t THE C919UR OF PARIS GOMCOUiyr 11 TCTJ i M ft ki ■ 1 n ■ T mil 1 « w Y hioriaTi<|»d XXL 701 /f/s- CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library DC 7Q7.D44 1915 Colour of Paris. 3 1924 028 345 423 DATE DUE Mw^*a GAYLOHD PRINTED IN USA Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028345423 THE COLOUR OF PARIS NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION {Ali fighis reserved] EIFFEL TOWER IN THE EVENING MIST J**"l v.^-^ ^ I THE i..Ol.O'. i< OF PARIS HT*^'TORIC, PERSON Al., ^^ i OCM. i r.DrroK.:Uf5' u; m liu, ilk dr^- I C,v."^.S i: ' i-'TkATf:D HV VOSHTO i ■' < '■ ^-^ 'v ^^- f ' - 1 'Hi i N ! 'k(3 D UC'f i O N i :>:: HA il^-.:^IDiT;^COmi';RVATKUR ' ■ *,; Ml -I'n ^^TlO^AL DU LUXEM- - ax; ■ S bSSAY BY THE ARTIST >.EW YORK., i?ODD, MEAD AND'COl.if \NY 1Q» y -■> Ui,,K m Til!': EViiVlKG MiST THE COLOUR OF PARIS HISTORIC, PERSONAL, ^ LOCAL BY MESSIEURS LES ACADE'MICIENS GONCOURT. UNDER THE GENERAL EDITORSHIP OF M. LUCIEN DES- CAVES. ILLUSTRATED BY YOSHIO MARKING. WITH INTRODUCTION BY M. L. BENEDITE, CONSERVATEUR DU MUSEE NATIONAL DU LUXEM- BOURG, & AN ESSAY BY THE ARTIST NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 191 5 V ( This book has been written in collaboration by Messieurs les Membres de L' Academic Goncourt — L^on Hennique, Octave Mirbeau, Gustave Geffroy, J. H. Rosny, Paul Margueritte, Leon Daudet, Justin Rosny, Lucien Descaves, Jules Renard, Elemir Bourges — under the general editorship of Monsieur Lucien Deseaves, Secre- taire de I'Academie Goncourt. ^iv^y-^^ [Printed in England'] t « ^ " I V' '':'f'^^<,.r PREFACE PARISvuparunJaponais! LacHose,apparemment, estpiquante On se prepare a voir defiler touteune suite de Kakemonos multicolores ou la Butte Montmartre eleve ses pentes comme le c6ne du Fushi- yama, ou les jolies parisiennes, mi-vetues, se baignent, s'essuientjSe peignent,devant leur miroir comme les ex- quises mousmes d'Outamaro, ou les bateaux-mouches glissent silencieusement sur la Seine, leurs lanternes allumees dans la nuit, ainsi que les bateaux de fleurs dans les nofturnes charmants d'Hiroshighe. Vous n'y etes pas, ou, du moins, vous n'y etes plus. M. Yoshio Markino nous detrompe. Cest que les temps sont bien changes. Un abime separe le Japon d'aujour- d'hui du Japon d'hier, et il n'y a pjus grand'chose de commun entre un peintrejaponais de 1908 et un peintre japonais de 1878 ou meme de 1888. Une simple petite revolution, une de ces revolutions comme en ont tant connu la France, et aussi I'Angleterre, mais une revolu- tion unique dans I'histoire du monde par ses resultats, a fait passer tout d'un coup, sans transition, sans prepara- tion, cette nation de la feodalite du Moyen-Age a la vie constitutionelle et parlementaire desEtatsdemocratiques les plus avances. Ne vous representez done plus les routes de Tokio encombrees par les corteges magnifiques des Daimios V b THE COLOUR OF PARIS venant porter periodiquement leurs hommages de vas- salite au Shogoun, ce puissant maire du palais qui avait, depuis trois siecles, elimine le Mikado; n'imaginez plus les Samourai partant en guerre sur leurs petits chevaux intrepides, aux longues crinieres flottantes tressees de sole et d'or, la tete casquee de quelque masque terrible, le torse defendu par une carapace aux lames de laque noire, et qui ofFraient I'aspedt fantastique de gigantesques crustaces infernaux. Ne comptez plus voir glisser avec une grace mysterieuse et une etrange majeste, entre leurs cloisons de papier immacule, ainsi que nous les depeint Pierre Loti, les dames d'honneur de I'lmperatrice, im- passibles dans leurs dalmatiques rigides blasonnees de fleurs eclatantes. Fini le Japon des Shiounsho,des Kiyonaga,desToyo- kouni! Fini le Japon des geishas et des mousmes, le Japon de Madame Prune et de Madame Chrysantheme ! Le sifflet strident des locomotives dechire I'air sur les longues routes sillonneesde rails. Les belles armes d'acier doux, gras et lourd, damasquine d'or, aux gardes de fer minutieusement fouillees en petites sculptures merveill- euses, sont remisees dans les musees^ comme des choses exotiques et lointaines. EUes sont remplacees par les petits fusils a repetition, les mitrailleuses et les pieces d'artillerie de tout calibre. Au lieu de bateaux de fleurs dans les anses, en avant des ports sont ranges a I'ancre les hauts cuirasses et les petits torpilleurs qui ont fait naguere leurs preuves contre une grande puissance de I'Occident. Les belles dames d'honneur se font habiller, helas ! par les couturieres et les modistes de la ]R.ue de la Paix. Et vj PREFACE quant aux magnifiques Daimi'os, ces grands feudataires ont echange Teclat de leur train somptueux centre le veston de cheviotte et la redingote de serge, sans parler du "melon" et du chapeau haut de forme. lis ont, d'ail- leurs, cede le pas, ces pauvres dues, marquis, ou comtes, aux membres elus de laChambre desRepresentants,dont les groupes politiques, les "extremes" et les "centres," les Seyoukai, les Shimpoto^ ou les Da'ido-Club, s'allient ou s'opposent pour maintenir ou renverser les ministeres. Cenouveau Japon constitutionnel,non plus seulement industrieux, mais manufadlurier, ce Japon qui est sorti des chimeres du passe pour entrer dans la realite positive du present, pouvait-il continuer a penser, a contempler et a voir comme celui de la veille? A une mental ite poli- tique et sociale nouvellc devait correspondre une men- talite philosophique et artistique nouvelle, c'est-a-dire une nouvelle esthetique conforme a. ce developpement dans le sens occidental. C'est en efFet le phenomene qui s'est produit. Avec les moeurs, les costumes, les lois, les industries de I'Occi- dent, avec les m^thodes, scientifiques et economiques, se sont 6galement imposees a ce peuple d'extreme Asie lesmethodes artistiques des ecoles de rEurope,leur fafon de voir et de realiser. Et, chose singuliere ! c'est au moment meme oii les Arts d'extreme Orient — qui avaient deja, au XVIIP siecle, exerce une si vive influ- ence surnos arts etnos industries — etaient comme decou- verts a nouveau sous cette modalite encore inedite de I'art japonais,etallaientdonner a nos arts et enparticulier a nos arts decoratifs une diredlion imprevue et une im- vij b a THE COLOUR OF PARIS pulsion si vigoureuse, c'est a ce moment meme que la vision europeenne,resth6tique.greco-latine commengait, de son cote, a s'implanter dans Tart du Japon. La fameuse revolution japonaise date, en effet, de 1868. Or c'est en 1 862 que les Arts Japonais firent leur premiere apparition remarquee, en Europe, a I'occasion de I'Exposition de Londres. C'est vers la meme date, egalement, que, en France, par suite de circonstances sur lesquelles il serait trop long de s'etendre ici, et que, du reste, j'ai fait connaitre ailleurs,un groupe de litterateurs et d'artistes, a la suite du graveur Bracquemond qui avait ouvert la voie, les Whistler, les Fantin-Latour, les Tissot, les Burty, les Goncourt, repandirent le gout de ces bibelots merveilleux de bronze et de laque, de porcelaine et de jade, et surtout de ces admirables es- tampes en couleur dont les dispositions de mise en place pour la composition, les audaces de juxtaposition dans les tons, le dessin expressif, la mimique animee, la pro- fonde poesie naturaliste influencerent si fortement les arts europeens du dernier quart du XIX' siecle. Pour comprendre la difference essentielle qui existe entre la vision extreme-orientale et la vision greco-latine, il faut comparer les deux methodes correspondantes de dessin. Le dessin japonais est a proprement parler un dessin architedtural, en ce sens qu'il represente les objets par leur projection sur un plan vertical. Les personnages et les objets ainsi figures n'ont done que deux dimensions : la hauteur et la largeur; ils ignorent la profondeur. Ce dessin procede par le contour, tandis que la coloration viij PREFACE s'opere par a-plats, Les Japonais d'autrefois connaissaient bien la perspective lineaire qui diminue les proportions des objets suivant la distance, mais ils ne connaissaient pas la perspective aerienne qui distribue les plans a leur place. Toute autre est la conception greco-latine. Nous voyons par le relief, nous traduisons par ce qu'on appelle le models^ c'est-a-dire en exprimant le jeu de la lumiere et de I'ombre sur les saillies et les rentrants des corps. Nous considerons les etres et les objets aussi sous leur troisieme dimension: celledel'epaisseur; nous cherchons a etablir leurs volumes dans les profondeurs de I'espace, nous nous appliquons a les faire tourner, et nous nous preoccupons meme de tenir compte de ces couches de I'espace, de ces masses fluides de I'atmosphere dans les- quelles se fondent les contours et s'attenuent les tons. Passer d'une methode a I'autre c'etait done aussi pour Testhetique japonaise une revolution veritable. Qu'on essaie de se figurer, par exemple, Hok'sai devenu Corot ! Parmi les artistes japonais, les uns, retardataires im- penitents, ont persiste dans la vieille maniere chere aux ancetres,repetant sur la soie ou le papier, soit les animaux sauvages ou domestiques, soit les paysages,soit les scenes de la vie populaire, soit les vieilles legendes locales. D'autres ont marche avec plus ou moins d'hesitation, plus ou moins de temerite, dans la voie des methodes europeennes. Les resultats obtenus jusqu'a ce jouravaient pu donner quelque inquietude sur le succes de ces brusques trans- formations, Mais c'etait augurer a tort d'une race si in- IX THE COLOUR OF PARIS telligente, si curieuse, si apte a rimitation, et, par-dessus tout, si extraordinairement sensible aux images. Le cas de M, Yoshio Markino est instrudlif parce qu'il est un exemple exceptionnellement significatif de cette assimilation d'un artiste japonais a notre esthetique occidentale. II est vrai de dire que, ainsi que la plupart desjeunes japonais, ambitieux de se montrer a la hauteur des evenements nouveaux, M. Markino n'a pas attendu I'age d'homme pour se preparer a cette initiation aux mysteres de I'esthetique du vieux monde europeen. II appartient a une generation qui a trouve le nouvel etat de choses completement etabli, et poiar laquelle le passe, bien que tout recent encore, n'etait plus de la realite, mais de I'histoire. Pour ceux-ci, done, nul effort a faire pour refouler des prejuges bien naturels et vain ere des preventions fort legitimes. lis etaient tout-a-fait propres a Tassimilation. M. Markino quitta^de bonne heure son pays natal pour aller etudier aux Etats-Unis C'est presque toujours par ce sejour ou ce stage en Amerique que debute la jeunesse studieuse du Japon. Leur esprit, avide de nou- veautes, y est seduit peut-etre par tout ce que la civilisa- tion occidentale revet, dans ce pays, d'exagerations colossales. Car ces petits artisans industrieux ne voient plus quepar immenses usines,cesincotnparables virtuoses du travail manuel ne revent plus que du labeur auto- matique de la machine. II y a aussi ce fait, que I'acces des nouveaux continents est plus facile et plusproche. Quoi- qu'il en soit, M. Yoshio Markino partit pour 1' Amerique a I'age de quinze ans, et c'est la qu'il prit contadl avec le PREFACE mouvement artistique qui releve, comme on sait, de cer- taines traditions britanniques, mais surtout des doftrines de I'ecole franfaise. Depuis Whistler, Saint-Gaudens,La Farge ou Sargent, jusqu'aux plus jeunes d'aujourd'hui, elle a forme a peu pres toute I'ecole americaine. M. Mar- kino eut-il quelque guide particulier ? Je ne crois pas. II connut bien La Farge, ce grand artiste, maitre peintre et maitre verrier,pour ne pas dire encore maitre ecrivain, qui s'est tellement passionne pour les civilisations d'ex- treme-Orient qu'il en est devenu un peu comme un extreme-Oriental lui-meme. Mais ce fut tout-a-fait occasionnellement et sans qu'on en puisse tirer aucune consequence. M. Markino se debrouilla tout seul. C'est la chose dumonde la plus facile a un originaire du Japon, qui est bien le peuple le plus debrouillard du monde. Le caraftere du jeune artiste, cependant, accusait plutot une extreme reserve et comme une certaine timidite. Mais il avait le gout des images: nuUe autre satisfadtion n'ega- lait pour lui celle de contempler les Speftacles de la vie. II avait, en somme, ce qu'on appelle la vocation. Pour ces natures privilegiees aucun effort ne coute, aucun obstacle ne rebute, et le meilleur maitre est toujours en soi. Apres un long sejour aux Etats-Unis, M. Markino vint sejourner a Londres. Son propre pays, il le sentait, n'offrait plus, ou etait loin encore de pouvoir offrir, aucune ressource a une esprit aussi entierement emancipe. La periode de crise transitionnelle que traverse I'ecole japonaise n'est pas encore a son terme. Ceux qui en sont exceptionnellement sortis eprouvent quelque malaise THE COLOUR OF PARIS pres des autres. M . Yoshio Markino resta done aLondres. La, un editeur d'esprit curieux et avise eut I'idee de lui demander une serie de vues de la Capitale britannique, "La Couleur de Londres," comme c'est ici, dans le present livre, " La Couleur de Paris." C'etait la une idee ingenieuse, car si rien n'est interes- sant comme de connaitre le jugemerit des etrangers sur soi, rien n'est instruftif, semble-t-il, comme de se figurer I'image qu'ils se font de nous. On y eprouve la surprise de se considerer dans un miroir de genre inconnu. Nous percevons les carafteres par lesquels. nous les frappons, et, par suite, par lesquels nous devons difFerer d'eux; car ils ont du les noter comme etant essentiellement exo- tiques. Qu'un Fran9ais ou un Anglais aille au Japon, cherchera-t-il a peindre autre chose que les choses bien japonaises, celles qui lui paraissent difFerer absolument des aspefts de son propre pays ? Un Japonais, de meme, doit chercher a Londres les choses les plus londoniennes, a Paris les choses les plus parisiennes. La Couleur de Londres, la Couleur de Paris ! cela montre bien que M. Markino ne s'est pas soucie de faire des portraits de lieux. Rien ne ressemble moins que ses aquarelles a I'instantane de la photographie, ou a la de- scription detaillee du dessin de touriste. La couleur, c'est la sensation, de Londres ou de Paris, qu'il veut nous donner. Y a-t-il vraiment une couleur de Paris et une couleur de Londres ? Assurement, et les villes ont non seulement leurcouleur,mais elles ont leur odeur. Les vraisvoyageurs ne s'y trompent pas, et cet ordre de sensations purement xij PREFACE organiques est ce qui entretient le plus la nostalgic des pays quittes. Nul n'a pu traduire encore, si ce n'est par le prestige insuffisant des mots, la nature particuliere de ces sensations subtiles. Mais, en ce qui concerne la cou- leur, celle de Londres et celle de Paris ont 6t6 incarnees respeftivement dans I'ceuvre des deux grands magiciens de la lumiere et de I'atmosphere — ^Turner et Corot. L'un traduit, par la sorcellerie eblouissan te de sa palette fantastique, la grande fantasmagorie des brouillards rous- satres et des fumees de la Tamise. L'autre, par les en- chantements de sa brosse finement attendrie, a fixe ratmosphere delicate dans laquelle le clair soleil parisien semble emousser ses dards. M. Yoshio Markino, naturellement, n'a pense ni a l'un ni a l'autre de ces maitres. II a exprime Londres et Paris comme il les a vus et un peu comme il a aime les voir- Ce qu'il a aime dans Paris, en efFet, ce n'est pas la franche clarte de la lumiere diurne. II ne partage pas la passion des impressionnistes pour le Soleil du grand jour. Son idiosyncrasiejaponaise apparait. Filsd'un pays mari- time aux c6tes profondement decoupees, plus encore, certes, que I'Angleterre, pays de brumes, de nuages et de pluies, M. Markino a garde le gout des effets voiles, des brouillards, des crepuscules, des heures vagues " entre chien et loup," et surtout des nod:urnes. C'est la Seine avec le miroitement des eaux et la moire lumineuse qu'y dessinent les lanternes des bateaux-omnibus, les Tuileries avec la perspedlive de I'Obelisque et de I'Arc deTriomphe dans la pourpre embrumee du soir, I'Arc de I'Etoile lui- xiij THE COLOUR OF PARIS mSme, dressant sa masse dans le bleuissement de la nuit et la clarte blanche des lampaderes ele6triques,les stations du metropolitain sur les boulevards, oil les figures des pietons et des cochers font des ombres chinoises violem- ment decoupees sur le fond eblouissant des devantures de cafes, I'entree de I'Hippodrome avec ses flamboiements de lumiere, le pont Alexandre III oil les groupes de jeunes femmes se retroussent sous la pluie qui reflechit les lanternes sur les trottoirs. Les spedlacles accoutumes prennent quelque chose d'irreel par le choix du temps ou de I'heure, et rien, a la verite, n'est moins realiste que I'art de M, Markino. II travaille toujours a Taquarelle. C'est encore une trace de son individualite japonaise. La peiriture a I'huile, bien que quelques uns s'y soient plus ou moins heureusement essayes, se prete mal, par I'opacite de sa matiere, son epais- seur, les instruments des Grosses dures, tout son metier d'ebauches heurtees ou de fini par superposition, au travail facile de ces mains alertes qui ne posent pas, qui n'insis- tent pas. II leur faut un instrument souple, leger, vif et rapide. La methode de M. Markino correspond, d'ailleurs, a la nature du proc^de qu'il emploie. II n'opere pas d'apres nature, ou, du moins, il ne prend sur les lieux que les renseignements indispensables. Tout son travail est de memoire, et c'est en quoi il est particulierement instrudtif, parce qu'il est moins objeftif, qu'il nous donne plus ex- adtement son impression personnelle. Ce procedd n'a rien qui nous ^tonne, car il est depuis longtemps connu et employe chez nous. II a fait m6me, en France, I'objet XIV PREFACE d'un enseignement special, devenu celebre par ses resul- tats avec un maitre tel que Lecoq cle Boisbaudran, qui fut, on le sait, I'^ducateur de toute une generation de grands artistes, tels que les Legros, les Fantin-Latour, les Gaillard, les Rodin, les Roty, etc. Mais cette methode, chez nous, reste neanmoins un peu exceptionnelle ; elle est en dehors des habitudes des ecoles et des Academies. Au Japon il semble que ce soit ia regie. Ce peuple d'observateurs attentifs et reflechis est habitue de bonne heure a regarder et surtout a savoir regarder et ^ retenir. A voir I'ensemble des aquarelles de M. Markino on peut constater a quel point le sens de I'observation et de la memoire est developpe chez lui. II y a loin sans doute de ces jolies images finement nuancees aux glorieuses visions puissantes et tendues d'un Meryon, ou aux com- positions d'un pittoresque si vigoureusement expressif d'un Lepere. Le Paris de M. Markino n'est, d'ailleurs, pas le Paris des vieux quartiers. II n'y a la rien qui puisse eveiller son imagination dans ces vestiges d'un passe qu'il ne connait pas. II n'a pas, comme Lepere ou comma Meryon, fait parler les vieilles pierres. Son Paris est le Paris moderne, aux grands boulevards violemment eclaires par les projedteurs eledtriques des annonces lumineuses, aux voies sillonn^es d'autos ou de trams, aux ponts de fer dont les larges fermes enjambent la riviere, aux gares qui arrondissent dans la nuit leurs vastes halls illumines. Tout cet appareil de construdtion moderne I'amuse, et il en tire des combinaisons tout-a-fait decora- tives avec une ingeniosite veritable de japonais qui sait toujours se placer a I'endroit voulu. Rien n'est spirituel XV THE COLOUR OF PARIS comme la coupe de ses petits tableaux, comme le motif qu'il aura choisi. S'il s'installe Place S. Sulpice, au lieu de se laisser emouvoir par la fafade grandiose de I'eglise ou par la majeste archited:urale de la fontaine qui porte les statues des quatre grands prelats de France, c'est un simple detail de cette fontaine avec un coin de cette place qu'il choisira dans I'ombre de la nuit : un des lions accroupis en face d'un reverbere qui I'eclaire vivement. De I'auguste silhouette de la Madeleine, qui dresse ses deux frontons sur son peuple de colonnes, il ne prend qu'unbout d'escalier de marbre avec sa rampe en bronze, que dominent au loin les cimes des marronniers jaunis et les toits d'ardoise bleue. Du pont de la Concorde on ne voit guere que les piles rondes surmontees de leur couronnement cubique,emergeant de I'ombre et de I'eau striee de moires lumineuses, Le simple point de vue oil il se place est d'un imprevu continuel. Le livre de M. Yoshio Markino pourrait, a ce titre, servir de manuel pour montrer comment il faut s'ap- prendre a voir, afin de savoir decouvrir I'interet qu'ils renferment dans les objets qui en semblentles plus denues en apparence et dans les aspedts qui paraissent les moins propres a servir de sujets a I'art. Les Strangers y trou- veront les souvenirs du Paris vivant et brillant qu'ils connaissent ; les Parisiens y gouteront I'esprit, la verve, la legerete et, en meme temps, I'inipression finement emue de cet bote venu de tres loin, qui a si joliment rendu les caradleres les plus nouveaux de cette capitale unique dont lis sont filialement orgueilleux, parce que, lui aussi, il en a senti la grandeur, la beaute et, surtout, le xvj PREFACE charme. Ce livre constitue, en plus, pour nous comme un petit evenement artistique qu'il n'est pas indifferent denoter,car il est un des premiers docunaents quivaillent la peine d'etre retenus pour fixer, dans I'histoire de I'art japonais, le point de depart d'une evolution nouvelle. LfiONCE BfiNf DITE. Paris, Jottt 1908. XVlj CONTENTS Preface by L. Benedite v An Essay by the Artist xxv I. Of the Colour of Paris i Public Buildings — View from Notre Dame — Altar of the Boatmen — Notre Dame de Paris — The City of Charles Martel— The Sainte Chapelle — ^The old Louvre — The Place Royalcin the Seventeenth Century — ^The Pantheon, a Temple of Fame — Modern Exhibition Buildings II. Of open Spaces 2, 8 Pleasure Grounds, Walks, Squares, Parks, and Gardens — The Champs Elysdes — The Quays — The Luxembourg Gardens — The Buttes Chaumont — The Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes — P^re Lachaise — The Gobelins Quarter III. Of the Faubourgs : The Working Class 58 Morning Influx from Montmartre and Belleville — Street-sweepers and Milkmen — ^Working Girls — ^The Midday Lunch — The Un- employed — Philanthropic Works — General Confederation of Labour — Popular Universities and Entertainments — Overcrowded Tenements IV. Of Politics and the Political World 84 Chamber of Deputies — Luxembourg Palace — The Senate — Hotel de Ville and Elys^e Palace — Presidents of the Republic — Jules Grevy, Carnot, Faure, and Falli^res — Clemenceau — Municipal Council — Federation of Labour THE COLOUR OF PARIS V. Of the Th».atre no The Comedie Fran9aise — The Odeon — The 0°pdra— The Theatre Antoine^The Renaissance — Aftor-Managers — M, Guitry and Mme. R^jane — Theatre Hats — The Censorship — The Claque — A Triumph — The People's Theatre VI. Of Women in Paris 139 The Society Woman — Dressmakers — Visits — The Opera — The Races — Women at the Sorbonne — Literary Women— Feminists — Queens of the Theatre — Servants — A Foreigner's Opinion VII. of Journalism 164 Historical Sketch — First French Newspaper — Commercial Journalism — The Interview — Decline of Criticism ^ Literature — The Academic Fran9aise — The Academic Goncourt VIII. Of Military Paris 184 A Cavalry Charge — Compulsory Service — The Garrison of Paris — Triumphs of the Army — A Page of History — The General Staff — The Army and Society — State of Opinion in the Army IX. Of Paris Finance 210 Historical Sketch — The Bank of France — " La Haute Banque " — The Rothschilds and Others — Vote on the Budget — Secret Service Funds^The Bourse — -Shady Finance — The Great Crachs — The Panama Company X. Of Education and the Paris Schools 234 Elementary Teaching — The Beaux Arts — ^The Conservatoire — The Sorbonne — Popular Education — The Student of the Latin Quarter — The Great Schools — The College of France — Free Courses Index 261 ILLUSTRATIONS Coloured Plates Eiffel Tower in the Evening Mist Anglers on the Seine Back of Notre Dame : Moonlight Saint Germain I'Auxerrois Statue of Notre Dame de Paris in the Cathedral of Notre Dame Back Entrance of St Roch Rue du Haut Pave ; and Pantheon Arc de I'Etoile 11.30 a.m. on a May Sunday at Boule- vard du Bois de Boulogne Place de la Concorde Bookstalls on the Seine Embankment Sacre Coeur, seen from Rue de TAbreu- voir Lake in the Bois de Boulogne View from Pere Lachaise View from Montmartre The Man who feeds the Birds ih the Tuileries Gardens Kiosks in the Grand Boulevard xxj Frontispiece To face p. xxxj 2 10 20 24 26 30 33 36 42 46 50 58 66 69 THE COLOUR OF PARIS Omnibus Station : Place St Germaiil des Pres To face p. 72 