Royal Palaces and Parks of France

uch of it as was bound up with Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Palais de la Cité (now th

the Parisians of to-day will tell you. It is scant acknowledgment of the provinces to be sure, but what would you? The French cap

overflow which crept up the slopes of the Montagne de la Sainte Genevieve. From the Chatelet to the Louvre was a damp, murky swamp called, eve

ntant and mingled with the Seine somew

ensemble was, according to certain authorities, baptized the Louvre, or Lower, meaning a fortified camp. This entrenchment was made necessary in order that the Franks might sustain themselves against the Gallo-Roman occupants of Lutetia, and in time enabled them to acqui

of the Romans-became a placefort, then a chateau, then a palace and, finally, as the y

engravings. After this the moyen-age Louvre, attributable to Saint Louis and Charles V, with its great tower, its thick walls of stone and its deep-dug moats, came into being. With Francis I came a more sympathetic, a more subtle

e site of the Frankish camp, save the white marble outline sunken in the pavement of the courtyard of the palace of to-day. By destiny this palace, set down in the very heart of Paris, was to dominate everything round about. From the date of its birth, and since

e with Paris. When Henri II entered Paris after his Sacrament he contemplated a water-festival on the Seine, which was to extend from the

ège of gayly caparisoned cavaliers and gilded coaches with personages of all ranks in doublet and robe, cape a

again to participate in the day and night festival, which had the bosom of th

alties, royal marriages and celebrations of victor

ere is scarce a chronicler of any reign but that recounts the part play

dily to all this that the Old Louvre, which wa

cause the note is an interesting one it is here reproduced. The name may have been derived as well from the word ?uvre, from the Latin opus; it may have be

l Paris palaces is a derivation from a word belonging to their tongue and meaning habitation. This, then, is another version a

der the energies of Philippe Auguste, in 1204 began to grow to still more splendid proportions, though infinitesimal one

ng rampart around the capital itself. It is recounted that the rumbling carts, sinking deep in mud and plowing through foot-deep dust beneath the palace windows, annoyed the monarch so much that he instituted what must have been the first city paving work on record, and commanded that all the chief thoroughfares passing near

its great central tower, the maitresse, which was surrounded by twenty-three dames d'honneur, without counting numberless tourelles. This hy

the sky-line of the Louvre, with that of Tournelles only less prominent to the north, and

palace, gloomy, foreboding and surrounded by moats and ramparts almost impassable. Philippe Auguste built well

ituation from a strategic point of view; far more so than

o the south, facing Saint Germain l'Auxerrois; another towards the site of the later T

official residence of the kings of the Capetian race, whereas previously t

chievement until he built the castle of Gisors, and in the tower imprisoned the Comte de Flandre, whom he had taken prisoner at B

erly been-half-fortress, half-residence-and made of it a veritable palac

ssembled his royal bibelots and founded what was afterwards known as the Bibliothèque du Louvre, the e

lumes which formed this collection, an immense number for the time when it is known that his predecessor, Je

arles V was evidently a man of taste, or he would not have built so well, though all is he

f his Renaissance luxuries and, by a process of "restoration" (perhaps an unfortunate word for him to have employed, since it meant the razing of the fine tower built by Charles V), added somewhat to the splendours thereof, though in a fickle moment, as was

ambitious part which Francis was to henceforth play in