We have just attempted to restore, for the reader's benefit, that admirable church of Notre-Dame1 de Paris. We have briefly2 pointed3 out the greater part of the beauties which it possessed4 in the fifteenth century, and which it lacks to-day; but we have omitted the principal thing,--the view of Paris which was then to be obtained from the summits of its towers.
That was, in fact,--when, after having long groped one's way up the dark spiral which perpendicularly5 pierces the thick wall of the belfries, one emerged, at last abruptly6, upon one of the lofty platforms inundated7 with light and air,--that was, in fact, a fine picture which spread out, on all sides at once, before the eye; a spectacle ~sui generis~, of which those of our readers who have had the good fortune to see a Gothic city entire, complete, homogeneous,--a few of which still remain, Nuremberg in Bavaria and Vittoria in Spain,--can readily form an idea; or even smaller specimens8, provided that they are well preserved,--Vitré in Brittany, Nordhausen in Prussia.
The Paris of three hundred and fifty years ago--the Paris of the fifteenth century--was already a gigantic city. We Parisians generally make a mistake as to the ground which we think that we have gained, since Paris has not increased much over one-third since the time of Louis XI. It has certainly lost more in beauty than it has gained in size.
Paris had its birth, as the reader knows, in that old island of the City which has the form of a cradle. The strand9 of that island was its first boundary wall, the Seine its first moat. Paris remained for many centuries in its island state, with two bridges, one on the north, the other on the south; and two bridge heads, which were at the same time its gates and its fortresses,--the Grand-Chatelet on the right bank, the Petit-Chatelet on the left. Then, from the date of the kings of the first race, Paris, being too cribbed and confined in its island, and unable to return thither11, crossed the water. Then, beyond the Grand, beyond the Petit-Chatelet, a first circle of walls and towers began to infringe12 upon the country on the two sides of the Seine. Some vestiges13 of this ancient enclosure still remained in the last century; to-day, only the memory of it is left, and here and there a tradition, the Baudets or Baudoyer gate, "Porte Bagauda".
Little by little, the tide of houses, always thrust from the heart of the city outwards14, overflows15, devours16, wears away, and effaces17 this wall. Philip Augustus makes a new dike18 for it. He imprisons19 Paris in a circular chain of great towers, both lofty and solid. For the period of more than a century, the houses press upon each other, accumulate, and raise their level in this basin, like water in a reservoir. They begin to deepen; they pile story upon story; they mount upon each other; they gush20 forth21 at the top, like all laterally22 compressed growth, and there is a rivalry23 as to which shall thrust its head above its neighbors, for the sake of getting a little air. The street glows narrower and deeper, every space is overwhelmed and disappears. The houses finally leap the wall of Philip Augustus, and scatter24 joyfully25 over the plain, without order, and all askew27, like runaways28. There they plant themselves squarely, cut themselves gardens from the fields, and take their ease. Beginning with 1367, the city spreads to such an extent into the suburbs, that a new wall becomes necessary, particularly on the right bank; Charles V. builds it. But a city like Paris is perpetually growing. It is only such cities that become capitals. They are funnels29, into which all the geographical30, political, moral, and intellectual water-sheds of a country, all the natural slopes of a people, pour; wells of civilization, so to speak, and also sewers31, where commerce, industry, intelligence, population,--all that is sap, all that is life, all that is the soul of a nation, filters and amasses32 unceasingly, drop by drop, century by century.
So Charles V.'s wall suffered the fate of that of Philip Augustus. At the end of the fifteenth century, the Faubourg strides across it, passes beyond it, and runs farther. In the sixteenth, it seems to retreat visibly, and to bury itself deeper and deeper in the old city, so thick had the new city already become outside of it. Thus, beginning with the fifteenth century, where our story finds us, Paris had already outgrown33 the three concentric circles of walls which, from the time of Julian the Apostate34, existed, so to speak, in germ in the Grand-Chatelet and the Petit-Chatelet. The mighty35 city had cracked, in succession, its four enclosures of walls, like a child grown too large for his garments of last year. Under Louis XI., this sea of houses was seen to be pierced at intervals36 by several groups of ruined towers, from the ancient wall, like the summits of hills in an inundation,--like archipelagos of the old Paris submerged beneath the new. Since that time Paris has undergone yet another transformation37, unfortunately for our eyes; but it has passed only one more wall, that of Louis XV., that miserable38 wall of mud and spittle, worthy39 of the king who built it, worthy of the poet who sung it,--
~Le mur murant Paris rend40 Paris murmurant~.*
* The wall walling Paris makes Paris murmur41.
In the fifteenth century, Paris was still divided into three wholly distinct and separate towns, each having its own physiognomy, its own specialty42, its manners, customs, privileges, and history: the City, the University, the Town. The City, which occupied the island, was the most ancient, the smallest, and the mother of the other two, crowded in between them like (may we be pardoned the comparison) a little old woman between two large and handsome maidens43. The University covered the left bank of the Seine, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, points which correspond in the Paris of to-day, the one to the wine market, the other to the mint. Its wall included a large part of that plain where Julian had built his hot baths. The hill of Sainte-Geneviève was enclosed in it. The culminating point of this sweep of walls was the Papal gate, that is to say, near the present site of the Pantheon. The Town, which was the largest of the three fragments of Paris, held the right bank. Its quay44, broken or interrupted in many places, ran along the Seine, from the Tour de Billy to the Tour du Bois; that is to say, from the place where the granary stands to-day, to the present site of the Tuileries. These four points, where the Seine intersected the wall of the capital, the Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle on the right, the Tour de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the left, were called pre-eminently, "the four towers of Paris." The Town encroached still more extensively upon the fields than the University. The culminating point of the Town wall (that of Charles V.) was at the gates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, whose situation has not been changed.
As we have just said, each of these three great divisions of Paris was a town, but too special a town to be complete, a city which could not get along without the other two. Hence three entirely45 distinct aspects: churches abounded46 in the City; palaces, in the Town; and colleges, in the University. Neglecting here the originalities, of secondary importance in old Paris, and the capricious regulations regarding the public highways, we will say, from a general point of view, taking only masses and the whole group, in this chaos47 of communal48 jurisdictions49, that the island belonged to the bishop50, the right bank to the provost of the merchants, the left bank to the Rector; over all ruled the provost of Paris, a royal not a municipal official. The City had Notre-Dame; the Town, the Louvre and the H?tel de Ville; the University, the Sorbonne. The Town had the markets (Halles); the city, the Hospital; the University, the Pré-aux-Clercs. Offences committed by the scholars on the left bank were tried in the law courts on the island, and were punished on the right bank at Montfau?on; unless the rector, feeling the university to be strong and the king weak, intervened; for it was the students' privilege to be hanged on their own grounds.
The greater part of these privileges, it may be noted51 in passing, and there were some even better than the above, had been extorted52 from the kings by revolts and mutinies. It is the course of things from time immemorial; the king only lets go when the people tear away. There is an old charter which puts the matter naively53: apropos54 of fidelity55: ~Civibus fidelitas in reges, quoe tamen aliquoties seditionibus interrypta, multa peperit privileyia~.
In the fifteenth century, the Seine bathed five islands within the walls of Paris: Louviers island, where there were then trees, and where there is no longer anything but wood; l'ile aux Vaches, and l'ile Notre-Dame, both deserted56, with the exception of one house, both fiefs of the bishop--in the seventeenth century, a single island was formed out of these two, which was built upon and named l'ile Saint-Louis--, lastly the City, and at its point, the little islet of the cow tender, which was afterwards engulfed57 beneath the platform of the Pont-Neuf. The City then had five bridges: three on the right, the Pont Notre-Dame, and the Pont au Change, of stone, the Pont aux Meuniers, of wood; two on the left, the Petit Pont, of stone, the Pont Saint-Michel, of wood; all loaded with houses.
The University had six gates, built by Philip Augustus; there were, beginning with la Tournelle, the Porte Saint- Victor, the Porte Bordelle, the Porte Papale, the Porte Saint- Jacques, the Porte Saint-Michel, the Porte Saint-Germain. The Town had six gates, built by Charles V.; beginning with the Tour de Billy they were: the Porte Saint-Antoine, the Porte du Temple, the Porte Saint-Martin, the Porte Saint-Denis, the Porte Montmartre, the Porte Saint-Honoré. All these gates were strong, and also handsome, which does not detract from strength. A large, deep moat, with a brisk current during the high water of winter, bathed the base of the wall round Paris; the Seine furnished the water. At night, the gates were shut, the river was barred at both ends of the city with huge iron chains, and Paris slept tranquilly58.
