Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

The day of the king’s sentence, one of the deputies, Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, who had voted for death, was assassinated just after he had left the Assembly, by a former member of the Body-guard named Pàris. The Convention ordered that he should receive the honours of the Pantheon, and assisted in a body at his funeral. This incident caused a deep sensation, deeper, it is said, even than the execution of the king, which took place on the 21st of January, 1793. The deepest indignation, too, was excited by the news that among those who had voted for the king’s death was his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, the so-called Philippe Égalité, whose son, Louis Philippe, was thirty-seven years afterwards to ascend the French throne. Writing in the Revue des Deux Mondes a few years after the latter event, Châteaubriand reproached the reigning king in plain terms with being the son of a regicide. Arguing that since the execution of Louis XVI., and as a punishment for that crime, it had become impossible to establish monarchy in France, he added: —

“Napoleon saw the diadem fall from his brow in spite of his victories; Charles X., in spite of his piety. To discredit the Crown finally in the eyes of the nations, it has been permitted to the son of the regicide to lie for one moment in the bloodstained bed of the murdered man.” That Louis Philippe suffered this outburst to be published unchallenged has been regarded as a proof of his extreme tolerance in press matters. Probably, however, he thought it prudent not to invite general attention to words which, by a large portion of his subjects, would have been accepted as justifiable.

It has been said by the defenders of the “regicide” that Philippe Égalité did his best not to be present at the sitting of the Convention when sentence had to be passed on the unfortunate king; but that he was threatened by his friends of the Left with assassination unless he voted with them for the “death of the tyrant.” However that may be, he took his seat among the judges by whom the fate of his royal kinsman was to be decided, and, when it became his turn to deliver his opinion, did so in the following words: “Occupied solely with my duty, convinced that all those who have attacked, or might afterwards attack, the sovereignty of the people deserve death, I pronounce the death of Louis.”

Philippe Égalité had looked for general approval, and had voted in fear of death – which awaited him all the same, and came to him in the very form in which a few months before it had been inflicted on the unhappy Louis. When his vote was made known cries of indignation from all sides warned him that he had transgressed one of the great moral laws which are observed even by men who violate all others. Then it was that a former soldier of the King’s Body-guard, hearing of Philippe Égalité’s unnatural offence, resolved to kill him, but not being able to find him, killed another less guilty “regicide” in his place.

Very different was the feeling excited by the conduct of Philippe Égalité in the breast of the king himself. “I don’t know by what chance,” says the Abbé Edgeworth in his “Relation sur les Derniers Momens du Roi,” “the conversation fell upon Philippe. The king seemed to be well acquainted with his intrigues and with the horrid part he had taken at the Convention. But he spoke of him without any bitterness, and with pity rather than with anger. ‘What have I done to my cousin,’ he exclaimed, ‘that he should so persecute me? What object could he have? Oh, he is more to be pitied than I am. My lot is melancholy, no doubt, but his is much more so.’”

Meanwhile the faction of the Assembly which in the beginning of September, 1792, had, by its excited declamation and denunciation, brought about the massacre of the prisoners, was constantly attempting, in combination with other factions, to arrest some of the most influential members of the majority, accuse them of treason, and bring them before the Revolutionary Tribunal. On the 2nd of June, 1793, they struck their first blow; and on the 3rd of October in the same year they denounced forty-four deputies, ordered the arrest of seventy-one, and compelled many more to take to flight and seek safety in concealment. The majority was thus diminished by 150 members: the minority in fact became the majority.

Then one of the authors of these measures, Robespierre, hoping to monopolise whatever fruits they might bear, and finding no further obstacle to his ambition, became dictator in fact, bent everything beneath his will, and reigned by terror. During fourteen months he subjected the French to a ferocious tyranny. At Paris alone thirty, forty, sixty heads fell daily. At length, on the 27th of July, 1794, this monster, together with his chief accomplices, paid his reckoning, and France was delivered from an intolerable yoke. To the general desolation, grief, and alarm now succeeded the liveliest joy. The doors of many prisons were thrown open; the instrument of death ceased to ply its blade.

The Convention, free and tranquil, despite the difficulties it experienced from foreign factions, was now to pursue its way and to give France a constitution. On the 26th of October, 1795, it terminated its session.

