PÈRE-LACHAISE.
The Cemeteries of Clamart and Picpus--Père-Lachaise--La
Villette and Chaumont--The Conservatoire--Rue Laffitte--The
Rothschilds--Montmartre--Clichy.
Before crossing the river to the left bank, we must say a few words
about some of those districts of Paris which are reached naturally, and
as a matter of course, by the great thoroughfares; the ancient estate,
for instance, of Mont-Louis, where, for the last two centuries, has been
established the cemetery known as Père-Lachaise.
The cemeteries of Paris may be distinguished locally, or by the special
character belonging to several of them. Each important district has
its own cemetery: that of Montmartre, for instance, on the north,
that of Mont-Parnasse on the south of Paris. The cemetery of Clamart
was reserved, until the Revolution, for the bodies, dissected or
undissected, of those who had died in hospital. It is now the last
resting-place of criminals who have passed beneath the guillotine. The
Picpus cemetery, at present a more or less private cemetery in which
only privileged persons are buried, was formerly a place of interment
for those who had distinguished themselves in insurrections and civil
wars. There reposes La Fayette in the earth of the locality mingled with
earth sent from America, in memory of the important part played by La
Fayette in the American War of Independence.
Père-Lachaise, the most celebrated and most interesting of all the
cemeteries, owes its name to the famous confessor of Louis XIV., who
proposed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes--the edict which accorded
a certain toleration to the Protestants of France--and who celebrated
the secret marriage of Louis XIV. to Mme. de Maintenon. Father Lachaise
was a Jesuit with whom the idea of toleration could find no favour. The
Duke de Saint-Simon, in his famous memoirs, gives a very favourable
account of him, and while describing him as a "strong Jesuit," adds that
he was "neither fanatical nor fawning." Although he advised the king to
revoke the Edict of Nantes, he was no party to the active persecution by
which the revocation was followed.
The burial-ground of Père-Lachaise occupies the ancient domain of
Mont-Louis, a property given to Father Lachaise by the king, and which
in time became known exclusively by the name of its owner. It is for
the most part an aristocratic cemetery. Although it contains monuments
characterised by a solemnity befitting the idea of eternity, it is by no
means the depressing, melancholy, awe-inspiring place which one might
expect so vast a necropolis to be. On the one side wealth lies buried,
on the other indigence. In juxtaposition to magnificent monuments,
shaded with shrubs and graced with flowers, is the common trench, formed
by two immense dikes dug in a sterile soil, where the poor sleep their
last. There nothing but cold and dreary solitude meets the eye; whilst
a few paces off stand Gothic chapels, sarcophagi, pyramids, obelisks,
and artistic emblems of every kind--objects expressive, for the most
part, of posthumous pride. Here social distinctions are marked with an
ostentation painful to see: titles, coats of arms, escutcheons appearing
in the marble or the stone. As to the inscriptions, these, written in a
variety of styles--now pompous, now epigrammatic, now melodramatic--are
frequently fantastic and seldom appropriate. Common to all the epitaphs,
however widely they differ in other respects, is the uniform virtue
which they ascribe to their subjects. In this connection a few words
from the caustic pen of M. Benjamin Gastineau deserve reproduction.
"At Père-Lachaise," he says, "you find nothing but good fathers, good
mothers, good brothers, good husbands, faithful wives, true friends,
noble hearts, angels flown to heaven, white flowers, chaste spouses,
seraphim of perfection. Not a traitor, not a coward, not a hypocrite,
not a knave, not an egotist!"
The tombs of Père-Lachaise are frequently remarkable, not merely as fine
specimens--or even masterpieces--of sculptural art, but on account of
the illustrious personages who slumber beneath them. The magnificent
tomb of Héloise and Abailard would justify a page of description, whilst
the story of their romantic love sufficed, as we know, to inspire even
the frigid pen of Alexander Pope with passion. From this ancient tomb a
few steps will take the visitor into the company of the illustrious dead
of a later day. Here is the monument of Frederick Soulié, the vehement
and impassioned novelist--a simple marble slab, surmounted by a cross,
and eloquently inscribed with his mere name. The tomb of the composer
Chopin is not far off. In the front appears a medallion portrait of this
brilliant genius, whilst, on the tomb itself, Cleslinger has sculptured
a poetic figure, breaking the lyre he bears, and in an attitude of
profound despair. Hard by is the tomb of Vivant Denon. Upon it his
statue, by Cartelier, stands, still smiling with that smile which, as
a French historian has ingeniously said, "pleased, turn by turn, Louis
XV., Mme. de Pompadour, Voltaire, Louis XVI., Robespierre, and Napoleon."
The most sumptuous monument in the cemetery is that of the Russian
Princess, Demidoff. Its height is prodigious. Its semi-Oriental
architecture, at once severe and beautiful, is highly imposing. It
consists of a rich temple adorned with ten columns of white Carrara
marble, supporting a magnificent canopy. On the sarcophagus rests a
crown. This monument is said to have cost 120,000 francs.
The stage is represented in this silent city. Here sleeps Mlle.
Duchenois, once the rival of Mlle. Georges. At no great distance from
where she lies a chapel stands over the remains of the last great
Célimène, Mlle. Mars; whilst the name inscribed on a little sarcophagus
in the Greek style shows us that even Talma had to die.
Among the host of illustrious names inscribed on the stones of
Père-Lachaise must be mentioned those of Laharpe, Beaumarchais, Molière,
and La Fontaine. The relics of the two last were transferred to this
cemetery at the same time as those of Héloise. Nor, finally, can we
forget the monument raised to the famous General Foy. In the inscription
which it bears an ingenious and eloquent use is made of the General's
celebrated utterance in the Chamber of Representatives: "Yesterday I
said I would not yield except to force. To-day I come to keep my word."
The cemetery of Père-Lachaise has two special quarters: one reserved for
Protestants, the other for Jews. The monuments of the former present,
by their austere simplicity, a striking contrast to the elegant or
sumptuous mausoleums in the Catholic burial-ground. Most of the tombs
bear, as their sole emblem, a representation of the Bible, open at a
page reflecting upon the ultimate way of all flesh. The Jewish cemetery
is situated behind the monument of Héloise and Abailard. On entering it
the visitor sees, to the right, a funeral chapel in the Greek style,
which is the tomb of Rachel. Further on, to the left, is that of the
Rothschild family.
Lastly, at the summit of the hill of Père-Lachaise, covering an area
newly annexed, is the Mussulman cemetery, provided with a mosque. The
Princess of Oude and one of her relatives were its first occupants.
On the 27th of May, 1871, Père-Lachaise became the scene of a horrible
slaughter. Five days previously the Army of Versailles had penetrated
into Paris. The troops of the Commune, despite a desperate resistance,
had had to withdraw to one or two points of retreat: among others to
Père-Lachaise. On the 27th some battalions of Marines, forming part of
the corps of General Vinoy, invaded the cemetery. There was a fearful
hand-to-hand fight over the tombs. Into the very vaults the marines
pursued the insurgents who had spiked their guns and fled. Two days
afterwards the cemetery was a litter of broken weapons, empty bottles,
and other profane rubbish.
During the last few years a corner of the cemetery of Père-Lachaise has
been set apart for cremations. Paris, which claims to be first in so
many things and which is so often justified in these pretensions, did
not establish a crematorium until long after the city of Milan had done
so.
* * * * *
To the north of Père-Lachaise extend the hillsides of Ménilmontant and
Belleville, commanding, from innumerable points, a magnificent view,
and memorable for the defence of Paris conducted from these heights
in 1814. Belleville is the scene of more than one remarkable incident
in the novels of Paul de Kock, the Maid of Belleville being as much
associated with this suburban eminence as the Maid of Orleans with that
of Montmartre. The vast region of Belleville and Ménilmontant is chiefly
inhabited by the workpeople of Paris, who have here their headquarters.
Close at hand is the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, communicating in a direct
line with the Rue Saint-Antoine--street and faubourg both celebrated
in the annals of popular insurrection. The streets and faubourgs of
Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin belong equally to the workmen's quarter,
which includes, moreover, La Villette and Chaumont, with its quarries.
Here all the vagabonds and malefactors of Paris used at one time to seek
refuge. Napoleon III., who systematically made war upon this class of
the population, cleared the Buttes Chaumont and caused the slopes to be
covered with picturesque gardens. In the valley is an artificial lake
fed by one of the tributaries of the Saint-Martin canal. The gardens of
the Buttes Chaumont belong to what used to be known as the District of
the Fights, or Quartier des Combats, so called from the fights between
dogs and bulls or other animals which here took place until the time of
the Revolution. These, with some modifications, were continued up to
the first years of Louis Philippe's reign. Here Jules Janin found the
subject of his famous novel, "L'âne mort et la femme guillotinée"--a
story written, according to some, in order to turn into ridicule the
sensational novelists of the day; according to others, with the view of
attracting and forcing attention by means of exaggerated and monstrous
sensationalism.
Returning from the heights which bound Paris on the north, by the Rue
du Faubourg Poissonnière, we find at the corner of this street and of
the Rue Bergère the building in which has existed, since the Revolution,
the National Conservatory of Music and Declamation. The great musical
academy had its origin in a school of singing and declamation
established in 1784 in order to prepare singers for the Opéra. To this
institution was added in 1786 a school of dramatic declamation, which
had the honour of producing Talma. But the Conservatory of Music, as it
now exists, owes its organisation to the Revolution. Founded in virtue
of a decree dated August 3rd, 1795, it had for its first director the
illustrious Cherubini, who was replaced by Auber, to whom has succeeded
M. Ambroise Thomas, the composer of _Mignon_ and of _Hamlet_. The
students are admitted by competition, and the teaching is gratuitous.
Prizes are adjudged every year, and of these the most important is
the so-called Prix de Rome, which enables its holder to study for a
certain number of years in the great Italian city. The concerts of the
Conservatoire are famous throughout Europe; and fortunate indeed is the
visitor to Paris who can succeed in obtaining a place at concerts which
are supported and attended exclusively (except, of course, in case of
forced absence) by permanent subscribers. The orchestra which takes part
in these concerts is of the finest quality, the principal instruments
being all in the hands of the professors of the establishment--the first
instrumentalists, that is to say, of France.
The Rue Laffitte, formerly known as the Rue d'Artois, by which, in
the neighbourhood of the Conservatoire, one reaches the best part of
the Boulevard, has, since the Revolution of 1830, borne the name of
the celebrated banker and politician whose mansion was the rendezvous
of the Opposition Deputies during the so-called "days of July."
Laffitte is, in some sense, the hero of a charming tale published by
the so-called Saint-Germain under the title of "Story of a Pin." At the
office of a Paris banker, a young man in search of employment has been
refused by reason of there being no vacancy. As, however, he goes away
in a dejected mood, he is seen to pick up a pin; and this indication of
order and economy has such an effect upon the banker that he is called
back and at once appointed to a supplementary chair. It is said that a
friend of Laffitte's, also out of employment, hearing of the success
of this "pin trick," as he termed it, resolved to try it himself. At
the next office where he applied for a situation his conversation and
general demeanour so pleased the principal that he was all but engaged,
when, in order to determine the matter, he went through the gesture of
picking up a pin--which he had held all the time between his fingers.
"What was that?" asked the head of the firm. "A pin," was the reply.
"A pin?" repeated the principal. "A man who would take a pin out of my
office would take a cheque. Good morning, sir."
[Illustration: PARC DES BUTTES CHAUMONT.]
Laffitte was the most generous of millionaires. One of the Rothschilds
assured the famous actress Rachel that if he had lent money to everyone
who asked him he should at last have had to borrow five francs of her.
This was in all probability the mere plea of Dives, unwilling to be too
much put upon by Lazarus. Laffitte seems to have been ready to lend to
anyone who really deserved assistance; and a strange story is told of
his advancing a sum of money to an officer of whom he knew nothing.
The officer had been gambling and had lost 5,000 francs which did not
belong to him. It was necessary to restore this amount to the regimental
chest or be for ever disgraced. Laffitte listened to the officer's
story, counted out to him the 5,000 francs, and took a receipt,
together with a promise that the money should be repaid at the rate
of 250 francs a year. "It will take you a long time to pay it off at
that rate," said Laffitte, "and who knows whether you will ever bring
me the first instalment?" The officer, however, swore that he would
keep his word--and, exactly to the day when the first payment became
due, brought to the banker his first 250 francs. Laffitte, however,
while complimenting him on his punctuality, declared himself unable to
receive such a contemptibly small sum, and told his debtor to keep it
for another year, when he must bring him 500. On the officer's return,
at the expiration of another twelvemonth, with the increased amount,
Laffitte exclaimed: "Yes; I see you are a man of honour. Keep the money
and take back your note of hand." It is to be hoped that Heine, living
in Paris at the time, heard this story, though he did not profit by its
teaching; for it was one of his amusing if cynical maxims, that a man
had more chance of getting a loan from a poor friend, anxious to appear
better off than he really was, than from a rich one whose pecuniary
position was above question.
After the Revolution of 1830 Laffitte was appointed Minister of Finance
and President of the Council. This just man could not, however, succeed
in pleasing either of the sections into which the Chamber was divided.
His own party thought him too lukewarm, too unprogressive, while the
Legitimists could not forget his alliance with the party of Revolution.
The Rue Laffitte may well be regarded as the headquarters of finance,
for, in addition to the banking-house of Laffitte, the French branch of
the Rothschilds has here for more than half a century been domiciled.
The Rothschilds of Paris, like those of London, Frankfort, Vienna,
and Naples, are descendants of the Mayer-Rothschilds who founded the
first of the Rothschild banking-houses at Frankfort a century ago. Born
at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1743, Mayer Anselm Rothschild belonged
to a Jewish family of small means. He received, nevertheless, a good
education and studied for some time with the view of becoming a Rabbi.
Commerce and finance had, however, greater attractions for him than the
Law and the Prophets, and, thanks to his industry and intelligence, he
soon found himself the possessor of a small amount of capital. He had
established himself in the Juden-gasse; and here, faithfully assisted
by his young wife, he occupied himself with dealings of the most varied
kinds. He had familiarised himself with financial operations at a bank
where he had been engaged as clerk; and after his marriage he quickly
became known by his enterprise, honesty, and tact to the great financial
houses of Frankfort, Mayence, and Darmstadt, who often entrusted him
with important commissions. Mayer Rothschild was forty-six years of
age when the French Revolution broke out; and it was in the midst of
the troubles caused by this great convulsion that he found his first
great opportunity of enriching himself. Immediately after the Reign of
Terror, when, in 1794, the French armies were replying to the German
invasion by themselves invading Germany, the smaller German princes
became panic-stricken, and fled with such haste towards the Elbe that
some of them had not time to carry away all their gold. Among the
illustrious fugitives was the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, who possessed
more ready money than all his brethren of the German Federation united.
Finding it imprudent, if not impossible, to take with him in his
travelling-carriage heaps of silver and gold, he resolved to place a
portion of his treasure in the hands of trustworthy persons, and one
of those selected was Mayer Rothschild of Frankfort. Two millions of
florins were confided to him on the simple understanding that he should
restore the money at the conclusion of peace. The war, however, lasted
for years; and during this period the talents confided to the Hebrew
banker were not allowed to lie buried in a napkin. He put them out at
interest, made loans to the Governments and to the military commanders
and commissaries on all sides; speculated, in short, with the money
carefully and judiciously, without permitting himself to be influenced
by any of the prejudices of patriotism. _Ubi bene, ibi patria_, was
the motto of the Hebrew at the beginning of the century, and naturally
enough; for in a privileged society he was without privileges and almost
without rights. Every career was closed to him except those of medicine
and money-making; and in making money it was enough for the Hebrew to
make it lawfully. There is no record of Mayer Rothschild's having lent
anything to the French Republic, which had liberated the Jews from every
burden, every disability, weighing upon them in other countries. But he
made advances to Napoleon and also, with fine impartiality, to England,
Napoleon's most consistent foe. Any prince, moreover, reigning or
deposed, could, if he possessed the requisite security, count upon the
Frankfort financier for pecuniary aid.
When peace was established, the Elector of Hesse-Cassel received back
the whole of his capital with a fair amount of interest, and Mayer
Rothschild was able to congratulate himself on having benefited alike
the Elector and himself.
War had broken out again, and Napoleon had undertaken that campaign
against Russia which was to bring him to ruin, when Mayer Rothschild
died, like a patriarch, surrounded by his ten children. He had never
quitted his house in the Juden-gasse, and, millionaire as he now was,
had never abandoned the long, characteristic frock-coat of the Frankfort
Jews.
Of the ten children surrounding the bed of the dying financier, five
were sons--Anselm, Solomon, Nathan, Charles, and James. In giving
them his last blessing he exhorted them to live together in the most
perfect harmony: a command which was to be religiously obeyed. The five
brothers formed in common an immense banking house, with the central
establishment at Frankfort, and four branches at Vienna, London, Naples,
and Paris. To undertake no important operation without the consent of
all the partners, to be content with a relatively small profit, to
leave nothing to chance, to be always punctual and exact--such were the
principles by which they were to be guided; and in formally adopting
them they took this motto: _Concordia, Industria, Integritas._
The events of 1813 and 1814 offered to this fraternal association
admirable opportunities. It was applied to for loans, first by the
coalition of Powers marching against France, and, after Napoleon's final
defeat, by the new monarchical Government of France, in view of the war
indemnity. From this moment the house of Rothschild assumed colossal
proportions. It seemed to hold Europe at every point, and no important
financial operation could be undertaken without its consent and aid. The
Emperor of Austria ennobled the brothers Rothschild in 1815, at the time
of the Vienna Conferences, and in 1822 created them barons and appointed
them consuls-general for Austria in the different cities where they were
established.
Of Mayer Rothschild's five sons, Baron Anselm, the eldest, born at
Frankfort in 1773, assumed, after the death of his father, the direction
of the Frankfort bank, and while remaining at its head took an active
part in founding the four branch houses at Paris, London, Vienna, and
Naples. He died at Frankfort in 1855. Baron Solomon de Rothschild,
Mayer Rothschild's second son, born at Frankfort in 1774, died at Paris
in 1855. After founding the branch bank of Vienna, he directed, in
concert with his brother Anselm, most of the great financial operations
undertaken in Germany. He was an intimate friend of Prince Metternich's,
and his son, Baron Anselm Solomon, became, less from political tastes
than in virtue of his rank, a member of the Austrian Reichsrath.
After quitting Vienna, Baron Solomon, the father, went to Paris, where,
in association with his brother James, he undertook the management of
the French bank. His son, the before-mentioned Baron Anselm Solomon,
died at Vienna in 1874, leaving behind him one of the finest art
galleries in the world. He had three sons, Nathaniel, Ferdinand, and
Albert, the last-named of whom took the direction of the Vienna bank.
Baron Nathan de Rothschild, brother of the preceding, was born at
Frankfort in 1777, and died there in 1836. His father, the founder of
the family, had sent him as early as 1798 to England, where, after
passing some years at Manchester, he established himself in London in
1806. After the death of his father he remained at the head of the
London house, and played a considerable part in the great financial
operations undertaken by the five brothers in common. In 1813 he
lent large sums to the English Government, as well as to England's
allies, and, after the peace, was, like his four brothers, appointed
consul-general for Austria, and created baron. Nathan, who, by the
way, never made use of his title, died at Frankfort in 1836, and
was succeeded in the direction of the London house by Baron Lionel
de Rothschild. Baron Charles de Rothschild, the fourth of the five
brothers, was born at Frankfort in 1788, and died at Naples in 1855.
He directed the Naples bank from its first establishment until his
death. He reconstructed the finances of Piedmont and Tuscany, and, in
association with his brothers, borrowed for the Roman Government between
1831 and 1856 some 200,000,000 francs.
Baron James de Rothschild, the last of the brothers, born at
Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1792, died at Paris in 1868. It is with him we
have chiefly to do, since it was he who in the year 1812, immediately
after the death of his father, established at Paris the great banking
house which now forms one of the most striking features of the Rue
Laffitte. The post of consul-general for Austria was given to him in
1822. Under the Restoration, in December, 1823, Baron James subscribed
for a loan of nearly five hundred millions, and, in association with
his brothers, he undertook nearly all the important loans issued in
Portugal, Prussia, Austria, France, Italy, and Belgium. He rendered
important financial aid to the French Government under the reign of
Louis Philippe, and during the Second Empire. It was Baron James de
Rothschild, moreover, who furnished the brothers Pereire with the sums
necessary for the construction of the first railways in France.
