FRENCH BOYS' GAMES.

The games of the children of France are the games of the children of the world—for games are the same all the world over.

This discovery is a great blow to your patriotic feeling of proprietorship in them. "Hide-and-Seek" and "Blind-Man's-Buff" are as much American to us as "The Star-spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle." English children might perhaps know them, because the English are our cousins and speak our language; but they had certainly never got so far from home as across the Channel. And now, when you begin to look into the subject, you find that "Hide-and-Seek" is represented in one of the old paintings found in the ruins of Herculaneum, and that not only children, but grown people as well, played this fascinating game in India long before we Americans were born or thought of. Rousselet, a French traveller who wrote about India, says that an Indian Emperor in the sixteenth century built a palace expressly for playing it. The palace contained a wonderful labyrinth in marble, and little cabinets for people to hide in, with a marble pillow in the centre for a goal.

And "Blind-Man's-Buff" is equally of very ancient lineage, and is really a French game, though it is not called by that name in France. This is the way it came to be invented: In the year 999 Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, had attached to his service a warrior named Colin, surnamed Maillard, or Mallet, because a mallet was his favorite weapon. In a campaign against the Count of Louvain, Colin Maillard had his eyes put out; but he kept on fighting, guided by his squires. So, in memory of his bravery, King Robert established a military game, a sort of tournament named after him, which was nothing more nor less than "Blind-Man's-Buff." One of the titles to distinction of the celebrated crusader Godfrey de Bouillon was his having kept successfully the rôle of Colin Maillard five times.

Bowling is another very old French game, and the French word boulevard comes from it. It is made up of boule, or bowls, and vert, or green; so that the word means "the green bowling-place." The celebrated French boulevards, overhung by their green trees, were once upon a time the places where people congregated to bowl, and you can see how easily vert became vart, and how that was changed again into vard. Even nowadays one sometimes sees it written in old signs boulevart.

So in nearly all of the French games we find some of our old favorites, only changed more or less, according to the imagination of the people who have played them. The French are very imaginative, and the children always personify something or somebody in their games. For instance, "Tag," which is as popular here as at home, becomes "Chat," or "Cat." The person who is "it" is always a cat, and the others playing are generally supposed to be mice. There are several varieties of "Chat," such as "Chat perché" and "Chat coupé." In "Chat perché" the mouse is allowed to perch on anything it pleases, and is safe so long as it can hang on. Or the cat perches, and the mice watch the moment when the cat can no longer hold on and must fall. Generally the players agree that nobody is to be kept perched too long at a time. In "Chat coupé," the person who is cat chooses one person to run after. Any one else playing may cut in between the two running, when the cat changes her course to run after him.

Girls play "La Mère Gigogne," a running game in which one of the players is chosen to be the old Mother Gigogne. A line is traced, or some sort of boundary is decided on, behind which la Mère Gigogne is supposed to live. She calls out "La Mère Gigogne va sortir" (Mother Gigogne is going out), and then makes a dive for the children, who run as hard as they can with the mother Gigogne after them. The children, as they are caught one after the other, are put inside the boundary, and must take hold of hands in a line until all are taken. This line can bar the passage of the others, so the Mother Gigogne can catch them more easily. This is a favorite game in the girls' pensions or schools, and in the lycées and common schools both girls and boys alike play the "Jen de Barres," or "Prisoner's Base."

"Prisoner's Base" is exactly like our own "Prisoner's Base," and perhaps it may interest you to know that this game was invented by the Greeks about five hundred years before Christ. That and "Theque" are perhaps the two favorite boys' games in France. "Theque" is a kind of feeble imitation of our baseball, played in a babyish sort of way that would make an American college team faint. Indeed it is only lately that they are beginning to realize in France that boys need a certain amount of athletics to make them healthy and manly, and are trying to encourage out-door sports in all the schools. There has recently been held in Paris a grand international congress to promote the re-establishment of the old Olympic games, but exactly what these re-established Olympic games are going to be it is too early to say yet. Meanwhile lawn-tennis is getting to be as popular in France as at home, and croquet is a perpetual favorite.

The French have all sorts of pretty rounds, like the charming old "Pont d'Avignon"—when they used to dance "en rond"—which is not so popular as a round now as it used to be in the olden time; but there are many others. Instead of "Little Sally Waters," all the "babies in our block" in Paris would sing, "J'ai un joli bouquet, à qui le donnerai-je?" (I have a charming bouquet, to whom shall I give it?) or "Nous n'irons plus au bois."

Perhaps this last is the most popular of the French rounds, so that it is given in full. The idea is something like this: "We will go no more to the wood, for all the laurels are cut. But the beautiful one I present to you will go and pick them up. Enter into the dance, sing and waltz, and embrace the one that you love the best."

"Nous n'irons plus au bois, Les lauriers sont coupés; La belle que voilà ira les ramasser. Entrez dans la danse; Voyez comme on danse; Chantez, valsez, embrassez celle que vous aimez."

Another game that is a sort of round is called "Mon beau Guillaume." All the players form a circle, while "handsome William" stands in the centre. Then he asks, "Where are you going, mes belles dames?" And the belles dames answer that they are going to take a walk. "Mes belles dames, you will wear out your slippers." "Mon beau Guillaume, you will mend them for us." "Mes belles dames, and who will pay me for it?" "The one that you catch." Then beau Guillaume closes his eyes, and the circle turns around very fast three times, when beau Guillaume must catch somebody and guess who it is.

The French play some pretty in-door games which are not known in America, a favorite of which is "Why am I on the sellete?" Sellette means literally "stool," and it is represented by a chair in the centre of the room. One person goes out, while another of the players goes around and asks each one why So-and-so is "on the sellette." When all the answers are given, the player who has gone out is called in, and takes his place on the chair. "Why am I on the sellette?" he asks, and the person who has collected the answers gives one after another, while the person in the centre tries to guess who are their authors. You can see that all the fun of this game, like that of many others, depends upon the cleverness of the players, for each one tries to make a witty hit in his answer at some characteristic or some event in the life of the person in question that is known to the speaker alone. If the person on the sellette guesses the author of the answer, the latter takes his place on the sellette.

"If I were a little piece of paper, what would you do with me?" is another game of the same sort, where the interest depends on the cleverness of the answers. "I'd make you into a bank-note." "I'd make you into a love-letter." You can see how an endless number of bright replies is possible. "I've lost my valise—what was there in it?" is another, in which any little foible or characteristic of the questioner is good-naturedly hit off. "Pigeon, vole, oiseau, vole," is a game very much like our "Simon says thumbs up." You twirl your two forefingers and put them down on your knees, saying, "Pigeon, fly, bird, fly," etc. But if you say "rabbit, fly," or any other animal that hasn't wings, and any fingers go down, their owners must give a forfeit.

And now to end with one more game, "Marriage and Divorce." All the players but one form in couples, one behind the other. The one left out stands in front of them in this way .::: and claps his hands three times, when the last two players run, one on one side and one on the other, and try to come together again and join hands behind the one standing alone before he shall have been able to catch either one of them. If he does not succeed in doing this the couple are still married, and take their place at the head of the others. If he succeeds, the one caught takes his place, and he "marries" the other, and takes his place with his bride at the head.