or eating houses, where bands of music are constantly playing, frequently dressed in theatrical _costumes_; the upper rooms are occupied with gambling parties, _cabinets_ of intrigue, and coffeehouses[40]. The latter have every variety of decoration; some are painted to represent the Alps, and others are covered with glass, reflecting in every direction a different room. The gambling tables are numerous; and I am assured, that on the stairs, descending from one of these, there is a pawnbroker’s shop, where it sometimes happens, that a ruined gamester, after losing the contents of his purse, deposits, for the sake of making a last and desperate effort, his watch, his buckles, and sometimes his coat. With the trifle advanced him he returns, and, if successful, redeems, on going away, the objects he has pledged. If he fail, a pistol, or the river, ends his miserable days. Such is the consequence of play, and such are the scenes which this profligate place presents. The buildings, which formerly filled the centre, are now pulled down, and that part is really a garden, which many persons frequent for exercise. There are ice houses at each end, and chairs scattered about, on which the parisians sit in rows, and take lemonade and other refreshments. The space under the arcades, not occupied by the shops, is, as formerly, filled every hour of the day, and the greatest part of the night, with figures of all descriptions, with persons of every class, and, I might add, of every nation in the world. “Le théâtre de Montansier” is still in the Palais royal, besides many smaller play houses. Puppet shows, dwarfs, giants, quack doctors, vociferating newsmen, and quiet venders of libels, who in a whisper offer you indecent and forbidden publications, complete the catalogue of many-coloured curiosities which this place presents. Adieu. I dare not add the reflections which so singular a spot would naturally create. Were I to do so, scarcely a volume would contain them. Adieu. LETTER XII. _L’institution des travaux des aveugles_, or establishment for the support and employment of the blind.—Their different occupations.—The plate glass manufactory.—Description of another meeting at the hospital of the deaf and dumb.—Massieu taught _galvanism_ and stenography. Paris, January the 16th, 1802 (26 nivôse.) MY DEAR SIR, I went to day to see the establishment formed for the protection and instruction of the blind. It is called “l’institution des travaux des aveugles[41],” and is situate in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, not far from the _ci-devant Bastille_. It is here, where persons afflicted with that greatest of all human calamities, the loss of sight, are taught the means of gaining a comfortable existence, of occupying hours which would otherwise be painfully tiresome, and of rendering themselves useful to the community.