Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1880-08-12
Hiring Rooms I'm Paris.

In the provinces of France you hire a
set of rooms or a house by the year. The
Parisians, less constant, hire by the quar-
ter The reader will remember that de.
tached houses, and houses entirely occu-
pied by one tenant or by one family, are
the exception in Paris, The houses are
almost invariably strongly built, compact
stone blocks, five, six, or seven stories
high: and each floor will generally contain
two, three, four, or more separate dwell
| lings or apartments, each with its minia-
ture sale manger, salon, bedroom, kitch-
en- and offices, varying of course according
to the rent paid, and the quarter of the
! town in which it is situated, Some of the
apartments give ON the courtyard, and
are not so gay or expensive as those which
give on the street; some of which, aRd al
most certainly the one on the fifth floor,
will have fine balcony. The fact Of an
apartment being tolerably high up is not
considered drawback in Paris Jules ST.
mons lives on the fifth floor on the Place
de Madeline, and Louis Blanc long lived all
cinqmeme in the Rue Royale before he
migrated TO the same elevation in the Rue
de Rivoli. You may get more air higher
up, and you have the advantage of fine
terrace balcony, large enough in many
cases to hold the dinner table. In a di
trlctof Paris like the Quarter Saint George
which is situated on the slopes leading up
to Montmartre, anywhere between the Rue
Notre Dame de Lorette and Rue de Moscou,
you will get an apartment on the Of tn
floor with balcony for an annual rent of
IN
francs 1t will consist of tiny kitchen, a
salon, dining room with a stove in it,
one or two sleeping rooms; closet or two,
and offices The rooms will be small and
the ceilings rather low, The first floor of
such house, containing say, dining and
drawings rooms, ante chambers, and four
or five sleeping rooms with two Or three
servants rooms up in the attics, would
fetch as much as two, three, and even four
thousand francs in a year. The fittings of
the rooms will not be handsome. In France
the dining rooms of the great hotels have a
speciality of profuse ornamentatIon, and
the foreigner thinks that the French are
equally luxurious in their houses This is
not so. The ordinary apartment is fur
nished in IA comparatively mean way. The
TO say nothing of their Inconvenience, will
strike the English or American visitor.
The French locksmiths are more than
half century behind the times The
tireplaces are constructed with a view of
allowing the heat to escape up the chimney
as much as possible, The folding doors,
the easement windows, and the polished
parquet tloorings would give handsome
appearance to the rooihs if they were only
lofty, but then again the proprietor, if it be
he who does the repairs, will spoil the
whole effect by cheap and paltry wall
paper. The way you take an apartment
or dwelling in Paris is this: You choose
the quarter of the town you would wish
to inhabit, and you begin to hunt. Most
people hunt for themselves, though there
exist agencies for that purpose. AS you
pass along the street you will see little
placards sticking out at right angles to
the wall, by the side of the porte cochereior
entrance of the houses where there is any
thing to LET, The placard or ecrlteau will
say, ''Petit" or "Grand apartment louer
presentment, saddresser.,, | do not ever
remember TO have seen placard which
told you were you VIII re requn 0 / TO address
yourself. AS matter of fact you address
yourself to the porter, or the concierge, or
the porte'S wife. Very often the placard will
add that the apartment is orne de glaces;
but as rule that is matter of course, it
being the rule for the looking glasses in
the various rooms to be fixtures belonging
to the proprietor, A bachel or's apart
ment, which may mean anything from a
of m q laFn 70 ic adx
tised as an apartement de garcon: the
meaning of such placard 10 that ladies'
need not apply. Small apartments are Of
ten described as logments, particularly in
the populOus quarters.