CHAPTER II

AMONG OLD STREETS Round 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 baptistery when the font was dry. Rue de l’Arbre-Sec, once Rue de l’Arbre-Sel, from an old sign, a thoroughfare since the twelfth century, was in past days the site of the gallows. There it is said Queen Brunehaut was hacked to death. Part of this ancient street was knocked down to make way for the big shop “la Samaritaine”; but some ancient houses still stand. No. 4, recently razed, is believed to have been the hôtel des Mousquetaires, the home of d’Artagnan, lieutenant-captain of that famous band. Rue Perrault runs where in bygone times Rue d’Auxerre, dating from 1005, and Rue des Fossés St-Germain-l’Auxerrois stretched away to the Monnaie--the Mint. No. 4, hôtel de Sourdis, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, was the home in her childhood of Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 2, is the entrance to the _presbytère_ St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. Rue de la Monnaie, a thirteenth-century street known at first by other names, recalls the existence of the ancient Mint on the site of Rue Boucher close by. In Rue du Roule, eighteenth century, we see old ironwork balconies. Rue du Pont-Neuf is modern, on the line of ancient streets of which all traces have gone. Most of the houses in Rue des Bourdonnais are ancient: In the walls of No. 31 we see two or three ancient stones of the famous La Trémouille Mansion once there occupied by the English under Charles VI. No. 34 dates from 1615. From the door of 39 the Tête-Noire with its _barbe d’Or_, which gave the house its name, still looks down. The sixth-century cabaret of l’Enfant-Jesus, the monogram I.H.S. in wrought iron on its frontage, has been razed. No. 14 is believed to have been the home of Greuze. The impasse at 37, in olden times Fosse aux chiens, was a pig-market where in the fourteenth century heretics were burnt. Rue Bertin-Poirée dates from the early years of the thirteenth century, recording the name of a worthy citizen of those long past days. At No. 5 we see a curious old sign “La Tour d’Argent”; out of this old street we turn into the Rue Jean-Lantier recording the name of a thirteenth-century Parisian, much of it and the ancient place du Chevalier-du-Guet which was here, swept away in 1854. Rue des Lavandières-Ste-Opportune, thirteenth century, reminds us of the existence of an old church, Ste-Opportune, in the neighbourhood. Rue des Deux-Boules existed under another name in the twelfth century. And here in the seventeenth century was l’École du Modèle, nucleus of l’Académie des Beaux-Arts. Rue des Orfèvres began in 1300 as Rue des Deux-portes. An old chapel, St-Eloi, stood till 1786 by the side of No. 8. Rue St-Germain-l’Auxerrois was a thoroughfare so far back as the year 820. No. 19 is the site of a famous episcopal prison: For-l’Evêque. 38, at l’Arche Marion, duels were wont to be fought in olden days. Rue des Bons-Enfants, aforetime Rue des Echoliers St-Honoré, was so-called from the College founded in 1202 for “les Bons-Enfants” on the site of the neighbouring Rue Montesquieu, suppressed in 1602. Many of the old houses we see there were the possession and abode of the dignitaries of St-Honoré. A tiny church dedicated to Ste-Claire was in past days close up against the walls of No. 12. A vaulted arch and roof and staircase, lately razed, formed the entrance to the ancient cloister. Beneath a coat-of-arms over the doorway of No. 11, where is the Passage de la Vérité, an old inscription told of a reading-room once there, where both morning and evening papers were to be found. 19, hôtel de la Chancellerie d’Orléans, is on the site of a more ancient mansion. All the houses of this and neighbouring streets show some trace of their former state. Rue Radziwill was once Rue Neuve des Bons-Enfants, the name still to be seen on an old wall near the Banque de France. Nearly all the houses there have now become dependencies and offices of the Banque de France, one side of which gives upon the even number side of the street. At No. 33 is a wonderful twin staircase. At its starting it divides in two and winds up with old-time grace to the top story. Two persons can mount at once without meeting. Rue la Vrillière dates from 1652, named after the Secrétaire d’État of Louis XIV, whose mansion, remodelled, is the Banque de France with added to it the Salle Dorée des Fêtes and some other remains of the hôtel de Toulouse. Rue Croix des Petits-Champs dates from 1600, its name referring to a cross which stood on the site of No. 12. No. 7, entrance of the old Cloître St-Honoré. In the courtyard of No. 21 we see traces of the habitation of the abbés. No. 23, hôtel des Gesvres, was the home of the parents of Mme de Pompadour. * * * * * Two long and important streets, one ancient the other modern, stretch through the entire