kept on our way by the river's brink, looking at the titles of books on
the long lines of stalls that extend between the bridges. Novels,
fairy-tales, dream books, treatises of behavior and etiquette,
collections of bon-mots and of songs, were interspersed with volumes in
the old style of calf and gilt binding, the works of the classics of
French literature. A good many persons, of the poor classes, and of
those apparently well to do, stopped transitorily to look at these books.
On the other side of the street was a range of tall edifices with shops
beneath, and the quick stir of French life hurrying, and babbling, and
swarming along the sidewalk. We passed two or three bridges, occurring
at short intervals, and at last we recrossed the Seine by a bridge which
oversteps the river, from a point near the National Institute, and
reaches the other side, not far from the Louvre. . . . .

Though the day was so disagreeable, we thought it best not to lose the
remainder of it, and therefore set out to visit the Cathedral of Notre
Dame. We took a fiacre in the Place de Carousel, and drove to the door.
On entering, we found the interior miserably shut off from view by the
stagings erected for the purpose of repairs. Penetrating from the nave
towards the chancel, an official personage signified to us that we must
first purchase a ticket for each grown person, at the price of half a
franc each. This expenditure admitted us into the sacristy, where we
were taken in charge by a guide, who came down upon us with an avalanche
or cataract of French, descriptive of a great many treasures reposited in
this chapel. I understood hardly more than one word in ten, but gathered
doubtfully that a bullet which was shown us was the one that killed the
late Archbishop of Paris, on the floor of the cathedral. [But this was a
mistake. It was the archbishop who was killed in the insurrection of
1848. Two joints of his backbone were also shown.] Also, that some
gorgeously embroidered vestments, which he drew forth, had been used at