;/;;v f\!.' •'.',■.■', Hh •'!'!; pllll;;!!:;,;; \<^^'-^ x^'"^- ■■^:.. .^^ ^. .<^^' ^■^J^ ^ ^ ■''^^ ', ' ^ 't.- v^' v-^^ M^ Cl- A^<^. ..>^ -': .0- .-^'^ ^.^^ Oo oc Og CC PARIS As Seen and Described by Famous Writers Edited and Translated by ESTHER SINGLETON Author of "Turrets, Towers and Temples," " Great Pictures, " and *'A Guide to the Opera," and translator of " The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner. ' ' WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 'i*"i**H**H"*l"*i"*I**t"*H" •*•*»• "I" •*■'!• •»■■}• •!■ •(••»"•!* ^''r "»"•}• •{•"«■ "i"*" "r'r •»■•!* "I" Dodd, Mead and Company 1900 atv •^ ^ (i278 Literary of Uuixp «_•■»• JUN 15 1900 FIRST copy. 2>mJ Copy Of livtrw) to ORDEfi DIVISION JUN 27 1900 Copyright, 1900 by DoDD, Mead & Company Braunworth, Munn & Barber Printers and Binders Brooklyn, N. Y. PREFACE IN the following pages I have endeavoured to apply the general plan of my former books on art and architec- ture. In this volume, however, it was not advisable, even if possible, to confine myself to the picturesque and artistic features of the subject. I have tried to produce a work that will fulfill the purposes of an artistic guide-book. I have selected most of the important buildings and monu- ments of Paris and have chosen the most interesting de- scriptions that I could find by various authors, English and French, who love and admire the objects of which they write. In making these selections I have tried to include as many varieties of treatment as possible, and, therefore, there will be found the views of the professional art-critic, the casual literary voyageur^ the native litterateur^ and the social mor- alist. The views of Theodore de Banville, Victor Hugo, Prosper Merimee, Louis Blanc, Louis Enault, Arsene Hous- saye, and Philip Gilbert Hamerton present us with fine contrasts and side-lights ; and by gathering these together, I hope to give a picture of Paris which will be, in a meas- ure, complete. I have not altogether neglected the past, and in one case have devoted an important extract entirely to ancient days ; but, as a rule, I have chosen articles in which the writer V vi PREFACE deals sympathetically with the reminiscences of the past in connection with the monument under notice. I have endeavoured to group the articles systematically so that the reader may not have to jump from one side of Paris to another; the monuments on the left and right hank are kept apart with exception of the Trocadero which at the present day naturally follows a description of the Champ de Mars. In addition to the buildings and streets, I have included a few extracts dealing with the social and picturesque side of Parisian life. Of this general matter The Street and The Cafe are examples, while The ^artier Latin and La Bourse combine pure description with psychologic treat- ment. With the limited space at my disposal in a volume of this nature, it is impossible for me to treat the city ex- haustively, and this is my excuse for the omissions which the reader may, perchance, find of a favourite haunt or edifice. I also hope that the maps, drawn especially for this book, will be interesting companions to the text, as in them little is indicated but the special features described in the ex- tracts. Space has also forced me to cut occasionally, but I have taken no liberties with the text. New Tork^ May^ igoo. E. S. CONTENTS PAGE LA CIT£ 3-100 Old Paris . -3 Fictor Hugo Saint-Denis and Sainte-Genevieve . . . . -23 Grant Allen Old Paris . . .26 Louis Blanc Along the Seine .....••■ 34 Louis Enault Sainte-Chapelle . . . . . . • '59 Philip Gilbert Hamerton Cathedral of Notre-Dame 65 Fictor Hugo A Bird's Eye View of Paris ... . . • '74 Fictor Hugo A Glance at Paris 97 Honore de Balzac THE LEFT BANK 103-216 Flowers in Paris . . . . • • • • 103 Jlphonse Karr vii viii CONTENTS Reverie . . . . . . . . . • i ' 3 George Sand Le Jardin des Plantes . . . . . . .121 Louis Enault The Catacombs . . . . . . . .123 'Neil IVynn Williams Saint-fitienne du Mont . . . . . . .132 S. Sophia Beak The Quartier Latin . . . . . • . - '37 Theodore de Banville Hotel de Cluny . . . . . . . .148 Prosper Merim'ee La Sorbonne . . . . . . . . • '55 S. Sophia Beak Saint-Severin . S. Sophia Beale . 157 The Pantheon Philip Gilbert Hamerton . 162 The Luxembourg Louis Enault . 169 Saint-Germain des Pres ..... S. Sophia Beale . . 176 Saint-Sulpice . . . . . . . . .182 S. Sophia Beale Les Invalides . . . . . . . . .187 Philip Gilbert Hamerton Hotel des Invalides . . . . . . . .191 l^. de Swarte CONTENTS ix The Institute ......... 195 Ernest Renan Champ de Mars ........ 207 G, Lenotre Sunrise and Sunset from the Trocadero . . . .212 &mile Zola THE RIGHT BANK 217-397 La Ville ......... 219 Theodore de Banville Les Boulevards . . . . . . . .226 Louis Enault Pere Lachaise ......... 239 Richard Whiteing La Place Royale ........ 241 Jules Claretie Hotel de Sens ........ 250 J. J. a Hare Hotel de Ville 253 Paul Strauss Hotel Barbette 258 Edouard Fournier Musee Carna valet . . . . . . . .263 idouard Fournier La Tour Saint-Jacques ....... 266 S. Sophia Be ale X CONTENTS La Bourse Gabriel Mourey . 268 Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois . 281 S. Sophia Beale The Cafe Theodore de Banville . 289 The Louvre . Charles Dickens, Jr. . 296 Palace du Carrousel Marquis de Montereau • 300 The Palais- Roy ale . H. Monin • 306 La Madeleine Philip Gilbert Hamerton • 3H La Madeleine • ■•••• • 314 William Makepeace Thackeray Boulevard des Italiens . • . • 315 Honor'e de Balzac The Boulevards Richard Whiteing • 3J7 The Opera House . ■ 318 Philip Gilbert Hamerton Conservatoire de Musique . . . . . -323 Albert Lavignac Bibliothequc Nationale . . . . . . '334 Charles Dickens, Jr. Bibliothequc Nationale . . . . . . -336 William Makepeace Thackeray CONTENTS xi Les Tuileries 338 Imbert de Saint- Amand Rue de Rivoli 347 Max de Revel The Street 351 Theodore de Banville Place de la Concorde . . . . * . -359 Richard Whiteing Place de la Concorde . . . . , . .361 Theophile Gautier The ]£lysee . 363 Arsine Houssaye Arc de Triomphe and Champs-filysees . . . • 378 Edouard Fournier The Bois de Boulogne ....... 385 Arsene Houssaye ILLUSTRATIONS The Seine and Cite . . . . Frontispiece Maison Henri IV. . . . . Facing Page 26 lie de la Cite, (map) . . . . a (( 34 The Conciergerie and the Pont au Change, €t (( 48 The Institute and the Pont des Arts ft ft 57 Sainte-Chapelle . . . . . tc ft 59 Notre-Dame . . . . . ft ft 65 Flower Market . . . . . <( ft 103 The Gardens of the Tuileries. ft tf 113 From Bercy to Notre-Dame, (map) tt tt 121 Saint-£tienne du Mont . . . . tf tt 132 From Saint- !fitienne to I'lnstitut, (map) . ft tt 137 Musee de Cluny . . . . . ft ft 148 The Sorbonne .... tf tt 155 The Pantheon .... tt tt 162 The Luxembourg .... tt tf 169 Saint-Germain des Pres . ft ft 176 Saint-Sulpice .... tt tt 182 The Invalides .... tt tf 187 Hotel des Invalides tf ft 191 From I'lnstitut to Fortifications, (map) tt tf 195 The Trocadero .... ft tf 212 From Bercy to the Hotel de Ville, (map) ft ft 219 Porte Saint-Martin tt tf 226 Colonne de Juillet tt (( 232 Porte Saint-Denis .... tt ft 235 Pere Lachaise .... ft ft 239 From Hotel de Ville to Louvre, (map) ft ft 241 xiii ILLUSTRATIONS Hotel de Sens .... Facing P age 250 Hotel de Villc .... " 253 Tour Saint-Jacques << < 266 The Bourse .... << < 268 Saint-Germain rAuxerrois (< < 281 The Louvre .... <( < * 296 Arc du Carrousel .... << I ' 300 Palais Royal . .^ . . <( ( 306 The Madeleine .... tt < 311 Boulevard des Italiens . (( ( 315 The Opera House (( I 318 Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois to Champs- Elysees, (map) €( < 323 The Gardens of the Tuileries <( < 336 Rue de Rivoli .... (( < 348 Colonne Vendome « ( 349 Saint-Eustache .... (( 4 353 Place de la Concorde . (( € 359 From Place de la Concorde to Bois de Boulogne, (map) . tt ' 361 Arc de Triomphe ft < 378 Bois de Boulogne .... The other flower markets are held at the Place de la Rfepublique on Mondays and Thursdays and at the Place de la Madeleine on Tuesdays and Fridays. — E. S. ALONG THE SEINE 47 holding to the soil that bore it, it is heaped and piled in confusion around the women who sell it. The morning is reserved for the first choice ; prices are maintained : they fall as the day passes. So it is a pleasure in the twilight to see the grisettes of the Sorbonne and the female students of the Quartier Saint-Jacques descend towards the Seine jingling in their joyful hands the price of a long day's work; they arrive, look, touch, smell, and ask the price of everything and soon return with a light step to their modest nest that sings quite close to the sky, carrying with them a sprig of mignonette, a rose-bush, or a pot of clove-pinks, the perfume of the poor. These soft colours and sweet perfumes call up for them the smiling image of their paternal fields and they will be happier to-morrow when they water this little garden under their windows than Semiramis, of superb memory, under the jasmins starred with silver and the palms with golden branches in the gardens of Babylon. A moralist has said : " the humblest spray of verdure suffices to make us dream and sometimes to console us." Man has built the Louvre in vain, he needs a rose in a stone-pot ! From the Quai aux Fleurs, the eye that takes in the Seine sees the Quai de Gevres on the other side above the trees of the Boulevard of the H6tel-de-Ville, and in the axis of alignment of the Rue de Rivoli, the top of the Tour-Saint-Jacques, to which has been restored the colossal statue of its patron and the symbolic animals, the old ornamentation of its four corners. 48 PARIS We could not reach the Quai de 1' Horloge without pass- ing the Pont-au-Change, the doyen of the bridges of Paris. It existed in the time of JuHan ; it is the most ancient way of communication between Lutetia and the right bank. Like most of the bridges of the Middle Ages, this was covered with houses that were not pulled down till 1788. At first it bore the name of Grand-Pont, up till the reign of Louis VIL who established the goldsmiths on one side and the money-changers on the other ; the latter gave it its name, Pont-au-Change, that it still bears. A monument placed on the quay facing the bridge and now destroyed represented the dauphin of France — who was afterwards Louis XIV. — between Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria. The Pont-au-Change had its day of grandeur, vogue, and eclat. Until the reign of Henri IV. it was the promenade of the day, the Boulevard de Gard of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, the rendezvous of the newsmongers, the lounging-place of the idle, and the great centre of reunion of those eternal Parisian saunterers who are found wher- ever there is nothing doing. Facing us, the Quai de Gevres separates the Pont-au- Change from the Place du Chatelet which occupies the same ground as did formerly the prison of the Chatelet, so celebrated during the war between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians. In 1807, a little monument that is still to be seen was erected on this place : it is a bronze column dedicated to Victory. At the top, Victory personified stands on tiptoe with her bare feet on a half-sphere, and, ALONG THE SEINE 49 with hands raised above her head, is scattering palms and crowns. At the point of the Cite, the Seine reunites the two arms that enfold the cradle of ancient Paris, and, contained in a single bed, henceforth the river flows on, calm and majestic between two banks of palaces. It is at this point that in 1578 Henri III. laid the foun- dations of the bridge finished by Henri IV. twenty-five years later, resting its double-piles on the open ground of the Cite ; it is this same bridge that, from habit, we still call Pont-Neuf to-day, although it began its third century long ago. The Pont-Neuf is the most popular of all the monu- ments of Paris. " As well-known as the Pont-Neuf ! " is a proverb understood and accepted even on the bridge of Avignon. Notwithstanding its heavy and irregular construc- tion, its projection like a donkey's back and the exaggerated curve of its arches, this bridge was long regarded as the most beautiful in all Europe. The first somewhat considerable houses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain date from Henri III. Until the reign of that prince there was no assured communication for the Cite with the two banks of the river ; people crossed by ferry. The King, seeing the rapid growth of Paris down- stream from the Cite, resolved to build another bridge. He laid its first stone with great state solemnity accom- panied by his mother, Catherine de Medici and his wife, Louise de Vaudemont, and assisted by the Parliament. It 50 PARIS was the day of the death of his two mignons^ Quelus and Maugiron, killed in a duel, May 31, 1578. The King was sad ; people saw it ; this will be the Pont-des-Pleurs (Bridge of Tears) said the courtiers ; such was the first name of the Pont-Neuf. The civil war interrupted the work. Henri IV. resumed it and completed it with his powerful hands. He himself was one of the first to cross it in 1603, and be- fore it was completely finished, L'£toile says, "As they remonstrated with him that the bridge was not safe and that several had broken their necks trying to cross, he replied : — 'None of them was a king like myself! ' " and he crossed. The Pont-Neuf ruined the Pont-au-Change : it was not merely the most frequented communication between the banks, but it was also the fashionable promenade, the cen- tre of the polite world and the necessary rendezvous of all who had any time to waste, or wit or money to expend. People were not content with crossing the Pont-Neuf, they strolled about there, they rested and dwelt there. From the first day small merchants established themselves there and beside them the theatres of Mondor and Tabarin, the spectacle of Desiderio Descombes, who always talked so as never to be understood, and the booth of the charlatan Gonin, to whom the people soon gave the name of the cardinal-minister ; the people pretended that Richelieu juggled at least as well as Gonin ; but Richelieu's balls were the heads of the nobility ! It was to the Pont- Neuf that the mountebanks and buffoons came to try their feats of agility and strength before an attentive throng. ALONG THE SEINE 51 Moreover, it was thither that the singers went to sing their noels^ songs and couplets of more or less gallant strain that were called ponts-neufs in memory of the stage upon which they were first brought out. The dentists, cut- purses, crimps, highwaymen and pickpockets for a long time found lucrative employment for their small society tal- ents upon the Pont-Neuf. The clerks of the Basoche with their legal bags under their arms mingled there with the cadets of Gascony with their swords striking against their calves ; the abbes of the court passed along there in their sedan-chairs and the equipages of great nobles going to the Louvre passed at full trot with their four horses. The Pont-Neuf is supported by twelve arches, unequally divided by the point of the Cite : seven on one side and five on the other. On both faces and throughout its length, it is ornamented by a jutting cornice supported by brackets of figures of masks, fauns, and satyrs. Some of them are attributed to Germain Pilon for the sake of doing them honour. At various periods great works of reconstruction and repair have been undertaken on the Pont-Neuf. In 1775 the arches were lowered and the open space between the piers was narrowed so that a stronger current might carry away the deposit brought down by the river; in 1820 and 1825 the slope was lessened on each side ; — in 1836 and 1837 the perpendicular of the seven arches was rees- tablished j in 1853 ^"^ 1^54 t^^ entire bridge was taken in hand ; the road was remade and raised to the level of the abutting streets ; the paths on each side reserved for pedes- 52 PARIS trians were relaid and the little structures on the piles, the last vestiges of the houses formerly built upon the Paris bridges, were done away with. The statue of Henri IV. is no less celebrated than the Pont-Neuf. The first statue of the king of triple talent. De boire et de battre El d^ilre vert-galant, was placed by Marie de Alcdicis in 1614 upon a pedestal of white marble opposite the Place Dauphine, at the extremity of rile de la Cite, on the spot where it makes a kind of square mole half overshadowed with trees. At the four corners of the pedestal were placed trophies of arms and slaves in bronze symbolizing the four quarters of the world. Oceanica had not yet emerged from the mists of the Pacific. A base of dark blue marble bore the whole monument. The memory of Henri IV. will remain sacred in the peo- ple's gratitude as in a temple. For two centuries his statue was the object of a culte among the Parisians. In '92 the populace of the Pont-Neuf forced passers-by to kneel be- fore the statue. One year later they dragged it in the mire. It was melted down and made into cannons. On the re- turn of the Bourbons, the statue of Napoleon in its turn was thrown down from the column of the Place Vendome and out of it was made the new statue of Henri IV. The work of Lemot happily reproduces the lively and frank ex- pression of the most French of all our kings ; the bronze is animated and alive like the very face of the Bearnais ; the ALONG THE SEINE 53 gesture is at once noble and easy ; the horse has a proud action. The Samaritaine, of which only a memory now remains, was formerly the delight and the admiration of our fathers. The Samaritaine, placed at the second western arch on the side of Quai de 1' Ecole, was a monumental pump that dis- tributed the water by various canals into the Louvre, the Tuileries and the Palais Royale. It was constructed under Henri IV. by the Fleming, John Lintlaer : a statue of the beautiful sinner of Samaria adorned the front of it : she was offering water to Christ to drink and He was teaching her whence the eternal springs flow. Too complicated not to need frequent repairs, the Samar- itaine was reconstructed in 1772. The monument was composed of three stages. People particularly admired the chiming clock below which, as we have said, a group in gilded lead represented Christ and the Samaritan on the edge of Jacob's well. Jacob's well was represented by a basin receiving a stream of water falling from a shell. It was not precisely in local colour but one does what one can. Below the figures might be read as an inscription these words of the Scripture so often applied to Christ. Fans hortum^ putens aquarum viventium. Before the Revolution, the Samaritaine, considered as a royal house, had its particular government : the Revolution suppressed the government; in 1813 the pump, a useless ornament to the Pont-Neuf and one whose memory is 54 PARIS fading away daily, was demolished. One more glory de- parted ! We shall soon have finished our voyage now, and the boat that carries us will only have to follow the course of the water. In vain, on my left, the Hotel des Monnaies sounds its tempting pieces ; I will not listen to the silver voices ; I mention it and will not land ; what's the use ? Nothing tempts me in that heavy fai^ade ; one would call it a prison much rather than a palace. The Hotel des Monnaies stands on the site of the old Conti mansion ; the abbe Ter- ray, comptroller-general of the finances, laid its first stone in the name of the King, May 30, 1771. It was finished in four years. We pass before its principal front that ex- tends along the quay between the Rue Guenegaud and the Institute. A little farther on we see the palace of the Institute, the central door of which faces the Pont des Arts and the southern gate of the court of the Louvre. The facade of the palace of the Institute has had the mistake and misfor- tune to be placed opposite to the most admirable portion of the Louvre and thus to provoke comparison that is crushing to it. Cardinal Mazarin ordered in his will of March 6, 1661, that a part of his great wealth should be employed in the foundation of a college for sixty youths, sons of the nobility or the principal citizens of Pignerolles, of the ecclesiastical State, of Alsace, of Flanders and of Roussillon.' The offi- ALONG THE SEINE 55 cial deeds gave this college the title of the College Maz- arin; the people called it the college of the Four Nations. It was built on the site of the Hotel de Nesle ; Louis Le- veau drew up the plans, the execution of which was en- trusted to the architects Lambert and d'Orbay. During the Revolution, the college of the Four Nations at first became a jail ; a little later the Committee of Public Safety held its sittings there. On the third Brumaire year v., the Institute was solemnly installed there. The old acad- emies sat at the Louvre : they had only the Seine to cross. The principal front, looking on the quay, is in the form of a hemicycle ; it is composed of a forepart, the decora- tion of which is a Corinthian order very heavy like all that is seen on the left bank of the river ; — on each side the two wings curve outward towards the ground on the margin of the water; the forepart that forms a doorway is crowned by a pediment and surmounted by a circular dome, itself terminated by a lantern. One of the architectural singu- larities of this dome is that externally it presents a circular form, and internally an elliptical form. On each side of the perron, two lions of cast metal discharge a feeble jet of water into a stone trough. These poor lions which regret the desert have a look of terrible ennui ; you would say that they can hear what is being said inside. The two semicircular wings unite the doorway to two very massive pavilions supported by arcades. The dome is lofty, but without grace or elegance. This palace is one of the worst things in Paris. 56 PARIS Our boat now goes under the elevated piles of the Pont des Arts. It was built in 1802. For a long time people paid a sou to go from the Louvre to the Institute. The Republic liberated the Pont des Arts from this servitude ; this is one of the most durable things it did. Three blind men ornament the Pont des Arts : the first is knitting socks, the second is scraping a violin, and the third is producing couacs on his clarinet while attempting I know not what air that he can never finish ; his little dog beside him growls at him in a low tone ; but the poor blind man, who plays on as if he were deaf, docs not hear her and be- gins again. The dog and the three blind men, inseparable habitues of the Pont des Arts, are considered as immeubles par destination} It is on the Pont des Arts that the Fau- bourg Saint-Germain sees the blossoming of the first violet of Spring. The bridges succeed and approach one another; from afar you would say that they touched ; but the crowd thronging them seems to require more of them ; look at the Pont Royal, opposite the Tuileries and the Rue de Bac ; it is almost impassable : horsemen collide, pedestrians elbow each other, and carriages get locked fast by their axles. But what a charming view, what a varied pano- rama, what changing pictures ! On one side, the old Cite, motionless in the midst of the river surrounding it, like a ship at anchor ; close to us the grand lines of the Louvre, 1 (Law) animal, thing placed on property by the proprietor for the use or enjoyment thereof. ALONG THE SEINE 57 and in that noble garden a multitude of statues and a forest of orange-trees ; then, yonder, on the distant horizon, be- tween the Bois and the Champs-Elysees, the Arc-de- I'Etoile, a mountain of sculptures emerging from the green ocean of foliage : all this panoramic view is beautiful by day ; at night it is splendid when a thousand lights are re- flected in the Seine in long trembling lines, and when above all these rays the towers of Saint-Jacques and Notre-Dame lift their solid and sombre masses. But meanwhile what are those people perched on the parapet doing ? They are watching the water flow past and they are counting the de- grees measured by the rise of the waters on the scale of the bridge. The scale of the bridge of the Tuileries, the thermometer of the Pont-Neuf and the cannon of the Palais-Royale, — those are the three favourite distractions of the middle-class Parisian. The great trees in the gardens of the Tuileries now cast their shadow and freshness upon the river which washes flowery terraces, the great Jerusalem barracks, and the d'Orsay palace on the left bank, and finally reaches the Pont de la Concorde widowed of its warrior statues that King Louis Philippe had removed to the big court of Ver- sailles. At last there remains that palace neighbourhood that will not be taken away from it : the Chamber of Deputies, the Presidency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, above all, the Place de la Concorde with its statues, fountains, obelisk, the great buildings of the Garde-Meu- bles, and, at the end of the Rue Royale, as if worthily to 58 PARIS close this perspective in which marvels form a scale, the church of the Madeleine. Now we proceed between the majestic quays d'Orsay, de Billy, and de la Conference, seeing promenaders upon the Fonts des Invalides, de I'Alma, or d'lena. This bridge of lena, that connects the Champ de Mars with the Champs-Elysees is embellished with a grandiose decoration. At each of its four angles is a colossal group of men and horses representing the great warlike races of the ancient world, the Greeks, Romans, Gauls and Arabs. These must be viewed from a little distance and in the perspective demanded by the works of decorative art. The Gallic group, by the strong hand of Preault, of all the four best answers the exigencies of monumental sculpture.^ • The bridges of to-day are as follows : Pont National ; Pont de Tol- biac ; Pont de Percy ; Pont d' Austerlitz ; Pont Sully ; Pont Marie ; Pont Louis Philippe ; Pont de la Tournelle ; Pont Saint-Louis; Pont d' Arcole ; Pont Notre-Dame ; Pont-au-Change ; Pont do 1' Archevechfe; Pont au Double; Petit-Pont; Pont Saint-Michel ; PontXeuf; Pont des Arts; Pont des Saints-P^res or du Carrousel; Pont Royale ; Pont de Solferino; Pont de la Concorde; Pont Alexandre IIL; Pont des Invalides; Pont de 1' Alma; Pont de Icna; Pont de Passy ; Pont de Crenelle; Pont Mira- beau; Pont Viaduc d' Auteuil or Pon du Point du Jour. The newest bridge is the Pont Alexandre IIL the corner-stone of which was laid by Nicholas III. of Russia in October, 1896. It joins the Champs-Elysees to the Esplanade des Invalides. — E. S. j^i-'A- V^.^- A x,^ SAlXTE-CHAPELLE SAINTE-CHAPELLE PHILIP GILBERT HJMERTON THE origin of the Sainte-Chapelle is probably known already to most of my readers. It is nothing more than a large stone shrine to contain relics. Nothing could exceed the joy of Saint-Louis when he be- lieved himself to have become the possessor of the real crown of thorns and a large piece of the true cross. He bought them at a very high price from the Emperor of Constantinople,^ and held them in such reverence that he and his brother, the Count of Artois, carried them in their receptacle on their shoulders, (probably as a palanquin is carried), walking barefooted through the streets of Sens and Paris ; such was the thoroughness of the King's faith and his humility towards the objects of his veneration. These feelings led Saint-Louis to give orders for the erection of a chapel in which the relics were to be preserved, and he commanded Peter of Montereau to build it, which Peter did very speedily, as the King laid the first stone in 1245, and the edifice was consecrated in April, 1248. ' Some say that the crown of thorns was purchased from John of Brienne, the Emperor, and the piece of the true cross from Baldwin II., his successor; others say that both were purchased from Baldwin II. The cost to Saint-Louis, including the reliquaries, is said to have been two millions of livres. So far as the King's happiness was concerned, the money could not have been better spent. 59 6o PARIS There are two chapels, a low one on the ground-floor and a lofty one above it ; so both were consecrated simultane- ously by different prelates, the upper one being dedicated to the Holy Crown and the Holy Cross, the other to the Virgin Alary. Considering the rapidity of the work done, it is remark- able that it should be, as it is, of exceptionally excellent quality, considered simply with reference to handicraft and to the materials employed. The stone is all hard and carefully selected, while each course is fixed with clamp-irons imbed- ded in lead, and the fitting of the stones, according to Viollet-le-Duc, is " cFufie precision rare." Like Notre-Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle has undergone thorough and careful restoration in the present century. For those who blame such restorations indiscriminately, I will give a short description of the state of the building when it was placed in the restorer's hands. It had been despoiled at the Revolution and was used as a magazine for law-papers. The spire had been totally destroyed, the roof was in bad repair, sculpture injured or removed, the internal decoration mostly effaced, the stained glass removed from the lower part of the windows to a height of three feet, and the rest patched with fragments regardless of subject. The chapel was an unvalued survival of the past, falling rapidly into com- plete decay, and is surrounded by the modern buildings of the law courts, so its isolation made total destruction probable. There had been a time when the Sainte-Chapelle had been in more congenial company. The delightfully fanciful S AINTE-CHAPELLE 6 1 and picturesque old Cour des Comptes had been built under Louis XII. (1504), on the southwest side, and there was the great Gothic Cour de Mai, and, finally, the Great Hall on the north. Not only that, but there was the Tresor des Chartes, attached to the south side of the Sainte-Chapelle, itself a treasure, almost a miniature of the glorious chapel, with its own little apse and windows, and high pitched roof. All these treasures of architecture were gone forever, replaced by dull, prosaic building ; the Sainte-Chapelle served no purpose that any dry attic would not have served equally well, and there seemed to be no reason why it should not be destroyed like the rest. The decision was to restore it, and give it a special destination where the law- yers might hear the mass of the Holy Ghost. The work was done thoroughly and carefully by learned and accom- plished men. M. Lassus designed a new spire,^ an exquis- itely beautiful work of art, much more elegant than its predecessor. Still to appreciate the new spire properly, one needs an architectural drawing on a large scale, like that in the monograph by Guilhermy. It is of oak, covered with lead, with two open arcades. There are pinnacles between the gables of the upper arcade, and on these pinnacles are eight angels with high, folded wings and trumpets. Near the roof are figures of the twelve apostles. All along the roof-ridge runs an open crest-work, and at the point over 1 The spire by Lassus is the fourth. The first by Pierre de Montereau, became unsafe from old age; the second was burnt in 1630; the third was destroyed in the great Revolution. 62 PARIS the apse stands an angel with a cross. All these things, judiciously enlivened by gilding, with the present high pitch of the roof, add greatly to the poetical impression, especially when seen in brilliant sunshine against an azure sky. Thanks to the restorers, the interior of the chapel once more produces the effect of harmonious splendour which belonged to it in the days of Saint-Louis. Of all the Gothic edifices I have ever visited, this one seems to me most pre-eminently a visible poem. It is hardly of this world, it hardly belongs to the dull realities of life. Most buildings are successful only in parts, so that we say to ourselves, " Ah, if all had been equal to that ! " or else we meet with some shocking incongruity that spoils everything ; but here the motive, which is that of perfect splendour, is maintained without flaw or failure anywhere. The archi- tect made his windows as large and lofty as he could (there is hardly any wall, its work being done by buttresses) ; and he took care that the stonework should be as light and ele- gant as possible, after which he filled it with a vast jewelry of painted glass. Every inch of wall is illuminated like a missal, and so delicately that some of the illuminations are repeated of the real size in Guilhermy's monograph. When we become somewhat accustomed to the universal splendour (which from the subdued light is by no means crude or painful), we begin to perceive that the windows are full of little pictorial compositions ; and if we have time to examine them, there is occupation for us, as the windows contain more than a thousand of these pictures. Thanks SAINTE-CHAPELLE 63 to the care of M. Guilhermy, they have been set in order again. The most interesting among them, for us, on ac- count of the authenticity of the historical details, is the window which illustrates the translation of the relics. Here we have the men of the time of Saint-Louis on land and sea. In the other windows the Old and New Testa- ments are illustrated. Genesis takes ninety-one composi- tions. Exodus a hundred and twenty-one, and so on, each window having its own history.^ There are four broad windows in each side, though from the exterior two of these look slightly narrower because they are somewhat masked by the west turrets. The apse is lighted by five narrower windows, and there are two, the narrowest of all, which separate the apse from the nave. In the time of Henri II. a very mistaken project was carried into execution. A marble screen, with altars set up against it, was built across the body of the chapel so as to divide it, up to a certain height, into two parts. Happily, this exists no longer. The original intention of Louis IX. when he built the Sainte-Chapelle, was that the upper chapel should be re- ' The only thing in the Sainte-Chapelle which can be considered any degree incongruous with the unity of the first design is the rose-window at the west end, which was erected by Charles VIII., near the close of the Fifteenth Century. The flamboyant tracery is of a restless character, all in very strong curves, and the glass is quite different from the gorgeous jewel-mosaics of the time of Saint-Louis. The subjects are all from the Apocalypse. However, this window inflicts little injury on the general effect of the chapel, as the visitor is under it when he enters, and is iso- lated from the rest. In service time everybody has his back to it. 64 PARIS served for the sovereign and the royal house, while the lower one was for the officers of inferior degree. The king's chapel was on a level with his apartments in the palace, so that he walked to it without using stairs. The lower chapel has now been completely decorated like the upper one, on the principles of illumination. It is beautiful, but comparatively heavy and crypt-like, and the decoration looks more crude, perhaps because the vault is so much lower and nearer the eye. A curious detail may be men- tioned in connection with the religious services in the Sainte-Chapelle. They were of a sumptuous description, as the " treasurer," who was the chief priest, wore the mitre and ring, had pontifical rank, and was subject only to the Pope. He was assisted in the services by one chanter, twelve canons, nineteen chaplains, and thirteen clerks. When Saint-Louis dwelt in his royal house close by and came to the Sainte-Chapelle, the place must have presented such a concentration of mediaeval splendour as was never seen elsewhere in such narrow limits. His en- thusiasm may seem superstitious to us, but he endeavoured earnestly to make himself a perfect king according to the lights of his time, so that his splendid chapel is associated with the memory of a human soul as sound and honest as its handicrafts, as beautiful as its art. THE CATHEDRAL OF XOTRE-DAME, THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME VICTOR HUGO OST certainly, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is still a sublime and majestic edifice. But, despite the beauty which it preserves in its old age, it would be impossible not to be indignant at the injuries and mutilations which Time and man have jointly inflicted upon the venerable structure without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its first stone, and Philippe Auguste, who laid its last. There is always a scar beside a wrinkle on the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals. Tempus edax homo edacior^ which I should translate thus : Time is blind, man is stupid. If we had leisure to examine one by one, with the reader, the various traces of destruction imprinted on the old church. Time's work would prove to be less destruc- tive than men's, especially des hommes de Part^ because there have been some individuals in the last two centuries who considered themselves architects. First, to cite several striking examples, assuredly there are few more beautiful pages in architecture than that facade, exhibiting the three deeply-dug porches with their pointed arches ; the plinth, embroidered and indented with twenty-eight royal niches ; the immense central rose- 65 66 PARIS window, flanked by its two lateral windows, like the priest by his deacon and sub-deacon; the high and frail gallery of open-worked arches, supporting on its delicate columns a heavy platform ; and, lastly, the two dark and massive towers, with their slated pent-houses. These harmonious parts of a magnificent whole, superimposed in five gigantic stages, and presenting, with their innumerable details of statuary, sculpture, and carving, an overwhelming yet not perplexing mass, combine in producing a calm grandeur. It is a vast symphony in stone, so to speak ; the colossal work of man and of a nation, as united and as complex as the Iliad and the romanceros of which it is the sister; a pro- digious production to which all the forces of an epoch con- tributed, and from every stone of which springs forth in a hundred ways the workman's fancy directed by the artist's genius; in one word, a kind of human creation, as strong and fecund as the divine creation from which it seems to have stolen the twofold character : variety and eternity. And what I say here of the facade, must be said of the entire Cathedral ; and what I say of the Cathedral of Paris, must be said of all the Mediae\^l Christian churches. Everything in this art, which proceeds from itself, is so logical and well-proportioned that to measure the toe of the foot is to measure the giant. Let us return to the facade of Notre-Dame, as it exists to-day when we go reverently to admire the solemn and mighty Cathedral, which, according to the old chroniclers, was terrifying : quce mole sua terror em incutit spectantibus. CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 67 That facade now lacks three important things : first, the flight of eleven steps, which raised it above the level of the ground ; then, the lower row of statues which occupied the niches of the three porches ; and the upper row ^ of the twenty-eight ancient kings of France which ornamented the gallery of the first story, beginning with Childebert and ending with Philippe Auguste, holding in his hand " la pomme imperiale." Time in its slow and unchecked progress, raising the level of the city's soil, buried the steps; but whilst the pavement of Paris like a rising tide has engulfed one by one the eleven steps which added to the majestic height of the edifice. Time has given to the church more, perhaps, than it has stolen, for it is Time that has spread that sombre hue of centuries on the facade which makes the old age of buildings their period of beauty. But who has thrown down those two rows of statues ? Who has left the niches empty ? Who has cut that new and bastard arch in the beautiful middle of the central porch ? Who has dared to frame that tasteless and heavy wooden door carved a la Louis XV. near Biscornette's arabesques ? The men, the architects, the artists of our day. And when we enter the edifice, who has overthrown that colossal Saint Christopher, proverbial among statues as the grand' salle du Palais among halls, or thejleche of Stras- ' The outside of Notre-Dame has been restored since Victor Hugo wrote his famous romance. — E. S. 68 PARIS burg among steeples ? And those myriads of statues that peopled all the spaces between the columns of the nave and choir, kneeling, standing, on horseback, men, women, chil- dren, kings, bishops, gens d* amies in stone, wood, marble, gold, silver, copper, and even wax, — who has brutally swept them away ? It was not Time ! And who has substituted for the old Gothic altar, splen- didly overladen with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy marble sarcophagus with its angels' heads and clouds, which seems to be a sample from the Val-de-Grace or the Inva- lides ? Who has so stupidly imbedded that heavy stone anachronism in Hercanduc's Carlovingian pavement ? Is it not Louis XIV. fulfilling the vow of Louis XIII. ? And who has put cold white glass in the place of those richly-coloured panes, which made the astonished gaze of our ancestors pause between the rose of the great porch and the pointed arches of the apsis ? What would an under- chorister of the Sixteenth Century say if he could see the beautiful yellow plaster with which our vandal archbishops have daubed their Cathedral ? He would remember that this was the colour with which the executioner brushed the houses of traitors ; he would remember the Hotel du Petit- Bourbon, all besmeared thus with yellow, on account of the treason of the Constable, " yellow of such good quality," says Sauval, " and so well laid on that more than a century has scarcely caused its colour to fade ; " and, imagining that the holy place had become infamous, he would flee from it. CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 69 And if we ascend the Cathedral without stopping to notice the thousand barbarities of all kinds, what has been done with that charming little bell-tower, which stood over the point of intersection of the transept, and which, neither less frail nor less bold than its neighbour, the steeple of the Sainte-Chapelle (also destroyed), shot up into the sky, sharp, harmonious, and open-worked, higher than the other towers ? It was amputated by an architect of good taste (1787), who thought it sufficient to cover the wound with that large piaster of lead, which looks like the lid of a pot. This is the way the wonderful art of the Middle Ages has been treated in all countries, particularly in France. In this ruin we may distinguish three separate agencies, which have aifected it in different degrees ; first. Time which has insensibly chipped it, here and there, and discoloured its entire surface ; next, revolutions, both political and religious, which, being blind and furious by nature, rushed wildly upon it, stripped it of its rich garb of sculptures and carv- ings, shattered its tracery, broke its garlands of arabesques and its figurines, and threw down its statues, sometimes on account of their mitres, sometimes on account of their crowns; and, finally, the fashions, which, ever since the anarchistic and splendid innovations of the Renaissance, have been constantly growing more grotesque and foolish, and have succeeded in bringing about the decadence of architecture. The fashions have indeed done more harm than the revolutions. They have cut it to the quick ; they have attacked the framework of art ; they have cut, hacked, 70 PARIS and mutilated the form of the building as well as its symbol ; its logic as well as its beauty. And then they have re- stored, a presumption of which time and revolutions were, at least, guiltless. In the name of good taste they have in- solently covered the wounds of Gothic architecture with their paltry gew-gaws of a day, their marble ribbons, their metal pompons, a veritable leprosy of oval ornaments, volutes, spirals, draperies, garlands, fringes, flames of stone, clouds of bronze, over-fat Cupids, and bloated cherubim, which begin to eat into the face of art in Catherine de Medicis's oratory, and kill it, writhing and grinning in the boudoir of the Dubarry, two centuries later. Therefore, in summing up the points to which I have called attention, three kinds of ravages disfigure Gothic architecture to-day : wrinkles and warts on the epidermis — these are the work of Time ; wounds, bruises and fractures, — these are the work of revolutions from Luther to Mirabeau ; mutilations, amputations, dislocations of members, restorations^ — these are the Greek and Roman work of professors, according to Vitruvius and Vignole. That magnificent art which the Vandals produced, acad- emies have murdered. To the ravages of centuries and revolutions, which devastated at least with impartiality and grandeur, were added those of a host of school architects, patented and sworn, who debased everything with the choice and discernment of bad taste ; and who substituted the chicories of Louis XV. for the Gothic lacework for the greater glory of the Parthenon. It is the ass's kick to the CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 71 dying lion. It is the old oak crowning itself with leaves for the reward of being bitten, gnawed, and devoured by caterpillars. How far this is from the period when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre-Dame de Paris with the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus, so highly extolled by the ancient heathen, which has immortalized Erostratus, found the Gaulois cathedral '■'■plus excellente en longueur ^ largeur^ hauteur^ et structure." Notre-Dame de Paris is not, however, what may be called a finished, defined, classified monument. It is not a Roman church, neither is it a Gothic church. This edifice is not a type. Notre-Dame has not, like the Abbey of Tournus, the solemn and massive squareness, the round and large vault, the glacial nudity, and the majestic sim- plicity of those buildings which have the circular arch for their generative principle. It is not, like the Cathedral of Bourges, the magnificent product of light, multiform, tufted, bristling, efflorescent Gothic. It is out of the question to class it in that ancient family of gloomy, mysterious, low churches, which seem crushed by the circular arch ; almost Egyptian in their ceiling; quite hieroglyphic, sacerdotal, and symbolic, charged in their ornaments with more lozenges and zigzags than flowers, more flowers than animals, more animals than human figures ; the work of the bishop more than the architect, the first transformation of the art, fully impressed with theocratic and military discipline, which takes its root in the Bas-Empire, and 72 PARIS ends with William the Conqueror. It is also out of the question to place our Cathedral in that other family of churches, tall, aerial, rich in windows and sculpture, sharp in form, bold of mien ; communales and bourgeois^ like polit- ical symbols ; free, capricious, unbridled, like works of art ; the second transformation of architecture, no longer hiero- glyphic, immutable, and sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive, and popular, which begins with the return from the Cru- sades and ends with Louis XI. Notre-Dame de Paris is not pure Rorfian, like the former, nor is it pure Arabian, like the latter. It is an edifice of the transition. The Saxon architect had set up the first pillars of the nave when the Crusaders introduced the pointed arch, which enthroned itself like a conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals designed to support circular arches. On the pointed arch, thenceforth mistress of all styles, the rest of the church was built. In- experienced and timid at the beginning, it soon broadens and expands, but does not yet dare to shoot up into steeples and pinnacles, as it has since done in so many marvellous cathedrals. You might say that it feels the influence of its neighbours, the heavy Roman pillars. Moreover, these edifices of the transition from the Roman to the Gothic are not less valuable for study than pure types. They express a nuance of the art which would be lost but for them. This is the engrafting of the pointed upon the circular arch. Notre-Dame de Paris is a particularly curious specimen CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME 73 of this variety. Every face and every stone of the vener- able structure is a page not only of the history of the coun- try, but also of art and science. Therefore to glance here only at the principal details, while the little Porte Rouge attains almost to the limits of the Gothic delicacy of the Fifteenth Century, the pillars of the nave, on account of their bulk and heaviness, carry you back to the date of the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres, you w^ould believe that there were six centuries between that doorway and those pillars. It is not only the hermetics who find in the symbols of the large porch a satisfactory compendium of their science, of which the church of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie was so complete an hieroglyphic. Thus the Roman Abbey, the philosophical church, the Gothic art, the Saxon art, the heavy, round pillar, which reminds you of Gregory VIL, the hermetic symbols by which Nicholas Flamel heralded Luther, papal unity and schism, Saint- Germain des Pres and Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie ; all are melted, combined, amalgamated in Notre-Dame. This central and generatrix church is a sort of chimasra among the old churches of Paris ; it has the head of one, the limbs of another, the body of another, — something from each of them. A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS riCTOR HUGO A FTER a long climb up the dark spiral steps that perpendicularly pierce the thick wall of the towers, at length we suddenly emerge upon one of the high platforms flooded with light and air; it is a beautiful picture that unrolls on every side under our eyes. The Paris of the Fifteenth Century was already a giant city. Since then, it has certainly lost more in beauty than it has gained in size. As we know, Paris was born in that ancient He de la Cite which is shaped like a cradle. The strand of that isle was its first boundary and the Seine was its moat. For several centuries, Paris remained in the con- dition of an island, with two bridges, one on the north ^nd the other on the south, and two bridge-heads, that were its gates and its fortresses at the same time : the Grand- Chatelet on the right bank and the Petit-Chatelet on the left bank. Then, with its first race of kings, being too much confined in its island, Paris crossed the water. Then, beyond the great and the little Chatelet, a first ring of walls and towers began to invade the country on both sides' of the Seine. In the last century a few vestiges of this ancient enclosure still remained : to-day there is only the memory and a tradition here and there, the Porte Baudets, or Baudoyer, (Porta Bagauda). Little by little, the flood of 74 A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 75 houses, constantly pushed outwards from the heart of the city, overflows, consumes, uses up and effaces this circuit. Philippe Auguste makes a new embankment for it. He imprisons Paris in a circular chain of great, high, and solid towers. For more than a century, the houses crowd to- gether, accumulate and raise their level in this basin, like water in a reservoir. They begin to deepen; they pile story upon story; they mount one upon another; they spout upwards like all compressed sap, and each tries to raise its head above its neighbours to obtain a little air. The streets narrow and stuff themselves till they are ready to burst, and every square fills up and disappears. Finally, the houses jump over the wall of Philippe Auguste and joyously disperse over the plain in confusion and disorder like truants. There they sit proudly, making gardens for them- selves among the fields, and take their ease. In 1367, the city expands in the faubourg so much that a new enclosure is necessary : this is built by Charles V. But a city like Paris is in perpetual growth. That is the only kind of city that becomes a capital. It is a kind of funnel into which descend all the geographical, political, moral and intellectual slopes of a country, and all the natural declivities of a people ; wells of civilization, so to speak, as well as sewers, in which commerce, industry, intelligence and population, everything that is sap, everything that is life, and every- thing that is the soul of a nation, ceaselessly filters and col- lects, drop by drop, century by century. The circuit of Charles V. then, meets the fate of the circuit of Philippe 76 PARIS Auguste. At the end of the Fifteenth Century it is passed with long strides, and the faubourg runs farther away. In the Sixteenth, it seems that it recedes from sight and is swallowed up more and more in the old city, so greatly docs the new city fill up outside. Thus, if we halt at the Fifteenth Century, Paris had already used up the three con- centric circles of walls which, from the time of Julian the Apostate, so to speak, have their germ in the Grand- Chatelet and the Petit-Chatelet. The mighty city had suc- cessively cracked its four circuits of wall like a growing child that bursts its clothes of last year. Under Louis XL, in places, in the sea of houses were to be seen some ruined groups of towers of the ancient circuits rising like the tops of hills in an undulation, or like archipelagoes of the old submerged under the new Paris. Since that day, Paris, unfortunately for our eyes, has been transformed ; but it has only crossed one more circuit, that of Louis XV., that miserable wall of mud and rubble, worthy of the king who built it, worthy of the poet who sang of it : ^' Le mur inurant Paris rend Paris mur rnurant." In the Fifteenth Century, Paris was still divided into three distinct and separate cities, each having its own physiognomy, its own individuality, its own manners, cus- toms, privileges, and history : the Cite, the Universite and the Ville. The Cite, which occupied the island, was the most ancient, the smallest, and the mother of the two others, pressed in between them like a little old woman be- A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 77 tween her two big daughters-in-law. The Universite covered the left bank of the Seine from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, points which in the Paris of to-day cor- respond to the Halle aux Vins and the Monnaie: Its limits generally coincided with that portion of country in which Julian had built his baths. The mount of Sainte- Genevieve was contained in it. The culminating point of this curve of walls was the Papal Gate, that is to say the present site of the Pantheon. The Ville, which was the largest of the three portions of Paris, occupied the right bank. Its quay, although broken and interrupted in various places, ran along the Seine from the Tour de Billy to the Tour du Bois, that is to say the spot where the Tuileries now stands. These four points where the Seine cuts the circuit of the capitol, La Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle on the left, the Tour de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the right, were called in particular the four towers of Pariso The Ville extended farther into the country than the Universite. The culminating point of the enclosure of the Ville (that of Charles V.) was at the partes Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, the site of which has not altered. As we have just said, each of these great divisions of Paris was a city, but a city entirely too special to be com- plete, a city which could not do without the other two. Thus there were three perfectly separate aspects. The Cite abounded with churches, the Ville with palaces, and the Universite with colleges. In the chaos of cummunal. 78 PARIS jurisdictions the isle belonged to the Bishop, the right bank to the provost of the merchants, and the left bank to the Recteur. The provost of Paris, a royal and not municipal officer, was over all The Cite possessed Notre-Dame ; the Ville, the Louvre and the H6tel-de-Ville ; while the Universite possessed La Sorbunne. The Ville had the Hallos i the Cite, the Hotel-Dieuj and the Universite, the Pre aux Clercs. The misdemeanours committed by the schol- ars on the left bank were judged in the He, in the Palais de Justice, and were punished on the right bank, at Montfau- con ; unless the Recteur^ feeling the Universite strong and the king weak, intervened ; for it was one of the privileges of the scholars to be hanged in their own ter- ritory. In the Fifteenth Century, the Seine washed five islands in enclosed Paris. The Cite possessed five bridges. The Universite had six gates, built by Philippe Auguste; be- ginning with La Tournelle, these were the porta Saint- Victor, Bordelle, Papale, Saint-Jacques, Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain. The Ville had six gates, built by Charles V. ; beginning with the Tour de Billy, these were the portes Saint-Antoine, du Temple, Saint-Martin, Saint- Denis, Montmartre, and Saint-Honore. All these gates were strong and beautiful in addition, which is not hurtful to strength. A moat, broad, deep and with a swift current during the winter floods, washed the feet of the walls all around Paris ; the water was supplied by the Seine. The gates were closed at night, the river was barred at both A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 79 ends of the city with great iron chains, and Paris slept in tranquillity. From a bird's-eye view, these three bourgs, the Cite, the Universite and the Ville, present to the eye an inextricable network of strangely confused streets. Nevertheless, at the first glance one recognized that these three fragments of city formed a single body. One immediately noticed two long parallel streets, without a break or a change, and almost in a straight line, which at the same time crossed the three cities from one end to the other, from south to north, perpendicularly to the Seine, binding and mingling them and infusing and pouring ceaselessly the people of one within the walls of the other and making only one out of the three. The first of these two streets ran from the Porte Saint-Jacques to the Porte Saint-Martin ; it was called the Rue Saint-Jacques in the Universite, the Rue de la Juiverie in the Cite, and the Rue Saint-Martin in the Ville ; it crossed the water twice under the names of Petit-Pont and Pont Notre-Dame. The second, that was called the Rue de la Harpe on the left bank, the Rue de la Barillerie in the He, the Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank, the Pont Saint-Michel over one arm of the Seine, and the Pont-au- Change over the other, ran from the Porte Saint-Michel in the Universite to the Porte Saint-Denis in the Ville. As for the rest, under so many various names, they were ever only two streets, but two mother streets, the two generative streets, the arteries of Paris. Independently of these two principal streets, diametrical 8o PARIS and piercing Paris in various parts of its breadth, common to the entire capital, the Ville and the Universite each had their own particular great street which ran lengthways, parallel to the Seine and on the way cutting the two arterial streets at a right angle. Thus, in the Ville, one went in a straight line from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the Porte Saint- Honore ; in the Universite, from the Porte Saint-Victor to the Porte Saint-Germaine. These two great ways, crossed with the first two, formed the canvas upon which rested, knotted and tangled, the Daedalian network of the streets of Paris. Now what kind of aspect did all this present when seen from the summit of the towers of Notre-Dame in 1482? For the spectator who arrived out of breath, it was first a dazzle of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, squares, tur- rets and clock-towers. Everything engaged the eyes at once, the carved gables, the sharp roof, the turrets sus- pended at the angles of the walls, the pyramid of stone of the Eleventh Century, the slate obelisk of the Fifteenth, the round and bare tower of the donjon, the square and embroidered tower of the church, the big, the little, the massive and the aerial. The eyes lost themselves long in all the depth of this labyrinth in which there was nothing that had not its originality, its reason, its genius and its beauty, nothing that did not spring from art, from the smallest house with its painted and carved front, with ex- terior woodwork, elliptical doorway, and with floors pro- jecting over one another, to the royal Louvre that at that A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 81 day had a colonnade of towers. But when the eye began to grow accustomed to this tumult of edifices, the principal masses that it distinguished were as follows : First for the Cite. We have just explained that in the Fifteenth Century this ship was moored to the two banks of the river by five bridges. The form of a vessel had struck the heraldic scribes, for it is from this, and not from the siege by the Normans that came, according to Favyn and Pasquier, the ship that is blazoned on the old shield of Paris. The Cite, then, first presents itself to the eye with its poop to the east and its prow to the west. Turning to- wards the prow, one had before one an innumerable collec- tion of old roofs over which broadly loomed the leaden apsis of the Sainte-Chapelle, resembling the back of an elephant laden with his castle. Only this tower was the boldest spire, and covered more with carpentry and carved- work than any that had ever permitted the sky to show through its denticulated cone. In front of Notre-Dame, three streets disgorged into the parvis, a fine square of old houses. Over the southern side of this square, leaned the wrinkled and grim facade of the Hotel-Dieu and its roof that seemed covered with pustules and warts. Then, to the right, to the left, to the east, and to the west, in this close of the Cite that was yet so narrow, arose the belfries of its twenty-one churches of every date, of every form, and of every size, from the low and worm-eaten Roman campanile of Saint-Denis du-Pas {career Glaucinf) to the fine needles of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs and Saint-Landry. 