OLD PARIS
The Paris of Dumas was Meryon's--though it is well on toward a
half-century since either of them saw it. Hence it is no longer theirs;
but the master romancer and the master etcher had much in common.
They both drew with a fine, free hand, the one in words that burn
themselves in the memory, and the other in lines which, once bitten on the
copper plate, are come down to us in indelible fashion. The mention of
Meryon and his art is no mere rambling of the pen. Like that of Dumas, his
art depicted those bold, broad impressions which rebuilt "old Paris" in a
manner which is only comparable to the background which Dumas gave to "Les
Trois Mousquetaires."
The iconoclastic Haussman caused much to disappear, and it is hard to
trace the footsteps of many a character of history and romance, whose
incomings and outgoings are otherwise very familiar to us.
There are many distinct cities which go to make up Paris itself, each
differing from the other, but Dumas and Meryon drew them each and all with
unerring fidelity: Dumas the University Quarter and the faubourgs in "Les
Trois Mousquetaires," and Meryon the Cite in "The Stryge."
The sheer beauty and charm of old-world Paris was never more strongly
suggested than in the work of these two masters, who have given a
permanence to the abodes of history and romance which would otherwise have
been wanting. It is a pleasurable occupation to hunt up the dwellings of
those personages who may, or may not, have lived in the real flesh and
blood. The mere fact that they lived in the pages of a Dumas--or for that
matter of a Balzac or a Hugo--is excuse enough for most of us to seek to
follow in their footsteps.
In spite of the splendour of the present and the past, Paris is by no
means too great to prevent one's tracing its old outlines, streets, and
landmarks, even though they have disappeared to-day, and the site of the
famous Hotel Chevreuse or the Carmelite establishment in the Rue
Vaugirard--against whose wall D'Artagnan and his fellows put up that
gallant fight against the cardinal's guard--are in the same geographical
positions that they always were, if their immediate surroundings have
changed, as they assuredly have.
Indeed, the sturdy wall which kept the Carmelite friars from contact with
the outer world has become a mere hoarding for gaudily coloured posters,
and the magnificent Hotel Chevreuse on the Boulevard St. Germain has been
incorporated into a modern apartment-house, and its garden cut through by
the Boulevard Raspail.
The destruction of "Old Paris"--the gabled, half-timbered, mediaeval
city--is not only an artistic regret, but a personal one to all who know
intimately the city's history and romance. It was inevitable, of course,
but it is deplorable.
Meryon, too, like Dumas, etched details with a certain regard for effect
rather than a colder preciseness, which could hardly mean so much as an
impression of a mood. They both sought the picturesque element, and
naturally imparted to everything modern with which they came into contact
the same charm of reality which characterized the tangible results of
their labours.
Nothing was left to chance, though much may--we have reason to think--have
been spontaneous. The witchery of a picturesque impression is ever great,
but the frequency of its occurrence is growing less and less.
To-day we have few romancers, few painters or etchers of fleeting moods or
impressions, and are fast becoming schooled in the tenets of Zola and
Baudry, to the glorification of realism, but to the death and deep burial
of the far more healthy romanticism of the masters of a few generations
since.
* * * * *
To the Roman occupation of Paris succeeded that of the Franks, and Clovis,
son of Childerie and grandson of Merovee, after his conversion to
Christianity at Reims, established the seat of his empire at Paris.
Childebert, the descendant of Clovis,--who had taken unto himself the
title King of Paris,--in 524 laid the foundation of the first Eglise de
Notre Dame.
The kings of the second race lived in Paris but little, and under the
feeble successors of Charlemagne the city became the particular domain of
the hereditary counts. In the year 845 the Normans came up the river by
boat and razed all of that part known even to-day as La Cite, hence the
extreme improbability of there being existing remains of an earlier date
than this, which are to-day recognizable. After successive disasters and
invasions, it became necessary that new _quartiers_ and new streets should
be formed and populated, and under the reign of Louis VII. the walls were
extended to include, on the right bank, Le Bourg l'Abbe, Le Bourg
Thibourg, Le Beau-Bourg, Le Bourg St. Martin,--regions which have since
been occupied by the Rues St. Martin, Beaubourg, Bourtebourg, and Bourg
l'Abbe,--and, on the right bank, St. Germain des Pres, St. Victor, and St.
Michel.
