THE BANKS OF THE SEINE
The city of the ancient Parisii is the one particular spot throughout the
length of the sea-green Seine--that "winding river" whose name, says
Thierry, in his "Histoire des Gaulois," is derived from a Celtic word
having this signification--where is resuscitated the historical being of
the entire French nation.
Here it circles around the Ile St. Louis, cutting it apart from the Ile de
la Cite, and rushing up against the northern bank, periodically throws up
a mass of gravelly sand, just in the precise spot where, in mediaeval
times, was an open market-place.
Here the inhabitants of the city met the country dealers, who landed
produce from their boats, traded, purchased, and sold, and departed whence
they came, into the regions of the upper Seine or the Marne, or downward
to the lower river cities of Meulan, Mantes, and Vernon.
At this time Paris began rapidly to grow on each side of the stream, and
became the great market or trading-place where the swains who lived
up-river mingled with the hewers of wood from the forests of La Brie and
the reapers of corn from the sunny plains of La Beauce.
These country folk, it would appear, preferred the northern part of Paris
to the southern--it was less ceremonious, less ecclesiastical. If they
approached the city from rearward of the Universite, by the Orleans
highroad, they paid exorbitant toll to the Abbot of St. Germain des Pres.
Here they paid considerably less to the Prevot of Paris. And thus from
very early times the distinction was made, and grew with advancing years,
between the town, or La Ville, which distinguished it from the Cite and
the Universite.
This sandy river-bank gradually evolved itself into the Quai and Place de
la Greve,--its etymology will not be difficult to trace,--and endured in
the full liberty of its olden functions as late as the day of Louis XV.
Here might have been seen great stacks of firewood, charcoal, corn, wine,
hay, and straw.
[Illustration: THE ODEON IN 1818]
Aside from its artistic and economic value, the Seine plays no great part
in the story of Paris. It does not divide what is glorious from what is
sordid, as does "London's river." When one crosses any one of its
numerous bridges, one does not exchange thriftiness and sublimity for the
commonplace. Les Invalides, L'Institut, the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, the
Odeon, the Universite,--whose buildings cluster around the ancient
Sorbonne,--the Hotel de Cluny, and the churches of St. Sulpice, St.
Etienne du Mont, and St. Severin, and, last but not least, the Chamber of
Deputies, all are on the south side of Paris, and do not shrink greatly in
artistic or historical importance from Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Tour
St. Jacques, the Place de la Bastille, the Palais Royal, or the
Theatre-Francais.
The greatest function of the Seine, when one tries to focus the memory on
its past, is to recall to us that old Paris was a trinity. Born of the
river itself rose the Cite, the home of the Church and state, scarce
finding room for her palaces and churches, while close to her side, on the
south bank, the Universite spread herself out, and on the right bank the
Ville hummed with trade and became the home of the great municipal
institutions.
Dumas shifts the scenes of his Parisian romances first from one side to
the other, but always his mediaeval Paris is the same grand, luxurious, and
lively stage setting. Certainly no historian could hope to have done
better.
Intrigue, riot, and bloodshed of course there were; and perhaps it may be
thought in undue proportions. But did not the history of Paris itself
furnish the romancer with these very essential details?
At all events, there is no great sordidness or squalor perpetuated in
Dumas' pages. Perhaps it is for this reason that they prove so readable,
and their wearing qualities so great.
There is in the reminiscence of history and the present aspect of the
Seine, throughout its length, the material for the constructing a volume
of bulk which should not lack either variety, picturesqueness, or
interest. It furthermore is a subject which seems to have been shamefully
neglected by writers of all ranks.
Turner, of the brilliant palette, pictured many of its scenes, and his
touring-companion wrote a more or less imaginative and wofully incorrect
running commentary on the itinerary of the journey, as he did also of
their descent of the Loire. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, accompanied by a
series of charming pictures by Joseph Pennell (the first really artistic
topographical illustrations ever put into the pages of a book), did the
same for the Saone; and, of course, the Thames has been "done" by many
writers of all shades of ability, but manifestly the Seine, along whose
banks lie the scenes of some of the most historic and momentous events of
mediaeval times, has been sadly neglected.
Paris is divided into practically two equal parts by the swift-flowing
current of the Seine, which winds its way in sundry convolutions from its
source beyond Chatillon-sur-Seine to the sea at Honfleur.
The praises of the winding river which connects Havre, Rouen, Vernon,
Mantes, and Paris has often been sung, but the brief, virile description
of it in the eighty-seventh chapter of Dumas' "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne"
has scarcely been equalled. Apropos of the journey of Madame and
Buckingham Paris-ward, after having taken leave of the English fleet at
Havre, Dumas says of this greatest of French waterways:
"The weather was fine. Spring cast its flowers and its perfumed foliage
upon the path. Normandy, with its vast variety of vegetation, its blue
sky, and silver rivers, displayed itself in all its loveliness."
* * * * *
Through Paris its direction is from the southeast to the northwest, a
distance, within the fortifications, of perhaps twelve kilometres.
Two islands of size cut its currents: the Ile St. Louis and the Ile de la
Cite. A description of its banks, taken from a French work of the time,
better defines its aspect immediately after the Revolution of 1848 than
any amount of conjecture or present-day observation, so it is here given:
"In its course through the metropolis, the Seine is bordered by a series
of magnificent quais, which in turn are bordered by rows of sturdy trees.
"The most attractive of these quais are those which flank the Louvre, the
Tuileries, D'Orsay, Voltaire, and Conti.
"Below the quais are deposed nine ports, or _gares_, each devoted to a
special class of merchandise, as coal, wine, produce, timber, etc.
"The north and south portions of the city are connected by twenty-six
_ponts_ (this was in 1852; others have since been erected, which are
mentioned elsewhere in the book).
"Coming from the upper river, they were known as follows: the Ponts
Napoleon, de Bercy, d'Austerlitz, the Passerelle de l'Estacade; then, on
the right branch of the river, around the islands, the Ponts Maril,
Louis-Philippe, d'Arcole, Notre Dame, and the Pont au Change; on the left
branch, the Passerelle St. Louis or Constantine, the Ponts Tournelle, de
la Cite, de l'Archeveche, le Pont aux Doubles, le Petit Pont, and the Pont
St. Michel; here the two branches join again: le Pont Neuf, des Arts, du
Carrousel, Royal, Solferino, de la Concorde, des Invalides, de l'Alma, de
Jena, and Grenelle.
"Near the Pont d'Austerlitz the Seine receives the waters of the petite
Riviere de Bievre, or des Gobelins, which traverses the faubourgs."
Of the bridges of Paris, Dumas in his romances has not a little to say. It
were not possible for a romanticist--or a realist, for that matter--to
write of Paris and not be continually confronting his characters with one
or another of the many splendid bridges which cross the Seine between
Conflans-Charenton and Asnieres.
In the "Mousquetaires" series, in the Valois romances, and in his later
works of lesser import, mention of these fine old bridges continually
recurs; more than all others the Pont Neuf, perhaps, or the Pont au
Change.
In "Pauline" there is a charming touch which we may take to smack somewhat
of the author's own predilections and experiences. He says, concerning his
embarkation upon a craft which he had hired at a little Norman
fishing-village, as one jobs a carriage in Paris: "I set up to be a
sailor, and served apprenticeship on a craft between the Pont des
Tuileries and the Pont de la Concorde."
Of the Seine bridges none is more historic than the Pont Neuf, usually
reckoned as one of the finest in Europe; which recalls the fact that the
French--ecclesiastic and laymen architects alike--were master
bridge-builders. For proof of this one has only to recall the wonderful
bridge of St. Benezet d'Avignon, the fortified bridges of Orthos and
Cahors, the bridge at Lyons, built by the Primate of Gaul himself, and
many others throughout the length and breadth of France.
The Pont Neuf was commenced in the reign of Henri III. (1578), and
finished in the reign of Henri IV. (1604), and is composed of two unequal
parts, which come to their juncture at the extremity of the Ile de la
Cite.
In the early years a great bronze horse, known familiarly as the "Cheval
de Bronze," but without a rider, was placed upon this bridge. During the
Revolution, when cannon and ammunition were made out of any metal which
could be obtained, this curious statue disappeared, though later its
pedestal was replaced--under the Bourbons--by an equestrian statue of the
Huguenot king.
The Pont des Arts, while not usually accredited as a beautiful
structure,--and certainly not comparable with many other of its
fellows,--is interesting by reason of the fact that its nine iron arches,
which led from the Quai du Louvre to the Quai de la Monnai, formed the
first example of an iron bridge ever constructed in France. Its
nomenclature is derived from the Louvre, which was then called--before the
title was applied to the College des Quatre Nations--the Palais des Arts.
In Restoration times it was one of the fashionable promenades of Paris.
