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It had not long been the royal residence, when fresh from the convent shades came the fair Queen of Scots, enchanting all hearts by her beauty and her gifts of music and song, and at the age of thirteen astonishing the Court by her delivery of a Latin oration. "On the Necessity of Female Education." As bride of Francis II., she reigned at the Louvre for a few short months, and then, a forlorn widow, hied back to her mountain home. Then Charles IX. ascended the throne, and beside him sat his infamous mother, Catherine de Medici, the real ruler of France. A ruthless massacre of the Protestants was planned, and on the memorable eve of St. Bartholomew forth from the Louvre rushed the chief conspirators, with their white scarves and crosses, to begin the work of blood, which went on and on till in Paris alone it is said that 10,000 persons were slain. In the streets adjacent to the Louvre, hundreds of the Protestant nobility and gentry who had been invited to the marriage of Henry of Navarre with the King's sister, Margaret of Valois, were murdered at their lodgings, while in the very palace itself victims perished; the young bride had her robes stained with blood shed in her presence; the bridegroom and his brother, the Prince of Condé, were brought before Charles and commanded to abjure their religion within three days. Then, according to a popular tradition, the King hastened to a window of the Hôtel de Bourbon, and fired upon his subjects as they fled in terror. Two years afterwards and a chamber at the Louvre saw the bigot King mad with remorse, and dying of a terrible disease.

Henry III. dwelt for a time at the Louvre till faction and civil war drove him from his capital, and he perished at St. Cloud by the assassin's knife; and here, too, after subduing the city, Henry of Navarre had his abode, and here his life ebbed slowly away when he was brought home bleeding from Ravaillac's murderous attack. At the Louvre Marie de Medici dwelt as Regent with her young son, Louis XIII., contending with sedition till the great Richelieu had established the power of the monarchy. It was in a hall of this palace that she harangued the discontented civic authorities, and producing the young King, cried, "Here is your King and your master."

The Louvre was occupied by Louis XV. in his minority, and the "Garden of the Infanta" keeps alive the memory of his Spanish bride. Since then the palace has developed into a wonderful series of grand museums. Miles of paintings, choice sculptures innumerable, Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities, bronzes, historical relics, engravings, designs, and models are amongst the treasures of this grand store-house of the arts and sciences. The spoils of Napoleon's campaigns-chefs-d'œuvre of painting and sculpture from the chief cities of Europe-were exhibited here until the Allies had them restored in 1815.

Twice the Louvre was attacked by the people-in 1830 and again in 1848-but they respected the national property, and the museums were left intact. In 1871, however, the Communists set fire to one of the wings, and the valuable library of 90,000 volumes and many rare and interesting MSS. were entirely destroyed. "On the night of the 23rd May, a troop of insurgents entered the library and ordered the Concièrge to pour petroleum into the different rooms, and on his refusal they imprisoned him with his wife in his own lodge, and proceeded to set fire to the building. Next day the Government troops, under General Douai, arrived in time to release the honest custodian from his perilous situation, and to arrest the further progress of the flames."

It was in the year 1662, whilst discontent and disaffection were spreading amongst his starving people, that Louis XIV. spent £50,000 on a festival of which a grand mock tournament was the conspicuous feature. From this tournament, to which knights and nobles came from all Europe, the Place du Carrousel derives its name. The Triumphal Arch which adorns this remarkable space was reared by Napoleon I., and crowned with a figure of Victory and the four Bronze Horses stolen from the Church of St. Mark in Venice. * At the peace of 1815 these horses went back to Venice, and copies have since occupied their place. Beneath this Triumphal Arch in 1867 rode Bismarck and his royal master in company with Napoleon and Eugénie. Who shall say that the Chancellor was not laughing inwardly over his forecasts of coming events?

