young men of the present day in France.  A solitary workman, a sentinel, and an old soldier, if near the Hospital of the Invalids, are probably the only persons you will usually meet on the southern Boulevards, except now and then I have seen a ladies’ boarding-school thread its course beneath the thick foliage, whose mistress perchance selects a retired spot for giving her pupils a little air and exercise, removed from the gaze of the city throng.

Whatever pleasing impressions these shady retreats may have made upon the mind, on re-entering Paris they are soon dissipated; if by the public streets, the variety of noises which assail the ear, and the confusion of so many people bustling along upon a little bit of pavement not two feet wide, gives you plenty of occupation both to make your way, and get out of the way; when, compelled to give place to some lady, you descend from the narrow flags into the road, and whilst you are manoeuvring to escape a cart you see coming towards you, “Gare” is bawled out with stunning roar; you look round and find the pole of a coach within an inch of your shoulder, you scramble out of the way as fast as you can through mud and puddle, and are glad to clap your back against a house to make room for some lumbering vehicle, where the naves of the wheels stick out with menacing effect, happy to congratulate yourself that there is just room enough for it to pass without jamming you quite flat, and that you are quit of the danger at the expense of being smeared with a little mud from the wheel; this is the case in many of the streets in that part of Paris called the Cite, and others which cross from the Rue Saint-Denis to the Rue Saint-Martin and du Temple etc.  Happily for my readers, it is not very probable that many of them will ever be called into those neighbourhoods, or if they be, it will probably be in a carriage, when they will not stand near the same chance of being crushed to death; but as I explore all parts and am thereby the better enabled to give a faithful picture of Paris, I consider it incumbent on me to inform my country people that there are such streets that they may better know how to enjoy Paris by keeping out of the way of them.  To see Paris to the best advantage it is requisite to get up early, that is about three o’clock in the morning in the months of June or July, before any one is stirring; this indeed is pretty much the case with all cities, but particularly the French capital, because the streets being very narrow and crowded, you have not room to look up and look about.  Paris in the old quarters at that hour, or in a bright moonlight when all are at rest, has the effect of a city composed of chateaux or castles joined together, the height of the houses, the great heavy porte cocheres, the castellated style of the attic windows and often projecting turrets, with the profusion of iron work, combine in giving a degree of gloom that appears to tell a tale of olden