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PREFACE
PREFACE
T HIS book, begun many years ago, was laid aside under the stress of other work, which did not, however, hinder the sedulous amassing of notes during my long and continuous residence in Paris. The appearance of the Marquis de Rochegude’s exhaustive work, on somewhat the same lines in a more extensive compass, took me by surprise, and I thought for a moment that it would render my book superfluous. The vast concourse of English-speaking people brought hither by the great war, people keen to learn
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CHAPTER I THREE PALACES
CHAPTER I THREE PALACES
T HE Louvre has existed on the selfsame site from the earliest days of the history of Paris and of France. It began as a rough hunting-lodge, erected in the time of the rois fainéants —the “do-nothing” kings: a primitive hut-like construction in the dark wolf-haunted forest to the north of the settlement on the islets of the Seine, called Leutekia, the city of mud, on account of its marshy situation, or Loutouchezi, the watery city, by its Gallic settlers, by the Romans Lutetia Parisiorum—the Pa
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CHAPTER II AMONG OLD STREETS
CHAPTER II AMONG OLD STREETS
R OUND about these old palaces and churches some ancient streets still remain and many old houses, relics of bygone ages. Others have been swept away to make room for up-to-date thoroughfares, shops and dwellings. Place de l’École and Rue de l’École record the existence of the famous school at St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, a catechists’ school in the first instance, of more varied scope in Charlemagne’s time, where the pupils took their lessons in the open air when fine or climbed into the font of the
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CHAPTER III THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT MARKETS
CHAPTER III THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE GREAT MARKETS
T HE legend telling us the great Paris Market was first called “les Alles”—no “H”—because everybody y allait , i.e. went there, need not be taken seriously. Even in remote mediæval times the markets had some covered premises or “Halles.” The earliest Paris market of which we have record takes us back to the year 1000, that momentous year predicted by sooth-sayers for the end of the world; few sowings, therefore, had been made the preceding season. The market stalls of that year were but scantily
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CHAPTER IV THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
CHAPTER IV THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE
T HE history of Paris and of France, from the earliest days of their story, is connected with the Palais de Justice on the western point of the island on the Seine. The palace stands on the site of the habitation of the rulers of Lutetia in the days of the Romans, of the first Merovingian and of the first Capetian kings. The present building, often reconstructed, restored, enlarged, dates in its foundations and some other parts from the time of Robert le Pieux. King Robert built the Conciergerie
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CHAPTER V THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE
CHAPTER V THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE
R UE DES PETITS-CHAMPS marks the boundary between the arrondissements I and II—the odd numbers in arrondissement I, the even ones in arrondissement II. The street was opened in 1634. Many of its old houses still stand and show us, without and within, some interesting architectural features of past days. The hôtel Tubeuf, No. 8, destined with adjoining mansions to become the Bibliothèque Nationale, was, tradition tells us, staked at the gambling table and won by the statesman Mazarin. The Cardina
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CHAPTER VI ROUND ABOUT THE ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION)
CHAPTER VI ROUND ABOUT THE ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION)
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 a
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CHAPTER VII THE TEMPLE
CHAPTER VII THE TEMPLE
O F 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
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CHAPTER VIII THE HOME OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
CHAPTER VIII THE HOME OF MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ
W E 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
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CHAPTER IX NOTRE-DAME
CHAPTER IX NOTRE-DAME
R UE 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. NO
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CHAPTER X L’ÎLE ST-LOUIS
CHAPTER X L’ÎLE ST-LOUIS
