,
forming a circle around the magnificent central apartment, with which
each is in communication by a bell; as soon as the bell rings and the
sound spreads from division to sub-division, the entire service, from
the chief clerk down to the lowest employee, is instantly in motion;
in this respect the arrangement, as regards despatch, co-ordination,
exactitude, and working facilities, is admirable.[2328]

On the other hand, its advantages and attractions for employees and
aspirants of every kind and degree are not mediocre. There is no
separation between the stories, no insurmountable barrier or enclosure
between large and small apartments; all, from the least to the finest,
from the outside as well as from the inside, have free access.
Spacious entrances around the exterior terminate in broad, well-lighted
staircases open to the public; everybody can clamber up that pleases,
and to mount these one must clamber; from top to bottom there is no
other communication than that which they present. There is no concealed
and privileged passage, no private stairway or false door; glancing
along the whole rectilinear, uniform flight, we behold the innumerable
body of clerks, functionaries, supernumeraries, and postulants, an
entire multitude, ranged tier beyond tier and attentive; nobody advances
except at the word and in his turn.--Nowhere in Europe are human lives
so well regulated, within lines of demarcation so universal, so simple,
and so satisfactory to the eye and to logic: the edifice in which
Frenchmen are henceforth to move and act is regular from top to bottom,
in its entirety as well as in its details, outside as well as inside;
its stories, one above the other, are adjusted with exact symmetry;
its juxtaposed masses form pendants and counterpoise; all its lines
and forms, every dimension and proportion, all its props and buttresses
combine, through their mutual dependencies, to compose a harmony and
to maintain an equilibrium. In this respect the structure is classic,
belonging to the same family of productions which the same spirit,
guided by the same method, had produced in Europe for the previous one
hundred and fifty years.[2329] Its analogues, in the physical order
of things, are the architectural productions of Mansard, Le Notre, and
their successors, from the structures and gardens of Versailles down to
and embracing the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli. In the intellectual
order, its analogues consist of the lit