Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/869

BUILDINGS] from the terraces along the Place de la Concorde the eye takes in the Place and the Avenue of the Champs Élysées. The gardens of the Luxembourg, planned by S. Debrosse (17th century) and situated in front of the palace occupied by the senate, are about the same size as those of the Tuileries; with less regularity of form they present greater variety of appearance. In the line of the main entrance extends the beautiful Observatory Walk, terminating in the monumental fountain mentioned above. Besides these gardens laid out in the French taste, with straight walks and regular beds, there are several in what the French designate the English style. The finest and most extensive of these, the Buttes-Chaumont Gardens, in the north-east of the city, occupy 57 acres of very irregular ground, which up to 1866 was occupied by plaster-quarries, limekilns and brickworks. The &ldquo;buttes&rdquo; or knolls are now covered with turf, flowers and shrubbery. Advantage has been taken of the varying relief of the site to form a fine lake and a cascade with picturesque rocks. The Montsouris Park, in the south of the city, 38 acres in extent, also consists of broken ground; in the middle stands the meteorological observatory, built after the model of the Tunisian palace of Bardo, and it also contains a monument in memory of the Flatters expedition to the Sahara in 1881. The small Monceau Park, in the aristocratic quarter to the north of the Boulevard Haussmann, is a portion of the old park belonging to King Louis Philippe, and contains monuments to Chopin, Gounod, Guy de Maupassant and others.

Churches. &mdash; The most important church in Paris is the cathedral of Notre-Dame, founded in 1163, completed about 1240. Measuring 139 yds. in length and 52 yds. in breadth, the church consists of a choir and apse, a short transept, and a nave with double aisles which are continued round the choir and are flanked by square chapels added after the completion of the rest of the church. The central spire, 148 ft. in height, was erected in the course of a restoration carried out between 1846 and 1879 under the direction of Viollet le Duc. Two massive square towers crown the principal façade. Its three doors are decorated with fine early Gothic carving and surmounted by a row of figures representing twenty-eight kings of Israel and Judah. Above the central door is a rose window, above which is a third storey consisting of a graceful gallery of pointed arches supported

on slender columns. The transept has two façades, also richly decorated with chiselled work and containing rose windows. Of the elaborate decoration of the interior all that is medieval is a part of the screen of the choir (the first half of the 14th century), with sculptures representing scenes from the life of Christ, and the stained glass of the rose windows (13th century). The woodwork in the choir (early 18th century), and a marble group called the &ldquo;Vow of Louis XIII.&rdquo; (17th century) by Couston and Coysevox, are other noticeable works of art. The church possesses the Crown of Thorns and a fragment of the Cross, which attract numerous pilgrims.

Civil Buildings. &mdash;The most important of the civil buildings of Paris is the palace of the Louvre (Lupara), the south front of which extends along the Seine for about half a mile. It owes its origin to Philip Augustus, who erected a huge keep defended by a rectangle of fortifications in what is now the south-west corner of the quadrangle, where its plan is traced on the pavement. The fortress was demolished by Francis I. and under that monarch and his successors Pierre Lescot built the portions of the wings to the south and west of the courtyard, which rank among the finest examples of Renaissance architecture. The rest