length of this first arrondissement from east to west: Rue de Rivoli and Rue St-Honoré. Rue de Rivoli, dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, was begun at its western end in the year 1811, across the site of ancient royal stables, along the line of the famous riding-school of the Tuileries gardens, and on through grounds erewhile the property of the three great convents: les Feuillants, les Capucins, l’Assomption. It swept away ancient streets and houses, picturesque courts and corners--a fine new thoroughfare built over the ruins of historic walls and pavements. There is little to say, therefore, about the buildings one sees there now. The hôtel Continental is on the site of one of the first of the constructions then erected--the Ministère des Finances, built during the second decade of the nineteenth century, burnt to the ground by the Commune in 1871. The famous Salle des Manèges, where the Revolutionary governments sat and King Louis XVI’s trial took place, was on the site of the houses numbered 230-226: l’hôtel Meurice, restaurant Rumpelmayer, etc., No. 186, a popular tearoom run by a British firm, is near the site of the Grande Écurie of vanished royalty, and of a well-known passage built there in the early years of the nineteenth century. Admiral Coligny fell assassinated on the spot occupied by the house number 144. Passing on into the fourth arrondissement, we come to the Square St-Jacques, formed in 1854, where had stood the ancient church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which the tower alone remains, a beautiful sixteenth-century tower, restored in the nineteenth century by the architect Ballu. Nos. 18-16 are on the site of the ancient convent of the Petit St-Antoine. In its chapel the Committee of the section “des droits de l’Homme” sat in Revolution days. Rue St-Honoré is full of historic houses and historic associations. Its present name dates only from the year 1540, recalling the existence of the collegiate church of the district. Like most other long, old thoroughfares, Rue St-Honoré is made up of several past-time streets lying in a direct line, united under a single name. Almost every building along its course bears interesting traces of past grandeur or of commercial importance. Many have quaint, odd sign-boards: No. 96 is on the site of the Pavillon des Singes, where, in 1622, Molière was born. At No. 115 we see inscriptions dating from 1715. No. 108 is l’hôtel de l’Ecouvette, formerly part of hôtel Brissac. No. 145 is on a site where passed the boundary wall of Phillippe-Auguste and where was built subsequently a mansion inhabited by the far-famed duc de Joyeuse, then by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and wherein one Jean Châtel made an attempt upon the life of Henri IV. Nos. 180, 182, 184 were connected with the Cloître St-Honoré. No. 202 bore an inscription recording the erection here of the Royal Academy of Music by Pierre Moreau--1760-70--burnt down ten years later. No. 161, the Café de la Régence, replaced the famous café founded at the corner of the Palais-Royal in 1681, the meeting-place of chess-players. A chessboard was lent at so much the hour, the rate higher after sunset to pay for the two candles placed near. Voltaire, Robespierre, Buonaparte, Diderot, etc., and in later days Alfred de Musset and his contemporaries, met here. The city wall of Charles V passed across the site with its gateway, Porte St-Honoré. At this spot Jeanne d’Arc was wounded in 1429 and carried thence to the maison des Genêts on the site of No. 4, Place du Théâtre-Français. A bit of the ancient wall was found beneath the pavement there some ten years ago. No. 167, Arms of England. No. 280: Jeanne Vanbernier is said to have been saleswoman in a milliner’s shop here. No. 201 shows the old-world sign “Au chien de St-Roch.” At No. 211, hôtel St-James, are traces of the ancient hôtel de Noailles, which included several distinct buildings and extensive grounds. Part of it became, at the Revolution, the Café de Vénus; part the meeting-place of the Committees of Revolutionary governments. At 320 we see another old sign-board: “A la Tour d’Argent.” No. 334 was inhabited by Maréchal de Noailles, brother of the Archbishop of Paris, in 1700. Nos. 340-338 show traces of the ancient convent of the Jacobins. At No. 350, hôtel Pontalba, with its fine eighteenth-century staircase, lived Savalette de Langes, keeper of the Royal Treasure, who lent seven million francs to the brothers of Louis XVI, money never repaid, the home in Revolution days of Barrère, where Napoléon signed his marriage contract. Nos. 235, 231, 229, were built by the Feuillants 1782 as sources of revenue, and are the last remaining vestiges of the old convent. At 249 we see the Arms and portrait of Queen Victoria dating from the time of Louis-Philippe. No. 374 was the hôtel of Madame Géoffrin, whose