One of the longest, the narrowest, the highest, the darkest, and the
dirtiest streets of Paris, was, and is, and probably will long be, the
Rue St Denis. Beginning at the bank of the Seine, and running due north,
it spins out its length like a tape-worm, with every now and then a
gentle wriggle, right across the capital, till it reaches the furthest
barrier, and thence has a kind of suburban tail prolonged into the wide,
straight road, a league in length, that stretches to the town of
Sainct-Denys-en-France. This was, from time immemorial, the state-road
for the monarchs of France to make their formal entries into, and exits
from, their capital--whether they came from their coronation at Rheims,
or went to their last resting-place beneath the tall spire of St Denis.
This has always been the line by which travellers from the northern
provinces have entered the good city of Paris; and for many a long year
its echoes have never had rest from the cracking of the postilion's
whip, the roll of the heavy diligence, and the perpetual jumbling of
carts and waggons. It is, as it has ever been, one of the main arteries
of the capital; and nowhere does the restless tide of Parisian life run
more rapidly or more constantly than over its well-worn stones. In the
pages of the venerable historians of the French capital, and in ancient
maps, it is always called "_La Grande Rue de Sainct Denys_," being, no
doubt, at one time the _ne plus ultra_ of all that was considered wide
and commodious. Now its appellation is curtailed into the _Rue St
D'nis_, and it is avoided by the polite inhabitants of Paris as
containing nothing but the _bourgeoisie_ and the _canaille_. Once it was
the Regent Street of Paris--a sort of Rue de la Paix--lounged along by
the gallants of the days of Henri IV., and not unvisited by the
red-heeled marquises of the Regent d'Orleans's time; now it sees nothing
more _recherche_ than the cap of the grisette or the poissarde, as the
case may be, nor any thing more august than the casquette of the
_commis-voyageur_, or the indescribable shako and equipments of the
National Guard. As its frequenters have been changed in character, so
have its houses and public buildings; they have lost much of the
picturesque appearance they possessed a hundred years ago--they are
forced every year more and more into line, like a regiment of stone and
mortar. Instead of showing their projecting, high-peaked gables to the
street, they have now turned their fronts, as more polite; the roofs are
accommodated with the luxury of pipes, and the midnight sound of "_Gare
l'eau!_" which used to make the late-returning passenger start with all
agility from beneath the opened window to avoid the odoriferous shower,
is now but seldom heard. A Liliputian footway, some two feet wide, is
laid down in flags at either side; the oscillating lamp, that used to
hang on a rotten cord thrown across the roadway from house to house, and
made darkness visible, has given place to the genius of gas--_enfin, la
Revolution a passe par la_; and the Rue de St Denis is now a ghost only
of what it was. Still it retains sufficient peculiarities of dimensions
and outline to show that it is a child of the middle ages; and, like so
many other children of the same kind, it contributes to make its mother
Paris, as compared with the modern-built capitals of Europe, a town of
former days. Long may it retain these oddities of appearance--long may
it remain narrow, dark, and dirty; we rejoice that such streets still
exist--they do one's eye good, if not one's nose. There is more of
colour, of light and shade, of picturesque, fantastic outline, in a
hundred yards of the Rue St Denis, than in all the line from Piccadilly
to Whitechapel; a painter can pick up more food for his easel in this
queer, old street--an antiquarian can find there more tales and crusts
for his noddle, than in all Regent Street and Portland Place. We love a
ramshackle place like this; it does one good to get out of the
associations of the present century, and to retrograde a bit; it is
pleasant to see how people used to pig together in ancient days, without
any of the mathematical formalities of the present day; it keeps one's
eye in tone to look back at works of the middle ages; and we may learn
the more justly to criticize what we see arising about us, by refreshing
our recollections of the mouldering past. Paris is a glorious place for
things of this kind. Thank the stars, it never got burned out of its old
clothes, as London did. Newfangled streets and quarters of every age
have been added to it, but there still remains a mediaeval nucleus--there
is still an "old Paris"--a gloomy, filthy, old town, irregular and
inconvenient as any town ever was yet; and a walk of twenty minutes will
take you from the elegant uniformity of the Rue de Rivoli into the
original chaos of buildings--into the Quartier des Halles and into the
Rue St Denis. How often have we hurried down them on a cold winter's
day--say the 31st of December--to buy bons-bons in the Rue des Lombards,
once the abode of bankers, now the paradise of _confiseurs_, against the
coming morrow--the grand day of visits and cadeaux--braving the snow
some three feet deep in the midst of the street--or, if there happened
to be no snow, the mud a foot and a half, splashing through it with our
last new pair of boots from Legrand's, and the last _pantalon_ from
Blondel's--for cabriolet or omnibus, none might pass that way; and
there, amid onion-smelling crowds, in a long, low shop, with lamps
lighted at two o'clock, have consummated our purchase, and floundered
back triumphant! Away, ye gay, seducing vanities of the Palais Royal or
the Boulevards; your light is too garish for our sober eyes--the sugar
of your comfitures is too chalky for our discriminating tooth! Our
appropriate latitude is that of the Quartier St Denis! One thing,
however, we must confess, we never did in the Rue St Denis--we never
dined there! _Oh non! il ne faut pas faire ca!_ 'Tis the headquarters of
all the sausage-dealers, the _charcutiers_, and the _rotisseurs_ of
Paris. Genuine meat and drink there is none; cats hold the murderous
neighbourhood in traditional abhorrence, and the ruddiest wine of
Burgundy would turn pale were the aqueous reputation of the street
whispered near its cellar-door. Thank Heaven, we have a gastronomic
instinct that saved us from acts of suicidal rashness! When in Paris,
gentle reader, we always dine at the Trois Freres Provencaux; the little
room in blue, remember--time, six P.M.; potage a la Julienne--bifteck au
vin de Champagne--poulet a la Marengo--Chambertin, and St Peray rose.
