CHAPTER VI. "Types of a race who shall the invader scorn, Their country leave unconquered as of yore." CAMPBELL. I STARTED at an early hour for the palace of the Tuileries. A show of my card of membership of the Congress (which had carried me through so many of the public buildings) was enough to gain me immediate admission. The attack of the mob on the palace, on the 20th of June, 1792; the massacre of the Swiss guard, on the 10th of August of the same year; the attack by the people, in July, 1830, together with the recent flight of King Louis Philippe and family, made me anxious to visit the old pile. We were taken from room to room, until the entire building had been inspected. In front of the Tuileries are a most magnificent garden and grounds. These were all laid out by Louis XIV., and are left nearly as they were during that monarch's reign. Above fifty acres, surrounded by an iron rail-fence, fronts the Place de la Concorde, and affords a place of promenade for the Parisians. I walked the grounds, and saw hundreds of well-dressed persons under the shade of the great chestnuts, or sitting on chairs, which were kept to let at two sous a piece. Near by is the Place de Carrousel, noted for its historical remembrances. Many incidents connected with the several revolutions occurred here, and it is pointed out as the place where Napoleon reviewed that formidable army of his, before its departure for Russia. From the Tuileries I took a stroll through the Place de la Concorde, which has connected with it so many acts of cruelty, that it made me shudder as I passed over its grounds. As if to take from one's mind the old associations of this place, the French have erected on it, or rather given a place to, the celebrated obelisk of Luxor, which now is the chief attraction on the grounds. The obelisk was brought from Egypt at an enormous expense, for which purpose a ship was built, and several hundred men employed above three years in its removal. It is formed of the finest red syenite, and covered on each side with three lines of hieroglyphic inscriptions, commemorative of Sesostris,—the middle lines being the most deeply cut and most carefully finished; and the characters altogether number more than sixteen hundred. The obelisk is of a single stone, is seventy-two feet in height, weighs five hundred thousand pounds, and stands on a block of granite that weighs two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. He who can read Latin will see that the monument tells its own story, but to me its characters were all blank. It would be tedious to follow the history of this old and venerated stone, which was taken from the quarry fifteen hundred and fifty years before the birth of Christ, placed in Thebes, its removal, the journey to the Nile, and down the Nile, thence to Cherbourg, and lastly its arrival in Paris on the 23d of December, 1833,- just one year before I escaped from slavery. The obelisk was raised on the spot where it now stands, on the 25th of October, 1836, in the presence of Louis Philippe, and amid the greetings of one hundred and sixty thousand persons. Having missed my dinner, I crossed over to the Palais Royal, to a dining saloon, and can assure you that a better dinner may be had there for three francs than can be got in New York for twice that sum,- especially if the person who wants the dinner is a colored man. I found no prejudice against my complexion in the Palais Royal. Many of the rooms in this once abode of royalty are most splendidly furnished, and decorated with valuable pictures. The likenesses of Madame de Stael, J. J. Rousseau, Cromwell and Francis I., are among them. After several unsuccessful attempts to-day, in company with R. D. Webb, Esq., to seek out the house where once resided the notorious Robespierre, I was fortunate enough to find it, but not until I had lost the company of my friend. The house is No. 396, Rue St. Honore, opposite the Church of the Assumption. It stands back, and is reached by entering a court. Duroccupied by M. Duplay, The room used by the pointed out to me. It ing the first revolution it was with whom Robespierre lodged. great man of the revolution was is small, and the ceiling low, with two windows looking out upon the court. The pin upon which the blue coat once hung is still in the wall. While standing there, I could almost imagine that I saw the great "Incorruptible," sitting at the small table, composing those speeches which gave him so much power and influence in the con vention and the clubs. Here the disciple of Rousseau sat and planned how he should outdo his enemies and hold on to his friends. From this room he went forth, followed by his dog Brunt, to take his solitary walk in a favorite and neighboring field, or to the fiery discussions of the National Convention. In the same street is the house in which Madame Roland - one of Robespierre's victims resided. - A view of the residence of one of the master-spirits of the French Revolution inclined me to search out more; and, therefore, I proceeded to the old town, and after winding through several small streets some of them so narrow as not to admit more than one cab at a time—I found myself in the Rue de L'Ecole de Medecine, and standing in front of house No. 20. This was the residence, during the early days of the revolution, of that blood-thirsty demon in human form, Marat. As this was private property, my blue card of membership to the Congress was not available. But after slipping a franc into the old lady's hand, I was informed that I could be admitted. We entered a court and ascended a flight of stairs, the entrance to which is on the right; then, crossing to the left, we were shown op into a moderate-sized room on the first floor, with two Here it was where styled himself) sat windows looking out upon a yard. the "Friend of the People" (as he and wrote those articles that appeared daily in his journal, urging the people to "hang the rich upon lampposts." The place where the bath stood, in which he was bathing at the time he was killed by Charlotte Corday, was pointed to us; and even something representing an old stain of blood was shown as the place where he was laid when taken out of the bath. The window, behind whose curtains the heroine hid, after she had plunged the dagger into the heart of the man whom she thought was the cause of the shedding of so much blood by the guillotine, was pointed out with a seeming degree of pride by the old woman. With my Guide Book in hand, I again went forth to "hunt after new fancies." After walking over the ground where the guillotine once stood, cutting off its hundred and fifty heads per day, and then visiting the place where some of the chief movers in that sanguinary revolution once lived, I felt little disposed to sleep, when the time for it had arrived. However, I was out the next morning at an early hour, |