CENTRAL PARIS (_continued_).
Rue de Venise--Rachel--St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields--The _Conservatoire
des Artes et Métiers_--The _Gaité_--Rue des Archives--The Mont de
Piété--The National Printing Office--The Hôtel Lamoignon.
The Rue Quincampoix and the Rue Saint-Martin are connected by a narrow
lane or alley scarcely ten feet wide, called Rue de Venise, which has
a sinister renown in connection with the speculative mania of Law's
time. Here it was, in the month of April, that a rich banker was
enticed, under pretext of a sale of shares, and assassinated by Laurent
de Mille and Count Horn, that same Count Horn whose servant, passing
himself off as master, played so infamous a trick upon poor Angelica
Kaufmann, ancestress of Pauline in the drama of _The Lady of Lyons_. A
little higher up in the Rue de Venise, and, leading likewise to the Rue
Quincampoix, is the Passage Molière, which owes its name to the Théâtre
Molière, opened on the 4th of June, 1791, with a representation of the
_Misanthrope_. In 1793 it was re-baptised Théâtre des Sans-Culottes.
Its first director under its new name was Boursault-Malesherbes,
comedian, member of the Convention, and farmer of public games. Closed
and re-opened a score of times, this house became in the early years of
Louis Philippe's reign a theatre for dramatic instruction, where Mlle.
Rachel received her first lessons from Saint-Aulaire.
Universally recognised as one of the greatest of French actresses,
Rachel, of Jewish race, was born on the 28th of February, 1821, at Munf,
a Swiss village in the Canton of Argovia. Her father and mother were,
however, both French; the former, Jacques Felix, being a native of Metz,
the latter, Esther Hayn, of Guers, in the department of the Lower Rhine.
In the year 1831, Rachel, under her true name of Elisa, was a street
singer at Lyons, where Choron, director of an important musical academy,
chanced to hear her. He was so struck by the beauty of her voice that
he called upon Elisa's parents, and induced them to settle in Paris,
where he promised to take charge of their little daughter's musical
education. He suggested that she should adopt in lieu of "Elisa" the
more impressive name of Rachel. But before her studies had progressed
very far she lost her voice; and Choron placed her in a dramatic class
directed by Saint-Aulaire. This professor, a retired comedian who
understood the art of acting better than he had ever practised it,
had taken the Salle Molière just spoken of; and here during the years
1834, 1835, and 1836 Rachel was made to play a great variety of parts,
including nearly every leading character in the plays of Corneille,
Racine, and Molière. The charges for admission to the Salle Molière were
moderate, but the house was always full when Rachel had been announced
to play, and the tickets on these occasions were sold at a premium.
One day M. Védl, treasurer of the Théâtre Français, went to the Salle
Molière to see a soubrette whom his manager thought of engaging. He was
about to leave the theatre, when Saint-Aulaire begged him to remain
in order to see a pupil who had not yet appeared, and of whom he
entertained the greatest hopes. This, of course, was little Rachel, who
was about to play the part of Hermione in _Andromaque_. She resembled
none of the other pupils whom the emissary from the Théâtre Français had
seen. She was small in stature and had a hard, almost a harsh voice;
which, however, was firm and impressive, and, when the young girl became
excited, almost musical. After the performance, M. Védl complimented
the young actress, and promised to do his best for her at the important
theatre with which he was connected. He at once spoke of her to M.
Jouslin de La Salle, director of the Français, who, after seeing her
in _Tancrède_, arranged a special performance, which was attended,
in the character of judges, by M. Samson and Mlle. Mars. "She is too
short," objected one of the party. "She will grow," replied Mlle. Mars
significantly; and on the recommendation of the manager of the Théâtre
Français she was admitted to the Conservatoire.
Rachel entered the class directed by M. Samson, one of the principal
actors of the Théâtre Français, and under his tuition made rapid
progress. Tempted, however, by an engagement offered to her at the
Gymnase, she soon left the Conservatoire for that theatre, where she
achieved a certain success as Suzette in Scribe's _Mariage de Raison_.