From a bird's-eye view, these three burgs, the City, the Town, and the University, each presented to the eye an inextricable skein of eccentrically tangled59 streets. Nevertheless, at first sight, one recognized the fact that these three fragments formed but one body. One immediately perceived three long parallel streets, unbroken, undisturbed, traversing, almost in a straight line, all three cities, from one end to the other; from North to South, perpendicularly, to the Seine, which bound them together, mingled61 them, infused them in each other, poured and transfused62 the people incessantly63, from one to the other, and made one out of the three. The first of these streets ran from the Porte Saint-Martin: it was called the Rue64 Saint-Jacques in the University, Rue de la Juiverie in the City, Rue Saint-Martin in the Town; it crossed the water twice, under the name of the Petit Pont and the Pont Notre- Dame. The second, which was called the Rue de la Harpe on the left bank, Rue de la Barillerié in the island, Rue Saint- Denis on the right bank, Pont Saint-Michel on one arm of the Seine, Pont au Change on the other, ran from the Porte Saint-Michel in the University, to the Porte Saint-Denis in the Town. However, under all these names, there were but two streets, parent streets, generating streets,--the two arteries65 of Paris. All the other veins66 of the triple city either derived67 their supply from them or emptied into them.
Independently of these two principal streets, piercing Paris diametrically in its whole breadth, from side to side, common to the entire capital, the City and the University had also each its own great special street, which ran lengthwise by them, parallel to the Seine, cutting, as it passed, at right angles, the two arterial thoroughfares. Thus, in the Town, one descended68 in a straight line from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the Porte Saint-Honoré; in the University from the Porte Saint-Victor to the Porte Saint-Germain. These two great thoroughfares intersected by the two first, formed the canvas upon which reposed69, knotted and crowded together on every hand, the labyrinthine71 network of the streets of Paris. In the incomprehensible plan of these streets, one distinguished72 likewise, on looking attentively73, two clusters of great streets, like magnified sheaves of grain, one in the University, the other in the Town, which spread out gradually from the bridges to the gates.
Some traces of this geometrical plan still exist to-day.
Now, what aspect did this whole present, when, as viewed from the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame, in 1482? That we shall try to describe.
For the spectator who arrived, panting, upon that pinnacle74, it was first a dazzling confusing view of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, places, spires76, bell towers. Everything struck your eye at once: the carved gable, the pointed roof, the turrets77 suspended at the angles of the walls; the stone pyramids of the eleventh century, the slate78 obelisks79 of the fifteenth; the round, bare tower of the donjon keep; the square and fretted80 tower of the church; the great and the little, the massive and the aerial. The eye was, for a long time, wholly lost in this labyrinth70, where there was nothing which did not possess its originality81, its reason, its genius, its beauty,--nothing which did not proceed from art; beginning with the smallest house, with its painted and carved front, with external beams, elliptical door, with projecting stories, to the royal Louvre, which then had a colonnade82 of towers. But these are the principal masses which were then to be distinguished when the eye began to accustom83 itself to this tumult84 of edifices85.
In the first place, the City.--"The island of the City," as Sauval says, who, in spite of his confused medley87, sometimes has such happy turns of expression,--"the island of the city is made like a great ship, stuck in the mud and run aground in the current, near the centre of the Seine."
We have just explained that, in the fifteenth century, this ship was anchored to the two banks of the river by five bridges. This form of a ship had also struck the heraldic scribes; for it is from that, and not from the siege by the Normans, that the ship which blazons88 the old shield of Paris, comes, according to Favyn and Pasquier. For him who understands how to decipher them, armorial bearings are algebra89, armorial bearings have a tongue. The whole history of the second half of the Middle Ages is written in armorial bearings,--the first half is in the symbolism of the Roman churches. They are the hieroglyphics90 of feudalism, succeeding those of theocracy92.
Thus the City first presented itself to the eye, with its stern to the east, and its prow93 to the west. Turning towards the prow, one had before one an innumerable flock of ancient roofs, over which arched broadly the lead-covered apse of the Sainte-Chapelle, like an elephant's haunches loaded with its tower. Only here, this tower was the most audacious, the most open, the most ornamented95 spire75 of cabinet-maker's work that ever let the sky peep through its cone96 of lace. In front of Notre-Dame, and very near at hand, three streets opened into the cathedral square,--a fine square, lined with ancient houses. Over the south side of this place bent97 the wrinkled and sullen98 fa?ade of the H?tel Dieu, and its roof, which seemed covered with warts99 and pustules. Then, on the right and the left, to east and west, within that wall of the City, which was yet so contracted, rose the bell towers of its one and twenty churches, of every date, of every form, of every size, from the low and wormeaten belfry of Saint-Denis du Pas (~Carcer Glaueini~) to the slender needles of Saint-Pierre aux Boeufs and Saint-Landry.
Behind Notre-Dame, the cloister100 and its Gothic galleries spread out towards the north; on the south, the half-Roman palace of the bishop; on the east, the desert point of the Terrain101. In this throng102 of houses the eye also distinguished, by the lofty open-work mitres of stone which then crowned the roof itself, even the most elevated windows of the palace, the H?tel given by the city, under Charles VI., to Juvénal des Ursins; a little farther on, the pitch-covered sheds of the Palus Market; in still another quarter the new apse of Saint- Germain le Vieux, lengthened103 in 1458, with a bit of the Rue aux Febves; and then, in places, a square crowded with people; a pillory104, erected105 at the corner of a street; a fine fragment of the pavement of Philip Augustus, a magnificent flagging, grooved107 for the horses' feet, in the middle of the road, and so badly replaced in the sixteenth century by the miserable cobblestones, called the "pavement of the League;" a deserted back courtyard, with one of those diaphanous108 staircase turrets, such as were erected in the fifteenth century, one of which is still to be seen in the Rue des Bourdonnais. Lastly, at the right of the Sainte-Chapelle, towards the west, the Palais de Justice rested its group of towers at the edge of the water. The thickets110 of the king's gardens, which covered the western point of the City, masked the Island du Passeur. As for the water, from the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame one hardly saw it, on either side of the City; the Seine was hidden by bridges, the bridges by houses.
And when the glance passed these bridges, whose roofs were visibly green, rendered mouldy before their time by the vapors111 from the water, if it was directed to the left, towards the University, the first edifice86 which struck it was a large, low sheaf of towers, the Petit-Chàtelet, whose yawning gate devoured112 the end of the Petit-Pont. Then, if your view ran along the bank, from east to west, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, there was a long cordon113 of houses, with carved beams, stained-glass windows, each story projecting over that beneath it, an interminable zigzag114 of bourgeois115 gables, frequently interrupted by the mouth of a street, and from time to time also by the front or angle of a huge stone mansion116, planted at its ease, with courts and gardens, wings and detached buildings, amid this populace of crowded and narrow houses, like a grand gentleman among a throng of rustics117. There were five or six of these mansions118 on the quay, from the house of Lorraine, which shared with the Bernardins the grand enclosure adjoining the Tournelle, to the H?tel de Nesle, whose principal tower ended Paris, and whose pointed roofs were in a position, during three months of the year, to encroach, with their black triangles, upon the scarlet119 disk of the setting sun.
This side of the Seine was, however, the least mercantile of the two. Students furnished more of a crowd and more noise there than artisans, and there was not, properly speaking, any quay, except from the Pont Saint-Michel to the Tour de Nesle. The rest of the bank of the Seine was now a naked strand, the same as beyond the Bernardins; again, a throng of houses, standing120 with their feet in the water, as between the two bridges.
There was a great uproar121 of laundresses; they screamed, and talked, and sang from morning till night along the beach, and beat a great deal of linen122 there, just as in our day. This is not the least of the gayeties of Paris.
The University presented a dense123 mass to the eye. From one end to the other, it was homogeneous and compact. The thousand roofs, dense, angular, clinging to each other, composed, nearly all, of the same geometrical element, offered, when viewed from above, the aspect of a crystallization of the same substance.
