THE QUAYS
The quays of the Seine in its course through Paris are picturesque in
the extreme and show at almost every step points of historic interest.
That interest is strongest, the aspect of the quays most quaint and
entrancing, where they pass through the heart of the city.
Let us start from the Point-du-Jour, the “Dawn of Day,” at the point
where the boundary-line of Paris touches the _banlieue_ to the
south-east. The name refers to a famous duel fought here at the break of
day on a memorable morning in 1743. Taking the Rive Droite, the right
bank, we follow the Quai d’Auteuil which, till the closing years of the
nineteenth century, was a mere roadway along which the river boats were
loaded and unloaded. The fine viaduct across the river was built in
1864-65. It was fiercely bombarded in the war of 1870. On Sundays and
fête-days this quaint quay is gay with holiday-makers who crowd its
popular cafés, drinking-booths and shows.
Quai de Passy was made in 1842 along that part of the old high road to
Versailles. Some quaint old houses still stand there. At No. 26 we see a
pavilion Louis XVI. No 32 is surrounded by a fine park wherein we find
vestiges of the home of the abbé Ragois, Madame de Maintenon’s
confessor, and ferruginous springs. Rue Berton, leading up from the
Quai, is one of the most picturesque old streets of Paris. At No. 17 we
find an extensive property and a Louis XV _hôtel_, once the home of
successive families of the _noblesse_ and of the unhappy princesse de
Lamballe, now a Maison de Santé--a private asylum. The _borne_ at No. 24
has been there since 1731, a boundary mark between the manors of Passy
and Auteuil.
Quai de la Conférence, arrondissement VIII, dates from the latter years
of the eighteenth century, its name referring to the middle of the
previous century, when Spanish statesmen entered Paris by a great gate
in its vicinity to confer concerning the marriage of Louis XIV and
Marie-Thérèse.
Cours-la-Reine, bordering the Seine along this quay, was first planted
by Marie de’ Medici in 1618, on market-garden ground. It was a favourite
and fashionable promenade in the time of the Fronde; a moat surrounded
it and iron gates closed it in. At No. 16 of Rue Bayard leading out of
it, we see the Maison de François I, its sculptures the work of Jean
Goujon, brought here, bit by bit, in 1826 from the quaint old village of
Moret near Fontainebleau where it was first built. On its frontage we
read an inscription in Latin.
Quai des Tuileries was formed under Louis XIV along the line of Charles
V’s boundary wall razed in 1670. The walls of the Louvre bordering this
quay, dating originally from the time of Henri IV, who wished to join
the Louvre to the Tuileries, then without the city bounds, by a gallery,
were rebuilt by Napoléon III (1863-68). Place du Carrousel behind this
frontage, so named from a _carrousel_ given there by Louis XIV, in the
garden known then as the parterre de Mademoiselle, dates from 1662. At
the Revolution it became for the time the _soi-disant_ Place de la
Fraternité. On this fraternal (?) _place_ political prisoners were
beheaded, while the _conventionels_ looked on from the Tuileries
windows. And it was the scene of the historic days June 20th and August
10th, 1792, later of the 24th July, 1830.
L’Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel dates from 1806, set up to commemorate
the campaign of 1805. The large square, in the centre of which stands
the colossal statue of Gambetta, known in the time of the Second Empire
as the Cour Napoléon III, was covered in previous days by a number of
short, narrow streets, interlacing. Several mansions, one or two
chapels, a small burial-ground, and a theatre, were there among these
streets and on beyond, and the grounds of the great hospital for the
blind, the “Quinze-Vingts,” stretched along the banks of the Seine at
this point, extending from the hospital, in Rue St-Honoré, its site from
its foundation till its removal to Rue de Charenton in 1779 (_see_ p.
250). Alongside the Quai we see the terrace “Bord de l’Eau,” of the
Tuileries gardens. The Orangerie reconstructed in 1853 was in the
seventeenth century a garden wherein was the famous Cabaret Regnard,
forerunner of the modern Casino. From this terrace to the Tuileries
Palace ran the subterranean passage made by Napoléon I for Marie Louise,
and here was the Pont-tournant, built by a monk in 1716, across which
Louis XVI was led back on his return from the flight to Varennes.
