A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS.
We have just to restore, for the reader’s benefit, that church of Notre-Dame de Paris. We have pointed out the part of the which it in the century, and which it to-day; but we have the thing,—the view of Paris which was then to be from the of its towers.
That was, in fact,—when, after having long one’s way up the dark which the thick of the belfries, one emerged, at last abruptly, upon one of the with light and air,—that was, in fact, a picture which spread out, on all at once, the eye; a generis, of which those of our readers who have had the good to see a Gothic city entire, complete, homogeneous,—a of which still remain, Nuremberg in Bavaria and Vittoria in Spain,—can an idea; or smaller specimens, provided that they are well preserved,—Vitré in Brittany, Nordhausen in Prussia.
The Paris of three hundred and fifty years ago—the Paris of the century—was already a city. We Parisians make a mistake as to the ground which we think that we have gained, since Paris has not much over one-third since the time of Louis XI. It has more in than it has in size.
Paris had its birth, as the reader knows, in that old of the City which has the of a cradle. The of that was its wall, the Seine its moat. Paris for many centuries in its state, with two bridges, one on the north, the other on the south; and two heads, which were at the same time its gates and its fortresses,—the Grand-Châtelet on the right bank, the Petit-Châtelet on the left. Then, from the date of the kings of the race, Paris, being too and in its island, and unable to return thither, the water. Then, the Grand, the Petit-Châtelet, a circle of and towers to upon the country on the two of the Seine. Some of this still in the last century; to-day, only the memory of it is left, and here and there a tradition, the Baudets or Baudoyer gate, Porta Bagauda.
Little by little, the of houses, always from the of the city outwards, overflows, devours, away, and this wall. Philip Augustus makes a new for it. He Paris in a of great towers, and solid. For the period of more than a century, the houses press upon each other, accumulate, and their level in this basin, like water in a reservoir. They to deepen; they upon story; they upon each other; they at the top, like all growth, and there is a as to which shall its above its neighbors, for the of a little air. The and deeper, every space is and disappears. The houses the of Philip Augustus, and over the plain, without order, and all askew, like runaways. There they plant themselves squarely, cut themselves gardens from the fields, and take their ease. Beginning with 1367, the city spreads to such an into the suburbs, that a new necessary, particularly on the right bank; Charles V. it. But a city like Paris is growing. It is only such that capitals. They are funnels, into which all the geographical, political, moral, and water-sheds of a country, all the natural of a people, pour; of civilization, so to speak, and also sewers, where commerce, industry, intelligence, population,—all that is sap, all that is life, all that is the of a nation, and unceasingly, by drop, century by century.
So Charles V.’s the of that of Philip Augustus. At the end of the century, the Faubourg across it, it, and farther. In the sixteenth, it to visibly, and to itself and in the old city, so thick had the new city already of it. Thus, with the century, where our us, Paris had already the three circles of which, from the time of Julian the Apostate, existed, so to speak, in in the Grand-Châtelet and the Petit-Châtelet. The city had cracked, in succession, its four of walls, like a child too large for his of last year. Under Louis XI., this sea of houses was to be at by groups of towers, from the wall, like the of in an inundation,—like of the old Paris the new. Since that time Paris has yet another transformation, for our eyes; but it has passed only one more wall, that of Louis XV., that of and spittle, of the king who it, of the who it,—
Le Paris Paris murmurant.[22]
In the century, Paris was still into three and towns, each having its own physiognomy, its own specialty, its manners, customs, privileges, and history: the City, the University, the Town. The City, which the island, was the most ancient, the smallest, and the mother of the other two, in them like (may we be the comparison) a little old woman two large and maidens. The University the left bank of the Seine, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, points which in the Paris of to-day, the one to the market, the other to the mint. Its a large part of that plain where Julian had his baths. The hill of Sainte-Geneviève was in it. The point of this of was the Papal gate, that is to say, near the present site of the Pantheon. The Town, which was the largest of the three of Paris, the right bank. Its quay, or in many places, ran along the Seine, from the Tour de Billy to the Tour du Bois; that is to say, from the place where the to-day, to the present site of the Tuileries. These four points, where the Seine the of the capital, the Tournelle and the Tour de Nesle on the right, the Tour de Billy and the Tour du Bois on the left, were called pre-eminently, the four towers of Paris. The Town still more upon the than the University. The point of the Town (that of Charles V.) was at the gates of Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, has not been changed.