C ROSSING 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 of
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CHAPTER XI L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
CHAPTER XI L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
T HE 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
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CHAPTER XII THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL
CHAPTER XII THE OLD QUARTIER ST-POL
W E 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 styl
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CHAPTER XIII LA PLACE DES VOSGES
CHAPTER XIII LA PLACE DES VOSGES
H ERE we are on the old Place Royale—the place where royalties dwelt and courtiers disported in the days of Louis XIII, whose statue we see still in the centre of the big, dreary garden square. That statue was put there by Napoléon to replace the original one, carted away and melted down in Revolutionary days when the ci-devant Place Royale became Place des Fédérés, then Place de l’Indivisibilité. Napoléon first named it Place des Vosges, a name confirmed after 1870 as a tribute of gratitude to
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CHAPTER XIV THE BASTILLE
CHAPTER XIV THE BASTILLE
S O we come to Place de la Bastille. The famous prison which stood there from the end of the fourteenth century to the memorable summer of 1789, was built by Hugues Aubriot, Prévôt du Roi, as a fortified castle to protect the palais St-Pol close by, and Paris in general, against hostile inroads from the country beyond. Its form is well known. A perfect model of it is to be seen at Carnavalet, in that most interesting salle —the Bastille-room. It had eight towers each 23 mètres high, each with it
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CHAPTER XV IN THE VICINITY OF TWO ANCIENT CHURCHES
CHAPTER XV IN THE VICINITY OF TWO ANCIENT CHURCHES
C ROSSING the Seine by the Pont St-Michel we reach Place St-Michel, of which we will speak in another chapter, as it lies chiefly in arrondissement VI. Turning to the east, we come upon two of the oldest and most interesting of Paris churches and a very network of ancient streets, sordid enough some of them, but emphatically characteristic. Rue de la Huchette dates from the twelfth century; there in olden days two very opposite classes plied their trade:—the rotisseurs —turnspits, and the diamon
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CHAPTER XVI IN THE REGION OF THE SCHOOLS
CHAPTER XVI IN THE REGION OF THE SCHOOLS
W HEN St. Louis was on the throne of France the physician attendant upon his mother, la Reine Blanche, died bequeathing a sum of money for the institution of a college of theology. In consequence thereof Robert de Sorbon built the school for theological study, a very simple erection then, which developed into the great college adapted to studies of the most varied character, known as the Sorbonne: that was in the year 1253. Two hundred years later the first printing press in France was set up th
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CHAPTER XVII LA MONTAGNE STE-GENEVIÈVE
CHAPTER XVII LA MONTAGNE STE-GENEVIÈVE
R UE DE LA MONTAGNE STE-GENEVIÈVE, leading to the hill-top from Boulevard St-Germain, went in twelfth-century days by the unæsthetic name Rue des Boucheries. Nearly every wall, every stone is ancient. In past ages three colleges at different positions stood on its incline. The sign at No. 40 dates from the time of the Directoire. A statuette of the saint there in Revolution days was labelled, “A la ci-devant Geneviève; Rendez-vous des Sans-Culottes.” And now we have before us the beautiful old c
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CHAPTER XVIII IN THE VALLEY OF THE BIÈVRE
CHAPTER XVIII IN THE VALLEY OF THE BIÈVRE
E MPHATICALLY a street of the past is the old Rue Mouffetard, its name a corruption perhaps of Mont Cérarius, the name of the district under the Romans, or derived maybe from the old word mouffettes , referring to the exhalations of the Bièvre, flowing now below ground here, never very odorous since the days when, coming sweet and clear from the southern slopes, it was put to city uses, industrial and other, on entering Paris. Every house along the course of this street has some curious old-time
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CHAPTER XIX RUE ST-JACQUES
CHAPTER XIX RUE ST-JACQUES
P ASSING amid the ancient colleges and churches, streets and houses we have been visiting, runs the old Rue St-Jacques. It begins at the banks of the Seine, stretches through the whole arrondissement, to become on leaving it a faubourg. The line it follows was in a long-past age the Roman road from Lutetia to Orléans—the Via Superior— la grande rue —of early Paris history. Along its course in Roman times the Aqueduc d’Arcueil brought water from Rungis to the Palace of the Thermes ( see p. 138 ).
