I was surprised to find the trees in the Bois de Boulogne so well grown:  I had an idea that they had been largely sacrificed in the time of the siege.  Among the objects which deserve special mention are the shrieking parrots and other birds and the yelping dogs in the grounds of the Society of Acclimatization,—­out of the range of which the visitor will be glad to get as soon as possible.  A fountain visited by newly married couples and their friends, with a restaurant near by, where the bridal party drink the health of the newly married pair, was an object of curiosity.  An unsteadiness of gait was obvious in some of the feasters.  At one point in the middle of the road a maenad was flinging her arms about and shrieking as if she were just escaped from a madhouse.  But the drive in the Bois was what made Paris tolerable.  There were few fine equipages, and few distinguished-looking people in the carriages, but there were quiet groups by the wayside, seeming happy enough; and now and then a pretty face or a wonderful bonnet gave variety to the somewhat bourgeois character of the procession of fiacres.

[Illustration:  Place de la Concorde]

I suppose I ought to form no opinion at all about the aspect of Paris, any more than I should of an oyster in a month without an r in it.  We were neither of us in the best mood for sight-seeing, and Paris was not sitting up for company; in fact, she was “not at home.”  Remembering all this, I must say that the whole appearance of the city was dull and dreary.  London out of season seemed still full of life; Paris out of season looked vacuous and torpid.  The recollection of the sorrow, the humiliation, the shame, and the agony she had passed through since I left her picking her way on the arm of the Citizen King, with his old riflard over her, rose before me sadly, ominously, as I looked upon the high board fence which surrounded the ruins of the Tuileries.  I can understand the impulse which led the red caps to make a wreck of this grand old historical building.  “Pull down the nest,” they said, “and the birds will not come back.”  But I shudder when I think what “the red fool-fury of the Seine” has done and is believed capable of doing.  I think nothing has so profoundly impressed me as the story of the precautions taken to preserve the Venus of Milo from the brutal hands of the mob.  A little more violent access of fury, a little more fiery declamation, a few more bottles of vin bleu, and the Gallery of the Louvre, with all its treasures of art, compared with which the crown jewels just sold are but pretty pebbles, the market price of which fairly enough expresses their value,—­much more, rather, than their true value,—­that noble gallery, with all its masterpieces from the hands of Greek sculptors and Italian painters, would have been changed in a single night into a heap of blackened stones and a pile of smoking cinders.