Louis Philippe at length decided upon completing it
with the energy that had ever before been wanting.
Several public monuments had been suffered to remain
dormant during the two preceding reigns, or their
operations were carried on with so sparing a hand,
that whilst a few workmen were employed at one end
of a building, weeds and moss began to grow on the
other. This pigmy style of proceeding was well-satirised
during the reign of Charles X in one of the papers,
which announced in large letters, “the workmen
at the Madeleine have been doubled! where there was
one, there are now two!” But soon after the present
King came to the throne, capital was found, and the
industrious employed. Thus much for this splendid
work of art; let us turn round and look about us:
Ah! see, there are the works of nature, how gay and
cheerful those flowers appear so tastefully arranged
in Madame Adde’s shop, whilst she herself looks
as fresh and healthy as her plants which are blooming
around her; yet with that robust and country air she
is a Parisian, but, as she justly remarked to me,
she was always brought up to work hard, and as her
labours have been well rewarded, health and content
have followed. She and her flowers have already
been noticed in Mrs. Gore’s Season in Paris,
who used to pay her frequent visits, for who indeed
would go anywhere else who had once dealt with her,
for what more can one desire than civility, good nature,
reasonable charges, and a constant variety of the
choicest articles; I therefore can conscientiously
recommend all my readers who come to Paris, and are
amateurs of Flora, to call now and then on Madame Adde,
No. 6,
Place de la Madeleine.
Now having contemplated the beauties of art and of
nature, let us observe some animated specimens of
her works: what a moving mass is before us, ’tis
a merry scene, the laughing children running after,
and dodging each other, rolling on the ground with
the plenitude of their mirth, the neat looking bonnes
(nursery maids) still smiling while they chide, the
jovial coachmen wrestling on their stands and playing
like boys together, but all in good humour, and content
seems to sit on every brow, and even the aged as they
meet, greet each other with a smile. How infectious
is cheerfulness, when I have the blue devils I always
go and take a walk on the Boulevards; and what
makes these people so happy? is the natural question;
because they are content with a little, and pleased
with a trifle; then they are a trifling people is
the reply. What boots it I would ask? happiness
is all that we desire, and I persist that those are
the best philosophers who can obtain happiness with
the least means. But how the green trees, the
white stone houses, the gay looking shops, the broad
road with the equipages rolling along all contribute
to heighten the animation of the scene. We are
now at the Rue de la Paix; it is certainly
a noble street, and we will turn down it to look at