Jetta Sophia Wolff

“ On the hill-side most memorable happenings have been lived through. In the old streets and houses up and down its slopes poets and artists have ever dwelt, worked and played, and in its theatres, its music-halls, cabarets, etc., Parisians of all classes have sought amusement—good and evil. In past days Paris depended on Montmartre for its daily bread, for the flour that made it was ground by the innumerable windmills of the Butte. The sails of many of those windmills worked far into the reign of Napoléon III, who did not admire their aspect and even had a scheme for levelling the Butte! ”

“ IN THE VALLEY OF THE BIÈVRE EMPHATICALLY a street of the past is the old Rue Mouffetard, its name a corruption perhaps of Mont Cérarius, the name of the district under the Romans, or derived maybe from the old word mouffettes, referring to the exhalations of the Bièvre, flowing now below ground here, never very odorous since the days when, coming sweet and clear from the southern slopes, it was put to city uses, industrial and other, on entering Paris. Every house along the course of this street has some curious old-time feature, an ancient sign, an old well, old doors, old courtyards. ”

“ Nuns, nursing sisters, live there now. Rue Beautreillis was in bygone days the site of a vine-covered trellis in the gardens of the historic palace St-Pol made up of l’hôtel Beautreillis and other fine hôtels confiscated from his nobles by King Charles V, and at No. 1 we see an ancient and truly historic vine climbing a trellis, its origin lost in the mist of centuries. Is it really, as some would have it, a relic of the vines that gave grapes for the table of Charles V? All the houses here are ancient. No. 10 was the mansion of the duc de Valentinois, prince de Monaco in 1640. ”

“ In the sordid shops which flourish on the ground-floor of almost every house, or on stalls set on the threshold, one sees an assortment of foodstuffs rarely brought together in any other corner of the city, and articles of clothing of most varied kind and style and date.
The church dating from the twelfth century, partially rebuilt and restored in later times, was for several centuries a dependency of the abbey Ste-Geneviève. Its graveyard, for long past a market-place and a square, was in the eighteenth century the scene of the notorious scandale Médard. ”

“ By his will, Richelieu bequeathed his palace to his King, Louis XIII, who died a few months later. Anne d’Autriche, mother of the young Louis XIV, was living at the Louvre which, in a continual state of reparation and enlargement, was not a comfortable home. Richelieu’s fine new mansion tempted her. It was truly of royal aspect and dimensions, and was fitted with all “the modern conveniences and comforts” of that day. To quote the words of a versifier of the time:
“Non, l’Univers ne peut rien voir d’égal. ”

“ A farm, a Court of Justice, a prison were among the most essential elements of palace buildings and domains. Yet the Louvre with its prestige and its immense accommodation was never inhabited continuously by the Kings of France, and in the sixteenth century the Palace was so completely abandoned as to be on the verge of ruin. Then François I, looking forward to the state visit of the Emperor Charles-Quint, sent workmen in haste and in vast numbers to the Louvre, to repair and enlarge. Pierre Lescot, the most distinguished architect of the day, took the great task in hand. ”

“ The seventeenth-century chapel still stands and the heart of James II is in a casket there. The college staircase, left untouched, is remarkably fine. Close by, at the end of Rue Thouin, in what was formerly Place Fourcy, the brothers Perrault, one the famous architect, the other yet more universally known—the writer of fairy tales—lived and died. Rue de l’Estrapade recalls the days when, on the place hard by, rebellious soldiers were punished by being hoisted to the top of a pole, their hands tied behind their back, then let fall to the ground. Old-time vestiges are seen all along the street. ”

“ Inns, cabarets, popular places of amusement stood door by door all along its course. Here, as in arrondissement XIX, we find on every side old houses and vestiges of the past, but of no particular interest beyond the quaintness of their aspect. Rue Pelleport began in the eighteenth century as an avenue encircling the park of Ménilmontant. In the grounds surrounding the reservoirs we come upon a tomb, a modern gravestone, covering the remains of a municipal functionary whose dying wish was to be buried on his own estate. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Tuileries palace showed no signs of ruin—quite the reverse. Catherine’s son, Charles IX, had a bastion erected in the garden on the Seine side; a small dwelling-house, a pond, an aviary, a theatre, an echo, a labyrinth, an orangery, a shrubbery were soon added. Henri IV began a gallery to join the new palace to the Louvre, a work accomplished only under Louis XIV. Under Henri’s son, Louis XIII, the Tuileries was the centre of the smart life of the day; visitors of distinction, but not of royal rank, were often entertained in royal style in the pavilion in the garden. ”

