All the morning for a distance of some twenty blocks the Avenue des Anglaise, where the battle of flowers is annually held, the decorators had been busy preparing for the event, and by afternoon decked in flowers and gaily-colored ribbons, bunting and flags, the scene that it presented was a brilliant one.

By three o'clock it was crowded with elegant equipages filled with men, women and flowers, the two former pelting each other with blossoms to their heart's content, the spectators in the adjacent windows and on the sidewalks taking part in the mimic war.

Conspicuous in the party was the Prince of Wales and his friends, among which were several of our fair countrywomen, the whole party distributing their flowers right and left with reckless-prodigality.

The number of handsome women, the splendid street decorations, and the abundance of flowers that were scattered about in lavish profusion made a brilliant picture and one that it is not to be wondered that tourists journey from all parts of the continent to witness.
The next morning we were off for Paris, stopping over at Lyons for the night, where there was snow on the ground, the weather being cold and disagreeable, and it was not until Saturday that we arrived in "La Belle Paris," the Mecca of all Americans who have money to spend and who desire to spend it, and the fame of whose magnificent boulevards, parks, palaces, squares and monuments has not extended half as far as has the fame of its Latin Quartier, with its gay student life, its masked balls, with their wild abandon, its theaters made famous by the great Rachael, Sara Bernhardt and others, and its gardens, where high kickers are in their glory.

All of these were to be seen and all of these we saw, that is, all of them that we could see in the short week that was allotted to us, it being a week of late hours and wild dissipation so far as my wife and myself were concerned, we rarely retiring until long after the hour of midnight.