The Quai de Louvre is a union of several stretches of quay known of old
by different names, the most ancient stretch, that between the Pont-Neuf
and Rue du Louvre, dating from the thirteenth century. In the jardin de
l’Infante, bordering the palace, here the old palace of the time of
Catherine de’ Medici, we see statues of Velasquez, Raffet, Meissonnier,
Boucher. Reaching the houses along the quay we see at No. 10 the
ancient Café de Parnasse, now the Bouillon du Pont-Neuf, where Danton
was wont to pass many hours of the day and ended by wedding Gabrielle
Charpentier, its landlord’s daughter. At No. 8, built by Louis XVI’s
dentist, we see a fine wrought-iron balcony. And now we come to the
ancient Quai de la Mégisserie, dating from the time of Charles V, first
as Quai de la Sannierie, “tools for saltmaking” quay, then as Quai de la
Ferraille, “iron-instrument” quay. Its present name, too, denotes a
Paris industry, the preparation of sheepskins. The cross-roads where it
meets Quai du Louvre and the Pont-Neuf went in olden days by the name
Carrefour des Trois-Maries, also by that of Place du Four.
The “Belle Jardinière” covers the site of the Forum Episcopi, the
episcopal prison of the Middle Ages, later a royal prison rebuilt in
1656 by de Gondi, the first archbishop of Paris. Its prisoners were for
the most part actors and actresses. Interesting old streets open on this
ancient quay. At No. 12, we turn into Rue Bertin-Poirée, a thoroughfare
in the earlier years of the thirteenth century, where at No. 5 we see a
quaint, time-worn sign of the Tour d’Argent, and several black-walled
houses. The thirteenth-century Rue Jean-Lantier, memorizing a Parisian
of that long-gone age, lies, in its upper part, across what was the
Place du Chevalier du Guet, from the _hôtel_ built there for a Knight of
the Guet (the Watch) of Louis IX’s time. Rue des Lavandières, of the
same period, recalls the days when lavender growers and lavender dealers
lived and plied their thriving trade here. At No. 13 we see a fine
heraldic shield devoid of signs; at No. 6, old bas-reliefs. Rue des
Deux-Boules dates under other names from the twelfth century. At No. 2
of this quay the great painter David was born in 1748.
Quai des Gesvres was built by the Marquis de Gesvres in 1641. The
ancient arcades upon which it rests, hidden away with their vaulted
roofing, still support this old quay. The shops they once sheltered were
knocked to pieces in 1789. The Café at No. 10, built in 1855, was named
“A la Pompe Notre-Dame,” to record the existence till then on the
bridge, Pont Notre-Dame, of the twin pumps from which the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood drew their water. Rue de la Tâcherie (_tâche_, task,
work) was known in thirteenth-century days as Rue de la Juiverie. This
is still the Jews’ quarter of the city.
Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville was formed in its present aspect in the
nineteenth century, of three ancient thoroughfares along the banks of
the Seine. Corn and hay were in old days landed here. On the walls of
the house No. 34 we see the date 1548, and find within an interesting
old staircase. At No. 90 opens the old Rue de Brosse, named in memory of
the architect of the fine portal of St-Gervais, before us here (_see_ p.
103), and of the Luxembourg palace, close by the ancient _impasse_ at
the south end of the church; and at the junction of Quai des Célestins,
opens the twelfth-century Rue des Nonnains d’Hyères, where the nuns
d’Yerres had of old a convent. Almost every house is ancient. In the
court at No. 21 we see the interesting façade of the hôtel d’Aumont, now
the Pharmacie Centrale des Hôpitaux.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE FIEUBET, QUAI DES CÉLESTINS]
Quai des Célestins, in the district of the vanished convent (_see_ p.