82 PARIS Behind Notre-Dame to the north, ran the cloisters with their Gothic galleries ; and to the east, the deserted point of the Terrain. In this mass of houses, the eye could still distinguish by those high stone mitres, pierced and open to the day, that then even on the roof crowned the highest windows of the palace, the hotel given by the city, under Charles VI., to Juvenal des Ursins ; somewhat farther away, the tarred sheds of the Palus market ; in still another direction, the new apsis of Saint-Germain-le-Vieux, length- ened in 1458 with an end of the Rue aux Febves ; and then, in places, crossroads thronged with people; a pillory set up at a corner of the street ; a fine piece of the paving of Philippe Auguste, a magnificent tiling ridged for the horses' hoofs in the middle of the street and so badly re- placed in the Sixteenth Century by the miserable pebble- work called pave de la Ligue ; a deserted rear courtyard with one of those open stairway turrets such as they made in the Fifteenth Century and one of which may still be seen in the Rue des Bourdonnais. Lastly, to the right of the Sainte-Chapelle, towards the west, the Palais de Justice pitched its group of towers at the edge of the water. The lofty trees of the king's gardens, which covered the western point of the Cite, masked the islet of the Passeur. As for the water, from the height of the towers of Notre-Dame one could scarcely see it on either side of the Cite, — the Seine disappeared under the bridges, and the bridges under the houses. And when the eye passed beyond those bridges whose A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 83 roofs assumed a green tone, having grown mouldy before their time from the vapours of the w^ater, if it was directed to the left towards the Universite, the first edifice that it struck was a great and low cluster of towers, the Petit- Chatelet, the yawning gateway of which swallowed up the end of the Petit-Pont ; then, if your glance ran along the banks from east to west, there was a long cordon of houses with carved joists, coloured windows, rising with jutting stories one over another above the pavement, an intermi- nable zigzag of bourgeois gable-ends, frequently cut by the mouth of a street, and from time to time also by the front or the elbow of a great stone mansion sitting proudly at its ease, courts and gardens, wings and main buildings, among this populace of crowded and curtailed houses, like a great lord in a crowd of peasants. There were five or six of these hotels along the quay, from that of Lorraine, which shared the great neighbouring enclosure of La Tournelle with the Bernardins, to the Hotel de Nesle, whose princi- pal tower bounded Paris, and whose pointed roofs were in a position to slope their black triangles towards the scarlet disk of the setting sun during three months of the year. For the rest, this side of the Seine was the less mercan- tile of the two ; the scholars made more of a noise and throng there than the artisans, and, properly speaking, there was no quay except the Pont Saint-Michel at the Tour de Nesle. The remainder of the margin of the Seine was sometimes a bare strand, as it was beyond the 84 PARIS Bernardins, and sometimes a pile of houses that stood with their feet in the water, as was the case between the two bridges. There was a great hubbub of washerwomen ; they shouted and chatted and sang from morning till evening along the bank, and beat the linen heavily, as in our day. This was not the least gaiety in Paris. The Universite formed a block to the eye. From one end to the other it was entirely homogeneous and compact. Those thousand roofs, thick-set, angular, clinging together, and almost all composed of the same geometrical element, seen from above, presented the aspect of a crystallization of the same substance. The capricious ravine of the streets did not cut up this mass of buildings into too greatly-disappropor- tioned slices. The forty-two colleges were distributed among them in a fairly equal manner, there were some everywhere. The varied amusing summits of these fine edifices were the product of the same art as were the simple roofs that overtopped, and were really only a multiplication in square or cube of the same geometrical figure. They therefore complicated the whole without disturbing it, and completed without changing it. Several fine hotels, here and there, jutted out with splen- did effect over the picturesque granaries of the left bank j the logis de Nevers, de Rome and de Reims, which have disappeared ; the Hotel de Cluny, which still exists for the consolation of the artist and whose tower has been so stu- pidly discrowned. Near Cluny, that Roman palace, with A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 85 fine elliptical arches, was the baths of Julian. There were also many abbeys of a more devout beauty and a graver grandeur than the hotels, but not less beautiful, nor less great. Those that first arrested the eye were the Ber- nardins with their three bell-towers; Sainte-Genevieve, whose square tower, which still exists, makes us greatly re- gret the rest ; the Sorbonne, half college half monastery, so admirable a nave of which still exists ; the beautiful quad- rilateral cloisters of the Mathurins ; their neighbours, the cloisters of Saint-Benoit ; the Cordeliers, with their three enormous gables in juxtaposition; the Augustins, whose graceful needle, after the Tour de Nesle, made the second indentation on this side of Paris, starting from the west. The colleges, which in fact are the intermediate ring of the cloisters in the world, held the middle position between the hotels and the abbeys in the monumental series, with a severity full of elegance, a sculpture less giddy than the palaces, and an architecture less serious than the monastic buildings. Unhappily, almost nothing remains of these monuments in which Gothic art intersected wealth and economy with such precision. The churches (and they were numerous and splendid in the Universite ; and there also they appeared in grades of all the ages of architecture, from the open arches of Saint- Julien to the ogives of Saint- Severin), dominated the whole ; and, like one harmony the more in this mass of harmonies, they pierced every instant the multiple indentation of gables with slashed pinnacles, open belfries, and slender needles, whose lines, moreover. 86 PARIS were nothing more than a magnificent exaggeration of the sharp angles of the roofs. The ground of the Universite was hilly. Mount Sainte- Genevieve in the southeast formed an enormous swelling; and it was something worth seeing from the top of Notre- Dame, this maze of narrow and tortuous streets (to-day the Latin country), these clusters of houses which, spreading in every direction from the summit of that eminence, pre- cipitated themselves in disorder and almost perpendicularly down its slopes to the edge of the water, some seeming to be falling down and others to be climbing up again, while all seemed to be holding on to one another. A continual stream of thousands of black points, crossing and recross- ing each other on the pavements, made everything in mo- tion under one's eyes. This was the populace seen thus from above and from a distance. Lastly, in the breaks of these roofs, spires, and irregu- larities of the innumerable buildings, that bent, twisted and indented so strangely the extreme lines of the Universite, here and there could be seen a thick stretch of mossy wall, a big round tower, or a crenellated city-gate, showing the fortress : this was the enclosure of Philippe Auguste. Be- yond were the verdant meadows and the receding roads, along which straggled a few additional houses of the fau- bourg, scarcer as the distance increased. Several of these faubourgs possessed some importance : first, starting from La Tournelle, came the bourg Saint-Victor, with its bridge of one arch over the Bievre ; its abbey, where might be A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 87 read the epitaph of Louis le Gros, and its church with an octagonal spire flanked by four belfries of the Eleventh Century (a similar one may be seen at Etampes ; it has not yet been pulled down) j then the bourg Saint-Marceau, which already possessed three churches and a convent ; then, leaving the mill of the Gobelins and its four white walls to the left, came the faubourg Saint-Jacques with its fine sculptured cross at the cross-roads; the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, which then was Gothic, pointed and charming ; Saint-Magloire, a fine nave of the Four- teenth Century, which Napoleon turned into a hay-barn j and Notre-Dame des Champs, in which there were Byzan- tine mosaics. Finally, after having left in the open field the monastery of the Chartreux, a rich edifice contempo- rary with the Palais de Justice, with its little gardens ar- ranged in compartments, and the ill-haunted ruins of Vau- vert, in the west, the eye fell upon the three Roman spires of Saint-Germain des Pres. The bourg Saint-Germain, already a large commune, lay behind with its fifteen or twenty streets ; the sharp belfry of Saint-Sulpice marked one corner of the bourg. To one side, were seen the quadrilateral enclosure of the Saint-Germain fair, where the market stands to-day ; then the abbe's pillory, a pretty little round tower well capped with a leaden cone ; the tile- works were farther away, and the Rue du Four, which led to the manor-kiln, and the mill on its knoll, and the pest- house, a little house isolated. But what especially attracted the eye and fixed it for a long time on this point was the 88 PARIS abbey itself. It is certain that this monastery that had a grand appearance, both as a church and a lordship, this abbey-palace, in which the bishops of Paris esteemed them- selves happy to sleep for a night, this refectory to which the architect had given the air, the beauty, and splendid rose-window of the cathedral, this elegant chapel of the Virgin, this monumental dormitory, these vast gardens, this portcullis, this drawbridge, this circuit of battlemented walls which to the eyes notched the verdure of the surrounding meadows, these courtyards in which glittered men-at-arms in golden copes, the whole grouped and rallied around the three open-arched spires, finely set on a Gothic apsis, made a magnificent figure on the horizon. When at length, after gazing long at the Universite, you turned towards the right bank, towards the Ville, the spec- tacle suffered a brusque change of character. The Ville, while much larger than the Uni\ersite, was, in fact, less of a unity. At the first aspect, it was seen to separate itself into several singularly distinct masses. First, in the east, in that part of the city which to-day receives its name from the morass where Camulogenus got Caesar stuck in the mire, there was a pile of palaces. It extended to the edge of the water. Four almost adjoining palaces, Jouy, Sens, Barbeau, and the Queen's abode, mirrored their slated tops, cut with slender turrets, in the Seine. These four edifices filled the space from the Rue des Nonaindieres to the Abbey of the Celestins, the spire of which gracefully relieved the line of gables and battlements, A few greenish huts leaning ovef A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 89 the water in front of these sumptuous hotels did not inter- fere with the view of the beautiful angles of their facades, their wide windows squared and crossed with stone, their ogival porches surcharged with statues, the sharp edges of their cleanly-cut walls, and all those charming architectural surprises that give Gothic art the air of recommencing its combinations with every monument. Behind these palaces, ran in all directions, sometimes cloven, palisaded and crenellated like a citadel, sometimes veiled with great trees like an isolated country-house, the immense and multiform enclosure of that miraculous Hotel de Saint-Pol, in which the King of France was able superbly to lodge twenty-two princes of the quality of the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy, with their servants and suites, without counting the great lords, and the Emperor when he came to see Paris, and the lions, which had their separate hotel in the royal abode. From the tower on which we have stationed ourselves, the Hotel de Saint-Pol, nearly half concealed by the four great abodes of which we have just spoken, was still very con- siderable and very wonderful to the view. One could easily distinguish, although skillfully consolidated with the principal building by long galleries with windows and col- umns, the three hotels that Charles V. had amalgamated with his palace; the Hotel du Petit-Muce, with the lace- work balustrade that gracefully hemmed its roof j the hotel of the Abbe of Saint-Maur, having the relief of a strong castle, a big tower, machicolation, loopholes, iron bastions, 90 PARIS and, over the wide Saxon gateway, the abbe's escutcheon between the two grooves of the drawbridge ; the hotel of the Comte d'£tampes, the donjon of which, in ruins at the top, looked round and notched like the comb of a cock ; here and there three or four ancient oaks formed a clump like enormous cauliflowers; swans sported in the clear waters of the fish-ponds streaked with light and shadow, and many courtyards with picturesque corners came into view ; the Hotel des Lions, with its low arches on short Saxon pillars, its iron portcullis and its perpetual roaring ; through all this gleamed the scaly spire of the Ave Maria; to the left was the abode of the Provost of Paris, flanked with four slender open-worked turrets ; in the central back- ground was the Hotel Saint-Pol, properly so-called, with its multiple facades, its successive enrichments since the time of Charles V., the hybrid excrescences with which architects had loaded it for two centuries, with all the apses of its chapels, all the gables of its galleries, a thou- sand vanes to the four winds, and its two lofty contiguous towers whose conical roofs, with battlements surrounding their bases, looked like peaked caps with turned-up brims. Continuing to mount the steps of the amphitheatre of palaces stretching away on the surface of the ground, after crossing a deep ravine dug in the roofs of the Ville, the eye arrived at the logis d' Angouleme, a vast construction of various periods, in which there were portions quite new and very white, which scarcely assimilated with the whole any better than a red patch in a blue pourpoint. Behind it, A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 91 rose the forest of spires of the Palais des Tournelles. There was no sight in the world, either at Chambord or at the Alhambra, that was more magical, more aerial, or more en- chanting than this forest of spires, belfries, chimneys, vanes, spirals, screws, lanterns pierced by the daylight that seem to have been worked with a punch, pavilions and spindle- turrets, all varying in form, height, and attitude. One would have called it a gigantic set of chessmen. To the right of the Tournelles, that cluster of enormous towers of inky black, joining one another, and, so to speak, tied together with a circular moat, that donjon pierced with loopholes far more than with windows, that drawbridge always raised, and that portcullis always down, is the Bas- tille. Those species of black beaks that protrude between the battlements, and, that, from a distance, you would take for spouts, are cannons. Under their balls, at the foot of the formidable building, is the Porte Saint-Antoine sunk between its two towers. Beyond the Tournelles, as far as the wall of Charles V., with rich compartments of verdure and flowers, extended a velvet carpet of cultivated land and royal parks, in the midst of which, by its labyrinth of trees and alleys, one rec- ognized the famous Daedalian garden that Louis XI. had given to Coictier. The doctor's observatory rose above the maze like a great isolated column with a little house as a capitol. Terrible astrological doings took place in that little office. The Place Royale is situated there now. 92 PARIS As we have said, the palace-quarter, of which we have tried to give some idea to the reader, although only pointing out the greatest palaces, filled the angle formed by the Seine and the enclosure of Charles V., on the east. The centre of the Ville was occupied by a mass of the houses of the common people. There, in fact, the three bridges of the Cite disgorged on the right bank, and bridges produce houses before palaces. This mass of common dwellings, crowded together like cells in a hive, had its own beauty. The Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, with their innu- merable ramifications, approached each other like two great trees that mingle their branches ; and then tortuous lines, the Rue de la Platrerie, de la Verrerie, de la Tixeranderie, etc., serpentined over all. There were also fine edifices that pierced the petrified undulations of this sea of gables. At the head of the Pont aux Changeurs, behind which could be seen the Seine foaming under the wheels of the Pont aux Meuniers, was the Chatelet, a feudal tower of the Thirteenth Century ; there was the rich square belfry of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, with its corners all blunted with sculptures, already admirable, although it was not com- pleted in the Fifteenth Century. There was the Maison- aux-Piliers open towards the Place de Greve ; there was Saint-Gervais, that has since been spoiled by a doorway in good taste ; Sainte-Mery, whose ancient ogives were already almost full semicircles ; Saint-Jean, whose magnificent steeple was proverbial ; there were twenty other monu- ments that did not disdain to hide their marvels in this A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 93 chaos of black, narrow, and deep streets. Add to these the crosses of carved stone, more plentiful at the cross-roads than gibbets ; the cemetery of the Innocents, the architec- tural circuit of which could be seen in the distance above the roofs 5 the pillory of the Halles, the top of which could be seen between two chimneys of the Rue de la Cosson- nerie; the steps of the Croix-du-Trahoir in its square that was always black with people ; the circular booths of the corn-exchange ; the fragments of the ancient enclosure of Philippe Auguste, that could be distinguished here and there among the houses, towers overrun with ivy, ruined gates and crumbling and deformed portions of wall j the quay with its thousand shops and sanguinary flaying-yards ; the Seine covered with boats, from the Port au Foin to For- I'Eveque, and you will have a confused image of what the central portion of the Ville was in 1482. With these two quarters, the one of palaces and the other of houses, the third element in the aspect offered by the Ville was a long belt of abbeys that bordered it almost throughout its circumference from east to west, and, behind the circuit of fortifications that shut in Paris, formed a second interior circuit of convents and chapels. Thus, immediately beside the Pare des Tournelles, between the Rue Saint-Antoine and the old Rue du Temple, there was Sainte-Catherine with its immense space and a cultivation which was limited only by the wall of Paris. Between the old and new Rue du Temple, there was the Temple, a sinister cluster of towers, lofty, upright and isolated, in the 94 PARIS centre of a vast battlemented enclosure. Between the Rue Neuve du Temple and the Rue Saint-Martin, was the abbey of Saint-Martin, amid its gardens, a superb fortified church, the girdle of whose towers and tiara of whose bel- fries only yielded in power and splendour to Saint-Germain des Pres. Between the two streets of Saint-Martin and Saint-Denis was the close of La Trinite. Then, between the Rue Saint-Denis and the Rue Montorgueil was the Filles-Dieu. To one side, might be distinguished the rot- ting roofs and the unpaved enclosure of the Cour des Mir- acles. This was the sole profane link that mingled with this devout chain of convents. Lastly, the fourth compartment that outlined itself in the agglomeration of roofs on the right bank, and which oc- cupied the western angle of the enclosure and the edge of the water down-stream, was a new knot of palaces and hotels crowding at the foot of the Louvre. The old Louvre of Philippe Auguste, that immense edifice whose great tower rallied twenty-three mistress-towers around it, without counting the turrets, seemed from afar to be set in the Gothic tops of the hotels of Alen^on and Petit-Bour- bon. This hydra of towers, the guardian giant of Paris, with its twenty-four heads always raised, with its monstrous croups, leaded or scaled with slate, and gleaming with me- tallic reflections, ended the configuration of the Ville in the west with an astonishing effect. Outside the walls, several faubourgs crowded around the gates, but not so many as, and more scattered than, those A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS 95 of the Universite. Behind the Bastille, there were twenty round shanties about the curious sculptures of the Croix- Faubin and the flying buttresses of the abbey of the Saint- Antoine des Champs ; next came Popincourt, lost among the wheat-fields ; then La Courtille, a joyous village of wine-shops ; the bourg Saint-Laurent with its church, the belfry of which, seen from a distance, seemed to mingle with the pointed towers of the Porte Saint-Martin j the faubourg Saint-Denis, with the vast enclosure of Saint- Larde ; outside the Porte Montmartre, was the Grange- Bateliere, encircled with white walls j behind it, was Mont- martre with its chalky slopes, that had then almost as many churches as mills, and which has preserved only mills, for nowadays society only demands bread for the body. Finally, beyond the Louvre, in the meadows of the Fau- bourg Saint-Honore, at that day already quite considerable, one could see the extent and greenness of Petite-Bretagne and the Marche aux Pourceaux, in the midst of which stood the horrible vat for boiling false coiners. Between La Courtille and Saint-Laurent, your eye had already no- ticed, upon the crown of an elevation set in a desert plain, a kind of building that from a distance resembled a ruined colonnade standing on a base laid bare. This was neither a Parthenon nor a temple of Jupiter Olympus : it was Montfaucon. Now let us recapitulate the general aspect of ancient Paris in a few words. In the centre, the He de la Cite, in form resembling an enormous tortoise putting forth its bridges. 96 PARIS scaly with tiles, like claws from beneath its gray shell of roofs. To the left, the monolithic trapezium, strong, dense, and bristly, of the Universite ; to the right, the vast semicircle of the Ville, much more mixed up with gardens and monuments. The three portions. Cite, Universite and Ville were veined with innumerable streets. Crossing the whole was the Seine, obstructed with islands, bridges and boats. All around was an immense plain, cut up with thousands of kinds of cultivation and dotted with beautiful villages. To the left, were Issy, Vanves, Vaugirard, Montrouge, and Gentilly with its round and its square tower, etc.; to the right, twenty others, from Conflans to Ville-l' Eveque. On the horizon, was a hem of hills disposed in a circle like the rim of a basin. Finally, in the distance to the east, was Vincennes and its seven quadrilateral towers ; to the south, Bicetre and its pointed turrets ; to the north, Saint-Denis and its spire ; to the west, Saint-Cloud and its donjon. There is the Paris that was seen from the top of the towers of Notre-Dame by the ravens that lived in 1482. A GLANCE AT PARIS ABOUT 1844 HONORE DE BALZAC "HO is the Parisian, stranger, or provincial visi- tor, that has not noticed, though only two days in Paris, the black walls flanked by three large pepper-box towers, two of which almost join, — the sombre and mysterious ornament of the Quai des Lunettes ? This quay begins at the bottom of the Pont-au- Change and extends to the Pont-Neuf. A square tower called the Tour de I'Horloge, from which the signal for the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew was given, a tower almost as high as that of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, indicates the palace and forms the corner of the quay. These four towers and these walls are clothed with that blackish hue that all north facades gain in Paris. Towards the middle of the quay, at a deserted arcade, begin the private con- structions which the establishment of the Pont-Neuf oc- casioned in the reign of Henri IV. The Place Royale was a replica of the Place Dauphine. It has the same system of architecture of brick squared with cut stone. This arcade and the Rue de Harlay indicate the limits of the palace to the west. Formerly the Prefecture de Police and the hotel of the first presidents of Parliament were depend- encies of the palace. The Cour des Comptes, and the 97 98 PARIS Cour des Aides completed the supreme court of justice, — that of the sovereign. This square, this island of houses and buildings, where is to be found the Sainte-Chapelle, the most magnificent jewel of Saint-Louis, is the sanctuary of Paris; it is the most sacred spot, the holy ark. At first this space was the entire first city, for the site of the Place Dauphine was a meadow dependent on the royal domain where was a mill for coining money. From this arose the name of Rue de la Monnaie given to the street that leads to Pont-Neuf. From that came also the name of one of the three round towers, the second, which is called the Tour d'Argent, which would seem to prove that money was struck there. The famous mill, seen in the old plans of Paris, was in all probability of later date than when money was coined in the palace itself, and, doubtless was due to an improvement in the art of coining money. The first tower, almost coupled with the Tour d'Argent, is called the Tour de Montmorency. The third, the smallest, but the best pre- served of the three, for it still retains its battlements, is named Tour Bonbec. The Sainte-Chapelle and its four towers (including the Tour de I'Horloge,) perfectly defines the enclosure, the perimeter, as an employe of the Cadastre would say, of the palace from the Merovingians to the first House of Valois ; but for us, and in consequence of its transformations, this palace most especially recalls the epoch of Saint-Louis. Charles V. was the first to abandon the palace to the A GLANCE AT PARIS ABOUT 1844 99 Parliament, a newly-created institution, and went, under the protection of the Bastille, to inhabit the famous Hotel Saint-Pol, to which the Palais des Tournelles was added afterward. Then, under the last of the Valois, royalty returned from the Bastille to the Louvre, which had been its first bastille. The first dwelling of the kings of France, Saint- Louis's palace, which had kept the simple name of Palais to signify the palace par excellence^ is entirely buried under the Palais de Justice, and forms its cellars, for it was built in the Seine, like the cathedral, and built so carefully that the highest tides of the river hardly covered the first steps. The Quai de 1' Horloge covers about twenty feet of these thousand-year-old buildings. Carriages roll by on a level with the capitals of the strong columns of these three towers, the elevation of which formerly must have been in harmony with the elegance of the palace and had a pictur- esque effect from the water, since to-day these towers still dispute height with the tallest monuments in Paris. When we contemplate this vast capital from the top of the lantern of the Pantheon, the Palais with the Sainte-Chapelle still appears the most monumental of all the buildings. This palace of kings, over which you walk when you traverse the immense Salle des Pas-Perdus, is a marvel of architec- ture, and is so still to the intelligent eyes of the poet who comes to study it while examining the Conciergerie. Alas ! the Conciergerie has invaded the palace of the kings. One's heart bleeds to see how jails, cells, corridors, apartments, and halls without light or air have been cut into this mag- loo PARIS nificent composition in which Byzantine, Roman, and Gothic, the three orders of ancient art, have been unified in the architecture of the Twelfth Century. This palace is to the monumental history of the France of the first period what the Chateau de Blois is to the monumental history of the second period. Just as at Blois you can ad- mire in the same court the chateau of the Comtes de Blois, that of Louis XII., that of Francois I., and that of Gaston, so at the Conciergerie you will find in the same enclosure the character of the early races, and in the Sainte-Chapelle the architecture of Saint-Louis. The Left Bank 1 FLOWER ^rARKET. FLOWERS IN PARIS ALPHONSE KARR FROM its origin, Paris seems to have been pre- destined for the capital of the civilized world. Julian says that Paris was surrounded with pleasant gardens full of fruits and flowers. We have letters patent of Clovis dated in the month of October in the year 500 of the Christian Era, in which he says: '' Paris is a brilliant queen over other cities ; a royal city, the seat and head of the empire of the Gauls. With Paris safe, the realm has nothing to fear," Paris was encircled with woods and gardens, the memory of which is still preserved by various names of streets and faubourgs, such as la Courtille^ la Culture- Sainte- Catherine^ etc.^ etc. The church that Clovis caused to be built near Sainte- Genevieve (a church first dedicated by him to Saint Peter and Saint Paul) was surrounded by vast gardens. His son, Childebert, formed a magnificent garden around the Palais des Thermes, says a contemporary, completely planted with roses and every other kind of flowers, as well as fruit-trees that this prince grafted himself. The queen, Ultrogothe, was passionately fond of flowers. 103 104 PARIS Charlemagne took so much pleasure in his gardens that he had one around each of his houses in the various provinces. He often occupies himself with his gardens in his Capitularies^ with great solicitude. " I desire," he says, " that there may be always in my gardens an abundance of lilies, roses, sage, rosemary, poppies, etc." Hugues Capet had two gardens in one of the islands called r lU-atix-TreilUs. Louis le Jeune, in 1160, gave to the chaplain of the chapel of Saint-Nicholas " six hogsheads of wine to take from these vineries." This garden occupied the place, where, in 1606, the Rue Harlay, the Place Dauphine and the quays were con- structed, and, in 167 1, the court of the Palais and the Rue la Moignon. Philippe Auguste had three gardens, one of which was called the King's garden, and another the Queen's garden. Charles V., who caused the Hotel Saint-Paul to be built, laid out there immense gardens celebrated for the beauty of their trellis-work and cherry-trees, whence come the names of the streets that take their place : Beautreillis and la Cerisaye. Under Francis I., appeared formal beds, grass-plots, and the taste for rare flovvers. In all ages the Parisians have loved flowers and gardens. A Trait'e de la Police^ published in 1799, complains of the obstinacy of the people in keeping gardens suspended over their windows. " Even those of the lower orders," says FLOWERS IN PARIS 105 the author, " who have no inheritances to plant make gar- dens for themselves in pots and boxes, being unable without great trouble and disquiet to do without them entirely." He adds : " The magistrates vainly oppose these gardens at the windows. After many ordinances prohibiting them, and many condemnations of prevaricators, no success was gained in preventing them, so strong is this affection for gardens which prevails even in the minds of the most indigent over their reason and their own interests." Under Louis XIV., Le Notre and La Quintinie were appointed councillors-directors of gardens, and Le Notre received the collar of the order of Saint-Michel. We find a multitude of ordinances of the kings of France relative to the gardens and gardeners of the city of Paris. Among others, there is a singular privilege for the osiers grown in the gardens of Saint-Marcel. The ordinance dates from 1473 and commences thus : " It is ordered and enjoined that nobody shall be so bold as to sell any other osiers that are grown elsewhere than in Saint-Marcel, etc." An ordinance of Henri III., in December, 1576, calls the gardeners his " beloved master-gardeners of the good city of Paris." The gardeners at that period formed a corporation hav- ing severe laws. The candidates had to undergo examina- tions for a baccalaureate. " Art. XVII. — It is forbidden that any gardener shall be io6 PARIS so bold, upon pain of prison and forty sols fine, to under- take any work at more than five sols Parisis^ unless he is a master or bachelor. "Art. XVIII. — Let none be so daring or bold as to un- dertake any task above five sols unless he is capable of doing good work and a masterpiece, and on a level with the duty of the sworn master-gardeners. "Art. XIX. — And since it has come to the knowledge of justice that various persons calling themselves master-gar- deners and bachelors, etc." The master-gardeners paid heavy imposts to the state. The author of the Traite de la Police says : " The wars which the late King Louis XIV. had to sustain against the great number of enemies obliged him to have recourse to various extraordinary means to meet the expenditures, etc." In fact, if the people had not contributed money for the expenses of the war, how would the authorities have been able to take their children out to be killed there \ Ah ! who will deliver the so-called civilized nations from these harvesters of laurels, gatherers of palms, and heroes brought up to homicide from their earliest infancy ? Under Louis XIV. the gardens also had their wigs. There is nothing so ugly or so ridiculous as those garden- beds cut up with sand of various colours and those trees subjected to forms that are most contrary to their nature. At the present moment, on the table on which I am writing I have before my eyes a book printed at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. FLOWERS IN PARIS 107 THE GARDENER FLORIST. Universal cultivation offtowers^ trees, etc., together with the manner of making all kinds of beds, porticos, columns and other pieces, etc. Here the author boldly cries : " We may say that the in- dustry of our gardeners has never reached such a high point as to-day ; " to judge of this we have only to look at the various figures they devised for elms. " Art surpasses nature," he adds, " in these edifices and porticos of verdure, etc." And he gives figures of elms forming from the base of their trunk upward " a kind of large pot without a handle whence issues the stem of the elm terminated by a perfectly round head ; " then he shows the image of a portico, then some yews cut into vases and animal forms, and he again cries : "Is there anything more beautiful or anything that reveals more grandeur ? " There were few flowers in the gardens of that day ; the author makes a great boast of the eight kinds of roses that he owns ; we may judge of the poverty of the gardens by the important place occupied in them by the sweet basil, better known to-day among the common people by the name of oranger de savetier. The princes of the blood and the peers of France made presents of flowers to the parliament of Paris; this was a fine, a homage that they rendered to the justice of the country to which they declared themselves in submission. It was called la haill'ee des roses. Unfortunately, it was not long before this ceremony was io8 PARIS performed with artificial flowers, and there was a " manufac- turer of roses " for the parliament. Under Louis XV. the odour of blossoms was preferred to manufactured perfumes, which had already been in fashion in the time of Queen Catherine de Medicis and her three sons, civet, castoreum, musk, and ambergris. This taste came from Italy, where flowers are so liberally cultivated, so richly coloured and so odorous. People took pleasure in anointing themselves with various excrements of species of rats, beavers, goats and whales ; for civet, castoreum, musk and ambergris are nothing else. In all ages flowers have been mixed up with politics, and not very felicitously. In the name of heaven be content with tigers, leopards, hawks, and as many headed eagles and other savage animals as you please for your escutcheons and coats-of-arms, but leave the flowers in peace ! Under the restoration of the Bourbons, the celebrated actress, Mile. Mars, was hissed and insulted for appearing on the stage with a bunch of violets. This brought about duels and public clamour. At that moment one might have applied to a portion of the Parisians what Aristoph- anes said of the Athenians : " Call them Athenaioi iosteph- anoi (crowned with violets), and they are no longer joyful." Anne of Austria could not endure either the sight or the scent of a rose : there is no need to mention that it was proscribed at court, talis rex^ talis grex. Gretry, the author of the Tableau parlant^ and la Caravane^ etc., had the same repugnance. FLOWERS IN PARIS 109 Louis XIV. liked strongly-scented flowers, he wanted an orange-tree in every room in his palace. Madame de Sevigne speaks of an entertainment given by the " Grand Roi" in which there were a thpusand crowns' worth of jonquils. Marie Antoinette was very fond of flowers ; she prob- ably owed the last agreeable sensation of her life to them. Shut up in a damp and pestiferous chamber of the Con- ciergerie, her only clothing was an old black dress and stockings which she took off, remaining bare-legged while she washed them herself. I do not know if I should have liked Marie Antoinette, but how can one help worshipping such great misery ? A brave woman, Madame Richard, keeper of the prison, took great happiness in making presents to her whom she was not allowed to address otherwise than as Widow Capet. Every day, and not without danger, she brought her a bunch of the flowers she loved : pinks, tuberoses, and espe- cially rockets, her favourite flower. Madame Richard was denounced and imprisoned. In a recently-discovered letter of Marie Antoinette's we learn that one of the circum- stances that most cruelly offended her in that miserable " affair of the necklace " was the audacity of the Cardinal de Rohan in saying or believing that he had " offered a rose " to the queen and that she had accepted it. *' What ! A man supposing that he had had a rendezvous with the Queen of France the daughter of his King ! That the Queen had accepted a rose from him ! I certainly did not no PARIS deserve that insult ! " (Letter from Marie Antoinette to the Archduchess Marie-Christine.) Later, another woman who had also sat upon the throne, Josephine, in retirement at Malmaison, sought consolation in flowers. With the assistance of an intelligent gardener named Dupont, she collected every species and variety of rose known in France, England, Belgium and Holland. Dupont produced various new kinds and increased the cat- alogue of roses. We owe a part of the roses we possess to the Empress Josephine. That is a crown that I prefer to her husband's crown of laurels. Another flower that plays a part in the history of Paris is the hawthorn, that pure and sweet adornment of the hedges. "On August 24th, 1572, King Charles IX. allowed the Huguenots who were in Paris to be slain by the Parisians, and the other towns that followed the example of Paris put to death those among them who were of that religion. This blood-letting, although some- what cruel, prevented a great inflammation." This reference to the St. Bartholomew is to be found in a book printed at Paris in MDCXLVI., with the privilege of the king, Louis XIV., then eight years of age, and already represented by a crown of laurels in the book of which I speak because the Due d'Enghien had captured Thionville and because the Marechal de Gassion had captured Gravelines : which was called the king's triumph of arms. Now then, on the day of St. Bartholomew the rumour FLOWERS IN PARIS iii spread that a stump of hawthorn that had been thought dead had suddenly burst into leaves and blossoms. This was a text for the preachers of the day to say very fine things and prove how greatly pleasing to God this massacre and hecatomb of men had been. The fact is reported by de Thou who makes fun of the preachers. In the successive embellishments of Paris, window-gar- dens have been definitely prohibited. These gardens were a subject of contest which dates from a long way back be- tween the citizens and the police. On this subject, ordi- nances dated in the reign of Louis XIII., exist against these poor gardens, and Martial speaks of the garden that he himself had on his window-sill : " Rus est mihi in fenestra J' On depriving the Parisians of this pleasure and so greatly enlarging the city that all the neighbouring country finds itself crowded together and suppressed, it is due to them that they should have the squares, to which however an English name should not be given. This is almost the sole objection that I have to offer to this excellent idea. I had often thought of the destiny of those poor girls of the people who pass their whole life in the centre of the city in those infected and obscure quarters, never hearing the first words of love at their ear and in their heart except on the stairways reeking of boiled cabbage, or under the portes-cocheres that exhale an odour mingled of mud and adulterated wine. 1 1 2 PARIS Thanks to these places planted with trees, to these pub- lic gardens established in each of the quarters, that is no longer the case. It is strange that Paris does not possess a flower-market convenient or simply covered over like the Holies. Why is there not a well-established Halle aux Fleurs like the Halle aux Legumes and the Halle aux Poissons ? REVERIE GEORGE SAND I KNOW of no city in the world where strolling rev- erie is more agreeable than in Paris. If the poor pedestrian through heat and cold meets innumerable tribulations there, it must also be confessed that in the fine days of spring and autumn, " if he knows his own happi- ness," he is a privileged mortal. For my part, I like to recognize that no vehicle, from the sumptuous equipage to the modest hack, can be compared, for sweet and smiling reverie, with the pleasure of making use of two good legs, on the asphalt or pavement, obeying the whim of their pro- prietor. Let him who will regret ancient Paris ; my intel- lectual faculties have never permitted me to know its de- tours^ although like so many others I have been brought up there. To-day, what great vistas, too straight for the artis- tic eye but eminently sure, allow us to go on for a long while with our hands in our pockets without going astray and without being forced every moment to consult the of- ficer at the corner or the affable grocer along the way. It is dangerous, I must confess, to be distrait in the centre of a large city which is not obliged to trouble itself about you when you do not condescend to take care of yourself. Paris is still far from finding a system of veri- "3 114 PARIS table safety that would separate the locomotion of horses from that of human beings, and that would succeed in sup- pressing, without prejudicing business necessities, those hand-trucks of which I am inclined, in passing, to complain a little. I would dare to maintain that absent-minded people, for the hundred perils that they still run in Paris, benefit by the compensation of a hundred thousand real and intimate joys. Whosoever possesses this precious infirmity of pre-occu- pation will join me in saying that I am not maintaining a paradox. In the atmosphere, in the view, and in the sound of Paris there is I know not what personal influence that is not to be found elsewhere. Nowhere is the charm char- acteristic of the temperate climate more delightfully mani- fested with its moist air, its rose skies, moire or pearly with the most vivid and delicate tints, the brilliant windows of its shops lavish with motley colour, its river, neither too narrow nor too broad, the soft clearness of its reflec- tions, the easy gait of its population, active and lounging at the same time, its confused noises in which everything is harmonized, every sound, that of the water population as well as that of the city having its proportions and distribu- tions wonderfully fortuitous. At Bordeaux or at Rouen, the voices and movement of the river dominate everything, and one might say that its life is on the water : at Paris, life is everywhere ; therefore everything there seems more alive than elsewhere. REVERIE 1 15 The new garden, arranged in dales and dotted with baskets of exotic flowers, is never anything more than the Petit Trianon of the classic decadence and the English garden of the beginning of the present century, perfected in the sense of multiplying the turns and accidental features in order to realize the aspect of natural landscape within a limited space. In our opinion, nothing is less justifiable than that title of landscape-garden which nowadays every bourgeois takes unto himself in his provincial town. Even in the more extensive spaces that Paris consecrates to this fiction, do not hope to find the charm of Nature. The smallest nook of the rocks of Fontainebleau, or of the wooded hill of Auvergne, the slenderest cascade of la Gargilesse, or the least known of the meanderings of the Indre has an aspect, a savour, a penetrating power alto- gether different from the most sumptuous compositions of our Parisian landscapists ! If you want to see the garden of the creation, do not go to the end of the world. There are ten thousand of them in France in spots where nobody is occupied and of which no one has any notion. Seek, and you will find ! But if you want to see the decorative garden par excellence^ you have it in Paris, and let us say at once that it is a rav- ishing invention. It is decoration and nothing else, make up your mind to that, but adorable and marvellous deco- ration. Science and taste have joined hands there ; make your reverence, it is a youthful household. The exotic vegetable worldj which has gradually revealed ii6 PARIS its treasures to us, is beginning to inundate us with its riches. Every year brings us a series of unknown plants, many of which doubtless have already enriched the herbals and troubled the notions of worried classifiers, but of whose aspect, colour, shape, and life we are ignorant. The many conservatories of the city of Paris possess a world of mar- vels which constantly grows and in which skillful and learned horticulturists may become initiated into the secrets of the preservation and reproduction proper to each species. Study has been given to the temperament of these poor exotics that perpetually vegetated in an artificial heat ; it has been discovered that some that were reputed delicate possess quite a rustic vigour, whilst others, more mysteri- ous, could not endure under our skies as severe cold as they patiently endured in their native earth. But, like an- imals, plants are susceptible of education, and I doubt not that the time will come when more than one that now has to be coaxed in order to live among us will come to pro- duce fruits or shoots gladly. We shall then have gratis before our eyes during every hour of the fine season, tropical forms, perhaps arborescent ferns that are already easy to transport under glass, not- withstanding their respectable age of several hundreds of centuries, splendid orchids, colossal latania-palms, shafts of vegetable columns whose age seems to mount to the age of the flowers of the coal-beds, sagitated leaves ten metres in length that look as if they had fallen from another planet, foliage of such brilliant colours as to eclipse that of REVERIE 117 the flowers, graminacece resembling clouds more than herbs, mosses lovelier than the velvet of our looms, perfumes un- known to the combinations of industrial chemistry, and, finally, gigantic living plants placed within the reach of everybody. Let us halt here, let us dream a little, since having passed our first astonishment and expressed our first admiration, our imagination carries us into distant regions, into still desert isles, and into those unknown solitudes whence the courageous and enthusiastic naturalist has brought us these treasures at the peril of his life. With regard to perils, we must not speak only of the caprices of the sea, of the venom of the rattle-snakes, and of the hurtful appetite of savage animals and indigenous cannibals, certain of whom are fond of white flesh with tomato sauce; the plants themselves sometimes possess more prompt and direct means of defence ; witness the beautiful nettle that we have seen covered with a natural silvery, viscous lye that we may touch but that is provided beneath with purple-coloured hairs of which the slightest contact with the skin causes death. Be comforted ! It will not leave its glass prison. We therefore wander some thousands of leagues from the Pare Monceaux. The rich decoration that environs us cannot long keep up the illusion for us : too many diverse regions, too many countries differing greatly and far distant from one another have contributed to this ornamentation which presents itself as an artistic resume of creation. We necessarily fly from one to another on the wings of intui- ii8 PARIS tion, and, ashamed of the number of things of which we are still ignorant, we are seized with the desire to travel in order to learn, or to learn in order to travel with pleasure and fruitfulness. Shall we leave the decorative gardens without dreaming about the delightful hydraulic trifles that now play so great a 7-ole in our embellishments ? Clarified by the rapid mo- tion, the water is always a music and radiance, the charm of which art cannot shatter. I have seen naturalist-artists absolutely furious against these ruinous playthings that pretend to remind them of nature and that they treat as puerile and monstrous coun- terfeits. They said : " Let them bring us the rocky and verduous wells of Tivoli with their whirls of impetuous water, or let them give us back the blowing Tritons of Versailles, the hydraulic concerts of the gardens of Frascati, and all the rococo follies, rather than these false grottoes and lying cascades. It is falsifying all the notions of the true, all the laws of taste, and all the sentiment of a gen- eration that they pretend they are making artistic and learned ! " They were indignant, and we could not calm them. Shall we share their anger ? No ! Between the reality and the accepted, between art and nature, there is a medium necessary for the sedentary enjoyment of a large majority of people. What a number of poor citizens never have and never will see the picturesque sights of Spain, Switzer- land, and Italy, and the enchantments of one's own view REVERIE 119 of the great features of mountain and forest, of lake and torrent, except through the fictions of our theatres and gardens ! It is impossible to provide them with real speci- mens ; we must limit ourselves to the copy of a detail, a nook, or an episode. I cannot bring you the ocean, be content with a reef and a wave. This detail would not gain in the least by having its already considerable pro- portions centupled in cost; it would not be more real. All that can be demanded of us is to make it pretty ; and, in this respect, our hydraulic playthings are without reproach. Formerly, they were much more costly, and transported us into a mythological world of marble or bronze which was not more successful in realizing the antique style or the poetry of the Grecian gardens and temples. They have long formed a separate style, entirely fanciful, which in- deed has its own charm, but which we must leave where it is. Apollo and his nymphs, Neptune and Amphitrite, have nothing more to say to us, unless they speak to us of Louis XIV., and his court. The thought of our epoch aims at making us love nature. Romanticism has disem- barrassed us of the fetiches that did not allow us to see her, to understand her and to love her for herself. What we want to teach our children is that grace is in the tree and not in the Hamadryad that formerly dwelt in it ; that the water is as beautiful on the rock as in the marble ; that the dreadful rock itself has its physiognomy, its colour, and its cherished plant, the wreathings of which make a won- derful tapestry for it; that the grotto-work has no need of 120 PARIS symmetry and a clothing of shells : it is only a question of imitating, with a truth-loving skill, their natural dispositions and their monumental, easy, or fantastic poses. Later on, if our children see how real Nature works, they will only enjoy her the more, and they will remember the grottoes of Longchamp, Monceaux and the Buttes-Chaumont, as we recall with pleasure and tenderness the little frail plant that we cultivate in our window ; and that we see blowing strong and glorious in our country. '^'^%^^;^'4L V', >^? LEJARDIN DES PLANTES LOUIS ENAULT I HE foundation of the Jardin des Plantes goes back to the year 1626. At the solicitation of Herouard and Guy la Brosse, his physicians, Louis XIII. authorized the acquisi- tion of twenty-four arpents in the Rue Saint-Victor and conferred the superintendence of the garden upon the first physician to the King and his successors. La Brosse had a parterre made forty-one toises in length and thirty-five in breadth, and there he caused to be planted all the plants that he had been able to procure. The garden was opened to the public in 1650. Over the principal door was written "Jardin royale des herbes m'edicinales : chairs of botany and anatomy were soon attached to the establishment. In 1660 Colbert founded a chair of the iconography of plants. Fagon, first physician to Louis XIV., at his own expense undertook the most active research in all provinces and presented to the garden a large number of new species. We already find a constellation of illustrious or recom- mendable men : Duverney, professor of anatomy ; GeofF- roy, chemistry ; Tournefort, botany ; Vaillant directs the cultivation and Antoine de Jussieu is sub-demonstrator. Fagon had the first hot-houses and the first amphitheatre 122 PARIS constructed j he began the museum of osteology and tied the youthful America in bonds of knowledge, Tourne- fort enriched the garden with a collection of plants brought from the Levant, and Du Fay offered to the cabinet his fine collection of precious stones. Buff"on was nominated superintendent of the garden in 1732. For the Jardin des Plantes this is the date of a new and glorious era. Buffbn enlarged the buildings, augmented the collections, embellished the gardens, added ground to them on all sides, reached the Seine and extended to the quay those two magnificent avenues of lime-trees that are still admired ; he had the large amphitheatre and the chem- ical laboratory built, and he himself drew up the plans that we admire to-day. But Buffbn's cares did not stop there: he obtained from the Academy of Sciences the cession of the Hunard collection of anatomy; from the King of Poland, a collection of minerals ; and from Cathe- rine of Russia, various objects of natural history and fine specimens of animals of the North. In 1792 Buffbn's successor was named Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. One loves to see that gentle and pure fame in the fresh haunt of lovely flowers and great trees : it was a good place in which to meditate on the Harmonies de la Nature. From its creation to our own day, the Jardin des Plantes has never ceased to increase, whether by free gifts or by onerous acquisitions, and it has thus become the most precious collection of its kind in the world. THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS NEIL WTNN WILLIAMS TO seme people it will come as a surprise to hear that there are catacombs at Paris. The fame of the similar collection of human remains at Rome would appear to have dwarfed out of sight the wondrous quarries that stretch beneath the greater portion of Southern Paris. Nevertheless, the catacombs of the French capital are a wonderful and a weird sight, and one that is open to any member of the public who makes a written application to Monsieur le Prefet de la Seine. Their historical origin is interesting, and aptly exemplifies the changes that time brings in its train. From a remote past down to the Seventeenth Century they were merely quar- ries whence stone was drawn, and drawn to keep pace with the growth of the city above them. The natural conse- quence of this drain upon the vitals of the city's support was a subsidence, in 1774, which, by damaging property and bringing about numerous accidents, informed the pub- lic that some one must do something, or that nobody would be left to do anything. In 1777 a still stronger hint from below aroused the government to an activity, which expended its energy in supporting with piers and buttresses the most dangerous 123 124 PARIS portions of the affected area. These works, continued from year to year, proved a fertile source of expense. In 1784 the question arose as to the disposal of the relics of mortality which were to be removed from the disused ,cemetery of the Innocents. It was suggested that the quarries should be still further strengthened and rendered compact by their adoption as catacombs. The suggestion met with approval, was adopted, and the transfer of the vast accumulation of bones entered upon with all due precautions. It was thus that the quarries became the garner-room of the Destroyer ; it was thus, as the various cemeteries within the city ceased to yawn for their dead, that they were made to yield up their silent tenants. In 1786 the catacombs were solemnly consecrated. At this period the bones and skulls were being cast down on the floors of the caverns and passages in great heaps, with- out any attempt at order or arrangement ; nor was it till the year 18 12 that the authorities commenced the work which has culminated in the present artistic presentment of that which once formed the framework of living thou- sands. Come ! we will descend together as two members of the public, and see a portion of this underground and silent world that extends its ramifications beneath two hundred acres of Paris. We are in possession of our "permits," and according to direction find ourselves at the principal entrance on the right of the Place Denfert-Rochereau. THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 125 We take our places in the queue of those about to de- scend. We buy candles. An obliging stranger tears ofF a square piece from a newspaper and hands it to us with a polite bow. The careful, courteous man ! He explains to us that presently it will be useful, if only " les messieurs " will adopt this plan of catching the droppings of a flickering candle held in the bare hand ; and so saying he triumphantly thrusts his candle with a ripping, tearing noise through the paper. The idea is good, so good that it travels along the queue^ and each candle soon boasts a paper guard. One o'clock strikes. The door guarding the entrance to ninety steps that lead to below swings open. Its harsh grating is the signal for a brisk fusillade of match-firing reports. The matches are applied to the candles ; a strong odour of tallow seethes through the mellow sunshine, and through its sickly fumes we commence to slowly advance. Already the leading file has vanished within the doorway, and as we in turn approach the orifice a dull roar pours sullenly out to meet us. Tramp, tramp, tramp — we have passed beneath the archway, we are descending the spiral of the stone staircase. The air is heavy with the clangour of ponderous footfalls — murky with candle smoke that veils with weird effect the flickering, draught-driven light. As far, and just so far, as we can see above and below us, all is in movement ; dresses, coats, candles whirl slowly, un- certainly downward. The very walls seem to writhe in the uncertain light, to mutter and to moan with inarticulate voices. 126 PARIS Down, down, down ! All are in the rock-home of Death. A moment's pause, a silence falls on the chatter- ing crowd. Then, affrighted with their second's fear, they sway onward through a rocky gallery. Rock on either side of them, rock above them ; here bare and arid, there slimy with oozing water and fowl growths. The passage broadens out, it narrows, and ever and ever there is the black line on the roof that marks the road. Suddenly a black shadow on the left or to the right. The eye plunges into the depths of these side roads, and recoils aghast at their mysterious gloom. The lights file on. A thin glitter seams a dark gap with a flickering, broken line of light. " Ah," says the guide. "Yes, a chain ! " Still, forward, the shadows to right and left grow in size ; some have a sentry silently guarding their obscurity from rash obtrusion ; where there is no sentry there is a chain. A sudden check from in front breaks the continuity of the forward movement. We move on again, and lo ! the rocks on either hand contract, change colour, break out into the gruesome de- sign of a symmetrically built wall of bones and skulls. From the level of our heads down to the level of our feet, skull rests upon skull, and leans back upon the myriad bones behind. The shivering candlelight falls with unequal rays upon the formal tiers; it flashes coldly upon the grin- ning teeth, penetrates the mortarless crannies of the wall, and ever shows bones of many shapes and curves. Now it lights up a rent in some skull — a ghastly, jagged wound THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 127 which haunts one with the thought of foul murder. Anon, it shimmers with erratic play on the trickling water that, pursuing its silent way from year to year, has crusted with a smooth gloss the skull beneath. Again the crowd checks. In the moment's pause you approach the wall. An earth-stained skull, perhaps larger than its comrades, centres your attention on his sunken orbits. You brood over it, are drawn to it, and as in a dream lay hands on its smooth cranium. The cold, clammy contact ! Ah ! how different from the warmth of a loving friend. Yet perchance, this, this too, was once a friend, the load-stone of a deep, broad love. On again, once more, and this time quicker. The skulls flash past in confused lines. It is the dance of death. A rock shoots into view, bursts through the skulls. It is marked with black characters, which tell you that " it is sometimes better to die than to live." Rock and lettering fade back into darkness, but again and again the light outlines a phrase such as " Tombeau de la Revolution" " Tombeau des Victimes" or a motto that sinks deep into the soul. The designs in skull and bone become more complicated. The walls become more lofty, rush from straight lines into curves, assume the form of chapels. Around and about you are skulls, skulls, skulls. Once these residues of men were even as you and I are now. Think of it, each mouldering bone was once part of a life — a life ! But now, Tragedy and Comedy lie indifferently side by side. 128 PARIS Riches and poverty, the great and the low, lie jaw by jaw. None too great, none too humble to enter into Death's lavish gift to the darkness that reigns in the catacombs. Their world has passed away, and the old order has given place to the new that now surges and seethes by their crumbling bones. They have been but a tide in the ocean of life, they have flowed and they have ebbed. But even as you dream or gibe, according to tempera- ment, in one of these chapels, a faint, prolonged rustle comes stealing to the ear, swells and falls, and vanishes mysteriously as it came. What was it ? The guide catches an inquiring eye, and explains, with a wealth of incisive gesture, that it is the rats moving. He makes the blood run cold with the hor- ror of his account of those who have been lost in the cata- combs and hunted to their death by the sharp-teethed rodents. He expatiates with pardonable pride on the precautions now taken by the authorities to guard against casualties of this nature, and sinks his voice to a whisper as he mentions the lost hundred of 187 1. He points to the dark, chain- barred passages as he tells you who and what these men were. 