This view was taken from one of the upper windows of the Hotel de Douvres,
situated at the corner of the Rue de la Paix. The spectator is looking to
the North-east. The time is the afternoon. The sun is just quitting the
range of buildings adorned with columns: its façade is already in the
shade, but a single shutter standing open projects far enough forward to
catch a gleam of sunshine. The weather is hot and dusty, and they have
just been watering the road, which has produced two broad bands of shade
upon it, which unite in the foreground, because, the road being partially
under repair (as is seen from the two wheelbarrows, &c. &c.), the watering
machines have been compelled to cross to the other side.
By the roadside a row of _cittadines_ and cabriolets are waiting, and a
single carriage stands in the distance a long way to the right.
A whole forest of chimneys borders the horizon: for, the instrument
chronicles whatever it sees, and certainly would delineate a chimney-pot
or a chimney-sweeper with the same impartiality as it would the Apollo of
Belvedere.
The view is taken from a considerable height, as appears easily by
observing the house on the right hand; the eye being necessarily on a
level with that part of the building on which the horizontal lines or
courses of stone appear parallel to the margin of the picture.
[PLATE III. ARTICLES OF CHINA.]