The interior of this palace is not distinguished by any particular style of architecture, the kings who have resided here having made such frequent alterations, that the distribution throughout is very different from that which was at first intended. Here it was that Catherine de Medicis shut herself up with the Guises, the Gondis, and Birague, the chancellor, in order to plan the horrible massacre of that portion of the French nation whose religious tenets trenched on papal power, and whose spirit of independence alarmed regal jealousy. Among the series of entertainments, given on the marriage of the king of Navarre with Marguerite de Valois, was introduced a ballet, in which the papists, commanded by Charles IX and his brothers, defended paradise against the huguenots, who, with Navarre at their head, were all repulsed and driven into hell. Although this pantomime, solely invented by Catherine, was evidently meant as a prelude to the dreadful proscription which awaited the protestants, they had no suspicion of it; and four days after, was consummated the massacre, where that monster to whom nature had given the form of a woman, feasted her eyes on the mangled corpses of thousands of bleeding victims! No sooner was the Pope informed of the horrors of St. Bartholemew's day; by the receipt of Admiral de Coligny's head which Catherine embalmed and sent to him, than he ordered a solemn procession, by way of returning thanks to heaven for the _happy event_. The account of this procession so exasperated a gentlemen of Anjou, a protestant of the name of Bressaut de la Rouvraye, that he swore he would make eunuchs of all the monks who should fall into his hands; and he rendered himself famous by keeping his word, and wearing the trophies of his victory. The _Louvre_ and the palace of the _Tuileries_ were alternately the residence of the kings of France, till Lewis XIV built that of Versailles, after which it was deserted till the minority of Lewis XV, who, when a little boy, was visited here by Peter the Great, but, in 1722, the court quitted Paris altogether for Versailles, where it continued fixed till the 5th of October 1789.