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

times in their own country; but the country of the Germans is poor. He calls them real spoil-trades,-gates-métiers,— meaning that they will work for lower wages than the French. (They do not love the Germans since the war.) As to America, Victor did think of coming here, in the service of a business-firm; but they did not agree upon terms, for the firm would not give him a written agreement nor promise to pay his return voyage. I have before said that he is a book-keeper. I understand that he goes round from place to place, and must sometimes write where it is dark, by candle or gaslight. We dine about eight, principally on the remains of the breakfast. After the soup, we have radishes, bread and butter, veal, and oseille (does not that sound better than "sorrel"?). But the asparagus is a treat. We shall each make our own sauce of salt, a little pepper, vinegar, and oil. Then Victor takes up in his hand, by the hard end, a handful of asparagus, and gives it to me, which manner of serving is, as yet, new to me. Other dishes are offered, and there is Bordeaux again.

CHAPTER IV.

May 7th.-At the Exposition a terra-cotta group of two newsboys in their rags attracts attention, from workingmen as well as others. It seems to me, however, that a marble figure of Louis XVII., of which the face expresses much dejection, loses nearly all its force by the boy's wearing a ruffled shirt and embroidered drawers, which so poorly express the misery and want of the unfortunate child in his imprisonment. Then I remember Joe Jefferson in the rags of Rip Van Winkle,-how he has dared to dress in

accordance with the character. Here too is Doré's picture of the Neophyte, the young monk included in a circle with the old ones. I had seen the engraving at Mr. Frothingham's, in New York, and the subject was then very painful to me; but now the young man in the painting does not seem to have the same look of horror and repugnance at his surroundings. However, the associations here are extremely different; there I was alone, in a room not fully lighted, and here is the animation and life of the Exposition. Further, I notice a very fine picture of Galileo, pointing to an orbit of the earth, which he has drawn upon the pavement, while one churchman argues with him, and one in a cowl stands reading, as I imagine, his accusation. Among the visitors to-day are ecclesiastics again; and a picture of a young woman, which faces that of Galileo, does not seem very suitable for such celibate eyes. A live group to-day is very striking. There are two ladies in our usual fashionable attire, accompanied by a monk of about thirty-five, tall, bare-headed, with a magnificent black beard, and with a countenance, it seems to me, somewhat sad. He wears sandals, but no stockings, a coarse brown woollen robe, with a hood or cowl, a rope around his waist, and a rosary at his side. What a figure in these surroundings! What a subject for a painter!

In our own department, I find one of our chief officers in a state of temperate disgust. I speak to him of one of the English exhibits, in what a state of completeness it is, and I observe how much confusion still prevails in our department. He replies that the English had two years, when we had three months; and I hear that their catalogue was printed six months before Congress granted our appropriation. Nor is our educational department yet ready. Prussia has so long been considered far advanced

in public instruction that I ask our commissioner about the Prussian exhibit. He replies that the Prussians are not here. "Why?" I ask; "do they feel guilty?" It is only in the fine-art department that the Germans exhibit. In the Swiss department of education is a little map of the northern hemisphere to illustrate twilight as connected with the earth's atmosphere. I understand that it was drawn in a penitentiary; and a plain man tells me that the Swiss believe in reform in prisons, and that even those condemned for life receive intellectual training. In the French educational department a woman makes a handsome exhibit of one of their elegant raised charts, which show the different elevations of the country. She is Miss Caroline Kleinhans, and she proposes to teach geography by topography, beginning with the plan of a little school, and passing on gradually to that of France. While I am at Paris our commissioner of education tells me that France alone exhibits here four times as much in the educational department as all nations together did at Philadelphia.

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An effort at our language is to be seen upon the grounds, where on a neat building we read "Waters-closets, Dames ;" Waters-closets, Hommes." These are very nicely arranged; but it seems peculiar to see women taking charge of both sides and receiving the five sous from men.

The plain man whom I met in the Swiss department asked me whether I was a Christian. He says that in France they will not notice a book which contains the name of God. When I repeat this to my American friend she thinks the statement incorrect, and says that the Journal