miserable gangrene of hovels--against the east facade. Perrault's base had been concealed by rubbish and apparently forgotten. Stove-pipes issued from the broken windows of the upper floors, the beautiful stone-work was blackened by smoke, cracked by frost and soiled by rusting iron clamps; the quadrangle was a chaos of uncut stone, rubbish and filth, in the centre of which, where the king's statue was designed to stand, the royal architect had built himself a large mansion; a mass of mean houses encumbered the Carrousel, and the almost ruined church of St. Nicholas was a haunt of beggars. Such a grievous eyesore was the building that the provost in 1751 offered, in the name of the citizens, to repair and complete the palace if a part were assigned to them as an Hotel de Ville. In 1754 Madame de Pompadour's brother, M. de Marigny, had been appointed Commissioner of Works, and Louis was persuaded to authorise the repair and completion of the Louvre. Gabriel being made architect set about his work in 1758 by clearing out the squatters and the accumulated rubbish in the quadrangle, and evicting the occupants of the stables. The ruins of the Hotels de Longueville, de Villequier, and de Bourbon were demolished and grass plots laid before Perrault's east front, which was restored and for the first time made visible. The west front, giving on the quadrangle, was then repaired and the third floor nearly completed, when funds were exhausted and it was left unroofed. An epigram, put into the mouth of the king of Denmark, who visited Paris in 1768, tersely describes the condition of the palace at this time:-- "J'ai vu le Louvre et son enceinte immense, Vaste palais qui depuis deux cent ans, Toujours s'acheve et toujours se commence. Deux ouvriers, manoeuvres faineants, Hatent tres lentement ces riches batiments Et sont payes quand on y pense."[155] [Footnote 155: "I have seen the Louvre and its huge enclosure, a vast palace which for two hundred years is always being finished and always begun. Two workmen, lazy hodmen, speed very slowly those rich buildings, and are paid when they are thought of."]