Four Years in France

Our travelling trunks were sent to the custom-house. A year before, owing to a discussion concerning cotton yarn, which Mr. Brougham may perhaps remember, an old lady, of seventy years of age, had been despoiled of a pound of cotton thread which she was taking with her to amuse herself with knitting: the stockings or garters thus fabricated she would have brought back to England, without the least injury to its manufacturing interests. But, on such important occasions, how can discretionary powers be entrusted to custom-house officers? We, being not knitters of stockings, on this occasion, had the good fortune to excite very little of their curiosity. They did not even wish us a good voyage.

A boat conveyed us to the packet: we set sail, if setting sail it might be called, when there was hardly wind to swell the canvass. The air was sultry, the sky was cloudy; and when we had cleared the Isle of Wight, and night was coming on, there was every appearance of an approaching storm: Captain Wood even allowed that there might be "a puff." I admired the self-possession he maintained, notwithstanding the troublesome questions put to him, and expressions of fear and anxiety from the passengers: answering every one with the greatest civility, he yet never turned aside from the conduct of the vessel. "It is silly in us, captain, to disturb you thus: we might trust to you." – "Sir, my son and I are on board: the vessel cost me three thousand pounds." I drew the inference desired, and left him.

With every inclination, after the event, to begin my book with a description of a storm at sea, as Virgil begins his Æneid, I forego this attempt at amusing my reader, for two reasons: without the machinery of Juno, Æolus, and Neptune, the storm even of Virgil would hardly be raised in dignity above a common occurrence; and next, because my storm was really a very moderate one, hardly sufficient to excite that degree of terror in me, and of pity in others, which is necessary to sublimity. In sober guise then, I have to relate that it rained, lightened, and thundered; but thunder at sea, I remarked, is not so loud as thunder heard on land, re-echoed by houses and buildings: and lightning in that vast space does not seem so directly aimed at one, as when flashed into one's face through the narrow boundary of a window. The rolling of the sea was not very violent; but the wind drove us out of our course, and we found ourselves, in the morning, to the eastward of Fécamp. We could with the greatest ease have entered the port of Dieppe: I proposed to the captain to do so; but his affairs and his port papers, which this little stress of weather was not a sufficient excuse for contravening, recalled him to Havre. The other passengers also were desirous of landing at Dieppe; but rules and regulations, – a phrase which I translated into English for the benefit of a certain provincial book club, which had thus entitled its by-laws, rules, and rulations, – at every step vexatiously and uselessly embarrass the intercourse of mankind.

In the present case we had to employ sixteen hours in working our way back again towards Havre. The voyage was, however, pleasant. We were, all the while, almost within a stone's throw of the French coast: we talked with several fishermen: we seemed to be all but landed. The clouds, which had so thickly covered the sky, and poured down so much rain the preceding night, had passed away to the eastward. In the afternoon, a brilliant rainbow was stretched across the channel, and seemed to unite, by an aërial arch, the countries of France and England. Our impatience was put to the proof by a calm, which arrested our progress for two hours: the elements seemed to have conspired to treat us with a specimen of every sort of weather that can be experienced at sea. At last a breeze sprung up; slowly we crept along towards the mouth of the Seine; and a quarter of an hour before midnight entered the port of Havre, after a voyage of thirty-two hours, the latter half of which was useless to my purpose of coming to France, and would have been dangerous had the storm come on again, as we were close on the rocks, and had very little sea-room.

The passage by Dover takes the traveller from London to Paris about a hundred miles out of his way. Brighton is the point of the English coast nearest to Paris; but, though the opposite harbour of Dieppe is good, the embarkation and disembarkation at Brighton is exposed to all the violence of the winds and waves. The passage from Southampton may be performed in ten hours, and Havre is very little further than Dieppe from the capital of France.

Before we entered the harbour, our steward descended to extinguish a large lamp that burnt in the cabin: he gave us (that is, to me and my sons) our choice of going on deck, or staying below in the dark: we loitered, and were punished afterwards for our delay by breaking our shins against the cabin stairs. The vessel was not allowed to enter the port with a light on board; a lantern is hung out on the prow. The use of the lantern is evident: it is not quite so clear why our lights were to be put out: against an accidental fire this was no sufficient precaution; had we wished to set our vessel in a state of conflagration, and run her amongst the French shipping, nothing was requisite but a tinder-box, or a gallipot of phosphorus. Regulations seem to be made sometimes, in order that those who are in employment may have something to do: work is invented for places, instead of places being created on account of work.