To the west of the Place du Carrousel, before the Communist outrages in 1871, rose the five heavy Pavilions and ranges of lower buildings forming the Palace of the Tuileries. Louisa of Savoy, mother of Francis I., once occupied a Hôtel des Tuileries, so named from adjacent tile-fields. On the site of this Hôtel, Catherine de Medici bade Philibert Delorme build for her a stately home, suited to her Italian ideas of pomp and splendour, and worthy of commemorating for evermore the glory and ambition. of the princely houses of Valois and Medici. She had demolished her unlucky Palace des Tournelles, but when her new palace was rising into being, she remembered too late that it was in the parish of St. Germain, and near St. Germain, astrologers had said she should die. She died at Blois, attended, it is said, in her last moments by a bishop who bore the fated name.

Although the Queen would not make the Tuileries a dwelling-place, many were the festivities held here in which her majestic figure took the foremost place. Grand was the revelry in the Tuileries Palace when the young King of Navarre wedded Marguerite of Valois. At a masked ball, whose significance became apparent in the light of after-events, there was a mystical performance, with elaborate scenery, in which twelve richly-apparelled nymphs were seen walking in the Elysian Fields. Charles IX. and his brothers, as knights fully armed, guarded the gates of Paradise. Other knights, led on by the Protestant princes, Henry of Navarre and his brother the Prince of Condé, strove to enter Paradise, but were prevented and driven into Hell. The latter region, peopled with weird-looking devils and devilkins, was represented in another part of the hall. Four days afterwards, the King was crying, "Kill! kill!" as he hounded on his ruffians to their work of slaughter.

Additions to the Tuileries were made by Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., but under the latter King the Court moved to Versailles, and for a long period the Tuileries was only used for grand fêtes or as a resting-place for any of the royal family passing through Paris.

Its real history begins with the Revolution, close upon a hundred years ago, and the story of that hundred years is a strange wild mingling of gay revelry and bloody strife, of triumphant joy and despairing agony, of trustful hope and lofty aspiration, and of madness, perfidy, and crime. To tell that history in detail would be impossible here; only a few of the most striking events can be noted.

On an October evening in 1789, Louis XVI. was brought from Versailles to the *See page 131.

Tuileries by an insurgent people. Strange things had been happening since the tide of revolution began to flow at the meeting of the States-General in the previous Mayblood had been spilt in Paris, the Bastille had been destroyed, and in that day's procession Louis XVI. had seen the heads of some of his murdered guards borne on pikes in ghastly triumph. A few days later the National Assembly located itself at the adjacent Riding School, and set to work vigorously to develop its revolutionary policy. Now and again there was rioting in Paris, and the friends of the royal family were in terror, especially when, on February 28th, 1791-thenceforth known as the Journée des Poniards-a false rumour arrived that Lafayette was assassinated, and that the people were coming to attack the palace. Six hundred gentlemen with swords and pistols and daggers waited in the saloons of the Tuileries to defend the person of their King. But Lafayette and his National Guards appeared, and the humiliated cavaliers were compelled to surrender their arms, and go forth amidst derision and personal indignities. It is no wonder that the royal family wished to leave this unquiet Paris.

In April, a visit to St. Cloud was arranged, and the carriages were drawn up, when the tocsin was heard to ring out from the Church of St. Roch; the Place du Carrousel was filled with a raging crowd, and the King of France found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. He decided upon fleeing the country and joining the emigrant nobles at the frontier. On June 20th, the royal family rose in the dead of the night, and by degrees got to the rendezvous, where a carriage awaited them. The Queen was the last to emerge, and was almost immediately startled by having to step out of the way of General Lafayette's carriage as, lit by flaming torches, it dashed past. Her party were waiting for her at the spot where the Rue de l'Echelle now joins the Rue de Rivoli; but the poor Queen took a wrong turning, crossed the Pont Royal, and wandered for an hour along riverside quays and streets. At last the fugitives got together and started, but the illarranged flight came to nothing, and on the evening of the 25th, amidst a vast concourse of people, the royal family were brought back to the Tuileries-prisoners both in name and in reality.