Falsely accused of having speculated in corn during the dearth of
1847, he had reason to fear, at least for a time, after the Revolution
of 1848, that he could no longer live safely at Paris. His house was
pillaged and burnt, and he was indeed on the point of quitting France,
when the Prefect of Police, Caussidière, persuaded him to stay, and
placed at his disposal a picket of the Republican Guard, which was
stationed in the courtyard of his mansion night and day. The baron gave
50,000 francs towards the relief of the wounded of February, illuminated
his house to show that he was not hostile to Republican institutions,
and tranquilly continued his operations at the bank. When Caussidière,
obliged to leave France, decided to set up as a wine merchant in London,
Baron James, mindful of the service he had rendered him, did not, it
is true, offer him a present of money, which might have been refused,
but in the handsomest manner ordered such large annual consignments of
wine from him, that Caussidière could thenceforth have lived comfortably
without selling a drop of his stuff to any other customer. The baron
never boasted of this action, but the wine merchant took delight in
telling the story of his patron's delicate gratitude. Thanks to his
state loans, to his banking and exchange transactions, and to the great
commercial enterprises which he had created or protected, the financier
had amassed enormous wealth. He richly endowed or founded all kinds of
Jewish institutions, notably a vast hospital in the Rue Picpus, and the
synagogue of the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth. Every year he sent to Judæa
large sums of money, which the Rabbis distributed to the poor; and the
Jews of the East attributed to him the project of redeeming Jerusalem
from the government of the Turks.
His château at Ferrières, in the department of Seine-et-Marne, is a
sumptuous palace; and besides this and his two other residences in the
Rue Laffitte and the Bois de Boulogne, he possessed innumerable houses
in Paris. In nearly all the great cities and towns of Europe, moreover,
he owned valuable properties--at Rome, for instance, Naples, and Turin,
where some of the finest palaces and mansions were his. To the end of
his life the great financier displayed a most prodigious activity. He
was quick, hot-tempered, peevish, and surly to approach. But if he has
been often reproached with brutality to underlings, he, on the other
hand, treated the great with none too much ceremony. One day the Count
de Morny entered the baron's office at a moment when he was busily
engaged. "Take a chair," said the financier, without looking at him.
"Pardon me," said the injured visitor; "you cannot have heard my name. I
am the Count de Morny." "Take two chairs," replied Baron James, without
lifting his eyes off the papers before him. This prince of millionaires
never carried more than fifty francs in his pocket; and he himself
declared that by means of this aid to economy he had saved half a
million francs in the course of his life. At the club of the Rue Royale,
where he was accustomed to play whist after dinner, much amusement was
caused by the extraordinary purse he always carried. It was fitted
with a lock, and the key to this lock hung as a pendant to the baron's
watchchain. To pay a debt of ten sous he had first to get hold of the
key and then open the lock; nor even when he had done so was there
always enough in the purse to discharge his liability. At his club he
was called simply "The Baron"--his compeers were all barons of something
or other; and for this title he had always a punctilious regard. He was
a great lover of art, and had formed a magnificent collection in the
château at Ferrières. By his marriage with his niece, daughter of Baron
Solomon de Rothschild, he left four sons--Edmond, Gustave, Alphonse, and
Nathaniel, of whom the first-named became naturalised in France, and
assumed on his father's death the direction of the Paris house. During
the siege of the capital in January, 1871, he, in association with his
brothers, expended 300,000 francs on the relief of the necessitous; and
in 1872 subscribed for a sum of 2,750,000,000 francs towards the loan
required to buy the foe out of the country.
* * * * *
The three houses in the Rue Laffitte occupied by the Rothschilds are
numbered 17, 19, and 21. At 21 is the banking establishment, now
presided over by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, third son of the late
Baron James. Baron Alphonse is a painter of the highest distinction, in
token of which he has been elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts.
No. 19 is the residence of the Dowager Baroness James de Rothschild;
while No 17 is occupied by various administrative offices. Close by is
the mansion which, under the First Empire, was inhabited by the Queen
of Holland. In one of the rooms overlooking the garden was born, April
20th, 1808, Napoleon Louis, the future Emperor of the French.
[Illustration: THE MUFFIN MILL.--THE OBELISK OF THE PARIS MERIDIAN.--THE
OBSERVATORY.
