who, to use the French expression, “eat their fortunes," are here; and here are the gamblers of the stock exchange, of "the salon,” and of Frascati's, the passionate race who crowd existence into a day, who live every minute of their lives, and who have come to enjoy the hour they have snatched from agitation. Here they saunter listlessly in the sun, or stand in clusters at the corners of the streets.

This is the spot, too, where you are sure to meet that smirking and happy gentlemen, who, as La Bruyère says, "encounters one everywhere" - that gentleman whom we just met in the Tuileries, whom we saw the night before at the opera, and whom we should be sure to stare in the face at the Variétés. Sit for half an hour on one of yonder chairs—there is hardly any class, the type of which will not pass before you! The pretty nurse of the Chaussée d'Antin, the old bachelor of the Ma*rais, the 'gros bourgeois' of the Rue St. Denis, the English family of two sons and seven daughters-all these you are sure to see in turn. But there are portraits sacred to the place! Yonder elderly gentleman is one! He is about fifty-five years of age; tall, with a slight bend forward; he moves with a certain stiffness; his hair, closely cut, is a dark-grey; his fea

tures, rather delicate and aristocratic than otherwise, are weather-beaten, and perhaps in some degree worn and sharpened by debauch; he wears a black neckcloth; the part of his shirt that is seen is remarkably white; his coat, decorated with a red ribbon, is buttoned up to his chest, and only just shows a stripe of a pale yellow waistcoat; he walks with a cane, and has that kind of half-haughty, half-careless air by which Bonaparte's soldier is still distinguished. A little behind him are two men, arm-in-arm; the hat of one elaborately adjusted, is very much bent down before and behind, and turned up in an almost equal proportion at the sides; his waistcoat is peculiar and very long; his trowsers large about the hips, and tightening at the foot; he wears long spurs, immense moustaches, brandishes a cane, spits, and swaggers. The other, as insignificant in appearance as his friend is offensive, wears a little round hat, a plain spotted summer waistcoat, light grey trowsers, and a thin stick, which he rather trails than flourishes. The inoffensive gentleman looks at nothing-the swaggering gentleman looks at everything: the inoffensive gentleman plays at whist, and creeps into society-the swaggering gentleman lives at the theatres, and drives about

an actress. And now see a man, tall, dark, with an air in which fierceness and dignity intermingle! He walks alone: sometimes he shuts his eyes, sometimes he folds his arms; a variety of occasions on which he lost, a variety of chances by which he might have gained, give every now and then a convulsive twitch to his overhanging eyebrow-he meets a red-nosed gentleman, of sleek and comely aspect, and who steps upon his toes;-the two walk arm-in-arm together towards the Rue de Richelieu...

Pass on to the Rue Montmartre, and the Boulevard takes a different aspect. The activity of business mixes itself with the activity of idleness; here are the large magazines of the Parisian Medici; the crowd, less elegant, has the air of being more employed. Pass on again— commerce assumes a quieter appearance; its luxurious companions have disappeared; there are no chairs, for there is no leisure; but go a little further, and the gaieties recommence; the gaieties, this time, not of the "nobilace,” but of the 66 populace”—not of the aristocracy of the 'Chaussée d'Antin,' but of the aristocracy of the Temple.' Grouped round yonder stage, much resembling the antique theatre of Thespis, you see the mob of modern Greece, enchanted with the

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pleasures of Dubureaux:* and here you may put into the lottery for a cake, and here you may have your destiny told for a sou;' and the great men the great men of France-the Marshals and Generals of the empire, the distinguished orators of the Restoration, the literary celebrities of the day-Ney, Foy, Victor Hugo-are there before you, as large -a great deal larger, indeed-than life; for the multitude are rarely satisfied with things just as they are; they like to see their heroes fresh, fat, and magnificently dressed; and all this is easily accomplished when their heroes arein wax. Where these great men at present exhibit themselves, there used formerly to be tumblers; but the people's amusements have changed, though the people must still be amused.

And at last we have come to the silent and tranquil Boulevard of the agitated and turbulent Beaumarchais; and behind are the tall palaces of dark-red brick, and the low and gloomy arcades of the Place Royale, where you find the old-fashioned magistrate, the oldfashioned merchant, the retired respectability of

The famous street-actor, whose ambulatory stage has been celebrated by Mons'. Janin.

Paris: and yonder! before us-is the memorable spot, witness of the first excesses and the first triumphs of the Revolution-but the spectres of its old time are vanished, and the eye which rests upon the statue of yonder gigantic and sagacious animal,* tries to legitimatize the monument, by considering it as a type of the great people who raised the barricades in July 1830, and overthrew the Bastille in July 1789.

And now, my dear reader, in parading you thus systematically from the Madeleine to the 'Temple,' I have given you the best introduction, I believe, to Paris and its population. If you want to know the people of Paris, you must seek them abroad. They love the sun, and the air, and the sauntering stroll; they love, if it be only for a moment, to glide across the broad street-amidst the turnings and windings of which, society changes its colours at every instant, like the shifting forms of a kaleidoscope : the idle loiter there for amusement, the busy steal there for distraction. Besides, it is not only the present I have been showing you: I do not know where you may better study the past. What has not even our own generation looked on from yonder windows? Robespierre, Barras,

* The elephant, which is on the site of the old Bastille.