another critic as one of the finest
pieces of architecture in any age. Strangely enough, neither of these
ever saw, nor has anyone yet seen, more than a partial and stunted
realisation of Perrault's design, for, as the accompanying
reproduction of a drawing by Blondel demonstrates, the famous east
front of the Louvre is like a giant buried up to the knees, and the
present first-floor windows were an afterthought, their places having
been designed as niches to hold statues. The exactitude of Blondel's
elevations was finally proved in 1903 by the admirable insight of the
present architect of the Louvre, Monsieur G. Redon, who was led to
undertake the excavations which brought to light a section of
Perrault's decorated basement, by noticing that the windows of the
ground floor evidently implied a lower order beneath. This basement,
seven and a half metres in depth, now buried, was in Perrault's scheme
designed to be exposed by a fosse of some fifteen to twenty metres in
width, and the whole elevation and symmetry of the wing would have
immensely gained by the carrying out of his plans.

[Footnote 147: Levau's south facade was not completely hidden by
Perrault's screen, for the roofs of the end and central pavilions
emerged from behind it until they were destroyed by Gabriel in 1755.]

[Illustration: PORTION OF THE EAST FACADE OF THE LOUVRE FROM BLONDEL'S
DRAWING, SHOWING PERRAULT'S BASE.]

The construction was, however, interrupted in 1676, owing to the
king's abandonment of Paris. Colbert strenuously protested against the
neglect of the Louvre, and warned his master not to squander his
millions away from Paris and suffer posterity to measure his grandeur
by the ell of Versailles. It availed nothing. In 1670, 1,627,293
livres were allotted to the Louvre; in 1672 the sum had fallen to
58,000 livres; in 1676 to 42,082; in 1680 the subsidies practically
ceased, and the great palace was utterly neglected until 1754 when
Perrault's work was feebly continued by Gabriel and Soufflot.

Two domed churches in the south of Paris--the Val de Grace and St.
Louis of the Invalides--were also erected during Louis XIV.'s
lifetime. Among the many vows made by Anne of Austria during her
twenty-two years' unfruitful marriage was one made in the sanctuary of
the nunnery of the Val de Grace, to build there a magnificent church
to God's glory if she were vouchsafed a Dauphin. At length, on 18th
April 1645, the proud queen was able to lead t