PARIS.
The members of the Third Estate differed among themselves far more than
did those of the Clergy or the Nobility. This order comprised the rich
banker and the beggar at his gate, the learned encyclopaedist and the
water-carrier that could not spell his name. Every layman, not of noble
blood, belonged to the Third Estate. And although this was the
unprivileged order, there were privileged bodies and privileged persons
within it. Corporations, guilds, cities, and whole provinces possessed
rights distinct from those of the rest of the country.
In the reign of Louis XVI. the city of Paris held a position, in the
world even more prominent than that which it holds to-day. For France
was then incontestably the first European power, and Paris was then, as
it is now, not only the capital and the metropolis, but the heart and
centre of life in France. The population was variously estimated at from
six to nine hundred thousand. The city was growing in size, and new
houses were continually erected. There was so much building at times
during this reign, that masons worked at night, receiving double wages.
Architects and master masons were becoming rich, and rents were high
when compared to those of other places. Strangers and provincials
flocked to Paris for the winter and returned to the country during the
fine season. Sentimentalists read the works of Rousseau and praised a
country life, but then as now few people that could afford to stay in
the city, and had once been caught by its fascination, cared to live
permanently out of town.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 205, vii. 190. Babeau,
Paris en 1789, 27.]
The public buildings and gardens were worthy of the first city in
Europe. With some of them travelers of to-day are familiar. The larger
number of the remarkable churches now standing were in existence before
the Revolution. Of the palaces then in the city, the three most famous
have met with varied fates. The Luxembourg, which was the residence of
the king's eldest brother, is the least changed. To the building itself
but small additions have been made. Its garden was and is a quiet,
orderly place where respectable family groups sit about in the shade.
The Louvre has been much enlarged. Under Louis XVI. it consisted of the
buildings surrounding the eastern court, of a wing extending toward the
river (the gallery of Apollo), and of a long gallery, since rebuilt,
running near the river bank and connecting this older palace with the
Tuileries. About one-half of the space now enclosed between the two
sides of the enormous edifice, and known as the Place du Carrousel, was
then covered with houses and streets. The land immediately to the east
of the Tuileries palace was not built upon, but part of it was enclosed
by a tall iron railing. Such a railing, either the original one or its
successor, was to be seen in the same place until recent times and may
be standing to-day. The Place du Carrousel, as it then existed outside
of this railing, was a square of moderate size surrounded by houses.
The Palace of the Tuileries itself has had an eventful history since
Louis XVI. came to the throne, and has only in recent years been
utterly swept from the ground. But the gardens which bear its name are
little changed. The long raised terraces ran along their sides then as
now; although there was no Rue de Rivoli, and the only access to the
gardens on the north side was by two or three streets or lanes from
the Rue Saint-Honore. Within the garden the arrangement of broad,
sunny walks and of shady horse-chestnuts was much the same as now.
Well-dressed persons walked about or sat under the trees, and the
unwashed crowd was admitted only on two or three holidays every
year. In consequence of this exclusion the wives of respectable
citizens used to come unattended to take the air in the gardens. They
were brought in sedan-chairs, from which they alighted at the gate.
What is now the Place de la Concorde was then the Place Louis Quinze,
with an equestrian statue of that "well-beloved" monarch where
the obelisk stands. Not far from the pedestal of that statue
overturned,--not far from the entrance of the street called
Royal,--near the place where many people had been crushed to death in
the crowd assembled to see the fireworks in honor of the marriage of
the Dauphin and the Princess Marie Antoinette of Austria,--was to
stand the scaffold on which that Dauphin and that princess, after
reaching the height of earthly splendor, were to pay for their own
sins and weaknesses and for those of their country.
To the west of the square came the Champs Elysées, still somewhat rough
in condition, but with people sitting on chairs even then to watch the
carriages rolling by, as they still do on any fine afternoon. The
Boulevards stretched their shady length all round the city, and were a
fashionable drive and walk, near which the smaller theatres rose and
throve, evading the monopoly of the opéra and the Français. But the
boulevards were almost the only broad streets. Those interminable,
straight avenues which even the brilliancy and movement of Paris can
hardly make anything but tiresome, had not yet been cut. The streets
were narrow and shady; most of them not very long, nor mathematically
straight, but keeping a general direction and widening here and there
into a little square before a church door, or curving to follow an
irregularity of the ground. Such streets were not in accordance with the
taste of the age and caused progressive people to complain of Paris.