Gare Montparnasse Door of the Luxembourg Palace Archives Nationales >> n 84 90 Statue of Gambetta n 94 Pont d'lena a 98 Bridge of the Chemin de Per dc I'Ouest »s 102 Place de la Republique The Theatre Franfais East Side of the Opera 55 55 >J 108 "3 116 The Moulin Rouge Corner of Rue des Blancs Manteaux 55 121 and Rue des Archives 55 136 Boulevard de la Madeleine : Early Evening Rue de Rivoli >» 138 144 Gardens of the Tuileries » 148 The Madeleine it 152 Boulevard Malesherbes J5 156 Market at Place de lAlma J> 162 Pont Royal Avenue Gabriel 5j 166 172 Statue of Jeanne dArc Esplanade des Invalides Pont de lAlma >» 55 184 192 196 xxij ILLUSTRATIONS Gare d'Orleans: Pont Solferino To face p. 200 Caumartin Station of the " Metro- politain " „ 202 Winged Vidlory, and Staircase of the Louvre „ 208 Place Vendome „ 210 Eastward View from Pont Royal „ 211 Corner of Rue des Haudriettes and Rue des Archives „ 218 East Side of the Bourse „ 222 La Trinite „ 250 Sepia 'Drawings The Fountain in front of St Sulpice „ 18 Grand Palais „ 28 Boulevard des BatignoUes „ 61 Cafe-Chantant in the Champs Elysees „ 123 Place du Theatre Fran9ais ,, 131 In Front of St Eustache „ 164 Evening at Pont Alexandre III „ 168 Pont de la Concorde „ 182 Pont Saint-Denis „ 198 Garden of the Observatoire „ 234 Boulevard St Michel „ 240 Cafe in the Rue Royale „ 253 xxiij c 2 AN ESSAY BY THE ARTIST IN June 1907, 1 was lying half unconscious on a bed of the West London Hospital after an operation, and counting the days until I could get up and enjoy my- self by once more sketching London, Lo! a "sealed dis- patch" camefrom my publishers. After a fewweeks'time the dodtorsaid to me at last, "Get up and go!" Impa- tiently I opened the dispatch and read thus: "Go to Paris and make sketches there." I had no time to cry, nor to laugh; but the train carried me away, and in eight hours' time I found myself in the "Gay City" — Paris. I myself felt as if a sea-water fish was put in the fresh water. The strange people, the strange tongue, the strange buildings, the strange effedts! The latter two I began to make friendship with at once. I started to work from the very next day. My first cry was: "Who could paint London, but who could not paint Paris?" In London all objects are mystified into indescribable grey tones which need great study from those who wish to mix the colours to paint them ; while in Paris, though we see many beauti- ful colours, they are the colours you can find ready on your palette. However, this first impriession of mine soon disproved itself in the fadl: Paris is just as difficult topaint AN ESSAY ON PARIS as London. I have wasted many a sheet of paper — tear- ing away the half-finished sketches again and again, 1 think Paris is feminine, while London is masculine. Whenever I compare Paris with London, those two art- ists, George Watts and Carri^re, come into my mind. Generally, these artists painted subjects quite other than townscapes, but their colouring and handling represent so well the feeling of their own towns respedtively — namely. Watts for London, and Carriere for Paris. This was my first great change of scene since I have really devoted my life to being an artist. I was wondering which would be greater — loss or gain. I knew that I had learnt many new lessons since I went" to Paris, but at the same time I felt that I had missed many things in Lon- don. This question could not be solved until I came back to London ; then I realized that I had gained so much, pra6tically with no loss at all. I must confess that my art as well as my health suf- fered terribly for the first two months or so in Paris. When I arrived there, I went to a hotel in Boulevard Montparnasse. I did not like it. I could not stay there more than three weeks. I removed to a pension in the same distri6l. Everything was in a quite different style from London lodgings. I began to be downhearted. I think I am like a cat which always prefers the place where he has stayed long. Every night I would go to bed with a miserable heart, and pass the whole night sleep- lessly. How could I pass ten months under this condi^ tion ? The next morning a heavy headache ca me, an d I was quite unfit for the work. In the same pension there were XXV j BY THE ARTIST an Irish artist and a young Danish lady art student with her mother. They were all very good friends to me — the Irish student trying to make me love Paris, and the Danish ladies trying to soothe me. But all was in vain. I wanted to come back to London at once, only my pub- lishers would not allow me. At thi& moment, the very first persons I began to fall into love with were the French soldiers. I noticed at once that theynever walk with girls as the English soldiers generally do ; but, taking hand to hand with their own comrade, they would ramble about xhtjardins^ or look at the bookstalls along the Seine. Their expressions are so innocent and so sincere. Their unfit and shabby uniforms only added to their sincerity by shaking off all possibility of conceited manner. They look really as if they are only doing their duties for their country. They reminded me of our country soldiers. I think the French soldiers resemble the Japanese soldiers very much. And also those dumpy trousers and rumpled overcoats, with the soft harmony of colours, are the most suitable subjects to put in the sketches. They are such good contrast with those French ladies who carry themselves wonderfully well, while their hats, their dresses, their boots — in shape as well as in colours — are most perfeft, which seems to me their own speciality by birth. It was one of the pleasantest things for me to look at the ladies' fashions in Paris. But sometimes I wondered if they are not too anxious to show themselves, just like some lovable toy dolls disregarding to keep their own self-dignity, which seems to me the speciality of the Anglo-Saxon women from their birth. XXV ij AN ESSAY ON PARIS As the days were passing by, I began to observe many things in Paris. I noticed some most hideous sights— those so-called " Bohemians." Being clad in dirty rags, and decorating themselves with all sorts of dust, they look exaflly like Egyptian mummies. Are they poets ? Are they artists? Are they too poor to keep themselves a little neater? Poets or artists are generally poor, as I am myself, but we can be neat without any more expense than it costs to be dirty. I thinksomeof thoseBohemians are the most conceited people in this world — far more conceited than those people who follow after the latest fashions. I know they have great ambitions to be looked upon as quelqu'un. If they are artists, why don't they become "somebody" by their own art? If they are poets, why don't they become quelqu'un with their own poems ? Being too lazy to succeed by their own profes- sions, they are trying to distinguish themselves by their hideous appearances. They are the traitors to true art. While I was in that pension, a friend of mine came to show me "something very interesting for a change." I went with him to the upstairs of some cafe. I cannot describe this room either with pen or brush. I leave it entirely to the imaginations of the readers. I said to my- self, "Let the last day of Pompeii fall upon Paris at once!" My friend, seeing my unpleasant face, took me out of the door. A gentle breeze cooled away my hot cheeks with one brush after another. A dewy moon, like the ancient Japanese metal mirror, was hanging high above the sky. Was the moon moist, or were my eyes moist ? I wiped my eyes with my handkerchief again and xxviij BY THE ARTIST again, and the moon looked more and more dewy. Under this misty moon, clouds like fish-scales covered one-third of the sky, while above her silky white clouds were flow- ing in broken lines, as if some chifFqn was thrown over it. The edge of one of these chifFon-clouds was touching the moon's face a little, very timidly. The street-lamps spread out very powerful lights — tocstrong for my eyes to describe their colours — and their refleftions on the house-walls, pavement, and half-parts of the trunks of the boulevard trees, gave a greenish-grey colour which was divided from the sky by those dark rbofs, forming a pic- ture altogether neat and cool except for one or two kiosks which showed some warmest red, yellow, or amber light through their square windows. They were exactly like the signature stamps which we Japanese artists often put upon our piftures. What a perfe6t pic- ture ! I felt I was survived. My cursing words against Paris died away from my lips, and I said, " Banzai and banzai to Paris." My lonely pension life did not last long, for I was introduced through my illustrious English friend to two or three influential persons among the artistic circle in Paris. I may mention that one of these persons was M. Benedite,of the Luxembourg Museum. He invited me every Saturday evening to his home, where I have met with several leading artists. Certainly it was the happiest moment for me to be among them. Only my relu6lance was, I was so busy to do some certain sketches in the limited time, and could not visit them as often as I and they wanted. AN ESSAY ON PARIS Another bright light came to my life at the same time. One of my English friends came to Paris to see me. He wanted to introduce me to his friend Mme. Y. Who is Mme, Y. ? He said she is a dressmaker. De- lighted I was to be acquainted with a dressmaker, as it was my desire for a long time to study the ladies' fashions in Paris. My friend and I drove across the river to the other side, and soon I arrived at one of the flats in Rue de Cau- martin. There I was introduced to a charming French lady. Her first question was. How did I like Paris ? In- stead of answering her positively, which some hypo- crites might do easily, I said I have had so many inconveniences in my daily life as I did not understand French, yet I could not spare times to learn the lan- guage, Mme. Y. took it with a great sympathy, and said as both she and her godchild spoke English, it would be best for me to live with them. She showed me a room which she could give me. I looked in. It had two win- dows with the north light. Its size, the gas and water system, and everything, were just right for my work. So I accepted her kind offer and renaoved there at once. This was the beginning of my happy life in Paris. Mme. Y.'s god-daughter was a very simple and pathetic little child of fourteen. She was my interpreter when- ever I went out. They looked after me for everything. Even my tobacco and tooth-powder they bought for me. My duty was only to paint. Some evenings madame would give me the leftures on the fashions. The way she makes dresses was just like the way I paint. When XXX ANGLERS ON THE SEINE BY THE ARTIST some clients come to her, she would tell them, "Unless you leave everything to me, I cannot make any dress for you," and she would study their figures carefully, and ask them to wait for a day or two. These " a day or two " were the busiest time for her " to think out." Suddenly she would go to some theatre or restaurant, not to enjoy herself but to study the fashions. More than once I followed after her. It was a very interesting thing to hear her criticisms on the fashions, their " cutting " and " sawings " and " flattings," etc. It was a great amusement to watch hovv^ she turned some English or American ladies into the quite fashionable Parisians. One evening I was allowed to watch how she made her own hat. Piles of feathers and artificial flowers and chiffons were laid on her table. In front of the look- ing-glass she put a skeleton hat on her head, and tried to decorate it with those stuffs on the table — one thing after another. She would say " Non, non!" until it came to the climax of such a good contrast of colour and good shape. Then a smile came to her face, and she sewed them up. While I was watching that, she explained to me that all the materials cost her less than 20 francs, and she produced a hat valued over 100 francs. To her great disappointment, I was not appreciative enough about the ledlure of money matters. Any lesson in economy is no good to me. But I was so much interested to see how well she understood about the .colours. I think it is the natural gift of Frenchwomen. ■ I was told that all the so-called " gay life " in Paris xxxj AN ESSAY ON PARIS was mostly for the foreigners, while the French people were very industrious and very pra6tical. She proved her words with her own daily life. But I think the French were more matter of fadl and less poetic than I expefted. Anyhow, they are very intelligent and very sagacious people. If I compare the French and the English as chess-players, I should say that English players gener- ally can see the next one or two hands in front, while the French players can see six or seven hands beyond. At the pension where I lived before, the porter had a little girl of six or seven. She used to play diabolo in the courtyard. One day I took some notes of her movements in my sketch-book — only three or four strokes of lines. If I show that to the landlord of my London lodging, he might say, "Are they trees or birds or some Japanese letters ?" But that French porter looked at the note, and, to my great astonishment, he said : " Ah, oui, monsieur . . . justement ma fille. Ca, c'est tres tres bien!" The Parisians are good humourists and good jokers. Their jokes are as delicious as snail, but some- times as strong as the garlic. An English dramatist — a great friend of mine — came to Paris last April. A box was given to us by the Vaudeville Theatre. Mme. Y., the English dramatist, and myself — the three different nations with the three different heads — went to see La Divorcee, which was so popular then. The English dramatist clasped his hand tightlyand exclaimed again and again, " Splendid ! splendid !" which was echoed and re-echoed on my lips. He said to me: "Can you tell me who could play as well in London ?" I saw xxxij BY THE ARTIST proudly brightened eyes in the French lady's face, and she was quite right, too. The play was about the ques- tions which spring up from collisions between the sociology and biology and the artificial law and the superstitious religion, the latter having the least in- fluence. As I am a follower of the Oriental philosophers, I was naturally much interested in this play, especially to see the French public accept it with such applause. It is very curious that whenever I meet my Japanese friends in London, the topic of our conversations is always about this question. So I have written down the outlines of this play, and sent it to my Japanese friends, now in Japan. In many ways, I think, we Japanese are nearer to the French peoples than to the English peoples. This idea was proved only too true by my friend, who said to me the other day: " You always say England, England, and England, but you are not an Englishman at all. You are more like a Frenchman." But the great difference, as I noticed, is that French people seem to me eager to enjoy themselves by fulfilling their five senses freely, while the Japanese are always trying to sacrifice these senses in order to get more mental pleasures. Thus, in the peace-time our manners diflfer from each other ; but if something happens, we are excited in the same way. For instance, such an incident as "Zola in the Pan- theon," which happened just when I was in Paris, is quite a familiar thing in Japan. There was only one thing I could not understand at all during my ten months' stay in Paris. It was about the xxxiij AN ESSAY ON PARIS relation of the different sexes. This is too great a ques- tion for a stranger to understand. Even in London, where I have been over ten years, I do not yet quite understand the English life. Such living human emo- tions never go parallel with any dead sciences or logics. Each nation has its own peculiarity ; and while one nation is indulging in a serious mood, the other would laugh at it. Here is an example. Oneevening I" went to Mme. Y.'s business-room to see those work-girls making dresses. They were taking their rest. It happened that I had an English paper in my hand, and Mme. Y. translated it into French for those girls. As is usual with this class of people, they were very much interested in the news of the " breach of promises." But no sooner than she had finished reading, they all burst into laughter. I asked them for curiosity : " What would they do if such a case ever happened to them ?" They all said : " Our hearts could not be cured by any amount of the damages ; we would take our lives." In England such suicide would be mocked at as " temporary insanity." I think that all we Japanese, not only the middle-class people but even the better-class people, would profoundly sympathize on the French side. But I must frankly express that I could not agree with everything that the French people do. Paris had some mists, too, for my delight. Here is an extradl from my diary : " OStober 20, 1907. — I had a promenade along Place de la Concord, Boulevard Saint Germain, Boulevard Saint Michel, tJien to home. The XXX iv BY THE ARTIST winter has really come, and in the evening Paris is in her new dress, which is as chic as her fair dwellers' wear. That pearl-like water of Seine at the sunset time, and that greenish-white colour of the houses is gone — all changed into a mysterious grey. . . ." When I got up next morning and walked out, every- where I saw her winter dress. Though Paris had the mists, yet she had the sun too. The morning is almost wonderful, for the sun's rays divide the space of the street into two with a diagonal line — the shadow side being all of a mauve-grey tone. Nothing can be seen in this region. The light gives a strong amber colour to the mist, and shows up white walls, gold letterings, red curtaim, and everything wherever it touches. I wish I could see the dead night-efFefbs of Paris. But my friend warned me, telling some terrible stories of Apaches. But more than once, looking at the night- effefts through my windows, I had great temptation to go out. Myfriend told me — if shewere a "strong man," she would take me out,but,being a woman,she was very much afraid. When I go to Paris next time, I think I shall find out a " strong man " to go out with. My most favourite places in Paris were those " little bits" around theSacreCoeur,andthedistrifts between the Boulevard Sebastopol and the Bastille. I had never seen such old-fashioned streets before, except on the stage. The work-girls in this quarter never wear any hats; their bare heads are far more tasteful than those hideous black straw hats which the English girls often put on. The XXXV AN ESSAY ON PARIS men, in their dampy trousers and sabots, make a very good balance to the bareheaded women. The men and women often carry very big bundles; under their weight they twist themselves to keep an equilibrium in a manner which is very picturesque. Whenever I was in this part, I always thought that I had gone back to some century of long ago. But, every now and then, gorgeous autoniobileSjWith gorgeouspeople in them, would break these quiet streets at their full speed, as if to remind me of the up-to-date fashionable quarters near by. Just before I left Paris summer came again, and I enjoyed myself seeing her in her summer dress once more. The 23rd of June was the day I bid adieu to Paris. Although I was delighted to be back in my beloved London again, something always whispers in my ears " Paris and Paris," and she comes into my dreams nightly. YOSHIO MARKING. London, July 1908. xxxvj THE COLOUR OF PARIS CHAPTER I Of the Colour of Paris Public Buildings — View from Notre Dame — Altar of the Boatmen — Notre Dame de Paris — The City of Charles Martel — The Sainte Chapelle — ^The old Louvre — The Place Royale in the Seventeenth Century — The Pantheon, a Temple of Fame — Modern Exhibition Buildings WHEN the clearer atmosphere of early spring begins to admit of a more distant prospedt, I often ascend the towers of Notre Dame, from whence surely, if from any point, the Colour of Paris — of Paris the city and the historic spot — is the most vividly to be discerned. Here, at all events, we are at the very heart of the city, the centre found which it has grown up by degrees, from which it has spread out in ever-widening circles ; from here can best be distin- guished its many domes and spires, towers and cupolas, all the buildings which record its eventful history. Some of these buildings have been eredled upon the ruins of others yet more ancient; but vestiges of these older ruins remain to speak of an earlier past, and so chronicle two epochs in place of one. Notre Dame, indeed, is still the centre of Paris. Here was the little island of Lutetia which Csesar was forced to take by siege in his conquest of Gaul. Where now I I THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. extends the parvis, or cathedral square, rose in the first century b.c. the rude village of mud-huts in which our ancestors dwelt. Under Roman rule civilization developed rapidly in Gaul, and Lutetia grew apace. It was already called the city of the Parisians — civitas'Parisiorum — and the Altar of the Boatmen (nauies), a monument dating back to this period, still remains to us. This altar originally stood on the very spot where Notre Dame was after- wards built, and was rediscovered long after the erec- tion of the great cathedral. On March i6, 1776, some workmen who were digging a vault beneath the choir to serve as a burial-place for the Archbishops discov- ered in the foundations of a very old wall running from north to south nine huge blocks of stone covered with carvings and inscriptions. These were recognized as being ancient altars, and one of them bore the follow- ing dedicatory inscription : TIB. C^SARE AUG. JOVI OPTUMO MAXSUMO NAUT^ PARISIACI PUBLICS POSIERU NT " Under Tiberius Caesar Augustus the Parisian Boatmen raised this altar, at the expense of their Corporation, to Jupiter the All-Great and All-Good." One side of the altar bears this inscription; the other three sides are adorned with rude carvings. Such is the first monument which speaks of Paris, and these Nautce 'Paristaci,wh.ost business it was to transport produce and H X O S O O CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS merchandise from the mouths of the Saone and Rhone down the Seine as far as the Chanriel and to the coast of Brittany, were our authentic ancestors. Their altar has been removed to the Roman baths in the Cluny Mu- seum, and this ancient sculptured stone, if not the most beautiful, is at least the most venerable of the monu- ments of Paris. As Lutetia developed, Augustus raised it to the rank of a city, and several of the Roman Emperors took up their residence there. Gradually the inhabitants, finding their islet too confined, crossed the stream and settled on its southern shore. The growth of the town at first was entirely in this direftion, and its buildings rose on the slope of that hill between the He de la Cite and the Bievre, called the Mountain of Ste Genevieve. Below the hill stretched the arena, the ruins of which were brought to light towards the close of the last century. During the first era of its history our city contained no more important edifice than this arena, which com- prised both theatre and amphitheatrd On the flat sanded circle of the latter took place the gladiatorial combats and fights with wild beasts, while on a raised stage fac- ing the seats, which occupied a hemicycle along the side of the hill, pantomimes and other scenic represen- tations were given. The entire population, including women and slaves, thronged hither on feasts and holidays, and beneath the great awning {velum), which sheltered the crowd from the heat of the sun, were sometimes gathered over twenty thousand sped:ators. la THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. The Thermae, or Roman baths, remains of which are recognizable within the Cluny gardens, evoke memo- ries of another splendid monument of the same period — the aqueduft of Auteuil, built originally to lead the waters from Rungis to supply the baths of Lutetia. These baths were adorned at the angles of the vaulted roof with prows of boats, symbolizing the prosperity of the city, for which reason the prow of a ship has re- mained through all ages the emblem of Paris. In the He de la Cite itself arose somewhat later the Palace of the Cssars, which was also the residence of the Governors of the city. Before the palace stretched the Forum, which served as a public square