THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL
We come now to the interesting old-world quarter behind and surrounding
the church St-Paul and the Lycée Charlemagne, the site of the palace
St-Pol of ancient days. The church, as we see it, dates from 1641,
replacing a tiny Jesuit chapel built in the previous century and
dedicated to St. Louis. Its first stone was laid by Louis XIII, and the
chapel built from the designs of two Jesuit priests, aided by the
architect Vignole. Hence the term _Jesuite_ used in France for the
ornate Renaissance style of architecture we see in the façade of the
church before us. Richelieu, newly ordained, celebrated his first Mass
here in 1641, and defrayed the cost of completing the church by the
erection of the great portal. The heart of Louis XIII and of Louis XIV
were buried here beneath sumptuous monuments. At the Revolution the
_Tiers État_, held their first assembly in the old church St-Pol, soon
razed to the ground by the insurgents. The Jesuits’ chapel was saved
from destruction by the books from suppressed convents which had been
piled up within it, forming thus a barricade. The dome was the second
erected in Paris. The holy water scoops were a gift from Victor Hugo at
the baptism of his first child born in the parish.
[Illustration: RUE ÉGINHARD]
Turning into Rue St-Paul we see at No. 35 the doorway of the demolished
hôtel de Sève. In the Passage St-Paul, till 1877 Passage St-Louis, we
find at No. 7 the _presbytère_, once, tradition says, a _pied-à-terre_
of the _grand_ Condé, and at No. 38 an old courtyard. At No. 36 vestiges
of the prison originally part of the convent founded by St. Éloi in the
time of Dagobert.[C] The arched Passage St-Pierre which led in olden
days to the cemetery St-Pol, the burial-place of so many notable
persons: Rabelais, Mansart, etc., and of prisoners from the Bastille,
the man in the iron mask among them, has lately been swept away, with
some walls of the old convent close up against it. The Manège till
recent days at No. 30 was in days past a favourite meeting place of the
people when in disaccord with the authorities in politics or on
industrial questions. At No. 31 we look into Rue Éginhard, the Ruelle
St-Pol of the fourteenth century; the walls of some of its houses once
formed part of the old church St-Pol. At No. 8 we see the square turret
of an old-hôtel St-Maur. At No. 4, l’hôtel de Vieuville, an interesting
fifteenth-and sixteenth-century building, condemned to demolition, which
has been inhabited by notable personages of successive periods. Passing
through the black-walled court we mount a fine old-time staircase to
find halls with beautiful mouldings, a wonderful frescoed ceiling, etc.
etc., all in the possession at present of a well-known antiquarian. No.
5, doorway of l’hôtel de Lignerac. In Rue Ave-Maria, its site covered in
past days by two old convents, we see at No. 15 an _hôtel_ where was
once the tennis-court of the Croix-Noire, in its day the “Illustre
Théâtre” with Molière as its chief and whence the great tragedian was
led for debt to durance vile at the Châtelet. No. 2 was once “la
Boucherie Ave-Maria.”
Rue Charlemagne was known by various names till this last one given in
1844--one of its old names, Rue des Prêtres, is still seen engraved in
the wall at No. 7. The _petit_ Lycée Charlemagne has among its walls
part of one of the ancient towers of the boundary wall of
Philippe-Auguste which passed in a straight line to the Seine at this
point. It is known as Tour Montgomery and shelters a ... gas meter! The
remains of another tower are seen behind the gymnasium. Before 1908 the
last remaining walls of the hôtel du Prévôt still stood in Passage
Charlemagne, a picturesque turreted Renaissance bit of “Old Paris” let
out in tenements, the last vestiges of the historic mansion where many
notable persons, royal and other, had sojourned. Interesting old-time
features are seen at Nos. 18, 21, 22, 25; No. 25 underwent restoration
in recent years.
[Illustration: RUE DU PRÉVÔT]
In Rue du Prévôt we see more old-time vestiges. Rue du Figuier dates
from about 1300 when a fig-tree flourished there, cut down three
centuries later. Nos. 19-15, now a Jewish hospice, was the abode of the
Miron, royal physicians from 1550 to 1680. Every house shows some
relic. At No. 5 we come upon an old well and steps in the courtyard. No.
8 was perhaps the home of Rabelais. At No. 1 we find ourselves before
the turreted hôtel de Sens, built between 1474 and 1519, on the site of
a private mansion given by Charles V to the archbishops of Sens, who at
that time had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Paris. Ecclesiastics of
historic fame, and at one time Marguerite de Valois, la Reine Margot,
dwelt there during the succeeding 150 years. Then Paris became an
archbishopric, and this fine hôtel de Sens was abandoned--let. It has
served as a coaching house, a jam manufactory, finally became a glass
store and factory, and in part a Jewish synagogue. In Rue du Fauconnier,
Nos. 19, 17, 15, are ancient. Rue des Jardins, where stretched the
gardens of the old Palais St-Pol, has none but ancient houses. At No. 5
we see a hook which served of yore to hold the chain stretched across
the street to close it. Molière lived there in 1645. Rabelais died
there.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE SENS]
Crossing Rue St-Paul we come to Rue des Lions, recalling the royal
menagerie once there. Fine old mansions lie along its whole length. At
No. 10 we find a beautiful staircase; another at No. 12, dating from the
reign of Louis XIII, and in the courtyard at No. 3 we see an ancient
fountain. At No. 14 there was till recent times the fountain “du regard
des lions.” No. 17 formed part of l’hôtel Vieuville. Chief among the
ancient houses of Rue Charles V is No. 12, l’hôtel d’Antoine d’Aubray,
father of the notorious woman-poisoner, la Brinvilliers, with its
graceful winding staircase. Here Mme de Brinvilliers tried to bring
about the assassination of her lover Briancourt by her other lover
Ste-Croix. Nuns, nursing sisters, live there now. Rue Beautreillis was
in bygone days the site of a vine-covered trellis in the gardens of the
historic palace St-Pol made up of l’hôtel Beautreillis and other fine
_hôtels_ confiscated from his nobles by King Charles V, and at No. 1 we
see an ancient and truly historic vine climbing a trellis, its origin
lost in the mist of centuries. Is it really, as some would have it, a
relic of the vines that gave grapes for the table of Charles V? All the
houses here are ancient. No. 10 was the mansion of the duc de
Valentinois, prince de Monaco in 1640. We see ancient houses along Rue
du Petit Musc, a fourteenth-century street. No. 1 is the south side of
l’École Massillon (_see_ p. 326). We cross boulevard Henri IV to the
Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, its walls in part, the Arsenal built by Henri
IV on the site of a more ancient one, restored in the first half of the
eighteenth century, its façade entirely rebuilt under Napoléon III. The
name of Sully given to the bridge and the street reminds us that the
statesman lived at the Arsenal. There Mme de Brinvilliers was tried and
condemned to death. The Arsenal was done away with by Louis XVI, streets
cut across the site of most of its demolished walls. What remained
became the library we see; it has counted among its librarians men of
special distinction: Nodier, Hérédia, etc., and is now under the
direction of the well-known man of letters Funck-Brentano. Various
relics of past days and of old-time inhabitants are to be seen there and
traces of the boundary wall of Charles V. Rue de la Cerisaie, hard by,
is another street recalling the palace gardens--for cherry-trees then
grew here. On the site of No. 10 Gabrielle d’Estrées was seized with her
last illness while at the supper-table of its owner, the friend of her
loyal lover. The houses here are all ancient and characteristic, as are
also those in Rue Lesdiguières where till the first years of this
present century the wall of a dependency of the Bastille still stood.