THE BOULEVARDS (_continued_).
La Maison Dorée--Librairie Nouvelle--Catherine II. and the
Encyclopædia--The House of Madeleine Guimard.
At the corner of the Rue Marivaux stands the Café Anglais, now the
only one remaining of the historical Paris restaurants, which for the
most part date their reputation from the years 1814 and 1815, when
the European Allies had their head-quarters in the French capital.
The invasions which restored the French Monarchy, and which had been
undertaken with no other object, brought defeat, but at the same time
prosperity and gaiety to Paris; whereas the invasion of 1870 and 1871
caused nothing but misery to the vanquished. During the early days of
the Restoration such houses as Les Trois Frères Provençaux, in the
Palais Royal, La Maison Dorée, the Café Riche, and the still extant Café
Anglais, did a magnificent trade, thanks to the number of Prussian,
Russian, Austrian, and English officers who frequented them, and who,
after the toils of war, abandoned themselves willingly to some of the
joys of peace.
Most of these famous restaurants sprang from wine-shops; for it is a
fact that every celebrated dining-place in Paris has owed its reputation
primarily to the quality of its wine. The three brothers from Provence
who started the restaurant known under their name were simply three
young men who, having vineyards of their own and a connection with other
wine-growers, maintained an excellent cellar. But when people came in
to taste its contents it was absolutely necessary, in order to render
appreciable the flavour of the wine, to give them something to eat.
Then, as they spent their money freely, it was found possible and even
desirable to engage a first-rate cook; until at last the reputation of
the cellar was equalled by that of the kitchen.
Who has not read of Les Trois Frères Provençaux in Balzac's "Scenes from
Paris Life"? It was in one of their upstairs rooms, moreover, facing the
garden of the Palais Royal, that the hero of Alfred de Musset's "Enfant
du Siècle" had his last sad interview, his last sad meal, with the young
woman from whom he was about to separate for ever.
La Maison Dorée, too, was a famous house. The scene of many an orgie,
it kept its doors open continuously. Here it was that M. de Camors,
in Octave Feuillet's novel of that name, at the end of an extremely
late supper threw a gold piece into the mud and told a ragpicker who
happened to be passing that if he would pull it out with his teeth he
could have it for himself; and who does not remember how, so soon as the
_chiffonnier_ had performed this feat, the dissipated but not altogether
degraded gentleman begged the poor man to knock him down in return for
the insult offered to him.
La Maison Dorée used to be kept by a proprietor named Hardy, and
the fact that the neighbouring café and restaurant, of almost equal
celebrity and dearness, belonged to a Monsieur Riche, whose name it
bore, gave rise to the saying that a man must be "_très riche pour dîner
chez Hardy, et très hardi pour dîner chez Riche_."
The Café Riche used to be the favourite dining place of Jules Janin on
evenings of first performances. Here on these interesting occasions
he was always to be seen; and the usual genial tone of his criticisms
was possibly attributable to the excellence of M. Riche's chef. Not,
however, that Janin wrote his notices of new plays the same night. He
published them week by week in the _feuilleton_ of the _Journal des
Débats_, afterwards to be corrected and published under the title of
"Questionable History of Dramatic Literature."
The Café Riche was never such a late house as La Maison Dorée, which
went on day by day and year by year, never closing, regardless of the
clock. Thus it was at once the earliest and the latest of Paris taverns;
and if it was possible to get supper there at 3 or 4 o'clock in the
morning after a dull evening party, a traveller was equally sure that
the place would be open when, arriving at Paris by train at, say, 6 in
the morning, the vacuum in his stomach demanded an immediate breakfast.
A story is told of a gentleman who, living immediately opposite the side
entrance of La Maison Dorée, dedicated to this famous hostelry all the
time he did not spend in bed. Rising extremely late, he turned into
the Maison Dorée towards four in the afternoon to look at the papers,
converse with some of the frequenters, take a preparatory glass of
absinthe, and finally dine--this being, of course, the great event of
his well-spent day. His dinner began at an advanced hour of the evening,
and lasted well into the night. Then he was joined by friends from the
theatre bent on supping; and it was not till towards sunrise that he
returned to his apartments over the way.
Unlike the Temple of Janus, which was never shut in time of war, the
Maison Dorée could only keep its doors open in time of peace. Such war,
at all events, as the Prussians brought to the gates of Paris and to
Paris itself in 1870 and 1871 was fatal to its existence. Since those
terrible years Paris has lost something of its gaiety and frivolity. The
Café Anglais still exists; but even at this celebrated supping-place of
former years supper is now an unknown meal. Nothing is served in the
Café Anglais after nine o'clock. This café, oddly enough, seems to have
been named after a nation which in the year 1815 can scarcely have been
popular among the French. Its origin, or at least its name, dates from
the year of the Waterloo campaign, and, strangely enough, it is the only
great restaurant of that period which to this day survives. Possibly the
establishment was not called Café Anglais merely by way of invitation
to the English portion of the occupying forces. The title may have been
meant to indicate that the service of the table was conducted after the
English rather than the French fashion. The French, it must be admitted,
preceded us in the matter of napkins, and also, if their boast on the
subject can be admitted, in the earlier use of four-pronged forks, made
by preference of silver. But in the year 1815 the French knew nothing of
salt-spoons; and though plates were changed frequently enough, the same
knife and fork served throughout the various courses, the diner cleaning
on a piece of bread a knife which did duty for every dish which came
on the table. It replaced the salt-spoon, and was frequently used for
conveying food to the mouth. Not only English dining-places, but English
hotels were highly esteemed in 1815; and Dr. Véron, in his "Mémoires
d'un Bourgeois de Paris," speaks of cleanliness as an English invention
unknown to the French until the peace which followed the Napoleonic wars.
In the art of living the French have generally been considered by the
rest of Europe to have reached the greatest proficiency; and their
methods and customs have accordingly been more imitated than those of
any other nation. Of their cookery there is but one opinion; for every
man in Europe who can afford a great table keeps either a French cook
or a cook educated in the French school. The variety given by French
cooks to the very simplest dish is too well known to require emphasis;
and even Macaulay quotes the story of that Parisian chef who could make
twelve different dishes out of a poppy-head.
In the matter of table as of drawing-room etiquette the French in
Arthur Young's time seem to have been both superior and inferior to
the English. It is true that the French artisan would not dine without
a clean napkin on his knee; but it is equally true that the French
aristocrat would sometimes spit about the floor in presence of a duchess
with a freedom which would be resented in any English tap-room.
If Paris be really "the Tavern of Europe," the Café Anglais is at this
moment the Tavern of Paris. Scarcely any foreigner of distinction visits
the French capital without dining, perhaps even by special arrangement
supping, at the Café Anglais, which is now under the management, not
of an enterprising landlord, but of a well-regulated Limited Liability
Company.
* * * * *
At the corner of the Rue de Grammont, separated from the Café Anglais
by the Theatrical Bureau, or "Office de Théâtre," which supplies
tickets for every playhouse in Paris, is the Librairie Nouvelle, where,
exhibited for sale, may be seen all the latest novels in vogue and most
of the standard works which, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of,
their ancient fame, still find readers. Books are published at much
lower prices in Paris than in London. Lending libraries are now quite
out of date in the French capital, and persons really interested in a
new work do not get it to read at so much a volume or a subscription of
so much a year, but buy it once and for all. Forty or fifty years ago
the circulating library system had been pushed further in Paris than
any point it has yet reached in London. Novels by popular authors were
issued in six or eight volumes with from eighty to one hundred words in
each page; a sore temptation to the Belgian pirates, who, in the days
before International Copyright Conventions, vexed the soul of every
French author by reproducing his works at so low a price that he had
no more chance of selling his editions in Belgium than has an English
author of to-day of vending his in the United States. Instead, however,
of being separated from France as America is from England by thousands
of miles of sea, Belgium was conterminous with the country it loved
to despoil. It was impossible to prevent the fraudulent imitations of
Belgium entering France; and to put an end at once to Belgian piracy and
to the absurd circulating library system, a spirited and intelligent
Paris publisher, Charpentier by name, introduced the novel at three and
a half francs--a price which, as originally fixed, or at a reduction of
half a franc, is still maintained. Copyright affairs between France and
Belgium are now regulated under the clauses of the same International
Convention which binds all other countries, with the exception of Russia
and Holland on one side of the Atlantic, and the United States of
America on the other.
