THE LATIN QUARTER
Old Prints--Procope, Tortoni, and Le Pere Lunette--The
Luxembourg Palace--Rodin--Modern Paintings--A Sinister
Crypt--A Garden of Sculpture--The Students of the Latin
Quarter--The Sorbonne--A Beautiful Museum--The Cluny's
Treasures--Marat and Danton--Old Streets and Dirty--The
River Bievre--Inspired Topography--Dante in Paris.
The high road from the centre of Paris to the Latin Quarter is across
the Pont du Carrousel and up the narrow Rue Mazarine, which skirts the
Institut. We have seen on the Quai des Celestins the site of one of
Moliere's theatres: here, at Nos. 12-14, is the house in which he
established his first theatre, on the last day of 1643. The Rue
Mazarin runs into the Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie Francaise, at No. 14
in which was that theatre, whose successor stands at the foot of the
Rue Richelieu. Parallel with the Rue Mazarin is the Rue de Seine,
interesting for its old print shops, not the least interesting
department of which is the portfolios containing students' sketches,
some of them very good. (I might equally have said some of them very
bad.)
Crossing the Boulevard St. Germain we climb what is now the Rue de
l'Odeon to the Place and theatre of that name, with the statue of
Augier the dramatist before it. The Place de l'Odeon demands some
attention, for at No. 1, now the Cafe Voltaire, was once the famous
Cafe Procope, very significant in the eighteenth century, the resort
of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists, and later of the Revolutionaries.
Camille Desmoulins indeed made it his home. You may see within
portraits of these old famous habitues. Procopio, a Sicilian who
founded his establishment for the shelter of poor actors and students
(whom Paris then loathed in private life), was the father of all the
Paris cafes.
The Cafe Procope was to men of intellect what some few years later
Tortoni's was to men of fashion. The Cafe Tortoni was in the Boulevard
des Italiens. Let Captain Gronow tell its history: "About the
commencement of the present [nineteenth] century, Tortoni's, the
centre of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment, was opened by a
Neapolitan, who came to Paris to supply the Parisians with good ice.
The founder of this celebrated cafe was by name Veloni, an Italian,
whose father lived with Napoleon from the period he invaded Italy,
when First Consul, down to his fall. Young Veloni brought with him his
friend Tortoni, an industrious and intelligent man. Veloni died of an
affection of the lungs, shortly after the cafe was opened, and left
the business to Tortoni; who, by dint of care, economy, and
perseverance, made his cafe renowned all over Europe. Towards the end
of the first Empire, and during the return of the Bourbons, and Louis
Philippe's reign, this establishment was so much in vogue that it was
difficult to get an ice there; after the opera and theatres were over,
the Boulevards were literally choked up by the carriages of the great
people of the court and the Faubourg St. Germain bringing guests to
Tortoni's.
"In those days clubs did not exist in Paris, consequently the gay
world met there. The Duchess of Berri, with her suite, came nearly
every night incognito; the most beautiful women Paris could boast of,
old maids, dowagers, and old and young men, pouring out their
sentimental twaddle, and holding up to scorn their betters,
congregated here. In fact, Tortoni's became a sort of club for
fashionable people; the saloons were completely monopolised by them,
and became the rendez-vous of all that was gay, and I regret to add,
immoral.
"Gunter, the eldest son of the founder of the house in Berkeley
Square, arrived in Paris about this period, to learn the art of making
ice; for prior to the peace, our London ices and creams were
acknowledged, by the English as well as foreigners, to be detestable.
In the early part of the day, Tortoni's became the rendez-vous of
duellists and retired officers, who congregated in great numbers to
breakfast; which consisted of cold pates, game, fowl, fish, eggs,
broiled kidneys, iced champagne, and liqueurs from every part of the
globe.
"Though Tortoni succeeded in amassing a large fortune, he suddenly
became morose, and showed evident signs of insanity: in fact, he was
the most unhappy man on earth. On going to bed one night, he said to
the lady who superintended the management of his cafe, 'It is time for
me to have done with the world'. The lady thought lightly of what he
said, but upon quitting her apartment on the following morning, she
was told by one of the waiters that Tortoni had hanged himself."