The next time you visit the Palais-Royal, turn in there, and dine with
us--we shall be delighted to see you!
There are few gaping Englishmen who have been on the other side of the
Channel but have found their way along the Boulevards to the Porte St
Denis, and have stared first of all at that dingy monument of
Ludovican pride, and then have stared down the Rue St Denis, and then
have stared up the Rue du Faubourg St Denis; but very few are ever
tempted to turn either to the right hand or to the left, and so they
generally poke on to the Porte St Martin, or stroll back to the
Madeleine, and rarely make acquaintance with the Dionysian mysteries
of Paris. For the benefit, therefore, of such travellers as go to the
French capital with their eyes in their pockets, and of such as stay
at home and travel by their fireside, but still can relish the
recollections and associations of olden times, we are going to rake
together some of the many odd notes that pertain to the history of
this street and its immediate vicinity.
The readiest way into the Rue St Denis from the Isle de la Cite, the
centre of Paris, has always been over the Pont-au-Change. This bridge,
now the widest over the Seine, was once a narrow, ill-contrived
structure of wood, covered with a row of houses on either side, that
formed a dark and dirty street, so that you might pass through it a
hundred times without once suspecting that you were crossing a river.
These houses, built of stone and wood, overhung the edges of the
bridge, and afforded their inhabitants an unsafe abode between the sky
and the water. At times the river would rise in one of its periodical
furies, and sweep away a pier or two with the superincumbent houses;
at others the wooden supporters of the structure would catch fire by
some untoward event, and the inhabitants had the choice of being fried
or drowned, along with their penates and their supellectile property.
Such a catastrophe happened in the reign of Louis XIII., when this and
another wooden bridge, situated, oddly enough, close by its side, were
set on fire by a squib, which some _gamins de Paris_ were letting off
on his Majesty's highway; and in less than three hours 140 houses had
disappeared. It was Louis VII., in the twelfth century, who gave it
the name it has since borne; for he ordered all the money-changers of
Paris to come and live on this bridge--no very secure place for
keeping the precious metals; and about two hundred years ago the
money-changers, fifty-four in number, occupied the houses on one side,
while fifty goldsmiths lived in those on the other. In the open
roadway between, was held a kind of market or fair for bird-sellers,
who were allowed to keep their standings on the curious tenure of
letting off two hundred dozens of small birds whenever a new king
should pass over this bridge, on his solemn entry into the capital.
The birds fluttered and whistled on these occasions, the _gamins_
clapped their hands and shouted, the good citizens cried "Noel!" and
"Vive le Roy!" and the courtiers were delighted at the joyous
spectacle. Whether the birds flew away ready roasted to the royal
table, history is silent; but it would have been a sensible
improvement of this part of the triumphal ceremony, and we recommend
it to the serious notice of all occupiers of the French throne.
On arriving at the northern end of the bridge, the passenger had on
his right a covered gallery of shops, stretching up the river side to
the Pont Notre Dame, and called the Quai de Gesvres; here was a
fashionable promenade for the beaux of Paris, for it was filled with
the stalls of pretty milliners, like one of our bazars, and boasted of
an occasional bookseller's shop or two, where the tender ballads of
Ronsard, or the broad jokes of Rabelais, might be purchased and read
for a few livres. To the left was a narrow street, known by the
curious appellation of _Trop-va-qui-dure_, the etymology of which has
puzzled the brains of all Parisian antiquaries; while just beyond it,
and still by the river side, was the _Vieille Vallee de Misere_--words
indicative of the opinion entertained of so _ineligible_ a residence.
In front frowned, in all the grim stiffness of a feudal fortress, the
_Grand Chastelet_, once the northern defence of Paris against the
Normans and the English, but at last changed into the headquarters of
the police--the Bow Street of the French capital. Two large towers,
with conical tops over a portcullised gateway, admitted the prisoners
into a small square court, round which were ranged the offices of the
lieutenant of police, and the chambers of the law-officers of the
crown. Part of the building served as a prison for the vulgar crew of
offenders--a kind of Newgate, or Tolbooth; another was used as, and
was called, the Morgue, where the dead bodies found in the Seine were
often carried; there was a room in it called Caesar's chamber, where
the good citizens of Paris firmly believed that the great Julius once
sat as provost of Paris, in a red robe and flowing wig; and there was
many an out-of-the-way nook and corner full of dust and parchments,
and rats and spiders. The lawyers of the Chastelet thought no small
beer of themselves, it seems; for they claimed the right of walking in
processions before the members of the Parliament, and immediately
after the corporation of the capital. The unlucky wight who might
chance to be put in durance vile within these walls, was commonly well
trounced and fined ere he was allowed to depart; and next to the
dreaded Bastile, the Grand Chastelet used to be looked on with
peculiar horror. At the Revolution it was one of the first feudal
buildings demolished--not a stone of the old pile remains; the
Pont-au-Change had long before had its wooden piers changed for noble
stone ones, and on the site where this fortress stood is now the Place
de Chatelet, with a Napoleonic monument in the midst--a column
inscribed with names of bloody battle-fields, on its summit a golden
wing-expanding Victory, and at its base four little impudent dolphins,
snorting out water into the buckets of the Porteurs d'Eau.
