THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE
ARRONDISSEMENT II. (BOURSE)
Rue des Petits-Champs marks the boundary between the arrondissements I
and II--the odd numbers in arrondissement I, the even ones in
arrondissement II. The street was opened in 1634. Many of its old houses
still stand and show us, without and within, some interesting
architectural features of past days. The hôtel Tubeuf, No. 8, destined
with adjoining mansions to become the Bibliothèque Nationale, was,
tradition tells us, staked at the gambling table and won by the
statesman Mazarin. The Cardinal bought two adjoining _hôtels_ and
surrounding land as far as the Rue Colbert and built thereon his own
fine mansion, using the two _hôtels_ as wings. The first books placed
there were those of his own library, a fine collection, taken at his
death, according to the directions of his will, to the Collège des
Quatre Nations, known to-day as the Institut Mazarin. The Cardinal’s
vast mansion was divided among his heirs and in its different parts was
put to various uses during following years till, in 1721, it was bought
by the Crown. The King’s library was then taken there from Rue Vivienne,
where it had been placed in 1666, and soon afterwards opened to the
public. The greater part of the building has been reconstructed in
modern times and enlarged. The blackened walls of a part of Mazarin’s
mansion, that formed l’hôtel de Nivers, still stand at the corner of Rue
Colbert. The chief entrance to the Library is in Rue de Richelieu.
Engravings, medals, works of art of many descriptions connected with
letters may be seen at what has been successively Bibliothèque Royale,
Bibliothèque Impériale and is now Bibliothèque Nationale. The ceiling of
the Galerie Mazarin is covered with splendid frescoes by Romanelli. The
heart of Voltaire is said to be encased in the statue we see there.
Madame de Récamier died at the Library in 1849; she had taken refuge
there in the rooms of her niece, whose husband was one of the officials
when the cholera broke out in l’Abbaye-aux-Bois. Opposite the Library,
on the Rue Richelieu side, is the Square Louvois dating from 1839, on
the site of two old _hôtels_ once there. There, in 1793, Citoyenne
Montansier set up a theatre, known successively as Théâtre des Arts,
Théâtre de la Loi and the Opéra.
After the assassination of the duc de Berri in front of No. 3 Rue du
Rameau (February 13, 1820) as he was about to re-enter the Opera-House,
Louis XVIII intended to build there a _chapelle expiatoire_. The
Revolution of 1830 put an end to that project. The big poplar-tree, seen
until recent years overlooking Rue Rameau, was planted as a tree of
Liberty in 1848. It suddenly died in 1912. The fountain is the work of
Visconti and Klagman (1844). In Rue Chabanais (1777) at No. 11,
Pichegru, betrayed by Leblanc, was arrested (1804). Proceeding down Rue
de Richelieu we see grand old mansions throughout its entire length. No.
71 formed part of the hôtel Louvois, given some four years before her
tragic death to princesse de Lamballe who built roomy stables there. On
the site of No. 62, quite recently demolished, was the hôtel de Talaru,
built in 1652, which became one of the most noted prisons of the
Terreur, and where its owner, the marquis de Talaru, was himself
imprisoned. No. 75 was l’hôtel de Louis de Mornay, one of the most noted
lovers of Ninon de Lenclos. No. 78, in the past a famous lace-shop, was
owned by the East India Company. No. 93, once the immense hôtel Crozet,
property of the ducs de Choiseul, cut through in 1780 by the making of
two neighbouring streets, was inhabited in 1715 by Watteau. No. 102
stands on the site of a house owned by Voltaire, inhabited at one time
by his niece. No. 104, at first a private mansion, became successively
Taverne Britannique (1845-52), Restaurant Richelieu, Union Club du
Billard et du Sport. No. 101 was at one time the restaurant du Grand U,
so called in 1883 from an article in “Le National” apropos of the _Union
Republicaine_.