The capricious ravine of streets did not cut this block of houses into too disproportionate slices. The forty-two colleges were scattered124 about in a fairly equal manner, and there were some everywhere. The amusingly varied125 crests126 of these beautiful edifices were the product of the same art as the simple roofs which they overshot, and were, actually, only a multiplication127 of the square or the cube of the same geometrical figure. Hence they complicated the whole effect, without disturbing it; completed, without overloading128 it. Geometry is harmony. Some fine mansions here and there made magnificent outlines against the picturesque129 attics131 of the left bank. The house of Nevers, the house of Rome, the house of Reims, which have disappeared; the H?tel de Cluny, which still exists, for the consolation132 of the artist, and whose tower was so stupidly deprived of its crown a few years ago. Close to Cluny, that Roman palace, with fine round arches, were once the hot baths of Julian. There were a great many abbeys, of a beauty more devout133, of a grandeur134 more solemn than the mansions, but not less beautiful, not less grand. Those which first caught the eye were the Bernardins, with their three bell towers; Sainte-Geneviève, whose square tower, which still exists, makes us regret the rest; the Sorbonne, half college, half monastery135, of which so admirable a nave136 survives; the fine quadrilateral cloister of the Mathurins; its neighbor, the cloister of Saint-Benoit, within whose walls they have had time to cobble up a theatre, between the seventh and eighth editions of this book; the Cordeliers, with their three enormous adjacent gables; the Augustins, whose graceful137 spire formed, after the Tour de Nesle, the second denticulation on this side of Paris, starting from the west. The colleges, which are, in fact, the intermediate ring between the cloister and the world, hold the middle position in the monumental series between the H?tels and the abbeys, with a severity full of elegance138, sculpture less giddy than the palaces, an architecture less severe than the convents. Unfortunately, hardly anything remains139 of these monuments, where Gothic art combined with so just a balance, richness and economy. The churches (and they were numerous and splendid in the University, and they were graded there also in all the ages of architecture, from the round arches of Saint-Julian to the pointed arches of Saint-Séverin), the churches dominated the whole; and, like one harmony more in this mass of harmonies, they pierced in quick succession the multiple open work of the gables with slashed140 spires, with open-work bell towers, with slender pinnacles141, whose line was also only a magnificent exaggeration of the acute angle of the roofs.
The ground of the University was hilly; Mount Sainte- Geneviève formed an enormous mound142 to the south; and it was a sight to see from the summit of Notre-Dame how that throng of narrow and tortuous143 streets (to-day the Latin Quarter), those bunches of houses which, spread out in every direction from the top of this eminence144, precipitated145 themselves in disorder146, and almost perpendicularly down its flanks, nearly to the water's edge, having the air, some of falling, others of clambering up again, and all of holding to one another. A continual flux147 of a thousand black points which passed each other on the pavements made everything move before the eyes; it was the populace seen thus from aloft and afar.
Lastly, in the intervals of these roofs, of these spires, of these accidents of numberless edifices, which bent and writhed148, and jagged in so eccentric a manner the extreme line of the University, one caught a glimpse, here and there, of a great expanse of moss-grown wall, a thick, round tower, a crenellated city gate, shadowing forth the fortress10; it was the wall of Philip Augustus. Beyond, the fields gleamed green; beyond, fled the roads, along which were scattered a few more suburban149 houses, which became more infrequent as they became more distant. Some of these faubourgs were important: there were, first, starting from la Tournelle, the Bourg Saint-Victor, with its one arch bridge over the Bièvre, its abbey where one could read the epitaph of Louis le Gros, ~epitaphium Ludovici Grossi~, and its church with an octagonal spire, flanked with four little bell towers of the eleventh century (a similar one can be seen at Etampes; it is not yet destroyed); next, the Bourg Saint- Marceau, which already had three churches and one convent; then, leaving the mill of the Gobelins and its four white walls on the left, there was the Faubourg Saint-Jacques with the beautiful carved cross in its square; the church of Saint- Jacques du Haut-Pas, which was then Gothic, pointed, charming; Saint-Magloire, a fine nave of the fourteenth century, which Napoleon turned into a hayloft; Notre-Dame des Champs, where there were Byzantine mosaics150; lastly, after having left behind, full in the country, the Monastery des Chartreux, a rich edifice contemporary with the Palais de Justice, with its little garden divided into compartments152, and the haunted ruins of Vauvert, the eye fell, to the west, upon the three Roman spires of Saint-Germain des Prés. The Bourg Saint-Germain, already a large community, formed fifteen or twenty streets in the rear; the pointed bell tower of Saint- Sulpice marked one corner of the town. Close beside it one descried154 the quadrilateral enclosure of the fair of Saint- Germain, where the market is situated155 to-day; then the abbot's pillory, a pretty little round tower, well capped with a leaden cone; the brickyard was further on, and the Rue du Four, which led to the common bakehouse, and the mill on its hillock, and the lazar house, a tiny house, isolated156 and half seen.
But that which attracted the eye most of all, and fixed157 it for a long time on that point, was the abbey itself. It is certain that this monastery, which had a grand air, both as a church and as a seignory; that abbatial palace, where the bishops158 of Paris counted themselves happy if they could pass the night; that refectory, upon which the architect had bestowed159 the air, the beauty, and the rose window of a cathedral; that elegant chapel94 of the Virgin160; that monumental dormitory; those vast gardens; that portcullis; that drawbridge; that envelope of battlements which notched161 to the eye the verdure of the surrounding meadows; those courtyards, where gleamed men at arms, intermingled with golden copes;--the whole grouped and clustered about three lofty spires, with round arches, well planted upon a Gothic apse, made a magnificent figure against the horizon.
When, at length, after having contemplated162 the University for a long time, you turned towards the right bank, towards the Town, the character of the spectacle was abruptly altered. The Town, in fact much larger than the University, was also less of a unit. At the first glance, one saw that it was divided into many masses, singularly distinct. First, to the eastward163, in that part of the town which still takes its name from the marsh164 where Camulogènes entangled165 Caesar, was a pile of palaces. The block extended to the very water's edge. Four almost contiguous H?tels, Jouy, Sens, Barbeau, the house of the Queen, mirrored their slate peaks, broken with slender turrets, in the Seine.
These four edifices filled the space from the Rue des Nonaindières, to the abbey of the Celestins, whose spire gracefully166 relieved their line of gables and battlements. A few miserable, greenish hovels, hanging over the water in front of these sumptuous167 H?tels, did not prevent one from seeing the fine angles of their fa?ades, their large, square windows with stone mullions, their pointed porches overloaded168 with statues, the vivid outlines of their walls, always clear cut, and all those charming accidents of architecture, which cause Gothic art to have the air of beginning its combinations afresh with every monument.
Behind these palaces, extended in all directions, now broken, fenced in, battlemented like a citadel169, now veiled by great trees like a Carthusian convent, the immense and multiform enclosure of that miraculous170 H?tel de Saint-Pol, where the King of France possessed the means of lodging171 superbly two and twenty princes of the rank of the dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy, with their domestics and their suites173, without counting the great lords, and the emperor when he came to view Paris, and the lions, who had their separate H?tel at the royal H?tel. Let us say here that a prince's apartment was then composed of never less than eleven large rooms, from the chamber174 of state to the oratory175, not to mention the galleries, baths, vapor-baths, and other "superfluous176 places," with which each apartment was provided; not to mention the private gardens for each of the king's guests; not to mention the kitchens, the cellars, the domestic offices, the general refectories of the house, the poultry-yards, where there were twenty-two general laboratories, from the bakehouses to the wine-cellars; games of a thousand sorts, malls, tennis, and riding at the ring; aviaries177, fishponds, menageries, stables, barns, libraries, arsenals178 and foundries. This was what a king's palace, a Louvre, a H?tel de Saint-Pol was then. A city within a city.
