new institution, and went to reside in the famous Hotel Saint-Pol,
under the protection of the Bastille. The Palais des Tournelles was
subsequently erected backing on to the Hotel Saint-Pol. Thus, under the
later Valois, the kings came back from the Bastille to the Louvre, which
had been their first stronghold.

The original residence of the French kings, the Palace of Saint-Louis,
which has preserved the designation of Le Palais, to indicate the Palace
of palaces, is entirely buried under the Palais de Justice; it forms the
cellars, for it was built, like the Cathedral, in the Seine, and with
such care that the highest floods in the river scarcely cover the lowest
steps. The Quai de l'Horloge covers, twenty feet below the surface, its
foundations of a thousand years old. Carriages run on the level of the
capitals of the solid columns under these towers, and formerly their
appearance must have harmonized with the elegance of the Palace, and
have had a picturesque effect over the water, since to this day those
towers vie in height with the loftiest buildings in Paris.

As we look down on this vast capital from the lantern of the Pantheon,
the Palace with the Sainte-Chapelle is still the most monumental of many
monumental buildings. The home of our kings, over which you tread as you
pace the immense hall known as the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_, was a miracle
of architecture; and it is so still to the intelligent eye of the poet
who happens to study it when inspecting the Conciergerie. Alas! for the
Conciergerie has invaded the home of kings. One's heart bleeds to see
the way in which cells, cupboards, corridors, warders' rooms, and halls
devoid of light or air, have been hewn out of that beautiful structure
in which Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque--the three phases of ancient
art--were harmonized in one building by the architecture of the twelfth
century.

This palace is a monumental history of France in the earliest times,
just as Blois is that of a later period. As at Blois you may admire in a
single courtyard the chateau of the Counts of Blois, that of Louis XII.,
that of Francis I., that of Gaston; so at the Conciergerie you will
find within the same precincts the stamp of the early races, and, in the
Sainte-Chapelle, the architecture of Saint-Louis.

Municipal Council (to you I speak), if you bestow millions, get a poet
or two to assist your architects if you wish to save the cradle of
Paris, the cradle of kings, wh