Behind the Chastelet stood the _Grande Boucherie_--the Leadenhall
market of Paris an hundred years ago; and near it, up a dirty street
or two, was one of the finest churches of the capital, dedicated to St
Jacques. The lofty tower of this latter edifice (its body perished
when the Boucherie and the Chastelet disappeared) still rises in
gloomy majesty above all the surrounding buildings. It is as high as
those of Notre Dame; and from its upper corners, enormous
_gargouilles_--those fantastic water-spouts of the middle ages--gape
with wide-stretched jaws, but no longer send down the washings of the
roof on the innocent passengers. Hereabouts lived Nicholas Flamel, the
old usurer, who made money so fast that it was said he used to sup
nightly with his Satanic majesty, and who thereupon built part of the
church to save his bacon. He was of opinion that it was well to have
the "_mens sana in corpore sano_"--that it was no joke to be burnt;
and so he stuck close to the church, taking care that himself and his
wife, Pernelle, should have a comfortable resting-place for their
bones within the walls of St Jacques. When this was a fashionable
quarter of Paris, the court doctor and accoucheur did not disdain to
reside in it; for Jean Fernel, the medical attendant of Catharine de
Medicis, lived and died within the shade of this old tower. He was a
fortunate fellow, a sort of Astley Cooper or Clarke in his way, and
Catharine used to give him 10,000 crowns, or something like L.6000,
every time she favoured France with an addition to the royal family.
He and numerous other worthies mouldered into dust within the
precincts of St Jacques; but their remains have long since been
scattered to the winds; and where the church once stood is now an
ignoble market for old clothes; the abode of Jews and thieves.
After passing round the Grand Chastelet, and crossing the
market-place, you might enter the Rue St Denis, the great street of
Paris in the time of the good King Henry, and you might walk along
under shelter of its houses, projecting story above story, till they
nearly met at top, for more than a mile. Before it was paved, the
roadway was an intolerable quagmire, winter and summer; and, after
stones had been put down, there murmured along the middle a black
gurgling stream, charged with all the outpourings and filth of
unnumbered houses. Over, or through this, according as the fluid was
low or high, you had to make your way, if you wanted to cross the
street and greet a friend; if you lived in the street and wished to
converse with your opposite neighbour, you had only to mount to the
garret story, open the lattice window, and literally shake hands with
him, so near did the gables approach. The fronts of the houses were
ornamented with every device which the skilful carpenters of former
times could invent: the beam-ends were sculptured into queer little
crouching figures of monkeys or angels, and all sorts of _diableries_
decorated the cornices that ran beneath the windows; there were no
panes of glass, such as we boast of in these degenerate times, but
narrow latticed lights to let in the day, and the wind, and the cold;
while the roofs were covered commonly with shingles, or, in the houses
of the wealthy, with sheets of lead. Between each gable came forth a
long water-spout, and poured down a deluge into the gutter beneath;
each gable-top was peaked into a fantastic spiry point or flower, and
the chimneys congregated into goodly companies amidst the roofs,
removed from the vulgar gaze or fastidious jests of the people below.
So large were the fireplaces in those rooms that could own them, and
so ample were the chimney flues, that smoky houses were unheard of:
the staircases, it is true, enjoyed only a dubious ray, that served to
prevent you from breaking your neck in a rapid descent; but the
apartments were generally of commodious dimensions, and the tenements
possessed many substantial comforts.
Once out of doors, you might proceed in all weather fearless of rain;
the projecting upper stories sheltered completely the sides of the
street, and a stout cloth cloak was all that was needed to save either
sex from the inclemency of the seasons. At frequent intervals there
opened into the main street, side streets, and _ruelles_ or alleys,
which showed in comparison like Gulliver in Brobdignag: up some of
these ways a single horseman might be able to go; but along
others--and some of them remain to the present day--two stout citizens
could never have walked arm-in-arm. They looked like enormous cracks
between a couple of buildings, rather than as ways made for the
convenience of locomotion: they were pervious, perhaps, to donkeys,
but not to the loaded packhorse--the great street was intended for
that animal--coaches did not exist, and the long narrow carts of the
French peasantry, whenever they came into the city, did not occupy
much more space than the bags or packs of the universal carrier. To
many of these streets the most eccentric appellations were given;
there was the _Rue des Mauvaises Paroles_--people of ears polite had
no business to go near it; the _Rue Tire Chappe_--a spot where those
who objected to be plucked by the vests, or to have their clothes
pulled off their backs by importunate accosters, need not present
themselves; another in this quarter was called the _Rue Tire-boudin_.
Marie Stuart, when Queen of France, was riding, it is said, through it
one day, and struck, perhaps, by the looks of its inhabitants, asked
what the street was called. The original appellation was so indecent
that an officer of her guards, with courtly presence of mind, veiled
it under its present title. One was known as the _Rue Brise-miche_,
and the cleanliness of its inhabitants might instantly be judged of: a
fifth was the _Rue Trousse-vache_, and one of the shops in it was
adorned with an enormous sign of a red cow, with her tail sticking up
in the air and her head reared in rampant sauciness. A notorious
gambler, Thibault-au-de, well known for his skill in loading dice,
gave his name to one of these narrow veins of the town: Aubry, a
wealthy butcher, is still immortalized in another: and the _Rue du
Petit Hurleur_ probably commemorated some wicked youngster, whose
shouts were a greater nuisance to the neighbours than those of any of
his companions.