As we have just said, each of these three great of Paris was a town, but too special a town to be complete, a city which not along without the other two. Hence three aspects: churches in the City; palaces, in the Town; and colleges, in the University. Neglecting here the originalities, of secondary in old Paris, and the the public highways, we will say, from a point of view, taking only and the whole group, in this of jurisdictions, that the to the bishop, the right bank to the of the merchants, the left bank to the Rector; over all the of Paris, a not a official. The City had Notre-Dame; the Town, the Louvre and the Hôtel de Ville; the University, the Sorbonne. The Town had the markets (Halles); the city, the Hospital; the University, the Pré-aux-Clercs. Offences by the on the left bank were in the law on the island, and were on the right bank at Montfaucon; unless the rector, the to be and the king weak, intervened; for it was the students’ to be on their own grounds.
The part of these privileges, it may be noted in passing, and there were some than the above, had been from the kings by and mutinies. It is the of from time immemorial; the king only lets go when the people tear away. There is an old which puts the naively: àpropos of fidelity: Civibus in reges, quæ interrupta, privilegia.
In the century, the Seine five the of Paris: Louviers island, where there were then trees, and where there is no longer anything but wood; l’île Vaches, and l’île Notre-Dame, deserted, with the of one house, of the bishop—in the seventeenth century, a single was out of these two, which was upon and named l’île Saint-Louis—, the City, and at its point, the little of the cow tender, which was the of the Pont-Neuf. The City then had five bridges: three on the right, the Pont Notre-Dame, and the Pont au Change, of stone, the Pont Meuniers, of wood; two on the left, the Petit Pont, of stone, the Pont Saint-Michel, of wood; all with houses.
The University had six gates, by Philip Augustus; there were, with la Tournelle, the Porte Saint-Victor, the Porte Bordelle, the Porte Papale, the Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Saint-Michel, the Porte Saint-Germain. The Town had six gates, by Charles V .; with the Tour de Billy they were: the Porte Saint-Antoine, the Porte du Temple, the Porte Saint-Martin, the Porte Saint-Denis, the Porte Montmartre, the Porte Saint-Honoré. All these gates were strong, and also handsome, which not from strength. A large, moat, with a the high water of winter, the of the Paris; the Seine the water. At night, the gates were shut, the river was at ends of the city with iron chains, and Paris slept tranquilly.
From a bird’s-eye view, these three burgs, the City, the Town, and the University, each presented to the an of streets. Nevertheless, at sight, one the that these three but one body. One three long streets, unbroken, undisturbed, traversing, almost in a line, all three cities, from one end to the other; from North to South, perpendicularly, to the Seine, which them together, them, them in each other, and the people incessantly, from one to the other, and one out of the three. The of these ran from the Porte Saint-Martin: it was called the Rue Saint-Jacques in the University, Rue de la Juiverie in the City, Rue Saint-Martin in the Town; it the water twice, under the name of the Petit Pont and the Pont Notre-Dame. The second, which was called the Rue de la Harpe on the left bank, Rue de la Barillerié in the island, Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank, Pont Saint-Michel on one arm of the Seine, Pont au Change on the other, ran from the Porte Saint-Michel in the University, to the Porte Saint-Denis in the Town. However, under all these names, there were but two streets, parent streets, streets,—the two of Paris. All the other of the city either their supply from them or into them.
Independently of these two streets, Paris in its whole breadth, from to side, common to the entire capital, the City and the University had also each its own great special street, which ran by them, to the Seine, cutting, as it passed, at right angles, the two thoroughfares. Thus, in the Town, one in a line from the Porte Saint-Antoine to the Porte Saint-Honoré; in the University from the Porte Saint-Victor to the Porte Saint-Germain. These two great by the two first, the upon which reposed, and together on every hand, the network of the of Paris. In the plan of these streets, one likewise, on looking attentively, two of great streets, like of grain, one in the University, the other in the Town, which spread out from the to the gates.
Some of this plan still to-day.
Now, what did this whole present, when, as viewed from the of the towers of Notre-Dame, in 1482? That we shall try to describe.
