THE FUNAMBULES THEATRE ON THE TEMPLE BOULEVARD
Water-colour by Martial (Carnavalet Museum)
The Historic Theatre subsequently became the Lyric Theatre, and the wonderful Madame Miolan-Carvalho, the queen of song, was there to create, with her magnificent art, Faust, Mireille, Jeannette's Wedding, Queen Topaz, &c. About 1861, the celebrated composer Massenet, yet a pupil at the Conservatory and on the point of obtaining his Rome prize, discharged in the theatre orchestra the duties of kettle-drummer, for the modest salary of forty-five francs a month.
THE AMBIGU THEATRE AND BOULEVARD ABOUT 1830
Canella, pinxit
Others to perform there were the Davenport brothers and the conjurer Robin, with their amusing séances of hypnotism and white magic. On this always-to-be-remembered Temple Boulevard were to be met the various fashionable authors: Dennery, Théodore Barrière, Victor Séjour, Paul Féval, Gounod, Berlioz, A. Adam, Clapisson, Saint-Georges, the Cogniard brothers, Clairville; and the great Dumas used to pass in triumph, shaking hands with everybody as he went. The coffee-houses had to turn customers away; orange-sellers made fortunes, while boys sold checks, conveyed nosegays to pretty actresses, and hailed cabs. People called to each other, shouted, disputed, laughed above all, under the indulgent eye of the police and to the noise of liquorice-water-seller's bell: it was the golden age!
In 1862, a regrettable decision of Baron Haussmann, the Prefect of the Seine, suppressed this bit of Paris, so lively and gay; and, on the ruins of all these theatres, which brought money and mirth to the quarter, were built Prince Eugène's barracks, the ugly Hôtel Moderne, and the wretched monument of the Republic Square. Of all this fine, artistic past nothing is left except the tiny Déjazet Theatre, at the corner of the Vendôme Passage, and the Turkish Coffee-house; the latter different far from what it was when Bailly depicted it under the Directory. Elegant dames, the Merveilleuses, the Incroyables used to frequent it for the purpose of nibbling an ice or sipping little pots of cream, while listening to cithern concerts. Young Savoyards made their marmots dance in presence of "sensitive souls," and thrifty burgesses of the quarter took their family to get an idea of the high Parisian life which made the Turkish Coffee-house one of its favourite meeting-places.