Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley spent the first week of August, 1814, in Paris. One of the places she visited while she was there was the Porte Saint-Denis, which was, according to her, a "a beautiful piece of sculpture. I do not know how it may at present be disfigured by the Gothic barbarism of the conquerors of France, who were not contented with retaking the spoils of Napoleon, but with impotent malice, destroyed the monuments of their own defeat. When I saw this gate, it was in its splendour, and made you imagine that the days of Roman greatness were transported to Paris."

Video Tour of Porte Saint-Denis