Chapter X: Part 10

Among the various circumstances which influence the progress of physical science in this country, one of the most prominent is the _Patent_ law--a law in its intention beneficent; but whether the practical working of it be useful, either to science or its cultivators, is a matter of grave doubt. Of the greater number of patents enrolled in that depot of practical science, Chancery Lane, by far the majority are beneficial only to the revenue; and on the question of public economy, whether or not the price paid by miscalculating ingenuity is a fair and politic source of revenue, we shall not enter; but on the reasons which lead so many to be dupes of their own self-esteem, a few words may not be misspent. The chief reason why a vast number of patents are unsuccessful, is, that it takes a long time (longer generally than fourteen years, the statutable limit of patent grants) to make the workmen of a country familiar with a new manufacture. A party, therefore, who proposes patenting an invention, and who sits down and calculates the value of the material, the time necessary for its manufacture, and other essential data; comparing these with the price at which it can be sold to obtain a remunerative profit, seldom takes into consideration the time necessary, first, to accustom the journeymen workers to its construction, and secondly, to make known to the public its real value. In the present universal competition, puffing is carried on to such an extent, that, to give a fair chance of success, not only must the first expense of a patent be incurred--no inconsiderable one either, even supposing the patentee fortunate enough to escape litigation--but a large sum of money must be invested in advertisements, with little immediate return; hence it is that the most valuable patents, viewed in relation to their scientific importance, their ultimate public benefit, and the merits of their inventors, are seldom the most lucrative, while a patent inkstand, a boot-heel, a shaving case, or a button, become rapidly a source of no inconsiderable profit. Is this beneficial to inventors? Is it an encouragement of science, or a proper object of legislative provision, that the improver of the most trivial mechanical application should be carefully protected, while those who open the hidden sources of myriads of patents, are unrewarded, and incapable of remunerating themselves? We seriously incline to think that, as the matter at present stands, an entire erasure from the statute-books of patent provision would be of service to science, and perhaps to the community; each tradesman would depend for success upon his own activity, and the perfection he could give his manufacture, and the scientific searcher after experimental truths would not find his path barred by prohibitions from speculative empirics.

According to the present patent laws, it is more than questionable whether the discoverer of a great scientific principle could pursue his own discovery, or whether he would not be arrested on the threshold by a subsequent patentee; if Jacobi lived in constitutional England instead of despotic Russia, it is doubtful if he could work out his discovery of the electrotype--we say _doubtful_; for, as far as we can learn, it seems hitherto judicially undecided whether the mere use of a patent, not for sale or a lucrative object, is such a use within the statute of James as would be an infringement of a patentee's rights. It appears to be settled, that a previous experimental and unpublished use by one party, does not prevent another subsequent inventor of the same process from patenting it; and, by parity of reasoning, we should say, that if a party have the advantage of patenting an invention which can be found to have been previously used, but not for sale, he should not have the additional privilege of prohibiting the same party, or others, from proceeding with their experiments. There are, however, not wanting arguments for the other view. The practice of a patented invention, for one's own benefit or pleasure, deprives the patentee of a possible source of profit; for it cannot be said that the party experimenting, if prohibited, might not apply for a license to the patentee. Take, for instance, the notorious and justly censured patent of Daguerre. Supposing, for argument's sake, this patent to be valid, can a private individual, under the existing patent laws, take photographic views or portraits for his own amusement, or in pursuance of scientific investigations? If he cannot, then is an exquisitely beautiful path of physics to be shut up for fourteen years; or if he can, then is the licensee, a purchaser for value, to be excluded from very many sources of pecuniary emolument? To us, the injury to the public, in this and similar cases, appears of incomparably greater consequence than that to the individual; but what the authorities at Westminster Hall may say is another question. Even could the patent laws be so modified, that the benefits derived from them could fall upon those scientific discoverers most justly entitled, we are still doubtful as to their utility, or whether they would contribute to the advancement of science, which is the point of view in which we here principally regard them. It would scarcely add to the dignity of philosophy, or to the reverence due to its votaries, to see them running with their various inventions to the patent office, and afterwards spending their time in the courts of law, defending their several claims. They would thus entirely lose the respect due to them from their contemporaries and posterity, and waste, in pecuniary speculation, time which might be more advantageously, and without doubt more agreeably, employed. If parties look to money as their reward, they have no right to look for fame; to those who sell the produce of their brains, the public owes no debt.

We have observed recently a strong tendency in men of no mean scientific pretensions to patent the results of their labours. We blame them not: it is a matter of free election on their part, but we cannot praise them. A writer in a recent number of the _Edinburgh Review_, has the following remarks on the subject of Mr Talbot's patented invention of the Calotype. "Nor does the fate of the Calotype redeem the treatment of her sister art, (the Daguerreotype.) The Royal Society, the philosophical organ of the nation, has refused to publish its processes in her transactions. * * * No representatives of the people unanimously recommended a national reward. * * * It gives us great pleasure to learn, that though none of his (Mr Talbot's) photographical discoveries adorn the transactions of the Royal Society, yet the president and the council have adjudged him the Rumford medals for the last biennial period."[24]

[24] _Edin. Rev._ No. 159.

The notion of a "national reward" for the Calotype scarcely requires a remark. If, after a discovery is once made and published, every subsequent new process in the same art is to be nationally rewarded, the income-tax must be at least quadrupled. The complaint, however, against the Royal Society, is not altogether groundless. True it is that the first paper of Mr Talbot did not contain an account of the processes employed by him, and therefore should not have been even read to the Society; but the paper on the Calotype did contain such description, and we see no reason why a society for the advancement of knowledge should not give publicity to a valuable process, though made the subject of a patent--but it certainly should not bestow an honorary reward upon an inventor who has withheld from the Royal Society and the public the practice of the invention whose processes he communicates. Mr Talbot had a perfect right to patent his invention, but has on that account no claim in respect of the same invention to an honorary reward. The Royal Society did not publish his paper, but awarded him a medal. In our opinion, they should have published his paper and not awarded him a medal.

Regarded as to her national encouragement of science, there are some features in which England differs not from other countries; there are others in which she may be strikingly contrasted with them; and, with all our love for her, we fear she will suffer by the contrast. A learned writer of the present day, has the following passage in reference to the state of science in England as contrasted with other countries:--"When the proud science of England pines in obscurity, blighted by the absence of the royal favour and the nation's sympathy; when her chivalry fall unwept and unhonoured, how can it sustain the conflict against the honoured and marshalled genius of foreign lands?"[25]

[25] Brewster's Life of Newton, p. 35.

This, to be sure, is somewhat "_tumultuous_." We do not, however, cite it as a specimen of composition, but as an expression of a very prevalent feeling; the opinion involved in the concluding _quaere_ is open to doubt--England does sustain the conflict, if any conflict there be to sustain; but we are bound to admit, that in no country are the soldiers of _science militant_ less honoured or rewarded. It is no uncommon remark, that despotic governments are the most favourable to the cultivation of the arts and sciences. There is, perhaps, a general truth in this, and the causes are not difficult of recognition. In a republican or constitutional government, politics are the all-engrossing topics of a people's thought, the never-ending theme of conversation;--in purely despotic states, such discussions are prohibited, and the contemplation of such subjects confined to a few restless or patriotic spirits. It must also be ever the policy of absolute monarchs to open channels for the public mind, which may divert it from political considerations. Take America and Austria as existing instances of this contrast: in the former, the universality of political conversation is an object of remark to all travellers; in the latter, even books which touch at all on political matters are rigidly excluded. These are among the causes which strike us as most prominent, but whose effects obtain only when despotism is not so gross as to be an incubus upon the whole moral and intellectual energies of a people.

We should lose sight of the objects proposed in these pages, and also transgress our assigned limits, were we to enter into detail upon the present state of science in Europe, or trace the causes which have influenced her progress in each state. This would form a sufficient thesis for a separate essay; but we will not pass over this branch of our subject, without venturing to express an opinion on the delicate and embarrassing question as to what rank each nation holds as a promoter of physical science.

