fully painted in arabesque, and in the centre is a circular divan, in which stands a gilt pedestal of bronze supporting the figures of Agriculture, Commerce, and the Fine Arts. All over the world dancing requires refreshment, and accordingly, after the magnificent red ball-room comes, quite naturally, the "salon de café," a beautiful room, hung with yellow silk embroidered with white. Lastly, there appears, as a "pièce de résistance" to the gorgeous feast which the eye has just enjoyed, a substantial dining-room, the walls of which are painted in imitation of oak; the uncarpeted floor being of the real wood, waxed, rubbed, and slipperified as usual. The frieze is appropriately ornamented with subjects belonging to the chase, to the fisheries, &c.; beneath are spacious kitchens, sufficient to provide a banquet for one thousand persons. On returning through this splendid suite of rooms, the floors of which, excepting the last, are all covered with handsome thick crimson carpet, over which hang the series of gilt chandeliers I have described, I found, by pacing them, that they are altogether about 270 feet in length. Opposite the antechamber of entrance and the passage leading thereto, is a door, through which I passed into the ancient" salon du roi," in which, when the present Hôtel de Ville was a royal residence, the several Kings of France used to dine. On the first story is the "Salle de Horloge," formerly called the "Salle de Trône," occupying the whole length of the central portion of the building. The walls of this magnificent apartment are adorned with velvet hangings trimmed with gold; the vast fireplaces, ornamented with recumbent figures in white marble of the same date as the staircase, are surmounted by mantel-pieces, on which in those on the right is a splendid allegorical painting of the Republic by Hesse; while on the opposite one appear, richly executed, the arms of the city, gules a ship argent. The square compartments of the ceiling are charged with armorial bearings. This splendid room has, like the fatal "Place de Grève" beneath it, witnessed many of the most fearful acts of the Revolution with which France has been afflicted. From the central window of the Grand Salle, Louis XVI., with the cap of liberty on that head which shortly afterwards dropped lifeless on the ld, went through the mockery of addressing "the people." The room in which Robespierre held his council and in which he attempted to destroy himself is shown, as also the window at which, in 1830, General Lafayette, embracing Louis Philippe, presented him to "the people," from whom-from army, fortifications of Paris, and all-in 1848 he fled to save his life! On descending the beautiful staircase, and on returning again to the Place de Grève, I paced along the western and northern fronts, which I found to be respectively about 420 and 270 feet in breadth. The south front next to the Seine looks upon a pleasing garden. On the north workmen were busily employed in demolishing houses for the purpose of extending the Place de Grève, which now forms an esplanade only on the western side; this expense will be exclusive of the fifteen millions of francs lately expended in additions and in embellishments to the building, which, as if nourished by the bloodshed and devastation it has witnessed, has gradually increased in size and grandeur ever since 1357, when the municipality of Paris. or Corps de Ville (whose meetings had formerly been held, first in a house called "la Maison de la Marchandise," situated in the Vallée de la Misère, west of the Grand Châtelet. and afterwards in a residence called " 'Parlouer aux Bourgeois," in the vicinity of the Place St. Michel), purchased for the sum of 2880 livres de Paris la Maison de la Grève," which had formerly belonged to Philip Augustus, and nad frequently been a royal residence. :6 I had crossed the Pont Neuf. and, tired and weary, was walking slowly towards the fashionable west end of Paris, when the owner of a blacking shop with a slight bow politely pointed out to me that my boots were very dusty, and accordingly, thanking him for the hint, I ascended his tribune, or exalted seat, which magnificently overlooked the crowd of foot passengers passing to and fro beneath. I was scarcely seated when he put into my hand a newspaper, and leaving me on scarlet plush, and with a large looking-glass behind me to study its contents in an attitude and position strange enough to form half-a-dozen magnificent leading articles in the "Times," he set to work with a brush in each hand to put me to rights. As the sun was very hot the application of the wet blacking was rather refreshing, and the polishing process, which almost instantly ensued, was, I should say, something like be ing shampooed; but what seemed to me infinitely more delightful than all was, to observe that, during the whole of the time I sat in this description of exalted pillory, not a single individual of the hundreds that passed for a moment looked at me. The bench was arranged so that six persons, each seated on scarlet plush, and each with a looking-glass at his back, and each with a newspaper in his hand, could be polished off at once ! ENTREPRISE DES POMPES FUNEBRES. IN walking along the Rue St Honoré I observed the outside of the large church of St. Roch to be in mourning; and as I had a few minutes to spare, I walked in. The organ, and some magnificent deep voices, which appeared to be reverberating together from every portion of the ceiling above me and of the walls around me, were assisting in the performance of high mass for one whose earthly remains were in a coffin before, but at some distance from, the great altar, hung with black cloth covered with white fig-shaped