Even at this time Paris was noted for its _orfévrerie_, its works in gold and silver being much sought after. The Rue St. Denis was the principal street; its shops and warehouses were famous all over Europe. Along that street kings and queens used to make their solemn entrance into the capital, when the merchants spent their money like water to decorate their houses in welcome of their sovereign. Between it and the Rue aux Fers was the Church of the Innocents, round which lay the famous cemetery, enclosed with dank and sombre arcades, filled with shops and stalls. They were the favorite resort of lawyers, and the rendezvous of fashion and intrigue, as the Cathedral of St. Paul’s was to the English court or city gallants in the reign of the Stuarts. The Rue Jacob (St. Jacques) was like Paternoster Row, full of shops plentifully furnished with books--diversos libros diversis artibus aptos. The chief royal residence was the Louvre. The palace of the Tournelles--the Place Royale now occupies its site--was deserted after the accident to Henry II. The brick-fields which gave their name to the new palace of the Tuileries had disappeared in the previous century; and Catherine, having purchased the Marquis of Villeroy’s hotel with the adjoining property, gave Philibert Delorme instructions to commence that striking monument of her architectural taste. A Venetian embassador reckons that there were at this time one hundred and thirty-two cities in France; but as he gives no definition of the term “city,” his calculation is of little service. He probably meant walled towns, to distinguish them from such as were unfortified. The approaches to the cities were not then marked by airy suburbs and scattered villas; but the cultivated country or forest ran close up to the walls. One ornamental erection alone serves to mark the great change that has taken place. Coryat has frequent occasion to describe the “fair gallows of stone,” which adorned the entrance to every town. Most of them remained until they were swept away by the Revolution. The principal cities of France, after Paris, were Lyons, Orleans, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Dieppe. A paved causeway led from the capital to each of these places. Orleans was so large and beautiful that Charles V. called it the finest in France. It was populous and well-built, and its university contained 1600 students, “all men and not boys, as in the other seats of education.”