ward to that destiny which awaits all moral and physical spendthrifts. Paris, the gayest metropolis of the world, is likewise the saddest. The city which hears the loudest laughter, likewise witnesses the greatest number of suicides. If vanity sends its thousands into courts and public spheres, mere weariness of life sends its hundreds to the Morgue. Last September was for Paris, one of the gayest months of 1836. In that same month, in that same city, from many motives, but chiefly ennui, there were sixty-six suicides. What other city of Europe, or the world, has a public showroom for its unknown dead? And who would imagine, as at evening he walks through the brilliant arcades of the Palais Royal, amidst its ever-restless, laughing, multitudes, that he was moving amidst masses of vice and unhappiness, to which no other scene can furnish a parallel! What Paris is to the world, the Palais Royal is to Paris. Here is centred the brilliancy, the vivacious life of the great metropolis, and likewise here in secret chambers, are first cradles of its crime, its wretchedness, its despair. 'Do you observe,' said my companion, as this evening we walked along the Boulevards, do you observe that mansion so brilliantly illuminated? It looks happy enough. I know its inmates. They are tame men and women, who long ago used up life. They go on vegetating now. They are as gloomy and

triste, as any thing you may see among the fallen aristocracy of the Faubourg St. Germain. They are but the type of thousands.'

The traits of character and conduct which I have in

part traced up, not fancifully I hope, to these little centres of juvenile resort, are themselves, indeed, the effects of a hundred causes. The broad tide of French feeling, emotion, thought, and opinion, as it flows in 1837, is made up of multitudinous tributary streams, whereof some have been running for ages, and some have commenced within the last fifty years; whereof some take their rise in depths, and some upon the surface. I have sourced up only one of these streams to its fountain.

I have not yet spoken of the moral character of the dramas performed at these theatres. The tendencies above remarked upon, belong to them, whatever be the moral character of their representations. I am happy now to say, that so far as my observation has extended, this character is not very exceptionable. It may with truth be said, that at all the great Parisian theatres, the passions put into action in the tragedies are generally of the fiercest description, while the comedies and vaudevilles are either based upon, or involve, a seduction. For the former, the horrors of the grand revolution have prepared Parisian audiences. The latter are faithful transcripts of present Parisian life. Into the children's theatres, like pieces seldom go. Their dramas are light, unsubstantial; seldom are they immoral. The taint of the general spirit has not fouled them. In the midst of surrounding impurity, they generally remain pure. In this respect, I doubt not their tendency is good. And if all influences now working upon French society, as it passes from child

hood into youth, and from youth to manhood, were so modified as to harmonize with the morality of these little plays, the social aspect of things would here be soon much changed.

In my observations upon these establishments, I trust I may not be charged with having given undue importance to insignificant matters. I look at them only as a single wheel in a vast system of social and moral influences. They are peculiar to this metropolis. The United States have them not. In no other part of Europe will you find any thing like them. For an explanation of what is peculiar in French character or society, its peculiar institutions must be questioned. My reader, who knows what great ends are wrought by small means;-who sees in the youth of a nation the image of its manhood;-who feels how often are life-decisive the impressions upon the young; -and who would judge of their future by some tendencies of their present, will hardly deem the hour wasted, which is given to the Children's Theatres of Paris.

261

XVII.

THE TOMBS AT ST. DENIS.

'Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.'

SHIRLEY.

A LEAGUE'S walk from the Barrière, between two rows of trees, brought me within sight of the ancient towers of the church of St. Denis. This church is, in one respect, the Westminster Abbey of France;—it is the burial-place of her Royal Dead.

It is among the oldest buildings in the kingdom. Parts of it trace their origin to the time, when Christianity was first introduced into France. In the year 240, St. Denis came hither from Rome to preach the Gospel. He suffered martyrdom by decapitation. The legend says that no sooner was his head cut off, than St. Denis arose, and seizing upon the detached portion, conveyed it with exceeding gravity, more than a league, to the site of the present church, while angels chanted round him, Gloria tibi, Domine.' Arrived here, he deposited his head at his feet, and yielded up the ghost. A Roman lady, named Catulla, erected a tomb over his body in 315. This tomb was soon after enclosed within a chapel. In 496, St.

Genevieve re-established this chapel on a larger scale. In 580, king Chilperic there buried his young son Dagobert. This was the first royal inhumation at the church of St. Denis. The chapel was, in 629, enlarged and embellished by king Dagobert; and the adjacent abbey of monks, belonging to the order of St. Benoit, was enriched. At different periods was

the chapel reconstructed and improved, until it took its present form in 1373.

The first object which caught my eye on entering, was a part of the stone tomb of old king Dagobert, in a wall on the left. Remounting, as it does, more than a thousand years, I looked upon it with much interest. It is in the form of a gothic chapel, and is carved out into bass-reliefs. These bass-reliefs are quite curious. They represent the dream of a certain Sicilian hermit. In the lowest section, you see Dagobert dying, while St. Denis exhorts him. There also do you see a boat, wherein stands Dagobert's soul, while devils, of unutterable hideousness, torment it. In the next section above, the soul of the poor king is still seen as before, surrounded by demons, but lo! St. Denis and St. Martin are approaching upon the waves to rescue him. Still higher up, you see the king raised by saints towards heaven in a sheet, and finally, in the highest compartment of all, are St. Denis and St. Martin kneeling, as they pray Abraham to receive Dagobert's soul into his bosom. Leaving this specimen of old art and superstition, I walked to a similar object upon the opposite side of the church.