Author: T. C. W. Blanning
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0679643591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A succinct chronicle by the prize-winning author of The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture evaluates the lesser-known Romantic Revolution as a fundamental and far-reaching period while revealing the range of modern cultural axioms it inspired, from views about genius and sexuality to evolving theories about dreams and the subconscious.
The Romantic Revolution
Author: T. C. W. Blanning
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0679643591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A succinct chronicle by the prize-winning author of The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture evaluates the lesser-known Romantic Revolution as a fundamental and far-reaching period while revealing the range of modern cultural axioms it inspired, from views about genius and sexuality to evolving theories about dreams and the subconscious.
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0679643591
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
A succinct chronicle by the prize-winning author of The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture evaluates the lesser-known Romantic Revolution as a fundamental and far-reaching period while revealing the range of modern cultural axioms it inspired, from views about genius and sexuality to evolving theories about dreams and the subconscious.
The Greatest Works of French Literature: 100+ Novels, Short Stories, Poetry Collections & Plays
Author: Charles Baudelaire
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 29381
Book Description
This unique collection of the greatest French classics is meticulously formatted for your eReader:_x000D_ A History of French Literature_x000D_ François Rabelais:_x000D_ Gargantua and Pantagruel_x000D_ Molière:_x000D_ Tartuffe or the Hypocrite_x000D_ The Misanthrope_x000D_ The Miser_x000D_ The Imaginary Invalid_x000D_ The Impostures of Scapin…_x000D_ Jean Racine:_x000D_ Phaedra_x000D_ Pierre Corneille:_x000D_ The Cid_x000D_ Voltaire:_x000D_ Candide_x000D_ Zadig_x000D_ Micromegas_x000D_ The Huron_x000D_ A Philosophical Dictionary…_x000D_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau:_x000D_ Confessions_x000D_ Emile_x000D_ The Social Contract_x000D_ De Laclos:_x000D_ Dangerous Liaisons _x000D_ Stendhal
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 29381
Book Description
This unique collection of the greatest French classics is meticulously formatted for your eReader:_x000D_ A History of French Literature_x000D_ François Rabelais:_x000D_ Gargantua and Pantagruel_x000D_ Molière:_x000D_ Tartuffe or the Hypocrite_x000D_ The Misanthrope_x000D_ The Miser_x000D_ The Imaginary Invalid_x000D_ The Impostures of Scapin…_x000D_ Jean Racine:_x000D_ Phaedra_x000D_ Pierre Corneille:_x000D_ The Cid_x000D_ Voltaire:_x000D_ Candide_x000D_ Zadig_x000D_ Micromegas_x000D_ The Huron_x000D_ A Philosophical Dictionary…_x000D_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau:_x000D_ Confessions_x000D_ Emile_x000D_ The Social Contract_x000D_ De Laclos:_x000D_ Dangerous Liaisons _x000D_ Stendhal
Counterparts
Author: Lilian R. Furst
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000769372
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Originally published in 1977, this volume gives a co-hesive overview of Franco-German literary relationships between 1770 and 1895. It discerns the dynamics and outlines the structure of the interrelationship. The two literatures develop in a broadly similar direction in the nineteenth century, but there is a puzzling time-lag which forms the focal point of enquiry. It looks back to the combination of literary, political and social factors that may explain how the time-lag came into being. The book serves both as an introduction and as a starting point for further detailed analysis of specific areas and offers a new approach to the comparative study of literature.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000769372
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Originally published in 1977, this volume gives a co-hesive overview of Franco-German literary relationships between 1770 and 1895. It discerns the dynamics and outlines the structure of the interrelationship. The two literatures develop in a broadly similar direction in the nineteenth century, but there is a puzzling time-lag which forms the focal point of enquiry. It looks back to the combination of literary, political and social factors that may explain how the time-lag came into being. The book serves both as an introduction and as a starting point for further detailed analysis of specific areas and offers a new approach to the comparative study of literature.