The Conventional Assembly, at war with all the States of Europe, at war even with the French inhabitants of some of the western provinces, surrounded by distractions and dangers to which some of its own members fell victims, did not omit to encourage the arts and sciences, particularly those of practical utility, nor to found public institutions of the highest importance. The development it gave to the national schools and hospitals, to mention these alone, has already been touched upon in previous chapters. A report drawn up in the third year of the Republic by the savant Foucroy, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, on the “Arts which had served for the defence of the Republic,” contains some interesting details. Within nine months, it was boasted, 12,000,000 pounds of saltpetre had been manufactured and stored in the magazines of the Republic, whereas, previously, the merest fraction of that quantity had been yearly produced.

A method had been introduced, moreover, for manufacturing gunpowder in a few hours with machines of the greatest simplicity. Hitherto France had been dependent on the neighbouring nations for the manufacture of steel. England and Germany had been accustomed to furnish her with this metal at a charge of about 4,000,000 francs a year. Now several factories rose in places where the production of steel had been hitherto unknown.

During the same period many improvements were introduced in the manufacture of muskets; the number of cannon foundries was greatly increased, a species of balloon was used as a war vehicle; and, to pass from war to peace, weights and measures were rendered uniform.

The system of national education with nominal charges (averaging ten francs a month), at the gymnasiums, with free lectures by the best professors at the Sorbonne and the College of France, is due to the Convention. So, too, is the famous Conservatoire de Musique, with its gratuitous teaching, which has had the effect of turning France from an unmusical into an eminently musical nation. For an interesting and valuable account of the constructive measures adopted by the French Republic, which is usually credited with measures of destruction alone, the reader is referred to Mr. Morse Stephens’s excellent “History of the French Revolution.”

Having been endowed by the Republic with a legislative body, France was never afterwards without one, though its importance varied according to the form and character of the Government. From the Riding School of the Tuileries the Assembly moved to the Tuileries itself, and governing the country as the Convention really did, it had the right, perhaps, to establish itself in the palace of the French kings. Napoleon, however, wanted the Tuileries for himself; and his Legislative Body now held its unimportant discussions in the Palais Bourbon; which remained the home of the French Parliament, under various names, until in 1871 the seat of government was changed from Paris to Versailles.

CHAPTER XXXII.
SOME HISTORICAL RESIDENCES

The Palace of the Legion of Honour – The Ministry of War – The Rue de Grenelle – Talleyrand

AN interesting walk on the left bank of the Seine is from the end of the Rue du Bac along the quay to the Pont des Invalides. To many persons the most remarkable house on the Quai d’Orsay is the café of the same name, which, by reason, no doubt, of its proximity to the Ministry of War, is largely frequented by superior officers. At No. 5 is a cavalry barrack occupied under the Restoration by the King’s Body-guard. Here, up to the time of the Revolution, was the office of the Court carriages which conveyed the public of Paris to the different royal residences, but went nowhere else. In 1788, the year before the Revolution, the prices were three livres ten sols (three francs ten sous, that is to say) for Versailles and St. – Germain, nine livres ten sols for Fontainebleau, and thirteen livres ten sols for Compiègne.

Close to the Café d’Orsay stood the Palace of the Council of State, laid in ruins by the Communists on the 24th of May, 1871.

The Palace of the Legion of Honour, one of the most beautiful buildings on the quay, was erected in 1786 by the architect Rousseau for Prince Frederic John Otho von Salm Kirburg, husband of Jeanne Françoise Fidèle Antoinette de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. The prince was well connected, for, husband of a Hohenzollern, he was brother-in-law of the Duc de Thouars and of the Prince de Croy. He sat as deputy for Lorraine in the Constituent Assembly, commanded a battalion of the National Guard of Paris, was condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined on the 23rd of July, 1794, four days before Robespierre, and in the same batch with the Prince de Montbazon-Rohan, M. de Beauharnais, and M. Gouy d’Arcy. He was brought to the scaffold under the name, negligently given to him by the Moniteur, of “H. Desalm-Kirbourg, Prince of Germany.”