From the tower where we are placed, the H?tel Saint-Pol, almost half hidden by the four great houses of which we have just spoken, was still very considerable and very marvellous to see. One could there distinguish, very well, though cleverly united with the principal building by long galleries, decked with painted glass and slender columns, the three H?tels which Charles V. had amalgamated182 with his palace: the H?tel du Petit-Muce, with the airy balustrade, which formed a graceful border to its roof; the H?tel of the Abbe de Saint-Maur, having the vanity of a stronghold, a great tower, machicolations, loopholes, iron gratings, and over the large Saxon door, the armorial bearings of the abbé, between the two mortises of the drawbridge; the H?tel of the Comte d' Etampes, whose donjon keep, ruined at its summit, was rounded and notched like a cock's comb; here and there, three or four ancient oaks, forming a tuft together like enormous cauliflowers; gambols183 of swans, in the clear water of the fishponds, all in folds of light and shade; many courtyards of which one beheld184 picturesque bits; the H?tel of the Lions, with its low, pointed arches on short, Saxon pillars, its iron gratings and its perpetual roar; shooting up above the whole, the scale- ornamented spire of the Ave-Maria; on the left, the house of the Provost of Paris, flanked by four small towers, delicately grooved, in the middle; at the extremity185, the H?tel Saint-Pol, properly speaking, with its multiplied fa?ades, its successive enrichments from the time of Charles V., the hybrid186 excrescences, with which the fancy of the architects had loaded it during the last two centuries, with all the apses of its chapels187, all the gables of its galleries, a thousand weathercocks for the four winds, and its two lofty contiguous towers, whose conical roof, surrounded by battlements at its base, looked like those pointed caps which have their edges turned up.
Continuing to mount the stories of this amphitheatre of palaces spread out afar upon the ground, after crossing a deep ravine hollowed out of the roofs in the Town, which marked the passage of the Rue Saint-Antoine, the eye reached the house of Angoulême, a vast construction of many epochs, where there were perfectly188 new and very white parts, which melted no better into the whole than a red patch on a blue doublet. Nevertheless, the remarkably189 pointed and lofty roof of the modern palace, bristling190 with carved eaves, covered with sheets of lead, where coiled a thousand fantastic arabesques191 of sparkling incrustations of gilded192 bronze, that roof, so curiously193 damascened, darted194 upwards195 gracefully from the midst of the brown ruins of the ancient edifice; whose huge and ancient towers, rounded by age like casks, sinking together with old age, and rending196 themselves from top to bottom, resembled great bellies197 unbuttoned. Behind rose the forest of spires of the Palais des Tournelles. Not a view in the world, either at Chambord or at the Alhambra, is more magic, more aerial, more enchanting198, than that thicket109 of spires, tiny bell towers, chimneys, weather-vanes, winding199 staircases, lanterns through which the daylight makes its way, which seem cut out at a blow, pavilions, spindle-shaped turrets, or, as they were then called, "tournelles," all differing in form, in height, and attitude. One would have pronounced it a gigantic stone chess-board.
To the right of the Tournelles, that truss of enormous towers, black as ink, running into each other and tied, as it were, by a circular moat; that donjon keep, much more pierced with loopholes than with windows; that drawbridge, always raised; that portcullis, always lowered,--is the Bastille. Those sorts of black beaks200 which project from between the battlements, and which you take from a distance to be cave spouts201, are cannons202.
Beneath them, at the foot of the formidable edifice, behold203 the Porte Sainte-Antoine, buried between its two towers.
Beyond the Tournelles, as far as the wall of Charles V., spread out, with rich compartments of verdure and of flowers, a velvet204 carpet of cultivated land and royal parks, in the midst of which one recognized, by its labyrinth of trees and alleys205, the famous Daedalus garden which Louis XI. had given to Coictier. The doctor's observatory206 rose above the labyrinth like a great isolated column, with a tiny house for a capital. Terrible astrologies took place in that laboratory.
There to-day is the Place Royale.
As we have just said, the quarter of the palace, of which we have just endeavored to give the reader some idea by indicating only the chief points, filled the angle which Charles V.'s wall made with the Seine on the east. The centre of the Town was occupied by a pile of houses for the populace. It was there, in fact, that the three bridges disgorged upon the right bank, and bridges lead to the building of houses rather than palaces. That congregation of bourgeois habitations, pressed together like the cells in a hive, had a beauty of its own. It is with the roofs of a capital as with the waves of the sea,--they are grand. First the streets, crossed and entangled, forming a hundred amusing figures in the block; around the market-place, it was like a star with a thousand rays.
The Rues207 Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, with their innumerable ramifications208, rose one after the other, like trees intertwining their branches; and then the tortuous lines, the Rues de la Platrerie, de la Verrerie, de la Tixeranderie, etc., meandered209 over all. There were also fine edifices which pierced the petrified210 undulations of that sea of gables. At the head of the Pont aux Changeurs, behind which one beheld the Seine foaming211 beneath the wheels of the Pont aux Meuniers, there was the Chalelet, no longer a Roman tower, as under Julian the Apostate, but a feudal91 tower of the thirteenth century, and of a stone so hard that the pickaxe could not break away so much as the thickness of the fist in a space of three hours; there was the rich square bell tower of Saint- Jacques de la Boucherie, with its angles all frothing with carvings212, already admirable, although it was not finished in the fifteenth century. (It lacked, in particular, the four monsters, which, still perched to-day on the corners of its roof, have the air of so many sphinxes who are propounding213 to new Paris the riddle214 of the ancient Paris. Rault, the sculptor215, only placed them in position in 1526, and received twenty francs for his pains.) There was the Maison-aux-Piliers, the Pillar House, opening upon that Place de Grève of which we have given the reader some idea; there was Saint-Gervais, which a front "in good taste" has since spoiled; Saint-Méry, whose ancient pointed arches were still almost round arches; Saint-Jean, whose magnificent spire was proverbial; there were twenty other monuments, which did not disdain216 to bury their wonders in that chaos of black, deep, narrow streets. Add the crosses of carved stone, more lavishly217 scattered through the squares than even the gibbets; the cemetery218 of the Innocents, whose architectural wall could be seen in the distance above the roofs; the pillory of the Markets, whose top was visible between two chimneys of the Rue de la Cossonnerie; the ladder of the Croix-du-Trahoir, in its square always black with people; the circular buildings of the wheat mart; the fragments of Philip Augustus's ancient wall, which could be made out here and there, drowned among the houses, its towers gnawed219 by ivy220, its gates in ruins, with crumbling221 and deformed222 stretches of wall; the quay with its thousand shops, and its bloody223 knacker's yards; the Seine encumbered224 with boats, from the Port au Foin to Port-l'Evêque, and you will have a confused picture of what the central trapezium of the Town was like in 1482.
With these two quarters, one of H?tels, the other of houses, the third feature of aspect presented by the city was a long zone of abbeys, which bordered it in nearly the whole of its circumference225, from the rising to the setting sun, and, behind the circle of fortifications which hemmed226 in Paris, formed a second interior enclosure of convents and chapels. Thus, immediately adjoining the park des Tournelles, between the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Vielle Rue du Temple, there stood Sainte-Catherine, with its immense cultivated lands, which were terminated only by the wall of Paris. Between the old and the new Rue du Temple, there was the Temple, a sinister227 group of towers, lofty, erect106, and isolated in the middle of a vast, battlemented enclosure. Between the Rue Neuve-du- Temple and the Rue Saint-Martin, there was the Abbey of Saint-Martin, in the midst of its gardens, a superb fortified228 church, whose girdle of towers, whose diadem229 of bell towers, yielded in force and splendor230 only to Saint-Germain des Prés. Between the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue Saint- Denis, spread the enclosure of the Trinité.
Lastly, between the Rue Saint-Denis, and the Rue Montorgueil, stood the Filles-Dieu. On one side, the rotting roofs and unpaved enclosure of the Cour des Miracles could be descried. It was the sole profane231 ring which was linked to that devout chain of convents.
Finally, the fourth compartment151, which stretched itself out in the agglomeration232 of the roofs on the right bank, and which occupied the western angle of the enclosure, and the banks of the river down stream, was a fresh cluster of palaces and H?tels pressed close about the base of the Louvre. The old Louvre of Philip Augustus, that immense edifice whose great tower rallied about it three and twenty chief towers, not to reckon the lesser233 towers, seemed from a distance to be enshrined in the Gothic roofs of the H?tel d'Alen?on, and the Petit-Bourbon. This hydra234 of towers, giant guardian235 of Paris, with its four and twenty heads, always erect, with its monstrous236 haunches, loaded or scaled with slates237, and all streaming with metallic238 reflections, terminated with wonderful effect the configuration239 of the Town towards the west.
