CHAPTER VI
ROUND ABOUT THE ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION)
ARRONDISSEMENT III. (TEMPLE)
A LONG stretch of the busy boulevard Sébastopol forms the boundary between arrondissements II and III. Several short old streets run between the Boulevard and Rue St-Martin. Rue Apolline (eighteenth century), Rue Blondel, Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, where curiously enough is a Jewish synagogue, show us some ancient houses. The latter, in the fifteenth century a roadway, in the seventeenth century a street along the course of a big drain, memorizes the convent once there. We find vestiges of an ancient hôtel at No. 6, and close by old passages: Passage du Vertbois, Passage des Quatre-Voleurs, Passage du Pont-aux-Biches. In Rue Papin we find the théâtre de la Gaîté, first set up at the Fair St-Laurent in the seventeenth century, here since 1861, when it was known as théâtre du Prince Impérial. Crossing Rue Turbigo, we reach Rue Bourg l’Abbé, reminding us of a very ancient street of the name swept away by the boulevard Sébastopol, and Rue aux Ours, dating from 1300, originally Rue aux Oies, referring maybe to geese roasted for the table when this was a street of turnspits. On the odd number side some ancient houses still stand. Rue Quincampoix, beginning far down in the 4th arrondissement, runs to its end into Rue aux Ours. It is through its whole course a street of old-time associations. In this bit of it we find interesting old houses, arched doorways, sculptured doors, etc., at Nos. 111, 99, 98, 96, 92, 91, 90. At No. 91 the watchman’s bell rang to bid the crowds disperse that pressed tumultuously round the offices of the great financier Law, who first set up his bank at the hôtel de Beaufort, on the site of the house No. 65. The Salle Molière was at No. 82, through the Passage Molière, dating from Revolution days, when it was known as Passage des Nourrices. The Salle began as the théâtre des Sans-Culottes, to become later the théâtre École. There Rachel made her debut. Many traces of the old theatre are still seen.
The old Roman road Rue St-Martin coming northward through the 4th arrondissement enters the 3rd from Rue Rambuteau. Along its entire course it is rich in old-world vestiges: ancient mansions, old signs, venerable sculptures, bas-reliefs, etc. In the Passage de l’Ancre, opening at No. 223, the first office for cab-hiring was opened in 1637. At No. 254 we come to the old church St-Nicolas-des-Champs, originally a chapel in the fields forming part of the abbey lands of St-Martin-des-Champs, subsequently the parish church of the district, rebuilt at the beginning of the fifteenth century, enlarged towards the end of the sixteenth century—a beautiful edifice in Gothic style of two different periods and known as the church of a hundred columns. The sacristy, once the presbytery, and a sundial dating from 1666, front the old Rue Cunin-Gridaine. Crossing Rue Réaumur, we reach the fine old abbey buildings which since the Revolution have served as the Paris Arts and Crafts Institution. The Abbey was built on the spot beyond the Paris boundary where St. Martin, on his way to the city, is said to have healed a leper. The invading Normans knocked it down; it was rebuilt in 1056 and the Abbey grounds surrounded a few years afterwards by high walls, rebuilt later as strong fortifications with eighteen turrets. Part of those walls and a restored tower are seen at No. 7 Rue Bailly. Within the walls were the Abbey chapel, long, beautiful cloisters, a prison, a market, etc. In the fourteenth century the Abbey was included within the city bounds and the monks held their own till 1790. In 1798, the disaffected Abbey buildings were chosen wherein to place the models collected by Vaucanson—pioneer of machinists; other collections were added and in the century following various changes and additions made in the old Abbey structure.
The big door giving on Rue St-Martin dates only from 1850. The great flight of steps in the court, built first in 1786, was remodelled and modernized in 1860. The ancient cloisters, remodelled, have been for years past the scene of busy mechanical and industrial study. The ancient and beautiful refectory, the work of Pierre de Montereau, architect of the Sainte-Chapelle (see p. 48) has become the Library. Beneath the fine vaulted roof, amid tall, slender columns of exquisite workmanship, students read where monks of old took their meals. The old Abbey chapel (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) restored in the nineteenth century, serves as the depot for models of steam-engines, etc. A small Gothic chapel is in the hands of a gas company. Other venerable portions of the Abbey, fallen into ruin, have quite recently been removed.
Rue Vertbois, on the northern side of the institution, records the existence of a leafy wood in the old Abbey grounds. The tower dates from 1140, the fountain from 1712; both were restored at the end of the nineteenth century. Going on up this old street we find numerous traces of what were erewhile the Abbey precincts.
Porte St-Martin at the angle where the rue meets the boulevard is that last of three great portes moving northward, and each in its time marking the city boundary.
Rue Meslay, opening out of Rue St-Martin at this point, dates from the first years of the eighteenth century, when it was Rue du Rempart. No. 49 was the home of the last Commandant du Guet. At No. 46 Aurore Dupin, known as George Sand, the famous novelist, was born in 1804. At No. 40 we see the fine old hôtel, with a fountain in the court, where in eighteenth-century days dwelt the Commandant de la Garde de Paris, the garde having replaced the guet (the Watch) in 1771.
Rue Beaubourg, stretching from Rue Rambuteau to Rue Turbigo, and the streets and passages leading out of it, show us many traces of bygone times. At No. 28 we find subterranean halls, with hooks where iron chains were once held fast—for this was an ancient prison—and a salon Louis XVI, with traces of ancient frescoes and sculpture. The city wall of Philippe-Auguste passed where the house No. 39 now stands. At No. 62, opposite which stretched the graveyard of St-Nicolas-des-Champs, was the palace of the bishops of Châlons, taken later to form part of a Carmelite convent suppressed in 1793. In a later revolutionary period—when Louis-Philippe was on the throne of France—the Paris insurrections centred here and horrible scenes took place on this spot[B].
In Rue au Maire, a secular official, mayor or bailiff of the Abbey, had his seat of office. In the Passage des Marmites (Saucepan Street) dwelt none but chaudronniers (coppersmiths and tinkers). We see ancient houses all along Rue Volta, and Rue des Vertus, so called by derision, having been the Rue des Vices, is made up of quaint old houses. Most of the houses, rather sordid, in Rue des Gravilliers, are ancient. No. 44 is said to have been the meeting-place of the secret Society “l’Internationale” in the time of Napoléon III. At Nos. 69 and 70 we see traces of the hôtel built by the grandfather of Gabrielle d’Estrées. At No. 88 the accomplices of Cadoudal, of the infernal machine conspiracy, were arrested.
Rue Chapon, formerly Capon, is named from the Capo, i.e. the cape worn by the Jews who in thirteenth-century days were its chief inhabitants. Its western end, known till 1851 as Rue du Cimetière St-Nicolas-des-Champs, shows many vestiges of past time. No. 16 was the hôtel of Madame de Mandeville, at first a nun-novice, to become in the time of Louis XV a celebrated courtesan. No. 13 was the hôtel of the archbishops of Reims, then of the bishops of Châlons, ceded in 1619 to the Carmelites. A big door and other interesting vestiges remain.
Rue de Montmorency is named from the fine old hôtel at No. 5, where the Montmorency lived from 1215 to 1627, when the last descendant of the famous Constable Mathieu perished on the scaffold. The street is rich in historic houses, historic associations. The stretch between Rue Beaubourg and Rue du Temple was known till 1768 as Rue Courtauvillain, originally Cour-au-Vilains—the Vilains, not necessarily “villains,” were the serfs or “common people” of bygone days. There lived Madame de Sévigné before making hôtel Carnavalet her home. No. 51 is the Maison du Grand Pignon, the big gable, owned, about the year 1407, by Nicolas Flamel and his wife Pernelle. Nicolas was a reputed schoolmaster of the age who made a good thing out of his establishment and was cited as having discovered the philosopher’s stone. On his death, he bequeathed his house and all his goods to the church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which la Tour St-Jacques alone remains (see pp. 95, 97).
