Paris as It Was and as It Is / A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution

by Francis William Blagdon

BOULEVARDS.

This is the name given to the promenades with which Paris is, in part, surrounded for an extent of six thousand and eighty-four toises.

They are distinguished by the names of the Old and the New. The Old, or North Boulevards, commonly called the Grands Boulevards, were begun in 1536, and, when faced with ditches, which were to have been dug, they were intended to serve as fortifications against the English who were ravaging Picardy, and threatening the capital. Thence, probably, the etymology of their name; Boulevard signifying, as every one knows, a bulwark.

However this may be, the extent of these Old Boulevards is two thousand four hundred toises from the Rue de la Concorde to the Place de la Liberté, formerly the site of the Bastille. They were first planted in 1660, and are formed into three alleys by four rows of trees: the middle alley is appropriated to carriages and persons on horseback, and the two lateral ones are for foot-passengers.

Here, on each side, is assembled every thing that ingenuity can imagine for the diversion of the idle stroller, or the recreation of the man of business. Places of public entertainment, ambulating musicians, exhibitions of different kinds, temples consecrated to love or pleasure, Vauxhalls, ball-rooms, magnificent hotels, and other tasteful buildings, &c. Even the coffee-houses and taverns here have their shady bowers, and an agreeable orchestra. Thus, you may always dine in Paris with a band of music to entertain you, without additional expense.

The New Boulevards, situated to the south, were finished in 1761. They are three thousand six hundred and eighty-three toises in extent from the Observatoire to the Hôtel des Invalides. Although laid out much in the same manner as the Old, there is little resemblance between them; each having a very distinct appearance.

On the New Boulevards, the alleys are both longer and wider, and the trees are likewise of better growth. There, the prospect is rural; and the air pure; while cultivated fields, with growing corn, present themselves to the eye. Towards the town, however, stand several pretty houses; little theatres even were built, but did not succeed. This was not their latitude. But some skittle-grounds and tea-gardens, lately opened, and provided with swings, &c. have attracted much company of a certain class in the summer.

In this quarter, you seldom meet with a carriage, scarcely ever with persons sprucely dressed, but frequently with honest citizens, accompanied by their whole family, as plain in their garb as in their manners. Lovers too with their mistresses, who seek solitude, visit this retired walk; and now and then a poor poet comes hither, not to sharpen his appetite, but to arrange his numbers.

Before, the revolution, the Old Boulevards, from the Porte St. Martin to the Théâtre Favart, was the rendezvous of the élegantes, who, on Sundays and Thursdays, used to parade there slowly, backward and forward, in their carriages, as our belles do in Hyde Park; with this difference, that, if their admirers did not accompany them, they generally followed them to interchange significant glances, or indulge in amorous parley. I understand that the summer lounge of the modern élegantes has, of late years, been from the corner of the Rue Grange Batelière to that of the Rue Mont-Blanc, where the ladies took their seats. This attracting the muscadins in great numbers, not long since obtained for that part of the Boulevard the appellation of Petit Coblentz.

Nearly about the middle of the North Boulevard stand two edifices, which owe their erection to the vanity of Lewis XIV. In the gratification of that passion did the Grand Monarque console himself for his numerous defeats and disappointments; and the age in which he lived being fertile in great men, owing, undoubtedly, to the encouragement he afforded them, his display of it was well seconded by their superior talents. Previously to his reign, Paris had several gates, but some of these being taken down, arcs of triumph, in imitation of those of the Romans, were erected in their stead by Louis le Grand, in commemoration of his exploits. And this too, at a time when the allies might, in good earnest, have marched to Paris, had they not, by delay, given Marshal Villars an opportunity of turning the tide of their victories on the plain of Denain. Such was the origin of the