Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-06
GLIMPSES OE PARIS.
The Gay Metropolis of France Compared
With London-A Drive Through Streets
Memorable for Revolutionary Scenes
The Salon in the Louvre-Parisian
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH. ]

l II
are little visited by tourists. There are somt
pleasant summer and winter places along the
sea- where people go. And the climate of the
| South of France is proverbial for its gentle
ness. But there seems to be no great pilgrim
| age in that direction. The summer visitor goes
| elsewhere. Even on the map that part oi
| France does not attract. You look over the
names of the towns, and you notice that they
| are not many, and that OF even the few you
| havescarcely heard before. These ought to be
| somewhat worthy of attention in that old do.
main of romance. The troubadours were fond
of it. The "Court of Love-" that singular in.
stitution of the times of song and chivalry, was
held there. 1t is pleasant to read of the art
| and literal ture, and the gentle living, and the
| worthy and wise and Tolerant thinking which
| was done in Southern France in the
days when the ballad of "Ancassin and
Nicolette" was written and before Simon de
Montfort came. That was the beginning of
evils. Simon de Montfort visited Southern
France somewhat as William of Normandy
visited NoTthumtria. A crusading army fol-
lowed behind him. 1t was the North against
the South. And the North conquered. The
South of France has not played any great part
from the InQulsition.
Boedeker has guide book, however, to
Northern France. There are more towns
there. You notice the difference from the car
window. Yet even in the North there are no
places of great Importance. The truth is that
France is country of one city. and that city,
of course, is Paris. The life of France centers
in Paris 1t is true that in England people speak
of London as the town." as if there were no
other. And even as far away as Lincoln you
will hear it SAID II am going to town to-mor-
row." meaning London, as one might speak in
Williamsburg of Pittsburg. And London is, in
deed, place of some size. But England is a
land of busy, prosperous and notable towns.
The train is all the time stopping at important
stations. 1t is not so in France. There Is only
one town III France, and the name of it is Paris.
The French Metropolis at Night.
The cabmen of Paris drive like Jehu, the son
of Nimshi. 1t was nearly midnight when the
Oriental express drew up in the Paris station.
and the cabman to whom we instrusted our
selves and our luggage had no obstructions of
traffic in his way, and on we went over the
smooth pavements, past the gas lamps and the
lighted drinking places. with the stars over our
heads and the great somber shadows of the
high buildings beside us, past the groups at the
corners of the streets, past the Louvre with its
treasures of art, and the Tuileries Garden with
Its suggestions of old mobs and riots, till We
stopped in the courtyard of the Hotel Conti-
mental. One who comes thus into Paris by
night gets a most significant sight of that
strange city in the half-hour journey between
the station and the hotel. He catches glimpses
which he can never forget of its beauty and its
misery, of itsstateliness and its wickedness and
of its past; and he wonders what next awaits
the city in the future. l spent nearly week
in Paris, and the week accentuated the i'm
pressions of that hasty glance.
The streets of Paris run between the state
liest buildings in Europe There are certain
points of advantage in London it is true, which
seem to touch the high mark of impressive
ness. Trafalgar Square, with the Nelson col
umn, and the facade of the National Gallery
and the view from beside st. Margaret's, West
minister, where the Abbey stands on one hand
and the Parliament buildings on the other. are
really finer than anything in Paris. And
Princes street. in Edinburgh, is more beautiful
even than the Champs Elysees. But Paris
abounds in striking combinations, and noble
squares, and stately monuments, and imposing
buildings. The omnibuses and the street cars
of Paris and London, and indeed, of all the
cities on this side the water, have seats on top.
1t is strange that we are SO behind the rest OF
the world in this. And from these high seats
one can see the town. Take one of the great
omnlbuses which run from the Madeleine to
the BaStile, and climb up the winding stairway
to one of the sky seats. The way traverses
some of the most attractive parts of Paris.
GIimpses of Historic Spots.
You ride through the fine, wide, shaded
boulevards. If it is toward evening the little
round tables which crowd the broad sidewalks
in front of the cafes are surrounded by drink
ers and smokers and takers and lookers-on.
All Paris is In the streets, walking leisurely
about or slipping cups of cafe noir OF taking
arches of triumph, set up by some of the Ma
poleons, and memorable more recently as the
places where barricades were set in the days OF
the commune and beside which some of the
hardest fighting was DONE Finally you get to
the wide square in the midst of which stands
the high column which marks the place where
you climb up inside that gigantic brazen pipe |
STEM where for two-th1rds of the way you are |
in almost complete blacKness, feeling your way
step after step interminably, you get out at last
he1nA ond 1Nn1y drvTr
all Paris lying at your feet. The boulevards |
radiate out toward the ten corners of the earth.
The domeS and spires and towers of famous |
buildings are visible over the tops of the tall |
houses. That green space out in the distance |
is Pere LIE Chaise, where Abelard and Heloise |
lie buried. That other green park nearer at |
hand is where they set up the guIllot,ne in the
days of the revolution. Down this brown |
street below the mob came surging out of the |
ST. German hurrying to assault the |
Bastile.
If you walk in the Rue de Rivoli |
you pass the park whichwas once the garden of |
the royal palace. Here stood the fair facade |
of the Tuilleries. Here was the riding school |
the unfortunate Louis before them. Here the |
Swiss Guards fought the mob. If you turn |
into the Place de la C0ncorde to look |
at the obelisk of Luxor, you are on the |
spot where the headsman was kept |
busy decapitatlng aristocracy: The |
bridge which you cross. as you go from the |
Louvres to the great gallery of modern art mas
terpiece in the Luxembourg. is built of stones |
from the prison of the Bastlle If you go out
into the country to Versailles to see the palace
which the residence of Louis XIV. has made |
and notorious. and the quaint,
formal, geometrical garden amid whose regu-
larities the court of that monarch led their
very irregular lives, you cannot look out of the |
palace windows down that wide, magnificent
avenue which leads to Paris without remem-
bering how Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette
looked one day out of the same windows and /
saw that broad avenue full OF hurrying women,
the women of riotous Paris, coming on like a
legion OF furies, and shrieking like an army of
lends.
A Small. .Sized Riot.
The Parisians are exctable people still. The
smallest unusual thing in the Paris
streets attracts a crowd. A dispute be-
.ween a cabman and a reluctant fare
payer blocks the whole street. One
lay 1 saw a fight in the Avenue de POpera
It was very brief and nobody was hurt much,
put the crowds went wild over it. Everybody
One needed but to multiply IL by 100 to realize
many tragic pages of French history.
Paris possesses the most beautiful room in
Europe. 1t is in the Louvre and Is called the
Salon Care. The room has no furniture in il, |
lor is the ceiling glorious, as 1t is in the Doges
Palace OF III the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
The beauty of the room is in its pictures. Muir
Hos Immaculate Conception" is hung in this
'oom and his "Holy Family" and Raphaels
La Belle Jardiniere" and Da Vincrs Mona
-,isar and Paul Veronese's Marriage Feast at
lana" and 40 or so other masterpieces. 1t is a
place to spend year in. The rooms of the
In embarrassment of riches. The eye grows
weary with looking. And the walls of the
Luxembourg are even. more beautiful
han those of the Louvre. Because at
ba Ton xuI,i oh |