Paris Boat Trips in 1900

I see it ... positive ... the bateau-mouche ... a real one ... and the number: 114 ... and the name ... I go still closer ... it's an old one ... none of the phoney bateau-mouche you see today ... showcases for the tourists ... all glass! ... that I see passing when I look down from my window ... this was a genuine old one ... obsolete ... older than myself ... with an enormous anchor ... up front ... life preservers all around ... chaplets of life preservers ... garlands of life preservers, yellow, pink, green ... life boats ... and the big collapsible smokestack ... and the captain's bridge ... even the paint was period ... coal tar and lilac ... the name plate must be new, La Publique ... I'm not talking through my hat ... I know my bateaux-mouche, I'm not making anything up ... every Sunday when I was little, for my complexion, we took one at the Pont-Royal, the nearest landing ... twenty-five centimes round trip to Suresnes ... every Sunday from April on ... rain or shine ... airing the goddam kids ... all the kids of central Paris ... I wasn't the only pale and pasty kid ... and our families out for the "cure" ... that's what the called it, the "cure" ... Suresnes and back ... a bowl of air ... full in the wind! ... twenty-five centimes ... it wasn't exactly the quiet type of cruise ... you could hear the mothers ... "Stop picking your nose! ... Arthur! Arthur! ... breathe deeply!"... The fresh air made the kids caper in all directions! climb all over ... from the engines to the shithouse ... picking their noses, fiddling with their flies ... and especially over the propeller watching the big whirlpools ... the eddies of bubbles ... There were always fifteen ... twenty ... thirty of them ... hypnotizing themselves ... and their mothers and fathers with them! ... and the clouts! ... hey, Pierrette! ... hey, Léonce ... we were all there ... howls! ... tears! ... smack! ... wham! ...breathe that air! ... you were'nt going to lay out twenty-five centimes apiece for nothing! ... "You little roughneck, you'll end up in jail! ... " children, the family plague! ... "breathe, breathe, damn it!"... Bingo! ... Zing! "Breathe, I tell you!" Childhood in those days meant clouts! "Breathe deeply, you little thug!" Whack! "Leave your nose alone, you hoodlum! You stink, you didn't wipe your ass, pig!"... Illusions about good instincts hit our families, later, much later, complexes, inhibitions, etcetera ... "You stink, you didn't wipe yourself! stop poking in your pants!" was enough in 1900, and tornadoes of whacks ... for emphasis and punctuation ... an unswatted kid would grow up to be a convict ... a criminal ... a murderer ... God knows what ... and you'd be to blame ...
Result: the bateaux-mouche were noisy! ... punitive and educational ... deep breathing, uninterrupted clouts ... all over... on the anchor in the bow ... in the stern, over the propeller! Smack! wham!... "Jeannette ... Léopold! ... Denise!"... "you've done it in your pants again!" Something to remember their Sunday by! ... pasty-faced, snot-nosed, disobedient brats ... the trouble the parents went to to make them get the benefit of the fresh air! which they were absolutely determined not to breathe! ... Pont-Royal-Suresnes and back!
When everybody went over to one side, the whole boat listed ... naturally ... the parents too! ... The mothers started up again! "You little thug, you do it on purpose!" And wham! bam!... "Breathe! Breathe!" The captain yelled from his shack ... they should control themselves! "Not all at once!" ... through his megaphone ... No use! ... they knotted up worse and worse! ... kids and parents and grandmothers ... and clouts! and counterclouts! ... and peepee here and peepee there ... everybody at the same rail! ... Going to capsize! ... Can there be joy without disorder? ... biff! banglClotilde! ... boo hoo! bang! clouts for all! Gaston! ... your pocket! ... you're touching yourself! ... bam! ... pig!
There were a lot of us taking the air ... a cruise like that was just the thing for our little asthmas, whooping coughs, bronchitises ... Pont-Royal-Suresnes ... the shops, the streets of central Paris ... Gaillon, Vivienne, Palais-Royal ... were all full of pasty-faced kids who breathed only on Sunday ... Opera ... Petits-Champs, Saint-Augustin, Louvois! ... all aboard for the curel ... pour out of those back rooms! ... And get the full benefit! ... Breathe! Breathe! Pont-Royal-Suresnes.
When it comes to asphyxia, our Passage Choiseul was the worst of the lot, the unhealthiest: the biggest gas chamber in the whole City of Light ... three hundred gas jets working ... around the clock ... child-raising by asphyxia ... the Seine was better, you've got to admit ... the cure! ... cruise or back room, the clouts were the same ... in those days the "program" wasn't revised every week! oh no! ... but clouts or not, the air, the foam, the propeller, the swell, the great seething eddy of bubbles, it was a paradise! ... and "the gull, mama!" bang! ... "don't lean over!" especially when we got to Boulogne, the kids couldn't keep still! the Bois! ... the air was too heady! ... the mothers couldn't keep up with them ... you'd see them weeping ... sobbing all over ... on every bench! ... "Clémence! C1émence! ... Jules, where are you?" ... A certain amount of order was restored after the Point du Jour ... the kids calmed down some ... there were no more trees only houses the return trip the Paris air ... the Pont de I'Alma

But say, I'd better go easy, I'm forgetting about you ...