Rue Grenier-St-Lazare, in the thirteenth century Rue Garnier de St-Ladre, shows us interesting old houses, and at No. 4 a Louis XVI staircase.
Rue Michel-le-Comte, another street of ancient houses, erewhile hôtels of the noblesse, reminds one of the popular punning phrase, “Ça fait la Rue Michel,” i.e. ça fait le compte—Michel-le-Comte. No. 28 was at one time inhabited by comte Esterhazy, Hungarian Ambassador. Impasse de Clairvaux, Rue du Maure (fourteenth century, known at one time as Cour des Anglais), and Rue Brantôme make a cluster of ancient streets, with many vestiges of past ages.
CHAPTER VII
THE TEMPLE
OF the renowned citadel and domain of mediæval times, from which the arrondissement takes its name, nothing now remains. A modern square (1865) has been arranged on the site of the mansion and the gardens of the Grand Prieur, but the surrounding streets, several stretching where the Temple once stood and across the site of its extensive grounds, show us historic houses, historic vestiges and associations along their entire course.
The Knights-Templar settled in Paris in 1148. Their domain with its dungeon, built in 1212, its manor and fortified tower, and the vast surrounding grounds, were seized in 1307 and given over to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, known later as the knights of Malta. From that time to the Revolution the Temple was closely connected with the life of the city. The primitive buildings were demolished, streets built along the site of some of them in the seventeenth century, and an immense battlemented castle with towers and a strong prison erected where the original stronghold had stood. The Temple, as then built, was like the old abbeys and royal palaces: a sort of township, having within its enclosures all that was needful for the daily life of its inhabitants. Besides Louis XVI and his family many persons of note passed weary days in its prison. Sidney Smith effected his escape therefrom. Its encircling walls were razed in the first years of the nineteenth century; and in 1808 Napoléon had the great tower knocked down. In 1814 the Allies made the Grand Priory their headquarters. Louis XVIII gave over the mansion to an Order of Benedictine nuns. In 1848 it served as a barracks. Its end came in 1854, when it was razed to the ground. Then a big place and market hall were set up on the site of the old Temple chapel and its adjacent buildings—a famous market, given up in great part to dealers in second-hand goods—the chief Paris market of occasions (bargains). The Rotonde which had been erected in 1781 was allowed to stand and lasted till 1863. A new ironwork hall, built in 1855, was not demolished till recent years—1905.
Those pretty, gay knick-knacks, that glittering cheap jewellery known throughout the world as “articles de Paris” had their origin among a special class of the inhabitants of the old Temple grounds. No one living there paid taxes. Impecunious persons of varying rank sought asylum there—a society made up in great part of artists and artistically-minded artisans. To gain their daily bread they set their wits and their fingers to work and soon found a ready sale for their Brummagem—not mere Brummagem, however, and all of truly Parisian delicacy of conception and workmanship.
Starting up Rue du Temple, from Rue Rambuteau, this part of it before 1851 Rue Ste-Avoie, we come upon the passage Ste-Avoie, and the entrance to the demolished hôtel, once that of Constable Anne de Montmorency, later, for a time, the Law’s famous bank. At No. 71 we see l’hôtel de St-Aignan, built in 1660, used in 1812 as a mairie, with fine doors and Corinthian pilastres in the court. No. 79 was l’hôtel de Montmort (1650). No. 86 is on the site of a famous cabaret of the days of Louis XII. At Nos. 101-103 we see vestiges of l’hôtel de Montmorency. No. 113 was the dependency of a Carmelite convent. At No. 122 Balzac lived in 1882. At No. 153 was the eighteenth-century bureau des Vinaigrettes—Sedan-chairs on wheels. The great door of the Temple, demolished in 1810, stood opposite No. 183. Vestiges were found in recent years beneath the pavement. At No. 195, within the Église Ste-Elisabeth, originally the convent chapel of the Filles de Ste-Elisabeth (1614-1690), we see most beautiful woodwork. Rue Turbigo cut right through the ancient presbytère.
Turning back down this old street to visit the streets leading out of it, we find Rue Dupetit-Thouars, on the site of old hôtels within the Temple grounds. Rue de la Corderie, where the Communards met in 1871. Rue des Fontaines (fifteenth century), with at No. 7 the ancient hôtellerie du Grand Cerf: at No. 15 the hôtel owned by the Superior of the convent of the Madelonnettes—a house of Mercy—suppressed at the Revolution, used as a political prison, later as a woman’s prison. Rue Perrée, where a shadowy Temple market is still to be seen, runs through the ancient Temple grounds.
Rue de Bretagne stretches from the Rue de Réaumur at the corner of the Temple Square, in old days known in its course through the Temple property as Rue de Bourgogne, farther on as Rue de Saintonge; leading out of it, at No. 62, the short Rue de Caffarelli runs along the line of the eastern wall of the vanished Temple fortress; at No. 45 is the Rue de Beauce where we come upon the ancient private passage, Rue des Oiseaux, with its vacherie of the old hospice des Enfants-Rouges. At No. 48 opens the ancient Rue du Beaujolais-du-Temple, renamed Rue de Picardie. At No. 41 we find the Marché des Enfants-Rouges, a picturesque old-time market hall with an ancient well in the courtyard. Rue Portefoin, thirteenth century. Rue Pastourelle, of the same epoch where at No. 23 lived the culottier, Biard, who wrote the Revolutionary song: la Carmagnole. Rue des Haudriettes, known in past days as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, for there at its farther end was the Temple pillory and a tall ladder reaching to its summit. The name Haudriette is that of the order of nuns founded by Jean Haudri, secretary to Louis IX, who, given up by his wife as lost while travelling in the East, returned at length to find her living among a community of widows to whom she had made over her home. Haudri maintained the institution thus founded, which was removed later to a mansion, now razed, near the chapel of the Assumption, in Rue St-Honoré. Rue de Brague, until 1348 Rue Boucherie-du-Temple, the Templars meat market. The fine old hôtel at Nos. 4 and 6 has ceilings painted by Lebrun. All these streets are rich in old-time houses, old-time vestiges, and they are all, as is the whole of this arrondissement on this side Rue du Temple as far as Rue de Turenne, in the Marais, a name referring to the marshy nature of the district in long-past days—but which was for long in pre-Revolution times the most aristocratic quarter of the city. We find ourselves now before the Archives and the Imprimerie Nationale, the latter to be transferred to its new quarters Rue de la Convention. The frontage of this fine old building and its entrance gates give on the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, of which more anon (see p. 84). On the western side we see a thick high wall and the Gothic doorway of what was, in the fourteenth century, the Paris dwelling of the redoubtable Constable, Olivier de Clisson, subsequently for nearly two hundred years in the hands of the Guise. In 1687 it was rebuilt for the Princess de Soubise by the architect, Delamair. Pillaged during the Revolution, it became national property, and in 1808 the Archives were placed there by Napoléon. Frescoes, fine old woodwork, magnificent mouldings, architectural work of great beauty are there to be seen. The Duke of Clarence is said to have made the hôtel Clisson his abode during the English occupation under Henry V. Going up Rue des Archives we see at No. 53, dating from 1705, the hôtel built there by the Prince de Rohan, and onward up the street fine old mansions, once the homes of men and women of historic name and fame. No. 72 is said to have been the “Archives” in the time of Louis XIII. An eighteenth-century fountain is seen in the yard behind the stationer’s shop there. No. 78 was the hôtel of Maréchal de Tallard. No. 79 dates from Louis XIII. At No. 90 we see traces of the old chapel of the Orphanage des Enfants-Rouges, so called from the colour of the children’s uniform. The eastern side of the Imprimerie Nationale adjoining the Archives, built by Delamair, as the hôtel de Strasbourg, and commonly known as hôtel de Rohan, because four comtes de Rohan were successively bishops of Strasbourg, is bounded by Rue Vieille-du-Temple, that too along its whole course a sequence of old houses bearing witness to past grandeur. No. 54 is the picturesque house and turret built in 1528 by Jean de la Balue, secretary to the duc d’Orléans. No. 56 was once the abode of Loys de Villiers of the household of Isabeau de Bavière. No. 75 was the town house of the family de la Tour-du-Pin-Gouvernet (1720). On the walls of No. 80 we read the old inscription “Vieille rue du Temple.” No. 102 was the hôtel de Caumartin, later d’Epernon. Nos. 106 and 110 were dependencies of the hôtel d’Epernon.
