Paris As It Was and As It Is | Page 2

suspended by a thread--Fall of Robespiere and his adherents.
LETTER XI. Massacre of the prisoners at Paris in September, 1792--Private ball --The French much improved in dancing--The waltz described--Dress of the women.
LETTER XII. _Bonaparte_--Grand monthly parade--Agility of the First Consul in mounting his charger--Consular guards, a remarkably fine body of men --Horses of the French cavalry, sorry in appearance, but capable of enduring fatigue and privations.
LETTER XIII. _Jardin des Tuileries_--This garden now kept in better order than under the monarchy--The newly-built house of _Véry_, the _restaurateur_--This quarter calls to mind the most remarkable events in the history of the revolution--_Place de la Concorde_--Its name is a strong contrast to the great number of victims here sacrificed --Execution of the King and Queen, _Philippe égalité_, Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, Robespiere, cum multus aliis --Unexampled dispatch introduced in putting persons to death by means of the guillotine--Guillotin, the inventor or improver of this instrument, dies of grief--Little impression left on the mind of the spectators of these sanguinary scenes--Lord Cornwallis arrives in Paris.
LETTER XIV. National fête, in honour of peace, celebrated in Paris on the 18th of Brumaire, year X (9th of November, 1801)--Garnerin and his wife ascend in a balloon--Brilliancy of the illuminations--Laughable accident.
LETTER XV. Description of the fête continued--Apparent apathy of the people --Songs composed in commemoration of this joyful event--Imitation of one of them.
LETTER XVI. _Gallery of the Louvre_--_Saloon of the Louvre_--Italian School--The most remarkable pictures in the collection mentioned, with original remarks on the masters by _Visconti_--Lord _Cornwallis's_ reception in Paris.
LETTER XVII. Gallery of the Louvre in continuation--French School--Flemish School--The pictures in the Saloon are seen to much greater advantage than those in the _Gallery_--_Gallery of Apollo_--These superb repositories of the finest works of art are indiscriminately open to the public.
LETTER XVIII. Palais Royal, now called _Palais du Tribunat_--Its construction begun, in 1629, by Cardinal Richelieu, who makes a present of it to Lewis XIII--It becomes the property of the Orleans family--Anecdote of the Regent--Considerable alterations made in this palace--_Jardin du Palais du Tribunat_--This garden is surrounded by a range of handsome buildings, erected in 1782 by the duke of Orleans, then duke of Chartres--The Cirque burnt down in 1797--Contrast between the company seen here in 1789 and in 1801--The Palais Royal, the theatre of political commotions--Mutual enmity of the queen and the duke of Orleans, which, in the sequel, brought these great personages to the scaffold--Their improper example imitated by the nobility of both sexes--The projects of each defeated--The duke's pusillanimity was a bar to his ambition--He exhausted his immense fortune to gain partisans, and secure the attachment of the people--His imprisonment, trial, and death.
LETTER XIX. The Palais du Tribunat, an epitome of all the trades in Paris --Prohibited publications--Mock auctions--_Magazins de confiance à prix fixe_--Two speculations, of a somewhat curious nature, established there with success--The Palais Royal, a vortex of dissipation --Scheme of Merlin of Douay for cleansing this Aug?an stable.
LETTER XX. _Thé_, a sort of route--Contrast in the mode of life of the Parisians before and since the revolution--Petits soupers described--An Englishman improves on all the French bons vivans under the old _régime_.
LETTER XXI. Public places of various descriptions--Their title and number --Contrast between the interior police now established in the theatres in Paris, and that which existed before the revolution--Admirable regulations at present adopted for the preservation of order at the door of the theatres--Comparatively small number of carriages now seen in waiting at the grand French opera.
LETTER XXII. _Palais du Corps Législatif_--Description of the hall of the sittings of that body--Opening of the session--Speech of the President--Lord Cornwallis and suite present at this sitting--Petits appartemens of the _ci-devant Palais Bourbon_ described.
LETTER XXIII. _Halle au Blé_--Lightness of the roof of the dome--Annual consumption of bread-corn in _Paris_--Astrologers--In former times, their number in Paris exceeded _30,000_--Fortune-tellers of the present day --Church of _St. Eustache_--Tourville, the brave opponent of Admiral Russel, had no epitaph--Festivals of reason described.
LETTER XXIV. _Museum of French Monuments_--Steps taken by the Constituent Assembly to arrest the progress of Vandalism--Many master-pieces of painting, sculpture, and architecture, destroyed in various parts of France --_Grégoire_, ex-bishop of Blois, publishes three reports, to expose the madness of irreligious barbarism, which claim particular distinction.--They saved from destruction many articles of value in the provinces--Antique monuments found in 1711, in digging among the foundation of the ancient church of Paris--Indefatigable exertions of Lenoir, the conservator of this museum--The halls of this museum fitted up according to the precise character peculiar to each century, and the monuments arranged in them in historical and chronological order--Tombs of Clovis, Childebert, and _Chilperic_--Statues of Charlemagne, Lewis IX, and of Charles, his brother, together with those of the kings that successively appeared in this age down to king _John_--Tombs of Charles V, Du Gueselin, and _Sancerre_--Mausolea of _Louis d'Orléans_ and of _Valentine de Milan_--Statues