y a wreath of immortelles--to-night it will deck a tomb in the
cemetery of Pere la Chaise. This giddy and nervous fellow, who is full
of smiles, takes away a wedding wreath--price is no object to him.
Yonder is a pale-faced shop-girl--what sunny yet half-sad features she
has! She must perhaps forego her dinner in order to possess that pot of
mignonette, but she trips lightly away with it in a happy mood.

The most interesting church here is that of Notre Dame, whose massive
towers greet the eye in every comprehensive view of the city. The
present structure is probably not over seven hundred years old, but it
stands upon a site successively occupied by a Pagan temple and a
Christian church of the time of the early kings. The present building
presents one of the most perfect examples of Gothic architecture extant.
It contains about forty separate chapels. Here the late Emperor and
Empress were married, in January, 1853, just fifty-two years after the
coronation of the first Napoleon in the same place.

A little way from Notre Dame, upon a street situated behind it and near
the Pont St. Louis, is the Morgue, or dead-house of Paris, at all times
open to the public, where are exposed the corpses of unknown persons who
have met their death in the streets or the Seine by violence or
drowning. These bodies remain here three days for the purpose of
identification. If not recognized and claimed by friends, they are then
buried at the expense of the city, or consigned to the
dissecting-tables. There are brought here during the year, the officer
in charge will tell us, over three hundred bodies, two-thirds of whom
are men, and about one-third women. A large number of the latter are
known to be suicides, and are recovered from the waters of the Seine,
close at hand.

The daily scenes occurring in the gardens of the Tuileries, which open
from the Place de la Concorde, are characteristic. The spacious grounds,
adorned with stately trees, fountains, tiny lakes, statues, and flowers,
the latter kept fresh and green by artificial means nearly all the year
round, form an ever-varying attraction. Hundreds of merry children
enliven every nook and corner by their careless, happy voices. The
gayest of promenaders of both sexes throng the broad, smooth paths in
the after part of the day. Round the fountains the sparrows, as tame as
the pigeons of St. Mark at Venice, light upon one's arms and shoulders,
convinced that the only legitimate busi