ed. It
is sufficiently small to be enjoyable. There is something positively
oppressive in the vastness of many of these galleries. You feel utterly
unequal to them; as though the finite were about to attempt the
comprehension of the infinite. One picture here, by Ary Scheffer, was
exhibited in America, a few years since. It is the head and bust of a
dead youth in armor--a youth with a girlish face. There are others by
Henri Scheffer, Paulin Guerin, and a host more I will not name. One, a
scene in the Conciergerie, "Reading the List of the Condemned to the
Prisoners," by Mueller, haunted me long after the doors had swung
together behind us. The palace of the Luxembourg, small, remarkable for
the beauty of its architecture and charming garden, built for that
graceless regent, Marie de Medici, is now the residence of the president
of the Senate; and indeed the Senate itself meets here. We were shown
through the rooms open to the public, the private apartments of Marie de
Medici among them, in one of which was a bust of the regent. The garden,
like all gardens, is filled with trees and shrubs, flowers and
fountains, but yet with a certain charm of its own. The festooning of
vines from point to point was a novelty to us, as was the design of one
of the fountains. Approaching it from the rear, we thought it a
tomb,--perhaps the tomb of Marshal Ney, we said, whose statue we were
seeking. It proved to be an artificial grotto, and within it, sprinkled
with the spray of the fountain, embowered in a mass of glistening, green
ivy, reclined a pair of pretty, marble lovers; peering in upon them from
above, scowled a dreadful ogre--a horrible giant. The whole effect,
coming upon it unexpectedly, was startling.

We had a tiresome search for this same statue of Marshal Ney. We chased
every marble nymph in the garden, and walked and walked, over burning
pebbles and under a scorching sun, until we almost wished he had never
been shot. At last, away beyond the garden, out upon a long avenue,
longer and hotter if possible than the garden paths, we found
it,--erected upon the very spot where he was executed. He stands with
arm outstretched, and mouth opened wide, as though he were yawning with
the wearisomeness of it all. It is a pity that he should give way to his
feelings so soon, since he must stand there for hundreds of years to
come. The guide-books say he is represented in the act of encouraging
his men. They must have been easily enco