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in the undressed stone. At the present having his doors fitted with chains, time the walls are also painted in imi- bolts, and safety-locks. tation of cloth, or are even hung with In the abode thus armed against the real stuffs, specially manufactured and housebreaker's attacks the first chamhaving large floral designs on them. ber seen by the visitor is the ante-room, In the very best houses the luxury of or hall, which varies in size, and is tapestry is indulged in for the staircase often badly lighted from the staircase; walls. On each landing lamps of gilded oftener still it is irregular in shape. bronze shed the light of gas or elec- Numerous double doors give access tricity. In well-arranged houses a wide to the principal reception-rooms — the carpet covers the stairs; the lights are large and small drawing-rooms, the not extinguished until after midnight, dining-room, the master's study, and, and in certain cases a lamp remains apart from the others, the boudoir of burning in the entrance vestibule the mistress of the house. The bedthroughout the night. rooms are reached by a corridor, which This vestibule must be sufficiently is frequently very narrow, and is enlarge to contain the footmen in attend-tered from the hall through a small ance on their masters. There are door concealed by the wall-hangings or capacious divans along its walls, and in the wainscoting. many instances the decoration of the vestibule and its peristyle calls forth all the talent and imagination of the artist. Columns without base support coffered ceilings, while the pavement is in mosaic, with arabesques and flowerwork. Very often there are a couple of white marble steps- - an instalment of the staircase. The latter begins either in front or on one side, and is at least one mètre in width, sometimes two mètres. All this parade of luxury has to be paid for, and before the tenant has entered the door of his apartment he already knows what it is going to cost him.

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The large drawing-room is decorated with plaster reliefs, which, in the earliest period, represented rockwork or the convoluted wainscoting of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. Then the fashion changed, and it was considered more correct and noble to imitate sculpture of Louis the Sixteenth. Occasionally the architect went back to the pomps of Versailles and SaintCloud. The Louis-Fourteenth style remains in favor for drawing-room ornamentation, except in those cases where a further step backward is made to Henri the Second. The last-named style if style it can be called-is Let us, too, enter the apartment. very much in fashion at present, but Harmonizing with the predominant more especially for dining-rooms. For note of the staircase walls, the door is drawing-rooms, the profile and festoons painted either black or in imitation of of Louis the Fourteenth's time still some precious wood. When it is made predominate. The grounds are painted of polished oak it is considered the white, pearl-grey, or light pink, and height of luxury, and one may deduce the reliefs are gilded. The gilding is therefrom that the whole house is built dead, like the grounds. If it is a firstof the best materials. The richest floor flat and an expensive one, the color sometimes hides the lightest and gilding may be burnished, so as to thinnest of wood. All these doors have shine in artificial light. The fireplace two leaves. The lock is of very infe- is always small and elegant, and is rior quality, like nearly all Paris iron-built of Carrara marble mongery. It is extremely easy for a made. The small drawing-room will burglar to gain an entrance into a be similarly decorated, but with less Parisian flat, either by force or artifice, gilding; the painting will be darkereven if it is situated in one of the say light bistre, buff, or olive. hundred houses cited as the finest triumphs of architectural art. Consequently a new tenant loses no time in old tapestry, and, the greater its cost,

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If the tenant is a lover of things ancient, he may hang these walls with

Over the fireplace there is usually a mirror with bevelled edges; but those who desire to pass for people of taste substitute a painting in place of the mirror.