MONTMARTRE.]
In the middle of the Rue de la Victoire stands the finest of the three
synagogues of Paris, built by the architect Aldrophe in the Roman style.
The perspective of the Rue Laffitte terminates at the frontispiece of
the church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. The plan of this edifice is that
of an ancient Roman basilica, and its aspect that of an Italian church.
The interior is very richly adorned with works from the chisels of half
a dozen famous sculptors, and from the brushes of a still greater number
of distinguished painters. This church, situated in the midst of those
quarters where literature, art, and the drama have made their home, is
marked by an elegance which approaches the mundane.
Passing northwards through the Rue Laffitte, the visitor sees, rising
before him, the hill of Montmartre, which overlooks the church. The
windmills which five-and-twenty years ago waved their arms on the summit
of this eminence have given way to the imposing church of the Sacred
Heart, a massive structure suggestive of a fortress.
The Butte Montmartre, to give the hill its French name, figures on
almost every page of the annals of Paris. It is supposed, with a certain
degree of probability, that temples to Mars and Mercury were raised
there in the Roman era. Three different etymologies have been given to
the Butte Montmartre, namely, _Mons Martis_, or Mount of Mars; _Mons
Mercurii_, or Mount of Mercury; and finally _Mons Martyrum_, or Mount of
the Martyrs. The last-named derivation is justified by the martyrdom of
St. Denis, first Archbishop of Paris, who in the third century perished
upon this spot. The hill bears a reservoir of water, artistically
decorated; and close to it an obelisk erected in 1736 to serve as a
point of view by which, from the opposite or southern side of Paris,
the city could be surveyed and measured. Our illustration shows, to the
right of this edifice, the Observatory of Montmartre, and to the left
the Moulin de la Galette, or Muffin Mill.
[Illustration: THE SYNAGOGUE IN THE RUE DE LA VICTOIRE.]
Close by is the church of St. Peter, which presents a miserable front,
but which archæologists prize as a monument of extraordinary interest.
It dates back to the earliest ages of Christianity. Destroyed by the
Romans, it was completely rebuilt in 1137. Partly burnt in 1559, it was
half demolished in 1792, and restored without any regard to regularity
or unity of design. It thus presents, at first sight, the aspect of a
ruin held together by means of shaky scaffoldings.
The Butte Montmartre is an enormous mass of gypsum, about 125 metres
high, and it has furnished century after century the finest kind of
plaster, required for the construction of buildings in Paris. As a
consequence it has been dangerously hollowed out, and in recent times
a part of the hill gave way and precipitated itself upon the district
below. The massive church of the Sacred Heart was built with a special
eye to the insecurity of the hill; for it rests on an artificial
foundation, in the shape of huge masses of cement, reaching deep down
into the lower strata.
In the last generation the Butte Montmartre was, to Parisians, simply
a fresh-air resort, picturesque with the before-mentioned windmills,
to which rustic taverns were usually attached. From the summit, where
city-pent children used on Sundays joyously to romp on the future site
of the church of the Sacred Heart, a magnificent view is obtained of
the Plain of Saint-Denis, the course of the Seine, and beyond that the
fringe of the Montmorency Forest. Then, turning suddenly towards the
south, the astonished visitor sees the whole city of Paris lying at his
feet.
At the bottom of the Rue Lepic a vast enclosure is visible full of trees
of various kinds, with the cypress prominent amongst them. This is the
cemetery of Montmartre, or, by its official designation, Cemetery of
the North. It contains many a monument as remarkable for its artistic
beauty as for the character or celebrity of the sleeper beneath it; that
of Godefroi Cavaignac, for instance, brother of the general of the same
name, and one of the hopes of the Republican party under the monarchy
of Louis Philippe; of Henri Beyle (otherwise "Stendhal"), author of
"The Life of Rossini," the treatise on "Love," and of several admirable
novels, including "La Chartreuse de Parme," described as a masterpiece
by so competent a judge as Balzac. Here, too, repose Paul Delaroche
the painter, Marshal Lannes, Halévy, composer of _La Juive_, and
Henri Murger, observer, if not inventor, of the literary and artistic
Bohemian, described with so much gaiety, vivacity, and picturesqueness
in the "Scènes de la Vie de Bohême."
