s collision of
thunderbolts; he hears, like a death groan from the tomb, the vague
clamor of the fantom battle. These shadows are grenadiers; these
flashes are cuirassiers; this skeleton is Napoleon; this skeleton is
Wellington; all this is nonexistent, and yet still combats, and the
ravines are stained purple, and the trees rustle, and there is fury
even in the clouds and in the darkness, while all the stern heights,
Mont St. Jean, Hougomont, Frischemont, Papelotte, and Plancenoit, seem
confusedly crowned by hosts of specters exterminating one another.

II

THE BEGINNINGS AND EXPANSIONS OF PARIS[58]

The Paris of three hundred and fifty years ago, the Paris of the
fifteenth century, was already a gigantic city. We modern Parisians in
general are much mistaken in regard to the ground which we imagine it
has gained. Since the time of Louis XI Paris has not increased above
one-third; and certes it has lost much more in beauty than it has
acquired in magnitude.

[Footnote 58: From Book III, Chapter II, of "The Hunchback of Notre
Dame." From an anonymous, non-copyright translation published by A. L.
Burt Company.]

The infant Paris was born, as everybody knows, in that ancient island
in the shape of a cradle, which is now called the City. The banks of
that island were its first enclosure; the Seine was its first ditch.
For several centuries Paris was confined to the island, having two
bridges, the one on the north, the other on the south, the two
_tetes-de-ponts_, which were at once its gates and its fortresses--the
Grand Chatelet on the right bank and the Petit Chatelet on the left.
In process of time, under the kings of the first dynasty, finding
herself straitened in her island and unable to turn herself about, she
crossed the water. A first enclosure of walls and towers then began to
encroach upon either bank of the Seine beyond the two Chatelets. Of
this ancient enclosure some vestiges were still remaining in the past
century; nothing is now left of it but the memory and here and there
a tradition. By degrees the flood of houses, always propelled from the
heart to the extremities, wore away and overflowed this enclosure.

Philip Augustus surrounded Paris with new ramparts. He imprisoned the
city within a circular chain of large, lofty, and massive towers. For
more than a century the houses, crowding closer and closer, raised
their level in this basin, like water in a reservoir. They began to
grow higher