In experimental and theoretical Physics, we should be inclined to place the German nations in the first rank; in pure and applied mathematics, France. The former nations far excel all others in the independence and impartiality with which they view scientific results; researches of any value, from whatever part of the world they emanate, instantly find a place in their periodicals; and they generally estimate more justly the relative value of different discoveries than any other European nation; the aesthetical power which enables them to seize and appreciate what is beautiful in art, gives them perception and discrimination in science; but they are not great as originators. The French, notwithstanding the high pitch at which they have undoubtedly arrived in mathematical investigation, not withstanding the general accuracy of their experimental researches, have more of the pedantry of science; their papers are too professional--too much _selon les regles_; there are too many minutiae; the reader is tempted to exclaim with Jacques--"I think of as many matters as he; but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of them." Their accuracy frequently degenerates into affectation and parade. We have now before us a paper in the _Annales de Chimie_, containing some chemical researches, in which, though the difference of each experiment in a small number, put together for average, amounts to several units, the weights are given to the fifth place of decimals. England, which we should place next, is by no means exempt from these trappings of science. Many English scientific papers seem written as if with the resolute purpose of filling a certain number of pages, and many of their writers seem to think a _paper per annum_, good or bad, necessary to indicate their philosophical existence. They write, not because they have made a discovery, but because their period of hybernation has expired. Still, in England, there is a strong vein of original thought. Competition, if it lead to puffing and quackery, yet stimulates the perceptions; and, in England, competition has done its worst and its best; in original chemical discovery, England has latterly been unrivalled.

Next to England we should place Sweden and Denmark--for their population they have done much, and done it well; then Italy--in Italy science is well organized, and the rulers of her petty states seem to feel a proper emulation in promoting scientific merit--in which laudable rivalry the Archduke of Tuscany deserves honourable mention; America and Russia come next--the former state is zealous, ready at practical application, and promises much for the future, but as yet has not done enough in original research to entitle her to be placed in the van. Russia at present possesses few, if any, native philosophers--her discoverers and discoveries are all imported; but the emperor's zeal and _patronage_ (a word which we scarcely like to apply to science) is doing much to organize her forces, and the mercenary troops may impart vigour, and induce discipline into the national body. In this short enumeration, we have considered each country, not according to the number of its very eminent men; for though far from denying the right which each undoubtedly possesses to shine by the reflected lustre of her stars, yet in looking, as it were, from an external point, it is more just to regard the general character of each people than to classify them according as they may happen to be the birthplace of those

"To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe."

A misunderstanding of the proper use of theory is among the prevalent scientific errors of the present day. Among one set of men of considerable intelligence, but who are not habitually conversant with physical science, there is a general tendency to despise theory. This contempt appears to rest on somewhat plausible grounds; as an instance of it, we may take the following passage from the fitful writings of Mr Carlyle:--"Hardened round us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrappage of traditions, hearsays, mere words: we call that fire of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk, but what is it? Whence comes it? Where goes it?"[26]

[26] Carlyle on Hero Worship.

However the experienced philosopher may be convinced that _in themselves_ theories are nothing--that they are but collations of phenomena under a generic formula, which is useful only inasmuch as it groups these phenomena; yet it is difficult to see how, without these imperfect generalizations, any mind can retain the endless variety of facts and relations which every branch of science presents; still less, how these can be taught, learned, reasoned upon, or used. How could the facts of geology be recollected, or how, indeed, could they constitute a science without reference to some real or supposed bond of union, some aqueous or igneous theory? How could two chemists converse on chemistry without the use of the term affinity, and the theoretical conception it involves? How could a name be applied, or a nomenclature adopted, without that imperfect, or more or less perfect grouping of facts, which involves theory? As far as we can recollect, all the alterations of nomenclature which have been introduced, or attempted, proceed upon some alteration of theory.

If not theory but hypothesis be objected to--not the imperfect generalization of phenomena, but a gratuitous assumption for the sake of collating them, this, although ground which should be trodden more cautiously, appears in certain cases unavoidable; in fact, is scarcely separable from theory. Had men not "lectured learnedly" about the two _fluids_ of electricity, we should not now possess many of the discoveries with which this science is enriched, although we do not, and probably never shall, know what electricity is.

On the other hand, among professed physical philosophers, the great abuse of theories and hypotheses is, that their promulgators soon regard them, not as aids to science, to be changed if occasion should require, but as absolute natural truths; they look to that as an end, which is in fact but a means; their theories become part of their mental constitution, idiosyncrasies; and they themselves become partizans of a faction, and cease to be inductive philosophers.

Another injury to science, in a great measure peculiar to the present day, arises from the number of speculations which are ushered into the world to account for the same phenomena; every one, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, when he wished to cudgel a Puritan, has for his opinion "no exquisite reasons, but reasons good enough." In the periods of science immediately subsequent to the time of Bacon, men commenced their career by successful experiment; and having convinced the world of their aptitude for perceiving the relations of natural phenomena, enounced theories which they believed the most efficient to give a comprehensive generality to the whole. Men now, however, commence with theories, though, alas! the converse does not hold good--they do not always end with experiment.

As, in the promulgation of theories, every aspirant is anxious to propound different news, so, in nomenclature, there is a strong tendency to promiscuous coining. The great commentator on the laws of England, Sir William Blackstone, observes, "As to the impression, the stamping of coin is the unquestionable prerogative of the crown, * * * the king may also, by his proclamation, legitimate foreign coin, and make it current here."[27]

[27] Commentaries, vol. i. p. 277.

As coinage of money is the undoubted prerogative of the crown; so generally coinage of words has been the undoubted prerogative of the kings of science--those to whom mankind have bent as to unquestionable authority. But even these royal dignitaries have generally been sparing in the exercise of this prerogative, and used it only on rare occasions and when absolutely necessary, either from the discovery of new things requiring new names, or upon entire revolutions of theory.

"Si forte necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita cethegis
Continget, labiturque licentia sumpta pudenter."

But now there is no "pudor" in the matter. Every man has his own mint; and although their several coins do not pass current very generally, yet they are taken here and there by a few disciples, and throw some standard money out of the market. The want of consideration evinced in these novel vocabularies is remarkable. Whewell, whose scientific position and dialectic turn of mind may fairly qualify him to be a word-maker, seems peculiarly deficient in ear. Take, as an instance, "_idiopts_," an uncomfortable word, barely necessary, as the persons to whom it applies are comparatively rare, and will scarcely thank the Master of Trinity College for approximating them in name to a more numerous and more unfortunate class--the word _physicists_, where four sibilant consonants fizz like a squib. In these, and we might add many from other sources, euphony is wantonly disregarded; by other authors of smaller calibre, classical associations are curiously violated. We may take, as an instance, _platinode_, Spanish-American joined to ancient Greek. In chemistry there is a profusion of new coin. Sulphate of ammonia--oxi-sulphion of ammonium--sulphat-oxide of ammonium--three names for one substance. This mania is by no means common to England. In Liebig's Chemistry, Vol. ii. p. 313, we have the following passage:--"It should be remarked that some chemists designate artificial camphor by the name of hydrochlorate of camphor. Deville calls it bihydrochlorate of terebene, and Souberaine and Capelaine call it hydrochlorate of pencylene."

So generally does this prevail, that in chemical treatises the names of substances are frequently given with a tail of synonymes. Numerous words might be cited which are names for non-existences--mere hypothetic groupings; and yet so rapidly are these increasing, that it seems not impossible, in process of time, there will be more names for things that are not than for things that are. If this work go on, the scientific public must elect a censor whose fiat shall be final; otherwise, as every small philosopher is encouraged or tolerated in framing _ad libitum_ a nomenclature of his own, the inevitable effect will be, that no man will be able to understand his brother, and a confusion of tongues will ensue, to be likened only to that which occasioned the memorable dispersion at Babel.

