about noon
I go to Paris , to find new theme for a ballad , and to see the good Wallace , who is himself the theme of so many . '' The travellers were early on the road . With all their haste and anxiety , however , they saw the sun climbing towards the middle heavens , while the city was yet several miles distant . They spurred on their jaded palfreys , and entered the suburbs about noon . What was properly the city of Paris in this age , occupied one of the larger islands of the Seine , and was surrounded by a high wall , flanked at the angles by massy towers , and strengthened by rows of thickly-set buttresses ; but , on either side the river , there were immense assemblages of the dirtiest and meanest hovels that the necessities of man had ever huddled together . The travellers , however , found but little time for remark in passing through . All Paris had poured out her inhabitants , to witness the combat , and they now crowded an upper island of the Seine , which the chivalry of the age had appropriated as a scene of games , tournaments , and duels .