The blouse is in its sphere a badge of
respectability to the wearer, and honest blousards look upon the
assumption of a blouse by a thief as a gross imposition upon the
public at large and an outrage upon honest workingmen. There is a wide
range of quality in blouses, too. I bought one in the Rue Mouffetard,
to wear as a protection in some of my night-wanderings, for the sum of
forty cents: it was a plain frock of coarse stuff, with a string at
the neck. But there were blouses of several degrees of fineness in the
shop--some of very fine linen, tied with a white silk ribbon, and
neatly embroidered. The usual color of blouses is white, blue or
black. The material is often a coarse, warm cloth, such as one might
make a very respectable overcoat of, I should think. In cold weather
it is common to see men wearing two or even three blouses, one over
the other. Caps are sold at from twenty to sixty cents each in the
same street. It will be seen that clothing is inexpensive to the
blousard, and as the fashions _never_ change with him, he never lays
aside a garment till it is quite worn out.
One of the peculiar features of low Paris is the shop for the sale of
articles at the uniform price of one son. One before which I paused
in the Rue Mouffetard was presided over, by two women--evidently
grandmother and granddaughter.
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