Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/313

PARIS 291 most at the Louvre; it was there that in 1572 he signed the order for the massacre of St Bartholomew. Henry III. remained for the most part at Blois, and hardly came to Paris except to be witness of the power of his enemies the Guises. Taking advantage of the absence of the kings, the League had made Paris a centre of opposition. The municipal militia were restored and reorganized ; each of the sixteen quarters or arrondissements had to elect a deputy for the central council, which became the council or rather faction of The Sixteen, and for four years, from 1587 to 1591, held the city under a yoke of iron. Henry III., having come to the Louvre in 1588, unwillingly received there the duke of Guise, and while endeavouring to take measures for his own protection provoked a riot known as the Day of the Barricades. It was with difficulty that he escaped from his palace, which at that time had no communication with the country, and which Henry IV. afterwards proposed to unite with the Tuileries in order to provide a sure means of escape in case of need. When, after the murder of the duke of Guise at Blois at the close of 1588, Henry III. desired to return to Paris, he was not yet master of the city, and was obliged to besiege it in concert with his presumptive heir the king of Navarre. The operations were suddenly interrupted on August 1, 1589, by the assassination of the king, and Henry IV. carried his arms elsewhere. He returned with his victorious forces in 1590. This second siege lasted more than four years, and was marked by terrible suffering, produced by famine and the tyranny of The Sixteen, who were supported by the intrigues of the king of Spain and the violent harangues of the preachers. Even the conversion of the king did not allay the spirit of fanaticism, for the king s sincerity was suspected, and the words (which history, however, fails to substantiate), "Paris is surely worth a mass," were attri buted to him. But after the coronation of the king at Chartres the commonalty of Paris, weary of intriguing with strangers and Leaguers, gave such decided expression to its feelings that those of its leaders who had kept aloof or broken off from the faction of The Sixteen attached them selves to the parlement, which had already evaded the ambitious designs of the king of Spain ; and after various negotiations the provost of the merchants, L Huillier, offered the keys of the city to Henry IV. on March 22, 1594-. The king met no resistance except on the part of a company of German landsknechts, which was cut in pieces, and the students of the university, who, steeped in the doctrines of the League, tried to hold their quarter against the royal troops, but were dispersed. The Spanish soldiers who had remained in the town decamped next day. Henry IV., who carried on the building of the Louvre, was the last monarch who occupied it as a regular residence. Attempts on his life were made from time to time, and at last on May 14, 1610, he fell under Ravaillac s knife near the market-house in Hue de la Ferronnerie. Whether royalty gave it the benefit of its presence or not, Paris continued all the same to increase in political importance and in population. Here is the picture of the city presented about 1560 by Michel de Castelnau, one of the most celebrated chroniclers of the 16th century: " Paris is the capital of all the kingdom, aiid one of the most famous in the world, as well for the splendour of its parlement (which is an illustrious company of thirty judges attended by three hundred advocates and more, who have reputation in all Christendom of being the best seen in human laws and acquainted with justice) as for its faculty of theology and for the other tongues and sciences, which shine more in this town than in any other in the world, besides the mechanic arts and the marvellous traffic which render it very populous, rich, and opulent ; in such sort that the other towns of France and all the magistrates and subjects have their eyes directed thither as to the model of their decisions and their political administrations." Castelnau spoke rather as a statesman and a magistrate, and lie did not look close enough to see that the university was beginning to decline. The progress of the sciences somewhat lessened the importance of its classes, too specially devoted to theology and literature ; the eyes of men were turned towards Italy, which was then considered the great centre of intellectual advance; the colleges of the Jesuits were formidable rivals ; the triumphs of Protestantism deprived it of most of the students who used to flock to it from England, Germany, and Scandinavia; and finally the unfortunate part it played in political affairs weakened its influence so much that, after the reign of Henry IV., it no longer sent its deputies to the states-general. If the city on the left side of the river neither extended its circuit nor increased its population, it began in the 16th century to be filled with large mansions (hotels), and its com munications with the right bank were rendered easier and more direct when Henry IV. constructed across the lower end of the island of La Cit6 the Pont ISTeuf, which, though retaining its original name, is now the oldest bridge in Paris. On the right side of the river commerce and the progress of centralization continued to attract new inhabitants, and old villages become suburbs were enclosed within the line of a bastioned first enceinte, the ramparts of Etienne Marcel being, however, still left untouched. Although Louis XIII., except during his minority, rarely stayed much in Paris, he was seldom long absent from it. His mother, Mary de Medici, built the palace of the Luxembourg, which, after being extended under Louis Philippe, became the seat of the senate. Louis XIII. finished, with the exception of the eastern front, the buildings enclosing the square court of the Louvre, and carried on the wing which was to join the palace to the Tuileries. Queen Anne of Austria founded the Val de Grace, the dome of which, afterwards painted on the interior by Mignard, remains one of the finest in Paris. Richelieu built for himself the Palais Royal since restored, and rebuilt the Sorbonne, where now stands his magnificent tomb by Girardon. The island of St Louis above La Cite, till then occupied by gardens and meadows, became a populous parish, whose streets were laid out in straight lines, and whose finest houses still date from the 17th century. Building also went on in the Quartier du Marais (quarter of the marsh) ; and the whole of Place Royale (now Place des Vosges), with its curious arcaded galleries, belongs to this period. The church of St Paul and St Louis was built by the Jesuits beside the ruins of the old Hotel St Paul ; the church of St Gervais received a fa^-ade which has be come in our time too famous. St Etienne du Mont and St Eustache were completed (in the latter case with the exception of the front). The beautiful Salle des Pas-Perdus (Hall of Lost Footsteps) was added to the Palais de Justice. Besides these buildings and extensions Paris was indebted to Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu for three import ant institutions the royal printing press in 1620, the Jardin des Plantes in 1626, and the French Academy in 1635. The bishopric of Paris was separated from that of Sens and erected into an archbishopric in 1623. As memorials of Mazarin Paris still possesses the College des Quatre-Nations, erected with one of his legacies immedi ately after his death, and since appropriated to the Institute, and the palace which, enlarged in our own time, now accommodates the national library. The stormy minority of Louis XIV. was spent at St Germain and Paris, where the court was held at the Palais Royal. The intrigues of the prince of Conde, Cardinal de Retz, and (for a brief space) Turenne resulted in a siege of Paris, during which more epigrams than balls were fired off ; but the cannon of the Bastille, discharged by order of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, enabled Conde to enter the