periods.

The _Louvre_, far from being cheerful from its construction, received
also from this enormous tower a melancholy and terrifying aspect
which rendered it unworthy of being a royal residence. Charles V.
endeavoured to enliven and embellish this gloomy abode, and made it
tolerably commodious for those times. Several foreign monarchs
successively lodged in it; such as Manuel, emperor of Constantinople;
Sigismund, emperor of Germany; and the emperor Charles the Fifth.

This large tower of the _Louvre_, which had, at different periods,
served as a palace to the kings of France, as a prison to the great
lords, and as a treasury to the state, was at length taken down in
1528.

The _Tower of the Library_ was famous, among several others, because
it contained that of Charles V. the most considerable one of the
time, and in which the number of volumes amounted to nine hundred.

OLD LOUVRE

The part of this palace which, at the present day, is called the _Old
Louvre_, was begun under Francis I. from the plan of PIERRE LESCOT,
abbot of Clugny; and the sculpture was executed by JEAN GOUGEON,
whose minute correctness is particularly remarkable in the festoons
of the frieze of the second order, and in the devices emblematic of
the amours of Henry II. This edifice, though finished, was not
inhabited during the reign of that king, but it was by his son
Charles IX.