The experiment, however, was not altogether satisfactory, and she
returned to the Conservatoire, and remained until May, 1838, when,
on the recommendation of M. Samson, she was engaged at the Théâtre
Français. Her first appearance there, as Camille in _Les Horaces_, took
place on the 12th of June in this same year. She was then but sixteen
years old, and only moderately pretty. Short for her age, she had the
further disadvantage of being marked with the small-pox. With narrow
chin, high cheek-bones, and a projecting forehead, she had brilliant,
expressive eyes, at once thoughtful and full of fire. The pose of her
head was admirable, and all her gestures were marked by dignity and
distinction. Calm and self-contained throughout the greater part of
the performance, she never abandoned herself to her emotion even while
expressing the most ardent passion. There was intensity in all she did,
and so novel, so individual was her style that she inspired her audience
with the strongest personal admiration. She had now established her
position at the greatest theatre in Europe; but it was at the little
Salle Molière that she had first learned to act.
In the immediate neighbourhood, on the ancient territory of the Abbaye
Saint-Martin, stands the Church of St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields, where the
mayor or bailiff of the abbaye resided. Dating from the twelfth century,
this church was rebuilt in 1420, and underwent various processes of
modification and reconstruction until it received its definite form in
1576. Every style, from the Gothic of Charles VI. to the Neo-Roman of
Henri III., has left its imprint in the highly composite architecture
of this church, said to be the longest and the broadest in all Paris.
In one of the chapels of the nave, dedicated to Saint Martin, is a
picture which represents Saint Martin curing the leper by taking him
in his arms; and the inscription sets forth that the priory of Saint
Nicholas-in-the-Fields was founded on the spot where this miracle took
place. In the fields of this church lie buried the philosopher Gassendi,
and the historians Henri and Adrien de Valois, together with Malle de
Scudéry, who wrote the once celebrated novels, "Le Grand Cyrus" and
"Clélie."
[Illustration: RUE DE VENISE.]
Under the Revolution the Church of Saint Nicholas-in-the-Fields was
converted into "The Temple of Hymen." Most of the property belonging to
the religious community of Saint-Martin was sold by the Revolutionary
Government. On a portion of what remained was built the Conservatoire
des Arts et Métiers, which was created by a decree of the year 1794,
though it did not finally take form until four years afterwards. The
building, as it now exists, was partly restored, partly reconstructed,
between the years 1852 and 1862, by M. Vandoyer.
[Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS-IN-THE-FIELDS.]
The "arts and crafts," until the time of the Revolution, formed close
corporations of their own. The origin of these unions and guilds
was very remote. In the middle ages the rules on the subject of
apprenticeship were most severe; and after seven years' subjection to a
master the artisan became only a "companion" or varlet, and could still
work only under the direction of a full member of the guild. To pass
as master it was necessary for a "companion" to produce a masterpiece
and to pay, moreover, certain dues, onerous for a mere workman; which
forced a great number of these varlets to remain in their original
condition. The corporations of arts and crafts were governed by a number
of edicts which regulated not only the quality and quantity of the work
to be done, but prescribed methods of manufacture, and provided for the
settlement of disputes between artisans and merchants, or artisans and
private persons engaging their services. These strange organisations had
the worst effect in an economical sense, and many endeavours were made
long before the Revolution to destroy the monopolies they created. In
1776, thirteen years previously to the Revolution, the corporations of
arts and crafts were abolished by the famous Minister, Turgot. But the
edict was evaded, and it was not until the Revolution, when things that
were abolished were abolished for ever, that the French guilds finally
disappeared.
[Illustration: THE CONSERVATOIRE DES ARTS ET MÉTIERS.]
The "Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers," established soon after the
Revolution, had no direct connection with the "arts and crafts," whose
organisation into guilds and close corporations had been suppressed.
It was thought desirable, however, to form a central depôt where newly
invented machines, together with machines whose utility had been
tested, might be placed together for public inspection. Vaucanson,
chiefly remembered by his ingenious automatic contrivances, had formed
a collection of machines, which during his lifetime he threw open to
working men, and at his death bequeathed to the monarchical government.
Thus the nucleus of the important collection formed by the Republic
already existed under Louis XVI.
