Altogether, the collections of the Louvre are among the finest and most extensive in the world, and they have a great advantage over the galleries of the Vatican at Rome: In the Vatican some of the galleries are open on one day and some on another, some requiring one kind of order of admission, some another, and others yet another, and these permits are sometimes troublesome to obtain;--but the galleries of the Louvre are free to all, rich or poor, who may choose to walk into them on any day of the week except Monday, which is always reserved for cleaning, dusting, and putting things in order. [Illustration: HOTEL DE CLUNY.] In the old palace of the Luxembourg, a very much smaller building, there is another valuable collection of paintings, but all by French artists; and the Hotel de Cluny, not far away, is a small palace of the Middle Ages, and is one of the quaintest, queerest, pleasantest, and most home-like palaces we are likely to meet with. It is now a museum, containing over ten thousand interesting objects, mostly relating to mediaeval times. Here, among the other old-time things, we can see the very carriages and sleighs in which the great people of the seventeenth century used to ride. Those of us who suppose that we have now left the Romans for good must not fail to visit some large baths adjoining this palace, built about the end of the third century, when the Romans had possession of Gaul. They then had a palace on this spot, and felt bound, as the ancient Romans always did, to make themselves comfortable with baths and everything of the kind. There are other museums and art exhibitions in Paris, but those we have seen are the most important; and it is very pleasant to find that they are greatly frequented by the poorer classes of the city, who are just as orderly and well behaved while walking about these noble palaces as if they belonged to the highest families of the land. In the great garden of the Tuileries, in the courts and gardens attached to the Louvre, the Luxembourg, the Palais Royal, and in all the pleasure-grounds of the city, we find the poor people enjoying themselves; and in some cases they seem to get more good out of these places than do the rich. The old women sit knitting in the shade of the trees; the little babies with their funny caps toddle about on the walks; the boys and girls have their games in the great open spaces around the fountains, and while those who have a cent or two to spare can hire little chairs and put them where they like, there are always benches for those who have no pennies to spend. The convenience of resting one's self in the open air is one of the comforts of Paris. In many places along the principal streets, there are benches on the sidewalk, where weary passers-by may rest shaded by the trees. In one part of the city, chiefly inhabited by the poor and the working people, a fine park has been laid out entirely for their accommodation. In very