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CHAPTER XX LE JARDIN DES PLANTES
CHAPTER XX LE JARDIN DES PLANTES
I T was in the early years of the seventeenth century that the King’s physician bought a piece of waste ground—a butte formed of the refuse of centuries accumulated there—for the culture of the multitudinous herbs and plants which made up the pharmacopia of the age. Thus was born the “Jardin Royal de herbes médicinales” laid out in 1626. Chairs of botany, pharmacy, surgery were instituted and endowed, and in 1650 the garden was thrown open to the public. A century later Buffon was named superint
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CHAPTER XXI THE LUXEMBOURG
CHAPTER XXI THE LUXEMBOURG
T HE palace that gives its name to the arrondissement was founded by Marie de’ Medici and built on the model of the Pitti palace at Florence by Salomon de Brosse between the years 1615-20. The site chosen was in the neighbourhood of the vast monastery and extensive grounds of the Chartreux. The duc de Luxembourg had an hôtel there. It was sold to the Queen and razed; but vainly was the new edifice on the spot called by its builder “Palais Médicis.” The name of the razed mansion prevailed over th
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CHAPTER XXII LES CARMES
CHAPTER XXII LES CARMES
T HE tragic story of “les Carmes” has been repeatedly told. The convent was founded in 1613 by Princesse de Conti and la Maréchale d’Ancre for the Carmes Déchaussés, who hailed from Rome. The first stone of their chapel here, dedicated to St. Joseph, was laid by Marie de’ Medici; its dome was the first dome built in Paris; Italian masters painted frescoes on its walls. The Order became very popular among Parisians who liked the eau de Mélisse , which it was the nuns’ business, in the secular lin
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CHAPTER XXIII ON ANCIENT ABBEY GROUND
CHAPTER XXIII ON ANCIENT ABBEY GROUND
N UMEROUS ancient streets and some modern ones, on time-honoured ground, lead out of Rue Vaugirard. Rue Bonaparte, extending to the banks of the Seine, was formed in 1852 of three old streets. Most of its houses are ancient or show vestiges of past ages and have historic associations. At No. 45 Gambetta dwelt in 1866. No. 36 was the home of Auguste Comte; on the site of No. 35 was the kitchen of the great abbey St-Germain-des-Prés, which stretched across the course of many streets in this distri
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CHAPTER XXIV IN THE VICINITY OF PLACE ST-MICHEL
CHAPTER XXIV IN THE VICINITY OF PLACE ST-MICHEL
A N ancient place and part of the old Rue de l’Hirondelle, and an ancient chapel stretched in bygone days where now we see the broad new Place St-Michel. The colossal fountain we see there was put up in 1860, replacing a seventeenth-century fountain on the ancient place , which lay a little more to the south. Of the boulevard—the famous “Boule Miche”—we will speak later ( see p. 306 ). Turning into Rue de l’Hirondelle, in the twelfth century Rue l’Arondale-en-Laac, then Rue Herondalle, we see re
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CHAPTER XXV L’ODÉON
CHAPTER XXV L’ODÉON
A N interesting corner of Old Paris lies on the north-east side of the Odéon. Rue Racine, opening on the place before the theatre, runs through the ancient territory of the Cordeliers. Vestiges of a Roman cemetery were found in recent years beneath the soil at No. 28, and at No. 11 were unearthed traces of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste. George Sand lived for a time at No. 3. Rue de l’École de Médecine was once in part Rue des Cordeliers, in part Rue des Boucheries-St-Germain, a name telling
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CHAPTER XXVI ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE
CHAPTER XXVI ROUND ABOUT THE CARREFOUR DE LA CROIX-ROUGE
P ASSING to the western half of the arrondissement, we turn into the modern Rue de Rennes, running south from Place St-Germain-des-Prés along the lines of razed convent buildings or their vanished gardens. The short Rue Gozlin opening out of it dates from the thirteenth century, its present name recording that of a bishop of Paris who defended the city against invading Normans in the ninth century. Two only of the houses we see there now are ancient, Nos. 1 and 5. At No. 50 we see the seventeent
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CHAPTER XXVII HÔTEL DES INVALIDES
CHAPTER XXVII HÔTEL DES INVALIDES
I T was Henri IV, le bon Roi , who first planned the erection of a special hôtel to shelter aged and wounded soldiers. Meanwhile they were lodged in barracks in different parts of the city. The fine hôtel we know was built by Louis XIV, opened in 1674, restored in after years by Napoléon I, and again by Napoléon III. The greatest military names of France figure in the list of its governors. On July 14th, 1789, the Paris mob rushed to the Invalides for arms wherewith to storm the Bastille. On the
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CHAPTER XXVIII OLD-TIME MANSIONS OF THE RIVE GAUCHE
CHAPTER XXVIII OLD-TIME MANSIONS OF THE RIVE GAUCHE
T HE word Varennes is a corruption of Garennes: in English the Rue de Varennes would be Warren Street, a name leading us back in thought to the remote age when the district was wild, uncultivated land full of rabbit-warrens. Another street joined to Rue de Varennes in 1850, and losing thus its own name, made it the long street we enter. No. 77 is the handsome mansion and park built early in the eighteenth century by Gabriel for a parvenu wig-maker. Later it was l’hôtel de Maine, then hôtel Biron
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CHAPTER XXIX ANCIENT STREETS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN
CHAPTER XXIX ANCIENT STREETS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT-GERMAIN
T HE extensive district on the left bank of the Seine, through which was cut in modern times the wide boulevard St-Germain, was in its remotest days the Villa Sancti Germani, with its “ prés-aux-clercs ” a rural expanse surrounding the abbey and quite distinct from the city of Paris, without its bounds. The inhabitants of that privileged district were exempt from Paris “rates and taxes,” to use our latter-day expression, and enjoyed other legal immunities. They were subject only to the authority
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CHAPTER XXX THE MADELEINE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
CHAPTER XXX THE MADELEINE AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
T HE handsome church which forms so distinct a feature of this quarter of the city was begun to be built in the year 1764 to replace an older church, originally a convent chapel, in the district known as Ville l’Evêque because the bishop of Paris had a country house—a villa—there. The Revolution found the new church unfinished, and when Napoléon was in power he decided to complete the structure as a temple of military glory to be dedicated to the Grande Armée. Napoléon fell. The building was res
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CHAPTER XXXI LES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
CHAPTER XXXI LES CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
T HIS wonderful avenue stretching through the whole length of the arrondissement reached in olden days only to the rural district of Chaillot, and was known as the Grande Allée-du-Roule, later as Avenue des Tuileries. Colbert, Louis XIV’s great minister, first made it a tree-planted avenue. The gardens bordering it on either side between Place de la Concorde and Avenue d’Antin, were laid out by Le Nôtre, 1670, as Crown land. Cafés, restaurants, toy-stalls, etc., were set up there from the first.
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CHAPTER XXXII FAUBOURG ST-HONORÉ
CHAPTER XXXII FAUBOURG ST-HONORÉ
T URNING down Avenue Wagram, one of the twelve broad avenues, all modern, branching from the Place de l’Étoile, we come to the Faubourg St-Honoré, originally Chaussée du Roule. The village of Le Roule was famed in the thirteenth century for its goose-market. The district became a faubourg in 1722 and in 1787 was taken within the city bounds. It has always been a favourite quarter among men of intellectual activity desiring to live beyond the turbulence of the centre of Paris. Here and there we c
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CHAPTER XXXIII PARC MONCEAU
CHAPTER XXXIII PARC MONCEAU
W E have already referred to Avenue Wagram. Modern buildings stretch along the whole course of the other eleven avenues branching from Place de l’Étoile. Avenue Hoche leads us to Parc Monceau, laid out on lands belonging in past days to the Manor of Clichy, sold to the prince d’Orléans in 1778, arranged as a smart jardin anglais for Philippe-Égalité in 1785, the property of the nation in 1794, restored to the Orléans by Louis XVIII, bought by the State in 1852, given to the city authorities in 1
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CHAPTER XXXIV IN THE VICINITY OF THE OPERA
CHAPTER XXXIV IN THE VICINITY OF THE OPERA
T HE Paris Opera-house was built between the years 1861-75 to replace the structure in Rue le Peletier burnt to the ground in 1873. On its ornate Renaissance façade we see, amid other statuary, the noted group “La Danse,” the work of Carpeaux. Of the “Grands Boulevards,” by which the Opera is surrounded, we shall speak later ( see p. 297 ). Most of the streets in its neighbourhood are modern, stretching across the site of demolished buildings, important in their day, but of which few traces now
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CHAPTER XXXV ON THE WAY TO MONTMARTRE
CHAPTER XXXV ON THE WAY TO MONTMARTRE
R UE DE CLICHY was once upon a time the Roman road between Paris and Rouen, taking in its way the village Cligiacum. For long in later days it was known as Rue du Coq, when the old château stood near its line. It was in a house of Rue de Clichy, inhabited by the Englishman Crawford, that Marie-Antoinette and her children had a meal on the way to Varennes. The three successive “Tivoli” were partly on the site of No. 27, in this old street. There too was the “Club de Clichy,” whose members opposed
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CHAPTER XXXVI ON THE SLOPES OF THE BUTTE
CHAPTER XXXVI ON THE SLOPES OF THE BUTTE
