beauty, finish, lightness, and goodness--all are on the side of the latter. Their cabriolet, however, is something _sui generis_, and worthy of admiration. They are generally drawn by one horse, sometimes a postilion on a second horse attached as an outrigger. It was one of these that captivated my fancy near the _barrière_. Such a turn-out! The carriage was just like other cabriolets, only a very smart one; and here I must acknowledge an exception to what I have just written--the whole _was_ of a piece--good, smart, and respectable; but, _mon Dieu!_ what a spectacle! The heavy harness under which the horses were almost buried was covered with plated buckles, bosses, &c. On the outrigger sat a fine, well-made fellow, six feet if an inch, erect as a grenadier. On his head an enormous cocked-hat, bound with broad silver lace and loop, stuck square on; a blue coat, collar, skirts, and sleeves, all covered with silver lace; the clothing of his nether limbs hid in a tremendous pair of boots, sticking six inches above his slightly-bent knee, and armed with a most formidable pair of spurs; like all the rest of them, riding exceedingly long, consequently bumping along at a moderate trot with most imperturbable gravity. How I should have liked to see this equipage trotting down St James’s Street! A passer-by, of whom I asked the question, informed me that this was Les Champs Elysées. I could hardly credit him. What! the far-famed, much-vaunted, much-bescribbled Champs Elysées! Impossible!--or, if true, what a disappointment! I hardly know what sort of an idea I had formed of the Champs Elysées--certainly nothing like the reality. No turf, no verdure, in short, no fields, but a gravelly dusty space, surrounded nearly by buildings, and barely shaded from the scorching sun by a parcel of miserable-looking half-grown trees, sufficiently powdered to conceal whatever verdure they might have. If ever the grass had grown here, every trace was now obliterated. Bivouacs are sadly destructive of nature’s beauties. “Thus, then,” said I, “here is one illusion dissipated. Let us see farther, perhaps all will equally vanish in smoke and dust.” A certain feeling of exultation, a tumultuous rising of spirits came over me as I rode into the Place Louis Quinze, and pulling up, regardless of the moving throng of people, contemplated at my leisure the scene around me. I have now got a map and a ‘Guide de Paris,’ both of which I have since had opportunities of elucidating or confirming by inquiry and _vivâ voce_ evidence. Then, I knew not that I stood precisely on the same spot where the martyrdom of Louis Seize and the fair Marie Antoinette had been consummated. I knew that the walls in front of me as I entered the Place from the Champs Elysées were the ramparts of the Tuileries; that the bowery trees which overtopped them were in the gardens; and that the immense pile seen again over these was the chateau itself: