was subsequently fished up, and brought to its destination. At the time of the Fronde all persons crossing this bridge in carriages were made to get out and kneel down in the road. On the river-bank in the Ile de la Cité stands the Morgue (from an old French word, meaning the face), where, on marble slabs, dead bodies found in the streets or river are exposed for identification—a ghastly sight, but thousands of peop! pass through the building in the course of each day. From the Morgue to the cemeteries is a natural transition. Of these, the most famous is Père la Chaise, recalling by its name the confessor of Louis XIV., and superior of the Mont Louis community of Jesuits. Their estate was sold up when the community became insolvent, and after passing through several hands, was purchased by the Prefect of the Seine for a cemetery. One of the most celebrated monuments is the tomb of Abelard, constructed out of the ruins of his famous Abbey of the Paraclete. The Cimetière de Montmartre was the first formed outside the city when the burialgrounds were closed, and called the Champ du Repos. It is noticeable for its tombs of Polish exiles. Since 1785 seven millions of skulls and bones from the old burying-grounds of Paris have been taken to the Catacombs. Walls of skulls, joints, and vertebræ meet the eye of the visitor in every direction. The origin of these singular subterranean caverns, of which an extent of 200 acres has been explored, is lost in the night of time. There seems no doubt but that as early as the fourth century robbers and cut-throats, and similar characters, were burrowing in the soft strata underlying Southern Paris. Very extensive excavations were also made for building purposes. This sort of thing went on for ten centuries, till the foundations of the Observatory and some other public buildings were seen to be giving way. Works were undertaken to insure safety, and at the same time it was resolved to utilise the Catacombs for relieving the burial-grounds of Paris of the overflowing population of the dead. With the exception of the Bois de Boulogne, all hitherto described is within the walls of Paris, but outside those walls are many sites of historic interest. Foremost of these in point of celebrity comes Versailles, with its grand palace and gardens, created by Louis XIV. at a cost of not less than forty millions of pounds sterling, necessitating increased taxation, that hastened the coming of the Great Revolution. Its splendid saloons and apartments, associated with all the glories and scandals of the French Court from the youth of Louis XIV. to the Revolution; its vast collections of pictures, portraits, busts, and statues; its terraces, avenues, parterres, orangeries, bowers, lakes, and grand fountains: all these and other attractions, which draw thousands of visitors to this magnificent home of royalty, would require a chapter to describe in detail, while to narrate the historic memories of the palace would be to write the history of France for a hundred years. An innumerable train cf kings and queens, poets and philosophers, courtiers and lovely women, passed through these halls. Louis XIV. changed his predecessors' hunting-lodge at Versailles into a gorgeous palace for Madame la Vallière. When that lady fled, to die in a convent cell, the graceful and witty Madame de Montespan, with her blue eyes and fair waving hair, reigned here in her stead. When she also sought the cloister, Madame de Maintenon succeeded, and was married to the King in 1686. Magnificent and lavishly Paris.] VERSAILLES. 243 extravagant were the Court festivities in those days. At the marriage of the Duke of Burgundy, 4,000 wax candles lit the Great Gallery, that could scarcely contain the throng of courtiers and grand ladies brilliantly dressed and sparkling with flashing gems. Amongst that gay crowd moved generals like Turenne, statesmen like Colbert and Louvet, men of letters like Racine and Boileau and Molière, and preachers like Bossuet and Massillon and Père la Chaise-the latter craftily working to bring about the infamous Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Here Madame de Maintenon watched the death-bed of Louis XIV., and then retired to St. Cyr, to end her days in prayer. Louis XV., whilst loving, in a fashion, his "frozen Venus," Queen Maria Leckzinska, brought to Versailles Madame de Pompadour, who won his admiration whilst hunting in the forest. Her name for twenty years stood foremost in France, till she died in the palace, suffering in mind and body. Clad in a robe of serge, and with a wooden cross on her bosom, she was carried hence with a pauper's funeral, as she had directed, to her grave in the Capuchin convent; and the King, who watched the scene from the balcony, soon solaced himself with the society of Madame du Barry. When the last miserable years of Louis XV. were ended, the Du Barry was sent adrift, and a brilliant Court soon clustered round the fair Queen Marie Antoinette. Here Burke saw her, and compared her to "the morning star, full of hope, and splendour, and joy." In the distinguished crowd that surrounded her, beauty and courage, and wisdom and wit, were conspicuous. There were the lovely Princesse de Lamballe (destined to a horrible doom in the maddest moment of the people's frenzy); the graceful Duchess de Polignac; young Lafayette; the sage American, Franklin; Talleyrand; the Count d'Artois (long after to be known as Charles X.); "Monsieur " (afterwards Louis XVIII.), writing philosophical articles, and proud of seeing them anonymously in print; and the good and gentle Madame Elizabeth, loving the king, her brother, and his wife and children, with a devotion to be sealed with her blood. But whilst the Court pursued its glittering round of pleasure, and Louis XVI. busied himself with his beloved turning-lathe and forge, ominous clouds were gathering. Soon those clouds broke in the tempest of revolution. A ferocious crowd carried off the King and his family in triumph to Paris, and the Palace of Versailles ceased to be a royal residence. It was stripped and devastated, and turned into a manufactory of arms. Napoleon wished to re-furnish it, but could not spare the money. Louis Philippe spent large sums in restoring the palace, and made it what it now is-a grand historical museum. On the 18th of January, 1871, the Great Gallery beheld a novel scene, for here King William of Prussia was declared Emperor of Germany by the generals of the army that was then besieging Paris. The Great and Little Trianon are for the most part associated with the royal mistresses. At the latter Louis XV. died of small-pox, whilst the Du Barry was anxiously watching for the signal-light in his window which told her that her reign was at an end. Hither came Marie Antoinette in her straw hat and white muslin dress to cultivate her flowers, and play at being dairymaid and shepherdess. Fontainebleau, where kings and rulers of France took their pleasure in successive edifices, from the time of King Robert the Devout to Louis Philippe, is a handsome town, with a splendid palace and a grand forest. In this palace Napoleon I. signed his abdication in 1814. At Compiègne, where in 1430 the Maid of Orleans was made prisoner by the English, there is a beautiful palace which was always a favourite residence with the royalty of France. Here wandered Marie de Medici, watched by Richelieu's spies, till she escaped to die in poverty in a foreign land; here strayed young Louis XV., sighing for Mazarin's lovely niece, Marie Mancini; here Louis XVI., and afterwards Napoleon, came to meet their respective Austrian brides. St. Cloud, preserving by its name the memory of the pious grandson of Clotilda, shows a mass of ruins for what was once a stately palace. In the adjacent forest Catherine de Medici and her fifty plumed damsels hunted. In the palace the line of Valois became extinct when Henry III. died by the knife of Friar Clement. Here, long after, Mirabeau, won over by the seductive grace of Marie Antoinette, mistook the signs of the times, and declared that the monarchy was saved. Here, as it were but yesterday, the young Prince Imperial was holding his youthful Court. St. Germain-en-Laye is associated with the exiled Stuarts, who at this place plotted the restoration that was not to be. Here poor Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles I. of England, dwelt, so poor at times as to be obliged to stay in bed for want of a fire. Here Charles II. held his Court, and vainly tried to win Mademoiselle de Montpensier, the richest heiress in France. In 1689 James II. came with his troop of exiled nobles to live on the bounty of King Louis, and here the Pretender Charles Edward was proclaimed James III. of England. Vincennes has won fame as palace, prison, and fortress. It is associated with the loves of Charles VII. and Agnes Sorel, the death of Henry V., King of France and England, and was the prison-house of hundreds of victims of the dreaded lettres de cachet. Here the young Duc d'Enghien was shot by Napoleon as a warning to the Bourbons. There are scores of other interesting spots around Paris which we can but name: St. Dénis, famous for its abbey-church, and monuments of the Kings of France, rifled in a single day in 1793 of the royal remains of ten centuries; Malmaison, sacred to Josephine's sorrowing widowhood; Charenton, famous for religious controversies at the time of the League, and at the present time for its National Lunatic Asylum; Arceuil, with its magnificent aqueduct of the time of Louis XIII., and remains of an earlier and Roman structure; Rambouillet, recalling the memory of Diana of Poitiers; the place where Charles X. signed his abdication; St. Cyr, where Madame Maintenon died; Poissy, the birthplace of St. Louis; Marly, a favourite haunt of Louis XIV.; Sèvres, renowned all over the world for its magnificent porcelain; Meudon, where Rabelais laughed, and wrote, and preached; Mont Valérien, a frowning fort standing on the hill where in former times Druids' altars, hermits' cells, and Trappists' monasteries succeeded one another; Nanterre, where La Rosière is crowned on the 15th of May; Neuilly, the favourite home of Louis Philippe when he received the crown in 1830; Chantilly, associated with the great house of Condé and with modern horse-racing; Montmorency, where Rousseau wrote La Nouvelle Héloïse. Such is Paris; and we think we have justified our description of it in the introductory chapter as "gay and mournful, flower-strewn and blood-stained, the home of peaceful arts and the scene of sanguinary revolutions; where every street has a history, and every history a moral.” Origin of the Town and its Name-Shape of the Town-The Boompjes-The ERY little is known of the origin of Rotterdam. In his "Historia Gallica," Robert Cenalis, Bishop of Avranches, states that it was founded by Rotter, King of France; while Trithème, who wrote about the same time, asserts that it was founded in 808, and that Rutter, twenty-third King of France, was buried there. That these writers are inaccurate is demonstrated from the fact that long after the date given for the foundation of the city the site was buried under the waters of the Maas, and also from the fact that there was no King of France named Rutter. Rotterdam derives its name from the enormous dam which was placed at the junction of the Rotte and Maas, a dam or dyke, which runs through the town now, and on it is built the principal street, namely, the Hoogstraat, or High Street. When the dam was built a town sprang up, called in consequence Rotterdam; in 1270 it was walled, and became a city; in 1297 it was seized by the Flemings, and in 1418 by Waldegrave, Lord of Brederode. In 1794 the town was taken by the French, and suffered much from the decline of commerce during the long war which was happily terminated by the peace of 1815. Like all Dutch towns, Rotterdam has suffered from time to time from the incursions of rivers and seas, one of the most disastrous inundations having taken place in 1825, when there was an extraordinary high tide in the Maas, which threatened to destroy the town, and succeeded in doing great damage. Like all Dutch towns, too, Rotterdam suffered at the hands of the Spaniards. In 1572, when Count Bossu had made an ineffectual attempt to recover Brill from the hands of the rebel forces, he turned towards Rotterdam, but found the gates closed against him, and the citizens determined to resist as far as possible the entry of the Spaniards. Compelled to parley, Bossu resorted to a perfidious stratagem. He requested permission for his troops to pass through the city without halting. This was granted by the magistrates on condition. that only a corporal's command should be admitted at a time. To these terms the count affixed his hand and seal. With the admission, however, of the first detachment, a violent onset was made upon the gate by the whole Spanish force. The townspeople, not suspecting treachery, were not prepared to make effective resistance. A stout smith, confronting the invaders at the gate, almost singly, with his sledge-hammer, was stabbed to the heart by Bossu with his own hand. The soldiers, having thus gained admittance, rushed through the streets, putting every man to death who offered the slightest resistance. Within a few minutes 400 citizens were murdered. The fate of the women, abandoned now to the outrage of a brutal soldiery, was worse than death. The capture of Rotterdam is infamous for the same crimes which blacken the record of every Spanish triumph in the Netherlands.* Since 1830, after the separation of Holland and Belgium, Rotterdam has grown and thriven with surprising speed, drawing to herself all that was lost by her rival Antwerp; and latterly, since the opening of the Dutch-Rhenish Railway, trade has received a marvellous impulse. The situation of Rotterdam is exceedingly advantageous to commerce, communicating with the sea by the Maas, which enables the largest foreign vessels to come to her ports in a few hours; and by the same river easy access is had to the Rhine, which brings from the mountains of Switzerland and Bavaria immense quantities of timber. The enormous bridge open for traffic in 1877 joins every city of Holland by means of railway communication with the whole continent of Europe. The railway, carried across the town by means of a lofty viaduct a mile in length, has been a stupendous work, involving enormous expense; the new and magnificent quays have been made with immense labour out of mud-banks into which entire forests have been buried for foundations; and the intricate navigation of the Maas, involving heavy pilot dues, has gone a long way towards hampering the prosperity of the town. But Rotterdam, with all the drawbacks to its trade, has had far fewer difficulties to contend with than Amsterdam. Rotterdam is in the shape of an equilateral triangle, the base of which is an enormous dam, defending the city from the river Maas. Another great dyke forms a second bulwark against the river, which divides the city into two almost equal parts. That portion of the city comprised within the two dykes is the New City, and consists principally of islands, with canals and bridges; the portion extending beyond the second dyke is the Old City. The base of the triangle is called the Boompjes, signifying in Dutch "small trees," from a row of little elms, now grown very tall, that were planted upon it when it was first *Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic." |