LETTER XI.

Paris.

MY DEAR

A circumstance occurred just before our arrival here, the lesson to be derived from which is very obvious-caution. An American gentleman, a friend of Dr. K.'s, has been residing in Paris for some time, for the purposes of study. He has always, in his own country, and especially here, avoided any interference in politics, or expression of political sentiment, and has devoted himself entirely and exclusively to literary pursuits. As he sat at breakfast, however, not many mornings ago, four gendarmes entered his room, and, demanding his keys, instantly proceeded to examine his papers. Finding nothing of a suspicious nature amongst them, they turned to his books, and meeting with some volumes in Arabic, they instantly seized them, concluding, no doubt, that nothing but sedition and treason could be concealed under such strange and outlandish characters, and were proceeding with their wonderful discovery to the police, when the gentleman exhorted them to look on the covers of the book. They did so, and there, to their astonishment, beheld the royal arms. They had, in fact, come out of the royal library. At sight of these indisputable proofs of innocence, at least so far as the volumes in question were concerned, they relinquished their prey, and left the agitated

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student with a caution, saying, that so long as he should continue in Paris, he must consider himself as under the surveillance of the police !*

* This reminds me of a curious fact, which was related to me by a foreigner from the North of Europe, and which occurred while he was at Bourdeaux, during the reign of Buonaparte. As it illustrates the state of perfection to which the system of espionage was carried at that time, I am induced to record it here. A party sat down to dinner at a public table, when a gentleman sticking his fork into a fowl, began to dissect it, and as he cut off the head, he said, with a laugh, "Here goes the head of the Emperor."-No observation was made, and they proceeded with their dinner; but in the course of it, the waiter came, and, tapping the gentleman on the shoulder, told him, he was wanted in the hall. On entering the hall, he was accosted by a gendarme, who asked him, if he was not the gentleman who, in cutting off the head of a fowl at dinner, had said "Here goes the head of the Emperor"-he replied he was, but "What of that"-" You must come," said the gendarme, "with me."-"With you," he exclaimed, and putting his hand to his pocket, presented it full of money to the officer, and was turning away."Stay," said the man, "I am not to be thus dealt withyou must instantly obey my summons." "Alas "" said the gentleman, "am I then to be torn from my wife and children, and hurried to a dungeon, for such a trifle as that-my life and liberty are most precious and important to my family-I will give you”— and be named an enormous sum, "to liberate me, and for ever conceal the affair." "No," said the inflexible gendarme, "I am above the largest bribe you can offer, and you must instantly go, for I dare not parley with you any longer." The gentleman then took a card from his pocket, which he held up to the view of the gendarme, who immediately made his obeisance to him, and departed.Now the fact is, the gentleman himself was a superintendent of these spies. The waiter at the tavern was in the pay of Government-he made the observation respecting the head of the emperor in the hear ing of the waiter to prove his vigilance-he was true to his charge and directly apprized one of the gendarmes of the seditious and treasonable words that had escaped from the stranger's lips.-He then tempted the gendarme with those liberal offers, and finding

The American gentlemen here, many of them, wear eagles in their hats. The emblem is mistaken for that of Napoleon, and hence terrible fracas frequently arise. One occurred this morning at the gate of the gardens of the Thuileries. The sentinel on duty snatched at the eagle, to tear it from his hat, as the American passed. The American thereupon planted his clenched fist in the soldier's face-a scuffle ensued--they fell-others came to mingle in the fray, and words and blows were dealt unsparingly, by more than the original combatants. What was the issue I have not heard. There can be little doubt, however, but that the American would obtain redress, for the action of the sentinel must be considered as a violation of both decency and duty. All this happened just under the windows of the palace.

We took horses, and rode this morning to the heights of Montmartre, a name and a spot pregnant with disgrace and infamy to France, and which they would gladly obliterate for ever from the annals of their history, and the surface of their soil. From the top of the telegraph, which we ascended for the sake of the prospect, is a magnificent view of the city on the one hand, with its adjacent woods and gardens, and highly cultivated fields and orchards, and on the other, immense plains, stretching to an almost imperceptible horizon, with the venerable towers of

him faithful, his object was accomplished; and informing him, by the card which he carried about him, and which bore the secret sign, who he was, there, the matter ended, to the satisfaction of all the parties concerned.-Who would live in such a land as this!

St. Dennis, the ancient burying place of the kings of France, in the distance. We found the man who keeps the telegraph intelligent and communicative; but you will feel as little interested in reading, as I should be in writing, could I correctly record it, all he told us of the movements of the allied armies, whose advance to the gates of Paris, by this place, fixed an indelible stain upon the military character of France, and, at the same time, put the FINIS to the career of the usurper's glory. For the afterpiece, which terminated on the plains of Waterloo, and whence the actor retired to his lonely dwelling on the ocean, had more the appearance of a galvanic struggle, a convulsive after-pang, than the cool and steady efforts which express the functions, and bespeak the influence of a principle of life. The houses about Montmartre are mean, though it is to Paris, what Everton is to Liverpool, or Highgate to London. But the houses of the wealthy here are all immured in courts, and shut in from the view of every object, by enormous gates, just like Burlington House, in Piccadilly-only that the courts are far less spacious, and the streets far less wide. They seem but partially to appreciate the beauties of prospect the advantages of situation, or the salubrity of air. They have nothing like our neat country boxes--and genteel and pleasant villages, scattered here and there, within a few miles round the city-to which the wealthy tradesman might repair, to enjoy, in domestic retirement, a sweet seclusion from the noise and bustle of the great metropolis. But they all live-princes and peers--artists and lite

rati-tradesmen and merchants-crowded togetherin tall and thickly-inhabited houses-close and narrow streets, filled with perpetual bustle and incessant din, with no relaxation, but a stroll in the Champs Elisees, or the public Gardens-and no amusement or variety, but that which is derived from the cafè or the theatre-the cards or the dice-the light and airy forms of dissipation that flutter in the Boulevards, or the more desperate and determined fiends of vice that brood in the deep recesses of the Palais Royal. And even if they leave the city, and ramble a few miles into the adjacent country, it is to some one of those scenes of pleasure or receptacles of vice, with which the environs abound, and without which, even the beauties of nature, and the freshness of the air, would have but little to captivate and charm!*

Perhaps the secret of all this, in a great measure, is, that there is nothing like domestic life in Paris. You will hardly find a comfortable family circle there. Marriages are, for the most part, contracts formed for convenience and not for love. From such con

* What I have here written is from my own observation, and the bbservation of others, better informed than myself. Marchant's guide to Paris, indeed, informs us of a few villages, remarkable for their commanding prospects and the beauty of their villas, to which the merchants of the capital resort They must bear, however, a very small proportion to the population of the city, and be very different in their character to the generality of buildings which I have seen in its neighbourhood. I am still of opinion, that, in the vicinity of Paris, the neat, snug, compact cit's country box, which bespeaks domestic comfort, and the rational enjoyment of well-earned competence, is utterly unknown.