The Sun.
London, England, 1830-06-03 00:00:00

PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENTS IN

PARIS UNDER NAPOLEON.

Paris is under eternal obligations to Bona-
parte ; he did more for it than even Louis
XIV. He combined, in a greater degree, the
useful with the magnificent. Despotic as
he was, he saw that the mass of the people was
now a power which must not be dazzled merely,
as in the time of Louis XIV. but conciliated
and served. His designs are said to have been
essentially his own. It seems most probable
that they could have been conceived only by the
same mind which had the force, energy, and re-
sources to execute them. He freed the bridges
and banks of the Seine from the embarrassment
and deformity of the old houses by which they
were still crowded ; built magnificent quays and
wharfs ; and erected four bridges of remarkable
beauty, as monuments of art—before the Gar-
den of Plants—from the Ile St. Louis to the
Ile de /a Cite—from the Louvre to the Palace
of the Institute—from the Quai de Chaillot to
the Champs de Mars. He not only conceived
(for even the conception was a great merit), but
had nearly executed, at his fall, the Canal de
l'Ourcq—a gigantic public work, commencing
at the river of that name, receiving tributary
streams, communicating with other canals for
the convenience and transport of inland com-
merce, and conducted over a line of fifteen
leagues to the plain of La Villette, eighty-three
feet above the level of the Seine, for the purpose
of supplying water to the capital. He distri-
buted the public supply of water by fifteen new
and abundant fountains, of which some are beau-
tiful specimens of architecture. The immense
architectural and sculptural mass, called " the
Fountain of the Elephant," was left by him, and
still remains unfinished. The people, not merely
of Paris, but of the whole kingdom, are indebted
to him for those spacious markets, so commo-
diously arranged for the sale of every kind of pro-
duce ; for public stores, especially the wine
stores, which surprise by their vastness, the
happy ingenuity of their distribution, and their
architectural grandeur. He erected, outside
the barrier, five abatoires or slaughter-houses ;
and thus relieved the town from the inconve-
nient and dangerous presence of herds of cattle,
the revolting spectable of blood, and the noxious
miasmata of butchery and tallow-melting. The
vast granary of reserve, destined by him to pro-
tect the people of Paris against famine and the
change of seasons, now unfinished or aban-
doned, remains a monument of the instability of
all human power, and the uncertainty of all hu-
man projects. He cleared the Place de Ca-
rousal, between the Louvre and the Tuileries,
of its obstructions and nuisances ; adorned it
with a triumphal arch ; completed the Louvre ;
filled its gallery with sculpture and paintings,
the fruits of his rapacious conquests, and the
spoils of continental Europe ; and built a se-
cond gallery from the adjacent angle, so as to
complete the square of the vast area of the
Carousal, and the junction of the Louvre with
the Tuilleries. The garden of the Tuileries
owes much of its magnificence to the noble vista
which he opened by the Rue Castiglione to the
triumphal column in the Place Vendome—the
opposite view of the Chamber of Deputies,
with its noble Portico, on the left bank of the
Seine—and the unfinished but grand triumphal
arch of Neuilly, facing the Palace on the side of
the garden. This arch, destined originally to
commemorate Bonaparte's German campaigns,
has since been completed as a monument in ho-
nour of the Duke of Angouleme and his expe-
dition to Cadiz—a destination so ill-judged and
incongruous as to partake of the burlesque. The
two falls of this singular man, equally great as a
ruler and conqueror, and the two consequent
occupations of Paris by allied Europe, are mat-
ter of history.—Dr. Lardner's Cabinet Cy-
clopcedia.

A dividend on the estate of Messrs. FRYS and
CitArmAN, the bankers, has been made, and is now pay.
able, of Is. Sd. in the pound. This is the first dividend
that has been announced on the joint estate.

It is supposed. that between 10,000 and
15,000 persons will have emigrated from the province of
Uloten--Limerich Evening Post.