Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/90

 80 PAEIS Corinthian columns in red marble and sur- mounted by a triumphal car and four bronze horses, modelled after the horses of St. Mark in Venice. This court is bounded on the west side by what was the main body of the Tuileries palace, whose western facade, 1,000 ft. long, The Tuileries and Louvre, before 1871. now in ruins, looks on the gardens of the same name, with their flowers, fountains, statuary, orange trees, and groves of horse chestnut trees, through which the grand alley leads to the finest square in Paris, once named place de Louis XV., then baptized place de la Ee volu- tion in blood flowing from the guillotine set up there in the reign of terror, and since styled place de la Concorde. It is ornamented with balustrades and rostral columns, and with eight pavilions, each surmounted by a figure representing one of the principal French towns, Strasburg still among the rest. In the mid- dle of the place, between two fine fountains, rises the obelisk of Luxor, a monolith 72 ft. high, first set up in front of the great temple of Thebes 32 centuries ago by Eameses II. It stands on the spot where once stood a bronze equestrian statue of Louis XV., which was afterward melted into republican cannon, and where his grandson was executed. It was erect- ed here in 1836 by the orders of Louis Philippe. On the north of the square are two palaces, each 288 ft. front, with colonnaded facades rest- ing on arcades ; they are separated by the rue Eoyale, 90 ft. wide, which opens a view of the portico of the Madeleine. On the south and on the left bank of the Seine, crossed here by a fine bridge partly built of stone from the Bas- tile, are the Palais Bourbon and palace of the ministry of foreign affairs, beyond which are seen the spires of Ste. Clotilde and the gilded dome of the Invalides. On the W. side, be- tween two groups in white marble by Cous- tou, each representing an impatient horse re- strained by an attendant, is the entrance to the grand avenue of the Champs lys6es, which is a mile and a quarter long. The Champs lys6es are planted with trees and laid out in parterres profuse with flowering plants and shrubs. Here are cafes, open-air concerts, marionette theatres, apparatus for children's games, and a hundred tasteful booths stored with play- things and toothsome refreshments ; and on all pleasant days and evenings in the mild sea- son a multitude of old and young, strolling or sporting under the trees, or sitting on the rows of chairs along the sidewalks watching the carriages and horsemen that throng the ave- nue. For other tastes there are a circus and a panorama; and in close proximity the Mabille, the most brilliant and notorious of Paris dan- cing gardens. On the Champs Elysees also is the palais de ^Industrie, originally construct- ed for the world's fair of 1855, whose ample spaces are now put to use for national exhi- bitions of industry, horticulture, agriculture, the fine arts, &c., some one or more of which are held there yearly. Midway in its course the avenue spreads into a circular place, called the rond point, embellished with foun- tains, and thence continues, bordered now with stately houses, to the place de 1'fitoile. Here is the arch of triumph, begun by the first Napoleon for a monument to himself and the glory of the grande armee, but only com- pleted by that peace-loving monarch Louis Philippe. It is the grandest extant structure of its kind, rising in harmonious proportions from a base of 147 by 75 ft. to a height oi 162 ft. The central archway is 48 ft. broad and 95 ft. high. The inner walls are inscribed