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Title: Historic Paris
Author: Wolff, Jetta S.
Language: English
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HISTORIC PARIS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE STORY OF THE CHURCHES OF PARIS
[Illustration: LA TOUR DE L’HORLOGE, LES “TOURS POINTUES” DE LA
CONCIERGERIE ET LE MARCHÉ AUX FLEURS
_Frontispiece_]
HISTORIC PARIS
BY JETTA S. WOLFF
WITH FIFTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LIMITED
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXXI
_The Mayflower Press, Plymouth, England._ William Brendon & Son, Ltd.
TO
LA FRANCE
THE BEAUTIFUL--THE VALOROUS
PREFACE
This book, begun many years ago, was laid aside under the stress of
other work, which did not, however, hinder the sedulous amassing of
notes during my long and continuous residence in Paris. The appearance
of the Marquis de Rochegude’s exhaustive work, on somewhat the same
lines in a more extensive compass, took me by surprise, and I thought
for a moment that it would render my book superfluous. The vast
concourse of English-speaking people brought hither by the great war,
people keen to learn the history of the beautiful old buildings they
find here on every side, made me understand that an English book of
relatively small compass was needed, and I set to work to finish the
volume planned and begun so long ago.
I had made the personal acquaintance and consequent notes of most of the
ancient “Stones of Paris” before looking up published notes concerning
them. When such notes were looked up, I can only say their sources were
far too numerous and too scattered to be recorded here. I must beg every
one who may have published anything worth while on Old Paris to receive
my thanks, for I have doubtless read their writings with interest and
benefit. But I must offer special thanks to M. de Rochegude,
for--writing under pressure to get the book ready for press--his work
as a reference book, while pursuing my own investigations, has been
invaluable.
To my readers I would say peruse what I have written, but use your own
eyes, your own keen observation for learning much more than could be
noted here. Look into every courtyard in the ancient quarters, look
attentively at every dwelling along the old winding streets, and fail
not to look up to their roofs. The roofs are never alike. They are
strikingly picturesque. Old world builders did not work mechanically,
did not raise streets in machine-like style, each structure exactly like
its neighbour, one street barely distinguishable from the street running
parallel or crossing it, according to the habit of to-day. The builders
of _les jours d’antan_ loved their craft; every single house gave scope
for some artistic trait. The roofs offered a fine field for
architectural ingenuity: wonderfully planned windows, chimneys,
balconies, gables are to be seen on the roofs often in most unexpected
corners, in every part of the _Vieux Paris_. Look up!--I cannot urge
this too strongly. And within every old _hôtel_--the French term for
private house or mansion--examine each staircase. In the erection of a
staircase the architect of past ages found grand scope for graceful
lines, and exquisite workmanship. Thus walks even through the dimmest
corners of _la Ville Lumière_ will be for lovers of old-time vestiges a
joy for ever.
This was an iconoclastic age even before the destructiveness of the
awful war just over. Precious architectural and historical relics were
swept away to make room for brand-new buildings. As it has been
impossible during the past months to verify in every instance the
up-to-date accuracy of notes made previously, it is probable that some
old structures referred to in these pages as still standing may no
longer be found on the spot indicated. But whether in such cases their
site be now an empty space, or occupied by newly built walls, it cannot
fail to be interesting as the site where a vanished historic structure
stood erewhile.
JETTA SOPHIA WOLFF.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THREE PALACES 1
II. AMONG OLD STREETS 22
III. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT MARKETS 35
IV. THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE 45
V. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE 51
VI. ROUND ABOUT ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION) 62
VII. THE TEMPLE 70
VIII. THE HOME OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ 81
IX. NOTRE-DAME 86
X. L’ÎLE ST-LOUIS 92
XI. L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS 94
XII. THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL 112
XIII. La Place des Vosges 119
XIV. The Bastille 123
XV. In the Vicinity of Two Ancient Churches 126
XVI. In the Region of the Schools 137
XVII. La Montagne Ste-Geneviève 144
XVIII. IN THE VALLEY OF THE BIÈVRE 149
XIX. RUE ST-JACQUES 152
XX. LE JARDIN DES PLANTES 155
XXI. THE LUXEMBOURG 162
XXII. LES CARMES 168
XXIII. ON ANCIENT ABBEY GROUND 170
XXIV. IN THE VICINITY OF PLACE ST-MICHEL 181
XXV. L’ODÉON 184
XXVI. ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE 186
XXVII. HÔTEL DES INVALIDES 190
XXVIII. OLD-TIME MANSIONS OF THE RIVE GAUCHE 194
XXIX. ANCIENT STREETS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN 203
XXX. THE MADELEINE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD 208
XXXI. LES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES 213
XXXII. FAUBOURG ST-HONORÉ 216
XXXIII. PARC MONCEAU 221
XXXIV. IN THE VICINITY OF THE OPERA 223
XXXV. ON THE WAY TO MONTMARTRE 227
XXXVI. ON THE SLOPES OF THE _BUTTE_ 232
XXXVII. THREE ANCIENT FAUBOURGS 236
XXXVIII. IN THE PARIS “EAST END” 243
XXXIX. ON TRAGIC GROUND 246
XL. LES GOBELINS 251
XLI. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PORT-ROYAL 256
XLII. IN THE SOUTH-WEST 260
XLIII. IN NEWER PARIS 263
XLIV. TOWARDS THE WESTERN BOUNDARY 269
XLV. LES TERNES 276
XLVI. ON THE _BUTTE_ 278
XLVII. AMONG THE COALYARDS AND THE MEAT-MARKETS 290
XLVIII. PÈRE-LACHAISE 292
XLIX. BOULEVARDS--QUAYS--BRIDGES 297
L. LES BOULEVARDS EXTÉRIEURS 309
LI. THE QUAYS 320
LII. LES PONTS 337
ILLUSTRATIONS
La Tour de L’Horloge, les “Tour pointues” de la
Conciergerie et le Marché aux Fleurs _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Le Vieux Louvre 3
The Louvre of To-day 5
Palais des Tuileries 9
Palais-Royal 15
L’Église St-Germain-l’Auxerrois 20
Place et Colonne Vendôme 31
Portail de St-Eustache 37
La Tour de L’Horloge, les “Tours Pointues” de
la Conciergerie et le Marché aux Fleurs 46
La Sainte-Chapelle 48
Rue Quincampoix 63
St-Nicolas-des-Champs 65
Rue Beaubourg 67
La Porte du Temple 71
Porte de Clisson 75
Ruelle de Sourdis 77
Hôtel Vendôme, Rue Béranger 79
Notre-Dame 87
Rue Massillon 89
Place de Grève 95
La Tour St-Jacques 97
View across the Seine from Place du Châtelet 99
Rue Brisemiche 101
L’Église St-Gervais 103
Hôtel de Beauvais, Rue François-Miron 105
Rue Vieille-du-Temple 109
Rue Éginhard 113
Rue du Prévôt 115
Hôtel de Sens 117
Rue de Birague, Place des Vosges 121
La Bastille 124
Rue St-Séverin 127
Église St-Séverin 129
Hôtel Louis XV, Rue de la Parcheminerie 131
St-Julien-le-Pauvre 133
Bas-relief, Rue Galande 134
Le Musée de Cluny 139
St-Étienne-du-Mont 145
Interior of St-Étienne-du-Mont 147
Rue Mouffetard et St-Médard 150
Jardin et Palais du Luxembourg 163
L’Abbaye St-Germain-des-Prés 171
Cour de Rohan 179
Rue Hautefeuille 183
Castel de la Reine Blanche 253
La Salpétrière 255
Rue des Eaux, Passy 271
St-Pierre de Montmartre 281
Vieux Montmartre, Rue St-Vincent 282
Rue Mont-Cenis: Chapelle de la Trinité 283
Vieux Montmartre: Cabaret du Lapin-Agile 284
Moulin de la Galette 287
Le Mur des Fédérés 295
Old Well at Salpétrière 311
Cloître de l’Abbaye de Port-Royal 315
Remains of the Convent des Capucins 317
Hôtel de Fieubet, Quai des Célestins 325
Quai des Grands-Augustins 333
Le Pont des Arts et l’Institut 338
Pont-Neuf 339
HISTORIC PARIS
CHAPTER I
THREE PALACES
THE LOUVRE
The Louvre has existed on the selfsame site from the earliest days of
the history of Paris and of France. It began as a rough hunting-lodge,
erected in the time of the _rois fainéants_--the “do-nothing” kings: a
primitive hut-like construction in the dark wolf-haunted forest to the
north of the settlement on the islets of the Seine, called Leutekia, the
city of mud, on account of its marshy situation, or Loutouchezi, the
watery city, by its Gallic settlers, by the Romans Lutetia
Parisiorum--the Paris of that long-gone age. The name Louvre, therefore,
may possibly be derived from the Latin Word _lupus_, a wolf. More
probably its origin is the old word _leouare_, whence lower, louvre: a
habitation.
Lutetia grew in importance, and the royal hunting-lodge in its vicinity
was made into a fortress. The city of mud was soon known by the tribe
name only, Parisii-Paris, and the Louvre, freed from surrounding forest
trees, came within the city bounds. It was gradually enlarged and
strengthened. A white circle in the big court shows the site of the
famous gate between two Grosses Tours built in the time of the
warrior-king Philippe-Auguste. Twelve towers of smaller dimensions were
added by Charles V. Each tower had its own special battalion of
soldiers. The inner chambers of each had their special use. In the Tour
du Trésor, the King kept his money and portable objects of great value.
In the Tour de la Bibliothèque were stored the books of those days,
first collected by King Charles V, and which formed the nucleus of the
National Library. Charles V made many other additions and adornments,
and the first clocks known in France were placed in the Louvre in the
year 1370. About the same time a primitive stove--a _chauffe-poële_--was
first put up there. The grounds surrounding the fortress were laid out
with care, the chief garden stretching towards the north. A menagerie
was built and peopled; nightingales sang in the groves. The palace
became a sumptuous residence. Sovereigns from foreign lands were
received by the Kings of France with great pomp in “_Notre Chastel du
Louvre, où nous nous tenons le plus souvent quand nous sommes en notre
ville de Paris_.”
The Louvre was the scene of two of the most important political events
of the fourteenth century. In the year 1303, when Philippe-le-Bel was
King, the second meeting of that imposing assembly of barons, prelates
and lesser magnates of the realm which formed, as a matter of fact, the
first _états généraux_ took place there. In 1358, at the time of the
rising known as the Jacquerie, Étienne Marcel, Prévôt des Marchands,
made the Louvre his headquarters. In the fourteenth century a King of
England held his court there: Henry V, victorious after Agincourt, kept
Christmas in great state in Paris at the Louvre.
[Illustration: LE VIEUX LOUVRE]
The royal palaces of those days, like great abbeys, were fitted with
everything that was needed for their upkeep and the sustenance of their
staff. Workmen, materials, provisions were at hand, all on the premises.
A farm, a Court of Justice, a prison were among the most essential
elements of palace buildings and domains. Yet the Louvre with its
prestige and its immense accommodation was never inhabited continuously
by the Kings of France, and in the sixteenth century the Palace was so
completely abandoned as to be on the verge of ruin. Then François I,
looking forward to the state visit of the Emperor Charles-Quint, sent
workmen in haste and in vast numbers to the Louvre, to repair and
enlarge. Pierre Lescot, the most distinguished architect of the day,
took the great task in hand. The Grosse Tour had already been razed to
the ground. The ancient walls to the south and west were now knocked
down. One wall of the Salle des Cariatides, and the steps leading from
the underground parts of the palace to the ground floor, are all that
remain of the Louvre of Philippe-Auguste.
It is from this sixteenth-century restoration that the Old Louvre as we
know it dates in its chief lines. Much of the work of decoration was
done by Jean Goujon and by Paul Pouce, a pupil of Michael Angelo. But
the Louvre nevermore stood still. Thenceforward each successive
sovereign, at some period of his reign, took the palace in hand to
beautify, rebuild or enlarge--sometimes, however, getting little beyond
the designing of plans. Richelieu, that arch-conceiver of plans,
architectural as well as political, would fain have enlarged the old
palace on a very vast scale. His King, Louis XIII, laid the first stone
of the Tour de l’Horloge. As soon as the wars of the Fronde were over,
Louis XIV, the greatest builder of that and succeeding ages, determined
to enlarge in his own grand way. An Italian architect of repute was
summoned from Italy; but he and Louis did not agree, and the Italian
went back to his own land.
[Illustration: THE LOUVRE OF TO-DAY]
The grand Colonnade, on the side facing the old church,
St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, was built between the years 1667-80 by Claude
Perrault. The façade facing the quay to the south was then added. After
the death of the King’s active statesman, Colbert, work at the Louvre
stopped. The fine palace fell from its high estate. It may almost be
said to have been let out in tenements. Artists, savants, men of
letters, took rooms there--_logements!_ The Louvre was, as a matter of
fact, no longer a royal palace. Its “decease” as a king’s residence
dates from the death of Colbert. The Colonnade was restored in 1755 by
the renowned architect, Gabriel, and King Louis XVI first put forward
the proposition of using the palace as a great National Museum. It was
the King’s wish that all the best-known, most highly valued works of art
in France should be collected, added to the treasures of the _Cabinet du
Roi_, and placed there. The Revolutionary Government put into effect the
guillotined King’s idea. The names of its members may be read inscribed
on two black marble slabs up against the wall of the circular
ante-chamber leading to the Galerie d’Apollon, where are preserved and
shown the ancient crown jewels of France, the beautiful enamels of
Limoges and many other precious treasures once the possession of
royalty. This grand gallery, planned and begun by Lebrun in the
seventeenth century, is modern, built in the nineteenth century by
Duban.
The First Empire saw the completion of the work begun by the
Revolutionists. In the time of Napoléon I the marvellous collection of
pictures, statuary, art treasures of every description, was duly
arranged and classified. The building of the interior court was finished
in 1813.
On the establishment of the Second Empire, Napoléon III set himself the
task of completely restoring the Louvre and extending it. The Pavillon
de Flore was then rebuilt, joining the ancient palace with the
Tuileries, which for two previous centuries had been the habitation of
French monarchs.
After the disasters of 1870-71 restoration was again undertaken, but
though the Tuileries had been burnt to the ground the Louvre had
suffered comparatively little damage.
Within its walls the Louvre has undergone drastic changes since its
conversion from a royal palace to a National Museum. The Salle des Fêtes
of bygone ages has become the Salle Lacaze with its fine collection of
masterpieces. What was once the King’s Cabinet, communicating with the
south wing, where in her time Marie de’ Medici had her private rooms, is
known as the Salle des Sept Cheminées, filled with examples of early
nineteenth-century French art.
In the Salle Carrée, where Henri IV was married, and where the murderers
of President Brisson met their fate by hanging--swung from the beams of
the ceiling now finely vaulted--masterpieces of all the grandest epochs
in art are brought together; from among them disappeared in 1911 the now
regained Mona Lisa. Painting, sculpture, works of art of every kind,
every age and every nation fill the great halls and galleries of the
Louvre. We cannot attempt a description of its treasures here. Let all
who love things of beauty, all who take pleasure in learning the
wonderful results of patient work, go and see[A].
Nor can I recount here the numberless incidents, the historic happenings
of which the Louvre was the scene. It is customary to point out the
gilded balcony from which Charles IX is popularly supposed to have fired
upon the Huguenots, or to have given the signal to fire, on that fatal
night of St-Bartholemew, 1572. But the balcony was not yet there. Nor is
it probable the young King fired from any other balcony or window. Shots
were fired maybe from the palace by men less timorous.
On the Seine side of the big court is the site of the ancient Gothic
Porte Bourbon, where Admiral Coligny was first struck and Concini shot
through the heart. In our own time we have the startling theft of the
Joconde from the Salle Carrée, its astonishing return, and the hiding
away of the treasures in the days of war, of air-raids and long-range
guns and threatened invasion, to strike our imagination. “The great
black mass,” which the enemy aviator saw on approaching Paris, and knew
it must be the Louvre, grand, majestic, undisturbed, is the most notable
monument of Paris and of France.
THE TUILERIES
The Palace has gone, burnt to the ground in the war year 1870-71. The
gardens alone remain, those beautiful Tuileries gardens, the brightest
spot on the right bank of the Seine. Several moss-grown pillars, some
remnants of broken arches, the pillars and frontal of the present Jeu de
Paume and of the Orangery, are all that is left to-day of the royal
dwelling that erewhile stood there. The palace was built at the end of
the sixteenth century by Catherine de’ Medici to replace the ancient
palace Les Tournelles, in the Place Royale, now Place des Vosges, where
King Henri II had died at a festive tournament, his eye and brain
pierced by the sword of his great general, Comte de Montmorency. Queen
Catherine hated the sight of the palace where her husband had died thus
tragically. Its destruction was decreed; and the Queen commanded the
erection in its stead of the _magnifique bâtiment de l’Hôtel royal, dit
des Tuileries des Parisiens, parcequ’il y avait autrefois une Tuilerie
au dit lieu_.
The site of that big tile-yard was in those days outside the city
boundary. The architect, Philibert Delorme, set to work with great
ardour. A rough road was made leading from the _bac_, i.e. the ford
across the Seine, now spanned near the spot by the Pont Royal, to the
quarries in the neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Vaugirard,
whence stone was brought. Thus was born the well-known Rue du Bac. The
palace was from the first surrounded by a fine garden, separated until
the time of Louis XIV from the Seine on the one side, from the palace on
the other, by a _ruelle_; i.e. a narrow street, a lane.
[Illustration: PALAIS DES TUILERIES]
Catherine took up her abode at the new palace as soon as it was
habitable; but the Queen-Mother was restless and oppressed, haunted by
presentiments of evil. An astrologer had told her she would meet her
death beneath the ruins of a mansion in the vicinity of the church,
St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. She left her new palace, therefore, bought the
site of several houses, appropriated the ground and buildings of an old
convent in the neighbourhood of St-Eustache, had erected on the spot a
fine dwelling: l’hôtel de la Reine, known later as l’hôtel de Soissons,
where we see to-day the Bourse de Commerce. One column of the Queen’s
palace still stands there, within it a narrow staircase up which she
was wont to climb with her Italian astrologer.
Meanwhile, the Tuileries palace showed no signs of ruin--quite the
reverse. Catherine’s son, Charles IX, had a bastion erected in the
garden on the Seine side; a small dwelling-house, a pond, an aviary, a
theatre, an echo, a labyrinth, an orangery, a shrubbery were soon added.
Henri IV began a gallery to join the new palace to the Louvre, a work
accomplished only under Louis XIV. Under Henri’s son, Louis XIII, the
Tuileries was the centre of the smart life of the day; visitors of
distinction, but not of royal rank, were often entertained in royal
style in the pavilion in the garden. Under Louis XIV the King’s renowned
garden-planner, Le Nôtre, took in hand the spacious grounds and made of
them the Jardin des Tuileries, so famous ever since. The fine statues by
Coustou, Perrault, Bosi, etc., were soon set up there. The _manège_ was
built--a club and riding-school stretching from what is now the Rue de
Rivoli from the then Rue Dauphine, now Rue St-Roch, to Rue Castiglione.
There the _jeunesse dorée_ of the day learned to hold in hand their
fiery thoroughbreds. The cost of subscription was 4000 francs--£160--a
year, a vast sum then. Each member was bound to have his personal
servant, duly paid and fed. A swing-bridge was set across the moat on
the side of the waste land, soon to become Place Louis XV, now Place de
la Concorde.
The Garden was not accessible to the public in those days. Until the
outbreak of the Revolution, the _noblesse_ or their privileged
associates alone had the right to pace its alleys. Soldiers were never
permitted to walk there. Once a year only, a great occasion, its gates
were thrown open to the _peuple_.
A period of neglect followed upon the fine work done under Louis XIV.
His successor cared nothing for the Tuileries palace and grounds. They
fell into a most lamentable state; and, when in the troublous days of
the year 1789, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their little son took up
their abode at the Tuileries, the Dauphin looked round in disgust.
“Everything is very ugly here, _maman_,” he said. It was the Paris home
of the unhappy royal family thenceforth until they were led from the
shelter of its walls to the Temple prison. It was from the Tuileries
they made the unfortunate attempt to fly from France. Stopped at
Varennes, the would-be fugitives were led back to the palace across the
swing-bridge on the south-western side. Beneath the stately trees of the
garden the Swiss Guards were massacred soon afterwards. The
Revolutionary authorities had taken possession of the Riding-School, a
band of tricolour ribbon was stretched along its frontage and the
Assemblée Nationale, which had sat first in the old church, St-Pol, then
at the _archevêché_, installed itself there. There, under successive
governments, were decreed the division of France into departments, the
suppression of monastic orders, the suspension of the King’s royal power
after his flight. And there, in 1792, Louis XVI was tried, and after a
sitting lasting thirty-seven hours condemned to death. The Terrace was
nicknamed the Jardin National; sometimes it was called the Terre de
Coblentz, a sarcastic reference to emigrated nobles who erewhile had
disported there. In 1793, potatoes and other vegetables--food for the
population of Paris--grew on Le Nôtre’s flower-beds, replacing the gay
blossoms of happier times, even as in our own dire war days beans, etc.,
are grown in the park at Versailles, and the government of the day sat
in the Salle des Machines within the Palace walls.
On June 7th, 1794, the Tuileries palace and gardens were the scene of a
great Revolutionary fête. A few months later the body of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau was laid out in state in the dry _bassin_ before being carried
to the Panthéon. Revolutionary fêtes were a great feature of the day,
and Robespierre, in the intervals of directing the deadly work of the
Guillotine, devised the semi-circular flower-beds surrounded by stone
benches for the benefit of the weak and aged who gathered at those
merry-makings.
Then it was Napoléon’s turn. The Tuileries became an Imperial palace.
For Marie Louise awaiting the birth of the son it was her mission to
bear, a subterranean passage was made in order that the Empress might
pass unnoticed from the palace to the terrace-walk on the banks of the
Seine. The birth took place at the Tuileries, and a year or two later a
pavilion was built for the special use of the young “Roi de Rome.” At
the Tuileries, in the decisive year 1815, the chiefs of the Armies
allied against the Emperor met and camped.
Louis XVIII died there in 1824. In 1848, Louis-Philippe, flying before
the people in revolt, made his escape along the hidden passage cut in
1811 for Marie-Louise. The palace was then used as an ambulance for the
wounded and for persons who fell fainting in the Paris streets during
the tumults of that year. Its last royal master was Napoléon III. The
new Emperor set himself at once to restore, beautify and enlarge. The
great iron railing and the gates on the side of the Orangery were put up
in 1853. A _buvette_ for officers was built in the garden. The Prince
Imperial was born at the Tuileries in 1854. During the twenty years of
Napoléon’s reign, the Tuileries was the scene of gay, smart life. The
crash of 1870 was its doom. The Empress Eugénie fled from its shelter
after Sedan. The Commune set fire to its walls. Crumbling arches,
blackened pillars remained on the site of the palace until 1883. Then
they were razed, cleared away and flower-beds laid out, where grand
halls erewhile had stood. The big clock had been saved from destruction.
It was placed among the historic souvenirs of the Musée Carnavalet. The
Pavillon de Marsan of the Louvre, built by Louis XIV, and the Pavillon
de Flore joining the Tuileries, were rebuilt in 1874.
THE PALAIS-ROYAL
Crossing the Rue de Rivoli in the vicinity of the Louvre, we come to
another palace--the Palais-Royal--of less ancient origin than the Louvre
or the Tuileries, and never, strictly speaking, a royal palace. Built in
the earlier years of the seventeenth century by Louis XIII’s powerful
statesman, Cardinal Richelieu, it was known until 1643 as the
Palais-Cardinal. Richelieu had lived at 20 and 23 of the Place-Royale,
now Place des Vosges, and at the mansion known as the Petit Luxembourg,
Rue de Vaugirard. The great man determined to erect for himself a more
splendid residence, and made choice of the triangular site formed by the
Rue des Bons-Enfants, Rue St-Honoré and the city wall of Charles V,
whereon to build. Several big mansions encumbered the spot. Richelieu
bought them all, had their walls razed, gave the work of construction
into the hands of Jacques de Merrier. That was in the year 1629. The
central mansion was ready for habitation four years later; additions
were made, more _hôtels_ bought and razed during succeeding years. Not
content with mere courts and gardens around his palace, the Cardinal
acquired yet another mansion, the hôtel Sillery, in order to make upon
its site a fine square in front of his sumptuous dwelling. He did not
live to see its walls knocked down. A few days after the completion of
this purchase the famous statesman lay dead. It was then--a month or two
later--that the Palais-Cardinal became the Palais-Royal. By his will,
Richelieu bequeathed his palace to his King, Louis XIII, who died a few
months later. Anne d’Autriche, mother of the young Louis XIV, was living
at the Louvre which, in a continual state of reparation and enlargement,
was not a comfortable home. Richelieu’s fine new mansion tempted her. It
was truly of royal aspect and dimensions, and was fitted with all “the
modern conveniences and comforts” of that day. To quote the words of a
versifier of the time:
“Non, l’Univers ne peut rien voir d’égal.
Aux superbes dehors du Palais Cardinal.
Toute une ville entière avec pompe bâtie;
Semble d’un vieux fossé par miracle sortie.
Et nous fait présumer à ses superbes toits
Que tous ses habitants sont des Dieux ou des Rois.”
[Illustration: PALAIS-ROYAL]
In 1643 the Queen moved across to it with her family. When the King left
it in 1652, Henriette of England, widow of Charles I, lived there for a
time. In 1672 Louis XIV made it over to his brother the duc d’Orléans,
who did some rebuilding, but the most drastic changes were made in the
vast construction close upon Revolutionary days. Then, in 1784,
Philippe-Égalité, finding himself in an impecunious condition,
conceived a fine plan for making money. Round three sides of the
extensive garden of his palace he built galleries lined with premises to
let--shops, etc.--and opened out around them three public thoroughfares:
Rue de Valois, Rue Beaujolais, Rue Montpensier. The garden thus
truncated is the Jardin du Palais-Royal as we know it to-day. It was
even in those days semi-public. Parisians from all time have loved a
fine garden, and the population of the city resented this curtailment.
They resented more especially the mercantile spirit which had prompted
it.
It was in the year 1787 that the theatre known subsequently as the
Comédie Française, more familiarly the “Français,” was built. The
artistes of the _Variétés_ _Amusantes_ played there then, and for
several succeeding years. The theatre Palais-Royal had already been
built, bore many successive different names and became for a time the
Théâtre Montansier, later Théâtre de la Montagne. The fourth side of the
palace had been left unfinished. The duc d’Orléans had planned its
completion in magnificent style. The outbreak of the Revolution put a
stop to all such plans. Temporary wooden galleries had been built in
1784. They were burnt down in 1828 and replaced by the Galerie
d’Orléans, now let out in flats.
Richelieu was titular Superintendent-General of the Marine: some of the
friezes and bas-reliefs illustrative of this office, decorating the
Galerie des Proues, are still to be seen there. But of the great
statesman’s original palace comparatively little remains. The duc
d’Orléans, Regent for Louis XV, razed a great part of Richelieu’s
construction; many of the walls of the palace as we know it date from
his time--1702-23. Disastrous fires wrought havoc in 1763 and 1781. The
financially inspired transformations of Philippe-Égalité made in 1786,
and finally the incendiary work of the Commune in 1871, changed the
whole aspect of the palace. It went through many phases also during the
Revolution. Seized as national property, it was known for a time as
Palais-Égalité. Revolutionary meetings took place in its gardens.
Revolutionary clubs were organized in its galleries. The statue of
Camille Desmoulins, set up in recent years--1905--records that decisive
day, July 12th, 1789, when Desmoulins, haranguing the crowd, hoisted a
green cocarde in sign of hope. That garden was thenceforth through many
years the meeting-place of successive political agitators. In our own
day the Camelots du Roi met and agitated there.
Under Napoléon as Premier Consul, the Tribunat was established there in
a hall since razed. The Bourse de Commerce succeeded the Tribunat. Then
the Orléans regained possession of the palace and Prince Louis-Philippe
went thence to the hôtel de Ville, to return Roi des Français.
The galleries and the façade of the portico of the second court date
from the first half of the nineteenth century. The upheaval of 1848 and
the reign of Napoléon III resulted in further changes for the
Palais-Royal. It became for a time Palais-National, and was subsequently
put to military uses. Then King Jérôme took up his abode there, and was
succeeded by his son Prince Napoléon. The little Gothic Chapel where
Princess Clothilde was wont to pray serves now as a lumberroom. Prince
Victor, the husband of Princess Clémentine of Belgium, was born at the
Palais-Royal in 1862.
The galleries surrounding the garden are brimful of historic
associations. Besides the clubs, noted Revolutionary clubs which met in
the cafés, notorious gambling-houses existed there.
Galerie Montpensier, Nos. 7-12, is the ancient Café Corazza, the famous
rendezvous of the Jacobins, frequented later by Buonaparte, Talma, etc.;
36, once Café des Mille Colonnes, was so named from the multiple
reflection in surrounding mirrors of its twenty pillars. At 50 we see
the former Café Hollandais, which had as its sign a guillotine; at 57-60
the Café Foy, before the doors of which Desmoulins harangued the people
crowding there.
Galerie Beaujolais, No. 103--now a bar and dancing-hall--is the ancient
Café des Aveugles, where in the sous-sol an orchestra played, formed
entirely of blind men from the Quinze-Vingts, the hospital at first
close by then removed to Rue Charenton, while the Sans-Culottes met and
plotted. The mural portraits of notable Revolutionists seen there is
modern work.
Galerie de Valois, Nos. 119, 120, 121, Ombres Chinoises de Séraphin
(1784-1855) and Café Mécanique formed practically the first Express-Bar.
At 177, was formerly the cutler’s shop where Charlotte Corday bought the
knife to slay Marat.
Of the three streets made by the mercantile-minded duc d’Orléans the
walls of two still stand undisturbed. In Rue de Valois we see, at No. 1,
the ancient pavilion and passage leading from the Place de Valois,
formerly the Cour des Fontaines, where the inhabitants of Palais-Royal
drew their water; at 6-8 the restaurant, Bœuf à la mode, built by
Richelieu as hôtel Mélusine; at 10, the façade of hôtel de la
Chancellerie d’Orléans; at 20, hôtel de la Fontaine-Martel, inhabited
for a year by Voltaire, 1732-33. In Rue de Beaujolais we find the
theatre which began as Théâtre des Beaujolais, was for several years
towards the close of the eighteenth century a theatre of Marionnettes,
and is now Théâtre Palais-Royal. Then Rue de Montpensier--1784--shows us
interesting old windows, ironwork, etc.; Rue Montesquieu--1802--runs
where the Collège des Bons-Enfants once stood. The Mother-house of the
Restaurants Duval, so well known in every quarter of Paris, at No. 6, is
on the site of the ancient Salle Montesquieu, once a popular dancing
saloon, then a draper’s shop with the sign of “Le Pauvre Diable” where
the founder of the world-known Bon Marché was in his youth a salesman.
Three notable churches stand in the immediate vicinity of these three
palaces. The ancient St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, St-Roch, erewhile its
chapel of ease, and the Oratoire. St-Germain opposite the Louvre was the
Chapel Royal of past ages. Its bells pealed for royal weddings,
announced the birth of princes, tolled for royal deaths, rang on every
other occasion of great national importance. Its biggest bell sounded
the death-knell of the Protestants on the fatal eve of St-Bartholomew’s
Day, 1572. No part of the fine old church as its stands to-day dates
back as a whole beyond the fifteenth century, but a chapel stood on the
site as early as the year 560. A baptistery and a school were built
close to the chapel about a century later, and this early foundation was
the eldest daughter of Notre-Dame--the Paris Cathedral. After its
destruction by the invading Normans, it was rebuilt as a fine church by
Robert le Pieux, in the first years of the eleventh century, and no
doubt many of its ancient stones found a place in the walls of
successive rebuildings and restorations. The beautiful Gothic edifice is
rich in ancient glass, marvellous woodwork, pictures, statuary and
historic memorials.
[Illustration: L’ÉGLISE ST-GERMAIN-L’AUXERROIS]
The first stone of St-Roch, in the Rue St-Honoré, was laid by Louis XIV,
in 1653, but the church was not finished till nearly a century later. In
the walls of its Renaissance façade we see marks of the grape-shot--the
first ever used--that poured from the guns of the soldiers of the young
Corsican officer, Napoléon Buonaparte, in the year 1795. Buonaparte had
taken up his position opposite the church, facing the insurgent
_sectionnaires_ grouped on its broad steps. The fight that followed was
the turning-point in the early career of the young officer fated to
become for a time master of the city and of France. St-Roch is
especially interesting on account of its many monuments of notable
persons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its groups of
statuary. The Calvary of the Catechists’ Chapel, as seen through the
opened shutters over the altar in the Chapel of the Adoration, is of
striking effect.
The Oratory, Rue de Rivoli and Rue St-Honoré, was built during the early
years of the seventeenth century as the mother-church of the Society of
the Oratorians, founded in 1611, and served at times as the Chapel
Royal. The Revolution broke up the Society of the Oratorians, their
church was desecrated, secularized. In 1810, it was given to the
Protestants and has been ever since the principal French Protestant
Church of Paris. The statue of Coligny on the Rue de Rivoli side is
modern--1889.
CHAPTER II
AMONG OLD STREETS
Round about these old palaces and churches some ancient streets still
remain and many old houses, relics of bygone ages. Others have been
swept away to make room for up-to-date thoroughfares, shops and
dwellings. Place de l’École and Rue de l’École record the existence of
the famous school at St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, a catechists’ school in the
first instance, of more varied scope in Charlemagne’s time, where the
pupils took their lessons in the open air when fine or climbed into the
font of the baptistery when the font was dry. Rue de l’Arbre-Sec, once
Rue de l’Arbre-Sel, from an old sign, a thoroughfare since the twelfth
century, was in past days the site of the gallows. There it is said
Queen Brunehaut was hacked to death. Part of this ancient street was
knocked down to make way for the big shop “la Samaritaine”; but some
ancient houses still stand. No. 4, recently razed, is believed to have
been the hôtel des Mousquetaires, the home of d’Artagnan,
lieutenant-captain of that famous band.
Rue Perrault runs where in bygone times Rue d’Auxerre, dating from 1005,
and Rue des Fossés St-Germain-l’Auxerrois stretched away to the
Monnaie--the Mint. No. 4, hôtel de Sourdis, rebuilt in the eighteenth
century, was the home in her childhood of Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 2, is
the entrance to the _presbytère_ St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. Rue de la
Monnaie, a thirteenth-century street known at first by other names,
recalls the existence of the ancient Mint on the site of Rue Boucher
close by. In Rue du Roule, eighteenth century, we see old ironwork
balconies. Rue du Pont-Neuf is modern, on the line of ancient streets of
which all traces have gone. Most of the houses in Rue des Bourdonnais
are ancient: In the walls of No. 31 we see two or three ancient stones
of the famous La Trémouille Mansion once there occupied by the English
under Charles VI. No. 34 dates from 1615. From the door of 39 the
Tête-Noire with its _barbe d’Or_, which gave the house its name, still
looks down. The sixth-century cabaret of l’Enfant-Jesus, the monogram
I.H.S. in wrought iron on its frontage, has been razed. No. 14 is
believed to have been the home of Greuze. The impasse at 37, in olden
times Fosse aux chiens, was a pig-market where in the fourteenth century
heretics were burnt. Rue Bertin-Poirée dates from the early years of the
thirteenth century, recording the name of a worthy citizen of those long
past days. At No. 5 we see a curious old sign “La Tour d’Argent”; out of
this old street we turn into the Rue Jean-Lantier recording the name of
a thirteenth-century Parisian, much of it and the ancient place du
Chevalier-du-Guet which was here, swept away in 1854. Rue des
Lavandières-Ste-Opportune, thirteenth century, reminds us of the
existence of an old church, Ste-Opportune, in the neighbourhood. Rue des
Deux-Boules existed under another name in the twelfth century. And here
in the seventeenth century was l’École du Modèle, nucleus of l’Académie
des Beaux-Arts.
Rue des Orfèvres began in 1300 as Rue des Deux-portes. An old chapel,
St-Eloi, stood till 1786 by the side of No. 8. Rue St-Germain-l’Auxerrois
was a thoroughfare so far back as the year 820. No. 19 is the site of a
famous episcopal prison: For-l’Evêque. 38, at l’Arche Marion, duels were
wont to be fought in olden days. Rue des Bons-Enfants, aforetime Rue
des Echoliers St-Honoré, was so-called from the College founded in 1202
for “les Bons-Enfants” on the site of the neighbouring Rue Montesquieu,
suppressed in 1602. Many of the old houses we see there were the
possession and abode of the dignitaries of St-Honoré. A tiny church
dedicated to Ste-Claire was in past days close up against the walls of
No. 12. A vaulted arch and roof and staircase, lately razed, formed
the entrance to the ancient cloister. Beneath a coat-of-arms over the
doorway of No. 11, where is the Passage de la Vérité, an old inscription
told of a reading-room once there, where both morning and evening papers
were to be found. 19, hôtel de la Chancellerie d’Orléans, is on the
site of a more ancient mansion. All the houses of this and neighbouring
streets show some trace of their former state. Rue Radziwill was once
Rue Neuve des Bons-Enfants, the name still to be seen on an old wall
near the Banque de France. Nearly all the houses there have now become
dependencies and offices of the Banque de France, one side of which
gives upon the even number side of the street. At No. 33 is a wonderful
twin staircase. At its starting it divides in two and winds up with
old-time grace to the top story. Two persons can mount at once without
meeting. Rue la Vrillière dates from 1652, named after the Secrétaire
d’État of Louis XIV, whose mansion, remodelled, is the Banque de France
with added to it the Salle Dorée des Fêtes and some other remains of the
hôtel de Toulouse.
Rue Croix des Petits-Champs dates from 1600, its name referring to a
cross which stood on the site of No. 12. No. 7, entrance of the old
Cloître St-Honoré. In the courtyard of No. 21 we see traces of the
habitation of the abbés. No. 23, hôtel des Gesvres, was the home of the
parents of Mme de Pompadour.
* * * * *
Two long and important streets, one ancient the other modern, stretch
through the entire length of this first arrondissement from east to
west: Rue de Rivoli and Rue St-Honoré.
Rue de Rivoli, dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, was
begun at its western end in the year 1811, across the site of ancient
royal stables, along the line of the famous riding-school of the
Tuileries gardens, and on through grounds erewhile the property of the
three great convents: les Feuillants, les Capucins, l’Assomption. It
swept away ancient streets and houses, picturesque courts and corners--a
fine new thoroughfare built over the ruins of historic walls and
pavements. There is little to say, therefore, about the buildings one
sees there now. The hôtel Continental is on the site of one of the first
of the constructions then erected--the Ministère des Finances, built
during the second decade of the nineteenth century, burnt to the ground
by the Commune in 1871. The famous Salle des Manèges, where the
Revolutionary governments sat and King Louis XVI’s trial took place, was
on the site of the houses numbered 230-226: l’hôtel Meurice, restaurant
Rumpelmayer, etc., No. 186, a popular tearoom run by a British firm, is
near the site of the Grande Écurie of vanished royalty, and of a
well-known passage built there in the early years of the nineteenth
century.
Admiral Coligny fell assassinated on the spot occupied by the house
number 144. Passing on into the fourth arrondissement, we come to the
Square St-Jacques, formed in 1854, where had stood the ancient church
St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which the tower alone remains, a beautiful
sixteenth-century tower, restored in the nineteenth century by the
architect Ballu. Nos. 18-16 are on the site of the ancient convent of
the Petit St-Antoine. In its chapel the Committee of the section “des
droits de l’Homme” sat in Revolution days.
Rue St-Honoré is full of historic houses and historic associations. Its
present name dates only from the year 1540, recalling the existence of
the collegiate church of the district. Like most other long, old
thoroughfares, Rue St-Honoré is made up of several past-time streets
lying in a direct line, united under a single name. Almost every
building along its course bears interesting traces of past grandeur or
of commercial importance. Many have quaint, odd sign-boards: No. 96 is
on the site of the Pavillon des Singes, where, in 1622, Molière was
born. At No. 115 we see inscriptions dating from 1715. No. 108 is
l’hôtel de l’Ecouvette, formerly part of hôtel Brissac. No. 145 is on a
site where passed the boundary wall of Phillippe-Auguste and where was
built subsequently a mansion inhabited by the far-famed duc de Joyeuse,
then by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and wherein one Jean Châtel made an attempt
upon the life of Henri IV. Nos. 180, 182, 184 were connected with the
Cloître St-Honoré. No. 202 bore an inscription recording the erection
here of the Royal Academy of Music by Pierre Moreau--1760-70--burnt down
ten years later. No. 161, the Café de la Régence, replaced the famous
café founded at the corner of the Palais-Royal in 1681, the
meeting-place of chess-players. A chessboard was lent at so much the
hour, the rate higher after sunset to pay for the two candles placed
near. Voltaire, Robespierre, Buonaparte, Diderot, etc., and in later
days Alfred de Musset and his contemporaries, met here. The city wall of
Charles V passed across the site with its gateway, Porte St-Honoré. At
this spot Jeanne d’Arc was wounded in 1429 and carried thence to the
maison des Genêts on the site of No. 4, Place du Théâtre-Français. A bit
of the ancient wall was found beneath the pavement there some ten years
ago. No. 167, Arms of England. No. 280: Jeanne Vanbernier is said to
have been saleswoman in a milliner’s shop here. No. 201 shows the
old-world sign “Au chien de St-Roch.” At No. 211, hôtel St-James, are
traces of the ancient hôtel de Noailles, which included several distinct
buildings and extensive grounds. Part of it became, at the Revolution,
the Café de Vénus; part the meeting-place of the Committees of
Revolutionary governments. At 320 we see another old sign-board: “A la
Tour d’Argent.” No. 334 was inhabited by Maréchal de Noailles, brother
of the Archbishop of Paris, in 1700. Nos. 340-338 show traces of the
ancient convent of the Jacobins. At No. 350, hôtel Pontalba, with its
fine eighteenth-century staircase, lived Savalette de Langes, keeper of
the Royal Treasure, who lent seven million francs to the brothers of
Louis XVI, money never repaid, the home in Revolution days of Barrère,
where Napoléon signed his marriage contract. Nos. 235, 231, 229, were
built by the Feuillants 1782 as sources of revenue, and are the last
remaining vestiges of the old convent. At 249 we see the Arms and
portrait of Queen Victoria dating from the time of Louis-Philippe. No.
374 was the hôtel of Madame Géoffrin, whose salon was the meeting-place
of the most noted politicians, _littérateurs_ and artistes of the day,
among them Châteaubriand, who made the house his home for a time. At No.
263 stands the chapel of the ancient convent des Dames de l’Assomption
(_see_ p. 29).
No. 398 is perhaps in part the very house, more probably the house
entirely rebuilt, inhabited for a time by Robespierre and some of his
family and by Couthon. No. 400 was the Imperial bakery in the time of
Napoléon III. No. 271, now a modern erection, was till quite recently
the famous cabaret du St-Esprit, dating from the seventeenth century,
where during the Terreur sightseers gathered to watch the tragic
chariots pass laden with victims for the guillotine. Marie-Antoinette
passed that way and was subjected to that cruel scrutiny.
The greater number of the streets of this arrondissement running
northwards start from Rue de Rivoli, and cross Rue St-Honoré, or start
from the latter. Beginning at the western end of Rue Rivoli, we see Rue
St-Florentin dating from 1640, so named more than a century later when
the comte de St-Florentin deputed the celebrated architects Chalgrin and
Gabriel to build the mansion we see at No. 2. It was a splendid mansion
then, with surrounding galleries, fine gardens, a big fountain, and was
the home of successive families of the _noblesse_. In 1792, it was the
Venetian Embassy, under the Terreur a saltpeter factory. At No. 12 was
an inn where people gathered to watch the condemned pass to the
scaffold.
Rue Cambon, so named after the Conventional author of the Grand Livre de
La Dette Publique, dates in its lower part, when it was Rue de
Luxembourg, from 1719, prolonged a century later. Some of the older
houses still stand, and have interesting vestiges of past days; others,
razed in recent years, have been replaced by modern constructions. The
new building, “Cour des Comptes,” built to replace the Palais du Quai
d’Orsay burnt by the Communards in 1871, is on the site of the ancient
convent of the Haudriettes, suppressed in 1793, when it became the
garrison of the Cent Suisses, later a financial depot. The convent
chapel, left untouched, serves as the catechists’ chapel for the
Madeleine, and has services attended especially by Poles.
In Rue Duphot, opened in 1807 across the old garden of the Convent of
the Conception, we see at No. 12 an ancient convent arch and courtyard.
Rue Castiglione (1811) stretches across the site of the convents Les
Feuillants and Les Capucins.
In Rue du Mont-Thabor, stretching where was once a convent garden, a
vaulted roof and chapel-like building at No. 24, at one time an artist’s
studio, remains of the convent once there, is about to be razed. Orsini
died at No. 10; Alfred de Musset at No. 6 (1857).
PLACE VENDÔME
In the year 1685 Louis XIV set about the erection of a grand _place_
intended as a monument in his own honour. The site chosen was that of
the hôtel Vendôme which had recently been razed, and of the neighbouring
convent of the Capucins. The death of Louvois--1691--interrupted this
work. It was taken in hand a year or two later by Mansart and Boffrand,
who designed in octagonal form the vast _place_ called at first Place
des Conquêtes, then Place Louis-le-Grand. A statue of Louis XIV was set
up there in 1699. The land behind the grand façades and houses erected
by the State was sold for building purposes to private persons, and the
notorious banker Law and his associates finished the Place in 1720.
Royal fêtes were held there and popular fairs. Soon it was the scene of
financial agitations, then of Revolutionary tumults. On August 10, 1792,
heads of the guillotined were set up there on spikes and the square was
named Place des Piques. A bonfire was made of volumes referring to the
title-deeds of the French _noblesse_ and the archives of the St-Esprit;
and in 1796 the machines which had been used to make _assignats_ were
solemnly burnt there. In 1810 the Colonne d’Austerlitz was set up where
erewhile had stood the statue of Louis XIV, made of cannons taken from
the enemy, its bas-reliefs illustrative of the chief events of the
momentous year 1805. It was surmounted by a statue of Napoléon, which,
in 1814, the Royalists vainly attempted to pull down by means of ropes.
It was taken away later, the _drapeau blanc_ put up in its stead.
Napoléon’s statue, melted down, was transformed into the statue of Henri
IV on the Pont-Neuf, replacing the original statue set up there (_see_
p. 340). In 1833, Napoléon went up again, a newly designed statue,
replaced in its turn by a reproduction of the first one in 1865. In
1871, the Column was overturned by the Communards, but set up anew by
the French Government under MacMahon.
Every mansion on the Place, most of them now commercial hotels or
business-houses, was at one time or another the habitation of noted men
and women, and recalls historic events. The façades of Nos. 9 and 7 are
classed as historic monuments; their preservation cared for by the
State. No. 23 was the scene of Law’s speculations after his forced move
from his quarters in the old Rue Quincampoix. At No. 6 Chopin died.
[Illustration: PLACE ET COLONNE VENDÔME]
The Rue and Marché St-Honoré are on the site of the ancient convent and
chapel of the Jacobins, suppressed at the Revolution, and where the
famous club des Jacobins was established. The market dates from 1810.
Rue Gomboust dates from the thirteenth century, when it was Rue de la
Corderie St-Honoré. Rue de Ste-Hyacinthe dates from 1650. Rue de la
Sourdière from the seventeenth century shows us many old-time walls and
vestiges and much interesting old ironwork.
On the wall of the church St-Roch we still see the inscription “Rue
Neuve-St-Roch,” the ancient name of the street at its western end. The
street has existed from the close of the fifteenth century bearing
different names in the different parts of its course. The part nearest
the Tuileries was known in the eighteenth century as Rue du Dauphin, in
Revolution days as Rue de la Convention. Many of its houses are ancient
and of curious aspect.
In Rue d’Argenteuil, leading out of Rue St-Roch, once a country road,
stood until recent years the house where Corneille died.
Rue des Pyramides dates only from 1806, but No. 2 of the street is noted
as the meeting-place, in the rooms of a friend, of Béranger, Alexandre
Dumas, _père_, Victor Hugo and other famous writers of the day. In the
fourth story of a house in the corner of the Place dwelt Émile Augier.
From the Place du Théâtre-Français where the fountain has played since
the middle of the nineteenth century, the Avenue de l’Opéra opened out
about 1855 as Avenue Napoléon, cut through a conglomeration of ancient
streets and dwellings. Leading out of the Avenue there still remains in
this arrondissement Rue Molière, known in the seventeenth century as Rue
du Bâton-Royal, then as Rue Traversière, and always intimately
associated with actors and men of letters. Rue Ste-Anne was known in its
early days as Rue du Sang and Rue de la Basse Voirie, then an unsavoury
alley-like thoroughfare. Its present name, after Anne d’Autriche, was
given in 1633. Then for a time it was known as Rue Helvetius, in memory
of a man of letters born there in 1715. Nearly all its houses are
ancient and were the habitation in past days of noted persons, artists
and others. Nos. 43 and 47 were the property of the composer Lulli. The
street runs on into arrondissement II, where at No. 49, hôtel Thévenin,
we see an old statue of John the Baptist holding the Paschal Lamb. At
No. 46 Bossuet lived and died. No. 63 was part of the New Catholic’s
convent. Nos. 64, 66, 68, mansions owned by Louvois.
Rue Thérèse (Marie-Thérèse of Austria) was in 1880 joined on to Rue du
Hazard, a short street so called from a famous gambling-house; No. 6 has
interesting old-time vestiges. At No. 23 we see two inscriptions
honouring the memory of Abbé de l’Epée, inventor of the deaf and dumb
alphabet, who died at a house, no longer there, in Rue des Moulins. Rue
Villedo records the name of a famous master-mason of olden time. Rue
Ventadour existed in its older part in 1640. Rue de Richelieu, starting
from the Place du Théâtre-Français, goes on to arrondissement II in the
vicinity of the Bourse. It dates from the time when the Cardinal was
building his palace. Most of its constructions show interesting
architectural features, vestiges of past days, many have historic
associations. Some of the original houses were rebuilt in the eighteenth
century, some have quite recently been razed and replaced by modern
erections. Much of the fine woodwork once at No. 21 was bought and
carried away by the Marquis de Breteuil; the rest by Americans. In a
house where No. 40 now stands Molière died in 1763. No. 50, hôtel de
Strasbourg, was rebuilt in 1738 by the mother of Madame de Pompadour. In
1780 the musician Grétry lived in the fourth story of No. 52.
Rue du Louvre is a modern street where ancient streets once ran,
demolished to make way for it. At No. 13 we find traces of a tower of
the city wall of Philippe-Auguste, as also at No. 7 of the adjacent Rue
Coquillère, a thirteenth-century street with, at No. 31, vestiges of an
ancient Carmelite convent. At No. 15 we find ourselves before an arched
entrance and spacious courtyard surrounded by imposing buildings and in
its centre an immense fountain. This structure is a modern re-erection
of the ancient Cour des Fermes; the institution of the “Fermiers
Généraux” was suppressed in 1783 and definitely abolished by law in the
first year of the Revolution--1789. The members, however, continued to
meet; many were arrested and shut up as prisoners in their own old
mansion on this spot, used thenceforth, until the Revolution was over,
as a State prison.
CHAPTER III
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT MARKETS
LES HALLES CENTRALES
The legend telling us the great Paris Market was first called “les
Alles”--no “H”--because everybody _y allait_, i.e. went there, need not
be taken seriously. Even in remote mediæval times the markets had some
covered premises or “Halles.” The earliest Paris market of which we have
record takes us back to the year 1000, that momentous year predicted by
sooth-sayers for the end of the world; few sowings, therefore, had been
made the preceding season. The market stalls of that year were but
scantily furnished. That ancient market lying along the banks of the
Seine in the vicinity of the present Place St-Michel, and its successor
on what was then Place de Grève (_see_ p. 95) went by the curious name
Palu. In ancient days, under Louis-le-Gros, the site of the immense
erection and market-square we see now was known of old as _le terrain
des champeaux_--the territory of little fields--land owned in part by
the King, in part by ecclesiastical authorities, and bought for the
great market in the twelfth century. The sale of herrings, wholesale and
retail, goes on to-day on the very site set apart for fishmongers in the
time of St. Louis. Rue Baltard, running through the centre of the
pavilions, records the name of the architect of the present structure,
which dates from 1856. Rue Antoine-Carême records the name of Napoléon
I’s cook. Ancient streets surround us here on every side, old houses,
curious old signs. Rue Berger is made up of several ancient streets
united. The part of Rue Rambuteau bordering les Halles lies along the
line of four thirteenth-century streets known of yore by old-world
names. Rue des Halles, leading up to the Markets from the Rue Rivoli, a
modern thoroughfare (1854), made along the course of ancient streets,
has curious old streets leading into it: Rue des Déchargeurs, a
characteristic name, was opened in 1310. The short Rue du Plat d’Étain
opening out of it dates from 1300, when it was Rue Raoul Tavernier. Rue
de la Ferronnerie, extremely narrow at that period, is noted as the
scene of the assassination of Henri IV in front of a house on the site
of No. 11 (14 May, 1610). From the days of Louis IX the street was, as
its name implies, the resort of ironmongers. Good old ironwork is still
seen on several of the houses. Rue Courtalon (thirteenth century) is
entirely made up of ancient houses. Rue de la Lingerie, formerly Rue des
Gantiers, was a well-built street in the time of Henri II, but most of
the houses seen there now are modern. Rue Prouvaires--from _provoire_,
old French for _prêtres_--thirteenth century, is referred to in the time
of Louis IX as one of the finest streets of Paris. It extended formerly
to the church St-Eustache. Of the old streets once along the course of
the modern Rue du Pont-Neuf all traces have been swept away.
[Illustration: PORTAIL DE ST-EUSTACHE]
To the north side of Les Halles, we find Rue Mondétour, dating from
1292, but many of its ancient houses have been razed; modern ones
occupy their site. A dancing-hall in this old street was the
meeting-place of French Protestants before the passing of the Edict of
Nantes. No. 14 has cellars in two stories.
The church St-Eustache is often familiarly referred to by the market
women as Notre-Dame des Halles. The crypt, once the chapel Ste-Agnes,
the nucleus of the grand old church, dating from 1200, secularized but
still forming one with the sacred building, is a fruiterer’s shop--truly
St-Eustache is the church of the Markets. The edifice as it stands dates
as a whole from the seventeenth century. Gothic in its grand lines, very
strikingly impressive, it has a Jesuit frontage, substituted for the
Gothic façade originally planned, and Renaissance ornamentation within.
The church was mercilessly truncated in the eighteenth century to allow
for the making and widening of surrounding streets.
Rue du Jour under other names has existed from the early years of the
thirteenth century, but was then close up against the city wall of
Philippe-Auguste. Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, 11 are ancient, and No. 25, with its
traces of bygone ages, is believed to be on the site of the house where
Charles V made from time to time a _séjour_, hence the name, truncated,
of the street.
Rue Vauvilliers, until 1864 Rue du Four St-Honoré, dates from the
thirteenth century. Here, at No. 33, lodged young Buonaparte, the future
Emperor, at the ancient hôtel de Cherbourg, in 1787. To-day it is a
butcher’s shop. Several of the houses have curious signs and other
vestiges of past days. The circular colonnaded street we come to now,
Rue de Viarmes, was built in 1768 by the Prévôt des Marchands whose name
it bears. It surrounds the Bourse de Commerce built in 1889 on the site
of the Halles aux Blés erected in the first instance in 1767, twice
burnt to the ground and twice subsequently rebuilt on the site of the
famous hôtel de Nesle where la Reine Blanche, mother of St. Louis, is
said to have died in 1252. L’hôtel de Nesle was inhabited later by the
blind King of Bohemia, killed at Crécy, and subsequently by other
persons of note, then was taken to form part of the Couvent des Filles
Pénitentes, appropriated with several adjoining hôtels in after years by
Catherine de’ Medici (_see_ p. 9). After the Queen’s death, as the
possession of the comte de Bourbon, it was known as l’hôtel de Soissons;
in 1749 it was razed to the ground. One ancient pillar, la Colonne de
l’Horoscope, with its interior flight of steps still stands.
Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the days when its upper part was the
ancient Rue Platrière, the lower Rue Grenelle-St-Honoré, counted among
its inhabitants Rousseau, Bossuet, Marat, Fragonard, Boucher, the
duchesse de Valentinois, and other noted personages. Most of the ancient
dwellings have been replaced by modern constructions. Where the General
Post Office now stands, extending down Rue du Louvre, the comte de
Flandre had a fine mansion in the thirteenth century. Destroyed in 1543,
it was replaced by another fine hôtel, which became the Paris post
office in 1757, rebuilt in 1880. We see interesting architectural traces
of past days at Nos. 15, 18, 19, 20, 33, 56, 64, 68. This brings us to
Rue Étienne-Marcel, its name recalling the stirring and tragic history
of the Prévôt de Paris at the time of the Jacquerie-Marcel, in revolt
against the Dauphin; Charles V had the two great nobles, Jean de
Conflans and Robert de Clermont, killed in the King’s presence, and was
himself struck down dead when on the point of giving Paris over to
Charles-le-Mauvais in 1358. But the name only is ancient, the street is
entirely modern, cut across the line where ancient streets once ran.
Some few old-time vestiges remain here and there, notably the Tour de
Jean Sans Peur at No. 20, all that is left of the hôtel de Bourgoyne,
built in the thirteenth century, to which the tower was added in 1405;
it was partially destroyed in the sixteenth century, while what still
stood became a theatre, the chief Paris play-house, the cradle of the
Comédie Française.
Rue Montmartre, crossing Rue Étienne-Marcel and going on into the
arrondissement II, dates at this end--its commencement--from the close
of the eleventh century. In Revolution days it was known as Rue
Mont-Marat! As long as Paris had fortified boundary walls there was
always a Porte Montmartre, moved northward three times, as the city
bounds extended. The Porte of Philippe-Auguste was where the house No.
30 now stands, and this part of the street was known then as Rue
Porte-Montmartre. The Passage de la Reine de Hongrie memorizes a certain
_dame de la Halle_ in whom Marie-Antoinette saw a remarkable likeness to
her mother, the Queen of Hungary. The woman became for her generation
“la Reine de Hongrie”--the alley where she dwelt was called by this
name. She shared not only the title but the fate of royalty: was
beheaded by the guillotine.
Rue Montorgueil, beginning here and leading to the higher ground called
when the Romans ruled in Gaul “Mons Superbus,” now the levelled
boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and its surrounding streets, was known in the
thirteenth century as Mont Orgueilleux. In bygone days, the Parisians
strolled out to the Mont Orgueilleux to eat oysters. There was a famous
oyster-bed on the site of the house now razed where, in 1780, was born
that exquisite song and ballad writer, Béranger. The ancient house, No.
32, is said to have been the home of the architect, Jean Goujon. The
little side-street Rue Mauconseil dates from 1250, and tradition says
its name is due to the _mauvais conseil_ given within the walls of the
hôtel de Bourgoyne, close by, which led to the assassination of the duc
d’Orléans by Jean Sans Peur. In Revolution days, therefore, it was
promptly renamed for the nonce Rue du Bon Conseil! At No. 48 we find a
famous tripe-eating house. No. 47 was once the Central Sedan Chair
Office. At No. 51 we see interesting signs over the door, and painted
panels signed by Paul Baudry within (1864). Nos. 64, 72 is the old
sixteenth-century inn, the “Compas d’Or,” and the famous restaurant
Philippe. The coachyard of the inn is little changed from the days when
coaches plied between that starting-place and Dreux. The restaurant du
Rocher de Cancale, at No. 78, dating from 1820, where the most
celebrated men of letters and art of the nineteenth century met and
dined, was at first “Le Petit Rocher,” then the successor of the ancient
restaurant at No. 59 dating from the eighteenth century, where the
_dîners du Caveau_ and the _dîners du Vaudeville_ were eaten by gay
literary and artistic _dîneurs_ of olden time.
Rue Turbigo is modern and makes us think regretfully of ancient streets
and of the apse of the church St-Elisabeth demolished to make way for
it. Turning down Rue St-Denis, the famous “Grande Chaussée de Monsieur
St-Denis” of ancient days, the road along which legend tells us the
saint, coming from the heights above, walked carrying his head after
decapitation, we find it, from this point to the vicinity of the
Châtelet, rich in historic buildings and vestiges of a past age. Kings
on their way to Notre-Dame entered Paris in state along this old road;
it was connected more or less closely with every political event of
bygone times, with Parisian pleasures too, for there of old the mystery
plays went on. Curious old streets and passages open out of it: at 279
the quaint Rue Ste-Foy. In the court of No. 222 we see the hôtel St.
Chaumont, its façade on boulevard Sebastopol, dating from 1630.
The church we come to at No. 92 dedicated to St. Leu and St. Gilles was
built in the early years of the thirteenth century on the site of an
earlier church, a dependent of the Abbaye St-Magloire close by,
suppressed at the Revolution. Subsequent restorations, and the building
in the eighteenth century of a subterranean chapel for the knights of
the Holy Sépulcre, have resulted in an interesting old church of mingled
Gothic and Renaissance style; its apse was lopped off to make way for
the modern boulevard Sébastopol. The would-be assassin Cadoudal hid for
three days crouched up against the figure of Christ in the chapel
beneath the chancel (1804). Rue des Lombards dates from the thirteenth
century, and at one or two of its houses, notably No. 62, we find an
underground hall with vaulted roof and Gothic windows. At No. 56 we see
an open corner. It is “ground accurst.” The house of two Protestant
merchants who in 1579 were put to death for their “evil practices!” once
stood there. Their dwelling was razed and a pyramid and crucifix were
set up on the spot, soon afterwards removed to the cemetery des
Innocents hard by.
The chemist’s shop at No. 44, “Au Mortier d’Or,” united now to its
neighbour “A la Barbe d’Or,” dates, as regards its foundation, from the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the window we see an open volume
printed in 1595 with the engraved portrait of the founder.