303) has many interesting vestiges of the past. No. 32 is on the site of
the Tour Barbeau, where the wall of Philippe-Auguste ended, and of the
tennis-court which served at one time as a theatre for Molière and his
company (1645). The walls of No. 22 are one side of the fine old hôtel
de Vieuville (_see_ p. 114). At No. 16 we find a curious old court. No.
14, once hôtel Beaumarchais, then petit hôtel Vieuville, at one time
used as a Jewish temple, has a splendid frescoed ceiling. We see remains
of old _hôtels_ at No. 6 and 4. No. 2, l’École Massillon, built as a
private mansion, l’hôtel Fieubet, the work of Mansart (seventeenth
century), was restored in 1850, enlarged by the Oratoriens in 1877.
Quai Henri IV stretches along the ancient line of the Île Louviers
joined to the Rive Droite in 1843, the property of different families of
the _noblesse_ till 1790. At No. 30 the Archives de la Seine.
Quai de la Rapée, named from the country house of a statesman of the
days of Louis XV., is bordered along its whole course by old, but
generally sordid, structures, in olden days drinking booths. Passage des
Mousquetaires at No. 18 records the vicinity of the Caserne des
Mousquetaires, now l’Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.
Quai de Bercy, records by its name the _bergerie_, in old French
_bercil_, here in long-gone days. Here, too, there was a castle built by
Le Vau and extensive gardens laid out by the great seventeenth-century
gardener Le Nôtre. Their site was given up in the latter half of the
nineteenth century for the Entrepôts de Bercy.
Picturesque old quays surround the islands on the Seine. Quai de
l’Horloge, overlooked by the venerable clock-tower of the Palais de
Justice (_see_ p. 50), went in past days by the name Quai des Morfondus,
the quay of people chilled by cold river mists and blasting winds. When
opticians made that river-bank their special quarter, it became Quai des
Lunettes. Lesage, author of _Gil Blas_, lived here in 1715, at the
Soleil d’Or. No. 41, where dwelt the engraver Philipon, Mme Roland’s
father, is known as the house of Madame Roland, for it was the home of
her girlhood. No. 17 dates from Louis XIII.
Quai des Orfèvres, the goldsmith’s quay, dating from the end of the
sixteenth and first years of the seventeenth centuries, lost its most
ancient, most picturesque structures by the enlarging of the Palais de
Justice in recent years. In ancient days a Roman wall passed here. At
No. 20 of the Rue de Harlay, opening out of it, we see part of an
ancient archway. At No. 2 a Louis XIII house. Nos. 52-54 on the _quai_
date from 1603, the latter once the firm of jewellers implicated in the
_affaire du collier_. At No. 58 lived Strass, the inventor of the
simili-diamonds.
Quai de la Cité was built in 1785, on the site of the ancient
_port-aux-œufs_, remains of which were unearthed in making the
metropolitan railway, a few years ago. Along these banks we see the
Paris bird shops; the Marché-aux-Oiseaux is held here. And close by is
the Marché-aux-Fleurs. Merovingian remains were found beneath the
surface on this part of the quay in 1906. Thick, strong walls believed
to have been built by Dagobert, inscriptions, capitals, tombstones--the
remains of oldest Paris.
Quai de l’Archevêché records the existence there of the archbishop’s
palace built in 1697 by Cardinal de Noailles, pillaged and razed to the
ground in 1831. The sacristy and presbytery we see there now are modern.
This is the quay of the Paris Morgue, the Dead-house, brought here in
1864 from the Marché-Neuf, which had been its site since 1804, when it
was removed from le Grand Châtelet. For years past we have been told it
is “soon” to be again removed, taken to a remoter corner of the city.
The Square de l’Archevêché, laid out in 1837, was in olden days a
stretch of waste land known as the “Motte aux Papelards,” the playground
of the Cathedral Staff. Boileau’s Paris home was here in a street long
swept away. His country-house, as we know, was at Auteuil (_see_ p.
275). In 1870 the square was turned for the time into an artillery
ground.
Quai de Bourbon on the Île St. Louis dates from 1614. Every house along
its line is interesting, of seventeenth-century date for the most part.
