EMBELLISHED WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDA. MONTHLY MAGAZINES have opened a way for every kind of inquiry and information. The intelligence and discussion contained in them are very extensive and various; and they have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the nation, which in a certain degree bath enlarged the public understanding. HERE, too, are preserved a multitude of useful hints, observations, and facts, which otherwise might have never appeared.-Dr. Kippis. Every Art is improved by the emulation of Competitors.--Dr. Johnson. LONDON: Printed by J. Gillet, Crown-court, Fleet-street. PUBLISHED BY H. COLBURN, CONDUIT-STREET, HANOVER-SQUARE; BY WHOM COMMUNICATIONS FOR the editor (POST PAID) ARE RECEIVED, SOLD ALSO BY BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN. [Price 12s. Boards; or 14s. Half-bound.] NEW N No. 31.] 7 MAGAZINE. AUGUST 1, 1816. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. A TRIP TO PARIS IN AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER, 1815. (Continued from vol. v. p. 489). vet so I BELOVE I have not a much as mentioned the P Roval and shall for the present postpone any notice of it, having still objects of greater interest to consider. Among these I reckon the hospitals of Paris. If the French nation are possesse of charity in the same degree as the people of England, it must be admitted that either they are averse to making a public display of it, or that some other cause diverts it from that course which it takes in England; where the meetings of numerous societies, voluntarily united for some charitable purpose or other, are as frequent and regular as the rising of the sun, and innumerable edifices for these purposes are constructed at the expense of private individuals, whilst their architecture serves at the same time to ornaent the places where they are erected. Little or nothing of all this is to be met with in the metropolis of France—if you xcept that truly grand and imposing tructure the Hotel des Invalides, erected by a warlike monarch, having unconroled command over the revenues of the whole nation; and the institution for oundlings, which is upon a very extensive scale. But here, as in all other matters which concern the public, one may see the effect of an absolute government, upon which the individuals of the bacion idly lean-having neither autholity nor inclination to take the business of the community into their own hands. The streets of Paris, however, do not at present by any means exhibit that state of mendicity which must have existed formerly, if the accounts of travelers are correct; nor do these accounts as to the want of cleanliness in the hospitals here, receive any confirmation from what they now exhibit in that respect. The poor and sick must therefore somehow be provided for, hough not in such prans uns as, what the French call, the English hospitals of luxury; where a great part of the funds are diverted from their legitimate object, and expended in large salaries for the officers, and in splenNEW MONTHLY MAG,-No. 31. . [VOL. VI. did building. There are, I believe, twenty-two hospitals, if not more, in Paris, the managemt of the whole of which is vested in Sommittee of government, and therefore liable to all the defects of such an administration. The funds of these hospitals consist in what little property the Revolution has left them; but the greatest part of the expense is supplied by the government. It is perhaps a plan deserving of imitation, to keep patients under different diseases, as they do here, separated in different hospitals, by which the nature of such diseases is likely to become more perfectly understood by the medical men attached to these hospitals. The Hotel des Invalides distinguishes itself in a view of Paris by its gilt cupola, an unusual object in European architecture, proclaiming, as it were, to the spectator, that the comfortable retreat of the disabled soldier is the principal object of the care of the nation and it chief. A winged lion, a trophy torn from the impotent republic of Venice, stands on a high pedestal at the entrance of the avenue leading to the gate and iron balustrade.* The building presents but one large front; but it is square in its construction; containing several courts with galleries, in which about 3,000 inmates can be accommodated. In every part of this hospital, a great attention to fresh air and cleanliness is evident. The bedrooms of the patients had a thorough air from windows on opposite sides, which look into small gardens; and, though the weather had for a long time been very hot, not the least offensive smell was perceived in any part of it. The bedsteads have white curtains, and a chest of drawers by the side of them; the pewter basons for the soup were scowered by the nurses to the utmost degree of brightness. There are gardens for those who are able to walk, and cevered places to shelter them from the rain or the sun. In the captains' diningroom the cloth was laid for dinner; with It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that this trophy has since been restored to the city from which it was brought by the universal plunderers.-EDITOR, VOL. VI. B |