The former palace of the princes of Salm has had almost as eventful a history as its first owners. It was put into a lottery, and won by a hairdresser’s assistant, who sold it to a man named Liertaud, who used to call himself the Marquis de Boisregard, until he was arrested for forgery, and passed from the Hôtel de Salm to the galleys of Toulon. The house was inhabited for a time, under the Directory, by Mme. de Stael, who made it the scene of those political assemblies which were destined to get her into trouble, and which, under the Empire, made it necessary for her to leave Paris and live abroad.

At last the Government bought the Hôtel de Salm, in 1803, and caused it to be arranged as the Palace of the Legion of Honour. Burnt and pillaged by the Commune, it was rebuilt on the original plan by a voluntary subscription, to which, on the invitation of the Grand Chancellor, General Vinoy, the members of the Legion of Honour contributed.

At the corner of the Quai d’Orsay, just where the Boulevard St. – Germain terminates, is the Cercle Agricole, or Agricultural Club, composed almost exclusively of landed proprietors, and one of the best clubs in every respect that Paris possesses. The “Potato Club” it is humorously called by those who have no sympathy with agricultural pursuits, and who hold with a cert writer that “cultivators of wit have generally no land, and cultivators of land generally no wit.”

There are several Government offices in this neighbourhood: the Ministries of Agriculture, of Public Works, and of War.

The Ministry of War occupies a sort of island comprised between the Rue St. – Dominic, the Rue de Solferino, and the Rue de Bourgogne, with its principal entrance on the Boulevard St. – Germain, No. 231. The Dowager Princess of Conti inhabited the mansion until 1775, the year of her death. The next occupant was the Duc de Richelieu, who was succeeded by Loménic de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, and at the same time Minister of War in the year 1786, and by his brother, the Comte de Brienne, in 1789. Without being designated “Ministry of War,” the house seemed destined to be occupied by a succession of War Ministers. At last, however, it became national property, and from 1802 to 1804 it was inhabited by Lucien Bonaparte. After the proclamation of the Empire, Napoleon gave it to Mme. Laetitia Bonaparte; and it was not until the Restoration that the Hôtel de Brienne became finally the official residence of the Minister of War.

Close by, on the Boulevard St. – Germain, formerly Rue St. – Dominic, is installed the Central Depôt of Artillery. It occupies the whole of the ancient cloister of the monastery of the Reformed Dominicans, whose church is dedicated to St. Thomas Aquinas. To the right of the church portal, the little Rue St. – Thomas Aquinas conducts the visitor to a space surrounded by symmetrical buildings. He is now in the heart of the ancient convent. The large door to the right is that of the historical cloister, where the Museum of Artillery found a home until it was transferred to the Hotel des Invalides. The religious establishment, of which nothing but the church survives, was the convent of the general noviciate of the reformed Dominicans or Jacobins, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1631. The construction of the church did not commence till 1638. The architect was Pierre Bullet, and the foundation stone was laid by the Duchess de Luynes. It was not until nearly the middle of the next century – 1740 – that the edifice was completed. The interior is richly adorned with paintings from the brush of Blondel, Picot, Guillemot, Lemoyne, Lagrenée, Michel Vanloo, and Ary Scheffer. The church of St. – Thomas Aquinas is the most aristocratic in Paris, and a wedding within its walls possesses enormous fascination for the curious sightseer.

The Rue de Grenelle, which runs parallel to the old Rue St. – Dominique, is remarkable for a sculptural masterpiece – the fountain designed by Edmé Bouchardon, who himself executed the whole of the figures and bas-reliefs. The central figure, representing the town of Paris, and the two figures to right and left of it, symbolising the Seine and the Marne, are exquisite. Between the columns and beneath the pediment is a long Latin inscription, addressed by the Provost of the merchants of Paris to the glory of Louis XV., “the father and delight of his people, who, without shedding blood, has extended the frontiers of France.”

On the left, from No. 73 to No. 85, there is a whole series of remarkable houses, each associated with some person of distinction. At No. 73 died, in 1856, Viscount d’Arlincourt, once a popular novelist, now absolutely forgotten. His family was of ancient origin, and his father, a Farmer General, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Young D’Arlincourt became one of Napoleon’s chamberlains, and afterwards held some post in connection with the Council of State. At the Restoration he wished to attach himself to the service of the Court, but he was not successful, and returning to his castle in Normandy, gave himself up entirely to literature, in which, under the Empire, he gained some reputation. In the year 1825 he gave an entertainment in honour of the Duchess of Berry, which became celebrated, and was made the subject of elaborate descriptions in the newspapers. Running through the viscount’s estate was a winding stream, on which a bark had been prepared for the reception of the duchess, which was attended by the ladies of the neighbourhood costumed as shepherdesses. The young people of the surrounding villages, in arcadian attire, towed the boat with chains of flowers towards a Greek temple, where ballads of a chivalric kind were sung in praise of the honoured guests. White flags embroidered with fleurs de lys were waved in the air; and in the evening, after a sumptuous banquet, there were illuminations and a grand ballet. More than a thousand persons took part in these operatic scenes, which were marked by the same theatrical taste that distinguishes the viscount’s romances. He had begun, under the Empire, an epic poem, called “The Caroleid,” on the subject of Charlemagne, in which, beneath the features of Carolus Magnus, the physiognomy of Napoleon could be recognised. These passages were, however, marked out when, under the Restoration, the viscount published the complete work. The most successful of all M. d’Arlincourt’s books was “Le Solitaire,” which when it first appeared went through a number of editions, and was translated into many languages. It may be added that Bellini’s last opera, I Puritani, was based on a novel by M. d’Arlincourt, called “Cavaliers and Roundheads.”

At No. 75 Talleyrand resided as Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Directory. Before entering political life, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord studied theology and took holy orders. His family would have placed him in the army, but for an accident of rather a frightful kind, which happened to him in his childhood. His nurse had put him down in a field, while she walked away in conversation with her lover, and during her absence the child under her care was attacked by a pig, which bit away part of one of the calves and of one of the feet of the future diplomatist. At the age of twenty-one young Talleyrand was named Abbé of St. – Denis in the diocese of Rheims. He led the dissipated life common among the young abbés of his day; but he cultivated the society of intellectual men, and was on friendly terms with Mirabeau, Buffon, and Voltaire. In 1780 he was appointed Agent-General of the French clergy: a lucrative post which placed him in relations with the Minister, M. de Calonne, from whom he acquired ideas on the subject of finance which enabled him to repair his shattered fortune. Leading at the same time a life of pleasure and of affairs, Talleyrand did not remain insensible to the changes that were taking place around him; and in a letter addressed to his friend, Choiseul Gouffier, ambassador at Constantinople, he showed himself an intelligent advocate of political reform. A separate administration for the provinces – provincial self-government, in fact – was one of the remedies he proposed. He declared war against all privileges, and ended his letter by observing that “at last the people must count for something.” In 1788, the year before the Revolution, Talleyrand was made Bishop of Autun, with an income of 80,000 francs. A member of the Assembly of Notables in the month of November in this year, he showed himself one of the warmest advocates of the new ideas, and became at this time the friend of Necker. The clergy of his diocese sent Talleyrand as deputy to the States-General of 1789. Here he ranged himself on the popular side, and voted for the union of the two privileged orders (nobility and clergy) with the Tiers États. He voted, too, for the suppression of tithes, and for the constitution of an executive with responsible ministers.

At the great Federation Festival in the Champs de Mars, it was Talleyrand who celebrated mass on the altar of the country, and a few months afterwards he gave up the bishopric of Autun. For supporting the civil constitution of the clergy he drew upon himself a decree of excommunication. In 1791 Talleyrand undertook his first diplomatic mission, being sent to London in order, if possible, to obtain a declaration of neutrality from England. In this he was unsuccessful. The atmosphere of London, however, suited him better than that of Paris, and Talleyrand kept away from France until after the Reign of Terror. From England he had passed to the United States. But on the formation of the Directory he thought the time had come for him to go back to France; and though his name had been placed on the list of émigrés, he had no trouble in obtaining permission to return. He now established friendly relations with Barras, with Chénier, and with Mme. de Stael, and, in spite of some opposition from the austere Carnot, who disliked Talleyrand’s levity, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, or “director of external relations.” He at once recognised the genius of the young chief who, as General Bonaparte, had already made himself a great name; and Talleyrand’s appointment as Foreign Minister was renewed when Napoleon became First Consul. He foresaw the establishment of the Empire, and encouraged Napoleon in that direction. He had a serious misunderstanding with the emperor in regard to the execution of the Duke d’Enghien, which Talleyrand strongly condemned, though, according to Napoleon, it was he who first suggested it.

