In the year 1833 a private person was for the first time named Director of the Comédie Française. Jouslin de La Salle was his name, and he was succeeded, first by M. Vedel, in 1837, and afterwards by M. Buloz, Director of the Revue des Deux Mondes. In 1852 the affairs of the theatre were entrusted to a committee of six members of the Comédie Française under the direction of an “administrator”; the first administrator being M. Arsène Houssaye, the well-known author and journalist. M. Houssaye was replaced in 1856 by M. Empis, and M. Empis in 1860 by M. Édouard Thierry, a dramatist. The present director is M. Perrin. The subvention paid by the Government to the Comédie Française was fixed definitively in 1856 at 240,000 francs a year. Among the actors and actresses who have appeared at this famous establishment, often pleasantly described as La Maison de Molière (though Molière, as already seen, never set foot in it), may be mentioned Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mdlle. Mars, Mdlle. Clairon, Mdlle. Contat, Mdlle. Raucourt, Talma, Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, not to name many excellent comedians who in the present day are almost as well known in London as in Paris.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Comédie Française was born Adrienne Lecouvreur. Less perhaps from the influence of the genius loci than from a desire to imitate the actors and actresses whom, from day to day, she must have seen passing her door, little Adrienne accustomed herself at an early age to act plays and scenes from plays with her young companions. Adrienne’s talent was soon noticed by an inferior actor named Legrand, who, after teaching her some of the tricks of his trade, procured an engagement for her somewhere in Alsace. It was in the provinces that she formed her style; and for so long a time did she wander about from theatre to theatre that she was already twenty-seven years of age when an engagement was offered her at the Comédie Française. Here she was equally successful in tragedy and in comedy, though in the latter line her impersonations seem to have been chiefly confined to high comedy. Thus one of her best parts was that of Célimène in the Misanthrope. Adrienne was well acquainted with Voltaire when Count Maurice de Saxe, one of the innumerable natural children of Augustus II., King of Poland—Carlyle’s Augustus the Strong—came to try his fortune in Paris. This was in the year 1720. In the first instance he met with no luck; and he had to wait a considerable time before he could get a simple regiment together. “Although he was scarcely twenty-four years of age,” says a remarkable writer of the time, “Maurice had already made eleven campaigns and repudiated one wife. He joined,” continues this unconscious humourist, “to the strength of his father the uncultured youth and fiery disposition of a sort of nomad, somewhat like our Du Guesclin, whom ladies used to call the wild boar. Under the guise of a Sarmatian, Adrienne discovered the hero, and undertook to polish the soldier. She was then thirty years of age, and had gained the experience and the passion which render a woman alike skilful to please and prompt to love.”

Adrienne Lecouvreur was carried off, after a short and somewhat mysterious illness, on the 20th of March, 1730. So sudden was her death that the public, who adored her, would not believe that it arose from natural causes; and the Duchess de Bouillon, known to be her rival and her implacable enemy, was declared by everyone to be her murderess. According to the story current at the time she owed her death to a box of poisoned sweetmeats, treacherously presented to her, though Scribe and Legouvé, in their well-known play, make her die from the effect of a poisoned bouquet given to her by the duchess, in feigned admiration of her genius. All that is really known on the subject is to be found in the “Memoirs” of the Abbé Annillon, the “Letters” of Mdlle. Aïssé, and a note appended to one of these letters by Voltaire himself.

As the Duchess de Bouillon, according to Mdlle. Aïssé, was capricious, violent, impulsive, and much addicted to love affairs, she might well be considered one of those “brazen women who, finding an untroubled calm in crime, succeed in acquiring a brow that knows no blush.” It may readily be believed, too, that Adrienne made every point tell, so that the duchess, brazen-faced as she might be, would feel wounded to the quick. So appropriate were the verses and so clear was the intention of the much-loved actress in applying them, that the audience, in full sympathy with her, applauded to the point of wild enthusiasm.

Voltaire, on the other hand, wrote in a manuscript note appended to Mdlle. Aïssé’s narrative: “She died in my arms of inflammation of the bowels, and it was I who caused the body to be opened. All that Mdlle. Aïssé says on the subject is mere popular rumour without any foundation.”

