Varying our processions in the Champs Elysees were less formal excursions in the Jardin de Luxembourg; and as the picture-gallery in the palace was opened gratuitously on certain days of the week, we were allowed to wander through it, and form our taste for art among the samples of the modern French school of painting there collected:  the pictures of David, Gerard, Girodet, etc., the Dido and AEneas, the Romulus and Tatius with the Sabine women interposing between them, Hippolytus before Theseus and Phaedra, Atala being laid in her grave by her lover—­compositions with which innumerable engravings have made England familiar—­the theatrical conception and hard coloring and execution of which (compensated by masterly grouping and incomparable drawing) did not prevent their striking our uncritical eyes with delighted admiration, and making this expedition to the Luxembourg one of my favorite afternoon recreations.  These pictures are now all in the gallery of the Louvre, illustrating the school of art of the consulate and early empire of Bonaparte.

Another favorite promenade of ours, and the one that I preferred even to the hero-worship of the Luxembourg, was the Parc Monceaux.  This estate, the private property of the Orleans family, confiscated by Louis Napoleon, and converted into a whole new quartier of his new Paris, with splendid streets and houses, and an exquisite public flower-garden in the midst of them, was then a solitary and rather neglected Jardin Anglais (so called) or park, surrounded by high walls and entered by a small wicket, the porter of which required a permit of admission before allowing ingress to the domain.  I never remember seeing a single creature but ourselves in the complete seclusion of this deserted pleasaunce.  It had grass and fine trees and winding walks, and little brooks fed by springs that glimmered in cradles of moss-grown, antiquated rock-work; no flowers or semblance of cultivation, but a general air of solitude and wildness that recommended it especially to me, and recalled as little as possible the great, gay city which surrounded it.

My real holidays, however (for I did not go home during the three years I spent in Paris), were the rare and short visits my father paid me while I was at school.  At all other seasons Paris might have been Patagonia for any thing I saw or heard or knew of its brilliant gayety and splendid variety.  But during those holidays of his and mine, my enjoyment and his were equal, I verily believe, though probably not (as I then imagined) perfect.  Pleasant days of joyous camaraderie and flanerie!—­in which every thing, from being new to me, was almost as good as new to my indulgent companion:  the Rue de Rivoli, the Tuileries, the Boulevard, the Palais Royal, the dejeuner a la fourchette at the Cafe Riche, the dinner in the small cabinet at the Trois Freres, or the Cadran Bleu, and the evening climax of the theater on the Boulevard, where Philippe, or Leontine Fay, or Poitier and Brunet, made a school of dramatic art of the small stages of the Porte St. Martin, the Varietes, and the Vaudeville.