Paris, pleasure capital of the world, the ideal cosmopolitan city, a thousand different delights for a thousand different tastes, is as fascinating to the scholar and bookworm as to the tourist and the belle of fashion. The weary old world would die of melancholy if the light of gay Paris were to go out. Lutetia, as the Romans called the ancient town, is still the merry child in the family of nations. Fortune gave it favors without stint. Emperors and kings delighted to adorn it with a lavishness equalled by the lasting splendor of their gifts. Art and learning, the genius of ecclesiasticism and the desire for popular enjoyment, contributed the venerable edifices and their priceless treasures, and dowered the modern city with the heirlooms of many centuries. Notre Dame rose eight hundred years ago from the ruins of a fourth-century church. A few years ago were discovered the foundations of an amphitheatre capable of seating ten thousand people as far back as the year 350, when the city’s population must have been at least twice that number. No wonder all the world gathers periodically at this natural centre of everything that can make a city a miniature world in itself, for in the Paris of to-day stand side by side monuments and memorials of antiquity, and the grandest triumphs of latter-day genius in a profusion that bewilders the eye and the mind. It is as though the genii of all time and all peoples had conspired to shower their fairest gifts upon the favored spot of earth round which the drama of the ages has enacted its tremendous tableaux.

A run through its history must be the first item in the programme of the traveller who wishes to take with him his best pair of eyes. Then he will find the old gray stones turn into glass to let him see into the hidden glory behind. The lesser charms of the pretty city are palpable to any child. Yet it is impossible to look at the building or monument that first catches the eye without a flash-light of mere newspaper lore casting a momentary shadow, or glare, over it. It is not so long ago that the flames lit by the Commune brought the beautiful city nearer to ruin than all the storms of centuries had effected. In its long day Paris has suffered most of the ills that civic life is heir to. Its people have been subject to political maladies from time to time, that have endangered its very existence. A strange career, a blend of demoniac fury and light-hearted gaiety, yesterday its streets flowing with citizen and royal blood, to-day they echo with jubilant laughter, to-morrow—? The wheel is more likely to revolve than to stand long still. Paris alone among the great capitals of the world prefers change to stability, which is only another expression of her happy, mercurial temperament. France is sedate, plodding, content with present conditions until sure they can be bettered. Paris must gallop even if it costs a fall or two, which makes it the most interesting of all places.

When a city is little else than “sights” there is monotony in naming them. Paris itself commands first attention. The grandeur of its design, its famous boulevards, avenues and streets, and many of its ornamental features, must be credited to the last emperor, Napoleon III., whose dynasty came to grief at Sedan. Modern Paris owes more to his reign, and modern travellers more of their pleasure, than is ordinarily acknowledged. He bade Haussmann replace the old streets with the noble avenues that give inexhaustible sensations of delight at every turn and vista. A happy thought was that which perpetuates the great names of France in these street names; even literature is not forgotten, but reflects the honor it receives from tablets naming avenues after Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo and others.

The three-mile walk from the Place de la Concorde to the site of the old Bastille yields the ideal of city magnificence and personal delight. There is no disappointment of even extravagant expectation. This unrivalled Place is in itself a grand intellectual as well as artistic feast. The Luxor obelisk brings into mind Egypt’s six thousand years of strangest history, its Pyramids, its Sphinx, and Napoleon. Close to it the Revolution guillotined a king and queen, and an old aristocracy. Heroic sculptures range around the Place, symbolizing eight great cities of France, that of lost Strasburg veiled in mourning. From the Place and the twelve streets radiating from the Arc de Triomphe, it is not possible to go far without coming upon some striking feature.

The Church of the Madeleine is accounted the most exquisite building in the city, though it is modelled on the art of ancient Greece. There are many triumphs of later styles, each grand, but yielding the palm to this Temple of Glory, as Napoleon intended it to be. It is three hundred and thirty feet long, one hundred and thirty wide, and one hundred high, without windows, and surrounded by Corinthian columns.

The Arc de Triomphe is the stateliest arch ever built, perfect in every respect. It was copied from the imperial arches of old Rome, with grander massiveness. It commemorates the triumphs of Napoleon.

