THE PALAIS DE LA CITE AND TOURNELLES
Not every one assumes the Paris Palais de Justice to ever have been the
home of kings and queens. It has not, however, always been a tilting
ground for lawyers and criminals, though, no doubt, when one comes to
think of it, it is in that role that it has acted its most thrilling
episodes.
The Saint Chapelle, the Conciergerie and the great clock of the Tour de
l'Horloge mark the Palais de Justice down in the books of most folk as
one of the chief Paris "sights," but it was as a royal residence that it
first came into prominence.
This palace, not the conglomerate half-secular, half-religious pile of
to-day, but an edifice of some considerable importance, existed from the
earliest days of the Frankish invasion, and when occupied by Clotilde,
the wife of Clovis, was known as the Palais de la Cite.
Under the last of the kings of the First Race this palace took on really
splendid proportions. When Hugues Capet arrived on the throne he
abandoned the kingly residence formerly occupied by the Frankish rulers,
the Palais des Thermes, and installed his goods and chattels in this
Palais de la Cite, which his son Robert had rebuilt under the direction
of Enguerrand de Marigny.
Up to the time of Francis I it remained the preferred residence of the
French monarchs, regardless of the grander, more luxuriously disposed
Louvre, which had come into being.
Philippe Auguste, by a contrary caprice, would transact no kingly
business elsewhere, and it was within the walls of this palace that he
married Denmark's daughter. His successors, Saint Louis,
Philippe-le-Hardi, and Philippe-le-Bel did their part in enlarging and
beautifying the structure, and Saint Louis laid the foundations of that
peerless Gothic gem--La Saint Chapelle.
From the windows of the Palais de la Cite another Charles assisted at an
official massacre, differing little from that of Saint Bartholemew's,
which was conducted from the Louvre.
On the first floor of the Palais de Justice of to-day is the apartment
paved in a mosaic of black and white marble, with a painted and gilded
wooden vaulting, where Charles V received the Emperor Charles IV and the
"Roi des Romains." The three monarchs, accompanied by their families,
here supped together around a great round marble table, a secret supper
prolific of an _entente cordiale_ which must have been the forerunner of
recent ceremonies of a similar nature in France.
Known as the Salle de Marbre, this great chamber came later to be the
Tribunal where the courts sat. It was only after the death of Charles
VI, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, that the Palais de la
Cite was given over wholly to the disciples of Saint Yves, the judges,
advocates and notaries. It became also the definite seat of the
Parliament and took the nomenclature of Palais de Justice, though still
inhabited at intermittent intervals by French royalties. One such
notable occasion was that when Henry V of England was here married to
Catherine de France, and when Henry VI of England took up his temporary
residence here as king to the French.
In the fourteenth century the precincts of the Palais de la Cite--the
open courtyard one assumes is meant--were invaded by the stalls of small
shopkeepers, some of which actually took root in wood and stone and
became fixtures to such an extent that the courtyard was known as the
Galerie des Merciers.
The great marble chamber after becoming the meeting place of the
Tribunal played a part at times dignified and at others banal. An
incident is recorded where the clerks and minor court officials danced
on the famous marble table and "played farces" with the judicial bench
serving as a stage. It was said that, on account of the immoralities
which they represented, the authorities were obliged to suppress the
performances by law, as they have in recent years the flagrant freedom
of the "Quat'z Arts."
Up to the times of Francis I but few events of importance unrolled
themselves within the Palais de la Cite, but in 1618 a violent
conflagration broke out leaving only the round towers of the
Conciergerie, the tower and the church, and that part of the main
structure which housed the great Salle de Marbre, unharmed. Apropos of
this, a joyous rhymester of the time made the following quatrain:
"Certes ce fut un triste jeu
Quand a Paris Dame Justice
Pour avoir mange trop d'epice
Se mit le Palais tout en feu."
Jacques Debrosse was charged with rebuilding the edifice after the fire
and refitted first the Grand Salle, to-day the famous Salle des Pas
Perdus, crowded with the shuffling coming and going crowd of men and
women whose business, or no business at all, brings them to this central
point for the dissemination of legal gossip. It is a magnificent
apartment, and, to no great extent, differs from what it was before the
conflagration.
This Salle consists of two parallel naves separated by a range of
arcades and lighted by two great circular openings with four
round-headed windows at either end. Its attributes are practically the
same as they were in 1622. The structure, take it as a whole, may be
said to date only from the seventeenth century, but certain it is that
the old Palais de la Cite is incorporated therein, every stone of it,
and if its career was humdrum that was the fault of circumstances rather
than from any inherent faults of its own.
