THE INSURRECTION IN PARIS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2624, 15 July 1871, Page 3

THE INSURRECTION IN PARIS.

The extent of the destruction of public buildings in Fans will be readily understood by a perusal of the following descriptions of a few of the great public buildings which have fallen a prey to the fury of the insurgents in Paris. We will commence with the imperial palaces, which deserve the first place, nut merely on account of their illusassociations, but of their instructive magnificence as works of architecture. The origin of the Louvre is wrapped in obscurity. It was a royal hunting scat in the days ol the Merovignians, and stood iu the midst ol an immense forest. It is supposed that it derived its name from the wolves (havret), which swarmed around it. The Louvre had already become a fortress, v-hpu, in 120-1. Fh I p repaired it® walls, and prected in the middle of a strong bastioned court, the great tower to which there arc so many references in early French history. It stood near the entrance to the present Museum and the Clock Tower. After a time the palace fell into neglect, and was used as a state prison. Francis I. pulled down the old castle, and commanded the erection of the present edifice, lyhiali furnished employment tp, the sovereigns’, architects, ano decorators' of almost every succeeding generation down to our own. It was according to the fplans of Pierre Lescot that the westarn front, which Francis I. began and Henry 11, finished, was built, Jean Coujun and Paul-Pouncc Trcbatti enriched it hy their sculpture, If you enter the court of the Louvre In the gate opposite the Font dcs Arts, the pile which you will sec on your left, as far as the Clock Tower, belongs to this period. When Catherine de Medicis removed hither from the Tournelles, two wings of the oh! fortress still formed part of the palace, and it was in them that several of the incidents of the massacre of St Bartholomew were enacted. From a window looking on the quay, Charles IX. fired upon the Huguenot? as they fled before flje assassins. No vestige of theyc apaytipents now remains. Henry IV. constructed the Long Gallery leading to the Tuileries. It was begun on the plans ol Pucereau, and completed in a somewhat different fashion by Hupeirac and Mctezeau. The eastern and southern facades (the former looking towards the church of >St. Germain I’Auxerrois, and the other towards the river) were built hy Louis XIV, after the designs of Ferrault, a physician, and author of the wellknown fairy tales. 'They are deemed the finest portions of the palace. Instead of com-

p’eting the works, however, the Grand Monarch, in a lit of caprice, suddenly transferred all his funds and energy to the creation of Versailles. A considerable part of the Louvre remained unroofed until 1802.

Under Napoleon I. the Louvre was considerably repaired and embellished, and the tympanum of the pediment, which had not been finished, was adorned with a bass-re-lief by Levol. 'Jhe first Napoleon always intended to connect the Tuilerh-s with the Louvre—which, with the gallery towards the Seine, formed three sides of an immense parallelogram—by carrying out a line of building uniform with the gallery, from the opposite extremity of the Tuilenes to the other side of the Louvre ; this important work it has been reserved for Napoleon 111. to accomplish. The wing which connects the two palaces bears the name of the New Louvre. The combined palaces occupied nearly sixty aerts of ground, and formed an imperial man ion not surpassed by any edifice in Europe. Louis XV. was the last sovereign who made the Louvre his residence. The old Louvre was used as a museum. In the new Louvre have been located the minister of state and the ministry of the imperial household. The first story of the building, which divides the two courts, contains a magnificent hall (138 feet long, 70 feet wide, and 51 feet high) called the Hall of the Estates [Salle des Etats) which is used for the reception of the great bodies of the state. It is lighted by three rows of windows, one above the other. The ceiling, painted by Muller, represents in an allegorical form the civilising influence of France.

The Palais du Luxembourg, in which the French senate hold its sittings, was situated on the south side of the river, in the Rue de Vaugirard, behind the Ofiiion theatre. This palace was built in 1615 —20 for Marie fie Medicis, then regent, in the style of the palaces of her native city, Florence. Ihe Pitti Palace seems to have been taken as a model by the architect, Jacques de Brosse ; but the imitation is defective on account of details having been employed too massive for the reduced scale of the building. The palace consisted of a centre and a couple of wings connected by terraced arcades takes its name from the mansion of the Duke of Piney-Luxcmbourg,, on the site of which it stands. During the great revolution it was used as a prison. It became successively the pa'accof the Directory, of the Consulate, arid, as at present, of the Senate. In 1848, Louis Blanc held his socialistic gatherings here. The state-apartments were gorgeously decorated. The new reception-hall, formed by throwing three rooms into one, are 200 feet long, and resplendent with gilding, paintings, and marbles. There are several pictures by Hesse, representing incident in the career of Napoleon I. : and two by Lehmann, portraying the course of French civilisation from the defeat of Altila down to the time of the Grand Monarch.