No edifice in Paris itself, nor, indeed, in all France, is more closely identified with the characters and plots of Dumas' romances than the Louvre. In the Valois cycle alone, the personages are continually flocking and stalking thither; some mere puppets,--walking gentlemen and ladies,--but many more, even, who are personages so very real that even in the pages of Dumas one forgets that it is romance pure and simple, and is almost ready to accept his word as history. This it is not, as is well recognized, but still it is a pleasant manner of bringing before the omnivorous reader many facts which otherwise he might ignore or perhaps overlook. It really is not possible to particularize all the action of Dumas' romances which centred around the Louvre. To do so would be to write the mediæval history of the famous building, or to produce an analytical index to the works of Dumas which would somewhat approach in bulk the celebrated Chinese encyclopædia. We learn from "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" of D'Artagnan's great familiarity with the life which went on in the old château of the Louvre. "I will tell you where M. d'Artagnan is," said Raoul; "he is now in Paris; when on duty, he is to be met at the Louvre; when not so, in the Rue des Lombards." This describes the situation exactly: when the characters of the D'Artagnan and the Valois romances are not actually within the precincts of the Louvre, they have either just left it or are about to return thither, or some momentous event is being enacted there which bears upon the plot. Perhaps the most dramatic incident in connection with the Louvre mentioned by Dumas, was that of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night, "that bloody deed which culminated from the great struggle which devastated France in the latter part of the sixteenth century." Dumas throws in his lot with such historians as Ranke and Soldain, who prefer to think that the massacre which took place on the fête-day of St. Bartholomew was not the result of a long premeditated plot, but was rather the fruit of a momentary fanatical terror aroused by the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Coligny. This aspect is apart from the question. The principal fact with which the novelist and ourselves are concerned is that the event took place much as stated: that it was from the Louvre that the plot--if plot it were--emanated, and that the sounding bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois did, on that fateful night, indicate to those present in the Louvre the fact that the bloody massacre had begun. The fabric itself--the work of many hands, at the instigation of so many minds--is an enduring monument to the fame of those who projected it, or who were memorialized thereby: Philippe-Auguste, Marie de Medici, François I., Charles IX., Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon I.,--who did but little, it is true,--and Napoleon III.--who did much, and did it badly.