G. C. December 1905....

Grandson and son of two rare and justly-renowned artists, P. J. Mène and Auguste Cain, my excellent friend, Georges Cain, has abundantly shown that he is the worthy inheritor of their talent. To-day, he wishes to prove that he knows how "to handle the pen as well as the pencil" as our Ancients used to say, and that the Carnavalet Museum has in him, not only the active and enthusiastic Curator that we constantly see at his task, but also the most enlightened guide possible in matters of Parisian

Paris! What visions this magic word calls up—historic Paris, with its palaces, churches, monuments, streets, and squares; the Paris of literature and its admirable procession of writers, poets, thinkers, dramatists, philosophers, and humourists; the Paris of society, its fêtes, receptions, fashions, elegancies, and snobbism; the Paris of politicians, the Paris of journalists, religious Paris, the Paris of the police, bohemian Paris, industrial Paris. And how many others still! So many passions,

Paris was born in the Isle of the Seine, whose shape is that of a cradle, and of which Sauval speaks so picturesquely: "The isle of the City is fashioned like a great ship sunk in the slime and stranded at the surface of the water, in the middle of the Seine." This particularity must certainly have struck the heraldists of every age, and from it comes the vessel that is blazoned on the old escutcheon of Paris. So the City presents itself with its prow to the west and its poop to the east. The po

The Isle of Saint-Louis is, in some sort, the continuation of the old City. It is a kind of provincial town in Paris. The streets are silent and deserted; there are no shops, no promenaders, no business; a few old aristocratic mansions, with their tall façades, their emblazoned pediments and their severe architecture, alone tell the glorious past of this noble quarter. The finely carved spire of Saint-Louis' Church confers an elegance on the somewhat melancholy whole. The quays of Orléans and Be

No less than the old part of the City, the left bank of the river is rich in souvenirs. There the Roman occupation left the deepest traces. We find the arenas of Lutecia, and, above all, the Thermae of Julian, saved from destruction by the taste and initiative of Du Sommerard at the moment when these grandiose ruins, which were being used as coopers' store-rooms, were about to be pulled down, involving in their fall that jewel of the fifteenth century, the marvellous Hôtel de Cluny. Quite recent

The Arsenal quarter, built over the site of the two Royal Palaces—the Saint-Paul mansion, the Tournelles palace—and the soil of the Louviers Isle, joined to the river bank in 1843, serve as a natural transition from the old to modern Paris. Notwithstanding its warlike name, the Arsenal quarter is one of the most peaceful parts of the Capital. Centuries ago, the palaces disappeared that brought it its wealth, life and movement. On their ruins and their huge gardens, humble, tranquil streets have