Paris parks are world famous, not only for the beauty of such great expanses as the Bois de Boulogne, just outside the fortifications, with its forest and lake and stream, its good roads and its alluring restaurants, but for the intelligent utilization of small open spaces in crowded parts of the city. Wherever any readjustment of lines or purposes gives opportunity, there a bit of grass rests the eye and a tree casts its share of shade. If there is space enough a piece of statuary educates the taste or the bust of some hero of history or of art makes familiar the features of great men. The demolition of the old clo’ booths of the Temple gave such a chance, and amid tall tenements and commonplace shops mothers sew and babies doze and one-legged veterans read the newspapers beneath the statue of the people’s poet, Béranger.
At one end of this square rises the Mairie of the Third Arrondissement (ward). These Mairies, of which there are twenty, are decorated with paintings, often by artists of repute, and always symbolic of the Family, of Labor or of the Fatherland. The Hall of Marriages in which the Mayor of the arrondissement performs the civil ceremony required by law, receives especial attention and usually is a room handsomely appointed and adorned.
The French imagination likes to express itself
MAIRIE OF THE ARRONDISSEMENT OF THE TEMPLE.
SALLE DES FÊTES OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE.