peared. The new city improved rapidly under the influence of Roman laws, arts, and adminis- tration. During the feign of Charlemagne, who, amidst his conquests, never lost sight of the arts of civilization, Paris advanced in arts and letters as well as vveflth and extent. The adventurous and roving Normans, tempted by the wealth of the city, and despising the feeble successors of Charlemagne, who had abandoned the capital as a patrimony to hereditary counts, plundered it three times, after short intervalsxe2x80x94in 845,857, and 872. Under the third or Capetian race, it improv- ed still more rapidly than before. It became the fixed roval residence and seat of government; the capital of the kingdom in fact as well as in name. Philip Augustus added to its strength and beauty hy many new edifices, by paving the streets, and by surrounding the whole city with deep fosse and thick wall defended by five hun- dred towers. Paris at this time had sixteen gates, and covered a surface of seven hundred and thirty- nine square acres. Louis IX. (St. Louis) built hospitals and schools, reformed the more barba- rous and vexatious “ customs” (laws), regulated the administration of justice, and created a po- lice. Paris was taken in 1426 by the English, who were compelled to abandon it in 1436. Francis |
I. had the glorv of introducing into Paris science, literature and the fine arts. The Grecian orders of architecture were now adopted for the first time, and the interior of the new edifices adorn- ed with sculpture and the paintings of the Italian masters. Henry IV. erected the Pont Neuf, and laid out several squares cr places in the old city on the islets in the Seine, hitherto the quarter of the court. Paris is indebted to Louis XIV. fora great portion of its magnificence :xe2x80x94for its noble and healthful Boulevards;xe2x80x94for the triumphal arches (of which two are splended monuments) by which it is entered at the gates of St. Den- is, St. Martin, St. Antoine, and St. Bernard ;xe2x80x94 for the Place Vondome and Place des Victoi- res ;xe2x80x94for the colonnade ofthe Louvre ; the Hospit- al of Invalids ; the garden ofthe Tuileries, design- ed by Lenotre, under the immediate inspection of Colbert;xe2x80x94for the promenades and plantations of the Champs Elysees. The Revolution came, and with it the genius of devastation for a time. The works of art only are a permanent loss, and for- tnnatelv they were neither many, nor irreparable chefs d'osuvre :xe2x80x94whilst the public health, conve- nience. and beauty of the town, have gained in- calculably by the removal or desecration of the churches and convents. Spacious and convenient markets, open and well-built streets or other edi- fices of great public ornament and utility, now oc cupy the sites of such religious houses as were destroyed : and those left standing, but desecra- ted. have been converted into prisons, penitentia- ries. hospitals, calleges, schools or other public establishments far the purposes of society or char- ity. Paris is under eternal obligations to Bona- aparte : he did more far it than even Louis XIV. He combined, iu a greater degree, the useful with the magnificent. Despotic as he was, he saw that the mass of the people was now a power which must not be darzled merely, as in the time of Lous XIV.. but conciliated and served. His designs are said to have been essentially his own. It seems most probable that they could have been conceived only by the same mind which had the force, energy and resources to execute them. He freed the bridges and banks of the Seine from the embarrassment and deformity of the old houses by which they were still cro wded; built magnificent quays and wharves; and erected four bridges of remarkable beauty, as monuments of art. He not only conceived (for even the conception was a great merit), but had nearly executed, at his fail, the Canal de 1’Ourcq. He distributed the public supply of water by fifteen new and abundant fountains, of which some are beautiful specimens of architecture. The immense architectural and sculptural mass called “ the Fountain of the El- phant” was left by him, and still remains unfinish- ed. The people, not merely of Paris, but of the whole kingdom, are indebted to him for those spacious markets, so commodiously arranged for the sale of every kind of produce ; for public stores, especially the wine stores, which surprise by their vastness, the happy ingenuity of their distribution, and their architectural grandeur. He erected, near the barriers, five abattoirs or slaugh ter-houses ; and thus relieved the town from the inconvenient and dangerous presence of herds of cattle, the revolting spectacle of blood, and the noxious miasmata of butchery and tallow-melting. The vast granary of reserve, destined by him to protect the people of Paris against famine and the change ot seasons, now unfinished or abandoned, remains a monument of the instability of all hu man power and the uncertainity of all human projects. He cleared the Place du Carousel, be tween the Louvre and the Tuileries, of its ob structions and nuisances; adorned it with a tri umphal arch; completed the Louvre; filled its gallery with sculpture and paintings. The gar- den of the Tuileries owes much of its magnifi- cence to the noble vista which he opened hy the rue Castiglione to the triumphal column in the Place Vendome;xe2x80x94the opposite view of the Cham- ber of Deputies, with its noble portico, on the left bank of the Seine ; and the unfinished but grand triumphal arch of Neuilly. Many of the public buildings, canals, and other public works left un- finished by Bonaparte, have been carried cn, and some have been completed, since the restoration of the house of Bourbon. A new quarter, as it & called, was begun, in 1823, in the western sub- urb of Paris, touching the. Champs Elysees, ex- tending to Chaillot, and spreading above the Chaussee d’Antin. The style of structure is elegant, and the scale within the reach of ordi- nary fortunes. A second quarter opens by its main street, which is spacious and planted with rows of trees, a communication between two main points of the fauxbourgs Montmartre and St. Martin. The progress of all these, however, has been slow, and in some parts suspended; and some generations will probably have passed away before the “ Ville de Francois Premier” andNou- velle Athenes,” with their brilliant associations,or the “ Petit Londres,” with its national rivalry, are monuments of any thing but magnificent projects, and the want of capital or perseverance. Great undertakings are rarely, if ever, completed by private enterprise in Paris: they have been pro- jected and executed only by the government. The palace of the - Exchange, considered the noblest edifice of the kind in Europe, was completed and opened for the transaction of commercial business, and for the sittings of the tribunal of commerce, since the accession of Charles X.
It is difficult to give within short limits a coup d’ceil of so crowded, diversified, and even dis- orderly, a maxc2xa7s as the French capital,xe2x80x94its church- es, palaces, public buildings, and monuments ot art. Of its churches, the most remarkable are the |