In the seventeenth century, consent was given for the Île St-Louis to be built upon, and the official constructor of Ponts and Chaussées obtained the concession of the two islets under the stipulation that he should fill up the brook which separated them, and make a bridge across the arm of the Seine to the city quay. The brook became Rue Poulletier, where we see interesting vestiges of that day and two ancient hôtels, Nos. 3 and 20—the latter now a school.
All along Rue St-Louis-en-l’Île and in the streets connected with it, fine old mansions, or beautiful vestiges of the buildings then erected, still stand. The church we see there was begun by Le Vau in 1664, on the site of a chapel built at his own expense by one Nicolas-le-Jeune. The curious belfry dates from 1741. The church is a very store-house of works of art, many of them by the great masters of old, put there by its vicar, Abbé Bossuet, who devoted his whole fortune and his untiring energy to the work of restoring the church left in ruins after its despoliation at the Revolution, and died so poor in consequence as to be buried by the parish. At No. 1 of this quaint street we find a pavilion of l’hôtel de Bretonvilliers of which an arch is seen at No. 7, and other vestiges at Nos. 5 and 3. The Arbalétriers were wont to meet here in pre-Revolution days. No. 2, its northern front giving on Quai d’Anjou (see [p. 328]), is the grand mansion of Nicolas Lambert de Thorigny, built by Le Vau, 1680; its splendid decorations are the work of Lebrun and other noted artists and sculptors of the time. In 1843 it was bought by the family of a Polish prince and used in part as an orphanage for the daughters of Polish exiles till 1899.
CHAPTER XI
L’HÔTEL DE VILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
THE Hôtel de Ville, which gives its name to the arrondissement, is a modern erection built as closely as possible on the plan and from the designs of the fine Renaissance structure of the sixteenth century burnt to the ground by the Communards in 1871. Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where it stands, was until 1830 Place de Grève, the Place du Port de Grève of anterior days, days going back to Roman times. Like the Paris Cathedral, the hôtel de Ville is closely linked with the most marked events of French history. The first hôtel de Ville was known as la Maison-aux-Piliers, previously l’hôtel des Dauphins du Viennois, bought in 1357 by Étienne Marcel, Prévôt des Marchands, of historic memory (see [p. 39]), whose statue we see in the garden. The first stone of the fine building burnt in 1871 was laid by François I in 1533, its last one in the time of Henri IV. On the Square before it executions took place, for offences criminal, political, religious, by burning, strangling, hanging and the guillotine. In its centre stood a tall Gothic cross reared upon eight steps, at the foot of which the condemned said their last prayers. The guillotine first set up there in 1792 was soon moved about, as we know, to different points of the city, when used for political victims. Common-law criminals continued to expiate their evil deeds on Place de Grève. It was a comparatively small place in those days. Its enlargement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused the destruction of many old streets, in one of which was the famous Maison de la Lanterne. Close up against the Hôtel de Ville stood in past days the old church St-Jean-en-Grève and a hospice; both were incorporated in the town hall by Napoléon I. The entire building was destroyed in 1871, but the present structure is remarkably fine in every part, both within and without, and the Salle St-Jean, memorizing the church once there, is splendidly decorated. The Avenue Victoria, on the site of ancient streets, memorizes the visit of the English Queen in 1855. The short Rue de la Tâcherie (from tâche: task, work) crossing it, was in the thirteenth century Rue de la Juiverie, for here we are in the neighbourhood of what is still the Jews’ quarter.
PLACE DE GRÈVE
A modern garden-square surrounds the beautiful Tour St-Jacques, all that is left of the ancient church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, built in the fifteenth century, on the site of a chapel of the eighth century, finished in the sixteenth, entirely restored in the nineteenth century and again recently. It is used as an observatory. Paris weather statistics hail from la Tour St-Jacques.
On the site of the modern Place du Châtelet rose in bygone ages the primitive tower of the Grand Châtelet, which developed under Louis-le-Gros into a strongly fortified castle and prison guarding the bridge across the Seine to the right, while the Petit Châtelet guarded it on the left bank. A chandelle—a flaming tallow candle—set up by command of Philippe-le-Long near its doorway, is said to be the origin of the lighting, dim enough as it was for centuries, of Paris streets. The fortress was rebuilt by Louis XIV; part of it served as the Morgue until it was razed to the ground in 1802. The fountain plays where the prison once stood. Numerous old streets lead out of the modern Rue de Rivoli at this point. Rue Nicolas-Flamel, running where good Nicolas had a fine hôtel in the early years of the fifteenth century, and Rue Pernelle recording the name of his wife, have existed under other names from the thirteenth century. Rue St-Bon recalls the chapel on the spot in still earlier times.
Rue St-Martin beginning at Quai des Gesvres, the high road to the north of Roman days, after cutting through Avenue Victoria, crosses Rue de Rivoli at this point, and here was the first of the four Portes which in succession marked the city boundary on this side. The beautiful sixteenth-century church we see here, St-Merri, stands on the site of a chapel built in the seventh century. In a Gothic crypt remains of its patron saint who lived and died on the spot are reverently guarded, and the bones of Eudes the Falconer, the redoubtable warrior who dowered the church, discovered in perfect preservation in a stone coffin in the time of François I, lie in the choir. It is a wonderfully interesting structure, with fine glass, woodwork, mouldings, statues and statuettes. The statuettes we see on the walls of the porch are comparatively modern, replacing the ancient ones destroyed at the Revolution.