and enter
the south wing of the Tuileries which had been extended to meet it.
The Pavilion de Flore thus became the angle of junction between the
two palaces. An upper floor was imposed on the Petite Galerie, and
adorned with paintings representing the kings of France. Unhappily the
fire of 1661 destroyed all the portraits save that of Marie de' Medici
by Porbus, and all the subsequent decorations by Poussin. Henry
intended the ground floor of the Grande Galerie for the accommodation
of his best craftsmen--painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, tapestry
weavers, smiths, and others. The quadrangle, however, remained as the
last Valois had left it--half Renaissance, half Gothic--and the
north-east and south-east towers of the original chateau were still
standing to be drawn by Sylvestre towards the middle of the
seventeenth century.

[Footnote 127: The new palace was situated in the parish of St.
Germain l'Auxerrois, the parish church of the Louvre.]

The unfinished Hotel de Ville was taken in hand after more than
half-a-century and practically completed.[128] The larger, north
portion of the Pont Neuf was built, the two islets west of the Cite
were incorporated with the island to form the Place Dauphine and the
ground that now divides the two sections of the bridge--a new street,
the Rue Dauphine, being cut through the garden of the Augustins and
the ruins of the college of St. Denis. The Place Royale (now des
Vosges) was designed and partly built--that charming relic of
seventeenth and eighteenth century fashionable Paris, where Moliere's
_Precieuses_ lived.

[Footnote 128: The north tower was left only partially constructed,
and was finished by Louis XIII.]

Henry also partly rebuilt the Hotel Dieu, created new streets, and
widened others.[129] New fountains and quays were built; the Porte du
Temple was reopened, and the Porte des Tournelles constructed.
Unhappily, some of the old wooden bridges remained, and on Sunday,
22nd December 1596, the Pont aux Meuniers (Miller's Bridge), just
below the Pont au Change, suddenly collapsed, with all its shops and
houses, and sixty persons perished. They were not much regretted, for
most of them had enriched themselves by the plunder of Huguenots, and
during the troubles of the League. The bridge was rebuilt of wood, at
the cost of the captain of the corps of archers, and as the houses
were painted each with the figure of a bird, the new bridge was known
as the Pont aux Oiseaux (B