the ruins remain.

The quarter of St. Antoine is celebrated in the annals of the
Revolution; and, indeed, there are but few parts of Paris, which do not
recall to one's mind some of those scenes so disgraceful to humanity of
which it was the great theatre. The Place Royale in this district is
only remarkable, for having been built by Henry IV.: it forms a square
with a small garden in the centre, but has long ceased to be a
fashionable residence. In Paris there are no squares similar in plan to
those in London, but occasionally one sees places formed by the junction
of streets, &c. The town-house is a large, and as I think, a tasteless
Gothic edifice; and in the Place de Greve stood that guillotine which
deprived such incredible multitudes of their lives. At one period of
the Revolution every successful faction in turn, endeavoured, as it
should seem, to exterminate its enemies, when it succeeded in possessing
itself of the supreme power, which then chiefly consisted in the command
of this formidable instrument; and these successive tyrants, like
_Sylla_, were often in doubt _whom they should permit still to remain
alive_.

I do not know that the invention of the _guillotine_, is to be ascribed
to the ingenuity of the French, but they will for ever remain obnoxious
to the charge of the most dreadful abuse of it. I have heard it stated
that, so late as the reigns of Elizabeth, and James the First, an
instrument similar to the guillotine, was used for the execution of
offenders in the vicinity of Hardwicke Forest, in Yorkshire.

The _Boulevards_ are now merely very spacious streets, with avenues of
trees at the sides, but formerly they were the boundaries of the city.
They form a fashionable promenade for the Parisians, and abound with
horsemen and carriages more than any other quarter of the town. Along
the Boulevard Poissonnier are some of the handsomest houses in Paris. I
dined with a family in one of them which commands a very cheerful scene.
There are here, as in the Palais Royal, a vast number of coffee-houses,
billiard-tables, and restaurateurs. The price of a dinner differs little
from what is usually paid in London, but bread is about half the price,
and there is a great saving in the charge for wine, with this additional
advantage, that it is generally of much better quality than can be met
with in London for double the price; as the heavy duties on importing
French wines necessarily induces their adulteration