A step to the south from this street, along Rue Vieille-du-Temple, brings us to the massive entrance-doors of No. 47. Their outer surfaces are richly carved with masks and with figures; on their inner side is an excellent bas-relief representing Romulus and Remus found by the shepherd, when the wolf is giving them suck. About the court, diminutive and dainty, the walls of the small hôtel are adorned with tasteful sculptures, and laden with dials, two of the sun and two of the moon. These anomalous adornments came here through the caprice of a Director of the Royal Observatory, who once occupied the house and who wreaked his scientific humor in this odd fashion. This is the Hôtel de Hollande, a rebuilt remnant of the large mediæval mansion of Maréchal de Rieux. The street just in front of his hôtel, some authorities insist, was the scene of the assassination of the Duc d'Orléans. Reconstructed early in the seventeenth century, the carvings, sculptures, and decorations of this elegant little hôtel are excellent examples of late Renaissance. Unluckily, the bas-reliefs and paintings of the interior may no longer be seen. Beyond this outer court is a smaller court, containing an attractive structure of a later date.
This Hôtel de Hollande has borne that name since, in the reign of Louis XIV., it was the seat of the embassy representing Holland at his court. This being officially Dutch soil, at that time, we may see Racine coming through this entrance-doorway, in full wig and court costume; coming to present his son for introductions at The Hague, where the young man is to be a member of the French Embassy. We have seen the letters sent to him there by his thrifty father. There is another bit of history for us here. It was in this house that the firm "Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie" started in business in 1776, with a capital of 3,000,000 francs. The firm was composed of Caron de Beaumarchais, with the governments of France and Spain for his silent partners; the former putting in 2,000,000 francs, and the latter the other million. The business of this house—and it did a lively business while it lasted—was to supply, secretly and unknown to the English officials in Paris, arms and equipments to the American colonies.
Anne de Montmorenci, the great constable of France, in alliance, against the Huguenots, with the Guises, his near neighbors in the Marais, outfought Condé and Coligny at Saint-Denis in 1567, and died, of the wounds he got in that battle, "in his own hôtel in Rue Saint-Avoie." So says the chronicle, and it tells us further that his was the grandest mansion in the town, with most extensive grounds; far surpassing in size and magnificence the Hôtels Lamoignon and Carnavalet. It was sufficiently spacious for the large-minded John Law, who established his bank in the building two centuries later. When the crash came, and he sought more modest quarters, the State took the building for its bureaux. Now, no stone of the structure can be found, the street from which it had entrance—Saint-Avoie—is merged in that portion of Rue du Temple which crosses Rue Rambuteau, and this broad thoroughfare sweeps over the site of Montmorenci's palace and his gardens.
Turning from Rue Rambuteau into Rue du Temple, we are face to face, at No. 71, with a monumental gateway, richly carved, giving entrance to an ample court. The stately walls surrounding this court have suffered much from time, and more from man. The old façade of this wing on our left is hidden behind a paltry new frontage for shops, and on the roof of the central body before us a contemptible top story has been put. The face of the original lofty attic, above the cornice, carried pilasters in continuation of those below, and these have been brutally mutilated by a line of low windows just over the cornice. For all that, there is a majesty in the stately arcades of these lower stories, and in the unspoiled lower walls, up which climb graceful Corinthian pilasters from ground to cornice. They are similar to those of the Hôtel Lamoignon, built before this Hôtel de Saint-Aignan was transformed from a former structure by de Muet, who doubtless admired, perhaps unconsciously imitated, the best features of the earlier architecture. He has put, in this almost intact right wing, just such a stone staircase, of easy grade and no hand-rail, as that we have seen in the residence built for Diane de France.
There is hardly any history to detain us here, and the great names that once resounded in this court make only far-away echoes now. Claude de Mesme, Comte d'Avaux, a diplomat of the seventeenth century, built this hôtel. At his death, it came to the Duc de Saint-Aignan, a royal Purveyor at the head of Louis XIV.'s Council of Finance. He was a relative of Madame de Scudéry, wife of the Georges whom we have met in his sister's salon. Through his wife's influence with Saint-Aignan, Georges was presented to the King, and succeeded in obtaining a pension—useful to supplement such of his sister's earnings as came in his way. His merits, for which the royal bounty was granted, seem to have been of so momentous a literary character as to be pronounced equal to those of Corneille!
When Olivier de Clisson—Constable of France after the death of his comrade-in-arms, the mighty Duguesclin—brought back Charles VI. victorious to Paris, after crushing the revolt in Ghent under Philip van Artavelde, he found the Marais du Temple fast being reclaimed and built upon. At one corner of the Templars' former wood-yard, on a street to be named du Chaume, now merged in the southern end of Rue des Archives, opposite the end of Rue de Braque, was the fortress-home of his wife, Marguerite de Rohan, within the family enclosure. Here de Clisson made his head-quarters, giving his name to the hôtel. Its entrance, an ogival portal sunk beneath two impressive round turrets, built of different sizes through some vagary, still remains; a most impressive relic, imbedded in more recent walls.
The Gateway of the Hôtel de Clisson.
It was de Clisson, who, quite without his consent, gave the King one of the several shocks which culminated in his madness. King and Constable had supped together in the royal apartment of the Hôtel Saint-Paul, and the Constable went on his way home. Lighted by the main facts of the affair, we may easily track him. After crossing Rue Saint-Antoine and passing through one of the narrow lanes to Rue Neuve-Sainte-Catherine—now the eastern end of Rue des Francs-Bourgeois—he should have kept along this street to this new home of his. Perhaps the old soldier was not quite sure of his way, so soon after supper and the plentiful petit vin de l'hôtel Saint-Paul, for he found himself beyond his corner, up in Rue Sainte-Catherine, now Rue Sévigné; and there, in front of a baker's shop opposite the spot where now is the Carnavalet, he was set upon by a band of men led by Pierre de Craon, a crony of Louis d'Orléans. They left the tough old warrior in the baker's doorway, bleeding from many wounds, but not quite killed. The King was summoned, came hastily in scanty clothing, and it was long before he recovered from his affright. When he had rallied, he started out to punish the assailant of his favorite captain, and it was on his way to Brittany, with whose duke de Craon had taken refuge, that the King received the final blow to his reason.