Paris

par'is, the capital of France. It is situated on the Seine River, about 100 miles from the sea. The very center of the city consists of two islands in the Seine. They have been formed by consolidating many former small islets to which the Gallic tribe of the Parisii crowded in time of danger, and on which the original Roman citadel was erected. In the time of Louis XIV there were half a million people. Benjamin Franklin found about 600,000 inhabitants. The present city covers thirty square miles and had in 1906 2,763,393 inhabitants. It is still growing rapidly. Paris is not only the largest city on the European continent, but it is the French capital,--the center of French thought, politics, art, and fashion. It is the most attractive large city in the world.

The banks of the Seine are protected by massive stone walls. Second-hand book dealers and others expose their wares on the coping. Stone steps lead down to the water's edge. Numerous craft dart this way and that, taking on and landing passengers. Wide stone-arched bridges cross at frequent intervals.

The map of the city has been reconstructed in modern times. Many of the historic streets have disappeared, and large areas have been razed, replotted, and covered with imposing edifices. There are numerous open centers called places. They are round, triangular, square, or of irregular shape. They bear the names of the Bastille, Hotel de Ville, Alesia, Eylau, L'Etoile (the star), Trocadero, Vauban, Republique, Nation, Vendome, Opera, Pantheon, etc. From these centers boulevards and avenues of uncertain number and direction radiate somewhat like spokes from the hub of a wheel. Napoleon began this sort of street engineering in order to establish centers where cannon might be placed to overawe the Parisians in case of insurrection. The idea works both ways, however. The modern Communists established themselves in the places and barricaded the streets in every direction.

In 1840-5 the city was surrounded by a line of fortifications called the Enceinte. It crosses the Seine twice and is twenty-one miles in length. The ramparts are thirty-two feet high, with a parapet or walk on top nineteen feet wide. They are surrounded by a moat forty-eight feet wide. They are strengthened by ninety-four bastions. The principal roads are defended at various distances from the walls by sixteen detached forts. The original cost of the fortifications was $25,000,000. During the Franco-German War of 1870-1 they were sufficient to hold the Germans at bay until the inhabitants were starved into surrender. From most directions the walls have the appearance of natural declivities. Railways and carriage roads enter by ample gateways so disguised with vines and shrubbery that the traveller is not aware usually that he is entering the largest fortification on the globe. A boulevard within follows the wall from gate to gate.

The city is situated over a vast bed of chalk. The system of sewerage is very complete. Four main tunnels, one for each quarter of the city, two on each side of the Seine, run parallel to the river and join in an underground chamber beneath the Place de la Concorde. A large tunnel carries the entire sewage to the Seine at a point well below the city. Large sewers, joined by smaller and still smaller ones, undermine all parts of the city. There are in all over 600 miles of these drains. They are infested by rats and have been the haunt of refugees and criminals. In Les Miserables Victor Hugo gives a vivid picture of an underground man-hunt. The sewers are one of the sights of Paris. Brief visits, in which ladies may take part, are permitted at times by the prefect of the Seine. A considerable portion of the sewage is utilized below the city in irrigating lands for market gardening.

Vast water reservoirs in the suburbs are filled by conduits from mountain streams a hundred miles distant. The streets of the city are paved chiefly with a combination of rubber and asphalt laid on a concrete foundation. Streams of water run along the open gutters night and day, not only cooling the air, but carrying street sweepings into the sewer system. For so thronged a city, the streets are comparatively quiet. They are brilliantly lighted, cleanly swept, and free from dust. Fifteen thousand cabs are for hire at a rate of forty cents an hour. A network of tramways and omnibus lines is supplemented by steam launches and suburban railways. Both tramcars and omnibuses have seats on an upper deck, to which passengers, ladies included, may ascend by little outside stairways. Fares vary, transfers included, from three to ten cents, according to distance. At hours when there is a rush of travel numbered tickets are issued at the stopping places and passengers are admitted accordingly. When the seats are full, the car moves on. The conductor admits only those to whom he is able to offer seats.

Tobacco is sold only by government agents, that is to say, by the postmasters. The tobacconist's shop is indicated by a red street lamp. It is also a branch postoffice. A system of pneumatic tubes, a sort of special delivery system, permits the sending of letters and postal cards from the center of the city to the suburbs. Postal telegrams may be sent at any hour of the day or night at the rate of one cent a word for points in France. Express packages are carried by the postal department at a small charge. Restaurants, cafes, and rooms to let are in evidence everywhere. The larger hotels have reading rooms, well supplied with English and American newspapers. French newspapers are carried on the street or sold at the windows of tiny octagonal street corner kiosques. Le Petit Journal, a penny paper, has a circulation of 650,000.

The ground floor of nearly all buildings, save in the most aristocratic quarters, is occupied by shops. The shops on the fashionable boulevards make a brilliant display of silks, drapery, ribbons, millinery, gloves, jewelry, silverware, cut glass, confectionery, mirrors, furniture, table delicacies, and the thousand and one articles of personal and household adornment for which Paris is noted. The shopkeepers of Paris were the first to recognize the value of plate glass windows. The glass block and the department store of America originated in Paris.

