breasts cut off, her skin
slashed by red hot sabres, while she was being burned. Her yells could
be heard over half Paris.

Think, too, of later times--when Louis Napoleon aimed his cannon at the
houses of inoffensive people, and shot down, in cold blood, some of the
best inhabitants of Paris. A more hellish act was never perpetrated in
this world of ours than that--yet he is the patron of modern
civilization, and is on excellent terms with the amiable Queen Victoria.
I do not wonder that Rousseau argued that the primitive and savage
condition of man is to be preferred to French civilization. This is one
phase of Paris life as it is to-day, and as it always has been, and it
is right that the stranger should not pass it by.

Paris is crowded with such places as these I have been describing--spots
to which bloody histories cling. The paving-stones are, as it were, red
to this day with the blood they drank in the times of the revolution.

* * * * *

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

There is no public square or place in the world, which in broad
magnificence surpasses the _Place de la Concorde_. The stranger can form
little idea of it, except by personal inspection. Stand in the center
and look which way you will, something grand or beautiful greets the
eye. Look toward the south, and see the fine building which contains the
senate chamber, the bridge over the Seine, and the _Quai de Orsay_. To
the north, and see the row of buildings named Place de la Concorde, with
their grand colonnades and the pretentious Madeleine. To the east, and
there the green forest of the Tuileries gardens, with its rich array of
flowers and statuary--and the palace--greets you, and farther away the
grand towers of Notre Dame. Or look where the sun sets--the Elysian
fields are all before you with their music and dancing and shows; their
two long promenades, and in the distance Napoleon's grand triumphal
arch.

To look at the Place de la Concorde itself, you should stand upon the
bridge across the Seine--from its center look down upon the great open
_plaza_, see the wonderful fountains, gaze up at the obelisk of Luxor in
the center, and you will be struck with admiration of the grand scene
before you.

But I confess that I was attracted to the Place de la Concorde more by
the historical associations connected with it, than by its present
magnificence. Leaning upon the parapet of the bridge and looking down
upon