In the same pavilion the Administration has exhibited the plans and the
comparative views of the city taken at different epochs since 1789 up to
the last months of 1889. We here see the march of progress in this
immense city, expanding without cessation like a drop of oil, and as it
enlarges crossed by great arteries which establish across its mass
conduits for aeration, and at the same time suppress the agglomerations
of former days.
For artists and archaeologists and lovers of old Paris, whom these new
transformations displease and who regret the picturesque past, the
authorities have had the forethought to paint or photograph before
demolition the quarters which to-day have disappeared, or are on the
point of disappearing; and as a consolation such persons have very
pretty pictures by M. Pansyer, representing St. Julien le Pauvre, the
Rue Galande, the Place Maubert, the ruins of the Opera Comique, the
flower-covered relics of the Cour de Comptes; and there has even been
evoked for them the manor-houses of Clichy and Monceau such as they were
in 1789, and also the quarter of the Bastile, which can thus be compared
with their present aspect. Not far from these antiquities the City of
Paris has exhibited some decorative paintings executed for its various
_mairies_, the "Abreuvoir" and the "Lavoir" of M. D. A. Baudoin, and for
the _Mairie_ d' Arcueil-cachan "L' Automne et l'Ete," by M.
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