and parallel architectures, each having its special character, but
derived from the same origin, the round arch.

_Facies non omnibus una,
No diversa tamen, qualem_, etc.

Their faces not all alike, nor yet different, but such as the faces of
sisters ought to be.

** This portion of the spire, which was of woodwork, is precisely
that which was consumed by lightning, in 1823.

However, all these shades, all these differences, do not affect the
surfaces of edifices only. It is art which has changed its skin. The
very constitution of the Christian church is not attacked by it. There
is always the same internal woodwork, the same logical arrangement
of parts. Whatever may be the carved and embroidered envelope of a
cathedral, one always finds beneath it--in the state of a germ, and of
a rudiment at the least--the Roman basilica. It is eternally developed
upon the soil according to the same law. There are, invariably, two
naves, which intersect in a cross, and whose upper portion, rounded into
an apse, forms the choir; there are always the side aisles, for interior
processions, for chapels,--a sort of lateral walks or promenades where
the principal nave discharges itself through the spaces between the
pillars. That settled, the number of chapels, doors, bell towers,
and pinnacles are modified to infinity, according to the fancy of the
century, the people, and art. The service of religion once assured
and provided for, architecture does what she pleases. Statues,
stained glass, rose windows, arabesques, denticulations, capitals,
bas-reliefs,--she combines all these imaginings according to the
arrangement which best suits her. Hence, the prodigious exterior variety
of these edifices, at whose foundation dwells so much order and unity.
The trunk of a tree is immovable; the foliage is capricious.

CHAPTER II. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.

We have just attempted to restore, for the reader's benefit, that
admirable church of Notre-Dame de Paris. We have briefly pointed out
the greater part of the beauties which it possessed 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 perpendicularly pierces the thick wall of the belfries,
one emerged, at last abruptly, upon one of the lofty platforms inu