Many of the defects to which we have alluded in the course of this paper, time alone can remedy. In spite of all drawbacks, the progress of science has been vast and rapidly increasing; the very rapidity of its progress brings with it difficulties. So many points, once considered impossible, have been proved possible, that to some minds the suggestion of impossibility seems an argument in favour of possibility. Because steam-travelling was once laughed at as visionary, aerial navigation is to be regarded as practicable--perhaps, indeed, it _will_ be so, give but the time _proportionably_ requisite to master its difficulties, as there was given to steam. What proportion this should be we will not venture to predict. There can be little doubt that the most effectual way to induce a more accurate public discrimination of scientific efforts is to turn somewhat more in that direction the current of national education. Prizes at the universities for efficiency in the physics of light, heat, electricity, magnetism, or chemistry, could, we conceive, do no harm. Why should not similar honours be conferred on those students who advance the progress of an infant science, as on those who work out with facility the formulae of an exact one; and why should not acquirements in either, rank equally high with the critical knowledge of the _digamma_ or the _a priori_ philosophy of Aristotle? Is not Bacon's Novum Organon as much entitled to be made a standard book for the schools as Aldrich's logic? Venerating English universities, we approve not the inconsiderate outcries against systematic and time-honoured educational discipline; but it would increase our love for these seminaries of sound learning, could we more frequently see such men as Davy emanate from Oxford, instead of from the pneumatic institution of Bristol.

Provided science be kept separate from political excitement, we should like to see an English Academy, constituted of men having fair claims to scientific distinction, and not "deserving of that honour because they are attached to science."

It is unnecessary here to touch upon the details of such an Academy. The proposition is by no means new. On the contrary, we believe a wish for some such change pretty generally exists. Iteration is sometimes more useful than originality. The more frequently the point is brought before the public, the more probable is it that steps will be taken by those who are qualified to move in such a matter. The more the present defective state of our scientific organization is commented on, the more likely is it to be remedied; for the patency of error is ever a sure prelude to its extirpation.

CHRONICLES OF PARIS.

THE RUE ST DENIS.

