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

More than one reference to the defence of the Cloître St. – Méry will be found in the novels of Balzac, and a dramatic description of it occurs in the memoirs of Alexandre Dumas.

CHAPTER IX

THE BOULEVARDS (continued)

The Porte St. – Martin – Porte St. – Denis – The Burial Place of the French Kings – Funeral of Louis XV. – Funeral of the Count de Chambord – Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle – Boulevard Poissonnière – Boulevard Montmartre – Frascati.

JUST beyond the Porte Saint-Martin the Boulevard Saint-Denis crosses the great thoroughfare, which is called on one side Boulevard de Sébastopol, on the other, Boulevard de Strasbourg. The Boulevard de Strasbourg was so designated (long before the Franco-German war, which suggests quite another origin for the name) in honour of the city where Prince Louis Napoleon made his first attempt to restore the Empire in France. The circumstances of the rash enterprise, represented at the time by the Government newspapers as merely ridiculous, were sufficiently romantic to deserve a few words of mention. Quitting his mother, with whom he had been living at the Castle of Arenberg, in Switzerland, he went as if to take the waters at Baden-Baden, a place he found suitable to his purpose from its vicinity to Alsace, and from the opportunity it afforded him of covering his ambitious views under the mask of pleasure. It was there that the prince gained the co-operation of Colonel Vaudrey, who commanded the 4th regiment of artillery at Strasburg, in which frontier city the prince had resolved to proclaim the restoration of the Empire before marching towards the capital. The Alsacian democrats were to be gained over by holding out to them a prospect of a fair representation of the people, while the garrison of Strasburg was to be captivated by the cry of “Vive l’Empereur!” The citizens were to be summoned to liberty, and the young men of the schools to arms. The ramparts were then to be entrusted to the keeping of the national guards, and the prince was to march to Paris at the head of the troops. “And then,” says Louis Blanc, in his sketch of the project, “the pictures that naturally presented themselves to the mind of Louis Napoleon were towns surprised, garrisons carried away by the movement, young men eagerly enlisting among his adventurous followers, old soldiers quitting the plough from all quarters to salute the eagle borne aloft, amidst acclamations, caught up by echo after echo along the roads; bitter recollections of the invasion, proud memories of the great wars, reviving, meanwhile, in every part of the Vosges, Lorraine, and Champagne.” The ardour of the conspirators steadily increased, and had they not possessed resolution and daring of their own, there was a woman in their midst who would have set them a bold example. Madame Gordon, the daughter of a captain of the Imperial Guard, had been initiated at Lille into the projects of Louis Napoleon without the knowledge of the prince himself, and entering impetuously into the conspiracy, she hastened to Strasburg, or rather to Baden-Baden in the immediate neighbourhood, and, appearing there as a professional singer, gave a series of concerts. Prince Louis was charmed with the lady’s talents, and, on expressing his admiration, was astonished to find that she had come to Baden-Baden with no object but to help him in the attempt he was about to make on the other side of the Rhine.

The Strasburg expedition having failed, it pleased the enemies of the prince to cast ridicule upon it; and he was accused of having exhibited himself in his uncle’s boots, just as some years afterwards, in connection with the Boulogne expedition, he was said to have carried with him a trained eagle which at a given moment was to fly to the top of the Boulogne Column in memory of the Great Army. Both at Boulogne, however, and at Strasburg the prince had considerable chances of success: a fact sufficiently proved (apart from any demonstration in detail) by the popularity he was seen to possess when, in 1848, he appeared as candidate for the Presidency of the French Republic. At Strasburg, as afterwards at Boulogne, he did not make his attack until after he had had the ground thoroughly reconnoitred, and had ascertained that the troops before whom he was about to present himself were largely composed of his partisans.

