Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

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Edwards Henry Sutherland. Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 1

CHAPTER I. PARIS: A GENERAL GLANCE

CHAPTER II. THE EXPANSION OF PARIS

CHAPTER III. THE LEFT BANK AND THE RIGHT

CHAPTER IV. NOTRE DAME

CHAPTER V. ST. – GERMAIN-L’AUXERROIS

CHAPTER VI. THE PONT-NEUF AND THE STATUE OF HENRI IV

CHAPTER VII. THE BOULEVARDS

CHAPTER VIII. THE BOULEVARDS (continued)

CHAPTER IX. THE BOULEVARDS (continued)

CHAPTER X. BOULEVARD AND OTHER CAFÉS

CHAPTER XI. THE BOULEVARDS (continued)

CHAPTER XII. THE BOULEVARDS (continued)

CHAPTER XIII. PLACE DE LA CONCORDE

CHAPTER XIV. THE PLACE VENDÔME

CHAPTER XV. THE JACOBIN CLUB

CHAPTER XVI. THE PALAIS ROYAL

CHAPTER XVII. THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE

CHAPTER XVIII. THE NATIONAL LIBRARY AND THE BOURSE

CHAPTER XIX. THE LOUVRE AND THE TUILERIES

CHAPTER XX. THE CHAMPS ÉLYSÉES AND THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE

CHAPTER XXI. THE CHAMP DE MARS AND PARIS EXHIBITIONS

CHAPTER XXII. THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND CENTRAL PARIS

CHAPTER XXIII. THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE

CHAPTER XXIV. THE FIRE BRIGADE AND THE POLICE

CHAPTER XXV. THE PARIS HOSPITALS

CHAPTER XXVI. CENTRAL PARIS

CHAPTER XXVII. CENTRAL PARIS (continued)

CHAPTER XXVIII. CENTRAL PARIS (continued)

CHAPTER XXIX. THE “NATIONAL RAZOR.”

CHAPTER XXX. THE EXECUTIONER

CHAPTER XXXI. PÈRE-LACHAISE

CHAPTER XXXII. PARIS DUELS

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE STUDENTS OF PARIS

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE RAG-PICKER OF PARIS

CHAPTER XXXV. THE BOHEMIAN OF PARIS

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE PARIS WAITER

CHAPTER XXVII. THE PARIS COOK

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LUTETIA, the ancient Paris, or Lutetia Parisiorum, as it was called by the Romans, stood in the midst of marshes. The name, derived, suggestively enough, from lutum, the Latin for mud, has been invested with a peculiar significance by those stern moralists who see in Paris nothing but a sink of iniquity. Balzac called it a “wen”; and Blucher, when some ferocious member of his staff suggested the destruction of Paris, exclaimed: “Leave it alone; Paris will destroy all France!” By a critic of less severe temperament Paris has been contemptuously described as “the tavern of Europe” —le cabaret de l’Europe. Lutetia, however, can afford to smile alike at the slurs of moralists and the sneers of cynics; and the etymology of her name need by no means alarm those of her admirers who will reflect that lilies may spring from mud, and that the richest corn is produced from the blackest soil.

The development of the Lutetia of Cæsar’s time into the Paris of our own has occupied many eventful centuries; and the centre of the development may still be seen in that little island of the so-called City —l’Ile de la Cité– once known as the Island of Lutetia. As to the dimensions of the ancient Lutetia, neither historians nor geographers are wholly agreed. The germ of Paris is, in any case, to be found in that part of the French capital which has long been known as la Cité, and which is the dullest and sleepiest part of Paris, just as inversely our “city,” distinctively so called, is the most active and energetic part of London.

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Although the Revolution began in Paris, the revolutionary spirit spread rapidly to the provinces. This is clearly set forth in Arthur Young’s account of what took place at Strasburg, where he had just arrived when news of the Revolution reached him.

