The New York herald., 1871-01-17

London, which announced that destructive
rain of projectiles-some of them weighing
ninety-six Kilograms, or one hundred and
nnety-two pounds-was pouring into that por-
tion OF Paris lying between the Hotel des Inva-
lides and the Odeon. Doubtless the zone Of
destruction has ere this been enlarged 50 as to
include the whole Of the Faubourg st. Ger
main and the QUARTER Latin and much of the
vicinity Of those historical places. Even
these had net escaped the transformations
wrought by Haussmann, but most of their
monuments were reserved for the more terri
BILE ravages to which they are now exposed.
If 1t be true that shell has already struck the
gilded dome of the Hotel des Invalides, the
wish Of Napoleon the First that his ashes
''may repose on the banks of the Seine, has
been strangely annulled by the Prussians.
Not only is the Hotel des Invalides under
fre-with its costly imperial tomb and Its
church, with all the banners taken by the
French In their wars with other nations, and
its gallery with its plans of the principal forti-
fed cities of France and of the battle of Lodi
and the siege of Rome-but so are also multi
tude ofchurches and hospitals and palaces and
colleges and public libraries and museums and
railway stations and dwellings, belonging alike
to The memorable past and the living present.
A bare enumeration of the more interesting
objects on which the iron hail of war is now
falling within the walls of Paris would fill
columns of the HERALD. There are the hotels
Of the old n06lesse of the Faubourg st. Ger
main, more or less faithful to the elder branch
Of the Bourbon family throughout all vicissi-
tudes since the great revolution; the hotels
of the Rue de Lille, the Rue de Varenne,
the Rue de Grenoble, the Rue st.
Dominique and the rest-grim enough
outside, but imposing and sumptuous within
and boasting still of spacious gardens, but
nearly all at present deserted. There are
palaoes-the Palais du Corps Legislatif, the
Palais de 10 Legion dHonneur, the Palais du
Quai d'Orsay, the Palais de lInstitut, the
Palais des Beaux Arts, the Palais du Luxem-
bourg and what remains of the Palais des
Thermes, with the splendid Museum adjacent,
the Musee de Cluny ct du Moyenage, rich in
medieval art treasure, the loss of which could
never be replaced. e.1.ia.!s ~.
Then there are many other museums within
the ''zone of destruction"-t Museum of
Artillery; the Museum of the Mandatory of
the Gobelins, with its unrivalled tapestries
the Musee Dupuytren; the Museum of Natural
History at the Garden of Plants, and the
Museum Of the Works Of Living French
Artists at the Luxembourg Palace. Notwith-
standing the telegraphic despatch which says
that these precious works have been destroyed,
we are unwilling to believe that the precaution
of removing them to place of safety, accord
ing to an intention announced by the Paris
authorities nearly three months ago, has been
neglected.
Beyond the delightful garden of the Luxem-
bourg rises the Observatory, founded by the
famous Colbert, and dear to astronomers fr ON
the days of Cassini to those of Arago and
Leverrier. Not far from the same garden are
the numerous colleges, lyceums and schools
which, either connected or not with the Uni
versity of France, have contributed 80 largely
tellectual progress. The Sorbonne is occu-
pied by three of the Faculties of the Uni
versity, theology, literature and the
sciences. The Ecole de Medicine and
the Ecole de Drsit are devoted to the
other two Faculties medicine and law. Besides
these there are the College of France, the Ecole
Normale, the Ecole Polytechnique, the Ecole
de Mines, the Ecole des Points ct Chaussees,
and many other special schools, together with
several Lyceums, such as the Louis-le- Grand,
the st. Louis and the Napoleon, formerly
Henri w. Among the great public libraries
now liable to be destroyed by as barbarous
fire as that which burned the old Alexandrian
library, must be specially named the Mazarine
and the St. Genevieve, to say nothing of
the invaluable aggregate of book wealth CON-
posed by the libraries of the various colleges
in the Quarter Latin.
There are, moreover, the hospitals-the
H6pital de la Charlie, the H6pital du Midi,
the H6pital des Cliniques, the H6pital for
the Blind the Hospital for the Deaf and Dumb,
and, to enumerate no others in the long list Of
civil hospitals, the world-renowned Founding
Hospital. Foremost among the military hos
pitfalls is the H6pital du val-de-Graoe, with
its ancient church, the corner stone Of which
was laid in 1645 by Louis XIV, and which is
clustered richly with proud and tender his
torical "reminiscences.
Among the other churches in this doomed
portion of Paris we need only mention St.
German -des-Pres, St. Etienne- -du-Mont, with
its exquisite gallery St. Sulpice, with Its two
dissimilar towers; St. Thomas d'Aquin, Ste.
Genevieve, or the Pantheon, and that elegant
modern edi6ce, Ste. Clotilde, to show how
rich it is in ecclesiastical associations, which
are now being desecrated.
With the Odeon, the second Theatre Fran