of the Louvre. For these rooms I paid the moderate price of three livres a day. Here, after enjoying those comforts which travellers after long journeys require, and a good dinner into the bargain, about nine o'clock at night I sallied out to the Palais Royal, a superb pile built by the late duc d'Orleans, who, when he was erecting it, publicly boasted that he would make it the greatest brothel in Europe, in which prediction he succeeded to the full consummation of his abominable wishes. This palace is now the property of the nation. The grand entrance is from the Rue St. Honoré, a long street, something resembling the Piccadilly of London, but destitute, like all the other streets of Paris, of that ample breadth, and paved footway, for the accommodation of pedestrian passengers, which give such a decided superiority to the streets of the capital of England. After passing through two noble courts, I entered the piazza of this amazing pile, which is built of stone, upon arches, supported by corinthian pilasters. Its form is an oblong square, with gardens, and walks in the centre. The whole is considered to be about one thousand four hundred feet long, and three hundred feet broad. The finest shops of Paris for jewelJery, watches, clocks, mantua-makers, restaurateurs,* china magazines, &c. form the back of the piazza, which, on all sides of this immense fabric, affords a a very fine promenade. These shops once made a part of the speculation of their mercenary and abandoned master, to whom they each paid a rent after the rate of two or three hundred pounds sterling per annum. This place presents a scene of profligate voluptuousness not to be equalled upon any spot of its size in Europe. Women of character are almost afraid to appear here at noon day; and a stranger would conceive that, at night, he saw before him one-third of the beauty of Paris.

* Restaurateur, is now universally used instead of traiteur.

Under the roof of this palace are two theatres, mu◄ seums of curiosities, the tribunaté, gaming houses, billiard rooms, buillotte clubs, ball rooms, &c. all opening into the gardens, the windows of which threw, from their numerous lamps and lustres, à stream of gay and gaudy light upon the walks below, and afforded the appearance of a grand illumination. At the bottom was a large pavilion, finely illuminated, in which were groups of people regaling themselves with lemonade and ices.

I dined at a restaurateur, in the gardens of the Thuilleries, one of the first eating houses in Paris for society and entertainment. This house has been lately built under the auspices of the first consul, from a design approved of by his own exquisite taste; and he has permitted the entrance to open into the gardens of the consular palace. The whole is from a model of one of the little palaces of the Hercula neum: it is upon a small scale, built of a fine white stone: it contains a centre, with a portico, supported by Doric pillars, and two long wings. The front is upon the terrace of the gardens, and commands an enchanting view of all its beautiful walks and statues. On the ground floor, the house is divided into three long and spacious apartments, opening into each other through centre arches, which are redoubled upon the view by immense pier glasses at each end. The first room is for dinner parties, the next for ices, and the third for coffee. In the middle is a flying staircase, lined on each side with orange trees, ascending into a suite of upper dinner-rooms, all of which are admirably painted after the taste of the Herculaneum, and are almost lined with costly pierglasses.

Upon entering, the guest is presented with a dinner chart, handsomely printed, enumerating the different dishes provided for that day, with their respective prices affixed. All the people who frequent this place are highly respectable. The visitor is furnished

with ice for his water decanters, with the best attend\ance at dinner, and with all the English and foreign newspapers. After parting from Madame Hwho intended returning to town the next day, I went to see the consular guard relieved at the Thuilleries. About five companies of this distinguished regiment assemble in the gardens, exactly at five minutes be fore twelve o'clock, and, preceded by their fine band of music, march through the hall of the palace, and form the line in the grand court-yard, in front of it, where they are joined by a squadron of horse. Their uniform is blue, with broad white facings.