The soldiers of the 4th regiment of artillery were waiting, drawn up face to face in two lines, with their eyes fixed on Colonel Vaudrey, who stood alone in the centre of the yard. Suddenly the prince appeared in the uniform of an artillery officer, and hurried up to the colonel, who introduced him to the troops, crying out: “Soldiers, a great revolution begins at this moment. The nephew of the Emperor stands before you. He comes to place himself at your head. He is here on French soil to restore to France her glory and her liberty. He is here to conquer or to die for a great cause – the cause of the people. Soldiers of the 4th regiment of artillery, may the Emperor’s nephew reckon on you?” At these words an indescribable transport seized the troops. As one man they cried, “Vive l’Empereur!” and brandished their arms amid shouts of enthusiasm. Louis Napoleon, deeply affected, made signs that he wished to speak. “It was in your regiment,” he said, “that the Emperor Napoleon, my uncle, first saw service; with you he distinguished himself at the siege of Toulon; it was your brave regiment that opened the gates of Grenoble to him on his return from the island of Elba. Soldiers, new destinies are reserved for you!” And, taking the Eagle from an officer who carried it, “Here,” he said, “is the symbol of French glory, which must henceforth be also the symbol of liberty.” The shouts were redoubled, they mingled with the strains of martial music, and the regiment prepared to march.

The excitement went on increasing, and cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” filled the air, when suddenly a strange rumour began to spread. It was said that the self-proclaimed nephew of the emperor was in reality the nephew of Colonel Vaudrey. The enthusiasts of a second before, lending ear to the idle whisper, now hesitated; and in revolts the man who hesitates or meets with hesitation is lost. The people of Strasburg had shown numerous marks of sympathy for the heir of the first Napoleon, and many officers and soldiers had espoused his cause. But the first impulse had received a check, and the power of discipline and routine soon asserted itself. The question now was, how the heir of the first Napoleon might escape from the mass of troops by which he was surrounded. Two of his adherents offered to cut a way for him, sword in hand; but this wild proposal was naturally rejected, and the prince had to surrender himself prisoner.

What to do with him, however, was for some time a difficult problem to the authorities. To try the Prince by an ordinary jury would be awkward, inasmuch as there was a considerable chance of his acquittal; while it was already known that if he were brought before the Chamber of Peers, many members of that august body had declared their resolution not to sit in judgment upon him. At last it was resolved to send him into exile. He was not allowed to go back to Switzerland, where he had been living for some years, and he was ultimately ordered to make America his destination. It was said that he promised to remain there for not less than ten years. But there is no proof of any such compact having been entered into, and the prince was soon to be heard of again in London.

Formerly associated solely with the first attempt of Prince Louis Napoleon to place himself on the throne of France, the Boulevard of Strasburg now seems to mark the fact that the Alsatian city, so thoroughly French in feeling, has been made the capital of a province of the German Empire.

It has been said that the Boulevard Saint-Denis crosses the Boulevard de Strasbourg; and it terminates at the Porte Saint-Denis, erected two years earlier than the Porte Saint-Martin, to which it is superior both by the boldness of its architecture and by the magnificence of its ornamentation.

The Porte Saint-Denis was constructed in 1672 by the order and at the expense of the City of Paris, to celebrate the success of that astonishing campaign in which, during less than sixty days, forty strongholds and three provinces fell before the armies of the victorious monarch. The town side of the arch bears, on the left, a colossal figure of Holland, on the right, another of the Rhine: two masterpieces, due to the chisel of the Auguier Brothers. At the top of the arch is a frieze representing in low relief the famous passage of the Rhine under the orders of Louis XIV. On the Faubourg side the low relief at the top of the arch represents the taking of Maestricht. The Porte Saint-Denis bears this simple inscription: “Ludovico Magno” – “To Louis the Great.”

At the end of the Rue Faubourg Saint-Denis is the necropolis of Saint-Denis – the burial-place of the French kings.

The obsequies of French kings have from the earliest times been attended with as much pomp and show as their coronations. It was not enough to embalm the body, place it in several coffins, and finally carry it to the royal burial place at Saint-Denis – to observe an elaborate ceremonial, which the Court functionaries and the officials of State followed out to the minutest detail; the effigy of the dead king was exposed for forty days in the palace, stretched on a State bed, clothed in royal garments, the crown on the head, the sceptre in the right hand, and the brand of justice on the left, with a crucifix, a vessel of holy water, and two golden censers at the foot of the couch. The officers of the palace, meanwhile, continued their duties as usual, and even went so far as to serve the king’s meals as though he were still living. The embalmed body was afterwards transported to the Abbey of Saint-Denis, with the innumerable formalities laid down beforehand; while at the interment so many honours were paid to it that to enumerate them would be to fill a small volume. The details of the ceremony were so minute and fastidious that battles of etiquette constantly took place among the exalted persons figuring in the assembly.

