Just below the Baths of the Louvre, there are several floating barges belonging to the washer-women, anchored at the foot of the great stone staircase leading down to the water.  They stand there day after day, beating their clothes upon flat boards and rinsing them in the Seine.  One day there seemed to have been a wedding or some other cause of rejoicing among them, for a large number of the youngest were talking in great glee on one of the platforms of the staircase, while a handsome, German-looking youth stood near, with a guitar slung around his neck.  He struck up a lively air, and the girls fell into a droll sort of a dance.  They went at it heavily and roughly enough, but made up in good humor what they lacked in grace; the older members of the craft looked up from their work with satisfaction and many shouts of applause wore sent down to them from the spectators on the Quai and the Pont Neuf.  Not content with this, they seized on some luckless men who were descending the steps, and clasping them with their powerful right arms, spun them around like so many tops and sent them whizzing off at a tangent.  Loud bursts of laughter greeted this performance, and the stout river maidens returned to their dance with redoubled spirit.

Yesterday, the famous procession of the “boeuf gras” took place for the second time, with great splendor.  The order of march had been duly announced beforehand, and by noon all the streets and squares through which it was to pass, were crowded with waiting spectators.  Mounted gens d’armes rode constantly to and fro, to direct the passage of vehicles and keep an open thoroughfare.  Thousands of country peasants poured into the city, the boys of whom were seen in all directions, blowing distressingly through hollow ox-horns.  Altogether, the spirit of nonsense which animated the crowd, displayed itself very amusingly.

A few mounted guards led the procession, followed by a band of music.  Then appeared Roman lictors and officers of sacrifice, leading Dagobert, the famous bull of Normandy, destined to the honor of being slaughtered as the Carnival beef.  He trod rather tenderly, finding, no doubt, a difference between the meadows of Caen and the pavements of Paris, and I thought he would have been willing to forego his gilded horns and flowery crown, to get back there again.  His weight was said to be four thousand pounds, and the bills pompously declared that he had no rival in France, except the elephant in the Jardin des Plantes.

After him came the farmer by whom he was raised, and M. Roland, the butcher of the carnival, followed by a hundred of the same craft, dressed as cavaliers of the different ages of France.  They made a very showy appearance, although the faded velvet and soiled tinsel of their mantles were rather too apparent by daylight.