A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE. 219 



it is at certain times dressed up and made the centre 

 of holiday festivities. It is a public fountain, and its 

 living streams of water make it one of the most ap- 

 propriate and suggestive monuments in P^urope. I 

 would only suggest, that they canonize the Little 

 Man, and that the Parisians recognize a tutelar deity 

 in the Goddess Urea, who should have an appropri- 

 ate monument somewhere in the Place de la Con- 

 corde ! 



One of the loveliest features of Paris is the Seine. 

 I was never tired of walking along its course. Its 

 granite embankments; its numberless superb bridges, 

 throwing their graceful spans across it ; its clear, 

 limpid water ; its paved bed ; the women washing ; 

 the lively little boats ; and the many noble buildings 

 that look down upon it make it the most charm- 

 ing citizen-river I ever beheld. Rivers generally get 

 badly soiled when they come to the city, like some 

 other rural travelers ; but the Seine is as pure as a 

 meadow-brook wherever I saw it, though I dare say 

 it does not escape without some contamination. I 

 believe it receives the sewerage discharges farther 

 down, and is, no doubt, turbid and pitchy enough 

 there, like its brother, the Thames, which comes into 

 London with the sky and the clouds in its bosom, 

 and leaves it reeking with filth and slime. 



After I had tired of the city, I took a day to visit 

 St. Cloud, and refresh myself by a glimpse of the 

 imperial park there, and a little of Nature's privacy, 

 if such could be had, which proved to be the case, for 



