t, small-windowed shops of Copenhagen; I have passed under the
pendant tobacco leaves into the primitive cigar-shops of St. Sebastian;
I have hobbled, in furs, into the shops of Stockholm; I have been
compelled to take a look at the shops of London, Dublin, Edinburgh,
Liverpool, and a host of other places; but perfect shopping is to be
enjoyed in Paris only; and in the days gone by, the Palais Royal was the
centre of this paradise. Alas! the days of its glory are gone. The lines
of splendid boulevards, flanked with gorgeous shops and _cafes_; the
long arcades of the Rue de Rivoli; and, in fine, the leaning of all
that is fashionable, and lofty, and rich to the west, are the causes
which have brought the destruction of the Palais Royal. Time was when
that quaint old square--the Place-Royale in the Marais--was mighty
fashionable. It now lies in the neglected, industrious, factory-crowded
east--a kind of Parisian Bloomsbury Square, only infinitely more
picturesque, with its quaint, low colonnades. You see the fine Parisians
have travelled steadily westward, sloping slowly, like "the Great
Orion." They are making their way along the Champs-Elysees to the Avenue
de l'Imperatrice; and are constructing white stone aristocratic suburbs.
So the foreigners no longer make their way direct to the Palais Royal
now, on the morrow of their arrival in Paris. If they be at the Louvre,
they bend westward along the Rue de Rivoli, and by the Rue de la Paix,
to the brilliant boulevards. If they be in the Grand Hotel, they issue
at once upon these famous boulevards, and the ladies are in a feminine
paradise at once. Why, exactly opposite to the Grand Hotel is Rudolphi's
remarkable shop, packed artistically with his works of art--ay, and of
the most finished and cunning art--in oxidized silver. His shop is most
admirably adapted to the articles the effect of which he desires to
heighten. It is painted black and pointed with delicate gold threads.
The rich array of jewellery and the rare ecclesiastical ornaments stand
brightly out from the sombre case, and light the window. The precious
stones, the lapis lazuli, the malachite, obtain a new brilliance from
the rich neutral tints and shades of the chased dulled silver in which
they are held.
Sophonisba, her mamma and sisters, are not at much trouble to decide the
period to which the bracelet, or the brooch, or the earring belongs.
"_Cinque cento_, my dear! I know nothing about that. I think it
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