standing to be drawn by Sylvestre towards the middle of the seventeenth century. [Footnote 127: The new palace was situated in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, the parish church of the Louvre.] The unfinished Hotel de Ville was taken in hand after more than half-a-century and practically completed.[128] The larger, north portion of the Pont Neuf was built, the two islets west of the Cite were incorporated with the island to form the Place Dauphine and the ground that now divides the two sections of the bridge--a new street, the Rue Dauphine, being cut through the garden of the Augustins and the ruins of the college of St. Denis. The Place Royale (now des Vosges) was designed and partly built--that charming relic of seventeenth and eighteenth century fashionable Paris, where Moliere's _Precieuses_ lived. [Footnote 128: The north tower was left only partially constructed, and was finished by Louis XIII.] Henry also partly rebuilt the Hotel Dieu, created new streets, and widened others.[129] New fountains and quays were built; the Porte du Temple was reopened, and the Porte des Tournelles constructed. Unhappily, some of the old wooden bridges remained, and on Sunday, 22nd December 1596, the Pont aux Meuniers (Miller's Bridge), just below the Pont au Change, suddenly collapsed, with all its shops and houses, and sixty persons perished. They were not much regretted, for most of them had enriched themselves by the plunder of Huguenots, and during the troubles of the League. The bridge was rebuilt of wood, at the cost of the captain of the corps of archers, and as the houses were painted each with the figure of a bird, the new bridge was known as the Pont aux Oiseaux (Bridge of Birds). It spanned the river from the end of the Rue St. Denis and the arch of the Grand Chatelet to the Tour de l'Horloge of the Palais de Justice. In 1621, however, it and the Pont au Change were consumed by fire in a few hours and, in 1639, the two wooden bridges were replaced by a bridge of stone, the Pont au Change, which stood until rebuilt in 1858. [Footnote 129: By a curious coincidence the widening of the Rue de la Ferronnerie had been ordered just before the king was assassinated.] [Illustration: OLD HOUSES NEAR PONT ST. MICHEL, SHOWING SPIRE OF THE STE. CHAPELLE.]