have avoided errors on their own part, they may hope for indulgent correction of such as may have crept in, for all their vigilance.

It is easier, to-day, to put one's hand on the Paris of the sixteenth century than on that of the eighteenth century. In those remoter days changes were slow to come, and those older stones have been left often untouched. A curious instance of that aforetime leisureliness is seen in the working of the ordonnance issued on May 14, 1554, by Henri II. for the clearing away of certain encroachments made on the streets by buildings and by business, notably on Rue de la Ferronerie; that street being one of those used "for our way from our royal château of the Louvre to our château of the Tournelles." It was fifty-six years later, to the very day, that the stabbing of Henri IV. was made easy to Ravaillac, by the stoppage of the king's carriage in the blockade of that narrow street, its obstructions not yet swept out, in absolute disregard of the edict. From the death of the royal mason, Charles V., who gave a new face and a new figure to his Paris, to the coming of Henri IV., who had in him the makings of a kingly constructor, but who was hindered by the necessary destruction of his wars, there were two centuries of steady growth of the town outward, on all sides, with only slight alterations of its interior quarters. Many of these were transformed, many new quarters were created, by Louis XIII., thus realizing his father's frustrated plans. Richelieu was able to widen some streets, and Colbert tried to carry on the work, but Louis XIV. had no liking for his capital, and no money to waste for its bettering. His stage-subject's civic pride was unduly swollen, when he said: "À cette époque, la grande ville du roi Henri n'était pas ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui."

At the beginning of the eighteenth century we find Paris divided into twenty quarters, in none of which was there any numbering of the houses. The streets then got their names from their mansions of the nobility, from their vast monasteries and convents, from their special industries and shops. These latter names survive in our Paris as they survive in modern London. The high-swinging street lanterns, that came into use in 1745, served for directions to the neighboring houses, as did the private lanterns hung outside the better dwellings. Toward the middle of that century the city almanacs began a casual numbering of the houses in their lists, and soon this was found to be such a convenience that the householders painted numbers on or beside their doors. Not before 1789 was there any organized or official numbering, and this was speedily brought to naught during the Revolution, either because it was too simple or because it was already established. To this day, the first symptom of a local or national upheaval, and the latest sign of its ending, are the ladder and paint-pot in the streets of Paris. Names that recall to the popular eye recently discredited celebrities or humiliating events, are brushed out, and the newest favorites of the populace are painted in.

The forty-eight sections into which the Revolution divided the city changed many street names, of section, and renumbered all the houses. Each lunatic section, quite sure of its sanity, made this new numbering of its own dwellings with a cheerful and aggressive disregard of the adjoining sections; beginning arbitrarily at a point within its boundary, going straight along through its streets, and ending at the farthest house on the edge of its limits. So, a house might be No. 1187 of its section, and its next-door neighbor might be No. 1 of the section alongside. In a street that ran through several sections there would be more than one house of the same number, each belonging to a different section. "Encore un Tableau de Paris" was published in 1800 by one Henrion, who complains that he passed three numbers 42 in Rue Saint-Denis before he came to the 42 that he wanted. The decree of February 7, 1805, gave back to the streets many of their former names, and ordered the numbering, admirably uniform and intelligible, still in use—even numbers on one side of the street, odd numbers on the other side, both beginning at the eastern end of the streets that run parallel with the Seine, and at the river end of the streets going north and south. For the topographer all these changes have brought incoherence to the records, have paralyzed research, and crippled accuracy. In addition, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, many old streets have been curtailed or lengthened, carried along into new streets, or entirely suppressed and built over. Indeed, it is substantially the nineteenth century that has given us the Paris that we best know; begun by the great Emperor, it was continued by the crown on top of the cotton night-cap of Louis-Philippe, and admirably elaborated, albeit to the tune of the cynical fiddling of the Second Empire. The Republic of our day still wields the pick-axe, and demolition and reconstruction have been going on ruthlessly. Such of these changes as are useful and guiltless are now intelligently watched; such of them as are needlessly destructive may be stopped in part by the admirable Commission du Vieux Paris. The members of this significant body, which was organized in December, 1897, are picked men from the Municipal Council, from the official committees of Parisian Inscriptions, and of Historic Works, from private associations and private citizens, all earnest and enthusiastic for the preservation of their city's monuments that are memorable for architectural worth or historic suggestion. Where they are unable to save to the sight what is ancient and picturesque, they save to the memory by records, drawings, and photographs. The "Procès Verbal" of this Commission, issued monthly, contains its illustrated reports, discussions, and correspondence, and promises to become an historic document of inestimable value.

The words rue and place, as well as their attendant names, have been retained in the French, as the only escape from the confusion of a double translation, first here, and then back to the original by the sight-seer. The definite article, that usually precedes these words, has been suppressed, in all cases, because it seems an awkward and needless reiteration. Nor are French men and French women disguised under translated titles. If Macaulay had been consistent in his misguided Briticism that turned Louis into Lewis, and had carried out that scheme to its logical end in every case, he would have given us a ludicrous nomenclature. "Bottin" is used in these pages as it is used in Paris, to designate the city directory: which was issued, first, in a tiny volume, in 1796, by the publisher Bottin, and has kept his name with its enormous growth through the century.

The word hôtel has here solely its original significance of a town house of the noble or the wealthy. In the sense of our modern usage of the word it had no place in old Paris. Already in the seventeenth century there were auberges for common wayfarers, and here and there an hôtellerie for the traveller of better class. During the absences of the owners of grand city mansions, their maîtres-d'hôtel were allowed to let them to accredited visitors to the capital, who brought their own retinue and demanded only shelter. When they came with no train, so that service had to be supplied, it was "charged in the bill," and that objectionable item, thus instituted, has been handed down to shock us in the hôtel-garni of our time. With the emigration of the nobility, their stewards and chefs lost place and pay, and found both once more in the public hotels they then started. No hôtels-garnis can be found in