We now reach the celebrated Pont Neuf, which with its two arms connects the island of the city, otherwise island of Notre Dame, with both banks of the Seine. The island in question is the ancient Lutetia, the germ of modern Paris. The number of habitations on this kernel, this core of the French metropolis, becomes smaller every year. Before long it will be occupied only by its ancient historical edifices, with a café-chantant at one end of the island and the Morgue at the other. Some who begin life at the former will finish it perhaps at the latter establishment. As to the other bridges, it may be sufficient to mention some of their names; which possess for the most part historical significance, and for that reason have, in many cases, to suit historical circumstances, been changed. The bridge of the Arts owes its name to the institute on the left bank, which it connects with the Louvre on the right; and this bridge has retained its original name since the date of its construction. But the National Bridge, as it was called when it was first built under the Republic of 1789, became, after the proclamation of the First Empire, the bridge of the Tuileries; and at the time of the Restoration, Pont Royal. The Solferino bridge, dating only from 1860, the year after the great battle of the French against the Austrians, has retained its name without intermission. The Pont de la Cour has, like the Place of the same name, been called successively Pont Louis XV., Pont de la Révolution, Pont Louis XVI., and finally (since the Revolution which in 1830 placed Louis Philippe on the throne) Pont de la Cour. The bridge of the Alma dates from 1855, the second year of the Crimean war.