[Illustration: MARIVAUX.
(_From the Bust by Mlle. Dubois-Davesne in the Comédie Française._)]
To offer new books for sale in London at the strangely high prices
fixed for the benefit of the circulating libraries would be out of the
question; but at the Librairie Nouvelle all the latest works produced in
Paris may be seen, partially read, and finally, if such be the desire of
the reader, purchased. Many a Parisian, however, or visitor to Paris,
whether from love of literature or merely to pass the time, strolls into
the Librairie Nouvelle and looks through book after book without buying
a single volume. Some day such an institution as this will possibly
exist in London; not, however, until the prices of our new books are
considerably lowered. But although the frequenters of the Librairie
Nouvelle are not called upon, or even expected, to make purchases, only
a small fraction of them leave the establishment without doing so; and
it is as astonishing as it is interesting to see with what rapidity
copies of a new novel of genuine popularity will sometimes go off.
No trade has made such progress in France since the Great Revolution
as that of bookselling. This result is due alike to the increase
in the number of readers through cheap, gratuitous, and obligatory
education, and to the liberty of the Press enjoyed by the French,
with some interruptions (as under the First Empire and a few years of
the Restoration), for an entire century. "How I should like to have
Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot writing for me in one of my garrets,"
a French bookseller is represented as saying in Mercier's "Tableau de
Paris," published only a few years before the Revolution. "I would feed
them well, but, by Heaven, I would make them work! Why is one of them
too rich, and the others too independent to write at so much per sheet?"
It is noticeable that not one of these three authors whose works sold
so largely was able to publish in France everything he wrote. Even
the volume in which the above story is told was published in London.
Many of Voltaire's works were brought out in London or Amsterdam.
More than one of Rousseau's books were prohibited in France; and the
publication of the "Encyclopédie," to which Voltaire, Rousseau, and
Diderot all contributed, was not only prohibited, but cast materially
into the Bastille, where the volumes were found on the destruction of
the building; which gave the despotic, but in regard to literature,
liberal-minded Catherine II. an opportunity of offering to continue the
publication of the work in Russia.
[Illustration: PARIS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]
Until the time of the Revolution nearly the whole of the book trade
was in the hands of hawkers. "The business of these people," says a
writer of the 18th century, "is to be the itinerant beasts of burden
of literature, as the booksellers are its caterpillars. Illiterate,
and hardly able to read, the hawkers may be said to deal in a ware as
perfectly foreign to them as the business of mixing up colours would
be to the blind. They only know the price of each book they offer for
sale. They are haunted everywhere by police-runners, and such is their
apprehension of falling under the censure of the despotic magistrate,
and, altogether, their ignorance, that some sell even prayer-books under
the cloak with as much care and circumspection as if it were an immoral
or political pamphlet. These poor harmless hawkers, who give circulation
to the clandestine works of the writers of every denomination without
being able to read a single line; who, though far from suspecting it,
are the asserters of public freedom, and with no other view than to
procure to themselves a scanty subsistence--these are the first to
feel the resentment of the offended great. It would be, perhaps, if
not dangerous, at least impolitic, to attack the author himself; but a
hawker sent to the Bastille or fastened in the public market by an iron
_carcanet_ is a matter of too little importance to be noticed by the
public."
The very method employed to prevent the spread of ideas amongst the
French people helped to overthrow the despotism by which it had been
devised. This is well shown by Arthur Young, writing about the same time
as the author whose account of the persecution in France of literature
in all its forms has just been quoted. Such ignorance in Young's time
was imposed on the French nation by a tyrannical censorship that, for
aught the country knew to the contrary, their representatives were in
the Bastille; and the mob was accustomed to pillage, burn, and destroy
from sheer want of knowledge. Even in the large provincial towns Young
could not see a newspaper. At the cafés there was nothing to read but
the _Gazette de France_, a sheet in which the professed "news" was so
dished up that "no man of common-sense" would attempt to digest it. The
consequence was that the frequenters of cafés and restaurants could be
heard gravely discussing news a fortnight old.
On the first floor of the house of which the ground-floor is occupied by
the Librairie Nouvelle, we find the Club of the Two Worlds, or "Cercle
des Deux Mondes," established in an abode which was occupied for some
time by the Jockey Club, until this latter, after deserting the mansion
built by the Farmer-General de Lange on the Boulevard Montmartre,
continued its western progress, to reach ultimately the domicile it at
present inhabits on the Boulevard des Capucines.
At the corner of the Rue de Choiseul is the well-known establishment
of Potel and Chabot, who keep what, in London--for want of a better
name, and probably in virtue of some tradition on the subject--is
called an "Italian warehouse." This firm, however, does not confine
itself to the lighter description of comestibles and dainties. In these
it deals largely enough; and among the tempting delicacies offered to
the passer-by are early vegetables, fruit, olives, ham, sausages of
rare manufacture, and game pies. But besides selling stray articles
to the chance epicure, the house of Potel and Chabot undertakes the
supply of dinners on a very large scale, and employs a number of chefs,
sous-chefs, scullions, roasters, pastry-cooks, and other functionaries
of the kitchen. It was the firm of Potel and Chabot which, in July,
1888, supplied in the Champ de Mars the banquet offered to 10,000 mayors
from all parts of France, furnishing it hot, so that many of the guests
declared they had never before been anywhere so well served. The dinner
was simple, but it is said to have been excellent. The ten thousand
guests had one glass and two plates apiece; 500 waiters flitted about
with the wines and the dishes.
The end of the Boulevard des Italiens is marked by a circular pavilion,
which has lost something of its original shape through the repairs
necessitated by the ravages of time; though it still bears a number of
sculptural ornaments which are much admired, including certain masks,
reputed to be masterpieces. It is called the Pavilion of Hanover, and
is so named from having been erected and adorned by the architect
Cheveautel for the Duc de Richelieu at the end of the garden attached to
his mansion, after the campaign of Hanover, in 1757, which he terminated
by securing the capitulation of Closterseven. Under the Directory
and the Consulate, in the first years of the Empire, the Pavilion of
Hanover and a portion of the grounds belonging formerly to the Duc de
Richelieu were the scene of public assemblies, balls, and concerts;
and it was here that Tortoni established his famous ice-shop and café
in partnership with another Italian, named Velloni. The latter is now
forgotten; but Tortoni, who continued the business on his own account,
is, in the world of cafés, an historical figure.
Let us not hurry past the former Hôtel Choiseul, where, during the
Reign of Terror, Pace, Minister of War, resided; where, under the
Directory, the staff of the Army of Paris was established; and where
Murat afterwards lived in the capacity of Governor. When the Restoration
came to pass it was turned into the headquarters of the National Guard.
