Among the improvements were the buildings of the present Halles Centrales on the age-old spot where markets have served Paris. An early morning visit to the Halles is an object lesson on the distribution of food for a large city. The crowd is terrific, the volubility ear-splitting. Certain characteristic stalls interest the traveler, as, for example, that where broken food from hotels and restaurants is sold for two sous a plate. To this time belongs the new building--on the Cité now--for the Tribunal of Commerce; enlargements of the National Library and of the Bank of France; the construction of two theaters on the Place du Châtelet, one leased now by Sarah Bernhardt, and of the Opéra. This is huge and elaborate in renaissance style, a building much criticized but also much admired, especially for its staircase and for its decorative frescos and bronzes. It is the home of the National Academy of Music. The fountain showing the valiant figure of Saint Michel facing the bridge at the corner of the boulevard Saint Michel, has a position like that of the Molière fountain, making a graceful and harmonious decoration for the end of a house lying in the acute angle between two meeting streets. The extension of the city’s water supply was the more appreciated because it was belated. Twelve thousand gas lamps made a much-needed illumination. Two railway stations added a convenient public service. Just outside the fortifications is the Bois de Boulogne, originally a forest, but now developed as a park, retaining its naturalness and charm with the addition of good roads, and attractive tea-houses. Finally, the lovely Parc Monceau was laid out to please the prosperous inhabitants of the recently developed quarter near the Arc de l’Étoile, and an old quarry was ingeniously converted into a thing of seemingly natural beauty for the benefit of the poorer people of Belleville in the north-eastern part of the city. In 1861 the population of Paris was 1,667,841. Yet even all these public works and the brilliancy of the not at all exclusive court which Napoleon and his wife, Eugénie (whom he had married with magnificent ceremony at Notre Dame in 1853), held at the Tuileries, could not entirely calm the restless and not yet satisfied Parisians. To the poorer classes “empire” did not ring as true as “republic.” Napoleon boldly laid the question of the empire before the people of France once more, and once more they returned a handsome vote in his support, but Paris was unconvinced. She cast 184,000 _Nos_ against 139,000 _Yeses_.