sight of Paris, the city of the arts and sciences.  Such a plow could not have been found in all New England.  I looked at the man, too, and compared him with an American farmer or native workman.  He was miserably dressed, and wore shoes which might have been made in the twelfth century.  He had no look of intelligence upon his face, but stared at me with a dull and idiotic eye.  This was the peasant under the walls of Paris—­what must he be in the provincial forests?

Leaving the plowman, I walked on, following a pretty little road, until I came to a large flock of sheep in the care of a shepherd-boy and a dog.  While I stood looking at them, the boy started them off across the fields and through the lawns to some other place.  All that he did was to follow the sheep, but I certainly never saw a dog so capable and intelligent as that one.  He seemed to catch from his master the idea of their destination at once, and kept continually running around the flock, now stirring them into a faster gait, then heading off some wayward fellow who manifested a strong disposition to sheer off to the right or left, and again turning the whole body just where the master wished.  It was an amusing sight, and well worth the walk from the city.  To be sure, the dog was rather egotistical and ostentatious.  He knew his smartness, and was quite willing that bystanders should know it too, for he pawed, and fawned, and barked at a tremendous rate.  The flock seemed to know his ways, and while they obeyed his voice, they were not particularly frightened at it.

Leaving the flock and their master, I soon came to a little inn, and sat down to dine.  It was not much like the restaurants on the Boulevard, or even like those within the city on retired streets, but I got a very comfortable meal, and for a very small sum of money.  I found that the mere mention that I was an American, in all such places as this, insured me polite attention, and I could often notice, instantly, the change of manners after I had informed my entertainers of my country.  It is but a slight fact from which to draw an inference, but yet I could not help inferring that the more intelligent of the common people of Paris are yet, notwithstanding the despotism which hovers over France, in their secret hearts longing for the freedom of a just republic.

A young American was a few months since visiting Paris with a much younger brother.  The latter went out one day into the country, alone, and seeing that a party of people from Paris were enjoying themselves in the gardens connected with a small public house, he drew near to witness their gayety.  They were artisans, but of the most intelligent class.  They were neatly dressed, and their faces were bright and intelligent.  Whole families were there, down to the little children, and they were enjoying a holiday.  Seeing a young man (he was but sixteen years’ old) gazing upon them, and judging him to be a stranger, one of the party approached him, and with great politeness