The Boulevards are now merely very spacious streets, with avenues of trees at the sides, but formerly they were the boundaries of the city. They form a fashionable promenade for the Parisians, and abound with horsemen and carriages more than any other quarter of the town. Along the Boulevard Poissonnier are some of the handsomest houses in Paris. I dined with a family in one of them which commands a very cheerful scene. There are here, as in the Palais Royal, a vast number of coffee-houses, billiard-tables, and restaurateurs. The price of a dinner differs little from what is usually paid in London, but bread is about half the price, and there is a great saving in the charge for wine, with this additional advantage, that it is generally of much better quality than can be met with in London for double the price; as the heavy duties on importing French wines necessarily induces their adulteration. A stranger to French manners, is surprised at seeing ladies of respectability frequenting coffee-houses and taverns, which they do as matter of course;—so powerful are the habits in which we have been educated.
After the Boulevards, the Rue Royale and the Rue de Rivoli are the handsomest in Paris. The last named is far from being completed, and runs in a line, facing the gardens of the Tuilleries; in these two streets there is a division to protect foot passengers, but they are not flagged.
CHAP. IV.
The Royal Hotel of the Invalids, is one of the principal establishments in Paris, which claims the attention of the stranger, and I accordingly went to view it with a party of friends. The principal court has just resumed the title of Royal, but we could easily distinguish that it had been a few months since dignified by that of Imperial. Indeed, all over Paris, this change is very perceptible. The last letters are often in the old gilding, and the first part of the style only altered, as the French do not, in general, like to do more than is necessary, and but seldom condemn a house, but continue to patch it up in some manner, so as to make it last a little longer, which accounts for the appearance of antiquity which generally distinguishes their towns.
But to return to the Invalids. The establishment is said to be calculated to accommodate 5000 men; but we found upon inquiry, that the number then actually maintained did not exceed 3600. As it was their dinner hour, we went into their refectory; each man has a pint of the vin ordinaire, (the general price of which is from ten to twenty sous the bottle;) but I doubt whether it would be received as a substitute for malt liquor either at Chelsea or Kilmainham. The church of this establishment, is one of the most splendid in the capital. The ex-Emperor caused monuments to be erected here to Vauban and Turenne. The latter, by a special mark of the favour of Lewis XIV. had been interred in the royal vault at St. Denis; but his remains now rest here; and the monument is worthy of so distinguished a general. That to Vauban, on the opposite side, is by no means equally elegant.
The elevation of the dome of this church, exceeds that of any other building in Paris; and the French boast, that it rises to a greater height than St. Paul's Cathedral in London; but this I do not think is the case, although the point is of little moment. M. Dutens gives us the following scale of the comparative elevation of some of the highest buildings in the world.