_Grandson and son of two rare and justly-renowned artists, P. J. Mène
and Auguste Cain, my excellent friend, Georges Cain, has abundantly
shown that he is the worthy inheritor of their talent. To-day, he wishes
to prove that he knows how "to handle the pen as well as the pencil" as
our Ancients used to say, and that the Carnavalet Museum has in him, not
only the active and enthusiastic Curator that we constantly see at his
task, but also the most enlightened guide possible in matters of
Parisian lore; and so he has written this bewitching book which conjures
up before me the Paris of my childhood and youth--the Paris of times
gone by, which, in the course of centuries, has undergone many
transformations, but not one so rapid and so complete as that which I
have witnessed. The change, indeed, is such that, in certain quarters, I
have difficulty in recognising, in the city of Napoleon III., that of
Louis-Philippe. The latter would have been uninhabitable now, owing to
the requirements of modern life, but it answered to the needs and
customs of its time. People put up then with difficulties and defects
that were judged unavoidable, no Capital being without them. And, in
fact, in spite of its drawbacks and blemishes, the Paris of that period
had its own charms._
[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, AND THE ELEPHANT
_Lithographed by Ph. Benoist_]
_Most of its streets were very narrow and had no sidewalks. Pedestrians
were obliged to take refuge, from passing carriages, on shop thresholds,
under entrance gates, or else beside posts erected here and there for
that purpose. Still, even in the densest traffic, one ran fewer risks
walking along the road than one runs at present crossing the
boulevards.... On these boulevards, where a single omnibus plied between
the Madeleine and the Bastille every quarter of an hour, and where there
was practically no danger of being knocked down by a horse, I have seen
a crowd watching a fencing-bout on the spot to-day occupied by a
refuge-pavement; and, on the Bastille Square, I used to play quietly,
trundling my hoop round the Elephant and the July Pillar. There was
little else to dread, throughout Paris, save splashes from the gutters,
whose waters flowed in the middle of the streets ... when they flowed at
all; for, during the hot summer days, there was nothing but stagnant
household slops, which lay in the gutters until the next storm of rain.
In winter, as the snow was never swept away, and the employment of salt
for melting it was unknown, the thaws were something terrible! Every
corner--and the houses being hardly ever in line, there were many--was
used as a rubbish-heap, or for the committing of nuisances excusable
only through lack of modern conveniences. Moreover, the streets, by very
reason of their narrowness, were more noisy than ours. The rolling of
heavy waggons over big, round paving-stones badly set, with jolts that
shook both windows and houses; the constant cries of men and women
selling fruit, vegetables, fish and flowers, &c. ... and pushing their
handcarts, not to speak of dealers in clothes, umbrellas, and
hand-brushes, of glaziers and of chimney-sweeps; the din of watermen
blowing into their taps; the calls of water-bearers as they loudly
clinked their bucket-handles; the clarionets and tambourines of
strolling singers that went from one courtyard to another; all this
composed the gaiety of the street. What was less tolerable was the
incessant noise of barrel-organs beneath your windows from morning till
evenings and inflicting on you a torture that it makes me angry to think
of even now._
_To crown all, the lighting of the streets was wretched. In most, it was
the ancient lamp whose illumination was an affair that stopped traffic
while the operation lasted. On the other hand, however, the city was
better guarded at night than it is at present, owing to the rounds of
the "grey patrols" which, with their Indian files of cloak-muffled,
slow-walking figures, crept along the walls and crossed one another's
beats so as to be within helping distance, at the least alarm. Happy
time, when, at one o'clock in the morning, in my lonely quarter, I was
sure to come across one of them, and when one could stay out late
without a revolver in one's pocket. This, it will be said, was because
Paris was smaller, less populus, and the task of the police easier.
But it is the duty of the police to proportion the protection to the
danger, and the numbers of its officers to those of the evil-doers that
infest our streets, for whom, formerly, little of the regard was felt
that is lavished on them to-day._
_As a set-off to its narrow, badly-paved, badly-kept, and badly-lighted
streets, Paris then had an attraction which it no longer possesses--its
gardens._
_The idea formed of the old city is, generally, that of a heap of
ancient houses with neither light, fresh air, nor verdure. In reality,
the houses of the time, whether recent or old, existed only as a border
to the street. Behind them, in the whole of the space that extended from
one road to another, there were vast enclosures affording the sun,
silence and verdure that did not exist in front. Many dwellings had
fashioned, out of the grounds of mansions and convents parcelled up
during the last century or two, large courtyards and private gardens
which, separated merely by low fences, mingled their foliage and shade.
