The music at S. Roch gained much renown some years ago, and although it is not now in any way remarkable, its reputation is still great. People assure you that the best music in Paris is at S. Roch. True, we may hear the masses of Haydn and Mozart very fairly performed there; but neither voices nor organ equal the refinement of the Madeleine. In one respect, however, we may prefer S. Roch. The boys sit upon their little stools in the choir, and when they have to sing, group themselves with the singing men round a huge lectern, which stands out in the centre of the chancel. Thus they stand before the old noted service book, and in their picturesque costume of red cassocks, white albs, and blue or red sashes, they form a most picturesque _coup-d'œil_, very different from the other churches. At the Madeleine the choir sits behind the altar, and you hear the singing from invisible voices,--very charming if you did not see the boys in their _collégien_ uniform pass round before the commencement of the service; but this gives a somewhat theatrical effect. At S. Roch the grouping of the men and boys and the double basses round the lectern gives the whole affair such a delightfully old-world appearance that it is most refreshing, and the effect of the huge service-book, with its plain-song notation up above the heads of the boys, takes one back hundreds of years. That S. Roch was much esteemed in the early years of the century our American's letter shows. His criticism of the sermon might apply very well to many a one in this year of grace, more especially here at home. The French preachers almost always speak well, and are eloquent, even if their matter be indifferent, dull, or twaddly. Englishmen unfortunately despise the manner, and think their hearers ought to be content with good matter only; and so it comes about that in a life-time only two or three great preachers stand out in one's memory--a Henry Parry Liddon and a Samuel Wilberforce. However, the "American," is of a diverse opinion. "Yesterday, being Sunday, I went to S. Roch's; I had the luck to hit upon the fashionable church; but the preacher was the _god of dulness_. The world, he says, is growing worse and worse; our roguish ancestors begot us bigger rogues, about to produce a worse set of rogues than ourselves. The Antichrist is already come. If he had said the antichrist of wit, anybody would have believed him, and yet this is the very pulpit from which the Bossuets and Bourdaloues used to preach. The church was filled almost entirely of women; one might think that none go to heaven in this country but the fair sex" (or perhaps the men require no help, he might have added). "The worshippers seem intent enough upon their devotions, but the wide avenues at the sides are filled with a crowd of idle, curious, and disorderly spectators. Give me a French church; one walks in here booted and spurred, looks at the pretty women and the