salon was the meeting-place of the most noted politicians, _littérateurs_ and artistes of the day, among them Châteaubriand, who made the house his home for a time. At No. 263 stands the chapel of the ancient convent des Dames de l’Assomption (_see_ p. 29). No. 398 is perhaps in part the very house, more probably the house entirely rebuilt, inhabited for a time by Robespierre and some of his family and by Couthon. No. 400 was the Imperial bakery in the time of Napoléon III. No. 271, now a modern erection, was till quite recently the famous cabaret du St-Esprit, dating from the seventeenth century, where during the Terreur sightseers gathered to watch the tragic chariots pass laden with victims for the guillotine. Marie-Antoinette passed that way and was subjected to that cruel scrutiny. The greater number of the streets of this arrondissement running northwards start from Rue de Rivoli, and cross Rue St-Honoré, or start from the latter. Beginning at the western end of Rue Rivoli, we see Rue St-Florentin dating from 1640, so named more than a century later when the comte de St-Florentin deputed the celebrated architects Chalgrin and Gabriel to build the mansion we see at No. 2. It was a splendid mansion then, with surrounding galleries, fine gardens, a big fountain, and was the home of successive families of the _noblesse_. In 1792, it was the Venetian Embassy, under the Terreur a saltpeter factory. At No. 12 was an inn where people gathered to watch the condemned pass to the scaffold. Rue Cambon, so named after the Conventional author of the Grand Livre de La Dette Publique, dates in its lower part, when it was Rue de Luxembourg, from 1719, prolonged a century later. Some of the older houses still stand, and have interesting vestiges of past days; others, razed in recent years, have been replaced by modern constructions. The new building, “Cour des Comptes,” built to replace the Palais du Quai d’Orsay burnt by the Communards in 1871, is on the site of the ancient convent of the Haudriettes, suppressed in 1793, when it became the garrison of the Cent Suisses, later a financial depot. The convent chapel, left untouched, serves as the catechists’ chapel for the Madeleine, and has services attended especially by Poles. In Rue Duphot, opened in 1807 across the old garden of the Convent of the Conception, we see at No. 12 an ancient convent arch and courtyard. Rue Castiglione (1811) stretches across the site of the convents Les Feuillants and Les Capucins. In Rue du Mont-Thabor, stretching where was once a convent garden, a vaulted roof and chapel-like building at No. 24, at one time an artist’s studio, remains of the convent once there, is about to be razed. Orsini died at No. 10; Alfred de Musset at No. 6 (1857). PLACE VENDÔME In the year 1685 Louis XIV set about the erection of a grand _place_ intended as a monument in his own honour. The site chosen was that of the hôtel Vendôme which had recently been razed, and of the neighbouring convent of the Capucins. The death of Louvois--1691--interrupted this work. It was taken in hand a year or two later by Mansart and Boffrand, who designed in octagonal form the vast _place_ called at first Place des Conquêtes, then Place Louis-le-Grand. A statue of Louis XIV was set up there in 1699. The land behind the grand façades and houses erected by the State was sold for building purposes to private persons, and the notorious banker Law and his associates finished the Place in 1720. Royal fêtes were held there and popular fairs. Soon it was the scene of financial agitations, then of Revolutionary tumults. On August 10, 1792, heads of the guillotined were set up there on spikes and the square was named Place des Piques. A bonfire was made of volumes referring to the title-deeds of the French _noblesse_ and the archives of the St-Esprit; and in 1796 the machines which had been used to make _assignats_ were solemnly burnt there. In 1810 the Colonne d’Austerlitz was set up where erewhile had stood the statue of Louis XIV, made of cannons taken from the enemy, its bas-reliefs illustrative of the chief events of the momentous year 1805. It was surmounted by a statue of Napoléon, which, in 1814, the Royalists vainly attempted to pull down by means of ropes. It was taken away later, the _drapeau blanc_ put up in its stead. Napoléon’s statue, melted down, was transformed into the statue of Henri IV on the Pont-Neuf, replacing the original statue set up there (_see_ p. 340). In 1833, Napoléon went up again, a newly designed statue, replaced in its turn by a reproduction of the first one in 1865. In 1871, the Column was overturned by the Communards, but set up anew by the French Government under MacMahon. Every mansion on the Place, most of them now commercial hotels or business-houses, was at one time or another the habitation of noted men and women, and recalls historic events. The façades