Nooks and Corners of Old Paris Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUE SAINT MARTIN (1866)--THE GREEN-WOOD TOWER _Drawn by A. Maignan_]

Near the Porte Saint-Denis, at the entrance to the narrow Rue de Clery, there was formerly a rise in the road, which was the scene of a tragic occurrence. There, on the 21st of January 1793, the intrepid De Batz had appointed to meet a few companions. It was determined that a forlorn hope should be led with a view to s.n.a.t.c.h Louis XVI. from the shame of the guillotine. The plan was to force the line of soldiers, to overpower the escort surrounding the carriage, and to carry off the King.

But, already, on the day before, the Committee of Public Safety had been warned "by a well-known private individual," say the police reports, of the mad plot that was in preparation, and every necessary precaution was taken. During the night all the persons denounced in the warning as suspicious were placed under arrest. De Batz, who thought to find a hundred and fifty confederates at the meeting-place, only found seven.

Notwithstanding their small number, they did not hesitate, and rushed at the horses' heads. The Guards cut them down. Three were killed. De Batz managed to escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUE DE CLeRY _Lansyer, pinxit_]

This strange, winding Rue de Clery, whose thin edge stands out so curiously against the sky, was the scene of another drama. The father of Andre and Marie-Joseph Chenier lived at No. 97. There, on the 7th of Thermidor, he was anxiously waiting for the liberation of his son Andre, who for long months had been a prisoner at Saint-Lazare. The poor man had foolishly taken it into his head to appeal to Collot d'Herbois'

heart(!) and to ask him to free his son. Collot d'Herbois had once been an actor; and now, on another sort of stage, revenged himself for having been hissed. He had not forgotten the lines in which Andre Chenier had satirised him in such masterly fashion, but he did not know in what prison his enemy was confined. Marie-Joseph, the brother, himself an object of suspicion, had been able to lengthen out the proceedings and to keep as a secret the place where Andre was confined.

At this supreme hour of the Terror, it was the only possible chance Collot d'Herbois had to satisfy his vengeance; and the information thus unadvisedly but innocently given by the prisoner's father was utilised by the revengeful actor. "To-morrow," Collot a.s.sured the unhappy father, "your son shall quit Saint-Lazare." He kept his word; and, on the 7th of Thermidor, just at the hour when the guest was so impatiently expected, Andre got into the cart to go to the scaffold, erected that day at the barrier of the Throne Square.

Round about the picturesque Rue de Clery, the quarter is an odd medley of little streets, lanes, and alleys: the Rue Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance, the Rue Sainte-Foy, the Rue des Pet.i.ts-Carreaux, the Rue de la Lune, in which last Balzac lodged his Lucien de Rubempre watching over Coralie's dead body, and composing libertine songs, in order to gain the money required for his mistress's funeral.

In these tortuous, sombre, narrow streets it is easy to reconst.i.tute the physiognomy of the older Paris; ancient dwellings are still numerous enough; but, as in the Marais, are given over to petty trade and industry. After the Egyptian campaign, the Consulate cut a certain number of new streets bearing the names of victories: the Rues de Damiette, d'Aboukir, du Nil. On the site of the Cairo Square, once stood the mansion of the Temple Knights, or Knights Templars. A portion of an old Gothic Chapel, in which were preserved the helmet and armour of Jacques Molay, founder and Grand Master of the Order, was used in 1835 as a meeting-place by surviving adepts of this rite; and Rosa Bonheur's father, who was a Knight Templar, had his daughter baptized there beneath an "arch of steel" made by the crossed swords of the Order, clad in white tunics, with a red cross embroidered on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, booted in deer-skin, and coifed with a white cloth square cap surmounted by three feathers--one yellow, one black, and one white!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE POISSONNIeRE BOULEVARD IN 1834 _Dagnan, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

A delightful picture by Dagnan, which is now in the Carnavalet Museum, shows us the Poissonniere Boulevard in 1834. Most of the houses remain to-day; but, alas! the tall, thick-foliaged trees that made the Boulevard a sort of park avenue have long since disappeared. That lover of Paris, Victorien Sardou, who was born in it, and who is cheered, loved, and honoured in it, very well remembers seeing the trees as they used to be, and his long saunterings in front of the Gymnase Theatre.

Did he foresee the successes he was to gain with _les Ganaches_, _les Vieux Garcons_, _les Bons Villageois_, _Andrea_, _Fereol_, _Seraphine_, _Fernande_, &c.?

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GYMNASE THEATRE _Etching by Martial_]

Further on, we come across the ancient Variety Theatre, whose antique front speaks of a glorious past; Duvert, Lauzanne, Bayard, Scribe, Meilhac, Ludovic Halevy, and, above all, Offenbach, whose haunting music bewitched Paris for twenty years.

Ludovic Halevy, who was a charming chronicler of Paris life, has left us an interesting sketch of the Montmartre Boulevard towards 1810: "The Variety actors had been obliged to quit the Montansier hall; their vaudevilles had more success than the tragedies at the Theatre Francais.

The Emperor made a decree depriving them of the Palais-Royal premises; but they were allowed to move to new premises on the Montmartre Boulevard!... A frightful quarter for a theatre!... It was almost in the country; not one of the large houses existed which you see there!

Nothing but little single-story shops, wretched wooden stalls, and the two small panoramas of Monsieur Boulogne.... No foot-pavements, a road simply of beaten earth between two rows of tall trees.... A few old cabs and carriages pa.s.sed now and again.... In fine, the country.... It was the country!!.."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VARIETY THEATRE ABOUT 1810 _From a sepia of the period_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

With the Variety Theatre began what was called, without epithet, _The Boulevard_. For idlers, saunterers, wits, clubmen, writers, journalists, under the second Empire, it was a sort of sacred ground.

Grammont-Caderousse, the Prince of Orange, Khalil-Bey, Paul Demidoff, Aurelien Scholl, Roqueplan, Aubryet, Jules Lecomte, Auguste Villemot were kings there. The Cafe Anglais, the Maison Doree, Tortoni's were frequented by the fashionables of society and literature. The gas flared, champagne corks flew, and one had only to open pianos for them to play automatically the Evohe of _Orpheus in Hades_! An apropos witticism stopped a quarrel. The princes of intelligence held their own with princes of the blood or of money; as, for instance, on the day when, at Tortoni's, the Duke de Grammont-Caderousse flung a packet of goose-quills in the face of Paul Mahalin, who, the day before, in a small newspaper had severely animadverted on the diva S----, she being under the Duke's protection.

"From Mademoiselle S----," said the Duke.

Making his grandest bow, Mahalin retorted: "I was aware, Monsieur, that Mademoiselle S---- feathered her lovers, but I did not dare hope it was for my benefit."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BOULEVARDS, THE HOTEL DE SALM, AND WINDMILLS OF MONTMARTRE View taken from the hanging gardens of the Rue Louis-le-Grand _Water-colour of the eighteenth century_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

Since the dark days of 1870, the elegant Boulevard has become more democratic. The old dwellings themselves have changed their uses; and electro-plate is sold in the beautiful pavilion built by Marshal de Saxe--after the Hanoverian wars--at the corner of the Boulevard and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. In the eighteenth century, some one took it into his head to decorate with flowers the roofs of the houses in the vicinity of this fine mansion; so that it was possible to dine merrily--under the shade of hornbeams--while watching the windmills of Montmartre turn in the distance. The example has been imitated in our own times--people cried that it was an innovation; this is only another error; there is nothing new under the sun. What is done is merely a modification, and generally the alteration is for the worse! Tortoni's flight of steps has disappeared. Taverns, with their onion soup and their sourcrout and sausage, replace the aristocratic restaurants of yore. The features are different; but still it is a Paris nook, really gay, amusing, and original. A walk in it is delightful, though nothing, alas! can be said to vividly recall the past, since the terrible fire of 1887 destroyed the Comic Opera of our fathers; the Opera of Gretry, Dalayrac, Mehul, Boeldieu, and Herold; the Opera whose facade does not open on the boulevard, according to the desire formally expressed in 1782 to Heurtier, the architect, by the King's Comedians refusing to be confused with the "Boulevard Comedians"; the Opera-Comique where, every evening, in the s.p.a.cious _foyer_ adorned with busts of dead musical celebrities and composers that had contributed to the theatre's fame, the habitues met whose attendance was a protest against modern music: Auber, Adam, Clap.i.s.son, Bazin, Maillard; later, and with another aesthetic doctrine, G. Bizet, Leo Delibes, V. Ma.s.se, J. Ma.s.senet, Carvalho, Meilhac, Halevy, and old Dupin, the last an astonishing centenarian who, one evening, with rancorous eye looked at Herold's bust and grumbled: "How that urchin used to rile me!" In presence of the general bewilderment he explained: "I was his school companion, in 1806, at Saint-Louis'

College!" we were then in May 1885! This was the obstinately reactionary Dupin who once drew from a contradictor the threatening retort: "We missed you in '93. When the next Revolution comes, we'll take good care not to!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUE DE LA BARRE, AT MONTMARTRE _Houbron, pinxit_]

The amiable chats, the agreeable meetings which brought together so many witty people, clever talkers, artists, men of the world, those of the Comic Opera _foyer_, of the Grand Opera, or the Comedie Francaise are now hardly anything but a memory. Not that the practice itself is abolished. Art gatherings are quite as frequent and as well attended; but they have emigrated,--many of them to Montmartre, to the "b.u.t.te Sacree," the holy mound, "the teat of the world," yelled the astonishing Salis in his _Chat Noir_ patter; and truly the spot is one of the Capital's curiosities.

