Other storehouses, built over the ground-floor so as to form a second story, are tastefully surrounded with terraces, on which you are strictly forbidden to smoke. These upper magazins are approached from the streets by inclined planes of road-way for the use of vehicles; pedestrians, by stepping up light iron staircases, may more readily breathe the air of the terrace, while sounds of tapping and wine-coopering mingle with the hum of the adjacent city, with the passing music of some military band, or with the roar and the scream of the captive creatures which are stared at by the crowd in the Jardin des Plantes. Vinous and spirituous smells float in the atmosphere from the full casks which lie about, in spite of the coating of plaster with which their ends are covered; and we draw nigh to the vaulted magazins of eau de vie, where every brandy-seller has his own proper numbered store, lighted from above by little square skylights, and where roam groups of inquisitive tasters, or spirit-rappers, anxious to pry into secrets that are closely veiled from the vulgar herd. The sanctum of the shrine is the Depotoir Public, or public gauging and mixing apparatus of cylindrical receivers, and glass-graduated brandyometers, and cranes for raising the barrels to the top of the cylinders. In this presence-chamber of alcoholic majesty, etiquette is strictly observed. Conformably with the rules and regulations of the Entrepôt, the conservator apprises Messieurs the merchants that they are required to mind their P’s and Q’s. It is no more allowable to meddle with the machinery, or to intrude behind the mystic cylinders, than it is to make playthings of the furniture which adorns the altar of a cathedral.