The gardens of the Luxembourg were, if anything, even more attractive than the Tuileries gardens.

Another delightful place for children was the Hippodrome, long since demolished and built over.  It was a huge open-air stadium, where, in addition to ordinary circus performances, there were chariot-races and gladiatorial combats.  The great attraction of the Hippodrome was that all the performers were driven into the arena in a real little Cinderella gilt coach, complete with four little ponies, a diminutive coachman, and two tiny little footmen.

Talking of Cinderella, I always wonder that no one has pointed out the curious mistake the original translator of this story fell into.  If any one will take the trouble to consult Perrault’s Cendrillon in the original French, he or she will find that Cinderella went to the ball with her feet encased in “des pantoufles de vair.”  Now, vair means grey or white fur, ermine or miniver.  The word is now obsolete, though it still survives in heraldry.  The translator, misled by the similarity of sound between “vair” and “verre,” rendered it “glass” instead of “ermine,” and Cinderella’s glass slippers have become a British tradition.  What would “Cinderella” be as a pantomime without the scene where she triumphantly puts on her glass slipper?  And yet, a little reflection would show that it would be about as easy to dance in a pair of glass slippers as it would in a pair of fisherman’s waders.

I remember well seeing Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie driving down the Rue de Rivoli on their return from the races at Longchamp.  I and my brother were standing close to the edge of the pavement, and they passed within a few feet of us.  They were driving in a char-a-banes—­in French parlance, “attele a la Daumont”—­that is, with four horses, of which the wheelers are driven from the box by a coachman, and the leaders ridden by a postilion.  The Emperor and Empress were attended by an escort of mounted Cent-Gardes, and over the carriage there was a curious awning of light blue silk, with a heavy gold fringe, probably to shield the occupants from the sun at the races.  I thought the Emperor looked very old and tired, but the Empress was still radiantly beautiful.  My young brother, even then a bigoted little patriot, obstinately refused to take off his cap.  “He isn’t my Emperor,” he kept repeating, “and I won’t do it.”  The shrill cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” seemed to me a very inadequate substitute for the full-throated cheers with which our own Queen was received when she drove through London.  I used to hear the Emperor alluded to as “Badinguet” by the hall-porter of our hotel, who was a Royalist, and consequently detested the Bonapartes.