This was so everywhere throughout the city, except in the part of it
properly so called, and in the central portion near the Town Hall and
the markets. A glance at the old plans of Paris will suffice to show
that these unbuilt-on spaces comprised, under Louis XVI., the half, and,
under Louis-Philippe, a third of the city's present area. In the Marais
and Arsenal quarters, in the Saint-Antoine, Temple, and Popincourt
faubourgs, in the Courtille, the Chaussée d'Antin, the Porcherons, the
Roule quarters, in the Saint-Honoré faubourg, and along all the left
bank of the river, which last was privileged in this respect, there were
only scattered dwellings amidst orchards, kitchen-gardens,
trellis-vineyards, farmyards, groves, and parks planted with century-old
trees. The little that remains of this past is being rapidly destroyed;
and, from the health and pleasure point of view, it is a great pity._
_From my window in the Rue d'Enfer, Estrapade Square, close to the blind
alley of the Feuillantines, I used to cast my eyes, as far as I could
see in every direction, over a wealth of foliage. In the Rue
Neuve-Saint-Étienne, from the place where Bernardin de Saint-Pierre once
lived, I beheld the towers of Notre Dame, beyond avenues of trimmed
trees; and I could say, like the good Monsieur Rollin, in the distich
engraved on his door a few yards away:_ Ruris et urbis incola, _that I
was "an inhabitant both of the town and of the country." Through these
gardens, through these silent streets so propitious to quiet labour, and
scenting of lilacs and blossoming with pink and white chestnuts, new
roads have been cut; the Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel Boulevards, the
Rues de Rennes and Gay-Lussac, the Rue Monge which caused the demolition
of the rustic cottage where Pascal died in the Rue Saint-Étienne itself;
and the Rue Claude-Bernard which did away with the Feuillantines, where
Victor Hugo, as a child, used to chase butterflies. Soon, the last of
the monastic enclosures of the Saint-Jacques quarter, that of the
Ursulines, will disappear to make room for three new streets!_
_The use of such small gardens, belonging mostly to private houses, was
keenly appreciated by Parisians of the lower middle-classes who have
always been of a stay-at-home disposition. This characteristic of theirs
was satirised, during last century, in a well-known pamphlet: "A Journey
from Paris to Saint-Cloud by Sea and by Land." Their curiosity with
regard to far-off countries was not awakened as it is nowadays by
stories of travel, and by engravings, photographs, or coloured
advertisements. And getting from one place to another was very
expensive. Railways had not yet made it easy for every one to go long
distances by means of reduced fares and cheap circular tickets. An
ordinary working man, in these modern times, will travel more easily
to Biarritz, Switzerland, or Monte-Carlo, than an independent gentleman
of the Marais could then have done. During the midsummer heat, Paris
was as full as in winter's cold; and the theatres reaped their most
abundant harvest, especially popular ones like the Ambigu, the
Porte-Saint-Martin, the Gaieti, the Cirque, the Folies-Dramatiques, the
Petit Lazary, Madame Saqui's, the Théâtre Historique, &c., which were
situated near together about the Temple Boulevard. The fine weather
allowed people living at long distances to come on foot to this dramatic
fair, saving the price of a carriage both ways, and to make tail at the
doors, without having to fear rain or cold; for the good-tempered public
of those days, loving a play for its own sake, had no objection to be
penned up so, between two barriers, while waiting for the opening of the
ticket-offices, which then used to take place between five and six in
the evening; it was one of the conditions, one of the stimulants of
their pleasure, something to whet their appetite before the
performance._
_Even the holidays did not empty Paris very perceptibly, except on the
left bank of the Seine. From May to October, the majority of the
middle-class--small shopkeepers, functionaries, retired people, as well
as employees, clerks, and workers of every kind--contented themselves,
like Paul de Kock's heroes, with excursions and picnics in the various
Parisian suburbs--Vincennes, Montmorency, Saint-Cloud, Romainville, &c.
In Paris, shopkeepers laid the cloth for a meal out in the open air, in
the yard or garden, or, failing that, in the street. When I returned
from my Sunday walk, at the dinner-hour, between four and five in the
afternoon, I used to see, everywhere in the busiest streets, nothing but
families at table before their doors, while boys and girls played about
the road at shuttlecock, hot cockles, or blindman's buff. Occasionally,
I was caught as I passed by some little girl with bandaged eyes, who, in
order to recognise me, would feel my face, amid shouts of laughter from
all the diners. And if, during the long summer evenings, I went with my
companions to play at prisoners' base in the Rues de Vaugirard, or
d'Enfer, or on the small Saint-Michel Square, the good folk, enjoying
the fresh air on their doorsteps, paid no attention to us boys galloping
all over the street._
_In a word, Paris was no different from the country-town!_
[Illustration: DEMOLITION OF THE RUE SAINTE-HYACINTH-SAINT-MICHEL
Opposite to the Rue Soufflot
_Etching by Martial_]
_These_ "bourgeois" _customs, which one might distinguish briefly by
saying that they were "eighteen-hundred-and-thirty customs" survived
till the 1848 Revolution, and persisted even into the Second Empire,
when railway extension, the influx of strangers, great industrial and
commercial enterprises, an increasing prosperity, the desire for comfort
and luxury, a more active public life, keener competition, and the
intenser struggle for life brought into existence our present customs
and manners. It was a surprising transformation, one which was no little
fostered by the creation of a new Paris on the ruins of the old. How
often have I congratulated myself on having, from the time when I was
fifteen years of age, devoted my holiday rambles to ferreting out, in
the old quarters of the city now cut through, parcelled up and
destroyed, the slightest vestiges of the past, as if I had foreseen
that, within a brief delay, they would be reduced to dust by the
demolisher's pick-axe._
_The Paris of Louis-Philippe was very nearly that of the Great
Revolution and the First Empire. Each step in it awoke souvenirs that
people thought but little of in my childhood, romanticism being more
interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and more inquisitive
about the massacre of Saint-Barthelemy than about those of September. It
looked with tenderness at the old corner turret of the Grève Square, but
gave no glance at the sign-post on the same Square, where the
unfortunate Foulon was hanged. It deplored the disappearance of the
Barbette Gate which marked the site where Charles d'Orléans was
murdered, but did not suggest going to see, a few steps further, in the
Rue des Ballets, the post where Madame de Lamballe's corpse was
beheaded. Artists, novelists, poets, historians disdained these
localities still warm from the Revolutionary drama, some episodes of
which they claimed to relate. Ary Scheffer purports to show us the
arrest of Charlotte Corday; but does not care to consult documents of
the greatest exactitude that would have brought her before his eyes and
ours with just her face, her attitude, and her dress. He does not even
think to go to the Rue des Cordeliers and visit Marat's dwelling, still
remaining as it was, including his bell rope. And he offers us a
Charlotte of his own invention, cleverly painted, who looks like a
chambermaid arrested by the porter, just as she is going off with her
mistress's gown on her back!_
_In his_ "Stello," _Alfred de Vigny is quite as indifferent to local
colouring as he is to facts. He places André Chénier's scaffold "on the
Revolution Square" after taking him thither in a cart laden with more
than "eighty victims, among them being some women with children sucking
at the breast"!!!_
_It is the same with the rest!_
_Being more careful, I did not disdain the old stones that were humble
witnesses of deeds so great; and, thanks to them, I was able to live
through the Revolution again on the spot. They were fated to disappear.