“I arrived there,” he writes, “at a critical moment, which I thought would have broken my neck: a detachment of horse, with their trumpets, on one side, a party of infantry, with their drums beating, on the other, and a great mob hallooing, frightened my French mare, and I could scarcely keep her from trampling on Messrs. the tiers état. On arriving at the inn, one heard the interesting news of the revolt of Paris; the Garde Française joining the people; the unreliability of the rest of the troops; the taking of the Bastille; and the institution of the milice bourgeoise– in a word, the absolute overthrow of the old government. Everything being now decided, and the kingdom absolutely in the hands of the Assembly, they have the power to make a new constitution such as they think proper; and it will be a spectacle for the world to view in this enlightened age the representatives of twenty-five millions of people sitting on the construction of a new and better fabric of liberty than Europe has yet offered. It will now be seen whether they will copy the constitution of England, freed from its faults, or attempt from theory to frame something absolutely speculative. In the former case they will prove a blessing to their country; in the latter they will probably involve it in inextricable confusion and civil wars: perhaps not immediately, but certainly in the future. I hear nothing of their removing from Versailles. If they stay there under the control of an armed mob, they must make a government that will please the mob; but they will, I suppose, be wise enough to move to some central town – Tours, Blois, or Orleans, where their deliberations may be free. But the Parisian spirit of commotion spreads rapidly; it is here; the troops that were near breaking my neck are employed to keep an eye on the people who show signs of an intended revolt. They have broken the windows of some magistrates who are no favourites; and a great mob of them is at this moment assembled, demanding clamorously to have meat at five sous a pound. They have a cry among them that will conduct them to good lengths: ‘Point d’impôt et vivent les états!’ I have spent some time at the Cabinet Littéraire reading the gazettes and journals that give an account of the transactions at Paris; and I have had some conversation with several sensible and intelligent men in the present revolution. The spirit of revolt is gone forth into various parts of the kingdom; the price of bread has prepared the populace everywhere for all sorts of violence; at Lyons there have been commotions as furious as at Paris, and likewise at a great many other places. Dauphiné is in arms, and Bretagne in absolute rebellion. The idea is that hunger will drive the people to revolt, and that when once they find any other means of subsistence than honest labour everything will have to be feared. Of such consequence it is to a country to have a policy on the subject of corn: one that shall, by securing a high price to the farmer, encourage his culture sufficiently to secure the people from famine. I have been witness to a scene curious to a foreigner, but dreadful to those Frenchmen who consider. Passing through the square of the Hôtel de Ville, the mob were breaking the windows with stones, notwithstanding that an officer and a detachment of horse were on the spot. Observing not only that their numbers increased, but that they grew bolder and bolder every moment, I thought it worth staying to see how the thing would end, and clambered on to the roof of a row of low stalls opposite the building against which their malice was directed. Here I could view the whole scene. Perceiving that the troops would not attack them except in words and menaces, they grew more violent, and furiously attempted to beat the door in pieces with iron crows, placing ladders to the windows. In about a quarter of an hour, which gave time for the assembled magistrates to escape by a back door, they burst everything open, and entered like a torrent, amid a universal shout of triumph. From that minute a medley of casements, sashes, shutters, chairs, tables, sofas, books, papers, pictures, etc., rained down incessantly from all the windows of the house, which is seventy or eighty feet long; this being succeeded by a shower of tiles, skirting-boards, banisters, framework, and whatever parts of the building force could detach. The troops, both horse and foot, were quiet spectators. They were at first too few to interpose, and when they became more numerous the mischief was too far advanced to admit of any other course than that of guarding every avenue around, permitting no fresh arrivals on the scene of action, but letting everyone that pleased retire with his plunder; guards at the same time being placed at the doors of the churches and all public buildings. I was for two hours a spectator of this scene: secure myself from the falling furniture, but near enough to see a fine lad of about fourteen crushed to death by some object as he was handing plunder to a woman – I suppose his mother, from the horror pictured in her countenance. I remarked several common soldiers with their white cockades among the plunderers, and instigating the mob even in sight of the officers of the detachment. Mixed in the crowd, there were people so decently dressed that I regarded them with no small surprise. The public archives were destroyed, and the streets for some way around strewed with papers. This was a wanton mischief, for it will be the ruin of many families unconnected with the magistrates.”

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