Rue des Quatre-Fils on the north side of the Archives and its adjoining buildings, known in past times as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, recalls to mind the romantic adventures of four sons of a certain Aymon, sung by a thirteenth-century troubadour. Most of its houses are ancient. Leading out of it is the old Rue Charlot with numerous seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century houses or vestiges. We peep into the Ruelle Sourdis, a gutter running down the middle of it, once shut in by iron gates and boundary stones. At No. 5 we see what remains of the hôtel Sourdis, which in 1650 belonged to Cardinal Retz. The church St-Jean-St-François, opposite, is the ancient chapel of the convent St-François-des-Capucins du Marais. It replaced the old church St-Jean-en-Grève, destroyed at the Revolution, and here we see, surrounding the nave, painted copies of ancient tapestries telling the story of the miracle of the sacred Hostie which a Jew in mockery sought to destroy by burning. The fête of Reparation kept from the fourteenth century at the church of St-Jean and at the chapel les Billettes (see p. 107) has since 1867 been kept here. Here too, piously preserved, is the chasuble used by the Abbé Edgeworth at the last Mass heard before his execution by Louis XVI in the Temple prison hard by. In the short Rue du Perche behind the church, lived for a time at No. 7 bis Scarron’s young widow, destined to become Madame de Maintenon. Fine frescoes cover several of its ceilings. In Rue de Poitou we find more interesting old houses. In Rue de Normandie Nos. 10, 6, 9 show interesting features, old courtyards, etc. Turning from Rue Charlot into Rue Béranger, known until 1864 by the name of the Grand Prior of the Temple de Vendôme, we find the hôtel de Vendôme, Nos. 5 and 3, dating from 1752 where Béranger lived and died. At No. 11, now a business house, lived Berthier de Sauvigny, Intendant-Général de Paris in 1789, hung on a lamp-post after the taking of the Bastille, one of the first victims of the Revolution.
Running parallel to Rue Charlot, starting from the little Rue du Perche, Rue Saintonge, formed by joining two seventeenth-century streets, Rue Poitou and Rue Touraine, shows us a series of ancient dwellings. From October, 1789, to 15th July, 1791, Robespierre lived at No. 64. A fine columned entrance court at No. 5 has been supplanted by a brand-new edifice. The hôtel at No. 4, dating originally from about 1611, was rebuilt in 1745.
Rue de Turenne, running in this arrondissement from Rue Charlot to the corner of the Place des Vosges, began as Rue Louis, then in its upper part was Rue Boucherat, as an ancient inscription at No. 133 near the fountain Boucherat records. From the old street whence it starts, Rue St.-Antoine in the 4th arrondissement, it is a long line of ancient hôtels, the homes in bygone days of men of notable names and doings; one side of the convent des Filles-du-Calvaire stretched between the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire and Rue Pont-au-Choux. No. 76 was the home of the last governor of the Bastille, Monsieur de Launay. The church of St-Denis-du-St-Sacrament at No. 70 was built in 1835 on the site of the chapel of a convent razed in 1826, previously a mansion of Maréchal de Turenne. At No. 56, Scarron lived and died. No. 54 was the abode of the comte de Montrésor, noted in the wars of the Fronde. At No. 41, fresh water flows from the fontaine de Joyeuse on the site of the ancient hôtel de Joyeuse. We find a beautiful staircase in almost every one of these old hôtels.
Shorter interesting old streets lead out of this long one on each side.
Rue du Parc-Royal, memorizes the park and palace of Les Tournelles, razed to the ground after the tragic death of Henri II by his widow, Catherine de’ Medici (see p. 8). No. 4, dating from 1620, was inhabited by successive illustrious families until the early years of the nineteenth century. There, till recently, was seen a wonderful carved wood staircase. Many of the ancient houses erewhile here have been demolished in recent years, and are supplanted by modern buildings and a garden-square.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOME OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
WE are now in the vicinity of that most entrancing of historic museums, Musée Carnavalet, and its neighbouring library. On the wall of Rue de Sévigné is still to be read engraved in the stonework its more ancient name, Rue de la Culture-Ste-Catherine, so called because it ran across cultivated land in the vicinity of an ancient church dedicated to St. Catherine. It was in 1677 that Madame de Sévigné and her daughter, Madame de Grignan, settled in the first story of the house No. 23, built some hundred and thirty years before by Jacques de Ligneri under the direction of the renowned architect Pierre Lescot and the sculptor Jean Goujon. The widow of a Breton lord, Kernevenoy, or some such word by name, which resolved itself into Carnavalet, bought the hôtel from the Ligneri; inhabitants and owners changed as time went on, but this name remained. At the Revolution, the mansion was taken possession of by the State, was used for a school, to become after 1871 the historical Museum of Paris. In 1898 the museum was taken in hand by M. Georges Cain and from that day to this has been continually added to, made more and more valuable and attractive by this eminently capable administrator. To study the history, and learn “from the life” the story of Paris and of France, go to the Musée Carnavalet. And to read about all you see there, turn at No. 29 into the Bibliothèque de la Ville. In olden days le Petit Arsenal de la Ville stood on the site. The edifice we see, l’hôtel St-Fargeau, was built in 1687. The city library, which had been re-organized by Jules Cousin, was placed there in 1898.
