the first French kings; the site of a fosse commune attests the valor of republican martyrs; the Champs Elysees are the popular earthly fields of a French paradise.  One cafe is famed for the beauty of its mistress, another for the great chess-players who make it a resort; one is the daily rendezvous of the liberals, another of royalists, one of military men, another of artists; they flourish and fade with dynasties, and are respectively the favorites of provincials and citizens, gourmands and traders, men of letters and men of state.[A] The Monte de Piete acquaints us with the vicissitudes and expedients of fortune; the Hotel Dieu is a temple of ancient charity; the Hospice des Enfants Trouvees startles us with the astounding fact that half the children born in Paris are illegitimate; and the Morgue yields no less appalling statistics of suicide.  In Vernet’s studio we feel the predominance of military taste and education in France; in the Ecole Polytecnique, the policy by which her youth are bred to serve their country; at the manufactories of the Gobelines and Sevres china, we perceive how naturally the mechanical genius of the race finds development in pottery and fabrics instead of ships and machines, as across the Channel and beyond the ocean; and in the self-possession, knowledge of affairs, and variety of occupation of the middle class of women, we see why they have no occasion to advocate their rights and complain of the inequality of the sexes.

[Footnote A:  ‘Mes habitudes de diner chez les restaurants,’ says a Parisian philosopher, ’ont ete pour moi une source intarrissable de surprises, de decouvertes, et de revelations sur l’humanite.’]

All large cities furnish daily material for tragedy, and life there, keenly observed and aptly narrated, proves continually how much more strange is truth than fiction; but the impressive manners and melo-dramatic taste of the people, as well as their intricate police system, bring out more vividly these latent points of interest, as a reference to the Causes Celebres and the Memoirs of Vidocq illustrate.  A friend of mine, returning from a trip to Lyons, became acquainted in the rail-car with an English gentleman, and when they reached the station, just before midnight, the two left for their hotels in the same cab.  After a short drive, the vehicle suddenly came to a halt, the cabman sprang to the ground, and his passengers were left to surmise the occasion of their abrupt abandonment:  presently a crowd collected, a shout was raised, and they learned that a valise had been stolen from the top of the carriage, and its owner had set off in pursuit of the thief.  He ran with great swiftness, doubled corners, sprang over obstacles, and was in a fair way to distance his pursuer, when a soldier thrust out his foot and tripped up the fugitive, who was taken to the nearest police station.  Confronted with the owner of the valise, he declared