Thus an immense block, which the Romans called ~iusula~, or island, of bourgeois houses, flanked on the right and the left by two blocks of palaces, crowned, the one by the Louvre, the other by the Tournelles, bordered on the north by a long girdle of abbeys and cultivated enclosures, all amalgamated and melted together in one view; upon these thousands of edifices, whose tiled and slated240 roofs outlined upon each other so many fantastic chains, the bell towers, tattooed241, fluted242, and ornamented with twisted bands, of the four and forty churches on the right bank; myriads243 of cross streets; for boundary on one side, an enclosure of lofty walls with square towers (that of the University had round towers); on the other, the Seine, cut by bridges, and bearing on its bosom244 a multitude of boats; behold the Town of Paris in the fifteenth century.
Beyond the walls, several suburban villages pressed close about the gates, but less numerous and more scattered than those of the University. Behind the Bastille there were twenty hovels clustered round the curious sculptures of the Croix-Faubin and the flying buttresses245 of the Abbey of Saint- Antoine des Champs; then Popincourt, lost amid wheat fields; then la Courtille, a merry village of wine-shops; the hamlet of Saint-Laurent with its church whose bell tower, from afar, seemed to add itself to the pointed towers of the Porte Saint- Martin; the Faubourg Saint-Denis, with the vast enclosure of Saint-Ladre; beyond the Montmartre Gate, the Grange- Batelière, encircled with white walls; behind it, with its chalky slopes, Montmartre, which had then almost as many churches as windmills, and which has kept only the windmills, for society no longer demands anything but bread for the body. Lastly, beyond the Louvre, the Faubourg Saint- Honoré, already considerable at that time, could be seen stretching away into the fields, and Petit-Bretagne gleaming green, and the Marché aux Pourceaux spreading abroad, in whose centre swelled246 the horrible apparatus248 used for boiling counterfeiters. Between la Courtille and Saint-Laurent, your eye had already noticed, on the summit of an eminence crouching249 amid desert plains, a sort of edifice which resembled from a distance a ruined colonnade, mounted upon a basement with its foundation laid bare. This was neither a Parthenon, nor a temple of the Olympian Jupiter. It was Montfau?on.
Now, if the enumeration250 of so many edifices, summary as we have endeavored to make it, has not shattered in the reader's mind the general image of old Paris, as we have constructed it, we will recapitulate251 it in a few words. In the centre, the island of the City, resembling as to form an enormous tortoise, and throwing out its bridges with tiles for scales; like legs from beneath its gray shell of roofs. On the left, the monolithic252 trapezium, firm, dense, bristling, of the University; on the right, the vast semicircle of the Town, much more intermixed with gardens and monuments. The three blocks, city, university, and town, marbled with innumerable streets. Across all, the Seine, "foster-mother Seine," as says Father Du Breul, blocked with islands, bridges, and boats. All about an immense plain, patched with a thousand sorts of cultivated plots, sown with fine villages. On the left, Issy, Vanvres, Vaugirarde, Montrouge, Gentilly, with its round tower and its square tower, etc.; on the right, twenty others, from Conflans to Ville-l'Evêque. On the horizon, a border of hills arranged in a circle like the rim253 of the basin. Finally, far away to the east, Vincennes, and its seven quadrangular towers to the south, Bicêtre and its pointed turrets; to the north, Saint-Denis and its spire; to the west, Saint Cloud and its donjon keep. Such was the Paris which the ravens254, who lived in 1482, beheld from the summits of the towers of Notre-Dame.
Nevertheless, Voltaire said of this city, that "before Louis XIV., it possessed but four fine monuments": the dome172 of the Sorbonne, the Val-de-Grace, the modern Louvre, and I know not what the fourth was--the Luxembourg, perhaps. Fortunately, Voltaire was the author of "Candide" in spite of this, and in spite of this, he is, among all the men who have followed each other in the long series of humanity, the one who has best possessed the diabolical255 laugh. Moreover, this proves that one can be a fine genius, and yet understand nothing of an art to which one does not belong. Did not Moliere imagine that he was doing Raphael and Michael-Angelo a very great honor, by calling them "those Mignards of their age?"
Let us return to Paris and to the fifteenth century.
It was not then merely a handsome city; it was a homogeneous city, an architectural and historical product of the Middle Ages, a chronicle in stone. It was a city formed of two layers only; the Romanesque layer and the Gothic layer; for the Roman layer had disappeared long before, with the exception of the Hot Baths of Julian, where it still pierced through the thick crust of the Middle Ages. As for the Celtic layer, no specimens were any longer to be found, even when sinking wells.
Fifty years later, when the Renaissance257 began to mingle60 with this unity153 which was so severe and yet so varied, the dazzling luxury of its fantasies and systems, its debasements of Roman round arches, Greek columns, and Gothic bases, its sculpture which was so tender and so ideal, its peculiar258 taste for arabesques and acanthus leaves, its architectural paganism, contemporary with Luther, Paris, was perhaps, still more beautiful, although less harmonious259 to the eye, and to the thought.
But this splendid moment lasted only for a short time; the Renaissance was not impartial260; it did not content itself with building, it wished to destroy; it is true that it required the room. Thus Gothic Paris was complete only for a moment. Saint- Jacques de la Boucherie had barely been completed when the demolition261 of the old Louvre was begun.
After that, the great city became more disfigured every day. Gothic Paris, beneath which Roman Paris was effaced262, was effaced in its turn; but can any one say what Paris has replaced it?
There is the Paris of Catherine de Medicis at the Tuileries;*--the Paris of Henri II., at the H?tel de Ville, two edifices still in fine taste;--the Paris of Henri IV., at the Place Royale: fa?ades of brick with stone corners, and slated roofs, tri-colored houses;--the Paris of Louis XIII., at the Val-de- Grace: a crushed and squat263 architecture, with vaults265 like basket-handles, and something indescribably pot-bellied in the column, and thickset in the dome;--the Paris of Louis XIV., in the Invalides: grand, rich, gilded, cold;--the Paris of Louis XV., in Saint-Sulpice: volutes, knots of ribbon, clouds, vermicelli and chiccory leaves, all in stone;--the Paris of Louis XVI., in the Pantheon: Saint Peter of Rome, badly copied (the edifice is awkwardly heaped together, which has not amended266 its lines);--the Paris of the Republic, in the School of Medicine: a poor Greek and Roman taste, which resembles the Coliseum or the Parthenon as the constitution of the year III., resembles the laws of Minos,--it is called in architecture, "the Messidor"** taste;--the Paris of Napoleon in the Place Vendome: this one is sublime267, a column of bronze made of cannons;--the Paris of the Restoration, at the Bourse: a very white colonnade supporting a very smooth frieze268; the whole is square and cost twenty millions.
* 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 brutal269 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 fa?ades, 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 1, 1831. (Note to the fifth edition.)
** The tenth month of the French republican calendar, from the 19th of June to the 18th of July.
To each of these characteristic monuments there is attached by a similarity of taste, fashion, and attitude, a certain number of houses scattered about in different quarters and which the eyes of the connoisseur270 easily distinguishes and furnishes with a date. When one knows how to look, one finds the spirit of a century, and the physiognomy of a king, even in the knocker on a door.
The Paris of the present day has then, no general physiognomy. It is a collection of specimens of many centuries, and the finest have disappeared. The capital grows only in houses, and what houses! At the rate at which Paris is now proceeding271, it will renew itself every fifty years.
Thus the historical significance of its architecture is being effaced every day. Monuments are becoming rarer and rarer, and one seems to see them gradually engulfed, by the flood of houses. Our fathers had a Paris of stone; our sons will have one of plaster.
So far as the modern monuments of new Paris are concerned, we would gladly be excused from mentioning them. It is not that we do not admire them as they deserve. The Sainte-Geneviève of M. Soufflot is certainly the finest Savoy cake that has ever been made in stone. The Palace of the Legion of Honor is also a very distinguished bit of pastry272. The dome of the wheat market is an English jockey cap, on a grand scale. The towers of Saint-Sulpice are two huge clarinets, and the form is as good as any other; the telegraph, contorted and grimacing273, forms an admirable accident upon their roofs. Saint-Roch has a door which, for magnificence, is comparable only to that of Saint-Thomas d'Aquin. It has, also, a crucifixion in high relief, in a cellar, with a sun of gilded wood. These things are fairly marvellous. The lantern of the labyrinth of the Jardin des Plantes is also very ingenious.
