CHAPTER XIX

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THE LOUVRE AND THE TUILERIES.

The Louvre--Origin of the Name--The Castle--Francis I.--Catherine de Medicis--The Queen's Apartments--Louis XIV. and the Louvre--The "Museum of the Louvre"--The Picture Galleries--The Tuileries--The National Assembly--Marie Antoinette--The Palace of Napoleon III.--_Petite Provence_.

The origin of the Louvre is remote and the etymology of the word obscure. In the absence of any more probable derivation, philologists have fixed upon that of _lupus_, or rather in the Latin of the lower empire, _lupara_. According to this view, the ancient palace of the French kings was originally looked upon as a wolf's den, or it may be as a hunting-box from which to chase the wolf. The word "louvre" is said at one time to have been used as the equivalent of a royal palace or castle, and in support of this view the following lines are quoted from La Fontaine's fable of "The Lion, the King of Beasts," in which the monarch of the forest is represented as inviting the other animals to his "louvre."

This, however, only proves that the name of a French palace which had existed since the beginning of the thirteenth century could be used in La Fontaine's time as a name for the palace of any king. "According to some," says M. Vitet, "the Louvre was founded by Childebert; according to others, by Louis Le Gros. It was either a place from which to hunt the wolf, a 'louveterie' (_lupara_), or, according to another view, a fortress commanding the river in front of the city. It seems probable that before the time of Philip Augustus there was a fortified castle where now stands the Louvre, and that this king simply altered it, and indeed reconstructed it, but was not its founder. The historians of the time speak frequently of the great tower built in 1204 by this prince, to which the name of New Tower was given; an evident sign of the existence of some other more ancient tower. It was not in any case until 1204 that, for the first time, the name of Louvre was officially pronounced. Until then the field is open to conjectures."

It appears certain that the ground on which the palace stands was called Louvre before anything was built upon it. A chart of the year 1215, referred to by Sanval, shows that Henri, Archbishop of Rheims, built a chapel at Paris in a place called the Louvre. Whence the name? it may once more be asked. One facetious historian declares that the castle of the Louvre was one of the finest edifices that France possessed, and that Philip Augustus "called it, in the language of the time, Louvre, that is to say, _l'oeuvre_ in the sense of _chef-d'oeuvre_." According to another far-fetched derivation the word "Louvre" comes from _rouvre_, which is traced to _robur_, an oak, because the Louvre stood in the midst of a forest, which may have been a forest of oaks!

Whatever meaning was attached to the word, it is certain that when in 1204 Philip Augustus built or reconstructed the Louvre he gave it the form, the defences, and the armament of a fortress. It was the strong point in the line of fortifications with which this monarch surrounded Paris.

The first existing document in which the Louvre is mentioned by name is an account of the year 1205 for provisions and wine consumed by citizens who in the Louvre had done military duty.

The castle was at that time in the form of a large square, in the midst of which was a big tower, with its own independent system of defence. The tower was 144 feet in circumference, and 96 feet in height. Its walls were 13 feet thick near the basement, and 12 feet in the upper part. A gallery at the top put it in communication with the buildings of the first enclosure, and it served at once as treasury and as prison. Here Ferrand, Count of Flanders, was confined by Philip Augustus in 1214, after the victory of Bouvines. John IV., Duke of Brittany, Charles II., King of Navarre, and John II., Duke of Alençon, were among many other illustrious prisoners shut up in the Big Tower or _donjon_ of the ancient Louvre.

Louis IX. arranged in the west wing of the Louvre a large hall, which was long known as the Chamber of St. Louis. Charles V. enlarged and embellished the Louvre. He added to it another storey, and did all in his power to change what had hitherto been a purely military building into a convenient and agreeable place of abode. The architecture of the building, originally constructed for use, not show, was in many respects improved, and the gates were surmounted with ornaments and pieces of sculpture. The reception rooms were away from the river, and looked out upon a street long since disappeared, called La Rue Froidmanteaux. The apartments of the king and queen looked out upon the river.

Each of the towers was designated by a particular name, according to its history, or the purpose it was intended to serve. The Big Tower was also called the Ferrand Tower, from the Count of Flanders having been confined in it; and there were also the Library Tower, where Charles V. had brought together 959 volumes, which formed the nucleus of the National Library; the Clock Tower, the Horseshoe Tower, the Artillery Tower, the Sluice Tower, the Falcon Tower, the Hatchet Tower, the tower of the Great Chapel, the tower of the Little Chapel, the Tournament Tower (where the king took up his position to see tournaments and jousts), besides others. Charles V. added to the Louvre a number of buildings for tradespeople and domestics, whose services had to be dispensed with when the Louvre was purely a military building. Such names as pantry, pastry, saucery, butlery, were given to the different buildings and departments by the bakers, the pastry-cooks, the makers of sauces, and the keepers of the wine.

The gardens of the Louvre, though not very extensive, were greatly admired. Here were to be seen aviaries, a menagerie of wild beasts, and lists for different kinds of sports and combats. Charles VI., who lived by preference at the Hôtel St. Pol, increased the fortifications of the Louvre, and sacrificed to that end the gardens of the king and queen on the side of the river. The succeeding kings until the time of Francis I. occupied themselves very little with the Louvre, and scarcely ever resided there.

During this first period of its history, from Philip Augustus until Francis I., the Louvre was the scene of numerous historical events. In 1358, during the captivity of King John in England, the citizens of Paris, in support of the deputies of the communes in the States-General, besieged and took the Louvre, driving away the governor, and carrying off to the Hôtel de Ville all the arms and ammunition they could find in the arsenal of the fortress. Soon afterwards the governor, Pierre Gaillard, was decapitated by order of the Dauphin Regent for making so poor a defence. It was at the Louvre, moreover, in 1377, that the Emperor of Germany, Charles IV., allied himself with Charles V. of France, to make war upon England.

Under the reign of Charles VI., in 1382, while the king was engaged in suppressing an insurrection in Flanders, the Parisians, in their turn, revolted, and proposed to destroy alike the fortress of the Louvre, and that other fortress, destined five centuries later to fall beneath the first blows of the Revolution. They were counselled, however, by one of their leaders to spare both prison and palace; and the advice was sound, for after quieting the turbulent Flemings, the king returned to Paris more powerful than ever.

In 1399, Andronicus, and in 1400, Manuel Palæologus, both Emperors of Constantinople, were entertained at the Louvre, as were also, in 1415, Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, and, in 1422, the King and Queen of England.

When Francis I. ascended the throne, the Louvre regained all its importance as a royal residence. The king began by pulling down the Big Tower, constructed by Philip Augustus, which cast its shadow over the whole of the palace, and gave it the look of a prison. Twelve years later (1539), when the Emperor Charles V. visited Paris, Francis I. determined to receive him, not in the Hôtel des Tournelles, where he was living at the time, but in the old palace of the French kings. He undertook various repairs, and covered the crumbling walls with paintings and tapestry. Everything, too, was regilt, "even," says a chronicler, "to the weather-cocks." Finally the space comprised between the river and the moat of the castle was laid out in lists for tournaments.

[Illustration: THE OLD LOUVRE (PIERRE LESCOT'S FAÇADE).]

After spending large sums of money in repairing the Louvre, Francis I. decided to reconstruct it on a new plan, so as to get rid altogether of the irregularity of the old buildings, with their Gothic architecture. The work of reconstructing the Louvre was entrusted to the Italian architect Serlio. But his plan was laid aside in favour of one presented by Pierre Lescot, who, in spite of his French name, was, like Serlio, of Italian origin. He belonged to the Alessi family; and Serlio was so pleased with his designs that he at once pressed the king to accept them. Lescot associated with himself the graceful, ingenious sculptor Jean Goujon, who, like every French artist of the time, had formed his style in Italy; and the Italian sculptor Trebatti, a pupil of Michel Angelo, who possessed more force than belonged to Jean Goujon. To these illustrious men is due the admirable façade of the west in the courtyard of the Louvre.

Great progress was made with the reconstruction of the Louvre under the reign of Henri II., who, while the works were going on at the ancient palace, lived at the Hôtel des Tournelles. It was to this residence that he was carried home to die after being mortally wounded by Montgomery, of the Scottish guard, in the fatal tournament of the Place Royale. Henri's successor, Francis II., would not live in a place associated with such a tragic incident, and took up his residence at the Louvre.

