A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814Bernard, Richard Boyle
History
A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium, during the summer and autumn of 1814
Bernard, Richard Boyle
Europe -- Description and travel
After the paintings, I next inquired after the Libraries which Paris
contains; these are very numerous, but as I had so much to see, I
contented myself with visiting the two principal ones, first, the royal
library, Rue Richelieu. This contains the library of Petrarch, which
alone would render it an object of curiosity. Here are also the globes
of the Jesuit _Coronelli_, which are upwards of thirty-four feet in
circumference. The Cabinet of Antiquities contains the collection of
Count Caylus. The number of printed volumes is stated to amount to
350,000. The manuscripts are not less than 72,000. Here is also a vast
and very valuable collection of medals, and about 5000 engravings. All
persons are permitted to read here from ten until two o'clock.
The second Library which I visited was one which formerly belonged to
that celebrated Minister, Cardinal Mazarin, and is now in the Palais des
Beaux Arts, on the opposite side of the river from the Louvre. This
collection consists of 60,000 volumes, amongst which are many works of
great value.
If the traveller sees much to interest him, and much to admire during
the course of his tour, it is natural that he should occasionally meet
with disappointment; and I must confess that in the Metropolitan Church
of Notre Dame, I saw little worthy of that praise which is lavished on
it by the French; it is only venerable from its antiquity, being one of
the most ancient Christian churches in Europe.--In point of
architecture, and the general appearance of the exterior, it yields to
any of the cathedrals, and to very many of the parish churches in
England. The interior is mean in the extreme (the High Altar only
excepted;) the body of the church being entirely filled up with the
commonest rush bottomed chairs, and not kept in any tolerable order. But
the most splendid church in Paris is unquestionably that of St. Sulpice,
which is also one of the most striking buildings in the metropolis,
notwithstanding the dissimilitude of the two towers of its grand Western
front.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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