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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Condé now abjured at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Henri de Navarre at the Louvre; but the Reformed Church was far from being destroyed. Only a few months after the massacre, Bérenger de Portal left to this church (whose re-establishment he ardently desired) a sum sufficient for the maintenance of the pastors and the education of candidates for the ministry.

The Rue Saint-Antoine touches the Boulevard Bourdon, thus named in memory of Colonel Bourdon, of the 11th Dragoons, killed at Austerlitz. The building which now dominates all this district is the Arsenal, built by the Emperor in 1807 as a granary of reserve for provisioning Paris; at present occupied by manufacturers and workmen of various kinds. The Arsenal was erected on the site of the “little arsenal,” built by Francis I. The new structure extends south to the Quai Morland, so styled in honour of the colonel of the Chasseurs of the Guard killed at Austerlitz. Augmented and renovated by various architects, the Arsenal contains a library of which the charming writer, Charles Nodier, was at one time the custodian. The collection was first formed by M. d’Argenson and the Marquis de Paulmy, Minister of State, who was the last Governor of the Arsenal before the suppression of this military establishment by Louis XVI. in 1788, on the eve of the Revolution. To gratify his own private tastes as a bibliophile, M. de Paulmy had got together a library of about 100,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts, which was increased by the addition of upwards of 26,000 works from the sale of the Duke de la Vallière’s collection. To prevent the dispersion of the books after his death, M. de Paulmy sold the collection in 1785 to the Count of Artois for a certain number of annuities, which the Count omitted to pay. The library was, all the same, looked upon as government property, and confiscated as such in 1790. Enriched by the confiscation of other libraries in the neighbourhood, the Library of the Arsenal was thrown open to the public by the Imperial Government, which at the same time undertook the payment of the annuities due to M. de Paulmy’s heirs. It now comprises about 350,000 volumes, 6,500 manuscripts, and a magnificent collection of prints. It contains, among other interesting documents, the original papers composing the archives of the Bastille, published in part by M. Ravaisson. A clock of ebony and gilt by Louis le Roy, which adorns the entrance, is said to be worth upwards of 40,000 francs; and two of the side rooms are full of curious woodwork, and of interesting objects of all kinds.

In a room occupied at one time by the Duke de Sully are preserved the archives of the Saint-Simonians, including the sealed memoirs of Le Père Enfantin, which are not to be published until thirty years after his death; Enfantin’s colossal bust in the style of Michael Angelo’s Moses, a portrait of Saint-Simon, and another of Mme. Thérèse, the divinity, or at least the Egeria, of the sect.

It was at the Arsenal, when Charles Nodier was librarian, that Victor Hugo, in the midst of a great literary gathering, recited his first poems, soon afterwards to be given to the world under the title of “Odes et Ballades.”

A complete list of the writers who have occupied the post of librarian at the Arsenal would include Ancelot, Paul Lacroix (better known as Le Bibliophile Jacob), Édouard Thierry, Hippolyte Lucas, and the Viscount de Bornier, author of “La Fille de Roland,” “Agamemnon,” “Attila,” and “Mahomet.”

Among the interesting places in the neighbourhood of the Arsenal must be mentioned the little covered market to which the name of Ave Maria has been given. It marks the site of the old tennis court of the Black Cross, where Molière erected his second theatre after the failure of the first; and with so little success that he was imprisoned for debt contracted in the name of the company.

The Rue des Nonnains d’Hyères, which joins the Rue Saint-Antoine, leads to the Pont Marie, by which the Seine is crossed to reach the Island of Saint-Louis. Parallel to this street is the Rue Geoffrey Lasnier, which is scarcely five-and-twenty feet wide, and which has nothing whatever attractive about it. Here, nevertheless, at No. 26, stands the hotel built by the Constable de Montmorency, and restored in the early part of the eighteenth century, when it was known as the Hôtel de Châlons.{291}

Most of the houses in this curious street are at least three centuries old. Wanderers in search of the quaint will pass from it to the Rue Grenier-sur-l’eau, which leads through the Rue des Barres to the very threshold of the Church of Saint-Gervais. The Rue Grenier-sur-l’eau is so narrow that it would scarcely admit of the passage of a bath chair. It is a lane of walls, without doors or windows, into which light scarcely penetrates.

The Island of Saint-Louis, between the Île Louviers, which precedes it above bridge, and the Island of the City, which follows it below, was nothing but pasture-land until the beginning of Louis XIII.’s reign. It was composed at that time of two islets, a small one called the Isle of Cows, and a larger one known as the Isle of Notre Dame. In 1614 Christophe Marie, general constructor of the bridges of France, undertook to connect these two islets, to furnish them with streets and with a circumference of stone quays, and to join the whole to the right bank by a bridge leading to the Rue des Nonnains d’Hyères. In 1647 the work had been completed, and the island was covered with buildings. Its principal street crosses it lengthwise from east to west. Rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Île it is called, and it contains two remarkable buildings, the Church of Saint-Louis and the Hôtel Lambert. The Church of Saint-Louis was begun in 1664 by Louis Le Vau, continued by Gabriel Leduc, and completed in 1726 by Jacques Doucet, who constructed the cupola. The steeple, thirty metres high, is built of stone, and is in the form of an obelisk. The ornamental sculpture is the work of Jean Baptiste de Champaigne, nephew of the painter, Philippe de Champaigne. The church contains fine paintings by Mignard, Coypel, Lemoine, and Eugène Delacroix.

At the beginning of the Rue Saint-Louis, towards the north, commanding a superb view of the Upper Seine, stands the Hôtel Lambert, built by Le Vau, Louis XIV.’s principal architect. The first proprietor of the Hôtel Lambert, Nicholas Lambert de Thorigny, spared nothing to make it a magnificent abode. The decoration of the interior was entrusted to Lesueur le Brun and other celebrated painters of the time. The treasures which the Hôtel Lambert originally contained have in the course of its varied fortunes been dispersed. It passed after the death of Lambert de Thorigny into the hands of M. de La Haye, farmer-general, and successively into those of the Marquis du Châtelet-Laumont, and of M. Dupin, another farmer-general, brother of the celebrated Mme. d’Épinay. The internal decorations suffered much from these constant changes of ownership. At the death of M. de La Haye, the painting on the ceiling of one of the rooms, “Apollo listening to the prayer of Phaeton,” by Lesueur, was removed from the Hôtel Lambert to the Luxembourg Gallery, where it may still be seen. Most of the other paintings were transferred, at the time of the Revolution, to the Louvre.