Original engraving made in the axis of the chevet of Notre-Dame seen from the Quai d’Orléans on the Ile Saint-Louis.

The architecture of the bare trees and the parapet of the quay sinking towards the Seine constitute the foreground of the drawing which leads our eye to the background : the metal footbridge linking (at the time) the Ile de la Cité and the Ile Saint-Louis, and the chevet so characteristic of the cathedral surmounted by its roof and its spire.

The heart of Paris is there, watched over by the trees. The elegance of their irregular patterns underlines, on the contrary, the very regular pattern of the stone buttresses, the spire and the two towers.