The Story of Paris Part 22

In 1141 a sloping bank of sand (greve), to the E. of the Rue St.

Martin and facing the old port of the Nautae at St. Landry on the island of the Cite, was ceded by royal charter, to the burgesses of Paris for a payment of seventy livres. "It is void of houses," says the charter, "and is called the _gravia_, and is situated where the old market-place (_vetus forum_) existed." This was the origin of the famous Place de Greve,[224] where throbbed the very heart of civic, commercial and industrial Paris. On its eastern side stood the old Maison aux Piliers, a long, low building, whose upper floor was supported by columns. Here every revolutionary and democratic movement has been organised, from the days of Marcel to those of the Communes of 1789--when the last Provost of the Merchants met his death--and of 1871, when the fine old Renaissance Hotel de Ville was destroyed by fire. The place of sand was much smaller in olden times, and from 1310, when Philip the Fair burned three heretics, to September, 1822, when the last political offenders, the four serjeants of Roch.e.l.le, were executed, and to July 1830, when the last murderer was hung there, has soaked up the blood of many a famous enemy of State and Church and of innumerable notorious and obscure criminals, including the infamous Marquise de Brinvilliers, who was burned alive, and Cartouche, broken on the wheel. A permanent gibbet stood there and a market cross, and there during the English wars the infuriated Parisians tied the hands and feet of hundreds of English prisoners taken at Pontoise and flung them into the Seine. Every St. John's eve--the church and cloister of St. Jean stood behind the Hotel de Ville--a great bonfire was lighted in the Place de Greve, fireworks were let off, and a salvo of artillery celebrated the festival. When the relations between Crown and Commune were felicitous the king himself would take part in the _fete_ and fire the pile with a torch of white wax decorated with crimson velvet. A royal supper and ball in the Grande Salle concluded the revels. Not infrequently the ashes at the stake where a poor wretch had met his doom had scarcely cooled before the joyous flames and fireworks of the Feu de St. Jean burst forth, and the very day after the execution of the Count of Bouteville the people were dancing round the fires of St. John. The present Hotel de Ville, by Ballu and Deperthes, completed in 1882,[225] is one of the finest modern edifices in Europe, and contains some of the most important productions of contemporary French painters and sculptors: Puvis de Chavannes, Carolus Duran, Benjamin Constant, Jean Paul Laurens, Carriere Dalou, Chapu and others.

[Footnote 224: The masons of Paris were wont to stand on the Place waiting to be hired, and sometimes contrived to exact higher wages.

Hence the origin of the term _faire greve_ (to go out on strike).]

[Footnote 225: Charles Normand, founder of the Societe des Amis des Monuments, appeals for information concerning the fate of the old inscription commemorating the laying of the foundation stone of the former Hotel de Ville in 1533. It is said to have been appropriated (_se serait empare_) by an Englishman in 1874.]

We pa.s.s to the E. of the Hotel, where stands the church of St. Gervais and St. Protais, whose facade by Solomon Debrosse (1617) "is regarded," says Felibien (1725), "as a masterpiece of art by the best architectural authorities" ("_les plus intelligens en architecture_"). The church, which has been several times rebuilt, occupies the site of the old sixth-century building, near which stood the elm tree where suitors waited for justice to be done by the early kings. "_Attendre sous l'orme_" ("To wait under the elm") is still a proverbial expression for waiting till Doomsday.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. GERVAIS.]

The lofty Gothic interior, dating from the late fifteenth century, is lighted by some sixteenth and seventeenth-century stained gla.s.s, and among the pictures that have escaped transportation to the Louvre may be noted a lunette over the clergy stalls R. of the nave, G.o.d the Father, by Perugino; and a remarkable tempera painting, The Pa.s.sion, attributed to Durer's pupil, Aldegraver, in the fifth chapel, L. aisle. The curious old panelled and painted little Chapelle Scarron (fourth to the L.) and the sixteenth-century carved choir stalls from the abbey church of Port Royal are of interest: the beautiful vaulting of the Lady Chapel is also noteworthy. Some good modern paintings may be seen (with difficulty) in the side chapels. The Rue Francois Miron leading E. from the Place St.