A wider kind of street was the _Rue de la Ferronerie_, opening into
the Rue St Denis, below the Church of the Innocents: it was the abode
of all the tinkers and smiths of Paris, and had not Henri IV. been in
a particular hurry that day, when he was posting off to old Sully in
the Rue St Antoine, he had never gone this way, and Ravaillac,
probably, had never been able to lean into the carriage and stab the
king. Just over the spot where the murder was committed, the placid
bust of the king still gazes on the busy scene beneath. The _Rue de la
Grande Truanderie_, which was above the Innocents, must have been the
rendez-vous of all the thieves and beggars of Paris, if there be any
thing in a name: the old chronicles of the city relate, indeed, that
it took a long time to respectabilize its neighbourhood; and they add
that the herds of rogues and impostors who once lived in it took
refuge, after their ejection, in the famous _Cour des Miracles_, a
little higher up the Rue St Denis. We must not venture into this, the
choicest preserve of Victor Hugo, whose graphic description of its
wonders in his _Notre Dame_ needs hardly to be alluded to; but we may
add, that there were several abodes of the same kind, all
communicating with the Rue St Denis, and all equally infamous in their
day, though now tenanted only by quiet button-makers and
furniture-dealers. The real _Puits d'Amour_ stood at the corner of the
Rue de la Grande Truanderie, and took its name in sad truth from a
crossing of true love. In the days of Philip Augustus, more than six
hundred years ago, a beautiful young lady of the court, Agnes
Hellebik, whose father held an important post under the king, was
inveigled into the toils of love. The object of her affections,
whether of noble birth or not, made her but a sorry return for her
confidence: he loved her a while, and her dreams of happiness were
realized; but by degrees his passion cooled, and at length he
abandoned her. Stung with indignation, and broken-hearted at this
thwarting of her soul's desire, the unfortunate young creature fled
from her father's house, and betaking herself on a dark and stormy
night to the brink of the well, commended her spirit to her Maker, and
ended her troubles beneath its waters. The name of the _Puits d'Amour_
was then given to the well; and no young maiden ever dared to draw
water from it after sunset, for fear of the spirit that dwelt
unquietly within. The tradition was always current in people's mouths;
and three centuries after, a young man of the neighbourhood, who had
been jilted and mocked by an inconstant mistress, determined to bear
his ills no longer, so he rushed to the _Puits_, and took the fatal
leap. The result was not what he anticipated: he did not, it is true,
jump into a courtly assembly of knights and gallants, but he could not
find water enough in it to drown him; while his mistress, on hearing
of the mishap, hastened to the well with a cord, and promising to
compensate him for his former woes, drew him with her fair hands
safely into the upper regions. An inscription, in Gothic letters, was
then placed over the well:--
"L'amour m'a refaict
En 1525 tout-a-faict."
The fate of Agnes Hellebik was far preferable to that of another young
girl who lived in this quarter, indeed in the Rue Thibault-au-de.
Agnes du Rochier was the only daughter of one of the wealthiest
merchants of Paris, and was admired by all the neighbourhood for her
beauty and virtue. In 1403 her father died, leaving her the sole
possessor of his wealth, and rumour immediately disposed of her hand
to all the young gallants of the quarter; but whether it was that
grief for the loss of her parent had turned her head, or that the
gloomy fanaticism of that time had worked with too fatal effect on her
pure and inexperienced imagination, she took not only marriage and the
male sex into utter abomination, but resolved to quit the world for
ever, and to make herself a perpetual prisoner for religion's sake.
She determined, in short, to become what was then called a recluse,
and as such to pass the remainder of her days in a narrow cell built
within the wall of a church. On the 5th of October, accordingly, when
the cell, only a few feet square, was finished in the wall of the
church of St Opportune, Agnes entered her final abode, and the
ceremony of her reclusion began. The walls and pillars of the sacred
edifice had been hung with tapestry and costly cloths, tapers burned
on every altar, the clergy of the capital and the several religious
communities thronged the church. The Bishop of Paris, attended by his
chaplains and the canons of Notre Dame, entered the choir, and
celebrated a pontifical mass: he then approached the opening of the
cell, sprinkled it with holy water, and after the poor young thing had
bidden adieu to her friends and relations, ordered the masons to fill
up the aperture. This was done as strongly as stone and mortar could
make it; nor was any opening left, save only a small loophole through
which Agnes might hear the offices of the church, and receive the
aliments given her by the charitable. She was eighteen years old when
she entered this living tomb, and she continued within it _eighty_
years, till death terminated her sufferings! Alas, for mistaken piety!
Her wealth, which she gave to the church, and her own personal
exertions during so long a life, might have made her a blessing to all
that quarter of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of
compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.
Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are
generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone
rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of
drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years,
according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the
filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied,
and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the
ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the
police should come round and see that the work had been properly
executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the
porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened
down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen;
and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in
the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and
nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned
himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their
despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of
every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three
weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of
his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet,
when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short
interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his
chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At
night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with
her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a
groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees;
but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking
that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's
body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon
occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so
without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of
the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the
stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable
depth, something like a human form leaning against the side of the
receptacle. Ropes and ladders were now immediately procured; two men
went down, and in a few minutes brought up a body--it was that of the
unfortunate young man who had been so long missing! Life was not quite
extinct, for some motion of the limbs was perceptible, there was even
one last low groan, but then all animation ceased for ever. The
appearance of the body was most dreadful; the face was a livid green
colour, the trunk looked like that of a man drowned, and kept long
beneath the water, all brown and green--one of the feet had completely
disappeared--the other was nearly half decomposed and gone; the hands
were dreadfully lacerated, and told of a desperate struggle to escape:
worms were crawling about; all was putrid and loathsome. How did this
unfortunate young man come into so dreadful a position? was the
question that immediately occurred; and the only answer that could be
given was, that on the night of the cess-pool being emptied, the
porter remembered this young man coming home very late, or rather
early in the morning. He himself had forgotten to warn him of the
aperture being uncovered, indeed he supposed that it would have been
sufficiently seen by the lights left burning at its edge;--these had
probably been blown out by the wind, and the young man had thus fallen
in. That life should have been supported so long under such
circumstances, seems almost incredible: but it is no less curious than
true; for the porter was tried before the Correctional Tribunal for
inadvertent homicide, the facts were adduced in evidence, and
carelessness having been proved, he was sentenced to imprisonment for
several weeks, and to a heavy fine.
