I opened the stained-glass casement and looked out. Far down below, beyond the outer rampart of the Bastille, I saw all the chimneys of Paris vomiting smoke; the arsenal of Henry IV., a spacious pile, having three great courts and a portal, the pillars of which were cannon set on end. Beyond lay the Seine and the Isles of St. Louis and the Cité--the Paris of the kings of the first race and of Philip Augustus--rising like a mass of rugged castles, moated round by the river, which was bridged across by the quaint piles of the Pont de Notre Dame and the Pont de la Cité. Nearer still, waved the green trees which covered all the Isle Louviers. A yellow flush spread across the eastern quarter of the sky; above it rolled clouds of murky amber, rendered darker by the morning smoke; and as the sun ascended behind the horizontal stripes of cloud, which his rays turned to bars of seeming gold and fire; he tipped with a rosy gleam the countless quaint façades and features of the city, which spread around me, with all its churches, spires, and glittering vanes; and chief of all, the huge dark double towers of Notre Dame, whose foundations were laid by Charles the Great. The queen of French cathedrals, she rose from a sea of ancient roofs, steep, sharp, and conical; and there, too, yawned the Parvis, a handsome old square, overhung by quaint houses, full of bustling shops, hurrying passengers, and a hundred varying noises. Then, as morning advanced, I heard the bells ringing in all the convents, monasteries, and steeples--St. Landry, St. Pierre aux Boeuf, St. Denis du Pas, St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and all the old churches of Paris as the city awoke, and roused itself to life and business, prayer and sin.