PERRAULT'S enemies disputed with him the invention of this
master-piece. They maintained that it belonged to LE VEAU, the
architect; but, since the discovery of the original manuscript and
drawings of PERRAULT, there no longer remains a doubt respecting
the real author of this beautiful production.

In front of this magnificent colonnade, a multitude of salesmen erect
their stalls, and there display quantities of old clothes, rags, &c.
This contrast, as Mercier justly remarks, still speaks to the eye of
the attentive observer. It is the image of all the rest, grandeur and
beggary, side by side.

However, it is not on the _outside_ of these walls only, that beggary
has been so nearly allied to grandeur. At least we have a solitary
instance of this truth of a very sinking nature.

Cardinal de Retz tells us, that going one morning to the _Louvre_ to
see the Queen of England, he found her in the chamber of her
daughter, aftenwards Dutchess of Orleans, and that she said to him:
"You see, I come to keep Henriette company: the poor girl could not
leave her bed to-day, for want of fuel."--It is true, he adds, that,
for six months past Cardinal Mazarin had not paid her pension; the
tradesmen, would no longer give her credit, and she had not a piece
of wood to warm her.

Like St. Paul's in London, the facade of the _Louvre_ cannot be seen
to the best advantage, on account of the proximity of the surrounding
buildings; and, like many other great undertakings too, will,
probably, never be completed, but remain a monument of the fickleness
of the nation.