At high noon in the gardens of the Palais Royal, on the 13th, as the midday sun was scorching the flagstones to a grilling temperature, the sound of a tiny cannon shot smote the still summer air with an echo which did not cease reverberating for months. The careless, unthinking promenaders suddenly grew grave, then violentlyagitated and finally raving, heedlessly mad. A young unknown limb of the law, Camille Desmoulins, rushed bareheaded and shrieking out of the Café de Foy, parted the crowd as a ship parts the waves, sprang upon a chair and harangued the multitude with such a vehemence and conviction that they were with him as one man.
"Citizens," he said, "I come from Versailles * * * It only remains for us to choose our colours.Quelle couleur voulez vous?Green, the colour of hope; or the blue of Cincinnati, the colour of American liberty and democracy."
"Nous avons assez déliberé!Deliberate further with our hands not our hearts! We are the party the most numerous: To arms!"
On the morrow, the now famous 14th of July, the Frenchman's "glorious fourteenth," the people rose and the Bastille fell.
Revolutionary decree, in 1793, converted the palace and its garden into the Palais et Jardin de la Révolution, and appropriated them as national property. Napoleon granted the palace to the Tribunal for its seat, and during the Hundred Days Lucien Bonaparte took up his residence there. In 1830 Louis Philippe d'Orleans gave a great fête here in honour of the King of Naples who had come to the capital to pay hisrespects to the French king. Charles X, assisting at the ceremony as an invited guest, was also present and a month later came again to actually inhabit the palace and make it royal once more.
The table herewith showing the ramifications of the Bourbon Orleans family in modern times is interesting—all collateral branches of the genealogical tree sprouting from that of Louis Philippe. The heraldic embellishments of this family tree offer a particular interest in that the armorial blazonings are in accord with a decree of the French Tribunal, handed down a few years since, which establishes the right to the head of the house to bear theécu plein de France—d'azur a trois fleurs de lys d'or, thus establishing the Orleans legitimacy.
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The Republic of 1848 made the palace the headquarters of the Cour des Comptes and of the État Major of the National Guard. Under Napoleon III the Palais Royal became the dwelling of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the emperor. Later it served the same purpose for the son of Prince Napoleon. It was at this epoch that the desecration of scraping out the blazonedlysand the chipping off the graven Bourbonarmoiriestook place. Whenever one or the other hated Bourbon symbol was found, eagles, phœnix-like, sprang up in their place, only in their turn to disappear when the Republican device of '48 (now brought to light again),Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité—replaced them.
During the Commune of 1870 a part of the left wing and the central pavilion suffered by fire, but restorations under the architect, Chabrol, brought them back again to much their original outlines. Through all its changes of tenure and political vicissitudes little transformation took place as to the ground plan, or sky-line silhouette, of the chameleon palace of cardinal, king and emperor, and while in no sense is it architecturally imposing or luxurious, it is now, as ever in the past, one of the most distinctive of Paris's public monuments.
To-day the Palais Royal proper may be saidto face on Place du Palais Royal, with its principal entrance at the end of a shallow courtyard separated from the street by an iron grille and flanked by two unimposing pavilions. The principal façade hides the lodging of the Conseil d'État and is composed of but the ground floor, a story above and an attic.
The Aile Montpensier, which follows on from the edifice which houses the Comédie Française, was, until recently, occupied by the Cour des Comptes. The Aile de Valois fronts the street of that name, and here the Princes d'Orleans and King Jerome made their residence. To-day the same wing is devoted to the uses of the Under Secretary for the Beaux Arts.
It is not necessary to insist on, nor reiterate, the decadence of the Palais Royal. It is no longer the "capitol of Paris," and whatever its charms may be they are mostly equivocal. It is more a desert than an oasis or atemple de la volupté, and it was each of these things in other days. Its priestesses and its gambling houses are gone, and who shall say this of itself is not a good thing in spite of the admitted void.
The mediocrity of the Palais Royal is apparent to all who have the slightest acquaintance with the architectural orders, but for all that its transition from the Palais du Cardinal, Palais Egalité,Palais de la Revolution and Palais du Tribunat to the Palais Royal lends to it an interest that many more gloriously artistic Paris edifices quite lack.
There is a movement on foot to-day to resurrect the Palais Royal to some approach to its former distinction, which is decidedly what it has not been for the past quarter of a century. Satirical persons have demanded as to what should be made of it, avélodromeor a skating-rink, but this is apart from a real consideration of the question for certain it is that much of its former charm can be restored to it without turning it into a Luna Park. It is one of the too few Paris breathing-spots, and as such should be made more attractive than it is at the present time.
It was sixty years ago, when Louis Philippe was the legitimate owner of the Palais Royal, its galleries, its shops, its theatre and its gardens, that it came to its first debasement. "One went there on tip-toe, and spoke in a whisper," said a writer of the time, and one does not need to be particularly astute to see the significance of the remark.
It was Alphonse Karr, theécrivain-jardinier, who set the new vogue for the Palais Royal, but his interest and enthusiasm was not enough toresurrect it, and so in later years it has sunk lower and lower. The solitude of the Palais Royal has become a mockery and a solecism. It is virtually acampo santo, or could readily be made one, and this in spite of the fact that it occupies one of the busiest and noisiest quarters of the capital, a quadrangle bounded by the Rues Valois, Beaujolais, Montpensier and the Place du Palais Royal.
The moment one enters its portal the simile accentuates and the hybrid shops which sell such equivocal bric-a-brac to clients of no taste and worse affectations carry out the idea of a cloister still further, for actually the clients are few, and those mostly strangers. One holds his breath and ambles through the corridors glad enough to escape the bustle of the narrow streets which surround it, but, on the other hand, glad enough to get out into the open again.
The kings and queens of France were not only rulers of the nation, but they dominated the life of the capital as well. Upon their crowning or entry into Paris it was the custom to command a gift by right from the inhabitants. In 1389 Isabeau de Bavière, of dire memory, got sixty thousandcouronnes d'or, and in 1501, and again in 1504, was presented with six thousand and ten thousandlivres parisisrespectively.
The king levied personal taxes on the inhabitants, who were thus forced to pay for the privilege of having him live among them, those of the professions and craftsmen, who might from time to time serve the royal household, paying the highest fees.
It was during the period of Richelieu's ministry that Paris flowered the most profusely. The constructions of this epoch were so numerous and imposing that Corneille in his comedy "Le Menteur," first produced in 1642, made his characters speak thus:
Dorante: Paris semble à mes yeux un pays de roman*       *       *       *       *En superbes palais a changé ses buissons*       *       *       *       *Aux superbes dehors du palais CardinalTout la ville entière, avec pomp bâtie*       *       *       *       *
In 1701, Louis XIV divided the capital into twentyquartiers, or wards, and in 1726-1728 Louis XV built a new city wall; but it was only with Louis XVI that the faubourgs were at last brought within the city limits. Under the Empire and the Restoration but few changes were made, and with the piercing of the new boulevards under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann the city came to be of much the same general plan that it is to-day.
In the olden time, between the Palais de la Cité and the Louvre and the Palais des Tournelles, extending even to the walls of Charenton, was a gigantic garden, a carpet embroidered with as varied a colouring as thetapis d'orientof the poets, and cut here and there by alleys which separated it into little checker-board squares.
Within this maze was the celebrated Jardin Dedalus that Louis XI gave to Coictier, and above it rose the observatory of the savant like a signal tower of the Romans. This centered upon what is now the Place des Vosges, formerly the Place Royale.
To-day, how changed is all this "intermediate, indeterminate" region! How changed, indeed! There is nothing vague and indeterminate about it to-day.
The earliest of the little known Paris palaces was the Palais des Thermes. It may be dismissed almost in a word from any consideration of the royal dwellings of Paris, though it was the residence of several Roman emperors and two queens of France. A single apartment of the old palace of the Romans exists to-day—the old Roman Baths—but nothing of the days of the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, who founded the palace in honour of Julian who was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers in 360 A.D. The Frankish monarchs, if they ever resided here at all, soon transferred their headquarters to the Palais de la Cité, the ruins falling into the possession of the monks of Cluny, who built the present Hotel de Cluny on the site.
Of all the minor French palaces the Luxembourg and the Elysée are the most often heard of in connection with the life of modern times. The first is something a good deal more than an art museum, and the latter more than the residence for the Republican president, though the guide-book makers hardly think it worth while to write down the facts.
Palais du LuxembourgPalais du Luxembourg
The Palais du Luxembourg has been called an imitation of the Pitti Palace at Florence, but, beyond the fact that it was an Italian conception of Marie de Médici's, it is difficult to follow the suggestion, as the architect, Jacques Debrosse, one of the ablest of Frenchmen in his line, simply carried out the work on the general plan of the time of its building, the early seventeenth century.
Its three not very extensive pavilions are joined together by a colonnade which encloses a rather foreboding flagged courtyard, a conception, or elaboration, of the original edifice by Chalgrin, in 1804, under the orders of Napoleon. The garden front, though a restoration of Louis Philippe, is more in keeping with the original Médici plan; that, at any rate, is to its credit.
To-day the Luxembourg, the Republican Palais du Sénat, is but an echo of the four centuries of aristocratic existence which upheld the name and fame of its first proprietor, the Duc de Piney-Luxembourg, Prince de Tigry, who built it in the sixteenth century. From 1733 to 1736 the palace underwent important restorations and the last persons to inhabit it before the Revolution were the Duchesse de Brunswick, the Queen Dowager of Spain and the Comte de Provence, brother of Louis XVI, to whom it had been given by Letters Patent in 1779.
In 1791 the Convention thought so little of it that they made it a prison, and a few years later it was called again the Palais du Directoire, and, before the end of the century, the Palais du Consulat. This was but a brief glory, as Napoleon transferred his residence in accordance with his augmenting ambitions, to the Tuileries in the following year.
By 1870 the edifice had become known as the Palais du Sénat, then as the headquarters of the Préfecture of the Seine, and finally, as to-day, the Palais du Luxembourg, the seat of the French Senate and the residence of the president of that body.
The principal public apartments are the Library, the "Salle des Séances," the "Buvette"—formerly Napoleon's "Cabinet de Travail," the "Salle des Pas Perdus"—formerly the "Salle du Trone," the Grand Gallery and the apartments of Marie de Médici. The chapel is modern and dates only from 1844.
The Palais du Petit Luxembourg is the official residence of the president of the Senate and dates also from the time of Marie de Médici. The picture gallery is housed in a modern structure to the west of the Petit Luxembourg.
The façade of the Palais du Sénat is not altogether lovely and has little suggestion of thedaintiness of the Petit Luxembourg, but, for all that, it presents a certain dignified pose and the edifice serves its purpose well as the legislative hall of the upper house.
The Petit LuxembourgThe Petit Luxembourg
The gardens of the Luxembourg form another of those favourite Paris playgrounds for nursemaids and their charges. It is claimed that thechildren are all little Legitimists in the Luxembourg gardens, whereas they are all Red Republicans at the Tuileries. One has no means of knowing this with certainty, but it is assumed; at any rate the Legitimists are a very numerous class in the neighbourhood. Another class of childhood to be seen here is that composed of the offsprings of artists and professors of the Latin quarter, and of the active tradesmen of the neighbourhood. They come here, like the others, for the fresh air, to see a bit of greenery, to hear the band play, to sail their boats in the basins of the great fountain and enjoy themselves generally.
One notes a distinct difference in the dress and manners of the children of the gardens of the Luxembourg from those of the Tuileries and wonders if the breach will be widened further as they grow up.
The Jardin du Luxembourg is all that a great city garden should be, ample, commodious,decorative and as thoroughly typical of Paris as the Pont Neuf. Innumerable, but rather mediocre, statues are posed here and there between the palace and the observatory at the end of the long, tree-lined avenue which stretches off to the south, the only really historical monument of this nature being the celebrated Fontaine de Médicis by Debrosse, the architect of the palace. It was a memorial to Marie de Médici.
The Luxembourg GardensThe Luxembourg Gardens
While one is in this quarter of Paris he has an opportunity to recall a royal memory now somewhat dimmed by time, but still in evidence if one would delve deep.