Gervais was part of the Rue St. Antoine, before the cutting of the Rue de Rivoli, and the chief artery from the E. to the centre of Paris. On the R. of this street, No. 26, Rue Geoffrey l'Asnier, is the fine portal of the seventeenth-century Hotel de Chalons, where the whilom amba.s.sador to England, Antoine de la Borderie, lived (1608). Yet further on in the Rue Francois Miron is the Rue de Jouy: at No. 7, is the charming Hotel d'Aumont by Hardouin Mansard. We continue our eastward way along the Rue Francois Miron and among other interesting houses note No. 68, the princely Hotel de Beauvais, erected 1660, for Anne of Austria's favourite _femme de chambre_, Catherine Henriette Belier, wife of Pierre Beauvais. The street facade has been much disfigured and the magnificent wrought-iron balcony, whence Anne, Mazarin and Turenne, together with the Queen of England, watched the solemn entry of Louis XIV. and his consort Maria Therese, has been destroyed: but the beautiful circular porch with its Doric columns and metopes and the stately courtyard where the architect, Jean Lepautre, has triumphed over the irregularity of the site and created a marvellous symmetry of form--all this still remains, together with the n.o.ble stairway on the L., decorated by the Flemish sculptor, Desjardins. In the house at the sign of the Falcon which formerly stood on this spot, Ta.s.so in the splendour of his early years was lodged by his patron, the Cardinal d'Este, and composed the greater part of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_. The Rue Francois Miron is continued by the Rue St. Antoine: at No. 119, we enter the Pa.s.sage Charlemagne and pa.s.s to the second courtyard where remains a goodly portion of the old Hotel of the Royal Provost of Paris,[226] given to Aubriot by Charles V.

At No. 101 is the site of one of the gates of the Philip Augustus wall and at No. 99 stands the Jesuit Church of St. Paul and St. Louis, in the typical baroque style so familiar to visitors to Rome. The once lavishly decorated interior has suffered much from the Revolutionists. Germain Pilon's Virgin still remains in the chapel L. of the high altar, but the four angels in silver that sustained the hearts of Louis XIII. and XIV., and the n.o.ble bronze statues from the mausoleum of the Princes of Conde, admired by Bernini, are only a memory. At No. 65, a malodorous court leads to the old vaulted entrance to the charnel-houses of St. Paul, where Rabelais and the Man with the Iron Mask were buried;[227] and to the R. of this vault a narrow street leads to the Marche Ste. Catherine on the site of the canons' houses of the monastery of Ste. Catherine du Val des ecoliers (p. 124). At the corner of the Rue du Pet.i.t Musc is the magnificent Hotel de Mayenne, begun by Du Cerceau for Diana of Poitiers and completed for the Duke of Mayenne, leader of the forces of the League: this too has a fine courtyard. The chamber in which the leaders of the League met and decided to a.s.sa.s.sinate Henry III. still exists. An inscription over No. 5 marks the site of the forecourt of the Bastille where the revolutionists penetrated on 14th July: on the pavement in front of No. 1 and across the end of the street and in front of No. 5 Place de la Bastille, round the opposite corner, lines of white stones mark part of the huge s.p.a.ce on which the gloomy and sinister old fortress stood. We turn S.W. by the Boulevard Henry IV., past the imposing new barracks of the Garde Republicaine, and then L. by the Rue de Sully. At No. 3 we enter the Bibliotheque de l'a.r.s.enal, one of the most important libraries of Paris, where an attendant will show Sully's private cabinet and antechamber, with the rich decorations as they were left by his successor, including a ceiling painted by Vouet. Many an intimate outpouring of the Victor of Ivry's domestic woes did Sully endure here--complaints of his ill-tempered Marie's scoldings, the contrast between his lawful wife's sour greetings and the endearing graces and merry, roguish charms of his mistresses; their quarrels and exactions. All of which the great minister would listen to reprovingly, and exhort his dejected royal master not to permit himself, who had vanquished the hosts of his enemies in battle, to be overcome by a woman's petulancy. To the S. of the library the Boulevard Morland marks the channel which separated the Isle de Louviers from the N. bank of the river. We return to the Boulevard Henry IV. and cross to the Quai des Celestins, where on our L. stands part of a tower of the Bastille, discovered in 1899 during the construction of the Metropolitan Railway and transferred here. At the corner of the Rue du Pet.i.t Musc opposite, is the fine Hotel Fieubert, erected by Hardouin Mansard (1671) on part of the site of the Royal Hotel St. Paul. The princ.i.p.al facade, 2 _bis_ Quai des Celestins, has unhappily been irretrievably spoilt by subsequent additions. Continuing westward, we note No. 32, the site of the Tour Barbeau of the Philip Augustus wall. An inscription bids us remember that there stood the old Tennis Court of the Croix Noire, where Moliere's troupe of the Ill.u.s.tre Theatre performed in 1645. Turning R.

