ications into which these branches diverge; so that Paris once
principally celebrated as a city of pleasure and gaiety, still retaining
that reputation, is now also renowned for its extraordinary
manufactures, and the curious and splendid specimens of art and
ingenuity emerging from its numerous _ateliers_, and which would require
an extent far beyond the limits of this work, to give a just and
accurate review of their merits; but some there are which being of a
nature totally novel in the annals of commerce, and having merely been
introduced within the last few years, we shall devote some space to
their description in order to afford our readers an idea of their beauty
and utility.

Amongst the various articles of the above description, none perhaps
occupy a more prominent position for beauty, taste, and ingenuity, than
the extraordinary variety displayed in what is termed fancy stationary,
the fabrication of which is now extended to such a degree, as to have
become an important branch of the commerce of Paris. Its introduction is
but of recent date, as in the reign of Charles X all the paper required
for notes, letters, dispatches, etc., was procured from England, on
account of its extreme superiority over that of France; the Court never
using any other, the example was followed not only by the major part of
the French nobility, but by all foreigners of distinction who happened
to be sojourning at Paris, hence the importation of paper from England
was to a considerable amount. But when Louis Philippe came to the
throne, he with his usual policy observed, that paper of French
manufacture was good enough for his purposes, it was therefore adopted
at the Court, and the noblesse and gentry, following in the same line,
that encouragement was afforded to their countrymen, that engendered the
idea of rendering their own paper so tasteful and elegant that now the
affair is quite reversed, and England takes from France an immense
quantity of this beautiful manufacture, which employs even artists of
talent for designing the elegant and fanciful devices which ornament
their envelopes, with their enclosures of various sizes and forms, in
which the arts of drawing, painting, gilding, stamping, etc., combine to
render them so pretty and so gay, that one feels loath to destroy any of
these ornamental epistles, however trifling their import; the subjects
of the devices are as various as those which they are intended to
illustrate, hi