This time every one was listening to him and finding his idea excellent.  An old gentleman exclaimed: 

“That is a great idea, monsieur, which does you honor.  It is to be regretted that the government did not adopt it.”

A young man declared that actors ought to recite the “Iambes” of Barbier through the streets in order to teach the people art and liberty simultaneously.

These propositions excited general enthusiasm.  Each one wished to have his word; all were wrought up.  From a passing hand-organ a few strains of the Marseillaise were heard; the laborer started the song, and everybody joined in, roaring the chorus.  The exalted nature of the song and its wild rhythm fired the driver, who lashed his horses to a gallop.  Monsieur Patissot was bawling at the top of his lungs, and the passengers inside, frightened, were wondering what hurricane had struck them.

At last they stopped, and Monsieur Patissot, judging his neighbor to be a man of initiative, consulted him about the preparations which he expected to make: 

“Lanterns and flags are all right,"’ said Patissot; “but I prefer something better.”

The other thought for a long time, but found nothing.  Then, in despair, the clerk bought three flags and four lanterns.

An experiment in love

Many poets think that nature is incomplete without women, and hence, doubtless, come all the flowery comparisons which, in their songs, make our natural companion in turn a rose, a violet, a tulip, or something of that order.  The need of tenderness which seizes us at dusk, when the evening mist begins to roll in from the hills, and when all the perfumes of the earth intoxicate us, is but imperfectly satisfied by lyric invocations.  Monsieur Patissot, like all others, was seized with a wild desire for tenderness, for sweet kisses exchanged along a path where sunshine steals in at times, for the pressure of a pair of small hands, for a supple waist bending under his embrace.

He began to look at love as an unbounded pleasure, and, in his hours of reverie, he thanked the Great Unknown for having put so much charm into the caresses of human beings.  But he needed a companion, and he did not know where to find one.  On the advice of a friend, he went to the Folies-Bergere.  There he saw a complete assortment.  He was greatly perplexed to choose between them, for the desires of his heart were chiefly composed of poetic impulses, and poetry did not seem to be the strong point of these young ladies with penciled eyebrows who smiled at him in such a disturbing manner, showing the enamel of their false teeth.  At last his choice fell on a young beginner who seemed poor and timid and whose sad look seemed to announce a nature easily influenced-by poetry.

He made an appointment with her for the following day at nine o’clock at the Saint-Lazare station.  She did not come, but she was kind enough to send a friend in her stead.