Quai d'Orsay

“ You can always see an idler or two here—perhaps many idlers—between the Quai d’Orsay and the Quai Voltaire.
We made our way through the Rue Mazarin and Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie into that region which surrounds the École de Medecin and the Luxembourg. In his enthusiastic way Barfleur tried to indicate to me that I was in the most historic section of the left bank of the Seine, where were St.-Étienne-du-Mont, the Panthéon, the Sorbonne,230 the Luxembourg, the École des Beaux-Arts and the Latin Quarter. ”

“ I actually left the works about eleven, took the Metro and changed at Châtelet, as I said, but from there my statement to the police was false. No American friend clapped me on the back as I alighted there, nor did such a man exist at all. My walk with him to the Quai d’Orsay, our further stroll round the Place de la Concorde, his going by train to Orléans, and my walk home—all these were pure inventions on my part, made to account for my time between eleven-fifteen and one. ”

“ He usually took an omnibus on his arrival at the Northern Railway terminus. But on the days when only thirty sous remained at home he bravely went through Paris on foot. It was, too, a very fine walk by way of the Rue la Fayette, the Opera-house, the Boulevards, the Rue Royale, and then, after the Place de la Concorde, the Cours la Reine, the Alma bridge, and the Quai d'Orsay. ”

“ French had intended to meet her in Lisbon, but it now occurred to him that he might be able to make Oporto in time to join her there. He had bought a railway guide in Havre, and he now proceeded to look up the trains. The route, he saw, was to Bordeaux by the Paris-Orleans line, then on by the Midi to the Spanish frontier at Irun, and so by Medina and Salamanca to Oporto. The first through train from Paris after their arrival at 4.35 p.m. was the 10.22 p.m. from the Gare Quai d’Orsay, and this reached Oporto at shortly after midday on the next day but one, Monday. ”

“ Ridgeway, so far from accepting the resignation that Jessen placed in his hands, reinstated him in his position.”
As to how two of these documents came to Jessen or to the Four Just Men, Mr. Ashton is very wisely silent, not attempting to solve a mystery which puzzled both the Quai d’Orsay and Petrograd. For these two official forms, signed in the one case by the French President and in the other with the sprawling signature of Czar Nicholas, were supposed to be incorporated with other official memoranda in well-guarded national archives. ”

“ 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 grey of the morning, however, D’Orsay, taking every precaution against capture on the way, set out for Paris with a valet, a valise, and an umbrella. The words of a great man at any moment of crisis in his affairs are worth recording; one of D’Orsay’s last remarks in London was: “Well, at least, if I have nothing else, I will have the best umbrella!” ”

“ Port d’échouage. La partie de chenal qui s’étend devant la ville est utilisée comme bassin d’échouage. Elle est pourvue de quais d’un développement total de 33o mètres, dont ryS mètres construits en maçonnerie et i55 mètres pourvus d’un appontement venant s’adosser à un perré de soutènement. Sur le terre-plein du quai se trouve un pavage, d’une largeur moyenne rie 3o mètres, des voies ferrées se raccordant au réseau du chemin de fer de l’État et un raccordement du chemin de fer vicinal d’Ostende à Fumes, ce dernier établi devant deux hangars privés affectés au commerce des charbons. ”

“ SEAMORE PLACE
The London in which D’Orsay was destined to spend the majority of his remaining years, and of which he became so distinguished an ornament is far away from modern London, farther away from us, in fact, in manners, customs and appearance than it was from the metropolis of the England of Queen Elizabeth. Astounding is the change that has come about since the year 1830; the advent of steam and electricity, the stupendous increase of wealth, the extension of education if not of culture, wrought a revolution during the nineteenth century. ”

“ He spent whole hours gazing from the top of his balcony at the river as it flowed between the quays, with their bulwarks of grey stone, blackened here and there by the seams of the sewers, with a pontoon of washerwomen moored close to the bank, where some brats were amusing themselves by making a water-spaniel swim in the slime. His eyes, turning aside from the stone bridge of Nôtre Dame and the three suspension bridges, continually directed their glance towards the Quai-aux-Ormes, resting on a group of old trees, resembling the linden-trees of the Montereau wharf. ”

“ Jacques they suddenly increased their speed and uproar, and thundered across the Petit Pont Bridge and Isle of France, and once more across a bridge—that of Notre Dame—where they saw the Quai Le Pelletier on the other side lined with a black sea of people. At least a quarter of the population of Paris were crammed together within the available space upon the quays and the neighbouring streets along the Seine, from the towered Châtelet—court-house and prison—some distance below, to the Place de Grève, some distance above, in front of the Hôtel de Ville. ”

“ It was, therefore, no small feather in D’Orsay’s cap that he came to London an unknown young man, was seen, and by his very rivals at once acknowledged as a conqueror. His youth, his handsome face, his debonairness, his wit, were irresistible. Everywhere, even at Holland House, he made a good impression. He rode in Hyde Park perfectly “turned out,” the admired of those who were accustomed to receive, not to give, admiration. At a ball at the French Embassy where all the lights of fashionable society shone in a brilliant galaxy, he was a centre of attraction “with his usual escort of dandies.” ”

“ He found an inn on the Quai La Fosse, where he put up his horse, and where he dined in the embrasure of a window that looked out over the tree-bordered quay and the broad bosom of the Loire, on which argosies of all nations rode at anchor. The sun had again broken through the clouds, and shed its pale wintry light over the yellow waters and the tall-masted shipping.
Along the quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen on the quays of Paris. ”

