Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

by H. Sutherland Edwards

A great many miracles were said to take place through invocations addressed to the Princess Isabelle, whom Pope Leo X., by a bull dated January 3, 1521, had canonised; while he, at the same time, granted to the nuns of Longchamp the privilege of celebrating annually, in her honour, a solemn service on the last day of August. From the early days of the reign of Louis XV. date those regular pilgrimages to Longchamp during Holy Week, which were soon to degenerate into mundane promenades.

At one time the singing of the nuns had been found attractive. In 1729 a vocalist from the Opera, Mlle. Lemaure, sang with the choir, and “all Paris” went to hear her. The nuns profiting by her lessons, and studying her style, sang the “Tenebræ” during Holy Week with so much success that in order to make the choir perfect the abbess applied to the Opera for some additional voices. The abbey was now more than ever besieged. People crowded round the walls, filled the churchyard, and, according {221} to one writer, stood on the tombstones. If the chorus-singers from the Opera were not converted to piety by the nuns, the nuns underwent the influence of the professional vocalists. At last, one Wednesday in Holy Week, a brilliant gathering of fashionable people arrived at the church of Longchamp only to find it closed. The Archbishop of Paris had ordered the doors to be locked.

The original object of the Longchamp promenade was now at an end. But the promenade continued all the same; and it was at Longchamp every Holy Week that the first spring fashions were to be seen. This lasted for many years, until at last, as already set forth, the Longchamp Promenade became a medium for the exhibition of such articles of dress as the leading dressmakers, milliners, and tailors wished to see adopted during the approaching season.

Meanwhile, at the time of the Revolution, the old convent of Longchamp was brought to the hammer, and not only knocked down but pulled down. The tombs in the church were broken up, and the ashes of the pious founder, Jeanne de Bourgogne, wife of Philippe le Long, of Jean de Navarre, and of Jean II., Count of Dreux, were dispersed. Of Longchamp nothing remained but the name.

To many the Champs Élysées are chiefly interesting as leading to the Bois de Boulogne with its picturesque scenery and its romantic lake, suggestive, in a small way, of the beautiful Loch Katrine. The Bois de Boulogne owes its name to the church of Notre Dame de Boulogne, built in the year 1319, under Philip, surnamed the Long. He gave permission to the citizens of his good town of Paris who had been on a pilgrimage {222} to visit the Church of Nostre Dame de Boulogne-sur-le-mer, to build and construct a church, and there to institute a religious community. The new church became itself an object of pilgrimage, like the original church of Notre Dame at Boulogne-sur-mer, founded, according to the legend, in memory of the landing on the coast of the Holy Virgin accompanied by two angels.

Up to the time of the Revolution the Bois de Boulogne was little more than a wilderness. Napoleon I. cut walks and avenues through it, and caused trees to be planted, so that it was already one of the most agreeable places in the neighbourhood, when, in 1815, after the Waterloo campaign, the soldiers of the Duke of Wellington and of the Emperor Alexander I. encamped beneath its groves; which they are said to have mutilated and ravaged.

The Bois de Boulogne was considerably diminished when, in 1840, the fortifications of Paris were being constructed, the wood being traversed by the lines of brickwork. Soon afterwards, in 1852, under the Second Empire, it was made over to the town of Paris, and converted by the municipality into a park after the English model, with all the agreeable delightful features it now possesses.

The first improvement introduced was the river with its picturesque islands and the lake with its wooded banks and its Swiss cottages. The waterfalls or “cascades” give their name to the celebrated restaurant and café constructed by their side; and for the last thirty or forty years the Bois de Boulogne has possessed spacious avenues, with grass borders and endless rows of lamps. The grass plots in every direction, and here and there wide lawns, give a softness to the general picture which has not its equal in any European capital.