The Bibliothèque Nationale is just on the border between the First and Second Arrondissements. Arrondissements One to Four are the old city on the Rive Droite between the Grands Boulevards and the Seine. Arrondissements Five to Seven include similar quarters on the Rive Gauche. Some of the most interesting strolls are in the outer arrondissements. But the seven inner arrondissements provide enough for years without ever having to take the subway or tram.
The four Rive Droite arrondissements stretch from the Place de la Concorde to the Place de la Bastille, and include the Ile de la Cité and the Ile Saint-Louis. The three Rive Gauche arrondissements stretch from the Eiffel Tower to the Jardin des Plantes. On the Rive Droite the Place de l'Opéra and the Place de la République, and on the Rive Gauche the Place de Breteuil and the Place de l'Observatoire, are the outer corners of the inner arrondissements. The Boulevard de Sébastopol on the Rive Droite and the Boulevard Saint-Michel on the Rive Gauche form the only straight route, cutting through the mass of tangled streets of succeeding centuries. Running north and south, this central line divides the arrondissements as the Seine does, running east and west.
I have a horror of guide-books, partly because I do not know how to use them (I never have learned!) and partly because I love to find my way without pre-meditation and by accident. But many of my readers will never have the same opportunity I have enjoyed of discovering fascinating spots at nightfall. Why should I resist the temptation of indicating some of the strolls that make the late winter afternoons delectable?
Everyone knows the Rue de Rivoli as far as the Oratoire or perhaps to the Tour Saint-Jacques. At the crossing of the Boulevard Sébastopol, the Rue de Rivoli leaves the familiar heart of Paris and enters the Fourth Arrondissement. It becomes the Rue Saint-Antoine a couple of blocks before the Eglise Saint-Paul. There the first break in the straight line from the Place de la Concorde occurs. You deflect a little bit to the right, and before you is the Bastille column. The Rue de Rivoli and the Rue Saint-Antoine are the main artery of the Fourth Arrondissement. No quarter of Paris affords more variety in walks at nightfall. Starting from the Boulevard de Sébastopol, the streets on the left, at angles and parallel to the main artery, are a labyrinth. Here is the Ghetto in a setting incomparably more picturesque than the Ghettos of London and New York. I doubt if even the oldest Paris cocher finds his way here unerringly. Through some of the streets no carriage can pass. The narrowest street in Paris, the Rue de Venise, is here. Beginning opposite the Hôtel de Ville, the Rue du Temple cuts through the Ghetto all the way to the Place de la République. Then come the equally interesting right-angle streets, the Rue des Archives and the Rue Vieille du Temple. On the latter faces the Imprimerie Nationale. And do not miss the parallel streets, Rue de la Verrerie, Rue du Roi de Sicile, Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonne, Rue des Rosiers. Further along (now we are in the Rue Saint-Antoine) the Rue de Birague leads one short block into the Place des Vosges, one of the rare bits remaining of Paris of Henri IV.
On the right hand side we have the Hôtel de Ville, the old buildings behind the Lycée Charlemagne and the Quai des Célestins. Several bridges cross to the Ile de la Cité and the Ile Saint-Louis. The Pont Saint-Louis connects the two islands. There is nothing more wonderful in Paris than to cross the Pont Sully from the eastern end of the Quai des Célestins, walk through the Rue Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile, and come suddenly upon the apse of Notre Dame, protected by its flying buttresses.
In the Second Arrondissement, start from the Place des Victoires at the end of the Rue des Petits-Champs, and find your way through the various tortuous routes that bring you out on the Grands Boulevards to the Boulevard Poissonnière, the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle and the Boulevard Saint-Denis. A few hundred feet from the Grands Boulevards, to the right of the Rue Saint-Denis, as you go toward the river, Paris of the Revolution remains in almost as full measure as in the Sixth Arrondissement.
We must not leave the Rive Droite without mentioning two walks at nightfall in the outer arrondissement. From the Place de la République, the most interesting glimpse of a crowded workingmen's quarter can be gained in an hour by walking up the Rue du Faubourg du Temple, which becomes the Rue de Belleville. There is a steep climb until you reach the Eglise Saint-Jean-Baptiste. To the right is Ménilmontant, dominating the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery, and to the left you can climb still farther to Buttes-Chaumont. The second walk is along the Quai de Jemmapes, which you reach by turning to the left from the Rue du Faubourg du Temple just after crossing the canal. A few blocks up, on the right, through the Rue Grange aux Belles you pass the Hôpital Saint-Louis, a group of seventeenth-century buildings which continue to do blessed work in the twentieth century.
Dear me! I have forgotten Montmartre, where you climb endless flights of stone steps and find—despite the tourist réclame—probably more of old Paris than in any other part of the city.
On the Rive Gauche, the walks at nightfall are more difficult to indicate. You can go anywhere in the three inner arrondissements, and you will not be disappointed. Walk year after year and you will begin to wonder whether you ever will follow out the oftformed resolution of returning to America to live. In the Seventh Arrondissement the region between the Quai d'Orsay and the Rue de Sèvres, the Rue des Saints-Pères and the Invalides is the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where are to be found the finest residences in Paris, far ahead of anything in the Etoile Quarter. But unless you are lucky enough to have the entrée to aristocratic and diplomatic Paris, you can only guess at the beauty of the gardens whose trees thrust alluring limbs over high walls and at what is behind the stately portals of the hôtels.
In the Sixth Arrondissement the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Rue de Vaugirard are the best streets to take as guides in your wanderings. Between the boulevard and the river, and between the boulevard and the Rue de Vaugirard, most of the streets are thoroughfares, a swarming mass of autos and wagons and push-carts, between five and seven.