Place de la Concorde

“ By night they fairly exhale an atmosphere of tranquillity and peace. There are, besides, hundreds of beautiful roomy squares, flooded with light and set with comfortable benches that are seldom without contented occupants. Such a notable one as the Place de la Concorde is without its equal in any city. It costs the three and a quarter millions of people who live in and about Paris more than $70,000,000 a year to maintain their city’s reputation for beauty ”

“ They are a combination of the wildest extravagance and the strictest parsimony. They cultivate the ground so close to the railroad tracks that the trains almost run over their roses, and yet they leave a Place de la Concorde in the heart of the city. ”

“ The cost of subscription was 4000 francs—£160—a year, a vast sum then. Each member was bound to have his personal servant, duly paid and fed. A swing-bridge was set across the moat on the side of the waste land, soon to become Place Louis XV, now Place de la Concorde. ”

“ One has but to compare the noble façade of the Place de la Concorde with such modern monstrosities as, for instance, the Hotel Mercedes or the Palais de Justice at Tours, to realize that in their endeavor to break away completely from their own noblest traditions they have deliberately courted anarchy, for their architecture rests upon no laws of beauty or symmetry. ”

“ In or near the Rue de Bourgogne we found a fairly quiet wine-shop, where we rested and refreshed ourselves with cannettes of so-called Bière de Strasbourg. We did not go at that moment to the Hôtel-de-Ville, whither a large part of the crowd betook itself by way of the quays, and where the Republic was again proclaimed; but returned to the Place de la Concorde, where some thousands of people still remained. Everybody was looking very animated and very pleased. Everybody imagined that, the Empire being overthrown, France would soon drive back the German invader. ”

“ I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place delay Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers—I didn't know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some other back number place—and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. ”

“ The crowds have become immense. If you are at the Place de la Concorde where part of the torchlight procession is forming up and men are [Pg 169] playing on the crowd with ghastly searchlights, then you are likely to remain at the Place de la Concorde. ”

“ The picturesque “coucous” which stood on the Place de la Concorde, encumbering the Cours-la-Reine,—coucous which had flourished for a century, and were still numerous in 1830, scarcely exist in 1842, unless on the occasion of some attractive suburban solemnity, like that of the Grandes Eaux of Versailles. ”

“ Many entrances and exits will be provided, but the principal and most imposing one will be erected at the Place de la Concorde, in the form of a triumphal arch. Railways will be provided to bring visitors from the city to the grounds, and another railway will make their entire circuit. ”

“ he read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of granite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot, lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes that crawl over the green steaming mud; ”

“ They bowed themselves out, and, walking to the top of the Avenue, took the Metro to Concorde, from which they passed up the rue Castiglione to the Grands Boulevards to dine and spend the time until they were due back at the Sûreté. ”

“ The sidewalks were already lined with people, and the balconies all along were full of people. Just as we could hear the drums faintly, and could just make out the Garde de Paris on their horses, with their white belts and shining brass helmets, we heard an ah-h—run through the crowd. A flying machine—one of the smaller French ones, with the tricolor painted on each wing—was making circles and diving down low, and soaring up again over the soldiers as they crossed the Concorde. ”

“ In the broad, open square rises a tall monument of one hundred and fifty feet, from the summit of which a figure of Liberty, with a torch in one hand and broken chain in another, is poised upon one foot, as if about to take flight. The stones of the cruel dungeons of the Bastille now form the Pont de la Concorde, trampled under foot, as they should be, by the throngs that daily pass and repass that splendid bridge. The last historical and revolutionary act in this square was the burning of Louis Philippe's throne there in 1848. ”

“ Certain it is that no individual life is interesting or valuable in which there has not been a severe struggle; and periods of warfare have often proved to be powerful stimulants for human energy and intellect. In one respect, however, the Rev. Peter Bulkley was fully justified, for Concord has become more famous in the arts of peace than if a Marengo or Gravelotte had been fought there. It has a place in the history of literature, and its name is pleasant either to speak or think of. ”

“ The real architecture of Concord was not in private or public edifices, but in its magnificent elms, whose branches spanned the streets like the arches of a Gothic cathedral. The largest of them stands in front of the town hall, and its trunk measures just sixteen feet in circumference; though Doctor Holmes has failed to enumerate it in his list of the great trees of the State. Another on the road to Lexington is remarkable for its straight stem and perfect wineglass form. In autumn the scarlet maples set between the elms are no bad substitute for stained-glass windows. ”

“ The music quickens once more. The light is the most brilliant of full afternoon.
People come out of the houses and the paths and peer excitedly up the Concord Road. Scattered shots begin to be audible from that direction. The knots of people point in triumphant excitement up the road. Suddenly they withdraw, scattering in excited confusion. Shouts and shots sound nearer and closer together. Then the British, routed and retreating from Concord, surge through the Common and out behind the Meeting House and there are shots, too, from there. ”

“ Among the hills at one side we see the town, about a mile away; and a wide horizon all around, which Elizabeth Hoar tells me she has learned is the charm of Concord scenery. The summit of the hill on which we are is crowned with woods, and from a clearing commands a grand prospect. Wachusett rises alone upon the distance, and takes the place of the ocean in the landscape. There is a limitation in the prospect if one cannot see the sea or mountains. The Blue Hill, in a measure, supplies that want at West Roxbury. Otherwise the landscape is a garden which only pleases. ”

