The buildings we see there on the odd-number side opposite the Palais de Justice: the Tribunal du Commerce, the Préfecture de Police, the Firemen’s barracks, are all of nineteenth-century erection. So we come to the boulevard St-Michel, the far-famed “Boule-Miche” of the Latin Quarter, forming the boundary-line between arrondissements V and VI. As a boulevard it is not of ancient date. It began at its northernly end in 1855 as boulevard Sébastopol, Rive Gauche. Soon it was prolonged and renamed to memorize the ancient chapel erewhile in one of the streets it had swept away. Place St-Michel from which it starts has to-day a modern aspect. Almost all traces of the ancient Place du Pont St-Michel, as it was in bygone days, have vanished. The huge fountain we see and cannot admire, though perhaps we ought to, replaces the fountain of 1684. The arched entrance to the narrow street Rue de l’Hirondelle, once Irondelle, as an old inscription tells us, which began in 1179 as Rue de l’Arondale-en-Laas, and the glimpse at a little distance of the entrance to ancient streets on the boulevard St-Germain side, give the only old-world touch to the place. The high blackened walls we see in this Rue de l’Hirondelle are the remains of the ancient collège d’Autun founded in 1341. At No. 20, on the site of the ancient hôtel of the bishops of Chartres, is an eighteenth-century hôtel. No. 38 of the boulevard is on the site of the house belonging to the Cordeliers, whose monastery was near by, where the royal library was kept from the days of Louis XIII to 1666. The Lycée St-Louis, founded in 1280 as the college d’Harcourt, covers the site of several ancient structures. A fragment—the only one known—of the boundary wall of Henri II, is within the college grounds, and beneath them the remains of a Roman theatre were found in 1861, and more remains in 1908. Where the boulevard meets Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, the city wall and a gate of Philippe-Auguste passed in olden days. And that was the site of the ancient place. No. 60, the École des Mines founded in 1783, and housed at the Mint, at that time an hôtel Rue de l’Université, then transferred to Montiers in Savoie, finally settled here in 1815 in the hôtel Vendôme built in 1707 for the Chartreux, let in 1714 to the duchesse de Vendôme, who died there soon afterwards. This fine old structure still forms the central part of the Mining School. At No. 62 we see the Geological Map offices. In the court of No. 64 we find a house built by the Chartreux, inhabited in past days by the marquis de Ségur, and in later times by Leconte de Lisle. The railway station Gare de Sceaux at No. 66 covers the site of the once well-known Café Rouge. In the old Rue Royer-Collard opening at No. 71, in the sixteenth century Rue St-Dominique d’Enfer, we see several quaint old houses. Roman pots were found some years ago beneath the pavement of the impasse. The house at No. 91 is on ground once within the cemetery St-Jacques. César Franck the composer lived and died at No. 95 (1891). No. 105 is the site of the ancient Noviciat des Feuillants who went by the name “anges guardiens.” The famous students’ dancing saloon known as bal Bullier was at this end of the boulevard from 1848 till a few years ago.
CHAPTER L
LES BOULEVARDS EXTÉRIEURS
STARTING at the ancient Barrière des Ternes, for some years past Place des Ternes, we take our way through outer boulevards forming a wide circle. Boulevard de Courcelles, dating from 1789, runs where quaint old thoroughfares ran of yore. Boulevard des Batignolles was the site of the barrières de Monceau. The Collège Chaptal, which we see there, was founded in Rue Blanche in 1844. The busy Place de Clichy is on the site of the ancient Clichy barrier, valiantly defended by the Garde Nationale in 1814. The huge monument in its centre is modern (1869). On the line of the boulevard de Clichy stretched in bygone days the barriers Blanche, Montmartre and des Martyrs, of which at first three boulevards were formed: Clichy, Pigalle, des Martyrs united under the name of the first in 1864. Just beyond the place, at No. 112, we turn into Avenue Rachel leading to the cemetery Montmartre, formed in 1804 on the site of the ancient graveyard of the district. Many men and women of mark lie buried here. We see names of historic, literary or artistic celebrity on the tombstones all around. The monument Cavaignac is the work of the great sculptor Rude. The Moulin Rouge, a music-hall, at No. 88 is on the site of a once famous Montmartrois dancing-hall, “la Dame Blanche.” No. 77 is an ancient convent, its garden the site of a café concert. “Les Quatrez-Arts” at No. 64 is one of the most widely known of Montmartrois cabarets and music-halls. In the Villa des Platanes, opening at No. 58, we find a bas-relief showing the defence made on the place in 1814. Rue Fontaine, opening at No. 57, shows us a succession of small Montmartrois theatres and music-halls. In Rue Fromentin we still see the sign-board of the far-famed school of painting, l’Académie Julian formerly here. In Rue Germain-Pilon we see an ancient pavilion. No. 36 is the Cabaret La Lune Rousse, formerly Cabaret des Arts, of a certain renown or notoriety. The passage and the Rue de l’Élysée-des-Beaux-Arts show us interesting sculptures and bas-reliefs. Nos. 8 and 6, of old a dancing saloon, was the scene of a tragic incident in the year 1830: the ground beneath it, undermined by quarries, gave way and an entire wedding-party were engulfed. Boulevard de Rochechouart was named in memory of a seventeenth-century abbess of Montmartre; it was in part of its length boulevard des Poissoniers until the second half of the nineteenth century. The music-hall “la Cigale,” at No. 120, dating from 1822, was for long the famous “bal de la Boule-Noire.” At No. 106 we see a fresco on the bath house walls; an ancient house “Aux-deux-Marronniers” at No. 38, and theatres, music-halls, etc., of marked local colour all along the boulevard.
Boulevard de la Chapelle runs along the line of the ancient boulevard des Vertus. Vestiges dating from the days of the struggles between Armagnacs and Bourguignons are still seen at No. 120, and at No. 39 of the short Rue Château-Landon, opening out of the boulevard at No. 1, we see the door of an ancient castel which was for long the country house of the monks of St-Lazare.
Boulevard Richard-Lenoir shows us nothing of special interest. The house No. 140 is ancient.
OLD WELL AT SALPÉTRIÈRE
(Le puits de Manon Lescaut)
Boulevard de l’Hôpital dates from 1760. The hospital referred to is the immense Salpétrière built as a refuge for beggars by Louis XIV on the site where his predecessor had built a powder stores. A bit of the old arsenal still stands and serves as a wash-house. The domed church was erected a few years later; barrels collected from surrounding farms were sawed up to make its ceiling. Presently a woman’s prison was built within the grounds—the prison we are shown in the Opera “Manon.” The convulsionists of St-Médard were shut up there. At the Revolution it was invaded by the insurgents, women of ill-fame set free, many of the prisoners slain. The new Hôpital de la Pitié was built in adjoining grounds in recent years. The central Magasin des Hôpitaux at No. 87, where we see an ancient doorway, is on the site of the hospital burial-ground of former days.
The fine old entrance portal of la Salpétrière, the statue of the famous Dr. Charcot just outside it, the various seventeenth-century buildings, the old woodwork within the hospital, the courtyard known as the Cour des Massacres, the wide extending grounds, make a visit to this old hospital very interesting. And the grass-grown open space before it, with its shady trees, and the quaint streets around give a somewhat rural and provincial aspect to this remote corner of Paris, making us feel as if we were miles away from the city. Rue de Campo-Formio, opening at No. 123, was known in the seventeenth century as Rue des Étroites Ruelles. Rue Rubens was in past days Rue des Vignes.