or importance, in Paris, with the chapels attached to them; besides
different churches with which I shall not tire my reader with
recapitulating, as there are none of them now standing, except the
chapel belonging to the Palais de Justice; he also added several
fountains, contributing to the comforts of the Parisians, as well as
embellishing their city. The number of churches which have been
demolished in Paris within the last fifty years, exceeds the number of
those which are now standing, many of them during the Revolution, which
might have been expected; but an equal number under the Restoration in
the reigns of Louis the Eighteenth and Charles the Tenth, who being
rather devotees, one would have imagined might have been induced to
repair and preserve all religious monuments, also highly interesting as
specimens of the architecture of the different ages in which they were
founded. Louis Philippe has better kept up the spirit of the
_restoration_ in having rescued from demolition the ancient and
beautiful church of St Germain l'Auxerrois; which was to have been
pulled down to make way for a new street, according to the plan
projected by his predecessor; instead of which, it has been repaired
with the greatest judgment, carefully preserving the original style of
the building wherever ornaments or statues required to be renewed. Thus
this noble edifice has been preserved to the public, which would not
have been the case had the Revolution of the Three Days not occurred, as
its doom was sealed prior to that period. In fact, since the accession
to the throne of Louis Philippe, I do not believe that any church has
been pulled down, though several others have been built, and others
finished, which have greatly added to the embellishments of the city.
The memory of Louis IX has ever been cherished as that of a Saint, and
if a man be judged by the number of religious establishments he
instituted, certainly he deserved to be canonised; but however grand may
be the reputation of having founded and erected so many public
monuments, yet when it is considered that numbers of the inmates of the
different convents and monasteries erected by this Saint were obliged to
demand alms from house to house, and of persons passing along the
streets, it will be proved that the grand result of Saint Louis'
operations was to fill Paris with beggars; although it certainly must be
admitted that some of his other acts in a great degree compensated f