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Author: Honoré de Balzac
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
The Reception of Byron in Europe
Author: Richard A. Cardwell
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826468446
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 565
Book Description
Richard Cardwell was given the Elma Dangerfield Award of the International Byron Society for the best book on Byron in 2005-06 Byron, arguably, was and remains the most famous and infamous English poet in the modern period in Continental Europe. From Portugal in the West to Russia in the East, from Scandinavia in the North to Spain in the South he inspired and provoked, was adored and reviled, inspired notions of freedom in subject lands and, with it, the growth of national idealisms which, soon, would re-draw the map of Europe. At the same time the Byronic persona, incarnate in "Childe Harold", "Manfred", "Lara" and others, was received with enthusiasm and fear as experience demonstrated that Byron's Romantic outlook was two-edged, thrilling and appalling in the same moment. All the great writers-Goethe, Mickiewicz, Lermontov, Almeida Garret, Espronceda, Lamartine, among many others-strove to outdo, imitate, revise, and integrate the sublime Lord into their own cultures, to create new national voices, and to dissent from the old order. The volume explores Byron's European reception in its many guises, bringing new evidence, challenging old assumptions, and offering fresh perspectives on the protean impact of Lord Byron on the Continent. This book consistes of two volumes. Series Editor: Dr Elinor Shaffer FBA, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Contributors Richard A. Cardwell, University of Nottingham, UK Joanne Wilkes, University of Auckland, NZ Peter Cochran, Cambridge, UK Ernest Giddey, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Edoardo Zuccato, IULM University, Milan Giovanni Iamartino, University of Milan, Italy Derek Flitter, University of Birmingham, UK Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa, University of Lisbon, Portugal Mihaela Anghelescu Irimia, University of Bucharest, Romania Frank Erik Pointner, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Achim Geisenhanslüke, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Theo D'haen, Leiden University, The Netherlands Martin Procházka, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Miroslawa Modrzewska, University of Gdansk, Poland Orsolya Rakai, Budapest, Hungary Nina Diakonova, St. Petersburg, Russia Vitana Kostadinova, Plovdiv University, Bulgaria Jørgen E. Nielsen, Copenhagen, Denmark Bjorn Tysdahl, University of Oslo, Norway Ingrid Elam, Sweden Anahit Bekaryan, Institute of Fine Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia Innes Merabishvili, State University of Tbilisi, Georgia Litsa Trayiannoudi, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Massimiliano Demata, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826468446
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 565
Book Description
Richard Cardwell was given the Elma Dangerfield Award of the International Byron Society for the best book on Byron in 2005-06 Byron, arguably, was and remains the most famous and infamous English poet in the modern period in Continental Europe. From Portugal in the West to Russia in the East, from Scandinavia in the North to Spain in the South he inspired and provoked, was adored and reviled, inspired notions of freedom in subject lands and, with it, the growth of national idealisms which, soon, would re-draw the map of Europe. At the same time the Byronic persona, incarnate in "Childe Harold", "Manfred", "Lara" and others, was received with enthusiasm and fear as experience demonstrated that Byron's Romantic outlook was two-edged, thrilling and appalling in the same moment. All the great writers-Goethe, Mickiewicz, Lermontov, Almeida Garret, Espronceda, Lamartine, among many others-strove to outdo, imitate, revise, and integrate the sublime Lord into their own cultures, to create new national voices, and to dissent from the old order. The volume explores Byron's European reception in its many guises, bringing new evidence, challenging old assumptions, and offering fresh perspectives on the protean impact of Lord Byron on the Continent. This book consistes of two volumes. Series Editor: Dr Elinor Shaffer FBA, Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London Contributors Richard A. Cardwell, University of Nottingham, UK Joanne Wilkes, University of Auckland, NZ Peter Cochran, Cambridge, UK Ernest Giddey, University of Lausanne, Switzerland Edoardo Zuccato, IULM University, Milan Giovanni Iamartino, University of Milan, Italy Derek Flitter, University of Birmingham, UK Maria Leonor Machado de Sousa, University of Lisbon, Portugal Mihaela Anghelescu Irimia, University of Bucharest, Romania Frank Erik Pointner, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Achim Geisenhanslüke, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany Theo D'haen, Leiden University, The Netherlands Martin Procházka, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic Miroslawa Modrzewska, University of Gdansk, Poland Orsolya Rakai, Budapest, Hungary Nina Diakonova, St. Petersburg, Russia Vitana Kostadinova, Plovdiv University, Bulgaria Jørgen E. Nielsen, Copenhagen, Denmark Bjorn Tysdahl, University of Oslo, Norway Ingrid Elam, Sweden Anahit Bekaryan, Institute of Fine Arts of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia Innes Merabishvili, State University of Tbilisi, Georgia Litsa Trayiannoudi, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Massimiliano Demata, Mansfield College, Oxford, UK
