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Sunday, May 5th. This morning Victor calls me to an early meal, served to myself alone. It is coffee with hot milk, and bread without butter.

To-day I meet again the learned professor upon whom I called last week, and again we speak of the journals and of the schools. Liberty of the press does not exist as with us even in republican France; and the professor tells me that a journal is not allowed to say "to-morrow we ought to have a new revolution," or "to-morrow we ought to reinstate the house of Bourbon," because the people are so little instructed, and so ready to be stirred up, that doing so might produce a serious difficulty, causing the death of many persons. On the subject of the schools, he says that if the public were admitted, idle persons, of whom there are many in France, might go in and disturb the exercises. He adds,—and is it not funny?-that members of the clerical party might visit them with the desire of picking flaws, as well as representatives of the press. Whereupon I tell him that we have a free press and do not fear it. The public schools of France are comparatively such humble things that it may be that gentlemen of standing do not generally interest themselves in their workings, and what is said about religious instruction does not seem to agree entirely with what I afterwards learn; but it is as follows: at a given hour the Catholic priest visits the schools to give religious instruction; at another hour, the Lutheran minister; at another, the Reformed or Calvinistic; and at another, the Jewish (these being the four religious bodies paid by the State). The learned professor, who, as I hear is not Catholic, argued in favor of this instruction, saying that there are in Paris many families of mechanics or workingmen, in which both parents are busily occupied all day, earning their livelihood, and so have little or no time to give reli

gious instruction to their children. Again he says that very few of the workingmen go to church, and therefore their children would have no religious instruction at all, but for this in school. I reply that with us this instruction is given in churches and Sunday-schools, and tell him of the labors of a certain citizen of Philadelphia in establishing a mission Sunday-school. (But would a lay Catholic be allowed by the church to do such a thing?)

sexes.

While we are talking a gentleman enters, whom the professor introduces as a member of the House of Deputies. This gentleman kindly offers to let me have an order to enter the Chambers or their parliament at Versailles. He mentions an American woman who has been here, named Ward. She has spoken upon the co-education of the It occurs to me that he means Julia Ward Howe, and I tell him that she is a distinguished woman, a poet. The deputy tells the professor about our having schools for both sexes, not only for the young, but (with a smile) for those of fifteen and thereabout. He tells us that Mrs. Howe touched upon delicate subjects with purity. It has not been common for ladies to speak in public in France; and it was a Freemasons' hall that had been obtained for Mrs. Howe. The deputy spoke of having heard women address meetings during their civil war, by which he meant what we call the commune.

"And how did they speak?" I ask. The deputy makes little answer, but the professor is complimentary, saying, "On quite different subjects from those that Madame G-speaks about."

This Sunday we have a guest to the noontide-breakfast, and at dinner we have her husband also. Soon after my morning coffee, Victor begins to prepare for the déjeuner,

and makes quite a show with the table-cloth, the oranges and apples that he places upon it, and the red radishes in rays, ends in the middle of the plate, leaves on the outer edge. He says that he adores cooking. The guest is very neat. She is a pretty young woman with color in her cheeks. She has been married about a year, and has a baby at some distance from Paris, with a relative. For breakfast we have first the dear little radishes, with bread and very good butter. The next course is a piece of veal roasted in a tinkitchen, before the charcoal grate, before described; the veal, when dished, being partly buried in oseille or sorrel, which looks like spinach, but has an acid taste, and is good; the juice or gravy of the meat having been poured over it. The wine is opened, and white wine poured into small tumblers. After this course, there is a dish of haricots or string-beans. I do not think that I want any, but they tell me that they are haricots with butter, and induce me to eat. They are young, tender, and good. Then there is salad dressed with oil and vinegar, without sugar. Victor opens a bottle of red wine, which he calls Bordeaux, and it seems to be a treat, and glasses are touched all round, when healths are drunk to Garibaldi, to America, and to Mr. L., of Philadelphia: and our guest compliments Victor and Madame Leblanc by saying, "To the little one who is coming." After the salad we have the oranges and apples and black coffee with sugar. The sugar looks very nice. I am told that it is from beets, and costs fifteen sous a pound, the French pound being about one-tenth heavier than ours.*

In the afternoon I call upon the professor as before de

*The French pound is the same as the half-kilogramme, or, popularly, the half-kilo. The kilogramme is about two and two-tenths pounds avoirdupois.

scribed. In my walk I see a portion of beautiful Paris. I observe, however, a building that is not beautiful, with the sign "City of Paris Primary Communal School for Young Boys, directed by the Brothers." It is a grammarschool, under charge of the clergy. Farther on, I see a convent, quite large, a convent of the Sacred Heart,with a fine garden. How nice gardens seem in such a city, when you live upon paved court-yards and rarely touch mother earth! How valuable this convent property must be! But the envious wall does not allow us to view the garden. On my walk I also see a very fine house, with a garden in front. The concierge woman tells me that it all belongs, with much other property, to the widow Chapsal, whose husband was author of the grammar,-Noel and Chapsal's. On the Boulevard des Batignolles I see a long white building; over the entrance of which floats the tricolor, and at the top is faintly seen "Normal School." Seated at a table on the street, before a restaurant, two men and a woman are playing cards.

What a blessing to the people shut up in narrow quarters to come out and rest on these benches under the trees in the wide boulevard! What a dejected appearance has that plain, common-looking woman, sitting alone! She has on no bonnet; she seems to have escaped from labor, and to be absorbed in sad thought. She looks like a sensible woman. This street, this Boulevard des Batignolles, is, I suppose, at least a hundred feet wide. I sit down facing the Normal School, and note that there is first a wide stone sidewalk, and then a paved way, wide enough for several carriages; then this wide, gravelled promenade in the middle of the street, planted with four rows of trees, underneath which are benches; behind me again is another wide car

riage-way, and then the stone side-walk. While I am in Paris, however, one of my acquaintances tells me that the wide avenues were not constructed to embellish the city, but to prevent the formation of barricades. However that may be, must not such a spot as I have just described, with trees so carefully tended as they are in Paris, be a beautiful thing? Yet I never hear a Parisian say, "How fine is the Boulevard des Batignolles!" Paris is very rich in beautiful objects. Farther on, there is an immense building of brick and stone, so fine that I think it may be something military, but it is a superior school,-the Collège Chaptal. A baker opposite has named his shop, in Paris style, "Bakery of the Collège Chaptal." This grand school is for boys, and so are the Lycées. Many of them, I believe, are under government patronage. What is the government doing for girls in Paris beyond the common public schools? There is this one Normal School, of which I have lately spoken; and an American lady has told me of free lectures at the College of France and the Garden of Plants; but the opportunities of girls are, it seems to me, not equal to those of boys.

When I return to the house, my hostess and her guest are scraping and trimming asparagus, preparing it for cooking. They have soon done, and after a while there is a ring, and Madame F. says, "My husband." He seems rather pleasant, but I like her better. He plays with his wife, and I speak of her being neatly dressed, which pleases her. We talk about what they can do if they come to America, and about Germans and Irish coming to my country and Frenchmen not. Victor tells me that the reason the French do not come is that they have such good

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