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For details, see the full license deed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0. - - - .-- | JUNE 1925 9 - Number - - : ooooo - -o - - The of Two of the Cities" Paris -“Tale - - - - - . Certain Books on the Negro MARY warre ovingtoN- - - - The fruisingian Entente: Abbé - Félix Klein Selected French Book * Book Reviews - Me (* Magazines' leas, - Current -S- \ PAR's - | BREAKFAST HOT BREADS LUNCHEON GRIDDLE CAKES AFTERNOON TEA AND MANY OTHER LIGHT SUPPER AMERICAN DELICACIES RIVOLI TEA ROOMS 2. Rue de l'Echelle. 2 (NEAR LOUVRE AND PALAIS ROYAL) R. C. Seine 240.431 "A COSY CORNER IN A CROWDED CITY1' ENGLISH AND AMERICAN HOME COOKING 9 A. M. to 8.30 P. M. Sundays included) FRUIT. PUMPKIN. ICE CREAM LEMON MERINGUE PIES ICE CREAM SODAS HOME MADE MARMALADES BIRTHDAY & LAYER CAKES JELLIES AND PRESERVES BAKED ON THE PREMISES LESQUALlTfeDELAVOITURETTB ECONOMIQUE ET LEGERE CELLES DE LA GROSSB VOITURE LUXUEUSE ET RAPIDE BONT TOUTES REUNIES DANS la 12 cv. HOTCHKISS. c'est lb JUSTE MILIEU CHAMPS ELYSEES \ HOTCHKISS Descriptive leaflet* of EX LIBR1S advertisers may be obtained at Its Information Bureau, rez-dc-chau&se'c, 10 rut de I'Elystt. EX LIBRIS The Paris of the "Tale of two Cities" "Tale of Two Cities" shows on every which during Dickens' young manhood had A page the careful study which Dickens upset the traditional English attitude toward made of the topography of the French that event. That this should have influenced Revolution. We know that he lived in the rue de Dickens seems inevitable. That it did so, the Courcelles while the book was in preparation evidence of the book itself seems conclusive. but one must actually follow him in his Parisian It appears in the style in several parts of the rambles to appreciate the labor expended on story —most notably in the account of the attak what is perhaps the clearest and most enlight on the Bastille. Here both the incident selected ening sketch of the French Revolution now and the style itself suggest the same thing. in print. With the impatience of the trained Choclat, the wine-dealer, serving his cannon reporter for non-essentials, he has stripped against the eight strong towers, the murder of that great convulsion down to first principles ; De Launay at the Hotel de Ville, the seven and, touching the story with his magic wand, released prisoners borne aloft, the seven heads has put before us a moving drama, where the on pikes wth their drooping eyelids, the fury historian can give little more than a series of of the women, are not more convincing than the tableaux, more or less like. Hence he avoids author's sudden change of style which in its the error of filling his story with the names of curt and pregnant phrases is Carlyle, purged actors which signify nothing to the average of his frequent pedantry and obscurity. reader, and merely obstruct the narrative ; he Appropriately, Dickens begins his revolu gives no space to the play of political self-interest, tionary narrative in a wineshop. It is not an the passion of parties, or the venality of indivi accident that the wineshops of Paris were so duals. He shows the revolution as it really intimately related to the revolutions of 1789, was—the bloody overthrow of a cruel oligarchy, 1830 and 1848. For revolutions are rooted in drunk with power, by a people crazed by oppres human misery, for which wine is the readiest sion and tyranny. No writer has more clearly anaesthetic. Hence the saloon becomes a sort shown the critical point of the French Revoluton, of primary in seasons of popular discontent. which was the time when a majority of the Somewhere east of the rue Mablu and north of nation, including every rank and class, drive' the Seine, there echoed, a century and a half to bay, looked with desperate hatred instead ago the footsteps of the Defarges and their of cringing fear into the faces of their oppres companions. Through some of the low archways sors. This is finely symbolized in the "Two which give upon the sidewalks, we may even Cities" when, over the body of the murdered -ow catch glimpses of the Paris of 1775, little child, Madame Defarge throws back the gold, villages hidden in the heart of spaces invisible and stares down the enemy of her people with from the modern streets ; their ancient houses fearless eyes. eaten by time, soiled with the grime of centuries, It is a favorite comment of Dickens critics buildings that were old when Ernest Defarge that the "Tale of Two Cities" is "not really was a youth in the employ of the rising Doctor Dickens ". It is commonly believed" Wilkie of Beauvais. The streets are barely wide enough Collins had much to do with the plot. As a for one vehicle, there are no sidewalks, and the matter of fact Collins seems to have contributed shops are still grim and silent witnesses to the Dnly one idea —that of Carton's motive in sacri poverty of the people. On the signs the butcher ficing himself. For this Dickens gave Collins still paints up only the leanest scrap of meat, credit. Far more influence seems to have been the baker, the coarsest loaves of bread ; hunger w -cised by Carlyle's "French Revolution", still exudes from "every dead dog preparation 259 offered for sale". Jacques Two may well imagination to see the black-haired, black-eyed have said to Defarge so long ago, "It is not often Frenchwoman pinning the warning rose in that these miserable beasts know the taste of her hair ; or four sullen-looking wretches stealing anything but black bread and death". softly up the worn steps of the stonest airway Here is a little wine shop in a 16th or 17th to peep at,—what? An old -young, broken man century dwelling which might be Defarge's making shoes. very own. It is small, dark and dismal. A Not far from here, on the rue de Sevigne (then stern looking young woman cashier and waiter the rue Culture de St-Catherine) are the remains combined sits waiting for trade. One or two of the old prison of La Force. Through a low JOURNEE DU XIII VENDEMIAIRE, L'AN IV. From an old Print. wretched-looking customers^slowly sip their archway at No. 1 1 , marked by a sign of the wine at one of the rude tables. Over the door "Baths of St. Catherine" one enters upon what " a painted sign, Le Bon Coin"—a piece of was once the courtyard of La Force. The unconscious irony. The sign also says "Vin back wall is all that remains of the "old "prison. blanc 10c Vin rouge 15c". We wonder how On it is this inscription : "Ce mur est le seul anyone can make a living by serving wine at qui existe encore de l'ancienne prison de la such prices per glass "tout compris". One Force. C'est sur l'emplacement de ce jardin does not have to make believe very much to ci-devant que furent massacres sous la Revo see the eager competition for the contents of lution 31 prisonniers." the broken cask, or to visualize Gaspard, writing This is where in Dickens' story Dr. Manette " Blood" on the wall with the wine lees. saved his son-in-law from the mob in the prison In such places echoed the footsteps of the massacres of Sept 2-5, 1792. Actually it was Jacquerie, secretly at first, while the lightning the scene of the murder of Mme. Lamballe. was being stored up against the day of wrath ; the queen's friend, whose mutilated and dis loudly and madly when the storm had broken membered remains were carried as trophies and its crashings caused every throne in Europe round the streets. At this time Louis and to totter. Standing here, it takes only a little his queen had been less than three weeks at 260 the Temple. It was proposed to carry Mme. left to the reader's own dramatic instinct, unham Lamballe's head thither, and force the queen pered by the theatricalism of which Dickens to look at it. Less horrible counsels, however, was sometimes justly accused. It was at the finally prevailed. It is characteristic of Dickens' steps of St. Roch that a furious woman spat treatment of the whole subject that he ignores at Marie Antoinette as she passed to her death. the politicians who incited the massacres, and The Conciergerie is only incidentally a part confines his narrative to the blind ferocity of of the "Two Cities". All the grist for the the mob, the initial responsibility for which guillotine passed through this mill.