At No. 3, we see a shop of the days and style Louis XV. Nos. 13-15,
hôtel de Charron, where in modern times Meissonnier had his studio. We
see fine doors and doorways, courts, staircases, balustrades, at every
house. No. 29 was the home of Roualle de Boisgelon. Philippe de
Champaigne lived for a time at No. 45.
Quai d’Orléans was named after Gaston, the brother of Louis XIII. No. 18
is the hôtel Roland. No. 6 is a Polish museum and library.
Quai de Béthune, once Quai du Dauphin, named by the Revolutionists Quai
de la Liberté, shows us seventeenth-century houses along its entire
course. No. 32 was the home of the statesman Turgot in his youth--his
father’s house. Subterranean passages ran to the Seine from No. 30, and
some other riverine houses. At No. 24, built by Le Vau, we find an
interesting court, with fountain, etc.
Quai d’Anjou is another Orleans quay, for Gaston was duc d’Anjou. No. 1
is the splendid hôtel Lambert de Thorigny (_see_ p. 93). No. 5, the
“petit hôtel Poisson de Marigny,” brother of Mme de Pompadour. No. 7,
began as part of the hôtel Lambert, and is now headquarters of the
municipal bakery directors. Nos. 11, 13, hôtel of Louis Lambert de
Thorigny. No. 17, hôtel Lauzun, husband of “La Grande Mademoiselle,” in
later times the habitation of several distinguished men of letters:
Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, etc. The society of the “Parisiens de
Paris” bought it in 1904, a magnificent mansion, classed as “Monument
historique,” under State protection, therefore, in regard to its upkeep.
Nos. 23 and 25 are built on staves over four old walls. No. 35 was built
by Louis XIV’s coachman.
RIVE GAUCHE (LEFT BANK).
We will start again from the south-western corner. Here in 1777, in the
little riverside hamlet beyond Paris, a big factory was built, where was
first made the disinfectant, of so universal use in France, known as
_eau de Javel_. The Quai de Javel was constructed some fifty years
later.
Quai de Grenelle, a rough road from the eighteenth century, was built at
the same period. The Allée des Cygnes owes its name to the ancient Île
des Cygnes, known in the sixteenth century and onwards as Île
Maquerelle, or _mal querelle_, for the secluded islet on the Seine,
joined later to the river-bank, offered a fine spot in those days for
fights and quarrels. In the time of Louis XIV the islet was a public
promenade, and the King had swans put there, hence its name.
Quai d’Orsay memorizing a famous parliamentary man of his day, Prévôt
des Marchands, first constructed in the early years of the eighteenth
century, was known from 1802 to 1815 as Quai Buonaparte. It extends far
along the 7th arrondissement. There we see along its borders the bright
gardens of the recently laid out park of the Champ de Mars, and numerous
smart modern streets and avenues opening out of it. No. 105 is the State
Garde-Meuble, its walls sheltering magnificent tapestries, and historic
relics of the days of kings and emperors. At No. 99 were the imperial
stables. No 97, Ministère du Travail. The Ministère des Affaires
Étrangères (Foreign Office), at No. 37, is a modern structure. The
Palais de la Présidence, at No. 35, dates from 1722. The Palais-Bourbon
from the same date (_see_ p. 200).
The busy Gare d’Orléans, so prominent a modern structure along the quay,
covers the site of the old Palais d’Orsay, and an ancient barracks burnt
to the ground in 1871. In an inner courtyard at No. 1 we find the
remains of the ancient hôtel de Robert de Cotte, royal architect-in-chief,
in the early years of the eighteenth century.
Quai Voltaire was known in part of its course in eighteenth-century days
as Quai des Théatins. It was constructed under Mazarin, restored in
1751. Many names of historic note are associated with the handsome house
at No. 27, built in or about 1712, for Nicolas de Bragelonne, Treasurer
of France. Its chief point of interest is connected with Voltaire. Here
he died in 1778; here his heart was kept till 1791. No. 25 was the home
of Alfred de Musset. The ground between 25 and 15 was occupied from the
days of Mazarin till 1791 by the convent of the Théatins. The short Rue
de Beaume close here shows us many interesting old-time houses. No. 1
was the hôtel of the Marquis de Villette, who became a member of the
Convention, and called his son Voltaire. At No. 3 were his stables.
