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

The theatre on the other side of the Place du Châtelet, and which belongs to the town of Paris, has been occupied since the year 1887 by the Opéra Comique, the establishment having been transferred to it soon after the disastrous fire which consumed the historic Salle Favart. It was originally the Théâtre Lyrique; directed by M. Carvalho, and associated with the triumphs of Mme. Miolan Carvalho, and the earliest successes of Christine Nilsson. Burnt by the Communards in May, 1871, it was re-opened as a dramatic theatre under the title of Théâtre Lyrique-Historique, afterwards to become Théâtre des Nations, Théâtre Italien, Théâtre de Paris, and finally in 1888 Opéra Comique. The interior of the house is more remarkable for elegance than for comfort. It holds 1,500 spectators. The Opéra Comique, as here established, receives an annual subvention of 300,000 francs.

The Boulevard de Sebastopol, which starts from the north of the Place du Châtelet, was, as the name sufficiently denotes, constructed in 1855; opening a broadway through the compact mass of old houses enclosed between the Rue Saint-Denis and the Rue Saint-Martin. It caused the destruction of no interesting edifices, and its roadway, thirty metres wide, is lined solely with new and lofty houses five storeys high. Here traders, artisans, and even artists are to be found: engravers and workers in metal, lamp-manufacturers, workers in bronze, haberdashers, mercers, clock-makers, jewellers, druggists, opticians, confectioners, dyers, lace-makers, button-makers, crape-makers, artificial flower makers, glovers, etc. This broad thoroughfare leads us to the end of the Boulevard Saint-Denis, passing behind the chancel of the Church of Saint-Leu, whose front entrance belongs to the Rue Saint-Denis, and behind the square of the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, which belongs to the Rue Saint-Martin. The street of the Lombards (Rue des Lombards) so much enlarged as to be no longer recognisable, is still the headquarters of the drug trade, wholesale and retail. But it does not now, as in former days, possess a monopoly for confectionery and sweetmeats. Even the Faithful Shepherd (Fidèle Berger), as one celebrated shop for the sale of bonbons was called, and which gave its title to the comic opera by Adolphe Adam, has migrated to a newer and more fashionable locality.

The Rue de la Verrerie, just opposite, runs in a direct line to the Rue Saint-Antoine. It has preserved in a remarkable manner its physiognomy of two centuries ago; thanks to the architecture of its fine mansions, which has nobly resisted the ravages of time. Who would ever imagine that this dark and narrow street, which is constantly blocked by the most ordinary traffic, was enlarged in 1671 and 1672 because it was the ordinary route along which Louis XIV., coming from the Castle of the Louvre to that of Vincennes, was in the habit of passing, besides being the road by which foreign ambassadors made their formal entry into Paris?

At the corner of the Rue de la Verrerie and the Rue Saint-Martin stands the Église Saint-Merry, or Méry. The name, spelt both ways, is in either form a corruption of Saint-Méderic, a monk of the monastery of Saint-Martin d’Autun, who lived a strange life in a cell, and died in odour of sanctity on the 29th of August, 1700. The church was reconstructed as long ago as the tenth century, at the expense of Odo the Falconer, whose body, enclosed in a tomb of stone, was discovered in 1520. The legs were encased in boots of gilded leather. Odo the Falconer was one of the warriors who defended Paris in 886 against the attacks of the Normans. The actual edifice was begun in the reign of Francis I., between 1520 and 1530, and not finished until 1612, under the minority of Louis XIII. Constructed in the form of a Latin cross, the Church of Saint-Merry has two lateral entrances. But from the south side, that is to say, from the Rue de la Verrerie, only a gate of the principal entrance can be seen, together with the two turrets terminating in bell towers, along which “chimæras dire” are crawling. Buried under the Church of Saint-Merry are Chapelain, author of “La Pucelle,” and the Marquis de Pomponne, Minister of Louis XIV. To the north of Saint-Merry stood the cloister of the canons, separated from the church by the façade of the Rue du Cloître, and by two narrow little streets bearing the expressive names of Brisemiche and Taillepain, on account of the daily distributions of bread of which they were the scene. At the back of the church the name of the Rue des Juges-Consuls recalls the fact that the first Tribunal of Commerce created by Charles IX. was installed there in a mansion which had belonged to President Baillet in 1570. The Tribunal of Commerce was, in the seventeenth century, the centre of a group of money-changers and bankers, who so infested the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue Quincampoix as to render them impassable.

