Bayley started immediately for Paris, breaking the stage coach ride at Rouen and reveling in its antiquities. He wrote in a journal that he kept during this journey, "Never have I passed a more delightful day." He arrived in the French capital at eight o'clock on a Friday morning after an all night's ride in a diligence. The following Sunday he went to Church in the English chapel, a practice to which he adhered until his reception into the Catholic Church. During his two weeks in Paris, Roosevelt Bayley visited all the usual places of interest. He particularly visited the tomb of Abelard and Héloïse at Père Lachaise Cemetery, noticed the Hôtel de Sully, in the Latin Quarter saw "many long stalls of old books & engravings", spent a day "in the truly noble galleries of the Louvre", and went to see "the Chh. of the Pantheon most magnificent" as well as the Basilica of Saint-Denis, "the truly noble Chh. in which so many of the kings of France rested until their remains were scattered by the Revolutionists." On another day, he traveled by railroad to see the Palace of Versailles, "so interesting for the associations it brings to mind of Louis XIV and his court ... its magnificent apartments as restored and beautified by the present king form one of the most delightful visiting places about Paris." One of the most memorable days was the Tuesday he spent in the Bibliothèque Royale, "though saddened by the thought that I could only walk thro' it, without being permitted to linger days and weeks as I would like to do among its noble rooms, covered with the choicest treasures of Bibliography." Bayley wrote, "it would take up my whole book to record what I saw as at every turn the eye rests upon some treasure, hitherto only read of, without the hope of ever being looked upon: no wonder that Sebdin's [?] heart leaped within him when Van Praet introduced him into its dominions: many days shall be spent there, if I ever return to Paris."