of its environs....

"Heavens, what a goodly prospect spread around!"

The prospect was indeed "goodly--" being varied, extensive, fertile, and
luxuriant ... in spite of a comparatively backward spring. The city was the
main object, not only of attraction, but of astonishment. Although the
point from which we viewed it is considered to be exactly on a level with
the summit of the spire of the Cathedral, yet we seemed to be hanging, as
it were, in the air, immediately over the streets themselves. We saw each
church, each public edifice, and almost each street; nay, we began to think
we could discover almost every individual stirring in them. The soldiers,
exercising on the parade in the Champ de Mars, seemed to be scarcely two
stones' throw from us; while the sounds of their music reached us in the
most distinct and gratifying manner. No "Diable boiteux" could ever have
transported a "Don Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo" to a more favourable
situation for a knowledge of what was passing in a city; and if the houses
had been unroofed, we could have almost discerned whether the _escrutoires_
were made of mahogany or walnut-wood! This wonder-working effect proceeds
from the extraordinary clearness of the atmosphere, and the absence of
sea-coal fume. The sky was perfectly blue--the generality of the roofs were
also composed of blue slate: this, added to the incipient verdure of the
boulevards, and the darker hues of the trunks of the trees, upon the
surrounding hills--the lengthening forests to the left, and the numerous
white "maisons de plaisance"[69] to the right--while the Seine, with its
hundred vessels, immediately below, to the left, and in face of you--with
its cultivated little islands--and the sweeping meadows or race-ground[70]
on the other side--all, or indeed any, of these objects could not fail to
excite our warmest admiration, and to make us instinctively exclaim "that
such a panorama was perfectly unrivalled!"

We descended Mont Ste. Catharine on the side facing the _Hospice General_:
a building of a very handsome form, and considerable dimensions. It is a
noble establishment for foundlings, and the aged and infirm of both sexes.
I was told that not fewer than twenty-five hundred human beings were
sheltered in this asylum; a number, which equally astonished and delighted
me. The descent, on this side the hill, is exceedingly pleasing; being
composed of serpentine little walks, through occasional alleys o