Rue Payenne runs across the site of ancient houses and of part of two convents, a door of one is seen at that regrettably modern-style erection, so out of keeping with its surroundings, the Lycée Victor-Hugo. At No. 5 we see a bust of Auguste Compte, with an inscription, for this was the “Temple of the religion of Humanity,” and Compte’s friend and inspirer Clotilde de Vaux died here. Here souvenirs of the philosopher are kept in a memorial chapel. Nos. 11 and 13 formed the mansion of the duc de Lude, one of the most noted admirers of Madame de Sévigné, Grand Maître d’Artillerie in 1675, and was inhabited at one time by Madame Scarron. In Rue Elzévir—in the sixteenth century Rue des Trois-Pavillons—was born Marion Delorme (1613). Ninon de Lenclos lived here in 1642. We see a fine old house at No. 8, and at No. 2 l’hôtel de Lusignan. Leading out of Rue Elzévir, the old Rue Barbette records the name of a master of the Mint under Philippe-le-Bel, and a house he built with extensive gardens, known as the Courtille Barbette; the Courtille was destroyed by the populace, displeased at a change in the coinage, in 1306; the house remained and became a rendezvous of courtiers, passed into the hands of the extremely light-lived Isabeau de Bavière, who inaugurated there her wonderful bals masqués. It was on leaving the hôtel Barbette that the duc d’Orléans, Isabeau’s lover, was assassinated, on the threshold of a neighbouring house, by the men of Jean Sans Peur, 23 November, 1407 (see p. 40). The mansion passed subsequently through many hands, and was finally in part demolished in 1563, and this street cut across the ground where it had stood. No. 8 was the “petit hôtel” of Maréchal d’Estrées, brother of Gabrielle, confiscated at the Revolution and made later the mother-house of the Institution “la Legion d’Honneur” for the education of officer’s daughters. The grand old mansion has been despoiled of its splendid decorations, precious woodwork, etc.—all sold peacemeal for high prices. Almost every house in this old street is an ancient hôtel. No. 14 was the hôtel Bigot de Chorelle, No. 16 the hôtel de Choisy, No. 18 the hôtel Massu, No. 17 the hôtel de Brégis, etc. We see other ancient houses in Rue de la Perle. At No. 1, dating from the close of the seventeenth century, we find wonderfully interesting things in the courtyard; busts of old Romans, fine bas-reliefs, etc.
Rue de Thorigny, sixteenth century, was named after Président Lambert de Thorigny, whose descendants built, a century or two later, the fine hôtel Lambert on l’Ile St-Louis. Marion died in a house in this street; Madame de Sévigné lived here at one time, as did Balzac in 1814. The fine hôtel at No. 5 goes by the name hôtel Salé, because its owner, Aubert de Fontenay, had grown rich through the Gabelle (salt-tax). Later it was the abode of Monseigneur Juigné, Archbishop of Paris, who in the terrible winter 1788-89 gave all he possessed to assuage the misery of the people, yet met his death by stoning on the outbreak of the Revolution. Confiscated by the State, the fine old mansion was for a time put to various uses; then bought and its beauties reverently guarded by its present owners. Rue Debelleyme, made up of four short ancient streets, shows interesting vestiges. The nineteenth-century novelist, Eugène Sue, lived here.
To the east of Rue de Turenne, at its junction with Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, we find old streets across the site of the ancient palace des Tournelles; of the palace no trace remains save the name of the old Rue des Tournelles. Rue du Foin runs where hay was once made in the fields of the palace park. Rue de Béarn was in olden times Rue du Parc-Royal. Here we find vestiges of the convent des Minimes, founded by Marie de’ Medici in 1611, suppressed in 1790. Some of its walls form part of the barracks we see there, and the cloister still stands intact in the courtyard, while at No. 10, Rue des Minimes, may be seen the old convent door. The building No. 7 of this latter street, now a school, dates from the seventeenth century. A famous chestnut-tree, several hundred years old, flourished in the court at No. 14 till a few years ago. In Rue St-Gilles, we see among other ancient houses the Pavilion of the hôtel Morangis, No. 22, and at No. 12, the Cour de Venise. In Rue Villehardouin, when it was Rue des Douze Portes, to which Rue St-Pierre was joined at its change of name, lived Scarron and his young wife. Rue des Tournelles with its strikingly old-world aspect shows us two houses inhabited by Ninon de Lenclos, Nos. 56 and 26, and at No. 58, that of Locré, who with some other men of law drew up the famous Code Napoléon.
At No. 1, Rue St-Claude, one side of the house in Rue des Arquebusiers, dwelt the notorious sorcerer, Joseph Balsamo, known as comte de Cagliostro. The iron balustrade dates from his day and the heavy handsome doors came from the ancient Temple buildings. Rue Pont-au-Choux recalls the days when the land was a stretch of market gardens. Rue Froissard and Rue de Commines lie on the site of the razed couvent des Filles-du-Calvaire, of which vestiges are to be seen on the boulevard at No. 13.
CHAPTER IX
NOTRE-DAME
ARRONDISSEMENT IV. (HÔTEL-DE-VILLE)
RUE LUTÈCE, the French form of the Roman word Lutetia, recording the ancient name of the city, is a modern street on ancient historic ground. There, on the river island, the first settlers pitched their camp, reared their rude dwellings, laid the foundation of the city of mud to become in future days the city of light, the brilliant Ville Lumière. When the conquering Romans took possession of the primitive city and built there its first palace, the island of the Seine became l’Île du Palais.
Of the buildings erected there through succeeding centuries, few traces now remain. But Roman walls in perfect condition were discovered beneath the surface of the island so recently as 1906. Close to the site of Rue Lutèce ran, until the middle of last century, the ancient Rue des Fèves, where was the famous Taverne de la Pomme de Pin, a favourite meeting-place from the time of Molière of great men of letters. Crossing Rue de la Cité, formed in 1834 along the line of the old Rue St-Éloi which stretched where Degobert’s great statesman had founded the abbey St-Martial, we come to the Parvis Notre-Dame. The Parvis, so wide and open to-day, was until very recent times—well into the second half of the nineteenth century—crowded with buildings; old shops, old streets, erections connected with the old Hôtel-Dieu, covered in great part the space before the Cathedral, now an open square. The statue of Charlemagne we see there is modern, set up in 1882.
The Cathedral, beloved and venerated by Parisians from all time—“Sacra sancta ecclesia civitatis Parisiensis”—stands upon the site of two ancient churches which in early ages together formed the Episcopal church of the capital of France. One bore the name of the martyr, St. Stephen, the other was dedicated to Ste-Marie.
These churches stood on the site of a pre-Christian place of worship, a temple of Mars or Jupiter: Roman remains of great extent were found beneath the pavements when clearing away the ancient buildings on the Parvis. Fire wrought havoc on both churches, entirely destroyed one, and towards the year 1162 Sully set about the erection of a church worthy of the capital of his country. Its first stone was laid by the Guelph refugee, Pope Alexander III, in 1163. The chancel, the nave and the façade were finished without undue delay, and in 1223 the whole of the beautiful Gothic building was finished; alterations were made during the years that followed until about 1300. From that time onward Notre-Dame was made a store-house of things beautiful. The finest pictures of each succeeding age lined its walls—at length so thickly that there was room for no more. Much beautiful old work, including a fine rood screen, was carted away under Louis XIV, when space was wanted for the immense statue of the Virgin set up then in fulfilment of the vow of Louis XIII, destroyed later. The figures on the great doors, we see to-day, are modern: the original statuettes were hacked to pieces at the outbreak of the Revolution by the mob who mistook the Kings of Israel for the Kings of France!
The flêche, too, is of latter-day construction, built by Viollet le Duc, to replace the ancient turret bell-tower. Destruction and desecration of every kind fell upon the Cathedral in Revolution days. Priceless glass was smashed, magnificent work of every sort ruthlessly torn down, trampled in the dust. On the Parvis—the space before the Cathedral doors where in long-gone ages the mystery plays were acted—a great bonfire was made of all the Mass books and Bibles, etc., found within the sacred edifice: priceless illuminated missals, etc., perished then. Marvellous woodwork, glorious stained-glass windows, fine statuary happily still remain.
