Near the east end of the Champs-Elysées, under the gas light and beneath the trees, they found open-air theaters, concerts, crowded cafes, and pretty booths supplied with sweets and drinks. Every afternoon if the weather is favorable, tastefully dressed children appear in charge of nursemaids in white caps and aprons, and together they make picturesque groups in the shade of elm and lime trees.
At breakfast, Leo proposed a study of Paris, as seen from the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, so named from the star formed by a dozen avenues which radiate from it. The location is at the west end of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. This monument is one of the finest ever built by any nation for its defenders. It is 160 feet in height, 145 in width, was begun in 1806 by Napoleon and completed thirty years afterwards by Louis Philippe. Figures and reliefs on the arch represent important events in Napoleon's campaigns. Arriving at the arch, Leo led the way up a spiral staircase, 261 steps to the platform above which commands fine views of Paris.
The Champs-Elysées, a boulevard one thousand feet in width, extends east over a mile from the monument of the Place de la Concord. Handsome buildings flank the sides, and much of the open space is shaded with elm and lime trees. Grand statues, fountains, and flowers add their charm. Between three and five o'clock every pleasant afternoon this magnificent avenue becomes the most fashionable promenade in the world. Here you will behold the elite in attendance at Vanity Fair; many are riding in elegant equipages, many on horseback, and almost countless numbers on foot.
The popular drive is out the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 320 feet in width, to the Bois de Boulogne, a beautiful park of 2250 acres, containing several lakes and fringed on the west side by the River Seine. In the southwest part of this park is located the Hippodrome de Longchamp, which is the principal race-course near Paris, where races attract vast crowds, especially when the French Derby or the Grand Prix of twenty thousand dollars is competed for early in June.
The Harrises standing on the monument, looked eastward, and Leo pointed out the River Seine shooting beneath more than a score of beautiful stone and iron bridges, and making a bold curve of seven miles through Paris. Then the Seine flows like a ribbon of silver in a northwesterly direction into the English Channel. On the right bank is seen the Palais du Trocadero of oriental style, which was used for the International Exposition of 1878. On the left bank stands the Palais du Luxembourg, rich in modern French art, the Hotel des Invalides, where rests Napoleon, and the Church of St. Genevieve, or the Pantheon, where Victor Hugo is buried.
Beyond the Place de la Concord are the Royal Gardens of the Tuileries, where Josephine and Eugenie walked among classic statues, vases, fountains and flowers; the Louvre filled with priceless art treasures, the beautiful Hotel de Ville or city-hall, majestic Notre Dame, and the graceful Column of July. Paris is truly an earthly Paradise. For centuries it has been the residence of French rulers, and the mecca of her pleasure loving citizens. Fire, famine, foreign invasion, civil war, and pestilence have often swept over this, the fairest of cities, yet from each affliction, Phoenix-like, Paris has risen brighter and gayer than ever.
Gertrude, May, and Lucille were charmed with the fair vision before them, and were anxious to leave the Arch of Triumph and become a part of the gay city. The carriages drove back to the Place de la Concord, one of the finest open places in Europe. Around this place the chief cities of France are represented by eight large stone figures. That of Strasburg the French keep in mourning. In the center stands the Obelisk of Luxor, of reddish granite, which was brought at great expense from Egypt and tells of Rameses II. and his successor. Other ornaments are twenty rostral columns, bearing twin burners. On grand occasions this place and the avenue are illuminated by thirty thousand gas lights.
In the Place de la Concord the guillotine did its terrible work in the months between January 21st, 1793, and May 3rd, 1795, when thousands of Royalists and Republicans perished. Two enormous fountains adorned with Tritons, Nereids, and Dolphins beautify the court. No wonder the brilliant writer Chateaubriand objected to the erection here of these fountains, observing that all the water in the world could not remove the blood stains which sullied the spot.
How beautiful the vista up the broad and short Rue Royale, which conducts to the classic Madeleine! Alfonso was entranced with the beauty of this rare temple, which was begun and finally dedicated as a church, though Napoleon earnestly hoped to complete it as a temple of glory for his old soldiers. Its cost was nearly three million dollars. A colonnade of fifty-two huge fluted Corinthian columns and above them a rich frieze surround the church. The approach is by a score and more of stone steps and through enormous bronze doors on which the Ten Commandments are illustrated.
Entering the Madeleine, one sees an interior richly adorned, floors of marble, and lofty columns supporting a three-domed roof, through which light enters. On either side are six confessionals of oak and gilt, where prince and peasant alike confess their sins. Beyond is the altar of spotless marble. How beautiful the group of white figures, which represents Madeleine forgiven, and borne above on angels' wings! This artistic group cost thirty thousand dollars.