Another celebrated Parisian church is the Pantheon, an immense edifice. This building was intended as a burial-place for illustrious men of France.
We have all heard of the famous cemetery of Père-Lachaise. It lies within the city, and will be interesting to us, not only because of its great size and beauty, and because it contains the graves of so many persons famous in art, science, literature, and war, but because it is so different from any graveyard to which we are accustomed. It has more than twenty thousand monuments, and many of these are like little houses standing side by side as if they were dwellings on a street. Each vault generally belongs to a family, and the little buildings are almost always decorated with a profusion of flowers and wreaths, and often with pictures and hanging lamps. Here, as in other French cemeteries, it is not uncommon to place a framed photograph of a deceased person over his grave.
There are small steamboats which run up and down the Seine like omnibuses, and the charge to passengers is about two cents apiece. These little boats are called by the Parisians mouches, or flies, and as they are often very convenient for city trips, we shall take one of them and go to the Jardin des Plantes, a very extensive and famous zoölogical and botanical garden. Here we may ramble for hours, and see animals from all parts of the world in cages, and houses, and in little yards, where they can enjoy the open air.
At the other end of the city, outside the walls, is the Jardin d' Acclimatation, that contains a great number of foreign animals and plants, many of which have been naturalized so as to feel at home in the climate of France. In one house here, we may see all kinds of silk-worms, with the plants they feed upon growing near by. In another part of the grounds we shall find trained zebras and ostriches harnessed to little carriages, in which children may take a ride; and we shall see some very gentle elephants and camels, on which we may mount and get an idea of how people travel in the East. We shall here perhaps call to mind the account of this place which was published in St. Nicholas more than ten years ago,—in June, 1874.
THE SARCOPHAGUS; THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
The Bois de Boulogne, adjoining this garden, is a very large park, where we can see the fashionable people of Paris in their carriages on fine afternoons.
There are certain goods sold in Paris known under the name of "articles de Paris." These consist of all sorts of pretty things, generally very tasteful but not very expensive, among which are jewelry and trinkets of many kinds, and a great variety of useful and ornamental little objects made in the most attractive fashion. These goods, of course, can be bought in other cities, but Paris has made a specialty of their manufacture, and many shops are entirely given up to their sale. A great number of such shops is to be found in the Palais Royal. This is a vast palace built for Cardinal Richelieu, in 1625, and is in the form of a hollow square, surrounding the garden of the Palais Royal. Around the four sides of the palace, under long colonnades and facing the garden, are rows of shops, their windows filled with all sorts of sparkling and beautiful things in gold, silver, precious stones, bronze, brass, and every other material that pretty things can be made of. By night or by day the colonnades of the Palais Royal are very attractive places, and as all visitors go to them, so do we. Even if we do not buy anything, we shall be interested in the endless display in the windows.
Another place we shall wish to visit is the famous manufactory of Gobelin tapestry. In this factory, which belongs to the Government, are produced large and beautiful woven pictures, and the great merit of the work is that it is done entirely by hand, no machinery being used. The operation is very slow, each workman putting one thread at a time in its place, and faithfully copying a painting in oil or water-colors, which stands near him, as a model. If, in a day, he covers a space as large as his hand, he considers that he has done a very good day's work. These tapestries, which are generally very large and expensive, are used as wall-hangings in palaces and public buildings. It will be an especial delight, I think, to the girls in our company to watch this beautiful work slowly growing under the fingers of the skillful workmen.
Outside of Paris, but not far away, there are some famous places which we must see. First among these are the palace and grounds of Versailles, a magnificent palace, built by Louis XIV. for a summer residence. This gentleman, who liked to be called Le Grand Monarque had so high an idea of the sort of country place he wanted, that he spent upon this palace and its grounds the sum of two hundred millions of dollars.[*] The whole place is now open to the public, and the grand and magnificent apartments and halls, some of them nearly four hundred feet long, are filled with paintings and statuary, so that the palace is now a great art gallery. The park is splendidly laid out, having in it a wide canal nearly a mile long. The fountains here are considered the finest in the world, and when they play, which is not very often, thousands upon thousands of people come out from Paris to see them. In the grounds are two small palaces, once inhabited by French queens; and one of these, called the little Trianon, was the beautiful home of Marie Antoinette, whose last home on earth was the brick-paved room of the Conciergerie. The private garden attached to this little palace, which is more like a park than a garden, possesses much rural beauty.