One of the longest, the narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north, it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide, straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road for the monarchs of France to make their formal entries into, and exits from, their capital--whether they came from their coronation at Rheims, or went to their last resting-place beneath the tall spire of St Denis. This has always been the line by which travellers from the northern provinces have entered the good city of Paris; and for many a long year its echoes have never had rest from the cracking of the postilion's whip, the roll of the heavy diligence, and the perpetual jumbling of carts and waggons. It is, as it has ever been, one of the main arteries of the capital; and nowhere does the restless tide of Parisian life run more rapidly or more constantly than over its well-worn stones. In the pages of the venerable historians of the French capital, and in ancient maps, it is always called "_La Grande Rue de Sainct Denys_," being, no doubt, at one time the _ne plus ultra_ of all that was considered wide and commodious. Now its appellation is curtailed into the _Rue St D'nis_, and it is avoided by the polite inhabitants of Paris as containing nothing but the _bourgeoisie_ and the _canaille_. Once it was the Regent Street of Paris--a sort of Rue de la Paix--lounged along by the gallants of the days of Henri IV., and not unvisited by the red-heeled marquises of the Regent d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing more _recherche_ than the cap of the grisette or the poissarde, as the case may be, nor any thing more august than the casquette of the _commis-voyageur_, or the indescribable shako and equipments of the National Guard. As its frequenters have been changed in character, so have its houses and public buildings; they have lost much of the picturesque appearance they possessed a hundred years ago--they are forced every year more and more into line, like a regiment of stone and mortar. Instead of showing their projecting, high-peaked gables to the street, they have now turned their fronts, as more polite; the roofs are accommodated with the luxury of pipes, and the midnight sound of "_Gare l'eau!_" which used to make the late-returning passenger start with all agility from beneath the opened window to avoid the odoriferous shower, is now but seldom heard. A Liliputian footway, some two feet wide, is laid down in flags at either side; the oscillating lamp, that used to hang on a rotten cord thrown across the roadway from house to house, and made darkness visible, has given place to the genius of gas--_enfin, la Revolution a passe par la_; and the Rue de St Denis is now a ghost only of what it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities of dimensions and outline to show that it is a child of the middle ages; and, like so many other children of the same kind, it contributes to make its mother Paris, as compared with the modern-built capitals of Europe, a town of former days. Long may it retain these oddities of appearance--long may it remain narrow, dark, and dirty; we rejoice that such streets still exist--they do one's eye good, if not one's nose. There is more of colour, of light and shade, of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a hundred yards of the Rue St Denis, than in all the line from Piccadilly to Whitechapel; a painter can pick up more food for his easel in this queer, old street--an antiquarian can find there more tales and crusts for his noddle, than in all Regent Street and Portland Place. We love a ramshackle place like this; it does one good to get out of the associations of the present century, and to retrograde a bit; it is pleasant to see how people used to pig together in ancient days, without any of the mathematical formalities of the present day; it keeps one's eye in tone to look back at works of the middle ages; and we may learn the more justly to criticize what we see arising about us, by refreshing our recollections of the mouldering past. Paris is a glorious place for things of this kind. Thank the stars, it never got burned out of its old clothes, as London did. Newfangled streets and quarters of every age have been added to it, but there still remains a mediaeval nucleus--there is still an "old Paris"--a gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular and inconvenient as any town ever was yet; and a walk of twenty minutes will take you from the elegant uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli into the original chaos of buildings--into the Quartier des Halles and into the Rue St Denis. How often have we hurried down them on a cold winter's day--say the 31st of December--to buy bons-bons in the Rue des Lombards, once the abode of bankers, now the paradise of _confiseurs_, against the coming morrow--the grand day of visits and cadeaux--braving the snow some three feet deep in the midst of the street--or, if there happened to be no snow, the mud a foot and a half, splashing through it with our last new pair of boots from Legrand's, and the last _pantalon_ from Blondel's--for cabriolet or omnibus, none might pass that way; and there, amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long, low shop, with lamps lighted at two o'clock, have consummated our purchase, and floundered back triumphant! Away, ye gay, seducing vanities of the Palais Royal or the Boulevards; your light is too garish for our sober eyes--the sugar of your comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating tooth! Our appropriate latitude is that of the Quartier St Denis! One thing, however, we must confess, we never did in the Rue St Denis--we never dined there! _Oh non! il ne faut pas faire ca!_ 'Tis the headquarters of all the sausage-dealers, the _charcutiers_, and the _rotisseurs_ of Paris. Genuine meat and drink there is none; cats hold the murderous neighbourhood in traditional abhorrence, and the ruddiest wine of Burgundy would turn pale were the aqueous reputation of the street whispered near its cellar-door. Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic instinct that saved us from acts of suicidal rashness! When in Paris, gentle reader, we always dine at the Trois Freres Provencaux; the little room in blue, remember--time, six P.M.; potage a la Julienne--bifteck au vin de Champagne--poulet a la Marengo--Chambertin, and St Peray rose. The next time you visit the Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine with us--we shall be delighted to see you!

There are few gaping Englishmen who have been on the other side of the Channel but have found their way along the Boulevards to the Porte St Denis, and have stared first of all at that dingy monument of Ludovican pride, and then have stared down the Rue St Denis, and then have stared up the Rue du Faubourg St Denis; but very few are ever tempted to turn either to the right hand or to the left, and so they generally poke on to the Porte St Martin, or stroll back to the Madeleine, and rarely make acquaintance with the Dionysian mysteries of Paris. For the benefit, therefore, of such travellers as go to the French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of this street and its immediate vicinity.

The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cite, the centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge, now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river. These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses; at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property. Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side, while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers, who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital. The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_ clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and "Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal table, history is silent; but it would have been a sensible improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.