Leading out of Rue Richelieu, in the vicinity of the Bibliothèque
Nationale, we see old houses in Rue St-Augustin, and Rue des Filles de
St-Thomas, the latter cut short in more recent days by the Place de la
Bourse and the Rue du Quatre-Septembre. The busts on No. 7 of the latter
street recall a theatrical costume store of past days. No. 21 Rue
Feydeau was the site of the Théâtre des Nouveautés, which became the
Opéra-Comique, demolished in 1830. Rue des Colonnes was in former days
closed at each end by gates. At No. 14 Rue St-Marc, Ernest Logouvé was
born, lived, died (1807-1903). La Malibran was born at No. 31.
The Bourse stands on the site of the convent of les Filles St-Thomas.
Its cellars still exist beneath what was before 1914 the Restaurant
Champeaux, Rue du 4 Septembre. The chapel stood till 1802 and was during
the Revolution the meeting-place of the reactionary section Le Peletier;
the insurgent troops defeated by Buonaparte on the steps of St-Roch had
assembled there (1795) (_see_ p. 20).
The first stone of the present Bourse was laid in 1808. The building was
enlarged in the early years of this century. The Paris Exchange
stockbrokers had in early times met at the Pont-au-Change; during the
Revolution they gathered in the chapelle des Petits-Pères; later at the
Palais-Royal.
The fine old door of the hôtel Montmorency-Luxembourg still stands at
the entrance to the Passage des Panoramas, leading to the old galleries:
Galerie Montmartre and Galerie des Variétés--opening out on Rue
Montmartre and Rue Vivienne. Until after the Revolution there were no
shops in Rue Vivienne, so full to-day of shops and business houses. It
records the name of a certain sire Vivien, King’s secretary, owner of a
_hôtel_ in the newly opened thoroughfare. Thierry lived there in 1834,
Alphonse Karr in 1835. The great gates of the Bibliothèque Nationale on
this side are those which in bygone days closed the Place-Royale, now
Place des Vosges. No. 49 is the most ancient Frascati Dining Saloon with
the old ballroom candelabras. Many of the houses have interesting
old-time vestiges.
Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires was until after 1633 le “Chemin-Herbu,” the
grass-grown road; Nos. 30, 28, 14, 13, 10, 4, 2 are ancient: other old
houses have been demolished. The Place-des-Victoires from which it
starts was the site of the fine hôtel de Pomponne, which later served as
the Banque de France. Most of the houses are ancient with interesting
architectural features.
Place des Petits-Pères close by is best known for the church there,
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a name given to record the taking of La
Rochelle from the Protestants in 1627. Its first stone was laid by Louis
XIII in 1629, but the church was not finished till more than a century
later. It was for long the convent chapel of the Augustins Déchaussés,
commonly known as the Petits-Pères, from the remarkably short stature of
the two monks, its founders. The Lady-chapel is a place of special
pilgrimage and is brimful of votive offerings. The church is never
empty. Passers-by rarely fail to go in to say a prayer, or spend a quiet
moment there; work-girls from the shops and offices and workrooms of the
neighbourhood go there in their dinner-hour for rest and shelter from
the streets. Services of thanksgiving after victory are naturally a
special feature there. The choir has fine pictures by Van Loo. Rue des
Petits-Pères dates from 1615 and shows interesting traces of past ages.
Rue d’Aboukir lies along the line of three seventeenth-century streets,
in one of which Buonaparte lived for a time. Many old houses still stand
there; others of historical association have been demolished, modern
buildings erected on their site. Half-way down the street is Place du
Caire, once the site of that most truly Parisian industry: carding and
mattress-making and cleaning. French mattresses are, in normal times,
turned inside out, cleaned or refilled very frequently.
A hospital and a convent stretched along part of the _place_ and across
Passage du Caire in past days. Several houses there are ancient, as also
in Rue Alexandrie.
In Rue du Mail, at what is now hôtel de Metz, Buonaparte lodged in 1790.
