St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-08-17
CHAPTER I.

will tell you pOmpOuSly that
the boulevards, like the polit-
zeal cafes, have ceased to ex-
list, but this means only that the boule-
wards TO longer gossip of Louis Napo-
leon, the return of the Bourbons or of
General Boulanger, for these highways
are always too busiiy stirring with
present movements not to- be forgetful
of their yesterdays. In the shade of
the buildings and awnings the loun-
gers the Iookers-on in Paris, the audi
ence of the boulevard, sit at little ia,
bles, slipping coffee from long glasses,
drinking absinth or bright colored
sirups and gazing over the heads of
throngs afoot at others borne along
through the sunshine of the street in
carriages, in cabs, in glittering auto
mobiles or high on the tops of omni-
buses.
From all the continents the multi
tudes come to join in that procession
Americans tagged with race cards and
intending hilarious disturbances, puz-
zled Americans worn with guidebook
plodding, Chinese princes in silk, queer
Antillean dandies of swarthy origin
and fortune, rudy English thinking of
nothing, pallid English with upper
teeth barred and eyes hungrily search
ing for signboards of tea rooms, over
Europeanized Japanese unpleasantly
immaculate, burnoosed sheiks from the
desert and red fezzed Semitic pedGlers,
Italian mobiles in English tweeds, SD
danese negroes staggering in frock
coats, slim Spaniards, squat Turks,
travellers, idlers, exiles, fugitives,
sportsmen. All the tribes and kinds of
men are tributary here to the Partisan
stream, which on a fair day in spring
already CVerfloWs the banks with it's
own much mingled waterS-Soberly
clad burgeSses, bearded, amiable and
in no fatal hurry; well kept men of
the world swirling by in miraculous
limousines. legless cripples Topping on
hands and leather pads, thin whiskered
students in velveteen, walrus mustach-
ed veterans in broadcloths, keen faced
old prelates shabby young priests,
cavalrymen in casque and cuirass,
workingmen turned horse and harness
ed to carts, sidewalk testers, itinerant
vendors of questionable wares, shady
loafers dressed to resemble gold show
ering America. motor cyclists in leath-
er, hairy musicians, blue gendarmes,
baggy red ZouaFes, purple faced, glazed
hated, scarlet waiStcoated, cigarette
smoking cabmen, calling one another
"onionS," "camels" and names even
more terrible. Women are prevalent
over all the concourse-fair women,
dark women, pretty women, gilded wom-
en-, naughty women, Indifferent women,
friendly women, merry women, fine
women in fine clothes, rich women in
fine clothes, poor women in fine clothes,
worldly old women reclining befurred
in electric landaulets, wordy old wom-
en- hoidenishly trundling carts full
of flowers, wonderful automobile WON
en-, quick glimpsed, in multiple wells of
white and brown and sea green; WON
en- in rags and tags and women drap-
ed, coifed and befrilled in the deliri-
um of maddened poet-mil1iners and
the hasheesh dreams of ladies' tai
lorS.
So if you sit at the little tables often
enough-that is, II you become an am
MT IT boulevardier-you begin to rec
Ognize the transient stars of the pag-
cant, those to whom the boulevard al
lows a dubious and fugitive role of
celebrity and whom it greets with a
slight fiutter, the turning of heads, a
murmur of comment and the incredu-
lous boulevard smile, which seems to
say: you see-madame and monsieur
passing there. Evidently they think
we still believe in them
This f1utter heralded and followed
the passing of a white touring car
with the procession one afternoon just
before the Grand Prix, though it need
ed no boulevard celebrity to make the
man who lolled in the tonneau conspic-
uous. Simply for that, notoriety was
superfuous: so were the remarkable
size and power of his car; so was the
elaborate touring costume of fannels
and pongee he wore; so was even the
enameled presence of the dancer who