rmin-Didot, _Paris a travers les
Ages_, gives the following description of the amphitheatre of Lutetia.
"But few constructions are visible around the arena, elliptic in shape
and measuring fifty-four metres on its long axis and forty-seven on the
short one. This was the space reserved for the combats of animals, for
the hunts and other spectacles. A podium, or enclosing wall, surrounded
this arena in its entire circuit, and the thickness of this wall was
such that it resisted the thrust of the sides of the Mount Lucotitius,
on the eastern slopes of which the edifice was constructed. The places
arranged for the spectators of the games, around the arena, were
evidently placed, on the west, on the slope of Mount Lucotitius, where
have been found walls converging toward the centre of the structure to
support the tiers of seats running in the contrary direction. The
benches may have been supported by constructions which have now
disappeared; the various fragments of architecture discovered in the
excavations must have formed part of the decoration of the edifice, as
well as the stones that were employed in the military wall of
fortification of Lutetia during the later period of decline."

The discovery of these ruins caused much excitement among the savants of
Paris at the time. The Societe de Numismatique visited the excavations
in a body, several archaeological and antiquarian associations united in
drawing up a paper, which was presented to the Emperor, advocating the
preservation of this "antique theatre of the popular festivals of the
Gauls, the arena in which had perished for liberty of conscience the
ancestors of the French nation, the field in which sleep the martyrs of
Lutece." A petition was likewise addressed to the Chamber of Deputies;
Napoleon III visited the locality in person; but the Municipal Council
hesitated before the expenditure of 300,000 francs for this purpose, and
the ground was actually purchased by the Compagnie Generale des Omnibus.

This interesting excavation, but little known even to the Parisians, has
now been transformed into a public garden, in the quarter between the
Pantheon and the Jardin des Plantes, and is well worth visiting. The
ancient Mont Lucotitius still heaves itself under the modern Parisian
pavement, and the grades frequently become so steep that they have to
be abandoned, and terraces and retaining-walls substituted. Although
much less than a half of the oval of the original a