at the "Bureau Restante " of which I had been informed there were lying some letters to my address; and although it was raining, he insisted on accompanying me through three crooked streets, in which he said he was afraid I should otherwise lose my way.

1

As we were walking he told me he was a "mécanicien," and that he had just returned to Paris from the Great Exhibition in London, where he had been employed to unpack and arrange the machinery he had taken over. I asked him how he had fared. He replied, "Parfaitement bien !" but after praising the intelligence of the English people, he said, "Il y a trop de sévérité dans leurs mœurs ;" and he then theoretically explained to me what apparently unconsciously he was in person practically demonstrating, namely, the advantages to a country of politeness. In reply to his remarks I repeated to him the observation of an American who, in preaching on the same text, very cleverly and truly said, "I guess, my friends, you can catch more flies with molasses than with vinegar!"

'Perfectly well!

2 There is too much severity in their manners.

PANTHEON.

ON getting out at the office of the omnibus, I saw immediately before me, in the middle of a great square, a magnificent building, composed apparently of an ancient temple and a church.

The former-which forms, in fact, the portico of the latter, and which stands above a flight of eleven steps, extending for its whole length, and overlooking the iron railing that divides it from the square-is composed of a triangular pedíment 129 feet long by 22 feet high, supported by eighteen very handsome Corinthian columns 6 feet in diameter and 60 feet high.

The church-looking building contains three domes a very large one, a smaller one, and a lantern surrounded by a gallery and balustrade-one above another.

The object of this splendid pile--for it is not a church is sufficiently explained by a series of figures in relief by David, representing on the triangular pediment of the portico, France, a figure 15 feet high, attended by Liberty and

VOL. II.

E

History, surrounded by, and dispensing honour to, Voltaire, Lafayette, Fénélon, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Manuel, Carnot, David, and, of course, Napoleon and the principal heroes of the republican and imperial armies. Beneath, in letters of gold, is the following inscription :

"Aux Grands Hommes la Patrie Reconnaissante."

On entering this splendid edifice, the interior of which, 80 feet high, is a cruciform, 302 feet long by 255 broad, enlightened from above by the beautiful dome and cupola, surmounted by the lantern I have described, and by six semicircular windows in the massive walls of the building, I was much surprised to find that, comparatively speaking, it was as empty as an empty barn! From the lofty cupola there slowly vibrated a pendulum, the lower extremity of which, slightly touching some loose sand on the pavement, was very beautifully demonstrating the earth's movement round the sun.

Within the immense almost vacant space I observed three statues, namely, of Clemency, of Justice, and, lastly, of Immortality, who, in June, 1848, while she was standing with a pen in one hand to record the "deeds" of Frenchmen, and with a crown of glory in the other to reTo great men by a grateful country.

ward them, was suddenly almost shivered to pieces by a cannon-shot, which for the moment threatened, so far as she was concerned, for ever to destroy the immortality she was so generously dispensing to others. After, however, having been very cleverly stuck together again, she returned to her everlasting occupation, and, so far as I could judge from looking at her, is not a bit the worse for the accident.

On the four pilasters that support the great dome there is inscribed

Morts pour

"Noms des Citoyens

la défense des Lois et de la Liberté, Les 27, 28, 29 Juillet, 1830."

Their names were, however, in letters so small that I could not read them, and I was beginning to think I had come a long way to see a very little, when I observed a handsome-looking priest, three or four soldiers, and two persons dressed en bourgeois following an official very finely attired, who had a lantern in one hand with a few tallow candles dangling in the other; and I had scarcely joined the party when we were conducted by our magnificent guide to a door or opening, where we descended some

Names of Citizens

who died in the defence of the Laws and of Liberty,

on the 27th, 28th, 29th of July, 1830.

steps into a series of vaults containing, in various descriptions of tombs, the bones of great men, whose names the guide repeated so monotonously, so glibly, and so fast that it was with difficulty I could only occasionally comprehend him. At the tomb of Voltaire, whose splendid talents had been so grievously misapplied, I had but just time very hastily, by the light of one little thin tallow candle, to copy the following inscription: "Aux Manes de Voltaire, l'Assemblée Nationale a décrété le 30 Mars, 1791, qu'il avait mérité les honneurs dus aux grands hommes!" 1

From it the guide, in mute silence, led us circuitously into a corner in which was apparently nothing at all to be seen; he, however, struck the wall very violently with a board, lying on purpose beside it, and there immediately resounded from all directions a loud report which echoed and re-echoed along the passages and over the bones of the dead.

We now retraced our steps through darkness rendered visible by the gleam of light the thin little candle occasionally cast upon the soldiers' bright buttons and on the gold lace of the

1

To the Manes of Voltaire, the National Assembly decreed on the 30th of March, 1791, that he had merited the honours due to great men.