As for the Palace of the Bourse, which is Greek as to its colonnade, Roman in the round arches of its doors and windows, of the Renaissance by virtue274 of its flattened275 vault264, it is indubitably a very correct and very pure monument; the proof is that it is crowned with an attic130, such as was never seen in Athens, a beautiful, straight line, gracefully broken here and there by stovepipes. Let us add that if it is according to rule that the architecture of a building should be adapted to its purpose in such a manner that this purpose shall be immediately apparent from the mere256 aspect of the building, one cannot be too much amazed at a structure which might be indifferently--the palace of a king, a chamber of communes, a town-hall, a college, a riding-school, an academy, a warehouse276, a court-house, a museum, a barracks, a sepulchre, a temple, or a theatre. However, it is an Exchange. An edifice ought to be, moreover, suitable to the climate. This one is evidently constructed expressly for our cold and rainy skies. It has a roof almost as flat as roofs in the East, which involves sweeping277 the roof in winter, when it snows; and of course roofs are made to be swept. As for its purpose, of which we just spoke179, it fulfils it to a marvel180; it is a bourse in France as it would have been a temple in Greece. It is true that the architect was at a good deal of trouble to conceal278 the clock face, which would have destroyed the purity of the fine lines of the fa?ade; but, on the other hand, we have that colonnade which circles round the edifice and under which, on days of high religious ceremony, the theories of the stock-brokers and the courtiers of commerce can be developed so majestically279.
These are very superb structures. Let us add a quantity of fine, amusing, and varied streets, like the Rue de Rivoli, and I do not despair of Paris presenting to the eye, when viewed from a balloon, that richness of line, that opulence280 of detail, that diversity of aspect, that grandiose281 something in the simple, and unexpected in the beautiful, which characterizes a checker-board.
However, admirable as the Paris of to-day may seem to you, reconstruct the Paris of the fifteenth century, call it up before you in thought; look at the sky athwart that surprising forest of spires, towers, and belfries; spread out in the centre of the city, tear away at the point of the islands, fold at the arches of the bridges, the Seine, with its broad green and yellow expanses, more variable than the skin of a serpent; project clearly against an azure282 horizon the Gothic profile of this ancient Paris. Make its contour float in a winter's mist which clings to its numerous chimneys; drown it in profound night and watch the odd play of lights and shadows in that sombre labyrinth of edifices; cast upon it a ray of light which shall vaguely283 outline it and cause to emerge from the fog the great heads of the towers; or take that black silhouette284 again, enliven with shadow the thousand acute angles of the spires and gables, and make it start out more toothed than a shark's jaw285 against a copper-colored western sky,--and then compare.
And if you wish to receive of the ancient city an impression with which the modern one can no longer furnish you, climb--on the morning of some grand festival, beneath the rising sun of Easter or of Pentecost--climb upon some elevated point, whence you command the entire capital; and be present at the wakening of the chimes. Behold, at a signal given from heaven, for it is the sun which gives it, all those churches quiver simultaneously286. First come scattered strokes, running from one church to another, as when musicians give warning that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!--for it seems at times, as though the ear also possessed a sight of its own,--behold, rising from each bell tower, something like a column of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the vibration287 of each bell mounts straight upwards, pure and, so to speak, isolated from the others, into the splendid morning sky; then, little by little, as they swell247 they melt together, mingle, are lost in each other, and amalgamate181 in a magnificent concert. It is no longer anything but a mass of sonorous288 vibrations289 incessantly sent forth from the numerous belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, whirls over the city, and prolongs far beyond the horizon the deafening290 circle of its oscillations.
Nevertheless, this sea of harmony is not a chaos; great and profound as it is, it has not lost its transparency; you behold the windings291 of each group of notes which escapes from the belfries. You can follow the dialogue, by turns grave and shrill292, of the treble and the bass293; you can see the octaves leap from one tower to another; you watch them spring forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the silver bell, to fall, broken and limping from the bell of wood; you admire in their midst the rich gamut294 which incessantly ascends295 and re-ascends the seven bells of Saint-Eustache; you see light and rapid notes running across it, executing three or four luminous296 zigzags297, and vanishing like flashes of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a shrill, cracked singer; here the gruff and gloomy voice of the Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The royal chime of the palace scatters298 on all sides, and without relaxation299, resplendent trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the heavy strokes from the belfry of Notre-Dame, which makes them sparkle like the anvil300 under the hammer. At intervals you behold the passage of sounds of all forms which come from the triple peal301 of Saint-Germaine des Prés. Then, again, from time to time, this mass of sublime noises opens and gives passage to the beats of the Ave Maria, which bursts forth and sparkles like an aigrette of stars. Below, in the very depths of the concert, you confusedly distinguish the interior chanting of the churches, which exhales302 through the vibrating pores of their vaulted303 roofs.
Assuredly, this is an opera which it is worth the trouble of listening to. Ordinarily, the noise which escapes from Paris by day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this concert of bell towers; spread over all the murmur of half a million men, the eternal plaint of the river, the infinite breathings of the wind, the grave and distant quartette of the four forests arranged upon the hills, on the horizon, like immense stacks of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a half shade, all that is too hoarse304 and too shrill about the central chime, and say whether you know anything in the world more rich and joyful26, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes;--than this furnace of music,--than these ten thousand brazen305 voices chanting simultaneously in the flutes306 of stone, three hundred feet high,--than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,--than this symphony which produces the noise of a tempest.
我们刚才试着给读者描述了巴黎圣母院这座可敬的教堂。我们概括地指出了它在十五世纪时还存在而如今已消失的大部分的美，但我们遗漏了最重要的，就是当年从它的钟塔顶上俯看的巴黎全景。
情况就是这样，当你在两座钟塔的厚墙间黑暗的螺旋梯上毛骨悚然地摸索了好久，最后突然来到充满阳光和空气的平台中的一座时，一幅美妙的全景就一下子展现在你的眼下。假若你们当中有人幸运地看见过同样完整的哥特式城市，你们就容易对它有一个概念了。这种城市如今还有几座留存下来，例如巴伐利亚的纽伦堡城，西班牙的维多利亚城，或者比较小些的（假若它们好好地保存下来的话），如布列塔尼的韦特列城，普鲁士的诺霍桑城。
三百年前的巴黎，十五世纪的巴黎，已经是一座大城市了。我们这些现代的巴黎人，通常把它向来所占的面积估计错了。从路易十一王朝以来，巴黎顶多不过扩充了三分之一，事实上，它失去的美好成分比它增加的面积还要多。
众所周知，巴黎出生在那个如今叫做旧城区的形状象摇篮的小岛上。小岛的堤岸就是它最初的城墙，塞纳河就是它最初的城壕。巴黎一连好几个世纪都保持着小岛的形状。它有两座桥，一座在北边，一座在南边，两个桥头堡同时当做它的城门和碉堡。大沙特雷门在右岸，小沙特雷门在左岸。而且自从最初一个王朝以来，巴黎就发觉自己给局限在那个狭隘的岛上转身不得，于是它跨过了塞纳河。那时就开始在大小沙特雷门之外，在塞纳河两岸的郊野，修建了最初的一圈城墙和几个城楼。那道古城墙的遗迹在过去几个世纪里都还存在，如今只剩下一点同它有关的记忆和这里那里残存的一点痕迹了，例如波代门，或者叫它波多瓦耶门或巴戈达门。成堆的房舍逐渐从城里扩展到城外，把那道城墙挤倒了，吞没了。菲立浦·奥古斯特给了它一个新的范围，他把巴黎约束在一大圈高大坚固的碉堡形成的链条之中。在一百多年里，房舍又逐渐稠密起来，它们的水平线象蓄水池里的水一样从地面逐渐上升，它们开始升高，盖了一层又一层，一座房子高过另一座房子，它们象压缩的液体一般膨胀起来，一座房屋总要高出邻近的许多房屋才能得到一点空气。街道则越来越显得凹进去，越来越窄，整个广场都被房屋占据而且消失了。于是那些房屋终于象一群逃犯似地跳出了菲立浦·奥古斯特的城墙，快活地、纷乱错杂地伸展到原野上。它们在那里自得其乐，在郊野里随便开辟了一些花园。打从一三六七年起，这座城市已经扩展了许多，又需要一道新的城墙了，尤其是塞纳河右岸。查理五世修建了那道城墙。但是象巴黎这样一座城市，总是无止境地在那里扩展，只有这样的城市才能成为一个国家的首都。它们是一些水库，一个国家所有地理的、政治的、伦理的、智慧的河流，一个民族所有的当然潮流，都导源于此；它们可以说是些文化的矿井，也可以说是些文化的沟渠，一个国家的商业、工业、智慧和人口，这也是这个国家的生命、活力和灵魂，都不断地从一个世纪到另一个世纪在那里汇集和过滤。于是查理五世的城墙也遭到菲立浦·奥古斯特的城墙同样的命运。
它从十五世纪末叶就倒塌了，毁坏了，而城郊的区域也就扩展得更远。在十六世纪，它好象更是逐渐退缩不见，仿佛深深陷进了古老的旧城区里面，而一座新城市在它的外面形成而且逐渐繁荣起来。这样，从十五世纪开始，为了把我们留在那儿，巴黎就已经摧毁了它的三道城墙，这些城墙，可以那么说，是从背教者朱利安时代的大小沙特雷门发展而来的。这座大城市接连胀破了它的四道城墙，象一个小孩大起来撑破了去年的衣服一样。在路易十一时代，还可以在某些地方，在房屋的大海中，看到古城墙上倾圮的城楼，好象是突出在一片汪洋里的几个小山头，好象是沉陷在新巴黎下面的古巴黎群岛。
从那时起，我们很不幸看到巴黎又有过很大的改变，但它只是越过了一道城墙，就是路易十五修造的那道城墙，那道布满了泥污的可怜的城墙，它的情况是和修建它的那位国王和描绘它的那位诗人相符的：环绕巴黎的城墙使巴黎悄声埋怨。
在十五世纪，巴黎分成了十分清楚而又各自独立的三个区域，每个区域各有自己的面貌，自己的姿态，自己的特点，自己的风俗，自己的优点和自己的历史。这三个区域就是旧城区、大学区和市民区。旧城区占据着整个小岛，是三个区域里面最古老、最小的一个，假若打个比方，它就象是其余两个区域的母亲，它夹在它们当中，就象一个小老太婆夹在两个美丽、高大的女儿当中。大学区占据着整个塞纳河左岸，从杜尔内尔塔一直到内斯尔塔。
杜尔内尔塔正当如今巴黎的酒市所在地，内斯尔塔正是如今造币厂所在地。
它的城墙占据着朱利安修建过浴池的那片乡野，圣热纳维埃夫山冈被围在城墙里面。这道弯弯曲曲的城墙最高的处所是巴巴尔门，就是靠近如今的先贤祠的地方。三个区域中最大的一个是市民区，它占据整个右岸。它的码头尽管有好几处中断，但仍沿着塞纳河伸展，从比里塔到木塔，这就是说从现在的丰收谷仓到现在的杜伊勒里宫一带。塞纳河将首都城墙割断的四个处所——左岸的杜尔内尔塔和内斯尔塔，右岸的比里塔和木塔，统称“巴黎四塔”。
市民区比大学区更加深入郊野。市民区的城墙（查理五世修建的）的最高处，是圣德尼门和圣马尔丹门，它们的位置至今尚未改变。
如我们刚才所说，巴黎这三大区域，都各自成为一座城市，但都是一座由于过分特殊而不可能完整的城市，它们每一座不依靠其余两座就无法存在。但它们三区各有完全不同的外表，旧城区里有很多教堂，市民区里有很多宫殿，大学区里有很多学院。不算老巴黎那些次要的特征，只按照总的情况和乱七八糟的分区裁判管辖权来讲，我们一般可以说小岛是归主教管的，右岸是归商会会长管的，左岸是归大学校长管的。巴黎总督——他是代表王室而不是代表地方——则总辖全市。旧城区里有圣母院，市民区里就有卢浮宫和总督府，大学区里就有索邦神学院。市民区里有菜市场，旧城区里就有大医院，大学区里就有教士广场。大学生们在左岸他们的教士广场上犯了罪，却要到小岛上的司法宫去受审，到右岸的隼山去受刑，除非校长认为在这一点上大学应比国王有权而愿意出面干涉，因为让学生给绞死在自己的区域里也算是一桩特权呢。
（顺便指出，这类特权的绝大部分以及更重要的特权的行使，都被国王们附会成了暴动和叛乱。国王不等到人民造反是不肯开恩的，这是一个亘古不变的规律。有一个古代文献提到忠诚时讲得很明白：“对于帝王的忠诚，虽然多次为叛乱所破坏，仍然使市民们得到了很多权利。”）
在十五世纪，塞纳河有五个小岛深入到巴黎的城墙里面：卢维耶岛，从前有许多大树而现在只剩些丛林；母牛岛和圣母岛，很荒芜，都是主教的领地（十七世纪人们把两岛合并为一，重新修建，如今称为圣路易岛）；最后是旧城区所在的岛以及它顶端的渡牛岛，这个岛后来沉没在新桥底下的泥泞中了。旧城区当时有五座桥：三座在右岸，即石头的圣母桥和
收听单词发音 |
1
dame
|
|
| n.女士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
briefly
|
|
| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
perpendicularly
|
|
| adv. 垂直地, 笔直地, 纵向地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
inundated
