Let the reader have no fear. I will not attempt to describe it. I shouldn't know where to begin (nor when to leave off!).
Not but what many changes had been wrought; many old landmarks were missing. And among them, as they found out a few minutes later, and much to their chagrin, the good old Morgue!
They inquired of a gardien de la paix, who told them that a new Morgue—"une bien jolie Morgue, ma foi!"—and much more commodious and comfortable than the old one, had been built beyond Notre Dame, a little to the right.
"Messieurs devraient voir ça—on y est très bien!"
But Notre Dame herself was still there, and la Sainte Chapelle, and Le Pont Neuf, and the equestrian statue of Henri IV. C'est toujours ça!
And as they gazed and gazed, each framed unto himself, mentally, a little picture of the Thames they had just left—and thought of Waterloo Bridge, and St. Paul's, and London—but felt no homesickness whatever, no desire to go back!
And looking down the river westward there was but little change.
On the left-hand side the terraces and garden of the Hôtel de la Rochemartel (the sculptured entrance of which was in the Rue de Lille) still overtopped the neighboring houses and shaded the quay with tall trees, whose lightly falling leaves yellowed the pavement for at least a hundred yards of frontage—or backage, rather; for this was but the rear of that stately palace.
"I wonder if l'Zouzou has come into his dukedom yet?" said Taffy.