120 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



We returned towards Paris by the Avenue de Breteuil, 

 and took this opportunity of viewing the 



Hop'ital des Involutes. 

 The church, which is the principal object of a stranger's 

 curiosity, was at this time seen to disadvantage : for the in- 

 terior of the Dome was now undergoing some repairs, 

 which marred the perspective effect of the frescoes of La- 

 fosse ; inasmuch as the attention was unavoidably more en- 

 gaged with the ingenious contrivance of the lofty and al- 

 most aerial scaffolding than with any thing else. The ban- 

 ners captured by the arms of France used to be here su- 

 spended in triumph : but these have wholly disappeared : 

 the Invalids, on ascertaining that the Allies were about to 

 enter Paris in 1814, tore down the whole in a sort of 

 phrenzy, and made a bonfire of them, — so that their ene- 

 mies might never have to boast of the recapture of these 

 tattered trophies, — a feeling certainly not illaudable in ve- 

 teran common-soldiers. The tesselated pavement under 

 the dome is an admirable piece of workmanship. We no- 

 ticed the tomb or monument of Vauban, whose impreg- 

 nable citadel of Lille we had lately seen ; and, opposite to 

 it, that of the most renowned of the field-marshals of 

 France, with the simple inscription " Turenne. 11 After 

 viewing the spacious esplanade, with its fountain and rows. 

 of trees, we passed along Rue St Dominique to the 



Champ de Mars. 

 Two very long parallel embankments here bound a plain, 

 of a parallelogram form ; the whole being capable of con- 

 taining 300,000 people. The vast sloping terraces were 

 the work of a fortnight, when the zeal of the Parisians, and 

 of the deputies from the different departments of France, 

 OUSed to the uttermost, to make preparations for the SO- 



