Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . he vaulted vestibule was peopled withstatues, the staircase was lined with marblecaryatides; in front of each of the fluted pilas-ters that separated the panels of the foyer wasa pedestal holding a bust signed by a cele-brated name like Houdon, or Caffieri. Inevery passage and every room of the housethere were pictures, busts, engravings, and awealth of historical souvenirs. Long familiarity with the Francois ledyou to mingle a certain discriminating reservewith the first burst of awed admiration w
Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . he vaulted vestibule was peopled withstatues, the staircase was lined with marblecaryatides; in front of each of the fluted pilas-ters that separated the panels of the foyer wasa pedestal holding a bust signed by a cele-brated name like Houdon, or Caffieri. Inevery passage and every room of the housethere were pictures, busts, engravings, and awealth of historical souvenirs. Long familiarity with the Francois ledyou to mingle a certain discriminating reservewith the first burst of awed admiration withwhich you viewed many of these treasures. Icould not admire the vestibule, with its Doriccolumns, nor the two great statues of Tragedyand Comedy which adorned it, all made in theSecond Empire, that odious epoch of art whennobody could think of any other way of repre-senting antiquity than by a female figure wear-ing bandeaux of hair and a chignon. Then,too, the great fireplace in the public foyer waspompier—to use that invaluable slang wordfrom the Paris studios used to characterize art. u » .& j k} ?^1 k, THE COMEDIE ERANCAISE. 45 which suggests the Second Empire pictures inwhich the men wore helmets like those of theParis pompiers, or firemen—and the ceilingby Dubufe His, a painter as uninteresting ashe is fecund, made you think more than any-thing else of the salon of an enriched bour-geois. But the statue of Voltaire, in the placeof honor at the end, was regarded one ofthe finest statues that Houdon ever could anything be more lovely than someof the busts on the pedestals between the flutedcolumns, all of which were saved? The Caf-fieris alone are some of the most perfect gemsof sculpture in existence. These are thethings that make you appreciate the wonder-ful treasures the Comedie possesses. You might almost have taken for a curiothe little man on the landing standing onwatch over a door, as ugly as a gnome, and soold that he seemed to date from the creat
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