e
intended for the emperor, the palaces, and for other monarchs to whom
they may be presented in the name of the French emperors. They are the
finest specimens of their kind in the world. There is another
manufactory connected with the Gobelins, for dyeing wools, and they are
dyed better than in any other place, or at least none can be purchased
elsewhere so fitted for the wants of the tapestry workers. There is also
a school of design connected with it, and a course of lectures is
delivered by able and accomplished men.

The carpet manufactory is one of the best, and perhaps _the_ best, in
the world. The Parisian carpets are not equal to those manufactured
here. It often takes five and ten years to make a carpet, and the cost
is as high sometimes as thirty thousand dollars. None are ever sold. One
was one made for the Louvre gallery, consisting of seventy-two pieces,
and being over thirteen hundred feet in length.

I have never been more astonished with any exhibition of the fruits of
industry and art, than with the carpets and tapestries in the Rue
Mouffetard. Some of the latter excel in beauty the best pictures in
Europe, and when one reflects that each tint is of wool, worked into the
web by the careful fingers of the workman, that every line, every
muscle, is wrought as distinctly and beautifully as upon canvas, it
excites admiration and wonder. The rooms are open for four Hours two
days in the week, and they were crowded when I was there, and
principally by foreigners.

On my way back, I stopped in the Garden of Plants, and seated myself
upon the benches beneath the shade of the trees. After resting awhile, I
entered a restaurant and ordered dinner, as I could scarcely wait to
return to the hotel, and in Paris, where a bargain is made at so much
per day for hotel charges, including meals, if one is absent at dinner
the proper sum is deducted from the daily charges.

I did not succeed in getting a good dinner for a fair price, which I
always could do at the hotel. It was so poor that a little while after,
I tried a cup of coffee and a roll upon the _Champs Elysees_, which were
delicious enough to make up for the poor dinner.

In front of me there was an orchestra, and some singers, who discoursed
very good music for the benefit of all persons who patronized the
restaurant. A multitude of ladies and gentlemen were ranged under the
trees before them, sipping coffee, wine, or brandy. The sight was a very
gay one