The Stones of Paris in History and Letters, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Benjamin Ellis Martin; Charlotte M. Martin

Having handsomely requited his servant and comrade, the King began, in the very centre of the Tournelles, a great square with surrounding structures. As soon as one of his pavilions was sufficiently finished, he installed in it a colony of two hundred Italians, brought to France for that purpose, skilled weavers and workers of silks shot with silver and with gold, such as made Milan famous. And to this man alone—who was, said a memorial of his Chamber of Commerce, pleading for the planting of the mulberry, "nearly divine, never promising without performing, never starting without finishing;" and who issued edicts for that planting, in spite of Sully's opposition—does France owe her mulberry plantations and her silkworms, as Voltaire truly points out. It is commonly asserted that his "mason," for these constructions of the Place Royale, was Androuët du Cerceau, whose name is claimed for many buildings that would make his working-life last for a century and more. This Jacques Androuët was so renowned in his day, that much of the architecture of his sons and his grandson was then, and is still, set down to him. That stern old Huguenot, born in 1515, went from Paris along with the dwellers in "Little Geneva," and is last heard of, still in exile, as late as 1584. Perhaps his son Baptiste joined him in 1585, when his convictions drove him, too, from the court and the capital, as has been told in the chapter, "The Scholars' Quarter." Baptiste came back to serve Henri IV. and Louis XIII., and trained his son Jean in his trade. For much of the work of this busy Jean his grandfather has the credit, as well as for other work done by Jean's uncle Jacques, second of that name. The Pont-Neuf is always ascribed to the great Androuët, who never saw one of its stones in place. That bridge was begun by his son Baptiste in 1578, and finished by his grandson Jean in 1607. He it was, if it were any du Cerceau, who planned and began the Place Royale.

The Hôtel de Mayenne.
In the distance, the Temple Sainte-Marie, called the Church of the Visitation.

We are fortunate in that we may see one example of the style of the founder of this notable family, in the massive structure at No. 212 Rue Saint-Antoine, its side walls extending along Rue du Petit-Musc. This street took its title from one of the numerous small hôtels that made up the grand Hôtel Saint-Paul; and on its foundations—still buried beneath these stones—was erected the present structure by Androuët du Cerceau. It is the only entire specimen of his work in Paris, and we may believe that he had done better work than this, albeit it carries the authority of the old Huguenot. He began it for Diane de Poictiers, and it was finished for an owner as heavy and as stolid as its walls. This was Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Mayenne, the eldest, the least brilliant, the most honest, of the famous brothers of Guise. As Lieutenant-General of the League, he led its troops to the defeats of Arques and Ivry. When Henri de Navarre became Henri IV. of France, the only punishment he inflicted on his fat opponent was to walk him, at a killing pace, about the grounds of Monceaux, while listening to his protests of future submission: "I will be to you, all my life long, a loyal subject and faithful servant. I will never fail you nor desert you." So promised Mayenne, and he kept his word. He lived here in this mansion, through sixteen years of honorable employment in the Council of State, surviving Henry only a few months, and dying in his bed, in pain and with patience. His house, once one of the noisy hatching-places of the Holy League, is now a noisy school for boys. Its well-set cornice has been mangled by the cutting through it of the dormer windows, its grand staircase has been degraded, its court, stern from du Cerceau's hand, has grown sullen, and its great gardens are built over, all along Rue du Petit-Musc.

In accordance with the King's scheme for his Place Royale, its eastern side was first built up at the crown's expense. The other sides were divided into lots of similar size, and leased to men of the court, of family, and of finance, on condition that they should begin to build at once, each after the original plans. With this stipulation, and an agreement to occupy their dwellings when finished, and to pay a yearly rental of one crown of gold, they and their heirs forever were given possession of these lots, as stated in the royal patent registered on August 5, 1605. Thirty-six structures were planned for these private dwellings, the two central pavilions on the northern and southern sides being reserved for royalty; so that thirty-six crowns were to come in as the entire annual revenue from the Place Royale; not an exorbitant rental, since the écu de la couronne of that day was worth from seven to ten francs. Thus began that historic square, and thus vanished, from off the face of the earth, the last trace of the historic Tournelles.

Henry was more eager to hurry on the constructions than were his tenants; only a few of whom, indeed, completed and occupied their houses. There were other delays in building, not to be overcome by his almost daily visits to the spot when in town, and by his appealing letters from Fontainebleau to Sully, urging him to "go and see" if the work were being pushed on. But it was still unfinished, when Ravaillac's knife cut off all his plans. This plan, however, was carried out by Marie de' Medici, who had made herself Queen-Regent by lavish payments and promises. Her memories of the style of Northern Italy influenced details of the new constructions, which were so far finished in 1615 as to serve for the scene of the festivities, planned by her as an expression of the joy that the Parisians did not know they felt. The occasion was the marriage of her son, the fourteen-year-old Louis XIII., with Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III. of Spain; and of her daughter, Isabelle, with the Spanish Infante, afterward Philip IV. That was a great day for the Place Royale. For this function its still uncompleted portions were hid by scaffoldings, and all its fronts were draped with hangings and festooned with flowers. One hundred thousand guests swarmed to see the childish mummery of bearded men pranking as nymphs, the circus antics of ballets de chevaux by day, and the fireworks by night.

This first public appearance of the place was, also, the last public appearance of the Queen-Regent. There can be woven no romance about this woman; fat and foolish, copious of emotion, impulsive of speech. The pencil of Rubens cannot give grace to her affluent curves, and her husband's strength could not stand against her "terribly robust" arms, working briskly when she raged. Whatever may be our summing-up of this man's morality, we must set down, to the credit of his account, his hard case with the two women to whom fate had married him, each so trying after her own fashion. Of sterner stuff than he, so far as that sex goes, was Richelieu, the new ruler of the young King Louis XIII. He would bear no more of Marie's meddling and muddling, and sent her into exile in 1617. These two died in the same year, 1642, she in poverty and neglect at Cologne, after having so long been "tossed to and fro by the various fortunes of her life," says English Evelyn; who, travelling on the Continent, notes the "universal discontent which accompanied that unlucky woman, wherever she went."

We see her in our Place Royale only during this one day, but her son and his minister are with us there to-day, as we stand in front of that King's statue, in the centre of the square. This statue is a reproduction of the original—melted down in 1792—erected by Richelieu in 1639, not less for his own glorification, than to immortalize the virtues of "Louis the Just, Thirteenth of that name." He had a score of the virtues of a valet, indeed, and with them the soul of a lackey. This present statue, placed here in the closing year of the Bourbon Restoration, 1829, prettifies and makes complacent that sombre and suspicious creature, the dismallest figure in his low-spirited court. On his hair, flowing to his shoulders, rests a laurel crown, and the weak lips, curved in an unwonted smile, not twisted by his habitual stutter, are half hid by a darling mustache. He sits his horse jauntily, clad in a long cloak and a skirt reaching to his naked knees, and tries to be ostentatiously Roman with bare arms and legs, his right hand pointing out across the square, from which he tried in vain to drive the duellists.

We have already come here, under the guidance of Dumas, to witness one famous duel in the time of Henri III. This spot had retained its vogue for the aristocratic pastime, in spite of the repeated edicts and the relentless punishments of Richelieu, under royal sanction and signature. Fair women hung over the infrequent balconies, or peeped from the windows, to view these duels and to applaud the duellists. A keener interest was given to the probability of the death on the ground of one combatant, by the certainty of the axe or the rope of the public executioner for the survivor.