up the Rue Falconnier, we come upon (L.) the grand old fifteenth-century palace of the archbishops of Sens (p. 114), now a gla.s.s merchant's warehouse. We regain the Place de l'Hotel de Ville by the Quai of the same name, or cross the Pont Marie, and stroll about the quiet streets of the Isle St. Louis (p. 214), and return by the Pont Louis Philippe at its western extremity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HoTEL OF THE PROVOST OF PARIS.]

[Footnote 226: All demolished (1911).]

[Footnote 227: Under process of demolition (1911).]

SECTION VII

_The Ville (N. of the Rue St. Antoine)--Tour St. Jacques--Rue St.

Martin--St. Merri--Rue de Venise--Les Billettes--Hotels du Soubise,[228] de Hollande, de Rohan[229]--Musee Carnavalet[230]--Place Royale--Musee Victor Hugo[230]--Hotel de Sully._

[Footnote 228: Open Sundays, 12-3.]

[Footnote 229: Open Thursdays at 2 o'clock by a permit from the Director.]

[Footnote 230: Open daily (except Monday) 10-4 or 5 (1 fr.).

Thursdays and Sundays free. Closed till 12.30 Tuesdays.]

Two parallel historic roads named of St. Martin and of St. Denis cut northwards through the ma.s.s of houses that now crowd the Marais: the latter, the Grande Chaussee de Monseigneur St. Denis, to the shrine of the martyred saint of Lutetia, the former, the great Roman Street which led to the provinces of the north.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WEST DOOR OF ST. MERRI.]

We set forth northwards from the Place du Chatelet, at the foot of the Pont au Change, where stood the ma.s.sive pile of the Grande Chatelet, originally built to defend the bridge from the Norman pirates as the Pet.i.t Chatelet was to defend the Pet.i.t Pont. It subsequently became the official seat and prison of the Provost of Paris, where he held his criminal court and organised the City Watch, and was demolished in 1802. Below this festered an irregular maze of slums, the aggregation of seven centuries, the most fetid, insanitary and criminal quarter of Paris, known as the Vallee de Misere, which only disappeared in 1855.

On our R. soars the beautiful flamboyant Gothic tower, all that remains of the great church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie. This fine monument was saved by the good sense of the architect Giraud who, when the church was sold to the housebreakers during the Revolution, inserted a clause in the warrant exempting the tower from demolition.

It was afterwards used as a lead foundry and twice narrowly escaped destruction by fire. Purchased by the Ville, it seemed safe at last, but again it was threatened in 1853 by the prolongation of the Rue de Rivoli: luckily, however, the new street just pa.s.sed by on the north.

The statue of Pascal under the vaulting reminds the traveller that the great thinker conducted some barometrical experiments on the summit, and the statues of the patron saints of craftsmen in the niches, that under its shadow the industrial arts were practised. We ascend the Rue St. Martin from the N.E. corner of the Square, and on our R. find the late Gothic church of St. Merri, built on the site of the seventh-century Chapel of St. Pierre, where Odo Falconarius, one of the defenders of Paris in the siege of 886, is known to have been buried. We enter for the sake of the beautiful sixteenth-century gla.s.s in the choir and a curious old painting of the same epoch in the first chapel beyond the entrance to the sacristy, Ste. Genevieve and her Flock, with a view of Paris in the background. We continue to ascend the street, noting No. 122, an old fountain and some reliefs, and soon reach, R. and L., the quaint and narrow mediaeval Rue de Venise, formerly the Ruelle des Usuriers, home of the Law speculators (p.

