P A R I S
AND ITS STORY

BY
T. O K E Y

ILLUSTRATED BY
KATHERINE KIMBALL
& O. F. M. WARD
1904
LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

“I will not here omit, that I never rail so much against France as to be out of humour with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from my infancy; and it has fallen out to me, as of excellent things, that the more of other fine cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this gains upon my affections. I love it for its own sake, and more for its own native being than the addition of foreign pomp; I love it tenderly even with all its warts and blemishes. I am not a Frenchman but by this great city great in people, great in the felicity or her situation, but above all great and incomparable in variety and diversity of commodities; the glory of France and one of the most noble ornaments of the world.”

Montaigne.

“Quand Dieu eslut nonante et dix royaumes
Tot le meillor torna en douce France.”
Couronnement Loys.

PREFACE

THE History of Paris, says Michelet, is the history of the French monarchy. The aim of the writer in the following pages has been to narrate the story of the capital city of France on the lines thus indicated, dwelling, however, in the earlier chapters rather more on its legendary aspect than perhaps an austere historical conscience would approve. But it is precisely a familiarity with these romantic stories, which at least are true in impression if not in fact, that the sojourner in Paris will find most useful, translated as they are in sculpture and in painting on the decoration of her architecture both modern and ancient, and implicit in the nomenclature of her ways. Within the limits of time and space allotted for the work no more than an imperfect outline of a vast subject has been possible. The writer has essayed to compose a story of, not a guide to, Paris. Those who desire the latter may be referred to the excellent manuals of Murray, Bædeker and of Grant Allen—the last named being an admirable companion for the artistically-minded traveller. In controversial matter, such, for instance, as the position of the ancient Grand Pont, the writer has adopted the opinions of the most recent authorities.

The story of Paris presents a marked contrast with that of an Italian city-state whose rise, culmination and fall may be roundly traced. Paris is yet in the stage of lusty growth. Time after time, like a young giantess, she has burst her cincture of walls, cast off her outworn garments and renewed her armour and vesture. Hers are no grass-grown squares and deserted streets; no ruined splendours telling of pride abased and glory departed; no sad memories of waning cities once the mistresses of sea and land; none of the tears evoked by a great historic tragedy; none of the solemn pathos of decay and death. Paris has more than once tasted the bitterness of humiliation; Norseman, and Briton, Russian and German have bruised her fair body; the dire distress of civic strife has exhausted her strength, but she has always emerged from her trials with marvellous recuperation, more flourishing than before.

Since 1871, when the city, crushed under a two-fold calamity of foreign invasion and of internecine war, seemed doomed to bleed away to feeble insignificance, her prosperity has so increased that house rent has doubled and population risen from 1,825,274 in 1870 to 2,714,068 in 1901. The growth of Paris from the settlement of an obscure Gallic tribe to the most populous, the most cultured, the most artistic, the most delightful and seductive of continental cities has been prodigious, yet withal she has maintained her essential unity, her corporate sense and peculiar individuality. Paris, unlike London, has never expatiated to the effacement of her distinctive features and the loss of civic consciousness. The city has still a definite outline and circumference, and over her gates to-day one may read, Entrée de Paris. The Parisian is, and always has been, conscious of his citizenship, proud of his city, careful of her beauty, jealous of her reputation. The essentials of Parisian life remain unchanged since mediæval times. Busy multitudes of alert, eager burgesses crowd her streets; ten thousand students stream from the provinces, from Europe, and even from the uttermost parts of the earth, to eat of the bread of knowledge at her University. The old collegiate life is gone, but the arts and sciences are freely taught as of old to all comers; and a lowly peasant lad may carry in his satchel a prime minister’s portfolio or the insignia of a president of the republic, even as his mediæval prototype bore a bishop’s mitre or a cardinal’s hat. The boisterous exuberance of youthful spirits still vents itself in rowdy student life to the scandal of bourgeois placidity, and the poignant self-revelation and gnawing self-reproach of a François Villon find their analogue in the pathetic verse of a Paul Verlaine. Beneath the fair and ordered surface of the normal life of Paris still sleep the fiery passions which, from the days of the Maillotins to those of the Commune, have throughout the crisis of her history ensanguined her streets with the blood of citizens.[1] Let us remember, however, when contrasting the modern history of Paris with that of London, that the questions which have stirred her citizens have been not party but dynastic ones, often complicated and embittered by social and religious principles ploughing deep in the human soul, for which men have cared enough to suffer, and to inflict, death.

