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diff --git a/40306-0.txt b/40306-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2411108 --- /dev/null +++ b/40306-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4103 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40306 *** + +NOOKS AND CORNERS +OF OLD PARIS + + + + +[Illustration: THE RUE DU CHAUME IN 1866 (TO-DAY, THE RUE DES ARCHIVES) +SOUBISE MANSION--CLISSON TOWER +_Drawing by A. Maignan_] + + + + +NOOKS & CORNERS +OF OLD PARIS + + +_by_ +GEORGES CAIN + +CURATOR OF THE CARNAVALET MUSEUM AND OF THE HISTORIC COLLECTIONS +OF THE CITY OF PARIS + + +_With a Preface by_ +VICTORIEN SARDOU + + +WITH OVER A HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS + + +LONDON +E. GRANT RICHARDS +1907 + + + + +_The Translation has been made by_ +FREDERICK LAWTON, M.A. + + + + +DEDICATED +TO +A. G. LENÔTRE +IN TOKEN OF MOST SINCERE +AFFECTION + + G. C. + _December_ 1905. + + + + +LIST OF ENGRAVINGS + + + 1. The Rue du Chaume in 1866 (to-day, the Rue des + Archives) _Frontispiece_ + 2. The Place de la Bastille and the Elephant xvii + 3. Demolition of the Rue Sainte-Hyacinthe-Saint-Michel, + opposite to the Rue Soufflot xxiii + 4. The Town Hall in 1838 xxvii + 5. The Pont-Neuf about 1850 xxxi + 6. The Louvre about 1785 xxxv + 7. The Courtyard of the Carrousel and the Museums about 1848 xxxix + 8. The Garden of the Palais Royal in 1791 xliii + 9. The Place de la Concorde xlvii + 10. Patrol Road leading from the Barrier of the Etoile in 1854 + (to-day the Avenue de Wagram) liii + 11. The Carnavalet Museum lix + 12. The Pont-Royal, the Tuileries, and the Louvre (eighteenth + century) lxiii + 13. View of the Pont-Neuf, taken from an oval window in the + Colonnade of the Louvre 67 + 14. Workshops and Foundations of the City Barracks in 1864-1865 71 + 15. View of Notre-Dame 75 + 16. The "Petit-Pont" 79 + 17. The Old Prefecture of Police (formerly Jerusalem Street) 81 + 18. The Sainte-Chapelle in 1875 83 + 19. Opening up of the space in front of the Palais de Justice 85 + 20. The Cour des Filles in the Conciergerie 89 + 21. The Triumph of Marat 93 + 22. The Dauphine Square in 1780 97 + 23. The Pont Marie in 1886 103 + 24. The Isle of Saint-Louis 107 + 25. The College of Louis-le-Grand 111 + 26. The Inner Courtyard of the École Polytechnique 113 + 27. The Rue Clovis in 1867 115 + 28. The Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève in 1866 119 + 29. The Panthéon, in building 121 + 30. Procession in front of Sainte-Geneviève 123 + 31. The Apotheosis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau 127 + 32. The Luxembourg, about 1790 131 + 33. Fraternal Suppers in the Sections of Paris 135 + 34. Fête given at the Luxembourg on the 20th of Frimaire, + Anno VII. 139 + 35. The Rue de l'École de Médecine in 1866 (house where Marat + was assassinated) 143 + 36. The Gallery of the Odéon (Rue Rotrou) 146 + 37. The Rohan Courtyard in 1901 147 + 38. The Rohan Courtyard in 1901 (second view) 151 + 39. The Rue Visconti 155 + 40. Alfred de Musset at 23 years of age 157 + 41. The Façade of the Institute 160 + 42. View from the Louvre Quay 161 + 43. Paris from the Pointe de la Cité 165 + 44. The Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Séverin in 1866 169 + 45. The Passage des Patriarches 173 + 46. The Rue Mouffetard 176 + 47. The Rue Galande 177 + 48. The Place Maubert 179 + 49. The Old Amphitheatre of Surgery at the corner of the + Colbert Mansion 181 + 50. The Church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonneret and the Rue + Saint-Victor 183 + 51. The Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre 186 + 52. The Jardin des Plantes--The Cedar of Lebanon and the + Labyrinth 187 + 53. The Jardin des Plantes in the eighteenth century 191 + 54. The Jardin des Plantes--Cuvier's House 195 + 55. The Rue de Bièvre 199 + 56. The Bièvre Tanneries 203 + 57. The Bièvre about 1900--The Valence Mill-race 207 + 58. The Constantine Bridge and Stockade 211 + 59. The Pont-Royal in 1800 213 + 60. The Lesdiguières Mansion 215 + 61. Commemorative Ball on the Ruins of the Bastille 217 + 62. The Sens Mansion about 1835 221 + 63. The Provost Hugues Aubryot's Mansion--Charlemagne's + Courtyard and Passage in 1867 227 + 64. The Place Royale about 1651 (now the Vosges Square) 231 + 65. The Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau in 1866 235 + 66. The Saint-Paul Port 237 + 67. The Barbett Mansion 238 + 68. The Rue de Venise 243 + 69. The Rue du Renard-Saint-Merry 247 + 70. The Rue des Prouvaires and the Rue Saint-Eustache about 1850 250 + 71. The Central Market foot-pavement, near the Church of + Saint-Eustache, in 1867 252 + 72. The Central Market in 1828 254 + 73. The Central Market in 1822 255 + 74. Molière's House in the Rue de la Tonnellerie 257 + 75. The Tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie about 1848 259 + 76. Alexander's Grand Cafè Royal on the Temple Boulevard 263 + 77. Fanchon, the Hurdy-Gurdy player 267 + 78. View of the Ambigu-Comique on the Temple Boulevard 271 + 79. The Funambules Theatre on the Temple Boulevard 273 + 80. The Ambigu Theatre and Boulevard about 1830 277 + 81. The Porte Saint-Martin 281 + 82. The Rue Saint-Martin in 1866--The Green-Wood Tower 284 + 83. The Rue de Cléry 285 + 84. The Poissonnière Boulevard in 1834 289 + 85. The Gymnase Theatre 292 + 86. The Variety Theatre about 1810 293 + 87. The Boulevards, the Hôtel de Salm, and Windmills of + Montmartre 297 + 88. The Rue de la Barre at Montmartre 299 + 89. A Street in Montmartre 301 + 90. The Rue des Rosiers 303 + 91. The Place de la Concorde in 1829 305 + 92. Ingenuous Benevolence 307 + 93. The Place de la Concorde (second view) 309 + 94. The Entrance to the Tuileries, over the Swing Bridge, in 1788 311 + 95. Corner Pavilion of the Louis XV. Square about 1850 313 + 96. View in the Tuileries Gardens in 1808 315 + 97. The Rue Greuze in 1855 318 + 98. The Madrid Château 319 + 99. The Bagatelle Pavilion 322 + 100. A Performance at the Hippodrome under the Second Empire 323 + 101. The Arc de Triomphe about 1850 325 + + + + +[Illustration: Drawn by Saffrey] + + + + +PREFACE + + +_Grandson and son of two rare and justly-renowned artists, P. J. Mène +and Auguste Cain, my excellent friend, Georges Cain, has abundantly +shown that he is the worthy inheritor of their talent. To-day, he wishes +to prove that he knows how "to handle the pen as well as the pencil" as +our Ancients used to say, and that the Carnavalet Museum has in him, not +only the active and enthusiastic Curator that we constantly see at his +task, but also the most enlightened guide possible in matters of +Parisian lore; and so he has written this bewitching book which conjures +up before me the Paris of my childhood and youth--the Paris of times +gone by, which, in the course of centuries, has undergone many +transformations, but not one so rapid and so complete as that which I +have witnessed. The change, indeed, is such that, in certain quarters, I +have difficulty in recognising, in the city of Napoleon III., that of +Louis-Philippe. The latter would have been uninhabitable now, owing to +the requirements of modern life, but it answered to the needs and +customs of its time. People put up then with difficulties and defects +that were judged unavoidable, no Capital being without them. And, in +fact, in spite of its drawbacks and blemishes, the Paris of that period +had its own charms._ + +[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, AND THE ELEPHANT +_Lithographed by Ph. Benoist_] + +_Most of its streets were very narrow and had no sidewalks. Pedestrians +were obliged to take refuge, from passing carriages, on shop thresholds, +under entrance gates, or else beside posts erected here and there for +that purpose. Still, even in the densest traffic, one ran fewer risks +walking along the road than one runs at present crossing the +boulevards.... On these boulevards, where a single omnibus plied between +the Madeleine and the Bastille every quarter of an hour, and where there +was practically no danger of being knocked down by a horse, I have seen +a crowd watching a fencing-bout on the spot to-day occupied by a +refuge-pavement; and, on the Bastille Square, I used to play quietly, +trundling my hoop round the Elephant and the July Pillar. There was +little else to dread, throughout Paris, save splashes from the gutters, +whose waters flowed in the middle of the streets ... when they flowed at +all; for, during the hot summer days, there was nothing but stagnant +household slops, which lay in the gutters until the next storm of rain. +In winter, as the snow was never swept away, and the employment of salt +for melting it was unknown, the thaws were something terrible! Every +corner--and the houses being hardly ever in line, there were many--was +used as a rubbish-heap, or for the committing of nuisances excusable +only through lack of modern conveniences. Moreover, the streets, by very +reason of their narrowness, were more noisy than ours. The rolling of +heavy waggons over big, round paving-stones badly set, with jolts that +shook both windows and houses; the constant cries of men and women +selling fruit, vegetables, fish and flowers, &c. ... and pushing their +handcarts, not to speak of dealers in clothes, umbrellas, and +hand-brushes, of glaziers and of chimney-sweeps; the din of watermen +blowing into their taps; the calls of water-bearers as they loudly +clinked their bucket-handles; the clarionets and tambourines of +strolling singers that went from one courtyard to another; all this +composed the gaiety of the street. What was less tolerable was the +incessant noise of barrel-organs beneath your windows from morning till +evenings and inflicting on you a torture that it makes me angry to think +of even now._ + +_To crown all, the lighting of the streets was wretched. In most, it was +the ancient lamp whose illumination was an affair that stopped traffic +while the operation lasted. On the other hand, however, the city was +better guarded at night than it is at present, owing to the rounds of +the "grey patrols" which, with their Indian files of cloak-muffled, +slow-walking figures, crept along the walls and crossed one another's +beats so as to be within helping distance, at the least alarm. Happy +time, when, at one o'clock in the morning, in my lonely quarter, I was +sure to come across one of them, and when one could stay out late +without a revolver in one's pocket. This, it will be said, was because +Paris was smaller, less populus, and the task of the police easier. +But it is the duty of the police to proportion the protection to the +danger, and the numbers of its officers to those of the evil-doers that +infest our streets, for whom, formerly, little of the regard was felt +that is lavished on them to-day._ + +_As a set-off to its narrow, badly-paved, badly-kept, and badly-lighted +streets, Paris then had an attraction which it no longer possesses--its +gardens._ + +_The idea formed of the old city is, generally, that of a heap of +ancient houses with neither light, fresh air, nor verdure. In reality, +the houses of the time, whether recent or old, existed only as a border +to the street. Behind them, in the whole of the space that extended from +one road to another, there were vast enclosures affording the sun, +silence and verdure that did not exist in front. Many dwellings had +fashioned, out of the grounds of mansions and convents parcelled up +during the last century or two, large courtyards and private gardens +which, separated merely by low fences, mingled their foliage and shade. +This was so everywhere throughout the city, except in the part of it +properly so called, and in the central portion near the Town Hall and +the markets. A glance at the old plans of Paris will suffice to show +that these unbuilt-on spaces comprised, under Louis XVI., the half, and, +under Louis-Philippe, a third of the city's present area. In the Marais +and Arsenal quarters, in the Saint-Antoine, Temple, and Popincourt +faubourgs, in the Courtille, the Chaussée d'Antin, the Porcherons, the +Roule quarters, in the Saint-Honoré faubourg, and along all the left +bank of the river, which last was privileged in this respect, there were +only scattered dwellings amidst orchards, kitchen-gardens, +trellis-vineyards, farmyards, groves, and parks planted with century-old +trees. The little that remains of this past is being rapidly destroyed; +and, from the health and pleasure point of view, it is a great pity._ + +_From my window in the Rue d'Enfer, Estrapade Square, close to the blind +alley of the Feuillantines, I used to cast my eyes, as far as I could +see in every direction, over a wealth of foliage. In the Rue +Neuve-Saint-Étienne, from the place where Bernardin de Saint-Pierre once +lived, I beheld the towers of Notre Dame, beyond avenues of trimmed +trees; and I could say, like the good Monsieur Rollin, in the distich +engraved on his door a few yards away:_ Ruris et urbis incola, _that I +was "an inhabitant both of the town and of the country." Through these +gardens, through these silent streets so propitious to quiet labour, and +scenting of lilacs and blossoming with pink and white chestnuts, new +roads have been cut; the Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel Boulevards, the +Rues de Rennes and Gay-Lussac, the Rue Monge which caused the demolition +of the rustic cottage where Pascal died in the Rue Saint-Étienne itself; +and the Rue Claude-Bernard which did away with the Feuillantines, where +Victor Hugo, as a child, used to chase butterflies. Soon, the last of +the monastic enclosures of the Saint-Jacques quarter, that of the +Ursulines, will disappear to make room for three new streets!_ + +_The use of such small gardens, belonging mostly to private houses, was +keenly appreciated by Parisians of the lower middle-classes who have +always been of a stay-at-home disposition. This characteristic of theirs +was satirised, during last century, in a well-known pamphlet: "A Journey +from Paris to Saint-Cloud by Sea and by Land." Their curiosity with +regard to far-off countries was not awakened as it is nowadays by +stories of travel, and by engravings, photographs, or coloured +advertisements. And getting from one place to another was very +expensive. Railways had not yet made it easy for every one to go long +distances by means of reduced fares and cheap circular tickets. An +ordinary working man, in these modern times, will travel more easily +to Biarritz, Switzerland, or Monte-Carlo, than an independent gentleman +of the Marais could then have done. During the midsummer heat, Paris +was as full as in winter's cold; and the theatres reaped their most +abundant harvest, especially popular ones like the Ambigu, the +Porte-Saint-Martin, the Gaieti, the Cirque, the Folies-Dramatiques, the +Petit Lazary, Madame Saqui's, the Théâtre Historique, &c., which were +situated near together about the Temple Boulevard. The fine weather +allowed people living at long distances to come on foot to this dramatic +fair, saving the price of a carriage both ways, and to make tail at the +doors, without having to fear rain or cold; for the good-tempered public +of those days, loving a play for its own sake, had no objection to be +penned up so, between two barriers, while waiting for the opening of the +ticket-offices, which then used to take place between five and six in +the evening; it was one of the conditions, one of the stimulants of +their pleasure, something to whet their appetite before the +performance._ + +_Even the holidays did not empty Paris very perceptibly, except on the +left bank of the Seine. From May to October, the majority of the +middle-class--small shopkeepers, functionaries, retired people, as well +as employees, clerks, and workers of every kind--contented themselves, +like Paul de Kock's heroes, with excursions and picnics in the various +Parisian suburbs--Vincennes, Montmorency, Saint-Cloud, Romainville, &c. +In Paris, shopkeepers laid the cloth for a meal out in the open air, in +the yard or garden, or, failing that, in the street. When I returned +from my Sunday walk, at the dinner-hour, between four and five in the +afternoon, I used to see, everywhere in the busiest streets, nothing but +families at table before their doors, while boys and girls played about +the road at shuttlecock, hot cockles, or blindman's buff. Occasionally, +I was caught as I passed by some little girl with bandaged eyes, who, in +order to recognise me, would feel my face, amid shouts of laughter from +all the diners. And if, during the long summer evenings, I went with my +companions to play at prisoners' base in the Rues de Vaugirard, or +d'Enfer, or on the small Saint-Michel Square, the good folk, enjoying +the fresh air on their doorsteps, paid no attention to us boys galloping +all over the street._ + +_In a word, Paris was no different from the country-town!_ + +[Illustration: DEMOLITION OF THE RUE SAINTE-HYACINTH-SAINT-MICHEL +Opposite to the Rue Soufflot +_Etching by Martial_] + +_These_ "bourgeois" _customs, which one might distinguish briefly by +saying that they were "eighteen-hundred-and-thirty customs" survived +till the 1848 Revolution, and persisted even into the Second Empire, +when railway extension, the influx of strangers, great industrial and +commercial enterprises, an increasing prosperity, the desire for comfort +and luxury, a more active public life, keener competition, and the +intenser struggle for life brought into existence our present customs +and manners. It was a surprising transformation, one which was no little +fostered by the creation of a new Paris on the ruins of the old. How +often have I congratulated myself on having, from the time when I was +fifteen years of age, devoted my holiday rambles to ferreting out, in +the old quarters of the city now cut through, parcelled up and +destroyed, the slightest vestiges of the past, as if I had foreseen +that, within a brief delay, they would be reduced to dust by the +demolisher's pick-axe._ + +_The Paris of Louis-Philippe was very nearly that of the Great +Revolution and the First Empire. Each step in it awoke souvenirs that +people thought but little of in my childhood, romanticism being more +interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and more inquisitive +about the massacre of Saint-Barthelemy than about those of September. It +looked with tenderness at the old corner turret of the Grève Square, but +gave no glance at the sign-post on the same Square, where the +unfortunate Foulon was hanged. It deplored the disappearance of the +Barbette Gate which marked the site where Charles d'Orléans was +murdered, but did not suggest going to see, a few steps further, in the +Rue des Ballets, the post where Madame de Lamballe's corpse was +beheaded. Artists, novelists, poets, historians disdained these +localities still warm from the Revolutionary drama, some episodes of +which they claimed to relate. Ary Scheffer purports to show us the +arrest of Charlotte Corday; but does not care to consult documents of +the greatest exactitude that would have brought her before his eyes and +ours with just her face, her attitude, and her dress. He does not even +think to go to the Rue des Cordeliers and visit Marat's dwelling, still +remaining as it was, including his bell rope. And he offers us a +Charlotte of his own invention, cleverly painted, who looks like a +chambermaid arrested by the porter, just as she is going off with her +mistress's gown on her back!_ + +_In his_ "Stello," _Alfred de Vigny is quite as indifferent to local +colouring as he is to facts. He places André Chénier's scaffold "on the +Revolution Square" after taking him thither in a cart laden with more +than "eighty victims, among them being some women with children sucking +at the breast"!!!_ + +_It is the same with the rest!_ + +_Being more careful, I did not disdain the old stones that were humble +witnesses of deeds so great; and, thanks to them, I was able to live +through the Revolution again on the spot. They were fated to disappear. +A new city cannot be built except on the remains of the old; and it is +hard to reconcile the requirements of the present with the worship of +the past. Indeed most of the old things, even those that might be saved, +would have a sorry air amid the splendours of our modern City. What +grieves me is to find that they have often been replaced in such a way +as to cause one to regret their disappearance._ + +[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL IN 1838 +_Lithographed by Engelmann_] + +_As for the City, so called, it may be granted that the pulling down of +its old buildings, its dark alleys, could only give pain to those whose +passion is the picturesque, or to the admirers of the_ Mysteries of +Paris. _Yet one must confess that, framed in its old close, Notre-Dame +looked nobler than now at the end of a vast, desert space, where it +seems to be stupidly posing before a photographer's camera, between the +emptiness of the river and the frightful Town Hall, that might be taken +for a slaughter-house._ + +_Nor was it necessary, when displacing the flower-market, to forbid the +sellers' continuing the habit of improvising those pretty bowers of +foliage and flowers, and to impose on them those zinc roofs that should +shelter only artificial blooms,--not at all necessary, simply to +complete the charm of the present administrative arbour._ + +_It might have also been possible to avoid cutting through the Dauphine +Square, which I have seen in my time as charming as the Place Royale, +with its pink bricks, since all we have in return is the +funereal-looking structure forming the entrance of the Palais de Justice +and the horrible balustrade of its staircase._ + +_Since my chance stroll has brought me to the Pont-Neuf I may just as +well pursue in this direction my retrospective way._ + +[Illustration: THE PONT-NEUF ABOUT 1850 +_Water-colour by Th. Masson_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +_The Pont-Neuf which is newer than ever, may be congratulated on the +loss of its high foot-pavements, its shoeblacks, dog shearers, and cat +doctors squatting among its pillars, and its haberdashers, stationers, +perfumers, fried-potato men and matchsellers, whose stalls, set up in +the semi-circular projections of the bridge, have been pulled down, +together with the old sentry-boxes that sheltered them, to make room for +the benches of the present day. But what vandalism--the whitewashing of +the two brick houses that face Henry IV.'s statue! They were built for +the site they occupy. They are an integral part of the bridge, and +contribute greatly to its adornment. If the owners, who have already +whitewashed them, take it into their heads to replace them by so-so +sort of constructions, it will mean the spoiling of one of the prettiest +sights of Old Paris._ + +_Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, too, might have been spared the proximity of +the tower which pretends to be Gothic, and of the Mairie which believes +itself Renaissance. In their company, the church loses all its grace, +and the group is ridiculous._ + +_At least, when turning one's back, one has the satisfaction no longer +to see in front of the Colonnade a waste ground surrounded with rotten +palings. Only crosses were lacking to give the place the appearance of a +cemetery._ + +_And, as a matter of fact, it was one!_ + +[Illustration: THE LOUVRE ABOUT 1785 +_Drawn by Meunier_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +_In the Restoration period, where now the equestrian statue of Velasquez +stands, Egyptian mummies had been buried--mummies that had become +decomposed, through too long sojourning in the damp ground-floor rooms +of the Louvre. In 1830, in the same spot, the corpses of the assailants +killed in the attack on the Louvre were hastily cast into a common +grave. Ten years later, when it was desired to give these brave fellows +a nobler sepulture, patriots and mummies were dug up pell-mell; and now +contemporaries of the Pharaohs lie piously buried beneath the column of +the Bastille, side by side with the July heroes._ + +_I knew the courtyard of the Louvre when it had a statue of the Duke of +Orléans, put away after 1848, one of Francis I. by Clésinger succeeding +it. Some fool or other having nicknamed it the "Sire de Framboisy," the +joke was too idiotic not to have the greatest success. And to the +nickname is partly due the disappearance of a work of art that deserved +a better fate._ + +_No description can give any idea of what the Carrousel Square was then, +in the intermediate state to which it was condemned, after the First +Empire, by the joining of the Louvre to the Tuileries, which joining was +still unachieved, though always being planned and replanned. It was +nothing but a medley of half-destroyed streets, isolated houses half +pulled-down and shored up with beams. The unpaved, uneven, broken ground +was a veritable bog in rainy weather. The great gallery of the Louvre +was flanked with an ugly wooden corridor, for ever ready to flare up! +For, as tradition has it, there is always some permanent risk of fire +in the vicinity of the Museum! On the same side, the Civil Service +had run up temporary buildings which, from the small courtyard of the +Sphinx to the gate facing the Saints-Pères bridge, enclosed the ruins of +the ancient church of Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre and its dependencies, such +as the Priory where Théophile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, Nanteuil, +Arsène Houssaye, and others, had established their "Bohème galante." +These buildings, in favour of which extenuating circumstances might be +pleaded, were hired out to colour, engraving, picture, and +curiosity-dealers of all kinds. I still see a large shop of knick-knacks +where, among a most amusing collection of ostriches' eggs, stuffed +crocodiles, and Red-Skins' heads of hair, the amateur used to come +across wonderful bargains. And what riches also in the cases exposed by +engraving-dealers in front of their doors to the curiosity of those +interested in such things! Besides the engravings, there were lots of +drawings, sketches, red crayon designs, water-colours by Cochin, Moreau, +Boucher, Lawrence, Fragonard, Saint-Aubin, Proudhon, Boilly, Isabey, &c. +I have passed there delightful hours, looking through such cases, the +contents of which, alas! I could only admire, being unable to afford to +buy masterpieces which I felt would have a future value, and which were +then sold for a mere song, the pedants of David's school despising the +French art of the eighteenth century, it being too amiable and witty for +their taste. "Sir," said one of these dealers later to me, "I have +rolled up before now engravings of Poussin, for which I would not pay +two francs to-day, in other engravings of Debucourt that I would not +sell to-day for a thousand francs!"_ + +_All this was swept away by the amalgamation of the two Palaces and the +prolonging of the Rue de Rivoli, which has, moreover, endowed us with a +very fine Square in front of the Palais Royal, in lieu of the old one, +so mean, with its fountain of water, decorative enough but all blackened +with dirt and slime._ + +[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL IN 1791 +_"Gouache" by the Chevalier de Lespinasse_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +_As for the Palais Royal, which the Duke d'Orléans seemed to have had +built, so that it might be the Forum of the Revolution, if it was no +longer the rendezvous of politicians, clubmen, gazetteers, open-air +orators, and stock-jobbers, the battlefield of 1793 Republicans and +fops, of Royalists and half-pay soldiers, the official promenade for +the Merveilleuses, and courtesans of all degrees, if it no longer had +its wooden galleries, its Tartar camp, its Dutch grotto, its gambling +hells, it was still the headquarters of the nymphs of the neighbourhood; +and, thanks to its two theatres, its eating-houses, its renowned +coffee-houses, its rich shops, especially those of the jewellers, it was +still the central point of attraction in Paris for newcomers from the +country and abroad. With the least shower, it was impossible to walk +about beneath its porticoes; and, in all weathers, especially on +Sunday--the day of meeting_ par excellence--_there were crowds in the +glass-covered arcade where, quite recently, I found myself +alone--absolutely alone!