On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it, and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vallee de Misere_--words indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence. In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the _Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers, with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were often carried; there was a room in it called Caesar's chamber, where the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments, and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal buildings demolished--not a stone of the old pile remains; the Pont-au-Change had long before had its wooden piers changed for noble stone ones, and on the site where this fortress stood is now the Place de Chatelet, with a Napoleonic monument in the midst--a column inscribed with names of bloody battle-fields, on its summit a golden wing-expanding Victory, and at its base four little impudent dolphins, snorting out water into the buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.

Behind the Chastelet stood the _Grande Boucherie_--the Leadenhall market of Paris an hundred years ago; and near it, up a dirty street or two, was one of the finest churches of the capital, dedicated to St Jacques. The lofty tower of this latter edifice (its body perished when the Boucherie and the Chastelet disappeared) still rises in gloomy majesty above all the surrounding buildings. It is as high as those of Notre Dame; and from its upper corners, enormous _gargouilles_--those fantastic water-spouts of the middle ages--gape with wide-stretched jaws, but no longer send down the washings of the roof on the innocent passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas Flamel, the old usurer, who made money so fast that it was said he used to sup nightly with his Satanic majesty, and who thereupon built part of the church to save his bacon. He was of opinion that it was well to have the "_mens sana in corpore sano_"--that it was no joke to be burnt; and so he stuck close to the church, taking care that himself and his wife, Pernelle, should have a comfortable resting-place for their bones within the walls of St Jacques. When this was a fashionable quarter of Paris, the court doctor and accoucheur did not disdain to reside in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical attendant of Catharine de Medicis, lived and died within the shade of this old tower. He was a fortunate fellow, a sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his way, and Catharine used to give him 10,000 crowns, or something like L.6000, every time she favoured France with an addition to the royal family. He and numerous other worthies mouldered into dust within the precincts of St Jacques; but their remains have long since been scattered to the winds; and where the church once stood is now an ignoble market for old clothes; the abode of Jews and thieves.

After passing round the Grand Chastelet, and crossing the market-place, you might enter the Rue St Denis, the great street of Paris in the time of the good King Henry, and you might walk along under shelter of its houses, projecting story above story, till they nearly met at top, for more than a mile. Before it was paved, the roadway was an intolerable quagmire, winter and summer; and, after stones had been put down, there murmured along the middle a black gurgling stream, charged with all the outpourings and filth of unnumbered houses. Over, or through this, according as the fluid was low or high, you had to make your way, if you wanted to cross the street and greet a friend; if you lived in the street and wished to converse with your opposite neighbour, you had only to mount to the garret story, open the lattice window, and literally shake hands with him, so near did the gables approach. The fronts of the houses were ornamented with every device which the skilful carpenters of former times could invent: the beam-ends were sculptured into queer little crouching figures of monkeys or angels, and all sorts of _diableries_ decorated the cornices that ran beneath the windows; there were no panes of glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate times, but narrow latticed lights to let in the day, and the wind, and the cold; while the roofs were covered commonly with shingles, or, in the houses of the wealthy, with sheets of lead. Between each gable came forth a long water-spout, and poured down a deluge into the gutter beneath; each gable-top was peaked into a fantastic spiry point or flower, and the chimneys congregated into goodly companies amidst the roofs, removed from the vulgar gaze or fastidious jests of the people below. So large were the fireplaces in those rooms that could own them, and so ample were the chimney flues, that smoky houses were unheard of: the staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a dubious ray, that served to prevent you from breaking your neck in a rapid descent; but the apartments were generally of commodious dimensions, and the tenements possessed many substantial comforts.

Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain; the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys, which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys, but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given; there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_. Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_, and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious gambler, Thibault-au-de, well known for his skill in loading dice, gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of his companions.

