A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

"And as he sang there the mass and communed the people, our Lord appeared to him with great light, and delivered to him bread, saying: Take this, my dear friend, for thy reward is most great with me. After this they were presented to the judge and were put again to new torments, and then he did do smite off the heads of the three fellows, that is to say, Denis, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, in confessing the name of the holy Trinity. And this was done by the temple of Mercury, and they were beheaded with three axes. And anon the body of S. Denis raised himself up, and bare his head between his arms, as the angel led him two leagues from the place, which is said the hill of the martyrs, unto the place where he now resteth, by his election, and by the purveyance of God. And there was heard so great and sweet a melody of angels that many of them that heard it believed in our Lord."

Any one making the pilgrimage from, say, Notre Dame to the town of St. Denis to-day, can follow the saint's footsteps, for the Rue St. Denis at the foot of Montmartre leads out into the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis, and that street right over Montmartre, Caxton's hill of the martyrs, to St. Denis itself. I do not pretend that the legend as it is thus given has not been subjected to severe criticism; but when one has no certain knowledge, the best story can be considered the best evidence, and I like Caxton better than the others, even though it conflicts a little with the legend of St. Geneviève. It is she, I might add, who is credited with having inaugurated the pilgrimage to St. Denis's bones.

The Rue St. Denis was more than the road to the saint's remains: it was the great north road out of Paris to the sea. Just as the old Londoners bound for the north left by the City Road and passed through the village of Highgate, so did the French traveller leave by the Rue St. Denis and pass through the village of St. Denis. Similarly the Rue St. Martin was the high-road to Germany. In the old days, when this street was a highway, the Porte St. Denis had some meaning, for it stood as a gateway between the city and the country; but to-day, when the course of traffic is east and west, it stands (like the Porte St. Martin) merely as an obstruction in the Grand Boulevard—not quite so foolish as our own revised Marble Arch, but nearly so. The Porte St. Denis dates from 1673 and celebrates, as the bas-reliefs indicate, the triumphs of Louis XIV. in Germany and Holland; the Porte St. Martin (to which we are just coming) belongs to the same period and commemorates other successes of the same monarch.

The Rue St. Denis is one of the most entertaining of the old streets of Paris, although adulterated a little by omnibuses and a sense of commerce. But to have boundless time before one, and no cares, and no fatigue, and starting at the Porte St. Denis to loiter along it prepared to penetrate every inviting court and alluring by-street—that is a great luxury. The first theatre in Paris, and indeed in France, was in the Hospital of the Trinity in the Rue St. Denis. That was early in the fifteenth century, and it was designed for the performance of Mystery plays in which the protagonist was, of course, Jesus Christ. Paris has now many theatres, with other ideals; but whatever their programmes may be, they proceed from that early and pious spring.

We come next to the Boulevard de Strasbourg, running north to the Gare de l'Est, and the Boulevard de Sébastopol, running south to the Ile de la Cité; and then to the second archway, the Porte St. Martin. St. Martin (who was Bishop of Tours) lived in Paris for a while, and it was here that he performed the miracle of healing a leper by embracing him—an act commemorated by Henri I. in the founding of the Priory of St. Martin, which stood a little way down the Rue St. Martin on the left, on a site on which the Musée des Arts et Métiers now stands. But it was at Amiens that the saint's most beautiful act—the gift of his cloak to a beggar—was performed, and perhaps I may be allowed to quote here, from another book of mine, the translation of a poem by M. Haraucourt, the curator of the Cluny museum, celebrating that deed:—

CHARITY

Because so bitter was the rain,
Saint Martin cut his cloak in twain,
And gave the beggar half of it
To cover him and ease his pain.

But being now himself ill clad,
The Saint's own case was no less sad.
So piteously cold the night;
Though glad at heart he was, right glad.

Thus, singing, on his way he passed,
While Satan, grim and overcast,
Vowing the Saint should rue his deed,
Released the cruel Northern blast.

Away it sprang with shriek and roar,
And buffeted the Saint full sore,
Yet never wished he for his cloak;
So Satan bade the deluge pour.