Rousseau, who had seen Turin, was disappointed in the French capital. On
arriving he saw at first only small, dirty, and stinking streets, ugly
black houses, poverty, beggars, and working people; and the impression
thus made was never entirely effaced from his mind, in spite of the
magnificence which he recognized at a later time. Young thought that
Paris was not to be compared with London; and Thomas Jefferson wrote
that the latter, though handsomer than Paris, was not so handsome as
Philadelphia. But the Parisian liked his uneven streets well enough.
There were fine things to be seen in them. Although the city was
crowded, there were gardens in many places, belonging to convents and
even to private persons. And once in your walk you might come out upon a
bridge, where, if there were not houses built upon it, you might catch a
breath of the fresh breeze, and watch the sun disappearing behind the
distant village of Chaillot; for nowhere does he set more gloriously
than along the Seine.[Footnote: _Paris à travers les ages._
Babeau, _Paris en 1789_. Cognel, 27, 74. Rousseau, xvii. 274
(_Confessions_, Part i. liv. iv.). Young, i. 60; Randall's
_Jefferson_, i. 447.]
The houses were tall and dark, and the streets narrow and muddy. There
was little water to use, and none to waste, for the larger part of the
city depended upon wells or upon the supply brought in buckets from
the Seine. The scarcity was hardly to be regretted, for there were few
drains to carry dirty water away, and the gutter was full enough
already. It ran down the middle of the street, which sloped gently
toward it, and there were no sidewalks. When it rained, this
street-gutter would rise and overflow, and enterprising men would come
out with little wooden bridges on wheels and slip them in between the
carriages, and give the quick-footed walker an opportunity to cross
the torrent, if he did not slip in from the wet plank; while a pretty
woman would sometimes trust herself to the arms of a burly
porter.[Footnote: See the print in Fournel, 539, after Granier.
Conductors were coming into use before the Revolution. _Encyc. meth.
Jurisp._, x. 716.] The houses had gutters along the eaves, but no
conductors coming down the walls, so that the water from the roofs was
collected and came down once in every few yards in a torrent, bursting
umbrellas, and deluging cloaks and hats. The manure spread before sick
men's doors to deaden the sound of wheels was washed down the street
to add to the destructive qualities which already characterized the
mud of Paris. An exceptionally heavy fall of snow would entirely get
the better of the authorities, filling the streets from side to side
with pools of slush, in which fallen horses had been known to drown.
When the sun shone again all was lively as before; the innumerable
vehicles crowded the streets from wall to wall, with their great hubs
standing well out beyond the wheels, and threatened to eviscerate the
pedestrian, as he flattened himself against the house. The carriages
of the nobility dashed through the press, the drivers calling out to
make room; they were now seldom preceded by runners in splendid
livery, as had been the fashion under the former reign, but sometimes
one or two huge dogs careered in front, and the Parisians complained
that they were first knocked down by the dogs and then run over by the
wheels. At times came street cleaners and swept up some of the mud,
and carted it away, having first freely spattered the clothes of all
who passed near them. In some streets were slaughter-houses, and
terrified cattle occasionally made their way into the neighboring
shops. The signs swung merrily overhead. They appealed to the most
careless eye, being often gigantic boots, or swords, or gloves,
marking what was for sale within; or if in words, they might be
misspelt, and thus adapted to a rude understanding. Large placards on
the walls advertised the theatres. Street musicians performed on their
instruments. Ballad-singers howled forth the story of the last great
crime. Amid all the hubbub, the nimble citizen who had practiced
walking as a fine art, picked his careful way in low shoes and white
silk stockings; hoping to avoid the necessity of calling for the
services of the men with clothes-brush and blacking who waited at the
street corners.[Footnote: Mercier, xii. 71, i. 107, 123, 215, 216.
Young, i. 76. In 1761 the signs in the principal streets were reduced
to a projection of three feet. Later, they were ordered to be set flat
against the walls. Babeau, _Paris_, 42; but see Mercier. Names were
first put on the street corners in 1728. Babeau, _Paris_, 43.
Franklin, _L'Hygiène_.]
