New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-15
EUROPE REVISITED- b. No. VII.
THE SIGHTS OF PARIS.

Ban mum had been born FrenChmap, suspect
he would have been made Emperor, with less
crime and perfdy on his part than others have
found requisite. The life Of this people is
mainly an outdoor one-that is to say, its plea
sures and aspirations are unconnected with the
idea of Homc;-it would startle our New-York-
ers, as they walked down Broadway to their
respective av0catioDs 10 find their dignified,
wellto-do neighbors taking breakfast on the
sidewalk; yet scores Of well dressed, wel-bred
Frenchmen were taking their breakfast on the
thronged sidewalks in front of the restaurants on
the Boulevards as passed them between ii and
IL o'clock this morning-as they and others are
doing every morning-and DO ParisiOn deemed
the circumstance deserving even Of a stare.
Yesterday was sunny, pleasant day as
well as a Sundsy-and sunny, pleasant days
have been somewhat rarer than Sundays
since i came herc-wherefore think the dwell
ings were more thoroughly evacuated than al
most ever before. The streets from one end of
Paris to the other were black with pe0ple-not
the great arteries Of communication only, but
the short, narrow, crooked cross-streets as well.
The spacious Bots dc Boulogne on the west fairly
swarned with the multitude poured into it
through half dozen avenues from 10 A. NJ. till
nearly nightfall; the Champs Elysees, the Gardens
of the Tuileries, of the Luxembourg and all other
open, shady spaces, were thronged from morning
till after nightfa; and judging from the thousands
/ saw there, and the broad dense column pouring
in when L came away early in the afternoon, am
confident that not fewer than fifty thousand per-
sons visited the great cemetery Of Pere-la-Chaise
during the day. / doubt that London, with more
than double her population, saw so largo an aver
age number in her streets through the day as did
Paris. Let we endeavor on this point to give some
general idea of the sights of this enjoyment-lovng
capital.
First among these ranks of course Paris her.
self; and the best standpoint for viewing it is,
am confident, the summit of the great structure
known as the Arch of Triumph at the Barriere de
pEtOile (Of the STAR on the west side of the city.
There are other Arches of Triumph, so called but
none so happily located to subserye the ends of
gazers this. 1t stands just outside Of the Octroi
(Excise) wall of the city, mile or more from the
Place of Concord and Garden of the Tuileries on
the East and nearly the same distance from the
Bots de Boulogne Wood of Boulogne) on the
West, on rise of land aifording capital prospect
in every direction. This structure was COM
menced by Napoleon /, in 1906, but had not been
completed in 1914, when it's authors Overwhelm-
ing defeats and overthrow put stop to it. After
the suppression of the Spanish prtriots in 1873 by
French army under the nominal command of the
Duke of Angoueme, the Bourbons undertook to
finish the column in honor Of their triumph, but
had not completed the job when they were sent
away, as they had richly deserved to be, and the
originator of the Arch had been before them.
Louis Philippe completed the undertaking in 1886,
and was in turn driven out of France twelve years
afterward. Thus the beginner, the cOntinuer and
the finisher of this Arch of Triumph all suffered
the most humiliating defeat and overthrow, and
all ended their days in exile, powerless and spirit
broken. The Arch, however, is none the worse for
all this, but towers above all other structures in its
quarter being l52 feet high and 137 by 69 feet in
diameter The carriage-way (seldom used) under
the arch is As feet wide by 80 in hight, and the
whole cost over two millions of dollars. 1t was
very foolish expenditure; yet to stand on the top
of that arch Of pleasant afternoon and see west
ern Paris pour into the Avenue Champs Elysee and
out through the Barriere de fEtoe into the wood
of Boulogne, is a magnificent spectacle. Paris
has no other equal to it. The Champs Elysees, the
Place Concorde with its fountains and obesk of
Luxor are directly in front, with the garden and
palace of the Tuileries beyond them; on your
right mile or so distant, is the Champ de Mars,
on which, if it be Sunday afternoon, q horse race
is pretty certainly in progress; whether it be or
not, the sports of the HippOdrome, close at hand,
are certain to be in preparation if not already going
forward; while the public gardens which line that
side of the avenue are either already thrOnged with
pleasure-seekers or preparing for the dancing
reyes of the approaching night. l am no formal
list, and would not have Sunday kept absolutely
sacred from labor and recreatiOns with all the
strictness enjoined in the Mosaic ritual; believe
the cramped and weary toiler through six days of
each week. may better walk or ride out
with his children and breathe fresh, pure
air on Sunday than not at all yet
this French use of the Christian Sabbath as mere
fete day, or holiday, impresses me very unfavor-
ably. Half the stores are open on that day; men
are cutting stone and doing all manner of work. as
other days; the journals are published, offices
open, business transacted; only there is more
hilarity, more dancing, more drinking, more
theater going, more dissipation than on any other
day of the week i suspect that Labor gets no
more pay in the long run for seven days work per
week than it would for six, and that Morality suf
fers and Philanthropy is more languid than it
would be if one day in each week were generally
welcomed as day of rest and worship
From the summit of the Arch nearly all the emf
net structures of Paris are dstinguishable-
Dame, the Invalides, the Pantheon the Polytech-
mic School, the several Palaces, the Madeleine, &c.
Three or four miles northeast rises the eminence
of MoDtmartre, skirting and commanding the city
-Four or five miles to the west towers Mont It.
Vaerian, large hill, to whose fortress dungeons
the Republican members of the last free Legisla-
ture were conveyed upon being seized by Louis
NapoleoD's accomplices then in the surprise and
peridious overthrow of the Republic in 1851 Il
you would know how eligible is the site on which
Paris is built spend sunny hour on the summit
of the Arch Of Triumph.
Pere-laC hase, the world.renewned cemetery,
is located on similar but higher rise Of ground
Just outside of the eastern wall of the city, Of
lx~,o . hora pra1f