For the who arrived, panting, upon that pinnacle, it was a view of roofs, chimneys, streets, bridges, places, spires, towers. Everything your at once: the gable, the pointed roof, the at the of the walls; the of the century, the of the fifteenth; the round, tower of the keep; the square and tower of the church; the great and the little, the and the aerial. The was, for a long time, in this labyrinth, where there was nothing which did not its originality, its reason, its genius, its beauty,—nothing which did not from art; with the smallest house, with its painted and front, with beams, door, with stories, to the Louvre, which then had a of towers. But these are the which were then to be when the to itself to this of edifices.
In the place, the City.—“The of the City,” as Sauval says, who, in of his medley, sometimes has such happy of expression,—“the of the city is like a great ship, in the and in the current, near the centre of the Seine.”
We have just that, in the century, this ship was to the two banks of the river by five bridges. This of a ship had also the scribes; for it is from that, and not from the by the Normans, that the ship which the old of Paris, comes, according to Favyn and Pasquier. For him who how to them, are algebra, have a tongue. The whole history of the second of the Middle Ages is in bearings,—the is in the of the Roman churches. They are the of feudalism, those of theocracy.
Thus the City presented itself to the eye, with its to the east, and its to the west. Turning the prow, one had one an of roofs, over which the lead-covered of the Sainte-Chapelle, like an elephant’s with its tower. Only here, this tower was the most audacious, the most open, the most of cabinet-maker’s work that let the sky through its of lace. In of Notre-Dame, and very near at hand, three opened into the square,—a square, with houses. Over the south of this place the and façade of the Hôtel Dieu, and its roof, which with and pustules. Then, on the right and the left, to east and west, that of the City, which was yet so contracted, rose the towers of its one and twenty churches, of every date, of every form, of every size, from the low and of Saint-Denis du Pas (Carcer Glaucini) to the of Saint-Pierre Bœufs and Saint-Landry.
Behind Notre-Dame, the and its Gothic spread out the north; on the south, the half-Roman of the bishop; on the east, the point of the Terrain. In this of houses the also distinguished, by the open-work of which then the itself, the most of the palace, the hotel by the city, under Charles VI., to Juvénal Ursins; a little on, the pitch-covered of the Palus Market; in still another the new of Saint-Germain le Vieux, in 1458, with a of the Rue Febves; and then, in places, a square with people; a pillory, at the of a street; a of the of Philip Augustus, a flagging, for the horses’ feet, in the middle of the road, and so replaced in the sixteenth century by the cobblestones, called the of the League; a courtyard, with one of those turrets, such as were in the century, one of which is still to be in the Rue Bourdonnais. Lastly, at the right of the Sainte-Chapelle, the west, the Palais de Justice rested its group of towers at the of the water. The of the king’s gardens, which the western point of the City, the Island du Passeur. As for the water, from the of the towers of Notre-Dame one saw it, on either of the City; the Seine was by bridges, the by houses.
And when the passed these bridges, were visibly green, their time by the from the water, if it was to the left, the University, the which it was a large, low of towers, the Petit-Châtelet, gate the end of the Petit-Pont. Then, if your view ran along the bank, from east to west, from the Tournelle to the Tour de Nesle, there was a long of houses, with beams, stained-glass windows, each over that it, an of gables, by the mouth of a street, and from time to time also by the or of a mansion, planted at its ease, with and gardens, and buildings, this of and narrow houses, like a among a of rustics. There were five or six of these on the quay, from the house of Lorraine, which with the Bernardins the the Tournelle, to the Hôtel de Nesle, tower ended Paris, and pointed were in a position, three months of the year, to encroach, with their black triangles, upon the of the setting sun.
This of the Seine was, however, the least of the two. Students more of a and more noise there than artisans, and there was not, properly speaking, any quay, from the Pont Saint-Michel to the Tour de Nesle. The of the bank of the Seine was now a strand, the same as the Bernardins; again, a of houses, with their in the water, as the two bridges.
There was a great of laundresses; they screamed, and talked, and sang from till night along the beach, and a great of there, just as in our day. This is not the least of the of Paris.
The University presented a to the eye. From one end to the other, it was and compact. The thousand roofs, dense, angular, to each other, composed, nearly all, of the same element, offered, when viewed from above, the of a of the same substance.