As a matter of fact, royalty never had much to do with this hybrid quarter of Paris, though, indeed, its past was romantic enough, bordering as it does upon the real Latin Quarter of the students. Bounded on one side by the immense domain of the Luxembourg, it stretched away indefinitely beyond Vaugiraud, almost to Clamart and Sceaux.
At No. 27 Boulevard Montparnasse is an elaborate seventeenth house-front half hidden by the "modern style" flats of twentieth century Paris. This relic of thegrand siècle, with its profusion of sculptured details, was the house bought by Louis XIV about 1672 and given to the "widow Scarron," the "young and beautiful widow of the court," as a recompense for the devotion with which she had educated the three children of the Marquise de Montespan, who, in 1673, were legitimatized as princes of the royal house—the Duc de Maine, the Comte de Vexin and Mademoiselle de Mantes.
Madame Scarron, who became in time Madame de Maintenon, the "vraie reine du roi," died in 1719, and the house passed to La Tour d'Auvergne.
On this same side of the river are the Palais de l'Institut and the Palais Bourbon. The Palais de l'Institut, or Palais Mazarin, is hardly to be considered one of the domestic establishments, the dwellings of kings, with which contemporary Paris was graced. It was but a creation of Mazarin, the minister, on the site of the Hôtel de Nesle, and was first known as the Palais des Quatre Nations, where were educated, at the expense of the Cardinal, sixty young men of various nationalities.
The old chapel has since been transformed into the "Salle des Séances" of the Institut de France, the Five French Academies. The black, gloomy façade of the edifice, to-day, in spite of the cupola which gives a certain inspiring dignity, is not lovely, and tradition and sentiment alone give it its present interest, though it is undeniably picturesque.
An inscription used to be on the pedestal of one of the fountains opposite the entrance which read:
"Superbe habitant du desertEn ce lieu, dis moi, que fais tu—Tu le vois à mon habit vertJe suis membre de l'institut."
If the inscription were still there it would save the asking of a lot of silly questions by strangers who pass this way for the first time. The Palais de l'Institut is one of the sights of Paris, and its functions are notable, though hardly belonging to the romantic school of past days, for at present poets often make their entrée via Montmartre's "Chat Noir," or are elected simply because some other candidate has been "blackbouled."
Still following along the left bank of the Seine one comes to the Palais Bourbon, the Chambre des Deputés, as it is better known. This edifice, where now sit the French deputies, was built by Girardini for the Dowager Duchesse de Bourbon in 1722, and, though much changed during various successive eras, is still a unique variety of architectural embellishment which is not uncouth, nor yet wholly appealing. Napoleon remade the heavily imposing façade, so familiar to all who cross the river by the Pont de la Concorde, but its grimness is its charm rather than its grace.
The structure cost its first proprietor twenty million or more francs, and since it has become national property the outlay has been constant. Everything considered it makes a poor showing; but its pseudo-Greek façade, were it removed, would certainly be missed in this section of Paris.
The principal apartments are the "Salle des Pas Perdus," the "Salle des Séances," and the "Salle des Conferences"—where, in 1830, the Duc d'Orleans took the oath as king of France.
A recent discovery has been made in the lumber room of this old Palais Bourbon, where deputies howl and shout and make laws as noisily as in any other of the world's parliaments.
This particular "find" was the throne constructed in 1816 for Louis XVIII, with its upholstering of velvet embroidered with the golden fleur-de-lis. The records tell that this throne also servedLouis Philippe under the Second Empire, and also was used under the Monarchy of July. It was after the momentous "Quatre Setembre" that it was finally relegated to the garret, but now, as a historical souvenir of the first rank, it has been placed prominently where all who visit the Palais Bourbon may see it.
The history of the Palais de l'Elysée has not been particularly vivid, though for two centuries it has played a most important part in the life of the capital. In later years it has served well enough the presidential dignity of the chief magistrate of the French Republic and is thus classed as a national property. Actually, since its construction, it has changed its name as often as it has changed its occupants. Its first occupant was its builder, Louis d'Auvergne, Comte d'Evreux, who built himself this great town house on a plot of land which had been given him by Louis XV. Apparently the young man had no means of his own for the construction of his luxurious city dwelling, for he refilled his coffers by marriage with the rich daughter of the financier Crozat.
