Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII. HISTORY OF FRANCE. In order to give all a better idea of what we may say about what we saw on this day's tramp it might be advisable to give a few scraps of the ancient and modern history of Paris. The present city is nearly circular in form, and is about fifteen miles in circumference, having a population of 2,600,000 in 1891. The river Seine passes through the city and is very meandering in its course though the greater part of the city is on the north of the river. The fable says that Francus, a son of Hector, founded the city and gave it the name of his uncle, Paris. But putting a- way all fables and using what authentic information we can obtain we can date back thirty-five years before the Christian era. In that year, Julius Csesar was pursuing his conquests in Gaul and sent his lieutenant to Parisii which was situated on the island in the Seine river, then known as the Sequana river. On this little island which is about three-quarters of a mile long and about one-eighth of a mile wide was situated the fortress, and afterwards the towers of Notre Dame was erected and this is really the nucleus of modern Paris. 45 Caesar took the fortress and compelled the inhabitants to submit to his rule, and he civilized them ac- coi;ding to his idea and made them renounce the worship of their gods and burn incense to Rome. A temple to Mars and another to Jupiter were built and sometime in the fourth century, bridges were built from the island to the opposite banks. Buildings were erected along the banks, and the most important was the Palais des Thermos, the residence of the Emperor Julian, the ruins which are still there adjoining the Hotel de Cluny. Julian's record of the place is that the climate is soft and genial, the water good, and the vines are good, and ...