242). At No. 27, L. of the Rue St. Martin and corner of the Rue Quincampoix, is the old inn of the Epee de Bois (now a l'Arrivee de Venise), where Prince de Hoorn and two other n.o.bles a.s.sa.s.sinated and robbed a banker in open day and were broken alive on the wheel in the Place de Greve. Mirabeau and L. Racine, with other wits are said to have met there and Mazarin granted letters patent to a company of dancing masters who taught there, under the direction of the Roi des Violins: from these modest beginnings grew the National Academy of Dancing. We return E. along the Rue de Venise and pa.s.s to its end; then cross obliquely to the R. and continue E., along the Rue Simon le Franc, traversing the Rue du Temple, to the Rue des Blancs Manteaux.

This we follow still eastward to its intersection with Rue des Archives. Turning down this street to the R. we cross, and at Nos. 24 or 26 enter the fifteenth-century cloister (restored) of the monastery of the Billettes, founded at the end of the thirteenth century to commemorate the miracle of the Sacred Host, which had defied the efforts of Jonathan, the Jew to destroy it by steel, fire and boiling water. The chapel, built on the site of the Jew's house in 1294, was rebuilt in 1754, and is now a Protestant church. The miraculous Host was preserved as late as the early eighteenth century in St. Jean en Greve, and carried annually in procession on the octave of Corpus Christi. We return northwards along the Rue des Archives, and reach at the corner of the Rue des Francs Bourgeois the fine pseudo-cla.s.sic Hotel de Soubise, now the National Archives, erected in 1704 for the Princesse de Soubise on the site of the old Hotel of the Constable of France, Olivier de Clisson, where Charles VI., after his terrible vengeance on the revolted burgesses, agreed to remit further punishment, and where the Duke of Clarence established himself at the time of the English occupation. It became later (1553) the fortress of the Guises and rivalled the Louvre in strength and splendour. The picturesque Gothic portal (restored) of the old Hotel de Clisson still exists higher up the Rue des Archives. The lavishly decorated Hotel de Soubise, entered from the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, in which are exhibited historical doc.u.ments and other objects of profound interest, though bereft of much of its former splendour is well worth a visit.

The sumptuous chambers contain much characteristic and well-preserved decorative work by Boucher, Natoire, Carle Vanloo and others.[231]

Opposite the hotel and between Nos. 59 and 57 may be seen a portion of a tower, repaired in brick, of the old Philip Augustus wall, and in the courtyard of the Mont de Piete (No. 55) the line of the wall is traced: a nearer view of the tower may be obtained from the courtyard to the R.

[Footnote 231: At the north end of the Rue des Archives is the site, now a square and a market, of the grisly old fortress of the Knights Templars, whose walls and towers and round church were still standing a century ago. The enclosure was a famous place of refuge for insolvent debtors and political offenders, and sheltered Rousseau in 1765 when a _lettre de cachet_ was issued for his arrest. In the gloomy keep, which was not destroyed until 1811, were imprisoned the royal family of France after the abandonment of the Tuileries on 10th August 1792. The old market of the Temple, the centre of the _pet.i.tes industries_ of Paris, has been recently demolished. West of this is the huge Museum of the Arts and Crafts (Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers), on the site of the abbatial buildings and lands of St.

Martin of the Fields, still preserving in its structure the beautiful thirteenth-century church and refectory of the Abbey.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLOISTER OF THE BILLETTES, FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCHIVES NATIONALES, HoTEL SOUBISE, SHOWING TOWERS OF HoTEL DE CLISSON.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOWER AT THE CORNER OF THE RUE VIELLE DU TEMPLE.]

