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Here's my notes on this nocturnal Easter egg hunt. Apologies for overlap
with earlier posts.

- George Phillips Bond wrote 'Account of the Great Comet of 1858',
published in 1862.
- Between pages 40 and 41 of this book one finds an illustration of the
comet as observed from Harvard College Observatory. This appears to be
the source for the celestial part of the Notre Dame image.
- The Notre Dame image is a lithography produced for the book 'Le Ciel'
by Amédée Guillemin.
- The first edition of 1864 of 'Le Ciel' has a different view of the
Paris sky as a frontispiece. The fifth edition of 1877 has the Donati
litho. Not sure in which edition it makes its debut.
- Authors of the litho are E. Guillemin et Ph. Benoist.
- Phillippe Benoist made quite a few lithos of Notre Dame, and many more
of other Parisian views.
- 'Le Ciel' had many editions and was translated into other languages.
- The 1867 edition of the English translation 'The Heavens' has the the
comet above Harvard College Observatory as frontispiece. Closer to the
truth but less dramatic.

Also attached are some images (from a book unknown, but Guillemin was a
prolific author so it might be one of his) produced in the same fashion,
showing the comet on the 5th of October above the Palais de la Cité on
the other side of the island.


Scan of 'Le Ciel' (PDF available via menu on left):
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62098808/f7.image.r=.langFR

Scan of 'The Heavens':
https://archive.org/details/heavensanillust00guilgoog/page/n9

That was fun but now it's 2am, though.

Luc

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