e old chateau as the
kernel of his new wing, and the enormous strength of the original
building of Philip Augustus may be estimated by the fact that the
embrasures of each of the five casements of the first floor looking
westwards now serve as offices. So _grandement satisfait_ was Henry
with the perfection of Lescot's work, that he determined to continue
it along the remaining three wings, that the court of the Louvre might
be a _cour non-pareille_. The south wing was, however, only begun when
his tragic death occurred, and the present inconsequent and huge
fabric is the work of a whole tribe of architects, whose intermittent
activities extended over the reigns of nine French sovereigns.

Lescot and Goujon were also associated in the construction of the most
beautiful Renaissance fountain in Paris, the Fontaine des Innocents,
which formerly stood against the old church of the Innocents at the
corner of the Rue aux Fers. It was while working on one of the figures
of this fountain that Jean Goujon is traditionally said to have been
shot as a Huguenot during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.[111]

[Footnote 111: A document recently discovered at Modena however,
proves that Goujon, after the massacre of Vassy, fled to Italy with
other Protestants and died in obscurity at Bologna.]

[Illustration: TRITONS AND NEREIDS FROM THE OLD FONTAINE DES
INNOCENTS. _Jean Goujon._]

Europe was now in travail of a new era, and unhappy France reeled
under the tempest of the Reformation. A daring spirit of enquiry and
of revolt challenged every principle on which the social fabric had
been based, and the only refuge in the coming storm in France was the
Monarchy. Never had its power been more absolute. The king's will was
law--a harbour of safety, indeed, if he were strong and wise and
virtuous: a veritable quicksand, if feeble and vicious. And to
pilot the state of France in these stormy times, Henry II. left a
sickly progeny of four princes, miserable puppets, whose favours were
disputed for thirty years by ambitious and fanatical nobles, queens
and courtesans.

Francis II., a poor creature of sixteen years, the slave of his wife
Marie Stuart and of the Guises, was called king of France for
seventeen months. He it was who sat daily by Mary in the royal garden,
on the terrace at Amboise overlooking the Loire, and, surrounded by
his brothers and the ladies of the court, gazed at the revolting and
merciless executions of the Protestant