Rue des Innocents was opened in 1786 across the site of the graveyard of
the church des Saints-Innocents, founded in 1150 and which stood till
1790. More than a million bodies are said to have been buried in that
churchyard. In 1780 the cemetery was turned into a market-place. But it
was again used as a burial ground for victims of the Revolution of 1830.
Their bones lie now beneath the Colonne de Juillet on the Place de la
Bastille. The market-place became a square: “Le Square des Innocents.”
The fine old fountain dating from 1550, the work of the famous sculptors
Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, was taken from its site in the Rue
St-Denis, restored by the best sculptors of the day, and set up there in
1850. The beautiful portal of the ancient bureau des Marchandes-lingères
was placed there in more recent times. The ground floor of most of the
old houses of this street are ancient _charniers_, many of them built by
one Nicolas Flamel. Therein were laid in past days the bones
periodically gathered from the graveyard. The name “Cabaret du Caveau”
at No. 15 tells its own tale. In Rue Berger, formed along the line of
several demolished streets of old, we see some ancient signs, but little
else of interest. Old signs too, in Rue de la Cossonnerie, so named from
the _cossonniers_, i.e. poultry-merchants, whose market was here and
which was known as early as 1182 as Via Cochonerie. Rue des Prêcheurs is
another twelfth-century street and there we see many ancient houses:
Nos. 6-8, etc. Rue Pirouette, one of the most ancient of Paris streets,
recalls the days of the _pilori des Halles_, when its victims, forced to
turn from side to side, made _la pirouette_. Here the duc d’Angoulême
had his head cut off under Louis XI, and the duc de Nemours in 1477. At
No. 5 we see the ancient doorway of the demolished hôtellerie du Haume
(fourteenth century), at No. 9 was the cabaret de l’Ange Gabriel (now
razed), at No. 13 vestiges of an ancient mansion. A few old houses still
stand in the Rue de la Grande Truanderie (thirteenth century). Rue de la
Petite Truanderie, of the same date, was once noted for its old well,
“le Puits d’Amour,” in the small square half-way down the street, of old
the _truands’_ quarter (_see_ p. 56).
CHAPTER IV
THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
The history of Paris and of France, from the earliest days of their
story, is connected with the Palais de Justice on the western point of
the island on the Seine. The palace stands on the site of the habitation
of the rulers of Lutetia in the days of the Romans, of the first
Merovingian and of the first Capetian kings. The present building, often
reconstructed, restored, enlarged, dates in its foundations and some
other parts from the time of Robert le Pieux. King Robert built the
Conciergerie. Under Louis IX the palace was again considerably enlarged;
the kitchens of St. Louis are an interesting feature in the palace as we
know it. In 1434, Charles VII gave up the palace to the Parliament. It
met in the great hall above St. Louis’ kitchens, and round an immense
table there law tribunals assembled. For the French Parliament of those
times was in some sort a great law-court. Guizot describes it as: “la
cour souveraine du roi, la cour suprême du royaume.” Known in its
earliest days as “Le Conseil du Roi,” its members were the grandees of
the kingdom: vassals, prelates, officers of State, and it was supposed
to follow the King wherever he went, though as a matter of fact it
rarely moved from Paris. When, in course of time, it was considered
desirable that its members should all be able not only to read but to
write, the great nobles of that age declared they were not going to
change their swords for a writing-desk and many withdrew, to be replaced
by men of lesser rank but greater skill in other directions than that of
arms, and who came to be regarded as the _noblesse de la robe_--distinct
from _la noblesse de l’épee_.
[Illustration: LA TOUR DE L’HORLOGE, LES “TOURS POINTUES” DE LA
CONCIERGERIE ET LE MARCHÉ AUX FLEURS]
The big hall of that day and other adjacent halls and passages were
burnt down more than once in olden times, and burnt down again in 1871,
when the Communards wrought havoc on so many fine old buildings of their
city. The most thrilling incidents, the most stirring events in the
history of the Nation had some point of connection with that ancient
palace--often a culminating point. And within those grim walls where the
destinies of men and women of all conditions and ranks were determined,
where tragedy held its own, scenes in lighter vein were not unknown in
ancient days. Mystery plays were often given there, and every year in
the month of May, reputed a “merry month,” even in the Palais de
Justice, the company of men of law known as the “basoche,” planted a
May-tree in the courtyard before the great entrance doors--hence the
name “la Cour de Mai.” It is a tragic courtyard despite its name, for
the Conciergerie prison opened into it; through the door of what is now
the Buvette du Palais--a refreshment-room--men and women condemned to
death passed, in Revolution days, while other men and women, women
chiefly, crowded on the broad steps above to see the laden _charrettes_
start off for the place of execution.
[Illustration: LA SAINTE-CHAPELLE]
The Sainte-Chapelle, that wondrous piece of purest Gothic architecture,
the work of Pierre de Montereau (1245-48) built for the preservation of
sacred relics brought by Louis IX on his return from the Holy Land,
vividly recalls the days when the palace was a royal habitation. Its
upper story was in direct communication with the royal dwelling-rooms;
the lower story was for the palace servants and officials. During the
Revolution the chapel was devastated and used as a club and a
flour-store. The Chambre des Comptes, a beautiful old building in the
courtyard of the Sainte-Chapelle, was destroyed by fire in 1737. Its big
arch was saved and forms part of the Musée Carnavalet (_see_ p. 81). A
chief feature of the _chapelle_ is its exquisite stained glass.
The enlarging of the Palais in recent times (1908) swept away
surrounding relics of bygone ages. Some vestiges of past days still
remain in Rue de Harlay opposite the Palais, to the west--Nos. 20, 54,
52, 68, 74. The buildings of the boulevard du Palais and Rue de Lutèce,
on its eastern side, arrondissement IV, are all modern on ancient
historic sites.
Place Dauphine dates from 1607. It was built as a triangular _place_,
its name referring to the son of Henri IV. In earlier ages, the site
formed two islets, on one of which, l’îlot des Juifs, Jacques de Morlay,
Grand Master of the Templars, suffered death by burning in 1314. A
fountain stood on the Place to the memory of General Desaix, erected by
public subscription, carted away in the time of the first Republic, and
set up at Riom. Painters excluded from the Salon used to exhibit their
work here each year, in the open air, on Corpus Christi day. Some of the
houses still show seventeenth-and eighteenth-century vestiges. No. 28,
now much restored, was Madame Roland’s early home. The writer Halévy
died at 26 (1908).
The Quays of the island bordering the Palais north and south both date
from the sixteenth century. Both have been curtailed by the enlargement
of the Palais. On Quai des Orfèvres, the goldsmith’s quay, from the
first the jewellers’ quarter, still stands the shop once owned by the
jewellers implicated in the affair of the “_Collier de la Reine_.” The
Quai de l’Horloge is still the optician’s quarter and was known in olden
days as Quai des Morfondus, on account of the blasting winds which swept
along it--and do so still in winter-time. The palace clock in the fine
old tower built in the thirteenth century, restored after the ravages of
the Revolution in the nineteenth, from which the quay takes its present
name, is a successor of the first clock seen in France, set up there
about the year 1370. There, too, hung in olden days a great bell rung as
a signal on official occasions, and which perhaps rang out the
death-knell of the Huguenots even before the sounding of the bell at
St-Germain l’Auxerrois, on the eve of St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572.
CHAPTER V
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE
ARRONDISSEMENT II. (BOURSE)
Rue des Petits-Champs marks the boundary between the arrondissements I
and II--the odd numbers in arrondissement I, the even ones in
arrondissement II. The street was opened in 1634. Many of its old houses
still stand and show us, without and within, some interesting
architectural features of past days. The hôtel Tubeuf, No. 8, destined
with adjoining mansions to become the Bibliothèque Nationale, was,
tradition tells us, staked at the gambling table and won by the
statesman Mazarin. The Cardinal bought two adjoining _hôtels_ and
surrounding land as far as the Rue Colbert and built thereon his own
fine mansion, using the two _hôtels_ as wings. The first books placed
there were those of his own library, a fine collection, taken at his
death, according to the directions of his will, to the Collège des
Quatre Nations, known to-day as the Institut Mazarin. The Cardinal’s
vast mansion was divided among his heirs and in its different parts was
put to various uses during following years till, in 1721, it was bought
by the Crown. The King’s library was then taken there from Rue Vivienne,
where it had been placed in 1666, and soon afterwards opened to the
public. The greater part of the building has been reconstructed in
modern times and enlarged. The blackened walls of a part of Mazarin’s
mansion, that formed l’hôtel de Nivers, still stand at the corner of Rue
Colbert. The chief entrance to the Library is in Rue de Richelieu.
Engravings, medals, works of art of many descriptions connected with
letters may be seen at what has been successively Bibliothèque Royale,
Bibliothèque Impériale and is now Bibliothèque Nationale. The ceiling of
the Galerie Mazarin is covered with splendid frescoes by Romanelli. The
heart of Voltaire is said to be encased in the statue we see there.
Madame de Récamier died at the Library in 1849; she had taken refuge
there in the rooms of her niece, whose husband was one of the officials
when the cholera broke out in l’Abbaye-aux-Bois. Opposite the Library,
on the Rue Richelieu side, is the Square Louvois dating from 1839, on
the site of two old _hôtels_ once there. There, in 1793, Citoyenne
Montansier set up a theatre, known successively as Théâtre des Arts,
Théâtre de la Loi and the Opéra.
After the assassination of the duc de Berri in front of No. 3 Rue du
Rameau (February 13, 1820) as he was about to re-enter the Opera-House,
Louis XVIII intended to build there a _chapelle expiatoire_. The
Revolution of 1830 put an end to that project. The big poplar-tree, seen
until recent years overlooking Rue Rameau, was planted as a tree of
Liberty in 1848. It suddenly died in 1912. The fountain is the work of
Visconti and Klagman (1844). In Rue Chabanais (1777) at No. 11,
Pichegru, betrayed by Leblanc, was arrested (1804). Proceeding down Rue
de Richelieu we see grand old mansions throughout its entire length. No.
71 formed part of the hôtel Louvois, given some four years before her
tragic death to princesse de Lamballe who built roomy stables there. On
the site of No. 62, quite recently demolished, was the hôtel de Talaru,
built in 1652, which became one of the most noted prisons of the
Terreur, and where its owner, the marquis de Talaru, was himself
imprisoned. No. 75 was l’hôtel de Louis de Mornay, one of the most noted
lovers of Ninon de Lenclos. No. 78, in the past a famous lace-shop, was
owned by the East India Company. No. 93, once the immense hôtel Crozet,
property of the ducs de Choiseul, cut through in 1780 by the making of
two neighbouring streets, was inhabited in 1715 by Watteau. No. 102
stands on the site of a house owned by Voltaire, inhabited at one time
by his niece. No. 104, at first a private mansion, became successively
Taverne Britannique (1845-52), Restaurant Richelieu, Union Club du
Billard et du Sport. No. 101 was at one time the restaurant du Grand U,
so called in 1883 from an article in “Le National” apropos of the _Union
Republicaine_.
Leading out of Rue Richelieu, in the vicinity of the Bibliothèque
Nationale, we see old houses in Rue St-Augustin, and Rue des Filles de
St-Thomas, the latter cut short in more recent days by the Place de la
Bourse and the Rue du Quatre-Septembre. The busts on No. 7 of the latter
street recall a theatrical costume store of past days. No. 21 Rue
Feydeau was the site of the Théâtre des Nouveautés, which became the
Opéra-Comique, demolished in 1830. Rue des Colonnes was in former days
closed at each end by gates. At No. 14 Rue St-Marc, Ernest Logouvé was
born, lived, died (1807-1903). La Malibran was born at No. 31.
The Bourse stands on the site of the convent of les Filles St-Thomas.
Its cellars still exist beneath what was before 1914 the Restaurant
Champeaux, Rue du 4 Septembre. The chapel stood till 1802 and was during
the Revolution the meeting-place of the reactionary section Le Peletier;
the insurgent troops defeated by Buonaparte on the steps of St-Roch had
assembled there (1795) (_see_ p. 20).
The first stone of the present Bourse was laid in 1808. The building was
enlarged in the early years of this century. The Paris Exchange
stockbrokers had in early times met at the Pont-au-Change; during the
Revolution they gathered in the chapelle des Petits-Pères; later at the
Palais-Royal.
The fine old door of the hôtel Montmorency-Luxembourg still stands at
the entrance to the Passage des Panoramas, leading to the old galleries:
Galerie Montmartre and Galerie des Variétés--opening out on Rue
Montmartre and Rue Vivienne. Until after the Revolution there were no
shops in Rue Vivienne, so full to-day of shops and business houses. It
records the name of a certain sire Vivien, King’s secretary, owner of a
_hôtel_ in the newly opened thoroughfare. Thierry lived there in 1834,
Alphonse Karr in 1835. The great gates of the Bibliothèque Nationale on
this side are those which in bygone days closed the Place-Royale, now
Place des Vosges. No. 49 is the most ancient Frascati Dining Saloon with
the old ballroom candelabras. Many of the houses have interesting
old-time vestiges.
Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires was until after 1633 le “Chemin-Herbu,” the
grass-grown road; Nos. 30, 28, 14, 13, 10, 4, 2 are ancient: other old
houses have been demolished. The Place-des-Victoires from which it
starts was the site of the fine hôtel de Pomponne, which later served as
the Banque de France. Most of the houses are ancient with interesting
architectural features.
Place des Petits-Pères close by is best known for the church there,
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a name given to record the taking of La
Rochelle from the Protestants in 1627. Its first stone was laid by Louis
XIII in 1629, but the church was not finished till more than a century
later. It was for long the convent chapel of the Augustins Déchaussés,
commonly known as the Petits-Pères, from the remarkably short stature of
the two monks, its founders. The Lady-chapel is a place of special
pilgrimage and is brimful of votive offerings. The church is never
empty. Passers-by rarely fail to go in to say a prayer, or spend a quiet
moment there; work-girls from the shops and offices and workrooms of the
neighbourhood go there in their dinner-hour for rest and shelter from
the streets. Services of thanksgiving after victory are naturally a
special feature there. The choir has fine pictures by Van Loo. Rue des
Petits-Pères dates from 1615 and shows interesting traces of past ages.
Rue d’Aboukir lies along the line of three seventeenth-century streets,
in one of which Buonaparte lived for a time. Many old houses still stand
there; others of historical association have been demolished, modern
buildings erected on their site. Half-way down the street is Place du
Caire, once the site of that most truly Parisian industry: carding and
mattress-making and cleaning. French mattresses are, in normal times,
turned inside out, cleaned or refilled very frequently.
A hospital and a convent stretched along part of the _place_ and across
Passage du Caire in past days. Several houses there are ancient, as also
in Rue Alexandrie.
In Rue du Mail, at what is now hôtel de Metz, Buonaparte lodged in 1790.
We see many old houses. Spontini lived here, and No. 12 was inhabited by
Madame Récamier and also by Talma. The modern Rue du Quatre-Septembre
has swept away many an interesting old thoroughfare. At No. 100 the
Passage de la Cour des Miracles recalls the ancient _cour_ of the name,
done away with in 1656, of which some traces still remain--the scene in
olden days of feats of apparent healing and of physical transformation
whereby the _truands_, persons of no avowed or avowable occupation,
gained precarious _deniers_. Out of this long modern street we may turn
into many shorter ancient ones. Rue du Sentier, recalling by its name a
pathway through a wood--_sentier_, a corruption of _chantier_--has fine
old houses and knew in its time many inhabitants of mark. At No. 8 lived
Monsieur Lebrun, a famous picture dealer, husband of Madame Vigée
Lebrun. At No. 2 dwelt Madame de Staël, at Nos. 22-24, in rooms erewhile
decorated by Fragonard, Le Normand d’Étioles, husband of La Pompadour,
after his separation from her. No. 33 was the home of his wife in her
girlhood and at the time of her marriage. At No. 30 lived Sophie Gay.
Rue St-Joseph, so named from a seventeenth-century chapel knocked down
in 1800, of which we find some traces, was previously Rue du
Temps-Perdu; in the graveyard attached to St-Eustache--later a
market--La Fontaine and Molière were buried, their ashes transferred in
1818 to Père-Lachaise. At No. 10 Zola was born (1840). Rue du Croissant
(seventeenth century) is a street of ancient houses and the chief
newspaper street of the city. Paper hawkers crowd there at certain
hours each day, then rush away, vying with one another to call attention
to their stock-in-trade. At No. 22, Café du Croissant, at the corner
where this street meets the Rue Montmartre, journalists assemble, and
there the notable Socialist, Jaurès, was shot dead on the eve of the
outbreak of war, July 31st, 1914. The sign at No. 18 is said to date
from 1612. In Rue des Jeûneurs (1643)--the name a corruption from _des
Jeux-Neufs_--we see more ancient houses and leading out of it the old
Rue St-Fiacre, once Rue du Figuier. No. 19 was inhabited in recent years
by a lady left a widow after one year’s married life, who, owner of the
building, dismissed the tenants of its six large flats and shut herself
up in absolute solitude till her death at the age of eighty-nine. No. 23
was designed by Soufflot le Romain (1775). Rue Montmartre in its course
continued from arrondissement I, which it leaves at Rue Étienne-Marcel,
shows many interesting vestiges. At No. 178 we see a bas-relief of the
Porte Montmartre of past days. Within the modern _Brasserie du Coq_, a
copy of the automatic cock of Strasbourg Cathedral, dating from 1352. On
the frontage of No. 121 a curious set of bells, and a quaint sign, “A la
grâce de Dieu,” dating from 1710. No. 118 was known in past days as the
house of clocks. Thirty-two were seen on its frontage, the work of a
Swiss clockmaker. Going up this old street in order to visit the streets
leading out of it, we turn into Rue Tiquetonne, which recalls by its
aspect fourteenth-century times, by its name a prosperous baker of that
century, a certain M. Rogier de Quinquentonne. Among the ancient houses
there, Nos. 4 and 2 have very deep cellars stretching beneath the
street. In Rue Dussoubs, which under other names dates back to the
fifteenth century, we see more quaint houses. At No. 26 Goldoni died.
The short street Marie-Stuart recalls the days when for one brief year
the beautiful Scotswoman was Queen Consort of France. The name of Rue
Jussienne is a corruption of Marie l’Égyptienne, patron saint of a
fourteenth-century chapel which stood there till 1791. At No. 2 lived
Madame Dubarry after the death of Louis XV. Rue d’Argout dates as Rue
des Vieux-Augustins from the thirteenth century. Here, at No. 28, lived
in more modern times, Savalette de Langes, supposed for many years and
proved at her death to be a man. In Passage du Vigan at No. 22, we find
bas-reliefs in a courtyard. At No. 56, a small ancient _hôtel_.
Rue Bachaumont is on the site of the vanished Passage du Saumur, a
milliner’s quarter, the most ancient of Paris passages, demolished in
1899. Rue d’Uzès crosses the site of the ancient hôtel d’Uzès. Rue de
Cléry was till 1634 an ancient roadway. Madame de Pompadour was born
here. Pierre Corneille and Casanava, the painter, lived here; and, where
the street meets Rue Beauregard, Baron Batz made his frantic attempt to
save Louis XVI on his way to the scaffold. No. 97, now a humble shop
with the sign “Au poète de 1793,” was the home of André Chenier. Nos.
21-19 belonged to Robert Poquelin, the priest-brother of Molière, later
to Pierre Lebrun, where in pre-Revolution days theatrical performances
were given, and the Mass said secretly during the Terror. Leading out of
Rue Cléry, we find Rue des Degrés, six mètres in length, the smallest
street in Paris, a mere flight of steps.
Rue St-Sauveur (thirteenth century) memorizes the church once there.
From end to end we see ancient houses, fine old balconies, curious
signs, architectural features of interest. In Rue des Petits-Carreaux,
running on from this end of Rue Montorgueil (_see_ p. 40) we see at No.
16 the house where, till recent days, musicians assembled for hire each
Sunday. Now they meet at the Café de la Chartreuse, 24, Boulevard
St-Denis. In a house in a court where the house No. 26 now stands, lived
Jean Dubarry. Rue Poissonnière, “Fishwives Street,” once “Champ des
Femmes” (thirteenth century), shows us many ancient houses.
Rue Beauregard was so named in honour of the fine view Parisians had of
old after mounting Rue Montorgueil. The notorious sorceress, Catherine
Monvoisin--“la Voisin”--implicated in a thousand crimes, built for
herself a luxurious habitation on this eminence--somewhat higher in
those days than in later years. We find several ancient houses along
this old street, notably No. 46. We see ancient houses also in Rue de la
Lune (1630). No. 1 is a shop still famed for its _brioches du soleil_.
Between these two streets stretched in olden days the graveyard of
Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle, a church built in 1624 on the site of the
ancient chapel Ste-Barbe. The name is said to refer to a piece of good
news told to Anne d’Autriche one day as she passed that way. The tower
only of the seventeenth-century church remains; the rest was rebuilt in
1823. Four short streets of ancient date cross Rue de la Lune: Rue
Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle (eighteenth century), Rue Thorel (sixteenth
century), the old Rue Ste-Barbe, Rue de la Ville-Neuve, Rue Notre-Dame
de la Recouvrance--with old houses of interest in each. At No. 8 Rue de
la Ville-Neuve we see _médaillons_ of Jean Goujon and Philibert
Delorme.
Surrounded by old streets, just off the boulevard des Italiens, is the
Opéra-Comique, originally a Salle de Spectacles, built on the park-lands
of their fine mansion by the duke and duchess de Choiseul, who reserved
for themselves and their heirs for ever the right to a _loge_ of eight
seats next to the royal box. Its name, at first, Salle Favart, has
changed many times. Burnt down twice, in 1838 and 1887, the present
building dates only from 1898. Rue Favart, named after the
eighteenth-century actor, has always been inhabited by actors and
actresses. Rue de Grammont dates from 1726, built across the site of the
fine old hôtel de Grammont. Rue de Choiseul, alongside the recently
erected Crédit Lyonnais, which has replaced several ancient mansions,
recalls the existence of another hôtel de Choiseul. At No. 21 we find
curious old attics. Passing through the short Rue de Hanovre, we find in
Rue de la Michodière, opened in 1778, on the grounds of hôtel Conti, the
house (No. 8) where Gericault, the painter, lived in 1808, and at No.
19, the home of Casabianca, member of the Convention where Buonaparte,
at one time, lodged. At No. 3, Rue d’Antin, then a private mansion,
Buonaparte married Joséphine (9 March, 1796). Though serving as a
banker’s office, the room where the marriage took place is kept exactly
as it then was. In a house in Rue Louis-le-Grand, opened in 1701, known
in Revolution days as Rue des Piques, Sophie Arnould was born. Rue
Daunou, where at No. 1 we see an ancient escutcheon, leads us into the
Rue de la Paix, opened in 1806 on the site of the ancient convent of the
Capucines and called at first Rue Napoléon. All its fine houses are
modern, as are also those of Rue Volney and Rue des Capucines, on the
even number side. In the latter street, formed in the year 1700, the
Crédit Foncier is the old hôtel de Castanier, director of the East India
Company (1726), and the hôtel Devieux of the same date. Nos. 11, 9, 7, 5
(fine vestiges at No. 5) were the stables of the duchesse d’Orléans in
1730.
CHAPTER VI
ROUND ABOUT THE ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION)
ARRONDISSEMENT III. (TEMPLE)
A long stretch of the busy boulevard Sébastopol forms the boundary
between arrondissements II and III. Several short old streets run
between the Boulevard and Rue St-Martin. Rue Apolline (eighteenth
century), Rue Blondel, Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, where curiously
enough is a Jewish synagogue, show us some ancient houses. The latter,
in the fifteenth century a roadway, in the seventeenth century a street
along the course of a big drain, memorizes the convent once there. We
find vestiges of an ancient _hôtel_ at No. 6, and close by old passages:
Passage du Vertbois, Passage des Quatre-Voleurs, Passage du
Pont-aux-Biches. In Rue Papin we find the théâtre de la Gaîté, first set
up at the Fair St-Laurent in the seventeenth century, here since 1861,
when it was known as théâtre du Prince Impérial. Crossing Rue Turbigo,
we reach Rue Bourg l’Abbé, reminding us of a very ancient street of the
name swept away by the boulevard Sébastopol, and Rue aux Ours, dating
from 1300, originally Rue aux Oies, referring maybe to geese roasted for
the table when this was a street of turnspits. On the odd number side
some ancient houses still stand. Rue Quincampoix, beginning far down in
the 4th arrondissement, runs to its end into Rue aux Ours. It is
through its whole course a street of old-time associations. In this bit
of it we find interesting old houses, arched doorways, sculptured doors,
etc., at Nos. 111, 99, 98, 96, 92, 91, 90. At No. 91 the watchman’s bell
rang to bid the crowds disperse that pressed tumultuously round the
offices of the great financier Law, who first set up his bank at the
hôtel de Beaufort, on the site of the house No. 65. The Salle Molière
was at No. 82, through the Passage Molière, dating from Revolution days,
when it was known as Passage des Nourrices. The Salle began as the
théâtre des Sans-Culottes, to become later the théâtre École. There
Rachel made her debut. Many traces of the old theatre are still seen.
[Illustration: RUE QUINCAMPOIX]
The old Roman road Rue St-Martin coming northward through the 4th
arrondissement enters the 3rd from Rue Rambuteau. Along its entire
course it is rich in old-world vestiges: ancient mansions, old signs,
venerable sculptures, bas-reliefs, etc. In the Passage de l’Ancre,
opening at No. 223, the first office for cab-hiring was opened in 1637.
At No. 254 we come to the old church St-Nicolas-des-Champs, originally a
chapel in the fields forming part of the abbey lands of
St-Martin-des-Champs, subsequently the parish church of the district,
rebuilt at the beginning of the fifteenth century, enlarged towards the
end of the sixteenth century--a beautiful edifice in Gothic style of two
different periods and known as the church of a hundred columns. The
sacristy, once the presbytery, and a sundial dating from 1666, front the
old Rue Cunin-Gridaine. Crossing Rue Réaumur, we reach the fine old
abbey buildings which since the Revolution have served as the Paris Arts
and Crafts Institution. The Abbey was built on the spot beyond the Paris
boundary where St. Martin, on his way to the city, is said to have
healed a leper. The invading Normans knocked it down; it was rebuilt in
1056 and the Abbey grounds surrounded a few years afterwards by high
walls, rebuilt later as strong fortifications with eighteen turrets.
Part of those walls and a restored tower are seen at No. 7 Rue Bailly.
Within the walls were the Abbey chapel, long, beautiful cloisters, a
prison, a market, etc. In the fourteenth century the Abbey was included
within the city bounds and the monks held their own till 1790. In 1798,
the disaffected Abbey buildings were chosen wherein to place the models
collected by Vaucanson--pioneer of machinists; other collections were
added and in the century following various changes and additions made in
the old Abbey structure.
[Illustration: ST-NICOLAS-DES-CHAMPS]
The big door giving on Rue St-Martin dates only from 1850. The great
flight of steps in the court, built first in 1786, was remodelled and
modernized in 1860. The ancient cloisters, remodelled, have been for
years past the scene of busy mechanical and industrial study. The
ancient and beautiful refectory, the work of Pierre de Montereau,
architect of the Sainte-Chapelle (_see_ p. 48) has become the Library.
Beneath the fine vaulted roof, amid tall, slender columns of exquisite
workmanship, students read where monks of old took their meals. The old
Abbey chapel (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) restored in the
nineteenth century, serves as the depot for models of steam-engines,
etc. A small Gothic chapel is in the hands of a gas company. Other
venerable portions of the Abbey, fallen into ruin, have quite recently
been removed.
Rue Vertbois, on the northern side of the institution, records the
existence of a leafy wood in the old Abbey grounds. The tower dates from
1140, the fountain from 1712; both were restored at the end of the
nineteenth century. Going on up this old street we find numerous traces
of what were erewhile the Abbey precincts.
Porte St-Martin at the angle where the _rue_ meets the _boulevard_ is
that last of three great _portes_ moving northward, and each in its time
marking the city boundary.
Rue Meslay, opening out of Rue St-Martin at this point, dates from the
first years of the eighteenth century, when it was Rue du Rempart. No.
49 was the home of the last Commandant du Guet. At No. 46 Aurore Dupin,
known as George Sand, the famous novelist, was born in 1804. At No. 40
we see the fine old _hôtel_, with a fountain in the court, where in
eighteenth-century days dwelt the Commandant de la Garde de Paris, the
_garde_ having replaced the _guet_ (the Watch) in 1771.
[Illustration: RUE BEAUBOURG]
Rue Beaubourg, stretching from Rue Rambuteau to Rue Turbigo, and the
streets and passages leading out of it, show us many traces of bygone
times. At No. 28 we find subterranean halls, with hooks where iron
chains were once held fast--for this was an ancient prison--and a salon
Louis XVI, with traces of ancient frescoes and sculpture. The city wall
of Philippe-Auguste passed where the house No. 39 now stands. At No. 62,
opposite which stretched the graveyard of St-Nicolas-des-Champs, was the
palace of the bishops of Châlons, taken later to form part of a
Carmelite convent suppressed in 1793. In a later revolutionary
period--when Louis-Philippe was on the throne of France--the Paris
insurrections centred here and horrible scenes took place on this
spot[B].
In Rue au Maire, a secular official, mayor or bailiff of the Abbey, had
his seat of office. In the Passage des Marmites (Saucepan Street) dwelt
none but _chaudronniers_ (coppersmiths and tinkers). We see ancient
houses all along Rue Volta, and Rue des Vertus, so called by derision,
having been the Rue des Vices, is made up of quaint old houses. Most of
the houses, rather sordid, in Rue des Gravilliers, are ancient. No. 44
is said to have been the meeting-place of the secret Society
“l’Internationale” in the time of Napoléon III. At Nos. 69 and 70 we see
traces of the _hôtel_ built by the grandfather of Gabrielle d’Estrées.
At No. 88 the accomplices of Cadoudal, of the infernal machine
conspiracy, were arrested.
Rue Chapon, formerly Capon, is named from the Capo, i.e. the cape worn
by the Jews who in thirteenth-century days were its chief inhabitants.
Its western end, known till 1851 as Rue du Cimetière St-Nicolas-des-Champs,
shows many vestiges of past time. No. 16 was the _hôtel_ of Madame de
Mandeville, at first a nun-novice, to become in the time of Louis XV
a celebrated courtesan. No. 13 was the _hôtel_ of the archbishops of
Reims, then of the bishops of Châlons, ceded in 1619 to the Carmelites.
A big door and other interesting vestiges remain.
Rue de Montmorency is named from the fine old _hôtel_ at No. 5, where
the Montmorency lived from 1215 to 1627, when the last descendant of the
famous Constable Mathieu perished on the scaffold. The street is rich
in historic houses, historic associations. The stretch between Rue
Beaubourg and Rue du Temple was known till 1768 as Rue Courtauvillain,
originally Cour-au-Vilains--the Vilains, not necessarily “villains,”
were the serfs or “common people” of bygone days. There lived Madame de
Sévigné before making hôtel Carnavalet her home. No. 51 is the Maison du
Grand Pignon, the big gable, owned, about the year 1407, by Nicolas
Flamel and his wife Pernelle. Nicolas was a reputed schoolmaster of the
age who made a good thing out of his establishment and was cited as
having discovered the philosopher’s stone. On his death, he bequeathed
his house and all his goods to the church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of
which la Tour St-Jacques alone remains (_see_ pp. 95, 97).
Rue Grenier-St-Lazare, in the thirteenth century Rue Garnier de
St-Ladre, shows us interesting old houses, and at No. 4 a Louis XVI
staircase.
Rue Michel-le-Comte, another street of ancient houses, erewhile _hôtels_
of the _noblesse_, reminds one of the popular punning phrase, “_Ça fait
la Rue Michel_,” i.e. _ça fait le compte_--Michel-le-Comte. No. 28 was
at one time inhabited by comte Esterhazy, Hungarian Ambassador. Impasse
de Clairvaux, Rue du Maure (fourteenth century, known at one time as
Cour des Anglais), and Rue Brantôme make a cluster of ancient streets,
with many vestiges of past ages.
CHAPTER VII
THE TEMPLE
OF the renowned citadel and domain of mediæval times, from which the
arrondissement takes its name, nothing now remains. A modern square
(1865) has been arranged on the site of the mansion and the gardens of
the Grand Prieur, but the surrounding streets, several stretching where
the Temple once stood and across the site of its extensive grounds, show
us historic houses, historic vestiges and associations along their
entire course.
The Knights-Templar settled in Paris in 1148. Their domain with its
dungeon, built in 1212, its manor and fortified tower, and the vast
surrounding grounds, were seized in 1307 and given over to the knights
of St. John of Jerusalem, known later as the knights of Malta. From that
time to the Revolution the Temple was closely connected with the life of
the city. The primitive buildings were demolished, streets built along
the site of some of them in the seventeenth century, and an immense
battlemented castle with towers and a strong prison erected where the
original stronghold had stood. The Temple, as then built, was like the
old abbeys and royal palaces: a sort of township, having within its
enclosures all that was needful for the daily life of its inhabitants.
Besides Louis XVI and his family many persons of note passed weary days
in its prison. Sidney Smith effected his escape therefrom. Its
encircling walls were razed in the first years of the nineteenth
century; and in 1808 Napoléon had the great tower knocked down. In 1814
the Allies made the Grand Priory their headquarters. Louis XVIII gave
over the mansion to an Order of Benedictine nuns. In 1848 it served as a
barracks. Its end came in 1854, when it was razed to the ground. Then a
big _place_ and market hall were set up on the site of the old Temple
chapel and its adjacent buildings--a famous market, given up in great
part to dealers in second-hand goods--the chief Paris market of
_occasions_ (bargains). The Rotonde which had been erected in 1781 was
allowed to stand and lasted till 1863. A new ironwork hall, built in
1855, was not demolished till recent years--1905.
[Illustration: LA PORTE DU TEMPLE]
Those pretty, gay knick-knacks, that glittering cheap jewellery known
throughout the world as “articles de Paris” had their origin among a
special class of the inhabitants of the old Temple grounds. No one
living there paid taxes. Impecunious persons of varying rank sought
asylum there--a society made up in great part of artists and
artistically-minded artisans. To gain their daily bread they set their
wits and their fingers to work and soon found a ready sale for their
Brummagem--not mere Brummagem, however, and all of truly Parisian
delicacy of conception and workmanship.
Starting up Rue du Temple, from Rue Rambuteau, this part of it before
1851 Rue Ste-Avoie, we come upon the passage Ste-Avoie, and the entrance
to the demolished _hôtel_, once that of Constable Anne de Montmorency,
later, for a time, the Law’s famous bank. At No. 71 we see l’hôtel de
St-Aignan, built in 1660, used in 1812 as a _mairie_, with fine doors
and Corinthian pilastres in the court. No. 79 was l’hôtel de Montmort
(1650). No. 86 is on the site of a famous cabaret of the days of Louis
XII. At Nos. 101-103 we see vestiges of l’hôtel de Montmorency. No. 113
was the dependency of a Carmelite convent. At No. 122 Balzac lived in
1882. At No. 153 was the eighteenth-century _bureau des
Vinaigrettes_--Sedan-chairs on wheels. The great door of the Temple,
demolished in 1810, stood opposite No. 183. Vestiges were found in
recent years beneath the pavement. At No. 195, within the Église
Ste-Elisabeth, originally the convent chapel of the Filles de
Ste-Elisabeth (1614-1690), we see most beautiful woodwork. Rue Turbigo
cut right through the ancient presbytère.
Turning back down this old street to visit the streets leading out of
it, we find Rue Dupetit-Thouars, on the site of old _hôtels_ within the
Temple grounds. Rue de la Corderie, where the Communards met in 1871.
Rue des Fontaines (fifteenth century), with at No. 7 the ancient
hôtellerie du Grand Cerf: at No. 15 the _hôtel_ owned by the Superior of
the convent of the Madelonnettes--a house of Mercy--suppressed at the
Revolution, used as a political prison, later as a woman’s prison. Rue
Perrée, where a shadowy Temple market is still to be seen, runs through
the ancient Temple grounds.
Rue de Bretagne stretches from the Rue de Réaumur at the corner of the
Temple Square, in old days known in its course through the Temple
property as Rue de Bourgogne, farther on as Rue de Saintonge; leading
out of it, at No. 62, the short Rue de Caffarelli runs along the line of
the eastern wall of the vanished Temple fortress; at No. 45 is the Rue
de Beauce where we come upon the ancient private passage, Rue des
Oiseaux, with its _vacherie_ of the old hospice des Enfants-Rouges. At
No. 48 opens the ancient Rue du Beaujolais-du-Temple, renamed Rue de
Picardie. At No. 41 we find the Marché des Enfants-Rouges, a picturesque
old-time market hall with an ancient well in the courtyard. Rue
Portefoin, thirteenth century. Rue Pastourelle, of the same epoch where
at No. 23 lived the _culottier_, Biard, who wrote the Revolutionary
song: la Carmagnole. Rue des Haudriettes, known in past days as Rue de
l’Échelle-du-Temple, for there at its farther end was the Temple pillory
and a tall ladder reaching to its summit. The name _Haudriette_ is that
of the order of nuns founded by Jean Haudri, secretary to Louis IX, who,
given up by his wife as lost while travelling in the East, returned at
length to find her living among a community of widows to whom she had
made over her home. Haudri maintained the institution thus founded,
which was removed later to a mansion, now razed, near the chapel of the
Assumption, in Rue St-Honoré. Rue de Brague, until 1348 Rue
Boucherie-du-Temple, the Templars meat market. The fine old _hôtel_ at
Nos. 4 and 6 has ceilings painted by Lebrun. All these streets are rich
in old-time houses, old-time vestiges, and they are all, as is the whole
of this arrondissement on this side Rue du Temple as far as Rue de
Turenne, in the Marais, a name referring to the marshy nature of the
district in long-past days--but which was for long in pre-Revolution
times the most aristocratic quarter of the city. We find ourselves now
before the Archives and the Imprimerie Nationale, the latter to be
transferred to its new quarters Rue de la Convention. The frontage of
this fine old building and its entrance gates give on the Rue des
Francs-Bourgeois, of which more anon (_see_ p. 84). On the western side
we see a thick high wall and the Gothic doorway of what was, in the
fourteenth century, the Paris dwelling of the redoubtable Constable,
Olivier de Clisson, subsequently for nearly two hundred years in the
hands of the Guise. In 1687 it was rebuilt for the Princess de Soubise
by the architect, Delamair. Pillaged during the Revolution, it became
national property, and in 1808 the Archives were placed there by
Napoléon. Frescoes, fine old woodwork, magnificent mouldings,
architectural work of great beauty are there to be seen. The Duke of
Clarence is said to have made the hôtel Clisson his abode during the
English occupation under Henry V. Going up Rue des Archives we see at
No. 53, dating from 1705, the _hôtel_ built there by the Prince de
Rohan, and onward up the street fine old mansions, once the homes of men
and women of historic name and fame. No. 72 is said to have been the
“Archives” in the time of Louis XIII. An eighteenth-century fountain is
seen in the yard behind the stationer’s shop there. No. 78 was the
_hôtel_ of Maréchal de Tallard. No. 79 dates from Louis XIII. At No. 90
we see traces of the old chapel of the Orphanage des Enfants-Rouges, so
called from the colour of the children’s uniform. The eastern side of
the Imprimerie Nationale adjoining the Archives, built by Delamair, as
the hôtel de Strasbourg, and commonly known as hôtel de Rohan, because
four comtes de Rohan were successively bishops of Strasbourg, is
bounded by Rue Vieille-du-Temple, that too along its whole course a
sequence of old houses bearing witness to past grandeur. No. 54 is the
picturesque house and turret built in 1528 by Jean de la Balue,
secretary to the duc d’Orléans. No. 56 was once the abode of Loys de
Villiers of the household of Isabeau de Bavière. No. 75 was the town
house of the family de la Tour-du-Pin-Gouvernet (1720). On the walls of
No. 80 we read the old inscription “Vieille rue du Temple.” No. 102 was
the hôtel de Caumartin, later d’Epernon. Nos. 106 and 110 were
dependencies of the hôtel d’Epernon.
[Illustration: PORTE DE CLISSON
(Archives)]
Rue des Quatre-Fils on the north side of the Archives and its adjoining
buildings, known in past times as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, recalls to
mind the romantic adventures of four sons of a certain Aymon, sung by a
thirteenth-century troubadour. Most of its houses are ancient. Leading
out of it is the old Rue Charlot with numerous seventeenth-century and
eighteenth-century houses or vestiges. We peep into the Ruelle Sourdis,
a gutter running down the middle of it, once shut in by iron gates and
boundary stones. At No. 5 we see what remains of the hôtel Sourdis,
which in 1650 belonged to Cardinal Retz. The church St-Jean-St-François,
opposite, is the ancient chapel of the convent St-François-des-Capucins
du Marais. It replaced the old church St-Jean-en-Grève, destroyed at the
Revolution, and here we see, surrounding the nave, painted copies of
ancient tapestries telling the story of the miracle of the sacred Hostie
which a Jew in mockery sought to destroy by burning. The fête of
Reparation kept from the fourteenth century at the church of St-Jean and
at the chapel les Billettes (_see_ p. 107) has since 1867 been kept
here. Here too, piously preserved, is the chasuble used by the Abbé
Edgeworth at the last Mass heard before his execution by Louis XVI in
the Temple prison hard by. In the short Rue du Perche behind the church,
lived for a time at No. 7 _bis_ Scarron’s young widow, destined to
become Madame de Maintenon. Fine frescoes cover several of its ceilings.
In Rue de Poitou we find more interesting old houses. In Rue de
Normandie Nos. 10, 6, 9 show interesting features, old courtyards, etc.
Turning from Rue Charlot into Rue Béranger, known until 1864 by the name
of the Grand Prior of the Temple de Vendôme, we find the hôtel de
Vendôme, Nos. 5 and 3, dating from 1752 where Béranger lived and died.
At No. 11, now a business house, lived Berthier de Sauvigny,
Intendant-Général de Paris in 1789, hung on a lamp-post after the taking
of the Bastille, one of the first victims of the Revolution.
[Illustration: RUELLE DE SOURDIS]
Running parallel to Rue Charlot, starting from the little Rue du Perche,
Rue Saintonge, formed by joining two seventeenth-century streets, Rue
Poitou and Rue Touraine, shows us a series of ancient dwellings. From
October, 1789, to 15th July, 1791, Robespierre lived at No. 64. A fine
columned entrance court at No. 5 has been supplanted by a brand-new
edifice. The _hôtel_ at No. 4, dating originally from about 1611, was
rebuilt in 1745.
Rue de Turenne, running in this arrondissement from Rue Charlot to the
corner of the Place des Vosges, began as Rue Louis, then in its upper
part was Rue Boucherat, as an ancient inscription at No. 133 near the
fountain Boucherat records. From the old street whence it starts, Rue
St.-Antoine in the 4th arrondissement, it is a long line of ancient
_hôtels_, the homes in bygone days of men of notable names and doings;
one side of the convent des Filles-du-Calvaire stretched between the Rue
des Filles-du-Calvaire and Rue Pont-au-Choux. No. 76 was the home of the
last governor of the Bastille, Monsieur de Launay. The church of
St-Denis-du-St-Sacrament at No. 70 was built in 1835 on the site of the
chapel of a convent razed in 1826, previously a mansion of Maréchal de
Turenne. At No. 56, Scarron lived and died. No. 54 was the abode of the
comte de Montrésor, noted in the wars of the Fronde. At No. 41, fresh
water flows from the fontaine de Joyeuse on the site of the ancient
hôtel de Joyeuse. We find a beautiful staircase in almost every one of
these old _hôtels_.
[Illustration: HÔTEL VENDÔME, RUE BÉRANGER]
Shorter interesting old streets lead out of this long one on each side.
Rue du Parc-Royal, memorizes the park and palace of Les Tournelles,
razed to the ground after the tragic death of Henri II by his widow,
Catherine de’ Medici (_see_ p. 8). No. 4, dating from 1620, was
inhabited by successive illustrious families until the early years of
the nineteenth century. There, till recently, was seen a wonderful
carved wood staircase. Many of the ancient houses erewhile here have
been demolished in recent years, and are supplanted by modern buildings
and a garden-square.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOME OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
We are now in the vicinity of that most entrancing of historic museums,
Musée Carnavalet, and its neighbouring library. On the wall of Rue de
Sévigné is still to be read engraved in the stonework its more ancient
name, Rue de la Culture-Ste-Catherine, so called because it ran across
cultivated land in the vicinity of an ancient church dedicated to St.
Catherine. It was in 1677 that Madame de Sévigné and her daughter,
Madame de Grignan, settled in the first story of the house No. 23, built
some hundred and thirty years before by Jacques de Ligneri under the
direction of the renowned architect Pierre Lescot and the sculptor Jean
Goujon. The widow of a Breton lord, Kernevenoy, or some such word by
name, which resolved itself into Carnavalet, bought the _hôtel_ from the
Ligneri; inhabitants and owners changed as time went on, but this name
remained. At the Revolution, the mansion was taken possession of by the
State, was used for a school, to become after 1871 the historical Museum
of Paris. In 1898 the museum was taken in hand by M. Georges Cain and
from that day to this has been continually added to, made more and more
valuable and attractive by this eminently capable administrator. To
study the history, and learn “from the life” the story of Paris and of
France, go to the Musée Carnavalet. And to read about all you see
there, turn at No. 29 into the Bibliothèque de la Ville. In olden days
le Petit Arsenal de la Ville stood on the site. The edifice we see,
l’hôtel St-Fargeau, was built in 1687. The city library, which had been
re-organized by Jules Cousin, was placed there in 1898.
Rue Payenne runs across the site of ancient houses and of part of two
convents, a door of one is seen at that regrettably modern-style
erection, so out of keeping with its surroundings, the Lycée
Victor-Hugo. At No. 5 we see a bust of Auguste Compte, with an
inscription, for this was the “Temple of the religion of Humanity,” and
Compte’s friend and inspirer Clotilde de Vaux died here. Here souvenirs
of the philosopher are kept in a memorial chapel. Nos. 11 and 13 formed
the mansion of the duc de Lude, one of the most noted admirers of Madame
de Sévigné, Grand Maître d’Artillerie in 1675, and was inhabited at one
time by Madame Scarron. In Rue Elzévir--in the sixteenth century Rue des
Trois-Pavillons--was born Marion Delorme (1613). Ninon de Lenclos lived
here in 1642. We see a fine old house at No. 8, and at No. 2 l’hôtel de
Lusignan. Leading out of Rue Elzévir, the old Rue Barbette records the
name of a master of the Mint under Philippe-le-Bel, and a house he built
with extensive gardens, known as the Courtille Barbette; the Courtille
was destroyed by the populace, displeased at a change in the coinage, in
1306; the house remained and became a rendezvous of courtiers, passed
into the hands of the extremely light-lived Isabeau de Bavière, who
inaugurated there her wonderful _bals masqués_. It was on leaving the
hôtel Barbette that the duc d’Orléans, Isabeau’s lover, was
assassinated, on the threshold of a neighbouring house, by the men of
Jean Sans Peur, 23 November, 1407 (_see_ p. 40). The mansion passed
subsequently through many hands, and was finally in part demolished in
1563, and this street cut across the ground where it had stood. No. 8
was the “petit hôtel” of Maréchal d’Estrées, brother of Gabrielle,
confiscated at the Revolution and made later the mother-house of the
Institution “la Legion d’Honneur” for the education of officer’s
daughters. The grand old mansion has been despoiled of its splendid
decorations, precious woodwork, etc.--all sold peacemeal for high
prices. Almost every house in this old street is an ancient _hôtel_. No.
14 was the hôtel Bigot de Chorelle, No. 16 the hôtel de Choisy, No. 18
the hôtel Massu, No. 17 the hôtel de Brégis, etc. We see other ancient
houses in Rue de la Perle. At No. 1, dating from the close of the
seventeenth century, we find wonderfully interesting things in the
courtyard; busts of old Romans, fine bas-reliefs, etc.
Rue de Thorigny, sixteenth century, was named after Président Lambert de
Thorigny, whose descendants built, a century or two later, the fine
hôtel Lambert on l’Ile St-Louis. Marion died in a house in this street;
Madame de Sévigné lived here at one time, as did Balzac in 1814. The
fine _hôtel_ at No. 5 goes by the name hôtel Salé, because its owner,
Aubert de Fontenay, had grown rich through the Gabelle (salt-tax). Later
it was the abode of Monseigneur Juigné, Archbishop of Paris, who in the
terrible winter 1788-89 gave all he possessed to assuage the misery of
the people, yet met his death by stoning on the outbreak of the
Revolution. Confiscated by the State, the fine old mansion was for a
time put to various uses; then bought and its beauties reverently
guarded by its present owners. Rue Debelleyme, made up of four short
ancient streets, shows interesting vestiges. The nineteenth-century
novelist, Eugène Sue, lived here.
To the east of Rue de Turenne, at its junction with Rue des
Francs-Bourgeois, we find old streets across the site of the ancient
palace des Tournelles; of the palace no trace remains save the name of
the old Rue des Tournelles. Rue du Foin runs where hay was once made in
the fields of the palace park. Rue de Béarn was in olden times Rue du
Parc-Royal. Here we find vestiges of the convent des Minimes, founded by
Marie de’ Medici in 1611, suppressed in 1790. Some of its walls form
part of the barracks we see there, and the cloister still stands intact
in the courtyard, while at No. 10, Rue des Minimes, may be seen the old
convent door. The building No. 7 of this latter street, now a school,
dates from the seventeenth century. A famous chestnut-tree, several
hundred years old, flourished in the court at No. 14 till a few years
ago. In Rue St-Gilles, we see among other ancient houses the Pavilion of
the hôtel Morangis, No. 22, and at No. 12, the Cour de Venise. In Rue
Villehardouin, when it was Rue des Douze Portes, to which Rue St-Pierre
was joined at its change of name, lived Scarron and his young wife. Rue
des Tournelles with its strikingly old-world aspect shows us two houses
inhabited by Ninon de Lenclos, Nos. 56 and 26, and at No. 58, that of
Locré, who with some other men of law drew up the famous Code Napoléon.
At No. 1, Rue St-Claude, one side of the house in Rue des Arquebusiers,
dwelt the notorious sorcerer, Joseph Balsamo, known as comte de
Cagliostro. The iron balustrade dates from his day and the heavy
handsome doors came from the ancient Temple buildings. Rue Pont-au-Choux
recalls the days when the land was a stretch of market gardens. Rue
Froissard and Rue de Commines lie on the site of the razed couvent des
Filles-du-Calvaire, of which vestiges are to be seen on the boulevard at
No. 13.
CHAPTER IX
NOTRE-DAME
ARRONDISSEMENT IV. (HÔTEL-DE-VILLE)
Rue Lutèce, the French form of the Roman word Lutetia, recording the
ancient name of the city, is a modern street on ancient historic ground.
There, on the river island, the first settlers pitched their camp,
reared their rude dwellings, laid the foundation of the city of mud to
become in future days the city of light, the brilliant Ville Lumière.
When the conquering Romans took possession of the primitive city and
built there its first palace, the island of the Seine became l’Île du
Palais.
[Illustration: NOTRE-DAME]
Of the buildings erected there through succeeding centuries, few traces
now remain. But Roman walls in perfect condition were discovered beneath
the surface of the island so recently as 1906. Close to the site of Rue
Lutèce ran, until the middle of last century, the ancient Rue des Fèves,
where was the famous Taverne de la Pomme de Pin, a favourite
meeting-place from the time of Molière of great men of letters. Crossing
Rue de la Cité, formed in 1834 along the line of the old Rue St-Éloi
which stretched where Degobert’s great statesman had founded the abbey
St-Martial, we come to the Parvis Notre-Dame. The Parvis, so wide and
open to-day, was until very recent times--well into the second half of
the nineteenth century--crowded with buildings; old shops, old streets,
erections connected with the old Hôtel-Dieu, covered in great part the
space before the Cathedral, now an open square. The statue of
Charlemagne we see there is modern, set up in 1882.
The Cathedral, beloved and venerated by Parisians from all time--“_Sacra
sancta ecclesia civitatis Parisiensis_”--stands upon the site of two
ancient churches which in early ages together formed the Episcopal
church of the capital of France. One bore the name of the martyr, St.
Stephen, the other was dedicated to Ste-Marie.
These churches stood on the site of a pre-Christian place of worship, a
temple of Mars or Jupiter: Roman remains of great extent were found
beneath the pavements when clearing away the ancient buildings on the
Parvis. Fire wrought havoc on both churches, entirely destroyed one, and
towards the year 1162 Sully set about the erection of a church worthy of
the capital of his country. Its first stone was laid by the Guelph
refugee, Pope Alexander III, in 1163. The chancel, the nave and the
façade were finished without undue delay, and in 1223 the whole of the
beautiful Gothic building was finished; alterations were made during the
years that followed until about 1300. From that time onward Notre-Dame
was made a store-house of things beautiful. The finest pictures of each
succeeding age lined its walls--at length so thickly that there was room
for no more. Much beautiful old work, including a fine rood screen, was
carted away under Louis XIV, when space was wanted for the immense
statue of the Virgin set up then in fulfilment of the vow of Louis XIII,
destroyed later. The figures on the great doors, we see to-day, are
modern: the original statuettes were hacked to pieces at the outbreak of
the Revolution by the mob who mistook the Kings of Israel for the Kings
of France!
[Illustration: RUE MASSILLON]
The _flêche_, too, is of latter-day construction, built by Viollet le
Duc, to replace the ancient turret bell-tower. Destruction and
desecration of every kind fell upon the Cathedral in Revolution days.
Priceless glass was smashed, magnificent work of every sort ruthlessly
torn down, trampled in the dust. On the Parvis--the space before the
Cathedral doors where in long-gone ages the mystery plays were acted--a
great bonfire was made of all the Mass books and Bibles, etc., found
within the sacred edifice: priceless illuminated missals, etc., perished
then. Marvellous woodwork, glorious stained-glass windows, fine statuary
happily still remain.
From the time of its erection, the grand Cathedral was closely connected
with the greatest historical events of France, just as the church built
by Childebert and the older church of St-Étienne had been before. St.
Louis was buried there in 1271. The first States-General was held there
in 1302. There Henry VI of England was crowned King of France in 1431,
and Marie-Stuart crowned Queen Consort in 1560. Henri IV heard his first
Mass there in 1694. Within the sacred walls the Revolutionists set up
the worship of reason, held sacrilegious fêtes. Napoléon I was crowned
there and was there married to Marie Louise of Austria. Napoléon III’s
wedding took place there. These are some only singled out from a long
list of historical associations. National Te Deums, Requiems, Services
of Reparation all take place at this Sancta Ecclesia Parisionis.
The Hôtel-Dieu on the north side of the Parvis is the modern hospital
raised on the site of the ancient Paris House of God, the hospital for
the Paris poor built in the thirteenth century, always in close
connection with the Cathedral and having its _annexe_ across the little
bridge St-Charles, a sort of covered gallery. Those blackened walls
stood till 1909.
Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame belonged in past ages to the Cathedral
Chapter, a cloistered thoroughfare. Its fifty-one houses have almost
entirely disappeared. Three still stand: Nos. 18, 16, 14. Pierre Lescot,
the notable sixteenth-century architect, to whom a canonry was given,
died there in 1578. Rue Chanoinesse is still inhabited by the Cathedral
canons. Its houses are all ancient. At No. 10 lived Fulbert, the uncle
of the beautiful Héloïse, who braved his anger for the sake of Abelard,
who lived and taught hard by. Racine is said to have lived at No. 16.
The old Tour de Dagobert, which did not, however, date back quite to
that monarch’s time, stood at No. 18 till 1908. Its wonderful staircase,
formed of a single oak-tree, is at the Musée Cluny. Lacordaire is said
to have lodged at No. 17. A curious old courtyard at No. 20. At No. 24,
vestiges of the old chapel St-Aignan (twelfth century). At 26, a passage
with old pillars and paved with old tombstones. Leading out of it runs
the little Rue des Chantres where the choristers lived and worked to
perfect their voices and their knowledge of music. Rue Massillon is
entirely made of old houses with most interesting features--a marvellous
carved oak staircase at No. 6, fine doors, curious courtyards. Another
beautiful staircase at No. 4. In Rue des Ursins, connected with Rue
Chanoinesse, we find many ancient houses. At No. 19 we see vestiges of
the old chapel where Mass was said secretly during the Revolution by
priests who went there disguised as workmen.
Rue de la Colombe, where we find an inscription referring to the
discovery there of Roman remains, dates from the early years of the
thirteenth century.
CHAPTER X
L’ÎLE ST-LOUIS
Crossing the bridge painted of yore bright red and known therefore as le
Pont-Rouge, we find ourselves upon the Île St-Louis, in olden days two
distinct islands: l’Île Notre-Dame and l’Île-aux-Vaches, both
uninhabited until the early years of the seventeenth century. Tradition
says the law-duels known as _jugements de Dieu_ took place there. The
Chapter of Notre-Dame had certain rights over the island.
In the seventeenth century, consent was given for the Île St-Louis to be
built upon, and the official constructor of Ponts and Chaussées obtained
the concession of the two islets under the stipulation that he should
fill up the brook which separated them, and make a bridge across the arm
of the Seine to the city quay. The brook became Rue Poulletier, where we
see interesting vestiges of that day and two ancient _hôtels_, Nos. 3
and 20--the latter now a school.
All along Rue St-Louis-en-l’Île and in the streets connected with it,
fine old mansions, or beautiful vestiges of the buildings then erected,
still stand. The church we see there was begun by Le Vau in 1664, on the
site of a chapel built at his own expense by one Nicolas-le-Jeune. The
curious belfry dates from 1741. The church is a very store-house of
works of art, many of them by the great masters of old, put there by its
vicar, Abbé Bossuet, who devoted his whole fortune and his untiring
energy to the work of restoring the church left in ruins after its
despoliation at the Revolution, and died so poor in consequence as to be
buried by the parish. At No. 1 of this quaint street we find a pavilion
of l’hôtel de Bretonvilliers of which an arch is seen at No. 7, and
other vestiges at Nos. 5 and 3. The Arbalétriers were wont to meet here
in pre-Revolution days. No. 2, its northern front giving on Quai d’Anjou
(_see_ p. 328), is the grand mansion of Nicolas Lambert de Thorigny,
built by Le Vau, 1680; its splendid decorations are the work of Lebrun
and other noted artists and sculptors of the time. In 1843 it was bought
by the family of a Polish prince and used in part as an orphanage for
the daughters of Polish exiles till 1899.
CHAPTER XI
L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
The Hôtel de Ville, which gives its name to the arrondissement, is a
modern erection built as closely as possible on the plan and from the
designs of the fine Renaissance structure of the sixteenth century burnt
to the ground by the Communards in 1871. Place de l’Hôtel de Ville,
where it stands, was until 1830 Place de Grève, the Place du Port de
Grève of anterior days, days going back to Roman times. Like the Paris
Cathedral, the hôtel de Ville is closely linked with the most marked
events of French history. The first hôtel de Ville was known as la
Maison-aux-Piliers, previously l’hôtel des Dauphins du Viennois, bought
in 1357 by Étienne Marcel, Prévôt des Marchands, of historic memory
(_see_ p. 39), whose statue we see in the garden. The first stone of the
fine building burnt in 1871 was laid by François I in 1533, its last one
in the time of Henri IV. On the Square before it executions took place,
for offences criminal, political, religious, by burning, strangling,
hanging and the guillotine. In its centre stood a tall Gothic cross
reared upon eight steps, at the foot of which the condemned said their
last prayers. The guillotine first set up there in 1792 was soon moved
about, as we know, to different points of the city, when used for
political victims. Common-law criminals continued to expiate their evil
deeds on Place de Grève. It was a comparatively small _place_ in those
days. Its enlargement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused
the destruction of many old streets, in one of which was the famous
Maison de la Lanterne. Close up against the Hôtel de Ville stood in past
days the old church St-Jean-en-Grève and a hospice; both were
incorporated in the town hall by Napoléon I. The entire building was
destroyed in 1871, but the present structure is remarkably fine in every
part, both within and without, and the Salle St-Jean, memorizing the
church once there, is splendidly decorated. The Avenue Victoria, on the
site of ancient streets, memorizes the visit of the English Queen in
1855. The short Rue de la Tâcherie (from _tâche_: task, work) crossing
it, was in the thirteenth century Rue de la Juiverie, for here we are in
the neighbourhood of what is still the Jews’ quarter.
[Illustration: PLACE DE GRÈVE]
A modern garden-square surrounds the beautiful Tour St-Jacques, all that
is left of the ancient church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, built in the
fifteenth century, on the site of a chapel of the eighth century,
finished in the sixteenth, entirely restored in the nineteenth century
and again recently. It is used as an observatory. Paris weather
statistics hail from la Tour St-Jacques.
On the site of the modern Place du Châtelet rose in bygone ages the
primitive tower of the Grand Châtelet, which developed under
Louis-le-Gros into a strongly fortified castle and prison guarding the
bridge across the Seine to the right, while the Petit Châtelet guarded
it on the left bank. A _chandelle_--a flaming tallow candle--set up by
command of Philippe-le-Long near its doorway, is said to be the origin
of the lighting, dim enough as it was for centuries, of Paris streets.
The fortress was rebuilt by Louis XIV; part of it served as the Morgue
until it was razed to the ground in 1802. The fountain plays where the
prison once stood. Numerous old streets lead out of the modern Rue de
Rivoli at this point. Rue Nicolas-Flamel, running where good Nicolas had
a fine _hôtel_ in the early years of the fifteenth century, and Rue
Pernelle recording the name of his wife, have existed under other names
from the thirteenth century. Rue St-Bon recalls the chapel on the spot
in still earlier times.
Rue St-Martin beginning at Quai des Gesvres, the high road to the north
of Roman days, after cutting through Avenue Victoria, crosses Rue de
Rivoli at this point, and here was the first of the four Portes which in
succession marked the city boundary on this side. The beautiful
sixteenth-century church we see here, St-Merri, stands on the site of a
chapel built in the seventh century. In a Gothic crypt remains of its
patron saint who lived and died on the spot are reverently guarded, and
the bones of Eudes the Falconer, the redoubtable warrior who dowered the
church, discovered in perfect preservation in a stone coffin in the
time of François I, lie in the choir. It is a wonderfully interesting
structure, with fine glass, woodwork, mouldings, statues and statuettes.
