Notre-Dame, the beautiful old cathedral at Paris

26.-24. ne sauraient-elles, etc., idiomatic use of the conditional of savoir. The sentence translates as follows:

By what inexplicable mystery should it b'e impossible for thèse feathers, wings, and claws to form a whole to which a name could be given ?

27. — I. je te fais cadeau d'un merle blanc. The promise to give any one a white blackbirJ implies entire incredulity.

12. cela ne se trouve point dans le pas d'un âne, it is not a thing that is seen every day. A like expression is, c'est le pont aux ânes (Lat. pom asinorum), every fool knows that.