To cross the now
magnificent hall of Apollo, with its grand proportions flooded by a
cloudless sun, expands the mind and brightens the vision for their feast
of beauty. Here too, a magic improvement has been recently wrought, and
the architectural renovation lends new effect to the ancient treasures, so
admirably preserved and arranged. I stood long at one of the windows and
looked down upon the Seine; it was thence that the people were fired upon
at the massacre of St. Bartholomew; there rose, dark and fretted, the
antique tower of Notre Dame, here was the site of the Tour de Nesle, that
legend of crime wrought in stone; gracefully looked the bridges as they
spanned the swollen current of the river; cheerfully lay the sunshine on
quay and parapet; it was a scene where the glow of nature and the shadows
of history unite to lend a charm to the panorama of modern civilization.
And turning the gaze within, how calm and refreshing seemed the long and
high vistas of the gallery; how happy the artists at their easels;--girls
with their frugal dinners in a basket on the pavement, copying a Flemish
scene; youths drawing intently some head of an old master; veterans of the
palette reproducing the tints born under Venetian skies; and groups
standing in silent admiration before some exquisite gem or wonderful
conception.
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