Boissy d’Anglas lived at No. 5, in 1793, and Chateaubriand stayed here
in 1804. No. 17, dating from about 1670, was the house of the Carnot
family. At No. 10 we see vestiges of a house belonging to the
Mousquetaires Gris, for this was their headquarters. No. 2 was built for
the Marquis de Mailly-Nesle. Nos. 11 to 9, along the _quai_, formed the
habitation of Président de Perrault, secretary to the Grand Condé. The
duchess of Portsmouth lived here in 1690, and here the great painter,
Ingres, died in 1867.
Quai Malaquais began as Quai de la Reine Marguerite, but was nicknamed
forthwith Quai Mal-acquet (_Mal-acquis_) because the Queen, Henri IV’s
light-lived, divorced wife, had taken the abbey grounds of the Petit
Pré-aux-Clercs whereon to build her garden-surrounded mansion. At No. 1
the architect Visconti died in 1818. In 1820 Humboldt lived at No. 3.
The statue of Voltaire by Caillé was set up opposite No. 5 in 1885. The
house at No. 9 was built about 1624 on the ground _mal-acquis_ by
Margaret de Valois. No. 11, École des Beaux-Arts, is on the site of the
ancient hôtel de Brienne, Louis XIV’s Secretary of State. Joined later
to the house next door it became the home of Mazarin, by and by of
Fouché, and was made to communicate with the police offices at a little
distance. Nos. 15 and 17, built by Mansart in 1640, restored a century
later, after long habitation by persons of noted name, was taken over by
the State, and in 1885 annexed to the Beaux-Arts.
Quai de Conti records the name of the brother of the Grand Condé. Its
most prominent building is the Institut de France, the Collège Mazarin,
built in 1663-70, as the Collège des Quatre Nations Réunies. Its left
pavilion covers the site of the ancient Tour de Nesle, washed by the
Seine, which formed the boundary point of Philippe-Auguste’s wall and
rampart. Mazarin’s will endowed the college for the benefit of sixty
impecunious gentlemen’s sons of Alsace, France, Pignerol, Roussillon.
The Revolutionists styled it “Collège de l’Unité,” then in 1793
suppressed it, and used the building for meetings of the Salut Public,
later as an École Normale, then as a Palais des Arts; finally, after
undergoing restoration, it became in 1805 the Institut de France, as we
know it. The ancient chapel has been taken for the great meeting-hall,
the hall of the grandes “Séances.” For long Mazarin’s tomb, now in the
Louvre, was there. His body is said to be there still, deep down beneath
the chapel pavement. The Bibliothèque Mazarine is in the part of the
building covering the spot where the petit hôtel de Nesle stood of old.
The greater part of the statesman’s valuable collection of books was
brought here from his palace, now incorporated in the Bibliothèque
Nationale, Rue de Richelieu, according to his will. It contains many
precious ancient volumes and manuscripts. The house No. 15 was built by
Louis XIV on the foundations of the ancient Tour de Nesle. No. 13, where
we see the shop of the booksellers Pigoreau, was built by Mansard, in
1659, one of its walls resting upon a bit of the ancient wall of
Philippe-Auguste. Here, on the third story, we may see the room, an
attic then, as now, where young Buonaparte, a student at the École
Militaire, used to spend his holidays, welcomed there by old friends of
his family. The short Rue Guénégaud, memorizing the mansion once there,
bordering at one part the walls of the Mint, shows us along the rest of
its course, at No. 1, remains of a once famous marionnettes theatre;
at No. 19 an old gabled house; in the court, No. 29, a tower of
Philippe-Auguste’s wall; an ancient inscription at No. 35; a fine old
door at No. 16, etc. The narrow old-world Rue de Nevers shows us none
but ancient houses. This thirteenth-century street was formerly closed
at both ends and known therefore as Rue des Deux-Portes. Beneath No. 13
of the little Rue de Nesle runs an ancient subterranean passage blocked
in recent years. The old house at No. 5 of the quay was for long looked
upon as the dwelling of Buonaparte after he left Brienne. At the
recently razed No. 3 lived Marie-Antoinette’s jeweller, his shop
surmounted by the sign “Le petit Dunkerque,” referring to articles of
curiosity in the jewellery line, much in vogue in the year 1780. A
little café at No. 1, also razed, was till lately the humble successor
of the first Paris “Café des Anglais,” set up there in 1769, a
gathering-place for British men of letters.
