Here in the half-lights, with stray gusts of wind blowing in through the interstices of the shutters which shut in the belfry, it has rung for ages on end, the warning couvre feu, the solemn message of the passing hours. The only sounds which came filtering in to one's ears from the world far below are the distant shriek of the engine, and the rattle of the carriages. Below is a chamber where the weight of the clock rising and falling is the only object between a wilderness of dark timbers and the planks of the stairs.
Here, at the first news of fire in the city, is sounded the fire-alarm. If the fire is at a great distance the alarm is prolonged.
Right at the top of the tower is a grand view of the hills standing round about the city;—(when I was there)—brown, befogged, misty,—the broad river lying clear cut and silvery in the middle distance; while nearer in, one could see old decrepit, black-timbered houses which abutted on to the flagged courts below them, on whose surface the hail dripped whitely, and leapt merrily. Two hundred steps lead up to the top of the tower through a winding, twisting stone stairway.
The gateway below, in the street, is the same age as the tower: but the age of the outer gilt clock, which faces the street, is not more than the sixteenth century.
[CHAPTER XI]
In a straight line from the Rue Grosse-Horloge, it is not five minutes to the vieux marché where St. Jeanne d'Arc was martyred.
There is nothing to mark the spot but a tablet let in on the path, and the words:
Jeanne d'Arc
30 Mai
1431.
Nothing else.