It has been said with some truth that the real Louvres of the present age-that is to say, the works into which the present age has really thrown its distinctive spirit and character-are such works of the Second Empire as the Halles Centrales (the great market), and the grand égout collecteur (the great sewer of Paris). Next to the great market and the great sewer we are disposed, with M. Fournel, to place the great hotels and the great cafés as the works most really monumental and palatial of the late Imperial régime-the dynasty of international exhibitions.

The striking contrast between the impotence of the architecture of these days when aiming at grand style, and its brilliant fertility of resources when it aims only at ostentation and luxury-between the art of the architect descending the rapid slope of decadence, and that of the decorative upholsterer not less rapidly advancing to perfection— is a contrast which often shows itself in the different aspects of the same building. Sufficient evidence might be found of this contrast in the new Louvre. Without, however, sending our readers back there, it may be enough to send them to the two new theatres recently erected in the Place du Chatelet, and to point their attention to the striking difference between the exterior and interior architecture of these buildings, between the deep decadence of architectural taste so visible on the one side, and the progress of elegance, convenience, and luxury so incontestable on the other.

'I advise my readers,' says M. Fournel, 'to convince themselves of this by paying a visit to the Café parisien behind the Chateau d'Eau, the Grand Cafe on the ground floor of the Jockey Club, and the Eldorado in the Boulevard de Strasbourg. The first of these, with its vast dimensions, its statues, its caryatides, its marble walls, its mirrors on all sides reflecting its myriad lights, its fine fountain whose waters are ever playing on its rock of bronze, its joyous chimes which fritter the hours for its careless habitués; the second, decorated by the élite of our young painters and most brilliant éléves of the school of Rome; the third, with its façade enlivened with sculptures, its splendid comptoir set in a frame of delicately-carved wood-work, its two-storied rotunda begirt by sixteen arcades resting on tall and graceful columns, its gallery bordered by colossal figures with picturesque attributes, its cupola with enriched dial-plate on which the hours are marked by a circle of twelve nymphs, its balcony with open railings ornamented with masques and medallions; finally, its mouldings and gildings, displaying from base to summit their glittering arabesques ;—these are monuments not to be forgotten as characteristic of new Paris.'

If monster hotels, cafés, and common sewers are to be taken as the modern monnaie for palaces, by parity of reason a monster opera-house may be taken as change—and no small change-for a cathedral. When the first Napoleon (as the St. Helena memorials have placed on record) projected the transfer of the Papal residence to the French metropolis, and the travestissement of the Supreme Pontiff into Bishop of Rome and Paris, he expressed regret that he could not transport to Paris the church of St. Peter's also-'il était choqué de la mesquinerie de Notre Dame.' If anyone as new to European culture in the present century as Voltaire's Ingénu in the last, were suddenly brought in front of that enormous edifice the new Opera House, with its external enrichments of marble, sculpture, and gilding, what could he think but that he had stepped from the Boulevard des Capucines into the ethnic forecourt of the metropolitan temple of modern French religion? Would he be far wrong? Of the three religions that divide France between them-the old creed of Christendom, with Notre Dame for its central Gallican seat; the modern cult of Plutus, with its pagan peristyle of the Bourse; and that of Pleasure, where opera and ballet have ample room and verge enough for their most advanced ritual in the magnificent new temple raised for it—which, is it supposed, can boast, at this day in Paris, the most zealous and regular votaries ?

M. Victor Fournel, the always acute and trenchant, if somewhat cynical critic of the edilical exploits of the Second Empire in Paris, refuses to recognise any other than strategical motives for the main operations which have changed old into new Paris-the broad and relentlessly rectilinear lines of thoroughfare which have been driven through the entire length and breadth of the medieval capital.