Finally it was put up for sale, when, after the assassination of the Duc
of Berri on the steps of the Opera House in the Rue Richelieu, it was
determined to pull down the lyric temple and erect another on the site
occupied by the Hôtel Choiseul. We shall see in the proper place that
the demolition of the Opera House of the Rue Richelieu was due to the
representations of the Archbishop of Paris, who refused to allow the
last sacrament to be administered to the dying prince unless he received
a promise that the profane building, in which so holy an act had to
be performed, should immediately afterwards be destroyed. The Hôtel
Choiseul was bought by the City of Paris, and close to what remained
of the ancient mansion rose the new Opera House, opening on to the Rue
Le Pelletier, where, between the years 1821 and 1823, so many great
works were brought out, including Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, Auber's
_Masaniello_, as it is called in England, Donizetti's _Favorite_,
Verdi's _Vêpres Siciliennes_, and Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_,
_Prophète_, and _Africaine_. On the night of Tuesday, October 20, 1873,
the eve of the hundredth representation of Ambroise Thomas' _Hamlet_,
flames burst out in the wardrobe, and the next day the Opera House was a
heap of ruins.
It is a curious fact, not hitherto noticed, that the destruction by
fire of the Opera House in the Rue Le Pelletier took place precisely
two hundred years after the production of Lulli's earliest opera, the
first lyrical piece ever performed in Paris under the royal patent which
authorised the establishment of a regular opera house. Lulli has been
represented, in a famous picture, receiving his "privilege" from the
hands of Louis XIV. as a reward and encouragement for services rendered.
It can scarcely be said, however, that Lulli, though he established
opera in Paris, was the first to introduce it. Cardinal Mazarin brought
Italian opera to Paris in 1645, when Lulli was but a child; and the
French opera named _Akébar, Roi de Mogol_, written and composed by
the Abbé Mailly, was represented the year afterwards in the episcopal
palace of Carpentras under the direction of Cardinal Bichi. A public
performance, moreover, was given of _Pomone_, words by Perrin, music by
Cambert, in 1671; but though _Pomone_ was the first French opera offered
in Paris to a general audience, Lulli's _Cadmée_ was the first of that
long series of lyrical productions given at the State Opera House which
extended, with but two short breaks, from 1673 to 1873.
The new Opera House, which was to replace the one burnt down in 1873,
had already, on a scale of unprecedented magnificence, been designed,
constructed, and all but finished under Napoleon III. But 1873, scarcely
more than two years after the disasters of the siege and Commune, was
not the time at which to complete and inaugurate a sumptuous Opera
House; and it was not until 1875 that the famous edifice, which may
challenge comparison with any other of the kind in Europe, threw its
doors open to the public.
Another celebrated building in this neighbourhood, at the corner of the
Rue Taitbout, is the former Hôtel de Brancas, built by the architect
Bélanger, a devoted friend of the famous Sophie Arnould, to whom he was
faithfully attached until her death. His endeavours to obtain for her,
in default of a pension that was never paid, a portion of the large
sum due to her from the directors of the Théâtre Français show him to
have been a man of energy as well as heart. It was in the character of
architect that Bélanger first became acquainted with the brilliant and
witty actress; and when he made her an offer of marriage, which she did
not accept, she at once observed that no one was better fitted than an
architect to build up her damaged reputation. From the family of Brancas
the mansion erected by Bélanger passed to the wife of General Rapp, then
to the Marchioness of Hertford, to her son Lord Seymour, and to Sir
Richard Wallace. Under Napoleon III. magnificent entertainments were
given there by the late Khalil Pasha. On the ground-floor of the edifice
appeared and disappeared the Café de Paris, celebrated in the reign of
Louis Philippe, and for some years afterwards, as the rendez-vous of
celebrities in literature, art, and the world of fashion. It was in time
to be followed by other excellent restaurants, now vanished, but not
forgotten.
The last house on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of the Rue
de la Chaussée d'Antin, occupies the site of the old Military School,
founded, for 200 officers' sons, under the name of Dépôt des Gardes
Français; where for twenty years of his life Rossini lived on the first
floor, and whence he moved to the villa at Passy offered to him by the
City of Paris. It was in this retreat that he ended his days.
[Illustration: RUE DE LA CHAUSSÉE D'ANTIN.]
The Chaussée d'Antin, formerly a high road leading from the boulevards
into the open country, is full of interesting associations. In the
Chaussée d'Antin, or close to that thoroughfare in its present form,
stood the celebrated Temple of Terpsichore built for Madeleine Guimard,
the dancer; which so excited the jealousy of Sophie Arnould, the
vocalist, that she insisted on having a mansion of equal magnificence
side by side with that of her operatic friend and rival. Madeleine
Guimard, according to one of her biographers, excited as much admiration
and scattered as many fortunes as any woman that ever appeared on
the stage. She was, nevertheless, ugly, thin, of sallow complexion,
and marked with the small-pox. She is said to have preserved, in a
marvellous manner, her youth and a certain indescribable charm which
constituted her chief attractions. She possessed, moreover, such a
perfect acquaintance with all the mysteries of the toilet that by the
arts of dress and adornment alone she could still make herself look
young when age had crept upon her. Queen Marie Antoinette would often
consult her about matters of dress, and especially the arrangement of
her hair; and once when, for her rebellious attitude at the theatre, she
had, in accordance with the strange customs of the times, been ordered
to prison, she is reported to have said to her maid: "Never mind, I
have sent a letter to the queen telling her that I have discovered a
new way of doing the hair. We shall be out before the evening." But
to return to the Temple of Terpsichore, which, built in the finest
architectural style, and magnificently furnished, was decorated
internally by Fragonard, one of the most famous painters of that day.
In his wall-pictures he never failed to introduce the face and figure
of the light-footed divinity of the place: until at last he became
enamoured of his model, and, presuming on one occasion to show signs of
jealousy, was promptly discharged, to be replaced by the most unsuitable
artist that can be conceived--by David, the painter of heroic figures,
of Republican subjects, and of Napoleon in all his glory. The celebrated
painter of the Consulate and the Empire was, in Madeleine Guimard's
time, a very young man--a mere student, in fact. But he was a stern
Republican, and when the luxurious but sympathetic dancer saw that the
work of decorating her voluptuous palace did not accord with his lofty
aspirations, she gave him the sum he was to have received for covering
her walls with fantastic designs, in order that he might continue his
studies in the style which best suited him.
[Illustration: Mont Valérien and the Arc de Triomphe.--Church of St.
Augustine.
VIEW FROM THE ROOF OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]
The house built by Sophie Arnould next door to Madeleine Guimard's
Temple of Terpsichore bore no distinctive name. But it was of the same
size as the "Temple," and on the portico, which was supported by two
Doric columns, could be seen the figure of Euterpe with the features
of Sophie Arnould. The first floor contained the reception rooms, with
spacious ante-chambers for the servants. On the second floor were the
bedrooms of the children, who, at a later period, were acknowledged by
their father, Count Brancas de Lauragais, and bore his name. In the
National Library of Paris several drawings and plates are exhibited of
the different portions of Sophie Arnould's house; and the representation
of the façade bears this inscription:--"Façade of a projected house for
Mlle. Arnould in the Chaussée d'Antin. To be constructed side by side
with that of Mlle. Guimard, and of the same dimensions.--Bélanger."
[Illustration: MLLE. CLAIRON.]
So much care did the amorous architect of the new house bestow on his
work, and so agreeable did he make himself to the lady for whom it was
being built, that he was asked to share it with the owner; and there was
at one time a serious prospect of Sophie Arnould becoming Mme. Bélanger.