[Illustration: QUAI DES GRANDS-AUGUSTINS]
Quai des Grands-Augustins, the oldest of Paris quays, dates in part from
the thirteenth century, and records the existence there of the monastery
where in its heyday the great assemblies of the clergy were held, and
the ecclesiastical archives kept from 1645 to 1792. The Salle des
Archives was then given up to the making of _assignats_. In 1797 the
convent was sold and razed to the ground. We see some traces of it at
No. 55. The bookseller’s shop there was till recent years paved with
gravestones from the convent chapel which stood on the site of No. 53.
The restaurant Lapérouse at No. 51 was, in the seventeenth century, the
hôtel of the comte de Bruillevert. The Académie bookseller,
Didier-Perrin, is established in the ancient hôtel Feydeau et Montholon.
No. 25 was built by François I. No. 23 opened on the vanished Rue de
Hurepoix. No. 17 was part of the hôtel d’O, subsequently hôtel de
Luynes.
Quai St-Michel was known for a time in Napoléon’s day as Quai de la
Gloriette. Its first stone was laid so far back as 1561, then no more
stones added till 1767, an interim of two centuries. Another
interruption deferred its completion to the year 1811. The two narrow
sordid streets we see opening on to it, Rue Zacharie and Rue du Chat qui
Pêche, date, the first from 1219, as in part Rue Sac-à-lie in part Rue
des Trois-Chandeliers, from its earliest days a slum; the second, a mere
alley, from 1540.
Quai de Montebello began in 1554 as Quai des Bernardins from the
vicinity of the convent--its walls still standing (_see_ p. 136). The
quay bore several successive names till its entire reconstruction in
early nineteenth-century years, when it was renamed in memory of
Napoléon’s great General, Maréchal Lannes.
Quai de la Tournelle was Quai St-Bernard in the fourteenth century. The
Porte St-Bernard was close by. La Tournelle was a stronghold where
prisoners were kept close until deported. On the wall of Nos. 57-55, now
a distillery, we read the words: “Hôtel cy-devant de Nesmond.” It began
as hôtel du Pain. Président de Nesmond, who owned it later, inscribed
his name on its frontage, the first inscription of the kind known. The
Pharmacie Centrale we see at No. 47 is the ancient convent of the
Miramiones. The nuns were so named from Mme de Miramion who, left a
widow at sixteen, founded this convent for the care of poor girls. The
nuns had their own boat to convey the girls to services at Notre-Dame.
In the chapel we find seventeenth-century decorations, and in the body
of the building many interesting vestiges. On the walls at No. 37 we
read the inscription, “Hôtel cy-devant du Président Rolland” (the
anti-Jesuit). The old-time coaches for Fontainebleau had their bureau
and starting-point at No. 21. No. 15 is the quaint and historic
restaurant de la Tour d’Argent, which has existed since 1575 (closed
during the war), famed for its excellent and characteristic _cuisine_
and its picturesque, old-time menu cards, with their strong spice of
_couleur locale_.
Quai d’Austerlitz is the old Quai de l’Hôpital. The boundary-line
between Paris and what was before its incorporation the village of
Austerlitz passed at No. 21. The famous hôtel des Haricots, the prison
of the Garde Nationale, where many artists and men of letters of olden
days served a period of punishment, often left their names written in
couplets on its walls, was till the early years of last century on the
site where now we see the busy departure platform of the Gare d’Orléans.
Quai de la Gare, bordered by ancient houses, was till 1863 route
Nationale.