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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

Mention has already been made of a theft of manuscripts—not a wholesale robbery of works of art such as the Allies, in restoring certain {191} statues to their rightful owners, were accused of committing; and on various occasions, manuscripts, books, and models have been purloined by visitors to the library of the Rue Richelieu. The last misdeed of this kind occurred in 1848, when a member of the Institute, M. Libri, was charged with stealing a book. Not caring to meet the accusation, he quitted the country, and in his absence was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

If anyone, Frenchman or foreigner, enters a public library in Paris to look at any particular book he cannot, as at the British Museum Library, consult the catalogue himself; one of the librarians will do this for him, and do it in effect as well as such a thing can be done. But the reader must know beforehand what book, or, at least, what kind of book he wants. However learned and however attentive a librarian may be, he is not likely to make his researches with the same assiduity and care as the earnest student occupied with one sole object. On the other hand, the librarian, as a man of learning, will know the literature of any one subject better than the ordinary student, and much better than the casual reader.

Besides the National Library of the Rue Richelieu, Paris possesses the Mazarin Library, the Library of the Arsenal, of Sainte-Geneviève, of the Institute, of the Town, of the Louvre, of the National Assembly, of the Senate, and of a number of museums and learned societies.

As for the readers, they are as varied in character and often as original as those of our own British Museum. In the French, as in the English, reading-room one sees, side by side with writers of distinction, unhappy scribblers, who, in London, when the Museum closes at night, look at the thermometer and weathercock to see if Hyde Park or the casual ward be the wiser dormitory. It is merely to avoid ennui that many readers resort alike to the Bibliothèque Nationale and to our own Museum. Men of private means, at once with and without resources, can there escape from their own society, and, whatever their taste in literature, find relief in some book. Noise is carefully prevented, and there are even readers who volunteer active aid in maintaining silence. If anyone, for instance, speaks above a whisper, they hiss at him like serpents, or, wheeling round in their chairs, fold their arms and glare at him until he desists and leaves them once more to their sepulchral pursuits.

Both in France and in England the public libraries have two other classes of readers. First, there is the somnolent reader, who stares for a few minutes vacantly at a book, drops, nods, and finally collapses with a snore. The music of the nose, however, is against the rules, and promptly brings down an “attendant.” On the other hand—though, fortunately, as a rare specimen—we find the particularly wakeful reader, who in his neighbour’s absence makes a clean sweep of that gentleman’s property, and who is apt to attire himself in the wrong hat and overcoat, and to walk off with an innocent and even injured air.

The most important edifice in the Rue Vivienne—or, rather, in the open space which a portion of the Rue Vivienne faces—is the Bourse, or Exchange, of which the architecture so closely resembles that of the Madeleine. Yet there is nothing in the Bourse to suggest a house of prayer. At the entrance of the St. Petersburg Bourse stands a chapel, in which the operator for the rise or for the fall may invoke the protection of Heaven for the success of his own particular speculation. The noise of the dealers crying out prices and shouting offers and acceptances is far less suggestive of the “House of God” than of a “den of thieves,” to which, it must be feared, it presents in many respects a considerable likeness.

The origin of the word “Bourse,” which has been adopted by almost every country in Europe, with the striking exception of England, seems evident enough, though it would be a mistake to suppose that it is derived from bourse, a purse. According to the best etymologist, the name of Bourse comes from the Exchange established in the sixteenth century at Bruges in the house of one Van der Bourse, who, in the well-known punning spirit of heraldry, had adopted for his arms three bourses or purses.

The most ancient Bourse in France is said to be that of Lyons; and the next ancient that of Toulouse, which dates from 1549. The Bourse of Rouen was established a few years later, while that of Paris was not legally constituted until 1724.

Paris, nevertheless, has possessed since the sixteenth century several places of exchange: now on the Pont au Change, now in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, and then for a considerable time at the Hôtel de Soissons, in the Rue Quincampoix, which was the scene of the wild speculations in connection with Law’s Mississipi scheme. In 1720 the Hôtel de Soissons was closed by the Government, and the formation of an {192} institution to be called the Bourse was at the same time decreed.

The Bourse was at first installed in the Hôtel de Nevers, in the Rue Richelieu, where the National Library is now established. After the Revolution, the Bourse was for a time closed by the Convention. But it was soon re-opened, and under the Directory was located in the Church of the Petits Pères. Under the Consulate and the Empire the Bourse was held in the Palais Royal. The Restoration moved it to the Rue Feydau, and it there remained until in 1826 it was definitively fixed in the palatial abode which it now occupies.