The power of Catherine de Médicis was now beginning to assert itself, and she had the bad taste to interrupt the plans of Pierre Lescot, and to order new constructions of her own designing to be carried out by her own Italian architects. The Louvre was carried forward to the bank of the river; and the Italian painter Romanelli was employed to decorate a new suite of rooms, which became known as the apartments of the queen. The new work, while possessing a beauty of its own, was quite out of harmony with the severer style followed by Pierre Lescot in connection with the old Louvre. At the southern extremity of the wing built by Catherine de Médicis looks out upon the Seine a window of noble construction, from which, according to popular tradition, Charles IX. amused himself during the massacre of St. Bartholomew by firing on the unhappy Huguenots who were swimming to the other side of the river. Modern historians have, of course, discovered that the window in question did not exist at the time; also that Charles IX. on the day of the massacre was not at the Louvre, but at the Hôtel de Bourbon close by. It was possibly from one of the windows of the Hôtel de Bourbon that he fired. Henri IV. inhabited the Louvre; and it was there that he expired, mortally wounded by the dagger of Ravaillac. This sovereign had added a new gallery to the wing built by Catherine de Médicis, and had filled it with paintings by the most celebrated artists of the time. It perished, however, in a fire; and it was to replace it that Louis XIV. constructed what is now known as the Apollo Gallery. Henri IV. was the first moreover to connect the Tuileries with the Louvre, or, at least, to prolong the Tuileries along the Seine in the direction of the Louvre without completing the junction. The son of Henri IV., Louis XIII., continued the work left unfinished by Pierre Lescot; though, as happens with so many architectural continuations, he departed greatly from the original plan.

[Illustration: THE COLONNADE OF THE LOUVRE.]

The "queen's apartments," constructed by Catherine de Médicis, were successively occupied by Marie de Médicis and Anne of Austria; and under each reign new decorations and new pictures were added. Particularly admirable was a series of portraits of Queens of France ending with Marie de Médicis, whose likeness by Porbus was said to be a masterpiece.

Nothing, according to an historian of the time, was spared to make the work perfect; and "although blue was then exceedingly dear, the painter nevertheless spread it over his canvas with so much prodigality that the cost of the colour came to six twenty-crown pieces." In front of the "apartments of the queen," which were furnished with every luxury, was a tastefully laid-out garden which, completely transformed, exists to this day. The "Garden of the Infanta" it is called, in memory of the poor little Infanta of Spain brought to France at the age of four to become the wife of Louis XV. Restricted for some years to the garden in question and the apartments adjoining it, she was afterwards sent back to Spain with a doll worth 20,000 francs, given to her by her late _fiancé_. The apartments of the queen consisted, according to Sanval, of a guard-room, a large ante-chamber, a sitting-room communicating with two galleries, a reception-room, and a boudoir.

[Illustration: PORTION OF THE FAÇADE OF HENRI IV.'S GALLERY, LOUVRE.]

While occupying himself chiefly with Versailles, his own personal creation, Louis XIV. did not forget Paris and the Louvre. It has been said that he reconstructed the gallery built by Henri IV., which, after the death of that monarch, was destroyed in a fire. The work of reconstruction was entrusted to Louis XIV.'s favourite painter, Lebrun; and the Apollo Gallery, which owes its name to the principal subject of the painter's art, is perhaps the most complete, most perfect monument of the style which prevailed under the "Grand Monarque"; a style which may be wanting in purity of taste, but which, in a decorative point of view, is magnificent.

Colbert, appointed superintendent of royal buildings, was now ordered to complete the Louvre. The first thing to do was to add a façade on the east; by an idea which has since become commonplace, but which was strikingly original at the time, the Minister opened a competition for the best design. The one most admired was the work not of an architect, but of a doctor, Claude Perrault by name. Colbert was delighted with it, but before coming to a decision about a matter of so much importance, he sent to Nicolas Poussin, then at Rome, the designs of all the competitors except Perrault. Poussin sent back all the drawings with severe criticisms, and submitted a plan of his own, which satisfied neither Colbert nor the king. Things had reached this point, and Colbert was about to take upon himself the responsibility of adopting Perrault's design, when he was urged by the Abbé Benedetti and Cardinal Chigi, afterwards Pope Alexander VII., to have recourse to the services of the celebrated Bernini, whose reputation was at that time universal. Thus pressed, Colbert addressed himself to the Duke de Créquy, French ambassador at the Pontifical Court, and begged him to see Bernini on the subject. Louis XIV., moreover, wrote himself to Bernini a letter, which made him resolve to visit France.

On his arrival at Paris, Bernini submitted to the king a project which is said to have been "full of grandeur," but which was not put into execution. He was now in delicate health, and the annoyance caused to him by the jealousy of the French artists, vexed at seeing the plans of a foreigner preferred to their own, made him solicit the king's permission to go back to Rome. Louis XIV. gave his consent, and at the same time granted Bernini a pension. Bernini having left Paris, Colbert hesitated no longer. He summoned Claude Perrault and ordered him to begin work at once. The first stone was laid by Louis XIV. with great ceremony, October 17, 1665; and, thanks to the activity of Colbert, the new façade was finished by 1670. This façade, known as the Colonnade of the Louvre, is upwards of 170 metres long, and more than 27 metres high. It may at once be objected to the new façade that, with all its magnificence, it is quite out of harmony with the style adopted in the four façades which form the admirable quadrangle of the Louvre. But whatever may be said against it, Perrault's colonnade is one of the most remarkable conceptions of modern architecture. When first erected, it was looked upon as an unapproachable masterpiece; and it exercised on architecture abroad, as well as at home, a considerable influence which still lasts.

After finishing his colonnade, Perrault tried to bring it into harmony with the earlier portions of the building. But from the year 1680 Louis XIV. occupied himself no more with the Louvre. He thought of nothing but Versailles, which absorbed all, and more than all, the money he had to spare for building purposes. In 1688 Perrault died, and the Louvre was now not only neglected, but forgotten. Then it was remembered only to be turned to base uses. Stables were established in the ancient palace; though, by way of compensation, it must be added that a number of artists and men of learning had lodgings assigned to them in apartments formerly regarded as royal.

Among Louis XIV.'s favourite lodgers may be mentioned the sculptors Girardon, Couston, Stoltz, and Legros; Cornu and Renaudin, famous for their marble vases; the medallist, Du Vivier; the painters Rigaud, Desportes, Coypel, and Claudine Stella; the two Baileys, father and son, keepers of the king's pictures; Bain, celebrated painter in enamel; the engraver Sylvestre, the decorators Lemoine and Meissonnier, who made nearly all the drawings for the festivals and ceremonies of the court; Bérin, celebrated for his theatrical costumes and scenes; the geographer Sanson, the engineer d'Hermand, goldsmiths Balin, Germain, Benier, and Mellin; the clockmakers Turet and Martinot, the gunmakers Renier and Piraube, the metal-worker Revoir, and finally (without mentioning many other men of science, art, and art work) Boule, the world-famed maker of the inlaid furniture invented by him.

This furniture, known in France as _meubles de Boule_, has, by the way, in some inexplicable manner, got to be known in England as "buhl," and even "bühl" furniture, though Boule was born at Paris in 1642, and died there in 1732, without apparently having ever lived in Germany. In assigning to Boule a set of apartments in the Louvre, Louis XIV. at the same time appointed him engraver in ordinary of the royal seals. Boule, moreover, was honoured on this occasion with a diploma which gave him the titles of "architect, painter, sculptor in mosaic, artist in furniture, carver, decorator, and inventor of cyphers." In his furniture, Boule employed with great effect woods of different colours, while for his inlaid work he used mother-of-pearl, ivory, gold, brass, bronze, and mosaic. He imitated on his furniture all kinds of animals, flowers, and fruits. He even represented landscapes, hunting scenes, battles, and historical subjects. Besides furniture, Boule applied his art to clocks, casquets, inkstands, and all kinds of arms. He worked much for Versailles and the other royal residences, and received frequent orders from foreign sovereigns.

