There are numbers who still “live by the grace of God, eat when they can,” not when they would, and “sell their books to the old book dealer for a meal or an evening at the cabaret.” Poverty still stalks through the _Pays Latin_, and is still bravely cuffed or blithely bluffed out of countenance there. The student demand for rooms ranging from fifteen to thirty francs a month, and the lively, almost fierce student patronage of the _crèmeries_, _bouillons_, and little wine-shops (where an _à la carte_ expenditure of 18 sous verges on extravagance), and of the _prix fixe_ restaurants at 22 and 25 sous, are eloquent of a wide-spread scarcity of funds.
“Flicoteaux exists, and will exist,” wrote Balzac in _Illusions Perdues_, “as long as the student shall wish to live. He eats there,—nothing more, nothing less; but he eats there, as he works, with a sombre or joyous activity, according to his circumstances and his character.”
One cannot have lived in the _Quartier_ long and not have had student friends who had more than a passing acquaintance with hunger and for whom a fire in winter was a festival event. In his mansard, where the student is doomed to freeze in winter and broil in summer, or in his stuffy, windowless _cabinet_, where he is doomed to suffocate the year round, are enough outward signs of destitution to rive the heart of the most hardened professional charity visitor; and yet, ten to one, this poor devil of a “Jack” has his “Jill,” for the _grisette_ exists.
Yes, countless Jeremiads to the contrary notwithstanding, the _grisette_ exists; under another name or, rather, under several other names,—there are words that defy strict definition; but she exists; changed somewhat, as the student himself is changed somewhat, but unchanged, as he is unchanged, in her love of laughter, her love of liberty, and her love of love. Gracious, graceful, and tender as ever; ignorant and clever, superstitious and sagacious, selfish and self-sacrificing, garrulous and reticent, cruel and kind-hearted, outspoken and deceitful, conscientious and unscrupulous, generous and avaricious, and so forth _ad infinitum_; inconsequent, inconsistent, capricious, contradictory, bewitching bundle of opposites; best of comrades and sincerest, because ficklest, of mistresses; adorable, ever-changing, and unchangeable _grisette_!