We see many old houses. Spontini lived here, and No. 12 was inhabited by
Madame Récamier and also by Talma. The modern Rue du Quatre-Septembre
has swept away many an interesting old thoroughfare. At No. 100 the
Passage de la Cour des Miracles recalls the ancient _cour_ of the name,
done away with in 1656, of which some traces still remain--the scene in
olden days of feats of apparent healing and of physical transformation
whereby the _truands_, persons of no avowed or avowable occupation,
gained precarious _deniers_. Out of this long modern street we may turn
into many shorter ancient ones. Rue du Sentier, recalling by its name a
pathway through a wood--_sentier_, a corruption of _chantier_--has fine
old houses and knew in its time many inhabitants of mark. At No. 8 lived
Monsieur Lebrun, a famous picture dealer, husband of Madame Vigée
Lebrun. At No. 2 dwelt Madame de Staël, at Nos. 22-24, in rooms erewhile
decorated by Fragonard, Le Normand d’Étioles, husband of La Pompadour,
after his separation from her. No. 33 was the home of his wife in her
girlhood and at the time of her marriage. At No. 30 lived Sophie Gay.
Rue St-Joseph, so named from a seventeenth-century chapel knocked down
in 1800, of which we find some traces, was previously Rue du
Temps-Perdu; in the graveyard attached to St-Eustache--later a
market--La Fontaine and Molière were buried, their ashes transferred in
1818 to Père-Lachaise. At No. 10 Zola was born (1840). Rue du Croissant
(seventeenth century) is a street of ancient houses and the chief
newspaper street of the city. Paper hawkers crowd there at certain
hours each day, then rush away, vying with one another to call attention
to their stock-in-trade. At No. 22, Café du Croissant, at the corner
where this street meets the Rue Montmartre, journalists assemble, and
there the notable Socialist, Jaurès, was shot dead on the eve of the
outbreak of war, July 31st, 1914. The sign at No. 18 is said to date
from 1612. In Rue des Jeûneurs (1643)--the name a corruption from _des
Jeux-Neufs_--we see more ancient houses and leading out of it the old
Rue St-Fiacre, once Rue du Figuier. No. 19 was inhabited in recent years
by a lady left a widow after one year’s married life, who, owner of the
building, dismissed the tenants of its six large flats and shut herself
up in absolute solitude till her death at the age of eighty-nine. No. 23
was designed by Soufflot le Romain (1775). Rue Montmartre in its course
continued from arrondissement I, which it leaves at Rue Étienne-Marcel,
shows many interesting vestiges. At No. 178 we see a bas-relief of the
Porte Montmartre of past days. Within the modern _Brasserie du Coq_, a
copy of the automatic cock of Strasbourg Cathedral, dating from 1352. On
the frontage of No. 121 a curious set of bells, and a quaint sign, “A la
grâce de Dieu,” dating from 1710. No. 118 was known in past days as the
house of clocks. Thirty-two were seen on its frontage, the work of a
Swiss clockmaker. Going up this old street in order to visit the streets
leading out of it, we turn into Rue Tiquetonne, which recalls by its
aspect fourteenth-century times, by its name a prosperous baker of that
century, a certain M. Rogier de Quinquentonne. Among the ancient houses
there, Nos. 4 and 2 have very deep cellars stretching beneath the
street. In Rue Dussoubs, which under other names dates back to the
fifteenth century, we see more quaint houses. At No. 26 Goldoni died.
The short street Marie-Stuart recalls the days when for one brief year
the beautiful Scotswoman was Queen Consort of France. The name of Rue
Jussienne is a corruption of Marie l’Égyptienne, patron saint of a
fourteenth-century chapel which stood there till 1791. At No. 2 lived
Madame Dubarry after the death of Louis XV. Rue d’Argout dates as Rue
des Vieux-Augustins from the thirteenth century. Here, at No. 28, lived
in more modern times, Savalette de Langes, supposed for many years and
proved at her death to be a man. In Passage du Vigan at No. 22, we find
bas-reliefs in a courtyard. At No. 56, a small ancient _hôtel_.
Rue Bachaumont is on the site of the vanished Passage du Saumur, a
milliner’s quarter, the most ancient of Paris passages, demolished in
1899. Rue d’Uzès crosses the site of the ancient hôtel d’Uzès. Rue de
Cléry was till 1634 an ancient roadway. Madame de Pompadour was born
here. Pierre Corneille and Casanava, the painter, lived here; and, where
the street meets Rue Beauregard, Baron Batz made his frantic attempt to
save Louis XVI on his way to the scaffold. No. 97, now a humble shop
with the sign “Au poète de 1793,” was the home of André Chenier. Nos.