We waited some little time for the officer of the port, who was to receive our passports. I stood on the deck, and looked around on the light-house, the shipping, and the lights from the windows; heard the mixture of French and English bandied in talk between us on board and those on shore, and was delighted with these assurances that we were restored to human life and society, and no longer tossed on the sea, where, as Homer says, there are no vintages. I quote this expression, not because I am insensible to the beauty of a poetical amplification, but for three reasons: first, to show my learning, – a motive which I by no means approve, but leave it to be appreciated by other authors: secondly, because this epithet conveys precisely the reason of my dislike of sea voyages: Edie Ochiltre says, "the worst of a prison is, that one can't get out of it;" and I say, the worst of the sea is, that it is not dry land; an objection in both cases essential and fatal: thirdly, I wish to make a remark, which has, I believe, escaped all former commentators, – that Homer had probably no more notion of lands in which there were no grapes, than the African prince of walking on the surface of a river.

The tide had raised our deck to the level of the quay: the clock struck twelve; it was now the anniversary of the birth of my younger son, and we set our feet on the soil of France. The other passengers had announced their intention of going, in a mass, to the English inn, where a part of my family, three months later, found, what was to be expected, high charges; and, what was not to be expected, plenty of bugs. Fearing a contest for beds amongst such a number, (for there were ten or twelve of us,) and the delay of getting them ready for so many, I went to the Hôtel de la Ville du Havre, recommended by Captain Wood, who conducted us thither, roused the sleeping family, introduced, and left us! M. and Madame Marre appeared in night-cap and dressing-gown, very much resembling (I say it with all due respect for very worthy persons,) the caricatures of French physiognomy exhibited in our print-shops. Madame Marre told the chamber-maid to show me the beds: I went up stairs, and on my return was asked if I was contented with what the "bonne" had shown me. I have heard of an old lady who was very much offended by being called good woman; and the expression "la bonne" appeared to me a contemptuous one: such a novice was I, that I looked at the girl to see whether she took it as an affront or a compliment; she was quite unmoved. I told the mistress that the three beds were very good, and desired to see the sheets: they were more than damp; they might be said to be wet: to have them aired at one in the morning was out of the question; our resource was to do without them for that night. I know an English family who, arriving early in the evening at an inn in France, and, as a matter of course, ordering the sheets to be aired, were charged, the next morning, five francs for fire-wood. Our sheets were aired, on the next day, without any instructions on our part to that effect, according to the custom of the country, au soleil.

This sun enabled us to sit at an open window during our breakfast: for this meal we had French rolls, excellent Norman butter, and café au lait. The coffee usually served in England is considered by the French as no better than coffee and water; what was now furnished to us was so strong, that, though mixed with an equal quantity of boiling milk, it had more of the taste of coffee than I have found in what was called very good coffee at those splendid and fatiguing assemblies, which the ladies call routs, at Bath and other towns, – where, in order that four persons may amuse themselves at whist in a creditable way, forty others are crowded together for the same laudable purpose.

It was Sunday: we went to mass: the church was crowded to excess: so many churches have been confiscated to the use of the nation, that, in the great towns, not enough of them remain for the use of the people. We went to the port to inquire after our trunks: it was low water; and our packet-boat, which rode so high in the night, was now hardly afloat: we went down into it by a ladder, and found that our goods had been sent to the custom-house: thither we bent our steps: the officer attended, a smart young man in a military dress: he ascertained the nature of the contents of my boxes, and the object of my journey, and gave no unnecessary trouble: he talked much of English commerce, and did not affect to conceal his satisfaction that it was "écrasé par les impôts."[7 - Overwhelmed by duties.] I ought therefore to believe in the sincerity of his wishes, that my journey in France might be as agreeable and advantageous as I myself desired. I now had to disengage myself from three out of five stout porters, who stood in readiness to bear away my two hair trunks and writing-desk: I told them, two men could carry the whole: they assured me it was impossible. I then endeavoured to get rid of one at least of the five, by placing the writing-desk on one of the trunks, making a civil leave-taking sign, at the same time, to the man who seemed to consider the desk as his share in this weighty matter: the man answered me by a low reverence, and by taking the desk under his arm; the other four seized each the ring of a trunk, and all set off at full speed to the inn. Nothing remained but to follow, and pay them according to their number.