The new-made countess's mother-in-law apparently never had much respect for her son's choice as she forever referred to her as "the little gold ingot."
"The ingot" served to construct the palace, however, though at the death of its builder, soon after, it came into the proprietorship of La Pompadour, who spent the sum of six hundred and fifty thousandlivresin aggrandizing it. It became her town house, whither she removed when she grew tired of Versailles or Bagatelle.
History tells of an incident in connection with a fête given at the Palais de l'Elysée by La Pompadour. It was at the epoch of the "bergeries à la Watteau." The blond Pompadour had the idea of introducing into the salons a troop of living, sad-eyed sheep, combed and curled like the poodles in the carriages of the fashionables in the Bois to-day. The quadrupeds, greatly frightened by the flood of light, fell into a panic, and the largest ram among them, seeing his duplicate in a mirror, made for it in the traditional ram-like manner. He raged for an hour or more from one apartment to another, followed by the whole flock, which committed incalculable damage before it could be turned into the gardens. Such was one of the costly caprices of La Pompadour. She had many.
La Pompadour's brother, the Marquis de Menars et de Marigny, continued the work of embellishment of the property up to the day when Louis XV bought it as a dwelling for theambassadors to his court. Its somewhat restricted park, ornamented with a grotto and a cascade, was at this time one of the curiosities of the capital.
In 1773, the financier Beaujon bought the property from the king and added considerably to it under the direction of the architect Boullée, who also re-designed the gardens. Thanks to Beaujon, the wonderful Gobelins of to-day were hung upon the walls, and many paintings by Rubens, Poissin, Van Loo, Von Ostade, Murillo, Paul Potter and Joseph Vernet were added.
The death of the financier brought the property into the hands of the Duchesse de Bourbon, the sister of Louis Philippe, and the mother of the Duc d' Enghien, who died so tragically at Vincennes a short time after. The duchess renamed her new possession Elysée-Bourbon and there led a very retired and sad life among surroundings so splendid that they merited a more gay existence.
At the Revolution the palace became a national property, and, under the Consulate, was the scene of many popular fêtes, it having been rented to a concern which arranged balls and other entertainments for the pleasure of all who could afford to pay. Its name was now the Hameau de Chantilly, and, considering that the entrancetickets cost but fifteen sous—including a drink—it must have proved a cheap, satisfying and splendid amusement for the people.
This state of affairs lasted until 1805, when Murat bought it and here held his little court up to his departure for Naples, when, in gratefulness for past favours, he gave it to Napoleon. The emperor greatly loved this new abode, which he rechristened the Elysée-Napoleon.
After his defeat at Waterloo Napoleon, limping lamely Parisward, down through the Forests of Compiègne and Villers-Cotterets, sought in the Elysée-Napoleon the repose and rest which he so much needed, the throng meanwhile promenading before the palace windows, shouting at the tops of their voices "Vive l'Empereur!" though, as the world well knew, his power had waned forever; the eagle's wings were broken. The throng still crowded the precincts of the palace, but the emperor fled secretly by the garden gate.
On the return of the Duchesse de Bourbon from Spain the magnificent structure became again the Elysée-Bourbon. The duchess ceded the palace to the Duc and Duchesse de Berry but, at the duke's death, in 1820, his widow abandoned it.
Some time after it was occupied by the Ducde Bordeaux, and, in 1830, it became one of the long list of establishments whose maintenance devolved upon the Civil List, though it remained practically uninhabited all through the reign of Louis Philippe.
In 1848, the National Assembly designated the palace as the official residence for the presidents of the French Republic. Three years after, on the night of the first of December, as the last preparations were being made by Louis Bonaparte for the Coup d' État and the final strangling of the young republic, the residence of the president was transferred to the Tuileries, and the palace of the Faubourg Saint Honoré was again left without a tenant, and served only to give hospitality from time to time to passing notables.
After the burning of the Tuileries, and the coming of the Third Republic, the Elysée Palace again became the presidential residence, and so it remains to-day.
