THE TEMPLE
OF the renowned citadel and domain of mediæval times, from which the
arrondissement takes its name, nothing now remains. A modern square
(1865) has been arranged on the site of the mansion and the gardens of
the Grand Prieur, but the surrounding streets, several stretching where
the Temple once stood and across the site of its extensive grounds, show
us historic houses, historic vestiges and associations along their
entire course.
The Knights-Templar settled in Paris in 1148. Their domain with its
dungeon, built in 1212, its manor and fortified tower, and the vast
surrounding grounds, were seized in 1307 and given over to the knights
of St. John of Jerusalem, known later as the knights of Malta. From that
time to the Revolution the Temple was closely connected with the life of
the city. The primitive buildings were demolished, streets built along
the site of some of them in the seventeenth century, and an immense
battlemented castle with towers and a strong prison erected where the
original stronghold had stood. The Temple, as then built, was like the
old abbeys and royal palaces: a sort of township, having within its
enclosures all that was needful for the daily life of its inhabitants.
Besides Louis XVI and his family many persons of note passed weary days
in its prison. Sidney Smith effected his escape therefrom. Its
encircling walls were razed in the first years of the nineteenth
century; and in 1808 Napoléon had the great tower knocked down. In 1814
the Allies made the Grand Priory their headquarters. Louis XVIII gave
over the mansion to an Order of Benedictine nuns. In 1848 it served as a
barracks. Its end came in 1854, when it was razed to the ground. Then a
big _place_ and market hall were set up on the site of the old Temple
chapel and its adjacent buildings--a famous market, given up in great
part to dealers in second-hand goods--the chief Paris market of
_occasions_ (bargains). The Rotonde which had been erected in 1781 was
allowed to stand and lasted till 1863. A new ironwork hall, built in
1855, was not demolished till recent years--1905.
[Illustration: LA PORTE DU TEMPLE]
Those pretty, gay knick-knacks, that glittering cheap jewellery known
throughout the world as “articles de Paris” had their origin among a
special class of the inhabitants of the old Temple grounds. No one
living there paid taxes. Impecunious persons of varying rank sought
asylum there--a society made up in great part of artists and
artistically-minded artisans. To gain their daily bread they set their
wits and their fingers to work and soon found a ready sale for their
Brummagem--not mere Brummagem, however, and all of truly Parisian
delicacy of conception and workmanship.
Starting up Rue du Temple, from Rue Rambuteau, this part of it before
1851 Rue Ste-Avoie, we come upon the passage Ste-Avoie, and the entrance
to the demolished _hôtel_, once that of Constable Anne de Montmorency,
later, for a time, the Law’s famous bank. At No. 71 we see l’hôtel de
St-Aignan, built in 1660, used in 1812 as a _mairie_, with fine doors
and Corinthian pilastres in the court. No. 79 was l’hôtel de Montmort
(1650). No. 86 is on the site of a famous cabaret of the days of Louis
XII. At Nos. 101-103 we see vestiges of l’hôtel de Montmorency. No. 113
was the dependency of a Carmelite convent. At No. 122 Balzac lived in
1882. At No. 153 was the eighteenth-century _bureau des
Vinaigrettes_--Sedan-chairs on wheels. The great door of the Temple,
demolished in 1810, stood opposite No. 183. Vestiges were found in
recent years beneath the pavement. At No. 195, within the Église
Ste-Elisabeth, originally the convent chapel of the Filles de
Ste-Elisabeth (1614-1690), we see most beautiful woodwork. Rue Turbigo
cut right through the ancient presbytère.
Turning back down this old street to visit the streets leading out of
it, we find Rue Dupetit-Thouars, on the site of old _hôtels_ within the
Temple grounds. Rue de la Corderie, where the Communards met in 1871.
Rue des Fontaines (fifteenth century), with at No. 7 the ancient
hôtellerie du Grand Cerf: at No. 15 the _hôtel_ owned by the Superior of
the convent of the Madelonnettes--a house of Mercy--suppressed at the
Revolution, used as a political prison, later as a woman’s prison. Rue
Perrée, where a shadowy Temple market is still to be seen, runs through
the ancient Temple grounds.
