Paris! What visions this magic word calls up--historic Paris, with its
palaces, churches, monuments, streets, and squares; the Paris of
literature and its admirable procession of writers, poets, thinkers,
dramatists, philosophers, and humourists; the Paris of society, its
fêtes, receptions, fashions, elegancies, and snobbism; the Paris of
politicians, the Paris of journalists, religious Paris, the Paris of the
police, bohemian Paris, industrial Paris. And how many others still!
So many passions, events, and interests clash, mingle, and unravel again
in it that a study on this admirable and complex city is no sooner
finished than it is almost needful to write it over again, the truth of
the day before being no longer that of the morrow, the accurate document
of yesterday being found incorrect this morning.
Our ambition is more modest, and our title indicates a programme--"Nooks
and Corners of Paris."
Deliberately neglecting that which is too well known, already too much
described--having neither the desire nor the pretension to compose a
"Guide-book for the Foreigner in Paris"; seeking only the rare, if not
the never-yet-brought-to-light--we would simply give to those who, like
us, adore our old City a little of the joy we have each day in
"strolling" about this incomparable Town. Our object is to continue, by
means of walks through what remains to us of the dear old Paris, the
series of documents painted, pencilled, or engraved which are contained
in the Carnavalet Museum.
The house that Madame de Sévigné loved so much has, in fact, become the
museum of the historical collections of the French Capital.
[Illustration: THE CARNAVALET MUSEUM]
It is a delightful nook in which still throbs a little of the old soul
of the great City! Our predecessors and we ourselves have striven to
gather together the documents of every kind that bear traces of Paris
life. Charters, plans, engravings, pictures, autographs, faded placards,
and commemorative stones; sign-boards in wrought-iron that guided
drinkers of the sixteenth century to the various public-houses;
shot-silk costumes worn by pretty Parisian women of the time of Louis
XV.; red caps of the age of Terror; girdles that girls adorned
themselves with around the funeral car of Voltaire; tricolour-bowed
shoes that trod the soil of the Champ de Mars at the moment of the
Federation Feast; the light, black tulle kerchief worn by
Marie-Antoinette when going to sit for her portrait to Dumont the
miniaturist; the woman-citizen's pike or sabre of honour; the
commemorative stone of the Bastille; Grisettes' caps of the year 1830 or
buskins worn by the Merveilleuses; the warrant for the appearance of
"Widow Capet" before the Revolutionary Tribunal; a play-bill of the
King's great dancers, and convocations to the sittings of the
Convention; the great periods of the Kings, the glorious days of the
Revolution, the tragedies of the Terror, the proclamations of the
Empire; announcements of victories, requiem masses, joys, griefs, the
life in fine of the most impressionable, most nervous, most enthusiastic
people that has ever existed--all is found at Carnavalet; and the same
case or folio, gathering together, with terrible eclecticism, the
lightning succession of events that took place on the same spot, shows
us, for a lapse of scarcely twenty years and in the same Tuileries, for
instance, the arrival of Louis XVI., the capture of the castle on the
10th of August, the execution of the King, then of the Queen, the Feast
of the Supreme Being, Thermidor, Prairial and the invasion of the
Convention, the sections annihilated at Saint-Roch by Bonaparte, the
Carrousel reviews, the apotheosis of the King of Rome, the departure of
the Emperor, the arrival of Louis XVIII., his flight, the return of
Napoleon, the coming back of Louis XVIII., &c.
That, I fancy, is a serious lesson of history--and of philosophy.
Our aim, I repeat, is therefore simply to continue in a few walks, which
we will try to render as attractive as possible, the search for
documents which, alas! are disappearing more and more every day.
We will divide Paris into three great sections--the old City and the
Isle of St. Louis; the left bank of the Seine; the right bank of the
same river.
After the document written or pencilled, the living document, or at
least what remains of it.
This volume "Nooks and Corners of Paris" is, in great part, the
re-edition of a work entitled, "Sketches of Old Paris," printed only in
a very small number of copies and published in 1904 with equal elegance
and taste by Conard.
Since then, the volume has been not only revised and added to, but new
illustrations were chosen. An artist of great talent, Monsieur Tony
Beltrand--too soon, alas! taken away from us by death--had adorned the
"Sketches of Old Paris" with a number of admirable compositions, of
which, moreover, he had been the clever engraver. We have been compelled
to replace these illustrations by a series of reproductions of pictures,
designs, etchings, and lithographs borrowed from private collections,
museums, libraries--and our very pleasant duty is to remark on the
exceeding good grace with which every one has helped us. May our
gratitude be allowed to mention the names of Messieurs Sardou, Claretie,
Detaille, Lavedan, Lenôtre, Bouchot, H. Martin, Funck-Brentano, A.
Meignan, Massenet, Pigoreau, Ch. Drouet, de Rochegude, Beaurepaire, Ch.
Sellier, J. Robiquet, our masters or our friends, not forgetting many,
besides, who have lent us most precious aid. Indeed, when Paris is in
question, all doors open and all hearts beat.
Our task was an easy one, and, if we have not been able to discharge it
better, the fault is ours alone. A suitable termination, therefore, to
this introduction will be the old formula--more than ever
apropos--"Excuse the faults of the author."
[Illustration: THE PONT-ROYAL, THE TUILERIES, AND THE LOUVRE (18th
CENTURY)
(View taken from the Pont-Neuf.) _Noël, pinxit._]
[Illustration: _Etching by Martial_]