The of did not cut this of houses into too slices. The forty-two were about in a equal manner, and there were some everywhere. The of these were the product of the same art as the which they overshot, and were, actually, only a of the square or the of the same figure. Hence they the whole effect, without it; completed, without it. Geometry is harmony. Some here and there against the of the left bank. The house of Nevers, the house of Rome, the house of Reims, which have disappeared; the Hôtel de Cluny, which still exists, for the of the artist, and tower was so of its a years ago. Close to Cluny, that Roman palace, with arches, were once the of Julian. There were a great many abbeys, of a more devout, of a more than the mansions, but not less beautiful, not less grand. Those which the were the Bernardins, with their three towers; Sainte-Geneviève, square tower, which still exists, makes us the rest; the Sorbonne, college, monastery, of which so a survives; the of the Mathurins; its neighbor, the of Saint-Benoît, they have had time to up a theatre, the seventh and of this book; the Cordeliers, with their three gables; the Augustins, formed, after the Tour de Nesle, the second on this of Paris, starting from the west. The colleges, which are, in fact, the ring the and the world, the middle position in the series the and the abbeys, with a full of elegance, less than the palaces, an less than the convents. Unfortunately, anything of these monuments, where Gothic art with so just a balance, and economy. The churches (and they were and in the University, and they were there also in all the of architecture, from the of Saint-Julian to the pointed of Saint-Séverin), the churches the whole; and, like one more in this of harmonies, they in quick the open work of the with spires, with open-work towers, with pinnacles, line was also only a of the of the roofs.
The ground of the University was hilly; Mount Sainte-Geneviève an to the south; and it was a to see from the of Notre-Dame how that of narrow and (to-day the Latin Quarter), those of houses which, spread out in every direction from the top of this eminence, themselves in disorder, and almost its flanks, nearly to the water’s edge, having the air, some of falling, others of up again, and all of to one another. A of a thousand black points which passed each other on the move the eyes; it was the thus from and afar.
Lastly, in the of these roofs, of these spires, of these of edifices, which and writhed, and in so a manner the line of the University, one a glimpse, here and there, of a great of moss-grown wall, a thick, tower, a city gate, the fortress; it was the of Philip Augustus. Beyond, the green; beyond, the roads, along which were a more houses, which more as they more distant. Some of these were important: there were, first, starting from la Tournelle, the Bourg Saint-Victor, with its one over the Bièvre, its where one read the of Louis le Gros, Ludovici Grossi, and its church with an spire, with four little towers of the century (a one can be at Étampes; it is not yet destroyed); next, the Bourg Saint-Marceau, which already had three churches and one convent; then, the of the Gobelins and its four white on the left, there was the Faubourg Saint-Jacques with the in its square; the church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, which was then Gothic, pointed, charming; Saint-Magloire, a of the century, which Napoleon into a hayloft; Notre-Dame Champs, where there were Byzantine mosaics; lastly, after having left behind, full in the country, the Monastery Chartreux, a rich with the Palais de Justice, with its little garden into compartments, and the of Vauvert, the fell, to the west, upon the three Roman of Saint-Germain Prés. The Bourg Saint-Germain, already a large community, fifteen or twenty in the rear; the pointed tower of Saint-Sulpice marked one of the town. Close it one the of the of Saint-Germain, where the market is to-day; then the abbot’s pillory, a little tower, well with a cone; the was on, and the Rue du Four, which to the common bakehouse, and the on its hillock, and the house, a house, and seen.
But that which the most of all, and it for a long time on that point, was the itself. It is that this monastery, which had a air, as a church and as a seignory; that palace, where the of Paris themselves happy if they pass the night; that refectory, upon which the had the air, the beauty, and the rose window of a cathedral; that of the Virgin; that dormitory; those gardens; that portcullis; that drawbridge; that of which to the the of the meadows; those courtyards, where men at arms, with copes;—the whole and about three spires, with arches, well planted upon a Gothic apse, a against the horizon.
When, at length, after having the University for a long time, you the right bank, the Town, the of the was altered. The Town, in much larger than the University, was also less of a unit. At the glance, one saw that it was into many masses, distinct. First, to the eastward, in that part of the town which still takes its name from the where Camulogènes Cæsar, was a of palaces. The to the very water’s edge. Four almost hotels, Jouy, Sens, Barbeau, the house of the Queen, their peaks, with turrets, in the Seine.
These four the space from the Rue Nonaindières, to the of the Celestins, their line of and battlements. A miserable, hovels, over the water in of these hotels, did not prevent one from the of their façades, their large, square with mullions, their pointed with statues, the of their walls, always clear cut, and all those of architecture, which Gothic art to have the air of its with every monument.