The statuettes we see on the walls of the porch are comparatively
modern, replacing the ancient ones destroyed at the Revolution.
[Illustration: LA TOUR ST-JACQUES]
[Illustration: VIEW ACROSS THE SEINE FROM PLACE DU CHÂTELET]
[Illustration: RUE BRISEMICHE]
[Illustration: L’ÉGLISE ST-GERVAIS]
Rue de la Verrerie bordering the southern walls of the church and
running on almost to Rue Vieille-du-Temple, dates from the twelfth
century and reminds us by its name of the glaziers and glass painters’
Company, developed from the confraternity which in 1187 made the old
street its quarter. Louis XIV, finding this a convenient road on the way
to Vincennes, had it enlarged. There dwelt Jacquemin Gringonneur, who,
it is said, invented playing cards for the distraction of the insane
King Charles VI. Bossuet’s father and many other persons of position or
repute lived in the old houses which remain or in others on the site of
the more modern ones. At No. 76 was the _hôtel_ inhabited by Suger, the
Minister of Louis VI and Louis VII; part of its ancient walls were
incorporated in the church in the sixteenth century. Here, too, is the
presbytery, where in the courtyard we find a wonderful old spiral
staircase, its summit higher than the church roof. Old streets and
passages wind in and out around the church. Exploring them, we come upon
interesting vestiges innumerable. The ancient clergy house is at No. 76,
Rue St-Martin. Rue Cloître-St-Merri, Rue Taille-pain, Rue Brise-Miche,
these two referring to the bakery once there and bread portioned out,
cut or broken for the Clergy; Rue St-Merri and its old passage, Impasse
du Bœuf, with its eighteenth-century grille; Rue Pierre-au-lard, a
humorous adaptation of the name Pierre Aulard, borne by a notable
parishioner of the eighteenth century. Passage Jabach on the site of the
home of the rich banker of the seventeenth century whose fine collection
of pictures were the nucleus of the treasures of the Louvre. Impasse
St-Fiacre, the word saint cut away at the Revolution, where dwelt the
first hirer-out of cabs; hence the term _fiacre_. Rue de la Reynie
(thirteenth century), renamed in memory of the Lieutenant-General of
Police who, in 1669, ordered the lighting of Paris streets, but did
not provide lamplighters. Private citizens were bound daily to light and
extinguish the lanterns then placed at the end and in the middle of each
thoroughfare. Everyone of these streets, dull and grimy though they be,
are full of interest for the explorer. Going on up Rue St-Martin, we see
on both sides numerous features of interest. Look at Nos. 97, 100, 103,
104; and at No. 116, called Maison des Goths, with its fine old frieze.
At No. 120 there are two storeyed cellars and in one of them a well. The
fontaine Maubuée at No. 122 is referred to in old documents so early as
1320. Its name shortened from _mauvaise buée_, i.e. _mauvaise fumée_, is
not suggestive of the purity of its waters at that remote period; the
fountain was reconstructed in 1733--the house some sixty years later.
The upper end of Rue Simon-le-Franc, which we turn into here, was until
recent times Rue Maubuée. It may, perhaps, still deserve the name. Rue
Simon-le-Franc is one of the oldest among all these old streets, for it
was a thoroughfare in the year 1200. It records the name of a worthy
citizen of his day, one Simon Franque. All the houses are ancient, some
very picturesque. Next in date is that most characteristic of old-time
streets, the Rue de Venise. The name, a misnomer, dates only from 1851,
due to an old sign. The street was known by various appellations since
its formation somewhere about the year 1250. Every house and court there
is ancient, the space between those on either side so narrow that the
tall, dark buildings seem to meet at their apex. No. 27 is the old inn
“l’Épée de Bois,” lately renovated and its name changed to “L’Arrivée de
Venise,” where from the year 1658 a company of musicians and
dancing-masters duly licensed by Mazarin used to meet under the
direction of “Le roi des violons,” their chief. This was, in fact, the
nucleus of the Académie National of Music and Dancing, known later as
the Conservatoire. Great men of letters too were wont to meet in that
old inn. Rue de Venise opens into Rue Beaubourg, a road that stretched
through a _beau bourg_, i.e. a fine township, so far back as the
eleventh century, with special privileges, the rights of citizenship for
its inhabitants although lying without the boundary-wall. No. 4, now
razed, was the “Restaurant du Bon Bourg,” _tenu par_ “le Roi du Bon
Vin.” To the left is Rue des Étuves, i.e. Bath Street, with houses old
and curious. Rue de Venise runs at its lower end into the famous Rue de
Quincampoix, the street of Law’s bank (_see_ p. 63), where every house
is ancient or has vestiges of past ages. No. 43 was a shop let in Law’s
time at the rate of 100 francs a day. The street leads down into Rue des
Lombards, the ancient usurers’ and pawnbrokers’ street, inhabited in
these days by a very opposite class--herborists. Tradition says
Boccaccio was born here. Rue du Temple, Rue des Archives, Rue
Vieille-du-Temple, Rue de Sévigné, traversed in part in the 3rd
arrondissement (_see_ p. 108) all have their lower numbers in this 4th
arrondissement, the first three branching off from Rue de Rivoli, the
last from Rue St-Antoine. At No. 61, Rue du Temple, on the site of the
vanished Couvent des Filles de Ste-Avoie, we see an old gabled house. In
the courtyard of No. 57, l’hôtel de Titon, the Bastille armourer. At No.
41 the old tavern “l’Aigle d’Or.” No. 20 is the ancient office of the
Gabelles--the salt-tax. Here we see an old sign taken from the vicinity
of St-Gervais, showing the famous elm-tree, of which more anon. Every
house shows some interesting old-time feature. This brings us again
close up to the Hôtel de Ville, where we see the venerable church
St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, dating in its present form from the sixteenth
century, on the site of a church built there in the sixth. That
primitive erection grew into a beautiful church in the early years of
the twelfth century. Some of the exquisite work of that day may still be
seen by turning up the narrow passage to the left, where we find the
ancient _charniers_. Rebuilding was undertaken two centuries later. A
curious half-effaced inscription on an old wall within refers to this
reconstruction and its dedication fête day, instituted in honour of
“Messieurs St. Gervais et St. Protais.” The last rebuilding was in 1581.
Then in the seventeenth century, the Renaissance façade was added to the
Gothic edifice behind it by Salomon de Brosse. The church is full of
precious artistic work, glorious glass, frescoes, statuary and rich in
historic associations. Madame de Sévigné was married here; Scarron was
married to the young girl destined to become Mme de Maintenon, and was
perhaps buried in the beautiful Chapelle-Dorée. The church has always
suffered in time of war. At the Revolution the insurgents tried to shake
down its fine tall pillars; the marks are still to be seen. In
1830-48-71 cannon balls pierced its belfry walls, and now on Good Friday
of this war-year 1918, the enemy’s gun, firing at a range of
seventy-five miles, struck its roof, laid low a great pillar, brought
death and wounding to the assembled congregation. On the _place_ before
the church we see a tree railed round. A shadier elm-tree stood there
once, the famous Orme de St-Gervais, beneath which justice--or maybe at
times injustice--was administered in the open air, in long-past ages.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE BEAUVAIS, RUE FRANÇOIS-MIRON]
Rue François-Miron running east, its lower end the ancient Rue
St-Antoine, shows us the _orme_, figured in the ironwork of all its
balconies. This end of the street was known in olden days as Rue du
Pourtour St-Gervais, then as Rue du Monceau St-Gervais, referring to the
wide stretch of waste ground in the vicinity which, unbuilt upon for
centuries, was a favourite site for festive gatherings and tournaments.
It records the name of the Prévôt des Marchands of the sixteenth century
to whom was due the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, burnt in 1871. Its
houses are for the most part ancient. No. 13, quaint and gabled,
fifteenth century. No. 82 the old mansion of President Henault. No. 68
hôtel de Beauvais, associated with many historic personages and events,
has Gothic cellars which of yore formed part of the monastastic house
where Tasso wrote his great poem “Jerusalem Delivered.” The walls above
those fine cellars were knocked down in the third decade of the
seventeenth century and replaced in 1655 by those we see there now,
built as the hôtel de Beauvais, destined to see many changes. At the
Revolution the grand old mansion was for a time a coach-office, then a
house let out in flats. Mozart is said to have stayed there in 1763.
Behind the church is the old Rue des Barres with an ancient inscription
and traces of an ancient chapel. The sordid but picturesque Rue de
l’Hôtel de Ville was known for centuries as Rue de la Mortellerie, from
the _morteliers_, or masons who had settled there. In the dread cholera
year 1832 the inhabitants saw in the name of their street a sinister
reference to the word _mort_ and demanded its change. Every house has
some feature of old-time interest. Beneath No. 56 there is a Gothic
cellar, once, tradition says, a chapel founded by Blanche de France,
grand-daughter of Philippe-le-Bel, who died in 1358. At No. 39 we see
the narrowest street in Paris, Rue du Paon Blanc, erewhile known as the
“descente à la rivière.” Nos. 8-2 is the venerable hôtel de Sens (_see_
p. 117).
In Rue Geoffroy l’Asnier, between Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville and Rue
François-Miron, thirteenth century, we find among many other vestiges of
old times the fine seventeenth-century door of hôtel Chalons at No. 26.
In Rue de Jouy of the same period and interest, at No. 12 and No. 14,
dependencies of l’hôtel Beauvais; at No. 7 l’hôtel d’Aumont, built in
1648 on the site of the house where Richelieu was born. At No. 9, the
École Sophie-Germain, the ancient hôtel de Fourcy, previously inhabited
by a rich bourgeois family.
Rue des Archives (_see_ p. 74) is chiefly interesting in its course
through this arrondissement for the old church des Billettes (_see_ p.
76) on the site of the house of the Jew Jonathas, so called from the
sign hung outside a neighbouring house--_a billot_--i.e. log of wood.
Rebuilt in 1745, closed at the Revolution, the church was given to the
Protestants in 1808. The beautiful cloisters of the fifteenth-century
structure were left untouched and are enclosed in the school adjoining
the church. Rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie dates from the early years
of the thirteenth century and is rich in relics of past ages. Its name
records the existence there of the thirteenth-century church de
l’Exaltation de la Ste-Croix and of a convent instituted in 1258 in the
ancient Monnaie du Roi--the Mint--suppressed at the Revolution, but of
which traces are still seen on the square. At No. 47 we see a turret
dating from 1610. The dispensary at No. 44 is the old hôtel Feydeau de
Brou (1760). No. 35 belonged to the old church Chapter. The boys’ school
at No. 22 is ancient. No. 20 dates from 1696. Rue Aubriot from the
thirteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century was Rue du
Puits-au-Marais. Aubriot was the thirteenth-century Prévôt de Paris, an
active builder, and who first laid drains beneath Paris streets. No. 10
dates from the first years of the seventeenth century. Vestiges of that
or an earlier age are seen all along the street. Rue des Blancs-Manteaux
recalls the begging Friars, servants of Mary, wearing long white
cloaks, who settled here in 1258. They united a few years later with the
Guillemites, whose name is recorded in a neighbouring street of ancient
date. Their church at No. 12 was entirely rebuilt in 1685, and in 1863
the portal of the demolished Barnabite church added to its façade.
Remains of the old convent buildings are incorporated in the
Mont-de-Piété opposite. At No. 14 we see traces of the old Priory. No.
22 and No. 25 have fine old staircases and other interesting vestiges.
The cabaret de “l’Homme Armé” existed in the fifteenth century. We find
ancient vestiges, often fine staircases, at most of the houses.
[Illustration: RUE VIEILLE-DU-TEMPLE]
Rue Vieille-du-Temple, which begins its long course opposite the Mairie,
has lost its first numbers. This old street shows us interesting
features at every step. No. 15, hôtel de Vibraye. No. 20, Impasse de
l’hôtel d’Argenson. No. 24, hôtel of the Maréchal d’Effiat, father of
Cinq Mars. The short Rue du Trésor at its side was so named in 1882 from
the treasure-trove found beneath the _hôtel_ when cutting the street,
gold pieces of the time of King Jean and Charles V in a copper vase, a
sum of something like 120,000 francs in the money of to-day. At No. 42
opens Rue des Rosiers; roses once grew in gardens there. At No. 43
Passage des Singes, leading into Rue des Guillemites, once Rue des
Singes. No. 45 shows a façade claiming to date back to the year 1416.
No. 47, hôtel des Ambassadeurs de Hollande, recalling the days when
Dutch diplomats dwelt there and took persecuted Protestants under their
protection, is on the site of the _hôtel_ of Jean de Rieux, before which
the duc d’Orléans met his death at the hands of Jean Sans Peur, the
habitation of historic persons and events until Revolution days, when
it was taken for dancing saloons. Here we see splendid vestiges of past
grandeur: vaulted ceilings, sculptures, frescoes. The Marché des
Blancs-Manteaux, in the street opening at No. 46, is part of an ancient
mansion. Turning down Rue des Hospitalières-St-Gervais, recalling the
hospital once there, we find in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, at No. 35, an
old _hôtel_. At No. 31, l’hôtel d’Albret, its first stone laid in 1550
by Connétable Anne de Montmorency, restored in the eighteenth century.
At No. 25, one side of the fine hôtel Lamoignon. Crossing Rue des
Rosiers we turn down Rue des Écouffes, an ancient street of pawnbrokers,
where in a house on the site of No. 20, Philippe de Champaigne, the
great painter, lived and died (1674). Rue du Roi de Sicile records the
existence there, and on land around, of the palace of Charles d’Anjou,
brother of St. Louis, crowned King of Naples and Sicily in 1266. The
mansion changed hands many times and in 1698 became the hôtel de la
Grande Force, a noted prison. Part of it became later the Caserne des
Pompiers in Rue Sévigné; the rest was demolished. On the site of the
house No. 2 lived Bault and his wife, jailers of Marie-Antoinette. And
here, at the corner of Rue Malher, Princesse de Lamballe and many of her
compeers were slain in the “Massacres of September.”
Rue Ferdinand-Duval, till 1900 from about the year 1000 Rue des Juifs,
is full of old-time relics. At No. 20 we find a courtyard and _hôtel_
known in past days as l’hôtel des Juifs. Nos. 18 and 16, site of the
hospital du Petit St-Antoine in pre-Revolution days, of a famous shop
store under the Empire.
Rue Pavée dates from the early years of the thirteenth century, the
first street in Paris to be paved. Here at Nos. 11 and 13 lived the
duke of Norfolk, British Ambassador in 1533. At No. 12 we find two old
staircases, once those of an ancient _hôtel_ incorporated in the prison
of La Force. At No. 24 stands the fine old hôtel de Lamoignon, rebuilt
on the site of an older structure, by Diane de France, daughter of Henri
II (sixteenth century), the natal house of Lamoignon de Malesherbes,
renowned for his defence of Louis XVI. Alphonse Daudet lived here for a
time. Close by was the prison la Petite Force, a woman’s prison, too
well known in Revolution days by numerous notable women of the time. In
Rue de Sévigné, which begins here, we turn at No. 11 into the garden of
a bathing establishment on the site of a smaller hôtel Lamoignon, where
in 1790 Beaumarchais built the théâtre du Marais, otherwise l’Athénée
des Étrangers, with materials from the demolished Bastille. Here we see
before us one single wall of the demolished prison de la Force, and an
indication of the spot where thirty royalist prisoners were put to
death. Rue de Jarente, so named from the Prior of the monastic
institution, Ste-Catherine du Val des Escholiers, erewhile here, shows
us an old fountain in the Impasse de la Poissonnerie. Rue d’Ormesson
stretches across the eighteenth-century priory fish market.
CHAPTER XII
THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL
We come now to the interesting old-world quarter behind and surrounding
the church St-Paul and the Lycée Charlemagne, the site of the palace
St-Pol of ancient days. The church, as we see it, dates from 1641,
replacing a tiny Jesuit chapel built in the previous century and
dedicated to St. Louis. Its first stone was laid by Louis XIII, and the
chapel built from the designs of two Jesuit priests, aided by the
architect Vignole. Hence the term _Jesuite_ used in France for the
ornate Renaissance style of architecture we see in the façade of the
church before us. Richelieu, newly ordained, celebrated his first Mass
here in 1641, and defrayed the cost of completing the church by the
erection of the great portal. The heart of Louis XIII and of Louis XIV
were buried here beneath sumptuous monuments. At the Revolution the
_Tiers État_, held their first assembly in the old church St-Pol, soon
razed to the ground by the insurgents. The Jesuits’ chapel was saved
from destruction by the books from suppressed convents which had been
piled up within it, forming thus a barricade. The dome was the second
erected in Paris. The holy water scoops were a gift from Victor Hugo at
the baptism of his first child born in the parish.
[Illustration: RUE ÉGINHARD]
Turning into Rue St-Paul we see at No. 35 the doorway of the demolished
hôtel de Sève. In the Passage St-Paul, till 1877 Passage St-Louis, we
find at No. 7 the _presbytère_, once, tradition says, a _pied-à-terre_
of the _grand_ Condé, and at No. 38 an old courtyard. At No. 36 vestiges
of the prison originally part of the convent founded by St. Éloi in the
time of Dagobert.[C] The arched Passage St-Pierre which led in olden
days to the cemetery St-Pol, the burial-place of so many notable
persons: Rabelais, Mansart, etc., and of prisoners from the Bastille,
the man in the iron mask among them, has lately been swept away, with
some walls of the old convent close up against it. The Manège till
recent days at No. 30 was in days past a favourite meeting place of the
people when in disaccord with the authorities in politics or on
industrial questions. At No. 31 we look into Rue Éginhard, the Ruelle
St-Pol of the fourteenth century; the walls of some of its houses once
formed part of the old church St-Pol. At No. 8 we see the square turret
of an old-hôtel St-Maur. At No. 4, l’hôtel de Vieuville, an interesting
fifteenth-and sixteenth-century building, condemned to demolition, which
has been inhabited by notable personages of successive periods. Passing
through the black-walled court we mount a fine old-time staircase to
find halls with beautiful mouldings, a wonderful frescoed ceiling, etc.
etc., all in the possession at present of a well-known antiquarian. No.
5, doorway of l’hôtel de Lignerac. In Rue Ave-Maria, its site covered in
past days by two old convents, we see at No. 15 an _hôtel_ where was
once the tennis-court of the Croix-Noire, in its day the “Illustre
Théâtre” with Molière as its chief and whence the great tragedian was
led for debt to durance vile at the Châtelet. No. 2 was once “la
Boucherie Ave-Maria.”
Rue Charlemagne was known by various names till this last one given in
1844--one of its old names, Rue des Prêtres, is still seen engraved in
the wall at No. 7. The _petit_ Lycée Charlemagne has among its walls
part of one of the ancient towers of the boundary wall of
Philippe-Auguste which passed in a straight line to the Seine at this
point. It is known as Tour Montgomery and shelters a ... gas meter! The
remains of another tower are seen behind the gymnasium. Before 1908 the
last remaining walls of the hôtel du Prévôt still stood in Passage
Charlemagne, a picturesque turreted Renaissance bit of “Old Paris” let
out in tenements, the last vestiges of the historic mansion where many
notable persons, royal and other, had sojourned. Interesting old-time
features are seen at Nos. 18, 21, 22, 25; No. 25 underwent restoration
in recent years.
[Illustration: RUE DU PRÉVÔT]
In Rue du Prévôt we see more old-time vestiges. Rue du Figuier dates
from about 1300 when a fig-tree flourished there, cut down three
centuries later. Nos. 19-15, now a Jewish hospice, was the abode of the
Miron, royal physicians from 1550 to 1680. Every house shows some
relic. At No. 5 we come upon an old well and steps in the courtyard. No.
8 was perhaps the home of Rabelais. At No. 1 we find ourselves before
the turreted hôtel de Sens, built between 1474 and 1519, on the site of
a private mansion given by Charles V to the archbishops of Sens, who at
that time had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Paris. Ecclesiastics of
historic fame, and at one time Marguerite de Valois, la Reine Margot,
dwelt there during the succeeding 150 years. Then Paris became an
archbishopric, and this fine hôtel de Sens was abandoned--let. It has
served as a coaching house, a jam manufactory, finally became a glass
store and factory, and in part a Jewish synagogue. In Rue du Fauconnier,
Nos. 19, 17, 15, are ancient. Rue des Jardins, where stretched the
gardens of the old Palais St-Pol, has none but ancient houses. At No. 5
we see a hook which served of yore to hold the chain stretched across
the street to close it. Molière lived there in 1645. Rabelais died
there.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE SENS]
Crossing Rue St-Paul we come to Rue des Lions, recalling the royal
menagerie once there. Fine old mansions lie along its whole length. At
No. 10 we find a beautiful staircase; another at No. 12, dating from the
reign of Louis XIII, and in the courtyard at No. 3 we see an ancient
fountain. At No. 14 there was till recent times the fountain “du regard
des lions.” No. 17 formed part of l’hôtel Vieuville. Chief among the
ancient houses of Rue Charles V is No. 12, l’hôtel d’Antoine d’Aubray,
father of the notorious woman-poisoner, la Brinvilliers, with its
graceful winding staircase. Here Mme de Brinvilliers tried to bring
about the assassination of her lover Briancourt by her other lover
Ste-Croix. Nuns, nursing sisters, live there now. Rue Beautreillis was
in bygone days the site of a vine-covered trellis in the gardens of the
historic palace St-Pol made up of l’hôtel Beautreillis and other fine
_hôtels_ confiscated from his nobles by King Charles V, and at No. 1 we
see an ancient and truly historic vine climbing a trellis, its origin
lost in the mist of centuries. Is it really, as some would have it, a
relic of the vines that gave grapes for the table of Charles V? All the
houses here are ancient. No. 10 was the mansion of the duc de
Valentinois, prince de Monaco in 1640. We see ancient houses along Rue
du Petit Musc, a fourteenth-century street. No. 1 is the south side of
l’École Massillon (_see_ p. 326). We cross boulevard Henri IV to the
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, its walls in part, the Arsenal built by Henri
IV on the site of a more ancient one, restored in the first half of the
eighteenth century, its façade entirely rebuilt under Napoléon III. The
name of Sully given to the bridge and the street reminds us that the
statesman lived at the Arsenal. There Mme de Brinvilliers was tried and
condemned to death. The Arsenal was done away with by Louis XVI, streets
cut across the site of most of its demolished walls. What remained
became the library we see; it has counted among its librarians men of
special distinction: Nodier, Hérédia, etc., and is now under the
direction of the well-known man of letters Funck-Brentano. Various
relics of past days and of old-time inhabitants are to be seen there and
traces of the boundary wall of Charles V. Rue de la Cerisaie, hard by,
is another street recalling the palace gardens--for cherry-trees then
grew here. On the site of No. 10 Gabrielle d’Estrées was seized with her
last illness while at the supper-table of its owner, the friend of her
loyal lover. The houses here are all ancient and characteristic, as are
also those in Rue Lesdiguières where till the first years of this
present century the wall of a dependency of the Bastille still stood.
CHAPTER XIII
LA PLACE DES VOSGES
Here we are on the old Place Royale--the _place_ where royalties dwelt
and courtiers disported in the days of Louis XIII, whose statue we see
still in the centre of the big, dreary garden square. That statue was
put there by Napoléon to replace the original one, carted away and
melted down in Revolutionary days when the _ci-devant_ Place Royale
became Place des Fédérés, then Place de l’Indivisibilité. Napoléon first
named it Place des Vosges, a name confirmed after 1870 as a tribute of
gratitude to the department which had first paid up its share of the war
contribution. In the early centuries of the Bourbon kings the palace of
the Tournelles had stood here (see p. 8). After its demolition the site
was taken for a horse market, and there the famous duel was fought
between the _mignons_ of Henri II and the followers of the duc de Guise.
Henri IV created the Place and had it parcelled out for building
purposes. His idea was to make it the centre of a number of streets or
avenues each bearing the name of one of the provinces of France. The
King died and that project was not carried out, but the extensive site
was soon the square of the fine mansions we see to-day, mansions fallen
from their high estate, no longer the private abodes of the world of
fashion, but standing unchanged in outward aspect.
We see the Pavillon du Roi on the south side facing Rue de Birague, once
Rue du Pavillon du Roi, where at No. 11 was born Mme de Sévigné (1626);
opposite it the Pavillon de la Reine. At No. 7 the _petit_ hôtel Sully
connected with the _grand_ hôtel Sully of the Rue St-Antoine. Each house
of the _place_ was inhabited and known by the name of a great noble or a
wealthy financier. Their enumeration would take too much space here. At
No. 6 we see the house where Victor Hugo lived in more modern
times--1833-48--now the Musée filled with souvenirs of his life and work
and dedicated to his memory. Behind it, at the corner of Impasse
Guénémée, is the _hôtel_ once the dwelling of Marion Delorme. Théophile
Gautier, and later Alphonse Daudet occupied a flat at No. 8. Passing out
of the _place_ through Rue du Pas de la Mule, in its day “petite Rue
Royale,” we turn into Rue St-Antoine, where modern buildings are almost
unknown, and vestiges of bygone ages are seen on every side. At No. 5 an
inscription tells us this was the site of the courtyard of the Bastille
through which the populace rushed in attack on the 14th July, 1789. At
No. 7 we remark an ancient sign “A la Renommée de la Friture.” At No. 17
we see what remains of the convent built by Mansart in 1632, on the site
of the hôtel de Cossé, where for eighteen years St. Vincent de Paul was
confessor. The chapel, left intact, was given to the Protestants in
1802. Here Fouquet and his son, Mme de Chantal, and the Marquis de
Sévigné were buried. No. 20 is l’hôtel de Mayenne et d’Ormesson,
sixteenth or seventeenth century, on the site of an older _hôtel_ sold
to Charles V to enlarge his palace St-Pol. It passed through many hands,
royal hands for the most part, and the building as we see it, or the
previous structure, was for a time the hôtel de Diane de Poitiers. In
modern times it became the Pension Favart, then in 1870, l’École des
Francs-Bourgeois under the direction of les Frères de la doctrine
chrétienne. At No. 28 Impasse Guénémée, known in its fifteenth-century
days as Cul-de-Sac du Ha! Ha! a passage connected with the hôtel
Rohan-Guénémée in Place Royale. In the seventeenth century a convent
was built here, a sort of reformatory for erring girls and women of the
upper classes who were shut up here in consequence of _lettres de
cachet_. At No. 62 stands the hôtel de Sully. Its first owner staked the
mansion at the gambling table and lost. At No. 101 we are before the
Lycée Charlemagne, built in 1804 on the site of two ancient mansions and
of the old city wall, of which some traces still remain. At No. 133 we
see the Maison Séguier, with its fine old door, balcony and staircase;
another old house at No. 137; then this ancient thoroughfare becomes in
these modern days, Rue François-Miron (_see_ p. 104).
[Illustration: RUE DE BIRAGUE, PLACE DES VOSGES]
Rue des Tournelles in this earlier part of its course is chiefly
interesting for the fine _hôtel_ at No. 28, built in 1690, decorated
with frescoes by Lebrun and Mignard, where the famous courtesan, Ninon
de Lenclos, lived and died.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BASTILLE
So we come to Place de la Bastille.
The famous prison which stood there from the end of the fourteenth
century to the memorable summer of 1789, was built by Hugues Aubriot,
Prévôt du Roi, as a fortified castle to protect the palais St-Pol close
by, and Paris in general, against hostile inroads from the country
beyond. Its form is well known. A perfect model of it is to be seen at
Carnavalet, in that most interesting _salle_--the Bastille-room. It had
eight towers each 23 mètres high, each with its distinct name and use.
White lines in the pavement of the _place_ show where some of its walls,
some of its towers rose, houses stand upon the site of others. The great
military citadel became a regular prison in the time of Charles VI--a
military prison, though civilians were from the first shut up there from
time to time. Aubriot himself was put there by the mob, to be quickly
released by the King. Under Richelieu it became a State prison, the
prison of _lettres de cachet_ notoriety. The Revolutionists attacked it
in the idea that untold harshness, cruelty, injustice dominated there.
As a matter of fact, the Bastille was for years rather a luxurious place
of retirement for persons who themselves wished or were desired by
others to lie low for a time, than a fort of durance vile. The last
governor, M. de Launay, in particular, was generous and kind even to
the humblest of those placed beneath his rule. And we know the attacking
mob found seven prisoners only--two madmen, the others acknowledged
criminals. M. de Launay was massacred nevertheless. The Revolutionists
seized all the arms they could find, a goodly store; the walls were
razed soon afterwards and a board put up with the words “Ici on dance.”
In reality the attack upon the Bastille was a milder under-taking than
is generally supposed, and its entire destruction took place later on in
quite a business-like way by a contractor.
[Illustration: LA BASTILLE]
The _place_ was finished in 1803. The Colonne de Juillet we see there
dates from 1831. The bones of the victims of the two minor Revolutions
(1830-48) are beneath it. Louis Philippe’s throne was burnt before it in
1848.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE VICINITY OF TWO ANCIENT CHURCHES
ARRONDISSEMENT V. PANTHÉON. RIVE GAUCHE (LEFT BANK)
Crossing the Seine by the Pont St-Michel we reach Place St-Michel, of
which we will speak in another chapter, as it lies chiefly in
arrondissement VI. Turning to the east, we come upon two of the oldest
and most interesting of Paris churches and a very network of ancient
streets, sordid enough some of them, but emphatically characteristic.
Rue de la Huchette dates from the twelfth century; there in olden days
two very opposite classes plied their trade:--the _rotisseurs_--turnspits,
and the diamond cutters. The old street is still of some renown in the
district for good cooking in the few restaurants of a humble order that
remain. The erewhile Bouillon de la Huchette is now a _bal_. Once upon
a time Ambassadors dined at l’hôtellerie de l’Ange in this old street.
And the name “Le Petit Caporal” tells its own tale. There Buonaparte,
friendless and penniless, lodged in the street’s decadent days. Rue
Zacharie, dark and narrow between its tall old houses, dates back to
the twelfth or early thirteenth century. Rue du Chat qui Pêche, less
ancient (sixteenth century), is a mere pathway between high walls. From
Rue Zacharie we turn into Rue St-Séverin, one of the most ancient
of ancient streets. Many traces of past ages still remain despite
the demolition of old houses around the beautiful old church we see
before us, and subterranean passages run beneath the soil. At No.
26 and again at No. 4 we see the name of the street, the word Saint
obliterated by the Revolutionists. The church porch gives on Rue de
Prêtres-St-Séverin--thirteenth century. It was brought here from the
thirteenth-century church St-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, razed in 1837. Till then
the entrance had been the old door, Rue St-Séverin, where we see still
the words, half effaced: “Bonne gens, qui par cy passées, priez Dieu
pour les trepassés,” and the figures of two lions, once on the church
steps, where the Clergy of the parish were wont of yore to administer
justice: hence the phrase “Datum inter leones.” The church was built
in the twelfth century, on the site of a chapel erected in the days
of Childebert, over the tomb of Séverin, the hermit. Thrice restored,
partially rebuilt, the beautiful edifice shows Gothic architecture in
its three stages: primitive: porch, side door, three bays; rayonnant:
the tower and part of the nave and side aisle; flamboyant: chancel and
the splendid apse. Glorious stained glass, beautiful frescoes--modern,
the work of Flandrin, fine statues surround us here. A striking feature
is the host of votive offerings, some a mere slab a few inches in size
with the simple word “Merci” and a date. Many refer to the successful
passing of examinations, for we are in the vicinity of the University.
The presbytery and its garden cover what was once the graveyard. Some of
the old _charniers_ still remain.
[Illustration: RUE ST-SÉVERIN]
[Illustration: ÉGLISE ST-SÉVERIN]
Rue de la Parcheminerie (thirteenth century), in part demolished
recently, in its early days Rue des Escrivains, was for long the
exclusive habitation of whoever had to do with the making and selling of
books. The “hôtel des Pères Tranquilles” once there has gone. Two old
houses, Nos. 6 and 7, were in the thirteenth-century dependencies of
Norwich Cathedral for English student-monks. In Rue Boutebrie, one side
entirely rebuilt of late, dwelt the illuminators of sixteenth-century
scrolls and books. We see a characteristic ancient gable at No. 6.
This house and No. 8 have ancient staircases. Crossing Rue St-Jacques we
turn into Rue St-Julien-le-Pauvre, “le Vieux Chemin” of past times.
Through the old arched doorway we see there, surmounted by a figure of
Justice, was the abode of a notable eighteenth-century Governor of the
Petit-Châtelet, whose duty was that of hearing both sides in student
quarrels and pronouncing judgment. The church we see was the University
church of the twelfth and several succeeding centuries. University
meetings were held there and many a town and gown riot, or a merely gown
riot, took place within its walls. The slab above the old door tells of
its cession to the administrators of the hôtel-Dieu in 1655. Some of its
stones date from the ninth or, maybe, from an even earlier century; for
the church before us was a rebuilding in the twelfth of one erected in
the ninth century to replace the hostel and chapel built there in the
sixth century and overthrown by the Normans--the hostel where Gregory of
Tours had made a stay. The ancient Gothic portal and two bays falling to
decay were lopped off in 1560. The well we see in the courtyard was once
within the church walls. Another well of miracle-working fame, on the
north side, had a conduit to the altar. Passing through a door near the
vestry we find ourselves on the site of the ancient _annexe_ of the
hôtel-Dieu, razed a few years ago, and see on one side the chevet of the
church with its quaint belfry and flight of steps on the roof, on the
other a high, strong, moss-grown wall said to be a remnant of the
boundary wall of Philippe-Auguste. In 1802 the church was given to the
Greek Catholics of Paris--Melchites. The _iconostase_, therefore, very
beautiful, is an important feature. We see some very ancient statues,
and a more modern one of Montyon, founder of the Virtue-prizes
bestowed annually by the Académie Française.
[Illustration: HÔTEL LOUIS XV, RUE DE LA PARCHEMINERIE]
In Rue Galande, what remains of it, we see several interesting old
houses, and on the door of No. 42 a bas-relief showing St. Julien in a
ship. Rue du Fouarre, one side gone save for a single house, once Rue
des Escholiers, recalls the decree of Pope Urban V that students of the
Schools must hear lectures humbly sitting on the ground on bundles of
straw which they were bound themselves to provide. Benches were too
luxurious for the students of those days. In this street of the “Écoles
des Quatre Nations,” France, Normandie, Alsace, Picardie, Dante listened
to the instruction of Brunetto Latini. No. 8 with its old door is on the
site of the “École de Normandie.” The street close by, named in memory
of the great Italian poet, is modern. In Rue Domat stood, till the
nineteenth century, the walls of the suppressed convent de Cornouailles
founded by a Breton in 1317. Rue des Anglais, the resort of English
students from the time of Philippe-Auguste, was famous till recent days
for the Cabaret du Père Lunette, about to be razed. The first Père
Lunette went about his business wearing enormous spectacles. The second
landlord of the inn, gaining possession of its founder’s “specs,” wore
them as a badge, slung across his chest. Rue de l’hôtel Colbert has no
reference to the statesman. In early times it was Rue des Rats. Rue des
Trois-Portes recalls the thirteenth-century days when three houses only
formed the street. No. 10, connected with No. 13 Rue de la Bûcherie, the
log-selling street, shows us the ancient “Faculté de Médicine,”
surrounded in past days by the garden, the first of the kind, where
medical men and medical students cultivated the herbs necessary for
their physic. The interesting old Gothic structure, more than once
threatened with demolition, has been classed as an historical monument,
under State care therefore, and reconstructed as the Maison des
Étudiants. The students were very keen about the completion of their new
house on its time-honoured site, and when the masons in course of
reconstruction went on strike, the young men threw aside their books,
donned a workman’s jacket, or failing that doffed their coats and rolled
up their shirt-sleeves and set to work with all youth’s ardour as
bricklayers. Their zeal was greater, however, than their technical
knowledge or their physical fitness, and their work left much to be
desired, as the French say. Then fortunately the strike ended.
[Illustration: ST-JULIEN-LE-PAUVRE]
[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF, RUE GALANDE]
Place Maubert, named after the second vicar of Ste-Geneviève, M. Aubert,
was the great meeting-place of students, and here Maître Albert, the
distinguished Dominican professor, surnamed “le Grand,” his name
recorded by a neighbouring street, gave his lectures in the open air.
Executions also took place here. In Impasse Maubert dwelt Ste-Croix, the
lover and accomplice of the poisoner Mme de Brinvilliers, and in Rue des
Grand Degrés Voltaire in his youth worked in a lawyer’s office. The
cellars of Rue Maître-Albert are said to have been prison cells; at No.
13 the negro page Zamor, whose denunciation led Mme Dubarry to the
scaffold, died in misery in 1820. No. 16 was the meeting-place of the
Communards in 1871.
Rue de la Bièvre reminds us that the tributary of the Seine, now a
turgid drain, closely covered, once joined the mother-river here.
Tradition says Dante made his abode here while in Paris. Over the door
of No. 12 we see a statue of St-Michel slaying the dragon. This was
originally a college founded in his own house in 1348 by Guillaume de
Chanac, bishop of Paris, for twelve poor scholars of the diocese of
Limoges.
In Rue des Bernardins we see the church St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet,
St-Nicolas of the Thistle-field, built in the seventeenth century upon
the site of a thirteenth-century structure erected where till then
thistles had run riot. It was designed by a parishioner of mark, the
painter Lebrun, enriched by his paintings and those of other artists of
note. The tomb of his mother is within its walls and a monument to his
memory by Coysevox. Rue St-Victor recalls the abbey, once on the site
where now we see the Halle-aux-Vins. There Maurice de Sulli, builder of
Notre-Dame, died and was buried in 1196. Hither, to its famous school,
came Abelard, St. Thomas à Becket, St. Bernard. It was razed to the
ground in 1809. At Nos. 24-26 we saw till just recently the ancient
seminary of St-Nicolas, closed since 1906, with its long rows of
old-world windows, seventy-two panes on one story; the college buildings
were at the corner of Rue Pontoise, a street opened in 1772 as a
calf-market and named from the town noted for its excellent veal. And
here we find at No. 19 vestiges of the ancient convent of the
Bernardins. Rue de Poissy has more important remains of the convent and
of its college, founded in 1245 by the English Abbé de Clairvaux,
Stephen Lexington, aided by a brother of St. Louis. The grand old walls
now serve as the Caserne des Pompiers--the Fire Station. Within we find
beautiful old-time Gothic work, a fine staircase, arched naves, tall,
slender pillars--the refectory of the monks of yore; and beneath it
vaulted cellars with some seventy pillars and ancient bays.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE REGION OF THE SCHOOLS
THE SORBONNE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
When St. Louis was on the throne of France the physician attendant upon
his mother, la Reine Blanche, died bequeathing a sum of money for the
institution of a college of theology. In consequence thereof Robert de
Sorbon built the school for theological study, a very simple erection
then, which developed into the great college adapted to studies of the
most varied character, known as the Sorbonne: that was in the year 1253.
Two hundred years later the first printing press in France was set up
there. In another nigh upon two hundred years Richelieu, elected Grand
Master of the college, built its church and rebuilt the surrounding
structure. Napoléon set the college in action on a vaster scale, after
its suppression at the Revolution, by making it the seat of the Académie
de Paris, the “home” of the Faculties of Letters and Science, as well as
of Theology. But the edifice was then again crumbling--in need of
rebuilding. Time passed, ruin made headway. Plans were made, and in 1853
the first stone of a new structure was laid. It remained a first stone
and a last one for many years. The modern walls we see were not built
till the close of the nineteenth century, finished in 1901. In the great
courtyard white lines mark the site of Richelieu’s edifice. The vast
building is richly decorated with statuary and frescoes. In its church
Richelieu seems still to hold sway. We see his coat-of-arms on every
side; over his tomb, the work of Girardon, hangs his Cardinal’s hat.
Another handsome monument covers the tomb of his descendant, the
minister of Louis XVIII. Many generations of Richelieu lie in the vault
beneath the chapel floor. The church is dismantled and partially
secularized. Grand classic concerts are held there during the Sundays of
term each year, but the Richelieu have still the right to be baptized,
married, buried there; the altar therefore has not been undraped.
Exactly opposite the Sorbonne, on its Rue des Écoles side, is the
beautiful Musée de Cluny, on the site of the ancient Palais des Thermes
of which the ruins are seen in the grounds bordered by the boulevard
St-Germain. The palace dates from Roman days. Julian was proclaimed
Emperor there. We see an altar from the time of Tiberius. The remains of
Roman baths--vestiges of the _frigidarium_, the _tepidarium_, the
_hypocaustum_, traces of the pipes through which the water flowed are
still there. In the fourteenth century Pierre de Chaslun, Abbot of
Cluny, bought the ruins of the ancient palace, and the exquisite Gothic
mansion we see was built close up against them. Many illustrious persons
found shelter within the home of the Abbots during the centuries that
followed. James V of Scotland stayed there. Men of learning were made
welcome there. In later times its tower was used as an observatory. The
Revolution put an end to the state and prestige of the beautiful
mansion. It was sold, parcelled out to a number of buyers, put to all
sorts of common and commercial uses, till, in 1833, M. de Sommerard,
whose name is given to the street on its northern side, acquired it
and set up there his own precious collection of things beautiful, the
nucleus of the Museum. The whole property was taken over later by the
Beaux-Arts under State protection for conservation. In the garden
numerous interesting relics of ancient churches, that of St-Benoît which
once stood near, and others, are carefully preserved.
[Illustration: LE MUSÉE DE CLUNY]
Rue Jean-de-Beauvais was in bygone days inhabited entirely by printers.
The Roumanian chapel there was the chapel of the famous College
Dormans-Beauvais, founded in 1370. Rue de Latran--modern--runs across
the site of the ancient _commanderie_ of the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem.
In Rue des Carmes, dating from 1250, we see at No. 15 the ancient
College des Lombards, now the Cercle Catholique d’Ouvriers, founded
1334, rebuilt under Louis XIV by two Irish priests. The little chapel
there, dedicated now to “Jesus Ouvrier,” is paved with the gravestones
of the Irish clergy who came of yore to live and study there.
Rue Basse des Carmes stretches across the site of the demolished
Carmelite Convent. We are close now to the Collège de France, le Lycée
Louis-le-Grand and l’École Polytechnique.
Le Collège de France, Rue des Écoles, its beautiful west façade giving
on Rue St-Jacques, was founded as an institution by François I (1530);
its lectures were to be given in different colleges. The edifice before
us replaces this “Collège Royal,” built in the early years of the
seventeenth century, destroyed in the eighteenth century. It dates from
1778, the work of Chalgrin. Additions were made in the nineteenth
century. The numerous finely executed busts of noted scholars and
eminent professors are the work of the best sculptors of each period.
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Rue St-Jacques, on the site of four colleges
of bygone ages, dates in its foundation from 1550, rebuilt 1814-20,
restored 1861-85. In the court we see some of the ancient walls. It has
borne different names characteristic of the different periods of the
history of France. It began as the Collège de Clermont, from its
founder, the bishop; in 1682 it took the name of the King,
Louis-le-Grand. In 1792 it became Collège de l’Égalité; in 1800, Le
Pyrtanée; Lycée Imperial in 1802; Collège Royal-Louis-le-Grand in 1814;
Lycée Descartes in 1848, to revert to its present designation in 1849.
Many of the most eminent men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
were pupils there.
The Collège Ste-Barbe built in the sixteenth century was added to
Louis-le-Grand in 1764. Its tower goes by the name Tour Calvin, for this
was the Huguenot quarter. Here many of the persecuted Protestants were
in hiding at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Yet it was at Ste-Barbe
that Ignatius Loyola was educated.
Close around Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Collège de France, we find a
number of twelfth-and thirteenth-century streets condemned to
demolition, some of their houses already razed, those that remain
showing many interesting relics. Rue du Cimetière-St-Benoît, which
bordered the cemetery erewhile there; Rue Fromantel, the name a
corruption of _froid mantel_, or _manteau_, with its interesting
old-world dwellings; Impasse Chartrière, where at No. 2 we see an old
sign and a niche of the time of Henri IV, who was wont to visit his
“belle Gabrielle” here. No. 11 was, it is said, the entrance to the
King’s stables. At the junction of Rue Lanneau four streets form the
quadrangle where was erewhile the well “Certain,” so named after the
vicar of the old church St-Hilaire, once close by, discovered beneath
the roadway in 1894. Roman remains of great interest were found at that
time below the surface of all these streets. Rue Valette, eleventh
century, was once Rue des Sept Voies, for seven thoroughfares met there.
At No. 2, in the billiard-room of the old inn, we find vestiges of the
church St-Hilaire, once there. No. 19 dates from the fourteenth century,
and in the seventeenth century was a meeting-place of the Huguenots who
hid in its Gothic two-storied cellars. In Rue Laplace lived Jean de
Meung, author of _Le Roman de la Rose_. At No. 12 we see the entrance of
a vanished college, next door to which was the Collège des Écossais.
L’École Polytechnique stands on the site of the college founded in 1304
by Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, for seventy poor
scholars. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The last vestiges of
that rebuilding, a beautiful Gothic chapel, were swept away in 1875.
Traces of a Roman cemetery were found in 1906. The present structure
dates from the eighteenth century, the work of Gabriel. The house of the
Général-Commandant is the ancient Collège de Boncourt, founded in 1357.
In Rue Clovis, at the summit of the Montagne Ste-Geneviève stands the
Lycée Henri IV, dating as a school from 1796, known for several
subsequent years as Lycée-Napoléon. It recalls vividly the abbey which
once stood there. Its tower, known as the “Tour de Clovis,” rises from
the foundations of the eleventh-century abbey tower and was for long
used as the Paris Observatory. The college kitchen is one of the
ancient abbey cellars--cellars in three stories. Some of the walls
before us date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The library
founded by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld is the boys’ dormitory. A
cloister and seventeenth-century refectory are there intact. The pupils
go up and down a fine eighteenth-century staircase, and study amid
interesting frescoes and much beautiful woodwork. New buildings were
added to the ancient ones in 1873.
CHAPTER XVII
LA MONTAGNE STE-GENEVIÈVE
Rue de la Montagne Ste-Geneviève, leading to the hill-top from Boulevard
St-Germain, went in twelfth-century days by the unæsthetic name Rue des
Boucheries. Nearly every wall, every stone is ancient. In past ages
three colleges at different positions stood on its incline. The sign at
No. 40 dates from the time of the Directoire. A statuette of the saint
there in Revolution days was labelled, “A la ci-devant Geneviève;
Rendez-vous des Sans-Culottes.” And now we have before us the beautiful
old church St-Etienne-du-Mont. The _place_, in very early times a
graveyard, was laid out as a square in the fourteenth century and the
church burial ground was on the north-western side. The present church
dates as a whole from the early years of the seventeenth century, built
on the site of a thirteenth-century chapel dedicated to St-Etienne. The
_abside_ and the choir were built in early sixteenth-century years,
close up against the old basilic of the abbey Ste-Geneviève. Among the
people the church is still often referred to as l’Église Ste-Geneviève,
chiefly, no doubt, because the tomb of the patron saint of Paris is
there. The original _châsse_--a richly jewel-studded shrine--was
destroyed at the Revolution, melted down, its gems confiscated, the
bones of the Saint burnt. The stone coffin cast aside as valueless was
recovered, filled with such relics of Ste-Geneviève as could be
collected from far and near, and is now in the sumptuous shrine to which
pilgrimages are continually made. A smaller _châsse_ is solemnly carried
round the aisles of the church each year during the “neuvaine” following
January 3rd, the revered Saint’s fête day, when services are held all
day long, while on the _place_ without a religious fair goes on ...
souvenirs of Ste-Geneviève and objects of piety of every description are
offered for sale on the stalls set up upon the _place_ from end to end.
The church, showing three distinct styles of architecture, Romanesque,
Gothic, Renaissance, is especially remarkable for its rood-screen--the
only one left in a Paris church. It is rich, too, in exquisite stained
glass, beautiful woodwork, fine statuary. We see inscriptions and
epitaphs referring to Pascal, Rollin and many other men of note, buried
in the church crypt or in the graveyard of past days.
[Illustration: ST-ÉTIENNE-DU-MONT]
The Panthéon, the most conspicuous if not the most ancient or most
seductive building of this hill-top, was begun as a new church
Ste-Geneviève. Louis XV, lying dangerously ill at Metz, made a vow to
build on his recovery a church dedicated to the patron saint of Paris.
It was not begun till 1755, not solidly constructed then; slips followed
the erection of its walls, threatening collapse, and Soufflot, the
architect, died of grief thereat. The catastrophe feared did not happen;
the building was consolidated. Instead, however, of remaining a church
it was declared, in the Revolutionary year 1791, the Panthéon, with the
inscription, “Aux Grands Hommes de France, la Patrie reconnaissante.”
Napoléon restored it to the ecclesiastical authorities at the Concordat.
In 1830 it became again the Panthéon; was once more a church in
1851--then the Panthéon for good--so far--in 1885, when the body of
Victor Hugo was carried there in great state. Its façade is copied from
the Panthéon of Agrippa at Rome. It is noted for its frescoes
illustrative of the life of Ste-Geneviève, by Gros, Chavannes, Laurens
and other nineteenth-century artists. Rodin’s “Penseur” below the
peristyle was put there in 1906.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST-ÉTIENNE-DU-MONT (JUBÉ)]
The Faculté de Droit, No. 10, is Soufflot’s work (1772-1823). The
Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève, quite modern (1884), covers the site of the
demolished Collège Montaigu, founded in 1314. Ignatius Loyola, Erasmus
and Calvin were pupils there. All the surrounding streets stretch along
the site of ancient buildings, convents, monasteries, etc., swept away
but leaving here and there interesting traces. In Rue Lhomond débris of
the potteries once there have been unearthed. Michelet lived for a time
at the ancient hôtel de Flavacourt. No. 10, incorporated later in the
École Ste-Geneviève, of which the chief entrance door is a vestige of
the hôtel de Juigné, was the private abode of the Archbishop of Paris in
pre-Revolution days. Another part of the school was the home of Abbé
Edgeworth, confessor to Louis XVI in his last days. Yet another was the
Séminaire des Anglais, founded under Louis XIV. We find a fine façade
and balconies in the courtyard at No. 29, once the abode of a religious
community, now the lay “Institution Lhomond.”
The Séminaire des Missions des Colonies Françaises at No. 30 dates from
the time of Louis XIV. Fine staircase and chapel. The cellars of the
modern houses from No. 48 to No. 54 are those of the convent which
erewhile stood above them.
In Rue des Irlandais we see the college founded in 1755 for Irish,
Scottish and English priest-students. In Rue Rataud, once Rue des
Vignes, which led to a cemetery for persons who had died of the plague,
is, at No. 3, the orphanage of l’Enfant Jésus, formerly “Les Cent
Filles,” where the duchesse d’Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI, had
fifty young orphan girls educated yearly at her own expense.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN THE VALLEY OF THE BIÈVRE
Emphatically a street of the past is the old Rue Mouffetard, its name a
corruption perhaps of Mont Cérarius, the name of the district under the
Romans, or derived maybe from the old word _mouffettes_, referring to
the exhalations of the Bièvre, flowing now below ground here, never very
odorous since the days when, coming sweet and clear from the southern
slopes, it was put to city uses, industrial and other, on entering
Paris. Every house along the course of this street has some curious
old-time feature, an ancient sign, an old well, old doors, old
courtyards. Quaint old streets lead out of it. The market on the _place_
by the old church St-Médard extends up its slope.
In the sordid shops which flourish on the ground-floor of almost every
house, or on stalls set on the threshold, one sees an assortment of
foodstuffs rarely brought together in any other corner of the city, and
articles of clothing of most varied kind and style and date.
The church dating from the twelfth century, partially rebuilt and
restored in later times, was for several centuries a dependency of the
abbey Ste-Geneviève. Its graveyard, for long past a market-place and a
square, was in the eighteenth century the scene of the notorious
_scandale Médard_. Among the graves of noted Jansenists buried there
miraculous cures were supposed to take place. Women and girls fell into
ecstasies. The number of these convulsionists grew daily. At last the
King, Louis XV, ordered the cemetery to be closed. A witty inhabitant of
the district managed to get near one of the tombstones the morning after
the King’s command was made known and wrote thereon:
“De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu.”
[Illustration: RUE MOUFFETARD ET ST-MÉDARD]
It is the parish of the Gobelins and a beautiful piece of Gobelins
tapestry hangs over the vestry door. Fragments of ancient glass, a
picture by Watteau, others by Philippe de Champaigne, beautiful woodwork
and the quaintness of its architecture make the old church intensely
interesting.
At No. 81 of this old-time street we find vestiges of a
seventeenth-century chapel. At No. 52 ancient gravestones. The fountain
at No. 60 dates from 1671. The house No. 9 is on the site of the Porte
Marcel of bygone days.
Rue Broca, in the vicinity of St-Médard, dating from the twelfth
century, when it was Rue de Lourcine, has many curious old houses. The
houses of Rue du Pôt-de-fer are all ancient, as are most of those in Rue
St-Médard. At No. 1 of Place de la Contre Scarpe close by, a modern
_place_, an inscription marks the site of the Cabaret de la “Pomme de
Pin,” celebrated by the eulogies of Ronsard and Rabelais.
CHAPTER XIX
RUE ST-JACQUES
Passing amid the ancient colleges and churches, streets and houses we
have been visiting, runs the old Rue St-Jacques. It begins at the banks
of the Seine, stretches through the whole arrondissement, to become on
leaving it a faubourg.
The line it follows was in a long-past age the Roman road from Lutetia
to Orléans--the Via Superior--_la grande rue_--of early Paris history.
Along its course in Roman times the Aqueduc d’Arcueil brought water from
Rungis to the Palace of the Thermes (_see_ p. 138). It is from end to
end a long line of old-time buildings or vestiges of those swept away.
The famous couvent des Jacobins extended across the site of the
Bibliothèque de l’École de Droit and adjacent structures. At No. 172
stood the Porte St-Jacques in Philippe-Auguste’s great wall.
We see a fine old door at No. 5, a house with two-storied cellars. At a
house on the site of No. 218 Jean de Meung wrote the _Roman de la Rose_.
The famous poem was published lower down in the same street.
The church St-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas stands on the high ground we reach at
No. 252, a seventeenth-century structure on the site of a chapel built
in the fourteenth century by the monks from Italy known as the
_Pontifici_, makers of bridges constructed to give pilgrims the means
of crossing a _mau pas_ or _mauvais pas_, i.e. a dangerous or difficult
passage in rivers or roads. The beautiful woodwork within the
church--that of the organ and pulpit--was brought here from the ancient,
demolished church St-Benoît (_see_ p. 140). We notice several good
pictures. The fine stained glass once here was all smashed at the
Revolution. The hôpital Cochin memorizes in the name of its founder an
eighteenth-century vicar there. The churchyard was where Rue de
l’Abbé-de-l’Épée now runs, known at one time as Ruelle du
Cimetière-St-Jacques.
No. 254 _bis_, the national Deaf and Dumb Institution, is the ancient
_commanderie_ of the Frères hospitaliers de St-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas--the
Pontifici--given for the purpose in 1790, partly rebuilt in 1823. The
statue of Abbé de l’Épée, inventor of the alphabet for the deaf and
dumb, in the court is the work of a deaf and dumb sculptor. The trunk of
the tree we see near it is said to be that of an elm planted there by
Sully three hundred years ago. At No. 262 we see vestiges of a
_vacherie_, once the farm St-Jacques. At No. 261 we may turn into Rue
des Feuillantines, where at No. 10 we see vestiges of the convent that
was at one time in part the abode of George Sand, then of Mme Hugo,
mother of the poet, and her children; later Jules Sardou lived in the
_impasse_, now merged in the _rue_. At No. 269 we find some walls of the
monastery founded by English Benedictines in 1640, to which a few years
later they added a chapel dedicated to St. Edmond. The fabric is still
the property of English bishops. It is used as a great music school:
“Maison de la Schola Cantorum.” The door seen between two fine old
pillars at No. 284 led in olden days to the Carmelite convent where
Louise de la Vallière took definite refuge and acted as “sacristan”
till her death; Rue du Val-de-Grâce runs where the convent stood.[D]
The military hospital Val-de-Grâce was founded as a convent early in the
seventeenth century. Anne d’Autriche installed there the impoverished
Benedictines of Val Parfond, or Profond, evacuated from their quarters
hard by owing to an inundation from the Bièvre. In their gratitude they
changed their name: the nuns of Val Profond became sisters of
Val-de-Grâce. In 1645 Louis XIV, the child Anne d’Autriche had so
ardently prayed for laid the first stone of the chapel dome, built on
the model of St. Peter’s at Rome. The church is now used only for
funerals and indispensable military services. The dependency of
Val-de-Grâce was built by Catherine de’ Medici, the catacombs lie below
it and the surrounding houses.
CHAPTER XX
LE JARDIN DES PLANTES
It was in the early years of the seventeenth century that the King’s
physician bought a piece of waste ground--a _butte_ formed of the refuse
of centuries accumulated there--for the culture of the multitudinous
herbs and plants which made up the pharmacopia of the age. Thus was born
the “Jardin Royal de herbes médicinales” laid out in 1626. Chairs of
botany, pharmacy, surgery were instituted and endowed, and in 1650 the
garden was thrown open to the public. A century later Buffon was named
superintendent of the royal garden. He set himself to reorganize and
enlarge. The amphitheatre, the natural history galleries, the chemistry
laboratories, the fine lime-tree avenue are all due to him.
Distinguished naturalists succeeded one another as directors of the
garden, and after the death of Louis XVI a museum of natural history and
a menagerie were set up with what was left of the King’s collection at
Versailles. Additions and improvements were made in succeeding years
till, after the outbreak of war in 1870, the Jardin was bombarded by the
Prussians, and during the siege its live-stock largely drawn upon to
feed the population of Paris. The garden and its buildings have been
added to frequently. The labyrinth is on the site of the hillock bought
by Guy de la Brosse, who first laid it out. A granite statue marks the
spot where he and two notable travellers were buried. Surrounding
streets record the names of great naturalists of different epochs.
In Rue Geoffroy St-Hilaire, once Rue Jardin du Roi, No. 5, now the
Police Station, was built in 1760. At No. 30 a wheel once worked turned
by the water of the Bièvre, now a malodorous drain-stream hidden beneath
the pavement. No. 36 was Buffon’s home. Here he died in 1788. At No. 37
lived Daubenton. At No. 38 stood in olden days the great gate, the
Porte-Royale, of the Jardin du Roi, with to its left the hall, a narrow
space at that time, where the great surgeon Dionis described to a
marvelling assembly of students his wonderful discoveries (1672-73).
That small _cabinet_ was the nucleus of the great anthropological museum
of succeeding centuries.
In Rue Cuvier, in its early days Rue Derrière-les-Murs de Ste-Victoire,
describing accurately its situation, we see at No. 20 a modern fountain
(1840) on the site of one put there in 1671 and traces of the abbey
St-Victor in the courtyard. The pavilion “de l’Administration” of the
Garden is the ancient hôtel Jean Debray (1650), inhabited subsequently
by several men of note. At No. 47 Cuvier died in 1832. In the
eighteenth-century _fiacres_, a recently introduced manner of getting
about, were to be hired at No. 45. The eleventh-century Rue Linné shows
many vestiges of the past. We see Gothic arches of the vanished abbey at
No. 4.
In Rue des Fossés St-Bernard, stretching along the line of
Philippe-Auguste’s wall, between the site of two great gates: Porte
St-Victor, a spot desecrated by the massacres of September, and Porte
St-Bernard, we see Halle-aux-Vins, where abbey buildings stood of yore.
The Halle-aux-Cuirs, in Rue Censier, is on the site of the famous
orphanage “La Miséricorde,” called vulgarly “les Cent Filles” or “les
Cent Vierges.” The apprentice from the Arts and Crafts Institution, who
should choose one of these orphan maidens for his wife, obtained as her
dowry the privilege of becoming at once a full member of the
Corporation.
In Rue de la Clef we have at No. 56 the site of part of the notorious
prison Ste-Pélagie. No. 26 is still owned by the Savouré, whose
ancestors kept the school where Jerôme Bonaparte and many of his
compeers were educated. Rue du Fer-à-Moulin, dating from the twelfth
century, a stretch of blackened walls, has been known by many names. In
the little Rue Scipion leading out of it we see at No. 13 the _hôtel_
built in the sixteenth century for the Tuscan, Scipion Sardini, who came
to France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici, a rich and rather
scandalous financier; terra-cotta medallions ornament its walls. It
serves now as the bakehouse of the Paris hospitals. In the square
opposite we see the curious piece of statuary: “des Boulangers,” by
Charpentier.
Rue Monge, running from boulevard St-Germain to Avenue des Gobelins, was
cut through old streets of the district in 1859. A fountain Louis XV
brought here from its original site, Rue Childebert, was set up in the
square, and many other old-time relics: statues from the ancient hôtel
de Ville, débris from the Palais de l’Industrie, burnt down in 1897; a
copy of the statue of Voltaire by Houdin, etc.
Rue d’Arras, so named from a college once there, began as Rue des Murs,
referring to the walls of Philippe-Auguste. The concert hall we see was
not long ago Père Loyson’s church. L’École Communale, No. 19 Rue des
Boulangers, is on the site of part of the convent des “Filles
Anglaises,” which had existed there from 1644--razed in 1861.
Rue Rollin began in the sixteenth century as Rue des Moulins-à-vent. On
the site of the house at No. 2 Pascal died in 1662. No. 4, with its fine
staircase, its _grille_ and ancient well in the courtyard, was the home
of Bernardine de St. Pierre, during the years he wrote his world-known
_Paul and Virginie_. Rollin lived and died (1741) at No. 8. Descartes
lived at No. 14. When the street was longer and known as Rue
Neuve-St-Etienne, Manon Philipon, Madame Roland of later days, was a
pupil in the _annexe_ of the English Augustine convent on a site crossed
now by Rue Monge and Rue de Navarre.
In Rue de Navarre we come to Les Arènes, the disinterred remains of the
Roman Arena. They were discovered here just before the war of 1870, then
quickly covered up to be in part restored to daylight in 1883. We see
before us the grey stones, huge blocks and graduated step-like seats
where the population of the city--Lutetians then--passed their hours of
recreation watching the conflicts of wild beasts. It is not, perhaps,
the original arena built here by the Romans, for that was attacked
twice, first by the northern invaders, then by the Christians, many of
its stones used to build the city walls. It was, however, soon restored
... evidently. In the course of subsequent invasions, conquests, new
settlements, constructions and the lapse of years, the Roman theatre
sank beneath the surface to be unearthed in nineteenth-century days.
Modern garden paths and a grand but inharmonious entrance in Louis XIV
style now surround this supremely interesting vestige of a long-gone
age. Children play where savage beasts once fought. Women knit and sew,
old men rest, young men and maidens woo, where Roman soldiers and a
primitive Gallic population once eagerly gathered to watch fierce
combats.[E]
Rue Lacépède: here at No. 1 stood till recently the Hôpital de la Pitié,
founded by Marie de’ Medici in 1613, now replaced by a modern building
in the boulevard de l’Hôpital. Its primary destination was a shelter for
beggars--a refuge--in order to free Paris from the swarms who “gained
their living” by soliciting alms in the streets. The beggars preferred
their liberty. By an edict of some years later, however, beggars were
taken there and closely shut up, safely guarded. They were called in
consequence “les Enfermés.” The hospital grew in extent and importance
and was called “Notre-Dame de la Pitié.” The convent Ste-Pélagie was
organized in a part of its buildings, in 1660, to become at the
Revolution the notorious prison. No. 7 is a handsome eighteenth-century
_hôtel_. Rue Gracieuse has brought down to our time the graceful name of
a family who lived there in the thirteenth century and some ancient
houses. In Rue du Puits de l’Ermite lived the sculptors Coysevox,
Coustou, and the painter Bourdon. The hospice for aged poor in Rue de
l’Épée-de-Bois was formerly an _asile_ founded by Sœur Rosalie, known
for her self-sacrificing work among the cholera-stricken in 1832, and
during the Revolution of 1848. The very name Rue des Patriarches bids us
look for vestiges of past ages. The patriarchs, thus memorized, were
two fourteenth-century ecclesiastics, one bishop of Paris and
Alexandria, the other of Jerusalem, who dwelt in a fine old _hôtel_, the
big courtyard of which has become a market-place, while the street named
after them and a curious _impasse_ stretch across the site of the razed
mansion. The district was a centre of Calvinism during the religious
struggles. The bishop’s old house, “hôtel Chanac,” sheltered numerous
Protestants, and religious services were held there.
Rue de l’Arbalète carries us back to the days when archers had their
garden and training-ground here. Later an apothecary’s garden was laid
out where now we see the extensive modern buildings of the Institut
Agronomique. A pharmaceutical school was built in this old street and
medicinal herbs were cultivated from the end of the fifteenth and early
years of the sixteenth centuries. Remains of a Roman cemetery were found
some years ago beneath the paving-stones near No. 16.
In Rue Daubenton we find the presbytery and ancient side-entrance of
St-Médard, and in the old wall distinct traces of two great gates which
led to the churchyard. Traces of past time are seen also in Rue de la
Pitié, where at No. 3 Robespierre’s sister lived and, in 1834, died.
Rue Cardinal-Lemoine begins across the site of the college founded by
the Cardinal in 1302, suppressed at the Revolution, used subsequently as
a barracks, then razed. The wall of Philippe-Auguste passed on the site
of No. 26. Beneath the house a curious leaden coffin was found in 1908.
At No. 49 we see the handsome but dilapidated façade of the house of the
painter Lebrun, where also Watteau lived for a time. Here the Dames
Anglaises had their well-known convent from 1644 to 1859, when they
moved to Neuilly. At the Revolution the convent was confiscated, yet
Mass was said daily in the chapel through the Terror (_see_ pp. 11, 28).
At No. 65 we see the Collège des Écossais, founded in 1325 by David,
bishop of Moray, to which a second foundation due to the bishop of
Glasgow, 1639, was added, transferred here from Rue des Armendiers, by
Robert Barclay in 1662. Suppressed in 1792, it was used as a prison
under the Terror but restored to the Scots when Revolution days were
over. The seventeenth-century chapel still stands and the heart of James
II is in a casket there. The college staircase, left untouched, is
remarkably fine. Close by, at the end of Rue Thouin, in what was
formerly Place Fourcy, the brothers Perrault, one the famous architect,
the other yet more universally known--the writer of fairy tales--lived
and died. Rue de l’Estrapade recalls the days when, on the _place_ hard
by, rebellious soldiers were punished by being hoisted to the top of a
pole, their hands tied behind their back, then let fall to the ground.
Old-time vestiges are seen all along the street. Rue Clotilde crosses
what were once the grounds of the abbey Ste-Geneviève.
CHAPTER XXI
THE LUXEMBOURG
ARRONDISSEMENT VI. (LUXEMBOURG)
The palace that gives its name to the arrondissement was founded by
Marie de’ Medici and built on the model of the Pitti palace at Florence
by Salomon de Brosse between the years 1615-20. The site chosen was in
the neighbourhood of the vast monastery and extensive grounds of the
Chartreux. The duc de Luxembourg had an _hôtel_ there. It was sold to
the Queen and razed; but vainly was the new edifice on the spot called
by its builder “Palais Médicis.” The name of the razed mansion prevailed
over that of the Queen.
A garden was begun in 1613 on a space in the Abbey grounds where, in a
previous age, a Roman camp had stretched.
[Illustration: JARDIN ET PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG]
Marie left the palace to her second son, Gaston d’Orléans. It was the
abode of various royal personages till the outbreak of the Revolution.
Then it became a prison. Camille Desmoulins and many of his compeers
were shut up there. The Chartreux fled and their monastery was levelled
with the ground. The Terror over, the palace became successively Palais
des Directeurs, Sénat Conservateur, Chambre des Pairs and, in 1852,
Sénat Impérial. After Sedan it became the Sénat de la République. The
gardens were extended across the property of the Chartreux. They are
beautiful gardens. The Renaissance fountain is the work of Jacques de
Brosse. The statues we see on every side among the lawns and the
flower-beds, in the shady alleys, most of them the work of noted
sculptors, show us famous men and women of every period of French
history from Ste-Bathilde and Ste-Geneviève to our own day.
The Petit Luxembourg is also due to Marie de’ Medici, built a few years
after the completion of the larger palace. From the day of its
inauguration by Richelieu it knew many inhabitants of note: Barras,
Buonaparte and Joséphine, etc., sojourned there. It was used at one time
as a senate house, then as a Préfecture. We see in an adjacent wall a
marble _mètre_--the standard measure put there under the Directoire.
Finally the mansion was chosen as the official residence of the
president of the Senate.
Rue Vaugirard, on which the chief entrance of both these palaces open,
is the longest street in Paris and one of the oldest. It is, like many
another long Paris street, made up of several thoroughfares once
distinct. The first of these, Rue du Val-Girad, led from the village
named from its chief landowner, an abbé of St-Germain-des-Prés, Gérard
de Meul. In close proximity to the Palace is the Odéon, the Second
Théâtre-Français, once the “Français” itself, built in 1782, on the site
of the hôtel de Condé, burnt down in 1799, rebuilt by Chalgrin, reopened
in 1808 as théâtre de l’Impératrice, badly burnt a few years later,
restored as the théâtre Français, then again restored in 1875. The
_place_ surrounding the theatre and the streets opening out of it are
rich in historic and literary associations. No. 1, Café Voltaire, was a
meeting-place of eighteenth-century men of letters of every class and
type. At No. 2 lived Camille Desmoulins and his Lucile. There he was
arrested. In Rue Rotrou, No. 4, now a well-known bookseller’s shop, was
once the famous Café Tabourey. André Chenier lived in Rue Corneille. Rue
Tournon was opened in 1540, across the site of a horse-market bearing
the realistic name Pré-Crotté, on land belonging to the Chapter of
St-Germain-des-Prés, and named after its abbé, Cardinal de Tournon. At
No. 2, hôtel Chatillon (seventeenth century), Balzac passed three years,
1827-30. No. 4 dates from the days of Louis XIV as hôtel Jean de
Palaiseau, later hôtel Montmorency. Lamartine lived here in 1848. At No.
5 lived and died the notorious _devineresse_ Mlle Lenormand, “sybille de
l’Impératrice Joséphine.” Another prophetess, Mme Moreau, lived here in
the time of Napoléon III. No. 7, hôtel du Sénat et des Nations,
sheltered Gambetta for a time, also Alphonse Daudet. At No. 6, hôtel de
Brancas (1540), inhabited in its early years by the duchesse de
Montpensier, rebuilt under the Regency, we see a very fine staircase and
frescoed boudoir. Pacha lived for some years at No. 13. No. 8 dates from
1713, on the site of a more recent _hôtel_. At No. 10, hôtel Concini,
Louis XIII lived for a time to be near his mother, Marie de’ Medici, at
the Luxembourg. St. François de Sales stayed here. It served as the
hôtel des Ambassadeurs Extraordinaires (1630-1748), was sequestered at
the Revolution; then became a barracks as it is to-day. At No. 19 the
Scot, Admiral Jones, famous for his help in the American War of
Independence, died in 1791; his bones were taken to America in 1905. No.
33, the well-known restaurant Foyot, was in old days hôtel de Tréville,
where royalties sometimes dined incognito. At No. 19 we come to an old
curiosity shop surmounted by a barber’s pole, and on the doorpost we
read the words, with their delicate flavour of irony:
“Ici Monsieur Tussieu barbier,
Rase le Sénat,
Accommode la Sorbonne,
Frise l’Académie.”
When the recent war was on the patriotic barber posted up in French, in
Greek, in Latin, other words, the following:
“Bulgares de Malheur,
Turques, Austro-Hongrois, Boches,
Ne comptez sur Tussieu
Pour tondre vos caboches.”
He died a few months ago, leaving to his widow his shop full of valuable
antiquities.
Rue Garancière owes its euphonious name to a notable sixteenth-century
firm of dyers--la Maison Garance was on the site of the present
publishing house Plon. In the seventeenth century the Garance hôtel was
rebuilt as a mansion for the Breton bishop, René de Rieux. After the
Revolution it was for thirty years the Mairie of the district. The words
“stationnement de nuit pour huit tonneaux” on the wall at No. 9 refer to
a vanished market fountain. The Dental School at No. 5 was originally
the home of Népomacène Lemercier. Passing through Rue Palatine
memorizing Charlotte de Bavière, widow of Henri de Bourbon, who lived at
one time at the Luxembourg, we turn down Rue Servandoni, so named in
recent times in honour of the architect of the façade of the church
St-Sulpice, who died in a house opposite No. 1 (1766). Among the
bas-reliefs at No. 14 is one of Servandoni unrolling a plan of
St-Sulpice. We see on every side some interesting vestiges of the past.
Rue Canivet and Rue Férou show many old houses. Rue du Luxembourg is
modern, built along what was once a shady alley of the garden. The Café
at No. 1, Rue Fleurus, was erewhile the meeting-place of great artists:
Corot, Murger and others of their time. Rue Auguste Comte is another
modern street along an old alley of the garden.
Rue d’Assas, across the garden at one point, runs through the whole of
this arrondissement over what were once the grounds of the two old
convents: the Carmes and Cherche-Midi; it shows a few ancient houses.
No. 8 is eighteenth century. No. 19, l’Institut Catholique, is the
ancient Carmelite convent. George Sand lived in a house once on the site
of No. 28, and Foucault, a celebrated physician who made, besides, the
notable proof of the earth’s rotation by the movement of a pendulum,
died here in 1868. Littré the great lexicographer died at No. 44.
Michelet at No. 76.
Turning again into Rue Vaugirard we find at No. 36, the house built for
the household staff of the Princesse Palatine, its kitchen communicating
with the Petit Luxembourg by an underground passage; at No. 19 remains
of the couvent des Dames Benedictines du Calvaire, founded 1619, and on
the site of the Orangery, the Musée du Luxembourg, inaugurated in 1818,
which grew out of the exhibition in 1750 of a hundred pictures in
possession of the King. Massenet lived and died at No. 48. No. 50, hôtel
de Trémouille, called in Revolutionary times hôtel de la Fraternité,
where Mme de Lafayette died in 1692. Nos. 52 and 54 are ancient, 56 was
the hôtel Kervessan (1700). We reach at No. 70 the old convent of the
Carmes Déchaussés.
CHAPTER XXII
LES CARMES
The tragic story of “les Carmes” has been repeatedly told. The convent
was founded in 1613 by Princesse de Conti and la Maréchale d’Ancre for
the Carmes Déchaussés, who hailed from Rome. The first stone of their
chapel here, dedicated to St. Joseph, was laid by Marie de’ Medici; its
dome was the first dome built in Paris; Italian masters painted frescoes
on its walls. The Order became very popular among Parisians who liked
the _eau de Mélisse_, which it was the nuns’ business, in the secular
line, to make and sell, and they were respected for their goodness to
the poor. When the horrors of the Revolution were filling the city with
blood, the Carmes were left unmolested, some even hidden away in secret
corners of the convent with the connivance of Revolutionary chiefs. Then
priests who refused to take the oath of allegiance were shut up there
and to-day we see, in the old crypt, the bones of more than a hundred of
them, slain by a band led by a revolutionist known as “Tape-dur”--strike-hard.
A prison during the Terror, Mme Tallien, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and
more than seven hundred others were shut up there, led forth thence,
many of them, to execution. These tragic scenes overpast, the convent
was let to a manager of public fêtes: its big hall became a ballroom,
“le bal des Marronniers.” That wonderful woman Camille de Soyecourt,
Sœur Camille, who had previously re-organized the convent, bought it
back in 1797. The garden-shed where the bodies of the murdered priests
had lain was made into a memorial-chapel, razed in 1867. Then the
priests’ bones were carried to the crypt where we now see them. Every
year in the first week of September, anniversary of the Massacre,
the convent, the crypt and the ancient garden, little changed from
Revolution days, are thrown open to the public, where besides the
bones of the massacred priests many interesting tombs and relics are
reverently cared for. It was at the Institut Catholique in the old
Carmelite buildings that the principle of wireless telegraphy was
discovered, in 1890.
The ancient burial-ground of St-Sulpice lies beneath the buildings Nos.
100-102 of the long Rue Vaugirard. No. 104, the Salle Montalembert, is
the ancient convent of the Pères Maristes. At No. 85 we see an old-time
boundary-stone and bas-reliefs.
CHAPTER XXIII
ON ANCIENT ABBEY GROUND
Numerous ancient streets and some modern ones, on time-honoured ground,
lead out of Rue Vaugirard. Rue Bonaparte, extending to the banks of the
Seine, was formed in 1852 of three old streets. Most of its houses are
ancient or show vestiges of past ages and have historic associations. At
No. 45 Gambetta dwelt in 1866. No. 36 was the home of Auguste Comte; on
the site of No. 35 was the kitchen of the great abbey St-Germain-des-Prés,
which stretched across the course of many streets in this district
(_see_ p. 201). No. 20, l’hôtel du duc de Vendôme, son of Henri IV and
Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 19, hôtel de Rohan-Rochefort, where the wife of
the unfortunate due d’Enghien, shot at Vincennes, used to receive her
exiled husband in secret when he came in disguise to Paris. No. 17 is
noted as the office till recent years of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_,
first issued there in 1829 as a magazine of travel!
No. 14, École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, on the site of the convent des
Petits-Augustins, founded by Margaret de Valois in 1605, of which some
walls remain and to which in the nineteenth century were added the
hôtels de Conti and de Bouillon, the latter known as hôtel de Chimay.
The nucleus of the works of art here seen was a collection of sculptures
and other precious relics saved from buildings shattered or suppressed
in the days of the Revolution, reverently laid in what was called at
first a _dépôt des ruines des Monuments_. The word _ruines_ was soon
omitted and the _dépôt_ became the Musée des Monuments Français, under
the able direction of Lenoir. But ruins are still to be seen there,
splendid and historic ruins--the façade of the château d’Anet, built for
Diane de Poitiers, and remains of many another superb _hôtel_ of bygone
ages. A beautiful chapel, paintings by Delaroche, and Ingres, statuary,
mouldings of Grecian and Roman sculpture, are among the treasures of the
Beaux-Arts. Nos. 1 and 3, forming l’hôtel de Chevandon, was inhabited at
one time by vicomte de Beauharnais, the Empress Joséphine’s first
husband.
[Illustration: L’ABBAYE ST-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS]
Rue des Beaux-Arts, opened a century ago, has ever been the habitation
of distinguished artists and men of letters. Rue Visconti, cut across
the Petit Pré-aux-Clercs, the Students’ Fields, in the sixteenth
century, bore till the middle of the nineteenth century the more
characteristic name Rue des Marais-St-Germain. The Visconti it
memoralizes was the architect of Napoléon’s tomb and of restoration work
at the Louvre. In its early years it was a resort of Huguenots, and
known therefore as the “Petite Genève.” It is very narrow and nearly
every house is ancient; Racine died either at No. 13 or at 21. No. 17
was the printing-house founded by de Balzac, to whom it brought ruin.
No. 21, hôtel de Ranes.
Rue Jacob, lengthened in the nineteenth century by the Rue Colombier,
ancient Chemin-aux-Clercs, owes its name to a chapel built by Margaret
de Valois, la Reine Margot--dedicated to the Hebrew patriarch in
fulfilment of a vow when the Queen was kept in durance in Auvergne. The
street has always been the habitation of notable men of letters,
artists, etc. Sterne lived at No. 46. No. 47, Hôpital de la Charité,
another of Marie de’ Medici’s foundations, was built for the Frères de
St-Jean-de-Dieu. The firm of chemists at No. 48--Rouelle--dates from
1750, formerly on the opposite side of the street. At No. 19 we see in
the courtyard vestiges of the old abbey infirmary. The abbey gardens
stretched across the site of several houses here. No. 26, hôtel Lefèvre
d’Ormesson (1710). At No. 22 there is an eighteenth-century structure in
the court called “temple de l’Amitié.” At No. 20 dwelt the great
eighteenth-century actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur. In Rue Furstemburg we
find vestiges of the abbey stables and coach-house.
Rue de l’Abbaye, opened in the last year of the eighteenth century,
stretches across a line once in the heart of the famous abbey grounds.
The first church on the site of the fine old edifice we see there now,
was built under the direction of Germain, bishop of Paris, in the time
of Childebert, about the middle of the sixth century, dedicated to
St-Vincent and known as St-Vincent et Ste-Croix, on account of its
crucifix form. Bishop Germain added a monastery. In the ninth century
came the devastating Normans. The church and convent were destroyed to
be rebuilt on so grand and extensive a scale two centuries later,
strongly fortified, surrounded by a moat, watch-towers, etc.--a
masterpiece of thirteenth-century architecture. In the eighteenth
century the abbey prison was taken over by the State, the Garde
Française lodged there. In September, 1792 Mme Roland, Charlotte Corday
and many another notable prisoner of those terrible days were shut up
within its walls. The fine library and beautiful refectory were burnt
and there, that fatal September, saw some three hundred victims of
Revolutionary fury put to death, the greater number slain on the spot
where Rue Buonaparte touches the _place_ in front of the church. The
prison stood till 1857. The church is full within as without of
intensely interesting architectural and historic features: its tower is
the most ancient church tower of the city. In the little garden square
we see the ruins of the lady-chapel built by Pierre de Montereau,
architect of the Ste-Chapelle. The Gothic roof, the round-arched nave,
the splendid chapel of the Sacré-Cœur, once the church choir, with
its pillars coloured deep red, the wonderful capitals of the chancel,
the old glass in the chapel Ste-Geneviève, the tombs and the statues,
and Flandrin’s glorious frescoes, all appeal to the lover of the
beautiful and the historic. Of the houses in the vicinity of the church
many are ancient, others are on the site of abbey buildings swept away.
No. 3 Rue de l’Abbaye, the abbey palace, dates from 1586, built with a
subterranean passage by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon. The last abbot who
dwelt there was Casimir, King of Poland, whose tomb is in the church. In
modern times it has served as a studio and is now a dispensary. At No.
13 we see the last traces of the monastery with its thirteenth-century
cloister. At No. 15 Rue St-Benoît are the remains of an old tower; at
No. 11 vestiges of an ancient wall; at No. 2, an old house once the
abode of Marc Orry, a famous printer of the days of Henri IV. Through
pipes down this old street water once flowed from the Seine to the
abbey, and it went by the name Rue de l’Égout. The painter of the last
portrait of Marie-Antoinette lived for some time at No. 17.
Rue du Four, i.e. Oven Street, the site in olden days of the abbey
bakehouse, and one of the most important streets of the abbey precincts,
bearing in its early days the royal name Chaussée du Roi, has been
almost entirely rebuilt in modern times. Here and there we find traces
of another age. Robespierre lived here.
Rue du Vieux-Colombier, recalling by its name the abbey dove-cot, has
known among its inhabitants Boileau, Lesage, the husband of Mme
Récamier. Few ancient houses are left there now. We see bas-reliefs at
No. 1.
Rue de Mézières is so called from the hôtel Mézières given in 1610 to
the Jesuits as their _noviciat_. No. 9 is ancient. Rue Madame, which it
crosses, existed under different names from the sixteenth century, part
of it as Rue du Gindre, a reference to the abbey bakehouse once near,
for a _gindre_ is the baker’s chief man. The name of Madame was given in
1790 to the part newly opened across the Luxembourg gardens by the new
occupant of the palace, the comte de Province, brother of Louis XVI, in
honour of his wife. That did not hinder the count from building in the
same street a fine mansion for his mistress, comtesse de Balbi, razed
some years ago. Flandrin lived at No. 54. Renan at No. 55. Rue Cassette
shows us a series of past-time houses, many of them associated with the
memory of notable persons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Alfred de Musset lived there. No. 12 was in the hands of the Carmelites
till the Revolution. No. 21 belonged to the Jesuits till their expulsion
in 1672. In the garden of No. 24 the vicar of St-Sulpice lay hidden
after escaping from the Carmes at the time of the Massacre. Rue
Honoré-Chevalier, in the days of Henri IV Rue du Chevalier Honoré, shows
in its name another link with the abbey bakehouse, for it was that of
the master-baker who cut the street across his own property.
The church St-Sulpice, with its very characteristic façade, the work of
Servandoni, was begun in the middle of the seventeenth century on the
site of a thirteenth-century church dedicated to St. Pierre, but was not
finished till nearly a century later. Servandoni’s towers were
disapproved of; one was demolished and rebuilt by Chalgrin. The other
remains as Servandoni designed it. Entering the church we see its walls
covered with frescoes and paintings; they are all by celebrated artists.
Those in the lady-chapel by Van Loo, the rest by Delacroix and other
masters of modern times. The high altar is unusually large. The shells
for holy water were a gift from the Republic of Venice to François I.
The pulpit with its carved figures was given by Richelieu. In the
Chapelle-des-Étudiants is an organ that belonged to Marie-Antoinette for
the use of her young son, and has been played by Glück and Mozart. A
sacrilegious fête was held in the church in Revolution days and a great
banquet given in honour of Napoléon. The grand organ is very fine, its
woodwork designed by Chalgrin. The services are noted for the beauty of
their music. The _place_ dates from 1800, built on the site of the
ancient seminary “des Sulpiciens,” razed by Napoléon. The present
Séminaire, no longer a seminary--forfeited to the State in 1906--was
built in 1820-25. The immense fountain was put up there nearly half a
century later, an old smaller one taken away.
Almost parallel with Rue Bonaparte the old Rue de Seine stretches from
the banks of the river to Rue St-Sulpice. It dates in its most ancient
part from 1250 as the Pré-aux-Clercs road. No. 1 is a dependency of the
Institute. No. 6 is on the site of a _palais_ built by la Reine Margot
on leaving l’hôtel de Sens, some traces of which are seen among the
buildings on the spot, and part of the Queen’s gardens. No. 10 was
formerly the Art School of Rosa Bonheur. At No. 12 are vestiges of
l’hôtel de la Roche-Guyon and Turenne (1620). Nos. 41, 42, 57, 56, 101
show interesting seventeenth-century features. Rue Mazarine is another
parallel street--a street of ancient houses. No. 12 is notable as the
site of the Jeu de Paume, a tennis-court, where in 1643 Molière set up
his Illustre théâtre. No. 30, hôtel des Pompes, where died in 1723 the
founder of the Paris Fire Brigade; a remarkable man he ... an actor in
Molière’s troup, the father of thirty-two children! On the site of No.
42 stood once another tennis-court, which became the théâtre Guénégaud,
where the first attempts at Opera were made.
Rue de Nesle, till the middle of last century Rue d’Anjou-Dauphine,
stretches across the site of part of the famous hôtel de Nesle; a
subterranean passage formerly ran beneath it. The interesting house No.
8 is one of the many said to be a palace of la Reine Blanche, the mother
of St. Louis. There were, however, as a matter of fact, many “Reines
Blanches” in France in olden times, for royal French widows wore white,
not black for mourning.
Rue de Nevers (thirteenth century) was in past days closed at both ends
and called therefore Rue des Deux-Portes. In Rue Guénégaud we find at
No. 29 a tower of Philippe-Auguste’s wall. All its houses are ancient.
At No. 1 we see the remains of a famous théâtre des Marionnettes.
Rue de l’Ancienne-Comédie, in a line with Rue Mazarine, erewhile Rue des
Fossés-St-Germain, is full of historic memories. The Café Procope at No.
13, now a restaurant, was the first café opened in Paris (1689). Noted
men of every succeeding century drank, talked, made merry or aired their
grievances within its walls: modern paintings there record the features
of some of them. No. 14 was the theatre from which the street takes its
name, succeeded by the Odéon (_see_ p. 184). Rue Grégoire-de-Tours shows
us several curious old houses. At No. 32 we see finely chiselled statues
on the façade. Rue de Buci, originally Rue de Bussy from the
_buis_--box-bush--once growing there, the ecclesiastical “Via Sancti
Germani de Pratis,” later Rue du Pilori, passed in ancient days through
Philippe-Auguste’s wall by a great gate with two towers opened for the
purpose. For it was an all-important thoroughfare. The _carrefour_
whence it started was the busiest spot of the whole district. Persons of
ill-repute or evil conduct were chained there; those condemned to death
were hung there. Sedan chairs for the peaceable were hired there.
Thither Revolutionist volunteers flocked to be enrolled in 1792, and
there the first of the September massacres was perpetrated. Most of the
ancient buildings along its course have been replaced by modern
structures. The street has been in part widened; the site of some old
structures lately razed has not yet been built on.
Rue Dauphine, named in honour of the son of Henri IV, later Louis XIII,
dates from 1607. Most of the houses date from that century or the
century following. Rue Mazet, opening out of it at No. 49, was famed in
past days for the old inn and coaching station--“le Cheval Blanc.” It
existed from 1612 to 1906. Near it was the restaurant Magny, where
literary lions of the early years of the nineteenth century--G. Sand,
Flaubert, the Goncourts, etc.--met and dined. Some old houses still
stand there.
[Illustration: COUR DE ROHAN]
Rue St-André-des-Arts, where in ancient days dwelt the makers and
vendors of “arcs,” i.e. bows, and along which the pious passed to pray
at St-André on abbey territory for those who had suffered death by
burning, (_les Arsis_) was in long-gone times a vine-bordered path
reaching to the city wall. It was known at one time as Rue St-Germain,
and was a great shoemaking street. It is rich in vestiges of the past.
Almost every house has interesting features. The modern Lycée Fénelon at
No. 45, the first girls’ _lycée_ in Paris, stands on the site of the
ancient _hôtel_ of the ducs d’Orléans. No. 52, hôtel du
Tillet-de-la-Bussière. Nos. 47-49, on the site of the ancient mansion of
the Kings of Navarre and of the Vieuville, of which some traces are
still seen. At No. 11, a house on the site of the _place_ where stood
the old church, Gounod was born in 1818. Opening out of it is the
Passage du Commerce-St-André, cut in 1776, across the site of
Philippe-Auguste’s great wall of which, at No. 4, we find the base of a
tower, and in the Cour de Rohan, more correctly perhaps Rouen, a very
perfect fragment of the city rampart. The archbishops of Rouen had an
_hôtel_ here, and the vestiges we see before us are those of a mansion
built on its site by King Henri II for Diane de Poitiers. Rue des
Grands-Augustins, in part on the site of an ancient Augustine convent,
was, in the thirteenth century, Rue l’Abbé de St-Denis. Many of its
houses show interesting traces of the past. The reputed restaurant
Lapérouse at No. 1 is a Louis XV _hôtel_. At No. 5 and No. 7 remains of
the ancient hôtel d’Hercule, noted for its mythological paintings and
tapestries, once the Paris abode of the princess of Savoie Carignan. At
No. 3 Rue Pont de Lodi, opening at No. 6, we see traces of the convent
refectory. Littré was born at No. 21 (1808). In 1841 Heine lived at No.
25. Sardou in his youth at No. 26. Augustin Thierry lived for ten years
in a house near the quay.
Almost every house in Rue Christine, named after the second daughter of
Henri IV, dates from the seventeenth century.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN THE VICINITY OF PLACE ST-MICHEL
An ancient _place_ and part of the old Rue de l’Hirondelle, and an
ancient chapel stretched in bygone days where now we see the broad new
Place St-Michel. The colossal fountain we see there was put up in 1860,
replacing a seventeenth-century fountain on the ancient _place_, which
lay a little more to the south. Of the boulevard--the famous “Boule
Miche”--we will speak later (_see_ p. 306).
Turning into Rue de l’Hirondelle, in the twelfth century Rue
l’Arondale-en-Laac, then Rue Herondalle, we see remains of the ancient
Collège d’Antin, founded in 1371, and an eighteenth-century house on the
site of the mansion of the bishop of Chartres previously there. Rue
Gît-le-Cœur, probably indicated in fourteenth-century days the
dwelling-place of the King’s cook ... _Gille_ his name; _cœur_, a
misspelling for _queux_, cook. At No. 5 we see remains of hôtel Séguier.
Rue Séguier was a thoroughfare, a country road in Childebert’s time; in
the fourteenth century it became a street with the name
Pavée-St-André-des-Arts. Every house has some interesting feature. The
famous Hostellerie St-François till the eighteenth century on the site
of No. 3, was the starting-point of the coaches for Normandy and
Brittany. At No. 6 we see traces of the hôtel de Nemours. The Frères
Cordonniers de St-Crépin, founded in 1645 (Shoemakers’ Confraternity),
had its quarters where we see the Nos. 9, 11, 13. J. de Ste-Beuve, the
Jansenist, was born and in 1677 died at No. 17. At No. 18 we see all
that is left of a fourteenth-century hôtel de Nevers on the site of an
older _hôtel_. The burial-ground of the church St-André stretched along
part of Rue Suger: the presbytery was on the site of No. 13. Every house
in this narrow old street tells of past days. At No. 3 we find traces of
the chapel of the Collège de Boissy, founded in 1360 by a Canon of
Chartres for seven poor students. Another old-time college stood in Rue
de l’Éperon and till 1907, an ancient house, a dependency of the church
St-André-des-Arts. Rue Serpente, a winding road in its earliest days, a
street about the year 1200, was the site of the celebrated hôtel
Serpente, and of the firm of printers where Tallien was an employé. The
very modern Rue Danton, with its emphatically up-to-date structure in
re-enforced concrete, has swept away a host of ancient houses. The hôtel
des Sociétés Savantes is on the site of the hôtel de Thou, l’hôtel des
États-de-Blois in the time of Louis XV.
Rue Mignon, twelfth century, recalls yet another college founded in 1343
by a dignitary of Chartres of this name; ancient houses at Nos. 1 and 5.
The most interesting of these old streets is Rue Hautefeuille with its
two turrets, one at No. 5, the ancient _hôtel_ of the Abbots of Fécamp,
fourteenth century, the other octagonal, at No. 21, on the corner of
what was once part of the Collège Damville of the same date: there in
Roman times stood the castle Altum Folium--Hautefeuille--of which
remains were found in the fourteenth century. This old street was no
doubt a road leading to the citadel.
[Illustration: RUE HAUTEFEUILLE]
CHAPTER XXV
L’ODÉON
An interesting corner of Old Paris lies on the north-east side of the
Odéon. Rue Racine, opening on the _place_ before the theatre, runs
through the ancient territory of the Cordeliers. Vestiges of a Roman
cemetery were found in recent years beneath the soil at No. 28, and at
No. 11 were unearthed traces of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste.
George Sand lived for a time at No. 3. Rue de l’École de Médecine was
once in part Rue des Cordeliers, in part Rue des Boucheries-St-Germain,
a name telling its own tale. No less than twenty-two butchers’ shops
flourished here. At the outbreak of the Revolution a butcher was
president of the famous club des Cordeliers established in the ancient
convent chapel (1791-94). The refectory, the church-like structure we
see at No. 15, now an anatomy museum, built by Anne of Bretagne in the
fifteenth century, is all that remains of the convent buildings dating
in part from the early years of the twelfth century, which covered a
great part of this district from the days of Louis IX. Many of these
buildings were put to secular uses before the outbreak of the
Revolution. The cloister stood till 1877, made into a prison, then was
razed to make room for the École de Médecine built in part with the
ancient cloister stones. The chapel stood on what is now Place de
l’École-de-Médecine. The amphitheatre of the School of Surgery at No.
5, an association founded by St. Louis, dates from the end of the
seventeenth century on the site of an older structure. Above the cellars
at No. 4 stood in olden days the College of Damville. The Faculté de
Médecine at No. 12 is on the site of the Collège-Royal de Bourgogne,
founded in 1331. The first stone of the present building was laid by
Louis XVI. The edifice was enlarged in later days, restored in 1900. The
bas-relief on its frontal, sculptured as a figure of Louis XV, was by
order of the Commune transformed in 1793 into the woman draped we see
there now. Skulls of famous persons, some noted criminals, may be seen
at the Museum. Marat lived and died in Rue des Cordeliers. There
Charlotte Corday was seized by the enraged mob. Traces of the ancient
convent may be seen in the short Rue Antoine-Dubois. Rue Dupuytren lies
across what was the convent graveyard. Nos. 7-9 were dependencies of the
old convent. No. 7 was later a free school of drawing directed by Rosa
Bonheur. Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, so named in 1806, because of the
vicinity of the hôtel du Prince de Condé, was in olden days Chemin des
Fossés. We see there many characteristic houses. Auguste Comte died at
No. 10 in 1857.
CHAPTER XXVI
ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE
Passing to the western half of the arrondissement, we turn into the
modern Rue de Rennes, running south from Place St-Germain-des-Prés along
the lines of razed convent buildings or their vanished gardens. The
short Rue Gozlin opening out of it dates from the thirteenth century,
its present name recording that of a bishop of Paris who defended the
city against invading Normans in the ninth century. Two only of the
houses we see there now are ancient, Nos. 1 and 5. At No. 50 we see the
seventeenth-century entrance of the old Cour du Dragon, with its balcony
and huge piece of sculpture dating from 1735; the quaint houses of the
alley, with its gutter in the middle, were in past days the habitation
of ironmongers. It leads down into the old Rue du Dragon, which began as
Rue du Sépulcre, being then the property of the monks of St-Sépulcre. A
fine _hôtel_ stood once at either end. At No. 76 we see the remains of a
mansion, taken later for a convent, where Bossuet sojourned. Nos.
147-127 are on the site of a Roman cemetery.
Rue Cherche-Midi, once Chasse-Midi, takes its name from an ancient
sign-board illustrating the old French proverb: “Chercher midi à
quatorze heures,” i.e. to look for something wide of the mark. Many
old-time houses still stand along its course. It starts from the
Carrefour de la Croix-Rouge, where, before a cross in the centre of the
Carrefour, criminals and political offenders were put to death. The name
is probably due to a sign-board rather than to the alleged colour of
this cross. In this quiet spot, as historians have remarked, a flaring
red cross would hardly have been in keeping with the temper of its
patrician inhabitants. The Revolutionists called it Carrefour du
Bonnet-Rouge. At No. 12 we see a fine _grille_. One of the most
interesting historically inhabited _hôtels_ of the city stood till 1907
on the site of No. 37, in olden times the dependency of a convent,
latterly hôtel des Conseils-de-Guerre, razed to make way for the
brand-new boulevard Raspail. The military prison opposite is on the site
of a convent organized in the house of an exiled Calvinist, razed in
1851. Nos. 85, 87, 89, eighteenth century, belonged to a branch of the
Montmorency--knew successive inhabitants of historic fame and
illustrious name. A fine fountain is seen in the Cour des
Vieilles-Tuileries at No. 86. Several old shorter streets lead out of
this long one. In Rue St-Romain, named after an old-time Prior of
St-Germain-des-Prés, we see the fine old hôtel de M. de Choiseul, now
the headquarters of the National Savings Bank. Rue St-Placide,
seventeenth century, recording the name of a celebrated Benedictine
monk, shows some ancient vestiges. Huysmans died at No. 31 in 1907. In
Rue Dupin, once Petite Rue du Bac, we see ancient houses at Nos. 19-12,
in the latter a carved wood Louis XIII staircase. Rue du Regard, another
“Chemin Herbu” of past days, records by its present name the existence
of an old fountain once here, now placed near the fountain Médici of the
Luxembourg gardens. The publishing house Didot at No. 3 is on the site
of a handsome ancient mansion once the home of the children of Mme de
Montespan, sacrificed to the boulevard Raspail in 1907. Nos. 5-7 date
from the first years of the eighteenth century. The doors of the Mont de
Pitié are all that is left of hôtel de la Guiche once on the site.
Rue de Sèvres, forming in the greater part of its course the boundary
between arrondissements VI and VII, running on into arrondissement XV,
was known familiarly in old days as Rue de la Maladrerie, on account of
its numerous hospitals. They are numerous still. At No. 11 and No. 13 we
find remains of the couvent des Prémontrés Réformés founded by Anne
d’Autriche, 1661. Rue Récamier was recently opened on the site of the
famous Abbaye-aux-Bois, where for thirty years Mme de Récamier lived the
“simple life,” courted none the less by a crowd of ardent admirers--the
_tout Paris_ of that day. The Abbaye, as a convent, counted notable
women among its abbesses; at the Revolution it was suppressed and let
out in flats till its regrettable demolition in 1908. The Square Potain
close by, now known as Square du Bon Marché, is on the site of a
leper-house which dated from the reign of Philippe-Auguste. A convent
and adjoining buildings of ancient date were destroyed to allow
boulevard Raspail to pursue its course. An old house still stands at No.
26; vestiges at No. 31. At No. 42 we see the Hospice des Incurables,
founded in 1634 by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and known since 1878 as
l’Hospice Laennec. Here in 1819 died the woman Simon, the jailer of the
little dauphin “Louis XVII,” after a sojourn of twenty-five years. The
minister Turgot and other persons of note lie buried in the chapel. The
Egyptian fountain dates from 1806. At No. 84 we see very recently
erected houses let out in flats on the site of the couvent des Oiseaux,
dating from the early years of the eighteenth century--the prison du
Bonnet Rouge during the Revolution, a convent school and _pension_ in
1818 till its suppression in 1906. The “Oiseaux”--birds--were perhaps
those of an aviary, or maybe those painted by Pigalle on the walls of
one of the rooms. The Lazarist convent at No. 95 was previously a
private mansion dating from the time of Louis XV. The chapel dates from
1827 and sheltered for some years the remains of St-Vincent-de-Paul. In
the eighteenth century, on the site of No. 125, wild beast fights took
place. The last numbers of the street are in arrondissement XV. There we
see the ancient Benedictine convent, suppressed in 1779--become
l’Hôpital Necker. The hospital at No. 149 began life in 1676 as a
community of “_gentilshommes_”; seventy years later it was the “Maison
Royale de l’Enfant-Jésus” under the patronage of Marie Leczinska,
enlarged by the gift of an adjoining mansion. Closed at the Revolution,
it served for a time as a coal-store, then became a National orphanage,
and in 1802 the “Enfants Malades”; its ancient chapel was replaced by
the chapel we see under Napoléon III.
CHAPTER XXVII
HÔTEL DES INVALIDES
ARRONDISSEMENT VII. (PALAIS-BOURBON)
It was Henri IV, _le bon Roi_, who first planned the erection of a
special _hôtel_ to shelter aged and wounded soldiers. Meanwhile they
were lodged in barracks in different parts of the city. The fine _hôtel_
we know was built by Louis XIV, opened in 1674, restored in after years
by Napoléon I, and again by Napoléon III. The greatest military names of
France figure in the list of its governors.
On July 14th, 1789, the Paris mob rushed to the Invalides for arms
wherewith to storm the Bastille. On the 30th of March, 1814, nearly
fifteen hundred flags and trophies were destroyed in a great bonfire
made in the court to prevent them from falling into the hands of the
enemy Allies. But the chapel is still hung with flags and trophies taken
in wars long overpast and three museums--le Musée Historique, le Musée
d’Artillerie, le Musée des Plans-en-relief--have been important features
at les Invalides since 1905. The ancient refectory has become la
Salle-des-Armures, decorated with frescoes illustrative of the great
battles of bygone days from the time of Louis XIV onward. The big
cannons--_la batterie triomphale_--we see behind the moats are those
captured in the Napoléonic wars. Now in these poignant days of
unparalleled warfare, immense cannons of the most up-to-date
construction, monstrous airships, broken zeppelins, are gathered in the
great courtyards. In the chapel St-Louis we see the tombs of
distinguished soldiers and memorials in honour of the heroes of old-time
war-days. The dome-church, separated from it by the immense
stained-glass window, was built as a special chapel for the King and
Court, its dome decorated with paintings by the greatest artists of the
time. The sumptuous tomb of Napoléon I, the work of Visconti, was placed
there in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The gravestone from St-Helena and other souvenirs were put in the chapel
St-Nicolas in 1910. Of late years no new pensioners were received,
veterans of war-days past were for long the sole inhabitants of the
soldiers’ quarters--the only “_invalides_.” Now the institution is once
more to be peopled with a crowd of disabled heroes, victims of the
terrible war.
Avenue de Tourville, planned when the hôtel des Invalides was built, was
not opened till the century following. Of the four avenues opening out
of it, Avenue de Ségur, Avenue de Villars, Avenue de Breteuil, opened in
1780, record the names of distinguished generals of Napoléon’s time, but
show us no historic structures. In Avenue de Lowenthal we see the façade
of l’École Militaire, a vast building reaching to Avenue de la
Motte-Picquet. It dates from 1752, the work of Gabriel, and was
originally destined for the military education of five hundred “young
gentlemen.” Under the Convention it was turned into a flour store.
Restored as a school, the “Enfants de Mars”--military students of all
ranks--were admitted there. Young Buonaparte, come from Corsica to study
in Paris, spent a year here and was confirmed in its chapel, now used
for storing clothes. When that young student had made himself Emperor,
the Imperial Guard took up their quarters here--to be followed after
1824 by the Royal Guard. Under Napoléon III the building was
considerably changed.
At No. 13 boulevard des Invalides we catch a glimpse of the former
couvent du Sacré-Cœur, the old hôtel Biron: its chief entrance is Rue
de Varennes (_see_ p. 194). No. 41 was l’hôtel de Condé. No. 50 l’hôtel
de Richepanse. No. 52 l’hôtel de Masserano. No. 56 is the Institution
Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, a modern structure, its foundation dating
from 1791, one of the last foundations of Louis XVI. The statue we see
is that of Valentin Haüy, its original organizer.
Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg is lined by fine _hôtels_, all modern,
only the names of their owners recalling days past. Avenue de la
Motte-Picquet is equally devoid of historic interest, save as regards
l’École-Militaire (_see_ p. 191). But turning aside from these fine
latter-day avenues, we find in the vicinity of the Invalides several of
the oldest historic streets of the Rive Gauche.
Rue de Babylone existed under other names from the early years of the
fifteenth century. Its present designation is in memory of Bernard de
Ste-Thérèse, bishop of Babylone, who owned property there whereon, at
No. 22, was built in 1663 the Séminaire des Missions Étrangères. At No.
20 we see the statue of Notre-Dame de la Paix with the inscription:
“l’Original de cette image est un chef d’œuvre si parfait que le
Tout-Puissant qui l’a fait s’est renfermé dans son ouvrage.” At No. 21
live “sisters” of St-Vincent-de-Paul, so active always in Christian work
and service. No. 32 is the ancient Petit hôtel Matignon. No. 33 is the
property of the sisters of No. 21. At No. 49 we see the ancient barracks
of les Gardes Françaises, so gallantly defended by the Suisses in July,
1830.
In the short Rue Monsieur (the Monsieur of the day was the brother of
Louis XVI), we find at No. 12 the _hôtel_ built for Mademoiselle de
Bourbon-Condé, aunt of the duc d’Enghien, abbesse de Remiremont, who
lies buried beneath the pavement of the Benedictine convent at No. 20.
No. 5 shows us remains of the _hôtel_ of duc de Saint-Simon, the famous
diarist-historian. Passing up Rue Barbet de Jouy, cut in 1838 across the
site of an ancient mansion, we come to Rue de Varennes, a long line of
splendid dwellings dating from a past age.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OLD-TIME MANSIONS OF THE RIVE GAUCHE
ARRONDISSEMENT VII. PALAIS-BOURBON
The word Varennes is a corruption of Garennes: in English the Rue de
Varennes would be Warren Street, a name leading us back in thought to
the remote age when the district was wild, uncultivated land full of
rabbit-warrens. Another street joined to Rue de Varennes in 1850, and
losing thus its own name, made it the long street we enter. No. 77 is
the handsome mansion and park built early in the eighteenth century by
Gabriel for a parvenu wig-maker. Later it was l’hôtel de Maine, then
hôtel Biron, to become in 1807 the well-known convent of the
Sacré-Cœur. From its convent-days dates the chapel--now the Musée
Rodin. Other dependencies of the same date, built to house the nuns,
were razed after their evacuation in 1904, when educational
congregations were suppressed. The State, in possession of the domain,
let it out for a time in _logements_, used it for a brief period as a
National School, then let the whole property to the great sculptor,
Rodin, who always had his eye on fine old buildings threatened with
degradation or destruction. “I could weep,” he once said to me, “when I
see fine historic walls ruthlessly razed to the ground.” The disaffected
chapel became his studio and he set about maturing the plan, faithfully
carried out after his death, of organizing there a national museum. He
offered the whole of his own works and all the precious works of art he
had collected to the State for this purpose. A clause in the treaty
stipulates that in the possible but unlikely event of the restitution of
the chapel building, after a lapse of years, to religious authorities,
it be replaced as a museum by a new structure in the grounds. No. 73 is
hôtel de Broglie, 1775. No. 69 hôtel de Clermont, 1714. No. 80 is the
Ministère du Commerce. No. 78 the Ministère de l’Agriculture, built in
1712 as the habitation of an _actrice_. No. 65 began as l’hôtel de la
Marquise de la Suze, 1787, to become l’hôtel Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville.
No. 72 l’hôtel de Dufour, 1700. No. 64 was an eighteenth-century inn.
No. 57, l’hôtel de Matignon, made over by the duchesse de Galliera after
her husband’s death to the Emperor of Austria, became the Austrian
Embassy--till 1914. Numerous have been the persons of historic name and
note who stayed or lived at this grand old mansion. It was owned at one
time by Talleyrand, whose home was next door at No. 55; by the comte de
Paris, who on the marriage of his daughter Amélie and Don Carlo of
Portugal, in 1886, gave there a fête so magnificent that it led to the
banishment of the Orléans and other princely families of France on the
ground of royalist propaganda. Nos. 62-60 are ancient. No. 58 l’hôtel
d’Auroy, 1750; l’hôtel Rochefoucauld in 1775. No. 56 l’hôtel de
Gouffier, 1760. No. 55 l’hôtel d’Angennes. Nos. 52-52 _bis_ l’hôtel de
Guébriant. No. 47 l’hôtel de Jaucourt, 1788, later de
Rochefoucauld-Dundeauville. No. 48 the hôtel de Charles Skelton.
Monseigneur de Ségur was born here in 1820. No. 45 is l’hôtel de
Cossé-Brissac, 1765. No. 46 the petit hôtel de Narbonne-Pelet. Nos.
43-41 l’hôtel d’Avrincourt. At No. 23 are vestiges of l’hôtel
St-Gelais, 1713. No. 21 is l’hôtel de Narbonne-Pelet. No. 22 l’hôtel de
Biron, 1775. No. 19 l’hôtel de Chanterac. In its passage here as
elsewhere Boulevard Raspail has swept away venerable buildings.
The Esplanade on the northern side of the hôtel des Invalides, once
Plaine-des-Prés-St-Germain, stretches between three long and old-world
streets--Rue de Grenelle, Rue St-Dominique, Rue de l’Université--all
crossing the 7th arrondissement in almost its entire extent.
Rue de Grenelle, in the fifteenth century Chemin de Garnelle, then
Chemin des Vaches, a country road, has near its higher end where we
start two ancient streets leading out of it, Rue de la Comète (1775),
named to record the passage of the famous comet of 1763, where at No. 19
we see a curious old courtyard, and Rue de Fabert with an ancient
one-storied house at its corner. No. 127 hôtel de Charnac, abbé de
Pompadour, was the palace Mgr. Richard was forced to give up in
1906--now Ministère du Travail. Nos. 140-138, a fine mansion built in
1724, inhabited till the eighteenth century by noblemen of mark, is now
hôtel de l’État-Major de l’Armée and Service Géographique de l’Armée. At
No. 115, formerly l’hôtel du Marquis de Saumery, the _actrice_ Adrienne
Lecouvreur died and was secretly buried. The short Rue de Martignac,
opening at No. 130, showing no noteworthy feature, was built in 1828 on
the ancient grounds of the Carmelites and the Dames de Bellechasse. No.
105 belonged to Berryer, the famous lawyer, 1766, then to Lamoignon de
Basville. No. 122, l’hôtel d’Artagnan, to Maréchal de Montesquieu. At
No. 101 l’hôtel d’Argenson, 1700, where Casimir Perier died of cholera
in 1832; now Ministère de Commerce de l’Industrie. No. 118 l’hôtel de
Villars, etc., has very beautiful woodwork. No. 116, the Mairie since
1865, an ancient _hôtel_ transformed and enlarged in modern times. No.
110 l’hôtel Rochechouart, built on land taken from the nuns of
Bellechasse, inhabited at one time by Marshal Lames, duc de Montebello,
is the Ministère de l’Instruction Publique. At No. 97 Saint Simon wrote
his diaries and in 1755 died here. No. 106, in 1755 Temple du
Panthémont, the abode of a community of nuns from the Benedictine abbey
near Beauvais, was sold in lots after the Revolution; its chapel was
taken for a Protestant church. No. 87, known in a past age as hôtel de
Grimberghe, has a fine staircase. No. 104 formed part of the Panthémont
convent. No. 85, l’hôtel d’Avaray 1718, abode, in 1727, of Horace
Walpole when ambassador. No. 83 hôtel de Bonneval, 1763. No. 81, Russian
Embassy, was built by Cotte in 1709 for the duchesse d’Estrées. No. 102
was built by Lisle Mansart in the first years of the eighteenth century.
At No. 90 we turn for an instant into Rue St-Simon to look at the Latin
inscriptions on Nos. 4-2, dating, however, only from 1881. No. 77, École
Libre, originally l’hôtel de la Motte-Houdancourt, was inhabited in
recent times by marquis de Gallifet. No. 75, seventeenth century, built
by Cardinal d’Estrées. No. 88 l’hôtel de Noailles. No. 73, Italian
Embassy, built by Legrand in 1775. At No. 71, annexed to the Italian
Embassy, the duke of Alba died in 1771.
The fine Fontaine des Quatre Saisons, dating from 1737, erected by
Bouchandon, was inaugurated by Turgot, Prévôt des Marchands in 1749.
Here, at No. 59, Alfred de Musset lived and wrote from 1824 to 1840. No.
36, “A la Petite Chaise,” dates from 1681; No. 25, hôtel de Hérissey,
from 1747. No. 15 is on the site of an ancient hôtel Beauvais. No. 20
Petit hôtel de Beauvais, 1687. The modern house and garage at Nos. 16-18
are on the site of a house owned by a nephew of La Fontaine and which
was inhabited by the Beauharnais. At No. 11 we find vestiges of the
_hôtel_ of Pierre de Beauvais, a fine mansion, where the Doge of Venise,
come to Paris to make obeisance to Louis XIV, stayed in 1686; a convent
subsequently, then the Mairie of the district till 1865, when the
lengthening of Rue des Saints-Pères swept it away.
Rue St-Dominique, like Rue de Grenelle in ancient days a country
road--“Chemin aux Vaches,” then “Chemin de la Justice”--grew into a
thoroughfare of fine _hôtels_, some still standing, others swept away by
the cutting of the modern boulevard St-Germain or incorporated in the
newer _hôtels_ there. It is the district of the Gros Caillou, the great
stone, which once marked the bounds of the abbey grounds of
St-Germain-des-Prés. The fountain at No. 129, dating from the early
years of the nineteenth century, is by Beauvalet. The Hygia healing a
warrior we see sculptured there reminds us of the military hospital
recently demolished. The church St-Pierre du Gros-Caillou dates from
1738, on the site of a chapel built there in 1652. In the court at No.
94 we find an old pavilion. A curious old house at No. 74, an old
courtyard at No. 66. At No. 81 an ancient inn had once the sign “Le
Canon ci-devant Royal.” No. 67 was the “Palais des Vaches laitières.”
No. 32 l’hôtel Beaufort. No. 57 l’hôtel de Sagan, built in 1784 for the
princesse de Monaco, _née_ Brignole-Salé, now in the hands of an
antiquarian. No. 53 l’hôtel de la princesse de Kunsky, 1789. At No. 49
we find an eighteenth-century _hôtel_ in the court. The fine _hôtel_ at
No. 28, 1710, was at one time the Nunciate. No. 47 l’hôtel de
Seiguelay, where at the beginning of the nineteenth century gas, newly
invented, was first used. No. 45 hôtel Comminges. No. 43 hôtel de
Ravannes. No. 41 is ancient. At Nos. 22-20 we see the name of the street
” ... Dominique,” the word saint suppressed in Revolution days. No. 35
l’hôtel de Broglie. Nos. 16-14, built in 1730, now the War Minister’s
official dwelling (1730), in Napoléon’s time the Paris home of his
mother, “Madame Laetitia.” In the first of these two _hôtels_, joined to
make one, we see Louis XV woodwork decorations, “Empire” decorations in
the other. No. 33 l’hôtel Panouse.
The church Ste-Clotilde, 1846-56, is built on the site of a demolished
Carmelite convent. The fine bas-reliefs by Pradier and Duret are the
best work there. Nos. 12, 10, 8, Ministère de la Guerre since 1804, was
once the couvent des Filles de St-Joseph, founded 1640. No. 11, site of
the Pavillon de Bellechasse, the home of Mme de Genlis. Nos. 5-3 l’hôtel
de Tavannes. Gustave Doré died at No. 5, in 1883. No. 1, _hôtel_ of duc
de Mortemart, built 1695, where we see an oval court.
Rue Solférino, No. 1, the chancellerie de la Légion d’Honneur (see p.
205).
Rue de l’Université, so long and interesting a thoroughfare, recalls the
days when the Pré-aux-Clercs through which it was cut was the classic
promenade of Paris students. It was known in its early days as Rue de la
Petite-Seyne, then as Rue du Pré-aux-Clercs. The seventeenth century saw
a series of lawsuits between the landowners and the University, the
latter claiming certain rights and privileges there. The University was
the losing party, the only right conceded to Alma Mater was that of
giving her name to the old street. No. 182, an ancient _garde-meuble_
and statuary _dépôt_, was in recent days Rodin’s _atelier_. No. 137 was
built about 1675 with the stones left over at the building of les
Invalides. No. 130, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, is modern. No.
128 the official dwelling of the président de la Chambre. No. 126 Palais
Bourbon (_see_ p. 304). No. 108, Turgot died here in 1781. No. 102 was
the abode of the duc d’Harcourt in 1770. The side of the Ministère de la
Guerre we see at No. 73, a modern erection, is on the site of several
historic _hôtels_ demolished to make way for it and for the new
boulevard. Lamartine lived at No. 88 in 1848, after living in 1843 at
No. 80. No. 78 was built by Harduin-Mansart in the seventeenth century.
No. 72 was l’hôtel de Guise (1728). Mme Atkins (_see_ p. 205) lived at
l’hôtel Mailly, in what is now Rue de Villersexel, in 1816. The
remarkably fine hôtel de Soyecourt at No. 51 dates from 1775. No. 43
l’hôtel de Noailles. Alphonse Daudet died at No. 41 (1897). No. 35 was
the home of Valdeck-Rousseau. The Magasins du Petit-St-Thomas, built on
the site of the ancient hôtel de l’Université (seventeenth century),
inhabited at one time by the duc de Valentinois, by Henri d’Aguesseau,
etc., have been razed to make way for a big new bank. Montyon, the
philanthropist, founder of the Virtue prizes given yearly by the French
Academy, died at No. 23 in the year 1820 (_see_ p. 225). No. 15 built in
1685 for a notable Fermier-général. No. 13 was in 1772 the site of the
Venetian Embassy. At No. 24, in the court, we see a fine old
eighteenth-century _hôtel_ built by Servandoni. The houses No. 18 and
No. 20 were built upon the old gardens of la Reine Margot, which
stretched down here from her palace, Rue de Seine. From the Place du
Palais-Bourbon, due to Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé, we see one
side of the Chambre des Députés, built as the Palais-Bourbon by a
daughter of Louis XIV (1722). It was enlarged later by the prince de
Condé, confiscated in 1780 and renamed Maison de la Révolution, almost
entirely rebuilt under Napoléon. Its Grecian peristyle dates from 1808.
In 1816 a prince de Condé was again in possession. The Government bought
it back in 1827 and built the present Salle des Séances. In Rue de
Bourgogne, on the other side of the _place_, we find several
eighteenth-century _hôtels_. No. 48 was hôtel Fitz-James. No. 50 has
been the archbishop’s palace since 1907. Mgr. Richard died there in
1908.
The Champ-de-Mars, wholly modern as we see it, surrounded by brand new
streets and avenues, stretches across ancient historic ground. Not yet
so named, the territory was a veritable _champ de Mars_ more than a
thousand years ago when, in 888, the warrior bishop Eudes, at the head
of his Parisians, faced the Norman invaders there and forced them to
retreat. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the great space was
enclosed as the exercising-ground of the École Militaire. The Fête
Nationale de la Fédération was held there on 14th July, 1790, presided
by Talleyrand; a year later, 17th July, 1791, La Fayette-Bailly fired
upon the mob that gathered here, clamouring for the deposition of the
King. At the corner where the Avenue de la Bourdonnais now passes the
guillotine was set up for the execution of Bailly in 1793. On June 8th,
1794, the people from far and near crowded here for the Fête de l’Être
Suprême. In 1804 the Champ-de-Mars was called for a time Champ-de-Mai.
But it remained, nevertheless, the site of military displays. Napoléon’s
eagles and the new decoration, la Légion d’Honneur, were first bestowed
here, and when, in 1816, Louis XVIII mounted the throne of France, it
was on the Champ-de-Mars that soldiers and civilians received once more
the _drapeau blanc_.
Horse-races took place here. Here, so long ago as 1783, the first
primitive airship was sent up. Also, later, a giant balloon. The great
exhibition of 1798 and all succeeding great exhibitions, as well as many
smaller ones, were held on the Champ-de-Mars. The park we see was laid
out in 1908.
CHAPTER XXIX
ANCIENT STREETS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN
The extensive district on the left bank of the Seine, through which was
cut in modern times the wide boulevard St-Germain, was in its remotest
days the Villa Sancti Germani, with its “_prés-aux-clercs_” a rural
expanse surrounding the abbey and quite distinct from the city of Paris,
without its bounds. The inhabitants of that privileged district were
exempt from Paris “rates and taxes,” to use our latter-day expression,
and enjoyed other legal immunities. They were subject only to the
authority of the abbey administration and were actively employed in
agricultural and other rustic occupations for the abbey benefit. The
territory was a region of thatched-roofed dwellings, barns and
granaries. When at length certain _grands seigneurs_ chose the district
for the erection of country mansions, these newly built houses were soon
forcibly abandoned, many of them destroyed, in the course of the Hundred
Years’ War. A century or more later more mansions were built and the
bourg St-Germain grew into the aristocratic quarter it finally became
after the erection of the Tuileries, Catherine de’ Medeci’s new palace,
in the middle of the sixteenth century. The venerable old Rue du Bac was
made on the left bank of the Seine in a straight line with the ford
(_bac_) across the river in the year 1550, for the transport of
materials needed in the construction of the palace. The rough road
along which the carters came with their loads, stone from the southern
quarries, etc., grew into a fashionable street in the early years of the
century following, when, after due authorization of the abbé of
St-Germain-des-Prés, fine new _hôtels_ were built in every direction
across the Prè-aux-Clercs, to be within easy distance of the Tuileries
and the Court. Thus was created, in the first years of the eighteenth
century, the patrician Faubourg St-Germain. The old houses in Rue du Bac
which were nearest the river were burnt by the Communards in 1871, when
the Tuileries itself was destroyed.
The headquarters of the Mousquetaires Gris was once on the site of the
houses Nos. 18-17. Many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century houses still
stand. At No. 37 we find an old and interesting court. No. 46, hôtel
Bernard, was successively inhabited by men of note, much of its ancient
interior decoration has been removed. No. 94 belonged till recently to
the Frères Chrétiens. No. 85 was once the royal monastery known as les
Récollettes, subsequently in turn a theatre, a dancing saloon, a concert
hall. At No. 98 Pichegru is said to have passed his first night in
Paris. Here the Chouans held their secret meetings and Cadoudal lay in
hiding. We see a fine door, balcony and staircase at No. 97. No. 101
dates from the time of Louis XIV. Nos. 120-118, hôtel de
Clermont-Tonnerre; Chateaubriand died here in 1848. No. 128 is the
Séminaire des Missions Étrangères, founded 1663 by Bernard de
Ste-Thérèse, bishop of Babylone. No. 136 hôtel de Crouseilhes. No. 140
began as a _maladrerie_, was later the abode of the King’s falconer, and
was given in 1813 to the Order of St-Vincent-de-Paul. Mme Legras,
St-Vincent-de-Paul’s ardent fellow-worker, was buried in the chapel.