That the exhibition of machines, as superintended during the last days
of the monarchy by M. Vandermond, was a sight worth seeing is shown
by Arthur Young having gone to see it when he was making, throughout
France, that tour of inquiry which was destined to become famous. "I
visited," he writes in 1789, just one month before the taking of the
Bastille, "the repository of royal machines, which M. Vandermond showed
and explained to me with great readiness and politeness. What struck me
most was M. Vaucanson's machine for making a chain which, I was told,
Mr. Watt, of Birmingham, admired very much, at which my attendants
seemed not displeased. Another for making the cogs intended in iron
wheels. There is a chaff-cutter from an English original; and a model of
the nonsensical plough to go without horses. These are the only ones in
agriculture. Many ingenious contrivances for winding silk, etc."
The Convention took steps for keeping the Vaucanson machines when so
many treasures of one kind and another were being dispersed, and it
seized the earliest opportunity of enlarging the collection, to which,
from 1785 to 1792, 500 new machines were added. In 1792 a commission
had been appointed to "catalogue and collect in suitable places books,
instruments, and other objects of science and art in view of public
instruction"; and a few months later in the same year the Convention
published a new decree constituting the Conservatoire des Arts et
Métiers on a solid basis, and assigned to it the buildings of the former
"abbey of Saint-Martin."
At present this Conservatoire is under the authority of the Minister
of Commerce. Fifteen courses of lectures, public and gratuitous, are
delivered within its walls on subjects connected with the application
of art to manufactures; and for these, three amphitheatres, the largest
of which can accommodate an audience of 750, have been provided. The
ancient abbey of Saint-Martin is still represented by two edifices
connected with the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, and containing
the library of the institution. One of these buildings was formerly the
chapel, the other the refectory of the abbey.
At the corner of the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue de Vertbois is an
ancient tower in pepper-caster form, which once marked the junction of
the fortified part of the abbey and its prison. This tower, bearing
the name of Vertbois, was given, in 1712, to the City of Paris on
condition that a public fountain should be constructed there; and
the fountain, adorned with the arms of Paris, still exists, bearing
a somewhat enigmatic inscription, thus: "This tower, which formerly
constituted part of the fortified enclosure of the abbey of Saint
Martin-in-the-Fields, constructed about the year 1150, and the fountain
erected in 1712, have been preserved and restored by the town and the
State on the demand of the Parisian archæologists, 1880." There was,
in fact, a question of destroying both tower and fountain in 1877
in view of certain architectural improvements, or at least changes,
then projected. The lovers of antiquity protested, and Victor Hugo
is said to have exclaimed, in the very words likewise attributed
to him in connection with the proposed destruction of the tower of
Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, "Demolish the tower? No! Demolish the
architect? Yes!" The architect in the case of the tower of Vertbois was
the poet's own nephew. Like the tower, however, he was not demolished.
In front of the principal entrance to the Conservatoire a large square
was made in 1860; its sides being formed by the Rue Saint-Martin, the
Boulevard Sebastopol, the Rue Solomon de Caus, and the Rue du Caire. On
the south side of the square, in the Rue du Caire, is seen the façade
of the Théâtre de la Gaieté, which less deserves its title than our own
Gaiety Theatre in London. Originally known by the name of Nicolet, its
founder, and afterwards called, during the influence of Mme. du Barry,
the Theatre of the King's Dancers, it at length received, towards the
end of the last century, the inappropriate title which still belongs to
it. There was a time, it must be presumed, when at the Gaieté gay pieces
were performed. But since the beginning of the century this house has
been chiefly associated with spectacular and melodramatic productions.
Here the famous fairy piece, _Le Pied de Mouton_, was produced with
striking success in 1806. Some twenty years ago it was revived at the
Porte Saint-Martin, where it ran nearly a year.
Reconstructed in 1808, the Gaieté was burnt to the ground in 1835.
No sooner had it been built up again than it was pulled down to make
way for the Boulevard du Prince Eugène. The Gaieté, which now, as
already mentioned, stands on the southern side of the square of the
Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, is one of the four theatres belonging
to the Town of Paris. Here were produced some of the best pieces
of Auguste Maquet, the most renowned of Alexandre Dumas' numerous
collaborateurs, and one of the very few who have shown themselves able,
unaided, to produce first-rate work.
Since its removal to the square of the Arts et Métiers, the Théâtre
de la Gaieté has confined itself to no particular style. Here were
represented Sardou's drama _La Haine_; Jules Barbier's _Jeanne d'Arc_,
with music by Gounod; Offenbach's operettas revived on a large scale,
with _Orphée aux Enfers_ prominent among them; Victor Massé's _Paul
et Virginie_, Saint Saën's _Timbre d'Argent_, and the _Dmitri_ of
Joncières. The last strikingly successful piece produced at this theatre
was a dramatic version of Alphonse Daudet's _Tartarin sur les Alpes_.
The first street parallel to the Rue Saint-Martin is the Rue du Temple,
which, much increased in length by the demolition and reconstruction
of 1851, is now one of the longest streets in Paris. It owes its name
to the ancient habitation of the Order of Templars. After the violent
suppression of this fraternity, the property passed to the Order of
Saint John of Jerusalem, who fixed upon it for their Paris headquarters.
The Grand Prior of this Order had, by rule, to be a prince of the blood;
and the last to hold the office was the Duke of Angoulême, eldest son of
the Count of Artois, afterwards Charles X. Particulars of the captivity
of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the Dauphin in the Temple have
already been given. It may here be added, however, that after being
used for some years as a State prison, the old building was demolished
in 1811. Finally the Palace of the Grand Prior, with its majestic
colonnade, which had been allowed to remain untouched until 1854, was
pulled down, and the land made over to the Town of Paris on condition of
its planting trees on the site and erecting a monument to the memory of
Louis XVI. This latter condition was never fulfilled.
Nothing now remains of the fortress which Louis XVI. quitted, on the
21st of January, to be taken to the scaffold, but an old willow, dating
from four or five centuries back, beneath whose shadow the king, during
his confinement, loved to walk. The monument in the centre of the
square is a statue of Béranger; "the divine Béranger," as Heine calls
him, and of whom Benjamin-Constant said one day, when the poet was yet
unknown: "He writes magnificent odes and calls them songs." Close to the
spot marked to-day by his statue, in the Rue Vendôme, now re-named Rue
Béranger, died this most poetical of popular song-writers, this most
popular of poets. He was honoured by a public funeral at the expense of
the State.
[Illustration: THE VERTBOIS TOWER AND FOUNTAIN.]
The Temple Market dates from a remote period; not, however, in its
present form, which was given to it by the First Consul in 1802. It
was made to include the Rotunda, built in 1788 for the accommodation
of debtors without means or without intention to pay, who came to the
Temple to enjoy the privileged security of all who there sought refuge.
Men's clothes and women's dresses are the articles chiefly in demand
at the Temple Market. To the ancient dealers in second-hand garments
belonged a reputation for strong language, which has now faded away.
Under the conditions of modern life, character perishes, and even
the representatives of Mme. Angot and her celebrated daughter are
well-behaved and even polite.
Close at hand is the Synagogue of the Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth.
The neighbouring Rue des Archives contains the Église des Carmes,
consecrated since 1812 to the Lutheran rite, but formerly a Dominican
church erected on the ground previously occupied by a chapel dating from
the year 1295. On this site had previously stood the house of Jonathan,
the Jew, convicted (or at least accused and declared guilty) of having
profaned the sacred host, miraculously preserved from his fury. Of
this strange legend, one of many similar ones invented in hatred of
the unhappy Jews, an account may be found in Dulaure's "Singularités
Historiques."
The whole of the right side of the Rue des Archives is taken up by the
imposing edifice in which the national archives are preserved. It was
formerly the Hôtel de Soubise. On the western portion of the ancient
property of the Guises was erected the Palais Cardinal, built by
Armand Gaston de Rohan, Prince Archbishop of Strasburg, which has long
been occupied by the National Printing Office. Up to the time of the
Revolution the archives were preserved by the particular establishment,
political, judicial, civil or ecclesiastical, to which they belonged;
so that in 1782 there were upwards of a thousand different places where
documents of national importance were preserved. In the midst of the
general uprising, when convents were being pillaged and manor-houses
burnt, an immense number of valuable papers were either torn up or
given to the flames. At last special commissions were organised for the
collection and preservation of all State papers; which in the first
instance were deposited at the Tuileries with the official reports of
the Assembly which there held its sittings. In 1808 Napoleon ordered
that all archives of whatever kind should be kept in one place provided
specially for them. He at the same time bought for State purposes, and
for the sum of 690,000 francs, the Hôtel de Soubise and the Hôtel de
Rohan; the first for the archives, the second for the Imperial printing
office.