and market. The remains of a great edifice discovered in the last cen- tury beneath the Sainte Chapelle are probably vestiges of the Palace of the CcEsars. The town had spread very little along the north bank of the stream, and all that immense space covered with houses which can be seen from the towers of Notre Dame stretching between the Seine and the heights of Belleville,^ was then covered with dense woods and morasses, intersected already by three great Roman roads, one leading towards the north- ern provinces — our Rue St Denis of to-day, where traces have been discovered of the old Roman pavement; another towards Seulis, Soissons, and Rheims, our Rue St Martin; and a third in the direction of Sens, now Rue St Antoine. Wooded hills bordered the horizon, and on the highest of these stood two temples, dedi- cated to Mars and Mercury. This hill is now known as Montmartre. CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS These ancient monuments, which lend a tinge of Gallo-Roman colouring to the story of Paris, are little known to Parisians. We do not pay due homage to our earliest ancestors, those brave Paris boatmen, worship- pers of Jupiter, Christian traditions having thrown them into the shade. From the fourth century onwards Christianity had spread by degrees over the whole of Gaul. Christian art emerged from the catacombs to im- part its own sacred colour to the era which saw churches and cathedrals rising on every hand, The ancient islet on which th e boatmen had planted their altar was singled out by the Bishops in their turn. There rose the first church which really deserved the name of cathedral of Paris. It was originally dedicated to St Stephen, and traces of its foundations were discovered in 1848 during excavations on the present site of the sacristy of Notre Dame. This shrine was built about the year 366, and at the same time it was decided to surround the city with ramparts. In eredting these the newly-made Chris- tians, yielding to their hatred of the ancient faith, de- molished all the pagan monuments, especially the arena. Thus, with the same facility with which they had abandoned Druidism for the Roman rites, our ancestors threw over the Roman for the Christian form of wor- ship. Still looking down from the towers of Notre Dame, we see on the summit of Mont Ste Genevieve, beneath the shadow of the vast Pantheon, a massive discrowned tower bereft of its belfry. It was there that Clovis, hav- ing adopted the Christian faith, eredled his castle, and 5 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. close beside it the basilica of St Peter and St Paul, which afterwards took the name of Ste Genevieve, whose ashes were there entombed. The Castle of Clovis was later transformed from a palace to a monastery, and became the abode of the Abbot of Ste Genevieve and his monks. Having been destroyed by the Normans, it was re- eredted in 1 177, the base of the old tower of Clovis dat- ing from this period, while its upper stories belong to the thirteenth century. The old tower of Clovis is at present enclosed within the Lycee Henri VI, Nearly all our old churches have shared the fate of the Abbey of Ste Genevieve, having been destroyed and then rebuilt. It was Childebert, founder of abbeys and churches and murderer of his kindred, who caused the erection, not far from the palace of the Thermae, of the first basilica of St Germain des Pres. The only vestige of this basilica of Childebert which still remains in the present church is, I believe, some marble shafts of columns, which were replaced in the choir in the twelfth century. The lofty tower, although its base is very ancient, does not appear to be pf earlier date than the ninth century. The towers of Clovis and of St Ger- main des Pres recall the sombre medieval colouring of the Merovingian epoch, during which Paris — it is by this name that the city had been called since the fourth century — had not ceased to expand and develop. Paris was no longer concentrated within the Cite. About the year 700 there had spread along the right as well as the left bank of the Seine numerous boroughs and suburbs grouped round their parent abbeys and churches, some 6 SAINT GERMAIN L AUXERROIS CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS of them being surrounded by moats and walls, while towers and belfries began to rise on all sides. Charles Martel, on his march through Paris in 719 in pursuit of Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, first skirted the monastery of St Lawrence, on the site of which the church of the same name stands to-day, and soon arrived at the monastery of St Martin des Champs, a famous priory which has given its name to a whole region of Paris, and whose site is now occupied by the Conserva- toire des Arts et Sciences. Charles Martel, then con- tinuing his march, passed St Gervaig on his left, and on his right the vast cemetery, later named after the holy Innocents, and the Church of St Germain I'Auxerrois, which dates back to the reign of Chilperic, but was re- built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He next crossed the Seine and entered the Cite, passing on his left the Hotel Dieu, a hospital founded about the middle of the seventh century by Landry, Bishop of Paris. Thence he crossed the other branch of the stream, stop- ping to gaze at the palace of the Therm^E, which still retained some traces of its ancient splendour, and survey- ing in turn the chapels and churches of St Severin, St Julien le Pauvre, and St Germain des Pres. Finally, he climbed the mountain of Ste Genevieve, and de- scended its further slope to the little town of St Marcel, on the east, and the blooming shores of the Bievre. Thus Paris had spread from north to south, as later it was destined to grow proportionately from east to west. One of the most curious quarters pf the Paris of that date, as well as one of the richest in old houses and old 7 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. monuments, is undoubtedly that stretching along the hill of Ste Genevieve between the Seine and the Bievre. No one has better described this distridt of Paris than our friend J. K, Huysmans. If we face towards the west from the towers of Notre Dame, our glance embraces all Paris; if, on the other hand, we turn our gaze to the east, we see only Notre Dame. We cannot see the pro- digious facade, indeed, nor the soaring height of the twin towers, in whose architedlure elegance, balance, and an indescribable lightness are combined with strength and massiveness. But we can see the nave, its acute triangle, the graceful and ornate crowns of its but- tresses, the spire with its lace-like carving, and rising on all sides a throng of figures wrought in stone. The eye wanders hither and thither, uncertain where to rest, while there rises before the mind the impression of a visionary world. This great work was the creation of two centuries, the first stone being laid in 1 103 ; and it was not till 1351 that Jehan le Bouteiller put the finishing touches to the choir-screen, a masterpiece begun in 1 3 1 9 by Jean Ravy, master-mason. No other Gothic edifice exhibits such perfeft unity. From the reign of Louis le Gros, King of France in 1 108, to that of Napoleon I, Notre Dame has looked down upon our whole history. First she sheltered the life of medieval Paris, being its chief civic as well as its chief religious edifice. Here the people assembled, here slaves were enfranchised, mysteries and miracle-plays were performed, and the Feast of Fools was celebrated. 8 CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS It was here also that men swore fealty at the altar, and here that they sought right of sandluary. Merchants sold their wares within its precinfts, and hither the people resorted to gaze at gorgeous missals inlaid with gold and richly illuminated, which were chained to the desks for safety. Crowds gathered here to behold novel and curious sights of every sort, from ostrich-eggs and elephants' tusks, stuffed crocodiles, and skeletons of whales, to antique vases and rare cameos. It was the medieval " town hall," serving alike as praetorium, ex- change, and museum. Towards the close of the Middle Ages the great church lost something of this popular charadter, and be- came a more secluded spot. It was here that St Dominic preached. Hither came Raymond VII, Count of Tou- louse, in 1229, barefooted and clothed in a smock, to abjure his errors and seek absolution from the papal nuncio. Here St Louis deposited the crown of thorns recovered from the Holy Land; and here, in 1302, Philippe le Bel held the first meeting of the States General. In 1431 Henry VI of England was here crowned King of France, and five years later a Te Deum was sung on the same spot in celebration of the re- taking of Paris by the troops of Charles VII. What a host of memories! How many episodes, sad and glorious by turn, these venerable stones could relate! Notre Dame served as barracks to the soldiers of the League until they were driven out by their infuriated opponents. Then, with the arrival of Henry IV, began a new period in the history of France, and the aisles of 9 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. Notre Dame resounded with paeans of viftory and mournful chants of defeat, even as they were, yet later, to echo the funeral orations of Kings and the fiery elo- quence of the Revolution. All their miseries, all their splendours, all their strains of hope and lamentation, the populace of Paris have poured into the bosom of the ancient cathedral; and if the people still regard their church with a peculiar tenderness and veneration, it is for the memories its stones recall no less than for its intrinsic grandeur and beauty. He who would see Notre Dame de Paris aright should visit it at evening, when its fafade is lighted up by the rays of the setting sun. Although at that hour the base of its towers is already in shadow, all the countless figures that people the embrasures and niches of the portals can still be distinguished. Prophets, Kings, angels, apostles, virgins and saints, knights and eccle- siastics, ladies and serfs, the eledt and the condemned, thronging to the Last Judgment — all these motionless figures of the past then seem animated with a myste- rious life. The upper gallery lifts its fragile columns to the light, while between them the statues peer forth as though about to step down from their stone niches. Higher yet the great rose window, catching the diredt rays of the setting sun, flashes with countless jewelled dyes and reveals its lace-like setting ; and the two great towers, wreathed about with the fragile tracery of the upper gallery, mount upward to the light which en- kindles them. Truly these are the colours befitting Our 10 STATUE OF NOTRE DAME DE PARIS IN THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS Lady of Paris, and in their radiance the great minster appears prodigious, vast, superhuman. One finds it hard to believe that it can be the work of man. " The man, the artist, the individual, are lost in this massive pile w^ithout a maker's name; the human mind is here summed up and epitomized. The people are its mason; Time is its architedt." Thus speaks Vidtor Hugo, the poet of Notre Dame de Paris. Notre Dame marks the beginning of a new era, the greatest in our history from an architedtural point of view. The invasion of the Normans closed one epoch ; another opens with the accession of Hugues Capet. Paris, destroyed by the invaders, rises like a phoenix from her ashes, and, already the centre of the Capetian rule, is about to become sole capital of the kingdom of France. The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries behold the eredtion of the noblest monuments which the city can boast. Louis IX found the people in possession of Notre Dame, and wished for a sandtuary of his own. The lead- ing thought of his reign was to make war against the Mussulman and reconquer the Holy Sepulchre, and this explains the credulity with which he accepted and paid enormous sums for every relic offered him by a fallen and needy Prince, Baldwin II, last Latin Emperor of Jerusalem. These relics comprised the crown of thorns, fragments of the true Cross, the lance which had pierced the side of Christ, and the crimson mantle of the Pas- sion; and it was in order to enshrine them worthily and II THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. 1. to keep them always near him that St Louis ordered the erectionofthe Sainte Chapelle. The work was entrusted to Pierre de Montereau,a famous archite£b of the period, who succeeded in achieving in the three years between 1 245 and 1 248 the masterpiece which in its essential features has been preserved for us to the present day. The originality of the edifice consists in its being in two stories. The new sanftuary was designed to serve a double purpose, as was the King's palace which adjoined it. This palace consisted of two distinct parts. The lower, including kitchens and dependencies, store- rooms and guard-houses, was more or less open to all comers; while the upper floor, containing the royal apartments and halls of State, was reserved for the King and his immediate following. We know what a marvel was wrought by the archi- tedt in this upper chapel. On entering it, we see only a shell of translucent stained glass framed in clusters of light colonnettes, so that we look in vain for any support for the vaulted roof, which seems suspended in air. The explanation of this prodigy must be sought outside, where the immense buttresses show by what means the builder has sustained his roof. The gilded spire which crowns the chapel is not of the same style, and is a later addition to the chef-d' ceuvre of Pierre de Montereau. Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are enough to glorify for all time the little lie de la Cite; but they are not its only architedlural marvels. The palace of the Cite, first the abode of the Counts of Paris, and later of the first Capetian Kings, had risen upon the ruins of the 12 CH. i.] THE COLOUR OF PARIS ancient palace of the Roman Governors, and was admir- ably situated at the western extremity of the island, from which it dominated both river-banks. Its position en- abled Count Eudes to maintain himself for the space of two years against the Norman invaders. It was then a fortress ; under Louis IX it became a palace. Enlarged by Philippe le Bel and restored by Louis XI, it con- tinued to be the residence of the Kings until the time when, crossing the river, they installed themselves in the Louvre. The ancient abode of royalty was then surren- dered to the judicial powers. Under the Kings its walls had witnessed many important events, such as the en- franchisement of the communes and the proclamation of the Pragmatic Sandtion, the first protest against the authority of Rome. Transformed into a Palace of Justice, it remained, nevertheless, the scene and centre of all the most important events, whether civic or political, of the time. As we make the circuit of the existing build- ings we shall be able to decipher the meaning of these venerable stones, in which we may find traces of every epoch. The clock-tower at the corner of the Boulevard and the quay rises on the site of the old donjon of the palace, and recalls a dramatic moment in our history. In its belfry hangs the bell which gave the first signal for the massacre of St Bartholomew on the night of August 22 to 23, 1 572. The stroke of one in the morning had just sounded from the beautiful clock under its canopy of fleur-de-lis when the signal was given. That hour has fled for ever; the Latin device upon the clock remains: 13 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. i. " Dispense justice," it says to the magistrates, " as im- partially as I myself do, distributing time among the hours." Following the Seine, we come upon the great portals of the Conciergerie, by which one" enters what were once the kitchens of St Louis, later turned into prisons. The round tower, called the Tour d' Argent, in which the treasury of the King was kept, is a little further on. Its twin tower close by was put to a more sinister use. It was called the " Bon Bee," in derisive allusion to the tortures infli u J p o « Q cH.ii.] OF OPEN SPACES ing to carry everything before it. This was on their re- turn from the funeral of Vidtor Nbir, who had been killed by Pierre Bonaparte, when the excited populace, led by Rochefort, and singing the Marseillaise, was arrested in its tumultuous rush towards Paris and to- wards a republic by a force of police and cavalry barring the Champs Elysees opposite the Palais de I'lndustrie. It was an ominous moment. A sudden movement in the crowd, a cry, a shot fired on one side or the other, as in December, 1851, and the Empire might have swept the Champs Elysees from end to end with artillery-fire, as it had once swept the boulevards, thus repeating "that somewhat rude police measure " to which it owed its eighteen years of security. The 'Calais de r Industrie recalls, without inspiring regret, one of the triumphs of the Imperial regime, the Universal Exposition of 1855. -^ more unsightly jewel- case for the treasures it held can hardly be imagined, especially as the case was left to us after the jewels had vanished. Pulled down in 1 900, it was advantageously replaced by the Grand and '^etit 'Palais^ whose col- ledlions are at least permanent. The last imposing spedtacle witnessed on the Champs Elysees took place in 1885. On May 31 of that year Viftor Hugo's coffin was placed beneath the Arc de Triomphe, where it lay in state until the following day, when Paris, in the name of France, escorted to the Pan- theon the greatest of her poets. It was fitting that the author of the Odes to the Column and the Arch of Triumph should once more make his countrymen forget 31 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ii. for a moment that foreign armies had bivouacked in the Champs Elysees in 1814, 181 5, and 1871, and that the Cossacks, the English, and the Germans had tethered their horses by turns to the old trees of its side-alleys. But who thinks nowof these things when dining beneath the dense foliage, hung with lights, which forms a natural awning to its restaurants and cafe-concerts ? These are Ledoyen, I'Horloge, I'Alcazar d'Ete, les Ambassadeurs, the former Cirque de I'lmperatrice, and the Jardin de Paris — peep-shows and pot-houses on a grand scale, whose frequenters bear a family likeness to the public of the Square Marigny, with its Punch-and- Judy show for children, its rocking-horses and goat- carriages, its donkeys and tilting-rings. But the Champs Elysees, though open to carting and heavy traffic as far as the rond-point, has by no means become a promenade for the common people. A charming verse-writer, Charles Cros, writing just after the war of 1870, thus describes the modest diver- sions of a family of employes : " Eniin, ce soir, aprJs la soupe, lis iront autour dc Musard, Et ne rentreront pas trop tard, Afin que demain I'ou s'eveille Pour une existence pareille. . . ." This remains true for the intermediate class between the populace and the well-to-do bourgeois. Every summer evening, the establishments which have suc- ceeded Musard's concerts and balls draw together an audience, composed, not of working men, but of em- 32 CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES ployes,and even small proprietors, who are content with such faint snatches of music and songand such twinkling of lights as reach them through the intervening foliage, and these groups, gathered beneath the ele /I m w^amamiii:.!. A:ai.mam^.^ :^-~;.aiii^^Jia.,i vi.sti-. LAKE IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE cH.ii.] OF OPEN SPACES afield, has not, for all that, given up Vincennes. It comes here less frequently, perhaps, during the long summer days to picnic on the grass, but on Sundays families are still to be seen camping on the lawns, stretched at full length in the shade, and, unfortunately also, strewing the landscape with greasy papers and empty bottles. Evidently this park is not remarkable for the dis- tindtion of its frequenters. Nevertheless, in the morning hours it rivals the Bois de Boulogne in beauty, and, indeed, surpasses it in the solitude and mystery of its woodland coverts. Even in the afternoon it preserves an intime charafter which the other park lacks, and which it owes to the schools which take their walks there, to the numerous bowling parties, and the groups of peaceful citizens playing picquet under the trees. As for the secular oak, beneath whose shade legend affirms that St Louis administered justice, it is useless to look for it. That St Louis may have walked here, and that he was disposed to deal justly, must suffice to reconcile us to the disappearance of the oak — if so be that it ever existed ! Vincennes possesses, on the other hand, a hippodrome for steeplechases and trotting-matches, which take place a score of times during the year, but even here it can- not be claimed that justice is always adminstered. Finally, those parents prone to instructive walks and inclined to mingle utile dulci will not pass the dungeon of Vincennes without reminding their offspring that this fortress, long a royal residence, was later turned 47 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ii. into a prison of state, in which many noted people were confined. Here was Latude's cell, and in the moat of the castle the Due d'Enghien was shot by order of the Emperor. But as anecdote is apt to take precedence of history in the youthful mind, the child will be more likely to re- member the reply of General Daumesnil, surnamed Wooden-Leg, Governor of the Castle in 1814, to the allied generals who summoned him to capitulate. " I will give up the place," said he, "when you give me back my leg." Such warlike memories are recalled to-day only by the reports from the adjacent artillery-ground. We will now make our way back= to Paris for a final word as to its forty or more squares^ of which we have small reason to be proud, when we compare them with the squares of London. Those of Paris, narrow and confined, with their lawns enclosed by wire railings, recall the plots of ground in which animals are penned at the Zoo. Moreover, these squares are invariably crowded with statues and busts, which appear to be set up by way of apology for open- ing them to the public. They are not gay, these Paris squares ! The very children, shut up and tormented inside them, would greatly prefer to play in the open street ; and, indeed, certain squares, near the centre of Paris, have such a bad reputation that mothers no longer dare to trust their children in them, in view of the powerlessness of the police to control the rabble which resorts there. Yet 48 CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES such oases of verdure, larger, better kept-up, and prote6led, would afford, not only attradlive adjunds, but breathing-spaces essential to the health of the quarter. Automobilism now enables the prosperous classes to absent themselves from town between Saturday and Monday, as well as for prolonged holidays ; but this resource is not open to the working- classes of the fau- bourgs, where the congestion is constantly increasing. The superb gardens of the Convent of St Michel, in the Rue St Jacques, have recently disappeared to make way for huge commercial buildings, which increase the density of the population to the detriment of hygienic conditions. The Champs de Mars and La Muette have also been encroached upon — a necessity of progress, we are told. Our misfortune is that we are without societies and clubs like those of London, which reconcile this neces- sity with the growing taste for outdoor life among all classes, and which prevent private property from en- croaching on the space still reserved for public health and enjoyment. It would be unjust not to mention the great ceme- teries among the out-of-door resorts of the city. Although Haussmann claimed, not without reason, that the majority of burial-places are abandoned at the end of forty years, it is none the less true that the French people have a reverence for their dead. Even the frivolous Parisians form no exception to the rule, and on All Saints' Day they flock to their three necropolises 49 4 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ii. of the east, north, and south — Pere Lachaise, Mont- martre, and Montparnasse. The first of these is the more spacious, and