There are several manufactures at Paris worthy of attention. Old renown led me to the Gobelins: it was not in a state of great activity at this time, but I saw some works both finished and carrying on, worthy of that old renown. The process of making this tapestry is exceedingly tedious. I observed that the workmen, like clock-makers, and printers, and other _men of letters_, were almost all short-sighted. The Palais Royal, as a centre of wealth and dissipation, deserves all the celebrity it has acquired: it is besides a very handsome quadrangle, as I once was used to call the interior of buildings of this form: it is not a square; it would be pedantic to call it a parallelogram, and not according to usage to call it an oblong. The arches are not wide enough; and the arcade (the space, I mean, between the arches and the shops,) is not broad enough. Here is more splendour, but less of variety to be seen, than on the Boulevards. The shop-keepers are not dearer here than in other quarters of Paris: the greater number of their transactions pays their higher rents, though their profits may be only equal to those of their brethren in trade. I took ice at the Café de Mille Colonnes, and found that, counting shadows or reflections in the mirrors with which the rooms are lined, the number, though indefinite, may not be exaggerated. The garden is enclosed by iron palisades between the arches: it is closed in the night, the arcade being still left as a thoroughfare. I found no reason to avoid passing through it with my elder son, a youth of seventeen, though I should have been most unwilling to lead him in the evening into any street in London. When will the police of the capital of the British empire take shame to themselves? The colonnade of the Louvre, which the Gascon said was very much like the _back_ front of his father's stables, is justly admired. The court I thought to be too much ornamented, and the ornaments too much subdivided, and the height of the building within too great for its extent of area. It is, however, an exceedingly handsome building: I was glad to see it completed, at least as to the exterior. I was told it had been nearly two centuries in building. He who had Versailles wanted no other dwelling. I shall be well pleased to have excited the reader's attention to my remarks also on the curiosities of Paris: at any rate I have not detained him long. I hope he will not be disinclined to accompany me to the environs. FOOTNOTES: [12] There is but one Paris in the world. [13] To great men their grateful country. [14] That is true; but, in the mean time, they bury senators. [15] The little national window--the hole of the guillotine that receives the neck. [16] Republican baptism--drowning people by boatsfull. CHAP. IV.