At the burial of Philip Augustus, the Papal Legate and the Archbishop of Rheims disputed for precedence; and as neither would give way, they performed service at the same time in the same church, but at different altars. A like scandal occurred at the funeral of St. Louis. When his successor, Philip III., wished to enter the Abbey of Saint-Denis at the head of the procession, the doors were closed in his face. The abbot objected to the presence, not of the king, his master, but of the Bishop of Paris and the Archbishop of Sens, whom he had observed among the officiating clergy, and who, according to his view, had no right to perform service in the Abbey of Saint-Denis, where he alone was chief. The difference was arranged by the archbishop and bishop stripping themselves of their pontifical garments, and acknowledging the supremacy of the abbot in his own sanctuary.

At the death of Charles VI. it was found necessary to consult the Duke of Bedford as to the conduct of the funeral ceremony, and under the direction of the foreigner it was performed with great magnificence. The duke observed as nearly as possible the ancient ceremonial, the only important variation being that (possibly in his character of Englishman) he ordered the interment to be followed by a grand dinner. Even at the dinner – where, at least, concord might have been expected – there were absurd wranglings on points of etiquette between the State officials.

These royal funerals naturally cost enormous sums of money, which were charged partly to the Crown, partly to the City of Paris. The obsequies of Francis I. took five hundred thousand livres from the purse of his successor, without counting the contribution, probably of equal amount, from the town. The effigies of his two sons who had died before him were carried with his own relics to Saint-Denis. Thus there were three coffins in the procession. By the observance of a similar custom, there were in the funeral procession of St. Louis no fewer than five.

At the interments of the old kings genuine grief was often exhibited by the people. Such, however, was not the case at the obsequies of Louis XIV. The Duke de Saint-Simon, in his Memoirs, speaks of this funeral as a very poor affair, remarkable only for the confused style in which it was conducted. The king had left no directions in regard to his burial; and partly for the sake of economy, partly to save trouble, it was decided to regulate the ceremonies by those observed at the interment of Louis XIII., who, in his will, had ordered that they should be as simple as possible. “His modesty and humility, like the other Christian and heroic qualities he possessed, had not,” says Saint-Simon, “descended to his son. But the funeral of Louis XIII. was accepted as a precedent, and no one saw the slightest objection to it, attachment and gratitude being virtues which had ceased to exist.” Nor did the Duke of Orleans pay a flattering tribute to the royal memory, when, regent though he had only just become, he absented himself from the ceremony of carrying the king’s heart to the Grand Jesuits: “that heart,” says Saint-Simon, “which loved no one, and which excited so little love.”

In addition to the usual distribution of alms, the Regent of Orleans associated the funeral of Louis XIV. with an exceptional act of mercy. A number of persons had been arbitrarily imprisoned on lettres de cachet and otherwise, some for Jansenism and various religious and political offences, others for reasons known only to the king or his former ministers. The regent ordered all the captives to be set at liberty, with the exception of a few who had been duly convicted of serious political or criminal misdeeds. Among the prisoners liberated from the Bastille was an Italian whose confinement had lasted thirty-five years, and who had been arrested the very day of his arrival at Paris, which he had come to see simply as a traveller. “No one ever knew why,” says Saint-Simon; “nor, like most of the others, had he ever been interrogated. It was thought to be a mistake. When his liberty was announced to him, he asked sadly of what use it was to him. He said that he had not a child, that he knew no one at Paris, nor even the name of a street, that his relations in Italy were probably dead, and that his property must have been divided among his heirs, on the supposition that he was dead. He asked to be allowed to remain at the Bastille for the rest of his life, with board and lodging. This was granted to him, with liberty to go out when he pleased. As for the prisoners released from the dungeons into which the hatred of the Ministers and that of the Jesuits had thrown them, the horrible condition in which they appeared inspired horror, and rendered credible all the cruelties they related when they were in full liberty.” The story of the Italian prisoner who declined to leave the Bastille is interesting from its having anticipated – perhaps it suggested – the one told by another prisoner on the occasion of the Bastille being taken by the Revolutionists in 1789.