Notre Dame is not a modern imitation. The great cathedral stands on the little Ile de la CitÉ which was the beginning of Paris, inhabited two thousand years ago by the Parisii, a Celtic tribe whose name survives. For eight centuries it has been a Christian church. The west front is rich in statues of the kings of France. The originals were destroyed in the Revolution, but have been replaced. The cathedral itself was turned into the mockery of a Temple of Reason, with a woman of the town enthroned as its deity. Napoleon’s wise statesmanship restored the church to its rightful usages. The Commune once more made free with the old shrine, using it as barracks. Among its relics is the robe Archbishop Darboy wore when the Communists put him to death. The churches of Paris have weird stories to tell. The sacred spot where Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, was buried, in the sixth century, was a place of worship until the Revolution changed it into a Pantheon. It became a church once more in 1851, though in its crypt lie Voltaire, Rousseau, and other famous writers. The tomb of Napoleon is beneath the Dome of the Church of the Invalides, attached to the home for veterans founded by Louis XIV.

The famous palace of the Tuileries was built in the sixteenth century for Catherine de’ Medici. It was the home of emperors and kings, and the shrine of precious treasures of art from that time down to the fall of the second empire, when the Communists destroyed it beyond repair. The politics of spite never yet inspired its votaries to create a thing of beauty for posterity to enjoy. Opposite the blank left by this vandal outrage stands the Louvre, perhaps the greatest jewel casket of art in existence, certainly beyond human power to replace if destroyed. Yet even the Louvre was, in 1870, undermined by the mob in power, who longed to blow it into nothingness—in their pious enthusiasm for enlightened progress. This two-hundred-year old palace is a wonder of architectural beauty. Its museums are famous for the statuary and paintings by the great masters. The Venus of Melos stands as the chief feature of one gallery. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian and others of their rank are represented here among the two thousand pictures, besides innumerable masterpieces in various arts. The gallery of Apollo passes description as a chamber, were it empty. Its contents have almost fabulous value.

The Luxembourg Palace was built in 1620. It has known strange experiences—first royal habitation, then a prison during the Revolution, again a palace under the Directory and Consulate, and at last the house of the Republic’s Senate. The Palais Royal was built for Cardinal Richelieu. After his death it had a king for its master, to-day its grand arcades echo to the chatter of bargain-seeking shoppers, despite the firebrands of the Communists. Adjoining it is the national playhouse, the ComÉdie FranÇaise, which also had a narrow escape from the caresses of the reformers. MoliÈre managed this theatre for a while, for which, and because he gave the world immortal plays, he was denied Christian burial. His statue, however, makes amends. A greater theatre as to size and gorgeousness is the Grand Opera House. Three acres of central ground were cleared of ordinary buildings and streets to make room for this imposing structure, which is the most ornate of its kind in the world. The mere pictures of its staircase and foyer are bewildering in magnificence.

After weariness of city sights it is good to make for the Bois de Boulogne, the main park of Paris. Its twenty-three hundred acres are connected with the Champs-ÉlysÉes by several avenues, of which the finest is the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, three hundred and fifteen feet wide and forty-two hundred long. The drive round the lake is the rendezvous of fashion every afternoon. The zoological garden, model dairy, the avenue of acacias, the field of Longchamps, where races and reviews take place, are among the showplaces. At the opposite, the east, side of the city is the spacious Bois de Vincennes, a favorite park with many attractions. The monuments of Paris are familiar to the average reader who stays at home. The July Column replaces the Bastille, the VendÔme Column, with its statue of Napoleon as CÆsar, was pulled down by the Commune and has risen again. Arches, fountains and statuary abound on all sides. PÈre la Chaise cemetery is the favorite field of oratory, many eulogies of the dead being political harangues of extreme types. Here are buried enough celebrities to immortalize a monumentless city, AbÉlard and HÉloÏse, Chopin, Rossini, Bellini, Cherubini, Alfred de Musset, Bernardin de St.-Pierre, Beaumarchais, BÉranger, Talma, Racine, MoliÈre, Lafontaine, Balzac, and many national statesmen. In Montmartre cemetery lie Heine, Murger, HalÉvy, Gautier, Troyon. Lafayette and many of the old nobility who perished in the Revolution, repose in the Picpus burial-ground.

