The Louvre. By E. C. Richards. (Grant Richards. 2s. net.)—.
It seems a new idea to think of the Louvre as a palace with a long and great history and not merely as a museum where pricelesa works of art are treasured—and, alas ! not always well guarded. Before the present building existed there stood a fortified palace on the same site, the foundations of which are still visible in the basement of the present building. It was here, in the great hall of St. Louis, that Henry V. feasted when he occupied Paris in 1421. The later building did not become a national museum till the time of the Revolution, and it was not only art treasures which found a home there at that time. Friends of the Governmenteonsidered the vast palace a suitable camping ground, and its great galleries were partitioned off to make apartments, and iron stove pipes pro. jected in irrelevant places. The squatters were banished and their mess cleared away by Napoleon, and the Louvre, as we now know it, came into existence. The little volume before us, after tracing • The Book of Saints and Heroes. By Mrs. Lang. Edited by Andrew UDC% and illuetrated by H. J. Ford. London : Longmans and Co. [6s.J
the history of the building, gives a sketch of each of the principal collections which make up this vast whole.
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