Louis’ contest with the pope over the king’s position as head of the French church tended to lessen his interest in the establishment of religious institutions, but the famous church of Saint Sulpice, whose twin towers are landmarks on the left bank, was begun by him, together with the seminary whose square ugliness is soon to house the overflow from the near-by Luxembourg museum. Since the quarrel between church and state in 1902-03, the building has stood bleakly empty except when it was used to shelter some of the refugees made homeless by the Seine floods a few years ago. The Abbey-in-the-Woods, removed by Louis from Picardy to Paris and made famous by the residence there in the middle of the last century of the witty Madame Récamier, has been until very recently one of the chief historic “sights” near the celebrated left bank department store, the _Bon Marché_. The Church of Saint Nicholas-du-Chardonnet is interesting chiefly because of the tomb which LeBrun, the painter, designed in honor of his mother, a sepulcher opening at the summons of a hovering angel. Among Louis’ good works must be counted the union of several hospitals into one known as the Salpêtrière from its occupying the site of a saltpeter manufactory, and devoted to-day to the care of nervous diseases and insanity. The tapestry manufactory of the Gobelins family was received into royal favor by Louis and then as now did its work only for the government. Its products to-day, painstakingly made by skillful workmen who have given their lives to this task as did their fathers before them, are never sold, but are used for the decoration of public buildings and as gifts for people whom the state wishes to honor. Of comparatively small houses belonging to this century the best remaining instances are the Pavilion of Hanover, in which is the Paris office of the New York _Times_; the Hôtel Mazarin which now contains the fine collection of books known as the National Library; the Hôtel de la Vrillière, now the Bank of France, with an _échauguette_ (observation turret) by Mansard; the Hôtel de Soubise, used with the Hôtel de [Illustration: HÔTEL DES INVALIDES.] [Illustration: SAINT SULPICE. From a print of about 1820.] Clisson to house the national archives; the near-by Hôtel de Hollande, once the Dutch embassy; and the Hôtel Beauvais from whose balcony the queen-mother, the Queen of England, Cardinal Mazarin and Turenne watched the entrance of Louis XIV and his bride, Maria Theresa of Spain.