Of churches and religious establishments, there were plenty in and
about the Rue St Denis. Besides the great church of St Jacques,
mentioned before, there were in the street itself the churches of the
Holy Sepulchre, of St Leu, and St Gilles; of the Innocents; of the
Saviour; and of St Jacques de l'Hopital: while of conventual
institutions, there were the Hospitals of St Catharine; of the Holy
Trinity; of the Filles de St Magloire; of the Filles Dieu; of the
Community of St Chaumont; of the S[oe]urs de Charite; and of the great
monastery of St Lazare. The fronts, or other considerable portions of
those buildings, were all visible in the street, and added greatly to
its antiquated appearance. The long irregular lines of gable roofs on
either side, converging from points high above the spectator's head,
until they met or crossed in a dim perspective, near the horizon, were
broken here and there by the pointed front, or the tapering spire of a
church or convent. A solemn gateway protruded itself at intervals into
the street, and, with its flanking turrets and buttresses, gave broad
masses of shade in perpendicular lines, strongly contrasted with the
horizontal or diagonal patches of dark colour caused by the houses. At
early morn and eve, a shrill tinkling of bells warned the neighbours
of the sacred duties of many a secluded penitent, or admonished them
that it was time to send up their own orisons to God. Before mid-day
had arrived, and soon after it had passed, the deeper tones of a
_bourdon_, from some of the parochial churches, invited the citizens
to the sacrifice of the mass or the canticles of vespers. Not seldom
the throngs of busy wordlings were forced to separate and give room to
some holy procession, which, with glittering cross at the head, with
often tossed and sweetly smelling censers at the side, with
white-robed chanting acolyths, and reverend priests, in long line
behind, came forth to take its way to some holy edifice. The zealous
citizens would suspend their avocations for a while, would repeat a
reverential prayer as the holy men went by, and then return to the
absorbing calls of business, not unbenefited by the recollections just
awakened in their minds. On the eves and on the mornings of holy
festivals, business was totally suspended; the bells, great and small,
rang forth their silvery sounds; the churches were crowded, the
chapels glittered with blazing lights; the prayers of the priests and
people rose with the incense before the high altar; the solemn organ
swelled its full tones responsive to the loud-voiced choir; the
curates thundered from the pulpits, to the edification of charitable
congregations; and after all had been prostrated in solemn adoration
of the Divine presence, the citizens would pour out into the street,
and repair, some to their homes, some to the Palace of the Tournelles,
with its towers and gardens guarded by the Bastille; others to the
Louvre or to the Pre-aux-clercs, and the fields by the river side;
others would stroll up the hill of Montmartre; and some in boats would
brave the dangers of the Seine! On other and sadder occasions, the
inhabitants of the Rue St Denis would quit their houses in earnestly
talking groups, and would adjourn to the open space in front of the
Halles. Here, on the top of an octagonal tower, some twenty feet high,
and covered with a conical spire, between the openings of pointed
arches, might be seen criminals with their heads and hands protruding
through the wooden collar of the pillory. The guard of the provost, or
the lieutenant of police, would keep off the noisy throng below, and
the goodwives would discuss among themselves the enormities of the
coin-clipper, the cut-purse, the incendiary, or the unjust dealer, who
were exposed on those occasions for their delinquencies; while the
offenders themselves, would--a few of them--hang down their heads, and
close their eyes in the unsufferable agony of shame; but by far the
greater number would shout forth words of bold defiance or indecent
ribaldry, would protrude the mocking tongue, or spit forth curses with
dire volubility. Then would rise the shouts of _gamins_, then would
come the thick volley of eggs, fish-heads, butcher's-offal, and all
the garbage of the market, aimed unerringly by many a strenuous arm at
the heads of the culprits; and then the soldiers with their
pertuisanes would make quick work among the legs of the retreating
crowd, and the jailers would apply the ready lash to the backs of the
hardened criminals aloft; and thus, the hour's exhibition ended, and
the "king's justice" satisfied, away would the criminals be led, some
on a hurdle to Montfaucon, and there hung on its ample gibbet, amid
the rattling bones of other wretches; some would be hurried back to
the Chastelet, or other prisons; and others would be sent off to work,
chained to the oars of the royal galleys.
This was a common amusement of the idlers of this quarter: but the
passions of the mob, if they needed stronger excitement, had to find a
scene of horrid gratification on the Place de Greve, opposite the
Hotel de Ville, where at rare intervals a heretic would be burnt, a
murderer hung, or a traitor quartered; but this spot of bloody memory
lies far from the Rue St Denis, and we are not now called upon to
reveal its terrible recollections: let us turn back to our good old
street.