If the French clergy objected usually to bury actors and actresses with religious rites, they were scarcely likely to make an exception in favour of an actress who had died in the arms of Voltaire. Her body, then, was thrown “à la voirie,” as the author of Candide puts it, or, to be exact, was buried somewhere on the banks of the Seine, in the neighbourhood of a wharf, the interment being made secretly and at midnight, as though poor Adrienne had been a criminal. The Abbé Languet, Curé of Saint-Sulpice, the parish to which Adrienne Lecouvreur belonged, after taking the orders of the Archbishop, had refused to admit her body to the cemetery, and all hope of a Christian burial was then abandoned. The intolerance of the archbishop and of the priest provoked from Voltaire some indignant verses, beginning as follows:—

Voltaire, in writing the poem from which the above stanza is quoted, had simply obeyed his own natural impulse. His verses were not intended for publication, for he knew that if they were seen by the clergy they might get him into trouble. He simply sent a copy of the poem to his friend Thiériot, and perhaps to others, with a strong recommendation to keep it secret. The first thing, however, that Thiériot seems to have done was to take Voltaire’s verses with him into society, where he was always received in the character of “Voltaire’s friend.” The poet had probably exaggerated the danger. The clergy could have no wish to re-awaken the scandal caused by the circumstances of Adrienne Lecouvreur’s burial, and though Voltaire left Paris when he found that his poem on the death of Adrienne was being circulated everywhere in manuscript, there does not seem to have been any necessity for this species of flight. The place of Adrienne’s burial, which long remained unknown, was discovered years afterwards, during some work of excavation and demolition. Voltaire and Maurice de Saxe were both dead; but an old friend of hers, named D’Argental, was still living, and he hastened to mark the spot by a tablet to her memory.

From 1814 to 1818 the theatre was changed into a café-concert, inappropriately entitled Café de la Paix. This establishment became famous during the Hundred Days. Men of different periods met there as on some appointed fighting-ground; and as a result of many violent scenes the house had to be closed.

After the Revolution of 1830 the theatre, still associated with the name of Mdlle. Montansier, was restored to its original purpose. Entirely reconstructed, it was opened to the public in June, 1831, under the title of Théâtre du Palais Royal. A company of excellent comedians had been engaged, many of whom, such as Alcide, Tousez, Achard, Levassor (who loved to impersonate eccentric Englishmen), Grassot, Ravel, and the fascinating Virginie Déjazet, were to attain European fame. Here were produced a number of highly diverting pieces, several of which have become known in translated or adapted form at our London theatres; for example, Indiana et Charlemagne (Antony and Cleopatra); Le Chapeau de Paille d’Italie (A Wedding March); La Chambre aux deux Lits (The Double-Bedded Room); Grassot embêté par Ravel (Seeing Wright); Un Garçon de chez Véry (Whitebait at Greenwich); with many others.

The liveliest and most risky pieces of the French stage have for the most part seen the light at the Palais Royal Theatre. These productions were, not without reason, considered in a general way unfit for the ears of young girls; and it became one of the recognised privileges of the married woman to be able in her new state to witness a Palais Royal farce. Even wives, however, in many cases thought it as well, while seeing, not to be seen at the Palais Royal; and for the benefit of such ladies were provided an extra number of loges grillées—those loges grillées, otherwise petites loges, one of which a certain abbé wished to have for the first performance of The Marriage of Figaro, when the author declined, declaring with indignant satire that he had “no sympathy with those who wished to unite the honours of virtue with the pleasures of vice.”

The petite loge of France, like the private box of England, is comparatively a modern invention. In neither country were such things known till the end of the last century; and it is probable that, like most other theatrical novelties, they were imported, not from England into France, but from France into England. Even thirty or forty years ago private boxes were much less numerous at our English theatres than they have since become. They have increased in proportion as the pit has diminished, and, in some theatres, entirely disappeared. On their first introduction they were unpopular in both countries.

The “King’s Library”—Francis I. and the Censorship—The Imperial Library—The Bourse.