the more beautiful will it appear in | is called the "dining-room fireplace " his sight. The painting of the ceil- for the reason that it is not customary ings will perplex him sorely. It is to put anything like it in other rooms. scarcely possible to imitate the brilliant periods of Louis the Fourteenth, Louis the Fifteenth, or even Louis the Sixteenth, without decorating the ceilings; yet, however great may be the liberality of the insurance companies, An innovation has been introduced the taste of landlords, and the talent of latterly in Paris dining-rooms, namely, architects, it can hardly be expected an imitation of the English bow-winthat the ceilings of houses built to be dow, only square instead of round. let out should be painted by first-rate Properly speaking, it is a balcony artists. Their brushes are only called framed in with stained glass. In this into requisition when one buys or way the room is enlarged, but the balerects a house for oneself. Therefore cony, as such, is lost. This style of the decoration of the ceilings of houses window was unknown half-a-dozen built in flats is usually confided to stu- years ago, but to-day every new house dents or workmen. More often than is provided with it, while the old ones not it is the ordinary house-painter are being altered in order to satisfy who strews flowers and Cupids over this fresh craze. In some cases the the ceilings, even in the case of the framework is of stone, and in others finest appartements. This work being of iron. The iron frame being often paid for at so much per foot, it would badly adjusted, wind, rain, and snow be too costly to employ men of talent. enter by the joints. It has therefore In France it is only the State that is been found necessary, in almost every able to have its ceilings painted by re- instance, to have a double window, powned artists, and very badly are they which fills the whole width of the rewarded for their labor. room. To compensate the loss of light owing to the colored glass, these projecting windows are made enormously large. The French architect has not given way without a struggle to the demand for more light. Little by little, however, the windows have been made larger; they have lost their classic proportions, and we may say that it is now becoming the practice to design them according to the needs of the occupant, and not merely for external appearance.

Vous leur fites, monseigneur, En les volant, beaucoup d'honneur. These ceilings are the despair of all persons of taste, and there does not appear to be any way out of the difficulty, unless it is by covering them, like the walls, with stuff or tapestry. But this would reduce the height of the rooms, which is never too great in Paris houses, where space has to be economized perpendicularly as well as

in other senses.

The introduction of lifts was also

The dining-room fares better. Here the painter rarely applies anything but resisted, not only by the architect, but dull tints or an imitation of walnut- by the builder as well. It is true that wood, which cannot compromise his when first employed in Parisian houses artistic taste. An imitation of wain- these apparatus were the cause of scoting reaches to a height of about many terrible accidents; but they have five feet, the rest of the wall being been greatly improved, and now no covered with cloth, or with paper first-class house is built without the which is supposed to resemble Cordova necessary place being reserved for the leather. The cornice is ornamented lift, including a door on the landing of with reliefs, and the ceiling with cof- each floor. At the beginning the lift projecting beams. The fire was erected in the well of the staircase, place, which is high, is of colored but this is no longer done, except in a marble. It is of particular shape, and few special instances.

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over to the maids, who do not by any means consider themselves well lodged. It will be gathered from the foregoing that everything is sacrificed to appearances, and that, although vanity may be flattered, comfort and well-being are still unattained.