The Rue Quincampoix is for ever associated with the name of Law, a Scotch banker related to the Argyll family, and son of a goldsmith and banker who died at Venice in 1729.

Law (John Lauriston Law) was born at Edinburgh in 1671, and he is said at an early age to have studied assiduously the doctrine of chances, which he applied to games of hazard. Whether in virtue of his arithmetical combinations or of that luck which during a long course of years never deserted him, he won large sums of money at the gambling-table, after which he turned his attention to gambling on a wider scale: finance, that is to say. He was still in his twenty-fifth year when, as the result of a love affair, he fought a duel, for which he was sentenced to death. His punishment was commuted to that of imprisonment for life; but he succeeded in escaping, left England, and for some time travelled through the different states of Europe, playing everywhere with success, and proposing everywhere, but without success, a new system of public credit, due to his inexhaustible imagination.

The system would, according to its inventor, multiply one hundredfold the resources of the State by putting into circulation a quantity of paper money, based upon the revenue from taxes and Government property of all kinds, coin, according to Law, being insufficient for the requirements of a large nation. The Regent of Orleans, captivated by this brilliant scheme, saw in it the means of saving France, at the time (1716) threatened by national bankruptcy. He, in the first place, granted to Law the privilege of establishing a general bank with a capital of 6,000,000 francs, divided into 12,000 shares of 500 francs each, with a discount of 25 per cent. to anyone purchasing a thousand shares. The shares were readily taken and the bank proved a great success.

Then, in connection with the bank, Law started successively the Mississippi Company, the Senegal Company, the China Company, the French East India Company, and companies for coining the State money and farming the State revenue. Having now got into his hands all the sources of public income, he made over his bank to the State, and was himself appointed Controller-General of Finance. Instead, however, of helping commerce, Law’s creations merely stimulated the spirit of speculation; so that priests, nobles, merchants, shopkeepers, workmen, all began to gamble in stocks and shares. Intoxicated by his success, Law issued an excessive number of shares: “watering” them, according to the financial expression of the present day. In due time, notwithstanding all kinds of expedients (such as forced currency for the new paper money) to keep them at par, the shares lost value in the market, and soon fell to such a point that their depreciation caused a general panic. There was no class in which some, and, indeed, many of Law’s shareholders were not to be found; and ere long the inventor of the new system of credit became the object of so much public indignation that he went in danger of his life. There was a riot in the Palais Royal, and Law’s carriage was stopped by a band of infuriated persons in the public street. A man of great nerve and of commanding presence, Law looked from the carriage window and exclaimed in a haughty tone: “Back, you rabble!” (Arrière canaille!) on which his assailants retired. This method of appeasing the stormy waters was tried the next day with less success by Law’s coachman. His master was not inside the carriage. The vehicle, however, had been recognised, and the coachman found his progress impeded by an angry mob. “Back, you rabble!” he cried, in imitation of his master; when the mob, unwilling to receive from the servant the defiance which they had listened to in all humility from the master, tore him from his box and put him to death.

Another carriage story of the same period, likewise associated with finance, has a less tragic conclusion. A footman who had learnt, by listening to the conversation of his master at dinner-table, the art of speculating, had at last made a sufficiently large fortune to be able to buy himself a carriage. As soon as he had taken possession of it, he paid a visit to the Rue Quincampoix, a narrow street near the Rue Saint-Martin, where the bankers, brokers, and speculators interested in Law’s various enterprises had their headquarters. After transacting a little business, the enriched flunkey entered a much-frequented café and refreshed himself. Some time afterwards, in a fit of absence due either to preoccupation or to the effect of alcoholic liquors, he left the café and, instead of getting into his carriage, got up behind it. “You have made a mistake, sir,” called out the coachman; “your place is inside.” “I know it is,” replied the proprietor of the vehicle, suddenly recovering his presence of mind; “I wanted to see whether there was room for a pair of lacqueys behind.”

