A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

THE WINDMILL
R. P. BONINGTON
(Louvre)

There lies before me as I write an amusing memorial of the innocent high spirits that can prevail on such a special all-night sitting as Réveillon: one of the tails of a dress coat, lined with white satin on which a skilful hand has traced with a fountain pen (my own) two very intimate scenes of French life. These drawings were made between five and six in the morning in the intervals of the dance, the artist, lacking paper, having without a word taken a table knife and shorn off his coat-tails for the purpose. His coat, I may say, was already being worn inside out, with one of the leather buckles of his braces as a button-hole. A tall burly man, with a long red Boulevard beard, he had thrown out signs of friendliness to me at once, and we became as brothers. He drew my portrait on the table-cloth; I affected to draw his. He showed me where I was wrong and drew it right. He then left me, in order to walk for a while on an imaginary tight-rope across the floor, and having safely made the journey and turned again, with infinite skill in his recoveries from falling and the most dexterous managing of a balancing-pole that did not exist, he leaped lightly to earth again, kissed his hand to the company, and again sat by me and resumed his work; finally, after other diversions, completing the chef d'œuvre that is now lying on my desk and lending abandon to what is otherwise a stronghold of British decorum. We parted at seven. I have never seen him since, but I find his name often in the French comic papers illustrating yet other phases of their favourite pleasantry for the entertainment of this simple and tireless people.

Another incident I recall that is equally characteristic of Montmartre. "Ça ne fait rien," said a head-waiter when we had expressed regret on hearing of the death of the maître d'hotel, for whom (an old acquaintance) we had been asking. "Ça ne fait rien: it is necessary to order supper just the same." True. True indeed everywhere, but particularly true on Montmartre.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE ELYSÉE TO THE HÔTEL DE VILLE

The Most Interesting Streets—Pet Aversions—The Rue de la Paix—The Vendôme Column—A Populous Church—The Whiff of Grapeshot—Alfred de Musset—The Molière Quarter—A Green and White Oasis—Camille Desmoulins at the Café de Foy—Charles Lamb in Paris—The Cloître de St. Honoré—The Massacre of St. Bartholomew—St. Germain of Auxerre—A Satisfied Corpse—Catherine de Médicis' Observatory—St. Eustache—A Wonderful Organ-The Halles—French Economy and English Want of It—The Goat-herd—The Assassination of Henri IV.—The Tour St. Jacques-Pascal, Theologian and Inventor of Omnibuses—A Sinister Spot—The Paris Town-hall—A Riot of Frescoes—Etienne Marcel—The Hôtel de Ville and Politesse—An Ancient Palace—Old Streets—Madame de Beauvais' Mansion—A Quiet Courtyard—The Church of St. Paul and St. Louis—Rabelais' Grave.

The Elysée, the official home of the French president—Paris's White House and Buckingham Palace—is situated in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is one of the most entertaining streets in the whole city in which to loiter; that is, if you like, as I do, the windows of curiosity dealers and jewellers and print shops. Not that bargains are to be obtained here: far from it: it is not like the Rue des Saints Pères or the Rue Mazarine across the river; but merely as a series of windows it is fascinating. I like it as much as I dislike the Rue Lafayette, which has always been my aversion, not only because it is interminable and commercial and noisy, but because it leads back to England and work; yet since, however, when one arrives in Paris it leads from England and work, I must be a little lenient, and there is also a café in it where the diamond merchants compare gems quite openly.

Remembering these extenuating circumstances I unhesitatingly award the palm for undesirability in a Paris street to the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue Réaumur, which are sheer Shaftesbury Avenue, and, as in Shaftesbury Avenue, cause one to regret the older streets and houses whose place they have usurped. The Rue de Rivoli I dislike too: that strange mixture of very good hotels (the Meurice, for instance, is here) and rubbishy shops full of tawdry jewellery to catch the excursionist. How it happened that such a site should have been allowed to fall into such hands is a mystery. An additional objection to the Rue de Rivoli is that the one English acquaintance whom one least wishes to meet is always there.

The Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré becomes the Rue Saint-Honoré at the Rue Royale. The Rue Saint-Honoré is also a good street for shop windows, but not the equal of its more aristocratic half; just as that is surpassed here by the Rue de la Paix, to which we now come on the left, and which contains more things that I can do without, made to perfection, than any street I ever saw. At its foot is the Place Vendôme, with the beautiful column in the midst on which Napoleon's campaign of 1805 is illustrated in a bronze spiral that constitutes at once, I suppose, the most durable and the longest picture in the world. The bronze came very properly from the melted Russian and Austrian cannons. Napoleon stands at the top, imperially splendid; but as we saw in the chapter on the "Ile de la Cité," it was not always so: for his first statue was removed by Louis XVIII. to be used for the new Henri IV. In its stead a fleur-de-lys surmounted the column. Then came Louis-Philippe, who erected a new statue of the Emperor, not, however, imperially clad; and then Napoleon III., who substituted the present figure. But in 1870 the Communards succeeded in bringing the column down, and it has only been vertical again since 1875. Thus it is to be a Paris monument!