Historic Paris

by Jetta Sophia Wolff

CHAPTER XXIII
ON ANCIENT ABBEY GROUND

NUMEROUS ancient streets and some modern ones, on time-honoured ground, lead out of Rue Vaugirard. Rue Bonaparte, extending to the banks of the Seine, was formed in 1852 of three old streets. Most of its houses are ancient or show vestiges of past ages and have historic associations. At No. 45 Gambetta dwelt in 1866. No. 36 was the home of Auguste Comte; on the site of No. 35 was the kitchen of the great abbey St-Germain-des-Prés, which stretched across the course of many streets in this district (see [p. 201]). No. 20, l’hôtel du duc de Vendôme, son of Henri IV and Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 19, hôtel de Rohan-Rochefort, where the wife of the unfortunate due d’Enghien, shot at Vincennes, used to receive her exiled husband in secret when he came in disguise to Paris. No. 17 is noted as the office till recent years of the Revue des Deux Mondes, first issued there in 1829 as a magazine of travel!

No. 14, École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, on the site of the convent des Petits-Augustins, founded by Margaret de Valois in 1605, of which some walls remain and to which in the nineteenth century were added the hôtels de Conti and de Bouillon, the latter known as hôtel de Chimay. The nucleus of the works of art here seen was a collection of sculptures and other precious relics saved from buildings shattered or suppressed in the days of the Revolution, reverently laid in what was called at first a dépôt des ruines des Monuments. The word ruines was soon omitted and the dépôt became the Musée des Monuments Français, under the able direction of Lenoir. But ruins are still to be seen there, splendid and historic ruins—the façade of the château d’Anet, built for Diane de Poitiers, and remains of many another superb hôtel of bygone ages. A beautiful chapel, paintings by Delaroche, and Ingres, statuary, mouldings of Grecian and Roman sculpture, are among the treasures of the Beaux-Arts. Nos. 1 and 3, forming l’hôtel de Chevandon, was inhabited at one time by vicomte de Beauharnais, the Empress Joséphine’s first husband.

L’ABBAYE ST-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS

Rue des Beaux-Arts, opened a century ago, has ever been the habitation of distinguished artists and men of letters. Rue Visconti, cut across the Petit Pré-aux-Clercs, the Students’ Fields, in the sixteenth century, bore till the middle of the nineteenth century the more characteristic name Rue des Marais-St-Germain. The Visconti it memoralizes was the architect of Napoléon’s tomb and of restoration work at the Louvre. In its early years it was a resort of Huguenots, and known therefore as the “Petite Genève.” It is very narrow and nearly every house is ancient; Racine died either at No. 13 or at 21. No. 17 was the printing-house founded by de Balzac, to whom it brought ruin. No. 21, hôtel de Ranes.

Rue Jacob, lengthened in the nineteenth century by the Rue Colombier, ancient Chemin-aux-Clercs, owes its name to a chapel built by Margaret de Valois, la Reine Margot—dedicated to the Hebrew patriarch in fulfilment of a vow when the Queen was kept in durance in Auvergne. The street has always been the habitation of notable men of letters, artists, etc. Sterne lived at No. 46. No. 47, Hôpital de la Charité, another of Marie de’ Medici’s foundations, was built for the Frères de St-Jean-de-Dieu. The firm of chemists at No. 48—Rouelle—dates from 1750, formerly on the opposite side of the street. At No. 19 we see in the courtyard vestiges of the old abbey infirmary. The abbey gardens stretched across the site of several houses here. No. 26, hôtel Lefèvre d’Ormesson (1710). At No. 22 there is an eighteenth-century structure in the court called “temple de l’Amitié.” At No. 20 dwelt the great eighteenth-century actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur. In Rue Furstemburg we find vestiges of the abbey stables and coach-house.

Rue de l’Abbaye, opened in the last year of the eighteenth century, stretches across a line once in the heart of the famous abbey grounds. The first church on the site of the fine old edifice we see there now, was built under the direction of Germain, bishop of Paris, in the time of Childebert, about the middle of the sixth century, dedicated to St-Vincent and known as St-Vincent et Ste-Croix, on account of its crucifix form. Bishop Germain added a monastery. In the ninth century came the devastating Normans. The church and convent were destroyed to be rebuilt on so grand and extensive a scale two centuries later, strongly fortified, surrounded by a moat, watch-towers, etc.—a masterpiece of thirteenth-century architecture. In the eighteenth century the abbey prison was taken over by the State, the Garde Française lodged there. In September, 1792 Mme Roland, Charlotte Corday and many another notable prisoner of those terrible days were shut up within its walls. The fine library and beautiful refectory were burnt and there, that fatal September, saw some three hundred victims of Revolutionary fury put to death, the greater number slain on the spot where Rue Buonaparte touches the place in front of the church. The prison stood till 1857. The church is full within as without of intensely interesting architectural and historic features: its tower is the most ancient church tower of the city. In the little garden square we see the ruins of the lady-chapel built by Pierre de Montereau, architect of the Ste-Chapelle. The Gothic roof, the round-arched nave, the splendid chapel of the Sacré-Cœur, once the church choir, with its pillars coloured deep red, the wonderful capitals of the chancel, the old glass in the chapel Ste-Geneviève, the tombs and the statues, and Flandrin’s glorious frescoes, all appeal to the lover of the beautiful and the historic. Of the houses in the vicinity of the church many are ancient, others are on the site of abbey buildings swept away. No. 3 Rue de l’Abbaye, the abbey palace, dates from 1586, built with a subterranean passage by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon. The last abbot who dwelt there was Casimir, King of Poland, whose tomb is in the church. In modern times it has served as a studio and is now a dispensary. At No. 13 we see the last traces of the monastery with its thirteenth-century cloister. At No. 15 Rue St-Benoît are the remains of an old tower; at No. 11 vestiges of an ancient wall; at No. 2, an old house once the abode of Marc Orry, a famous printer of the days of Henri IV. Through pipes down this old street water once flowed from the Seine to the abbey, and it went by the name Rue de l’Égout. The painter of the last portrait of Marie-Antoinette lived for some time at No. 17.

Rue du Four, i.e. Oven Street, the site in olden days of the abbey bakehouse, and one of the most important streets of the abbey precincts, bearing in its early days the royal name Chaussée du Roi, has been almost entirely rebuilt in modern times. Here and there we find traces of another age. Robespierre lived here.