the painter, like the man who built his house without a staircase, had forgotten to insert the smoke. The air was as clear as, indeed much clearer than, English country air usually is. Early in the morning the roofs and grotesque shapes of the tall crooked chimneys were to be seen reflected in sunshine on the opposite houses, while the remaining portion of the buildings, as well as the pavement, which had just been swept, were cool, clean, and distinct. But the streets, especially the narrow ones, have at all times a picturesque appearance, the cause of which I was unable, for some time, to comprehend After a little observation, however, I found it proceeded from the jumbled combination of an infinite variety of façades. For instance, even in the Rue St. Honoré, the houses are like a box of mixed candles, composed of short sixes, long fours, "bed-rooms," and rushlights; and, besides being of different heights, the alignements are different. Some of the houses have stepped a few inches forward, some have retired backward: again, some have attics, aome have spikes on the roof, others neither the one nor the other. Some have balconies only at top, some only at bottom, others from top to bottom. Again, the shops are not only on the basement, but often in the middle, and occasionally at the very top of a house. There exist scarcely two together of the same height. Some have two, some three, advertising boards over them. Above the row of shops on the ground floor there exists an entresol, or low, intermediate story, exhibiting a stratum of windows of the most astonishing variety: one contains a single pane of glass, in the next house are seen two one above another, in the next two alongside of each other, then sixteen, then four, then an arched window. In one single compartment of the Rue St. Honoré, namely, between the Rue des Frondeurs and Rue St. Roch, the number of panes of glass in this stratum eccentrically run as follows,-20, 4, 8, 12, 12, 4, 16, 2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 9, 4, 9, 16, 16, 12, 12, 12, 12, 4, 12, 2, 2, 8, 2, 12, 8, 8, 16, 6, 2, 18, 12. Of the above the smaller number often form larger windows than the greater, and of those marked 16 and 12 almost all are of different shapes. Lastly, the chimney-stacks and chimney-pots are of every possible shape, size, and color; and as the street itself is not straight, but writhes, its motleycolored architecture appears twisted and convulsed into all sorts of picturesque forms. But besides this extraordinary variety I found, at first to my utter surprise, that the houses of Paris during the day actually change their shapes, and that an outline, which in the morning had been imprinted in my memory, appeared in the evening to be quite different, simply because every house in the French metropolis has Venetian blinds, which, according to the position of the sun, and occasionally in spite of the sun, at the whim of the inmates of the different stories, are opened and closed in an endless variety of forms. There is one other change which often attracted my attention. In driving through Paris towards the east, I always observed that, as the poor horse that was drawing my citadine slowly trotted on, the wealth of the shops, especially in the Rue St. Honoré, appeared gradually to die away. During spring, summer, and autumn, the people of Paris, as might naturally be expected, are infinitely fonder of their atmosphere than the inhabitants of London. Besides balls and concerts in the open air, in the boulevards, avenues, and outside all the great cafés, crowds of people are to be seen seated al fresco on chairs. The windows of the 'buses, no one of which has a door, are, even when it is cold, usually all down, and not only are many windows in the streets wide open, but they are almost invariably made with a contrivance for keeping them throughout the day ajar. But the climate of Paris has two extremes, and I was informed that in winter, just as if all had suddenly become chilly, the clear, fresh air, so profusely enjoyed in summer, is carefully shut out from almost every habitation. THE ÉLYSÉE. As the ordinary Paris fiacres, which go anywhere within the city for twenty-five sous, are not allowed to drive into the great gate of the Elysée, the residence of the President of the Republic, and as the "entrée" is granted to those of forty sous, regardless of expense I hired one of the latter, and had not rumbled in it a hundred yards when I came to the line of carriages proceeding there. As my coachman, however, was for the occasion gifted with an ambassador's pass, we were permitted to break the line, and we accordingly at once drove into the court, in which I found assembled a strong guard of honour. On walking up the long steps, and entering the great hall, I saw in array before me, in very handsome liveries ornamented with broad lace, several stout, finelooking, well-behaved servants, one of whom took my hat, for which he gave me a slight bow and a substantial round wooden counter. I then proceeded into the first of a handsome suit of small rooms, in which I found Prince Louis Napoleon, surrounded by a circle of people, principally in uniform. He looked pale and, generally speaking, pensive, but he had something kind to say to everybody; his manner was exceedingly mild, affable, and gentlemanlike; and yet it was interesting and at times almost painful to me to observe that, although at every new introduction his countenance beamed with momentary pleasure, it almost as invariably gradually relapsed into deep thought; indeed, his position-from what is termed the mere showing of the case-was evidently an impracticable one. For a considerable time his visitors, of their own accord, appeared around him in a formal circle, of which he was the ornamental centre, and then all of a sudden-like the change in a kaleidoscope-the party broke into little groups, and he stood almost alone: nay, in the mere act of bowing, at one moment the scene, as it were instinctively, represented monarchy-and the next, as if the visitors had suddenly and uncomfortably recollected something, a republic. Nevertheless, throughout the whole of the rooms, there existed that striking anomaly which characterises the French nation-a crowd without pressure. In conversing with one of the principal aides-de-camps I asked him which was the room in which Napoleon had passed his last night (I did not say slept) before he took leave for ever of Paris. In reply he was obliging enough to take me into a private chamber, when, pointing to the ceiling above our heads, he said to met Le voilà !"* On returning to the suit of rooms which, constructed in 1718 for the Count d'Evreux, had since been the residence of *This is it! Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV., of the Marquis de Marigny, of M. Beaujon, (a great banker), of the Government Printing office, of Murat, of Napoleon, of the Emperor of Russia, of Napoleon again, of the Duke of Wellington, of the Duke de Berri, of the Duke de Bordeaux, and now of Prince Louis Napoleon, President of the Republic, I stood for some lime close to two of the bearded party called Red Republicans, and, having thus rapidly glanced at all I desired, I retired into the entrance-hall, where I received my hat from one richly-dressed servant, just as another liveried menial of Democracy, with a magnificent voice, was calling out very lustily and with becoming importance-"La Voiture de Madame la Comtesse de . . . . . ! !”* As the strange political history of the building I was leaving flitted across my mind, "Here," said I to myself, "we go up, up, up, Here we go down, down, down; Here we go backwards and forwards, And here we go round, round, round!" MARCHÉ DU VIEUX LINGE.t "WHAT do you lack? What do you lack ?"—"Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez, Monsieur ?" said a young woman to me very sweetly: "Qu'est-ce que vous désirez?"§ repeated one of my own age, rather hoarsely, "qu'est-ce qu'il vous faut ?" || "Dites donc, Monsieur !" said another. What I really wanted was to be allowed to walk through the busy hive I had entered unmolested, but that I soon found was utterly impossible. I had evidently come to buy something, and innumerable mouths of all ages, on my right and on my left, one after another, and occasionally half a *The Countess of. .'s carriage stops the way! |