Lost Illusions
Author: Honoré de Balzac
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 628
Book Description
The Lost Illusions is a serial novel written by Honoré de Balzac. It consists of three parts, starting in provincial France, thereafter moving to Paris, and finally returning to the provinces. The novel is unique among the novels and short stories of La Comédie humaine by virtue of the even-handedness with which it treats both geographical dimensions of French social life. The Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Eve and David
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 628
Book Description
The Lost Illusions is a serial novel written by Honoré de Balzac. It consists of three parts, starting in provincial France, thereafter moving to Paris, and finally returning to the provinces. The novel is unique among the novels and short stories of La Comédie humaine by virtue of the even-handedness with which it treats both geographical dimensions of French social life. The Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Eve and David
The Human Comedy
Author: Honoré de Balzac
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 10898
Book Description
The Human Comedy is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848). Balzac organized his works into 3 groups: "Etudes de Moeurs au XIXe siècle" (Studies of Manners in the 19th Century) + "Etudes philosophiques" + "Etudes analytiques". Balzac wrote that the "Etudes de Moeurs" would study the effects of society and touch on all genders, social classes, ages and professions of people. Meanwhile, the "Etudes philosophiques" would study the causes of these effects. Finally, the third "analytical" section would study the principles behind these phenomena. Contents: The Ball at Sceaux The Purse Vendetta A Second Home Domestic Peace Paz Study of a Woman Another Study of Woman The Grand Breteche Albert Savarus Letters of Two Brides A Daughter of Eve A Woman of Thirty The Deserted Woman La Grenadiere The Message Gobseck The Marriage Contract A Start in Life Modeste Mignon Beatrix Honorine Colonel Chabert The Atheist's Mass Pierre Grassou Scenes From Provincial Life Ursule Mirouet Eugenie Grandet The Vicar of Tours The Two Brothers An Old Maid The Collection of Antiquities The Lily of the Valley Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Eve and David Scenes From Parisian Life Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business Gaudissart II Unconscious Comedians Ferragus The Duchesse de Langeais The Girl with the Golden Eyes Father Goriot Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau The Firm of Nucingen Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan Bureaucracy Sarrasine Facino Cane Cousin Betty Cousin Pons The Lesser Bourgeoisie Scenes From Political Life An Historical Mystery An Episode Under the Terror The Brotherhood of Consolation Scenes From Military Life A Passion in the Desert Scenes From Country Life Sons of the Soil The Magic Skin Christ in Flanders Melmoth Reconciled The Unknown Masterpiece...
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 10898
Book Description
The Human Comedy is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848). Balzac organized his works into 3 groups: "Etudes de Moeurs au XIXe siècle" (Studies of Manners in the 19th Century) + "Etudes philosophiques" + "Etudes analytiques". Balzac wrote that the "Etudes de Moeurs" would study the effects of society and touch on all genders, social classes, ages and professions of people. Meanwhile, the "Etudes philosophiques" would study the causes of these effects. Finally, the third "analytical" section would study the principles behind these phenomena. Contents: The Ball at Sceaux The Purse Vendetta A Second Home Domestic Peace Paz Study of a Woman Another Study of Woman The Grand Breteche Albert Savarus Letters of Two Brides A Daughter of Eve A Woman of Thirty The Deserted Woman La Grenadiere The Message Gobseck The Marriage Contract A Start in Life Modeste Mignon Beatrix Honorine Colonel Chabert The Atheist's Mass Pierre Grassou Scenes From Provincial Life Ursule Mirouet Eugenie Grandet The Vicar of Tours The Two Brothers An Old Maid The Collection of Antiquities The Lily of the Valley Two Poets A Distinguished Provincial at Paris Eve and David Scenes From Parisian Life Scenes from a Courtesan's Life A Prince of Bohemia A Man of Business Gaudissart II Unconscious Comedians Ferragus The Duchesse de Langeais The Girl with the Golden Eyes Father Goriot Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau The Firm of Nucingen Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan Bureaucracy Sarrasine Facino Cane Cousin Betty Cousin Pons The Lesser Bourgeoisie Scenes From Political Life An Historical Mystery An Episode Under the Terror The Brotherhood of Consolation Scenes From Military Life A Passion in the Desert Scenes From Country Life Sons of the Soil The Magic Skin Christ in Flanders Melmoth Reconciled The Unknown Masterpiece...