The meaning, however, of Louis XIV.'s apparent liberality was, from a Versailles point of view, that the Louvre was not worth living in. To provide furnished apartments for the recipients of the king's bounty, it was unfortunately necessary to put up partitions so as to divide and sub-divide the majestic halls of the palace into little sitting-rooms and bed-rooms. The Louvre was now an hotel, or rather a _caravanserai_, in which everyone made his bed as best pleased him. Worse still, traders were allowed to erect shops and booths in front of the palace, these improvised constructions resting, indeed, on the palace walls. In 1754, under the reign of Louis XV., Marigny, superintendent of fine arts, undertook to remedy this state of things. He succeeded in interesting the king, who not only ordered the space in front of the Louvre to be cleared, but empowered the architect, Gabriel, to complete the edifice. Gabriel continued the unfinished façade, but had made but little progress when Louis XV. died.

When Louis XVI. ascended the throne in 1774 the Louvre was far from being finished; and the first step taken by the new monarch in connection with the old palace was to have the interior quadrangle cleared of the heaps of sand and dust which had accumulated there, some of these heaps forming little mountains which reached the first floor of the building. Louis XVI., after the first years of his reign, had more pressing matters to attend to than the completion of the ancient palace of the Kings of France. His own throne was menaced, and the history of the Louvre as a royal residence was now at an end.

More than one sovereign has left his mark on the walls of the Louvre. The western wing bears the monogram of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria; also of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse. In the north wing, the letters L. B. are to be seen, signifying Louis de Bourbon, an extremely rare form of the name of Louis XIV. On the south wing, several K's are to be seen, standing for "Karolous," or Charles IX. Look to the east, and the Napoleonic empire is symbolised by several eagles.

The Louvre, as we know it, with its magnificent gallery of pictures open to the whole world, dates only from the Revolution. There were from the time of Francis I. pictures in the old palace, and the collection was constantly increased under his successors. But the galleries were private. They were reserved for the delectation of the sovereign and his court. At the very beginning, however, of the Revolution, the Louvre was literally invaded, and some of the unfinished portions were finished in an unexpected manner by being converted into private dwelling houses. But the Republican Government soon put an end to this; and it was under the Convention that the picture gallery of the Louvre, increased by works of art from other palaces, was for the first time thrown open to the public.

To speak only of the building, it was continued by the Republic, and all but completed by Napoleon, who, after appointing a committee of artists, and receiving from them a report in favour of Pierre Lescot's design, determined, on his own responsibility, to finish the Louvre according to the later design of Claude Perrault.

Napoleon wished, moreover, to join the Louvre to the Tuileries, so as to make of the two palaces one immense palace. Two architects, Percier and Fontaine, were ordered to put this project into form, and they presented their plans to the Minister of Fine Arts in 1813. But the Imperial Government was now near its fall, and it was not during the calamitous retreat from Moscow that architectural projects of any kind could be entertained.

Under the reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. the halls of the Louvre were redecorated. When Louis Philippe came to the throne, M. Thiers, his Minister, laid before the Chambers a proposition for joining the Louvre to the Tuileries at a cost of fourteen million francs. But the Bill was thrown out, and a similar one presented to the Chamber ten years later, in 1843, met with the same fate.

Liberal and even prodigal as the kings of France have often shown themselves in connection with art, they have never given it such effective encouragement as it has received from France's Republican Governments. After the Revolution of 1848, the Provisional Government had not been more than four days in power when, February 28th, it issued a decree ordering the completion of the Louvre under the name of "The People's Palace." A Bill was afterwards passed, on the proposition of the President, General Cavaignac, for restoring the two principal halls of the Louvre, together with the Apollo Gallery. A design from the hand of M. Visconti, in conformity with the decree of February 28th, was now adopted, and this was the one ultimately carried out. But the Assembly hesitated for a time before the expenditure which the execution of the plan would necessarily entail; and its deliberations were put an end to by the _coup d'état_ of 1851. Then came the Empire; and in 1854 Napoleon III. ordered the completion of the Louvre, and its junction with the Tuileries. The plan of M. Visconti, adopted by the Republican Government in 1848, was now carried out, and the palace begun by Francis I. was at last, after three centuries, completed by Napoleon III.

[Illustration: TOP OF THE MARSAN PAVILION, LOUVRE.]

Apart from certain incongruities between the different styles adopted, far less apparent to the general public than to the critical architectural eye, and from which no ancient building that has ever been repaired is entirely free, a magnificent line of palaces and gardens now extended for some three-quarters of a mile along the course of the Seine from St. Germain l'Auxerrois to the Place de la Concorde. But the Louvre and the Tuileries now, after so many ineffectual attempts, joined together, were not destined to remain together very long. The Emperor Napoleon was, after the catastrophe of Sedan, to be replaced by the Republican Government of the 4th of September, which was soon to give way to the Commune, under whose abominable rule so many fine buildings, with the Palace of the Tuileries among them, were wantonly sacrificed, and in a spirit of blind hatred burnt down. The conflagration lighted by the Communists had left standing and comparatively uninjured the outer walls, and therefore the general outline of the palace. But these were calmly pulled down by the "moderate" Republicans, less through considerations of art than from political prejudice.

The Louvre subsists in its entirety, and in virtue of its magnificent collection of pictures, constantly enriched through sums voted during the last hundred years by National Assemblies, it has come to be looked upon as public property. The Tuileries, however, was a palace to the last; and the destruction of this palace, which the _communards_ had only partially accomplished, was effectually completed by the "moderate" Republic established on the ruins of its immediate predecessor.

Interesting as the Louvre may be by its ancient history, the old palace is above all famous in the present day for its admirable picture gallery, first thrown open to the public in the darkest, most sanguinary days of the French Revolution. The modern collection was formed by Francis I., who, during his Italian campaigns, had acquired a taste for Italian art, and who not only invited celebrated Italian artists to his court, but gave princely orders to those who, like Raphael and Michel Angelo, were unable to visit France in person. He collected not only pictures, but art works, and especially antiquities of all kinds--statues, bronzes, medals, cameos, vases, and cups. Primatice alone brought to him from Italy 124 ancient statues and a large number of busts. These treasures were collected at Fontainebleau, and a description of them was published long afterwards by Father Dan, who, in his "Wonders of Fontainebleau" (1692), names forty-seven pictures by the greatest masters, nearly all of which had been acquired by Francis I. It was not, indeed, until the reign of Louis XIII. that any important additions were made to Francis I.'s original collection. Among the pictures cited by Father Dan may in particular be mentioned two by Andrea del Sarto, one by Fra Bartolommeo, one by Bordone, four by Leonardo da Vinci, one by Michel Angelo (the Leda, afterwards destroyed), three by Perugino, two by Primatice, four by Raphael, three by Sebastian del Piombo, and one by Titian.

[Illustration: THE MARSAN AND FLORA PAVILIONS, LOUVRE, FROM THE PONT ROYAL.]

The royal gallery was considerably augmented under the reign of Louis XIV. At his accession it included only 200 pictures. At his death the number had been increased to 2,000. Most of the new acquisitions were due to the Minister Colbert, who spared neither money nor pains to enrich the royal gallery, the direction and preservation of which was entrusted to the painter Lebrun.

A banker, Jabach of Cologne, resident at Paris, had purchased a large portion of art treasures collected by King Charles I., and brought them over to Paris. He had bought many pictures, moreover, in various parts of the Continent. Ruined at last by his passion for the fine arts, he sold a portion of his collection to Cardinal Mazarin, and another portion, composed chiefly of drawings, to the king. On Mazarin's death, Colbert bought for Louis XIV. all the works of art left by that Minister, including 546 original pictures, 92 copies, 130 statues, and 196 busts. Louis XIV. placed his collection in the Louvre, and his first visit to the palace after the installation of the pictures is thus described in _Le Mercure Galant_ of December, 1681:--

"On Friday, the 5th day of the month, the king came to the Louvre to see his collection of pictures, which have been placed in a new series of rooms by the side of the superb gallery known as the Apollo Gallery. The gold which glitters on all sides is the least brilliant of its adornments. What is called 'the cabinet of his Majesty's pictures' occupies seven large and lofty halls, some of which are more than 50 feet long. There are, moreover, four additional rooms for the collection in the old Hôtel de Grammont adjoining the Louvre. So many pictures in so many rooms make the entire number appear almost infinite. The walls of the highest rooms are covered with pictures up to the ceiling. The following will give some idea of the number of pictures, by the greatest masters, contained in the eleven rooms:--There are sixteen by Raphael, six by Correggio, five by Giulio Romano, ten by Leonardo da Vinci, eight by Giorgione, twenty-three by Titian, sixteen by Carraccio, eight by Domenichino, twelve by Guido, six by Tintoretto, eighteen by Paul Veronese, fourteen by Van Dyck, seventeen by Poussin, and six by M. Lebrun, among whose works there are some (the battles of Alexander) which are 40 feet long. Besides these pictures there are a quantity of others by Rubens, Albano, Antonio Moro, and other masters of equal renown. Apart from the pictures, there are in the old Hôtel de Grammont many groups of figures and low reliefs in bronze and ivory."

