off, and
recalls them if they go off on a false scent.

CHAPTER IV

THE PALAIS DE LA CITE AND TOURNELLES

Not every one assumes the Paris Palais de Justice to ever have been the
home of kings and queens. It has not, however, always been a tilting
ground for lawyers and criminals, though, no doubt, when one comes to
think of it, it is in that role that it has acted its most thrilling
episodes.

The Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie and the great clock of the Tour de
l'Horloge mark the Palais de Justice down in the books of most folk as
one of the chief Paris "sights," but it was as a royal residence that it
first came into prominence.

This palace, not the conglomerate half-secular, half-religious pile of
to-day, but an edifice of some considerable importance, existed from the
earliest days of the Frankish invasion, and when occupied by Clotilde,
the wife of Clovis, was known as the Palais de la Cite.

Under the last of the kings of the First Race this palace took on really
splendid proportions. When Hugues Capet arrived on the throne he
abandoned the kingly residence formerly occupied by the Frankish rulers,
the Palais des Thermes, and installed his goods and chattels in this
Palais de la Cite, which his son Robert had rebuilt under the direction
of Enguerrand de Marigny.

Up to the time of Francis I it remained the preferred residence of the
French monarchs, regardless of the grander, more luxuriously disposed
Louvre, which had come into being.

Philippe Auguste, by a contrary caprice, would transact no kingly
business elsewhere, and it was within the walls of this palace that he
married Denmark's daughter. His successors, Saint Louis,
Philippe-le-Hardi, and Philippe-le-Bel did their part in enlarging and
beautifying the structure, and Saint Louis laid the foundations of that
peerless Gothic gem--La Saint Chapelle.

From the windows of the Palais de la Cite another Charles assisted at an
official massacre, differing little from that of Saint Bartholemew's,
which was conducted from the Louvre.

On the first floor of the Palais de Justice of to-day is the apartment
paved in a mosaic of black and white marble, with a painted and gilded
wooden vaulting, where Charles V received the Emperor Charles IV and the
"Roi des Romains." The three monarchs, accompanied by their families,
here supped together around a great round marble table, a secret supper
prolific of an _entente cordiale_ which must have been t