Those writers who are pleased to trace the permanency of racial traits through the life of a people dwell with satisfaction on passages in ancient authors who describe the Gauls as quick to champion the cause of the oppressed, prone to war, elated by victory, impatient of defeat, easily amenable to the arts of peace, responsive to intellectual culture; terrible, indefatigable orators but bad listeners, so intolerant of their speakers that at tribal gatherings an official charged to maintain silence would march, sword in hand, towards an interrupter, and after a third warning cut off a portion of his dress. If the concurrent testimony of writers, ancient, mediæval and modern, be of any worth, Gallic vanity is beyond dispute. Dante, expressing the prevailing belief of his age, exclaims, “Now, was there ever people so vain as the Sienese! Certes not the French by far.”[2] Of their imperturbable gaiety and the avidity for new things we have ample testimony, and the course of this story will demonstrate that France, and more especially Paris, has ever been, from the establishment of Christianity to the birth of the modern world at the Revolution, the parent or the fosterer of ideas, the creator of arts, the soldier of the ideal. She has always evinced a wondrous preventive apprehension of coming changes. The earliest of the western people beyond Rome to adopt Christianity, she had established a monastery near Tours a century and a half before St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, had organised his first community at Subiaco. In the Middle Ages Paris became the intellectual light of the Christian world. From the time of the centralisation of the monarchy at Paris she absorbed in large measure the vital forces of the nation, and all that was greatest in art, science and literature was drawn within her walls until, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, she became the centre of learning, taste and culture in Europe.[3] During the first Empire and the Restoration, after the tempest was stilled and the great heritage of the Revolution taken possession of, an amazing outburst of scientific, artistic and literary activity made Paris the Ville Lumière of Europe.

Paris is still the city in Europe where the things of the mind and of taste have most place, where the wheels of life run most smoothly and pleasantly, where the graces and refinements and amenities of social existence, l’art des plaisirs fins, are most highly developed and most widely diffused. There is something in the crisp, luminous air of Paris that quickens the intelligence and stimulates the senses. Even the scent of the wood fires as one emerges from the railway station exhilarates the spirit. The poet Heine used to declare that the traveller could estimate his proximity to Paris by noting the increasing intelligence of the people, and that the very bayonets of the soldiers were more intelligent than those elsewhere. Life, even in its more sensuous and material phases, is less gross and coarse,[4] its pleasures more refined than in London. It is impossible to conceive the pit of a London theatre stirred to fury by a misplaced adjective in a poetical drama, or to imagine anything comparable to the attitude of a Parisian audience at the cheap holiday performances at the Français or the Odéon, where the severe classic tragedies of Racine, of Corneille, of Victor Hugo, or the well-worn comedies of Molière or of Beaumarchais are played with small lure of stage upholstery, and listened to with close attention by a popular audience responsive to the exquisite rhythm and grace of phrasing, the delicate and restrained tragic pathos, and the subtle comedy of their great dramatists. To witness a première at the Français is an intellectual feast. The brilliant house; the pit and stalls filled with black-coated critics; the quick apprehension of the points and happy phrases; the universal and excited discussion between the acts; the atmosphere of keen and alert intelligence pervading the whole assembly; the quaint survival of the time-honoured “overture”—three knocks on the boards—dating back to Roman times when the Prologus of the comedy stepped forth and craved the attention of the audience by three taps of his wand; the chief actor’s approach to the front of the stage after the play is ended to announce to Mesdames and Messieurs what in these days they have known for weeks before from the press, that “the piece we have had the honour of playing” is by such a one—all combine to make an indelible impression on the mind of the foreign spectator.

The Parisian is the most orderly and well-behaved of citizens. The custom of the queue is a spontaneous expression of his love of fairness and order. Even the applause in theatres is organised. A spectacle such as that witnessed at the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885, the most solemn and impressive of modern times, is inconceivable in London. The whole population (except the Faubourg St. Germain and the clergy) from the poorest labourer to the heads of the State issued forth to file past the coffin of their darling poet, lifted up under the Arc de Triomphe, and by their multitudinous presence honoured his remains borne on a poor bare hearse to their last resting-place in the Panthéon. Amid this vast crowd, mainly composed of labourers, mechanics and the petite bourgeoisie, assembled to do homage to the memory of the poet of democracy, scarcely an agent was seen; the people were their own police, and not a rough gesture, not a trace of disorder marred the sublime scene. The Parisian democracy is the most enlightened and the most advanced in Europe, and it is to Paris that the dearest hopes and deepest sympathies of generous spirits will ever go forth in

“The struggle, and the daring rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiast dreams of brotherhood.”

