of which, and one that I always have pleasure in passing through, because always clean, is the Marché des Jacobins, off the Rue St Honoré, and not far from the Place Vendome. Speaking of these markets reminds me of the Abattoir de Montmartre, which I frequently pass in my way in or out of town, one of several buildings in different quarters destined for the slaughter of cattle--a most excellent arrangement, since the blood and filth which usually pollute the kennels in the neighbourhood of our slaughter-houses, the disgusting stench arising from them, and the consequent deterioration and unhealthiness of the surrounding atmosphere, are completely obviated. Yesterday (Saturday) I devoted to another visit to the Louvre and its interesting collections. What crowds of English and other foreigners! The gallery of pictures exhibits just now a new feature--French and other artists, with their easels, &c., busily employed copying many of the pictures of which they are soon to be deprived. Among them, working with the utmost composure, were two or three women. But women mix themselves up in every transaction in this country--even in war, as has been illustrated in the formation of our Amazonian battalion at Stain. Somehow or another the statues have more attraction for me than the pictures. The _salles_ are less crowded than the gallery, consequently one is quieter and more at liberty to contemplate these admirable sculptures at leisure. The naming of these, however, appears to me very gratuitous, and I much doubt whether one half of those in the catalogues are properly designated. Faun is a very vague term. What absorbing reflections arise in the mind whilst wandering amongst this collection of cold marble stones! Even when, as has happened occasionally, I have been the only individual in the vast apartment, it has been hard to fancy myself alone, so surrounded by beauteous forms, amongst which such perfect harmony of expression reigns--not an attitude or gesture amongst them but what is ease and elegance; nothing constrained, nothing proud, forced, or unnatural; in all, passion, emotion, repose and tranquillity, love, anger, joy, sorrow--all, all expressed by these marble stones in language not to be misunderstood. How powerful is the imagination! These forms address themselves peculiarly to it. Some excite a train of thought associated intimately, I might say inseparably, with historical recollections; others, again, are associated with sensations of voluptuousness, which, however repressed, cannot be excluded entirely--beautiful rounded forms associated with our sense of feeling, and conveying to the too ready imagination ideas of softness and elasticity. How much more we should appreciate these splendid specimens of human skill and conception, could we contemplate them separately and alone, instead of thus jumbled together and in public. In the Salle d’Apollon, however, I think this inimitable statue rather favoured by his