Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/312

This page needs to be proofread.

CHURCHES. PANTHEON. 287

librarians are always in attendance, to reach such as are desired. Tables, with inkstands, are in readiness for those who desire to make extracts, and no conver sation is allowed to disturb such as may be engaged in profound researches. It was pleasant to see so many of my own sex seated silently at these tables, and ab sorbed in the pursuit of knowledge.

The magnificence of the churches in Paris, and the multitude of their paintings, statues, and bas- relievos, are noticed by all. At Notre Dame and St. Roch, we saw the pompous service of the Ro mish ritual, and the appearance of deep devotion among the worshippers, especially those whose garb announced great poverty. But without the doors, and in all the streets, went on the accustomed move ments of toil and of pleasure, building houses, dig ging trenches, trallic of market-people and trades men, review of troops, rush of throngs intent on amusement, as if the Almighty had not from the begin ning, set apart for himself a day of sacred rest. To one inured to the quietness and hallowed observance of a N<_\\ England Sabbath, this desecration is peculiar! y painful.

The pulpit eloquence of France is with much more gesticulation than in England, or our own country. Indeed, the vehement style marks most of the public speaking that we heard there ; at the Bourse, where the merchants negotiate sales of stock, and transact other business at the very top of their voices ; in the

�� �