One of the most notable of modern events connected with the Elysée Palace was thediner de ceremonieoffered by the president of the Republic and Madame Fallières to Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt in April, 1910. The dinner was served in the "Grand Salle des Fêtes" and the music which accompanied the repast was furnishedby the band of theGarde Republicain, beginning with the national anthem of America and finishing with that of France. Never had a private citizen, a foreigner, been so received by the first magistrate of France. The toast of President Fallières was as follows: "Before this repast terminates I wish to profit by the occasion offered to drink the health of Monsieur Theodore Roosevelt, an illustrious man, a great citizen and a good friend of France and the cause of peace. I raise my glass to Madame Roosevelt who may be assured of our respectful and sympathetic homage, and I am very glad to be able to say to our guests that we count ourselves very fortunate in being allowed to meet them in person and show them this mark of respect."
Vincennes is to-day little more than a dull, dirty Paris suburb; if anything its complexion is a deeper drab than that of Saint Denis, and to call the Bois de Vincennes a park "somewhat resembling the Bois de Boulogne," as do the guidebooks, is ridiculous.
In reality Vincennes is nothing at all except a memory. There is to-day little suggestion of royal origin about the smug and murky surroundings of the Chateau de Vincennes; but nevertheless, it once was a royal residence, and the drama which unrolled itself within its walls was most vividly presented. A book might be written upon it, with the following as the chapter headings: "The Royal Residence," "The Minimes ofthe Bois de Vincennes," "Mazarin at Vincennes," "The Prisoners of the Donjon," "The Fêtes of the Revolution," "The Death of the Duc d'Enghien," "The Transformation of the Chateau and the Bois."
Its plots are ready-made, but one has to take them on hearsay, for the old chateau does not open its doors readily to the stranger for the reason that it to-day ranks only as a military fortress, and an artillery camp is laid out in the quadrangle, intended, if need be, to aid in the defence of Paris. This is one of the things one hears about, but of which one may not have any personal knowledge.
The first reference to the name of Vincennes is in a ninth century charter, where it appears asVilcenna. The foundation of the original chateau-fort on the present site is attributed to Louis VII, who, in 1164, having alienated a part of the neighbouring forest in favour of a body of monks, built himself a suburban rest-house under shelter of the pious walls of their convent.
Philippe Auguste, too, has been credited with being the founder of Vincennes; but, at all events, the chateau took on no royal importance until the reign of Saint Louis, who acquired the habit of dispensing justice to all comers seated beneath an oak in the near-by Forest of Joinville.
The erection of the later chateau was begun by Charles, Comte de Valois, brother of Philippe-le-Bel; and it was completed by Philippe VI of Valois, and his successor, Jean-le-Bon, between the years 1337 and 1370, when it became an entirely new manner of edifice from what it had been before. It was in this chateau that was born Charles V, to whom indeed it owes its completion in the form best known.
To-day, the outlines of the mass of the Chateau de Vincennes are considerably abbreviated from their former state. Originally it was quite regular in outline, its walls forming a rectangle flanked by nine towers, the great donjon which one sees to-day occupying the centre of one side. The chapel was begun in the reign of François I and terminated in that of Henri II. Its coloured glass, painted by Jean Cousin from the designs of Raphael, is notable.
The chapel at Vincennes, with the Saint Chapelle of the Palais de Justice at Paris, ranks as one of the most exquisite examples extant of French Gothic architecture. It was begun in 1379, but chiefly it is of the sixteenth century, since it was only completed in 1552. This chapel of the sixteenth century, and the two side wings flanking the tower of the reign of Louis XIV, make the Chateau de Vincennes a most preciousspecimen of mediæval ecclesiastical and military architecture. If Napoleon had not cut down the height of the surrounding walls the comparison would be still more favourable. In the reproduction of the miniature from the Book of Hours of the Duc de Berry given herein one sees the perfect outlines of the fourteenth century edifice.
In later years, Louis XIII added considerably to the existing structure, but little is now to be seen of that edifice save the great tower and the chapel.
Charles IX, whose royal edict brought forth the bloody night of Saint Bartholomew in 1572, fell sick two years later in the Chateau de Vincennes. Calling his surgeon, Ambroise Paré, to his side he exclaimed: "My body burns with fever; I see the mangled Huguenots all about me; Holy Virgin, how they mock me; I wish, Paré, I had spared them." And thus he died, abhorring the mother who had counselled him to commit this horrible deed.
