exandria and Jerusalem, is now the Marche des Patriarchs. The street
terminates at the church of St. Medard, whose notorious cemetery (p.
245) is now a Square. We retrace our steps, noting L. the old fountain
at the corner of the Rue Pot de Fer, continue to the end of the Rue
Mouffetard, and descend by the Rue Descartes, where at No. 50 is an
inscription marking the site of the Porte St. Marcel called Porte
Bordet. We pass the Ecole Polytechnique, on the site of the old College
of Navarre, and continue down the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Genevieve to
the Place Maubert.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. ETIENNE DU MONT.]

SECTION IV

_The Louvre[193]--Sculpture: Ground Floor._

[Footnote 193: The Louvre is open from 9-5 in summer, from 10-4 in
winter. On Sundays it is open from 10-4. It is closed on Mondays and
holidays and on Thursdays till 1 o'clock.]

No other edifice in Europe contains so vast a treasure of things
beautiful and rare as the great royal palace of the Louvre, whose
growth we have traced in our story. From periods so remote that works
of art sometimes termed ancient are in comparison but of yesterday to
the productions of the generation of artists who have just passed
away, we may study the varying phases of the manifestation through the
ages of the artistic sense in man. From Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria,
from Persia, Phoenicia and Greece, rich and marvellous collections
afford a unique opportunity for the study of comparative aesthetics.
We may safely assume, however, that the traveller will be chiefly
interested in the manifold examples of the plastic and pictorial arts,
here exhibited, from Greece downwards. In the limited space at our
disposal we can do no more than indicate the principal and choicest
objects in the various rooms, praying those whose leisure and interest
impel them to more thorough examination of any one department, to
possess themselves of the admirable and exhaustive special catalogues
issued by the Directors of the Museum.

The nucleus of the gallery of sculpture and painting was formed by
Francis I. and the Renaissance princes at the palace of Fontainebleau,
where the canvases at the beginning of the seventeenth century had
reached nearly 200. Colbert, during the reign of Louis XIV. by the
purchase of the Mazarin and other Collections, added 647 paintings and
nearly 6000 drawings in ten years. In 1681 the Cabinet du Roi, for so
the collection of royal pictures was called