The great shops of the Bon Marché stretch where private mansions stood
of yore.
Rue de Lille, formerly Rue de Bourbon, has many ancient houses. We see
in the wall of No. 14 an old sundial with inscriptions in Latin. At No.
26 we find vestiges of a chapel founded by Anne d’Autriche. No. 67,
built in 1706 for President Duret, was annexed later to the _hôtel_ of
prince Monaco-Valentinois. No. 79, hôtel de Launion, 1758, was the house
of Charlotte Walpole, who became Mrs. Atkins, the devoted friend of the
Bourbons, and spent a fortune in her efforts to save the Dauphin. She
died here in 1836. No. 64, built in 1786 for the prince de Salm-Kyrburg,
was gained in a lottery by a wig-maker’s assistant, in the first days of
the First Empire, an adventurer who bought the pretty palace of
Bagatelle beyond Paris, was arrested for forgery, then disappeared. Used
as a club, then, in 1804, as the palace of the Légion d’Honneur, it was
burnt by the Communards in 1871, rebuilt at the cost of the
_légionnaires_ in 1878. No. 78, built by Boffrand, was the home of
Eugène de Beauharnais; we see there the bedroom of Queen Hortense.
German Embassy before the war.
Rue de Verneuil is another seventeenth-century street built across the
Pré-aux-Clercs. Nos. 13-15 was first a famous eighteenth-century
riding-school, then the Académie Royale Dugier; later, till 1865, Mairie
of the arrondissement. The inn at No. 24 was the meeting-place of
royalists in the time of the Empire.
Rue de Beaume has several interesting _hôtels_, their old-time features
well preserved. In the seventeenth century Carnot’s ancestors lived
between the Nos. 17-25. At No. 10 we see remains of the headquarters of
the Mousquetaires Gris, which extended across the meeting-point of the
four streets: Beaume, Verneuil, Bac, Lille. No. 2 was l’hôtel
Mailly-Nesle.
Rue des Saints-Pères marks the boundary-line between arrondissements VI
and VII, an old-world street of historic associations. It began at the
close of the thirteenth century as Rue aux Vaches; cows passed there in
those days to and from the farmyards of the abbey St-Germain-des-Prés.
In the sixteenth century it was known, like Rue de Sèvres into which it
runs, as Rue de la Maladrerie, to become Rue des Jacobins Réformés,
finally Rue St-Pierre from the chapel built there, a name corrupted to
Saints-Pères. No. 2 l’hôtel de Tessé. No. 6 (1652) once the stables of
Marie-Thérèse de Savoie. No. 28 l’hôtel de Fleury (1768). The court of
No. 30 covers the site of an old Protestant graveyard. A few old houses
remain in Rue Perronet opening at No. 32, where once an abbey windmill
worked. No. 39 Hôpital de la Charité, an Order founded by Marie de’
Medici in 1602, its principal entrance Rue Jacob. Dislodged from their
original quarters in Rue de la Petite-Seine, where Rue Bonaparte now
runs, by Queen Margot, who wanted the site for the new palace she built
for herself on quitting l’hôtel de Sens, the nuns settled here about the
year 1608. At No. 40 we see medallions over the door, one of Charlotte
Corday, the other not, as sometimes said, that of Marat but a Moor’s
head. In the court we see other medallions and mouldings made chiefly
from the sculptures on the tomb of François I at St-Denis. The hôtel de
la Force, where dwelt Saint-Simon, once stood close here. That and other
ancient _hôtels_ were razed to make way for the boulevard St-Germain.
No. 49, the chapel of the “frères de la Charité” on the site of the
ancient chapel St-Pierre of which the crypt still remains, has been the
medical Academy since 1881. The square adjoining it is an old Protestant
burial-ground. Nos. 50-52 are ancient. No. 54 is the French Protestant
library, Cuvier and Guizot were among its presidents. No. 56 was built
in 1640 for la Maréchale de la Meilleraie. At No. 63 Châteaubriand lived
from 1811 to 1814.
CHAPTER XXX
THE MADELEINE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
ARRONDISSEMENT VIII. (ÉLYSÉE)
The handsome church which forms so distinct a feature of this quarter of
the city was begun to be built in the year 1764 to replace an older
church, originally a convent chapel, in the district known as Ville
l’Evêque because the bishop of Paris had a country house--a
villa--there.
The Revolution found the new church unfinished, and when Napoléon was in
power he decided to complete the structure as a temple of military glory
to be dedicated to the Grande Armée. Napoléon fell. The building was
restored to the ecclesiastical authorities and its construction as a
church, dedicated to Ste. Marie-Madeleine, completed during the years
1828-42. Begun on the model of the Pantheon at Rome, the building was
finished on the plan of the Maison Carrée at Nismes. It is 108 mètres in
length, 43 m. broad. The fine Corinthian columns we see are forty-eight
in number. The great bronze doors are the largest church doors known.
Their splendid bas-reliefs are the work of Triquetti (1838). Specimens
of every kind of marble found in France have been used in the grand
interior. In the wonderful painting “l’Histoire de la France
Chrétienne,” we see in the centre Pope Pius VII and Napoléon in the act
of making the Concordat, surrounded by King Clovis, Charlemagne, St.
Louis, Jeanne d’Arc, Henri IV, Sully, Louis XIII, etc. The statues and
other decorations are all modern, the work of the most distinguished
artists of the nineteenth century. The abbé Deguerry, vicar in 1871,
shot by the Communards, is buried there in the chapel Notre-Dame de la
Compassion.
The _place_ surrounding the church dates from 1815. At No. 7 lived
Amédée Thierry (1820-29), Meilhac, and during fifty years Jules Simon
who died there in 1896. We see his statue before the house. Behind the
church we see the statue of Lavoisier, put to death at the Revolution.
The streets opening out of Place de la Madeleine are modern, cut across
ancient convent lands, and the old farm lands of les Mathurins. No. 5
Rue Tronchet is said to have been at one time the home of Chopin. Rue de
l’Arcade, of yore “Chemin d’Argenteuil”--Argenteuil Road--got its name
from an arcade destroyed in the time of Napoléon III, which stretched
across the gardens of the convent of Ville l’Evêque, where the houses 15
and 18 now stand. Several of the houses we see along the street date
from the eighteenth century, none are of special interest.
Rue Pasquier brings us to the Square Louis XVI and the chapelle
Expiatoire built on the graveyard of the Madeleine. In that graveyard,
made in 1659 upon the convent kitchen garden, were buried many of the
most noted men and women of the tragic latter years of the eighteenth
century. There were laid the numerous victims of the fire on the Place
de la Concorde, at that time Place Louis XVI, caused by fireworks at the
festivities after the wedding of Louis XVI. The thousand Swiss Guards
who died to defend the Tuileries, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Mme
Roland, Charlotte Corday and hundreds more of the _guillotinés_ were
buried there. When, in 1794, the churchyard was disaffected and put up
for sale, the whole territory was bought by an ardent royalist and under
Louis XVIII the chapel we see was built; an altar in the crypt marks the
spot where some of the remains of the King and Queen were found.
Rue d’Anjou, opened in 1649, formerly Rue des Morfondus, has known many
illustrious inhabitants: Madame Récamier, the comtesse de Boigne, etc.
La Fayette died at No. 8 (1834). No. 22 dates from 1763. The Mairie was
originally the hôtel de Lorraine. Many of the ancient _hôtels_ have been
replaced by modern erections.
In Rue de Surène, in olden days Suresnes Road, we see at No. 23 the
handsome hôtel de Lamarck-Arenberg, dating from 1775, and the petit
hôtel du Marquis de l’Aigle of about the same date.
Rue de la Ville l’Évêque dates from the seventeenth century, recalling
by its name the days when, from the thirteenth century onwards, the
bishops of Paris had a rural habitation, a villa and perhaps a farm in
this then outlying district. Around the _villeta episcopi_ grew up a
little township included within the city bounds in the time of Louis XV.
The ancient thirteenth-century church, dedicated like its modern
successor to Ste-Marie-Madeleine, stood on the site of No. 11 of the
modern boulevard Malesherbes. The Benedictine convent close by, of later
foundation, built like the greater number of the most noted Paris
convents in the early years of the seventeenth century, was suppressed
and razed at the Revolution. Many noted persons of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries had their residences in the Ville l’Evêque. Guizot
died there in 1875. No. 16, l’hôtel du Maréchal Suchet, is now an
Institut. No. 20 the _hôtel_ of Prince Arenberg. No. 25-27 are ancient.
Rue Boissy d’Anglas, opened in the eighteenth century, bearing for long
three different names in the different parts of its course, records in
its present name that of a famous conventional (1756-1826). In the
well-known provision shop, Corcellet, Avenue de l’Opéra, we may see the
portrait of the famous Gourmet, who in pre-Revolution days lived at the
fine mansion No. 1, now the Cercle artistique “l’Épatant,” and carried
out there his luxurious and ultra-refined taste in the matter of food
and the manner of serving it. Horses to whom a _recherché cuisine_ could
not be offered, had their oats served to them in silver mangers.
Sequestered at the Revolution, it still remained the abode of a gourmet
of repute; sold later to the State, it became an Embassy, then a club.
No. 12 dates from Louis XV and has been the abode of several families of
historic name. Prince de Beauvau lived there in more modern days and
baron Hausmann died there. Lulli died at No. 28 (1637). Curious old
houses are seen in the Cité Berreyer and Cité du Retiro.
Rue Royale, in its earliest days Chemin des Remparts--Rampart Road--for
the third Porte St-Honoré in the city wall was at the point where it
meets the Rue du Faubourg, became a street--Rue Royale-des-Tuileries--in
the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1792 it became Rue de la
Révolution, then, from 1800 to 1814, Rue de la Concorde. Most of the
houses we see there date from the eighteenth century, built by the
architect Gabriel, who lived at No. 8. Mme de Staël lived for a time at
No. 6. This leads us to Place de la Concorde, built by Gabriel; it was
opened in 1763 as Place Louis XV, to become a hundred and thirty years
later Place de la Révolution, with in its centre a statue of Liberty
replacing the overturned statue of the King. Its name was changed
several times during the years that followed, till in 1830 the name
given by the Convention was restored for good. In olden days it was
surrounded by moats and had on one side a _pont-tournant_; the _place_
was the scene of national fêtes in times past as it is in our own times.
It was also not unfrequently the scene of tragedy and death. The
guillotine was set up there on January 21, 1793, for the execution of
the King. Marie-Antoinette, Charlotte Corday and many other notable
victims of the Revolution were beheaded there ... in the end,
Robespierre himself. In 1814 the Allies of those days gathered there for
the celebration of a grand _Te-Deum_. The statues we see surrounding the
vast place personify the great towns of France--that of Strasbourg the
most remarkable. The fine “Chevaux de Marly” at the starting-point of
the Champs-Elysées are the work of Coustou, Mercury and la Renommée, at
the entrance of the Tuileries gardens, of Coysevox. Handsome buildings
(eighteenth century) flank the _place_ on its northern side. The
Ministère de la Marine was in pre-Revolution days the _garde meuble_ of
the Kings of France. Splendid jewels, including the famous diamond known
as le Regent, were stolen thence in 1792. What is now the Automobile
Club was for many years the official residence of the papal Nuncio.
L’hôtel Crillon, built as a private mansion, was for a time the Spanish
Embassy; most of the beautiful woodwork for which it was noted has been
sold and taken away.
CHAPTER XXXI
LES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
This wonderful avenue stretching through the whole length of the
arrondissement reached in olden days only to the rural district of
Chaillot, and was known as the Grande Allée-du-Roule, later as Avenue
des Tuileries. Colbert, Louis XIV’s great minister, first made it a
tree-planted avenue. The gardens bordering it on either side between
Place de la Concorde and Avenue d’Antin, were laid out by Le Nôtre,
1670, as Crown land. Cafés, restaurants, toy-stalls, etc., were set up
there from the first. The Palais de Glace is on the site of a Panorama
which existed till its destruction by fire in 1855. The far-famed Café
des Ambassadeurs, set up in the eighteenth century, was rebuilt in 1841.
The no less famous cirque de l’Impératrice was razed in 1900.
The Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées was first laid out in 1670, but the
houses we see there now are all modern. Avenue d’Antin stretching on
either side of it, old only in the part leading from Cours-la-Reine, was
planted in 1723 by the duc d’Orléans. Marguerite Gauthier (la Dame aux
Camélias) lived at No. 9. At No. 3 Avenue Matignon Heine died in his
room on the fifth story (1856). Avenue Montaigne was known in 1731 as
Allée des Veuves. It remained an alley--Allée Montaigne--till 1852. The
thatched dwelling of Mme Tallien stood at its starting-point, near the
Seine. There her divorced and destitute husband was forced to accept a
shelter at the hands of his ex-wife, become princesse de Chimay; there
the Revolutionist died in 1820. We see only modern houses along the
Avenue of to-day. Rue Matignon was opened across the ancient Jardin
d’hiver where fine tropical plants erewhile had flourished. No. 12 was
the Vénerie Impériale.
Avenue des Champs-Élysées is bordered on both sides by modern mansions.
No. 25, hôtel de la Païve, of late years the Traveller’s Club, during
the war an ambulance, represents the style of the Second Empire. Avenue
Gabriel with its grand mansions was formed in 1818 on the
Marais-des-Gourdes--marshy land. The Rue Marbeuf was in the eighteenth
century Ruelle des Marais, then Rue des Gourdes. Its present name
recalls the Louis XV Folie Marbœuf once there. Few and far between
are the ancient vestiges to be found among the modern structures we see
on every side around us here. Rue Chaillot, in bygone days the chief
street of the village of Chaillot, was taken within the Paris bounds in
1860. It was a favourite street for residence in the nineteenth century.
Rue Bassano, entirely modern now, existed in part as Ruelle des Jardins
in the early years of the eighteenth century. Rue Galilée was Chemin des
Bouchers in 1790, then Rue du Banquet.
So we come to la Place de l’Étoile, the high ground known in long-gone
times as “la Montagne du Roule.” Till far into the eighteenth century it
was without the city bounds and beyond the Avenue des Champs-Élysées
which ended at Rue de Chaillot, a tree-studded, unlevelled, grass-grown
octagonal stretch of land. Then it was made round and even, and became a
favourite and fashionable promenade, known as l’Étoile de Chaillot, or
the Rond-Point de Neuilly. The site had long been marked out for the
erection of an important monument when Napoléon decreed the construction
there of the Arc de Triomphe. The first stone of the arch was laid by
Chalgrin in 1806, the Emperor and his new wife, on their wedding-day
passed beneath a temporary Arc de Triomphe made of cloth, as the stone
structure was not yet finished. Of the statuary which decorate the arch,
the most noted group is the Départ, by Rude. The frieze shows the going
forth to battle and the return of Napoléon’s armies, with the names of
his generals engraved beneath.[F]
CHAPTER XXXII
FAUBOURG ST-HONORÉ
Turning down Avenue Wagram, one of the twelve broad avenues, all modern,
branching from the Place de l’Étoile, we come to the Faubourg St-Honoré,
originally Chaussée du Roule. The village of Le Roule was famed in the
thirteenth century for its goose-market. The district became a faubourg
in 1722 and in 1787 was taken within the city bounds. It has always been
a favourite quarter among men of intellectual activity desiring to live
beyond the turbulence of the centre of Paris. Here and there we come
upon vestiges of bygone days. No. 222 is an old Dominican convent
disaffected in 1906. A foundry once stood at the corner of the Rue
Balzac, where public statues of kings and other royalties of old were in
turn cast or melted down. The house where Balzac died once stood close
there too, up against an ancient chapel--all long swept away. The walled
garden remains--bordering the street to which the name of the great
novelist has been given--a slab put up where we see, just above the
wall, the top of a pillared summer-house, which Balzac is said to have
built. The hospital Beaujon dates from 1784 but has no architectural or
historical interest. The few ancient houses we see at intervals in this
upper part of the faubourg are remains of the village du Roule. Several
of more interesting aspect were razed a few years ago. The military
hospital was once the site of royal stables. Mme de Genlis died at No.
170.
The church St-Philippe du Roule was built by Chalgrin in 1774 on the
site of the seventeenth-century hôtel du Bas-Roule. No. 107 was the
habitation of the King’s Pages under Louis XV. On the site of No. 81
comte de Fersan had his stables in the time of Louis XVI. The Home
Office (Ministère de l’Intérieur) on Place Beauvau dates from the
eighteenth century and has been a private mansion, a municipal _hôtel_,
a hotel in the English sense of the word.
The Palais de l’Élysée, built in 1718, was bought in 1753 by Mme de
Pompadour. La Pompadour died at Versailles, but by her express wish her
body was taken to Paris and laid in this her Paris home before the
funeral. She bequeathed the _hôtel_ to the comte de Province, but Louis
XV used it for State purposes. Then, become again a private residence,
it was inhabited by the duchesse de Bourbon, mother of the due
d’Enghien. She let it later to the tenant who made of it an _Élysée_, a
pleasure-house, laid out a _parc anglais_, gave sumptuous _fêtes
champêtres_. Sequestered at the Revolution, the mansion was sold
subsequently to Murat and Caroline Buonaparte, then became an imperial
possession as l’Élysée-Napoléon. Napoléon gave it to Joséphine at her
divorce but she preferred Malmaison. There the Emperor signed his second
abdication and there, in 1815, the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor of
Russia made their abode. The next occupants were the duc and duchesse de
Berry. The duchesse left it after her husband’s death in 1820. It became
l’Hôtellierie des Princes. In 1850 Napoléon as Prince-President made a
brief abode there before the _coup d’état_. The façade dates from his
reign as Napoléon III when, to cut it off from surrounding buildings,
he made the Rue de l’Élysée through its gardens. The Garde Nationale
took possession of it in 1871. It was saved from destruction under the
Commune by its _conservateur_, who placed counterfeited _scellés_. No.
41, hôtel Pontalba, built by Visconti on the site of an older _hôtel_,
now owned by one of the Rothschilds, has fine ancient woodwork, once at
hôtel St-Bernard, Rue du Bac. No. 39, the British Embassy, was built in
1720 for the duc de Charost; given in 1803 to Pauline Buonaparte,
princesse Borghese, given over to the English in 1815. British Embassy
since 1825. Nos. 35, 33, 31, 29, 27 are all eighteenth-century _hôtels_.
At No. 30 the Cité de Retiro was in past days the great Cour des Coches,
inhabited by the “Fermier des carrosses de la Cour.” Nos. 24, 16 are
ancient. No. 14 was the Mairie till 1830.
The streets opening out of the Faubourg date mostly from the eighteenth
century and show here and there traces of a past age, but the greater
number of the houses standing along their course to-day are of modern
construction. Rue d’Aguesseau was cut in 1723 across the property of the
Chancellor whose name it records. The Embassy church there is on the
site of the ancient hôtel d’Armaille. No. 18 was at one time the Mairie
of the 1st arrondissement. Rue Montalivet, where at No. 6 we see the
friendly front of the British Consulate, was for some years Rue du
Marché-d’Aguesseau. Rue des Saussaies was in the seventeenth century a
willow-tree bordered road. Place des Saussaies is modern on the site of
demolished eighteenth-century _hôtels_. In Rue Cambacérés we see ancient
_hôtels_ at Nos. 14, 8, 3.
The first numbers in Rue Miromesnil are old and have interesting
decorations, Châteaubriand lived at No. 31 in 1804. Rue de Panthièvre
was Rue des Marais in the seventeenth century, then Chemin Vert. Its
houses were the habitation of many noted persons through the two
centuries following. Franklin is said to have lived at No. 26, also
Lucien Buonaparte. The barracks dates from 1780, one of those built for
the Gardes Françaises, who had previously been billeted in private
houses. Fersen lived in Rue Matignon; Gambetta at No. 12, Rue Montaigne
(1874-78). The Colisée, which gave its name to the street previously
known as Chaussée des Gourdes, was an immense hall used for festive
gatherings from 1770 to 1780, when it was demolished. On part of the
site it occupied, Rue Penthieu was opened at the close of the eighteenth
century and Rue de la Bôëtie into which we now turn. That fair street
was known in the different parts of its course by no less than eleven
different names before its present one, given in 1879. Several
eighteenth-century _hôtels_ still stand here; others on the odd number
side were razed in recent years to widen the thoroughfare. No. 111 was
inhabited for a time at the end of the eighteenth century by the then
duc de Richelieu. When Napoléon was in power, an Italian minister lived
there and gave splendid fêtes, at which the Emperor was a frequent
guest. In recent days its owner was the duc de Massa, grandson of
Napoléon’s famous minister of Justice. Carnot lived for a time at No.
122. Eugène Sue at No. 55. Comtesse de la Valette at No. 44, a _hôtel_
known for its extensive grounds.
Rue de Berri, opened 1778, across the site of the royal nursery gardens,
went by several names before receiving that of the second son of Charles
X, assassinated in 1820. The Belgian Legation at No. 20 was built by the
aunt of Mme de Genlis and was in later times the home of princesse
Mathilde who died there in 1904. Rue Washington was opened in 1789; Rue
Galilée as chemin des Bouchers, then Rue du Banquet, in 1790. In Rue
Daru, of the same date, opened as Rue de la Croix du Roule, we see the
Russian church built in 1881, with its beautiful paintings and frescoes
and rich Oriental decorations.
CHAPTER XXXIII
PARC MONCEAU
We have already referred to Avenue Wagram. Modern buildings stretch
along the whole course of the other eleven avenues branching from Place
de l’Étoile. Avenue Hoche leads us to Parc Monceau, laid out on lands
belonging in past days to the Manor of Clichy, sold to the prince
d’Orléans in 1778, arranged as a smart _jardin anglais_ for
Philippe-Égalité in 1785, the property of the nation in 1794, restored
to the Orléans by Louis XVIII, bought by the State in 1852, given to the
city authorities in 1870. The Renaissance arcade is a relic of the
ancient hôtel de Ville, burnt down in 1871. The oval _bassin_, called
“la Naumachie,” with its Corinthian columns, came from an old church at
St-Denis, Notre-Dame de la Rotonde, built as the burial-place of the
Valois, razed in 1814. Avenue Friedland was opened in 1719, across the
site of a famous eighteenth-century public garden and several demolished
_hôtels_, and lengthened to its present extent some fifty years later.
Avenue Marceau was of yore Avenue Joséphine.
Rue de Monceau, opened in 1801, lies along the line of the old road to
the vanished village of Monceau or Musseau. Rue du Rocher, along the
course of a Roman road, has gone by different names in its different
parts. Its upper end, waste ground until well into the nineteenth
century, at the close of the eighteenth century was a Revolutionists’
meeting-place, and there in the tragic months of 1794 many _guillotinés_
were buried, among them the two Robespierres. In later years a dancing
saloon was set up on the spot. It was a district of windmills. The
Moulin de la Marmite, Moulin Boute-à-Feu, Moulin-des-Prés, stood on the
high ground above Gare St-Lazare until a century ago. Few vestiges of
the past remain. Rue de Laborde was known in 1788 as Rue des Grésillons,
i.e. Flour Street (_grésillons_, the flour in its third stage of
grinding). Then it became Chemin des Porcherons, and the district was
known as that of la Petite-Pologne, a reference to the habitation there
of the duc d’Anjou, who was King of Poland. In the courtyard of No. 4 we
find an ancient boundary-stone, once in Rue de l’Arcade, where it marked
the bounds of the city under Louis XV.
Rue de la Pépinière, its name and that of the barracks there so well
known of late to British soldiers, recording the site of the royal
nursery grounds of a past age, was marked out as early as 1555, but
opened only in 1782. The barracks, first built in 1763 for the Gardes
Françaises, was rebuilt under Napoléon III. All other streets in the
neighbourhood are modern.
CHAPTER XXXIV
IN THE VICINITY OF THE OPERA
ARRONDISSEMENT IX. (OPÉRA)
The Paris Opera-house was built between the years 1861-75 to replace the
structure in Rue le Peletier burnt to the ground in 1873. On its ornate
Renaissance façade we see, amid other statuary, the noted group “La
Danse,” the work of Carpeaux. Of the “Grands Boulevards,” by which the
Opera is surrounded, we shall speak later (_see_ p. 297).
Most of the streets in its neighbourhood are modern, stretching across
the site of demolished buildings, important in their day, but of which
few traces now remain.
Rue des Mathurins lies across the grounds of the vanished convent, Ville
l’Évêque. Rue Tronchet runs where was once the Ferme des Mathurins
(_see_ p. 224).
Rue Caumartin, opened 1779, records the name of the Prévôt des Marchands
of the day. It was a short street then, lengthened later by the old
adjoining streets Ste-Croix and Thiroux, the site erewhile of the famed
_porcelaine_ factory of la Reine. (Marie-Antoinette). No. 1 dates from
1779 and was noted for its gardens arranged in Oriental style. No. 2,
to-day the Paris Sporting Club, dates from the same period. No. 2 _bis_
and most of the other houses have been restored or rebuilt. The butcher
Legendre, who set the phrygian cap on the head of Louis XVI, is said to
have lived at No. 52. No. 65 was built as a Capucine convent (1781-83).
Sequestered at the Revolution, it became a hospital, then a _lycée_, its
name changed and rechanged: Lycée Buonaparte, Collège Bourbon, Lycée
Fontanes, finally Lycée Condorcet, while the convent chapel, rebuilt,
became the church St-Louis d’Antin. Rue Vignon was, till 1881, Rue de la
Ferme des Mathurins, as an inscription on the walls of No. 1 reminds us.
Rue de Provence, named after the brother of Louis XVI, was opened in
1771, built over a drain which went from Place de la République to the
Seine near Pont de l’Alma. No. 22 is an ancient house restored. Berlioz
lived at No. 41. Meissonier at No. 43. Nos. 45 to 65 are on the site of
the mansion and grounds of the duc d’Orléans which extended to Rue
Taitbout. We see a fine old _hôtel_ at No. 59. Cité d’Antin, opening at
No. 61, was built in 1825, on the site of the ancient hôtel Montesson.
Liszt, the pianist, lived at No. 63. The Café du Trèfle claims existence
since the year 1555. The busy, bustling Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin was
an important roadway in the twelfth century, as Chemin des Porcherons.
The houses we see there are mostly of eighteenth-century date, others
occupy the site of ancient demolished buildings. Many notable persons
lived here. No. 1, where we see the Vaudeville theatre (there since
1867), was of old the site of two historic mansions. No. 2, now a
fashionable restaurant, dates from 1792, built as Dépôt des Gardes
Françaises. Rossini lived there for one year--1857-58. Where Rue
Meyerbeer was opened in 1860 stood, in other days, the _hôtel_ of Mme
d’Épinay, whose walls had sheltered Grimm, and for a time Mozart. A
neighbouring house was the home of Necker, where his daughter, Mme de
Staël, grew up and which became later the possession of Mme Récamier.
The graveyard of St-Roch stretched, till the end of the eighteenth
century, across the site of Nos. 20-22. No. 42 belonged to Mme Talma.
There Mirabeau died in 1791; his widow in 1800. Joséphine de
Beauharnais, not yet Empress, dwelt at No. 62. Gambetta at No. 55. No.
68, hôtel Montfermeil, was rebuilt by Fesch, Napoléon’s uncle. Rue
St-Lazare was, before 1770, Rue des Porcherons, from the name of an
important estate of the district over which the abbesses of Montmartre
had certain rights of jurisdiction. Passage de Tivoli, at No. 96,
recalls the first Tivoli with its _jardins anglais_ stretching far at
this corner. Its owner’s head fell, severed by the guillotine, and his
_folie_ became national property. Fêtes were given there by the
Revolutionist authorities till its restoration, in 1810, to heirs of the
man who had built it. Avenue du Coq records the existence in
fourteenth-century days of a Château du Coq, known also as Château des
Porcherons, the manor-house of the Porcherons’ estate. The Square de la
Trinité is on the site of a famous restaurant of past days, the
well-known “Magny,” which as a dancing-saloon--“La Grande Pinte”--was on
the site till 1851. The church is modern (1867). No. 56 is part of the
hôtel Bougainville where the great tragedienne, Mlle Mars, lived. At No.
23, dating from the First Empire, we find a fine old staircase and in
the court a pump marked with the imperial eagle. Rue de Chateaudun is
modern. The _brasserie_ at the corner of Rue Maubeuge stands on the site
of the ancient cemetery des Porcherons. Rue de la Victoire, in the
seventeenth century Ruellette-au-Marais-des-Porcherons, was renamed in
1792 Rue Chantereine, referring to the very numerous frogs (RANA = frog)
which filled the air of that then marshy district with their croaking.
Buonaparte lived there at one time, hence the name given in 1798, taken
away in 1816, restored by Thiers in 1833. By a curious coincidence, an
Order of Nuns, “de la Victoire,” so called to memorize a very much
earlier victory--Bouvines 1214--owned property here. On the site of No.
60, now a modern house let out in flats, stood in olden days the chief
entrance to l’hôtel de la Victoire, a remarkably handsome structure
built in 1770, sold and razed in 1857--alas! At the end of the court at
No. 58 we see the ancient hôtel d’Argenson, its _salon_ kept undisturbed
from the days when great politicians of the past met and made decisive
resolutions there. The Bains Chantereine at No. 46 has been théâtre
Olymphique, théâtre des Victoires Nationales, théâtre des Troubadours,
and was for a few days in 1804 l’Opéra Comique; No. 45, with its busts
and bas-reliefs, dates from 1840. Rue Taitbout, begun in 1773,
lengthened by the union of adjoining streets, records the name of an
eighteenth-century municipal functionary. Isabey, Ambroise Thomas and
Manuel Gracia lived in this old street, and at No. 1, now a smart
_café_, two noted Englishmen, the Marquis of Hertford and Lord Seymour,
lived at different periods. No. 2 was once the famous restaurant
Tortoni. No. 30, as a private _hôtel_, sheltered Talleyrand and Mme
Grand. We see interesting vestiges at No. 44. The Square d’Orléans is
the ancient Cité des Trois Frères, in past days a nest of artists and
men of letters: Dumas, George Sand, Lablache, etc.
CHAPTER XXXV
ON THE WAY TO MONTMARTRE
Rue de Clichy was once upon a time the Roman road between Paris and
Rouen, taking in its way the village Cligiacum. For long in later days
it was known as Rue du Coq, when the old château stood near its line. It
was in a house of Rue de Clichy, inhabited by the Englishman Crawford,
that Marie-Antoinette and her children had a meal on the way to
Varennes. The three successive “Tivoli” were partly on the site of No.
27, in this old street. There too was the “Club de Clichy,” whose
members opposed the government of the Directoire. The whole district
leading up to the heights of Montmartre was then, as now, a quarter of
popular places of amusement, the habitation of _artistes_ of varying
degree, but we find here few old-time vestiges. Where Rue Nouvelle was
opened in 1879 the prison de Clichy, a debtor’s prison, had previously
stood. No. 81 is the four-footed animals’ hospital founded in 1811. Zola
died at No. 21 Rue de Bruxelles. Heine lived from 1848-57 at No. 50 Rue
Amsterdam. Rue Blanche was Rue de la Croix-Blanche in the seventeenth
century. Berlioz lived at No. 43. Roman remains were found beneath Nos.
16-18. Rue Pigalle has been known by six or seven different names, at
one time that of Rue du Champ-de-Repos, on account of the proximity of
the cemetery St-Roch. No. 12 belonged to Scribe, who died there (1861).
No. 67 is an ancient station for post-horses. Place Pigalle was in past
days Place de la Barrière de Montmartre. The fountain is on the site of
the ancient custom-house. Puvis de Chavannes and Henner had their
studios at No. 11, now a restaurant. Rue de la Rochechouart made across
abbey lands, the lower part dating from 1672, records the name of an
abbess of Montmartre. Gounod lived at No. 17 in 1867. Halévy in 1841.
The Musée Gustave Moreau at No. 14 was the great artist’s own _hôtel_,
bequeathed with its valuable collection to the State at his death in
1898. Marshal Ney lived at No. 12. In Rue de la Tour des Dames a
windmill tower, the property of the nuns of Montmartre, stood
undisturbed from the fifteenth century to the early part of the
nineteenth. The modern mansion at No. 3 (1822) is on land belonging in
olden days to the Grimaldi. Talma died in 1826 at No. 9. Rue la Bruyère
has always been inhabited by distinguished artists and literary men.
Berlioz lived for a time at No. 45. Rue Henner, named after the artist
who died at No. 5 Rue la Bruyère, is the old Rue Léonie. We see an
ancient and interesting house at No. 13. No. 12 hôtel des Auteurs et
Compositeurs Dramatiques, a society founded in 1791 by Beaumarchais.
Rue de Douai reminds us through its whole length of noted literary men
and artists of the nineteenth century. Halévy and also notable artists
have lived at No. 69. Ivan Tourgueneff at No. 50. Francisque Sarcey at
No. 59. Jules Moriac died at No. 32 (1882). Gustave Doré and also Halévy
lived for a time at No. 22. Claretie at No. 10. Edmond About owned No.
6.
The old Rue Victor-Massé was for long Rue de Laval in memory of the last
abbess of Montmartre. At No. 9, the abode of an antiquarian, we see
remarkably good modern statuary on the Renaissance frontage. No. 12
till late years was l’hôtel de Chat Noir, the first of the artistic
_montmartrois cabarets_ due to M. Salis (1881). At No. 26 we turn into
Avenue Frochot, where Alexandre Dumas, _père_, lived, where at No. 1 the
musical composer Victor Massé died (1884), and of which almost every
house is, or once was, the abode of artists. Passing down Rue
Henri-Monnier, formerly Rue Breda, which with Place Breda was, during
the first half of the nineteenth century, a quarter forbidden to
respectable women, we come to Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette. It dates from
the same period as the church built there (1823-37), and wherein we see
excellent nineteenth-century frescoes and paintings. This street, like
most of those around it, has been inhabited by men of distinction in art
or letters: Isabey, Daubigny, etc. Mignet lived there in 1849. Rue
St-Georges dates from the early years of the eighteenth century. Place
St-Georges was opened a century later on land belonging to the Dosne
family. Mme Dosne and her son-in-law lived at No. 27. The house was
burnt down in 1871, rebuilt by the State, given to l’Institut by Mlle
Dosne in 1905, and organized as a public library of contemporary
history. Nos. 15-13, now the _Illustration_ office, date from 1788.
Auber died at No. 22 (1871). The _hôtel_ at No. 2 was owned by Barras
and inhabited at one time by Mme Tallien.
The three busy streets, Rue Laffitte, Rue le Peletier, Rue Drouot, start
from boulevard des Italiens, cross streets we have already looked into,
and are connected with others of scant historic interest.
Rue Laffitte, so named in 1830 in memory of the great financier who laid
the foundation of his wealthy future when an impecunious lad, by
stooping, under the eye of the commercial magnate waiting to interview
him, to pick up a pin that lay in his path. Laffitte died Regent of the
Banque de France. So popular was he that when after 1830 he found
himself forced to sell his handsome mansion No. 19--l’hôtel de la
Borde--a national subscription was got up enabling him to buy it back.
Offenbach lived at No. 11. At No. 12 we find an interesting old court.
The great art lover and collector, the Marquis of Hertford, lived at No.
2, the old hôtel d’Aubeterre. No. 1, once known as la Maison Dorée, now
a post office, was the old hôtel Stainville inhabited by the Communist
Cerutti who, in his time, gave his name to the street. Mme Tallien also
lived there. For some years before 1909 it was the much frequented
Taverne Laffitte.
In Rue Le Peletier, the Opera-house burnt down in 1783, was from the
early years of the nineteenth century on the site of two old mansions:
l’hôtel de Choiseul and l’hôtel de Grammont. On the site of No. 2,
Orsini tried to assassinate Napoléon III. At No. 22 we see a Protestant
church built in the time of Napoléon I.
Rue Drouot, the Salle des Ventes, the great Paris “Auction-rooms” at No.
9, built in 1851, is on the site of the ancient hôtel Pinon de Quincy,
subsequently a Mairie. The present Mairie of the arrondissement at No. 6
dates from 1750. In the Revolutionary year 1792 it was the War Office,
then the Salon des Étrangers where masked balls were given: les bals des
Victimes. No. 2 the _Gaulois_ office, almost wholly rebuilt at the end
of the eighteenth century and again in 1811, was originally a fine
mansion built in 1717, the home of Le Tellier, later of the duc de
Talleyrand, and later still the first Paris Jockey Club (1836-57). The
famous dancer Taglioni also lived here at one time.
Rue Grange-Batelière was a farm--_la grange bataillée_--with fortified
towers, owned in the twelfth century by the nuns of Ste-Opportune. At
No. 10 we see the handsome _hôtel_ with fine staircase and statues,
built in 1785 for a gallant captain of the Gardes Françaises. There in
the days of Napoléon III was the Cercle Romantique, where Victor Hugo,
A. de Musset and other literary celebrities were wont to meet.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ON THE SLOPES OF THE _BUTTE_
The Rue du Faubourg Montmartre is one of the most ancient of Paris
roadways, for it led, from the earliest days of French history, to the
hill-top where St-Denis and his two companions had been put to death.
Only once has the ancient name been changed--at the Revolution, when it
was for a time Faubourg Marat. We see here a few old-time houses. The
bathing establishment at No. 4 was a private _hôtel_ in the days of
Louis XV. Scribe lived at No. 7. The ancient cemetery _chapelle_,
St-Jean-Porte-Latine, stood from 1780-1836 on the site of No. 60.
Rue des Martyrs, named in memory of the Christian missionaries who
passed there to their death, so called in its whole length only since
1868, has ever been the habitation of artists. We see few interesting
vestiges. From 1872 it has been a market street. Costermongers’ carts
line it from end to end several days a week. The restaurant de la Biche
at No. 37 claims to date from 1662. The once-famous restaurant du Faisan
Doré was at No. 7. The short streets opening out of this long one date
for the most part from the early years of the nineteenth century and
form, with the longer ones of the district, the Paris artists’ quarter.
Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne records the name of an abbess of Montmartre.
Victor Hugo lived at No. 41 at the time of the _coup d’état_, fled
thence to exile in England. The school at No. 31 is on the site of
gardens once hired for the children of the duc d’Orléans, the pupils of
Mme de Genlis, to play in, then owned by Alphonse Karr. We see at No. 14
a charming statue “Le joueur de flute.”
Rue Rochechouart records the name of another abbess. At No. 7, now a
printing house, abbé Loyson gave his lectures. Rue Cadet, formerly Rue
de la Voirie, records the name of a family of gardeners, owners of the
Clos Cadet, from the time of Charles IX. Nos. 9, 16, 24 are
eighteenth-century structures. Rue Richer was known in the earlier years
of the eighteenth century as Rue de l’Égout. Augustin Thierry lived here
for two years (1831-33). No. 18 was the office of the modern
revolutionary paper _La Lanterne_. Marshal Ney lived at the _hôtel_
numbered 13. The Folies Bergères at No. 32 was built in 1865 on the site
of the _hôtel_ of comte Talleyrand-Périgord. In Rue Saulnier, recording
the name of another famous family of gardeners, we see at No. 21 the
house once inhabited by Rouget de Lisle, composer of the “Marseillaise.”
Rue Bergère was in seventeenth-century days an _impasse_. Casimir
Delavigne lived at No. 5. Scribe in his youth at No. 7, in later life at
a _hôtel_ on the site of No. 20, which was in eighteenth-century days
the home of M. d’Étiolles, the husband of La Pompadour. The Comptoir
d’Escompte at No. 14 was built in 1848, on the site of several old
_hôtels_, notably hôtel St-Georges, the home of the marquis de Mirabeau,
father of the orator.
Rue du Faubourg Poissonière, its odd numbers in the 9th its even ones in
the 10th arrondissement, shows us many interesting old houses and we
find quaint old streets leading out of it. It dates as a thoroughfare
from the middle of the seventeenth century, named then Chaussée de la
Nouvelle France. Later it was Rue Ste-Anne, from an ancient chapel in
the vicinity, yielding finally in the matter of name to the
all-important fish-market to which it led--the poissonnerie des Halles.
In the court at No. 2 we find a Pavillon Louis XVI. The crimson walls of
the _Matin_ office was in past days the private _hôtel_ where colonel de
la Bedoyère was arrested (1815). We see interesting old houses at Nos.
9-13. No. 15, in old days hôtel des Menus Plaisirs du Roi, was with two
adjoining houses taken at the end of the eighteenth century for the
Conservatoire de Musique, an institution founded (1784) by the marquis
de Breteuil, as the École Royale de Chant et de Déclamation, with the
special aim of training _artistes_ for the court theatre. Closed at the
Revolution, it was reopened in calmer days and, under the direction of
Cherubini, became world-famed. Ambroise Thomas died there in 1895. In
1911 the Conservatoire was moved away to modern quarters in Rue de
Madrid and the old building razed.
The balcony on the garden side at No. 19, an eighteenth-century house
with many interesting vestiges, is formed of a fifteenth-century
gravestone. Cherubini lived at No. 25. The church St-Eugène which we see
in Rue Cecile, its interior entirely of cast iron, was so named by
Napoléon III’s express wish as a souvenir of his wedding. The fine
_hôtel_ at No. 30 was the home of Marshal Ney. Nos. 32, 42, 42 _bis_, 52
and 56 where Corot died in 1875, the little vaulted Rue Ambroise-Thomas,
opening at No. 57, the fine house at No. 58, and Nos. 65 and 80, all
show us characteristic old-time features. At No. 82 we see an infantry
barracks, once known as la Nouvelle France, a Caserne des Gardes
Françaises. Its canteen is said to be the old bedroom of “sergeant
Bernadotte,” destined to become King of Sweden. Here Hoche, too, was
sergeant. The bathing establishment of Rue de Montholon, opening out of
the faubourg at No. 89, was the home of Méhul, author of _le Chant du
Départ_; he died here in 1817. The street records the family name of the
General who went with Napoléon to St. Helena. Another abbess of
Montmartre is memorized by Rue Bellefond, a seventeenth-century street
opening at No. 107. The first Paris gasworks was set up on the site of
No. 129. At No. 138 we see a wooden house, in Gothic style, beautifully
made, owned and lived in by a carpenter who plies his trade there.
Avenue Trudaine is modern (1821), named in memory of a Prévôt des
Marchands of the seventeenth and early years of the eighteenth century.
The Collège Rollin, at No. 12, is on the site of the ancient Montmartre
slaughterhouses. The painter Alfred Stevens died at No. 17 in 1906.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THREE ANCIENT FAUBOURGS
ARRONDISSEMENT X. (ENTREPÔT)
The chief thoroughfares of historic interest in this arrondissement are
the two ancient streets which stretch through its whole length: Rue du
Faubourg St-Denis and Rue du Faubourg St-Martin, and the odd-number side
of Rue du Faubourg du Temple.
Rue du Faubourg St-Denis, the ancient road to the abbey St-Denis, known
in earlier days in part as Faubourg St-Lazare, then as Faubourg-de-Gloire,
has still many characteristic old-time buildings. The Passage du
Bois-de-Boulogne was the starting-place for the St-Denis coaches. At
No. 14 we find an interesting old court; over Nos. 21-44 and at 33 of
the little Rue d’Enghein old signs; No. 48 was the _Fiacre_ office in
the time of the Directoire, then the famous commercial firm Laffitte
and Caillard. Where we see the Cour des Petites-Écuries, the courtesan
Ninon de Lenclos had a country house. Félix Faure, Président of the
French Republic from 1895 to 1899, was born at No. 65 in 1841. The old
house No. 71 formed part of the convent des Filles Dieu. The houses
Nos. 99 to 105 were dependencies of St-Lazare, now the Paris Prison for
Women, which we come to at No. 107, originally a leper-house, founded
in the thirteenth century by the hospitaliers de St-Lazare. It was an
extensive foundation, possessing the right of administering justice and
had its own prison and gallows. The Lazarists united with the priests
of the Mission organized by St-Vincent-de-Paul, and in their day the
area covered by the cow-houses, the stables, the various buildings
sheltering or storing whatever was needed for the missioners, stretched
from the Faubourg St-Denis to the Rues de Paradis, de Dunkerque and du
Faubourg Poissonnière. At one time, when leprosy had ceased to be rife
in Paris, the hospital was used as a prison for erring sons of good
family. In 1793 it became one of the numerous revolutionary prisons;
André Chenier, Marie Louise de Montmorency-Laval, the last abbess of
Montmartre, were among the _suspects_ shut up there; and the Rue du
Faubourg St-Denis was renamed Rue Franciade. St-Lazare was specially
obnoxious to Revolutionists, for there the Kings of France had been wont
to make a brief stay on each State entry into the city, and there, on
their last journey out of it, they had halted in their coffin, on the
way to St-Denis. The remains of an ancient crypt were discovered in 1898
below the pavement.
Rue de l’Échiquier was opened in 1772, cut through convent lands.
Stretching behind No. 43, till far into the nineteenth century, was the
graveyard of the parish Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle. No. 48 was the
well-known dancing-hall, Pavillon de l’Échiquier, before and under the
Directoire. Rue du Paradis, in the seventeenth century Rue St-Lazare, is
noted for its pottery shops. At No. 58 Corot, the great landscape
painter who lived hard by, had his studio. The capitulation of Paris in
1814 was signed at No. 51, the abode of the duc de Raguse. Leading out
of Rue de Chabrol at No. 7 we find the old-world Passage de la
Ferme-St-Lazare and a courtyard, relics of the Lazarists farm. Rue
d’Hauteville, so called from the title of a Prévôt des Marchands, comte
d’Hauteville, was known in earlier times as Rue la Michodière, his
family name. In the court at No. 58 we come upon a _hôtel_ which was the
abode of Bourrienne, Napoléon’s secretary; its rooms are an interesting
example of the style of the period. The pillared pavilion at No. 6
_bis_, Passage Violet, dates only from 1840.
Rue de Strasbourg, where the courtyard of the Gare de l’Est now
stretches, was the site in olden days of one of the great Paris fairs,
the Foire St-Laurent, held annually, lasting two months, a privilege of
the Lazarist monks. It was at this fair that the first café-concerts
were opened. The Comédie-Italienne, too, first played there. Rue de la
Fidélité, on the eastern side of the Faubourg St-Denis, records the name
given to the church St-Laurent in Revolution days; it lies across the
site of the couvent des Filles-de-la-Charité founded by
St-Vincent-de-Paul and Louise de Marillac, of which we find some traces
at No. 9.
The northern end of Rue du Faubourg St-Martin was long known as Rue du
Faubourg St-Laurent; zealously stamping out all names recording saints,
the Revolutionists called this long thoroughfare Faubourg du Nord. We
find ancient houses, vestiges of past ages, at every step, and the
modern structures seen at intervals are on sites of historic interest.
The baker’s shop at No. 44, “A l’Industrie,” claims to have existed from
the year 1679. No. 59 is the site of the first Old Catholic church,
founded in 1831 by abbé Chatel. The Mairie at No. 76 covers the site of
an ancient barracks, and of a bridge which once spanned the brook
Ménilmontant. An ancient arch was found beneath the soil in 1896. Rue
des Marais, which opens at No. 86, dates from the seventeenth century.
Here till 1860 stood the dwelling of the famous public headsman Sanson
and of his descendants, _painted red_! At No. 119 we see the _chevet_ of
the church St-Laurent, the only ancient part of the church as we know
it. In the little Rue Sibour, opening at No. 121, recording the name of
the archbishop of Paris who died in 1857, we find an ancient house, now
a bathing establishment. No. 160 covers land once the graveyard of les
Récollets. The short Rue Chaudron records the name of a fountain once
there. The bulky fountains higher up are modern (1849), built by public
subscription.
Rue du Château d’Eau was formed of two old streets: Rue Neuve
St-Nicolas-St-Martin and Rue Neuve St-Jean, joined in 1851 and named
after a fountain formerly in the centre of the what is now Place de la
République. At No. 39 we see the house said to be the smallest in the
city--its breadth one mètre. In the walls of the tobacconist’s shop at
No. 55, “la Carotte Percée,” we see holes made by the bullets of the
Communards in 1871. At No. 6 of the modern Rue Pierre-Bullet, now a gimp
factory, we find a house of remarkable interest, beautifully decorated
by its builder and owner, the artist Gonthière, who had invented the
process of dead-gilding. Ruin fell on the unhappy artist. His house was
seized in 1781 and he died in great poverty in 1813.
Crossing the whole northern length of the arrondissement is the busy
commercial Rue Lafayette, its one point of interest for us the church
St-Vincent-de-Paul, built in the form of a Roman basilica between the
years 1824-44, on the site of a Lazariste structure known as the
Belvédère. Within we see fine statuary; and glorious frescoes, the work
of Flandrin, cover the walls on every side. None of the streets in the
vicinity of the church show points of historic interest.
Rue Louis-Blanc, existing in its upper part in the eighteenth century
under another name, prolonged in the nineteenth, has one tragically
historic spot, that where it meets Rue Grange-aux-Belles. On that spot
from the year 1230, or thereabouts, to 1761, on land owned by comte
Fulcon or Faulcon, stood the famous gibet de Montfaucon. It was of
prodigious size, a great square frame with pillars and iron-chains,
sixteen _pendus_ could hang there at one time. The most noted criminals,
real or supposed, many bearing the noblest names of France, were hung
there, left to swing for days in public view--the _noblesse_ from the
Court and the _peuple_ from the sordid streets around crowding together
to see the sight. The ghastly remains fell into a pit beneath the
_gibet_ and so found burial. Later a more orderly place of interment was
arranged on that hill-top. The church of St-Georges now stands on the
site.
Rue de la Grange-aux-Belles, so well known nowadays as the seat at No.
33 of the C.G.T.--the Conféderation du Travail, where all Labour
questions are discussed, and where in these days of great strikes, the
Paris Opera on strike gave gala performances, was originally Rue de la
Grange-aux-Pelles, a _pelle_ or _pellée_ being a standard measure of
wood. The finance minister Clavière, Roland’s associate, lived here and
the authorities borrowed from him the green wooden cart which bore Louis
XVI to the scaffold. The painter Abel de Payol lived at No. 13 (1822). A
Protestant cemetery once stretched across the land in the centre of the
street down to Rue des Écluses St-Martin. There, in 1905, were found the
remains of the famous _corsaire_ Paul Jones, transported in solemn
state to America shortly afterwards. Turning into Rue Bichat we come to
the Hôpital St-Louis, founded by Henri IV. The King had been one of many
sufferers from an epidemic which had raged in Paris in the year 1606. On
his recovery the _bon Roi_ commanded the building of a hospital to be
called by the name of the saint-king, Louis IX, who had died of the
plague some three hundred years before. The quaint old edifice with
red-tiled roofs, old-world windows, fine archways surrounding a court
bright with flowers and shaded by venerable trees, carries us back in
mind to the age of the _bon Roi_ to whom the hospital was due. No. 21
was the hospital farm. In Rue Alibert, erewhile an _impasse_, we see one
or two ancient houses, at the corner a pavilion of the time of Henri IV,
the property of the hospital. Rue St-Maur runs on into the 11th
arrondissement, a street formed in the nineteenth century by three
seventeenth-century roads, one of which was Rue Maur or des Morts. We
notice old houses and ancient vestiges here and there.
Rue du Faubourg du Temple marks the boundary between arrondissement X
and XI, an ancient thoroughfare climbing to the heights of Belleville
with many old houses and courts, mostly squalid, and some curious old
signs. On the site of No. 18 Astley’s circus was set up in 1780.
The Rue de la Fontaine au Roi (seventeenth century), in 1792 Rue
Fontaine-Nationale, shows us at No. 13 a house with _porcelaine_
decorations set up here in 1773. Beneath the pavement of Rue
Pierre-Levée a druidical stone was unearthed in 1782. Rue de Malte
refers by its name to the Knights Templar of Malta, across whose land it
was cut. We see an ancient _cabaret_ at No. 57. Rue Darboy records the
name of the archbishop of Paris, shot by the Communards in 1871; Rue
Deguerry that of the vicar of the Madeleine who shared his fate. The
church of St-Joseph is quite modern, 1860, despite its blackened walls.
Avenue Parmentier running up into the 10th arrondissement is entirely
modern, recording the name of the man who made the potato known to
France.
Rue des Trois-Bornes shows us several old-time houses and at No. 39 a
characteristic old court. We find some characteristic vestiges also in
Rue d’Angoulême. In Rue St-Ambroise we see the handsome modern church
built on the site of the ancient church des Annociades. The monastery of
the Annociades was sold in lots, and became in part by turns a barracks,
a military hospital, a hospital for incurables, and was razed to the
ground in 1864. At Musée Carnavalet we may see bas-reliefs taken from
the fountain once on the space before the church. Rue Popincourt, which
gives its name to the arrondissement, records the existence in past days
of a sire Jean de Popincourt whose manor-house was here, and a
sixteenth-century village, which became later part of Faubourg
St-Antoine. Rue du Chemin-Vert dates from 1650, but has few interesting
features. Parmentier died at No. 68 in 1813.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
IN THE PARIS “EAST END”
We are now in the vicinity of the largest and most important of the
Paris cemeteries--Père Lachaise. But it lies in the 20th arrondissement.
The streets of this 10th arrondissement leading east approach its
boundary walls--its gates. Rue de la Roquette comes to it from the
vicinity of the Bastille. La Roquette was a country house built in the
sixteenth century, a favourite resort of the princes of the Valois line.
Then, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the house was given
over to the nuns Hospitalières of Place-Royale. The convent, suppressed
at the Revolution, became State property and in 1837 was used as the
prison for criminals condemned to death. The guillotine was set up on
the five stones we see at the entrance to Rue Croix-Faubin. The
prisoners called the spot l’Abbaye des Cinq Pierres. It was there that
Monseigneur Darboy and abbé Deguerry were put to death in 1871. On the
day following fifty-two prisoners, chiefly monks and Paris Guards, were
led from that prison to the heights of Belleville and shot in Rue Haxo.
Read _à ce propos_ Coppée’s striking drama _Le Pater_. La Roquette is
now a prison for youthful offenders, a sort of House of Correction.
Lower down the street we find here and there an ancient house or an old
sign. The fountain at No. 70 is modern (1846). The curious old Cour du
Cantal at No. 22 is inhabited mostly by Auvergnats. Rue de Charonne,
another street stretching through the whole length of the
arrondissement, in olden days the Charonne road, starts from the Rue du
Faubourg St-Antoine, where at No. 1 we see a fountain dating from 1710.
Along its whole length we find vestiges of bygone times. It is a
district of ironmongers and workers in iron and workman’s tools. A
district, too, of popular dancing saloons. At No. 51 we see l’hôtel de
Mortagne, built in 1711, where Vaucanson first exhibited his collection
of mechanical instruments. Bequeathed to the State, that collection was
the nucleus of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers: Arts and Crafts
Institution (_see_ p. 64). Here the great mechanic died in 1782. No. 97,
once a Benedictine convent, was subsequently a private mansion, then a
factory, then in part a Protestant chapel. The École Maternelle at No.
99 was in past days a priory of “Bon Secours” (seventeenth century). No.
98 is on the site of a convent razed in 1906. There are remains of
another convent at Nos. 100, 102. No. 161 was the famous “Maison de
Santé,” owned by Robespierre’s friend Dr. Belhomme, to which he added
the adjoining _hôtel_ of the marquis de Chabanais. There, during the
Terror, he received prisoners as “paying guests.” His prices were
enormous and on a rising scale ... the guests who could not pay at the
required rate were turned adrift on the road to the guillotine. These
walls sheltered the duchesse d’Orléans, the mother of Louis-Philippe,
protected by her faithful friend known as comte de Folmon, in reality
the deputé Rouzet, and many other notable persons of those troubled
years. On the left side of the door we see the figures 1726, relic of an
ancient system of numbering. The Flemish church de la Sainte Famille at
181 is modern (1862).
Crossing Rue de Charonne in its earlier course, we come upon the
sixteenth-century Rue Basfroi, a corruption of _beffroi_, referring to
the belfry of the ancient church Ste-Marguerite in Rue St-Bernard.
Ste-Marguerite, founded in 1624 as a convent chapel, rebuilt almost
entirely in 1712, enlarged later, is interesting as the burial-place of
the Dauphin, or his substitute, in 1745, and as possessing a much-prized
relic, the body of St. Ovide, in whose honour the great annual fair was
held on Place Vendôme. A tiny cross up against the church wall marks the
grave where the son of Louis XVI was supposed to have been laid, but
where on exhumation some years ago the bones of an older boy were found.
We see some other ancient tombs up against the walls of what remains of
that old churchyard, and on the wall of the apse of the church two very
remarkable bas-reliefs, the work of an old-time abbé, M. Goy, a clever
sculptor, to whom are due also many of the statues in the park at
Versailles. Within the church we see several striking statues and a
remarkable “Chapelle des Morts,” its walls entirely frescoed in
_grisaille_ but in great need of restoration. From the end of Rue
Chancy, where at No. 22 we see an old carved wood balcony, we get an
interesting view of this historic old church.
Rue de Montreuil, leading to the village of the name, shows us many old
houses, one at No. 52 with statuettes and in the courtyard an ancient
well, and at No. 31, remains of the Folie Titon, within its walls a fine
staircase and ceiling, the latter damaged of late owing to a fire.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ON TRAGIC GROUND
Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine forms the boundary between the
arrondissements XI and XII. From end to end it shows us historic
vestiges. It has played from earliest times an all-important part in
French history, leading, when without the city walls, to Paris and the
Bastille from the fortress of Vincennes and lands beyond, while from the
time of its incorporation with Paris, popular political demonstrations
unfailingly had their _mise en scène_ in the Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine.
In the seventeenth century it was a country road in its upper part, the
Chaussée St-Antoine, and led to the fine Abbaye St-Antoine-des-Champs;
the lower part was the “Chemin de Vincennes.” Along this road, between
Picpus and the Bastille, the Frondeurs played their war-games. Turenne’s
army fired from the heights of Charonne, while the Queen-Mother, her
son, Louis XIII, and Mazarin watched from Père-la-Chaise. At No. 8 lived
the regicide Pépin, Fieschis’ accomplice. The sign, the “Pascal Lamb,”
at No. 18 dates from the eighteenth century. We see ancient signs all
along the street. The Square Trousseau at No. 118 is on the site of the
first “Hospice des Enfants Trouvés,” built in 1674 on abbey land. In
1792 it became the “Hôpital des Enfants de la Patrie.” The head of
princesse de Lamballe was buried in the chapel graveyard there. What is
supposed to be her skull was dug up here in 1904. In 1839 the hospital
was made an _annexe_ of the hôtel-Dieu, in 1880 it was Hôpital
Trousseau, then in the first years of this twentieth century razed to
the ground. At No. 184 the hospital St-Antoine retains some vestiges of
the royal abbey that stood there in long-gone days. Founded in 1198, it
was like all the big abbeys of the age a small town in itself,
surrounded by high fortified walls. At the Revolution it was
sequestrated, the church demolished. Till the early years of the
nineteenth century, one of the most popular of Paris fairs was held on
the site of the old abbey, la Foire aux pains d’épices, which had its
origin in an Easter week market held within the abbey precincts. The
house No. 186 is on the site of the little chapel St-Pierre, razed in
1797, where of old kings of France lay in state after their death. Two
daughters of Charles V were buried there. The fountain and butcher’s
shop opposite the hospital date from the time of Louis XV, built by the
nuns of the abbey and called la Petite Halle. The nuns alone had the
right to sell meat to the population of the district in those old days.
Almost every house and courtyard and passage along the whole course of
this ancient thoroughfare dates, as we see, from days long past. In the
courts at Nos. 245 and 253 we find old wells.
So we reach Place de la Nation, of yore Place du Trône, styled in
Revolution days Place du Trône Renversé, and the guillotine set up there
“_en permanence_”: there 1340 persons fell beneath its knife, 54 in one
tragic day. The two pavilions on the eastern side of the _place_ were
the custom-houses of pre-Revolution days. The monument in the centre is
modern (1899). Of the streets and avenues leading from the _place_, that
of supreme interest is the old Rue Picpus, a curious name explained by
some etymologists as a corruption of Pique-Pusse, and referring to a
sixteenth-century monk of the neighbourhood who succeeded in curing a
number of people of an epidemic which studded their arms with spots like
flea-bites and who was called henceforth “le Père Pique-Pusse.” In
previous days the upper part of the road--it was a road then, not yet a
street--had been known as Chemin de la Croix-Rouge. Nos. 4 and 6 are the
remains of an eighteenth-century pavilion, a _maison de santé_--house of
detention--where in 1786 St. Just was shut up for petty thefts committed
in his own family. No. 10, a present-day _maison de santé_, is on the
site of a hunting-lodge of Henri IV. At No. 35 we see the Oratoire de
Picpus, where is the statuette of Notre-Dame, de la Paix, once on the
door of the Capucine convent, Rue St-Honoré; and here, behind the
convent garden, we find the cimetière Picpus and the railed pit where
the bodies of the 1340 persons beheaded on the Place du Trône Renversé
were cast in 1793, André Chenier among the number. Their burial-place
was unknown until some years later, when a poor woman, the daughter of a
servant of the duc de Brissac, who, stealthily watching from afar, had
seen her father and her brother fall on the scaffold, pointed it out.
The site was bought, walled in, an iron cross set up over it. Soon
adjoining land was bought and the relatives of many of those who lay in
the pit were brought to be in death near to the members of their family
cut off from them in life by the Revolutionist axe. We see their tombs
in the carefully kept cemetery to which, from time to time, descendants
of the different families come to be laid in their last long sleep. In
the corner closest up against the walls surrounding the pit we see the
Stars and Stripes of the United States, the “star-spangled banner”
keeping guard over the grave of La Fayette. The nuns of the convent have
charge of this pathetically interesting cemetery. At No. 42 we see more
convent walls stretching to Rue de Reuilly, now enclosing a carriage
factory. At No. 61 the doors of yet another, put later to various
secular uses. No. 76 is the Jewish hospital, founded by Rothschild in
1852. No. 73 is the Hospice des Vieillards, worked by the Petites
Sœurs des Pauvres. On the wall at No. 88 we come upon an edict of
Louis XV with the date 1727.
Running parallel with Rue Picpus is Rue de Reuilly, in long-gone days a
country road leading to the Château at Romiliacum, the summer habitation
of the early Merovingian kings. We see an ancient house at No. 12 and
No. 11 was the historic _brasserie_ owned by Santerre, commander-in-chief
of the Paris Garde Nationale, its walls supposed to date from 1620.
