CHAP. XIII.--Nice--Col di Tende--Conclusion * * * AN ITINERARY, &c. * * * CHAP. I. PARIS TO ROCHEPOT. NO one, I imagine, ever yet left an hotel in a central and bustling part of Paris, without feeling the faculty of observation strained to the utmost, and experiencing a whirl and jumble of recollections as little in unison with each other as the well known signs of that whimsical city, the _Boeuf a-la-mode_, (with his cachemire shawl and his ostrich feathers) and the _Mort d'Henri Quartre_. The contrasts and varieties of the grave and gay, the affecting and the burlesque, the magnificent and the paltry, which exist and may be sought out in abundance in every great capital, are perhaps more vividly concentrated at Paris than any where else, and brought with less trouble under the eye of those whose spirits or leisure may not allow them to mix in society. In London every thing wears a busy uniform exterior, varied only by the apparition of a Turk, a Lascar, or a Highlander; and home appears to be the place reserved for the development of character: but in Paris, from the fashion of living almost in public, and the freedom which every one enjoys of following his own taste in dress or amusement without notice, the history of most individuals appears to a certain degree written on their exterior; and a morning's walk brings you in contact with all the diversities of character which rapidly succeeding events have created. The old beau, with the identical toupet of 1770; the musty, moth-eaten nondescripts sometimes seen at the mass of Notre Dame, which remind you of a still earlier period; the faded royalist, with a countenance saddened by the recollection of former days; the ex-militaires, whose looks own no friendship with "the world or the world's law;" the old bourgeois riding in the same roundabout with his grandchildren, and enjoying the _jeu de bague_ as cordially,--revolve in succession like the different figures in a magic lantern, while the place of Punch and Pierrot is supplied by a host of laborious drolls and _gens a l'incroyable_. The various members of this motley assemblage appear also more distinct from each other, as connected in the recollection with places so strongly marked by historical events, or bearing in themselves so peculiar a character:--the place Louis Quinze, the grim old Conciergerie, the deserted Fauxbourg St. Germain, with the grass growing in its streets; the Place de Carousel, the Boulevards, and the Catacombs, the Palais Royal and the Morgue.