dernised palace northwards
along the Rue de Richelieu to the main Cour d'Honneur, opposite the
Square Louvois. Hence we may enter some rooms, which contain a
magnificent and matchless collection of printed books, bindings and
illuminated MSS. The second of the two halls where these treasures are
exposed, the Galerie Mazarin, is a part of the old palace and retains
its fine frescoed ceiling. As we retrace our steps down the Rue
Richelieu we may enter, on our L. the equally rich and sumptuous
museum of coins, medals, antiques, intaglios, gems, etc. Having
regained the Rue des Petits Champs, we resume our westward way, noting
at No. 45, corner of the Rue St. Anne, the fine double facade of the
Hotel erected by Lulli and bearing the great musician's coat-of-arms,
a design of trumpets, lyres and cymbals, and soon cross the Avenue de
l'Opera to the Rue St. Roch on our L. This we descend to the church of
the same name, with old houses still nestling against it, famous for
Bonaparte's whiffs of grape-shot that scattered the Royalist
insurrectionary forces stationed there on 5th October 1795. We descend
to the Rue de Rivoli. To our L., at the Place des Pyramids, a statue
of Joan of Arc recalls her ill-advised attack on Paris, and to our R.,
on the railings of the Tuileries Garden opposite No. 230, Rue de
Rivoli, is the inscription marking the site of the Salle du Manege (p.
271). Northward hence extend Napoleon's Rues de Castiglione and de la
Paix, the Regent Street of Paris, divided by the Place Vendome, which
was intended by its creator, Louvois, to be the most spacious in the
city. A monumental parallelogram of public offices was designed to
enclose the Place, but Versailles engulfed the king's resources and
the ambitious scheme was whittled down, the area much reduced, and the
site and foundations of the new buildings were handed over to the
Ville. What the Allies failed to do in 1814 the Commune succeeded in
doing in 1871, and the boastful Column of Vendome, a pitiful
plagiarism of Trajan's Column at Rome, was laid in the dust, only
however to be raised again by the Third Republic in 1875. We enter the
Tuileries Gardens crossing the Terrace of the Feuillants, all that is
left of the famous monastery and grounds where Lafayette's club of
constitutional reformers met. The beautiful gardens remain much as Le
Notre designed them for Louis XIV: every spring the orange trees, some
of them dating back it is said to the time of Fran