CENTRAL PARIS.
The Hotel de Ville--Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie--Rue Saint-Antoine--The
Reformation.
The Hôtel de Ville, new by its architecture, is old by its history,
and to some extent by the buildings still surrounding it; though the
ancient streets of the neighbourhood have during the last forty years
been gradually disappearing. Close to the Church of St. Gervais and
St. Protais stood the street significantly named Rue du Martroi--of
martyrdom, or death-punishment; also the Rue de la Mortellerie, where
the workers in "mortar"--stone-masons that is to say--were in the
habit of meeting when out of work. With this may be connected the
name of Place de Grève, formerly borne by what is now called the
Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. The word _grève_ signifies in the present
day a strike. Originally it meant simply the condition of being
without employment; and it was on the Place de Grève that artisans who
found, like Othello, their occupation gone, assembled in search of an
employer. Afterwards this became a place of execution; and here it was
that Ravaillac, Cartouche, Damiens, and such illustrious victims as
the Constable of Saint-Pol under Louis XI., and Lally-Tollendal under
Louis XVI., were decapitated, quartered alive, and otherwise tortured.
"_La journée sera rude_," said Damiens, when, having already undergone
various tortures, he learned that he was to be torn to pieces by four
horses; and "rough" indeed have been the days passed by the unhappy
wretches brought to punishment on the Place de Grève.
After the Revolution of 1830, when the Hôtel de Ville became all at once
a place of high political importance, the open space in front of it was
looked upon as unworthy any longer to serve as a slaughter-ground, and
the Place Saint-Jacques now became the head-quarters of the guillotine;
which was afterwards to be transferred to the Place de la Roquette.
The region of Paris commanded by the Hôtel de Ville forms a long
irregular parallelogram, comprising, for the most part, the districts
of Saint-Méry, Saint-Gervais and the Arsenal, bounded on the south
by the Seine, on the west by the Place du Châtelet and the Boulevard
Sébastopol, on the east by the Saint-Martin Canal and the Boulevard
Bourdon, on the north by the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue Saint-Antoine,
rejoining the Boulevard Bourdon at the Place de la Bastille. To the
construction of the Rue de Rivoli is due the happy change which has
taken place in this populous region, formerly deprived of light and air,
and so overcrowded that the inhabitants were always suffering from some
serious epidemic. The streets of the neighbourhood must at that time
have been good specimens of those so energetically condemned by Arthur
Young in one of his descriptions of Paris.
"This great city," he wrote in the very year of the Revolution, "appears
to be in many respects the most ineligible and inconvenient for the
residence of a person of small fortune of any that I have seen; and
vastly inferior to London. The streets are very narrow and many of them
crowded, nine-tenths dirty, and all without foot-pavements. Walking,
which in London is so pleasant and so clean that ladies do it every
day, is here a toil and a fatigue to a man, and an impossibility to a
well-dressed woman. The coaches are numerous, and, what is much worse,
there is an infinity of one-horse cabriolets, which are driven by young
men of fashion and their imitators, alike fools, with such rapidity
as to be real nuisances and render the streets exceedingly dangerous
without an incessant caution. I saw a poor child run over and probably
killed, and have been myself many times blackened with the mud of the
kennels. This beggarly practice of driving a one-horse booby-hutch about
the streets of a great capital flows either from poverty or wretched
and despicable economy; nor is it possible to speak of it with too
much severity. If young noblemen at London were to drive their chaises
in streets without footways as their brethren do at Paris, they would
speedily and justly get very well threshed or rolled in the kennel.
This circumstance renders Paris an ineligible residence for persons,
particularly families, that cannot afford to keep a coach; a convenience
which is as dear as at London. The _fiacres_ (hackney coaches) are much
worse than at that city; and chairs there are none, for they would
be driven down in the streets. To this circumstance also it is owing
that all persons of small or moderate fortune are forced to dress in
black with black stockings: the dusky hue of this in company is not
so disagreeable a circumstance as being too great a distinction; too
clear a line drawn in company between a man that has a good fortune
and another that has not. With the pride, arrogance, and ill-temper
of English wealth, this could not be borne; but the prevailing good
humour of the French eases all such untoward circumstances. Lodgings
are not half as good as at London, yet considerably dearer. If you do
not hire a whole suite of rooms at an hotel you must probably mount
three, four, or five pair of stairs, and in general have nothing but a
bed-chamber. After the horrid fatigue of the streets such an elevation
is a delectable circumstance. You must search with trouble before you
will be lodged in a private family, as gentlemen usually are in London;
and pay a higher price. Servants' wages are about the same as at that
city. It is to be regretted that Paris should have these disadvantages,
for in other respects I take it to be a most eligible residence for such
as prefer a great city. The society for a man of letters or one who has
any scientific pursuit cannot be exceeded. The intercourse between such
men and the great, which, if it is not upon an equal footing, ought
never to exist at all, is respectable. Persons of the highest rank pay
an attention to science and literature, and emulate the character they
confer. I should pity the man who expected, without other advantages
of a very different nature, to be well received in a brilliant circle
at London because he was a Fellow of the Royal Society. But this would
not be the case with a member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris; he
is sure of a good reception everywhere. Perhaps this contrast depends,
in a great measure, on the difference of the governments of the two
countries. Politics are too much attended to in England to allow a due
respect to be paid to anything else; and should the French establish a
freer government, academicians will not be held in such estimation when
rivalled in the public esteem by the orators who hold forth liberty and
property in a free parliament."
