JUSTICE, ROUEN.]

"To-morrow," said Master Lewis, after a day of sight-seeing in Rouen,
"we go to the most beautiful city in all the world."

"I wish I knew more about the history of Paris," said Ernest Wynn,
"now that it is so near to us. I think of it as a place of gayety and
splendor, the scene of St. Bartholomew's Massacre, of the Revolution,
and the Commune. It was the city that Napoleon seemed to love more
than any thing else in the world. What is its early history?"

"You will read in Julius Caesar's Commentaries, in your course in
Latin," said Master Lewis, "a brief account of Lutetia, the chief town
of the Parisii, a Gallic tribe that the Romans conquered. This, I
think, is the oldest historical allusion to Paris, as Lutetia came to
be called. It was probably an old town at the time of the Roman
invasion; it was chosen by Clovis as the seat of his empire in the
sixth century; it began to grow when the Northmen came sailing up the
Seine in their strange ships to its gates, and made it their prey. In
the tenth century it became the residence of Hugh Capet, the founder
of the Capetian line of kings, and soon after increased so rapidly
that it doubled in size and population. Under Henri of Navarre, in
1589, the city began to be famous for its tendencies to gayety and
splendor. Louis the Great lavished the wealth of France upon it,
converting the old ramparts into picturesque public walks or
boulevards, and enlarging and adorning its palaces so that they
rivalled the royal structures of the East. Then Napoleon I. enriched
it with the spoils of Europe, spending on it more than L4,000,000 in
twelve years. Napoleon III. completed the work of his predecessors by
introducing into the city all modern improvements, and making Paris in
every respect the most magnificent capital in Europe.

[Illustration: NORTHMEN ON AN EXPEDITION.]

"I have given you in the story of Charlemagne and in the visit to
Aix-la-Chapelle a view of the early French Empire; in the story of St.
Louis you have had a glance at France at the time of the Crusades; I
think I will here tell you a story which will present to you another
period of the nation's history.

[Illustration: THE BARQUES OF THE NORTHMEN BEFORE PARIS.]

STORY OF CHARLES IX. AND ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S EVE.

"Charles IX., the twelfth king of the family of Valois, came to the
French throne when only ten years of age, under the regency of his
mother, that terrible woman, Catharine