old woman walked up stairs to congratulate me, and then, addressing me and my tiny apartment, as if we were of vast importance, she said to me, "A présent, Monsieur, que vous pouvez recevoir votre monde !"*

On the day I left Paris I received from my obliging landlady her account, in which in no instance was there the slightest departure from the agreement I had verbally made with her. I gave the servants and concierge what I chose, but no demand whatever was made upon me. And, "Adieu,

Monsieur! bon voyage!!" were the last words of the old wife, as she waved her shrivelled hand to a foreigner whose occupations were incomprehensible, whose appellation was doubtful, and whose name was unpronounceable.

IMPRIMERIE NATIONALE.

In the year 1552 Francis I. first established in the Louvre an Imprimerie Royale, a portion of which, under the appellation of Imprimerie des Bulletins des Lois, was in 1792 transferred to the Elysée Bourbon, inhabited at present by Prince Louis Napoleon. In 1795 these two establishments were united in the Hôtel de Toulouse, now the Bank of France, and in 1809 they were finally transferred to their present locality.

This public establishment is shown to visitors every Thursday, and accordingly, at ten minutes before the hour 'precisely" indicated in the ordinary printed permission which, in compliance with the advice contained in Galignani's guide-book, I had obtained, I knocked at its gate, and walking across a court and up a staircase, I was directed to go to the waiting-room, in which I expected to have found a hard stool or two to sit on, and sundry drops and slops of ink on the floor to look at. However, on reaching the landing-place I was shown into a drawing-room handsomely carpeted, con

*Now, Sir, that you can receive the world!
Good bye! a good journey to you!

taining four pier-glasses, one on each wall; a scarlet damask ottoman; a scarlet cloth sofa; fourteen scarlet chairs; scarlet curtains; white blinds; and in the middle a fine mahogany table covered with green cloth.

As I was the sole monarch of all I surveyed, I reclined on the sofa, and was admiring the arrangements made everywhere in Paris for the reception of strangers, when the door opened, and in walked a gentleman with two young ladies, who had scarcely looked at themselves-"vue et approuvée" —in the glass almost immediately above me, when in walked four more young ladies and a gentleman, then three middleaged ladies and two gentlemen.

As soon as the clock of the establishment struck, there stood at the door a porter, making dumb signals to us to advance, and accordingly nine bonnets and five black hats hastened towards him into the passage, where we found waiting, and ready to conduct us, an exceedingly pleasinglooking intellectual young man of about twenty years of age. Everybody, excepting myself, appeared to be in tiptop spirits; but as the object of my visit was solely to make myself acquainted with a very important establishment, I could not help for a few moments inwardly groaning when I reflected that a guide of twenty years of age for thirteen people— were he even to be fairly divided among them all-would be equal only to a sucking tutor rather more than a twelvemonth old for each; besides which, it was but too evident that as my nine sisters, in the exercise of their undoubted prerogative, would very probably not only constantly encircle the young guide, but would each and all at once be continually asking him questions of different degrees of importance, I should not only have no instruction at all, but should be obliged to go through the establishment exactly at the unequal rate the nine ladies might prescribe; that I should have to stop whenever they stopped, and, what was still worse, to hurry by whatever they happened at the moment to feel indisposed to notice.

As the disorder, however, was evidently incurable, I resolved to join in and get through the merry dance as well as I could. I therefore introduced myself to a partner, who, in return for the confidence I reposed in her, very obligingly teazed the young guide until he told her whatever I wanted;

and by means of this description of spoon-diet, I obtained, I think, rather more nourishment than my share.

Our first introduction was to a room which none of the ladies would stop to look at, surrounded by mahogany presses, containing the punches, matrices, and ligatures (the largest collection in Europe), including those for Greek type, for a fount of which, in 1692, the University of Cambridge applied.

On entering the exceedingly well-lighted hall, No. I. of the Imprimerie Nationale (in the whole of which nearly a thousand people are employed), the first object that caught my eyes was a large tricolor flag, upon which was inscribed in gold letters,

"VIVE LA RÉPUBLIQUE!"

