_Friday._--It sounds oddly to an English ear, smuggling into a town from the country; but the free circulation that exists throughout our country is unknown here. Everything is examined at the _barrière_. What would our farmers and their wives say if they were liable to be stopped at the gate of every principal town, and their loads of hay, or baskets of eggs, &c., submitted to the scrutiny of excisemen? Several loads of hay preceded me this morning as I rode through the Faubourg St Denis. At the _barrière_ the column was halted, and as the passage was blocked up, I was obliged to wait patiently and see every load as it passed in succession probed through and through by the officers with long iron skewers, to ascertain that nothing was concealed amongst the hay. The signs exhibited by the various shops in Paris are often quaint and amusing. A description of them would fill a volume. The one which calls forth this remark struck me as I entered the Palais Royal this morning from the Rue Vivienne. I don’t well know how to designate the sort of shop which exhibits the sign of the “Gourmand;” they are numerous in this part of the town, and I think more nearly resemble our Italian warehouse than any other. Here is to be procured every dainty that can stimulate the palate--pickles, preserves, hams, tongues, hung-beef, cheese, dried fruits, nuts of all sorts, sauces, dried and cured fish,--in short, everything. The _enseigne_ of this shop represents a fat greedy-looking fellow seated at a table, under which his legs are spread out. The table is covered with every kind of dainty, which, whilst discussing a large salmon, he is eagerly devouring with the eyes. If the Boulevard is amusing for the life and movement it exhibits, so is the Palais Royal in a high degree, and to the charms of the former it adds that of an endless variety of rich and beautiful articles of dress, _vertu_, and a number of others, which employ me incessantly at the windows. The display of elegant little toys in Bobon’s window is scarcely to be surpassed--such little beauties of watches,[25] not larger than half-a-crown, cases most tastefully chased and set in rich pearls; in other shops rich and elegant shawls, _fichus_, and silks, of the most splendid colours; then jewellery, so much taste combined with costliness; then cutlery and works in steel, &c. &c.; and not the least amusing, the numerous cafés or restaurants. The crowd under the arcades is as varied as it is immense. If, on entering from Rue Vivienne, one turns to the right, not many paces in that direction will bring him in front of the favourite haunt of Austrian and Prussian officers. It resembles a great conservatory, being all glass, and is in the garden, not in the house, whence every refreshment has to be brought across the piazza. About 2 or 3 every afternoon this is crowded, and it then reminds me of a glass bee-hive, from the busy stir within, and the facility of observing this from without. The celebrated Café