Louvre Claude Monet. The Louvre is slightly askew of the Historic Axis ("Axe historique"), a roughly eight-kilometre (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. It begins on the east in the Louvre courtyard and runs west along the Champs-Élysées. In 1871, the burning of the Tuileries Palace by the Paris Commune revealed that the Louvre was slightly askew of the "Axe" despite past appearances to the contrary. The Louvre can be reached by the Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations. The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du
Paris in the 16th century include the Tuileries Palace, the Fontaine des Innocents, the Lescot wing of the Louvre; the church of Saint-Eustache (1532); and the Hôtel Carnavalet, begun in 1545, now the museum of the history of Paris. During the century Paris was the second most important center of book publishing centers of Europe, after Venice. The University of Paris devoted its attentions largely to fighting the Protestant heresy, the King founded the College of France as a new center of learning independent of the university. Tensions between Protestants and Catholics grew, culminating in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, when several thousand