Our passport, granted by the Marquis d'Osmond, the French ambassador at the English court, allowing us to circulate freely within the kingdom of France, had been forwarded to Paris, and we were to receive another for the limited purpose of following our passport. I had not found the Bureau open: this was no inconvenience, as I intended to rest this day at Havre. M. Marre gave us a very good dinner, at three francs a head, and claret at the same price a bottle: he sat down with us, and did the honours, and animated the conversation, "like any other gentleman." Among the company was a priest, who showed at once his gratitude and his discontent, by telling me that the English government, which had taken nothing from him, allowed him, during his emigration, a larger pension than the French government now paid him, though it was in possession of the property of which he had been deprived: he forgot that the spoliators and those who compensated were different parties; that in 1818, nothing was left of the biens nationaux of 1789.

We viewed the town and the port, and saw nothing particularly remarkable, but the great number of parrots hung at doors and windows, and crying out – "damn" and "damn your eyes." Their voyage from the tropics had been performed under English auspices. Havre is a great depôt of colonial produce; and this bird may probably be in great demand in a nation, so loquacious as we, in our vulgar prejudices, suppose the French to be. The commerce of the place assumed at this time a great degree of activity in objects of more importance than parrots, however accomplished. But the day was a day of rest.

The next morning I went to the Bureau de Police for my passport: the Commissaire, for reasons or from feelings best known to himself, desired me to call again in two hours. I have seen many instances of the hatred of the French towards the English, which the imperial government had excited to the utmost degree of intensity, and which did not begin to subside till the removal of the army of observation. M. le Commissaire, I suspect, indulged in a little ebullition of this unamiable sentiment: in vain I represented that my passport had been in his office the whole of the preceding day, during which I had called there three times: this seemed to increase his triumph; and he coolly, though very civilly, repeated his request that I would call again in two hours.

He procured for us a very pleasant walk on the hills, which command a view of the town, the mouth of the Seine, and the channel. The trees, in this land of cyder, were in full blossom; the rye was in ear; all seemed to be a month earlier than in the northern region we had left a week before, when we quitted our home. We entered the church; the parish is called St. Vic: I was surprised to see the exact resemblance of this church to those edifices, the remains of former times, which, in our villages, are opened once a week for divine worship: the altar and images excepted, it was the same sort of interior: there was indeed the holy water pot, but of that the trace at least is to be found in almost all our old churches: but the images; ay, there was St. Denis, with his head, not under his arm, but held between his hands. On this I shall only remark, that he who, on account of the legend of St. Denis, believes the catholic religion to be false, may deceive himself in a matter of the greatest moment; whereas he who believes the legend to be true, may be deceived, but in a matter of no moment at all.

A farmer's lad, of about fourteen, came up to us in the church-yard, and entered into a conversation, which he conducted without bashfulness, and with the greatest propriety. He told us, that mass was said every morning at break of day, and that the peasantry attended it before going to their labour. He talked of the principal tombs before us, and of the families in two or three large houses within our view: he asked questions respecting England, where, he supposed, there were no poor, because he had never seen any: undeceived on this point, he inquired after the state of these poor, with marks of fellow-feeling; what wages they gained: and when I, in my turn, was informed of the wages and price of bread in his country, and showed him, that though the Englishman gained more sous, the Frenchman gained more bread, he clearly apprehended the nature of the case, pitying at the same time those who had less bread to eat than he had himself. He took leave of us, and certainly had not the least expectation of a present to make him drink: that we were strangers, – that we talked his language with difficulty, – all that would have repelled an English peasant, – excited his curiosity, and even his good-will.

We returned to the town, found a commis who expedited our passport in five minutes, and went to take our places in the Paris diligence. A woman gave me a receipt for my arrhes. I told her it would save trouble to include my luggage in the same receipt. "When you shall have sent it, sir," was the answer. A distinguishing character of the French is exactness; in criticism, in style of writing, in calculation, in affairs, they are exact. I give my own opinion, not perhaps that of others.

