At the south angle of the Rue Montmartre the majestic transitional church of St. Eustache towers over the Halles. We descend the Rue Vauvilliers, formerly of the Four (oven) St. Honoré, in which two of the houses still display old painted signs: others retain their quaint appellations--The Sheep's Trotter, The Golden Sun, The Cat and Ball. Turning westward by the Rue St. Honoré, we shall find at the corner of the Rue de l'Arbre Sec the fine fountain of the Croix du Trahoir erected in the reign of Francis I. and rebuilt by Soufflot in 1775: here tradition places the cruel death of Queen Brunehaut. Lower down, where the street intersects the Rue de Rivoli, an inscription on the corner house to the left marks the site of the Hôtel de Montbazan, where Coligny was assassinated, and yet lower down the Rue de l'Arbre Sec we note the Hôtel des Mousquetaires, the dwelling of the famous D'Artagnan of Dumas' _Trois Mousquetaires_, opposite the apse of the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois. After examining the interior of the church, especially the beautiful fifteenth-century Chambre des Archives, and the porch of the same date, we are brought face to face with the principal entrance to the Louvre. [Illustration: NEAR THE PONT NEUF.] No other edifice in the world forms so vast a treasure house of rich and varied works of art as the great Palace of the Louvre whose growth we have traced in our story. The nucleus of the gallery of paintings was formed by Francis I. and the Renaissance princes at the palace of Fontainebleau, where the canvases at the beginning of the seventeenth century had reached nearly 200. Colbert, during the reign of Louis XIV. by the purchase of the Mazarin and other collections, added 647 paintings and nearly 6000 drawings in ten years. In 1681 the Cabinet du Roi, for so the collection of royal pictures was called, was transferred to the Louvre. They soon, however, followed their owner to Versailles, but some hundred were subsequently returned to Paris, where they might be inspected at the Luxembourg Palace by the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In 1709 Bailly, the keeper of the king's cabinet, took an inventory of the paintings and they were found to number 2376. In 1757 all were again returned to Versailles, and it was not until 1793, when the National Convention, on Barrère's motion, took the matter in hand, that they were restored to the Parisians and, together with the works of art removed from the suppressed churches and monasteries, formed the famous picture gallery of the Louvre, which was formally opened to the public on the first anniversary of the memorable 10th of August. Napoleon's spoils from Italian and other European galleries, which almost choked the Louvre during his reign, were reduced in 1815 by the return of 5233 works of art to their original owners, under English supervision. During the removal of the pictures British sentries were stationed along the galleries, and British soldiers stood under arms on