e Sainte Chapelle, one of the most
perfect works of the thirteenth century. I had with some difficulty
obtained permission to roam over the ruins of that Palais de Justice and
the Prefecture de Police, and whilst the firemen were working to subdue
the flames wherever they broke out afresh, I used my brush to make a
sketch of the huge maze before me. There were bundles of official papers
at my feet; _Actes de Naissance_ and _Actes de Deces_, charred only, and
quite easy to decipher, but as I touched them, they crumbled to ashes.
Some seemingly well-preserved parchments I consigned to my pocket, but a
few hours later I found little more than dust in their place. The Hotel
de Ville, too, which had fallen a prey to the flames, had many an
association for me. Henri Lehmann, during the time I was studying under
him, had been commissioned to decorate the great hall with a series of
pictures. I had lent an apprentice's hand, and had seen them grow under
his brush, as, in an incredibly short space of time, he produced what
was thought to be the best work of his life--work destined to hand down
his name to posterity as one of the most fertile and distinguished
painters of the second empire. Ingres, too, who in those days was
considered the greatest draughtsman since the time of Raphael, had
contributed a masterpiece to the decoration of the hall, a _plafond_,
"The Apotheosis of Napoleon I." This work I had also seen in progress.
On the occasion of a visit to his studio I recollect a lady asking him,
in effusive language, where he had found the models for the ideally
classical horses attached to the triumphant car of the great conqueror.
Ingres led her straight to the window. "There are my models, madam," he
said bluntly, pointing to the cab-stand.

I wandered through Paris day after day, and everywhere the ghastly
traces of war, as it really is, confronted me; blood-stained flagstones,
broken-down gun-carriages, barricades that had been stormed, and homes
that had been wrecked. Everywhere the iron shutters of the shops were
riddled with shot or broken open. One climbed as best one could over a
heterogeneous mass of _impedimenta_, collected for attack or defence, or
thrown away in precipitate flight. Every effort had been made to prevent
petroleum being poured into the basement of the houses. The gratings in
the streets had been boarded over and otherwise secured against those
female fiends the Petroleuses. Some of the wealthiest q