desire the peers to be
seated, and that they should only receive that permission through the
medium of the chancellor: how the point has been decided, I have not
been since informed.

The weather was intensely hot during part of my stay at Paris, the
quicksilver being occasionally at 26 deg. Reaumur, equal to 90 deg. of
Fahrenheit's scale, and the sky without a cloud, there not being, in
general, such a cloud of smoke over Paris as generally obscures the
atmosphere of London. Yet, I believe, the best accounts allow that
London is to the full as healthy a city as Paris, and if cleanliness is
conducive to health the point can admit of little doubt. During part of
this oppressive weather, I used generally to resort, about mid-day, to
the gallery of the Louvre, being anxious to take every opportunity of
contemplating its superb collection of the works of art. There,
notwithstanding the number of visitors, the marble floors and
ventilators rendered the air much more cool than it was out of doors. I
generally set out on my rambles through the city at as early an hour as
custom would permit, and in the evening, often joined the pedestrians in
the gardens of the Tuilleries, which were always thronged with company
of all descriptions. There are a vast number of chairs under the trees,
and their proprietors demand one or two sous for the right of sitting in
them. I have been assured that this inconsiderable charge procures a
total by no means contemptible.

I sometimes extended my walk into the Champs Elysees, which extend a
long way beyond the Place de Louis XV. Its avenues are lighted like the
streets of Paris, by lanthorns, suspended across them by ropes and
pulleys, which give a stronger light than our lamps, but do not seem
equally secure. At the end of the centre avenue, which runs in a
straight line from the grand entrance to the Tuilleries, Buonaparte had
lately begun a triumphal arch to commemorate the victories of his
armies; and still further, exactly opposite the bridge of Jena, he
caused a vast number of houses to be destroyed, to make way for a
projected palace for the King of Rome. The foundations only of this
edifice had been laid before the overthrow of Buonaparte, and this large
plot of ground now presents a scene of waste and desolation.

The present government, which will not prosecute so expensive and
useless an undertaking, will still have to make compensation to the
owners of the buildings of which only