Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/505

 and Catherine de Medicis; and here, in 1572, took place the wedding ceremony of Margaret of Valois and the King of Navarre. Charles IX fired upon the Huguenots from one of its windows; and here Henry IV lay in state after his assassination by Ravaillac. Bernini was brought from Italy by Louis XIV in order to complete the palace; but the east front, with its beautiful colonnade, was the work of a Frenchman, Claude Perrault.

The palace remained unfinished down to the time of Napoleon I, who converted the building into a national museum, where he gathered all the art treasures of France together, with the spoils of his numerous campaigns. Many of these stores were carried away by the Allies at the Restoration, but the remainder, with what has since been added, make the collection of the Louvre one of the finest in the world.

Under the late Emperor the whole collection was rearranged, and great additions made. In 1861 the entire collections of the Marquis Campana, of Rome, were purchased for $1,000,000; these form the greater portion of the Musée Napoleon III.

The ground on which the Tuileries stands, or rather stood, was once a tile-yard, and was bought by Francis I to please his mother, Louise de Savoie, who preferred the position to that of the Palais des Tournelles. The new edifice was begun by Catharine de Medicis, with Delorme for her architect.

The Tuileries seldom served as a royal residence until of late years. Neither Catharine de Medicis nor her sons ever lived there; it was occasionally visited by Henry IV, was the scene of several banquets under Louis XIV, inhabited by Louis XV when a minor, and by Louis XVI as prisoner. During the great revolution the sittings of the Assembly, and afterwards of the Convention, were held in the Palace. The First Consul was afterwards in