Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

by H. Sutherland Edwards

When the railway to St. Germain was opened, a military band occupied one of the carriages, joyful airs were played, enthusiastic speeches were delivered, the locomotive did not blow up, the carriages did not come off the rails, and, though two tunnels had to be passed through, no one caught cold. Seven principal railways were now decided on, the privilege of constructing the lines being granted by the State on certain conditions. In England railways were being laid down by permission of the State, but not in such a way as to secure to any one of the companies a monopoly. The French legislation on the subject of railways compels the companies to extend their lines to the most remote and least populous regions. Thus, in the public interest, they have to maintain railway extensions on which the losses not infrequently eat up a serious proportion of the profits realised on the more frequented sections of the system.

The great railway centre of France is, of course, the capital. “Paris,” says a French writer on the subject, “being the heart, life is carried to the extremities of France by main lines, which are the arteries; by secondary lines, which are the veins; and by routes communicating with the iron road, which are the capillary vessels; in this fashion the circulation is complete. That is a boon which must be constantly borne in mind, and which makes our railways an absolutely democratic institution. It is due to the intervention of the State. In England, where private enterprise alone has been entrusted with the construction of railways, the[{318}] case is different. The companies have laid their lines wherever they pleased; guided solely by their own interest, they have above all sought to realise immense profits. They have built railways between the great centres, rich or industrial, while neglecting the secondary routes, which only offered them slender gains; they present an organisation purely aristocratic. If in France, as among our neighbours across the Channel, private industry had been left, without control, sovereign mistress of the land, only the great lines would now be in existence, and the diligence would still be rolling along nearly all our roads.”

Soon after the construction of the St. Germain railway, an “iron road” was made from Paris to Versailles, and it was on this line, close to Bellevue, that the first accident took place. On the 18th of May, 1842, it had been announced that the great fountains of Versailles would play, and a train of eighteen carriages, drawn by two locomotives, with a third in the rear, was returning to Paris crowded with travellers. A little below Bellevue, at a place where there is a slight curve, the first locomotive broke its axle-tree. The second engine, suddenly checked in its progress, fell upon the first, and the third engine behind, by continuing to push the train, doubled it up, sending the middle portion of it into the air. The carriages, thanks to the excessive prudence of the guards, were all locked, and some of them, upset in the close vicinity of one of the engines, caught fire from the glowing coals of the damaged furnace. There was then a terrible scene. The passengers endeavoured to force their way through the narrow windows, and in doing so fought, and in many cases were seized by the flames. Seventy-three corpses were afterwards picked up, and there were numbers of wounded. This accident, terrible in itself, had a disastrous effect upon the railway system of France. Railway travelling was looked upon as dangerous—suicidal. The receipts from all the lines fell heavily, and the railway to Versailles was absolutely abandoned. In the general fright, locomotives got to be looked upon as so difficult to guide, so sure, sooner or later, to explode, that it was seriously proposed, on lines about to be opened from Paris to Rouen and from Paris to Orleans, to replace mechanical traction by horses. The terror excited by the accident gradually passed away. A sort of expiatory chapel was erected by the railway company at the scene of the disaster, under the designation of Notre Dame des Flammes; but after a time even the existence of the chapel, surrounded and at last concealed by trees, came to be forgotten.

Paris is now, like London, surrounded by railway stations, and to occupy the terminal points of the lines leading to the capital would be for a time to stop its supply of provisions even more effectually than this was done during the siege of 1870 by taking possession of the ordinary roads. The railways have destroyed the importance of the ancient “Barriers,” which marked, and still mark, points in a line encircling the capital. The geographical history of Paris consists in the constant pushing back of these Barriers, surrounding as they did a city which was steadily expanding. Gates which, when first constructed, stood outside the city, were gradually included within its circumference, new Barriers being erected at a greater distance from the centre. More than a century ago, in 1765, a royal edict forbade the construction of any more houses outside the limits of Paris as then fixed. This order could not, of course, be obeyed. As well try to check the rising tide as to stop the growth of Paris, and in 1784, five years before the Revolution, we find Louis XVI.’s Minister, Calonne, obtaining a royal authorisation to surround Paris with a new and enlarged girdle. Nineteen “Barriers” were now established around Paris, at each of which a duty, known as the “octroi,” was levied on everything brought into the city. The measure was a most unpopular one, and the Farmers-General, who purchased the right of levying the tax, became the objects of popular detestation. A line which has become historical, expressed, by an ingenious verbal equivoque, the general feeling on the subject—

“Le mur murant Paris rend Paris murmurant”

ran the verse, which was repeated from mouth to mouth throughout Paris. Another epigram, which, being longer, became less popular, was as follows:—

“Pour augmenter son numéraire
Et raccourcir notre horizon,
La ferme a jugé nécessaire
De mettre Paris en prison.”[F]

[F] This may be literally translated:—

“To increase its revenue
And draw closer our horizon,
The farm has deemed it necessary
To put Paris in prison.”

All this might be very witty, but the Minister cared little about it. He doubtless said to himself, like his famous predecessor, Mazarin, “They sing: then they will pay.” He was right: they paid. It occurred to the architect Ledoux, who had[{319}] been instructed to erect offices for the reception of the dues, that the buildings might as well be fortified, and Paris thus became surrounded by a line of not very effective defences. Petitions were addressed to the king requesting the abolition of the Barriers, and M. de Calonne’s successor declared that he would have them knocked down and the fragments sold as building-materials. Things had arrived at this point when the Revolution of ‘89 broke out. The populace then set fire to some of the Barriers and knocked holes through the walls in several places, but did not touch the buildings, concerning which the National Convention subsequently issued the following decree:—