_ + +[Illustration: THE COURTYARD OF THE CARROUSEL AND THE MUSEUMS ABOUT 1848 +_Etching by Martial_] + +_What shall I say of the Tuileries Palace, except that it once was and +is no more? How I regret the magnificent shades of its grand avenue, +unrivalled even at Versailles, and its clumps of chestnuts that braved +the ardent sun rays! Nature alone is to blame for their disappearance, +but they might have been replaced by trees less pitiable than the +inevitable plane and acacia, which latter, without its flowers, is +really the silliest and ugliest of trees. It promises a fine foliage for +the future, if the future of this unfortunate garden is not to be +totally suppressed, or at least to be broken up into lots!_ + +[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE +_Original drawing by G. de Saint-Aubin_ (George Cain Collection)] + +_Time was when I have seen the Place de la Concorde without its +fountains and its statues, save the four horses of Marly--those of +Coysevox at the gate of the Tuileries, those of Coustou at the entrance +to the Champs-Elysées. When I was a boy, the socles of the future towns +of France were being restored. Since the days of Louis XV., they had +been decked with plaster caps, like saucepan lids, and were despised so +much that the one bearing the town of Strasburg was flanked with a base +stove-pipe. Anyway, it was the only one that shocked one's eyes. Count +those at present that crown the monuments of Gabriel! Round the Square +the ditches still remained, which on fête days had already made so many +victims through the hindrance they offered to the crowd's getting away. +One evenings when some fireworks were being let off on the Concorde +bridge in honour of the King's birthday, I had only just time enough to +take refuge on one of their balustrades, whence I was nearly thrown down +into the moat by those that followed my example._ + +_The obelisk had just been erected in the centre of the Square, where +its only justification was the fact of its having extricated the July +Monarchy from an embarrassing position. The authorities did not know +where to put it so as to conciliate everybody's opinion. The old stone +monument, indifferent to all parties, was a fitting symbol of their +Concord._ + +_The Champs-Elysées are unrecognisable now by any one who saw them under +Louis-Philippe! The avenue was not then, like the Boulevard des +Italiens, the meeting-place for what was called, in foolish Anglomania, +"Fashion." Ices were not drunk there as on Tortoni's steps. Society +dames and gentlemen passed along it only on horseback or in a carriage, +contemptuously abandoning the side-ways to the more modest walkers, the +small folk, who elbowed each other in the dust, to strollers, idlers, +strangers, convalescents, scholars, nurses, soldiers, players at ball or +prisoners' base on the Marigny Square, and to the innumerable urchins +that disputed with each other the goat-carts and shouted for joy in +front of the Punch-and-Judy shows!_ + +_In the way of coffee-houses, there were only three pavilions, all +unworthy of the name, little ambulating drinking-stalls on trestles, +with decanters of lemonade and barley-water, and the cocoanut-beverage +sellers shaking their bell; the only eating-houses were two wretched +wine-shops, and the places where Nanterre cakes, gingerbread, and wafers +could be bought from dealers that stood and sold their wares while +springing their rattle. For concerts, there were the fiddlers, +guitarists, and harpists, the singers of popular songs and the man who +was a band in himself; in the way of entertainments, before the opening +of the Mabille Garden, there were Franconi's summer circus, Colonel +Langlois' panorama, the swings, merry-go-rounds, and archery galleries, +the Dutch top, and the game from Siam. As illumination, there were a few +gas-lamps, the candles used by stall-keepers, and the red lanterns +exhibited by orange-women. And with all this, not a bit of lawn, not a +clump of trees, not a bed of flowers!--nothing, absolutely nothing, of +what to-day constitutes this exquisite promenade._ + +_Paris ended at the Rond-Point!_ + +_Beyond, it was only a sort of faubourg, with a fine mansion here and +there belonging to the previous century, a large garden, land unbuilt on +to be sold, tenant houses, sorry-enough-looking, furniture +repositories, coach-houses, riding-schools, and carriage-builders' +premises--particularly carriage-builders'! Near the Rue Chaillot, the +Avenue was bordered, on the left, with a broad turf embankment. I have +seen, in the fine-weather season, diners cutting up their melon and +leg-of-mutton on it, with the naïve joy of city folk enjoying the purer +field air._ + +[Illustration: PATROL ROAD LEADING FROM THE BARRIER OF THE ETOILE IN +1854 +(To-day the Avenue de Wagram.) _Etching by Martial_] + +_In the vicinity of the Arc de Triomphe, the Avenue was lonelier and +ill-inhabited, and, as soon as one crossed the barrier of the Etoile, it +was no longer the faubourg but the suburbs. Instead of the fine avenues +of the Bois and of Victor Hugo, only waste grounds were to be seen, +market-gardeners' patches, quarries and uncanny-looking, tumble-down +buildings. As for the Bois de Boulogne itself, it was so ugly by day and +so dangerous by night that the less there is said about it the better._ + +_On the right, the Roule quarter was more civilised; but beyond, towards +Mousseaux, such was not the case. One evening, out of curiosity, I went +to see the house that Balzac had just had built in the street bearing +his name. Afterwards, by chance, I strolled into this Ternes quarter, +which was unknown to me. Night came on and I soon lost my way. On my +left, I had a big, rascally wall which seemed endless, and, in the light +of the pale gas-lamps, separated by long distances, I saw on my right +nothing but stables, workyards, dairy outhouses, exhaling odours of +poultry and dung, and red-curtained, low-character eating-houses which +reminded me that, at the same hour, a professor whom I knew had been +collared by a big blackguard that exclaimed to him: "Your money, you +scamp!" My friend was smoking a cigar. Being sly, like the wise Ulysses, +he pretended to comply by putting his left hand into his waistcoat +pocket, while, with his right, he took the cigar from his mouth, knocked +off the ashes with his little finger, and stuck it right in the eye of +the footpad, who loosed him with a howl that Polyphemus might have +uttered! This souvenir haunted me; and, after traversing a wretched +hamlet, in which I was guided only by the slope of the ground, I at last +breathed freely again in the neighbourhood of the Pépinière, promising +myself that I would never again venture into such a cut-throat +locality._ + +_And yet I live in it now!_ + +_This cut-throat locality is to-day the Monceau quarter, the Avenue +Hoche, the Avenue de Messine, the Courcelles, Malesherbes and Haussmann +Boulevards; what was once called "Poland" where General Lagrange used to +tell me he had shot partridges in his youth._ + +_And the conclusion of this chat--for I must conclude--is that I regret +the old Paris, but that I am fond of the new._ + + VICTORIEN SARDOU. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Paris! What visions this magic word calls up--historic Paris, with its +palaces, churches, monuments, streets, and squares; the Paris of +literature and its admirable procession of writers, poets, thinkers, +dramatists, philosophers, and humourists; the Paris of society, its +fêtes, receptions, fashions, elegancies, and snobbism; the Paris of +politicians, the Paris of journalists, religious Paris, the Paris of the +police, bohemian Paris, industrial Paris. And how many others still! + +So many passions, events, and interests clash, mingle, and unravel again +in it that a study on this admirable and complex city is no sooner +finished than it is almost needful to write it over again, the truth of +the day before being no longer that of the morrow, the accurate document +of yesterday being found incorrect this morning. + +Our ambition is more modest, and our title indicates a programme--"Nooks +and Corners of Paris." + +Deliberately neglecting that which is too well known, already too much +described--having neither the desire nor the pretension to compose a +"Guide-book for the Foreigner in Paris"; seeking only the rare, if not +the never-yet-brought-to-light--we would simply give to those who, like +us, adore our old City a little of the joy we have each day in +"strolling" about this incomparable Town. Our object is to continue, by +means of walks through what remains to us of the dear old Paris, the +series of documents painted, pencilled, or engraved which are contained +in the Carnavalet Museum. + +The house that Madame de Sévigné loved so much has, in fact, become the +museum of the historical collections of the French Capital. + +[Illustration: THE CARNAVALET MUSEUM] + +It is a delightful nook in which still throbs a little of the old soul +of the great City! Our predecessors and we ourselves have striven to +gather together the documents of every kind that bear traces of Paris +life. Charters, plans, engravings, pictures, autographs, faded placards, +and commemorative stones; sign-boards in wrought-iron that guided +drinkers of the sixteenth century to the various public-houses; +shot-silk costumes worn by pretty Parisian women of the time of Louis +XV.; red caps of the age of Terror; girdles that girls adorned +themselves with around the funeral car of Voltaire; tricolour-bowed +shoes that trod the soil of the Champ de Mars at the moment of the +Federation Feast; the light, black tulle kerchief worn by +Marie-Antoinette when going to sit for her portrait to Dumont the +miniaturist; the woman-citizen's pike or sabre of honour; the +commemorative stone of the Bastille; Grisettes' caps of the year 1830 or +buskins worn by the Merveilleuses; the warrant for the appearance of +"Widow Capet" before the Revolutionary Tribunal; a play-bill of the +King's great dancers, and convocations to the sittings of the +Convention; the great periods of the Kings, the glorious days of the +Revolution, the tragedies of the Terror, the proclamations of the +Empire; announcements of victories, requiem masses, joys, griefs, the +life in fine of the most impressionable, most nervous, most enthusiastic +people that has ever existed--all is found at Carnavalet; and the same +case or folio, gathering together, with terrible eclecticism, the +lightning succession of events that took place on the same spot, shows +us, for a lapse of scarcely twenty years and in the same Tuileries, for +instance, the arrival of Louis XVI., the capture of the castle on the +10th of August, the execution of the King, then of the Queen, the Feast +of the Supreme Being, Thermidor, Prairial and the invasion of the +Convention, the sections annihilated at Saint-Roch by Bonaparte, the +Carrousel reviews, the apotheosis of the King of Rome, the departure of +the Emperor, the arrival of Louis XVIII., his flight, the return of +Napoleon, the coming back of Louis XVIII., &c. + +That, I fancy, is a serious lesson of history--and of philosophy. + +Our aim, I repeat, is therefore simply to continue in a few walks, which +we will try to render as attractive as possible, the search for +documents which, alas! are disappearing more and more every day. + +We will divide Paris into three great sections--the old City and the +Isle of St. Louis; the left bank of the Seine; the right bank of the +same river. + +After the document written or pencilled, the living document, or at +least what remains of it. + +This volume "Nooks and Corners of Paris" is, in great part, the +re-edition of a work entitled, "Sketches of Old Paris," printed only in +a very small number of copies and published in 1904 with equal elegance +and taste by Conard. + +Since then, the volume has been not only revised and added to, but new +illustrations were chosen. An artist of great talent, Monsieur Tony +Beltrand--too soon, alas! taken away from us by death--had adorned the +"Sketches of Old Paris" with a number of admirable compositions, of +which, moreover, he had been the clever engraver. We have been compelled +to replace these illustrations by a series of reproductions of pictures, +designs, etchings, and lithographs borrowed from private collections, +museums, libraries--and our very pleasant duty is to remark on the +exceeding good grace with which every one has helped us. May our +gratitude be allowed to mention the names of Messieurs Sardou, Claretie, +Detaille, Lavedan, Lenôtre, Bouchot, H. Martin, Funck-Brentano, A. +Meignan, Massenet, Pigoreau, Ch. Drouet, de Rochegude, Beaurepaire, Ch. +Sellier, J. Robiquet, our masters or our friends, not forgetting many, +besides, who have lent us most precious aid. Indeed, when Paris is in +question, all doors open and all hearts beat. + +Our task was an easy one, and, if we have not been able to discharge it +better, the fault is ours alone. A suitable termination, therefore, to +this introduction will be the old formula--more than ever +apropos--"Excuse the faults of the author." + +[Illustration: THE PONT-ROYAL, THE TUILERIES, AND THE LOUVRE (18th +CENTURY) +(View taken from the Pont-Neuf.) _Noël, pinxit._] + + + + +[Illustration: _Etching by Martial_] + + + + +THE OLD CITY + + +Paris was born in the Isle of the Seine, whose shape is that of a +cradle, and of which Sauval speaks so picturesquely: "The isle of the +City is fashioned like a great ship sunk in the slime and stranded at +the surface of the water, in the middle of the Seine." + +This particularity must certainly have struck the heraldists of every +age, and from it comes the vessel that is blazoned on the old escutcheon +of Paris. + +So the City presents itself with its prow to the west and its poop to +the east. + +[Illustration: VIEW OF THE PONT-NEUF, TAKEN FROM AN OVAL WINDOW IN THE +COLONNADE OF THE LOUVRE +_Water-colour by Nicolle_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The poop is Notre-Dame, and the prow, joined to the two banks by two +ropes of stone, is the old Pont-Neuf, raised on the extreme end of what +was formerly the islet of the Cow-Ferryman, where, on the 11th of March +1314, were burnt Jacques de Molay, Grand-Master of the Templars, and +Guy, Prior of Normandy,--the Pont-Neuf, the foundation of which was laid +by Henri III. on the 31st of May 1578, and was decorated with the +coats-of-arms of the King, the Queen-Mother, and the Town of Paris. When +the first pile emerged from the water, on the side of the Quay of the +Augustines, the King betook himself thither from the Louvre in a +magnificent barque, accompanied by the Queen-Mother, Catherine de +Medici, and by Queen Louise de Vaudemont, his wife. Henri III. looked +melancholy; on the same morning, he had interred, in the Church of St. +Paul Quélus, the dearest of his favourites, who had died from wounds +received, some weeks before, in the famous duel of the Minions. + +The irreverent Parisians did not hesitate to declare that, out of +respect for the Royal sadness, the new bridge ought to be called "the +Bridge of Tears." But this opinion did not last; and, as soon as Henri +IV. had inaugurated it, in June 1603, "still unsafe" and unachieved, the +Pont-Neuf became the gayest place in Paris. Mondor sold his balsam +there, and Tabarin spouted his idle talk; there it was that the ape +of Brioché amused the passers-by; there that the Mazarinades were +hummed; there that duellists unsheathed their swords, and the bands of +Cartouche and Mandrin gallantly relieved pedestrians of their purses. On +the merry Pont-Neuf all Paris took their airings, enjoyed themselves, +made appointments; Loret went there to gather information for the +_Rhyming Gazette_:-- + + "If I this week had been the man + To visit the Samaritan, + From Jack and Tom I should have heard + Everything that has occurred...." + +From the seventeenth century, it was asserted to be impossible to cross +the twelve arches of the popular bridge without meeting a monk, a white +horse, and two obliging women. It was the official route for Royal +processions proceeding to the Parliament; and, at the Pont-Neuf, rioters +assembled when going to burn in effigy, on the Dauphine Square, such +Presidents as were suspected of rendering more services than judicial +decisions. Here also, in 1789, the people compelled those who were in +carriages to stop and bow low to the effigy of good King Henri, whose +statue, supported at the four angles by the four figures of slaves that +Richelieu had had placed there, stood in the middle of the raised space +where, in 1792, were signed the voluntary enlistments, and where the +cannon resounded, calling to arms, at tragical moments of the +Revolution. The whole history of Paris has to do with the wonderful old +Pont-Neuf, celebrated throughout the world, the masterpiece of Androuet +du Cerceau and of Germain Pilon--the Pont-Neuf which was the main +thoroughfare of ancient Paris. + +[Illustration: WORKSHOPS AND FOUNDATIONS OF THE CITY BARRACKS +IN 1864-1865 +_Photographed by Richebourg, 29 Quai de L'Horloge_] + +It is therefore by the Old City that our walks should commence. We shall +come across some rare vestiges of the primitive Lutecia. On several +occasions, behind the apse of Notre-Dame, fragments of ramparts have +been found, and some of the stones forming these antique defences are +discovered to have been taken from the arenas constructed by the Romans. +The benches of the circus had contributed to check the Norman invasion; +does not the wall of Pericles on the Acropolis contain broken fragments +of antique marble statues?... + +But the glory of the City is Notre-Dame! Let us follow the winding, +picturesque Rue Chanoinesse, where the great Balzac lodged Madame de la +Chanterie, and, at No. 18, let us climb the tottering staircase of the +Dagobert Tower, an old and precious débris of the canonical buildings +that once enclosed the Cathedral of Paris. A few dozen worn-down steps +will bring us to a narrow platform whence we shall behold an admirable +sight. + +[Illustration: VIEW OF NOTRE-DAME +_J. C. Nattes, del._] + +Notre-Dame, radiantly beautiful, rises, like a large stone flower, from +a mass of flat roofs, grey or blue, and the majestic outlines of its +towers stand out in their immensity against the horizon. Beneath every +caprice of the hour or light, whether the sun gilds this splendour or +its carvings are mantled in snow, while a carpet of spotless flakes +stretches below, whether the flaming sky frames its violet bulk in +melting gold or the storm wraps it in its copper clouds, ever the noble +Cathedral appears in its shining beauty and unsurpassed grandeur. The +elegant spire that completes it shoots clearly and proudly into the air, +and flights of crows whirl, with shrill cawings, round the blossoming +roofs of the Paris Basilica. Over there, above a dazzling view of +carvings, chimneys, gables, bridges, steeples, and streets, the far-off +azures melt into soft tints, and finally mingle, on the horizon, in a +vague colouring; the beasts of the Apocalypse, which the talented +artists of times gone by poised on the tower balustrades, bend +grimacingly and jeeringly over the vast Paris that feverishly lives and +moves below! It is one of the noblest sights of the Tower that our +enchanted eyes have just gazed upon. + +On the other side, it is the Seine, a silver streak furrowed with boats +and barges; then, further on, the noble outlines of the old Paris, and, +marking its profiles on the low clouds, in the foreground, Saint-Gervais +and Saint-Protais, an antique and precious sanctuary of the sixteenth +century, one of the few remaining that preserve the secret charm of +those country churches in which the soul feels itself, within the +demi-obscurity of their chapels, more devout, more touched, and closer +to the infinite, beneath the painted windows darkened by the dust of +centuries and the smoke of incense. + +In the prolongation of Notre Dame and behind the Hôtel-Dieu, before +reaching the Palais de Justice, one formerly came across a labyrinth of +winding, narrow, evil-smelling streets--the Rue de la Juiverie, the Rue +aux Fèves, the Rue de la Calandre, the Rue des Marmousets; for centuries +this quarter had been the haunt of the lowest prostitution; there, too, +dyers had established their many-coloured tubs; and blue, red, or green +streams flowed down these streets with their old Parisian names. Humble +chapels nestled under the eaves of Notre-Dame,--Sainte-Marine, +Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, and Saint-Jean-le-Rond, in which last +d'Alembert was buried. The Hôtel-Dieu opened on the right of the +Cathedral, and formed, with the close of Notre-Dame, a really imposing +setting for it. On this site, the Second Empire built the new Hôtel-Dieu +and the Prefecture of Police; and these two ugly structures, without +taste or originality, seem to be the natural foils of France's national +glory, Notre-Dame-de-Paris. + +In the Rue Massillon, at the back of a stone porch which time has +covered with moss, a tiny courtyard opens, at No. 6, over whose damp +pavement occasionally passes a Sister of Charity in her white cap; an +old, monumental, wooden staircase, dating back to Henri IV., leads there +to some poor dwellings in a building up this courtyard. Within this +humble, provincial-looking house, half monastic in appearance, who would +believe himself in the heart of Paris, a few yards away from the Town +Hall and the Prefecture of Police? Gone the "Cloister," whose gardens at +the bottom were still in existence seven years ago. A huge, hideous +structure, resembling a barracks, to-day hides all the apse of +Notre-Dame, and the antique "Motte-aux-Papelards," the ordinary +meeting-place for the staff of the Metropolis, is replaced by a square, +a sort of open-roofed museum, where the bits of carving are arranged +that time, or regrettable though necessary restorations, have detached +from the Cathedral. + +[Illustration: THE "PETIT-PONT" +_Etching by Meryon_] + +Along the Rue de la Colombe passed the Gallo-Roman belt of the City, +near the house inhabited by Fulbert, the uncle who employed such cruel +arguments with the unfortunate Héloïse, Abelard's friend. In the Rue des +Ursins, at No. 19, may still be perceived the remains of a chapel of the +twelfth century, by name Saint-Aignan; St. Bernard is said to have +preached in it. It was one of the numerous sanctuaries in which, during +the Terror, refractory priests, under the most singular +disguises--water-carriers, national guards, waggoners, masons--came, as +they passed through the town, to say mass almost regularly to the +faithful, who were frightened neither by the guillotine, nor Fouquier's +trackers, nor the Revolutionary Committees' order-bearers. It is an +astonishing thing that not for a single day or hour was religious +ministration wanting to those who called for it, not even in the +Terror's most terrible period. At this time, the Bishop of Agde, +disguised as a costermonger, with a long beard, and carrying the +sacrament under his carmagnole, scoured Paris, officiating, and +confessing people in lofts, outhouses, and back-shops. In the Rue +Neuve-des-Capucins, mass was said in a chamber above the very dwelling +occupied by the terrible Conventional Baboeuf. + +Did not the Abbé Emery, the Superior of Saint-Sulpice, from the depths +of his dungeon, where he strengthened the courage of the prisoners ("he +prevents them from crying out," said Fouquier-Tinville), organise +throughout the Paris prisons a ministry of monks that visited all the +sinister gaols, disguised as porters, old clothes-dealers, laundrymen, +wine-sellers? Even on the way to the scaffold, the unfortunates that +were being led to execution received the aid of religion: as the +death-carts passed by, from certain windows indicated beforehand, +priests, placed there, wafted to the condemned the absolution pronounced +over the dying. + +Let us go to the other side of the close of Notre-Dame, where the +Hôtel-Dieu and its dependencies used to stand. There, once was the Tower +of the Foundlings, and the Cagnards, that old den of debauch of which +Meryon has left us such powerful etchings, and before which, as a child, +we were accustomed to stop with dread, while we watched the huge rats +that hid and roamed there, appearing in broad daylight and eating the +heaps of offal. + +[Illustration: THE OLD PREFECTURE OF POLICE +(Formerly Jerusalem Street) +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Between Notre-Dame and the Palais de Justice, there once existed a +network of small streets round the Sainte-Chapelle and the Prefecture of +Police, with gardens that ran nearly down to the water's edge. At the +Pont Saint-Michel, some old houses still remain which witnessed the +riots of 1793, 1830, and 1848; another is to be found on the Quai des +Orfèvres, where the celebrated Sabra worked; he was a popular dentist +who modestly called himself the "people's tooth-drawer." To-day it is +one of the spots dear to lovers of old books, with its open-air +book-stalls, and also to anglers, who, in the sun and out of the way of +the river passenger-boats, can practise their tranquil sport. + +Before describing the Conciergerie, let us cross the Cour du Mai; there +it was, in front of the steps leading to the Palais de Justice, on the +right, that every day the death-carts came during the Terror, and took, +at 4 o'clock, their dismal batch of those doomed to death, while, from +his office-window, Fouquier-Tinville coldly counted, as he picked his +teeth, the number of the victims who were going over there. + +From this courtyard of blood, on a foggy day of November 1793, poor +Madame Roland, with hair cut and hands tied, started for the scaffold. +Her joyous childhood had been spent in a red-and-white brick house +which stood at the angle of the Quai de l'Horloge and the platform of +the Pont-Neuf, a few yards from the Conciergerie! + +[Illustration: THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE IN 1875 +_Etching by Toussaint_] + +The charming landscape in which she had dreamed so fondly of glory and +liberty, she saw once more as she was being led to the guillotine amid +the shouts of infuriated men and women. Sanson had taken his ghastly +procession along the usual road--the Pont-au-Change, the Quai de la +Mégisserie, the Trois-Marie Square; and so, turning her eyes to the +further bank of the Seine, the poor woman, before she died, was able to +give a last look at the scenery she had been familiar with in happier +years, scenery over which rose the massive walls of the French +Panthéon--it was the new name of Sainte-Geneviève's Church which the +Convention had just re-baptized and devoted to the worship of our +national glories. + +The Conciergerie was entered by a large arched door, containing a triple +wicket as protection, at the further side of a gloomy, narrow courtyard, +with mouldy paving-stones, which now is found on the right of the large +staircase of the Palais de Justice. + +The nine steps that put it on a level with the Cour du Mai were mounted +by all the condemned victims of the Revolution. The Queen and Charlotte +Corday, Madame Elizabeth and Hubért's widow, the virtuous Bailly and +Madame du Bailly, Fouquier-Tinville and Monsieur de Malesherbes, Danton, +Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, the Abbess of Montmartre, Madame +de Monaco and Anacharsis Clootz: princesses and Conventional, dukes +and Hébertists, generals of the Republic and "Fouquiers sheep," the +noblest, purest, bravest, the maddest and most miserable crossed this +fateful threshold. + +Sanson, with his death-lists in hand, waited at the top of the +staircase, in front of the carts. + +[Illustration: OPENING UP OF THE SPACE IN FRONT OF THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE +_Meunier, pinxit_] + +The guillotine "tricoteuses" and criers thronged the top-steps of the +Palace and leaned forward, with shouts and abuse, and often with hand +that cast filth, over the unhappy prisoners. The melancholy toilet of +the condemned had been effected in the rotunda where the concierge had +his quarters, near the small whitewashed room in which the clerk +registered the arrival of the newcomers, and to which Sanson came to +give his receipt for the successive deliveries of those that he conveyed +to execution. + +The clerk's arm-chair, and his table laden with registers, took up about +half of the narrow room. Sorts of desks placed along the wall sufficed +to receive the things which prisoners left behind, their sad relics, the +hair that had been cut off. A wooden railing separated the clerk's +office, properly so called, from a back portion of it, where these +prisoners spent the weary hours that intervened before the fatal +summons, so that those entering could talk with them. Fierce dogs came +smelling round to recognise a master, mistress, or acquaintance, and +friends or relatives could try to obtain from the gaoler's pity bits of +news concerning dear ones still shut up in the dark prison. + +"On the day of my arrival," wrote