Paris before the conquest by the Franks was practically only the Seine-surrounded isle known as Lutetia, and later as "La Cite," and the slight overflow which crept up the slopes of the Montagne de la Sainte Genevieve. From the Chatelet to the Louvre was a damp, murky swamp called, even in the moyen-age, Les Champeaux, meaning the Little Fields, but swampy ones, as inferred by studying the evolution of the name still further. A rapid rivulet descended from Menilmontant and mingled with the Seine somewhere near the Garden of the Tuileries. Clovis and his Franks attacked the city opposite the isle, and, upon the actual achievement of their conquest, threw up an entrenched camp on the approved Roman plan in what is now the courtyard of the old Louvre, and filled the moat with the waters of this rivulet. The ensemble was, according to certain authorities, baptized the Louvre, or Lower, meaning a fortified camp. This entrenchment was made necessary in order that the Franks might sustain themselves against the Gallo-Roman occupants of Lutetia, and in time enabled them to acquire the whole surrounding region for their own dominion. This the Lower, or Louvre, made possible, and it is well deserved that its name should be thus perpetuated, though actually the origin of the name is in debate, as will be seen by a further explanation which follows. Little by little this half-barbaric camp--in contradistinction to the more solid works of the Romans--became a _placefort_, then a chateau, then a palace and, finally, as the young lady tourist said, an art museum. Well, at any rate, it was a dignified evolution. Two Louvres disappeared before the crystallization of the present rather irregularly cut gem. From the Merovingians dates the Louvre des Champs, the hostile, militant Louvre, with its high wood and stone tower, familiar only in old engravings. After this the moyen-age Louvre, attributable to Saint Louis and Charles V, with its great tower, its thick walls of stone and its deep-dug moats, came into being. With Francis I came a more sympathetic, a more subtle era of architectural display, a softening of outlines and an interpolation of flowering gables. It was thus that was born that noble monument known as the New Louvre, which combined all the arts and graces of a fastidious ambition.