Bonjour Paris [antikvár]

The memory of Paris is stored in a river. Its name is the Seine. But it would be the grossest of errors to imagine, as some geographers do, that this is the same River Seine whose source lies far to the east on the Langres plateau, 1500 feet above the sea. For the magic mirror that has caught every image of Paris since its birth is in reality just that stretch of slightly murky water framed by the embankments against whose ancient stones it washes. On its surface have been reflected alike the blood-streaked countenance of days of battle, the sparkling eyes, the ribboned hair of nights of festivity. From century to century the 4 city has gazed into it admiring her stance, her manners and her charms, drawing from it a flattering assurance of her own wealth and greatness that the darkest glimpses of her shame and suffering have only served to heighten. And it will still be the Seine that carries away in times to come the last long shadow of the last skyscraper as it melts to mud beneath the dark precipitations of warriors from outer worlds.All these things are well enough known. But there is a certain property in these waters that is often less appreciated they have the strange power to imprison for eternity every image, however fleeting, that has ever flickered on their surface. For instance, from this same spotwhere but a moment ago two girls were leaning on the parapet, some curious watcher might see rising through the morning haze above the quicksilver of the water the figure of a man, bronze-hel-meted, with fierce red moustache and hair falling in long plaits on his shoulders. He is mounted on a little horse, with a bearskin for saddlecloth ; at his side he carries an ax with poHshed wooden handle and on his back hangs a round spiked shield. He is the Gauhsh chief Camulogenus, the son of Camulus, the god of war. He is just leaving Lutetia for the Bievre valley where he will encounter Caesar's legate Labienus who is reported to have crossed the Seine at Sevres. He has, in fact, but two hours more to live, for on this day he is to be struck down by the Roman legions as his troops are put to flight and as the marshes and the settlements of Lutetia are consumed by flames that reach high to the overhanging clouds.This took place in the year 52.B.C. And as a result of these ravages of fire and sword, the Seine was no longer to flow past a straggling collection of primitive huts but to reflect the white façades of fine stone houses and palaces with marble walls. Only the old wooden bridges remained, shaky worm-eaten structures that all too often collapsed beneath the weight of the passers-by. It was becauseTHE PONT D'ARCOLE AND THE CONCIERGERIE 2 >