Twenty Centuries of Paris

by Mabell S. C. Smith

The fountain showing the valiant figure of Saint Michel facing the bridge at the corner of the boulevard Saint Michel, has a position like that of the Molière fountain, making a graceful and harmonious decoration for the end of a house lying in the acute angle between two meeting streets.

The extension of the city’s water supply was the more appreciated because it was belated. Twelve thousand gas lamps made a much-needed illumination. Two railway stations added a convenient public service.

Just outside the fortifications is the Bois de Boulogne, originally a forest, but now developed as a park, retaining its naturalness and charm with the addition of good roads, and attractive tea-houses.

Finally, the lovely Parc Monceau was laid out to please the prosperous inhabitants of the recently developed quarter near the Arc de l’Étoile, and an old quarry was ingeniously converted into a thing of seemingly natural beauty for the benefit of the poorer people of Belleville in the north-eastern part of the city. In 1861 the population of Paris was 1,667,841.

Yet even all these public works and the brilliancy of the not at all exclusive court which Napoleon and his wife, Eugénie (whom he had married with magnificent ceremony at Notre Dame in 1853), held at the Tuileries, could not entirely calm the restless and not yet satisfied Parisians. To the poorer classes “empire” did not ring as true as “republic.” Napoleon boldly laid the question of the empire before the people of France once more, and once more they returned a handsome vote in his support, but Paris was unconvinced. She cast 184,000 Nos against 139,000 Yeses.

As must always happen in connection with foreign affairs the emperor’s attitude provoked hostility as well as approval. There were opponents of the Crimean War as well as advocates; there were adverse critics of the treaty with Austria which closed the war which France undertook in behalf of Italy. Long-continued friction with Germany had brought about a general wish for war. Napoleon planned to secure his own popularity by entering upon a struggle which he knew would be approved by the majority of his subjects. Paris was wildly enthusiastic, crying “On to Berlin!” regardless of the fact that the army was almost entirely unprepared.

A trivial incident furnished the excuse and the emperor in person invaded Germany, but the list of encounters was almost entirely a list of defeats and the Prussian army pressed the French forces back into their own country. Paris was so furious at the realization of what this invasion might mean that it is said that Napoleon never would have passed through the city alive if he had returned then.

The battle of Sédan, fought on the first of September, 1870, not only was an overwhelming defeat, but there the emperor was taken prisoner. Never again did he see the city he had worked so hard to beautify. After he was released (in 1871) he went to England where he died in 1873.

News of the battle reached Paris on the fourth of September and produced such utter consternation that the mob was frightened into comparative quiet. A great crowd, however, eager and determined, entered the Legislature where the deputies were in session and demanded the abolition of the empire. Jules Favre, Gambetta, Jules Simon and several other deputies of the “opposition” party, led the crowd to the City Hall, formed a provisional government, and declared the Third Republic.

The empress, meanwhile, who had only too good reason to fear the possible temper of the Paris mob, had heard the news in the Tuileries and took instant flight. Accompanied only by one lady and by the Austrian and Italian ambassadors, she traversed the whole length of the Louvre to its eastern end. As she came out on the street facing the church of Saint Germain l’Auxerrois she was recognized by a small boy who called her name. This recognition so terrified the ambassadors that they did not stop to find the carriage that was waiting for them, but pushed the empress and her companion into an ordinary cab, and called to the cabman no more definite direction than “To Boulevard Haussmann.” The two frightened women had not even a handbag with them and not so much as their cab fare. Fortunately the empress happened to think of her dentist, an American named Evans. They drove to his house and through his help managed to leave the city and to escape to England. There Eugénie still lives.