PARISIAN LAW STUDENT LIFE.
Most foreigners get their ideas of the Parisian student and his way of living from books like Kimball's " Romance of Student Life Abroad," Thackeray's " Paris Sketch Book," Murger's " Le Pays Latin," and some of the tales of Alfred de Musset. They consequently obtain a rather narrow and one-sided view of life in the Latin Quarter. Kimball presents only the roman tic side of the French student; Thackeray takes you among the art students only; Murger does not so much describe the Latin Quarter as he does the career of a woman who happened to live in it; and Alfred de Musset, with his Mimi Pinsom and his Bernerette, gives you a poetical rather than a real picture of persons and things on the left bank of the Seine. The writer has not yet come who has treated the Parisian student life as thoroughly as Tom Hughes did the Oxford, and Astor Bristed the Cambridge student doings; nor have we in our language any work on French schools, colleges, and universities half as complete and interesting as Mr. Hart's book on life at Gottingen, Berlin, and Leipsic. Until such a faithful chroni cler arrive, the following sketches may throw some light on an attractive subject. The Latin Quarter is that extensive part of Paris which is bounded on the north by the Seine, on the south by the Mont Parnasse Railway Station, on the west by the Rue Bonaparte, and on the east by that shapeless pile, the Halle aux Vins. The university buildings are not contiguous. The Law School is at ten minutes' walk from the Medical School, and it takes you eight minutes to walk from the College de France and the Sorbonne to the School of the Fine Arts. The Sainte Genevieve Li brary is at least at twelve minutes' distance from the Mazarin Library, and the uniformed members of the Polytechnic School have to walk at a brisk step if they wish to gain the
Boulevard St. Michel in eight minutes. The visitor to the quarter and the student living in it are therefore obliged to ramble about, if they desire to see the attractions of this scholastic spot. The attractions are numer ous. There is the Od6on, the second theatre in France, — a Doric structure, that witnessed the early triumphs of Hugo, Ponsard, George Sand, and Dumas. There is the Institute, whose massive cupola resembles that of the Invalides, — a resemblance which suggested to Heine the bitter hint that the men beneath the former cupola are also invalids. The Mint, the Senate, the Court- House, the Pre fecture of Police, the Sainte Chapelle, are all in the student quarter. It is a quarter which in spite of the modern improvements set on foot by Napoleon III., its aristo cratic-looking Boulevard St. Michel (the main artery of the section), its many new houses and pretty shops, its broad streets usurping small, winding, and romantic ones, still con tains much that gives it a stamp of its own. When you stand under the shadow of the Pantheon, or within earshot of the silver chimes of St. Etienne de Mont, or under the gloomy vaults of St. Severin, — when you see the crowds of young men seated in front of the cafes, grouped in front of the lecture-rooms, strolling along boulevard and street, you are persuaded that you are in the midst of a quarter where youth and merri ment and studious quiet predominate. In the spring the lilacs waft their sweet per fume upon the student as he passes the gar den of the Luxembourg, and in autumn he can behold the gorgeous tints of falling leaves in the Jardin des Plantes. The Parisian student, with the exception of the followers of ^Esculapius, is a late riser. "Paris is like the Due de Venddme," said Benjamin Constant. " It is epicurean, cyni cal, lazy; it gets up at noon, but it arises to go forth and conquer." The Parisian stu dent is something like that. At any rate,
