But what is that sound? The beating of a drum. We must hasten to the gates, for that means closing time.
CHAPTER IX
THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE—THE CHAMPS-ELYSÉES AND THE INVALIDES
A Dangerous Crossing—An Ill-omened Place—Louis the XVI. in Prosperity and Adversity—January 21st, 1793—The End of Robespierre—The Luxor Column—The Congress of Wheels—England and France—The Champs Elysées—The Parc Monceau—A Terrestrial Paradise—Oriental Museums—The Etoile's Tributaries—The Arc de Triomphe—The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne—A Vast Pleasure-ground—Happy Sundays—Longchamp—The Pari-mutuel—Spotting a Winner—Two Crowded Corners—The Rival Salons—The Palais des Beaux-Arts—Dutch Masters—Modern French Painters—Superb Drawing—Fairies among the Statues—The Pont Alexandre III.—The Fairs of Paris—A Vast Alms-house—A Model Museum—Relics of Napoleon—The Second Funeral of Napoleon—The Tomb of Napoleon.
The Place de la Concorde by day is vast rather than beautiful, and by night it is a congress of lamps. By both it is dangerous, and in bad weather as exposed as the open sea. But it is sacred ground and Paris is unthinkable without it. The interest of the Place is summed up in the Luxor column, which may perhaps be said to mark what is perhaps the most critical site in modern history; for where the obelisk now stands stood not so very long ago the guillotine.
The Place's name has been Concorde only since 1830 It began in 1763, when a bronze statue of Louis XV. on horseback was erected there, surrounded by emblematic figures, from the chisel of Pigalle, of Prudence, Justice, Force and Peace. Hence the characteristic French epigram:—
"O la belle statue, O le beau piédestal!
Les Vertus sont à pied, le Vice est à cheval."
Before this time the Place had been an open and uncultivated space; it was now enclosed, surrounded with fosses, made trim, and called La Place Louis Quinze. In 1770, however, came tragedy; for on the occasion of the marriage of the Dauphin, afterwards the luckless Louis XVI., with the equally luckless Marie Antoinette, a display of fireworks was given, during which one of the rockets (as one always dreads at every display) declined the sky and rushed horizontally into the crowd, and in the resulting stampede thousands of persons fell into the ditches, twelve hundred being killed outright and two thousand injured.
Twenty-two years later, kings having suddenly become cheap, the National Convention ordered the statue of Louis XV. to be melted down and recast into cannon, a clay figure of Liberté to be set up in its stead, and the name to be changed to the Place de la Révolution. This was done, and a little later the guillotine was erected a few yards west of the spot where the Luxor column now stands, primarily for the removal of the head of Louis XVI., in whose honour those unfortunate fireworks had been ignited. The day was January 21st, 1793.
"King Louis," says Carlyle, "slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry, as he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair: while this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell. At half-past six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and conference with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his Family: it were too hard to bear.