There is one interesting walk in the Tuileries gardens which is the favourite resort of children. Here it was, in the so-called _petite Provence_, that the children's stamp exchange was established, against which the authorities found it necessary to take severe steps. The young people have since contented themselves with balls, balloons, and other innocent amusements. There is a Théâtre Guignol, moreover, a sort of Punch and Judy, in the middle of the old gardens; and from the beginning of April to the middle of October a military band plays every day. It is impossible to leave the Tuileries gardens without mentioning its famous chestnut tree--the chestnut tree, as it is called, "of the 20th of March," because in 1814 it blossomed on that very day as if to celebrate Napoleon's return from Elba. But the old chestnut tree had a reputation of its own long before the imperial era. More than a hundred years ago the painter Vien, at that time pupil of the French School, was accused of having assassinated a rival who had competed with him for a prize. He was about to be arrested when he proved that at the very hour when the crime must have been committed he was tranquilly seated beneath the future "chestnut tree of the 20th of March," which was distinguished just then from all the other trees in the garden by being alone in flower. This picturesque _alibi_ saved his life. [Illustration: MONUMENT TO GAMBETTA, PLACE DU CARROUSEL.] Outside the remains of the Tuileries was erected, on the Place du Carrousel, in 1888, a monument to Gambetta. The design as a whole has been unfavourably criticised, but the figure of the orator himself, represented in the act of declamation, is bold and striking, and full of character. CHAPTER XX. THE CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES AND THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE. The Champs Élysées--The Élysée Palace--Longchamp--The Bois de Boulogne--The Château de Madrid--The Château de la Muette--The Place de l'Étoile. Before entering the Champs Élysées, the greatest pleasure thoroughfare in Paris, next to, if not before, the line of boulevards, a brief examination of the frontiers, as approached from the Place de la Concorde, may be advisable. This region of the capital was for a long time one of those marshes by which ancient Paris, the Lutetia of the Romans, was enclosed like a fortress. Then it became cultivable land and passed into the hands of market gardeners, who grew their vegetables in fields by no means "elysian," until the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. The ancient marsh was bounded on one side by the Seine, on the other by the Faubourg St. Honoré, which in the eighteenth century was already a favourite locality for mansions of the nobility. The market gardens, more fertile, perhaps, by reason of their marshy origin, were traversed by the Chemin du Roule--so named from the slope called _rotulus_, in the days of Lutetia, of which the culminating point is now marked by the Triumphal Arch.