Tuileries was enlarged, the Hotel des Invalides,
a foundling hospital, and several bridges were built.

Louis XV. established the manufactory of porcelain at Sevres, and also
added much to the beauty of Paris. He commenced the erection of the
Madeleine. Theaters and comic opera-houses were speedily built, and
water was distributed over the city by the use of steam-engines.

Then broke out the revolution, and many fine monuments were destroyed.
But it was under the Directory that the Museum of the Louvre was opened,
and under Napoleon the capital assumed a splendor it had never known
before. Under the succeeding kings it continued to increase in wealth
and magnificence, until it is unquestionably the finest city in the
world.

I have now in a short space given the reader a preliminary sketch of
Paris, and will proceed at once to describe what I saw in it, and the
impressions I received, while a resident in that city.

CHAPTER II.

RESTAURANTS--A WALK AND GOSSIP.

[Illustration: Boulevard du Temple.]

RESTAURANTS, CAFES, ETC.

The first thing the stranger does in Paris, is of course to find
temporary lodging, and the next is to select a good _restaurant_. Paris
without its _restaurants, cafes, estaminets_, and _cercles_, would be
shorn of half its glory. They are one of its most distinguished and
peculiar features. Between the hours of five and eight, in the evening
of course, all Paris is in those _restaurants_. The scene at such times
is enlivening in the highest degree. The Boulevards contain the finest
in the city, for there nearly all the first-class saloons are kept.
There are retired streets in which are kept houses on the same plan, but
with prices moderate in the extreme. You can go on the Boulevards and
pay for a breakfast, if you choose, fifty or even sixty francs, or you
can retire to some quiet spot and pay one franc for your frugal meal. It
is of course not common for any one to pay the largest sum named, but
there are persons in Paris who do it, young men who with us are vulgarly
denominated "swells," and who like to astonish their friends by their
extravagance.

[Illustration: PARIS & ARCH OF TRIUMPH.]

Out of curiosity I went one day with a friend to one of the most
gorgeous of the _restaurants_ on the Boulevards. Notwithstanding the
descriptions I had read and listened to from the lips of friends, I was
surprised at the splendor and style of the place. We sat down before a
fine windo