They crossed to France, and ascended the Seine by steamboat, and then settled for a time in Paris.

Of their quarters there in the Rue St.Maur, Sarah Fenimore Cooper writes: "It was thoroughly French in character.

There was a short, narrow, gloomy lane or street, shut in between lofty dwelling houses, the lane often dark, always filthy, without sidewalks, a gutter running through the centre, over which, suspended from a rope, hung a dim oil lamp or two--such was the Rue St.Maur, in the Faubourg St.Germain.It was a gloomy approach certainly.

But a tall porte cochere opened, and suddenly the whole scene changed.

Within those high walls, so forbidding in aspect, there lay charming gardens, gay with parterres of flowers, and shaded by noble trees, not only those belonging to the house itself, but those of other adjoining dwellings of the same character--one looked over park-like grounds covering some acres.