Paris, since the time to which my account of it refers, has been improved and increased. It is the lot of all old cities in a state of great prosperity to have a new town built near them: of this London, Edinburgh, Marseilles, Lyons, Bath, and Liverpool are examples. "Mend _you_?" said the chairman to Mr. Pope, in reply to his accustomed exclamation,--"God mend me," "Mend _you_? it would not be half the trouble to make another." Old Paris is, however, worth mending: the case is by no means so desperate as that of a deformed man like Pope. They have begun to make trottoirs. When I was in Paris, the trottoirs being paved like the middle of the street, persons on foot had no inducement to walk on them in preference to the middle of the street; people exposed merchandises there, roasted coffee, blacked shoes, or played at cards: the cabriolets ran along them where there was a vacant space, sometimes where there was no vacant space at all. When the trottoirs shall be such as carriages cannot drive on, the foot passengers will occupy them, and the encumbrances, above-mentioned, will be removed of course. I went up to a man who was cleaning a lantern in the Rue Neuve des Mathurins, and made him understand that I wished to be instructed in what manner the popular sentence of condemnation "à la lanterne" was executed in the beginning of the revolution. I had remarked, that he was old enough to have remembered such scenes; when near him, I saw a face that testified that he had in all probability been an agent in them: he told me drily, "On ôte la lanterne, et on monte l'homme à sa place."[23] He spoke in the present tense, be it observed: the recollection of such achievements was fresh in his mind, and he showed no symptom that it was unpleasant to him. These lanterns have a cumbrous and heavy appearance in the day time; and hanging over the middle of the street, they stop all passing while they are cleaned or lighted. They have begun to light the streets of Paris with gas: the pipes, I am informed, are not air-tight; but, once undertaken, this enterprise will no doubt be soon brought to perfection, as well as others already in contemplation. Paris, in the old parts of it, is, as the French express it, _mal percée_. The way to remedy this evil is obvious. I will venture to suggest one improvement,--that the Rue St. Honoré be continued, no matter whether in a straight or curved line, through the streets of St. Denis and St. Martin, by piercing these two streets, to the line of streets which lead to the Place de l'Elephant and the Rue du Fauxbourg St. Antoine.