L’ÉGLISE ST-GERVAIS

Rue de la Verrerie bordering the southern walls of the church and running on almost to Rue Vieille-du-Temple, dates from the twelfth century and reminds us by its name of the glaziers and glass painters’ Company, developed from the confraternity which in 1187 made the old street its quarter. Louis XIV, finding this a convenient road on the way to Vincennes, had it enlarged. There dwelt Jacquemin Gringonneur, who, it is said, invented playing cards for the distraction of the insane King Charles VI. Bossuet’s father and many other persons of position or repute lived in the old houses which remain or in others on the site of the more modern ones. At No. 76 was the hôtel inhabited by Suger, the Minister of Louis VI and Louis VII; part of its ancient walls were incorporated in the church in the sixteenth century. Here, too, is the presbytery, where in the courtyard we find a wonderful old spiral staircase, its summit higher than the church roof. Old streets and passages wind in and out around the church. Exploring them, we come upon interesting vestiges innumerable. The ancient clergy house is at No. 76, Rue St-Martin. Rue Cloître-St-Merri, Rue Taille-pain, Rue Brise-Miche, these two referring to the bakery once there and bread portioned out, cut or broken for the Clergy; Rue St-Merri and its old passage, Impasse du Bœuf, with its eighteenth-century grille; Rue Pierre-au-lard, a humorous adaptation of the name Pierre Aulard, borne by a notable parishioner of the eighteenth century. Passage Jabach on the site of the home of the rich banker of the seventeenth century whose fine collection of pictures were the nucleus of the treasures of the Louvre. Impasse St-Fiacre, the word saint cut away at the Revolution, where dwelt the first hirer-out of cabs; hence the term fiacre. Rue de la Reynie (thirteenth century), renamed in memory of the Lieutenant-General of Police who, in 1669, ordered the lighting of Paris streets, but did not provide lamplighters. Private citizens were bound daily to light and extinguish the lanterns then placed at the end and in the middle of each thoroughfare. Everyone of these streets, dull and grimy though they be, are full of interest for the explorer. Going on up Rue St-Martin, we see on both sides numerous features of interest. Look at Nos. 97, 100, 103, 104; and at No. 116, called Maison des Goths, with its fine old frieze. At No. 120 there are two storeyed cellars and in one of them a well. The fontaine Maubuée at No. 122 is referred to in old documents so early as 1320. Its name shortened from mauvaise buée, i.e. mauvaise fumée, is not suggestive of the purity of its waters at that remote period; the fountain was reconstructed in 1733—the house some sixty years later. The upper end of Rue Simon-le-Franc, which we turn into here, was until recent times Rue Maubuée. It may, perhaps, still deserve the name. Rue Simon-le-Franc is one of the oldest among all these old streets, for it was a thoroughfare in the year 1200. It records the name of a worthy citizen of his day, one Simon Franque. All the houses are ancient, some very picturesque. Next in date is that most characteristic of old-time streets, the Rue de Venise. The name, a misnomer, dates only from 1851, due to an old sign. The street was known by various appellations since its formation somewhere about the year 1250. Every house and court there is ancient, the space between those on either side so narrow that the tall, dark buildings seem to meet at their apex. No. 27 is the old inn “l’Épée de Bois,” lately renovated and its name changed to “L’Arrivée de Venise,” where from the year 1658 a company of musicians and dancing-masters duly licensed by Mazarin used to meet under the direction of “Le roi des violons,” their chief. This was, in fact, the nucleus of the Académie National of Music and Dancing, known later as the Conservatoire. Great men of letters too were wont to meet in that old inn. Rue de Venise opens into Rue Beaubourg, a road that stretched through a beau bourg, i.e. a fine township, so far back as the eleventh century, with special privileges, the rights of citizenship for its inhabitants although lying without the boundary-wall. No. 4, now razed, was the “Restaurant du Bon Bourg,” tenu par “le Roi du Bon Vin.” To the left is Rue des Étuves, i.e. Bath Street, with houses old and curious. Rue de Venise runs at its lower end into the famous Rue de Quincampoix, the street of Law’s bank (see [p. 63]), where every house is ancient or has vestiges of past ages. No. 43 was a shop let in Law’s time at the rate of 100 francs a day. The street leads down into Rue des Lombards, the ancient usurers’ and pawnbrokers’ street, inhabited in these days by a very opposite class—herborists. Tradition says Boccaccio was born here. Rue du Temple, Rue des Archives, Rue Vieille-du-Temple, Rue de Sévigné, traversed in part in the 3rd arrondissement (see [p. 108]) all have their lower numbers in this 4th arrondissement, the first three branching off from Rue de Rivoli, the last from Rue St-Antoine. At No. 61, Rue du Temple, on the site of the vanished Couvent des Filles de Ste-Avoie, we see an old gabled house. In the courtyard of No. 57, l’hôtel de Titon, the Bastille armourer. At No. 41 the old tavern “l’Aigle d’Or.” No. 20 is the ancient office of the Gabelles—the salt-tax. Here we see an old sign taken from the vicinity of St-Gervais, showing the famous elm-tree, of which more anon. Every house shows some interesting old-time feature. This brings us again close up to the Hôtel de Ville, where we see the venerable church St-Gervais-et-St-Protais, dating in its present form from the sixteenth century, on the site of a church built there in the sixth. That primitive erection grew into a beautiful church in the early years of the twelfth century. Some of the exquisite work of that day may still be seen by turning up the narrow passage to the left, where we find the ancient charniers. Rebuilding was undertaken two centuries later. A curious half-effaced inscription on an old wall within refers to this reconstruction and its dedication fête day, instituted in honour of “Messieurs St. Gervais et St. Protais.” The last rebuilding was in 1581. Then in the seventeenth century, the Renaissance façade was added to the Gothic edifice behind it by Salomon de Brosse. The church is full of precious artistic work, glorious glass, frescoes, statuary and rich in historic associations. Madame de Sévigné was married here; Scarron was married to the young girl destined to become Mme de Maintenon, and was perhaps buried in the beautiful Chapelle-Dorée. The church has always suffered in time of war. At the Revolution the insurgents tried to shake down its fine tall pillars; the marks are still to be seen. In 1830-48-71 cannon balls pierced its belfry walls, and now on Good Friday of this war-year 1918, the enemy’s gun, firing at a range of seventy-five miles, struck its roof, laid low a great pillar, brought death and wounding to the assembled congregation. On the place before the church we see a tree railed round. A shadier elm-tree stood there once, the famous Orme de St-Gervais, beneath which justice—or maybe at times injustice—was administered in the open air, in long-past ages.