[Illustration: THE GAIETÉ THEATRE.]
The national archives, whose importance is yearly increasing, and
which form an historical collection unrivalled elsewhere, are under
the care of a Director-General who belongs to the Ministry of Public
Instruction. The Director-General is assisted by three chiefs of
section, who overlook the reception, classification, and preservation
of State documents in the following order: 1. Historical section. 2.
Administrative section. 3. Legislative and judicial section. Many very
interesting documents relating to the history of France are exhibited
in glass cases. The most ancient of these is dated 625, under the reign
of Clotaire II. The most modern are of the year 1821. In connection
with the national archives a reading-room is kept open every day from
10 to 5 for persons who have sought and obtained permission to consult
documents in view of their studies. Attached to the National Archives is
the School of Maps, under the direction of a member of the Academy of
Inscriptions and of Belles Lettres, assisted by a council. The French,
too, have invented a profession unknown in England--that of archivist.
To become an archivist it is necessary to follow for three years a
course of lectures, each of which is followed by an examination. To
pass finally the student writes an essay on some appropriate subject,
and, if successful, receives the name of archivist or palæographer,
which entitles him to employment in connection with the archives, or
with one of the libraries under the direction of the Ministry of Public
Instruction. By reason of the exceptional importance of their duties,
the archivists are liberated from military service, like the pupils of
the superior normal schools and of the School of Oriental Languages. The
School of Maps was, together with so many other institutions of which
France is justly proud, founded by Napoleon I.; who wished, at the time,
to establish a lay Order of Benedictines devoted to the study of French
history. Without constituting themselves into an order, the students
of the School of Maps have, by their conscientious and disinterested
labours, done much to throw light on the history and literature of
ancient France.
[Illustration: IN THE TEMPLE MARKET.]
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE MARKET.]
On the south side of the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, opposite the School
of Maps, stand the buildings of the Mont-de-Piété, established by
Louis XVI. in 1771. After the revolution in 1796, the profits of the
Mont-de-Piété were assigned to the hospitals, and the institution
is now under the direction of the _Assistance Publique_, or Charity
Board, presided over by the Prefect of the Seine. Besides the principal
establishment, at No. 55, Rue des Francs Bourgeois, there are two
district establishments and twenty-one auxiliary ones dispersed through
the different quarters of the capital. The Mont-de-Piété of Paris
lends no less than six million francs a year; and it obtains whatever
working capital it requires by the issue of bonds bearing interest at
five per cent., which are much in favour with investors. The capital
of the Comédie Française is all permanently invested in bonds of the
Mont-de-Piété. It was not without serious opposition that the first
projectors of the Mont-de-Piété succeeded in getting it authorised;
though Mercier, writing only a few years after the publication of the
King's edict on the subject, regards this institution as of the greatest
benefit to the poor.
