of the Louvre,
from two to four: he returns home with me to dinner; and at seven,
which, at this season in this latitude, is still broad day, we issue
forth for a promenade. Paris, I have often told you, is a picturesque
town, and offers endless sources of satisfaction, beyond its living
throngs, its society, its theatres, and its boulevards. The public
displays at the Academy, and its meetings of science, taste, and
philanthropy are little to my taste, being too artificial and affected,
and I have found most enjoyment in parts of this little world that I
believe travellers usually overlook.

The churches of Paris want the odour, the genial and ecclesiastical
atmosphere and the devout superstition that rendered those of Italy so
strikingly soothing and pleasant; but they are huge piles, and can
always be visited with pleasure. Notre Dame de Paris is a noble
monument, and now that the place of the archbishop is destroyed, one is
likely to get better views of it, than is apt to be the case with these
venerable edifices. A few evenings since M----, and myself ascended the
towers, and seating ourselves on the leads, looked down, for near an
hour, on the extraordinary picture beneath. The maze of roofs,
out-topped, here and there, by black lacquered-looking towers, domes,
pavilions of palaces, and, as is the case with the Tuileries and Louvre,
literally by a mile of continuous structures; the fissures of streets,
resembling gaping crevices in rocks; the river meandering through the
centre of all, and spanned by bridges thronged by mites of men and pigmy
carriages; the crowds of images of the past; the historical eminences
that surround the valley of the capital; the knowledge of its interior;
our acquaintance with the past and the present, together with
conjectures for the future, contributed to render this a most impressive
evening. The distant landscape was lost, and even quarters of the town
itself were getting to be obscure before we descended, helping
singularly to increase the effect produced by our speculations on those
ages in which Paris had been the scene of so many momentous events.

We have also wandered among the other relics of antiquity, for the
present structure of Notre Dame is said to have already stood seven
centuries. The Place Royale is one of the most singular quarters of the
town, and although often visited before, we have again examined it, for
we are beginning to regard objects with the interest th