processes and needless
conditions; at every step we realize of how much less comparative value
is time in the Old World. On the other hand, the rigid system that
governs municipal life, the means adopted to render all public
institutions both accessible and attractive, claim perpetually the
gratitude of artists, students, and philosophers. A programme of
exploration may be arranged at will, yielding a complete insight, and,
when achieved, such has been the order, communicativeness and facility,
that we have a more distinct and reliable idea of the whole circle of
observation than it is possible to obtain elsewhere. We are continually
reminded of Buffon's maxim: '_la genie est la patience_.' A curious
illustration of this systematic habit of the French occurred at
Constantinople, during the Crimean war, where they immediately numbered
the houses and named the streets, to the discomfiture of the passive
Turks--one of whom, in his wonder at the mechanical superiority of these
Frank allies, asked a soldier if the high fur cap on his head would come
off. The _concierge_ beneath each _porte cochere_, the social
distinction which makes each _cafe_ and restaurant the nucleus of a
particular class, the organized provision for all exigencies of human
life in Paris, illustrate the same trait on a larger and more useful
scale. If we survey the institutions and the monuments with care, and
refer to their origin, associations and purposes, the historical and
economical national facts are revealed with the utmost clearness and
unity. The old Bastile represented, in its gloomy stolidity, the whole
tragedy of the Revolution; and St. Genevieve combines the holy memories
of the early church with that of the first French kings; the site of a
_fosse commune_ attests the valor of republican martyrs; the Champs
Elysees are the popular earthly fields of a French paradise. One _cafe_
is famed for the beauty of its mistress, another for the great
chess-players who make it a resort; one is the daily rendezvous of the
liberals, another of royalists, one of military men, another of artists;
they flourish and fade with dynasties, and are respectively the
favorites of provincials and citizens, gourmands and traders, men of
letters and men of state.[A] The _Monte de Piete_ acquaints us with the
vicissitudes and expedients of fortune; the _Hotel Dieu_ is a temple of
ancient charity; the _Hospice des Enfants Trouvees_ startles us with the
astounding fac