Napoleon I. began the Rue de Rivoli, tracing it alongside the Tuileries
Gardens and the Palais Royal to the Louvre as far as the Rue de Rohan.
Napoleon III. continued the great conception of his uncle and pushed on
the Rue de Rivoli through the mean habitations and crowded streets in
the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, and
of the Halles as far as the upper part of the Rue Saint-Antoine.
The most celebrated, and certainly the most beautiful, monument in
the street is the tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie; so named from
its having been built close to the great butchers' market of Paris.
Constructed in 1153, the church, which at first was little more than
a chapel, was rebuilt in 1380, but not completed with the principal
porch and the tower until the reign of Francis I. The tower is now all
that remains of the church, which in 1737, under the Revolution, was
alienated by the Administration of Domains and soon afterwards pulled
down. Having become private property, the tower passed from hand to
hand until 1836, when it was offered for sale, and purchased by the
Municipality for 250,000 francs. This sum was not dear for a masterpiece
of Gothic art in its last and most delicate period, when it was about
to disappear in presence of the Græco-Roman Renaissance. Begun under
the reign of Louis XII. in 1508, the tower was finished fourteen years
afterwards in 1522. It measures fifty-two metres in height from the
stone foundations to the summit. The platform of the steeple (which is
reached by a staircase of 291 steps) is surrounded by a balustrade,
which supports, at the north-west angle, a colossal statue of Saint
Jacques. This statue replaces the ancient one which the Revolutionists
of 1793 precipitated on to the pavement, though they respected the
symbolical animals placed at the four corners of the balustrade.
These have been carefully restored. From the height of the platform a
magnificent view may be obtained.
"One sees," wrote Sanval under Louis XIV., "as one looks over the
town the distribution and course of the streets like the veins in
the human body. Unfortunately this incomparable view can no longer
be obtained--not at least without much difficulty. The tower of
Saint-Jacques has been put in the hands of an astronomical and
meteorological society, which denies access to the public, though on
rare occasions it admits a few favoured persons to its experiments,
which take place at night."
It must here be mentioned that at the foot of the tower is a statue of
Pascal, who continued from its top the observations he had begun from
the summit of the Puy de Dôme. The writer Nicholas Flamel, librarian
to the University of Paris, and Pernelle, his wife, both buried in the
vaults of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, had been the benefactors of this
church; and their memory is preserved in the name, Nicholas Flamel,
given to the street which, beginning on the right of the tower, leads
from the Rue de Rivoli to the Rue des Lombards.
Around the tower of Saint-Jacques is a large square, well planted
with trees. Further on, towards the east, the Rue de Rivoli runs
past the Hôtel de Ville and the Napoleon Barracks. Of the Church of
Saint-Gervais, one side of which looks towards the Rue de Rivoli,
mention has already been made. Close to the point where the Rue de
Rivoli and the Rue Saint-Antoine meet, is an offshoot from the Rue
Saint-Antoine called Rue François Miron, after the independent provost
of merchants under the reign of Henri IV. In this street stands the
Hôtel de Beauvais. From the windows of this mansion Anne of Austria,
accompanied by the Queen of England, Cardinal Mazarin, Marshal Turenne,
and other illustrious personages, witnessed the procession headed by her
son, Louis XIV., and her daughter-in-law, Marie Thérèse of Austria, when
the newly married couple made their solemn entry into Paris through the
Gate of Saint-Antoine, August 26, 1660.
Running from the Rue Saint-Antoine to the Rue Charlemagne is a narrow
street scarcely twelve feet broad, with walls of extraordinary height.
Rue Percée it was originally named. For some years past it has been
called Rue du Prévôt, because at its south-east corner it joins the
former mansion of the Provost of Paris, of which the principal entrance
is in the Rue Charlemagne. The series of open courtyards known as
the Passage Charlemagne, in which all sorts of trades are carried
on, lead to the very centre of one of the most interesting and least
known monuments of old Paris. It is composed of two blocks of parallel
buildings constructed in the style of the first years of the sixteenth
century, when French architects were beginning to throw aside the
fantasies of Gothic art to subject themselves to the straight lines of
the Neo-Roman style. After passing through various hands, and finally
from François Montmorency, Governor of Paris, to Cardinal Charles de
Bourbon--the structure was presented by the latter to the Jesuits, who
attached to it a chapel dedicated to St. Louis and St. Paul. The Church
of St. Louis and St. Paul possesses, among various works of modern
art, the first picture known to have been painted by Eugène Delacroix:
"Christ in the Garden of Olives." This work is dated 1816.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE CHURCH OF ST. GERVAIS AND ST. PROTAIS.]
[Illustration: THE APSIS, FROM THE RUE DES BARRES.]
The house given to the Jesuits was taken from them in 1767 on their
expulsion from France, and it then became the general repository of all
maps, plans, and other documents relating to the French navy, and at the
same time the Library of the Town of Paris. A passage leading from the
Rue Saint-Antoine to the Rue Saint-Paul separated formerly the Church or
Chapel of Saint-Éloi, where Charles VI. was baptised, from the cemetery
of the same name, where the man in the iron mask, under the name of
Marchiali, was buried. Here, too, Rabelais, Hardouin, and Mansard, the
architect, were interred. Rabelais died on the 9th of April, 1553, in
the Rue des Jardins, not very far from the mercers' house where Molière
went to live nearly a century later.
[Illustration: TOWER OF SAINT-JACQUES-LA-BOUCHERIE.]