They were a fine sight, these citizens of Paris, before the male half of
the world had adopted, even in its hours of play, the black and gray
livery of toil. The Parisians of the latter part of King Louis XVI.'s
reign affected simplicity of attire, but not gloom. The cocked hat was
believed to have permanently driven out the less graceful round hat. It
was jauntily placed on the wearer's own hair, which was powdered and
tied behind with a black ribbon. For the coat, stripes were in fashion,
of light blue and pink, or other brilliant colors. The waistcoat and
breeches might be pale yellow, with pink bindings and blue buttons; the
garters and the clocks of the white stockings, blue; the shoes black,
with plain steel buckles. This would be an appropriate costume for the
street; although many people wore court-mourning from economy, and
forgot to take it off when the court did. A handsome snuff-box, often
changed, and a ring, were part of the costume of a well-dressed man; and
it was usual to wear two watches, probably from an excessive effort
after symmetry; while it is intimated by the satirist that clean lace
cuffs were sometimes sewn upon a dirty shirt.[Footnote: Babeau,
_Paris_, 214. Fashion plates in various books. For evening dress,
suits all of black were beginning to come in towards 1789. In the street
gentlemen were beginning to dress like grooms, aping the English. The
sword was still worn at times, even by upper servants, but the cane was
fast superseding it. Women also carried canes, which helped them to walk
in their high-heeled shoes. Mercier, xi. 229, i. 293.]
The costume of gentlemen in this reign was as graceful in shape as any
that has been worn in modern Europe. The coat and waistcoat were rather
long and followed the lines of the person; the tight breeches met the
long stockings just below the knee, showing the figure to advantage. The
dress of ladies, on the other hand, was stiff, grotesque, and ungainly;
waists were worn very long, and hoops were large and stiff. But the most
noticeable thing was the huge structure which, almost throughout the
reign, was built upon ladies' heads. As it varied between one and three
feet in height, and was very elaborate in design, it could not often be
taken down. No little skill was required to construct it, and poor girls
could sometimes earn a living by letting out their heads by the hour to
undergo the practice of clumsy barbers' apprentices. At one time red
hair came into fashion and was simulated by the use of red powder. The
colors for clothes varied with the invention of the milliners, and the
habit of giving grotesque names to new colors had already arisen in
Paris. About 1782, "fleas' back and belly," "goose dung," and "Paris
mud" were the last new thing. Caps "à la Boston," and "à la
Philadelphie," had gone out. Instead of the fashion-plates with which
Paris has since supplied the world, but which under Louis XVI. were only
just coming into use, dolls were dressed in the latest style by the
milliners and sent to London, Berlin, and Vienna.[Footnote: Franklin,
_Les soins de toilette_. Mercier, viii. 295, ii. l97, l98, 213]
The dress of the common people was more brilliant and varied than it is
in our time, but probably less neat. Cleanliness of person has never
been a leading virtue among the French poor. Although there were
elaborate bathing establishments in the river, a large proportion of the
people hardly knew what it was to take a bath.[Footnote: But Young
says, "In point of cleanliness I think the merit of the two nations is
divided; the French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in
their houses." Young, i. 291. The whole comparison there given of French
and English customs is most interesting.] The sentimental milkmaids of
Greuze are no more like the tanned and wrinkled women that sold milk in
the streets of Paris, than the court-shepherdesses of Watteau and
Boucher were like the rude peasants that watched their sheep on the Jura
mountains. But the Parisian cockney was fond of dress, and would rather
starve his stomach than his back. The milliners' shops, where the pretty
seamstresses sat sewing all day in sight of the street, reminding the
Parisians of seraglios, were never empty of those who had money to
spend. For leaner purses, the women who sat under umbrellas in front of
the Colonnade of the Louvre had bargains of cast-off clothing; and there
were booths along the quays on Sunday, and a fair in the Place de la
Greve on Monday.[Footnote: Mercier, viii. 269, ix. 294, v. 281, ii.
267.]
It is sometimes said of our own times that the rich have become richer
and the poor poorer than in former days. I believe that this is entirely
untrue, and that in the second half of the nineteenth century a smaller
proportion of the inhabitants of civilized countries suffers from hunger
and cold than ever before. Whatever be the figures by which fortunes are
counted, there is no doubt that the visible difference between the rich
and the poor was greater in the reign of Louis XVI. than in our own
time.[Footnote: Mercier mentions fortunes varying from 100,000 to
900,000 livres income, and speaks of the former as common, i. 172.