Another improvement has been traversed. They are generally turned made quite recently. Paris houses are lofty, and the work thrown upon the servants on this account is very considerable. Wine and fuel have to be carried up from the cellars by way of a servants' staircase, which is frequently too small, and when the family lives on the fifth floor this is no light labor. A certain architect, who is a man of The inconvenience is now remedied by sense and a keen observer, attempted the erection of a second lift, which to meet both of these requirements of furthermore serves for raising and refined people. Finding a large, welllowering luggage. This is not all. shaped piece of ground, and a liberal One of the greatest annoyances con- and intelligent capitalist, he resolved nected with Paris flats is the getting to divide his flats into two portions. rid of the household refuse. In some He designed a vestibule or gallery runof the newly built edifices there is a ning from the entrance to the further shoot, down which everything that can extremity of the building, and having be burnt descends to the heating appa- a width of at least thirteen feet. On ratus in the basement. Thus, this one side he placed the reception-rooms, stove, which in winter warms and ven- and on the other the private rooms of tilates the entire house, helps also to the family. He added a wing containkeep it clean. ing some minor chambers, and wisely Is everything, then, perfect in the banished the kitchen, bath-room, and Parisian house of to-day? Far from water-closets to a second wing, in it. We have described the drawing order to remove the sources of bad and dining rooms; let us now proceed smells as far away as possible. The to the bedrooms. They are small, new system obtained immediate favor, badly ventilated, and ill lighted, light and to-day no first-class house is built only reaching them from narrow court- in which it is not adopted, provided yards. The walls are in ashlar-work, the shape of the ground permits. and so thin that heat and cold pene- These apartments are greatly sought trate in their turn. There is no orna- after, notwithstanding the fact that mentation whatever; the walls, which they are dearer than the ordinary ones. are not always true, have a covering of If there is a well-appointed lift, the paper, the floor is full of cracks, the difference between one floor and anfireplaces give out no warmth, and, other becomes trifling; nevertheless, what is more serious, the most offen- the first floor still remains what the sive odors find their way in from the Italians term piano nobile. The ceilkitchen and closets. This last remarkings are higher-from three mètres holds good with respect to houses of sixty centimètres to four mètres the most magnificent outward appear- while those of the floors above decrease ance, if the builder has not solved the thorny problem, still pending before the Municipal Council, of connecting the closets directly with the sewers. A flat with a rental of 400l. per annum will have all these drawbacks, while containing, besides the reception-rooms, only five or six bedrooms, of which two, or at most three, will be really habitable and be situated in the main building, the others being in a wing and in the neighborhood of the kitchen. To reach them a long corridor must be

in height at the rate of twenty centimètres for each floor, down to three mètres, which is the limit in the best houses, although in third-rate ones it falls to two mètres eighty centimètres.

In every case the tenant has to pay according to the richness of the decoration, the luxuriousness of the staircase, the carpet covering it, and the heating, which in some of the newer houses is supplied in profusion to the ante-chamber, dining-room, and drawing-rooms of each flat. The calorifere

is placed in the cellars. The method | iognomy of which we have sketched of heating differs according to the size above.

An exhaustive examination of of the house. In the smaller ones hot this subject would entail an analysis of air is used, which is more economical the laws and regulations relating to than water, and can be shut off when house-construction in France, and esnot needed. pecially in Paris. We will merely say The lighting of those parts of the that these laws and regulations place house that are used in common by all the architect in a veritable Gehenna. the tenants is by hydrogen gas, in con- Every effort at originality is quickly junction with the Auer burner, which suppressed. When one threads the gives a white light and does not heat thousand intricacies of these provithe atmosphere. The invasion of the sions, one is no longer astonished at electric light, however, tends to sup- the dead uniformity of our façades. plant the use of gas. In many apart- Neither is it surprising that rents ments gas is not to be found in the should have become so high, and living rooms; it is entirely banished should have increased more than one from the salons and bedrooms, and is hundred per cent. within fifty years. tolerated only in the ante-chambers In the houses we have dealt with, and kitchens. An ingenious system of which form three categories whose boilers enables the ovens, water-bath, boundaries are somewhat hard to deand roasting apparatus to be kept con- fine, an apartment with three bedstantly heated. In some cases there is rooms, if situated on the first or second also a reservoir of hot water for the floor, generally costs 2001. a year. For bath-room, so arranged as to be ready a flat with from six to eight bedrooms, day and night. As a rule, however, three drawing-rooms, smoking-room, the bath-room is merely a little nook, etc., the rent may amount to 6007. or and the water for it is heated by gas. 800l., including stable and coach-house; The numerous accidents caused by this and it may even exceed 1,000l. if there system ought to bring about its aboli- is a ball-room, ornamented with coltion. The kitchens are nearly all pro- umns and provided with a band-stand. vided with gas cooking-stoves, in Columns are expensive things in Paris. addition to coal-fire ranges. They are made in polished stucco, so as In the new houses, and in many old to avoid the weight and cost of marble; ones, the principal flats are connected but their capitals are gilded in the most with the porter's lodge by a telephone. | lavish manner. Some houses also possess a telephone This monographic sketch may here cabinet for the joint use of all the ten- close, as, in order clearly to set forth ants. Thirty years ago it was the the difficulties, sometimes insurmountcustom for the concierge to announce able ones, which beset builders, and to visitors by ringing a bell in the court- establish the cost-prices according to yard. Though retained in private the quality and nature of the materials, mansions, this practice has been alto- it would be necessary to go into quesgether abolished in apartment-houses. tions connected with the land, the In some instances it has been super- locality, the legal aspect, the materials, seded by an electric indicator, which and even to introduce the reader to makes less noise and is more easily various industries which are closely worked. Communication from room to room is supplied either by electric bells or air-tubes.

