I suppose that it will always appear inexplicable that we came to Paris and saw and did so little. We have been every day to some point of interest professionally & then I have been too tired to do anything else. I am just reminded by a newspaper ¶ that McMonies is here at work for us. We leave tomorrow morning & I shall not have called on him or on any of the officials, or any friend except André. It remains cold & my cough continuous, and I am not picking up as fast as I had hoped to. Don’t attach too much importance to what I said of Vilmorin. What little he said about the Exposition showed interest and ignorance & puzzlement and if I understood it was all consistent with our apprehension of the inability of those responsible to organize & carry out satisfactorily the Horticl department. It seems to me that you will need to help them as much as you can in a friendly & suggestive way without being intrusive.

A newspaper telegram this morning tells us that the manufacturers building was partly blown down yesterday; the result will be unfortunate delay & a loss of $15000. Taking the sum as an indication I don’t regard it yet as a very serious matter but am afraid it will add to your difficulties. The report of cold weather & delayed Spring I regard as favorable for our operations.

I have seen less here suggestive of better methods or of new ideas than I expected. I am disappointed in this respect. There is nothing attractive or good in what is now to be seen in the gardening of the Tuilleries. We should do better to disregard it entirely & trust to our own invention. The shrub [517]planting is poor, confused, undesigned. Manning would do much better without special instructions. The summer planting—bedding &c. is not out yet, but I see no preparations that are promising or suggestive of good effect. The less we think of Paris examples, I am inclined to think the better will be our results. What I have said of Paris applies to Versailles & Chantilly. Chantilly was purely mechanical. No invention. The grass and trees & architecture alone were of interest—& this was great.

Affcty.

Chantilly, as all other works of La Notré, here seemed to me grand design in outlines, not well carried out in foliage results & with considerable dreary vacancy. We have seen no L.A. in natural style of modern design. It is all designed bit by bit. Theatrically & without connection or breadth or unity.