The funeral of Louis XV. was a very hurried affair. The king died on the 10th of May, at twenty minutes past three. The whole Court instantly took flight, and there only remained with the body a few persons required for the care of it. The utmost precipitation was used in removing it from Versailles. None of the usual formalities were observed. Everyone was afraid to go near the body – undertakers, like the rest, feared the small-pox, of which the king had died – and the corpse was carried to Saint-Denis in an ordinary travelling carriage, under the care of forty members of the body-guard and a few pages. The escort hurried on the dead man in the most indecent manner, and all along the road the greatest levity was shown by the spectators. The public-houses were filled with uproarious guests; and it is said that when the landlord of one of them tried to silence a troublesome customer by reminding him that the king was about to pass, the man replied: “The rogue starved us in his lifetime. Does he want us to perish of thirst now that he is dead?” A jest different in style, but showing equally in what esteem Louis XV. was held by his subjects, is attributed to the Abbé of Sainte-Geneviève. Being taunted with the powerlessness of his saint and the little effect which the opening of his shrine, formerly so efficacious, had produced, he replied: “What, gentlemen, have you to complain of? Is he not dead?”

The last of the Bourbons buried at Saint-Denis was Louis XVIII., whose obsequies were conducted as nearly as possible on the ancient regal pattern. The exhibition of the king’s effigy in wax had in Louis XVIII.’s time been out of fashion for more than a century. But the customs observed in connection with the lying-in-state of Louis XIV. were for the most part revived. The king, who died on the 16th of September, 1824, was embalmed, and on the 18th his body was exposed on a State bed in the hall of the throne. His bowels and heart had been enclosed in caskets of enamel. The exhibition of the body lasted six days, during which it was constantly surrounded by the officers of the Crown and the superior clergy. The translation of the remains to St. – Denis took place on the 23rd, in the midst of an imposing civil and military procession. The princes of the blood and grand officers of State occupied fourteen mourning coaches, each with eight horses, and the tail of the procession was formed by 400 poor men and women bearing torches. Received at the entrance to the church by the Dean of the Royal Chapter and the Grand Almoner of France, the body was placed on trestles in the chancel, while prayers were recited by the clergy. It was afterwards removed to an illuminated chapel, where it lay exposed for a whole month, the chapter performing services night and day. The interment took place on the 25th of October. The grand almoner celebrated a solemn mass; and after the Gospel a funeral oration was pronounced by the Bishop of Hermopolis. Then four bishops uttered a benediction over the body, and absolution was pronounced; twelve of the body-guard thereupon carrying the coffin down to the royal vault, where the grand almoner cast a shovelful of earth on it, and blessed it, saying: “Requiescat in pace.” The king-at-arms approached the open vault, threw into it his wand, helmet, and coat-of-arms, ordered the other heralds to imitate him, and calling up the grand officers of the Crown, told them to bring the insignia of the authority they held from the defunct king. Each came in succession with the object entrusted to his care: such as the banner of the royal guard, the flags of the body-guard, the spurs, the gauntlets, the shield, the coat-of-arms, the helm, the pennon, the brand of justice, the sceptre, and the crown. The royal sword and banner were only presented at the mouth of the vault. The Grand Master of France now inclined the end of his staff towards the coffin, and cried in a loud voice: “The king is dead!” The king-at-arms, taking three steps backwards, repeated in the same tone: “The king is dead; the king is dead!” Then, turning towards the persons assembled, he added: “Let us now pray to God for the repose of his soul.” The clergy and all present fell on their knees, prayed, and then stood up. The grand master next drew back his staff, raised it in the air, and exclaimed: “Long live the king!” The king-at-arms repeated: “Long live the king! Long live the king! Long live King Charles, the tenth of the name, by the grace of God King of France and of Navarre; very Christian, very august, very powerful; our honoured lord and master, to whom may God grant a life long and happy. Cry all ‘Long live the king! Long live Charles X.!’” The tomb was closed, and the ceremony was at an end.

