From the Gothic steeple of the Sainte Chapelle the eye wanders to innumerable domes, built under the influence of the Renaissance; for while the domes have endured, the steeples, so numerous in ancient Paris, have, for the most part, succumbed either to fire or to the vandalism of the renovating architect. It must be remembered, too, that under the reign of Louis XIV. Gothic architecture was proscribed, as recalling “the age of barbarism.” Every new edifice was constructed in the Italian or Italo-Byzantine style. The finest, if not the most ancient, dome that Paris could ever boast was the one which crowned the central pavilion of the Tuileries Palace. The cupola of St. Peter’s was the model adopted in the early part of the sixteenth century by all French architects who had studied in Italy, or Italian architects who had settled in France; and the masterpiece of Michael Angelo at Rome was not yet finished when the first stone of the impressive and picturesque Church of Saint-Eustace was laid in 1532 at Paris. Only a few years afterwards the French architect, Philibert de l’Orme, attached to the service of Pope Paul III., returned to Paris, and, beneath the delighted eyes of Queen Catherine de Medicis, worked out the designs which he had formed under the inspiration of Michael Angelo and of Bramante. The dome, however, of Philibert de l’Orme was destined to lose its beauty through the additions made to it by other architects.
Of late years it has been the rule in Paris not to destroy but to preserve the ancient architecture of the city. “Demolish the tower of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie?” asked Victor Hugo, when, during the reconstruction and prolongation of the Rue Rivoli, the question of keeping it standing or pulling it down was under general discussion: “Demolish the tower of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie? No! Demolish the architect who suggests such a thing? Yes!” {6}
CHAPTER II.
THE EXPANSION OF PARIS.
Lutetia—La Cité—Lutetia taken by Labienus—The Visit of Julian the Apostate—Besieged by the Franks—The Norman Invasion—Gradual Expansion from the Ile de la Cité to the Outer Boulevards—M. Thiers’s Line of Outworks.
LUTETIA, the ancient Paris, or Lutetia Parisiorum, as it was called by the Romans, stood in the midst of marshes. The name, derived, suggestively enough, from lutum, the Latin for mud, has been invested with a peculiar significance by those stern moralists who see in Paris nothing but a sink of iniquity. Balzac called it a “wen”; and Blucher, when some ferocious member of his staff suggested the destruction of Paris, exclaimed: “Leave it alone; Paris will destroy all France!” By a critic of less severe temperament Paris has been contemptuously described as “the tavern of Europe”—le cabaret de l’Europe. Lutetia, however, can afford to smile alike at the slurs of moralists and the sneers of cynics; and the etymology of her name need by no means alarm those of her admirers who will reflect that lilies may spring from mud, and that the richest corn is produced from the blackest soil.
The development of the Lutetia of Cæsar’s time into the Paris of our own has occupied many eventful centuries; and the centre of the development may still be seen in that little island of the so-called City—l’Ile de la Cité—once known as the Island of Lutetia. As to the dimensions of the ancient Lutetia, neither historians nor geographers are wholly agreed. The germ of Paris is, in any case, to be found in that part of the French capital which has long been known as la Cité, and which is the dullest and sleepiest part of Paris, just as inversely our “city,” distinctively so called, is the most active and energetic part of London.
The Parisians have always been given to insurrection; and their first rising was made against a ruler who was likely enough to put it down—Julius Cæsar, that is to say. Finding his power defied, Cæsar sent against the Parisians a body of troops, under the command of Labienus, who crushed the rebels in the first battle. Historians give different versions of the engagement, but modern writers are content for the most part to rely on a tradition related by an author of the fourteenth century, Raoul de Presles, who published a French version of Cæsar’s account of the Battle of Paris, enriched by notes and comments from his own pen. Labienus, according to Cæsar and Raoul de Presles, was arrested in his first attack by an impassable marsh. Then, simulating a retreat along the left bank of the Seine, he was pursued by the Gauls, in spite of Camulogenes, their cautious leader; who, unable to restrain them, fell with them at last into an ambuscade, in which chief and followers all perished.
Raoul de Presles gives some interesting details about the marsh which Labienus, on making his advance against Paris, was unable to cross. Some identify it with the Marshes of the Temple, which formed, on the north of Paris, a continuous semicircle; but Raoul de Presles seems to hold that the marsh which stopped the advance of Labienus protected Lutetia itself: that Lutetia of the Island which sprang from the mud as Venus sprang from the sea. The city of Lutetia was at that time so strong, so entirely shut in by water, that Julius Cæsar himself speaks of the difficulty of reaching it. “But since then,” says Raoul de Presles, “there has been much solidification through gravel, sand, and all kinds of rubbish being cast into it.”
After the victory of Labienus, Lutetia, which the conqueror had destroyed, was quickly re-built; and it was then governed as a Roman town. This, however, was in Cæsar’s time; and the first description of Lutetia as a city was given by Strabo some fifty years later. Thus it may safely be said that of the original Lutetia nothing whatever is known.
It is certain, nevertheless, that in the new Lutetia, built by the Romans, the most important edifices stood at the western end of the island, including a palace, on whose site was afterwards to be erected the Palace of the French Kings; while at the eastern end the most striking object was a Temple to Jupiter, in due time to be replaced by the Cathedral of Notre-Dame.