How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 381 pages of information about How to Enjoy Paris in 1842.

How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 381 pages of information about How to Enjoy Paris in 1842.
Louis Philippe at length decided upon completing it with the energy that had ever before been wanting.  Several public monuments had been suffered to remain dormant during the two preceding reigns, or their operations were carried on with so sparing a hand, that whilst a few workmen were employed at one end of a building, weeds and moss began to grow on the other.  This pigmy style of proceeding was well-satirised during the reign of Charles X in one of the papers, which announced in large letters, “the workmen at the Madeleine have been doubled! where there was one, there are now two!” But soon after the present King came to the throne, capital was found, and the industrious employed.  Thus much for this splendid work of art; let us turn round and look about us:  Ah! see, there are the works of nature, how gay and cheerful those flowers appear so tastefully arranged in Madame Adde’s shop, whilst she herself looks as fresh and healthy as her plants which are blooming around her; yet with that robust and country air she is a Parisian, but, as she justly remarked to me, she was always brought up to work hard, and as her labours have been well rewarded, health and content have followed.  She and her flowers have already been noticed in Mrs. Gore’s Season in Paris, who used to pay her frequent visits, for who indeed would go anywhere else who had once dealt with her, for what more can one desire than civility, good nature, reasonable charges, and a constant variety of the choicest articles; I therefore can conscientiously recommend all my readers who come to Paris, and are amateurs of Flora, to call now and then on Madame Adde, No. 6, Place de la Madeleine.

Now having contemplated the beauties of art and of nature, let us observe some animated specimens of her works:  what a moving mass is before us, ’tis a merry scene, the laughing children running after, and dodging each other, rolling on the ground with the plenitude of their mirth, the neat looking bonnes (nursery maids) still smiling while they chide, the jovial coachmen wrestling on their stands and playing like boys together, but all in good humour, and content seems to sit on every brow, and even the aged as they meet, greet each other with a smile.  How infectious is cheerfulness, when I have the blue devils I always go and take a walk on the Boulevards; and what makes these people so happy? is the natural question; because they are content with a little, and pleased with a trifle; then they are a trifling people is the reply.  What boots it I would ask? happiness is all that we desire, and I persist that those are the best philosophers who can obtain happiness with the least means.  But how the green trees, the white stone houses, the gay looking shops, the broad road with the equipages rolling along all contribute to heighten the animation of the scene.  We are now at the Rue de la Paix; it is certainly a noble street, and we will turn down it to look at

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How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.