Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

Vinaigrettes_--Sedan-chairs on wheels. The great door of the Temple, demolished in 1810, stood opposite No. 183. Vestiges were found in recent years beneath the pavement. At No. 195, within the Église Ste-Elisabeth, originally the convent chapel of the Filles de Ste-Elisabeth (1614-1690), we see most beautiful woodwork. Rue Turbigo cut right through the ancient presbytère. Turning back down this old street to visit the streets leading out of it, we find Rue Dupetit-Thouars, on the site of old _hôtels_ within the Temple grounds. Rue de la Corderie, where the Communards met in 1871. Rue des Fontaines (fifteenth century), with at No. 7 the ancient hôtellerie du Grand Cerf: at No. 15 the _hôtel_ owned by the Superior of the convent of the Madelonnettes--a house of Mercy--suppressed at the Revolution, used as a political prison, later as a woman’s prison. Rue Perrée, where a shadowy Temple market is still to be seen, runs through the ancient Temple grounds. Rue de Bretagne stretches from the Rue de Réaumur at the corner of the Temple Square, in old days known in its course through the Temple property as Rue de Bourgogne, farther on as Rue de Saintonge; leading out of it, at No. 62, the short Rue de Caffarelli runs along the line of the eastern wall of the vanished Temple fortress; at No. 45 is the Rue de Beauce where we come upon the ancient private passage, Rue des Oiseaux, with its _vacherie_ of the old hospice des Enfants-Rouges. At No. 48 opens the ancient Rue du Beaujolais-du-Temple, renamed Rue de Picardie. At No. 41 we find the Marché des Enfants-Rouges, a picturesque old-time market hall with an ancient well in the courtyard. Rue Portefoin, thirteenth century. Rue Pastourelle, of the same epoch where at No. 23 lived the _culottier_, Biard, who wrote the Revolutionary song: la Carmagnole. Rue des Haudriettes, known in past days as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, for there at its farther end was the Temple pillory and a tall ladder reaching to its summit. The name _Haudriette_ is that of the order of nuns founded by Jean Haudri, secretary to Louis IX, who, given up by his wife as lost while travelling in the East, returned at length to find her living among a community of widows to whom she had made over her home. Haudri maintained the institution thus founded, which was removed later to a mansion, now razed, near the chapel of the Assumption, in Rue St-Honoré. Rue de Brague, until 1348 Rue Boucherie-du-Temple, the Templars meat market. The fine old _hôtel_ at Nos. 4 and 6 has ceilings painted by Lebrun. All these streets are rich in old-time houses, old-time vestiges, and they are all, as is the whole of this arrondissement on this side Rue du Temple as far as Rue de Turenne, in the Marais, a name referring to the marshy nature of the district in long-past days--but which was for long in pre-Revolution times the most aristocratic quarter of the city. We find ourselves now before the Archives and the Imprimerie Nationale, the latter to be transferred to its new quarters Rue de la Convention. The frontage of this fine old building and its entrance gates give on the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, of which more anon (_see_ p. 84). On the western side we see a thick high wall and the Gothic doorway of what was, in the fourteenth century, the Paris dwelling of the redoubtable Constable, Olivier de Clisson, subsequently for nearly two hundred years in the hands of the Guise. In 1687 it was rebuilt for the Princess de Soubise by the architect, Delamair. Pillaged during the Revolution, it became national property, and in 1808 the Archives were placed there by Napoléon. Frescoes, fine old woodwork, magnificent mouldings, architectural work of great beauty are there to be seen. The Duke of Clarence is said to have made the hôtel Clisson his abode during the English occupation under Henry V. Going up Rue des Archives we see at No. 53, dating from 1705, the _hôtel_ built there by the Prince de Rohan, and onward up the street fine old mansions, once the homes of men and women of historic name and fame. No. 72 is said to have been the “Archives” in the time of Louis XIII. An eighteenth-century fountain is seen in the yard behind the stationer’s shop there. No. 78 was the _hôtel_ of Maréchal de Tallard. No. 79 dates from Louis XIII. At No. 90 we see traces of the old chapel of the Orphanage des Enfants-Rouges, so called from the colour of the children’s uniform. The eastern side of the Imprimerie Nationale adjoining the Archives, built by Delamair, as the hôtel de Strasbourg, and commonly known as hôtel de Rohan, because four comtes de Rohan were successively bishops of Strasbourg, is bounded by Rue Vieille-du-Temple, that too along its