ulgarians, and the
speculators of the new regime.

This preamble is necessary to show the sphere in which was done one
of those noble actions, less rare than the calumniators of our time
admit,--actions which, like pearls, the fruit of pain and suffering, are
hidden within rough shells, lost in the gulf, the sea, the tossing waves
of what we call society, the century, Paris, London, St. Petersburg,--or
what you will.

If the axiom that architecture is the expression of manner and morals
was ever proved, it was certainly after the insurrection of 1830, during
the present reign of the house of Orleans. As all the old fortunes
are diminishing in France, the majestic mansions of our ancestors are
constantly being demolished and replaced by species of phalansteries, in
which the peers of July occupy the third floor above some newly
enriched empirics on the lower floors. A mixture of styles is confusedly
employed. As there is no longer a real court or nobility to give the
tone, there is no harmony in the production of art. Never, on the other
hand, has architecture discovered so many economical ways of imitating
the real and the solid, or displayed more resources, more talent, in
distributing them. Propose to an architect to build upon the garden
at the back of an old mansion, and he will run you up a little Louvre
overloaded with ornament. He will manage to get in a courtyard, stables,
and if you care for it, a garden. Inside the house he will accommodate a
quantity of little rooms and passages. He is so clever in deceiving the
eye that you think you will have plenty of space; but it is only a nest
of small rooms, after all, in which a ducal family has to turn itself
about in the space that its own bakehouse formerly occupied.

The hotel of the Comtesse Laginska, rue de la Pepiniere, is one of these
creations, and stands between court and garden. On the right, in the
court, are the kitchens and offices; to the left the coachhouse and
stables. The porter's lodge is between two charming portes-cocheres. The
chief luxury of the house is a delightful greenhouse contrived at the
end of a boudoir on the ground-floor which opens upon an admirable
suite of reception rooms. An English philanthropist had built this
architectural bijou, designed the garden, added the greenhouse, polished
the doors, bricked the courtyard, painted the window-frames green,
and realized, in short, a dream which resembled (proportions excepted)
George th