hat a perfectly smooth surface is
produced, having all the softness and gradation of tints to be found in
the finest oil painting, without that glare which varnish produces; the
execution of these works is attended by a most tedious application,
requiring sometimes six years to complete one piece, which, at 18,000
francs, about seven hundred pounds, is not adequate to recompensing the
workmen equal to their merit and perseverance; about 120 men are
constantly employed, principally for the Government or the Royal Family.

Attached to this establishment is the Royal Carpet Manufactory; such as
are here produced are considered superior to those of Persia, with
regard to the evenness of the surface, the strength, durability, and
fineness of the workmanship, the beauty of the designs, and the
brilliance of the colours, which are such as can never be surpassed, but
if they were ever allowed to be sold, the price would be so enormous
that some would amount to 150,000 francs (6000_l._) The accuracy with
which the pictures of Rubens have been copied is most extraordinary, as
it may be said that the operative works in the dark. One carpet has been
produced for the Gallery of the Louvre, consisting of seventy-two
pieces, forming a total exceeding 1,300 feet which is supposed to be the
largest carpet ever made. The same facility exists for foreigners seeing
this exhibition, as with all others, the passport being presented,
Wednesdays and Saturdays, from one to three in winter, and from two to
four in the summer.

A curious old house, termed the Maison de St. Louis or de la Reine
Blanche, is worth notice, in the Rue des Marmouzets; it may have been
inhabited by a queen of that name, but certainly not the mother of St.
Louis, as it is not sufficiently ancient, being of about the time of
Charles the Seventh, when it was the rage to build houses in that style
of architecture, about the period of from 1440 to 1460. The church of
St. Medard, in the Rue Mouffetard, offers nothing remarkable, but a
mixture of different styles of architecture, according to the epochs at
which it was repaired and embellished; in 1561 a tremendous attack was
made upon it by the Calvinists, when several of the congregation were
killed, and the Abbe Paris, having been buried in the cemetery attached
in 1727, his tomb, it is pretended, had certain convulsions in 1730, and
was the origin of the sect called convulsionists, and the scenes which
occurred caused the