Meanwhile clerks got from 800 to 1500 livres and even less. Those with
1200 wore velvet coats, ii. 118.] In spite of the fashion of simplicity
which was one of the affectations of those days, the courtier still on
occasion glittered in brocade. His liveried servants waited about his
door. His lackeys climbed behind his coach, and awoke the dimly lighted
streets with the glare of their torches, as the heavy vehicle bore him
homeward from the supper and the card-table. The luxuries of great
houses were relatively more expensive. A dish of early peas might cost
six hundred francs. Six different officials (a word less dignified would
hardly suit the importance of the subject), had charge of the
preparation of his lordship's food and drink, and bullied the numerous
train of serving-men, kitchen-boys, and scullions. There was the
_maître d'hôtel_, or housekeeper, who attended to purchases and to
storing the food; the chief cook, for soups, _hors d'oeuvre_,
_entrées_, and _entremets_; the pastry-cook, with general
charge of the oven; the roaster, who fattened the poultry and larded the
meat before he put the turnspit dog into the wheel; an Italian
confectioner for sweet dishes; and a butler to look after the wine.
Bread was usually brought from the bakers, even to great houses, and was
charged for by keeping tally with notches on a stick. Baking was an
important trade in Paris, and in times of scarcity the bakers were given
the first chance to buy wood. For delicacies, there was the great shop
at the Hôtel d'Aligre in the Rue Saint Honoré, a "famous temple of
gluttony," where truffles from Perigord, potted partridges from Nérac,
and carp from Strasbourg were piled beside dates, figs, and pots of
orange jelly; and where the foreigner from beyond the Rhine, or the
Alps, could find his own sauerkraut or macaroni.[Footnote: Mercier, x.
208, xi. 229, 346, xii. 243.]
At the tables of the rich it was usual to entertain many guests; not in
the modern way, by asking people for a particular day and hour, but by
general invitation. The host opened his house two or three times a week
for dinner or supper, and anybody who had once been invited was always
at liberty to drop in. Thus arose a class of respectably dressed people
who were in the habit of dining daily at the cost of their acquaintance.
After dinner it was the fashion to slip away; the hostess called out a
polite phrase across the table to the retreating guest, who replied with
a single word.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 176, ii. 225. _La Robe dine, La
finance soupe._ Mercier says that a man who was a whole year without
calling at a house where he had once been admitted had to be presented
over again, and make some excuse, as that he had traveled, etc. This the
hostess pretended to believe.] It was of course but a small part of the
inhabitants of Paris that ate at rich men's tables. The fare of the
middle classes was far less elaborate; but it generally included meat
once or twice a day. The markets were dirty, and fish was dear and bad.
The duties which were levied at the entrance of the town raised the
price of food, and of the wine which Frenchmen find equally essential.
Provisions were usually bought in very small quantities, less than a
pound of sugar at a time. Enough for one meal only was brought home, in
a piece of printed paper, or an old letter. Unsuccessful books thus
found their use at the grocer's. Before dinner the supply for dinner was
bought; before supper, that for supper. After the meal nothing was left.
The poorer citizens carried their dinners to be baked at the cook-shops,
and saved something in the price of wood. The lower classes had their
meat chopped fine and packed in sausages, as is still done in Germany,
an economical measure by which many shortcomings are covered up and no
scrap is lost.[Footnote: Ibid., i. 219, xii. 128.]
The use of coffee had become universal. It was sold about the streets
for two sous a cup, including the milk and a tiny bit of sugar. While
the rich drank punch and ate ices, the poor slaked their thirst with
liquorice water, drawn from a shining cylinder carried on a man's back.
The cups were fastened to this itinerant fountain by long chains, and
were liable to be dashed from thirsty lips in a crowd by any one passing
between the drinker and the water-seller.[Footnote: Mercier, viii. 270,
_n_., iv. 154, xii. 296, v. 310. See plates in Fournel, 509, 516.]
For the very poor there was second-hand food, the rejected scraps of the
rich. In Paris they were nasty enough; but at Versailles, where the king
and the princes lived, even people that were well to do did not scorn to
buy dishes that had been carried untouched from a royal table. Near the
poultry market in Paris, a great pot was always hanging on the fire,
with capons boiling in it; you bought a boiled fowl with its broth, a
savory mess. In general the variety of food was increasing. Within forty
years the number of sorts of fruit and vegetables in use had almost
doubled.[Footnote: Ibid., v. 85, 249. Genlis, _Dictionnaire des
Étiquettes_, ii. 40, _n_., citing Buffon. Scraps of food are
still sold in the Central Market of Paris.]
