The façade of this colonnade, which is of the Corinthian order; is five hundred and twenty-five feet in length: it is divided into two peristyles and three avant-corps. The principal gate is in the centre avant-corps, which is decorated with eight double columns, crowned by a pediment, whose raking cornices are composed of two stones only, each fifty-four feet in length by eight in breadth, though no more than eighteen inches in thickness. They were taken from the quarries of Meudon, and formed but one single block, which was sawed into two. The other two avant-corps are ornamented by six pilasters, and two columns of the same order, and disposed in the same manner. On the top, in lieu of a ridged roof, is a terrace, bordered by a stone balustrade, the pedestals of which are intended to bear trophies intermixed with vases. PERRAULT'S enemies disputed with him the invention of this master-piece. They maintained that it belonged to LE VEAU, the architect; but, since the discovery of the original manuscript and drawings of PERRAULT, there no longer remains a doubt respecting the real author of this beautiful production. In front of this magnificent colonnade, a multitude of salesmen erect their stalls, and there display quantities of old clothes, rags, &c. This contrast, as Mercier justly remarks, still speaks to the eye of the attentive observer. It is the image of all the rest, grandeur and beggary, side by side. However, it is not on the _outside_ of these walls only, that beggary has been so nearly allied to grandeur. At least we have a solitary instance of this truth of a very sinking nature. Cardinal de Retz tells us, that going one morning to the _Louvre_ to see the Queen of England, he found her in the chamber of her daughter, aftenwards Dutchess of Orleans, and that she said to him: "You see, I come to keep Henriette company: the poor girl could not leave her bed to-day, for want of fuel."--It is true, he adds, that, for six months past Cardinal Mazarin had not paid her pension; the tradesmen, would no longer give her credit, and she had not a piece of wood to warm her. Like St. Paul's in London, the façade of the _Louvre_ cannot be seen to the best advantage, on account of the proximity of the surrounding buildings; and, like many other great undertakings too, will, probably, never be completed, but remain a monument of the fickleness of the nation. Lewis XIV, after having for a long time made the _Louvre_ his residence; abandoned it for _Versailles_: "Sire," said Dufreny once to that prince, "I never look at the _New Louvre_, without exclaiming, superb monument of the magnificence of our greatest kings, you would have been finished, had you been given to one of the begging orders of friars!" From that period, the _Louvre_ was wholly consecrated to the sittings of different academies, and to the accommodation of several men of science and artists, to whom free apartments were allotted.