Читать книгу Historic Paris - Jetta Sophia Wolff - Страница 11

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ROUND about these old palaces and churches some ancient streets still remain and many old houses, relics of bygone ages. Others have been swept away to make room for up-to-date thoroughfares, shops and dwellings. Place de l’École and Rue de l’École record the existence of the famous school at St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, a catechists’ school in the first instance, of more varied scope in Charlemagne’s time, where the pupils took their lessons in the open air when fine or climbed into the font of the baptistery when the font was dry. Rue de l’Arbre-Sec, once Rue de l’Arbre-Sel, from an old sign, a thoroughfare since the twelfth century, was in past days the site of the gallows. There it is said Queen Brunehaut was hacked to death. Part of this ancient street was knocked down to make way for the big shop “la Samaritaine”; but some ancient houses still stand. No. 4, recently razed, is believed to have been the hôtel des Mousquetaires, the home of d’Artagnan, lieutenant-captain of that famous band.

Rue Perrault runs where in bygone times Rue d’Auxerre, dating from 1005, and Rue des Fossés St-Germain-l’Auxerrois stretched away to the Monnaie—the Mint. No. 4, hôtel de Sourdis, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, was the home in her childhood of Gabrielle d’Estrées. No. 2, is the entrance to the presbytère St-Germain-l’Auxerrois. Rue de la Monnaie, a thirteenth-century street known at first by other names, recalls the existence of the ancient Mint on the site of Rue Boucher close by. In Rue du Roule, eighteenth century, we see old ironwork balconies. Rue du Pont-Neuf is modern, on the line of ancient streets of which all traces have gone. Most of the houses in Rue des Bourdonnais are ancient: In the walls of No. 31 we see two or three ancient stones of the famous La Trémouille Mansion once there occupied by the English under Charles VI. No. 34 dates from 1615. From the door of 39 the Tête-Noire with its barbe d’Or, which gave the house its name, still looks down. The sixth-century cabaret of l’Enfant-Jesus, the monogram I.H.S. in wrought iron on its frontage, has been razed. No. 14 is believed to have been the home of Greuze. The impasse at 37, in olden times Fosse aux chiens, was a pig-market where in the fourteenth century heretics were burnt. Rue Bertin-Poirée dates from the early years of the thirteenth century, recording the name of a worthy citizen of those long past days. At No. 5 we see a curious old sign “La Tour d’Argent”; out of this old street we turn into the Rue Jean-Lantier recording the name of a thirteenth-century Parisian, much of it and the ancient place du Chevalier-du-Guet which was here, swept away in 1854. Rue des Lavandières-Ste-Opportune, thirteenth century, reminds us of the existence of an old church, Ste-Opportune, in the neighbourhood. Rue des Deux-Boules existed under another name in the twelfth century. And here in the seventeenth century was l’École du Modèle, nucleus of l’Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Rue des Orfèvres began in 1300 as Rue des Deux-portes. An old chapel, St-Eloi, stood till 1786 by the side of No. 8. Rue St-Germain-l’Auxerrois was a thoroughfare so far back as the year 820. No. 19 is the site of a famous episcopal prison: For-l’Evêque. 38, at l’Arche Marion, duels were wont to be fought in olden days. Rue des Bons-Enfants, aforetime Rue des Echoliers St-Honoré, was so-called from the College founded in 1202 for “les Bons-Enfants” on the site of the neighbouring Rue Montesquieu, suppressed in 1602. Many of the old houses we see there were the possession and abode of the dignitaries of St-Honoré. A tiny church dedicated to Ste-Claire was in past days close up against the walls of No. 12. A vaulted arch and roof and staircase, lately razed, formed the entrance to the ancient cloister. Beneath a coat-of-arms over the doorway of No. 11, where is the Passage de la Vérité, an old inscription told of a reading-room once there, where both morning and evening papers were to be found. 19, hôtel de la Chancellerie d’Orléans, is on the site of a more ancient mansion. All the houses of this and neighbouring streets show some trace of their former state. Rue Radziwill was once Rue Neuve des Bons-Enfants, the name still to be seen on an old wall near the Banque de France. Nearly all the houses there have now become dependencies and offices of the Banque de France, one side of which gives upon the even number side of the street. At No. 33 is a wonderful twin staircase. At its starting it divides in two and winds up with old-time grace to the top story. Two persons can mount at once without meeting. Rue la Vrillière dates from 1652, named after the Secrétaire d’État of Louis XIV, whose mansion, remodelled, is the Banque de France with added to it the Salle Dorée des Fêtes and some other remains of the hôtel de Toulouse.