At the funeral of the Count de Chambord the hearse was surmounted by a dome, on which rested four crowns. It was not explained what kingdoms these crowns were intended to represent. As the head of the House of France, the right of the count, heraldically speaking, to wear the French crown would scarcely be disputed. The four symbolical crowns on the count’s hearse were possibly, then, meant to be simple reminders that the Bourbons claimed sovereign rights over four different countries; and in the days of Louis Philippe they indeed reigned in France, Spain, Naples, and Parma. But the Revolution of 1848 in France and the war of 1859 in Italy cleared three thrones of their Bourbon occupants, and the last of the reigning Bourbons disappeared when, in 1868, Isabella of Spain fled from Madrid. Thus, in the course of twenty years the four Bourbon crowns lost all real significance; and the Bourbon sovereigns had simply increased the numbers of those “kings in exile,” so much more plentiful during the period of M. Alphonse Daudet than at that of Voltaire, who first observed them, in Candide, as a separate species.

Now that the Comte de Chambord reposes by the side of his grandfather, Charles X., there are as many of the Bourbons buried at Göritz as at Saint-Denis, where, in the burial-place of the French kings, the only really authentic bodies are those of the Duke of Berri, the Count of Chambord’s father, and Louis XVIII., his great-uncle. In regard to the later occupants of the French throne, it is at least certain where they are interred; Napoleon I. at the Invalides, Louis Philippe at Claremont, Napoleon III. at Chiselhurst, and the last two representatives of the Bourbons at Göritz. The first of the Bourbons, Henri IV., as likewise his successors, Louis XIII., Louis XIV., and Louis XV., were buried at Saint-Denis, in the vault known as that of the Bourbons; and to the coffins still supposed to contain their remains were added, after the Restoration, two more, reputed – without adequate foundation for the belief – to hold the bodies of Louis XVI. and of the child who died in the Temple – the so-called Louis XVII. The body of the Duke of Berri was laid in the vault of the Bourbons a few days after his assassination in 1820; and that of Louis XVIII. was consigned to the same resting-place in 1824. But in 1793 the tombs of the French kings had been dismantled, and their contents re-interred promiscuously in two large graves, hastily dug for the purpose; and the identity of the bones asserted to be those of Louis XVI. and Louis XVII., which were not placed in the Bourbon vault of the Saint-Denis church until 1815, could scarcely be demonstrated.

“To celebrate the 10th of August, which marks the downfall of the French Throne, we must, on its anniversary,” said Barrère, in his report addressed to the French Convention, “destroy the splendid mausoleums at Saint-Denis. Under the monarchy the very tombs had learned to flatter the kings. Their haughtiness, their love of display, could not be subdued even on the theatre of death; and the sceptre-bearers who have done so much harm to France and to humanity seem even in the grave to be proud of their vanished greatness. The powerful hand of the Republic must efface without pity those arrogant epitaphs and demolish those mausoleums which would revive the frightful recollections of the kings.”

The proposition of Barrère was adopted, and the National Assembly decreed “that the tombs and mausoleums of the former kings in the Church of Saint-Denis should be destroyed.” The execution of the decree was undertaken on the 6th of August, and three days afterwards thirty-one tombs had been swept away. Not the least remarkable of these tombs was the earliest, erected by St. Louis in honour of “Le Roi Dagobert,” of facetious memory, famed in song for having put on his breeches “à l’envers.” It is one of the most curious monuments of the thirteenth century, and at least as interesting for its subject as for its architecture. On three zones, superposed one upon the other, is represented the legend of Dagobert’s death. On the lowest zone we see St. Denis revealing to a sleeping anchorite, named Jean, that King Dagobert is suffering torments; and close by, the soul of Dagobert, represented by a naked child bearing a crown, is being maltreated by demons, frightfully ugly, who hold their prey in a boat. In the middle zone, the same demons are running precipitately from the boat, in the most grotesque attitudes, at the approach of the three saints, Denis, Martin, and Maurice, who have come to rescue the soul of King Dagobert. In the highest of the bas-reliefs the soul of King Dagobert is free. The naked child is now standing in a winding-sheet, of which the two ends are held by St. Denis and St. Martin; and angels are awaiting him in heaven, whither he is about to ascend. The commission appointed by the Convention did not destroy this tomb. They had it transported, with many other objects of artistic and intrinsic value, to Paris.