To serve some purpose of her own she spread the report that she was
married to the architect, who showed himself quite disposed to give
reality to the fiction. He was a merry man, and pleased Sophie as much
by his ready wit as by his agreeable manners. After a time she got tired
of him, and having formed an attachment for the actor Florence, wrote
Bélanger a letter of dismissal, at the same time addressing to Florence
an avowal of her love. Bélanger, however, found an opportunity of
changing the envelopes, so that Florence the actor received the letter
intended for Bélanger the architect. The next time Florence saw Sophie
he was naturally somewhat cold in his demeanour towards her, and this
coldness was naturally resented by Sophie, who had written to him with
much warmth. Bélanger triumphed, and his triumph was of long duration;
Sophie, indeed, remained attached to him throughout her life. Of all her
former friends the only ones who showed genuine solicitude for her in
her latter days of poverty and sickness were Bélanger and Lauragais.
Many years afterwards, in the gloomiest and most sanguinary days of the
Revolution, when Bélanger was poor and Sophie Arnould still poorer,
the architect begged the actress and singer to accept, as from an old
friend, a piece of two louis which he at the same time forwarded to
her. Sophie replied that she did not desire his money, but that she was
deeply obliged to him for such thoughtfulness, and in memory thereof
would wear the gold piece next her heart. When she was on her death-bed,
the famous architect, himself without means, wrote to the Minister of
Fine Arts a letter in which he reminded him that a considerable sum
of money was due to Mlle. Arnould from the Opera; of which, now that
she was in the greatest distress, it was impossible for her to obtain
payment, even to the extent of a few louis. "This unhappy woman," he
continued, "of whom Gluck said, 'Without the charm of the accent and
declamation of Mlle. Arnould my _Iphigenia_ would never have been
accepted in France,' finds herself without even the means of prolonging
her life."
In October, 1802, Sophie Arnould died, after receiving absolution from
the curé of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the parish in which she was born.
Another remarkable personage who lived in, or rather close to, the
Chaussée d'Antin, was that devoted lover of Mdlle. Clairon, Monsieur
de S----, who succeeded in inspiring the famous actress with esteem,
but not with any warmer feeling; and who, according to her belief, as
well as that of several of her friends, paid her visits of complaint
and menace after his death. "His humour," writes Mlle. Clairon, in her
"Memoirs," "was gloomy and melancholy. 'He was too well acquainted with
men,' he would say, 'not to despise and shun them.' His desire was to
live only for me, and that I should live only for him. This last idea
particularly displeased me. I might have been content to be restrained
by a garland of flowers, but could not bear to be confined by a chain.
I saw from that moment the necessity of destroying the flattering hope
which nourishes attachment and of disallowing his frequent visits. This
determination, which I persisted in, caused him a serious indisposition,
during which I paid him every possible attention; but my constant
refusal to indulge the passion he entertained for me made the wound
still deeper."
Afterwards, when the young man had partly recovered, Mlle. Clairon,
convinced that his absence from her would be to his advantage,
constantly refused his letters and his visits. "Two years and a half,"
continues Mlle. Clairon, "passed between our first acquaintance and
his death. He entreated me to assuage the last moments of his life by
repairing to his bed-side. My engagement prevented me from complying
with this request, and he expired in the presence of his domestics and
an old lady whom he had alone for some time suffered."
The house in which M. de S---- died was the one previously referred to
in the Chaussée d'Antin; and at eleven o'clock the same night Mlle.
Clairon, who was living far off in the Rue de Bussy, near the Rue
de Seine, was startled--as were also, she declares, several friends
in company with her at the time--by "the most piercing cry" she had
ever heard. "Its long continuance and piteous sound," she continues,
"astonished everyone. I fainted away, and was nearly a quarter of an
hour insensible." Every night at the same hour Mlle. Clairon heard the
same bitter wail. "All of us in the house," she writes, "my friends, my
neighbours, the police even, have heard this very cry repeated under my
windows at the same hour, and appearing to proceed from the air." She
was recommended by an incredulous acquaintance to invoke the phantom the
next time it announced its presence. She did so, when "the same cry was
uttered thrice in succession, with a degree of rapidity and shrillness
terrible beyond expression." Poor Mlle. Clairon was persecuted in this
manner at an hour before midnight for days at a stretch; until, at
length, in lieu of a piercing cry, she heard every night, and always
at eleven o'clock, the explosion of a gun. Fearing there might be some
design upon her life, she communicated with the Lieutenant of Police,
who, accompanied by proper officers, carefully examined the house next
door, but without discovering any ground for suspicion. "The following
day," says Clairon, "the street was narrowly watched; the officers of
police had their eyes upon every house; but, notwithstanding all their
vigilance, there occurred the same discharge, at the same hour, and
against the same frame of glass for three whole months, though no one
could ever discover from whence it proceeded." "This fact," she adds,
"is attested by all the registers of police."
One day a lady called on Mlle. Clairon and made herself known as the
best friend of the late Monsieur de S----, and the only person he had
suffered to be with him during the last moments of his life.
"To condemn you," she said, "would be unjust ... but his passion for you
overcame him, and your last refusal hastened his end. He counted every
minute till half-past ten, when his servant positively informed him that
you would not come to him. After a moment he took my hand in a paroxysm
of despair which terrified me, and exclaimed, 'Cruel woman! but she
shall gain nothing. I will pursue her as much after my death as I have
during my life.' I endeavoured to calm him, but he was no more."
The words had a terrible effect on the unhappy Mlle. Clairon; and the
cries and threats from her distressed lover gradually ceased to afflict
her, and in time this excellent woman--who could scarcely be expected to
love by order--became pacified.
The first building on the Boulevard des Capucines at the opposite corner
of the Chaussée d'Antin is the Vaudeville Theatre, built to replace the
old playhouse on the Place de la Bourse, and opened to the public on the
1st of October, 1867. Anciently this theatre seemed to be placed beneath
the auspices of Collé des Augiers and Scribe, whose names mark different
phases of the Vaudeville style, once exclusively cultivated by this
theatre. Of later years, however, especially since the production of the
younger Dumas' _Dame aux Camélias_, some forty years ago, it has often
thrown gaiety on one side for the pathetic and dramatic. The Vaudeville,
like all the Paris theatres, has frequently changed its habitation,
though it has always retained its original name. Founded in 1792, when
the Revolution was approaching the Terrorist period, at a building in
the Rue de Chartres, between the Place du Carrousel and the Palais
Royal (since pulled down), the Vaudeville was, after a life of half a
century, driven from its first abode by the usual fire. In 1838, the
year of the conflagration, it sought a temporary refuge on the Boulevard
Bonne-Nouvelle, to move in 1840 to the Place de la Bourse, where it took
possession of the house previously occupied by the Opéra Comique. Here,
where it remained from 1840 to 1867, it changed its style, and instead
of comedies and comediettas interspersed with songs, produced with
immense success a series of dramas of the most moving kind, such as the
already named _Dame aux Camélias_, Octave Feuillet's _Dalila_ and _Roman
d'un jeune Homme pauvre_, Barrière's _Filles de Marbre_, Sardou's _Nos
Intimes_ and _Maison neuve_. It is not indeed at the Théâtre Français,
but at the Vaudeville and the Gymnase, that in modern times the
masterpieces of French dramatic literature have been produced. The first
representation of _La Dame aux Camélias_ forms a turning point in the
history of the Vaudeville Theatre. The play--which was soon to become
celebrated throughout France, and in its operatic form, set to music by
Verdi, throughout Europe--was not produced without serious objections
on the part of the censorship; and it was only through the intercession
of the Duke de Morny, Napoleon III.'s unacknowledged brother and chief
adviser, that permission to represent the piece was obtained. When the
performance at last took place, the success of the drama, owing a good
deal to the pathetic acting of Mme. Doche in the part of the heroine,
was marvellous; and it was made the occasion of innumerable articles
in all the French journals at this period, not only on the play and on
the novel from the same pen whence the play was derived, but on the
unhappy young woman whose life and death the author had more or less
faithfully depicted in the leading character. To show that light-minded
Frenchmen were not alone capable of being moved by the tragic end of the
fascinating Marie Duplessis, it may be mentioned that our own Charles
Dickens was as much touched by it as the numerous French writers, who,
more or less perfectly, have put their feelings on the subject into
literary form. "Not many days after I left," writes Mr. Forster, in his
"Life of Dickens," under date of 1847, "all Paris was crowding to the
sale of a lady of the _demi-monde_, Marie Duplessis, who had led the
most brilliant and abandoned of lives, and left behind her the most
exquisite furniture and the most voluptuous and sumptuous _bijouterie_.
Dickens wished at one time to have pointed the moral of this life and
death, of which there was great talk in Paris while we were together.
The disease of satiety, which, only less often than hunger, passes for a
broken heart, had killed her. 'What do you want?' asked the most famous
of the Paris physicians, at a loss for her exact complaint. At last she
answered, 'To see my mother.' She was sent for, and there came a simple
Breton peasant woman, clad in the quaint garb of her province, who
prayed by her bed until she died."
The _Dame aux Camélias_ called into existence a whole series of pieces,
produced either at the Vaudeville or at the Gymnase, in which the
true character of women in certain difficult positions was treated
controversially, with examples in support of arguments; and at this
moment the last kind of play one would expect to see at the Vaudeville
is precisely that to which the theatre owes its name. The situation
of this theatre in the most fashionable, most frequented part of the
boulevard renders it, apart from its own special attractions, the
favourite resort of foreigners living at the excellent hotels in this
neighbourhood. The house, with its 1,300 seats, is only of moderate
size, but it is much more commodious than the old theatre of the Place
de la Bourse.
The theatres of Paris, generally, are, indeed, far less commodious
than those of London. The Parisians will go anywhere and submit to any
discomfort in order to see good acting and a good play. In England we
are much more particular; and the narrow ill-ventilated theatres of
Paris would certainly be objected to by English audiences. The Paris
theatres, however, are steadily improving, as one by one they get burnt
down; and the new ones springing from the ashes of the old are often
attractive without and convenient within. In the ancient days before the
Great Revolution, the Parisians were as passionately fond of the theatre
as they are now, but their playhouses, according to the author of "Le
nouveau Paris," were abominable.
"I shall say nothing of the nastiness," he writes, "that distinguishes
these places of general resort, because I would not wish to injure the
property of the comedians; nor shall I inveigh against the insolence of
the box-keepers, and other servants of our theatres, as it would give
to the world a bad opinion of the proprietors themselves, to whom some
censorious readers might apply the proverb, 'Like master like man,'
and think it a truism. I intend to confine myself to those points that
more materially concern the spectator when he has once got in and has
the good fortune to procure a clean seat. First let us survey the pit.
Here everybody stands. You will imagine that its inhabitants are the
formidable umpires of taste and dramatic productions; this may or may
not be, just as it suits the caprices of the police, or the Lords of the
Bedchamber, who, from making the master's bed, have raised themselves
by degrees to judge of things which they hardly understand. Hence an
actress is palmed upon the public. Whether she is good or bad is not
the question, but whether she has had the good fortune to please one
or the whole of those gentlemen; and everyone knows what price she has
paid for her admission. Not a play is represented here without a guard
of thirty men with a few rounds each to quiet the spectators. This
internal guard keeps the frequenters of the pit in a kind of passive
condition; and whether you are tired, crowded, or bruised, beware of
giving any sign of uneasiness or discontent. Yet the unfortunate public
pays to take, not what they desire, but what is given them. Surrounded
with armed men, they must neither laugh too loud at a comedy nor express
their feelings at a tragedy in too pointed a manner. Hence the pit,
except in some fits of a transient excitement, is mournfully dull. If
you venture to give any sign of your existence, you are collared by
one of the guards and carried _pro formâ_ before a Commissionaire. I
say for form sake, because everyone in the play-house is really under
martial law; the civil magistrate is only there to hear and approve the
sentence passed upon the culprit by the officer of the guard; who upon
the report, seldom exact, but often groundless, of the soldier, orders
the accused party to prison; and the Commissionaire, without inquiring
into the merit of the charge, or so much as daring to hint at the least
objection, signs the _mittimus_."
[Illustration: Entrance to Rue du Quatre-Septembre.--Avenue de
l'Opéra.--Entrance to Rue de la Paix.
VIEW FROM THE BALCONY OF THE OPERA.]
The Boulevard des Capucines seems on both sides entirely new; its houses
are white, bright, and in perfect condition. If the crowd one sees on
the Boulevard Montmartre is a Parisian crowd, that which animates the
Boulevard des Capucines is a cosmopolitan one. It touches what in the
artistic, if not in the general, sense must be looked upon as the heart
of Paris--the New Opera, that is to say, standing in the centre of the
place which bears its name and the streets called after those operatic
celebrities, Scribe, Auber, Halévy, and Meyerbeer; one librettist and
three composers.
The Place de l'Opéra is, indeed, the heart of Paris, communicating by
great arteries with all the most important organs of Parisian life.
The magnificent Avenue of the Opera leads straight to the Louvre; in
another direction the Rue du Quatre-Septembre goes to the Place de la
Bourse. Look along the Rue de la Paix; at the end you will see La Place
Vendôme, with its column in memory of the Grand Army standing out in
its dark bronze against the fresh green of the Tuileries Gardens. Here
all that is most Parisian in Paris may be seen: the finest shops, the
most brilliant equipages, with all the glitter of fashionable life.
The expensive jeweller and the exorbitant milliner here have their
establishments side by side with hotels, restaurants, cafés, and clubs.
[Illustration: AVENUE DE L'OPÉRA.]
The Opera in France had much to go through before it attained its
present artistic development, or, as regards the French form of grand
opera, found its present capacious and splendid home. It is the proud
boast of Frenchmen that Le Nouvel Opéra--as the existing Grand Opéra
in Paris has been called for the last sixteen years, and as it will
probably be called for a long while to come--covers thirteen times as
much ground as the Royal Opera House of Berlin. It is, indeed, superior
by its commodiousness as well as its magnificence to every other opera
house in Europe; though what above all distinguishes it is its admirable
site, and the wide open space in which it stands. In many capitals the
theatres, even the finest, are only portions of a street. At Moscow,
it is true, the Great Theatre stands by itself in a vast square--a
square which, compared with the Place de l'Opéra, is a desert space.
From its very origin the Opera in France has always been regarded as an
institution of the first importance. It enjoyed special privileges from
the Crown, it was managed like a department of the State, and an attack
upon the Opera was punished like a treasonable offence.
"Before I tell you," wrote Rousseau towards the end of the eighteenth
century, "what I think of this famous theatre, I will state what is
said about it. The judgment of connoisseurs may correct mine if I am
wrong. The Opera of Paris passes in the capital for the most pompous,
the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has
ever invented. Its admirers declare it to be the most superb monument
of the magnificence of Louis XIV., and one is not so free as you may
think to express an opinion on such an important subject. Here you may
dispute about everything except music and the Opera; on these topics
alone it is dangerous not to dissemble. French music is defended, too,
by a very rigorous inquisition, and the first thing intimated as a
warning to strangers who visit this country is that all foreigners admit
there is nothing in this world so fine as the Opera of Paris. The fact
is, discreet people hold their tongues, and dare only laugh in their
sleeves."