Since this time Paris has been divided into three distinct parts: La
Ville, to the north of the Seine, La Cite, in the centre, and
L'Universite, in the south.
The second _enceinte_ did not long suffice to enclose the habitations of
the people, and in the year 1190 Philippe-Auguste constructed the third
wall, which was strengthened by five hundred towers and surrounded by a
deep _fosse_, perpetuated to-day as the Rempart des Fosses. At this time
the first attempts were made at paving the city streets, principally at
the instigation of the wealthy Gerard de Poissy, whose name has since been
given to an imposing street on the south bank.
Again, in 1356, the famous Etienne Marcel commenced the work of the fourth
_enceinte_. On the south, the walls were not greatly extended, but on the
north they underwent a considerable aggrandizement. Fortified gateways
were erected at the extremity of the Rue de St. Antoine, and others were
known variously as the Porte du Temple and Porte St. Denis. Other chief
features of the time--landmarks one may call them--were the Porte St.
Honore, which was connected with the river-bank by a prolonged wall, the
Tour du Bois, and a new fortification--as a guardian against internal
warfare, it would seem--at the upper end of the Ile de la Cite.
Toward the end of the reign of Louis XI. the city had become repeopled,
after many preceding years of flood, ravage, and famine, and contained, it
is said, nearly three hundred thousand souls.
From this reign, too, dates the establishment of the first printing-shop
in Paris, the letter-post, and the _poste-chaise_. Charles VII., the son
of Louis XI., united with the Bibliotheque Royal those of the Kings of
Naples.
Louis XII., who followed, did little to beautify the city, but his
parental care for the inhabitants reduced the income of the tax-gatherer
and endeared his name to all as the _Pere du Peuple_.
Francois I.--whose glorious name as the instigator of much that has since
become national in French art--considerably enlarged the fortifications
on the west, and executed the most momentous embellishments which had yet
taken place in the city. In public edifices he employed, or caused his
architects to employ, the Greek orders, and the paintings by Italian hands
and the sculptures of Goujon were the highest expressions of the art of
the Renaissance, which had grown so abundantly from the seed sown by
Charles VIII. upon his return from his wanderings in Italy.
It may be questioned if the art of the Renaissance is really beautiful; it
is, however, undeniably effective in its luxuriant, if often ill-assorted,
details; so why revile it here? It was the prime cause, more than all
others put together, of the real adornment of Paris; and, in truth, was
far more successful in the application of its principles here than
elsewhere.
During the reign of Francois I. were built, or rebuilt, the great Eglises
de St. Gervais, St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and St. Merry, as well as the
Hotel de Ville. The Louvre was reconstructed on a new plan, and the
Faubourg St. Germain was laid out anew.
Under Henri II. the work on the Louvre was completed, and the Hopital des
Petites Maisons constructed. It was Henri II., too, who first ordained
that the effigies of the kings should be placed upon all coins.
The principal edifices built under Charles IX. were the Palais des
Tuileries, Hotel de Soissons, the Jesuit College, and the Hopital du St.
Jacques du Haut Pas.
Henri III. erected the church of the Jesuits in the Rue St. Antoine, the
Eglise de St. Paul et St. Louis, the Monastere des Feuillants, the Hotel
de Bourgogne, and the Theatre Italien.
Under Henri IV. was achieved the Pont Neuf, whose centre piers just
impinge upon the lower end of the Ile de la Cite; the Quais de l'Arsenal,
de l'Horloge, des Orphelins, de l'Ecole, de la Megisserie, de Conti, and
des Augustins; la Place Dauphine, and the Rue Dauphine. The Place Royale
came to replace--in the _Quartier du Marais_--the old Palais des
Tournelles, the pleasure of so many kings, Francois I. in particular.
Louis XIII., the feeble king who reigned without governing, saw many
improvements, which, however, grew up in spite of the monarch rather than
because of him.
There was a general furbishing up of the streets and quais. Marie de
Medicis built the Palais du Luxembourg and planted the Cours la Reine;
many new bridges were constructed and new monuments set up, among others
the Palais Royal, at this time called the Palais Cardinal; the Eglise St.
Roch; the Oratoire; le Val-de-Grace; les Madelonnettes; la Salpetriere;
the Sorbonne, and the Jardin des Plantes. Many public places were also
decorated with statues: the effigy of Henri IV. was placed on the Pont
Neuf, and of Louis XII. in the Place Royale.
By this time the population had overflowed the walls of Philippe-Auguste,
already enlarged by Francois I., and Louis XIV. overturned their towers
and ramparts, and filled their _fosses_, believing that a strong community
needed no such protections.
These ancient fortifications were replaced by the boulevards which exist
even unto to-day--not only in Paris, but in most French towns and
cities--unequalled elsewhere in all the world.
Up to the reign of Louis XIV. the population of Paris had, for the most
part, been lodged in narrow, muddy streets, which had subjected them to
many indescribable discomforts. Meanwhile, during the glorious reign of
Louis XIV., Paris achieved great extension of area and splendour; many new
streets were opened in the different _quartiers_, others were laid out
anew or abolished altogether, more than thirty churches were
built,--"all highly beautiful," say the guide-books. But they are not:
Paris churches taken together are a decidedly mixed lot, some good in
parts and yet execrable in other parts, and many even do not express any
intimation whatever of good architectural forms.
[Illustration: PONT NEUF.--PONT AU CHANGE]
The Pont au Change was rebuilt, and yet four other bridges were made
necessary to permit of better circulation between the various _faubourgs_
and _quartiers_.
To the credit of Louis XIV. must also be put down the Hotel des Invalides,
the Observatoire, the magnificent colonnade of the Louvre, the Pont Royal,
the College des Quatre Nations, the Bibliotheque Royale, numerous
fountains and statues, the royal glass, porcelain, and tapestry
manufactories, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, and the Boulevards St.
Denis and St. Martin.
Saint Foix (in his "Essais sur Paris") has said that it was Louis XIV. who
first gave to the reign of a French monarch the _eclat_ of grandeur and
magnificence, not only for his court, but for his capital and his people.
Under the succeeding reign of Louis XV. the beautifying of Paris took
another flight. On the place which first bore the name of the monarch
himself, but which is to-day known as the Place de la Concorde, were
erected a pair of richly decorated monuments which quite rivalled in
achievement the superb colonnaded Louvre of the previous reign, the Champs
Elysees were replanted, the Ecole Militaire, the Ecole de Droit, and the
Hotel de la Monnaie were erected, and still other additional boulevards
and magnificent streets were planned out.
A new church came into being with St. Genevieve, which afterward became
the Pantheon.
The reign following saw the final achievement of all these splendid
undertakings; then came the Revolution, that political terror which would
have upset all established institutions; and if Paris, the city of
splendid houses, did not become merely a cemetery of tombs, it was not
because maniacal fanaticism and fury were lacking.
Religious, civic, and military establishments were razed, demolished, or
burnt, regardless of their past associations or present artistic worth.
In a way, however, these sacrilegious demolitions gave cause to much
energetic rebuilding and laying out of the old city anew, in the years
immediately succeeding the period of the Revolution, which as an
historical event has no place in this book other than mere mention, as it
may have been referred to by Dumas.
It was Napoleon who undertook the rehabilitation of Paris, with an energy
and foresight only equalled by his prowess as a master of men.
He occupied himself above all with what the French themselves would call
those _monuments et decorations utiles_, as might be expected of his
abilities as an organizer. The canal from the river Ourcq through La
Villette to the Seine was, at the Fosses de la Bastille, cleared and
emptied of its long stagnant waters; _abattoirs_ were constructed in
convenient places, in order to do away with the vast herds of cattle which
for centuries had been paraded through the most luxurious of the city's
streets; new markets were opened, and numerous fountains and
watering-troughs were erected in various parts of the city; four new and
ornate bridges were thrown across the Seine, the magnificent Rues
Castiglione and de la Paix, extending from the Tuileries to the interior
boulevards, were opened up; the Place Vendome was then endowed with its
bronze column, which stands to-day; the splendid and utile Rue de Rivoli
was made beside the garden of the Tuileries (it has since been prolonged
to the Hotel de Ville).
Napoleon also founded the Palais de la Bourse (1808), and caused to be
erected a superb iron _grille_ which should separate the Place du
Carrousel from the Tuileries.
Under the Restoration little happened with regard to the beautifying and
aggrandizing of the city, though certain improvements of a purely economic
and social nature made their own way.
The literature and art of Dumas and his compeers were making such sturdy
progress as to give Paris that preeminence in these finer elements of
life, which, before or since, has not been equalled elsewhere.
Since the Revolution of 1830 have been completed the Arc de Triomphe de
l'Etoile (commenced by Napoleon I.), the Eglise de la Madeleine, the fine
hotel of the Quai d'Orsay, the Palais des Beaux Arts, the restoration of
the Chambre des Deputes (the old Palais Bourbon), and the statues set up
in the Place de la Concorde; though it is only since the ill-starred
Franco-Prussian _affaire_ of 1871 that Strasbourg's doleful figure has
been buried in jet and alabaster sentiments, so dear to the Frenchman of
all ranks, as an outward expression of grief.
At the commencement of the Second Empire the fortifications, as they then
existed, possessed a circumference of something above thirty-three
kilometres--approximately nineteen miles. The walls are astonishingly
thick, and their _fosses_ wide and deep. The surrounding exterior forts
"_de distance en distance_" are a unique feature of the general scheme of
defence, and played, as it will be recalled, no unimportant part in the
investiture of the city by the Germans in the seventies.
A French writer of the early days of the last Empire says: "These new
fortifications are in their ensemble a gigantic work." They are,
indeed--though, in spite of their immensity, they do not impress the lay
observer even as to impregnability as do the wonderful walls and ramparts
of Carcassonne, or dead Aigues-Mortes in the Midi of France; those
wonderful somnolent old cities of a glorious past, long since departed.
The fortifications of Paris, however, are a wonderfully utile thing, and
must ever have an unfathomable interest for all who have followed their
evolution from the restricted battlements of the early Roman city.
The Parisian has, perhaps, cause to regret that these turf-covered
battlements somewhat restrict his "_promenades environnantes_," but what
would you? Once outside, through any of the gateways, the Avenue de la
Grande Armee,--which is the most splendid,--or the Porte du Canal de
l'Ourcq,--which is the least luxurious, though by no means is it
unpicturesque; indeed, it has more of that variable quality, perhaps, than
any other,--one comes into the charm of the French countryside; that is,
if he knows in which direction to turn. At any rate, he comes immediately
into contact with a life which is quite different from any phase which is
to be seen within the barrier.
From the Revolution of 1848 to the first years of the Second Empire, which
ought properly to be treated by itself,--and so shall be,--there came into
being many and vast demolitions and improvements.
Paris was a vast atelier of construction, where agile minds conceived, and
the artisan and craftsman executed, monumental glories and improvements
which can only be likened to the focusing of the image upon the ground
glass.
The prolongation of the Rue de Rivoli was put through; the Boulevards
Sebastopol, Malesherbes,--where in the Place Malesherbes is that appealing
monument to Dumas by Gustave Dore,--du Prince Eugene, St. Germain,
Magenta, the Rue des Ecoles, and many others. All of which tended to
change the very face and features of the Paris the world had known
hitherto.
The "Caserne Napoleon" had received its guests, and the Tour St. Jacques,
from which point of vantage the "clerk of the weather" to-day
prognosticates for Paris, had been restored. Magnificent establishments of
all sorts and ranks had been built, the Palais de l'Industrie (since
razed) had opened its doors to the work of all nations, in the exhibition
of 1855.
Of Paris, one may well concentrate one's estimate in five words: "Each
epoch has been rich," also prolific, in benefits, intentions, and
creations of all manner of estimable and admirable achievements.
By favour of these efforts of all the reigns and governments which have
gone before, the Paris of to-day in its architectural glories, its
monuments in stone, and the very atmosphere of its streets, places, and
boulevards, is assuredly the most marvellous of all the cities of Europe.
* * * * *
It may not be an exceedingly pleasant subject, but there is, and always
has been, a certain fascination about a visit to a cemetery which ranks,
in the minds of many well-informed and refined persons, far above even the
contemplation of great churches themselves.
It may be a morbid taste, or it may not. Certainly there seems to be no
reason why a considerable amount of really valuable facts might not be
impressed upon the retina of a traveller who should do the round of
_Campos Santos_, _Cimetieres_ and burial-grounds in various lands.
In this respect, as in many others, Paris leads the way for sheer interest
in its tombs and sepulchres, at Montmartre and Pere la Chaise.
In no other burial-ground in the world--unless it be Mount Auburn, near
Boston, where, if the world-wide name and fame of those there buried are
not so great as those at Paris, their names are at least as much household
words to English-speaking folk, as are those of the old-world
resting-place to the French themselves--are to be found so many celebrated
names.