'Tis a tale that dwells in a blood-red past — a past which gave birth to the Commune of '71. The Germans had besieged Paris and taken it ; they had entered the city as conquerors, and with their departure the humiliated, su- persensitive city was to be further outraged by its own THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 129 baser passions. The National Guard had been even during the siege disaffected toward the Government of the Repub- lic, and with the departure of the Germans, it saw in the weakness of the Government then located at Versailles its opportunity for revolt. Not having been disarmed, it pos- sessed a brute force which gave it courage to act — it carried off the cannon to the heights of Montmartre and Belleville, under the plausible excuse of preserving them from the enemy. This was, in effect, revolt ; and so President Thiers read it : He attempted the removal of the cannon on March, '71. He failed 5 and so commenced the insurrection of the Commune and a siege of Paris. A hundred thousand National Guards, together with the desperate characters common to every great city, were the thews and the sinews of this social revolution, which was directed against property and labour-masters. It was in- itiated by working men, but in its short life of two months it was to seek the power of the devil of cruelty, and to en- courage to the surface of Parisian life the petrokur and p'etro- leuse. It was to grow drunk with blood, and with sottish fury to fire the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the Tuileries, the Ministry of France ; it was to corrupt its own body with murderous excess, and to slay by day and by night. Within the restraining influence of the Repub- lican army concentrated at Versailles, it stung itself like a fire-imprisoned scorpion. But the debilitated Government at Versailles was re- 130 PARIS cuperating ; it drew the siege closer, and hurled shot and shell faster and faster into the writhing city. It sent out its troops under Marshal MacMahon, and with bayonet and bullet it bore down the Communists, slew them without trial, without mercy, with no quarter for petroleur or p'etroleuse. Ten thousand corpses lay beneath its Victory ; the streets and prisons were red with blood ; the mark of the destroyer was on mansion and humblest of humble buildings. By the lurid light which the recollections of the Com- mune emit, the guide's answers to a bystander, that the lost hundred were insurgents and part of the garrison of Fort Vanves, becomes powerfully suggestive. And to here a question and there a question he makes reply, of how the insurgents fled before the Republican troops, on the fall of Fort Vanves. And how they had rushed away from the bayonets on their track to endeavour to seek safety in the silent gloom of the catacombs. His graphic words, intensified by the environment, re- construct the scene, paint it with the vivid colours of a nightmare to the eyeballs straining to the dark mouth of the passages beyond. In thought, he takes us with the panic- stricken soldiers into the labyrinth. We feel a feverish fear of pursuit driving us further into the secretive gloom. A halt — and our labouring hearts grow calmer amidst the silence that yields no shout, no muffled footfall of pursuer. But our torches consume faster and faster away ; we must again seek light of day. Yet how ! Everywhere, road THE CATACOMBS OF PARIS 131 across road, silent skull by silent skull, with never a clue to the open air, to the living world above. Again panic seizes us ; we run, run madly with many a stumble, for life. Exhaustion finds us alone. Our comrades gone. Our torch, guarded with trembling hand, burning low. We hear the rats gathering in their hordes outside the pale of kindly, merciful light. They throw down a skull that rolls heavily to our feet. The light Ah ! It must have been awful to have died in that thick blackness with never a ray of light or hope. And we grow thankful that, as two of the public, we move on and on to the exit at the Rue Dareau, and find there life and sun- shine. SAINT-6TIENNE DU MONT S. SOPHIA BEALE THE convent of Sainte-Genevieve was founded by Clovis, and so extensive were its lands and de- pendencies that ere long it drew to it a large population of workmen and labourers for the cultivation of its land. A priest, one of the monks of the abbey, was appointed to take spiritual charge of these people ; and from this commencement grew the parish of Saint-Etienne. Originally the congregation worshipped in the crypt of the abbey church. But at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century the congregation outgrew its chapel, and in 1224 the Bishop of Paris authorized the building of a church by the side of the abbey, to be consecrated to the memory of Saint-£tienne, the proto-martvr. The reason for changing its name for the third time was probably the demolition of a church dedicated to Saint Stephen to make space for Notre-Dame. The first church lasted three hundred years, and then again, the population having increased enormously, Saint- Etienne was found to be too small for its congregation, and another and finer church was projected. In 149 1 it was deemed better to rebuild than to patch up and enlarge the church J but many years passed in projects and delays, and 132 SAINT-ETIENXE DU-MONT. SAINT-ETIENNE DU MONT 133 it was only in 15 17 that the work was actually commenced. Abbot Philippe Lebel finished the choir in 1537, and in 1 54 1 the Bishop Megare consecrated the altars in the name of the Bishop of Paris ; but that the church was not fin- ished in 1552, or even in 1563, diocesan permission to ap- ply the Lenten offerings to the work is sufficient proof. The jube was commenced in 1600, the porches nine years later, and the chapel of the Virgin (rebuilt) was only fin- ished in 166 1. It was Queen Marguerite de Valois, the lady who so strangely prances about Paris upon a white palfrey at dead of night in the much-admired controversial opera, who laid the first stone of the great portal in 1610; and, moreover, she gave a sum of three thousand livres to aid the work; but what was this when so much was wanted ? All was not complete until 162&, and meanwhile the alms during Lent was appropriated to the building fund. However, on the 25th of February, 1626, the church and the high altar were dedicated to the glory of God and of the Virgin Mary by the " reverendissime messire 'Jean- Francois de Gondi" archbishop of Paris. Saint-£tienne is a cruciform building, very much leaning to the right (as is common in old churches), with a nave, two aisles, and nineteen chapels. The transepts scarcely project beyond the nave. The exterior is a mass of ele- gant ornamentation, and on the north side, under the win- dows, is a passage which connects the porch of the second bay with the charnier^ a sort of a cloister, built at the end of the Lady Chapel, exterior to the church. The 134 PARIS enclosure within this cloister was formerly the little burial- ground -y the great cemetery being situated in the square which fronts the church. There is something extremely coquettish and fascinating about the building, with its high-pitched roof, springing from a Renaissance facade, and its Fifteenth Century tower surmounted by a pepper-box lantern. The old church of the abbey, which completely joined Saint-£tienne, has been entirely swept away to make room for the Rue Clovis; but the refectory and the tower still form a part of the Lycee Henri IV., a little turret at the easternmost angle of Saint-£tienne indicating the extremity of the monastery's domains. The interior of Saint-£tienne is no less singular than the exterior. The side aisles are nearly as high as the nave, and have enormous windows. The shafts which support the vault of the nave are of great height, and the bays are of the same elevation as the side aisles. Above these bays is a clerstory, the windows of which are as broad as they are high, with depressed pointed arches. In order to diminish the enormous height of the bays, the architect conceived a curious device. At about one-third of the height of the shafts he has thrown a depressed arch from pillar to pillar, which forms an elevated passage round the church. It is arrested at the transepts, but taken up again round the choir. The passage encircling each pillar is just wide enough to enable a person to walk. These turnees^ as the old records call the gallery, and the splendid /a^^ form SAINT-ETIENNE DU MONT 135 i a distinctive feature of the church. On the side of the nave the turn'ee has an open pilaster balustrade, and at the entrance of the choir it joins the jube. On each side of this spiral staircase leading up first to ih^ jube^ and then, a second flight to the choir gallery, the former being formed of a single flying-arch supported by two pilasters. The whole screen is ornamented with rich carving. When the Abbey of Port-Royal was destroyed in 17 10, the body of Racine was transferred to Saint-Etienne and placed in the crypt of the Lady Chapel by the side of Pascal; and in 1808 a Latin epitaph, composed by Boileau, which was discovered in the pavement of the church of Magny-les-Hameaux, was also transferred. Ten years later, on April 21st, 1818, a great function was held in honour of the poet and the author of those much-loved Pens'ees ; the Academy sent a deputation, and one of their members, the Abbe Sicard, officiated. Eustache Lesueur, the somewhat feeble painter of the Life of Saint-Bruno, was also buried at Saint-£tienne. Many other names adorn the list of those laid to rest in the churches or burial grounds of the parish ; Vigenere, secretary to Henri IIL, 1598; the surgeon, Thognet, 16423 Antoine Lemaistre, and Lemaistre de Sacy, brought from Port Royal in 1710; the botanist, de Tournefort, 1708; Rollin, rector of the University, who died in 1741, in the Rue Neuve de Saint-£tienne du Mont, which was re- named after him. But it is the glass of Saint-Etienne which is perhaps its 136 PARIS chief glory. Although a great deal has been destroyed and patched up, much remains which is quite worthy of study, being as it is, in the best style of the Sixteenth and Seven- teenth Centuries, and the work of Jean Cousin, Claude Henriet, d'Enguerrand Leprince, Pinaigrier, Michu, Fran- cois Periez, Nicolas Desengives, Nicolas Lavasseur, and Jean Mounier. But, unhappily, mendings and patchings have quite destroyed our power of discovering to which artist the different windows are due. The main attraction of Saint-£tienne is the tomb of Sainte-Genevieve. Long before the Pantheon ceased to be the church of the maid of Nantcrre, it was to Saint- £tienne that the faithful journeyed to pray for her interces- sion, and to have their belongings laid upon her coffin. Here, any day, but especially during the octave of hcv fcte^ you may see people bringing handkerchiefs, rosaries, crosses, towels, etc., to be placed in the shrine, in order to carry the Saint's blessing and help to the sick and the suffering at home. The stone coffin is said to have been found in the crypt of the abbey church during its demolition in 180 1, but whether it be the original one in which Sainte-Genevieve was buried in 511, it is impossible to say, as it is so surrounded by ornamental ironwork that its workmanship cannot be studied ; but the effect of the little chapel containing this tomheau^ with its lights and flowers and stained-glass, is very charming, and during the neuvaine^ when the church is ablaze with candles, and hundreds of people font queue to the shrine, it is a sight not easily forgotten. m^t^^"^" ^f!S^ li fe^c'>«f SifV r II :"^ti^®?^r;''|^-r, v-c THE QUARTIER LATIN THEODORE DE BANVILLE 'HE Quartier Latin, a designation that everybody understands, although it is merely ideal, and does not correspond to any of the municipalities of Paris, comprises almost the whole of the fifth and sixth arrondissements ; it is a vast district vi^hich is bounded on the north by the Seine, Quai des Augustins, Quai Saint- Michel, and Quai Saint-Bernard; on the south by the Boulevard du Montparnasse ; on the w&st by the Rue Bonaparte ; on the east by the Halle aux Vines ; and contains the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, I'lnstitut, la Monnaie, Saint Germain-des-Pres, Saint Sulpice, la Charrete, Le Luxem- bourg, le Palais du Senat, I'Hotel de Cluny, Saint-Severin, Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, 1' Ecole de Medicine, les lycees Saint-Louis, Napoleon and Louis-le- Grande, la Sorbonne, le College de France, I'lnstitution Sainte-Barbe, the libraries of Sainte-Genevieve and Mazarine, I'Ecole de Droit, le Pantheon, la Pitie, le Jardin des Plantes, I'Ecole normale, and I'Ecole polytechnique. No quarter has been more profoundly modified by the works that have transformed Paris than this one ; and yet none has better preserved its own physiognomy ; for it possesses a moral vitality, an idea, something like a soul in 137 138 PARIS short, against which hammers and pick-axes can avail little. Thus, great boulevards, altogether similar to those of central Paris, boulevards vi^ith their wide causeways, their young trees, their stone houses, their great commercial counters, and their luxurious shops have been created and, so to say, brought there by magic ; the noise, the throng, and the tumult of a busy life would make one think that one was in the heart of the city ; but two steps away there is study, calm, and silence ; this new Paris which has flowed thither like a river has not been able to change the old Paris that touches its banks in the least ; side by side with the Boulevard Saint-Michel, so agitated and full of life, the court of the Sorbonne still has between its paving-stones, as in the Seventeenth Century, the slender blades of grass of vivid green which give it so sweet and so poetic an aspect. Opposite the Hotel de Cluny, so pompously restored, are hovels where tatters, faiences, stamped metal, and old furniture give us the idea of a sleepy provincial town in which land and space are of no account. Moreover, and this is especially the strange anomaly that should be noted, "we scarcely find any remaining traces of the Quartier Latin of Balzac and Gavarni ; but that of Felibien, Dubellay and Sauval still exists. You would hunt in vain in the street that was the Rue Copeau for a youthful Rastignac threatening Paris and summoning it to a duel, but the race of scholars of the Maistres, the Lenormants, and the Etienne Bonets survives in spite of everything. We must relegate among the vanished phantoms the THE QUARTIER LATIN 139 strange and charming young man of the Etude de Moeurs who said : ** I leave you my pipe and my wife : take good care of my pipe ! " but the echo of the Latin country has not entirely forgotten the scholar of the Fourteenth Century who joyously chanted the Departement des livres! Chacum enquiert et veut savoir Queje aifet de mon avoir, Et comment je suis si despris Que «' ai chape ne mantiau gris, Cote, ne sorcot, ne tabart. Tout est ale a male part, A Gaudelus lez La Ferte La les sai-je mon A. B. C, Et ma patenostre a Soisson, Et mon Credo a Monloon, Et mes set siaumes a Tornai, Mes quinze siauj?ies a Cambrai, Et mon sautier a Besencon, Et mon kalendier a Dijon. It is true that we may henceforth go through the whole of the old city situated on the left bank of the Seine with- out finding any of the eccentric habits and customs, the variety of which gave it so essentially picturesque a char- acter ; but was not this ending foreseen ! How could the student of to-day persist in being what the studeht of former times was, when the inevitable establishment of the Duval with its mouldings, its gildings and its ceilings of exotic woods was installed in a palace, and when in the Rue des Gres, where the Middle Ages had strongly left their imprint, an English tavern might be seen selling its roast beef, its York ham, its pickles, its sauces of Hanneton pile (see 140 PARIS Balzac) its pale ale and its Irish whiskey, as in the Rue Royale and in the Rue de la Madeleine ! All cats are grey at night; but under the gas-light everybody should be dressed like Brummel, by Dusautoy or Bonne, and, in each of the taverns of the new boulevard, the gas sheds torrents of light on the young consumers, without troubling about the amount of the income of their parents. This is why a young man who has an income of three thousand francs must spend four thousand at his tailor's to-day. To the problem : to be content with the money you possess, the following has succeeded : to get the money we need ; — a problem the solution of which is very hard to find by young people whose studies cost a great deal and do not bring anything in, except in the future. But is it solely and absolutely because the aspect of life has changed that the students have entirely altered their way of living ? No ! that is one cause, but not the only one. Another reason, a thousand times more important and more decisive, has brought about the new state of affairs, and it is this. Formerly, young men invariably studied law and medicine only for the purpose of making their living later by practicing the art of healing, or one of the liberal professions to which the study of law serves as a foundation. To-day, this unity of aim has been con- siderably modified, and the students naturally divide into two classes. The first (and these do not form the ma- jority,) carry on this healthy and ancient tradition ; but the others, on the contrary, only require from the study of law THE QUARTIER LATIN 141 or medicine the means promptly to enter a lucrative pro- fession where permanent appointments ofFer a sweet se- curity. As for the medical students, those who are up to date, and consequently want to be rich, know that genius, patience, will, and intense labour under the lamp are neces- sary to produce a Velpau, a Trousseau, or a Piorry, and, not feeling the vocation of becoming that poor and blessed providence that is called a country doctor, they study medi- cine with their thoughts on journalism, and in the direction of special establishments, and thermal waters, on the dis- covery of marvellous springs and universal panaceas, in a word, not on being doctors. Therefore, among medical and law students, it is not astonishing that those whose dream is to become rapidly rich should adopt from the very outset the livery and habits that characterize the lovers of Rapid Fortune. Formerly, among the students, the pure included all ! Their parents' money, laboriously and honourably gained in the provinces, in the noble toils of agriculture or of liberal professions, they intended to give entirely to triumphs, to study, to curious researches of the mind ; and also, it must be confessed, to pleasure and to love (the reign of which at that day still existed), but they did not let it exclude in- dustry and social decency. For them, what was necessary was a solid and serious instruction gained by assiduity in the various courses, by reading in their own rooms and in the libraries, by frequenting the newspaper offices, or the museums, and the theatre, where literature still flourished : 142 PARIS the excess was those love affairs of the joyous and flowery garret which even so much execrable poetry, so many inept lithographs, and all the poncifs in the world have not suc- ceeded in dishonouring in our memory, because they pos- sessed the delightful charm of poverty, of the unexpected, of disinterestedness and of youth ! Heroes of disorderly balls, school-truants in the days of lilac, hissers of neo- classic tragedies at the Odeon, they also knew how to give respectful attention in the classes of illustrious professors, to grow pale under the lamp over their books, and finally to prepare themselves by persistence and deep study to become useful men, and at the same time free from all commercial fraud. These careless fellows, these fools, in fact, spent the best of their youth in studying the physical and moral life of man, and in silently weighing the most serious problems. Under the iron hand of science, they preserved a lively love of art and liberty, and felt it burn within them. Let the poet speak, and they responded to his voice with all the enthusiasm of fiery souls; let the hour strike for shaking off a tyranny, and they dashed among bullets, bleeding and joyous, their hands black with powder, and their voices, accustomed to humming the songs of love and wine, intoned the brass strophes of la Marseillaise with a sublime thirst for death and sacrifice ! Such was this youth at that day, ardent, savage, singular, and so serious at bot- tom, whose fatherland and estates were the Quartier Latin, and who affected the exhibition of singular manners so that THE QUARTIER LATIN 143 the peaceable ordinary people who were their neighbours should esteem themselves happy in letting them live in peace in their own way. But in speaking of an epoch that is already distant, it is necessary to sketch the material features of the Quartier Latin ; for only by this means will the reader be able to understand how the students could live in Paris as if they had been a thousand leagues away, and in it preserve their traditions, their usages, and their laws like an independent nation. Two long streets, black, narrow, tortuous and intermi- nable, the Rue de la Harpe and the Rue Saint-Jacques, on the east, formed the communication between the He de la Cite, which was the cradle of Paris, and the Mont Sainte- Genevieve, which was the cradle of the University ; on the west, the He de la Cite was connected as it still is with the Luxembourg by the Rue Dauphine. I desire in a few lines to show the physiognomy of the two great streets of the Quartier Latin as we might have seen them before the transformation of Paris. Scarcely had the stroller entered the Rue de la Vieille- Boucherie, which was then the beginning of the Rue de la Harpe, when he felt that he was not at home and that he had just penetrated into domains particularly affected by special people, among whom one could only come as a stranger or a guest. Penthouse shops, constructed on a Gothic model, black and smoky houses, — nothing smelt of modern civilization ; and it was easy to see that the active circulation of money had not penetrated thus far. In the 144 PARIS Rue de la Harpe, it was different again ; the old hotels, the sombre houses with wrought-iron balconies had allowed time to blacken their noble facades tranquilly ; as for the relatively modern houses, corpulent and deep, leaning against one another like infirm people, pierced with irregular windows, and sometimes without tiles, only adorned by the signs of a few strange shops and by the creeping plants, pots of flowers and Parisian gardens hanging at the old windows, or at the cornices, from the Rue de la Parche- minerie, which has not changed since the Middle Ages, to the old Saint-Michel, they naively and sincerely told of the lives of their inmates. Moreover, it was quite useless to consult the stones, and the personages explained them- selves. Young, gay, with breasts uncovered without los- ing any of their native distinction, coquettishly clothed in velvet and all kinds of fantastic costumes, with Basque caps or Rubens hats on their heads, they went along the streets singing, lounging, gaping in the air, alone, or in couples, or in troops, or three by three, gladly selling their books at the old book-sellers* to go to the wine-shop ; — a custom which, as every one knows, dates from the Fifteenth Century ! At that time, the exchange was conducted even more frankly, for generally the book-seller was at the same time a tavern-keeper : so that if the scholar, who came to buy a book, by chance felt the pangs of thirst he sold back to the book-seller for a jug of wine the book he had just bought and which if he was seized with a desire to work he found himself forced to buy it back again. Thanks to this THE OUARTIER LATIN 145 essentially archaic and naive combination, the tavern-book- seller realized splendid profits by constantly selling and re- selling the same volumes, a speculation of which assuredly M. Hachette or M. Michel Levy has never thought. In seeing the happy-go-lucky ways that the students allowed themselves about 1840, gloomy spirits might have been tempted to deny progress ; they would have been mistaken however, and I want no other proof than these lines by the savant, Quicherat : " Except the professor's chair (in 1500), the classes had no benches nor seats of any kind ; the rooms were strewed with straw during the winter, and fresh grass during the summer. The pupils had to wallow in this so-called glitter as an act of humility." We see that in comparison with the past, which was curious in more ways than one, the eccentricity of the young men of 1840 was a very small matter. Besides, it had a more noble motive and spring of action than is thought. Having decided courageously to submit to their somewhat harsh and rude destiny, and to study while liv- ing on almost nothing, so as not to involve their families in debt, the students accepted their honest misery with an out- ward semblance of gaiety and ardent folly, preferring to scandalize the Boertians than to excite their tenderness and pity, while casting over their poverty the sole mantle that ever successfully hid the lack of money : the careless fantasy of the artist ! Much wiser at bottom than they seemed to be, they wore Basque caps for the sake of econ- omizing the sixteen francs required for a silk hat ; and not 146 PARIS being able to buy well-made hats they went about in little fool's-caps and in light robes painted with flowerets. Not possessing any means to provide themselves with luxuries, and with it to make sad and false great ladies, at least they did not refuse them their arm ; they acknowledged them with sincere affection and showed them with pride in the full noonday glare ! It was slight courage, moreover, for, not being obliged to appear rich, these girls took the trouble to be young, and adorned with childish grace, and fresh as roses, at a time when people did not yet abuse that flour improperly called rice-powder ! They have been celebrated thousands and thousands of times, — those lovers of the first spring and of the twentieth year, who loved songs and whose entire toilette was not worth a couple of louis ! They have not been celebrated sufficiently even yet ; for, sprung from the people, they worked without fearing the pricks of the needle , they inhabited garrets furnished above all with the garland of fresh flowers at the old window ; they loved their lovers without thinking of getting them- selves enriched or married, and without any pretention save that of spending with them those years of youth that so quickly fly away ; and, when the dream came to an end, they bravely continued their daily work, they sewed ! And when they had returned to the humble sphere of their fleet- ing amours, they made memories that charmed the whole of a rough and laborious life. As for the students, they had the courage to love them without ruining their families for them. Nowadays perhaps they would have the right to THE QU ARTIER LATIN 147 be less scrupulous ; for, in a family where the son plays at the Bourse like his father, he can sometimes say to himself that his father has the chance of awakening to-morrow morning a millionaire, and, if not his father, then perhaps himself. But at that time we were far from the beautiful days of the Bourse and its maddening enchantments ! HOTEL DE CLUNY PROSPER MERIMEE PIERRE DE CHASLUS, Abbe de Cluny, about 1340, acquired for his order the Roman ruins icnown under the name of the Palais des Thermes, situated in Paris between the Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue de la Harpe. In this place a century later, another Abbe de Cluny, Jean de Bourbon, the natural son of John I., Duke of Bourbon, laid the foundation of the Hotel that exists to-day. Probably these works accelerated the ruin of various parts of the ancient palace, which at that period presented a considerable series of buildings. As is known, it had been built by Constantine Chlorus, and successively occupied by Julian, Valentinian and Valens during the stay of those Emperors in the north of Gaul. Some of our kings of the first and second race held their court there. On looking at the immense halls that still exist and the Roman sub-structures, traces of which are found through- out the quarter, we can gain an idea of the truly colossal proportions of the ancient palace. The death of Jean de Bourbon, in 1485, interrupted the building of the Hotel that had been begun ; but, five years afterward, it was resumed by his successor, the Abbe Jacques d'Amboise (brother of the cardinal), afterwards Bishop of Clermont, who completed it. 148 HOTEL DE CLUNY 149 Superb and magnificent, in fact, must have been the abode of the rich abbes who were brought to the court by their affairs. They were not the people to put up in an inn, much less in a monastery. Their house, as they modestly called it, in 15 15 lodged a queen, Mary of England, widow of Louis XIL, and sister of Henry VIIL In 1536, James v.. King of Scotland, on the day of his entry into Paris, alighted at the Hotel de Cluny, where he was received by Francois I., who was going to give his daughter, Magdeleine, to him in marriage. After the kings, the princes of the House of Lorraine and the Papal Nuncios lodged in the House of Cluny. I cannot say whether the abbes leased or lent it, but I incline to the latter for they were sufficiently great lords to exer- cise hospitality even toward sovereigns. However, at the end of the Eighteenth Century the hardness of the times obliged them to get some return from their property. The Revolution did not allow them to collect their rents very long. Alienated for the national good, the Hotel de Cluny passed successively through the hands of several owners. Industries were established there which paid little attention to repairs, or, if any were made, they only resulted in altering the character of the building. None of those who were brought to the Hotel de Cluny by curiosity had thought of making the slightest attempt of rescuing from the vandals a monument so remarkable by its architecture and memories until 1833, when M. A. du Sommerard, Councillor in the Cour des Comptes came ISO PARIS to establish himself in it with his rich collection. To-day, when financiers and beautiful women pay gold by the pound-weight for more or less antique curiosities, it is hard to explain how a magistrate who only possessed a modest fortune had succeeded in gathering together so much furniture and so many rarities of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The fact is he had appreciated the merit of these objects before the vile flock of imitators ; he had studied the Middle Ages at a time when no one cared about them. Admiring the beautiful under all its forms, he had early perceived that in making goblets or caskets, Benvenuto Cellini had shown himself as skillful an artist as when he modelled his Perseus. M. du Sommerard had hunted through Italy and France collecting all the ancient utensils and furniture on which he found an elegant and characteristic ornamentation. He had first attached him- self to the productions of the Renaissance ; but he was not one of those amateur maniacs who adopt an epoch and who indiscriminately buy everything associated with it good or bad, for the sake of completing it^ as they say in their jargon. M. du Sommerard had too much good taste to fall into that rut. At a period when the art of the Middle Ages was at once entirely unknown and despised, he eagerly sought enamels, ivories, and all that mass of admirably- wrought furniture that had escaped the destructions that are unfortunately so frequent in our country. On establishing himself in the Hotel de Cluny, only one apartment of which he occupied, M. du Sommerard con- HOTEL DE CLUNY 151 stituted himself the benevolent conservator of the last civil edifice of the Middle Ages vi^hich existed after so many transformations of old Paris. At his death, in 1842, the de- struction of the Hotel de Cluny would have been a public scandal. It w^as feared that the collection so often coveted by rich foreigners might be dispersed and lost to the country. At the desire expressed by the Commission of Historical Monuments, the Government brought forw^ard a law for the acquisition of the Hotel and the Collection. If my memory serves me, the law passed almost without discus- sion, and the city of Paris immediately hastened to off'er to the State as a free gift the Palais des Thermes, contiguous to the Hotel, and municipal property since 18 19. Thus, by a happy concurrence of circumstances, these two curi- ous edifices were finally preserved for the Arts and received the most fitting destiny : the Roman palace offered an asy- lum to the scattered fragments of ancient Lutetia; the Hotel of the Fifteenth Century was opened to the mediaeval productions of art and industry. The new establishment, constituted by the law of July 24th, 1843, ^as placed un- der the superintendence of the Commission of Historical Monuments. The collection of M. du Sommerard was piled up in a somewhat narrow apartment. Although largely augmented by recent acquisitions, it is now comfortable in vast halls where it has received a methodic classification which has not excluded a picturesque disposition. Whilst the anti- quarian bending over a glass case studies an enamel or a 152 PARIS faience plate, a painter studies the effects of light playing over carved woods, or reflected in the armour. Among the numerous visitors to the museum, one often notices young workmen with an intelligent look who know how to handle the rule and pencil, taking notes and measurements before some old piece of furniture. They are right. There are few industries which have not something to learn and to take from the Cluny museum. The positive economist gentlemen, who declaim against the expenditures on our museums and Fine Art schools, might have recognized from the Great Exhibition in London how much our manufactures owe to these establishments. The ground-floor of the Hotel de Cluny is devoted to furni- ture of large dimensions, statues, and hangings of all kinds. The beautifully-carved staircase, bearing the arms and monograms of Henri IV^., and Catherine de Medicis, es- tablishes the necessary communication between the rooms on the ground-floor and those of the first story. This staircase, made for the old Chambre des Comptes, after the demolition of the latter, had been relegated to the shops of the city. The Prefet de la Seine presented it to the museum, for which one might think it had been made. A volume would be required for the mere enumeration of the principal objects exhibited in the rooms on the first story, furniture, arms, paintings, pottery, faience, enamels, glass, and carved ivories. Let us mention the great carved chimney-pieces from Troyes and Chalons, beautiful re- tables of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and es- HOTEL DE CLUNY 153 pecially the magnificent ivories of the Chartreuse de Dijon, known as the Oratory of the Duchesses of Burgundy. Although the Musee de Cluny is not as rich as many amateurs, it has several advantages over them. In the first place it is immortal ; it buys and does not sell. In the second place it is patient, because it is immortal, and conse- quently it is insensible to the caprices of fashion, so power- ful over collectors. When the fashion runs to enamels and they attain extravagant prices at sales, the administration whose mission is to seek the beautiful and the useful and which can always wait and choose, leaves enamels alone and acquires ivories or carved wood. Patience ! Ivories will soon be up and enamels will soon be within their resources. I must not forget the gifts and legacies that form a no- table portion of the collection. And first we must mention the very numerous and very well-placed gifts of the city of Paris. The Hotel de Cluny, with the Palais des Thermes, is its principal museum. It is quite right that It should have been chosen for the reception for a mass of antique or mediaeval fragments that were formerly dispersed and badly kept in twenty diff^erent depots. Every day the great works that transform Paris bring interesting debris of our ancient city ; some day they will form the most pre- cious collection for its monumental history. Following the example of the Municipal body, several private persons have been willing to contribute to enrich a collection where all sympathies meet. I lack the space here to give a list of the gifts and donors which would be interminable. 154 PARIS The Hotel de Cluny is a historical monument that con- tains historical monuments ; to-day it is the sole edifice in Paris that can give a complete idea of a seignorial habita- tion of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. It had suffered various cruel wrongs at the hand of Time, but more especially at the hand of man : its last owners had mutilated some of its dispositions as though wantonly. After the Hotel came into the possession of the State, various important repairs were made. Unfortunately, it was necessary to proceed very slowly and to acquire with no less economy. However, all the parts of the edifice that were repaired have been restored in a complete man- ner. In proportion as the condition of a given room de- manded a partial restoration, the ancient dispositions were restored with the most scrupulous exactitude. The establishment of the Musee de Cluny has exercised a most happy influence upon the Quartier Saint-Jacques. The Municipal administration has cleared a space for it, and the Rue des Mathurins, formerly a narrow and danger- ous lane, has been entirely transformed. All the ignoble houses that deprived the Hotel de Cluny of light and air have disappeared. The great Rue des Ecoles now opens out before the museum. Let us hope that by further demolition the complete perimeter may be discovered of the Palais des Thermes the sub-structions of which, which are still visible at various points, seem to mark the natural limits of the Hotel de Cluny. IHE SORBOXNE, A LA SORBONNE S. SOPHIA BE ALE NOTHER institution which owes its initiative to Saint-Louis is the Sorbonne, actually founded in 1250 by Robert de Sorbon, a canon of Paris, for sixteen poor students in theology. The present church is a fine example of the Seventeenth Century Classicism, such as the world of that day affected. Jacques Lemercier was the architect, and the great Cardinal the paymaster, and between them they turned out a very respectable piece of work with a certain sense of grandeur, and a very fine dome, the first that figured in Paris. It was built between 1635 and 1659. Within, is the marble tomb of Richelieu, the work of Girardon (1694) from the design of Lebrun. The great man reclines gracefully upon a couch supported by a figure of Religion, and a weeping lady of Science at his feet. It has not the feeling of the Renaissance sculp- ture, and although Religion forms a principal part of the composition, it is purely and simply a secular design. It might be the memorial of a Pagan, and it would be just as appropriate in a town hall, a garden, or a theatre ; but that perhaps gives it the more fitness as the monument of so singular a churchman and so farcical a Christian. The wary Cardinal turns up his face and piously gazes at 155 156 PARIS Heaven as if that were his only thought ; he appears over- whelmed with holiness and sanctity, a veritable Pecksniff arrayed in the gorgeous robes of a prince of the holy Roman Church. But artistically, the composition is fine, far liner than any of the works of the Seventeenth Cen- tury, and one feels that could the figure rise, it would move about with the same grace as that portrayed in the noble portrait of the great statesman by Philippe de Champaigne in the Louvre. As posthumous retribution for his crimes and vices, Richelieu's head was chopped off into three pieces in 1793, and remained fragmentary until i86i,when they were patched together. The church also contains a painting by Hesse of little value, Robert de Sorbon pre- sentant a Saint Louis de jeunnes eleves en theologie^ and some statues by Romy and Bure. SAINT-SEVERIN S. SOPHIA BE ALE ^ ¥ "^HE church of Saint-Severin is particularly inter- I esting as showing a gradual development from "^ the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Century. Founded upon the site of an oratory by Henri I., in 1050, it was first rebuilt at the end of the Eleventh Century. There were two saints of this name ; one, the founder of the Abbey Chateaulandon, who miraculously cured Clovis I. of some sickness by placing his chasuble upon him ; and the other, the patron of this church, a man, or rather a hermit, who lived during the reign of Childebert I., in a cell near Paris, and was of course much given to prayer and supplications, and other pious exercises. So well did he preach his pacific faith, that Saint Cloud, or Clodoaldus, the grandson of Queen Clotilde, became one of his disciples, and received the religious habit of the Ben- edictine order from him. Saint-Severin was probably buried near the oratory, and what would be more natural than that the disciple should consecrate the spot to the memory of his master ? In 1050 Henri I. gave the patronage, which had been up to his reign in the hands of the kings, to the then Bishop of 157 158 PARIS Paris, Imbert. At the end of the Eleventh Century it be- came an enormous parish, extending almost over the whole of the southern part of the city. It is now the centre of the Italion legion, models, organ-grinders, white-mice men, and plaster-image venders ; and it is a pretty sight on Sun- days znd J7te-da.ys to see the church packed with emigrants from the sunny South decked out in all the splendour of their holiday attire. The present church of Saint-Severin was rebuilt in the Thirteenth Century, in great part by money obtained by indulgences, which Clement VI., in 1347, accorded to the generously inclined among the faithful. In the next cen- tury this system was revived, and the church wardens, with shrewd foresight, bought up more ground, with a view to the enlargement of the building. The first stone of the new part was laid in 1489, the chapel of Saint-Sebastian being built three years later. In 1490 the chapel of the Conception, which was situated near the east end, was de- molished to make way for the lengthening of the north aisle. Five years later, Jean Simon, Bishop of Paris, con- secrated the new portions of the church, including the high altar, and several of the chapels of the chevet. In 1498 the chapels on the south side were commenced by Micheaul le Gros; the sacristy and treasury being added in 1540, and the chapel of the Communion in 1673, to make an entrance for which the chapel of Saint Sebastian had to be destroyed. Thus for four hundred years, more or less, the church was undergoing constant change and development. SAINT-SEVERIN 159 Then began the downward path, commencing with the de- struction of the jube and the " ornamentation " of the sanctuary to suit the taste of the devotees of Classic art. Originally, many of the Paris churches had jubes (rood- screens), but the only one now remaining is that of Saint- Etienne du Mont. A brass attached to one of the pillars gives the names of the donors of the screen, Antoine de Compaigne (illuminator) and his wife, Oudette. The portal is profusely carved and bears an inscription upon the stylobate (the letters of which are of the Thirteenth Century), giving the various duties of the grave-diggers. As in many other churches, there are two lions on each side of the arch, probably the supports formerly of some heraldic shields. This, no doubt, is the origin of the formula, which terminates certain ecclesiastical judgments pronounced on the threshold of the temple. Datum inter duos hones. The tympanum bas-relief has been restored. It represents the charity of Saint-Martin, who is one of the patrons of the church, and whose mutilated mantle, or a portion of it, has been one of the cherished relics of Saint-Severin since the Fourteenth Century. There is also a chapel dedicated to the venerable bishop of Tours, which was formerly covered with ex voto horseshoes, the gifts of thankful travellers ; for Saint-Martin having been on horse- back when he divided his cloak, became the patron of the travelling community. The western facade is composed of portions of the portal of Saint Pierre-aux-Boeufs in the Cite, which was demolished in 1837, ^^^ ^h ^^ ViuXq i6o PARIS which has been left unrestoied, of the Thirteenth Century. Above the porch of Saint-Severin are an open work gallery, a rose window, and a cornice upon which a party of little animals are playing among the foliage, all in Flamboyant style. The statue of the Virgin is quite modern. The whole of the chapels, as well as the greater part of the nave, are of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries; but the first three bays of the nave are of a totally different style; the form of the arches and of the windows shows the crafts- manship of the Thirteenth Century artists. Birds and beasts, natural and grotesque, form gargoyles, shooting the rain-water from their open mouths. At the northwest end of the chapels, an elegantly carved canopied niche encloses the patron Saint, and near him is an inscription inviting the passers-by to pray for the souls of the departed. The interior consists of a nave and double aisles. The triforium is very similar to that of Westminster Abbey Church ; but at the commencement of the apse, the Thir- teenth Century arches were filled in with round-headed ones, Cupid-like Cherubs being placed between the two to " ornament " the intervening space, and the pillars converted into marbled pilasters. It was Mile, de Montpensier who caused the marbling of the choir to be undertaken in 1684, and who also bore the expenses of the baldachino of the altar, employing the sculptor Tubi to carry out the designs of Lebrun. In the south aisle, on the south, is a little door leading through a garden, formerly the graveyard, to the presbytere. SAINT-SEVERIN 161 This, in summer, forms a charming little picture. In one of the side chapels (Notre-Dame de I'Esperance) is a Fif- teenth Century wall-painting of the Resurrection of the Dead; and in the chapel of the chevet a Preaching of John the Baptist^ also in fresco. A number of distinguished persons were buried at Saint- Severin : Etienne Pasquier, an eloquent Avocat-Gen'eral under Henri III., who was mainly instrumental in causing the exclusion of the Jesuits from the University, and who died in 1615; the brothers Saint-Martre, celebrated men of letters living at the beginning of the Seventeenth Cen- tury ; and Moreri, the author of the Dictionnaire Historique, who died in 1680. The church contains no furniture of any value artistic- ally, except perhaps, the organ and wrought-iron gallery, erected in 1747 to replace an earlier instrument of 15 12. A good deal of the stained glass is of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, and bears the figures and arms of the donors (some of whom appear by their long robes to have been magistrates), accompanied by their wives and families. The subjects are the usual ones taken from the New Tes- tament, or from the lives of the Saints ; but a few are somewhat out of the beaten track. THE PANTHEON PHILIP GILBERT HJMERTON THE Pantheon has stood the test of a hundred years of criticism, without which no building can be sure of permanent fame. Its merits are not of a kind to excite enthusiasm, but they gain upon us with time and satisfy the reason if they do not awaken the imagina- tion. We can never feel with regard to a severe classical building like the Pantheon the glow of romantic pleasure which fills sense and spirit in Notre-Dame or the Sainte- Chapelle. If there is emotion here it is of a different kind. The building has a stately and severe dignity ; it is at once grave and elegant, but it is neither amusing as Gothic architecture often is by its variety, nor astonishing as Gothic buildings are by the boldness with which they seem to contravene the ordinary conditions of matter. The edifice consists of a very plain building in the form of a cross, with a pediment on pillars at one end and a dome rising in the middle. There are no visible windows, an enunciation that adds immensely to the severity and gravity of the composition, while it enhances the value of the columns and pediment, and gives (by contrast) great addi- tional lightness and beauty to the admirable colonnade be- neath the dome. There does not exist, in modern archi- 162 THE PANTHEON 163 tecture, a more striking example of a blank wall. The vast plain spaces are overwhelming when seen near, and positively required the little decoration which, in the shape of festooned garlands, relieves their upper portion. At a little distance the building is seen to be, for the dome, what a pedestal is for a statue ; and the projection of the tran- septs on each side of the portico, when the edifice is seen in front, acts as margin to an engraving. Had their plain surfaces been enriched and varied with windows, the front view would have lost half its meaning ; the richness of the Corinthian capitals and sculptured tympanum, and the im- portance of the simple inscription, draw the eye to them- selves at once. The situation of the Pantheon is the finest in Paris for an edifice of that kind. Only one other is comparable to it, Montmartre, on which is now slowly rising a church of another order, dedicated to the Sacr'e Coeur. The dome of the Pantheon is one of the great landmarks of Paris ; it is visible from every height, and from a thousand places of no particular elevation. It does not simply belong to its own quarter, but to the whole city. The interior is interesting in different ways, both as an experiment in architecture and as an experiment in the em- ployment of mural painting on an important scale. The first point likely to interest an architectural student is the manner in which the architect has combined his vaults and his pillars. Soufflot's tendency (unlike that of the archi- tects of St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London) i64 PARIS was toward an excessive lightness. His project was to erect his dome on elegant pillars ; but these were found in- sufficient, and another architect (Rondelet) replaced them by massive piers of masonry. Elsewhere there are Corinthian columns carrying a frieze and cornice, and above the cornice a groined (intersected) vault, of course with round arches, and having exceedingly slender termina- tions, as this system of vaulting cuts away nearly every- thing and leaves a minimum of substance at the corners to bear the weight. There is a remarkable peculiarity about the level of the floor; the aisles and transepts are higher than the nave into which you have to descend by five steps. The general aspect of the interior is agreeable, from the pleasant natural colour of the stone and its thoroughly careful finish every- where ; but the large spaces of wall, though divided by half-columns, were felt to be too bare. Mural painting ought never to make us feel as if the wall were taken away, because that is an injury to the architecture. The painting should be so far removed from realism that we feel the wall to be a wall still, upon which certain events have been commemorated. Among French mural painters, not one has understood this so well as Puvis de Chavannes, and it would have been wise to entrust to him the entire decoration of the Pantheon, both for the sake of the architecture and for the unity of the work ; but unfortunately (so far as these considerations are concerned), other men have also been called in, men of great ability, THE PANTHEON 165 no doubt, yet who were not disposed to make the neces- sary sacrifices. Puvis de Chavannes is essentially a mural painter. His large work in the Pantheon represents the finding of Sainte-Genevieve when a child by Saint-Germain and Saint-Loup, at Nanterre, when they were journeying toward England. The bishop sees that the child has a religious aspect, "has the Divine seal upon her," and pre- dicts for her a memorable future. This takes place in a vast landscape, with undulating ground and fine trees in the middle distance against a line of blue hills, and a blue sky with white, long clouds. In the foreground is a rustic scene, including the milking of a cow under a shed ; and in the middle distance we have a view of Nanterre, or at least of a mediaeval city. The figures are all very simply painted in dead colour, kept generally pale and hardly going beyond tints, which are often false so far as nature is con- cerned, but never discordant. Such painting is very reti- cent, very consistent ; and, though it is not true, it contains a great amount of truth, and implies far more knowledge than it directly expresses. The landscape background, for example, is simple, but it is not ignorant; it shows quite plainly that the painter is a man of our own century, per- fectly conversant with our knowledge, yet decided not to go beyond a certain fixed point in the direction of actual imitation. The figures are exceedingly dignified ; but when the painter gets away from the muscular type, and has to deal with weaker men or with children, he is not so satisfying. A smaller picture represents the child Sainte- i66 PAHIS Genevieve praying in a field, while the rustics watch and admire her. The sentiment here is very pure and simple, like that of an idyllic poem. In the upper part of the composition a ploughboy, behind trees, watches the saint while his oxen rest; in the lower part, a peasant man and woman watch her also. Now, although these paintings tell their story perfectly, not a single person or other object in them is so far realized as to make us forget the wall-surface. A story has been told upon the wall just as an inscription might have been written upon it, but nothing has been done to take the wall away. Even the pale tinting is so contrived as not to con- trast too violently with the natural stone around it. Let the visitor who has just seen these paintings, and, perhaps, been a little put out by their conventionalism, glance up from them to the pendentives under the dome painted by Carvallo from drawings by Gerard. Those works are strong in darks, and in far more powerful relief than the situation warrants. They are also surrounded by heavily gilt carvings, which make the surrounding stone look poor; in short, from the architectural point of view, they are a series of vulgar blunders. I would not use language of this kind with reference to so serious, so noble an artist as John Paul Laurens, but I cannot help regretting that his magnificent composition of the death of Sainte-Genevieve was not in some public gallery rather than in the Pan- theon. The realization is far too powerful for a mural painting. We do not see a record on a wall, but the wall THE PANTHEON 167 is demolished, and through the opening we witness the scene itself, the infinitely pathetic closing scene at the end of a saintly life, when, even in the last moments of ex- tremest weakness, a venerable woman still throws into the expression of her countenance the benedictions that she cannot utter. One consequence of the external force with which all the figures and objects are realized in full model- ling and colour is that the two columns which cross the work vertically are felt to be in the way j in other words, the architecture of the Pantheon is in the way, and so far from helping the architect, the painter has done him an injury, for what are smoothly chiselled stones, what are fluted columns and pretty Corinthian capitals, to the awful approach of Death ? On the other mural paintings in the Pantheon we have no need to dwell. So far as I know them yet, they belong to the class of historical genre common in the French salons, and have neither the power of Laurens nor the care- ful adaptation of Puvis de Chavannes. Cabanel's pictures represent three scenes in the history of Saint-Louis, — one his childhood, when he is being taught by his mother ; the second, his civil justice ; and a third, his military life as a Crusader. The first subject is the best suited to Cabanel's talent, and is a pretty domestic scene. The subject selected by M. Maillot for his paintings in the south tran- sept is a mediaeval procession with the relics of Sainte-Gen- evieve, and these paintings are a good example of a danger different from the powerful realization of Laurens. In the i68 PARIS present instance the evil is a crudity of a brilliant colour, like medineval illumination, which always seems out of place on a wall unless it is carried out consistently by poly- chromatic decoration throughout the building. It is sometimes said by journalists that these paintings are frescos (wall-paintings are generally taken for frescos). The fact is that they are oil-paintings on toile marouji'ee^ that is, on canvas fastened to the wall by a thick coat of white-lead. This is now the accepted method for mural painting in France. It is convenient for the artist, as it allows him to paint in his own studio on a material he is accustomed to use ; and it is believed to be as permanent as any other. THE LUXEMBOURG LOUIS ENJULT NGLISH gardens must have been invented by small ownership. Small property delights in making illusions for itself, in pretending space it does not possess, and in consoling itself for what it lacks by the unexpected, by detour^ by surprise and by deceiving the eye. A clump of trees negligently placed on the right masks the neighbouring house ; this haha skilfully conceals the common ditch ; behind those tendrils of clematis and jasmine, set somewhat too close to the windows, there is a party wall. But when we own wide domains, when we are not obliged to measure out our ground regretfully and with a niggardly hand, then the facade of our palace is majestically developed ; we want to feel free air and pure light about us ; the beds sweep away of themselves and expand ; the gardens become parks, the alleys are avenues that lengthen and extend, opening endless walks before our feet and distant perspectives of vast horizon before our eyes. Such is the Luxembourg. Rarely has an artist's genius raised a nobler palace for the princes of the earth ; nowhere do the same lines of the architecture and the undulous and supple lines that softly 169 170 PARIS round the plants and trees combine in more harmonious union. If we were to consider the palace by itself we should perhaps find it a trifle heavy — it was made so by Louis Philippe — but, nevertheless, it cuts a fine figure and has a grand air amid its gardens. In the Sixteenth Century what is now the Luxembourg was the domain of a simple gentleman, Robert de Harley de Sancy. The Duke of Luxembourg purchased it in 1580. He restored and enlarged it. A few years later, Marie de Medicis acquired it for ninety thousand francs ; then she summoned Jacques Desbrosses and ordered a pal- ace from him. Jacques Desbrosses remembered the Pitti Palace where Marie's happy childhood had been spent ; he took inspiration from it without imitating it. That pa- vilion of the facade, surmounted by a cupola and set in the centre of a gallery flanked by two other pavilions, that square tower formed by long parallelograms of buildings with pavilions at the centre and at the angles, that is Flor- entine architecture, it is the disposition of the great abodes of the French feudal lords of the Sixteenth Century. The palace presents three distinct orders that are repro- duced throughout. On the ground floor is the Tuscan order, — that is the memory of the Pitti Palace ; — on the first floor is the Doric order, and the Ionic order on the second. We enter the palace by two principal facades : one, looking on the Rue de Tournon, the other, looking on the garden. The whole ground floor is in arcades formed by piers ornamented with pilasters cut by bossages. THE LUXEMBOURG 171 The Doric order of the next floor has its entablature orna- mented with triglyphs and metopes ; the bossages that round the angles are in alternate bands, and, instead of being continuous in height, they are placed on the columns, pilasters and piers in turn. The interior of the Palace, the distribution of which is most happy, comprises a magnificent staircase, called the staircase of honour, built by Chalgrin, a guardroom, a waiting-room for the ushers, a room for the messengers of the throne, a conference-hall, a council-chamber, a throne- room, and, lastly, the hall of the sessions of the Senate. The hall of the sessions, very favourably disposed as to acoustics, is formed of two opposed and unequal hemi- cycles : the smaller contains the desk ; the greater, the seats of the senators. The two hemicycles are adorned with carved oakwork by Klagman, Triquetti and Elschouet. Above the woodwork rise columns of stucco in both hemi- cycles, but their decoration is not the same in each. In the intercolumniation of the larger, public tribunes have been