Rousseau then, speaking in the person of St. Preuz, the hero of "La
nouvelle Héloise," describes the performance as it took place at the
Opera. "Imagine," he says, "an enclosure fifteen feet broad, and long in
proportion; this enclosure is the theatre. On its two sides are placed
at intervals screens, which are crudely painted with the objects which
the scene is about to represent. At the back of the enclosure hangs a
great curtain, painted in like manner and nearly always pierced and
torn that it may represent at a little distance gulfs on the earth or
holes in the sky. Everyone who passes behind this stage or touches the
curtain produces a sort of earthquake which has a double effect. The
sky is made of certain bluish rags suspended from poles or cords, as
linen may be seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. The sun,
which is here sometimes seen, is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars
of the gods and goddesses are composed of four rafters squared and hung
on a thick rope in the form of a swing or see-saw; between the rafters
is a cross plank on which the god sits down, and in front hangs a
piece of coarse cloth, well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for
the magnificent car. One may see, towards the bottom of the machine,
two or three stinking candles, badly snuffed, which, while the great
personage dementedly presents himself swinging in his see-saw, fumigate
him with an incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed
of long angular arrangements of cloth and blue pasteboard strung on
parallel spits, which are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder
is a heavy cart rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable
instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of
resin thrown on a flame; and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a
fusee.
"The theatre is, moreover, furnished with little square traps, which,
opening at need, announce that the demons are about to issue from their
cave. When they have to rise into the air little imps of stuffed brown
cloth are substituted for them, or sometimes real chimney sweeps, who
swing about suspended on ropes till they are majestically lost in
the rags of which I have spoken. The accidents, however, which not
unfrequently happen are sometimes as tragic as farcical. When the ropes
break, the infernal spirits and immortal gods fall together, and lame
or occasionally kill one another. Add to all this the monsters which
render some scenes very pathetic, such as dragons, lizards, tortoises,
crocodiles, and large toads, who promenade the theatre with a menacing
air, and display at the Opera all the temptations of St. Anthony. Each
of these figures is animated by a lout of a Savoyard who has not even
intelligence enough to play the beast.
"Such, my cousin, is the august machinery of the Opera, as I have
observed it from the pit, with the aid of my glass, for you must not
imagine that all this apparatus is hidden, and produces an imposing
effect. I have only described what I have seen myself, and what any
other spectator may see. I am assured, however, that there are a
prodigious number of machines employed to put the whole spectacle in
motion, and I have been invited several times to examine them; but I
have never been curious to learn how little things are performed by
great means."
When our musical historian, Dr. Burney, visited Paris and heard at the
Opera the works of Rameau, successor to Lulli, under whose direction
the French Opera was founded, he found the music monotonous in the
extreme, and without either rhythm or expression. He could admire
nothing at the French Opera except the dancing and the decorations;
and these alone, he says, seemed to give pleasure to the audience. It
was not, at that time, the custom in France to name the singers in the
programme; and throughout the eighteenth century no singer in France
attained such eminence as was reached by numbers in Italy, and by not
a few in England, some of Italian, some of English birth. Naturally,
then, in the eighteenth century French Opera singers were not well paid;
and chroniclers relate that a Mlle. Aubry and a Mlle. Verdier, being
engaged in the same line of stage business, had to live in the same room
and sleep in the same bed. Apart from the obscurity naturally resulting
from the suppression of the names, inconvenience was caused by the
uncertainty in which the public found itself of knowing which singer, on
any particular evening, would appear. Shortly before the establishment
of the Republic, when, for the first time, the names of singers were
printed in the bills, an _habitué_ rushed out of the theatre in a high
state of indignation, and began to beat one of the money-takers in the
lobby. The poor man at once understood the reason of his aggressor's
wrath. "How was I to know," he exclaimed, "that they would let Le
Ponthieu sing to-night!"
The initial step towards high melody at the French Opera was taken when,
some fifteen years before the Revolution, first Gluck, then Piccini,
were invited to Paris to produce adaptations of former successes, or
original works, fitted in either case to French libretti. While praising
the melody of the Italians as much as he condemns the solemnity of
the French, Rousseau expresses the highest admiration for the genius
of Gluck, the great reformer of the French operatic stage. After the
arrival of Gluck in Paris Rousseau is said never to have missed a
representation of _Orphée_. He said, moreover, in reference to the
gratification which that work had afforded him, that "after all there
was something in life worth living for, since in two hours so much
genuine pleasure could be obtained."
The next great assistance to the French Opera, and this a permanent
one, was given by the Republic, through the establishment of a large
music-school, known as the Conservatoire, where a course of gratuitous
instruction is given to all comers capable at the stipulated age of
passing the indispensable test examination. Before, however, the
Conservatoire, destined to produce so many excellent vocalists,
instrumentalists, and composers, had time to bear fruit, Napoleon had
done much to encourage and develop French musical art. Napoleon, as a
young man, was one of the first admirers of the afterwards famous Mme.
St. Huberti; and when Mme. Mara refused an engagement pressed upon her
at the time of the Empire, Napoleon would have arrested her and forced
her to accept it had she not fled from Paris. Then, another cause of
improvement at the French Opera was the frequent visits paid, early in
this century, and especially since the Peace of 1815, by foreign artists
to the capital which, in former days, had set its face both against
vocalists and composers from abroad. Lulli, the founder of opera in
France, was an Italian by birth, though after his naturalisation he got
to be looked upon as a Frenchman. His successor, Rameau, was no doubt
a Frenchman. But the French tradition was so completely broken by the
advent of Gluck and Piccini that the French have never since exhibited
any of their ancient prejudice against foreign composers; and it is to
these that for the last seventy or eighty years the Grand Opera of Paris
has owed most of its success, that is to say, to Spontini, Rossini,
Donizetti, Verdi, and, above all, Meyerbeer.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE DOMES OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]
A highly interesting account of the rehearsals of Meyerbeer's _Robert
le Diable_--one of the typical works of the modern repertoire of grand
opera--is given, in his "Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Dr.
Véron, for some time manager of the Opera House. "It was not," he
tells us, "until after four months of orchestral and other rehearsals
that the general rehearsals were reached. These latter," he continues,
"caused great fatigue and great excitement to everyone; to the composer,
the singers, the chiefs of department, and the manager. When a general
rehearsal takes place, with choruses, principal singers, and full
orchestra, but without scenery, without costumes, and without full
light, the musical execution gains much and produces always a great
effect. In the darkness and silence of the empty and more sonorous
house, without any distraction for the other senses, one is, so to
say, all ears; nothing is lost of the fine shades of expression in the
singing, of the delicate embroideries of the orchestration. But at
the first representation the disappointment is great. In the immense,
splendidly lighted theatre, filled with an excited crowd, all the rich
and elegant details of the score will be lost through the stuff of the
women's dresses and the diminished sonority of a building crowded in
pit, boxes, and gallery. Great musical ideas, grand orchestral effects,
will now alone produce an impression. Thus it happened that at the first
representation of _Robert the Devil_, the public, after applauding the
first two acts, was only impressed and deeply moved by the chorus of
demons."
[Illustration: EASTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]
After describing the anxieties and perplexities which throughout the
long series of rehearsals harass the unfortunate director, Dr. Véron
proceeds to tell us how this gentleman's last and worst experience was
this inevitable final conference, held in his own private room, at
which the author of the words and the composer of the music had to be
prevailed upon to accept some necessary "cuts."
[Illustration: THE PUBLIC FOYER, OPERA HOUSE.]