If footmen became aristocrats, noblemen, in those subversive days, turned tradesmen.

The Regent made his money with the greatest ease, by simply fixing the official value of the shares he held at a figure which suited his book. The members of the Court followed his lead. One of them, the Duke de la Force, did business on an extended scale. Nothing was too high or too low for him; and on one occasion, being unable to realise the value of his paper in any more profitable form, he took for it the contents of a grocer’s shop. It was now necessary to sell the goods; on which the licensed grocers of the capital complained to the Lieutenant of Police that the Duke was entering into illegal competition with them. The Lieutenant did his duty, and the Duke’s tea and sugar were confiscated.

A footman named Languedoc, sent by his master to the Rue Quincampoix to sell some shares at a fixed rate, disposed of them for 500,000 francs more than the appointed price, and pocketing the balance, started as a gentleman on his own account, engaged servants and changed his name to that of Monsieur de La Bastide, by which he was thenceforth known.

In times of feverish speculation the surest winners are the brokers – those happy intermediaries who, whether their clients buy or sell, sink or swim, steadily take their commission. A famous intermediary of the Rue Quincampoix was a certain hunchback, who used to let out his hump as a desk for buyers, sellers, and dealers of all kinds. In a comparatively short time he is said to have realised as much as 50,000 francs.

When the financial crash arrived, it was felt necessary to punish someone, and proceedings were taken against Law by the Parliament of Paris. Law, as completely ruined as the most unfortunate of his victims, escaped to Belgium, and thence to England, to die ultimately in Italy.

“When I took service in France,” he wrote to the Duke of Orleans, “I had as much property as I needed. I was without debts and I had credit; I left the service without property of any kind. Those who placed confidence in me have been driven to bankruptcy, and I have not the means of paying them.”

At the time of his great failure, and for a long time afterwards, if not to the present day, Law was looked upon as a mere swindler; whereas he was nothing worse than a sanguine, over-confident, perhaps even reckless speculator. It has been seen that by his speculations he impoverished himself as well as others.

“The machine he had invented,” says one of his critics, M. Gautier, “was ingenious; but in a country like France, without industrial resources, it could not find sufficient motive power. Law thought he could remove this difficulty by joining to his mechanism an artificial motive power. He was wrong. The banks can no more found credit than credit can produce capital. They can turn to the best account a value that exists. But to create value is beyond their power.”

According to another French economist, M. Levasseur, “Law acted with the precipitation and violence of a man who, penetrated with the truth of his own ideas, marches straight towards his goal without caring whether the generality of persons understand him or not, and who becomes irritated when natural obstacles present themselves which he had not foreseen.”

Law himself, while asserting his own moral integrity, admitted that he had made mistakes. “I do not maintain,” he said, “that I was right on every point. I acknowledge that I committed errors, and that if I had to begin again I should act differently. I should advance more slowly but more surely, and should not expose the State and my own person to the dangers necessarily resulting from a general panic.” He persisted, however, in asserting that, though his mode of action had been faulty, he nevertheless possessed the true secret of national wealth. “Do not forget,” he wrote from his place of exile, “that the introduction of credit has done more for commercial transactions between the countries of Europe than the discovery of India; that it is for the Sovereign to give credit, not to receive it, and that the people of every country have such absolute need of it that they must return to it in spite of themselves, however much they may mistrust the principle.”

“We must render to this man,” says M. Levasseur, “the justice he merits. He was not, as has sometimes been said, an adventurer who had come to France to profit by the weakness of the Regent. If he was wanting in that political prudence by which nations should be guided, and if he was wrong in some of his theories, he had at least fixed principles, and he occupied his whole life, not in making his fortune, but in ensuring the triumph of his ideas… France allowed him to die in poverty. Yet if the recollection of the misery caused by the ruin of his system was somewhat too recent to give place to gratitude, France ought nevertheless to have felt grateful to him for the generous ideas he had put forth. He laboured to extend the commerce of the country, to re-establish the navy, to found colonies. He suppressed onerous privileges. He endeavoured to do away with venality in the magistracy; to create a less tyrannical and more simple administration of the tax system. Finally he established a bank, which, could it have survived, would have helped powerfully to develop commerce and would have augmented considerably the wealth of the country.”

