Paris CHAPTER LVIII. Place de la Concorde Place du Carousal Place Napoleon Place and Column of Vendôme Column of July - Place de la Bastile - Place du Trône - Champs Élysées - Siege of Paris Arc de Triomphe Portes St. Martin and St. Denis- - Tour St. Jacques Palais Royal. 375 Paris CHAPTER LIX. Destruction from the War Reception of the Emperors of Russia and Austria and King of Prussia in 1867 — Emperor and MUNICH BAVARIAN STATUE AND HALL OF FAME. VENICE-COURT OF THE PALACE OF THE DOGES. ROME COLISEUM OF VESPASIAN. FONTAINEBLEAU - GARDEN AND PALACE. PARIS PLACE VENDÔME. PARIS-TOUR DE ST. JACQUES DE LA BOUCHERIE. PARIS LUXEMBOURG PALACE. SKETCHES OF TRAVEL, OR TWELVE MONTHS IN EUROPE. CHAPTER I. N undertaking to give some sketches of travel in Europe, it may be as well to start from New York, although there is hardly anything more monotonous than an ocean trip on a smooth sea; and as we (myself and wife,) had fine weather the most of the way, our passage over was without any remarkable incident. We sailed the 12th of May, 1875, a good time to start, on the Cunard steamship "Scotia," commanded by Captain LEITCH, a first-rate officer. We chose this ship because she has side wheels. The number of passengers did not exceed eightyall strangers to us except Horatio Stone, the sculptor, who was on his way to Rome never to return. He had formerly resided there a considerable length of time, and in reference to our apprehensions of danger in visiting that city, he ridiculed the idea of its being any more sickly there than in any other city. Whether or no he contracted there the disease which carried him off, we are not advised; but, on reaching Geneva. in September, we heard with sorrow that he had died sometime in July or August, at Carrara, the place of fine Italian marble quarries. Our departure from New York was marked by the usual crowd and excitement-friends come to bid farewell-the hurrying to and fro between ship and shore-and finally, as our great vessel moved slowly from her moorings, the casting of pennies into the water as a means of appeasing the evil spirits of the deep-the waving of handkerchiefs and other demonstrations of affection-the earnest looking to catch the last view of friends any one who has ever started on such a voyage knows all about this. Byron has truly said: "It is an awkward sight He means, we imagine, when "life is rather new' in such experiences. A first ocean trip, surely, gives rise to sensations never before felt; but the effect on all persons is not always the same. For ourselves, we are free to admit that we were keenly sensible to the truth of the remarks of Madame de Staël, that "it becomes a much more serious matter to quit one's country, when in going away it is necessary to cross the sea. Everything," she says, "is solemn in a voyage of which the ocean marks the first steps: it seems that an abyss opens behind you, and that the return may be forever impossible. Moreover, the sight of the sea always makes a profound impression; it is the image of the Infinite which attracts the soul incessantly, and in which, without cessation, the soul appears to lose itself." If not deadened by nausea, on finding one's self on the broad bosom of the ocean in a fair day, one experiences a feeling of exhilaration not easy to describe; but nausea unmans one quite," and any intellectual effort while in that state should be regarded with 66 |