One of the most curious objects in it was the Church of the Innocents,
with its adjoining cemetery, once the main place of interment for all
the capital. The church lay at the north-eastern end of what is now
the Marche des Innocents, and against it was erected the fountain
which now adorns the middle of the market, and which was the work of
the celebrated sculptor, Jean Goujon, and his colleague, the
architect, Pierre Lescot. The former is said to have been seated at
it, giving some last touches to one of the tall and graceful nymphs
that adorn its high arched sides, on the day of the Massacre of St
Bartholomew, when he was killed by a random shot from a Catholic
zealot. The simple inscription which it still bears, FONTIUM NYMPHIS,
is in better taste than that of any other among the numerous fountains
of the French capital. The church itself (of which not the slightest
vestige now remains) was not a good specimen of mediaeval architecture,
although it was large and richly endowed. It was founded by Philip
Augustus, when he ordered the Jews to be expelled from his dominions,
and seized on their estates--one of the most nefarious actions
committed by a monarch of France. The absurd accusation, that the Jews
used periodically to crucify and torture Christian children, was one
of the most plausible pretexts employed by the rapacious king on this
occasion; and, as a kind of testimonial that such had been his excuse,
he founded this church; dedicated it to the Holy Innocents; and
transferred hither the remains of a boy, named Richard, said to have
been sacrificed at Pontoise by some unfortunate Jews, who expiated the
pretended crime by the most horrible torments. St Richard's remains,
(for he was canonized,) worked numerous miracles in the Church of the
Innocents, or rather in the churchyard, where a tomb was erected over
them; and so great was their reputation, that tradition says, the
English, on evacuating Paris in the 15th century, carried off with
them all but the little saint's head. Certain it is, that nothing but
the head remained amongst the relics of this parish; and equally
certain is it, that no Christian innocents have been sacrificed by
those "circumcised dogs" either before or since, whether in France or
England, or any other part of the world. It remained for the dishonest
credulity of the present century, to witness the disgraceful spectacle
of a French consul at Damascus, assisting at the torturing of some
Jewish merchants under a similar accusation, and assuring his
government of his belief in the confessions extorted by these inhuman
means; and of many a party journal in Paris accrediting and re-echoing
the tale. Had not British humanity intervened in aid of British
policy, France had made this visionary accusation the ground of an
armed intervention in Syria. The false accusers of the Jews of
Damascus have indeed been punished; but the French consul, the Count
de Ratti-Menton, has since been rewarded by his government with a high
promotion in the diplomatic department!
Once more, "a truce to digression," let us see what the ancient
cemetery of the Innocents was like. Round an irregular four-sided
space, about five hundred feet by two, ran a low cloister-like
building, called Les Charniers, or the Charnel Houses. It had
originally been a cloister surrounding the churchyard; but, so
convenient had this place of sepulture been found, from its situation
in the heart of Paris, that the remains of mortality increased in most
rapid proportion within its precincts, and it was continually found
necessary to transfer the bones of long-interred, and long-forgotten
bodies, to the shelter of the cloisters. Here, then, they were piled
up in close order--the bones below and the skulls above; they reached
in later times to the very rafters of these spacious cloisters all
round, and heaps of skulls and bones lay in unseemly groups on the
grass in the midst of the graveyard. At one corner of the church was a
small grated window, where a recluse, like her of St Opportune, had
worn away forty-six years of her life, after one year's confinement as
a preparatory experiment; and within the church was a splendid brass
tomb, commemorating this refinement of the monastic virtues. At
various spots about the cemetery, were erected obelisks and crosses of
different dates, while against the walls of the church and cloister
were affixed, in motley and untidy confusion, unnumbered tablets and
other memorials of the dead. The suppression of this cemetery, just at
the commencement of the Revolution, was a real benefit to the capital;
and when the contents of the yard and its charnel-houses were removed
to the catacombs south of the city, it was calculated that the remains
of two millions of human beings rattled down the deep shafts of the
stone pits to their second interment. In place of the cemetery, we now
find the wooden stalls of the Covent Garden of Paris; low, dirty,
unpainted, ill-built, badly-drained, stinking, and noisy; and their
tenants are not better than themselves. Like their neighbours, the
famous Poissardes, the Dames de la Halle as they are styled, are the
quintessence of all that is disgusting in Paris. Covent Garden is
worth a thousand of such markets, and Pere la Chaise is an admirable
substitute for the Cemetery of the Innocents.
High up in the Rue de Faubourg St Denis, which is only a continuation
of the main street, just as Knightsbridge is of Piccadilly, stand the
remains of the great convent and _maladrerie_ of St Lazarus. In this
religious house, all persons attacked with leprosy were received in
former days, and either kept for life, if incurable, or else
maintained until they were freed from that loathsome disease. From
what cause we know not, (except that the House of St Lazarus was the
nearest of any religious establishment to the walls of the capital,)
the kings of France always made a stay of three days within its walls
on their solemn inauguratory entrance into Paris, and their bodies
always lay in state here before they were conveyed to the Abbey Church
of St Denis. There was no lack of stiff ceremonial on these occasions;
and, doubtless, the good fathers of the convent did not receive all
the court within their walls without rubbing a little gold off the
rich habits of the nobles. The king, on arriving at the Convent of St
Lazare, proceeded to a part of the house allotted for this purpose,
and called _Le Logis du Roy_, where, in a chamber of state, he took
his seat beneath a canopy, surrounded by the princes of the
blood-royal. The chancellor of France stood behind his majesty, to
furnish him with replies to the different deputations that used to
come with congratulatory addresses, and the receptions then commenced.