The Rue Saint-Antoine was interrupted, until the Revolution of 1789, by
the Bastille. This fortress was composed of eight towers, four looking
towards the Town, that is to say towards the Rue Saint-Antoine, and
four towards the country, that is to say the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
Curiously enough it was no despot, but Étienne Marcel, Provost of the
Merchants, who built the original Bastille, destined afterwards to be
enlarged (in 1370) by Hugues Aubriot, Provost of Paris.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE BEAUVAIS.]
It was from the Hôtel de la Rochepot, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, that
Henri II. was accustomed to view the burning at the stake of his
Protestant victims. In this street, too, was one of the earliest of the
Protestant places of worship established in France at the very beginning
of the Reformation. Few persons are aware, though the fact has been
pointed out by M. Athanase Coquerel the younger, that the Reformation
of the sixteenth century, before breaking out in Germany and elsewhere,
had already appeared in Paris. It had for cradle the left bank of the
Seine separated at the time from the town and its suburbs, and divided
into quarters subject to two special jurisdictions: the University
and the vast territory of the Abbaye of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Was
it not natural, asks M. Coquerel, in spite of the jealous vigilance
of the Sorbonne, that the schools of Paris in which Abailard had so
boldly attacked scholasticism should be the first to wake up to the
new spiritual life? When professor at the college of Cardinal Lemoine,
Lefèvre d'Étaples published in 1512 his "Commentary on St. Paul," in
whose epistles he pointed out, five years before Luther, the essential
doctrines of the Reformation. This book was dedicated to the powerful
abbé of Saint-Germain, Briçonnet, under whose auspices was formed
in Paris the first group of ardent propagators of the new ideas.
During forty-three years the Reformation spread gradually through the
university, the court, and the town; always keeping for headquarters the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, which gained the name of "little Geneva," and
which is now the most Catholic quarter in Paris. The first Protestant
put to death in France for his religious views was one of the pupils of
Lefèvre d'Étaples, a student named Pauvent, born in the year 1524. The
martyrdom of Pauvent was followed by that of many other Huguenots.
Calvin was then studying at Paris, but could not remain there. The
rector of the university, Nicholas Cop, a secret promoter of the
Reformation, had commissioned the young Calvin to write a discourse for
the re-opening of the term, which, according to custom, was delivered
on November 1, 1533, in the Church of the Mathurins, built on a portion
of the site of the Emperor Julian's baths. The heresies contained in
this discourse were denounced to the Parliament by several monks. The
rector found it necessary to take flight to Bâle, where he became a
pastor. Calvin followed his example, and was obliged, it is said, to
escape through one of the windows of his college.
The first place in Paris where the Reformation was publicly preached
was the Louvre. Here Queen Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis I.,
Briçonnet's studious and learned friend, ordered her chaplain, Gérard
Roussel, and other disciples of Lefèvre d'Étaples to preach in her
presence; for which reason Lemaud, of the Order of Cordeliers, declared
publicly in the pulpit that she deserved to be put into a sack and
thrown into the Seine. The rage of the priests was shared by the people,
and the cry of "Death to the heretics!" was frequently heard about the
town. "To be thrown into the river," says a chronicler of the time,
"it was only necessary to be called a Huguenot in the open street, to
whatever religion one might belong." In all the public places of Paris,
on the bridges, and in the cemeteries Protestants were constantly
burned. In 1535 Francis I., followed by his three sons, the court, the
Parliament, and the guilds of all the trade associations, took part
in a general procession, which halted at six of the public places,
where six Protestants, suspended by iron chains, were burnt to death.
"L'estrapade" this form of punishment was called; and not many years ago
the name was still borne by an open space on the left bank of the Seine.
Henri II. imitated his father. One day he assisted, from the window of a
house in the Rue Saint-Antoine, at the execution of a Protestant tailor
who was burnt alive. But the eyes of the martyr, steadily fixed on his,
so frightened him that though this was not the last heretic he sentenced
to death, it was the last he saw die.
The Protestants of Paris had not at that time either churches or clergy,
but they already had schools. "Hedge schools" they were called, from
being held in the country. They would not have been permitted in the
town.
The first Protestant place of worship established in Paris was at
a house in the Pré-aux-Clercs. Protestant congregations were often
surprised; and in 1557 a number of Protestants assembled for worship
at a house in the Rue Saint-Jacques, opposite the building where the
Lycée Louis le Grand is now located, were besieged by a number of
priests attached to the Collège du Plessis. The populace took part in
the attack; and after remaining indoors six hours, those who at last
went out were stoned, and in several instances killed. The rest of
the congregation, to the number of 135, were made prisoners, and many
of them sentenced to death. Among those executed was the young and
beautiful widow of a member of the Consistory, Mme. de Graveron, who,
"seated on the tumbril, showed a rosy countenance of excellent beauty."
Her tongue had been cut out, which was often done in those days to
prevent the exhortations which martyrs might address to the mob. At
other times, as afterwards at the execution of Louis XVI., a constant
rolling of drums was kept up. It was granted to Mme. de Graveron as a
special favour that flames should be applied only to her feet and face,
and that she should be strangled before her body was burnt.
The Protestant poet, Clément Marot, to whom Francis I. had given a
house, called the House of the Bronze Horse (now Number 30, Rue de Condé
and 27, Rue de Tournon), translated at this epoch some of the psalms
into French verse; and his version had an extraordinary vogue even at
the court. The students who, at the close of day, were accustomed to
amuse themselves in the Pré-aux-Clercs opposite the Louvre, replaced
their ordinary songs by the psalms of Clément Marot; and it became the
fashion with the lords and ladies of the court to cross the Seine in
order to hear the singing of the "clerks." Often they would themselves
join in, and the Huguenot King of Navarre, Antoine de Bourbon, was
frequently seen singing the psalms in the "meadow" at the head of a long
procession of courtiers and students.
