THE RIVERAINS OF THE SEINE.

FROM Rosny to Mantes the Seine is invisible, although close at hand. The latter place stands on the side of a gentle eminence, sloping to the water's edge. In the engraving, the town, with the towers of Notre Dame, and the tower of Saint Maclou, are seen rising in an imposing manner from the left bank of the river. The bridge conducts to an island, whence another is thrown to the bourg of Limai on the right bank, which may be considered the fauxbourg of

MANTES.

This town has received the epithet of "la jolie," which makes some travellers smile, and induces others of the graver class to inquire seriously into the origin of a term which seems so inapplicable. The truth appears to us to be, that at the time the name was given the town in all probability deserved it. Its streets, indeed, were then, as they are now, neither straight nor broad; but if in cleanliness, neatness of architecture, and a certain air of opulence, they resembled those of the present day, the implied praise could hardly have been undeserved.

The building with two towers which dominates the town, is the church of Notre Dame, an object descried by the traveller at nine leagues' distance. The vault of the nave is singularly lofty; and with us it lost nothing of its

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THE RIVERAINS OF THE SEINE.

effect, from the circumstance of there being several men, when we entered, swinging in barrels near the roof, like so many spiders. These men were whistling, hallooing, and singing jovial songs, with all their might, while engaged in whitewashing the vault; and it was some time before we discovered whence those anomalous and distant sounds proceeded.

To whitewash a church is, in our eyes, a profanity; but Notre Dame has besides been the victim of a similar crime, amounting in degree to sacrilege. When its windows lost their ancient stained glass, through which only a dim, religious light was admitted into the temple, the full glare of day was found to be unsuitable to its character. A coloured glass, therefore, was substituted, of all possible shades of yellow, which it was supposed-probably from some autumnal associations—would produce an effect consistent with the awful solemnity of the place. The effect is indeed awful, and melancholy to boot. The church looks as gay and gaudy as a summer-house in a garden; while the lady-worshippers resemble a crowd of ghastly phantoms, condemned to revisit, for their sins, the haunts of their unhallowed joys.

The abodes of the poorer classes inhabiting this district of the Seine, consist frequently of a hut comprising only a single apartment; in which husband, wife, and children, eat and sleep. This, when the circumstances of the family are a little better, is divided into two unequal parts by a partition, generally of boards. In addition, they have a cellar, sometimes dug in the rock, a pig-house, a poultryhouse, and occasionally a cow-house and a stable—at least for asses, and almost always a little court in front, and a little garden behind. Advancing in riches, another floor is added to this for the sleeping apartments; the roof is