It now remains for the writer to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following among other authorities, which are here enumerated to obviate the necessity for the use of repeated footnotes, and to indicate to readers who may desire to pursue the study of the history of Paris in more detail, some works among the enormous mass of literature on the subject that will repay perusal.

For the general history of France the monumental Histoire de France now in course of publication, edited by E. Lavisse; Michelet’s Histoire de France, Récits de l’Histoire de France, and Procès des Templiers; Victor Duruy, Histoire de France; Histoire de France racontée par les Contemporains, edited by B. Zeller; Carl Faulmann, Illustrirte Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst; the Chronicles of Gregory of Tours, Richer, Abbo, Joinville, Villani, Froissart, Antonio Morosini; De Comines; Géographie Historique, by A. Guerard; Froude’s essay on the Templars; Jeanne d’Arc, Maid of Orleans, by T. Douglas Murray; Paris sous Philip le Bel, edited by H. Geraud.

For the later Monarchy, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, the Histories of Carlyle, Mignet, Michelet and Louis Blanc; the Origines de la France Contemporaine, by Taine; the Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VIII.; the Memoirs of the Duc de St. Simon, of Madame Campan, Madame Vigée-Lebrun, of Camille Desmoulins, Madame Roland, Paul Louis Courier; the Journal de Perlet; Histoire de la Societé Française pendant la Revolution, by J. de Goncourt; Goethe’s Die Campagne in Frankreich, 1792; Légendes et Archives de la Bastille, by F. Funck Brentano; Life of Napoleon I., by J. Holland Rose; L’Europe et la Revolution Française by Albert Sorel; Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, by C. D. Hazen. For the particular history of Paris, the exhaustive and comprehensive Histoire de la Ville de Paris, by the learned Benedictine priests, Michel Félibien and Guy Alexis Lobineau; the so-called Journal d’un Bourgeois de Paris, edited by L. Lalanne; Paris Pendant la Domination Anglaise, by A. Longnon; the more modern Paris à Travers les Ages, by M. F. Hoffbauer, E. Fournier and others; the Topographie Historique du Vieux Paris, by A. Berty and H. Legrand. Howell’s Familiar Letters, Coryat’s Crudities, and Evelyn’s Diary, contain useful matter. For the chapters on Historical Paris, E. Fournier’s Promenade Historique dans Paris, Chronique des Rues de Paris, Enigmes des Rues des Paris; the Marquis de Rochegude’s Guide Pratique à Travers le Vieux Paris, and the excellent Nouvel Itinéraire Guide Artistique et Archéologique de Paris, by C. Normand, now appearing in fascicules published by the Société des Amis des Monuments Parisiens, have been largely drawn upon and supplemented by affectionate memories of an acquaintance with the city dating back for more than thirty years, and by notes of pilgrimages, under the guidance of a member of the Positivist Society of Paris, made in 1891 through revolutionary Paris and Versailles.

For personal help and information the writer desires to express his obligations to Monsieur Lafenestre, Director of the Louvre: Monsieur L. Bénédite, Director of the Luxembourg; Monsieur G. Redon, architect of the Louvre and the Tuileries; Professor A. Legros; and for help in proof-reading to Mr James Britten.

