ostentatious splendor of the Second Empire; the shoddy Duke with his shady
retinue, in gilded coach-and-four; the world-famous courtesan, bedizened
with costly jewels and quite as well known as the Empress; the favorites
of the Tuileries, the Comedie Francaise, the Opera, the Jardin Mabille,
forming an unceasing and dazzling line of many-sided frivolity from the
Port de Ville to the Port St. Cloud, circling round La Bagatelle and
ranging about the Cafe Cascade, a human tiara of diamonds, a moving bouquet
of laces and rubies, of silks and satins and emeralds and sapphires. Those
were the days when the Due de Morny, half if not full brother of the
Emperor, ruled as king of the Bourse, and Cora Pearl, a clever and not at
all good-looking Irish girl gone wrong, reigned as Queen of the Demimonde.

All this went by the board years ago. Everywhere, more or less, electricity
has obliterated distinctions of rank and wealth. It has circumvented lovers
and annihilated romance. The Republic ousted the bogus nobility. The
subways and the tram cars connect the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de
Vincennes so closely that the poorest may make himself at home in either or
both.

The automobile, too, oddly enough, is proving a very leveller. The crowd
recognizes nobody amid the hurly-burly of coupes, pony-carts, and taxicabs,
each trying to pass the other. The conglomeration of personalities effaces
the identity alike of the statesman and the artist, the savant and the
cyprian. No six-inch rules hedge the shade of the trees and limit the glory
of the grass. The _ouvrier_ can bring his brood and his basket and
have his picnic where he pleases. The pastry cook and his chere amie,
the coiffeur and his grisette can spoon by the lake-side as long as the
moonlight lasts, and longer if they list, with never a gendarme to say them
nay, or a rude voice out of the depths hoarsely to declaim, "allez!" The
Bois de Boulogne is literally and absolutely a playground, the playground