A description of Paris, published in the middle of the fifteenth century, describes amongst the most splendid residences of the capital the hotels of Juvénal des Ursins (Fig. 62), of Bureau de Dampmartin, of Guillaume Seguin, of Mille Baillet, of Martin Double, and particularly that of Jacques Duchié, situated in the Rue des Prouvaires, in which were collected at great cost collections of all kinds of arms, musical instruments, rare birds, tapestry, and works of art. In each church in Paris, and there were upwards of a hundred, the principal chapels were founded by celebrated families of the ancient bourgeoisie, who had left money for one or more masses to be said daily for the repose of the soûls of their deceased members. In the burial-grounds, and principally in that of the Innocents, the monuments of these families of Parisian bourgeoisie were of the most expensive character, and were inscribed with epitaphs in which the living vainly tried to immortalise the deeds of the deceased. Every one has heard of the celebrated tomb of Nicholas Flamel and Pernelle his wife (Fig. 63), the cross of Bureau, the epitaph of Yolande Bailly, who died in 1514, at the age of eighty-eight, and who "saw, or might have seen, two hundred and ninety-five children descended from her." In fact, the religious institutions of Paris afford much curious and interesting information relative to the history of the bourgeoisie. For instance, Jean Alais, who levied a tax of one denier on each basket of fish brought to market, and thereby amassed an enormous fortune, left the whole of it at his death for the purpose of erecting a chapel called St. Agnes, which soon after became the church of St. Eustace. He further directed that, by way of expiation, his body should be thrown into the sewer which drained the offal from the market, and covered with a large stone; this sewer up to the end of the last century was still called Pont Alais. [Illustration: Fig. 63.--Nicholas Flamel and Pernelle, his Wife, from a Painting executed at the End of the Fifteenth Century, under the Vaults of the Cemetery of the Innocents, in Paris.]