THE GOTHIC BRIDGE OF EUDES, TOurs. Being seventy miles from the sea, it enjoys security from sudden hostile aggression; and the river being navigable by vessels of 200 tons up to the town, an active commerce is at the same time retained. The quays are extensive, convenient, and form an agreeable promenade, and the Seine is crossed here by two bridges, one of stone, recently executed; the other, formerly of pontoons, paved, and rising and falling with the tide, is succeeded by a handsome suspension bridge, that does not obstruct the navigation. The transit trade of Rouen is considerable, especially since the establishment of steamboats between Havre and Paris, but it is for its manufactures that it is chiefly celebrated. These include cotton, linen, woollen, hardware, paper, hats, pottery, &c. There are, besides, many sugar-refiners in the city, and dyeing is extensively carried on. However, the main staple is cotton-spinning and weaving, which occupies two-thirds of the 55,000 persons engaged in manufactures, and so constitutes the same proportion of the two millions sterling of manufactured goods commonly produced. THE GOTHIC BRIDGE OF EUDES, TOURS. How often have I led the sportive choir With tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire ! GOLDSMITH. THE banks of the Loire are almost everywhere covered with villages, villas, cottages, cities, and churches: the vineyards present the most agreeable prospect, the plants climbing the steepest acclivities, and occupying stations unsusceptible of any other culture. These rich scenes are exchanged rapidly for others less precipitous, less bold, but neither less romantic or picturesque-scenes abounding in sylvan and in civic beauty. Nothing can exceed the charming site of the old city of Tours. It stands upon a plain included between two noble rivers, the Loire and the Cher, the surface being subdivided into compartments of every variety of cultivated land, corn-fields studded with fruit-trees, and the eye failing to find the boundary of the view, before a range of richly-cultivated hills ascends to protect the crops on the low-land from the west winds, that sometimes sweep destructively over less favoured localities. The approach to the city is a magnificent panorama, and the coup-d'œil remarkably grand. A bridge which spans the Loire is fourteen hundred feet in length, and fortyfive in width, having seventeen noble arches, and its causeway leads in a direct line to the rue royale, an avenue of great elegance. The town having been almost wholly destroyed by fire, Louis XVI. rebuilt the fronts of this grand vista, at the expense of the nation, on condition that the proprietors of the soil should restore the rest of the houses. In the vicinity are many exquisite close scenes, matchless in the gracefulness with which their different parts compose. None of these exceed in agreeable and calm character the picture which the old broken bridge of Eudes, the sluggish stream beneath it, the tapering poplars and spreading elms that wave over it, and the clustered towers of St. Martin's cathedral that out-top the city-roofs, affords. Eudes, Count of Champagne, was a nobleman of the boldest courage, and greatest caution. He contended successfully against the emperor, who pretended to the throne of Arles and Provence, so that when the nobles of Lombardy came into France in search of a king, they offered the crown not to Henry the First, but to Count Eudes. Encircled with victorious laurels, the voice of the people called Eudes to the throne, during the minority of the infant Charles; and, when he acceded to their wishes, he solemnly declared that he did so as guardian of the rightful prince. This generosity averted the blow that Germany aimed at France, and inscribed the name of Eudes amongst its kings. His vigour was exerted to restrain ambitious chiefs, re-establish regal authority, and introduce the arts of peace and industry amongst his subjects. Having subdued and slain Walgaire, repulsed the confederate armies from the gates of Paris, and extinguished everywhere the torch of discord, he proclaimed Charles the Simple, monarch of France, retaining for himself the district between the Seine and the Pyrenees, as a feudal tenure. Tours was once the favoured residence of this illustrious prince, and the citizen points, with pardonable pride, to the surviving evidence, that one so brave, generous, and just, selected this fair city as his most frequent home. PALACE OF THE TUILERIES. PARIS. The chosen ruler now resumes the helm, He guides through gentle seas the prow of state; THE façade of this sumptuous palace extends nearly one thousand feet, and the Pavillon de l'Horloge, its majestic centre, commands a view through a long vista of aged chestnut trees, across the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysées, and the Triumphal Arch, to the beautiful bridge of Neuilly, a distance of three full miles. There cannot be imagined a more imposing or exciting spectacle of the kind-one often imitated, but nowhere equalled-than the gay parterres, the foaming fountains, and stately groves, that lead the eye insensibly to the long drawn avenue, embellished but broken midway by the obelisk of Luxor, in the Place de la Concorde, and terminated by the celebrated colossal Arch of Triumph. But to whatever quarter the eye may be directed, the view is degraded by no unpicturesque or even unpleasant object. On one side is the Rue de Rivoli, a regular range of lofty buildings, sustained by an open arcade; on the other, the palaces of the nobility, succeeding one another along the sloping banks of the Seine, form the side-scene of the picture. The gardens of the Tuileries are open to the public from eight o'clock in the forenoon until sunset, and all are admitted indiscriminately, save persons carrying bur-* dens—a caution not confined to these beautiful promenades and palace-yards, but observed, scrupulously, in most great public institutions of France and England. No royal palace is approached by the people more nearly or less ceremoniously than this; there is a thoroughfare through the very hall or vestibule, and a single sentinel stationed there, prevents intrusion into the apartments, the grand staircase opening directly into the public passage. It is the line drawn from the Place Carousel that passes through the vestibule, which, passing across the gardens, connects the fashionable faubourgs of St. Honoré and St. Germain, and, of course, resembles a moving picture during the greater part of the day. The style of architecture does not mark any particular age; begun after the Renaissance, it was continued during a series of years. The tile-kilns, from which the present name of this royal home is derived, were the common depository of builders' rubbish, until purchased by Francis I., to enclose and complete the areas around the Louvre. Adjoining this locality there was a villa, where Louisa of Savoy, the mother of Francis, resided, which she bequeathed to Jean Tiercelir, maître d'hotel, and this successor parting with his interests, the estate was purchased by Catherine de Medicis, who commenced the present vast edifice for her personal residence. Philibert Delorme and Jean Bullant were the first architects engaged on the work, and they proceeded so far as the erection of the central and terminal pavilions. At this critical moment, the works were suspended, in consequence of an admonition pronounced by the royal astrologers, "Beware of St. Germain !"-This ominous announcement penetrated deeply the heart of the Queen, for it reminded her that her new palace was rising in the very parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and within sound of the tocsin that tolled the death-knell of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day. As that bloody tragedy was enacted under her auspices, she feared that vengeance which ever impends over the guilty; and, as if the decrees of Providence could be averted by the precautions of man, postponed altogether her intention of completing the Tuileries. Until the reign of Henri Quatre, no further additions were made to the imperfect design; under that prince, however, the building was entirely resumed, Duperac and Ducerceau added two long ranges of apartments, and raised two still loftier pavilions. The grand gallery was commenced at this period, and continued from the Tuileries to the palace of the Louvre, by command of Louis XIII. Built at different dates, a want of harmony prevailed throughout the exterior; this was partially remedied by Leveau and D'Orbay, and by order of Louis XIV., and the |