The donjon of Vincennes was carried to its comparatively great height that it might serve as a tower of observation as well as a place of last retreat if in an attack the outer walls of the fortress should give way. Here at Vincennes a certain massiveness is noted in connection with the donjon, though the actual ground area which itcovers is not very great; it was not like many donjons of the time, which were virtually smaller chateaux or fortresses enclosed within a greater.
Chateau de VincennesChateau de Vincennes
Vincennes, in comparison with many other contemporary edifices, possessed a certain regularity of outline which was made possible by its favourable situation. When others were of fantastic form, they were usually so built because of the configuration of the land, or the nature of the soil. But here the land was flat, and, though the edifice and its dependencies covered no very extended area, they followed rectangular lines with absolute precision.
As its walls were of a thickness of three metres, it was a work easy of accomplishment for Louis XI to turn the chateau into a Prison of State, a use to which the first chateau had actually been put by the shutting up in it of Enguerrand de Marigny. Henri IV, in 1574, passed some solitary hours and days within its walls, and Mirabeau did the same in 1777. The Duc d'Enghien, under the First Empire, before his actual death by shooting, suffered sorely herein, while resting under an unjust suspicion.
In 1814-1815 the chateau became a great arsenal and general storehouse for the army. It was attacked by the Allies and besieged twice, but in vain. It was defended against the armies ofBlucher by the Baron Daumesnil. Summoned to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" (so called because he had lost a leg the year before) replied: "I will surrender when you surrender to me my leg." A statue to this brave warrior is within the chateau, and commemorates further the fact that he capitulated only on terms laid down by himself out of his humane regard for the lives of friends and foes.
The ministers of Charles X, in 1830, had cause to regret the strength of the chateau walls; and Barbés, Blanqui and Raspail, in 1848, and various Republicans, who had been seized as dangerous elements of society after the Coup d'État of 1851, also here found an enforced hospitality. The Chateau de Vincennes had become a second Bastille.
The incident of the arrest and death of the Duc d'Enghien is one of the most dramatic in Napoleonic history. The scene was Vincennes. Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, son of the Prince de Condé, born at Chantilly in 1772, became, without just reason, suspected in connection with the Cadoudal-Pichegreu plot, and was seized by a squadron of cavalry at the Schloss Ettenheim in the Duchy of Baden and conducted to Vincennes. Here, after a summary judgment, he was shot at night in the moat behind the guardhouse. Theobscurity of the night was so great that a lighted lantern was hung around the neck of the unfortunate man that the soldiers might the better see the mark at which they were to shoot.
A Hunt under the Walls of VincennesA Hunt under the Walls of VincennesFrom a Fourteenth Century Print
Napoleon confided to Josephine, who repeated the secret to Madame de Remusat, that his political future demanded acoup d'État. On the morning of the execution, the emperor, awakening at five o'clock, said to Josephine: "By this time the Duc d'Enghien has passed from this life."
The rest is history—of that apologetic kind which is not often recorded.
In the chapel at Vincennes a commemorative tablet was placed, by the orders of Louis XVIII, in 1816, to mark the death of the young duke.
The Bois de Vincennes is not the fashionable parade ground of the Bois de Boulogne. On the whole it is a sad sort of a public park, and not at all fashionable, and not particularly attractive, though of a vast extent and possessed of a profoundly historic past of far more significance than that of its sweet sister by the opposite gates of Paris.
It contains ten hundred and sixty-nine hectares and was due originally to Louis XV, who sought to have a sylvan gateway to the city from the east. Under the Second Empire the park was considerably transformed, new roads and alleystraced, and an effort made to have it equal more nearly the beauty of the more popular Bois de Boulogne. It occupies the plateau lying between the Seine and the bend in the Marne, just above the junction of the two rivers.
There are some forty kilometres of roadway within the limits of the Bois de Vincennes, and a dozen kilometres or more of footpaths; but, since the military authorities have taken a portion for their own uses as a training ground, a shooting range and for the Batteries of La Faisanderie and Gravelle, it has been bereft of no small part of its former charm. There are three lakes in the Bois, the Lac de Sainte Mandé, the Lac Daumesnil and the Lac de Gravelle.