But persecution, which for a time had ceased, began anew: Marot was
obliged to fly. In spite of the danger by which they were threatened,
the deputies of the Protestant churches of France met at Paris in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, and there, in 1559, held their first national
Synod. Francis I., husband of Mary Stuart, allowed the cruel work of
his father to be continued. Under his reign the illustrious chancellor
Du Bourg was burnt and hanged; as to which Voltaire declared that
"this murder did more for Protestantism than all the eloquent works
produced by its defenders." Cardinal de Lorraine made many other
victims, surrounding on one occasion a Protestant place of assembly,
and taking all he could find within. There were secret passages,
however, communicating with the buildings around, so that many persons
effected their escape. The secret head-quarters of the Reformed Church
in France were in the Rue des Marais-Saint-Germain, now called the Rue
Visconti. Its ancient name, which need scarcely have been changed, was
borne by it for more than three centuries; during which time it was
inhabited, or frequently visited, by all the old Protestants of Paris:
by the D'Aubignés and the Du Moulins; as later on by the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld, Mme. de Sévigné, Racine and Voltaire, Mme. Clairon and
Adrienne Lecouvreur.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. LOUIS AND ST. PAUL.]
[Illustration: RUE DE RIVOLI AND HÔTEL DE VILLE.]
Meanwhile the Reformation was constantly gaining ground in Paris.
Coligny and his two brothers, one of whom was a cardinal, joined it
openly; whereupon a monk, Jean de Han, preached against him, taking for
his text, "Ite in castellum quod contra vos est," and translating it
thus: "Fall upon Châtillon, who is against you." On becoming Regent,
Catherine de Médicis, hesitating between the two religions, tried to
bring together the Châtillons and those champions of Catholicism, the
Guises. With a view to conciliation the conference of Poissy was held;
and though no positive result was secured, the Reformed religion was
allowed to be practised openly, though its places of worship were, for
the most part, beyond the City walls.
From time to time, however, a Protestant "temple" was attacked and
burnt; and once, when one of these onslaughts caused a riot, Gabaston,
Chief of the Watch, was hanged for arresting indiscriminately the
rioters of both religions. The massacre of Vassy (directed by Guise,
who boasted that he would cut the edict of toleration in favour of the
Protestants with the edge of his sword) and two civil wars were but the
prelude to the terrible Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
[Illustration: RUE GRENIER-SUR-L'EAU.]
The extermination of the heretics had been recommended many times to
Catherine de Médicis by Philip II., by the Duke of Alva, and by Pope
Saint Pius V. (Letter 12 of Charles IX. and Papal Bull of August 1,
1568). The queen, after much hesitation, took a sudden resolution,
when the Guises aggravated the situation by causing the assassination
of Coligny. Catherine obtained, at the last moment, the consent of the
king. But it was the brother and successor of Charles, it was Henri III.
who assumed the direction of the massacre, and posted himself on the
centre of the bridge of Notre Dame, in order to see what took place on
both banks of the river. How the bell of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois gave
the signal for the massacre, and how Coligny, after escaping with some
severe wounds from the first attack, was afterwards put to death, has
already been told. In the midst of the general slaughter a few Huguenots
of distinction remained safe. Charles IX. kept in his own room the
eminent surgeon, Ambroise Paré, of whom he had need, and his old nurse,
Philippe Richard, whom he loved. Nor did anyone venture to attack Renée,
daughter of Louis XII., a zealous Protestant, who was fortunate enough
to save a few of her young co-religionists by giving them shelter in
her mansion on the left bank of the river. Two days after the massacre
thanksgivings were offered up by the clergy, who headed a procession in
which all the Court, with the exception of Henri of Navarre, afterwards
Henri IV. of France, took part. The King was congratulated from the
pulpit by the Bishop of Asti on having "in one morning purged France of
heresy." Little did the prelate foresee that the Church of Saint-Thomas
of the Louvre in which he was preaching would, some two centuries later,
become the recognised centre of this same heresy.
Condé now abjured at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Henri de Navarre at
the Louvre; but the Reformed Church was far from being destroyed. Only
a few months after the massacre, Bérenger de Portal left to this church
(whose re-establishment he ardently desired) a sum sufficient for the
maintenance of the pastors and the education of candidates for the
ministry.
The Rue Saint-Antoine touches the Boulevard Bourdon, thus named in
memory of Colonel Bourdon, of the 11th Dragoons, killed at Austerlitz.
The building which now dominates all this district is the Arsenal, built
by the Emperor in 1807 as a granary of reserve for provisioning Paris;
at present occupied by manufacturers and workmen of various kinds.
