BOOTSTALLS IN PARIS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 117, 13 November 1926, Page 20

BOOTSTALLS IN PARIS

FAMILIAR SCENES ALONG THE BANKS OF THE SEINE.

Can it be that the book boxes on the quays, which are one of the most picturesque features of Paris, are about to disappear! Let us trust that it will be a long time before modern progress will banish the familiar stalls which are composed of zinc-covered boxes" clamped to the stone parapet of the embankment on the south side of the Seine (says a writer in the "Christian Science Monitor"). For a whole mile one could wander —in those days when existence seemed more leisurely—by the river, and turn over the second hand bouquins, as the French call them, perhaps picking up here and there an interesting old edition. The booksellers' cases have a long history. One can trace them back to 1650. In the eighteenth century they attracted promenaders much more than to-day. It was a fashionable thing to gossip around the bookstalls and discuss the wit and the writings a la mode. The quays were a rendezvous. Later the bookhunters became less fashionable persons. Charles Nodier gave this pleasant description of them to Dumas:—■ "The animal has two legs and is featherless, strolls up and down, stopping at all the old bookstalls, turning over every book.. He is habitually clad in a coat that is too long for him, and trousers that are too short. He always wears on his feet shoes that are down at heel. On his head a dirty hat, arid under his coat a waistcoat fastened together with string."

Not long ago, however, one might have encountered Anatole France on the Quai Conti. Even to-day one has seen Louis Barthou, in the intervals of politics and business on the Reparation Commission, eagerly searching fo/ additions to his famous, library; and the writer has met Edouard Herriot, an inveterate book-collector, also in quest of rare editions. It cannot be that these haunts will be abolished.