LETTERS FROM PARIS. 435 



dour. Under Francis the firfr. and Henry the fecond 

 and third, gallantry and luxury arofe to a high degree ; 

 and thoufands of artifb and workmen, who wrought 

 merely in thefe departments, reforted hither, and met 

 with great encouragement. Paris increafed in popu- 

 loufnefs. In the reign of thefe monarchs the tafte for 

 galantry produced as many artifts for convenience and 

 elegance, as two hundred years had done before ; the 

 jurifprudence under Philip the fair had enlifted artifts 

 in the fervice of law and jultice. Philip the fair had 

 brought the parliament to Paris ; and for the next fifty 

 years it fwarmed with nothing but plaintifs and defen- 

 dants, who flocked thither from all the provinces, and 

 there remained, whether reduced to poverty or raifed 

 to opulence by the fentence of the court. Francis the 

 Hrfh was at the head of a gal ant court, and whatever 

 was elegant or could contribute to elegance, was fure 

 of fucceeding without trouble. Henry the fecond, en- 

 tirely fwayed by his miffrefs Diana of Poitiers, who had 

 been miftrefs to his father, metamorphofed the court 

 into a fairy-land ; making love was reduced to a fyfcem 

 and practifed as a regular art, which in itfelf and its 

 dependencies furnifhed bread to thoufands. Love 

 and pride, pride and prodigality, and from prodiga- 

 lity, utility and magnificence, began now to animate a 

 city, which, while its kings cherifhed frugal and civic 

 maxims, could not rife from its dirty Greets nor mount 

 over its humble walls. The foundations of that luxu- 

 ry, which was one day to become the fupport of this 

 city, could not be torn up by the furious civil wars that 

 foon broke out ; and Henry the fourth no fooner faw 

 himfelf in poffeffion of Paris, than munificence, gak 



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