lt thou sweep o'er the plain;
Thou sleep'st thy last sleep, thou hast fought thy last battle,
No sound can awake thee to glory again."

The delightful _Place de la Concorde_, which is between the Garden of
the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees, and which has been called the
most delightful spot in any European city, had been passed through by
the Class in their walk to the park, and it was decided to give an
afternoon to a visit to it. Here stands the obelisk of Luxor, brought
from the ruins of Thebes.

[Illustration: PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.]

Here stood the guillotine, or rather the guillotines, on which Louis
XIV. and Marie Antoinette and nearly three thousand persons perished.
Here revolutionists cut off the heads of the royal family, and the
people the heads of the revolutionists.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE LOUVRE.]

Two beautiful fountains were playing on the afternoon when the Class
made their visit. The sky was all rose and gold; the Seine flowed
calmly along; the aspect of every thing seemed as foreign to any past
association of war, tragedy, and pangs of human suffering as the
figures of the Tritons and Nereids that were spouting water from the
fishes in their hands.

[Illustration: FOUNTAIN, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.]

Leaving the Place de la Concorde, which Master Lewis said he believed
was constructed in part of stones of the old Bastile, the Class went
to the public square where the Bastile had stood.

"The Place of the Bastile," said Master Lewis, "now adorned by the
Column of Liberty, is the site of the old Castle of Paris, which was
built as a defence against the English. The castle became a prison for
people who offended the French kings. The Man of the Iron Mask was
confined here. It was regarded as an obstacle to liberty, and it was
stormed by the people during the Revolution, and destroyed."

"Who was the Man of the Iron Mask?" asked Tommy Toby.

"That is a question that used to be asked by all the statesmen of
Europe, and that has been repeated and always will be by every reader
of history. It has been answered in many different ways. Books,
pamphlets, and essays have been written upon the subject. It is still
a secret, and seems destined always to remain so. I will give you
briefly the strange history of this State prisoner."

THE MAN OF THE IRON MASK.

"During the reign of that voluptuous old monarch, Louis XIV. of
France, there appeared on one of the Marguerite Islands, i