Byron's European Impact
Author: Peter Cochran
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443877735
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 550
Book Description
The works of Lord Byron and his friend Sir Walter Scott had an influence on European literature which was immediate and profound. Peter Cochran’s book charts that influence on France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia, with individual chapters on Goethe, Pushkin, and Baudelaire – and one special chapter on Ibsen, who called Peer Gynt his Manfred. Cochran shows that, although Byron’s best work is his satirical writing, which is aimed in part at his earlier “romantic” material and its readership, his self-correction was not taken on board by many European writers (Pushkin being the exception), and it was the gloomy Byronic Heroes who held sway. These were often read as revolutionaries, but were in fact dead-end. It was a mythical, not a literary Byron whom people thought they had read. The book ends with chapters on three British writers who seem at last to have read Byron, in their different ways, accurately – Eliot, Joyce, and Yeats.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443877735
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 550
Book Description
The works of Lord Byron and his friend Sir Walter Scott had an influence on European literature which was immediate and profound. Peter Cochran’s book charts that influence on France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia, with individual chapters on Goethe, Pushkin, and Baudelaire – and one special chapter on Ibsen, who called Peer Gynt his Manfred. Cochran shows that, although Byron’s best work is his satirical writing, which is aimed in part at his earlier “romantic” material and its readership, his self-correction was not taken on board by many European writers (Pushkin being the exception), and it was the gloomy Byronic Heroes who held sway. These were often read as revolutionaries, but were in fact dead-end. It was a mythical, not a literary Byron whom people thought they had read. The book ends with chapters on three British writers who seem at last to have read Byron, in their different ways, accurately – Eliot, Joyce, and Yeats.
The Art of Civilization
Author: Didier Maleuvre
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349948691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Didier Maleuvre argues that works of art in Western societies from Ancient Greece to the interconnected worlds of the Digital Age have served to rationalize and normalize an engagement with bourgeois civilization and the city. Maleuvre details that the history of art itself is the history civilization, giving rise to the particular aesthetics and critical attitudes of respective moments and movements in changing civilizations in a dialogical mode. Building a visual cultural account of shifting forms of culture, power, and subjectivity, Maleuvre illustrates how art gave a pattern and a language to the model of social authority rather than simply functioning as a reflective one. Through a broad cultural study of the relationship between humanity, art, and the culture of civilization, Maleuvre introduces a new set of paradigms that critique and affirm the relationship between humanity and art, arguing for it as an engine of social reproduction that transforms how culture is inhabited.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349948691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Didier Maleuvre argues that works of art in Western societies from Ancient Greece to the interconnected worlds of the Digital Age have served to rationalize and normalize an engagement with bourgeois civilization and the city. Maleuvre details that the history of art itself is the history civilization, giving rise to the particular aesthetics and critical attitudes of respective moments and movements in changing civilizations in a dialogical mode. Building a visual cultural account of shifting forms of culture, power, and subjectivity, Maleuvre illustrates how art gave a pattern and a language to the model of social authority rather than simply functioning as a reflective one. Through a broad cultural study of the relationship between humanity, art, and the culture of civilization, Maleuvre introduces a new set of paradigms that critique and affirm the relationship between humanity and art, arguing for it as an engine of social reproduction that transforms how culture is inhabited.
