The locality of the Temple, where knights displayed a sovereign splendour and the _roués_ of Paris laughed at the philosophers’ splendid wit,—where kings put their plate in pawn, and where the people made prisoners of kings,—was turned to something like base uses when, upon its sacred or classic soil,—soil, at all events, on which flourished a giant crop of varied memories,—was erected the arcaded and pilastered rotunda, beneath which dealers drove bargains in dilapidated habits. The Paris class of such dealers is a class apart, who barter, sell, and re-sell; and through whose hands pass the rejected garments of court and city. There, in old chests, may still be found tarnished lace coats, which once shone brilliantly at the court of Louis XV.; and embroidered robes, whose original wearers sat at the suppers of the Regent, and laughed at Heaven. By the side of the republican _carmagnole_ hangs the red robe of the parliamentary magistrates, or judges rather, with something of the senator annexed,—a little of the legislative with a trifle of the executive, and not very much of either,—and who wore those scarlet robes on days of high rejoicing, when the grand wearers of them were accustomed, as they met at the tribunal, not to bow but to curtsey to each other. The act is not incongruous to the dress; for when the Turkish Ambassador first saw our own judges in their crimson draperies, seated in the House of Lords, he innocently asked who all those old ladies were who were huddled together and looked so uncomfortable. But to return to Paris.