which gives such perfect security to the pedestrian even in our most crowded and tumultuous thoroughfare.  The causeway itself, on which walkers and drivers are thus mingled together in confusion, is often most uneven and rugged.  The stones of which it is formed, about ten inches square, present each a convex surface, usually wet and slippery, so that under the most favourable circumstances, walking in the streets of Paris is anything but an agreeable exercise.  Still farther to abridge the level space, the street is made to incline from both sides towards the centre, in order to form there a sort of ditch, in which flows a black and fetid stream.  From the want of a proper system of drains, this receptacle of filth is generally sufficiently replenished even in the driest weather, to keep the whole street wet and dirty.  Carriages, having usually one wheel in the midst of the kennel, dash about the offensive puddle in all directions.  But the principle of a clear middle way, such as our English streets possess, is neglected in all the arrangements connected with those of Paris.  Even the lights, instead of being fixed on posts, as ours are, at the sides, are suspended in the middle on ropes swung across, and having their opposite ends fastened to the walls of the houses.  It was these ropes which the mob, in the Revolution of 1789, were wont to make use of as halters for their victims; whence their famous cry of a la lanterne, as they dragged them along to execution.

The aspect of Paris by night, except in a few of the principal streets where gas has been very partially introduced, is singularly gloomy.  The darkness is occasionally relieved by the brilliancy of a cafe; but in the more quiet parts of the town, particularly in the fashionable quarter of the Faubourg St. Germain, it is almost impossible for the pedestrian to direct his steps aright.  It is quite evident that the arrangements of this capital have not been made for a walking people.  This evil, however, is fast disappearing.  Numerous passages have been constructed, within the last ten years, which are paved with flat stones, and brilliantly lighted; and the active and pleasure-seeking population of Paris crowd to these attractive and convenient places, to the Boulevards, or to the Palais-Royal, and leave the narrow and dirty streets principally to the few who keep their own carriages, or to the many who hire public conveyances.  These are of various kinds; and such was the growing importance of the middle classes, that fiacres (so called after the sign of St Fiacre, at the house where they were first established) were in use a century and a half ago.

The remainder of the Part is occupied with a sketch of the Revolution of 1789.

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REFORM OF EARLY PARLIAMENTS.