"The librettist maintains that to take away one phrase, one word, is
to render the work unintelligible, so cunningly is it constructed. The
composer resists with no less obstinacy. His score, he says, cannot be
broken up into fragments. It is all combined and prepared in such a
manner as to form a perfect whole. One piece serves as indispensable
contrast to another. A chorus which it has perhaps been suggested
to leave out is essential for the effect of the succeeding air. The
discussions on such points are interminable. I had ended by showing
myself impassible in presence of the storms and tempests that were
raging around me; and I devoted the time during which these quarrels
lasted to a polite and engaging correspondence with all the newspaper
editors. I was still labouring for the success of the work. At last a
conclusion was arrived at, and a general understanding established.
The chief copyist was making the necessary changes and suppressions in
the score; and the public at least never found fault with the words
and music that were now suppressed. But when a director has prepared,
like a good general, everything necessary for the success of the work
on the stage, his troubles begin with the front of the house. Everyone
wants something from him on the occasion of a first representation; and
that of _Robert le Diable_ was exciting public interest to the highest
degree. Everything and everyone must be thought of. It is necessary,
in assigning places, to displease no one, and above all to avoid
exciting jealousies, so as to have no irritated enemies in the house.
Such and such a journalist will never pardon you for having given his
fellow-journalist a better place than himself. The author and composer,
the leading artists, the _claqueurs_ must be satisfied. The care, the
foresight, the conferences, the instructions, indispensable to secure
the efficient working of the _claque_ at each representation, and
particularly on great critical occasions, will be dealt with elsewhere.
One must remember, too, the number of the box that Madame---- would like
to have, the number of the stall preferred by the friend of a minister
or of the editor of some great journal. One must respect, moreover,
the omnipotence of the unknown journalist, as of the journalist in
vogue; and on the critical day the existence is revealed of a crowd of
newspapers not previously heard of."
It was in the old theatre of the Rue Le Pelletier that Rossini's
_William Tell_ and Meyerbeer's great works were brought out. Gounod,
Saint-Saëns, and Massenet, have all written for the New Opera, though it
cannot be said that any of them has yet produced on its boards a work of
the highest merit.
Opened under the Third Republic in 1875, the New Opera House must be
acknowledged to owe its existence to the Emperor Napoleon III., whose
Minister of Fine Arts opened a competition for architectural designs
in view of a new lyrical theatre as long ago as 1860, thirteen years
before the old Opera House was burnt down, and fifteen years before the
new one was completed and thrown open to the public. The successful
competitor is known to have been Charles Garnier, who was almost unheard
of at the time when, with rare unanimity, his design was accepted by
the Commission, and approved with enthusiasm by the Press. The building
of the Opera cost, from first to last, some 36,000,000 francs (nearly a
million and a half sterling), 675,295 work days having been furnished,
during its construction, to masons, bricklayers, carpenters, etc.
The manager of the Opera House receives from the State the free use
of the building together with a subsidy of 800,000 francs (£32,000)
voted annually by the Chamber. Employed at the Opera are some five
hundred persons, among whom may, in particular, be mentioned twelve in
the administration, in connection with the archives, the library, the
secretarial department, and the treasury; three orchestral conductors,
four directors of singing, two directors and one assistant-director of
the chorus; forty-five vocalists; and one hundred orchestral musicians.
There are about one hundred men and women in the chorus, and the
same number in the various divisions of the ballet. Scene-painters,
scene-shifters (or "carpenters," as they are technically called),
dressers, call-boys, box-openers, and so on, form another hundred. The
inauguration of the New Opera took place on the 5th of January, 1875,
in the presence of Marshal Macmahon, Duke of Magenta, at that time
President of the Republic. All the great officers of State were present,
besides a number of foreign notabilities, among whom may be mentioned
Queen Isabella of Spain and the young King of Spain, Alphonso II. It
is remembered, too, with satisfaction, that the Lord Mayor of London,
accompanied by his mace-bearers, trumpeters, and powdered footmen, gave
dignity to the occasion.
One of the most interesting parts of the New Opera is the _foyer_,
corresponding more or less to the refreshment room of our operatic
theatres, but quite incomparable in the way of elegance and splendour.
In the accompanying illustration the artist has made a point of
introducing, amid well-dressed persons in evening clothes, an English
lady in a morning gown and a sea-side hat, accompanied by two of her
countrymen in shooting coats and pot hats. It is, indeed, a standing
grievance with the Parisians that, whereas at our opera house no one is
admitted to the boxes or stalls unless in evening dress, we ourselves,
when we visit the Paris Opera, think any description of garment good
enough to wear. One of the characteristic sights of Paris has, for
nearly two centuries past, been the Masked Ball of the Opera, which,
though it has doubtless lost much of its gaiety since the days when it
inspired Gavarni with so many subjects for his witty pencil, is still
worth seeing, simply as a picturesque display. No one any longer dances
there unless paid to do so. It was, in fact, the introduction of hired
dancers when the public were just beginning to show a disinclination to
take an active part in the revels that put an end to spontaneous dancing
altogether. The antics of some of the hired dancers may interest for
a time; and the music of the large orchestra, conducted successively
by Musard, Tolbecque, Strauss, Métra, and Arban, has always merited a
hearing. Throughout the Carnival--that is to say, from Christmas until
Lent--a masked and fancy dress ball (the wearing both of masks and fancy
dress being optional) is given every week at the Opera, where the great
ball of the year takes place on the night of Shrove Tuesday, the day
preceding Lent. One other ball of the same kind is given in the middle
of Lent--_la Mi-carême_ as it is called--and thenceforward there is no
dancing at the Opera until Christmas has once more come and gone.
The Opera Ball dates, like the Opera itself, from the reign of Louis
XIV. But the license for musico-dramatic performances had been issued
forty years before it occurred to the Chevalier de Bouillon to apply
to the King for permission to give masked balls. The King hastened to
grant the Chevalier's request; and was indeed so pleased with it that
he assigned to him a pension of 6,000 livres (francs) for the idea,
which had simply been borrowed. What is still more remarkable is the
fact that an Augustine monk, Nicholas Bourgeois, invented the mechanism
by which, in half an hour, the floor of the auditorium could be raised
to the level of the stage boards. Although the privilege or patent was
given to the Chevalier de Bouillon at the beginning of January, 1713, it
was not until January, 1716, that the first opera ball took place. From
that year until 1830 no masked or fancy dress ball could be given at any
other theatre. On the accession, however, of Louis Philippe, the Opera
lost its dancing monopoly, and there are now numbers of Paris theatres
at which, during the Carnival, masked balls occur. The receipts at an
Opera Ball are said to average 50,000 francs (£2,000).
Close to the Opera lie all the fashionable clubs of Paris, beginning
with the Jockey Club at the corner of the Boulevard de La Madeleine.
The English Jockey Club is known to be an association of horse-owners
and others interested in racing, who frame regulations and decide cases
in connection with the Turf. The Jockey Club of Paris, while founded
on much the same basis as the English institution of the same name,
is also a club in the ordinary sense of the word, and an exceedingly
good one. The Jockey Club, which boasts of numbering on its books
members of all the reigning families of Europe, is, by its formal
title, a "Society of Encouragement for the Amelioration of Breeds of
Horses in France." It was originated in 1833, under the auspices of the
Duke of Orleans, eldest son of Louis Philippe, in order to popularise
racing, regulate it, and obtain for it subsidies from the State and
the Municipalities. A committee of thirteen members is exclusively
entrusted with the organisation and superintendence of races. The code
of the Jockey Club is adopted as a basis of regulations by nearly all
the other racing societies of France. The Jockey Club itself directs
the racing of only three courses, those of the Bois de Boulogne,
Fontainebleau, and Chantilly. This club, first established at the corner
of the Rue du Helder, and then transferred to the Hôtel de Lange on
the Boulevard Montmartre, moved in 1857 to the corner of the Rue de
Grammont, where the Cercle des Deux Mondes now has its headquarters,
and finally, in 1860, to its present abode, for which it pays an annual
rental of 100,000 francs. Not one of the Paris clubs seems, like the
principal London clubs, to possess its own house. As a rule the annual
subscription to the Paris club is high, amounting in some cases to 500
francs. On the other hand, the large sums charged for entrance to the
London clubs, ranging from 30 to 40 guineas, are unknown at the clubs of
Paris, which consequently find themselves without much available capital.
