A Bird's-Eye View of Paris — The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Looking from the towers, the narrator rebuilds the Paris of 1482. It was already huge, and since Louis XI it has grown by only about a third, losing more beauty than it gained in size. Born on the island, it burst three successive walls. Inside the last, three towns cannot live apart. The City, the bishop's island, is dense with churches. The University, on the rector's left bank, is dense with colleges. The Town, on the right bank, belongs to the provost of the merchants and holds palaces, markets, and the Louvre. The provost of Paris rules over all. Two north-south streets and the bridged Seine bind them.

From above, the island is a ship of roofs, the left bank a mass of colleges, and the right bank palaces, the Bastille, and the Louvre, with Montfaucon beyond. This medieval Paris, he argues, was a chronicle in stone, Romanesque under Gothic, and whole only for a moment. The Renaissance adorned it and began to destroy it. Later reigns each left a fragment, until the city has no single face. The fathers had stone. The sons will have plaster. He asks the reader to hear the festival bells, when Paris sings.