A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

Returning to the Rue Saint-Honoré, in which, by the way, are several old and interesting houses, such as No. 271, the Cabaret du Saint-Esprit, a great resort in the Reign of Terror of spectators wishing to see the tumbrils pass, and No. 398, where Robespierre lodged, we come to St. Roch's church, on the left, interesting both in itself and in history. It has been called the noisiest church in Paris, and certainly it is difficult to find a time when feet are silent there. The attraction is St. Roch's wealth of shrines, of a rather theatrical character, such as the wise poor love: an entombment, a calvary and a nativity, all very effective if not beautiful. Beauty does not matter, for on Good Friday the entombment holds thousands silent before it. The church, which is in the baroque style that it is so easy to dislike, is too florid throughout. Among the many monuments are memorials of Corneille and Diderot, both of whom are buried here. The music of St. Roch is, I am told, second only to that of the Madeleine.

So much for St. Roch within. Historically it chances to be of immense importance, for it was here, and in the streets around and about the church, that the whiff of grapeshot blew which dispersed the French Revolution into the air. That was on October 5th, 1795, and it was not only the death of the Revolution but it was the birth of the conquering Buonaparte. Carlyle is superb: "Some call for Barras to be made Commandant; he conquered in Thermidor. Some, what is more to the purpose, bethink them of the Citizen Buonaparte, unemployed Artillery-Officer, who took Toulon. A man of head, a man of action: Barras is named Commandant's-Cloak; this young Artillery-Officer is named Commandant. He was in the Gallery at the moment, and heard it; he withdrew, some half-hour, to consider with himself: after a half-hour of grim compressed considering, to be or not to be, he answers Yea.

"And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets vital. Swift, to Camp of Sablons; to secure the Artillery, there are not twenty men guarding it! A swift Adjutant, Murat is the name of him, gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, for Lepelletier was also on march that way: the Cannon are ours. And now beset this post, and beset that; rapid and firm: at Wicket of the Louvre, in Cul-de-sac Dauphin, in Rue Saint-Honoré, from Pont-Neuf all along the north Quays, southward to Pont ci-devant Royal,—rank round the Sanctuary of the Tuileries, a ring of steel discipline; let every gunner have his match burning, and all men stand to their arms!

"Lepelletier has seized the Church of Saint-Roch; has seized the Pont-Neuf, our piquet there retreating without fire. Stray shots fall from Lepelletier; rattle down on the very Tuileries Staircase. On the other hand, women advance dishevelled, shrieking, Peace; Lepelletier behind them waving his hat in sign that we shall fraternise. Steady! The Artillery-Officer is steady as bronze; can, if need were, be quick as lightning. He sends eight-hundred muskets with ball-cartridges to the Convention itself; honourable Members shall act with these in case of extremity: whereat they look grave enough. Four of the afternoon is struck. Lepelletier, making nothing by messengers, by fraternity or hat-waving, bursts out, along the Southern Quai Voltaire, along streets and passages, treble-quick, in huge veritable onslaught! Whereupon, thou bronze Artillery-Officer—? 'Fire!' say the bronze lips. And roar and thunder, roar and again roar, continual, volcano-like, goes his great gun, in the Cul-de-sac Dauphin against the Church of Saint-Roch; go his great guns on the Pont-Royal; go all his great guns;—blow to air some two-hundred men, mainly about the Church of Saint-Roch! Lepelletier cannot stand such horse-play; no Sectioner can stand it; the Forty-thousand yield on all sides, scour towards covert. 'Some hundred or so of them gathered about the Théâtre de la République; but,' says he, 'a few shells dislodged them. It was all finished at six.'

THE SACRÉ-CŒUR DE MONTMARTRE, FROM THE BUTTES-CHAUMONT

"The Ship is over the bar, then; free she bounds shoreward,—amid shouting and vivats! Citoyen Buonaparte is 'named General of the Interior, by acclamation'; quelled Sections have to disarm in such humour as they may; sacred right of Insurrection is gone forever! The Sieyes Constitution can disembark itself, and begin marching. The miraculous Convention Ship has got to land;—and is there, shall we figuratively say, changed, as Epic Ships are wont, into a kind of Sea Nymph, never to sail more; to roam the waste Azure, a Miracle in History!

"'It is false,' says Napoleon, 'that we fired first with blank charge; it had been a waste of life to do that.' Most false: the firing was with sharp and sharpest shot: to all men it was plain that here was no sport; the rabbets and plinths of Saint-Roch Church show splintered by it to this hour.—Singular: in old Broglie's time, six years ago, this Whiff of Grapeshot was promised; but it could not be given then; could not have profited then. Now, however, the time is come for it, and the man; and behold, you have it; and the thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by it, and become a thing that was!—"

Crossing the Place du Théâtre-Français we come to that historic home of the best French drama, where Molière is still played frequently, and one has some respite from the theme of facile promiscuity which dominates most of the other theatres of Paris. A new statue of Alfred de Musset has lately been set up under the Comédie Française. I copy from a writer very unlike him a passage of criticism to remember as one stands by this monument: "Give a look, if you can, at a Memoir of Alfred de Musset written by his Brother. Making allowance for French morals, and Absinthe (which latter is not mentioned in the Book), Alfred appears to me a fine Fellow, very un-French in some respects. He did not at all relish the new Romantic School, beginning with V. Hugo, and now alive in —— and Co.—(what I call the Gargoyle School of Art, whether in Poetry, Painting, or Music)—he detested the modern 'feuilleton' Novel, and read Clarissa!... Many years before A. de M. died he had a bad, long, illness, and was attended by a Sister of Charity. When she left she gave him a Pen with 'Pensez à vos promesses' worked about in coloured silks: as also a little worsted 'Amphore' she had knitted at his bedside. When he came to die, some seventeen years after, he had these two little things put with him in his Coffin." That, by Edward FitzGerald, no natural friend to the de Mussets of the world, is very pretty.