The garden of the Tuilleries consists of straight walks, in avenues of lime and horsechesnut trees, cut into regular forms. There are beds of flowers near the palace, and in the summer it is further ornamented with rows of fine orange trees. The Champs Elysées is a less ornamented continuation of the same system. Between the two is a large open space called, originally, the Place of Louis Quinze, afterwards of Concord, and of the Revolution; to the south of this one may see, over the Seine, the magnificent portico of the Chamber of Deputies, and to the north, the beginnings of an edifice which was to have been the Temple of Glory, but what its future name will be is very uncertain. Nearer is the Garde Meuble, a building intended to surpass the celebrated façade of the Louvre. It is very beautiful, but why the architect has not fully succeeded I shall endeavour to explain at a future time. A fine avenue, bounded by a double range of trees, continues from the Elysian Fields to the Barrière de Neuilly, and thus we have a straight line from this barrière (begun on a magnificent scale, but not yet completed) to the front of the Tuilleries, which, if mere length could produce the impression, would certainly be very magnificent. To a certain degree it is so, and the elevation of the ground, towards the barrière, is very favourable to it, but the grandeur is not in proportion to the apparent effort.
However pretty the winding walks of our English gardens may be, they are not at all suited for a place of public resort, where any impression of magnificence is intended. They never show the people, which is a point of great consequence. The disposition of the objects in straight lines, has in itself an imposing, or to use a term more English, an impressive effect, but this has its limits, and I suspect not very extended ones. The too great length of the line makes the individual parts appear little, and the mind is not satisfied with the general impression of sublimity, unless it find the character supported by the objects in its immediate neighbourhood. Beyond a certain point almost any additional length is nearly lost, and, in proceeding along it, we feel its want of variety, without any compensation. I am persuaded that, if a man were placed at the point where two narrow avenues meet, one of them a mile in length, and the other two, he would not readily distinguish the difference. By extending the line too much, also, in places of public resort, it becomes impossible to fill it with people, and this deficiency is more sensible than the length of the avenue.