From the time of its erection, the grand Cathedral was closely connected with the greatest historical events of France, just as the church built by Childebert and the older church of St-Étienne had been before. St. Louis was buried there in 1271. The first States-General was held there in 1302. There Henry VI of England was crowned King of France in 1431, and Marie-Stuart crowned Queen Consort in 1560. Henri IV heard his first Mass there in 1694. Within the sacred walls the Revolutionists set up the worship of reason, held sacrilegious fêtes. Napoléon I was crowned there and was there married to Marie Louise of Austria. Napoléon III’s wedding took place there. These are some only singled out from a long list of historical associations. National Te Deums, Requiems, Services of Reparation all take place at this Sancta Ecclesia Parisionis.
The Hôtel-Dieu on the north side of the Parvis is the modern hospital raised on the site of the ancient Paris House of God, the hospital for the Paris poor built in the thirteenth century, always in close connection with the Cathedral and having its annexe across the little bridge St-Charles, a sort of covered gallery. Those blackened walls stood till 1909.
Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame belonged in past ages to the Cathedral Chapter, a cloistered thoroughfare. Its fifty-one houses have almost entirely disappeared. Three still stand: Nos. 18, 16, 14. Pierre Lescot, the notable sixteenth-century architect, to whom a canonry was given, died there in 1578. Rue Chanoinesse is still inhabited by the Cathedral canons. Its houses are all ancient. At No. 10 lived Fulbert, the uncle of the beautiful Héloïse, who braved his anger for the sake of Abelard, who lived and taught hard by. Racine is said to have lived at No. 16. The old Tour de Dagobert, which did not, however, date back quite to that monarch’s time, stood at No. 18 till 1908. Its wonderful staircase, formed of a single oak-tree, is at the Musée Cluny. Lacordaire is said to have lodged at No. 17. A curious old courtyard at No. 20. At No. 24, vestiges of the old chapel St-Aignan (twelfth century). At 26, a passage with old pillars and paved with old tombstones. Leading out of it runs the little Rue des Chantres where the choristers lived and worked to perfect their voices and their knowledge of music. Rue Massillon is entirely made of old houses with most interesting features—a marvellous carved oak staircase at No. 6, fine doors, curious courtyards. Another beautiful staircase at No. 4. In Rue des Ursins, connected with Rue Chanoinesse, we find many ancient houses. At No. 19 we see vestiges of the old chapel where Mass was said secretly during the Revolution by priests who went there disguised as workmen.
Rue de la Colombe, where we find an inscription referring to the discovery there of Roman remains, dates from the early years of the thirteenth century.
CHAPTER X
L’ÎLE ST-LOUIS
CROSSING the bridge painted of yore bright red and known therefore as le Pont-Rouge, we find ourselves upon the Île St-Louis, in olden days two distinct islands: l’Île Notre-Dame and l’Île-aux-Vaches, both uninhabited until the early years of the seventeenth century. Tradition says the law-duels known as jugements de Dieu took place there. The Chapter of Notre-Dame had certain rights over the island.
In the seventeenth century, consent was given for the Île St-Louis to be built upon, and the official constructor of Ponts and Chaussées obtained the concession of the two islets under the stipulation that he should fill up the brook which separated them, and make a bridge across the arm of the Seine to the city quay. The brook became Rue Poulletier, where we see interesting vestiges of that day and two ancient hôtels, Nos. 3 and 20—the latter now a school.
All along Rue St-Louis-en-l’Île and in the streets connected with it, fine old mansions, or beautiful vestiges of the buildings then erected, still stand. The church we see there was begun by Le Vau in 1664, on the site of a chapel built at his own expense by one Nicolas-le-Jeune. The curious belfry dates from 1741. The church is a very store-house of works of art, many of them by the great masters of old, put there by its vicar, Abbé Bossuet, who devoted his whole fortune and his untiring energy to the work of restoring the church left in ruins after its despoliation at the Revolution, and died so poor in consequence as to be buried by the parish. At No. 1 of this quaint street we find a pavilion of l’hôtel de Bretonvilliers of which an arch is seen at No. 7, and other vestiges at Nos. 5 and 3. The Arbalétriers were wont to meet here in pre-Revolution days. No. 2, its northern front giving on Quai d’Anjou (see p. 328), is the grand mansion of Nicolas Lambert de Thorigny, built by Le Vau, 1680; its splendid decorations are the work of Lebrun and other noted artists and sculptors of the time. In 1843 it was bought by the family of a Polish prince and used in part as an orphanage for the daughters of Polish exiles till 1899.
CHAPTER XI
L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
THE Hôtel de Ville, which gives its name to the arrondissement, is a modern erection built as closely as possible on the plan and from the designs of the fine Renaissance structure of the sixteenth century burnt to the ground by the Communards in 1871. Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where it stands, was until 1830 Place de Grève, the Place du Port de Grève of anterior days, days going back to Roman times. Like the Paris Cathedral, the hôtel de Ville is closely linked with the most marked events of French history. The first hôtel de Ville was known as la Maison-aux-Piliers, previously l’hôtel des Dauphins du Viennois, bought in 1357 by Étienne Marcel, Prévôt des Marchands, of historic memory (see p. 39), whose statue we see in the garden. The first stone of the fine building burnt in 1871 was laid by François I in 1533, its last one in the time of Henri IV. On the Square before it executions took place, for offences criminal, political, religious, by burning, strangling, hanging and the guillotine. In its centre stood a tall Gothic cross reared upon eight steps, at the foot of which the condemned said their last prayers. The guillotine first set up there in 1792 was soon moved about, as we know, to different points of the city, when used for political victims. Common-law criminals continued to expiate their evil deeds on Place de Grève. It was a comparatively small place in those days. Its enlargement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused the destruction of many old streets, in one of which was the famous Maison de la Lanterne. Close up against the Hôtel de Ville stood in past days the old church St-Jean-en-Grève and a hospice; both were incorporated in the town hall by Napoléon I. The entire building was destroyed in 1871, but the present structure is remarkably fine in every part, both within and without, and the Salle St-Jean, memorizing the church once there, is splendidly decorated. The Avenue Victoria, on the site of ancient streets, memorizes the visit of the English Queen in 1855. The short Rue de la Tâcherie (from tâche: task, work) crossing it, was in the thirteenth century Rue de la Juiverie, for here we are in the neighbourhood of what is still the Jews’ quarter.
A modern garden-square surrounds the beautiful Tour St-Jacques, all that is left of the ancient church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, built in the fifteenth century, on the site of a chapel of the eighth century, finished in the sixteenth, entirely restored in the nineteenth century and again recently. It is used as an observatory. Paris weather statistics hail from la Tour St-Jacques.
On the site of the modern Place du Châtelet rose in bygone ages the primitive tower of the Grand Châtelet, which developed under Louis-le-Gros into a strongly fortified castle and prison guarding the bridge across the Seine to the right, while the Petit Châtelet guarded it on the left bank. A chandelle—a flaming tallow candle—set up by command of Philippe-le-Long near its doorway, is said to be the origin of the lighting, dim enough as it was for centuries, of Paris streets. The fortress was rebuilt by Louis XIV; part of it served as the Morgue until it was razed to the ground in 1802. The fountain plays where the prison once stood. Numerous old streets lead out of the modern Rue de Rivoli at this point. Rue Nicolas-Flamel, running where good Nicolas had a fine hôtel in the early years of the fifteenth century, and Rue Pernelle recording the name of his wife, have existed under other names from the thirteenth century. Rue St-Bon recalls the chapel on the spot in still earlier times.
Rue St-Martin beginning at Quai des Gesvres, the high road to the north of Roman days, after cutting through Avenue Victoria, crosses Rue de Rivoli at this point, and here was the first of the four Portes which in succession marked the city boundary on this side. The beautiful sixteenth-century church we see here, St-Merri, stands on the site of a chapel built in the seventh century. In a Gothic crypt remains of its patron saint who lived and died on the spot are reverently guarded, and the bones of Eudes the Falconer, the redoubtable warrior who dowered the church, discovered in perfect preservation in a stone coffin in the time of François I, lie in the choir. It is a wonderfully interesting structure, with fine glass, woodwork, mouldings, statues and statuettes. The statuettes we see on the walls of the porch are comparatively modern, replacing the ancient ones destroyed at the Revolution.
VIEW ACROSS THE SEINE FROM PLACE DU CHÂTELET
Rue de la Verrerie bordering the southern walls of the church and running on almost to Rue Vieille-du-Temple, dates from the twelfth century and reminds us by its name of the glaziers and glass painters’ Company, developed from the confraternity which in 1187 made the old street its quarter. Louis XIV, finding this a convenient road on the way to Vincennes, had it enlarged. There dwelt Jacquemin Gringonneur, who, it is said, invented playing cards for the distraction of the insane King Charles VI. Bossuet’s father and many other persons of position or repute lived in the old houses which remain or in others on the site of the more modern ones. At No. 76 was the hôtel inhabited by Suger, the Minister of Louis VI and Louis VII; part of its ancient walls were incorporated in the church in the sixteenth century. Here, too, is the presbytery, where in the courtyard we find a wonderful old spiral staircase, its summit higher than the church roof. Old streets and passages wind in and out around the church. Exploring them, we come upon interesting vestiges innumerable. The ancient clergy house is at No. 76, Rue St-Martin. Rue Cloître-St-Merri, Rue Taille-pain, Rue Brise-Miche, these two referring to the bakery once there and bread portioned out, cut or broken for the Clergy; Rue St-Merri and its old passage, Impasse du Bœuf, with its eighteenth-century grille; Rue Pierre-au-lard, a humorous adaptation of the name Pierre Aulard, borne by a notable parishioner of the eighteenth century. Passage Jabach on the site of the home of the rich banker of the seventeenth century whose fine collection of pictures were the nucleus of the treasures of the Louvre. Impasse St-Fiacre, the word saint cut away at the Revolution, where dwelt the first hirer-out of cabs; hence the term fiacre. Rue de la Reynie (thirteenth century), renamed in memory of the Lieutenant-General of Police who, in 1669, ordered the lighting of Paris streets, but did not provide lamplighters. Private citizens were bound daily to light and extinguish the lanterns then placed at the end and in the middle of each thoroughfare. Everyone of these streets, dull and grimy though they be, are full of interest for the explorer. Going on up Rue St-Martin, we see on both sides numerous features of interest. Look at Nos. 97, 100, 103, 104; and at No. 116, called Maison des Goths, with its fine old frieze. At No. 120 there are two storeyed cellars and in one of them a well. The fontaine Maubuée at No. 122 is referred to in old documents so early as 1320. Its name shortened from mauvaise buée, i.e. mauvaise fumée, is not suggestive of the purity of its waters at that remote period; the fountain was reconstructed in 1733—the house some sixty years later. The upper end of Rue Simon-le-Franc, which we turn into here, was until recent times Rue Maubuée. It may, perhaps, still deserve the name. Rue Simon-le-Franc is one of the oldest among all these old streets, for it was a thoroughfare in the year 1200. It records the name of a worthy citizen of his day, one Simon Franque. All the houses are ancient, some very picturesque. Next in date is that most characteristic of old-time streets, the Rue de Venise. The name, a misnomer, dates only from 1851, due to an old sign. The street was known by various appellations since its formation somewhere about the year 1250. Every house and court there is ancient, the space between those on either side so narrow that the tall, dark buildings seem to meet at their apex. No. 27 is the old inn “l’Épée de Bois,” lately renovated and its name changed to “L’Arrivée de Venise,” where from the year 1658 a company of musicians and dancing-masters duly licensed by Mazarin used to meet under the direction of “Le roi des violons,” their chief. This was, in fact, the nucleus of the Académie National of Music and Dancing, known later as the Conservatoire. Great men of letters too were wont to meet in that old inn. Rue de Venise opens into Rue Beaubourg, a road that stretched through a beau bourg, i.e. a fine township, so far back as the eleventh century, with special privileges, the rights of citizenship for its inhabitants although lying without the boundary-wall. No. 4, now razed, was the “Restaurant du Bon Bourg,” tenu par “le Roi du Bon Vin.” To the left is Rue des Étuves, i.e. Bath Street, with houses old and curious. Rue de Venise runs at its lower end into the famous Rue de Quincampoix, the street of Law’s bank (see p. 63), where every house is ancient or has vestiges of past ages. No. 43 was a shop let in Law’s time at the rate of 100 francs a day. The street leads down into Rue des Lombards, the ancient usurers’ and pawnbrokers’ street, inhabited in these days by a very opposite class—herborists. Tradition says Boccaccio was born here. Rue du Temple, Rue des Archives, Rue Vieille-du-Temple, Rue de Sévigné, traversed in part in the 3rd arrondissement (see p. 108) all have their lower numbers in this 4th arrondissement, the first three branching off from Rue de Rivoli, the last from Rue St-Antoine. At No. 61, Rue du Temple, on the site of the vanished Couvent des Filles de Ste-Avoie, we see an old gabled house. In the courtyard of No. 57, l’hôtel de Titon, the Bastille armourer. At No. 41 the old tavern “l’Aigle d’Or.” No. 20 is the ancient office of the Gabelles—the salt-tax. Here we see an old sign taken from the vicinity of St-Gervais, showing the famous elm-tree, of which more anon. Every house shows some interesting old-time feature. This brings us again close up to the Hôtel de Ville, where we see the venerable church St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, dating in its present form from the sixteenth century, on the site of a church built there in the sixth. That primitive erection grew into a beautiful church in the early years of the twelfth century. Some of the exquisite work of that day may still be seen by turning up the narrow passage to the left, where we find the ancient charniers. Rebuilding was undertaken two centuries later. A curious half-effaced inscription on an old wall within refers to this reconstruction and its dedication fête day, instituted in honour of “Messieurs St. Gervais et St. Protais.” The last rebuilding was in 1581. Then in the seventeenth century, the Renaissance façade was added to the Gothic edifice behind it by Salomon de Brosse. The church is full of precious artistic work, glorious glass, frescoes, statuary and rich in historic associations. Madame de Sévigné was married here; Scarron was married to the young girl destined to become Mme de Maintenon, and was perhaps buried in the beautiful Chapelle-Dorée. The church has always suffered in time of war. At the Revolution the insurgents tried to shake down its fine tall pillars; the marks are still to be seen. In 1830-48-71 cannon balls pierced its belfry walls, and now on Good Friday of this war-year 1918, the enemy’s gun, firing at a range of seventy-five miles, struck its roof, laid low a great pillar, brought death and wounding to the assembled congregation. On the place before the church we see a tree railed round. A shadier elm-tree stood there once, the famous Orme de St-Gervais, beneath which justice—or maybe at times injustice—was administered in the open air, in long-past ages.
