liefs on the arch represent important events in
Napoleon's campaigns. Arriving at the arch, Leo led the way up a spiral
staircase, 261 steps to the platform above which commands fine views of
Paris.
The Champs-Elysees, a boulevard one thousand feet in width, extends east
over a mile from the monument of the Place de la Concord. Handsome
buildings flank the sides, and much of the open space is shaded with elm
and lime trees. Grand statues, fountains, and flowers add their charm.
Between three and five o'clock every pleasant afternoon this magnificent
avenue becomes the most fashionable promenade in the world. Here you will
behold the elite in attendance at Vanity Fair; many are riding in elegant
equipages, many on horseback, and almost countless numbers on foot.
The popular drive is out the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 320 feet in
width, to the Bois de Boulogne, a beautiful park of 2250 acres,
containing several lakes and fringed on the west side by the River
Seine. In the southwest part of this park is located the Hippodrome de
Longchamp, which is the principal race-course near Paris, where races
attract vast crowds, especially when the French Derby or the Grand Prix
of twenty thousand dollars is competed for early in June.
The Harrises standing on the monument, looked eastward, and Leo pointed
out the River Seine shooting beneath more than a score of beautiful stone
and iron bridges, and making a bold curve of seven miles through Paris.
Then the Seine flows like a ribbon of silver in a northwesterly direction
into the English Channel. On the right bank is seen the Palais du
Trocadero of oriental style, which was used for the International
Exposition of 1878. On the left bank stands the Palais du Luxembourg,
rich in modern French art, the Hotel des Invalides, where rests Napoleon,
and the Church of St. Genevieve, or the Pantheon, where Victor Hugo is
buried.
Beyond the Place de la Concord are the Royal Gardens of the Tuileries,
where Josephine and Eugenie walked among classic statues, vases,
fountains and flowers; the Louvre filled with priceless art treasures,
the beautiful Hotel de Ville or city-hall, majestic Notre Dame, and
the graceful Column of July. Paris is truly an earthly Paradise. For
centuries it has been the residence of French rulers, and the mecca of
her pleasure loving citizens. Fire, famine, foreign invasion, civil war,
and pestilence have often swept over this, the fairest of cities, yet
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