The Musee de Cluny

By Grant Allen


[Footnote: From "Paris."]



The primitive nucleus of the suburb on the South Side consists of the
Roman fortress palace, the "tete du pont" of the Left Bank, now known as
the Thermes, owing to the fact that its principal existing remains include
only the ruins of the bath or therma. This colossal building, probably
erected by Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, covered an
enormous area south of the river. After the Frankish conquest, it still
remained the residence of the Merwing and Karling kings on the rare
occasions when they visited Paris; and it does not seem to have fallen
into utter decay till a comparatively late date in the Middle Ages.

With the Norman irruptions, however, and the rise of the real French
monarchs under Eudes and the Capets, the new sovereigns found it safest to
transfer their seat to the Palace on the Island (now the Palais de
Justice), and the Roman fortress was gradually dismantled. In 1340 the
gigantic ruins came into the hands of the powerful Benedictine Abbey of
Cluny, near Macon, in Burgundy; and about 1480, the abbots began to erect
on the spot a town mansion for themselves, which still bears the name of
the Hotel de Cluny. The letter K, the mark of Charles VIII. (1483-1498),