They used to last from seven in the morning, without intermission,
till four or five in the afternoon; there were the lawyers of the
Chastelet, the Court of Aids, the Court of Accounts, and the
Parliament, to say nothing of the city authorities and other
constituted bodies. The addresses were no short unmeaning things, like
those uttered in our poor cold times, but good long-winded harangues,
some in French, some in Latin, and they went on, one after the other,
for three days consecutively. On the third day, when the royal
patience must have been wellnigh exhausted, and the chancellor's
talents at reply worn tolerably threadbare, the king would rise, and
mounting on horseback, would proceed to the cathedral church of Notre
Dame, down the Rue St Denis. One of the best recorded of these royal
entries is that of Louis XI. On this occasion, the king, setting out
from a suburban residence in the Faubourg St Honore, got along the
northern side of Paris to the Convent of St Lazare; and thence, after
the delay and the harangues of the three days--the real original
glorious three days of the French monarchy--proceeded to the Porte St
Denis. Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city
had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the
former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly
clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing
the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an
allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their
characters made up the word _Paris_. They each harangued the king, and
their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the
royal ears. Around the king, as he rode through the gateway, were the
princes and highest nobles of the land--the Dukes of Orleans,
Burgundy, Bourbon, and Cleves: the Count of Charolois, eldest son of
the Duke of Burgundy; the Counts of Angoulesme, St Paul, Dunois, and
others; with, as a chronicle of the time relates, "autres comtes,
barons, chevaliers, capitaines, et force noblesse, en tres bel ordre
et posture." All of these were mounted on horses of price, richly
caparisoned, and covered with the finest housings; some were of cloth
of gold furred with sable, others were of velvet or damask furred with
ermine; all were enriched with precious stones, and to many were
attached bells of silver gilt, with other "enjolivements." Over the
gateway was a large ship, the armorial bearing of the city, and within
it were a number of allegorical personages, with one who represented
Louis XI. himself; in the street immediately within the gate was a
party of savages and satyrs, who executed a mock-fight in honour of
the approach of royalty. A little lower down came forth a troop of
young women representing syrens; an old chronicle calls them,
"Plusieurs belles filles accoustrees en syrenes, nues, lesquelles, en
faisant voir leur beau sein, chantoient de petits motets de bergeres
fort doux et charmans." Near where these damsels stood was a fountain
which had pipes running with milk, wine, and hypocras; at the side of
the Church of the Holy Trinity was a _tableau-vivant_ of the Passion
of our Saviour, including a crucified Christ and two thieves,
represented, as the chronicle states, "par personnages sans parler." A
little further on was a hunting party, with dogs and a hind, making a
tremendous noise with hautboys and _cors-de-chasse_. The butchers on
the open place near the Chastelet, had raised some lofty scaffolds,
and on them had erected a representation of the Bastille or Chateau of
Dieppe. Just as the king passed by, a desperate combat was going on
between the French besieging this chateau and the English holding
garrison within; "the latter," adds the chronicle, "having been taken
prisoners, had all their throats cut." Before the gate of the
Chastelet, there were the personifications of several illustrious
heroes; and on the Pont-au-Change, which was carpeted below, hung with
arms at the sides, and canopied above for the occasion, stood the
fowlers with their two hundred dozens of birds, ready to fly them as
soon as the royal charger should stamp on the first stone. Such was a
royal entry in those days of iron rule.
Before Louis XI.'s father, Charles VII., had any reasonable prospect
of reigning in Paris as king, the English troops had to be driven out
of the capital; and when the French forces had scaled the walls, and
entered the city, A.D. 1436, the 1500 Englishmen who defended the
place, had but little mercy shown them. Seeing that the game was lost,
Sir H. Willoughby, captain of Paris, shut himself up with a part of
the troops in the Bastille, accompanied by the Bishop of Therouenne,
and Morhier, the provost of the city. The people rose to the cry of
"Sainct Denys, Vive le noble Roy de France!" The constable of France,
the Duke de Richemont, and the Bastard of Orleans, led them on; those
troops that had been shut out of the Bastille, tried to make their way
up the Rue St Denis, to the northern gateway, and so to escape on the
road to Beauvais and England but the inhabitants stretched chains
across the street, and men, women, and children, showered down upon
them from the windows, chairs, tables, logs of wood, stones, and even
boiling water; while others rushed in from behind and from the side
streets, with arms in their hands, and the massacre of all the English
fugitives ensued. A short time after, Sir H. Willoughby, and the
garrison of the Bastille, not receiving succours from the commanders
of the English forces, surrendered the fortress, and were allowed to
retire to Rouen. As they marched out of Paris, the Bishop of
Therouenne accompanied them, and the populace followed the troops,
shouting out at the Bishop--"The fox! the fox!"--and at the English,
"The tail! the tail!"
Another departure of a foreign garrison from Paris, took place in
1594, and this time in peaceable array, by the Rue St Denis. When
Henry IV. had obtained possession of his capital, there remained in it
a considerable body of Spanish troops, who had been sent into France
to aid the chiefs of the League, and they were under the command of
the Duke de Feria. The reaction in the minds of the Parisians, after
the misery of their siege, had been too sudden and too complete, to
give the Spaniards any hope of holding out against the king; a
capitulation was therefore agreed upon, the foreign forces were
allowed to march out with the honours of war, and they were escorted
with their baggage as far as the frontier. The king and his principal
officers took post within the rooms over the Porte St Denis--then a
square turreted building, with a pointed and portcullised gate and
drawbridge beneath--to see the troops march out, and he stationed
himself at the window looking down the street. First came some
companies of Neapolitan infantry, with drums beating, standards
flying, arms on their shoulders, but without having their matches
lighted. Then came the Spanish Guards, in the midst of whom were the
Duke de Feria, Don Diego d'Ibara, and Don Juan Baptista Taxis, all
mounted on spirited Spanish chargers; while behind them marched the
battalions of the Lansquenets, and the Walloons. As each company came
up to the gateway, the soldiers, marching by fours, raised their eyes
to the king, took off their headpieces, and bowed; the officers did
the same, and Henry returned the salutation with the greatest
courtesy. He was particular in showing this politeness, in the most
marked manner, to the Duke de Feria and his noble companions, and when
they were within hearing, cried out aloud, "Recommend me to your
master, but never show your faces here again!" Some of the more
obnoxious members of the League were allowed to retire with the
Spaniards; and in the evening, bonfires were lighted in all the
streets, and the _Te Deum_ was sung on all the public places. The
mediaeval glory of the Porte St Denis vanished in the time of Louis
XIV., where he unfortified the city, which one of his successors has
taken such pains again to imprison within stone walls, and the present
triumphal arch was erected upon its site. This modern edifice, it is
well known, served for the entrance of Charles X. from Rheims, and,
shortly after, for a post whence the trumpery patriots of 1830
contrived to annoy some of the cavalry who were fighting in the cause
of the legitimacy and the true liberties of France. Many a barricade
and many a skirmish has the Rue St Denis since witnessed!
