they were indebted for their first asylum.
As an hospital for their reception a building
was assigned them at the Port I'Evêque,
which was called Maison de la Crêche; the
word crêche originally signifying crib or
manger only, but now employed to designate
the general reception-room in the present
hospital. That the newly-born children who
were deserted by their parents might not
perish from exposure in the public streets, a
large cradle was established within the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, accessible at all
hours of the day or night, in which infants
were placed, there to attract the attention
of the pious. This cradle was in existence
as early as fourteen hundred and thirty-one,
for in that year died Isabella of Bavaria,
the queen of Charles the Sixth of France—
one of the most unnatural mothers and one
of the worst of wives—who bequeathed to
the Foundlings the enormous legacy of eight
francs.

Besides being the recipients of casual
charity, the Foundlings of Paris had a claim
upon the High Justiciaries of the capital, all
of them ecclesiastics; who, according to old
usage, were bound to contribute towards
their maintenance. These spiritual nobles
were, however, too much under the influence
of earthly considerations to perform their
duties faithfully; and gradually stinting their
donations, finally withheld them altogether.
This was the occasion of much litigation;
which was finally compromised by annual
payments being compounded for by the
making over two houses on the Port Saint
Landry, within a stone's throw of the
Cathedral.

Poorly paid, and having no sympathy for
their charge, the servants of the establishment
of the Port Saint Landry turned the
miserable little orphans to their own profit.
Street beggars wanting a new-born child
wherewith to move the sensibility of the
public, procured one at the Port Saint Landry.
If a nurse required a child to replace
one that through her negligence might
have died, the substitute was ready at the
Port Saint Landry. If a witch needed an
infant for sacrifice, she obtained one at the
Port Saint Landry. The price of a child in
that establishment was just twenty sous!

This revolting traffic became a crying
scandal, even in the city of cut-purse nobles
and cut-throat abbés; and it attracted the
attention of the celebrated philanthropist
Vincent de Paul. His first attempt to provide the
Foundlings with a better home consisted in
his procuring for them a new hospital near
the gate of Saint Victor. This was in the
year sixteen hundred and thirty-eight. He
placed the new establishment under the
care of the Sisters of Charity; who, moved
by an appeal which he made to them, lent
themselves to the good work: not very
effectually, however, at first; for the funds for the
maintenance of the children—whose numbers
fast increased—proving wholly insufficient, the
administrators had recourse to a detestable
expedient; they chose by lot the children that
were to be provided for, and the residue
were allowed to die for want of food! When
Vincent de Paul learnt this, he assembled the
ladies who had placed themselves at the head
of the establishment, and earnestly besaught
them to consider the poor Foundlings in the
light of their own children. His eloquent
pleading prevailed. But he did not stop here;
he addressed himself to the King; and
eventually, the Parliament of Paris issued a
decree, by which the High Justiciaries were
compelled to pay an annual sum of fifteen
thousand francs towards the maintenance of
the Foundlings; and a house in the
Faubourg Saint Antoine, with a large quantity
of ground attached to it, was bought to serve
as a permanent place of asylum for the
unfortunate children.

Before this last settlement was made,
Vincent de Paul died. But the impulse
which he had originated never afterwards
flagged. In the midst of his magnificence,
Louis the Fourteenth issued an edict, dated
June, sixteen hundred and seventy, in which
was recognised the truth that " there is no
duty more natural, nor more conformable to
Christian piety, than to take care of poor
children who are abandoned, and whose
weakness and misfortune alike render them
worthy of compassion;" and six years later,
Maria Theresa of Austria, the wife of the
magnificent monarch, laid the first stone of
a new and spacious edifice for the Foundlings
in the Faubourg Saint Antoine, to which a
church was attached. This example having
been set, there was no lack, in that courtly
age, of noble imitators, and large endowments
were made by chancellors and presidents,
and others high in authority. It was
quite time; for, in a ratio that far exceeded
the increase of population of Paris, the
number of enfants trouvés was augmented.
When Vincent de Paul first took up their
cause in sixteen hundred and thirty-eight,
the Foundlings numbered three hundred and
twelve; but, at the close of the seventeenth
century, they had multiplied to the extent
of seventeen hundred and thirty-eight.
Monsieur Dulaure took considerable pains to
show (in his well-known History of Paris)
that, during monarchical periods, the Foundling
Hospital received the greatest number
of inmates.

During the Republic, in consequence of
the vast disproportion between the children
who were deposited and those who survived,
several stringent laws were enacted.
One of these, dated the thirtieth Ventose,
year five (March twenty-second, seventeen
hundred and ninety-seven), contained,
amongst other articles, a decree obliging
all nurses who had the care of Foundlings
to appear every three months before
the agent of their commune, and certify