|
|
| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
specimens
|
|
| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
strand
|
|
| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
fortress
|
|
| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
thither
|
|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
infringe
|
|
| v.违反，触犯，侵害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
vestiges
|
|
| 残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
outwards
|
|
| adj.外面的，公开的，向外的；adv.向外；n.外形 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
overflows
|
|
| v.溢出，淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 )；充满；挤满了人；扩展出界，过度延伸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
devours
|
|
| 吞没( devour的第三人称单数 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
effaces
|
|
| v.擦掉( efface的第三人称单数 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
18
dike
|
|
| n.堤，沟；v.开沟排水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
imprisons
|
|
| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
gush
|
|
| v.喷，涌；滔滔不绝(说话)；n.喷，涌流；迸发 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
laterally
|
|
| ad.横向地；侧面地；旁边地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
rivalry
|
|
| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
scatter
|
|
| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
joyfully
|
|
| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
joyful
|
|
| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
askew
|
|
| adv.斜地；adj.歪斜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
runaways
|
|
| （轻而易举的）胜利( runaway的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
funnels
|
|
| 漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
geographical
|
|
| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
sewers
|
|
| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
amasses
|
|
| v.积累，积聚( amass的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
outgrown
|
|
| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
apostate
|
|
| n.背叛者，变节者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
intervals
|
|
| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
transformation
|
|
| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
miserable
|
|
| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
rend
|
|
| vt.把…撕开，割裂；把…揪下来，强行夺取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
specialty
|
|
| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
maidens
|
|
| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
quay
|
|
| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
abounded
|
|
| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
communal
|
|
| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
jurisdictions
|
|
| 司法权( jurisdiction的名词复数 )； 裁判权； 管辖区域； 管辖范围 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
bishop
|
|
| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
extorted
|
|
| v.敲诈( extort的过去式和过去分词 )；曲解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
naively
|
|
| adv. 天真地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
apropos
|
|
| adv.恰好地；adj.恰当的；关于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
fidelity
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
engulfed
|
|
| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
tranquilly
|
|
| adv. 宁静地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
tangled
|
|
| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
mingle
|
|
| vt.使混合，使相混；vi.混合起来；相交往 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
transfused
|
|
| v.输（血或别的液体）( transfuse的过去式和过去分词 )；渗透；使…被灌输或传达 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
incessantly
|
|
| ad.不停地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
rue
|
|
| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
arteries
|
|
| n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
veins
|
|
| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
derived
|
|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
reposed
|
|
| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
labyrinth
|
|
| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
labyrinthine
|
|
| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
attentively
|
|
| adv.聚精会神地；周到地；谛；凝神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
pinnacle
|
|
| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
spire
|
|
| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
spires
|
|
| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
turrets
|
|
| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
slate
|
|
| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
obelisks
|
|
| n.方尖石塔，短剑号，疑问记号( obelisk的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
fretted
|
|
| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
originality
|
|
| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
colonnade
|
|
| n.柱廊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
accustom
|
|
| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
tumult
|
|
| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
edifices
|
|
| n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
edifice
|
|
| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
medley
|
|
| n.混合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
blazons
|
|
| v.广布( blazon的第三人称单数 )；宣布；夸示；装饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
89
algebra
|
|
| n.代数学 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
hieroglyphics
|
|
| n.pl.象形文字 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
feudal
|
|
| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
theocracy
|
|
| n.神权政治；僧侣政治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
prow
|
|
| n.(飞机)机头，船头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
chapel
|
|
| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
ornamented
|
|
| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
cone
|
|
| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
sullen
|
|
| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
warts
|
|
| n.疣( wart的名词复数 )；肉赘；树瘤；缺点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
cloister
|
|
| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
terrain
|
|
| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
throng
|
|
| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
lengthened
|
|
| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
pillory
|
|
| n.嘲弄；v.使受公众嘲笑；将…示众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
ERECTED
|
|
| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
erect
|
|
| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
grooved
|
|
| v.沟( groove的过去式和过去分词 )；槽；老一套；（某种）音乐节奏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
diaphanous
|
|
| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
thicket
|
|
| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
thickets
|
|
| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
vapors
|
|
| n.水汽，水蒸气，无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 )；自夸者；幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁（症）v.自夸，（使）蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
devoured
|
|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
cordon
|
|
| n.警戒线，哨兵线 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
zigzag
|
|
| n.曲折，之字形；adj.曲折的，锯齿形的；adv.曲折地，成锯齿形地；vt.使曲折；vi.曲折前行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
bourgeois
|
|
| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
mansion
|
|
| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
rustics
|
|
| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
mansions
|
|
| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
scarlet
|
|
| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
uproar
|
|
| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
dense
|
|
| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
crests
|
|
| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
multiplication
|
|
| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
overloading
|
|
| 过载，超载，过负载 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
picturesque
|
|
| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
attic
|
|
| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
attics
|
|
| n. 阁楼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
devout
|
|
| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
grandeur
|
|
| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
monastery
|
|
| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
nave
|
|
| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
graceful
|
|
| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
elegance
|
|
| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
slashed
|
|
| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
pinnacles
|
|
| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
mound
|
|
| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
tortuous
|
|
| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
eminence
|
|
| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
precipitated
|
|
| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
disorder
|
|
| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
flux
|
|
| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
writhed
|
|
| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
suburban
|
|
| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
mosaics
|
|
| n.马赛克( mosaic的名词复数 )；镶嵌；镶嵌工艺；镶嵌图案 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
compartment
|
|
| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
compartments
|
|
| n.间隔( compartment的名词复数 )；（列车车厢的）隔间；（家具或设备等的）分隔间；隔层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
descried
|
|
| adj.被注意到的，被发现的，被看到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
situated
|
|
| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
isolated
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
bishops
|
|
| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
bestowed
|
|
| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
notched
|
|
| a.有凹口的，有缺口的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
eastward
|
|
| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
marsh
|
|
| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
entangled
|
|
| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
gracefully
|
|
| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
sumptuous
|
|
| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
overloaded
|
|
| a.超载的，超负荷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
citadel
|
|
| n.城堡；堡垒；避难所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
miraculous
|
|
| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
lodging
|
|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
dome
|
|
| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
suites
|
|
| n.套( suite的名词复数 )；一套房间；一套家具；一套公寓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
oratory
|
|
| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
superfluous
|
|
| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
aviaries
|
|
| n.大鸟笼( aviary的名词复数 )；鸟舍；鸟类饲养场；鸟类饲养者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
arsenals
|
|
| n.兵工厂，军火库( arsenal的名词复数 )；任何事物的集成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
marvel
|
|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
amalgamate
|
|
| v.(指业务等)合并，混合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
amalgamated
|
|
| v.（使）（金属）汞齐化( amalgamate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）合并；联合；结合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
gambols
|
|
| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
184
beheld
|
|
| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
extremity
|
|
| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
hybrid
|
|
| n.(动，植）杂种，混合物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
chapels
|
|
| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
remarkably
|
|
| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
bristling
|
|
| a.竖立的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
arabesques
|
|
| n.阿拉伯式花饰( arabesque的名词复数 )；错综图饰；阿拉伯图案；阿拉贝斯克芭蕾舞姿（独脚站立，手前伸，另一脚一手向后伸） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
192
gilded
|
|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
darted
|
|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
rending
|
|
| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
bellies
|
|
| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
enchanting
|
|
| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
beaks
|
|
| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
spouts
|
|
| n.管口( spout的名词复数 )；（喷出的）水柱；（容器的）嘴；在困难中v.（指液体）喷出( spout的第三人称单数 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
cannons
|
|
| n.加农炮，大炮，火炮( cannon的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
behold
|
|
| v.看，注视，看到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
velvet
|
|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
alleys
|
|
| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
observatory
|
|
| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
rues
|
|
| v.对…感到后悔( rue的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
208
ramifications
|
|
| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
meandered
|
|
| （指溪流、河流等）蜿蜒而流( meander的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
petrified
|
|
| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
foaming
|
|
| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
carvings
|
|
| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
propounding
|
|
| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
riddle
|
|
| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
sculptor
|
|
| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
disdain
|
|
| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
lavishly
|
|
| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
gnawed
|
|
| 咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
ivy
|
|
| n.常青藤，常春藤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
deformed
|
|
| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
224
encumbered
|
|
| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
225
circumference
|
|
| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
226
hemmed
|
|
| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
227
sinister
|
|
| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
228
fortified
|
|
| adj. 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
229
diadem
|
|
| n.王冠，冕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
230
splendor
|
|
| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
231
profane
|
|
| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
232
agglomeration
|
|
| n.结聚，一堆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
233
lesser
|
|
| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
234
hydra
|
|
| n.水螅；难于根除的祸患 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
235
guardian
|
|
| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
236
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
237
slates
|
|
| （旧时学生用以写字的）石板( slate的名词复数 )； 板岩； 石板瓦； 石板色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
238
metallic
|
|
| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
239
configuration
|
|
| n.结构，布局，形态，(计算机)配置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
240
slated
|
|
| 用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
241
tattooed
|
|
| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
242
fluted
|
|
| a.有凹槽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
243
myriads
|
|
| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
244
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
245
buttresses
|
|
| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
246
swelled
|
|
| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
247
swell
|
|
| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
248
apparatus
|
|
| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
249
crouching
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
250
enumeration
|
|
| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
251
recapitulate
|
|
| v.节述要旨，择要说明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
252
monolithic
|
|
| adj.似独块巨石的；整体的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
253
rim
|
|
| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
254
ravens
|
|
| n.低质煤；渡鸦( raven的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
255
diabolical
|
|
| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
256
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
257
renaissance
|
|
| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
258
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
259
harmonious
|
|
| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
260
impartial
|
|
| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
261
demolition
|
|
| n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
262
effaced
|
|
| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
263
squat
|
|
| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
264
vault
|
|
| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
265
vaults
|
|
| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
266
Amended
|
|
| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
267
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
268
frieze
|
|
| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
269
brutal
|
|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
270
connoisseur
|
|
| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
271
proceeding
|
|
| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
272
pastry
|
|
| n.油酥面团，酥皮糕点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
273
grimacing
|
|
| v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
274
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
275
flattened
|
|
| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
276
warehouse
|
|
| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
277
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
278
conceal
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
279
majestically
|
|
| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
280
opulence
|
|
| n.财富，富裕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
281
grandiose
|
|
| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
282
azure
|
|
| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
283
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
284
silhouette
|
|
| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
285
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
286
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
287
vibration
|
|
| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
288
sonorous
|
|
| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
289
vibrations
|
|
| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
290
deafening
|
|
| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
291
windings
|
|
| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
292
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
293
bass
|
|
| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
294
gamut
|
|
| n.全音阶，(一领域的)全部知识 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
295
ascends
|
|
| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
296
luminous
|
|
| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
297
zigzags
|
|
| n.锯齿形的线条、小径等( zigzag的名词复数 )v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
298
scatters
|
|
| v.（使）散开， （使）分散，驱散( scatter的第三人称单数 )；撒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
299
relaxation
|
|
| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
300
anvil
|
|
| n.铁钻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
301
peal
|
|
| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
302
exhales
|
|
| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的第三人称单数 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
303
vaulted
|
|
| adj.拱状的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
304
hoarse
|
|
| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
305
brazen
|
|
| adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
306
flutes
|
|
| 长笛( flute的名词复数 )； 细长香槟杯（形似长笛） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |