Boulevard Saint-Michel

“ Michel—the liveliest roadway of the Quarter. Then it seems to become suddenly inoculated with its bustle and life, and from there on is crowded with bourgeoise and animated with the commerce of market and shop.
An Englishman once was so fired with a desire to see the gay life of the Latin Quarter that he rented a suite of rooms on this same Boulevard St. Germain at about the middle of this long, quiet stretch. Here he stayed a fortnight, expecting daily to see from his “chambers” the gaiety of a Bohemia of which he had so often heard. ”

“ Michel, the tooting trams, the policemen dawdling two by two, and the table-lined terraces of the Café Vachette, were nothing to him, as yet, nor did he even know, when he stepped from the stones of the Place St. Michel to the asphalt of the Boulevard, that he had crossed the frontier and entered the student zone,—the famous Latin Quarter.
A cabman hailed him as “bourgeois,” and urged the superiority of driving over walking. A gamin, with an appearance of great concern, requested the latest telegraphic news from London, and then, standing on his head, invited Selby to feats of strength. ”

“ But there is nothing just like the boulevards. If you should wish to sit at the exact centre of the world and to watch it revolve around you, you have only to take your place at that corner table of the Café de la Paix which juts the farthest out into the Avenue de l'Opéra and the Boulevard Capucines. This table is the apex of all the other tables. It turns the tides of pedestrians on the broad sidewalks of both the great thoroughfares, and it is geographically situated exactly under the "de la" of the "Café de la Paix," painted in red letters on the awning over your head. ”

“ THE BOULEVARDS (continued) . The Opéra Comique of Paris—I Gelosi—The Don Juan of Molière—Madame Favart—The Saint-Simonians.
THE Boulevard des Italiens derives its name from the so-called Comédie Italienne, the original Opéra Comique of Paris, which owes its existence to letters patent granted to it as far back as 1676. One of the most celebrated establishments on this boulevard is the Café Cardinal, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu. ”

“ In Paris the gossip of the boulevards is part of the life of a big section of the people, and yet to the casual and superficial observer it might be thought that there was less opportunity for chatting in the streets than is offered in London. The French boulevard is in reality no more free from danger than the English street, but the people have accustomed themselves to the conditions. ”

“ The South side park system is the most complete of any in the city, and it monopolizes the favor of visitors who desire to make a speedy circuit of the three handsomest parks in the town within the short space of half a day. The system of boulevards leading to these parks cannot be equaled in the whole world. Michigan avenue boulevard, which commences at Jackson street and the Lake Front, is the open sesame to a drive as delicious as the most exacting soul can desire. ”

“ It is quite true that everything hereabout is new and "clean." Here the streets are not infested by "old bums" as those are in that dirty old downtown. Here one is just between the beautiful Drive on the one hand and our handsome Central Park on the other. Here there is fresh air. Here Broadway is a boulevard, and, further, it winds about in its course like the roads, as they call them there, in London, and does not have that awful straight look of everything in that checker-board part of town. Here everybody is well dressed. And even the grocers' and butchers' shops are quite smart. ”

“ Of all the spots on this fair, broad earth where the jaded globe wanderer, surfeited with hackneyed sight-seeing, may sit in perfect peace and watch the world go by, there is none more fascinating nor one presenting a more brilliant panorama of cosmopolitan life than that famous corner on the Paris boulevards, formed by the angle of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opéra. ”

“ It is a boulevard of the people, a rendezvous for the thrifty and the hard-working, the thoroughfare of the outcast and the unfortunate. It is sordid, but it is intensely human. It is this distinct character of Parisian thoroughfares, each one differing from its neighbor, which makes the highways and byways of the city so interesting to those who delight in walking abroad with their eyes open.
There is not a street one turns down but which is unique in itself. ”

“ One may choose the narrow street with its moss-grown steps, its curves, and turns; or one may have the broader path along the ramparts, with its glorious outlook over land and sea. Whichever approach one chooses, one passes at last beneath the great doors of the Barbican.
Three times did the vision of St. Michel appear to Saint Aubert, in his dream, commanding the latter to erect a church on the heights of Mont St. Michel to his honor. How many a time must the modern pilgrim traverse the stupendous mass that has grown out of that command before he is quite certain that the splendor of Mont St. ”

“ A single artery intersects the symmetrical quarters of New York, and that is old Broadway, the Strand of London, and the Boulevard MontmartreMontmartre of Paris; hardly passable at its lower end, where it is crowded with people, and almost deserted higher up; a street where sheds and marble palaces are huddled together; a stream of carriages, omnibusses, cabs, drays, and waggons, with the pavement for its banks, across which a bridge has been thrown for the traffic of foot passengers. ”

“ The doorway of Le Ciel is less than a metre in width, and when a score of affrighted tourists, and seven angels, and six French students with their grisettes, and a high-priest, and two corpulent Germans, and a sexton, and Gustave Robine are suddenly and simultaneously imbued with a desire to sample the air of the boulevard de Clichy, confusion is apt to result. ”

“ The driver, a North countryman of sturdy temper, insisted upon knowing an exact address, but upon receiving a reply which savoured too much of carelessness about The Future Life, he whipped up his horse and drove northward as he was bid, taking, as is the invariable custom of hackney coachmen, the largest and the widest artery of the place, a street known for some centuries as the London Road, [Pg 134] called during the eighties and nineties The Boulevard, but since the feat of arms of General Baden-Powell, characteristically and finally christened Mafeking Avenue. ”

“ The view from the windows presents all that can be imagined that is amusing and animating, overlooking the most agreeable part of the Boulevards, being that which is designated the Boulevard Italien, and is the most fashionable resort in Paris. By the aid of a [Pg 109] calorifère, the whole establishment is heated to an agreeable degree of warmth, but for those who like to see a cheering blaze there are chimneys which afford them the means of having that indulgence. ”

