The three hundred were well looked after, all things considered. They had a poor-box in every church of France. They were privileged not only to beg at the doors, but even to exercise their quest in the church itself. A difficulty arose from the circumstance of some churches affording to the "King's Bedesmen" a better harvest than others. All or most would naturally crowd to fleece the richest and most charitable congregations, and dire confusion would ensue. But there were heads equal to the emergency. Once a year an auction was held; a good church was set up, bedesmen bid for its possession; it was knocked down to the best small batch of bidders, and the money they gave then, or as they made it, put into a common fund. The least well off or least speculative got the worst stands, but they received their share of the money arising from the auction.
This exceptional state of things continued till within the second half of last century, when the office of grand almoner became invested in the Cardinal de Rohan. The wretched habitations of the three hundred, their poor church left to ruin, the dust-heaps and pools of evil odor with which they were surrounded, so badly harmonized with the neighborhood of the Palais Royal, the Tuileries, and the Louvre, between which they lay, that it entered the speculative mind of the cardinal that it would be a profitable business to remove the poor inmates to a more cleanly and comfortable domicile, and sell the large plot of land on which the straggling settlement reposed. A solvent company was found, the land disposed of for six millions of livres, and the Hotel of the Black Musketeers, Rue de Charenton, was purchased for the blind men at somewhat less than half a million. This took place in 1779, and since then the churches and the streets have been relieved from the annoyance of the state beggars. They still occupy the Hotel Rue de Charenton, and the curious traveller now passing down the magnificent Rue Rivoli, with palaces on either hand, can scarcely persuade himself that the space round him was, less than a century since, a dedalus of dirty lanes and ill-kept, squalid dwellings.
The Morgue And Its Derivation.
"Whoe'er was at Paris must needs know the Grève" was said and sung three half-centuries ago. Whoever was or was not at Paris must have heard of the Morgue, where the bodies of unknown persons who have met with sudden deaths were exposed for some days, to be recognised by their friends. Perhaps he is not aware of the cause of applying to the temporary abode of the quiet dead a name implying such a different idea. The dismal little building is now not to be found in its old locality, Quai du Marché Neuf, south side of the Cité.
In the great as well as the little Chatelet (prison) of past days there was a room called the little prison, where new-comers were brought "to sit for their portraits," that is, undergo a rigorous inspection as to their features by the lower officials of the place. Readers of Pickwick's incarceration will not require an elaborate description of the process. Now, such a sharp and supercilious scrutiny of the countenance is expressed by the word Morgue. The humorist, D'Assoucy, has left a description of the inspection he underwent on such an occasion, and the terror into which he was thrown by a long sharp knife, wielded by a short, broad, and fat officer, but which was only designed to cut away the ribbons that secured his breeches, and the band of his hat, and thus remove all available instruments of self destruction in the Grand Chatelet.
When this apartment changed its destination, and became a place of exposure for the dead, it continued to retain its name; and, on the destruction of the building, the title went to the sinister-looking edifice built for the same purpose. While the Chatelet remained, the sisters of the hospital convent of St. Catherine, corner of the streets of St. Denis and of the Lombards, bestowed the rites of sepulture on the poor remains not recognized. The other specialty of the good sisters was the relief of poor women in destitute circumstances.
The easily led populace of Paris were long under the impression that a visit to the Morgue, and the consequent withdrawal of a corpse, would cost the friends a hundred and one crowns. So the bereaved families were seldom in a hurry with their visit. In vain did the lieutenant of police in 1736 endeavor to undeceive them.
In 1767, a gentleman, taking the packet boat from Fontainebleau to Paris, quitted the conveyance rather hurriedly, leaving a case behind him. After some little delay it was opened, and much terrified were the assistants at finding what appeared the body of a young man who had been strangled. A commissary of police was called on, accompanied by a surgeon. A procès-verbal was drawn up by them, and the body sent to the Morgue to be identified. Soon after, the negligent or guilty passenger arrived in a hurry at the office of the boat, and asked for the forgotten parcel. His request was followed by his seizure and presentation before the worthy magistrate, who had so laudably done his duty. On being charged with the murder, he burst into a fit of laughter, and covered the poor official with confusion by announcing that the corpse of the strangled man was a mummy which he was just after bringing from Egypt, and had forgotten to carry away with the rest of his luggage. In order to get his property out of the dead-house, he was obliged to make application to the lieutenant of police, and this circumstance soon scattered the news far and near. A few nights after, all Paris was breaking its sides in the theatre laughing at an uproarious farce by Saconnet, displaying in the richest colors the wisdom and skill of the police commissary and the surgeon. Repeated instances were made by these gentlemen to the minister, M. de Sartines, to restrain the representation. On the last time he observed: "Toleration is a virtue which I love to practise to the utmost limits allowable." The piece had a run of forty nights.