A new city cannot be built except on the remains of the old; and it is
hard to reconcile the requirements of the present with the worship of
the past. Indeed most of the old things, even those that might be saved,
would have a sorry air amid the splendours of our modern City. What
grieves me is to find that they have often been replaced in such a way
as to cause one to regret their disappearance._
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL IN 1838
_Lithographed by Engelmann_]
_As for the City, so called, it may be granted that the pulling down of
its old buildings, its dark alleys, could only give pain to those whose
passion is the picturesque, or to the admirers of the_ Mysteries of
Paris. _Yet one must confess that, framed in its old close, Notre-Dame
looked nobler than now at the end of a vast, desert space, where it
seems to be stupidly posing before a photographer's camera, between the
emptiness of the river and the frightful Town Hall, that might be taken
for a slaughter-house._
_Nor was it necessary, when displacing the flower-market, to forbid the
sellers' continuing the habit of improvising those pretty bowers of
foliage and flowers, and to impose on them those zinc roofs that should
shelter only artificial blooms,--not at all necessary, simply to
complete the charm of the present administrative arbour._
_It might have also been possible to avoid cutting through the Dauphine
Square, which I have seen in my time as charming as the Place Royale,
with its pink bricks, since all we have in return is the
funereal-looking structure forming the entrance of the Palais de Justice
and the horrible balustrade of its staircase._
_Since my chance stroll has brought me to the Pont-Neuf I may just as
well pursue in this direction my retrospective way._
[Illustration: THE PONT-NEUF ABOUT 1850
_Water-colour by Th. Masson_ (Carnavalet Museum)]
_The Pont-Neuf which is newer than ever, may be congratulated on the
loss of its high foot-pavements, its shoeblacks, dog shearers, and cat
doctors squatting among its pillars, and its haberdashers, stationers,
perfumers, fried-potato men and matchsellers, whose stalls, set up in
the semi-circular projections of the bridge, have been pulled down,
together with the old sentry-boxes that sheltered them, to make room for
the benches of the present day. But what vandalism--the whitewashing of
the two brick houses that face Henry IV.'s statue! They were built for
the site they occupy. They are an integral part of the bridge, and
contribute greatly to its adornment. If the owners, who have already
whitewashed them, take it into their heads to replace them by so-so
sort of constructions, it will mean the spoiling of one of the prettiest
sights of Old Paris._
_Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, too, might have been spared the proximity of
the tower which pretends to be Gothic, and of the Mairie which believes
itself Renaissance. In their company, the church loses all its grace,
and the group is ridiculous._
_At least, when turning one's back, one has the satisfaction no longer
to see in front of the Colonnade a waste ground surrounded with rotten
palings. Only crosses were lacking to give the place the appearance of a
cemetery._
_And, as a matter of fact, it was one!_
[Illustration: THE LOUVRE ABOUT 1785
_Drawn by Meunier_ (Carnavalet Museum)]
_In the Restoration period, where now the equestrian statue of Velasquez
stands, Egyptian mummies had been buried--mummies that had become
decomposed, through too long sojourning in the damp ground-floor rooms
of the Louvre. In 1830, in the same spot, the corpses of the assailants
killed in the attack on the Louvre were hastily cast into a common
grave. Ten years later, when it was desired to give these brave fellows
a nobler sepulture, patriots and mummies were dug up pell-mell; and now
contemporaries of the Pharaohs lie piously buried beneath the column of
the Bastille, side by side with the July heroes._
_I knew the courtyard of the Louvre when it had a statue of the Duke of
Orléans, put away after 1848, one of Francis I. by Clésinger succeeding
it. Some fool or other having nicknamed it the "Sire de Framboisy," the
joke was too idiotic not to have the greatest success. And to the
nickname is partly due the disappearance of a work of art that deserved
a better fate._
_No description can give any idea of what the Carrousel Square was then,
in the intermediate state to which it was condemned, after the First
Empire, by the joining of the Louvre to the Tuileries, which joining was
still unachieved, though always being planned and replanned. It was
nothing but a medley of half-destroyed streets, isolated houses half
pulled-down and shored up with beams. The unpaved, uneven, broken ground
was a veritable bog in rainy weather. The great gallery of the Louvre
was flanked with an ugly wooden corridor, for ever ready to flare up!
For, as tradition has it, there is always some permanent risk of fire
in the vicinity of the Museum! On the same side, the Civil Service
had run up temporary buildings which, from the small courtyard of the
Sphinx to the gate facing the Saints-Pères bridge, enclosed the ruins of
the ancient church of Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre and its dependencies, such
as the Priory where Théophile Gautier, Gérard de Nerval, Nanteuil,
Arsène Houssaye, and others, had established their "Bohème galante."
These buildings, in favour of which extenuating circumstances might be
pleaded, were hired out to colour, engraving, picture, and
curiosity-dealers of all kinds. I still see a large shop of knick-knacks
where, among a most amusing collection of ostriches' eggs, stuffed
crocodiles, and Red-Skins' heads of hair, the amateur used to come
across wonderful bargains. And what riches also in the cases exposed by
engraving-dealers in front of their doors to the curiosity of those
interested in such things! Besides the engravings, there were lots of
drawings, sketches, red crayon designs, water-colours by Cochin, Moreau,
Boucher, Lawrence, Fragonard, Saint-Aubin, Proudhon, Boilly, Isabey, &c.