The royal visit, as described by the writer in _La Mercure Galant_, was followed by the dispersion of the collection. Louis XIV. was so pleased by the wonderful sight that he ordered a number of the pictures to be removed to Versailles, where, according to the _Mercure_, there were already twenty-six pictures by the first masters; and so long as Versailles was the royal residence the greater part of the king's collection was lost to the public, and served only to furnish the rooms, except, indeed, when the pictures had fallen to the ground and lay there covered with dust. Under the reign of Louis XIV. a critic whose name is worth preserving, Lafont de St. Yenne, complained that so many beautiful works were allowed to lie heaped up together and buried in "the obscure prison of Versailles," and demanded that all these treasures, "immense but unknown," should be "arranged in becoming order and preserved in the best condition" in a gallery built expressly for their reception in the Louvre, where they would be "exhibited to the admiration and joy of the French or the curiosity of foreigners, or finally to the study and emulation of our young scholars."

The author of these judicious suggestions got into trouble as a pamphleteer; but four years afterwards, in 1750, Louis XIV. allowed the masterpieces previously stowed away in the apartments of the household at Versailles to be taken to Paris and submitted to the admiration of painters and lovers of painting. The Marquis de Marigny, Director of Royal Buildings, ordered Bailly, keeper of the king's pictures, to arrange the collection in the apartments which had been occupied at the Luxembourg by the Queen of Spain. The "cabinet," composed of 110 pictures, was opened for the first time October 14th, 1750, and the public was admitted twice every week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The pictures dedicated by Rubens to Marie de Médicis were on view the same days, and during the same hours.

Until the reign of Louis XVI. the royal pictures, the number of which had been increased by the purchase of many examples of the Flemish school, continued to be divided into two principal sections, one placed in the Luxembourg, and visible twice a week to the public, the other kept out of sight in the palace of Versailles. The Louvre contained the "king's cabinet of drawings," to the number of about 10,000. The Apollo Gallery, which served as studio to six students patronised by the king, contained "The Battles of Alexander," and some other pictures by Lebrun, Mignard, and Rigaud.

In 1775, under Louis XVI., Count d'Angiviller succeeded the Marquis de Marigny, and going a step beyond him, formed the project of collecting everything of value that the Crown possessed in the way of painting and sculpture. Contemporary writers applauded this idea, which was attributed by some to M. de la Condamine. All, however, that came of the new proposal was that instead of pictures being brought from Versailles to Paris, the Louvre collection was transferred to Versailles.

"It was necessary," writes M. Viardot, "that a new sovereign--the nation--should come into power for all these immortal works rescued from the royal catacombs to be restored to daylight and to life. Who could believe, without authentic proofs, without official documents, at what epoch this great sanctuary, this pantheon, this universal temple consecrated to all the gods of art, was thrown open to the public? It was in the middle of one of the crises of the Revolution in that dreadful year 1793, so full of agitation, suffering, and horror, when France was struggling with the last energy of despair against her enemies within and without; it was at this supreme moment that the National Convention, founding on the ruins of the country a new and rejuvenated land, ordered the formation of a national art collection."

A step in this direction had already been taken in 1791, when it was decreed that the artistic treasures of the nation should be brought together at the Louvre. The year following, August 14th, 1792, the Legislative Assembly appointed a commission for collecting the statues and pictures distributed among the various royal residences; and on the 18th of October in the same year, Roland, Minister of the Interior, wrote to the celebrated painter David, who was a member of the Convention, to communicate to him the plan of the new establishment. Finally, a decree of July 27th, 1793, ordered the opening of the "Museum of the Republic," and at the same time set forth that the "marble statues, vases, and valuable pieces of furniture placed in the houses formerly known as royal, shall be transported to the Louvre, and that the sum of 100,000 francs shall be placed annually at the disposition of the Minister of the Interior to purchase at private sales such pictures and statues as it becomes the Republic not to let pass into foreign hands, and which will be placed in the Museum of the Louvre." It should not be forgotten that France was then at war with all the German Powers, and threatened by all the Powers of Europe. Crushed by military expenditure, the Republic had yet money to spare for the purchase of works of art.

The French Museum, as the Louvre collection was first called, received afterwards the name of Central Museum of the Arts; and it was first opened to the public on the 8th of November, 1793. The next decree in connection with the fine arts ordered that a number of pictures and statues formerly belonging to the palace of Versailles, and which the inhabitants of Versailles were detaining as their property, should be placed in the Louvre. The old palace was still inhabited by a number of artists and their families. David had his studio there, and most of the painters who had made for themselves a tolerable reputation had apartments in the Louvre. It was reserved for Napoleon to turn them all out, and to give to the Louvre the character which it has since preserved--that of a national palace of art treasures.

The galleries of the Louvre profited greatly by the Napoleonic wars. All continental Europe was laid under contribution by the victorious French armies, but especially Italy and Spain.

The stolen pictures formed the best part of what was now called the Musée Napoléon. Though not surreptitiously obtained they had been acquired in virtue of conventions imposed on a conquered people. Thus pictures from the galleries of Parma, Piacenza, Milan, Cremona, Modena, and Bologna, were made over to France by the armistices of Parma, Bologna, and Tolentino. The public was admitted to view the conquered treasures on the 6th of February, 1798. Some months afterwards masterpieces from Verona, Mantua, Pesaro, Loretto, and Rome were added to the marvellous collections; which on the 19th of March, 1800, was further augmented by drafts of pictures from Florence and Turin. In 1807 France received the artistic spoils of Germany and Holland.

Among the famous works of art which France at this time possessed, and which were all on exhibition at the Louvre, may be mentioned "The Belvedere Apollo," "The Laocoon," "The Medicean Venus," "The Wrestlers," "The Transformation" and "The Spasimo"; Domenichino's "Communion of St. Jerome," Tintoretto's "Miracle of St. Mark," Paul Veronese's four "Last Suppers," and Titian's "Assumption"; Correggio's "St. Jerome" and Guercino's "St. Petronilla"; "The Lances" of Velasquez, and the "St. Elizabeth" of Murillo; Rubens' "Descent from the Cross," and Rembrandt's "Night Patrol."

The French say with some justice that many of these works by being sent to the Louvre were saved from destruction. Many of them, too, though falling into decay, were restored with the greatest care; and some were transferred with success from worm-eaten panels to canvas, thus receiving new brilliancy and a new life. When Paris was occupied by the allies in 1814, the art treasures of which so many European countries had been despoiled were left in the possession of the French, who may be said on this occasion to have been magnanimously treated. The object, indeed, of the allies was not to weaken nor to humiliate France as a nation, but simply to restore Louis XVIII. to the throne of his ancestors.

In 1815, after the return from Elba and the Waterloo campaign, it was determined to treat France with a certain severity. She was deprived of the Rhine provinces for the benefit of Prussia, while Milan and Venice were placed in the hands of Austria, so that both from the Italian and from the German side France might be held in check. The artistic plunder which France had collected from so many quarters was at the same time given back to the countries from which it had been taken.

French statesmen protested that the pictures and statues brought to Paris from so many foreign picture galleries belonged to France in virtue of formal treaties and conventions; Louis XVIII. himself declined to sanction the restoration of the captured pictures and statues. Denon, Director-General of Museums, resisted even when threatened with imprisonment in a Prussian fortress; and he made the foreign commissaries sign a declaration to the effect that in giving up the works claimed he yielded only to force.

The so-called spoliation of the Louvre was at last effected. The pictures and statues, that is to say, which had been seized by victorious France, were from vanquished France taken back and replaced in the museums to which they had originally belonged.

