THE SQUARES, PLACES, CHURCH GARDENS, ETC. 91 



persons having a claim over tlie smallest squares in 

 London — those that have been substituted for the little 

 private gardens — would see that it was to their interest 

 and for the benefit of everybody living near the square 

 that it should be cheerfully decorated^ well kept, open to 

 the public at all reasonable hours,, and a place where a 

 working man, too tired to walk to a distant park, could sit 

 down to rest without the necessity of resorting to the public- 

 house or any like place. 



The Square St. Jacques, already alluded to, is so placed 

 that every visitor to Paris must see it. The next to be 

 noticed is rather out of the usual route of the English 

 visitor. 



The Square des Batignolles is one of the largest and best 

 worth seeing in Paris. Entering it from its lower side, the 

 general scheme is seen to be that of a little vale, down 

 which meanders a streamlet, ending in a small round piece 

 of water. The margins of this streamlet are variously 

 embellished with suitable plants : the rich grassy sides 

 slope up till they end in dense plantations of the choicest 

 shrubs, so well planted and watered that they look as fi-esli 

 as if growing twenty miles from a large city. Let us walk 

 round — the margin of the shallow grassy vale to our right, 

 the boundary shrubberies and the railing to our left. The 

 walk expands from a -p^^ 2^ 



^^^^^^^^^^^ 



breadth of ten or a dozen 

 feet to forty, in the first 

 corner of the square, so 

 that the children find little 

 playgrounds without going 

 on the vividly gi'een grass. 

 The first attraction to the 

 eye on the right is a group 

 of the variegated maize 

 springing out of a mass of Portion of plan of Parisian square, showing 

 dwarf Phlox Drummondi. ^'^^^^\^^ of the walk to form a play- 



xj^ ^ j^xxi.-^ia.v^ . ground, with seats and shade-giving trees. 



Beyond it is a group of 



Plane trees. Honeysuckles being trained up their stems by 

 the aid of rings of galvanized wire. 