HÔTEL DE BEAUVAIS, RUE FRANÇOIS-MIRON
Rue François-Miron running east, its lower end the ancient Rue St-Antoine, shows us the orme, figured in the ironwork of all its balconies. This end of the street was known in olden days as Rue du Pourtour St-Gervais, then as Rue du Monceau St-Gervais, referring to the wide stretch of waste ground in the vicinity which, unbuilt upon for centuries, was a favourite site for festive gatherings and tournaments. It records the name of the Prévôt des Marchands of the sixteenth century to whom was due the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, burnt in 1871. Its houses are for the most part ancient. No. 13, quaint and gabled, fifteenth century. No. 82 the old mansion of President Henault. No. 68 hôtel de Beauvais, associated with many historic personages and events, has Gothic cellars which of yore formed part of the monastastic house where Tasso wrote his great poem “Jerusalem Delivered.” The walls above those fine cellars were knocked down in the third decade of the seventeenth century and replaced in 1655 by those we see there now, built as the hôtel de Beauvais, destined to see many changes. At the Revolution the grand old mansion was for a time a coach-office, then a house let out in flats. Mozart is said to have stayed there in 1763.
Behind the church is the old Rue des Barres with an ancient inscription and traces of an ancient chapel. The sordid but picturesque Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville was known for centuries as Rue de la Mortellerie, from the morteliers, or masons who had settled there. In the dread cholera year 1832 the inhabitants saw in the name of their street a sinister reference to the word mort and demanded its change. Every house has some feature of old-time interest. Beneath No. 56 there is a Gothic cellar, once, tradition says, a chapel founded by Blanche de France, grand-daughter of Philippe-le-Bel, who died in 1358. At No. 39 we see the narrowest street in Paris, Rue du Paon Blanc, erewhile known as the “descente à la rivière.” Nos. 8-2 is the venerable hôtel de Sens (see p. 117).
In Rue Geoffroy l’Asnier, between Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville and Rue François-Miron, thirteenth century, we find among many other vestiges of old times the fine seventeenth-century door of hôtel Chalons at No. 26. In Rue de Jouy of the same period and interest, at No. 12 and No. 14, dependencies of l’hôtel Beauvais; at No. 7 l’hôtel d’Aumont, built in 1648 on the site of the house where Richelieu was born. At No. 9, the École Sophie-Germain, the ancient hôtel de Fourcy, previously inhabited by a rich bourgeois family.
Rue des Archives (see p. 74) is chiefly interesting in its course through this arrondissement for the old church des Billettes (see p. 76) on the site of the house of the Jew Jonathas, so called from the sign hung outside a neighbouring house—a billot—i.e. log of wood. Rebuilt in 1745, closed at the Revolution, the church was given to the Protestants in 1808. The beautiful cloisters of the fifteenth-century structure were left untouched and are enclosed in the school adjoining the church. Rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie dates from the early years of the thirteenth century and is rich in relics of past ages. Its name records the existence there of the thirteenth-century church de l’Exaltation de la Ste-Croix and of a convent instituted in 1258 in the ancient Monnaie du Roi—the Mint—suppressed at the Revolution, but of which traces are still seen on the square. At No. 47 we see a turret dating from 1610. The dispensary at No. 44 is the old hôtel Feydeau de Brou (1760). No. 35 belonged to the old church Chapter. The boys’ school at No. 22 is ancient. No. 20 dates from 1696. Rue Aubriot from the thirteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century was Rue du Puits-au-Marais. Aubriot was the thirteenth-century Prévôt de Paris, an active builder, and who first laid drains beneath Paris streets. No. 10 dates from the first years of the seventeenth century. Vestiges of that or an earlier age are seen all along the street. Rue des Blancs-Manteaux recalls the begging Friars, servants of Mary, wearing long white cloaks, who settled here in 1258. They united a few years later with the Guillemites, whose name is recorded in a neighbouring street of ancient date. Their church at No. 12 was entirely rebuilt in 1685, and in 1863 the portal of the demolished Barnabite church added to its façade. Remains of the old convent buildings are incorporated in the Mont-de-Piété opposite. At No. 14 we see traces of the old Priory. No. 22 and No. 25 have fine old staircases and other interesting vestiges. The cabaret de “l’Homme Armé” existed in the fifteenth century. We find ancient vestiges, often fine staircases, at most of the houses.
Rue Vieille-du-Temple, which begins its long course opposite the Mairie, has lost its first numbers. This old street shows us interesting features at every step. No. 15, hôtel de Vibraye. No. 20, Impasse de l’hôtel d’Argenson. No. 24, hôtel of the Maréchal d’Effiat, father of Cinq Mars. The short Rue du Trésor at its side was so named in 1882 from the treasure-trove found beneath the hôtel when cutting the street, gold pieces of the time of King Jean and Charles V in a copper vase, a sum of something like 120,000 francs in the money of to-day. At No. 42 opens Rue des Rosiers; roses once grew in gardens there. At No. 43 Passage des Singes, leading into Rue des Guillemites, once Rue des Singes. No. 45 shows a façade claiming to date back to the year 1416. No. 47, hôtel des Ambassadeurs de Hollande, recalling the days when Dutch diplomats dwelt there and took persecuted Protestants under their protection, is on the site of the hôtel of Jean de Rieux, before which the duc d’Orléans met his death at the hands of Jean Sans Peur, the habitation of historic persons and events until Revolution days, when it was taken for dancing saloons. Here we see splendid vestiges of past grandeur: vaulted ceilings, sculptures, frescoes. The Marché des Blancs-Manteaux, in the street opening at No. 46, is part of an ancient mansion. Turning down Rue des Hospitalières-St-Gervais, recalling the hospital once there, we find in Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, at No. 35, an old hôtel. At No. 31, l’hôtel d’Albret, its first stone laid in 1550 by Connétable Anne de Montmorency, restored in the eighteenth century. At No. 25, one side of the fine hôtel Lamoignon. Crossing Rue des Rosiers we turn down Rue des Écouffes, an ancient street of pawnbrokers, where in a house on the site of No. 20, Philippe de Champaigne, the great painter, lived and died (1674). Rue du Roi de Sicile records the existence there, and on land around, of the palace of Charles d’Anjou, brother of St. Louis, crowned King of Naples and Sicily in 1266. The mansion changed hands many times and in 1698 became the hôtel de la Grande Force, a noted prison. Part of it became later the Caserne des Pompiers in Rue Sévigné; the rest was demolished. On the site of the house No. 2 lived Bault and his wife, jailers of Marie-Antoinette. And here, at the corner of Rue Malher, Princesse de Lamballe and many of her compeers were slain in the “Massacres of September.”
Rue Ferdinand-Duval, till 1900 from about the year 1000 Rue des Juifs, is full of old-time relics. At No. 20 we find a courtyard and hôtel known in past days as l’hôtel des Juifs. Nos. 18 and 16, site of the hospital du Petit St-Antoine in pre-Revolution days, of a famous shop store under the Empire.
Rue Pavée dates from the early years of the thirteenth century, the first street in Paris to be paved. Here at Nos. 11 and 13 lived the duke of Norfolk, British Ambassador in 1533. At No. 12 we find two old staircases, once those of an ancient hôtel incorporated in the prison of La Force. At No. 24 stands the fine old hôtel de Lamoignon, rebuilt on the site of an older structure, by Diane de France, daughter of Henri II (sixteenth century), the natal house of Lamoignon de Malesherbes, renowned for his defence of Louis XVI. Alphonse Daudet lived here for a time. Close by was the prison la Petite Force, a woman’s prison, too well known in Revolution days by numerous notable women of the time. In Rue de Sévigné, which begins here, we turn at No. 11 into the garden of a bathing establishment on the site of a smaller hôtel Lamoignon, where in 1790 Beaumarchais built the théâtre du Marais, otherwise l’Athénée des Étrangers, with materials from the demolished Bastille. Here we see before us one single wall of the demolished prison de la Force, and an indication of the spot where thirty royalist prisoners were put to death. Rue de Jarente, so named from the Prior of the monastic institution, Ste-Catherine du Val des Escholiers, erewhile here, shows us an old fountain in the Impasse de la Poissonnerie. Rue d’Ormesson stretches across the eighteenth-century priory fish market.
