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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

It must be supposed that it somehow suited the proprietor of the Café Momus to encourage, or at least tolerate, his Bohemian visitors; otherwise he would have taken steps to exclude them permanently. Occasionally, it is said, they would barricade themselves in their favourite room on the first floor, and refuse absolutely to give up possession. The probability is that when they were in funds they spent their money lavishly; and they undoubtedly gave a certain reputation to the Café Momus, which became known throughout Paris as the café of literary aspirants, and attracted on that ground a certain number of sympathisers and admirers.

The house formerly occupied by the Frascati establishment bears on the Rue Richelieu side a medallion with an inscription to the memory of Cardinal de Richelieu, put up by Antoine Elwart, professor of composition at the Conservatoire. The other side of the Boulevard Montmartre, whence springs the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, is no less animated than the theatre side. Here, too, cafés abound, each of which, in theatrical phrase, is “full to overflowing”; for numbers of customers sit out in the street at the little tables in front of the café. The arcade on this side of the boulevard is known as the Passage Jouffroi. It runs through what was once the ground-floor of the house which, under the Restoration, was inhabited by three distinguished composers: Rossini, Carafa, and Boieldieu. A little further on, always in the direction of the Madeleine, stands an important club, called officially Le Grand Cercle, familiarly, Le Cercle des Ganaches. It is composed chiefly of commercial men and civil servants. It is considered old-fashioned, and the dinner-hour there is six o’clock, as it was in most Paris houses fifty years ago.

At the right corner of the Rue Grange Batelière stands an immense house, on a site occupied, until a few years ago, by the mansion built in the eighteenth century, by two well-known farmers-general, the Brothers Lunge, which from 1836 to 1847 was the haunt of the Jockey Club, the best-known and most fashionable club in Paris, now installed further to the west, but still in the line of boulevards.

Ask any Parisian in the present day for “the house of Molière,” and he will tell you that La Maison de Molière is only another name for the Théâtre Français. The house, however, where Molière lived is situated at the corner of a little street off the Boulevard Montmartre; and here it was that he breathed his last.

On the 10th of February, 1673, the “Malade Imaginaire” was performed for the first time. The curtain rose at four o’clock, and a few minutes afterwards Molière was on the stage, and acting with his accustomed humour. Everyone was laughing and applauding. None of the audience suspected that the actor who was throwing all his energy into the part he had himself created was now on the point of death. In the burlesque ceremony, just as Argan has to utter the word “Juro,” a convulsion seized him, which he disguised beneath a forced laugh. But it was now necessary to carry him home. The performance went on, though without Molière, who meanwhile had been taken to his house in the Rue Richelieu. It had been found impossible to get his clothes off. The dying man was still wearing the dressing-gown of the “Imaginary Invalid.” He was presently attacked with a violent fit of coughing, in the course of which he burst a blood-vessel and threw up a quantity of blood. A few minutes later he expired, surrounded by the members of his family, and supported by two nuns to whom he was in the habit of offering hospitality when they visited Paris. In his dying moments he had asked for religious consolation; but the priest of St.-Eustache rejected his prayer. Now that he was dead, Christian burial was denied to him: a piece of intolerance due to the Archbishop of Paris, Harley de Champvalon. So soon as Molière’s wife heard of the archbishop’s refusal, she exclaimed with indignation: “They refuse to bury a man to whom, in Greece, altars would have been erected.” Then calling for a carriage, and taking with her the Curé of Auteuil, who was far from sharing the views of his ecclesiastical superior, she hurried to Versailles, threw herself at the king’s feet, and demanded justice. “If,” she exclaimed, losing all self-control—“if my husband was a criminal, his crimes were sanctioned by your Majesty in person.” At these words the king frowned, and the Curé of Auteuil is said to have found the moment opportune for introducing a theological discussion, in the course of which he sought to disculpate himself from an accusation of Jansenism. But Louis XIV. had been affronted, and he told both actress and curé that the matter concerned the archbishop alone. He sent secret orders, however, to the churlish prelate, the result of which was a compromise. The body was refused entrance into the church, but two priests were allowed to {112} accompany it to the cemetery. The archbishop’s concession seemed to some bigots out of place: a proof that the ecclesiastical authorities were not alone in their wish to have Molière interred without Christian rites. They could not now prevent his being buried in sacred ground. But on the day of his funeral they organised a riot in front of his house, which Mme. Molière, frightened by the cries and menaces of the crowd, could only appease by throwing money out of the window, to the amount of about a thousand francs. It was on the 21st of February, 1673, that the remains of the great man were borne to their resting-place, without pomp, without ceremony, at night, and almost furtively, as though he had been a criminal. Molière was buried in the Cemetery of Saint Joseph, Rue Montmartre. His widow placed above the grave a great slab of stone, which was still to be seen in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the brothers Parfait published their Histoire du Théâtre Français. “This stone,” writes M. du Tillet, “is cracked down the middle: which was caused by a very noble and very remarkable action on the part of the widow. Two or three years after Molière’s death a very cold winter set in, and she had a hundred loads of wood conveyed to the cemetery, and burned on the tomb of her husband, to warm all the poor people of the quarter, when the great heat of the fire caused the stone to split in two.”

The Church of Rome has pronounced again and again at councils, and through the mouths of distinguished prelates, against the abomination that maketh not “desolate,” but joyful. In the fifth century it excommunicated stage-players, and the order of excommunication, though practically it may have ceased to be effective, has never been rescinded. In France up to the time of the Restoration (1814), or at least during the Restoration, it was in full force, so that the history of the relations between Church and stage in that theatre-loving country has been the history of the refusal of Christian burial in successive centuries to stage-players. Happily, for many years past theory and practice have been at variance in France with regard to the excommunicated position of actors and actresses. The Church, however much it may stand above society, cannot but reflect in some measure the views of society at large; and, if only from policy, it cannot permit itself to outrage a universal feeling. Accordingly, since the doors of Saint-Roch were closed, in 1817, against the body of the famous actress, Mlle. Raucourt—an incident which was followed by a popular outbreak, the calling out of the troops, and ultimately interference on the {113} part of Louis XVIII., who ordered that the religious service should be performed by his own chaplain: since those days there have been few examples in France, and none in Paris, of any actor or actress being treated as beyond the pale of the Church.

To be seen in all its glory, the Boulevard Montmartre—perhaps the most crowded of all the boulevards, especially by business people—should be traversed at the beginning of the New Year, when in the booths which line the great thoroughfare nearly along its whole length all kinds of objects supposed to be suitable as New Year’s gifts are offered for sale.

In England, the custom of making Christmas presents and New Year’s gifts had, except among relatives, died out, when a few years ago some apparently childish, but in reality very ingenious, person invented Christmas cards. The invention was not successful at first; and the strange practice of exchanging pieces of cardboard adorned with commonplace pictorial designs, and inscribed with conventional expressions of goodwill, was, for a time, confined to the sort of persons who might be suspected of sending valentines. Eventually, however, it spread. The initiative in this matter seems to have been taken by enterprising young ladies, whose attentions it was impossible to leave unrecognised; and endeavours were naturally made to return them cards of superior value to those which they had themselves despatched. Thus a noble spirit of emulation was generated, which the designers, manufacturers, and vendors of Christmas cards did their best to gratify and stimulate; so that, latterly, there has been a marked rise in these products as regards price, and even quality. Many of them possess undeniable artistic merit, and during the last few years some very beautiful varieties of the Christmas card have been brought out at Paris. These pictorial adaptations from the English are at least more graceful and more original than the great majority of our own dramatic adaptations from the French.