ry: the City, the
University, the Town. The City, which occupied the island, was the
most ancient, the smallest, and the mother of the other two, crowded in
between them like (may we be pardoned the comparison) a little old woman
between two large and handsome maidens. The University covered the left
bank of the Seine, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, points which
correspond in the Paris of to-day, the one to the wine market, the other
to the mint. Its wall included a large part of that plain where Julian
had built his hot baths. The hill of Sainte-Genevieve was enclosed in
it. The culminating point of this sweep of walls was the Papal gate,
that is to say, near the present site of the Pantheon. The Town, which
was the largest of the three fragments of Paris, held the right bank.
Its quay, broken or interrupted in many places, ran along the Seine,
from the Tour de Billy to the Tour du Bois; that is to say, from the
place where the granary stands to-day, to the present site of the
Tuileries. These four points, where the Seine intersected the wall of
the capital, the Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle on the right, the Tour
de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the left, were called pre-eminently,
"the four towers of Paris." The Town encroached still more extensively
upon the fields than the University. The culminating point of the
Town wall (that of Charles V.) was at the gates of Saint-Denis and
Saint-Martin, whose situation has not been changed.

As we have just said, each of these three great divisions of Paris was a
town, but too special a town to be complete, a city which could not
get along without the other two. Hence three entirely distinct aspects:
churches abounded in the City; palaces, in the Town; and colleges,
in the University. Neglecting here the originalities, of secondary
importance in old Paris, and the capricious regulations regarding the
public highways, we will say, from a general point of view, taking only
masses and the whole group, in this chaos of communal jurisdictions,
that the island belonged to the bishop, the right bank to the provost of
the merchants, the left bank to the Rector; over all ruled the provost
of Paris, a royal not a municipal official. The City had Notre-Dame; the
Town, the Louvre and the Hotel de Ville; the University, the Sorbonne.
The Town had the markets (Halles); the city, the Hospital; the
University, the Pre-aux-Clercs. Offences committed by the scholars
on the left ban