l'univers ;" but they certainly possess two incontestable grounds for attracting our attention and justifying our amazement-the magnitude of the design, and the wondrous rapidity of execution. The same merit may be justly claimed by the new Rue de Rivoli. This magnificent street, running parallel with the quays and Boulevards, now extends to the Fontaine de Birague, opposite the church St. Paul St. Louis. From the Place de la Concorde, where it commences, it runs along an endless succession of stately art monuments, such as the Tuileries, the Palais Royal, the Louvre, St. Germain l'Auxerrois, the Tower of St. Jacques la Boucherie, the Town House, and the Column of July. The portion of this street extending from the Rue de Rohan to the Rue Culture Sainte Catherine furnishes the fairest evidence of the humanity that suggested this great artery. More than thirty pestilential streets and alleys have been removed, and a whole quarter cleared and ventilated. The Tower of St. Jacques has been restored in its pristine pomp and surrounded by a handsome garden, and the Town House has been thoroughly cleared from obstructions; in the rear is the colossal barrack called Caserne Napoléon, a perfect fortress, connected with the Town House by a subterranean passage; and in front, a magnificent new street, christened Avenue de Victoria, in honor of our queen's visit to Paris. Another great artery is that known by the name of the Boulevard de Sébastopol, running from the Strasbourg Railway station in the Faubourg Poissonnière to the Place du Châtelet. These streets have cost an enormous sum in payments to leaseholders and running up the new buildings; thus, the new Rue de Rivoli, which swallowed up more than five hundred old houses, cost 81,563,000 fr. But, in spite of this, the Emperor has been in defatigable, and it is an extraordinary fact that the restorations have been carried on in every quarter of Paris almost simultaneously. On the island of the Cité important works have been undertaken: a broad street has been laid down from the Parvis Nôtre Dame, running to the Council House, over the Pont d'Arcole, which has been converted from a suspension-bridge for foot-passengers only into a handsome stone bridge with a broad highway. Great improvements have also been effected in and around the Palais de Justice; the block of houses between the Sainte Chapelle and the Quai des Orfèvres has already been pulled down, and the quay widened up to the Rue de la Barillerie. On the left bank of the Seine equally surprising alterations have been effected. The Faubourg St. Antoine naturally afforded no great opportunity for demolishing; still the architects have found it necessary to pull down some houses in order to form new routes of communication. In the Quartier Latin enormous alterations are projected, which must drive the students to despair. Four wide streets are to be formed, crossing each other at right angles, and intersecting the entire Quartier. The two streets running from east to west, parallel with the Seine, are the Rue des Ecoles and the Boulevard St. Germain; the two running from north to south are the Rue St. Jacques, a continuation of the Rue St. Martin on the right bank, and the Boulevard de Sébastopol, which is intended to run as far as the Barrière d'Enfer in the Faubourg St. Jacques, and intersect entire Paris for a distance of nearly three miles. These streets are to be completed in five years, at a cost of 37,650,000 fr.; and thus a stop will be put to the complaints that have been prevalent as to the left bank being neglected. One of the principal results produced by the wholesale demolition of houses in the center of Paris has been that the faubourgs have greatly increased in population. The Faubourg St. Antoine has been thus enriched by upwards of thirteen hundred new houses, or more than sufficient for a population of forty thousand. A similar phenomenon is now visible in the Faubourgs St. Germain and St. Marcel, and the buildings will grow up with magical celerity so soon as the Boulevard de Sébastopol had become an established fact. In the first and second arrondissements a multitude of new houses have also sprung into existence, and the Tivoli garden has entirely disappeared. This garden lay at no great distance from the northern boulevards, in a quarter between the Faubourgs Montmartre and St. Honoré, opposite the Pavillon du Hanôvre on the Boulevard des Italiens, and extended thence to the Barrière de Clichy. Even though it might appear a paltry spot when compared with Horace's Tibur Supernum, the Roman Tivoli, whence it derived its name, it contained within its ample space every requisite for pleasure- the footsteps of Jussieu, the inhabitants. gardens; but the greedy eye of speculation surveyed it, and Tivoli was doomed. The ruthless ax was laid to the root of the chestnut trees and silver poplars, the grass-plats were cut up, the visitors were expelled, and some dozen streets soon occupied the fairy spot. For a while the gardens might still be traced, howthe first purchasers of "eligible building spots" considered it a point of honor to leave a clump of trees or a bosquet near their houses; and in some places entire alleys and gardens might be traced. But the quartier soon began to be regarded as fashionable, and the demand for building sites rapidly destroyed all the trees. On the Place Vintimille, in the Rue de Douai, Rue de Calais, etc., the trees have all been cut down, and the quartier now resembles any other, except that the houses are eagerly caught up, and frequently entered upon before the building is finished. The park of Monceaux, near the Barrière de Courcelles, which reverted to the state by the Orleans succession, will soon endure the fate of its pristine neighbor Tivoli, which it far surpasses in convenience and space. The speculating builders have already invaded it, for it is known that two main roads, the Boulevard de l'Impératrice and the Boulevard Malesherbes, are to run through it. Even the Champs Elysées, which so reluctantly allowed admission to bricks, appear fated. An Anglo-French company has been established, under the title of the "Company of the Champs Elysées," and holds out most flattering offers to shareholders, great and small. It has already purchased a piece of land of more than one hundred thousand metres, and, we believe, has commenced operations. Every available spot between the banlieue and the wall of circumvallation is by this time built upon, and even beyond them the Parisians are now setting up their lares. There seems, in truth, no end to the extension of the city, for the entire population, down to the poorest laborer, is affected by a desire for living out of town. The botanist, who not long ago was enabled to herbalize near the Barrière de l'Etoile, on now seeing the Bois de Boulogne converted into a Parisian promenade, may perhaps be justified in giving way to a gentle sigh; but while he is compelled to go farther afield to follow in VOL. XLIV.—NO. IV. of Passy, Boulogne, and Auteuil sing a pæan of praise at the conversion of their scrubby wood into a magnificent park. An ordonnance of the 8th July, 1852, gave the property of this wood to the city of Paris, on condition that it expended two millions of francs upon it in four years. This condition has been more than fulfilled in three years the city laid out three millions and a half in converting the sandy plain into a garden. If we take into account the four million francs expended expended in forming the Avenue de l'Impératrice, with the two millions spent in building the new hippodrome of Longchamp, as well as all the improvements projected, we must allow that the city of Paris has spared no expense in producing a pleasure-garden such as the Parisians could desire. Under the management of Monsier Varé, the old scene of duels and suicides has been converted into the Paradise of Imperial Paris: it already displays trees and bushes of every variety, hedges and labyrinthine flower beds, shady walks and Elysian alleys, rocks and grottoes, a hill with a gentle slope and pleasant view of the surrounding scenery, silvery ponds and foaming cascades, green islands with flower-gardens, châlets, and harbors; boats and swans upon the water, stags and deer upon the meadows, singing and chirruping birds in the trees and bushes the whole produced, as it were, by a magician's wand. There are also numerous respectable hotels, where refreshments of every description may be obtained, a magnificent room for concerts and balls, and a hippodrome, where thousands of persons may drive and ride without impediment. The Bois has justly become the favorite resort of the Parisians, and we may say it assumes the character of a botanic garden, as almost every variety of tree has its habitat here, having been brought from all parts of the world to satisfy the luxurious desires of the Parisian populace. Since the gardens of Paris have been destroyed for building purposes, it was found advisable to take especial care of the few oases left. Hence a commission has been appointed for this purpose with a very efficient staff. The city of Paris now holds possession of eight inclosed grounds, forming promenades or squares; on one side the Bois du Bologne with its annexes, the plain of Longchamp and the 34 Avenue de l'Impératrice, on the other the | Then, again, we are told that the chimPlace Royale, the Place de l'Archevêché, neys are of extravagant dimensions, ocand the squares round the tower of St. cupying more than half the side of the Jacques, in front of the church of St. room, and costing a small fortune in firing. Clotilde, at the Temple, and at the ruins But the true Parisian cares little for these of the old Roman palace of the Thermæ. things; so long as the exterior of his house In addition to these, the city possesses more is handsomely decorated with stucco, gildthan fifty-seven thousand trees, planted ing, and statues, he is perfectly satisfied, in the Champs Elysées, the quincunxes of and these things are lavishly expended in the Trocadero, the inner and outer boule- Imperial Paris. At the same time, Paris vards, the quays, and a few open spaces; has been newly furnished to correspond the whole of the plantations occupy a with the new style of building, and thus space of more than two hundred acres; an immense sum of money has been the oldest, on the Champs Elysées, dating brought into circulation; and if such from 1617. The outer boulevards are amusements keep the people quiet and adorned in some parts with double rows contented, who are we that we should of lofty trees, dating from 1760; but the gainsay the wisdom of the imperial policy? inner boulevards lost nearly all their trees in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848; those left are too stunted, and the newlyplanted trees too young to offer any shade. As a general rule, the trees planted in the streets of Paris have proved a failure, in spite of the care devoted to them; they die off rapidly, and the gamins do their part in accelerating their death. The authorities have recently planted large nurseries in the Bois de Boulogne, where they experimentalize on the best varieties of trees, and arrangements have been even made with the gas companies, which will in future prevent the trees being poisoned by the exhalations from the pipes. If these prophylactic measures are in any way successful, we may live in hope of seeing trees planted in our own streets-somewhere before the advent of the Millennium. It would lead us too far, were we to stop and discuss the result of all these changes in the aspect of Paris. For a time rumors were prevalent of discontent at the great increase of rents, but these appear to have subsided, and the population of Paris to have "accepted the situation" with resignation. There appears to be more truth in the statement that, in these new buildings, internal comfort has been too often sacrificed to external effect. Among the numerous jeremiads we have heard, the principal refer to the instability of the houses and the thinness of the walls. Another inconvenience is the immoderate height of the windows, which open after the Italian fashion from top to bottom, and are fastened by a heavy iron bar, which a puff of wind is sure to blow open. In so slight a sketch as ours it would be impossible to give more than an outline of the improvements in Paris which the Emperor has effected; but what we have said will suffice to prove how admirably he has provided for the physical comfort and well-being of the lower classes. By a stroke of his pen he has affected a marvelous change, such as we have so long desired at home, which has been debated and discussed under a hundred different aspects among us without producing the slightest satisfactory results. It is true that eminent philanthropists have subscribed to build model lodging-houses, but we doubt whether St. Giles has lost one denizen by their erection; and though schemes have been ventilated for lodging our artisans out of town and enabling them to come to their labor each morning by train, we do not find any prospect of its fruition. And yet it is a question which will have to be grappled with sternly before long: the safety of our population demands that such lurking-places of disease must be eradicated, and the legisla ture is alone capable of strenuously interfering. The pleasing fiction that every man's house is his castle," has, like so many other fictions, been overturned by the Board of Health, and it would require but a step to carry out in London all that the Emperor has so successfully achieved in Paris. At any rate, we are forced to admit that they manage such things better in France" on the sicvolo sic jubeo principle than we can effect by the united efforts of our Board of Health and Sanitary Commissioners. 66 From Colburn's New Monthly Magazine. CURIOSITIES OF BIRDS AND INSECTS.* Ir is seldom that the historian of man "That which I now publish came solely from occupies himself with the inferior animals. the family, from the domestic hearth. It is There seems to be almost an antagonism from our hours of repose, from afternoon conbetween the two. Man, whether contem-versations, from winter readings and summer plated in relation to the past, to the pro- book. gossip, that this book took its origin-if it is a gress ever going on in the present, or to the great future conditionally held out to him, occupies a preeminence which unfits the intellect, busy with so great a theme, for pursuits of a comparatively insignifi cant character. Yet that lessons of the highest import and interest to humanity, of purposes omnisciently working to an end, of relations coördinated by an infinitely wise Creator, and of goodness evidenced in the adaptation of structure to functions in the very lowest grades of animated beings, are to be derived from the pursuit of natural history, is well known. There is a natural theology as well as a revealed religion, and happy is he to whom both books are open. If the one enlarges the mind, the other gratifies the intellect, and all who have tasted of the joys and pleasures derived from the contemplation of Nature, even as a Gosse would make her known to us in her least regarded aspects, have felt that there are no gratifications more pure, no pleasures less alloyed, than such as are derived from these simple, harmless, and yet instructive pursuits. We have been led into this exordium by the fact that the well-known and deservedly-esteemed historian of man-J. Michelet-has published two volumes on Natural History-one on "Birds," the "Insects." How he was led to the study of nature, he shall tell us himself; it so fully bears out our own feelings other on in the matter: "I owe to a friendly and faithful public, who has listened to me so long, and has never cast me off, a statement of the circumstances which, without taking me away from historical pursuits, led me to Natural History. *L'Oiseau. Par J. MICHELET. Deuxième édition "Two active persons naturally united after the day's work, put their gatherings together, and warmed their hearts by their evening's repast. "Is that to say that we had no other helps? It would be alike unjust and ungrateful to pass them over. The familiar swallows that lodged tame robin redbreast that flew about me cast under our roof took a part in the gossip. The tender notes into it, and sometimes the nightingale would suspend it by its solemn concert. "Time weighs. There has been life and labor, violent changes, and the dispersion of a world of intelligence in which we lived, and to which nothing has succeeded. The rude toils of history found a relief in instruction, which was From whom, then, can we ask for repose and friendship. Their interruption is now silence. moral refreshment, if it is not from nature? "The powerful eighteenth century, which embodies a thousand years of combats, found repose in the amiable and comforting (although feeble in matters of science) book of Bernardin de Saint Pierre. It finished with that touching losses wept for in the bosom of nature!'" sentence of Ramond's: 'So many irreparable This is, at all events, a great step. To the individuals themselves concerned-the historian and his wife—a great discovery. the best, left more to regret than to adThe study of man's past career had, at mire the present had been brimful to overflowing of calamities; they asked for something else than tears given to solitude, or the moral apothegms by which it is sometimes sought to heal the wounded heart, and they found in the simple pursuit of nature a cordial with which to go ever onward, a drop that came from overflowing sources, a new strength, nay wings!" From such a source something peculiar and original must be expected. In what does this manifest itself? We will endeavor to ascertain. First, we are told that the historian going to extremes, seek revue et augmentée. 