=Louvre.=--The =Louvre= was commenced in 1546, the year preceding the death of Francis I. The design was entrusted to the French architect, Pierre Lescot, but is supposed to have been influenced by Serlio. It exhibits, in fact, a noticeably Italian character and marks the beginning of the advanced phase of the French Renaissance, associated with the reigns of Henri II, Charles IX, and Henri III (1547-1589), while subsequent additions, made during the reigns of Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV, record the progress of the matured Renaissance toward the period of pronounced Classicalism. Accordingly the history of the Louvre is an epitome of what this development involved. The Palace was originally designed to cover the comparatively small square plan which had been occupied by the Gothic, fortified palace of Philippe Augustus, and the parts, executed by Lescot, comprise the west and south façades. In the reign of Louis XIII the original square was doubled in size, so as to enclose the present court of the, so-called, “Old Louvre.” Meanwhile, under Charles IX, the adjacent palace of the Tuilleries was erected by the architect, Philibert de l’Orme, for Catherine de Medicis; and to connect it with the Louvre, a long gallery, subsequently completed by Henri IV, was built along the bank of the Seine. This was supplemented later by wings, forming three sides of the larger Court of the =Place du Carrousel=, which was finished by Napoleon I. Meanwhile, by Louis XIV a new front, bordering on the Seine, had been added to the =Old Louvre=, and finally, under Napoleon III, two wings were projected from the Old Louvre on the north and south of the Place du Carrousel, forming what is now known as the =New Louvre=. At present the only change from the plan thus gradually compiled, consists in the loss of the =Tuilleries= which was burnt by the Commune mob in 1871.