_Paris and its Environs_
_PARIS_--home of grandeur, elegance, and wit--plays a part in France
probably unequalled in any other country, and may be considered, in many
respects, as the chief city of Europe, and one of the greatest in the
world. Above all, it possesses eminently national qualities which ten
centuries of refinement and taste have handed down to contemporary
France.
It is impossible, in a few lines, to paint the exceptional charms of
Paris which the whole world admires.
Its vistas of the Champs-Elysées seen from the Tuileries and the Arc de
Triomphe; of Notre-Dame and the point of the City Island seen from La
Concorde Bridge; of the River Seine, the Institute, the Louvre, seen
from the Pont-Neuf embankment; Notre-Dame and its quays, seen from the
end of St. Louis Island; the panorama of the city seen from the top of
Montmartre Hill; the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Boulogne
itself, etc., etc.--all are of incomparable beauty.
The city’s historical monuments are of inestimable value, and the most
famous art treasures are to be found in its Museums.
The surroundings of Paris join the charm of their landscapes to the
world-wide fame of their parks and castles: _Versailles_, whose palace
and park recall the splendour of the Louis XIV. period, and where the
“Trianons” have preserved graceful traces of the Court of Marie
Antoinette; _St. Germain_, with its castle and forest; _St. Cloud_ and
its park; _Sèvres_ and its world-renowned art porcelain factory; _La
Malmaison_, home of Bonaparte before he became Napoleon I.;
_Rambouillet_, _Fontainebleau_, _Chartres_ with its marvelous cathedral,
_Maintenon_, _Dreux_, etc.--all these form a girdle round Paris such as
no other metropolis in the world can boast of.