File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 7, page 87, June 13-14, 1855.jpg

Transcription:

York for a year, during the Crystal Palace failure, and is now in the Parisian one. The evening is a warm, and lovely one, the gardens pleasant and, with their white statues, look Sydenhamish. There is a throng of holiday people everywhere, Zouaves, Chasseurs, girls, old women, dandies, boys and children. The Zouaves are remarkable looking fellows, their costume, I take it, a plagiarism from Algerine warfare. A red fez, forehead shaved, hair the same or cut so close as to be imperceptible, neck bare to the collar bone, loose Albanian-like jacket, wide loose breeches and white gaiters, distinguish these soldiers. The girls without hat or bonnet are also noticeable, and I learn that the absurdity of long skirts to women's dresses is peculiar to England and America. Many pretty feet and legs are visible, and many ugly ones. We ramble to the Barriers, outside of which at a sort of guard house, sit a row of mustached, red-trousered soldiers; see the Telegraph Office &c, the returning look on at a game at football, by 10 o'clock finding ourselves at a Cafe by the side of the Theatre de l'Odeon. T’is a very tastefully decorated one, with a little fountain in the middle, the water flowing on green grass and little statues. Cafe and petit verres till 11, and then to the Hotel Brittanique and bed.

14. Thursday. My room is on an upper story, only to be opened by the key, and were the door to be incautiously shut, with the key on the inner side of it, there'd be no way of entering except by means of a ladder and the window. Its floor is paved with red tiles which in n are never scrubbed, but waxed until they shine again. There is a big window, opening as usual, from floor to ceiling, a balcony at about four inches from the house front, a closed up fireplace, a