The downtown streets are thronged all day and are especially gay in the evening. There are over forty theaters. Some of these have names of wide adoption, as the Opera, the Theatre Francaise, the Comique, the Odeon, the Vaudeville, the Varietes. Permanent circuses, panoramas, and hippodromes attract their share of the crowd. The Grand Opera House is the finest and largest building of the sort in the world. Thirty different kinds of stone are employed for inside decoration.

It is impossible to give more than a general description of a city all the streets of which certainly no traveler and probably no native has even seen. With the aid of a map an irregular circle of boulevards may be traced about the heart of the city. They follow the line of former walls that, in the day of the Huguenots and Catharine de Medici, surrounded a smaller and older city. Within this circle and on the left or south bank of the river, lies the old Latin Quartier, or the university neighborhood, with its college buildings, library, museums, gardens, and art schools. Twelve thousand students are in attendance. Hard by is the Quartier St. Germain, the traditional residence section of the aristocracy, the quarter in which officials, foreign ministers, and ambassadors reside.

The Pantheon is a historic place of burial. The catacombs of Paris are here. The palace, garden and art gallery of the Luxembourg, garden of plants, and the menagerie, the factory where the Gobelin tapestry is made, Napoleon's tomb, the parliamentary buildings, the museum of artillery, the museum of Cluny, the military school and barracks, and the old abbey of St. Germain are all on the south side of the river. Adjoining the military school, and running from it in a broad band to the Seine, is the famous parade ground known as the Champ-de-Mars. In the days of the Revolution the Parisian men and women, to the number of 60,000, surrounded the grounds with an embankment, the better to see the ceremonies and pageants of the Republic. Trees were planted and seats provided for half a million people. Napoleon conducted open air festivals here; Louis Philippe presented his colors to the national guard here, and here Napoleon III distributed his emblems. The banks have been leveled. The Exposition Universelle of 1867 and of 1878 were held on the Champ-de-Mars. A portion is now used as a race course. The Museum-de-Cluny occupies the site of an old Roman palace. In 361 Julian was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers here. The baths of solid masonry still remain. The chamber for cold baths is 65 feet in length, 37 feet wide, and 59 feet high. It is of interest as indicating that the Roman occupation meant something more than marching a few legions across the country now and again.

The islands in the Seine midway between the university town on the south shore and the commercial town on the north shore were formerly the government quarter of the city. They still retain fine specimens of architecture. The Palais of Justice or supreme court; Hotel Dieu, or city hospital; the morgue; police headquarters; La Sainte Chapelle, a gem of Gothic architecture; and old Notre Dame Cathedral are here. The streets are extended to both shores by fine stone bridges.

The larger part of the city lies on the north or right bank. It is the city of fashion and commerce. The most noted boulevards, the largest opera houses, and the great hotels are on this side of the river. There are numerous monuments. The obelisk of Luxor, the Vendome column, and several triumphal arches are on this side. The Louvre, Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, and Champs Elysee extend along the shore in the very heart of the city for two miles. These grounds, with the river and bridges and approaching boulevards, form the most noted breathing place to be found in the world.

Among historic spots are the site of the old Bastille, the Quartier St. Antoine in which red republicanism broke out, and the National Library which possesses 2,500,000 well bound volumes. To pass along in front of each bookcase, aisles not counted, would require a walk of thirty-five miles.

The city markets occupy a vast structure of iron and zinc. There are ten pavilions, covering twenty-two acres. The site alone cost the city $12,000,000. There are 2,500 hucksters' stalls, rented at four cents a day. From $500,000 to $1,000,000 worth of meat, fish, poultry, game, oysters, vegetables, fruit, butter, cheese, and flowers are sold each day. The slaughter houses supply 400,000,000 pounds of fresh meat yearly. The number of animals slaughtered in Paris in an average year is as follows: cattle, 250,000; calves, 205,000; sheep and goats, 1,676,000; hogs, 230,000. Nearly all these animals are raised in France, the stock raisers of the country being protected by a very high tariff.

The square tower of St. Jacques rises near the Hotel de Ville or city hall. It is all that remains of a handsome Gothic church of that name. It is 175 feet high. Pascal performed his celebrated experiments with his barometer here. The summit commands a magnificent view of the city. The Seine, the wide, white boulevards, the open pleasure grounds, the great buildings, and the country around form the busiest, the most populous panoramic view in Europe.

In addition to the artistic, scientific, and historic features of the city, it must not be forgotten that Paris is a "hive of industry" and a commercial center. The manufactures are extensive and varied. The railroads of the country, the most systematic arrangement of lines in Europe or any other country, center at Paris. A network of canals connects the Seine with the waterways of Belgium and France. Some of these canals reach the Seine by tunnels passing under the city. Capacious basins lined with docks and warehouses receive the canal boats.

The immediate vicinity of Paris is a zone of truck gardens. There are over 12,000 of these gardens. They comprise about two acres each and with their glass plant houses and other improvements they are valued at from $10,000 to $12,000 an acre. They rent for $400 or $500 a year. Most of the truck is taken to market by women who trundle home a return load of city manure. One hundred and twenty million head of lettuce alone are produced yearly.

See Abattoirs; Bastille; Catacombs; Concorde; Cuvier; Exposition; Louvre; Morgue; Napoleon; Notre Dame; Pere Lachaise; St. Cloud; St. Denis; St. Germain; Sorbonne; Tuileries; Versailles; Vincennes; Octroi