[History of the Girondists, Volume I by Alphonse de Lamartine]@TWC D-Link book
History of the Girondists, Volume I

BOOK VIII
14/55

How many times from my window, which looked northward, have I contemplated with emotions the vast deserts of heaven, its glorious azure vault, so splendidly framed from the blue dawn of morning, behind the _Pont-du-Change_, until the golden sunset, when the glorious purple faded away behind the trees of the Champs Elysees and the houses of Chaillot.

I did not fail thus to employ some moments at the close of a fine day; and quiet tears frequently stole deliciously from my eyes, whilst my heart, throbbing with an inexpressible sentiment, happy thus to beat, and grateful to exist, offered to the Being of beings a homage pure and worthy of him." Alas! when she wrote these lines, she no longer saw but in her mind that narrow strip of the heaven of Paris, and the remembrance of those glorious evenings only illumined with a fugitive gleam the walls of her dungeon.
V.
But she was then happy, between her aunt Angelique and her mother, in what she calls the beautiful quarter of the Isle Saint Louis.

On these straight quays, on this tranquil bank, she took the air on summer evenings, watching the graceful course of the river, and the distant landscape.

In the morning she traversed these quays with holy zeal, in order to go to church, and that she might not meet in this lone road any thing to distract her attention.

Her father, who liked her lofty studies, and was intoxicated at his daughter's success, was still desirous of initiating her in his own craft, and made her begin to engrave.


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