A small family dwells in a room just behind this chimera, subsisting by the sale of picture-postcards. It is a strange abode, and an imaginative child would have a good start in life there. To him at any rate the demons no doubt would soon lose their terrors and become as friendly as the heavenly host that are posed so radiantly and confidently on the ascent to the flèche—perhaps even more so. But to the stranger they must remain cruel and horrible, creating a sense of disquietude and alarm that it is surely the business of a cathedral to allay. Curious anomaly! Let us descend.
Before leaving the Ile de la Cité, the Rue Chanoinesse, to the north of Notre Dame, leading out of the Rue d'Arcole (near a blackguard pottery shop), should be looked at. The cloisters of Notre Dame once extended to this street and covered the ground between it and the cathedral. The canons, or chanoines, lived here, and there are still a few attractive old houses; but the rebuilder is very busy just now. At No. 10, Fulbert, the uncle of Héloïse, is said to have lived; at No. 18 was the Tour Dagobert, a fifteenth-century building, by climbing which one had an excellent view of Notre Dame, but in the past year it has been demolished and business premises cover its site. At No. 26 are (or were) the ruins of the twelfth-century chapel of St. Aignan, where the faithful, evicted from Notre Dame by the Reign of Reason, celebrated Mass in secret. Saint Bernard has preached here. The adjacent streets—the Rue de Colombe, Rue Massillon, Rue des Ursins and Rue du Cloître-Notre-Dame—have also very old houses.
BALTHASAR CASTIGLIONE
RAPHAEL
(Louvre)
For the best view of the exterior of Notre Dame one must take the Quai de l'Archevêché, from which all its intricacies of masonry may be studied—its buttresses solid and flying, its dependences, its massive bulk, its grace and strength.
CHAPTER IV
ST. LOUIS AND HIS ISLAND
The Morgue—The Ile St. Louis—Old Residents—St. Louis, the King—The Golden Legend—Religious Intolerance—Posthumous Miracles—Statue of Barye—The Quai des Célestins.
On the way from Notre Dame to the Ile St. Louis we pass a small official-looking building at the extreme east end of the Ile de la Cité. It is the Morgue.