When we came out of Notre Dame, she chattered about the place. "There
used to be an archbishop's palace back of the church in that garden,
but one day the people took it into their heads to pull it down. I saw
the silk-bottomed chairs floating down the Seine. They say that
somebody came and told Thiers, 'Do you know the people are rummaging
the archbishop's palace?' and he shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Let
'em work.' That's the say, you know; mind, I don't say it is true!
Well, he got enough of it at last. The fact is, that with, the French,
destructiveness is as much developed as constructiveness, and they are
as good at one as the other."
As we were passing over one of the bridges, we saw a flower market, a
gay show of flowers of all hues, and a very brisk trade going on about
them. Madame told me that there was a flower market every day in the
week, in different parts of the city. The flower trade was more than
usually animated to-day, because it is a saint's _fete,_ the
_fete_ of St. Louis, the patron of Paris.
The streets every where showed men, women, and children, carrying
their pots of blooming flowers.
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