Dumas' Paris Part 13

The artisan or craftsman who fashions the funeral monuments of Paris has a peculiar flight of fancy all his own; though, be it said, throughout the known world, funeral urns and monuments have seldom or never been beautiful, graceful, or even austere or dignified: they have, in fact, mostly been shocking travesties of the ideals and thoughts they should have represented.

It is remarkable that the French architect and builder, who knows so well how to design and construct the habitation of living man, should express himself so badly in his bizarre funeral monuments and the tawdry tinsel wreaths and flowers of their decorations.

An English visitor to Paris in the thirties deplored the fact that her cemeteries should be made into mere show-places, and perhaps rightly enough. At that time they served as a fashionable and polite avenue for promenades, and there was (perhaps even is to-day) a guide-book published of them, and, since grief is paradoxically and proverbially dry, there was always a battery of taverns and drinking-places flanking their entrances.

It was observed by a writer in a Parisian journal of that day that "in the Cimetiere du Montmartre--which was the deposit for the gay part of the city--nine tombs out of ten were to the memory of persons cut off in their youth; but that in Pere la Chaise--which served princ.i.p.ally for the sober citizens of Paris--nine out of ten recorded the ages of persons who had attained a good old age."

CHAPTER VII.

WAYS AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

The means of communication in and about Paris in former days was but a travesty on the methods of the "Metropolitain," which in our time literally whisks one like the wings of the morning, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Bois de Vincennes, and from the Place de la Nation to the Trocadero.

In 1850 there were officially enumerated over twenty-eight hundred boulevards, avenues, _rues_, and pa.s.sages, the most lively being St.

Honore, Richelieu, Vivienne, Castiglione, de l'Universite,--Dumas lived here at No. 25, in a house formerly occupied by Chateaubriand, now the Magazin St. Thomas,--de la Chaussee d'Antin, de la Paix, de Grenelle, de Bac, St. Denis, St. Martin, St. Antoine, and, above all, the Rue de Rivoli,--with a length of nearly three miles, distinguished at its westerly end by its great covered gallery, where the dwellings above are carried on a series of 287 arcades, flanked by _boutiques_, not very sumptuous to-day, to be sure, but even now a promenade of great popularity. At No. 22 Rue de Rivoli, near the Rue St. Roch, Dumas himself lived from 1838 to 1843.

There were in those days more than a score of pa.s.sages, being for the most part a series of fine galleries, in some instances taking the form of a rotunda, gla.s.s-covered, and surrounded by shops with _appartements_ above.

The most notable were those known as the Panoramas Jouffroy, Vivienne, Colbert, de l'Opera, Delorme, du Saumon, etc.

There were more than a hundred squares, or _places_--most of which remain to-day. The most famous on the right bank of the Seine are de la Concorde, Vendome, du Carrousel, du Palais Royal, des Victoires, du Chatelet, de l'Hotel de Ville, Royale, des Vosges, and de la Bastille; on the left bank, du Pantheon, de St. Sulpice, du Palais Bourbon. Most of these radiating centres of life are found in Dumas' pages, the most frequent mention being in the D'Artagnan and Valois romances.

Among the most beautiful and the most frequented thoroughfares were--and are--the tree-bordered quais, and, of course, the boulevards.

The interior boulevards were laid out at the end of the seventeenth century on the ancient ramparts of the city, and extended from the Madeleine to La Bastille, a distance of perhaps three miles. They are mostly of a width of thirty-two metres (105 feet).

This was the boulevard of the time _par excellence_, and its tree-bordered _allees_--sidewalks and roadways--bore, throughout its comparatively short length, eleven different names, often changing meanwhile as it progressed its physiognomy as well.

On the left bank, the interior boulevard was extended from the Jardin des Plantes to the Hotel des Invalides; while the "_boulevards exterieurs_"

formed a second belt of tree-shaded thoroughfares of great extent.