THE most interesting edifice in the Rue Richelieu is the Library, called, according to the existing form of Government, Royal, National, or Imperial. Its original title was King’s Library (Bibliothèque du Roi), and it has been suggested that, to avoid the frequent changes of name to which the instability of things in France seems to expose this valuable institution, it should be called, once for all, Bibliothèque de France. The nucleus of the National Library, with its innumerable volumes, was formed by Charles V., and received considerable additions, considerable at least for the time, when books were scarce, from Louis XI. Under the reign of the latter sovereign so much value was attached to books of a rare character that, to obtain the loan of a certain volume written by the Arabian physician Rhazes, the king had to furnish security, and bind himself by the most solemn obligations to return it. According to Dulaure, this pious monarch had but a poor reputation for returning books, combined with an eagerness for getting them into his possession. “In 1472,” says the author of “The History of Paris” and of the “Singularités Historiques,” “Hermann Von Stathoen came from Mayence to Paris entrusted by the famous printers Scheffer and Hanequis to sell a certain number of printed books. While at Paris he was attacked by fever and died. In virtue of the droit d’aubain the king’s officers took possession of the books and money of the defunct, sending the latter to the king’s exchequer and the former to the king’s library. This proceeding was by no means to the taste of Scheffer and Hanequis, who complained to the emperor, and obtained from him letters addressed to Louis XI. in which the French king was invited to restore both books and money. Louis XI. admitted the justice of the claim, and on the twenty-first of April, 1475, issued Letters Patent in these terms: ‘Desiring to treat favourably the subjects (Scheffer and Hanequis) of the Archbishop of Mayence, and having regard to the trouble and labour which the persons in question have had in connection with the art and craft of printing, and to the profit and utility derived from it, both for the public good and for the increase of learning; and considering that the value and estimation of the said books and other property which have come to our knowledge do not amount to more than 2,425 crowns and three sous, at which the claimants have valued them, we have for the above considerations and others liberally condescended to cause the said sum of 2,425 crowns and three sous to be restored to the said Conrad Hanequis.’” Dulaure, after citing this letter, adds that the restitution was made in such a manner that the printers received every year from the King’s Treasury a mere driblet of 800 livres, or francs, until the entire sum had been repaid.

Louis XII. had formed a library of his own at Blois, to which he added those collected by his predecessors. Francis I., called the Father of Letters, honoured writers, and had a particular taste for manuscripts; but he detested printed books, and, like the reactionists of the period, deplored the invention of printing, which the previous occupants of his throne had looked upon as of the greatest benefit to mankind. On the 13th of June, 1535, he ordered all the printing offices in the kingdom to be closed, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, the printing of any fresh books. Some have supposed that the king’s sole object was, by preventing the reproduction of books, to keep up the value of the manuscripts which he so much prized. Against this view, however, must be placed the fact that when, in reply to remonstrances from various deputations, he rescinded his order against the printing offices a month after its issue, he at the same time limited the number of printing offices to twelve, which were only allowed to print books approved beforehand and deemed absolutely necessary. Thus Francis I. must be regarded as the inventor of that nefarious institution, the Censorship, which followed the invention of printing as shadow follows light. After the lapse of a century or two, the Censorship was destined to do harm to France, even in a commercial sense; for numbers of books which the Censor would never have allowed to be brought out in France were printed and sold in England, Holland, and Germany.

A decree of Henri II. had ordered all booksellers to send copies of whatever works they produced to the king’s library; and this was renewed and made thoroughly effective by the Great Monarch.

In 1697 the Mission of Father Bouvet brought back from China sixty-two volumes in the Chinese language and presented them to the Royal library. These books formed the nucleus of a collection which since that time has gone on constantly augmenting. In 1700 the Archbishop of Rheims presented to the Royal library five hundred Hebrew, Greek, and Latin manuscripts; and it received in the same year two manuscripts from Spanvenfeld, master of the ceremonies at the Court of Stockholm. In this year, too, a number of Latin manuscripts, including the works of Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus, were bought at Rome for the French library.

In 1706 an ingenious theft was committed at this library by an apostate priest named Aymon. Wishing, as he said, to consult certain works in order to demonstrate the errors of heretics, he asked for a number of manuscripts, and, carrying them off, sold them at large prices in Holland.