Some one should write a book--but perhaps it has been done--on the
great restaurateurs. Paris would, of course, provide the lion's share;
but there would be plenty of material to collect in other capitals.
The life of our own Nicol of the Cafe Royal, for example, would not be
without interest; and what of Sherry and Delmonico?
While on the subject of meeting-places of remarkable persons, I might
say that a latter-day resort of intellectuals who have allowed the
world and its temptations to be too much for them is not so very far
away from us at this point--the cabaret of Le Pere Lunette at No. 4
Rue des Anglais. I do not say that this is a modern Procope, but it
has some of the same characteristics: men of genius have met here and
illustrious portraits are on the wall; but they are not frescoes such
as could be included in this book, for old Father Spectacles puts
satire before propriety.
In the colonnade round the Odeon theatre are bookstalls, chiefly
offering new books at very low rates. We emerge on the south side in
the Rue Vaugiraud, with the Medicis fountain of the Luxembourg just
across the road. The Luxembourg Palace was built by Marie de Medicis,
the widow of Henri IV., and it fulfilled the functions of a palace
until the Revolution, when, prisons being more important than palaces,
it became a prison. Among those conveyed hither were the Vicomte de
Beauharnais and his wife Josephine, who was destined one day to be
anything but a prisoner. After the Revolution the Luxembourg became
the Palace of the Directoire and then the Palace of the First Consul.
In 1800 Napoleon moved to the Tuileries, and a little while afterwards
he established the Senate here, and here it is still. I cannot
describe the Palace, for I have never been in it, but the Musee I know
well.
The Luxembourg galleries are dedicated to modern art. They have
nothing earlier than the nineteenth century, and may be said to carry
on the history of French painting from the point where it is left in
Room VIII. at the Louvre, while little is quite so modern as the
permanent portion of the Petit Palais. One plunges from the street
directly into a hall of very white sculpture, which for the moment
affects the sight almost like the beating wings of gulls. The
difference between French and English sculpture, which is largely the
difference between nakedness and nudity, literally assaults the eye
for the moment; and then the more beautiful work quietly begins to
assert itself--Rodin's "Pensee," on the left, holding the attention
first and gently soothing the bewildered vision. Rodin indeed
dominates this room, for here are not only his "Pensee" (the "Penseur"
is not so very far away, two hundred yards or so, at the Pantheon),
but his "John the Baptist," gaunt and urgent in the wilderness (with
Dubois' "John the Baptist as a boy" near by, to show from what
material prophets are evolved) and the exquisite "Danaides" and the
"Age d'Airain," and the giant heads of Hugo and Rochefort, and the
little delicate sensitive Don Quixotic head of Dalou the sculptor,
which has just been added, and the George Wyndham and the G.B.S. and
other recent portraits; while through the doorway to the next room one
sees the "Baiser," immense and passionate. I reproduce both the
"Baiser," opposite page 294, and the "Pensee," opposite page 46.
Other work here that one recalls is the charming group by Fremiet,
"Pan and the Bear Cubs," Dubois' fascinating "Florentine Singing-boy
of the Fifteenth Century," a peasant by Dalou, a Great Dane and
puppies by Le Courtier, and the very beautiful head in the doorway to
Room I.--"Femme de Marin," by Cazin the painter. But other visitors,
other tastes, of course.
Before entering Room I. there are two small rooms on the right of the
sculpture gallery which should be entered, one given up to the more
famous Impressionists and one to foreign work. The chief
Impressionists are Degas, Renoir, Monet, Sisley and their companions,
almost all of whom seem to me to have painted better elsewhere than
here. Monet's "Yachts in the River" rise before me, as I write, with
the warm sun upon them, and I still see in the mind's eye the torso of
a young woman by Legros: but this room always depresses me, the effect
largely I believe of the antipathetic Renoir. The other room has a
floating population. Recently the painters have been Belgian: but at
another time they may be German or English, when the Belgians will
recede to the cellars or be lent to provincial galleries.