Yet other boulevards of ranking greatness cut the _rues_ and avenues tangently, now from one bank and then from the other; the most splendid of all being the Avenue de l'Opera, which, however, did not come into being until well after the middle of the century. Among these are best recalled Sebastopol, St. Germain, St. Martin, Magenta, Malesherbes, and others. The Place Malesherbes, which intersects the avenue, now contains the celebrated Dumas memorial by Dore, and the neighbouring thoroughfare was the residence of Dumas from 1866 to 1870.

Yet another cla.s.s of thoroughfares, while conceived previous to the chronological limits which the t.i.tle puts upon this book, were the vast and splendid promenades and rendezvous, with their trees, flowers, and fountains; such as the gardens of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, the Champs Elysees, the Esplanade des Invalides, and the Bois de Boulogne and de Vincennes.

Dibdin tells of his _entree_ into Paris in the early days of the nineteenth century, having journeyed by "_malle-poste_" from Havre, in the pages of his memorable bibliographical tour.

His observations somewhat antedate the Paris of Dumas and his fellows, but changes came but slowly, and therein may be found a wealth of archaeological and topographical information concerning the French metropolis; though he does compare, detrimentally, the panorama of Paris which unrolls from the heights of Pa.s.sy, to that of London from Highgate Woods.

On the contrary, his impressions change after pa.s.sing the barriers.

"Nothing in London," says he, "can enter into comparison with the imposing spectacle which is presented by the magnificent Champs Elysees, with the Chateau of the Tuileries _en face_, and to the right the superb dome of the Invalides glistening in the rays of the setting sun."

Paris had at this time 2,948 "_voitures de louage_," which could be hired for any journey to be made within reasonable distance; and eighty-three which were run only on predetermined routes, as were the later omnibuses and tram-cars. These 2,948 carriages were further cla.s.sified as follows; 900 _fiacres_; 765 _cabriolets_, circulating in the twelve interior _arrondiss.e.m.e.nts_; 406 _cabriolets_ for the exterior; 489 _carrosses de remise_ (livery-coaches), and 388 _cabriolets de remise_.

The _prefet de police_, Count Angles, had received from one G.o.dot, an _entrepreneur_,--a sort of early edition of what we know to-day as a company promoter,--a proposition to establish a line of omnibuses along the quais and boulevards. Authorization for the scheme was withheld for the somewhat doubtful reason that "the constant stoppage of the vehicles to set down and take up pa.s.sengers would greatly embarra.s.s other traffic;"

and so a new idea was still-born into the world, to come to life only in 1828, when another received the much coveted authority to make the experiment.

Already such had been established in Bordeaux and Nantes, by an individual by the name of Baudry, and he it was who obtained the first concession in Paris.

The first line inaugurated was divided into two sections: Rue de Lancry--Madeleine, and Rue de Lancry--Bastille.

It is recorded that the young--but famous--d.u.c.h.esse de Berry was the first to take pa.s.sage in these "intramural _diligences_," which she called "_le carrosse des malheureux_;" perhaps with some truth, if something of sn.o.bbishness.

There seems to have been a considerable difficulty in attracting a _clientele_ to this new means of communication. The public hesitated, though the prices of the places were decided in their favour, so much so that the enterprise came to an untimely end, or, at least, its founder did; for he committed suicide because of the non-instantaneous success of the scheme.

The concession thereupon pa.s.sed into other hands, and there was created a new type of vehicle of sixteen places, drawn by two horses, and priced at six sous the place. The new service met with immediate, if but partial, success, and with the establishment of new routes, each served by carriages of a distinctive colour, its permanence was a.s.sured.

Then came the "_Dames Blanches_,"--the name being inspired by Boieldieu's opera,--which made the journey between the Porte St. Martin and the Madeleine in a quarter of an hour. They were painted a cream white, and drawn by a pair of white horses, coiffed with white plumes.

After the establishment of the omnibus came other series of vehicles for public service: the "_Ecossaises_," with their gaudily variegated colours, the "_Carolines_," the "_Bearnaises_," and the "_Tricycles_," which ran on three wheels in order to escape the wheel-tax which obtained at the time.

