f these centuries,
and though his end was less ignominious than the disgracefully unjust
punishment which Louise de Savoie inflicted on his relation, Jacques
de Beaune Semblancay, his life was scarcely less troubled; and after
leaving his bones in Italy with so many of the best of Francois'
courtiers, he bequeathed little but embarrassment to his son, and
Diane de Poitiers took his chateau. His office in Rouen he held from
1494, in the town where his brother Antoine had done so much for St.
Ouen. Indeed every one of these "Surintendants," even to Fouquet of
more modern memory, is associated either personally or indirectly with
so much of the beautiful in architecture and art that posterity has
almost forgiven them mistakes which were due more to the regime they
lived under than to their own shortcomings.

After 1587 the prisons of the Hotel des Generaux were changed from the
ordinary criminal cells to separate dungeons in the Rue du Petit
Salut, where I have fancied I could still trace them in the gloomy
cells at the back of No. 13 Rue Ampere, which tradition assigns to the
"Filles Repenties" of the eighteenth century. In 1554 the Hotel des
Generaux was called Cour des Aides, and by the changes of 1705 it was
joined to the Cour des Comptes in the Rue des Carmes, and the new
Bureau des Finances took the house in the Parvis I have just
described, which still preserves its name. In the general destruction
of 1796 the house was sold to a private owner.

The second Financial building you must see is the Cour des Comptes,
whose courtyard opens on the Rue des Carmes,[63] with another entrance
on the Rue des Quatre Vents. This was originally the property of M.
Rome, Sieur de Fresquiennes and Baron du Bec Crespin, who received
there the Duc de Joyeuse, Governor of Normandy. The large square which
originally composed it was built about 1525, and its beauty may be
imagined from the eastern facade and the southern wing (containing the
Chapel) which still remain. On this eastern front, the two stages
above the ground-floor are of equal height, each with six windows,
separated by pilasters of several different orders, decorated with
capitals and candelabras and groups of mythological subjects, such as
Mars, Venus, the Muses, and various instruments. The south wing is
built in four round-arched arcades with flat Corinthian pilasters,
three of which are in the nave of the Chapel, and two in its
Sanctuary. The second floor has square