[CHAPTER I]
PAGE
Gallo-Roman Paris	[1]
[CHAPTER II]
The Barbarian Invasions—St. Genevieve—The Conversion of Clovis—The Merovingian Dynasty	[12]
[CHAPTER III]
The Carlovingians—The Great Siege of Paris by the Normans—The Germs of Feudalism	[29]
[CHAPTER IV]
The Rise of the Capetian Kings and the Growth of Paris	[45]
[CHAPTER V]
Paris under Philip Augustus and St. Louis	[61]
[CHAPTER VI]
Art and Learning at Paris	[79]
[CHAPTER VII]
The Parlement—The States-General—Conflict with Boniface VIII.—The Destruction of the Knights-Templars	[103]
[CHAPTER VIII]
Etienne Marcel—The English Invasions—The Maillotins—Murder of the Duke of Orleans—Armagnacs and Burgundians	[117]
[CHAPTER IX]
Jeanne d’Arc—Paris under the English—End of the English Occupation	[131]
[CHAPTER X]
Louis XI. at Paris—The Introduction of Printing	[138]
[CHAPTER XI]
Francis I.—The Renaissance at Paris	[145]
[CHAPTER XII]
Rise of the Guises—Huguenot and Catholic—The Massacre of St. Bartholomew	[161]
[CHAPTER XIII]
Henry III.—The League—Siege of Paris by Henry IV.—His Conversion, Reign, and Assassination	[175]
[CHAPTER XIV]
Paris under Richelieu and Mazarin	[192]
[CHAPTER XV]
The Grand Monarque—Versailles and Paris	[209]
[CHAPTER XVI]
Paris under the Regency and Louis XV.—The Brooding Storm	[227]
[CHAPTER XVII]
Louis XVI.—The Great Revolution—Fall of the Monarchy	[243]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
Execution of the King—Paris under the First Republic—The Terror—Napoleon—Revolutionary and Modern Paris	[259]
[CHAPTER XIX]
Historical Paris—The Cité—The University Quarter—The Ville—The Louvre—The Place de la Concorde—The Boulevards	[281]
[CHAPTER XX]
The Comédie Française—The Opera—Some Famous Cafés—Conclusion	[321]
[Index]: [A],[B],[C],[D],[E],[F],[G],[H],[I],[J],[K],[L],[M],[N],[O],[P],[Q],[R],[S],[T],[U],[V],[W].	[339]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS BY O. F. M. WARD
Rue St. Antoine	[Frontispiece]
Point du Jour	facing page [5]
Roman Baths in Musée de Cluny	”” [8]
Bois de Boulogne—Lac Supérieur	”” [19]
Rue St. Jacques	”” [23]
St. Julien le Pauvre	”” [26]
Port des Ormes	”” [37]
L’institut de France	”” [44]
Hotel Gerouilhac	”” [51]
St. Etienne Du Mont and Tour de Clovis	”” [62]
Vincennes	”” [68]
Rue de Venise	”” [77]
La Sainte Chapelle	”” [86]
The Seine from Pont da la Concorde	”” [93]
Le Petit Pont	”” [100]
Ile de la Cité	”” [109]
The Seine at Alfortville	”” [117]
On the Quai des Grands Augustins	”” [124]
Notre Dame from the North	”” [132]
Porch of St. Germain l’Auxerrois	”” [141]
Rue Royale	”” [146]
Boulevard St. Michel	”” [155]
Luxembourg Gardens	”” [165]
The Louvre—Galerie d’Apollon	”” [172]
St. Gervais	”” [178]
Luxembourg Palace	”” [181]
Place des Vosges	”” [188]
Pont St. Michel	”” [191]
Pont Neuf	”” [194]
Notre Dame	”” [207]
Place du Carrousel	”” [211]
Versailles—Le Tapis Vert	”” [214]
Grand Palais and Pont Alexandre	”” [219]
Hotel des Invalides	”” [222]
Colonne Vendôme	”” [230]
Place du Châtelet and Tour St. Jacques	”” [235]
Mont S. Geneviève from l’Ile S. Louis	”” [238]
St. Sulpice	”” [241]
Montmartre from Buttes Chaumont	”” [251]
Place de la Concorde	”” [256]
Eiffel Tower	”” [261]
Arc de Triomphe, Place du Carrousel	”” [268]
The Louvre, Eastern Entrance	”” [274]
Rue Drouot and Sacré Cœur	”” [278]
Versailles—Bassin de Neptune	”” [283]
The Observatory	”” [287]
The Louvre from the South-East	”” [293]
St. Eustache	”” [300]
The Trocadero	”” [327]
Arc de Triomphe—Place de l’Etoile	”” [330]
In the Garden of the Tuileries	”” [334]
REPRODUCTIONS OF PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE
Thirteenth Century Sculptures from St. Denis (Restored)	”” [84]
Our Lady of Paris. Early Fifteenth Century	”” [136]
Portrait of Francis I. Jean Clouet	”” [150]
Tritons and Nereids from the Old Fontaine des Innocents. Jean Goujon	”” [166]
Portrait of Elizabeth of Austria, Wife of Charles IX. François Clouet	”” [168]
Catherine de’ Medici. French School, Sixteenth Century	”” [176]
Portion of the East Façade of the Louvre. From Blondel’s Drawing, showing Perrault’s Base. (Reproduced by permission of M. Lampue)	”” [220]
Winged Victory of Samothrace	”” [302]
St. George and the Dragon. Michel Colombe	”” [302]
Cardinal Virtues. Germain Pilon	”” [304]
Diana and the Stag. Jean Goujon (Photogravure)	”” [304]
The Burning Bush. Nicolas Froment (Photogravure)	”” [306]
Triptych of Moulins. Le Maître de Moulins	”” [308]
Juvenal Des Ursins. Fouquet	”” [308]
Shepherds of Arcady. Poussin	”” [310]
A Seaport. Claude Lorrain	”” [312]
Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus. Claude Lorrain	”” [312]
The Embarkation for the Island of Cythera Watteau	”” [314]
Grace before Meat. Chardin	”” [316]
Madame Récamier. David	”” [316]
Landscape. Corot	”” [318]
Lictors bringing to Brutus the bodies of his Sons. David	”” [320]
The Pond. Rousseau	”” [322]
The Binders. Millet	”” [324]

