Maurice Leblanc

“ Thus we saw pre-Revolutionary citizens, followed by soldiers of the Empire, who in turn were followed by other nineteenth-century civilians and by labourers building scaffoldings and by yet more labourers engaged in the work of restoration.
Then a final vision appeared before our eyes: a group of French officers in service uniform. They hurriedly reached the top of the tower, looked through their field-glasses and went down again. Here and there, over the town and the country, hovered those small, woolly clouds which mark the bursting of a shell.
The silence of the crowd became anguished. ”

“ The grain of the stones became worn and weathered and they assumed that appearance of rugged bark which the patient gnawing of the years is apt to give them. It is true, the cathedral did not grow old, yet lived, for age is the beauty and the youth of the stones by means of which man gives shape to his dreams. ”

“ Before us, on the screen which had but now been empty and bare as a stretch of sand, there had come into being, spontaneously, in a flash, hundreds and thousands of men, swarming in unspeakable confusion.
It was obviously the suddenness and complexity of the sight which so profoundly stirred the crowd. The sudden emergence of life innumerable out of nothingness convulsed it like an electric shock. ”

“ There were numbers of monks supervising the works, calling out orders from one end of the vast site to the other, setting out measurements and not disdaining themselves to mix the mortar, to push a wheel-barrow or to saw a stone. Women of the people, uttering their cries at the top of their voices, walked about bearing jars of wine with which they filled cups that were at once emptied by the thirsty labourers. ”

“ Equally real was the gradual transformation which continued to take place, no longer in the actual lines of the building, but as one might say in its substance and which was revealed by progressive changes that could not be attributed to any other cause than that of time. The great white mass grew darker. ”

“ At different times people came and leant against the balustrade of some lofty balcony or appeared in the frame of the tall windows; and the costume of these people enabled us to note their successive periods. ”