With the publication of this _catalogue de luxe_, rumors reach the ears of the public of the lady’s dire distress, and the pathetic side of this forced sale will be dwelt upon. At the private view her residence is crowded with the curious of the _grand monde_. These women of the most exclusive society cross her threshold and block her stairway and pry into every open corner of her domicile—women who would have been shocked to find themselves in front of her doorstep at any other time. So much for the moral hypocrisy of the virtuous.
And while the stairways at this private view are thronged with the fashionable world, Mimi and her most intimate friends are laughing over champagne and biscuits in the kitchen, the only room that has not been turned over to the public.
But when a few days after the sale you learn that Mimi has stayed the cruel hand of the law by the sale of half her jewels, and sent out invitations to her nearest friends for a housewarming and a costume ball _chez elle_ Sunday night, you begin to see the advertising feature of the scheme, and realize something of the _naïveté_ of Mimi.
The opening of the first small bar in Paris managed by women happened only a score of years ago and met with a furor of popularity, the receipts reaching often three thousand francs a day. Since then the number of bars has grown yearly until now many of them are constantly on a point of failure owing to the increase of competition.
Most of them have become the idling resorts of habitués of the new and old _jeunesse_ with small fortunes, who spend hours therein chatting with the Mimis and Claras who chance to drop in daily.
The best class of our bars would never become popular with the average Parisian, for the reason that there are no Mimis or Claras in them to talk to. The Parisian demands that at least a certain part of his day should be spent in the society of women, and it has been the habit of his life to have them about him as much as possible. The hours he is forced to spend at his _bureau_ or in the Bourse he considers only as a necessary means to the pleasures of his leisure.
In these bars it has become a general custom to serve a table d’hôte dinner at eight to the habitués and to any stranger who may feel himself sufficiently at home to stay.