" And so marvelously do its manifestations of many periods through
many ages combine to enhance one another that one is convinced that the
genius of Paris has been perennial; that St. Genevieve, her godmother,
bestowed it as an immortal gift when the city was born.
From earliest days every man seems to have caught the spirit of the man
who came before, and to have perpetuated it; by adding his own distinctive
yet always harmonious contribution to the gradual development of the
whole. One built a stately avenue; another erected a church at the end; a
third added a garden on the other side of the church, and terraces leading
up to it; a fourth and fifth cut streets that should give from the
remaining two sides into other flowery squares with their fine edifices.
And so from every viewpoint, and from every part of the entire city,
to-day we have an unbroken series of vistas--each one different and more
charming than the last.
History has lent its hand to the process, too; and romance--it is not an
insipid chain of flowerbeds we have to follow, but the holy warriors of
Saint Louis, the roistering braves of Henry the Great, the gallant
Bourbons, the ill-starred Bonapartes.
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