"The establishment of the Mont-de-Piété or pawn-warehouse," he says,
"was long wished for in vain, but is at last perfected, notwithstanding
the opposition it met with from several interested beings who live by
the distress of their fellow creatures. At this place the poor may be
supplied with money, upon any pawn whatever that they can leave for
security, at a very trifling interest; for it is not here in the hands
of private individuals, as I am told is the case in London, where a
pawnbroker charges no less than 30 per cent. for the loan. I hear
they are authorised to do so by law. So much the worse. In Paris the
Mont-de-Piété is under the immediate inspection of the Government,
and has hitherto proved of the greatest service by giving the mortal
wound to usury and its infamous votaries. The greatest proof that
can be given of the usefulness of this institution, and how needful
it was in Paris, is the great concourse of people who daily resort
there to raise temporary sums. It is said, but I will not vouch for
the truth of the assertion, that in the space of a few months there
were forty tuns filled with gold watches; this I rather take to be an
exaggeration, meant only to give an idea of the very great number that
were then in the warehouse. Certain it is that I have seen at one time
four score people assembled; who, waiting for their turn, came there
for the purpose of raising loans not exceeding six livres a head. The
one carries his shirts, another a piece of furniture, this an old
picture, that his shoe-buckles or a threadbare coat. These visits, which
are renewed every day, are the most forcible proofs of the extreme
want and poverty to which the greatest number of the inhabitants is
reduced. Opulence itself is often obliged to have recourse to the public
pawn-warehouse, and the contrast between extreme misery and indigent
richness is nowhere better exemplified. In one corner a lady, wrapped up
in her cloak, her face half covered, and just stepped out of her coach,
deposits her diamonds to a large amount, to venture it in the evening
at a card-table; whilst in the other a poor woman, who has trudged it
on foot through the muddy streets, pawns her lower garment to purchase
a bit of bread. The best regulation prevails in this place; a sworn
appraiser stands there to estimate upon oath the real value of the
pledge offered. Yet, as the best institution is liable to much abuse,
it is said that the poorer sort of people are not always treated with
that humanity which they are more justly entitled to than their betters;
this evil, with a little attention from the magistrate who presides
over this undertaking, may easily be remedied. I make no doubt but the
Mont-de-Piété will prove as advantageous an establishment as it is
useful and commendable."
Some houses were being pulled down in 1878 for the enlargement of the
Mont-de-Piété when a tower belonging to the wall of Philip Augustus was
brought to light. This was one of the four towers which flanked the
circumvallation of the king just named. The old tower was consolidated
and repaired. Near this spot stood, in 1258, the Convent of the White
Cloaks, founded by the serfs of the Virgin Mary; to be replaced, in the
same century, by the hermits of Saint William, who, in 1816, joined the
congregation of the reformed Benedictines. The name of Blancs Manteaux
is still connected with a street and a market in the neighbourhood.
The Benedictines constructed their church and their monastery in 1695;
and it was here that these learned men composed many of their works,
imperishable monuments of their erudition. "The Art of Verifying Dates"
and "The Collection of the Historians of France" may in particular be
mentioned. Sold as national property in 1797, the Benedictine Church was
bought back by the Town in 1807 and made the second parochial church of
Saint-Merry, under the name of Notre Dame des Blancs Manteaux.
At the south-east corner of the Rue des Blancs Manteaux, in the Rue
Vieille du Temple, stands, under the title of Hôtel de Hollande, all
that remains of the ancient Hôtel de Rieux, at one time occupied by the
Dutch ambassadors.
The turret at the corner of the Rues Vieille du Temple and Francs
Bourgeois is remarkably picturesque.
Just to the right of the Rue Barbette is the ancient Palais Cardinal,
forming the rear part of the Hôtel de Soubise, and containing the
National Printing Office, there established by a decree of 1808. In
the centre of the great courtyard a statue of Guttenberg, by David
d'Angers, may be seen. On the first storey of the principal building is
the bedroom of the Cardinal who played so sad a part in the "Affaire du
Collier"--the affair, that is to say, of Marie Antoinette's necklace,
which caused such scandal immediately before the Revolution. Here is now
housed the library of the National Printing Office, called the Hall of
the Monkeys, by reason of its being decorated with scenes from monkey
life, attributed to Boucher.
The Royal Printing Office, destined also to be called National and
Imperial, according to the Government in power, was founded by King
Louis XIII., and dates from 1640. Until that time the King employed
private printers; Conrad Naebor, printer in Greek, with an annual
allowance of 100 gold crowns, and Robert Estienne, printer in Latin
and Hebrew. Though they printed for the King, both Naebor and Estienne
had their own private printing offices. The Royal Printing Office was
established by Louis XIII. at the Louvre, where it remained until the
time of the Revolution--directed from 1691 to 1789 by Jean Anisson
and members of his family. Then all kinds of printing offices were
established under national control: a national legislative printing
office, a national printing office of laws, a national executive
printing office, etc. The Directory brought them all together in
1795, under the title of Printing Office of the Republic, which was
established in the Rue de la Vrillière, at the Hôtel de Toulouse,
afterwards occupied by the Bank of France. Since 1808 the National
Printing Office ("Imperial" as it was called at the time) has not moved
from the Palais Cardinal. It is governed by a director belonging to
the Ministry, placed beneath the authority of the Minister of Justice.
