d the Virgin crowned by
an angel. Behind it there are bas-reliefs representing the death of the
Virgin--Christ surrounded by angels, the Virgin at the feet of Christ
in agony, and a woman selling herself to the Devil. The interior of the
church abounds with sculpture of every description, and some of it was
executed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

There now remains only one of the old peal of bells which used to exist
in Notre Dame--but one has escaped the fury of French revolutions. It
was hung in the year 1682, and was baptized in the presence of Louis
XIV. and Queen Theresa. Its weight is thirty-two thousand pounds--the
clapper alone weighing a thousand pounds. A clock in one of the towers
is world-renowned for the intricacy and curiosity of its mechanism. The
feats it performs every time it strikes the hour and quarter-hour, can
hardly be credited by one who has not seen them.

It is supposed that the first foundations of a church on this spot were
laid in the year 365, in the reign of Valentian I. It was subsequently
several times rebuilt, a portion of the work which was executed in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries still remaining. The other portions
were built in 1407, by the duke of Burgundy, and are of a deep red
color. The _Porte Rouge_ was built under his special superintendence. He
assassinated the duke of Orleans, and built this red portal as an
expiation for his crime.

In 1831, when the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois was sacked, the mob
crowded into Notre Dame and completely destroyed everything within its
reach, including, among other things, the coronation robes of Napoleon.
The archbishop's palace was next attacked, and in one short hour all its
rich stores of ancient and modern literature were thrown into the Seine.
The palace itself was so completely ruined, that the government
afterward removed every vestige of it. Nothing is more terrible in this
world than a mob of maddened people. And though such Vandal acts as
these cannot be defended, still it be hooves us to remember, that the
conduct of the inhabitants of these palaces was such as to bring down on
their heads the just indignation and censure of the people.

Slowly passing through the aisles of the cathedral, I passed again the
threshold into the street. The majestic towers and turrets were bright
beneath the gaze of the sun, and it seemed to me that I could stand for
hours to look at them. It is not so with the Madeleine. I