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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Another solemn festival was held in the Champ de Mars, to celebrate the capture of Toulon from the English, as brought about by a young artillery officer named Bonaparte, whose name was being repeated from mouth to mouth by admirers as yet unable to foresee that the object of their admiration would before many years be the ruler of France; for, “born of the Republic,” he was, in the energetic words of Chateaubriand, “to kill his own mother.”

On the 3rd of December, 1804, the day after the coronation of the Emperor at Notre-Dame, the Champ de Mars was to be the scene of yet another festival—the distribution of eagles among the different regiments of the French Army.

It was in the Champ de Mars that Napoleon, after his return from Elba, gave a banquet to some 15,000 soldiers and National Guards; and again in the Champ de Mars that he assembled deputations from all the army-corps and all the State bodies convoked to hear the promulgation of the “additional Act” which gave new character to the old Napoleonic Constitution. This was the assembly known as that of the Champ de Mai, so called from the month in which it was held.

Under the Restoration the Champ de Mars became the scene of a military representation in which the Duke of Angoulême, at the head of the army which had fought, or rather had executed a military promenade, in Spain, attacked some battalions playing the part of the Spanish army, which at the proper moment retreated. Then the high ground since known as the Trocadéro was stormed, as the Trocadéro of Spain had been stormed in the war just terminated; and it was now that the idea was conceived of treating the Arc de Triomphe as a triumphal arch erected to the glory of the army of Louis XVIII.

Under the reign of Louis Philippe, the military representation of which under Louis XVIII.’s reign the Trocadéro had been made the scene was repeated, with the replacement of the Trocadéro by Antwerp. This display, on a very grand scale, was attended with a crush, a panic, and almost as many accidents as were caused by the celebrated fireworks on the Place Louis XV., on the occasion of Marie Antoinette’s marriage.

It was under the Restoration that the Champ de Mars was used as a course for the first races, or at least the first races of a popular character, established in France. They were, after some years, as already mentioned, transferred to Longchamps. Under the Second Empire, or rather when the Second Empire was about to be proclaimed, the Champ de Mars witnessed a magnificent review and distribution of eagles—the prelude, in fact, to the establishment of the imperial form of government. “Take back these eagles,” said the prince president on this occasion, “not as a symbol of threats against the foreigner, but as a recollection of an heroic epoch, as a sign of nobility for each regiment in the service. Take back these eagles which so often led your fathers to victory, and swear, if necessary, to die in their defence.” This was the last of the many political scenes of which the Champ de Mars has been the theatre. In 1867 it furnished a site for the annex or supplementary building where, in connection with the Universal Exhibition of that year, the machinery was displayed.

If the Champs Élysées became during the first half of the century a portion of Paris, this was also to happen during the second half to the more distant Bois de Boulogne; and as Paris is still constantly growing the time may come when Sèvres and Saint-Cloud, whither the Bois de Boulogne leads, will no longer be regarded as suburbs, but as integral parts of the French metropolis, from which they are now distant {236} (counting from the Place de la Concorde) some six miles.

No account, whether of the Champs Élysées or of the Champ de Mars, would be complete without some mention of the Universal Exhibitions of which the Elysian Fields and the Field of Mars have both been the scene. The first Universal Exhibition was held in England during the summer of 1851, but the first Industrial Exhibition on a large scale, without assistance or competition from the foreigner, took place in France immediately after the Revolution, of which it was one of the natural consequences.

Before 1789 the industrial system of France, as of other countries, was made up of corporations and guilds rigidly bound by rules and traditions; and many industrial processes were so many secrets into which apprentices, duly articled, were initiated, but which were jealously guarded from the knowledge of the outer world. A general exhibition of arts, manufactures, and machinery would, under the ancient régime, have been in direct opposition to the spirit of the time; it would have been impossible, that is to say.