LA PLACE DES VOSGES
Here we are on the old Place Royale--the _place_ where royalties dwelt
and courtiers disported in the days of Louis XIII, whose statue we see
still in the centre of the big, dreary garden square. That statue was
put there by Napoléon to replace the original one, carted away and
melted down in Revolutionary days when the _ci-devant_ Place Royale
became Place des Fédérés, then Place de l’Indivisibilité. Napoléon first
named it Place des Vosges, a name confirmed after 1870 as a tribute of
gratitude to the department which had first paid up its share of the war
contribution. In the early centuries of the Bourbon kings the palace of
the Tournelles had stood here (see p. 8). After its demolition the site
was taken for a horse market, and there the famous duel was fought
between the _mignons_ of Henri II and the followers of the duc de Guise.
Henri IV created the Place and had it parcelled out for building
purposes. His idea was to make it the centre of a number of streets or
avenues each bearing the name of one of the provinces of France. The
King died and that project was not carried out, but the extensive site
was soon the square of the fine mansions we see to-day, mansions fallen
from their high estate, no longer the private abodes of the world of
fashion, but standing unchanged in outward aspect.
We see the Pavillon du Roi on the south side facing Rue de Birague, once
Rue du Pavillon du Roi, where at No. 11 was born Mme de Sévigné (1626);
opposite it the Pavillon de la Reine. At No. 7 the _petit_ hôtel Sully
connected with the _grand_ hôtel Sully of the Rue St-Antoine. Each house
of the _place_ was inhabited and known by the name of a great noble or a
wealthy financier. Their enumeration would take too much space here. At
No. 6 we see the house where Victor Hugo lived in more modern
times--1833-48--now the Musée filled with souvenirs of his life and work
and dedicated to his memory. Behind it, at the corner of Impasse
Guénémée, is the _hôtel_ once the dwelling of Marion Delorme. Théophile
Gautier, and later Alphonse Daudet occupied a flat at No. 8. Passing out
of the _place_ through Rue du Pas de la Mule, in its day “petite Rue
Royale,” we turn into Rue St-Antoine, where modern buildings are almost
unknown, and vestiges of bygone ages are seen on every side. At No. 5 an
inscription tells us this was the site of the courtyard of the Bastille
through which the populace rushed in attack on the 14th July, 1789. At
No. 7 we remark an ancient sign “A la Renommée de la Friture.” At No. 17
we see what remains of the convent built by Mansart in 1632, on the site
of the hôtel de Cossé, where for eighteen years St. Vincent de Paul was
confessor. The chapel, left intact, was given to the Protestants in
1802. Here Fouquet and his son, Mme de Chantal, and the Marquis de
Sévigné were buried. No. 20 is l’hôtel de Mayenne et d’Ormesson,
sixteenth or seventeenth century, on the site of an older _hôtel_ sold
to Charles V to enlarge his palace St-Pol. It passed through many hands,
royal hands for the most part, and the building as we see it, or the
previous structure, was for a time the hôtel de Diane de Poitiers. In
modern times it became the Pension Favart, then in 1870, l’École des
Francs-Bourgeois under the direction of les Frères de la doctrine
chrétienne. At No. 28 Impasse Guénémée, known in its fifteenth-century
days as Cul-de-Sac du Ha! Ha! a passage connected with the hôtel
Rohan-Guénémée in Place Royale. In the seventeenth century a convent
was built here, a sort of reformatory for erring girls and women of the
upper classes who were shut up here in consequence of _lettres de
cachet_. At No. 62 stands the hôtel de Sully. Its first owner staked the
mansion at the gambling table and lost. At No. 101 we are before the
Lycée Charlemagne, built in 1804 on the site of two ancient mansions and
of the old city wall, of which some traces still remain. At No. 133 we
see the Maison Séguier, with its fine old door, balcony and staircase;
another old house at No. 137; then this ancient thoroughfare becomes in
these modern days, Rue François-Miron (_see_ p. 104).
[Illustration: RUE DE BIRAGUE, PLACE DES VOSGES]
Rue des Tournelles in this earlier part of its course is chiefly
interesting for the fine _hôtel_ at No. 28, built in 1690, decorated
with frescoes by Lebrun and Mignard, where the famous courtesan, Ninon
de Lenclos, lived and died.