It was the first of the Rogation days, which an Anglican may see, in his book of common-prayer, noted as days of abstinence. M. Marre, profiting by the neighbourhood of the sea, gave us a very fine turbot, part of a good dinner, at which appeared some dishes of meat. I paid my bill, (about fifty francs for three persons during two days,) and took my departure, but was arrested, in my way to the diligence, in a curious manner. I had given a franc to a boy for taking my two trunks in a wheel-barrow a short distance to the coach-office; Boots, at an inn in England, would have been contented with a sixpence; but the porte-faix of the douane had admonished me of the high expectations from English wealth and generosity. The father of this boy stopped me in the street; charged me with having robbed his son by paying only one franc instead of three, to which he had a right; threatening to take me before the commissary of police, "who," said he, "will put you in prison." He acted his part very well; he could not have been more angry, had I in reality committed an act of injustice towards so dear a part of his family as this son, dressed, like himself, in a stout jacket of English fustian, and the heir apparent of all his impudence, who took his share in the scene by barring the passage to my elder son, not so stout, though rather taller than himself. I dreaded some act of vivacity on the part of my son, and called out to him at all events to be quiet. The boy of the inn, who carried my writing-desk and great coats, had no need of such a caution. My younger son, now in the first day of his thirteenth year, though alarmed by the hubbub, had the sense to see that the only way to get out of the affray was to pay the man, and begged me to do so. The clock struck five, the hour of the departure of the diligence, – a circumstance which made compliance with this sage counsel no longer a matter of choice, and on which the man had calculated with more reason than on the assistance of the police. After all, the lad was not much better paid than the porte-faix of the douane, who had attacked me only with the smell of garlic and tobacco, issuing from their mouths together with bad French. So much for Havre, ci-devant, de Grâce.

We found the diligence to be a convenient and even handsome public carriage, made to hold six persons within, and three in the cabriolet or covered seat attached to it in front: at first, we had all this space to ourselves. After about an hour's ride, we got out of the coach to walk up a steep hill, and took our last leave of the semblance of English landscape. France and Italy offer no views of luxuriant pastures, with herds and flocks grazing in them, of trees irregularly planted, of enclosures unequally distributed, of fine swelling clouds hanging in the horizon, – themselves a beautiful object, and adding variety of light and shade to the picture. These we were to exchange for vines, like bushes, planted in rows, or trained in festoons from one pollard elm to another; for the pale leaf of the olive, for skies almost always cloudless, for fields abundant in produce, but without any thing living or moving in them. But we were as yet unable to make the comparison. As night came on, we took up other passengers who were going to a short distance: they were Normans; at least such I judged them to be from the great breadth of their bases, which took up a considerable space on the seats of the coach: in manners as well as in form they were different from Frenchmen; they were not indeed reserved, they had no mauvaise honte, but they were rude and selfish. The French proverb however says, and it is certainly right, "il y a des honnêtes gens partout, même en Normandie;"[8 - There are honest people every where, even in Normandy.] a proverb, cited by way of reprisal for a saying reported by a Norman; in contempt of the people of Champagne; "quatre-vingt dix-neuf moutons et un Champenois font cent bonnes bêtes."[9 - Ninety-nine sheep and one native of Champagne make a hundred good beasts.] It is curious to find jokes, like our own on Yorkshire honesty and Gloucestershire ingenuity, repeated in a foreign land.

To return to the country through which I am passing; the Normans are said to be very litigious; in proportion to the frequency of the discussion of questions of meum and tuum, are the illegal attempts at appropriating what belongs to another; an offence which the law calls theft, and punishes capitally. It seems that, before the Revolution, this capital punishment was administered at the gallows; a machine of which our Norman conqueror brought with him perhaps a model into England, – an excellent subsidiary to the curfew, as lately tried in Ireland; for our Saxon legislators are recorded to have hung offenders on trees, but I am ignorant that any proof exists of their having contrived a gallows.

The invention of the guillotine was a still further improvement; but, either from dislike to the shedding of blood, or from attachment to long-established modes, the Normans are said to have prepared for the king, on his restoration, a petition, of which here follows a copy: —

Pétition adressée par les Normands à S. M. Louis XVIII. à son Retour en France

Sage Prince! quand tu nous rends
Tous nos anciens usages,
Accepte les hommages
Et comble les vœux des Normands!
Que la potence
Revive en France,
Daigne d'avance
Nous donner l'assurance
Que sous le règne des vertus
Les gibets nous seront rendus;
Heureux Normands! nous serons donc pendus!
Sous un roi débonnaire,
Comme on pendait nos pères!! (bis)

Oui, les bons Normands vont ravoir
L'antique privilège
D'aller en grand cortège
Danser à la Croix du Trahair;[10 - The Tyburn of Paris.]
Nouvelle étude
Nous semble rude,

De l'attitude
Nous avons l'habitude,
Avec le sang de père en fils
Ce penchant nous était transmis:
Venez encore orner notre pays
Gibets héréditaires
Où l'on pendait nos pères!!

I am sorry I cannot give the notes of the music to which this song or petition was set, as that doubtless lent to it additional charms in the ears of His Majesty.

