hat whilst a
few workmen were employed at one end of a building, weeds and moss began
to grow on the other. This pigmy style of proceeding was well-satirised
during the reign of Charles X in one of the papers, which announced in
large letters, "the workmen at the Madeleine have been doubled! where
there was one, there are now two!" But soon after the present King came
to the throne, capital was found, and the industrious employed. Thus
much for this splendid work of art; let us turn round and look about
us: Ah! see, there are the works of nature, how gay and cheerful those
flowers appear so tastefully arranged in Madame Adde's shop, whilst she
herself looks as fresh and healthy as her plants which are blooming
around her; yet with that robust and country air she is a Parisian, but,
as she justly remarked to me, she was always brought up to work hard,
and as her labours have been well rewarded, health and content have
followed. She and her flowers have already been noticed in Mrs. Gore's
Season in Paris, who used to pay her frequent visits, for who indeed
would go anywhere else who had once dealt with her, for what more can
one desire than civility, good nature, reasonable charges, and a
constant variety of the choicest articles; I therefore can
conscientiously recommend all my readers who come to Paris, and are
amateurs of Flora, to call now and then on Madame Adde, No. 6, _Place
de la Madeleine_.

Now having contemplated the beauties of art and of nature, let us
observe some animated specimens of her works: what a moving mass is
before us, 'tis a merry scene, the laughing children running after, and
dodging each other, rolling on the ground with the plenitude of their
mirth, the neat looking _bonnes_ (nursery maids) still smiling while
they chide, the jovial coachmen wrestling on their stands and playing
like boys together, but all in good humour, and content seems to sit on
every brow, and even the aged as they meet, greet each other with a
smile. How infectious is cheerfulness, when I have the blue devils I
always go and take a walk on the _Boulevards_; and what makes these
people so happy? is the natural question; because they are content with
a little, and pleased with a trifle; then they are a trifling people is
the reply. What boots it I would ask? happiness is all that we desire,
and I persist that those are the best philosophers who can obtain
happiness with the least means. But how the green trees, the white s