Rue de Bretagne stretches from the Rue de Réaumur at the corner of the
Temple Square, in old days known in its course through the Temple
property as Rue de Bourgogne, farther on as Rue de Saintonge; leading
out of it, at No. 62, the short Rue de Caffarelli runs along the line of
the eastern wall of the vanished Temple fortress; at No. 45 is the Rue
de Beauce where we come upon the ancient private passage, Rue des
Oiseaux, with its _vacherie_ of the old hospice des Enfants-Rouges. At
No. 48 opens the ancient Rue du Beaujolais-du-Temple, renamed Rue de
Picardie. At No. 41 we find the Marché des Enfants-Rouges, a picturesque
old-time market hall with an ancient well in the courtyard. Rue
Portefoin, thirteenth century. Rue Pastourelle, of the same epoch where
at No. 23 lived the _culottier_, Biard, who wrote the Revolutionary
song: la Carmagnole. Rue des Haudriettes, known in past days as Rue de
l’Échelle-du-Temple, for there at its farther end was the Temple pillory
and a tall ladder reaching to its summit. The name _Haudriette_ is that
of the order of nuns founded by Jean Haudri, secretary to Louis IX, who,
given up by his wife as lost while travelling in the East, returned at
length to find her living among a community of widows to whom she had
made over her home. Haudri maintained the institution thus founded,
which was removed later to a mansion, now razed, near the chapel of the
Assumption, in Rue St-Honoré. Rue de Brague, until 1348 Rue
Boucherie-du-Temple, the Templars meat market. The fine old _hôtel_ at
Nos. 4 and 6 has ceilings painted by Lebrun. All these streets are rich
in old-time houses, old-time vestiges, and they are all, as is the whole
of this arrondissement on this side Rue du Temple as far as Rue de
Turenne, in the Marais, a name referring to the marshy nature of the
district in long-past days--but which was for long in pre-Revolution
times the most aristocratic quarter of the city. We find ourselves now
before the Archives and the Imprimerie Nationale, the latter to be
transferred to its new quarters Rue de la Convention. The frontage of
this fine old building and its entrance gates give on the Rue des
Francs-Bourgeois, of which more anon (_see_ p. 84). On the western side
we see a thick high wall and the Gothic doorway of what was, in the
fourteenth century, the Paris dwelling of the redoubtable Constable,
Olivier de Clisson, subsequently for nearly two hundred years in the
hands of the Guise. In 1687 it was rebuilt for the Princess de Soubise
by the architect, Delamair. Pillaged during the Revolution, it became
national property, and in 1808 the Archives were placed there by
Napoléon. Frescoes, fine old woodwork, magnificent mouldings,
architectural work of great beauty are there to be seen. The Duke of
Clarence is said to have made the hôtel Clisson his abode during the
English occupation under Henry V. Going up Rue des Archives we see at
No. 53, dating from 1705, the _hôtel_ built there by the Prince de
Rohan, and onward up the street fine old mansions, once the homes of men
and women of historic name and fame. No. 72 is said to have been the
“Archives” in the time of Louis XIII. An eighteenth-century fountain is
seen in the yard behind the stationer’s shop there. No. 78 was the
_hôtel_ of Maréchal de Tallard. No. 79 dates from Louis XIII. At No. 90
we see traces of the old chapel of the Orphanage des Enfants-Rouges, so
called from the colour of the children’s uniform. The eastern side of
the Imprimerie Nationale adjoining the Archives, built by Delamair, as
the hôtel de Strasbourg, and commonly known as hôtel de Rohan, because
four comtes de Rohan were successively bishops of Strasbourg, is
bounded by Rue Vieille-du-Temple, that too along its whole course a
sequence of old houses bearing witness to past grandeur. No. 54 is the
picturesque house and turret built in 1528 by Jean de la Balue,
secretary to the duc d’Orléans. No. 56 was once the abode of Loys de
Villiers of the household of Isabeau de Bavière. No. 75 was the town
house of the family de la Tour-du-Pin-Gouvernet (1720). On the walls of
No. 80 we read the old inscription “Vieille rue du Temple.” No. 102 was
the hôtel de Caumartin, later d’Epernon. Nos. 106 and 110 were
dependencies of the hôtel d’Epernon.