It is not generally known that, besides introducing a new system of credit, Law was the inventor of pictorial advertisements. Specimens, however, have been preserved of the pictures issued by him in connection with the “flotation” of his Mississippi scheme, one of which represents the Indians on the banks of the river, dancing with joy at the approach of the French, who had come to civilise them.

CHAPTER XXVII

CENTRAL PARIS (continued)

Rue de Venise – Rachel – St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields – The Conservatoire des Artes et Métiers– The Gaité– Rue des Archives – The Mont de Piété – The National Printing Office – The Hôtel Lamoignon.

THE Rue Quincampoix and the Rue Saint-Martin are connected by a narrow lane or alley scarcely ten feet wide, called Rue de Venise, which has a sinister renown in connection with the speculative mania of Law’s time. Here it was, in the month of April, that a rich banker was enticed, under pretext of a sale of shares, and assassinated by Laurent de Mille and Count Horn, that same Count Horn whose servant, passing himself off as master, played so infamous a trick upon poor Angelica Kaufmann, ancestress of Pauline in the drama of The Lady of Lyons. A little higher up in the Rue de Venise, and, leading likewise to the Rue Quincampoix, is the Passage Molière, which owes its name to the Théâtre Molière, opened on the 4th of June, 1791, with a representation of the Misanthrope. In 1793 it was re-baptised Théâtre des Sans-Culottes. Its first director under its new name was Boursault-Malesherbes, comedian, member of the Convention, and farmer of public games. Closed and re-opened a score of times, this house became in the early years of Louis Philippe’s reign a theatre for dramatic instruction, where Mlle. Rachel received her first lessons from Saint-Aulaire.

Universally recognised as one of the greatest of French actresses, Rachel, of Jewish race, was born on the 28th of February, 1821, at Munf, a Swiss village in the Canton of Argovia. Her father and mother were, however, both French; the former, Jacques Felix, being a native of Metz, the latter, Esther Hayn, of Guers, in the department of the Lower Rhine. In the year 1831, Rachel, under her true name of Elisa, was a street singer at Lyons, where Choron, director of an important musical academy, chanced to hear her. He was so struck by the beauty of her voice that he called upon Elisa’s parents, and induced them to settle in Paris, where he promised to take charge of their little daughter’s musical education. He suggested that she should adopt in lieu of “Elisa” the more impressive name of Rachel. But before her studies had progressed very far she lost her voice; and Choron placed her in a dramatic class directed by Saint-Aulaire. This professor, a retired comedian who understood the art of acting better than he had ever practised it, had taken the Salle Molière just spoken of; and here during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836 Rachel was made to play a great variety of parts, including nearly every leading character in the plays of Corneille, Racine, and Molière. The charges for admission to the Salle Molière were moderate, but the house was always full when Rachel had been announced to play, and the tickets on these occasions were sold at a premium.

One day M. Védl, treasurer of the Théâtre Français, went to the Salle Molière to see a soubrette whom his manager thought of engaging. He was about to leave the theatre, when Saint-Aulaire begged him to remain in order to see a pupil who had not yet appeared, and of whom he entertained the greatest hopes. This, of course, was little Rachel, who was about to play the part of Hermione in Andromaque. She resembled none of the other pupils whom the emissary from the Théâtre Français had seen. She was small in stature and had a hard, almost a harsh voice; which, however, was firm and impressive, and, when the young girl became excited, almost musical. After the performance, M. Védl complimented the young actress, and promised to do his best for her at the important theatre with which he was connected. He at once spoke of her to M. Jouslin de La Salle, director of the Français, who, after seeing her in Tancrède, arranged a special performance, which was attended, in the character of judges, by M. Samson and Mlle. Mars. “She is too short,” objected one of the party. “She will grow,” replied Mlle. Mars significantly; and on the recommendation of the manager of the Théâtre Français she was admitted to the Conservatoire.

