LITMIR.BIZ

      INTRODUCTORY

       Table of Contents

      This book has been written for those who seek in Paris something more than a city of shows or a huge bazaar, something better than the cabaret wherein François I. found entertainment, and yet not quite—still in Hugo's phrase—the library that Charles V. esteemed it. There are many lovers of this beautiful capital of a great people, who, knowing well her unconcealed attractions, would search out her records and traditions in stone, hidden and hard to find. This legitimate curiosity grows more eager with the increasing difficulties of gratifying it in that ancient Paris that is vanishing day by day; and, in its bewilderment, it may be glad to find congenial guidance in these pages. In them, no attempt is made to destroy that which is new in order to reconstruct what was old. In telling the stories of those monuments of past ages that are visible and tangible, reference is made only to so much of their perished approaches and neighbors as shall suffice for full realization of the significance of all that we are to see. This significance is given mainly by the former dwellers within these walls. We shall concern ourselves with the human document, illustrated by its surroundings. The student of history can find no more suggestive relics of mediæval Paris than the still existing towers and fragments of the wall of Philippe-Auguste, which shall be shown to him; for us, these stones must be made to speak, not so essentially of their mighty builder as of the common people, who moved about within that enclosure and gave it character. In like manner, the walls, which have sheltered soldiers, statesmen, preachers, teachers, workers in art and letters, illustrious men and women of all sorts and conditions, will take on the personality of these impressive presences. When we stand beneath the roof of that favorite personage in history, that spoiled child of romance, who happens to be dear to each one of us, we are brought into touch with him as with a living fellow-creature. The streets of Paris are alive with these sympathetic companions, who become abiding friends, as we stroll with them; and allow none of the ache, confessed to be felt in such scenes, despite her reasoning, by Madame de Sévigné. Nor do they invite, here, any critical review of their work in life, but consent to scrutiny of their lineaments alone, and to an appreciation of their personal impress on their contemporaries and on us. So that essays on themes, historic, literary, artistic, can find no place in this record. Indeed, labor and time have been expended "in hindering it from being … swollen out of shape by superfluous details, defaced with dilettanti antiquarianisms, nugatory tag-rags, and, in short, turned away from its real uses, instead of furthered toward them." In this sense, at least, the authors can say in Montaigne's words, "ceci est un livre de bonne foy."

      In this presentation of people and places it has been difficult, sometimes impossible, to keep due sequence both of chronology and topography. Just as Mr. Theodore Andrea Cook found in the various châteaux of his admirable "Old Touraine," so each spot we shall visit in Paris "has some particular event, some especial visitor, whose importance overshadows every other memory connected with the place." With that event or that visitor we must needs busy ourselves, without immediate regard to other dates or other personages. Again, to keep in sight some conspicuous figure, as he goes, we must leave on one side certain memorable scenes, to which we shall come back. Each plan has been pursued in turn, as has seemed desirable, for the sake of the clearness and accuracy, which have been considered above all else. The whole value of such records as are here presented depends on the preliminary researches. In the doing of this, thousands of books and pamphlets and articles have been read, hundreds of people have been questioned, scores of miles have been tramped. Oldest archives and maps have been consulted, newest newspaper clippings have not been disregarded. Nothing has been thought too heavy or too light that would help to give a characteristic line or a touch of native color. A third volume would be needed to enumerate the authorities called on and compared. Nor has any statement of any one of these authorities been accepted without ample investigation; and every assertion has been subjected to all the proof that it was possible to procure. Those countless errors have been run to earth which have been started so often by the carelessness of an early writer, and ever since kept alive by lazy copiers and random compilers. These processes of sifting are necessarily omitted for lack of space, and the wrought-out results alone are shown. If the authors dare not hope that they have avoided errors on their own part, they may hope for indulgent correction of such as may have crept in, for all their vigilance.

      It is easier, to-day, to put one's hand on the Paris of the sixteenth century than on that of the eighteenth century. In those remoter days changes were slow to come, and those older stones have been left often untouched. A curious instance of that aforetime leisureliness is seen in the working of the ordonnance issued on May 14, 1554, by Henri II. for the clearing away of certain encroachments made on the streets by buildings and by business, notably on Rue de la Ferronerie; that street being one of those used "for our way from our royal château of the Louvre to our château of the Tournelles." It was fifty-six years later, to the very day, that the stabbing of Henri IV. was made easy to Ravaillac, by the stoppage of the king's carriage in the blockade of that narrow street, its obstructions not yet swept out, in absolute disregard of the edict. From the death of the royal mason, Charles V., who gave a new face and a new figure to his Paris, to the coming of Henri IV., who had in him the makings of a kingly constructor, but who was hindered by the necessary destruction of his wars, there were two centuries of steady growth of the town outward, on all sides, with only slight alterations of its interior quarters. Many of these were transformed, many new quarters were created, by Louis XIII., thus realizing his father's frustrated plans. Richelieu was able to widen some streets, and Colbert tried to carry on the work, but Louis XIV. had no liking for his capital, and no money to waste for its bettering. His stage-subject's civic pride was unduly swollen, when he said: "À cette époque, la grande ville du roi Henri n'était pas ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui."

      At the beginning of the eighteenth century we find Paris divided into twenty quarters, in none of which was there any numbering of the houses. The streets then got their names from their mansions of the nobility, from their vast monasteries and convents, from their special industries and shops. These latter names survive in our Paris as they survive in modern London.

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