hind the trees are gaunt, mouldy
houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought grace of life)
the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled, swindled, intrigued; whence
high-born duchesses used to issue, in old times, to act as chambermaids
to lovely Du Barri; and mighty princes rolled away, in gilt caroches,
hot for the honor of lighting his Majesty to bed, or of presenting his
stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when he dined. Tailors,
chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers, are now
established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling
at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags
are hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun;
oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie basking
in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling down the
wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirsty
stones.

After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we deboucher
on the grande place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the
glories of France. In the midst of the great lonely plain this famous
residence of King Louis looks low and mean.--Honored pile! Time was when
tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate.
Fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women from Paris broke through the
charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a
penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are
portrayed in pictures and marble: catalogues are written about these
miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy
to Waterloo,--all the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the mistresses of his
successor--and all the great men who have flourished since the French
empire began. Military heroes are most of these--fierce constables in
shining steel, marshals in voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in
bearskin caps; some dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities,
dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in
African sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for the
good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of "all the
glories" of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these
military men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that
they pay such an extraordinary