its plane- trees, sycamores, and cypresses shade many illustrious tombs. None of these is more eagerly sought for than that of Alfred de Musset, with its weeping-willow and the familiar lines : " Mes chers amis, quand je mourrai Plantez un saule au cimeti^re." Here, also, is the bust of Balzac by David; and thus the human comedy ends where it began, for Balzac loved to walk on this hill of graves, from whose height he too, perhaps, like his own Rastignac at the funeral of Pere Goriot, hurled his proud defiance at Paris as it lay beneath him : " It is between us tv^o now!" And here Death, which makes no final distinction between the bitterest foes, gives equal shelter to the men who made the Commune and died by it, and to the man — Thiers — who unmade it and lived thereby. At the cemetery of Montmartre, which also domin- ates Paris, one may visit the graves of Murger and Stendhal, and that of Cavaignac, the latter on account of his monument, which is a chef-tTceuvre by Rude. At Montparnasse sleep Sainte Beuve, Baudelaire, and Huysmans, the two former persecuted in death by their theatrical monuments from the hand of the same sculp- tor. It is quite superfluous to say that the colour of Paris is not — cannot be — the same to the eyes of a foreigner, or a provincial, as to Parisian eyes. This colour is de- 50 CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES pendent on the weather, the hour, the frame of mind of the beholder ; it also depends greatly on the language which our memories, our studies, our emotions lend to these time-worn stones, which are so rapidly disappear- ing before the march of progress, but of which enough remains to recall a past buried beneath dust-heaps and restorations. There is even too wide a field of choice. One lover of old Paris wishes to revive the Middle Ages, another the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; a third cares only for Paris of the Revolution. He searches for the site of the club of the Cordeliers, or the house of Robespierre, and if he enters the cbnciergerie, it is to visit the cell of Marie Antoinette. But even if the old stage-setting remains, does it not require an effort of the imagination and a certain power of enthusiasm to sweep it clear and purify it from all de- grading associations ? Look, for instance, at the Place des Vidtoires and the Place Vendome. Until 1 830 the hotels, ereded in the seventeenth cen- tury on a uniform plan by Mansart, preserved the physi- ognomy of the Place dedicated to Louis XIV by the Marechal de la Feuillade. Here dwelt, in the following century, the fermiers generaux and financiers, among whom was the famous Law. As for the statue of Louis XIV which adorns the centre of the Place des Vid:oires, though Fate may have dealt capriciously with it, this caprice is less deplorable than the vandalism which has covered the surrounding houses with signs and ad- vertisements. This same vandalism, which for a long time spared 51 4fl THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ii. the Place Vendome, has dealt with it in our day as with the Place des Vidtoires. The Place Vendome was also designed by Mansart, who built his own hotel there. The Ministry of Justice, the seat of the military Government of Paris, and the Chancellerie, all situated on this mag- nificent Place, long preserved it from profanation. This is no longer the case, however. Trade now writes on its fa9ades as freely as in the public prints, and who knows how long it will be before advertisements encircle the column of the Place des Conquetes ? Another commemorative column, bearing a statue of the Genius of Liberty in place of Napoleon as Cassar, still decorates the Place de la Bastille. ThisistheColumn of July — not named, as one would naturally suppose, in memory of the capture of the Bastille, but in honour of the " three glorious days " of July, 1 830. The names of the 504 combatants who died for liberty during those three days are engraved on the shaft of the column, which thus opposes the example of a popular vidtory to the panegyric in bronze of the triumphs of the Grand Army. And the two quarters where these monuments stand accentuate the contrast. The Place Vendome represents stately, rich, official Paris; the Place^de la Bastille is the entrance to the faubourg which formerly descended into the city to fight, and which novy descends only to labour. One would fain inquire whether strangers visiting Paris bring to it the same intelligent curiosity which 5a CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES usually animates the French traveller, and leads him to seek out, on arriving in a hitherto unknow^n city, its historic quarters, its ancient churches and dwellings — the earliest specimens, in short, of its architefture and decorative art. The French traveller has a taste for an- tiquity, even if it be sometimes a pseudo-antiquity or more or less skilful restoration. He pauses in rapture be- fore the relics of a former age, even when they recall an era with which he is imperfedtly acquainted. He also delights in tortuous streets, in blind alleys, and pictur- esque old quarters, devoid of air and light, without thought of the human beings huddled together in such spots. He passes on, a delighted spectator, while these unfortunates remain behind. This amateur of antiquity has another failing. He seeks at a distance, either in the provinces or abroad, for ^what exists in Paris, quite unnoticed by him, and not pointed out by any guide-book. And yet what a happy hunting-ground old Paris may still be for the antiquary ! The left bank, explored by Huysmans,revealsmany quaint nooks, ofwhich it would be rash to undertake a description after his. The visitor should wander with Huysmans' monograph on the Bievre in his hand through the street and alley of the Gobelins and that extraordinary alley of the RecoUets, at the end ofwhich he comes upon a surprising stretch of gardens and orchards belonging to the Gobelins factory. Over these gardens there blows from morning till night a breeze poisoned by the odour of tanneries and fadiory smoke. Yet they are like an oasis in this 53 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [en. ii. desertof indigence, whose hovels elboweach other along the bank of a muddy, rust-stained stream. It is not the cracked and tottering houses alone which are powdered as with hoar-frost by the scrapings of the hides. The workwomen emerge from the factories with their hair as white as if sprinkled with snowflakes ; and the name of the " Reine Blanche " scarcely excites as- tonishment as applied to an old castle now utilized for leather-dressing, which stands in a dingy courtyard, and whose ancient clock no longer deigns to mark the time for the adjoining wash-house. They are, indeed, only wash-house queens and snow-queens who dwell in this uniquecorner of Paris, where the passagesare still lighted by oil-lamps. Huysmans, who was often reproached for his realism, escapes from it whenever he can by the aid of symbols. The Bievre appeared to him as a poor country lass who has been captured and led astray on her arrival in Paris by sordid tradesmen, who force hef to wash hides for them and stain herself with the mire of the town. He magnifies the sadness of the spot,andinvokes Rembrandt to paint it, thus revealing his Dutch origin ; but the naturalized Parisian reasserts himself in his indifference tothe possible alleviation which this ill-smelling quarter would derive from covering up the Bievre and clearing out thesefoul alleys. Afugitiveartistic impression causes him to disregard the advantages of hygiene and salubrity for the unfortunates who dwell here, whose rags, mean- while, he embroiders with his pen of gold, and whose crumbling walls he retoucheswith themagic of his style. 54 CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES But the inkpot of the writer is free from stench, and the Bievre, alas! is not. If he were still living, Huysmans would doubtless de- plore the clearing away of the buildings at the rear of St Severin. It pleased him to see the old church set in the midst of those dark, narrow streets like a diamond of the Middle Ages in its black vein of rock. He had already seen with regret the disappearance of the Place Maubert, and that part of the Rue Galande where stood the Chateau Rouge, a tavern frequented by house-breakers and assassins, which was shown to dis- tinguished foreigners to afford them an approximate idea of the lowest slums of Paris. The Abbaye aux Bois, too, was already condemned when this great artist died in 1 907. He had planned to fix its image for ever in his pages as he had done so power- fully for Notre Dame, St Merri,St Germain I'Auxerrois, St Severin, the Gobelins Quarter, and St Sulpice. However, the mere lack of an abbey need not trouble the lover of old Paris; he has only to betake himself on a Sunday in summer to certain quarters, such as the Marais or the Temple. The ancient hotels, now given over to commerce, like the Hotel de Sully or St Aignan, appear to be communing with themselves behind their turreted Gothic portals. Within the deserted courtyards rise dark staircases, of which one sees in the obscurity only the lower steps and the w rough t-iron balusters. Here and there one catches a glimpse of a bas-relief, a gable, a carved door, a sculptured mask, a balcony, a fountain, or one sees aged figures seated in silence with a dog at 55 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [cH.ii. their feet, or a cat on their knees ; and this is enough to brighten the atmosphere of an oppressive afternoon in this crowded quarter, with its entire population rushing to catch trams, 'buses, cabs, or the Metro. It is the same on the left bank, in the Faubourg St Germain, among the sumptuous eighteenth-century dwellings, whose owners have flown to the seashore or the mountains, or are spinning along the dusty highways in their automobiles, while their houses sleep away the summer days under the protedlion of the great names they bear — Crequy, Montmorency, d'Artois, de Guise, Laubespin. Here we are in the provinces — the aristo- cratic provinces — where nothing has changed for cen- turies, excepfthat the stables are converted into garages, to the stupefaction of these spacious and sonorous court- yards, of which the motor-car alone now wakes the echoes. Why linger,therefore,over the relics of old Paris and its fading past? Is it not better to be distinctly of our own time,like the son of the German Emperor — that Prince Eitel who, having but half a day to devote to Paris, divided it between the tomb of the Emperor, an auto- mobile factory, and a walk on the boulevards ? How many others before him have passed through Paris,know- ing only the line of the boulevards between the Place de la Republique and the Place de la Concorde, and from the Theatre-Franfais to the Gare St Lazare ? In the eyes of the provincial and the foreigner, all Parisian life seems to centre there — in its shop- windows, the terraces of its cafes, and the doqrs of its theatres, 56 CH. ii.] OF OPEN SPACES amid the rush of vehicles and the glare of those illu- minated signs which, in the evening and from a dis- tance, appear like the celestial bill-posting foreseen by Villiers de I'lsle Adam in one of his Contes Gruels. And, after all, are not these crowded, dusty side-walks the spot where spring comes earliest, as if Paris com- municated its excitement to the mounting sap and the bursting buds ? Do not business aftivities, great reputa- tions, journalism, gossip, all the sparks and flashes of the life of a great city, radiate from this focus ? So be it. That little line of the boulevards, arched in the middle and curving at the corners, forms, if you like, the lips of Paris — those facile, tireless lips, which never weary of too much talking and of laughing at all things. And the universal infatuation for this one feature of an im- mense, many-sided city can no more be explained than can the kindred phenomenon expressed in Sully Prud- homme's lines : " Toi qui fait les grandes amoars, Petite ligne de la bouche I" 57 CHAPTER III Of the Faubourgs— The Working Class Morning Influx from Montmartre and Belleville— Street Sweepers and Milkmen — Working Girls — ^The Midday Lunch — The Unemployed — Philanthropic Works — General Confederation of Labour — Popular Universities and Entertainments — Overcrowded Tenements EMILE ZOLA, in the opening pages of his most famous novel, L'-i^jJo^iwo/r, shows us the morning tide of humanity pouring down from the heights of Montmartre and La Chapelle, and making its daily irruption into Paris. The pidture is sketched in broadly, and is full of motion and life. First come the workmen — ^locksmiths in blue smock- frocks, masons in white aprons, house-painters with long blouses showing below their overcoats. Then follow the women — ^milliners, artificial flower-makers, metal-bur- nishers, and seamstresses — some singly, walking with a sober air and rapid step, others in gay groups of threes or fours. Finally come the employees, young and old, the youths gaunt and lean, munching a penny-roll as they walk along, the older men stopping under a porte- cochere to drink (standing) the bowl of milk which con- stitutes their early breakfast ; and behind them the old men totter along, with worn, haggard faces, faithfully treading their daily round, unbroken by change or re- creation. Zola painted the workaday Paris of the Empire ; but his description is not out of date, except in minor de- 58 M ci H CA ■< S h 'A O s o CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS tails, and we can verify its accuracy at the present day if we watch the working world on its way down from Montmartre, Belleville, or Plaisance. We may regret, however, that the observer in Zola's pages did not rise earlier, and accordingly did not cateh sight of the first scouts of the vanguard of labour, nor even of the van- guard itself. The first-comers one meets at four o'clock in the morning are the milkmen — sturdy young fellows, clad in blouses and wearing tall caps, whose open carts, drawn by vigorous percheron horses, are laden with the milk-cans sent in from the country the previous evening, and received at the freight-stations during the night. The noise of these cans as they rattle along in the two- wheeled carts is the alarm-clock which wakens many Parisians every morning. The milkmen are in haste, and it is curious to watch the agility with which they spring from their carts while in motion, deposit the fresh cans at the doors of the creameries and fruit-shops, and pick up the empty cans of the previous day. It is at four o'clock, also, that the street-sweepers, male and female, begin their labours, which often consist chiefly in raising a cloud of dust. They are employed by the city, the women earning three francs or three fifty, and the men five francs a day ; so their job is in as great demand as that of the road-menders, and can be obtained only through recommendation or eledloral influence. At about the same hour the market porters, or forts des halles, to the number of 600 or so, begin their daily task. These athletes are well named, especially if we con- sider that they are only admitted to the Corporation after 59 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iil. a test of strength, consisting in carrying on their backs for a distance of 250 metres a wicker basket laden with 200 kilos of cast-iron. No one is allowed to unload a market-cart at the halles without the assistance of these portefs ; but they, on the other hand, have the right to call in the aid of labourers from among the swarm of the destitute and unemployed who throng the markets. These are called coups de main, or helping hands, and are paid by the job or the hour. Five o'clock is the time for the women to begin de- livering bread from door to door. This is hard work, carried on usually by small and frail, but plucky women, who, before beginning their rounds, are obliged to brush the loaves and carry them from the oven to the shop ; out of doors they are like busy ants, pushing their little covered carts and delivering their wares on every floor, often climbing over eighty flights of stairs in the course of themorning. At the same hour the newspaper-vendor begins her day's work, which consists of folding deftly sheet after sheet from the great bales of newspapers brought to her in waggons and hand-carts, and preparing them for their delivery by bicyclists to subscribers all over Paris. The municipal garbage- waggons make their rounds between half-past six and half-past eight in summer, and between seven and nine in winter. We say nothing of the nofturnal rag-picker, with his hod, hook, and lantern, because this type, so famous in literature, was abolished by the decrees of 1883 and 1884. 60 BOULEVARD DES BATIGNOLLES CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS He has been succeeded by the so-called biffin of to- day, who, unless he is so fortunate as to possess a horse or a donkey, piles his bags of refuse on a hand-cart, which the elder members of his family aid him to push through the streets, while the younger children finish their morn- ing nap on the top of the bags. Gradually these carts make their way towards their special quarter, which is now confined to the i8th and 19th distri6ts, or to the suburbs of Clichy and St Denis. The number of families that live by the trade of rag-picking is estimated at nearly 50,000. Meanwhile Paris awakes. A steady stream of labour- ers pours in from the suburbs by the early trains. It is an army of 250,000 men and women which invades Paris each morning. Here come the masons on their way to the building- yards ; these labourers are hired in two separate ways, either by the gang at the yard, or engrtve — that is, from a labour union. The 6,000 navvies employed on the Metropolitan are mostly from the provinces or from abroad, and are hired by the gang. The masons and house-painters, on the other hand, can be hired only at the unions. The Masons' Union is situated behind the Hotel de Ville, opposite the Lobau barracks, while the Painters' Union is at BatignoUes. The interviews be- tween employers and applicants for a job take place at these labour markets between six and eight in the morn- ing. By eight o'clock all the ambulant provision-stalls have disappeared, after serving working men with their first breakfast, drawn up xxnAtv 2i porte-cochere or a hastily 61 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. erefted tent. Here the sensible working man swallows his bowl of hot milk or soup, coffee, or chocolate, in- stead of resorting to a bar. Over 300,000 of such petits dejeAners are sold each morning to Parisian employees and workmen. Seven o'clock : and in the outlying distrifts, where mills and fadtories abound, and where the workmen were formerly summoned to theirwork by the sound of a bell, which could only be heard in the immediate vicinity, they are now called by a shrill siren or steam-whistle, which wakes everybody for miles around from their morning naps, and whose piercing shrieks recur at in- tervals during the day. Work has now begun everywhere — in the fadtories, mills, and workshops, in the subterranean shafts of the Metro, and in the building-yards. We can see the carpenters in their black blouses, red belts, and baggy brown or blue velveteen trousers, hoist- ing planks and timbers for the framework of the houses which they are beginning to build, the outer walls of which will shortly be raised by the Limousins and Limou- sinants, the Paris synonyms for masons and plasterers. Before long a flag flying from the roof will announce that their part of the big job is finished, and will invite the owner to feast the workmen. Then comes the turn of the joiners, locksmiths, chim- ney-builders, painters, and decorators, all gaily whistling and singing on their scaffoldings and ladders, like the true Parisians they are, (with the exception of the chim- ney-sweepers and whitewashers, who are more likely to 62 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS be Italians). The masons, on the other hand, come from Limousin, and the day-labourers from Luxembourg or Piedmont. By eight o'clock all the dressmakers' and milliners' shops are open and soon filled by flocks of gay, chatter- ing girls, most of whom have loitered on their way from the faubourgs to stare at the shop-windows, or to adorn their bodices with bouquets from the fruiterer's stall or the flower-woman's basket. These girls have various little superstitions in regard to their nosegays. The lily- of-the- valley, for instance, is thougjht to bring luck if worn on May Day ; orange-blossoms are worn by un- married girls of twenty-five on November 25, St Cathe- rine's Day, in honour of their patroness, for whom they are called " Catherinettes"; as fof violets, they find equal favour with all. On their way to town, by tram, boat, auto-bus, or Metro, these girls all read the love- stories in the fiftion supplement of* one of the news- papers. This light infantry of needlework has its grades and its rank-and-file. First come the captain and lieutenant, with the veterans serving under their orders, aided by young recruits, known as petites-mains ; there are also the little apprentices, or arpetes, who deliver the work and run errands for the shop, and are constantly to be met laden with enormous hat-boxes or voluminous dress-cases, known as "cocos" in the slang of the shop. Nor are these all. The staff of a great dressmaking es- tablishment includes also its furnishers, who provide goods and trimmings; its sellers, who show materials and 63 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. patterns to customers; and its tryers-on, whose fine figures show off the garments to advantage. These dressmakers and milliners have been busily at work for an hour before the female clerks arrive at their offices. Women in these days furnish a numerous con- tingent to the public offices, railway-companies, and banks, while typewriting affords employment to a still greater number. But the woman-clerk distinguishes herself as much as possible from the workwoman, espe- cially in the street, by her quiet bearing and reserve of manner; she emphasizes the distance between them as carefully as the masculine clerk draws the line between himself and the workman. For no consideration on earth, for instance, would she be seen carrying her breakfast in a basket like a vulgar arphe. She conceals hers decorously in a handbag, or does it up in a parcel so skilfully as to deceive the eye. She would blush to re- veal the neck of a bottle or the shell of a hard-boiled egg, and she disdains the penny-roll in favour of themored'/j'- ^/«^«(? crescent. Finally, she peruses on her way to town a volume from the circulating-library, which, by the way, often tells the same story as the working-girl's supplement. From nine o'clock onwards, trade, whether itinerant or stationary, becomes general. While the hive of the workshops is in full hum, the placiers and placieres (commercial-travellers, male and female) go their rounds, exhibiting among their cus- tomers the latest novelty in flowers, feathers, and hat- frames. It is especially in the distrift of the Bourse and 64 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS the Rue Vivienne that one is apt to meet them,followed by porters carrying a string of boxes strapped upon long poles. The postmen have by this time accomplished their first distribution of mail ; the cabmen are all upon their standi ; patients of the poorer class are to be seen return- ing from the hospitals and from the dispensary of the "Federation," which provides gratuitous advice for the victims of accidents from labour. In the populous quarters the vegetable vendors are abroad, and the money and rent collectors have begun their rounds ; even the big shops have waked at last and lifted their heavy me- tallic eyelids, and the clerks are busily engaged in deco- rating the show-windows. At the crossings where the traffic is most congested the policemen have begun raising their white batons. This morning block,farfrom heightening the animation of our thoroughfares, has rather diminished their gaiety of asped:. The police now deal harshly with itinerant vendors of all sorts, and the small trades of other days, whose pidturesque cries dominated the roar of daily traffic, are being gradually suppressed by police regulations, by the great bazaars — by progress, in short. The water-carrier, the knife-grinder, the