the last to brave the wands of the Coming Race and be reduced into
cinders for the sake of the common good!
TISH.

PARIS, August 28, 1872.




THE PARISIANS.

By Edward Bulwer-Lytton


BOOK I.


CHAPTER I.

It was a bright day in the early spring of 1869. All Paris seemed to
have turned out to enjoy itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, the
Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idlers. A stranger might have wondered
where Toil was at work, and in what nook Poverty lurked concealed.
A millionaire from the London Exchange, as he looked round on the
magasins, the equipages, the dresses of the women; as he inquired the
prices in the shops and the rent of apartments,--might have asked
himself, in envious wonder, How on earth do those gay Parisians live?
What is their fortune? Where does it come from?

As the day declined, many of the scattered loungers crowded into the