A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

LE PRINTEMPS
ROUSSEAU
(Louvre: Thomy-Thierret Collection)

Is that too dreadful an association for this spot? It is terrible; but to visit Paris without any historical interest is too materialistic a proceeding, and to have the historical interest in Paris and be afraid of a little blood is an untenable position. Paris is steeped in blood.

The Tuileries had not seen all its riot yet; July 29th, 1830, was to come, when, after another taste of monarchy, revived in 1814 after its murder on that appalling 10th of August (which was virtually its death day, although the date of the birth of the First Republic stands as September 21st, 1793), the mob attacked the Palace, the last Bourbon king, Charles X., fled from it and from France, and Louis-Philippe of Orléans mounted the throne in his stead. But that was not all. Another seventeen and a half years and revengeful time saw Louis-Philippe, last of the Orléans kings, escaping in his turn from another besieging crowd, and the establishment of the Second Republic.

During the Second Empire some of the old splendour returned, and it was here, at the Tuileries, that Napoleon III. drew up many of his plans for the modern Paris that we now know; and then came the Prussian war and the Third Republic, and then the terrible Communard insurrection in the spring of 1871, in which the Tuileries disappeared for ever. Napoleon III., as I have said, assisted by Baron Haussmann, toiled in the great pacific task of renovating Paris, not with the imaginative genius of his uncle, but with an undeniable largeness and sagacity. He it was who added so greatly to the Louvre—all that part in fact opposite the Place du Palais Royal and the Magasins du Louvre as far west as the Rue de Rohan. A large portion of the corresponding wing on the river side was his too. But here is a list, since we are on the subject of modern Paris—which began with the great Napoleon's reconstruction of the ravages (beneficial for the most part) of the Revolutionaries—of the efforts made by each ruler since that epoch. I borrow the table from the Marquis de Rochegude.

"Napoleon I.—Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, Vendôme Column, Façade du Corps Legislatif, Commencement of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile, La Bourse, the Bridges d'Austerlitz, d'Iéna, des Arts, de la Cité, several Markets, Quais d'Orsay, de Billy, du Louvre, Montebello, de la Tournelle; the Eastern and Northern Cemeteries; numbering the houses in 1806, begun without success in 1728; pavements in the streets and doing away with the streams or flowing gutters in the middle of the streets." (How like Napoleon to get the houses numbered on a clear system! Throughout Paris the odd numbers occupy one side of the street and the even the other. All are numbered from the Seine outwards.)

"The Restoration.—Chapel Expiatoire, N.D. de Bonne-Nouvelle, N.D. de Lorette, St. Vincent de Paul; Bridges of the Invalides, of the Archbishopric, d'Arcole; Canals of St. Denis and St. Martin; fifty-five new streets; lighting by gas." (It was about 1828 that cabs came in. They were called fiacres from the circumstance that their originator carried on his business at the sign of the Grand St. Fiacre.)

"Louis-Philippe, 1830-1848.—Finished the Madeleine, Arc de Triomphe, erected the Obelisk (Place de la Concorde), Column of July; Bridges: Louis-Philippe, Carrousel; Palace of the Quai d'Orsay; enlarged the Palais de Justice; restored Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle; Fountains: Louvois, Cuvier, St. Sulpice, Gaillon, Molière; opened the Museums of Cluny and the Thermes. In 1843—1,100 streets.

"Napoleon III., 1852-1870.—Embellished Paris—execution of Haussmann's plans, twenty-two new boulevards; Streets Lafayette, Quatre-Septembre, de Turbigo; Bvd. St. Germain; Rues des Ecoles, de Rivoli, the Champs Elysées Quarter, the Avenues Friedland, Hoche, Kléber, the Marceau, de L'Impératrice, many squares; a part of new Louvre; Churches of St. Augustine, The Trinity, St. Ambroise, Ste. Clotilde (finishing of); Theatres, Châtelet, Lyrique, du Vaudeville; Tribunal of Commerce, Hôtel Dieu, Barracks, Central Markets (also the ceinture railway); finishing of the Laribosière hospital, the Fountain of St. Michel, the Bridges of Solferino, L'Alma, the Pont au Change. In 1861, 1,667,841 inhabitants.