Beugnot in his Memoirs, "two men were +waiting for the coming of the headsman. They were stripped of their +garments, and already had their hair thinned out and their neck +prepared. Their features were not changed. Either by accident or with +design, they held their hands in the position ready to be tied, and were +essaying attitudes of firmness and disdain. Mattresses down on the floor +revealed that they had spent their night in the place, had already +undergone this long punishment. By their side, were seen the remains of +the meal they had eaten. Their clothes were flung here and there; and +two candles that they had forgotten to extinguish cast back the daylight +and seemed to be the sole funereal illumination of the scene." + +In the hundreds of "Prison Souvenirs" which were published immediately +after the fall of Robespierre, one may gain an idea of what sort of +existence prisoners led, deprived of every necessity, devoured by +vermin, brutally treated by drunken or cruel keepers; and one should see +the gloomy courtyard where they came to get a breath of fresh air, a +narrow triangular space of ground between the walls of the prison and +the women's yard. This arrangement had one compensation; a simple iron +railing separated the two enclosures, so that friends could exchange +looks and language, and even the last kiss and embrace. + +[Illustration: THE COUR DES FILLES IN THE CONCIERGERIE +_Schaan, pinxit_] + +This railing still exists, black, rusty, and ill-looking, creaking as of +yore; and it is not difficult to conjure up the images of those that +bent over it. Madame Elizabeth, Madame Roland, Cécile Renaud, Lucile +Desmoulins, Madame de Montmorency, and Charlotte Corday touched it with +their dresses; and Du Barry, one of the few women who trembled at the +prospect of death--"A minute longer, headsman"--also clung to it! + +This railing, the so-called chapel of the Girondins, the passage called +the "Rue de Paris," the small infirmary, and the Queen's dungeon are, +together with the barred cell in which women awaited execution, the sole +vestiges of the ancient prison. Farther on, a big wall, newly raised, +shuts off the dismal route along which the condemned passed, and closes +up the former entrance to the registrar's office in the Conciergerie. + +Let us take a hasty walk round the Prison, alas! modified and +rearranged. Let us pause, however, before the door of the dungeon in +which Marie Antoinette was confined during the last thirty-five days of +her life. + +The Restoration, which assumed the task of sweeping away many things, +began with this melancholy place. Abominable coloured panes have been +put in the more than half-blocked up and carefully barred window from +behind which the Queen, whose eyes had suffered from the damp prison and +want of care, tried to obtain a little air and light. + +Only the flooring of this room, three yards by five, is intact. A low +screen once divided it off from the chamber where two prison gendarmes +were continually on guard. There, the unfortunate woman pined, in lack +of everything, a prey to anxiety, without news of her family, reduced to +borrow the linen she required from the kindness of Richard, the porter. +Her last tire-woman was the humble servant Rosalie Lamorlière, who, "not +daring to make her a single curtsey for fear of compromising or +afflicting her," threw over her shoulders a white linen handkerchief, an +hour before her departure to the scaffold. + +In striking contrast, this dungeon is separated only by a thin partition +from the apothecary's room, whither Robespierre--with fractured, hanging +jaw, his stockings down over his ankles on account of his varicose +sores, still clad in the fine, blue suit that, a few weeks previously, +at the Fête of the Supreme Being, had made so many jealous--was hustled, +all over blood and mud, like a hideous bundle. + +Sinister-looking, silent, showing no signs of life save by the twinges +of pain he was suffering, impassible in presence of the insults of the +cowards who had acclaimed him the day before, the "Incorruptible one" +waited for them to come and tie him, panting, to the top of the cart +that should convey him, amid the cries of a whole population, to the +foot of the guillotine. + +Above these dungeons, and connected with them by a narrow, winding +staircase, sat the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal in public audience. +Strangely enough, there is an almost total lack of documents as to this +most interesting corner of the Palace, where such great dramas were +played. + +[Illustration: THE TRIUMPH OF MARAT +_Fragment of a picture by Boilly_ (Lille Museum)] + +A picture by Boilly--_The Triumph of Marat_--which figures in the Lille +Museum, shows us, however, the entrance to the Revolutionary Tribunal. + +The popular tribune, after his acquittal, issues in triumph from the +hall, frantically cheered by his habitual escort of criers and +adherents! + +At the back, between two pillars, and underneath a bass-relief +representing the Law, a sort of forepart in boards opens, with an +inscription on it, "Revolutionary Tribunal!" That is the place. + +The hall in which the Queen, the Girondins, and Madame Roland were +tried, was called _The Hall of Liberty_. In another, called _The Hall of +Equality_, appeared Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Westermann, Hubert, and +Charlotte Corday. The windows overlooked the Quai de l'Horloge; and +tradition relates that the echoes of Danton's powerful voice, when he +was on trial, penetrated through the open casements to the anxious crowd +massed on the other side of the Seine. + +The last alterations carried out in this part of the Palais de Justice +have, alas! disturbed and changed everything; so that, of the +registrar's office, occupied by Richard and de Bault, which ought to +have remained sacred for ever, and of the unique exit from the Prison, +where such heartrending adieux were witnessed, and of the antechamber of +death, whose pavement was trodden by the condemned of all parties, +nothing is left to-day! + +Administrative vandals have turned it into the Palace restaurant; and +cold meat, beer, and lemonade are sold in it. A telephone has been +installed, and a "coffee filter"! Gaunt spindle-trees struggle in vain +to thrive in the sombre, narrow courtyard illustrious for its past +scenes of agony! As Paul-Louis Courier used to repeat: _Immane nefas._ + +[Illustration: THE DAUPHINE SQUARE IN 1780 +_Drawing by Duché de Vancy (Exhibition of Painting, Carnavalet Museum)_] + +At the rear of the Palais de Justice was formerly the delightful +Dauphine Square, where the first "Public Exhibitions of Youth" were +held, the exhibits being works of artists not belonging to the official +Academies. The Carnavalet Museum possesses a most amusing pencil +drawing, signed "Duché de Vancy," and dated May 1783, which bears this +manuscript inscription: "Picturesque view of the Exhibition of paintings +and drawings, on the Dauphine Square, the day of the lesser Corpus +Christi feast." As a matter of fact, on the Sunday of the Corpus +Christi, "when it did not rain," artists had the authorisation--in the +morning--to submit their works to the public; if it did rain--and this +was the case in 1783--the fête was adjourned to the following Thursday. +The pictures were exposed in the northern corner of the Square, on white +hangings fixed by the shopkeepers in front of their shops; and the +Exhibition extended on to the bridge as far as opposite the good Henri's +statue. Oudry, Restout, de Troy, Grimoud, Boucher, Nattier, Louis +Tocqué, and, last of all, Chardin showed their works there. In an +excellent study devoted to these Exhibitions of Youth, Monsieur Prosper +Dorbec details the works that Chardin took to this ephemeral Salon of +the Dauphine Square. In 1728, when he was twenty-nine, he presented +there two masterpieces, _The Ray-fish_ and _The Side-board_, which +to-day are two of the glories of the French School at the Louvre Museum. +Up to the time of the Revolution, this little artistic manifestation +roused Parisian enthusiasm; and what a pretty sight must have been +offered by the Dauphine Square, and the pink fronts of the two corner +houses and the old Pont-Neuf--an exquisite, picturesque setting--with +the throng of amateurs, saunterers, critics, fine ladies, artists, +amiable models in light-coloured costume, full of mirth and busy talk, +eagerly gazing, on a mild May morning, at the freshly-hung canvases of +the Minor Exhibitors of the Dauphine Square. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE ISLE OF SAINT-LOUIS + + +The Isle of Saint-Louis is, in some sort, the continuation of the old +City. It is a kind of provincial town in Paris. The streets are silent +and deserted; there are no shops, no promenaders, no business; a few old +aristocratic mansions, with their tall façades, their emblazoned +pediments and their severe architecture, alone tell the glorious past of +this noble quarter. + +The finely carved spire of Saint-Louis' Church confers an elegance on +the somewhat melancholy whole. The quays of Orléans and Bethune contain +vast buildings of grand style. In the Rue Saint-Louis, is the admirable +Lambert mansion, that masterpiece of the architect Le Vau, which was +lost at the gaming-table in one night by Monsieur Dupin de Chenonceaux, +the ungrateful pupil of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Le Brun painted the +gallery of the Fêtes in it, and Le Sueur the saloon of the Muses. + +At that time, it was the rendezvous of all the wits. Madame du Châtelet +throned there, Voltaire lived in it, and the Lambert mansion radiated +over the length and breadth of dazzled Paris. + +Then came darker days. The masterpieces of Le Sueur were sold--most of +them found their way to the Louvre--and nothing survives of this great +painter's work in the Lambert mansion except a grey camaïeu placed under +a staircase, and a few panels scattered here and there. + +Last of all--as if to mark its definitive decadence;--the mansion was +occupied by some military-bed purveyors. The fine carvings, sumptuous +paintings and gilded arabesques disappeared beneath a thick white dust +from cards of wool. In the great gallery, so magnificently decorated by +Le Brun and Van Opstaël, mattress-women set up their trestles and +seamstresses began to sew sacking. + +Later, Prince Czartorisky bought this noble dwelling and thus saved it +from ruin. + +Below the Lambert Hotel, along the river, is the Marie Bridge, at the +foot of which used to moor the famous water-diligence from whose deck +disembarked for the first time in Paris, on the 19th of October 1784, a +pale-complexioned youth of resolute brow, with eyes that gazed from +their depths on the horizons of the immense town. It was Bonaparte, a +pupil from the Brienne School, who had come to continue his studies at +the École Militaire; and the first glimpse the future Cæsar had of the +great Paris which was ultimately to acclaim him was the apse of +Notre-Dame, the old and venerable Notre-Dame in which he was to be +crowned, and round which, in preparation for the coronation day, the 2nd +of December 1804, eighteen houses were pulled down, so that the pomp of +the ceremony might be celebrated without obstacle and in all its +magnificence! + +[Illustration: THE PONT MARIE IN 1886 +_From a painting by P. Shaan_] + +Finally, on the Anjou Quay, we meet with one of the handsomest mansions +of old Paris, that bearing the name of Lauzun, which the generous +initiative of the Municipal Council has saved from destruction, the +Lauzun mansion with its inimitable wainscoting, its ancient gildings, +its glorious past, which is destined to become the museum of all +belonging to the seventeenth century: a fine frame for a fine project. + +In this old quarter of the Isle of Saint-Louis, at the confluence of the +Seine's two arms, painters, writers and poets have always dwelt: George +Sand, Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, Méry, Daubigny, +Corot, Barye, Daumier, all lived there for a long time. In the Lauzun +mansion, were held the sittings of the hashish smokers' club; and the +chipped Virgin that looks from her niche at the corner of the Rue +Le-Regrattier--formerly known as the street of the Headless Woman--and +saw the passage of the whole Romantic Pleiad, will long continue to +receive visits from lovers of old Paris. + +It is from the Bourbon Quay that one of the most beautiful sights +imaginable may best be obtained: a sunset over Paris. + +The violet-tinted mass of Notre-Dame stands out with its superbly +imposing silhouette against the purpled gold of the fiery sky. All the +town dies away in a pink dust of light, whilst the broad roofs of the +Louvre, the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, the pepper-box turrets of the +Conciergerie, the Saint-Jacques Tower, and the campaniles of the Town +Hall, all this landscape alive with history glows in the last rays of +the sinking sun. The Seine flows with a surface of liquid gold. + +The spectacle is sublime. + +[Illustration: THE ISLE OF SAINT-LOUIS] + + + + +[Illustration: BUILDING OF THE PANTHÉON +_Fragment of a water-colour by Saint-Aubin_] + + + + +THE LEFT BANK OF THE SEINE + + +No less than the old part of the City, the left bank of the river is +rich in souvenirs. There the Roman occupation left the deepest traces. +We find the arenas of Lutecia, and, above all, the Thermae of Julian, +saved from destruction by the taste and initiative of Du Sommerard at +the moment when these grandiose ruins, which were being used as coopers' +store-rooms, were about to be pulled down, involving in their fall that +jewel of the fifteenth century, the marvellous Hôtel de Cluny. Quite +recently, remains of Roman substructures have been discovered near the +College de France, in the Rue Saint-Jacques and the Saint-Michel +Boulevard; but the glory of the left bank of the river was, in +particular, the University and the Sorbonne. + +Little to-day is left of these old walls; but, ten years ago, the hill +of Sainte-Geneviève still preserved much of its whilom picturesqueness. + +[Illustration: THE COLLEGE OF LOUIS-LE-GRAND +_H. Saffrey, Sculpt._] + +There was the Rue Saint-Jacques, with its old book-sellers and +seventeenth-century houses, and especially--what dread +reminiscences!--the heavy-leaved gate of the Louis-le-Grand Lycée, where +Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, and the future Marshal Brune had +studied under the mastership of the good Abbé Berardier. I confess that +the Louis-le-Grand of our boyhood was black, and gloomy enough also, +with its moss-grown playgrounds, its smoky rooms, its punishment +chambers up under the roof, where one was frozen in winter and stifled +in summer, its punishment chambers in which tradition relates that +Saint-Huruge was confined; quite near to the Saint-Jacques blind alley +where Auvergne dealers sold such fine trinkets, and to the little Rue +Cujas, noisy with the noise of rowdy students--but which rendered us +pensive. + +There was the Sorbonne, with its paved courtyard, where we used to wait, +pale, feverish and anxious, for the posting of the small white notice +bearing the names of those candidates for the Baccalaureat that were +admitted to the _vivâ voce_; and we were half-dead with fear at the idea +of appearing before the terrible Monsieur Bernès, while we blessed the +gods to have given us as examiner the witty and indulgent Monsieur +Mézières, who, at least for his part, has not grown old. + +[Illustration: THE INNER COURTYARD OF THE ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE +_Etching by Martial_] + +Further on, in the rear of Sainte-Barbe, we come to the Rue de la +Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, alive and teeming with its old mansions +converted into dispensaries or business premises, its petty trades, its +popular dancing-rooms, and, last but not least, its celebrated École +Polytechnique, dear to all Parisians, which adds its note of +cheerfulness to this somewhat sombre quarter. + +[Illustration: THE RUE CLOVIS IN 1867 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Quite near there is the Rue Clovis, where formerly stood the Abbey of +Sainte-Geneviève, whose square tower still remains and makes us regret +the part that has disappeared. In this Rue Clovis may be seen, crumbling +to decay and half-buried under climbing plants--lichens, ivy, sage and +moss--a big side of a primitive-looking wall, a fragment of the +fortifications of Philippe-Auguste, the belt of stone and lofty strong +towers behind which for centuries were heaped houses, palaces, colleges, +churches and abbeys, huddling against one another. The church of +Saint-Etienne-du-Mont opens its elegant portal a few yards away from the +Rue Clovis. Illustrious dead were buried there: Pascal, Racine, Boileau. + +A crime was also committed in it. + +On the 3rd of January 1858, the first day of the novena of +Sainte-Geneviève, whose relics repose in one of the side-chapels of the +church, dreadful cries were heard: "They have just murdered +Monseigneur," and soon a man of haggard looks, clad in black, with +blood-red hands, was seen on the Square in the grasp of some policemen +who had just arrested him. It was Verger, a half-mad, interdicted +priest, who had stabbed to the heart Monseigneur Sibour, Archbishop of +Paris! + +This charming church should be seen in the early days of January. + +A sort of small religious fair is then held in front of the porch. A +veritable liturgical library is there for sale, under umbrellas +resembling those that used to shelter the orange-dealers: "Mary's +Rose-trees," "Miracles at Lourdes," "Synopses of Novenas," "Acts of +Faith," "Acts of Contrition," "Lives of the Saints," "Glorifications of +the Blessed." Chaplets are sold, holy images, devotional post-cards, +orthodox rituals, medals, scapularies--and unfortunately these objects +have less artistic value than sentiment about them. It is a +delightful Parisian tableau in one of the prettiest settings of the +great town. + +At the end of the Rue Clovis, is the Rue du Cardinal-Lemoine, where the +painter Lebrun possessed a lovely house, still standing at No. 49, +over-run with ivy and honeysuckle, two or three yards distant from the +Scotch college--at present the "Institution Chevallier,"--converted into +a prison during the Terror, like most educational institutions. +Saint-Just was conveyed thither, after being outlawed on the 9th of +Thermidor; and his friends came there to fetch him at eight o'clock in +the evening, as well as his colleague Couthon, who was confined in the +Port-Libre (the old religious house of Port-Royal). It is easy to +imagine the gendarmes, on the steep slopes of the Rue Saint-Jacques, +running round the mechanical seat which the impotent Couthon feverishly +worked and propelled with handles levered to the wheels, and which +travelled rapidly over the hard stones, amid shouts and frightened +"sectionnaires,"--easy to conjure up before one's senses the call to +arms, the sound of the tocsin, under the downpour of the storm that +dispersed the Robespierrian bands camped about the Town Hall, and +enabled the troops of the Convention to invade the "Maison Commune" +without resistance. + +An hour later, Robespierre had his jaw smashed by Merda's bullet; his +brother sprang through the window; Le Bas committed suicide; Saint-Just, +haughty and impassible, allowed himself to be arrested in silence; +Couthon, with his paralysed legs, was flung on to a rubbish heap, and +then, bleeding and motionless, was dragged by the feet to the parapet of +the quay. He pretended to be dead. "Let us cast him into the water," +howled a multitude of fierce voices. "Excuse me, citizens," murmured +Couthon, "but I am still alive." So he was reserved for the scaffold. + +Behind Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, there is a nook almost unknown to +Parisians: a little cloister close to the apse of the church, and +containing some admirable painted glass windows by Pinaigrier, the great +artist, who, in 1568, charged for the "Parable of the Guests," a +three-compartment window painting, which masterpiece now adorns the +chapel of the Crucifix, "92 livres 10 sols, including the leading and +iron trellis." + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE LA MONTAGNE-SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE IN 1866 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +It is one of the retreats for poetry and devotion so common in Paris, +and yet ofttimes so unsuspected amid the city's noise; and one never +forgets the impression produced when leaving the Latin Quarter, with its +laughter and songs, and plunging suddenly into this deserted cloister +full of dream and melancholy, though so close to the sunny, busy square +of the Panthéon, where, on the 27th of July 1830, to the shouts of the +people and the army, an actor at the Odéon Theatre, Eric Besnard, +replaced once more the inscription: "_To her great men the grateful +mother country_" on the fine temple built by Soufflot, which the +Restoration had consecrated to the worship of Sainte-Geneviève. + +[Illustration: THE PANTHÉON, IN BUILDING] + +The Panthéon is certainly the one Parisian building which has been +most often baptized and re-baptized. Constructed in consequence of a vow +made by Louis XV. when ill at Metz, on the gardens belonging to the +original Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, the money that paid for it was +derived from a portion of the funds raised by three lotteries drawn +every month in Paris. + +Soufflot, whose grandiose plans had been accepted, set to work in 1755. +Towards 1764, the edifice began to assume shape, and the Parisians in +enthusiasm admired the magnificent forms that modified the ancient +outlines of their city. But cracks and fissures and sinkings-in +occurred; a mad terror succeeded to the wonder: "The building will +tumble, and its fall will involve a part of the old quarter of the +Sorbonne," people said. Works of shoring up, embanking and strengthening +were carried out. Paris breathed again; but poor Soufflot, in despair, +could not survive so many tragic emotions. He died in 1781 without +finishing his undertaking. + +In 1791, the constituent Assembly set apart for the "Honouring of Great +Men" the church primitively dedicated to Sainte-Geneviève; and +Mirabeau's body was conveyed thither in triumph "to the sounds of +trombone and gong, whose notes, by the intensity with which they were +produced, tore the bowels and harrowed the heart," says a chronicle of +the time. + +[Illustration: PROCESSION IN FRONT OF SAINTE-GENEVIÈVE +_Meunier, fecit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The great tribune was destined to make but a short stay in the +Panthéon,--this was the name given to the secularised church--for on the +27th of November 1793, at the instigation of Joseph Chénier, and after +study of the documents found in the iron safe, documents that left no +doubt as to "the great treason of the Count de Mirabeau," the +Convention, "considering that a man cannot be great without virtue, +decreed that Mirabeau's ashes should be removed from the Panthéon, and +that those of Marat should be buried there." The sentence was carried +out by night, and the "virtuous" Marat took the place of Mirabeau; not +for long, however, since, some months later, Marat's body, +"depantheonised" in its turn, was cast into the common grave of the +small graveyard belonging to Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. Voltaire and +Rousseau were, in their turn, triumphantly interred. Voltaire's body, +after remaining all night in the ruins of the Bastille, had been brought +to the Panthéon on a triumphal car, escorted by fifty girls dressed in +antique style through David's care, and by the actors and actresses of +the Théâtre Français in their stage dresses. The widow and daughters of +the unfortunate Calas walked behind, close to the torn flag of the +Bastille. In order to make this interment a never-to-be-forgotten fête, +its organisers had provided for everything except for the weather. A +dreadful storm descended on the heads of those composing the procession: +Mérope, Lusignan, the Virgins, Brutus, and the delegates sent in the +names of Politics, the Arts, and Agriculture, were wet to the skin; and, +covered with mud and in wretched plight, were compelled to huddle into +cabs or shelter themselves under umbrellas. + +And thus it was that, on the 12th of July 1791, Voltaire made his entry +into the Panthéon. + +[Illustration: THE APOTHEOSIS OF JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU +His translation to the Panthéon on the 11th of October 1794 +_Girardet, inv. et del._] + +Jean-Jacques Rousseau followed him there on the 11th of October 1794; +his body brought back from Ermenonville, beneath a bower of flowering +shrubs, to the agreeable sounds of the "Village Seer," had passed the +preceding night on the basin of the Tuileries, transformed for the +occasion into an "Isle of Poplars." While yet not so popular as that of +Voltaire, his triumph was "one of sensitive souls," and "the man of +nature" was interred according to the rites he had himself prescribed. +Later, Napoleon peopled the Panthéon with the shades of obscure senators +and some few artists, admirals, and generals. Subsequently, the Second +Republic made a definitive assignment of the edifice to the cult of +great men; and there, on a sunny day, the 3rd of May 1885, Victor Hugo's +body was brought in the humble hearse of the poor, amid the acclamations +of an immense concourse of people, after spending a night of apotheosis +under the Arc de Triomphe, which he had so nobly sung. Since then, +Baudin, President Carnot, La Tour d'Auvergne have been buried there; and +an admirable decoration, the work of our best contemporary artists, +covers the vast walls of this necropolis. Puvis de Chavannes, Humbert, +Henri-Lévy, Cabanel, Jean-Paul Laurens are finely represented in it; +and, last of all, Edouard Detaille, surpassing himself, has, in an +admirable soaring of art, created on the canvas--in Homeric +proportions--a mad rush of horses and riders, the old cavaliers of the +Republic and the Empire, towards the radiant image of the Motherland, +with standards conquered from the enemy by their dauntless heroism. + +Around the Panthéon, there used to be, and still is, a labyrinth of +little streets, poor and crowded together, once inhabited by those that +attended the schools, so numerous in that quarter of the Sorbonne. + +The Rue des Carmes remains to us as a perfect specimen of the past, with +its houses whose shaking walls support each other, its crumbling +façades, its dilapidated staircases; and then, here and there, the +relics of a vanished splendour, the entrance to two important colleges, +to-day dwindled down into dens of misery, into lodgings of the poor. +Narrow and uneven, the Rue des Carmes ascends toilingly between shops +whose paint has been streaked by storms, faded by dust and wind; and yet +it continues to be full of charm and poetry, this sorry-looking street, +crowned at the top by the august proportions of the Panthéon, and +framing at the bottom, with its two lines of dingy houses, mean hotels, +and dancing-rooms, the delicate and elegant spire of Notre-Dame aloft on +the horizon of the clear sky. + +It was at the corner of this Rue des Carmes and the Rue des Sept-Voies, +not far from Sainte-Geneviève's church, that, at seven o'clock in the +evening of the 9th of March 1804, George Cadoudal sprang into the cab +that was to take him to the fresh hiding-place which his friends had +prepared for him in the house of Caron, the royalist perfumer of the Rue +du Four-Saint-Germain. George was narrowly watched, all the Paris police +being on the alert. He was recognised, and pursued by the Inspectors of +the Prefecture, two of whom pounced on him at the corner of the Rue +Monsieur-le-Prince and the Rue de l'Observance. The one he killed with a +pistol bullet in his forehead, the second he wounded. Meanwhile, the +assembled crowd hindered his flight; and a hatter of the neighbourhood +seized the outlaw and dragged him to the Police Station. His calmness +and dignity and the wit of his replies disconcerted his adversaries. +Reproached with having killed a married detective, the father of a +family: "Next time have me arrested by bachelors," he retorted. After he +had owned to the dagger found upon him, he was asked if the engraving on +the handle were not the English hall-mark. "I cannot say," he replied, +"but I can assure you that I have not had it[1] hall-marked in France." + +[Illustration: THE LUXEMBOURG, ABOUT 1790 +_Maréchal, del._ (National Library)] + +Quite near, is the Luxembourg, both palace