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.

However, our stranger was certainly not standing there to admire the
cat, which a minute's attention sufficed to stamp on his memory. The
young man himself had his peculiarities. His cloak, folded after the
manner of an antique drapery, showed a smart pair of shoes, all the
more remarkable in the midst of the Paris mud, because he wore white
silk stockings, on which the splashes betrayed his impatience. He had
just come, no doubt, from a wedding or a ball; for at this early hour
he had in his hand a pair of white gloves, and his black hair, now out
of curl, and flowing over his shoulders, showed that it had been
dressed _a la Caracalla_, a fashion introduced as much by David's
school of painting as by the mania for Greek and Roman styles which
characterized the early years of this century.

In spite of the noise made by a few market gardeners, who, being late,
rattled past towards the great market-place at a gallop, the busy
street lay in a stillness of which the magic charm is known only to