“ Both girls shook their heads, and Concordia said:
“We don’t have to drink to see things. First, when Nicoya threw in a banana skin, we saw a dog come up out of the water——a white dog that was as big as a tiger of the mountains——”
“And when Concordia threw in a clod,” the other girl took up the tale, “up came a man with a head of iron. It is magic. Concordia and I can work magic.”
“José,” one of the Indians addressed his mate, “this merits a drink.”
And each, in turn, while the other with his paddle held the canoe in place, took a swig from a square-face Holland gin bottle part full of pulque. ”

“ Concord, Massachusetts, is one of the New England towns that everybody likes to visit. When tourists reach Boston they usually make a point of going to Concord, either by electric or steam train, because they have read about its famous battle ground, where the first British soldiers fell in the great Revolutionary War, and because they want to see the very house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, and the homes of Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau. ”

“ Except in causing the erection of the railway buildings and several dwellings near it, steam has not much changed Concord. It is yet one of the quiet country towns whose charm is incredible to all but those who, by loving it, have found it worthy of love. The shire-town of the great agricultural county of Middlesex, it is not disturbed by the feverish throb of factories, nor by any roar of inexorable toil but the few puffs of the locomotive. One day, during the autumn, it is thronged with the neighboring farmers, who hold their high festival—the annual cattle-show—there. ”

“ Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, 25 May, 1803, gathered into himself the very quintessence of what has been called the Brahminism of New England, as transmitted through the Bulkeleys, the Blisses, the Moodys, and the direct paternal line. Peter Bulkeley, preferring the wilderness of Satan to Laudian conformity, founded Concord in 1636; William Emerson, his descendant in the fifth generation, was builder of the Old Manse in the same town and a sturdy preacher to the minute-men at the beginning of the Revolution ”

“ The place in which Emerson passed the greater part of his life well deserves a special notice. Concord might sit for its portrait as an ideal New England town. If wanting in the variety of surface which many other towns can boast of, it has at least a vision of the distant summits of Monadnock and Wachusett. It has fine old woods, and noble elms to give dignity to its open spaces. Beautiful ponds, as they modestly call themselves,—one of which, Walden, is as well known in our literature as Windermere in that of Old England,—lie quietly in their clean basins. ”

“ Fire, famine, foreign invasion, civil war, and pestilence have often swept over this, the fairest of cities, yet from each affliction, Phoenix-like, Paris has risen brighter and gayer than ever.
Gertrude, May, and Lucille were charmed with the fair vision before them, and were anxious to leave the Arch of Triumph and become a part of the gay city. The carriages drove back to the Place de la Concord, one of the finest open places in Europe. Around this place the chief cities of France are represented by eight large stone figures. ”

“ By great efforts sixty dollars were raised and an instrument purchased in Concord. Mr. Coffin became the "organist," and also taught singing in the schoolhouse. Three of his nieces, excellent singers, assisted him.
The time had now come for the young man to strike out in the world for himself. Like most New England youth, his eyes were on Boston. With a recommendation from his friend, the minister, he took the stage to Concord. ”

“ Like it they stand firm. Yet here is but the bony structure of the man in the Concord fight. Something more must go in to the making of a hero. It has been justly said that at the narrow bridge stood [94] men born in direct descent from heroes of a stubborn stand, a stricken field, of seven hundred years before, and I dare say it is true. Planted among the Concord meadows and fertile uplands, grown lusty upon the richness of her soil, were men of Kent, that sturdiest county in all England ”

“ As the British proceeded to Concord the whole country was rising, and at Concord about 500 minute-men confronted the British regulars who were holding the village and searching for arms and stores. Volleys were exchanged, the British retreated, the minute-men hung on their flanks and from the hillsides shot them down, driving their columns on Lexington. A granite obelisk, erected in 1837, when Emerson wrote his ode on the battle, marks the spot where the first British soldiers fell ”

“ The month of April has been fateful for Concord, especially its nineteenth day. On that day the military company under Lieutenant Heald marched to Boston to take part in the uprising of the freemen of the colony against Andros. On that same day, in 1775, the minute-men and militia of Concord, promptly reinforced by the soldiers of her daughter and sister towns, marched down to the guarded North Bridge and returned the fire of the Royal troops in the opening battle of the Revolution. ”

“ Pass the Green and turn right at Monument Street. About one-half mile down this street, we come to the old Battle Field. Park your car in the space provided and walk through the Parkway to the
CONCORD BRIDGE
Concord Bridge
Here we see the grave of the unknown British soldiers and the Minute Man statue, erected to the heroes “who fired the shot heard round the world.” You will be impressed by the beautiful surroundings and the silence. When you have dreamed long enough, 21 get in the car, drive back to Concord Green, turn left on to Route 126. ”

“ Eat yourself up; you will eat nobody else, nor anything else. Concord is just as good a place as any other; there are, indeed, more people in the streets of that village than in the streets of this. This is a singularly muddy town; muddy, solitary, and silent.
In your line, I have not done a great deal since I arrived here; I do not mean the Pencil line, but the Staten Island line, having been there once, to walk on a beach by the telegraph, but did not visit the scene of your dominical duties. Staten Island is very distant from No. ”