allied to the Paris house-building trade; finally, it would be requisite to draw a picture of the architect-a somewhat complex individuality, who is not invariably a genius, but who ought always to be an upright man and

This essay on the Parisian dwelling would be incomplete were we not to add a few reflections concerning its external architecture, the general phys- a gentleman.

ALPHONSE DE CALONNE.

From Good Words.

COPERNICUS.

BY SIR ROBERT BALL, LL.D., F.R.S.

gestion, Copernicus took holy orders, and was presently appointed to a canonry in the cathedral of Frauenburg, near the mouth of the Vistula.

THE quaint town of Thorn, on the Vistula, was more than two centuries To Frauenburg, accordingly, this old when Copernicus was born there man of varied gifts retired. Possesson the 19th of February, 1473. Thorn ing somewhat of the ascetic spirit, he was even, in those days, a place of resolved to devote his life to work considerable trade, lying as it does on of the most serious description. He the frontier between Prussia and Po- eschewed all ordinary society, restrictland, with a commodious water-way ing his intimacies to very grave and for traffic between the two countries. learned companions, and refusing to Copernicus, the astronomer, whose engage in conversation of any useless discoveries make him the great prede-kind. It would seem as if his gifts for cessor of Newton and Kepler, did not painting came under the condemnation come from a noble family, as certain of frivolity; at all events, we do not other early astronomers have done, for, though his uncle was certainly a bishop, yet his father was a tradesman. We are not acquainted with any of those details of his childhood or youth which are often of such interest in other cases where men have risen to exalted fame. It would appear that the young Nicolaus, for such was his Christian name, received his education at home, until such time as he was deemed sufficiently advanced to be sent to the university at Cracow. The education that he there obtained must have been in those days of a very primitive description, but Copernicus seems to have availed himself of it to the utmost. He devoted himself more particularly to the study of medicine, with the view of adopting its practice as the profession of his life. The tendencies The intellectual slumber of the Midof the future astronomer were, how-dle Ages was destined to be awakened ever, revealed in the fact that he worked hard at mathematics, and, like one of his illustrious successors, Galileo, the practice of the art of painting had for him very great interest, and in it he obtained some measure of suc

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learn that he continued to practise them. In addition to the discharge of his theological duties, his life was divided partly between ministering medically to the wants of the poor, and partly with his researches in astronomy and mathematics. His equipment in the way of instruments for the study of the heavens seems to have been of a very meagre description. He arranged apertures in the walls of his house at Allenstein, so that he could observe in some fashion the passage of the stars across the meridian. That he possessed some talent for practical mechanics, is proved by his construction of a contrivance for raising water from a stream, for the use of the inhabitants of Frauenburg. Relics of this machine are still to be seen.

by Copernicus. It may be noted, that the time at which he appeared coincided with a remarkable epoch in the world's history. The great astrono mer had just reached manhood, at the time when Columbus discovered America.

Before the publication of the researches of Copernicus, the orthodox scientific belief averred that the earth was stationary, and that the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies Ptolwere indeed real movements. emy had laid down this doctrine fourteen hundred years before. In his theory this huge error was associated with so much important truth, aud

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