I have passed there delightful hours, looking through such cases, the
contents of which, alas! I could only admire, being unable to afford to
buy masterpieces which I felt would have a future value, and which were
then sold for a mere song, the pedants of David's school despising the
French art of the eighteenth century, it being too amiable and witty for
their taste. "Sir," said one of these dealers later to me, "I have
rolled up before now engravings of Poussin, for which I would not pay
two francs to-day, in other engravings of Debucourt that I would not
sell to-day for a thousand francs!"_
_All this was swept away by the amalgamation of the two Palaces and the
prolonging of the Rue de Rivoli, which has, moreover, endowed us with a
very fine Square in front of the Palais Royal, in lieu of the old one,
so mean, with its fountain of water, decorative enough but all blackened
with dirt and slime._
[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL IN 1791
_"Gouache" by the Chevalier de Lespinasse_ (Carnavalet Museum)]
_As for the Palais Royal, which the Duke d'Orléans seemed to have had
built, so that it might be the Forum of the Revolution, if it was no
longer the rendezvous of politicians, clubmen, gazetteers, open-air
orators, and stock-jobbers, the battlefield of 1793 Republicans and
fops, of Royalists and half-pay soldiers, the official promenade for
the Merveilleuses, and courtesans of all degrees, if it no longer had
its wooden galleries, its Tartar camp, its Dutch grotto, its gambling
hells, it was still the headquarters of the nymphs of the neighbourhood;
and, thanks to its two theatres, its eating-houses, its renowned
coffee-houses, its rich shops, especially those of the jewellers, it was
still the central point of attraction in Paris for newcomers from the
country and abroad. With the least shower, it was impossible to walk
about beneath its porticoes; and, in all weathers, especially on
Sunday--the day of meeting_ par excellence--_there were crowds in the
glass-covered arcade where, quite recently, I found myself
alone--absolutely alone!_
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD OF THE CARROUSEL AND THE MUSEUMS ABOUT 1848
_Etching by Martial_]
_What shall I say of the Tuileries Palace, except that it once was and
is no more? How I regret the magnificent shades of its grand avenue,
unrivalled even at Versailles, and its clumps of chestnuts that braved
the ardent sun rays! Nature alone is to blame for their disappearance,
but they might have been replaced by trees less pitiable than the
inevitable plane and acacia, which latter, without its flowers, is
really the silliest and ugliest of trees. It promises a fine foliage for
the future, if the future of this unfortunate garden is not to be
totally suppressed, or at least to be broken up into lots!_
[Illustration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE
_Original drawing by G. de Saint-Aubin_ (George Cain Collection)]
_Time was when I have seen the Place de la Concorde without its
fountains and its statues, save the four horses of Marly--those of
Coysevox at the gate of the Tuileries, those of Coustou at the entrance
to the Champs-Elysées. When I was a boy, the socles of the future towns
of France were being restored. Since the days of Louis XV., they had
been decked with plaster caps, like saucepan lids, and were despised so
much that the one bearing the town of Strasburg was flanked with a base
stove-pipe. Anyway, it was the only one that shocked one's eyes. Count
those at present that crown the monuments of Gabriel! Round the Square
the ditches still remained, which on fête days had already made so many
victims through the hindrance they offered to the crowd's getting away.
