After visiting in detail the various works begun or carried on since his departure, his Majesty one morning sent for M. Fontaine, and having discoursed at length on what he thought worthy of praise or blame in all that he had seen, informed him of his intentions with regard to the plans which the architect had furnished for joining the Tuileries to the Louvre.  It was agreed by the Emperor and M. Fontaine that these buildings should be united by two wings, the first of which should be finished in five years, a million to be granted each year for this purpose; and that a second wing should also be constructed on the opposite side, extending from the Louvre to the Tuileries, forming thus a perfect square, in the midst of which would be erected an opera house, isolated on all sides, and communicating with the palace by a subterranean gallery.

The gallery forming the court in front of the Louvre was to be opened to the public in winter, and decorated with statues, and also with all the shrubbery now in boxes in the garden of the Tuileries; and in this court he intended to erect an arch of triumph very similar to that of the Carrousel.  Finally, all these beautiful buildings were to be used as lodgings for the grand officers of the crown, as stables, etc.  The necessary expense was estimated as approximating forty-two millions.

The Emperor was occupied in succession with a palace of arts; with a new building for the Imperial library, to be placed on the spot now occupied by the Bourse; with a palace for the stock-exchange on the quay Desaix; with the restoration of the Sorbonne and the hotel Soubise; with a triumphal column at Neuilly; with a fountain on the Place Louis XV.; with tearing down the Hotel-Dieu to enlarge and beautify the Cathedral quarter; and with the construction of four hospitals at Mont-Parnasse, at Chaillot, at Montmartre, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, etc.  All these plans were very grand; and there is no doubt that he who had conceived them would have executed them; and it has often been said that had he lived, Paris would have had no rival in any department in the world.

At the same time his Majesty decided definitely on the form of the arch of triumph de l’Etoile, which had been long debated, and for which all the architects of the crown had submitted plans.  It was M. Fontaine whose opinion prevailed; since among all the plans presented his was the simplest, and at the same time the most imposing.

The Emperor was also much interested in the restoration of the palace of Versailles.  M. Fontaine had submitted to his Majesty a plan for the first repairs, by the terms of which, for the sum of six millions, the Emperor and Empress would have had a comfortable dwelling.  His Majesty, who liked everything grand, handsome, superb, but at the same time economical, wrote at the bottom of this estimate the following note, which M. de Bausset reports thus in his Memoirs:—­