u_ decorations of a branch of a great Parisian department store
flank a butcher's stall which looks as though it might have come down
from the times when all trading was done in the open air.

Compiegne's origin goes back to the antique. It was originally
Compendium, a Roman station situated on the highway between Soissons and
Beauvais. A square tower, Caesar's Tower, gave a military aspect to the
walled and fortified station, and evidences are not wanting to-day to
suggest with what strength its fortifications were endowed.

[Illustration: Compiegne]

It was here that the first Frankish kings built their dwelling, and here
that Pepin-le-Bref received the gracious gift of an organ from the
Emperor Constantine, and here, in 833, that an assembly of bishops and
nobles deposed Louis-le-Debonnaire.

Charles-le-Chauve received Pope Jean VIII in great pomp in the palace at
Compiegne, and it was this Pope who gave absolution to Louis-le-Begue,
who died here but a year after, 879. The last of the Carlovingians,
Louis V (le-Faineant), died also at Compiegne in 987.

The city is thus shown to have been a favourite place of sojourn for the
kings of the Franks, and those of the first and second races. As was but
obvious many churchly councils were held here, fourteen were recorded in
five centuries, but none of great ecclesiastical or civil purport.

The city first got its charter in 1153, but the Merovingian city having
fallen into a sort of galloping decay Saint Louis gave it to the
Dominicans in 1260, who here founded, by the orders of the king, a Hotel
Dieu which, in part, is the same edifice which performs its original
functions to-day.

The first great love of Compiegne was expressed by Charles V, who
rebuilt the palace of Charles-le-Chauve in a manner which was far from
making it a monumental or artistically disposed edifice. It was
originally called the Louvre, from the Latin word _opus_
(_l'oeuvre_), a word which was applied to all the chateaux-forts of
these parts. The same monarch did better with the country-houses which
he afterwards built at Saint Germain and Vincennes; perhaps by this time
he had grown wise in his dealings with architects.

Like all the little towns of the Valois, Compiegne abounds in souvenirs
of the Guerre de Cent Ans, Jeanne d'Arc, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Napoleon I
and Napoleon III, and as its monuments attest this glory, so its forest,
one of the finest in France, awakens almost as many hist