Page:The Etchings of Charles Meryon.djvu/27

 arms of a workman on the scaffolding, near the gas lamp on the right, have been effaced, to be restored in the next state.

La Pompe Notre-Dame (plate 14), another plate belonging to the prolific year 1852, is one of the most picturesque etchings of the series. The proportions of the various masses of architecture to the oblong plate are perfectly satisfying, and the eye delights in the intricate lines, alternately light and dark, of the two wooden structures that rise out of the water like the piles of a "lake dwelling." Meryon excuses himself, in an interesting letter, for making the towers of Notre-Dame higher than they should be, as actually seen from this point of view: "Les Tours saillent aussi un peu plus que dans la réalité; mais je considère que ce sont licenses permises, puisque c'est pour ainsi dire dans ce sens que travaille l'esprit, sitôt que l'objet qui l'a frappé a disparu de devant les yeux" (quoted by M. Loys Delteil from a letter to Paul Mantz). This plate was published in an edition of 600 by L'Artiste in 1858; before that time the building itself had been demolished. Meryon alludes to the impending demolition in the rather insignificant little design, with some doggerel verses etched within it, known as La Petite Pompe (plate 15), of 1854.

Le Pont-Neuf (plate 16), an etching of 1853, is the ninth of the set as Meryon numbered it. It is a solid, masterly piece of architectural etching about which there is not much to be said. The light falling on the truncated turrets of the bridge and reflected on the surface of the river is very subtly observed. In the sixth state, and in that only, eight verses are etched, beginning

Ci-gît du vieux Pont Neuf Tout radoubé de neuf L'exacte ressemblance Par récente ordonnance.

This is poor stuff, and Meryon was well advised to suppress it in later states.

Le Pont-au-Change (plates 17, 18), etched in 1854, shows again Le Châtelet and the Tour de l'Horloge, and, beyond the bridge, the tower, with which we are now familiar, of La Pompe Notre-Dame. This etching is remarkable for the