f no diminution, and the English have the
satisfaction of knowing that they pay no more than the French, which
perhaps is not the case in all houses in Paris; persons wishing to view
the goods are not pressed to purchase unless they feel disposed to do
so, and however trifling may be the amount, they are not tormented, as
in too many shops, to buy more than they wish. Whatever articles are
selected are sent punctually to the residence of the parties at the time
required, and orders, whether personally or by letter, meet with the
strictest attention. There is always some person belonging to the
establishment who speaks English. La Tentation is situated No. 67, Rue
Faubourg St. Honore, at the corner of the Avenue de Marigny.

Perhaps there is no branch of the arts which has been wrought to so high
a perfection as that of making artificial flowers, and no place in the
world where it is practised to such an extent as Paris, or with so high
a degree of talent; but although it has been long and justly celebrated
for the exquisite taste developed in forming bouquets, wherein all the
varieties of colour are so assembled as to display each other to the
best advantage, yet so arranged that a certain harmony should pervade
the whole; still M. Constantin has discovered the means of availing
himself of the abilities of the Parisians in this department of the art,
that he has elevated it to a degree of altitude it had never before
attained, and in fact his flowers have become so exclusively the mode,
that if a lady wear any whatever, it would be offending her to suppose
that they were any other than those of M. Constantin. Indeed, it is
impossible to enter his apartments without feeling a thorough conviction
of the elegance of his taste, first passing through a long corridor
between two rows of real flowers, proving that he fears not the rivality
of nature, conscious that his own works unite the same beauties of tints
and colours which her highest powers can produce, and one room into
which his customers are introduced, unites a degree of taste in the
richness and splendour of its ornamental objects, with that proper tone
of keeping which is pleasing to the eye; but it is at his little boudoir
that the beholder is astonished, such luxuriant magnificence as is
therein displayed can only be imagined from a description presented in
the Arabian Nights! in fact the Dutch Ambassador was so delighted with
the exquisite arrangement of this su