IN THE VICINITY OF THE OPERA
ARRONDISSEMENT IX. (OPÉRA)
The Paris Opera-house was built between the years 1861-75 to replace the
structure in Rue le Peletier burnt to the ground in 1873. On its ornate
Renaissance façade we see, amid other statuary, the noted group “La
Danse,” the work of Carpeaux. Of the “Grands Boulevards,” by which the
Opera is surrounded, we shall speak later (_see_ p. 297).
Most of the streets in its neighbourhood are modern, stretching across
the site of demolished buildings, important in their day, but of which
few traces now remain.
Rue des Mathurins lies across the grounds of the vanished convent, Ville
l’Évêque. Rue Tronchet runs where was once the Ferme des Mathurins
(_see_ p. 224).
Rue Caumartin, opened 1779, records the name of the Prévôt des Marchands
of the day. It was a short street then, lengthened later by the old
adjoining streets Ste-Croix and Thiroux, the site erewhile of the famed
_porcelaine_ factory of la Reine. (Marie-Antoinette). No. 1 dates from
1779 and was noted for its gardens arranged in Oriental style. No. 2,
to-day the Paris Sporting Club, dates from the same period. No. 2 _bis_
and most of the other houses have been restored or rebuilt. The butcher
Legendre, who set the phrygian cap on the head of Louis XVI, is said to
have lived at No. 52. No. 65 was built as a Capucine convent (1781-83).
Sequestered at the Revolution, it became a hospital, then a _lycée_, its
name changed and rechanged: Lycée Buonaparte, Collège Bourbon, Lycée
Fontanes, finally Lycée Condorcet, while the convent chapel, rebuilt,
became the church St-Louis d’Antin. Rue Vignon was, till 1881, Rue de la
Ferme des Mathurins, as an inscription on the walls of No. 1 reminds us.
Rue de Provence, named after the brother of Louis XVI, was opened in
1771, built over a drain which went from Place de la République to the
Seine near Pont de l’Alma. No. 22 is an ancient house restored. Berlioz
lived at No. 41. Meissonier at No. 43. Nos. 45 to 65 are on the site of
the mansion and grounds of the duc d’Orléans which extended to Rue
Taitbout. We see a fine old _hôtel_ at No. 59. Cité d’Antin, opening at
No. 61, was built in 1825, on the site of the ancient hôtel Montesson.
Liszt, the pianist, lived at No. 63. The Café du Trèfle claims existence
since the year 1555. The busy, bustling Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin was
an important roadway in the twelfth century, as Chemin des Porcherons.
The houses we see there are mostly of eighteenth-century date, others
occupy the site of ancient demolished buildings. Many notable persons
lived here. No. 1, where we see the Vaudeville theatre (there since
1867), was of old the site of two historic mansions. No. 2, now a
fashionable restaurant, dates from 1792, built as Dépôt des Gardes
Françaises. Rossini lived there for one year--1857-58. Where Rue
Meyerbeer was opened in 1860 stood, in other days, the _hôtel_ of Mme
d’Épinay, whose walls had sheltered Grimm, and for a time Mozart. A
neighbouring house was the home of Necker, where his daughter, Mme de
Staël, grew up and which became later the possession of Mme Récamier.
The graveyard of St-Roch stretched, till the end of the eighteenth
century, across the site of Nos. 20-22. No. 42 belonged to Mme Talma.
There Mirabeau died in 1791; his widow in 1800. Joséphine de
Beauharnais, not yet Empress, dwelt at No. 62. Gambetta at No. 55. No.
68, hôtel Montfermeil, was rebuilt by Fesch, Napoléon’s uncle. Rue
St-Lazare was, before 1770, Rue des Porcherons, from the name of an
important estate of the district over which the abbesses of Montmartre
had certain rights of jurisdiction. Passage de Tivoli, at No. 96,
recalls the first Tivoli with its _jardins anglais_ stretching far at
this corner. Its owner’s head fell, severed by the guillotine, and his
_folie_ became national property. Fêtes were given there by the
Revolutionist authorities till its restoration, in 1810, to heirs of the
man who had built it. Avenue du Coq records the existence in
fourteenth-century days of a Château du Coq, known also as Château des
Porcherons, the manor-house of the Porcherons’ estate. The Square de la
Trinité is on the site of a famous restaurant of past days, the
well-known “Magny,” which as a dancing-saloon--“La Grande Pinte”--was on
the site till 1851. The church is modern (1867). No. 56 is part of the
hôtel Bougainville where the great tragedienne, Mlle Mars, lived. At No.
23, dating from the First Empire, we find a fine old staircase and in
the court a pump marked with the imperial eagle. Rue de Chateaudun is
modern. The _brasserie_ at the corner of Rue Maubeuge stands on the site
of the ancient cemetery des Porcherons. Rue de la Victoire, in the
seventeenth century Ruellette-au-Marais-des-Porcherons, was renamed in
1792 Rue Chantereine, referring to the very numerous frogs (RANA = frog)
which filled the air of that then marshy district with their croaking.
Buonaparte lived there at one time, hence the name given in 1798, taken
away in 1816, restored by Thiers in 1833. By a curious coincidence, an
Order of Nuns, “de la Victoire,” so called to memorize a very much
earlier victory--Bouvines 1214--owned property here. On the site of No.
60, now a modern house let out in flats, stood in olden days the chief
entrance to l’hôtel de la Victoire, a remarkably handsome structure
built in 1770, sold and razed in 1857--alas! At the end of the court at
No. 58 we see the ancient hôtel d’Argenson, its _salon_ kept undisturbed
from the days when great politicians of the past met and made decisive
resolutions there. The Bains Chantereine at No. 46 has been théâtre
Olymphique, théâtre des Victoires Nationales, théâtre des Troubadours,
and was for a few days in 1804 l’Opéra Comique; No. 45, with its busts
and bas-reliefs, dates from 1840. Rue Taitbout, begun in 1773,
lengthened by the union of adjoining streets, records the name of an
eighteenth-century municipal functionary. Isabey, Ambroise Thomas and
Manuel Gracia lived in this old street, and at No. 1, now a smart
_café_, two noted Englishmen, the Marquis of Hertford and Lord Seymour,
lived at different periods. No. 2 was once the famous restaurant
Tortoni. No. 30, as a private _hôtel_, sheltered Talleyrand and Mme
Grand. We see interesting vestiges at No. 44. The Square d’Orléans is
the ancient Cité des Trois Frères, in past days a nest of artists and
men of letters: Dumas, George Sand, Lablache, etc.