whole course a sequence of old houses bearing witness to past grandeur. No. 54 is the picturesque house and turret built in 1528 by Jean de la Balue, secretary to the duc d’Orléans. No. 56 was once the abode of Loys de Villiers of the household of Isabeau de Bavière. No. 75 was the town house of the family de la Tour-du-Pin-Gouvernet (1720). On the walls of No. 80 we read the old inscription “Vieille rue du Temple.” No. 102 was the hôtel de Caumartin, later d’Epernon. Nos. 106 and 110 were dependencies of the hôtel d’Epernon. [Illustration: PORTE DE CLISSON (Archives)] Rue des Quatre-Fils on the north side of the Archives and its adjoining buildings, known in past times as Rue de l’Échelle-du-Temple, recalls to mind the romantic adventures of four sons of a certain Aymon, sung by a thirteenth-century troubadour. Most of its houses are ancient. Leading out of it is the old Rue Charlot with numerous seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century houses or vestiges. We peep into the Ruelle Sourdis, a gutter running down the middle of it, once shut in by iron gates and boundary stones. At No. 5 we see what remains of the hôtel Sourdis, which in 1650 belonged to Cardinal Retz. The church St-Jean-St-François, opposite, is the ancient chapel of the convent St-François-des-Capucins du Marais. It replaced the old church St-Jean-en-Grève, destroyed at the Revolution, and here we see, surrounding the nave, painted copies of ancient tapestries telling the story of the miracle of the sacred Hostie which a Jew in mockery sought to destroy by burning. The fête of Reparation kept from the fourteenth century at the church of St-Jean and at the chapel les Billettes (_see_ p. 107) has since 1867 been kept here. Here too, piously preserved, is the chasuble used by the Abbé Edgeworth at the last Mass heard before his execution by Louis XVI in the Temple prison hard by. In the short Rue du Perche behind the church, lived for a time at No. 7 _bis_ Scarron’s young widow, destined to become Madame de Maintenon. Fine frescoes cover several of its ceilings. In Rue de Poitou we find more interesting old houses. In Rue de Normandie Nos. 10, 6, 9 show interesting features, old courtyards, etc. Turning from Rue Charlot into Rue Béranger, known until 1864 by the name of the Grand Prior of the Temple de Vendôme, we find the hôtel de Vendôme, Nos. 5 and 3, dating from 1752 where Béranger lived and died. At No. 11, now a business house, lived Berthier de Sauvigny, Intendant-Général de Paris in 1789, hung on a lamp-post after the taking of the Bastille, one of the first victims of the Revolution. [Illustration: RUELLE DE SOURDIS] Running parallel to Rue Charlot, starting from the little Rue du Perche, Rue Saintonge, formed by joining two seventeenth-century streets, Rue Poitou and Rue Touraine, shows us a series of ancient dwellings. From October, 1789, to 15th July, 1791, Robespierre lived at No. 64. A fine columned entrance court at No. 5 has been supplanted by a brand-new edifice. The _hôtel_ at No. 4, dating originally from about 1611, was rebuilt in 1745. Rue de Turenne, running in this arrondissement from Rue Charlot to the corner of the Place des Vosges, began as Rue Louis, then in its upper part was Rue Boucherat, as an ancient inscription at No. 133 near the fountain Boucherat records. From the old street whence it starts, Rue St.-Antoine in the 4th arrondissement, it is a long line of ancient _hôtels_, the homes in bygone days of men of notable names and doings; one side of the convent des Filles-du-Calvaire stretched between the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire and Rue Pont-au-Choux. No. 76 was the home of the last governor of the Bastille, Monsieur de Launay. The church of St-Denis-du-St-Sacrament at No. 70 was built in 1835 on the site of the chapel of a convent razed in 1826, previously a mansion of Maréchal de Turenne. At No. 56, Scarron lived and died. No. 54 was the abode of the comte de Montrésor, noted in the wars of the Fronde. At No. 41, fresh water flows from the fontaine de Joyeuse on the site of the ancient hôtel de Joyeuse. We find a beautiful staircase in almost every one of these old _hôtels_. [Illustration: HÔTEL VENDÔME, RUE BÉRANGER] Shorter interesting old streets lead out of this long one on each side. Rue du Parc-Royal, memorizes the park and palace of Les Tournelles, razed to the ground after the tragic death of Henri II by his widow, Catherine de’ Medici (_see_ p. 8). No. 4, dating from 1620, was inhabited by successive illustrious families until the early years of the nineteenth century. There, till recently, was seen a wonderful carved wood staircase. Many of the ancient houses erewhile here have been demolished in recent years, and are supplanted by modern buildings and a garden-square.