Since the fall of the First Empire the Louvre has acquired but few masterpieces from abroad. Italy now guards her art treasures with a jealous hand; and there are few countries where the masterpieces of antiquity can be purchased except when some private gallery is broken up through the bankruptcy or death of the owner. Under the new monarchy the beautiful though armless Venus of Milo was brought to France; and under the Second Empire "The Conception" of Murillo was purchased for 615,000 francs. The Third Republic, under the presidency of M. Thiers, spite of its difficulties in connection with the crushing war indemnity, paid 206,000 francs for a fresco by Raphael. The regular annual allowance to the Minister of Fine Arts for the purchase of pictures is now 100,000 francs a year. Meanwhile, the Louvre collection has been constantly augmented by pictures transferred to the more classical museum from the gallery of pictures by living artists in the Luxembourg.

The pictures exhibited at the Louvre are arranged on a system which leaves nothing to be desired. The supreme masterpieces of the collection are all together, without reference to school, nationality, or period, in a large square room known as the Salon Carré. In the other rooms the pictures are arranged historically.

The principal entrance to the picture galleries of the Louvre is in the Pavilion Molière, opposite the square of the Carrousel. After passing a spacious vestibule, where mouldings of Trajan's Column and a fine collection of antique busts may be seen, the visitor ascends a staircase adorned with Etruscan works in terra-cotta and reaches the round hall or cupola of the magnificent Apollo Gallery, decorated with wall paintings and painted ceilings by the courtly Lebrun of Louis XIV.'s time and the vigorous imaginative Eugène Delacroix of our own. What can be more admirable than Delacroix's "Nymph," at whose feet crouches a panther? "Behold this work," writes Théophile Gautier, "and you will see that for colour France has no longer any reason for envying Italy, Flanders, or Spain. Delacroix, in this great page, in which the energy of his talent is freely displayed, shows a knowledge of decorative art which has never been surpassed. Impossible while never departing from his own genius to be more in harmony with the style of the gallery and of the epoch. One might here call him a florid romantic Lebrun."

The Apollo Gallery leads to the before-mentioned Salon Carré, where Paul Veronese's "Marriage of Cana" at once attracts attention, not only by its immense proportions, but also and above all by the richness of the colouring and the beauty of the composition. Here, too, is the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, known in France as "La Joconde"; "a miracle of painting," says Gautier, who has made it the subject of one of his most remarkable criticisms. "'La Joconde,' sphinx of beauty," he exclaims, "smiling so mysteriously in the frame of Leonardo da Vinci, and apparently proposing to the admiration of centuries an enigma which they have not yet solved, an invincible attraction still brings me back towards you. Who, indeed, has not remained for long hours before that head, bathed in the half-tones of twilight, enveloped in transparency; whose features, melodiously drowned in a violet vapour, seem the creation of some dream through the black gauze of sleep? From what planet has fallen in the midst of an azure landscape this strange being whose gaze promises unheard-of delights, whose experience is so divinely ironical? Leonardo impresses on his faces such a stamp of superiority that one feels troubled in their presence. The partial shadow of their deep eyes hides secrets forbidden to the profane; and the inflexions of their mocking lips are worthy of gods who know everything and calmly despise the vulgarities of man. What disturbing fixity, what superhuman sardonicism in these sombre pupils, in these lips undulating like the bow of Love after he has shot his dart. La Joconde would seem to be the Isis of some cryptic religion, who, thinking herself alone, draws aside the folds of her veil, even though the imprudent man who might surprise her should go mad and die. Never did feminine ideal clothe itself in more irresistibly seductive forms. Be sure that if Don Juan had met Monna Lisa he would have spared himself the trouble of writing in his catalogue the names of 3,000 women. He would have embraced one, and the wings of his desire would have refused to carry him further. They would have melted and lost their feathers beneath the black sun of these eyes."

[Illustration: THE RICHELIEU PAVILION.]

Leonardo da Vinci is said to have been four years painting this portrait, which he could not make up his mind to leave and which he never looked upon as finished. During the sittings musicians played choice pieces in order to entertain the beautiful model, and to prevent her charming features from assuming an expression of wearisomeness or fatigue.

Raphael is represented in the Salon Carré by "St. Michael and the Demon," painted on a panel framed in ebony. This admirable work is signed not in the corner of the picture, but on the edge of the archangel's dress. "Raphaël Urbinas pingebat, M.D. XVIII." runs the inscription, which Raphael seems to have wished to make inseparable from the work. Among the other pictures of Raphael chosen for places of honour in the Square Room are "The Holy Family," which originally belonged to Francis I., and the virgin known as "La Belle Jardinière. Among the other masterpieces contained in the Salon Carré may be mentioned Correggio's "Antiope," Titian's "Christ in the Tomb," Giorgione's "Country Concert," Guido's "Rape of Dejanira," Rembrandt's "Carpenter's Family," Van Ostade's "Schoolmaster," Gerard Douw's "Dropsical Woman," Rubens' Portrait of his Wife, a "Charles I." by Van Dyck, and Murillo's "Conception of the Virgin." This last-named work, as already mentioned, was purchased under the Second Empire for upwards of 600,000 francs. It formed part of a valuable collection of Spanish pictures belonging to Marshal Soult, and had been acquired by that commander under peculiar circumstances during the Peninsular War. A certain monk had been sentenced to death as a spy. Two monks from the same monastery waited upon the marshal to solicit their brother's forgiveness. Soult was obdurate, until at last Murillo's wonderful picture was placed before him. The picture was forwarded to France, and the too patriotic monk set free. Among the selected works by Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish painters are to be found a few by French artists--for example, the "Diogenes" of Poussin and the "Richelieu" of Philippe de Champagne; but not one work by an English hand. Nor in the famous Salon Carré of the Louvre is a single landscape to be found.

* * * * *

The Tuileries, before incendiarism under the Commune rendered it a very imperfect building, had as a palace led a very imperfect life. Catherine de Médicis had ordered the destruction of the Palais des Tournelles, where, by a fatal accident Montgomery had pierced the eye and brain of Henri II. in the celebrated tournament, and had gone to live with her children at the Louvre. These children were Francis II., the husband of Marie Stuart; Charles IX., whose memory, like that of his mother, is indelibly associated with the massacre of St. Bartholomew; Henri III., who for his sins was elected King of Poland; and Francis d'Anjou, who gained the famous battle of Jarnac, and who on his death was succeeded by Henri IV., first King of France and of Navarre. The ancient fortress of the Louvre was not suited to the pomp of a Médicis, and Catherine ordered a new palace to be built for her own special convenience in the _Tuileries_, or tile yards, where the mother of Francis I. had bought a country house, but where Francis I. would never reside, preferring to his Parisian residence the castles of Fontainebleau, Amboise, and Chambord.

According to the plan of Philibert Delorme, the new Palace of the Tuileries was to be a true palace of the French kings, with a royal façade, the most beautiful gardens, and the most magnificent courtyards. Philibert Delorme never got beyond the façade, which, however, was enough to stamp him as an architect of the first order. Henri IV.--or rather Androuet Ducerceaux acting upon his orders--continued the work of Philibert Delorme. Ducerceaux made many changes, and among others constructed a dome where Philibert Delorme had meant only to build a cupola.

Who, meanwhile, was to live at the Tuileries? It was a royal palace, but not the palace of the French kings. Valois did not live there, Catherine de Médicis gave magnificent entertainments at the Tuileries, but held her Court at the Louvre. Nor did Henri IV. reside at the Tuileries. His private apartments, decorated by the genius of Pierre Lescot, were at the Louvre, from which Paris could be better observed. Henri's widow, Marie de Médicis, mourned for her generally excellent though not too faithful husband in the Luxembourg Palace. When Richelieu came to power and worked out the problem of the unity of France, he built the Palais Cardinal, but took no thought of the Tuileries. His eyes were fixed on the Louvre, where Louis XIII. was domiciled. Louis XIV. passed no more time at the Tuileries than any of his predecessors. His mother, Anne of Austria, established her regency at the Palais Cardinal, soon to become the Palais Royal; and all idea of completing the Tuileries seemed to have been given up, when in 1660, under Louis XIV., then twenty-two years of age, the architects Levan and Dorbay were ordered to resume the work of Philibert Delorme and Ducerceaux--the work begun by Catherine, continued by Louis XIV.'s grandfather, Henri IV., and abandoned by his father, Louis XIII. The Palace of the Tuileries having at last been completed, it became the residence simply of Mlle. de Montpensier. From time to time Louis XIV. visited the place, but only to make it the scene of some occasional entertainment. His favourite abode was always Versailles.

