Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/225

Rh quite different to what I had seen in London a couple of years before.

In London, the most miserable quarter, the darkest streets of the city had been pulled down; its most wretched dens, dens of crime and poverty, had been broken into, and light and air poured into them, whilst at the same time dwellings of a better kind had been built for the laboring class and no expense spared to provide the artisan with a wholesome dwelling, good water, fresh air, light, and whatever else might aid in elevating him. In Paris the object had been first and foremost to beautify the principal quarters of the city. The avenue from the Tuileries across the “Place de la Concorde” to the Barriere de l'Etoile, is perhaps one of the most beautiful which any city can show; and more than one evening I sat delighted on the terrace of the Tuileries, in silent contemplation of its perspective, whilst the golden autumn sun went down calmly on the opposite bank of the Seine. Rue de Rivoli, with its handsome houses, stood like a regiment on full parade, and the walls of the Louvre covered with decorative sculpture. In the immediate suburbs of Paris, Louis Napoleon had constructed artificial lakes and mountains, to the great delight of the inhabitants of Paris. But L'Isle de Seine with its gloomy, mouldering masses, the Bureaus of Police and Justice looked like the most befitting haunt of all the gloomiest mysteries of Paris, and on the first of October of the present year, there were found to be in