and candy-women; and restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very few
people there; and doubtless we can form no idea of what the scene might
become when alive with French gayety and vivacity.

As we walked onward the Triumphal Arch began to loom up in the distance,
looking huge and massive, tho still a long way off. It was not, however,
till we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the grandeur of this
great arch, including so large a space of the blue sky in its airy sweep.
At a distance, it impresses the spectator with its solidity; nearer, with
the lofty vacancy beneath it. There is a spiral staircase within one of
its immense limbs; and, climbing steadily upward, lighted by a lantern
which the door-keeper's wife gave us, we had a bird's eye view of Paris,
much obscured by smoke or mist. Several interminable avenues shoot with
painful directness right toward it.

On our way homeward we visited the Place Vendome, in the center of which
is a tall column, sculptured from top to bottom, all over the pedestal,
and all over the shaft, and with Napoleon himself on the summit. The shaft
is wreathed round and round about with representations of what, as far as
I could distinguish, seemed to be the Emperor's victories. It has a very
rich effect. At the foot of the column we saw wreaths of artificial
flowers, suspended there, no doubt, by some admirer of Napoleon, still
ardent enough to expend a franc or two in this way.




The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb

By Augustus J. C. Hare