Among the extraordinary attractions which makes Paris the show place of Europe, the historic Palace of the Louvre possesses, curiously enough, the least drawing power of any. Its popularity, from the tourist viewpoint, at least, certainly falls far short of that enjoyed by the Moulin Rouge. In other words, the Louvre, vast repository as it is of the art wealth of the world, would seem to contain little attraction for the multitude. The annual picture expositions in the Champs Elysees are always crowded to suffocation, especially on free days, showing that the common people are not wholly indifferent to art, but for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, the celebrated museum, the one-time residence of the Kings of France, with all its historic memories, its priceless pictures and endless rooms filled with sculptures and antiquities is treated with indifference and neglect. The _blase_ Parisian takes no interest in it, because it is at his very door. If he loves pictures, he prefers the annual _Salon_ where he regales on the latest conceptions of the various modern schools. To him, the Louvre belongs to the past, in common with the Sorbonne, the Pantheon, Notre Dame, and other public monuments which constitute the city's pride. To-day the Louvre recruits its visitors chiefly from provincial folk and foreigners. Cook's tourists, open-mouthed, heavy-booted, and breathless, rush headlong through the rooms, their feet resounding noisily on the highly polished parquet floors, slippery as ice and shining like mirrors, rudely disturbing the almost religious silence of the deserted galleries. Like a flock of stupid sheep driven by a hoarse-voiced shepherd who acts as official guide, they stumble from room to room, following the long, puzzling labyrinth of corridors, understanding nothing of the stereotyped explanations shouted at them, merely glancing at and quite indifferent to, the art wealth of the centuries which looks disdainfully down upon them from every side. Attendants in uniform, a cocked hat worn jauntily over their left ear, an expression of utter weariness on their stolid, soldier-like faces, walk listlessly up and down with measured tread, secretly despising these foreign barbarians who display so little interest in the great masters, watching with eagle eye that one of the vandals does not stick his umbrella through a priceless Rembrandt or Correggio.