I Consider The King Of
Prussia As Not Only A National Benefactor, But The Benefactor Of The
World.
Cologne, when finished, will be the great epic of architecture,
and belong, like all great epics, to all mankind.
Well, Madame M. and I wandered up and down the vast aisles, she with
her lively, fanciful remarks, to which there was never wanting a vein
both of shrewdness and good sense.
When we came out of Notre Dame, she chattered about the place. "There
used to be an archbishop's palace back of the church in that garden,
but one day the people took it into their heads to pull it down. I saw
the silk-bottomed chairs floating down the Seine. They say that
somebody came and told Thiers, 'Do you know the people are rummaging
the archbishop's palace?' and he shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Let
'em work.' That's the say, you know; mind, I don't say it is true!
Well, he got enough of it at last. The fact is, that with, the French,
destructiveness is as much developed as constructiveness, and they are
as good at one as the other."
As we were passing over one of the bridges, we saw a flower market, a
gay show of flowers of all hues, and a very brisk trade going on about
them. Madame told me that there was a flower market every day in the
week, in different parts of the city. The flower trade was more than
usually animated to-day, because it is a saint's _fete,_ the
_fete_ of St. Louis, the patron of Paris.
The streets every where showed men, women, and children, carrying
their pots of blooming flowers. Every person in Paris named Louis or
Louise, after this saint, has received this day little tokens of
affection from their friends, generally bouquets or flowers. Madame
Belloc is named Louise, and her different friends and children called
and brought flowers, and a beautiful India China vase.
The life of Paris, indeed of the continent, is floral, to an extent of
which the people in the United States can form no conception. Flowers
are a part of all their lives. The churches are dressed with flowers,
and on _fete_ days are fragrant with them. A _jardiniere_
forms a part of the furniture of every parlor; a _jardiniere_ is
a receptacle made in various fanciful forms for holding pots of
flowers. These pots are bought at the daily flower market for a
trifle, in full bloom and high condition; they are placed in the
_jardiniere,_ the spaces around them filled with sand and covered
with moss.
Again, there are little hanging baskets suspended from the ceilings,
and filled with flowers. These things give a graceful and festive air
to apartments. When the plants are out of bloom, the porter of the
house takes them, waters, prunes, and tends them, then sells them
again: meanwhile the parlor is ornamented with fresh ones. Along the
streets on saints' days are little booths, where small vases of
artificial flowers are sold to dress the altars.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 217 of 233
Words from 112042 to 112556
of 120793