We arrived at Yvetot: I heard some talk, amongst my companions, concerning the king of Yvetot, but was unable to obtain from them a satisfactory explanation of its import. I have since been told, that there is a family in this neighbourhood, the head of which, by an immemorial traditionary usage, bore the title of King of Yvetot, with the consent and approbation of the king of France, which consent was regularly asked for, on every demise of the crown of Yvetot, and never refused till the time of Louis XIV: he refused it, however, saying, he was determined to be the only king in France: since this time the king of Yvetot has disappeared from among the sovereigns of Europe, or, according to the form of anathema of republican or imperial France, "has ceased to reign." The family still subsists, and its chief is, no doubt, contented to be a private gentleman. I have forgotten his name.

We breakfasted at Rouen, at five in the morning: I much regretted the want of time to visit this great city, so well worthy of the curiosity of strangers. Here our companions left us, and we were again "all alone by ourselves."

At Magny they served soup and bouilli as the first part of our dinner, or déjeuné à la fourchette: I protested against the use of meat on a Rogation day. "C'est égal,"[11 - It is all the same.] said the landlady, an elderly woman of dry and quiet comportment. "I thought France was a catholic country," said I. "C'est égal," repeated the imperturbable landlady. She gave us, however, with some symptoms of approbation of our conduct, and of compassion for my young fellow-travellers, plenty of coffee and its accompaniments, with boiled eggs at discretion. I have often been ridiculed, by those who never dine without roast beef or its equivalent, for "taking thought what I should eat," on a day of abstinence; they have told me, that if mortification was my purpose, it would be most effectually accomplished by dining on bread and water. They forgot, or chose not to remember, that fasting or abstinence is a positive duty consequent on a precept, and that it suffices to comply with a precept to the extent of the precept. I find fault with no one for eating meat on whatever day of the year, but for so doing in defiance of a precept, the obligation of which he himself recognizes, while he aggravates his inconsistency by thinking scorn of those who comply with it.

An old relation of mine, in Devonshire, told me he went to dine with a catholic family, in that county, who made an excuse for being obliged to give him what he would find a bad dinner: "They set me down," said he, "to eleven dishes of fish, and, d – n 'em, they called that fasting." My relation was gourmand enough to have preferred eleven dishes of meat. Besides, none but those who have made the experiment know how insipid fish is to those who do not eat it, as all men of true taste do eat it, for variety only. So sensible are catholics of this insipidity, that one, at whose house I dined with a large party, called out to us on entering his dining room, – "No fish, gentlemen: we have enough of that on other days."

There is another road from Rouen to Paris, called the lower road, following, at a little distance, the course of the Seine, and exhibiting a great variety of fine scenery: that taken by our coach passed over a high plain of land of little fertility, but very well cultivated; it was in a straight line, and bordered by rows of apple trees, which, for some time before the season of gathering the fruit for cyder, are guarded in the night by dogs: during the day, their situation by the side of the road secures them from all but petty pilfering. At intervals were seen farm-houses, which seemed adapted for large farms; and the country bore signs of being occupied on the plan of what is called grand cultivation, except near the towns, where small patches of land, of different crops, marked the minute subdivision of property.

We passed through the village of St. Clair. A very particular circumstance, which had occurred five months before, caused me to be much affected, while in sight of this town. My elder son, who sat opposite to me, remarked the change of my countenance, and asked the reason: I eluded his question for the present: I was not aware how much what I then revolved in my mind regarded the fate of this son. St. Clair was an English priest, who, in the eighth century, retired into the pays de Vexin, led there an eremitical life, and occupied himself in the religious instruction of the inhabitants. His name and memory are held in great honour, particularly in the dioceses of Beauvais and Paris.

We crossed the bridge of Pontoise without entering that ancient town, in which the Etats Généraux were sometime held. The building of a bridge was formerly so great an exploit, and the possession of one an advantage so uncommon, that the word enters into the composition of many names of towns: we find even Deuxponts, and Bracebridge. The waters of all the rivers which fall into the Seine seem to be of the same colour; all bring with them chalk and clay. The soil of the whole basin, or valley of the Seine, is generally uniform.