In different directions there appeared seven stoves, around four of which were standing, closely shaved, without coats or waistcoats, and in very clean shirts-the sleeves of which being tucked up disclosed their bare arms-five men at each stove, engaged in what a novice of their art might have supposed to be some strange religious ceremony, for they kept stretching out their right arms, then closing both hands,then jerking them four or five times over their heads,pausing; and then, extending their right hands, they repeat ed the operation commonly called type-casting, which may be explained as follows. From the stove before him each man with a ladle dips out a small quantity of liquid metal, which pouring into a small matrix he jerks upwards, until, cooled by its rapid passage through the air, he is enabled to drop the type he has created on the table before him, and repeat the process.

From these stoves the fluid metal, in the mode described, is converted into the type of forty-eight different alphabets, speaking the languages of almost every nation on the globe. Indeed, while Pope Pius the VII. was inspecting the estab lishment, the Lord's Prayer was not only printed in one hundred and fifty languages, but was bound up and presented to him.

As satellites to the seven furnaces, I observed several men employed in breaking off to its proper length, as fast as it was cast, the type, then handed over to four old wo

men, each wearing on her thumb and forefinger a thick black leather case, with which she first made each rough-cast letter smooth, and then — as our Universities treat "a freshman -she polished it. These types, packed in parcels, containing each only one letter, and which resemble octave volumes, are then shut up in a dark closet adjoining, where they remain until summoned to perform their high literary du

ties.

On entering a room of 150 feet in length, my heart rejoiced within me at the welcome sight of two long rows of compositors, all dressed in blouses and black silk neckcloths. At proper intervals were also to be seen, each within a wire cage, that valuable, well-educated member of every printing establishment—a reader. On the first coup-d'œil the whole appeared in busy operation; as, however, we passed along, one might have fancied we were a body of magicians, witches, and wizards, whose breath had power to stop the whole system; for however sedulously the compositor had, from the small " case "before him, been snapping up letter after letter to fill his "stick;" whatever might be the subject on which he was engaged; he stood spell-bound in his operation, not only while we were approaching, but for several seconds afterwards he was to be seen standing with a type between his finger and thumb.

"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool."

The sudden appearance of six young ladies and three rather old ones produced upon 150 French compositors the strange symptoms above described. Indeed, every workman

even the jaded reader - stopped to enjoy a good, long, hearty, refreshing look at them; after which one by one faithfully returned to his work. In another room, about 180 feet long, were distributed in a similar manner a double row of compositors, closely packed along each wall. On descending to the ground floor we passed through a long, dark storeroom, which reminded me of a coal-mine, about 150 feet in length, filled almost from the floor to the ceiling with " type in forms," that is to say, in the square frames in which they had been fixed, and in which they were reposing until again

required for a reprint. Twelve thousand of these forms were so arranged that, like the tray of a wardrobe, any could at pleasure be drawn out without moving the one above or below.

The very first compartment of this dark receptacle, principally filled with government publications, was labelled

"GUERRE."*

From it we passed into a beautiful yard, covered with skylights like a greenhouse, and surrounded on every side by low cisterns, above each of which appeared, protruding from the wall, one or two cocks for filling them with water. In this cheerful workshop we found several men employed in damping paper for the press.

We next entered a beautiful printing hall, 180 feet long -with hand-presses on each side-in which, in a glass frame, I observed inscribed in large letters

"ATELIER DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE."

On walking down this gallery we found it intersected in the middle by another at right angles of about 100 feet in length, also occupied by a double row of printing-presses. From this point the cruciform view was extremely interesting. Two hundred and thirty printers in shirts (it was Thursday) as clean as the paper they were imprinting, were to be seen at 115 presses, working not only the white paper to which I have just alluded, but of all colours, especially pink, blue, red, and yellow. Strange as it may sound to people accustomed to the cold, steady business habits of England, which nothing can either excite or subdue, the whole establishment stopped working, and for some minutes assumed a grin of delight at the sight of the ladies. Several of these pressmen, who were all remarkably well dressed, shook hands with three or four, who appeared to be well acquainted with them. One pressman, with very long block mustachios, offered the prettiest of the young ladies a pinch of snuff, which she accepted, and which caused her to stop-I suppose merely to thank him a considerable time; and as our guide for the moment