Santerre bought it in 1772. After the storming of the Bastille, two
prisoners found within its walls, both mad, one aged, the other a noted
criminal, were sheltered there: there the keys and chains of the broken
fortress were deposited. The barracks at No. 20 are on the site of ruins
of the old Merovingian castle. The church, modern, of St-Eloi at No. 36
has no historic interest save that of its name, and no architectural
beauty.
Rue de Charenton is another ancient street. It runs through the whole of
the arrondissement from Place de la Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes.
From 1800-15 it went by the name Rue de Marengo, for through a gate on
its course, at the barrier of the village of Charenton and along its
line, Napoléon re-entered Paris after his Italian campaigns. In its
upper part it was known in olden days as Vallée de Fécamp. Through the
house at No. 2, with the sign “A la Tour d’Argent,” Monseigneur Affre
got on to the barricades in 1848, to be shot down by the mob a few
moments later. No. 10 dates from the sixteenth century. The inn at No.
12 is ancient. At No. 26 we see the chapel of the Blind Hospital, the
“Quinze-Vingts,” formerly the parish church of the district. The
Quinze-Vingts was founded by St. Louis for three hundred
_gentilshommes_, i.e. men of gentle birth, on their return from the
crusades; their quarters were till 1780 on land owned by the monks of
the Cloître St-Honoré. Then this fine old _hôtel_ and grounds, built in
1699 for the Mousquetaires Noirs, were bought for them. In the chapel
crypt the tombstone of the first archbishop of Paris, Mgr de Gondi, was
found a few years ago, and bits of broken sixteenth-century sculpture of
excellent workmanship. The little Rue Moreau, which opens at No. 40, was
known in the seventeenth century as Rue des Filles Anglaises, for
English nuns had a convent where now we see the Passage du Chêne-Vert.
We find characteristic old houses in Rue d’Aligre and an interesting old
_place_ of the same name, in Revolutionary days a hay and straw market.
The short streets and passages of this neighbourhood date, with scarce
an exception, from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rue de la
Brèche-aux-loups recalls the age when, in wintry weather, hungry wolves
came within the sight of the city. The statuette of Ste-Marguerite and
the inscription of No. 277 date from 1745. Passage de la Grande Pinte at
No. 295 records the days when drinking booths were a distinctive feature
of the district. We see vestiges of an ancient cloister at No. 306, and
at No. 312 an old farmyard.
CHAPTER XL
LES GOBELINS
ARRONDISSEMENT XIII. (GOBELINS)
The brothers Gobelin, Jehan and Philibert, famous dyers of the day,
established their great factory on the banks of the Bièvre about the
year 1443. Jehan had a fine private mansion in the vicinity of his
dye-works known as Le Cygne. At a little distance, on higher ground, was
another _hôtel_ known as la Folie Gobelin. The rich scarlet dye the
brothers turned out was greatly prized; their business prospered, grew
into a huge concern. But in the first year of the seventeenth century a
Flemish firm of upholsterers came to Paris and established themselves on
the banks of the tributary of the Seine, entirely replacing the
Gobelins’ works. This in its turn yielded to another firm, but the name
remained unchanged. A few years later the firm and all the buildings
connected therewith were taken over by the State, and in 1667, by the
initiative of the minister Colbert, were organized as the royal factory
“des meubles de la Couronne.” On the ancient walls behind the modern
façade we see two inscriptions referring to the founders of the
world-famed factory. This hinder part of the vast building is of special
interest to the lover of old-world vestiges. The central structure, two
wings and the ancient chapel of the original building, still stand, and
around on every side we see quaint old houses in tortuous streets,
courtyards of past centuries, where twentieth-century work goes on
apace, picturesque corners densely inhabited by a busy population. For
this is also the great tanning district of the city. Curious old-world
sights meet us as we wind in and out among these streets and passages
which have stood unchanged for several hundred years. The artistic work
of the great factory was from the first given into the hands of men of
noted ability, beginning in 1667 with Charles le Brun; and from the
first it was regarded as an institution of special interest and
importance. Visitors of mark, royal and other, lay and ecclesiastical,
were taken to see it. The Pope, when in Paris in 1805, did not fail to
visit “les Gobelins.” In 1826 the great Paris soap-works were removed
from Chaillot and set up here in connection with the dye-works. The fine
old building was set fire to by the Communards in 1871--much of it burnt
to the ground, many priceless pieces of tapestry destroyed. At No. 17
Rue des Gobelins, in its earlier days Rue de la Bièvre, crossed by the
stream so carefully hidden beneath its surface now, we see the old
_castel_ de la Reine Blanche. It dates from the sixteenth century, on
the site of a more ancient _castel_, where tradition says the “_bals des
ardents_” were given, notably that of the year 1392 when the accident
took place which turned King Charles VI into a madman. But the “Reine
Blanche,” for whom it was first built, was probably not the mother of
St. Louis, but the widow of Philippe de Valois, who died in 1398. In the
sixteenth century relatives of the brothers Gobelin lived there. Then it
was the head office of the great factory. Revolutionists met there in
1790 to organize the attack of June 20th. In Napoléon’s time it was a
brewery, now it is a tannery.
[Illustration: CASTEL DE LA REINE BLANCHE]
Rue Croulebarbe, once on the banks of the Bièvre, has an old-world,
village-like aspect. The buildings bordering the broad Avenue des
Gobelins are devoid of interest, but beneath several of them important
Roman remains have been found, and besides the old streets running into
the avenue in the immediate vicinity of the Gobelins Factory, we find at
intervals other old streets and passages with many interesting vestiges;
at No. 37, the Cour des Rames. The city gate St-Marcel stood in past
days across the avenue where the house No. 45 now stands. In Rue Le Brun
we see the remains of the _hôtel_ where, in the early years of the
eighteenth century, dwelt Jean Julienne, the master of the Gobelins. Rue
du Banquier shows many curious old-time houses.
In Rue de la Glacière on the western side of the arrondissement, so
named in long-gone days from an ice-house furnished from the Bièvre, and
in the short streets leading out of it, we find old houses here and
there. Rue de la Tannerie was until quite modern times Rue des Anglaises
from the couvent des Filles Anglaises, founded at Cambrai, established
here in 1664--the chief duty of the nuns being to offer prayers for the
conversion of England to Romanism! Disturbed at the Revolution, they
returned to their own land and the convent became a prison under the
Terror. At No. 28 of this old street we see vestiges of the chapel
cloisters.
Covering a large area in the east of this arrondissement is the hospice
known as La Salpétrière. In long-past days a powder magazine stood on
the site: traces of that old arsenal may still be seen in the hospital
wash-house. The foundation of the hospice dates from Louis XIII, as a
house for the reception of beggars. The present structure, the work of
the architect Vau, was built in the seventeenth century, destined for
the destitute and the mad. The fine chapel was built a few years later.
At the close of the century a woman’s prison was added, whither went
many of the Convulsionists of St. Médard (_see_ p. 150). Mme Lamotte
concerned in the _affaire du collier_ was shut up here. And in a scene
of the well-known operette Manon Lescaut is shown within its walls. In
September, 1792, the Revolutionary mob broke into the prison, slew the
criminals, opened the doors to the light women shut up there. We see
before us the “Cour des Massacres.” Then in 1883 la Salpétrière was
organized as the “Hospice de la Vieillesse-Femmes.” There are five
thousand beds. In 1908 the new hospital de la Pitié was built in its
grounds.
[Illustration: LA SALPÉTRIÈRE]
CHAPTER XLI
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PORT-ROYAL
ARRONDISSEMENT XIV. (OBSERVATOIRE)
The boundary-line between arrondissements XIII and XIV is Rue de la
Santé, the name of the great Paris prison which stands there. It brings
us to the vicinity of the Paris Observatory and of the Hôpital Cochin.
The prison is a modern structure on a site known as la Charbonnerie,
because of coal-mines once there. The Observatory, built over ancient
quarries, was founded by Louis XIV’s minister Colbert, in 1667. A spiral
staircase of six hundred steps leads down to the cellars that erewhile
were mines. It was enlarged in 1730 and again in 1810, and the cupolas
were added at a later date. A stretch of Rue du Faubourg St-Jacques
borders its eastern side, and there on the opposite side we see
l’Hôpital Cochin, founded in 1780 by the then vicar of
St-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, whose name it bears--enlarged in recent years.
At No. 34 of Rue du Faubourg St-Jacques we turn into the
seventeenth-century Rue Cassini, so named in 1790 to memorize the
seventeenth-century organizer of the Observatory. Here Balzac lived in
1829 in a house no longer standing. The great painter J. P. Laurens has
an _hôtel_ here. We find a Louis XVI monument in a court at No. 10.
Subterranean passages, made and used in a past age by smugglers, have
been discovered beneath the pavement of this old street.
Rue Denfert-Rochereau has its first numbers in arrondissement V. This
was the “Via Infera,” the Lower Road of the Romans. The name _Enfer_,
given later, is said to refer, not to the place of torment, but to the
hellish noise persistently made in a _hôtel_ there built by a son of
Hugues Capet, the hôtel Vauvert, hence the French expression, “envoyer
les gens au diable vert”--_vert_ shortened from _Vauvert_, i.e. send
them off--far away--to the devil! _Enfer_ became _d’Enfert_, to which in
1878 was added the name of the general who defended Belfort in 1870: not
exactly a happy combination! Many persons of note have dwelt in this old
street. No. 25 (arrondissement V) is an ancient Carmelite convent,
built, tradition says, on the site of a pagan temple: an oratory-chapel
dedicated to St. Michael covered part of the site in early Christian
days and a public cemetery. An ancient crypt still exists. It was in the
convent here that Louise de la Vallière came to work till her death, in
1710. That first convent and church were razed in 1797. The Carmelites
built a smaller one on the ancient grounds in 1802, and rebuilt their
chapel in 1899. It did not serve them long. They were banished from
France in 1901. The chapel, crypt and some vestiges of the ancient
convent are before us here. Modern streets--Rue Val de Grâce opened in
1881, Rue Nicole in 1864--run where the rest of the vast convent walls
once rose. No. 57 is on the site of an ancient Roman burial-ground of
which important traces were found in 1896. No. 68, ancient convent of
the Visitation. No. 72 built in 1650 as an Oratorian convent, a
maternity hospital under the Empire, now a children’s hospice. No. 71,
couvent du Bon Pasteur--House of Mercy--founded in the time of Louis
XVI, bought by the Paris Municipality in 1891, its chapel burnt by the
Communards in 1871, rebuilt by the authorities of the Charity, worked
now by Sisters of St. Thomas de Villeneuve. Within its walls we see
interesting old-time features and beneath are the walls of reservoirs
dating from the days when water was brought here from the heights of
Rungis. No. 75, ancient Eudiste convent and chapel; Châteaubriand once
dwelt at No. 88 and with his wife founded at No. 92 the Infirmerie
Marie-Thérèse, named after the duchesse d’Angoulême, daughter of Louis
XVI, a home for poverty-stricken gentlepeople, transformed subsequently
into an asylum for aged priests. Mme de Châteaubriand lies buried there
beneath the high altar of the chapel.
Avenue d’Orléans, in olden days Route Nationale de Paris à Orléans,
dating from the eighteenth century, and smaller streets connected with
it, show us many old houses, while in the Villa Adrienne, opening at No.
17, we find a number of modern houses--pavilions--each bearing the name
of a celebrity of past time. Rue de la Voie-Verte was so named from the
market-gardens erewhile stretching here. Rue de la Tombe-Issoire runs
across the site of an ancient burial-ground where was an immense tomb,
said to have been made for the body of a giant: Isore or Isïre, who,
according to the legend, attacked Paris at the head of a body of
Sarazins in the time of Charlemagne. Here and there along this street,
as in the short streets leading out of it, we come upon interesting
vestiges of the past, notably in Rue Hallé, opening at No. 42. The
pretty Parc Souris is quite modern. We find old houses in Avenue du
Chatillon, an eighteenth-century thoroughfare. Rue des Plantes leads us
to Place de Montrouge, in the thirteenth century the centre of a village
so named either after an old-time squire, lord of the manor, Guis de
Rouge, or because the soil is of red sandstone. The squire, maybe,
gained his surname from the soil on which he built his château, while
the village took its name from the squire. Rue Didot, once known as Rue
des Terriers-aux-Lapins, memorizes the great printing-house founded in
1713. Rue de Vanves, leading to what was in olden days the village of
the name, crosses Rue du Château at the point where in the eighteenth
century the duc de Maine had a hunting-lodge. In Avenue du Maine we see
ancient houses at intervals. Rue du Moulin-Vert recalls the existence of
one of the numerous windmills on the land around the city in former
days. Rue de la Gaité (eighteenth century) has ever been true to its
name or the name true to the locality--one of dancing saloons and other
popular amusements. The Cinema des Mille Colonnes was in pre-cinema days
the “Bal des Mille Colonnes,” opened in 1833. Passing on up Avenue du
Maine we come to arrondissement XV.
CHAPTER XLII
IN THE SOUTH-WEST
ARRONDISSEMENT XV. (VAUGIRARD)
Rue Vaugirard, originally Val Girard, which we enter here, on its course
from arrondissement VI (_see_ p. 164), is the longest street in Paris, a
union of several streets under one name, extending on beyond the city
bounds. At No. 115 we find an ancient house recently restored by a man
of artistic mind; at No. 144, ancient buildings connected with the old
hospital l’Enfant-Jésus, its façade giving on Rue de Sèvres. At
intervals all along the street, and in the short streets opening out of
it, we come upon old-time houses, none, however, of special interest. In
this section of its course Rue de la Procession, opening at No. 247,
dates from the close of the fourteenth century, a reminiscence of the
days when ecclesiastical processions passed along its line to the
church. Rue Cambronne, named after the veteran of Waterloo, dates from
the first Empire and shows us at Nos. 98, 104, 117, houses of the time
when it was Rue de l’École--i.e. l’École Militaire.
The modern church St-Lambert in Rue Gerbert replaces the ancient church
of Vaugirard in Rue Dombasle, once Rue des Vignes, the centre of a
vine-growing district, where till recent years stood the old orphanage
of St-Vincent-de-Paul. Rue de la Croix-Nivert, traced in the early
years of the eighteenth century, records the existence of one of the
crosses to be found in old days at different points within and without
the bounds of the city. In Rue du Hameau, important Roman remains were
found a few years ago. In Rue Lecourbe, known in the seventeenth century
as le Grand Chemin de Bretagne, in the nineteenth century for some years
as Rue de Sèvres, like the old street it starts from at Square Pasteur,
prehistoric remains were found in 1903. Rue Blomet, the old Meudon road,
was in past days the habitation of gardeners, several old gardeners’
cottages still stand there. The district known as Grenelle, a village
beyond the Paris bounds till 1860, has few vestiges of interest. The
first stone of its church, St-Jean Baptiste, was laid by the duchesse
d’Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI. The long modern Rue de la Convention
is known beyond its immediate vicinity chiefly for the Hôpital Boucicaut
built by the founder and late owner of the Bon Marché.
Avenue Suffren, bounding this arrondissement on its even-number side,
dates from 1770. Rue Desaix was once le Chemin de l’Orme de Grenelle.
Rue de la Fédération memorizes the Fête de la Fédération held on the
Champ de Mars in 1790. The oldest street of the district is Rue Dupleix,
a road in the fifteenth century and known in the sixteenth century as
Sentier de la Justice or Chemin du Gibet, a name which explains itself.
Then it became Rue Neuve. The Château de Grenelle stood in old days on
the site of the barracks on Place Dupleix, used in the Revolution as a
powder factory; there in 1794 a terrific explosion took place, killing
twelve hundred persons. Where the Grande Roue turns, on the ground now
bright with flower-beds and grassy lawns, duels were fought erewhile.
This is the quarter of new streets, brand-new avenues.
Crossing the Seine at this point we find ourselves in arrondissement
XVI, for to its area south of the Étoile and surrounding avenues, were
added in 1860 the suburban villages of Passy and Auteuil.
CHAPTER XLIII
IN NEWER PARIS
ARRONDISSEMENT XVI. (PASSY)
We have left far behind us now Old Paris, the Paris of the Kings of
France, of the upheaval of Revolution days. The 16th arrondissement,
save in the remotest corners of Passy and Auteuil, suburban villages
still in some respects, is the arrondissement of the “Nineteenth Century
and After.” Round about the Étoile the Napoléonic stamp is very evident.
It is the district of the French Empire, First and Second. The Arc de
Triomphe was Napoléon’s conception. The broad thoroughfare stretching as
Avenue des Champs-Elysées to Place de la Concorde, as Avenue de la
Grande Armée to the boundary of Neuilly, was planned by Napoléon I, as
were also the other eleven surrounding avenues. The erections of his day
and following years were well designed, well built, solid, systematical,
mathematically correct, excellent work as constructions--spacious, airy,
hygienic, but devoid of architectural poetry. The buildings of the
Second Empire were a little less well designed, less well built and yet
more symmetrical, with a very marked utilitarian stamp and a marked lack
of artistic inspiration. Those of a later date, with the exception of
some few edifices on ancient models, are, alas! for the most part,
utilitarian only--supremely utilitarian. Paris dwelling-houses of
to-day are, save for a fine _hôtel_ here and there, “_maisons de
rapport_,” where _rapport_ is plainly their all-prevailing _raison
d’être_. The new houses are one like the other, so like as to render new
streets devoid of landmarks: “_Où sont les jours d’Antan_,” when each
street, each house had its distinctive feature? Only in the Paris of
generations past.
Of Napoléon’s avenues seven, if we include the odd-number side of Avenue
des Champs-Élysées and of the Grande Armée, are in this arrondissement.
The beautiful Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne is due to Napoléon III, opened
in 1854, as Avenue de l’Impératrice. Handsome mansions line it on both
sides. One spot remained as it had been before the erection of all these
fine _hôtels_ until recent years--a rude cottage-dwelling stood there,
owned by a coal merchant who refused to sell the territory at any price.
Francs by the million were offered for the site--in vain. But it went at
last. In 1909 a private mansion worthy of its neighbour edifices was
built on the site.
Avenue Victor-Hugo began in 1826 as Avenue Charles X. From the short Rue
du Dôme, on high ground opening out of it, we see in the distance the
_dôme_ of the Invalides. To No. 117 the first _crêche_ opened in or near
Paris, at Chaillot (1844), was removed some years ago. Gambetta lived
for several years and died at No. 57, in another adjoining street, Rue
St-Didier. At No. 124 of the Avenue we see a bust of Victor-Hugo, who
died in 1885 in the house this one replaces. Place Victor-Hugo began in
1830 as Rond-Point de Charles X. The figure of the poet set up in 1902
is by Barrias. The church St-Honoré d’Eylau dates from 1852. It was
pillaged by the Fédérés in 1871. Lamartine passed the last year of his
life in a simple chalet near the square named after him; his statue
there dates from 1886.
General Boulanger lived at No. 3 Rue Yvon de Villarceau, opening out of
Rue Copernic. Rue Dosne is along the site of the extensive grounds left
by Thiers. At No. 46 Rond-Point Bugeaud we see the foundation Thiers, a
handsome _hôtel_ bequeathed by the widow of the statesman as an
institution for the benefit of young students of special aptitude in
science, philosophy, history.
Avenue d’Eylau, planned to be Place du Prince Impérial, possessed till
recently, in a courtyard at No. 11, three bells supposed to be those of
the ancient Bastille clock.
Avenue Malakoff, began in 1826 as Avenue St-Denis. At No. 66 we see the
chapel of ease of St-Honoré d’Eylau, of original style and known as the
Cité Paroissiale St-Honoré.
Avenue Kléber began in 1804 as Avenue du Roi de Rome. Beneath the
pavement at No. 79 there is a circular flight of steps built in 1786, to
go down to the Passy quarries.
Rue Galilée, opening out of it at No. 55, began as Rue des Chemin de
Versailles. Rue Belloy was formed in 1886 on the site of the ancient
Chaillot reservoirs.
Avenue d’Iéna lies along the line of the ancient Rue des Batailles de
Chaillot, where, in 1593, without the city bounds, Henri IV and
Gabrielle d’Estrées had a house. Rue Auguste-Vaquerie is the former Rue
des Bassins. The Anglican church there dedicated to St-George dates from
1888 and is, like the French churches, always open--a friendly English
church--with beautiful decorations and furnishings. The short Rue
Keppler dates from 1772 and was at one time Rue Ste-Geneviève. Rue
Georges-Bizet lies along the line of an ancient Ruelle des Tourniquets,
a name reminiscent of country lanes and stiles; in its lower part it was
of yore Rue des Blanchisseuses, where clean linen hung out freely to
dry. The Greek church there, with its beautiful _Iconostase_ and
paintings by Charles Lemaire, is modern (1895). Rue de Lubeck began as a
tortuous seventeenth-century road, crossing the grounds of the ancient
convent of the Visitation.
The statue of Washington in the centre of Place d’Iéna, the scene of so
many momentous gatherings, was given by the women of the United States
“_en mémoire de l’amitié et de l’aide fraternelle donnée par la France à
leurs frères pendant la lutte pour l’indépendance_.” The Musée Guinet on
the site of the hippodrome of earlier years, an oriental museum, was
opened in 1888. Rue Boissière, in the eighteenth century in part Rue de
la Croix-Boissière, reminds us of the wooden crosses to which in olden
days the branches of box which replace palm were fixed on Palm Sunday.
Along Rue de Longchamp, then a country lane, seventeenth and
eighteenth-century Parisians passed in pilgrimage to Longchamp Abbey,
while at an old farm on the Rond-Point, swept away of late years,
ramblers of note, Boileau and La Fontaine among the number, stopped to
drink milk fresh and pure. The name of the Bouquet de Longchamp recalls
the days when green trees clustered there. Rue Lauriston, a thoroughfare
in the eighteenth century, was long known as Chemin du Bel-air.
Rue de Chaillot, which leads us to Avenue Marceau, was the High Street
of the village known in the eleventh century by the Roman name
Colloelum. It was Crown property, and Louis XI gave it to Philippe de
Commines. In 1659 the district became a Paris faubourg and in 1787 was
included within the city bounds. There on the high land now the site of
the Trocadéro palace and gardens, the Château de Chaillot, its name
changed later to Grammont, was built by Catherine de’ Medici. Henriette,
widow of Charles I of England, back in her own land of France, made it
into a convent (1651). Its first Superior was Mlle de Lafayette; its
walls sheltered many women of note and rank, Louise de la Vallière is
said to have fled thither twice, to be twice regained by the King. The
chapel was on the site of the pond in the Trocadéro gardens. There the
hearts of the Catholic Stuarts were taken for preservation. Suppressed
at the Revolution, the convent was subsequently razed to the ground by
Napoléon, who planned the erection of a palace there for his son the
“_Roi de Rome_.” The old street has still several old houses easily
recognized: Nos. 5, 9, 19, etc. The church, on the site of an
eleventh-century chapel, dates from the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, with a nineteenth-century chapel and presbytery.
Avenue du Trocadéro, since 4th July, 1918, Avenue Wilson, was
inaugurated as Avenue de l’Empereur, (Napoléon III). The palace, now a
museum and concert-hall, was built on the crest of ancient quarries, for
the Exhibition of 1878, and the Place du Roi de Rome, in previous days
Place Ste-Marie, became Place du Trocadéro. The Musée Galliera, a museum
of industrial art, was built in 1895 by the duchess whose maiden name
Brignole is recorded in the short street opened across her property in
1879. She had planned filling it with her magnificent collection of
pictures, but changed the destination of her legacy when France laicised
her schools.
Avenue Henri-Martin began, like Avenue du Trocadéro, as Avenue de
l’Empereur (1858). The old _tour_ we see at No. 86 Rue de le Tour is
said to have formed part of the Manor of Philippe-le-Bel. It was once a
prison, then served as a windmill tower, and the street, erewhile Chemin
des Moines, Monk’s Road, became Rue du Moulin de la Tour. Few other
vestiges of the past remain along its course. We see old houses at Nos.
1, 66, 68. Rue Vineuse, crossing it, recalls the days when convent
vineyards stretched there. It is, like Rue Franklin, once Rue Neuve des
Minimes, of eighteenth-century date. Franklin’s statue was set up there
in 1906, for his centenary. We see an old-time house at No. 1 Rue
Franklin, and at No. 8 the home of Clemenceau, the capable Prime
Minister of France of the late war. The cemetery above the reservoir was
opened in 1803.
CHAPTER XLIV
TOWARDS THE WESTERN BOUNDARY
Rue de Passy, the ancient Grande Rue, the village High Street before the
district was included within the Paris boundary-line, dates from
fifteenth-century days, when it was a fief, owned by Jeanne de Paillard,
known as La Dame de Passy; it reverted to the Crown under Louis XI, and
was bestowed on successive nobles. At the _carrefour_--the cross
roads--where the tramcars now stop for Rue de la Tour, stood the
seignorial gallows. The seignorial habitation, a château with extensive
grounds, was built in 1678; in 1826 the whole domain was sold and cut
up. The district was known far and wide in past days on account of its
mineral springs. Here and there along the street we see an ancient house
still standing. The narrow _impasse_ at No. 24 is ancient. The
nineteenth-century poet Gustave Nadaud died at No. 63 in 1893. No. 84,
now razed, showed, until a few years ago, an interesting Louis XV façade
in the courtyard, once a dependency of the Château de la Muette. Rue de
la Pompe, named from the pump which supplied the Château de la Muette
with water, a country road in the eighteenth century, shows few vestiges
of the past. No. 53 is part of an old Carmelite convent.
Chaussée de la Muette is a nineteenth-century prolongation of Rue de
Passy. The château from which it takes its name was originally a
hunting-lodge, stags and birds were carefully enclosed here during the
time of moulting (_la mue_, hence the name) in the days of Charles IX.
Margaret de Valois, the notorious Reine Margot, was its first regular
inhabitant. She gave the mansion to King Louis XIII when he came of age
in 1615. It was rebuilt by the Regent in 1716 and became the favourite
abode of his daughter the duchesse de Berri. There she died three years
later. It was the home of Louis XV during his minority. Mme de Pompadour
lived there and had the doors beautifully painted. It was again rebuilt
in 1764, Marie-Antoinette and the Dauphin, soon to be Louis XVI, spent
the first months of their married life there. It was from the Park de la
Muette that the first balloon was sent up in 1783. The property was cut
up in 1791, and in 1820 bought by Sebastien Érard of pianoforte fame,
and once more rebuilt. Thus it came by the spindle-side to the comte de
Franqueville; a big slice has been cut off in recent years for the
making of a new street named after its present owner.[G]
[Illustration: RUE DES EAUX, PASSY]
Avenue du Ranelagh records the existence, in the latter years of the
eighteenth century, of the fashionable dancing hall and grounds opened
here in imitation of the Rotonde built in London by Lord Ranelagh.
Marie-Antoinette was among the great ladies who danced there. The hall
was closed at the Revolution but was reopened and again the vogue under
the Directoire and until 1830, when it became a public dancing saloon.
It was demolished in 1858, the lawns were left to form a promenade. The
statue of La Fontaine dates from 1891. Rue du Ranelagh is wholly modern.
Rue Raynouard crossing it dates from the seventeenth century, when it
was the Grande Rue, later the Haute Rue of the quarter, to become later
still Rue Basse. Florian, the charming fable-writer, was wont to stay
at No. 75. We see a fine old _hôtel_ at No. 69, and an old-world street,
Rue Guillou, close by. Rue des Vignes opening at No. 72 reminds us of
the vineyards once on these sunny slopes. No. 66 was the site of the
hôtel Valentinois, where Franklin lived for several years and where he
put up the first lightning conductor in France. No. 51 is ancient, and
No. 47 is known as la Maison de Balzac. In a pavilion in the garden
sloping to the Seine he lived from 1842-48, lived and wrote, wrote
incessantly there as elsewhere and always. There, carefully preserved,
may be seen the chair he sat in, the table he wrote at, the pen he used,
and a hundred other personal relics. Lectures about the great novelist
and subjects connected with his life and work are given there from time
to time. We see ancient houses on to the end of this quaint street.
Marie-Antoinette stayed from time to time at No. 42 to be within easy
reach of her confessor, the Vicar of Passy; so tradition says. The
second story of this house sheltered Béranger, 1833-35. The man of
letters who gave his name to the street died at No. 36, in 1836. At No.
21, the warrior, la Tour d’Auvergne, passed the years 1776-1800. Jean
Jacques Rousseau stayed with friends here and wrote his “Devin du
Village.” Mineral waters, such as made the springs of Passy renowned in
bygone days, still bubble up in this fine park. The modern erection, No.
19, is on the site of the ancient hôtel Lauzun, where the duc de
Saint-Simon used to stay, and where the first steps were taken for the
marriage of Napoléon III. At No. 11 we turn for an instant into the
quaint old Rue des Eaux, strikingly reminiscent of a past age, when the
tonifying waters of Passy were drunk in a pavilion on the site of No.
20. Rue de l’Annonciation began in the early years of the eighteenth
century as Rue des Moulins. Here we see the church Notre-Dame-de-Grâce,
built as a chapel of ease for Auteuil by the Lord of Passy in 1660, to
become a parish church, a few years later. It was restored and enlarged
at subsequent dates. The ancient Passy cemetery lay across Rue Lekain.
Rue de Boulainvilliers stretches through what were once the grounds of
the Passy Château. Rue des Bauches, opening out of it, still narrow and
quaint, was in olden days a lane through the _Bauches_, a word
signifying a marshy tract or used to designate hut-like dwellings on
waste, perhaps marshy land. Passy had within its bounds the Hautes
Bauches, and the Basses Bauches. We of the 16th arrondissement know the
street nowadays more especially as that of the tax-paying office.
Rue de l’Assomption marking the boundary between Passy and Auteuil began
as Rue des Tombereaux. The convent of the Assomption is a modern
building (1858), in an ancient park. The old château there, so secluded
on its tree-surrounded site as to go by the name of l’Invisible, rebuilt
in 1782, was for a time the home of Talleyrand, later of the actress
Rachel, of Thiers, the statesman, of the comtesse de Montijo, mother of
the Empress Eugénie; the nuns came here from Rue de Chaillot in 1855.
No. 88 is an old convent-chapel used as chapel of ease for Passy.
In Avenue de Mozart we see modern structures only, but old-time streets
open out of it at intervals. It was in a house in Rue Bois-le-Vent, near
the château de la Muette, that André Chenier was arrested in 1794.
Behind No. 13, of Rue Davioud we find traces of an old farmyard and a
well. Rue de la Cure refers by its name to the iron springs once there.
Rue de Ribéra is the ancient Rue de la Croix. Rue de la Source, was in
old days Sente des Vignes. Benedictine nuns from St-Maur settled there
in 1899 to be banished or laicized a few years later. Rue Raffet dates
from the eighteenth century as Rue de la Grande Fontaine. Rue du Docteur
Blanche, named to memorize the organizer of the well-known private
asylum in the _hôtel_ once the dwelling of princesse de Lamballe, is the
ancient Fontis Road. Rue Poussin, and the short streets connected with
it, all date from the middle of the nineteenth century, opened by the
railway company of the Ceinture line in the vicinity of their station at
Auteuil. Rue des Perchamps, once Pares Campi, crosses the site of the
ancient cemetery of the district. In Rue la Fontaine, in olden days
known for its fountain of pure water, we find here and there an
eighteenth-century building among the garden-surrounded houses. In Rue
Théophile Gautier, a tennis-court and tall houses let in flats cover the
ground where till 1908 stood the Château de Choiseul-Praslin, in its
latter years, till 1904, a convent of Dominican nuns. Rue de Remusat
runs along the course of the ancient Grande Rue; Rue Félicien-David was
the first street flooded in the great inundation of 1910.[H] The street
became a river three mètres deep. Rue Wilhem, of so commonplace an
aspect to-day, dates from the eighteenth century, when it was Sentier
des Arches, then Rue Ste-Geneviève. Place d’Auteuil, until 1867 Place
d’Aguesseau, is on the site of the churchyard of past days. The monument
we see there was set up to the memory of D’Aguesseau and his wife by
command of Louis XV, in 1753. This is the highest point in the district,
_altus locus_--the origin, maybe, of the name Auteuil, unless the name
refers rather to the Druidical altars erected on a clearing here in the
days when the forest of Rouvray, spreading over the whole of what is now
the Bois de Boulogne, sheltered the venerable pagan priests. A church
was first built on the spot in the early years of the fourteenth
century. At the Revolution the church was profaned, the tombs violated.
The present edifice dates from the latter years of the nineteenth
century; its tower, in the form of a pontifical tiara, is an exact copy
of the ancient tower. Rue d’Auteuil was in fifteenth-century days the
single village street, la Grande Rue; the house at No. 2 is said to be
on the site of Molière’s country dwelling, but there is no authentic
record of the exact site of the house at Auteuil, near the church, where
the great dramatist so often went for rest and country air. Auteuil was
the retreat for quiet and recuperation of the most noted men of letters
and of art of the eighteenth century: Racine, Boileau, etc. No. 59 is on
the site of the house, burnt to the ground in 1871, wherein Victor Noir
was shot dead by Prince Pierre Napoléon. Where at the upper end of the
street we see now houses of commonplace aspect and small shops, stood
until the middle of the nineteenth century the Château du Coq, inhabited
by Louis XV in his childhood, and surrounded later by a horticulturist’s
garden.
Avenue de Versailles, in the south of the arrondissement, shows us along
its line, and in the short streets leading out of it, many old-time
vestiges. The Auteuil cemetery in Rue Chardon-Lagache dates from 1800.
The house of retreat, Ste-Perine, transferred here from Chaillot in
1850, is on land once part of the estate of the abbots of the old
monastery Ste-Geneviève, away on the high ground across the Seine at the
other end of the city. Rue Molitor has at No. 18 a group of modern
houses named Villa Boileau, property once owned by the poet. Boileau’s
Auteuil house was on the site of No. 26, in the quaint picturesque old
Rue Boileau, where his gardener’s cottage still stands. Rue de Musset,
opening out of the street at No. 67, reminds us that the friend of
George Sand dwelt here with his parents in the early years of the
nineteenth century.
CHAPTER XLV
LES TERNES
ARRONDISSEMENT XVII. (BATIGNOLLES-MONCEAU)
A number of small dwellings lying without the city bounds to the north,
in the commune of Clichy, were known in the fifteenth century as “les
Batignolles,” i.e. the little buildings. Separated from Clichy in the
nineteenth century, the district of les Batignolles was joined to
Monceau. New streets were built, old erections swept away: Avenue de
Clichy, in part the Grande Rue of the district, was first planted with
trees in 1705. At intervals along its course, and in the short streets
connected with it, we find eighteenth-century houses, none of special
interest. At No. 3, the Taverne de Paris is decorated with paintings by
modern artists. A famous restaurant, dating from 1793, stood till 1906
at No. 7. At No. 52 of Rue Balagny, opening out of the Avenue, we see
the sign “Aux travailleurs,” and on the façade, words to the effect that
the house was built during the war years 1870-71. At No. 154 of the
Avenue, we find the quiet leafy Cité des Fleurs. Rue des Dames was a
road leading to the abbey “des dames de Montmartre” in the seventeenth
century. Rue de Lévis was in long-gone ages a road leading to what was
then the village of Monceaux, its name derived perhaps from the Latin
_Muxcellum_, a mossy place, more probably from _Monticellum_, a mound,
or from Mons calvas, the bald or bare mount. The Château de Monceaux was
on the site of Place Lévis. The official palace of the Papal Nuncio was
in Rue Legendre, No. 11 bis. The modern church St-Charles we see here,
built in 1907, was previously a Barnabite chapel. Rue Léon-Cosnard dates
from the seventeenth century, when it was Rue du Bac d’Asnières. In the
old Rue des Moines we find one of the few French protestant churches of
Paris.
Avenue de Villiers, leading of old to the village of Villiers, now
incorporated with Levallois-Perret, was, from its formation in 1858 to
the year 1873, Avenue de Neuilly. Puvis de Chavannes died at No. 89, in
1898. Avenue de Wagram in its course from the Arc de Triomphe to Place
des Ternes dates from the Revolution year 1789, known then as Avenue de
l’Étoile. Avenue MacMahon began as Avenue du Prince Jerôme. Avenue des
Ternes is the ancient route de St-Germain, subsequently known as the old
Reuilly Road--Reuilly is half-way to St-Germain--later as Rue de la
Montagne du Bon-Air, to become on the eve of its début as an Avenue,
route des Ternes, the chief road of the _terra externa_, the territory
beyond the city bounds on that side. The village Les Ternes was taken
within the Paris boundary line in 1860. The barrière du Roule was
surrounded in the past by a circular road, now Place des Ternes. We find
important vestiges of the fine Château des Ternes in the neighbourhood
of Rue Bayen, Rue Guersant and Rue Demours. The church St-Ferdinand
built in 1844-47 was named in memory of the duc d’Orléans, killed near
the spot.
CHAPTER XLVI
ON THE _BUTTE_
ARRONDISSEMENT XVIII. (BUTTE MONTMARTRE)
We are on supremely interesting ground here, ground at once sacred,
historic and characteristic of the mundane life of the city above which
it stands. At or near its summit, St-Denis and his two companions were
put to death in the early days of Christianity. On the hill-side most
memorable happenings have been lived through. In the old streets and
houses up and down its slopes poets and artists have ever dwelt, worked
and played, and in its theatres, its music-halls, cabarets, etc.,
Parisians of all classes have sought amusement--good and evil. In past
days Paris depended on Montmartre for its daily bread, for the flour
that made it was ground by the innumerable windmills of the _Butte_. The
sails of many of those windmills worked far into the reign of Napoléon
III, who did not admire their aspect and even had a scheme for levelling
the _Butte_! So it is said. Reaching the arrondissement by the Rue des
Martyrs, which begins, as we know, in arrondissement IX, we come upon
two buildings side by side of very opposite uses: the Comédie Mondaine,
formerly the famous Brasserie des Martyrs and Divan Japonais, and the
Asile Nationale de la Providence, an institution founded in 1804 as a
retreat for aged and fallen gentlepeople.
The _hôtel_ at No. 79 is on the site of the Château d’hiver, where the
Revolutionists of Montmartre had their club. No. 88 was the
dancing-saloon known as the Bossu. No. 76 that of the Marronniers. Rue
Antoinette shows us points of interest of another nature. At No. 9, in
the couvent des Dames Auxiliatrices du Purgatoire, we see the very spot
on which there is reason to believe St. Denis and his companions
suffered martyrdom. An ancient crypt is there, unearthed in the year
1611, to which we are led down rough steps, beneath a chapel built on
the site in 1887; we see a rude altar and above it words in Latin to the
effect that St-Denis had invoked the name of the Holy Trinity on that
spot. The crypt is no doubt a vestige of the chapel built on the site by
Ste-Geneviève. It was in this chapel, not as is sometimes asserted
higher up the _Butte_, that Ignatius Loyola and his six companions, on
August 15, 1574, made the solemn vow which resulted in the institution
of the Order of the Jesuits. The chapel was under the jurisdiction of
the “Dames de Montmartre,” and after the great fire at the abbey the
nuns sought refuge in the old chapel here, made it a priory. Several
persons of note were buried there. At the Revolution it was knocked to
pieces and remained a ruin until rebuilt by the abbé Rebours in 1887.
Leaving this interesting spot and passing through Rue Tardieu, we reach
Place St-Pierre, formerly known as Place Piemontési, and go on through
Rue Foyatier to the ancient Rue St-Eleuthère, once in part of its length
Rue du Pressoire, a name recalling the abbey winepress on the site of
the reservoir we see there now. Thus we come to Rue Mont-Cenis, the
ancient Chaussée St-Denis, and in part of its course, Rue de la
Procession, referring to the religious processions of those bygone days.
And here we see before us the most ancient of Paris churches, St-Pierre
de Montmartre. It dates from the first years of the ninth century, built
on the site of an earlier chapel or several successive chapels, the
first one erected over the ruins of a pagan temple. Four black marble
pillars from the ruins of that temple were used for the Christian
church: we see them there to-day, two at the west door, two in the
chancel. We see there, too, ancient tombstones, one that of Adelaide de
Savoie, foundress of the abbey, for the Choir des Dames was the abbey
chapel, and there the abbesses were buried. The old church was
threatened with destruction after the desecration of 1871, when it was
used as a munition _dépôt_. Happily it has been saved and in recent
years restored. The façade is eighteenth-century work, quite
uninteresting as we see, but the view of the east end from without, the
apse, the old tower and the simply severe Gothic interior, are
strikingly characteristic. The cross we see in front of the church was
brought here from an old cemetery near. The garden adjoining, with the
Calvaire set up there in 1833, was in ancient days the nun’s graveyard.
The cemetery on the northern side dates from the time of the Merovingian
kings.
[Illustration: ST-PIERRE DE MONTMARTRE]
Leaving the most ancient of Paris churches we come to the most
remarkable among the modern churches of Paris and of France--l’Église du
Vœu National, commonly known as the Sacré-Cœur. It is an
impressively historic structure for it was built after the disasters of
1870-71, by “La France humiliée et repentante,” a votive church erected
by national subscription. To make its foundations sure on the summit of
the _Butte_, chosen as being the site of the martyrdom of St-Denis,
patron saint of the city, the hill was probed to its base, almost to the
level of the Seine, and a gigantic foundation of hard rock-like stone
built upwards. The huge edifice rests upon a vast crypt, with chapels
and passages throughout its entire extent. It has taken more than forty
years to build; the north tower was finished just before the outbreak of
the war, now advancing to a triumphal end, for which grand services of
thanksgiving will ere long be held in this church built after defeat.
The interior is still uncompleted. Looking at it from close at hand, the
immense Byzantine structure with its numerous domes, seems to us
æsthetically somewhat unsatisfying, but from a distance dominating
Paris, seen as it often is through a feathery haze, or with the sun
shining on it, the vast white edifice makes an imposing effect. Its
great bell, la Savoyarde, given by the diocese of Chambéry, weighs more
than 26,000 kilogrammes, and its sound reaches many miles.
[Illustration: VIEUX MONTMARTRE, RUE ST-VINCENT
(Maison de Henri IV)]
[Illustration: RUE MONT-CENIS
(Chapelle de la Trinité)]
Rue Chevalier de la Barre, bordering the church on the north, was
formerly in part of its length Rue des Rosiers, in part Rue de la
Fontenelle, referring to a spring in the vicinity. In a wall of the Abri
St-Joseph at No. 26, we see the bullet-holes made by the Communards who
shot there two French Generals in March, 1871. Going up Rue Mont-Cenis
we see interesting old houses at every step. No. 22 was the home of the
musician Berlioz and his English wife Constance Smithson. Crossing this
long street from east to west at this point, the winding hill-side Rue
St-Vincent with its ancient walls, its trees, its grassy roadway,
makes us feel very far removed from the city lying in the plain below.
At No. 40 is the little cemetery St-Vincent. Returning to Rue Mont-Cenis
we find at No. 53 a girls’ college amid vestiges of the ancient, famous
_porcelaine_ factory, the factory of “Monsieur” under the patronage of
the comte de Provence, brother of Louis XV. The tower we see there was
that of the windmill which ground the silex. At No. 61 we come upon a
farm dating from 1782, la Vacherie de la Tourelle. At No. 67 an old inn
once the Chapelle de la Trinité (sixteenth century).
[Illustration: VIEUX MONTMARTRE
(Cabaret du Lapin-Agile)]
Returning to the vicinity of St-Pierre and the Sacré-Cœur, we find
numerous short streets, generally narrow and tortuous, which retain
their old-world aspect. Rue St-Eleuthère is one of the most ancient. Rue
St-Rustique formerly Rue des Dames, Rue Ravignan once Rue du
Vieux-Chemin, Rue Cortot, Rue Norvins, Rue des Saules, are all
seventeenth-century thoroughfares. Rue Norvins was Rue des Moulins in
bygone days. No. 23 was a far-famed _folie_, then, in 1820, the
celebrated Dr. Blanche founded there his first asylum for the insane,
many of whom he cured. At No. 9 we come to an old house and alley, the
_impasse_ Trainée, a name recalling the days when Montmartre was, in
wintry weather, a wolf-haunted district: a _trainée_ is a wolf-trap. The
inn at No. 6 was in the past a resort of singers in search of an
engagement: the impecunious could bring food to eat there. On the Place
du Tertre two trees of liberty were planted in 1848, felled in 1871. No.
3 is the site of the first Mairie of Montmartre. Passing along Rue du
Calvaire we come to the rustic Place du Calvaire, erewhile Place
Ste-Marie.
A very chief interest at Montmartre is the view. It is best obtained
from the Belvedere built by baron de Vaux at No. 39 Rue Gabrielle, and
from the Moulin de la Galette reached through Rue des Trois-Frères. Rue
de la Mire was in olden days Petite Rue des Moulins. The steps we see
are said to have been put there for the passage of cattle.
The cellars of the house at No. 7, Rue la Vieuville are vestiges of the
ancient abbey. Place des Abbesses was erewhile Rue de l’Abbaye. On the
ancient _place_ we find the most modern and most modern-style church in
Paris, St-Jean l’Evangeliste, built of concrete. The Passage des
Abbesses leads by an old flight of steps to Rue des Trois-Frères, a
modern street. Rue Lepic, for some years after its formation Rue de
l’Empereur (Napoléon III), was renamed in memory of the General who
defended the district in 1814. Numerous old streets are connected with
it. Avenue des Tilleuls recalls the days when lime-trees flourished
there, the lime-trees memorized in Alphonse Karr’s novel _Sous les
Tilleuls_. In the Square where it ends is an eighteenth-century house
where François Coppée dwelt as a boy. The severely wall-enclosed _hôtel_
at No. 72 was the home of the artist Ziem. Close here is the entrance to
the Moulin de la Galette. At the top of the house No. 100 there is an
astronomical observatory set up under Napoléon III. The Rue Girardon, a
rural pathway in the seventeenth century, was known later as Rue des
Brouillards, the point no doubt from which the city lying below was to
be seen fog-enveloped, as is not unfrequently the case. The old house
No. 13 goes by the name le Château des Brouillards. In the _impasse_ at
No. 5 stood in ancient days the Fontaine St-Denis. Its waters were of
great repute, assuring, it was said, in women who drank them, the virtue
of conjugal fidelity. And here through the short street Rue des
Deux-Frères we reach the historic Moulin de la Galette. It dates from
the twelfth century and has seen tragic days. Its owners defended it
with frantic courage in 1814, whereupon one of them, taken by the
attacking Cosaques, was roped to the whirling wheel. It was again
assailed in 1871. The property was owned by the same family from the
year 1640, a private property, a farm, a country inn, where dancing
often went on as a mere private pastime till, in 1833, its landlord, an
expert in the art of dancing, decided to turn his talent to pecuniary
account and opened there the famous public dancing-hall. Rue
Caulaincourt, erewhile quaint and rural, has lost of late years almost
all its old-time characteristics. Rue Lamarck has become quite modern in
its aspect. Rue Marcadet was known in the seventeenth century as Rue
des Bœufs--Ox Street. At No. 71 we find a fine seventeenth-century
_hôtel_, now a girls’ school, hôtel Labat, and another good old house,
also a girls’ school, at No. 75; at No. 91 yet another. The modern
structures at No. 101 are on the site of the ancient manor-house of
Clignancourt. The turret at No. 103 is probably the relic of an old
windmill. Rue de la Fontaine du But records the name of a drinking
fountain, demolished some forty years ago, said to have been set up
there by the Romans. Tradition has it the word _but_ was once _buc_, and
referred to the Roman rite of the sacrifice of a buck to Mercury.
According to another legend, “_but_,” i.e. aim, referred to the English
archers who when in France made that spot their practising-ground. Rue
du Ruisseau owes its name to the stream of water which flowed through it
on the demolition of the ancient fountain. The seventeenth-century Rue
de Maistre, bordering the northern cemetery, is the ancient Chemin des
Dames. Rue Eugène-Carrière, opening out of it, was till quite recently
Rue des Grandes Carrières, memorizing the big quarries whence from time
immemorial has been obtained the white stone, so marked a feature of
Paris buildings, and the world-famed plaster of Paris.
[Illustration: MOULIN DE LA GALETTE]
Rue Damrémont is modern; in the little Rue des Cloys opening out of it
at No. 102 we see vestiges of a curious old _cité_ of wooden dwellings.
Rue Neuve de la Chardonnière recalls the days when it was a
thistle-grown road. Rue du Poteau reminds us of the gallows of the
St-Ouen road. The Avenue de Clichy and the Avenue St-Ouen which form the
boundary of the arrondissement, both date back as important roads to the
seventeenth century. Along them we find here and there traces of ancient
buildings, none of special interest. To the east of the boulevards
Ornano and Barbes, which run through the arrondissement from north to
south, we find numerous ancient streets, mostly short. The street of
chief importance is Rue des Poissonniers, its lower end merged in
boulevard Barbes. We see several unimportant old houses along its
course. The impasse du Cimetière and the schools we see there are on
the site of an old graveyard. In Rue Affre, bearing the name of the
archbishop of Paris slain on the barricades in 1848 (_see_ p. 250), we
find the modern church St-Bernard, of pure fifteenth-century Gothic as
to style, but far inferior in workmanship to the Gothic structures of
ages past. Rue de la Chapelle, known in Napoléon’s time as Faubourg de
la Gloire, began as the Calais Road, then became the Grande Rue de la
Chapelle. La Chapelle is a spot of remarkable historic memories. It
began as the Village des Roses--in days when roses, wild and cultivated,
grew in abundance in what is now a Paris slum. Then the population,
remembering that Ste-Geneviève had stopped to rest and pray in the
church on her way to St-Denis, called their village La Chapelle-Ste-Geneviève.
Later it was named la Chapelle-St-Denis. To the church at la Chapelle
went Jeanne d’Arc in the fateful year 1425. We find ancient houses all
along the course of this old thoroughfare, and at No. 96 the church
dedicated to St-Denis, built by Maurice de Sully, the chancel of that
thirteenth-century structure still intact, after going through two
disastrous fires and suffering damage in times of war. It has been
enlarged in recent years. The statue of Jeanne d’Arc there dates from
the reign of Louis XVI.
A popular fair, la Foire de Lendit, instituted by Dagobert, was held
during centuries at the extreme end of the ancient thoroughfare. No.
122, built, tradition tells us, by Henri IV and given to his minister
Sully, became in the seventeenth century the Cabaret de la Rose Blanche.
At No. 1 Rue Boucry we see an ancient chapel now used as a public hall.
CHAPTER XLVII
AMONG THE COALYARDS AND THE MEAT-MARKETS
ARRONDISSEMENT XIX. (BUTTES-CHAUMONT)
In this essentially workaday district we see many houses old and quaint,
but without architectural beauty or special historic interest. Round the
park des Buttes-Chaumont, a large expanse of greenswards and shady
alleys, dull, squalid streets branch out amid coal-yards and factories.
Beneath the park are the ancient quarries which erewhile gave so much
white stone and plaster of Paris to the city builders. The name Chaumont
is derived, perhaps, from _mons calvus_, _mont chauve_, i.e. bald
mountain. In Rue de Flandres, formerly Grande Rue de la Villette, we see
a Jewish cemetery. Nos. 61 to 65 are on the site where the well-known
institution Ste-Perine, come hither from Compiègne, was first
established in Paris as a convent community in the seventeenth century,
removed to Chaillot in 1742, then to Auteuil, its present site. We find
ancient houses, some old signs, along the course of this old street, and
at No. 152 an interesting door, pavilion and bas-relief.
Rue de Belleville marks the bounds of the arrondissement. Along its
course and in the adjacent streets we see many vestiges of the past. Rue
des Bois shows us some fine old gardens as yet undisturbed. In Rue de
l’Orme, Elm Road, opening out of it, we find the remains of an ancient
park. Rue Pré-St-Gervais was a country road till 1837. From the top of
the steps in the picturesque Rue des Lilas we have a fine view across
the neighbouring _banlieue_. In the grounds of No. 40 we come upon three
benches formed of gravestones. Rue Compans was in the eighteenth century
and onwards Rue St-Denis. The church of St-Jean-Baptiste, quite modern,
is of excellent style and workmanship. The lower end of Rue de
Belleville leads us into arrondissement XX.
CHAPTER XLVIII
PÈRE-LACHAISE
ARRONDISSEMENT XX. (MÉNILMONTANT)
The lower end of the long Rue de Belleville, its odd-number side in
arrondissement XIX, went in olden days by the name Rue des
Courtilles--Inn Street. Inns, cabarets, popular places of amusement
stood door by door all along its course. Here, as in arrondissement XIX,
we find on every side old houses and vestiges of the past, but of no
particular interest beyond the quaintness of their aspect. Rue Pelleport
began in the eighteenth century as an avenue encircling the park of
Ménilmontant. In the grounds surrounding the reservoirs we come upon a
tomb, a modern gravestone, covering the remains of a municipal
functionary whose dying wish was to be buried on his own estate.
Rue Haxo, crossing Rue Belleville at No. 278 and running up into
arrondissement XIX, is of tragic memory. Opening out of it at No. 85 we
see the Villa des Otages. There the Commune sat in 1871, there the fate
of the hostages was decided; there on the 26th May, 1871, fifty-two of
those unhappy prisoners were slain. The Jesuits owned the property till
its sale a few years ago. They bought and carried away the _grilles_ and
whatever else was transportable from the cells where the victims had
been shut up.
Rue Ménilmontant, running parallel to Rue de Belleville, dates from the
seventeenth century, when it was a country road leading to the
thirteenth-century hamlet Mesnil Mantems, later Mesnil Montant. The land
there belonged in great part to the abbey St-Antoine and to the priory
of Ste-Croix de la Bretonnerie; a château de Ménilmontant was built,
under Louis XIV, where in the wide-stretching grounds we see the
reservoirs. At Nos. 155 and 157 we see old pavilions surrounded by
gardens. The eighteenth-century house, No. 145, was in the nineteenth
century taken by a society calling itself the St-Simoniens--some forty
men who had decided to live together and have all things in common. They
did not remain together long. No. 119 is the school directed by the
Sœurs St-Vincent de Paul. At No. 101 we look down Rue des Cascades
which till the middle of last century was a country lane: leading out of
it is the old Rue de Savies, recording the ancient name of the
district--Savies, i.e. _montagne sauvage_--wild mountain--a name changed
later to Portronville (rather a mouthful), then to its euphonious
present name Belleville. At its summit is an ancient fountain set there
in long-past ages for the use of the monks of St-Martin of Cluny, and
for the Knights-Templar; another may be seen in the grounds of No. 17.
On the Place de Ménilmontant we see the well-built modern church
Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix, on its northern side the old Rue and passage
Eupatoria. The quaint Rue de la Mare, a country road in the seventeenth
century, and Rue des Couronnes have interesting old passages running
into them.
Passing down Rue des Pyrénées, connected on either side with short
old-time streets and passages, we come to the Square Gambetta, often
called Square Père-Lachaise, and the immense Paris cemetery, the great
point of interest of the 20th arrondissement. The site was known in
long-past days as the Champ de l’Evêque--the bishop’s field. It was
presently put to a very unecclesiastical use, for a rich grocer bought
the land and built thereon a _folie_, i.e. an extravagant mansion. In
the seventeenth century the Jesuits bought the property and named it
Mont-Louis. Louis XIV paid a visit to the Jesuits there and subsequently
bought the estate and gave it to his confessor, Père Lachaise. When Père
Lachaise died the Jesuits regained the property, held it till the
Revolution, when it was seized by the State and became the possession of
the Municipality. Passing along the avenues and alleys of this vast,
silent city on the hill-side, we see tombs of every possible description
and style, wonderful monuments and mortuary chapels, some very
beautiful, others ...! and a huge crematorium. Men and women of many
nations and of many varying creeds are gathered there. Seen on the eve
of All Saints’ Day or the day following, when fresh flowers are on every
grave, lamps burning in almost every tombstone chapel, the relatives and
the friends of the dead crowding in reverent attitude along its paths,
the scene is singularly impressive.
On its north-east boundary we find the tragic Mur des Fédérés, the wall
against which the insurgents were shot after the Commune in 1871.
Blood-red scarves, blood-red wreaths mark the graves there, and we see
the names of many who had no graves on that spot chalked up against that
tragic wall.
[Illustration: LE MUR DES FÉDÉRÉS]
On the south side of the cemetery, running eastward, we turn into the
old Rue de Bagnolet, the road leading to the village of the name. Old
houses line this street and the streets adjoining it, and half-way up
its incline on the little Place St-Blaise we see the ancient church
St-Germain de Charonne, dating from the eleventh century. An inscription
on a wall within tells us Germain, the busy bishop of Auxerre, first met
Geneviève of Nanterre here, and tradition says the future patron saint
of Paris took her vows on the spot. There was an oratory on the site in
the fifth century or little later. The eleventh-century edifice was
rebuilt in the fifteenth century, but we still see some of the blackened
walls of the earlier structure. The _chevet_, i.e. the chancel-end, was
destroyed in the wars of the Fronde. We see, distinctly traced, the
space it occupied bounded by the Mur des Sœurs, against which in
long-gone days were no doubt stalls for the nuns of a neighbouring
convent. Some ancient tombstones, too, are there, once within the
chancel. Mounting the broad steps we enter the old church to find
curious old pillars, ancient inscriptions, coats of arms, and in one
chapel a little good old glass.
Making our way to the little cemetery of Charonne behind, we find in its
centre a grass-grown space once the _fosse commune_ of the pits into
which the _guillotinés_ were flung in Revolution days. Beyond, near the
boundary wall, we see a railed-in tomb, surmounted by the figure of a
man in Louis XVIII costume--Bègue, Robespierre’s private secretary. The
Revolution over, his chief dead, the man whose hand had prepared for
signature so many tragic documents withdrew to the rural district of
Charonne, beyond the Paris bounds, led a secluded, peaceful life,
cultivated his bit of land and set about preparing for his exit from
this earth by designing his own tomb. He sat for the bronze statue we
see here, and had the iron railing made to show all the implements of
Revolutionary torture with which he was familiar, the wheel that worked
the guillotine, the _tenailles_, etc....!
Higher up towards Bagnolet we come to a vestige of the ancient Château,
a pavilion Louis XV, forming part of the modern Hospice Debrousse.
CHAPTER XLIX
BOULEVARDS--QUAYS--BRIDGES
THE BOULEVARDS
The Paris boulevards are one of the most characteristic features of the
city. The word _boulevard_ recalls the days when Paris was fortified,
surrounded by ramparts, and the city boulevards stretch for the most
part along the lines of ancient boundary walls, boundaries then, now
lines in many instances cutting through the very heart of the Paris we
know.
The Grands Boulevards run from the Place de la Madeleine to the Place de
la Bastille--gay and smart and modern, in the first kilometres of their
course; less smart, busier, more commercial, with more abundant vestiges
of bygone days as they stretch out beyond the boulevard des Italiens.
The boulevard de la Madeleine follows the line of the ancient boundary
wall of Louis XIII, razed during the first years of the eighteenth
century. Its upper part on the even-number side was one side of an old
thoroughfare reaching as far as Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, known in its
early years as Rue Basse du Rempart. The latter part stretching to Rue
Caumartin is of recent date. The old Rue Basse des Remparts was bordered
by handsome _hôtels_, the dwellings of notable persons of the day:
vestiges of several of them were until recent years still seen in
boulevard des Capucines--Nos. 16 to 22 razed when the new street Rue
Édouard VII was cut. In the reception-room of a seventeenth-century
house that stood at the corner of the boulevard and the Rue des
Capucines known as the Colonnade, Buonaparte first met Joséphine.
Boulevard des Italiens gained its name from the Italian theatre there in
1783. This name was changed more than once in subsequent years. After
the Revolution, when the Royalists who had taken refuge beyond the
German Rhine returned to Paris and held meetings on this boulevard, it
was nicknamed “Le Petit Coblentz.” No. 33 (eighteenth century) is the
Pavillon de Hanovre, forming part in past times of the hôtel d’Antin,
which had been owned in its later days by Richelieu, then was divided
into several dwellings, and in the time of the Merveilleuses one of
these sub-divisions of the fine old mansion became a dancing saloon,
_bal_ Richelieu, and the meeting-place of the Incroyables. Rue du
Helder, which we see opening at No. 36, was in those days a cul-de-sac,
i.e. a blind alley. The bank there (No. 7) was erewhile the famous
cabaret “le Lion d’Or,” and at No. 2 Cavaignac was arrested when
Napoléon made his _coup d’état_. No. 22 of the boulevard was the
far-famed “Tortoni.” No. 20, rebuilt in 1839, now a post office, is the
ancient hôtel Stainville, later Maison Dorée. No. 16, till a year or two
ago Café Riche, dating from 1791. No. 15, hôtel de Lévis, was once the
Jockey Club. On the site of No. 13 stood till recent years the famous
Café Anglais. At No. 11 was the club “Salon des Italiens” in the time of
Louis XVI, subsequently the restaurant Nicolle and Café du Grand Balcon,
its first story commonly known as Salon des Princes. At No. 9 Grétry
lived from 1795 till his death, which happened at Montmorency in 1813.
No. 1 Café Cardinal founded by Dangest (eighteenth century).
Boulevard Montmartre dates from the seventeenth century, lined in olden
days on both sides by handsome private mansions; we see it now a
thoroughly commercial thoroughfare, one of the busiest in the city. A
modern journalist called its _carrefour_--the point where it meets the
Rue du Faubourg Montmartre--“_carrefour des écrasés_.” From the house,
now a newspaper office, at No. 22 an underground passage ran in past
days to the Café Cardinal opposite, leading to an orangery. On the site
of No. 23 stood the gambling-house Frascati, built on the site of the
old hôtel Taillepied. The Café Véron at No. 13 dates from 1818, opened
through the gardens of the hôtel Montmorency-Luxembourg. Passage
Jouffroy at No. 10 was cut, in 1846, across the site of an ancient
building known as the Maison des Grands Artistes. The théâtre des
Variétés, at No. 7, first set up at the Palais-Royal in 1770 by “la
Montansier,” was built here in 1807 on the grounds of the hôtel
Montmorency-Luxembourg. No. 1 is the site of the Café de la Porte
Montmartre, founded by Louis XV, a meeting-place of Parisians hailing
from Orléans, nicknamed Guépins.
