At The Sign of The Cat and Racket (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781514821930)

Half-way down the Rue Saint-Denis, almost at the corner of the Rue du Petit-Lion, there stood formerly one of those delightful houses which enable historians to reconstruct old Paris by analogy. The threatening walls of this tumbledown abode seemed to have been decorated with hieroglyphics. For what other name could the passer-by give to the Xs and Vs which the horizontal or diagonal timbers traced on the front, outlined by little parallel cracks in the plaster? It was evident that every beam quivered in its mortices at the passing of the lightest vehicle. This venerable structure was crowned by a triangular roof of which no example will, ere long, be seen in Paris. This covering, warped by the extremes of the Paris climate, projected three feet over the roadway, as much to protect the threshold from the rainfall as to shelter the wall of a loft and its sill-less dormer-window. This upper story was built of planks, overlapping each other like slates, in order, no doubt, not to overweight the frail house.

Author: Clara Bell,Honore De Balzac
ISBN-10: 1514821931
ISBN-13: 9781514821930
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Language: English
Published: 07/04/2015
Pages: 88
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.28lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.18d