the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work, chained to the oars of the royal galleys. This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Grève, opposite the Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old street. One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents, with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now the Marché des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS, is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of mediæval architecture, although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions, and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse, he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains, (for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle