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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Close to the Opera, on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of the Rue de Grammont, is Le Cercle des Deux Mondes; at the corner of the Rue de la Michodière, the Railway Club, or Cercle des Chemins de Fer; on the Boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of the Rue Louis le Grand, the Yacht Club. Just opposite the Yacht Club “Le Cercle de la Presse,” celebrated for its literary and artistic evenings, suggests in the first place that no like institution exists in England, where the newspaper world, though less sharply broken up by political and personal animosities than that of France, is bound together by no such esprit de corps as that which animates the authors and journalists of France. In England not only are we without a Press Club worthy of the {140} name; we have no Société des Gens de Lettres, or Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Close to the Cercle de la Presse is the Sporting Club, with its English name. On the Place de l’Opéra is the Franco-American Club called the Washington Club, or Cercle Washington, and at the other corner of the square, the Cercle des Éclaireurs, or Scouts’ Club, a survival from the war of 1870. On the Place de l’Opéra are the offices (as staring titles sufficiently proclaim) of the Daily Telegraph, the Daily News, and the New York Herald. The corner house, separating the Avenue of the Opera from the Rue de la Paix, has been occupied since 1886 by the Naval and Military Club, known as the Cercle des Armées de Terre et de Mer, and founded under the auspices of General Boulanger in the days when he was War Minister, with the eyes of all Europe upon him. Advancing towards the Madeleine, we come first to the Racing Club (Salon des Courses), then to the Union Club (Cercle de l’Union), the most artistic and most exclusive of all these institutions. Close by is the new Cercle de la Rue Royale, formerly known under the familiar name of “Cercle des Moutards;” whilst a little further on we find the Cercle des Mirlitons and Cercle Impérial, now combined, and the Cercle Artistique et Littéraire.

More recently established than the best London clubs, the clubs of Paris possess some slight advantages over ours. There is but one London club {141} at which a member can get shaved or have his hair cut, but at many of the fashionable Paris clubs the hair-cutter and barber play as important a part as at an American hotel. The best Paris clubs have private carriages always in readiness. At a London club members who have not their own private carriage content themselves with a hansom, or, if infirm, with a humble four-wheeler. The Paris clubs, moreover, are in constant communication with the theatres; and each club can command so many tickets for a first representation, which are distributed among the members according to the order of application. Some of the Paris clubs, too, have a box at the Opera or at the Comédie Française. One strange characteristic of the Paris clubs—strange at least to Englishmen—is {142} that every member is supposed to know, more or less intimately, every other member. In Paris the newly-elected member of a club is formally introduced to the other members by his proposer and seconder. Nothing of the kind takes place in London; though a new member of a London club is allowed, if not expected, to invite his proposer and seconder with a few friends to dinner. Though there are still famous restaurants in Paris, dining-houses and cafés have alike suffered by the introduction of clubs, which, though fewer as yet than in London, are yearly increasing their number.

The last of the boulevards on the western side is that of the Madeleine, with the Church of the Madeleine as its principal edifice. The Place de la Madeleine, in the centre of which stands the beautiful but most unecclesiastical church, becomes twice every week, on Tuesday and Friday, a large flower-market, the finest in Paris. Standing by itself in the place named after it, is the beautiful Greek temple, of which the first stone was laid, in one of his pious moods, by Louis XV. in 1764. But the building was not proceeded with until after a delay of some years. It was begun in its present form only twelve years before the Revolution; and when Napoleon became emperor it was still unfinished. Judging, no doubt, from the character of the architecture, that the edifice could scarcely have been intended for a place of Christian worship, Napoleon had it finished as a Temple of Glory under the direction of the celebrated architect Pierre Vignon. Like the Pantheon, however, which has sometimes been thus named, and at other times called the Church of Sainte-Geneviève, Napoleon’s Temple of Glory was only for a time to be known in that character. Under the Restoration, in 1814, Louis XVIII. determined to restore the building to the Church; and, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, it was duly consecrated. La Madeleine, as it is called, was, however, still uncompleted when, in 1830, Louis Philippe came to the throne; and it was under his reign that, in 1842, it was opened for public worship in the precise form and with the elaborate ornamentation now belonging to it. The architecture of the Madeleine is partly Roman, partly Greek; or rather it is Greek with Roman adaptations. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns, of which there are eighteen on each side. Sixteen, moreover, enclose the southern portion, and eight the northern. The building is without windows, and is entirely of stone. The niches in the colonnade are occupied by thirty-four statues representing the most venerated martyrs and saints. On the principal façade will be remarked a high-relief of huge dimensions by Lemaire, representing our Lord as Judge of the world. The figure of the Saviour is seventeen feet high. On His right are the Angel of Salvation and the saved; on His left the Angel of Punishment and the condemned, with Mary Magdalene interceding on their behalf. The interior is brilliant with gold and colour. The sanctuary, with its vaulted roof, exhibits a vast fresco by Zugler, representing the history of Christianity. Mary Magdalene, receiving Christ’s forgiveness, is surrounded by the Apostles and Evangelists; and among the illustrious men who in successive ages have protected the Christian Church may be recognised Constantine, Godefroi de Bouillon, Clovis, Joan of Arc, Dante, and Napoleon. The principal altar supports an enormous group in white marble, generally known as the Assumption, though the central figure is that of Mary Magdalene. The Assumption in this case is that of Mary Magdalene into Paradise, whither she is being borne by two angels. Under the organ is the Chapelle des Mariages, with a marble group by Pradier, representing the marriage of the Virgin; and the Chapelle des Fonts, with a group by Rude, the subject being the Baptism of Christ. To the right of the altar we see illustrated the spread of Christianity in the East during the early centuries and the Crusades; and again, in modern times, through the uprising of the Greeks against the Turks. As leading Crusaders, Richard Cœur-de-Lion and Godefroi de Bouillon occupy places. The personages exhibited as having greatly contributed towards the progress of Christianity in the West are the early martyrs, Charlemagne, Pope Alexander III., Joan of Arc, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Dante. In the centre of the picture stands Henri IV., who, after uttering his celebrated exclamation, “Paris is well worth a mass,” goes over to the dominant religion. Then come Louis XIII., Richelieu, and finally Napoleon I., who not only was crowned by Pope Pius VII. in Notre-Dame, but really deserves credit for having restored Christian worship in France.

In the first chapel, on the right as one enters the church, is a pillar bearing an inscription to the memory of the Abbé du Guerry, curé of the Madeleine, a man of remarkable piety and benevolence, who, with other hostages taken by the Communists, was shot on the 24th of May, 1871, in {143} retaliation for the execution of Communist prisoners by the troops of Versailles.

The Church of the Madeleine is famous for the eloquence of its preachers, the taste in dress of the fashionable ladies whom these preachers attract, and the excellence of the music. At the organ of the Madeleine a sound musician and a perfect player is always to be found.

CHAPTER XIII.
PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

Its History—Louis XV.—Fireworks—The Catastrophe in 1770—Place de la Révolution—Louis XVI.—The Directory.

THE Rue Royale, a continuation of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, leading to the Place de la Concorde, was the scene of some of the most violent outrages on the part of the Communists in May, 1871. Here, as in the neighbouring Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, a number of houses were deliberately set on fire, when some thirty persons perished in the flames. It was said, at the time, that the firemen employed to extinguish the conflagration were bribed by members of the Commune to replace the water in their pumps by petroleum.