They joined some worshippers, and a fair number of other tourists, some English, but also German and Italian, and possibly French extraction inside.At least Elizabeth believed that several of the people talking too loudly for the interior of a church in French while pointing eagerly at the paintings and the beautiful stained glass ceiling had more interest in the artistry of the place than its value as a location for sanctified Papist worship.
The interior of the great cathedral took Elizabeth’s breath away with a sense of the sublime.The late morning sun streamed through the great circular stained glass windows.
There were many statues and tombs with effigies, and there were fine religious paintings with scenes from the life of Christ, and from the lives of the Catholic saints.And Elizabeth loved the fine altarpiece in the center of the building, and the endless wooden lines of pews.
They had the opportunity to climb to the top of the bell tower, and see the entire city from that height, which was quite as impressive of a sight as the view from the dome of St.Paul’s or that from the top of the monument to the Great Fire in London.
“An exceptional building,” Darcy proclaimed, when they had returned to the ground and left the great cathedral, and turned to looked back at it.“The equal of St.Paul’s, in size and beauty, though entirely different in style.”
“No, no!Far superior,” Elizabeth replied, smiling at her husband.“Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece has nothing to it.”
“Youwould prefer the Gothic style of flying buttresses and tall bell towers to the more prosaic, and I daresay practical, large dome of St.Paul’s.”
“Can you not see the romance in those bell towers?In every bit of statuary and everybas-reliefdecoration of that building?Can you not see with your mind the endless generations of monks ringing those massive bells — there is some great story about this building, which only awaits the proper poet to tell it.”
“It would serve you right if one day someone writes a great novel about the cathedral.”
Elizabeth laughed.“The story I imagine would take a poet to write, even if he told the story in prose.”
“Does it make up for the ugliness of the park, the beauty of the cathedral?”
“It is more than passing strange to me, how they can build a church, a monument to their saints, which is of such surpassing beauty, and yet make their gardens so ugly.”
“They both are evenly structured and balanced in their core, but a well-balanced building is a thing of beauty, while well-balanced nature misses the purpose of nature, with is profusion, and freedom.”
“No, no, there is enormousirregularityin the cathedral, and that is the source of the beauty.I believe the solution to my mystery is different.This was produced in the so called dark ages, before the rule in France was regular and orderly, under those weak kings that we bashed about at Agincourt, and Crecy and Poitiers.But then came the age of their absolute monarchs and it wastheywho designed the Louvre and the Tuileries, and the ugly regularity and order of the whole.This building reflects a weaker, happier, more human time.And the Tuileries reflects the tyranny — ah but I ought not say that here.It reflects the nature of modern king, and whatever virtues such a king may provide, with it is a loss of real beauty; real and human beauty.”
“Andthatis why England shall always be superior to France, in fundamentals,” Darcy said laughing.
“That is your interpretation, not mine!”
They were somewhat tired of being continuously on foot by this point, and they had heard many good reports of therestaurateursand the cafes in the Palais Royal, which in any case was close by their apartments.
Darcy hailed afiacrewhich took them back across the Seine, and then they trundled through the crowded streets of Paris up to the entrance to that remarkable structure.
The one part of the Palais Royal was a colonnaded building surrounding a large garden with fountains and trees arranged again in far too much order for Elizabeth’s taste.Along three of the sides there were shops and cafes set along the galleries covered by the colonnades.
The remarkable part of the building was on the fourth side.There was a double line of columns set as far apart as a road of moderate width, with a wood structure covering the whole, and a massive number of shops filled with books, dresses, fine jewelry and all other manner of goods on either side.There were large numbers of restaurants fine enough to even appease Darcy’s taste.
Though the wind could blow into the open aired structure it was comparably comfortable inside, much warmer than the air outside, and the entire hall was packed with finely dressed Parisians promenading or shopping.
Elizabeth and Darcy found the fanciest appearing cafe along the first floor and took the private room upstairs in it where they could look down on the crowds pleasantly walking below.They ate an excellent repast, liberally seasoned with the tart and creamy sorrel sauce which the French tended to cook everything with.
Later Elizabeth went into several shops at Darcy’s encouragement.She was measured by a dressmaker who had been recommended as being at the height of fashion.
Silk ribbons, swathes of cloth, varieties of patterns, compliments from the madame who managed the shop, gloves and bonnets and hats, and shoes and boots, and clothes for every conceivable occasion, and one or two which Elizabeth was not quite prepared to conceive of.
All a heady, delightful mix.
After a while, Elizabeth began to believe she might be perhaps ordering too many dresses.However, at almost that moment Darcy came to the shop to ask after her, and his encouragement ensured shedidorder too many dresses.
They then found another cafe in the Palais Royal where some very fine chess players had met to compete against each other, and they spent a tense hour watching two extraordinary games play out.
That evening when they returned to their apartments, while they waited for supper, Darcy had his valet retrieve a travelling chess set from his bags for them to make an attempt to replicate the mighty contest they had witnessed in the cafe.
The chess set was made of the finest marble, with exquisitely carved pieces, and as Darcy set out the pieces she admired it.
“Unexpectedly heavy,” Elizabeth said smiling as she nearly dropped one of the smooth marble knights.“Such perfect carvings.And those tiny rubies in the eyes.”She eagerly turned the knight over and over, admiring the tiny lines, and little details, the way that you could feel the locks of the horse’s mane, the way that the grain of the marble was perfectly polished away.She carefully rubbed her finger over the horse’s nose before putting the almost ebony black piece back on the board Darcy had neatly arranged.“How many dozens of pounds didthisset cost?”