The population was divided into many distinct classes, but there was a
good deal of intercourse from class to class, nor was it extremely
difficult for the able and ambitious to rise in the world. The
financiers had become rich and important, but were regarded with
jealousy. In an aristocratic state the nobles think it all wrong that
any one else should have as much money as themselves. This is not
strange; but it is more remarkable that the common people are generally
of the same opinion, and that, while the profusion of the great noble is
looked on as no more than the liberality which belongs to his station,
the extravagance of the mere man of money is condemned and derided. This
tendency was increased in France by the fact that many of the greatest
fortunes were made by the farmers of the revenue, who were hated as
publicans even more than they were envied as rich men. Yet one
financier, Necker, although of foreign birth, was perhaps the most
popular man in France during this reign, and it was not the least of
Louis's follies or misfortunes that he could not bring himself to share
the admiration of his people for his Director General of the Treasury.
The mercantile class in Paris did not hold a high position. The merchant
was too much of a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper was too much of a
huckster. The smallest sale involved a long course of bargaining. This
was perhaps partly due to the fact, admirable in itself, that the wife
was generally united with her husband in the management of the shop. The
customary law of Paris was favorable to the rights of property of
married women; and the latter were associated with their husbands in
commerce and consulted in all affairs. This habit is still observed in
France. It tends to draw husband and wife together, by uniting their
occupations and their interests. Unfortunately it tends also to the
neglect of children, especially in infancy, when their claims are
exacting. Thus the Frenchwoman of the middle class is in some respects
more of a wife and less of a mother than the corresponding Anglo-Saxon.
The babies, even of people of very moderate means, were generally sent
out from Paris into the country to be nursed. Later in the lives of
children, girls were kept continually with their mothers, watched and
guarded with a care of which we have little conception. Boys were much
more separated from their parents, and left to schoolmasters. Neither
boys nor girls were trusted or allowed to gain experience for themselves
nearly as much as we consider desirable.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 53, v.
231, ix. 173, vi. 325.]
Marriages were generally left to the discretion of parents, except in
the lowest classes; and parents were too often governed by pecuniary,
rather than by personal considerations in choosing the wives and
husbands of their sons and daughters. Such a system of marriage would
seem unbearable, did we not know that it is borne and approved by the
greater part of mankind. It is possible that the chief objection to it
is to be found less in the want of attachment between married people,
which might be supposed to be its natural result, than in the diminution
of the sense of loyalty. In England and America it is felt to be
disgraceful to break a contract which both parties have freely made,
with their eyes open; and this feeling greatly reenforces the other
motives to fidelity. Yet while the rich and idle class in France, if the
stories of French writers may be trusted, has always been honeycombed
with marital unfaithfulness, there are probably no people in the world
more united than the husbands and wives of the French lower and middle
classes. Working side by side all the week with tireless industry,
sharing a frugal but not a sordid life, they seek their innocent
pleasures together on Sundays and holidays. The whole neighborhood of
Paris is enlivened with their not unseemly gayety, as freely shared as
the toil by which it was earned. The rowdyism of the sports in which men
are not accompanied by women, the concentrated vulgarity of the summer
boarding-house, where women live apart from the men of their families,
are almost equally unknown in France. In the latter part of the
eighteenth century many of the comfortable burghers of Paris owned
little villas in the suburbs, whither the family retired on Sundays,
sometimes taking the shop-boy as an especial favor. The common people
also were to be found in great numbers in the suburban villages, such as
Passy, Auteuil, or in the Bois de Boulogne, dancing on the green;
although in the reign of Louis XVI. they are said to have been less gay
than before.[Footnote: Mercier, in. 143, iv. 162, xii. 101.]
Artists, artisans, and journeymen, in their various degrees, formed
classes of great importance, for Paris was famous for many sorts of
manufactures, and especially for those which required good taste. But
it was noticed that on account of the abridgment of the power of the
trade-guilds, and the consequent rise of competition, French goods
were losing in excellence, while they gained in cheapness; so that it
was said that workmanship was becoming less thorough in Paris than in
London.
