Shopping was the password today, and all attempts failed to get the two anywhere else before they had seen the shops. We took a taxa [sic] and rode through town and across the bridge to the “Bon Marche,” a large department store, and here we spent a few hours looking and buying. The prices are all affixed to the articles, and most of them are within reach, so that you can see and feel them and call for your salesman when you are ready to buy.

There is a constant flow of people, and they have goods for sale on the sidewalk, too, just like on Franklin Avenue. After we got down here, it was time to lunch, and we entered a restaurant, Duval, but were met at the door by the cheerful news, “No Room,” so we went to another restaurant, where we ate à la cart and very reasonable, too.

After lunch we took a “Taxa” and rode to Notre Dame, the cathedral of the archbishop of Paris. It is a majestic structure, and, at the same time, pleasing to the eye. The large open space in front of the principal façade affords an opportunity to procure a good view of the building and the sculptures.

There are three large portals all adorned with sculpture. The interior is immense, 75 large round pillars support the vaulting. Above the front portals and in the transept are immense rose windows with fine stained glass with purple color predominating, and it is the best of the old glass that I have seen. The colors are harmonious and pleasing to the eye. The heavy stone tracery helps to bring out the color effect, which is the principal part of the windows, as you lose sight of the details at the great distance from which you view them.

Some fine statuary in the side chapels, monuments of Parisian archbishops, among them, “The arising of a corpse from the coffin,” the 23 bas reliefs from the life of Christ in the rear of the choir loft, and the fine pulpit are some of the things which impressed themselves upon my mind.

From here, we drove to the Louvre, the most important building in Paris, not only on account of the rich collections which it contains, but also on account of its architectural execution. It is useless for me to go into detail of what I saw in the collections. They are so large and so varied that it would take weeks to see them all. I just mention here that I saw some well-known sculptures, among them, the Borghesian Fighter, Artemus or Diana á la Biche, and the modern Diana by Goujon, not to forget the Venus of Milo.

A run through the picture galleries where I spent some time to look at Murillo’s Immaculate Conception and his Holy Family, Reni’s “Ecce Homo” and “Magdalene,” Millet’s Aehrenfeleserin (gathering of the sheaves) and Scheffer’s St. Augustin and his mother Monica. Teniers has some very comical features in his paintings, which I cannot very well describe here. The rooms with the furniture of Louis are fine, and it is a pity that we had to hurry on.

We next went to the Magazine de Louvre, another big department store, and, after that, home, and we were hungry, very hungry, and tired. We went to bed early, and I guess I will close this, probably my last epistle which I can mail to you from this side of the ocean with the words of the Psalmist “Oh Lord, how wonderful are thy works.”

We have seen them in so many different kinds that we stand and marvel at the immensity of varieties. Good night.