Rue Croix des Petits-Champs dates from 1600, its name referring to a cross which stood on the site of No. 12. No. 7, entrance of the old Cloître St-Honoré. In the courtyard of No. 21 we see traces of the habitation of the abbés. No. 23, hôtel des Gesvres, was the home of the parents of Mme. de Pompadour.

Two long and important streets, one ancient the other modern, stretch through the entire length of this first arrondissement from east to west: Rue de Rivoli and Rue St-Honoré.

Rue de Rivoli, dating from the first half of the nineteenth century, was begun at its western end in the year 1811, across the site of ancient royal stables, along the line of the famous riding-school of the Tuileries gardens, and on through grounds erewhile the property of the three great convents: les Feuillants, les Capucins, l’Assomption. It swept away ancient streets and houses, picturesque courts and corners—a fine new thoroughfare built over the ruins of historic walls and pavements. There is little to say, therefore, about the buildings one sees there now. The hôtel Continental is on the site of one of the first of the constructions then erected—the Ministère des Finances, built during the second decade of the nineteenth century, burnt to the ground by the Commune in 1871. The famous Salle des Manèges, where the Revolutionary governments sat and King Louis XVI’s trial took place, was on the site of the houses numbered 230–226: l’hôtel Meurice, restaurant Rumpelmayer, etc., No. 186, a popular tearoom run by a British firm, is near the site of the Grande Écurie of vanished royalty, and of a well-known passage built there in the early years of the nineteenth century.

Admiral Coligny fell assassinated on the spot occupied by the house number 144. Passing on into the fourth arrondissement, we come to the Square St-Jacques, formed in 1854, where had stood the ancient church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which the tower alone remains, a beautiful sixteenth-century tower, restored in the nineteenth century by the architect Ballu. Nos. 18–16 are on the site of the ancient convent of the Petit St-Antoine. In its chapel the Committee of the section “des droits de l’Homme” sat in Revolution days.

