Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-10-05
MORE CORRESPONDENTS FROM
PARIS.

Our young traveller, Charles At
kins continues to write to his family
from Europe. We give extracts
from One Of his letters dated Aug. 8:
PARIS, Aug. 3, 1878.
CHURCHES.
/ have visited the two finest
churches of Paris-Notre Dame and
the Madeleine. Notre Dame is a
magnificent edifice of Gothic style,
built in 1I63-11S2; so it is 200 years
old. Its stained glass windows are
very fine Indeed. Its numerous
pieces of allegOrical statuary, its
lofty dome, supported by seventy
five marble columns, its grand old
bell weighing sixteen tons, its inn
mense organ, all are quite interest
ing to the visitor, as well as some of
the sacred relics. Among the latter
may be mentioned a mail" of the
''true cross" fragments of the
''crown of thorns and fragments of
the "true cross" / don't say that
they ever came from Mount Calvary,
though.
Notre Dame is built on the site Of
where a Christian Church of the
fourth century was. 1t is also situ-
ated in a part of the city that was a
town in the time of Julius Caesar,
known then as the town of Lutetia
ParisiOrum, when France and Ger
many, under thename of Geul, were
tributary to the Roman Empire.
The Madeleine is built in the eX-
act style of the old Greek temples
$50 feet long, 40 feet broad and 100
feet high. 1t is built exclusively Of
stone, stands upon a pedestal TWEEN
ty-three feet high and is surrounded
by eighty massive Corinthian col
umns. The high altar consists of a
fine group in marble representing
Mary Magdelene being borne into
paradise by two angels. A very
beautiful piece of marble work.
Then to the back Of the altar, on
the vaulted ceiling of the choir, is q
large fresco work in stone, repre-
senting various stages of historic
Christianity. In different places on
the walls are sculptured representa-
tiOns of Christ, different martyrs
and saints of the Catholic Church,
pOpes and kings who have figured
largely in Catholic history. The
Church choir here on Sunday is
composed of some of the finest ope-
ratio singers of the city, and they
did make splendid music last Sun
day. That was the only part of the
service | could appreciate.
THE LOUVRE.
The Palace of the Louvre is the
finest public building of Paris, both
i'm architectural display and on ac-
count Of its treasures of art. 1t is an
immense building, situated near the
heart of the city, on the bank of
the Seine, covering some twenty
acres of ground, and holding all the
more valuable treasures in paint
ings, statuary and museum relics
that the different royal courts of
France collected for centuries, re-
gardless of cost.
The Egyptian Museum here is
the most important collection of the
kind in Europe, affording as far as
possible for relics to do so a complete
survey of the religion, customs and
art of life of this ancient and inter
esting people. Here are to be seen
a liberal number of Egyptian
sphynxes, fantastic figures with lions
bodies and mems heads, which were
erected in pairs to guard the en-
trance to their temples; Il number
of "steles" or vOtive stones, erected
to the memory of deceased persons,
bearing inscriptions and representa-
tions to their deities, Iris and Osiris;
several sarcOphagi to the memory
of different kings of Egypt, dating
back from the fifth to the twenty
fifth and thirtieth centuries before
the Christian era a stone recording
the military exploits of ThOthmes
the Second, regarded as the greatest
OF the Egyptian mOnarchs, lived b.
G. sixteenth century; another Civ
ing a condensed history of the early
Egyptian Empire, dating from the
thirty-tifth to the twenty-fifth cen
fury b. c.; an Egyptian mummy
who had been embalmed in the
twelfth century B. G.. A pretty
long nap he has had of 1900 years.
| guess he thinks Gabriel's trumpet
is rather slow about waking him up.
L
Khafra, the builder of one of the
pyramids of Egypt B. C. 5000.
The ASsyrian museum furnishes
quite a number of interesting relics.
The kingdom of Assyria, or Assur,
was the land of NimrOd Of the BIZ
BILE. Assur, its capitol, was after
wards called Ninevah. In the As
syrian department are some PhHni-
clan relics. The PhRnicians are the
people who first discarded the cum
brous hyeroglyphics of Egypt and
gave to the world the present Euro
pean alphabet, Il valuable gift. Now,
if some modern PhOenician would
reform the English alphabet and
give us exactly fOrty-One different
letters to represent the foTty-One
elementary sounds in our language
that we now represent with twenty
six letters by making some of them
have four and five sounds each-if
some modern PhRnician would only
make that change for us, and then
throw overheard all silent letters in
spelling, he would confer a great
blessing on humanity.
We find in the Louvre also a lot
of statuary and relics of the Roman
Empire, very interesting in a his
tOric point of view and alsoas works
of art; also statuary and sculpture
of the middle ages, and all the fine
paintings that one cares to look at.
The Louvre possesses more paint
ings by Raphael than any other
gallery of Europe; also number by
all the other old masters, as they
are called, such as Leonardo, Titan,
Rubens, Nannucci,
Bellini, Caliari, Nersara, Sebastian,
etc. One very remarkable item
about these fine oil paintings is that
they retain their freshness and clear
ness of color remarkably well for
their age. a great many of them
are from 100 to 300 and $50 years
old. No painting is admitted into
the Louvre at all until ten years
after the death of its author, and
then only the works of such as have
gained considerable reputation. |
have made a number of visits to the
Louvre-quite pleasant, interesting
and instruct.
PERE LA CHAISE.
have rambled through Pere la
Chaise, the most noted cemetery Of
Paris. A great many noted persons
are buried there. The style of mon |