The Selected Works of Honore de Balzac
Author: Honore de Balzac
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465527745
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 19641
Book Description
Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house. One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefully wrapped in his cloak, stood under the awning of a shop opposite this old house, which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In point of fact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenth century offered more than one problem to the consideration of an observer. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large Bohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, but for his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the blue-checked cotton curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profane eyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation, or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the whole neighborhood, dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary smile parted his lips each time he looked at the shop, where, in fact, there were some laughable details. A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared to have bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrusted with as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an old duchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carved joist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. This picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be said that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical a caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big as itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball, returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that the artist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passing observer. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had been eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for the figure of a spectator—so long, and thick, and furry were the tails of our forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure field which ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name "Guillaume," and to the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel." Sun and rain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to the letters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changed places in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography. To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growing cleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, it may be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical to many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living pictures by which our roguish ancestors contrived to tempt customers into their houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were animals in cages whose skills astonished the passer-by, and whose accomplishments prove the patience of the fifteenth-century artisan. Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than the signs of "Providence," "Good-faith," "Grace of God," and "Decapitation of John the Baptist," which may still be seen in the Rue Saint-Denis.
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465527745
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 19641
Book Description
Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house. One rainy morning in the month of March, a young man, carefully wrapped in his cloak, stood under the awning of a shop opposite this old house, which he was studying with the enthusiasm of an antiquary. In point of fact, this relic of the civic life of the sixteenth century offered more than one problem to the consideration of an observer. Each story presented some singularity; on the first floor four tall, narrow windows, close together, were filled as to the lower panes with boards, so as to produce the doubtful light by which a clever salesman can ascribe to his goods the color his customers inquire for. The young man seemed very scornful of this part of the house; his eyes had not yet rested on it. The windows of the second floor, where the Venetian blinds were drawn up, revealing little dingy muslin curtains behind the large Bohemian glass panes, did not interest him either. His attention was attracted to the third floor, to the modest sash-frames of wood, so clumsily wrought that they might have found a place in the Museum of Arts and Crafts to illustrate the early efforts of French carpentry. These windows were glazed with small squares of glass so green that, but for his good eyes, the young man could not have seen the blue-checked cotton curtains which screened the mysteries of the room from profane eyes. Now and then the watcher, weary of his fruitless contemplation, or of the silence in which the house was buried, like the whole neighborhood, dropped his eyes towards the lower regions. An involuntary smile parted his lips each time he looked at the shop, where, in fact, there were some laughable details. A formidable wooden beam, resting on four pillars, which appeared to have bent under the weight of the decrepit house, had been encrusted with as many coats of different paint as there are of rouge on an old duchess' cheek. In the middle of this broad and fantastically carved joist there was an old painting representing a cat playing rackets. This picture was what moved the young man to mirth. But it must be said that the wittiest of modern painters could not invent so comical a caricature. The animal held in one of its forepaws a racket as big as itself, and stood on its hind legs to aim at hitting an enormous ball, returned by a man in a fine embroidered coat. Drawing, color, and accessories, all were treated in such a way as to suggest that the artist had meant to make game of the shop-owner and of the passing observer. Time, while impairing this artless painting, had made it yet more grotesque by introducing some uncertain features which must have puzzled the conscientious idler. For instance, the cat's tail had been eaten into in such a way that it might now have been taken for the figure of a spectator—so long, and thick, and furry were the tails of our forefathers' cats. To the right of the picture, on an azure field which ill-disguised the decay of the wood, might be read the name "Guillaume," and to the left, "Successor to Master Chevrel." Sun and rain had worn away most of the gilding parsimoniously applied to the letters of this superscription, in which the Us and Vs had changed places in obedience to the laws of old-world orthography. To quench the pride of those who believe that the world is growing cleverer day by day, and that modern humbug surpasses everything, it may be observed that these signs, of which the origin seems so whimsical to many Paris merchants, are the dead pictures of once living pictures by which our roguish ancestors contrived to tempt customers into their houses. Thus the Spinning Sow, the Green Monkey, and others, were animals in cages whose skills astonished the passer-by, and whose accomplishments prove the patience of the fifteenth-century artisan. Such curiosities did more to enrich their fortunate owners than the signs of "Providence," "Good-faith," "Grace of God," and "Decapitation of John the Baptist," which may still be seen in the Rue Saint-Denis.