Historic Paris by Jetta Sophia Wolff

BOULEVARDS--QUAYS--BRIDGES THE BOULEVARDS The Paris boulevards are one of the most characteristic features of the city. The word _boulevard_ recalls the days when Paris was fortified, surrounded by ramparts, and the city boulevards stretch for the most part along the lines of ancient boundary walls, boundaries then, now lines in many instances cutting through the very heart of the Paris we know. The Grands Boulevards run from the Place de la Madeleine to the Place de la Bastille--gay and smart and modern, in the first kilometres of their course; less smart, busier, more commercial, with more abundant vestiges of bygone days as they stretch out beyond the boulevard des Italiens. The boulevard de la Madeleine follows the line of the ancient boundary wall of Louis XIII, razed during the first years of the eighteenth century. Its upper part on the even-number side was one side of an old thoroughfare reaching as far as Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, known in its early years as Rue Basse du Rempart. The latter part stretching to Rue Caumartin is of recent date. The old Rue Basse des Remparts was bordered by handsome _hôtels_, the dwellings of notable persons of the day: vestiges of several of them were until recent years still seen in boulevard des Capucines--Nos. 16 to 22 razed when the new street Rue Édouard VII was cut. In the reception-room of a seventeenth-century house that stood at the corner of the boulevard and the Rue des Capucines known as the Colonnade, Buonaparte first met Joséphine. Boulevard des Italiens gained its name from the Italian theatre there in