There are many attractive places near Paris, such as Versailles, which must be counted among the city sights. This old town has grown up around the palace built by Louis XIV. It has not been inhabited by royalty since the Revolution, but is a museum devoted “to all the glories of France.” The halls are thronged with statues and portraits of the great men of history and her victorious battles. The bedroom of the Grand Monarch, the halls of the kings and marshals, the Queen’s Chamber, and every corner of the building are rich in historical memories. The great park and famous fountains, the royal coaches, the Grand Trianon villa which was the home of Madame de Maintenon, and the Petit Trianon, the cosy country cottage of Marie Antoinette, all have their fascinations. So might we notice St. Cloud, the favorite residence of the last emperor, and St. Denis, with its ancient cathedral, where the kings of France during eleven centuries were buried. The Revolutionists dug up the royal bones and flung them into a ditch, whence they were afterwards borne back into the crypt of St. Denis. The region of Paris teems with associations, grown sacred by age and sentiment, yet its citizens rarely appear to be in the serious vein. Their mode of life conduces to rapidity of thought and quick passing of emotions. Over a simple glass of sweetened water grave-looking men will vivaciously enact a dialogue which a stranger to the country might suppose was the prelude to a tragedy, when it is only a comparison of views on last night’s ballet. The outdoor gatherings in front of the innumerable cafÉs is one of the charms of the gay capital. The habit is Parisian to the core. They sit and quiz the human menagerie as it parades for their delectation; at least this is the complacent view taken of the moving crowd by the true Parisian. The great streets are made for grand informal parades; there is elbow room for hundreds of thousands and each avenue has a park-like aspect. The French are gifted with the instinct of perfect taste in most things, and this shows nowhere more effectively than in their planning and using a city for artistic ends. Every street stall and lamppost is made part of the general scheme of adornment.

The first few explorations of Paris will fill the mind with wonder and admiration. Then comes the irrepressible desire to know what all its magnificence, its historic object-lessons, all its inexhaustible resources of art and invention, will lead to. A hopeless question, yet the past piques curiosity about the future. So stupendous a monument to human achievement of every order surely betokens an abiding greatness. A people capable of creating a Paris must be destined to a millennium of happy peace and unbroken prosperity. National temperament rarely changes, but bitter experience cannot forget the consequences of former laxity in managing the helm of state. Paris owes it to modern civilization and to posterity to conserve its remaining treasures, at whatever cost.

Amsterdam after Paris may suggest water after wine. A watery city it is and water is excellent at times, if not always. The water streets of the Dutch capital are, sometimes, if not always, inky, and ink of an odor best described by prefixing a couple of consonants. Yet old Amsterdam is full of charm, though not of the Parisian kinds. Its quaint houses have a general look of being turned end-on to the street, their ornamental gables make a sky-line suggestive of a lady’s lace collar. Many of them have a projecting crane with rope and pulley, giving a warehouse appearance to private dwellings. They are still used to save dirtying the stairs when goods are delivered. Cleanliness is the prevailing vice of Amsterdam dames. From bedroom to kitchen every room, and everything in every room, is painfully clean. Between six and eight in the morning every good housewife swills the front of her home from the roof to the curbstone, whether it needs it or not.

The capital, as Erasmus of Rotterdam once remarked, is a place where the people dwell on the tops of trees, like birds. Amsterdam is built on three million piles, driven deep into the swampy soil. Half of its streets are canals. A large population lives in canal-boats the year round. The city is divided by large and small canals into about a hundred islands, with three hundred bridges. The inhabitants feel secure on their timber foundation, though buildings have sunk, occasionally. While the wood-worms are few and feeble and the piles keep wet there is little danger.

The river Amstel passes through the city and gives it its name from the great system of embankments which dam the ever-threatening tide from the arm of the Zuyder Zee on which Amstel-dam stands. This arm is called the Y, spelled Ij in Dutch, and will form a ship-channel, fifty miles long, to the North Sea when fully completed. A large shipping trade is done in the spacious docks, where coffee, tobacco, and sugar come in vast quantities from the Dutch East Indies. One of the industries peculiar to Amsterdam is diamond-cutting. It is not difficult to get access to one of the workshops, and the operation is exceedingly interesting. On market-days and holidays there is a chance to see the old-time picturesque costumes still worn in country parts. The metal helmets, sometimes of silver and gold, with curious ear ornaments have a fine antique air. On Sunday evenings the working folk take their pleasures in the parks, of which swinging is with many the favorite joy. A plump damsel or plumper matron stands facing the lover or husband, and they can swing almost level with the treetop before they tire, or tumble. They take no harm by a fall.

