the coronation of Napoleon I. There were two large, full-length
portraits hanging aloft in the sacristy, and a gold or silver gilt, or,
at all events, gilt image of the Virgin, as large as life, standing on a
pedestal. The guide had much to say about these, but, understanding him
so imperfectly, I have nothing to record.

The guide's supervision of us seemed not to extend beyond this sacristy,
on quitting which he gave us permission to go where we pleased, only
intimating a hope that we would not forget him; so I gave him half a
franc, though thereby violating an inhibition on the printed ticket of
entrance.

We had been much disappointed at first by the apparently narrow limits
of the interior of this famous church; but now, as we made our way round
the choir, gazing into chapel after chapel, each with its painted window,
its crucifix, its pictures, its confessional, and afterwards came back
into the nave, where arch rises above arch to the lofty roof, we came to
the conclusion that it was very sumptuous. It is the greatest of pities
that its grandeur and solemnity should just now be so infinitely marred
by the workmen's boards, timber, and ladders occupying the whole centre
of the edifice, and screening all its best effects. It seems to have
been already most richly ornamented, its roof being painted, and the
capitals of the pillars gilded, and their shafts illuminated in fresco;
and no doubt it will shine out gorgeously when all the repairs and
adornments shall be completed. Even now it gave to my actual sight what
I have often tried to imagine in my visits to the English cathedrals,--
the pristine glory of those edifices, when they stood glowing with gold
and picture, fresh from the architects' and adorners' hands.

The interior loftiness of Notre Dame, moreover, gives it a sublimity