1856. L'Insecte. Par J. ing for a bird in a bird, and an insect in MICHELET. 1858. an insect, has avoided all human analogies. With the exception of a few chapters, both | in the middle of a wilderness. A neglectworks are written as if birds and insects ed garden suited both tastes. The abundstood alone, and man had never existed. "Man could not have lived without birds, who alone have saved him from insects and reptiles; but birds could have lived without man. "With or without men the eagle would equally reign in its throne on the Alps. The swallow would not the less make its annual migration. The frigate-bird, albeit unobserved, would not the less hover over the solitary ocean. The nightingale would chant its sublime hymn in the forest, even with greater safety, without waiting for a human audience. And for whom? For her whom it loves, for its offspring, for the forest, for itself indeed, who is its most delicate auditor, and the most in love with its own song." But the historian- the man who in Michelet's own language has drunk of the strong and bitter wine that flows from the fountain of all history-can not separate himself from man. It is in vain that he tells us that his natural history shall seek no analogies in human nature; humanity is at the bottom of all. It is not long ere it breaks out : "The religious faith which we have in our heart, and which we teach here, is that man shall pacifically rally all the earth about him, that he will gradually find out that every adopted animal, every living creature that is domesticated or at least brought to such a degree of friendship or neighborly communication as its nature is susceptible of, will be a hundred times more useful to him than it could be with its throat cut. "Man will only be truly a man when he shall seriously work at that which the earth expects from him: "The pacification and the harmonious gathering together of living nature. "A woman's dream, some one will exclaim. Where's the import? "Granted that a woman's heart had a part in this book, I see no reason for advancing this as a reproach. We accept it as praise. Patience and mildness, tenderness and pity, the warmth of incubation, these are the very things which make, which keep, and which develop a living creation." It was in 1852 that Michelet broke with his usual habits, and locking up his books with bitter joy, he sought the country air for the sake of the health of a beloved person. The site selected was near Nantes, where the yellow waters of Brit tany join the gray flood from La Vendée. The house, an old château in the style of Louis XV., long uninhabited, and placed ance of fruits, vegetables, and plants of all kinds fed a number of domestic animals. The worst was that knowing each they could not eat them. The same abundance fed no end of slimy things, Michelet worked at his "History of the snails, insects, and grubs. In the morning Revolution of '93," an heroic and fatal epoch, which filled his every thought and inwardly consumed him. It was, he says, a daily struggle of affection and of nature against the gloomy thoughts of the world and of man. the "Birds of France," by Toussenel. In the evening they read Sickness overtook them here, and they removed to a more southerly climate, and nestled for a time in a valley of the Apennines, some two leagues from Genoa. But there the orange and the lemontrees, harmonizing in their changeless foliage with the ever blue sky, grew monotonous. Animal life was infinitely rare. There were no little birds, no sea birds. Fish do not frequent those transparent waters. "I could pierce them," says Michelet, "with my eyes to a great depth, and see nothing but solitude and the black and white rocks which make up the bottom of this marble gulf." There was no walking, only a little stony rugged pathway circulating between the old garden walls, the precipices, and the sea. As to ascending the hills, it was a feat of gymnastics altogether beyond their strength. The physicians had also interdicted the pen, so the historian was left to his eyes and his thoughts, and a new world was thus awakened in him. The first friends he made were the lizards that peopled the rocks. At first they were shy, but scarcely eight days had elapsed before the dreamer was known even to the youngest, and they pursued their innocent and graceful evolutions indifferent to his presence. A fly was to them a banquet. On such an arid soil the povera gente of the coast were little better off. The analogy suggested a train of thought the culminating point of which was the resuscitation of the Apennines! From what little things do great results sometimes flow! But still the orange groves seemed silent and gloomy deprived of birds. The historian felt for the first time that human life becomes a serious thing when man is without the ban of those innocent creatures whose move |