If we turn by the Rue de l'Abbaye, N. of the church, we shall find part of the sixteenth-century Abbot's Palace yet standing, and a walk round the apse and the S. side of the church will afford a view of its massive bulk, its flying buttresses and steep-pitched roof. Crossing the Place St. Germain obliquely to the S.W. we reach the Rue de Rennes: at No. 50 is the entrance of the picturesque Cour du Dragon with an eighteenth-century figure of a Dragon carved over it. At the end of this curious courtyard, paved, as old Paris was paved, with the gutter down the middle, will be seen two old towers enclosing stairways. We return to the Rue Bonaparte and faring still S. reach the huge fabric of St. Sulpice with its massive, gloomy towers and pretentious facade of cumbrous splendour. We enter for the sake of Delacroix' fine paintings in the side chapel R. of entrance: Jacob wrestling with the Angel; Heliodorus driven from the Temple; and St. Michael and the Dragon. In this and in many of the numerous chapels are other decorative paintings by modern artists, few of which will probably appeal to the visitor. It was in this church that Camille Desmoulins was wedded to Lucille, Robespierre acting as best man. On the S. side of the ample Place St. Sulpice is the great Catholic Seminary,[191] and the whole neighbourhood has an essentially ecclesiastical character. Shops and emporiums displaying _objets de piete_; all kinds of church furniture and art (most of it bad art) abound. We continue our southward way by the Rue Ferou, opposite the end of which is the Musee du Luxembourg containing a collection of such contemporary sculpture and paintings as has been deemed worthy of acquisition by the State. The rooms are crowded with statuary and pictures which evince much talent and technical skill, but the visitor will be impressed by few works of great distinction. The English traveller, perchance, will leave with kindlier feelings towards those responsible for the Chantrey pictures, though envious of a collection whose catholicity embraces works by two great modern masters, Londoners by option--Legros and Whistler. But any impression that may be left on the traveller's mind by the inspection of the examples of contemporary French art exhibited in this museum should be supplemented and corrected by an examination of decorative works of greater range in the chief public edifices, such as the Hotel de Ville, the Sorbonne, the Pantheon and the Ecole de Medecine. We enter the Luxembourg Gardens by the gate R. of the museum, turn L., pass the facade of the palace and opposite its E. wing discover the charming old Medici Fountain. After strolling about the delightful gardens, unhappily by the erection of the Observatory in 1672 reduced by more than one-third of their former extent, we leave by the gate N. of the Medici Fountain which gives on the Rue Vaugirard opposite the Odeon Theatre, formerly the _Theatre de la Nation_, where the _Comedie