“ A barouche is waiting for us, in which we are soon seated, and rapidly dashing along on the asphalt pavement of the most beautiful boulevard in the whole world, the Champs Elysées. The avenue is broad, flanked with stately residences and beautiful rows of elms and limes, and long shady parks. We sped along, meeting showy equipages filled with gay people, behind high steppers managed by light-colored costumed coachmen, with remarkably big buttons. Many are on horseback, and the broad sidewalks are filled with happy promenaders. ”

“ The years of youth passed with a rapidity truly astonishing; we come to the time when we found ourselves—he weary of life, established in his chosen apartments in the Boulevard de Clichy, with his paintings and books ”

“ Peter Pett, the well-known financier, on Riverside Drive is one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents worth of fresh air on top of a green omnibus, it jumps out and bites at you. Architects, confronted with it, reel and throw up their hands defensively, and even the lay observer has a sense of shock. ”

“ He never lost a sense of its being pitiable that so bright a figure should think it a large life to revolve in varnished boots between the Rue d'Anjou and the Rue de l'Université, taking the Boulevard des Italiens on the way, when over there in America one's promenade was a continent and one's boulevard stretched from one world-sea to another. ”

“ So that Bond Street and Regent Street, the Boulevard des Capucines, the Corso, and Broadway will still be brilliant and crowded for many years for all the diffusion that is here forecast—all the more brilliant and crowded, perhaps, for the lack of a thronging horse traffic down their central ways. But the very fact that the old nucleus is still to be the best place for all who trade in a concourse of people, for novelty shops and art shops, and theatres and business buildings, by keeping up the central ground values will operate against residence there and shift the "masses" outwardly. ”

“ We have nothing in England like the Parisian Boulevards. They may be generally described as a road or street, of great breadth, along each side of which are planted double rows of elms. But these shady avenues do not present merely a picture of rural beauty. Rising as they do in the heart of a great city, they partake also of its artificial elegance and splendour, and are associated with all the luxuries of architectural decoration. Considered merely as a range of streets, the Boulevards are hardly rivalled by any other part of Paris. ”

“ Between the Barriere d’Italie and the Barriere de la Sante, along the boulevard which leads to the Jardin des Plantes, you have a view of Paris fit to send an artist or the tourist, the most blase in matters of landscape, into ecstasies. Reach the slightly higher ground where the line of boulevard, shaded by tall, thick-spreading trees, curves with the grace of some green and silent forest avenue, and you see spread out at your feet a deep valley populous with factories looking almost countrified among green trees and the brown streams of the Bievre or the Gobelins. ”

“ For instance, the city is completing the widening of Sixth street, from Grant to Forbes, an improvement tending to facilitate a further eastward march of business. Of even more importance is the discussed and much needed provision of a better outlet for Grant boulevard. This comparatively new boulevard was designed to afford pleasant access to the East End on a thoroughfare free of car tracks, for those who drive or who ride in motor cars. ”

“ The reason is plain: it oftener becomes worth while to carry away the material of the dung-heap from the streets of the city, than from the quarter where they are wider in proportion to the population. But every parish of the English capital receives a [Pg 182] sum towards its poor-rate, in exchange for the privilege of cleaning its streets. At Paris nothing is wanting but a réglement de police.
Paris is extending itself, towards the west and the north especially: in time, the Boulevard without the walls may become a second interior Boulevard. ”

“ A mighty Boulevard, marching on with progress as relentless as Juggernaut’s car, had cut the narrow, dingy old street across, at right angles, letting daylight in upon all its shabbiness, its teeming life, its contented poverty, its secret crime, squalid miseries, and sordid vices. ”

“ As a home of fashion it bids fair some day to rival Paris herself, and the shops of the Montagne de la Cour, Boulevard Anspach, and contiguous streets are scarcely less luxurious or exclusive than those of the Rue de la Paix or Boulevard des Italiens in the French capital. ”

“ A gang from the Bowery, filled with the fighting whisky of America, or the soul-searing brandy of the British land, turned loose upon the Boulevard des Italiens, or any other boulevard in Paris, would occasion as much terror as a Communist insurrection. But with the light wines of France, and the quiet pleasure-seeking and pleasure-enjoying disposition of the Parisian, everything is as quiet and orderly as could be desired.
A COSTUME BY WORTH—THAT COSTS.
There cannot be in city life any sight so bewilderingly gorgeous or so delightful as the boulevards, either by day or night. ”

“ The best of the boulevards is that the people sitting on their sidewalks, and the heavy green trees, and the bare heads of so many of the women, make one feel how much out-of-doors he is, as no other street or city does, and what a folly it is to waste time within walls. I do not think we appreciate how much we owe to the women in Paris who go without bonnets. ”

“ Near them, four Arabs, swathed in spotless burnooses, their bare feet encased in sandals, sip in silence their steaming petites tasses of café Maure. Omnibuses lumber by. The air is vibrant with strident cries and the cracking of whips. An automobile passes, sputtering and growling through the mêlée of the broad boulevard, taking advantage of every chance space as it threads its way out to the green country beyond with its begoggled occupants to déjeuner at Poissy or perchance to dash farther on at a devilish pace to the sea and Trouville. ”

“ Jacques, the Rue de la Harpe, the Rue des Grès, narrow, steep, dilapidated though they might be, were in truth the leading thoroughfares--the Boulevards, so to speak--of the Student Quartier. In most of the side alleys, however, some of which dated back as far, and farther, than the fifteenth century, there was no footway for passengers, and barely space for one wheeled vehicle at a time. A filthy gutter invariably flowed down the middle of the street. ”