We proceed eastward past the rebuilt church of the Blancs Manteaux and at the corner of the Rue Vieille du Temple find a charming Gothic tourelle (restored), all that remains of the mansion built in 1528 by Jean de la Balue. Descending the Rue Vieille du Temple to the R., we may examine (No. 47) the old Hotel de Hollande, erected in 1638, where the Dutch amba.s.sadors resided; and ascending, at No. 87, we find the Hotel de Rohan (1712), home of the Cardinal de Rohan of diamond-necklace fame, now the Imprimerie Nationale. The Salon des Singes, charmingly decorated by Huet, and other interesting rooms are shown. The fine relief by Le Lorrain of the Horses of Apollo in a pa.s.sage to the R. of the courtyard should by no means be missed. We return to the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, and at No. 38 find an inscription[232] over the entrance to a picturesque court which marks the place where the Duke of Orleans was a.s.sa.s.sinated by Jean Sans Peur (p. 132). Still proceeding E. we pa.s.s yet more interesting domestic architecture--No. 31, Hotel d'Albret, where goody Scarron used to visit Madame de Montespan and where she was appointed governess to the royal b.a.s.t.a.r.ds; 25, Hotel de Lamoignon, once occupied by Diana of France, daughter of Henry II., and where Malesherbes was born.

[Footnote 232: Removed to give place to the name of a firm of wholesale chemists (1911).]

Nos. 14 and 16, corner of the Rue de Sevigne, is the Hotel de Carnavalet, a magnificent renaissance mansion, in raising which no less than four famous architects had part--Lescot, Bullant, Du Cerceau and the elder Mansard. For twenty years (1677-1697) it was the home of Madame Sevigne, queen of letter-writers. Her _Carnavalette_, as she delighted to call it, is now the civic museum of Paris. The beautiful reliefs over the entrance, including the two superb lions against a background of trophies, are by Goujon, as are also the satyrs' heads on the keystones of the arcades of the courtyard. The Four Seasons and some of the lateral figures that decorate the courtyard were designed by him. In the centre stands a bronze statue of Louis XIV as a Roman conqueror, by Coysevox, which once stood on the Place de Greve before the old Hotel de Ville. The museum, which contains a collection,[233]

historic and prehistoric, relating to the city of Paris, is especially rich in objects, all carefully labelled, ill.u.s.trating the great Revolution, and is of profound interest to students of that period: the second floor is devoted to the last siege of Paris. From the museum we fare yet further E. along the Rue des Francs Bourgeois to the Place Royale (now des Vosges), the site of the Palace of the Tournelles, once a favourite pleasure-house with a fair garden, of the kings of France, and where the Duke of Bedford lived during the English occupation, projecting to transform it into an English park for his exclusive use. There the ill-fated Henry II. lay eleven days in excruciating agony (p. 172), calling for his _seule princesse_, the beloved Diana, while Catherine, like a she-dragon, watched lest her rival entered. After his death the palace becoming hateful to Catherine, she had it demolished. It was subsequently used as a horse-market, and there the three minions of Henry III. began their b.l.o.o.d.y duel with the three bullies of the Duke of Guise at five in the morning of 27th April 1578, and fought on until every one was either slain or severely wounded.

[Footnote 233: Recently augmented.]

How different is the present aspect of this once courtly square! Here n.o.ble gentlemen in dazzling armour jousted, while from the windows of each of the thirty-five pavilions, gentle dames and demoiselles smiled gracious guerdon to their cavaliers. Around the bronze statue of Louis XIII., proudly erect on the n.o.ble horse cast by Daniello da Volterra, in the midst of the gardens, fine ladies were carried in their sedan-chairs and angry gallants fought out their quarrels. And now on this royal Place, the Perle du Marais, the scene of these brilliant revels, peaceful inhabitants of the east of Paris sun themselves and children play. Bronze horse and royal rider went to the melting pot of the Revolution to be forged into cannon that defeated and humbled the allied kings of Europe, and a feeble marble equestrian statue, erected under the Restoration, occupies its place.