After the Revolution, the Republican Government threw open to all comers a library which had previously been reserved for the use of a privileged few; and for many years the libraries of the French capital (for others in addition to the library founded by the French kings had now been formed) were the only ones in Europe which could be entered by the public at large. This fact scarcely harmonises with the assertion made by many writers, and insisted upon by M. Castil Blaze, that the Grand Opéra was installed by the Republican Government in a house just opposite the famous library in order that when the Opera House met with the usual fate of theatres the library facing it might at the same time be burnt. A few members of the Commune of Paris may have been wild enough to declaim against all literature produced before the Revolution, on the supposition that it must of necessity be impregnated with feudal, monarchical, and generally anti-Liberal ideas. But the Republic as a whole proved in many ways its love of enlightenment. It was the Republic which established all over France colleges and gymnasiums at fees of a few shillings a month; which called, free of cost, to the lectures of the College of France or la Sorbonne all who wished to hear them, and fixed at a nominal sum the examination fee for students desiring to receive degrees in arts or sciences from the University of Paris.

During the Napoleonic period the Imperial Library, as it was now called, was enriched with numerous acquisitions from the countries invaded and conquered by the French army; and indignation is expressed even now by French writers at the spoils of war having been given back by the Allies, in their turn victorious, to the rightful owners. “The foreign powers,” writes on this subject an eminent French publicist, “profited by their position after the fall of the Empire to claim all that had been carried away from their libraries at the time of our victories, now as trophies, now in virtue of formal stipulations in the treaties of peace. Austria was the first to demand restitution, and all that was taken from Vienna in 1809 had been given back when the return of Napoleon from Elba put an end to any further dealings in such matters. In 1815, after the Waterloo Campaign, Austria demanded for the Italian provinces annexed to her empire, and for Italy generally, all the works of literature and art that our armies had taken from the Italians; and on the 4th of October, 1815, we were deprived of a magnificent artistic monument acquired through the bravery of our soldiers.”

If anyone, Frenchman or foreigner, enters a public library in Paris to look at any particular book he cannot, as at the British Museum Library, consult the catalogue himself; one of the librarians will do this for him, and do it in effect as well as such a thing can be done. But the reader must know beforehand what book, or, at least, what kind of book he wants. However learned and however attentive a librarian may be, he is not likely to make his researches with the same assiduity and care as the earnest student occupied with one sole object. On the other hand, the librarian, as a man of learning, will know the literature of any one subject better than the ordinary student, and much better than the casual reader.

Besides the National Library of the Rue Richelieu, Paris possesses the Mazarin Library, the Library of the Arsenal, of Sainte-Geneviève, of the Institute, of the Town, of the Louvre, of the National Assembly, of the Senate, and of a number of museums and learned societies.

As for the readers, they are as varied in character and often as original as those of our own British Museum. In the French, as in the English, reading-room one sees, side by side with writers of distinction, unhappy scribblers, who, in London, when the Museum closes at night, look at the thermometer and weathercock to see if Hyde Park or the casual ward be the wiser dormitory. It is merely to avoid ennui that many readers resort alike to the Bibliothèque Nationale and to our own Museum. Men of private means, at once with and without resources, can there escape from their own society, and, whatever their taste in literature, find relief in some book. Noise is carefully prevented, and there are even readers who volunteer active aid in maintaining silence. If anyone, for instance, speaks above a whisper, they hiss at him like serpents, or, wheeling round in their chairs, fold their arms and glare at him until he desists and leaves them once more to their sepulchral pursuits.

Both in France and in England the public libraries have two other classes of readers. First, there is the somnolent reader, who stares for a few minutes vacantly at a book, drops, nods, and finally collapses with a snore. The music of the nose, however, is against the rules, and promptly brings down an “attendant.” On the other hand—though, fortunately, as a rare specimen—we find the particularly wakeful reader, who in his neighbour’s absence makes a clean sweep of that gentleman’s property, and who is apt to attire himself in the wrong hat and overcoat, and to walk off with an innocent and even injured air.

The most important edifice in the Rue Vivienne—or, rather, in the open space which a portion of the Rue Vivienne faces—is the Bourse, or Exchange, of which the architecture so closely resembles that of the Madeleine. Yet there is nothing in the Bourse to suggest a house of prayer. At the entrance of the St. Petersburg Bourse stands a chapel, in which the operator for the rise or for the fall may invoke the protection of Heaven for the success of his own particular speculation. The noise of the dealers crying out prices and shouting offers and acceptances is far less suggestive of the “House of God” than of a “den of thieves,” to which, it must be feared, it presents in many respects a considerable likeness.

The origin of the word “Bourse,” which has been adopted by almost every country in Europe, with the striking exception of England, seems evident enough, though it would be a mistake to suppose that it is derived from bourse, a purse. According to the best etymologist, the name of Bourse comes from the Exchange established in the sixteenth century at Bruges in the house of one Van der Bourse, who, in the well-known punning spirit of heraldry, had adopted for his arms three bourses or purses.

The most ancient Bourse in France is said to be that of Lyons; and the next ancient that of Toulouse, which dates from 1549. The Bourse of Rouen was established a few years later, while that of Paris was not legally constituted until 1724.

The Bourse was at first installed in the Hôtel de Nevers, in the Rue Richelieu, where the National Library is now established. After the Revolution, the Bourse was for a time closed by the Convention. But it was soon re-opened, and under the Directory was located in the Church of the Petits Pères. Under the Consulate and the Empire the Bourse was held in the Palais Royal. The Restoration moved it to the Rue Feydau, and it there remained until in 1826 it was definitively fixed in the palatial abode which it now occupies.

The cost of building the Bourse as it now exists was defrayed by a subscription among the merchants of Paris, assisted by a grant from the State and from the city. Until Napoleon’s time, or, at least, from the period of the Revolution to that of the Empire, the occupation of stockbroker or agent de change was free to all who chose to take out a licence. Napoleon, however, limited the number of agents de change, or, as it turned out, the number of their firms, for it soon became the practice for several persons to club together in order to buy the necessary licence and to deposit the caution money.

The Bourse, in marked opposition to the rigid rule observed at our own Stock Exchange, was open to everyone until 1856, when the price of admission was fixed at one franc to the financial, and half a franc to the commercial department. An annual ticket of admission could be obtained for 150 francs to the financial side, and seventy-eight francs to the commercial. This species of tax was imposed with the view of restraining the passion for speculation which had sprung up among the lower classes, but it was abolished by M. Achille Fould, Napoleon III.’s able Finance Minister, in 1862.

The hours of the Bourse, as fixed by law, not being sufficiently long for the tastes or necessities of speculators, supplementary bourses under the name of Petite Bourse, have from time to time been held in the Passage de l’Opéra and on the Boulevard des Italiens. These informal assemblies are sometimes tolerated, sometimes repressed, by the Government.

Ponsard, in one of his versified comedies, describes the Paris Bourse as (to translate the poet freely)—

The Louvre—Origin of the Name—The Castle—Francis I.—Catherine de Medicis—The Queen’s Apartments—Louis XIV. and the Louvre—The “Museum of the Louvre”—The Picture Galleries—The Tuileries—The National Assembly—Marie Antoinette—The Palace of Napoleon III.—Petite Provence.

THE origin of the Louvre is remote and the etymology of the word obscure. In the absence of any more probable derivation, philologists have fixed upon that of lupus, or rather in the Latin of the lower empire, lupara. According to this view, the ancient palace of the French kings was originally looked upon as a wolf’s den, or it may be as a hunting-box from which to chase the wolf. The word “louvre” is said at one time to have been used as the equivalent of a royal palace or castle, and in support of this view the following lines are quoted from La Fontaine’s fable of “The Lion, the King of Beasts,” in which the monarch of the forest is represented as inviting the other animals to his “louvre.”

This, however, only proves that the name of a French palace which had existed since the beginning of the thirteenth century could be used in La Fontaine’s time as a name for the palace of any king. “According to some,” says M. Vitet, “the Louvre was founded by Childebert; according to others, by Louis Le Gros. It was either a place from which to hunt the wolf, a ‘louveterie’ (lupara), or, according to another view, a fortress commanding the river in front of the city. It seems probable that before the time of Philip Augustus there was a fortified castle where now stands the Louvre, and that this king simply altered it, and indeed reconstructed it, but was not its founder. The historians of the time speak frequently of the great tower built in 1204 by this prince, to which the name of New Tower was given; an evident sign of the existence of some other more ancient tower. It was not in any case until 1204 that, for the first time, the name of Louvre was officially pronounced. Until then the field is open to conjectures.”