The Pont au Change took its name from the _changeurs_, or money-brokers,
who lived upon it during the reign of Louis le Jeune in 1141. It bridged
the widest part of the Seine, and, after being destroyed by flood and fire
in 1408, 1616, and 1621, was rebuilt in 1647. The houses which originally
covered it were removed in 1788 by the order of Louis XVI. In "The
Conspirators," Dumas places the opening scene at that end of the Pont Neuf
which abuts on the Quai de l'Ecole, and is precise enough, but in
"Marguerite de Valois" he evidently confounds the Pont Neuf with the Pont
au Change, when he puts into the mouth of Coconnas, the Piedmontese: "They
who rob on the Pont Neuf are, then, like you, in the service of the king.
_Mordi!_ I have been very unjust, sir; for until now I had taken them for
thieves."
The Pont Louis XV. was built in 1787 out of part of the material which was
taken from the ruins of the Bastille.
Latterly there has sprung up the new Pont Alexandre, commemorative of the
Czar's visit to Paris, which for magnificent proportions, beauty of design
and arrangement, quite overtops any other of its kind, in Paris or
elsewhere.
The quais which line the Seine as it runs through Paris are like no other
quais in the known world. They are the very essence and epitome of certain
phases of life which find no counterpart elsewhere.
The following description of a bibliomaniac from Dumas' "Memoires" is
unique and apropos:
"Bibliomaniac, evolved from _book_ and _mania_, is a variety of the
species man--_species bipes et genus homo_.
"This animal has two feet and is without features, and usually wanders
about the quais and boulevards, stopping in front of every stall and
fingering all the books. He is generally dressed in a coat which is too
long and trousers which are too short, his shoes are always down at heel,
and on his head is an ill-shapen hat. One of the signs by which he may be
recognized is shown by the fact that he never washes his hands."
The booksellers' stalls of the quais of Paris are famous, though it is
doubtful if genuine bargains exist there in great numbers. It is
significant, however, that more volumes of Dumas' romances are offered
for sale--so it seems to the passer-by--than of any other author.
The Seine opposite the Louvre, and, indeed, throughout the length of its
flow through Paris, enters largely into the scheme of the romances, where
scenes are laid in the metropolis.
Like the throng which stormed the walls of the Louvre on the night of the
18th of August, 1527, during that splendid royal fete, the account of
which opens the pages of "Marguerite de Valois," the Seine itself
resembles Dumas' description of the midnight crowd, which he likens to "a
dark and rolling sea, each swell of which increases to a foaming wave;
this sea, extending all along the quai, spent its waves at the base of the
Louvre, on the one hand, and against the Hotel de Bourbon, which was
opposite, on the other."
In the chapter entitled "What Happened on the Night of the Twelfth of
July," in "The Taking of the Bastille," Dumas writes of the banks of the
Seine in this wise:
"Once upon the quai, the two countrymen saw glittering on the bridge near
the Tuileries the arms of another body of men, which, in all probability,
was not a body of friends; they silently glided to the end of the quai,
and descended the bank which leads along the Seine. The clock of the
Tuileries was just then striking eleven.
"When they had got beneath the trees which line the banks of the river,
fine aspen-trees and poplars, which bathe their feet in its current, when
they were lost to the sight of their pursuers, hid by their friendly
foliage, the farmers and Pitou threw themselves on the grass and opened a
council of war."
Just previously the mob had battered down the gate of the Tuileries, as a
means of escape from the pen in which the dragoons had crowded the
populace.
"'Tell me now, Father Billot,' inquired Pitou, after having carried the
timber some thirty yards, 'are we going far in this way?'
"'We are going as far as the gate of the Tuileries.'
"'Ho, ho!' cried the crowd, who at once divined his intention.
"And it made way for them more eagerly even than before.
"Pitou looked about him, and saw that the gate was not more than thirty
paces distant from them.
"'I can reach it,' said he, with the brevity of a Pythagorean.
"The labour was so much the easier to Pitou from five or six of the
strongest of the crowd taking their share of the burden.
"The result of this was a very notable acceleration in their progress.
"In five minutes they had reached the iron gates.
"'Come, now,' cried Billot, 'clap your shoulders to it, and all push
together.'
"'Good!' said Pitou. 'I understand now. We have just made a warlike
engine; the Romans used to call it a ram.'
"'Now, my boys,' cried Billot, 'once, twice, thrice,' and the joist,
directed with a furious impetus, struck the lock of the gate with
resounding violence.
"The soldiers who were on guard in the interior of the garden hastened to
resist this invasion. But at the third stroke the gate gave way, turning
violently on its hinges, and through that gaping and gloomy mouth the
crowd rushed impetuously.
"From the movement that was then made, the Prince de Lambesq perceived at
once that an opening had been effected which allowed the escape of those
whom he had considered his prisoners. He was furious with disappointment."