ROUND ABOUT THE ARTS ET MÉTIERS (THE ARTS AND CRAFTS INSTITUTION)

ARRONDISSEMENT III. (TEMPLE)

ALONG stretch of the busy boulevard Sébastopol forms the boundary between arrondissements II and III. Several short old streets run between the Boulevard and Rue St-Martin. Rue Apolline (eighteenth century), Rue Blondel, Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, where curiously enough is a Jewish synagogue, show us some ancient houses. The latter, in the fifteenth century a roadway, in the seventeenth century a street along the course of a big drain, memorizes the convent once there. We find vestiges of an ancient hôtel at No. 6, and close by old passages: Passage du Vertbois, Passage des Quatre-Voleurs, Passage du Pont-aux-Biches. In Rue Papin we find the théâtre de la Gaîté, first set up at the Fair St-Laurent in the seventeenth century, here since 1861, when it was known as théâtre du Prince Impérial. Crossing Rue Turbigo, we reach Rue Bourg l’Abbé, reminding us of a very ancient street of the name swept away by the boulevard Sébastopol, and Rue aux Ours, dating from 1300, originally Rue aux Oies, referring maybe to geese roasted for the table when this was a street of turnspits. On the odd number side some ancient houses still stand. Rue Quincampoix, beginning far down in the 4th arrondissement, runs to its end into Rue aux Ours. It is through its whole course a street of old-time associations. In this bit of it we find interesting old houses, arched doorways, sculptured doors, etc., at Nos. 111, 99, 98, 96, 92, 91, 90. At No. 91 the watchman’s bell rang to bid the crowds disperse that pressed tumultuously round the offices of the great financier Law, who first set up his bank at the hôtel de Beaufort, on the site of the house No. 65. The Salle Molière was at No. 82, through the Passage Molière, dating from Revolution days, when it was known as Passage des Nourrices. The Salle began as the théâtre des Sans-Culottes, to become later the théâtre École. There Rachel made her debut. Many traces of the old theatre are still seen.

RUE QUINCAMPOIX

The old Roman road Rue St-Martin coming northward through the 4th arrondissement enters the 3rd from Rue Rambuteau. Along its entire course it is rich in old-world vestiges: ancient mansions, old signs, venerable sculptures, bas-reliefs, etc. In the Passage de l’Ancre, opening at No. 223, the first office for cab-hiring was opened in 1637. At No. 254 we come to the old church St-Nicolas-des-Champs, originally a chapel in the fields forming part of the abbey lands of St-Martin-des-Champs, subsequently the parish church of the district, rebuilt at the beginning of the fifteenth century, enlarged towards the end of the sixteenth century—a beautiful edifice in Gothic style of two different periods and known as the church of a hundred columns. The sacristy, once the presbytery, and a sundial dating from 1666, front the old Rue Cunin-Gridaine. Crossing Rue Réaumur, we reach the fine old abbey buildings which since the Revolution have served as the Paris Arts and Crafts Institution. The Abbey was built on the spot beyond the Paris boundary where St. Martin, on his way to the city, is said to have healed a leper. The invading Normans knocked it down; it was rebuilt in 1056 and the Abbey grounds surrounded a few years afterwards by high walls, rebuilt later as strong fortifications with eighteen turrets. Part of those walls and a restored tower are seen at No. 7 Rue Bailly. Within the walls were the Abbey chapel, long, beautiful cloisters, a prison, a market, etc. In the fourteenth century the Abbey was included within the city bounds and the monks held their own till 1790. In 1798, the disaffected Abbey buildings were chosen wherein to place the models collected by Vaucanson—pioneer of machinists; other collections were added and in the century following various changes and additions made in the old Abbey structure.

ST-NICOLAS-DES-CHAMPS

The big door giving on Rue St-Martin dates only from 1850. The great flight of steps in the court, built first in 1786, was remodelled and modernized in 1860. The ancient cloisters, remodelled, have been for years past the scene of busy mechanical and industrial study. The ancient and beautiful refectory, the work of Pierre de Montereau, architect of the Sainte-Chapelle (see p. 48) has become the Library. Beneath the fine vaulted roof, amid tall, slender columns of exquisite workmanship, students read where monks of old took their meals. The old Abbey chapel (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) restored in the nineteenth century, serves as the depot for models of steam-engines, etc. A small Gothic chapel is in the hands of a gas company. Other venerable portions of the Abbey, fallen into ruin, have quite recently been removed.

Rue Vertbois, on the northern side of the institution, records the existence of a leafy wood in the old Abbey grounds. The tower dates from 1140, the fountain from 1712; both were restored at the end of the nineteenth century. Going on up this old street we find numerous traces of what were erewhile the Abbey precincts.

Porte St-Martin at the angle where the rue meets the boulevard is that last of three great portes moving northward, and each in its time marking the city boundary.

Rue Meslay, opening out of Rue St-Martin at this point, dates from the first years of the eighteenth century, when it was Rue du Rempart. No. 49 was the home of the last Commandant du Guet. At No. 46 Aurore Dupin, known as George Sand, the famous novelist, was born in 1804. At No. 40 we see the fine old hôtel, with a fountain in the court, where in eighteenth-century days dwelt the Commandant de la Garde de Paris, the garde having replaced the guet (the Watch) in 1771.

RUE BEAUBOURG

Rue Beaubourg, stretching from Rue Rambuteau to Rue Turbigo, and the streets and passages leading out of it, show us many traces of bygone times. At No. 28 we find subterranean halls, with hooks where iron chains were once held fast—for this was an ancient prison—and a salon Louis XVI, with traces of ancient frescoes and sculpture. The city wall of Philippe-Auguste passed where the house No. 39 now stands. At No. 62, opposite which stretched the graveyard of St-Nicolas-des-Champs, was the palace of the bishops of Châlons, taken later to form part of a Carmelite convent suppressed in 1793. In a later revolutionary period—when Louis-Philippe was on the throne of France—the Paris insurrections centred here and horrible scenes took place on this spot[B].

In Rue au Maire, a secular official, mayor or bailiff of the Abbey, had his seat of office. In the Passage des Marmites (Saucepan Street) dwelt none but chaudronniers (coppersmiths and tinkers). We see ancient houses all along Rue Volta, and Rue des Vertus, so called by derision, having been the Rue des Vices, is made up of quaint old houses. Most of the houses, rather sordid, in Rue des Gravilliers, are ancient. No. 44 is said to have been the meeting-place of the secret Society “l’Internationale” in the time of Napoléon III. At Nos. 69 and 70 we see traces of the hôtel built by the grandfather of Gabrielle d’Estrées. At No. 88 the accomplices of Cadoudal, of the infernal machine conspiracy, were arrested.

Rue Chapon, formerly Capon, is named from the Capo, i.e. the cape worn by the Jews who in thirteenth-century days were its chief inhabitants. Its western end, known till 1851 as Rue du Cimetière St-Nicolas-des-Champs, shows many vestiges of past time. No. 16 was the hôtel of Madame de Mandeville, at first a nun-novice, to become in the time of Louis XV a celebrated courtesan. No. 13 was the hôtel of the archbishops of Reims, then of the bishops of Châlons, ceded in 1619 to the Carmelites. A big door and other interesting vestiges remain.

Rue de Montmorency is named from the fine old hôtel at No. 5, where the Montmorency lived from 1215 to 1627, when the last descendant of the famous Constable Mathieu perished on the scaffold. The street is rich in historic houses, historic associations. The stretch between Rue Beaubourg and Rue du Temple was known till 1768 as Rue Courtauvillain, originally Cour-au-Vilains—the Vilains, not necessarily “villains,” were the serfs or “common people” of bygone days. There lived Madame de Sévigné before making hôtel Carnavalet her home. No. 51 is the Maison du Grand Pignon, the big gable, owned, about the year 1407, by Nicolas Flamel and his wife Pernelle. Nicolas was a reputed schoolmaster of the age who made a good thing out of his establishment and was cited as having discovered the philosopher’s stone. On his death, he bequeathed his house and all his goods to the church St-Jacques-la-Boucherie, of which la Tour St-Jacques alone remains (see pp. 95, 97).

Rue Grenier-St-Lazare, in the thirteenth century Rue Garnier de St-Ladre, shows us interesting old houses, and at No. 4 a Louis XVI staircase.

Rue Michel-le-Comte, another street of ancient houses, erewhile hôtels of the noblesse, reminds one of the popular punning phrase, “Ça fait la Rue Michel,” i.e. ça fait le compte—Michel-le-Comte. No. 28 was at one time inhabited by comte Esterhazy, Hungarian Ambassador. Impasse de Clairvaux, Rue du Maure (fourteenth century, known at one time as Cour des Anglais), and Rue Brantôme make a cluster of ancient streets, with many vestiges of past ages.