Behind these palaces, in all directions, now broken, in, like a citadel, now by great trees like a Carthusian convent, the and of that Hôtel de Saint-Pol, where the King of France the means of two and twenty of the rank of the and the Duke of Burgundy, with their and their suites, without the great lords, and the when he came to view Paris, and the lions, who had their hotel at the hotel. Let us say here that a prince’s was then of less than eleven large rooms, from the of to the oratory, not to mention the galleries, baths, vapor-baths, and other “superfluous places,” with which each was provided; not to mention the private gardens for each of the king’s guests; not to mention the kitchens, the cellars, the offices, the of the house, the poultry-yards, where there were twenty-two laboratories, from the to the wine-cellars; of a thousand sorts, malls, tennis, and at the ring; aviaries, fishponds, menageries, stables, barns, libraries, and foundries. This was what a king’s palace, a Louvre, a Hôtel de Saint-Pol was then. A city a city.
From the tower where we are placed, the Hôtel Saint-Pol, almost by the four great houses of which we have just spoken, was still very and very to see. One there distinguish, very well, though with the by long galleries, with painted and columns, the three which Charles V. had with his palace: the Hôtel du Petit-Muce, with the balustrade, which a border to its roof; the Hôtel of the Abbé de Saint-Maur, having the of a stronghold, a great tower, machicolations, loopholes, iron gratings, and over the large Saxon door, the of the abbé, the two of the drawbridge; the Hôtel of the Comte d’Étampes, keep, at its summit, was and like a cock’s comb; here and there, three or four oaks, a together like cauliflowers; of swans, in the clear water of the fishponds, all in of light and shade; many of which one bits; the Hôtel of the Lions, with its low, pointed on short, Saxon pillars, its iron and its roar; up above the whole, the scale-ornamented of the Ave-Maria; on the left, the house of the Provost of Paris, by four small towers, grooved, in the middle; at the extremity, the Hôtel Saint-Pol, properly speaking, with its façades, its from the time of Charles V., the excrescences, with which the of the had it the last two centuries, with all the of its chapels, all the of its galleries, a thousand for the four winds, and its two towers, roof, by at its base, looked like those pointed which have their up.
Continuing to the of this of spread out upon the ground, after a out of the in the Town, which marked the passage of the Rue Saint-Antoine, the the house of Angoulême, a of many epochs, where there were perfectly new and very white parts, which melted no into the whole than a red on a doublet. Nevertheless, the pointed and of the modern palace, with eaves, with of lead, where a thousand of of bronze, that roof, so damascened, from the of the of the edifice; and towers, by age like casks, together with old age, and themselves from top to bottom, great unbuttoned. Behind rose the of of the Palais Tournelles. Not a view in the world, either at Chambord or at the Alhambra, is more magic, more aerial, more enchanting, than that of spires, towers, chimneys, weather-vanes, staircases, through which the makes its way, which cut out at a blow, pavilions, spindle-shaped turrets, or, as they were then called, tournelles, all in form, in height, and attitude. One would have it a chess-board.
To the right of the Tournelles, that of towers, black as ink, into each other and tied, as it were, by a moat; that keep, much more with than with windows; that drawbridge, always raised; that portcullis, always lowered,—is the Bastille. Those of black which project from the battlements, and which you take from a to be spouts, are cannons.
Beneath them, at the of the edifice, the Porte Sainte-Antoine, its two towers.
Beyond the Tournelles, as as the of Charles V., spread out, with rich of and of flowers, a of land and parks, in the of which one recognized, by its of trees and alleys, the famous Dædalus garden which Louis XI. had to Coictier. The doctor’s rose above the like a great column, with a house for a capital. Terrible took place in that laboratory.
There to-day is the Place Royale.
As we have just said, the of the palace, of which we have just to give the reader some idea by only the points, the which Charles V.’s with the Seine on the east. The centre of the Town was by a of houses for the populace. It was there, in fact, that the three upon the right bank, and lead to the of houses than palaces. That of habitations, pressed together like the in a hive, had a of its own. It is with the of a as with the of the sea,—they are grand. First the streets, and entangled, a hundred in the block; around the market-place, it was like a star with a thousand rays.
The Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, with their ramifications, rose one after the other, like trees their branches; and then the lines, the Rues de la Plâtrerie, de la Verrerie, de la Tixeranderie, etc., over all. There were also which the of that sea of gables. At the of the Pont Changeurs, which one the Seine the of the Pont Meuniers, there was the Châlelet, no longer a Roman tower, as under Julian the Apostate, but a tower of the thirteenth century, and of a so hard that the not away so much as the of the in a space of three hours; there was the rich square tower of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, with its all with carvings, already admirable, although it was not in the century. (It lacked, in particular, the four monsters, which, still to-day on the of its roof, have the air of so many who are to new Paris the of the Paris. Rault, the sculptor, only them in position in 1526, and twenty for his pains.) There was the Maison-aux-Piliers, the Pillar House, opening upon that Place de Grève of which we have the reader some idea; there was Saint-Gervais, which a “in good taste” has since spoiled; Saint-Méry, pointed were still almost arches; Saint-Jean, was proverbial; there were twenty other monuments, which did not to their in that of black, deep, narrow streets. Add the of stone, more through the than the gibbets; the of the Innocents, be in the above the roofs; the of the Markets, top was visible two of the Rue de la Cossonnerie; the of the Croix-du-Trahoir, in its square always black with people; the of the mart; the of Philip Augustus’s wall, which be out here and there, among the houses, its towers by ivy, its gates in ruins, with and of wall; the with its thousand shops, and its knacker’s yards; the Seine with boats, from the Port au Foin to For-l’Évêque, and you will have a picture of what the of the Town was like in 1482.
With these two quarters, one of hotels, the other of houses, the third of presented by the city was a long zone of abbeys, which it in nearly the whole of its circumference, from the to the setting sun, and, the circle of which in Paris, a second of and chapels. Thus, the park Tournelles, the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Vieille Rue du Temple, there Sainte-Catherine, with its lands, which were only by the of Paris. Between the old and the new Rue du Temple, there was the Temple, a group of towers, lofty, erect, and in the middle of a vast, enclosure. Between the Rue Neuve-du-Temple and the Rue Saint-Martin, there was the Abbey of Saint-Martin, in the of its gardens, a superb church, of towers, of towers, in and only to Saint-Germain Prés. Between the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue Saint-Denis, spread the of the Trinité.
Lastly, the Rue Saint-Denis, and the Rue Montorgueil, the Filles-Dieu. On one side, the and of the Cour Miracles be descried. It was the ring which was to that of convents.
Finally, the fourth compartment, which itself out in the of the on the right bank, and which the western of the enclosure, and the banks of the river stream, was a fresh of and hôtels pressed close about the of the Louvre. The old Louvre of Philip Augustus, that great tower about it three and twenty towers, not to the towers, from a to be in the Gothic of the Hôtel d’Alençon, and the Petit-Bourbon. This of towers, of Paris, with its four and twenty heads, always erect, with its haunches, or with slates, and all with reflections, with the of the Town the west.
Thus an block, which the Romans called insula, or island, of houses, on the right and the left by two of palaces, crowned, the one by the Louvre, the other by the Tournelles, on the north by a long of and enclosures, all and melted together in one view; upon these thousands of edifices, and upon each other so many chains, the towers, tattooed, fluted, and with bands, of the four and churches on the right bank; of streets; for on one side, an of with square towers (that of the University had towers); on the other, the Seine, cut by bridges, and on its a of boats; the Town of Paris in the century.
Beyond the walls, villages pressed close about the gates, but less and more than those of the University. Behind the Bastille there were twenty the of the Croix-Faubin and the of the Abbey of Saint-Antoine Champs; then Popincourt, fields; then la Courtille, a village of wine-shops; the of Saint-Laurent with its church tower, from afar, to add itself to the pointed towers of the Porte Saint-Martin; the Faubourg Saint-Denis, with the of Saint-Ladre; the Montmartre Gate, the Grange-Batelière, with white walls; it, with its slopes, Montmartre, which had then almost as many churches as windmills, and which has only the windmills, for no longer anything but for the body. Lastly, the Louvre, the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, already at that time, be away into the fields, and Petit-Bretagne green, and the Marché Pourceaux abroad, in centre the used for counterfeiters. Between la Courtille and Saint-Laurent, your had already noticed, on the of an plains, a of which from a a colonnade, upon a with its bare. This was neither a Parthenon, a temple of the Olympian Jupiter. It was Montfaucon.
