thy to
be noticed.

Paris was empty in the month of August 1826. The court was at St. Cloud;
the Duchesse de Berri at her favourite Dieppe; and the fashionable world
was scattered abroad over the face of Europe. Our own minister was at
the baths of Aix, in Savoy.

One of the first things was to obtain precise and accurate ideas of the
position and _entourage_ of the place. In addition to those enjoyed from
its towers, there are noble views of Paris from Montmartre and Pere
Lachaise. The former has the best look-out, and thither we proceeded.
This little mountain is entirely isolated, forming no part of the
exterior circle of heights which environ the town. It lies north of the
walls, which cross its base. The ascent is so steep as to require a
winding road, and the summit, a table of a hundred acres, is crowned by
a crowded village, a church, and divers windmills. There was formerly a
convent or two, and small country-houses still cling to its sides,
buried in the shrubbery that clothe their terraces.

We were fortunate in our sky, which was well veiled in clouds, and
occasionally darkened by mists. A bright sun may suit particular scenes,
and peculiar moods of the mind, but every connoisseur in the beauties of
nature will allow that, as a rule, clouds, and very frequently a partial
obscurity, greatly aid a landscape. This is yet more true of a
bird's-eye view of a grey old mass of walls, which give up their
confused and dusky objects all the better for the absence of glare. I
love to study a place teeming with historical recollections, under this
light; leaving the sites of memorable scenes to issue, one by one, out
of the grey mass of gloom, as time gives up its facts from the obscurity
of ages.

Unlike English and American towns, Paris has scarcely any suburbs. Those
parts which are called its Faubourgs are, in truth, integral parts of
the city; and, with the exception of a few clusters of winehouses and
_guinguettes_, which have collected near its gates to escape the city
duties, the continuity of houses ceases suddenly with the _barrieres_,
and, at the distance of half a mile from the latter, one is as
effectually in the country, so far as the eye is concerned, as if a
hundred leagues in the provinces. The unfenced meadows, vineyards,
lucerne, oats, wheat, and vegetables, in many places, literally reach
the walls. These walls are not intended for defence, but are merely a
financial _enceinte_, created for offe