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

by H. Sutherland Edwards

“TO look for history in the streets of Paris,” said M. Edouard Fournier, some twenty-five years ago, “when so much of the city has been destroyed, especially during the last ten years, is to arrive rather late in the field; it is like harvesting after the gleaners, picking up blades of grass instead of ears of corn.” And this, from the author of “L’Esprit dans l’Histoire” and of “Le Vieux-Neuf,” concerning whom Jules Janin once wrote: “Cet homme sait tout; il ne sait que cela; mais il le sait bien.” Where Edouard Fournier despaired of finding anything it would be vain to seek for much. Something, however, may, even by following in his footsteps, yet be gleaned in the very field which he regards as bare. In the socalled “city”—the germ of that capital to which the name of Paris is now given—may still be seen the house in the Rue des Chantres which passes for that of the odious Fulbert, villain of the love story of Abailard and Héloise. That of Abailard, which was on the other side of the street, was pulled down early in 1849. Its final association was with a law-suit, brought by lodgers in the house against the proprietor, who, as they alleged, had dispossessed them without due notice. The former abode of Fulbert, the terrible uncle of Héloise, must itself be on the point of disappearing, even if it has not been already demolished. The house of Abailard was at one time connected by a narrow bridge with the house where the unnatural Fulbert dwelt with his charming niece. But after the separation of the lovers their respective houses were no longer to remain united, and the stone bridge which joined them together—like the Bridge of Sighs of the Venetian Palace and Prison—soon fell into ruins. Two medallions, in which their features were said to be reproduced, formed the last record of their loves. These have been reproduced above the ground-floor of the new house on the Quai Napoleon, with the famous distich: “Abailard, Héloise, habitèrent ces lieux,” etc. Those who love history for its romance, those who have been touched by the tale of the lovers, will gaze with interest on these two faces; and if they are not satisfied they may go to Père Lachaise to continue their devotions in presence of the monument to their memory. If, however, they should have consulted M. Edouard Fournier beforehand, they will have been warned that the medallions of the Quai Napoleon and the statues of the tomb are anything but authentic. “The medallions,” says this unerring critic, “in costumes of the time of Henry IV. represent lovers of the[{157}] twelfth century. As to the statues, M. de Guilhermy has already shown that the one of Héloise was seen until the time of the Revolution on the tomb of the Dorman family in the chapel of the Beauvais College, Rue Jean de Beauvais. The statue of Abailard is probably of equal authenticity.”

If, to pursue the subject historically, we were to look for remains of the great wall with innumerable towers which Philip Augustus built before his departure for the Crusades, in order not to leave his dear city of Paris without defence, we should find it difficult to discover even traces; though the most imposing of the towers were destroyed not more than twenty or thirty years ago. They were brought to light by preceding demolitions, themselves in turn to be laid in ruins. At the foot of one of these towers a treasure, dating from Gallo-Roman times, was dug up. It was valued, according to the weight of the gold, at 30,000 francs, though its artistic and historical worth was a hundred times greater. Most of the medals found their way to England. In the Cour de Rouen, close to the Passage du Commerce, is, or was until lately, to be seen a well-preserved fragment of a Philip Augustus tower, standing, half-smothered with ivy, on a piece of wall, broad enough to serve as terrace to the adjoining house, where a girls’ school had been established. “It is a joyful sight,” says M. Edouard Fournier, “to see children of the present day leaping and bounding on this remnant of antiquity.” Further on, in the Rue Clovis—which the reader may remember as figuring in Eugène Sue’s “Wandering Jew”—is another relic of this same wall. In the Rue Dauphine, at the back of the house numbered 34, is a tower almost in its original form; and close by, in the Rue Guénégaud, the body of another, which stood on the edge of the wall that from this point went on in a straight line to the celebrated Tour de Nesle. The ruined tower of the Rue Guénégaud served some years ago as background to a blacksmith’s forge, whose flames cast a lurid light on this obscure reminder of a past age.

SITE OF THE HOUSE OF ABAILARD AND HÉLOISE, RUE DES CHANTRES.

Passing to the other side of the water (where our subject inevitably leads us, though it is on the left bank that Paris antiquities are chiefly to be sought), we find several houses ancient themselves, or at least closely connected with ancient associations. In the former Rue des Jardins Saint-Paul—now Rue Charlemagne—where Rabelais died, and where Molière passed the first years of his dramatic apprenticeship, may be seen, in the courtyard of the neighbouring barracks, remains of one of the two towers which Charles X. gave in 1485 to the nuns of the Ave Maria convent, whose cloister the barracks have now replaced. At No. 20 of the Rue Rambuteau some twenty metres of the old wall, here in the form of a terrace, are to be found; and finally, in the very heart of Paris, in the Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, where the General Post Office is established, is preserved at the back of No. 12 a tower which has still two-thirds of its original height. It stands twenty-four feet above the soil. In its entirety it was, like all the other towers, thirty-nine feet high.

These remains of the old girdle-wall, whose existence by many persons is scarcely suspected, are all that survives of the constructions of the sixteenth century. The thirteenth is still more imperfectly represented; though some forty years ago might be seen in the quarter of Saint-Marcel, at some paces from the river Bièvre, substantial remains of one of the lodges of St. Louis.

In the Rue des Gobelins and the Rue des Marmousets are still extant relics, in the shape of a façade and the fragment of a wall, of the royal lodge where Queen Blanche listened beneath the willows of the Bièvre to the verses of Thibault de Champagne; where Charles VI. went mad one terrible night, which, beginning[{158}] with a masquerade, ended with a conflagration; where Francis I. had secret rendezvous, to which playful reference is sometimes made in the pages of Rabelais.

In the Rue Vieille du Temple, at the corner of the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, stands a graceful turret—bright relic of that sombre Hôtel Barbette which the Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI., was just leaving when he was killed at the very door by the followers of John the Fearless. A lamp, whose light was never to be extinguished, was placed there by one of the assassins, in expiation of the crime. Tradition says that “la belle Ferronnière” lived close by, and that it was by the light of the lamp, fixed beneath the turret, that the husband saw Francis I. escape one night from his wife’s house.

After adorning a feudal mansion, subsequently to be transformed into the rich abode of a financier of the time of Louis XIV., what has this turret now become? Without losing anything of its graceful exterior, not even the grating, so finely worked, of its little window, it marks the corner of the bedroom occupied by the grocer who has his shop below!