Paris past & present . nJuly, 1789. The Bastille Saint Antoine, elsewhere re-ferred to in these pages, and whose downfallopened the era of the French Revolution, wasconstructed between the years 1371 and 1383,inclusive. It had eight great round towers,double walls, and a moat eighty-three feet wideby twenty-six feet deep; nevertheless, thatpowerful prison fortress was captured and de-stroyed by the populace within a few short of its stones is now in the CarnavaletMuseum; but much of its material served inbuilding a bridge at the Place de la Concorde,and its key was given by Lafayette
Paris past & present . nJuly, 1789. The Bastille Saint Antoine, elsewhere re-ferred to in these pages, and whose downfallopened the era of the French Revolution, wasconstructed between the years 1371 and 1383,inclusive. It had eight great round towers,double walls, and a moat eighty-three feet wideby twenty-six feet deep; nevertheless, thatpowerful prison fortress was captured and de-stroyed by the populace within a few short of its stones is now in the CarnavaletMuseum; but much of its material served inbuilding a bridge at the Place de la Concorde,and its key was given by Lafayette to GeorgeWashington. It now hangs in one of the roomsat Mt. Vernon. The column on the site of the Bastille is ofthe Corinthian style with composite rests on a massive sub-basement of whitemarble, circular in form, and its height is onehundred and fifty-three feet, not counting thecolossal Genius of Liberty in gilded bronzewhich surmounts the top. There is a winding COLO^XE DE JIILLET IX PLACE DE LABASTILLE. rOPULATION INCKEASING. 337 stair inside, of two hundred and forty steps,leading up to a wide gallery, from whence asplendid view is obtained. Meanwhile, and as the centuries rolled by,the population of the capital kept on increas-ing ; but its increase of size in superficial areahas not been comparatively so great as withother large cities. During the reign of Henry IV there wereabout three hundred thousand inhabitants;under Louis XIV the population had increasedto something like five hundred thousand; andwhen the Revolution occurred there wereperhaps seven hundred thousand souls withinthe city. But the nineteenth century witnessedthe capitals growth from eight hundied thou-sand souls to two million six hundred thousand,and yet there are fewer houses in Paris than inPhiladelphia, a city which can hardly boastone-third so many inhabitants. As the capital grew, it was necessary tocreate new streets and new quartiers. UnderLouis XV Paris counted nearly five hundied
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