Rue St-Honoré is full of historic houses and historic associations. Its present name dates only from the year 1540, recalling the existence of the collegiate church of the district. Like most other long, old thoroughfares, Rue St-Honoré is made up of several past-time streets lying in a direct line, united under a single name. Almost every building along its course bears interesting traces of past grandeur or of commercial importance. Many have quaint, odd sign-boards: No. 96 is on the site of the Pavillon des Singes, where, in 1622, Molière was born. At No. 115 we see inscriptions dating from 1715. No. 108 is l’hôtel de l’Ecouvette, formerly part of hôtel Brissac. No. 145 is on a site where passed the boundary wall of Phillippe-Auguste and where was built subsequently a mansion inhabited by the far-famed duc de Joyeuse, then by Gabrielle d’Estrées, and wherein one Jean Châtel made an attempt upon the life of Henri IV. Nos. 180, 182, 184 were connected with the Cloître St-Honoré. No. 202 bore an inscription recording the erection here of the Royal Academy of Music by Pierre Moreau—1760–70—burnt down ten years later. No. 161, the Café de la Régence, replaced the famous café founded at the corner of the Palais-Royal in 1681, the meeting-place of chess-players. A chessboard was lent at so much the hour, the rate higher after sunset to pay for the two candles placed near. Voltaire, Robespierre, Buonaparte, Diderot, etc., and in later days Alfred de Musset and his contemporaries, met here. The city wall of Charles V passed across the site with its gateway, Porte St-Honoré. At this spot Jeanne d’Arc was wounded in 1429 and carried thence to the maison des Genêts on the site of No. 4, Place du Théâtre-Français. A bit of the ancient wall was found beneath the pavement there some ten years ago. No. 167, Arms of England. No. 280: Jeanne Vanbernier is said to have been saleswoman in a milliner’s shop here. No. 201 shows the old-world sign “Au chien de St-Roch.” At No. 211, hôtel St-James, are traces of the ancient hôtel de Noailles, which included several distinct buildings and extensive grounds. Part of it became, at the Revolution, the Café de Vénus; part the meeting-place of the Committees of Revolutionary governments. At 320 we see another old sign-board: “A la Tour d’Argent.” No. 334 was inhabited by Maréchal de Noailles, brother of the Archbishop of Paris, in 1700. Nos. 340–338 show traces of the ancient convent of the Jacobins. At No. 350, hôtel Pontalba, with its fine eighteenth-century staircase, lived Savalette de Langes, keeper of the Royal Treasure, who lent seven million francs to the brothers of Louis XVI, money never repaid, the home in Revolution days of Barrère, where Napoléon signed his marriage contract. Nos. 235, 231, 229, were built by the Feuillants 1782 as sources of revenue, and are the last remaining vestiges of the old convent. At 249 we see the Arms and portrait of Queen Victoria dating from the time of Louis-Philippe. No. 374 was the hôtel of Madame Géoffrin, whose salon was the meeting-place of the most noted politicians, littérateurs and artistes of the day, among them Châteaubriand, who made the house his home for a time. At No. 263 stands the chapel of the ancient convent des Dames de l’Assomption (see p. 29).

No. 398 is perhaps in part the very house, more probably the house entirely rebuilt, inhabited for a time by Robespierre and some of his family and by Couthon. No. 400 was the Imperial bakery in the time of Napoléon III. No. 271, now a modern erection, was till quite recently the famous cabaret du St-Esprit, dating from the seventeenth century, where during the Terreur sightseers gathered to watch the tragic chariots pass laden with victims for the guillotine. Marie-Antoinette passed that way and was subjected to that cruel scrutiny.

The greater number of the streets of this arrondissement running northwards start from Rue de Rivoli, and cross Rue St-Honoré, or start from the latter. Beginning at the western end of Rue Rivoli, we see Rue St-Florentin dating from 1640, so named more than a century later when the comte de St-Florentin deputed the celebrated architects Chalgrin and Gabriel to build the mansion we see at No. 2. It was a splendid mansion then, with surrounding galleries, fine gardens, a big fountain, and was the home of successive families of the noblesse. In 1792, it was the Venetian Embassy, under the Terreur a saltpeter factory. At No. 12 was an inn where people gathered to watch the condemned pass to the scaffold.

Rue Cambon, so named after the Conventional author of the Grand Livre de La Dette Publique, dates in its lower part, when it was Rue de Luxembourg, from 1719, prolonged a century later. Some of the older houses still stand, and have interesting vestiges of past days; others, razed in recent years, have been replaced by modern constructions. The new building, “Cour des Comptes,” built to replace the Palais du Quai d’Orsay burnt by the Communards in 1871, is on the site of the ancient convent of the Haudriettes, suppressed in 1793, when it became the garrison of the Cent Suisses, later a financial depot. The convent chapel, left untouched, serves as the catechists’ chapel for the Madeleine, and has services attended especially by Poles.

In Rue Duphot, opened in 1807 across the old garden of the Convent of the Conception, we see at No. 12 an ancient convent arch and courtyard.

Rue Castiglione (1811) stretches across the site of the convents Les Feuillants and Les Capucins.

In Rue du Mont-Thabor, stretching where was once a convent garden, a vaulted roof and chapel-like building at No. 24, at one time an artist’s studio, remains of the convent once there, is about to be razed. Orsini died at No. 10; Alfred de Musset at No. 6 (1857).