HÔTEL DE BEAUVAIS, RUE FRANÇOIS-MIRON

Rue François-Miron running east, its lower end the ancient Rue St-Antoine, shows us the orme, figured in the ironwork of all its balconies. This end of the street was known in olden days as Rue du Pourtour St-Gervais, then as Rue du Monceau St-Gervais, referring to the wide stretch of waste ground in the vicinity which, unbuilt upon for centuries, was a favourite site for festive gatherings and tournaments. It records the name of the Prévôt des Marchands of the sixteenth century to whom was due the façade of the Hôtel de Ville, burnt in 1871. Its houses are for the most part ancient. No. 13, quaint and gabled, fifteenth century. No. 82 the old mansion of President Henault. No. 68 hôtel de Beauvais, associated with many historic personages and events, has Gothic cellars which of yore formed part of the monastastic house where Tasso wrote his great poem “Jerusalem Delivered.” The walls above those fine cellars were knocked down in the third decade of the seventeenth century and replaced in 1655 by those we see there now, built as the hôtel de Beauvais, destined to see many changes. At the Revolution the grand old mansion was for a time a coach-office, then a house let out in flats. Mozart is said to have stayed there in 1763.

Behind the church is the old Rue des Barres with an ancient inscription and traces of an ancient chapel. The sordid but picturesque Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville was known for centuries as Rue de la Mortellerie, from the morteliers, or masons who had settled there. In the dread cholera year 1832 the inhabitants saw in the name of their street a sinister reference to the word mort and demanded its change. Every house has some feature of old-time interest. Beneath No. 56 there is a Gothic cellar, once, tradition says, a chapel founded by Blanche de France, grand-daughter of Philippe-le-Bel, who died in 1358. At No. 39 we see the narrowest street in Paris, Rue du Paon Blanc, erewhile known as the “descente à la rivière.” Nos. 8-2 is the venerable hôtel de Sens (see [p. 117]).

In Rue Geoffroy l’Asnier, between Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville and Rue François-Miron, thirteenth century, we find among many other vestiges of old times the fine seventeenth-century door of hôtel Chalons at No. 26. In Rue de Jouy of the same period and interest, at No. 12 and No. 14, dependencies of l’hôtel Beauvais; at No. 7 l’hôtel d’Aumont, built in 1648 on the site of the house where Richelieu was born. At No. 9, the École Sophie-Germain, the ancient hôtel de Fourcy, previously inhabited by a rich bourgeois family.

Rue des Archives (see [p. 74]) is chiefly interesting in its course through this arrondissement for the old church des Billettes (see p. 76) on the site of the house of the Jew Jonathas, so called from the sign hung outside a neighbouring house—a billot—i.e. log of wood. Rebuilt in 1745, closed at the Revolution, the church was given to the Protestants in 1808. The beautiful cloisters of the fifteenth-century structure were left untouched and are enclosed in the school adjoining the church. Rue Ste-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie dates from the early years of the thirteenth century and is rich in relics of past ages. Its name records the existence there of the thirteenth-century church de l’Exaltation de la Ste-Croix and of a convent instituted in 1258 in the ancient Monnaie du Roi—the Mint—suppressed at the Revolution, but of which traces are still seen on the square. At No. 47 we see a turret dating from 1610. The dispensary at No. 44 is the old hôtel Feydeau de Brou (1760). No. 35 belonged to the old church Chapter. The boys’ school at No. 22 is ancient. No. 20 dates from 1696. Rue Aubriot from the thirteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century was Rue du Puits-au-Marais. Aubriot was the thirteenth-century Prévôt de Paris, an active builder, and who first laid drains beneath Paris streets. No. 10 dates from the first years of the seventeenth century. Vestiges of that or an earlier age are seen all along the street. Rue des Blancs-Manteaux recalls the begging Friars, servants of Mary, wearing long white cloaks, who settled here in 1258. They united a few years later with the Guillemites, whose name is recorded in a neighbouring street of ancient date. Their church at No. 12 was entirely rebuilt in 1685, and in 1863 the portal of the demolished Barnabite church added to its façade. Remains of the old convent buildings are incorporated in the Mont-de-Piété opposite. At No. 14 we see traces of the old Priory. No. 22 and No. 25 have fine old staircases and other interesting vestiges. The cabaret de “l’Homme Armé” existed in the fifteenth century. We find ancient vestiges, often fine staircases, at most of the houses.