and prison, the Luxembourg, +where Marie de Medici gave such magnificent fêtes, where Gaston +d'Orléans yawned so much, and where the Grande Mademoiselle sulked, +sighing for the handsome Lauzun; where also the Count de Provence so +cleverly prepared, with Monsieur d'Avaray, his escape from France, on +the same evening that Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette made such bad +arrangements for the lugubrious journey that was to lead them to +Varennes; the Luxembourg, whose courtyard was used as a promenade by +such prisoners as the Terror crowded there; the Luxembourg, whence +Camille Desmoulins wrote to his Lucile those heartrending letters that +still bear the traces of tears; the Luxembourg whither, a few weeks +later, Robespierre was brought as a prisoner, and where, "for want of +room," Hally, the porter, refused to receive him; the Luxembourg where, +after Thermidor, the artist David painted, from, his dungeon, the shady +walk in which he could see his children playing at ball; the +Luxembourg of Barras, of Bonaparte, of the Directory fêtes; the +Luxembourg, too, of Nodier, of Saint-Beuve, of Murger, of Michelet, of +the students, of the workers of Bohemia, of the songs of the worthy +Nadaud and Mimi Pinson, near to Bullier's and the Lilac Closerie and +also to the Observatory and the ill-omened wall "scored with bullets" +where Marshal Ney fell. Everywhere, the same mingling of mirth and +sorrow, of laughter and blood. The reason is that each street, each +cross-road, almost each house has seen some dark procession pass by or +some victorious fête celebrated. + +[Illustration: FRATERNAL SUPPERS IN THE SECTIONS OF PARIS +On the 11th, 12th, and 13th of May 1793, or the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of +Floreal, Anno II. of the Republic. +_Drawn by Swebach-Desfontaines_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +On all these dingy walls of Paris, hands of women or of artists have +contrived to put flowers or bird-cages; and no alley is so dismal that +it does not harbour a little poetry and dreaming, some gillyflowers and +songs. + +Not far away is the Carmes prison, in the Rue de Vaugirard, at the +corner of the Rue d'Assas; and there all the externals are the same as +they were at the moment of the terrible massacre of 1792. At the foot of +the staircase one sees still the tiled floor of the small room where, +between two corridors, Maillard placed the chair and table that formed +the bloody tribunal of the September slaughter; the balcony covered with +climbing plants through which issued the unfortunates that were felled, +stabbed with pikes, or shot in the large garden; and, at the top of the +first story, on the wall bearing even now the red marks of the +blood-dripping sabres used by the slayers, may be read the signatures of +the fair prisoners who, day after day, in terrified anxiety, waited, +each evening, for the fatal order to appear before the Tribunal: +Mesdames d'Aiguillon, Terezia Cabarrus-Tallien, Joséphine de +Beauharnais. At this date, Tallien, himself suspected and followed by a +band of spies, prowled from eve till morn round the sinister prison in +which the woman he loved was confined. One day, on his table, 17 Rue de +la Perle, he found a poniard that he recognised, a gem of Spain with +which Terezia's hands were familiar. It was an imperative order; and on +the 7th of Thermidor this note was transmitted to him from "La Force." +"The head of the police has just gone from here. He came to tell me that +to-morrow I shall ascend to the Tribunal, that is, to the scaffold. It +is different from the dream I had in the night: Robespierre dead and the +prisons opened.... But, thanks to your signal cowardice, there will soon +be no one in France capable of realising it!" + +As a matter of fact, the fair Terezia, being more especially aimed at by +the Committee, had been mysteriously transferred from the Carmes prison +to La Force; and it was from this latter place that she sent her will +and testament of vengeance and death. Then, Tallien swore to save his +country; the mother country for him was the woman he worshipped. Mad +with love and rage, rousing against Robespierre every rancour, terror, +and hatred, he spent the night and the day of the 8th in preparing the +dreadful and tragical sitting of the 9th of Thermidor, which was a +merciless duel between the two sides. He appealed to Fouché, to +Collot d'Herbois as to Durand-Maillane and Louchet, to Cambon as to +Vadier, to Thuriot as to Legendre, to the few remaining Dantonists as to +the eternal tremblers of the Marais; then, springing to the rostrum with +a dagger in his hand, he threatened Robespierre, who was nervous, +uneasy, distraught, from the presentiment that his power was escaping +him; and, at length, after a fearful five hours' struggle, obtained the +dread decree outlawing and condemning to the guillotine those who +themselves for two years had been mowing down the members of the +Convention. + +[Illustration: FÊTE GIVEN AT THE LUXEMBOURG ON THE 20TH OF FRIMAIRE, +ANNO VII. +Bonaparte hands to the Directory the treaty of Campo-Formio] + +Opposite the Luxembourg, is the Rue de Tournon, where Théroigne de +Méricourt and Mademoiselle Lenormand lived; the Countess d'Houdetot +dwelt at No. 12, the appearance of which has hardly changed since. If he +were to come back and wander about these parts, Jean-Jacques Rousseau +would again find almost intact the home of her he chiefly loved, quite +near to the Rue Servandoni, a dark, damp lane lurking beneath the walls +of Saint-Sulpice, where Condorcet, during the Terror, succeeded in +safely hiding himself at the house of Madame Vernet, No. 15. There he +terminated--under what sorry conditions!--his _Tableau of the Progress +of the Human Mind_. His wife was living at Auteuil and there painted +pastels. No industry prospered under the Terror. "Every one," says +Michelet, "was in a hurry to fix on the canvas a shadow of this +uncertain life." On the 6th of April, his work being finished, +Condorcet dressed himself as a workman, with long beard and cap down +over his eyes, a "Horace" in his hand, and in his pocket some poison, +for a case of need, prepared him by Cabanis; and escaped from Madame +Vernet's. All day, he roamed about the country, in the vicinity of +Fontenay-aux-Roses, hoping to find with some friends, Monsieur and +Madame Suard, a shelter that they refused him. He spent the night in the +woods; then, on the morrow, haggard and starved, he entered a Clamart +public-house. There, he made a ravenous meal, while reading his dear +Horace. Being questioned and suspected, he was carried off to the +district, put on an old horse and thus conducted to the prison at +Bourg-la-Reine. At dawn, the gaolers, on going into his cell, stumbled +over his corpse. Poison had made an end of this noble life of work, +glory, and misery. + +Aloft in the same quiet quarter, Saint-Sulpice rears its two unequal +towers, on which Chappe planted the great arms of his aërial telegraph. +It was in the fine vestry of this imposing church, which has preserved +its admirable wood-carvings, that Camille Desmoulins signed the marriage +register, when, on the 29th of December 1790, he married his adored +Lucile Duplessis. The marriage was a veritable romance; and all Paris +crowded to the gates of Saint-Sulpice to see the procession go by. The +bride and bridegroom were congratulated; and cheers were given for the +witnesses, whose names had already become popular; Sillery, Pétion, +Mercier, and Robespierre. Then, the wedding party ascended the Rue de +Condé to go and breakfast at Camille's home, No. 1 Rue du Théâtre +François (to-day, No. 38 Rue de l'Odéon), on the third floor. There, on +the 20th of March 1794, the day of his mother's death, he was arrested, +bound like a malefactor, and thence was taken to the Luxembourg hard by. +On the 5th of April, Camille was executed amid the shouts of the people +who had so flattered him. Lucile followed him to the scaffold a week +later! They had sworn to love each other in life and death.... The idyll +finished in blood. + +Round about Saint-Sulpice, one comes across the Rue Férou, the Rue +Cassette, the Rue Garancière, the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, the Rue +Madame, with their ancient names and provincial aspect, devout and +silent quarters of monastic and semi-mysterious life, and, for this +reason, full of infinite charm. + +There, on all sides, are heard convent bells and liturgic sounds. The +few shops that exist are austere in air and devoted to religious +purposes: chasuble makers', holy image dealers', church book and +jewellery sellers'. Behind long, sombre walls, shoots of verdure, the +plumes of a tree joyously bursting forth remind one of large, unkempt +gardens, where all grows wild, full of flowers and birds, inhabited by +pious persons and old people who pray as they walk and regretfully dream +of the times that are no more. + +In the huge Paris, noisy and flippant, mad with sound and movement, +tramways and underground railways, it is the refuge of the past, the +quarter for prayer, silence, and oblivion; there still seem to live "a +few dolent voices of yearnings for the past, which ring the curfew," +says Chateaubriand in his _Memoirs from beyond the Grave_. + +Old mansions are numerous. + +In the Rue de Varenne alone, each portal awakes a remembrance of the +most illustrious names of France's nobility: Broglie, Bourbon, Condé, +Villeroy, Castries, Rohan-Chabot, Tessé, Béthune-Sully, Montmorency, +Rougé, Ségur, Aubeterre, Narbonne-Pelet, &c., and some of the hosts of +these aristocratic dwellings were certainly found disguised, dressed up +as horse-dealers, drovers, peasants, workmen, in the _Golden Cup_ +hostelry at the corner of the Rue de Varenne, which was celebrated in +the history of the Chouannerie: the heroes of _Tournebut_, my dear +friend Lenôtre's interesting work, put up there, says the author, who, +himself filled with enthusiasm, knows how to inspire his reader with the +same. It was one of the meeting-places used by the sworn companions of +George Cadoudal, who hid there several times; and there, too, the +royalist conspirators met to complete, for Vendémiaire, Anno IV., their +arrangements relative to the abduction of the Convention. + +At some little distance, in the Rue Canettes, another rendezvous +existed, for emigrants and chouans, in the house of the perfumer, Caron, +where a famous hiding-place was used. Hyde de Neuville tells us, in his +picturesque memoirs, that one needed only to slip behind the picture, +serving as signboard to the perfumery--a picture overhanging the +street--then to draw over one the shutter of the neighbouring chamber, +for all the police Fouché employed to be tricked, in spite of searching, +as they frequently did, the house through and through. + +Next, we come upon the Odéon--the old Odéon--still standing on its base, +in spite of the countless jests levelled at it, with its famous +galleries, where, for many a long year, saunterers have gone to have a +look at the last productions of contemporary literature. How often have +we lingered in front of the old books or new ones, turning over the +leaves, or reading between two pages yet uncut? + +It was in 1873 that, under three arcades of the Odéon galleries, the +most amiable of publishers, Ernest Flammarion, installed himself in +partnership with Ch. Marpon; both of them indefatigable workers, +benevolent and witty, they spent treasures of contrivance to get into +too narrow a space all the nice, fine books they loved so well, and +understood so well how to make others love. + +But soon the three arcades were really inadequate; and, progressively, +the untiring Flammarion spread round two sides of the big building, +before starting out to conquer Paris, and to establish in the city so +many bookshops. He had his faithful readers: an old book-lover of narrow +purse owned to him that he had read the whole of Darwin's _Origin of +Species_ (450 pages) while standing in front of the stall! + +Other customers less scrupulous have sometimes carried off the volume +they had begun; but the good Flammarion is infinitely indulgent to such +"absent-minded" individuals. "The desire to instruct themselves is too +strong for their feelings," he murmurs by way of excuse, and, +philosophically, he smiles and passes these petty larcenies to his +profit and loss account. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE L'ECOLE DE MÉDECINE IN 1866 +House where Marat was assassinated +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Along the Rue de l'École-de-Médecine, passing by the Dupuytren Museum, +which was formerly the refectory of the Franciscan monastery, we reach +the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the cutting of which did away with so many +precious relics; among others, the abode where Marat was assassinated, +the Mignon College, and the Saint-Germain Abbey, the front of which +opened opposite the row of old, curiously gabled houses which so far +have been left alone by architects and builders. These latter heard the +cries of the victims that were massacred in the September slaughters. +They were lighted by the reflection of eighty-four fire-pots supplied by +a certain Bourgain, the candle-maker of the quarter, in order that the +families of the slaughterers and the amateurs of fine spectacles might +come and contemplate the work; the shopkeepers of the quarter, who were +complaisant witnesses, supplied details. These houses also saw +Billaud-Varennes congratulate the "workers" and distribute wine tickets +to them; and Maillard, surnamed Strike Hard, they saw leave, when his +work was done, with his hands crossed behind the skirts of his long grey +overcoat, and walk quietly back to his home, like a worthy clerk +quitting his office, coughing the while, for he had a delicate chest. + +[Illustration: THE GALLERY OF THE ODÉON (RUE ROTROU)] + +Together with the present presbytery, they form the sole extant +witnesses of that dreadful butchery. + +Within a stone's throw, once there was the Passage du Commerce, where +resounded the butt-ends of the guns of the sectionaries who, on the 31st +of March 1794, came at daybreak to arrest Danton and conduct him to the +Luxembourg; and it is easy to fancy what must have been that hour of +fright and stupefaction. Arrest Danton! the Titan of the Revolution, him +whose formidable eloquence had raised fourteen armies from the soil! the +Danton of the 10th of August, Danton till then untouchable! It was only +a few days after the arrest of Camille with his cruel wit; the Camille +of the Palais-Royal, of the _Lanterne_, the _Revolutions of France and +Brabant_, the _Brissot unmasked_; the Camille of the "_Vieux +Cordelier_," that masterpiece of wit and courage, in which he dared to +speak of clemency to Robespierre and of respect for his fellows to the +ignoble Hébert! On the site of Danton's house, the tribune's statue +stands to-day; we regret the house. + +[Illustration: THE ROHAN COURTYARD IN 1901 +_Water-colour by D. Bourgoin_] + +The Rohan courtyard (the word ought to be written _Rouen_, for, in the +fifteenth century, the yard depended on the old mansion possessed by the +Cardinal de Rouen) joins the Passage du Commerce, a few steps from the +bookshop where the philanthropic Doctor Guillotin tried on a sheep the +knife of his "beheading machine"; it is picturesque and curious, this +Rohan courtyard, where you can still see the well of the house once +inhabited by Coictier, the doctor of Louis XI.; where, too, the "mule's +step" may be found, that Sorbonne doctors, who frequented this quarter, +used in order to get off their steeds, and which preserved a very old +wall round a garden planted with lilac and turf--alas! destroyed last +year. The wall, like that of the Rue Clovis, was a fragment of +Philippe-Auguste's fortification, the base of one of whose towers is +still to be made out in the Passage du Commerce, No. 4, at the house of +a locksmith, who has set up his forge upon it! + +[Illustration: THE ROHAN COURTYARD IN 1901 +Second view] + +The houses there are old, dilapidated, and sordid, but perfect in their +picturesqueness; the strangest industries flourish in them, and quite +recently one might read there this characteristically Parisian +advertisement, "Small hands required for flowers and feathers," beside a +plate pointing out the address of the newspaper, _Heaven_, on the fourth +floor, door to the left! + +The Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie is on one side; it is the ancient Rue des +Fossés-Saint-Germain, where Marat set up his press and printing-machine +in a cellar. At No. 14, in the courtyard of an old mansion occupied by a +wall-paper merchant, once stood the premises of the Théâtre-Français. +The large entrance door, the staircases leading to the actors' private +rooms, the slanting pit of the hall, and even the friezes are still in +existence. The King's Comedians played there, on April 18th, 1689, +_Phèdre_ and the _Médecin malgré lui_, and performed in the same +building until 1770. + +The encyclopædists, d'Alembert, Diderot and his friends, used to meet +opposite at the Procope coffee-house, the handsome iron balcony of which +is yet subsisting, from where it was so agreeable to hobnob with the +balcony of the Comedy. The Procope coffee-house, celebrated in the +eighteenth century, was even more so under the Second Empire. In 1867, +on the eve of the Baudin trial, Gambetta poured forth in it, to the +students of the various University schools, the thunder and lightning +bursts of his admirable eloquence. The great orator in 1859 lived at No. +7 Rue de Tournon, in the hotel of the Senate and the Nations, at present +to be found there. His small room afforded a fine view over the roofs of +Paris, and also remains as it was then. + +Near the spot, at No. 1 Rue Bourbon-le-Château, on the 23rd of December +1850, two poor women were assassinated. One of them, Mademoiselle +Ribault, a designer on the staff of the _Petit Courrier des Dames_, +edited by Monsieur Thiéry, had the strength to write on a screen with a +finger dipped in her own blood: "The assassin is the clerk of M. +Thi...." This clerk, Laforcade, was arrested the next day. + +How many delightful nooks besides, hardly known by Parisians, are to be +met with on the left bank of the river! + +[Illustration: THE RUE VISCONTI +_Water-colour by F. Léon_] + +Not all have disappeared for ever of those vast melancholy gardens, +those hoary mansions buried in streets where the grass grows, and whose +noble but gloomy façades would never cause one to suspect the riches +they contain. Many are in the vicinity of the Hôtel des Invalides. +Others are in the Rue Vanneau, the Rue Bellechasse, the Rue de Varenne, +the Rue Saint-Guillaume, the Rue Bonaparte; some also in the Rue +Visconti, which dark narrow lane possesses illustrious souvenirs. The +famous Champmeslé, Clairon, and Adrienne Lecouvreur lived in the Ranes +mansion, built on the site of the Petit-Pré-aux-Clercs, and J. Racine +died there in 1697. This house, which bears the number 21, is to-day a +girls' boarding-school! And last of all, at No. 17 the great Balzac +established the printing-press that ruined him, and that later became +the studio of Paul Delaroche. There, was played the sentimental and +commercial drama whose poignant phases have been related to us so +eloquently by Messieurs Hanoteaux and Vicaire. + +All these houses, so pregnant with history, are still visible; yet how +few Parisians are acquainted with them! + +[Illustration: ALFRED DE MUSSET AT 23 YEARS OF AGE +_Drawn by Lépaulle_ (Pigoreau Collection)] + +On the Voltaire Quay lived Vivant, Denon, Ingres, Alfred de Musset, +Judge Perrault, Chamillard, Gluck, and Voltaire himself who died there, +and whose corpse, wrapped in a dressing-gown and held up by straps, like +a traveller asleep, started by night in a travelling-coach, on the 30th +of May 1778, from the courtyard of Monsieur de Villette's mansion, with +its entrance still in the Rue de Beaune, to be buried outside Paris at +the Abbey of Scellières in Champagne. + +The flat in which Voltaire passed away has not been altered, and its +decoration has remained almost intact, with its wall mirrors, its +painted ceilings, and its small mirrored salons contrived in the thick +walls. + +[Illustration: THE FAÇADE OF THE INSTITUTE +_From an original drawing of the Revolutionary period_ (Carnavalet +Museum)] + +The Institute is not far, but for the ancient College of the Four +Nations to produce its best impression, it needs a special day--an +extraordinary sitting, a sensational reception, when the prettiest +costumes of the most elegant Parisian dames contrast with the +Academicians' green uniforms. On one side, are beauty, charm, and grace; +on the other, some of the noblest intelligences, the most illustrious +names in Literature, Art, and Science. It is the great intellectual +banquet of France in one of the fairest sights of the Capital. + +If, however, we wish for something to amuse us, something original, we +must mount the endless staircases of the Institute and seek it in the +attic portion of the palace, visiting the tiny chambers where formerly +it was the custom to put candidates for the Prix de Rome in the +competitive music examination. + +Inside these closets, at which the sumptuously lodged prisoners of +Fresnes-les-Rungis would grumble, on these decrepit walls, the finest +talents of our modern school have left traces of their whilom +presence--bars of music, verses, drawings, writings of varied nature. I +confess I should not dare to reproduce, even expurgated, the +inscriptions which confinement and absence from Paris streets and +acquaintance have suggested to many an admirable composer of to-day. +Saint-Saëns would certainly blush, Bizet's great shade would be +troubled, our great and witty Massenet would surely refuse to accept the +paternity of his vigorous apostrophes, and--I will be discreet; never +mind--it's something very enjoyable, very funny, and quite in the +character of the language. + +Between the Mint and the lion-poodle of the Institute (from the shelter +of which, if we are to believe his delightful Memoirs, Alexandre Dumas +contributed so valiantly to the triumph of the 1830 Revolution) nestles +a small, provincial-looking Square; Madame Permon, mother of the future +Madame Junot, Duchess of Abrantès, lived there until the Revolution. In +a small garret of the same house, at the left corner, on the third +floor, Bonaparte used to lodge during his rare holidays from the École +Militaire. The fine, carved wainscotings are still round the walls of +the drawing-room on the ground floor, overlooking the Seine, which the +Cæsar that-was-to-be used to enter and there speak of his hopes, and the +marble chimney-piece is in its old place; at it he would come and dry +his big patched boots that "smoked again," the talkative Madame +d'Abrantès tells us. So, while dreaming, the little sub-lieutenant +might, from the window, see opposite him the palace whence, for a number +of years, he was to conqueringly dispose of the destinies of the dazzled +world. + +In front of the Institute is the Pont des Arts. There the sight is an +enchanting one; the Seine--the gayest, most lively of rivers--crowded +with passenger-boats, tugs, barges, and barques. The grey or blue sky is +reflected in the water, and the river flows majestically between two +verdure-clad quays, surmounted by book-sellers' cases, and inhabited by +the most picturesque of populations. + +What strange trades there are on the river sides!--watermen's barbers, +dog shearers, dockmen, and sand-carters, tollmen and mattress-carders, +anglers, bathmen, washerwomen; it is a separate population with its own +customs, habits, and peculiar language. And what a splendid frame is +round this odd little world seen from the Pont des Arts! + +[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE LOUVRE QUAY +_Noël, pinxit_] + +On the one bank, the Louvre, the green foliage of the Tuileries, and the +Champs-Elysées, with the minarets of the Trocadero and the heights of +Chaillot on the horizon; on the other, all old Paris, a series of +monuments haloed with souvenirs--the Palais de Justice, the +Conciergerie, the Sainte-Chapelle, Notre-Dame; the churches of +Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Paul; the Pointe de la +Cité. + +[Illustration: PARIS FROM THE POINTE DE LA CITÉ +_Photographed by Richebourg_] + +At night, these noble, suggestive silhouettes assume a still more +imposing majesty--modern blemishes, glaring colourings, shameless +advertisements are blotted out. + +The moon spreads its delicate white light over the old walls, and a +silvern Paris rears itself in the darkness. At times, too, underneath a +storm-red sky, an entirely sombre town arises, made known only as a +tragic vision in successive flashes of lightning. + +Either we have a Paris of sunny mirth or a Paris bathed in night's +gloom. + +Descending once again towards the Seine, through the picturesque streets +that surround the Institute--the Rue Dauphine, the Rue de Nesles, the +Rue Mazarine--we discover in the Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine--at present +the Rue Mazet--the remains of the old White Horse Inn. The stables, with +their ancient mangers and quaint eaves, still exist. They date back to +Louis XIV. In that time, every week the huge inn-yard was filled with +travellers going to Orléans and Blois; and the unwieldy coach started in +a cloud of dust, amidst crackings of whip, trumpetings, adieus, and +shakings of handkerchiefs; horses pranced, women wept, dogs barked, +postilions swore. To-day the animation has disappeared, but the scene +has remained, age-stricken, impressive, still charming, so much so that +Massenet, moved by it, murmured one morning: "It must be here that +Manon[2] alighted from the diligence!" + +The neighbouring house was once the Magny restaurant, at which those +celebrated dinners were given that Goncourt speaks of so often in his +Memoirs, dinners shared by Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Georges Sand, Flaubert, +Théophile Gautier, Gavarni, and many others. + +Not far away, and connecting the Rue Mazarine--where Molière and his +company played--with the Rue de Seine, let us go through the Passage du +Pont-Neuf, occupying the site of the ancient entrance to the theatre, +and being the scene of Zola's terrible novel _Thérèse Raquin_. + +It is a typical nook--sordid, dingy, and malodorous, but strangely +attractive, with its fried-potato sellers and Italian modellers. The +shops in it seem to belong to another century; some months back, one +only was frequented by customers, that of a drawing-paper dealer. The +artist, Bonnat, told us he had bought his "Ingres paper" there, when he +was a pupil at the School of Fine Arts, of which to-day he is the +eminent head. The shop had not altered for sixty years, and the +saleswoman asserted that the "stomping-rags she sold were exactly +similar to those used by Monsieur Flandrin." In front of us is the +Institute, and it is impossible to walk along the interminable +black-looking wall enclosing it, on the side of the Rue Mazarine, +without thinking of the painful paragraph in the preface of the _Fils +Naturel_, wherein the younger Dumas, speaking of his childhood, recalls +the souvenir of the return from the first performance, at the Odéon, of +_Charles VI. chez ses grands vassaux_, on the 20th of October 1831. + +The evening had been a stormy one, and the success of the play was +doubtful. Consequently, a continuation of their poverty was to be +expected. Alexandre Dumas had heavy burdens to support--his mother, a +household, a child. He had to live himself and to keep his family on the +meagre salary his situation under the Duke d'Orléans procured him. It +was not of his talents but of his star that he doubted; and the younger +Dumas always remembered his father's broad shadow cast by the moon on +the dark, gloomy wall of the Institute, and himself timidly guessing at +his father's anxieties and endeavouring, with his little eight-year-old +legs, to follow and keep up with the studies of the good-natured giant. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DES PRÊTRES-SAINT-SÉVERIN IN 1866 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +It was in the Rue Guénégaud, in the Hôtel Britannique, that Madame +Roland took up her quarters in 1791. There, joyous and confident in the +future, she opened her political _salon_. What a pleasure for the little +Manon to show to all the Pont-Neuf neighbourhood, where her childhood +had been spent, that she had become a lady and received people of mark. +Brissot, Buzot, Pétion, Robespierre, Danton himself, were pleased to +come, between two sittings, and talk at this amiable woman's house; and +I fancy what attracted them was far more the pretty Parisian's qualities +than the virtues of the austere husband, who must have been a great +bore! On the 26th of March 1792, Dumouriez came to Roland's door and +rang to tell him that he was appointed Minister. On the morrow, the +little Manon of the Quai des Lunettes settled in triumph at the Calonne +mansion. It was the way to the scaffold. + +Skirting the quays, we reach the Saint-Michel Square, then the Rue +Galande. In spite of recent demolitions, this old street still contains +some ancient abodes; but it has lost the singular house called the _Red +Castle_, or more prosaically, "the Guillotine." + +In what was, during the seventeenth century, a sumptuous dwelling--the +mansion, 'tis said, of Gabrielle d'Estrées--behind the huge, tall front +steps at the back of the courtyard, was the dingy, smoky habitation, +stinking of wine, dirt, debauch, and vice. + +One had to step over the bodies of male and female drunkards to get +inside the dens where such poor wretches came seeking some sort of +lodging and an hour of forgetfulness. It was at once hideous and +lugubrious. Amateurs of ugly sights might continue their studies hard +by, on the premises of "Gaffer" Lunette, in the Rue des Anglais. The +inhabitants were similar; a prison population--"bestiality in all its +horror," as Mephistopheles sings in the _Damnation of Faust_. Recent +building and sanitary improvements have done away with the "Red Castle." + +The Rue Saint-Séverin is a picturesque medley of old houses round the +ancient Gothic church--"that flora of stone"--one of the most curious +perhaps in Paris; one of those that best preserve the traces of a past +of art, devotion, and prayer. + +The sublime artists who, in several centuries, knew how to create the +forest of fine carvings with which the apse is adorned, have, alas! left +but sorry successors. By the side of old painted glass windows, brought +from the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, other cold, modern stained +windows of loud colour have taken from Saint-Séverin's the religious, +poetical mysteriousness, the inviting half-obscurity that appeal to the +soul of the believer; and their crude light renders only too visible +the marks of successive mutilations inflicted on this fine church. In +the next street, the present clergy-house is built on the old graveyard, +where, in 1641--as the erudite Monsieur de Rochegude informs us--the +first operation for gravel was publicly performed on a criminal +condemned to death, who, happy man, was cured, and pardoned by Louis XI. +The whole of the quarter is one of the busiest in Paris. It would seem +as if the vagabonds, the lewd and their lemans, the tatterdemalions of +bygone centuries, had left there a direct line of descendants. People +live in the street, eat scraps in low drink-shops; a smell of spirits +floats in the air at the corners of the various cross-roads; bars and +petty restaurants are thronged with customers. Part of the money begged +or stolen in Paris is spent there. + +[Illustration: THE PASSAGE DES PATRIARCHES +_Etching by Martial_] + +Saint-Médard's church is quite close, with its small, dusty, quaint +Square, and its round tower at the end of the Rue Monge and the corner +of the Rue Mouffetard. It is a gloomy, rat-gnawed, poverty-stricken +church, looking as if worn-out with age; and is blocked in by old houses +covered with gaudy-coloured advertisements. It has left, far behind in +the past, the days when the tomb of the Deacon Pâris in it performed its +miracles, when the townsfolk and courtfolk crowded in the small +graveyard, a door of which still exists, the one perhaps whereon was +written the famous couplet:-- + + "In the King's name, forbid is God + To work a wonder on this sod." + +[Illustration: THE RUE MOUFFETARD +_Charcoal Drawing by P. L. Moreau_] + +The Rue Mouffetard passes in front of the church porch, overflowing with +life and activity. A hundred petty trades are exercised in it; the house +doors themselves--old eighteenth-century doors--shelter women-sellers of +flowers, milk, fried potatoes, cooked mussels; children play about the +middle of the road; carriage traffic is rare. Housewives gossip on their +doorsteps, people live together--and in the street. The Passage des +Patriarches, which opens at No. 99, was famous in days of yore. The +Calvinists, who used to preach there, had bloody quarrels with the +Catholics of Saint-Médard's. To-day, it is nothing but a dank, dirty, +melancholy alley, inhabited by bric-à-brac dealers, old-iron sellers, +and petty hucksters; and smells of rags, old lead, and cauliflower! + +[Illustration: THE RUE GALANDE +_Lansyer, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +Maubert Square is the converging centre of these strange streets. At +present, modernised and rearranged--adorned, if I may say so, with a +wretched statue of Etienne Dolet, who was burnt there in 1546--the +Square only vaguely resembles the "Plac' Maub'," still visible six or +seven years ago, ill-famed, narrow, bordered with old steep-roofed +houses, a den of vagabonds, full of suspicious lurking-corners where the +police might be sure of making good hauls. Near at hand, in the Maubert +Blind Alley, Sainte-Croix used to dwell; and it was in the same +mysterious retreat that Madame de Brinvilliers, the sorry heroine of the +Poisons drama so well told by our witty friend, F. Funck-Brentano, used +to meet her accomplice and with him prepare the terrible "succession +powder," composed, according to her avowal, of "vitriol, toad's venom, +and rarefied arsenic," which she made use of to poison her father, her +two brothers, and to try to make away with her sisters and husband. + +[Illustration: THE PLACE MAUBERT +_Lansyer, pinxit_] + +In 1304, Dante attended, hard by, one of the numerous schools of the Rue +du Fouarre; and, at the corner of the Colbert-Mansion Street, the +Faculty of Medicine had its amphitheatre. This curious building is still +almost intact with its ancient cupola, and would supply an admirable +piece of decoration to some retrospective museum of surgery. + +[Illustration: THE OLD AMPHITHEATRE OF SURGERY +At the corner of the Colbert Mansion +_Etching by Martial_] + +Not far from this spot, the Rue Maître-Albert--which up to 1844 was +called the Rue Perdue--owes its present name to the Dominican Maître +Albert who, in the thirteenth century, taught in the open air in Maubert +Square. It contains curious houses, to-day dens for tramps, who +spend the night in them. In 1819, an old negro of miserable appearance +and strange manners used to go down this dark street every evening, +trying his best to escape observation, and used to seek food and shelter +in one of its sorry eating-houses. People pointed him out as he went, +whispering that he was formerly Dubarry's black servant, Zamore, whom +Louis XV. had played with; Zamore who became a power, petted and courted +by noble lords, fine ladies, and princes of the Church that emulously +strove to gain the favourite's good graces. Later, having been appointed +a municipal officer under the Terror, he vilely, ungratefully, and in a +cowardly way, betrayed his benefactress, gave her up, and cast her +beneath the knife of the guillotine. At length, sinking lower and lower, +Zamore came and hid himself at No. 13, on the second courtyard floor of +this gloomy Rue Perdue, and died there on the 7th of February 1820. + +[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF SAINT-NICOLAS-DU-CHARDONNERET, AND THE RUE +SAINT-VICTOR +_Drawn by Heidbrendk_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The two churches nearest the spot are those of +Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonneret and Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. Connected with +the former is a dismal little seminary, in which, under the guidance of +the Abbé Dupanloup, the eminent philosopher Ernest Renan went through +part of his theological studies. Every one should read in the _Souvenirs +of my Childhood and Youth_ the admirable pages this marvellous writer +has devoted to his stay in this studious home. "The parish, which +derived its name from the field of thistles well known of the students +at the Paris University in the Middle Ages, was then the centre of a +rich quarter inhabited chiefly by the legal profession. The +boarding-school _régime_ weighed heavily upon me. My best friend, a +young man from Coutances, I think, like myself, full of enthusiasm, and +of excellent heart, held himself aloof, refused to reconcile himself, +and died. The Savoy students showed themselves still less +acclimatisable. One of them, older than I, owned to me that, each +evening, he measured with his eye the height of the three-storey +dormitory above the pavement of the Rue Saint-Victor. I fell ill; +apparently I was doomed. My Breton soul lost itself in an infinite +melancholy. The last angelus of evening I had heard resound over our +dear hills, and the last sunset I had watched over the tranquil +landscape came back to my memory like sharp arrows. In the ordinary +course of things I ought to have died. Perhaps it would have been better +if I had...." + +[Illustration: THE RUE SAINT-JULIEN-LE-PAUVRE +_Etching by Martial_] + +The artist Le Brun's mother is buried in the Saint-Charles chapel of the +church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonneret, and also Pierre de Chamousset, +the inventor of the petty Postal service. Parisian ladies, bless his +memory! + +The church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre is set apart for the Greek ritual. +Enclosed on its sides and rear by the ancient buildings of the +Hôtel-Dieu, this melancholy-looking chapel is falling to ruin; a +stopped-up well with meagre weeds growing from its border-stones seems +to guard the door, which opens on a dirty, rubbish-strewn courtyard +where a few half-starved fowls peck their scanty meal. It is a nook of +poverty and suffering. The walls are damp and dingy; in these sombre +yards, where a few sickly trees barely exist, all is solitude and +abandon. Only three years ago, stretchers or ambulance carriages still +stopped from time to time in it, and from them were taken victims of +crime, disease, or accident, that had fallen in the street. Through the +vast Paris, busy and indifferent, monopolised by its pleasures or its +cares, one or another human wreck was brought to the Assistance Publique +in this dismal Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre with its suggestive name. + +[Illustration: THE JARDIN DES PLANTES--THE CEDAR OF LEBANON AND THE +LABYRINTH +_Water-colour by Hilaire_ (National Library)] + +To refresh ourselves after so painful a spectacle, let us come back to +the lovely Parisian quays, and walk along the fair river, quivering in +the daylight or in the moon's nightly rays; let us pass by the beautiful +mansions of the Miramionnes, of Nesmond, of Judge Rolland, in front of +the wine market--"catacombs of thirst," and pause at the old Jardin des +Plantes, dear to Buffon. A touch of the charm of things past, but not +entirely vanished, lingers yet! + +The trees are centuries old, the ornamental hornbeams have not been +altered; there are aviaries and goat-pens which are the same as when +Daubigny and Charles Jacques sketched them in 1843, to illustrate the +handsome work published by Curmer. + +[Illustration: THE JARDIN DES PLANTES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY +_Water-colour by Hilaire_ (National Library)] + +The reptiles are better housed than in our childhood; but the +hippopotamus wallows in the same basin; the giraffe stretches his neck +over the same enclosures, and the elephant holds through the same +railings his gluttonous trunk in search of rolls. + +The bear-pit has not changed; and the crowd of idlers continue to tempt +the eternal "Martin" to climb up the same tree. Still to the noisy +children the delightful labyrinth offers its capricious meandering; and +the cedar of Lebanon (_Cedrus Libani_) [Linnæus], which tradition tells +us Monsieur Jussieu brought back in his hat, has not ceased to wave its +ample branches over dreamers, loungers, workers, or grisette--the +grisette that comes and sits beneath its venerable shade to read the +exciting magazine story which fills with sweet emotion her heart athirst +for the ideal! + +And, in fine, is there anything nattier than the tiny rooms of the Louis +XVI. buildings? which once formed Buffon's natural history cabinet, and +whose delicate grey wood carvings made such a suitable framework for the +admirable butterfly collections brought from every country. + +Within these finely decorated and cosy rooms there was, so to speak, an +ideal assemblage of blossoms, a fairy scene of exquisite colours, an +enchantment wrought by a brilliant palette. + +There they were, all of them, beautiful butterflies, with their metallic +lustres from India and Brazil, French butterflies of a thousand tints, +both the great death's-head sphynx and the little blue creature of the +meadows. + +Perhaps time had powdered and somewhat dimmed the marvellous brightness +of their first colouring; but it was better so. Their pristine lustre +would have been too great a contrast in the quaint surroundings, and it +was an extra charm to see such gems of the air thus lightly decked with +the dust of the past! To-day, alas! these rooms, flowering with +sculpture, are closed and forsaken; a part of their wainscoting has +disappeared.... Where have decorations so pleasing gone?... Why these +everlasting, culpable mutilations, which I know are a grief to Monsieur +Périer, the eminent Director of the Museum? The collections of +butterflies are now transferred to the vast and sumptuous central hall +of the new pavilion devoted to natural history. I liked them better in +the charming rooms which once contained them and suited them so well! + +The water-flowers bloom, as of yore, in the same low, stifling +hot-houses, near the bizarre-shaped orchids; and it was in the old +amphitheatre, where so many illustrious scholars taught, that the noble +artist Madame Madeleine Lemaire,--the only "woman professor" that has +ever held a post at the Museum,--initiated her attentive, spell-bound +audience into the divine beauty of flowers! + +In all periods, artists have come and installed their light easel or +their modelling-stands in front of the lions' cages, or in the Garden +itself, on the grass, opposite the antelopes, hinds, walla-birds, or the +goats of Thibet. + +We remember, my brother and I, having, as little boys, accompanied our +father, who was modelling from life the tigers and lions in the wild +beasts' corridor. The odour was pungently alkaline, the heat sultry; we +heard the hissing of polecats in the entrance and exit rotundas; +sometimes a terrible roar, a complaint of anger, pain, or ennui, arose +and shook the panes. + +Most of these unfortunate animals, deprived of air and light, shut up in +the horrible, narrow, stinking cages, died a lingering death of +consumption. Indeed, they quickly grew familiar with those who spent +whole weeks studying them; and their huge heads rubbed caressingly +against the thick cage-bars, while their eyes became soft and almost +tender. + +Often we went, inquisitive, ferreting school-boys, to the reptiles' +menagerie, an old building crumbling with age, and passed long hours +peeping at the chameleons, gazing at the boa-constrictors, trying to +rouse the sleepy crocodiles, which seemed to be already stuffed! What +reminiscences and souvenirs in the dear old Jardin des Plantes, one of +the few "Nooks and Corners of Paris" that have remained almost +untouched! + +[Illustration: THE JARDIN DES PLANTES--CUVIER'S HOUSE +_Water-colour by Bourgoin_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +On the side, the ancient house Cuvier lived in does not look very +stable, and perhaps would go to pieces but for the network of plants +round it: ivy, birthwort honeysuckle, lianes of all kinds caparisoned it +with verdure. They are carpets, cascades of glossy green, shining +together: a nosegay of leaves in a garden. + +Behind the Jardin des Plantes is Salpêtrière with its walls of evil +memory, the Salpêtrière of the September massacres, the Salpêtrière +whence Madame de Lamotte so easily escaped after her condemnation; with +its broad gardens and its ugly covered-yards surrounded by railings, +where, as De Goncourt said, "Women madder than their fellows" are +confined. The dome, visible from everywhere, commands, like a lighthouse +of misery, all this quarter infected by the Bièvre, the poor, sacrificed +river, which is now in part walled over; the oily Bièvre, streaked with +tannery acids, reddened by skins of sheep recently flayed that steep in +it; the Bièvre which flows miserably and sordidly, but yet so +picturesquely, amidst starch factories, fellmongers' stores and other +works, after traversing the tiny gardens of Gentilly and creating the +illusion of a landscape in the quarter of the Fontaine-à-Mulard. + +Gone is the time when this ill-starred river washed the banks of smiling +meadows and reflected the willows in its clear waters. Tamed, +domesticated, adapted to tasks of every sort, unceasingly used by +tanners, curriers, tawers, dyers, it flows dirty and putrid! To follow +it in its windings, the Rue du Moulin-des-Prés must be ascended, and +entrance made into the Rue de Tolbiac. There, through a gate, it enters +a dark, dismal passage, whence it will issue only to glide in a kind of +sinister-looking canal between black, repulsive manufactories. Here and +there, along the scanty banks, a few washerwomen have fixed their tubs +on a level with the water, and sing as they dolly their linen; +elsewhere, wretched urchins endeavour to catch a stray fish that might +have lost its way in the mephitic stream. Then the Bièvre disappears +once again and this time underground, coming to view afresh in the Rue +des Gobelins. At this spot, some rare traces of a glorious past are +discovered. The ancient houses have many of them remained. But how often +transformed! The owners of works and of shops, after enslaving the +river, have taken possession of the houses bordering it. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE BIÈVRE +_Drawn by Heidbrendk_] + +Offices, warehouses, leather stores have invaded the noble mansions of +the sixteenth century, and the Bièvre winds, as if ashamed, through poor +gardens, like it, fallen from their antique splendour. + +[Illustration: THE BIÈVRE TANNERIES +_Etching by Martial_] + +Further on, there are more works and tanneries, black corners mean and +malodorous, where thousands of rabbit-skins, hanging in mid-air, hard +and dry, clash together with a noise of wood. To the very end, the +unlucky river, harassed and exploited, cleans blood-stained skins, moves +heavy wheels, or washes ghastly offal, amidst a smell as of barege. +Finally, it runs to earth once more beneath the Hospital Boulevard, +within evil-smelling, dark holes. + +But before the last fall, the Bièvre passes through an astonishingly +strange lane, one of the oddest in this odd quarter: the Ruelle des +Gobelins. It flows as a stream of red, green, and yellow tints, between +patched-up, mouldy, tumble-down houses, in an odour of ammonia. And yet, +near these hovels, among the heaps of tan, beside pits in which are +macerating skins of flayed animals, a gem of carving rises as it were an +appeal of beauty, a vestige of past splendour. It is the sculptured +remains of an adorable Louis XV. pavilion of which Monsieur de Julienne +had made a hunting-box; and this lovely paradox, this blossom of stone +cast among such a mass of ugliness, is not one of the least surprises of +the quarter so fertile in matters for astonishment. Moreover, a few +yards from this sewer, the artists of the Gobelins Manufactory have laid +out their work-and-study-gardens, in which shine the purple, gold and +azure of the prettiest flowers in France. These, cleverly distributed, +arrange a carpet of exquisite and radiant colours athwart the +surrounding district of sombre sadness. + +On the confines of the town, is the Butte-aux-Cailles, a vast piece of +waste land, cheerless and without charm, which, until 1863, was a sort +of fresh country spot, with mills and farms on it. To-day, it is a +quarter of hard labour, where numbers of rag-pickers classify the refuse +of Paris. At the corner of the Ruelle des Peupliers, faggot-dealers have +set up their huts; and hovels line strange streets made with the +clearings of other streets. + +[Illustration: THE BIÈVRE ABOUT 1900--THE VALENCE MILL-RACE +_Schaan, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +Once, these spacious grounds were one stretch of flower gardens and +market gardens watered by the Bièvre. + +In a most interesting book, somewhat forgotten now, Alfred Delvau tells +us much of the former history, under Louis-Philippe, of the +Saint-Marceau faubourg, the Butte-aux-Cailles, the Rue Croulebarde, and +also the Rue du Champ-de-l'Alouette, in which last street the +"Shepherdess of Ivry" was murdered, the crime by its bizarre character +producing a deep impression in the Capital in 1827. It was a +public-house waiter, Honoré Ulbach, who had stabbed a girl, Aimée Millot +by name; she, as a keeper of goats, was popular at Ivry. Every day, she +was to be seen, with a large straw hat on her head and a book in her +hand, tending her mistress's goats. The "Shepherdess of Ivry" she was +called in the neighbourhood; in 1827, there were still shepherdesses in +Paris! + +The trial that followed excited the whole town; the crime was one of +love and jealousy; the victim was nineteen; she was virtuous and a +shepherdess; women "cursed the murderer, even while pitying him +perhaps," wrote the newspapers of the time; and even the giraffe but +recently arrived at the King's Garden was neglected for the Ivry drama. + +On the 27th of July, Ulbach, who seems to have been half-mad, was +condemned to death; and, at four o'clock in the evening on the 10th of +September, he was executed on the Grève Square. + +A Municipal Crèche, in the Rue des Gobelins, occupies, at No. 3, a +fine Louis XIII. mansion, once inhabited by the Marquis of Saint-Mesme, +a lieutenant-general and the husband of Elizabeth Gobelin, close to a +handsome lordly-looking building which in the quarter bears the name of +Queen Blanche's Mansion. + +The legend attaching to the latter is false, affirms Monsieur +Beaurepaire, the learned and amiable librarian of the City of Paris. "It +was," he says, "simply Catherine d'Hausserville's home, where Charles +VI. was nearly burnt alive during the performance of a ballet, his fancy +dress having caught fire." The edifice, with its noble appearance, forms +a strange contrast in this poor yet picturesque district. + +Another fine mansion, in the Rue Scipio, is the one built by Scipio +Sardini, in the reign of Henri III., with terra-cotta medallions, rare +Parisian specimens of the exceedingly pretty decoration that pleases us +so much at Florence, Pisa, and Verona. This Scipio Sardini was a +peculiar man, and his story deserves to be told. Of Tuscan origin, he +came to France after the death of Henri II., just when Catherine de +Medici seized the reins of power. Amiable, witty, ingratiating, a great +financier, clever in his enterprises, and unscrupulous, he quickly +gained a preponderant position in the frivolous, dissolute, mirth-loving +Court. He excelled in combining business and pleasure. An illustrious +marriage seemed to him essential to people's forgetting his low origin +and the rapid rise of his fortunes. He married the "fair Limeuil," one +of the most seductive beauties of the Queen's flying squadron--"All of +them capable of setting the whole world on fire," said Brantôme. This +attractive person had been successively courted by the most noble lords +of the Court before effecting the conquest of Condé, by whom she had a +child. At Dijon, during one of the Queen's receptions, Mademoiselle de +Limeuil was taken ill and was delivered of a boy. "It is inexplicable," +writes Mézeray, "that such a prudent woman should have so +miscalculated." There was a scandal; the Queen Mother was indignant; the +fair Isabella was imprisoned; but Condé who was still amorous, succeeded +in effecting her escape. The Protestants, however, were on the watch, +and induced their leader to give up his too compromising mistress. Then +it was that Scipio Sardini came forward, the richest man of the period, +the King's banker, as also the nobles' and clergy's. He managed to get +himself accepted; the marriage took place; and he settled in this pretty +mansion that we still admire, and that is mentioned by Sauval as one of +the most beautiful in Paris, amidst vineyards, orchards, and fields +bordering on the Bièvre. There he lived, surrounded by luxury, works of +art, books and flowers, and died there about 1609. As early as 1636, the +mansion was converted into a hospital, which in 1742 was once more +transformed, this time into a bakery. To-day, it is the Bakery of the +City of Paris Hospitals. + +Let us keep along by the Wine Market, and, before crossing to the right +bank of the river, respectfully pause on the Stockade Bridge, close to +the small monument erected to the famous sculptor Barye by his +admirers,--to the great Barye who, misunderstood and mocked, sold up by +his creditors, often came in the evening, after leaving his modest +studio on the Célestins Quay, to forget his sufferings and muse in this +same place before the splendid panorama of Paris crowned by the grand +silhouette of the Panthéon. Here, too, is one of the City's best views. + + * * * * * + +Nothing is more relative than an impression felt. To certain minds in +love with the Past, this or that ruin is much more affecting than the +most modern palace; it is the same with streets, houses, and pavements. + +An exquisite hour to call up the soul of old Paris is at twilight. + +The colour peculiar to each object has melted into the general shades +and tints spread by the day which is departing and the night which +comes. + +Delicate lace-work outlines stand out against the sky, while huge +violet, black, and blue masses of atmosphere bathe whole streets in +fathomless mystery. Then thought awakens, souvenirs revive and grow +clear; scenes are lived through again of which these streets and houses +were the silent witnesses. One hears cries of fury or of joy; drums +beat, bells ring, groups pass singing 'mid these dream visions that rise +again! + +In order to enjoy such an experience no better spot could be chosen than +the Stockade Bridge, which, with its barrier of black beams, as it were +shuts off to the east Paris of the olden days. + +The City slumbers in the calm of evening, the smoke curls lazily up. +Afar sound bells; swallows sweep crying in the air embalmed by falling +night; noises ascend vague and weird, interpreted according to the fancy +of one's musings. All life seems to sleep; the soul of the past awakes. +It is the hour desired. + +[Illustration: THE CONSTANTINE BRIDGE AND STOCKADE +_Etching by Martial_] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] There is a pun here in the French impossible to render in English. + +[2] Manon Lescaut. + + + + +[Illustration: THE PONT ROYAL IN 1800 +_Boilly, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + + + + +THE RIGHT BANK OF THE RIVER + + +The Arsenal quarter, built over the site of the two Royal Palaces--the +Saint-Paul mansion, the Tournelles palace--and the soil of the Louviers +Isle, joined to the river bank in 1843, serve as a natural transition +from the old to modern Paris. + +[Illustration: THE LESDIGUIÈRES MANSION] + +Notwithstanding its warlike name, the Arsenal quarter is one of the most +peaceful parts of the Capital. Centuries ago, the palaces disappeared +that brought it its wealth, life and movement. On their ruins and their +huge gardens, humble, tranquil streets have been made: the Rue de la +Cerisaie, where Marshal Villeroy received Peter the Great in the +sumptuous Zamet mansion; the Rue Charles V., where once was the +elegant home of the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, now at No. 12, +premises in which a white-capped sister-of-charity distributes +cod-liver oil and woollen socks to poor, suffering children; the Rue des +Lions-Saint-Paul; the Rue Beautreillis, where Victorien Sardou was +born; near there the great Balzac dwelt. "I was then living," he says in +his admirable _Facino Cane_, "in a small street you probably don't know, +the Rue de Lesdiguières. It commences at the Rue Saint-Antoine, opposite +a fountain near the Place de la Bastille, and issues in the Rue de la +Cerisaie. Love of knowledge had driven me into a