Part 1

NOOKS AND CORNERS OF OLD PARIS

NOOKS & CORNERS OF OLD PARIS

_by_ GEORGES CAIN

CURATOR OF THE CARNAVALET MUSEUM AND OF THE HISTORIC COLLECTIONS OF THE CITY OF PARIS

_With a Preface by_ VICTORIEN SARDOU

WITH OVER A HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON E. GRANT RICHARDS 1907

_The Translation has been made by_ FREDERICK LAWTON, M.A.

DEDICATED TO A. G. LENÔTRE IN TOKEN OF MOST SINCERE AFFECTION

G. C. _December_ 1905.

LIST OF ENGRAVINGS

1. The Rue du Chaume in 1866 (to-day, the Rue des Archives) _Frontispiece_ 2. The Place de la Bastille and the Elephant xvii 3. Demolition of the Rue Sainte-Hyacinthe-Saint-Michel, opposite to the Rue Soufflot xxiii 4. The Town Hall in 1838 xxvii 5. The Pont-Neuf about 1850 xxxi 6. The Louvre about 1785 xxxv 7. The Courtyard of the Carrousel and the Museums about 1848 xxxix 8. The Garden of the Palais Royal in 1791 xliii 9. The Place de la Concorde xlvii 10. Patrol Road leading from the Barrier of the Etoile in 1854 (to-day the Avenue de Wagram) liii 11. The Carnavalet Museum lix 12. The Pont-Royal, the Tuileries, and the Louvre (eighteenth century) lxiii 13. View of the Pont-Neuf, taken from an oval window in the Colonnade of the Louvre 67 14. Workshops and Foundations of the City Barracks in 1864-1865 71 15. View of Notre-Dame 75 16. The "Petit-Pont" 79 17. The Old Prefecture of Police (formerly Jerusalem Street) 81 18. The Sainte-Chapelle in 1875 83 19. Opening up of the space in front of the Palais de Justice 85 20. The Cour des Filles in the Conciergerie 89 21. The Triumph of Marat 93 22. The Dauphine Square in 1780 97 23. The Pont Marie in 1886 103 24. The Isle of Saint-Louis 107 25. The College of Louis-le-Grand 111 26. The Inner Courtyard of the École Polytechnique 113 27. The Rue Clovis in 1867 115 28. The Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève in 1866 119 29. The Panthéon, in building 121 30. Procession in front of Sainte-Geneviève 123 31. The Apotheosis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau 127 32. The Luxembourg, about 1790 131 33. Fraternal Suppers in the Sections of Paris 135 34. Fête given at the Luxembourg on the 20th of Frimaire, Anno VII. 139 35. The Rue de l'École de Médecine in 1866 (house where Marat was assassinated) 143 36. The Gallery of the Odéon (Rue Rotrou) 146 37. The Rohan Courtyard in 1901 147 38. The Rohan Courtyard in 1901 (second view) 151 39. The Rue Visconti 155 40. Alfred de Musset at 23 years of age 157 41. The Façade of the Institute 160 42. View from the Louvre Quay 161 43. Paris from the Pointe de la Cité 165 44. The Rue des Prêtres-Saint-Séverin in 1866 169 45. The Passage des Patriarches 173 46. The Rue Mouffetard 176 47. The Rue Galande 177 48. The Place Maubert 179 49. The Old Amphitheatre of Surgery at the corner of the Colbert Mansion 181 50. The Church of Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonneret and the Rue Saint-Victor 183 51. The Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre 186 52. The Jardin des Plantes--The Cedar of Lebanon and the Labyrinth 187 53. The Jardin des Plantes in the eighteenth century 191 54. The Jardin des Plantes--Cuvier's House 195 55. The Rue de Bièvre 199 56. The Bièvre Tanneries 203 57. The Bièvre about 1900--The Valence Mill-race 207 58. The Constantine Bridge and Stockade 211 59. The Pont-Royal in 1800 213 60. The Lesdiguières Mansion 215 61. Commemorative Ball on the Ruins of the Bastille 217 62. The Sens Mansion about 1835 221 63. The Provost Hugues Aubryot's Mansion--Charlemagne's Courtyard and Passage in 1867 227 64. The Place Royale about 1651 (now the Vosges Square) 231 65. The Rue Grenier-sur-l'Eau in 1866 235 66. The Saint-Paul Port 237 67. The Barbett Mansion 238 68. The Rue de Venise 243 69. The Rue du Renard-Saint-Merry 247 70. The Rue des Prouvaires and the Rue Saint-Eustache about 1850 250 71. The Central Market foot-pavement, near the Church of Saint-Eustache, in 1867 252 72. The Central Market in 1828 254 73. The Central Market in 1822 255 74. Molière's House in the Rue de la Tonnellerie 257 75. The Tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie about 1848 259 76. Alexander's Grand Cafè Royal on the Temple Boulevard 263 77. Fanchon, the Hurdy-Gurdy player 267 78. View of the Ambigu-Comique on the Temple Boulevard 271 79. The Funambules Theatre on the Temple Boulevard 273 80. The Ambigu Theatre and Boulevard about 1830 277 81. The Porte Saint-Martin 281 82. The Rue Saint-Martin in 1866--The Green-Wood Tower 284 83. The Rue de Cléry 285 84. The Poissonnière Boulevard in 1834 289 85. The Gymnase Theatre 292 86. The Variety Theatre about 1810 293 87. The Boulevards, the Hôtel de Salm, and Windmills of Montmartre 297 88. The Rue de la Barre at Montmartre 299 89. A Street in Montmartre 301 90. The Rue des Rosiers 303 91. The Place de la Concorde in 1829 305 92. Ingenuous Benevolence 307 93. The Place de la Concorde (second view) 309 94. The Entrance to the Tuileries, over the Swing Bridge, in 1788 311 95. Corner Pavilion of the Louis XV. Square about 1850 313 96. View in the Tuileries Gardens in 1808 315 97. The Rue Greuze in 1855 318 98. The Madrid Château 319 99. The Bagatelle Pavilion 322 100. A Performance at the Hippodrome under the Second Empire 323 101. The Arc de Triomphe about 1850 325