arranged ; in the smaller, the similar space is occupied by the statues of legislators. The vault is cylindrical with its coving pierced by two wide glass windows ; its ground is gold, sown with arabesques, gold on gold. The piers of the coving are decorated with paintings in wax of a very pretty effect ; gold smiles and glitters everywhere on the branches and acanthus leaves : it is almost overpowering. The rostrums have disappeared. The library with its vast windows opening upon the 172 PARIS garden is enriched by a ceiling representing the Elysian Fields, upon which Delacroix has lavished the harmonious treasures of his palette, and, so to speak, exhausted the entire chromatic scale. All who love beautiful walks, full of freshness and shadow amid memories and flowers, will pass enchanted hours in the gardens of the Luxembourg, The gardens of the Luxembourg, like the palace, the work of Jacques Desbrosses, are at once large without uniformity and majestic without monotony ; with exquisite art they combine variety with unity : nothing could be simpler than the general plan, nor more ingenious than the manner in which this happy plan is modified and renewed at every moment. Before the centre of the palace a vast parterre, adorned with flowers mingled with shrubs and sward contains an octagon basin in which swans sport and swim about gently while pruning their white plumage. On either side the ground slopes sharply upward planted with rose-trees and enclosed by a double iron balustrade. These slopes support great terraces adorned with shrubs and small trees, laburnums with golden trails, hawthorns, and great lilacs that shower down a soft rain of perfume from their blossoms. All this charming and delicate vegetation is supported by great clumps of chestnuts, the sombre foliage of which lends a vigorous background against which these thousand details stand out. Then amid the groves in the shade and among the flowers are all the glories of the female Pantheon of France, made divine in marble. THE LUXEMBOURG 173 Before all others, as the purest and most radiant, let us salute Jeanne d'Arc, that maiden who was a great man, — then St. Clotilde, Anne of Brittany, Anne of Provence, Anne of Austria, Anne de Beaujeu, Valentine de Milan, Mile, de Montpensier — la grande Mademoiselle, — Clem- ence Isaure, Jeanne Hachette, Catherine de Medicis: I purposely mix those who were queens with those who deserved to be. However, let us not forget the High Priestess of the Gauls, the sacred Druidess Velleda, crowned with vervain ; she is pale for she has beheld the fasces of a consul and she forgets her golden sickle and the mistletoe sacred to the Gallic Diana. Casta Diva! A superb alley extends the gardens as far as the observa- tory, that saw Marshal Ney's blood flow. It seems that in this beautiful garden — solitude and silence in Paris — everything invites the soul to meditation, calm and peace. Formerly, when strolling amid its vast alleys, one could see the tops of those pious refuges where the noise of the tempests of the world had died away — the convents or the cloisters of the Feuillantines, Ursulines, Carmelites, Filles de la Providence, Filles du Calvaire, des Carmes, des Chartreux, des Capucins and des Jesuits. And now beyond the high round tops of its great trees what do we see ? The dome of Sainte-Genevieve, the cupola of Val-de-Grace, and the towers of Saint-Sulpice. Marie de Medicis passed several years in the Palace of 174 PARIS the Luxembourg — it was then called the Palais- Medicis. She lived there as a prisoner rather than as a queen. The Cologne exile soon left the Luxembourg to her second son, Gaston d' Orleans. It was then the Palais d' Orleans. After him the Luxembourg fell to Mile, de Montpensier, the fiery heroine of the Fronde, to her who had the cannon of the Bastille trained upon the king's troops. "There," said Mazarin, " is a cannon shot that has just killed her husband ! " After having coveted the thrones of France, England, Spain and Germany, " la Grande Mademoiselle " received a Gascon cadet in the Royal alcoves of the Lux- embourg. Later the Luxembourg was inhabited by the Regent and his daughters — all the capital sins — and then by the Comte de Provence who had received it from Louis XVI. The Terror turned the Luxembourg into a prison, and the Directory made a dining-room and a boudoir of it. It was the first palace of the consulate, then the palace of the imperial Senate, and of the restored Peers. There Louis Blanc, after February, held what was called in the lauguage of the day, the £tats Generaux du Travail. The senate entered it with the Empire. The Musee du Luxembourg is the Louvre of living artists. In i66i, there was collected in the Musee du Luxembourg ninety-eight pictures comprising canvasses by Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Poussin, Claude Lorraine, Carracchio, Van Dyck and Rembrandt; very soon the Rubenses of the Medicis gallery were added. THE LUXEMBOURG 175 These pictures remained at the Luxembourg till the Comte de Provence came to live there ; shortly before 1789, they were transported to the Louvre. From 1802 to 18 15, there was a little museum at the Louvre. In 18 1 5 the pictures again crossed the Seine. It was Louis XVIII. who decided that the Luxembourg should become the asylum of the masterpieces, purchased by the State, of living painters and sculptors, and that their works should remain there ten years after their death till the best of the good ones among them should be selected to enter into the serene immortality of the Louvre. That was a great and fruitful idea; but its execution demanded intelligence in art and independence of character in the agents in power. SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRJ^S S. SOPHU BEALE THE Abbey of Saint-Germain-in-the-fields, of which nothing remains but the church and abbot's palace, was, after Notre-Dame, the oldest foundation in Paris. It dates back to the earliest period of the French monarchy, and its history is interwoven with that of some of the best and noblest sons of France. The Saint to whom this church is dedicated was an early bishop of Paris, and must not be confounded with Saint-Germain of Auxerre. The foundation of the abbey was in this wise. Childe- bert I. having made a second expedition against the Visi- goths in Spain, returned in 543 with much loot of various kinds. What could be more natural, in the Sixth Century, than to consult a holy man as to the future destination of such valuables ? Accordingly, Childebert communed with Saint-Germain on the subject, and the bishop, suggesting the foundation of a church as a fitting home for the treasures, the king laid the first stone amid the green fields and woods of what is now the densely populated Faubourg Saint-Ger- main. The church was originally dedicated to the Holy Cross and Saint-Vincent, the consecration taking place upon the very day of Childebert's death in 558. It was 176 SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES. SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 177 cruciform in plan ; the roof, which was covered with plaques of gilt copper, was supported by enormous marble columns ; the walls decorated with paintings upon gold grounds, were pierced with numberless windows; and the pavement was laid in mosaic. At the end of the church was the chapel of Saint-Symphorien, which in 576 became the burial-place of good Bishop Germain, and was subse- quently the scene of many wondrous and miraculous cures. Before the foundation of Saint-Denis by le bon roy Dagohert^ Saint-Germain served as the burial-place of the Merovingian kings and their consorts. Thus, during the Sixth and Seventh Centuries, the following princes were interred there; the Kings Childebert I., Cherebert, Chilperic I., Clotaire XL, and Chilperic II., the Queens Ultrogothe, Fredegonde, Bertrude, and Bilihilde ; the sons of Merovee, Clovis, and Dagobert; the Princesses Chrodesinde and Chrotberge, daughters of the first Childebert. Some of these stone coffins may be seen at the Hotel Carnavalet. The only part of the church which contains any remains of Childebert's structure is the apse, into the triforium of which are built some early white marble capitals and some various coloured marble shafts ; but inasmuch as they have been painted over, all interest in them is destroyed. The earliest part of the present church dates from the beginning of the Eleventh Century, the choir and apse from the second half of the Twelfth Century. The best view of the apse with its flying-buttresses is to be obtained from the garden of the abbot's palace ; but since the clearing away 178 PARIS of the houses which formerly were almost built on to the church, and the planting of gardens round it, the view is very picturesque from any point. An insignificant Seven- teenth Century porch leads to the west door, which is un- derneath the tower, and has in its upper tympanum, a much mutilated bas-relief of The Last Supper. The tower has been so much restored and renovated from time to time that little of the original remains. It has a high, but stumpy spire covered with slates. Of the other two towers, which were formerly at the angles of the choir and transepts, nothing remains but the bases, which were con- sidered necessary for the support of the church. The building is two hundred and sixty-five feet long, sixty-five feet broad, and fifty-nine feet high. The nave is divided into five bays j the choir into four, and the apse into five ; but these latter are much narrower than those of the nave. In the Seventeenth Century, the timber roof of Abbot Morard gave place to a stone vault, the transepts were rebuilt, and the nave much altered ; but quite recently it has been restored to its primitive condition and decorated with frescoes by Hippolyte Flandrin. The church having been used during the Revolution as a saltpetre manufactory, the corrosive waters had so undermined the foundations of the pillars that they were obliged to be supported by enormous scaffoldings while the bases were repaired. The choir and the apse were surrounded by square and polygonal chapels. The lower arches are round, the upper pointed j the intermingling being in no way inharmonious. SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 179 Most of the present capitals are copies of the twelve re- maining original ones which were transferred to the garden of the Hotel de Cluny ; but they are of very inferior work- manship. The old capitals are rough, but full of character, whereas the modern ones are utterly devoid thereof. A few old ones may be studied embedded in the walls of the aisles. The choir, beautiful in its vigorous simplicity, re- mains as the Twelfth Century left it. It was dedicated by Pope Alexander III., on the 21st of April, 1163; and on the same day Hubald, bishop of Ostia, assisted by three other bishops, consecrated the apsidal chapels. On enter- ing the church at the west end, and looking toward the altar, it will be seen that the building deviates considerably from a straight line. Saint Etienne du Mont is even more out of a straight line — it turns more than any church I have seen. The columns resemble those of Notre-Dame in their massiveness. All the arches of the choir and chapels are round, but those of the apse and clerstory are pointed. The capitals of these choir pillars are all worthy of study, being in the best style of the period, and full of the quaint symbolism of the Middle Ages ; human heads of a grotesque style, lions, harpies, birds pecking vigorously at the heads of men and women, griffins, and winged animals. The bases are all ornamented with foliage ; but between the second and third chapels on the south side is an example of ornament which is probably unique, viz, two slippers, one embroidered and one plain, evidently those of a bishop or abbot. i8o PARIS The original High Altar, renovated in 1704, has been destroyed since 1792, up to which time it had existed in all its pristine beauty and splendour. The tomb of Saint-Ger- main, which was the scene of so many miracles and won- ders, has been suppressed and covered up by the pavement. It was sunk below the level of tlic church, near the fourth column of the choir on the north side, and for centuries was a favourite spot for prayer and meditation. The chapel of Saint-Symphorien, at the end of the nave on the south side, is modern, having been consecrated by the great teacher, Saint-Francois de Sales, on the 27th of April, 1619; the monument which marked the first burial-place of Saint-Germain being no longer in it. The chapels of Saint-Marguerite and of Saint-Casmir, in the transept, are ornamented with marble columns. That of the Blessed Virgin is modern, and in wretched taste ; and the High Altar, the first stone of which was laid by Pius VII., is equally out of keeping with the rest of the church. In an apsidal chapel are some fragments of Thirteenth Century glass, representing Saints Anna and Joachim, The Annunciation and the Marriage of the Virgin. In the south side of the nave is a large marble statue, called Notre- Dame la Blanche, given in 1340 by Jeanne d'Evreux to the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Placed at the Revolution in the Musee des Petits-Augustins, it was afterward trans- ferred to Saint-Germain. The marble statue of Saint- Marguerite is by one of the brothers of the convent, Jacques Bourletj and that representing Saint-Francois SAINT-GERMAIN DES PRES 181 Xavier is by Coustou the younger. The following tombs were partially restored in 1824: Jean Casimir, King of Poland, who, having renounced his throne, became abbot in 1669, and died in 1672 (the kneeling figure is by Marsy, the bas-relief by Jean Thibaut, of the Congregation of Saint Maur) ; Olivier and Louis de Castellan, killed in the service of the king in 1664 and 1669 (the figures and medallions are by Girardon) ; William Douglas, eighteenth earl of Angus, who died in 161 1, and his grandson, James Douglas, killed in 1645, near Douai, aged twenty-eight. The epitaphs, which the Academy set up in 18 19 to the memory of Nicholas Boileau, of Rene Descartes, of Jean Mabillion, and of Bernard de Montfaucon, which were formerly at the Musee des Petits-Augustins, were placed here on the disposal of that museum. Boileau reposed formerly in the Sainte-Chapelle, and Descartes at Sainte- Genevieve. What remained of the royal tombs was trans- ferred to Saint Denis. Of the riches of the Treasury nothing whatever was saved ; it was all pillaged and dis- persed. The whole church has been painted in polychrome ; red shafts and gilded capitals, a blue-and-gold starred vault. All round the nave, transepts, and choir, just below the clerstory, are the exquisite frescoes by Flandrin. SAINT-SULPICE S. SOPHIA BE ALE • i "^ 7'ONDER majestic portico forms the west front V' of the church called Saint Sulpice. "^ It is at once airy and grand. There are two tiers of pillars, of which this front is composed ; the lower is Doric, the upper Ionic; and each row, as I am told, is nearly forty French feet in height, exclusively of their en- tablatures, each of ten feet. We have nothing like this, certainly, as the front of a parish church, in London. When I except Saint Paul's, such exception is made in reference to the most majestic piece of architectural com- position which, to my eye, the wit of man hath yet ever devised. The architect of the magnificent front of Saint- Sulpice was Servandoni ; and a street hard by (in which Dom Brial, the father of French history resides) takes its name from the architect. There are two towers — one at each end of this front, about two hundred and twenty feet in height from the pavement ; harmonizing well with the general style of architecture, but of which that to the south (to the best of my recollection) is left in an unaccountably if not shamefully unfinished state. These towers are said to be about one toise higher than those of Notre-Dame. The interior of this church is hardly less imposing than its 182 SAINT-SULPICE. SAINT-SULPICE 183 exterior. The vaulted roofs are exceedingly lofty ; but, for the length of the nave, and more especially the choir, the transepts are disproportionally short, nor are there suf- ficiently prominent ornaments to give relief to the massive appearance of the sides. These sides are decorated by fluted pilasters of the Corinthian order, which for so large and lofty a building have a tame effect. There is nothing like the huge, single, insulated column, or the clustered slim pilasters, that separate the nave from the side aisles of the Gothic churches of the early and middle ages. " The principal altar between the nave and the choir is admired for its size and grandeur of effect, but it is cer- tainly ill-placed j it is perhaps too ornamental, looking like a detached piece which does not harmonize with the sur- rounding objects. Indeed, most of the altars in French churches want simplicity and appropriate effect, and the whole of the interior of the choir is (to my fastidious eye only, you may add) destitute of that quiet solemn character which ought always to belong to places of worship. Rich, minute and elaborate as are many of the Gothic choirs of our own country, they are yet in harmony and equally free from a frivolous and unappropriate effect. Behind the choir is the chapel of Our Lady, which is certainly most splendid and imposing. Upon the ceiling is represented the Assumption of the Virgin, and the walls are covered with a profusion of gilt ornament, which, upon the whole, has a very striking effect. In a recess above the altar is a sculptured representation of the Virgin and Infant Christ in i84 PARIS white marble, of a remarkably high polish ; nor are the countenances of the mother and child divested of sweetness of expression. They are represented upon a large globe, or with the world at their feet ; upon the top of which, slightly coiled, lies the 'bruised' or dead serpent. The light in front of the spectator, from a concealed window (a contrivance to which the French seem partial), produces a sort of magical effect. I should add that this is the largest parochial church in Paris, and that its organ has been pro- nounced to be matchless. " This magnificent structure is the production of several periods and of several artists. Anne of Austria laid the foundation stone in 1636, under the superintendence of Levau. Levau died shortly afterward, and was succeeded by Gittard and Oppenard. The finish was received by Servandoni, who, in the west front, or portico, left all his predecessors far behind him. The church was dedicated about the middle of the last century. The towers are the joint performances of Maclaurin and Chalgrin ; but the latter has the credit of having rectified the blunders of the former. He began his labours in 1777; but both the south tower, and the Place^ immediately before the west front, want their finishing decorations." I have quoted this long dissertation by Dibden because I do not think a better description of the church could be given ; but the writer is wrong in some of his details. The church was commenced in 1646, not '36, the first architect being Christophe Gamart. The finishing stroke was put SAINT-SULPICE 185 by Jean Servandoni, the funds being provided by means of a lottery started by the energetic cure Languet de Gergy, I cannot endorse Dibden's praise of the chapel of the Virgin by De Wailly, the surrounding paintings by Vanloo, and the Slodtz brothers' decorations. It is all very splendid Vi^ith gold and marbles, and the statue by Pajou is looked upon as a chef-d'ceuvre. The cupola, with an Assumption painted by Lemoine, is graceful ; but the effect of light is theatrical to the last degree, and the vi^hole chapel is v^ant- ing in dignity and the religious feeling without which a building fails as a Christian church. Another statue of the Virgin, a Notre-Dame des Douleurs, by Bouchardon, a great tomb of the cure Languet de Gregy, by Michel-Ange Slodtz, and the pulpit given in 1788 by the Marechal de Richelieu, are all very grandiose, but fail utterly to impress one; whereas the two shells serving as holy-water stoops, given to Francois I. by the Republic of Venice, are charm- ing examples of pure Renaissance sculpture. The general effect of the church, by its enormous size alone, is exceed- ingly grand; but, being entirely of stone, it is cold and colourless. In the west chapel, dedicated to the souls in Purgatory, are pictures by Heim ; and in other chapels, works by Abel de Pujol, Vichon, Lafon, A. Hesse, Drolling, and Guille- mont. In the crypt, used as a chapel for catechizing, are the statues of Saint-Paul and Saint-John Evangelist, by Pradier. Although there are no remains of an earlier building, i86 PARIS there was a parish church upon the same site as Saint- Sulpice as early as the Twelfth Century ; this was enlarged under Louis XII. and Francois I. A brass slab incrusted in the pavement of the south transept indicates the meridian in a direct line toward the north — an obelisk. When the weather is fine, the midday sun shines through a little opening in the window of the south transept, and strikes the middle of the plaque in summer, and the top of the obelisk in the winter solstice. This meridian was established in 1743 by Henri Sully and Lemonnier, to fix the spring equinox and Easter Day. THE INVALIDES. LES INVALIDES PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON THE dome of the Pantheon attracts the eye simply by its own architectural beauty ; but that of the Invalides, by Mansard, is lustrous with abundant gilding, and on a sunny day shines over Paris with the most brilliant effect. It is splendid against one of those cerulean skies that are still possible in the capital of France. Cer- tainly nothing does so much for the splendour of a great city as very conspicuous gilding. There are drives in Paris, as, for instance, from the Trocadero to the Place de la Concorde, during which the dome of the Invalides accompanies you like a harvest-moon. On a nearer approach it is the architecture that claims attention. The dome itself is fine, but in many respects the building as a whole is greatly inferior to the Pantheon. Soufflot made the body of his church an ample base for his dome in every direction ; but at the Invalides one receives the impression of a man with a prodigious head on a small body and very narrow shoulders. The columns of the dome are in couples, with projecting masses doing the work of buttresses. This gives more light and shade than the simple colonnade of the Pantheon, but not such beautiful perspective, as the projections interfere with it. The com- »87. i88 PARIS position of the front makes us feel strongly the special merits of the Pantheon. Instead of the majestic columns of Soufflot's work, his rich pediment, and the massive plain walls on each side as margin, we have in the Invalides a poor little pediment reduced to still more complete insig- nificance by the obtrusive windows, etc., on each side of it. Again, the front of the Invalides offers an example of that vice in Renaissance architecture which Soufflot avoided, — the superposition of different orders. It is divided into two stories, Roman Doric below and Corinthian above, a variety that the Renaissance architects enjoyed, though it does not seem more desirable than two languages in one poem. This criticism does not affect either the beauty of Mansard's dome as a fine object seen from a distance, or the importance of the interior, one of the most im- pressive in all Paris, especially since it has become the mausoleum of Napoleon I. A lofty dome, supported by massive piers perforated with narrow arched passages and faced with Corinthian columns and pilasters, a marble floor of extraordinary richness and beauty everywhere, all round the base of the dome a stair of six marble steps descending to the circular space under it, and in the midst of this space a great opening or well, with a diameter of more than seventy feet, and a marble parapet, breast-high, for the safety of the visitors who look down into it, — such is the first impression of the interior. Not only do people invariably look down, but they gen- LES INVALIDES 189 erally gaze for a long time, as if they expected something to occur; yet a more unchanging spectacle could not be imagined. In the middle there is a great sarcophagus of polished red Russian granite, and twelve colossal statues stand under the parapet, all turning their grave, impassible faces toward the centre. They are twelve Victories whose names have resounded through the world, and in the spaces between them are sheaves of standards taken in battle, and in the red sarcophagus lies the body of Napoleon. The idea of this arrangement is due to the architect Visconti, who had to solve the problem how to arrange a tomb of such overwhelming importance without hiding the architecture of so noble an interior as this. His solution was admirably successful. The arrangement does not interfere in the slightest degree with the architecture of the edifice, which would have been half hidden by a colossal tomb on its own floor; while we have only to look over the parapet to be impressed with the grandeur and poetic suitableness of the plan. With our customs of burial we are all in the habit of looking down into a grave before it is filled up, and the impressiveness of Napoleon's tomb is greatly enhanced by our downward gaze. We feel that, notwithstanding all this magnificence, we are still looking down into a grave, — a large grave with a sarcophagus in it instead of a coffin, but a grave nevertheless. The serious grandeur, the stately order of this arrangement seems to close appropriately the most extraordinary career in history ; and yet it is impossible to look upon the sarcophagus with- 190 PARTS out the most discouraging reflections. The most splendid tomb in Europe is the tomb of the most selfish, the most culpably ambitious, the most cynically unscrupulous of men ; and the sorrowful reflection is that if he had been honourable, unselfish, unwilling to injure others, he would have died in comparative or total obscurity, and these prodigious, posthumous honours would never have been bestowed upon his memory. ^f^ HOTEL DES INVALIDES V, DE SWJRTE VARIOUS kings, notably Charles VII., Louis XII., Francois I., Henri II., and Charles IX., had the intention to found a final shelter for old invalid soldiers ; Louis XL was the first to grant them pensions. Henry III., in 1575, organized a house for them called the Christian Charity and gave them the pensions of lay monks. Henri IV. added another house in the Rue de I'Oursine, in 1597, and endowed it with the product of the fines and confiscations arising from abuses and malversations. This only existed until 1597, when the houses for invalids were suppressed and the latter were again sent to the monasteries as lay monks. In 1633, Louis XIII. by edict founded the Commandery of Saint-Louis, the works of which were brusquely interrupted in 1635. Louis XIV. took up this plan again and completed it. The edict of April, 1674, " perpetual and irrevocable," runs thus : " We found . . . the said Hotel that we have entitled the In- valides, which we cause to be built at the end of the Fau- bourg Saint-Germain in our good city of Paris, for the lodging, subsistence and entertainment of all the poor of- ficers and soldiers of our troops who have been or are dis- abled, or who, having grown old in service, are no longer 191 192 PARIS able to do anything." For the endowment of the house with sufficient and assured revenues, the king gives it for- ever " the two deniers per livre of all payments that shall be made by the treasurers-general, ordinary and extraor- dinary of war;" and in addition "the deniers accruing from the pensions and the places of the lay monks of abbeys and priories " in which it was usual and obligatory to receive lay monks. The religious chapters that were thus taxed vainly tried to resist : they had too often complained of the gross manners and of the conduct of the lay monks to be able decently to resist the royal will. The works, more- over, had been begun four years before. It was intended to shelter 6,000 invalids, but that num- ber was not reached and the buildings barely sufficed for 4,000 pensioners. The endowment was rich, and in 1789 the revenue amounted to 1,700,000 livres. After the war of the Spanish Succession, space failed and many invalids were outside pensioners. Abuses multiplied ; the great lords lodged their old lackeys at the Invalides, even those who had never borne arms, to the detriment of real invalids. The Comte de Saint-Germain fought against these favours. The Revolution laid the expenses of the institution to the State's charge. The considerable number of wounded and infirm that were the consequence of the wars of the Revolution and the Empire forced Napoleon I. to create branches of this establishment at Versailles, Avignon, and Ghent. In 18 12, the invalids numbered 26,000. The period of peace that HOTEL DES INVALIDES 193 followed allowed of the suppression of these branches suc- cessively and the preservation for the invalids only of the building of that name, which now is not even entirely oc- cupied by them. ' The organization of the Hotel is entirely military ; its command is entrusted to a brigadier-general seconded by a number of officers in proportion to the effective of pensioners. This personnel, including the necessary doctors, is com- posed exclusively of retired officers. The Administration is by a council of surveillance whose agents are taken from the active army ; this council takes constant action in the management. An almoner, hospital sisters and several civil employes are also attached to the Hotel. In a word, every precaution is taken to secure to the invalids all the necessary care appropriate to their condition and their old rank. For admission, before all it is necessary to have re- tired on a pension and to be of irreproachable conduct and morality. The other conditions are: ist, to have lost the sight, or one or more limbs, or to be afflicted with infirmi- ties equivalent to the loss of a limb ; 2d, to be at least sixty years of age ; at seventy, admission is a right. Dur- ing their abode at the Hotel, the invalids, in addition to their food and clothing, receive a payment proportionate to their old rank, and their pension is suspended. Each in- mate may renounce the privilege of his admission and re- sume the enjoyment of his pension, as he may also reenter the Hotel after having voluntarily left it. The invalids are organized in divisions ; the military service is performed by 194 PARIS them exclusively. The number of invalids entertained at the Hotel depends upon the annual credit allowed by the Chambers for that purpose. At present the number is greatly restricted on account of the absence of great wars. Many people share Montesquieu's opinion : " The Hotel des Invalides is the most admirable place on earth. If I had been a prince, I would rather have created that es- tablishment than have won three battles." THE INSTITUTE ERNEST RENJN THE Institute is one of the most glorious creations of the Revolution, and something quite peculiar to France. Many countries have academies that may rival our own in the illustriousness of their members and the importance of their works ; France alone has an Institute where all the efforts of the human mind are bound together in a sheaf, where the poet, the philosopher, the historian, the philologist, the critic, the mathematician, the physicist, the astronomer, the naturalist, the economist, the lawyer^ the sculptor, the painter and the musician may call themselves brethren. Two ideas absorbed the minds of the simple and great men who conceived the plan of this entirely novel founda- tion : the first, admirably true, was that all the productions of the human mind maintain their solidarity by one an- other; the other, which is more open to criticism but is still great and in any case proceeds from what is most pro- found in the French spirit, is that the sciences, letters and arts, are an affair of the State, a matter that every nation produces in its own body and which it is the country's duty to provoke, to encourage and to recompense. The last day but one of the Convention (October 25th, 1795), appeared 195 196 PARIS the law that was destined to realize this idea that was so full of future. The object of the Institute is the progress of science, general utility, and the glory of the Republic. Every year it renders an account to the legislative body of the progress it has accomplished. It has its budget, its col- lections and its prizes. It has missions to entrust, and scientific and literary establishments to patronize. For the formation of the original nucleus of its members, it was decided that the executive Directoire should name forty- eight persons, or a third of the encumbents, and that these should nominate the other two-thirds by ballot. Three men in particular helped in tracing these great lines, to which the Institute must return whenever it wishes to re- new its youth ; these were Lakanal, Daunou, and Carnot. Unfortunately at that moment France was in the condition of a sick man who issues exhausted from an attack of fever. Entire branches of human culture had been swept away. The moral, political and philosophical sciences were profoundly abased. Literature was almost null. Historical and philological science counted only two eminent men ; — Silvestre de Sacy and d'Ansse de Villoison. In revenge, the physical and mathematical sciences were in one of the most glorious periods of their development. The divisions of the Institute into classes and sections felt this condition of things. The classes were three in number. The first corresponded exactly to the present Acad'einie des Sciences and presented almost the same sections as the latter. The second was called the class of the moral and political THE INSTITUTE 197 sciences. It corresponded to the Acad'emie which to-day bears the same name and a small section of our Acad'emie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. The third class was called " Litt'erature et Beaux- Arts." It embraced what we now call the Academic Fran^aise^ the Academic des Beaux-Arts and the greatest part of the Acad'emie des Inscriptions. The great fault of this division was in not admitting the existence of the historical sciences. To tell the truth, there was some excuse for those who were responsible for it, since at that time those sciences scarcely existed in France. The his- torical sciences imply ancient traditions, a refined and, to a certain point, an aristocratic society. On the other hand, philosophy is not self-controlling and will not admit of classification. Something in the nature of the scholar and smelling of the pedagogue presided over all this primitive distribution. The second class had a section called : "Analysis of Sensations and Ideas." Six persons were always occupied in this difficult labour. The third class comprised eight sections that were called Grammar, An- cient Languages, Poetry, Antiquities and Monuments, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music, and Declamation. This primitive organization lasted for six years. Various regulations successively were added to complete it. The law of April 4th, 1796, regulated the mode of election; there were three degrees. The sections made presentations to the classes, the latter made them to the entire Institute which finally voted upon them. One could not be a mem- ber of several classes at the same time. The right of 198 PARIS presentation for vacancies in all the great Schools of the State was given to the corresponding classes. Finally, by this same law, the continuation of the great collections be- gun under the regime by the Acad'emie des Sciences and the Acad'emie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres devolved upon the Institute. It was thought that in a society where everything had been rendered individual and of mere life interest out of hatred for the ancient populations, the In- stitute alone possessed sufficient continuity to accept the heritage of these great works ; a just and fruitful idea, for which the chief honour must be given to Camus. However, the First Consul regarded with an unfriendly eye a free body, limited to pure speculation, it is true, but moving without limits or fetters in the vast field of matters of the mind. Various sensible defects, moreover, had mani- fested themselves in the original plan. On January 23d, 1803, a new organization, inspired by Chaptal, modified the work of the Convention. The First Consul's appro- bation was necessary for every election. The number of classes was increased to four. The first corresponded to our Acad'emie des Sciences ; the second (French language and literature) to the Academic Franfaise ; the third (Ancient history and literature) to our Academic des Inscriptions; and the fourth to the Academic des Beaux-Arts. In many respects, this division was preferable to that of 1795. Under a still sorry form, it created a place for the historical sciences. It destroyed the incongruous agglomeration of specialties that were unconnected with each other which THE INSTITUTE 199 the law of 1795 had established under the name of the third class. In the class of French language and literature, and in that of ancient history and literature, the interior sections, always fatal to learned bodies, were suppressed. The creation of perpetual secretaries gave more continuity to the work. The continuation of the diplomatic collec- tions, a legacy from the old regime and particularly from the learned Congregation de Saint-Maur, devolved upon the third class. But in other respects, the general spirit of this new organization was very narrow. The political and moral sciences were separated from the labours of the In- stitute. The first class only had the right to occupy itself with the sciences " In their relations with history." We feel the systematic intention of discrowning the human mind and reducing literature to puerile rhetorical exercises. The physical and mathematical sciences preserved the superiority that was assured to them by such men as La- place, Lagrange, Monge, and Berthollet. But the literary and philosophic nullity became deplorable j while the his- torical sciences on their side developed in a laborious man- ner. That was the fault of the times rather than that of the government. The latter took the initiative in various useful foundations. The continuation of the Histoire litteraire de la France^ a precious collection begun by the Benedictines, was decreed in 1807 on the proposal of M. de Champagny. The organization of the Institute, inaugurated in 1803, lasted until 18 16. On the 21st of March in that year, an 200 PARIS ordinance of King Louis XVIII. struck the Institute of the Convention a much graver blow than that of 1803. Being a Revolutionary foundation, the Institute was dis- pleasing to the exalted men of the time. For a moment there was some thought of suppressing it and reestablishing the Academies of the old regime. The party of concilia- tion prevailed. "The protection that the Kings our an- cestors have constantly granted to science and letters has always made us consider with particular interest the various establishments that they founded to honour those who cul- tivated them. Therefore we have not been able without sorrow to look upon the fall of those Academies that so powerfully contributed to the prosperity of letters and the foundation of which was a title of glory for our august predecessors. Since the time when they were reestablished under a new denomination, we have seen with a lively satisfaction the consideration and renown that the Institute has earned in Europe. Immediately Divine Providence recalled us to the throne of our fathers, our intention was to maintain and protect this learned company j but we have thought it proper to restore its primitive name to each of the classes in order to bind their past glory to that which they have acquired, and to remind them at the same time of what they succeeded in doing during difficult times and what we should expect of them in happier days." That is very fine language and seems to carry us very far from the paltry work of Chaptal and the First Consul. Unhappily, Louis XVIII. 's government belied its apparent THE INSTITUTE 201 moderation, and under the pretext of reconstituting the Institute did it the greatest violence it had ever suffered. Until that time there had never been but one cancellation of a member of the Institute, that of Carnot, pronounced with deplorable levity after the Seventeenth Fructidor and soon repairedo When the First Consul had suppressed the class of political and moral sciences he had not deprived anybody of the title of Member of the Institute. All those who enjoyed that title in 1803 were distributed among the new classes established at that period. It was not so in 1816. Twenty-two persons, among whom were the painter David, the bishop Gregoire, Monge, Carnot, Lakanal, and Caesieyes, were deprived of the title that they honoured by their character or their works. This measure of vengeance and iniquity was instigated by the Comte de Vaublanc. In revenge, seventeen persons, by royal ordi- nance, received a title which has its full value only when it is given to a man of letters, or a savant, by the free suffrage of his peers. That was a sad beginning. It was not belied by what followed. The brilliant literary splendour of the time of the Restoration and the mighty awakening of those minds that made of this epoch the commencement of a new intellectual era for France should not make us forget the condition of inferiority in which science was kept under Louis XVIII. and Charles X. A kind of puerility in par- ticular struck the Academie that represented historical studies. The title of gentilhomme de la chamhre gained admission for a man among the erudite. It was not that 202 PARIS the organization was bad. In reality, scarcely anything had been done but changing the name of two Academies. The class of French language and literature had become the Acad'em'ie Fran^aise ; the class of ancient history and literature had resumed the name, that was understood by very few people, of Acad'emie des Inscriptions et Belles- Letters. The Academies had their individual regulations and were more distinct. The great unity of the Institute, according to the dream of the Convention, had been broken since 1803; perhaps it was an impossible conception. But the expulsions of 1816 cannot be pardoned. In the breast of several of the Academies, especially the Acad'emie des In- scriptions et Belles-Lettres^ the political and religious prejudices of the day, moreover, reigned with great intol- erance. Precious qualities of the mind were employed in intrigues. The most ridiculously incompetent influences were exercised to the knowledge of all. The Due de Berry and the Due d'Angouleme had their candidates. The institution of free members created the germ of great difficulties for the future. The interest of serious studies was the smallest care of academicians who were men of the world and who saw in their nomination especially the privilege of wearing a sword and an embroidered coat. The revolution of 1830 brought better days. Certainly if literary vengeance was ever committed it was after the Journees de juillet. The legitimist party had enormously abused its powers. It had shown itself haughty, narrow, THE INSTITUTE 203 and malevolent. Although vanquished in public it re- mained in the majority in almost all the Academies. With very good reason the government of King Louis Philippe relied on time and on its own intention of w^ell directing matters of the mind for conquering these survivors of a fallen regime. It neither took away from nor conferred on anybody the title of Member of the Institute. But, careful to attach men of merit to itself and skillful in its treatment of lit- erary and scientific affairs, in the various Academies it had soon by legitimate means conquered the influence that it would have vainly demanded by cancellations or intru- sions. From 1830 to 1848 the Institute did nothing but in- crease. The Academies of sciences, drawn by M. Arago into the ways of a perhaps exaggerated publicity, ac- quired an unusual importance. If, thereafter, journalism took up too much space, if that learned company chanced occasionally to gather together a Chamber of Deputies rather than an Academy, it must not be forgotten that it was by that means that it became the scientific centre of Europe. The Acad'emie des Inscriptions made much more undeniable progress. Eugene Burnouf and Letronne rivalled the most exact savants of Germany in method and sagacity. Augustin Thierry developed in his accomplished works his profound manner of understanding history. In the hands of Daunou, Fauriel, and especially that too true Benedictine of our century, M. Victor Le Clerc, the works 204 PARIS of the Academic were conducted with a care and activity unknown until then. The government of 1848 continued the traditions of 1830 toward the Institute. A few unimportant changes were introduced. The gravity of the social problems that were being agitated gave a certain importance to the Academy of moral and political science. We saw the worthy General Cavaignac in his simple conception of human affairs addressing himself to that Academic in order to obtain from it treatises to combat socialistic errors. Cer- tainly those little books, which have since been collected in one large volume, had not a single reader among those whom they were to convert. Thus was compromised the dignity of free knowledge which does not think of those applications, in struggles of another order, that are better pleased with expedients than with philosophy. The reactions that followed brought the Institute back to its peaceful labours. Perhaps internal activity was never greater than since 1852. Certain dangers that for a mo- ment threatened its dignity and independence were skill- fully conjured. Not so happily inspired as were the min- isters of 1830 and 1848, M. Fortoul tried to lay some re- strictions on the liberties of the Institute. As soon as the consequences of these measures were pointed out to the *Emperor, things were restored to their old condition. From this unfortunate attempt there only remained a new sec- tion added to the Academy of moral sciences, a section of which the need was not very apparent since it was THE INSTITUTE 205 later merged in the other sections with the consent of the members. (Decree of May 9th, 1866.) Ten members were nominated by decree to fill the new places, which had not been known since the worst days of the Restoration. Such as it is, the Institute is one of the essential elements of intellectual work in France. The intellectual regwie of France could never be that of England, much less that of America or Germany. Our centralization does not allow of those numerous and powerful universities, which are academies and teaching bodies at the same time and from which the genius of Ger- many has drawn its greatest force. With us, science and teaching are different things, frequently even jealous and hostile. The regime of pure intellectual liberty of England and America would suit us even less. Besides creating for the country in which it is in operation a veritable inferiority in criticism, this regime has the drawback of offering too many facilities to charlatanism and foolishness. There is a true science and therefore it is necessary that there should be scientifical authority. It is in Germany that this authority exists in the highest degree ; there, charlatanism and ab- surdity are infallibly arrested at the first step. Among us, sufficiently serious mystifications may arise and succeed. The voice of serious science is sometimes very feeble against audacity and imposture. But the voice of science exists, and when the clamours in fashion have ceased, this voice continues to make itself heard and then nothing else is heard. That is the reason, in spite of the perpetual 2o6 PARIS complaints of low opinion against the scientifical academies, why these academies always prevail in the end, because they are the guardians of the true method. They exist for a small number, but this small number is right, and it is only right that endures. CHAMP DE MARS G. LENOTRE I DO not think that in all the world there is a corner, even if it conceals gold or diamonds, that has been more moved, dug and trenched than the vast plain that stretches between the Ecole Militaire and the Seine and which since the reign of Louis XV. has been called the Champ de Mars. At a moment when it is passing through one of these decennial crises of its existence devoted to earthworks and slop-made palaces, it is curious to show it as it was originally, and an engraving of a hundred and fifty years ago is an interesting contrast to the present photo- graphs of this busy point of Paris. Before the time of I'ficole Militaire, the Champ de Mars was nothing but a warren belonging to the abbey of Saint- Germain des Pres and by corruption it gave its name to the whole surrounding plain : from Garenne came Garnelle and then Grenelle. Do you remember having read in the history of France the name of Eudes, Count of Paris, who conquered the Normans who had come to seize the city ? Well, it was on the banks of the Seine, on the very spot where the Eiffel Tower stands to-day that the battle took place : a portion of land, leased to market-gardeners, preserved the name of Champ de la Victoire until 1770. Certainly, if the brave 207 2o8 PARIS Eudes could see the scene uf his exploits to-day, he would find it somewhat modified. The engraving, which dates from about 1760, is no less curious for the aspects of peaceful and almost desert country that it affords : Crenelle consists of a little chateau sur- rounded by farms ; the whole quarter between the Invalides and the Champ de Mars is en niarais^ or under cultivation. In the background winds the Seine between islands that to- day have disappeared j the He Macquerelle, — that in more elegant language was called the He des Mats et des Querclles. — Would not that be the origin of the name ? — where had been interred the victims of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, some of whose bones were found in 1889, whilst digging the foundations of the Eiffel Tower. It was in this isle that the Triperie was to be found ; a document of 1780 states that there were washed "the intestines and tripe brought from the slaughter-houses and that there also was made the oil of tripe that was used for the r'everberes or city-lanterns." Next came the He aux Treilles, the He de Jerusalem, the He de Challyau (Chaillot), also called He aux Vaches, and lastly the He de Longchamp, which all formed the archi- pelago of the He aux Cygnes which itself was soon united with the mainland. At the epoch of the Revolution, one could almost reach it at various places without wetting one's feet : to-day it forms the Quai d'Orsay. The horizon of the Champ de Mars was shut in by the CHAMP DE MARS 209 hills of Chaillot, and the old engraving shows the village of that name vi^ith its tv^^o convents of Bonshommes and the Visitation, which had been founded by Henriette de France and in which Mile, de La Valliere spent part of the time of her retreat. It was on the heights of Chaillot, on the very spot where the Palais du Trocadero stands to-day, that Napoleon laid the foundations of the Palace of the king of Rome. It was to be the most enormous and extraordinary monument in Paris. From the first floor of the edifice which was to have been raised upon three tiers, basements on the side of the Seine, the beautiful view of the Champ de Mars and its surrounding avenues would have been visible. To the east, close to the river, were to have been situated the State Archives, the Palais des arts, the Univer- site, the Palais of the Grand Master, the dwellings of the emeritus professors, savants, and celebrated men, who should have merited national gratitude by important services or by their talents ; to the west, was to have been a cavalry barracks and storehouses to serve as depots for salt, tobacco and other merchandise subject to the octroi. The entirety of the project of this singular Palais included in addition a military hospital, an infantry barracks, a slaughterhouse, houses of retreat and other monuments of public utility. The park of this eccentric residence would have been the Bois de Boulogne, connected with the Champ de Mars by broad avenues of big trees. But all that was only a dream that was dissipated by the tempest of Waterloo. 210 PARIS Let us return to the Champ de Mars to which we are called by various memories of public festivals. The most important and the most celebrated of all is that of the fam- ous Federation of July 14th, 1790. This was perhaps the first festival which was at once political and popular ; until that time the people had only been admitted to rejoicings. On that day Paris desired to receive France in the Champ de Mars as to-day it receives the whole world there. The works to be accomplished were considerable : the plain had to be dug and a sloped embankment made all around it; a vast amphitheatre constructed and a bridge thrown across the river : — and there were only three weeks in which to accomplish these prodigies. When the rumour spread that the Champ de Mars would not be ready, the entire population of Paris transformed itself into labourers; and men and women, fashionables as well as poor devils, came armed with picks and shovels, the corporations, the national guards, the wardens of city companies, the invalids, the religious communities of both sexes, the Swiss Guards, the colleges, the sixty districts, the crafts, the pupils of the Academies, generally preceded by banners and groups of young girls, might all be seen arriving in long lines. The work was retarded by eight days, for nobody knew which way to turn, and people preferred to spend the time in fraternizing glass in hand rather than in turning over the earth ; nevertheless by miracle everything, if not ended, was at least redeemed in time, and the festival was able to be held on the day fixed, — under a driving and continuous rain CHAMP DE MARS 211 that somewhat cooled the enthusiasm. How many other ptes there have been since that time ! In 1792, the y?/^ of Liberty; in 1793, the y?/^ for the Abolition of Slavery ; in 1794, the/?/^ of the Supreme Be- ing; in 1798, the funeral y?^^ for the death of Hoche ; then fetes for the children of the fatherland, for the anniversaries of the Republic, for the consecration of the Emperor, National, Napoleonic, and Bourbon fetes^ distributions of tricolour flags, eagles, white flags and oaths to how many constitutions ! Our history has passed there. SUNRISE AND SUNSET FROM THE TROC- ADERO £MILE ZOLA ON this morning Paris assumed a smiling laziness in awaking. A mist that followed the valley of the Seine had obscured the two banks. It was a light, almost milky vapour that the sun, growing grad- ually stronger, illuminated. Nothing of the city could be distinguished beneath that floating muslin, the hue of the dawn. In the hollows, the thick cloud deepened into a bluish tint, while upon the broad spaces, transparencies were made of golden dust through which one divined the background of the streets ; and, much higher, the domes and spires pierced the fog, with thin grey silhouettes still wrapped in the fragments of the fog which they penetrated. Every now and then streamers of yellow smoke detached themselves as if by the heavy flap of some gigantic bird's wing, and then melted into the air that seemed to swallow them. And, above this immensity and this cloud descend- ing and sleeping over Paris, a very pure sky, of a pale blue, almost white, stretched its deep vault. The sun rose in a dust softened by the rays. A light cloud, of the vague paleness of infancy, broke into rain, filling the space with its tepid quivering. It was a feast, the sovereign peace and tender gaiety of the infinite, during which the o oi •w Q < o o H W K H SUNRISE AND SUNSET 213 city, shot through with golden arrows, lazy and drowsy, could not make up her mind to show herself beneath her lace. . . . At the horizon long tremours ran over this sleeping lake. Then suddenly the lake appeared to burst ; slits appeared, and from one end to the other, there was a crack that an- nounced the breaking up. The sun, now higher, in the triumphant glory of its rays, attacked the fog victoriously. Little by little ,the large lake seemed to dry up, as if some invisible drain had emptied its contents. The mists, so deep a little while ago, became thinner and transparent, as- suming the bright colours of the rainbow. All the left bank was of a tender blue, slowly deepening into nearly violet, on the side of the Jardin des Plantes. On the right bank, the qiiartier des Tuileries had the pale rose of flesh-coloured cloth, while toward Montmartre, it was like the glow from burning coals, carmine flaming into gold ; then, very far away, the manufacturing faubourgs deepened into a tone of brick-red, gradually becoming duller and passing into the bluish-grey of slate. One could not yet distinguish the city, trembling and evasive, like one of those submarine depths that the eye divines through the clear waters, with their terrifying forests of tall grass, their swirls of horror, and their dimly-seen monsters. How- ever, the waters continued to abate. They were now nothing more than fine spread out muslin ; and one by one these gossamers disappeared and Paris became clearer and rose from its dream. 