.* ^'^' v^ •o ^^^ ^-c^ ^^.c.^' "^ ,* ^ # v*K^ A WANDERER IN PARIS BY THE SAME AUTHOR A WANDERER IN LONDON A WANDERER IN HOLLAND OVER BEMERTON'S listener's lure anne's terrible good-nature the open road the gentlest art THE ladies' PAGEANT SOME FRIENDS OF MINE CHARACTER AND COMEDY THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB ONE DAY AND ANOTHER HOTEL DE SEN'S THE RUK DE LHOTEL DE VILLE A WANDERER IN PARIS BY i E. V. LUCAS 1^ " " ril go and chat with Paris ^ — Romeo andJuliet W 1 I SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY WALTER DEXTER AND TH RTY-TWO REPRODUCTIONS FROM WORKS OF ART ) "Nzia ^axk TH : MACMILLAN COMPANY 1909 ^// rights reser-ved J f Copyright, 1909, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY, Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 19* ri A 2 4 6 5 6 SEP :17 1909 Nnrbjootr ^regs J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. i PREFACE A LTHOUGH the reader will quickly make -^^^ the discovery for himself, I should like here to emphasise the fact that this is a book about Paris and the Parisians written wholly from the outside, and containing only so much of that city and its citizens as a foreigner who has no French friends may observe on holiday visits. I express elsewhere my indebtedness to a few French authors. I have also been greatly assisted in a variety of ways, but especially in the study of the older Paris streets, by my friend Mr. Frank Holford. E. V. L. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The English Gates of Paris i CHAPTER II The Ile de la Cnt 9 CHAPTER III Notre Dame 31 CHAPTER IV Saint Louis and his Island 54 CHAPTER V The Marais 61 CHAPTER VI The Louvre: I. The Old Masters 78 CHAPTER VII The Louvre: II. Modern Pictures and Other Treasures 97 CHAPTER VIII The Tuileries .114 CHAPTER IX The Place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elysees and the Invalides 132 vii viii A WANDERER IN PARIS CHAPTER X PAGE The Boulevard St. Germain and its Tributaries . 158 CHAPTER XI The Latin Quarter 170 CHAPTER XII The Pantheon and Sainte Genevieve i88 CHAPTER XIII Two Zoos 199 CHAPTER XIV The Grands Boulevards : I. The Madeleine to the Opera 214 CHAPTER XV A Chair at the Cafe de la Paix 227 CHAPTER XVI The Grands Boulevards : II. The Opera to the Place de LA Republique 244 CHAPTER XVII Montmartre 260 CHAPTER XVIII The Elysee to the H3tel de Ville 276 CHAPTER XIX The Place des Vosges and Hugo's House .... 299 CHAPTER XX The Bastille, Pere Lachaise and the End . , 306 Index 321 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR The Rue de l' Hotel de Ville Frontispiece The Courtyard of the Compas d'Or . To face page 20v The Ile de la Cite from the Pont des Arts 40 Notre Dame 58 The Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile 74'-' The Parc Monceau 116/ The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel . 124 The Place de la Concorde .... 140 ' The Pont d'Alexandre III 160 / The Fontaine de Medicis .... 180 The Musee Cluny ...... 200 The Rue de Bievre 222 The Boulevard des Italiens .... 240 The Porte St. Denis 258 Montmartre from the Buttes-Chaumont 280 The Place des Vosges, Southern Entrance 300 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE Giovanni Tornabuoni et les Trois Graces — Fresco from the Villa Lemmi. Botticelli (Louvre) To face page 6 J The Nativity. Luini (Louvre) . i6 From a Photograph by Mansell La Vierge aux Rochers. Leonardo da Vinci (Louvre) ...... 26 ' From a Photograph by Neurdein Sainte Anne, La Vierge, et l'Enfant Jesus. Leonardo da Vinci. (Louvre) 36 . From a Photograph by Neurdein La Pensee. Rodin (Luxembourg) „ 46 i From a Photograph by Neurdein Balthasar Castiglione. Raphael (Louvre) 52 From a Photograph by Neurdein L' Homme au Gant. Titian (Louvre) 64 From a Photograph by Neurdein Portrait de Jeune Homme. Attrilsuted to Bigio (Louvre) 70 From a Photograph by Alinari The Winged Victory of Samothrace. (Louvre) 80 From a Photograph by Giraudon La Joconde : Monna Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci (Louvre) ....... 86 From a Photograph by Neurdein LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XI Portrait d'une Dame et sa Fille. Van Dyck (Louvre) To face page 94 From a Photograph by Mansell Le Vallon. Corot (Louvre, Thomy-Thierret Collection) From a Photograph by Neurdein Le Printemps. Rousseau (Louvre, Thomy-Thierret Collection) ....... From a Photograph by Neurdein Vieux Homme et Enfant. Ghirlandaio (Louvre) From a Photograph by Mansell Venus et l'Amour. Rembrandt (Louvre) . From a Photograph by Neurdein Les Pelerins d'Emmaus. Rembrandt (Louvre) . From a Photograph by Neurdein La Vierge au Donateur. J. van Eyck (Louvre) From a Photograph by Neurdein Le Baiser. Rodin (Luxembourg) .... From a Photograph by Neurdein La Bohemienne. Franz Hals (Louvre) . From a Photograph by Neurdein Ste. GENEAaEVE. Puvis de Chavannes (Pantheon) From a Photograph by Neurdein La Lecon de Lecture. Terburg (Louvre) . From a Photograph by Neurdein La Dentelliere. Vermeer of Delft (Louvre) From a Photograph by Woodbury Girl's Head. Ecole de Fabriano (Louvre) . From a Photograph by Mansell La Benedicite. Chardin (Louvre) From a Photograph by Giraudon Madame Le Brun et sa Fille. Madame Le Brun (Louvre) From a Photograph by Hanfstaengl A WANDERER IN P.'