Now, if the of so many edifices, as we have to make it, has not in the reader’s mind the image of old Paris, as we have it, we will it in a words. In the centre, the of the City, as to an tortoise, and out its with tiles for scales; like from its of roofs. On the left, the trapezium, firm, dense, bristling, of the University; on the right, the of the Town, much more with gardens and monuments. The three blocks, city, university, and town, with streets. Across all, the Seine, “foster-mother Seine,” as says Father Du Breul, with islands, bridges, and boats. All about an plain, with a thousand of plots, with villages. On the left, Issy, Vanvres, Vaugirarde, Montrouge, Gentilly, with its tower and its square tower, etc .; on the right, twenty others, from Conflans to Ville-l’Évêque. On the horizon, a border of in a circle like the of the basin. Finally, away to the east, Vincennes, and its seven towers to the south, Bicêtre and its pointed turrets; to the north, Saint-Denis and its spire; to the west, Saint Cloud and its keep. Such was the Paris which the ravens, who in 1482, from the of the towers of Notre-Dame.
Nevertheless, Voltaire said of this city, that “before Louis XIV., it but four monuments”: the of the Sorbonne, the Val-de-Grâce, the modern Louvre, and I know not what the fourth was—the Luxembourg, perhaps. Fortunately, Voltaire was the author of “Candide” in of this, and in of this, he is, among all the men who have each other in the long series of humanity, the one who has best the laugh. Moreover, this proves that one can be a genius, and yet nothing of an art to which one not belong. Did not Molière that he was doing Raphael and Michael-Angelo a very great honor, by calling them “those Mignards of their age?”
Let us return to Paris and to the century.
It was not then a city; it was a city, an and product of the Middle Ages, a in stone. It was a city of two only; the Romanesque and the Gothic layer; for the Roman had long before, with the of the Hot Baths of Julian, where it still through the thick of the Middle Ages. As for the Celtic layer, no were any longer to be found, when wells.
Fifty years later, when the Renaissance to with this which was so and yet so varied, the luxury of its and systems, its of Roman arches, Greek columns, and Gothic bases, its which was so and so ideal, its taste for and leaves, its paganism, with Luther, Paris, was perhaps, still more beautiful, although less to the eye, and to the thought.
But this moment only for a time; the Renaissance was not impartial; it did not itself with building, it to destroy; it is true that it the room. Thus Gothic Paris was complete only for a moment. Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie had been when the of the old Louvre was begun.
After that, the great city more every day. Gothic Paris, which Roman Paris was effaced, was in its turn; but can any one say what Paris has replaced it?
There is the Paris of Catherine de Medicis at the Tuileries;[23]—the Paris of Henri II., at the Hôtel de Ville, two still in taste;—the Paris of Henri IV., at the Place Royale: façades of with corners, and roofs, tri-colored houses;—the Paris of Louis XIII., at the Val-de-Grâce: a and architecture, with like basket-handles, and something pot-bellied in the column, and in the dome;—the Paris of Louis XIV., in the Invalides: grand, rich, gilded, cold;—the Paris of Louis XV., in Saint-Sulpice: volutes, of ribbon, clouds, and leaves, all in stone;—the Paris of Louis XVI., in the Pantheon: Saint Peter of Rome, (the is together, which has not its lines);—the Paris of the Republic, in the School of Medicine: a Greek and Roman taste, which the Coliseum or the Parthenon as the of the year III., the laws of Minos,—it is called in architecture, “the Messidor”[24] taste;—the Paris of Napoleon in the Place Vendôme: this one is sublime, a of of cannons;—the Paris of the Restoration, at the Bourse: a very white supporting a very frieze; the whole is square and cost twenty millions.
To each of these there is by a of taste, fashion, and attitude, a number of houses about in different and which the of the easily and with a date. When one how to look, one the of a century, and the of a king, in the on a door.
The Paris of the present day has then, no physiognomy. It is a of of many centuries, and the have disappeared. The only in houses, and what houses! At the at which Paris is now proceeding, it will itself every fifty years.
Thus the of its is being every day. Monuments are and rarer, and one to see them engulfed, by the of houses. Our fathers had a Paris of stone; our sons will have one of plaster.
So as the modern of new Paris are concerned, we would be from them. It is not that we do not them as they deserve. The Sainte-Geneviève of M. Soufflot is the Savoy cake that has been in stone. The Palace of the Legion of Honor is also a very of pastry. The of the market is an English cap, on a scale. The towers of Saint-Sulpice are two clarinets, and the is as good as any other; the telegraph, and grimacing, an accident upon their roofs. Saint-Roch has a door which, for magnificence, is only to that of Saint-Thomas d’Aquin. It has, also, a in high relief, in a cellar, with a sun of wood. These are marvellous. The of the of the Jardin Plantes is also very ingenious.
