Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PARIS IN MAY. —FRENCH GIRLS. —THE EMPEROR AT LONGCHAMPS. IT was the first of May when we came up from Italy. The spring grew on us as we advanced north: vegetation seemed further along than it was south of the Alps. Paris was bathed in sunshine, wrapped in delicious weather, adorned with all the delicate colors of blushing spring. Now the horse-chestnuts are all in bloom, and so is the hawthorn; and in parks and gardens there are rows and alleys of trees, with blossoms of pink and of white; patches of flowers set in the light green grass; solid masses of gorgeous color, which fill all -he air with perfume; fountains that dance in the sunlight as if just released from prison; and everywhere the tift suffusion of May. Young maidens who make their (j rt communion go into the churches in processions of bin 'dreds, all in white, from the flowing veil to the satin siij 7er; and I see them everywhere for a week after the ter nony, in their robes of innocence, often with bouquets of --hirers, and attended by their friends; all concerned mafc r it a joyful holiday, as it ought to be. I hear, of eour .9 with what false ideas of life these girls are educated how they are watched before marriage; how the mania ;- is only one of arrangement, and what liberty they ea ; vrly seek afterwards. I met a charming Paris lady lag winter in Italy, recently married, who said sho bad never oeen in the Louvre in her life; never had seen any of the uiagnific nt pictures or world-famous statuary there, because girls were not allowed to go there, lest they should see something that they ought not to see. 1 suppose they look with wonder at the young American girls who march up to any thing that ever was created with undismayed front. Another Frenchwoman, a lady of talent and the best breeding, recent...