Paris as seen by the morning sun of three or four and twenty and Paris in the twilight of the superfluous decade cannot be expected to look exactly alike.  I well remember my first breakfast at a Parisian cafe in the spring of 1833.  It was in the Place de la Bourse, on a beautiful sunshiny morning.  The coffee was nectar, the flute was ambrosia, the brioche was more than good enough for the Olympians.  Such an experience could not repeat itself fifty years later.  The first restaurant at which we dined was in the Palais Royal.  The place was hot enough to cook an egg.  Nothing was very excellent nor very bad; the wine was not so good as they gave us at our hotel in London; the enchanter had not waved his wand over our repast, as he did over my earlier one in the Place de la Bourse, and I had not the slightest desire to pay the garcon thrice his fee on the score of cherished associations.

We dined at our hotel on some days, at different restaurants on others.  One day we dined, and dined well, at the old Cafe Anglais, famous in my earlier times for its turbot.  Another day we took our dinner at a very celebrated restaurant on the boulevard.  One sauce which was served us was a gastronomic symphony, the harmonies of which were new to me and pleasing.  But I remember little else of superior excellence.  The garcon pocketed the franc I gave him with the air of having expected a napoleon.

Into the mysteries of a lady’s shopping in Paris I would not venture to inquire.  But A——­ and I strolled together through the Palais Royal in the evening, and amused ourselves by staring at the glittering windows without being severely tempted.  Bond Street had exhausted our susceptibility to the shop-window seduction, and the napoleons did not burn in the pockets where the sovereigns had had time to cool.

Nothing looked more nearly the same as of old than the bridges.  The Pont Neuf did not seem to me altered, though we had read in the papers that it was in ruins or seriously injured in consequence of a great flood.  The statues had been removed from the Pont Royal, one or two new bridges had been built, but all was natural enough, and I was tempted to look for the old woman, at the end of the Pont des Arts, who used to sell me a bunch of violets, for two or three sous,—­such as would cost me a quarter of a dollar in Boston.  I did not see the three objects which a popular saying alleges are always to be met on the Pont Neuf:  a priest, a soldier, and a white horse.

The weather was hot; we were tired, and did not care to go to the theatres, if any of them were open.  The pleasantest hours were those of our afternoon drive in the Champs Elysees and the Bois de Boulogne,—­or “the Boulogne Woods,” as our American tailor’s wife of the old time called the favorite place for driving.  In passing the Place de la Concorde, two objects in especial attracted my attention,—­the obelisk, which was lying, when I left it, in the great boat which brought it from the Nile, and the statue of Strasbourg, all covered with wreaths and flags.  How like children these Parisians do act; crying “A Berlin, a Berlin!” and when Berlin comes to Paris, and Strasbourg goes back to her old proprietors, instead of taking it quietly, making all this parade of patriotic symbols, the display of which belongs to victory rather than to defeat!