The police of Paris was already remarkable for its efficiency. The
inhabitants of the capital of France lived secure in their houses, or
rode freely into the country, while those of London were in danger of
being stopped by highwaymen on suburban roads, or robbed at night by
housebreakers in town. From riots, also, the Parisians had long been
singularly free, and for more than a century had seen none of
importance, while London was terrified, and much property destroyed in
1780 by the Gordon riots. In spite of the forebodings of some few
pessimists, people did not expect any great revolution, but rather
social and economic reforms. It was believed that the powers of
repression were too strong for the powers of insurrection. The crash
came, at last, not through the failure of the ordinary police, but from
demoralization at the centre of government and in the army. While Louis
still reigned in peace at Versailles, the administration of Paris went
on efficiently. Correspondence was maintained with the police of other
cities. Criminals and suspected persons, when arrested, could be
condemned by summary process. The Lieutenant General of Police had it in
his discretion to punish without publicity. The more scandalous crimes
were systematically hidden from the public; a process more favorable to
morality than to civil liberty. For the criminal classes in Paris
arbitrary imprisonment was the common fate, and disreputable men and
women Were brought in by bands.[Footnote: Mercier, vi. 206. Monier,
396.]
The liability to arbitrary arrest affected the lives of but a small
proportion of the citizens after all. To most Parisians it was far more
important that the streets were safe by day and night; that fire-engines
were provided, and Capuchin monks trained to use them, while soldiers
hastened to the fire and would press all able-bodied men into the
service of passing buckets; that small civil cases were promptly and
justly disposed of.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 197, 210, ix. 220, xii. 162
(_Jurisdiction consulaire_).]
The increase of humane ideas which marked the age was beginning in the
course of this reign to affect the hospitals and poor-houses as well as
the prisons, and to diminish their horrors. At the Hotel Dieu, the
greatest hospital in Paris, six patients were sometimes wedged into one
filthy bed. Yet even, there, some improvement had taken place. And while
Howard considered that hospital a disgrace to Paris, he found many other
charitable foundations in the city which did it honor. Here as elsewhere
there was no uniformity.[Footnote: Mercier, vii. 7, iii. 225. Howard,
_State of the Prisons_, 176, 177. Babeau, _La Ville_, 435.
Cognel, 88. A horrible description of the Hotel Dieu, written in 1788 by
Tenon, a member of Academy of Sciences, is given in A. Franklin,
_L'Hygiène_, 181.]
In the medical profession, the regular physicians held themselves far
above the surgeons, many of whom had been barbers' apprentices; but it
would appear that the science of surgery was better taught and was
really in a more advanced state than that of medicine. More than eight
hundred students attended the school of surgery. In medicine,
inoculation was slowly making its way, but was resorted to only by the
upper classes. Excessive bleeding and purgation were going out of
fashion, but the poor still employed quacks, or swallowed the coarse
drugs which the grocers sold cheaper than the regular apothecaries, or
relied on the universal remedy of the lower classes in Paris, a cordial
of black currants.[Footnote: It was called _Cassis_. Mercier, xii.
126, vii. 126.]
Near the Hotel Dieu was the asylum for foundlings, whither they were
brought not only from Paris, but from distant towns, and whence they
were sent out to be nursed in the country. They were brought to Paris
done up tightly in their swaddling clothes, little crying bundles,
packed three at a time into wadded boxes, carried on men's backs. The
habit of dressing children loosely, recommended by Rousseau, had not yet
reached the poor; as the habit of having babies nursed by their own
mothers, which he had also striven to introduce, had been speedily
abandoned by the rich. The mortality among the foundlings was great, for
two hundred of them were sometimes kept in one ward during their stay at
the asylum.[Footnote: Mercier, iii. 239, viii. 188. Cognel found the
asylum very clean. Cognel, 87.]