PREFACE

_Grandson and son of two rare and justly-renowned artists, P. J. Mène and Auguste Cain, my excellent friend, Georges Cain, has abundantly shown that he is the worthy inheritor of their talent. To-day, he wishes to prove that he knows how "to handle the pen as well as the pencil" as our Ancients used to say, and that the Carnavalet Museum has in him, not only the active and enthusiastic Curator that we constantly see at his task, but also the most enlightened guide possible in matters of Parisian lore; and so he has written this bewitching book which conjures up before me the Paris of my childhood and youth--the Paris of times gone by, which, in the course of centuries, has undergone many transformations, but not one so rapid and so complete as that which I have witnessed. The change, indeed, is such that, in certain quarters, I have difficulty in recognising, in the city of Napoleon III., that of Louis-Philippe. The latter would have been uninhabitable now, owing to the requirements of modern life, but it answered to the needs and customs of its time. People put up then with difficulties and defects that were judged unavoidable, no Capital being without them. And, in fact, in spite of its drawbacks and blemishes, the Paris of that period had its own charms._

_Most of its streets were very narrow and had no sidewalks. Pedestrians were obliged to take refuge, from passing carriages, on shop thresholds, under entrance gates, or else beside posts erected here and there for that purpose. Still, even in the densest traffic, one ran fewer risks walking along the road than one runs at present crossing the boulevards.... On these boulevards, where a single omnibus plied between the Madeleine and the Bastille every quarter of an hour, and where there was practically no danger of being knocked down by a horse, I have seen a crowd watching a fencing-bout on the spot to-day occupied by a refuge-pavement; and, on the Bastille Square, I used to play quietly, trundling my hoop round the Elephant and the July Pillar. There was little else to dread, throughout Paris, save splashes from the gutters, whose waters flowed in the middle of the streets ... when they flowed at all; for, during the hot summer days, there was nothing but stagnant household slops, which lay in the gutters until the next storm of rain. In winter, as the snow was never swept away, and the employment of salt for melting it was unknown, the thaws were something terrible! Every corner--and the houses being hardly ever in line, there were many--was used as a rubbish-heap, or for the committing of nuisances excusable only through lack of modern conveniences. Moreover, the streets, by very reason of their narrowness, were more noisy than ours. The rolling of heavy waggons over big, round paving-stones badly set, with jolts that shook both windows and houses; the constant cries of men and women selling fruit, vegetables, fish and flowers, &c. ... and pushing their handcarts, not to speak of dealers in clothes, umbrellas, and hand-brushes, of glaziers and of chimney-sweeps; the din of watermen blowing into their taps; the calls of water-bearers as they loudly clinked their bucket-handles; the clarionets and tambourines of strolling singers that went from one courtyard to another; all this composed the gaiety of the street. What was less tolerable was the incessant noise of barrel-organs beneath your windows from morning till evenings and inflicting on you a torture that it makes me angry to think of even now._