21-19 belonged to Robert Poquelin, the priest-brother of Molière, later
to Pierre Lebrun, where in pre-Revolution days theatrical performances
were given, and the Mass said secretly during the Terror. Leading out of
Rue Cléry, we find Rue des Degrés, six mètres in length, the smallest
street in Paris, a mere flight of steps.
Rue St-Sauveur (thirteenth century) memorizes the church once there.
From end to end we see ancient houses, fine old balconies, curious
signs, architectural features of interest. In Rue des Petits-Carreaux,
running on from this end of Rue Montorgueil (_see_ p. 40) we see at No.
16 the house where, till recent days, musicians assembled for hire each
Sunday. Now they meet at the Café de la Chartreuse, 24, Boulevard
St-Denis. In a house in a court where the house No. 26 now stands, lived
Jean Dubarry. Rue Poissonnière, “Fishwives Street,” once “Champ des
Femmes” (thirteenth century), shows us many ancient houses.
Rue Beauregard was so named in honour of the fine view Parisians had of
old after mounting Rue Montorgueil. The notorious sorceress, Catherine
Monvoisin--“la Voisin”--implicated in a thousand crimes, built for
herself a luxurious habitation on this eminence--somewhat higher in
those days than in later years. We find several ancient houses along
this old street, notably No. 46. We see ancient houses also in Rue de la
Lune (1630). No. 1 is a shop still famed for its _brioches du soleil_.
Between these two streets stretched in olden days the graveyard of
Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle, a church built in 1624 on the site of the
ancient chapel Ste-Barbe. The name is said to refer to a piece of good
news told to Anne d’Autriche one day as she passed that way. The tower
only of the seventeenth-century church remains; the rest was rebuilt in
1823. Four short streets of ancient date cross Rue de la Lune: Rue
Notre-Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle (eighteenth century), Rue Thorel (sixteenth
century), the old Rue Ste-Barbe, Rue de la Ville-Neuve, Rue Notre-Dame
de la Recouvrance--with old houses of interest in each. At No. 8 Rue de
la Ville-Neuve we see _médaillons_ of Jean Goujon and Philibert
Delorme.
Surrounded by old streets, just off the boulevard des Italiens, is the
Opéra-Comique, originally a Salle de Spectacles, built on the park-lands
of their fine mansion by the duke and duchess de Choiseul, who reserved
for themselves and their heirs for ever the right to a _loge_ of eight
seats next to the royal box. Its name, at first, Salle Favart, has
changed many times. Burnt down twice, in 1838 and 1887, the present
building dates only from 1898. Rue Favart, named after the
eighteenth-century actor, has always been inhabited by actors and
actresses. Rue de Grammont dates from 1726, built across the site of the
fine old hôtel de Grammont. Rue de Choiseul, alongside the recently
erected Crédit Lyonnais, which has replaced several ancient mansions,
recalls the existence of another hôtel de Choiseul. At No. 21 we find
curious old attics. Passing through the short Rue de Hanovre, we find in
Rue de la Michodière, opened in 1778, on the grounds of hôtel Conti, the
house (No. 8) where Gericault, the painter, lived in 1808, and at No.
19, the home of Casabianca, member of the Convention where Buonaparte,
at one time, lodged. At No. 3, Rue d’Antin, then a private mansion,
Buonaparte married Joséphine (9 March, 1796). Though serving as a
banker’s office, the room where the marriage took place is kept exactly
as it then was. In a house in Rue Louis-le-Grand, opened in 1701, known
in Revolution days as Rue des Piques, Sophie Arnould was born. Rue
Daunou, where at No. 1 we see an ancient escutcheon, leads us into the
Rue de la Paix, opened in 1806 on the site of the ancient convent of the
Capucines and called at first Rue Napoléon. All its fine houses are
modern, as are also those of Rue Volney and Rue des Capucines, on the
even number side. In the latter street, formed in the year 1700, the
Crédit Foncier is the old hôtel de Castanier, director of the East India
Company (1726), and the hôtel Devieux of the same date. Nos. 11, 9, 7, 5
(fine vestiges at No. 5) were the stables of the duchesse d’Orléans in
1730.