Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present CenturyGibbs, Mifflin Wistar
History
Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century
Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar
African Americans
Leaving Paris at 2:30 P. M., at 2 in the morning we reached Lyons,
stopping 25 minutes for coffee and refreshments, which reached a
long-felt want, arriving at Hotel de Louvre et de la Paix, at
Marseilles, three hours later. Paris is prolific in names of its hotels,
but this was commensurate in luxury and first class in every particular,
very large, the finest in Marseilles and said to be unsurpassed in
France. It is approached by a hall-way fifty feet long from Rue
Canebrian (the street), which leads you into an oval-shaped court 100
by 200 feet. Around this court in niches are finely-sculptured statuary,
paintings and choice flowers in porcelain vases. Out of this court you
are conducted into the hotel proper. Spacious stairways of Italian
marble, the tread of which covered with Turkish carpets, leads you to
the interior. The court in the inner center of the hotel rises to a
height of five or six stories, and is covered by parti-colored glass,
which emits a soft and pleasing tint on all below. The dining room was
"a thing of beauty," and the menu "a joy forever." The adornments of the
room would well befit a palace. Oh, that I had the tongue of an orator
or the pen of a ready writer, to fitly describe! Took breakfast and then
a stroll along the principal streets of the city and the wharves of the
Mediterranean. The city resembled a bee hive; the houses and streets are
literally crowded with men and women of all nationalities and costumes.
Wending our way to "Notre Dame," a magnificent church on a hill, one
thousand feet above the level of the city, entirely overlooking it,
while the Mediterranean lies sparkling in the distance directly below.
On the top of the dome of this edifice is a figure encased in gold,
representing "Holy Mary" with the Christ in her arms. A gallery
surrounds the church, from which the view is grand and imposing. Ascent
and descent can be made by an elevator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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