time to receive the holy Eucharist, and the Absolution of the Church. But it is not a subject on which the exercise of the imagination is either safe or allowable. It is true that burying grounds exercise a very hallowing influence upon a meditative mind, a double influence, to cheer, and to restrain our cheerfulness; and the painful feeling which rises to us when we behold those disconsolate enclosures abroad, for the interment of persons not in communion with the Church of Rome, may, it is hoped, be both wise and pardonable. A churchyard seldom fails to enrich the hearts of those who visit it with deep and sober suggestions; but in order to that, it must be taken as it comes. It is very questionable, whether an elegant retreat, resorted to of set purpose to feed melancholy, and indulge sentiment, can be at all beneficial. "The sensations of pious cheerfulness," says the poet, "which attend the celebration of the sabbath-day in rural places, are profitably chastised by the sight of the graves of kindred and friends, gathered together in that general home towards which the thoughtful yet happy spectators themselves are journeying." Yet it is most probable, that if the peasants were accustomed to seek this sort of feeling by systematic visits, the profitable chastisement would first become a luxury, and then cease altogether. Its power and sanctity are kept fresh by being one of the influences of Sunday, and part of what meets us when a baptism, a marriage, or a death brings us with softened and peculiar feelings

within the consecrated precinct. The whole air and fashion of Père la Chaise is certainly not solemn, or favorable to reverential sadness.

which we

It may be

However, Paris is not the place in should look for earnestness or reverence. perfectly true, that there is at present a strong religious movement in France; especially, and in a more hopeful way, among the Roman Catholics. Yet the general tone among the people, particularly the Parisians, is more shocking than can well be imagined. It is no long time since an actor was introduced upon the stage, personating (one almost trembles to write the words) God Almighty in the Burning Bush, speaking to Moses, and also our blessed Lord struck on the Face by the Jew. While we were at Paris, the favourite ballet at the French opera was called, "The Infernal Gallopade of the Last Judgment," all the attitudes of which are taken from Michael Angelo's famous picture. Surely we should fear to trust ourselves within the edifice when it was going on, lest Providence should avenge Itself by some open act of judgment, forestalling that last one which these people are so blasphemously mimicking. Unfortunately, there is some ground for thinking that the Church in these parts, by the horrid grotesque representations of purgatory, which it has allowed, has rendered the minds of the people less alive to this present impiety.

By the help of a railway, Versailles may now be considered part of Paris. We spent some time there.

It is an interesting place, though the town is, like the old French monarchy, something bygone. We saw the room wherein Louis XIV. died, and what a strange death-bed it was! After all that long reign of noisy glory, the kingly favorite of fortune died utterly deserted. Not even Madame de Maintenon remained with him. In ignorance of Louis' last will, the crowd of courtiers hastened to the palace of Orleans to flatter and fawn upon the new divinity. The old monarch rallied his energies once more. Alas! what spectacles does the history of humanity force upon us! Once more the salons of the Palais Royal were left empty, the tide of flatterers flowed back impetuously to Versailles. But no! the monarch is really dying, and what less precious than a dying king? Again the portals of the Palais Royal are beset with gay crowds of abject nobility; and after a reign of seventy-seven years, Louis passed away in this very centre room, alone, without a sympathy. The chamber of death, at least, is free from flattery. From the window too, in this same room, Marie Antoinette showed herself to the mob: the greatest scene of that great lady's life, except its noble termination on the scaffold. It was on the fifth of October, 1789, that the Parisian rabble made its famous march to Versailles. All night they had been round their watch fires, and it was not till after five on the morning of the sixth, that the desperate attack was made upon the palace. When the assailants had been repelled from within, and the mob in the

quadrangle demanded that the king should go to Paris, he appeared in the balcony. A furious cry was raised, "The Queen! the Queen!" The intrepid Marie Antoinette instantaneously appeared with the Dauphin in her arms. "No child! no child!" burst unanimously from the savages. The queen saw the dreadful meaning of that cry. But the daughters of the House of Austria were not given to quail. She stood alone before that raging sea of maddened people. A murderer raised his musket, and pointed it at her, but as the beast shrinks before his natural lord, so the base heart of the assassin could not summon up courage to kill a queen. He was awed by the majestic calmness of a being of a superior order to himself. That room is the most interesting of all the sights which are to be seen at Versailles.

But it is scarcely possible, within any rational compass, to touch, even slightly, on all the objects of deep historical interest in and about Paris. The mind is overwhelmed with an almost turbulent flood of associations. The Tuilleries, Notre Dame, the Conciergerie, the Place Grève, Montmartre, St. Cloud, St. Germain, Versailles, the Orangery, Great and Little Trianon,-what hosts of recollections each one of these names calls up! It is to be regretted that French wickedness has almost always been picturesque. The wars of the League, the Fronde, and the Revolution, all of them, carry our feelings away with too much of interest to allow the sense of sin to be sufficiently or uniformly distinct. The wars

of the Fronde are the most interesting intestine tumults modern history has on record.

Strange and horrible scenes, indeed, have the streets of Paris witnessed. They can tell more tales and unfold more history than even the Tower of London and the banks of the Thames, so populous in regal associations. A Street Chronicle of Paris would be a voluminous work, worthy of such a quaint moralist as Froissart. From the rude tumults of the Armagnacs and Burgundians, to the night of St. Bartholomew, when the tocsin sounded from the steeple of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and the instantaneous illumination burst from the windows of the Louvre and the Tuilleries, when Catherine's dark spirit stirred Paris from one end to the other, and Tavannes rode up and down the streets, crying, "Bleed, bleed,-bleeding is as good in the month of August as in the month of May:" and from that accursed night, to the nights of the great Revolution, there would be a roll of horrors such as, perhaps, no other European city has to show. The very catalogue of the Te Deums in Notre Dame would be a document of surpassing variety and interest.

To-day Paris looked white and fair and tranquil in the sunshine. The long tall streets, the brilliant shops, the magnificent quays of the Seine, the Triumphal Arch, the dusky twin-towers of Notre Dame, made up, indeed, a glorious prospect. But for all it looked so beautiful, we felt that it was