_. I entered
it, not that I have a penchant for horrors, but to see a sight strangely
contrasting with all I had heretofore seen in Paris. It was a long, low
interior, and one end of the room was fenced off from the rest, and in
it a row of dead bodies was arranged against the wall. Jets of water
were playing constantly upon them, and upon hooks the garments of the
deceased were hung. The use of _La Morgue_ is to exhibit, for
twenty-four hours, the dead bodies which are found in the streets and
the river. If no friend in this time recognizes and claims the body, it
is buried. There were five bodies when I was there--four men and one
woman. The men were evidently suicides and the woman was probably
murdered, as there were marks of violence upon her body, which could
not have been self-inflicted. There are several hundred persons
exhibited in La Morgue in the course of a year, and they tell strange
stories of the misery and crime which abound in the finest city in the
world. The majority of the bodies which are found, are suicides, but
many are those of persons who have been murdered. The French commit
suicide for reasons which appear frivolous to the American or
Englishman. The loss of a favorite mistress, an unsuccessful
love-intrigue, the bursting of a bubble of speculation, and sometimes a
mere trifle is enough to induce self-destruction. Sometimes a man and
his mistress, or a whole family shut themselves up in a room with
burning charcoal, which is a favorite method of committing suicide. A
great many bodies are fished out of the Seine, for it is very easy for a
poor and wretched man or woman to leap into it in the darkness of night.
The next day the body lies for recognition in La Morgue, and if no good
friend claims it it is borne by careless hands to a pauper burial.

[Illustration: LE PONT-NEUF]

I crossed the Seine by the Pont Neuf--a fine bridge, completed in 1604
by Henry IV. Near the center of it, standing upon a platform and
pedestal of white marble, is a splendid bronze statue of Henry IV. upon
horseback. The height of the statue is fourteen feet, and its cost,
somewhat above sixty thousand dollars, was defrayed by public
subscription in 1818.

The Place Vendome, too, lay in my path, so called from having been the
site of a hotel belonging to the Duke de Vendome, illegitimate son of
Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees. The Place is now ornamented by a
magnificent pillar, erected by Napoleon in honor of his