The Louvre Palais, which contains the Musée, and the Tuileries are just across the Rue de Rivoli, with the Place de la Concorde a little farther up. The Grand Opéra is but a few squares away, with the American Express office near it, and the Church of the Madeleine hard by.
RUE DE RIVOLI, SHOWING TUILERIES GARDENS
The Place de la Concorde is an immense square with mammoth pieces of sculpture at each corner, representing the provinces taken from the Germans. One of these provinces was recaptured by the Germans, but instead of marring the Place by removing the statue, it is kept draped with crêpe and wreaths of flowers. In the center of the square is the obelisk, with fountains playing about it.
The roads are as white as snow, both through and around the Place. It is framed in green by the Tuileries, the Champs Elysées, and the banks of the Seine.
There is a view one gets right here which cannot, perhaps, be excelled in all the world. If you stand at the court of the Louvre in the space where the Arc du Carrousel meets the Louvre Palais, and look through the arch, the eye catches at once the green of the Tuileries garden and its trees, the dazzling brightness of its marbles, the sparkling of its fountains, the obelisk, and far on through the Champs Elysées, the Arc de Triomphe, which makes a fitting finish for this most glorious vista.
I am at loss to tell you just what to do with only a week in this little world, but let nothing deter you from coming. I would rather have come for one day than never to have seen it at all. With a week on your hands, and an inclination in your heart, you can do wonders in this the most fascinating city on the globe.
Were one to be here but a short time, a drive over the city should occupy the first day. Parties are sent out every day, with guides who know the best routes, and it is not a bad idea to join one of them. Do not, however, go with a party to see interiors or the works of art, for one is so hurried that one scarcely knows what has been seen.
As an illustration: Two young girls stopping at our pension joined one of these parties going to Versailles the same day that Suzanne and I went.