“ Ces travaux comprennent la création d’un nouvel avant- port, qui occupera l’emplacement de l’arrière-port actuel. La rive ouest sera bordée par un mur de quai avec fondations profondes, tandis que la rive opposée sera protégée par un perré maçonné servant d’appui à des postes en charpente réservés à l’amarrage des paquebots-poste de l’État. Le mur de quai, qui se développera sur une longueur de .800 mètres environ, se raccordera, du côté amont, aux maçonneries du pont projeté sur le nouvel avant-port. ”

“ In the London of D’Orsay’s prime the salon was still a power for pleasure, and he and Lady Blessington reigned over that which was perhaps the most brilliant that our country has ever seen. There were others. That at Holland House, for example, where Lady Holland reigned supreme and somewhat severe. To that select circle, from which he was now, alas, excluded, D’Orsay had been admitted when as a mere youth he first visited London. Dining there one day, he was honoured by a seat next his hostess, who apparently looked upon the young Frenchman as sure to be awe-stricken by her presence. ”

“ The view along the quays to the four courts has no small resemblance to a view along the quays at Paris, tho not so lively as are even those quiet walks. The vessels do not come above-bridge, and the marine population remains constant about them, and about numerous dirty liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine-store establishments, which are kept for their accommodation along the quay. As far as you can see, the shining Liffey flows away eastward, hastening (like the rest of the inhabitants of Dublin) to the sea. ”

“ The boat swung round in mid-stream, and brought us to the bank, where a stone quay, with warehouses and piles of merchandise, gave evidence of a prosperous city. The quay has a modern and substantial appearance, and is overlooked by a street, on one side of which is an iron railing, and the other side of which can boast many fine structures, equalling in beauty and solidity most of the marble or iron fronts of New York. Pesth has accomplished much in the last few years, in the way of building, and one is rather taken aback to find such a prosperous and rapidly-growing city so far in the East. ”

“ Some of the [Pg 50] houses are old, others of no earlier date, apparently, than the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries; some large and well preserved, and some mere cottages, half ruinous, with low gables and faded yellow fronts, huddled together on the rough causeway, alongside of which are moored canal-boats with brown hulls and deck-houses gay with white and green paint. At the end of the Quai de la Potterie is the modern Bassin de Commerce, in which the Roya loses itself, the harbour for the barges and small steamers which come by the canal connecting Ostend with Bruges and Ghent ”

“ Between these extremes lies the opening for the entrance of small craft, and a sorry haven it must be for any distressed mariner in severe weather. The place is lonely, save for the “Hartland Quay Hotel” and a few coastguard cottages; and the stone pier built out to sea, by which it was proposed to make Hartland Quay in some small way a harbour, has been battered utterly out of existence by the waves. Watching the enormous walls of water, curving and advancing with an imperious unhasting grandeur, you do not wonder that anything less solid than the living rock should go down before them. ”

“ As night came on, the quay became a desert; the ships were worked back to their former stations. It grew darker; the city, with its old rough tower and spires, was mirrored indistinctly in the twilight tide; the walls grew dim and gigantic; the sound of fire-arms ceased; the last roll of the drum died away; the city slept, fearless of its invaders. At this moment, the ebbing tide began to flow. Assisted by the rising waters, Richard and Neville ran a small boat under the cover of the opposite bank of the river, to observe what defences the quay might possess. ”

“ Almost invariably Keith turned his head in the other direction the moment he had poked it out of the window and been pulled back by his mother to a position of greater safety. There, at the foot of the lane, only a stone's throw distant, opened the stony expanse of the quay across which surged a veritable multitude of men and animals and vehicles at all hours of the day. At the end of the Quay, silhouetted against blue or grey or green water, appeared commonly the blunt nose or the flag-draped stern of a big steamer, but hardly ever the middle part of a hull with bridge or masts. ”

“ Enfin il existe un entre- Quai de ravam-port. pôt à quatre étages, oc cupant une superficie de 2,56o mètres carrés. Le terre-plein du quai de l’Avant-port mesure 90 mètres de largeur comprenant une voie de circulation pour les grues, deux voies ferrées de chargement et de déchargement, des hangars-magasins de q3 mètres de largeur, puis de nouveau deux voies ferrées de chargement et de déchargement, deux voies ferrées de circulation et enfin une voie-charretière de i5 mètres de largeur. ”

“ It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were unloading their queer cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in the port. ”

“ Berthing the monstrous ships of the future is a problem met by a radical and world-wide alteration in the dimensions of docks, supplemented by quays running out into deep water, which in London would extend on both sides of the Thames, on the north from Tilbury to the Albert Docks, thus converting the old river, like the Clyde, into a long water-street lined by sea-walls, and kept constantly dredged, and connected with London by special lines of railway. ”

“ Where the down curves to the sea and the road dips steeply, in a hairpin corner, a rugged point, all bristling with black, jagged rocks, runs out, and in between them is a little flat space—the Quay. On one side is an isolated conical hill, capped with a flagstaff, and on the other a formidable reef, black as ink, with the rock-strata tipped perpendicularly in some convulsion that attended238 the world’s birth. ”

“ We will trip, trip, trip, we will trip it on the quay:'
so the words ran in his head; and the honey took on visible form, the quay rose before him and he knew it for the lamplit Embankment, and he saw the lights of Battersea bridge bestride the sullen river. All through the remainder of his trick, he stood entranced, reviewing the past. He had been always true to his love, but not always sedulous to recall her. In the growing calamity of his life, she had swum more distant, like the moon in mist. ”