‘Iniquitous England,’ writes a popular novelist, ’the vile executioner of all in which France most exulted, murdered grace in Marie Stuart, as it did inspiration in Jeanne d’Arc, and genius in Napoleon;’—­’a race,’ says another, ’gifted with a national feeling which well-nigh approaches superstition, yet which has chosen the whole world for its country.  The gravity of these beings, accidentally brought together and isolated by mere interest, their life of mechanical activity, and of labor without relaxation as without life, all interest, yet freeze you at the same time.’  ’The Englishman has made unto himself a language appropriate to his placid manners and silent habits.  This language is a murmur interrupted by subdued hisses,’—­’un murmure entre-coupe de sifflements doux.’

The gregarious hotel life in America commends itself to the time-saving habits of a busy race; but the love of speciality in France modifies this advantage:  in our inns a stated price covers all demands except for wine; here each separate necessity is a specific charge—­the sheet of writing paper, the cake of soap, and the candle figure among the innumerable items of the bill.  Thus an infinite subdivision makes all business tedious, involving so many distinct processes and needless conditions; at every step we realize of how much less comparative value is time in the Old World.  On the other hand, the rigid system that governs municipal life, the means adopted to render all public institutions both accessible and attractive, claim perpetually the gratitude of artists, students, and philosophers.  A programme of exploration may be arranged at will, yielding a complete insight, and, when achieved, such has been the order, communicativeness and facility, that we have a more distinct and reliable idea of the whole circle of observation than it is possible to obtain elsewhere.  We are continually reminded of Buffon’s maxim:  ‘la genie est la patience.’  A curious illustration of this systematic habit of the French occurred at Constantinople, during the Crimean war, where they immediately numbered the houses and named the streets, to the discomfiture of the passive Turks—­one of whom, in his wonder at the mechanical superiority of these Frank allies, asked a soldier if the high fur cap on his head would come off.  The concierge beneath each porte cochere, the social distinction which makes each cafe and restaurant the nucleus of a particular class, the organized provision for all exigencies of human life in Paris, illustrate the same trait on a larger and more useful scale.  If we survey the institutions and the monuments with care, and refer to their origin, associations and purposes, the historical and economical national facts are revealed with the utmost clearness and unity.  The old Bastile represented, in its gloomy stolidity, the whole tragedy of the Revolution; and St. Genevieve combines the holy memories of the early church with that of