I
concluded, of some beautiful young girl of 15 or 16. Lo and behold! it
was placed there to commemorate "un ancien Magistrat de France," aged
62. The most interesting are Ney's and Labedoyere's,[124] the former, a
solid tomb of marble, simply tells that Marshal Ney, Prince of La
Moskowa, is below. Both were rather profusely decorated with wreaths of
flowers, it being the custom for the friends of the deceased to strew
from time to time the graves with flowers, or decorate them with
garlands. Soldiers have been often seen weeping over these graves, and
it is by them these wreaths were placed. Ney's had just received its
tribute of a beautiful garland of blue cornflowers: and the other a
Chaplet of Honeysuckle. By both graves were weeping willows. Mr.
Sotheby's friend, the poet Delille,[125] sleeps beneath a cumbrous mass
of marble, within which his wife immerses herself once a week, to
manifest sorrow for one whose incessant tormentor I am told she was
during his life. The inscriptions were for the most part commonplace. I
copied out a few of the best. I was sorry to observe not one in 20 had
the slightest allusion to Religion. There was one offering which
particularly attracted my attention and admiration. Over a simple mound,
the resting-place of a little child, were scattered white flowers, and
amongst them a bunch of cherries, evidently the tribute from some other
little child who had thus offered up that which to him appeared most
valuable. The exclusion of the selfish principle in this display of
sentiment and feeling quite delighted me.

[Illustration: PARISIAN RAT-CATCHER AND ITINERANT VENDORS.

_To face page 300._]

The day after we visited the Louvre it was closed, and none have been
admitted since. I believe they are scratching out some N's or Eagles. I
should conceive these to be the last of their species, for the activity
and extent of this effacement of emblems related to Napoleon is past all
belief. In a picture of Boulogne in the Luxembourg, amongst the figures
in the foreground was a little Buonaparte, about two inches high,
reviewing some troops. They have actually changed his features and
figure, and, if I recollect rightly, altered his cockade and Uniform....
In the Musee des Arts and Metiers are some models of ships; even these
were obliged to strike their Lilliputian tri-colours and hoist the white
Ensign. And now Paris, fare thee well.... Thou art a mixture of strange
ingredients. "Oh," said t