glazier, the pedlar of second-hand clothing and rabbit-skins, the fish-woman with her refreshing cry, " A la barque ! a la barque !" the vendor of chickweed for caged birds, the mender of crockery and porcelain, and how many more petty trades have vanished from the street-scene which they enlivened ! There were also the wafer- 65 5 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. woman with her whirligig, the coco-seWer with his fountain, hand-organs, itinerant musicians and singers, charlatans and mountebanks. The street-cries, moreover, had not only their special use at a time when no one could read ; they also an- nounced the time of day to housewives busy with their marketing, and enlivened the toils of seamstresses and working-girls with other strains than those of the auto- horn, the tramway, and the shriek of the siren. When the shops closed at nightfall there stood the ballad-singer, not driven from pillar to post as he is to-day, but allowed to linger in the courtyards and alleys and at the cross- roads, where he made one think of th^ man who scatters crumbs to the birds in the public gardens. Even so he scattered his songs amidst a circle of apprentices and working-girls, who carried away, as the birds in their beaks, a crumb of diversion to lighten their toils. Now he is hardly tolerated anywhere, except in the cream- eries, and even there he must not interfere with the ser- vice of the most crowded hour — the hour of the coup- de-feu. It is noon, and the workwomen and petty employees are thronging the cook-shops and creameries, the cheap co-operative restaurants and the canteens of the large companies, where the food provided is cheap and suffi- ciently substantial. But moderate as the price may be (from sixty to ninety centimes a meal being the mini- mum), this fare is not within the means of alL Many breakfast out of doors through the summer, seated on benches in the squares and boulevards, their fare consist- 66 THE MAN WHO FEEDS THE BIRDS IN THE TUILERIES GARDENS CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS ing of charcuterie, giblets, fried potatoes, cheese, and fruit, or else of "portions" prepared at the cook-stalls and booths, which contend for custom with the wine- shops. The clerks from the Rue de la Paix betake them- selves to the Tuileries gardens; those from the Chaussee d'Antin frequent the Square de la Trinite ; while those from the Rue Richelieu install themselves in the Square Louvois,the squares offering the advantage of fountains, where the midinettes can quench their thirst. Certain philanthropic societies have conceived the generous idea of supplying working-girls with whole- some food and shelter by establishing restaurants for women only,feminine clubsandshelterslike the Rechaud (or Chafing-Dish) in the Rue St Honore, where over a hundred young girls breakfast daily for fifty centimes per head. These restaurants, which are not numerous as yet, have a small and faithful set of cust©mers, but whether their custom is likely to increase is another question. It is with the restaurant as with the railway-carriage "For Ladies Only," which has charms for persons only of a certain age, and hardly for those. To these philanthropic establishments the young working-girl will always prefer the creamery, where she breakfasts side by side with the clerk or employee, who notices her, admires her, amuses her, and gives rise in her mind and heart to dreams and sentiments which do not always deceive. Private initiative offers another example which might be followed in other countries besides France: these are the maternity canteens, or free restaurants, open morn- 67 5« . THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. ing and night to mothers nursing their habies and too poor to feed themselves, either in consequence of deser- tion or of lack of work on the part of their husbands. Unwedded mothers can also participate in this relief. Finally, within the past few year's, special establish- ments have been opened where, on the payment of two sous, the customer, standing at a counter, may drink a cup of excellent coffee, very different from the bever- age compounded of chicory which is served elsewhere. Now that noon has struck, the midinette may saunter for a moment to gaze into the shop-windows at the illustrated magazines, photographs, and post-cards, or at the more luxurious display in the jewellers' and gold- smiths' windows, or in the confedtipners' and florists', the leather shops, the perfumers', shoemakers', and fine lingerie stores ; then for a glance at the pillars on which the theatres announce their performances, at the cafe terraces where a few loungers are seated, at pass- ing carriages, at the sun, at the fine weather ; a final puff at the cigarette, a last free peal of laughter, and toil is resumed in all the cells and dens of the working world. One branch of commerce has modified its conditions of late at the expense of pidturesqueness in our streets; that is the hawking of furniture, which used to be carried on in the Avenue Ledru RoUin, and which en- abled the cabinet-maker of the Faubourg St Antoine to exhibit his hand-made furniture and dispose of it himself, and also afforded the purchaser an opportunity for securing artistic pieces at a bargain ; but this traffic 68 3 O « P oi O w X h CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS has now passed into the hands of the speculator and middleman. It is the same with the little booths set up along the boulevards as New Year's Day approaches, which are authorized for the benefit of the handicrafts- men, but are too often hired by speculators. As the season for New Year's gifts and the Carnival draws near, many poor workmen in the Marais and the Faubourg du Temple begin taxing' their ingenuity to the utmost in the invention of some new article deParis, some toy or mask, or in modelling, painting, and dress- ing the dolls and wooden soldiers which are still the chil- dren's favourite playthings. It is in their close lodgings, furnished only with a work-bench, stove, table, and bed, that these poor men attempt to carry out their ideas, often in the midst of their families, and with their models standing about on the bed or the floor — those models which the inventor in desperation usually hands over in the end to the dealer, who is better able than he to find a market for them. So that the unfortunate craftsman often exerts his imagination and expends his pains and skill for next to nothing, and is left without work for six months out of the twelve. Many other branches of industry are as cruelly tried, and often, in times of crisis or pecuniary stress, there are not less than 1 00,000 men out of work and literally on the streets. What can they do there to earn a living— that is, literally to escape dying of want .? They are thankful to accept any kind of work. Some of them turn bagot- tiers, the name given to the poor wretches who run 69 THE COLOUR OF fARIS [ch. iii. after cabs at the railway-stations in the hope of being allowed to lend a hand in unloading the luggage, and who usually spend their breath for nothing; others cry the morning papers, which are distributed among them at the Croissant, at the rate of two francs fifty the hun- dred. Advertising agents hire some of them as sandwich- men, or in some other strange accoutrement, to an- nounce new wares, and at such jobs they average thirty sous a day, sometimes less. Others,again,distributeprospedtuses, or apply tosome philanthropic society which provides them with wood to chop, or bags and coarse garments to make. The destitute patients discharged from the hospitals, who dare not venture to solicit work in their fumigated and disinfedted clothing, can obtain from a charitable organization a decent suit of clothes in which they may seek employment without running the risk of being turned from the doors. Working-men who are tempo- rarily reduced to want in consequence of illness or lack of employment can place their children under the care of maternity-houses (unfortunately very limited in number), where they will be fed and sheltered for a certain length of time. There are municipal or private shelters which receive, during the last months before her confinement, the woman, married or not, who has been dismissed and turned into the street by a pitiless master. What would become of these unfortunates, without a position and utterly destitute, if such a refuge were not open to them ? Women who are at work from morning to night 70 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS away from home, can leave their children under three years of age at a day-nursery, where they are cared for gratuitously, or at a rate of compensation varying from fifteen to thirty centimes a day. From the ages of two to six, children are admitted to the maternal-school, where they can breakfast for ten of fifteen centimes, thanks to the school fund, which also provides, as far as possible, for their wardrobe, and organizes very suc- cessful vacation-schools. From the maternal-school the child passes on to the primary, which he leaves at the age of thirteen to begin his apprenticeship under an em- ployer, or to enter a technical school. But the fa6t of having passed through the latter institution does not .profit him greatly from an economic point of view. When trade languishes in consequence of over-produc- tion, there is no escaping the fate of the unemployed, and it is in vain that working-men's syndicates, or the Maine, lend their aid and their advertising agencies. Seamstresses, on the other hand, have registry offices of their own, consisting of written notices pasted up on blank walls or in vacant shop-windows. It would be the merest irony to question the makers of underclothing and ready-made garments, who have the luck — if luck it may be called — to find work, as to whether a woman can live in Paris on loo francs a month. This question, which has been asked by certain investigators, has already been answered by the labour- bureau, in behalf of these pariahs of the needle. They live upon far less than loo francs a month. Many wear themselves out in the attempt to earn a 71 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [cH.Iil. franc or a franc and twenty-five centimes per day — that is, ten or twelve centimes an hour. Moreover, they must dedudt from this sum the price of sewing-materials, which they have to supply. When their rent is paid, there remains to them for food and clothing, heating, lights, and washing, the sum of sixty centimes per day; and such penury is far from being the exception. More than half of the aged workwomen whose eyes are worn out, and whose fingers have grown stiff over their toil, earn less than 400 francs a year, upon which they con- trive to exist — but how ? It is true that they are not called upon to " dress up a bit," a necessity which re- duces the budget of the shop-girl and clerk, and even of the young working-girl. All things considered, there- fore, the woman who works outside her home, and is consequently obliged to spend more on her dress, to ride in omnibuses, and to wear out her shoes, is hardly better off at 100 francs a month than the Jjome-worker on a much smaller salary. They are sisters in poverty and privation, and have nothing to envy each other when they meet in the evening on the faubourg, at the hour when the turn ot the tide has brought back the outflowing stream of the morning. Take up your stand at six in the evening amidst the throng on the boulevards ; watch the hundreds of girls pouring out from a great counting-house where they are employed, and you will then form an idea of the Parisienne, which neither novels, plays, nor the descrip- tions of travellers will have given you. 72 w Q S w o CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS For she is a Parisienne, too, in the best acceptation of the word, this little souris of the railroad-conipany, the bank, or the great store, who earns her living courage- ously and carries home regularly her meagre wages. In fadt, her leading charadteristics are courage and high spirits. In Paris you never see the young working-girl going about with the air of a prisoner condemned to hard-labour, for though she is serious and pradtical at bottom, the experience she has acquired of the value of money has not led her to sacrifice everything to her need of it. It is in her class, and in the working-class at large, that disinterestedness, ingenuousness, artless sentiment, a belief in happiness on modest means, emotions which are dying out among the bourgeoisie, still survive, and are cultivated like flowers that persist in tlooming in a stony soil. Here, then, is the working-man free from toil until to-morrow. What use will he make of his too-brief leisure ? How will those men who are still brisk and adt- ive after a day of labour spend their evenings .? Since he has awakened to a consciousness of his rights, and since the amelioration of his lot by means of mutual understanding, cohesion, and sustained effort has seemed pradlicable to him, the working-man has ap- plied himself diligently to the advancement of his own interests. These interests are defended at the Bourse du Travail, a vast building in the Rue du Chateau d'Eau, belonging to the city of Paris. Here most of the working-men's syndicates are held, and hither they flock to seek employ- 73 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. ment and to attend leftures, co-operative unions, and en- tertainments of various sorts. Tliis institution was founded on February 3, 1887, closed by order of the Government on July 6, 1893, and only reopened on April 1 1, 1896. Entrance is free from 7 o'clock in the morning until midnight on weekdays, and from 7 a.m. to 6 in the evening on Sundays and holi- days. More than 200,000 Parisian workmen are grouped together in 230 allied syndicates. A free intelligence- office is connedled with each syndicate, where a per- manent secretary, elefted and paid by his comrades, is constantly at their service to summon meetings, to fur- nish the members with information, etc. He is aided by volunteer secretaries, who carry on their several profes- sions during the day. The great hall devoted to general meetings and lec- tures is capable of holding 3,500 persons. The reunions are often of a turbulent nature. More than 500 were held in 1906. The Salk des Greves Ss reserved for the unemployed. It is an underground room, with a roof supported by cast-iron columns, and bears a striking re- semblance to a crypt. It was here one evening that a lieutenantof infantryin full uniform laid down his sword on the speaker's desk, and made common cause with the strikers. The union of syndicates has also instituted a judicial council, which holds its sessions here from 6 to 9 a.m., and from 3 to 6 p.m., and which has been in operation since 1899. Finally, a choir has been recruited from among the children of the members, which lends its '74 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS services for entertainments given at the Bourse du Travail. This organization has been much less before the pub- lic eye than its younger sister, the Confederation Ginerale du 'Travail, which aroused such consternation through- out Paris on May i, 1906, as almost to equal the terrors of the siege, and which incarnates the Revolution on the march, as opposed to the more conservative branch of the Labour party and to the Republicans in power. An offshoot of the Congress of Labour, which held its sessions at Limoges in 1 895, the Confederation Generale du Travail has only been in aftual operation since January, 1903. Its aim is to unite all the trade syndi- cates in a great federation of trade and industry; to main- tain aftive relations between all these syndicates, with a view to co-ordinate adtion ; to serve as a bond between existing labour-unions, and to create new ones ; to strengthen labour jurisdiction and free it from political influence; and to uphold the rights of the proletariat on a stridtly economic platform. Expelled from the Bourse du Travail in 1 895 by order of the Prefeft, the Confederation Generale du Travail transferred its headquarters to a building abandoned for business purposes, in a blind alley leading from the Rue Grange aux Belles. Having purchased these premises, the society is now doing its utmost to fit them up suit- ably as a federation club-house. Meanwhile, not having as yet a hall for meetings, it has established a printing- office for the use of the syndicates and for the weekly organ of the Confederation, La Voix du 'Peuple. Finally, 75 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. Hi. a dispensary has been organized here, which gives daily consultations gratis to a hundred vidlims of accidents resulting from labour. The number of working-men affiliated with the Con- federation Generale du Travail is about 600,000. This constitutes a powerful body, and it is easy to understand the apprehension it arouses among employers, as well as among representatives of the people of the old type, who are amazed at discovering that the dough of labour no longer needs the yeast of eledtoral eloquence to bring about fermentation. Those popular universities whose promoters sought to make them a focus of social aftion, and which were styled at their birth the " cathedrals of democracy," have not fulfilled their lofty promise. And yet what enthusiasm they aroused atfirst! People thronged there to listen to eminent lefturers, who ex- plored all the fields of learning simultaneously with more ardour than method and discrimination. Snobbery soon began to mix itself with philanthropy, and the smartest turn-outs were frequently to be seen drawn up before the door of the " Co-operation of Ideas," in the Faubourg St Antoine, which was the most flourishing of the first popular universities. The working-men, on the other hand, generally held aloof, and turned a deaf ear to these desultory talks, confused discussions, and omnivorous lec- ture-courses. It is probable that ten hours of labour had not prepared them to digest a bill of fare which mingled psychology and the languages, anthropology and litera- ture,law and the philosophy of history, political economy 76 < CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS and physiology. The popular universities could maintain their hold only upon a handful of employees and minor funftionaries, who were thankful for a place in which to spend their evenings at a monthly fee of fifty centimes. Gradually these universities, destitute of resources, degenerated into little coteries or family clubs in which dramatic performances by amateurs were given, folio wed by dances, — thus offering attraftions which their some- what incoherent programme of studies did not possess. The popular universities continue to vegetate to the number of twenty-five, of which fifteen are in Paris and ten in the suburbs; but they threaten to disappear alto- gether, being absorbed into other institutions for popular education. Several of these have been formed, with more modest pretensions, offering to the people only such in- telligent diversion as they are fully able to give. Such, for example, are the Veillees de Plaisancev^htrt,on Satur- day evenings, the workmen's families of the quarter assemble to listen to dramatic lectures, with comments by a poet, Maurice Bouchor, who also conduits choirs of children, and forms their taste at the same time as that of their parents. A similar aim has inspired another song-writer, M, Chabroux, with the charming idea of creating, ex- clusively for young working-girls, a sort of minor Con- servatoire of singing, where, on Wednesday evenings, they are taught a number of the pretty old songs as well as new ones composed for their benefit, in place of the follies and inanities of the day. The meeting-place is a hall in the Mairie of the Fourth Distridt, Place Bau- 77 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. doyer, where great artists often volunteer their services as temporary professors. We must also mention " L'CEuvre de Mimi Pinson " (christened after a poem by Musset), founded in 1900 by Gustave Charpentier. The author of Lauise and of the Coronation of the Muse of the 'People was brought up at Turcoing, in the region of fadtories and cotton-mills, and has from his childhood sympathized keenly with the painful, monotonous, and joyless existence of the labouring classes. On the occasion of the fiftieth representation of his beautiful lyric poem, he insisted on associating with his triumph the humble sisters of his heroine, and accord- ingly obtained from the direftor of the Op^ra Comique 300 free tickets for Parisian working-girls. Charpentier hoped that other managers might consent from time to time to follow the example thus set them ; but nearly all were of opinion that they bestowed a sufficient number of free tickets already, and they failed to add, as they might have done conformably with truth, that they usually bestowed them in a far less praiseworthy manner, and upon people quite able to pay for their own tickets. A few prominent society-women fortunately took Mimi Pinson under their protedlion, and by their subscrip- tions have aided the composer in organizing courses of music and dancing-lessons. These are attended daily by nearly 400 young girls, and the choruses, conducted by the master in person, give frequent performances at the Bourse du Travail, the Trocadero, the Salle Pleyel, and elsewhere. 