The majority of the photographs of sculpture have been taken by Messrs. Haweis & Coles, while most of the other photographs are reproduced by permission of Messrs. Giraudon.

LINE ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATHARINE KIMBALL

PAGE
The Cité	[3]
Remains of Roman Amphitheatre	[6]
Tower of Clovis	[16]
St. Germain des Prés	[26]
St. Julien le Pauvre	[32]
St. Germain l’Auxerrois	[39]
Wall of Philippe Auguste, Cour de Rouen	[64]
La Sainte Chapelle	[70]
Refectory of the Cordeliers	[74]
Cathedral of St. Denis	[80]
Notre Dame: Portal of St. Anne	[82]
Notre Dame—Southern Side	[85]
Notre Dame and Petit Pont	[91]
Tower in Rue Navarre in which Calvin is said to have Lived	[94]
Hôtel of the Provost of Paris	[96]
Palais de Justice, Clock Tower and Conciergerie	[105]
Palace of the Archbishop of Sens	[113]
Chapel of Fort Vincennes	[122]
Tower at the Corner of the Rue Vieille du Temple and the Rue Barbette	[126]
Tower of Jean Sans Peur	[128]
Cloister of the Billetes, Fifteenth Century, Rue de l’Homme Armé	[135]
Tower of St. Jacques	[147]
Pont Notre Dame	[149]
Chapel, Hôtel de Cluny	[151]
West Door of St. Merri	[152]
Tower of St. Etienne du Mont	[153]
La Fontaine des Innocents	[161]
West Wing of Louvre by Pierre Lescot	[163]
Petite Galerie of the Louvre	[174]
Hôtel de Sully	[183]
Place des Vosges	[188]
Old Houses near Pont St. Michel, showing Spire of the Ste. Chapelle	[190]
The Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Gardens	[196]
Pont Neuf	[198]
The Institut de France	[208]
River and Pont Royal	[225]
South Door of Notre Dame	[237]
Interior of St. Etienne du Mont	[239]
Hôtel de Ville from River	[279]
Notre Dame, South Side	[282]
St. Séverin	[285]
Tower and Courtyard of Hotel Cluny	[287]
Old Academy of Medicine	[289]
Cour du Dragon	[292]
St. Gervais	[294]
Place des Vosges, Maison de Victor Hugo	[296]
Archives Nationales in Hôtel Soubise, showing Towers of Hôtel de Clisson	[298]
Near the Pont Neuf	[303]
Arches in the Courtyard of the Hôtel Cluny	[322]

The majority of the three-colour, half-tone and line blocks used in this book have been made by the Graphic Photo-Engraving Co., London.

LIST OF MAPS

Plan of the Historic Louvre from Blondel’s Drawing	[xxiii]
Map of the successive Walls of Paris	[xxiv]
Plan of Paris when Besieged by Henry IV. in 1590,	facing page [175]

P A R I SAND ITS STORY

PREFACE

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

P A R I S
AND ITS STORY