The Conciergerie, that inelegant, inconsistent architectural mixture of
the ancient and modern, considered apart, though it properly enough is
usually considered with the Palais de Justice, was formerly the dwelling
or guardhouse of the Concierge of the Palais de la Cite. His post was
not merely that of the keeper of the gates; he was a personage at court
and was as autocratic as his more plebeian contemporaries of to-day, for
the Paris concierge, as we, who have for years lived under their
despotism well know, is a very dreadful person.
In addition to being the governor of the royal dwelling this concierge
was the guardian of the royal prisoners. In 1348 he was further invested
with the official title of Bailli and the post was, at times, occupied
by the highest and the most noble in the land, among others Philippe de
Savoie, the friend of Charles VI, and Juvenal des Oursins, the historian
of this prince. The first to combine the two functions, that of Bailli
and Concierge, was Jacques Coictier, the doctor of Louis XI.
As a virtual prison the Conciergerie only came to be transformed when
Charles V quitted the residence of the Palais de la Cite, and the
Conciergerie, as such, only figures on the Tournelles registers under
date of 1391.
The fire of the latter part of the eighteenth century destroyed a large
part of the building, but enough remained to patch together the most
serviceable of Revolutionary prisons, for at one time it held at least
twelve hundred poor souls, of whom two hundred and eighty-eight were
killed off at one fell blow.
But one woman among them all actually came to her death within the
prison walls. This was La Belle Bouquetiere of the Palais Royal who, in
an access of jealous furor, horribly mutilated a royal guardsman, and
for this met a most cruel death by being transfixed to a post and
submitting to a trial of "_le fer et le feu_." In just what manner the
punishment was applied one can best imagine for himself.
The Revolutionary role of the Conciergerie is a thing apart from the
purport of this book, hence is not further referred to.
Going back to the time of Francis I, among the famous prisoners of state
were Louis de Berquin, the Comte de Mongomere, the regicides Ravaillac
and Damiens, the Marechal d'Ancre, Cartouche, Mandrin and others.
To-day, as a prison, the Conciergerie still performs its functions
acceptably, safeguarding those up for the assizes, and those condemned
to death before being sent on their long journey.
The three great flanking towers of the Conciergerie are its chief
architectural distinction to-day. That of the left, the largest, is the
Tour d'Argent, that of the middle, the Tour Bonchet, and the third, the
Tour de Cesar or the Tour de l'Horloge. This last is the only one which
has preserved its mediaeval crenulated battlements aloft. The great clock
has been commonly considered the largest timepiece of its kind extant,
but it is doubtful if this now holds good with railways and insurance
companies vying with each other to furnish the hour so legibly that he
who runs may read.
Across the Pont au Change, from the Palais de la Cite, by the Louvre and
out into the Faubourg Saint Antoine, one comes to the Place des Vosges,
the old Place Royale, which occupies almost the same area as was covered
by the courtyard of the Palais des Tournelles, so called from its many
towers.
All around the Palais des Tournelles was located a series of splendid
_hotels prives_ of the nobility. In one of these, the Hotel de Saint
Pol, the king once lodged twenty-two visiting princes of the quality of
Dauphin (the eldest son of a ruling monarch), their suites and
domestics.
Charles V in his time amalgamated with his royal palace three of these
magnificent private dwellings, the Hotel du Petit Musc, the Hotel de
l'Abbe de Saint Maur and the Hotel du Comte d'Etampes.
The palace proper really faced on what is now the Rue Saint Antoine,
opposite the Hotel Saint Pol. Its historic and romantic memories of the
sword and cloak period of gallantry were many, but the edifice was
demolished by the order of Catherine de Medici.
In the palace Charles VI was confined, during the period of his
insanity, by order of the cruel Isabeau de Baviere. The Duke of Bedford,
when regent for the minor Henry VI, lodged here, and upon the expulsion
of the English it became the residence of Charles VII. Louis XI and
Louis XII each inhabited it, and the latter died within its walls.
The Palais des Tournelles will go down to history chiefly because of
that celebrated jousting bout held in its courtyard on the marriage day
of the two princesses, Elizabeth and Marguerite.
Henri II and the elder princes, his sons, were to ride forth in
tournament and break lances, if possible, with all comers. The court,
including Catherine de Medici and the princess Elizabeth, wife of
Philippe II, the late husband of Mary Tudor, the two Marguerites and
other high personages were seated on a dais upholstered in damascened
silk and ornamented with many-coloured streamers.
The time was July and the morning. At a signal from Catherine music
burst forth and the bouts began.
The king rode forth at the head of his chevaliers, wearing a suit of
golden armour, his sword handle set with jewels, and, in spite of the
presence of his wife, his lance flying black and white streamers, the
colours of Diane de Poitiers, who had lately turned her affections from
father unto son.