Although some falling off in the ardor of religious practices was
noticed as the Revolution drew near, the ceremonies of the church were
still visible in all their splendor. On the feast of Corpus Christi a
long procession passed through the streets, where doors and windows
were hung with carpets and tapestry. The worsted pictures, it is true,
were adapted rather to a decorative than to a pious purpose, and
over-scrupulous persons might be shocked at seeing Europa on her bull,
or Psyche admiring the sleeping Cupid, on the route of a religious
procession. Such anomalies, however, could well be disregarded. Around
the sacred Host were gathered the dignitaries of the state and the
city in their robes of office, marshaled by the priests, who for that
day seemed to command the town. In some cases, it is said, the great
lords contented themselves with sending their liveried servants to
represent them. Soldiers formed the escort. The crowd in the street
fell on its knees as the procession passed. Flowers, incense, music,
the faithful with their foreheads in the dust, all contributed to the
picturesqueness of the scene. A week later the ceremony was repeated
with almost equal pomp. On the Sunday following, there was another
procession in the northern suburbs. Naked boys, leading lambs,
represented Saint John the Baptist; Magdalens eight years old, walking
by their nurses' side, wept over their sins; the pupils of the school
of the Sacred Heart marched with downcast eyes. The Host was carried
under a dais of which the cords were held by respected citizens, and
was escorted by forty Swiss guards. A hundred and fifty censers swung
incense on the air. The diplomatic corps watched the procession from
the balcony of the Venetian ambassador, even the Protestants bowing or
kneeling with the rest. [Footnote: Mercier, iii. 78. Cognel, 101.]
From time to time, through the year, these great ceremonies were
renewed, either on a regularly returning day, or as occasion might
demand. On the 3d of July the Swiss of the rue aux Ours was publicly
carried in procession. There was a legend that a Swiss Protestant
soldier had once struck the statue of the Holy Virgin on the corner of
this street with his sword, and that blood had flowed from the wounded
image. Therefore, on the anniversary of the outrage, a wicker figure was
carried about the town, bobbing at all the sacred images at the street
corners, with a curious mixture of piety and fun. Originally it had been
dressed like a Swiss, but the people of Switzerland, who were numerous
and useful in Paris, remonstrated at a custom likely to bring them into
contempt; and the grotesque giant was thereupon arrayed in a wig and a
long coat, with a wooden dagger painted red in his hand. The grammarian
Du Marsais once got into trouble on the occasion of this procession. He
was walking in the street when one woman elbowed another in trying to
get near the statue. "If you want to pray," said the woman who had been
pushed, "go on your knees where you are; the Holy Virgin is everywhere."
Du Marsais was so indiscreet as to interfere. Being a grammarian, he was
probably of a disputatious turn of mind. "My good woman," said he, "you
have spoken heresy. Only God is everywhere; not the Virgin." The woman
turned on him and cried out: "See this old wretch, this Huguenot, this
Calvinist, who says that the Holy Virgin is not everywhere!" Thereupon
Du Marsais was attacked by the mob and forced to take refuge in a house,
whence he was rescued by the guard, which kept him shut up for his own
safety until after nightfall.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 97. Fournel, 176.
This procession was abolished by order of the police, June 27, 1789.
Fournel, 177.]
For an occasional procession, we have one in October, 1785, when three
hundred and thirteen prisoners, redeemed from slavery among the
Algerines, were led for three days about the streets with great pomp by
brothers of the orders of the Redemption. Each captive was conducted by
two angels, to whom he was bound with red and blue ribbons, and the
angels carried scrolls emblazoned with the arms of the orders. There was
the usual display of banners and crosses, guards and policemen; there
were bands of music and palm-branches. The long march required frequent
refreshment, which was offered by the faithful, and it is said that many
of the captives and some of the professionally religious persons
indulged too freely. A drunken angel must have been a cheerful sight
indeed. The object of this procession was to raise money to redeem more
prisoners from slavery, for the Barbary pirates were still suffered by
the European powers to plunder the commerce of the Mediterranean and to
kidnap Christian sailors.[Footnote: Bachaumont, xxx. 24. Compare
Lesage, i. 347 (_Le diable boiteux_, ch. xix). For a procession of
persons delivered by charity from imprisonment for not paying their wet
nurses, see Mercier, xii. 85.]
Nor was it in great festivals alone that the religious spirit of the
people was manifested. On Sundays all shops were shut, and the common
people heard at least the morning mass, although they were getting
careless about vespers. Every spring for a fortnight about Easter, there
was a great revival of religious observance, and churches and
confessionals were crowded. But throughout the year, one humble kind of
procession might be met in the streets of Paris. A poor priest, in a
worn surplice, reverently carries the Host under an old dirty canopy. A
beadle plods along in front, with an acolyte to ring the bell, at the
sound of which the passers-by kneel in the streets and cabs and coaches
are stopped. Louis XV. once met the "Good God," as the eucharistic wafer
was piously called, and earned a short-lived popularity by going down on
his silken knees in the mud. All persons may follow the viaticum into
the chamber of the dying. The watch, if it meets the procession on its
return, will escort it back to its church.[Footnote: _Ordonnance de
la police du Châtelet concernant l'observation des dimanches et fêtes,
du 18 Novembre, 1782_. Monin, 403.]