Gay, industrious, cynical, flippant, and yet religious, this composite quarter offers the most singular mingling of poets, painters, sculptors, lemonade-makers and pilgrims. On the Clichy and Batignolles Boulevards, the revolving lights of the Moulin Rouge illuminate a population of rakes, dandies, artists, lemans and bullies. Each wine-shop--and there are many--harbours one or several poets, more or less comic, but always railers and _rosses_,[4] as the witty Fursy says, one of the best performers in these "music-boxes." In these latter the great ones of the earth, politicians, ministers, are unmercifully berhymed, as also the events of the day; a minister's latest speech, Pelletan's elegance, Le Bargy's cravats, Santos-Dumont's ascent, the Pope's latest Encyclical letter, the automobile tax, the divorce of the moment, the King of Spain's recent visit, or that of the Prince of Bulgaria, all put into couplets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A STREET IN MONTMARTRE _Houbron, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

Montmartre is the Capital's pot-house; it is all good-humoured laughter and chaff. People enjoy themselves at night and work in the day, for it has always been a favourite abode for artists of every kind: Henri Monnier, the d.u.c.h.ess d'Abrantes, Madame Haudebourg-Lescot, Mademoiselle Mars, Horace Vernet, Berlioz, Ch. Jacque, Reyer, Victor Ma.s.se, Vollon, Manet, Andre Gill, Steinlen, Guillemet, Willette, Jules Jouy, Mac-Nab, Xanrof, Maurice Donnay. Their memory there is alive and respected, the legend of their prowess is preserved. It is Montmartre's _Iliad_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUE DES ROSIERS _Etching by Martial_]

A few yards from these noisy streets, the "b.u.t.te" begins, on which, at the close of the 1871 siege, the Parisians had hoisted the National Guards' cannons. In vain the Government tried to regain possession of them; and the rest is known:--the resistance, the troops disbanded, Generals Clement Thomas and Lecomte arrested, dragged into a small house in the Rue des Rosiers and shot against a garden wall.

Part of the wall still stands; and though the house has disappeared in which this tragedy of the 18th of March was played, a little of the garden itself remains, behind the modern buildings of the _Abri Saint-Joseph_, vast sheds used as refectories by the crowds of pilgrims attracted to the basilica of the Sacre-Coeur.

Indeed, all this quarter is melancholy-looking, silent, quaint, and monastic. Chaplet, scapulary, candle, missal, and pious picture-dealers have their shops in it. The spot is a sort of religious fair; even the streets have liturgical names: Saint-Eleuthere, Saint-Rustique, near the Rue Girardon, and the Calvary cemetery, overlooked by the awkward outlines of the old Galette Windmill, the ordinary rendezvous for idlers, boulevard inquisitives, artists' models, lemans and bullies of the neighbourhood. The ancient Montmartre, with its picturesqueness, is again met with in the Rue Saint-Vincent, in the Rue des Saules containing the "Lively Rabbit" tavern, and in the Rue de la Fontaine-du-But, sordid streets, bordered with sorry habitations whose windows are hung with linen drying, and which seem at each story to harbour a different poverty; strange streets, running for the most part between a crumbling old house and a h.o.a.rding mossy with rain and covered with inscriptions. As a matter of fact, these palisades serve as an outlet for the confidences of the "pals" and their "gals" of the quarter. Amorous effusions may be read side by side with threats, and the great ones of the earth are sometimes severely dealt with. The epithet is always a bitter one. It savours of debauch, vice and crime.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE IN 1829 _Canella, pinxit_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

And yet, in this corner of Paris, which modern embellishments will soon have made unrecognisable, bits of admirable scenery are to be met with, exquisite lanes of verdure, birds, tame pigeons, whistling blackbirds; and one might fancy one's self far away in some peaceful country-place, if, at the end of all these streets, were not seen the huge violet-coloured ma.s.s of the Capital, in fairy panorama, an ocean of stone, whence heave, like masts, the bell-towers of palaces, the turrets, belfries and steeples of churches, with domes, roofs and gardens--an incomparable vision of art, grandeur and beauty.

The great Balzac informs us that Cesar Birotteau was ruined by speculations he engaged in on the "waste ground round about the Madeleine church." He lost in them the profits realised by his "Eau Carminative" and by the "Double Pate des Sultanes." His "Rose Queen"

perfumery was swallowed up in them....

And, however, Cesar Birotteau was right in his reasoning. To-day, the Madeleine building ground is the highest quoted in Paris.

