Under the citizen king, Napoleon's Arch of Triumph of the Etoile was completed, and the Columns of Luxor, on the Place de la Concorde, and of July on the Place de la Bastille, were raised. It was the period of the admirable architectural restorations of Viollet le Duc. The great architect has described how his passion for Gothic was stirred when, taken as a boy to Notre Dame, the rose window of the south seized upon his imagination. While gazing at it the organ began to play, and he thought that the music came from the window--the shrill, high notes from the light colours, the solemn, bass notes from the dark and more subdued hues. It was a reverent and admiring spirit such as this which inspired the famous architect's loving treatment of the Gothic restoration in Paris and all over France. To him more than to any other artist we owe the preservation of such masterpieces as Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle. But the great changes which have made modern Paris were effected under the Second Empire. In 1854, when the Haussemannisation of the city began, the Paris of the First Empire and of the Restoration remained essentially unaltered. It was a city of a few grand streets and of many mean ones. Pavements were still rare, and drainage was imperfect. In a few years the whole aspect was changed. Twenty-two new boulevards and avenues were created. Streets of appalling uniformity and directness were ploughed through Paris in all directions. "Nothing is more brutal than a straight line," says Victor Hugo, and there is little of interest in the monotonous miles of dreary coincidence which constitute the architectural legacy of the Second Empire. [Illustration: RUE DROUET AND SACRÉ COEUR.] [Illustration: HOTEL DE VILLE FROM RIVER.] The sad task of the Third Republic has been to heal the wounds and cover up the destruction wrought by the Civil War of 1871. The chief architectural creations of the Third Republic are the Hôtel de Ville, the new Sorbonne, the Trocadero, and the completion of the magnificent and colossal temple, rich with precious marble and stone of every kind, which, at a cost of £10,000,000 sterling, has been raised to the Muses at the end of the Avenue de l'Opéra. The Church, too, has lavished her millions on the mighty basilica of the Sacré Coeur, which dominates Paris from the heights of Montmartre. But some of the glory of past ages remains hidden away in corners of the city; some has been recovered from the vandalism of iconoclastic eighteenth-century architects, canons, revolutionists and nineteenth-century prefects. Let us now wander awhile about the great city and refresh our memories of her dramatic past by beholding somewhat of the interest and beauty which have been preserved to us; for "to be in Paris itself, amid the full, delightful fragrance of those dainty visible things which Huguenots despised--that, surely, were the sum of good fortune!" CHAPTER XIX