Place Vendôme

“ Some have been to mass, and some have not, but all are in the spirit of enjoyment. Nothing can be more enlivening than the aspect of the French people. You cannot resist their cheerful looks. The appearance of the Place Vendome is truly enchanting.
Now let us go down, and take a nearer look at what is going on below. At the foot of the column you will see a group of children collected round a man with a large basket of little tin carriages which are constructed in such a way that they will go with the wind on a smooth place. For some distance round the column is laid the asphaltum pavement. ”

“ We seldom suffer a day to pass without refreshing our spirits by sitting for a while amidst its shade and its flowers. From the part of the town where we are now dwelling, the gate opposite the Place Vendôme is our nearest entrance ”

“ The chief innovation in the design was the wide separation of the interior stone dome from the lofty exterior decorative cupola and lantern of wood, this separation being designed to meet the conflicting demands of internal and external effect. To the same architect is due the formal monotony of the Place Vendôme, all the houses surrounding it being treated with a uniform architecture of colossal pilasters, at once monumental and inappropriate. ”

“ Not only is there no other means of illumination generally but the street-lamps burning gas, which are sufficiently widely spaced,—and, in the case of the boulevard just mentioned, masked by trees,—but all the house-fronts are tightly closed and as black as night. One may cross the Place Vendôme, five minutes from the Opéra, in the middle of the evening in the middle of the season, and have barely light enough to avoid other pedestrians. All around the great circle the houses show no gleam of light in their windows, with two or three exceptions, and the effect is anything but cheerful. ”

“ Paris was filled with patrols, perhaps with too many, but they succeeded so well that no fresh disturbances took place.
CHAPTER XLV After his return from the campaign, M. de Vendome continued to be paid like a general serving in winter, and to enjoy many other advantages. From all this, people inferred that he would serve during the following campaign; nobody dared to doubt as much, and the cabal derived new strength therefrom. But their little triumph was not of long continuance. M. de Vendome came to Versailles for the ceremony of the Order on Candlemas-Day. ”

“ By HONORE DE BALZAC
About a hundred yards from the town of Vendôme, on the borders of the Loire, there is an old gray house, surmounted by very high gables, and so completely isolated that neither tanyard nor shabby hostelry, such as you may find at the entrance to all small towns, exists in its immediate neighborhood. ”

“ There is also a statue of Marshal Rochambeau, born at Vendôme in 1725. There are some interesting houses of the 15th and 16th centuries. Vendôme has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance. The river supplies motive power to flouMnills, and the town manufactures gloves, paper and carved mouldings; and carries on tanning and nursery-gardening together with trade in butter and cheese. ”

“ Vendôme (Vindocinum) appears originally to have been a Gallic oppidum, replaced later by a feudal castle, around which the modern town arose. Christianity was introduced by St Bienheuré in the 5th century, and the important abbey of the Trinity (which claimed to possess a tear shed by Christ at the tomb of Lazarus) was founded about 1030. When the reign of the Capetian dynasty began, Vendôme was the chief town of a countship belonging to Bouchard, called “the Venerable,” who died in the monastery of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés in 1007. ”

“ On his way down-stairs, he was met by the Duc de Vendôme, his son by Gabrielle d’Estrées. Vendôme held in his hand a paper, which he had found lying on his table. It was a horoscope, signed by an astrologer called La Brosse, warning the King that the constellation under which he was born threatened him with great danger on the 14th of May. “My father,” said Vendôme, standing in his path, “do not go abroad; spend this day at home.”
“La Brosse, my boy,” replied Henry, looking at the paper, “is an old fox. Do you not see that he wants money? ”

“ Vendôme was here the directing military genius of Louis; and he succeeded in surprising Ghent and Bruges into a surrender, greatly to the vexation of Marlborough. But the latter instantly resolved on a scheme as masterly as it proved successful. He resolved to throw himself on his opponent's communication, and, by interposing between him and the French frontier, compel him to fight with his face towards Paris, and his back to Antwerp. This manœuvre was executed with a rapidity commensurate with its importance—and Vendôme's skilful plans were entirely disconcerted. ”

“ In 1710 Vendome was sent, at the urgent request of Philip V., to Spain, where the British and Austrians were carrying all before them. His appearance brought together a numerous army of volunteers, and Philip was restored to his capital before the close of the year. Stanhope and the British troops were defeated at Brihuega, December 9tli, and on the following day Starhemberg and the Austrians were routed at Villaviciosa. The King raised his deliverer to the rank of a prince of the blood roval. Vendôme was a great warrior and a man of keen intellect, but indolent and grossly immoral. ”

“ It is a well-regulated little watering-place, and it has been subjected to a due measure of cockneyfication. But the glittering ocean remains, shimmering at moments with blue and silver, and the large gorse-covered downs rise superbly above it. Ventnor hangs upon the side of a steep hill, and here and there it clings and scrambles, it is propped and terraced, like one of the bright—faced little towns that look down upon the Mediterranean. To add to the Italian effect, the houses are all denominated villas, though it must be added that nothing is less like an Italian villa than an English one. ”

“ Châteaudun, Mayenne, and22 Vendôme are historic ground of superlative interest, and the great castle at Châteaudun is as magnificent in its way as any of the monuments of the Loire. Vendôme has a Hôtel de Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal edifice, and the clocher of its church, which dominates many square leagues of country, is counted as one of the most perfectly disposed church spires in existence, as lovely, almost, as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or the needle-like flêches at Strasburg or Freiburg in Breisgau. ”

“ In these days of great brand-new imitation of intensely old houses, where the amount of ground covered measures the purse of the builder, it is pleasant to come upon a place like Vandon, a quiet old manor-house, neither large nor small, built of ancient bricks, blent to a dim purple and a dim red by that subtle craftsman Time. ”

