LETTER XLIII.

While I am on the Continent I feel quite different to what I do when I
am on an island. The sensation that if you leave one country you can
immediately go into another, without the intervention of what LORD BYRON
has so beautifully called the Blue Ocean, (although the ocean or sea is
not always blue, but often green) between the two neighbourhoods,
produces a curious effect upon my idiosyncrasy. At the same time I must
confess that this metaphysical feeling does not apply to Paris, because
that city is in the centre of a large country, and if I wished to leave
it (which at present I do not), I should have to traverse a considerable
extent of territory.

Yesterday I visited the Madelaine, which is a church, and stands near
the Boulevards, and the front looks towards the Place de la Concorde, a
locality which has also had various other names, which, if I knew them,
as I am "free to confess" (as they say in a certain place which I have
already immortalised) I do not, would naturally suggest to the mind a
long train of instructive historical thoughts, although as the
Madelaine, if GALIGNANI'S _Guide_ may be trusted, was not built until
after the principal events connected with the Place de la Concorde had
occurred, to remember them here would be a case of _post hoc et prompter
hoc_ (I translate for the benefit of the fair sex--"because you are here
you are prompted to think of that there,") and as I am travelling to
instruct myself and my readers, I wish to avoid _persiflage_. The
Madelaine is a building which has cost considerable sums of money, and
it is a remarkable coincidence that it is Greek in style though intended
for _Roman_ Catholic worship, but such are the anomalies and
anachronisms which strike the intelligent traveller. The _facade_, or
altar-piece, is painted in very bright colours, with mythological
allusions to the EMPEROR NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, and other well-known
individuals. The effect of the exterior is something like that of the
Licensed Victuallers' Asylum at Woking Buzzard, but I think in many
respects inferior to that worthy and laudable institution, of which an
Englishman (I do not particularly refer to a talented, gifted, and
irascible correspondent) is so justly proud. I only staid five minutes;
service was not being performed, and there was no person in the church
but myself, but this was enough to inspire me with the utmost contempt
for the mummeries of the Roman Catholic creed, a