Go along the Rue de Rivoli, past the Palais Royal, till you reach the Rue du Louvre. Turn down it, with the Louvre on your right. To your left stands a curious composite building, with a detached belfry in the centre, and two wings, as it seems, one on either side. The southernmost wing is the old =church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois=, the sole remnant of the earliest Louvre; the northernmost wing is the modern Mairie of the 1st Arrondissement, unhappily intended to “harmonize” with it. The real result is, that the modern building kills the old one. The belfry was designed to fill up the gap between the two. Its effect is disastrous. The church is older than the oldest Louvre. St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre (A.D. 430), was almost one of the first generation of Gallic saints, celebrated for his visit to Britain, where he assisted in gaining the Hallelujah victory over the heathen invaders. A church on this site is said to have been erected in his honour as early as the days of Chilperic. Sacked by the Normans, it was re-erected in something like its present form in the 12th century, but received many subsequent additions. The beautiful =porch=, which we first examine, is of much later date, having been added in 1431 by Jean Gaussel, at a time when the old _château_ of the Louvre had become one of the principal residences of the French kings, in order to give greater dignity, and to afford a covered approach for the royal worshippers to what was practically their own chapel. It therefore contains (restored) statues, in niches, relating especially to the =royal and local Saints of Paris=, whose names are beneath them:—St. Cloud, the Princess Ste. Clotilde, Ste. Radégonde of France, St. Denis, St. Marcel, St. Germain himself, St. Landry, Ste. Isabelle, Ste. Bathilde, St. Jean de Valois, and others. The saints of the royal house are distinguished by crowns or coronets. Two of these statues are old: St. Francis, at the south end, and St. Mary of Egypt, nude, with her long hair, and the three loaves which sustained her in the desert, on the second north pillar. The modern frescoes, destroyed, are by Mottez. Observe the congruity of all these saints to the church and the _château_. St. Landry or Landeric, an early Frankish bishop of Paris, was buried within, and his shrine was a place of pilgrimage. St. Marcel was also a bishop of Paris. St. Cloud was a holy anchorite whose cell was in the wood which occupied the site of the palace (now destroyed) that bears his name. All these saints are therefore closely bound up with the town of Paris and the royal family. You must never forget this near alliance in France between the church and the crown: it colours all the architecture of the early period.