A herald proclaimed the opening of the combat, and before night the king
had broken the lances of the Ducs de Ferrare, de Guise, and de Nemours,
and was just about disarming when a masked knight approached from the
Faubourg Saint Antoine and challenged the king, who, in spite of being
implored to desist by his queen, entered the lists again and was
ultimately wounded unto death by the sable knight.
Henri II expired the same night in a bedchamber of the Palais des
Tournelles, whither he had been carried, at the age of forty-one, the
victim of chance, or the wile of the Sieur de Montgomeri, the ancestor
of England's present Earl of Eglinton. The captain of the Scotch Guards,
Montgomeri, was not immediately pursued (he meantime had fled the
court), but Catherine de Medici harboured for him a most bitter rancour.
Pro and con ran his cause, for he had his partisans, but the Marechal de
Matignon finally caught up with him in Normandy and he was tortured and
condemned to death for the crime of _lese majeste_--beating the king at
his own game.
The widowed queen angrily ordered Diane de Poitiers from the court, and
caused the Palais des Tournelles to be razed. This was her only means of
showing her contempt for the woman who had played her royal spouse to
his death as the Romans played the gladiators of old; and Tournelles, as
a palatial monument of its time, blotted out the rest when it
disappeared from view.
A forest of spirelets soared aloft from the gables and rooftrees of the
Palais des Tournelles. There was no spectacle of the time more imposing
than this sky-line silhouette of a Paris palace; not at Chambord nor
Chenonceaux was the spectacle more fine. It was like a fairy castle,
albeit that it was in the heart of a great city.
To the right of the Palais des Tournelles, beyond the Porte Saint
Antoine, was the ink-black, frowning donjon of the Bastille, its
severity in strong contrast with the more luxurious palaces of the
princes which surrounded it not far away.
The charming Place des Vosges, which occupies the site of Tournelles
to-day, is another of Paris's breathing spaces. Well may it be called a
royal garden--a park virtually on a diminutive scale--since it was
originally known as the Place Royale, under Henri IV.
With the advent of the gascon Henri de Bearn this delightful little
unspoiled corner of old Paris took on the aspect which it now has.
Within this enclosure were the usual garden or park attributes, more or
less artificially disposed, but making an ideal open-air playground for
the court, shut in from outside surroundings by the outlines of the old
palace walls, and not too far away from the royal palace of the Louvre.
The first and greatest historic souvenir of this garden was a Carrousel
given in 1612, by Marie de Medici, two years after the tragic death of
Henri IV, celebrating the alliance between France and Spain. Under
Richelieu the square became known as the Place des Vosges, and, in spite
of the law against duelling, which had by this time come into force, it
became a celebrated meeting place for duellists like Ivry, the "Grand'
Roue" or the "Vel' Hiver" of to-day.
It was on May 12, 1627, that the Comte des Chappell killed Bussy
d'Amboise on this spot, and left a bloody souvenir, which was only
forgotten by the historians when they had to recount another meeting,
this time between the Catholic Duc de Guise and the Protestant Coligny
d'Andelot.
"Monsieur," said the duke, "we will now proceed to settle that little
account between our illustrious houses," and with that he drew his
sword and killed Coligny, as if he were but stamping the life out of a
caterpillar.
Now, with all this bloody memory behind, the Place became one of the
most elegant residential quarters of the capital, preferred above all by
the nobility, the Rohans, the Alegres and Rotroux.
At No. 21 lived Victor Hugo, just before the Coup d'Etat, in the house
first made famous as the habitation of the somewhat infamous Marion
Delorme.
Among other illustrious names who have given a brilliance to these
alleyed walks and corridors are to be recalled Corneille, Conde, Saint
Vincent de Paul, Moliere, Turenne, Madame de Longueville, De Thou,
Cinq-Mars, Richelieu, D'Ormesson, the Prince de Talmon, the Marquis de
Tesse and the Comte de Chabanne.
It is possible that this charming Paris square will remain as ever it
has been, for a recent attempt of the owner of one of the houses which
borders upon it to change the disposition of the facade brought about a
law-suit which compelled him to respect the procedure which obtained in
1605 when it was ordained the Place Royale.
To prove their rights the civic authorities had recourse to the original
plans still preserved in the national archives. This is a demonstration
of how carefully European nations preserve the written records of their
pasts.
The decision finally arrived at by the courts--that the Place des Vosges
must be kept intact as originally planned--gave joy to the hearts of all
true Parisians and archeologists alike.
[Illustration: BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF OLD PARIS]