Boulevard Poissonnières (seventeenth century) begins where hung till
recent years an ancient sign at No. 1--“Aux limites de la Ville de
Paris”--recording the inscription once on the old wall there. Most of
the houses are those originally built along the boulevard, and many old
streets run into it on either side. At No. 9 we see Rue St-Fiacre,
dating from 1630, when it was Rue du Figuier, a street closed at each
end by gates till about 1800. The restaurant Duval at No. 10 of the
boulevard was an eighteenth-century mansion. No. 14 is known as Maison
du Pont-de-Fer. No. 19, now l’École Pratique du Commerce, was till a few
years ago the home of an old lady who, left a widow after one happy year
of married life, shut herself up in the house she owned, refused to let
any of its six large flats, and died there in utter solitude at the age
of ninety. No. 23, designed by Soufflot le Romain in 1775 as a private
mansion, became later the _dépôt_ of the famous Aubusson tapistry.
Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, named from the church Notre-Dame de
Bonne-Nouvelle in Rue de la Lune, dates from the seventeenth century
(_see_ p. 59). No. 21 was built after the Revolution with the stones of
the old demolished church St-Paul (_see_ p. 12). No. 11, in 1793, with
some of the stones of the Bastille. The theatre, le Gymnase, which we
see at No. 38, erected in 1820 on the grounds of a mansion, a barracks
and a bit of an old graveyard, was known during some years as the
théâtre de Madame la duchesse de Berri, who had taken it under her
patronage. Its façade was rebuilt in 1887.
The church just off the boulevard was first built in 1624 on the site of
the old chapel Ste-Barbe, and named by Anne d’Autriche, perhaps in
gratitude for the good news of the prospect of the birth of a son (Louis
XIV) after twenty-three years of childless married life, or, as has been
said, on account of a piece of good news communicated to the Queen when
passing by the spot. The edifice was rebuilt in the nineteenth century,
the tower alone remaining untouched. Within it we find an old painting
of Anne d’Autriche and Henriette of England.
Boulevard St-Denis (eighteenth century). The fine Porte St-Denis shows
in bas-relief, the victories of Louis XIV in Germany and in Holland. It
has been restored three times since its first erection in 1673. The
Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 began around this grand old Porte.
Paving-stones were hurled from its summit. At No. 19 we see a statue of
St-Denis.
Boulevard St-Martin (seventeenth century). Its course was marked out,
its trees planted a few years earlier than that of boulevard St-Denis.
On its handsome blackened Porte, built in 1674-75, we read the words: “A
Louis-le-Grand pour avoir pris deux fois Besançon et vaincu les Armées
allemandes, espagnoles et hollandaises.” Like Porte St-Denis, it has
been three times restored. The Allies passed beneath it on entering
Paris in 1814. The first théâtre de la Porte St-Martin was built in the
short period of seventy-five days to replace, with the least delay
possible, the Opera-house near the Palais-Royal, burnt down in 1781. It
was the Opera until 1793. The structure we see was erected in 1873,
after the disastrous conflagration caused by the Communards two years
previously. We see theatres and concert-halls along the whole course of
the boulevard. The Ambigu at No. 2 dating from 1828 was founded sixty
years earlier as a marionnette show on the site of the present Folies
Dramatiques. This part of the boulevard was formerly on a steep incline,
with steps up to the théâtre Porte St-Martin. Its ground was levelled in
1850. The novelist Paul de Kock lived at No 8. No. 17 was the abode of
the great painter Meissonnier. The théâtre de la Renaissance is modern
(1872), built on the site of the famous restaurant Deffieux which had
flourished there for 133 years. It was for several years Sarah
Bernhardt’s theatre.
Boulevard du Temple, its trees first planted in the year 1668 when it
was a road stretching right across the area now known as Place de la
République, was at that particular point a centre of places of amusement
of every description--theatres, music-halls, marionnette-shows. All
were closed, razed to the ground, to make way for the grand new _place_
laid out there in 1862. Of the old walls within which Parisians had for
long years previously found so much distraction and merriment, vestiges
remain only at Nos. 48, 46, 44, 42 of the boulevard. No. 42 is on the
site of the house where Fieschi’s infernal machine was placed in 1835.
The restaurant at No. 29 is on the site of the once widely known Café du
Jardin Turc. The théâtre Dejazet records the name of the famous
_actrice_. The two short streets, Rue de Crussol and Rue du Grand
Prieuré, were cut across the grounds of the Grand Prieuré de France in
the latter years of the eighteenth century.
Boulevard Filles-du-Calvaire, named from the ancient convent, dates only
from 1870. The streets connected with it are older. Rue des
Filles-du-Calvaire was a thoroughfare in the last years of the
seventeenth century, and at No. 13 we find traces of the ancient
convent. Rue Froissard and Rue des Commines, memorizing the two old
French chroniclers, were opened in 1804 right across the site of the
convent and its grounds. Rue St-Sébastien dates back to the early years
of the seventeenth century, and we see there many interesting old
houses. No. 19, with its Gothic vaulting, is probably the hôtel
d’Ormesson de Noyseau, a distinguished nobleman, guillotined at the
Revolution. Rue du Pont-aux-Choux, made in the sixteenth century across
market gardens, got its name from an old bridge which spanned a drain
there.
Boulevard Beaumarchais began in 1670 as boulevard St-Antoine. No. 113, a
sixteenth-century structure, was known till 1850 as the Château. The
words we see engraved on its walls--“A la Petite Chaise”--refer to a
tragic incident. The head of the princesse de Lamballe, carried by the
Revolutionists on a pike, was plunged into a pail of water set on a low
chair placed up against this wall to clear it of the dribbling blood.
No. 99, its big doors brought here from the Temple palace, is the hôtel
de Cagliostro, the famous sorcerer.
Rue des Arquebusiers, opening at No. 91, dates from 1720, when it was
Rue du Harlay-au-Marais. Santerre lived here for a time. No. 2 stands on
the site of the house where Beaumarchais died in 1790.
Boulevard Henri IV is modern (1866), cut across the site of two old
convents. Rue Castex leads out of it where stood once the convent des
Filles de Ste-Marie; its chapel, now a Protestant church, is entered at
No. 5. The Caserne des Célestins was built in 1892 on the site of part
of the large and celebrated convent of the Célestins, an Order founded
in 1244 by the priest who became Pope Celestin V. The Carmelites who at
first were established here, greatly disturbed by inundations from the
Seine who overflowed her banks in those long-past ages, even as she does
to-day, quitted their quarters on this site. The Célestins who came to
Paris in 1352 and took over these abandoned dwellings were protected and
enriched by Charles V, inhabiting the Palais St-Pol close by. The Order
was suppressed in 1778, before the Revolution suppressed all Orders--for
the time; and in 1785 the convent here was taken for the first deaf and
dumb institution organized by abbé de l’Épée. The convent chapel with
its numerous royal tombs, the bodies of some royal personages, the
hearts of others, was razed in 1849. Some vestiges of the convent walls
remained standing till 1904. Where the boulevard meets the Quai des
Célestins, we see now a circular group of worn, ivy-grown stones; an
inscription tells us these old stones once formed part of the Tour de la
Liberté of the demolished Bastille. They were unearthed in making the
Paris Metropolitan Railway a few years ago. The birds make the remnant
of that old tower of liberty their own to-day and passers-by stop
regularly to feed them.
Crossing the Seine we come to the boulevard St-Germain, beginning at
boulevard Sully in arrondissement V, stretching right through
arrondissement VI and ending at the Quai d’Orsay near the Chambre des
Députés in arrondissement VII. Though in name so historic and running
across interesting ground, the boulevard is of modern formation. It has
swept away a whole district of ancient streets. The Nos. 61 to 49 are
ancient, all that remains of Rue des Noyers erewhile there. At No. 67
Alfred de Musset was born (1810). The théâtre de Cluny is on the site of
part of the vanished couvent des Mathurins. The firm Hachette stands
where was once a Jews’ cemetery. No. 160 was the restaurant now razed
where Thackeray, when a young student at the Beaux-Arts, took his meals.
A sign-board he painted long hung there. We see some old houses of the
ancient Rue des Boucheries between Nos. 162 and 148. At No. 166 we turn
for an instant into Rue de l’Échaudé, dating from the fourteenth
century, when it was a _chemin_ along the abbey moat, a street of
ancient houses. The word _échaudé_, a confectioner’s term used for a
certain kind of three-cornered cake, signifies in topographical language
a triangle formed by the junction of three streets. The pavement-stones
before Nos. 137 to 135 cover the site of the ancient abbey prison. Rue
des Ciseaux bordered in olden days the Collège des Écossais. The statue
of Diderot at No. 170 was set up on his centenary as close as could be
to the house he dwelt in, in Rue de l’Égout. The hôtel Taranne records
the name of the thirteenth-century street of which some vestiges remain
on the odd-number side of the boulevard between No. 175 and Place
St-Germain-des-Prés, where Saint-Simon lived and wrote. The little
grassy square round the house at No. 186 was originally a leper’s
burial-ground, then, from 1576 to 1604, a Protestant cemetery. Looking
into the Rue St-Thomas-d’Aquin, once passage des Jacobins, we see the
church which began early in the years of the eighteenth century as a
Jacobin convent. At the Revolution it was made into a Temple of Peace!
The frescoes of the ceiling are by Lemoine.
The modern boulevard Raspail opening at No. 103 brought about the
destruction of several ancient streets; where the boulevard St-Germain
meets Rue St-Dominique three or four fine old mansions were razed to the
ground and that old street, previously extending to Rue des
Saints-Pères, cut short here. A fine eighteenth-century _hôtel_ stood
till 1861 on the site of the Bureaux du Ministère des Travaux Publics at
No. 244. The minister’s official residence at No. 246, dating from 1722,
is on the site of one still older, at one time the abode of the dowager
duchess of Orleans. That portion of the Ministère de la Guerre which we
see along this boulevard is a modern construction. We see modern
structures also at Nos. 280, 282, 284, all on the site of fine old
_hôtels_ demolished at the making of the boulevard. At some points of
boulevard Raspail, stretching from boulevard St-Germain to beyond the
cemetery Montparnasse, we come upon vestiges of the ancient streets
demolished to make way for it; here and there an old house, a fine
doorway, and at No. 112 a lusty tree, its trunk protruding through the
garden wall, said to be the tree beneath whose shade Victor Hugo sat and
pondered or maybe wrote several of his best-known works, while living in
an old house close by.
Starting now from the Place de la République, we pass up the busy modern
boulevard Magenta without finding any point of special interest. The
Cité du Wauxhall at No. 6 was opened in 1840 on the grounds of a more
ancient Wauxhall. The big hospital Lariboisière in the adjoining Rue
Ambroise-Parée was built from 1839 to 1848, on the _clos_ St-Lazare and
named at first Hôpital Louis-Philippe. Its present name is in memory of
the countesse la Riboisière, who gave three million francs for the
hospital. The boulevards Barbes and Ornano run on from boulevard Magenta
to the district of Montmartre. They are of nineteenth-century formation
and without historic interest. No. 10, boulevard Barbes, was once the
dancing saloon “du Grand Turc.”
The bustling boulevard de Strasbourg which boulevard Magenta crosses, a
continuation of the no less bustling boulevard Sébastopol, both great
commercial thoroughfares, was formed in the middle of the nineteenth
century across the lines of many ancient streets and courts. Ancient
streets ran also where we now have the broad boulevard du Palais on
l’Ile de la Cité, crossing the spot on the erewhile Place du Palais
where of yore criminals were set out for public view and marked with a
red-hot iron.
The buildings we see there on the odd-number side opposite the Palais de
Justice: the Tribunal du Commerce, the Préfecture de Police, the
Firemen’s barracks, are all of nineteenth-century erection. So we come
to the boulevard St-Michel, the far-famed “Boule-Miche” of the Latin
Quarter, forming the boundary-line between arrondissements V and VI. As
a boulevard it is not of ancient date. It began at its northernly end in
1855 as boulevard Sébastopol, Rive Gauche. Soon it was prolonged and
renamed to memorize the ancient chapel erewhile in one of the streets it
had swept away. Place St-Michel from which it starts has to-day a modern
aspect. Almost all traces of the ancient Place du Pont St-Michel, as it
was in bygone days, have vanished. The huge fountain we see and cannot
admire, though perhaps we ought to, replaces the fountain of 1684. The
arched entrance to the narrow street Rue de l’Hirondelle, once
Irondelle, as an old inscription tells us, which began in 1179 as Rue de
l’Arondale-en-Laas, and the glimpse at a little distance of the entrance
to ancient streets on the boulevard St-Germain side, give the only
old-world touch to the _place_. The high blackened walls we see in this
Rue de l’Hirondelle are the remains of the ancient collège d’Autun
founded in 1341. At No. 20, on the site of the ancient _hôtel_ of the
bishops of Chartres, is an eighteenth-century _hôtel_. No. 38 of the
boulevard is on the site of the house belonging to the Cordeliers, whose
monastery was near by, where the royal library was kept from the days of
Louis XIII to 1666. The Lycée St-Louis, founded in 1280 as the college
d’Harcourt, covers the site of several ancient structures. A
fragment--the only one known--of the boundary wall of Henri II, is
within the college grounds, and beneath them the remains of a Roman
theatre were found in 1861, and more remains in 1908. Where the
boulevard meets Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, the city wall and a gate of
Philippe-Auguste passed in olden days. And that was the site of the
ancient _place_. No. 60, the École des Mines founded in 1783, and
housed at the Mint, at that time an _hôtel_ Rue de l’Université, then
transferred to Montiers in Savoie, finally settled here in 1815 in the
hôtel Vendôme built in 1707 for the Chartreux, let in 1714 to the
duchesse de Vendôme, who died there soon afterwards. This fine old
structure still forms the central part of the Mining School. At No. 62
we see the Geological Map offices. In the court of No. 64 we find a
house built by the Chartreux, inhabited in past days by the marquis de
Ségur, and in later times by Leconte de Lisle. The railway station Gare
de Sceaux at No. 66 covers the site of the once well-known Café Rouge.
In the old Rue Royer-Collard opening at No. 71, in the sixteenth century
Rue St-Dominique d’Enfer, we see several quaint old houses. Roman pots
were found some years ago beneath the pavement of the _impasse_. The
house at No. 91 is on ground once within the cemetery St-Jacques. César
Franck the composer lived and died at No. 95 (1891). No. 105 is the site
of the ancient Noviciat des Feuillants who went by the name “_anges
guardiens_.” The famous students’ dancing saloon known as bal Bullier
was at this end of the boulevard from 1848 till a few years ago.
CHAPTER L
LES BOULEVARDS EXTÉRIEURS
Starting at the ancient Barrière des Ternes, for some years past Place
des Ternes, we take our way through outer boulevards forming a wide
circle. Boulevard de Courcelles, dating from 1789, runs where quaint old
thoroughfares ran of yore. Boulevard des Batignolles was the site of the
barrières de Monceau. The Collège Chaptal, which we see there, was
founded in Rue Blanche in 1844. The busy Place de Clichy is on the site
of the ancient Clichy barrier, valiantly defended by the Garde Nationale
in 1814. The huge monument in its centre is modern (1869). On the line
of the boulevard de Clichy stretched in bygone days the barriers
Blanche, Montmartre and des Martyrs, of which at first three boulevards
were formed: Clichy, Pigalle, des Martyrs united under the name of the
first in 1864. Just beyond the _place_, at No. 112, we turn into Avenue
Rachel leading to the cemetery Montmartre, formed in 1804 on the site of
the ancient graveyard of the district. Many men and women of mark lie
buried here. We see names of historic, literary or artistic celebrity on
the tombstones all around. The monument Cavaignac is the work of the
great sculptor Rude. The Moulin Rouge, a music-hall, at No. 88 is on the
site of a once famous Montmartrois dancing-hall, “la Dame Blanche.” No.
77 is an ancient convent, its garden the site of a café concert. “Les
Quatrez-Arts” at No. 64 is one of the most widely known of Montmartrois
cabarets and music-halls. In the Villa des Platanes, opening at No. 58,
we find a bas-relief showing the defence made on the _place_ in 1814.
Rue Fontaine, opening at No. 57, shows us a succession of small
Montmartrois theatres and music-halls. In Rue Fromentin we still see the
sign-board of the far-famed school of painting, l’Académie Julian
formerly here. In Rue Germain-Pilon we see an ancient pavilion. No. 36
is the Cabaret La Lune Rousse, formerly Cabaret des Arts, of a certain
renown or notoriety. The passage and the Rue de l’Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts
show us interesting sculptures and bas-reliefs. Nos. 8 and 6, of old a
dancing saloon, was the scene of a tragic incident in the year 1830: the
ground beneath it, undermined by quarries, gave way and an entire
wedding-party were engulfed. Boulevard de Rochechouart was named in
memory of a seventeenth-century abbess of Montmartre; it was in part of
its length boulevard des Poissoniers until the second half of the
nineteenth century. The music-hall “la Cigale,” at No. 120, dating from
1822, was for long the famous “bal de la Boule-Noire.” At No. 106 we see
a fresco on the bath house walls; an ancient house “Aux-deux-Marronniers”
at No. 38, and theatres, music-halls, etc., of marked local colour all
along the boulevard.
Boulevard de la Chapelle runs along the line of the ancient boulevard
des Vertus. Vestiges dating from the days of the struggles between
Armagnacs and Bourguignons are still seen at No. 120, and at No. 39 of
the short Rue Château-Landon, opening out of the boulevard at No. 1, we
see the door of an ancient castel which was for long the country house
of the monks of St-Lazare.
Boulevard Richard-Lenoir shows us nothing of special interest. The house
No. 140 is ancient.
[Illustration: OLD WELL AT SALPÉTRIÈRE
(Le puits de Manon Lescaut)]
Boulevard de l’Hôpital dates from 1760. The hospital referred to is the
immense Salpétrière built as a refuge for beggars by Louis XIV on the
site where his predecessor had built a powder stores. A bit of the old
arsenal still stands and serves as a wash-house. The domed church was
erected a few years later; barrels collected from surrounding farms were
sawed up to make its ceiling. Presently a woman’s prison was built
within the grounds--the prison we are shown in the Opera “Manon.” The
convulsionists of St-Médard were shut up there. At the Revolution it was
invaded by the insurgents, women of ill-fame set free, many of the
prisoners slain. The new Hôpital de la Pitié was built in adjoining
grounds in recent years. The central Magasin des Hôpitaux at No. 87,
where we see an ancient doorway, is on the site of the hospital
burial-ground of former days.
The fine old entrance portal of la Salpétrière, the statue of the famous
Dr. Charcot just outside it, the various seventeenth-century buildings,
the old woodwork within the hospital, the courtyard known as the Cour
des Massacres, the wide extending grounds, make a visit to this old
hospital very interesting. And the grass-grown open space before it,
with its shady trees, and the quaint streets around give a somewhat
rural and provincial aspect to this remote corner of Paris, making us
feel as if we were miles away from the city. Rue de Campo-Formio,
opening at No. 123, was known in the seventeenth century as Rue des
Étroites Ruelles. Rue Rubens was in past days Rue des Vignes.
Boulevard Auguste-Blanqui, in the eighteenth century in part of its
length boulevard des Gobelins, shows us at No. 17 the last
Fontaine-Marchande de Paris, now shut down. At No. 50 we see the little
chapel Ste-Rosalie, with inscriptions recording the names of several
victims of the fire which destroyed the bazar de la Charité in 1897. At
No. 68 we used to see an eighteenth-century house of rustic aspect and
pillared frontal, said to have served as a hunting-lodge for Napoléon
I. Subsequently it was used as the Paris hospital laundry. In more
recent times the great sculptor Rodin made the old house his studio and,
when forced to evacuate, took away the interesting old woodwork and the
statues of its façade.
Along boulevard St-Jacques (seventeenth century) we find several
tumbledown old houses.
Boulevard Raspail is entirely modern, cut across streets of bygone ages,
their houses of historic memory razed to make way for it. The recently
erected No. 117 stands on the site of an old house where Victor Hugo
dwelt and wrote for thirteen years and received the notable men of his
day. Beneath the tree we see in the wall at No. 112 the poet loved to
sit and read. Reaching the top of the boulevard we see the ancient
Jesuit chapel, between Rue de Sèvres and Rue du Cherche-Midi.
Boulevard Edgar-Quinet began as boulevard de Montrouge. Its chief point
of interest is the Montparnasse cemetery dating from 1826, with its
numerous tombs of notable persons. There we see, too, an ivy-covered
tower dating from the seventeenth century, known as la Tour-du-Moulin,
once the possession of a community of monks.
Boulevard de Vaugirard (eighteenth century) included in past days the
course of the modernized boulevard Pasteur. We see old houses at
intervals here and in the Rue du Château which led formerly to the
hunting-lodge of the duc de Maine. In Rue Dutot, leading out of
boulevard Pasteur, we come to the great Institut Pasteur, built in 1900,
with its wonderful laboratories, its perfect organization for its own
special, invaluable branches of chemical study. The tomb of its founder
is there, too, in a crypt built by his pupils, his disciples. Behind
the central building we see a hospital for animals. The Lycée Buffon at
No. 16 covers the site of the ancient Vaugirard cemetery. Boulevard
Garibaldi began in 1789 as boulevard de Meudon, towards which it ran--at
a long distance; then it took the name of Javel, its more immediate
quarter, then of Grenelle through which it stretched. Some of the older
houses along its course and in adjoining streets, as also along the
course and adjoining streets of the present boulevard de Grenelle, its
continuation, still stand, none of special interest. A famous barrier
wall was in bygone days along the line where we see the Metropolitian
railway. Up against its wall, just in front of the station Dupleix, many
political prisoners of mark were shot in the years between 1797 and
1815.
The boulevards des Invalides, de Montparnasse and de Port-Royal make one
long line. Boulevard des Invalides has its chief point of interest at
No. 33, the old hôtel Biron, later the convent of the Sacré-Cœur,
then Rodin’s studio, and Paris home--now in part the museum he
bequeathed to Paris (_see_ pp. 192, 194).
Boulevard Montparnasse, formed in 1760, shows us many fine
eighteenth-century _hôtels_ and some smaller structures of the same
period. On the site of No. 25, the _hôtel_ of the duc de Vendôme,
grandson of Henri IV, was the home of the children of Louis XIV by
Madame de Montespan.
[Illustration: CLOÎTRE DE L’ABBAYE DE PORT-ROYAL]
The Gare Montparnasse at No. 66 is a modern structure on the site of an
older railway station. Impasse Robiquet at No. 81 dates from the
fifteenth century. No. 87 is an old hunting-lodge, inhabited in more
modern days by Pierre Leroux, who was associated with George Sand in
founding the _Revue Indépendante_. Rue du Montparnasse, opening out of
the boulevard, is a seventeenth-century street cut across land
belonging in part to the church St-Laurent de Vaugirard, in part to the
Hôtel-Dieu. The church Notre-Dame-des-Champs is modern (1867-75). Rue
Stanislas, opening by the church at No. 91, was cut across the grounds
of the hôtel Terray, in the early years of the nineteenth century, where
the Collège Stanislas, named after Louis XVIII, was first instituted. At
No. 28 of the Rue Vavin, opening at No. 99, stood, till last year, the
ancient Pavillon de l’Horloge, a vestige of the old hôtel Traversière.
The short Rue de la Grande Chaumière, opened in 1830 as Rue Chamon,
memorizes by its present name a famous Latin quarter dancing-hall close
by. Here artists’ models gather for hire at midday each Monday. Rue de
Chevreuse, opening at No. 125, was a thoroughfare as early as the year
1210, bordering an hôtel de Chevreuse et Rohan-Guéménée. A famous
eighteenth-century _porcelaine_ factory stood close here.
Boulevard de Port-Royal: here at No. 119 we see the abbey built during
the first half of the seventeenth century. Hither came the good nuns of
Port-Royal-des-Champs in the valley of the Chevreuse, a convent founded
in the early years of the thirteenth century by Mathieu de Montmorency
and his wife Mathilde de Garlande and given to the Order of the
Bernardines. In the sixteenth century learned men desiring solitude
found it in that remote convent. Pascal made frequent sojourns there.
Quarrels between Jesuits and Jansenists brought about the destruction of
the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs in 1710. The Paris Port-Royal went
on until 1790. Then the abbey became a prison, like so many other
important buildings, religious and secular; its name was changed to
Port-Libre, and numerous prisoners of note, Couthon among the rest, were
shut up there. In the year IV of the Convention, it became what it is on
a more complete scale to-day, a Maternity Hospital. Women-students sleep
in the ancient nuns’ cells. Most of the old abbey buildings are still
intact. The tombstone of the recluse, Arnauld of Andilly, which we see
in the sacristy, was found beneath the pavement some years ago. The
portal is modern. The _annexe_ of the hospital Cochin at No. 111 is an
ancient Capucine convent; its chapel serves as the hospital
lecture-room.
Rue Pierre-Nicole, opening out of the boulevard at No. 90, was cut in
modern days across the grounds of the ancient Carmelite convent
Val-de-Grâce. In the prolongation of the street we see some remains of
the convent. Here in ages long gone by was a Roman cemetery, where earth
burial as well as cremation was the rule. At No. 17 _bis_ of this
street we see the house once the oratory of Mademoiselle de la Vallière,
who as Sœur Louise de la Miséricorde passed the last thirty-six years
of her life in _pénitence_ here. The Marine barracks, Caserne Lourcine,
at No. 37 of the boulevard, are on the site of ancient barracks of the
Gardes Françaises, and record the former name of the Rue Broca, which we
look into here, a street of ancient dwellings. The hospital Broca, so
named after the famous doctor, was formed of part of the old convent of
the Cordelières, founded in 1259 by Margaret de Provence, wife of Louis
XI. The convent was pillaged in the sixteenth century by the Béarnais
troops, sequestrated and sold in Revolution days, to become in 1836
Hôpital Lourcine and in 1892 Broca.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE CONVENT DES CAPUCINES]
The two great latter-day Paris boulevards are boulevard Haussmann and
boulevard Malesherbes. The first, planned and partially built by the
Préfet de la Seine whose name it bears, running through the 8th
arrondissement and into the 9th, begun in 1857, is wholly modern save
for one single house, No. 173, at the juncture of Rue du Faubourg
St-Honoré, dating from the eighteenth century; boulevard Malesherbes
dates from about the same period. Joining this boulevard at No. 11 is
Avenue Velasquez, where, at No. 7, we find the hôtel Cernuschi
bequeathed by its owner to Paris as an Oriental Museum. The handsome
church St-Augustin is of recent erection. Besides these stately
boulevards and some few others devoid of historic interest, there are
boulevards encircling Paris on every side, along the boundary-lines of
the city, with at intervals the city gates. The boulevards in the
vicinity of the Bois de Boulogne are studded with villas and mansions,
many of them very luxurious. There are modern mansions, modern dwellings
of various categories along the course of all the other boulevards of
this wide circumference bordering the fortifications, but with few
associations of the least historic interest, beyond that of their
nomenclature memorizing, in many instances, Napoléon’s greatest
generals.
Boulevard de la Villette is formed of several ancient boulevards, and
the name records the existence there in past days of the “_petite
ville_,” a series of small buildings, dependencies of the leper-house
St-Lazare, first erected on a site known in the twelfth century as the
district of Rouvray. The black-walled Rotonde we see was the Custom
House first built in 1789, burnt down in 1871, and rebuilt on the old
plan. The Meaux barrier was there, bounding the highway to the north, a
point of great military interest. Louis XVI returned this way to Paris
after the flight to Varennes. The Imperial Guard passed here in triumph
in 1807, after their successful campaigns in Germany. Louis XVIII came
through the barrier gate here in 1814. The inn where the armistice was
signed in 1814 was on the Rond-Point opposite the barrier. At No. 130 of
the boulevard we come to Place du Combat, a name referring to no
military struggle, but to bull-fights, perhaps to cock-fights, which
took place here till into the nineteenth century. Close by is the site
of the great city gallows, the gibet de Maufaucon of bygone days (_see_
p. 240). And here in its vicinity, in the little Rue Vicq d’Azir, dating
from the early years of last century, died the former Paris public
executioner Deibler in 1904.
On the opposite side of Paris, in the boulevard Kellermann, the Porte de
Bicêtre recalls the English occupation of long-past ages or may be an
English colonization of later date, for Bicêtre is a corruption of the
name Winchester. These boulevards of the 13th arrondissement are
ragman’s quarters, the district of the Paris _chiffonniers_. Here at the
poterne des Peupliers the Bièvre enters Paris to be entirely lost to
view nowadays in its course through the city beneath the pavements.
The boulevards in the vicinity of Père Lachaise, Belleville,
Ménilmontant, Charonne, date from 1789. The short Rue des Panoyaux,
opening out of the boulevard Ménilmontant is said to owe its name to the
days when vines grew here, one bearing a seedless grape: “_pas
noyau_”--no kernel. Mention of the village of Charonne is found in
documents dating from the first years of the eleventh century. The
territory was church land, for the most part, owned by the old abbey
St-Magliore and the Paris Cathedral.
CHAPTER LI
THE QUAYS
The quays of the Seine in its course through Paris are picturesque in
the extreme and show at almost every step points of historic interest.
That interest is strongest, the aspect of the quays most quaint and
entrancing, where they pass through the heart of the city.
Let us start from the Point-du-Jour, the “Dawn of Day,” at the point
where the boundary-line of Paris touches the _banlieue_ to the
south-east. The name refers to a famous duel fought here at the break of
day on a memorable morning in 1743. Taking the Rive Droite, the right
bank, we follow the Quai d’Auteuil which, till the closing years of the
nineteenth century, was a mere roadway along which the river boats were
loaded and unloaded. The fine viaduct across the river was built in
1864-65. It was fiercely bombarded in the war of 1870. On Sundays and
fête-days this quaint quay is gay with holiday-makers who crowd its
popular cafés, drinking-booths and shows.
Quai de Passy was made in 1842 along that part of the old high road to
Versailles. Some quaint old houses still stand there. At No. 26 we see a
pavilion Louis XVI. No 32 is surrounded by a fine park wherein we find
vestiges of the home of the abbé Ragois, Madame de Maintenon’s
confessor, and ferruginous springs. Rue Berton, leading up from the
Quai, is one of the most picturesque old streets of Paris. At No. 17 we
find an extensive property and a Louis XV _hôtel_, once the home of
successive families of the _noblesse_ and of the unhappy princesse de
Lamballe, now a Maison de Santé--a private asylum. The _borne_ at No. 24
has been there since 1731, a boundary mark between the manors of Passy
and Auteuil.
Quai de la Conférence, arrondissement VIII, dates from the latter years
of the eighteenth century, its name referring to the middle of the
previous century, when Spanish statesmen entered Paris by a great gate
in its vicinity to confer concerning the marriage of Louis XIV and
Marie-Thérèse.
Cours-la-Reine, bordering the Seine along this quay, was first planted
by Marie de’ Medici in 1618, on market-garden ground. It was a favourite
and fashionable promenade in the time of the Fronde; a moat surrounded
it and iron gates closed it in. At No. 16 of Rue Bayard leading out of
it, we see the Maison de François I, its sculptures the work of Jean
Goujon, brought here, bit by bit, in 1826 from the quaint old village of
Moret near Fontainebleau where it was first built. On its frontage we
read an inscription in Latin.
Quai des Tuileries was formed under Louis XIV along the line of Charles
V’s boundary wall razed in 1670. The walls of the Louvre bordering this
quay, dating originally from the time of Henri IV, who wished to join
the Louvre to the Tuileries, then without the city bounds, by a gallery,
were rebuilt by Napoléon III (1863-68). Place du Carrousel behind this
frontage, so named from a _carrousel_ given there by Louis XIV, in the
garden known then as the parterre de Mademoiselle, dates from 1662. At
the Revolution it became for the time the _soi-disant_ Place de la
Fraternité. On this fraternal (?) _place_ political prisoners were
beheaded, while the _conventionels_ looked on from the Tuileries
windows. And it was the scene of the historic days June 20th and August
10th, 1792, later of the 24th July, 1830.
L’Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel dates from 1806, set up to commemorate
the campaign of 1805. The large square, in the centre of which stands
the colossal statue of Gambetta, known in the time of the Second Empire
as the Cour Napoléon III, was covered in previous days by a number of
short, narrow streets, interlacing. Several mansions, one or two
chapels, a small burial-ground, and a theatre, were there among these
streets and on beyond, and the grounds of the great hospital for the
blind, the “Quinze-Vingts,” stretched along the banks of the Seine at
this point, extending from the hospital, in Rue St-Honoré, its site from
its foundation till its removal to Rue de Charenton in 1779 (_see_ p.
250). Alongside the Quai we see the terrace “Bord de l’Eau,” of the
Tuileries gardens. The Orangerie reconstructed in 1853 was in the
seventeenth century a garden wherein was the famous Cabaret Regnard,
forerunner of the modern Casino. From this terrace to the Tuileries
Palace ran the subterranean passage made by Napoléon I for Marie Louise,
and here was the Pont-tournant, built by a monk in 1716, across which
Louis XVI was led back on his return from the flight to Varennes.
The Quai de Louvre is a union of several stretches of quay known of old
by different names, the most ancient stretch, that between the Pont-Neuf
and Rue du Louvre, dating from the thirteenth century. In the jardin de
l’Infante, bordering the palace, here the old palace of the time of
Catherine de’ Medici, we see statues of Velasquez, Raffet, Meissonnier,
Boucher. Reaching the houses along the quay we see at No. 10 the
ancient Café de Parnasse, now the Bouillon du Pont-Neuf, where Danton
was wont to pass many hours of the day and ended by wedding Gabrielle
Charpentier, its landlord’s daughter. At No. 8, built by Louis XVI’s
dentist, we see a fine wrought-iron balcony. And now we come to the
ancient Quai de la Mégisserie, dating from the time of Charles V, first
as Quai de la Sannierie, “tools for saltmaking” quay, then as Quai de la
Ferraille, “iron-instrument” quay. Its present name, too, denotes a
Paris industry, the preparation of sheepskins. The cross-roads where it
meets Quai du Louvre and the Pont-Neuf went in olden days by the name
Carrefour des Trois-Maries, also by that of Place du Four.
The “Belle Jardinière” covers the site of the Forum Episcopi, the
episcopal prison of the Middle Ages, later a royal prison rebuilt in
1656 by de Gondi, the first archbishop of Paris. Its prisoners were for
the most part actors and actresses. Interesting old streets open on this
ancient quay. At No. 12, we turn into Rue Bertin-Poirée, a thoroughfare
in the earlier years of the thirteenth century, where at No. 5 we see a
quaint, time-worn sign of the Tour d’Argent, and several black-walled
houses. The thirteenth-century Rue Jean-Lantier, memorizing a Parisian
of that long-gone age, lies, in its upper part, across what was the
Place du Chevalier du Guet, from the _hôtel_ built there for a Knight of
the Guet (the Watch) of Louis IX’s time. Rue des Lavandières, of the
same period, recalls the days when lavender growers and lavender dealers
lived and plied their thriving trade here. At No. 13 we see a fine
heraldic shield devoid of signs; at No. 6, old bas-reliefs. Rue des
Deux-Boules dates under other names from the twelfth century. At No. 2
of this quay the great painter David was born in 1748.
Quai des Gesvres was built by the Marquis de Gesvres in 1641. The
ancient arcades upon which it rests, hidden away with their vaulted
roofing, still support this old quay. The shops they once sheltered were
knocked to pieces in 1789. The Café at No. 10, built in 1855, was named
“A la Pompe Notre-Dame,” to record the existence till then on the
bridge, Pont Notre-Dame, of the twin pumps from which the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood drew their water. Rue de la Tâcherie (_tâche_, task,
work) was known in thirteenth-century days as Rue de la Juiverie. This
is still the Jews’ quarter of the city.
Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville was formed in its present aspect in the
nineteenth century, of three ancient thoroughfares along the banks of
the Seine. Corn and hay were in old days landed here. On the walls of
the house No. 34 we see the date 1548, and find within an interesting
old staircase. At No. 90 opens the old Rue de Brosse, named in memory of
the architect of the fine portal of St-Gervais, before us here (_see_ p.
103), and of the Luxembourg palace, close by the ancient _impasse_ at
the south end of the church; and at the junction of Quai des Célestins,
opens the twelfth-century Rue des Nonnains d’Hyères, where the nuns
d’Yerres had of old a convent. Almost every house is ancient. In the
court at No. 21 we see the interesting façade of the hôtel d’Aumont, now
the Pharmacie Centrale des Hôpitaux.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE FIEUBET, QUAI DES CÉLESTINS]
Quai des Célestins, in the district of the vanished convent (_see_ p.
303) has many interesting vestiges of the past. No. 32 is on the site of
the Tour Barbeau, where the wall of Philippe-Auguste ended, and of the
tennis-court which served at one time as a theatre for Molière and his
company (1645). The walls of No. 22 are one side of the fine old hôtel
de Vieuville (_see_ p. 114). At No. 16 we find a curious old court. No.
14, once hôtel Beaumarchais, then petit hôtel Vieuville, at one time
used as a Jewish temple, has a splendid frescoed ceiling. We see remains
of old _hôtels_ at No. 6 and 4. No. 2, l’École Massillon, built as a
private mansion, l’hôtel Fieubet, the work of Mansart (seventeenth
century), was restored in 1850, enlarged by the Oratoriens in 1877.
Quai Henri IV stretches along the ancient line of the Île Louviers
joined to the Rive Droite in 1843, the property of different families of
the _noblesse_ till 1790. At No. 30 the Archives de la Seine.
Quai de la Rapée, named from the country house of a statesman of the
days of Louis XV., is bordered along its whole course by old, but
generally sordid, structures, in olden days drinking booths. Passage des
Mousquetaires at No. 18 records the vicinity of the Caserne des
Mousquetaires, now l’Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.
Quai de Bercy, records by its name the _bergerie_, in old French
_bercil_, here in long-gone days. Here, too, there was a castle built by
Le Vau and extensive gardens laid out by the great seventeenth-century
gardener Le Nôtre. Their site was given up in the latter half of the
nineteenth century for the Entrepôts de Bercy.
Picturesque old quays surround the islands on the Seine. Quai de
l’Horloge, overlooked by the venerable clock-tower of the Palais de
Justice (_see_ p. 50), went in past days by the name Quai des Morfondus,
the quay of people chilled by cold river mists and blasting winds. When
opticians made that river-bank their special quarter, it became Quai des
Lunettes. Lesage, author of _Gil Blas_, lived here in 1715, at the
Soleil d’Or. No. 41, where dwelt the engraver Philipon, Mme Roland’s
father, is known as the house of Madame Roland, for it was the home of
her girlhood. No. 17 dates from Louis XIII.
Quai des Orfèvres, the goldsmith’s quay, dating from the end of the
sixteenth and first years of the seventeenth centuries, lost its most
ancient, most picturesque structures by the enlarging of the Palais de
Justice in recent years. In ancient days a Roman wall passed here. At
No. 20 of the Rue de Harlay, opening out of it, we see part of an
ancient archway. At No. 2 a Louis XIII house. Nos. 52-54 on the _quai_
date from 1603, the latter once the firm of jewellers implicated in the
_affaire du collier_. At No. 58 lived Strass, the inventor of the
simili-diamonds.
Quai de la Cité was built in 1785, on the site of the ancient
_port-aux-œufs_, remains of which were unearthed in making the
metropolitan railway, a few years ago. Along these banks we see the
Paris bird shops; the Marché-aux-Oiseaux is held here. And close by is
the Marché-aux-Fleurs. Merovingian remains were found beneath the
surface on this part of the quay in 1906. Thick, strong walls believed
to have been built by Dagobert, inscriptions, capitals, tombstones--the
remains of oldest Paris.
Quai de l’Archevêché records the existence there of the archbishop’s
palace built in 1697 by Cardinal de Noailles, pillaged and razed to the
ground in 1831. The sacristy and presbytery we see there now are modern.
This is the quay of the Paris Morgue, the Dead-house, brought here in
1864 from the Marché-Neuf, which had been its site since 1804, when it
was removed from le Grand Châtelet. For years past we have been told it
is “soon” to be again removed, taken to a remoter corner of the city.
The Square de l’Archevêché, laid out in 1837, was in olden days a
stretch of waste land known as the “Motte aux Papelards,” the playground
of the Cathedral Staff. Boileau’s Paris home was here in a street long
swept away. His country-house, as we know, was at Auteuil (_see_ p.
275). In 1870 the square was turned for the time into an artillery
ground.
Quai de Bourbon on the Île St. Louis dates from 1614. Every house along
its line is interesting, of seventeenth-century date for the most part.
At No. 3, we see a shop of the days and style Louis XV. Nos. 13-15,
hôtel de Charron, where in modern times Meissonnier had his studio. We
see fine doors and doorways, courts, staircases, balustrades, at every
house. No. 29 was the home of Roualle de Boisgelon. Philippe de
Champaigne lived for a time at No. 45.
Quai d’Orléans was named after Gaston, the brother of Louis XIII. No. 18
is the hôtel Roland. No. 6 is a Polish museum and library.
Quai de Béthune, once Quai du Dauphin, named by the Revolutionists Quai
de la Liberté, shows us seventeenth-century houses along its entire
course. No. 32 was the home of the statesman Turgot in his youth--his
father’s house. Subterranean passages ran to the Seine from No. 30, and
some other riverine houses. At No. 24, built by Le Vau, we find an
interesting court, with fountain, etc.
Quai d’Anjou is another Orleans quay, for Gaston was duc d’Anjou. No. 1
is the splendid hôtel Lambert de Thorigny (_see_ p. 93). No. 5, the
“petit hôtel Poisson de Marigny,” brother of Mme de Pompadour. No. 7,
began as part of the hôtel Lambert, and is now headquarters of the
municipal bakery directors. Nos. 11, 13, hôtel of Louis Lambert de
Thorigny. No. 17, hôtel Lauzun, husband of “La Grande Mademoiselle,” in
later times the habitation of several distinguished men of letters:
Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, etc. The society of the “Parisiens de
Paris” bought it in 1904, a magnificent mansion, classed as “Monument
historique,” under State protection, therefore, in regard to its upkeep.
Nos. 23 and 25 are built on staves over four old walls. No. 35 was built
by Louis XIV’s coachman.
RIVE GAUCHE (LEFT BANK).
We will start again from the south-western corner. Here in 1777, in the
little riverside hamlet beyond Paris, a big factory was built, where was
first made the disinfectant, of so universal use in France, known as
_eau de Javel_. The Quai de Javel was constructed some fifty years
later.
Quai de Grenelle, a rough road from the eighteenth century, was built at
the same period. The Allée des Cygnes owes its name to the ancient Île
des Cygnes, known in the sixteenth century and onwards as Île
Maquerelle, or _mal querelle_, for the secluded islet on the Seine,
joined later to the river-bank, offered a fine spot in those days for
fights and quarrels. In the time of Louis XIV the islet was a public
promenade, and the King had swans put there, hence its name.
Quai d’Orsay memorizing a famous parliamentary man of his day, Prévôt
des Marchands, first constructed in the early years of the eighteenth
century, was known from 1802 to 1815 as Quai Buonaparte. It extends far
along the 7th arrondissement. There we see along its borders the bright
gardens of the recently laid out park of the Champ de Mars, and numerous
smart modern streets and avenues opening out of it. No. 105 is the State
Garde-Meuble, its walls sheltering magnificent tapestries, and historic
relics of the days of kings and emperors. At No. 99 were the imperial
stables. No 97, Ministère du Travail. The Ministère des Affaires
Étrangères (Foreign Office), at No. 37, is a modern structure. The
Palais de la Présidence, at No. 35, dates from 1722. The Palais-Bourbon
from the same date (_see_ p. 200).
The busy Gare d’Orléans, so prominent a modern structure along the quay,
covers the site of the old Palais d’Orsay, and an ancient barracks burnt
to the ground in 1871. In an inner courtyard at No. 1 we find the
remains of the ancient hôtel de Robert de Cotte, royal architect-in-chief,
in the early years of the eighteenth century.
Quai Voltaire was known in part of its course in eighteenth-century days
as Quai des Théatins. It was constructed under Mazarin, restored in
1751. Many names of historic note are associated with the handsome house
at No. 27, built in or about 1712, for Nicolas de Bragelonne, Treasurer
of France. Its chief point of interest is connected with Voltaire. Here
he died in 1778; here his heart was kept till 1791. No. 25 was the home
of Alfred de Musset. The ground between 25 and 15 was occupied from the
days of Mazarin till 1791 by the convent of the Théatins. The short Rue
de Beaume close here shows us many interesting old-time houses. No. 1
was the hôtel of the Marquis de Villette, who became a member of the
Convention, and called his son Voltaire. At No. 3 were his stables.
Boissy d’Anglas lived at No. 5, in 1793, and Chateaubriand stayed here
in 1804. No. 17, dating from about 1670, was the house of the Carnot
family. At No. 10 we see vestiges of a house belonging to the
Mousquetaires Gris, for this was their headquarters. No. 2 was built for
the Marquis de Mailly-Nesle. Nos. 11 to 9, along the _quai_, formed the
habitation of Président de Perrault, secretary to the Grand Condé. The
duchess of Portsmouth lived here in 1690, and here the great painter,
Ingres, died in 1867.
Quai Malaquais began as Quai de la Reine Marguerite, but was nicknamed
forthwith Quai Mal-acquet (_Mal-acquis_) because the Queen, Henri IV’s
light-lived, divorced wife, had taken the abbey grounds of the Petit
Pré-aux-Clercs whereon to build her garden-surrounded mansion. At No. 1
the architect Visconti died in 1818. In 1820 Humboldt lived at No. 3.
The statue of Voltaire by Caillé was set up opposite No. 5 in 1885. The
house at No. 9 was built about 1624 on the ground _mal-acquis_ by
Margaret de Valois. No. 11, École des Beaux-Arts, is on the site of the
ancient hôtel de Brienne, Louis XIV’s Secretary of State. Joined later
to the house next door it became the home of Mazarin, by and by of
Fouché, and was made to communicate with the police offices at a little
distance. Nos. 15 and 17, built by Mansart in 1640, restored a century
later, after long habitation by persons of noted name, was taken over by
the State, and in 1885 annexed to the Beaux-Arts.
Quai de Conti records the name of the brother of the Grand Condé. Its
most prominent building is the Institut de France, the Collège Mazarin,
built in 1663-70, as the Collège des Quatre Nations Réunies. Its left
pavilion covers the site of the ancient Tour de Nesle, washed by the
Seine, which formed the boundary point of Philippe-Auguste’s wall and
rampart. Mazarin’s will endowed the college for the benefit of sixty
impecunious gentlemen’s sons of Alsace, France, Pignerol, Roussillon.
The Revolutionists styled it “Collège de l’Unité,” then in 1793
suppressed it, and used the building for meetings of the Salut Public,
later as an École Normale, then as a Palais des Arts; finally, after
undergoing restoration, it became in 1805 the Institut de France, as we
know it. The ancient chapel has been taken for the great meeting-hall,
the hall of the grandes “Séances.” For long Mazarin’s tomb, now in the
Louvre, was there. His body is said to be there still, deep down beneath
the chapel pavement. The Bibliothèque Mazarine is in the part of the
building covering the spot where the petit hôtel de Nesle stood of old.
The greater part of the statesman’s valuable collection of books was
brought here from his palace, now incorporated in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Rue de Richelieu, according to his will. It contains many
precious ancient volumes and manuscripts. The house No. 15 was built by
Louis XIV on the foundations of the ancient Tour de Nesle. No. 13, where
we see the shop of the booksellers Pigoreau, was built by Mansard, in
1659, one of its walls resting upon a bit of the ancient wall of
Philippe-Auguste. Here, on the third story, we may see the room, an
attic then, as now, where young Buonaparte, a student at the École
Militaire, used to spend his holidays, welcomed there by old friends of
his family. The short Rue Guénégaud, memorizing the mansion once there,
bordering at one part the walls of the Mint, shows us along the rest of
its course, at No. 1, remains of a once famous marionnettes theatre;
at No. 19 an old gabled house; in the court, No. 29, a tower of
Philippe-Auguste’s wall; an ancient inscription at No. 35; a fine old
door at No. 16, etc. The narrow old-world Rue de Nevers shows us none
but ancient houses. This thirteenth-century street was formerly closed
at both ends and known therefore as Rue des Deux-Portes. Beneath No. 13
of the little Rue de Nesle runs an ancient subterranean passage blocked
in recent years. The old house at No. 5 of the quay was for long looked
upon as the dwelling of Buonaparte after he left Brienne. At the
recently razed No. 3 lived Marie-Antoinette’s jeweller, his shop
surmounted by the sign “Le petit Dunkerque,” referring to articles of
curiosity in the jewellery line, much in vogue in the year 1780. A
little café at No. 1, also razed, was till lately the humble successor
of the first Paris “Café des Anglais,” set up there in 1769, a
gathering-place for British men of letters.
[Illustration: QUAI DES GRANDS-AUGUSTINS]
Quai des Grands-Augustins, the oldest of Paris quays, dates in part from
the thirteenth century, and records the existence there of the monastery
where in its heyday the great assemblies of the clergy were held, and
the ecclesiastical archives kept from 1645 to 1792. The Salle des
Archives was then given up to the making of _assignats_. In 1797 the
convent was sold and razed to the ground. We see some traces of it at
No. 55. The bookseller’s shop there was till recent years paved with
gravestones from the convent chapel which stood on the site of No. 53.
The restaurant Lapérouse at No. 51 was, in the seventeenth century, the
hôtel of the comte de Bruillevert. The Académie bookseller,
Didier-Perrin, is established in the ancient hôtel Feydeau et Montholon.
No. 25 was built by François I. No. 23 opened on the vanished Rue de
Hurepoix. No. 17 was part of the hôtel d’O, subsequently hôtel de
Luynes.
Quai St-Michel was known for a time in Napoléon’s day as Quai de la
Gloriette. Its first stone was laid so far back as 1561, then no more
stones added till 1767, an interim of two centuries. Another
interruption deferred its completion to the year 1811. The two narrow
sordid streets we see opening on to it, Rue Zacharie and Rue du Chat qui
Pêche, date, the first from 1219, as in part Rue Sac-à-lie in part Rue
des Trois-Chandeliers, from its earliest days a slum; the second, a mere
alley, from 1540.
Quai de Montebello began in 1554 as Quai des Bernardins from the
vicinity of the convent--its walls still standing (_see_ p. 136). The
quay bore several successive names till its entire reconstruction in
early nineteenth-century years, when it was renamed in memory of
Napoléon’s great General, Maréchal Lannes.
Quai de la Tournelle was Quai St-Bernard in the fourteenth century. The
Porte St-Bernard was close by. La Tournelle was a stronghold where
prisoners were kept close until deported. On the wall of Nos. 57-55, now
a distillery, we read the words: “Hôtel cy-devant de Nesmond.” It began
as hôtel du Pain. Président de Nesmond, who owned it later, inscribed
his name on its frontage, the first inscription of the kind known. The
Pharmacie Centrale we see at No. 47 is the ancient convent of the
Miramiones. The nuns were so named from Mme de Miramion who, left a
widow at sixteen, founded this convent for the care of poor girls. The
nuns had their own boat to convey the girls to services at Notre-Dame.
In the chapel we find seventeenth-century decorations, and in the body
of the building many interesting vestiges. On the walls at No. 37 we
read the inscription, “Hôtel cy-devant du Président Rolland” (the
anti-Jesuit). The old-time coaches for Fontainebleau had their bureau
and starting-point at No. 21. No. 15 is the quaint and historic
restaurant de la Tour d’Argent, which has existed since 1575 (closed
during the war), famed for its excellent and characteristic _cuisine_
and its picturesque, old-time menu cards, with their strong spice of
_couleur locale_.
Quai d’Austerlitz is the old Quai de l’Hôpital. The boundary-line
between Paris and what was before its incorporation the village of
Austerlitz passed at No. 21. The famous hôtel des Haricots, the prison
of the Garde Nationale, where many artists and men of letters of olden
days served a period of punishment, often left their names written in
couplets on its walls, was till the early years of last century on the
site where now we see the busy departure platform of the Gare d’Orléans.
Quai de la Gare, bordered by ancient houses, was till 1863 route
Nationale.
CHAPTER LII
LES PONTS (THE BRIDGES)
Once more to the south-western corner of this “bonne ville de Paris.”
The first bridge over the Seine within the city boundary, beginning at
this end, is the Viaduct d’Auteuil (_see_ p. 320). The second is
Pont-Mirabeau, dating from the last decade of the nineteenth century.
Pont de Grenelle is of earlier date (1825). The Statue of Liberty we see
there (Bartholdi) is a replica in reduced size of that sent to New York.
Pont de Passy first spanned the Seine as a mere footway at the time of
the Exhibition of 1878, rebuilt in its present form in 1906. Pont d’Iéna
has a greater historic interest. Its construction was set about in 1806.
It had just been finished when in 1814 Blücher and the Allies proposed
to blow it up. Royal influence prevailed to save it. It was called
thenceforth till 1830 Pont des Invalides.
Pont de l’Alma, that emphatically Second-Empire bridge with its four
Napoléonic soldiers, a Zouave, an infantry man, an artillery man, and a
chasseur, was built between the years 1854-57. It was still unfinished
when on April 2nd, 1856, Napoléon III and a sumptuously accoutred
cortège passed across it to present flags to the regiments returned from
the Crimea. Pont-des-Invalides was built in 1855.
[Illustration: LE PONT DES ARTS ET L’INSTITUT]
The first stone of the very ornate Pont Alexandre III, formed of a
single arch 107 mètres long, was laid with great ceremony by the Czar
Nicholas II in 1896. It was opened in 1900.
A truly historic bridge is the Pont de la Concorde, built between 1787
and 1790, finished with stones off the razed Bastille, and called at
first Pont Louis XVI. Louis’ head fell, and the bridge became Pont de la
Révolution. Twelve immense statues of famous statesmen and warriors were
set up on it in 1828. They were considered too big, and in 1851 were
taken away to the Cour d’Honneur de Versailles.
[Illustration: PONT-NEUF]
Pont de Solferino, built in 1858, records the victorious Italian
campaigns of 1859.
Pont-Royal was designed by Mansart and built in 1689 by Dominican monks
to replace a smaller, more primitive bridge which had been known
successively as Pont-Barlier, Pont-des-Tuileries, Pont-Rouge, and Pont
Ste-Anne; it underwent restoration in 1841. Pont des Saints-Pères, or
Pont du Carrousel was one of the last of Paris bridges to pay toll;
built in 1834, restored in recent years.
Pont-des-Arts, so called from its vicinity to the Louvre, leading in a
straight line from the colonnaded archway of the Court Carrée to the
Institut, was opened in 1804, restored 1854.
Pont-Neuf, the most characteristic of Paris bridges, dates back to the
reign of Henri III. The King himself laid its first stone in 1578, but
it was not finished till 1603, when Henri IV was King. “Le bon Roi”
determined to be the first to cross it on horseback, and while it was
still unsafe spurred his thoroughbred along the unfinished bridge way.
His lords, hastening to follow where their master led, were jolted out
of their saddles, and falling upon the unparapeted structure, rolled
into the river and were drowned. Louis XIII set up a statue of his
father on horseback on the bridge; the statue of the horse was a gift
from Cosimo de’ Medici to Louis’ mother. At the Revolution it was
overturned, taken away, and melted down to make cannons for the
insurgents. Louis XVIII replaced it by a statue made of the bronze of
the first statue of Napoléon that had been set up on Place Vendôme and
that of his general, Desaix, on Place des Victoires. Though set up by
the Bourbon King, the figure we see is believed to contain within it a
statuette of Napoléon I and Voltaire’s _Henriade_. Until 1848 there were
shops within the semicircles we see on either side of the old bridge,
and beneath the second archway near the right bank there was one of the
first hydraulic pumps, known as “la Samaritaine.” Its water was conveyed
to the Louvre, the Tuileries, and to houses all around, and fed the
famous old fountain built in 1608, destroyed a century later, rebuilt in
1715, again destroyed after another hundred years, with the figure of
the Samaritan woman giving water to our Saviour. The bathing-house near
the spot with its sign, and the big modern shop of hideous aspect, alone
remain to record the name of the ancient pump and fountain. Two or three
ancient houses still stand on the Place du Pont-Neuf in the middle of
the bridge. At its picturesque western point we see the tree-shaded
square Henri IV, known also as the Square du Vert-Galant. Place
Dauphine, at its south-western side, dates from the days when Henri’s
son, later Louis XIII, was dauphin.
The Pont St-Michel we see to-day was built in 1857. The first bridge
there, joining the mainland to the island on the Seine, was constructed
towards the close of the fourteenth century. That bridge and two
successive ones were destroyed by fire.
Pont-au-Change, the Money-changers’ Bridge, was in olden days a wooden
construction which went by the names Pont de la Marchandise and
Pont-aux-Oiseaux. Jewellers as well as money-changers plied their trade
along its planks, perhaps also bird merchants. It was a little higher up
the river in its early twelfth century days and was often flooded. It
was badly burnt, too, more than once; then in the seventeenth century
was entirely rebuilt of stone, and bronze statues of the royal family,
Louis XIII, Louis XIV as a child, and Anne d’Autriche, set up there. In
the century following the houses upon it were all cleared away and in
1858 it was again rebuilt.
The Petit-Pont joins the Île to the left bank at the very same spot
where the Romans made a bridge across the river, one of two which
spanned the Seine in their day, and on beyond. Like all town bridges of
the Middle Ages it was made of wood and each side thickly built upon by
houses and shops; windmills, too, stood on this ancient bridge, grinding
corn for the citizens around. And where we now see the Place du
Petit-Pont there stood a wooden tower, la Tour de Bois, erected to
protect the bridge against the invading Normans. At the Musée Carnavalet
an ancient inscription may be seen, recording the names of twelve
warriors who fought here to defend their city, led by Gozlin, bishop of
Paris, in 886. In the twelfth century Maurice de Sully, the builder of
Notre-Dame, rebuilt the bridge in stone, but flood and fire laid it in
ruins time after time. The last destructive fire was in the spring of
1718. It was then rebuilt minus its wooden houses. The present structure
dates from 1853. The _place_ was built in 1782, when the Petit Châtelet,
which had succeeded the Tour de Bois, was razed. In Rue du Petit-Pont we
see some old houses on the odd number side. Many were demolished when
the street was widened a few years ago.
The other bridge of Roman times, succeeding no doubt a rude primitive
bridge, stretched where the Pont Notre-Dame now spans the river. The
Roman bridge, built on staves, was overthrown by the Normans in 861.
Rebuilt as Pont Notre-Dame in 1413, it crashed to pieces some eighty
years later, carrying down with it the house of a famous printer of the
day. It was alternatively destroyed and rebuilt several times till its
last reconstruction in 1853. Its houses were the first in France to be
numbered (1507). There were sixty-eight of them and the numbering was
done in gold or gilded ciphers. All these old houses were pulled down in
1786. Pont Notre-Dame was the “bridge of honour.” Sovereigns coming to
Paris in state crossed it to enter the city. Close up to it stood for
nearly two hundred years--1670 to 1856--the Pompe Notre-Dame, from
which all the fountains of the district were supplied with water.
Pont d’Arcole, built as we now see it in 1854, succeeded a wooden bridge
erected in 1828 with the name Pont de la Grève, commonly called Pont de
la Balance. It gained its present name, recalling Napoléon’s victory of
1796, in the Revolution of 1830, when a youth at the head of a band of
insurgents rushed upon the bridge waving the tricolor and shouting: “If
I die, remember my name is Arcole.”
Pont-au-Double, so called because to cross it passengers paid a double
toll for the benefit of the Hôtel-Dieu, is a nineteenth-century
construction, replacing the original bridge of the name built in the
sixteenth century, a little higher up the river.
Pont de l’Archevêché dates from 1828. Pont St-Louis, joining l’Île de la
Cité to l’Île St-Louis, was built in 1614 as a wooden bridge painted red
and called, therefore, Pont-Rouge. Like all wooden erections of the age,
it was damaged by fire, and in the eighteenth century at the time of the
Revolution, “icebergs” on the Seine knocked it over. An iron footbridge
was put up in its place and remained till 1862, when the bridge we see
was built.
Pont Louis-Philippe was built in the same year to replace a suspension
bridge paying toll.
Pont de la Tournelle, built as we see it in 1851, began as a wooden
bridge of fourteenth-century erection.[I]
Pont Marie was not, as one might suppose, named in honour of the Virgin,
nor after Marie de’ Medici, who laid its first stone. It simply records
the name of its constructor, who was “Entrepreneur-Général des Ponts de
France” at the time. Fifty houses were built upon it. Some were
destroyed by floods a few years later, others razed in 1788. The two
Ponts de Sully are, except Pont de Tolbiac, the most modern of Paris
bridges, built some years after the Franco-Prussian war, replacing two
older bridges of slight importance. Pont d’Austerlitz dates from 1806,
the year of the great battle. When the Emperor fell the Allies demanded
the suppression of the name, and the French Government of the day called
the bridge Pont du Jardin du Roi, referring to the Jardin des Plantes in
its vicinity (_see_ p. 155). The name did not catch on. The people would
have none of it. It has remained a reminder of Napoléon’s victory. It
has been enlarged more than once, the last time in 1885. Pont de Bercy
was built in 1835, rebuilt 1864. Pont de Tolbiac, in 1895. Pont
National, a footbridge, in 1853.
