Twenty Centuries of Paris

by Mabell S. C. Smith

Two months before the king’s death he lost his strong-armed Constable, Du Guesclin, at the siege of Châteauneuf-Randon. Strangely enough for a man who had spent his life in arms the great fighter did not die sword in hand, but of illness and in bed. The governor of the town, who had promised to yield to the Constable and to him alone, refused to give up his keys to the second in command and going out from the citadel laid them on the bier of the great captain. Du Guesclin’s body was carried to Paris where it lay in the monastery of the Cordeliers on the left bank before it was taken to Saint Denis where his tomb was arranged at the foot of the tomb which Charles had had prepared for himself. The ceremonies were as elaborate as those for a member of the royal family, in such esteem did the king hold the departed soldier.

It was only a few weeks later that Charles himself fell ill and realized that his end was not far off. He had known much sickness in his life—his was one of those triumphs of mind over unwilling matter. At one time before his accession his unamiable brother-in-law, Charles the Bad, had, it is asserted, caused him to be poisoned. So strong was the poison that his hair and nails fell from his body. His good friend the Emperor of Germany had sent him a skillful physician who had relieved his system by opening a small sore in his arm. If ever it proved impossible to keep this sore open, he told his royal patient, he must prepare for death, though he would have about a fortnight in which to set his house in order. Twenty-two years later, in September, 1380, the issue began to dry, and at the end of the month, on the eve of Michaelmas, the King died in his birthplace, the château of Vincennes. His body with face uncovered was borne through the mourning crowds of Paris to the abbey of Saint Denis where it was buried in the tomb already prepared.

When Charles as a young man had made a spirited speech to the Parisians telling them that he meant to live and die in Paris he made a statement that he lived up to. Economical even to penuriousness elsewhere, he built lavishly in Paris. His improvement of the Louvre has been mentioned. In the northeast corner of the quadrangle were a garden, tennis court and menagerie. A library of nearly a thousand volumes was housed in three stories of one of the towers. Charles was a great student, read the entire Bible through every year, and had a corps of translators, transcribers, illuminators and binders always at work. His collection was the nucleus of the present National Library although the Duke of Bedford carried off a goodly number of books to England in the later part of the Hundred Years’ War. The royal apartments in the Louvre, elaborately carved and decorated, were large and well arranged. The rooms of the queen, Jeanne de Bourbon, were on the south side overlooking the river, and the king’s were on the north. Each of the children had a separate suite and that of the dauphin rivaled in size and elegance those of his father and mother. Each set of rooms had its own chapel.

The Old Louvre.

The palace on the Cité was full of unpleasant memories of the days of the regency—notably the murder of the marshals—and Charles no doubt was glad when the overcrowding caused by the business of the courts allowed him to break away from the tradition of royal residence under the ancient roof. With all its changes the Louvre still was a rather grim dwelling, and Charles chose a more open location at the extreme east of the city for his new Hôtel Saint Paul. He bought existing houses, some of which he demolished, and land and laid out a large establishment of which the present names of streets in the vicinity suggest varied uses, though none of the original buildings are left. The streets of the Garden, of the Cherry Orchard, of the Fair Trellis, of the Lions tell their own stories, while the rue Charles V, a tiny thoroughfare, is the only street memorial in all Paris which bears the name of this great monarch.

The Hôtel des Tournelles, so called from its many towers, was built by Charles just north of the palace of Saint Paul.

Certainly Paris thrived under Charles. The population increased to a hundred and fifty thousand, many people coming in to the town during the troublous times with Navarre and the English to secure the protection of its wall. Charles carried on Marcel’s plans of fortification. The chief point was the Bastille—at first merely two heavy towers protecting one of the city gates, but, by the time of Charles’s death, strengthened by the addition of six others so that it became a formidable fortress and dungeon. Its walls were fifteen feet thick and over sixty feet high. A deep ditch surrounded it. Its destruction by the mob on July 14, 1789, was one of the opening events of the Revolution, and so profoundly did its grim walls symbolize oppression that the anniversary of its destruction is the French national holiday. Where the huge building stood is now an open square adorned by a shaft called the “July Column” raised in honor of the heroes of the Revolution of July, 1830.

Of examples of domestic architecture of this time there is still in existence part of the Hôtel de Clisson. It is now the entrance of the Archives, and, like the Hôtel de Sens, shows the lingering style of the feudal château.