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diff --git a/40306-8.txt b/40306-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 31a483d..0000000 --- a/40306-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4494 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Nooks and Corners of Old Paris, by Georges Cain - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Nooks and Corners of Old Paris - -Author: Georges Cain - -Translator: Frederick Lawton - -Release Date: July 23, 2012 [EBook #40306] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD PARIS *** - - - - -Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from -scanned images of public domain material from the Internet -Archive. - - - - - - - - - -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 THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD PARIS *** - -***** This file should be named 40306-8.txt or 40306-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/3/0/40306/ - -Produced by Annie R. McGuire. This book was produced from -scanned images of public domain material from the Internet -Archive. - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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