214 PARIS Not a breath of air had passed, it was like an evocation. The last piece of gauze detached itself, ascended, and melted into air. And the city lay without a cloud beneath the vanquishing sun. The sun, sinking toward the slopes of Meudon, came to scatter the last images and to glow resplendent. A glory flamed through the azure. On the distant horizon, the slopes of the chalky rocks that barred the remote Charen- ton and Choisy-le-Roi were piled with blocks of carmine edged with bright lake ; the flotilla of little clouds floated slowly in the blue above Paris, and covered it with veils of purple; while the thin network, the mesh of white silk, that stretched above Montmartre, suddenly appeared to be made of golden gauze, whose regular spaces were ready to catch the stars as they rose. And beneath this glowing arch, the city spread out all yellow and streaked with long shadows. Below, the cabs and omnibuses crossed along the avenues, in the midst of an orange dust, through the crowd of pedestrians whose swarming blackness was yellowed and illuminated by drops of light. A seminary, in close file, which followed the Quay de Billy, made a tail of ochre-coloured soutanes in the diffused light. Then, car- riages and foot-passengers disappeared ; in the distance one could only distinguish far away, on some bridge, a file of equipages with glittering lamps. To the left, the high chimneys of the Manutention, erect and rosy, disgorged huge wreaths of soft smoke, as delicate in tint as flesh; while on the other side of the river, the beautiful elms of SUNRISE AND SUNSET 215 the Quay d'Orsay made a sombre mass, perforated with sunlight. The Seine, between its banks where the oblique rays fell, rolled its dancing waves where blue, yellow, and green broke in variegated spray ; but higher up the river this painting of an oriental sea assumed a gold tone more and more dazzling, and one might have called it an ingot taken from some invisible crucible at the horizon, enlarg- ing itself with a play of bright colours in proportion as it cooled. Against this brilliant, flowing water, the arches of the ladder-like bridges looked slenderer than ever and cast grey bars which were merged among the fiery heap of houses, above which the two towers of Notre-Dame flamed like torches. To right and left the buildings flamed. The windows of the Palais d'Industrie, in the midst of the groves of the Champs Elysees, glowed like a bed of burning coals; farther away, behind the flattened roof of the Madeleine, the enormous mass of the Opera seemed a block of copper; and the other edifices, the cupolas and towers, the Colonne Vendome, Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, the Tour Saint-Jacques, and nearer the pavilions of the new Louvre and the Tuileries, crowned with flames and erect- ing at each crossway a gigantic pyre. The dome of the Invalides was on fire, so glowing that one might expect to see it break open at any minute and cover the whole quar- ter with sparks from its timber-work. Beyond the unequal towers of Saint-Sulpice, the Pantheon was outlined on the sky with a heavy splendour like a royal palace of fire which was being consumed in a furnace. Then as the sun sank 2i6 PARIS the whole of Paris illuminated itself with the pyres of its buildings. Lights ran along the crests of the roofs, while in the valleys the black smoke slept. All the facades fac- ing the Trocadcro reddened as they threw out from their glittering windows a shower of sparks that rose from the city as if some bellows ceaslessly kept this colossal forge in activity. Sheaves of flame constantly burst from the neighbouring quarters, where the streets were hollowed out, dark and burnt. Even in the distances of the plain in the depths of the red ashes that buried the faubourgs, destroyed but still warm, gleamed the lost sparks leaping from some suddenly-revived hearth. Soon it became a furnace. Paris was burning. The sky grew more and more purple, the clouds rolled with red and gold above the immense city. The Right Bank tniniLfWHTANr t' «t^- .ia-^'^ S^H^fe^ ^,.;il'^ V=?i / '^ %^0£/icyi RIGHT P.ANK: FROM HKRCJY J (j H(')rKL-I)i:-VILLE. LA VILLE THEODORE DE BANFILLE WHEN, having become a figure of bronze or marble for eternity, raised upon his pedestal in the centre of a public square, Balzac shall behold his Paris, which is our Paris, he will see it as he has evoked and glorified it, that is to say as it is. One of the greatest merits of the creator of La com'edie humaine consists in this, that he, better than any one in the world, has understood Paris's manner of being absolutely ideal and supernatural. In fact, this prodigious city is not in the least governed by the physical and material laws that rule other cities. Thus the inhabitants of Melun or Long- jumeau could no more form an exact idea of themselves than could the Esquimaux or the Kaffirs. The essential and permanent phenomenon of Paris is that ideas are drunk in with the air that is breathed. There, it is not only the great lords who know everything without having learned anything, it is the whole mass of human be- ings, and none of them are ignorant, not even those who have learned many things. Souls and minds mingle and penetrate each other, and everybody is acquainted with everything. If it pleases Joseph Bertrand or Renan to talk mathematics or exegesis with the passing Gavroche, they will find him perfectly well-informed. And supposing the 219 220 PARIS same young blackguard comes across some elegant lady be- ing tracked by a husband, or a jealous lover, or ignoble Tricoches, and driven to bay like a hind in the woods, she will only have to cast him a glance and Gavroche will very soon have found some ruse of an extraordinary Scapin or a superior Mascarille to save her and get her out of her em- barrassment. After which, without awaiting or desiring any thanks, without pride and without humility, he will depart to eat a sou's worth of fried potatoes, if he is in funds. What wealth, what pleasure, what ephemeral possession would be worth the immeasurable quantity of genius that is spent among us every moment ? Assuredly none. Thus the great Parisians do not possess anything, are not worth anything, and personally are as disinterested as monks in a monastery in Asia. What they desire and what they gain is the glory of constituting the city that serves as an ex- ample and as a light for the world. It is to be Paris, and that they are. De Marasy and Rastignac do not, and have not the time to, amuse themselves. They only care to carry along and dominate the intellect, Gobseck, Wer- brust, Palma and Gigonnet not only care nothing for what can be bought with gold, and each of them could live on thirteen sous a day and save money in addition, but they do not love gold itself and merely cherish the unlimited power it represents. What they all propose to themselves is, like Pistheterous at the end of the comedy of the Birds, to es- pouse the goddess So\ereignty. And in spite of the Naquet LA VILLE 221 law, when once this great marriage is accomplished, there is no danger that they will get divorced. They are all quite willing to die and even to live for their country, to give it first and always their blood, and then their gold, their genius, their intellect, and their inex- haustible treasures of invention in addition; but, contrary to what is supposed by certain inhabitants of distant or even neighbouring countries, politics does not exist in Paris. Between two true Parisians not a single word dealing with politics is ever pronounced ; and whosoever should infringe this elementary rule, dictated by good education, would thereby be guilty of a great indecency. Who of us would have the extreme puerility to care whether the squirrel makes ten revolutions in his cage or only eight ? And what would political agitation serve in a country that has succeeded in conquering true Equality ? Yes, Paris possesses and enjoys this treasure superior to all others. In fact, without being deceived, without any hesitation and without any possible error, every one occupies the place that he really merits and that nothing can deprive him of. The distinctions, the honours, the mediocrity or splendour of life have nothing to do with it. This one is the great savant, or the great artist, or the great workman ; that one is the vulgar man. Everybody knows it, nobody has any doubt of it, and it is as evident as if they had been marked on the brow by an indelible sign. One individual's clothes are covered with embroidery, he is a member of every com- 222 PARIS pany, twenty times a dignitary and horribly spattered with badges j another, garbed in an old great coat, without a noth- ing bleeding at the buttonhole, and crowned with his white hairs, dwells in a garret amid folios. Nevertheless, this one is surely the hero, the demagogue and the creator} and the other one deceives nobody, not even himself. Who has distributed the honour or the contempt to which each of these men is entitled ? It is that invisible and im- peccable justice which in Paris reigns over the souls of all men. And, especially, over the souls of all women. They know, and know profoundly, that with themselves the splendour of the countenance, the beautiful proportions of the form, the sincerity of the gaze, the rapidity of the thought, and the grace of the attitude mark those who in the true acceptation of the word are princesses of the blood, and that duchesses, worthy of that name, may be born on the Quai de la Rappe as well as in the old historic man- sions of the Rue de Lille. Aurelien SchoU has related that terrifying and poignant tragedy of a great lady, beautiful (because she wanted to be), elegant, courted, and surrounded with men, who, one fine day, wanted to know what she was really worth in the open market. To put this to the test, she went and took her seat among the girls in the low room of a Maison des Fleurs^ and this woman, who saw worlds, millions, vast regions, and the treasures of Bengal and Ophir at her feet, did not find a single man there who would offer a vile piece of gold to buy her. LA VILLE 223 Oh, the women of Paris know this terrible tale; they have all read it. And those who have not read it have divined it. Therefore, each of them, intuitively and by a miracle of knowledge, knows exactly what she is worth, as well as what other women are worth. On that question there is no possible illusion or mistake, and the glitter of a robe by Worth, embellished with more gold, embroidery, furbelows, and gewgaws than the heaven has stars, does not suffice to induce the belief that there is a woman in it, if there is not. More than this, a future Princess de Cad- ignan may be combed with a nail, bundled up in rags, and shod with ignoble shoes, and yet all the women will see upon her back the triumphant robes to which she virtually has a right. For nothing can prevent a truly aristocratic woman from some day rising to her veritable rank, nor can anything force her to fall from it. In the air of Paris there is an ambrosia that restores the goddesses to their native splendour, even when travestied as sweepers, and mys- teriously cleanses them of all their stains. Fires were lighted along the Mountains of Ida, and the promontory of Hermes and Lemnos to Athos, to announce the fall of Troy. There were voices and signals on the sea. There were semaphores raised on the towers that desperately raised and lowered their great absurd arms, soon eaten and devoured by the fogs. There is now the electric wire under the sea that bears to New York for the morn- ing journals long notices of the piece performed the evening 224 PARIS before. These gross and material engines are not needed for intercommunication among Parisians ; for, in their city, as I have said, thought transmits itself by its own force and without any intermediary. If an inhabitant of Montrouge murmurs a word in a low tone, two seconds afterward all the natives of Montmartre know it. Thus even if or par- ticularly when he has not been present, any Parisian has seen all the solemnities, all the battles, all the rejoicings, all the official balls, and all the comedies, so that there is no difference between those who were present and those who were absent unless it is that those who were absent were present rather more than the others. And one might cite a thousand examples to prove the ex- istence of this phenomenon. Ruined, exhausted and half- dead by excessive work, a very able writer, whom his friends familiarly called Edgar, had gone to make a long stay at the Bordighera, for the purpose of taking a great sunlight bath and recovering his health, if possible. This cure succeeded beyond his hopes. After a few months spent in the warmth and sunlight, he was almost well and had nothing more to do than to let himself live ; but sud- . denly he was seized, overcome and clutched at the heart by Parisian nostalgia. " It is stronger than I," he said to a friend of his youth whom he had met there. " I feel the need of acquiring new strength, of reviving my soul, of recovering myself and being healed in the divine tomb of Paris. I want to see all the fetes, the balls and the re-unions, of attending all the LA VILLE 225 first performances, reading the new books before they have appeared, running over the newspapers while damp from the press, admiring the most recently invented women, queens and duchesses in their carriages, or on their fiery horses." Edgar departed as he had said, returned to the Faubourg Saint-Germain where his chambers looked upon the great gardens, found his beautiful silken cushions, his carpets, his books and all that pretty abode that he had lovingly created ; and with reason he found it so delightful that he did not go out. And yet, when he returned to the Bor- dighera and his friend asked him if he had seen all that he had wanted to see, he said, " Ah ! certainly ; " and with a convincing eloquence he told of the re-unions, the comedies, the beauty of the women, the transfiguration of the Parisian landscape with great exactness and without lying or making the mistake of a syllable, for, in fact, he had seen it all by the mere fact of being in Paris. And this magnetism of the atmosphere does not merely serve for see- ing and hearing everything without the aid of the material senses, it also gives to the Parisians, in an ideal and at the same time real manner, the things, the beings, the treasures, and all the enjoyments of possession. LES BOULEVARDS LOUIS ENAULT THE boulevards are like a little city in a great one, — a second Paris within itself, the capital of Paris, as Paris is the capital of the world, — or rather it is a little universe of a league and a half in length by a hundred metres in width. Five or six times, the Boulevard changes its name as it docs its character. There are various kingdoms separated by a brook that separates them as profoundly as an ocean divides two empires. From one side to the other, mariners and population, habits and inhabitants, everything differs. The Boulevard has ex- isted scarcely sixty years. Sixty years ago (in 1800) it started from a prison and came out in a desert. To-day, on the ruins of the prison the Genius of Liberty spreads its wings of gold, and the desert is an elegant quarter. It traced a line across an uninhabited re- gion, full of sloughs and puddles, covered with boards, dotted with wooden shanties and ambushed by footpads who infested the lonely district. To-day it is a macadam road — macadam is the last word of civilization for artificial mud ! — given up to horsemen and carriages; a fine row of trees, that are cut down at every revolution and replanted on the morrow ; a wide bitumen path for pedestrians, and two long avenues of monumental houses, Parisian life has 226 LES BOULEVARDS 227 been transferred more and more from the Seine to the Boulevard in proportion as money has dominated the no- bility, and the Chaussee-d'Antin has conquered the aristo- cratic faubourg. When the Boulevard had inherited the Palais Royal, the police closing its games and driving away the women, its fortune thenceforth was assured ; it became the rallying point of the globe, the forum where, under the grey skies, all tongues, known and unknown, are spoken ; the bazaar of free flesh, where all the races of the world come to be judged on sample ; the kingdom of saunterers, the centre of business, the rendezvous of pleasure, the hearth of inac- tivity, the paradise of loitering, and everybody's highway. It is there that in troublous times the muttering riot and the successful revolution take place ; when better days return it is also the Capitoline Way along which serene Peace con- ducts the triumph of emperors and kings. Stay for an hour on the path in front of the Maison d'Or, or on Tortoni's steps, and you will hear the names of all the illustrious men in literature, art, politics and society. This ever new parade, this endless defiling past, this kaleidoscope of inexhaustible fancies, this spectacle of a thousand representations, this perpetual going and coming, this mixture of everything, this undulating and varied thing of insatiable curiosity, ever satisfied and ever recurring, — when once we have seen it, we shall never resign ourselves to see it no more. It is on Sunday under the first April suns that the Boule- vard should be seen. On that day it does not belong to 228 PARIS the foreigner: the Parisians have reconquered it from the winter and they enjoy it with the avidity of new possess- ors. The sunlight plays among the black branches, the wind-swayed shadows of which streak the asphalt. At the tips of the branches through the opening red buds the ten- der leaves unfold their little favours, green as the livery of spring. The fatigue of the ball still pales the women's cheeks which are already showing fresh life under the pur- ple of new blood. How the throng flows in from every street and spreads its living waves over the bitumen of the paths ! Spring toilettes are not yet attempted, but the velvet mantle is open and the hand half protudes from the sleeve ; the violet (price one sou) flourishes in the button- hole ; people go, come, look at each other, see and are seen: for many of them this is the half of life. The man of leisure whose every day is a Sunday elbows the man of toil who is snatching a few hours from his close task. The woman of fashion passes beside those who would like to be one : Aspasia crosses Rigolette, each forgetting to hate the other in the joy of a warm breath of air, a little gleam of blue and a ray of gay sunlight. We will take the glorious Pont d'Austerlitz as our depart- ing-point. Without dwelling upon it, let us indicate the splendid panorama spread out around us. On our left we have the railway terminus, the Boulevard de I'Hopital, the Jardin des Plantes with its great cedar rising in a pyramid beside its belvidere ; the dome of the Pantheon, supported by a circle of elegant columns, crowning the mount of Saint- LES BOULEVARDS 229 Genevieve ; and that heavier cupola in the distant horizon is Val-de-Grace. To our right is the He de Louviers, then the He Saint-Louis, and then the Cite with its noble cathedral surrounded by its counter-forts and dominated by its pinnacles and small spires as by a forest of stone. The Colonne de Juillet shows us by what road to reach the Place de la Bastille. A bold bridge thrown across the Saint-Martin canal brings us to the foot of the column that occupies the centre of the square : the Place de la Bastille is the beginning of the Boulevard. Upon the Place de la Bastille no trace is to be found of the celebrated fortress that gave it its name. We know that the Bastille was constructed under Charles V., by the provost of Paris, Hugues Aubriot ; he was one of the first to be shut up in it, just as Guillotin tried the machine invented by himself. It was then called the Bastille-Saint-Antoine ; later it was called the Bastille, meaning the prison par excellence. From Louis XL, the king-jailer, it received the embellishments that were to make it a model prison. Experts on this sad question cite with admiration the wooden cages studded with iron, widened above and contracted below, in which one could not stand up, nor sit down, nor lie down. The Bastille was a heavy building which smelt of the prison a league away : an enor- mous quadrilateral of thick masonry and great cut stones ; five big towers, half sunk in the walls that connected them, defending the fortress. In its circuit the wall contained sombre yards, damp courts into which the sun never pene- 230 PARIS trated, and a beautiful garden reserved for the governor to walk about in. The walls of the Bastille were too discreet for the Bastille to have a history. Of this poem of grief and suffering we know only a few rapid and lamentable episodes : heroes, martyrs, scoundrels, great ladies, female poisoners, stage girls, illuminated prophetesses; all names meet and throng upon the too well-filled pages of the jail register. Sometimes the entire drama of royal justice was accomplished within its walls, from the preliminary ques- tion to the capital punishment, — without any other wit- nesses than the judge and the executioner. It was in the Bastille that Marshal Biron was decapitated ; it was there that the Chevalier de Rohan and the Marquise de Villars had their heads cut off. Its low door saw sovereign heads bend like that of Saint-Pol, illustrious heads like that of Voltaire ; we have no time to mention even princes of the royal blood. Of all the prisoners of the Bastille, the one that for the longest time has attracted attention, piqued curiosity, and excited sympathy is that Iron Mask, who was served at the table with plate marked with the lilies of France, to whom the governor removed his hat when ad- dressing, — but whom the sun never saw. Even to-day the identity of this mysterious personage remains one of the most unsolvable problems of history. The Bastille was destroyed on July 14, 1789 j it is from this day that the new era of personal liberty dates for France. When the populace penetrated into those cells, it only found three prisoners there. Louis XVI. had made LES BOULEVARDS 231 silent reparation for the wrongs of the monarchy, before expiating them as an innocent victim in the sight of the world. When the prison was overthrown, a patriotic architect carved miniature Bastilles out of the ruins of the monument which were sent to the Departments. The re- mainder of the materials was employed in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde and Pont de Sainte-Pelagie. Two months before the violent destruction of the Bas- tille, the tiers-etat of Paris had asked that on the site of this destroyed and razed prison a vast square should be established, in the midst of which a column should be erected with this inscription : " To Louis XVL, the re- storer of public liberty." In '90, on the evening of the first fete of the federation, on their return from the Champ de Mars, the people organized a ball of patriots upon the levelled soil of the prison, and, on the door of this impro- vised ballroom, this inscription was placed : " Here people dance," on the very spot where for so many centuries might have been read : " Here people weep." The Place de la Bastille long remained void of durable monuments. Napoleon resolved to build a fountain of quite a new kind there : a colossal elephant laden with a castle in the antique manner was to discharge inexhaustible streams through its trunk. The castle was never seen ; the elephant remained in the model stage for forty years, — a plaster sketch demolished in detail by the rats. To-day upon the ruins of the Bastille, it is a bronze column that springs toward the sky ; it guards the ashes of those who 232 PARIS gave their lives for an idea in the two revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The Colonne de Juillet, as it is called, is not supported within by stone filling; it is composed simply of bronze, adjusted by cylindrical drums. A corkscrew stair- case leads to the top ; a circular pier of stone surrounded by a grille bears the columns, which rests upon a white marble pedestal, supported in turn by a square base, orna- mented by eighty-four bronze medallions. A lion passant defends the western face of the pedestal ; the arms of Paris are sculptured upon the opposite face; on the other two are engraved 1830 and the dates of the three days; at the four angles, the Gallic cock stands erect on his bronze claws. Cocks and lions are the work of Barye, whose hand can knead and animate rebellious matter. The column is surmounted by the Genius of Liberty with ex- tended arms, flaming brow, and half-spread golden wings. At the foot of the column the ashes of the victims are de- posited in cells. Every anniversary still brings its regrets and memories crowned with immortelles. The Port Saint-Antoine, formerly crenellated and forti- fied in the taste of the Middle Ages, has left no vestiges upon the earth, nor any trace in the memory of the people. Only the antiquary can say, " It was there ! " People do not listen, but pass on. To-day the Place de la Bastille, bordered by the Seine and traversed by the Saint-Martin canal, is the animated cen- tre of five or six great ways of communication radiating thence, by land or water, throughout Paris. COLONNE DE JUILLET (PLACE DE LA BASTILLE). LES BOULEVARDS 233 The Boulevard Beaumarchais is the first we meet on leaving the Place de la Bastille. This boulevard was first called the Boulevard Saint-Antoine. It received the name of Beaumarchais in memory of the house whither the witty author of Figaro came to shelter the golden leisure of his happy old age. This house, a veritable temple erected to the Fine Arts, decorated with their most admirable produc- tions in pictures, statues and bas-reliefs, was demolished many years since : it gave annoyance to the Saint-Martin canal ! Its site was long pointed out. Campius ubi Troja fuit. Solitude succeeded its ruins ; now that solitude is built over and we have a new quarter and another boule- vard. Although still young, the Boulevard Beaumarchais has already received its baptism of fire. To-day its mis- fortunes are forgotten, the wounds of Paris soon cicatrize, the houses, quickly run up again, proudly display their vast terraces, their glittering windows, and their balconies like iron lace-work. The Boulevard Beaumarchais has a little theatre that bears its name. The Boulevard des Filles-du-Calvaire may claim an il- lustrious origin. The Sixteenth Century planted those fine quincunxes, the majestic order of which was so dear to the well-regulated genius of our good ancestors. Louis XIV. planted, in rows like French guards, regiments of elms and plane-trees that still shaded and refreshed this quarter not many years ago ; the convent of the Filles-du-Calvaire, of the order of Saint Benoit, had for its godfather and founder that famous Capuchin, Joseph de Tremblais, whom Riche- 234 PARIS lieu called his right eye and right arm, and whom the peo- ple called " the grey Eminence." The Revolution " put the beard on the Capuchin " and razed the chapel and cloisters of the Filles-du-Calvaire : the boulevard, noisy and turbulent, replaced the refuge of calm and peace. Be- tween the Filles-du-Calvaire and the passer-by of to-day, the boulevard has known an intermediate occupant ; for a long time the wandering tribe of Bohemians and mounte- banks came and camped in its beautiful shadow. Here is the Boulevard du Temple and we must alter our tone ! Siceltdes Alusa:^ paulo majora canomus ! The Porte Saint-Martin is the western frontier of the boulevard that bears its name. This gate, built at the city's expense in 1674, is of a somewhat heavy architecture: the string-course and the piers are in rustic vermicular bossages, with bas-reliefs in the spandrils. One of these bas-reliefs represents Louis XIV., under the traits of Hercules ; his sole vesture is the club, a singular costume for the berib- boned son of Anne of Austria! The invincible Louis, as Boileau would say, overthrows the Lernian hydra or the Numaean lion, representing Limbourg or Besan^on. The first of these bas-reliefs is by Dujardin and A4arty ; the second, by Lehongre and the elder Legros. The front bears the inscription " To Louis the Great, for having twice taken Besan^on, and Franche-Comte and crushed the German, Spanish and Dutch armies : the provost of the merchants and aldermen of Paris; 1674." The Porte Saint-Martin in one direction faces the Rue LES BOULEVARDS 235 Saint-Martin as it goes to join the busy and populous quar- ters traversed by the Rue Rambuteau; in the other, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin, extending toward La Vil- lette, — vast arteries, always full and distended, in which the sap of industry and labour circulates. The Boulevard Saint-Denis is not long, but it begins at the Porte Saint-Martin and ends at the Porte Saint-Denis. It could not begin nor end better. Situated between the faubourgs of the same names that are like the vast labora- tories of Paris, this boulevard sees the torrential flow of labour and industry. The great tall houses are inhabited by things and not by men. The Porte Saint-Denis is far superior to the Porte Saint- Martin : it is truly an artistic monument. The principal arch, which certainly lacks neither grandeur nor elevation, opens between two pyramids sunk in the thickness of the monument and abundantly ornamented with warlike tro- phies ; at the top they bear the symbolic globe of the world ; at their base and set upon the cornices of their pedestals are two colossal statues representing Holland and the Rhine. Holland is a female of opulent form seated upon the Netherland lion, no less cast down than herself: this poor lion holds under his large paw the seven arrows, em- blems of the seven United Provinces ; it is Holland dis- arming herself: it would be hard to put more grace into it. The Rhine rests one hand on a tiller and in the other holds a cornucopia that without doubt he is about to empty over France notwithstanding the words of the pa- 236 PARIS triotic poet : " No, you shall not have the free German Rhine ! " Above the arcade, on the southern face, a large bas-relief represents the passage of the Rhine — not at the moment when he is crossing but when he is complaining of his greatness that keeps him on the bank. In the pedestal of each of the lateral pyramids a little door has been pierced : two Renowns are on the central spandrils, one with the trumpet to its lips, the other with a laurel crown in its hand. The plan and entire composition of this gate are due to Francois Blondel; under his orders were Girardon and Francois and Michel Auguiere. The execution is full of nerve and boldness. This triumphal arch was raised to Louis XIV., in 1672, by the provost of the merchants and aldermen of Paris, to commemorate his rapid conquests in Germany. There is no other inscription than these two words above the arch : *'Ludovico Magno." The boulevard makes an elbow to unite with the Rue Royale ; the disposition of the ground and architecture forms a long rectangle bordered with houses and the temple, seen obliquely, projects the angle of its portico into the street like a great head of masonry. This temple is the Madeleine. Above the pediment we read the following inscription : D O M sub invoc S. M. Magdalenae. Is it not a happy idea to have solemnly consecrated LES BOULEVARDS 237 amidst the splendours of Paris the sweet memory of that beautiful Mary Magdalen, who poured the essence from her vase of alabaster over the feet of Christ, wiping them with her long hair, — a touching image of repentance that brings us to God ! We have only to judge this church from the outside for its picturesque aspect, and the scenic and decorative effect in its surroundings of the square and boulevard. Seen in profile and a little way off, the temple, dominat- ing all the surrounding buildings by its mass, presents a fine perspective when our glance penetrates and loses itself among the Corinthian columns that support the frieze. From the side of the Rue Royale, a broad and truly monu- mental flight of steps leads to the peristyle, where the colon- nade forms a double row and supports Lemaire's pediment. This pediment is twenty-eight metres long and seven high. Promenaders, returning from the Champs Elysees, can con- template the grandiose representation of the last judgment and Christ enthroned amid the resuscitated ; to his right, are the angel of salvation and the blessed ; to his left, the angel of justice and the condemned. Before him, at his feet, Magdalen on her knees invokes and supplicates in favour of the sinful city. All around the edifice is a long series of colossal eifigies of apostles, martyrs, and confessors. A more or less happy imitation of the Greek temples, the church of the Madeleine may offer to our minds a satisfying combination of lines and surfaces, but it generally leaves us cold, as do all imitations and all architecture that is not, if 238 PARIS I dare say so, aboriginal, born of the soil, the civilization, the manners and the needs of a people. Nevertheless, sometimes the Madeleine presents itself in perspective with a great show^ of external magnificence ; it is then one of the most sublime scenes of the stage upon which the multiple drama of Parisian life is played. Toward evening or. a fine dav, when in the west half the heavens are on fire, the temple in vigorous relief detaches its sombre silhouette against the brilliant background. From afar its base seems to be already plunged into shadow ; in the meanwhile the slanting sun pours floods of ardent purple over the pediment and fills the vast portico with the golden dust of its rays. The Rue Royale leads us from the Madeleine to the Place de la Concorde. PkRE LACHAISE RICHARD WHITEING PERE LACHAISE, covering over one hundred acres, and the largest of the Paris cemeteries, is in the northeastern quarter. It is named after a cele- brated confessor of Louis XIV., w^ho had a country-house in the neighbourhood. It vi^as laid out as a cemetery in 1804. It was the scene of desperate fighting during the Commune. It is open from sunrise to sunset — seven is the closing hour in summer. A bell rings at closing time. Many celebrated persons are buried here, and among the tombs or monuments of interest are those of Abelard and Heloise, Bellini, Gretry, Boieldieu, Thiers, Massena, Be- ranger, Lafontaine, Moliere (the last two transferred from their original place of burial), Daubigny the painter, Due de Morny, Michelet the historian (the sculpture by Mercie), Couture the painter (a bust and an allegorical figure in bronze by Barrias). Along with these are two monuments to soldiers and to National Guards killed in the war, the former erected by the government and adorned with im- posing statues in bronze. In some monuments the merit commemorated is of a peculiar kind. A large chapel, with a sarcophagus at the top, reminds us of the virtues of M. Ed. Blanc the founder of the gaming-tables at Monaco. The very highest, a pyramid shooting one hundred and five 239 240 PARIS feet into the air, was built for 100,000 francs to let posterity know that Consul Beaujour died in 1836. It is appro- priately called the Sugar-loaf. Dejazet, Balzac, Francois Arago, Casimir Delavigne, Racine, Alfred de Musset, Rachel, Mars, Talma, Rossini, Casimir Perier, may be added to the previous list of really distinguished names. V «f \ "o^t- LA PLACE ROYALE- {Place des Vosges) JULES CLARETIE 'ITH its large houses of red stones and its vast roofs of slate, supported by elegant arcades, the Place Royale is of all Places in Paris the one whose general features are at once the most curious and charming. From a distance — from the Boulevard Beaumarchais — you perceive the house that stands at the corner of the Rue des Vosges ; you go a little farther, and while advancing you have suddenly stepped back two centuries. This is no longer the Paris of to-day, it is the Paris of Louis XIII. The hour of the raffin'es runs on, they say, to strike anew, and from these enclosed houses certainly there issues a procession of elegant lords and great ladies in trailing robes. In velvet pourpoints and silken skirts, in plumes and lace, with felt hats gallantly turned up, and swords proudly worn, M. d'Aumont and M. de Pisani, Madame de Mon- tansier and Mademoiselle de Polalion, Cinq-Mars leaning on the arm of Thou, Pere Joseph in a grey robe going to join his Red Eminence ; a whole century — and what a cen- tury ! It is there, still living ; or, rather, existing as a phantom, it comes to haunt these galleries where it loved, laughed, paraded, threatened, threw kisses in the air, and, at the same time, drew its sword. Extinguished passions, 241 242 PARIS defunct elegances ! Moss now greens the balconies where the lady leaned and to which the lover climbed ; at that window, now opening, it is not Marion who will appear, but a good bourgeois wrapped in flannel who, as he coughs, looks at the degree of temperature registered by his thermometer hanging there. It is no longer the Marechal de Biron, nor the Marechal de Roquelaure, nor the Marechal de la Force, nor M. de Bellegarde who talk of combats and adventures as they cross the Place ; it is the foot-soldier in large shoes, the groom going to curry his horse, the humble private strolling and hanging about the nursemaid in her white cap and apron. What would you say of it all, Ninon ? My handsome lovers, my soldiers in ruffles, all is over now. Your garden is a square. Where Desportes recited his poems, a little book-shop sells the popular songs. Malherbe reappears, with his mouth full of odes. Alas! under the arcades, a street Arab passes whistling the refrain now in fashion, and to the poet who cried : •• Elle itait de ce monde oit les plus belles choses Ont le pire destin " echo replies : " La belle Venus, La Venus aux carottes !" Your famous arcades — where Pierre Corneille, who had not yet written M'ed'ee^ placed the scene of one of his comedies (it also was called La Place Royale^ and roused a great outcry, particularly among the women, who found LA PLACE ROYALE 243 themselves a little too severely railed at), where your luxury flowed, where your wit sparkled, where your anger growled, and where your loves were sung, — the fruit-sellers, stay-makers, tobacconists, cabinet-makers and dealers in old clothes have taken by assault. Here, upon these posts where Mademoiselle Marcelle perhaps wrote so that the ingrate, M. de Guise, could read her death-song as he passed — for in those days people died for love ; — they have painted in black letters, blue letters, and red letters, " So- and-so the watchmaker, so-and-so the glover, and so-and-so the tailor. Ah-! Monsieur d'Estrees, Monsieur de Turin, Monsieur de Joyeuse ! " Ah ! Monsieur de Luneterre, e finita la musica. The laurels have been cut and the happy days are extinguished ! Ah ! le hon billet qu'a la Chatre? On the side of the Rue Royale, however, the Place Royale seems to have resisted the invasion of the little shops. It is doleful there and sombre as a prison ; its windows are barred, its doors look lifeless and shut forever; its rare passengers seem to have been possessed of renuncia- tion or sacrifice. The stones are black, the arches are cracked, and rust and dust are everywhere. The Place seems here to protest against the present. It is here the same as ever ; its vast courts have not changed in the least. It looks sick and tired, but it will not give up. The military and the humble citizens, the nurses and the tenants have garden benches to sit upon and bask in the sun. Here, as in every other place where there is sky and grass, we find children and old men. Those who know 244 PARIS nothing of life and those who know it too well are united here by the same sentiment — the love of flowers and of animals. But while the child lays them waste or beats them, the aged — who know the value of a caress or a perfume — replant the torn rose-tree or tend the beaten dog. In the centre of the garden, Louis XIII., in white marble, parades on horseback, a few steps from a fountain. The statue is by Dupaty and Cortot. It is an excellent example of the most deplorable statuary. The king, combed with the utmost precision, seems to have just left the hands of his hair-dresser, and his moustaches are geo- metrically curled on his upper lip. No expression ! Not the slightest character! The horse leans his belly upon the trunk of a tree. There is no inscription upon the pedestal. The uniformed frequenters of the Place Royale, forgetting the hours of the barracks, generally mistake this Louis XIII. for a Roman warrior or a marshal of France. The statue, moreover, is scarcely visible, surrounded and hidden by trees. The leaves, it would seem, are anxious to rob the public of Dupaty's work. These leaves have good taste. What a charming promenade is this Place, nevertheless, and how good it is to dream beneath its arcades ! You walk here weaving memories, just as if you were turning over the leaves of a book. Each step brings a chronicle, or a story, one of those beautiful stories of cloak and sword, which seem to us like legends. These red bricks, these scaling slates, these crumbling stones be- LA PLACE ROYALE 245 come animated and speak. At twilight, in the uncertain shadows, you sometimes perceive, as if in the depths of a convent passage, vague silhouettes assuming form ; you hasten to approach them to ascertain if it is not the car- dinal's litter that you see in the shadow, or if these belated men are not coming, dirk in hand, to settle some affair of honour beneath the window of their lady. It would take an entire volume to relate the adventures and elegances of the Place Royale. There was formerly the Hotel of the king, the Hotel des Tournelles, that formidable and charming palace, menac- ing without, magnificent within. The chancellor, Pierre d'Orgemont, it is said, had it rebuilt expressly for his son, who was bishop of Paris, and sold it to the brother of King Charles V. The Tournelles was to become the resi- dence of the kings of France, but before that the duke of Bedford was destined to keep garrison there for the king of England. It was here that the tournament was held at which Henry II. was killed by the captain of the Scottish guard. Catherine de Medici blamed herself for the theatre of the murder, while waiting to revenge herself upon the murderer. The palace was abandoned and then demol- ished. The ground that it occupied became a horse- market, and the raffines d^honneur kept rendezvous there, dirk or sword in hand, to settle their terrible or trivial quarrels. They fought for a word, for a sign, for the hue of a pourpoint, for the knot of a ribbon, for nothing, — for pleasure. They killed themselves to kill time. It was also 246 PARIS the date of savage hatreds. This terrible Sixteenth Cen- tury presents itself before history armed to the teeth. One morning in April, 1578, miguotis and guisards met at the Tournelles. There was a furious encounter with swords — Schomberg, Riberac and d'Entraigues against Liv- arot, Quelus and Maugiron. Quelus, the effeminate, re- ceived nineteen wounds but did not die until a month afterward. They carried away d'Entraigues and Livarot, who seem to have recovered by a miracle; Riberac had but twelve hours to live, but he saw Maugiron and Schom- berg die. Que Dieu rtfoive en son giron Quilus, Schomberg- et Maugiron ! The Place Royale should have begun as it ends, with the bourgeoisie. They were silk merchants who, during the reign of Henri IV. and on the site of this enclosed field, built a row of houses half brick and half stone for the ac- commodation of their shops. A truly marvellous effect was noticed. The king wished the isolated row to be- come a place and the Place Royale sprang from the ground. It was soon to become the heart of Paris, or, at least, its brain, the gathering place of tout Paris for all time, the vagabond centre of the city, which shifts according to the time, and was ascending at this moment toward the Champs Elvsees and toward Beaujon. Interrogate these galleries and these old houses ; their history was our his- tory. Ninon de Lenclos lives here, over there Marion Delorme. Madame de Sevigne was born here, Dangeau LA PLACE ROYALE 247 wrote here. Chapelle and Bachaumont appointed meet- ings here. The Place witnessed one superb fete. It hap- pened in 16 1 2. Peace was to be signed with the king of Spain. Marie de Medeci wished to celebrate it worthily. A palace arose, the Palais de la Felicite^ and a procession was organized. Two thousand figurants^ and among them the most elegant men of the noblest titles, took part in the heroic masquerade. There were cavalcades and feats of arms. The challengers called themselves Lysandre, Alphee, Argant, Leontide, and Alcinor, and led men-at-arms. Upon the scaffoldings was seated the entire court in rich cos- tumes. And for two days, two entire days, the gallant mythology unfolded its pageantry, its gold, its plumes, and its silk sub sole crudo in the bright sunshine. But this comedy once played in Place Royale, tragedy resumes its rights. At twenty-seven years of age, Francois de Montmorency, Seigneur de Boutteville, was illustrious, and renowned for his bravery j he had been seen to fight nearly everywhere, in Languedoc, and in Saintonge at the taking of Saint-Jean-d'Angely. He was taken still breath- ing from a mine at the siege of Montauban. He loved danger for the sake of danger and when the battle was over he gave himself up to duelling for pastime. He fought despite arrests, despite the king, despite the cardinal, despite God, despite the devil. He was fighting on Easter Day, 1624; he came to kill the Comte de Thorigny in the close behind the Chartreux. La Frelle reproached him for not having chosen him for his seconds Necessarily he had 248 PARIS to fight with La Frelle. They fought. La Frellc was wounded, Boutteville sought refuge in Brussels, and he was obstinately refused letters of indemnity for the past. " Very well," exclaimed Boutteville, " since the king re- fuses me everything, I will go to Paris and fight in the Place Royale ! " He did as he said, with Des Chapelles as his second, against the Marquis de Beuvron, a relative of Thorigny, and Bussy d'Amboise. Beuvron and Boutte- ville fought with their swords, but could not reach each other ; then they threw away these weapons, took their poniards, collared each other, and were about to cut each other's throats without further ceremony. " Bah ! I will give you your life ! " said Boutteville. " I will do as much for you ! " said Beuvron. At this moment des Chapelles returned to its scabbard the sword with which he was about to kill Bussy d'Amboise. As flight was imperative, they tried to gain Lorraine. The marshalsca (court of a mar- tial) arrested them. Death was certain. They submitted to it proudly. The Duchesse de Pompadour and the Prin- cesse de Conde entreated the king for them, weeping at his feet. Louis XIIL was content to reply : " I am as sen- sible to their loss as you ; but my conscience forbids me to pardon them." Behind the monarch's pale face there stood, rigid and severe, the figure of Richelieu, inflexible and calm as the law. The cardinal-minister, in irony perhaps, had in 1669, a statue of his sad master put up in the very centre of the Place Royale. The Place Royale became the Place Fe- LA PLACE ROYALE 249 deres in '92 and the statue was overturned. It was des- tined to be remounted in a new form upon its pedestal in 18 15. The year 1848 gave the Place Roy ale the name that it bore under the consulate and empire, — Place des Vosges. Of all these houses, one is particularly celebrated. This is No. 6, the Hotel Guemenee, where Victor Hugo lived for a long time. The Hotel Carnavalet, two steps away, saw the birth or re-birth of our French language with all its affectations and delicacy. No. 6 Place Royale helped toward the blossoming of modern poetry and the modern drama with all their au- dacity and grandeur. Those who were of that epoch have told us with what flutterings of heart they mounted the steps of that staircase and with what surprise they came out, bearing a counsel and an example. Ah ! what a happy time was that. It was also in the Place Royale one morning in 1858, that I saw the funeral procession of that woman who had succeeded in forcing Corneille and Racine upon our atten- tion, and resuscitating Melpomene as one might galvanize marble, Rachel lived at No. 9, Place Royale. On that day tragedy herself was buried. THE HOTEL DE SENS A. J. C. HARE IN the Rue de Figuier, behind the Hotel de Saint-Paul, will be found the remains of the Hotel de Sens, once enwovcn with the immense pile of buildings which formed the roval residence. Jean le Bon, returning from his captivity in London, was here for some time as the guest of the Archbishop of Sens. Charles V. bought the Hotel from Archbishop Guillaume de Melun, but upon the destruction of the rest of the palace, that part which had belonged to them was restored to the Archbishop of Sens. In the beginning of the Sixteenth Century the Hotel was rebuilt by Archbishop Tristan de Salazar. Under Henri IV. the palace was inhabited for a time by Marguerite de Valois (daughter of Henri II.), the licentious Reine Margot, when, after her divorce, she left Auvergne, and obtained the king's permission to establish herself in Paris. Here it is said she used to sleep habitually in a bed with black satin sheets, in order to give greater effect to the whiteness of her skin. She came to the hotel in Au- gust, 1605, and left it before a year was over, because, as she was returning from mass at the Celestins, her page and favourite, Julien, was shot dead at the portiere of her car- riage, in a fit of jealousy, by Vermond, one of her former lovers. The queen swore that she would neither eat nor 250 HOTEL DE SENS. ■iJk THE HOTEL DE SENS 251 drink till she was revenged on the assassin, and he was be- headed two days after, in her presence opposite the Hotel. That evening she left Paris, never to return, as the people were singing under her windows — " La Royne — Venus demi-mortt De voir mourir devant sa parte. Son Adonais, son cher Amour, Four vengeance a devant sa face Tait defaire en la mesme place L' assassin presque au mime jour. ^^ It was within the walls of the Hotel de Sens, additionally decorated by Cardinal Dupont, that Cardinal de Pellerve, archbishop of Sens, one of the principal chiefs of the Ligue, united the leaders of the Catholic party, and there he died, March 22, 1594, whilst a Te Deum was being chanted at Notre-Dame for the entry of the king into Paris. After the archbishops of Sens ceased to be metropolitans of Paris (which was raised from a bishopric to an archbish- opric in 1622), they deserted their Hotel, though they were only dispossessed as proprietors by the Revolution. In the last century the Hotel became a diligence office ; now a fahrique de confitures occupies the chamber of la galante reine^ but the building is still a beautiful and important specimen of the first years of the Sixteenth Century, and no one should fail to visit its gothic gateway defended by two encorbelled tourelles with high peaked roofs. A porch, with vaulting irregular in plan, but exquisite in execution; its brick chimneys, great halls, the square donjon tower at 252 PARIS the back of the court, and the winding stair of the tourelle^ remain entire ; only the chapel has been destroyed. On the left of the entrance is an eight-pounder ball, which lodged in the wall, July 28, 1830, during the attack on the convent of Ave Maria. HOTEL DE VILLE PAUL STRAUSS N looking at this magestic Hotel de Ville, that is one of the jewels of artistic and architectural Paris and at the same time the fortress of munic- ipal liberties, the mind recalls the ancient Parloir aux bour- geois of the Place de Greve^ the Maison aux Piliers described by Sauval : " As for the building, it was a little affair of two gable ends connected with several ordinary houses. I will not amuse myself with a long account of all its apart- ments ; it is enough to know that it had two courts, a poul- try-house, high and low kitchens, great and small, stews or baths, a chamhre de parade^ another called le Plaidoyer^ a. wainscotted chapel, a hall covered with slates, five toises long and three broad, and various other conveniences. In 1420, it still had a large granary for hostelry. Mahiel, or Mahieu Bethune painted the hall belonging to the office, and adorned it according to the taste of the day with flow- ers, lilies and roses, mingled and enriched with the Arms of France and of the city. The floor of the rooms was covered with a cloth in winter and strewn with green grass in summer. The municipal house was not worthy of Paris, and Fran- ass 254 PARIS ^ois I. enthusiastically welcomed the project of the *■'■ prevot des marchands" to rebuild the Hotel de Ville "which shall be sumptuous and one of the most beautiful known." An authoritative art critic, M. Marius Vachon, combats the legend that attributes to Dominique de Cortone, alias Boccador, the paternity of this celebrated monument of the Renaissance ; he refers the honour to Pierre Chambiges, a French architect, " master of the masonry works of the city of Paris." But, in spite of this learned dissertation, the principal facade of the Hotel de Ville will for a long time yet bear the Italian name of Boccador. On several occasions, during the second half of the Eighteenth Century, the Provost of the Merchants and the Echevins, studied plans for the removal of the Hotel de Ville, that were insufficient and too restricted; one of the most original propositions was that of Cosseron, an echeviriy who wanted to remove the Hotel de Ville to the open space formed by the prolongation of the Pont Neuf. During the reign of Louis-Philippe, the desire to isolate the Hotel de Ville and to facilitate its defence — following the outbreaks of 1832 and 1834 — was not foreign to the adoption of the plan of development and enlargement of the house of the commonalty, which was executed under the direction of the architect, Lesueur, in conjunction with M. Godde ; the work, begun in 1837, was completed in 1846. It cost more than twelve millions. The old belfry was re- stored in 1868; the reception-rooms were decorated by the most celebrated artists ; Ingres and Delacroix executed ad- HOTEL DE VILLE 2^^ mirable paintings there ; the ceiling of the Salon de la Paix was a genuine masterpiece. The work of Ingres was uni- versally admired. The new municipal palace, reconstructed by MM. Ballu and Deperthes, faithfully reproduced the plan and style of the old Hotel de Ville ; the original facade of Boccador, however, has been divided, the central portion enlarged, a gallery for circulation in front of the festival hall has been arranged on the Place Loban; and, finally, new arrangements have permited the establishment of a large windowed hall on the side of the Rue de Rivoli for the use of the Caisse Municipale. The new buildings occupy a total area of 14,476 metres, the surface that can be utilized only 11,876 metres, and one of the criticisms that the architect Due aimed against the old Hotel de Ville of Boccador and Lesueur would have the same force and the same truth to-day. It is at night, in full electric illumination, in evening toilette, that the city palace dazzles the eyes of its guests ; no description can give the effect produced by that har- monious and imposing whole, that luxurious setting, and that superb frame. The great staircases and the staircase of honour, the vestibules, the galleries, the brilliant salons and the marvellous festival hall defy all criticism and sur- pass all praise. This glorious edifice, the history of which is mingled with that of Paris, seems to be protected by the images of the ancestors and great men of the city. M. George Veyrat has piously taken the trouble to write the 256 PARIS history of the statues of the Hotel de Ville and he has brought to life again the illustrious dead of this open air Pantheon. There is not an event, great or small, that has not had its origin or its reaction in the Hotel de Ville. Nothing more' attractive can be read than the origin and development of that association of water merchants that ended by holding in its hands all the administrative power, and with which even the kings of France had to count and to accommodate themselves. The Parlo'ir aux bourgeois had even judicial functions : it pronounced sentences ; the municipal magis- trates had a hand in the fortifications, the street paving, the maintenance of the highways, the quays, the bridges, the fountains and the distribution of water. Every year, the city bureau, in mantle and pleated band, in accordance with a constant ceremonial, in great pomp visited the bridges, the ramparts, the waters of Belleville, the Pre Saint-Gervais, Arcueil and Rungis, and the fountains. Their carriages were escorted by six city guards on horseback and two officers. The Hotel de Ville is the central hearth, the supreme motor of the communal life of the twenty-four quarters of Paris, but, by the force of circumstances, the niairte d'' arrondissement chances to be the civic house par excellence. That is the one that follows the citizen from his birth to his death, participating in the most important actions of his life, receiving him on his entrance into the world and accompanying him to his last abode. Between these ex- treme points of human existence, the mairie interposes at HOTEL DE VILLE 257 the most decisive periods, — the civic and military majority, the nuptial fetes, and, from beginning to end, it is our social headquarters, the administrative domicile of all the inhabitants of the same district. HOTEL BARBETTE iDOUARD FOURNIER TURNING east from the Rue Veille du Temple, by the Rue des Franc-Bourgeois, we find at the angle a picturesque and beautiful old house, with an overhanging tonrdle^ ornamented by niches and pin- nacles. It takes its name of Hotel Barbette from Etienne Barbette, master of the Mint, and confidential friend of Philippe de Bel " directeur de la monnoie et de la voierie de Paris" who built a house here in 1298. At that time the house stood in large gardens which occupied the whole space between the Cultures Saint-Catherine du Temple, and Saint-Gervais and which had belonged to the canons of Saint- Opportune. Three more of these vast garden spaces, then called courtilles^ existed in this neighbourhood, those of the Temple, Saint-Martin, and Saint-Boucelais. It is recorded that when the king offended the people in 1306, by altering the value of the coinage, they avenged themselves by tearing up the trees in the Courtille Barbette, as well as by sacking the Hotel of the minister, for which twenty-eight men were hanged at the principal gates of Paris. Afterward the Hotel Barbette became the property of Jean de Montagu, then sovereign-master of France, and Vidame de Laonois j 258 HOTEL BARBETTE 259 and, in 1403, it was bought by the wicked Queen Isabeau de Baviere, wife of Charles VI., and became her favourite residence, known as " le petit s'ejour de la reine" At the Hotel Barbette, Queen Isabeau was not only freed from the presence of her insane husband, who re- mained at the Hotel Saint-Paul under the care of a mistress, but could give herself up without restraint to her guilty passion for her brother-in-law, Louis Due d' Orleans, who in the words of Saint-Foix " tachoit de desennuyer cette princesse a l' hotel Barbette.