In spite of the splendour of the present and the past, Paris is by no means too great to prevent one's tracing its old outlines, streets, and landmarks, even though they have disappeared to-day, and the site of the famous Hôtel Chevreuse or the Carmelite establishment in the Rue Vaugirard--against whose wall D'Artagnan and his fellows put up that gallant fight against the cardinal's guard--are in the same geographical positions that they always were, if their immediate surroundings have changed, as they assuredly have. Indeed, the sturdy wall which kept the Carmelite friars from contact with the outer world has become a mere hoarding for gaudily coloured posters, and the magnificent Hôtel Chevreuse on the Boulevard St. Germain has been incorporated into a modern apartment-house, and its garden cut through by the Boulevard Raspail. The destruction of "Old Paris"--the gabled, half-timbered, mediæval city--is not only an artistic regret, but a personal one to all who know intimately the city's history and romance. It was inevitable, of course, but it is deplorable. Méryon, too, like Dumas, etched details with a certain regard for effect rather than a colder preciseness, which could hardly mean so much as an impression of a mood. They both sought the picturesque element, and naturally imparted to everything modern with which they came into contact the same charm of reality which characterized the tangible results of their labours. Nothing was left to chance, though much may--we have reason to think--have been spontaneous. The witchery of a picturesque impression is ever great, but the frequency of its occurrence is growing less and less. To-day we have few romancers, few painters or etchers of fleeting moods or impressions, and are fast becoming schooled in the tenets of Zola and Baudry, to the glorification of realism, but to the death and deep burial of the far more healthy romanticism of the masters of a few generations since. * * * * * To the Roman occupation of Paris succeeded that of the Franks, and Clovis, son of Childérie and grandson of Merovée, after his conversion to Christianity at Reims, established the seat of his empire at Paris. Childebert, the descendant of Clovis,--who had taken unto himself the title King of Paris,--in 524 laid the foundation of the first Église de Notre Dame.