The Arsenal was erected on the site of the "little arsenal," built by
Francis I. The new structure extends south to the Quai Morland, so
styled in honour of the colonel of the Chasseurs of the Guard killed at
Austerlitz. Augmented and renovated by various architects, the Arsenal
contains a library of which the charming writer, Charles Nodier, was at
one time the custodian. The collection was first formed by M. d'Argenson
and the Marquis de Paulmy, Minister of State, who was the last Governor
of the Arsenal before the suppression of this military establishment
by Louis XVI. in 1788, on the eve of the Revolution. To gratify his
own private tastes as a bibliophile, M. de Paulmy had got together a
library of about 100,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts, which was
increased by the addition of upwards of 26,000 works from the sale of
the Duke de la Vallière's collection. To prevent the dispersion of the
books after his death, M. de Paulmy sold the collection in 1785 to the
Count of Artois for a certain number of annuities, which the Count
omitted to pay. The library was, all the same, looked upon as government
property, and confiscated as such in 1790. Enriched by the confiscation
of other libraries in the neighbourhood, the Library of the Arsenal
was thrown open to the public by the Imperial Government, which at the
same time undertook the payment of the annuities due to M. de Paulmy's
heirs. It now comprises about 350,000 volumes, 6,500 manuscripts, and a
magnificent collection of prints. It contains, among other interesting
documents, the original papers composing the archives of the Bastille,
published in part by M. Ravaisson. A clock of ebony and gilt by Louis le
Roy, which adorns the entrance, is said to be worth upwards of 40,000
francs; and two of the side rooms are full of curious woodwork, and of
interesting objects of all kinds.
In a room occupied at one time by the Duke de Sully are preserved the
archives of the Saint-Simonians, including the sealed memoirs of Le Père
Enfantin, which are not to be published until thirty years after his
death; Enfantin's colossal bust in the style of Michael Angelo's Moses,
a portrait of Saint-Simon, and another of Mme. Thérèse, the divinity, or
at least the Egeria, of the sect.
It was at the Arsenal, when Charles Nodier was librarian, that Victor
Hugo, in the midst of a great literary gathering, recited his first
poems, soon afterwards to be given to the world under the title of "Odes
et Ballades."
A complete list of the writers who have occupied the post of librarian
at the Arsenal would include Ancelot, Paul Lacroix (better known as Le
Bibliophile Jacob), Édouard Thierry, Hippolyte Lucas, and the Viscount
de Bornier, author of "La Fille de Roland," "Agamemnon," "Attila," and
"Mahomet."
Among the interesting places in the neighbourhood of the Arsenal must
be mentioned the little covered market to which the name of Ave Maria
has been given. It marks the site of the old tennis court of the Black
Cross, where Molière erected his second theatre after the failure of
the first; and with so little success that he was imprisoned for debt
contracted in the name of the company.
The Rue des Nonnains d'Hyères, which joins the Rue Saint-Antoine, leads
to the Pont Marie, by which the Seine is crossed to reach the Island of
Saint-Louis. Parallel to this street is the Rue Geoffrey Lasnier, which
is scarcely five-and-twenty feet wide, and which has nothing whatever
attractive about it. Here, nevertheless, at No. 26, stands the hotel
built by the Constable de Montmorency, and restored in the early part of
the eighteenth century, when it was known as the Hôtel de Châlons.
Most of the houses in this curious street are at least three centuries
old. Wanderers in search of the quaint will pass from it to the Rue
Grenier-sur-l'eau, which leads through the Rue des Barres to the very
threshold of the Church of Saint-Gervais. The Rue Grenier-sur-l'eau is
so narrow that it would scarcely admit of the passage of a bath chair.
It is a lane of walls, without doors or windows, into which light
scarcely penetrates.
The Island of Saint-Louis, between the Île Louviers, which precedes it
above bridge, and the Island of the City, which follows it below, was
nothing but pasture-land until the beginning of Louis XIII.'s reign.
It was composed at that time of two islets, a small one called the
Isle of Cows, and a larger one known as the Isle of Notre Dame. In
1614 Christophe Marie, general constructor of the bridges of France,
undertook to connect these two islets, to furnish them with streets
and with a circumference of stone quays, and to join the whole to
the right bank by a bridge leading to the Rue des Nonnains d'Hyères.
In 1647 the work had been completed, and the island was covered with
buildings. Its principal street crosses it lengthwise from east to west.
Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Île it is called, and it contains two remarkable
buildings, the Church of Saint-Louis and the Hôtel Lambert. The Church
of Saint-Louis was begun in 1664 by Louis Le Vau, continued by Gabriel
Leduc, and completed in 1726 by Jacques Doucet, who constructed the
cupola. The steeple, thirty metres high, is built of stone, and is in
the form of an obelisk. The ornamental sculpture is the work of Jean
Baptiste de Champaigne, nephew of the painter, Philippe de Champaigne.
The church contains fine paintings by Mignard, Coypel, Lemoine, and
Eugène Delacroix.
At the beginning of the Rue Saint-Louis, towards the north, commanding
a superb view of the Upper Seine, stands the Hôtel Lambert, built by
Le Vau, Louis XIV.'s principal architect. The first proprietor of the
Hôtel Lambert, Nicholas Lambert de Thorigny, spared nothing to make it
a magnificent abode. The decoration of the interior was entrusted to
Lesueur le Brun and other celebrated painters of the time. The treasures
which the Hôtel Lambert originally contained have in the course of its
varied fortunes been dispersed. It passed after the death of Lambert
de Thorigny into the hands of M. de La Haye, farmer-general, and
successively into those of the Marquis du Châtelet-Laumont, and of M.
Dupin, another farmer-general, brother of the celebrated Mme. d'Épinay.
The internal decorations suffered much from these constant changes of
ownership. At the death of M. de La Haye, the painting on the ceiling
of one of the rooms, "Apollo listening to the prayer of Phaeton,"
by Lesueur, was removed from the Hôtel Lambert to the Luxembourg
Gallery, where it may still be seen. Most of the other paintings were
transferred, at the time of the Revolution, to the Louvre.