of Nos. 9 and 7 are classed as historic monuments; their preservation cared for by the State. No. 23 was the scene of Law’s speculations after his forced move from his quarters in the old Rue Quincampoix. At No. 6 Chopin died. [Illustration: PLACE ET COLONNE VENDÔME] The Rue and Marché St-Honoré are on the site of the ancient convent and chapel of the Jacobins, suppressed at the Revolution, and where the famous club des Jacobins was established. The market dates from 1810. Rue Gomboust dates from the thirteenth century, when it was Rue de la Corderie St-Honoré. Rue de Ste-Hyacinthe dates from 1650. Rue de la Sourdière from the seventeenth century shows us many old-time walls and vestiges and much interesting old ironwork. On the wall of the church St-Roch we still see the inscription “Rue Neuve-St-Roch,” the ancient name of the street at its western end. The street has existed from the close of the fifteenth century bearing different names in the different parts of its course. The part nearest the Tuileries was known in the eighteenth century as Rue du Dauphin, in Revolution days as Rue de la Convention. Many of its houses are ancient and of curious aspect. In Rue d’Argenteuil, leading out of Rue St-Roch, once a country road, stood until recent years the house where Corneille died. Rue des Pyramides dates only from 1806, but No. 2 of the street is noted as the meeting-place, in the rooms of a friend, of Béranger, Alexandre Dumas, _père_, Victor Hugo and other famous writers of the day. In the fourth story of a house in the corner of the Place dwelt Émile Augier. From the Place du Théâtre-Français where the fountain has played since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Avenue de l’Opéra opened out about 1855 as Avenue Napoléon, cut through a conglomeration of ancient streets and dwellings. Leading out of the Avenue there still remains in this arrondissement Rue Molière, known in the seventeenth century as Rue du Bâton-Royal, then as Rue Traversière, and always intimately associated with actors and men of letters. Rue Ste-Anne was known in its early days as Rue du Sang and Rue de la Basse Voirie, then an unsavoury alley-like thoroughfare. Its present name, after Anne d’Autriche, was given in 1633. Then for a time it was known as Rue Helvetius, in memory of a man of letters born there in 1715. Nearly all its houses are ancient and were the habitation in past days of noted persons, artists and others. Nos. 43 and 47 were the property of the composer Lulli. The street runs on into arrondissement II, where at No. 49, hôtel Thévenin, we see an old statue of John the Baptist holding the Paschal Lamb. At No. 46 Bossuet lived and died. No. 63 was part of the New Catholic’s convent. Nos. 64, 66, 68, mansions owned by Louvois. Rue Thérèse (Marie-Thérèse of Austria) was in 1880 joined on to Rue du Hazard, a short street so called from a famous gambling-house; No. 6 has interesting old-time vestiges. At No. 23 we see two inscriptions honouring the memory of Abbé de l’Epée, inventor of the deaf and dumb alphabet, who died at a house, no longer there, in Rue des Moulins. Rue Villedo records the name of a famous master-mason of olden time. Rue Ventadour existed in its older part in 1640. Rue de Richelieu, starting from the Place du Théâtre-Français, goes on to arrondissement II in the vicinity of the Bourse. It dates from the time when the Cardinal was building his palace. Most of its constructions show interesting architectural features, vestiges of past days, many have historic associations. Some of the original houses were rebuilt in the eighteenth century, some have quite recently been razed and replaced by modern erections. Much of the fine woodwork once at No. 21 was bought and carried away by the Marquis de Breteuil; the rest by Americans. In a house where No. 40 now stands Molière died in 1763. No. 50, hôtel de Strasbourg, was rebuilt in 1738 by the mother of Madame de Pompadour. In 1780 the musician Grétry lived in the fourth story of No. 52. Rue du Louvre is a modern street where ancient streets once ran, demolished to make way for it. At No. 13 we find traces of a tower of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste, as also at No. 7 of the adjacent Rue Coquillère, a thirteenth-century street with, at No. 31, vestiges of an ancient Carmelite convent. At No. 15 we find ourselves before an arched entrance and spacious courtyard surrounded by imposing buildings and in its centre an immense fountain. This structure is a modern re-erection of the ancient Cour des Fermes; the institution of the “Fermiers Généraux” was suppressed in 1783 and definitely abolished by law in the first year of the Revolution--1789. The members, however, continued to meet; many were arrested and shut up as prisoners in their own old mansion on this spot, used thenceforth, until the Revolution was over, as a State prison.