ever, the chief means employed by
Bonaparte for weaning its populace from politics; and his efforts to
this end were soon crowned with complete success. Here again the
events of the Revolution had left the field clear for vast works of
reconstruction such as would have been impossible but for the
abolition of the many monastic institutions of old Paris. On or near
the sites of the famous Feuillants and Jacobins he now laid down
splendid thoroughfares; and where the constitutionals or reds a decade
previously had perorated and fought, the fashionable world of Paris
now rolled in gilded cabriolets along streets whose names recalled the
Italian and Egyptian triumphs of the First Consul. Art and culture
bowed down to the ruler who ordered the renovation of the Louvre,
which now became the treasure-house of painting and sculpture,
enriched by masterpieces taken from many an Italian gallery. No
enterprise has more conspicuously helped to assure the position of
Paris as the capital of the world's culture than Bonaparte's grouping
of the nation's art treasures in a central and magnificent building.
In the first year of his Empire Napoleon gave orders for the
construction of vast galleries which were to connect the northern
pavilion of the Tuileries with the Louvre and form a splendid facade
to the new Rue de Rivoli. Despite the expense, the work was pushed
on until it was suddenly arrested by the downfall of the Empire,
and was left to the great man's nephew to complete. Though it is
possible, as Chaptal avers, that the original design aimed at the
formation of a central fortress, yet to all lovers of art, above
all to the hero-worshipping Heine, the new Louvre was a sure pledge
of Napoleon's immortality.

Other works which combined beauty with utility were the prolongation
of the quays along the left bank of the Seine, the building of three
bridges over that river, the improvement of the Jardin des Plantes,
together with that of other parks and open spaces, and the completion
of the Conservatoire of Arts and Trades. At a later date, the military
spirit of the Empire received signal illustration in the erection of
the Vendome column, the Arc de Triomphe, and the consecration, or
desecration, of the Madeleine as a temple of glory.

Many of these works were subsequent to the period which we are
considering; but the enterprises of the Emperor represent the designs
of the First Consul; and the plans for the improvement of Paris f