Talleyrand had more than one difference of opinion with Napoleon, and on a certain occasion the emperor, half familiarly, half contemptuously, pulled him by the ear. “What a pity,” exclaimed Talleyrand, “that so great a man should be so ill-bred!” More than once Talleyrand was dismissed from Napoleon’s service; but in moments of difficulty it was found necessary to recall him. Finally, however, on Napoleon’s fall, he got the Emperor of Russia to declare that he would treat neither with Napoleon nor with any member of his family. Talleyrand used all his influence, moreover, with the Senate to procure its acceptance of the Bourbons, sure by this means to secure the favour of Louis XVIII. “Il n’y a rien de changé: il n’y a qu’un Français de plus” – was the phrase which Talleyrand at this time put into the mouth of the king’s brother, Count d’Artois, who, after a time, believed that he had really uttered it. The restored monarchy, however, gave the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Duc de Richelieu, Talleyrand receiving an office he had before held under Napoleon, that of Grand Chamberlain, with a salary of 100,000 francs.

When the Revolution of 1830 broke out, the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe, consulted Talleyrand as to whether, should he accept the throne, the European powers would be likely to recognise him. Talleyrand wrote to the Duke of Wellington, at that time Prime Minister, and, finding that England would make no objection, took it for granted that there would be no trouble with Russia, while it was comparatively unimportant what views the other governments might take. A month afterwards he started for London, where he had been appointed ambassador, and where he laid the foundation of that entente cordiale (the expression was Guizot’s) which has secured to both countries a long period of peace.

In 1834 Talleyrand, now in his eighty-first year, resigned his embassy and returned to Paris, where, no longer taking part in public affairs, he died four years afterwards. “Talleyrand spoke little,” says Capefigue, “but with exquisite delicacy said all that it was necessary to say with precision and politeness. He defined a situation by a word; terminated a discussion by a phrase. He had seen so many events, so many men, and so many passions, that no small thing could excite him. He could meet anger, bursts of temper, with the most impassible countenance. To a reproach he would reply by some charming mot. Thus, when Napoleon said to him abruptly one day: “They say you are very rich, M. de Talleyrand; you have made lucky speculations on the stock exchange.” “Yes,” was his answer, “I bought into the funds on the eve of the 18th Brumaire” – the day on which Napoleon made his celebrated coup d’état.

Many witticisms have of course been attributed to Talleyrand which he never uttered, and many more, which he did utter, but which were not absolutely original. According to M. Edouard Fournier he was a constant student of a collection of jests entitled, with curious irony, “L’Improvisateur Français.” All necessary deductions, however, having been made, the fact remains that this statesman was very witty, and with a wit characteristically his own. “Language was given to man in order to conceal his thoughts” is, perhaps, the most famous of his sallies. When someone said in his presence that M. Thiers was a “parvenu,” “not parvenu, but arrivé,” he remarked.

Besides being witty himself, he was according to M. Louis Blanc, the cause at least on one occasion of wit in another. When Talleyrand was dying, says the author of “The History of Ten Years,” King Louis Philippe went to see him. “Je souffre les tourments d’enfer,” complained Talleyrand. “Déjà?” the king is reported to have muttered. This story, however, was at the time of M. Louis Blanc’s writing at least two or three centuries old, and there is no reason for supposing that either Talleyrand or the king uttered the words attributed to them by this always interesting but generally inaccurate historian.

As a rule Talleyrand’s witticisms were marked by politeness. But he could say severe things; and once when a lady, who suffered from defective vision, seemed by her mode of inquiry after his health to be hinting at his lameness, he replied to her “Comment allez vous?” “Comme vous voyez, Madame.” His “Surtout pas de zèle” is well known; also his amusing if cynical caution on the subject of spontaneity: “Beware of first impulses: they are nearly always generous.”