[Illustration: PORTE DE CLISSON
(Archives)]
Rue des Quatre-Fils on the north side of the Archives and its adjoining
buildings, known in past times as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, recalls to
mind the romantic adventures of four sons of a certain Aymon, sung by a
thirteenth-century troubadour. Most of its houses are ancient. Leading
out of it is the old Rue Charlot with numerous seventeenth-century and
eighteenth-century houses or vestiges. We peep into the Ruelle Sourdis,
a gutter running down the middle of it, once shut in by iron gates and
boundary stones. At No. 5 we see what remains of the hôtel Sourdis,
which in 1650 belonged to Cardinal Retz. The church St-Jean-St-François,
opposite, is the ancient chapel of the convent St-François-des-Capucins
du Marais. It replaced the old church St-Jean-en-Grève, destroyed at the
Revolution, and here we see, surrounding the nave, painted copies of
ancient tapestries telling the story of the miracle of the sacred Hostie
which a Jew in mockery sought to destroy by burning. The fête of
Reparation kept from the fourteenth century at the church of St-Jean and
at the chapel les Billettes (_see_ p. 107) has since 1867 been kept
here. Here too, piously preserved, is the chasuble used by the Abbé
Edgeworth at the last Mass heard before his execution by Louis XVI in
the Temple prison hard by. In the short Rue du Perche behind the church,
lived for a time at No. 7 _bis_ Scarron’s young widow, destined to
become Madame de Maintenon. Fine frescoes cover several of its ceilings.
In Rue de Poitou we find more interesting old houses. In Rue de
Normandie Nos. 10, 6, 9 show interesting features, old courtyards, etc.
Turning from Rue Charlot into Rue Béranger, known until 1864 by the name
of the Grand Prior of the Temple de Vendôme, we find the hôtel de
Vendôme, Nos. 5 and 3, dating from 1752 where Béranger lived and died.
At No. 11, now a business house, lived Berthier de Sauvigny,
Intendant-Général de Paris in 1789, hung on a lamp-post after the taking
of the Bastille, one of the first victims of the Revolution.
[Illustration: RUELLE DE SOURDIS]
Running parallel to Rue Charlot, starting from the little Rue du Perche,
Rue Saintonge, formed by joining two seventeenth-century streets, Rue
Poitou and Rue Touraine, shows us a series of ancient dwellings. From
October, 1789, to 15th July, 1791, Robespierre lived at No. 64. A fine
columned entrance court at No. 5 has been supplanted by a brand-new
edifice. The _hôtel_ at No. 4, dating originally from about 1611, was
rebuilt in 1745.
Rue de Turenne, running in this arrondissement from Rue Charlot to the
corner of the Place des Vosges, began as Rue Louis, then in its upper
part was Rue Boucherat, as an ancient inscription at No. 133 near the
fountain Boucherat records. From the old street whence it starts, Rue
St.-Antoine in the 4th arrondissement, it is a long line of ancient
_hôtels_, the homes in bygone days of men of notable names and doings;
one side of the convent des Filles-du-Calvaire stretched between the Rue
des Filles-du-Calvaire and Rue Pont-au-Choux. No. 76 was the home of the
last governor of the Bastille, Monsieur de Launay. The church of
St-Denis-du-St-Sacrament at No. 70 was built in 1835 on the site of the
chapel of a convent razed in 1826, previously a mansion of Maréchal de
Turenne. At No. 56, Scarron lived and died. No. 54 was the abode of the
comte de Montrésor, noted in the wars of the Fronde. At No. 41, fresh
water flows from the fontaine de Joyeuse on the site of the ancient
hôtel de Joyeuse. We find a beautiful staircase in almost every one of
these old _hôtels_.
[Illustration: HÔTEL VENDÔME, RUE BÉRANGER]
Shorter interesting old streets lead out of this long one on each side.
Rue du Parc-Royal, memorizes the park and palace of Les Tournelles,
razed to the ground after the tragic death of Henri II by his widow,
Catherine de’ Medici (_see_ p. 8). No. 4, dating from 1620, was
inhabited by successive illustrious families until the early years of
the nineteenth century. There, till recently, was seen a wonderful
carved wood staircase. Many of the ancient houses erewhile here have
been demolished in recent years, and are supplanted by modern buildings
and a garden-square.