Excerpt

When a visitor enters Notre-Dame it is all scented semi-darkness, even when the lights are on. And then, as one grows accustomed to the gloom, the Cathedral opens slowly like a great flower, not so beautifully as in Chartres or even as in Bourges, but with its own grandeur and fascination. There are times in the day when the sun spatters on the church and illuminates it; the light not only chases the shade from the aisles and recesses, but also shows that glorious wheel window in the south transept, whose upper wall which is indeed more glass than stone could not be more beautiful, and the rose window over the organ is magnificent. Towards evening, in the shadowy light, it is Notre-Dame de Paris again, romantic and mysterious. (chapter 2, page 13)

Standing on the Quai d' Orlans one catches again the magnificence of Notre-Dame fixed across the river set against the pink evening sky. The dropping sun floods towers, roofs and streets with a sudden radiance of light. Gradually the glow fades from the heavens while the Cathedral bells ring out on the air -deep, rich, and sonorous in tone, lapsing slowly into silence and then goes away as a dream.

From that time Marie-Antoinette forgot her gaiety and her beautiful youthfulness of heart. France was in a troubled and sad condition, and gradually all those liberal ideas that had been quietly launched in philosophical treatises concentrated into a force which moved a nation, not upon the surface, but from the depths. Versailles was not a Court of great optimism when the year of 1789 came to mark a new era in the history of Europe.

Then slowly through the door of St. Anne entered a hundred girls dressed in white, covered with long veils and with orange blossoms on their heads. These were the hundred poor girls whom Louis XVI had dowered in memory of the birth of Marie-Thrse-Charlotte of France, afterwards Duchess of Angoulme. It was his wish to assist personally at their weddings and to seal their marriage licenses with his sword, which was ornamented on the handle of the pommel with the fleur de lys. (Chapter 2, page 15)

Through the door of the Virgin entered at the same time one hundred young men, each having a sprig of orange blossom in his buttonhole. The two rows advanced together with measured steps, preceded by two Swiss vergers, who struck the pavement heavily with their halberds. They advanced as far as the chancel rails, where each young man gave his hand to a young girl, his fiance, and marched slowly before the king, bowing to him and receiving a bow in return. They were then married by the Archbishop in person. (Chapter 2, page 15)

In the cellar of the corner house with grille, Dr. Guillotin, deputy to the National Assembly in 1789, experimented on sheep with his death-dealing instrument that figured so prominently in the Revolution. He designed his philanthropic beheading machine as a humanitarian means of killing animals; it is said that he died of a broken heart at the grim business for which it was used. (chapter 16, page 170)

On a February evening in 1848 armed insurgents appeared beneath the windows of this hotel which was then the town hall of the arrondissement. The situation was critical when a majestic figure stepped out upon the balcony. It was Victor Hugo, Peer of France. He tried to calm the impatience of the crowd, but without success. Guns were raise in menace. "What do you want, mes enfants?" shouted the orator growing very pale. "A Republican government? Well, then! Long live the Republic!" And the guns were lowered. (chapter 9, page 90)

The words of Alexandre Dumas the Elder: "When one is born in so great a town as Paris, one does not possess a fatherland, but a street." (chapter 15, page 160)

So calm is the courtyard now it is difficult to picture it as the scene of shouting, high-hatted postilions, of cracking whips, of servants calling to one another or of travelers fussing about for their seats and their baskets of food. Nor were the travelers the only clients of the Auberge du Compas d'Or; its cuisine and cellar were highly estimated and, in the reign of Louis XIV when the inn was at its apogee, members of the nobility came here to wine and dine, carousing into the early hours of the morning. (chapter 5, page 42)

These Poor Knights of the Temple, founded in 1118, were the greatest of the military orders. Their duty had long been to protect the pilgrims going to Jerusalem. Their wealth stretched across the map from Cyprus to Ireland, from Denmark to Spain. When the victorious Sultan drove the Christians out at the end of the Crusades, these Knights, rich and mysterious, spread to the West. Here they met their match in Philip the Fair and Clement the French Pope. (Chapter 6, page 60)

The good St. Vincent used to walk the streets of Paris at all hours and in all weather seeking homeless children whom he might befriend. One day, as the Saint was passing through the quarter of Saint-Sverin with a foundling in his arms, he chanced upon another waif in the rue de la Huchette whom he picked up and brought to Saint-Sverin to be baptized. This explains the statue and the stained glass windows of the west side of the chapel. The window showing the rue de la Huchette, which we shall visit later, gives a good idea of how this quarter looked in the old days. (chapter 13, page 136)

In front of the convent was the place where the executioner whipped prostitutes with birch rods. At the time of the Revolution the women of the Place Maubert, at the head of a mob carrying birch rods, descended on the convent, but the National Guard arrived in time to save the nuns the beating the revolutionary peculiar sense of humor had in store for them. (chapter 14, page 138)