The wine, roast, and salad are cheaper than you find them on the
Boulevard des Italiens, and it is advisable that a fervent neophyte like
you should take all the degrees in our freemasonry as soon as possible.
'Uncle' Moulinon's dining-saloon is to Madame Emile de Girardin's
drawing-room what a conscripts' barrack is to the official mansion of a
French marshal."
I gratefully accepted the invitation, and at the appointed time I joined
Monsieur Jules Sandeau. We left Paris by the Barriere des Martyrs,
climbed Montmartre hill, and entered "Uncle" Moulinon's dining-saloon
when it was full of its usual frequenters. I had never seen such a sight
before. Imagine a gourmand obliged to witness with gaping mouth all,
even the most _prosaic_ details of the culinary preparations for a grand
dinner. The dining-saloon was a long, narrow room, low-pitched and
sombre; it was filled with small tables, where in unequal groups were
seated young men between eighteen and fifty-five, anticipating glory by
tobacco-smoke. Here were beardless chins accompanied by long locks;
there were bushy beards which covered three-quarters of the owners'
cadaverous, wasted faces; yonder were premature bald heads, leaden eyes,
feverish glances: look where you would, you saw everywhere that uneasy,
startled air which bore witness to a disordered life.
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