Two new squares of this century were the Place des Victoires, in front of Notre Dame des Victoires, and the Place Vendôme, north of the rue Saint Honoré. By a city regulation no change is permitted to-day of the façades of the buildings on these two open places. At the extreme eastern end of modern Paris the Place de la Nation is the former Place du Trône, which received its name when in 1660 Louis sat upon a temporary throne beyond the city wall to receive congratulations upon having secured the Peace of the Pyrenees. The poet Scarron, husband of Françoise d’Aubigné who, after his death, became the governess of the king’s children by Madame de Montespan, and who later was married secretly to Louis, has left a description of Paris in the “Great Century.” The translation is by Walter Besant. Houses in labyrinthine maze; The streets with mud bespattered all; Palace and prison, churches, quays, Here stately shop, there shabby stall. Passengers black, red, gray and white, The pursed-up prude, the light coquette; Murder and Treason dark as night; With clerks, their hands with ink-stains wet; A gold-laced coat without a sou, And trembling at a bailiff’s sight; A braggart shivering with fear; Pages and lackeys, thieves of night! And ’mid the tumult, noise and stink of it, There’s Paris--pray, what do you think of it? An epitome of society this. Paris was indeed full of adventurers, of criminals even among the high-born, of gamblers so mad over games of chance that special laws had to be passed driving them out of the city. There is still standing near the Hôtel de Ville the Hôtel d’Aubray where lived the famous poisoner, the Marquise de Brinvilliers. A glance at the career of this woman shows a social condition amazing in its calm iniquity. The marquise herself, of seemingly guileless charm, acquired from a lover the destructive skill which she utilized in removing from her path her relatives and any other people who interfered with her in any way. Her trial is a “celebrated case” not only because of her own rank but because other people of note were suspected of being in collusion with her. Torture was abolished under Louis XIV but not until after Madame de Brinvilliers had been made to drink many buckets of water and to be sadly bent across wooden horses. She was beheaded on the Grève, her body burned and the ashes thrown to the winds. At about the same time accident disclosed an astounding number of cases of poisoning or attempted poisoning. Mme. de Montespan undoubtedly tried to make way with the father of her children, the king, and rumors were constant of many other instances. “So far,” said Mme. de Sevígné’s son, “I have not been accused of attempting to poison little mamma, and that is a distinction in these days.”