Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-07-08
SHADOW OF NorRE DAME.
Early Recollections of the Historic
 Old Meeting Place.

OIQ m0eLu1S GIdc0.
 Nearly 800 years before Columbus set foot on American soil, it began to smile down in splendid pride upon the innocent waters of the Seine that flowed on either side and all around it, like great natural moat placed there in the green valley to protect Gods house from it's enemies.
 Standing in the shadow Of the statue of Chartemagne in the square before the great west front of Notre Dame, one doesn't have to be possessed of much vivid imagination to be able to transport ones self back to the early part of the thirteenth century, and join the motley crowd of simple, worship ing souls that surged about the superb train of St Louis, which followed his august majesty through the great west portal deep into the dim, rose-lighted and myriad pillared interior to hear solemn high mass celebrated by Re maud de Corbeil, bishop of Paris, in thanksgiving for the holy monarch's $ return from Palestine, whither he had gone in, religious crusade against the infdels and wofshippers of false gods in the east Or one might go back still another fifty years and sit in silent worship under the spell of the chanting voice of eraclitus, patriarch of Jerusalem, who ofhciated at the altar a year before Godfrey Planta- genet, Count of Brittany, son of Henry IL of England, was buried at its foot Then we may go on and around the cycles of time, finding always the his tory of France, which has ever been r., revolving upon this raywhite temple of God. As La Cite stae island in the Seine that was the first stronghold of the Roman conquerors of Gaul, is the center and beginning of France, so this church, in the center of La Cite, may be called the pivot point of French history; for this proud old edihce, so many centuries old, rests mp on foundation stones of other churches old as religion itself, religion that un- til recent years has always been the central principle of human life.
 What a strange scene the red and purple shafts of light through that great rose window must have fallen upon when in 1902 King Philip the Fair convoked within that majestic building, dedicated to the sacred rites of worship, the first meeting of a states general in order to place before his subjects the great quarrel with Pope Bonfface VIII, and leave, to their de cision the question whether the state or the church should be the paramount \ power in France. The discussions of this great body could not have been wholly religious and the echoing isles of the great church must have rung with sounds other than the sacred chant of drowsfng priests or the mum b4e of Latin prayers. But, although they are not recorded, there must have been quite enough solemnity in the inevitable religious ceremonials attending the sacrifice of the 15,O00 veteran warriors in the order of Knights Templars who perfshed in flames for having grown so great in wealth and pride. Philip the Fair would brook no resistance to his tyr annicai exactions either from church or people, and employed each against the other to compass his ends.
 One can hardly look upon the proud face of Notre Dame to-day and remem ber that it lived through all those be mighted centuries of superstition and fanaticism- Stories upon stories crowd into one's mind only to be dismissed as impossible of connection with any thing that stands so perfect and beau tiful before our own eyes. It is not the events of the eighteenth century that seem so unbelievable. The great French revolution is but part of our own history, and like our revolution which gave it such an impetus, seems an event of yesterday The crowning of Napoleon and Josephine in splen- dor surpassfng all else the old gray walls had ever looked upon, seems en- tfrety within our easy comprehension fer wonder under the golden dome of the most gorgeous tomb in all the world lies what was mortal of that great man. and, over there in the L0uzre, just a stone's throw away, one may see the very crown which he took hastily from the pope's hands and placed haughtily upon his own head. All this is. within our intimate