The pictures in the Luxembourg are many, but the arresting hand is too
seldom extended. Cleverness, the bane of French art, dominates. In the
first room Rodin's "Baiser" is greater than any painting; but
Harpignies' "Lever de Lune" is here, and here also is one of
Pointelin's sombre desolate moorlands. In a glass case some delicate
bowls by Dammouse are worth attention; but I think his work at the
Arts Decoratifs at the Louvre is better. The second room is notable
for the Fantin-Latour drawings in the middle, with others by Flandrin
and Meissonier; the third for Carolus-Duran's "Vieux Lithographe" and
a case of drawings by modern black and white masters, including Legros
and Steinlen; here also is another Pointelin. In Room IV. is a coast
scene--"Les Falaises de Sotteville," in a lovely evening light, by
Bouland, which falls short of perfection but is very grateful to the
eyes. In Room V. is a portrait group by Fantin-Latour recalling the
"Hommage a Delacroix," which we saw in the Collection Moreau, but less
interesting. The studio is that of Manet at Batignolles. Here also is
a beautiful snow scene by Cazin--an oasis indeed. In Room VI. we find
Cazin again with "Ishmael," and two sweet and misty Carrieres, a
powerful if hard Legros, Carolus-Duran's portrait of the ruddy Papa
Francais the painter, Blanche's vivid group of the Thaulow family,
with the gigantic Fritz bringing the strength of a bull-fighter to the
execution of one of his tender landscapes, and finally Whistler's
portrait of his mother, which I reproduce on the opposite page--one of
the most restful and gentlest deeds of his restless, irritable life.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT DE SA MERE
WHISTLER
_(Luxembourg)_]
Room VII. is remarkable for Rodin's "Bellona" and Tissot's curious
exercises in the genre of W. P. Frith--the story of the Prodigal Son.
But the picture which I remember most clearly and with most pleasure
is Victor Mottez's "Portrait of Madame M.," which has a deep quiet
beauty that is very rare in this gallery. In the same room, placed
opposite each other, although probably not with any conscious ironical
intention, are a large scene in the Franco-Prussian War by De
Neuville, and Carriere's "Christ on the Cross". In Room VIII. are a
number of meretricious Moreaus, Caro-Delvalle's light and, to me,
oddly attractive, group, "Ma Femme et ses Soeurs," and the portrait
of Mlle. Moreno of the Comedie Francaise by Granie, which is
reproduced opposite page 308, a picture with fascination rather than
genius.
In the doorway between Room VIII. and Room IX. hangs a small
water-colour by Harpignies, but in Room IX. itself is nothing that I
can recollect. Room X. has Picard's charming "Femme qui passe,"
Harpignies' Coliseum, very like a Moreau Corot, and a Flandrin; and in
Room XI. are Bastien Lepage's "Portrait of M. Franck," Le Sidaner's
"Dessert," Vollon's "Port of Antwerp," very beautiful, and
Carolus-Duran's famous portrait of "Madame G. F. and her children".
On leaving the Musee it is worth while to take a few steps more to the
left, for they bring us to another sinister souvenir of the Reign of
Terror--to St. Joseph des Carmes, the Chapel of the Carmelite
monastery in which, in September, 1792, the Abbe Sicard and other
priests who had refused to take the oath of the Constitution were
imprisoned and massacred, as described by Carlyle in Book I., Chapters
IV. and V. of "The Guillotine," with the assistance of the narrative
of one of the survivors, _Mon Agonie de Trente-Huit Heures_, by
Jourgniac Saint-Meard. In the crypt one is shown not only the tombs
but traces of the massacre.
A walk in the Luxembourg gardens would, if one had been nowhere else,
quickly satisfy the stranger as to the interest of the French in the
more remarkable children of their country. In these gardens alone are
statues, among many others, in honour of Chopin, Watteau, Delacroix,
Sainte-Beuve, Le Play the economist, Fabre the poet, George Sand,
Henri Murger, the novelist of the adjacent Latin Quarter, and Theodore
de Banville, the modern maker of ballades and prime instigator of some
of the most charming work in French form by Mr. Lang and Mr. Dobson
and W. E. Henley. There are countless other statues of mythological
and allegorical figures, some of them very striking. One of the most
interesting of all is the "Marchand de Masques" by Astruc, among the
masks offered for sale being those of Corot, Dumas, Berlioz and
Balzac.
The Luxembourg gardens lead to the Avenue de l'Observatoire, a broad
and verdant pleasaunce with a noble fountain at the head, in the midst
of which an armillary sphere is held up by four undraped female
figures representing the four quarters of the globe, at whom a circle
of tortoises spout water from the surface of the basin. Beneath the
upholders of the sphere are eight spirited sea horses by Fremiet, the
sculptor who designed "Pan and the Bear Cubs" in the Luxembourg.
A few yards to the west of this fountain is one of the simplest and
most satisfying of Parisian sculptured memorials, at the corner of the
Rue d'Assas and the Boulevard de l'Observatoire--the bas-relief on the
Tarnier maternity hospital, representing the benevolent Tarnier in his
merciful work.
Let us now descend the Boulevard St. Michel to the Sorbonne, which is
the heart of the Latin Quarter (or perhaps the brain would be the
better word), disregarding for the moment the Pantheon, and turning
our backs on the Observatoire and the Lion de Belfort, in the streets
around which, every September, the noisiest of the Parisian fairs
rages, and on the Bal Bullier, where the shop assistants of this
neighbourhood grasp each other in the dance every Thursday and Sunday
night. Not that this high southern district of Paris is not
interesting; but it is far less interesting than certain parts nearer
the Seine, and this book may not be too long.
The Sorbonne is not exciting, but it is not unamusing to watch young
France gaining knowledge. I have called it the heart of the Latin
Quarter, although when one thinks of the necessitous, irresponsible
youthful populace of these slopes, it is rather in a studio than in a
lecture centre that one would fix its cardiac energy. That, however,
is the fault of Du Maurier and Murger; for I suppose that for every
artist that the Latin Quarter fosters it has scores of other students.
But here I am in unknown territory. This book, which describes (as I
warned you) Paris wholly from without, is never so external as among
the young bloods who are to be met at night in the Cafe Harcourt, or
who dance at the annual ball of the Quatz'-Arts, or plunge themselves
into congenial riots when unpopular professors mount the platform. I
know them not; I merely rejoice in their existence, admire their long
hair and high spirits and happy indigence, and wish I could join them
among Jullien's models, or in the disreputable cabaret of Le Pere
Lunette, or at a solemn disputation, such as that famous one in which
the sophist Buridan, after being thrown into the Seine in a sack and
rescued, "maintained for a whole day the thesis that it was lawful to
slay a Queen of France".
The Sorbonne takes its name from Robert de Sorbon, the confessor of
St. Louis, who had suffered much as a theological student and wished
others to suffer less; for students in his day existed absolutely on
charity. St. Louis threw himself into his confessor's scheme, and the
Sorbonne, richly endowed, was opened in 1253, in its original form
occupying a site in a street with the depressing name of Coupe-Gueule.
From a hostel it soon became the Church's intellect, and for five
and a half centuries it thus existed, almost continually, I regret to
say, pursuing what Gibbon calls "the exquisite rancour of theological
hatred". Its hostility to Joan of Arc and the Reformation were alike
intense. Richelieu built the second Sorbonne, on the site of the
present one. The Revolution in its short sharp way put an end to it as
a defender of the faith, and in 1808, under Napoleon, it sprang to
life again with a broader and humaner programme as the Universite de
France.
[Illustration: THE FONTAINE DE MEDICIS
(GARDEN OF THE LUXEMBOURG)]
Although arriving on the wrong day (a very easy thing to do in Paris)
I induced the concierge to show me Puvis de Chavannes' vast and
beautiful fresco in the Sorbonne's amphitheatre, entitled "La
Source"--which is, I take it, the spring of wisdom. Thursday is the
right day. In the chapel is the tomb of Richelieu, a florid monument
with the dying cardinal and some very ostentatious grief upon it. Near
by stands an elderly gentleman who charges twice as much for postcards
as the dealers outside; but one must not mind that. The church is not
impressive, nor has a recent meretricious work by Weerts, representing
the Love of Humanity and the Love of Country--the crucified Christ and
a dead soldier--done it much good. Before it is a monument to Auguste
Comte.