.RIS Le Pont de Mantes. Corot (Louvre, Thomy- Thierret Collection) To face page 2t,2 From a Photograph by Neurdein La Provende des Poules. Troyon (Louvre) . ,. 266 From a Photograph by Alinari The Wind Mill. R. P. Bonington (Louvre) . „ 274 L'Amateur d'Estampes. Daumier (Palais des Beaux Arts) ....... 286 Portrait de sa Mere. "Whistler (Luxembourg) . „ 294 Portrait de Mlle. de Moreno. Granie (Luxem- bourg) ,,308 Le Monument aux Morts. A. Bartholome (Pere la Chaise) ........ -316 From a Photograph by Neurdein A WANDERER IN PARIS A WANDERER IN PARIS CHAPTER I THE ENGLISH GATES OF PARIS The Gare du Nord and Gare St. Lazare — The Singing Cabman — " Vivent les femmes ! " — Characteristic Paris —-The Next Morning — A Choice of Delights — The Compas d'Or — The World of Du- mas — The First Lunch — Voisin wins. MOST travellers from London enter Paris in the evening, and I think they are wise. I wish it were possible again and again to enter Paris in the evening for the first time; but since it is not, let me hasten to say that the pleasure of re-entering Paris in the evening is one that custom has almost no power to stale. Every time that one emerges from the Gare du Nord or the Gare St. Lazare one is taken afresh by the variegated and vivid activity of it all — the myriad purposeful self-contained bustling people, all moving on their unknown errands exactly as they were moving when one was here last, no matter how long ago. For Paris never changes: that is one of her most precious secrets. The London which one had left seven or eight hours before was populous enough and busy enough. Heaven 2 A WANDERER IN PARIS knows, but London's pulse is slow and fairly regular, and even at her gayest, even when greeting Royalty, she seems to be advising caution and a careful de- meanour. But Paris — Paris smiles and Paris sings. There is an incredible vivacity in her atmosphere. Sings ! This reminds me that on the first occasion that I entered Paris — in the evening, of course — my cabman sang. He sang all the way from the Gare du Nord to the Rue Caumartin. This seemed to me delightful and odd, although at first I felt in danger of attracting more attention than one likes; but as we proceeded down the Rue Lafayette — which nothing but song and the fact that it is the high road into Paris from England can render tolerable — I discovered that no one minded us. A singing cabman in London would bring out the Riot Act and the military; but here he was in the picture : no one threw at the jolly fellow any of the chilling deprecatory glances which are the birthright of every light-hearted eccentric in my own land. And so we proceeded to the hotel, often escaping collision by the breadth of a single hair, the driver singing- all the way. What he sang I knew not: but I doubt if it was of battles long ago: rather, I should fancy, of very present love and mischief. But how fitting a first entry into Paris ! An hour or so later — it was just twenty years ago, but I remember it so clearly — I observed written up in chalk in large emotional letters on a public wall the words " Vivent les femmes ! " and they seemed to me also THE FOREIGN-NESS OF IT 3 so odd — it seemed to me so funny that the sentiment should be recorded at all, since women were obviously going to live whatever happened — that I laughed aloud. But it was not less characteristic of Paris than the joyous baritone notes that had proceeded from beneath the white tall hat of my cocher. It was as natural for one Parisian to desire the continuance of his joy as a lover, even to expressing it in chalk in the street, as to another to beguile with lyrical snatches the tedium of cab-driving. I was among the Latin people, and, as I quickly began to discover, I was myself, for the first time, a foreigner. That is a discovery which one quickly makes in Paris. But I have not done yet with the joy of entering and re-entering Paris in the evening — after the long smooth journey across the marshes of Picardy or through the orchards of Normandy and the valley of the Seine — whichever way one travels.