78 cH. iii.J OF THE FAUBOURGS Finally, the youth, who on leaving the elementary school at the age of thirteen, is desiroiis of completing his education, at the same time that he is earning his living, or serving his apprenticeship to a trade, has the choice of some 500 free classes, held in the evening from 8 to 10 and on Sunday morning from 9 to 1 1 o'clock, at the various schoolrooms and Mairies, under the auspices of four great societies — viz., the Philotechnic, the Poly- technic, the Polymathic, and H Union Frangaise de la "Jeunesse. The numberof pupils who attend these classes assidu- ously is estimated at 20,000 ; they are taught French, arithmetic, drawing, music, book-keeping, and foreign languages. As to industrial courses, it would be tedious to enumerate them. One of the most popular is that of artificial flower-making at the Bourse du Travail, where forewomen from the great shops devote anhour on Mon- day evenings to instrudting numbers of young girls, who come great distances to attend these courses, accom- panied by their parents. The girls learn rapidly how to make this article of luxury, and thus qualify themselves for what is one of the most remunerative trades of the day. From 9 o'clock in the evening work goes on here and there in the immense, ever-adlive beehive of Paris. The night-gangs in the great fadtories theh take up their ser- vice. In the glass-blowing works the yawning mouths of the furnaces light up, with the glare of a conflagration, the faces of the men as they plunge their rods into the crucibles and draw out balls of liquid glass, which they 79 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. blow into bubbles and then shape by turning them on a sheet of cast-iron. At I o it is time for the bakers, who, having heated their furnaces, begin kneading and moulding the dough in the ovens, which they continue doing until 5 in the morning, when they return home utterly worn- out. At 1 1 the night-watchmen in the mills light the braziers, which enable them to support the rigour of the temperature throughout the long nights of winter. Some of them are attended on their ceaseless rounds by a watch-dog, who helps them to protedt the tools and copper and lead pipes from tramps and prowlers. A wooden hut serves these poor men as a shelter ; they are mostly aged workmen, whose all-nightvigils bring them in less than five francs. Nor is the lot more enviable of those women who, throwing a shavvl over their heads, hasten at midnight to the printing-offices, where the great rotary machines supplied with mechanical folders have not altogether superseded hand-folding. The newspapers, when folded, are put into wrappers, and for this task, which lasts till 6 in the morning, these poor women receive twenty-five francs per week. This chapter on the working world would be incom- plete if we said nothing of the conditions amid which the working-man finds himself on regaining his home, there to seek rest and recuperation for the struggle of the morrow. Without entering deeply into the serious question of the unhealthy tenements — in many cases stifling dens — 80 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS which are not only among the chief promoters of alcoholism, but faftors contributing to the spread of tuberculosis and other deadly maladies, we remark with sadness that 365,000 Parisians still inhabit over- crowded tenements, and that nearly 900,000 others have to content themselves with insufficient lodging-space — that is to say, that out of every 1,000 citizens of Paris, 1 50 occupy unhealthy quarters, and 360 are cramped for room; and the vidtims of these deplorable hygienic and moral conditions are found among the class of small em- ployees as well as among workmen. In the faubourgs as many as six persons are often crowded into one room, so that a workman gains nothing by passing from the atmosphere of the workshop into that of his dwelling, where light and air are equally lacking. Attention was called, some time sipce, to chambers in the Pointe d'lvry quarter occupied by nine, eleven, and even fourteen people. Thirty-three per cent of the ten- ants in Paris pay a rent below 300 francs per annum, and it is in this class that overcrowding produces its worst efFedts. The demolitions undertaken for t'he amelioration of the hygienic conditions of Paris have swept away a cer- tain number of unsound and inadequate tenements and lodging-houses, but there are more than enough remain- ing. There are, for instance, in Paris great numbers of masons from Limousin, who sleep in overcrowded tene- ments in the St Viftor quarter. There are also many Savoyards, Auvergnats, Piedmontese, and Belgians em- THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iii. ployed in house-building, who leave their wives and children behind them in their own country, and who often lodge ten or fifteen in an attic, without any other furniture than the beds or straw-mattresses on the floor. But besides these robust andsober workmen who come up to Paris from the central plateau of France, there swarm like vermin those poor little Italians, whom an infamous padrone exploits and drives into the streets, to dance, strum the guitar or mandoline, and sell trumpery wares. They formerly swarmed in the Rue Ste Mar- guerite, in a court called "The Lions' Den," on account of a menagerie which had long been held there. The tenement contained 112 beds, distributed about in four tumble-down buildings, whose mouldy balconies over- looked the court. The Rue Ste Marguerite no longer exists, and many night-shelters of a similar kind have been demolished in and around the Place Maubert, the Rue Galande, Rue du Fouarre, and Rue des Anglais, where was situated the notorious tavern of the Pere Lunette, a rival of the Chateau Rouge. There gathered jail-birds, beggars, itinerant musicians, vagabonds of all types, and there also were to be found wretched beings, left alone in the wrorld, penniless and without work, some of them reduced. to regretting the hospital which they had just left. All of these classes, the criminals, the do-nothings, and the unfortunates — the " submerged tenth," in short — are to be found to- day in the wretched hovels and drinking-dens hidden 82 CH. iii.] OF THE FAUBOURGS away in the MoufFetard quarter, in the neighbourhood of the holies, the Faubourg du Temple, etc. And now we will leave Paris asleep. It is a light sleep, however — the watcher is aware that at the least sound the slumbering city would awake and spring from her couch ; and, indeed, she will presently arise, the city of light, opening her eyes to the first gleam of dawn, and the faubourgs will stretch out their arms toward her — those sturdy arms which the world of toil withdraws from her each evening, and bends as a pillow beneath a weary head. 83 f>a CHAPTER IV Of Politics and the Political World Chamber of Deputies — Luxembourg Palace, the Senate — Hotel de Ville and Elysee Palace — Presidents of the Republic — ^Jules Grevy, Carnot, Faure and Falli&res — Clemenceau — Municipal Council — Federation of Labour FOUR public buildings maybe taken as symbols of the political life of Paris — namely the Chamber of Deputies or Palais Bourbon, the Luxembourg or Palace of the Senate, the Hotel de Ville, and the Elysee Palace. The Chamber of Deputies is situated on the left bank of the Seine, at the southern end of the Pont de la Con- corde, facing the Madeleine on the northern shore. It thus forms part of that magnificent ensemble, that mar- vellous "human" landscape, which, starting at the Louvre, ends at the great triumphal arch ereded by the subduer of kings. Nowhere else in the world have builders made use of space on so grand a scale, not even in the avenues which led to the Great Pyramids ; and these vast spaces are all the more impressive because the buildings eredted upon them, with the exception of the Louvre, are not in themselves of the highest order. The Madeleine and Palais Bourbon, for instance, are mere imitations of a vanished art ; the Arc du Carrousel is a somewhat paltry strudiure; the obelisk is merely a huge stone, borrowed moreover from ancient Egypt. The Arc de Triomphe has undoubtedly a sort of grandeur of its own — perhaps as much as that sort of monument can 84 DOOR OF THE LUXEMBOURG PALACE CH. iv.] OF POLITICS have — but who would compare it for a moment with Notre Dame or the Sainte Chapelle, or even with St Etienne du Mont? The Palais Bourbon has the advan- tage of an admirable site, and is invested with a certain dignity by the surrounding landscape. The Luxembourg Palace is a composite edifice, whose first architedt, Desbrosses, borrowed some of its features from the Pitti Palace in Florence. Under Louis Philippe two new pavilions, with a conne6ting wing, were added to the main building. The general efFedt is agreeable,and has a certain air of peace and serenity, while the beauti- ful Luxembourg gardens surround it with the charm of old France,and something of the grandeur of Versailles. The Hotel de Ville is situated on the right bank of the Seine. It was built, as is well known, on the site of the former edifice, destroyed in 1871, during the convulsions of the Commune. The old Hotel de Ville was in the style of the Italian Renaissance, and its archi- teft was probably Dominic of Cortona, surnamed the Boccador. Thepresentbuilding isvaster,andisnotdevoid of elegance, nor of a certain grandeur, although it is not an architectural chef-d'ceuvre. The Elysee Palace, for- merly called the Palais d'Evreux, is In the Faubourg St Honore, in the Elysee quarter. Since it became national property, this palace has had a curious history. It served first as a national printing-office, then as the annexe to a "ublic garden. After passing through many hands, it was assigned to Prince Murat, and later to the Emperor Napoleon, who here signed his second abdication, on the day after Waterloo. It next belonged to the Due and 85 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. Duchesse de Berry ; and under Louis Philippe it was devoted to the entertainment of distinguished guests, among whom were the Queen of S|)ain and Mehemet Ali. After the Revolution of 1 848, it became the official residence of the Presidents of the Republic, Louis Napo- leonhavingoccupied it in that capacity until, upon being proclaimed Emperor, he took up his residence in the Tuileries. During the Second Empire the Elysee received by turns as its guests Queen Vidoria, the Sultan Abdul Aziz, and the Emperor of Austria, Francis Joseph. In 1 873 theoldpalace beheld the reappearance of the Presi- dents of the Republic, who have continued to make it their residence ever since. It was Marshal MacMahon who opened the series, for the Elysee was only occasionally visited by the little shrill-voiced man, talkative and impatient, who implac- ably crushed the Commune, and was hailed by the nati onal assembly with the title of Liberator of the Soil — Adolphe Thiers. MacMahon was succeeded by Jules Grevy, popularly known as Pere Grevy, also as Father of Assassins, owing to the fa6t that he imperturbably pardoned all criminals condemned to death. Hence arose a legend that the bandits of Paris had organized a body-guard, far more efficient than that provided by the Prefedt of Police, to watch over the President's safety whenever the fancy seized him to make a tour of the city incognito. It was also reported that Pere Grevy carried economy to the point of avarice, and that he retired from his post in pos- session of extensive savings. For, as everyone knows, he 86 cH.iv.] OF POLITICS was forced to retire, under the pressure of public opinion, owing to the scandalous condud: of his son-in-law, Wilson, who had carried on a shameless traffic in Govern- ment appointments and decorations. Some of us can still recall the tiresome refrain droned out in all the music- halls, "Quel malheur d'avoir un gendre !" Inshort, Pere Grevy, though an intelligent andworthy man, was neither an ornamental nor a brilliant President; his term of office was not marked by any important adts, and his reputation suffered from his being surrounded by bad advisers. His successor was Sadi Carnot, a grandson of Lazare Carnot, memberof theConventionandvidtorious general of the First Republic. An excellent President, in spite of a somewhat cold and apathetic temperament, he was an indefatigable visitor of the cities and communes of France, and distinguished for his tadtand generosity; but as a statesman he was gifted with only a moderate degree of intelligence and ability, while his stiffiiess of bearing gave rise to innumerable caricatures and to the comic song, " II est en bois, il est en bois !" He came to a tragic end in 1 894 by the brutal dagger of an Italian anarchist. He was succeeded by Casimir P^rier, whose grand- father of the same name was the brilliant Prime Minister of Louis Philippe. Up to the time of his eledlion to the Presidency, Casimir Perier had enjoyed a certain repu- tation for force and energy. He was a man of strift in- tegrity, with an imperious bearing aild a manner so curt at times as to border on insolence. During his brief term of office he showed himself weak and vacillating, and 87 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. dissensions having broken out between him and the party leaders, he sent in his resignation at the end of a few months, leaving behind him a doubtful reputation for strength of charafter and political ability. Felix Faure, who succeeded him, was the decorative figure par excellence in the presidential chair. He was a man whose colossal stature entitled him to rank in the category of giants. He made extensive official journeys all over France, gave brilliant fetes and entertainments, and contributed greatly to the successful conclusion of the Franco-Russian Alliance. He received as his guests the Russian Admiral Avellane, and subsequently the Czar and Czarina, on which occasion the festivities were among the most dazzling on record. Later he paid a visit to Russia, where he was received with unbounded enthusiasm. It was during his presidency that the Sover- eigns of Europe, both Kings and Queens, resumed, offi- cially, the habit of visiting Paris and France, He died suddenly,andunder somewhat enigmatical circumstances (enigmatical at least for official historians, though the real fadts in regard to his death were speedily known to all Paris). Everyone recalls his imposing presence, his mar- tial cast of countenance, the simple frankness of his manners, and his generosity, which equalled that of Sadi Carnot. Emile Loubet, his successor, bore no resemblance to him in any resped:. He was a small man with a shrewd expression and no dignity of bearing. He was, in fadt, the typical bonhomme, the man of easy good-humour tinged with joviality. Paris, which was just then an intensely 88 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS Boulangist and Nationalist Paris, gave him a terrible re- ception. While his carriagewas on thewayto the Elysee, he was overwhelmed by the rabble with a torrent of ribaldry, coarse derision, insults, and even threats. Some of the newspapers proceeded to aggravate the insult, and the new President saw himself described as a sinister bandit, an ignoble blackguard, and a foul Panamist, ac- cording to the choice language of the day. Under this storm of obloquy he never flinched, and by dint of calm good-nature, good sense, and a smiling demeanour, he ended by winning popularity. At the conclusion of his term of office, both parties in the House, and the nation as well, wished to miaintain him in power ; but he re- nounced the presidency formally and without appeal. The chief event of his "reign" was the reception of their Majesties Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, when the statesman who is the present Sovereign of Great Britain came to us bringing in his hands the entente cordiale. The people of Paris gave its royal guests a,delirious reception, equalling in material splendour that of the Czar and Czarina, and exceeding it by an indescribable something more intimate and affection ate, resulting from the great personal popularity of the King. Our last President, the present occupant of the Elysee, is M. Armand Fallieres, of whom we will first give the biography as presented succindlly in official hand- books. Monsieur Fallieres was born at Mdzin, in the depart- ment of Lot et Garonne, on November 6, 1841. He graduated at the law-schools of Toulouse and Paris, and 89 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. was received as barrister at the Nerac Bar, where he won a high reputation and formed a circle of devoted friends. He was appointed Mayor of Nerac, and Conseiller- Generalin 1 870. Uponthe fall of Thiers, theGovernment of Moral Order deprived him of his office on political grounds; buthe was none the less eledled Deputy in 1 876, and four years later became Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of the Interior and of Worship. In 1883 he was appointed President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Public Instruftion until 1885. He was again Minister of the Interior in 1 887; Minister of Jus- tice from 1887 to 1888; returned to the Ministry of Public Instrudtion from 1889 to 1890, and to that of Justice from 1890 to 1892. He remained Senator from the Haute Garonne from 1890 until his presidential eleftion in 1 906, being chosen President of the Senate when M. Loubet exchanged that presidency for the Elysee. Finally, M. Fallieres saw himself raised to the presidency of the Republic on January 17, 1906. As we perceive, his has been a well-filled career. In all his varied funftions, Fallieres has shown himself full of good sense andjudgment — ajudicious rather than a bril- liant man, endowed with an essentially happy and sym- pathetic nature. On the eve of his eledtion everybody knew that he would attain the highest office in the State — " in an armchair," as they say in the slang of the turf of a horse which is an easy winner. Our President is de- cidedly corpulent; the lines of his face are at once firm and mild ; his eye expresses benevolence not unmixed with irony, and his glance is keen and thoughtful by turns, re- 90 ARCHIVES NATIONALES CH. iv.] OF POLITICS vealing gravity and energy of charafter, as well as gaiety and humour. There is refinement in his smile, but some- thing in his face suggests that he is not averse to the pleasures of the table, and does not disdain his glass of wine upon occasion. M. Fallieres is, in fadl, a vine-grower, and is still de- voted to the culture of his vineyards of Loupillon, where he raises a good light wine. The history of M. Fallieres' presidency, so far, is in perfect harmony with his previous record — it is the pres- idency of a lucky man. He entered upon his office under the most favourable auspices, in marked contrast with Felix Faure, who assumed his in the midst of the Panama agitation, and Emile Loubet, who ascended the presi- dential chair amid a shower of obloquy. Fallieres, on the other hand, came into office at the moment when Nationalism had been crushed all over France — a most important circumstance for a President. His election did not, indeed, arouse a frenzy of enthusi*asm,nordoes he yet enjoy an excessive degree of popularity, but he has been favourably received and cordially treated so far by his people. As to his political role, he remains somewhat in the background. Doubtless he contributes to the Cabinet Councils his spirit of conciliation, his optimistic logic, and his graciousness of manner ; but at this period, when Ministries whose tenure of office was formerly so insecure have become singularlystable, he is rarelycalled upon to adt. M, Fallieres confines himself, therefore, to receiving an occasional Sovereign, and manifesting a sympathetic in- 9» THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. terest in his good towns and cantons — an interest shown by donations bestowed upon the poor, and decorations distributed among the notables; also by conveying to the inundated distridis kind words and cordial assist- ance. Nevertheless, the times are serious: Morocco is brist- ling with ambuscades, Colledtivism and Militarism are agitating the urban masses and even the remote rural dis- trifts; and, meanwhile, M. Fallieres can do nothing but fold his arms, sign decrees, listen to the speeches of the terrible Clemenceau and the subtle Briand, give the pre- scribed receptions, invite distinguished guests to dine at the Elysee, and see to it that the viands are hot and the wines cool. In doing these things his role is not a useless one : his cordial greeting, his acuteness, his mild philosophy, pro- duce a favourable impression upon the European cele- brities who visit him. Within the limits of his power he works for peace,and strives to bring about the courteous solution of differences. Assuredly he is not an Edward VII — in the first place because he does not diffuse about him that subtle influence that emanates from the King or England and Emperor of India, and also because he has not received from Heaven thosepeculiar gifts which con- stitute a statesman and a diplomat. M. Fallieres is essen- tially a political man, a parliamentarian endowed with ta(ft and- intelligence; this is a great deal, and it is all that is necessary to make an excellent President. Perhaps a great statesman in that position would be more embar- rassing than useful. 92 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS Next to M. Fallieres, whom his especial fundtions condemn to a role which, if not passive, is at least but discreetly adlive, comes the tangible head of French politics, M. Georges Clemenceau. It is not an easy task to sketch the portrait or pen the biography of this singularly complex and supremely intelligent man, Georges Clemenceau is of Vendean race, and that race has transmitted to him its intense combativeness and its imperious temperament. TheClemenceausarean adtive, satirical, lively, and aggressive family, who have shown remarkable brain-powerforseveral generations. Georges Clemenceau'sfatherwasamandreaddd by his opponents, full of generous social ideas, but totally destitute of re- ligious belief; and his sons, Georges, Albert, and Paul, resemble him intelledlually. Our Premier, after having taken his degree of M.D., promptly turned his attention to politics. We find him already Mayor of Montmartre in 1 870, but it is as the chief of the Radical party that he has exercised a decisive influence upon the destinies of his country. This small sallow man, with harsh features, a short nose, and incisive jaw, prompt in repartee and always ready with stinging epithets, was long the terror of the Cabinet — the Warwick who made whole generations of Ministers tremble. His first onslaught was on the powerful Gambetta, and the struggle between thesetwo was epic. Gambetta, gifted with all the charms and power of eloquence, an admirable leader of popular as- semblies, prompt to see his opportunity, and joining to 93 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. the art of finished oratory quickness in retort and a humour by turns witty and formidable, came into con- stant collision with this obstinate, censorious rival, who was as well-equipped for parliamentary fencing as for the expression of general ideas. Clemenceau overthrew Gambetta. He next attacked Jules Ferry, the struggle this time being carried on less diredlly. Little skilled in prompt retorts, a trifle stiff and even clumsy in fence, Ferry re- trieved himself in his premeditated speeches, and above all in his ads. The battle was fought out upon the burn- ing question of Indo-China, where Briere de I'lsle and Negrier, at the head of the land forces, with Admiral Courbet, an excellent leader, in command of the fleet, were waging a hard-fought campaign. Ferry, a colonizer by conviftion, stubbornly maintained a policy of aggrand- izement against the Extreme Left, which regarded all distant conquests as useless and dangerous. Clemenceau perpetually returned to the charge, but for a long time the adtual vidlory was with the Ministry. It would per- haps have remained with them — at least, upon colonial grounds — had it not been for the Langson incident. This check, designedly magnified by the Opposition, and easily reparable, appeared at the time an appalling catastrophe. An immense crowd besieged the Palais Bourbon, de- manding the dismissal of the Ministry, and shouting, " Down with Ferry." Inside the hall the drama was no less violent, Clemenceau pouring forth a torrent of bitter and vindictive words and frantic insults directed against the Minister, while the giant — Ferry was of tall stature 94 STATUE OF GAMBETTA CH. iv.] OF POLITICS andsolidly built — after attempting a timid defence, gave way before his implacable little adversary and before the mob, and retired by a side-door. After Jules Ferry, Clemenceau attacked Brisson, and was again triumphant. He seemed about to attain the climax of his power, when the Boulanger crisis super- vened. Everyone remembers that surprising craze, when whole provinces were seized with a fanatical devotion towards a man whom no one actually knew, and whose only titles to glory consisted in having welcomed with favour the invention of melinite, and having maintained a courageous attitude at the time of the Schnaebele in- cident. The populace also admired his black horse and his fine bearing, which, however, was more graceful than martial. The most curiousfeature of the affair was that Clemen- ceau should have been one of the General's "promoters." As soon, however, as he became aware of the turn Bou- langism was taking ; as soon as he perceived that a throng of readtionaries were hastening to greet the rising star, he suddenly made a right-about-face, and directed all his eloquence and strategy towards the defence of the Re- public. It may be said that, with the aid of Constant, a diplomat of the first rank, Clemenceau dealt the final blows against the Boulanger Staff. He was destined, how- ever, to encounter defeat in his turn. The Panama scan- dal suddenly burst forth, sinister, demoralizing, and at the same time comic. There appeared upon the scene the amazing silhouettes of Cornelius Herz, Baron Reinach, and d'Arton, adventurers who had corrupted the Cham- 95 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. bers by the distribution of cheques and specie, and a whole parliamentary group was compromised, especially by the famous stubs in d'Arton's cheque-book. Meanwhile, the remnants of the Boulanger party, transformed into Nationalists, made a vigorous effort to reconquer power, and succeeded at least in conquering Paris. Clemenceau saw himself implicated, without a shadow of proof, and calumniated in his private as well as his public life. Thrown over by his eledtors and re- duced to absolute poverty, he was obliged to resort to journalism and literature to earn his living. He did it with supreme maestria. In his leading articles, essays and stories, he revealed himself as the most complex of mortals, thoroughly versed in ideas and fadts, and more gifted as a literary artist than any political man of Old or New France. But especially admirable was his intrepid- ity. He showed himself such as he had always been — by turns authoritative and good-natured, sometimes inci- sive and sometimes humorous, now charging upon the enemy with head lowered, and now stopping to fire a pleasantry at him. He appeared in his writing, as in his speeches, with his simple correftness of style, his tireless