In spite of the rapid multiplication of omnibus lines under Louis-Philippe, their veritable success came only with the ingenious system of transfers, or "_la correspondance_;" a system and a convenience whereby one can travel throughout Paris for the price of one fare. From this reason alone, perhaps, the omnibus and tram system of Paris is unexcelled in all the world. This innovation dates, moreover, from 1836, and, accordingly, is no new thing, as many may suppose.

Finally, more recently,--though it was during the Second Empire,--the different lines were fused under the t.i.tle of the "Compagnie Generale des Omnibus."

"_La malle-poste_" was an inst.i.tution of the greatest importance to Paris, though of course no more identified with it than with the other cities of France between which it ran. It dated actually from the period of the Revolution, and grew, and was modified, under the Restoration. It is said that its final development came during the reign of Louis XVIII., and grew out of his admiration for the "_elegance et la rapidite des malles anglaises_," which had been duly impressed upon him during his sojourn in England.

This may be so, and doubtless with some justification. _En pa.s.sant_ it is curious to know, and, one may say, incredible to realize, that from the G.

P. O. in London, in this year of enlightenment, there leaves each night various mail-coaches--for Dover, for Windsor, and perhaps elsewhere. They do not carry pa.s.sengers, but they do give a very bad service in the delivery of certain cla.s.ses of mail matter. The marvel is that such things are acknowledged as being fitting and proper to-day.

In 1836 the "_malle-poste_" was reckoned, in Paris, as being _elegante et rapide_, having a speed of not less than sixteen kilometres an hour over give-and-take roads.

Each evening, from the courtyard of the Hotel des Postes, the coaches left, with galloping horses and heavy loads, for the most extreme points of the frontier; eighty-six hours to Bordeaux at first, and finally only forty-four (in 1837); one hundred hours to Ma.r.s.eilles, later but sixty-eight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAND BUREAU DE LA POSTE]

Stendhal tells of his journey by "_malle-poste_" from Paris to Ma.r.s.eilles in three days, and Victor Hugo has said that two nights on the road gave one a high idea of the _solidite_ of the human machine; and further says, of a journey down the Loire, that he recalled only a great tower at Orleans, a candlelit _salle_ of an _auberge en route_, and, at Blois, a bridge with a cross upon it. "In reality, during the journey, animation was suspended."

What we knew, or our forefathers knew, as the "_poste-chaise_," properly "_chaise de poste_," came in under the Restoration. All the world knows, or should know, Edouard Thierry's picturesque description of it. "_Le reve de nos vingt ans, la voiture ou l'on n'est que deux ... devant vous le chemin libre, la plaine, la pente rapide, le pont._" "You traverse cities and hamlets without number, by the _grands rues_, the _grande place_, etc."

In April, 1837, Stendhal quitted Paris under exactly these conditions for his tour of France. He bought "_une bonne caleche_," and left _via_ Fontainebleau, Montargis, and Cosne. Two months after, however, he returned to the metropolis _via_ Bourges, having refused to continue his journey _en caleche_, preferring the "_malle-poste_" and the _diligence_ of his youth.

Public _diligences_, however, had but limited accommodation on grand occasions; Victor Hugo, who had been invited to the consecration of Charles X. at Reims, and his friend, Charles Nodier, the bibliophile,--also a friend of Dumas, it is recalled,--in company with two others, made the attempt amid much discomfort in a private carriage,--of a sort,--and Nodier wittily tells of how he and Hugo walked on foot up all the hills, each carrying his gripsack as well.

More than all others the "Coches d'Eau" are especially characteristic of Paris; those fly-boats, whose successors ply up and down the Seine, to the joy of Americans, the convenience of the Parisian public, and--it is surely allowable to say it--the disgust of Londoners, now that their aged and decrepit "Thames steamboats" are no more.

These early Parisian "Coches d'Eau" carried pa.s.sengers up and down river for surprisingly low fares, and left the city at seven in the morning in summer, and eight in winter.

The following is a list of the most important routes:

Paris--Nogent-sur-Seine 2 days en route Paris--Briare 3 " " "

Paris--Montereau 1 " " "

Paris--Sens 2 " " "