A Narrow Lane
Passes Beside The High Wall Which Conceals From Sight
The Palace Of The Archbishop, And Beneath The Flying
Buttresses, The Far-Projecting Gargoyles, And The Fine
South Porch Of The Church.
It terminates in a little,
dead, grass-grown square entitled the Place Gregoire
de Tours.
All this part of the exterior of the cathe-
dral is very brown, ancient, Gothic, grotesque; Balzac
calls the whole place "a desert of stone." A battered
and gabled wing, or out-house (as it appears to be)
of the hidden palace, with a queer old stone pulpit
jutting out from it, looks down on this melancholy
spot, on the other side of which is a seminary for
young priests, one of whom issues from a door in a
quiet corner, and, holding it open a moment behind
him, shows a glimpse of a sunny garden, where you
may fancy other black young figures strolling up and
down. Mademoiselle Gamard's house, where she took
her two abbes to board, and basely conspired with
one against the other, is still further round the cathe-
dral. You cannot quite put your hand upon it to-
day, for the dwelling which you say to yourself that
it _must_ have been Mademoiselle Gamard's does not
fulfil all the conditions mentioned in BaIzac's de-
scription. The edifice in question, however, fulfils con-
ditions enough; in particular, its little court offers
hospitality to the big buttress of the church. Another
buttress, corresponding with this (the two, between
them, sustain the gable of the north transept), is
planted in the small cloister, of which the door on the
further side of the little soundless Rue de la Psalette,
where nothing seems ever to pass, opens opposite to
that of Mademoiselle Gamard.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 13 of 276
Words from 3438 to 3730
of 75796