Many distinguished persons have resided at the Hôtel Lambert, including
Voltaire when he was writing the "Henriade"; and it was here that M.
de Montalivet, in 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, had a celebrated
interview with Napoleon. Later on the Hôtel Lambert became a girls'
school; then a depot for military stores; until finally, towards 1840,
it was offered for sale, and purchased by Prince Czartoryski, to whose
family it still belongs.
The Quai d'Anjou, which looks towards the north, is rich in associations
of various kinds. The façade of Number 17 bears these words inscribed
on a marble slab, "Hôtel de Lauzun, 1657"; and beyond the principal
door this other inscription: "Hôtel de Pimodan." Lieut.-General Count
de Pimodan was the first inhabitant of this hotel, which was built for
him in 1657, and which he occupied until the time of his fall. It was
the abode of the Marquis de La Vallée de Pimodan at the time of the
Revolution. Under the reign of Louis Philippe a number of distinguished
writers lived successively or simultaneously in the mansion: Roger
de Beauvoir, who published a collection of tales called "The Hôtel
Pimodan"; Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, and others. It now
gives shelter to a wonderful collection of books and objects of art
brought together by Baron Pichon, one of the most eminent members of the
Society of French Bibliophiles.
Quitting the Island of Saint-Louis to return to the quay and square of
the Hôtel de Ville, we reach the Avenue Victoria, which runs to the
right of Boccador's façade, and which received this name in honour of
Queen Victoria, who paid a visit to the Emperor and to the town of Paris
in 1855, at the height of the Crimean War. The avenue in question leads
to the Place du Châtelet, which is enclosed between two monumental
façades, those of the Théâtre Lyrique and of the Théâtre du Châtelet.
The Place du Châtelet was formed in 1813 on the site of the Grand
Châtelet; an ancient castle of Gallo-Roman origin, which defended at
this point the entrance to the City. It had been entirely rebuilt in
1684; and in 1813 only a few towers of the original building remained.
The Châtelet was a court of justice with civil, criminal, and police
tribunals. Beneath the buildings of the Grand Châtelet, and in the
towers, were confined an enormous number of prisoners. Their dungeons
were horrible. A Royal decree of the 23rd of August, 1780 (nine years,
be it observed, before the Revolution) ordered the destruction of all
subterranean prisons. The jurisdiction of the Châtelet having been
abolished by the Revolution, its buildings remained unoccupied until
1802, when they were entirely destroyed.
Of the two theatres which shut in the Place du Châtelet, the one
to which the ancient building gives its name is much the larger.
It accommodates 3,000 spectators, to whom some of the best-known
spectacular pieces have been submitted, including _Michael Strogoff_,
_Les Pilules du Diable_, etc.
[Illustration: THE PONT MARIE.]
The theatre on the other side of the Place du Châtelet, and which
belongs to the town of Paris, has been occupied since the year 1887 by
the Opéra Comique, the establishment having been transferred to it soon
after the disastrous fire which consumed the historic Salle Favart.
It was originally the Théâtre Lyrique; directed by M. Carvalho, and
associated with the triumphs of Mme. Miolan Carvalho, and the earliest
successes of Christine Nilsson. Burnt by the Communards in May, 1871,
it was re-opened as a dramatic theatre under the title of Théâtre
Lyrique-Historique, afterwards to become Théâtre des Nations, Théâtre
Italien, Théâtre de Paris, and finally in 1888 Opéra Comique. The
interior of the house is more remarkable for elegance than for comfort.
It holds 1,500 spectators. The Opéra Comique, as here established,
receives an annual subvention of 300,000 francs.
The Boulevard de Sebastopol, which starts from the north of the Place
du Châtelet, was, as the name sufficiently denotes, constructed in
1855; opening a broadway through the compact mass of old houses enclosed
between the Rue Saint-Denis and the Rue Saint-Martin. It caused the
destruction of no interesting edifices, and its roadway, thirty metres
wide, is lined solely with new and lofty houses five storeys high. Here
traders, artisans, and even artists are to be found: engravers and
workers in metal, lamp-manufacturers, workers in bronze, haberdashers,
mercers, clock-makers, jewellers, druggists, opticians, confectioners,
dyers, lace-makers, button-makers, crape-makers, artificial flower
makers, glovers, etc. This broad thoroughfare leads us to the end of
the Boulevard Saint-Denis, passing behind the chancel of the Church
of Saint-Leu, whose front entrance belongs to the Rue Saint-Denis,
and behind the square of the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, which
belongs to the Rue Saint-Martin. The street of the Lombards (Rue des
Lombards) so much enlarged as to be no longer recognisable, is still
the headquarters of the drug trade, wholesale and retail. But it does
not now, as in former days, possess a monopoly for confectionery and
sweetmeats. Even the Faithful Shepherd (_Fidèle Berger_), as one
celebrated shop for the sale of bonbons was called, and which gave its
title to the comic opera by Adolphe Adam, has migrated to a newer and
more fashionable locality.
The Rue de la Verrerie, just opposite, runs in a direct line to the Rue
Saint-Antoine. It has preserved in a remarkable manner its physiognomy
of two centuries ago; thanks to the architecture of its fine mansions,
which has nobly resisted the ravages of time. Who would ever imagine
that this dark and narrow street, which is constantly blocked by the
most ordinary traffic, was enlarged in 1671 and 1672 because it was the
ordinary route along which Louis XIV., coming from the Castle of the
Louvre to that of Vincennes, was in the habit of passing, besides being
the road by which foreign ambassadors made their formal entry into Paris?
