that moment we met two deputies, both friends of ours, who were coming from the Palais Bourbon. “What news?” inquired we, by way of saying something, as they went by. “Nothing,” was the answer. They were about resuming their walk, when one of them urned back. “Oh, yes; by the way,” said he. “If this bit of news can be of interest to you, you are welcome to it. Yesterday the President of the Council of Ministers informed us that there would be an international exhibition in 1889, to commemorate the centenary of the Revolution.” After which both took their leave.     An international exhibition! The first thought of two artists when such an announcement is made to them is to inquire mentally what space is likely to be reserved to their works in the fine-arts section, and to see what they can do to get as much length of wall as possible “on the line.” Absorbed in these selfish speculations, we held our peace for a while; when suddenly one of us struck the iron railing of the Luxor Obelisk with his cane, and exclaimed: “I ‘ve an idea, my dear fellow; I ‘ve an idea!”     “What is it?” asked the other.     “Suppose we carry out our grand idea —the pageant of the century— for the exhibition of 1889? What do you say to a colossal panorama, where a spectator may review the last one hundred years of French history—a veritable tableau-vivant of the great men and the chief events of the century, evoked from out the past with all the witchery of historical reminiscences? One hundred years of history, which the sight-seer may review in half an hour, from Louis XVI to Sadi Carnot; wherein, for instance,— not to go beyond the military, literary, and artistic orders,— General Lafayette, Beaumarchais, and Greuze would open the line of march, which Marshal Mac-Mahon, Alexandre Dumas, and Meissonier would close!”     The one who made this suggestion spoke with such warmth that he soon brought conviction into the mind of the other, who in turn fired up, and replied:     “You have hit upon the idea. Good! I have found the background for our picture. Do you know where I would propose placing this review of the century? Right here—yonder, in the Tuileries. The old palace of the kings of France has, it is true, foundered in one of those political convulsions which afford subjects for our canvas; but the site remains. There lies the garden, and, beyond its trees, the eye catches sight, does it not? of the Louvre, which is only a prolongation of the Tuileries. We are standing in the full center, in the very heart, of Paris. All the great events of French history have been wrought within the circle of our present vision. Louis XVI, the Great Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe, Napoleon III— all have lived within that radius. Is not this Place de la Concorde which skirts the garden even to-day the antechamber, so to speak, of the Chamber of Deputies, and the spot over which flows the Paris world of fashion and elegance on its way to the Champs- lys es? And is not this the obelisk to which Th ophile Gautier (a poet not to be forgotten in our panorama) lends the words: Je vois, de janvier d cembre, La procession des bourgeois, Les Solons qui vont la Chambre, Et les Arthurs qui vont au Bois.     “Yes, the Tuileries, long live the Tuileries! And, while I think of it, what matters it if the palace is destroyed? The personages of our panorama must not be crowded into an