During the heat of the late finance discussion, all sorts of unpleasant things were said of America, for the money-power acts here as it does everywhere else, proving too strong even for French bon ton, and, failing of facts and logic, some of the government writers had recourse to the old weapon of the trader, abuse and vituperation.  Among other bold assertions, one of them affirmed, with a view to disparage the vaunted enterprise of the Americans, that while they attempted so much in the way of public works, nothing was ever finished.  He cited the Capitol, a building commenced in 1800, and which had been once destroyed by fire in the interval, as an example.

As one of the controversionalists, on this occasion, I certainly had no disposition to debase my mind, or to descend from the level of a gentleman who was compelled to bow before no political master, in order to retort in kind; but as is apt to be the case under provocations of this sort, the charge induced me to look about, in order to see what advantages the subjects of a monarchy possess over us in this particular.  The result has made several of my French friends laugh, and acknowledge that they who “live in glass houses should not throw stones.”

The new palace of the Louvre was erected more than two centuries since.  It is a magnificent pile, surrounding a court of more than a quarter of a mile in circumference, possessing many good statues, fine bas-reliefs, and a noble colonnade.  In some respects, it is one of the finest palaces in Europe.  The interior is, however, unfinished, though in the course of slow embellishment.  Now a principal and very conspicuous window, in the pavilion that caps the entrance to the Carrousel, is unglazed, the weather being actually excluded by the use of coarse unplaned boards, precisely in the manner in which one is apt to see a shingle palace embellished at home.  One hundred francs would conceal this deformity.

The palace of the Tuileries was built by Catherine di Medici, who was dead before the present United States were first peopled.  It is a lantern-like, tasteless edifice, composed of different pavilions, connected by corps de batimens of different sizes, but of pretty uniform ugliness.  The stone of this vicinity is so easily wrought, that it is usual to set it up, in blocks, and to work out the capitals and other ornaments in the wall.  On a principal portion of this palace, these unwrought blocks still remain, just enough being finished to tell the observer that the design has never been completed.  I shall not go beyond the palaces to make out our case, though all Europe abounds with these discrepancies in taste, and with similar neglect.  As a rule, I believe we more uniformly push through our public undertakings than any other people, though they are not always executed with the same taste, on the same scale, or as permanently, perhaps, as the public works that are undertaken here.  When they yield profit, however, we need turn our backs on no nation.