While the Regent was at the Palais Royal, the youthful Louis XV. lived at the Tuileries. But as soon as he could walk alone, Louis le bien aimé, as he was afterwards to be called, hastened to Versailles; and the Tuileries Palace of strange destinies was now occupied by the French Opera Company. It became the Paris Opera House, the Académie Royale de Musique--to give the establishment its official title--whose theatre at the Palais Royal had been burnt down. In 1720 the Opera was replaced at the Tuileries by the Comédie Française. To Lulli succeeded Corneille and to Rameau Voltaire.

One of the most interesting celebrations ever witnessed at the Tuileries was the crowning of Voltaire on the 30th of March, 1778, after a representation of his tragedy _Irène_. "Never," wrote Grimm, the chronicler, in reference to this performance, "was a piece worse acted, more applauded, and less listened to. The entire audience was absorbed in the contemplation of Voltaire, the representative man of the eighteenth century; philosopher of the people, who could justly say, 'J'ai fait plus dans mon temps que Luther et Calvin.'" Voltaire had but recently left Ferney to return to France, which he had not seen for twenty-seven years. Deputations from the Academy and from the Théâtre Français were sent to receive him, and on his arrival he was waited upon by men and women of the highest distinction, whether by birth or by talent. After the performance of _Irène_, he was carried home in triumph.

"You are smothering me with roses," cried the old poet, intoxicated with his own glory. The emotion, the fatigue, caused by the interesting ceremony, had indeed an injurious effect upon his health, and hastened his death, concerning which so many contradictory stories have been told. That he begged the curé of St. Sulpice to let him "die in peace" is beyond doubt; and that he died unreconciled to the Church, whose bigotry and persecution he had so persistently attacked, is sufficiently shown by the fact that, equally with Molière (though the great comedy writer had in his last moments demanded and received religious consolation), he was refused Christian burial. His nephew, the Abbé Mignot, had the corpse carried to his abbey of Scellières, where it remained until, under the Revolution, it was borne in triumph to the Panthéon.

Eleven years after the crowning of Voltaire at the Tuileries, Louis XVI. arrived there from Versailles, where he had fraternised with the people, only to find that he was no longer a king. On the 19th of October, 1789, three months after the taking of the Bastille, the National Assembly had waited in a body upon the king and queen, when the president, still loyal, said to Marie Antoinette: "The National Assembly, madame, would feel genuine satisfaction could it see for one moment in your arms the illustrious child whom the inhabitants of the capital will henceforth regard as their fellow-citizen, the offshoot of so many princes tenderly beloved by their people, the heir of Louis IX., of Henri IV., and of him whose virtues constitute the hope of France." The queen replied, "Here is my son;" and Marie Antoinette, taking the young Louis in her arms, carried him into the room occupied by the Assembly.

On the 26th of May, 1791, Barrère said to this same Assembly: "The first things to be reserved for the king are the Louvre and the Tuileries, monuments of grandeur and of indigence, whose plan, whose façades, are due to the genius of art, but whose completion has been neglected or rather forgotten by the wasteful carelessness of a few kings. Each generation expected to see this monument, worthy of Athens and of Rome, at last finished; but our kings, fearing the gaze of the people, went far from the capital to surround themselves with luxury, courtiers, and soldiers. It is characteristic of despotism to shut itself up in the midst of Asiatic luxury, as formerly divinities were placed in the depths of temples and of forests, in order to strike more surely the imagination of men. A great revolution was needed to bring back the people to liberty, and kings to the midst of their people. This revolution has been accomplished, and the King of the French will henceforth have his constant abode in the capital of the empire. This is our project. The Tuileries and the Louvre shall together form the National Palace destined for the habitation of the king."

Thereupon the Assembly decreed: "The Louvre and the Tuileries joined together shall be the National Palace destined for the habitation of the king, and for the collection of all our monuments of science and art, and for the principal establishments of public instruction."

[Illustration: THE TUILERIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]

[Illustration: THE TERRACE, TUILERIES GARDENS.]

[Illustration: THE TUILERIES GARDENS.]

The position of the king at this time is well described by Arthur Young:--

"After breakfast," he writes in diary form, "walk in the gardens of the Tuileries, where there is the most extraordinary sight that either French or English eyes could ever behold at Paris. The king, walking with six Grenadiers of the _milice bourgeoise_, with an officer or two of his household, and a page. The doors of the gardens are kept shut in respect to him in order to exclude everybody but deputies or those who have admission tickets. When he entered the palace, the doors of the gardens were thrown open for all without distinction, though the queen was still walking with a lady of her court. She also was attended so closely by the _gardes bourgeoises_ that she could not speak but in a low voice without being heard by them. A mob followed her, talking very loud, and paying no other apparent respect than that of taking off their hats whenever she passed, which was, indeed, more than I expected. Her Majesty does not appear to be in health; she seems to be much affected and shows it in her face; but the king is as plump as ease can render him. By his orders there is a little garden railed off for the Dauphin to amuse himself in and a small room is built in it to retire to in case of rain; here he was at work with his little hoe and rake, but not without a guard of two Grenadiers. He is a very pretty, good-natured looking boy, five or six years old, with an agreeable countenance; wherever he goes all hats are taken off to him, which I was glad to observe. All the family being thus kept close prisoners (for such they are in effect) afford at first view a shocking spectacle, and is really so if the act were not absolutely necessary to effect the revolution. This I conceive to be impossible; but if it were necessary no one can blame the people for taking every measure possible to secure that liberty they had seized in the violence of a revolution. At such a moment nothing is to be condemned but what endangers the national freedom. I must, however, freely own that I have my doubts whether this treatment of the royal family can be justly esteemed any security to liberty; or on the contrary, whether it was not a very dangerous step that exposes to hazard whatever had been gained. I have spoken with several persons to-day and started objections to the present system, stronger even than they appear to me, in order to learn their sentiments, and it is evident they are at the present moment under an apprehension of an attempt toward a counter revolution. The danger of it very much, if not absolutely, results from the violence which has been used towards the royal family. The National Assembly was before that period answerable only for the permanent constitutional laws passed for the future; since that moment it is equally answerable for the whole conduct of the government of the State, executive as well as legislative. This critical situation has made a constant spirit of exertion necessary amongst the Paris militia. The great object of M. La Fayette and the other military leaders is to improve their discipline and to bring them into such a form as to allow a rational dependence on them in case of their being wanted in the field; but such is the spirit of freedom that even in the military, there is so little subordination that a man is an officer to-day and in the ranks to-morrow; a mode of proceeding that makes it the more difficult to bring them to the point their leaders see necessary. Eight thousand men in Paris may be called the standing army, paid every day 15 fr. a man; in which number is included the corps of the French Guards from Versailles that deserted to the people; they have also 800 horses at an expense each of 1,500 livres a year, and the officers have double the pay of those in the army."

If the people and the popular leaders were in constant fear of a counter revolution, the king on his side had had enough of royalty, and on the first opportunity fled from his subjects. The flight of the royal family, as is plainly shown by the correspondence of Marie Antoinette and by other authentic documents, had been concerted beforehand with the foreign Powers. This course was dictated by the most obvious considerations of personal safety. But all idea of an understanding with the "foreigner" was repudiated in the most solemn manner by the king. What the revolutionary Government resented was less the king's desire to escape from a country where he had not only ceased to rule, but where his position was getting from day to day more precarious, than his apparent intention of making himself as soon as he had crossed the frontier the centre and support of a counter revolution.

As the moment of departure approached, the king and queen renewed with increased energy protestations of their adhesion to the Constitution. At the same time the queen was writing to her brother Leopold, May 22nd, 1791: "We are to start for Montmédy. M. de Bouillé will see to the ammunition and troops which are to be collected at this place, but he earnestly desires that you will order a body of troops of from 8,000 to 10,000 to be ready at Luxembourg and at our orders (it being quite understood that they will not be wanted until we are in a position of safety) to enter France both to serve as example to our troops and if necessary to restrain them."

On the 1st of June, after reiterating her demand for 8,000 or 10,000 troops at Luxembourg, close to the French frontier, she added: "The king as soon as he is safe and free will see with gratitude and joy the union of the Powers to assert the justice of his cause." The plan, concerted with the Austrian ambassador at Paris, who had been the queen's adviser, was first to place the royal family in safety beyond the French frontier, and then to act against France with an army of invasion aided within the country by a Royalist insurrection.