The churches are large, cold and gloomy. The Oude Kerk dates from about 1300. The stained windows are interesting and the organ, two or three stories high, is powerful and mellow. Instead of the pews covering the floor, they occupy a raised platform in the centre, enclosed by a fence with locked doors. Near by may be seen a pile of boxes like stools, which are charcoal stoves to warm the worshippers in winter. The psalmody is so slow that the organ fills up the intervals between words and lines with rolling chords. Near the palace in the centre of the city is the Niewe Kerk, a more ornate and interesting church, built in 1408, in which the sovereigns are crowned. Its monuments to Admiral de Ruyter and Vondel, the national poet, are fine art-works, as also are the carved pulpit and the bronzes in the choir.

The royal palace, on the central square called the Dam, was built in 1648. It stands on thirteen thousand piles. It was originally the State House. Opposite is the Beurs, or Exchange. The Dutch school of painting has qualities not excelled by the finest productions of other nations. Its painters developed a marvellous proficiency in detail-work, a literalness of interpretation, a realism which is undoubtedly imitative, but in its mastery of execution compels enthusiastic admiration. The flatness of their country afforded no chance for painting fine landscapes. What they saw was the sky and the sea in the distance, and people, cattle and household goods at close range. No painters among the old masters equal the Dutchmen in cloud-scapes and sea-pieces, in fidelity to nature and delicate touch. Similarly, there are few, if any, portraits as strong as these wonderful canvases of the Dutch school. No other artists had the genius to see the possible triumphs awaiting the brush that could counterfeit the dewdrop on a rose, the glisten of the copper stew-pan or the satin gown, or the fluffy texture of a beggar’s coat. Now that two generations have learned these things by patient imitation of the old Dutchmen this art has become familiar, but no copyist of our time has approached the marvellous beauty and skill that mark the old Dutch masterpieces. The traveller will enjoy himself to the full in the famous galleries of Amsterdam, and the other towns that lie within easy reach. There are four hundred paintings in the Trippenhuis museum, of which the most famous is Rembrandt’s great picture, “The Night Watch.” Still more impressive to many is the magnificent work of Vander Helst, “The Banquet of the Civic Guard,” an immense canvas, showing a band of men in armor carousing around a table loaded with gold and silver plate, glasses, flagons, etc., affording an opportunity for the painter to show Dutch art at its highest. There are great treats in these galleries for the lover of pictures and for the student of manners. Some of the old painters either lacked poetical imagination or indulged their whimsical humor to the verge of the shocking, in certain subjects. They had at least the merit of being faithful to life as they saw it, which satisfies the average man better, on the whole, than impressionism run to seed.

Eight hundred years ago Amsterdam was a fishing village. In the fifteenth century it became the most important commercial city in the Netherlands. Peter the Great learned the art of ship-building in the little village of Zaandam near the capital. A modern building encloses the cottage in which he lived. The people are rightly proud of their city and its history. They have not of late had opportunities to test their old supremacy as sea-warriors, but they exhibit all their sturdy characteristics in fighting the sea itself, repelling its ceaseless attempts at invasion. The women may be expected to uphold the national reputation for energy in any emergency, to judge by the stolid contentment with which so many of them do men’s work. They act as railway signal men, boatmen, market porters, and do not object to being harnessed with dogs as wagon teams. Yet they seem happy if not exactly gay. In the cities less of this is noticeable. The capital is not behind in artistic and literary culture. Scholarship has always distinguished its people. Its old bookstores are a delightful temptation. The zoological garden is one of the finest anywhere. English is spoken in all the principal stores. The public charities are on an extensive scale. The foreigner is occasionally embarrassed at being politely saluted by members of the Exchange if he chances to pass as they are coming out, and in many such ways he is impressed by the courtesies shown him on all hands. One would not rush to Amsterdam for Parisian excitements, but for nervous systems needing the tone best secured by moderate activity in surroundings that are novel and uniquely interesting, a visit to Amsterdam will prove as great a pleasure as a benefit.