garret, where I worked +during the night, and spent the day in a neighbouring library, that of +_Monsieur_. When it was fine, I took rare walks on the Bourdon +Boulevard." This modest Rue de Lesdiguières still exists in part; on the +site occupied by Nos. 8 and 10, could be seen, a few years ago, one of +the containing walls of the Bastille; narrow houses have been stuck +against it; and, at No. 10, it is the very wall of the old Parisian +fortress which constitutes the back of the porter's lodge! What a +destiny for a prison wall! + +Of what was once the Arsenal only the mansion of the Grand Master is +left; it is, at present, the Arsenal Library--formerly called, as Balzac +says, the Library of _Monsieur_. It used to be a fine dwelling, the home +of Sully, and possesses priceless books and autographs, and most +valuable writings. In a coffer, covered with flower-de-luces, may be +admired Saint Louis's book of hours, side by side with a fragment of his +royal mantle, the blue silk of it, worn with time, being strewn with +golden flower-de-luces; the old book bears this venerable inscription: +"It is the psalter of Monseigneur Loys, once his mother's;" and was +taken from the scattered treasures of the Sainte-Chapelle. Then there is +Charles the Fifth's Bible with the King's writing on it: "This book +(belongs) to me, the King of France;" and a missal, each leaf of which +is framed with an incomparable garland due to the brush of the "master +of flowers," a great artist whose name is unknown to us. Besides, there +are rare manuscripts, marvellous bindings, unique editions, romances of +chivalry, classics, poets of every age, complete in this fine palace; +together with Latude's letters, the box that served for his ridiculous +attempt against Madame de Pompadour; and, near them, the +cross-examination of the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, and the +death-certificate of the Man in the Iron Mask; Henri IV.'s love-letters +too, with his kisses sent to the Marchioness de Verneuil, and the +documents relating to the affair of the Necklace. How many more things +in addition...! + +Let us add that the curators--Henri Martin, so learned and obliging, +Funck-Brentano, the exquisite historian of the Bastille, the picturesque +relater of all its dramas. Sheffer and Eugène Muller are not only +scholars needing no praise but most courteous and genial men--and you +will quite understand why the Arsenal is one of the few corners in Paris +where it is delightful to go and work or to saunter about. Indeed, it is +a tradition of the house. Nodier, good old Nodier, who was one of +Monsieur de Bornier's predecessors and a predecessor also of J. M. de +Heredia, the master who has so recently gone from us, Nodier, the +admirable author of the _Trophées_, had succeeded in making the Arsenal +the centre of literary and artistic Paris. Hugo, Lamartine, de Musset, +Balzac, Méry, de Vigny, and Fr. Soulié used to meet there; and fine +verses were said while regarding the sun glow with red flame behind the +towers of Notre Dame. + + "The towers of Notre Dame his name's great H composed!" + +wrote Vacquerie. + +Of the Bastille nothing remains except a few stones which formed the +substructure of one of the old towers; and these have been carefully +removed to the Célestins Quay, along the Seine, where they are visible +to-day. In vain, therefore, would any one now seek for a vestige of the +sombre fortress over which so many legends hovered. Latude's great shade +itself would hardly locate the spot; and yet how full Paris history is +of this traditional Bastille, which the people, amazed with their easy +victory, could not tire of visiting after the 15th of July 1789. Such +was their curiosity and such their eagerness that Soulès, the governor +appointed by the Parisian municipality, was compelled to stop the +visits, on the curious ground "that such damage had already been done to +the fortress by visitors that more than 200,000 livres would be required +to repair it." Repair the Bastille! The souvenir manuscripts of Paré +tell us the fury excited by this strange pretension in Danton, sergeant +of a section of the National Guard, who, with his company, was turned +back by the order. + +Danton had himself admitted into the presence of the unfortunate Soulès, +seized him by the collar and dragged him to the Town Hall; the +prohibition was removed; and Citizen Palloy was thenceforth allowed to +exploit the celebrated State prison. The stones were "hewn and cut into +images of the fortress and dedicated to the various departments and +assemblies," or into "commemorative slabs intended to rouse people's +courage." Palloy cut up the leads into medals, and made rings with the +iron chains; out of the marble he manufactured games of dominoes, and +had the delicate thought to offer one of these games to the young +Dauphin to inspire him with "the horror of tyranny." + +[Illustration: COMMEMORATIVE BALL ON THE RUINS OF THE BASTILLE + +Dancing here + +_From a coloured engraving of the eighteenth century_] + +Balls were held on the site of the Bastille. Wine flowed, fiddles were +scraped, and printed calicoes of that period show us the ruins of the +old Parisian citadel surmounted with this inscription: "Dancing here." + +The huge space left vacant by the demolition had to be filled up. +Napoleon I., whose artistic conceptions were sometimes disconcerting, +had constructed there, in 1811, by Alavoine, a strange sort of fountain +of bizarre appearance: it was a colossal elephant, twenty-four metres +high, which spouted water from its trunk. Built temporarily in plaster +and mud, the elephant quickly crumbled away under the action of weather +and rain; and soon became a lamentable débris surrounded with disjointed +planks. The urchins of the district made it the scene of Homeric +struggles; but the real familiars were the rats that had made their home +inside the structure, so that, when the demolition began, regular +_battues_ had to be organised with men and dogs; and, for months, these +dreaded rodents infested the terrorised quarter. In 1840, the present +column was erected; since then, the genius of Liberty has poised over +Paris his airy foot, and Barye's fine lion watches over the repose of +the victims of 1830 that are interred within the crypt of the monument. + +[Illustration: THE SENS MANSION ABOUT 1835 +_From a lithograph by Rouargue_] + +The Rue Saint-Antoine contains certain handsome mansions: the Cossé +mansion, where Quélus died; the Mayenne and Ormesson mansion, built by +du Cerceau on the remains of the Saint-Paul mansion and Germain Pilon's +studio; the Sully mansion, whose noble front was not long ago mutilated. +Hard by, at the corner of the Rue du Figuier and the picturesque Rue de +l'Hôtel de Ville, which latter used to be the Rue de la Mortellerie, +stands what is left of the Sens mansion, the only specimen, together +with the Cluny Museum, of what private architecture was in the fifteenth +century. After being inhabited by Princes of the Church, Bishops, +Cardinals, and also by Marguerite de Valois (Queen Margot), the Sens +mansion fell on evil days. It became the "Diligence Office"; and from +its courtyard is said to have started the famous courier whose murder +was attributed to Lesurques, the unfortunate Lesurques popularised by +the well-known drama performed at the Ambigu, which caused so many tears +to flow. + +In more recent times, the Hôtel de Sens derogated further still. It +became a manufactory of sweets! + +At No. 5 of the Rue du Figuier, we meet with a draw-well, the top of +which is finely sculptured; the spot brings back the memory of Rabelais, +the admirable Rabelais, who died quite near, in the Rue des Jardins. At +No. 15, opened the sixteenth-century door through which the actors of +the illustrious theatre established on the ancient site of the Jeu de +Paume de la Croix-Noire, proceeded to their private stage-room. It was +before this door that Molière was arrested and taken to the Châtelet, +because he owed "142 livres to Antoine Fausseur, master-chandler, his +purveyor of light." + +Let us cross the Place de la Bastille and go down the Rue du +Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. There, at No. 115, in front of an old +eighteenth-century house, the Deputy Baudin was killed against a +barricade, on the 3rd of December 1851. At No. 303, in the reign of +Napoleon I., stood Dr. Dubuisson's private hospital, where General Malet +was confined. There he hatched the prodigious plot the disconcerting +history of which we intend shortly to relate. Farther on, near the Rue +de Montreuil, we pass by the remains of Réveillon's wall-paper stores, +pillaged on the 17th of April 1789; it was one of the preludes of the +Revolution. + +Last of all, at No. 70, in the Rue de Charonne, Dr. Belhomme's private +hospital stood, which was used as a special prison under the Revolution. +Only those were admitted who could pay and pay well. The irrefutable +memoirs of Monsieur de Saint-Aulaine reveal to us a Belhomme familiar, +cynical, exacting his fees and thouing Duchesses short of money who +haggled with him on the question of their life. The most amiable of +historians, my excellent friend G. Lenôtre, whom it is always necessary +to quote when facts of the Revolutionary epoch are in question, has +reconstituted the terrible and surprising story of the Belhomme +institution where they laughed, danced, or even flirted under the dread +eye of Fouquier-Tinville; and has related, with his habitual +documentation, the bizarre liaison of the Duchess of Orléans, widow of +Louis-Philippe Egalité, with Rouzet, the Conventional, buried later at +Dreux under the name of the "Count de Folmon" in the Orléans family +vault. + +Pursuing our way and passing by the Church of Sainte Marguerite, in +which Louis XVIII. was interred ... or his double, we reach the barrier +of the Throne (the Throne overthrown, people said in 1793). The +scaffold, which had temporarily quitted the Revolution Square, was put +up here during the most terrible period of the Terror, and the "great +batches" were executed upon it. In six weeks, 1300 victims perished, +among them, André Chénier, the Baron de Trenck, the Abbess of +Montmorency, Cécile Renaud, Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, the poet +Roucher, and many others. The bodies of these unfortunate people, +stripped of their clothing, were loaded each evening on covered waggons, +with their severed heads between their legs; and the horrible vehicle, +dripping with blood along the road, was tipped into some pit dug at the +bottom of the Picpus Convent Gardens, where still exists the cemetery of +those that were executed during the Revolution. + +Retracing our steps, we arrive at No. 9 of the Rue de Reuilly; here was +once the Hortensia Tavern, kept in 1789 by the famous Santerre, a major +in the National Guard. The house has not much changed; at present, +however, it is a girls' boarding-school which occupies the large rooms +where the thundering General organised those terrible descents on Paris +and launched those dreadful battalions of the faubourg that terrorised +even the Convention itself. + +On the other side of the Place de la Bastille, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, +near Saint Paul's Church, is the Charlemagne Passage, most picturesque +by reason of the old souvenirs it contains and the strange population it +harbours: chair-menders, mattress-carders, milk-women, open-air +flower-women gather round the ruin of the charming mansion which, under +Charles V., was the sumptuous abode of the provost, Hugues Aubryot. + +The front, which is still remarkable and fine-looking, is an astonishing +contrast to the poor, low houses that huddle round it. Fowls peck at the +foot of the fifteenth-century turrets, which enclose a handsome +staircase; and patched linen dries on iron wire stretched between the +caryatide windows of the seventeenth century, replacing those behind +which once mused the Duke d'Orléans and the Duke de Berri, as also, in +1409, Jean de Montaigu, beheaded for sorcery! who were formerly +illustrious guests in this elegant dwelling. + +[Illustration: THE PROVOST HUGUES AUBRYOT'S MANSION +CHARLEMAGNE'S COURTYARD AND PASSAGE IN 1867 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +And now, let us stop at the Vosges Square on the other side of the +Bastille. It is another rare nook of our old City, which, through the +centuries, has preserved its ancient character very nearly intact. The +houses there, in Louis XIII. style, have not changed. The scenery has +remained the same. The _Précieuses_ could take their favourite walks +there; and those punctilious in honour might draw their sword, as in the +time of Richelieu and the Edict-malcontents; only the public of +spectators would be quite different. The fine ladies of the country +hight Tender, the Cydalises and Aramynthas, the lords once living in +those noble dwellings, they who, on the 16th of March 1612, were present +at the tournament given by the Queen Regent, Marie de Médici, in honour +of the peace concluded with Spain, or they who proceeded in grand +coaches to the fair Marion de Lorme's or to Madame de Sévigné's, are +to-day replaced by petty annuitants, modest shopkeepers retired from +business and pensioned-off officers. Humble charwomen work at their +tasks in the spots where Mazarin's nieces paused in their sedan-chairs; +and the numerous Jews that live in the quarter meet there on Saturdays. +It is a curious spectacle to see these men and women of strongly marked +type betaking themselves to the Synagogue, which is near a partially +subsisting eighteenth-century mansion still bearing delicate +decorations, but at present occupied by a butcher, in the Rue du +Pas-de-la-Mule. Not a few old men wear the long gaberdine, their hair in +corkscrew curls, and earrings in their ears. Velvet-eyed girls coifed +with bands, wonderfully handsome and peculiarly dressed, assemble there +on certain religious feast-days. It is a strange evocation; 'twould seem +that in these peaceful quarters biblical traditions have been preserved +in some Jewish families. + +[Illustration: THE PLACE ROYALE ABOUT 1651 (NOW THE VOSGES SQUARE) +_Israël, del._] + +The old-time animation, however, is an exception. The Vosges Square, +once the Place Royale, where Richelieu lived and Fronsac, Chabannes, +Marshal de Chaulnes, Rohan-Chabot, Rotrou, Dangeau, Canillac, the +Prince de Talmont and Mademoiselle du Châtelet, where Madame de Sévigné +was born, where the tragic actress Rachel dwelt, and Théophile Gautier +and Victor Hugo, is to-day completely neglected; and this delightful +Paris nook, where so much wit was spent, such fine ladies rivalled in +grace and elegance and so many exquisites drew their swords, is now +nothing but a large, lonely garden, provincial and melancholy, +frequented almost exclusively by the pupils of neighbouring +boarding-schools, who play there at prisoners' base, and leap-frog, +beneath the debonair shadow of Louis XIII.'s statue, with its +philosophic frame of a Punch-and-Judy show and a chair-woman's stall. + +In the ancient Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine (at present called the Rue +de Sévigné) on the site now occupied by No. 11, formerly stood the +Marais theatre, built with money provided by Beaumarchais. In 1792, the +_Guilty Mother_ was performed there, for the benefit, said the +play-bill, "of the first soldier who shall send citizen Beaumarchais an +Austrian's ear." The modern building is a modest private-bath +establishment, with a small garden in front in which grow some +spindle-trees--in boxes, and which is adorned with silvered balls. The +huge wall, all grim and grey, backing the slightly-built bath +establishment, is the old wall of the Force Prison, where, on a post at +the corner of the Rue des Balais, Madame de Lamballe was executed, where +also Madame de Tallien was transferred, and Princess de Tarente was +confined, the latter, the grandmother of the kind, courteous and learned +Duke de la Trémoïlle, who had only to dip into his incomparable family +archives to give us the most precious documents of French history, and +to whom we are indebted for those picturesque and exciting "Souvenirs of +Madame de Tarente," one of the most valuable narrations by an +eye-witness of the Revolutionary period. + +The Carnavalet mansion, Madame de Sévigné's "dear Carnavalette," is +close by, as also the ancient Le Peletier-Saint-Fargeau mansion, to-day +the City of Paris Library. It is a fine, large building of noble +appearance, which contains wonderful books, maps, plans and manuscripts. +The written history of Paris is there; and all workers know the pretty, +sculpture-ornamented room of Monsieur le Vayer, the erudite, obliging +Curator of these fine collections. Messieurs Poète, Beaurepaire, Jacob, +Jarach and Wilhem, in the Library; Messieurs Pètre and Stirling in the +History room are the wise and welcoming hosts of this admirable Parisian +Library. + +All this Marais quarter, indeed, contains sumptuous mansions, not one of +which, alas! has been respected. All are given over to business and +manufacturing. The Lamoignon mansion is occupied by glass-polishers and +garden-seatmakers; the Albret mansion by a bronze lamp-dealer; those of +Tallard, Maulevrier, Sauvigny, Brevannes, Epernon, &c., are still +standing, but in what a state! The Rue des Nonnains-d'Hyères offers us +its curious bass-relief, in painted stone, representing a knife-grinder +in eighteenth-century costume. In 1748, a Madame de Pannelier kept a +"wit-office" in this same street; Lalande, Sautereau, Guichard, Leclerc +de Merry used to attend meetings there. They were held on Wednesdays, +and were preceded by an excellent dinner. The tradition has happily been +preserved in Paris. + +In the Rue François-Miron, one sees a spacious, handsome mansion with +circular pediment, escutcheons and garlands. It is the Beauvais mansion, +built by Le Pautre in 1658. + +To look at it now, old and in a dull street, one would hardly think that +the coaches of Louis XIV.--King Sun--had passed under the dark vault of +the entrance gate and that, from the top of the central pavilion +balcony, Queen Anne of Austria, in company with the Queen of England, +Cardinal Mazarin, Marshal de Turenne and other illustrious nobles, had +watched her son Louis XIV. and her daughter-in-law, the new Queen +Marie-Thérèse of Austria, go by as they made, through Saint-Antoine's +Gate, their solemn entry into Paris on the 26th of August 1660![3] + +On account of its picturesque aspect and the fine mansions it contains, +the Rue Geoffroy-l'Asnier is one of the most curious in Paris. At No. 26 +stands the Châlons-Luxembourg mansion, with its monumental door and +wonderful knocker. At the bottom of the courtyard is an exceedingly +elegant Louis XIII. pavilion in brick and stone, and of delicate +proportions. The mansion was built for the second Constable of +Montmorency, and though it is quite lost in this gloomy quarter, it +maintains its proud bearing. + +After the Revolution, this street, whence nearly all the owners of +houses had emigrated, if they had not been guillotined, was completely +stripped of its former splendour. Petty annuitants, small clerks, and +poor people took up their abode in the abandoned buildings. Grass grew +in the streets; many of the dwellings had been sold as national +property; and the Rue Geoffroy-l'Asnier underwent the common fate; it +became democratic. + +[Illustration: THE RUE GRENIER-SUR-L'EAU IN 1866 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Between this street and the neighbouring Rue des Barres, one is +surprised to see a sort of fissure so narrow that two persons would find +it difficult to walk abreast through it, a sort of corridor along which +the wind sweeps past dilapidated, leaning houses on either side. It is +the Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau, wretched and dirty enough, but quaint, with +the glorious tower of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais in the background, +rising and standing out against the sky. + +The proper moment to take a look at the sinister little Rue des Barres +is on a stormy night, behind the church of Saint-Gervais. It is then +easy to imagine what this quiet quarter must have been like when, on the +9th of Thermidor, about eleven in the evening, 'mid torch-lights, calls +to arms, the noise of the tocsin and shouts of the multitude, the dead +body of Lebas was brought thither, and, on a chair, Augustin +Robespierre, who had broken his thighs in leaping from one of the Town +Hall windows. The dead man and the dying man were dragged to the Barres +mansion transformed into a Sectional Committee Tribunal. On the morrow +Lebas was buried, and Robespierre was carried before the Committee of +Public Safety, who sent him to the scaffold. + +[Illustration: THE SAINT-PAUL PORT +_Water-colour by Boggs_ (G. Cain Collection)] + +The Rue des Barres descends to the Seine, near the old Town Hall Quay, +where the big, flat boats laden with apples, stones, or sand take their +moorings. Into it opens one of the exits of the charming Church of +Saint-Gervais, whose fine painted windows, masterpieces of Pinaigrier +and Jean Cousin, were almost totally destroyed twenty years ago by an +explosion of dynamite. Against the church walls, in the laicised ruins +of an ancient chapel, a sweet manufacturer has installed his alembics +and copper pans; and it is a curious sight to see the lighted fires of +this strange kitchen beneath these antique Gothic arches, between these +blackened pillars still bearing traces of the candles that once burned +in front of the holy images, on a ground formerly used for burying and +even now concealing bones. The out-offices of the old church still +remain, wonderfully picturesque, and open into the Rue François-Miron, +No. 2, on the left of the entrance portal of the church, between a +laundress's establishment and a furniture-remover's premises! + +[Illustration: THE BARBETT MANSION +The Rue Paradis-des-Francs-Bourgeois and the Rue Vieille-du-Temple in +1866 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +On one side, the little Rue de l'Hôtel-de-Ville brings us to the Rue +Vieille-du-Temple, where we can admire, at No. 47, what is left of the +quaint mansion of the Dutch Ambassadors, where "Monsieur Caron de +Beaumarchais and Madame his spouse," as an almanac of 1787 called them, +established in 1784 a Provident Institution for poor nursing mothers. +Indeed, it was for the benefit of this undertaking that the fiftieth +performance of the _Mariage de Figaro_ was given. Farther on, to the +right, at the corner of the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, stands the pretty +turret built about 1500 for Jean Hérouet; and, last of all, the fine +Rohan palace, which to-day is the National Printing House. This last is +a noble and spacious building which the elegant Cardinal that once lived +in it took pleasure in sumptuously decorating. A masterpiece may be seen +there, "the Horses of Apollo," in a wonderful bass-relief by Pierre Le +Lorrain. The saloon of the Apes, by Huet, is charming, and the private +room of Monsieur Christian, the witty and learned Director of the +National Printing House, contains a beautiful Caffieri time-piece. Why +must, alas! this fine palace be condemned soon to disappear? The Rohan +mansion is to be demolished, and the State will commit the sacrilege! +May the endeavours of lovers of Paris succeed in preserving for us this +precious vestige of a past that each day removes farther from us! + +A cabman whose astonishment must have been great was a certain George +who, on the 22nd of October 1812, at half-past eleven in the evening, +amid a driving rain that turned the miry soil of Saint-Peter's +pudding-bag (now the Villehardouin blind alley) into a veritable bog, +saw get out of his cab, near the Rue Saint-Gilles, a completely naked +man, with his uniform under his arm--a soldier whom, twenty minutes +before, he had picked up in the Louvre Square. This strange passenger +was Corporal Rateau, proceeding to the appointment made with him by +General Malet, inside Dr. Dubuisson's private hospital and asylum, 303 +Faubourg-Saint-Antoine, where the latter was confined by the +authorities. In his haste to put on the fine uniform of an orderly +officer, which was ready for him in exchange for his own, Rateau had +undressed in the cab; and up the dark staircase of the gloomy house in +the gloomy street he rushed with absolutely nothing on. + +The little house still exists, wretched and dingy-looking, where Malet +appointed to meet his accomplices, on the third floor in the abode of +the Abbé Cajamanos, an old bewildered Spanish priest who had quitted the +Bicêtre asylum. + +This adventure of General Malet's is both prodigious and disconcerting. +For, in 1812, at the moment when Napoleon seemed to be at the summit of +his power, Malet, in a sort of dungeon, with the help of five or six +obscure assistants, an old priest with hardly any knowledge of French, a +half-pay officer, an almost illiterate sergeant and a few other +hare-brained people, had been able, even while confined, watched and +suspected, to combine everything, prepare everything, so that the report +of the Emperor's death might be believed--the Emperor being absent in +the icy steppes of Russia, and no news arriving from him. And his +calculations were justified. All the Imperial functionaries, from +Savary, the head of the police, down to Frochot, the Prefect of the +Seine, accepted General Malet's allegations, without testing or +discussing them. Especially, all believed his fine promises; and it is +hard to say where the hoaxer would have stopped if an officer, simply +obeying his orders, had not refused to be gained over with fine words, +and asked for proofs. Malet, being taken aback, grew impatient, and +replied with a pistol-shot. Major Doucet forthwith arrested him, and the +comedy ended in a tragedy. + +All the more haste was made to get rid of the organisers of this plot, +which had so nearly succeeded, as it was necessary to suppress as +quickly as possible their awkward testimony to such cowardice, lying, +and compromise. + +The poor dwelling in the Villehardouin blind alley was searched by all +the Paris police; papers, uniforms, cocked hats, and swords were fished +out of the little well, still existing, into which they had been wildly +thrown. In a few hours, Malet, Lahorie, Rateau, and Guidal were tried, +condemned, and executed. The replies of the General to the Tribunal that +so summarily judged him were home-thrusts. Asked (somewhat late) who +were his accomplices: "All of you," he said, "if I had succeeded!" + +Taken to the wall of evil memory in the plain of Grenelle, he insisted +on giving the firing-order to the execution-platoon; and, as if he had +been on the drill-ground, made the soldiers repeat the aiming movement, +which had not been carried out with military precision. Rateau, who, as +a matter of fact, had understood nothing of this strange drama, in which +he had been one of the most picturesque confederates, is said to have +died in crying: "Long live the Emperor!" + +Between the Archives and the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, there +was once a large monastery, which, in 1631, became the property of the +Carmelite Billettes,--the name being derived from an ornament worn by +these monks on their gowns. The Revolution suppressed the monastery; but +the small cloister has come down to us with its charming proportions and +its monastic cosiness. To-day, it is a Town School, and the neighbouring +church is devoted to Protestant worship. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE VENISE +_Water-colour by Truffaut_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The Rue de Venise, one of the most ancient Paris streets, is not far +away. It is now a low, bad-smelling lane inhabited by vagabonds of both +sexes. Women, whose age it is impossible to tell, trail and traipse in +front of alleys within which loom greasy, black staircases. Mended linen +hangs from the windows; acrid smoke issues from between thick bars +protecting old mansions now degenerated into mere dens, defended, +however, by heavy doors studded with rusty nails. + +It is hideous, yet quaint, as indeed all this quarter, which is made up +besides of the Rue Pierre-au-Lard, the Rue Brise-Miche, and the Rue +Taille-Pain; not forgetting Saint-Merri's cloister, the name being that +of the old church whose tocsin so often sounded the alarm during the +riots in the reign of Louis-Philippe. + +At the least popular excitement, this inextricable labyrinth of small +streets used to bristle with barricades. At the crossing of the Rue +Saint-Martin and the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher was raised the terrible +barricade defended by Jeanne and his intrepid companions. Following on +the burial of General Lamarque, who died while pressing to his lips the +sword offered to him by the Bonapartist officers of the Hundred Days, an +immense revolutionary movement had galvanized Paris. The old soldiers of +the Empire, the survivors of the Terror and those of 1830, allied in +their common hatred of Louis-Philippe's government, had joined the +malcontents of all parties and the members of the then numerous secret +societies. In the evening of the 5th of June 1832, the centre of Paris +was covered with barricades; and both troops and National Guard had been +obliged to reconquer, one by one, the positions that had been lost. +Slaughter had been going on the whole night. When the dawn of the 6th of +June tinged the house-roofs with pink, the large Saint-Merri barricade +was seen to be holding out; its defenders, a handful of heroic men, had +sworn to bury themselves under its ruins. Already they had repulsed ten +furious assaults; now they were awaiting death; and the loud tones of +the Saint-Merri tocsin, unceasingly sounding above their heads, seemed +to be tolling their funeral knell! Part of the Paris army had to be +utilised to vanquish these dauntless insurgents. Firing went on from +windows, cellars, the pavement. Round the barricades, dead bodies of +National Guards and soldiers, riddled with balls, crushed beneath blocks +of stone hurled from roof-tops, testified to the frightful savagery of +this intestine struggle. For long afterwards, the ground was red with +blood! What numbers of balls and bullets, what quantities of grapeshot +all these old house-fronts have received in the haphazard of riots, +frequent during the reign of Louis-Philippe. + +The drums no sooner beat than the citizens armed and hurried to defend +order ... or to attack it; anxious women, cowering behind closed +shutters, watched for the biers. + +Things resumed their ordinary course immediately the disorder was over; +the insurgent hobnobbed with the honest National Guard whom he had aimed +his gun at on the day before. Sometimes, however, grudges remained. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DU RENARD-SAINT-MERRY +_Etching by Martial_] + +My parents knew an old woman, living in the Rue Saint-Merri, who, for +forty years after 1836, never passed without trembling by the door of +the tenant underneath her flat. As people were surprised at this +persistent apprehension, she said: "If you only knew what happened to +me!" and she related that, one evening when there was a riot and her +husband had been absent all day firing in the ranks of the National +Guard, she was in the house alone, mad with anxiety; suddenly, at the +corner of the street, she saw a stretcher appear, covered with sacking, +which the bearers deposited at her door. Was it her husband that they +were bringing home dead? She rushed out, raised the edge of the cover +and recognised in the person lying with smashed jaw, haggard eyes, +bleeding from a ball in the cheek, the tenant underneath: "Ah, what a +good thing!" she cried; "it's you, Monsieur Vitry!" + +Since that day Monsieur Vitry had given her the cold shoulder. + +In the reign of Charles VI., under pretext of purifying the quarter--the +pretext and the Vicar of Saint-Merri's complaint being only too well +grounded--these "hot streets" were cleared of the majority of low, lewd +people who had taken up their domicile in them. But, if morality had its +claims, business also had its interests; and the worthy shopkeepers of +the neighbourhood, deeming these of more importance than decency, +energetically protested against the measure so prejudicial to their +petty commerce. They gained the day, and, on the 21st of January 1388, +Parliament reversed the Provost's decision, the result being that the +merry band returned in triumph to their old haunts, celebrating the +event with feasting and banqueting. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DES PROUVAIRES AND THE RUE SAINT-EUSTACHE ABOUT +1850 +_Water-colour by Villeret_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +In his _Chronicle of the Streets_, our learned friend, Beaurepaire, +librarian of the City of Paris, asserts that the Rue Pirouette, near +Saint-Eustace's Church, owes its singular name to the "Market Stocks +that stood at this spot. It was an octagonal tower with lofty ogival +windows, in the centre of which was an iron wheel pierced with holes for +the head and arms of vagabonds, murderers, panders, and blasphemers, who +were exposed thus to public derision. On three consecutive market-days, +for two hours each day, they were fastened in the stocks and turned +every half-hour in a different direction. In other words, they were +forced to 'pirouette,' whence the name of the street." + +After doing penance there, in the olden times, malefactors betake +themselves thither to-day to sup. The "Guardian Angel," a thieves' +restaurant, exhibits its signboard almost at the corner of the street: +in it rogues laugh, drink and sing, and hatch their morrow's +exploits. The Staff of the army of vice make it their meeting-place. It +is the fashionable resort, a sort of burglars' "Maxim-restaurant," where +Paris hooligans deem it elegant to appear. Casque-d'or and his pals +reign there, and the scoundrel who has just committed an evil deed is +certain to secure good lodging within, and all else he requires. But it +is not only knights of the blood-letting industry who inhabit this noble +dwelling; other lords come there to eat snails and drink champagne: +suspicious-looking young men with plastered hair, who noisily spend +their money gained by blackmailing or some other reprehensible action. +The place is a disgrace to the Capital. The landlord affirms that there +are honest folk among his customers. The thing is possible--anyway, they +must find themselves in very bad company. + +Quite close, almost next door, at No. 5, is the "Helmet Courtyard," +which gives us a striking impression of what ancient dwellings were. It +was, in fact, once a sumptuous fourteenth-century mansion; to-day, it is +only a hand-cart repository, where shafts point up to the old ceilings +with their projecting beams, shafts shiny with use, and a fishmonger's +warehouse, in which Burgundy snails, and cooked or raw lobsters are +sold. The nook is a quaint one, and the quarter also, with its remains +of the Rue de la Grande-Truanderie, where, on the 10th of May 1797, one +of the ancestors of Communism, Baboeuf, was arrested. + +[Illustration: THE CENTRAL MARKET FOOT-PAVEMENT, NEAR THE CHURCH OF +SAINT-EUSTACHE, IN 1867 +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Not far away used to be the Rue de la Tonnellerie, where Molière lived. +This street disappeared when the Rue Turbigo was cut. + +[Illustration: THE CENTRAL MARKET IN 1828 +_Canella, pinxit_] + +In the Central Market quarter, where every one works, where each shop +offers to Paris gourmands the best victuals, the freshest vegetables, +the daintiest fruits, where, every night, long files of market +gardeners' carts bring in loads of provisions of all sorts, each street +has, so to speak, its speciality. Housewives know where to find their +poultry, crayfish, cheese, or oranges. All the little streets, skirting +the Halles, are full of astonishing shops contrived in door-corners, or +cellar-corners, all of which for generations have been kept by worthy +husbandmen, petty dealers, hucksters, or basket-hawkers, having their +own line, their own customers. In the curious Rue Montorgueil, old +abodes that amaze one are still to be found; for instance, between Nos. +64 and 72, the ancient Golden Compass Inn, which was the calling place +for so many generations of carriers. Its double entrance, blocked up +with small butchers', tripe-dealers', and poulterers' stalls, opens on a +huge yard, where fowls peck on heaps of golden dung, where ducks quack, +and goats bleat under the eyes of some thirty horses, peaceful tenants +of the ground floor, with their inquisitive heads thrust over the +half-doors, through the low windows or open air-holes. At the back, +beneath the spacious shed, the carriages and carts are put up, 'midst a +healthy country smell of verdure and hay; and it really is a curious +sight to see such a silent nook, with its farmyard, at the back of the +noisy, populous, crowded street, full of workmen, pedlars, and shouts or +cries of bubbling life and movement. + +[Illustration: THE CENTRAL MARKET IN 1822 +_Canella, pinxit_] + +What is left of the Rue Quincampoix, behind the old Tower of +Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, emphasises the strangeness of this +neighbourhood, in which the exterior, though renewed, has been partly +preserved, but which has been more modified and transformed as regards +inhabitants and customs than perhaps any other quarter. It was, in fact, +in the Rue Quincampoix that the famous Law established his offices of +the Mississippi Bank. There, all Paris suffered the fever of +speculation. The madness was general. For months nothing but folly and +ruin reigned. All gambled--duchess, priest, philosopher and courtier, +shopkeeper and ballet-actress, peer and lackey, excise-farmer and his +clerk. In order to profit by proximity to the celebrated stock-jobber, +each shop, room and cellar even, rented at foolishly high prices, was +turned into a gaming establishment; and the case is quoted of a cobbler +who hired for a hundred livres a day his stall stinking with wax and old +leather; the gold mania had broken down all distinctions. And then +the fatal crisis came, the panic, the crash. In the Rue Quincampoix one +saw none but despairing faces. Every day there was a series of murders, +suicides, attacks of lunacy. On one single occasion, twenty-seven bodies +of suicides or murdered people were fished out of the river at the nets +of Saint-Cloud. To speculate still, money at any price was needed. +Highway robbery was practised, and the footpads were of all classes of +society. One of these, the young Count de Horn, a relative of the +Regent, and already notorious through his follies, hired two rascals of +his own kind, enticed a rich young stock-jobber into an inn of the Rue +de Venise, stabbed him and took his money. The scandal was enormous! +Both Court and City lost their heads. Would justice at last act and +severity be shown? There was a good deal of intriguing and excitement; +but, finally, the Lieutenant for criminal affairs, acting on the orders +of the Regent, arrested the Count de Horn, on the 22nd of March 1720; +and, four days after, the latter was broken on the wheel and executed in +the centre of the Grève Square, amidst the applause of all Paris. + +[Illustration: MOLIÈRE'S HOUSE IN THE RUE DE LA TONNELLERIE +_Water-colour by Hervier_] + +The Rue Quincampoix likewise contains some few old mansions now +inhabited by certain "medical specialists," cheese-dealers, eau-de-seltz +makers, &c. At Nos. 58, 28, 14, 15, and, notably, at No. 10, are seen +remnants of forged iron, broken balconies, chipped grotesque masks of +stone.... But the whole is tumbling to pieces, and to ruin, and only by +a strong effort of the imagination can one reconstitute, out of these +wretched fragments, the life of luxury, fever and stock-jobbing that +once filled this old street, now foul with chemical smells and rancid +odours of fried potatoes. + +Collé's prophecy has been fulfilled: "One no longer belongs to Paris +when one belongs to the Marais!" + +Trade has laid hold of the fine mansions of yore; druggists have set up +their distilleries in them, toy-makers sell their puppets in them, and +the hawker with his Paris article is the monarch that governs them. + +The population at present is poor, laborious, yet intelligent and +active; and the contrast between it and the transformed dwellings +wherein it dwells is not without interest and grace. A visit to the +Archives, Marais and Saint-Merri quarters is certainly something no one +should omit. + +The picturesque line of central boulevards extends from the Bastille to +the Madeleine Church. There Paris life may be studied under the most +varied aspects, as well as the most elegant. + +To speak of there being a general characterisation of the boulevards +would be hardly correct, inasmuch as each of them has its special +physiognomy. + +[Illustration: THE TOWER OF SAINT-JACQUES-LA-BOUCHERIE ABOUT 1848 +_Lithographed by A. Durand_] + +The Beaumarchais Boulevard has an atmosphere of middle-class +tranquillity about it. Nothing has survived of the fine mansion, +surmounted with a feather-shaped weather-cock and flag, which was +built there by the author of the _Mariage de Figaro_, nor yet of the +famous gardens, once the wonder of Paris, which could only be visited +with a special card signed by Beaumarchais himself and given but to few. +Yet some one of our own generation has known them, and penetrated into +what for a while remained of the gorgeous abode; and that some one is +Victorien Sardou. Did he have a presentiment that, in talent and wit, he +would one day be the successor of the Beaumarchais whose property he +thus intruded on? Anyway, in 1839, Victorien Sardou, aged seven, was +living with his parents in the Place de la Bastille. With his little +companions he used to play at ball or with hoop round the elephant and +the canal banks. At the entrance to the Beaumarchais Boulevard of to-day +some long, worm-eaten palisades bordered a piece of waste ground. On the +palisades were hung halfpenny pictures of actors, actresses, and +soldiers; and no one was fonder of looking at them than the little +Sardou. + +One day, while enjoying his open-air picture-gallery, he caught a +glimpse of a huge garden through the interstice between two of the +palings. "What was this garden?" "Suppose he entered!" So he and another +urchin of his own age wrenched away a paling with the sticks of their +hoops, and in a delight of terror slipped into the unknown domain. What +an amazement! They found themselves in a Sleeping Beauty's realm. +Weeds, lianes, branches, trees had grown over everything. It was a flora +and fauna of the virgin forests; rabbits, birds and butterflies were its +denizens; and Robinson Crusoe was not more surprised in exploring his +island than these two youngsters in wandering about this jungle. + +Sardou vaguely remembers there being a ruined pavilion and some +tumble-down old walls; what he recollects better are the banks, ditches, +and slopes where he and his companion had such delightful escapades; and +nothing is more interesting than to hear this witty and charming talker +relate his stories of the bygone Paris which he regrets so much and +remembers so well. + +The old dwellings have disappeared. A single one still exists at the +corner of the Rue Saint-Claude, No. 1. It is the celebrated abode in +which the talented charlatan, Cagliostro, installed his furnaces, his +crucibles, his alembics, his transformation machines, all the weird +utensils that served for his magic sittings. + +The house has not been much altered. It remains, as always, strange, +enigmatical, mysterious, with its staircases constructed in the body of +the walls, its secret corridors, its mechanical ceilings, its cellars of +many exits. The greatest lords, the noblest dames frequented this abode. +Cardinal de Rohan was a familiar guest. The report ran that gold was +made there, and that Cagliostro, the great Copht, had discovered the +secret of the philosopher's stone! He offered, continued the legend, +repasts of thirteen covers at which the guests were enabled to call up +the dead, which was why Montesquieu, Choiseul, Voltaire and Diderot had +taken part at Cagliostro's last supper. + +All that made a stir; there were murmurs; the thing was proclaimed a +scandal. Louis XVI. shrugged his shoulders and Marie Antoinette forbade +any one to "speak to her of this charlatan." But every one tried to +obtain entrance into the "divine sorcerer's house," and Lorenza, his +wife, was obliged to open a class of magic for the benefit of the ladies +of the upper circles. + +Then came the affair of the necklace. Cagliostro, being compromised with +Cardinal de Rohan and Madame de Lamotte, was arrested and thrown into +the Bastille; and it was not until ten months later, on the 1st of June +1787, that he was able to return to the house in the Rue Saint-Claude, +escorted by a crowd of eight to ten thousand persons, blocking the +Boulevard, the courtyard of the house and the staircases. He was +cheered, embraced, carried in triumph. This grand day was a climax. A +few hours after it, a King's order banished him from France, and the +house was shut up. Only in 1805 were its doors reopened for the sale of +the furniture; and the sight must have been a curious one! In 1855, the +building was repaired; the leaves of the entrance gate were changed; +those to-day opening into the Rue Saint-Claude came from the ancient +buildings of the Temple; so that the gates of Louis XVI.'s prison give +access now to the mansion where Cagliostro once performed his marvels. + +In the Filles-du-Calvaire Boulevard stands the Winter Circus, still +unchanged, with its Icarian Games and its equilibrists, its smiling +horse-women who for so many years have leaped through the same +paper-filled hoops and made the same pleased bow to the worshipping +crowd. But, if the spectacle is not much varied, the public of +youngsters is constantly renewed, and the laughs we heard in our +childhood still welcome the same clowns' grimaces. Only Monsieur Loyal +is no longer there, the admirable, imposing Monsieur Loyal, +tight-buttoned in his fine blue coat, who, with such noble gesture and +slashing whip, restrained the mocking clown's quips and quirks or the +shyings of the mare Rigolette exhibited at liberty. + +[Illustration: ALEXANDER'S GRAND CAFE ROYAL ON THE TEMPLE BOULEVARD +_Water-colour by Arrivet_] + +Would any one now believe that for more than a century the Temple +Boulevard was the centre of Paris gaiety? A charming engraving by +Saint-Aubin shows us it joyous, smart, and full of life. Coaches, cabs, +and other vehicles pass and repass; grand ladies and fashionably dressed +women rival with each other in grace, manners and toilet, the latter of +the strangest names; and the draughtsman Briou can write below a fashion +engraving of the period: "The provoking Julia reposing on the Boulevard, +while awaiting a stroke of good fortune; she is in morning gown with a +Diana hat that flying hearts adorn." At Alexander's Cafè Royal, there +is supper and dancing; people crowd to listen to Nicolet's patter; and a +circle of hearers surround Fanchon, the hurdy-gurdy player. On the same +Boulevard, Curtius sets up his luxuriously arranged wax-work saloons; +and, later, the parades of Bobèche and Galimafré will be the joy of +Paris; for a long time, the fair will continue. + +[Illustration: FANCHON, THE HURDY-GURDY PLAYER +_Original drawing_ (Ch. Drouet Collection)] + +The Ambigu, the Historic Theatre, the Gaiety, the Funambules, the +Olympic Circus, the Little-Lazari, the Délassements Comiques,--ten +theatres or so will add to the excitement with their strange, nervous, +grandiloquent, noisy companies of actors. The gay apprentices, at all +times fond of plays, will cheer as they go by the heroes of all these +dramas and melodramas, so numerous that popular slang had nicknamed as +Crime Boulevard the thoroughfare where, at twelve each evening, so much +blood flowed on the boards of these theatres. There were Madame Dorval, +Mademoiselle George, Mademoiselle Déjazet, Messieurs Bocage, Mélingue, +Bouffé, Dumaine, Saint-Ernest, Boutin, Colbrun, Lesueur, Deburau--the +ideal Pierrot--and also Gobert, so like Napoleon I., as was Taillade, +who, thin and nervous, was incarnating Bonaparte. It was the period when +the Bonapartist epopee turned people's heads to such an extent that the +poor comedian Briand, who, in one of the many Napoleon plays, was acting +the ungrateful part of Sir Hudson Lowe, said: "I shall never have a +similar success. Yesterday, I was waited for at the theatre door and +thrown into the Château-d'Eau canal basin!" + +[Illustration: VIEW OF THE AMBIGU-COMIQUE ON THE TEMPLE BOULEVARD +_Lallemand, del._ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +All the quarter waxed enthusiastic about its favourite actors, espoused +their quarrels, repeated their witticisms or their adventures: Frédéric +Lemaitre especially, a tragic, dare-devil, drinking, extravagant yet +talented artist, decking himself in private life, as well as on the +stage, in the frayed-out plumes of Don Cæsar de Bazan, had his own +story. People went into ecstasies over his amours with Clarisse Miroy, +interwoven with thrashings and fond tenderness. On the day after one of +these noisy quarrels, Frédéric is said to have rung at his lady-love's +door, which was opened by Clarisse's mother. The good dame, frightened +at the brutal actor's appearance, raised her arm instinctively as if to +ward off a blow.... "I beat you, I!" thundered Frédéric in Richard +d'Arlington's tones, "I beat you! Why?... Do I love you?" + +[Illustration: THE FUNAMBULES THEATRE ON THE TEMPLE BOULEVARD +_Water-colour by Martial_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The Historic Theatre subsequently became the Lyric Theatre, and the +wonderful Madame Miolan-Carvalho, the queen of song, was there to +create, with her magnificent art, _Faust_, _Mireille_, _Jeannette's +Wedding_, _Queen Topaz_, &c. About 1861, the celebrated composer +Massenet, yet a pupil at the Conservatory and on the point of obtaining +his Rome prize, discharged in the theatre orchestra the duties of +kettle-drummer, for the modest salary of forty-five francs a month. + +[Illustration: THE AMBIGU THEATRE AND BOULEVARD ABOUT 1830 +_Canella, pinxit_] + +Others to perform there were the Davenport brothers and the conjurer +Robin, with their amusing séances of hypnotism and white magic. On this +always-to-be-remembered Temple Boulevard were to be met the various +fashionable authors: Dennery, Théodore Barrière, Victor Séjour, Paul +Féval, Gounod, Berlioz, A. Adam, Clapisson, Saint-Georges, the Cogniard +brothers, Clairville; and the great Dumas used to pass in triumph, +shaking hands with everybody as he went. The coffee-houses had to turn +customers away; orange-sellers made fortunes, while boys sold checks, +conveyed nosegays to pretty actresses, and hailed cabs. People called to +each other, shouted, disputed, laughed above all, under the indulgent +eye of the police and to the noise of liquorice-water-seller's bell: it +was the golden age! + +In 1862, a regrettable decision of Baron Haussmann, the Prefect of the +Seine, suppressed this bit of Paris, so lively and gay; and, on the +ruins of all these theatres, which brought money and mirth to the +quarter, were built Prince Eugène's barracks, the ugly Hôtel Moderne, +and the wretched monument of the Republic Square. Of all this fine, +artistic past nothing is left except the tiny Déjazet Theatre, at the +corner of the Vendôme Passage, and the Turkish Coffee-house; the latter +different far from what it was when Bailly depicted it under the +Directory. Elegant dames, the Merveilleuses, the Incroyables used to +frequent it for the purpose of nibbling an ice or sipping little pots of +cream, while listening to cithern concerts. Young Savoyards made their +marmots dance in presence of "sensitive souls," and thrifty burgesses of +the quarter took their family to get an idea of the high Parisian life +which made the Turkish Coffee-house one of its favourite meeting-places. + +Restaurants were numerous, being souvenirs of coffee-houses formerly +renowned, like the Godet and Yon cafés. There one found singing and +dancing, and, now and again, plotting. It was at the Burgundy Vintage +Restaurant in the Temple faubourg, the ordinary rendezvous of Paris +wedding-breakfasts or National Guard love-feasts, that--on the 9th of +May 1831, at the end of a banquet given to celebrate the acquittal of +Guinard, Cavaignac, and the Garnier brothers, charged with plotting +against the State--Évariste Gallois, with a knife in his hand, +proposed in three words this threatening toast: "To Louis-Philippe!" + +The great Flaubert lived on the Temple Boulevard at No. 42. There, on +Sundays, he gathered his disciples at noisy lunches--Zola, Goncourt, +Daudet, de Maupassant, Huysmans, Céard, George Pouchet--a few yards away +from a building of tragic fame. No. 50, in fact, was the wretched house +whose third-story Venetian blinds concealed Fieschi and the twenty-five +pistol barrels loaded with bullets which constituted his infernal +machine. A train of powder passed over twenty-five lights. The discharge +of grapeshot to be vomited by this dreadful instrument of death was +terrible. The grocer Morey, who had helped to prepare the monstrous +crime, had even taken the useful precaution to damage four of the +gun-barrels, whose explosion was to suppress Fieschi himself. + +Pépin, another accomplice, had been careful to walk his horse several +times past the fatal window; and from behind the Venetian blinds, +Fieschi, who was an excellent shot, had been able at his ease to +regulate the aim of his horrible slaughtering-machine. It was intended +that Louis-Philippe, who had ten times escaped the assassin's hand, +should, on this occasion, be struck by it. The conspirators, however, +had not calculated that the King, when reviewing the National Guard, +would avoid the middle of the Boulevard, which sloped down towards the +sides for draining purposes, and would keep to the lower portions, along +which the troops were stationed. The rain of bullets therefore passed +over the King's head, touching only the top of his cocked-hat, and mowed +down women, children, officers and other spectators that were on the +King's left. It was a frightful butchery; the Boulevard streamed with +blood. More than forty victims lay on the road, among them being the +glorious Marshal Mortier, who expired on one of the marble tables in the +Turkish Coffee-house, whither the dead and wounded had been transported. +Fieschi, who was wounded, was arrested in the backyard of the next +house, while trying to fly through the Rue des Fossés-du-Temple. On the +19th of February 1836, he ascended the scaffold with his accomplices, +Pépin and Morey. + +At the corner of the Temple Boulevard, to the right, in front of the +first house in the Voltaire Boulevard, the barricade was raised where +Delescluze was killed in May 1871. At this spot, formerly stood the +Gaiety Theatre; while the Lyric Theatre opened its doors on the present +site of the Metropolitan railway station in the Republic Square. + +[Illustration: THE PORTE SAINT-MARTIN +_Houbron, pinxit_ (G. Cain Collection)] + +The Saint-Martin Boulevard, where Paul de Kock took up his abode, in +order to study from his windows, which were on the first story, near the +Porte Saint-Martin, the seething life of the Capital, now has no +animation except in the evening. Four theatres--the Folies-Dramatiques, +the Ambigu, the Porte Saint-Martin, and the Renaissance--add life and +movement to it then; and nothing is more amusing than the hour +following the end of the performances. The coffee-houses fill with +visitors, cigarettes are lighted, newspaper-vendors shout the latest +news; people hustle, and touts run after carriages, in which one sees a +rapidly passing vision of pretty women in light-coloured dresses and +opera-cloaks. Afterwards issue the actors, with blue chins and turned-up +collars, and often looking cross. Last of all, come the handsome +actresses, who quickly step into their brougham, inside which may +frequently be seen, dimly outlined behind the red point of a cigarette, +the form of an expectant friend. + +[Illustration: THE RUE SAINT MARTIN (1866)--THE GREEN-WOOD TOWER +_Drawn by A. Maignan_] + +Near the Porte Saint-Denis, at the entrance to the narrow Rue de Cléry, +there was formerly a rise in the road, which was the scene of a tragic +occurrence. There, on the 21st of January 1793, the intrepid De Batz had +appointed to meet a few companions. It was determined that a forlorn +hope should be led with a view to snatch Louis XVI. from the shame of +the guillotine. The plan was to force the line of soldiers, to overpower +the escort surrounding the carriage, and to carry off the King. + +But, already, on the day before, the Committee of Public Safety had been +warned "by a well-known private individual," say the police reports, of +the mad plot that was in preparation, and every necessary precaution was +taken. During the night all the persons denounced in the warning as +suspicious were placed under arrest. De Batz, who thought to find a +hundred and fifty confederates at the meeting-place, only found seven. +Notwithstanding their small number, they did not hesitate, and rushed at +the horses' heads. The Guards cut them down. Three were killed. De Batz +managed to escape. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE CLÉRY +_Lansyer, pinxit_] + +This strange, winding Rue de Cléry, whose thin edge stands out so +curiously against the sky, was the scene of another drama. The father of +André and Marie-Joseph Chénier lived at No. 97. There, on the 7th of +Thermidor, he was anxiously waiting for the liberation of his son André, +who for long months had been a prisoner at Saint-Lazare. The poor man +had foolishly taken it into his head to appeal to Collot d'Herbois' +heart(!) and to ask him to free his son. Collot d'Herbois had once been +an actor; and now, on another sort of stage, revenged himself for +having been hissed. He had not forgotten the lines in which André +Chénier had satirised him in such masterly fashion, but he did not know +in what prison his enemy was confined. Marie-Joseph, the brother, +himself an object of suspicion, had been able to lengthen out the +proceedings and to keep as a secret the place where André was confined. +At this supreme hour of the Terror, it was the only possible chance +Collot d'Herbois had to satisfy his vengeance; and the information thus +unadvisedly but innocently given by the prisoner's father was utilised +by the revengeful actor. "To-morrow," Collot assured the unhappy father, +"your son shall quit Saint-Lazare." He kept his word; and, on the 7th of +Thermidor, just at the hour when the guest was so impatiently expected, +André got into the cart to go to the scaffold, erected that day at the +barrier of the Throne Square. + +Round about the picturesque Rue de Cléry, the quarter is an odd medley +of little streets, lanes, and alleys: the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance, +the Rue Sainte-Foy, the Rue des Petits-Carreaux, the Rue de la Lune, in +which last Balzac lodged his Lucien de Rubempré watching over Coralie's +dead body, and composing libertine songs, in order to gain the money +required for his mistress's funeral. + +In these tortuous, sombre, narrow streets it is easy to reconstitute the +physiognomy of the older Paris; ancient dwellings are still numerous +enough; but, as in the Marais, are given over to petty trade and +industry. After the Egyptian campaign, the Consulate cut a certain +number of new streets bearing the names of victories: the Rues de +Damiette, d'Aboukir, du Nil. On the site of the Cairo Square, once stood +the mansion of the Temple Knights, or Knights Templars. A portion of an +old Gothic Chapel, in which were preserved the helmet and armour of +Jacques Molay, founder and Grand Master of the Order, was used in 1835 +as a meeting-place by surviving adepts of this rite; and Rosa Bonheur's +father, who was a Knight Templar, had his daughter baptized there +beneath an "arch of steel" made by the crossed swords of the Order, clad +in white tunics, with a red cross embroidered on their breasts, booted +in deer-skin, and coifed with a white cloth square cap surmounted by +three feathers--one yellow, one black, and one white! + +[Illustration: THE POISSONNIÈRE BOULEVARD IN 1834 +_Dagnan, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +A delightful picture by Dagnan, which is now in the Carnavalet Museum, +shows us the Poissonnière Boulevard in 1834. Most of the houses remain +to-day; but, alas! the tall, thick-foliaged trees that made the +Boulevard a sort of park avenue have long since disappeared. That lover +of Paris, Victorien Sardou, who was born in it, and who is cheered, +loved, and honoured in it, very well remembers seeing the trees as they +used to be, and his long saunterings in front of the Gymnase Theatre. +Did he foresee the successes he was to gain with _les Ganaches_, _les +Vieux Garçons_, _les Bons Villageois_, _Andréa_, _Féréol_, +_Séraphine_, _Fernande_, &c.? + +[Illustration: THE GYMNASE THEATRE +_Etching by Martial_] + +Further on, we come across the ancient Variety Theatre, whose antique +front speaks of a glorious past; Duvert, Lauzanne, Bayard, Scribe, +Meilhac, Ludovic Halévy, and, above all, Offenbach, whose haunting music +bewitched Paris for twenty years. + +Ludovic Halévy, who was a charming chronicler of Paris life, has left us +an interesting sketch of the Montmartre Boulevard towards 1810: "The +Variety actors had been obliged to quit the Montansier hall; their +vaudevilles had more success than the tragedies at the Théâtre Français. +The Emperor made a decree depriving them of the Palais-Royal premises; +but they were allowed to move to new premises on the Montmartre +Boulevard!... A frightful quarter for a theatre!... It was almost in the +country; not one of the large houses existed which you see there! +Nothing but little single-story shops, wretched wooden stalls, and the +two small panoramas of Monsieur Boulogne.... No foot-pavements, a road +simply of beaten earth between two rows of tall trees.... A few old cabs +and carriages passed now and again.... In fine, the country.... It was +the country!!.." + +[Illustration: THE VARIETY THEATRE ABOUT 1810 +_From a sepia of the period_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +With the Variety Theatre began what was called, without epithet, _The +Boulevard_. For idlers, saunterers, wits, clubmen, writers, journalists, +under the second Empire, it was a sort of sacred ground. +Grammont-Caderousse, the Prince of Orange, Khalil-Bey, Paul Demidoff, +Aurélien Scholl, Roqueplan, Aubryet, Jules Lecomte, Auguste Villemot +were kings there. The Café Anglais, the Maison Dorée, Tortoni's were +frequented by the fashionables of society and literature. The gas +flared, champagne corks flew, and one had only to open pianos for them +to play automatically the Evohe of _Orpheus in Hades_! An apropos +witticism stopped a quarrel. The princes of intelligence held their own +with princes of the blood or of money; as, for instance, on the day +when, at Tortoni's, the Duke de Grammont-Caderousse flung a packet of +goose-quills in the face of Paul Mahalin, who, the day before, in a +small newspaper had severely animadverted on the diva S----, she being +under the Duke's protection. + +"From Mademoiselle S----," said the Duke. + +Making his grandest bow, Mahalin retorted: "I was aware, Monsieur, that +Mademoiselle S---- feathered her lovers, but I did not dare hope it was +for my benefit." + +[Illustration: THE BOULEVARDS, THE HOTEL DE SALM, AND WINDMILLS OF +MONTMARTRE +View taken from the hanging gardens of the Rue Louis-le-Grand +_Water-colour of the eighteenth century_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +Since the dark days of 1870, the elegant Boulevard has become more +democratic. The old dwellings themselves have changed their uses; and +electro-plate is sold in the beautiful pavilion built by Marshal de +Saxe--after the Hanoverian wars--at the corner of the Boulevard and the +Rue Louis-le-Grand. In the eighteenth century, some one took it into his +head to decorate with flowers the roofs of the houses in the vicinity of +this fine mansion; so that it was possible to dine merrily--under the +shade of hornbeams--while watching the windmills of Montmartre turn in +the distance. The example has been imitated in our own times--people +cried that it was an innovation; this is only another error; there is +nothing new under the sun. What is done is merely a modification, and +generally the alteration is for the worse! Tortoni's flight of steps has +disappeared. Taverns, with their onion soup and their sourcrout and +sausage, replace the aristocratic restaurants of yore. The features are +different; but still it is a Paris nook, really gay, amusing, and +original. A walk in it is delightful, though nothing, alas! can be said +to vividly recall the past, since the terrible fire of 1887 destroyed +the Comic Opera of our fathers; the Opera of Grétry, Dalayrac, Méhul, +Boïeldieu, and Hérold; the Opera whose façade does not open on the +boulevard, according to the desire formally expressed in 1782 to +Heurtier, the architect, by the King's Comedians refusing to be confused +with the "Boulevard Comedians"; the Opéra-Comique where, every evening, +in the spacious _foyer_ adorned with busts of dead musical celebrities +and composers that had contributed to the theatre's fame, the habitués +met whose attendance was a protest against modern music: Auber, Adam, +Clapisson, Bazin, Maillard; later, and with another æsthetic doctrine, +G. Bizet, Léo Delibes, V. Massé, J. Massenet, Carvalho, Meilhac, Halévy, +and old Dupin, the last an astonishing centenarian who, one evening, +with rancorous eye looked at Hérold's bust and grumbled: "How that +urchin used to rile me!" In presence of the general bewilderment he +explained: "I was his school companion, in 1806, at Saint-Louis' +College!" we were then in May 1885! This was the obstinately reactionary +Dupin who once drew from a contradictor the threatening retort: "We +missed you in '93. When the next Revolution comes, we'll take good care +not to!" + +[Illustration: THE RUE DE LA BARRE, AT MONTMARTRE +_Houbron, pinxit_] + +The amiable chats, the agreeable meetings which brought together so many +witty people, clever talkers, artists, men of the world, those of the +Comic Opera _foyer_, of the Grand Opera, or the Comédie Française are +now hardly anything but a memory. Not that the practice itself is +abolished. Art gatherings are quite as frequent and as well attended; +but they have emigrated,--many of them to Montmartre, to the "Butte +Sacrée," the holy mound, "the teat of the world," yelled the astonishing +Salis in his _Chat Noir_ patter; and truly the spot is one of the +Capital's curiosities. + +Gay, industrious, cynical, flippant, and yet religious, this composite +quarter offers the most singular mingling of poets, painters, sculptors, +lemonade-makers and pilgrims. On the Clichy and Batignolles Boulevards, +the revolving lights of the Moulin Rouge illuminate a population of +rakes, dandies, artists, lemans and bullies. Each wine-shop--and there +are many--harbours one or several poets, more or less comic, but always +railers and _rosses_,[4] as the witty Fursy says, one of the best +performers in these "music-boxes." In these latter the great ones of the +earth, politicians, ministers, are unmercifully berhymed, as also the +events of the day; a minister's latest speech, Pelletan's elegance, Le +Bargy's cravats, Santos-Dumont's ascent, the Pope's latest Encyclical +letter, the automobile tax, the divorce of the moment, the King of +Spain's recent visit, or that of the Prince of Bulgaria, all put into +couplets. + +[Illustration: A STREET IN MONTMARTRE +_Houbron, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +Montmartre is the Capital's pot-house; it is all good-humoured laughter +and chaff. People enjoy themselves at night and work in the day, for it +has always been a favourite abode for artists of every kind: Henri +Monnier, the Duchess d'Abrantès, Madame Haudebourg-Lescot, Mademoiselle +Mars, Horace Vernet, Berlioz, Ch. Jacque, Reyer, Victor Massé, Vollon, +Manet, André Gill, Steinlen, Guillemet, Willette, Jules Jouy, Mac-Nab, +Xanrof, Maurice Donnay. Their memory there is alive and respected, the +legend of their prowess is preserved. It is Montmartre's _Iliad_. + +[Illustration: THE RUE DES ROSIERS +_Etching by Martial_] + +A few yards from these noisy streets, the "Butte" begins, on which, at +the close of the 1871 siege, the Parisians had hoisted the National +Guards' cannons. In vain the Government tried to regain possession of +them; and the rest is known:--the resistance, the troops disbanded, +Generals Clement Thomas and Lecomte arrested, dragged into a small house +in the Rue des Rosiers and shot against a garden wall. + +Part of the wall still stands; and though the house has disappeared in +which this tragedy of the 18th of March was played, a little of the +garden itself remains, behind the modern buildings of the _Abri +Saint-Joseph_, vast sheds used as refectories by the crowds of pilgrims +attracted to the basilica of the Sacré-Coeur. + +Indeed, all this quarter is melancholy-looking, silent, quaint, and +monastic. Chaplet, scapulary, candle, missal, and pious picture-dealers +have their shops in it. The spot is a sort of religious fair; even the +streets have liturgical names: Saint-Eleuthère, Saint-Rustique, near the +Rue Girardon, and the Calvary cemetery, overlooked by the awkward +outlines of the old Galette Windmill, the ordinary rendezvous for +idlers, boulevard inquisitives, artists' models, lemans and bullies of +the neighbourhood. The ancient Montmartre, with its picturesqueness, is +again met with in the Rue Saint-Vincent, in the Rue des Saules +containing the "Lively Rabbit" tavern, and in the Rue de la +Fontaine-du-But, sordid streets, bordered with sorry habitations whose +windows are hung with linen drying, and which seem at each story to +harbour a different poverty; strange streets, running for the most part +between a crumbling old house and a hoarding mossy with rain and covered +with inscriptions. As a matter of fact, these palisades serve as an +outlet for the confidences of the "pals" and their "gals" of the +quarter. Amorous effusions may be read side by side with threats, and +the great ones of the earth are sometimes severely dealt with. The +epithet is always a bitter one. It savours of debauch, vice and crime. + +[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE IN 1829 +_Canella, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +And yet, in this corner of Paris, which modern embellishments will soon +have made unrecognisable, bits of admirable scenery are to be met with, +exquisite lanes of verdure, birds, tame pigeons, whistling blackbirds; +and one might fancy one's self far away in some peaceful country-place, +if, at the end of all these streets, were not seen the huge +violet-coloured mass of the Capital, in fairy panorama, an ocean of +stone, whence heave, like masts, the bell-towers of palaces, the +turrets, belfries and steeples of churches, with domes, roofs and +gardens--an incomparable vision of art, grandeur and beauty. + +The great Balzac informs us that César Birotteau was ruined by +speculations he engaged in on the "waste ground round about the +Madeleine church." He lost in them the profits realised by his "Eau +Carminative" and by the "Double Pâte des Sultanes." His "Rose Queen" +perfumery was swallowed up in them.... + +And, however, César Birotteau was right in his reasoning. To-day, the +Madeleine building ground is the highest quoted in Paris. + +In 1802, the surface was occupied by foundation works and scaffolding, +showing the pillars of the church so long since commenced and still in +the building. + +[Illustration: INGENUOUS BENEVOLENCE +_Duplessis-Bertaux, inv. et del._] + +There took place the charming episode depicted by Duplessis-Bertaux, +under the pleasing title: "Ingenuous Benevolence" (an historic fact of +the 5th Messidor, anno X.). A long notice, beneath the picture, tells us +that Pradère, Persuis, Elleviou and "his spouse," walking one evening +along the Magdalene Boulevard, met a blind street-singer, who "by the +strains of his piano was soliciting public charity." The receipts were +wretched; so our kind artists improvised a little open-air concert and +remedied the ill-fortune of the poor fellow. After delightfully singing, +Madame Elleviou, her husband and Pradère made a collection, and poured +the proceeds, thirty-six francs, into the blind man's hands trembling +with emotion! + +[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE (Second View) +_From a sepia of the eighteenth century_] + +Along the Rue Royale, we reach the Champs-Elysées, after stopping for a +moment at the "Cité Berryer," a strange alley in which once stood the +hotel of the King's Musketeers. It is a sort of poor market lost in this +rich quarter. + +[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE TUILERIES, OVER THE SWING-BRIDGE, IN +1788 +_Original water-colour of the eighteenth century_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +Then comes the Place de la Concorde, the finest Square in the world, +with its unrivalled perspectives of the Champs Elysées, the Seine, the +Tuileries, the Garde-Meuble, the Crillon mansion, and the charming house +of Grimod de la Reynière, to-day the Cercle de l'Union artistique, at +the corner of the Rue de "la Bonne Morue"--at present the Rue Boissy +d'Anglas--in front of which still stood, until the second Empire, one of +the corner pavilions erected by Gabriel. What souvenirs! the raising of +Louis the Fifteenth's statue; the festivities in honour of the Dauphin's +marriage to Marie Antoinette, so tragically terminated by a +catastrophe--the crowd that had come to witness the fireworks being +crushed in the moat--which was the beginning of the hatred against the +"Austrian woman"; the reviews of the Swiss Guards; the military charges +of Lambesc; the people's storming of the swing-bridge, the gates forced, +the ditches crossed, and then the sinister scaffold, smoking in front of +the statue to Liberty, and the Conventionals terrified, stopping before +they entered their hall and taking a close look at the death which, each +day, hovered over them. "Yesterday, as I was proceeding to the Assembly +with Pénières," writes Dulaure in his Memoirs, "we perceived, as we +passed through the Revolution Square, preparations being made for an +execution. 'Let us pause,' my colleague said to me; 'let us accustom +ourselves to the sight. Perhaps we shall soon need to make proof of our +courage by calmly ascending this scaffold. Let us familiarise ourselves +with the punishment.'" + +[Illustration: CORNER PAVILION OF THE LOUIS XV. SQUARE +At the angle of the Rue de la Bonne-Morue about 1850 (to-day the Rue +Boissy-d'Anglas) +_Etching by Martial_] + +Severed heads were exhibited by the executioner at the four corners of +the huge Square: Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Hérault de Séchelles, +Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and +Robespierre. A dreadful pell-mell, a disastrous butchery; the ground was +red with blood. Then followed the soldiers of the Empire, singing as +they defiled, on entering the Tuileries to cheer their triumphant +Emperor at his return from some victorious campaign. + +A white head, big golden epaulets, a blue ribbon: such was the +appearance of Louis XVIII., impotent, with paralysed legs, who, in his +carriage surrounded with body-guards, galloped through the Square at +full speed. + +It was at the corner of this Place de la Concorde that, on the 28th of +February 1848, Louis-Philippe, broken and vanquished, got into the +humble cab that proved to be the hearse of the Monarchy. + +Napoleon III., with his blue dreamy eyes, used to cross it nearly every +day, driving his phaeton; and the boy, whom the Parisians of that time +called "the little Prince," would show his pretty fair head of hair at +the window of the "berline" escorted by the household troops. + +[Illustration: VIEW IN THE TUILERIES GARDENS IN 1808 +_Drawn by Norblin_ (Carnavalet Museum)] + +The gates of the Tuileries were again to open, on the 4th of September +1870, under the pressure of the invaders; and, during the siege of +Paris, artillery were to camp in the vast ruined garden. Finally, the +palace of the kings of France was to disappear in a cloud of fire, +'midst the last convulsions of the expiring Commune; and, to-day, a poor +fellow, in a shabby sun-faded cloak and wearing an old felt hat, spends +his time distributing bread and grain to the Paris pigeons and sparrows, +on the very spot where once stood the rostrum of the Convention, some +yards from the place where the four hoofs of the Emperor Napoleon's +white horse pranced, as his rider reviewed the Guard, before flying his +victorious eagles towards Moscow, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, or Berlin! + +The Champs Elysées are of almost modern creation. A decade ago, the fine +avenues surrounding the Arc de l'Etoile--the Avenue Kléber, the Avenue +Wagram, the Avenue Niel, the Avenue de l'Alma--offered most picturesque +contrasts; beside a sumptuous mansion, subsisted wretched little houses, +remains of old hovels that once were scattered all over this luxurious +quarter, where now nothing recalls the waste pieces of land, dangerous +even to cross, of sixty years ago. Under the Directory, Madame Tallien's +cottage (Notre Dame de Thermidor, she was called) to which the +Incroyables and the Merveilleuses dared not go without escort, was +situated as far up as the Avenue Montaigne. Dancing-gardens and open-air +bars occupied the space now filled by restaurants and cafés-concerts. An +engraving by Carle Vernet shows us a Cossack encampment round a humble, +country-looking inn. Now the Le Doyen restaurant stands there! + +[Illustration: THE RUE GREUZE IN 1855 +_Chauvet, del._] + +Under Louis-Philippe, the Champs-Elysées were at length altered: side +avenues were laid out, the main avenue was widened; and Emile Augier +used to relate that, in the hollow of one of the trees numbered for +trimming (No. 116, I believe), the ticket porter belonging to the +Gymnase Theatre deposited the one intended for Balzac at the time of the +rehearsals of _Mercadet_. The great novelist, in order to escape from +his numerous creditors, was lodging at this period in the Rue Beaujon, +under the name of Madame Dupont, widow. Gozlan, who ultimately +discovered his illustrious friend's address, added on the envelopes +he sent to him--"née Balzac." + +[Illustration: THE MADRID CHÂTEAU +_L. G. Moreau, pinxit_] + +The curious Memoirs of the Abbé de Salamon, a Papal internuncio, give us +a striking picture of the Bois de Boulogne under the Revolution: a sort +of forest, or jungle, in which those took refuge who, being suspected, +were tracked by the Committees and the police, and to whom the precious +citizens' card had been refused. "I continually remained in the thickest +part of the Bois de Boulogne," he says. "It seemed to me that each +person I met read on my face that I was outlawed and was hastening to +deliver me to the headsman. I took up my abode in the loneliest place of +the wood. I lit a fire with a tinder-box and some twigs, and cooked my +vegetables; my soup was excellent.... Later I discovered another fairly +convenient spot, on the side of the Bagatelle Villa, quite near to the +Pyramid and not far from Madrid. + +[Illustration: THE BAGATELLE PAVILION +_L. G. Moreau, pinxit_] + +"One night, I was wakened in the middle of my dreams by the piercing +cries of two women, who drew back terrified on beholding me through the +darkness of night. + +"It was a mother and her daughter, who also were flying from an +arrest-warrant. I called to them: 'Keep silence, whoever you are! You +have nothing to fear.' They asked me what I was doing in the wood so +late: 'The same thing as you no doubt are doing yourselves,' I +answered." + +Subsequently it became the ordinary meeting-place for duellists. +Already, in the time of Louis XV., some ladies, the Marchioness de +Nesles and the Countess de Polignac, had exchanged pistol shots in it on +account of the Duke de Richelieu. Under the Revolution, in 1790, Cazalès +and Barnave went there to settle a political quarrel: "I should be sorry +to kill you," exclaimed Cazalès; "but you annoy us considerably, and I +want to keep you away from the rostrum for a while." "I am more +generous," retorted Barnave; "I wish merely to touch you; for you are +the only orator on your side, whereas on mine my absence would not even +be perceived." Afterwards it was Elleviou and Monsieur de Bieville; +General Foy and Monsieur de Corday; Marshal Soult and Colonel +Briqueville; Benjamin Constant and Forbin des Essarts; with this +peculiarity in the last duel that the two adversaries fought at ten +yards' distance, sitting in two armchairs, which were not even grazed! +And how many others!... + +[Illustration: A PERFORMANCE AT THE HIPPODROME ON EYLAU SQUARE UNDER THE +SECOND EMPIRE] + +Under Louis-Philippe, the Duke d'Orléans, the Duke de Nemours, Lord +Seymour, the Duke de Fitz-James, Ernest Le Roy--the Jockey Club at its +formation--organised races there. The stakes were modest; most often, a +few bottles of champagne were gained and lost. Then fashion took hold of +the thing. More importance was attached to racing; and, to-day, it is +the great Parisian event--in festivities. As early as 1850, the +Hippodrome of the Eylau Square revived the souvenir of Antiquity's +favourite chariot-races. + +The Bois de Boulogne became the rendezvous of society. There, was +displayed the luxury of the Second Empire. Its trees and avenues formed +an exquisite framework to elegance and worldly show. In the _Curèe_, +Emile Zola was able to write: "It was four o'clock and the Bois awoke +from its afternoon sultriness. Along the Empress' Avenue, clouds of dust +were flying; and, afar, lawns of verdure could be seen, with the hills +of Saint-Cloud and Suresnes beyond, crowned with the grey of Mont +Valerien. The sun, aloft on the horizon, sailed in an effulgence of +golden light that filled the depths of the foliage, flamed the top +branches, and transformed this ocean of leaves into an ocean of +luminousness.... The varnished panels of the carriages, the flashing of +the copper and steel mountings, the bright colours of the dresses +streamed together with the horses' regular trot, and cast on the +background of the Bois a broad, moving band, a beam from the welkin, +lengthening as it followed the curves of the road. The waved roundness +of the sunshades radiated like metal moons." + +The sight has not changed. It is the same triumphal defile, which each +day gathers within these select surroundings the most elegant women in +Paris, fashionable horsemen, vibrating autocars with their _chauffeurs_, +clubmen as well as artists and workmen, who come to enjoy the fair +spectacle, this feast of the eyes, this unique scenery: the Bois de +Boulogne, the Avenue du Bois, the Champs Elysées. + +[Illustration: THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE ABOUT 1850] + +From the top of the Arc de Triomphe, 'mid the twilight of May, the +vision is a magic one; it is from the terraces of the portico erected to +the glory of the Grand Army that a view is obtained of the sumptuous +quarters of modern Paris. + +Some sixty years ago, Balzac showed his hero dreaming on the hill of +Père-Lachaise, and contemplating, as it lay in the valley, the Monster +he intended to tame. To-day Rastignac would have to mount the Arc de +Triomphe, if he wished to threaten Paris. Thence, he might launch his +famous defiance: "It is a struggle between us now!" for, if the aspect +of things has altered, the impression made by the immense City is still +and ever the same: an impression of weight, of imperious conflict, of +hard victory. In verity, no one disembarks without a sort of anguish in +this great Paris,--Paris, so redoubtable to the valiant that attempt its +conquest and so prodigal to the fortunate ones that have known how to +win its favour. + + GEORGES CAIN. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Successive landlords have more or less spoilt this fine dwelling. +The grand staircase is almost the only part intact, and it is a marvel. +The carving is by Martin Desjardins, and the oval courtyard retains some +of its ancient grace. + +[4] A word here meaning ultra-naturalistic, broadly satirical. + + + + +WORKS QUOTED OR CONSULTED + + + _History of and Researches into the Antiquities of the City of Paris_. + By H. SAUVAL (1724). + _History of the City and Diocese of Paris_. By the ABBÉ LEBEUF (1883). + _Tableau of Paris_. By MERCIER (1782). + _History of Paris_. By DULAURE (1825). + _Tableau of Paris_. By TEXIER (1850). + _Paris Demolished_. By E. FOURNIER (1855). + _Enigma of the Streets of Paris_. By E. FOURNIER (1860). + _Chronicle of the Streets of Paris_. By E. FOURNIER (1864). + _Paris throughout the Ages_. By E. FOURNIER (1875). + _My Old Paris_. By E. DRUMONT (1879). + _Paris_. By AUGUSTE VITU (1889). + _Paris (History of the Twenty Arrondissements or Quarters)_. By + LABÉDOLLIÈRE. + _Revolutionary Paris_. By LENÔTRE (1895). + _Old Papers, Old Houses_. (1900). + _The Bièvre and Saint-Séverin_. By HUYSMANS (1898). + _The Chronicle of the Streets_. By BEAUREPAIRE (1900). + _Paris-Atlas_. By F. BOURNON. + _New Itinerary Guide to Paris_. By CH. NORMAND. + _Through Old Paris_. By the MARQUIS DE ROCHEGRUDE (1903). + _Minutes of the Municipal Commission of Old Paris_ (from 1898). + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Nooks and Corners of Old Paris, by Georges Cain + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40306 *** |