text: --Glistening spire on spire; massive piles which in the deepening haze might be either prisons or palaces; vast ranges of buildings gloomy or glittering as the partial ray fell on them; with the solemn beauty of the Invalides on one wing the light and lovely elegance of the St Genevieve on the other and the frowning majesty of Notre-Dame in the midst filled the plain with a vision such as I had imaged only in an Arabian tale