And now let us descend the hill and cheer and enrich our eyes in one
of the most remarkable museums in the world--the Cluny. Paris is too
fortunate. To have the Louvre were enough for any city, but Paris also
has the Carnavalet. To have the Carnavalet were enough, but Paris
also has the Cluny. The Musee de Cluny is devoted chiefly to applied
art, and is a treasury of mediaeval taste. It is an ancient building,
standing on the site of a Roman palace, the ruins of whose baths still
remain. The present mansion was built by a Benedictine abbot in the
fifteenth century: it became a storehouse of beautiful and rare
objects in 1833, when the collector Alphonse du Sommerard bought it;
and on his death the nation acquired both the house and its treasures,
which have been steadily increasing ever since. Without, the Cluny is
a romantic blend of late Gothic and Renaissance architecture: within,
it is like the heaven of a good arts-and-craftsman; or, to put it
another way, like an old curiosity shop carried out to the highest
power. I do not say that we have not as good collections at South
Kensington; but it is beyond doubt that the Cluny has a more
attractive setting for them.
To particularise would merely be to convert these pages into an
incomplete catalogue (and what is duller than that?), but I may say
that one passes among sculpture and painting, altar-pieces and
knockers, pottery and tapestry, Spanish leather and lace, gold work
and glass, enamel and musical instruments, furniture (the state bed of
Francis I.) and ivories (note those by Van Opstal), ironwork and
jewels, fireplaces and exquisite slippers. The old keys alone are
worth hours: some of them might almost be called jewels; be sure to
look at Nos. 6001 and 6022. Everything is remarkable. Writing in
London, in a thick fog, at some distance of time since I saw the
Cluny last, I remember most vividly those keys and a banc d'orfevre
near them; a chimney-piece, beautiful and vast, from an old house at
Chalons-sur-Marne; certain carvings in wood in the great room next the
Thermes: the "Quatre Pleurants" of Claus de Worde; a dainty Marie
Madeleine by a Fleming, about 1500 (there is another Marie Madeleine,
in stone, in an adjacent room, kneeling with her alabaster box of
ointment, but by no means penitent); and the Jesus on the Mount of
Olives with the sleeping disciples. I remember also, in one of the
faience galleries, two delightful groups by Clodion--a "Satyre male"
with two baby goat-feet playing by him, and a "Satyre femelle," very
charming, also with two little shaggy mites at her knees. The "Fils de
Rubens," in his little chair, is also a pleasant memory; and there is
one of those remarkable Neapolitan reconstructions of the Nativity, of
which the museum at Munich has such an amazing collection--perhaps the
prettiest toys ever made.
But as I have said, the Cluny is wonderful throughout, and it is
almost ridiculous to particularise. It is also too small for every
taste. For the lover of the hues that burn in Rhodian ware it is most
memorable for its pottery; while of the many Parisians who visit it in
holiday mood a large percentage make first for the glass case that
contains its two famous ceintures.
The Curator of the Carnavalet, as we have seen, is a topographer and
antiquary of distinction; the Director of the Cluny, M. Haraucourt, is
a poet, one of whose ballads will be found in English form in a later
chapter. He is in a happy environment, although his Muse does not
look back quite as, say, Mr. Dobson's loves to do. The singer of the
"Pompadour's Fan" and the "Old Sedan Chair" would be continually
inspired at the Cluny.
In the Gardens of the Musee we can feel ourselves in very early times;
for the baths are the ruins of a Roman palace built in 306, the home
for a while of Julian the Apostate; a temple of Mercury stood on the
hill where the Pantheon now is; and a Roman road ran on the site of
the Rue St. Jacques, just at the east of the Cluny, leading out of
Paris southwards to Italy.
On leaving the Cluny let us take a few steps westward along the Rue de
l'Ecole de Medicine, and stop at No. 15, where the Cordeliers' Club
was held, whither Marat's body was brought to lie in state. His house,
in which Charlotte Corday stabbed him, was close by, where the statue
of Broca now stands. In the Boulevard St. Germain, at the end of the
street, we come to Danton's statue and more memories of the
Revolution. "What souvenirs of the past," says Sardou, "does the
statue of Danton cast his shadow upon. At No. 87 Boulevard St.
Germain--where the woman Simon keeps house! it was there 31st March,
1793--at six o'clock in the morning, the rattling of the butt ends of
muskets was heard on the pavement in the midst of wild cries and
protestations of the crowd, they had dared to arrest Danton, the Titan
of the Revolution, the man of the 10th of August!--at the same time on
the Place de l'Odeon, at the corner of the Rue Crebillon, Camille
Desmoulins had been arrested. An hour later they were both in the
Luxembourg prison, and it was there Camille heard of the death of his
mother.
"The Passage du Commerce still exists. It is a most picturesque old
quarter, rarely visited by Parisians. At No. 9 is Durel's library,
where Guillotin in 1790 practised cutting off sheep's heads with 'his
philanthropic beheading machine'. It is generally given out that he
was guillotined himself, but 'Lempriere' says he died quietly in his
bed, of grief at the infamous abuse his instrument was put to. In the
shop close by was the printing office of the _l'Ami du Peuple_, and
Marat in his dressing-gown (lined with imitation panther skin) used to
come and correct the proofs of his bloody journal."
Between the Cluny and the river is a network of very old, squalid and
interesting streets. Here the students of the middle ages found both
their schools and their lodgings: among them Dante himself, who refers
to the Rue de Fouarre (or straw, on which, following the instructions
of Pope Urban V., the students sat) as the Vico degli Strami. It has
now been demolished. The two churches here are worth a visit--St.
Severin and St. Julien-le-Pauvre, but the reader is warned that the
surroundings are not too agreeable. In the court adjoining St Julien's
are traces of the wall of Philip Augustus, of which we saw something
at the Mont de Piete.
All these streets, as I say, are picturesque and dirty, but I think
the best is the Rue de Bievre, which runs up the hill of St. Etienne
from the Quai de Montebello, opposite the Morgue, and can be gained
from St. Julien's by the dirty Rue de la Boucherie, of which this
street and its westward continuation, the Rue de la Huchette,
Huysmans, the French novelist and mystic, writes--as of all this
curious district--in his book, _La Bievre et Saint Severin_, one of
the best examples of imaginative topography that I know. Let us see
what he says of the Bievre, the little river which gives the street
its name and which once tumbled down into the Seine at this point, but
is now buried underground like the New River at Islington.
"The Bievre," he writes, "represents to-day one of the most perfect
symbols of feminine misery exploited by a big city. Originating in the
lake or pond of St. Quentin near Trappes, it runs quietly and slowly
through the valley that bears its name. Like many young girls from the
country, directly it arrives in Paris the Bievre falls a victim to the
cunning wide-awake industry of a catcher of men.... To follow all her
windings, it is necessary to ascend the Rue du Moulin des Pres and
enter the Rue de Gentilly, and then the most extraordinary and
unsuspected journey begins."
Inspired by the passage of which these are the opening words, I set
out one day to trace the Bievre to daylight, but it was a cheerless
enterprise, for the Rue Monge is a dreary street, and the new
Boulevards hereabouts are even drearier because they are wider. I
found her at last, by peeping through a hoarding in the Boulevard
Arago, with tanneries on each side of her; and then I gave it up.
[Illustration: LA BOHEMIENNE
FRANZ HALS
_(Louvre)_]
At the Cluny we saw the Thermes, a visible sign of Roman occupation;
just off the Rue Monge is another, the amphitheatre, still in very
good condition, with the grass growing between the crevices of the
great stone seats. You will find it in the Place des Arenes, a vestige
of Roman manners and pleasures now converted into an open space for
children and _bonnes_ and surrounded by flats. But save for the
desertion that the ages have brought it, the arena is not so very
different, and standing there, one may easily reconstruct the
spectators and see again the wild beasts emerging from the underground
passages, which still remain.
And now for the Pantheon, which rises above us.