The Crayon Papers

edifice into the courtyard. On one side is a spacious staircase leading to the upper apartments. Immediately without the portal is the porter’s lodge, a small room with one or two bedrooms adjacent, for the accommodation of the concierge , or porter and his family. This is one of the most important functionaries of the hotel. He is, in fact, the Cerberus of the establishment, and no one can pass in or out without his knowledge and consent. The portecochère in general is fastened by a sliding bolt, from which a cord or wire passes into the porter’s lodge. Whoever wishes to go out must speak to the porter, who draws the bolt. A visitor from without gives a single rap with the massive knocker; the bolt is immediately drawn, as if by an invisible hand; the door stands ajar, the visitor pushes it open, and enters. A face presents itself at the glass door of the porter’s little chamber; the stranger pronounces the name of the person he comes to seek. If the person or family is of importance, occupying the first or second floor, the porter sounds a bell once or twice, to give notice that a visitor is at hand. The stranger in the meantime ascends the great staircase, the highway common to all, and arrives at the outer door, equivalent to a street door, of the suite of rooms inhabited by his friends.
    Beside this hangs a bell-cord, with which he rings for admittance.
    When the family or person inquired for is of less importance, or lives in some remote part of the mansion less easy to be apprised, no signal is given. The applicant pronounces the name at the porter’s door, and is told, “Montez au troisième, au quatrième; sonnez à la porte à droite ou à gauche.” (“Ascend to the third or fourth story; ring the bell on the right or left hand door”); as the case may be.
    The porter and his wife act as domestics to such of the inmates of the mansion as do not keep servants; making their beds, arranging their rooms, lighting their fires, and doing other menial offices, for which they receive a monthly stipend. They are also in confidential intercourse with the servants of the other inmates, and, having an eye on all the incomers and outgoers, are thus enabled, by hook and by crook, to learn the secrets and domestic history of every member of the little territory within the portecochère .
    The porter’s lodge is accordingly a great scene of gossip, where all the private affairs of this interior neighborhood are discussed. The courtyard, also, is an assembling place in the evenings for the servants of the different families, and a sisterhood of sewing girls from the entre-sols and the attics, to play at various games, and dance to the music of their own songs, and the echoes of their feet, at which assemblages the porter’s daughter takes the lead; a fresh, pretty, buxom girl, generally called “ La Petite ,” though almost as tall as a grenadier. These little evening gatherings, so characteristic of this gay country, are countenanced by the various families of the mansion, who often look down from their windows and balconies, on moonlight evenings, and enjoy the simple revels of their domestics. I must observe, however, that the hotel I am describing is rather a quiet, retired one, where most of the inmates are permanent residents from year to year, so that there is more of the spirit of neighborhood than in the bustling, fashionable hotels in the gay parts of Paris, which are continually changing their inhabitants.
MY FRENCH NEIGHBOR
    I often amuse myself by watching from my window (which, by the bye, is tolerably elevated) the movements of the teeming little world below me; and as I am on sociable terms with the porter and his wife, I gather from them, as they light my fire, or serve my breakfast, anecdotes of all my fellow lodgers. I have been somewhat curious in studying a little antique Frenchman, who occupies one of the jolie chambres à garçon already mentioned. He is one of those superannuated veterans who flourished before the revolution, and have weathered all the storms of Paris, in consequence, very probably, of being fortunately too insignificant to attract attention. He has a small income, which he manages with the skill of a French economist; appropriating so much for his lodgings, so much for his meals; so much for his visits to St. Cloud and Versailles, and so much for his seat at the theater. He has resided in the hotel for years, and always in the same chamber, which he furnishes at his