midnight on the
      seventh of March
The old Palais would be standing still , with its ancient grand hall ; I should be able to say to the reader , `` Go and look at it , '' and we should thus both escape the necessity , -- I of making , and he of reading , a description of it , such as it is . Which demonstrates a new truth : that great events have incalculable results . It is true that it may be quite possible , in the first place , that Ravaillac had no accomplices ; and in the second , that if he had any , they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618 . Two other very plausible explanations exist : First , the great flaming star , a foot broad , and a cubit high , which fell from heaven , as every one knows , upon the law courts , after midnight on the seventh of March ; second , Théophile 's quatrain , -- `` Sure , ' twas but a sorry game When at Paris , Dame Justice , Through having eaten too much spice , Set the palace all aflame . '' Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation , political , physical , and poetical , of the burning of the law courts in 1618 , the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain . Very little to-day remains , thanks to this catastrophe , -- thanks , above all , to the successive restorations which have completed what it spared , -- very little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France , -- of that elder palace of the Louvre , already so old in the time of Philip the Handsome , that they sought there for the traces of the magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by Helgaldus . Nearly everything has disappeared .