Quai de Grenelle, a rough road from the eighteenth century, was built at the same period. The Allée des Cygnes owes its name to the ancient Île des Cygnes, known in the sixteenth century and onwards as Île Maquerelle, or mal querelle, for the secluded islet on the Seine, joined later to the river-bank, offered a fine spot in those days for fights and quarrels. In the time of Louis XIV the islet was a public promenade, and the King had swans put there, hence its name.
Quai d’Orsay memorizing a famous parliamentary man of his day, Prévôt des Marchands, first constructed in the early years of the eighteenth century, was known from 1802 to 1815 as Quai Buonaparte. It extends far along the 7th arrondissement. There we see along its borders the bright gardens of the recently laid out park of the Champ de Mars, and numerous smart modern streets and avenues opening out of it. No. 105 is the State Garde-Meuble, its walls sheltering magnificent tapestries, and historic relics of the days of kings and emperors. At No. 99 were the imperial stables. No 97, Ministère du Travail. The Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (Foreign Office), at No. 37, is a modern structure. The Palais de la Présidence, at No. 35, dates from 1722. The Palais-Bourbon from the same date (see [p. 200]).
The busy Gare d’Orléans, so prominent a modern structure along the quay, covers the site of the old Palais d’Orsay, and an ancient barracks burnt to the ground in 1871. In an inner courtyard at No. 1 we find the remains of the ancient hôtel de Robert de Cotte, royal architect-in-chief, in the early years of the eighteenth century.
Quai Voltaire was known in part of its course in eighteenth-century days as Quai des Théatins. It was constructed under Mazarin, restored in 1751. Many names of historic note are associated with the handsome house at No. 27, built in or about 1712, for Nicolas de Bragelonne, Treasurer of France. Its chief point of interest is connected with Voltaire. Here he died in 1778; here his heart was kept till 1791. No. 25 was the home of Alfred de Musset. The ground between 25 and 15 was occupied from the days of Mazarin till 1791 by the convent of the Théatins. The short Rue de Beaume close here shows us many interesting old-time houses. No. 1 was the hôtel of the Marquis de Villette, who became a member of the Convention, and called his son Voltaire. At No. 3 were his stables. Boissy d’Anglas lived at No. 5, in 1793, and Chateaubriand stayed here in 1804. No. 17, dating from about 1670, was the house of the Carnot family. At No. 10 we see vestiges of a house belonging to the Mousquetaires Gris, for this was their headquarters. No. 2 was built for the Marquis de Mailly-Nesle. Nos. 11 to 9, along the quai, formed the habitation of Président de Perrault, secretary to the Grand Condé. The duchess of Portsmouth lived here in 1690, and here the great painter, Ingres, died in 1867.
Quai Malaquais began as Quai de la Reine Marguerite, but was nicknamed forthwith Quai Mal-acquet (Mal-acquis) because the Queen, Henri IV’s light-lived, divorced wife, had taken the abbey grounds of the Petit Pré-aux-Clercs whereon to build her garden-surrounded mansion. At No. 1 the architect Visconti died in 1818. In 1820 Humboldt lived at No. 3. The statue of Voltaire by Caillé was set up opposite No. 5 in 1885. The house at No. 9 was built about 1624 on the ground mal-acquis by Margaret de Valois. No. 11, École des Beaux-Arts, is on the site of the ancient hôtel de Brienne, Louis XIV’s Secretary of State. Joined later to the house next door it became the home of Mazarin, by and by of Fouché, and was made to communicate with the police offices at a little distance. Nos. 15 and 17, built by Mansart in 1640, restored a century later, after long habitation by persons of noted name, was taken over by the State, and in 1885 annexed to the Beaux-Arts.
Quai de Conti records the name of the brother of the Grand Condé. Its most prominent building is the Institut de France, the Collège Mazarin, built in 1663-70, as the Collège des Quatre Nations Réunies. Its left pavilion covers the site of the ancient Tour de Nesle, washed by the Seine, which formed the boundary point of Philippe-Auguste’s wall and rampart. Mazarin’s will endowed the college for the benefit of sixty impecunious gentlemen’s sons of Alsace, France, Pignerol, Roussillon. The Revolutionists styled it “Collège de l’Unité,” then in 1793 suppressed it, and used the building for meetings of the Salut Public, later as an École Normale, then as a Palais des Arts; finally, after undergoing restoration, it became in 1805 the Institut de France, as we know it. The ancient chapel has been taken for the great meeting-hall, the hall of the grandes “Séances.” For long Mazarin’s tomb, now in the Louvre, was there. His body is said to be there still, deep down beneath the chapel pavement. The Bibliothèque Mazarine is in the part of the building covering the spot where the petit hôtel de Nesle stood of old. The greater part of the statesman’s valuable collection of books was brought here from his palace, now incorporated in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Rue de Richelieu, according to his will. It contains many precious ancient volumes and manuscripts. The house No. 15 was built by Louis XIV on the foundations of the ancient Tour de Nesle. No. 13, where we see the shop of the booksellers Pigoreau, was built by Mansard, in 1659, one of its walls resting upon a bit of the ancient wall of Philippe-Auguste. Here, on the third story, we may see the room, an attic then, as now, where young Buonaparte, a student at the École Militaire, used to spend his holidays, welcomed there by old friends of his family. The short Rue Guénégaud, memorizing the mansion once there, bordering at one part the walls of the Mint, shows us along the rest of its course, at No. 1, remains of a once famous marionnettes theatre; at No. 19 an old gabled house; in the court, No. 29, a tower of Philippe-Auguste’s wall; an ancient inscription at No. 35; a fine old door at No. 16, etc. The narrow old-world Rue de Nevers shows us none but ancient houses. This thirteenth-century street was formerly closed at both ends and known therefore as Rue des Deux-Portes. Beneath No. 13 of the little Rue de Nesle runs an ancient subterranean passage blocked in recent years. The old house at No. 5 of the quay was for long looked upon as the dwelling of Buonaparte after he left Brienne. At the recently razed No. 3 lived Marie-Antoinette’s jeweller, his shop surmounted by the sign “Le petit Dunkerque,” referring to articles of curiosity in the jewellery line, much in vogue in the year 1780. A little café at No. 1, also razed, was till lately the humble successor of the first Paris “Café des Anglais,” set up there in 1769, a gathering-place for British men of letters.
QUAI DES GRANDS-AUGUSTINS
Quai des Grands-Augustins, the oldest of Paris quays, dates in part from the thirteenth century, and records the existence there of the monastery where in its heyday the great assemblies of the clergy were held, and the ecclesiastical archives kept from 1645 to 1792. The Salle des Archives was then given up to the making of assignats. In 1797 the convent was sold and razed to the ground. We see some traces of it at No. 55. The bookseller’s shop there was till recent years paved with gravestones from the convent chapel which stood on the site of No. 53. The restaurant Lapérouse at No. 51 was, in the seventeenth century, the hôtel of the comte de Bruillevert. The Académie bookseller, Didier-Perrin, is established in the ancient hôtel Feydeau et Montholon. No. 25 was built by François I. No. 23 opened on the vanished Rue de Hurepoix. No. 17 was part of the hôtel d’O, subsequently hôtel de Luynes.