“ The church St-Eustache is often familiarly referred to by the market women as Notre-Dame des Halles. The crypt, once the chapel Ste-Agnes, the nucleus of the grand old church, dating from 1200, secularized but still forming one with the sacred building, is a fruiterer’s shop—truly St-Eustache is the church of the Markets. The edifice as it stands dates as a whole from the seventeenth century. Gothic in its grand lines, very strikingly impressive, it has a Jesuit frontage, substituted for the Gothic façade originally planned, and Renaissance ornamentation within. ”

“ The modern walls we see were not built till the close of the nineteenth century, finished in 1901. In the great courtyard white lines mark the site of Richelieu’s edifice. The vast building is richly decorated with statuary and frescoes. In its church Richelieu seems still to hold sway. We see his coat-of-arms on every side; over his tomb, the work of Girardon, hangs his Cardinal’s hat. Another handsome monument covers the tomb of his descendant, the minister of Louis XVIII. Many generations of Richelieu lie in the vault beneath the chapel floor. ”

“ Look into every courtyard in the ancient quarters, look attentively at every dwelling along the old winding streets, and fail not to look up to their roofs. The roofs are never alike. They are strikingly picturesque. Old world builders did not work mechanically, did not raise streets in machine-like style, each structure exactly like its neighbour, one street barely distinguishable from the street running parallel or crossing it, according to the habit of to-day. ”

“ The dome-church, separated from it by the immense stained-glass window, was built as a special chapel for the King and Court, its dome decorated with paintings by the greatest artists of the time. The sumptuous tomb of Napoléon I, the work of Visconti, was placed there in the second half of the nineteenth century.
The gravestone from St-Helena and other souvenirs were put in the chapel St-Nicolas in 1910. Of late years no new pensioners were received, veterans of war-days past were for long the sole inhabitants of the soldiers’ quarters—the only “invalides.” ”

“ The Quai de Louvre is a union of several stretches of quay known of old by different names, the most ancient stretch, that between the Pont-Neuf and Rue du Louvre, dating from the thirteenth century. In the jardin de l’Infante, bordering the palace, here the old palace of the time of Catherine de’ Medici, we see statues of Velasquez, Raffet, Meissonnier, Boucher. Reaching the houses along the quay we see at No. 10 the ancient Café de Parnasse, now the Bouillon du Pont-Neuf, where Danton was wont to pass many hours of the day and ended by wedding Gabrielle Charpentier, its landlord’s daughter. ”

“ That interest is strongest, the aspect of the quays most quaint and entrancing, where they pass through the heart of the city.
Let us start from the Point-du-Jour, the “Dawn of Day,” at the point where the boundary-line of Paris touches the banlieue to the south-east. The name refers to a famous duel fought here at the break of day on a memorable morning in 1743. Taking the Rive Droite, the right bank, we follow the Quai d’Auteuil which, till the closing years of the nineteenth century, was a mere roadway along which the river boats were loaded and unloaded. ”

“ In the fourteenth century Pierre de Chaslun, Abbot of Cluny, bought the ruins of the ancient palace, and the exquisite Gothic mansion we see was built close up against them. Many illustrious persons found shelter within the home of the Abbots during the centuries that followed. James V of Scotland stayed there. Men of learning were made welcome there. In later times its tower was used as an observatory. The Revolution put an end to the state and prestige of the beautiful mansion. ”

“ More than a million bodies are said to have been buried in that churchyard. In 1780 the cemetery was turned into a market-place. But it was again used as a burial ground for victims of the Revolution of 1830. Their bones lie now beneath the Colonne de Juillet on the Place de la Bastille. The market-place became a square: “Le Square des Innocents.” The fine old fountain dating from 1550, the work of the famous sculptors Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, was taken from its site in the Rue St-Denis, restored by the best sculptors of the day, and set up there in 1850. ”

“ Rue de la Tombe-Issoire runs across the site of an ancient burial-ground where was an immense tomb, said to have been made for the body of a giant: Isore or Isïre, who, according to the legend, attacked Paris at the head of a body of Sarazins in the time of Charlemagne. Here and there along this street, as in the short streets leading out of it, we come upon interesting vestiges of the past, notably in Rue Hallé, opening at No. 42. The pretty Parc Souris is quite modern. We find old houses in Avenue du Chatillon, an eighteenth-century thoroughfare. ”

