translated pride and glory. Where, also, the arrogant Don had swaggered, and dreamed of gold and grants and ladies’ gloves. Every flagstone has its grooves worn by footsteps going royally to the wooing and the fighting. Every house has a princely heartbreak; each doorway its untold tale of gallant promise and slow decay.
By night the Rue Chartres is now but a murky fissure, from which the groping wayfarer sees, flung against the sky, the tangled filigree of Moorish iron balconies. The old houses of Monsieur stand yet, indomitable against the century, but their essence is gone. The street is one of ghosts to whosoever can see them.
A faint heart-beat of the street’s ancient glory still survives in a corner occupied by the Café Carabine d’Or. Once men gathered there to plot against Kings and to warn Presidents. They do so yet, but they are
