The person who keeps the shop has the
manners of a lady; she wishes you good morning; and, if you do not
behave just as you would if you entered a lady's parlor, you are set
down as an American or Englishman, who does not know how to behave.
When you leave the shop also, you must remember to say, "Bon jour,"
or you commit an offence. How kindly the lady who keeps this flower
shop shows us all her flowers! how she seems to love them, as if
they were her children! We must get a bouquet to show our gratitude
for her kindness, though she would not demand it. At every street
corner is a woman with a basket of violets and evergreens. She
offers them in such a pretty way, taking care that you shall take
their perfume. You cannot resist them.
Now, suppose we were taking a walk, some other morning. Before us is
the "Place de la Concorde," all glistening in the spring sunlight.
See, there, in the centre, is the Obelisk - a monument of the time of
Sesostris, King of Egypt, erected by him before the great temple of
Thebes more than three thousand years ago, or fifteen hundred and
fifty years before Christ. This enormous stone, all of one piece,
seventy-two feet high, seven feet and a half square at the base, of
red granite, and covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, was given
to the French government by the Viceroy of Egypt, in consideration
of an armed and naval establishment which that government had helped
him to form at Alexandria.
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