[Illustration: PARIS
_Limite des Arrondts_]
INDEX TO HISTORIC PERSONS
A
Abelard, 91, 135
About, Edmond, 228
Affre, Monseigneur, Archbishop of Paris, 250, 289
Agnesseau, Henri d’, 200, 274 Madame de, 274
Agrippa, 147
Alba, Duque d’, 197
Albert, le Grand, Maître, 134-5
Alexander I, Czar, 217
Alexander III, Pope, 88
Amélie, Ex-Queen Dowager of Portugal, 195
Ancre, Maréchale d’, 168
Angoulême, Duc d’, 44
Angoulême, Duchesse d’ (daughter of Louis XVI), 148, 258, 161
Anjou, Charles d’, King of Naples and Sicily, 110
Anjou, Duc d’, King of Poland, 222
Anjou, Duc de, _see_ Orléans, Gaston d’
Anne d’Autriche, Queen, 14, 32, 59, 154, 188, 205, 300, 341
Anne de Bretagne, Queen, 184
Arcole, 343
Arc, Jeanne d’, 27, 209, 289
Armagnacs, the, 310
Arnaud of Andilly, recluse, 316
Arnould, Sophie, 60
Artagnan, Lieutenant-Captain d’, 22
Astley’s Circus, 241
Atkins, Mrs. (_née_ Walpole), 200, 205
Auber, 229
Aubert, M., vicaire, 134
Aubray, Antoine d’, 116
Aubriot, Prévôt de Paris (13th century), 107
Aubriot, Hugues, Prévôt du Roi, 123
Augier, Émile, 32
Aulard, Pierre, 98
Aymon, Les Quatre Fils d’, 76
B
Balbi, Comtesse de, 175
Ballard, 35-6
Ballu, 26
Balsamo, Joseph, Comte de Cagliostro, 84, 303
Balue, Jean de la, 76
Balzac, Honoré de, 72, 83, 165, 172, 216, 256, 271-2
Barbette, 82
Barclay, Robert, 161
Barras, 164, 229
Barrère, 27
Barrias, 264
Bartholdi, 337
Basville, Lamoignon de, 196
Batz, Baron, 58
Baudelaire, 329
Baudry, Paul, 41
Bault, and his wife, 110
Beauharnais, Eugène de, 205
Beauharnais family, 198
Beauharnais, Joséphine (later Empress), 60, 164, 165, 168, 171, 217,
225, 298
Beauharnais, Vicomte de, 171
Beaumarchais, 111, 228, 303
Beauvais, Pierre de, 198
Beauvalet, 198
Beauvau, Prince de, 211
Bègue, 296
Belhomme, Dr., 244
Bellefond, Abbesse de, 235
Béranger, 32, 41, 78, 272
Berlioz, 224, 227, 228, 282
Berlioz, Madame (_née_ Smithson), 282
Bernadotte, 235
Bernhardt, Sarah, 301
Berri, Duc de, 52, 217, 219
Berri, Duchesse de, 217, 270, 300
Berryer, 196
Biard, 73
Blanche of Castille, Queen, 39, 137, 177, 252
Blanche, Docteur, 273, 285
Blanche de France, 104
Blanche, Queen, widow of Philippe de Valois, 252
Blücher, Marshal, 337
Boffrand, 29, 205
Boigne, Comtesse de, 210
Boileau, 174, 275, 328
Boisgelon, Roualle de, 338
Boissy d’Anglas, 331
Bonheur, Rosa, 176, 185
Bosi, 10
Bossuet, 33, 39, 98, 186
Bossuet, Abbé, 92-3
Bouchandon, 197
Boucher, 39
Boulanger, Général, 265
Bourbon, Cardinal Charles de, 174
Bourbon, Comte de, 39
Bourbon, Duchesse de, 217
Bourbon-Condé, Mlle. de, Abbesse de Remiremont, 193
Bourbon, Louis de, Prince de Condé, 200-1
Bourdon, 159
Bourguignons, the, 310
Bourrienne, 237
Bragelonne, Nicolas de, 330
Breteuil, Général de, 191
Breteuil, Marquis de, 33, 234
Briancourt, 116
Brienne, de, 331
Brinvilliers, Madame de, 116, 118, 135
Brissac, Duc de, 248
Brisson, Président, 7
Brosse, Jacques de, 164
Brosse, Salomon de, 104, 162
Bruillevert, Comte de, 334
Brunehaut, Queen, 22
Buffon, 155, 156
Buonaparte, Caroline (Murat), 217
Buonaparte, Jérôme, 17, 157
Buonaparte, Lætitia (Madame-mère), 199
Buonaparte, Lucien, 219
Buonaparte, Napoléon, _see_ Napoléon I
Buonaparte, Napoléon, Orma, 17
Buonaparte, Pauline (Princesse Borghese), 218
Buonaparte, Prince Victor, 17
Buonarotti, Michael Angelo, 4
C
Cadoual, 42, 68, 206
Cagliostro, Comte de, 84, 303
Caillé, 331
Cain, Georges, 81
Calvin, Jean, 148
Cambon, 28
Cambronne, Général, 260
Camille, Sœur, 168-9
Carême, Antoine, 36
Carlos, King of Portugal, 195
Carnot, 219
Carnot family, 205, 331
Carpeaux, 223
Casabianca, 60
Casanova, 58
Casimir, King of Poland, 174
Cassini, 256
Castanier, de, 61
Catherine de’ Medici, Queen, 8, 9, 10, 39, 79, 154, 157, 203, 267, 322
Caumartin, Prévôt des Marchands, 223
Cavaignac, 298, 309
Celestin V, Pope, 303
Cernuschi, 318
Certain, Vicaire, 142
Cerutti, 230
Chabanais, Marquis de, 244
Chalgrin, 28, 140, 164, 175, 176, 215, 217
Champaigne, Philippe, de, 110, 151, 328
Chanac, Guillaume de, Archbishop of Paris, 135, 160
Chantal, Mme de, 120
Charcot, Dr., 312
Charlemagne, 22, 88, 209, 258
Charles I of England, 14, 267
Charles-le-Mauvais, 40
Charles V, Emperor, 3
Charles V, King, 2, 38, 39, 108, 116, 117, 118, 120, 123, 247, 303, 321,
323
Charles VI, 23, 98, 252
Charles VII, 43
Charles IX, 7, 10, 270
Charles X, 219
Charlotte de Bavière, 166
Charost, Duc de, 218
Charpentier, 157
Charpentier, Gabrielle, 323
Chaslun, Pierre de, Abbot of Cluny, 138
Châtel, Jean, 26
Chavannes, Puvis de, 147, 228, 277
Châteaubriand, 28, 204, 207, 218, 258, 331
Châteaubriand, Madame, 258
Chénier, André, 58, 165, 237, 248, 273
Cherubini, 234
Chevalier, Honoré, 175
Childebert, King, 90, 173, 181
Chimay, Princesse de (_ci-devant_ Mme Tallien), 214
Choiseul, Duc and Duchesse de, 60
Choiseul, Ducs de, 53
Chopin, 31, 209
Christine de France, 180
Cinq Mars, 108
Clarence, Duke of, 74
Claretie, 228
Clavière, 240
Clemenceau, 268
Clementine, Princess, of Belgium, 17
Clermont, Robert de, 39
Clermont, Bishop of, 141
Clisson, Connétable Olivier de, 74
Clothilde, Princess, 17
Clovis, King, 209
Cochin, Vicaire, 256
Colbert, 4, 132, 213, 250, 256
Coligny, Admiral, 7, 21, 26
Commines, Philippe de, 266
Comte, Auguste, 82, 170, 185
Concini, 7
Condé, le Grand, 113, 331
Condé, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de, 200-1
Conflans, Jean de, 39
Conti, brother of Condé, 331
Conti, Princesse de, 168
Coppée, François, 243, 286
Corday, Charlotte, 18, 173, 185, 206, 210, 212
Corneille, Pierre, 32, 58
Corot, 167, 234, 237
Cotte, Robert de, 197, 330
Cousin, Jules, 82
Coustou, 10, 159, 212
Couthon, 28, 316
Coysevox, 135, 159, 212
Crawford, 227
Cuvier, 156, 207
D
Dagobert, King, 86, 91, 113, 289, 327
Dangest, 299
Dante, 132, 135
Danton, 333
Darboy, Mgr., Archbishop of Paris, 241-2, 243
Daubenton, 156
Daubigny, 229
Daudet, Alphonse, 111, 120, 165, 200
David, 324
David, Bishop of Moray, 161
Deguerry, Abbé, 209, 243
Deibler, 319
Dejazet, 302
De la Bedoyère, Colonel, 234
De la Brosse, Guy, 155
Delacroix, 175
Delamair, 74, 75
De la Meilleraie, Maréchale, 207
De la Rapée, 326
De la Reynie, 98
Delaroche, 171
De la Rochefoucault, Cardinal, 145, 188
De la Tour d’Auvergne, Abbesse de Montmartre, 232
De la Tour-du-Pin-Gouvernet family, 76
De la Vallette, Comtesse, 219
De la Vallière, Louise, 153-4, 257, 267, 317
Delavigne, Casimir, 233
De l’Épée, Abbé, 33, 153, 303
Delorme, Marion, 82, 120
Delorme, Philibert, 8, 59
Desaix, Général, 49, 340
Descartes, 158
Desmoulins, Camille, 17, 18, 162, 165
Diane de France, 111
Diderot, 27, 304-5
Dionis, 156
Doge, the (1686), 198
Doré, Gustave, 199, 228
Dosne, Mme, 229
Dosne, Mlle, 229
Duban, 6
Dubarry, Jean, 59
Dubarry, Mme, 58, 135
Dumas, 226
Dumas, Alexandre, _père_, 32, 229
Dupin, Aurore (George Sand), 66
Duret, 199
Duret, Président, 205
E
Edgeworth, Abbé, 77, 148
Effiat, Maréchal de, 108
Enghien, Duc d’, 170, 193, 217
Enghien, Duchesse d’, 170
Épinay, Mme d’, 224
Érard, Sebastien, 270
Erasmus, 148
Esterhazy, Comte, 69
Estrées, Cardinal d’, 197
Estrées, Duchesse d’, 197
Estrées, Gabrielle d’, 22, 26, 68, 83, 118, 141, 170, 265
Estrées, Maréchal d’, 83
Étiolles, M. d’, 233
Eudes the Falconer, Bishop of Paris, 96-7, 201
Eugénie, Empress, 13, 273
F
Faure, Félix, Président, 236
Favart, 60
Fersan, Comte de, 217, 219
Fesch, Cardinal, 225
Fieschi, 246, 302
Flamel, Nicolas, 43, 69, 96
Flamel, Pernelle, 69, 96
Flandrin, 128, 173, 175, 239
Flaubert, 178
Florian, 270-1
Foucault, 167
Fouché, 331
Folmon, Comte de, 244
Fontenay, Aubert de, 83
Fouquet, père et fils, 120
Fourcy, de, family, 107
Fragonard, 39, 56
Francis-Joseph, Emperor, 195
François I, 3, 94, 97, 140, 175, 206, 334
Franck, César, 308
Franklin, Benjamin, 219, 268, 271-2
Franque, Simon, 100
Franqueville, Comte de, 270 & n.
Fulbert, Chanoine, 91
Fulcon, or Falcon, Comte, 240
Funck-Brentano, 118
G
Gabriel, 4, 28, 142, 191, 194, 211
Gallièra, Duchesse de, _née_ Brignole, 195, 267
Gallifet, Marquis de, 197
Gambetta, 165, 170, 219, 225, 264, 322
Garcia, Manuel, 226
Garlande, Mathilde de, 316
Gaston, brother of Louis Treize, 328
Gauthier, Marguerite (la Dame aux Camélias), 213
Gautier, Théophile, 120, 329
Gay, Sophie, 56
Genlis, Mme de, 199, 217, 219, 233
Géoffrin, Mme, 28
Géricault, 60
Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, 295
Germain, Bishop of Paris, 173
Gesvres, Marquis, de, 324
Girardon, 138
Glasgow, Bishop of, 161
Glück, 176
Gobelin, Jehan, 251, 252
Gobelin, Philibert, 251, 252
Goldoni, 58
Goncourts, frères de, 178
Gondi, Mgr. de, first Archbishop of Paris, 250, 323
Gonthière, 239
Goujon, 4, 41, 43, 59, 81, 321
Gounod, 178, 228
Gourmet, 211
Goy, 245
Gozlin, Bishop of Paris, 186, 342
Gracieuse family, 159
Grand, Mme, 226
Gregory of Tours, 130
Grétry, 33, 298-9
Greuze, 23
Grignan, Mme de, 81
Grimaldi family, 228
Grimm, 224
Gringonneur, Jacquemin, 98
Gros, 147
Guise, Duc de, 119
Guise family, 74
Guizot, 45, 207, 211
H
Halévy, 49, 228
Harcourt, Duc d’, 200
Harduin-Mansart, 200
Haudri, Jean, 73
Haussmann, Baron, 211
Hauteville, Comte d’, 238
Haüy, Valentin, 192
Heine, Heinrich, 180, 213, 227
Héloïse, 91
Helvetius, 32
Henault, Président, 106
Henner, 228
Henri de Bourbon, 166
Henri II, 8, 36, 79, 111, 119, 180, 307
Henri III, 340
Henri IV, 7, 10, 26, 30, 36, 49, 90, 94, 118, 119, 141, 174, 175, 178,
180, 190, 209, 241, 248, 265, 289, 314, 321, 331, 340, 341
Henriette (Henrietta Maria), Queen, 14, 267, 300
Henry V of England, 2, 74
Henry VI, 90
Hérédia, 118
Hertford, Marquis of, 226, 230
Hoche, Maréchal, 235
Hortense, Queen, 205
Houdin, 157
Hugo, Mme (mère), 153
Hugo, Victor, 32, 112, 120, 147, 231, 232, 264, 306, 313
Hugues Capet, 257
Humboldt, 331
Huysmans, 187
I
Ingres, 171, 331
Isabeau de Bavière, Queen, 76, 82
Isabey, 226, 229
Isore or Isïre, 258
J
James II, 161
James V, 138
Jarente, Prior, 111
Jaurès, 57
Jean, King, 108
Jeanne de Navarre, Queen, 142
John, King of Bohemia, 39
Jonathan, the Jew, 107
Jones, Paul, 165, 240-1
Joyeuse, Duc de, 26
Juigné, Mgr., Archbishop of Paris (1788), 83, 148
Julian, 310
Julian, Emperor, 138
Julienne, Jean, 254
K
Karr, Alphonse, 54, 233, 286
Kernevenoy, 81
Klagman, 52
Kock, Paul de, 301
L
Lablache, 226
Lachaise, Père, 294
Lacordaire, 91
La Fayette, 210, 249
Lafayette, Mme de, 167
Lafayette, Mlle, 267
La Fayette-Bailly, 201
Lafitte, 229-30
Lafitte and Caillard, 236
La Fontaine, 56, 198
Lamartine, 165, 200, 264-5
Lamballe, Princesse de, 53, 110, 246-7, 273, 303, 321
Lamotte, Mme, 255
Langes, Savalette de, 27, 58
Lannes, Maréchal, Duc de Montbello, 197, 335
Lantier, Jean, 323
La Riboisière, Comtesse, 306
Latini, Brunetto, 132
Lavoisier, 209
Launay, M. de, 78, 123, 124
Laurens, J. P., 147, 256
Lauzun, 329
La Vrillière, 24
Law, 30, 31, 63, 72, 102
Leblanc, 52
Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 172, 196
Lebrun, 56
Lebrun, architect, 6
Le Brun, Charles, 74, 93, 122, 135, 160, 252
Lebrun, Mme. (mère), 135
Lebrun, Mme Vigée, 56
Lebrun, Pierre, 58
Legendre, 223
Legrand, 197
Legras, Mme, 204
Lemaire, Charles, 266
Lemercier, Népomacène, 166
Lemoine, 305
Lemoine, Cardinal, 160
Lenclos, Ninon de, 53, 82, 84, 122, 236
Lenoir, 171
Lenormand, Mlle, 165
Le Normand d’Étioles, 56
Le Nôtre, 10, 11, 213, 326
Lepic, Général, 285
Leroux, Pierre, 314
Lesage, 174, 326
Lescot, Pierre, 3, 43, 81, 91
Le Tellier, 230
Le Vau, 92, 93, 254, 326, 328
Lexington, Stephen, Abbé de Clairvaux, 136
Ligneri, Jacques de, 81
Lisle, Leconte de, 308
Lisle, Rouget de, 233
Liszt, 224
Littré, 167, 180
Locré, 84
Louis-le-Gros, 35, 96
Louis VI, 98
Louis VII, 98
Louis IX (St. Louis), 5, 39, 45, 47, 73, 90, 110, 112, 136, 137, 177,
184, 185, 191, 209, 241, 250, 252, 323
Louis XI, 44, 266, 317
Louis XII, 72
Louis XIII, 4, 10, 13, 14, 55, 74, 75, 88, 112, 116, 118, 119, 165, 178,
209, 246, 254, 270, 307, 311, 327, 328, 340, 341
Louis XIV, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 20, 24, 29, 30, 96, 98, 112, 140, 141,
148, 154, 190, 198, 201, 209-10, 213, 256, 294, 300, 301, 311, 314, 321,
329, 331, 332, 341
Louis XV, 16, 25, 68, 146, 150, 157, 182, 185, 187, 210, 211, 217, 222,
232, 247, 249, 270, 275, 284, 326, 341
Louis XVI, 4-6, 11, 25, 27, 58, 70, 77, 148, 155, 157, 175, 185, 192,
193, 201, 209, 212, 223, 224, 245, 256, 257, 270, 275, 289, 298, 319,
322, 323, 329
Louis XVII (the Dauphin), 11, 176, 188, 205, 245
Louis XVIII, 12, 52, 71, 202, 210, 221, 315, 319, 340
Louis-Philippe 12, 17, 27, 67, 125, 244
Louvois, 29, 33
Loyola, Ignatius, 141, 148, 279
Loyson, Père, 157, 233
Lucile, 165
Lude, Duc de, 82
Lulli, 32, 211
Lunette, Père, 132
Luxembourg, Duc de (1615), 162
M
MacMahon, Maréchal, 30
“Mademoiselle, La Grande,” 329
Mailly-Nesle, Marquis de, 331
Maine, Duc de, 259, 313
Maintenon, Mme de, 77, 82, 104, 320
Malesherbes, Lamoignon de, 111
Malibran, 53
Man in the Iron Mask, 113
Mandeville, Mme de, 58
“Manon Lescaut,” 255, 312
Mansart, 29, 113, 120, 326, 331, 332, 339
Mansart, Lisle, 197
Marat, 18, 39, 185, 206
Marcel, Étienne, Prévôt de Paris, 39 Prévôt des Marchands, 2, 49
Margot, Queen, _see_ Margaret de Valois
Marguerite de Provence, Queen, 317
Marguerite de Valois, Queen, 116, 170, 172, 176, 200, 206, 270, 331
Maria-Theresa, Queen of Hungary, 33, 40, 221
Marie (contractor), 343-4
Marie-Antoinette, Queen, 11, 28, 40, 110, 174, 175, 210, 212, 223, 227,
270, 272, 334
Marie Leczinska, 189
Marie l’Égyptienne, 58
Marie Louise, Empress, 12, 90, 215, 322
Marie de’ Medici, Queen, 7, 84, 159, 162, 164, 165, 172, 206, 246, 321,
331, 340 343
Marie Stuart, Queen, 58, 90
Marie-Thérèse de Savoie, 206
Marigny, Poisson de, 329
Marillac, Louise de, 237
Marion, 83
Mars, Mlle, 225
Massa, 219
Massa, Duc de, 219
Massé, Victor, 229
Massenet, 167
Mathilde, Princesse, 220
Mazarin, Cardinal, 51, 100, 246, 330, 331, 332
Medici, Catherine de’, _see_ Catherine de’ Medici
Medici, Cosmo de’, 340
Medici, Marie de’Î, _see_ Marie de’ Medici
Méhul, 235
Meilhac, 209
Meissonier, 224, 322, 328
Merrier, Jacques de, 13
Meul, Gérard de, Abbé, 164
Meung, Jean de, 142, 152
Molière, 26, 56, 58, 86, 114, 116, 176, 275, 326
Monaco, Princesse de, _née_ Brignole-Salé, 198
Monaco-Valentinois, Prince, 205
Montansier, Citoyenne, 52, 299
Montereau, Pierre de, 47, 66, 173
Montespan, Mme de, 188, 314
Montesquieu, Maréchal de, 196
Montholon, Général, 235
Montijo, Comtesse de, 273
Montmorency, Comte de, 8
Montmorency, Connétable Anne de, 72, 110
Montmorency, Connétable Mathieu, his wife and family, 68-9, 316
Montmorency family, 187
Montmorency-Laval, Marie Louise de, last Abbess of Montmartre, 228, 237
Montpensier, Duchesse de, 165
Montrésor, Comte de, 79
Montyon, 132, 200
Monvoisin, Catherine, 59
Moreau, Gustave, 228
Moreau, Mme, 165
Michelet, 148, 167
Mignard, 122
Mignet, 229
Mirabeau, Marquis de, 225
Mirabeau, Marquis de (père), 233
Mirabeau, Marquise de, 225
Miramion, Mme de, 335
Miron, 115
Miron, François, Prévôt des Marchands, 104-5
Moreau, Pierre, 26
Moriac, Jules, 228
Morlay, Jacques de, Grand Master of the Templars, 49
Mornay, Louis de, 53
Mozart, 104, 176, 224
Murger, 167
Musset, Alfred de, 27, 29, 175, 197, 217, 231, 275, 304, 330
N
Nadaud, Gustave, 269
Napoléon I, 6, 12, 17, 18, 20-1, 27, 30, 36, 38, 54, 56, 60, 71, 74, 90,
95, 119, 126, 137, 146, 164, 172, 176, 190, 191-2, 201, 208, 215, 217,
219, 225, 230, 235, 249, 252, 263, 267, 289, 322, 334, 335, 340, 343,
344
Napoléon III, 6, 12, 13, 17, 28, 68, 99, 118, 165, 189, 190, 192, 209,
217-18, 222, 230, 234, 264, 267, 272, 278, 285, 286, 298, 321, 337
Napoléon, Prince Pierre, 275
Necker, 224
Nemours, Duc de, 44
Nesmond, Président de, 335
Ney, Maréchal, 228, 234
Nicholas II, Czar, 339
Nicolas-le-Jeune, 92
Noailles, Cardinal de, Archbishop of Paris, 27
Noailles, Maréchal de, 27
Nodier, 118
Noir, Victor, 275
Norfolk, Duke of (1533), 111
O
Orléans, Duc d’, 244
Orléans, Duc d’ (1407), 41, 82-3, 108
Orléans, Duc d’ (_circ._ 1844), 277
Orléans, Duc d’ (Égalité), 14-16, 17, 81, 221, 233
Orléans, Duc d’ (the Regent), 14, 16, 270
Orléans, Duchesse d’ (1730), 61
Orléans, Duchesse d’, mother of Louis-Philippe, 244
Orléans, Duchesse douairière d’, 305
Orléans family, 195
Orléans, Gaston d’, Duc d’Anjou, 328
Orléans, Prince d’, 221
Ormesson de Noyseau, d’, 302
Orry, Marc, 174
Orsay, d’, Prévôt des Marchands 329
Orsini, 29, 230
P
Pacha, 165
Paillard, Jeanne de, 269
Palatine, Princesse, 167
Paris, Comte de, 195
Parmentier, 242
Pascal, Blaise, 146, 158, 316
Pasteur, 313
Pépin, 246
Périer, Casimir, 196
Perrault, the brothers, 161
Perrault, Claude, 4, 10
Perrault, Président de, 331
Philipon, 327
Philipon, Manon, _see_ Roland, Mme
Philippe-Auguste, 2 _passim_
Philippe-le-Bel, 2, 82, 106, 142, 268
Philippe-le-Long, 96
Pichegru, 52, 204
Pigalle, 189
Pius VII, Pope, 208
Poilu inconnu, le, 215 _n._
Poitiers, Diane de, 121, 171, 180
Pompadour, Mme de, 25, 33, 56, 58, 217, 233, 270, 329
Pouce, Paul, 4
Popincourt, Sire Jean de, 242
Poquelin, Robert, 58
Portsmouth, Duchess of, 331
Pradier, 199
Prince Imperial, the, 12
Provence, Comte de (1790), 175, 217, 224, 284
Provence, Comtesse de, 175
Q
Quinquentonne, Rogier de, 57
R
Rabelais, 113, 116, 151
Rachel, 63, 273
Racine, 91, 172, 275
Raffet, 322
Ragois, Abbé, 320
Raguse, Duc d’, 237
Ranelagh, Lord, 270
Rebours, Abbé, 279
Récamier, Mme de, 52, 56, 174, 188, 210, 224
Récamier, M., 174
“Reine de Hongrie, la,” 40
Renan, 175
Retz, Cardinal, 76
Richard, Mgr., Archbishop of Paris, 196, 201
Richelieu, Cardinal, 4, 13-14, 16, 18, 33, 107, 112, 123, 135, 136, 137,
138, 164, 175, 298
Richelieu, Duc de, 138, 219
Richelieu family, 138
Rieux, Jean de, 108
Rieux, René de, Bishop, 166
Robert-le-Pieux, King, 20, 45
Robespierre (brother of Maximilien), 222
Robespierre, Mlle, 160
Robespierre, Maximilien, 12, 27, 28, 78, 174, 212, 222, 244, 296
Rochereau, Général, 257
Rochechouart,--, de, Abbess of Montmartre, 228, 233
Rodin, 147, 194-5, 313, 314
Rohan, Comtes de, 75-6
Rohan, Prince de, 74
Roland, 240
Roland, Mme (_née_ Philipon), 49, 158, 173, 210, 327
Rolland, Président, 336
Rollin, 140, 158
Romanelli, 52
Rome, Roi de, 12, 267
Ronsard, 151
Rosalie, Sœur, 159
Rossini, 224
Rothschild, 218
Rothschild, 249
Rothschild family, 218
Rouge, Guis de, 259
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 12, 39, 272
Rouzet, 244
Rude, 215, 309
S
St. Bernard, 135
St. Denis, 232, 278, 279, 280, 301
St. Edmond, 153
St. Éloi, 113
St. Florentin, Comte de, 28
St. François de Sales, 165
St. Julien, 132
St. Just, 218
St. Louis, _see_ Louis IX
St. Martin, 64
St-Michel, 135
St. Ovide, 245
St. Pierre, Bernardin de, 158
Saint-Simon, Duc de, 193, 197, 272, 305
St. Thomas à Becket, 135
St. Vincent-de-Paul, 120, 189, 204, 237, 260
Ste-Bathilde, 164
Sainte-Beuve, J. de, 182
Ste-Croix, 116, 135
Ste-Geneviève, 144, 146, 147, 164, 279, 289, 295
Ste-Marguerite, 250
Ste-Thérèse, Bernard de, Bishop of Babylone, 192, 204
Salis, M., 229
Salm-Kyrburg, Prince de, 205
Sand, George, 66, 153, 167, 178, 184, 226, 275, 314
Sanson, 239
Sans Peur, Jean, 41, 83, 108
Santerre, 249
Sarcey, Francisque, 228
Sardini, Scipion, 157
Sardou, Jules, 153, 180
Sauvigny, Berthier de, 78
Savoie, Adelaide de, 280
Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de, 180
Scarron, 77, 79, 84, 104
Scarron, Mme, 77, 84, _see also_ Maintenon, Mme de
Scribe, 227, 232
Ségur, Général de, 191
Ségur, Marquis de, 308
Ségur, Mgr. de, 195
Sens, Archbishops of, 116
Servandoni, 166, 175
Séverin, 128
Sévigné, Mme de, 69, 81, 82, 83, 104, 120
Sevigné, Marquis de, 120
Seymour, Lord, 226
Sibour, Mgr., Archbishop of Paris, 239
Simon, Jules, 209
Simon, Mme, 188
Smith, Sidney, 70
Sommerard, M. de, 138-40
Sorbon, Robert de, 137
Soubise, Princesse de, 74
Soufflot le Romain, 57, 147, 300
Soyecourt, Camille de, _see_ Camille, Sœur
Spontini, 56
Staël, Mme de, 56, 211, 224
Stevens, Alfred, 235
Strass, 327
Stuart family, 267
Sue, Eugène, 84, 219
Suger, 98
Sulli, or Sully, Maurice de, 88, 135, 289, 342
Sully, 122
Sully, Duc de, 118, 153, 209, 289
Swiss Guards, the, 11, 29, 193, 209
T
Taglioni, 230
Talaru, Marquis de, 53
Tallard, Maréchal de, 75
Talleyrand, 195, 201, 226, 273
Talleyrand, Duc de, 230
Talleyrand-Périgord, Comte, 233
Tallien, 182, 213-14
Tallien, Mme, 168, 213-14, 229, 230
Talma, 18, 56, 228
Talma, Mme, 225
Thackeray, W. M., 304
Thierry, Amédée, 209
Thierry, Augustin, 180, 233
Thiers, 226, 265, 273
Thiers, Mme, 265
Thomas, Ambroise, 226
Thorigny, Louis Lambert de, 327
Thorigny, Nicolas Lambert de, 93
Thorigny, Président Lambert de, 83
Tiberius Cæsar, 138
Titon, 102
Tourgueneff, Ivan, 228
Tournon, Cardinal de, 165
Triquetti, 208
Trudaine, Prévôt des Marchands, 235
Turenne, Maréchal de, 78-9, 246
Turgot, 188, 200, 328
Turgot, Prévôt des Marchands, 197
Tussieu, 166
U
Urban V, Pope, 132
V
Valentinois, Duc de, Prince de Monaco (1640), 118, 200
Valentinois, Duchess de, 39
Valois family, 221, 243
Vanbernier, Jeanne, 27
Van Loo, 175
Vaucanson, 64, 244
Vaux, Baron de, 285
Vaux, Clothilde de, 82
Velasquez, 322
Vendôme, Duc de, 170, 314
Vendôme, Duchesse de, 308
Viarmes,--, de, Prévôt des Marchands, 38
Victoria, Queen of England, 27
Vignole, 112
Villars, Général de, 191
Villedo, 33
Villette, Marquis de, 330-1
Villiers, Loys de, 76
Viollet le Duc, 90
Visconti, 52, 172, 191, 218, 331
Vivien, Sire, 54
Voltaire, 19, 27, 52, 330, 331, 340
W
Waldeck-Rousseau, 200
Walpole, Charlotte, _see_ Atkins, Mrs.
Walpole, Horace, 197
Washington, George, 266
Watteau, 53, 151, 160
Wellington, 1st Duke of, 217
Z
Zamor, 135
Ziem, 286
Zola, Émile, 56, 227
INDEX TO STREETS
NOTE.--_For Names of Bridges, Historical Buildings and Quays see the
chapters dealing with them._
A
Abbaye, Rue de l’, 172-4
Abbé-de-l’Epée, Rue de l’, 153
Aboukir, Rue d’, 54, 55
Affre, Rue, 289
Aguesseau, Rue d’, 218
Alexandrie, Rue, 56
Aligre, Rue d’, 250
Ambroise-Paré, Rue, 306
Ambroise-Thomas, Rue, 234
Amsterdam, Rue, 227
Ancienne-Comédie, Rue de l’, 177-8
Anglais, Rue des, 132
Angoulême, Rue d’, 242
Anjou, Rue d’, 210
Annonciation, Rue de l’, 272
Antin, Avenue d’, 213
Antoine-Carême, Rue, 36
Antoine-Dubois, Rue, 185
Arbalête, Rue de l’, 160
Arbre-Sec, Rue de l’, 22
Arcade, Rue de l’, 209
Archives, Rue des, 72, 102, 107
Argenteuil, Rue d’, 32
Argout, Rue d’, 58
Armendiers, Rue des, 161
Arquebusiers, Rue des, 303
Arras, Rue d’, 157
Assas, Rue d’, 167
Assomption, Rue de l’, 273
Aubriot, Rue, 107
Auguste-Blanqui, Boulevard, 312
Auguste Comte, Rue, 167
Auguste-Vaquerie, Rue, 265
Auteuil, Rue d’, 275
Ave-Maria, Rue, 114
B
Babylone, Rue de, 192
Bac, Rue du, 9, 203, 204, 206, 218
Bachaumont, Rue, 58
Bagnolet, Rue de, 294
Bailly, Rue, 64
Balagny, Rue, 276
Baltard, Rue, 35
Balzac, Rue, 216
Banquier, Rue du, 254
Barbet de Jouy, Rue, 193
Barbes, Boulevard, 288, 306
Barbette, Rue, 82
Barres, Rue des, 106
Basfroi, Rue, 245
Bassano, Rue, 214
Batignolles, Boulevard des, 309
Bauches, Rue des, 272-3
Bayard, Rue, 321
Bayen, Rue, 277
Béarn, Rue de, 84
Beaubourg, Rue, 67, 68 _n._, 69, 102
Beauce, Rue de, 73
Beaujolais, Rue de, 16, 19
Beaumarchais, Boulevard, 302-3
Beaume, Rue de, 205, 206, 320-1
Beauregard, Rue, 58, 59
Beautreillis, Rue, 116-17
Beaux-Arts, Rue des, 171
Bellefond, Rue, 235
Belleville, Rue de, 290, 291, 292, 293
Belloy, Rue, 265
Berger, Rue, 36, 43
Bergère, Rue, 233
Bernardins, Rue des, 135
Berri, Rue de, 219
Bertin-Poirée, Rue, 23, 323
Berton, Rue, 320
Bichat, Rue, 241
Bièvre, Rue de la, 135
Birague, Rue de, 120
Blanche, Rue, 227, 309
Blancs-Manteaux, Rue des, 107
Bôëtie, Rue de la, 219
Boileau, Rue, 275
Bois, Rue des, 290
Bois-de-Boulogne, Avenue du, 264
Bois-le-Vent, Rue, 273
Boissière, Rue, 266
Boissy d’Anglais, Rue, 211
Bonaparte, Rue, 170, 206
Bonne-Nouvelle, Boulevard, 300
Bons Enfants, Rue des, 13, 24
Boucher, Rue, 23
Boucheries, Rue des, 304
Boucry, Rue, 289
Boulainvilliers, Rue de, 272
Boulangers, Rue des, 158
Bourdonnais, Avenue de la, 201
Bourdonnais, Rue des, 23
Bourg d’Abbé, Rue, 62
Bourgogne, Rue de, 201
Boutbrie, Rue, 128
Brague, Rue de, 73-4
Brantôme, Rue, 69
Brêche-aux-loups, Rue de la, 250
Bretagne, Rue de, 73
Breteuil, Avenue de, 191
Brise-Miche, Rue, 98
Broca, Rue, 151, 317
Brosse, Rue de, 324
Bûcherie, Rue de la, 132
Bruxelles, Rue de, 227
Bruyère, Rue la, 228
C
Cadet, Rue, 233
Caffarelli, Rue de, 73
Calvaire, Rue du, 285
Cambacères, Rue, 218
Cambon, Rue, 28
Cambronne, Rue, 260
Campo-Formio, Rue de, 312
Canivet, Rue, 167
Capucines, Boulevard des, 298
Capucines, Rue des, 60, 298
Cardinal-Lemoine, Rue, 160-1
Carmes, Rue des, 140
Carmes, Rue Basse des, 140
Cascades, Rue des, 293
Cassette, Rue, 175
Cassini, Rue, 256
Castex, Rue, 306
Castiglione, Rue, 10, 29
Caulaincourt, Rue, 286
Caumartin, Rue, 223, 297
Censier, Rue, 136
Cerisaie, Rue de la, 118
Chabrol, Rue de, 237
Chaillot, Rue, 214, 266, 273
Champs-Elysées, Avenue des, 213-15, 263, 264
Chancy, Rue, 245
Chanoinesse, Rue, 91
Chantereine, Rue, 225
Chantres, Rue des, 91
Chapelle, Boulevard de la, 310
Chapelle, Rue de la, 289
Chapon, Rue, 68
Chardon-Lagache, Rue, 275
Chardonnière, La, Rue Neuve de, 288
Charenton, Rue de, 249, 322
Charlemagne, Rue, 114
Charlot, Rue, 76, 78
Charonne, Rue de, 243-4, 245
Chat qui Pêche, Rue du, 126, 335
Château, Rue du, 259, 313
Château d’Eau, Rue du, 239
Chateaudun, Rue du, 225
Château-Landon, Rue, 310
Chaussée d’Antin, Rue de la, 224-5, 297
Cherche-Midi, Rue, 186, 313
Chevalier de la Barre, Rue, 282
Chevreuse, Rue de, 315-16
Childebert, Rue, 157
Choiseul, Rue de, 60
Christine, Rue, 180
Ciseaux, Rue des, 304
Cité, Rue de la, 86
Clef, Rue de la, 157
Cléry, Rue, 58
Clichy, Avenue de, 276, 288, 309
Clichy, Rue de, 227
Cloître-St-Merri, Rue, 98
Clothilde, Rue, 161
Clovis, Rue, 142-3
Cloys, Rue des, 288
Colbert, Rue, 51, 52
Colombe, Rue de la, 91
Colisée, Rue de, 219
Colonnes, Rue des, 53
Comète, Rue de la, 196
Commines, Rue de, 85
Compans, Rue, 291
Convention, Rue de la, 74, 261
Copernic, Rue, 265
Coq, Avenue du, 225
Coquillère, Rue, 33
Corneille, Rue, 165
Cortot, Rue, 285
Cossonnerie, Rue de la, 43
Courcelles, Boulevard de, 309
Couronnes, Rue des, 293
Courtalon, Rue, 36
Croissant, Rue du, 56-7
Croix-Faubin, Rue, 243
Croix-Nivert, Rue de la, 260-1
Croix des Petits-Champs, Rue, 25
Croix du Roule, Rue de la, 220
Croulebarbe, Rue, 252-4
Crussol, Rue de, 302
Cure, Rue de la, 273
Cuvier, Rue, 156
D
Dames, Rue des, 276
Damrémont, Rue, 288
Dante, Rue, 132
Danton, Rue, 182
Darboy, Rue, 241-2
Daru, Rue, 220
Daubenton, Rue, 160
Daunou, Rue, 60
Dauphine, Rue, 178
Davioud, Rue, 273
Debelleyme, Rue, 83-4
Deguerry, Rue, 242
Demours, Rue, 277
Denfert-Rochereau, Rue, 257
Desaix, Rue, 261
Déchargeurs, Rue des, 36
Dussoubs, Rue, 57
Deux-Boules, Rue des, 323
Didot, Rue, 259
Docteur Blanche, Rue de, 273
Domat, Rue, 132
Dombasle, Rue, 260
Dôme, Rue du, 264
Dosne, Rue, 265
Douai, Rue de, 228
Dragon, Rue du, 186
Drouot, Rue, 229, 230
Duphot, Rue, 29
Dupin, Rue, 187
Dupleix, Rue, 261
Dupuytren, Rue, 185
Dutot, Rue, 313
E
Eaux, Rue des, 272
Échaudé, Rue de l’, 304
Échiquier, Rue de l’, 237
École, Rue de l’, 22
École de Médicine, Rue de l’, 184
Écoles, Rue des, 138
Edgar-Quinet, Boulevard, 313
Édouard VII, Rue, 298
Éginhard, Rue, 114
Égout, Rue de l’, 305
Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts, Rue de, 310
Épée-de-Bois, Rue de l’, 159
Éperon, Rue de l’, 182
Estrapade, Rue de l’, 161
Étienne-Marcel, Rue, 39, 57
Étuves, Rue des, 102
Eugène-Carrière, Rue, 288
Eylau, d’ Avenue, 265
F
Fabert, Rue, 196
Faubourg Montmartre, Rue du, 232, 299
Faubourg Poissonière, Rue du, 233-4
Faubourg St. Antoine, Rue du, 246 _sqq._
Faubourg St-Denis, Rue du, 236-7
Faubourg St-Jacques, Rue, 256, 272
Faubourg St-Honoré, Rue, 318
Faubourg St-Martin, Rue du, 236, 238
Faubourg du Temple, Rue du, 236, 241
Fauconnier, Rue du, 116
Favart, Rue, 60
Fédération, Rue de la, 261
Félicien-David, Rue, 274
Fer-à-Moulin, Rue du, 157
Ferdinand-Duval, Rue, 110
Férou, Rue, 167
Ferronnerie, Rue de la, 36
Feuillantines, Rue des, 153
Feydeau, Rue, 53
Figuier, Rue du, 115-16
Filles-du-Calvaire, Boulevard, 302
Filles de St-Thomas, Rue des, 53, 54
Flandres, Rue de, 290
Fleurus, Rue, 167
Foin, Rue du, 84
Fontaine, Rue, 310
Fontaine, Rue la, 274
Fontaine du But, Rue de la, 288
Fontaine au Roi, Rue de la, 241
Fontaines, Rue des, 72
Fossés St-Bernard, Rue des, 156
Fouarre, Rue du, 132
Four, Rue du, 174
Foyatier, Rue, 279
François-Miron, Rue, 104, 106, 122
Francs-Bourgeois, Rue des, 74, 84, 110
Franklin, Rue, 268
Friedland, Avenue, 221
Frochot, Avenue, 229
Froissard, Rue, 85
Fromentin, Rue, 310
G
Gabriel, Avenue, 214
Gabrielle, Rue, 285
Gaité, Rue de la, 259
Galande, Rue, 132
Galilée, Rue, 214, 220, 265
Garancière, Rue, 166
Garibaldi, Boulevard, 314
Geoffroy St-Hilaire, Rue, 156
Georges-Bizet, Rue, 265-6
Germain-Pilon, Rue, 310
Girardon, Rue, 286
Glacière, Rue de la, 254
Gobelins, Avenue des, 254
Gobelins, Rue des, 252
Gozlin, Rue, 186
Grammont, Rue de, 60
Grande Armée, Avenue de la, 263, 264
Grand Chaumière, Rue de la, 315
Grand Prieuré, Rue du, 302
Grands-Augustins, Rue de, 180
Grange-Batelière, Rue, 231
Grange-aux-Belles, Rue de la, 240
Gravilliers, Rue des, 68
Grenelle, Boulevard de, 314
Grenelle, Rue de, 196, 198
Grenier-St-Lazare, Rue, 69
Guénégaud, Rue, 177, 332
Guersant, Rue, 277
Guillemites, Rue des, 108
H
Hachette, Rue de la, 126
Hallé, Rue, 258
Halles, Rue des, 36
Hameau, Rue du, 261
Hanovre, Rue de, 60
Harlay, Rue de, 327
Haudriettes, Rue des, 73
Haussmann, Boulevard, 317-18
Hautefeuille, Rue, 182
Hauteville, Rue d’, 238
Haxo, Rue, 243, 292
Hazard, Rue du, 33
Helder, Rue de, 298
Henner, Rue, 228
Henri-Monnier, Rue, 229
Henri IV, Boulevard, 303
Henry-Martin, Avenue, 267
Hirondelle, Rue de l’, 181, 307
Hoche, Avenue, 221
Honoré-Chevalier, Rue, 175
Hospitalières-St-Gervais, Rue des, 110
Hôpital, Boulevard de l’, 311-12
Hôtel Colbert, Rue de l’, 132
Hôtel de Ville, Rue de l’, 106
I
Iéna, Avenue d’, 265
Innocents, Rue des, 43
Invalides, Boulevard des, 192, 314
Irlandais, Rue des, 148
Italiens, Boulevard des, 60, 298-9
J
Jacob, Rue, 172
Jardins, Rue des, 116
Jarente, Rue de, 111
Jean-de-Beauvais, Rue, 140
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rue, 39
Jean-Lantier, Rue, 23, 323
Jeûneurs, Rue des, 57
Jour, Rue du, 38
Jouy, Rue de, 106-7
K
Kellermann, Boulevard, 319
Keppler, Rue, 265
Kléber, Avenue, 265
L
Laborde, Rue de, 222
Lacépède, Rue, 159
Lafayette, Rue, 239
Lafitte, Rue, 229-30
Lamarck, Rue, 286
Lanneau, Rue, 142
Laplace, Rue, 142
Latran, Rue de, 140
Lauriston, Rue, 266
Lavandières, Rue des, 323
Lavandières-Ste-Opportune, Rue des, 23
Le Brun, Rue, 254
Lecourbe, Rue, 261
Legendre, Rue, 277
Lekain, Rue, 272
Léon-Cosnard, Rue, 277
Lepic, Rue, 285
Lesdiguières, Rue, 118
Lévis, Rue de, 276-7
Lhomond, Rue, 148
Lilas, Rue des, 291
Lille, Rue de, 205, 206
Lingerie, Rue de la, 36
Linné, Rue, 156
Lions, Rue des, 116
Lombards, Rue des, 42, 102
Longchamp, Rue de, 266
Louis-Blanc, Rue, 240
Louis-le-Grand, Rue, 60
Louvre, Rue du, 33
Lowenthal, Avenue de, 191
Lubeck, Rue de, 266
Lune, Rue de la, 59, 300
Lutèce, Rue de, 49, 86
Luxembourg, Rue du, 167
M
MacMahon, Avenue, 277
Madame, Rue, 174
Madeleine, Boulevard de la, 297
Magenta, Boulevard, 306
Mail, Rue du, 56
Maine, Avenue du, 259
Maire, Rue au, 68
Maistre, Rue de, 288
Maître-Albert, Rue, 135
Malakoff, Avenue, 265
Malesherbes, Boulevard, 317, 318
Malher, Rue, 110
Malte, Rue de, 281
Marais, Rue des, 238-9
Marbœuf, Rue, 214
Marcadet, Rue, 286
Marceau, Avenue, 221, 266-7
Mare, Rue de la, 293
Marie-Stuart, Rue, 58
Martignac, Rue de, 196 _sqq._
Martyrs, Rue des, 232, 278-9
Massillon, Rue, 91
Mathurins, Rue des, 223
Matignon, Avenue, 213
Matignon, Rue, 214, 219
Maubeuge, Rue, 225
Maure, Rue du, 69
Mazarine, Rue, 176
Mazet, Rue, 178
Ménilmontant, Boulevard de, 319
Ménilmontant, Rue, 292-3
Meslay, Rue, 66
Meyerbeer, Rue, 224
Mézières, Rue de, 174-5
Michel-le-Comte, Rue, 69
Michodière, Rue de la, 60
Mignon, Rue, 182
Minimes, Rue des, 84
Miromesnil, Rue, 218
Mitre, Rue de la, 285
Moines, Rue des, 277
Molière, Rue, 32
Molitor, Rue, 275
Monceau, Rue de, 221
Mondétour, Rue, 36
Monge, Rue, 157
Monnais, Rue de la, 22-3
Monsieur, Rue, 193
Monsieur-le-Prince, Rue, 185, 307
Montagne Ste-Généviève, Rue de la, 144
Montaigne, Avenue, 213
Montaigne, Rue, 219
Montalivet, Rue, 218
Montesquieu, Rue de, 19, 24
Montholon, Rue de, 235
Montmartre, Boulevard, 299
Montmartre, Rue, 40, 54, 57
Montmorency, Rue de, 68-9
Montorgueil, Rue, 40, 59
Montparnasse, Boulevard de, 314
Montparnasse, Rue du, 314-15
Montpensier, Rue de, 16, 19
Mont-Thabor, Rue du, 29
Montreuil, Rue de, 245
Moreau, Rue, 250
Motte-Picquet, Avenue de la, 191, 192
Mouffetard, Rue, 149-51
Moulin-Vert, Rue du, 259
Mozart, Avenue de, 273
Muette, Chaussée de la, 269-70
Muse, Petit, Rue du, 118
Musset, Rue de, 275
N
Navarre, Rue de, 158
Nesle, Rue de, 176-7, 334
Nevers, Rue de, 177, 334
Nicolas-Flamel, Rue, 96
Nicole, Rue, 257
Nonnains d’Hyères, Rue des, 324
Normandie, Rue de, 78
Norvins, Rue, 285
Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle, Rue, 59
Notre Dame, Rue du Cloître, 91
Notre-Dame de Lorette, Rue, 229
Notre-Dame de la Recouvrance, 59
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Rue, 54
Nouvelle, Rue, 227
O
Opéra, Avenue de l’, 32, 211
Orfèvres, Rue des, 23
Orléans, Avenue d’, 258
Orme, Rue de l’, 290
Ormesson, Rue d’, 111
Ornano, Boulevard, 288, 306
Ours, Rue aux, 62, 63
P
Paix, Rue de la, 60
Palais, Boulevard du, 49, 306
Palatine, Rue, 166
Panoyaux, Rue des, 319
Paon Blanc, Rue du, 106
Papin, Rue, 62
Paradis, Rue de, 237
Parc-Royal, Rue du, 79
Parcheminerie, Rue de la, 128
Parmentier, Avenue, 242
Pas de la Mule, Rue du, 120
Pasquier, Rue, 209
Passy, Rue du, 269
Pasteur, Boulevard, 313
Pastourelle, Rue, 73
Patriarches, Rue des, 159
Pavée, Rue, 110-11
Payenne, Rue, 82
Péletier, Rue le, 223, 229, 230
Pelleport, Rue, 292
Penthieu, Rue, 219
Penthièvre, Rue de, 218
Pepinière, Rue de la, 222
Perchamps, Rue des, 274
Perche, Rue du, 77, 78
Perle, Rue de la, 83
Pernelle, Rue, 96
Perrault, Rue, 22
Perrée, Rue, 73
Petits-Carreaux, Rue des, 59
Petit-Champs, Rue des, 51
Petits-Pères, Rue des, 55
Petit-Pont, Rue du, 342
Picardie, Rue de, 73
Picpus, Rue, 247-9
Pierre-Bullet, Rue, 239
Pierre-au-lard, Rue, 98
Pierre-Levée, Rue, 241
Pierre-Nicole, Rue, 316
Pigalle, Rue, 227
Pirouette, Rue, 43
Pitié, Rue de la, 160
Plantes, Rue des, 258
Plomet, Rue, 261
Poissonnière, Rue, 59
Poissonières, Boulevard, 299
Poissonniers, Rue des, 288
Poissy, Rue de, 136
Poitou, Rue de, 77-8
Pompe, Rue de la, 269
Pont-au-Choux, Rue, 84, 302
Pont-Neuf, Rue du, 23, 36
Pont de Lodi, Rue, 180
Pontoise, Rue, 136
Popincourt, Rue, 242
Port-Royal, Boulevard de, 314, 316
Pôt-de-fer, Rue, 151
Poteau, Rue du, 288
Poulletier, Rue, 92
Poussin, Rue, 273-4
Pré-St-Gervais, Rue, 291
Prêcheurs, Rue des, 43
Prêtres-St-Séverin, Rue de, 127
Prévôt, Rue du, 115
Procession, Rue de la, 260
Provence, Rue de, 224
Puits de l’Ermite, Rue du, 159
Pyramides, Rue des, 32
Pyrénées, Rue des, 293
Q
Quatre-Fils, Rue des, 76
Quatre-Septembre, Rue du, 53, 54, 56
Quincampoix, Rue, 62-3, 102
R
Rachel, Avenue, 309
Racine, Rue, 184
Radziwill, Rue, 24
Raffet, Rue, 273
Rambuteau, Rue, 64, 67, 72
Rameau, Rue de, 52
Ranelagh, Avenue du, 270
Ranelagh, Rue du, 270
Raspail, Boulevard, 305-6, 313
Rataud, Rue, 148
Ravignan, Rue, 285
Raynouard, Rue, 270
Réaumur, Rue, 64, 73
Regard, Rue du, 187
Remparts, Rue Basse des, 297
Remusat, Rue de, 274
Renard, Rue de, 68 n.
Rennes, Rue de, 186
Reuilly, Rue de, 249
Reynie, Rue de la, 98
Ribéra, Rue de, 273
Richard Lenoir, Boulevard, 311
Richelieu, Rue de, 52, 53
Richer, Rue, 233
Rivoli, Rue de, 10, 13, 21, 25-6, 28, 33, 96, 102
Rochechouart, Boulevard de, 310
Rochechouart, Rue de la, 228, 233
Rocher, Rue de, 221-2
Roi de Sicile, Rue du, 110
Rollin, Rue, 158
Roquette, Rue de la, 243
Rosiers, Rue des, 108, 110
Rotrou, Rue, 165
Roule, Rue du, 23
Royale, Rue, 211
Royer-Collard, Rue, 308
Rubens, Rue, 312
Ruisseau, Rue du, 288
S
St-Ambroise, Rue, 242
St-André-des-Arts, Rue, 178
St-Antoine, Rue, 78
St-Augustin, Rue, 53, 102
St-Benoît, Rue, 174
St-Bernard, Rue, 245
St-Bon, Rue, 96
St-Claude, Rue, 84
St-Denis, Boulevard, 59, 300-1
St-Denis, Rue, 41, 43
St-Didier, Rue, 264
St-Dominque, Rue, 196, 198-9, 305
St-Eleuthère, Rue, 279, 284
St-Fiacre], Rue, 57, 299, 300
St-Florentin, Rue, 28
St-Georges, Rue, 229
St-Germain, Boulevard, 198, 203, 206, 304, 305
St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, Rue, 24
St-Gilles, Rue, 84
St-Honoré, Rue, 13, 20, 21, 25 _sqq.,]_ 31, 73
St-Jacques, Boulevard, 313
St-Jacques, Rue, 130, 140, 141, 152 _sqq._
St-Joseph, Rue, 56
St-Julien-le-Pauvre, Rue, 130
St-Lazare, Rue, 225
St-Lazare-en-l’Isle, Rue, 92-3
St-Marc, Rue, 53
St-Martin, Boulevard, 301
St-Martin, Rue, 63-4, 66, 96, 98, 100
St-Maur, Rue, 241
St-Médard, Rue, 151
St-Michel, Boulevard, 306-7
St-Ouen, Avenue, 288
St-Paul, Rue, 112-14, 116, 187
St-Placide, Rue, 187
St-Roch, Rue, 10, 13, 31-2
St-Romain, Rue, 187
St-Rustique, Rue, 284-5
St-Sauveur, Rue, 58
St-Séverin, Rue, 126-8
St-Sulpice, Rue, 176
St-Thomas-d’Aquin, Rue, 305
St-Victor, Rue, 135
St-Vincent, Rue, 282
Ste-Anne, Rue, 32
Ste-Barbe, Rue, 59
Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Rue, 107
Ste-Hyacinthe, Rue de, 31
Saintonge, Rue, 78
Saints-Pères, Rue des, 198, 206, 305
Santé, Rue de la, 256
Saules, Rue des, 285
Saulmier, Rue, 233
Saussaies, Rue des, 218
Savies, Rue de, 293
Scipion, Rue, 157
Sébastopol, Boulevard, 42, 62, 306
Séguier, Rue, 181-2
Ségur, Avenue de, 191
Seine, Rue de, 176
Sentier, Rue du, 56
Serpente, Rue, 182
Servandoni, Rue, 166
Sevigné, Ruede, 81, 102, 110, 111
Sèvres, Rue de, 188-9, 206, 260, 313
Simon-le-Franc, Rue, 100
Solférino, Rue, 199
Source, Rue de la, 273
Sourdière, Rue de la, 31
Stanislas, Rue, 315
Strasbourg, Boulevard de, 306
Strasbourg, Rue de, 238
Suffren, Avenue, 261
Suger, Rue, 182
Sully, Boulevard, 304
Surène, Rue de, 210
T
Tâcherie, Rue de la, 95, 324
Tardieu, Rue, 279
Taille-pain, Rue, 98
Taitbout, Rue, 226
Temple, Boulevard du, 301
Temple, Rue du, 69, 72, 74, 102
Temple, Rue Vielle-du-, 76, 97, 102, 108-10
Ternes, Avenue des, 277
Théophile, Gautier, Rue, 274
Thérèse, Rue, 33
Thorel, Rue, 59
Thorigny, Rue de, 83
Thouars, Petit, Rue du, 72
Thouin, Rue, 161
Tilleuls, Avenue des, 286
Tiquetonne, Rue, 57
Tombe-Issoire, Rue de la, 258
Tour, Rue de la, 267-8, 269
Tour d’Auvergne, Rue de la, 232-3
Tour des Dames, Rue de la, 228
Tour Maubourg, Boulevard de la, 192
Tournelles, Rue des, 84, 112, 122
Tournon, Rue, 165
Tourville, Avenue de, 191
Trésor, Rue du, 108
Trocadéro, Avenue du, _see_ Wilson, Avenue
Trois-Bornes, Rue des, 242
Trois-Portes, Rue des, 132
Tronchet, Rue, 209, 223
Truanderie, Grande, Rue de la, 44
Trudaine, Avenue, 235
Turbigo, Rue, 41, 62, 67, 72
Turenne, Rue de, 74, 78, 84
U
Université, Rue de l’, 196, 199 _sqq._, 308
Ursins, Rue des, 91
Uzès, Rue d’, 58
V
Val-de-Grâce, Rue du, 154, 257
Valette, Rue, 142
Valois, Rue de, 16, 18
Vanves, Rue de, 259
Varennes, Rue de, 192, 193, 194-6
Vaugirard, Boulevard de, 313
Vaugirard, Rue, 13, 164, 167, 169, 170, 260
Vauvilliers, Rue, 38
Vauvin, Rue, 315
Velasquez, Avenue, 318
Venise, Rue de, 100, 102
Ventadour, Rue, 33
Verneuil, Rue de, 205, 206
Verrerie, Rue de la, 97-8
Versailles, Avenue de, 275
Vertbois, Rue, 66
Vertus, Rue des, 68
Viarnes, Rue de, 38
Victor-Massé, Rue, 228-9
Vicq d’Aziz, Rue, 319
Victoire, Rue de la, 225-6
Victor-Hugo, Avenue, 264
Vieuville, Rue la, 285
Vieux-Chemin, Rue, 285
Vieux-Colombier, Rue du, 174
Vignes, Rue des, 271-2
Vignon, Rue, 224
Villars, Avenue de, 191
Ville l’Évêque, Rue de la, 210-11
Ville-Neuve, Rue de la, 59
Villedo, Rue, 33
Villette, Boulevard de la, 318-19
Villehardouin, Rue, 84
Villiers, Avenue de, 277
Vineuse, Rue, 268
Visconti, Rue, 171-2
Vivienne, Rue, 51, 54
Voie-Verte, Rue de la, 258
Volney, Rue, 60
Volta, Rue de, 68
Vrillière, Rue la, 24
W
Wagram, Avenue, 216, 221, 277
Washington, Rue, 220
Wilhem, Rue, 274
Wilson, Avenue, 267
Y
Yvon de Villarceau, Rue, 265
Z
Zacharie, Rue, 126, 335
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The pictures have been arranged on a different plan since their
return to the palace after the war.
[B] Part of Rue de Beaubourg, Rue du Renard, and other old streets here
are soon to disappear, their area transformed into a wide new avenue.
[C] Bombs worked havoc here in the last year of the Great War
(1914-1918).
[D] The carting away of these vestiges has, we hear, just been decreed.
[E] On the Peace Fête, July 14th, 1919, the Arènes were arranged
as a theatre, and the performance of a classical play, “Le Cid,”
took place on the spot where wild beasts had fought of yore; while
twentieth-century Frenchmen sat on the very stone seats whereon had sat
Romans and men of primitive Gallic tribes in the earliest days of the
history of Paris and of France.
[F] On July 14th, 1919, the French Army and contingents from the armies
of the Allies, victorious after the dread war which had raged since
August, 1914, passed in triumphal procession beneath the Arch, and
the chains which, since 1871, had barred its passage, were taken away
for good. On November 11th, when the “unknown soldier” was buried in
Westminster Abbey, the “_poilu inconnu_” was laid beneath the Arc de
Triomphe, and is now buried there.
[G] Le comte de Franqueville died in January, 1920.
[H] It was flooded again in 1920.
[I] It was recently demolished to be replaced by a suspension-bridge in
order to leave the river free for navigation.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
here in invitation of the Rotonde=> here in imitation of the Rotonde {pg
270}
Demoulins=> Desmoulins {pg 17}
King Jerôme=> King Jérôme {pg 17}
Sebastopol=> Sébastopol {pg 42}
Sophie Arnoult=> Sophie Arnould {pg 60}
Rue Jean-de-Beauvias=> Rue Jean-de-Beauvais {pg 140}
Aqueduc d’Arcueil brought water from Rangis=> Aqueduc d’Arcueil brought
water from Rungis {pg 152}
Rue de l’Abbé-de-l’Epée=> Rue de l’Abbé-de-l’Épée {pg 153}
restauraunt Lapérouse => restaurant Lapérouse {pg 180}
days of unparalled warfare=> days of unparalleled warfare {pg 190}
cut if off from surrounding buildings=> cut it off from surrounding
buildings {pg 218}
St-Marguerite=> Ste-Marguerite {pg 245}
patronage of the comte de Province=> patronage of the comte de Provence
{pg 284}
its euphonius present name=> its euphonious present name {pg 293}
Aubriot, Prêvot de Paris (13th century), 107=> Aubriot, Prévôt de Paris
(13th century), 107 {index}
Bourbon-Condè, Mlle. de, Abbesse de Remiremont, 193 Bourbon-Condé, Mlle.
de, Abbesse de Remiremont, 193 {index}
Enghien, Duc de, 170, 193, 217=> Enghien, Duc d’, 170, 193, 217 {index}
Enghien, Duchesse de, 170=> Enghien, Duchesse d’, 170 {index}
Estrées, Duchesse de, 197=> Estrées, Duchesse d’, 197 {index}
Isore or Isire, 258=> Isore or Isïre, 258 {index}
Marie de’ Medici, Queen=> Marie de’ Medicis, Queen {index}
Monvoisin, Cathérine, 59=> Monvoisin, Catherine, 59 {index}
Musset, Alfred de, 27, 29, 175, 197, 217, 231, 275, 204, 330=> Musset,
Alfred de, 27, 29, 175, 197, 217, 231, 275, 304, 330 {index}
Orléans, Duc de (_circ._ 1844), 277=> Orléans, Duc d’ (_circ._ 1844),
277 {index}
Paillard, Jeanne d’, 269=> Paillard, Jeanne de, 269 {index}
Ste-Généviève, 144, 146, 147, 164, 279, 289, 295=> Ste-Geneviève, 144,
146, 147, 164, 279, 289, 295 {index}
Sevigné=> Sévigné {index}
Thierry, Amedée, 209=> Thierry, Amédée, 209 {index}
Antoine, Dubois, Rue, 185=> Antoine-Dubois, Rue, 185 {index}
Böêtie, Rue de la, 219=> Bôëtie, Rue de la, 219 {index}
Banquier, Rue de, 254=> Banquier, Rue du, 254 {index}
Buonaparte, Rue, 170, 206=> Bonaparte, Rue, 170, 206 {index}
Carmes, Rue Basse de, 140=> Carmes, Rue Basse des, 140 {index}
Napoleon=> Napoléon {numerous instances}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Historic Paris" ***
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