_To crown all, the lighting of the streets was wretched. In most, it was the ancient lamp whose illumination was an affair that stopped traffic while the operation lasted. On the other hand, however, the city was better guarded at night than it is at present, owing to the rounds of the "grey patrols" which, with their Indian files of cloak-muffled, slow-walking figures, crept along the walls and crossed one another's beats so as to be within helping distance, at the least alarm. Happy time, when, at one o'clock in the morning, in my lonely quarter, I was sure to come across one of them, and when one could stay out late without a revolver in one's pocket. This, it will be said, was because Paris was smaller, less populus, and the task of the police easier. But it is the duty of the police to proportion the protection to the danger, and the numbers of its officers to those of the evil-doers that infest our streets, for whom, formerly, little of the regard was felt that is lavished on them to-day._

_As a set-off to its narrow, badly-paved, badly-kept, and badly-lighted streets, Paris then had an attraction which it no longer possesses--its gardens._

_The idea formed of the old city is, generally, that of a heap of ancient houses with neither light, fresh air, nor verdure. In reality, the houses of the time, whether recent or old, existed only as a border to the street. Behind them, in the whole of the space that extended from one road to another, there were vast enclosures affording the sun, silence and verdure that did not exist in front. Many dwellings had fashioned, out of the grounds of mansions and convents parcelled up during the last century or two, large courtyards and private gardens which, separated merely by low fences, mingled their foliage and shade. This was so everywhere throughout the city, except in the part of it properly so called, and in the central portion near the Town Hall and the markets. A glance at the old plans of Paris will suffice to show that these unbuilt-on spaces comprised, under Louis XVI., the half, and, under Louis-Philippe, a third of the city's present area. In the Marais and Arsenal quarters, in the Saint-Antoine, Temple, and Popincourt faubourgs, in the Courtille, the Chaussée d'Antin, the Porcherons, the Roule quarters, in the Saint-Honoré faubourg, and along all the left bank of the river, which last was privileged in this respect, there were only scattered dwellings amidst orchards, kitchen-gardens, trellis-vineyards, farmyards, groves, and parks planted with century-old trees. The little that remains of this past is being rapidly destroyed; and, from the health and pleasure point of view, it is a great pity._

_From my window in the Rue d'Enfer, Estrapade Square, close to the blind alley of the Feuillantines, I used to cast my eyes, as far as I could see in every direction, over a wealth of foliage. In the Rue Neuve-Saint-Étienne, from the place where Bernardin de Saint-Pierre once lived, I beheld the towers of Notre Dame, beyond avenues of trimmed trees; and I could say, like the good Monsieur Rollin, in the distich engraved on his door a few yards away:_ Ruris et urbis incola, _that I was "an inhabitant both of the town and of the country." Through these gardens, through these silent streets so propitious to quiet labour, and scenting of lilacs and blossoming with pink and white chestnuts, new roads have been cut; the Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel Boulevards, the Rues de Rennes and Gay-Lussac, the Rue Monge which caused the demolition of the rustic cottage where Pascal died in the Rue Saint-Étienne itself; and the Rue Claude-Bernard which did away with the Feuillantines, where Victor Hugo, as a child, used to chase butterflies. Soon, the last of the monastic enclosures of the Saint-Jacques quarter, that of the Ursulines, will disappear to make room for three new streets!_

_The use of such small gardens, belonging mostly to private houses, was keenly appreciated by Parisians of the lower middle-classes who have always been of a stay-at-home disposition. This characteristic of theirs was satirised, during last century, in a well-known pamphlet: "A Journey from Paris to Saint-Cloud by Sea and by Land." Their curiosity with regard to far-off countries was not awakened as it is nowadays by stories of travel, and by engravings, photographs, or coloured advertisements. And getting from one place to another was very expensive. Railways had not yet made it easy for every one to go long distances by means of reduced fares and cheap circular tickets. An ordinary working man, in these modern times, will travel more easily to Biarritz, Switzerland, or Monte-Carlo, than an independent gentleman of the Marais could then have done. During the midsummer heat, Paris was as full as in winter's cold; and the theatres reaped their most abundant harvest, especially popular ones like the Ambigu, the Porte-Saint-Martin, the Gaieti, the Cirque, the Folies-Dramatiques, the Petit Lazary, Madame Saqui's, the Théâtre Historique, &c., which were situated near together about the Temple Boulevard. The fine weather allowed people living at long distances to come on foot to this dramatic fair, saving the price of a carriage both ways, and to make tail at the doors, without having to fear rain or cold; for the good-tempered public of those days, loving a play for its own sake, had no objection to be penned up so, between two barriers, while waiting for the opening of the ticket-offices, which then used to take place between five and six in the evening; it was one of the conditions, one of the stimulants of their pleasure, something to whet their appetite before the performance._