In 1802, the surface was occupied by foundation works and scaffolding, showing the pillars of the church so long since commenced and still in the building.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INGENUOUS BENEVOLENCE _Duplessis-Bertaux, inv. et del._]

There took place the charming episode depicted by Duplessis-Bertaux, under the pleasing t.i.tle: "Ingenuous Benevolence" (an historic fact of the 5th Messidor, anno X.). A long notice, beneath the picture, tells us that Pradere, Persuis, Elleviou and "his spouse," walking one evening along the Magdalene Boulevard, met a blind street-singer, who "by the strains of his piano was soliciting public charity." The receipts were wretched; so our kind artists improvised a little open-air concert and remedied the ill-fortune of the poor fellow. After delightfully singing, Madame Elleviou, her husband and Pradere made a collection, and poured the proceeds, thirty-six francs, into the blind man's hands trembling with emotion!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE (Second View) _From a sepia of the eighteenth century_]

Along the Rue Royale, we reach the Champs-Elysees, after stopping for a moment at the "Cite Berryer," a strange alley in which once stood the hotel of the King's Musketeers. It is a sort of poor market lost in this rich quarter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE TUILERIES, OVER THE SWING-BRIDGE, IN 1788 _Original water-colour of the eighteenth century_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

Then comes the Place de la Concorde, the finest Square in the world, with its unrivalled perspectives of the Champs Elysees, the Seine, the Tuileries, the Garde-Meuble, the Crillon mansion, and the charming house of Grimod de la Reyniere, to-day the Cercle de l'Union artistique, at the corner of the Rue de "la Bonne Morue"--at present the Rue Boissy d'Anglas--in front of which still stood, until the second Empire, one of the corner pavilions erected by Gabriel. What souvenirs! the raising of Louis the Fifteenth's statue; the festivities in honour of the Dauphin's marriage to Marie Antoinette, so tragically terminated by a catastrophe--the crowd that had come to witness the fireworks being crushed in the moat--which was the beginning of the hatred against the "Austrian woman"; the reviews of the Swiss Guards; the military charges of Lambesc; the people's storming of the swing-bridge, the gates forced, the ditches crossed, and then the sinister scaffold, smoking in front of the statue to Liberty, and the Conventionals terrified, stopping before they entered their hall and taking a close look at the death which, each day, hovered over them. "Yesterday, as I was proceeding to the a.s.sembly with Penieres," writes Dulaure in his Memoirs, "we perceived, as we pa.s.sed through the Revolution Square, preparations being made for an execution. 'Let us pause,' my colleague said to me; 'let us accustom ourselves to the sight. Perhaps we shall soon need to make proof of our courage by calmly ascending this scaffold. Let us familiarise ourselves with the punishment.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORNER PAVILION OF THE LOUIS XV. SQUARE At the angle of the Rue de la Bonne-Morue about 1850 (to-day the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas) _Etching by Martial_]

Severed heads were exhibited by the executioner at the four corners of the huge Square: Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Herault de Sech.e.l.les, Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and Robespierre. A dreadful pell-mell, a disastrous butchery; the ground was red with blood. Then followed the soldiers of the Empire, singing as they defiled, on entering the Tuileries to cheer their triumphant Emperor at his return from some victorious campaign.

A white head, big golden epaulets, a blue ribbon: such was the appearance of Louis XVIII., impotent, with paralysed legs, who, in his carriage surrounded with body-guards, galloped through the Square at full speed.

It was at the corner of this Place de la Concorde that, on the 28th of February 1848, Louis-Philippe, broken and vanquished, got into the humble cab that proved to be the hea.r.s.e of the Monarchy.

Napoleon III., with his blue dreamy eyes, used to cross it nearly every day, driving his phaeton; and the boy, whom the Parisians of that time called "the little Prince," would show his pretty fair head of hair at the window of the "berline" escorted by the household troops.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW IN THE TUILERIES GARDENS IN 1808 _Drawn by Norblin_ (Carnavalet Museum)]

The gates of the Tuileries were again to open, on the 4th of September 1870, under the pressure of the invaders; and, during the siege of Paris, artillery were to camp in the vast ruined garden. Finally, the palace of the kings of France was to disappear in a cloud of fire, 'midst the last convulsions of the expiring Commune; and, to-day, a poor fellow, in a shabby sun-faded cloak and wearing an old felt hat, spends his time distributing bread and grain to the Paris pigeons and sparrows, on the very spot where once stood the rostrum of the Convention, some yards from the place where the four hoofs of the Emperor Napoleon's white horse pranced, as his rider reviewed the Guard, before flying his victorious eagles towards Moscow, Madrid, Rome, Vienna, or Berlin!