Admirable, however, as the Paris of the present day appears to you, build up and put together again in imagination the Paris of the fifteenth century; look at the light through that surprising host of steeples, towers, and belfries; pour forth amid the immense city, break against the points of its islands, compress within the arches of the bridges, the current of the Seine, with its large patches of green and yellow, more changeable than a serpent's skin; define clearly the Gothic profile of this old Paris upon an horizon of azure, make its contour float in a wintry fog which clings to its innumerable chimneys; drown it in deep night, and observe the extraordinary play of darkness and light in this sombre labyrinth of buildings; throw into it a ray of moonlight, which shall show its faint outline and cause the huge heads of the towers to stand forth from amid the mist; or revert to that dark picture, touch up with shade the thousand acute angles of the spires and gables, and make them stand out, more jagged than a shark's jaw, upon the copper-coloured sky of evening. Now compare the two.

The house - a substantial but essentially modest suburban villa - was furnished with voluptuous grandeur in approximations of various styles, predominantly those of several Louis, with late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century additions. Heavy coloured glass ashtrays of monstrous size and weight rested in inlaid marquetry tables of vaguely Pompadour associations. At dinner we drank champagne from ruby Bohemian glasses: the meat was carved at a Boulle-type sideboard. 'Regency' wallpaper of dark green and lighter green stripes was partially covered by gilt-framed landscapes of no style whatsoever.

The house was large and deeply lived-in, all the shelves and surfaces stacked with books and boxes, framed pictures, old greeting cards set up like tent cities...Every single surface told a story. A long one. With digressions.

My emirs said the French have very beautiful palaces and that they would rather preserve than destroy them.

There are great many Rembrandts here [in Paris]. Even if they are yellow with varnish, I can still learn so much from them, the wrinkled intricacy of things, life itself. There is a little thing here by him.. ..It is of a women in bed, nude. But the way it's painted, the way the cushions are painted, their shapes, with all those details of lacework, the whole thing is bewitching.

Le grand architecte de l'univers l'a construite on bons matériaux.

On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud:

Paris is well worth a mass.

Nancy, the most beautiful town in France, has never been as beautiful as now. (...) The last time I looked out on the great architectural setting of the Place Stanislas was on a hot July evening, the evening of the National Fête. The square and the avenues leading to it swarmed with people, and as darkness fell the balanced lines of arches and palaces sprang out in many coloured light. Garlands of lamps looped the arcades leading into the Place de la Carrière, peacock-coloured fires flared from the Arch of Triumph, long curves of radiance beat like wings over the thickets of the park, the sculptures of the fountains, the brown-and-gold foliation of Jean Lamour's great gates; and under this roofing of light was the murmur of a happy crowd carelessly celebrating the tradition of half-forgotten victories.

Winding his way through the streets of Paris, Stanley finally found a grand stone building in a maze of cobblestoned streets. The sign above the doorway read L’école d’Art, the same words that were on the sketchbook.

At the we met , the Director, but were especially pleased to see who had made suck a name for herself by her work on . She was in charge of the reduction of the Paris astrographic plates, and we were interested to compare her computing bureau with the one at . She offered to escort us to to visit the venerable , and invitation which we were delighted to accept. We were charmed with picturesque dwelling, made from the stables of the old chateau, with its low-ceiled rooms and quaint winding passages. They made a fascinating setting for the indomitable old Frenchman, who in spite of his eighty years, was planning to make another ascent of that summer, even if he had to be carried to the summit in a chair. He also asked many questions about the college in America where young girls studied mathematical astronomy.

Then in a chair, with a rich cushion grac'd
And a carv'd foot-stool, he Minerva plac'd.
There 'gainst a column sets her lance, where stood
Ulysses' javelins, planted like a wood.

America was the attic of French culture.

Six and eighteenth century monuments, gardens, palaces with pot-bellied balconies, chapels, oratories, convents with large paintings, but above all habits, the way people move, the way of thinking and articulate words. The folk tales and even the official culture that, after all, had not gone beyond a pious enlightenment: from those places, you know, the French revolution has not passed.