How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 - Intended to Serve as a Companion and Monitor, Containing - Historical, Political, Commercial, Artistical, Theatrical - And Statistical Information by F. Hervé
page 39 of 343 (11%)
page 39 of 343 (11%)
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capital has an incongruous patchy sort of effect, and its beauties and
objects of interest have to be sought, but to the eye of an artist it is much more gratifying than that dull sameness which reigns throughout London, which Canova very justly designated as consisting of walls with square holes in them; for what otherwise can be said of our houses in general, but that they are literally upright walls, with square holes for doors and windows. Regent Street and a few others, which have been recently erected, form an exception to the rule. But in almost every street in Paris a draftsman finds subject for his pencil; their richly carved gateways, their elaborately wrought iron balconies, their ornamented windows, and even their protruding signs, all help to break the formal straight line and afford ample food for sketching; and in many of their old and least fashionable streets, an ancient church with its gothic doorway, adorned by rich and crumbling sculpture, invites the artist to pause and exercise his imitative art. Paris at first strikes a stranger as still more bustling and noisy than London, as the streets being narrower and hack vehicles more used in proportion, the circulation gets sooner choked up, and the rattling over the stones of the carriages is still more deafening, being within so confined a space; hence also the confusion is greater; then there is always a sort of bewilderment when one first arrives in a large city, that makes it appear much more astounding than is found to be the case as soon as the visiter becomes accustomed to its apparent labyrinth. According to comparative calculations, and taking the medium, Paris is about twenty-two miles round, and the population, foreigners included, one million; many estimate it at eleven hundred thousand, which I have no doubt it may be, if several villages be included which absolutely join Paris; such as Passy, Belleville, etc. The extreme height of the houses would induce a belief, that a more, dense mass of people |
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