ont Neuf with their
graceful curves; below is the little green patch of garden and the
cascade of the weir; in the centre of the bridge the bronze horse with
Henry IV., its royal rider, almost hidden by the trees, stands facing
the site of the old garden of the Palais, where St. Louis sat on a
carpet judging his people, and whence Philip the Fair watched the
flames that were consuming the Grand Master and his companion of the
Knights Templars. To the left are the picturesque mediaeval towers of
the Conciergerie and the tall roof of the belfry of the Palais.
Around all are the embracing waters of the Seine breaking the light
with their thousand facets. The island, when seen from the east as one
sails down the river, is not less imposing, for the great mother
church of Notre Dame, with the graceful buttresses of the apse like
folded pinions, seems to brood over the whole Cite.

[Illustration: CHAPEL OF CHATEAU AT VINCENNES.]

[Illustration: NEAR THE PONT NEUF.]

From the time when Julius Caesar addressed his legions on the little
island of _Lutetia Civitas Parisiorum_ to the present day, two
millenniums of history have been enacted there, and few spots are to
be found in Europe where so many associations are crowded together. In
Gallo-Roman times the island was, as we have seen, even smaller, five
islets having been incorporated with it since the thirteenth century.
Some notion of the changes that have swept over its soil may be
conceived on scanning Felibien's 1725 map, where no less than eighteen
churches are marked, scarce a wrack of which now remains on the
island. We must imagine the old mediaeval Cite as a labyrinth of
crooked and narrow streets, with the present broad Parvis of Notre
Dame of much smaller extent, at a higher level, enclosed by a low wall
and approached by steps. Against the north tower leaned the Baptistery
(St. Jean le Rond) and St. Denis of the Ferry against the apse. St.
Pierre aux Boeufs, whose facade has been transferred to St.
Severin's on the south bank, stood at the east corner, St. Christopher
at the west corner of the present Hotel Dieu which covers the site of
eleven streets and three churches. The old twelfth-century hospital,
demolished in 1878, occupied the whole space south of the Parvis
between the present Petit Pont and the Pont au Double. It possessed
its own bridge, the Pont St. Charles, over which the buildings
stretched, and joined the annexe (1606), which, until 1909, existe