^' Here, also, were decided all those affairs of state with which the queen and her lover played, as the poor king, at the Hotel Saint-Paul, with his cards, though, whatever his faults, the Due d' Orleans was at this time the only rampart of fallen monarchy, and the only protector of the future king against the rapacity of the duke of Burgundy. It was on Wednesday, November 23, 1407, that the queen had attired herself for the evening in her trailing robes and headdress " en comes merveillenses^ hantes et Ungues enchassees de pierreries" to receive the Due d' Orleans, whom Brantome describes as " ce grand des bancheur des dames de la cour et des plus grandes." Whilst they were supping magnificently, one of the royal valets named Schas de Courte Heuse entered, and announced that the king desired the duke of Orleans to come to him immediately, as he wanted to speak to him on matters of the utmost importance. A presentiment of evil possessed the queen j but the duke, " sans chaperon^ apres avoir mis 26o PARIS sa houppelande de datnas noir fourr'ee" went out at once, playing with his glove as he went, and mounted his mule, accompanied only by two squires riding on the same horse, by a page called Jacob de Merre, and three running foot- men with torches. But Raoul d'Octouvillc, formerly head of the finances, who had been dismissed from his post by the duke, was waiting in the shade, accompanied by seven- teen armed men, and instantly rushed upon him with cries of "^1 mort ! a mort ! " By the first blow of his axe, Raoul cut off the hand with which the duke guided his mule, and by another blow cleft open his head. In vain the duke cried out: " Je suis le Due d^ Orleans ;" no one attempted to help him, and he soon tottered and fell. One of his servants flung himself upon his prostrate body to de- fend it, and was killed upon the spot. Then, as Raoul held over his victim a torch which he had snatched from one of the footmen, and exclaimed: '■'• 11 est bien mort ! " it is affirmed that a hooded figure emerged from the neigh- bouring Hotel Notre-Dame, and cried : " Extinguish the lights, then, and escape." On the following day the same figure was recognized at the funeral of the duke of Orleans in his own chapel at the Celestins ; it was his first cousin, the Duke of Burgundy. Only two years later Jean de Montagu, Prime Minister and Superintendent of Finances, the former owner of the H5tel Barbette, was beheaded at the Halles, and afterward hanged, on an accusation of peculation, but in truth for no other reason than because he was the enemy of the Duke of Burgundy. Queen Isabeau HOTEL BARBETTE 261 left the Hotel Barbette after the murder of her lover, and shut herself up in Vincennes. In 1521 the Hotel Barbette was inhabited by the old Comte de Breze, described by Victor Hugo : " Affreux, mal bati, nial tournt. Marque d'' une verrue au beau niilien du ni, Borgne, disent les uns, velu, chetif et bltme ; " and it is said that his beautiful wife, Diane de Saint Vallier, was leaning against one of the windows of the hStel, when she attracted the attention of Francois I., riding through the street beneath, and first received from that king a passing adoration which laid the foundation of her fortunes, as queen of beauty, under his successor Henri n. After the death of Diane in 1566, her daughters, the Duchesses Aumale and Bourbon, sold the H5tel Barbette, which was pulled down except the fragment which we still see, and which was restored in 1886. In la rue Vieille-du-Temple, at the corner of the Rue Francs-Bourgeois, look at the elegant tourelk, whose corbel- ling rounds the angle so beautifully, and which mounts gracefully toward the base of the roof, unhappily un- covered, with its two stories of blossoming foliage. This is the riant debris of that gloomy Hotel Barbette, whence issued the Due d' Orleans, brother of Charles VI., when he was killed, at the very door, by the followers of Jean sans Peur. A lamp, which should burn forever, was placed there by one of the assassins, in expiation of the crime. Tradition says that La belle Feronniere dwelt near by and 262 PARIS that it was by the light of the murderer's lamp, placed almost upon the tourelle^ that her husband saw Francois 1. escape one night from a visit to her. How much history dwells in this little corner ! The tourelle is no longer proud. After having been the orna- ment of a feudal hotel, transformed into the dwelling of a rich financier in the time of Louis XIV., what has it not become, without losing any of its exterior grace, not even the grating, so finely worked, of its little window ? It is the very humble dependency of the bedroom of the grocer, whose shop is found below. ^ MUS^E CARNAVALET EDOUARD FOURNIER HE sculptures of the Hotel Carnavalet, where Ma- I dame de Sevigne lived, are authentic. They are "^ among the most remarkable productions of Jean Goujon. Jacques de Ligneris, Seigneur de Crosne, president of the parliament of Paris, for whom these works were made, was a very cultivated man in matters of art. He wished nothing mediocre for the Hotel, the site for which he pur- chased in 1544 in the ploughed lands of the Culture Sainte- Catherine. Pierre Lescot sketched the plan for him, to which Bullant gave the last touches ; Ponce made the orna- ments, such as the graceful stone balustrade which runs above the facade at the back ; the same Italian painters who created the marvels of Fontainebleau painted the rooms with some license, which was the fashion of the time, to the great indignation of the afFected Sauval ; and Jean Goujon was its sculptor. The Hotel was scarcely finished when M. de Ligneris died, leaving it to his son, who occupied it from 1556 to 1578, the year of his death. It was then acquired by the family that was its true god- mother. The widow of M. de Kernevenoy, whose Breton name was softened into that of Carnavalet, and who had been the worthy friend of Ronsard and Brantome, and 9 263 264 PARIS patron of the arts and letters, bought the Kotel for herself and her son. She was content to keep it in all its splen- dour without making many additions. The Hotel remained in this family for a long time. M. de Carnavalet, lieutenant of the guards, who played a certain role during the Fronde, but who no longer cut a fine figure upon the entrance of the new queen, Marie- Therese, on August 26, 1660, was the last representative of the name. Already in 1634 he had sold it to a magis- trate from Dauphine, M. d'Agaurri. Rarely residing there, the new master made too many alterations. In 1677 Madame de Lillebonne was the tenant. Her lease terminated on October ist, and competitors were not lacking to succeed her. Madame de Sevigne was at the head. She had tried all the streets of the Marais, and having visited it, she thought that this " Carnavalette " would suit her to perfection. She never left it : she was its soul and she remains its glory. Above all that hap- pened afterward, her name hovers with a brilliancy that prevents us from seeing anything else. " The grief of having her no longer is always fresh to me," wrote Ma- dame de Coulanges a year after her death; "too many things are wanting in the Hotel Carnavalet." Since then there has ever been a void no matter who came there. Brunet de Rancy, two years after Madame de Sevigne, brought only his importance as Farmer-General, with his ringing gold which resounded less than the vanished wit. Then later came the charlatans with their transfusion of MUSEE CARNAVELET 265 blood, there chance placed later the treasure-room of the library where the Marquise had produced the most charm- ing of books while believing she was writing letters only. The school of Fonts et Chauss'ees was presently established there, as if to level all that really remained of wit. As good luck would have it, a clever scholar, M. de Prony, was director, and Madame de Sevigne's salon might imagine that there was no geometry in the house. The last tenants were a boarding-school keeper and his scholars, and I ad- mit, at least for the master, they respected the dignity of this dwelling bound by tradition. M. Verdot has written the history of the Hotel Carnavalet ; he has filled it with memories of Madame de Sevigne, and dedicated it to his scholars. I do not believe he could ever have made a better lesson. LA TOUR SAINT-JACQUES S. SOPHIA BE ALE THIS tower is all that remains of the church of Jacques de la Boucherie, which had to be de- molished to make way for the Rue de Rivoli. It was commenced in 1508, and finished in 1522. The figure of Saint James upon the little turret, and his friends the Evangelistic animals, by Rauch, were thrown down in 1793; but in 1836, when the municipality saved the tower by purchasing it, the statues were repaired and replaced. The church contained many tombs and slabs, some of which have found a home in the Hotel Cluny. One of the most famous persons buried at Saint-Jacques was Nicholas Flamel, a member of the University, and librarian, who died in 141 7, leaving large sums of money to the church. His effigy, and that of his wife, were to be seen kneeling at the Virgin's feet in the tympanum of the porch. He was venerated as their patron by the alchemists, for having, as was affirmed, discovered the philosopher's stone; and several times his house in the Rue des £crivains was rum- maged in order to find some indication of his secret. His funeral tablet has the following epitaph engraven upon it, and is numbered ninety-two in the collection of the Hotel Cluny : 266 ^MliU... TOUR SAINT-JACQUES. LA TOUR SAINT-JACQUES 267 Feu Nicolas Plameljadix escri Vain a laisse par son testament d Leusore de ceste eglise certaines Rentes et maisons qu' il avoit Acquestees et achetees d son vi — Vant pour faire certain service Divin et distribucions d'' argent Chascun au par auniosne tou — Chans les quinze vin : lost el di Eu et aultres eglises et hopitaux A Paris. — Soit prii pour les trtpasstes. The Tour Saint-Jacques is an excellent example of what may be done with the remaining portions of demolished buildings. As it stands, surrounded by gardens, it is a most beautiful object, an oasis in the desert of streets, and trams, and omnibuses, a quiet spot where children may skirmish, and mothers can sit in the open air and knit their stockings. Why cannot we do likewise in London ? If churches must be felled to the ground, why cannot we leave their towers as a centre to the burial-ground gardens, or remove and reerect them in our parks ? We might with advantage follow the example of Paris, both in the preservation of the old tower of Saint-Jacques, and in the arrangement of the garden of the Hotel Cluny, where, also, fragments of churches are set up as ornaments. It was from the top of the tower of Saint- Jacques that Pascal made certain experiments of the density of the air ; and in memory of this, his statue, in white marble, was placed under the porch. LA BOURSE GABRIEL MOURE r THE Bourse! The heart of modern Paris as the Halles are its stomach. The Bourse ! The cathedral of the new times, the temple of the sole religion that truly flourishes and is sincerely practiced. And what a religion ! As savage, as sanguinary and as mysterious as the most barbarous cults, with its strange rites, its special dialect, its sacrifices, its categories of the initiated and its colleges of priests. The stockbrokers are its supreme pontiffs. The prestige of withholding the privilege that constitutes their power clothes them with a dreadful splendour in the eyes of the masses. Everything gravitates into their light; every- thing bends before their majesty. They form an omnip- otent caste to whose hands the fate of public fortune is en- trusted. In the sanctuary where the divinity is enthroned, they are priests surrounded with glory, wealth and pride, and none dare attack their sacred sovereignty ; are they not the obligatory intermediaries between the power that is adored here and the multitude? Could their intercession be dispensed with ? Protected by strong barriers against which break the rage and concupiscence of the gold-maddened throng, they exer- cise the monopoly of their ministry. A greedy mob whirls 268 LA BOURSE 269 around the sanctuary ; the fury of the assault surges, yells and seethes while the rough rite is being accomplished. A heated clamour mounts into the air that reeks of beasti- allty and blood and that is sometimes pierced by a cry as of a wounded animal. They themselves in the enclosure closed to the profane writhe in frantic gesticulations, and the echo that cease- lessly rebounds from the ceiling of the vast church resounds like a noise of the waves at the equinox and rolls and swells like the unchained fury of a revolt. It is one o'clock, the hour when Paris, tired after its morning's struggle, — for Paris rises earlier than other capitals — is reposing and stretching itself for a moment, that the worshippers of gold hold their assembly. A lull renders the streets almost deserted ; there is a pause in the feverish activity of the Great City ; efforts slacken ; fresh forces are being stored up for the remainder of the day. They come flocking ; they hasten with avidity from every direction ; in the streets disgorging into the square a swarm of human ants presses toward the prey. By hundreds the great houses in the whole neighbouring quarter disgorge them, business people seeking a precise goal at the precise hour. The neighbouring restaurants fill up. Appointments are made there, consultations are held there in freedom, and there preparations are made for the impending battle. It has already commenced : orders are transmitted, tubes are dispensed with, men examine one another face to face, the 270 PARIS force of resistance of each is estimated, plans are unmasked and manoeuvres brought into light. Solitary lunchers, stranded in melancholy before cleared tables, fret in vain waiting for some one who should come, and ceaselessly glance with agony from the door to the clock. Important personages have a group around them of a constantly re- newed court of anxious curiosity. Farther on, two partners exchange confidences in low tones. Feverish fingers tear open telegrams ; from one table to another, hastily-scribbled sheets of paper are exchanged. The hour is about to strike ; three minutes more, time to cross the street. The restaurants are empty ; late-comers climb the steps four at a time, are engulfed beneath the colonnade, and vanish in the dark holes of the doors. The hour strikes ! Cries break forth up there, there is a sudden roar like a piece of artillery which makes a noise which will last for three hours without a moment's pause. The battle has begun. Before entering the melee let us cast a glance at the monument which shelters it. Nothing can be more commonplace or ugly. It par- takes at the same time of the nature of a desecrated church, a railway station, and an old model market. It might also be a theatre : so many dramas have their prologue and their denouement there. Why not a hall of justice ? It pos- sesses the austerity and glacial Puritanism of one. On its ground-plan what jails might be established ! Lugubrious monument ! Without the distinction of a LA BOURSE 271 dome, a belfry, or a tower, it is squat and stupidly mass- ive ; it crouches heavily and cunningly ; there is some- thing dubious about it. A true temple of gold should be something else ! Sumptuous and excessive, it should fete the glory of the cult that is celebrated in it by a dazzling harmony of lines, and by fantastic audacity of decoration. Facades, glittering with enamels and mosaics, spires of precious stones, infinitely multiplying in their innumerable facets the solar rays, and mounting to the skies bearing the hymn of the men kneeling before the idol ! Like the Gothic cathedral in which the ardent soul of the Middle Ages is expressed in all its intensity, it should symbolize, glittering and exaggerated, the aspirations of its time, its disquietudes, its desires, its faith, and that riot of pleasure that holds possession of all. Alas ! I dream ! Such as it is the Bourse will remain austere, sad, and lacking in gaiety, like a protest amid the elegancies of contemporary Paris, that Paris which will end by being regarded by the foreigner as the public house of the universe. For, of the numerous cities contained in Paris the only one known is the city of pleasures and vice, the great hoaxer and the great skeptic whither come the provin- cials to recuperate, as they say, and the rastaquoeres of the two worlds to amuse themselves. But the others, the Paris of work and economy, the Paris of charity and science, the city of humble, proud, and wholesome existences, the city of sincere solidarity and devotion, who explores and who knows these ? 272 PARIS The peristyle, notwithstanding the exclusion of the coulisse — the bete noire of the stockbrokers ! — has lost nothing of its animation. Before the putting in force of the new law, June 30th, 1898, a sensational date in the history of the Bourse, there were about eighty coulis- siers ; it is said that half of them went into exile in the land of Manneaeneis and Leopold II. One would not think so ; the same vociferations that formerly resounded beneath the sad colonnade still fill the square with their noise. The gold-mine market suffices for that, and the external aspect of the temple of stock-jobbing has remained the same. They struggle under the clock with the same ardour as formerly : the ' wet-feet ' have a hard life. Exposed to the inclemency of the weather, braving the heavy sum- mer sunshine that heats the immense asphalt carpet of the square like the tile in a furnace, and despising the gusts of wind and rain, they continue their battle as roughly as ever. Mounted on chairs, and perched upon the bases of the columns, viewed from the street they form a swarm which is not lacking in picturesqueness. If they are mal- treated by bad weather, at least in the moments of pause they can enjoy the clearness and open air ; under the up- right columns there are calm spots where it is pleasant to sit amid the fresh greenness of the trees in summer. Ha- bitues come there, men who are disillusioned with specula- tion, men who have failed, and men who are resigned to the life the atmosphere of which is indispensable to them as is the odour of the wings to old strolling-players. They LA BOURSE 273 again find themselves in a familiar country, they follow the proceedings with interest and sometimes risk a stroke pru- dently and with the emotion of a beginner. Their eyes flame with passions that have been long asleep and sud- denly awake, and their torpor suddenly vanishes. The strange beings ! Small annuitants who come every day from the depths of their faubourg to tempt the fortune of speculation, timidly slip their orders and then wait, with that kind of pallor on the face that we see on the countenances of the players while the roulette is turning, for the close of the Bourse ; then, joyous or sad, according as chance has served or failed them, they return to their peaceful apartment in the confines of Batignolles or Belleville. Many on the retired list whose pension is not sufficient for them to maintain the rank worthy of their past also come there. They play prudently and are happy if at the end of the day they have succeeded in gaining the half-louis that will permit them to cut a good figure at the interminable cards in the evening. And the margoulin ! The speculator in small values for whom the least return suffices, perhaps only an occasional ten or twelve sous ; but what matters, to-day he is operating here ; to-morrow at some sale by a big house he will buy fifty umbrellas at five fr. 95 which two days afterward he is sure to sell at six fr. 50. Will he have lost his labour ? And what risks will he have run ? Is it not in tempting fortune as often as possible that one gets the greatest chance of finally beguiling it once for all ? And the ordinary life of these men is supported by this hope. 274 PARIS The doors keep swinging ; an incessant going and com- ing from the peristyle to the interior obstructs the entries; we must insinuate ourselves, brave audacious elbows and submit to impatient pushing in order to get into the great hall. The first impression is that of feeling ourselves caught in the middle of a crowd after a catastrophe. The people have an air of seeking help ; they run about in all directions with nervous gestures, anxious starts, and with lips contracted with agony ; it seems as if misfortune is about them. A sinister atmosphere hovers about and I seem to feel a difficulty in breathing it without ill effects. It is heavy, charged with animality in action, brutal, and dry ; it is strong to excess. A special education of the nerves is needed to endure it : from this agglomeration of men, so powerful an electricity of instinct emanates that it gives one a kind of vertigo. And these shouts, these shouts of savages around their booty, these exasperated vociferations, this tempest of incoherent clamour! For a moment it is a series of barkings supported by long sub- dued roars ; there are voices that bleat and others that bray ; this one is croaking, that one is yelling ; another hisses, a thousand others roar, yelpings spread around, with grunt- ings and bellowings. Sometimes the sharp cry of a wounded animal rises above the deafening noise singly or in unison : one would say that there was a burst of cheers or that somebody was suddenly being hooted. Duets are formed ; the falsetto of a castrato struggles desperately against the deep notes of a bass ; a tenor tires his lungs ; a LA BOURSE 275 baritone shouts himself hoarse : some of them utter their note of attack with triumphal assurance ; we are amazed to hear frail beings with narrow chests and curved backs pro- ducing sounds like a tramway-gong. Ah ! the dreadful flock of demoniacs ! They are possessed with the in- toxication of convulsionaries, the delirium of aissaouas, a sacred frenzy. Thus they celebrate the worship of Mam- mon. Look at this crowd, its gesticulations and its eddies ; the beauty presented by masses of humanity is absent from it ; it lacks unity, it is made up only of individual interests and hostile egotisms. However brutal they may be, by what- soever excesses they allow themselves to be carried away, whether true or false be the ideal for the defence or triumph of which they are marching, popular throngs have a differ- ent aspect ; there is a sincerity in their enthusiasm which is irresistible ; but as for this ! Study those countenances : they are all deformed by a grimace, that is a return to the primitive animality. The masks are depressed, and the brows are crushed down ; the noses lengthen into trunks, hook into sharp beaks and swell in sniffs of sensuality at the odour of the prey they scent. The eyes flame with concupiscence ; the lips writhe spasmodically. All these faces resemble one an- other, alas ! The crude light that falls from the glass ceil- ing gives them a uniformly wan tint scarred with hard shadows. The Semetic type predominates : the fine flower of the 276 PARIS Ghettos peoples the Bourse. They bring hither their hereditary genius for traffic and their craft as experienced dealers in second-hand goods; here they are quite in their element, bold and reflective, tenacious and rapacious. Why should we be surprised at it ? During the epochs of male- diction through which they passed, the love of gold was their sole passion, a passion of redemption without which they would still be the unclean dogs of old. Ah ! What a sad spectacle is before us, these human crowds who, every day, in all the capitals of the universe and every important centre of the globe, gather together to celebrate the sanguinary office of Mammon. Martyrs have given their lives, philosophers have suffered insult and spitting, spirits of genius devoted to justice and liberty have vowed themselves to death, men have struggled their whole life long to ameliorate the condition of mankind and to snatch the world from barbarity, artists and poets have peo- pled the churches, the museums and the libraries with all their dreams in order to give to the nations the taste for Beauty, and all that leads up to this, to this battle of sav- ages around a pile of gold, around spoil torn from the labour of others. The ugliness and shame of it is too much ! In the centre of the Bourse, connected with the office of the brokers, which leads into the Rue Notre-Dame des Vic- toires by a passage guarded by barriers and flanked as if by four turrets by the groups the Comptant, the Rente, the Exter- ieure and the Valeurs a Turban, that is to say the Ottoman LA BOURSE 277 stocks, the Corbeille is enthroned. It is the holy of holies ; it is a luminous hearth around which the crowd of brokers whirls incessantly. Without the iron bars that protect it, the pontiffs' very lives would often be endangered, and it is not one of the least of their privileges to be sheltered from the contact and fury that sometimes reigns in the heat of assault. The couUssiers^ remisiers^ commis d' agents and bankers themselves are not angels, and the heat of the battle sometimes so intoxicates them that with the senti- ment of distances they sometimes lose that of their own dignity. The temple of Mammon on several occasions has witnessed scenes of pugilism that would have made the least respectable taverns of La Villette or Montrouge envious. And what is there astonishing in that ? These people are struggling here for their skins and it is a matter of life and death between them ; between raisers and depressers it is war to the knife and one or other of them must be left on the floor. Whether they are bulls or bears the victory of one must entail the defeat of the other. The bulls have sharp horns ; the bears have claws and teeth. Antiquity had its gladiators ; the combats of the Bourse are neither less ex- citing nor less cruel : they always end in the triumph of Force. It is about the group of the Comptant that the agitation is most intense. A stranger who penetrates into it is im- mediately caught in the contrary currents, taken up, carried away and torn to pieces ; at the end of a few moments nothing remains of him but a mannikin with torn clothes, 278 PARIS a poor tatter, game for the hospital or the morgue. How- ever, relative calm reigns between the columns and walls. There is a discrete twilight there, one may move about there, not without trouble certainly, but without running the risk of having one's sides driven in by two insistent elbows. Around the seats groups form ; this has a some- what familiar feeling or at least normal in contrast to the frenzy of the centre which, the more one watches it, be- wilders the eyes and dizzies the mind. One is affected gradually by the whirl, vertigo attacks one, and one remains there leaning against the balustrade in that state of semi- consciousness into which one is plunged by looking per- pendicularly down at the sea from the top of a cliff. At the end of the great hall is visible through the win- dows that separate it from the hall itself the Cabinet des Agents ! Sometimes, through the open door defended by barriers and keepers and through which one gains access to the Corbeille by the central alley, one gets a glimpse of in- dividuals sunk in deep armchairs, or leaning their elbows on immense tables draped like catafalques. One thinks of the sacristy of a strange church, the aisles of a mysterious worship. It is never bright ; thick curtains of a vague tint half veil the windows. It also recalls the office for marriages of the suburban mayors with its ridiculous and superannuated solemnity. Like all the rest of the building, it smells of the ancient, the out of fashion, the rococo j there is a feeling of an- achronism about it. LA BOURSE 279 Along the alley leading to the Corbeille, the seven offi- cial Coteurs, employes appointed by the syndic chamber, are installed one behind another at little desks. They record the incessant fluctuations of the stocks. One asks how they manage to do it in the midst of these vociferations and sur- rounded by this group of the Comptant where the most energetic agitation of the market is concentrated. Around the hall, against the walls, in the sort of passage formed by the interior colonnade, elevated desks stand. In them are installed the titulaires noting the orders ; they are like a series of little offices, or minute agencies where the habitues gather. The place for bankers is in the kind of large entrance vestibule lighted from the front and gained through the constantly revolving doors. Here circulation is almost easy ; it is also light, and through the windows one can see the gesticulations of the Coulisse beneath the external colonnade, with a prospect of the square, the omnibus bureau, the normal life of Paris and the animation which about three o'clock is caused by the appearance of the first evening papers. High finance and coulissiers^ stockbrokers and rem- isiersj all who live well or live by the Bourse, in the eyes of the public appear to practice an exceptional profession to exercise an enviable and mysterious rite. The jargon that they talk gives them a kind of brilliant superiority in the eyes of little people and of the poor devils who wander around the grilles that enclose the temple in quest of the 28o PARIS stump of a cigar fallen from the hand of a broker. Around a member of the Bourse shines a little of that radiance that forms the aureole that encircles the brow of the physician. Hence arises the extreme docility of the ignorant public seduced by the mirage of speculation. He places his gold in the hands of the intermediary as one of the faithful places his soul in the hands of the priest. People have searched for a name that will characterize this agonized century. There is only one that would de- fine it in its inmost soul and would sum up its tendencies, its preoccupations, its efforts and its manners ; it is the Century of Money. Amid the disorder of ideas, the anarchy of parties and the tumult of modern life in its innumerable currents, there is only one rallying cry. Money ; and the masses of humanity enthusiastically fraternize in the presence of the god of modern civilizations. The Bourse of Paris is one of the most incontestable and formidable of our forces. How sad is the lot to have nothing left in the world but the force of Money for extending and conquering. SAINT-GERMAIN UAUXERROIS S. SOPHIA BE ALE ^ W ^HAT Saint-Germanus was a remarkable man there i is no doubt ; as we owe the discovery of Saint- -^ Genevieve to his foresight ; for, when he saw her at Nanterre, on his way to Britain, he was so impressed by her piety that he consecrated her to the service of God. The church in Paris was probably founded in commemo- ration of some miracle performed by the bishop during his sojourn in that city, perhaps by his namesake Saint-Ger- main of Paris, who held the memory of his brother of Auxerre in great esteem and veneration. That its origin was very ancient is shown by the record of certain gifts from King Childebert and Queen Ultrogothe. It was probably a round church in its early days, as in 866, when it was pillaged and destroyed by the Normans, it was called Saint-Germain-le-Rond, and it must have been in that edi- fice that Saint Landry, bishop of Paris, was buried. For- merly a chapter composed of a dean, a precentor, thirteen canons, and eleven chaplains, served the church, and it ranked immediately after the Cathedral; but in 1744, its chapter was merged into that of Notre-Dame, and it be- came a simple parish church. Saint-Germain was rebuilt by King Robert, and again in the Twelfth Century, to which period the tower belongs. 281 282 PARIS The principal door, the choir, and the apse are of the Thirteenth Century ; the porch, the greater part of the fa^ade^ the nave and aisles, and the chapels of the chevet^ are of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The cloister which surrounded the church has disappeared, as also the dean's house which stood in the space between the church and the Louvre. It was in traversing the cloisters of Saint- Germain that Admiral Coligny was shot, and it was the great bell of this church which gave the signal for the massacre of Saint-Bartholomew. Saint-Germain was the parish church of the Louvre and the Tuileries, and some of the royal children are baptized there -, and many a time the kings went there in great state to perform their paschal duties. The portico projects in front of the three principal west doors, and is the work of Master Jean Gaussel. It was constructed in 1435, and is a mass of very beautiful carving. Some of the corbels are examples of the grotesque imagery of the period. The interior was decorated with fresco some years ago, but they are in a parlous, peeling con- dition. Two of the statues are old, Saint-Francis of Assissi, and Saint-Mary of Egypt holding the three little loaves which nourished her in the desert. The central doorway is of the Thirteenth Century, the two side ones are of the Fifteenth. The whole is decorated with statues of various Saints — amongst others, Saint-Germain, Saint- Vincent and Saint-Genevieve holding her candle, which a hideous little demon is trying to extinguish. Round the SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 283 Tympanum, the subject of which is the Last Judgment, are the Wise and Foolish Virgins, the Apostles and the Martyrs. The gargoyles are peculiarly grotesque : a grinning savage is being ejected from the jaws of a hippopotamus ; a man carries a hooded ape on his shoulders ; and a showman is making a monkey dance. A corbel shows us a quantity of rats persecuted by a cat — the rats being the wicked who encumber the earth ; the cat, the demon who awaits their souls. The plan of the church is cruciform ; the entire length is 240 feet, and the width at the transepts 120 feet. The interior is very plain, that is to say, what remains of the old church after the embellishments of the renovating architects of 1745. These gentlemen fluted the pillars of the choir, and converted the mouldings of the capitals into garlands and flowery festoons, giving the whole a grandly classic appearance. Happily they left the arches pointed, instead of filling them in with round-headed ones as at Saint-Severin ; and, likewise, we may be thankful that the nave was not " improved," and that the bosses and the ornament of the Lady Chapel were allowed to remain in their primitive beauty. In 1744 the choir was enclosed by a magnificent screen, the combined work of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon ; but the cure and churchwardens, upon the suppression of the chapter, lost no time in destroying this work of art, in order to open up the east end of the church to the congre- gation — not the only case of its kind. 284 PARIS Had the modern improvers of the church only pulled this down they might have been forgiven, but they did not rest until they had appointed an architect named Bacarit to "purify" the church of its ''^ barbarie Gothique." Un- fortunately for the reputation of the academicians of 1745, the project submitted to, and approved by them, appears to us, so far as it was carried out, to be a decided barbarie Classique ; and even in the beginning of this century, when the empire had introduced a sort of pseudo-Classic style, and made it fashionable, people of taste were no less severe upon the redressing of the old pillars and capitals in Greek garments." The chapels of the chevet have niches in the wall sur- mounted by round-headed arches, and containing statues. There are in all thirteen chapels, but four of them have been converted into a sacristy and the north door, the exterior of which is a good specimen of Renaissance work. The Abbe Lebeuf attributed some of the glass of the choir to the commencement of the Fourteenth Century, but not a vestige of this remains ; there is nothing earlier than the two following centuries. Here also the good gentlemen of the Eighteenth Century " improved " much ; the church was dark and gloomy, and so, forsooth, the stained glass of the nave was taken out, and the colour, and the golden fieurs-de-lis of the vaults and columns were scraped off or washed over. Thus was lost the history of Saint-Germain which formed the subject of the windows. But happily the SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 285 rose-windows of the two transepts, four lights in the south aisle and two on the north aisle, still remain ; but these being only of the Sixteenth Century, are consequently not in the best taste. Some have Gothic and some Renaissance surroundings, but the colour is, if rather bright, clear and rich. Unfortunately, time has obliterated many of the heads and hands ; but enough remains to make out the sub- jects. In the north rose the Eternal Father, in Papal tiara, is surrounded by Angels, Cherubim, Martyrs, and Con- fessors ; amongst whom may be recognized Saints Cath- erine, Vincent, Margaret, Agnes, Martha, Germain, and King Louis. Above and below are the four Fathers of the Latin church. In the north transept the subjects are taken from the Passion, The Acts of our Lord, Scenes in the life of the Patriarch Abraham, a gentleman donor accompanied by his sons, and a lady followed by her daughters, a Saint- Peter, and Saint-Anne instructing her daughter, and patron- izing another donor. In the southern rose, the Holy Spirit descends from Heaven in the form of a dove 5 the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles receiving light from above, with enthusiastic expressions upon their visages. In the southern transept : The Incredulity of Saint Thomas ; The Ascen- sion ; The Death of the Virgin ; and The Assumption, Above, the Coronation of the Virgin and a well, recalling the attribute " Well of living water " given to her by the Fathers. There are a great many modern windows, but except those in imitation of the glass in the Saint-Chapelle, by MM. Lassus and Didron, they are of little artistic 286 PARIS value. M. Lassus was the architect who superintended all the later restorations and decorations. The chapel of the Blessed Virgin is a little church in itself, with stalls, organ, pulpit, screen and altar, all richly decorated. The reredos is the tree of Jesse which sur- rounds the Virgin with its branches. This is in stone, of the Fourteenth Century, and comes from a church in Champagne. Some restorations in 1838 brought to light a curious Sixteenth Century wall painting, representing a cemetery with the graves giving up their dead to the sound of the angels' trumpets. Three statues were also found of the same date as the chapel, and serve as the retable of the altar : they represent the Blessed Virgin sitting, and Saint- Germain and Saint-Vincent (who are united in all the decorations of this church), standing on each side of her. The hanc-d^ eeuvre was executed in 1646 by Mercier, from drawings by Lebrun. It is handsome in its way, and excellently carved, but utterly out of keeping with the rest of the church. It is composed of Ionic columns supporting a huge baldachino ; and probably looked its best when it was filled with royal personages on high festivals and state occasions. Another exquisite example of wood carving may be seen in the chapel of Notre-Dame de Compassion, forming the retable. It belongs to the latest Gothic period, and is covered with a multitude of figures, representing the Genealogy and History of the Virgin and the Life and Death of Christ. This came from a Belgian church. The organ, SAINT-GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS 287 pulpit, and stall are part of the old furniture, but are not remarkable in any way. Saint-Germain was formerly a museum of tombs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries ; but the only remain- ing ones are the recumbent figures by Laurent Magnier, of Etienne d'Aligre, and his sons, both chancellors of France, who died respectively in 1635 and 1677; two statues and several marble busts which belonged to the mausoleums of the house of Rostaing, formerly situated in Saint-Germain, and in a chapel of the monastery of the Feuillants ; and an epitaph of a lady of Mortemart, Duchess of Lesdiguieres, who died in 1740. Under the church is a crypt full of bones, symmetrically arranged as in the catacombs : it was excavated in 1746-7 as a burial-place for the parishioners. Amongst the tombs of a crowd of courtiers and states- men were those of Malherbe, the poet ; Andre Dacier, the savant; the painters Coypel, Houasse, Stella, and Santerre ; the sculptors Sarazin, Desjardins, and Coyzevox; the med- allist Warin ; the goldsmith Balin ; the engraver Israel Sylvestre ; the architects Louis Levau and Francois Dorbay ; the geographer Sanson ; and the Comte de Caylus, the dis- tinguished antiquary j but they have all disappeared. The grandest tomb was that erected by Charles V. to his jester. But even in the time of Sauval this curious work of art was no more. A few fragments of former monuments have found a quiet resting-place in the Louvre, in the Renaissance Museum. Calvin lived near Saint-Germain j and at the 288 PARIS dean's house, between the Louvre and the church, a celeb- rity of another kind died suddenly on Easter-Eve, 1599 — "/tf belle Gahrielle d'Esirees." The Marecha Id'Ancre (Concini) was also buried at Saint-Germain after his assas- sination ; but the body was torn from the grave the next Jay by an infuriated mob, who drew it through the street on hurdles, then hung it, and finally burnt it. THE CAFi: THEODORE DE BANFILLE IMAGINE a spot where you do not suffer the horror of being alone, and where, nevertheless, you are as free as if in solitude. There, disembarrassed of the dust, the weariness, and the vulgarities of housekeeping, you dream at your ease, comfortably seated before a table not incumbered by all that forcibly oppresses you in your houses ; for if any useless objects or papers became piled up there, you would have soon taken care to have them removed. You smoke slowly and tranquilly like a Turk, following your ideas through the blue spirals. If it is your pleasure to enjoy some warm or refreshing beverage, well-appointed servants bring it to you immedi- ately. If it pleases you to converse with men of intelli- gence who will not tyrannize over you, you have at hand light leaves, upon which are printed winged and rapid thoughts, written for you and which you will not be forced to have bound for preservation in a library when they have ceased to please you. This spot, the paradise of civiliza- tion, the last and inviolable refuge of the free man, is the Cafe. It is the Cafe, but an ideal one, such as we dream of and such as it should be. The lack of space and the fabulous price of land on the boulevards of Paris in reality make it 289 290 PARIS hideous. In these little boxes, the rent of which equals that of a palace, a man would be foolish to hunt for a cloak-room. Therefore the walls are decorated with stove- pipe hats and with overcoats hung on hooks, an abominable effect which they try to counterbalance by lavish use of white panels and ignoble gilding, imitated by economic processes. Moreover, do not let us deceive ourselves, the overcoat which we never know what to do with, and which is always a source of anxiety to us, in the world, at the theatre, and at fetes, constitutes the great burden and the abominable slavery of modern life. Happy for the nobles of the time of Louis XIV., who dressed themselves in the morning for the whole day, the brow protected by a wig, clothed in satin and velvet which, even when beaten by the storm, remains superb ; and who, moreover, as brave as lions, risked inflammation of the lungs, when they put on one above the other the innumerable vests of Jodelet, in Les Precieuses ridicules ! How shall I find my overcoat and my wife's wrap is the great and universal cry, the monologue of Hamlet and of the modern man, which poisons every moment of his life and makes the thought of death supportable to him. On the morning of a fete given by Marshal MacMahon, noth- ing could be found, the overcoats had evaporated, the mantles of satin and swan's-down, and the lace fichus had vanished in smoke, and, under the snow which was falling in thick flakes, the women had to flee wildly, bare-shoul- THE CAFE 291 dered, while their husbands tried to button up their black dress-coats which would not button. One evening at a fete given by the President of the Chambre des Deputes, when the gardens were illuminated with the electric lights, Gambetta suddenly wanted to show some of his guests some curiosity or other. He invited them to descend with him into the groves. A valet has- tened and quickly brought him an overcoat ; but the guests did not dare to ask for theirs and followed Gambetta into the gardens in evening-dress ! I think, however, that one or two of them survived. At the Cafe no one takes the overcoats, no one conceals them; but they are hung up and displayed on the walls like pictures by great masters ; they are treated like the portraits of La Joconde or Violante, and you have this before your eyes, you incessantly see it. Have you not some cause to curse the moment when your eyes saw the light for the first time ? As I have said, one can read the papers ; that is to say one might read them if they were not fixed in those abominable frames that set them a mile away from you and force you to see them on the horizon. As for the beverages, abandon all hope ; for the master of the Cafe lacks room to prepare them, and he pays too enormous a rent not to be forced to make up by the quality of what he sells. But even if this reason did not exist, people drink too many things there for them to be good, and what one finds least of all in the Cafe is coffee ! It is delicious and divine in the little oriental shops where 292 PARIS it is made specially for each customer at the moment in a little special coffee-pot. As for syrups, how should there be any in Paris, and in what chimerical spot should one range the jars containing the fruit-juices necessary for their manufacture? A few real ladies, rich, well-born, and good managers, who have not been reduced to slavery by the big shops, and who put neither rouge nor cosmetic on their cheeks, still know at home in the country how to make good syrups with the fruits from their gardens and orchards. They neither give nor sell them to the cafes, naturally, and keep them for the enjoyment of their little golden-haired children. Such as it is, with all its faults and vices, and even a full century after the celebrity of Procope, the Cafe, the memories of which we cannot suppress, has been the asylum and refuge of many charming spirits. The old Tabourey, which, after having been illustrious, has now become semi- popular, with a pewter counter, formerly heard the de- lightful conversations between Barbey d'Aurevilly, for whose presence the noblest salons disputed; and who sometimes preferred to converse seated at the marble table in a room whence could be seen the foliage and flower-beds of the Luxembourg. Baudelaire also talked there, with his clear and caressing voice, letting fall diamonds and pearls from his beautiful red, though somewhat thick, lips like the princess in the fairy tale. Long ago, in the Rue de I'Ancienne-Comedie, the Cafe Dagnaux belonged to an original person who valued the THE CAFE 293 joys of the mind above everything. It was in the mytho- logical and vanished period of Bohemia. This disinter- ested proprietor gave up an enormous room to amiable young people w^ho did not ovi^n a sou^ and w^ho, therefore, did not spend anything, but vv^ho, w^ith inexhaustible spright- liness, exchanged joyous speeches. Among them w^ere Miirger, Wallon, Pierre Dupont vi^ith his fair Apollo locks, and others, besides, and, almost always, two or three pretty girls who, unlike Chrysale, cared less about good soup than about fine language and found themselves to their wishes. While the prodigious protechnics, the dazzling images and the conflagration of words and phrases were burning, some- times the master of the Cafe timidly stole to the door of the room without making any noise and greedily listened. Oh, age of Astraea ! that was his way of collecting payment. At the old Cafe of the Theatre-Fran^ais, before its trans- formation, already ancient, like a white and gold bonbonniere^ the habitues might admire the great critic Gustave Planche writing, on a green board used by the card-players, his murderous articles, whose victims are" still in good health, or have died of something else. Inspired or furious, he was superb, with his noble head of a Roman emperor and his beautiful smile, but he was always uncombed and through his gaping shirt his black hairy breast could be seen. For Planche made the weak troop of mortals trem- ble, but he never had studs in his shirt except when the great Buloz imperiously ordered him to put on clean things to dine with foreign diplomats. 294 PARIS On the contrary, it was in the fine dress of an elegant poet that Louis Bouilhet, with his moustache and his long hair of a Gallic chieftain, wrote his dramas in verse in a little Cafe in the Rue Taranne. As he was handsome, with strength, boldness, and kindness whilst writing his proud Alexandrienes, the mistress of the Cafe spent her time in watching him with respectful curiosity. The wait- ers, who also admired him, conquered and stupefied, com- pletely forgot or rather disdained to serve the other people. So much so, that the disappointed customers did not come again and abandoned the quiet little Cafe to Louis Bouilhet and his glorious copy. Alas ! They had every chance to return and resume their old places, for the Norman poet died too young, when he still might have written so many beautiful odes and comedies. A problem that has no possible solution holds the Parisian artists and writers in check. When one has energetically worked and hewn all through the day, during the little stroll before dinner it is good to sit down for an instant and find one's friends and talk with them about everything but politics. The only place favourable for these improvised and necessary gatherings is the Cafe; but is the game worth the candle, or, more exactly speaking, the shaded gas- lights ? For the pleasure of exchanging a few words must one submit to the criminal absinthes, the unnatural bitters, the tragic vermouths mixed in the sombre laboratories of the Cafes by frightful Locustas ^ Aurolien Scholl, who, as a delicate poet and an excellent THE CAFE 295 writer, is naturally a practical man, had a genial idea. He desired a continuation of the gatherings in the Cafes at the absinthe hour, but without the absinthe. A very honest man, who was to have been chosen expressly for the pur- pose would have poured out for the loungers some very fine Bordeaux wine with quinquina, which would have the double advantage, first of not poisoning them, and, secondly, of offering them a wholesome and comforting beverage. But this seductive dream has not been realized ; for cer- tainly honest men exist in large numbers among the Cafe- owners as in other industries ; but the honest man has not been found — particularly one who would procure quinquina wine in which there was both wine and quinquina. At the Palais-Royal there was a Cafe that had preserved its decorations of the empire and its oil-lights. There one found real wine, real coffee, real milk, and good beef- steak. There used to lunch Roqueplan, Arsene Houssaye, Michel Levy, and a handsome Fiorentino, who knew how to make and serve him morilles. The master of the Cafe said that on the day when he could no longer live by sell- ing genuine things, he would not lose his money but he would sell his furniture and shut up shop. He did it as he said he would. He was a hero. THE LOUVRE CHJRLES DICKENS, JR. THE word Louvrt\ according to one definition, comes from an old Saxon word Louvear^ which signified a castle ; or it has been derived from Loupara (louverie)^ from lupus^ because wolves were common in the woods where the palace now stands. Dagobert, king of the Franks in the first half of the Seventh Century, used to lodge here his hunting-dogs, his horses, and his huntsmen. The place, such as it was, long continued as a hunting-seat near to Paris on the banks of the Seine. About 1204, Philip Augustus built a fortress here, which served partly as palace and partly as prison. Probably before that time there had been a residential castle of some kind. Charles V., about 1370, improved the Louvre; and extended the forti- fications encircling Paris so as to make the palace come within the walls. It was there he lived when in Paris, and there also he placed his library of nine hundred and ten volumes. In 1528 Francois I. caused the whole castle to be pulled down, and ordered Pierre Lescot to build a palace suitable for a king of France. By slow degrees the build- ing progressed under different kings. After the death of Henri II., his widow, Catherine de Medici, in 1564, began Le Palais des Tuileries. Catherine also extended the walls of the Louvre on the south side. Henri IV. added to the 296 THE LOUVRE 297 Tuileries, and he conceived the idea of joining the Tuileries and the Louvre together, so as to form one whole palace, but his project was not realized until very many years after- ward. Louis XIIL also added to the Louvre, and so did Louis XIV. The most remarkable part of the work that was added under the reign of Louis XIV. is the great col- onnade facing the east, in front of the Eglise Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois between the Seine and the Rue de Rivoli, and standing at right angles with them both. This was designed by Claude Perrault. In the reign of Louis XIV. was also constructed the greater part of the north and the south sides of the Cour du Louvre — that is, the sides facing the Rue de Rivoli on the north and the Seine on the south. In the Eighteenth Century little progress was made; but in 1805 Napoleon restored and completed the great courtyard, and to him are due nearly all the interior constructions ; for until then, except in one corner of the building, the palace contained little but the outside walls. Napoleon's work went on until 18 14, and from that time until Napoleon III. became emperor of France no important fresh additions or improvements were made. In 1852 the work was again begun, and proceeded very rapidly. To Napoleon III. must be given the honour of joining together the Louvre with the Tuileries. Over the Pavilion Sully, on the side facing the Place du Carrousel, there is a marble slab upon which is written : 1541. Francois I. began the Louvre. 1564. Catherine de Medici began the Tuileries. 298 PARIS 1852-57. Napoleon III. joined together the Tuileries and the Louvre. We may with tolerable accuracy draw a line between the two palaces, and say that the buildings on the east side of the gateways, through which the omnibuses and carriages pass on the north and on the south sides of the Place du Carrousel, belong to the Louvre, and on the west side of these gateways to the Tuileries. We sometimes see in books the expression " Le vieux Louvre," or " The old Louvre " ; by this is meant the square courtyard now called La Cour du Louvre. It was in the southwest corner of this square that stood the old tower or prison built by Philip Augustus, and restored by Charles V. In speaking of the Place du Carrousel it is said that as late as 1830 buildings were still standing upon the site of the present large Place. And we may argue that the design of Henri IV. to unite the Louvre with the Tuileries was considered as affecting only the south side, or the side near to the river; for be- tween the two palaces, in the year 1604, was constructed the large house known as the Hotel de Rambouillet, from which was taken the name of that celebrated coterie of friends who used to meet there more or less frequently in the room that was always known as " le salon bleu." The house is always spoken of as being in the Rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre, a street that ran from north to south across which we now call the Place du Carrousel. To join to- gether on both sides the Louvre with the Tuileries, leaving a large open space between them, such as we now see, was THE LOUVRE 299 probably not then considered for a moment ; for besides the Hotel de Rambouillet there was more than one other large private house that from its position would have interfered with such a scheme, and there was also the old hospital, Les Quinze Vingts, that stood directly between the two royal palaces. Having very briefly sketched the history of the building itself, let us resume shortly some of the treasures to be found in the palace. It was Francois I. who first began to collect those works of art that we now see in the Louvre. They had for many years before been kept at Fontaine- bleau. Until Colbert became Louis XIV.'s minister in 166 1 little was added. Colbert appointed Lebrun director of the Louvre, and until the close of the Seventeenth Century pictures were bought, though many of them were intended to decorate the royal apartments at Versailles. At different times in the Eighteenth Century purchases were made, and in 1791 the Constituent Assembly ordered that the Louvre should be the general depot of all the master- pieces of science and art. In 1793 the collection received the name Musee National, and afterwards Musee Fran- ^ais. There were then five hundred and thirty-seven pictures. The greater number of pictures now in the galleries have therefore been acquired since the commence- ment of the present century. Napoleon I. added many. There was a large civil list allowed for the purchase of pictures, and when Napoleon III. came to the throne he placed the museum under the direction of a minister of state. PLACE DU CARROUSEL MARQUIS DE MONTEREAU THE Place du Carrousel is the link between the Louvre and the Tuileries, the absolute monarchy and the constitutional government. Across this square the whole of Europe has passed, we may read in letters of blood the entire political history of France since Louis XIV. And what a history, great heaven ! Interro- gate the guests of the Tuileries ; ask the oldest inhabitants of the palace ; there is not one who would not tremblingly repeat this couplet of our illustrious Bcranger : Foiii des mkcoutents ! Comvie balayeuu on me loge, Depuis quarante atis, Dans U ch&teau pris de rhorloge. Or, vies etifants, sachez Que Id pour tnes ptchis, Du coin d' oit le soir je ne bouge, Jai vu le petit homme rouge. The little red man is the sole historiographer of the Place du Carrousel, as Chodruc-Duclos is the true chron- icler of the Palais-Royale. Vous figurez-vous Ce diable habilU d'icarlate, Bossu, louclie et roux ; Un serpent lui sert de cravate ; II a le nez crochu ; II a le pied four chu ; Su voix rauqtie en chantant prksage Au chateau graird remu'-niinage, 300 PLACE DU CARROUSEL 301 Does not this allegorical demon affect you like an evil prognostication? He is the evil augur of political my- thology, and so we find him appearing for the first time at the majority of Louis XIV., under the trees in Mile, de Montpensier's garden j he was the genius of revolution who breathed the spirit of rebellion into that ardent and passionate soul. The apparition of the little red man always preceded some great catastrophe ; this time he an- nounced the Fronde, and the stone blocks of the day of the Barricades soon served to pave the Place du Carrousel. Until that time, this vast and waste space, situated be- tween the Louvre and the Tuileries, had been a mere miry desert full of sewers and sloughs ; you might go there but could not be sure of returning. When Mile, de Mont- pensier came into the world, if we may believe a con- temporary poet, this swamp suddenly changed into a bed of flowers : in that happy century of gallantry and fine language, madrigals flourished in the open field; may not Mademoiselle's garden have seen some of them spring to life? However that may be, until 1655 beautiful trees, green sward and rare flowers usurped the place of paving- stones ; nothing but the omnipotent will of the great king was needed to substitute nature for nothingness. It is true that that king had adopted the sun as an emblem, and what could gardens do against the sun's will ? Besides, did not Louis XIV. select this place as the theatre of one of those splendid fetes that inaugurated his reign, the name of which served as a baptism for the Place du Carrousel? 302 PARIS In that pir^ the king himself appeared costumed as Cjesar, although wearing an enormous wig, to play a part in public -, he led the Quadrille of the Romans. Monsieur commanded the Persians, M. le prince the Turks, M. le due the Muscovites, and M. de Guise, the Moors. The whole court took part in this royal entertainment which only cost a trifling twelve hundred thousand livres. While the court thus amused itself at the people's ex- pense, the people in return sang songs about the court and pitilessly railed at the display of bad taste of which it had given proof on this occasion ; pamphlets, satires and epigrams rained from all directions upon the unlucky actors; nothing was spared, not even the place that had served as their stage. The revolution of '89 is only one chapter in the history of the Carrousel, the most sanguinary perhaps, but not the most curious. The last act of the great political comedy of the 1 8th hruma'ire was the installation of Bonaparte at the Tuileries. This was one step taken toward royalty : the first and greatest of all. From the Luxembourg to the Tuileries, there was an abyss ; Bonaparte crossed it by making a bridge of his two colleagues, Cambaceres and Lebrun. By the aid of an ingenious fraud, he changed the name of the old palace of the kings : the Tuileries were called the government. Two architects, MM. Peyre and Fontaine, were charged with the decoration and embellishment ; under the pretext of cleaning all the an- archical emblems, all the seditious sentences and all the revolutionary devices that had covered the walls and vaults PLACE DU CARROUSEL 303 were effaced. Liberty was whitewashed just as the fleurs- de-lis had been erased ; the sponge was passed over all the memories of another age and the First Consul entered Louis XIV. 's palace like a son into his ancestral abode. That was a day of festival for the Place du Carrousel : Bonaparte, who remembered the Tenth of August, had caused the castle to be isolated ; the Square was cleared of the houses that surrounded it, everything was ready ; France awaited a master. Suddenly a formidable noise is heard, drums beat, people clap their hands, a thousand shouts and acclamations rise into the, air; the cannon roars. Napoleon arrives in an open carriage drawn by six white horses and surrounded by a brilliant staff. On the Carrousel the car- riage stops, the First Consul alights, springs on horseback, and, before the eyes of a whole nation intoxicated, inaugu- rates that little hat that became so popular. The tattered flags of the 96th, 43d and 30th regiments defile before their young leader. Bonaparte uncovers his brow and bows, the army trembles and the populace applauds. At this moment the conqueror of Egypt is as great as the pyra- mids from whose tops forty centuries have watched his ex- ploits ; at this moment everything effaces itself before him ; he has already set his foot upon the first step of the throne, he has taken possession of Louis XVI. 's room and Louis XIV. 's cabinet ; Josephine is already installed in the queen's apartment and in another hour the new sovereign will re- ceive the homage of the diplomatic body with that ease and grace that are woman's true royalty. 