'Let anyone study,' says M. Fournel, 'with the map before him, the general system of the new streets of Paris, he will soon perceive that it has been ordered expressly for the purpose of clearing the approaches of those public monuments which may again become, as they have often become before, rallying-points and strongholds of insurrection for the purpose of cutting through populous and popular

quarters by lines along which military forces could operate with security-bringing all the parts of this great capital into easy communication, and forming links and connections by new and broad streets between all the important buildings, quays, bridges, interior and exterior boulevards, and the gates of Paris. Ten years hence it will be impossible to discover any point in any quarter of the town that is not confined, absorbed, annihilated between quadruple ranges of boulevards, converging towards them on the right and left, before and behind; ample vomitories, where whole regiments may deploy without difficulty, where artillery and cavalry may move and wheel at ease, where cannon, raking à pleine gueule these fine straight streets, traced just as could be wished for artillery practice, will sweep the stakes every stroke it plays. A goodly barrack will rise at every point of junction, and the forts will command the whole. The professors of barricades have henceforth rough work before them. The trade is spoiled. The twin streets Saint Denis and Saint Martin will never again, as in bygone days, lend themselves to facilitate the communications of insurgent blouses, and baffle the operations of regular troops. The Empire has been far too clever to pull down these picturesque twin émeute-factories. But it has thrust between them, throughout the whole breadth of Paris, from the Strasburg railway terminus on the north to the Observatoire on the south, that magnificent boulevard which, rejoicing in three successive designations, runs out its course, however, in one straight line, whether as Boulevard de Strasbourg, Sebastopol, or Saint Michel. As the Rues Saint Denis and Saint Martin, on the north side the river, are strategically neutralised by the Boulevard de Sebastopol cutting in between them, so the Rue Saint Jacques on the south side, which was the theatre of the most obstinate conflict between the regular and popular forces on the days of June 1848, is reduced to similar insignificance, in a military point of view, by the same grand line of thoroughfare running parallel to it under its third transfluvial designation of Boulevard Saint Michel. "This entire gigantic and splendid line of boulevard," says M. Rudolf Gottschall, "may be regarded as a result of the political and strategical lessons given by the never-to-be-forgotten insurrection of June 1848 to all future French governments, and as an effective rectification of the unfavourable field for action on both sides the Seine which alone gave insurrection its ground of vantage against regular troops." "From this point of view," says the same writer, "the new boulevard may be regarded as providing an extended and unobstructed rifle-range at whatever moving targets along its entire length Revolution may set up to be shot at. On this arena, at all events, she is safe to be shot down.'

'But the Second Empire,' prophetically added the same writer, is only thus secured from émeute, not from revolution. Who can answer how soon after the demise of the present Emperor (or a then unforeseen Sedan), these colossal boulevards may form the battle-field of Prætorians contesting the disposal of Empire ?—whether street-fights may not come off there for the regency or the war-portefeuille ?—whether Seleucida and Ptolemies may not throw the dice for the torn imperial mantle in bloody conflict on this arena, cleared for them by Imperial foresight?'

'Heu hominum curas! Heu quantum in rebus inane est !'

Build walls to keep birds from cherry-trees-the birds will find their way there, build you how strategically soever.

359

XII.

THE LAND QUESTION IN FRANCE (1870).

1. Enquête Agricole. Rapport à Son Excellence Monsieur le Ministre Secrétaire d'État au Département de l'Agriculture, du Commerce et des Travaux Publics. Par le Directeur de l'Agriculture, Commissaire Général de l'Enquête. Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1868.

2. L'Agriculture et la Population. Par M. Léonce de Lavergne, Membre de l'Institut et de la Société Centrale d'Agriculture. 2° Edition, revue et augmentée. Paris, 1865.

3. Economie Rurale de la France depuis 1789. Par M. Léonce de Lavergne, &c. 3 Edition, revue et augmentée. Paris, 1866.

4. La Réforme Sociale en France, déduite de l'Observation comparée des Peuples Européens. Par M. F. Le Play, Auteur des Ouvriers Européens,' Commissaire Général aux Expositions Universelles de 1855, de 1862, et de 1867 3 Edition, revue et corrigée. 3 vols. Paris, 1867.

5. Des Privilégiés de l'Ancien Régime en France et des Privilégiés du Nouveau. Par M. d'Esterno. 2 vols. Paris, 1867-68.1

No documents have issued from the official press of France since the cahiers of instruction from the electoral assemblies of 1789 to their deputies to the States-General, which have set forth in such detail the complaints and claims of the most important interest in the country, as the voluminous returns and depositions now in process of printing as appendices to the official Report before us, which is addressed to the head of his department by M. Monny de Mornay, 'Director of Agriculture.' The instructed champions of the French agricultural interest (for the masses of the cultivators of the soil have hitherto shown themselves impressible only through their popular instincts) had long proclaimed loudly that agriculture, regarded as a national productive interest, was playing somewhat the part of dupe in

From the Quarterly Review, January 1870.