Whatever meaning was attached to the word, it is certain that when in 1204 Philip Augustus built or reconstructed the Louvre he gave it the form, the defences, and the armament of a fortress. It was the strong point in the line of fortifications with which this monarch surrounded Paris.

The first existing document in which the Louvre is mentioned by name is an account of the year 1205 for provisions and wine consumed by citizens who in the Louvre had done military duty.

The castle was at that time in the form of a large square, in the midst of which was a big tower, with its own independent system of defence. The tower was 144 feet in circumference, and 96 feet in height. Its walls were 13 feet thick near the basement, and 12 feet in the upper part. A gallery at the top put it in communication with the buildings of the first enclosure, and it served at once as treasury and as prison. Here Ferrand, Count of Flanders, was confined by Philip Augustus in 1214, after the victory of Bouvines. John IV., Duke of Brittany, Charles II., King of Navarre, and John II., Duke of Alençon, were among many other illustrious prisoners shut up in the Big Tower or donjon of the ancient Louvre.

Louis IX. arranged in the west wing of the Louvre a large hall, which was long known as the Chamber of St. Louis. Charles V. enlarged and embellished the Louvre. He added to it another storey, and did all in his power to change what had hitherto been a purely military building into a convenient and agreeable place of abode. The architecture of the building, originally constructed for use, not show, was in many respects improved, and the gates were surmounted with ornaments and pieces of sculpture. The reception rooms were away from the river, and looked out upon a street long since disappeared, called La Rue Froidmanteaux. The apartments of the king and queen looked out upon the river.

Each of the towers was designated by a particular name, according to its history, or the purpose it was intended to serve. The Big Tower was also called the Ferrand Tower, from the Count of Flanders having been confined in it; and there were also the Library Tower, where Charles V. had brought together 959 volumes, which formed the nucleus of the National Library; the Clock Tower, the Horseshoe Tower, the Artillery Tower, the Sluice Tower, the Falcon Tower, the Hatchet Tower, the tower of the Great Chapel, the tower of the Little Chapel, the Tournament Tower (where the king took up his position to see tournaments and jousts), besides others. Charles V. added to the Louvre a number of buildings for tradespeople and domestics, whose services had to be dispensed with when the Louvre was purely a military building. Such names as pantry, pastry, saucery, butlery, were given to the different buildings and departments by the bakers, the pastry-cooks, the makers of sauces, and the keepers of the wine.

The gardens of the Louvre, though not very extensive, were greatly admired. Here were to be seen aviaries, a menagerie of wild beasts, and lists for different kinds of sports and combats. Charles VI., who lived by preference at the Hôtel St. Pol, increased the fortifications of the Louvre, and sacrificed to that end the gardens of the king and queen on the side of the river. The succeeding kings until the time of Francis I. occupied themselves very little with the Louvre, and scarcely ever resided there.

During this first period of its history, from Philip Augustus until Francis I., the Louvre was the scene of numerous historical events. In 1358, during the captivity of King John in England, the citizens of Paris, in support of the deputies of the communes in the States-General, besieged and took the Louvre, driving away the governor, and carrying off to the Hôtel de Ville all the arms and ammunition they could find in the arsenal of the fortress. Soon afterwards the governor, Pierre Gaillard, was decapitated by order of the Dauphin Regent for making so poor a defence. It was at the Louvre, moreover, in 1377, that the Emperor of Germany, Charles IV., allied himself with Charles V. of France, to make war upon England.

In 1399, Andronicus, and in 1400, Manuel Palæologus, both Emperors of Constantinople, were entertained at the Louvre, as were also, in 1415, Sigismund, Emperor of Germany, and, in 1422, the King and Queen of England.

When Francis I. ascended the throne, the Louvre regained all its importance as a royal residence. The king began by pulling down the Big Tower, constructed by Philip Augustus, which cast its shadow over the whole of the palace, and gave it the look of a prison. Twelve years later (1539), when the Emperor Charles V. visited Paris, Francis I. determined to receive him, not in the Hôtel des Tournelles, where he was living at the time, but in the old palace of the French kings. He undertook various repairs, and covered the crumbling walls with paintings and tapestry. Everything, too, was regilt, “even,” says a chronicler, “to the weather-cocks.” Finally the space comprised between the river and the moat of the castle was laid out in lists for tournaments.