ootnote 5: Vide Cooke's View.]

[Footnote 6: Vide Cooke's Views.]

If an hour or two of leisure remain after this walk, they may be filled
up by a visit to the public library and the Palais des Arts. The former
contains, they say, ninety thousand volumes, rather an embarrass de
richesses to a hurrying traveller. I confess I was more amused by the
importance with which the little old woman, who acted as concierge,
talked of the "esprit mal tournu de Voltaire." The latter building
adjoins the Hotel de Ville, in the Place des Terreaux, the scene of one
of the revolutionary fusillades. It contains, besides, several good
pictures hung in bad lights, a large collection of Roman altars and
sepulchral monuments, arranged in a cloister below, which serves as the
exchange; and a cabinet of Roman antiquities found in the environs. The
Hotel de Ville itself is a massy stone building, a good deal in the
taste of the Tuileries, and containing two fine statues of the rivers
Rhone and Saone, which deserve notice. Whether the interior of Lyons can
boast of any thing else worth notice I know not, but from the specimen
which we had, too minute a survey of it can hardly be edifying to any
one but a scavenger; and no single building can be named of any
particular beauty, though its masses of tall well-built houses are
imposing at a distance. To complete the short general survey of Lyons,
which I mentioned, another not very long walk will suffice; traversing
first the fine line of quays which front the Rhone, from the Pont la
Guillotiere to the Quai St. Clair. From this point ascend the highest
part of the city, called the Croix Rousse, and inquire for a place
called Chateau Montsuy, which stands bordering upon its outskirts, and
is best described as the most elevated spot on this line of heights.[7]
From hence the view of Mont Blanc and the vale of the Rhone is
peculiarly fine on a bright evening; and the whole prospect as rich and
extensive as that from Fourvieres. Beware of being persuaded by the
laquais de place to visit La Tour de la belle Allemande, which is one of
their show spots, and so called from some old legend of the imprisonment
of a German lady. The view from Chateau Montsuy must, from the nature of
the ground, be just the same, or, perhaps, even superior: and, what is
more to the purpose, the Baroness de Vouty, in whose garden this old
tower stands, seldom admits either Lyonnese or strangers to see it. On
descending from the