A wider kind of street was the _Rue de la Ferronerie_, opening into the Rue St Denis, below the Church of the Innocents: it was the abode of all the tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had not Henri IV. been in a particular hurry that day, when he was posting off to old Sully in the Rue St Antoine, he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac, probably, had never been able to lean into the carriage and stab the king. Just over the spot where the murder was committed, the placid bust of the king still gazes on the busy scene beneath. The _Rue de la Grande Truanderie_, which was above the Innocents, must have been the rendez-vous of all the thieves and beggars of Paris, if there be any thing in a name: the old chronicles of the city relate, indeed, that it took a long time to respectabilize its neighbourhood; and they add that the herds of rogues and impostors who once lived in it took refuge, after their ejection, in the famous _Cour des Miracles_, a little higher up the Rue St Denis. We must not venture into this, the choicest preserve of Victor Hugo, whose graphic description of its wonders in his _Notre Dame_ needs hardly to be alluded to; but we may add, that there were several abodes of the same kind, all communicating with the Rue St Denis, and all equally infamous in their day, though now tenanted only by quiet button-makers and furniture-dealers. The real _Puits d'Amour_ stood at the corner of the Rue de la Grande Truanderie, and took its name in sad truth from a crossing of true love. In the days of Philip Augustus, more than six hundred years ago, a beautiful young lady of the court, Agnes Hellebik, whose father held an important post under the king, was inveigled into the toils of love. The object of her affections, whether of noble birth or not, made her but a sorry return for her confidence: he loved her a while, and her dreams of happiness were realized; but by degrees his passion cooled, and at length he abandoned her. Stung with indignation, and broken-hearted at this thwarting of her soul's desire, the unfortunate young creature fled from her father's house, and betaking herself on a dark and stormy night to the brink of the well, commended her spirit to her Maker, and ended her troubles beneath its waters. The name of the _Puits d'Amour_ was then given to the well; and no young maiden ever dared to draw water from it after sunset, for fear of the spirit that dwelt unquietly within. The tradition was always current in people's mouths; and three centuries after, a young man of the neighbourhood, who had been jilted and mocked by an inconstant mistress, determined to bear his ills no longer, so he rushed to the _Puits_, and took the fatal leap. The result was not what he anticipated: he did not, it is true, jump into a courtly assembly of knights and gallants, but he could not find water enough in it to drown him; while his mistress, on hearing of the mishap, hastened to the well with a cord, and promising to compensate him for his former woes, drew him with her fair hands safely into the upper regions. An inscription, in Gothic letters, was then placed over the well:--

"L'amour m'a refaict
En 1525 tout-a-faict."

The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far preferable to that of another young girl who lived in this quarter, indeed in the Rue Thibault-au-de. Agnes du Rochier was the only daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants of Paris, and was admired by all the neighbourhood for her beauty and virtue. In 1403 her father died, leaving her the sole possessor of his wealth, and rumour immediately disposed of her hand to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head, or that the gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake. She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse, and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the ceremony of her reclusion began. The walls and pillars of the sacred edifice had been hung with tapestry and costly cloths, tapers burned on every altar, the clergy of the capital and the several religious communities thronged the church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through which Agnes might hear the offices of the church, and receive the aliments given her by the charitable. She was eighteen years old when she entered this living tomb, and she continued within it _eighty_ years, till death terminated her sufferings! Alas, for mistaken piety! Her wealth, which she gave to the church, and her own personal exertions during so long a life, might have made her a blessing to all that quarter of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.

Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years, according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied, and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the police should come round and see that the work had been properly executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen; and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet, when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees; but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable depth, something like a human form leaning against the side of the receptacle. Ropes and ladders were now immediately procured; two men went down, and in a few minutes brought up a body--it was that of the unfortunate young man who had been so long missing! Life was not quite extinct, for some motion of the limbs was perceptible, there was even one last low groan, but then all animation ceased for ever. The appearance of the body was most dreadful; the face was a livid green colour, the trunk looked like that of a man drowned, and kept long beneath the water, all brown and green--one of the feet had completely disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape: worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen in. That life should have been supported so long under such circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for several weeks, and to a heavy fine.