This bespeaks a catholicity which, perhaps, after all, is, or should be, the birthright of every historical novelist. He said further, in this really valuable and interesting contribution, which seems to have been entirely overlooked by the bibliographers, that "to write the history of France would take a hundred volumes"--and no doubt he was right, though it has been attempted in less. And again that "the aggrandizement of Paris has only been accomplished by a weakening process having been undergone by the provinces." The egg from which Paris grew was deposited in the nest of _la cité_, the same as are the eggs laid _par un cygne_. He says further that in writing the history of Paris he would have founded on "Lutetia (or Louchetia) the _Villa de Jules_, and would erect in the Place de Notre Dame a temple or altar to Ceres; at which epoch would have been erected another to Mercury, on the Mount of Ste. Geneviève; to Apollo in the Rue de la Barillerie, where to-day is erected that part of Tuileries built by Louis XIV., and which is called _Le Pavillon de Flore_. "Then one would naturally follow with _Les Thermes de Julien_, which grew up from the _Villa de Jules_; the reunion under Charlemagne which accomplished the Sorbonne (_Sora bona_), which in turn became the favourite place of residence of Hugues Capet, the stronghold of Philippe-Auguste, the _bibliothèque_ of Charles V., the monumental capital of Henri VI. d'Angleterre; and so on through the founding of the first printing establishment in France by Louis XI.; the new school of painting by François I.; of the Académie by Richelieu; ... to the final curtailment of monarchial power with the horrors of the Revolution and the significant events which centred around the Bastille, Versailles, and the Tuileries." Leaving the events of the latter years of the eighteenth century, and coming to the day in which Dumas wrote (1867), Paris was truly--and in every sense-- "The capital of France, and its history became not only the history of France but the history of the world.... The city will yet become the capital of humanity, and, since Napoleon repudiated his provincial residences and made Paris _sa résidence impériale_, the man of destiny who reigns in Paris in reality reigns throughout the universe." There may be those who will take exception to these brilliant words of Dumas. The Frenchman has always been an ardent and _soi-disant_ bundle of enthusiasm, but those who love him must pardon his pride, which is harmless to himself and others alike, and is a far more admirable quality than the indifference and apathy born of other lands. His closing words are not without a cynical truth, and withal a pride in Paris: "It is true that if we can say with pride, we Parisians, 'It was Paris which overthrew the Bastille,' you of the provinces can say with equal pride, 'It was we who made the Revolution.'" As if to ease the hurt, he wrote further these two lines only: