Notre-Dame de Paris
down Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois. All these masons claim to be
architects, are paid by the prefecture or from the petty budget,
and wear green coats. All the harm which false taste can inflict
on good taste, they accomplish. While we write, deplorable
spectacle! one of them holds possession of the Tuileries, one of
them is giving Philibert Delorme a scar across the middle of his
face; and it is not, assuredly, one of the least of the scandals
of our time to see with what effrontery the heavy architecture of
this gentleman is being flattened over one of the most delicate
façades of the Renaissance!
PARIS, October 20, 1832.
FOOTNOTES:
1 (return) 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.
2 (return) _Faire le diable à quatre_.
3 (return) _Thibaut au des_,—Thibaut of the dice.
4 (return) An old French coin, equal to the two hundred and fortieth
part of a pound.
5 (return) Got the first idea of a thing.
6 (return) The ancient French _hurrah_.
7 (return) A chamber of the ancient parliament of Paris.
8 (return) A blank: an old French coin; six blanks were worth two sous
and a half; targe, an ancient coin of Burgundy, a farthing.
9 (return)
A coffer of great richness
In a pillar’s heart they found,
Within it lay new banners,
With figures to astound.
10 (return) Alms.
11 (return) Give me the means to buy a bit of bread, sir.
12 (return) A high-toned sharper.
13 (return) Thieves.
14 (return) L’argot.
15 (return) A small dessert apple, bright red on one side and
greenish-white on the other.
16 (return) When the gay-plumaged birds grow weary, and the earth—
17 (return)
My father is a bird,
my mother is a bird.
I cross the water without a barque,
I cross the water without a boat.
My mother is a bird,
my father is a bird.
18 (return) Time is a devourer; man, more so.
19 (return) _Histoire Gallicane_, liv. II. Periode III. fo. 130, p. 1.
20 (return) This is the same which is called, according to locality,
climate, and races, Lombard, Saxon, or Byzantine. There are four sister
and parallel architectures, each having its special character, but
derived from the same origin, the round arch.
_Facies non omnibus una,
Non diversa tamen, qualem_, etc.
Their faces not all alike, nor yet different, but such as the faces of
sisters ought to be.
21 (return) This portion of the spire, which was of woodwork, is
precisely that which was consumed by lightning, in 1823.
22 (return) The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur.
23 (return) We have seen with sorrow mingled with indignation, that it
is the intention to increase, to recast, to make over, that is to say,
to destroy this admirable palace. The architects of our day have too
heavy a hand to touch these delicate works of the Renaissance. We still
cherish a hope that they will not dare. Moreover, this demolition of
the Tuileries now, would be not only a brutal deed of violence, which
would make a drunken vandal blush—it would be an act of treason. The
Tuileries is not simply a masterpiece of the art of the sixteenth
century, it is a page of the history of the nineteenth. This palace no
longer belongs to the king, but to the people. Let us leave it as it
is. Our revolution has twice set its seal upon its front. On one of its
two façades, there are the cannon-balls of the 10th of August; on the
other, the balls of the 29th of July. It is sacred. Paris, April 7,
1831. (_Note to the fifth edition._)
24 (return) The tenth month of the French republican calendar, from the
19th of June to the 18th of July.
25 (return) An official of Notre-Dame, lower than a beneficed
clergyman, higher than simple paid chanters.
26 (return) Hugo II. de Bisuncio, 1326-1332.
27 (return) This comet against which Pope Calixtus, uncle of Borgia,
ordered public prayers, is the same which reappeared in 1835.
28 (return) Comptes du domaine, 1383.
29 (return) A _Queue_ was a cask which held a hogshead and a half.
30 (return) A captain of fifty men.
31 (return) Ox-eye daisy.
32 (return) Easter daisy.
33 (return) A rope for the gallows bird! A fagot for the ape.
34 (return) An ancient Burgundian coin.
35 (return) An ancient French coin.
36 (return) Truly, these roastings are a stupendous thing!
37 (return) Peter the Slaughterer; and Baptist Crack-Gosling.
38 (return) An ancient copper coin, the forty-fourth part of a sou or
the twelfth part of a farthing.
39 (return) Une vielle qui _scie_ une _anse_
40 (return) Cut-Weazand Street.
41 (return) Cut-Throat Street.
42 (return) The children of the Petits Carreaux let themselves be hung
like calves.
43 (return) When the rats eat the cats, the king will be lord of Arras;
when the sea which is great and wide, is frozen over at St. John’s
tide, men will see across the ice, those who dwell in Arras quit their
place.
44 (return) Varieties of the crossbow.
45 (return) The substance of this exordium is contained in the
president’s sentence.
46 (return) “He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me,
hath eternal life, and hath not come into condemnation; but is passed
from death to life.”
47 (return) “Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my
voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep in the midst of the seas,
and the floods compassed me about.”
48 (return) “Go now, soul, trembling in the balance, and God have mercy
upon thee.”
49 (return) “Lord have mercy upon us.”
50 (return) “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me.”
51 (return) Bark, Grève, grumble, Grève! Spin, spin, my distaff, spin
her rope for the hangman, who is whistling in the meadow. What a
beautiful hempen rope! Sow hemp, not wheat, from Issy to Vanvre. The
thief hath not stolen the beautiful hempen rope. Grumble, Grève, bark,
Grève! To see the dissolute wench hang on the blear-eyed gibbet,
windows are eyes.
52 (return) Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The
heart of a handsome young man is often deformed. There are hearts in
which love does not keep. Young girl, the pine is not beautiful; it is
not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter.
Alas! What is the use of saying that? That which is not beautiful has
no right to exist; beauty loves only beauty; April turns her back on
January. Beauty is perfect, beauty can do all things, beauty is the
only thing which does not exist by halves. The raven flies only by day,
the owl flies only by night, the swan flies by day and by night.
53 (return) _Sols neufs: poulets tués_.
54 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral
wings, by which a rotatory motion was communicated.
55 (return) A game played on a checker-board containing three
concentric sets of squares, with small stones. The game consisted in
getting three stones in a row.
56 (return) Good night, father and mother, the last cover up the fire.
57 (return) That I will drink no spiced and honeyed wine for a year, if
I am lying now.
58 (return) And by the blood of God, I have neither faith nor law, nor
fire nor dwelling-place, nor king nor God.
59 (return) Men of the brotherhood of slang: thieves.
60 (return) Cut-throat. Coupe-gueule being the vulgar word for
cut-weazand.
61 (return) The representation of a monstrous animal solemnly drawn
about in Tarascon and other French towns.
62 (return) An arrow with a pyramidal head of iron and copper spiral
wings by which a rotatory motion was communicated.
63 (return) The city of Cambrai is well dressed. Marafin plundered it.
64 (return) An ancient long measure in France, containing six feet and
nearly five inches English measure.
65 (return) Master Jean Balue has lost sight of his bishoprics.
Monsieur of Verdun has no longer one; all have been killed off.
66 (return) One in charge of the highways.
67 (return) A lord having a right on the woods of his vassals.
68 (return) When thou shalt find its mate, thy mother will stretch out
her arms to thee.