We cross the Square obliquely and at No. 6, Victor Hugo's old house, find a delightful little museum of portraits, busts, casts, ill.u.s.trations of his works in various mediums, and personal and intimate objects belonging to the poet. It was at this house that in 1847 the two greatest novelists of their age met. d.i.c.kens has described how he was welcomed with infinite courtesy and grace by Hugo, a n.o.ble, compact, closely-b.u.t.toned figure, with ample dark hair falling loosely over his clean-shaven face and with features never so keenly intellectual, and softened by a sweet gentility. We leave the Place by the S. exit, and entering the Rue St. Antoine turn R. to No.

62, where stands the Hotel de Sully, built by Du Cerceau in 1634. The stately but now rather grimy inner courtyard is little altered, but the fine facade has been disfigured by the erection of a mean building between the wings. We return from the Metropolitain station at the end of the Rue Francois Miron.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLACE DES VOSGES, MAISON DE VICTOR HUGO.]

SECTION VIII

_Rue St. Denis--Fontaine des Innocents--Tower of Jean sans Peur--Cour des Miracles--St. Eustache--The Halles--St. Germain l'Auxerrois._

From the Chatelet Station of the Metropolitain we strike northwards along the Rue St. Denis, pa.s.sing R. and L. the Rue des Lombards, the Italian business quarter of old Paris, where Boccaccio, son of Bocca.s.sin, the money-changer, was born. We continue past the ill-omened Rue de la Ferronnerie and soon reach the Square and Fontaine des Innocents. This charming renaissance fountain was transferred here in 1786 from the corner of the old Rues aux Fers (now the widened Rue Berger) and St. Denis, where it had been designed and decorated by Lescot and Goujon to celebrate the solemn entry of Henry II. in 1549. The beautiful old fountain has been considerably modified and somewhat debased. The longer side has been divided to make a third, and a new fourth side has been added by Pajou. The whole has been elevated much too high by the addition of the terrace steps, and an unsightly dome has been added. Five of the exquisite reliefs of the Naiads by Goujon still remain, and three have been added by Pajou.

These latter may be distinguished by their higher relief and lack of refinement.

The site of the immense Necropolis of Les Innocents,[234] which for six centuries swallowed up half the dead of Paris, roughly corresponds to the parallelogram formed by the modern Rues Berger, St. Denis, Ferronnerie and de la Lingerie, and one of the old vaulted charnel-houses may still be seen at the ground floor of No. 7 Rue des Innocents. The huge piles of human remains and skulls that grinned from under the gable roof of the gallery painted with the Dance of Death were, in 1786, carted away to the catacombs under Paris, formed by the old Gallo-Roman quarrymen as they quarried the stone used to rebuild Lutetia. For centuries this enclosure was the refuge of vagabonds and scamps of all kinds, a receptacle for garbage, the haunt of stray cats and dogs, whose howlings by night made sleep impossible to nervous folk; and the lugubrious _clocheteur_, or crier of the dead, with lantern and bell, his tunic figured with skull and cross-bones, bleating forth:--

"Reveillez-vous gens qui dormez, Priez Dieu pour les trepa.s.sez."

was no soothing lullaby.

[Footnote 234: According to Sir Thomas Browne, bodies soon consumed there. "Tis all one to lie in St. Innocents' churchyard as in the sands of Egypt, ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever, and as content with six feet as the _moles_ of Adria.n.u.s."

"_Tabesne cadavera solvat An rogas haud refert._"--LUCAN.]

A curious early fifteenth-century rhyme is a.s.sociated with this charnel-house. One morning, two _bourgeoises_ of Paris, the wife of Adam de la Gonesse and her niece, went abroad to have a little flutter and eat two sous' worth of tripe in a new inn. On their way they met Dame Tifaigne, the milliner, who recommended the tavern of the "Maillez," where the wine was excellent. Thither they went and fared not wisely but too well. When fifteen sous had already been spent, they determined to make a day of it, and ordered roast goose with hot cakes. After further drinking, gauffres, cheese, peeled almonds, pears, spices and walnuts were called for, and the feast ended in songs. When the bad quarter of an hour came, their sum of sous proving inadequate, they parted with some of their finery to meet the score, and at midnight left the inn dancing and singing--