made for the Closerie des Lilacs. Here may
be seen excellent samples of the Paris student;
from the beardless young fellow with his
rough hat upon the back of his head, and his
extremities cased in trowsers fitting him like
gaiters; to the solemn student, with his
dingy volume under his arm, spectacles on
his nose, and his cravat tied carelessly
about his throat. Here, too, are groups of
ladies knitting; and whole squadrons of
bonnes, with infinite varieties of the Paris
baby, crawling, and squeaking, and tottering,
and tumbling about them. All the boys
are little soldiers; and those young fellows
who are not aspiring drummers are mimic
generals. To the serious observer, the recruits,
parcelled out in detachments of six, and
occupying the ground from the steps of the Palace
gardens up to the gates of the Park, look sad
specimens of military glory. As they make
their first attempts to shoulder arms; as they
receive the rough thrusts of the peppery little
drill sergeants; as they undergo the minute
inspection of the commanding officer (who has
a push for one, an angry word for another,
and a threat for a third), their set
expression of feature gives to them a
deadened look, that has something awful
in it. Their eyes are fixed, looking forward;
the head is held stiffly; the lips are motionless;
all volition appears to be at an
end. At the sergeant's word of
command firelocks are shouldered; then
lowered; then the right hand is upon the
cartouche-box; then the cartouche is lifted
to the mouth, and inserted in the musket;
then the ramrod is applied; and the bright
rods rise and fall along the line with the
precision of steam machinery; then the
musket is again shouldered. Those who have
been in any degree slow or awkward, are
savagely reproved; then the officer makes a
dash with his sword at a musket dangling
carelessly, or seizes a man's cap, and puts it
jauntily upon his head as a soldier should wear
it. All the men stand like statues, and appear
so closely to resemble one another, that you
wonder how they sort themselves, and recognise
their companions when they are once
dispersed. At a word they presently
fall on one knee (that which was observed
encased in a leather band to preserve the
scarlet trowsers from the dust) to receive a
charge of imaginary cavalry; then they rise
and advance one step at a time, with their
bayonets pointed at an advancing enemy; in
reality at a formidable row of laughing nurses
and delighted children. A drum rolls, and
suddenly they stack their muskets; the
rigidity of their faces is relaxed: and they
skip away to join the crowd gathering about
the band posted half way down the avenue.
Now they are playing all kinds of practical
jokes with one another. Hats are knocked off;
mock fights go on; unobserved pulls of the
ears are given; and jokes are played even
with the swords. Pipes are produced;
tobacco is freely borrowed, and as freely lent;
clouds of smoke rise into the air; the
officers unceremoniously light their cigarettes
from their men's pipes; the corporals
group together as the sergeants group
together; and the lieutenants chatter apart,
while a few privates hop about to the
polka which the regimental band is playing.
It is a gay scene of cheerful life.
The officers, with their hands buried
deep in their wonderfully-capacious scarlet
trowsers, bulging from their remarkably
small waists, laugh, and talk, and smoke
and forget to look rigid and military; ladies
cluster about, talking lively things; students
four abreast, and arm-in-arm, stroll round
the large circle; and grisettes, in their snow-
white caps, and little black mantles, chatter
about the last quadrille Chinoise they
danced at the Closerie. These groups; with
children chasing huge wash-leather
footballs in every direction; and a few old men
sunning themselves on the benches; make up
a scene to which the fountain before the
palace, and the splendid rows of trees leading
to it, furnish a pretty background.

For the student who is inclined to be
idle to have a scene like this within five
minutes' walk of his hotel is to be powerfully
tempted. When he is tired of the
soldiers, he can stroll into the splendid
kitchen gardens of the palace, to watch
the growth of the vines, or to sniff the
perfume of the fruit-blossoms. Then, there is
a little café, absolutely in the palace grounds,
under the shade of some magnificent trees.
Thence he may lounge past the orangery, to the
pretty gardens close to the palace, surrounded
by statues of the queens of France. Here the
children of the neighbourhood swarm; here
priests, in thin black cassocks and three-
cornered hats, walk leisurely about; and
ladies sit to read romances or work embroidery;
while dozens of little boats swim about
the fountain basin, and two swans receive
their daily supply of biscuits de Rheims from
the paddling, screaming, delighted little
ship-owners.

When the burning midday sun drives
the idler from the gardens, the palace of
the Luxembourg, built for Marie de
Medicis—which the genius of Rubens was
employed to decorate—remains to be visited.
In the two hundred and thirty years
during which the palace has stood, how
many scenes of terrible interest have passed
within its walls; upon how much ruined
greatness have its iron gates turned! Here
the Dowager Queen of Spain, widow of
the first Louis, and daughter of the Regent,
passed her widowhood and died. Here
Rubens's decorations and illustrations of Marie
de Medicis were exhibited; and here were first
shown to the public, in seventeen hundred and
fifty, a few of the best works of the old masters
in the possession of the Royal Family, which
became the nucleus of that splendid collection