There are a quartette of these famous resting-places at Paris which, since
the coming of the nineteenth century, have had an absorbing interest for
the curiously inclined. Pere la Chaise, Montmartre, the royal sepulchres
in the old abbey church of St. Denis, and the churchyard of St. Innocents.
"Man," said Sir Thomas Brown, "is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and
pompous in the grave." Why this should be so, it is not the province of
this book to explain, nor even to justify the gorgeous and ill-mannered
monuments which are often erected over his bones.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF HENRY IV.]
The catacombs of Paris are purposely ignored here, as appealing to a
special variety of morbidity which is as unpleasant to deal with and to
contemplate as are snakes preserved in spirit, and as would be--were we
allowed to see them--the sacred human _reliques_ which are preserved, even
to-day, at various pilgrims' shrines throughout the Christian world. That
vast royal sepulchre of the abbey church of St. Denis, which had been so
outrageously despoiled by the decree of the Convention in 1793, was in a
measure set to rights by Louis XVIII., when he caused to be returned from
the Petits Augustins, now the Palais des Beaux Arts, and elsewhere, such
of the monuments as had not been actually destroyed. The actual spoliation
of these shrines belongs to an earlier day than that of which this book
deals.
The history of it forms as lurid a chapter as any known to the records of
riot and sacrilege in France; and the more the pity that the motion of
Barrere ("_La main puissante de la Republique doit effacer inpitoyablement
ces epitaphes_") to destroy these royal tombs should have had official
endorsement.
The details of these barbarous exhumations were curious, but not edifying;
the corpse of Turenne was exhibited around the city; Henri IV.--"his
features still being perfect"--was kicked and bunted about like a
football; Louis XIV. was found in a perfect preservation, but entirely
black; Louis VIII. had been sewed up in a leather sack; and Francois I.
and his family "had become much decayed;" so, too, with many of the later
Bourbons.
In general these bodies were deposited in a common pit, which had been dug
near the north entrance to the abbey, and thus, for the first time in the
many centuries covered by the period of their respected demises, their
dust was to mingle in a common blend, and all factions were to become one.
Viollet-le-Duc, at the instruction of Napoleon III., set up again,
following somewhat an approximation of the original plan, the various
monuments which had been so thoroughly scattered, and which, since their
return to the old abbey, had been herded together without a pretence at
order in the crypt.
Paris had for centuries been wretchedly supplied with _cimetieres_. For
long one only had existed, that of the churchyard of St. Innocents',
originally a piece of the royal domain lying without the walls, and given
by one of the French kings as a burial-place for the citizens, when
interments within the city were forbidden.
It has been calculated that from the time of Philippe-Auguste over a
million bodies had been interred in these _fosses communes_.
In 1785 the Council of State decreed that the cemetery should be cleared
of its dead and converted into a market-place. Cleared it was not, but it
has since become a market-place, and the waters of the Fontaine des
Innocents filter briskly through the dust of the dead of ages.
Sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century the funeral
undertakings of Paris were conducted on a sliding scale of prices, ranging
from four thousand francs in the first class, to as low as sixteen francs
for the very poor; six classes in all.
This law-ordered _tarif_ would seem to have been a good thing for
posterity to have perpetuated.
The artisan or craftsman who fashions the funeral monuments of Paris has a
peculiar flight of fancy all his own; though, be it said, throughout the
known world, funeral urns and monuments have seldom or never been
beautiful, graceful, or even austere or dignified: they have, in fact,
mostly been shocking travesties of the ideals and thoughts they should
have represented.
It is remarkable that the French architect and builder, who knows so well
how to design and construct the habitation of living man, should express
himself so badly in his bizarre funeral monuments and the tawdry tinsel
wreaths and flowers of their decorations.
An English visitor to Paris in the thirties deplored the fact that her
cemeteries should be made into mere show-places, and perhaps rightly
enough. At that time they served as a fashionable and polite avenue for
promenades, and there was (perhaps even is to-day) a guide-book published
of them, and, since grief is paradoxically and proverbially dry, there was
always a battery of taverns and drinking-places flanking their entrances.
It was observed by a writer in a Parisian journal of that day that "in the
Cimetiere du Montmartre--which was the deposit for the gay part of the
city--nine tombs out of ten were to the memory of persons cut off in their
youth; but that in Pere la Chaise--which served principally for the sober
citizens of Paris--nine out of ten recorded the ages of persons who had
attained a good old age."