THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND CENTRAL PARIS.
The Hôtel de Ville--Its History--In 1848--The Communards.
If the Place de la Concorde, with the line of the Champs Élysées leading
from it in one direction, and that of the Rue Royale and the line of
boulevards in another, may be regarded as one of the most central points
of Paris, the administrative centre is to be found in the Hôtel de Ville
on the east side of that Place de l'Hôtel de Ville which was the heart
of ancient Paris, or at least of so much of ancient Paris as stood on
the right bank of the Seine.
The Hôtel de Ville, burnt by the Communards in 1871 as part of
their general plan of incendiarism, was historically, as well as
architecturally, one of the most interesting buildings in Paris. In
spite of the modifications and restorations which it had undergone
during the last two centuries of its existence, it never lost its
original character. The Hôtel de Ville was the palace of the burgesses
and merchants of the city, and there was a certain significance in
its situation, just opposite the palace of the kings, with whom the
representatives of the city were often, so far as they dared, in
conflict. It had witnessed, moreover, many interesting scenes. It was
always the head-quarters of insurrection so long as the struggle took
place only between the monarchy and the middle classes. It perished in a
struggle between the middle classes and the working men.
The first important part played by the Hôtel de Ville in its communal
character dates from the time of Étienne Marcel--most ambitious of
Paris mayors--in the fourteenth century. Long, however, before the
pretensions of Étienne Marcel, under the reign of the Roman emperor
Tiberius, privileged corporations existed in Paris under the name
of Nautæ Parisiaci, who did a nautical business on the banks of the
Seine. The Maison aux Piliers, where Étienne Marcel presided over the
Municipality of the period, stood on the site afterwards occupied by the
Hôtel de Ville, of which the first stone was laid by Francis I. on the
15th of July, 1533. "While the stone was being laid," says the annalist
Du Breuil, "fifes, drums, trumpets, and clarions were sounded, together
with artillery and fifty sack-butts of the town of Paris. At the same
time were rung the chimes of Saint-Jean-en-Grève, of Saint-Esprit, and
of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. In the middle of the Grève wine was
running, and tables were furnished with bread and wine for all comers,
while cries were uttered in a loud voice by the common people: 'Vive
le Roy et messieurs de la ville!'" An account of the before-mentioned
ceremony has been left by Boccadoro.
In spite of the pompous proceedings by which the laying of the
foundation-stone was accompanied, the building of the Hôtel de Ville
was proceeded with very slowly, and during various foreign and civil
wars interrupted altogether. The south wing had been erected under Henri
II. The north wing was not completed until the reign of Louis XIII. The
building was finished during the reign of Henri IV., whose equestrian
statue by Pierre Biard marked, until the Revolution, the principal
entrance. After suffering various injuries during the wars of the
Fronde, the figure of the once popular king was, in 1793, overturned and
destroyed, to be afterwards replaced by a statue in bronze.
Early in the eighteenth century the Hôtel de Ville had been found too
small; and in 1749 it was proposed to reconstruct it on the other side
of the Seine, on the site of the Hôtel Conti, where now stands the Mint.
This project, however, met with a lively opposition on the part of
Parisians generally; and in 1770 it was decided to enlarge the existing
structure. Funds, however, were not forthcoming; and when, nineteen
years afterwards, the Revolution broke out, the Hospital, or rather
Hospice of the Holy Ghost, and the Church of Saint-Jean, suppressed as
religious establishments, were, as buildings, annexed to the Hôtel de
Ville, which they adjoined.
After the Hôtel de Ville had been destroyed in 1871 by the incendiaries
of the Commune, the statues of Charlemagne, of Francis I., and of
Louis XIV. were found in the ashes. They had shared the fate of the
equestrian figure of Henri IV. at the time of the Revolution; and they
were afterwards replaced by groups of sculpture which have no sort of
connection with the building.
The Hôtel de Ville has an interesting history of its own. In 1411
Charles VI. restored to the Paris municipality, in acknowledgment of the
courage shown by the Parisians against the English, several privileges
which had been abolished or had fallen into abeyance. Then, during the
troubles of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the Paris Municipality
broke into two hostile factions; but at length, from hatred of the
Armagnac party, the municipality accepted the English domination. After
the return, however, of Charles VII. and during the whole of the second
half of the fifteenth century the magistrates of the capital showed
themselves thoroughly loyal and absolutely devoted to the interests of
the monarchy.
Louis XII. and Francis I. respected and even augmented the privileges
of the Hôtel de Ville. But during the religious wars the municipality
again split up into two factions. It took part, as a whole, in the
massacre of St. Bartholomew, believing that it was thus helping to
suppress conspiracy directed against the life of the king; but it made
every effort to stop bloodshed when it understood the true character
of the infamous attack upon the Huguenots. Towards the end of the
sixteenth century the municipal officers were chosen from among the
most determined supporters of the Catholic League; in spite of which
the Hôtel de Ville made every effort to bring Henri IV. to Paris. In
his gratitude, this monarch made lavish promises to the burgesses; and
he kept them. In 1589 Henri III. had revoked all the privileges granted
by his predecessors to the burgesses of Paris. The day after his entry
into the capital Henri IV. re-established the municipal body, and gave
back to it the whole of its ancient liberties. Then it was that the
municipality resolved to place the king's statue before the principal
gate of the Hôtel de Ville.
During the reign of Louis XIII. Richelieu abolished the principle of
election which constituted the very basis of the municipal authority of
Paris. Various important offices, instead of being elective, were now
made permanent appointments under the control of the king; and from this
epoch dates the decline of the Paris municipal body. Under the ancient
_régime_ Louis XIV. deprived the Town Council of all power; and communal
liberty had disappeared in Paris when the great Revolution broke out.
Then, however, the Hôtel de Ville became once more a centre of political
activity; and it was at the Hôtel de Ville, on the eve of the taking of
the Bastille, that the discussions were held which led immediately to
the attack on the fortress-prison. The so-called "electors" of Paris,
themselves chosen the moment before from among the Paris population,
had assembled under the presidency of M. de Flesselles, provost of
the merchants, when a report was spread that he had concealed several
barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville. This was
looked upon as a reactionary measure intended to prevent the meditated
attack on the hated stronghold; and people rushed to the Hôtel de Ville
to distribute the powder at once and with their own hands. The Bastille
had scarcely been taken when the captors, returning to the Hôtel de
Ville, called out, "Down with De Flesselles," who, attacked in the Hall
of Assembly, escaped by a convenient door. He had scarcely, however,
got outside when he was recognised and shot dead. With the death of the
Provost de Flesselles the ancient corporation of the burgesses of Paris,
with their privileges of holding courts, commercial, civil, and even
criminal, came to an end. On its ruins was raised the Commune of Paris,
which played so terrible a part in the Revolution, and especially during
the Reign of Terror. The Hôtel de Ville has been called the "palace of
revolution," and during the last hundred years, ever since the era of
revolutions set in, it has well deserved its name. The Hôtel de Ville
served as headquarters to the Commune of Paris, and to the Committee
of Public Safety. The registers of the Commune are still preserved in
the Archives, and furnish the only authentic materials relating to the
history of the most sanguinary period of the French Revolution. Under
the Consulate and the Empire the municipal power, like the legislative
power, was abolished; and the Hôtel de Ville was now only known as the
scene from time to time of public entertainments. Crowds were in the
habit of assembling before the Hôtel de Ville to hear the victories of
Napoleon proclaimed. On the occasion of the Emperor's marriage to Marie
Louise the City of Paris revived the entertainments which it had been in
the habit of giving to the ancient kings. Napoleon expressed a desire to
present his wife to the burgesses of Paris assembled in the rooms of the
Hôtel de Ville, which from this time, as long as the Empire lasted, gave
an annual ball on the 15th of August.
The Restoration did nothing for the Hôtel de Ville. In 1830, during
the Revolution which placed Louis Philippe on the throne in lieu of
Charles X., the Hôtel de Ville was the chief object of contention
between the two parties; and it was in the Place de Grève, or Place
de l'Hôtel de Ville, as it was afterwards to be called, that the most
terrible conflict of the "three days" occurred. Taken and re-taken,
the Hôtel de Ville at last remained in the power of the insurgents;
and the tricolour flag, which for the previous fifteen years had been
looked upon as an emblem of sedition, now floated once more above
its walls. The provisional government, established there under the
inspiration of La Fayette, offered a crown to Louis Philippe. "A throne
surrounded by Republican institutions," such, in a few words, was the
celebrated "programme of the Hôtel de Ville." The throne remained,
but the Republican institutions disappeared; and Louis Philippe made
no step towards re-establishing the very institution--the Municipal
Council--which had made him king.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE VILLE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From an Engraving by Rigaud._)]
Eighteen years later another revolution was to take place; and after
the flight of Louis Philippe a provisional government was again
proclaimed--proclaimed itself, that is to say. Lamartine was at the
head of it, and without showing any aptitude for exercising power, the
celebrated writer, whose popularity had been much increased by his
recently published "History of the Girondists," delivered a number of
remarkable speeches at the Hôtel de Ville. Hating all government, a
portion of the populace forced its way into the passages and approached
the room where Lamartine was engaged with laws and proclamations, when
the hero of the hour laid down his pen, rushed towards the invading
crowd and called upon it to retire. No less than seven times did he
repeat his adjurations to the mob, till, at last, some "man of the
people," foreseeing that the republic about to be established would not
be of the "red" hue desired by the extreme Revolutionists, called him a
traitor and demanded his head.
[Illustration: ATTACK ON THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, 1830.]
"My head!" replied Lamartine. "Would to heaven that every one of you had
it on his shoulders. You would then be calmer and more reasonable,
and the Revolution would be accomplished with less difficulty." The
day had been won, but the battle was to begin again on the morrow; and
now once more Lamartine stilled the troubled waters by a few eloquent
phrases. The question had been raised whether the tricolour flag, or the
red flag of the Reign of Terror, should be adopted. Lamartine traced
the history of both; and the crowd, carried away by the warmth of his
oratory, decided with acclamation that the flag of the new republic must
be the flag of the early days of the great Revolution, the flag under
which the great battles of the Consulate and the Empire had been gained.
It will be remembered that when, in 1789, a leaf torn from a tree of
the Palais Royal by Camille Desmoulins was made a sign of recognition,
green was on the point of being adopted for the new national flag. It
was rejected, however, when someone pointed out that green was the
colour of the Artois family; and thereupon blue and red, the colours
of the town of Paris, were assumed, to which, out of compliment to the
monarchy, favourable in the first instance to the claims of the people,
white, the colour of the French kings, was added. Thus the tricolour
flag became the flag of the Revolution, as, during successive changes of
government, it was equally the flag of the Consulate and the Empire. At
the Restoration the Monarchy committed the grave fault of re-introducing
the white flag of the ancient _régime_, which Louis Philippe had the
good sense to replace by the Republican and Imperial tricolour.
[Illustration: STATUE OF ÉTIENNE MARCEL ON THE QUAI HÔTEL DE VILLE.]
When in June, 1848, the insurrection of unemployed workmen broke out,
demanding, in the words of certain insurgents at Lyons, "bread or
bullets," the Hôtel de Ville became once more an object of contest
between the opposing forces; but the supporters of the Democratic and
Socialistic Republic were to be defeated, and the Hôtel de Ville did
not, during the terrible days of June, change hands. As long as the
Republic lasted--less than four years--the municipal institutions
showed signs of vitality, which, however, were to disappear on the
_coup d'état_ of December 2nd, 1851; and throughout the second Empire
the Hôtel de Ville was occupied, in lieu of an independent Municipal
Council, by a sort of consultative commission without mandate and
without authority, attached to the Prefect in order to verify his
accounts with closed eyes. By way of compensation, however, the Hôtel
de Ville was encouraged to give balls, to which the chief of the State
accorded his gracious patronage. It was at the Hôtel de Ville that the
Prefect of the Seine, M. Berger, entertained Queen Victoria, and that
his successor, Baron Haussman, received in like manner the Emperor of
Russia, while proposing to extend his hospitality to the Sultan. The
reception of the Emperor Alexander II. did not pass off without an
incident which caused a very painful impression at the time, and which
the French would, now more than ever, gladly forget; for as the Tsar was
about to enter the Hôtel de Ville he was saluted with cries of "Vive la
Pologne!"
If the ball given in honour of the Emperor Alexander was marred by a
mere exclamation, the one which it had been proposed to offer to the
Sultan of Turkey was stopped by a tragic event. News had suddenly
arrived of the execution of the Emperor Maximilian. Thus was marked the
failure of the Emperor Napoleon's Mexican policy; and thus disappeared
for ever his fantastic dreams of a confederation of Latin, or Latinised,
or Latin-influenced nations, under the patronage of France. Up to this
time Napoleon III. had been marching from one success to another.
The turning point in his career had been reached, and the failure in
Mexico was to be followed by failures in every direction. The ball in
honour of the Sultan having been abandoned, it was nevertheless thought
necessary to give him some idea of what it would have been had it really
taken place. Accordingly the Hôtel de Ville was lighted up, and the
Commander of the Faithful was escorted through the deserted ball-rooms
and saloons, the officer appointed to accompany him explaining, as he
passed from one apartment to another, "Here you would have seen the high
functionaries of State in their uniforms with full decorations; here
most of the dancing would have taken place, and you would have been
enraptured by the sight of beautiful women in the most charming dresses;
here would have been the orchestra, the best in Paris, and probably in
the whole world." This strange jest must have reminded the Sultan of one
of the most famous books in the Mahometan world, that "Thousand and One
Nights," with its tale of an honoured guest to whom a dinner without
viands was offered.
Some months later the Hôtel de Ville was the scene of a grand dinner
given in honour of the Emperor of Austria, brother of the unfortunate
Maximilian. Here, for the first time in modern history, privileged
guests were admitted by invitation cards to galleries, from which the
spectacle of two sovereigns dining together could be enjoyed. Burton, in
his "Anatomy of Melancholy," recommends the sight of two kings engaged
in single combat as a cure for atrabiliousness. It was probably as an
improvement on Burton's remedy, so difficult to procure, that a private
view of two Emperors sitting together at table was offered to a favoured
few.
After the breakdown of the Second Empire and the flight of the Empress
from Paris, the Government of National Defence, consisting of all the
Paris Deputies, had its head-quarters at the Hôtel de Ville; and here,
when the so-called government had given place to the Central Committee,
and the Central Committee to the Commune, the last-named body held
its deliberations. In 1875 the Hôtel de Ville was reconstructed, with
certain modifications and amplifications, on the lines of the ancient
one, burned down by the Communards. The new edifice contains either
in niches, or on external pinnacles, rather more than 100 statues,
reproducing the features of all kinds of celebrities, the whole of them
belonging to France, with the single exception of Cortone, born in
Italy. The collection includes the architects of the original building,
some of the most famous merchant-provosts, mayors of Paris, prefects of
the Seine, and municipal councillors, among whom may be mentioned Michel
Lallier, who delivered Paris from the English, François Miron, and
Pierre Viole. Literature, the stage, and music are largely represented
in the effigies of Beaumarchais, Béranger, Boileau, F. Halévy, Hérold,
Marivaux, Molière, Picard, Alfred de Musset, Charles Perrault, Quinault,
Regnard, George Sand, Scribe, etc.; nor have architecture, sculpture,
painting, and the industrial arts been forgotten in this spacious
Walhalla, where are found the statues of Boucher, Boulle (known among
Englishmen, in connection with various kinds of inlaid work, as "Bühl,")
Chardin, Corot, Daubigny, Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Decamps,
Firmin Didot, the well-known printer, Jean Goujon, Gros, Lancret, Le
Brun, Le Nôtre, Pierre Lescot, Lesueur, Mansard, Germain Pilon, Henri
Regnault, Théodore Rousseau, Horace Vernet, etc. Mingled with the
writers, composers, painters, sculptors, and architects, are statesmen
and historians such as Cardinal de Richelieu, the Marquis d'Argenson,
the Duke de Saint-Simon, De Thou, Pierre de l'Estoile, and Michelet. Two
illustrious tragedians figure in this chosen company, Lekain and Talma.
The new Hôtel de Ville has been furnished with magnificence and good
taste. The staircases are very fine, but the essentially modern
character of the internal arrangements is sufficiently shown by the
lifts which work between the basement and the upper storeys.
[Illustration: THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL CHAMBER, HÔTEL DE VILLE.]
On the side of the Hôtel de Ville looking towards the river are the
private apartments of the Prefect of the Seine, who performs the
functions of Mayor of Paris. In the left wing sit the clerks, engaged
in duties as complicated as those of a Ministerial bureau, and here
also is the hall in which the sittings of the Municipal Council are
held. The prefectorial functions are divided between two prefects: the
Prefect of the Seine, whose duties are exclusively administrative; and
the Prefect of Police, who attends not only to the Police of Paris, but,
in a general way, to Police matters throughout the country. The finances
of the city or town of Paris ("ville de Paris" is its traditional,
historic name) are regulated, under the authority of the Prefect of
the Seine, by a Municipal Council composed of eighty members elected
on universal suffrage, four members for each _arrondissement_, or one
for each _quartier_. These eighty councillors form the Council-General
of the Seine, whose principal duty it is to prepare the budget of the
department. They are forbidden to occupy themselves in any manner
with politics. Though the prefects of the various departments are not
supposed in France to exercise political functions, they are really
political officers--that is to say, they are appointed by the Central
Government, and frequently, though in many cases secretly, do the work
of political agents. During the invasion of 1870 they were regarded as
political officers, and everywhere retired as the invaders advanced;
the mayors meanwhile, as municipal officers, everywhere remaining. It
has been said that the duties of the Prefecture of Paris are shared by
the Prefect of the Seine and the Prefect of Police, and that the former
conducts his business at the Hôtel de Ville. His associate, though
connected with the Hôtel de Ville, has his establishment, with its
various bureaux, at the Palais de Justice in the "Cité."
The island of the Cité, the ancient Lutetia, the cradle of modern Paris,
has possessed from time immemorial, and certainly from the first years
of the Roman conquest, a religious edifice, first a Pagan temple and
afterwards a Christian church, on the western extremity of the Parisian
island; while the eastern extremity has been always occupied by a palace
reserved for the Government, and for the administration of justice.
[Illustration: ÎLE ST. LOUIS.]