“ Rue de Sèvres, forming in the greater part of its course the boundary between arrondissements VI and VII, running on into arrondissement XV, was known familiarly in old days as Rue de la Maladrerie, on account of its numerous hospitals. They are numerous still. At No. 11 and No. 13 we find remains of the couvent des Prémontrés Réformés founded by Anne d’Autriche, 1661. Rue Récamier was recently opened on the site of the famous Abbaye-aux-Bois, where for thirty years Mme de Récamier lived the “simple life,” courted none the less by a crowd of ardent admirers—the tout Paris of that day. ”

“ Rue du Louvre is a modern street where ancient streets once ran, demolished to make way for it. At No. 13 we find traces of a tower of the city wall of Philippe-Auguste, as also at No. 7 of the adjacent Rue Coquillère, a thirteenth-century street with, at No. 31, vestiges of an ancient Carmelite convent. At No. 15 we find ourselves before an arched entrance and spacious courtyard surrounded by imposing buildings and in its centre an immense fountain. This structure is a modern re-erection of the ancient Cour des Fermes ”

“ In Revolution days it was known as Rue Mont-Marat! As long as Paris had fortified boundary walls there was always a Porte Montmartre, moved northward three times, as the city bounds extended. The Porte of Philippe-Auguste was where the house No. 30 now stands, and this part of the street was known then as Rue Porte-Montmartre. The Passage de la Reine de Hongrie memorizes a certain dame de la Halle in whom Marie-Antoinette saw a remarkable likeness to her mother, the Queen of Hungary. The woman became for her generation “la Reine de Hongrie”—the alley where she dwelt was called by this name. ”

“ They are beautiful gardens. The Renaissance fountain is the work of Jacques de Brosse. The statues we see on every side among the lawns and the flower-beds, in the shady alleys, most of them the work of noted sculptors, show us famous men and women of every period of French history from Ste-Bathilde and Ste-Geneviève to our own day.
The Petit Luxembourg is also due to Marie de’ Medici, built a few years after the completion of the larger palace. From the day of its inauguration by Richelieu it knew many inhabitants of note: Barras, Buonaparte and Joséphine, etc., sojourned there. ”

“ The village of Le Roule was famed in the thirteenth century for its goose-market. The district became a faubourg in 1722 and in 1787 was taken within the city bounds. It has always been a favourite quarter among men of intellectual activity desiring to live beyond the turbulence of the centre of Paris. Here and there we come upon vestiges of bygone days. No. 222 is an old Dominican convent disaffected in 1906. A foundry once stood at the corner of the Rue Balzac, where public statues of kings and other royalties of old were in turn cast or melted down. ”

“ On the Place de Ménilmontant we see the well-built modern church Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix, on its northern side the old Rue and passage Eupatoria. The quaint Rue de la Mare, a country road in the seventeenth century, and Rue des Couronnes have interesting old passages running into them.
Passing down Rue des Pyrénées, connected on either side with short old-time streets and passages, we come to the Square Gambetta, often called Square Père-Lachaise, and the immense Paris cemetery, the great point of interest of the 20th arrondissement. ”

“ Behind the church is the old Rue des Barres with an ancient inscription and traces of an ancient chapel. The sordid but picturesque Rue de l’Hôtel de Ville was known for centuries as Rue de la Mortellerie, from the morteliers, or masons who had settled there. In the dread cholera year 1832 the inhabitants saw in the name of their street a sinister reference to the word mort and demanded its change. ”

“ Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the noblesse or their privileged associates alone had the right to pace its alleys. Soldiers were never permitted to walk there. Once a year only, a great occasion, its gates were thrown open to the peuple.
A period of neglect followed upon the fine work done under Louis XIV. His successor cared nothing for the Tuileries palace and grounds. They fell into a most lamentable state; and, when in the troublous days of the year 1789, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their little son took up their abode at the Tuileries, the Dauphin looked round in disgust. ”

“ Avenue d’Orléans, in olden days Route Nationale de Paris à Orléans, dating from the eighteenth century, and smaller streets connected with it, show us many old houses, while in the Villa Adrienne, opening at No. 17, we find a number of modern houses—pavilions—each bearing the name of a celebrity of past time. Rue de la Voie-Verte was so named from the market-gardens erewhile stretching here. ”