stovepipes. Let us add that if it is according
to rule that the architecture of a building should be adapted to its
purpose in such a manner that this purpose shall be immediately apparent
from the mere aspect of the building, one cannot be too much amazed at a
structure which might be indifferently--the palace of a king, a chamber
of communes, a town-hall, a college, a riding-school, an academy, a
warehouse, a court-house, a museum, a barracks, a sepulchre, a temple,
or a theatre. However, it is an Exchange. An edifice ought to be,
moreover, suitable to the climate. This one is evidently constructed
expressly for our cold and rainy skies. It has a roof almost as flat as
roofs in the East, which involves sweeping the roof in winter, when it
snows; and of course roofs are made to be swept. As for its purpose, of
which we just spoke, it fulfils it to a marvel; it is a bourse in France
as it would have been a temple in Greece. It is true that the architect
was at a good deal of trouble to conceal the clock face, which would
have destroyed the purity of the fine lines of the facade; but, on the
other hand, we have that colonnade which circles round the edifice and
under which, on days of high religious ceremony, the theories of
the stock-brokers and the courtiers of commerce can be developed so
majestically.

These are very superb structures. Let us add a quantity of fine,
amusing, and varied streets, like the Rue de Rivoli, and I do not
despair of Paris presenting to the eye, when viewed from a balloon, that
richness of line, that opulence of detail, that diversity of aspect,
that grandiose something in the simple, and unexpected in the beautiful,
which characterizes a checker-board.

However, admirable as the Paris of to-day may seem to you, reconstruct
the Paris of the fifteenth century, call it up before you in thought;
look at the sky athwart that surprising forest of spires, towers, and
belfries; spread out in the centre of the city, tear away at the point
of the islands, fold at the arches of the bridges, the Seine, with
its broad green and yellow expanses, more variable than the skin of a
serpent; project clearly against an azure horizon the Gothic profile
of this ancient Paris. Make its contour float in a winter's mist which
clings to its numerous chimneys; drown it in profound night and watch
the odd play of lights and shadows in that sombre labyrinth of edifices;
cast upon it a ray of light which shall vaguely o