T HE Rue du Faubourg Montmartre is one of the most ancient of Paris roadways, for it led, from the earliest days of French history, to the hill-top where St-Denis and his two companions had been put to death. Only once has the ancient name been changed—at the Revolution, when it was for a time Faubourg Marat. We see here a few old-time houses. The bathing establishment at No. 4 was a private hôtel in the days of Louis XV. Scribe lived at No. 7. The ancient cemetery chapelle , St-Jean-Porte-Latin
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CHAPTER XXXVII THREE ANCIENT FAUBOURGS
CHAPTER XXXVII THREE ANCIENT FAUBOURGS
T HE chief thoroughfares of historic interest in this arrondissement are the two ancient streets which stretch through its whole length: Rue du Faubourg St-Denis and Rue du Faubourg St-Martin, and the odd-number side of Rue du Faubourg du Temple. Rue du Faubourg St-Denis, the ancient road to the abbey St-Denis, known in earlier days in part as Faubourg St-Lazare, then as Faubourg-de-Gloire, has still many characteristic old-time buildings. The Passage du Bois-de-Boulogne was the starting-place f
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CHAPTER XXXVIII IN THE PARIS “EAST END”
CHAPTER XXXVIII IN THE PARIS “EAST END”
W E are now in the vicinity of the largest and most important of the Paris cemeteries—Père Lachaise. But it lies in the 20th arrondissement. The streets of this 10th arrondissement leading east approach its boundary walls—its gates. Rue de la Roquette comes to it from the vicinity of the Bastille. La Roquette was a country house built in the sixteenth century, a favourite resort of the princes of the Valois line. Then, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the house was given over to the n
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CHAPTER XXXIX ON TRAGIC GROUND
CHAPTER XXXIX ON TRAGIC GROUND
R UE DU FAUBOURG ST-ANTOINE forms the boundary between the arrondissements XI and XII. From end to end it shows us historic vestiges. It has played from earliest times an all-important part in French history, leading, when without the city walls, to Paris and the Bastille from the fortress of Vincennes and lands beyond, while from the time of its incorporation with Paris, popular political demonstrations unfailingly had their mise en scène in the Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine. In the seventeenth ce
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CHAPTER XL LES GOBELINS
CHAPTER XL LES GOBELINS
T HE brothers Gobelin, Jehan and Philibert, famous dyers of the day, established their great factory on the banks of the Bièvre about the year 1443. Jehan had a fine private mansion in the vicinity of his dye-works known as Le Cygne. At a little distance, on higher ground, was another hôtel known as la Folie Gobelin. The rich scarlet dye the brothers turned out was greatly prized; their business prospered, grew into a huge concern. But in the first year of the seventeenth century a Flemish firm
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CHAPTER XLI THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PORT-ROYAL
CHAPTER XLI THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PORT-ROYAL
T HE boundary-line between arrondissements XIII and XIV is Rue de la Santé, the name of the great Paris prison which stands there. It brings us to the vicinity of the Paris Observatory and of the Hôpital Cochin. The prison is a modern structure on a site known as la Charbonnerie, because of coal-mines once there. The Observatory, built over ancient quarries, was founded by Louis XIV’s minister Colbert, in 1667. A spiral staircase of six hundred steps leads down to the cellars that erewhile were
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CHAPTER XLII IN THE SOUTH-WEST
CHAPTER XLII IN THE SOUTH-WEST
R UE VAUGIRARD, originally Val Girard, which we enter here, on its course from arrondissement VI ( see p. 164 ), is the longest street in Paris, a union of several streets under one name, extending on beyond the city bounds. At No. 115 we find an ancient house recently restored by a man of artistic mind; at No. 144, ancient buildings connected with the old hospital l’Enfant-Jésus, its façade giving on Rue de Sèvres. At intervals all along the street, and in the short streets opening out of it, w
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CHAPTER XLIII IN NEWER PARIS
CHAPTER XLIII IN NEWER PARIS
W E have left far behind us now Old Paris, the Paris of the Kings of France, of the upheaval of Revolution days. The 16th arrondissement, save in the remotest corners of Passy and Auteuil, suburban villages still in some respects, is the arrondissement of the “Nineteenth Century and After.” Round about the Étoile the Napoléonic stamp is very evident. It is the district of the French Empire, First and Second. The Arc de Triomphe was Napoléon’s conception. The broad thoroughfare stretching as Aven
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CHAPTER XLIV TOWARDS THE WESTERN BOUNDARY
CHAPTER XLIV TOWARDS THE WESTERN BOUNDARY
R UE DE PASSY, the ancient Grande Rue, the village High Street before the district was included within the Paris boundary-line, dates from fifteenth-century days, when it was a fief, owned by Jeanne de Paillard, known as La Dame de Passy; it reverted to the Crown under Louis XI, and was bestowed on successive nobles. At the carrefour —the cross roads—where the tramcars now stop for Rue de la Tour, stood the seignorial gallows. The seignorial habitation, a château with extensive grounds, was buil