CHAPTER XII
THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL
WE come now to the interesting old-world quarter behind and surrounding the church St-Paul and the Lycée Charlemagne, the site of the palace St-Pol of ancient days. The church, as we see it, dates from 1641, replacing a tiny Jesuit chapel built in the previous century and dedicated to St. Louis. Its first stone was laid by Louis XIII, and the chapel built from the designs of two Jesuit priests, aided by the architect Vignole. Hence the term Jesuite used in France for the ornate Renaissance style of architecture we see in the façade of the church before us. Richelieu, newly ordained, celebrated his first Mass here in 1641, and defrayed the cost of completing the church by the erection of the great portal. The heart of Louis XIII and of Louis XIV were buried here beneath sumptuous monuments. At the Revolution the Tiers État, held their first assembly in the old church St-Pol, soon razed to the ground by the insurgents. The Jesuits’ chapel was saved from destruction by the books from suppressed convents which had been piled up within it, forming thus a barricade. The dome was the second erected in Paris. The holy water scoops were a gift from Victor Hugo at the baptism of his first child born in the parish.
Turning into Rue St-Paul we see at No. 35 the doorway of the demolished hôtel de Sève. In the Passage St-Paul, till 1877 Passage St-Louis, we find at No. 7 the presbytère, once, tradition says, a pied-à-terre of the grand Condé, and at No. 38 an old courtyard. At No. 36 vestiges of the prison originally part of the convent founded by St. Éloi in the time of Dagobert.[C] The arched Passage St-Pierre which led in olden days to the cemetery St-Pol, the burial-place of so many notable persons: Rabelais, Mansart, etc., and of prisoners from the Bastille, the man in the iron mask among them, has lately been swept away, with some walls of the old convent close up against it. The Manège till recent days at No. 30 was in days past a favourite meeting place of the people when in disaccord with the authorities in politics or on industrial questions. At No. 31 we look into Rue Éginhard, the Ruelle St-Pol of the fourteenth century; the walls of some of its houses once formed part of the old church St-Pol. At No. 8 we see the square turret of an old-hôtel St-Maur. At No. 4, l’hôtel de Vieuville, an interesting fifteenth-and sixteenth-century building, condemned to demolition, which has been inhabited by notable personages of successive periods. Passing through the black-walled court we mount a fine old-time staircase to find halls with beautiful mouldings, a wonderful frescoed ceiling, etc. etc., all in the possession at present of a well-known antiquarian. No. 5, doorway of l’hôtel de Lignerac. In Rue Ave-Maria, its site covered in past days by two old convents, we see at No. 15 an hôtel where was once the tennis-court of the Croix-Noire, in its day the “Illustre Théâtre” with Molière as its chief and whence the great tragedian was led for debt to durance vile at the Châtelet. No. 2 was once “la Boucherie Ave-Maria.”
Rue Charlemagne was known by various names till this last one given in 1844—one of its old names, Rue des Prêtres, is still seen engraved in the wall at No. 7. The petit Lycée Charlemagne has among its walls part of one of the ancient towers of the boundary wall of Philippe-Auguste which passed in a straight line to the Seine at this point. It is known as Tour Montgomery and shelters a ... gas meter! The remains of another tower are seen behind the gymnasium. Before 1908 the last remaining walls of the hôtel du Prévôt still stood in Passage Charlemagne, a picturesque turreted Renaissance bit of “Old Paris” let out in tenements, the last vestiges of the historic mansion where many notable persons, royal and other, had sojourned. Interesting old-time features are seen at Nos. 18, 21, 22, 25; No. 25 underwent restoration in recent years.
In Rue du Prévôt we see more old-time vestiges. Rue du Figuier dates from about 1300 when a fig-tree flourished there, cut down three centuries later. Nos. 19-15, now a Jewish hospice, was the abode of the Miron, royal physicians from 1550 to 1680. Every house shows some relic. At No. 5 we come upon an old well and steps in the courtyard. No. 8 was perhaps the home of Rabelais. At No. 1 we find ourselves before the turreted hôtel de Sens, built between 1474 and 1519, on the site of a private mansion given by Charles V to the archbishops of Sens, who at that time had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Paris. Ecclesiastics of historic fame, and at one time Marguerite de Valois, la Reine Margot, dwelt there during the succeeding 150 years. Then Paris became an archbishopric, and this fine hôtel de Sens was abandoned—let. It has served as a coaching house, a jam manufactory, finally became a glass store and factory, and in part a Jewish synagogue. In Rue du Fauconnier, Nos. 19, 17, 15, are ancient. Rue des Jardins, where stretched the gardens of the old Palais St-Pol, has none but ancient houses. At No. 5 we see a hook which served of yore to hold the chain stretched across the street to close it. Molière lived there in 1645. Rabelais died there.
Crossing Rue St-Paul we come to Rue des Lions, recalling the royal menagerie once there. Fine old mansions lie along its whole length. At No. 10 we find a beautiful staircase; another at No. 12, dating from the reign of Louis XIII, and in the courtyard at No. 3 we see an ancient fountain. At No. 14 there was till recent times the fountain “du regard des lions.” No. 17 formed part of l’hôtel Vieuville. Chief among the ancient houses of Rue Charles V is No. 12, l’hôtel d’Antoine d’Aubray, father of the notorious woman-poisoner, la Brinvilliers, with its graceful winding staircase. Here Mme de Brinvilliers tried to bring about the assassination of her lover Briancourt by her other lover Ste-Croix. Nuns, nursing sisters, live there now. Rue Beautreillis was in bygone days the site of a vine-covered trellis in the gardens of the historic palace St-Pol made up of l’hôtel Beautreillis and other fine hôtels confiscated from his nobles by King Charles V, and at No. 1 we see an ancient and truly historic vine climbing a trellis, its origin lost in the mist of centuries. Is it really, as some would have it, a relic of the vines that gave grapes for the table of Charles V? All the houses here are ancient. No. 10 was the mansion of the duc de Valentinois, prince de Monaco in 1640. We see ancient houses along Rue du Petit Musc, a fourteenth-century street. No. 1 is the south side of l’École Massillon (see p. 326). We cross boulevard Henri IV to the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, its walls in part, the Arsenal built by Henri IV on the site of a more ancient one, restored in the first half of the eighteenth century, its façade entirely rebuilt under Napoléon III. The name of Sully given to the bridge and the street reminds us that the statesman lived at the Arsenal. There Mme de Brinvilliers was tried and condemned to death. The Arsenal was done away with by Louis XVI, streets cut across the site of most of its demolished walls. What remained became the library we see; it has counted among its librarians men of special distinction: Nodier, Hérédia, etc., and is now under the direction of the well-known man of letters Funck-Brentano. Various relics of past days and of old-time inhabitants are to be seen there and traces of the boundary wall of Charles V. Rue de la Cerisaie, hard by, is another street recalling the palace gardens—for cherry-trees then grew here. On the site of No. 10 Gabrielle d’Estrées was seized with her last illness while at the supper-table of its owner, the friend of her loyal lover. The houses here are all ancient and characteristic, as are also those in Rue Lesdiguières where till the first years of this present century the wall of a dependency of the Bastille still stood.