Madame de St—l, is the only new acquaintance to whom we are indebted for a polite and hospitable reception, which indeed every foreigner of character is sure to find at her house, which on account of the public characters often seen there, on account of the rational conversation, and general gayety which always prevail, and above all, on account of the distinguished wit and universal politeness of “madame,” is the most agreeable of Paris. Having thus drawn a comparative statement of the advantages and disadvantages of these cities, principally viewed as places either of study or of amusement, I shall be excused for adding a few words on the state of charitable institutions, though they do not immediately form part of my subject. Our hospitals and asylums for suffering poverty, are too well known, and stand on too high a basis to require any eulogium from me. I am happy to add, that those of Paris have not been neglected during the united horrors of war and revolution. A respectable physician (not a frenchman) assures me, that even during the most barbarous moments of the sanguinary Robespierre, these useful establishments were not abandoned. By a strange contradiction, while virtue and innocence were daily dragged to the scaffold, misery here found a refuge from the agonies of pain, and the menaces of disease. These institutions are now kept up with liberality, and every possible attention. Besides several others the medical gentleman in question particularly praises “l’Hôtel Dieu, rue du Marché Palu,” where from fifteen hundred to two thousand sick persons receive the advice of the ablest physicians, and are treated with the most delicate care. The government, and the persons particularly entrusted with the management of this establishment, show the most laudable zeal in its support. “L’Hospice St. Louis” is an excellent appendage to this, to which those whose complaints are contagious are immediately removed. He next commends “l’Hospice de la Pitié, rue Fossés St. Victor,” behind “_le Jardin des Plantes_,” the refuge of distressed innocence, in which two thousand children of soldiers, who died in the service of their country, are rescued from misery, and comfortably supported. “L’Hospice de St. Sulpice, rue de Sèvres,” originally built by madame Necker, in which one hundred and twenty sick, and eighteen wounded persons are relieved. “L’Hospice des Incurables,” where the doom of these unhappy wretches is softened by an extensive garden; and “l’Hospice de la Salpétrière,” built by Louis XIII, and maintained at present in all its original grandeur. The building is fine, presenting a majestic _façade_, and its boundaries are so extensive that it is almost a little city. Here sixteen hundred girls are employed in making linen and in working lace. Old married men, young women affected with madness, and female ideots here receive those little comforts, of which their respective situations still allow them to partake.