It prints for the State _Le Bulletin des Lois_, and all the papers,
formulas, registers, and cards required by the different Ministries.
It also prints--and in this resides its special importance--either at
the expense of the State or of the authors, scientific and artistic
works for which particular signs or characters, especially Oriental
characters, are needed.
[Illustration: SIXTEENTH CENTURY CLOISTERS, RUE DES BILLETTES.]
The scientific and artistic publications of the National Library are
counted among the masterpieces of typography. Pierre Corneille's
edition of the "Imitation of Jesus Christ," printed expressly for the
Exhibition of 1867, was universally admired. Indeed, from 1809, when,
after considerable delay, "The Description of Egypt," based on the
observations made during Bonaparte's famous campaign, was published,
until the present day, the National Printing Office of France has
produced a large number of perfectly printed editions. In war, as in
peace, this office received important benefits at the hands of the first
Napoleon, who, to enrich it, deprived the Italians of a fine collection
of Arabic and Persian characters.
[Illustration: PALACE OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.]
At the time of the Restoration, the National, now Royal Printing Office,
was placed under the direction of a member of the Anisson family,
lineally descended from the Anisson of 1690, who, while working for the
Government, carried on a printing office as a private enterprise, and
made immense profits. After the Revolution of 1830 it was taken over
by the State; and the Government of Louis Philippe purchased for the
Royal Printing Institution all kinds of Oriental characters. Now, too,
were for the first time acquired fonts of Russian, Servian, and other
Slavonian type. At the request of the Government, moreover, a complete
set of Chinese characters was sent from Pekin. Under various changes of
government the National Printing Office has, from Louis Philippe until
now, remained a State establishment.
[Illustration: HOTEL DE HOLLANDE.]
It was calculated twenty years ago that the National Printing Office,
with its one hundred hand-presses and a good number of presses worked
by steam, prints every year about 200,000 reams of paper in different
forms, or altogether about 100,000,000 sheets. Reducing these sheets
to octavo volumes, each of thirty sheets, the National Printing Office
produces every year 3,330,000 volumes; and reckoning 300 working days in
the year, 11,100 volumes per day.
Beneath the statue of Guttenberg, cast from the statue by David d'Angers
which adorns Strasburg, Guttenberg's birthplace, is buried an historical
account of the National Printing Office, with two commemorative medals.
[Illustration: TURRET AT CORNER OF RUES VIEILLE DU TEMPLE AND FRANCS
BOURGEOIS.]
One of the most interesting buildings in this neighbourhood is the
Hôtel Lamoignon, which, by its architecture, presents the aspect of a
fortress, though its walls and windows are ornamented with crescents,
hunting-horns, and the heads of stags and hounds, in allusion to its
having been built by Diana of France, the legitimatised daughter of
Henri II. Passing down the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, along the southern
wall of the Hôtel Carnavalet, we reach, on the left, the entrance to the
Musée Carnavalet, associated with the illustrious names of Jean Goujon
the sculptor, François Mansard the architect, and Mme. de Sévigné the
charming letter-writer. The Hôtel Carnavalet, which the Marquise de
Sévigné inhabited from 1677 to 1698, was restored in 1867 and the years
following, when Baron Haussmann resolved to create a municipal museum;
of which, however, mention has already been made. It is impossible to
quit the Marais, the ancient district in which we have lately been
lingering, without calling attention to the beautiful façade of the
Hôtel Carnavalet, with its graceful representations of the four seasons.
We are now once more in the Rue Saint-Antoine, within a few paces of the
ancient Rue de Birague, at the end of which is a large arcade leading to
the Place Royale, which Parisians have not yet learned to call the Place
des Vosges, a name given to it as long ago as 1800 by Lucien Bonaparte,
Minister of the Interior, to reward the department of the Vosges for
being the first department to pay certain taxes which had fallen into
arrear. After being styled for thirty-four years, from the time of the
Restoration, Place Royale, the square was named in 1848 Place des Vosges.
In the previous description of this Place reference has been made to
the statue of Louis XIII. which stands in its centre; and also to the
beautiful garden which belongs to it.
[Illustration]