It was at the same time understood that the Austrian Emperor and the German princes were not to give their aid gratuitously. They were to be recompensed by a "rectification" of the northern and eastern frontiers of France to their advantage. Troops were promised to Marie Antoinette by her brother Leopold, not only from Austria and various German States but also from Sardinia, Switzerland, and even Prussia.

It was the popular belief at the time that Queen Marie Antoinette had determined to do some dreadful injury to Paris and other French cities; to blow them up, for instance, with gunpowder or by some secret means. At a village near Clermont in the Puy de Dôme, Arthur Young wished to see some famous springs; and the guide he had engaged being unable to render him useful assistance he took a woman to conduct him, when she was arrested by the _garde bourgeoise_ for having without permission become the guide of a stranger.

"She was conducted," writes Young, "to a heap of stones they call the Château. They told me they had nothing to do with me; but as to the woman, she should be taught more prudence for the future. As the poor devil was in jeopardy on my account, I determined at once to accompany them for the chance of getting her cleared by attesting her innocence. We were followed by a mob of all the village with the woman's children crying bitterly for fear their mother should be imprisoned. At the castle we waited some time, and we were then shown into another apartment, where the town committee was assembled; the accusation was heard, and it was wisely remarked by all that in such dangerous times as these, when all the world knew that so great and powerful a person as the queen was conspiring against France in the most alarming manner, for a woman to become the conductor of a stranger, and of a stranger who had been making so many suspicious inquiries as I had, was a high offence. It was immediately agreed that she ought to be imprisoned. I assured them she was perfectly innocent; for it was impossible that any guilty motive should be her inducement. Finding me curious to see the springs, having viewed the lower ones, and wanting a guide for seeing those higher in the mountains, she offered herself; that she certainly had no other than the industrious view of getting a few sous for her poor family. They then turned their inquiries against myself--that, if I wanted to see springs only, what induced me to ask a multitude of questions concerning the price, value, and product of the land? What had such inquiries to do with springs and volcanoes? I told them that cultivating some land in England rendered such things interesting to me personally; and lastly, that if they would send to Clermont they might know from several respectable persons the truth of all I asserted; and, therefore, I hoped, as it was the woman's first indiscretion, for I could not call it offence, they would dismiss her. This was refused at first, and assented to at last, on my declaring that if they imprisoned her they should do the same by me and answer it as they could. They consented to let her go with a reprimand, and I started--_not_ marvelling, for I have done with that--at their ignorance in imagining that the queen should conspire so dangerously against their rocks and mountains. I found my guide in the midst of the mob, who had been very busy in putting so many questions about me as I had done about their crops."

Such indeed was the general feeling against the king and queen, that, apart from other powerful motives, they had soon no alternative but to seek safety in flight. One of the principal agents in their escape was Count de Fersen, formerly colonel of the regiment of Royal Suédois. He was to drive the coach containing the king and queen. Marie Antoinette was to play the part of a governess, Mme. Rochet, in the service of an imaginary Russian lady, Baroness de Korff, impersonated by Mme. de Tourzel, actually governess to Marie Antoinette's children. As for the king, disguised in livery, he was to pass as the Russian lady's valet. The royal family was at this time confined more or less strictly to the Tuileries; and La Fayette, under whose command the troops on guard at the palace had been placed, had probably eyed with suspicion certain preparations made by the queen as if in view of a speedy departure.

[Illustration: LION IN THE TUILERIES GARDENS.

(_By Cain._)]

M. de Bouillé, who commanded at Metz, had orders to occupy the high road with detachments of troops as far as Châlons. During the night of the 20th of June, 1791, the royal family escaped from the Tuileries, reached La Villette, where Colonel de Fersen with a travelling carriage awaited them, and drove off towards Bondy, whence they were to make first for Châlons, and then for Montmédy, a frontier town. The next morning Paris woke up without a king. La Fayette, who had been wanting in vigilance, defended himself as best he could. An alarm gun was fired from the Pont Neuf to warn the citizens that the country was in the greatest danger, for it was quite understood that the passage of the frontier by the king and queen would be the signal for a foreign invasion. The National Assembly met, and at once took into its hands the supreme direction of affairs.

"This is our king!" said the Republicans; and Louis, by his flight, had in fact ceased to reign. Before leaving the Tuileries Louis XVI. had placed in the hands of La Porte, intendant of the civil list, a protest against the manner in which he had been treated, which was duly laid before the Assembly. Meanwhile, he had arrived at St. Ménéhould without accident, where he found himself protected by a detachment of dragoons which had arrived the night before. Here, however, his misfortunes began, for he was at once recognised by Drouet, a retired soldier now

## acting as postmaster. Called upon for horses, the young man could have

no doubt but that the royal personages who required them were bound for the frontier, and he resolved to prevent their escape from France. With the dragoons in occupation of the village he could not refuse to supply horses; and the carriage which bore Louis and his fortunes, now approaching the end of its critical journey, went off in an easterly direction. Scarcely had the post chaise departed when Drouet, aided by a friend named Guillaume, also a retired soldier, called out by beat of drum the local national guard, and ordered it to prevent the dragoons from leaving the village. He then, together with Guillaume, galloped after the royal carriage, followed by a sub-officer of dragoons named Lagache, who, escaping from St. Ménéhould, had resolved to catch them up, and, if possible, kill them. Riding along, Drouet learned that the carriage had taken the road to Varennes, a town which has twice played an important part in the history of France, for it was here, seventy-nine years later, that the King of Prussia established his head-quarters on the eve of the battle of Sedan.

[Illustration: THE CHESTNUTS OF THE TUILERIES.]

By crossing a wood Drouet and Guillaume succeeded in getting to Varennes a trifle sooner than the royal carriage. Passing, at no great pace, the lumbering vehicle just as it was approaching the town, they at once made for the bridge on the other side of Varennes, which, as old soldiers, they saw the necessity of blocking, for beyond it, on the other side of the river Aire, they had discovered the presence of a detachment of cavalry under the command of a German officer, who, losing his head, took to flight. The energetic Drouet had already waked up the town, and, in particular, the principal officials, such as the Mayor, the Procureur of the Commune, &c. The population answered to Drouet's call, and soon a small body of armed men was on foot.

[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. STOPPED AT VARENNES BY DROUET.]

The fugitives were bound for the Hôtel du Grand Monarque. At this hotel a tradition is preserved which was communicated to the present writer by the proprietress, Mme. Gauthier, just before the battle of Sedan. Dinner was prepared there for Louis XVI. eight days running; from which it would appear that he was trying to escape from the Tuileries for eight days before he at last succeeded in getting away unobserved. The eighth, like all the preceding dinners cooked for the unfortunate king at the Hôtel du Grand Monarque, was destined to remain uneaten. It was now late at night, and when the royal carriage entered the town, it was surrounded in the darkness by a number of armed men, who asked for passports, and showed by their attitude that they had no intention of allowing the occupants of the vehicle to proceed any further. Emissaries from Varennes had been despatched in all haste to the surrounding villages and nearest towns to call out the national guard. The son of M. de Bouillé had meantime quitted the cavalry outside Varennes, and ridden towards Metz to inform the governor, his father, of the arrival of the fugitives. But when the commandant arrived outside Varennes with an entire regiment of cavalry, the town was occupied by 10,000 infantry, and all the approaches guarded in such a manner that it was impossible for de Bouillé's regiment to act.

The Procureur, to whose house the royal family had been taken, informed the king in the early morning that he was recognised. A crowd, which had gathered before the house, called for him by name, and when Louis showed himself at the window he understood from the attitude of the mob that though he was saluted here and there with cries of "Vive le Roi!" there was an end to his project of reaching the frontier. At six o'clock couriers arrived from Paris with a decree from the Assembly ordering the king's arrest; and at eight o'clock on the morning of the 22nd of June, 1791, the royal family started under escort for the capital. They were surrounded at the moment of departure by an immense mob, a portion of which followed them for some distance along the road. At Epernay the commissaries appointed by the Assembly, MM. Pétion and Barnave, were waiting to take the direction of the cortege. On being questioned the king declared that he had never intended to leave the kingdom, and that his object in retiring to Montmédy had been to study the new Constitution at his ease, so that, with a clear conscience, he might be able to accept it. Barnave and Pétion got into the royal carriage as if to prevent all possibility of escape. Louis was treated with all the respect due to a royal captive, but his position was that of a prisoner. Reaching Paris three days after his departure from Varennes, he was received by the people with the greatest coldness. On the walls of the streets through which he passed, these words had been inscribed: "Whoever applauds Louis XVI. will be beaten; whoever insults him will be hanged." To avoid the popular thoroughfares, the Tuileries was approached by way of the Champs Élysées, and once more Louis took up his abode in the ancient palace of the French kings.

