urban palaces. Its very situation compelled the
playing of an auspicious part, and the Seine flowing swiftly by its
ramparts added no small charm to the fetes and ceremonies of both the
Louvre and the Tuileries.

Never was a great river so allied with the life of a royal capital;
never a stream so in harmony with other civic beauties as is the Seine
with Paris. When Henri II entered Paris after his Sacrament he
contemplated a water-festival on the Seine, which was to extend from the
walls of the Louvre to the towers of Notre Dame, a festival with such
elaborate decorations as had never been known in the French capital.

The kings of France after their Sacrament entered the Louvre by the
quay-side entrance, followed by their cortege of gayly caparisoned
cavaliers and gilded coaches with personages of all ranks in doublet and
robe, cape and doublet. The scintillating of gold lace and burnished
coats gave a brilliance which rivalled that of the sun.

No sooner had the cavalcade entered the gates of the Louvre than it came
out again to participate in the day and night festival, which had the
bosom of the Seine for its stage and its bridges and banks for the act
drop and the wings.

The receptions of Ambassadors, the baptisms of royalties, royal
marriages and celebrations of victories, or treaties, were all feted in
the same manner.

Napoleon glorified the Peace of Amiens under similar conditions, and
there is scarce a chronicler of any reign but that recounts the part
played by the Seine in the ceremonies of the court of the New and Old
Louvre.

It was amid a setting which lent itself so readily to all this that the
Old Louvre, which was rebuilt by Francis I, first came to its glory.

The origin of the name Louvre has still other interpretation from that
previously given. It seems to be a question of grave doubt among the
savants, but because the note is an interesting one it is here
reproduced. The name may have been derived as well from the word
_oeuvre_, from the Latin _opus_; it may have been evolved from
_lupara_, or _louverie_ (place of wolves), which seems improbable. It
may have had its evolution from either one of these origins, or it may
not.

Anglo-Saxons may be proud of the fact that certain French savants have
acknowledged that the name of the most celebrated of all Paris palaces
is a derivation from a word belonging to their tongue and meaning
habitation. This, then, is another version and one may ch