As for the Palace of the Bourse, which is Greek as to its colonnade, Roman in the of its doors and windows, of the Renaissance by of its vault, it is a very and very pure monument; the proof is that it is with an attic, such as was in Athens, a beautiful, line, here and there by stovepipes. Let us add that if it is according to that the of a should be to its purpose in such a manner that this purpose shall be from the of the building, one cannot be too much at a which might be indifferently—the of a king, a of communes, a town-hall, a college, a riding-school, an academy, a warehouse, a court-house, a museum, a barracks, a sepulchre, a temple, or a theatre. However, it is an Exchange. An ought to be, moreover, to the climate. This one is for our cold and rainy skies. It has a almost as as in the East, which the in winter, when it snows; and of are to be swept. As for its purpose, of which we just spoke, it it to a marvel; it is a in France as it would have been a temple in Greece. It is true that the was at a good of trouble to the clock face, which would have the purity of the lines of the façade; but, on the other hand, we have that which circles the and under which, on days of high religious ceremony, the of the stock-brokers and the of can be so majestically.
These are very superb structures. Let us add a quantity of fine, amusing, and streets, like the Rue de Rivoli, and I do not of Paris to the eye, when viewed from a balloon, that of line, that of detail, that of aspect, that something in the simple, and in the beautiful, which a checker-board.
However, as the Paris of to-day may to you, the Paris of the century, call it up you in thought; look at the sky that of spires, towers, and belfries; spread out in the centre of the city, tear away at the point of the islands, at the of the bridges, the Seine, with its green and yellow expanses, more than the skin of a serpent; project against an the Gothic profile of this Paris. Make its in a winter’s which to its chimneys; it in night and watch the odd play of lights and in that of edifices; upon it a of light which shall it and to from the the great of the towers; or take that black again, with the thousand of the and gables, and make it start out more than a shark’s against a copper-colored western sky,—and then compare.
And if you wish to of the city an with which the modern one can no longer you, climb—on the of some festival, the sun of Easter or of Pentecost—climb upon some point, you the entire capital; and be present at the of the chimes. Behold, at a from heaven, for it is the sun which it, all those churches simultaneously. First come strokes, from one church to another, as when give that they are about to begin. Then, all at once, behold!—for it at times, as though the ear also a of its own,—behold, from each tower, something like a of sound, a cloud of harmony. First, the of each upwards, pure and, so to speak, from the others, into the sky; then, little by little, as they they melt together, mingle, are in each other, and in a concert. It is no longer anything but a of sent from the belfries; floats, undulates, bounds, over the city, and the the circle of its oscillations.
Nevertheless, this sea of is not a chaos; great and as it is, it has not its transparency; you the of each group of notes which from the belfries. You can the dialogue, by and shrill, of the and the bass; you can see the from one tower to another; you watch them forth, winged, light, and whistling, from the bell, to fall, and from the of wood; you in their the rich which and re-ascends the seven of Saint-Eustache; you see light and notes across it, three or four zigzags, and like of lightning. Yonder is the Abbey of Saint-Martin, a shrill, singer; here the and voice of the Bastille; at the other end, the great tower of the Louvre, with its bass. The of the on all sides, and without relaxation, trills, upon which fall, at regular intervals, the from the of Notre-Dame, which makes them like the under the hammer. At you the passage of of all which come from the of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Then, again, from time to time, this of opens and passage to the of the Ave Maria, which and like an of stars. Below, in the very of the concert, you the of the churches, which through the of their roofs.
Assuredly, this is an which it is the trouble of to. Ordinarily, the noise which from Paris by day is the city speaking; by night, it is the city breathing; in this case, it is the city singing. Lend an ear, then, to this of towers; spread over all the of a men, the of the river, the of the wind, the and of the four upon the hills, on the horizon, like of organ pipes; extinguish, as in a shade, all that is too and too about the chime, and say you know anything in the world more rich and joyful, more golden, more dazzling, than this of and chimes;—than this of music,—than these ten thousand voices in the of stone, three hundred high,—than this city which is no longer anything but an orchestra,—than this which produces the noise of a tempest.
BOOK FOURTH.