curiosity, which carried himinto everynook and corner of the great city, his insatiable interestin science, history, the arts, the gossip of the day, the great events of the planet,in a jovial talk or a philosophical discussion. He triumphed, pen in hand, as he had triumphed at the Palais Bourbon. He knew how to be the private citizen after having been the man of crowds ; and now that he is Prime Minister, he certainly cannot regret having 96 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS known this turn of fortune; his career would have been incomplete without it. It was the Dreyfus affair which set him in the saddle again. He was one of the prime movers in that ardent struggle carried on by the champions of rehabilitation against the party of hatred. He dealt the anti-Drey- fusites the most crushing blows, and was able to add to his triumphs the liberation of the little Jewish officer exiled to Devil's Island. On his eledlion tothe Senate he reassumed his political harness with a trifle more moder- ation but with equal spirit, until his promotion, first to the Sarrien Cabinet, and finally to being himself the head of a long-lived Ministry. As Prime Minister, he has shown no more surprise at his destiny than he did on being reduced to a struggle for his daily bread. He preserves his wonted bearing and the astounding youthfulness of his movements. He is as brusque, as curt, as jovial as ever, and continues to berate and jeer at his adversaries, and even his friends, as in the past. He wrestles with the Government offices, andabruptly dismisses recalcitrant or idle funftionaries. He fights against favouritism, making but slight account of pro- teges and^/j a papa. He threatens incapable Prefedts and lazy Sub-Prefects, and obliges them to fill their posts efFeftually and to renounce too frequent trips to Paris at the expense of the Government. On the other hand, alas ! he sees himself constrained at times to make war on that liberty which was so dear to him when he was contending with the ruling powers. He has been obliged 97 7 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. to sendtroops againstthe miners, againstthe vine growers of the South, where sanguinary struggles have taken place, and against the "manifestants" of May i . He was forced to order the condemnation of the C.G.T. (General Confederation of Labour)and of the anti-Militarists, the famous Herve among them, and he was constrained to send troops to Morocco on one of those campaigns which he used to execrate — and doubtless execrates still — and on a campaign besides which is perhaps without issue. He has, therefore, christened himself with joyous irony " Emperor of the Flics " (that is, of the police), acknowledging that events are more powerful than in- dividuals, and that a Minister, driven by the irre- sistible force of things, cannot always live up to his principles. He is quite capable, on occasion, of replying smartly to interpellations, and of aiming a barbed arrow by way of retort. He talks familiarly and sardonically to the re- porters who besiege him, and it seems that he sometimes plays on them one of those pradlical jokes for which he has always had so keen a relish. His friends, his co- editors, his parliamentary colleagues — all recall these pranks, which usually preceded or followed some par- ticularly stormy session. The case of Pere X is typical, inasmuch as it cost M. Clemenceau dear — it cost him, in fadt, nothing less than the presidency of the Chambers. This Pere X was an old parliamentarian, a greybeard who dated back to the prescriptions of the Empire. He was noted for his dishevelled appearance, his mania for trotting in the middle of the street instead of on the side- 98 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS walk, and his economy, which bordered on avarice. This worthy gentleman made a pradtice of taking one meal a day gratis at the bar of the Chamber of Deputies, where he liked also to provide himself with a second meal by stuffing the capacious pockets of his ancient overcoat with various articles of food, especially rolls which are easy to carry. Accordingly, one morning, having break- fasted at the bar, he was busily filling the above-men- tioned pockets with the rolls left upon the plate, when M. Clemenceau chanced to pass. Arrested by this spec- tacle, after pausing for a moment to gaze at it, his sense of humour was aroused, and, approaching with stealthy tread, he began quietly and dexterously removing the rolls from Pere X's pockets. The old gentleman con- tinued stuffing them in, but, gradually becoming con- scious that his pockets did not fill, he turned, and caught M. Clemenceau in the adt. Too much mortified and irri- tated for words, he inwardly swore to be even with him. The occasion soon arrived on Clemenceau's presenting himself as candidate for the presidency of the Chamber in opposition to M. Meline. The contest was so close that one vote alone would turn the scale, and this vote was that of Pere X. Being opposed to* Meline politically, he would not cast a vote for him at any price, but he could abstain. He therefore cast a blank ballot, and, in accordance with the custom in such cases, the presidency was allotted to M. Mehne, who was the senior. Thus it was that Clemenceau paid Pere X for his rolls. By a freak of parliamentary fortune, the Minister next in the public eye after the Premier is M. Aristide Briand. 99 7« THE COLOUR pF PARIS [ch. iv. Monsieur Briand is a Breton, a man with a shrewd coun- tenance, and very precise in speech-. He knows what he wants at the moment he wants it, but feels quite free to change his mind whenever circumstances alter ; for M, Briand is not a Breton to the point of being incapable of evolution. He believes less in principle than in hard fadts, and considers that what is excellent to-day may be harmful to-morrow. In this sense he is a disciple of Lamarck and Darwin. He first presented himself under asomewhat forbidding aspect, extolling agitation, urging a general strike, and resolutely anti-Nationalist. But, as with all reasonable beings, experience gave him a more corredt notion of the times ; and without ceasing to be a Socialist in doftrine, he yielded to the inevitable, and proceeded, as the expression goes, to mix much water with his wine. The hour of his fortune struck when the separation of Church and State was brought about, M. Briand it was who drew up the formula which was judged the most felicitous for settling the problems involved in the new statute relating to the clergy ; and he displayed therein much wisdom, adroitness, and eloquence. Accordingly, whenM. Clemenceau formed his Cabinet, he sought the collaboration of this skilful parliamentarian, and M. Briand was called to the Ministry of Public Instrudtion, Fine Arts, and Worship. He made a favourable impres- sion from the first, and the day came when, after a speech perfedt in form and logic, he appeared fully the equal of his redoubtable chief. But in spite ofprodigies of diplo- macy, he was unable to bring about an understanding lOO CH. iv.] OF POLITICS with Rome. The Pope refused with scorn to acknow- ledge the "Associations of Worship " to which M. Briand wished to hand over the churches, their furnish- ings and property. Fresh measures accordingly had to be adopted, resistance offered to clerical outbreaks, tame as these were on the whole, and the money of the estab- lishment handed over to the State Board of Charities. M. Briand resigned himself to this course, not without chagrin, for he would greatly have preferred conciliatory measures. Recently the young Minister has exchanged the office of Chief of Public Instrudtion for that of the Department of Justice, to which has been adjoined that of Worship. It may be regarded as certain that he will fill his new post with perfedt tadt. M. Briand disguises his shrewdness under a simple and benevolent exterior; he is a spontaneousyet eloquent talker, and his somewhat harsh voice is not unpleasing. He is free from petty vanity, and does not forget that he was once poor — an obscure young lawyer waiting for clients — and acquainted with the attendant trials of pri- vation and adlual want. He is fond of literature and art, and is often to be met at the theatres, and even in the green-room. He prefers aftresses to aftors, and the pretty ones to those who are not so. The next member of the Ministry to attradt public attentionisM.Caillaux, Minister of Finance, for the rea- son that he has shown a disposition to impose an income- tax upon France. The Socialists and Radicals applauded this measure, but all capitalists and men in office tremble at the projedt, fearing the turn of the screw. M. Caillaux lOI THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. is especially famous for his methods of testing incomes, as these tests are rehearsals of what will happen when the taxis aftually decreed. He sends his agents about among the communes to collect information as to the means of the inhabitants, who invariably meet these inquiries with evasions, lies, and a general beating about the bush. His investigations accordingly reveal nothing positive in regard to taxable incomes, and M. Caillaux, meanwhile, is made the object of much music-hall wit. In anticipa- tion of the panic which this Minister is expedled to cause, French capital pours into Swiss, Belgian, and British banks, and French fortunes seek to make themselves in- visible and undiscoverable. It is not so much that the citizen regards the income-tax as worse than other taxes, but he claims that in France it would merely serve to despoil the well-to-do classes without profit to others. For, since the plan is to spare the small incomes, the small salaries, the low wages, and even the fairly good wages, the majority of electors, being thus exempted from paying this tax, will look on with indifference while the Budget is squandered and duties are raised. Finally, there is a fourth Minister who excites the public interest and curiosity — this is General Picquart, the Minister for War. M. Picquart, who was of Alsatian origin, is a man of fine bearing, a delightful talker, many-sided, and intelligent, who became a celebrity at the time of the Dreyfus case. In fadl^ M. Picquart was the real hero of that great trial. He contended heroic- ally against his chiefs and against his comrades; he defended justice at the peril of his career, and perhaps of 102 M P O W P « W [I. w o w o o 5 a cH.iv.] OF POLITIC^ his life; he endured insults, unpopularity, and imprison- ment. But the hour of vidtory came at last, and in the course of a few short months Colonel Picquart rose to be Brigadier-General, General of Division, and finally Minister for War. He now appears to be resting on his laurels. He brought to the Ministry his refinement, his elegance and geniality; but circumstances, or possibly his own will, have made him a silent personage in public affairs, and a Minister who is not known by his adts. This silence and discretion, however, may conceal useful and solid achievements. The other Ministers are not much in the public eye, not even M. Vivian, who is at the head of a new Ministry — that of Labour — and who is, besides, an adtive and brilliant man: he awaits his hour. NorisM.Barthou well known, except by the fadt that he descends pluckily into the mines on the day following a great catastrophe ; nor M. Simyan, Under-Secretary of State for the Post Office, Telegraph and Telephone Service, in which charadter he is daily sworn at by millions of his fellow-citizens on the receipt of a long-delayed letter or an undecipherable telegranl; nor yet M. Dou- mergue, who has just been appointed to the Depart- ment of Public Instrudtion ; nor M. Pichon, although he presides over that of Foreign Affairs; nor Messrs. Ruau, Dujardin Beaumetz, and Thomson, more than one of whom is doubtless destined to make a figure later. Everything comes to him who waits, and they are waiting. As for M. Cruppi, he is of yesterday, but may also be destined to play a brilliant part. 103 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. Let us pass from the Ministry to the Chamber. This centre and soul of French poH tics presents a strange scene at times — strange in its moods of fantastic non- chalance, strange in its frenzied agitation. There are days when everything appears to be dead or dying, when some orator or other, possibly even a distinguished specialist, seems to be addressing the seats rather than the deputies, as the hall is five-sixths, or nine-tenths, or nineteen-twentieths empty. How many speeches have been delivered before an audience of a score or so of deputies, all in a somnolent condition or absorbed in meditation over their domestic affairs! And this is some- times the case at important business sessions, which are given up to arid calculations and arrays of figures. How many times the learned economist X or orator Y famed for his monotonous delivery, or orator Z, equally dis- tinguished as a bore, have risen to their feet, and im- mediately the house has become empty as if by magic ! The deputies, meanwhile, are engaged in gossiping in the lobbies, or crowding round the bar, where they interchange news and jokes, plans and confidences, while X, Y, and Z are reeling off their eloquence to empty benches and a group of yawning reporters. In marked contrast with these soporific occasions are the stormy, the cyclonic, the earthquake sessions. The hall is then crammed to its utmost capacity: every face is pale or flushed, convulsed with excitement or distorted with a sneer; every voice is raised in a shriek or a roar ; deputies hammer their desks or shake furious fists in each others' faces ; sarcasms and insults fly 104 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS back and forth, and fierce inveftives are hurled from extreme Right to extreme Left, and vice versa. M. Cou- tand, the CoUedtivist member from Ivry, falls foul of M. Lasies, and gets as good as he gives; M. Baudry d'Asson threatens to assail the oratbr on the stand — a threat which he carried into execution on one occasion with a boarding-axe; the Revolutionary group to a man threatens to come to blows with the Conservatives; and any orator whose voice is not powerful, or whose authority is not great, is drowned in this deafening uproar. These are the times that bring out the leaders of the Chamber' — those who dominate by their eloquence, or by their knowledge of crowds and their strategic instind:. Then M. Jaures comes to the front, with his frank, bearded countenance and his thundering voice — a mar- vellous wielder of words and phrases, who would scale the whole gamut of eloquence if only he possessed the gift of irony; but in spite of his being from the Midi, where jest and repartee abound, this eminently French quality is denied him. Then rises M. Ribot with a less powerful voice, a less warm and supple phrase, and less mimetic power, but subtle, adroit, and sagacious. Next comes the turn of M. Camille Pelletan, mordant and abrupt, fiery and romantic, agitating his short arms and waving his leonine locks. Another leader is M. Mille- rand, a consummate tadtician, precise and obstinate, full of good sense and practical information. Still another is Comte Albert de Mun, whose elo- quence approaches that of M. Jaures himself, and whose 105 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. fame would be far greater if he belonged to the Radical or Socialist party instead of adhering to the extreme Right. Then there is M. Deschanel, tolerant and elegant, with finished speech, refined gesture, and great elevation of thought, who, with a trifle more of magnetism and passion, would have attained the rank to which his merits entitle him, and to whom a great destiny was so long predidted that his enemies say spitefully, " What a great future he has behind him !" And M. Clemenceau, vehement, hot-tempered, and sardonic; M. Briand, at- tentive and vigilant, logical and adroit, able to unwind with patient skill the most tangled skein of contra- didtions; and M. Doumer, who is not popular at present, and who only gains hold of his auditors by a sort of authority at once forcible and patient. There are others whom it would be idle to enumerate, whose influence is more or less transient, or is already on the wane; others still who have had their day without a morrow, and whom chance or circumstance permitted to emerge for one short hour above the tumultuous throng. The Senate, if it permits itself occasional violent scenes, indulges in these much more rarely, and its tempests never rise to the same pitch of intensity as those of the Chamber. Our conscript fathers are at once more patient in listening to an insipid orator, and less passionate when a troublesome question stirs the assembly. The Senate has, indeed, its fits of apathy and of anger, and can show itself at times as inconsistent, unfair, and unreason- able as a faded elderly beauty. On the whole, however, it fulfils its modest role of adting as a curb upon the 1 06 CH. iv.] OF POLITICS Chamber, and preventing it from assuming too many bravado airs or moving at too rapid a pace. But this august body does not engross a large share of public attention, in spite of having in its ranks several political men of the highest eminence, such as M, Ray- mond Poincare, a man of universal knowledge, a power- ful and brilliant lawyer, and a clear-sighted statesman, who, with Rouvier, is the person most capable of filling the post of Minister of Finance. Then there is Rouvier himself, ardent and able, who made such an epical de- fence when accused of complicity in the Panama scandals; Freycinet, frail, supremely adlive, and marvellously in- telligent, surnamed the " White Mouse " on account of his short stature and trotting gait ; Combes, the petit pere (ex-priest), and overthrower of the religious orders; Leon Bourgeois, philosopher as well as politician, a sage, who would have shown to greater advantage in less troublous times; finally,Waddington, a clever diplomat, whom recent events have thrown somewhat into the shade. The Municipal Council is at present in a state of calm amounting almost to placidity. The time is past when Nationalists and Socialists shook their fists in each other's faces, and continually threatened to come to blows. To- day Nationalism has succumbed to the law to which all conquerors are subject, and has split into the Radical Bloc, the Socialist party, and the Radical Socialists. The Hotel de Ville remains a good indicator of the political situation in Paris, and of the relative strength of the various parties in the heart of France. Generally speak- 107 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. iv. ing however, at the roulette table of the Hotel de Ville red is the winning colour, and it was, consequently, a surprise to the whole country when the Right was tri- umphant for several sessions running. Below the politicalcentres which we have pointed out there exist groups, leagues, and clubs whose name is legion, but whose movements are only clearly apparent at election time. Then men rise out of dark corners to sustain or defeat the various candidates, and multitudes throng their customary meeting-places or pommel each other in the courtyards of the communal schools. Indi- viduals hitherto unknown enjoy for a brief space the glory and discomfort of playing the popular tribune, and reaping alternate hootings and applause, most of them subsiding immediately afterwards into their original ob- scurity, though a few reveal themselves and become the lucky candidates of to-morrow or the next day. Finally, in addition to these nornjal agglomerations, a new party has lately been formed, a party opposed to electoral action, which points the finger of scorn at the Chambers, jeers at the Ministry, and despises the State, and whose influence upon politics is a faftor to be reck- oned with. This is the Syndicalist party, with its federa- tions growing more numerous each day, and its central staff, the General Confederation of Labour. This party counts on carrying on its reforms without recourse to politicians, and, if possible, by opposition to them. It boasts of being as hostile to political Socialists as to any other existing party, and despises the leaders like Jules Guesde, Viviani, and Vaillant, who claim that Social- io8 Pf.ACIC DE LA REPUBLIQUK CH. iv.] OF POLITICS ism must secure power through parliamentary aftion as well as by revolution. The Confederation of Labour holds its meetings in a tumble-down building situated in a pifturesque, popu- lous quarter not far from the Canal St Martin. There are to be met a group of men, risen from the people, nervous and ardent, ready to wage an incessant warfare — men whose dream it is to bring about a universal strike, a strike of all the trades, in town and country, ending in the expropriation of the well-to-do middle-class. Perhaps the most striking figure connedted with this movement is that of Vi£tor Griffiiehles, a young man with eyes hollowed by fever, a hoarse voice, and abrupt gestures, who carries on an incessant crusade against employers, who preaches the Holy War in his news- paper. La Voix du Peuple, and who has just opened a furious campaign against Jules Guesde, the Socialist leader and rival of Jaures, in whom he sees the worst enemy of Syndicalism. This campaign promises to bring about shortly a deep breach in the very heart of the Re- volutionary party. 109 CHAPTER V Of the Theatre The Comedie Fran9aise— The Oddon— The Ope'ra— The Theatre An- toine — The Renaissance — ^Aftor-Managers-r— M, Guitry and Mmc. Rejane — Theatre Hats — The Censorship— The Claque — A Triumph — The People's Theatre " "^ "W" T'HY do you write for the theatre ? What do % /% / you find so tempting in that big wooden T ▼ box packed with layer upon layer of worthy souls straight from their dinners, and sweltering in the close air, while some terrible drama is shaking them up, racking, flurrying, dumbfounding, and bewildering them ? They perspire, these good people, they shed tears; and all the while the big drama goes on groaning, wailing, stamping, and roaring until the curtain falls, and the worthy souls go home to bed, and probably to a fit of indigestion. Don't meddle with the foot-lights, it is an unhealthy business. And then how you will be inter- preted !