Rachel entered the class directed by M. Samson, one of the principal actors of the Théâtre Français, and under his tuition made rapid progress. Tempted, however, by an engagement offered to her at the Gymnase, she soon left the Conservatoire for that theatre, where she achieved a certain success as Suzette in Scribe’s Mariage de Raison. The experiment, however, was not altogether satisfactory, and she returned to the Conservatoire, and remained until May, 1838, when, on the recommendation of M. Samson, she was engaged at the Théâtre Français. Her first appearance there, as Camille in Les Horaces, took place on the 12th of June in this same year. She was then but sixteen years old, and only moderately pretty. Short for her age, she had the further disadvantage of being marked with the small-pox. With narrow chin, high cheek-bones, and a projecting forehead, she had brilliant, expressive eyes, at once thoughtful and full of fire. The pose of her head was admirable, and all her gestures were marked by dignity and distinction. Calm and self-contained throughout the greater part of the performance, she never abandoned herself to her emotion even while expressing the most ardent passion. There was intensity in all she did, and so novel, so individual was her style that she inspired her audience with the strongest personal admiration. She had now established her position at the greatest theatre in Europe; but it was at the little Salle Molière that she had first learned to act.

In the immediate neighbourhood, on the ancient territory of the Abbaye Saint-Martin, stands the Church of St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields, where the mayor or bailiff of the abbaye resided. Dating from the twelfth century, this church was rebuilt in 1420, and underwent various processes of modification and reconstruction until it received its definite form in 1576. Every style, from the Gothic of Charles VI. to the Neo-Roman of Henri III., has left its imprint in the highly composite architecture of this church, said to be the longest and the broadest in all Paris. In one of the chapels of the nave, dedicated to Saint Martin, is a picture which represents Saint Martin curing the leper by taking him in his arms; and the inscription sets forth that the priory of Saint Nicholas-in-the-Fields was founded on the spot where this miracle took place. In the fields of this church lie buried the philosopher Gassendi, and the historians Henri and Adrien de Valois, together with Malle de Scudéry, who wrote the once celebrated novels, “Le Grand Cyrus” and “Clélie.”

Under the Revolution the Church of Saint Nicholas-in-the-Fields was converted into “The Temple of Hymen.” Most of the property belonging to the religious community of Saint-Martin was sold by the Revolutionary Government. On a portion of what remained was built the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, which was created by a decree of the year 1794, though it did not finally take form until four years afterwards. The building, as it now exists, was partly restored, partly reconstructed, between the years 1852 and 1862, by M. Vandoyer.

The “arts and crafts,” until the time of the Revolution, formed close corporations of their own. The origin of these unions and guilds was very remote. In the middle ages the rules on the subject of apprenticeship were most severe; and after seven years’ subjection to a master the artisan became only a “companion” or varlet, and could still work only under the direction of a full member of the guild. To pass as master it was necessary for a “companion” to produce a masterpiece and to pay, moreover, certain dues, onerous for a mere workman; which forced a great number of these varlets to remain in their original condition. The corporations of arts and crafts were governed by a number of edicts which regulated not only the quality and quantity of the work to be done, but prescribed methods of manufacture, and provided for the settlement of disputes between artisans and merchants, or artisans and private persons engaging their services. These strange organisations had the worst effect in an economical sense, and many endeavours were made long before the Revolution to destroy the monopolies they created. In 1776, thirteen years previously to the Revolution, the corporations of arts and crafts were abolished by the famous Minister, Turgot. But the edict was evaded, and it was not until the Revolution, when things that were abolished were abolished for ever, that the French guilds finally disappeared.

The “Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers,” established soon after the Revolution, had no direct connection with the “arts and crafts,” whose organisation into guilds and close corporations had been suppressed. It was thought desirable, however, to form a central depôt where newly invented machines, together with machines whose utility had been tested, might be placed together for public inspection. Vaucanson, chiefly remembered by his ingenious automatic contrivances, had formed a collection of machines, which during his lifetime he threw open to working men, and at his death bequeathed to the monarchical government. Thus the nucleus of the important collection formed by the Republic already existed under Louis XVI.