"'And where are you two going?' inquired Catherine, the queen's mother. 'To see some rare and curious Greek books found at an old Protestant pastor's, and which have been taken to the Tour de St. Jacques la Boucherie,' replied the inquisitive and erudite Marguerite. For, be it recalled, her knowledge and liking of classical literature was most profound." This fine Gothic tower, which is still a notable landmark, is the only _relique_ of the Church of St. Jacques. A bull of Pope Calixtus II., dated 1119, first makes mention of it, and François I. made it a royal parish church. The tower itself was not built until 1508, having alone cost 1,350 livres. It has often been pictured and painted, and to-day it is a willing or unwilling sitter to most snap-shot camerists who come within focus of it, but no one has perceived the spirit of its genuine old-time flavour as did Méryon, in his wonderful etching--so sought for by collectors--called "Le Stryge." The artist's view-point, taken from the gallery of Nôtre Dame,--though in the early nineteenth century,--with the grotesque head and shoulders of one of those monstrous figures, half-man, half-beast, with which the galleries of Nôtre Dame are peopled, preserves, with its very simplicity and directness, an impression of _Vieux Paris_ which is impossible to duplicate to-day. The Place de la Grève was for a time, at least, the most famous or infamous of all the places of execution in Paris. One reads of it largely in "Marguerite de Valois" in this connection, and in "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" it again crops up, but in a much more pleasant manner. [Illustration: TOUR DE ST. JACQUES LA BOUCHERIE (Méryon's Etching, "Le Stryge")] Dumas, ever praiseful of good wine and good food, describes Vatel, the _maître d'hôtel_ of Fouquet, as crossing the square with a hamper filled with bottles, which he had just purchased at the _cabaret_ of the sign of "L'Image de Nôtre Dame;" a queer name for a wine-shop, no doubt, and, though it does not exist to-day, and so cannot be authenticated, it may likely enough have had an existence outside the novelist's page. At all events, it is placed definitely enough, as one learns from the chapter of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," entitled "The Wine of M. de la Fontaine." "'What the devil are you doing here, Vatel?' said Fouquet. 'Are you buying wine at a _cabaret_ in the Place de Grève?'... 'I have found here, monsieur, a "_vin de Joigny_" which your friends like. This I know, as they come once a week to drink it at the "Image de Nôtre Dame."'" In the following chapter Dumas reverts to the inglorious aspect of the Place and the Quai de la Grève as follows: