The rival churches of St. Sulpice—­rival ones, rather from similarity of structure, than extent of dimensions—­are the ORATOIRE and St. ROCH:  both situated in the Rue St. Honore.  St. Roch is doubtless a very fine building—­with a well-proportioned front—­and a noble flight of steps; but the interior is too plain and severe for my taste.  The walls are decorated by unfluted pilasters, with capitals scarcely conformable to any one order of architecture.  The choir however is lofty, and behind it, in Our Lady’s Chapel if I remember rightly, there is a striking piece of sculpture, of the Crucifixion, sunk into a rock, which receives the light from an invisible aperture as at St. Sulpice.  To the right, or rather behind this chapel, there is another—­called the Chapel of Calvary,—­in which you observe a celebrated piece of sculpture, of rather colossal dimensions, of the entombment of Christ.  The dead Saviour is borne to the sepulchre by Joseph of Arimathea, St. John, and the three Maries.  The name of the sculptor is Deseine.  Certainly you cannot but be struck with the effect of such representations—­which accounts for these two chapels being a great deal more attended, than the choir or the nave of the church.  It is right however to add, that the pictures here are preferable to those at St. Sulpice:  and the series of bas-reliefs, descriptive of the principal events in the life of Christ, is among the very best specimens of art, of that species, which Paris can boast of.

Very different from either of these interiors is that of St. Philippe du Roule; which presents you with a single insulated row of fluted Ionic pillars, on each side of the nave; very airy, yet impressive and imposing.  It is much to my taste; and I wish such a plan were more generally adopted in the interiors of Grecian-constructed churches.  The choir, the altar ... the whole is extremely simple and elegant.  Nor must the roof be omitted to be particularly mentioned.  It is an arch, constructed of wood; upon a plan originally invented by Philibert Delorme—­so well known in the annals of art in the sixteenth century.  The whole is painted in stone colour, and may deceive the most experienced eye.  This beautiful church was built after the designs of Chalgrin, about the year 1700; and is considered to be a purer resemblance of the antique than any other in Paris.  This church, well worth your examination, is situated in a quarter rarely visited by our countrymen—­in the Rue du Faubourg du Roule, not far from the barriers.

Not very remotely connected with the topic of CHURCHES, is that of the SABBATHS ... as spent in Paris.  They are nearly the same throughout all France.  As Bonaparte had no respect for religion itself, so he had less for the forms connected with the upholding of it.  Parades, battles, and campaigns—­were all that he cared about:  and the Parisians, if they supplied him with men and money—­the materiel for the execution of these objects—­were