304 PARIS The year that opened thus passed like a fairy dream amid the triumphs of our arms ; every cannon-shot heard in Europe had a glorious echo in the Place du Carrousel. The explosion of the Rue Saint-Nicaise only resulted in hastening the accomplishment of Caesar's dearest wish ; he went out a consul and returned an emperor. After that it was only a question of form. Pius VII. could not refuse the crown to one who had given him the tiara, and Paris attended that imposing and solemn spectacle of a little soldier of fortune so aggrandized by his own genius that the Pope could place the crown upon his brow without lower- ing himself. The Pope's stay, the emperor's divorce, the Arch- duchess Marie's marriage, and the king of Rome's birth, all belong to the history of the Carrousel ; but are only un- important episodes in the frame of our picture. On March 31, 1814, the Empire was no longer, the Res- toration began. Since '93 not the slightest mirth-provok- ing word had been heard at the Tuileries, so that the Res- toration was joyfully received ; brought about by M. de Talleyrand, it could not be other than a restoration of wit, though an ephemeral one, lasting only as long as an epi- gram. " Louis XVIII. only had time to sleep in Napoleon's sheets." So when Napoleon arrived he found his bed made j which explains the ease with which he gained pos- session of it. The rocket of the Hundred Days took its flight, blazed and then went out, and on July 8, 18 15, Louis XVIII. resumed possession of that bed so often dis- PLACE DU CARROUSEL 305 puted. Everything leads us to believe that this time he took care to have the sheets changed. Then, for the first time, Cossacks were seen bivouacing and hostile guns drawn up on the Place du Carrousel. During this time, the populace was attacked with vertigo, delirium seized every brain ; all who approached the Carrousel and the Tuileries seemed immediately to lose their reason ; the greatest ladies danced the farandole beneath the windows of the castle, mingling with the mob; the men were without courage and the women without shame. It was infamy be- come epidemic. Now we reach a difficult epoch, wherein the history of the Carrousel is so bound up with the history of the Restor- ation that a volume would be required merely to graze the facts we meet with. Charles X. mounted the throne and, before the Place du Carrousel had noticed his presence, he had descended. We will finish with two events that alone made a great noise in the square. The first, in order of time, be it un- derstood, was the death of M. de Talleyrand. The second was much more serious and sad : we refer to the Due d' Orleans. On learning of the death of Armand Carrel, that enlightened chief of the liberal party, it is said that the Due d' Orleans uttered this noble expression of noble re- gret : " It is a misfortune for the whole world." Well, on the death of the prince, it was found that all the world was of the same opinion. THE PALAIS-ROYALE H. MONIN THE Palais-Royale covers a space 405 metres long by 123 wide between the Rue Saint-Honore, the Place du Palais-Royale and that of the Theatre- FVan^ais, the Rue de Montpensier, the Rue de Bcaujolais and the Rue de Valois. The palace, properly so called, faces the Place du Palais-Royale which has been more than doubled by the cutting through of the Rue de Rivoli. It comprises a ground-floor and a story with mansards. A portico of six arcades, with grilles, entablature, and balustrades unites the pavilions. The ground-floor of the principal body is of the Doric Order, and the first story of the Ionic ; each of the pavilions has four Ionic columns with triangular pediments. The middle part contains the gate of honour (a triple doorway with eight Doric coupled columns) then three arcades open into the vestibule of the palace, composed of a central pavilion adorned with six Ionic coupled col- umns, surmounted with a pilastered attic story with semi- circular pediment. All this part of the palace faces the south. On the north, in an interior court, it presents a facade comprising a ground-floor in arcades and a first story distributed among ten composite columns. The two sides on the east and west extend in lateral buildings on porticos that join the Orleans gallery which is partly glazed and 306 THE PALAIS-ROYALE 307 partly surmounted by terraces at the height of the first story of the palace. This gallery marks the beginning of the palais marchand^ that is to say those buildings devoted to trade, surrounding a garden 250 metres long by 95 wide (207 arcades or porticos). The garden is planted with trees in alleys and ornamented with flower-beds and a central basin and fountain. The first buildings, in place of the Hotel de Mercceur and Hotel de Rambouillet, were ordered by Cardinal Richelieu from the architect Lemercier (1629-36) ; they were called the Palais-Cardinal, and Corneille declared in Le Menteur^ " that the whole universe could not show anything to equal the superb exterior of the Palais-Cardinal." Louis XHI. inherited it as a legacy from his minister and it became in reality Palais-Royale by its selection as the habitual residence of the regent Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. For some time also it sheltered the widow of Charles L of Eng- land, Henrietta Maria of France. In 1661, Louis XIV. gave it as a residence to his brother, the Duke of Orleans, who enlarged and decorated it and entered into possession in 1692 (letters patent February), and in 1701 left it to his son, who, on becoming regent in the name of Louis XV., further embellished it and added a celebrated gallery of pictures. This gallery, expurgated, it is said, by Louis, the son of the regent (1723-52), assumed the proportions of a real museum under Louis-Philippe. But in 1763 the Opera was burnt and, as it then adjoined the palace, the latter was also partly consumed. The three parts of the 3o8 PARIS present building, due to P. L. Moreau, date from that time. In 1780, Louis-Philippe Joseph, then Duke de Chartres, had the trade-palace built by Louis; it was completed in 1784. A second burning of the Opera (1781) gave occasion to the building (1786) of the Theatre des Varictcs atnusantes^ now the Comedie Franfalse. In 1790, the Duke of Orleans had already let one hundred and sixty of the one hundred and eighty arcades that then surrounded the garden, which had brought him in more than ten millions. Not all of the changes of that period were happy. Richelieu's superb chestnut-trees disappeared ; a circus, partly underground (1786-99), was constructed in the centre. The arcades, the garden, and especially the wooden gallery became the ordinary meeting-place of libertines, loose women, gam- blers, and stock-jobbers, as well as foreigners who judged Paris and France by what they found there. Like the Temple and the Luxembourg, the Palais-Royale was still a privileged place and a kind of asylum for delin- quents on the eve of the Revolution. On April, 1787, the king addressed a letter to the Duke of Orleans in order that " the police-officers may freely make search " in his palace "as in all other places" in view of "the multiplicity of makers of false notes." The royal gardens (Tuileries, etc.) were only open to people of good society, *' well dressed " ; " illicit " and popular assemblages were dreaded ; it was the Duke of Orleans who was the first to give them every facility and to assure them a relative impunity. The Palais-Royale was consequently the centre and the hearth of THE PALAIS-ROYALE 309 the first revolutionary proceedings. Having become entirely national after Philippe-Egalite had been condemned to death, it v^^as almost abandoned to the deprecatory and mercantile fancies of its tenants. After the Eighteenth Brumaire^ the Tribunat vi^as installed there until its suppression in 1807, and then came the turn of the Bourse and of the Tribunal of Commerce. Louis XVIII. , with whom the son of Egalite had made his reconciliation, restored his palace; Louis-Philippe constructed the glass gallery called the Or- leans Gallery (by Fontaine), besides separating the left wing from the palace, raising the central building one story, extending the right wing from the theatre to the garden, building the pavilions that connect the court of honour with the trade-palace, and finally, restoring the theatre. It was in this palace that, after the Journees dejuilkt, he accepted the title of King of the French, but he ceased to dwell there October i, 1831. Under the second republic, the Palais- Royale was the residence of the Comptolr d'escompte and the staff of the National Guards. At first only sequestrated, it was afterward confiscated by presidential decree, January 23, 1852. Under the second empire, it became the residence of the " King " Jerome and his son. Prince Napoleon. Louis-Philippe's picture gallery was sacked in 1848; and Prince Napoleon's (allegorical paintings by Hedoin, among others) in 1871. It is now occupied by the Cour des Comptes^ and by the Council of State since 1875. At the end of the Montpensier gallery and northeast of the trade palace, is a little theatre-hall of eight hundred seats, built in 310 PARIS 1785, which has borne the successive names of Theatre de Beaujolais^ or des Marionettes^ Theatre de Mile, de Montansier (the directress) in 1790, Theatre de la Montagne^ and lastly Theatre du Palah-Royale^ celebrated by the traditional gaiety of its repertory. LA MADELEINE PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON THE church of the Magdalen (Madeleine) is curiously connected with the history of Napoleon I., who had the incompleted edifice continued with the strange intention of dedicating it as a temple to the mem- ory of La Grande Armee. Every year on the anniversaries of Austerlitz and Jena, the temple was to have been il- luminated and a discourse delivered concerning the military virtues, with an eulogy of those who perished in the two battles. This intention was never carried out, and the building, which had been begun in 1764 as a church, was finished as a church under the reign of Louis-Philippe. Nothing could apparently be more decided in architectural intentions than the Madeleine as we see it now. It seems to be plainly a temple, and never to have been intended for anything else. In reality, however, it was begun under Louis XV. as a church, resembling what is now the Pan- theon, and the change of plan was carried into effect many years after the works had been actually commenced. It is not by any means a subject of regret that this temple should have been erected in Paris, as it gives many students of architecture who have not visited the south of Europe an excellent opportunity iox feeling what an antique temple was like, to a degree that is not possible with no more powerful 312 PARIS teachers than photographs or small models. VioUet-le-Duc said that it was barbarous to build the copy of a Greek tem- ple in Paris or London, or among the mists of Edinburgh, condemning alike the Madeleine and the fragmentary Scot- tish copy of the Parthenon ; but surely a student of archi- tecture, born in the north, would visit both the Scottish Parthenon and the Parisian temple with great interest, sim- ply because they show him columns on their own scale, real columns in the open air. We are so accustomed to Gothic and Renaissance churches that a temple is an ac- ceptable variety, were it only to demonstrate, by actual com- parison, the immense superiority of more modern forms for purposes of Christian worship. We ought to bear in mind, however, that although the Madeleine resembles a Corinthian temple externally, it has not the surroundings of such a temple and is not associated with its uses. For Christian architecture, on the other hand, such a system of building involves a great waste of money and space in the colon- nades and the passages between them and the walled build- ing or cella. The space in the Madeleine, already so re- stricted, is limited still farther by internal projections in- tended to divide the length into compartments and to give a reason for six lateral chapels, so that every one who en- ters it for the first time is surprised by the smallness of the interior. I need hardly observe that there is not the slight- est attempt to preserve the internal arrangements of a Greek temple, even if they were precisely known, on which architects are not agreed. The side chapels have arches LA MADELEINE 313 over them, the roof is vaulted with round arches across the building, springing from the Corinthian columns, and in each section is a dome-ceiling with a circular light (as in the Pantheon at Rome), these lights being the only windows in the edifice. The high altar is in a round apse en ml de four^ with marble panels and a hemicycle of columns be- hind the altar. There is great profusion of marbles of various kinds, of gilding, and of mural painting, that I have not space to describe in detail. Enough has been said to show that the work, as a whole, is a combination of Greek, Roman, and French ideas. The general idea of the ex- terior is Greek, but if you examine details, you see the in- fluence of Rome, and you find it still more strongly marked inside, by the arches of the roof. The French spirit is shown in the decoration chiefly, which is so truly Parisian that the Madeleine is instinctively preferred by fashionable people. A fashionable marriage there is one of the most thoroughly consistent spectacles to be seen in modern Paris. Here is nothing to remind us of the austerity of past ages, but the gilded youth of to-day may walk along soft carpets, amid an odour of incense and flowers and the sounds of mellifluous music. The pretty ceremony over, they pass out down the carpeted steps, and an admiring crowd watches them into their carriages. And nobody thinks about the dead at Austerlitz and Jena. LA MADELEINE fFILLIJM MAKEPEACE TH ACKER Ar WE went to the Madeleine (the walk round it under the magnificent Corinthian columns is one of the noblest things possible), and entered the gorgeous hall of white marble and gold, with its inner roof of three circular domes ranging the length of the building, with a semi-dome covering the northern end over the altar, and a circular vault covering the vestibule. Galignani's guide-book (one of the best, most learned, and most amusing books of the kind that have been published) will give you a full account of the place, as of all others that sightseers frequent. It is as fine, certainly, as fine can be in its details, and vast and liberal in its proportions. Well, fancy a beautiful, gorgeous, ele- gant Brobdignac cafe^ or banqueting room, and the Made- leine will answer completely. It does not seem to contain a single spark of religion — no edifice built in the Greek fashion ever did. Why should we be prejudiced in favour of the Gothic ? Why should pointed arches, and tall steeples, and grey buttresses, built crosswise, seem to ex- press — to be, as it were, the translation into architecture of our religion ? Is it true, or is it only an association of ideas ? You, who have been born since Gothic architec- ture was dead, can best answer the query. 3H -rur iLU.julj i i ; jti i i. I i i.i 1 1 ij^ I ft 1 1 til inty A BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS HO NO RE DE BALZAC T seven o'clock not a footstep resounds upon the flag-stones, not the rolling of a single carriage grates upon the pavement. The Boulevard awakens about half-past eight v^^ith the noise of several cabs, beneath the heavy tread of occasional and laden port- ers, and to the cries of numerous workmen in blouses going to their occupation. Not a blind has been opened; the shops are shut up like oysters. This is an unknown spec- tacle to many Parisians, who believe that the Boulevard is always adorned, even as they believe with their favourite critic, that lobsters are born red. At nine o'clock the Boulevard washes its feet all along the line, its shops open their eyes, revealing a terrible disorder within. A few mo- ments later, it is bustling as a grisette, and some intriguing frock-coats plough through its sidewalks. Toward eleven o'clock, the cabs hurry along to lawsuits, for payments, to lawyers, to notaries, bearing along budding failures, junior brokers, transactions, intriguers with thoughtful faces, suc- cesses slumbering under buttoned-up overcoats, tailors, and shirtmakers, in short, all the busy morning world of Paris. The Boulevard becomes hungry toward noon, every one breakfasts and the brokers of the Bourse arrive. Then, from two to five o'clock its life attains its apogee, and it gives 315 31 6 PARIS its great performance for nothing. Its three thousand shops glitter, and the great poem of window-decoration sings its strophes in colour from the Madeleine to the Porte Saint- Denis. Artists without knowing it, the passers-by play for you the chorus of the antique tragedy ; they laugh, they love, they weep, they smile, and dream fantastic dreams. They come like shadows or will-o'-the-wisps. One does not go down two Boulevards without meeting a friend or an enemy, an original that causes a laugh or a thought, a beggar who is trying to find a sou^ a vaudevilUste who is seeking a subject, each one indigent but better off than the other. It is there that one observes the comedy of dress. So many men, so many different coats : and so many coats, so many different characters ! On fine days the women show themselves, but not in handsome toilettes. The handsome toilettes to-day go to the Avenue des Champs- Elysees or to the Bois. Women comme tl faut who walk on the Boulevards have only their fancies to satisfy and to amuse themselves by shopping j they pass quickly and know no one. THE BOULEVARDS RICHARD WHITE I NG THE Boulevards are of four kinds — the inner Bou- levards sometimes called the Old or the Grand, the outer, the new, and the Boulevards of the Enceinte, or the continuous road running just inside the line of fortification. Those commonly spoken of as The Boulevards extend from the Madeleine to the Bastille, a stretch of nearly three miles — to be exact, two and three- quarters. The busiest and brightest part is that from the Madeleine to and inclusive of the Boulevard des Italiens. The Boulevard des Italiens takes the palm for every kind of animation. Here the heart, or at any rate the pulse, of Paris beats. The Old or Grand Boulevards terminate at the Place de la Madeleine. 317 THE 0P6RA house PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON THE merit of Parisian architects is to have perceived the nevi' necessities in public buildings created by streets of magnificent private dwellings. If the ordinary architecture of a city is on a large scale and richly decorated, its public buildings must still distinguish them- selves by greater richness. One consequence of the recon- struction of Parisian dwellings has been the rebuilding, in whole or in part, of almost all those theatres that happened to be near new streets or squares. The Theatre Francais had a new front; the Opera was rebuilt with unparalleled magnificence ; the Vaudeville had a narrow but strikingly rich curved facade at the corner of the Chaussee d'Antin, with Corinthian columns and Carvatides and a fronton crowned with a statue of Apollo. The new Theatre de la Renaissance is a heavy but sumptuous structure, also adorned with Caryatides and Corinthian columns. The Gaite was rebuilt in i86i with a pretty arcade on marble columns in front of its open loggia. The Chatelet was built at the same date, and has also its loggia, but with statues under the five arches. The neighbouring Theatre Historique, ^ which used to be the Lyrique, was also built ' This became the Theatre des Nations and on Jan. 21, 1899, the Thfeatre Sarah Bernhardt.— E. S. 318 THE OPERA HOUSE 319 under Louis Napoleon, though it has been rebuilt since in consequence of incendiarism by the Communards. The construction of these buildings, and of many others, was made a necessity by the handsome new houses. The Odeon belongs to the beginning of this century and is a plain, respectable structure. It may remain as it is because the houses near it are plain, old-fashioned dwellings of the same or an earlier date ; but if the Odeon could be placed where the Opera is now, it would be too simple for such a situation. The most magnificent of recent structures, and one of the most happily situated is the Opera. The situation has been created for it purposely. The front might have looked merely across a street, but a new street of great length was opened, that it might be seen from a distance. Besides this, arrangements were made for the convergence of sev- eral other new streets in front of the Opera so as to give its site the utmost possible importance. As the houses in these streets are all of them lofty and many of them magnificent, the Opera itself required both size and richness to hold its own in a situation that would have been dangerous to a feeble or even a modest architectural performance. The Opera was compelled to assert itself strongly, and if it had merits they must be of a showy and visible kind, — rather those of the sunflower than those of the lily of the valley. There can be no question that M. Garnier aimed at the right kind of merit, — showy magnificence, — but there are opposite opinions about his taste. Like all important con- 320 PARIS temporary efforts, the Opera has its ardent admirers and its pitiless critics. Let me tell you a short anecdote about the building, which may help us in some measure to arrive at a just opinion. Shortly after its completion several distin- guished men, who were not architects, met at a Parisian din- ner-table, and they criticised M. Garnier with great sever- ity. Among them was a provincial architect, who re- mained silent till the others appealed to him. Then he said : " Gentlemen, when an architect undertakes to erect a comparatively small building, it is still a very complex af- fair J and how much more so must be such a gigantic work as the Opera, where a thousand matters of detail and neces- sity have to be provided for, all of which the architect has to carry in his mind together, and to reconcile with the ex- igencies of art ! Such a task is one of the heaviest and longest strains that can be imposed upon the mind of man ; and if the architect does not satisfy every one, it may be because other people are not aware of the extreme com- plexity of the problem." For me I confess that I know really nothing about theatres, except that they have myste- rious difficulties of their own. I like being outside better than inside them. Whatever may be thought of the back and sides of the Opera, the principal front may be admired without reserve. The basement is a massive wall, finished plainly, and pierced with seven round arches. In the intervals between five of these arches are statues and medallions ; on each side of the two exterior ones are groups representing Music, THE OPERA HOUSE 321 Lyrical Poetry, the Lyrical Drama, and the Dance. The contrast here of extreme architectural simplicity with figure- sculpture is excellent. Above is a colonnade of coupled Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, and between each two pairs of columns is an open space, in which a lower and smaller entablature, with a wall above it, is sup- ported on smaller columns of marble. This wall is pierced in each interval with a circular opening containing the gilded bust of a great musician. Above the great entabla- ture, and immediately over each pair of coupled columns, is a medallion with supporters, and above each open space of the loggia is an oblong panel with sculpture. Then you come to the dome of the house and the gable of the struc- ture above the stage. The effect of the whole is a combi- nation of splendour with strength and durability. The use of sculpture has been happy, and the sculpture has not been killed by the architecture, as it often is. On the other hand, it has lightened the appearance of the architecture, especially on the top of the edifice where the colossal winged figures are most valuable, — and so is that on the apex which holds up the lyre with both hands. With regard to the interior, my humble opinion — the opinion of one who knows nothing about theatres — is, that the business of plotting for splendour has been considerably overdone. The foyer is palatial, but it is overcharged with heavy ornament, like the palace of some lavish but vulgar king. As for poor Paul Baudry's paintings on the ceiling, which cost him such an infinity of labour and pains, it 322 PARIS does not in the least signify what he painted or how long it will last, for nobody can see his work in its present situ- ation. There can hardly be any more deplorable waste of in- dustry and knowledge than to devote it to the painting of ceilings that we cannot look at without pains in the neck, and cannot see properly when we do look at them. The grand staircase is more decidedly a success than x)c^z foyer. It almost overpowers us by its splendour ; it is full of daz- zling light; it conveys a strong sense of height, space, openness ; it comes on the sight as a burst of brilliant and triumphant music on the ear. The mind has its own satis- faction in a work that is splendid without false pretension. All the materials are really what they seem. The thirty columns are monoliths of marble, every step is of white Italian marble, the hand-rail of onyx, supported by balus- ters of rouge antique^ on a base of green marble from Sweden. We may admire the grand staircase or object to it, but it is honest work throughout, and may last a thousand years. The architect evidently took pride in it, as he has so planned the design that visitors may look down from gal- leries on four different stories all round the building. The house itself is much less original, with its decoration of red and gold, and the customary arrangements for the audience. yr7 THE CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE ALBERT LJFIGNAC HE who casts his eyes over the list of members of the teaching body of the Conservatoire in the year of its foundation (1795) is not a little sur- prised to see among them nineteen professors of the clari- net and twelve professors of the bassoon. To understand what seems to us now an absurdity, and yet was not one, we must go back to that period and learn how the Conservatoire came to be born. At the beginning of the revolution, in 1789, a captain of the staff of the National Guard, Bernard Sarrette, who was not himself a player, but was very fond of music, took under his personal charge forty-five musicians of the former Gardes Fran^aises in all that concerned the cost, equipment and care of the instruments, and with these forty-five musicians he formed the nucleus of the music of the Garde Nationale. He was reimbursed for his expenses about a year later, and, in 1792, he was appointed director of the Ecole gratuite de Musique de la Garde Nationale, which we must regard as the embryo of our Conservatoire. The pupils, to the number of a hundred and twenty-six, be- tween the ages of ten and twenty years, had to provide themselves with a uniform (of the Garde Nationale, 323 324 PARIS doubtless), an instrument and music-paper; they were bound to the service of the Garde Nationale and public festivals. If you want to form an idea of the degree of liberty that was enjoyed at that period I will tell you that in 1793, a pupil having allowed himself to play upon the horn the air from Richard Ccvur de Lion; " Richard^ mon Roi" the poor Sarrette was put to prison. Being authorized to go out when he was needed for the organization for the musical part of the festival of the Supreme Being, he could not take a step without being escorted by gendarmes, one of whom slept in his chamber. On the 20 Prairial year II. (1794) a hymn specially composed for the occasion was to be given in the Champ de Mars. This hymn was ordered from Sarrette on the 15th by the Committee of Public Safety, and immediately composed by Gossec ; it was necessary to teach this chant to the people in the four days that followed, by Robe- spierre's orders, who made Sarrette responsible for its good execution : Gossec took charge of the Ouartier des Halles, Lesueur taking the boulevards, and JMehul installing him- self before the door of the establishment which was then in the Rue Saint-Joseph. The hymn, therefore, was learned and executed on the appointed day, to the satisfaction of the Committee of Public Safety, by a great throng of performers, the whole populace singing, accompanied by two hundred drums, one hundred of which were furnished by the pupils of the CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 325 School of Music of the Garde Nationale, the other hun- dred being ordinary drummers. At length, August 3d, 1795 (16 thermidor an III.) two laws appeared simultaneously, the first suppressing the music of the Garde Nationale as well as its school of sing- ing and declamation, as to which precise documents are lacking but which goes back to 1786, at least; and the other, organizing the Conservatoire de Musique, and in- stalling it in the locality of Menus-Plaisirs, says that it must teach music to six hundred pupils of both sexes, se- lected proportionately in the various departments, and im- poses upon it the duty of furnishing a body of musicians every day for the service of the Garde Nationale and the Corps legislatif. Hence comes the utility of the profusion of players on the clarinet and bassoon of which we spoke in the beginning. On the loth of the same month, Sarrette was ap- pointed Director of the Conservatoire, which, as we have seen, was born of the fusion between the Institute de musique of the Garde Nationale and the Ecole de Chant et de Declamation. As to the personality of our venerable founder I can tell you nothing, not possessing any positive document as to his character or private life. There is no doubt that he was a man endowed with initiative and persevering will, a strong organizer to whom we owe the grouping and creation of the £cole Nationale Fran^aise. Up to that time France had certainly produced com- 326 PARIS posers of talent and genius but that cohesion was lacking which alone can constitute, properly speaking, a school. He directed the Conservatoire for twenty years, from 1795 to 1816. His direct successor was Perne, who was director for only five years, from 18 17 to 1822. Then came Cherubini, from 1823 to 1841 (eighteen years); Auber, from 1842 to 1871 (nineteen years); Ambroise Thomas, from 1872 to 1896 (twenty-four years) ; and lastly Theodore Dubois, the present director since 1896. If I can tell you nothing about Perne, whose short directory has very few traces, it is quite otherwise with Cherubini, one of the greatest masters who have done honour to the French School, and whom people are very wrong in neglecting and almost despising to-day. It must be confessed that affability was not precisely the dominant note of Cherubini's character. Adolphe Adam, who was twelve years old when he was presented by a friend of his father's, remembered all his life his recep- tion. " Dear master," said the introducer, " I take great pleasure in presenting to you a youth who is destined for music and who has capacities, for he is the son of our friend Adam ; young as he is, he is already one of your enthusiastic admirers. " Ah ! Ah ! Ah I Ah ! que ze le trouve bien le ! " And he did not say another word. CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 327 In default of good-nature, this man of genius possessed a punctuality and an exactitude proof against every- thing. He arrived at his office at five minutes to nine bringing a piece of sugar for his class-attendant's dog. On Monday, not having come on Sunday, he brought two. At that period the Directors did not reside at the Con- servatoire. Cherubini lived close by, at No. 19 Faubourg Poisson- niere. His successor, Auber, lived at No. 24 Rue Saint- Georges in a house that he ovv^ned. Ambroise Thomas was the first director to live in the establishment in the apart- ment that had previously been occupied by Clapisson, as founder and conservator of the Musee Instrumental. From 1825 to 187 1, that is to say under Cherubini and Auber, a boarding-school existed for twelve singing-schol- ars, from whom have come a certain number of singers who have since become famous, — Faure, Capoul, Bouhy, Melchissedec, Couderc and Bosquin, to mention only a few, who were very proud of their uniform (a black over- coat with lyres surrounded with palms embroidered in gold on the lapels, and the same emblem on the sailor's-cap) which made them look like members of a choral society of to-day, or pupils of the £cole Niedermayer. They lived in the building to the left of the courtyard; their twelve rooms were on the second floor, some looking into the courtyard and the others into the Rue Bergere, their halls for study (the present waiting-room at the examinations) on 328 PARIS the first floor, the refectory on the ground-floor, and the kitchen in the basement. They had a special porter, who has always been kept notwithstanding the suppression of the boarding-school, which explains why the Conservatoire possesses three por- ters, although it has only two entrances. Here they were taught singing and lyrical declamation, and they were also expected to learn solfeggio and the elements of the piano. From 1822 to 1826 there was also a boarding-school of female students at 26 Rue de Paradis. Cherubini established an iron discipline over them ; a grille of the same metal, always closed like that of the prison, existed under the porch ; these young people were absolutely forbidden to go out alone ; they could not put their nose outside except in a band and accompanied ; su- pervision was incessant. Recreation was taken in com- mon, in the courtyard when it was fine weather, under the vigilant eye of the three porters, a special overseer and the Director of the Boarding-School. Their correspondence was the object of special attention. It was in fact true monastic rule. This did not prevent evasions almost every night, since almost every morning there were scholars who entered by the door. They knew well enough how to get out; but they did not know how to get back ; the inmates were tired out and Cherubini was furious. In exasperation he ordered chains and bars to be put at all the windows. For those who did not possess the highest gymnastic pow- CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 329 ers, more sedentary pastimes existed. One day a squirrel, belonging probably to one of the inmates, having died, they gave it a pompous funeral that lasted not less than three days, during which the v^^hole Conservatoire was in effer- vescence ; nothing was forgotten, the lying in state of the corpse, the chants and the religious ceremonies ; it seems that it was very droll, but I would not dare to affirm that it was altogether seemly. From all this we see that notwithstanding the directoral rigours life was not so unendurable as might have been thought in the school. All those who knew Cherubini say that outside his work he was a very affable, gentle and even witty man ; that his house was very gay, that he received a great deal and that his daughters, whom he tenderly loved, were charming. Not- withstanding this I have never heard a truly amiable word of his quoted. He never went to first performances by virtue of the following principle : " If the work is good it will be played again ; if it is bad there is no need for me to hear it." However, he generally made exception for the works of his pupils. If we now pass on to Auber, we shall find ourselves in presence of an entirely different character and cast of mind. His witticisms cannot be counted. From the suppression of the Gymnase Musical Militaire (1856 to 1870) there existed at the Conservatoire classes for Saxophone, Saxhorn, Solfeggio and Harmony, for the exclusive benefit of military pupils, officers and subalterns, 330 PARIS classes in which General Mellinet, commander of the Garde Imperiale, who, as is known, was music-mad, took particular interest. Either because Auber gave up the presidency of the jury to him, or simply because of the prestige attached to his high personality, General Mellinet exercised great influence in the special courses of these military classes, which mani- fested itself in a benevolent and sometimes excessive pro- pensity to give the greatest possible number of rewards to those young people who were only allowed two years for passing through the school. One day when he allowed himself to be carried away by his natural generosity some- what farther perhaps than was reasonable, Auber said to him : " Believe me. General, I know the Conservatoire better than you, and if you give more rewards than there are candidates it might have a bad effect ! " The venerable balls that are used at the elections date from the foundation of the establishment (1795), and have never been renewed nor cleaned. By constant rubbing, the black ones have lost not a little of their tint, while the white ones have become considerably discoloured, so that now they are almost all of a uniform grey, and a certain amount of attention is required to distinguish them from one another, especially in dull weather. If I had the honour of being a journalist, I should un- dertake a campaign on this subject ; I should demonstrate that it is to this confusion among the balls that must be attributed all the absurd judgments that do not agree with CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIQUE 331 mine, which are necessarily just and equitable, and I should demand that the balls be publicly washed before each meeting. One of the most typical features of the character of Ambroise Thomas was certainly his extreme benevolence, his gentleness and his indulgent spirit as well as the kind- ness, reflected by his pensive gaze of a gentle philosophy, which often degenerated into weakness and sometimes manifested itself under the most unexpected forms in spite of his sincere desire to be exceedingly firm. Among the most amusing types of the old professors whom I have known I must place in the first rank him who was called "/^ petit pere Elwart" whose succession indi- rectly fell upon me, for Theodore Dubois inherited his class of harmony in 1872, and I followed him in 1891, when he succeeded Leo Delibes in his composition class before he became Director. Elwart's enduring fame among us rests upon his tremen- dous reputation as an orator at banquets, funerals, and tcvm- s\c2\ fetes and reunions of every kind. At the obsequies of Leborne (also one of our old profess- ors), he ended his discourse thus : " Leborne had a great sorrow in his heart, he never be- longed to the Institute, notwithstanding the numerous at- tempts he made to get in." Then bending down to the ear of Victorin Joncieres, from whom I got this anecdote, he said : " I said that for the sake of his family." 332 PARIS The above gentleman also told me the following jest by Berlioz when at the point of death : *' If Elwart is to speak over my tomb, I'd rather not die at all ! " Among the public there is a false idea that the Conserva- toire is composed of bad characters. This is as great an error as it would be to pretend the contrary. The truth is that its society is greatly mixed, as is inevitable in an abso- lutely free school where the entrance is by examination and where among one's comrades one must choose one's own friends with the risk of seeing one's self in the future greatly embarrassed by relations lightly formed. It will be said that it is the same with many other schools; that is true, but to a less degree. All classes of society are repre- sented at the Conservatoire ; it is not rare to see elbowing each other there in the same class a youth who has made serious struggles and who is already a bachelor, or a Doc- tor of Laws and the most ignorant of illiterates ; the son of a millionaire and the son of a small merchant, of the proletariat ; daughters of savants, pastors, eminent artists and men of letters together with those whose parents exer- cise the most modest professions. This arises from the special artistic teaching being higher and more complete than anywhere else ; the most fortunate, those who could easily spend money on their studies, knock at its door, and it should be a matter of pride to belong to its school which, even if it does not realize the tvpe of absolute perfection, which is not of this world, indisputably holds its place at CONSERVATOIRE DE MUSIOUE 333 the head of all establishments, not French alone but Eu- ropean, in which music and theatrical art are taught. From the great diversity of character and nature presented by the pupils, it results that the Conservatoire is a small world complete in itself, a microcosm, and with a slight spirit of observation as well as by the studies for which classes are provided, one may there pass through the ap- prenticeship of life, with its struggles, its jealousies, its rancours, and its mean or terrible sides as well as the friend- ships and devotions that form its consolation. BIBLIOTHEQUE NATION ALE CHARLES DICKENS, JR. THE Bibliotheque Nationale, in Paris, was first be- gun by Charles V. of France, who shut up his nine hundred and ten volumes in the Tower of the Louvre. The books had been counted in 1373. Fifty years afterwards they were all sold to the Duke of Bedford for ;^i,220 sterling. Another library was started, and in the middle of the Fifteenth Century Louis XL began to take some trouble about his books. The collection was increased by purchases made of the Dukes of Burgundy, and by the pillage of the libraries of Naples and of Pavia. Louis XIL, about the year 1500, caused all the books to be transported to Blois, where the Dukes of Orleans had a library of their own. Francois L afterward sent them all to Fontainebleau. There were then one hundred and nine printed volumes and one thousand seven hundred and eighty-one manuscripts. In 1595 the collection was retransported to Paris; and even when in Paris the books made several journeys. In 1721 they were placed in the Hotel Mazarin, which stood on the site of the present library in the Rue de Richelieu. The library was first opened to the public in 1737; the Bibli- otheque Mazarine had become public a century earlier. During the reign of Louis XIII. the Bibliotheque du Roi contained 16,750 volumes. By means of purchases and 334 BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 335 good care, in the year 1684 there were 40,000 printed vol- umes and 10,900 manuscripts. The Eighteenth Century was everywhere one of intellectual development, and before the Revolution broke out it was estimated that there were in the library 150,000 volumes. The French authorities say that they have now under their charge 2,000,000 vol- umes. Of these there are 440,000 volumes exclusively upon French history. It is also estimated that there are more than 120,000 manuscripts, 2,500,000 prints, engrav- ings, and charts, and that there are more than 120,000 medals. This library at different periods has been called by differ- ent names, depending upon the title of the head of the government in the country. The appellation has some- times been Bibliotheque du Roi, or Bibliotheque Royale ; again it has been Bibliotheque Imperiale ; now it is Bibli- otheque Nationale. In the last century there was for a short time an idea to call it Bibliotheque de France, but that title was never officially recognized. BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY FROM the Madeleine we were carried to the Biblio- theque du Roi, where it was a show-dav, and where we saw long tables, with gentlemen reading at them. Some very fine prints in the little print room, if one had but the time to examine them, and some extraor- dinary beautiful knickknacks in the shape of cameos, gems, and medals. There was Clovis's armchair, and one of the chessmen sent by Haroun Alraschid to Charlemagne ! What a relic ! It is about the size of half a tea-caddy — a royal chessman truly, think of Charlemagne solemnly lifting it and crying " Check ! " to Orlando ! — think of the palace of pictures — Zobeide has just been making a sherbert — Haroun and the Grand Vizier are at tables there by the fountain — the Commander of the Faithful looks thought- ful, and shakes his mighty beard — GiafFour looks pleased, although he is losing. " Your Majesty always wins," says he, as he allows his last piece to be taken. And lo ! yonder comes Mesnour, chief of the eunuchs ; he has a bundle under his arm. " Sire," pipes he in a cracked voice, " it is sunset ; here are the disguises ; your Majesty is to go to the ropemaker's to-night. If Sindbad should call, I will get him a jar of wine, and place him in the pavilion yonder by the Tigris." 336 BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE 337 Of the rest of the collection it is best to say nothing : there is a most beautiful, tender, innocent-looking head of young — Nero ! — a pretty parcel of trinkets that belonged to Louis XV. 's Sultanas (they may have been wicked, but they were mighty agreeable, surely) — a picture of Louis Quatorze, all wig and red-heeled pumps ; another of Louis XVIIL, who, in the midst of his fat, looks like a gentleman and a man of sense, and that odious, inevitable, sickening, smirk- ing countenance of Louis— Philippe, which stares at you wherever you turn. LES TUILERIES IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND WHEN, after having contemplated the Arc de Tri- omphe, illuminated by the setting sun as by the flames of an apotheosis, one casts a glance at that magnificent avenue of the Champs-Elysees, which seems made for ovations, one feels oneself the child of a great city, of the capital of capitals. Pursuing one's way, one looks with pride to the right in the distance on the dome of the Invalides, close by the Palais de I'lndustrie, the asylum of pacific victories, the rendezvous of all the nations But, on arriving at the square that, by an ironical antiphrase, is called the Place de la Concorde, one is seized with a sen- timent of sadness. Notwithstanding its splendours, its obelisk, its fountains, its double palace with majestic arcades, its rostral columns, and its vast perspectives, this gigantic place is somewhat lugubrious. Livid and bleeding shadows appear here, and history evokes its most tragic memories. Where now rises the obelisk of Luxor, formerly stood in turn the equestrian statue of Louis XV., and the Statue of Libertv, seated and wearing the Phrygian cap. Near the fountains, for two years uninterruptedly, stood the hideous guillotine that severed more than fifteen hundred heads on that spot. The victims and the executioners were executed there. 338 LES TUILERIES 339 After Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth, the Girondins, Charlotte Corday, and Madame Roland, came the turn of Danton, Hebert, and Robespierre. While gazing upon that accursed spot, I fancy I hear the roll of the drum drowning the voice of Louis XVL, the son of Saint-Louis, at the moment when he desired to address the people before ascending to heaven. I think I see Marie Antoinette casting a last glance on the Tuileries, her first prison, before yielding up her beautiful soul to God. Ah ! This square is certainly not the Place de la Concorde ; its real name should be Place du Crime. Where the waters of the two fountains are spouting, even if all the streams, all the rivers and all the waves of the ocean were to flow, they would not suffice to efface the stains of blood printed on those stones which, like Lady Macbeth, France would never succeed in washing away. I enter the garden of the Tuileries through the grille sur- mounted by stone celebrities. I see basins, ancient trees and statues. Where does this beautiful alley which is a kind of continuation of the avenue of the Champs-Elysees and the Place de la Concorde, lead ? To ruins and what ruins ! What ? These triumphal ways lead up to such a spectacle ; is this the last word of all that train of power and glory ! I cannot believe my eyes ; I halt in surprise and indignation. The barbarity of modern vandals has dared to imprint such a stigma upon the brow of the great capital ! This is what the demagogic Erostrates have in- vented ! This is how they respect the glories of France ! 340 PARIS This is what they have made of that illustrious palace that found no protection by the shadow either of Louis XIV., or of Napoleon, that palace which was also the scene of the exploits of the Convention, in which the Committee of Pub- lic Safety sat, and in which were heard the voices of Marat, Danton and Robespierre ! I cannot familiarize myself with these shameful and deplorable ruins ! I see the terrible trace of the vengeance of God in these calcined stones and I know not what biblical anathemas resound among this debris. Did not Chateaubriand have a sort of presentiment of the fate of the Tuilerics when he wrote in his Genie du Chris- tianisme : "There are two kinds of ruins: the one, the work of time, the other, of men. There is nothing dis- agreeable in the former, because nature works with the years. If they produce rubbish, she sows it with flowers ; if they open a tomb, she places a dove's nest in it. Cease- lessly occupied in reproducing, she surrounds death with the sweetest illusions of life. The second kind are devastations rather than ruins ; they offer only the image of nothingness without a reparative power. The work of misfortune and not of the years, they resemble white hairs on the head of youth. The destructions of man, moreover, are more violent and complete than those of the ages. The latter undermine ; the former overthrow. When, for causes un- known to us, God desires to hasten the ruins of the world. He orders Time to lend man his sickle, and with terror Time sees us ravage in the twinkling of an eye what it has taken him centuries to destroy." LES TUILERIES 341 And this is what remains of that palace which was the symbol of power, the sanctuary of sovereignty, the centre and the very heart of the great nation, and which, more- over, so finely held its place in this magnificent quadrilat- eral; the Arc de Triomphe, the Madeleine, the Corps Legislatif, and the Tuileries, — glory, religion, law, and authority ! Here is that palace of great hopes and great catastrophes in which were born the king of Rome, the Duke of Bordeaux, the Comte de Paris and the Prince Imperial ; that legendary palace, the objective of so many ambitions and so many regrets, which amid their cruel de- ceptions seemed to be constantly before the eyes of Napoleon at Saint Helena, Charles X. at Holyrood, Louis-Philippe at Claremont, and Napoleon HI. at Chislehurst ! What was the end of this grandiose palace ? Alas ! Its last festival was a derisive concert given by the Commune. There where incense had smoked, the odious oil of petroleum trickled. Moscow was burned by patriotism. Paris was burned by the crime of Ihe-patrie. What is in ruins before our eyes is not only the Tuileries, it is patriot- ism, it is honour; that is what has been sacked and given to the flames; that is what mad iconoclasts have de- stroyed ! We never make use of the experiences of others. The kings, the emperors, and the chiefs of the republic said and believed that the kingdom, the empire, and their public would not perish. The republicans of 1792 had the following inscription placed upon the Tuileries : " Royalty is abolished 342 PARIS in France, it will never revive." Each of the three dy- nasties in turn believed itself indestructible, and in its simplicity boasted of having forever brought the era of revo- lution to a close. Under the Second Empire, the Tuileries arrived at the height of its splendour. Joined to the Louvre it formed the most enormous and majestic edifice in the universe. Gazing at its debris^ I called to mind the evenings of the great festivals, the staircase with one of the cent-gardes on each side of every step, the brilliancy of the lights, the perfume of the flowers, the joyous sounds of the orchestras, the Galerie de la Paix, filled with brilliant uniforms and elegant toilettes; and then, in the Salle des Marechaux, the throng awaiting the arrival of the sovereign and his train. I hear the voice of the usher crying : " The emperor ! " and the musicians playing " Partant pour la Syrie" I see the empress in her splendid beauty covered with the crown diamonds. I see the greatest personages, the ministers, the marshals, the ambassadors, and often even the foreign princes soliciting by their humble and respectful attitude a word, or a glance, from him who was then regarded as the arbiter of Europe. Then the vision fades, the enchantment vanishes, and I see nothing but fragments of wall stained by petroleum and fire. The two projecting wings that adjoined the pavilions of Marsan and Flore, built by Jean Bullant, have been en- tirely razed since the fire, because it was believed that their ruins were in danger of falling. Nothing remains on the ground they occupied. Etiam periere ruina. But the LES TUILERIES 343 ruins of the five central buildings are still standing. They consist of the Pavilion de I'Horloge, the two bodies of the building to the right and left, and the two jutting pavilions, the work of Jean Bullant, that are continued to either side and that are known as the Pavilion de Medicis. These five bodies of buildings of which the ruins are composed are precisely the ones that a celebrated arche- ologist, M. Vitet, with great insistence demanded should be preserved five years before the fire. The Chateau des Tuileries is one of the finest jewels of French architecture, and one of the purest masterpieces of the Renaissance. Look at it in its present misery, fallen in and blackened within by the odious petroleum. How ma- jestically it still extends the harmonious lines of its gran- diose facade to the sunlight ! Admire all those charming details that even to-day beautify the edifice without injuring its simplicity. Look at those capitals, those columns and those fragments of elegant sculpture that have almost been respected by the flames. Does it not seem that they should move the artist to save them from complete destruction ? The roofs, the vaults and the floors have fallen in as well as the majority of the partition-walls. But the exterior walls with the columns that ornament them are still standing. Their restoration would be easy. How beautiful must this legendary palace have been when even its ruins have preserved so grand and imposing an aspect ! Ah ! how majestic they are at night, when a sense of mystery and fantasy envelops them) when the 344 PARIS moon illumines them with hct white radiance ; when the ray of some star trembles through the joints of the stone- work as through the interstices of the bones of the skele- ton ! The neighbouring clocks strike; I look at the empty frame in the central pavilion in which was the clock which was stopped by the action of the fire at nine o'clock in the evening on May 23, 187 1. I fancy I see a crowd of phantoms peopling the solitude with the generations that have come to life. How thrilling is this evocation of the past ! I see Catherine de Mcdicis pale at the predictions of the astrolo- gers ; the dazzling queen Margot, exciting the enthusiasm of the Polish ambassadors ; Henri IH., fleeing by the garden on the day of the barricades; Louis XIV., presiding at the luxurious carouse covered with the crown diamonds like a Roman emperor ; Louis XV., as a child walking about under the trees with his little Spanish Jiancee. Here, in the Salle des Machines, is the Theatre Fran^ais, as it was represented by the pencil of Moreau le Jeune. I am present at the first performance of the Barber of Seville and at the apotheosis of the living Voltaire. Then, with Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the palace rises before me like the vestibule to the scaffold. Then it becomes the seat of the Convention. I see the insurgent hordes with their pikes and red caps, and the Furies of the guillotine, and Robespierre livid and with a broken jaw. Then it is the Man of Destiny who appears. It is the Consular guard. It is the review of the soldiers of Egypt and Italy. It is LES TUILERIES 345 Pope Pius VIII. It is the coronation procession. The kind Josephine saddens me ; I suiFer with her grief at the moment of the divorce. And now here is Marie Louise. There is the cradle of the king of Rome. After unheard of splendours, comes the awful fall and the return of Louis XVIII. ; the Duchesse d'Angouleme ; the orphan of the Temple, who fainted at the moment when women, robed in white and bearing lilies, said to her : " Daughter of Louis XVI. bless us ! " Less than a year afterward, it is Napoleon whom I again see borne, as on a triumphal shield, on the arms of his enthusiastic grenadiers. Then it is the Bourbons whom I see for the second time. I see the Tuileries covered with black cloth. It is Louis XVIII. , the only sovereign of France since Louis XV. who has died upon the throne. Then, in 1830, I see the red-coated Swiss slain as on the Tenth of August, and the wave of the populace invading the palace. I perceive Louis-Philippe reigning, ceaselessly menaced by assassins; the Duke of Orleans, full of youth and hope, leaving the Tuileries to fall on the road of Revolt ; the tragic scenes of the Revol- ution of February, the sorrowful departure of the old king into exile ; then the pomps of the Second Empire, Napo- leon III., all-powerful, the empress radiant with beauty.^ the cradle of the Prince Imperial saluted by the same accla- mations as those of the King of Rome, the Duke of Bor- deaux and the Comte de Paris : the throng of crowned heads, princes and princesses who have come to the Tuileries for the universal Exposition of 1867; and the sad return of 346 PARTS human affairs, the Fourth of September, the Commune, and the modern Erostrates who gave the last entertainment at the Tuileries before burning it ; and from all these varied throngs arises a great clamour. Sometimes I hear the cheers of the people and the army saluting the sovereign, sometimes the obsequious voices of the courtiers who out of respect speak in low tones in the palace, as in a church ; and sometimes the furious cries of invaders letting them- selves loose like a tempest. At length, all these evocations disappear, all these shadows vanish, and all this tumult and these echoes are hushed. It is night, it is silence, and I remember, I meditate, and I repeat Massillon's words over the coffin of Louis XIV. : " God alone is great ! " RUE DE RIVOLI MAX DE REVEL THE Rue de Rivoli is one of the newest streets of Paris ; opened at the will of the emperor, its name is a splendid memorial of glory, for it re- calls a victory won on the 14th of January, 1797. It is a page torn from that grand century, that century, if any, of victorious memory. But, owing to its construction, it is to-day an inexcusable proof of that bad taste that presided over the architecture of the empire. That colonnade, uniformly square to the eye, belongs to no order and to no style ; it is simply a very cold, very heavy, and very formal portico, a mass of stones and slates, an exhibition of windows which might well pass for hothouses with exterior balconies. The Restoration, prevented from going to sleep by the laurels gained by the Empire, made an effort to change the name of the Rue de Rivoli for the benefit of the Due de Bordeaux ; a bust was placed at the two extremities of the street with this inscription : Rue du Due de Bordeaux. On the next day the writing and transparency had disappeared beneath an avalanche of stones ; the Rue de Rivoli kept its glorious name, and the dedication that they attempted to introduce returned, some time afterward, to take possession of a little street which soon changed its noble title for a simple date : the 29 Juillet. 347 348 PARIS Separated from the gardens of the Tuileries by a high wall, the ground that really forms the Rue de Rivoli was cut into three parts : the Jssomption^ a convent inhabited by nuns ; the Couvent des Feuillants ; and the Couvent des Capucins. These three monasteries were enclosed between the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Rue du Dauphin ; the rest of the ground as far as the Rue de Rohan was occupied by the hospice of the ^I'tnze-Vingts^ built by Saint-Louis, on a piece of ground called Champourri. He had also particu- larly endowed this hospice, and an annual rent of thirty Uvres had been appropriated to pay for the soup of the blind. In 1779, the Cardinal de Rohan, grand-almoner of France, transferred them to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and upon the very site of the hospice opened two streets, one of which took the name of Rohati^ and the other ^inze-Vingts, What do I hear, what is this tumult, what are these cries, these flames starting from the windows ? Men in arms throw themselves from the houses — it is the Rue de Rohan receiving its baptism of blood, as it received its baptism of feudality from the hands of the cardinal. Who are these two men with fiery eyes, bristling moustaches, and lips blackened with powder ? Their clothes are in disorder — they enter a butcher's — a yelling crowd follows in their tracks — it besieges the door — with loud cries it demands the heads of the fugitives. The door finally yields to their redoubled efforts. Two large beardless fellows come to offer their services to the sovereign people. In a moment the shop is visited, the most ardent searches lead COLOXXE VENDUME. RUE DE RIVOLI 349 to no result, no discovery ; the two men have fled, and the crowd, inconstant and changeable in its pleasures as in its fury, disperses and runs, matchlock in hand, to overturn a throne and conquer liberty. We are in the month of July, 1830: these two men are the royal guards whom a butcher has shaved to save them from the fury of the people — we are in open revo- lution. But the Rue de Rohan has returned to its primitive calm, the pavement has resumed its place, the holes made by the balls have been stopped up, the revolution is over. The Rue du Dauphin was one of Napoleon Bonaparte's first stages. It was in the Rue du Dauphin that he in- habited a dark and mean chamber on his return from Italy ; it is before the Rue du Dauphin that he knocked for the first time at the castle-door announcing himself by the noise of cannon. It was from the Rue du Dauphin that he de- signed the new quarter of the Tuileries, and the ball shot from Saint-Roch traced with a single flight the Rues de Rivoli, de Castiglione, de Monthabor, de Mondovi and des Pyramides and finally stopped at the foot of the Colonne de la Place Vendome. The streets that I have just named and which are success- ively met belong to the domain of modern history, that is to say, to memory of the victories and conquests of the French army, the catalogue of which is found on the walls of the Arc de Triomphe de VEtoile. I cannot end this review without speaking of two res- 350 PARIS taurant-keepers who made at least their own individual fortunes, if not the fortune of the street. The first is Lagacque, and the second Very, whose rooms were the rendezvous of the fashionable world of the Directoire and the empire. The cafe Very displayed a luxury unheard of until that day : people spoke of 8o,ooo frances spent in mirrors, por- celains, and crystal alone. It is true that Lucien Bona- parte often went to dine at Very's. It is even said that one day it was his fancy to pay a bill of 75,000 francs ; the habitues of the time pretended that that was nothing but a loan made to the lady at the desk ; others have maintained that it was a purely gratuitous gift ; what is certain is that the cajl^ magnificently restored, made a rapid fortune. The Rue de Rivoli is one of the finest streets of Paris as we come from the barrier of L'Etoilei that is the best praise that we can give it. THE STREET THEODORE DE BANFILLE IN my belief the caliph Haroun al Raschid found the best means of being a sovereign well-informed on all matters and that was to walk the streets during the night. An excellent system at Bagdad, and much more excellent at Paris, where the streets are endowed with supernatural life ! They possess life, thought, and soul, and, if one knows how to listen to them, they speak to one. In the commercial quarters one still hears vaguely, like an echo, the noise of anvils and machinery, the vibra- tion of matter at work ; while around the Odeon float in the air, as if subtilized, philosophical ideas, transcendent calcu- lations and Homeric verses. In Paris the skies, clouds, and swarming stars associate themselves with the aspects of the city in the manner of stones, and these stones them- selves are moulded and modelled by all the active and fruit- ful thought that has moved about them during the day. He who, at night, walks about the silent and almost empty Paris knows more about the movements of souls and the reality of things than if he had listened to many conversations and turned over a great heap of documents ; for at that hour ideas are imbibed and inhaled in the still vibrating atmosphere. Yes, it is good, it is wholesome, and it is profitable to wander there during the night ; but 351 352 PARIS neither is it bad to walk about during the day and mix with the people, with the throng, with the vast human wave, which, like that of the sea, tells its secret without speaking and only by its agitation and melodious murmur. If our ministers are never kept informed of anything, it is because they do not see the street, nor the pavements, but live imprisoned in interiors decorated in the worst style of the empire. To-day the governments have their feet stuck down to their carpets with wax ; but this hourgeoise and domestic mode is relatively recent. King Louis-Philippe, whose classically curled forelock casts a comic shadow over his- tory, always carried with him an umbrella that has become legendary; this certainly proves that he did not fear to walk abroad, for doubtless he did not yoke himself to this scarcely heroic though useful article to stroll through the apartments of the Tuileries. His young and charming son, the Due d'Orleans did not disdain to climb stairs, to enter the rooms of writers and the studios of artists, which counted for much in the great movement of 1830, for it was an enormous encouragement to all those who lived by thought to know that their works were known and un- derstood in the palace where the destinies of France were shaped. Before these, an essentially ambulatory prince, Napoleon I., wrapped in his big overcoat, liked to chat with the merchants in their shops, to stroll with the crowd, to pass along with the others and to laugh at liberty at the fibs that his minister of police told him. He was no stranger to THE STREET 353 the street because he had known it of old, and in the only way in which one can know it well, that is to say by being poor. He had wandered about without a sou^ and not hav- ing it, he had grown so accustomed not to put any money in his pockets that later when he had plenty, being the master of the world, he still continued not to put it in his pockets, which sometimes exposed him to the strangest adventures. But in that way, at least he could contem- plate Truth entirely naked and not muffled in a thousand tinsel lies as she was exhibited at the Tuileries. Ah ! if the artist and the poet want to know the exact value of their glory they have only to go outside and look at their inventions in full sunlight, and they will see im- mediately whether they have modelled living figures or pale phantoms. The women, who, in every respect, have infinitely more good sense than we, never content them- selves with the shadows, and want their prey all palpitating and bleeding, know very well where the applause that counts and real adoration are to be found. If they want to know the extent of their beauty and power, they trust neither the interested falsehoods of their friends, nor the envenomed politeness of the salons ; but they believe in the effect that they produce in the street with their beauti- ful toilettes, they are reassured by the admiration that is involuntarily expressed with tremendous oaths; and from the duchess who goes to Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, with her chaste and pious gait, to the brazen and melancholy prowler of the outer boulevard, ail the women are satisfied 354 PARIS if they please the incorruptible street public, the only one that does not take will-o'-the-wisps for lanterns, nor buy a pig in a poke. Baron Haussmann, like a modern Hercules, knew how to clean the sewers and make rivers flow through foul stables. He has given us air and light ; he created capital by making land of value that was disdained till that time, and in sum, he was endowed with a certain genius for building ; but his mind was lacking in one thing, he could never understand the soul of Paris. When his mad and drunken pick overthrew the Boulevard du Temple, he thought he had destroyed nothing but theatres ; but his crime was much graver, he had sterilized the dramatic genius of France for a long time. No pieces without actors, this is an elementary axiom; now, why were there so many great comedians at that day and why are there fewer to-day ? Remember that open space on the boule- vard glittering with lights, swarming, streaming and crowded with busy shops, where an infinitely diversified Parisian crowd, elite and popular at the same time, but ardently attached to the theatre, ceaselessly lounged and , moved about ! The actors passed along there on their way to their art, their duties and their triumph ; they passed by, no longer travestied and painted, dressed up in an artificial character, but having