spots, representing tears; the steps, and everything near and around them, were covered with black; there was moreover a large congregation of priests, all clothed in black and silver. While this scene of woe and of deep-sounding lamentations was going on at the great altar, I perceived a small but dense crowd of people engaged at one of the little ones, from which there also proceeded chanting and prayer, which occasionally clashed and occasionally amicably mingled with the loud swelling sounds of the organ and its mournful accompani ments. I was observing the performance of this double service, looking sometimes towards the little altar, and then at the horizontal backs of the large crowd of men and women who with bent bodies were joining in the last sad requiem to the dead, when I saw a slight movement among the small crowd, which began to approach me, following a bride white all over; in short, at one end of the church they had been most joyfully marrying a couple, while in the middle they were as mournfully burying a man. It was on the 1st of May, and, as nearly as I could calculate, the Queen of England and Prince Albert were at that moment within the Crystal Palace opening the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations In front of the bride there strutted, with as much pride as if she had wholly and solely belonged to him, a tall man in a cocked-hat, splendid uniform coat, and black breeches, carrying in his right hand a very tall staff, with which he occasionally tapped the stone pavement of the church, to admonish the toes of bystanders to get out of his way. I had observed him only a minute before close to the coffin, from which he must have hurried to honour and clear a road for the bride and bridegroom to their carriage. While they were escaping, as people in such a predicament usually do, from little side door of the church, I walked towards the great portal, close to which I observed standing, or rather tottering, an old man, holding in his right hand a brush, wet with holy water, which most people as they passed him touched with a finger or two, and then, with the same, crossed their faces; and although the exertion of holding a damp brush is not great, the poor fellow seemed as if it was altogether too much for him; in fact, he appeared completely worn out, and all but dead and as all people dying in Paris are entombed within twenty-four hours of their demiseburied. As soon as I got into the fresh air I saw before me in the street several mourning-carriages and the hearse, a sort of open barouche surmounted with black ostrich feathers and black trappings, heavily laden with silver lace. The horses were hidden in black clothes covered with silver stars, and traversed and bound with silver lace. The coachman, dressed in clothes of black and argent, wore a black cocked-hat, ornamented with silver lace. The large entrance door and front wall of the church were completely covered with black cloth, silver lace, and rich similar bullion six inches long. Lastly, above the three doors, namely, the large centre one and small one on each side of it-from one of which there had just flown the beautiful white bridal butterfly, who in the chrysalis state had been brought before the little altar-there was inscribed in large letters, "LIBERTÉ, FRATERNITÉ, EGALITÉ” In the afternoon, as I was returning home very tired, in passing the Church of St. Roch I perceived two dingy black vans, into which some men dressed in rusty clothes were stuffing all the dark costly finery which, on the interior walls, steps of altar, and exterior of the church, had been displayed at the morning ceremony I had witnessed. After watching the operation for some minutes, I asked a man in a cocked-hat, very vigorously assisting, where all the black bales he was loading were going. "Monsieur," he replied, "tout appartient aux Pompes Funèbres !" moreover, in reply to my further inquiries he was good enough to add-as with the sleeve of his dingy coat he wiped a stratum of perspiration from the small portion of his face that remained uncovered with hair-that the office was at the top of the Rue Miromenil, just beyond the residence of the British Ambassador; and as I was anxious to get to the bottom of my subject, I determined, instead of going to my dinner, to walk there. * I shall now," said I to myself, "see, I suppose, a black world!" and yet I own I was not quite prepared after a weary walk to find, on turning out of the Rue St. Honoré into the one he had named, that the very water running in the gutters down the street was black! Very odd isn't it?" thought I; however, as I never allowed my mind to remain in Paris one moment in ignorance of anything anybody passing me was acquainted with, I asked a shopman who was crossing from his door what might be the cause of the colour of the bubbling fluid to which I pointed. "Monsieur, ça vient d'un teinturier à côté un peu plus haut ;" and accordingly, tracing it truly enough to that source, I continued to ascend the street, until on the left I saw before me in large letters "Service Général des Inhumations et Pompes Funèbres de la Ville de Paris."‡ Beneath an arch was the "Bureau," which I had scarcely entered, when I perceived from the face of the person to whom I addressed myself that I was very particularly welcome. "What was my wish? What would be my orders?" As soon, however, as I replied that as a stranger I only wanted to know what were the charges for different descriptions of funerals, the clerk, with a countenance sickening almost unto death, po *Sir, it all belongs to the Funeral-pomp Association! Sir, it comes from a dyer a little higher up! General Burial and Funeral-Pomp Association of the City of Paris. |