A near neighbour of Vincennes is Conflans, another poor, rent relic of monarchial majesty. The Chateau de Conflans was situated at the juncture of the Seine and Marne, but, to-day, the immediate neighbourhood is so very unlovely and depressing that one can hardly believe that it ever pleased any one's fancy, least of all that of a kingly castle builder.
Banal dwellings on all sides are Conflans' chief characteristics to-day; but the old royal abode still lifts a long length of roof and wall to mark the spot where once stood the Chateau de Conflans in all its glory.
Conflans was at first the country residence of the Archbishops of Paris, and Saint Louis frequently went into retreat here. When Philippe-le-Bel acquired the property, he promptly gave it to the Comtesse d'Artois who made of it one of the "plus beaux castels du temps." She decorated its long gallery, the portion of the edifice which exists to-day in the humble, emasculated form of a warehouse of some sort, in memory of her husband Othon. Here the countess held many historic receptions and ceremonies during which kings and princes frequently partook of her hospitality.
After the death of the countess, the French king made his residence at Conflans, and Charles VI, when dauphin, was also lodged here that he might be near the capital in case of events whichmight require his presence. A contemporary account mentions the fact that hisvalet de chambrewas killed by lightning at Conflans while serving his royal master.
Conflans was the preferred suburban residence of the Princes and the Ducs de Bourgogne, and Philippe-le-Hardi there organized his tourneys and hispasses d'armeswith great éclat, on one occasion alone offering one hundred and fifteen thousandlivresin prizes to the participants.
This castle, for it was more castle than palace, was reputed one of the most magnificent in the neighbourhood of the Paris of its time, surrounded as it was with a resplendent garden and a forest in miniature, really a part of the Bois de Vincennes of to-day, where roamed wild boar and wolves which furnished sport of a kingly kind.
The view from the terrace of the chateau must have been wonderfully fine, the towers and roof-tops of old Paris being silhouetted against the setting sun, its windows dominating the swift-flowing current of the two rivers at the foot of the fortress walls.
The greatest event of history enacted under the walls of Conflans was the battle and the treaty which followed after, between Louis XI and the Comte de Charolais, in 1405.
Commynes recounts the battle as follows: "Fourthousand archers were sent out from Paris by the king, who fired upon the castle from the river bank on both sides."
Bows and arrows were hardly effective weapons with which to shoot down castle walls, but stragglers who left themselves unprotected were from time to time picked off on both sides and much carnage actually ensued. Finally a treaty of peace was arranged, by which, at the death of Charles-le-Téméraire, according to usage, Louis XI absorbed the proprietary rights in the castle and made it aMaison Royale, bestowing it upon one of his favourites, Dame Gillette Hennequin.
The kings of France about this time developed a predilection for the chateaux on the banks of the Loire, and Conflans was offered for sale in 1554. Divers personages occupied it from that time on, the Maréchal de Villeroy, the Connetable de Montmorency and, for a brief time, Cardinal Richelieu.
It was in the Chateau de Conflans that was planned the foundation of the French Academy; here Molière and his players first presented "La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes"; and here, also, was held the marriage of La Grande Mademoiselle with the unhappy Lauzan.
At the end of the reign of Louis XIV Fr. de Harlay-Chauvallon, Archbishop of Paris, boughtthe property of Richelieu, and, with the aid of Mansart and Le Notre, considerably embellished it within and without. Madame de Sévigné, in one of her many published letters, writes of the splendours which she saw at Conflans at this epoch.
Saint-Simon, the court chronicler, mentions that the gardens were so immaculately kept that when the Archbishop and "La Belle" Duchesse de Lesdiguières used to promenade therein they were followed by a gardener who, with a rake, sought to remove the traces of each footprint as soon as made.
Later, the Cardinal de Beaumont, the persecutor of the Jansenists, resided here.
"Notre archeveque est à ConflansC'est un grand solitaireC'est un grand soC'est un grand soC'est un grand solitaire."
The above verse is certainly banal enough, but the cardinal himself was adrôle, so perhaps it is appropriate. At any rate it is contemporary with the churchman's sojourn at Conflans.