[Illustration: RUE ST.-LOUIS-EN-L'ÎLE.]
At the corner of the Rue de la Verrerie and the Rue Saint-Martin
stands the Église Saint-Merry, or Méry. The name, spelt both ways, is
in either form a corruption of Saint-Méderic, a monk of the monastery
of Saint-Martin d'Autun, who lived a strange life in a cell, and died
in odour of sanctity on the 29th of August, 1700. The church was
reconstructed as long ago as the tenth century, at the expense of Odo
the Falconer, whose body, enclosed in a tomb of stone, was discovered in
1520. The legs were encased in boots of gilded leather. Odo the Falconer
was one of the warriors who defended Paris in 886 against the attacks of
the Normans. The actual edifice was begun in the reign of Francis I.,
between 1520 and 1530, and not finished until 1612, under the minority
of Louis XIII. Constructed in the form of a Latin cross, the Church of
Saint-Merry has two lateral entrances. But from the south side, that
is to say, from the Rue de la Verrerie, only a gate of the principal
entrance can be seen, together with the two turrets terminating in bell
towers, along which "chimæras dire" are crawling. Buried under the
Church of Saint-Merry are Chapelain, author of "La Pucelle," and the
Marquis de Pomponne, Minister of Louis XIV. To the north of Saint-Merry
stood the cloister of the canons, separated from the church by the
façade of the Rue du Cloître, and by two narrow little streets bearing
the expressive names of Brisemiche and Taillepain, on account of the
daily distributions of bread of which they were the scene. At the back
of the church the name of the Rue des Juges-Consuls recalls the fact
that the first Tribunal of Commerce created by Charles IX. was installed
there in a mansion which had belonged to President Baillet in 1570.
The Tribunal of Commerce was, in the seventeenth century, the centre
of a group of money-changers and bankers, who so infested the Rue
Saint-Martin and the Rue Quincampoix as to render them impassable.
The Rue Quincampoix is for ever associated with the name of Law, a
Scotch banker related to the Argyll family, and son of a goldsmith and
banker who died at Venice in 1729.
Law (John Lauriston Law) was born at Edinburgh in 1671, and he is
said at an early age to have studied assiduously the doctrine of
chances, which he applied to games of hazard. Whether in virtue of
his arithmetical combinations or of that luck which during a long
course of years never deserted him, he won large sums of money at the
gambling-table, after which he turned his attention to gambling on a
wider scale: finance, that is to say. He was still in his twenty-fifth
year when, as the result of a love affair, he fought a duel, for which
he was sentenced to death. His punishment was commuted to that of
imprisonment for life; but he succeeded in escaping, left England, and
for some time travelled through the different states of Europe, playing
everywhere with success, and proposing everywhere, but without success,
a new system of public credit, due to his inexhaustible imagination.
The system would, according to its inventor, multiply one hundredfold
the resources of the State by putting into circulation a quantity of
paper money, based upon the revenue from taxes and Government property
of all kinds, coin, according to Law, being insufficient for the
requirements of a large nation. The Regent of Orleans, captivated by
this brilliant scheme, saw in it the means of saving France, at the
time (1716) threatened by national bankruptcy. He, in the first place,
granted to Law the privilege of establishing a general bank with a
capital of 6,000,000 francs, divided into 12,000 shares of 500 francs
each, with a discount of 25 per cent. to anyone purchasing a thousand
shares. The shares were readily taken and the bank proved a great
success.
Then, in connection with the bank, Law started successively the
Mississippi Company, the Senegal Company, the China Company, the French
East India Company, and companies for coining the State money and
farming the State revenue. Having now got into his hands all the sources
of public income, he made over his bank to the State, and was himself
appointed Controller-General of Finance. Instead, however, of helping
commerce, Law's creations merely stimulated the spirit of speculation;
so that priests, nobles, merchants, shopkeepers, workmen, all began to
gamble in stocks and shares. Intoxicated by his success, Law issued an
excessive number of shares: "watering" them, according to the financial
expression of the present day. In due time, notwithstanding all kinds
of expedients (such as forced currency for the new paper money) to keep
them at par, the shares lost value in the market, and soon fell to
such a point that their depreciation caused a general panic. There was
no class in which some, and, indeed, many of Law's shareholders were
not to be found; and ere long the inventor of the new system of credit
became the object of so much public indignation that he went in danger
of his life. There was a riot in the Palais Royal, and Law's carriage
was stopped by a band of infuriated persons in the public street. A man
of great nerve and of commanding presence, Law looked from the carriage
window and exclaimed in a haughty tone: "Back, you rabble!" (_Arrière
canaille!_) on which his assailants retired. This method of appeasing
the stormy waters was tried the next day with less success by Law's
coachman. His master was not inside the carriage. The vehicle, however,
had been recognised, and the coachman found his progress impeded by an
angry mob. "Back, you rabble!" he cried, in imitation of his master;
when the mob, unwilling to receive from the servant the defiance which
they had listened to in all humility from the master, tore him from his
box and put him to death.
