then the six
devoted to the weaving; long, low, and narrow they were, with hand-looms
ranged down one side. Through the threads of the warp we could see the
weavers sitting behind their work, each with his box of worsteds and
pattern beside him. The colors were wound upon quills, numbers of which
hung, each by its thread, from the half-completed work. Taking one of
these in one hand, the workman dexterously separated the threads of the
warp with the other, and passed the quill through, pressing down the one
stitch thus formed with its pointed end. You can imagine how slow this
work must be. How tiresome a task it is to delight the eyes of princes!
The making of carpets, which has been recently added, is equally
tiresome. This, too, is hand work, they being woven in some way over a
round stick, and then cut and trimmed with a pair of shears. To make one
requires from five to ten years, and their cost is from six to twenty
thousand dollars. About six hundred weavers are said to be here, though
we saw but a small proportion of that number. They receive only from
three to five hundred dollars a year, with a pension of about half as
much if they are disabled.

From the Gobelins we drove across the Seine again, and out to Pere
la-Chaise, where stood once the house of the confessor of Louis XIV.,
from whom the cemetery takes its name, the Jesuit priest through whose
influence the edict of Nantes was revoked. A kind of ghastly imitation
of life it all seemed--the narrow houses on either side of the paved
streets, that were not houses at all, hung with dead flowers and
corpse-like wreaths, stained an unnatural hue. We peered through the
bars of the locked gate opening into the Jews' quarter, trying to
distinguish the tomb where lie the ashes of a life that blazed, and
burned itself out. Poor Rachel! Through the solemn streets, among the
quiet dwellings of the noiseless city, whence comes no sound of joy or
grief, where they need no candle, neither light of the sun, we walked a
while, then plucked a leaf or two, and came away.

One day, when the sun lay hot upon the white streets of the beautiful
city, we searched among the shops of the crooked Faubourg St. Honore for
a number forgotten now, and the Creche, where the working mothers may
leave their children during the day. In another and more quiet street
we found it. We pulled the bell before a massive gateway; the wide doors
opened upon a smiling portress, who led the way acro