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CHAPTER XLV LES TERNES
CHAPTER XLV LES TERNES
A NUMBER of small dwellings lying without the city bounds to the north, in the commune of Clichy, were known in the fifteenth century as “les Batignolles,” i.e. the little buildings. Separated from Clichy in the nineteenth century, the district of les Batignolles was joined to Monceau. New streets were built, old erections swept away: Avenue de Clichy, in part the Grande Rue of the district, was first planted with trees in 1705. At intervals along its course, and in the short streets connected w
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CHAPTER XLVI ON THE BUTTE
CHAPTER XLVI ON THE BUTTE
W E are on supremely interesting ground here, ground at once sacred, historic and characteristic of the mundane life of the city above which it stands. At or near its summit, St-Denis and his two companions were put to death in the early days of Christianity. On the hill-side most memorable happenings have been lived through. In the old streets and houses up and down its slopes poets and artists have ever dwelt, worked and played, and in its theatres, its music-halls, cabarets, etc., Parisians o
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CHAPTER XLVII AMONG THE COALYARDS AND THE MEAT-MARKETS
CHAPTER XLVII AMONG THE COALYARDS AND THE MEAT-MARKETS
I N this essentially workaday district we see many houses old and quaint, but without architectural beauty or special historic interest. Round the park des Buttes-Chaumont, a large expanse of greenswards and shady alleys, dull, squalid streets branch out amid coal-yards and factories. Beneath the park are the ancient quarries which erewhile gave so much white stone and plaster of Paris to the city builders. The name Chaumont is derived, perhaps, from mons calvus , mont chauve , i.e. bald mountai
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CHAPTER XLVIII PÈRE-LACHAISE
CHAPTER XLVIII PÈRE-LACHAISE
T HE lower end of the long Rue de Belleville, its odd-number side in arrondissement XIX, went in olden days by the name Rue des Courtilles—Inn Street. Inns, cabarets, popular places of amusement stood door by door all along its course. Here, as in arrondissement XIX, we find on every side old houses and vestiges of the past, but of no particular interest beyond the quaintness of their aspect. Rue Pelleport began in the eighteenth century as an avenue encircling the park of Ménilmontant. In the g
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CHAPTER XLIX BOULEVARDS—QUAYS—BRIDGES
CHAPTER XLIX BOULEVARDS—QUAYS—BRIDGES
T HE Paris boulevards are one of the most characteristic features of the city. The word boulevard recalls the days when Paris was fortified, surrounded by ramparts, and the city boulevards stretch for the most part along the lines of ancient boundary walls, boundaries then, now lines in many instances cutting through the very heart of the Paris we know. The Grands Boulevards run from the Place de la Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille—gay and smart and modern, in the first kilometres of their
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CHAPTER L LES BOULEVARDS EXTÉRIEURS
CHAPTER L LES BOULEVARDS EXTÉRIEURS
S TARTING at the ancient Barrière des Ternes, for some years past Place des Ternes, we take our way through outer boulevards forming a wide circle. Boulevard de Courcelles, dating from 1789, runs where quaint old thoroughfares ran of yore. Boulevard des Batignolles was the site of the barrières de Monceau. The Collège Chaptal, which we see there, was founded in Rue Blanche in 1844. The busy Place de Clichy is on the site of the ancient Clichy barrier, valiantly defended by the Garde Nationale in
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CHAPTER LI THE QUAYS
CHAPTER LI THE QUAYS
T HE quays of the Seine in its course through Paris are picturesque in the extreme and show at almost every step points of historic interest. That interest is strongest, the aspect of the quays most quaint and entrancing, where they pass through the heart of the city. Let us start from the Point-du-Jour, the “Dawn of Day,” at the point where the boundary-line of Paris touches the banlieue to the south-east. The name refers to a famous duel fought here at the break of day on a memorable morning i
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CHAPTER LII LES PONTS (The Bridges)
CHAPTER LII LES PONTS (The Bridges)
O NCE more to the south-western corner of this “bonne ville de Paris.” The first bridge over the Seine within the city boundary, beginning at this end, is the Viaduct d’Auteuil ( see p. 320 ). The second is Pont-Mirabeau, dating from the last decade of the nineteenth century. Pont de Grenelle is of earlier date (1825). The Statue of Liberty we see there (Bartholdi) is a replica in reduced size of that sent to New York. Pont de Passy first spanned the Seine as a mere footway at the time of the Ex
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