MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
No. 86. 
MAY 1, 
1802. [No.4, of Vox. 13. 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LETTERS written during an EXCURSION 
through FRANCE to GENEVA. 
(Continued from page 202 of No. 85.) 
ake are nuw,. my friend, but two 
remaining topics in your letter, on 
which you require information :—the ftate 
of the peafantry in France, and the regard 
which is paid to the duties of religion. 
We have a long way totravel in the in- 
terior of the country, and fhall probably, 
for the fake of feeing as much as we can, 
proceed to Geneva by one road, and re- 
turn from itby another. As this journey 
will afford us an opportunity of acquiring 
more knowledge on both thefe fubjects 
than our own obfervation can poffibly have 
given us at prefent, I fhall defer the notice 
of them for fome future letter, and in the 
mean time give you an account of the 
fine fights we have been fceing at Paris. 
Mufée National des Monumens Fran- 
gais. This was the frit public. building 
to which our Lacquais-de- Place, who by- 
the-bye is very young and unpractifed in 
his profeflion, conducted us : it is fituated 
inthe rue des Petzts- Auguflins, and was 
formerly the convent of the Auguftins. 
During the phrenzy of the revolution, 
maay churches were reduced to ruins ; the 
monuments they contained were moit of 
them murilated, many of them deftroyed ; 
the tombs of St. Denis even were torn up 
by the unhallowed hands of ignorant bar- 
barian defpoilers! Tne convent of the 
Auguttins is the fanétuary in which were 
depofited thofe curious relics of ancient 
art, which accidentally elcaped, or were 
by contrivance refcued from the fatal im- 
plements of indilcriminate deftruction. It 
was appropriated, I underftand, to the re- 
cepiion of ancient monumen's originally 
by the Conttituent Aflembly, who, when 
they had confifcated to the nation the 
efiates of the clergy, appointed a com- 
mittee of learned men and artifts, to fearch 
the ecclefialtical domains for whatever was 
curious in monumental architesture, and 
to depolit, their collection in thele 
cloyfters, which obvioufly prefented them- 
felves as the place of moft probable fecu- 
rity for whatever could be faved from the 
Vandal fury which at one period of the 
Mentuty Maa. No. 86. 
Revolution threatened to demolifh every 
thing which might bear teftimony to the 
civilization of the country. 
You and I have often viewed together 
the monuments of Weftminfter Abbey, 
and dwelt with pleafure on the admirable 
execution by which many of them are dif- 
tinguifhed ; they are fcattered, however, 
in {0 immethodical a manner, ancient and 
modern cheek-by-jowl, that one’s atten- 
tion is diftracted: the eye glances from 
one century to another in a fingle twink- 
ling: fixed for an inftant on fome moulder- 
ing dult. covered antique, it is caught the 
next perhaps by the Parian polith of 
fome modern ftatuein the adjoining niche. 
I confefs that from fome caufe or other, 
which perhaps one cannot very readily de- 
tect, I was more deeply impreffed. with 
feelings of congenial melancholy, at the 
folemnity and feclufion of the dim-lighted 
apartments, and the fepulchral relics they 
contain, thenI have ever been among the 
tombs in Weftmintter Abbey, heightened, 
as probably their effect is, by the archi- 
tectural pomp and {fubdlimity of the build- 
ing, 
Le Mujfée des\Monumens Francais is un- 
der the guardianfnip of Citizen Lenoir, 
anantiquarian of celebrity, to whofe tafte 
the French are indebted for this judicious 
arrangement of their ancient monuments : 
the building which contains them, reminds 
one of a cathedral-cloyiter ; it includes 
within its four fquare walls, a garden, 
whofe funeral decorations are appropriate to ~ 
the fituation. 
The monuments, as I have already faid, 
are diftributed in different apartments ; 
Citizen Lenoir has by his arrangement of 
them contrived to exhibit the ftate of 
‘ftatuary in France from the earlieft periods 
to the prefent time. 
He has arranged the 
monuments according to their refpective 
antiquity, each containing {pecimens of a 
fingie century, (wich is numbered at the 
entrance) and receiving light through win- 
dows of painted glafs executed during the 
fame period. 
I thould have enumerated for your 
amufement feveral of the moft remark- 
able monuments, or more properly {.eak- 
‘ing, feveral monuments of the moft-re- 
markable charaéters whofe afhes lie en: 
St tombed 
