Page:The Etchings of Charles Meryon.djvu/25

 prominent object. Jackdaws circle in the air about the towers, and graven beneath the oval, in one state only of the plate, is the sinister couplet:—

Insatiable vampire, l'éternelle luxure Sur la grande cité convoite sa pâture.

The delicacy of the work, in fine proofs, is beyond the power of any mechanical process to reproduce. Two pencil studies, formerly in the Macgeorge collection, are very interesting as showing Meryon's conscientious method of preparation for this plate. He made one very highly finished drawing of all that is seen of the city of Paris down below, reserving blank spaces for the Stryge and for the Tour St. Jacques—there is also a trial state of the plate, showing that all this portion of the design was etched first, directly from this drawing—and then another equally finished drawing of the tower and the stone monster by themselves, with all the rest of the subject drawn in outline, probably traced from the first drawing. A drawing by Meryon of another of the monsters of Notre Dame, a monkey, with a set of verses written beside it, is reproduced in Bouvenne's "Notes et Souvenirs." Then follows Le Petit Pont (plate 7), in which the twin towers of Notre-Dame, beautifully placed on the plate, surmount the long rows of houses on the Quai du Marché Neuf and dominate the whole composition. The outline drawing which Meryon made from the level of the shore, showing the towers very much lower, is reproduced in M. Delteil's catalogue. L'Arche du Pont Notre-Dame (plate 8), especially in the beautiful proofs on green paper, is one of the most charming of the whole series and free from any eccentricity. La Galerie Notre-Dame (plate 9) is a very beautiful rendering of Gothic architecture, and a most delicate study of effects of light, direct and reflected. The impressions vary much, some being rich in tone and rather veiled, others clean wiped and of a silvery clearness. The highly finished drawing which Meryon etched almost in fac-simile, only adding clouds in the sky, was in the Macgeorge collection.