Close to the Opera, on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of
the Rue de Grammont, is Le Cercle des Deux Mondes; at the corner of
the Rue de la Michodière, the Railway Club, or Cercle des Chemins de
Fer; on the Boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of the Rue Louis le
Grand, the Yacht Club. Just opposite the Yacht Club "Le Cercle de la
Presse," celebrated for its literary and artistic evenings, suggests
in the first place that no like institution exists in England, where
the newspaper world, though less sharply broken up by political and
personal animosities than that of France, is bound together by no such
_esprit de corps_ as that which animates the authors and journalists of
France. In England not only are we without a Press Club worthy of the
name; we have no Société des Gens de Lettres, or Société des Auteurs
et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Close to the Cercle de la Presse is the
Sporting Club, with its English name. On the Place de l'Opéra is the
Franco-American Club called the Washington Club, or Cercle Washington,
and at the other corner of the square, the Cercle des Éclaireurs, or
Scouts' Club, a survival from the war of 1870. On the Place de l'Opéra
are the offices (as staring titles sufficiently proclaim) of the _Daily
Telegraph_, the _Daily News_, and the _New York Herald_. The corner
house, separating the Avenue of the Opera from the Rue de la Paix, has
been occupied since 1886 by the Naval and Military Club, known as the
Cercle des Armées de Terre et de Mer, and founded under the auspices
of General Boulanger in the days when he was War Minister, with the
eyes of all Europe upon him. Advancing towards the Madeleine, we come
first to the Racing Club (Salon des Courses), then to the Union Club
(Cercle de l'Union), the most artistic and most exclusive of all these
institutions. Close by is the new Cercle de la Rue Royale, formerly
known under the familiar name of "Cercle des Moutards;" whilst a little
further on we find the Cercle des Mirlitons and Cercle Impérial, now
combined, and the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire.
[Illustration: WESTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]
[Illustration: THE STAIRCASE OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]
More recently established than the best London clubs, the clubs of Paris
possess some slight advantages over ours. There is but one London club
at which a member can get shaved or have his hair cut, but at many of
the fashionable Paris clubs the hair-cutter and barber play as important
a part as at an American hotel. The best Paris clubs have private
carriages always in readiness. At a London club members who have not
their own private carriage content themselves with a hansom, or, if
infirm, with a humble four-wheeler. The Paris clubs, moreover, are in
constant communication with the theatres; and each club can command so
many tickets for a first representation, which are distributed among the
members according to the order of application. Some of the Paris clubs,
too, have a box at the Opera or at the Comédie Française. One strange
characteristic of the Paris clubs--strange at least to Englishmen--is
that every member is supposed to know, more or less intimately, every
other member. In Paris the newly-elected member of a club is formally
introduced to the other members by his proposer and seconder. Nothing of
the kind takes place in London; though a new member of a London club is
allowed, if not expected, to invite his proposer and seconder with a few
friends to dinner. Though there are still famous restaurants in Paris,
dining-houses and cafés have alike suffered by the introduction of
clubs, which, though fewer as yet than in London, are yearly increasing
their number.
The last of the boulevards on the western side is that of the Madeleine,
with the Church of the Madeleine as its principal edifice. The Place
de la Madeleine, in the centre of which stands the beautiful but most
unecclesiastical church, becomes twice every week, on Tuesday and
Friday, a large flower-market, the finest in Paris. Standing by itself
in the place named after it, is the beautiful Greek temple, of which the
first stone was laid, in one of his pious moods, by Louis XV. in 1764.
But the building was not proceeded with until after a delay of some
years. It was begun in its present form only twelve years before the
Revolution; and when Napoleon became emperor it was still unfinished.
Judging, no doubt, from the character of the architecture, that the
edifice could scarcely have been intended for a place of Christian
worship, Napoleon had it finished as a Temple of Glory under the
direction of the celebrated architect Pierre Vignon. Like the Pantheon,
however, which has sometimes been thus named, and at other times called
the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, Napoleon's Temple of Glory was only
for a time to be known in that character. Under the Restoration, in
1814, Louis XVIII. determined to restore the building to the Church;
and, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, it was duly consecrated. La
Madeleine, as it is called, was, however, still uncompleted when, in
1830, Louis Philippe came to the throne; and it was under his reign
that, in 1842, it was opened for public worship in the precise form and
with the elaborate ornamentation now belonging to it. The architecture
of the Madeleine is partly Roman, partly Greek; or rather it is Greek
with Roman adaptations. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns, of
which there are eighteen on each side. Sixteen, moreover, enclose the
southern portion, and eight the northern. The building is without
windows, and is entirely of stone. The niches in the colonnade are
occupied by thirty-four statues representing the most venerated martyrs
and saints. On the principal façade will be remarked a high-relief of
huge dimensions by Lemaire, representing our Lord as Judge of the world.
The figure of the Saviour is seventeen feet high. On His right are the
Angel of Salvation and the saved; on His left the Angel of Punishment
and the condemned, with Mary Magdalene interceding on their behalf. The
interior is brilliant with gold and colour. The sanctuary, with its
vaulted roof, exhibits a vast fresco by Zugler, representing the history
of Christianity. Mary Magdalene, receiving Christ's forgiveness, is
surrounded by the Apostles and Evangelists; and among the illustrious
men who in successive ages have protected the Christian Church may be
recognised Constantine, Godefroi de Bouillon, Clovis, Joan of Arc,
Dante, and Napoleon. The principal altar supports an enormous group in
white marble, generally known as the Assumption, though the central
figure is that of Mary Magdalene. The Assumption in this case is that of
Mary Magdalene into Paradise, whither she is being borne by two angels.
Under the organ is the Chapelle des Mariages, with a marble group by
Pradier, representing the marriage of the Virgin; and the Chapelle des
Fonts, with a group by Rude, the subject being the Baptism of Christ.
To the right of the altar we see illustrated the spread of Christianity
in the East during the early centuries and the Crusades; and again, in
modern times, through the uprising of the Greeks against the Turks. As
leading Crusaders, Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Godefroi de Bouillon
occupy places. The personages exhibited as having greatly contributed
towards the progress of Christianity in the West are the early martyrs,
Charlemagne, Pope Alexander III., Joan of Arc, Raphael, Michael Angelo,
and Dante. In the centre of the picture stands Henri IV., who, after
uttering his celebrated exclamation, "Paris is well worth a mass,"
goes over to the dominant religion. Then come Louis XIII., Richelieu,
and finally Napoleon I., who not only was crowned by Pope Pius VII. in
Notre-Dame, but really deserves credit for having restored Christian
worship in France.
In the first chapel, on the right as one enters the church, is a pillar
bearing an inscription to the memory of the Abbé du Guerry, curé of the
Madeleine, a man of remarkable piety and benevolence, who, with other
hostages taken by the Communists, was shot on the 24th of May, 1871, in
retaliation for the execution of Communist prisoners by the troops of
Versailles.
The Church of the Madeleine is famous for the eloquence of its
preachers, the taste in dress of the fashionable ladies whom these
preachers attract, and the excellence of the music. At the organ of the
Madeleine a sound musician and a perfect player is always to be found.