Paris is hidden, from those who approach it by the road of St. Denis, by the interposition of Montmartre, a bare hill of no pleasing form. No increasing populousness or bustle, or passage of exits and entrances, announces the vicinity of a great town: Paris is all within its own walls. We were stopt at the gate; for every gate is a douane, as all provisions pay a tax on entering the city, except bread, corn, and flour, which receive a premium: even one of my trunks was opened. As the parts of a town, remote from its centre, are, of course, inhabited by the poorer classes, it is unreasonable to expect magnificence on the first entering, even of Paris; but it improved as we proceeded. We crossed the Boulevards, and were set down at the Messageries, the grand establishment of all the public carriages, whence we proceeded to the Hôtel de Conti, at a little distance, and near the Palais Royal. We had performed the whole journey in twenty-five hours, at the rate of about six miles an hour, all stoppages included. During the night, and where the road was bad, we went slowly; but from Rouen to Paris we went more than seven miles and a half an hour, the rate of an English mail coach; the relays of horses always being in readiness at the door of each post-house. The expense for three persons, including breakfast and dinner, was about five pounds.

A friend, whom I had hastened to see before his departure from Paris, and who, to my very great satisfaction, prolonged his stay there for four weeks after my arrival, came to us in the evening: we passed the next day with him, and on Thursday, after attending mass, on the feast of the Ascension, at the magnificent Gothic church of St. Eustache, settled ourselves in an apartment in the Rue de la Chaussée d'Autin, called otherwise, while Savoy was a department of France, Rue Mont Blanc, a name not yet entirely forgotten. It is, for length and width, one of the best in Paris, but very noisy. Garçons, however, did not mind noise: I too was a garçon, waiting the arrival of the female part of my family. We had two sitting-rooms with cabinets, and three good beds. The house supplied us with hot water for our tea; we had our mid-day repast of fruit; and, when we did not dine at a café, which we did but rarely, were supplied with our dinner by a neighbouring traiteur. Thus we lived for nearly three months: a French master and drawing-master attended my sons; I superintended their other studies; and we employed our time in the attainment of the object immediately within our reach – in becoming acquainted with Paris and its environs.

CHAP. III

He, who, on his return to Edinburgh from London, should publish his remarks on the latter city, would not take more superfluous pains, for the instruction of his countrymen, than the Englishman who should publish in England an account of Paris: it is there almost as well known as London itself. Still it is a foreign city: and many, who would scorn to take up a London Guide, may, for the hundredth time, amuse themselves with notices of Paris.

"Il n'y a qu'une Paris dans le monde,"[12 - There is but one Paris in the world.] say the French, and of that world they consider it as the capital: they are in some measure justified in so considering it, by the universality of their language, by the general imitation of their manners, and, above all, by the liberality with which every thing that a stranger can desire to view is offered to his inspection. There is certainly a greater resort of foreigners to Paris, independently of commerce, than to any other city of Europe.

I followed the advice of a former tourist, and went, first of all, to the Place Louis XV. It is almost the only object I have seen in my travels, that I have heard much praised beforehand, which has not disappointed me. Perhaps I was thus well contented, because the feeling of admiration was now, for the first time, excited in the beginning of my tour in foreign parts; and I pleased myself in expecting a frequent renewal of it; and I have since admired less, because I have seen more things to admire. But, to the Place Louis XV. Entering it from the north, you have the Seine, with its bridge, and the Palais Bourbon before you; advancing to the middle of the square, you have public buildings with magnificent colonnades behind you; on the left is the garden of the Tuilleries, at the end of the central allée of which is seen the château; on the right, the Champs Elysées; and, at the end of the grand avenue, the triumphal arch, which shared the fate of the triumphs of its founder, being left incomplete: it has since been finished in honour of his Royal Highness the Duc d'Angoulême on account of his Spanish campaign of 1823. A very good taste dictated to Napoleon the site of this arch; without it the fourth side of this magnificent square was trees and country only; but the arch seems to enclose the Champs Elysées, as the Palace encloses the garden of the Tuilleries; the extent of the Place is increased by making the Champs Elysées appear as a part of it, and the whole is perfected. The daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette avoids this Place with a pious horror, in which every honest heart is disposed to sympathise.

The Museum of the Louvre consists of the lower apartments, in which the statues are placed, and of the gallery of paintings; but as it has become usual to call the gallery by the name of the Gallery only, the lower rooms have retained sole possession of the name of Museum. At the door may be bought catalogues of the statues and paintings, which enter, in some cases, into a short detail of their history and merits. The statues are well placed: one may go round them, and see them on every side. Common sense directs, that a statue should be placed thus; yet at Rome, statues, the admiration of the world, are placed in dark cabinets, in niches, close to the wall; as if statues, like paintings, were to be seen only on one side: they are thus robbed of half their glory, nay of all their glory; since, to judge of a statue, it must be contemplated as a whole. "They order these things better in France."