Hotel de Londres, Rue des Petits Augustins*1, Paris.
Sunday Morning
Feb[ruary] 2nd 1845
My dear Mother*1a,
Two days ago I sent a letter announcing my arrival in this city to my father, which I do not doubt went quite safe. Since then I have seen a very great deal, so much indeed that it is very confusing. My first call was upon Baron [Joules Paul Benjamin] Delessert*2 who lives close by the Rue Richelieu, the way I found perfectly easily by following the explicit directions that Mr Brown*3 gave me. I nd him very glad to see me indeed & extremely kind, he introduced to his factotum, La Legne[?], & invited me to dinner as yesterday. I told him that I wished to change my quarters & he recommended me here so I am but & ben*4 with Baron Humboldt*5. I had great difficulty forcing an entrance, as the whole house is full, but they have given a diminutive & for this part of the word clean bedroom, they have sitting rooms private & public, but they bring me my breakfast of fee & eggs in the morning. There being no fire it is very cold, though being out all day it saves francs & dimes to have a room without fire place, in a few days I am to have a pair of rooms, which I shall not be sorry for. Why this house is called de Londres I know not, as there is not a trace or pretension to anything English about the whole house, which is large & as quiet as if empty. Leaving Delessert I went to [Philip Barker] Webb's*6, a long way off, but the whole town is so simple that one finds the way with perfect ease anywhere. I followed the Boulevard which resembles the Strand but has houses on it & the shops are uniformily[sic.] better, the streets & pavements however very much more dirty. The Madeleine is a most beautiful great building, which stands at one angle of the Boulevards (facing an oblique continuation of that road) it is built of white stone but the columns are made of separate pieces & the joining so evident that much of the effort is frittered away, which the beautiful

view otherwise presents. I suppose it is meant for very pure Greek & is certainly a very fine object indeed. The frieze which runs round along its facade is beautifully cut, but the designs are horribly French. Immediately on passing this, the Place de la Concord, opens which did strike me as most beautiful, the sun was immediately at the back of the obelisk & of the fountains which sparkled in the rays. The lamp posts are rather heavy, but guilt or bronzed throughout; its form is 8 agonal & at each angle is an equestrian statue, raised on a square pediment the designs horses are very spirited indeed: from the obelisk in the centre, are three very grand views 1st back through the rue Royale (the continuation of the Boulevard) upon the Madelaine, 2 to the left through a short avenue to the Tuileries 3rd to the right through the immense length of the Champs Elise to the Arc de Triomphe, a rather heavy object in itself but very grand at the distance of perhaps a mile, straight on is another avenue leading to the Pont de la Concorde & on the other side of the Seine the Chamber of Deputies blocks up the view or rather forms a very firm termination to it. My way led through the Champs Elise, which is very dirty indeed & I soon got terribly splashed with mud. I do no think these town avenues at all in good keeping, they are half rural & that is all, the broad flagged pavements & macadamised roads covered with carts & coaches do not suit the noble trees at all; so that I could not in any way compare the Champs Elise's with the avenue at Bushy Park or at Invarary. The trees look much more to advantage in our parks, where we have not rows of shops at their backs & restaurants under their shade. On the contrary the town views here are infinitely preferable to the London one. The Louvre, Palais Royale & Tuileries are separately infinitely superior as wholes than anything we have. The whole bank of the Seine is magnificent which it would not be were it navigable, or this a manufacturing

town, so that the two rivers are not comparable nor are the effects they produce, or the advantages they offer for embellishing the city. There is here nothing as good as Regent Street, though a little bit of the Rue Rivoli & Rue Royale are better than any equal portions taken out of that London thoroughfare -- all this is however very stupid to you, who have seen these wonders long ago & probably pronounced a very different & more correct judgement on them. Mr Webb occupies a very elegant house at the upper end of the Rue Avenue de Neuilly in an out of the way avenue called Marbeuf: he received me most kindly & asked me to dine the same day: from his house I went to the Rue St Honore, which is the fashionable street of Paris & left my card & little parcel for Lord [John Hobart Caradoc] Howden*7. The good houses do not follow one another in a row here as in Piccadilly, or have they an pretensions generally speaking to show outside. You enter a gr[part of mss missing] door as big & black as Newgate & give your name &c at a concierge inside, in a macadamised court yard. The street is very narrow so that two can scarcely walk abreast on the road pavement & the stoppages of carriages & carts are ten times worse & more numerous than Strand at Temple Bar. This is the season here & the quantities of mats[?] & balls are prodigious, they are much] confined to the highest classes both of French & English, the middling & lower classes contenting themselves with public imitations of private waste. Today a carnival commences which will fill the streets & I seriously hope that this cold wind will bring snow to cool their boisterous dispositions.
On putting up here I sent in my card with Mr Brown's books to Baron Humboldt. He was not at home but sent his flunkyx*8 to my bedroom at 8 o'clock yesterday morning to say his master wished to see

me at 9 -- 10 minutes after his Lord had grown impatient & sent say he was ready, so I went in & saw to my horror a paunchy lit[ttle] German, instead of a tall Humboldt, there was no mistaking his beard however, which is exceedingly like all the portraits though now powdered with white. I expected to see a fine fellow 6 feet without his boots, who would make as few steps to get up Chimborazo[sic]*9 as thoughts to solve a problem. I cannot now at all fancy his trotting along the Cordillera*10 as I once supposed he would have stalked. However he received me most kindly & made a great many enquiries about all at Kew & in England particularly about Mr Brown & my father. I had to break this off to go to x*11 there are two here, one at the Embassy which is conducted by the Bishop; described as a jolly English parson, the other I have just heard, orderly, decently & reverently performed is the Rue de Chaillot, the chapel was very full. Pray give my best love to all. I will write again soon. Please let Mr. Planchon [?]*12 look out a few flowers of the plants mentioned by Mr. Gay*13 & send them. The poor man has stuck at his[?] monograph for want of them, he is very poor but takes my books. The Delesserts are extremely kind. Your ever most affectionate son. Jos. D. Hooker [signature]