or architecture, and the two now became deeply interested in
the various schemes which were mooted for the completion of the
Louvre. Bernini was summoned by the King from Rome, and entrusted with
the task; but the brothers Perrault intervened. Charles conceived the
idea of the great east front and communicated it to Claude, who drew
the plans and was commissioned to carry them out. The work was
finished in 1671, and is still popularly known as Perrault's
Colonnade._

_In the same year Charles was elected to the Academy without any
personal canvas on his part for the honour. His inaugural address was
heard with such approval that he ventured to suggest that the
inauguration of future members should be a public function. The
suggestion was adopted, and these addresses became the most famous
feature of the Academy's proceedings and are so to the present day.
This was not his only service to the Academy, for he carried a motion
to the effect that future elections should be by ballot; and invented
and provided, at his own expense, a ballot-box which, though he does
not describe it, was probably the model of those in use in all modern
clubs and societies._

_The novelty of his views did not always commend them to his brother
'Immortals.' Those expressed in his poem "Le Siecle de Louis XIV,"
which he read as an Academician of sixteen years' standing, initiated
one of the most famous and lasting literary quarrels of the era.
Perrault, in praising the writers of his own age, ventured to
disparage some of the great authors of the ancient classics. Boileau
lashed himself into a fury of opposition and hurled strident insults
against the heretic. Racine, more adroit, pretended to think that the
poem was a piece of ingenious irony. Most men of letters hastened to
participate in the battle. No doubt Perrault's position was untenable,
but he conducted his defence with perfect temper and much wit; and
Boileau made himself not a little absurd by his violence and his
obvious longing to display the extent of his learning. Perrault's case
is finally stated in his four volumes, "Le Parallele des Anciens et
des Modernes," which were published in 1688-1696. He evidently took
vastly more pride in this dull and now almost forgotten work than in
the matchless stories which have made him famous for ever._

_After twenty years in the service of Colbert, the sun of Perrault's
fortunes passed its zenith. His brother, the Commissioner of Taxes,
ha