become themselves again under their own natural figure, among the people who loved them, knew them and lived with them inside and outside the theatre. To pass through this crowd was the redoubtable THE STREET 355 and decisive proof; for, if the artist had acted well on the previous and other evenings, he was saluted by long friendly looks; but if, on the contrary, he had been lacking in sincerity, if he had abandoned himself to conventionality and easy effects, he was met by that gloomy indifference at which heroes and kings themselves are inconsolable. Ah ! at such a time what cared a Deburau, a Frederick, or a Dorval for the jealousy of his rivals, the ill-humour of the papers, or the strained admiration of fashionable people when the Parisian cast a glance at him that said — *' I am pleased with you ! " All this world, actors and throng, were thick as thieves and lived in a true com- munion. To-day they are strangers to one another, they no longer know one another, and the Muse also does not know them, because they are no longer gathered together and united in ideas in common for love of her. The Street knows everything, and foresees everything, and without her, nobody knows anything. If, notwith- standing many excellent and superior masterpieces, modern comedy has not succeeded in painting modern life, it is be- cause, by a false idea of dignity, by prudery to speak plainly, she has imprisoned herself in the salons and the common people are unknown to her. Moliere's comedy, like Shakes- peare's and Aristophanes', knows the streets and yields herself to the kiss of the sunlight. Ours, muffled up, up- holstered and barricaded between folding-screens, does not know whether it is winter or summer, day or night, nor whether the place in which she dwells is a populated city or 35^ PARIS a desert. She is c\ cii absolutely ignorant whether there has been a revolution or if the form of government has changed. This is like our deputies, moreover. For shut up in what, by blameworthy ignorance of the French language, they persist in calling an cnceinti., one might burn Paris and scatter its ashes to the four winds of heaven without their knowing anything about it. Ah ! the meanest Gavroche, an habitue of the pavement and companion of the wandering sparrows, is a historian and a politician far more than they. By the attitude and by the greater or less ardour of the enthusiasts who tear up the first paving-stone, he knows immediately what is com- ing and whether it is a matter of an affray, a riot or a revo- lution. He is also a very good art critic j for him, the goddess of the Rude, flying, cuirassed with scales, shouting her refrain through the affrighted skies, is the real Marseil- laise^ whilst certain ladies in marble, crowned with ears of corn or stars, represent to him not the Republic but merely astronomy or agriculture. At the new Hotel de Ville, standing in their niches, the great Parisians are in full view ; so that for them the judg- ment of posterity has been made. There are certain among them who are at home there and natural, and others who will be stupefied and eternally in a strange land. The peo- ple adopt those who in their souls were sincerely of the people ; those, on the contrary, who lied, courted popularity, and proffered vain words will always look as if they are THE STREET 357 wondering where they have left their hats and are only on a visit. The pavement does not know them, has not wanted to learn their names and disowns them. When you have shut yourself up in the enceinte^ you naively imagine that the questions of ministers, men and cabinets are real questions, and that the breast of commissions is a real breast capable of suckling some one or nourishing something ; go down into the street and without any one having to teach you the lesson, you will immediately see that there are many other fish to fry. You will see all those people, men, women, old men, and children going to their task, courageous and sad because they are anxious to work with all their strength, but notwithstanding their courage they see before them the ever-threatening spectre of hunger. You will see, alas, vice devouring such youth- ful prey that its cannibal feast makes the stones weep. I am quite aware that these pale young girls might go and ask for work at the Bon Marche, or the shops of the Louvre ; but perhaps they would be told that the places were already filled. In any case, go down into the street and walk about and it will be time well spent. Long ago an author who trem- bled with fear on his way to the Opera-Comique, where a piece of his was to be played, and who had the dramatic author's colic, was radically cured of his ill on crossing the Place des Victoires, where men with bloody arms were car- rying the Princesse de Lamballe's head on the end of a pike. You will not see such spectacles to-day, but you will 358 PARIS come across others that will have their value. You, sir, infatuated with your novel that seems to you to be superior to Iliad, or with your sonnet that you prefer to those of Ronsard, on noticing that there are many more mouths than loaves and many more feet than shoes, you will have food for reflection. You will also realize that in the open air certain great men are no longer great, just as certain beautiful women are no longer at all beautiful, and you will perceive that in the salons they make you swallow anything they like, but that the street is not so silly. PLACE DE LA CONCORDE RICHARD WHIT KING THE Place de la Concorde is one of the most beau- tiful and effective in Paris, both for the views it commands — the Church of the Madeleine, the Arc de I'Etoile, the Chamber of Deputies, the Garden of the Tuileries, etc., etc. — and for its ample size and embel- lishments. Of the two large buildings to the north facing the Chamber of Deputies, the one to the right, looking toward the Madeleine, is the ministry of marine, that to the left (in part) a clubhouse, and for the rest a private residence. The Place has undergone many transformations, but it was laid out as it stands now under Napoleon III. It was the scene of the awful accident at the marriage re- joicings of Louis XVI., when a terrified rush of an excited crowd resulted in as much slaughter as a great battle, killing twelve hundred outright and wounding twice as many more. Later on, the guillotine of the Revolution occupied this spot and here perished Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, the Girondins, Philippe-Egalite, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Robespierre, Saint Just, and nearly three thousand others, all in about two years. In 1814 Prussian and Russian troops were bivouacked in the Place, in 18 15 English troops, and in 187 1 Prussian troops again. There was desperate fighting here during the Commune, and the 359 360 PARIS barricade of the Rue Royale, the street leading to the Made- leine, was one of the most formidable in Paris. The beau- tiful obelisk of Luxor in the centre was presented to Louis- Philippe by Mehemet Ali, and the French engineers were not a little proud of their success in transporting it to France and setting it upon its pedestal. Intaglios on the granite base illustrate the method of transport and removal, and this is further exemplified by detailed models in one of the museums. The monolith belongs to the epoch of Rameses II, (Sesostris the Great), in the Fourteenth Century b. c, and it records his achievements as Lord of the Earth and Anni- hilator of the Enemy. . . . The eight-seated figures round the Place are, or were when they were done, repre- sentative of the eight chief towns of France — Lille, Stras- bourg, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rouen, Brest, Marseilles, and Lyons. Strasbourg (in the northeast corner near the Tuil- eries), it will be observed, wears perpetual mourning of funeral wreaths on account of her separation from the mother country. The space in front of this statue is often the scene of patriotic demonstrations. - l\k- \C - ^- 7; /7 \7 ^vTVr'vrVJ''^ PLACE DE LA CONCORDE tMophile gautier IN crossing the Place de la Concorde do not neglect to throw a glance at the fountain. You will see between other figures more or less allegorical and mythological, the Triton and Tritonne by Antonin Moine. It is indeed the true Triton of the opera as Boucher and Vanloo understood it; nothing more undulous, more sug- gestive of the sea, more glaucous and more squamous could be imagined. The Nereid is wreathed with scallops, corals, and sea- weed in infinite taste ; her bracelets and necklaces of shell- work give her a great richness of ornamentation, which is perfectly harmonious with a decorative figure. The other personages, seated in a circle under the basin of the foun- tain, like the old clothes-dealers of the market-place under their umbrella of red linen are not at all elegant, and by their rigidity and awkwardness contrast with the disinvol- ture and the vivacity of Antonin Moine's statues. The water is thrown from the mouth of fishes, dolphins, and other designs from the ocean, conveniently pierced with holes for this purpose. When the figures of the piedouche can only be seen 361 362 PARIS through the crystal fringe and the shower of pearls which fall from the upper basin, the general aspect does not lack a certain tufted and rich effect. We have waited for water-works with impatience, for what above all else characterizes monuments of this species is the complete absence of what our fathers called the humid element ; in a fountain there is always bronze, iron, lead, cement, and cut stone ; there is everything except water. In Paris, the use of the fountain is a true sinecure ; how- ever, this is so near the river that it would take only a very ill will to make it dry ; she will have much to do even with the aid of her sisters to refresh the disheartening aridity of this Sahara of dust and melted bitumen where the prome- naders get caught and stuck by the feet like flies upon raisin'e (preserve of grapes and pears). THE tLYStE ARSkNE HOUSSATE WE are in 1728, five years after the death of the Regent. A prince of the house of Bouillon, the Comte d'Evreux, has ordered the archi- tect, Mollet, to build him a palace worthy of a Highness, a miniature Versailles on the Faubourg Saint-Honore. Seventeen hundred and twenty-eight ! O flourishing years of royalty ! Louis XV. is reigning. Cardinal Fleury is governing; all around, France is amusing herself. At the Comte d'Evreux's, as at so many other lodges haunted by the demigods of the court, wine flows, women are beau- tiful, and philosophy is smiling ! Lagrange-Chancel would grow indignant on watching all these stepsons, titled cour- tiers of Trimalcion, who perhaps the next night will sneak into Locusta's ; on listening to all these railing madmen who hum such biting couplets against the patriarchs of Genesis and the apostles of the New Testament ! As for us, let us laugh ! Madame de Tencin also, purple with erudition and the wine of Romance, has sworn that in less than a month she will submit to the company a methodical plan of " Greek and Roman recreations," in which the actors will be costumed according to the nature and spirit of their parts ; Jean Baptiste Vanloo is in ecstasy over all these couples whom he will reproduce with the sentiment 363 364 PARIS of an amorous page; and, amid clinking bott!es and ex- changed kisses, if a stoic had the courage to scowl with his morose brow, he would hear issuing from the walls and ceilings like an echo of eternal wisdom these subtle words by an ambassador who had been admitted to an entertain- ment of Leo X. : " Buona Persona^ ma vuole viveve ! " (Good persons, but who want to live !) They want to live, all these guests of a soiree that is renewed every evening in the palace of the Comte d' Evreux, and they would want to live still more when the Comte d'£vreux is no longer master in that house ! For the new owner of Mollet's masterpiece is not made to let this temple of gay knowledge and gay adventure be idle. After the Comte d'Evreux the house belongs by purchase to Jeanne Poisson, Madame de Lenormand I'Etioles, to her who by the effort of her will and the magic of her sweet face has become, by increase. Marquise de Pompa- dour, President of Paphos and Archduchess of Cythera. On the eve of Fontenoy, in spite of Madame de Prie, Madame Vintimille, and Madame de Mailly, when the people, who nevertheless knew the good Marie Leczinska, still called Louis XV. their Well-Beloved King, Madame de Pompadour installed herself, like an encyclopaedist Astrsa, in this Forez des Champs Elysees, and she abol- ished the enclosures and extended the gardens at pleasure ! In fact, deepen yourselves, ye light shadows under which so many Daphnes and Amaranthes have already sported ! Like that odorous cloud of Homeric Ida, screen those THE ELYSEE 365 scenes of confused disorder in which the king deceives the queen and Jeanne Poisson deceives the king ! If it may be, let us ignore forever those silvery nights when the lady is going to yield herself a willing captive to the gallant speeches of that devil of a fellow, Gentil-Bernard, fine, false, and courteous, like a hrelan of Dauphinois seeking fortune ! Let us not see, like an abbe de Choisy and an abbe de Gondi rolled into one, the abbe de Bernis lying in wait for his cardinalate in the semi-royal oratory and paying the earnest money of a European war with a song ! Pass on quickly, Voltaire, ironical flatterer of all these im- provised majesties whom, you well divine. King Voltaire must survive ! Pass on, for this time your lips, usually better inspired, would only whistle an impertinent distich upon Pompadour-Pompadour ette ! Pass on quickly, Mar- montel ; your new Conte moral is too immoral for our cir- cles of the present day who no longer value morality ! Pass on quickly, petulant Cresset, and you, Eschyle-Crebil- lon, and you also, Salluste-Duclos ! Pass, fleeting stars that from all Europe come almost all together to shine upon this magnetic roof! Pass, Hume, Galliani, and the others ! Elsewhere I would willingly salute you ; else- where it would please me to recognize what generous at- traction draws you to Paris, as Dante, Tasso, Lope de Vega were drawn before you, and Shakespeare also, I hope ! But in these verdurous surroundings, so near that edifice cer- tainly dedicated to mysterious Graces, even when to your select troop is added one of the familiar oracles of the free 366 PARIS school, M. de Montesquieu celebrating vespers in the church of Guide, instead of you in this garden I should like to meet some gallant of twenty years fastening his silken ladder to the gratings, and with his personal poetry creating a Beatrice, a Laura, or a Juliette, under this frivolous reign of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, on the eve of the libertine reign of Madame la Comtesse Dubarry. The Marquise often came to charm away her ennui in this garden that she had made a park of. Here she relaxed after too closely working over some etching ! Here to the spring breezes she opened her breast, irritated under the double ladder of its rose ribbons, after some incendiary luncheon eaten, in spite of Dr. Quesnay, expressly to bal- ance the growing influence of Mile, de Romans and to participate in the tastes of the master! On the death of the Marquise, her mansion fell to her brother, M. de Marigny, of whom there is nothing to say except that in his capacity as superintendent of buildings he worked a good deal for the embellishment of the city and that he had the merit of remaining a very honest man ; being the brother of a favourite, such a short time before Jean Dubarry ! And then from the hands of M. de Marigny, the Hotel d'Evreux reverted, by a natural trans- mission it seems to me, to the royal domain which arranged a series of apartments there furnished for the ambassadors extraordinary to the Court of France, and which provision- ally lodged there the crown jewels and chattels, the monu- THE ELYSEE 367 ment of the Place Louis XV. not yet being completed. Abode of M. de Marigny or jewel safe, the Elysee matters little to us ; for what decides the destiny of dwellings is only the imprint left upon them by memorable tenants. But patience ! The Hotel d'Evreux is about to resume its rights in our interest, and the new chapters of its history will naturally join these brilliant prologues that illumined the most brilliant years of the Eighteenth Century with a voluptuous glow. In 1773, M. de Beaujon, the Samuel Bernard of a more prodigal generation, the intelligent Turcaret who willingly entered into bonds of friendship with Lesage, bought from the king this magnificent inn of extra-official diplomacy which had become almost useless, thanks to the discredit into which the already moribund monarchy had fallen in the eyes of Europe. Under the protectorate of the financier, the mansion in- creased still more and adorned itself. The labours of Boullee, one of the Mansards of the day, agreeably com- pleted the work of Mollet, and the Praxiteles of the time were all occupied in peopling the groves. But why so many armed Cupids under the boughs ? Their arrows would scarcely trouble the heart of the farmer of the reve- nue, or of the facile beauties he harboured. If La Guimard and La Dervieux left the diabolical Paradise of the Rue Chantereine to amuse themselves in these alleys and grot- toes ; if by their side more than one Cydalise of high rank forgot all the quarterings of her nobility and of her virtue 368 PARIS ill the Hotel Beaujon, it was not love that led or held them there. Love will never have the courage to become a clerk under M. Beaujon, the banker ! For the rest, it is not in his halls or park that Nicolas Croesus cared to seek that salutary dew of the heart that makes amends for millions; he pursued the divine illusion of desire further up in the faubourg that he enriched and created, beside that hospital that still reminds the poor of the name of that rich man who took the trouble to place Lazarus at his side. In his mansion M. de Beaujon ap- pears to us at a distance, not as one of those philanthropists who had lived for the good of all, but as one of those wearied ones who have lived without profit to others and to their own disgust ; not like a Necker more useful and less pedantic, but like a Pococurante, sadder even in his Paris than the amphitryon of Candide ever was in his Venice ! In 1786, a new owner and new fortunes ! The last Duchess of Bourbon with her princely ascendancy purified these walls that still reeked with the scent of vulgar amours and parvenue opulence. In the Hotel Beaujon she is truly a queen in her place. The other queen sometimes stayed in this Parisian Trianon, proud to govern here more by her white hand and her delicate wit than by the right of her doubly royal birth. Oh ! if a painter could only portray for us one o( those /etes in which the queen of France was merely Marie Antoinette, and Cagliostro's oracles had no fatality in them, nor M. de Lauzun's vows anything in- discreet ! Outside, the noisy gaiety of the Parisians rack- THE ELYSEE 369 eting in the Place Louis XV. and at the spectacles of the Saint-Ovide fair prevents the Archduchess of Austria from recalling, like a sinister vision, the fatal firew^orks that sad- dened the people during the solemnities of her arrival ; in- side, Florian rhymes, Gretry sings, Chamfort rails, the Comte d'Artois smiles on everybody, the Comte de Prov- ence meditates a quatrain, the Comtesse Jules is in high good humour, Madame de Lamballe multiplies her innocent coquetries and the Duchess of Bourbon is enchanted at the enchantment of all her guests ! But painters are hardly willing to draw such portraits ; they tremble lest before the work is finished they see the spectre of the gardener Sanson cutting ofF the heads of so many amiable creatures who would still like to live, and embalming the whole bunch of these fair roses in the warm blood of his basket. The Revolution laid its hand upon the delicate sessions of the palace where so brilliantly blossomed the prosperity of the last heir but one of the Condes. . . . The Tuileries were disinherited of the memories that had been inscribed there throughout by the descendants of Henri IV. and the palace of Cours-la-Reine was dispossessed of the charming prestige in which it had been enveloped by that princess of an enchanted isle, Madame la Duchesse de Bourbon. Nevertheless 1793 was not a bad year for the Hotel de Pompadour and de Bourbon. At that day it was declared national and there is nothing in that to make us indignant. That is fate, the common shipwreck j but the day when 370 PARIS the guillotine came to a halt, the day when, instead of Thermidorian barkings, Paris heard lispings of the gilded youth, the day when Therezia Cabarrus forgot her old character of conventional Themis and resuscitated Venus for the Directory and the directors, the mansion should have fallen into ruins and the echo of the gardens should have prolonged its maledictions in thunder-claps ; for, truly, if we pity the young captive, if Mile, de Coigny, condemned to the gross familiarities of Saint-Lazare, moves us like Polyxena or Jeanne d'Arc herself, why should we not also have tears for this monument of so many grandeurs of a whole century, which, as the century was ending, became a public ballroom ? There where used to sing so many of those birds that found good supper and good lodging in Madame de Pompadour's downy nest ; there where Voltaire Apollo imposed the tune and rhythm upon so many obedient lyres, we must now listen to the bow of the manager of a hostelry ball. In those glasses, that mirrored those rare persons of whom pastels after a hundred years still translate for us a flowering legend of elegancies and passions, in those glasses, the Atheniennes who beg from Barras dare to look at themselves. They run toward that garden, toward that £lysee (they called that the £lysee, a bacchanal in which Homer would not have dared to com- promise Thersites !) toward that hamlet of Chantilly (they evoked the images of the noble castle in which Conde wept, and Bossuet surpassed Demosthenes, and the abbe Prevost taught French to Manon, to form a cortege to THE ELYSEE 371 those infamous heroines who would have refused inter- course with the chamber women of the great century), they ran, those Agaves at the Revolution that is halting, perorating upon Greece and representing to the utmost the evil days of decrepit Rome howling lechery in the orgies of the good goddess j they come, a worthy escort to those female Olympians of carnival, whose fathers have spoken beneath the knife and died while insulting the axe, the club-women of Clichy, sterile progeny of the Cazalis and the Sombreuils; they come upon the steps of Madame Tallien to dance to the honour of the victims. Entire Paris is at work in debauches of the kitchen and the dance : the Elysee is one of its favourite little houses : it is here that they set off the fireworks that with the most vivid gleams light up all those deliriums and all those abasements of the French conscience. Let us not linger too long over this picture, and in order that we may retain only an agreeable image of the palace that has kept the name of L' £lysee, let us picture to ourselves, mingling with those groups and conspiring the defeat of all hearts, the two new virtuosos of Parisian coquetry, Madame Hamelin, the Creole, and Madame Recamier of Lyons. They pass : one, the more provoking, more rapid in the play of glances and in burn- ing lip sallies ; the other, more gentle, more secret, more melodious ; they pass : in a moment both are going to dance that shawl dance in which they excel, and when they stop fatigued by the motion and still more tired by the plaudits than by their voluptuous undulations, they will fall 372 PARIS upon those low divans in those somewhat mysterious boudoirs where they will repose to the music of orchestrated compliments by those two great flatterers, Garat who has just triumphed at the clavecin, and General Bonaparte who has just triumphed at Toulon. General Bonaparte ! Do not hope henceforth to escape this name that fills every corner of the history of Paris and of the world. In 1803, Murat buys the profanated palace. On this eve of the Empire, the brother-in-law of the future em- peror, with his somewhat gorgeous genius, arranges for him- self a dwelling for a prince of the blood. It is there that the Ajax, the Turnus of the modern epic, furbishes his arms, dreams of a throne and in a facile intermediary of happiness seeks the secret of his future exploits. About him Victory sounds her clarions and Love sighs his elegies. Blangini takes notes for a romance for Princess Borghese who tarried in Canova's studio, Caroline-Andromache al- ready esteems herself more than a queen since she reposes on the tenderness of her Hector, her Joachim, and the em- peror is pleased to steal a few hours from the universe to give them to these quotidian solemnities of the penates. When Murat, the soldier, had become a king, the em- peror who loved the £lysee appropriated it, and after 1808 it was one of his favourite abodes. There he could con- verse with his confidantes and even with those audacious intelligences rebellious to his sceptre whom he did not THE ELYS^E 373 hate as much as has been believed. There you come O Fontanes, Talma, Cambaceres, Reynouard, and yourself O Duels, gentle misanthrope ! There the infant who did not reign over Rome tried his first steps before his delighted father ! There, perhaps, the sublime partitioner divided the patrimony of Russia among the children who were not and never would be born ! There also, on that sinister night of June 21, 18 15, he alighted a passenger, already almost a fugitive, coming to announce to Paris that it was in vain that he had conquered at Ligny, at Charleroi, at Quatre-Bras, and that it would be well to interrupt the Te Deums and more fitting to intone a vast De Profundis on ac- count of Waterloo and crucified France ! There perhaps the overthrown giant tasted the last intoxication of his majesty. A few days afterward, the fallen abandoned the £lysee (and then Malmaison for Rochefort), Napoleon II. was placed in the care of an Austrian commissary and mean- while the £lysee was bannered with white and Alexander of Russia took up his quarters in the Palais de Bourbon, leaving the Rue Saint-Florentin and the Hotel de I'lnfan- tado in which M. Talleyrand, delighted to take one oath more, had offered him a costly hospitality. In those days Juliana de Wietinghoff, otherwise named Madame de Krudner was, (as who does not know ?) the Agnes-Egeria of Alexander, and, after having inspired him in the camp of the Plain of Virtues, she doubtless came to evangelize at his side in the halls of the Ely see. She had 374 PARIS most probably passed through them on her first journey to Paris when she wrote the romance of her life and when M. Michaud was her shepherd, a shepherd in whom there was nothing pastoral but the name! Then the £lysee was the Hamlet of Chantilly : the scenes that occurred there were scarcely mystical, and ill-befitted the nature of Madame de Krudner, that seraph full of sins. And yet in 1 8 15 she must have regretted the Hamlet of Chantilly and its pomps, for that was to regret her lost youth, the spring- tide evenings when she placed upon her blonde tresses those mauve garlands that only suited Valerie ! That was to regret the magic exercised not upon the mind of an emperor with the aid of a political Utopia, but worked by the aid of a pair of beautiful eyes upon the hearts of those courtiers of Beauty, M. Michaud and M. Alexander de Stackieff. O Elysee ! O shelter of all the decadences ! You had seen Madame de Pompadour sad, M. de Beaujon weary, and the Sparta of '93 turning to the Paphos of '98 : you had seen Napoleon vanquished ! It was left for you to see the despair of a romantic coquette who was growing old! Madame de Krudner did not long sigh the elegy of her fled youth in the chambers of the £lysee in which the emperor had wept over the lost throne of the universe. Alexander took the road for St. Petersburg, and the Elysee came into the hands of the Duke of Berry, not, however, without having been traversed for a few weeks by the cavalier steps of that Lovelace general. Sir Arthur Welles- THE ELYSEE 375 ley, Duke of Wellington. Is it necessary to recall that the Duke of Berry paid his tribute to the evil fortunes of the place. In vain (and here it is M. de Chateaubriand that speaks) " Son of Saint-Louis, last scion of the ancient branch, he escaped from the crosses of a long exile and returned to his country ; he began to taste happiness, he flattered himself that he was beginning life ^new and at the same time seeing the monarchy born again in the in- fants that God promised j all at once he is struck in the midst of his hopes, almost in the arms of his w^ife ! The sinister drama of February 13th, 1820, that regicidal scene that came v^^ith so terrible a denouncement to close the joy- ous fairy scenes of a fashionable ballet, w^as played at the Opera; but it vi^as at the Elysee that the counter blow of Louvel's work sounded so heavily. From there the prince had set out full of life ; he returned thither a bleed- ing corpse for the despair of his Caroline and for the eternal grief of what was yet unborn. There, seven months after the fulfillment of this destiny, the Duke of Bordeaux came into the world, condemned in advance to that bitter chalice that all the sons of a king must empty in turn, and that night did not the little red man of the Elysee keep vigil, prophesying over that cradle the lugubri- ous oracles that he had doubtless cast over those infants sacred and stricken before this new arrival, — Louis de Bourbon, King of the Temple, and Napoleon II., King of Rome ? The Duchess of Berry did not leave this palace : she 376 PARIS wished in accordance with the apostle that grace should abound where even fatality had abounded. Until 1830, Marie-Caroline in her Elysee was the true queen of the land of France, a daughter of Henri IV., she has been called, who, by her love of the arts, made herself a daughter of Francis I. If she went out of this retreat whither she attracted all the Muses, it was to go to the Salon, or the Opera, or the Gymnase to stimulate, with a tear or a smile, the fertile zeal of her favourite artists Horace Vernet, Rossini, or Scribe. . . . After these excursions in search of pic- tures, poems or operas destined to solace her regrets, she returned to her Elysee to give the signal for those fetes that were never conducted without romantic pomp or art ; the Avenue de Marigny glittered, carriages choked all the approaches, and within the mistress of the house with her doubly royal affability received the most refined society perhaps that could be brought together under princely aus- pices since the apotheses of the Roi-Soleil ! Alas ! in one of these tourneys of elegance in which Madame de Berry entertained Paris, she amused herself in wearing for a whole night the brilliant costume of Mary Stuart. She was to know to the very depths this role that had pleased her melancholy fancy. O illustrious captive of Blaye ! O Marie-Caroline-Ferdinand of Sicily, it is again your lawyer M. de Chateaubriand who I am going to ask for all your titles, widow of Berry, niece of the late Marie Antoinette of Austria, widow Capet. After 1830 the history of the Elysee halts for eighteen THE ELYSEE 377 years J the building belongs to the civil list and let the civil list dispose of it as it will, it matters little to us who have been the masters of ceremony of all these famous hosts and adored hostesses. After the Comte d'£vreux, and Madame de Pompadour, and the financier Beaujon, and the Duchess of Bourbon, and the Goddess of Reason, and Murat, King of the Two Sicilies, and Napoleon King of the world, and Alexander of Russia, scourge of Na- poleon in the hands of Providence, and after the Duchess of Berry I do not care to paint silhouettes that are not faces. The revolution of 1848 opened the closed doors of the Elysee with a great noise. During the first dangers of February, the commission of patriotic grants held its sit- tings there ; then, when the will of the nation had called to power him who was to reconstitute the country or rather to create a new France, Prince Louis-Napoleon came to dwell in the Elysee and gain inspiration there from the counsels left throughout these eloquent walls by One who did not all die on May 5, 1821. In 1849, ^^^ dur- ing the two following years, the prince reanimated its sleeping echoes. The soirees of the £lysee were like a universal predestined country wherein those learned to judge and love each other who were to serve in every order of activity and thought the great designs of the emperor of peace. ARC DE TRIOMPHE AND CHAMPS ELYSEES EDOUJRD FOURNIER THERE is no city in the world that can boast of an entrance comparable for majesty and grandeur to that which Paris presents when we enter by the barriere de PEtoiie. No city ever announced herself better, nor promised so well at the outset what she would keep later on in variety of aspect, extent and animation of view and monumental splendour. The Jrc de Triomphe de la Grande-Arm'ee^ for that is its real name, is, doubtless, the grandest homage to martial glory. Thus considered, this monument is striking and imposing ; but, if one examines it from its proper point of view, that is to say as the entrance to Paris, and, forgive this entirely architectural word, as the frontispiece of the enormous city, we should perhaps have to admire it still more. What is strange is that this structure, which owes its most incontestable beauty to the unity of the whole and the learned art with which the proportions of the mass have been arranged, has suffered, during the long and varied phases of its construction, all the vicissitudes which should put confusion into its monumental disposition and substitute the most contrary defects for the merits that we recognize in it. Hesitation in adoption of the plans, disputes between 378 l M ARC DE TRIOMPHE 379 the architects, (for they had at the outset the unhappy idea of nominating two, Raymond and Chalgrin, for this single structure) changes in the directorate, interruptions of the work, in a word, from the first of Frimaire Year VI., the date of the first project, until July 29, 1836, when it was inaugurated, no vicissitude was lacking. There were variations and hesitations even in the name, which augured ill for the rest. First in Year VI., when the first idea of a triumphal arch arose, it was to have been erected in memory of the victories gained by our soldiers beyond the Alps. It was planned to build it at the barriere d'ltalie. In 1806, according to a note dictated by the emperor, the monument was to be called the Arc de Marengo. Its site was then marked as the large space left empty by the demolition of the Bastille. The project was submitted to the Academie des Beaux Arts which only found fault with the spot selected. The emperor recog- nized the justice of the criticism and finally adopted the summit of the little mount that so happily dominates the great Avenue des Champs Elysees. Once the idea was adopted, the works began with ardour ; it could be seen that the emperor had given orders. Ray- mond and Chalgrin constantly disputed over the plan to be followed, but the master had spoken and the work was pushed without waiting for these gentlemen to agree. To put an end to the annoying discord, Raymond resigned and thus left the field free to Chalgrin whose plan (which has been almost entirely followed) was moreover far preferable 380 PARIS to his own. Chalgrin was unhappy enough not to finish his work: he died January 20, 181 1. The building had only reached the cornice of the pedestal. As you see, ardour had soon cooled ; or rather let us say that money had soon failed. What was destined for the monument to old victories had been eaten up by new ones. M. Goust was no luckier than Chalgrin whom he succeeded. Defeats came and the triumphal arch suffered like the rest, more even. The Restoration left it alone for nine years. In 1823, the expedition to Spain and capture of the Trocadero sud- denly brought the government's thoughts back to this youthful ruin forgotten upon the heights of L'Etoile. The project was again taken up to be completed for the new iriumphator^ the Due d'Angouleme. A royal ordi- nance was given and an architect was named. This was M. Huyot, and the building, brusquely arrested at the birth of the great arch, was henceforth to proceed without inter- ruption. The Revolution of July altered the destination of the monument that was devoted to the glories of the Grand Army, but left M. Huyot in office. In July, 1833, he had carried the construction up to the great entablature and was laying the first stones of the attic when he was disgraced. M. Blouet succeeded him. To the latter fell the honour of completing this great work, which he did while remaining almost entirely faithful to the plans of his predecessor. In 1836, the Arc de Triomphe was finished. As a ARC DE TRIOMPHE 381 whole, harmonious in proportions, it is an almost irre- proachable monument. With its colossal arch measuring twenty-eight metres in height and fourteen in breadth j with that long sequence of incrusted shields on its, attic, each bearing the name of a great victory ; that line of soldiers defiling around the frieze, giants that look like pygmies from the base ; those bas-reliefs that decorate each face, some of which are works of the first order, (such as that by Feucheres, who makes the Passage of the Bridge of Areola live again in stone ; that by Chaponnieres which makes us take part in the Capture of Alexandria), that harmoni- ous whole of glorious ornamentation is still heightened and increased by the four gigantic trophies placed upon the piers. Those facing the Avenue de Neuilly, Peace and Resistance, come from the vigorous hands of d'Etex ; and those fronting the Champs Elysees due, one, the Corona- tion of the Emperor, to the solemnly calm and academic talent of Cortot ; the other, the Departure, to the chisel of Rude, which never possessed more ardour, fire, nor energy. There are few nations that could have found in their treasuries the ten millions paid for this glorious jewel j and much fewer still that could have recruited among their artists sufficient talent for this great sculptural and architec- tural task ; but certainly there is not one that in a single page of its history could at the same time have found so many triumphs and those three hundred and eighty-six names of victorious generals that blaze upon those walls, as on the tables of the Temple of Glory. 382 PARIS From the foot of the monument, when we turn our eves toward the city, the view is most magnificent. That wide rise with a gentle slope that the ever-delighted gaze de- scends to the level, circular space ; that \ast avenue that on starting thence spreads its wings and assumes the propor- tions of a leafy wood the verdure of which is almost con- founded with that of the trees of the Tuileries ; the Place de la Concorde that looks from afar like a broad and white clearing in broad sunlight between two neighbouring parks; in the background, the monumental line of the Tuileries buildings against which stands out in silhouette the obelisk that cuts without breaking it ; to complete this grand pic- ture, everywhere are houses, hotels and palaces ; and, to give animation to it, everywhere is movement, noise, lines of pedestrians, cavalcades and carriages going and coming in hundreds : the entire effect is truly prodigious. Louis XIV. comprehended that Paris, thus bounded, possessed majesty and grandeur, and in 1670 he thought of at last levelling this vast peristyle of verdure. By his orders, the marshes were extensively drained ; the Rue de Chaillot was sharply cut at the height which it has not since passed ; three fine alleys of elms were planted, and greenswards were laid down among the clumps. The roads that led to the Roule, the Faubourg Saint-Honore, and Chaillot, became so many fine avenues radiating from that circular space that we call the rond-point^ and which then came to be called the Place de VEtoile. Even in 1764 the Champs-Elysees did not extend beyond the Rue de ARC DE TRIOMPHE 383 Chaillot. Starting at the rond-point they already began to shrink into a single avenue. The Due d'Antin, superintendent of the royal buildings, had work done on the immense promenade. He occupied himself with making it healthy rather than beautiful. He also planted the avenue with trees, in memory of which he has been made its godfather. He also renewed the planta- tion of the Cours la Reine. Of all the roads, this was the one that had always been the most frequented. In 1628, Queen Marie de Medicis, who was very fond of this long walk, had had it planted with trees and closed at each end with an iron railing. All the fashionable world that owned carriages, the only people to whom this species of reserved park was open, thronged thither at certain hours. It was a vogue that lasted nearly two centuries, in fact until the Champs-£lysees, which at first were only called the Grand Cours to distinguish them from the other smaller one, had in their turn become the fashion. It had to wait till 1776 before the public tired of its fancy and at last turned from the Petit into the Grand Cours. On September 17, in that year, the Memoires secrets decided to say a good word for the Champs-£lysees, which " are very fine and begin to attract the public." There they are now consecrated by the crowd, fashion is about to come and will not again de- sert them. Their revenge on the long vogue of Cours la Reine began then and still lasts. Under the Restoration, vain attempts were made to restore a little life to the latter by building a new quarter in its vicinity, in the midst of 384 PARIS which was set like a stray pearl that marvellous Maison de Francois I. The alley close by was for a long time the most melan- choly of all the walks. Widows, whom ancient etiquette would not allow to show themselves in public during the period of their mourning, found only this spot in which to take a little air without letting themselves be seen. The name, All'ee des Veuves^ clung to it, and, deserted and soli- tary, it was long before it gave the lie to sadness. To-day the name is changed, the alley is called the Avenue Mon- taigne^ and its appearance has changed much more still. THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE JRSENE HOUSSJTE THIS is a fairy tale, a mythological story ! What Undine has made these cascades spout ; for what Alcinous has Minerva planted the regular trees of these avenues ? In old days, before Queen Bertha, when Paris was only a straggling village, a mass of thatched roofs, ill reduced to order by barbarians, Paris clasped a belt of marshy forests around her walls built of mud and gravel. The belt has been gradually loosened, each epoch taking away a link, every king substituting a faubourg for a copse, a quarter for a growth of brushwood. Of the belt there remains now at most two fragments, embroidered anew by the curious zeal of modern caprice : I mean the Bois de Vincennes and the Bois de Boulogne. But who would imagine that in this Bois de Boulogne, frequented to-day by handsome couples and highly civilized beings, the sons of Chilperic and Theoderic passed, flourishing their frameas^ and keeping a sharp lookout for the nest of vipers in the high grasses ? At the beginning of the Eighth Century, Saint Cloud was still called Nogent, the forest was called the wood of Rou- veret, and the monks of Saint-Denis had the right of cut- ting wood from these high trees ; but not for the monks of that abbey was it reserved to transform Rouveret and to 385 386 PARIS leave an enduring trace upon it for the future. Boulogne- sur-Mer, that sanitarium for chlorotics and lovers, where now come to seek repose or death the sailors who have voyaged too long and the poets who want to listen to the ocean billows elsewhere than in Homer's hexameters, Bou- logne-sur-Mer beneath the first suns of the Fourteenth Cen- tury was growing proud through her Notre-Dame so wor- shipped and privileged on account of a hundred miracles. Therefore the pilgrims streamed toward the riparian city of the ocean. But for the devotees of all the religions a Jerusalem within reach is needed : Andromache in exile im- provises a diminutive Pergamos j the melancholiacs of fifty years ago built a cenotaph to Werther amid the labyrinths of their English gardens. And that is how the pious trav- ellers who returned from Boulogne-sur-Mer, envious to practice in Paris the rites learned in this somewhat remote sanctuary, asked King Philip V. to legalize the brotherhood of the Boulonnais and, with large supplies of doubloons and rose crowns, constructed a church in the thickest part of the wood of Rouveret, which, being felled and cleared, soon became a village, Boulogne-sur-Seine. Happily for future Paris, Rouveret, having changed its name and become the sacristy of the catechumens of Boulogne, at least preserved its trees, long-bearded like kings of the Prankish race, its trees of abundant sap to which it had owed its first name — (Robur — the Gallic oak). If the bishop of Paris, Foulques de Chanac, consecrated the altars of the virgin of Boulogne in 1363, Olivier le Dain had al- THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 387 ready been set over the warren of Rouveret in those days then recent when king's barbers usurped over the persons of their sublime clients the authority first allotted to the monks and wandering knights of Notre-Dame. This wood of Boulogne, half cathedral, half warren, soon sheltered castles where indolent monarchs reposed after an hour of business or of the chase. Moreover, even before the kings, the ladies of the royal blood had formed there a retreat from the treasons of the court and the falsehoods of passion. Since Saint Radegonde who, in her cloister, shared her sweet- meats and her spiritual knowledge with the grammarian- poet Fortunat, our French princesses have had a taste for these semi-solitudes, peopled by God and his ministers. Ask the Abbesses of Fontevrault and Chelles, seek information from the Duchess of Longueville ! In this chronology of patrician Catholics, heroines of Very Christian France, the sister of Saint-Louis has recorded a date that relates to the splendours of our wood of Boulogne ; it was there, in fact, that Isabelle of France in 1209 rendered to the Lord her ecstatic and languishing soul in the friendly cells of that abbey of Longchamps, solong famous, so long placed under the invocations of crowned female sinners, so long dedicated to the leisure of repentant singers who to efface the profane impression of ariettas from Armide or Eurydice^ drew the whole of Paris to the chapel where they sighed the anthem of an eternal Gloria in excehis. Isabelle of France was the first to enfeoff the shadows of Boulogne in the private domain of the monarchy, using 388 PARIS it as the secret refuge of her pathetic melancholy. But Madrid, Bagatelle, and La Muette remain a triple and splendid revenge of the kings who would not consent that their wood of Boulogne should be only the purgatory or even the paradise in anticipation of the mystic beauties of their families. Madrid ! At that name I already inhale the most in- toxicating perfumes of the flower of the Valois and Bourbons. ?>ancis I. reentered his Paris after the misfortune of Pavia and the harsh ennui of a forced sojourn in Spain. The glorious freed captive wanted to give this name Madrid to a monument erected in honour of his reconquered liberty. Philibert Delorme took the square and trowel in hand, Bernard de Palissy had the most brilliant and solid enamels fired for the decoration of the fac^ade of the richest and most elegant castle of our French Renaissance. O perpetual ptes in that Chambord situated a few thousand steps from the Louvre ! Luxurious feasts, strange masquerades, bold and pedantic talk, frank repasts of Greek and Italian, duels of erudition and poetry, duels also of courteous braggarts nevertheless ! To write the journal of Madrid under Francis I., I should have to be either Rabelais or Michelet ! To as- sort these nuances^ to risk these contrasts, to paint and carve in relief this incomparable group, the over-robust Louisa of Savoy and the sickly, first of the Margots, and Madame Diana, and Anne de Pisseleu, and also the little Florentine who will be Catherine de Medicis, I should have need of the counsel of da Vinci and Jean Goujean, of THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 389 Germain Pilon and Prematice ! Who then among the pasticheurs of these times would succeed in framing within this efflorescent architecture the romance of Henri 11. and the Countess of Poitiers, that lady who for so many years recommenced the education of a crowned Jehan de Saintre ? Who would venture to divine the thoughts of Charles II., that savage and gentle youth, an epileptic and a sayer of good things during the weeks when he retired to Madrid, thinking more of the piercing glances of Marie Touchet than of his mother's projects ; caring less about the preten- sions of Henry of Bourbon to the throne of France than he was moved by the marvellous rhymes of his rival in the art of versifying, Ronsard, the gentleman from Vendome ! What Lycophron, a searcher after assonances and onomat- opoeia, would dare to make the tigers and little dogs, in- stalled by Henri III. in his Madrid menagerie, roar, mew and yelp in his lines ? Lastly, who would venture to open the cabinet in which the second of the Margots, dowered with the Madrid by the munificence of her husband, Henri IV., first imbalmed the ever-dear memories of her first at- tachment, and later, full of shame, became enraged when the ignominy of a fatal divorce struck her ? It is Marguerite of Valois, it is that majesty of the Renaissance who ends the chronicles of the castle of Madrid. The Pompeii of the Valois, there was no further use for it when that val- orous, criminal, and charming race became extinct. In the middle of the Seventeenth Century, when Louis XIV. broke with all the traditions of the past and set royalty in Ver- 390 PARIS sailles, weavers established their looms where ApoUos had hummed their little odes. A stocking-factory in the castle of Madrid ! Ah ! Ruin would have been better than such a changed estate ! That invisible and assiduous spirit that protects the fortresses of heroes and the villas of beautiful women deserted the outraged pavilions. The moss soon crept over these stones whose echoes now only repeated the monotonous sound of the shuttle. The Alcinas of Lucien and of Choisy-le-Roi did not think of defending against time and oblivion these walls, eloquent witnesses that glori- fied the Alcinas of the past. Louis XVI. arrived, an alto- gether provisional Adam of a terrestrial paradise of Gess- ner's style. Only on reading in his history of France ex- purgated ad usum delphinorum a few anecdotes touching the Madrid of Henri III., he would have crossed himself twice. Perhaps, when walking among thickets of the wood of Boulogne, he assisted at a Sabbat of the resuscitated, presided over by Margot or Diana. However that may be, one day he ordered his workmen to pull down Madrid and its adjoining buildings. I do not know why he stopped short of having potatoes sown there, for the greater profit , of morality. To-day Madrid has been rebuilt ; but alas ! they were not our Philippe Delormes who had charge of the work. The hasty and economical architects have finished their palace with plaster and white wood ! Now Madrid in the wine shop of the demi-monde and of the " quart de monde / " . . . So do not return to the earth, ex- tinct Valois, courtiers and mistresses of Valois now disap- THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 391 peared ; these orgies at a fixed sum celebrated daily upon this tomb of splendours would frighten you more than the supreme accident of '93 frightened the last of the Bour- bons ! Neither Bagatelle nor La Muette can number so many periods in their history. Bagatelle, or, if you prefer, the Folic d'Artois, villa and villula begun and finished in sixty- four days, was the secret Tivoli of the handsome Charles^ Count of Artois^ when La Duthe and Mme. de Polastron answered his amorous dissertations, when the children of France had not yet studied in their geographical dictionary these articles of sinister interest : Hartwell, Ghent, Prague and Goritz ! The Revolution, that bacchante that was ever intoxicated, it mattered little with what wine, did with the Bagatelle as it did with the Elysee.and the Pavilion de Hanovre : the fiddles of a public ball executed their most excruciating tdnes there ; there people danced " a la grecque^^ and " a la romaine^" as erewhile they danced " a la Fran^aise " in the Rampannean garden ! When the Count of Artois reentered this theatre of his earliest follies, con- verted thenceforward and no longer thinking of Mme. de Polastron except to humiliate himself the more at the knees of Cardinal de Latil, was he not scared by the shades of the impure Giselles of the Directoire ? Even when he be- came king, he granted Bagatelle to his grandson, doubtless in order that this innocence of the Joash of the Bourbons should efface the trace of these impieties of the populace. The Duke of Bordeaux, in spring, came to this castle of 392 PARIS Prince Charming, conducted by his smiling mother. And, if I wanted again to seek in this name Bagatelle a motive for too easy amplifications, I should have to begin again for the tenth time this elegy so often breathed in sighs: "The son and the mother ! " A tearful complaint, fortune de- stroyed, and exile ! Marie Louise and Napoleon II.! Marie- Caroline and the Duke of Bordeaux ! Valentine and Charles of Orleans ! — Ever, ever Andromache and the son of Hector ! At La Muette, the genius of the place is Philippe d'Or- leans, regent of France. The castle was embellished by the daughter of his adoration. It was at La Muette that the Duchess of Berry, careless of the bleeding epigrams of the youthful Voltaire, indifferent to the rage of her mother and the remonstrances of her grandmother, sported accord- ing to her own fancy and remained faithful to the wine of Burgundy even more than to Lauzun's nephew ! It was also at La Muette that she expired at twenty-seven years of age, violent and romantic even in the terrible agony that preceded her mysterious death. When Lauzun's nephew was informed that he had lost this guardian of his fortune and divinity of his heart, for all de profundis \\t restricted himself to humming an old song ending with this refrain of every human passion : " We mustn't say any more about it ! " Let us behave toward La Muette as M. de Riom did toward the Duchess of Berry. After 17 19 we must not say any more about it : its splendours are not distin- guished. Suppose Louis XV., Louis XVI. and Marie THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 393 Antoinette have fixed their flying camps there ; suppose, on that lawn the second of the Montgolfiers has tried the road that leads to the stars ; suppose the nation has entertained the nation in those little apartments of royalty ; suppose the city of Paris has emptied the cellars of La Muette for the jovial fellows of the Federation who were so excited to be- come such fine soldiers ; suppose this domain, in dispute, taken and retaken, has belonged to the State or to the City, to private individuals or to the Crown, — truly, we must not say any more about it ! It is forever and for all the royal castles of France the monotonous story of the same pleas- ures, the same griefs, the same ingratitudes. The palaces are sceptical like ordinary men ; they accommodate themselves to all lodgers, they open their doors to all the mighty. Let us then pass quickly over the catastrophes of La Muette ; do not let us even seek to incriminate it on account of its last travesty. This castle in which the regent's daughter sinned for pleasure, is now a sanitarium ; nurses take the place of butlers. Why should we grow indignant over it since not a single tear has moistened the marble eyes of the Cupids in the groves ? Among so many decadences, in the wood of Boulogue, I know of only one glory that the years have spared : Ranelagh. For eighty years the violins have gathered un- der this common roof, in the momentary intimacy of the contradanse, the grasshoppers of Paris and the laborious ants of Passy. O Ranelagh, you are assured of existing as long as there is a little world and a bad world, as long 394 PARIS as caprice awakes, even in hearts with names of thirty quarterings, an unexpected desire for risky steps and champagne drunk under the rose ! Let us return, and it is already ahnost too late, to the legend of the wood of Boulogue itself. Happily after the last V^alois, events are scarce in the life of the Parisian Tempe. Toward the close of the Sixteenth Century, the makers of pastorals (and at that time who did not oc- cupy himself with Lycidas or Pierrot ?) had reason for grief at the spectacle of the Bois de Boulogue invaded by a crowd of poor devils, deplorable victims of the civil war, starved, shivering with cold and attacking the great trees with the axe to warm their suffering limbs and to cheer their disconso- late and terror-stricken souls before great fires. Ah ! if he traversed that deadly forest, Ronsard must have felt, raising his eyes " ces larmes des choses" that made him sob in such admirable verses when he scourged the pitiless wood-cut- ters of Gastines ! In the Seventeenth Century under Louis XV., outside the luncheons of La Muette and Bagatelle, silence reigns as god of the wood of Boulogne. In the years during which Madrid fell into ruins, in the vicinity the withered oaks drooped their last branches over the sod strewn with dead leaves. For this epoch, that loved the pretty and the small in everything, the wood of Boulogne like Versailles was an embarrassment and a weariness. The Trianons or Bellevue, well and good ; there are sweet little parks that might be enclosed in the crystal box of a fay or a marquise. THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 395 M. Dorat may sing of them without being taxed with Anglomania and without seeming to love Nature with the rabid bad taste of a Pennsylvanian labourer, or a Genevan philosopher. However, let us trust the great sovereigns to bring back the love of the grand in all things ! Napoleon appears at the moment when there is nothing but disaster and sorrow for France as well as for the wood of Boulogne, and the forest profits by this event almost as much as the nation itself. It is cleared ; trees are planted along the roads that lead to the favourite residence of the master, Saint-Cloud. Now the Bois de Boulogne will be the Hyde Park of Paris, as thronged with people and more suffocat- ing. Joyous cavalcades, melancholy pedestrians, quartettes of duellists and duets of lovers ; millionaires digesting a protracted dinner at Borel's and Bohemians supping on sunlight; dignitaries on their way to the sovereign's anti- chamber to request an additional dignity, and little girls gathering early daisies amid the coppice ; all who need to be absorbed in the intoxication of Nature or to seek repose in her maternal arms ; all who, tied by the foot by the cord of daily cares, have not the leisure to fly away to those radiant realms discovered by the golden divining-rod of the poets ; all who pretend to place themselves under favour- able conditions to evoke Rousseau's Clarens, Bernadin's Floride, and Chateaubriand's Louisiane; all those, finally, who take pleasure in the loungings of sedentary Paris, or who accommodate themselves to the vagabond aspirations of the Parisian cosmopolitan, are sure hahitues of this rendez- 396 PARIS vous of the Bois de Boulogne. Even night does not dis- miss all the company, and, on the nights of an official ball, while the carriages of senators and marshals, gilded and rumbling, roll toward Saint-Cloud, the noise of the wheels often arouses from a sweet languor a youthful belated couple who, upon the classic banks of the lake of Auteuil, forgot the wisdom of Moliere and the rhymes of Boileau for the cavatinas of the nightingale in union with the sad and touching solos of the tree-frogs. Eternal contrasts ! Eternal coincidences ! This forest favoured and made new by Napoleon ; this forest, this oasis of the disposer of tempests ; this forest where the failing Millevoye had foreseen the fall of the leaves and sighed, when 1815 startled the world, was ravaged, pillaged, and devastated. There was situated the camp of the Ajaxes of the Don ; there by the light of aged lindens smoked the fuetid coppers of the gross eaters of the land of Attila. O devastated forest of Boulogne ! O stinking Walpurgis- night ! Shrill sabbat that weighs heavily upon this sylvan stage appropriated by choice to the harmonious nights of eclogue ! After 18 15 the trees grew again, the gaps were repaired : the wood no longer recalled the dreadful encampment of barbarians ; but the fortifications had narrowed its circuit ; and, as grandeur was still wanting in the Tuileries, no trouble was taken to give a fine appearance to the city or adornment to the forest. At length Napoleon III. brought back order into France's history and, fit appendix to the THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE 397 majesty of the new Paris, the Bois de Boulogne completed the series of its metamorphoses. From avatar to avatar, the forest has become a goddess. M. Hittorf and M. Vave were the Sylvain and the Pan of this Fontainebleau of our purlieus. What scenery and decorations ! Mountains, like the rams of the Scriptures, spring out of the flat soil of yesterday ; rivers and cascades spout forth and spread as soon as a bed has been cut to re- ceive them ; gondolas have lit their vari-coloured lanterns on the lake. Are we in Venice ? Are we in Nankin ? The wood is as capricious in details as the second Faust or the Black Forest. It is as regular as the private garden of a Grand Duke. The Avenue de I'Imperatrice is cut de chateaux a la minute^ the nest of our opulent doves ! It is the Baia of the Parisiennes. And thus, the Bois de Boulogne is going to help to reestablish in people's minds that necessary quality in the works of modern times, — joy. Werther will no longer dare to load his pistol there; Saverny and Didier would not have had the heart to draw there. 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