The capital was dyed with the blood of Charles's murdered subjects.
Into this very _Louvre_, into the chamber of Marguerite de Valois,
the king's sister, and even to her bed, in which she was then lying,
did the fanatics pursue the officers belonging to the court itself,
as is circumstantially related by that princess in her Memoirs.

Let us draw the curtain on these scenes of horror, and pass rapidly
from this period of fanaticism and cruelty, when the _Louvre_ was
stained by so many crimes to times more happy, when this palace
became the quiet cradle of the arts and sciences, the school for
talents, the _arena_ for genius, and the asylum of artists and
literati.

The centre pavilion over the principal gate of the _Old Louvre_, was
erected under the reign of Lewis XIII. from the designs of LE
MERCIER, as well as the angle of the left part of the building,
parallel to that built by Henry II. The eight gigantic cariatides
which are there seen, were sculptured by SARRASIN.

The facade towards the _Jardin de l'Infante_, (as it is called), that
towards the _Place du Louvre_, and that over the little gate, towards
the river, which were constructed under the reigns of Charles IX. and
Henry III. in the midst of the civil wars of the League, partake of
the taste of the time, in regard to the multiplicity of the
ornaments; but the interior announces, by the majesty of its
decorations, the refined taste of Lewis XIV.

NEW LOUVRE.