history is silent; but it would have been a sensible
improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.

On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on
his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to
the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a
fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with
the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of
an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of
Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read
for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the
curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has
puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it,
and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vallee de Misere_--words
indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence.
In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
_Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the
Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of
the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers,
with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners
into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the
lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the
crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of
offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and
was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were
often carried; there was a room in it called Caesar's chamber, where
the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once
sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was
many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments,
and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small
beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in
processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately
after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might
chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well
trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the
dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with
peculiar horror.