All the churches have disappeared from the Rue St Denis except that of
St Leu and St Gilles, a small building of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries: all the convents have been rased to the ground
except that of St Lazare. To this a far different destination has been
given from what it formerly enjoyed: it is now the great female prison
of the capital; and within its walls all the bread required for the
prisons of Paris is baked, all the linen is made and mended. The
prison consists of three distinct portions: one allotted for carrying
on the bread and linen departments: a second for the detention of
female criminals before conviction, or for short terms of
imprisonment; and in this various light manufactures, such as the
making of baskets, straw-plait, and the red phosphorus-match boxes,
are carried on: the third is an hospital and house of detention for
the prostitutes of the capital. We were once taken all through this
immense establishment by the governor, who had the kindness to
accompany us, and to explain every thing in person--a favour not often
granted to foreigners--and a strong impression did the scenes we then
saw leave. In the first two departments every thing was gloomy,
orderly, and quiet: the prisoners were much fewer than we had
expected--not above two hundred--many of them, however, were mere
children; but the matrons were good kind of women and the work of
reformation was going on rapidly to counteract the effects of early
crime. In the third, though equal strictness of conduct on the part of
the superiors prevailed, the behaviour of the inmates subjected to
control was far different. The great majority had been confined there
as hospital patients, not as offenders against the law, and they were
divided into wards, according to their sanatory condition. Here they
were very numerous; and a melancholy thing it was to see hundreds of
wretched creatures wandering about their spacious rooms, or sitting up
in their beds, with haggard looks, dishevelled hair, hardly any
clothing, and a sort of reckless gaiety in their manner that spoke
volumes as to their real condition. The _regime_ of this
prison-hospital is found, however, to be on the whole most salutary:
the seeds of good are sown with a few; the public health, as well as
the public morals, has been notably improved; and from the time when a
young painter employed in the prison was decoyed into this portion of
it and killed within a few hours, the occurrence of deeds of violence
within its walls has been very rare.
From the top of the Faubourg St Denis, all through the suburb of La
Chapelle, the long line of modern habitations extends, without
offering any points of historical interest. It is, indeed, a very
commonplace, everyday kind of road, which hardly any Englishman that
has jumbled along in the Messageries Royales can fail of recollecting.
Nothing poetical, nothing romantic, was ever known to take place
between the Barriere de St Denis and the town where the abbey stands.
We know, however, of an odd occurrence upon this ground, towards the
end of the thirteenth century, (we were not alive then, gentle
reader,) strikingly illustrative of the superstition of the times. In
1274, the church of St Gervais, in Paris, was broken into one night by
some sacrilegious dog, who ran off with the golden pix, containing the
consecrated wafer or host. Not thinking himself safe within the city,
away he went for St Denis--got without the city walls in safety, and
made off as fast as he could for the abbatial town. Before arriving
there, he thought he would have a look at the contents of the precious
vessel, when, on his opening the lid, out jumped the holy wafer, up it
flew into the air over his head, and there it kept dodging about, and
bobbing up and down, behind the affrightened thief, and following him
wherever he went. He rushed into the town of St Denis, but there was
the wafer coming after him, and just above his head; whichever way he
turned, there was the flying wafer. It was now broad daylight, and
some of the inhabitants perceived the miracle. This was immediately
reported by them to the abbot of the monastery. The holy father and
his monks sallied forth; all saw the wafer as plain as they saw each
others' shaven crowns. The man was immediately arrested; the pix was
found on him, and the abbot, as a feudal seigneur, having the right of
life and death within his own fief, had him hung up to the nearest
tree within five minutes. The abbot then sent word to the Bishop of
Paris of what had occurred; and the prelate, attended by the curates
and clergy of the capital, went to St Denis to witness the miracle.
But wonders were not to cease; there they found the abbot and monks
looking up into the air; there was the wafer sticking up somewhere
under the sun, and none of them could devise how they were to get it
down again. The monks began singing canticles and litanies; the
Parisian clergy did the same; still the wafer would not move a hair's
breadth. At last they resolved to adjourn to the Abbey Church; and so
they formed themselves into procession, and stepped forwards. The
monks had reached the abbey door, the bishop and his clergy were
following behind, and the clergy of St Gervais were just under the
spot where the wafer was suspended, when, _presto_, down it popped
into the hands of the little red-nosed curate. "Its mine!" cried the
curate: "I'll have it!" shouted the bishop: "I wish you may get it,"
roared the abbot--and a regular scramble took place. But the little
curate held his prize fast; his vicars stuck to him like good men and
true; and they carried off their prize triumphant. The bishop and the
abbot drew up a solemn memorial and covenant on the spot, whereby the
wafer was legally consigned to its original consecrator and owner, the
curate of St Gervais; and it was agreed that every 1st of September,
the day of the miracle, a solemn office and procession of the Holy
Sacrament should be celebrated within his church. The reverend father
Du Breul, the grave historian of Paris, adds: "L'histoire du dit
miracle est naifvement depeinte en une vitre de la chapelle Sainct
Pierre d'icelle eglise, ou sont aussi quelques vers Francois,
contenans partie d'icelle histoire."