The sun setting behind Meudon illuminated the Bois with its beams which strove to struggle through, while as it journeyed west, the windows of the Louvre and the Tuileries reflected the golden splendour of its rays. The Seine, curving like a huge snake, scintillated with all the colours of the rainbow, while through the mist the dark square towers of Notre Dame stood up like two silent sentinels mounting guard. Far away towards the Bois in sharp relief against the sky, the mighty steel scaffolding of the Tower Eiffel rose majestically above the Trocadero, looking down from its dizzy height on to the vast city at its feet. The great dome of the Pantheon on the other side of the river resembled a ball of burnished copper. Slowly the colours changed as the vista darkened, and the shadows vanished into the gloom, while the clouds above the horizon changed into a fiery red bordered by an expanse of orange, yellow and purple. The Heights of Montmartre were still bathed in rosy sunshine. As the setting sun vanished a deep grey seemed to settle over the city, which throbbed with its passing traffic like the cadence of the tide on a pebbly beach, as he sped along the Avenue du Trocadero and past the Maison Lamartine. Leaving the Bois, he could just get a glimpse of the lakes of La Muette nestled behind it, while a little to the south, resembling a casket of jewels, lay the charming suburb of Auteuil. "Auteuil, lieu favori; lieu fait pour les poètes Que des rivaux de Gloire unis sous tes berceaus."[3] The cocher drove past the church and the red marble pyramid which marks the tomb of the noble chancellor d' Aguesseau, and then turning down the Boulevard Rossini, he pulled up at a little detached villa near to the one at which Rossini died, and the doctor at length found himself at the house of his friend Villebois. Doctor Riche recognised it as one of those delightful little detached villas for which Passy and Auteuil are so famous. A wall surmounted by ornamental railings, half-screened the garden from the footway, while behind the house was a small grass-plot surrounded by a double row of damask rose trees. In one corner of the back garden lay a pretty rustic summer-house, shut in by creepers among which lovely cyclamen flowers, clematis blossoms, and lilac shed their perfume and added their brilliant colours to the dense green of the ivy. As he entered the hall, adorned with the trophies of the chase, Madame Villebois came forward to welcome him. "At last, mon cher docteur, we are all impatient to meet you. My husband and I are anxious to hear the stories of your adventures with the Arabs in Algeria, and all my friends are here to welcome you. I suppose that you have led a bachelor life so long that you will hardly feel at home in our family circle."