of the Temple
of Glory, which he had commenced, and in the execution of which he was
interrupted by those ambitious enterprises to which his subsequent
downfall was owing. To a painter's eye, the effect of the whole scene is
increased by the rich and varied foreground which everywhere presents
itself, composed of the shrubs with which the skirts of the square are
adorned, and the lofty poplars which rise amidst the splendour of
architectural beauty; while recent events give a greater interest to the
spot from which this beauty is surveyed, by the remembrance, that it was
here that Louis XVI. fell a martyr to the revolutionary principles, and
that it was here that the Emperor Alexander and the other princes of
Europe took their station, when their armies passed in triumph through
the walls of Paris.

The view from the Pont Neuf, though not so striking upon the whole,
embraces objects of greater individual beauty. The gay and animated
quays of the city covered with foot-passengers, and with all the varied
exhibitions of industrious occupation, which, from the warmth of the
climate, are carried on in the open air;--the long and splendid front of
the Louvre and Thuilleries;--the bold projection of the Palais des Arts,
of the Hotel de la Monnaie, and other public buildings on the opposite
side of the river;--the beautiful perspective of the bridges, adorned by
the magnificent colonnade which fronts the Palace of the Legislative
Body;--and the lofty picturesque buildings of the centre of Paris
surrounding the more elevated towers of Notre Dame, form a scene, which,
though less perfect, is more striking, and more characteristic, than the
scene from the centre of the Place Louis Quinze, which has been just
described. It conveys at once a general idea of the French capital; of
that mixture of poverty and splendour by which it is so remarkably
distinguished; of that grandeur of national power, and that degradation
of individual importance, which marked the ancient dynasty of the French
nation. It marks too, in a historical view, the changes of the public
feeling which the people of this country have undergone, from the
distant period when the towers of Notre Dame rose amidst the austerity
of Gothic taste, and were loaded with the riches of Catholic
superstition, to that boasted aera, when the loyalty of the French people
exhausted the wealth and the genius of the country, to decorate with
classic taste the residence of their Sov