FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70  
71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   >>   >|  
ace of defence, and a defence it was, and not much more. For its time it was of great proportions and of an ideal situation from a strategic point of view; far more so than the isolated Palais de la Cite in the middle of the Seine. Four gates led out from the inner courtyard of the Old Louvre: one to the Seine; one to the south, facing Saint Germain l'Auxerrois; another towards the site of the later Tuileries; and the other to about where the Rue Marengo cuts the Rue de Rivoli of to-day. With the endorsement given it by Philippe Auguste the Louvre now became the official residence of the kings of the Capetian race, whereas previously they had dwelt but intermittently at Paris, chiefly in the Palais de la Cite. The monarch, as if to test the efficiency of his new residence as a stronghold, made a dungeon tower, his greatest constructive achievement until he built the castle of Gisors, and in the tower imprisoned the Comte de Flandre, whom he had taken prisoner at Bouvines. Louis IX (Saint Louis), in his turn, built a spacious annex to Philippe Auguste's Louvre, to which he attached his name. [Illustration: THE XIV CENTURY LOUVRE] Charles V totally changed the aspect of the palace from what it had formerly been--half-fortress, half-residence--and made of it a veritable palace in truth as well as in name, by the addition of numerous dependencies. Within a tower which was built during the reign of this monarch, called the Tour de la Librairie, he assembled his royal bibelots and founded what was afterwards known as the Bibliotheque du Louvre, the egg from which was hatched the present magnificently endowed _Bibliotheque Nationale_ in the Rue Richelieu. It is related that in 1373 the valet-de-chambre of Charles V made a catalogue of the nine hundred and ten volumes which formed this collection, an immense number for the time when it is known that his predecessor, Jean-le-Bon, possessed but seven volumes of history and four devotional books as his entire literary treasure. This seems to be a bibliographical note of interest which has hitherto been overlooked. Charles V was evidently a man of taste, or he would not have built so well, though all is hearsay, as not a fragment remains of the work upon which he spent his talents and energies. From the death of Charles V, in 1364, until 1557 the Louvre by some caprice ceased to be a permanent royal residence. At the latter epoch the ambitious, art-loving F
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70  
71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Louvre

 

residence

 
Charles
 

monarch

 

Bibliotheque

 
Philippe
 

Auguste

 

Palais

 

palace

 

volumes


defence
 

Within

 
immense
 

collection

 

formed

 

hundred

 

catalogue

 
chambre
 

present

 

bibelots


founded

 
assembled
 

called

 

Librairie

 

related

 
Richelieu
 

Nationale

 
hatched
 
magnificently
 

endowed


entire
 

talents

 

energies

 

remains

 

hearsay

 

fragment

 
ambitious
 

loving

 

caprice

 

ceased


permanent

 

history

 

devotional

 
possessed
 
predecessor
 

dependencies

 

literary

 

overlooked

 

hitherto

 

evidently