the wife of a man who was not noble had no right to the title of dame,
"madame"; but the wives of the burghers of Paris were allowed to use
that of "mademoiselle," in virtue of privileges granted and confirmed
to their husbands by the several kings to whom they had done service.
Between this back-shop and the main shop was the well of a
corkscrew-staircase which gave access to the upper story, where were
the great ware-room and the dwelling-rooms of the old couple, and the
garrets lighted by skylights, where slept the children, the servant-woman,
the apprentices, and the clerks.

This crowding of families, servants, and apprentices, the little space
which each took up in the building where the apprentices all slept in
one large chamber under the roof, explains the enormous population of
Paris then agglomerated on one-tenth of the surface of the present
city; also the queer details of private life in the middle ages; also,
the contrivances of love which, with all due deference to historians,
are found only in the pages of the romance-writers, without whom they
would be lost to the world. At this period very great /seigneurs/,
such, for instance, as Admiral de Coligny, occupied three rooms, and
their suites lived at some neighboring inn. There were not, in those
days, more than fifty private mansions in Paris, and those were fifty
palaces belonging to sovereign princes, or to great vassals, whose way
of living was superior to that of the greatest German rulers, such as
the Duke of Bavaria and the Elector of Saxony.

The kitchen of the Lecamus family was beneath the back-shop and looked
out upon the river. It had a glass door opening upon a sort of iron
balcony, from which the cook drew up water in a bucket, and where the
household washing was done. The back-shop was made the dining-room,
office, and salon of the merchant. In this important room (in all such