FAUBOURG ST-HONORÉ
Turning down Avenue Wagram, one of the twelve broad avenues, all modern,
branching from the Place de l’Étoile, we come to the Faubourg St-Honoré,
originally Chaussée du Roule. The village of Le Roule was famed in the
thirteenth century for its goose-market. The district became a faubourg
in 1722 and in 1787 was taken within the city bounds. It has always been
a favourite quarter among men of intellectual activity desiring to live
beyond the turbulence of the centre of Paris. Here and there we come
upon vestiges of bygone days. No. 222 is an old Dominican convent
disaffected in 1906. A foundry once stood at the corner of the Rue
Balzac, where public statues of kings and other royalties of old were in
turn cast or melted down. The house where Balzac died once stood close
there too, up against an ancient chapel--all long swept away. The walled
garden remains--bordering the street to which the name of the great
novelist has been given--a slab put up where we see, just above the
wall, the top of a pillared summer-house, which Balzac is said to have
built. The hospital Beaujon dates from 1784 but has no architectural or
historical interest. The few ancient houses we see at intervals in this
upper part of the faubourg are remains of the village du Roule. Several
of more interesting aspect were razed a few years ago. The military
hospital was once the site of royal stables. Mme de Genlis died at No.
170.
The church St-Philippe du Roule was built by Chalgrin in 1774 on the
site of the seventeenth-century hôtel du Bas-Roule. No. 107 was the
habitation of the King’s Pages under Louis XV. On the site of No. 81
comte de Fersan had his stables in the time of Louis XVI. The Home
Office (Ministère de l’Intérieur) on Place Beauvau dates from the
eighteenth century and has been a private mansion, a municipal _hôtel_,
a hotel in the English sense of the word.
The Palais de l’Élysée, built in 1718, was bought in 1753 by Mme de
Pompadour. La Pompadour died at Versailles, but by her express wish her
body was taken to Paris and laid in this her Paris home before the
funeral. She bequeathed the _hôtel_ to the comte de Province, but Louis
XV used it for State purposes. Then, become again a private residence,
it was inhabited by the duchesse de Bourbon, mother of the due
d’Enghien. She let it later to the tenant who made of it an _Élysée_, a
pleasure-house, laid out a _parc anglais_, gave sumptuous _fêtes
champêtres_. Sequestered at the Revolution, the mansion was sold
subsequently to Murat and Caroline Buonaparte, then became an imperial
possession as l’Élysée-Napoléon. Napoléon gave it to Joséphine at her
divorce but she preferred Malmaison. There the Emperor signed his second
abdication and there, in 1815, the Duke of Wellington and the Emperor of
Russia made their abode. The next occupants were the duc and duchesse de
Berry. The duchesse left it after her husband’s death in 1820. It became
l’Hôtellierie des Princes. In 1850 Napoléon as Prince-President made a
brief abode there before the _coup d’état_. The façade dates from his
reign as Napoléon III when, to cut it off from surrounding buildings,
he made the Rue de l’Élysée through its gardens. The Garde Nationale
took possession of it in 1871. It was saved from destruction under the
Commune by its _conservateur_, who placed counterfeited _scellés_. No.
41, hôtel Pontalba, built by Visconti on the site of an older _hôtel_,
now owned by one of the Rothschilds, has fine ancient woodwork, once at
hôtel St-Bernard, Rue du Bac. No. 39, the British Embassy, was built in
1720 for the duc de Charost; given in 1803 to Pauline Buonaparte,
princesse Borghese, given over to the English in 1815. British Embassy
since 1825. Nos. 35, 33, 31, 29, 27 are all eighteenth-century _hôtels_.
At No. 30 the Cité de Retiro was in past days the great Cour des Coches,
inhabited by the “Fermier des carrosses de la Cour.” Nos. 24, 16 are
ancient. No. 14 was the Mairie till 1830.
The streets opening out of the Faubourg date mostly from the eighteenth
century and show here and there traces of a past age, but the greater
number of the houses standing along their course to-day are of modern
construction. Rue d’Aguesseau was cut in 1723 across the property of the
Chancellor whose name it records. The Embassy church there is on the
site of the ancient hôtel d’Armaille. No. 18 was at one time the Mairie
of the 1st arrondissement. Rue Montalivet, where at No. 6 we see the
friendly front of the British Consulate, was for some years Rue du
Marché-d’Aguesseau. Rue des Saussaies was in the seventeenth century a
willow-tree bordered road. Place des Saussaies is modern on the site of
demolished eighteenth-century _hôtels_. In Rue Cambacérés we see ancient
_hôtels_ at Nos. 14, 8, 3.
The first numbers in Rue Miromesnil are old and have interesting
decorations, Châteaubriand lived at No. 31 in 1804. Rue de Panthièvre
was Rue des Marais in the seventeenth century, then Chemin Vert. Its
houses were the habitation of many noted persons through the two
centuries following. Franklin is said to have lived at No. 26, also
Lucien Buonaparte. The barracks dates from 1780, one of those built for
the Gardes Françaises, who had previously been billeted in private
houses. Fersen lived in Rue Matignon; Gambetta at No. 12, Rue Montaigne
(1874-78). The Colisée, which gave its name to the street previously
known as Chaussée des Gourdes, was an immense hall used for festive
gatherings from 1770 to 1780, when it was demolished. On part of the
site it occupied, Rue Penthieu was opened at the close of the eighteenth
century and Rue de la Bôëtie into which we now turn. That fair street
was known in the different parts of its course by no less than eleven
different names before its present one, given in 1879. Several
eighteenth-century _hôtels_ still stand here; others on the odd number
side were razed in recent years to widen the thoroughfare. No. 111 was
inhabited for a time at the end of the eighteenth century by the then
duc de Richelieu. When Napoléon was in power, an Italian minister lived
there and gave splendid fêtes, at which the Emperor was a frequent
guest. In recent days its owner was the duc de Massa, grandson of
Napoléon’s famous minister of Justice. Carnot lived for a time at No.
122. Eugène Sue at No. 55. Comtesse de la Valette at No. 44, a _hôtel_
known for its extensive grounds.
Rue de Berri, opened 1778, across the site of the royal nursery gardens,
went by several names before receiving that of the second son of Charles
X, assassinated in 1820. The Belgian Legation at No. 20 was built by the
aunt of Mme de Genlis and was in later times the home of princesse
Mathilde who died there in 1904. Rue Washington was opened in 1789; Rue
Galilée as chemin des Bouchers, then Rue du Banquet, in 1790. In Rue
Daru, of the same date, opened as Rue de la Croix du Roule, we see the
Russian church built in 1881, with its beautiful paintings and frescoes
and rich Oriental decorations.