DIARY, 21 February, 1763
Today I started my tour of the places worthy of attention in the town. D'Augny accompanied me. We went first to the library at the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres, where everyone was busy arranging a cabinet of exhibits, and to the Hospital of Les Invalides where the dome was closed for repairs. It is necessary, therefore, to defer the description of these two places. From there we went to the Military Academy. As this building is next door to Les Invalides, people could easily appreciate the different styles of building. In one everything is grand and sumptuous, in the other everything is small and ordinary. From small, white, clean buildings, which instead of the 500 gentlemen, of which they spoke, the whole establishment contained 258; for the manege (merry-go-round) and the stables are really nothing. It is true that they say that these buildings are only scaffolding that will be taken away to show the true state of the debris. In effect, they were not built to last, since in twenty years most of the plaster work has perished. We then had a look at St. Sulpice Church, of which the front is not at all near completion (the pretext being that many lotteries are to raise the funds.)