he most popular of all open spaces in the capital to the
Parisian who would take his walks abroad not too far from the centre of
things. The chief curiosity of the garden is the celebrated chestnut
tree which burst into flower on the day of Napoleon's arrival from
Elba--March 20. The precocious tree has ever been revered by the
Bonapartists since, though the tree has never performed the trick the
second time.

Statues innumerable are scattered here and there through the garden and
give a certain sense of liveliness to the area. Some are by famous
names, others by those less renowned, but as a whole they make little
impression on one, chiefly, perhaps, because one does not come to the
Garden of the Tuileries to see statues.

To the left and right are the terraces, first laid out by the celebrated
Le Notre. Like the hanging gardens of Babylon, they overlook a lower
level of _parterres_, gravelled walks and ornamental waters. Along the
Rue de Rivoli is the Terrasse de l'Orangerie, and on the side of the
river is the Terrasse de la Marine.

According to the original plans of Le Notre the garden was set down as
five hundred _toises_ in length, and one hundred and sixty-eight
_toises_ in width, the latter dimension corresponding to that of the
facade of the palace.

Along the shady avenues of this admirable city garden of to-day an
enterprising _concessionaire_ has won a fortune by renting out
rush-bottomed chairs to nursemaids, retired old gentlemen with red
ribbons in their buttonholes, and trippers from across the channel. It
is a perfectly legitimate enterprise and a profitable one it would seem,
and has been in operation considerably more than half a century.

It was from the Gardens of the Tuileries in 1784 that took place
Blanchard's celebrated ascension in Montgolfier's balloon and brought
forth the encomium from the British Royal Society that the body was not
in the least surprised that a Frenchman should have solved the problem
of "volatability." The French monarch, more practical, was so mightily
pleased with the success of the experiment that he bestowed upon the
author the sum of four hundred thousand francs from his treasury to be
used for the perfection of the art.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PALAIS CARDINAL AND THE PALAIS ROYAL

With the Louvre and the Tuileries the Palais Royal shares the popular
interest of the traveller among all the monuments of Paris. No other
edifice evokes more vivid souvenirs