[Photo Credit: Looking North from the Tower of Notre Dame, c. 1900, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-133247 (b&w film copy neg.)]
Julia struggled through her first icy winter in Paris. She was thrilled to see the first signs of spring, writing to the LeBruns on March 1, 1897: “The weather is beginning to brighten, these days there actually has been sunshine, and one begins to get excited for ‘seeing things’ again.” Julia described “the first beautiful day, sunny, the trees just showing signs of budding out, and so bright after the two months of gray – You felt like living.”
Easter Sunday in 1897 fell on April 18th—another beautiful spring day, of shifting light and shadow. Julia climbed the 387 steps to Notre-Dame’s bell towers, and wrote on April 29, 1897: “The whole city, the view and Place [the west courtyard, known as the Place du Parvis Notre-Dame], the bridges, and even the patients in the courts of the Hôtel Dieu seemed to put on an entirely different dress and feeling every few moments. . . .”
The Hôtel-Dieu was the city’s oldest hospital, constructed in the 9th century. Rebuilt many times, its current version was completed in 1878. From the cathedral’s north bell tower, Julia could look down into its open courtyards, where the patients were enjoying the sunshine.
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