One evenings when some fireworks were being let off on the Concorde
bridge in honour of the King's birthday, I had only just time enough to
take refuge on one of their balustrades, whence I was nearly thrown down
into the moat by those that followed my example._
_The obelisk had just been erected in the centre of the Square, where
its only justification was the fact of its having extricated the July
Monarchy from an embarrassing position. The authorities did not know
where to put it so as to conciliate everybody's opinion. The old stone
monument, indifferent to all parties, was a fitting symbol of their
Concord._
_The Champs-Elysées are unrecognisable now by any one who saw them under
Louis-Philippe! The avenue was not then, like the Boulevard des
Italiens, the meeting-place for what was called, in foolish Anglomania,
"Fashion." Ices were not drunk there as on Tortoni's steps. Society
dames and gentlemen passed along it only on horseback or in a carriage,
contemptuously abandoning the side-ways to the more modest walkers, the
small folk, who elbowed each other in the dust, to strollers, idlers,
strangers, convalescents, scholars, nurses, soldiers, players at ball or
prisoners' base on the Marigny Square, and to the innumerable urchins
that disputed with each other the goat-carts and shouted for joy in
front of the Punch-and-Judy shows!_
_In the way of coffee-houses, there were only three pavilions, all
unworthy of the name, little ambulating drinking-stalls on trestles,
with decanters of lemonade and barley-water, and the cocoanut-beverage
sellers shaking their bell; the only eating-houses were two wretched
wine-shops, and the places where Nanterre cakes, gingerbread, and wafers
could be bought from dealers that stood and sold their wares while
springing their rattle. For concerts, there were the fiddlers,
guitarists, and harpists, the singers of popular songs and the man who
was a band in himself; in the way of entertainments, before the opening
of the Mabille Garden, there were Franconi's summer circus, Colonel
Langlois' panorama, the swings, merry-go-rounds, and archery galleries,
the Dutch top, and the game from Siam. As illumination, there were a few
gas-lamps, the candles used by stall-keepers, and the red lanterns
exhibited by orange-women. And with all this, not a bit of lawn, not a
clump of trees, not a bed of flowers!--nothing, absolutely nothing, of
what to-day constitutes this exquisite promenade._
_Paris ended at the Rond-Point!_
_Beyond, it was only a sort of faubourg, with a fine mansion here and
there belonging to the previous century, a large garden, land unbuilt on
to be sold, tenant houses, sorry-enough-looking, furniture
repositories, coach-houses, riding-schools, and carriage-builders'
premises--particularly carriage-builders'! Near the Rue Chaillot, the
Avenue was bordered, on the left, with a broad turf embankment. I have
seen, in the fine-weather season, diners cutting up their melon and
leg-of-mutton on it, with the naïve joy of city folk enjoying the purer
field air._
[Illustration: PATROL ROAD LEADING FROM THE BARRIER OF THE ETOILE IN
1854
(To-day the Avenue de Wagram.) _Etching by Martial_]
_In the vicinity of the Arc de Triomphe, the Avenue was lonelier and
ill-inhabited, and, as soon as one crossed the barrier of the Etoile, it
was no longer the faubourg but the suburbs. Instead of the fine avenues
of the Bois and of Victor Hugo, only waste grounds were to be seen,
market-gardeners' patches, quarries and uncanny-looking, tumble-down
buildings. As for the Bois de Boulogne itself, it was so ugly by day and
so dangerous by night that the less there is said about it the better._
_On the right, the Roule quarter was more civilised; but beyond, towards
Mousseaux, such was not the case. One evening, out of curiosity, I went
to see the house that Balzac had just had built in the street bearing
his name. Afterwards, by chance, I strolled into this Ternes quarter,
which was unknown to me. Night came on and I soon lost my way. On my
left, I had a big, rascally wall which seemed endless, and, in the light
of the pale gas-lamps, separated by long distances, I saw on my right
nothing but stables, workyards, dairy outhouses, exhaling odours of
poultry and dung, and red-curtained, low-character eating-houses which
reminded me that, at the same hour, a professor whom I knew had been
collared by a big blackguard that exclaimed to him: "Your money, you
scamp!" My friend was smoking a cigar. Being sly, like the wise Ulysses,
he pretended to comply by putting his left hand into his waistcoat
pocket, while, with his right, he took the cigar from his mouth, knocked
off the ashes with his little finger, and stuck it right in the eye of
the footpad, who loosed him with a howl that Polyphemus might have
uttered! This souvenir haunted me; and, after traversing a wretched
hamlet, in which I was guided only by the slope of the ground, I at last
breathed freely again in the neighbourhood of the Pépinière, promising
myself that I would never again venture into such a cut-throat
locality._
_And yet I live in it now!_
_This cut-throat locality is to-day the Monceau quarter, the Avenue
Hoche, the Avenue de Messine, the Courcelles, Malesherbes and Haussmann
Boulevards; what was once called "Poland" where General Lagrange used to
tell me he had shot partridges in his youth._
_And the conclusion of this chat--for I must conclude--is that I regret
the old Paris, but that I am fond of the new._