Let us follow it in the early morning, and, taking our stand under the
porch where the broken statues of the saints are still crowned with the
faded flowers of yesterday's festival, or wandering thence about the
streets of the city, let us watch the stream of life as it flows now
stronger, now more gently hour by hour.
It is seven o'clock. The market gardeners, with their empty baskets,
are jogging on their weary horses toward the suburbs. Already they
have supplied the markets. They meet only the early clerks, fresh
shaven and powdered, hastening to their offices. At nine, the town is
decidedly awake. The young barber-surgeons ("whiting" as the Parisians
call them), sprinkled from head to foot with hair powder, carry the
curling-iron in one hand, the wig in the other, on their way to the
houses of their customers. The waiters from the lemonade-shops are
bringing coffee and cakes to the occupants of furnished lodgings. On
the boulevards, young dandies, struck with Anglomania, contend
awkwardly with their saddle-horses.
At ten lawyers in black and clients of all colors flock to the island
in the river where are the courts of law. The Palace, as the great
court-house is called, is a large and imposing pile of buildings, with
fine halls and strong prisons, and the most beautiful of gothic
chapels. But the passages are blocked with the stalls of hucksters who
sell stationery, books, and knicknacks.[Footnote: Mercier, vi. 72,
iv. 146, ix. 171. Cognel, 41.]
In the rue Neuve des Petits Champs they are drawing the royal lottery.
The Lieutenant-Général of Police, accompanied by several officers,
appears on a platform. Near him is the wheel of fortune. The wheel is
turned, it stops, and a boy with blindfolded eyes puts his hand into an
opening in the wheel, and pulls out a ticket, which he hands to the
official. The latter opens it, holding it up conspicuously in front of
him to avert suspicion of foul play. The ticket is then posted on a
board, and the boy pulls out another. The crowd is noisy and excited at
first, then sombre and discouraged as all the chances are exhausted.
Noon is the time when the Exchange is most active, and when lazy people
hang about the Palais Royal, whose gardens are the centre of news and
gossip. The antechambers of bankers and men in place are crowded with
anxious clients. At two the streets are full of diners-out, and all the
cabs are taken. They are heavy and clumsy vehicles, dirty inside and
out, and the coachmen are drunken fellows. Clerks and upper servants
dash about in cabriolets, and sober people are scandalized at seeing
women in these frivolous vehicles unescorted. "They go alone; they go in
pairs!" cries one, "without any men. You would think they wanted to
change their sex." Dandies drive the high-built English "whiski." All
are blocked among carts and drays, with sacks, and beams, and casks of
wine. For people that would go out of town there are comfortable
traveling chaises, or the cheap and wretched _carrabas_, in which
twenty persons are jolted together, and the rate of travel is but two or
three miles an hour; while on the road to Versailles, the active
postillions known as _enragés_ will take you to the royal town and
back, a distance of twenty miles, and give you time to call on a
minister of state, all within three hours.[Footnote: Mercier, vii. 114,
228, ix. 1, 266, xi. 17, xii. 253. Chérest, ii. 166.]
Between half past two and three, people of fashion are sitting down to
dinner, following the mysterious law of their nature which makes them
do everything an hour or two later in the day than other mortals. At
quarter past five the streets are full again. People are on their way
to the theatre, or going for a drive in the boulevards, and the
coffee-houses are filling. As daylight fails, bands of carpenters and
masons plod heavily toward the suburbs, shaking the lime from their
heavy shoes. At nine in the evening people are going to supper, and
the streets are more disorderly than at any time in the day. The
scandalous scenes which have disappeared from modern Paris, but which
are still visible in London, were in the last century allowed early in
the evening; but long before midnight the police had driven all
disorderly characters from the streets. At eleven the coffee-houses
are closing; the town is quiet, only to be awakened from time to time
by the carriages of the rich going home after late suppers, or by the
tramp of the beasts of burden of the six thousand peasants who nightly
bring vegetables, fruit, and flowers into the great city.[Footnote:
Ibid., iv. 148.]