Another carriage story of the same period, likewise associated with
finance, has a less tragic conclusion. A footman who had learnt, by
listening to the conversation of his master at dinner-table, the art of
speculating, had at last made a sufficiently large fortune to be able
to buy himself a carriage. As soon as he had taken possession of it,
he paid a visit to the Rue Quincampoix, a narrow street near the Rue
Saint-Martin, where the bankers, brokers, and speculators interested
in Law's various enterprises had their headquarters. After transacting
a little business, the enriched flunkey entered a much-frequented café
and refreshed himself. Some time afterwards, in a fit of absence due
either to preoccupation or to the effect of alcoholic liquors, he left
the café and, instead of getting into his carriage, got up behind it.
"You have made a mistake, sir," called out the coachman; "your place is
inside." "I know it is," replied the proprietor of the vehicle, suddenly
recovering his presence of mind; "I wanted to see whether there was room
for a pair of lacqueys behind."
If footmen became aristocrats, noblemen, in those subversive days,
turned tradesmen.
The Regent made his money with the greatest ease, by simply fixing the
official value of the shares he held at a figure which suited his book.
The members of the Court followed his lead. One of them, the Duke de la
Force, did business on an extended scale. Nothing was too high or too
low for him; and on one occasion, being unable to realise the value of
his paper in any more profitable form, he took for it the contents of
a grocer's shop. It was now necessary to sell the goods; on which the
licensed grocers of the capital complained to the Lieutenant of Police
that the Duke was entering into illegal competition with them. The
Lieutenant did his duty, and the Duke's tea and sugar were confiscated.
A footman named Languedoc, sent by his master to the Rue Quincampoix to
sell some shares at a fixed rate, disposed of them for 500,000 francs
more than the appointed price, and pocketing the balance, started as a
gentleman on his own account, engaged servants and changed his name to
that of Monsieur de La Bastide, by which he was thenceforth known.
In times of feverish speculation the surest winners are the
brokers--those happy intermediaries who, whether their clients buy
or sell, sink or swim, steadily take their commission. A famous
intermediary of the Rue Quincampoix was a certain hunchback, who used
to let out his hump as a desk for buyers, sellers, and dealers of all
kinds. In a comparatively short time he is said to have realised as much
as 50,000 francs.
When the financial crash arrived, it was felt necessary to punish
someone, and proceedings were taken against Law by the Parliament of
Paris. Law, as completely ruined as the most unfortunate of his victims,
escaped to Belgium, and thence to England, to die ultimately in Italy.
"When I took service in France," he wrote to the Duke of Orleans, "I
had as much property as I needed. I was without debts and I had credit;
I left the service without property of any kind. Those who placed
confidence in me have been driven to bankruptcy, and I have not the
means of paying them."
At the time of his great failure, and for a long time afterwards, if not
to the present day, Law was looked upon as a mere swindler; whereas he
was nothing worse than a sanguine, over-confident, perhaps even reckless
speculator. It has been seen that by his speculations he impoverished
himself as well as others.
"The machine he had invented," says one of his critics, M. Gautier, "was
ingenious; but in a country like France, without industrial resources,
it could not find sufficient motive power. Law thought he could remove
this difficulty by joining to his mechanism an artificial motive power.
He was wrong. The banks can no more found credit than credit can produce
capital. They can turn to the best account a value that exists. But to
create value is beyond their power."
According to another French economist, M. Levasseur, "Law acted with
the precipitation and violence of a man who, penetrated with the truth
of his own ideas, marches straight towards his goal without caring
whether the generality of persons understand him or not, and who becomes
irritated when natural obstacles present themselves which he had not
foreseen."
Law himself, while asserting his own moral integrity, admitted that he
had made mistakes. "I do not maintain," he said, "that I was right on
every point. I acknowledge that I committed errors, and that if I had
to begin again I should act differently. I should advance more slowly
but more surely, and should not expose the State and my own person to
the dangers necessarily resulting from a general panic." He persisted,
however, in asserting that, though his mode of action had been faulty,
he nevertheless possessed the true secret of national wealth. "Do not
forget," he wrote from his place of exile, "that the introduction of
credit has done more for commercial transactions between the countries
of Europe than the discovery of India; that it is for the Sovereign to
give credit, not to receive it, and that the people of every country
have such absolute need of it that they must return to it in spite of
themselves, however much they may mistrust the principle."
[Illustration: PONT AU CHANGE, PLACE DU CHÂTELET, AND BOULEVARD DE
SEBASTOPOL.]
"We must render to this man," says M. Levasseur, "the justice he merits.
He was not, as has sometimes been said, an adventurer who had come to
France to profit by the weakness of the Regent. If he was wanting in
that political prudence by which nations should be guided, and if he
was wrong in some of his theories, he had at least fixed principles,
and he occupied his whole life, not in making his fortune, but in
ensuring the triumph of his ideas.... France allowed him to die in
poverty. Yet if the recollection of the misery caused by the ruin of
his system was somewhat too recent to give place to gratitude, France
ought nevertheless to have felt grateful to him for the generous ideas
he had put forth. He laboured to extend the commerce of the country,
to re-establish the navy, to found colonies. He suppressed onerous
privileges. He endeavoured to do away with venality in the magistracy;
to create a less tyrannical and more simple administration of the tax
system. Finally he established a bank, which, could it have survived,
would have helped powerfully to develop commerce and would have
augmented considerably the wealth of the country."
It is not generally known that, besides introducing a new system of
credit, Law was the inventor of pictorial advertisements. Specimens,
however, have been preserved of the pictures issued by him in connection
with the "flotation" of his Mississippi scheme, one of which represents
the Indians on the banks of the river, dancing with joy at the approach
of the French, who had come to civilise them.
[Illustration: THE PALMIER FOUNTAIN, PLACE DU CHÂTELET.]