resh floods of heads. The waves of this crowd, augmented
incessantly, dashed against the angles of the houses which projected
here and there, like so many promontories, into the irregular basin of
the place. In the centre of the lofty Gothic* facade of the palace, the
grand staircase, incessantly ascended and descended by a double current,
which, after parting on the intermediate landing-place, flowed in broad
waves along its lateral slopes,--the grand staircase, I say, trickled
incessantly into the place, like a cascade into a lake. The cries, the
laughter, the trampling of those thousands of feet, produced a great
noise and a great clamor. From time to time, this noise and clamor
redoubled; the current which drove the crowd towards the grand staircase
flowed backwards, became troubled, formed whirlpools. This was produced
by the buffet of an archer, or the horse of one of the provost's
sergeants, which kicked to restore order; an admirable tradition which
the provostship has bequeathed to the constablery, the constablery to
the _marechaussee_, the _marechaussee_ to our _gendarmeri_ of Paris.

* The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed,
is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and
we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the
architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is
the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of
which the semi-circle is the father.

Thousands of good, calm, bourgeois faces thronged the windows, the
doors, the dormer windows, the roofs, gazing at the palace, gazing
at the populace, and asking nothing more; for many Parisians content
themselves with the spectacle of the spectators, and a wall behind which
something is going on becomes at once, for us, a very curious thing
indeed.

If it could be granted to us, the men of 1830, to mingle in thought
with those Parisians of the fifteenth century, and to enter with them,
jostled, elbowed, pulled about, into that immense hall of the palace,
which was so cramped on that sixth of January, 1482, the spectacle would
not be devoid of either interest or charm, and we should have about us
only things that were so old that they would seem new.

With the reader's consent, we will endeavor to retrace in thought,
the impression which he would have experienced in company with us
on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in the midst of t