RIGHT BANK OF THE SEINE.

The modern business and fashion of Paris are chiefly confined
to the quarters on the right bank of the Seine, which contain the
principal Boulevards, the handsomest streets and squares, the most
luxurious hotels, cafés, and restaurants, the best theatres, and the
most attractive shops. Here, too, are situated the Louvre, with its
magnificent treasures of art, the Champs-Elysées, the Hôtel de Ville,
the Trocadéro, the Opera House, the Palais-Royal, the Bibliothèque
Nationale, the Archives, the Bourse, the Banque de France, and
other great financial establishments, the Hôtel des Postes, the Central
Markets, the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the Pere-Lachaise, etc.

1. Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries, and
Champs-Elysées.

The stranger visiting Paris for the first time, and anxious that
Ms first impression of the city should be as striking as possible,
cannot do better than begin by a walk from the Louvre to the Place
de la Concorde. On all sides are imposing views; whether we stand
on the Pont de la Concorde and survey the river, or whether, from
the Tuileries Gardens, with the palace of the old French kings to
the E., we look N.W. towards the Champs-Elysées, with the long
vista beyond the Obelisk, terminating in the Arc de Triomphe ;
while to the S.W. rise the Eiffel Tower and the dome of the Invalides.

The Place de la Concorde (Pl. R, 15, 18 ; II) f, the centre of the
fashionable quarters on the W., between the Champs-Elysées (p. 69)
and the Jardin des Tuileries (p. 65), is one of the most beautiful
and extensive squares in the world. It received its present form in
1854 from designs by Hittorff. From the centre of the square a
view is obtained of the Madeleine (p. 77), the Palais de la Chambre
des Députés, the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile.

In the middle of the 18th cent, the site was still a desert. Louis XV..
after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748 ; see p. xviii), 'gratified' the municipal
authorities of Paris by permission to erect an equestrian statue to him, and

+ With regard to the arrangement of our Plan of Paris , see note
preceding the list of streets. The three sections of the tripartite plan,
coloured respectively brown, red, and gray, are referred to in the text by
the corresponding letters B, R, and G. If the place sought for is also
to be found in one of the five special plans of the more important
quarters of the city, that plan is indicated by a Roman Italic numeral.
The above reference therefore indicates that the Place de la Concorde
is to be found in the Red Section, Squares 15 and 18, and also in the
Special Plan, No. II.