elms of its broad esplanade; when we saw the colossal statues of statesmen
and warriors frowning from their pedestals on the bridges which bestride
the muddy and narrow channel of the Seine; when we came in sight of the
gray pinnacles of the Tuilleries, and the Gothic towers of Notre-Dame, and
the Roman ones of St. Sulpice, and the dome of the Pantheon, under which
lie the remains of so many of the great men of France, and the dark column
of Place Vendòme, wrought with figures in relief, and the obelisk brought
from Egypt to ornament the Place Louis Quatorze, the associations with
antiquity which the country presents, from being general, became
particular and historical. They were recollections of power, and
magnificence, and extended empire; of valor and skill in war which had
held the world in fear; of dynasties that had risen and passed away; of
battles and victories which had left no other fruits than their monuments.

The solemnity of these recollections does not seem to press with much
weight upon the minds of the people. It has been said that the French have
become a graver nation than formerly; if so, what must have been their
gayety a hundred years ago? To me they seem as light-hearted and as easily
amused as if they had done nothing but make love and quiz their priests
since the days of Louis XIV.--as if their streets had never flowed with
the blood of Frenchmen shed by their brethren--as if they had never won
and lost a mighty empire. I can not imagine the present generation to be
less gay than that which listened to the comedies of Molière at their
first representation; particularly when I perceive that even Molière's
pieces are too much burdened with thought for a Frenchman of the present
day, and that he prefers the lighter and more frivolous vaudeville. The
Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music,
the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the café, to which
ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual
labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea. I wake in the middle