A PERFORMANCE AT THE HIPPODROME ON EYLAU SQUARE UNDER THE SECOND EMPIRE
Under Louis-Philippe, the Duke d'Orléans, the Duke de Nemours, Lord Seymour, the Duke de Fitz-James, Ernest Le Roy—the Jockey Club at its formation—organised races there. The stakes were modest; most often, a few bottles of champagne were gained and lost. Then fashion took hold of the thing. More importance was attached to racing; and, to-day, it is the great Parisian event—in festivities. As early as 1850, the Hippodrome of the Eylau Square revived the souvenir of Antiquity's favourite chariot-races.
The Bois de Boulogne became the rendezvous of society. There, was displayed the luxury of the Second Empire. Its trees and avenues formed an exquisite framework to elegance and worldly show. In the Curèe, Emile Zola was able to write: "It was four o'clock and the Bois awoke from its afternoon sultriness. Along the Empress' Avenue, clouds of dust were flying; and, afar, lawns of verdure could be seen, with the hills of Saint-Cloud and Suresnes beyond, crowned with the grey of Mont Valerien. The sun, aloft on the horizon, sailed in an effulgence of golden light that filled the depths of the foliage, flamed the top branches, and transformed this ocean of leaves into an ocean of luminousness.... The varnished panels of the carriages, the flashing of the copper and steel mountings, the bright colours of the dresses streamed together with the horses' regular trot, and cast on the background of the Bois a broad, moving band, a beam from the welkin, lengthening as it followed the curves of the road. The waved roundness of the sunshades radiated like metal moons."
The sight has not changed. It is the same triumphal defile, which each day gathers within these select surroundings the most elegant women in Paris, fashionable horsemen, vibrating autocars with their chauffeurs, clubmen as well as artists and workmen, who come to enjoy the fair spectacle, this feast of the eyes, this unique scenery: the Bois de Boulogne, the Avenue du Bois, the Champs Elysées.
THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE ABOUT 1850
From the top of the Arc de Triomphe, 'mid the twilight of May, the vision is a magic one; it is from the terraces of the portico erected to the glory of the Grand Army that a view is obtained of the sumptuous quarters of modern Paris.
Some sixty years ago, Balzac showed his hero dreaming on the hill of Père-Lachaise, and contemplating, as it lay in the valley, the Monster he intended to tame. To-day Rastignac would have to mount the Arc de Triomphe, if he wished to threaten Paris. Thence, he might launch his famous defiance: "It is a struggle between us now!" for, if the aspect of things has altered, the impression made by the immense City is still and ever the same: an impression of weight, of imperious conflict, of hard victory. In verity, no one disembarks without a sort of anguish in this great Paris,—Paris, so redoubtable to the valiant that attempt its conquest and so prodigal to the fortunate ones that have known how to win its favour.
GEORGES CAIN.