_Even the holidays did not empty Paris very perceptibly, except on the left bank of the Seine. From May to October, the majority of the middle-class--small shopkeepers, functionaries, retired people, as well as employees, clerks, and workers of every kind--contented themselves, like Paul de Kock's heroes, with excursions and picnics in the various Parisian suburbs--Vincennes, Montmorency, Saint-Cloud, Romainville, &c. In Paris, shopkeepers laid the cloth for a meal out in the open air, in the yard or garden, or, failing that, in the street. When I returned from my Sunday walk, at the dinner-hour, between four and five in the afternoon, I used to see, everywhere in the busiest streets, nothing but families at table before their doors, while boys and girls played about the road at shuttlecock, hot cockles, or blindman's buff. Occasionally, I was caught as I passed by some little girl with bandaged eyes, who, in order to recognise me, would feel my face, amid shouts of laughter from all the diners. And if, during the long summer evenings, I went with my companions to play at prisoners' base in the Rues de Vaugirard, or d'Enfer, or on the small Saint-Michel Square, the good folk, enjoying the fresh air on their doorsteps, paid no attention to us boys galloping all over the street._

_In a word, Paris was no different from the country-town!_

_These_ "bourgeois" _customs, which one might distinguish briefly by saying that they were "eighteen-hundred-and-thirty customs" survived till the 1848 Revolution, and persisted even into the Second Empire, when railway extension, the influx of strangers, great industrial and commercial enterprises, an increasing prosperity, the desire for comfort and luxury, a more active public life, keener competition, and the intenser struggle for life brought into existence our present customs and manners. It was a surprising transformation, one which was no little fostered by the creation of a new Paris on the ruins of the old. How often have I congratulated myself on having, from the time when I was fifteen years of age, devoted my holiday rambles to ferreting out, in the old quarters of the city now cut through, parcelled up and destroyed, the slightest vestiges of the past, as if I had foreseen that, within a brief delay, they would be reduced to dust by the demolisher's pick-axe._

_The Paris of Louis-Philippe was very nearly that of the Great Revolution and the First Empire. Each step in it awoke souvenirs that people thought but little of in my childhood, romanticism being more interested in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and more inquisitive about the massacre of Saint-Barthelemy than about those of September. It looked with tenderness at the old corner turret of the Grève Square, but gave no glance at the sign-post on the same Square, where the unfortunate Foulon was hanged. It deplored the disappearance of the Barbette Gate which marked the site where Charles d'Orléans was murdered, but did not suggest going to see, a few steps further, in the Rue des Ballets, the post where Madame de Lamballe's corpse was beheaded. Artists, novelists, poets, historians disdained these localities still warm from the Revolutionary drama, some episodes of which they claimed to relate. Ary Scheffer purports to show us the arrest of Charlotte Corday; but does not care to consult documents of the greatest exactitude that would have brought her before his eyes and ours with just her face, her attitude, and her dress. He does not even think to go to the Rue des Cordeliers and visit Marat's dwelling, still remaining as it was, including his bell rope. And he offers us a Charlotte of his own invention, cleverly painted, who looks like a chambermaid arrested by the porter, just as she is going off with her mistress's gown on her back!_

_In his_ "Stello," _Alfred de Vigny is quite as indifferent to local colouring as he is to facts. He places André Chénier's scaffold "on the Revolution Square" after taking him thither in a cart laden with more than "eighty victims, among them being some women with children sucking at the breast"!!!_

_It is the same with the rest!_

_Being more careful, I did not disdain the old stones that were humble witnesses of deeds so great; and, thanks to them, I was able to live through the Revolution again on the spot. They were fated to disappear. A new city cannot be built except on the remains of the old; and it is hard to reconcile the requirements of the present with the worship of the past. Indeed most of the old things, even those that might be saved, would have a sorry air amid the splendours of our modern City. What grieves me is to find that they have often been replaced in such a way as to cause one to regret their disappearance._

_As for the City, so called, it may be granted that the pulling down of its old buildings, its dark alleys, could only give pain to those whose passion is the picturesque, or to the admirers of the_ Mysteries of Paris. _Yet one must confess that, framed in its old close, Notre-Dame looked nobler than now at the end of a vast, desert space, where it seems to be stupidly posing before a photographer's camera, between the emptiness of the river and the frightful Town Hall, that might be taken for a slaughter-house._

_Nor was it necessary, when displacing the flower-market, to forbid the sellers' continuing the habit of improvising those pretty bowers of foliage and flowers, and to impose on them those zinc roofs that should shelter only artificial blooms,--not at all necessary, simply to complete the charm of the present administrative arbour._