Laurence, who had become thoughtful in the moats of the fortifications, timidly clung to me as we were crossing the desolated plain. We walked on silently, sometimes turning to glance at Paris, which was grumbling in the distance. Then, we brought back our eyes to our feet, avoiding the gaps in the ground, contemplating with saddened souls this plain, the open wounds of which were brutally shown by the sun. Afar off were the churches, the Panthéons and the royal palaces; here were the ruins of an overturned soil, which had been searched and robbed to build these temples to men, to kings and to God. The city explained the plain; Paris had at its threshold the desolation which all grandeur causes. I know of nothing more mournful or more lamentable than those unconfined lands which surround great cities; they are not yet a part of the town and they are no longer the country; they have the dust, the mutilations of man, and have no longer the verdure or the tranquil majesty given them by God. We were in haste to flee. Laurence had bruised her feet; she was afraid of this disorder, of this melancholy which reminded her of our chamber. As for me, I found in this wretched spot my love, my troubles and my bleeding life. We hurried away. We descended a hill. The Bièvre river flowed along at the bottom of the valley, bluish and thick. Trees, here and there, bordered the stream; tall houses, sombre, narrow and pierced with immense windows, loomed up lugubriously. The valley was more discouraging than the plain; it was damp, oily and full of disagreeable smells. The tanneries there emitted sharp and suffocating odors; the waters of the Bièvre, that sort of common sewer open to the sky, exhaled a fetid and powerful stench which gave me a choking sensation. It was no longer the sad and gray desolation of Montrouge; it was the disgusting sight of a gutter, black with mud and refuse, bearing away with its waters horrible odors. A few poplar trees had grown vigorously in this reeking soil, and, above, against the clear sky, were pictured the long white lines of the Hôpital de Bicêtre, that frightful abode of madness and death, which worthily towers over the unhealthful and ignoble valley.