Differences between Louis XVI. and the Assembly, which, from "Constituent" had become "Legislative," now suddenly occurred; and at the beginning of 1792 the Jacobin Rhul complained from the tribune that the king had treated with disrespect certain commissaries of the Assembly who had waited upon him. On the 25th of July of the same year the king was accused in the Chamber of collecting arms at the Tuileries. National guards, it was said, went in armed and came out unarmed; and it was declared to be unsafe for the National Assembly to have an arsenal of this kind in its immediate neighbourhood. Accordingly, the Assembly decreed that the terrace of the Tuileries gardens must be regarded as its property, and be placed beneath the care of the Assembly's own police. The king objected, naturally enough, to the gardens of his palace being thus interfered with. "The nation," said one of the deputies, "lodges the king at the Palace of the Tuileries, but I read nowhere that it has given him the exclusive enjoyment of the gardens." Some days afterwards the same deputy, Kersaint by name, said from the tribune: "The Assembly having thrown open one of the terraces of the Tuileries gardens, the king, who does not think fit to render the rest of the gardens accessible to the public, has lined the terrace with a hedge of grenadiers."

Chabot called the garden of the Tuileries "a second Coblentz," in reference to the German fortified town where the allied sovereigns, who were plotting against the Revolution, had their head-quarters. On the 19th of August a journeyman painter named Bougneux sent word to the Assembly that there had recently been constructed in the Palace of the Tuileries several masked cupboards. Three months afterwards Roland brought to the Convention the papers of the famous iron cupboard. "They were concealed," he said, "in such a place, in such a manner, that unless the only person in Paris who knew the secret had given information it would have been impossible to discover them. They were behind a panel," he continued, "let into the wall and closed in by an iron door." The members of the Mountain, as the extreme party occupying the highest seats in the legislative chamber were called, accused Roland of having opened the metallic cupboard in order to make away with the papers of a compromising character for his friends the Girondists. In revolutionary times a good action may be as compromising as a bad one. Brissot proposed about this time that the meetings of the Convention should be held at the Tuileries. Vergniaud had preferred the Madeleine. "Not," he said, "in either case, that liberty has need of luxury. Sparta will live as long as Athens in the memory of nations; the tennis court as long as the palaces of Versailles and of the Tuileries. The external architecture of the Madeleine is most imposing. It may be looked upon as a monument worthy of liberty, and of the French nation." It need scarcely be explained that at the _jeu de paume_, or tennis court, the first revolutionary meetings were held.

"At the Tuileries," said Brussonnet, "there is a finer hall; and the greater the questions which the National Assembly will have to treat the greater must be the number of hearers and spectators." It was at last decreed that the Minister of the Interior should order the preparation at the Tuileries of a suitable hall for the debates of the National Convention; and with that object a sum of 300,000 francs was voted.

On the 4th of September, 1793, Chaumette, in the name of the Paris commune, appeared at the bar of the Convention, then presided over by Robespierre, and spoke as follows: "We demand that all the public gardens be cultivated in a useful manner. We beg you to look for a moment at the immense garden of the Tuileries. The eyes of republicans will rest with more pleasure on this former domain of the crown when it is turned to some good account. Would it not be better to grow plants in view of the hospitals, than to let the grounds be filled with statues, _fleurs de lis_, and other objects which serve no purpose but to minister to the luxury and the pride of kings?" Dussaulx added with a smile: "I demand that the Champs Élysées be given up at the same time as the gardens of the Tuileries to useful cultivation." It was at the Tuileries that the Committee of Public Safety held its meetings: that irresponsible body which struck so many and such sanguinary blows at the accomplices, real or imaginary, of invasion from abroad, and of insurrection at home. In the Tuileries gardens took place the festival of the Supreme Being, when proclamation was solemnly made, under the authority of Robespierre, that the French people believed in God and the immortality of the soul. "People of France," cried Robespierre, between two executions, "let us to-day give ourselves up to the transports of pure unmingled joy. To-morrow we must return to our progress against tyranny and crime." To Robespierre's passionate declamation succeeded solemn music, composed by Méhul. Soon afterwards Tallien, inspired to an act of daring by the news that the woman he loved and afterwards married had been condemned to death, denounced Robespierre; and it was at the Tuileries that the Reign of Terror, like so many other reigns, came to an end.

On the 1st of February, 1800, Bonaparte took possession of the Tuileries, with his wife Joséphine. In 1814 he quitted the ancient palace with Marie Louise. The Tuileries was now on the point of being occupied by foreigners. "When I returned to Paris," writes Mme. de Staël, "Germans, Russians, Cossacks, Baskirs, were to be seen on all sides. Was I in Germany or in Russia? Had Paris been destroyed and something like it raised up with a new population? I was all confusion. In spite of the pain I felt I was grateful to the foreigners for having shaken off our yoke. But to see them in possession of Paris! to see them occupying the Tuileries!"

Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both reigned at the Tuileries. But in July, 1830, the Revolution once more took possession of the palace; and in 1848, after the flight of Louis Philippe, the mob again ruled for a time in the home of the French kings. In 1848 the Provisional Government converted the Tuileries into an asylum for civilians. But the conversion was made only on paper, and in 1852 the Tuileries became for the second time an imperial palace--the palace of Napoleon III. The fate of the historical structure was, as everyone knows, to be burnt by the Communards. It was on the 24th of May, 1871, when the Versailles troops were already in the Champs Élysées, that the central dome of the palace, the wings, the whole building in short, was seen to be in flames. The new portions of the palace alone refused to burn. Then, in their rage, the incendiaries had recourse to gunpowder, and during the night a formidable explosion was heard. The troops of the Commune, commanded by the well-known General Bergeret, had retired some hours before. Bergeret, however, was not responsible for the incendiarism; and the person afterwards tried for it and condemned to hard labour for life (in commutation of the death punishment to which he was first sentenced) was a certain Benoit, formerly a private in the line, then, during the siege, a lieutenant in the National Guard, and finally colonel under the Commune.

[Illustration: THE ROYAL FAMILY AT VARENNES.]

The gardens of the Tuileries are now more than ever open to the reproach brought against them by the men of the Revolution, who objected to statues adorning its terraces and walls, and wished its works of art to be replaced by lettuces and cabbages. All the greatest sculptors of France are represented in the Tuileries gardens, which also contain many admirable reproductions of ancient statues and groups.

There is one interesting walk in the Tuileries gardens which is the favourite resort of children. Here it was, in the so-called _petite Provence_, that the children's stamp exchange was established, against which the authorities found it necessary to take severe steps. The young people have since contented themselves with balls, balloons, and other innocent amusements. There is a Théâtre Guignol, moreover, a sort of Punch and Judy, in the middle of the old gardens; and from the beginning of April to the middle of October a military band plays every day. It is impossible to leave the Tuileries gardens without mentioning its famous chestnut tree--the chestnut tree, as it is called, "of the 20th of March," because in 1814 it blossomed on that very day as if to celebrate Napoleon's return from Elba. But the old chestnut tree had a reputation of its own long before the imperial era. More than a hundred years ago the painter Vien, at that time pupil of the French School, was accused of having assassinated a rival who had competed with him for a prize. He was about to be arrested when he proved that at the very hour when the crime must have been committed he was tranquilly seated beneath the future "chestnut tree of the 20th of March," which was distinguished just then from all the other trees in the garden by being alone in flower. This picturesque _alibi_ saved his life.

[Illustration: MONUMENT TO GAMBETTA, PLACE DU CARROUSEL.]

Outside the remains of the Tuileries was erected, on the Place du Carrousel, in 1888, a monument to Gambetta. The design as a whole has been unfavourably criticised, but the figure of the orator himself, represented in the act of declamation, is bold and striking, and full of character.

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