A Wanderer in Paris

by E. V. Lucas

After leaving the Hôtel de Ville and its modern splendours, we may walk eastward along the Rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, one of the narrowest and dirtiest relics of old Paris, and so come to the Hôtel de Sens. But first notice, at the corner of the Rue des Nonnains-d'Hyères, at the point at which Mr. Dexter made his drawing, the very ancient stone sign of the knife-grinder. The Hôtel de Sens, in the Place de l'Ave Maria, at the end of the Rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, is almost if not quite the most attractive of the old palaces. Although it has been allowed to fall into neglect, it is still a wonderfully preserved specimen of fifteenth-century building. The turrets are absolutely beautiful. The Archbishop of Sens built it, and for nearly three centuries it remained the home of power and wealth, among its tenants being Marguerite of Valois. Then came the Revolution and its decline into a coach office, from which it is said the Lyons mail, made familiar to us by the Irvings, started. During a later revolution, 1830, a cannon ball found a billet in the wall, and it may still be seen there, I am told, although these eyes missed it. The Hôtel is now a glass factory. The city of Paris ought to acquire it before it sinks any lower.

It is at the foot of the Rue de l'Ave Maria, hard by, that Molière's theatre, which we saw from the Quai des Célestins in an earlier chapter, is found. Here Molière was arrested at the instance of the unpaid tallow chandler. Our way now is by the Rue Figuier, of which the Hôtel de Sens is No. 1, to the Rue François-Miron, all among the most fascinating old architecture and association. At No. 8 Rue Figuier, for instance, Rabelais is said to have lived, and what could be better than that? At No. 17, we have what the Vicomte de Villebresme calls a "jolie niche du XV^e siècle". This street leads into the Rue de Jouy, also exceedingly old, with notable buildings, such as No. 7, the work of Mansard père, and No. 9, and on the left of the Impasse Guépine, which existed in the reign of Saint Louis.

In the Rue François-Miron, if you do not mind exhibiting a little inquisitiveness, enter the doorway of No. 68, and look at the courtyard and the staircase. Here you get an excellent idea of past glories, while the outer doors or gates give an excellent idea of past danger too. For life in Paris in the days in which this street was built must have been very cheap after dark. It is not dear even now in certain parts. This was an historic mansion. It was built for Madame de Beaumaris, femme de chambre of Anne of Austria, and on its balcony, now removed, on August 20th, 1660, Anne stood with Mazarin and others when Louis XIV. entered Paris. No. 82 still retains a balcony of great charm.

We now enter the very busy Rue St. Antoine at its junction with the Rue de Rivoli. Almost immediately on our right is a gateway leading into a very charming courtyard, which is not open to the public, but into which one may gently trespass; it is the school of the Frères Chrétiens, founded by Frère Joseph, the good priest with the sweet and sad old face whose bust is on the wall. A few steps farther bring us to the church of St. Paul and St. Louis, a florid and imposing fane, to which Victor Hugo (to whose house we are now making our way) carried his first child to be christened, and presented to the church two holy water stoops in commemoration. Here also Richelieu celebrated his first mass. One of Delacroix's best early works (we saw the picture called "Hommage à Delacroix," you will remember, in the Moreau collection at the Louvre) is in the left transept, "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane". On no account miss the Passage Charlemagne (close to the St. Paul Station on the Métro) for it is a curious, busy and very French by-way, and it possesses the remains of a palace of the fourteenth century. In the Passage de St. Pierre is the site of the old cemetery of St. Paul's in which Rabelais was buried.

CHAPTER XIX
THE PLACE DES VOSGES AND HUGO'S HOUSE

A Beautiful Square—The Palais des Tournelles—Revolutionary Changes—Madame de Sévigné and Rachel—Hugo's Crowded Life—A Riot of Relics—Victorious Versatility—Dumas' Pen—The Age of Giants—Dickens—"Les Trois Dumas".

Were we to walk a little farther along the busy Rue St. Antoine towards the Place de la Bastille, we should come, on the left, a few yards past the church of St. Louis, to the Rue de Birague, at the head of which is the beautiful red gateway of which Mr. Dexter has made such a charming picture. This is the southern gateway of the Place des Vosges, a spacious green square enclosed by massive red and white houses of brick and stone which once were the abode, when the Place des Vosges was the Place Royale, of the aristocracy of France.

Before that time the courtyard of the old Palais des Tournelles was here, where Henri II. was killed in a tournament in 1559, through an accident for which Captain Montgomery of the Scotch Guard, whose fault Catherine de Médicis deemed it to be, was executed, as we have just seen, in the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. Catherine de Médicis, not content with thus avenging her husband's death, demolished the Palais des Tournelles, and a few years later Henri IV., to whom old Paris owes so much, built the Place Royale, just as it is now. His own pavilion was the centre building on the south side, comprising the gateway which Mr. Dexter has drawn; the Queen's was the corresponding building on the north side.

Around dwelt the nobles of the Court—such at any rate as were not living in the adjoining Marais. Richelieu's hotel embraced Nos. 21-23 as they now are. It was in front of that mansion that the famous duel between Montmorency-Bouteville and Des Chapelles against Bussy and Beuvron was fought. The spirit of the great Dumas, one feels, must haunt this Place: for it is peopled with ghosts from his brave romances.