On account of the shortness of this parade, which is always dismissed precisely at ten minutes past twelve o'clock, it is not much attended. The band is very fine. The tambour major is remarked for his noble appearance, and for the proportions of his person, which is very handsome: his full dress uniform at the grand parade is the most splendid thing I ever beheld. The corps of pioneers who precede the regiment have a singular appearance: these men are ra→ ther above six feet high, and proportionably made : they wear fierce mustachios and long black beards, lofty bear-skin caps, broad white leathern aprons, which almost touch their chins, and over their shoulders carry enormous hatchets. Their strange costume seemed to unite the dissimilar characters of high priest and warrior. They looked like military magi. The common men made a very martial appearance, and their officers wore English riding boots, which had an unmilitary effect. Paris at present exhibits all the appearances of a city in a state of siege. The consular palace resembles a line of magnificent barracks, at the balconies and upon the terraces of which soldiers are everywhere to be seen lounging. This palace is partitioned between the first and second consuls; the third principal magistrate resides in a palace near the Louvre, opposite to the Thuilleries. The four colossal brazen horses, called the Venetian horses, brought

from Venice, are mounted upon lofty pedestals, on each side of the gates of the grand court-yard of the palace. When the Roman emperor Constantine founded. Constantinople, he attached these exquisite statues to the chariot of the sun, in the hippodromus or circus; and when that capital was taken possession of by the Venetian and French crusading armies, in 1206, the Venetians obtained possession of them, amongst many other inestimable curiosities, and placed these horses in four niches over the great door of the church of St. Marco: respecting their previous history, authors very much differ; some assert that they were cast by the great statuary Lysippus, in Alexander's time, others that they were raised over the triumphal arch of Augustus, others of Nero, and thence removed to the triumphal arch of Constantine, from which he carried them to his own capital.

They are said to be composed of bronze and gold, much resembling the famous composition of the Corinthian brass. Although these statues are of an enormous size, they are too diminutive for the vast pile of building which they adorn. The same remark applies to the entrance gates, of massy iron, which have just been raised by the directions of the first consul. The tricolour flag, mounted upon the centre dome of the palace, is also too small. Passing from the court-yard under the grand entrance, I entered the gardens, which are very beautiful, and, about seven o'clock in the evening, form one of the favourite and fashionable walks of the Parisians; they are disposed in regular promenades, in which are many fine casts from the ancient statues in the hall of antiques, and on each side are noble orange trees, growing in vast movable cases, many of which are twenty feet high. Until lately, many of the antiques were placed in these gardens, but Buonaparte, with his accustomed judgment and veneration for the arts, ordered them to be removed into the grand national collection, and their places to be supplied by these

beautiful copies, amongst which I particularly distin guished those of Hippomanes and Atalanta, for the beauty of their proportions, and the exquisite illustra tion of their story. There are some fine basins of water, in the middle of which are jets d'eau: the gravel walks of the gardens are watered every morning in hot weather, and sentinels are stationed at every avenue to preserve prder: no person is suffered to pass with a parcel, however small. Here are groups of people to be seen, every morning, reading the prints of the day, in the refreshing coolness of the shade. For the use of a chair in the gardens, of which there are some hundreds, the proprietor is thankful for the smallest coin of the republic. At the bottom of the steps leading to the terrace, in front of the palace, are some beautiful vases, of an immense size, raised about twelve feet from the ground: in one of them, which was pointed out to me, an unpopular and persecuted Parisian saved nearly all his property during the Revolution: a short time before the massacre of the 10th of August 1792, when the domiciliary visits became frequent and keen, this man, during a dark night, stole, unobserved by the guards, into the garden, with a bag under his arm, containing almost all his trea ́sure, to the vase, which, from the palace, is on the right hand, next to the Feuillans, and, after some difficulty, committed the whole to the capacious bosom of the faithful depository: this done, he retreated in safety; and when the time of terror was passed, fearful that he should not be able to raise his bag from the deep bottom of the urn without a discovery, which might have rendered the circumstance suspicious, and perhaps hazardous to him, he presented himself be 'fore the minister of the police, verified the narrative of the facts, and was placed in the quiet possession of This property, which in this manner had remained undisturbed during all that frightful period.

From the gardens I proceeded to the exhibition of David's celebrated painting of the suspension of the