“ Not so in La Vendée. When you have been here some time you will appreciate the truth of what I say. La Vendée is grave, cold, silent. All projects are discussed slowly, deliberately; the chances of success and defeat are each considered. Then, if La Vendée sees a prospect of success she holds out her hand, says yes, and dies, if need be, to fulfil her promise. But as she knows that yes and no are words of life and death to her, she is slow in uttering them."
"You forget enthusiasm, monsieur," said Petit-Pierre. ”

“ He therefore retired in disgust to his estates, but it was not long before he was summoned to take command of the army of Philip in Spain, and there he won his last victories, crowning his work with the battle of Villaviciosa. Before the end of the war he died suddenly at Vinaros on the 11th of June 1712. Vendôme was one of the most remarkable soldiers in the history of the French army, and second only to Villars amongst the generals of France of the 18th century. He had, besides the skill and the fertile imagination of the true army leader, the brilliant courage of a soldier. ”

“ It was impossible for la Vendée to pass the Loire. She could accomplish anything except this stride. Civil war does not conquer. Crossing the Rhine is the crowning work of Cæsar and the additional glory of Napoleon; crossing the Loire kills la Rochejaquelein.
The true sphere of la Vendée is within her own boundaries, there she is more than invulnerable, she is intangible. The Vendéan at home is a smuggler, a farmer, soldier, shepherd, poacher, sharpshooter, goatherd, bellringer, peasant, spy, assassin, sacristan, wild beast of the woods. ”

“ My surmise that the blue-nosed gendarme would telephone to Vendôme had been well-founded. He had forwarded an exact description of Pong, together with the letters and the first three figures of the four appearing upon the number-plate. Six minutes later Ping had sailed innocently into Vendôme—and up to her doom....
The Vendôme police could hardly believe their eyes. Here was the offending car, corresponding in every particular to the one described to them, admittedly fresh from Châteaudun, yet having covered the thirty-nine kilometres in eleven minutes. It was amazing ... almost incredible ... ”

“ I promised him to come, but I had not the slightest idea that I was going to witness a kind of mild prologue to a revolution.
Next morning turned out very fine—balmy spring weather—and as I sauntered along the Boulevards Montmartre and Poissonnière to the place of appointment the streets were already crowded with people in their Sunday clothes. The place where I was to meet my English friend was situated in the midst of a busy quarter, scarcely anything but warehouses where they sold laces, and flowers, and silks; something like the neighbourhood at the back of Cheapside. ”

“ But what strikes an American, with regard to even so charmingly-nestled a little town as Ventnor, is that it is far less natural, less pastoral and bosky, than his own fond image of a summer-retreat. There is too much brick and mortar; there are too many smoking chimneys and shops and public-houses; there are no woods nor brooks, nor lonely headlands; there is none of the virginal stillness of Nature. Instead of these things, there is an esplanade, mostly paved with asphalt, bordered with benches and little shops, and provided with a German band. ”

“ I think the air is better and certainly the surroundings are pleasanter. Windomville is a funny little village of five or six hundred people, about the same number of dogs (exaggeration!) , and the sleepiest place you've ever imagined. Old Caleb Brown says it was laid out back in 1830 or thereabouts by the first Windom to come to these parts. It has a public school, a town hall, a motion-picture house (with last year's reels) , a drug store where you can get soda water, a grain elevator, and a wonderful old log hut that was built by the very first settler, making it nearly a hundred years old. ”

“ The wealthy tradesmen of those days did not live in the outskirts of Paris, as they did later on; and when my friend and I reached the principal café and restaurant on the Place du Caire—I think it was called the Café Grégoire—there was scarcely a table vacant. The habitués were, almost to a man, National Guards, prosperous business men, considerably more anxious, as I found out in a short time, to play a political part than to maintain public tranquillity. ”

“ Like so many modern Americans, to whom every material manifestation of wealth has become distasteful, Laurence Vanderlyn had chosen to pitch his Paris tent on the top floor of one of those eighteenth-century houses which, if lacking such conveniences as electric light and lifts, can command in their place the stately charm and spaciousness of which the modern Parisian architect seems to have lost the secret. ”

“ Such was the memorable campaign of 1708—one of the most glorious in the military annals of England, and the one in which the extraordinary capacity of the British general perhaps shone forth with the brightest lustre. The vigour and talent of Vendôme, joined to the secret communication which he had with those disaffected to the Austrian government in Ghent and Bruges, procured for him, in the commencement of the campaign, a great, and what, if opposed by less ability, might have proved a decisive advantage. ”

“ In his descriptions of the Vendée there is a chapter on “the spirit of the place” which shows his way of thinking; he demonstrates in fine flights of comprehensive statement that “the configuration of the soil decides many of man’s actions and the earth is more his accomplice than people believe...,” and he describes the difference that exists between the mountain insurgent like the Swiss, and the forest insurgent like the Vendean: “The one almost always fights for an ideal, the other for a prejudice. The one soars, the other crawls. The one combats for humanity, the other for solitude. ”

“ This empty and deserted house is a profound enigma, whose solution is known to none. It was formerly a small fief, and is called La Grande Bretèche. During my stay at Vendôme, where Desplein had sent me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling was one of my keenest pleasures. It was better than a ruin. A ruin possesses memories of positive authenticity ”

“ The gentry of La Vendee, instead of idling their time at Paris, lived on their own estates in kindly intercourse with their neighbours, and constantly helping and befriending their tenants, visiting them at their farms, talking over their crops and cattle, giving them advice, and inviting them on holidays to dance in the courts of their castles, and themselves joining in their sports. The peasants were a hardworking, sober, and pious people, devoutly attending their churches, reverencing their clergy, and, as well they might, loving and honoring their good landlords. ”