domestic comfort. The Grand
Theatre is a remarkable piece of effective architecture, with its noble
Ionic columns, and was built a little more than a century since by Louis
XVI.

The distance from Bordeaux to Paris is about four hundred miles. The
route passes all the way through a charming and highly cultivated
country. The well-prepared fields are green with varied crops, showing a
high state of cultivation. Flocks of sheep, tended by shepherdesses with
tall Norman caps of white linen and picturesque bright colored dresses,
enliven the landscape. These industrious women are seen knitting as they
watch their charge. Others are driving oxen while men hold the plow.
Gangs of men and women together in long rows are preparing the ground
for the seed, and all seem cheerful and happy. The small railroad
stations recall those of India between Tuticorin and Madras, where the
surroundings are beautified by fragrant flower-gardens, their bland,
odorous breath acting like a charm upon the senses amid the noise and
bustle of arrival and departure. Now and again as we progress the
pointed architecture of some picturesque chateau presents itself among
the clustering trees, with its bright verdant lawn and neat outlying
buildings, and so we speed swiftly on until by and by we glide into the
large station at Paris.

CHAPTER XI.

In passing through Paris we shall pause to present a few sketches
representative of the great French capital. It is the gayest metropolis
of Europe, the spot where the traveller is most inclined to linger, and
whose siren voice is most dangerous to the inexperienced. Its
attractions are innumerable, combining unequalled educational advantages
in art, literature, and the learned professions, together with unlimited
temptations to frivolity. Here are offered daily, without money and
without price, lectures upon all themes known to science, free schools
in all departments of learning, free art museums and free art galleries,
such as can hardly be excelled in the world.

The finest view to be had in the city may be enjoyed by taking one's
stand in the Tuileries Garden and looking straight across the Place de
la Concorde to the far-away Arc de Triomphe. Here is a clear view, in
the very heart of Paris, two miles long, over the entire length of the
Champs Elysees. The only thing to impede the sight in the least degree
is the grand old column of Luxor, which stands in the middle of the
Place de la Conco