife took no ostensible notice of their
neices. Perhaps the elder girl was too proud
to ask or to receive anything but from the
work of her two hands; and there had been
sort of family fight going on between her
father and bis rich sister, as recolected
when I came to think of them. Madame La
pinean had been in those days perpetually
talking extreme legitimist twaddle about
Henry the Fifth, and that old tower, exposed
to all the winds of heaven in the Franche
Comte, whereas her brother cared tor none
of these things, and laughed at her.
How well remember our dinner with M.
and Nine Lapineau last year. It was great
condescension for my uncle to accept their
invitation, but he did so because their young
est child, mite of six years old, used to way
lay him in his walks down to the river-steam-
ers, and tyrannized over him. So we all
passed Christmas eve at the night.cap max
er's substantial residence in the peasantest
suburb of Paris, eating supper of black pud-
ding and other savoty delicacies, mostly from
pork-butcher's according to immemorial