On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of evening--died gradually away--then ceased. Then, it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals--now pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street that in the morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep--and others rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by side and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the wedding-feast and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the burial-hymn! One goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory. It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur to the brief period of my existence which was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil. There is one kind of wisdom which we learn from the world, and another kind which can be acquired in solitude only. In cities we study those around us; but in the retirement of the country we learn to know ourselves. [Illustration: Paris: Interior of the Grand Opera House] [Illustration: Paris Front of the Grand Opera House] [Illustration: Arc de Triomphe] [Illustration: Arch Erected by Napoleon, Near the Louvre] [Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Vincent de Paul] [Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Sulpice] [Illustration: Picture Gallery at Versailles] [Illustration: Versailles: Bed-Room of Louis XIV] [Illustration: The Grand Trianon at Versailles] [Illustration: The Little Trianon at Versailles] [Illustration: Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont] [Illustration: Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles] [Illustration: Tours From Turner's "Rivers of France"]