Among the scientific establishments of the city may be mentioned the observatory established on the top of the Tour Saint-Jacques, the beautiful fragment remaining of the old church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, demolished in 1789. In the vaulted open chamber of the base of the tower stands a statue of Pascal, who, from the top of it, repeated his experiments on the weight of the air; and on this top--only fifty three mètres from the pavement--there has been in operation for the last seven or eight years a meteorological observatory. The varying conditions of the atmosphere, the winds, and the smoke which pollutes it, are closely investigated, weather predictions are hazarded, and the observers even descend into the sewer at their feet, under the Rue de Rivoli, to investigate and analyze the subterranean air. About 1885, M. Joubert, the director, established here a gigantic pendulum, to repeat the experiments made by Foucault at the Panthéon in 1851, and afterward a water-barometer, the only one in existence. The incongruity of this modern scientific apparatus on top of this mediæval tower, among the four monsters of the Evangelists at the corners, is rather amusing,--even the statue of Saint James himself carries placidly an anemometer on his back.
Another of these minor municipal details--and possibly a more affecting one--is the official Dépôt des Marbres, established adjoining the official museum of the Garde-Meuble at the end of the Rue de l'Université, by the side of the Champ de Mars. Here are deposited irreverently and in various stages of dilapidation all the official statues, royal, imperial, and republican, that have out-lived their day. "The marble of the statues of the State," said a cynical sculptor, "has the peculiarity of cracking after only a very short period of use." Some of these official marbles have had a longer period than others; but they all end here. Our illustration shows a corner of this depository,--at the angle, Napoleon III, sculptured by Iselin; behind him, a relief representing the return of the ashes of his great uncle; in the foreground, the Imperial eagle, with his fiery glance forever dimmed, and, at the left, a seated figure of Louis XVIII. Kings, potentates, and powers, official allegories, emblems, and symbols, are all set down here together, at the mercy of the weather. In the adjoining grand central pavilion are accumulated the official portraits of these departed rulers, including very many of the late Emperor and Empress,--"all the old rattles of France, all the playthings that she has broken."