position, I failed to learn. Her name seems
to have outlived her deeds. Whether she was beautiful and beloved, and
put away earthly vanities for a holy life, or old and ugly, and bore her
lot with a patience that won saintship, I do not know. I can only tell
that tapers burn always upon her tomb, and if you buy one it will burn a
prayer for you. So we were told. There is one old church, St. Germain
des Pres, most beautifully colored within. Its pictures seem to have
melted upon the walls. But admired above all is the Sainte Chapelle, in
the Palais de Justice, a chapel fitted up by the fanatical St. Louis,
when this palace of justice, which holds now the courts of law, was a
royal residence. Of course all its brightness was dimmed long ago. Its
glories became dust, like its founder. But it has recently been
restored, and is a marvel of gilt, well-blended colors, and stained
glass. A graceful spire surmounts it, but the old, cone-capped towers,
rising from another part of the same building, possessed far greater
interest in our eyes; for here was the Conciergerie, where were confined
Marie Antoinette and so many more victims of the reign of terror.

On the "isle of the city," in the Seine, where, under the Roman rule, a
few mud huts constituted Paris, stands the church of Notre Dame, which
was three hundred years in building. With its spire and two square
towers, it may be seen from almost any part of the city. I wish you
might look upon the relics and the vestments which the priests wear upon
occasions of ceremony, hidden within this church, and displayed upon the
payment of an extra fee. I did not wonder that the Sisters of Charity,
who went into the little room with us, gazed aghast upon the gold and
silver, and precious stones.

Every one visits the galleries of the Louvre, of course. A little, worn
shoe, belonging once to Marie Antoinette, and the old gray coat of the
first emperor, were to us the most interesting objects among the relics.
From out the sea of pictures rise Murillo's Madonna, the lovely face
with a soul behind it, shining through, and the burial of the heroine of
Chateaubriand. Do you know it? The fair form, the sweeping hair of
Attila, and the dark lover with despair in his face? As for the Rubens
gallery,--his fat, red, undraped women here among the clouds, surrounded
by puffy little cherubs, had for us no charms. Rubens in Antwerp was a
revelation. We wandered through room after room, lighted from