Until a few years ago the Montmartre Cemetery barred the way from
Paris to the Butte Montmartre. But since 1888 a bridge or viaduct has
connected the Boulevard Clichy with the Rue Caulaincourt. The Barrière
Clichy has given its name to one of the most characteristic of Horace
Vernet's works--the picture of this barrier as seen in 1814 during the
advance upon Paris of the allied armies.
The prison of Clichy, familiarly known as "Clichy," in the street of the
same name, was the Paris prison for debt. Here, until the Second Empire,
debtors were confined under conditions peculiar to France, or at least
never known in England. The duration of the imprisonment was determined
by the magnitude of the debt, up to a period of five years; the maximum
term, whatever amount might be owed. The debtor was maintained at the
cost of the creditor, who had to deposit a sum of forty-five francs
with the prison officials before his victim could be admitted within
the prison walls. From early morning until ten o'clock at night the
prisoners were free to walk about the grounds and occupy themselves as
they thought fit. There were two hundred rooms for men, and sixteen for
women; and, contrary to the general opinion on the subject, largely
due to humorous writers and caricaturists, the prisoners belonged,
for the most part, not to the aristocratic class, but to the class of
small tradesmen. As the enforced allowance from the creditor was only
sufficient to provide the necessaries of life, a fund was maintained
among the prisoners for supplementing the ordinary bill of fare. There
was a restaurant for prisoners of means, and light wines were on sale,
to the exclusion of dessert wines and liqueurs. If, as often happened,
the creditor omitted to pay for the support of the debtor, the latter
was set free.
It is recorded in the chronicles of Clichy that among the wines
forbidden, as savouring specially of a luxury unbecoming on the part of
a man unable to pay his debts, was champagne. The heart of the creditor,
says one writer on this subject, would have been too much vexed by the
thought of bursting corks and foaming wine. The prisoners at Clichy
became, according to the French caricaturists, inordinately fat; and in
one of Gavarni's pictures of Clichy a prisoner is represented saying to
a friend who has called to see him: "If they don't let me out soon I
shall be unable to get through the door." Thus, the mouse of the fable,
having crept through a small hole into a basket of provisions, feasted
till he was too big to squeeze his way out again.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S CHURCH, MONTMARTRE.]
[Illustration: THE BELLS OF ST. PETER'S.]
If, under the French system, the creditor was bound to maintain the
debtor, the debtor, on his side, was denied the liberties accorded
to him in England. Here a man who refused to pay his debts might be
detained as long as the creditor wished without any charge to the
latter; but here, also, the debtor might lead a luxurious life, and
even leave the prison day after day on condition only of returning by
a certain hour at night. To live "within the rules" of the Queen's
Bench was simply to inhabit an unfashionable and remote part of London,
with the additional obligation of getting home early every night. A
former manager of Her Majesty's Theatre--King's Theatre, as it was
then called--passed several years in the Queen's Bench Prison. This
gentleman, Taylor by name, maintained, indeed, that it was the only
place where an operatic manager could live so as to be quite beyond
the reach of tenors dissatisfied with their parts, and _prime donne_
clamouring for new dresses and increased salaries. In fact, he once
declared, it was the only place where a man so rash as to undertake an
operatic speculation ought to be allowed to live, since no such person
was fit to be at large.
[Illustration: THE NEW MUNICIPAL RESERVOIR AND THE CHURCH OF THE SACRED
HEART, MONTMARTRE.]
[Illustration: THE CAULAINCOURT BRIDGE, MONTMARTRE.]
Close to the Clichy district is the more important one of Les
Batignolles, a growth of the present century and, one may almost say,
of the last half-century. The village of Les Batignolles has developed
into a town, inhabited for the most part by retired tradesmen and
small annuitants. Close, again, to the Batignolles is the beautiful
Parc Monceau, with its Avenue de Villiers, favourite abode of so many
painters of the modern school.
We are now once more in the neighbourhood of the Champs Élysées, with
its picturesque avenues, its children, its popular theatres, and its
cafés without number. Once more, too, we are in the vicinity of that
Bois de Boulogne, with its beautiful drives, its luxurious restaurants,
its enchanting lake, and its forest renowned for duels.