OLD PARIS.
Though the streets of Paris were narrow and winding, yet both city and faubourgs had many large gardens and enclosures, or clos, as they were called, which belonged to the abbeys, convents, palaces, and hotels of the King and nobles. First, there was the famous Prè aux clercs, renowned in romance, mentioned several times in this and a former volume, which was so large that De Sauval says: “Il se va perdu bien loin dans la campagne,” and which only began to be built upon in 1630. The clos des Jacobins was nine acres, where now are the streets of la Madeleine, St. Thomas, St. Dominique, &c., and it was said that before part of it was cut through to make the moats and fortifications in the reign of Jean, it went up to the walls of the university.[182] The clos des Cordeliers was also enormous, and in fact the great enclosures, gardens, vineyards, meadows, and even preserves for rabbits and other game, were so numerous as to form an important feature in the ancient capital.
For those who care for the history of Paris there still remain in the byeways antique houses, picturesque corners, and old streets, around which cling the historic memories dear to their hearts, but to the great majority to whom it appears as nothing but an endless succession of broad streets and boulevards lined with trees, superb, monotonous, uninteresting houses copied from the Italian, and splendid shops; it would be impossible to picture to themselves mediæval Paris as it existed at the time of which this book treats.
Mr. Harrison, in an interesting essay on the transformation of Paris, says: “The modern streets, to which our tourists confine their walks, form after all only a gigantic screen, behind which much of old Paris still remains untouched.”
Until 1789 Paris remained a mediæval city. It would, of course, be out of the question in a work like this to attempt to give any real account of it, but it is possible to catch just a glimpse of what the aspect and life of the city must then have been by careful researches into the many splendid works in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the British Museum, and other places, which are filled with pictures and descriptions of it.
With its lofty walls, towers, gates, and moats, old Paris looked, as it was, a fortress. Inside it was a dense, tangled network of dark lanes, narrow, crooked streets, huge palaces, mediæval fortresses and conventual enclosures. Here and there came a tower or Gothic portal, churches, bridges, and quays crowded with confused piles of lofty wooden houses, walled gardens with terraces, courts, and colonnades; while those great royal and feudal castles, the Châtelet, the Bastille, the Temple, and the Louvre, frowned over the city.
The sanitary state of Paris was such that it is difficult to understand why any one was left alive. Narrow, unpaved streets, with open sewers running down the middle of them, cemeteries and charnel houses in the heart of the city, drinking water taken direct from the Seine, it is no wonder that there were such numbers of deaths of children and young people, and that so few attained to old age. Of all the children of Philippe de Valois only two lived to grow up; out of the numerous family of Charles V. only two survived their childhood. Charles VI. had twelve children, and though only four died in childhood, scarcely one reached forty-five years. The sons and daughters of King Jean must have been exceptionally strong, for all except one grew up, and one or two lived to be quite old. And if this were the case with the royal family, it was not likely to be better with those who lived under much less favourable conditions.
Not only within the walls, but for many miles outside them stood a profusion of churches, convents, abbeys, chapels, oratories of all sizes, from the mighty St. Germain des Près to the smallest chantry on the pier of a bridge. Rich in works of art, gorgeous in colour, paintings, frescoes, mosaics, stained glass, carved statues, coloured marbles, gold and silver plate, bronzes, ivories, silks, velvets, tapestries, embroideries, illuminated books, bells, clocks, perfumes, organs, instruments of music, choirs of singers, every beautiful and delightful thing was crowded together with the relics of saints and tombs of great men, miraculous images, lamps, candles on thousands of altars, offerings dedicated to countless saints and martyrs. The Church was school, art museum, place of instruction, prayer, confession of sin, preaching, and civilising. The great convents and monasteries were the schools, colleges, hospitals and poorhouses. They existed in design for the poor, diseased, and wretched. Christ loved the weak and suffering, and the doors of His house stood ever open to the weak, the suffering, the halt, the blind, and the lame. The poorest, the weakest, the most abject, were welcome there. The priest, the monk, and the nun taught, clothed, and nursed the suffering poor and their children; there was consolation in heaven for those who had found earth a hell.[183]
Strange and characteristic were the names of many of the streets and houses, such as Cherche-midi, Trois-morts-et-trois-vifs, L’Ymage-de-Saint Nicolas, Quatre-fils-Aymon, Ami-du-cœur, Panier-vert, Hospice des Quinze-Vingts,[184] beside the Croissant, Lyon d’or, Gerbe d’or, Croix blanche, Homme sauvage, Couronne, Cheval blanc, and many others still in use. Isabeau had several hôtels of her own amongst this tangled labyrinth of streets, buildings, and gardens. First, the hôtel de la Reine, which was one of the group of hôtels connected by galleries and colonnades, surrounded by gardens, built by Charles V., and called St. Paul. Then she had one in the faubourg St. Marcel, given her by the Duc de Berry, and another out in the country near Pouilly, called Val-la-Reine. Some years later she bought another, called Bagnolet, with a good deal of land and a windmill, besides all other accessories; it had also about six thousand elms and many other trees. And in this year she bought the hôtel Barbette, in the vieille rue du Temple. This she enlarged, bought all the ground about it to turn into gardens, and used it as a place of diversion.[185]
