Notre-Dame de Paris | Page 5

many mouths of rivers, discharged
every moment fresh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd,
augmented incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which
projected here and there, like so many promontories, into the irregular
basin of the place. In the centre of the lofty Gothic* façade of the
palace, the grand staircase, incessantly ascended and descended by a
double current, which, after parting on the intermediate landing-place,

flowed in broad waves along its lateral slopes,--the grand staircase, I
say, trickled incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake. The
cries, the laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet, produced a
great noise and a great clamor. From time to time, this noise and
clamor redoubled; the current which drove the crowd towards the grand
staircase flowed backwards, became troubled, formed whirlpools. This
was produced by the buffet of an archer, or the horse of one of the
provost's sergeants, which kicked to restore order; an admirable
tradition which the provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the
constablery to the ~maréchaussée~, the ~maréchaussée~ to our
gendarmeri of Paris.
* The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed, is
wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we
adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of
the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle
which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the
semi-circle is the father.
Thousands of good, calm, bourgeois faces thronged the windows, the
doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace, gazing at
the populace, and asking nothing more; for many Parisians content
themselves with the spectacle of the spectators, and a wall behind
which something is going on becomes at once, for us, a very curious
thing indeed.
If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in thought with
those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to enter with them, jostled,
elbowed, pulled about, into that immense hall of the palace, which was
so cramped on that sixth of January, 1482, the spectacle would not be
devoid of either interest or charm, and we should have about us only
things that were so old that they would seem new.
With the reader's consent, we will endeavor to retrace in thought, the
impression which he would have experienced in company with us on
crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in the midst of that tumultuous
crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless jackets, and doublets.
And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement in the eyes.
Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled with wood carving,
painted azure, and sown with golden fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a
pavement of black and white marble, alternating. A few paces distant,

an enormous pillar, then another, then another; seven pillars in all,
down the length of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the
double vault, in the centre of its width. Around four of the pillars, stalls
of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around the last three,
benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk hose of the litigants,
and the robes of the attorneys. Around the hall, along the lofty wall,
between the doors, between the windows, between the pillars, the
interminable row of all the kings of France, from Pharamond down: the
lazy kings, with pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and
combative kings, with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward. Then
in the long, pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide
entrances to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults,
pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from top to
bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which, a trifle
tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost entirely
disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of grace, 1549, when
du Breul still admired it from tradition.
Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall,
illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a motley
and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies round the
seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the whole effect of
the picture, whose curious details we shall make an effort to indicate
with more precision.
It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV., there
would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac deposited in the
clerk's office of the Palais de Justice, no accomplices interested in
causing the said documents to disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged,
for lack of better means, to burn the clerk's office in order to burn the
documents, and