A

Events in Paris happened suddenly then as they do now; by September a new constitution had been formed, the King swore fidelity, his popularity was restored, and he was set at liberty. All Paris was en fête, and the vast front of the Tuileries blazed with transparencies and festoons of coloured lights. But within the palace there were aching hearts and gloomy forebodings, and the 20th June, 1792, seemed like the beginning of the end. mob of 8,000 people, armed with sticks and pikes and scythes, swept through the saloons and corridors of the Tuileries. In an embrasure of a window sat the King, wearing the red cap, and drinking the health of the people, and for hours listening to the yells and execrations of the mob. In the council chamber Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin, with Madame Elizabeth and a few others, sat behind a table as the horrible crowd surged past and gave vent to its passion in wild oaths and blasphemy. Rapidly approached the climax of suffering. Nowhere was the royal family safe from insult. "Austrian woman," cried the sentinel, as Marie Antoinette one day looked from the window, "I wish I had thy head on this bayonet!" The 10th of August arrived. All through the previous night Paris was raging in its frenzy. Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth stepped out on

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to the balcony and heard the furious roar-bells were ringing, artillery wheels rumbling, and ever and anon came the rattling of musketry. The palace was besieged, and Louis and his family fled for safety to the National Assembly, to return to the Tuileries no more. Meanwhile, through the palace swept the raging mob, and the brave Swiss Guards, essaying a last vain effort to fulfil their trust, were brutally massacred.

In April, 1793, the Convention located itself at the Tuileries, occupying the Salle des Machines, where Voltaire was publicly crowned in 1771. From time to time the palace was again besieged by ferocious crowds, overawing the deputies and dictating the course of procedure. At length, in 1795, when the adjacent streets were thronged by the turbulent sections, the rising young General Napoleon Bonaparte displayed his method of restoring tranquillity by sweeping the streets with cannon-shot. In a few years that young general had seized the helm of power, and the Palace of the Tuileries once more rejoiced in the pomp and splendour of a Court.

From the Tuileries in May, 1800, Napoleon set out with a light-hearted farewell to Josephine, to scale the Alps and conquer at Marengo, and round the Tuileries eight weeks afterwards exulting Paris gathered in her thousands to hail his return with shouts of triumph. It became his favourite residence as Emperor, and in its ante-chambers kings jostled each other as they waited for his approach. Here, in 1809, Josephine signed the deed that divorced her from the husband who never ceased to love her. Next morning, veiled from head to foot, the ex-Empress passed down the marble staircase to her carriage, and left the Tuileries for ever. Here to her daughter Hortense (wife of Napoleon's brother)

a son was born, destined hereafter to mount his uncle's throne as Napoleon III. Early in 1814, in the Salle des Maréchaux, Napoleon harangued the National Guard, and entrusted his wife and child to their care. But the Allies soon neared Paris, and Marie Louise hurried away with the young King of Rome, never to see Paris or her husband again. A Bourbon once more ruled at the Tuileries when the news came that Bonaparte had escaped from Elba, and was hastening to Paris. Again the palace saw the midnight flight of a King, and next morning at the palace gate appeared the Emperor in his usual grey redingote. But the "Hundred Days" terminated at Waterloo, and nobles of the old régime flocked back to the Court of the Tuileries as Louis XVIII. and Charles X. successively reigned, till crowned imbecility culminated in the notorious Ordinances of July, 1830. Once again the palace was invaded by the people, and the splendid furniture carried away or destroyed. Three days sufficed to change the dynasty, and Louis Philippe became King. Learning nothing from the past, he blundered into tyranny; the people rose once more; again the Tuileries was sacked, and the very throne dragged away and burnt at the Place de la Bastille. There was barely time for Louis Philippe and his Queen to cross the gardens in safety, enter a carriage on the Place de la Concorde, and drive away. For ten days the mob bivouacked in the palace, making free with the royal wine-cellars, and carousing in the royal bed-rooms, until ejected by order of the Provisional Government.

After the Revolution of 1848, the Palace of the Tuileries became a hospital; in the following year it was used for an exhibition of paintings; Napoleon III. restored it to more than its original grandeur, and here, over a splendid Court, thronged by "fair women and brave men," the lovely Eugénie presided, till the star of the Bonapartes