■ Have you ever seen them play Beaumarchais on a Sunday at the Theatre Fran9ais ? There ought to be a law forbidding adtors to touch masterpieces; they only prevent their being understood." Thus speaks De Re- monville, a charadter in Charles T)emailly, the clever novel of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. This tirade (which would be very efFedtive on the stage, by the way) is as just as it is witty. But we must reconcile ourselves to fadts ; and it is undeniable that Parisians love the theatre more and more, and spend ever larger sums upon it. Paris adores and enriches her dra- iro CH. v.] OF THE THEATRE matic artists, some of whom are among the best in the world. And these artists, in spite of what De Remonville says, treatmasterpieceswith the greatest reverence. They respedl the classics, and sometimes even play them. The Comedie Fran^aise does not indulge too frequently in Beaumarchais norin Racine. Are they badly interpreted ? Who can say ? They are still a tradition, but it is the box- office receipts which give the law. The aim nowadays is not to perform masterpieces, but pieces which will draw big houses. Every play that is produced might have for its sub-title La Question d' Argent, or might, in- deed, borrow the name of one of the greatest recent suc- cesses at the Comedie Franfaise, Les Affaires sont les Affaires (Business is Business). This happened, more- over, to be that rare exception — a really good play. The theatres onlylivebyhundred-night plays, andtheauthors know this but too well. They know that they can earn less by their best books than by a poor play which is not even a success. That is why they all rush headlong for the stage. All that is asked of them is to write plays that will take with the public. They accordingly manufac- ture them by the dozen, sometimes alone, sometimes two or three together, and they go on manufacturing them without pause. As soon as an author has caught the trick his fortune is made. Paris counts among its manu- facturers of plays several who have a European reputa- tion. It is easy, therefore, to understand why it is only the first success that costs, and that to get one's first play produced has become almost an impossibility. Let us imagine a young man who ,has just finished his III THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. v. three-aa: play. To what theatre shall he offer it ? He thinks at once of the Comedie Fran9aise. Formerly this theatre had two readers and a reading-committee. A play was first submitted to one of these readers, who reported whether it was worthy or unworthy of the honour of being read before the committee, which consisted of several members of this distinguished company. The reading committee has now been suppressed. Such an examination would be merely a humiliating ordeal for authors who have already won their spurs. There has, indeed, been some talk latterly of reviving the com- mittee, but meantime it is the diredtor of the Comedie Fran^aise, M. Jules Claretie, who reads and accepts or refuses all plays. Our young man's play will presumably be refused. He then carries it to the second Theatre Fran9ais, the Odeon. There is still a reading-committee at the Odeon, but a much less famous, less terrifying and powerful one than that of the Fran9ais. It remains discreetly in the background, and is very rarely consulted, the acceptance or refusal of plays being pra CH. vii.] OF JOURNALISTS forced habit of daily labour at fixed hours, when the power of reflexion is often lacking, or the weary brain longs for repose; he may envy the leisure of authors free to follow their fancy and to tread the path of life at a pace adapted to observation, or to shut themselves up in their study and give their whole soul to the subtle al- chemy which mingles and combines ideas and words ; but he will persevere, nevertheless, in his round of labour, in the steady building-up of his work. The writers are not many whose time is their own. Those authors who enter on a literary career with a fortune sufficient to supply their necessities are never in a majority. The moneyed world does not seem to be the most favourable soil for the growth of literary genius. Therefore the daily journal, multiplied and wide- spread as it now is, offers itself as a fitting field to the man of letters, or, rather, did so offer itself, for the times are changing, and we see before our very eyes the rapid evolution of commercial journalism. We have recently received a letter from a writer of ability, who wishes to go on living by his pen, and by the work to which he is accustomed, and who pro- pounded to us the following questions : " What journals are still hospitable to the chronicle of events {la chron- ique) i Which to literary or artistic criticism ?" Our cor- respondent was evidently well informed in regard to the present state of literary criticism, since he asked paren- thetically : " Is it possible to resuscitate it ?" Literary criticism is not yet dead, however, although it seems in 173 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. vU. a decline ; the same is true of the chronique. The art critique dies hard, because it can be made an agreeable pretext for strolls through the salons and galleries. Theatrical criticism is more vigorous still, especially such as concerns the daily reporting of plays. We all know that the reason for its permanence lies in the fadt that the theatre is the only diversion now offered to humanity. What is the cause of this decline ? The chronique has its purpose, the literary critique also. The subje6ts treated of in such criticism and chronicle are a vital part of a nation's life, and the journals which have sup- pressed these heads in order to replace them by endless narrations of the sayings and doings of big or petty swindlers and criminals fail to reflect a complete image of our times. We must take note, moreover, that such newspapers, by their very nature, renounce all chance of exercising a real and enduring influence, and for lack of such genuine influence they will find themselves thrown aside as easily as they were welcomed. We can but hope, therefore, thkt we are passing through a period of transition. Doubtless the public will always demand fadts, and will insist niore and more that they shall be of interest, and reported with the greatest possible accuracy ; but it will also call for ideas and opinions. Intelleftual journalism will then again have the success which it deserves. As to the criticism of works of art and of original thought, for which place is still found in a few news- 174 CH. vii.] OF JOURNALISTS papers, and which forms an important part of the con- tents of certain reviews, the newspapers themselves would find it to their advantage to revive it. Meanwhile there is a unanimous opinion that literary criticism is dying out, which is probably quite true ; and what is worse still is that it is not allowed to die a natural death. It is the advertisement which is kill- ing it by inches. As for the advertisement, its end may come next. It will doubtless go on for some time longer deceiving those simple people who believe that they can cure their colds or make their hair grow by carefully reading, and striftly following, the advice offered them by the daily press ; but the time is siarely coming when they will be fooled no longer. And when it is generally understood that an editor will launch a book and its author for cash considerations, when it is known that the biography of a painter or sculptor is paid for in coin of the realm like the puff of a druggist's syrup or pills, or else is paid " in kind " by a pifture, a pastel, a work in marble or bronze, then the public will laugh printed judgments to scorn, and will cease to buy the books and works of art thus recommended. No one, then, whether author, artist, or publisher, will care any longer to have his work recommended by writers whose pen is known to be for sale, and purchasers will prefer to trust to luck or to their own taste. It is thus that enterprise sometimes overreaches itself, and that the possessors of hens which lay golden eggs are foolish enough to kill their fowls. I claim, in faft, that, by suppressing all free and serious 175 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. vii. criticism in their papers, the editors are cutting off their chief source of profit, and I can prove it. I was talking the other day with one of these news- paper editors, whose ideal is the echo paye, and I was reproaching him for having nothing but these venal book-notices in his paper. "But," he ingenuously re- plied, "do not the publishers make money by the books they sell.'' Isn't it just, then, that they should pay us when we help them to introduce their products ? Isn't that perfectly logical and fair?" "Oh yes, perfedly," I agreed; "only, by inserting nothing but paid notices of books and works of art, you are undoubtedly killing the trade of the booksellers and art-dealers." " How is that ?" " Your paid notices do not always tell. In fadt, they only tell occasionally, since the majority of books so announced do not sell any better than others. It requires a certain combination of circum- stances to insure the success of a book. For that reason authors and publishers will grow weary in the end of squandering their money uselessly. The author would keep on, perhaps, for the pleasure of hearing his genius proclaimed, even at advertisement rates ; but the pub- lisher is not seeking the gratification of his vanity: he will therefore soon tire of his bargain, and you, my dear sir, will no longer have your precious puffs, your echos payes. But it will be a different matter if you publish a literary supplement in which contemporary produftions are reviewed seriously, impartially, and freely. I say nothing of the intelledtual benefit that would ensue to the authors, who need enlightening as 176 CH. vH.] OF JOURNALISTS to their real merits, for I am aware that this kind of argu- ment does not appeal to you. But I assure you that there exists a public for articles of this nature — I assure you that a writer of conscience and talent, who took up this work, would be listened to and followed. The result would be that the books he praised would sell more or less well. That is not the question ; a modest sale would do. How many books have even that ? These, then, would sell, and what would be the result ? The publisher, making a certain profit off the sale, would seek to make more, and would accordingly come to an agreement with you to give publicity to the books he issued. You would realize by such an agreement much greater profits than you reap nowfrom the chance business that comes to you through an author's gratified vanity. You would be helping to develop the book trade and increasing the prosperity of your paper at the same time." "Perhaps you are right. I will think it over," con- cluded the tradesman. He has, in faft, thought it over, and has decided to suppress the last vestige of genuine criticism which was to be found from time to time in his paper. He is approaching nearer and nearer to his ideal, which is — to be paid for every line he prints. An admirable system, of which we shall surely see the downfall; for the day will come when the public will give up buying a newspaper in order to read in it only the same advertisements which they can read on the posters for nothing. Someone will then be found who, seeing the unprofitable nature of this advertising "com- 177 12 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. vii. bine," will start an all-round journal for the benefit of the public. This new transformation of the press may be confidently predicted; for if it does not take place, the press itself will eventually disappear, having become entirely confounded with the business pros- pectus. Literature The Academic Franfaise, though frequently scoffed at nowadays in France, keeps its European reputation. And yet this venerable institution of ours is far from filling the r61e attributed to it — that of ruling over the domain of letters. The Revolution did not succeed in eman- cipating the Academic Fran9aise, whose most marked charafteristic continues to be an obstinate conservatism. During the whole period of the nineteenth century the Academic never ceased to protest against, and condemn, every daring literary venture and every new experiment. About the year 1824, when the movement which was to be known later as Romanticism began to show itself, the Academic did not hesitate to denounce it formally and to make war upon its authors. "A new literary schism is manifesting itself," cried the direftor of the society. "Many men brought up in devout reverence for the doftrines of antiquity, conse- crated by innumerable masterpieces, are disquieted by the projedts of this new seft, and seem to crave reassur- ance. Shall the Academic Fran9aise remain indifferent to their just alarm .? And shall the first literary body in 178 CH. vii.] OF JOURNALISTS France fear to compromise itself by intervening in a dispute which concerns all French literature ?" Nothing could be more charadteristic than this apos- trophe. The Academie Fran9aise claimed, once for all, its right to rule the world of letters^ In the years which followed, the Academie never ceased to wage war upon the audacious romanticists, those innovators of the period. Lamartine became a member in 1829, but such an eledlion was quite ex- ceptional — a glorious exception, however, which served as an antidote to a too-exclusive policy. A breach was thus opened, but it required more than ten years for Viftor Hugo to force an entrance and pass the breach anew. Ten years of reiterated assaults to effeft the entrance of a Hugo ! Since that period, which already seems to us some- what remote, the Academie has nof altered greatly. It has its right and left, its Tories and its Whigs; but at this present hour the latter are still in a minority, and do not make the laws. The consequence is that for half a century the French literary movement has been going on outside the Academie, just as the independent art movement has been outside the Institute. No doubt the Academie prides itself on having wel- comed within its doors the two best writers of the period extending from the close of the Empire to our own day, Ernest Renan and Anatole France; but it was not without resistance that it received the former, and the opposition which it continues to offer to liberal ideas and independent men of letters is the cause 179 12a THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. vii. why the latter has deliberately ceased to attend its sessions. The Academie will, perhaps, continue to live, but on condition of transforming itself, and in the words of one of its illustrious members, Sainte Beuve, " of maintain- ing true relations with a changing society." Up to this time our National Academy has systematic- ally refused to adapt itself to altered conditions, and as it was hostile to romanticism, so it has been hostile to naturalism. Neither Balzac nor Flaubert were admitted within its doors. The Academie refused to receive Zola, and the Goncourt brothers undertook to create a new centre of influence. The real aim of the Academie Goncourt is, indeed, to encourage, along with literary merit, the spirit of independence ; and as time goes on, this aim of the new literary group asserts itself more and more. In truth, it must be admitted that the barriers which are raised between the various literary manifesta- tions of any period speedily break down. Scarcely have labels been affixed than they appear meaningless and out of date. It is sufficient to recall to mind the classification which prevailed nineteen or twenty years ago. First came the " psychologists," among whom were numbered Anatole France, Jules Lemaitre, and Paul Bourget ; then there were the " symbolists and deca- dents," including Verlaine, Stephane Mallarme, Jean Moreas, Henri de Regnier, Maeterlinck; then the " naturalists," consisting of the Goncourts, Zola, J. K. Huysmans, Guy de Maupassant, Leon Hennique, Henri Ceard, Paul Alexis ; the •' neo- realists," in whose front i8o CH. vii.] OF JOURNALISTS rank figured Octave Mirbeau, J. H. Rosny, Lucien Descaves, Paul Margueritte, Paul Bonnetain, Gustave Guiche, Jules Renard, Abel Hermant ; the " Parnas- sians," comprising Leconte de Lisle, CatuUe Mendes, Jose Maria de Heredia, Sully Prudhomme, Fran9ois Coppee, and Armand Sylvestre ; finally, the " philoso- phers," Pierre Lafitte and Renan. Of this classification, imperfeftly given here, what remains ? Virtually nothing ! " Psychologists," "Natura- lists," " Symbolists," and " Parnassians " are so many ar- bitrary labels of which time has made short work. There has taken place in the nineteenth century what had already occurred in the seventeenth and eighteenth. As the seventeenth had seen the birth of Bossuet and La Fontaine, Corneille and Racine, Moliere, Pascal, and St Simon, and the eighteenth that of Voltaire and Rousseau, Diderot and Chenier, so the nineteenth has been made illustrious by marked and opposing per- sonalities which have ended by constituting that whole which we call a literary age. And it would excite only ridicule at present if,in order to distinguish between Anatole France and Octave Mir- beau, we could find nothing to say, save that one was a neo-realist and the other a psychologist. In truth, there are no schools in literature; there are only individuals. In the vast whole, we distinguish doubtless certain general tendencies. Each literary age has its currents, and one is forced to admit that it is the realist current which appears to have been the strongest and most ISI THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. vii. marked at the close of the nineteenth century. Balzac, Flaubert, the Goncourts, Daudet, Zola, to speak only of the dead, are those whose work has left the deepest im- press on the evolution of ideas in the second half of the century which has just ended. These have seen a larger truth, and have opened wider vistas for humanity. With them literature has become, in some sort, a continuation of life. Viftor Hugo often asserted that he was willing to call himself a romanticist if " romanticism " meant the free- dom of art. Above all schools there should be the school of freedom in art, and there we should see, as close com- rades and neighbours, Ernest Renan and Flaubert, Ana- tole France and Emile Zola, the Goncourts and Valles, Alphonse Daudet and Verlaine. All these great figures in our literature have one trait in common : whether poets, novelists or philosophers, they have all looked at life with equal intentness, if not with equal passion. The great romantic writers are much closer to reality than seems to be generally admitted, and the naturalists have written works in which imagination has played a large part. Neither have greatly cared to follow the rule and formulas of any school. All have been, a priori, firm partisans of liberty in art. One need not be a prophet to foresee that it is along this broad channel that the evolu- tion of our literature will flow. The quarrels which stirred the Republic of Letters a score of years ago are forgotten, and we can better understand at the present day Renan's reply to someone who questioned him in regard to sym- 182 PONT DE I.A CONCORDE CH. vii.] OF JOURNALISTS bolists, psychologists, and naturalists. "They are chil- dren," he said, " sucking their thumbs." In literature,as in life, there will always be individuals differing widely in their gifts, full of unexpedted and per- sonal traits, and we shall long continue to take pleasure in literary works of apparently the most opposite natures. 183 CHAPTER VIII Of Military Paris The Review of July 14 — A Cavalry Charge — Compulsory Service — The Garrison of Paris — Triumphs of the Army — A Page of History — The General Staff — ^The Army and Society — State of Opinion in the Army WHETHERtheindisputableadoration of Paris for all things military is a survival from its great epic period — from those intoxicating hours of glory when the viftorious eagles soared above our returning armies, when troops were continually de- filing before the dazzled eyes of the Parisians ; whether the feeling is natural love for that art of war which has been the source of our national greatness as well as of our national misfortunes, or is merely the Parisian taste for the spe6lacular, which is gratified by that most dazzling of all speftacles, an army on parade, battalions on the march, with dashing officers in brilliant uniforms, war- like music and streaming banners, might be matter for fair argument. We incline to the latter view. The Parisian delights in all this as he delights in a per- formance at the opera, but he adds thereto a touch of sentiment, a warm sympathy with the soldier, a thrill of martial ardour, which recalls his Gallic origin. The French Government, therefore, whether it be Imperial or Republican, takes care not to deprive the capital of the speftacle of a great review on the national holiday. The date is not the same under the Republic as under the Empire, but the programme is unaltered, and that is all that matters to the shopman of the Rue du Sentier, the 184 STATUE OF JEANNE D ARC CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS working man of Belleville, or the student from theLycee. At present it is on July 14, the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, that the Minister of War passes in review the entire body of troops constituting the garrison of Paris. Fbr several days the troops of the department of the Seine, and those of Seine et Oise, have been converging upon Paris. The roads' have been thronged with cavalry, artillery, and infantry; the Parisian barracks have over- flowed with soldiers of all arms — chasseurs, line regiments, engineers, and marines — the red trousers and blue coats of the foot soldier alternating with the more sober uni- form of engineers and the artillery. At dawn of the great day, the regiments about to be reviewed begin to arrive on the race-course of Longchamp, ah immense tra6l of ground, where the troops have ample space for their evolutions. As the day advances one sees these battalions defiling through the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne, descending the slopes of Suresnes, emerging from the park of St Cloud. They include the First Division of cavalry, comprising three brigades, the brigade of en- gineers belonging to the military government of Paris, the twelve regiments of the line attached to this same force, the 29th Battalion of Foot Guards, the first and third companies of sappers and miners, the second com- pany of artillery, the 20th Squadron of the baggage-train, and, finally, the Republican Guard and the legion of Paris gendarmerie. As this review is an annual affair, the officers know in advancewheretheir troops are to he posted. The artil- 185 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. lery is drawn up on the spotmost remote from the specta- tors' stand; next comes the cavalry; while the infantry occupies the front ranks. It is a fine sight on a sunny day, this array drawn up in line of battle, the helmets of the dragoons and breastplates of the cuirassiers glittering in the sunlight, while themillionsof bayonetscarried by the infantry flash their paler fires like moon-rays. The dust- clouds raised by the cavalry and artillery, however, have soon done their worst, and the soldiers who arrive on the field freshly furbished, smart and trim, are soon wrapped in one uniform mantle of dingy grey. The crowd has also arrived — the tme holiday crowd, gaily cheering the troops as they pass. This throng, bright with all the life and colour of Paris, is divided into two streams,one consisting of the elite, who are tooccupy the grand-stand ; the other of the populace, which swarms over the grassy slopes of the race-ground, especially near the entrance for official equipages. Sometimes, but rarely, this crowd indulges in noisy demonstrations against the Government. Everyone re- calls the hisses which greeted the President of the Re- public at the July review of 1 888. On that occasion they also hissed the Minister of War, General Terron, and loudly acclaimed General Boulanger, who, although he was under an official cloud at the time, was still the idol of the people and the main hope of the monarchical party. President Loubet, also, at the debut of his presi- dential term, which coincided with the unfortunate Dreyfus aifair, came in for his share of unpopularity; and the pleasure of presiding over this great review as head of 1 86 CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS the State was embittered for him by these hostile mani- festations. The good President always recalled with in- dignation the treatment to which he was subjedled by the fashionable crowd on the grand-stand, where a das- tardly member of the aristocracy actually raised his cane against the venerable head of the State. . . . But to return to the review to which we are about to introduce our readers. Why this prolonged delay, since the troops are already on the field, and the gay white plumes of the cadets from the St Cyr Military Academy have been hailed with cheers? The heat is intense, and the populace has begun to take its ease — citizens in their shirt-sleeves breakfasting and making merry with their families on the grass, while vendors of lemonade and coco, by the hundreds, are crying out their wares: "Quite fresh ! Who will drink ? Two sous a glass." The soldiers, meanwhile, are exposed to a scorching sun; a few even have been overcome by the heat and borne away on stretchers. The seats on the grand-stand are alreadyfiUed with a smart throng, the plumes in the ladies' hatsvieing with those of the St Cyrians. Suddenly a roar of cannon is heard in the direftion of Suresne. It is Mont Valerien firing salvoes in honour of the President of the Republic. From the woods around the cascade comes a rising murmur, which swells to a for- midable uproar as the President's landau, harnessed a la Daumont, with outriders, appear on the parade-ground. The landau is followed by the carriages of the official world, including the diplomatic cqrps, the ministers, deputies, senators, and magistrates. 187 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. The bands all strike up the Marseillaise, the crowd frequently joining in the chorus, and as the President gains his box, the cannon peals again. The Minister of War,if he chances to be a militaryman,mounts his horse and takes his place beside the Governor of Paris. The troops have taken up their final positions ; the Minister of War and the Governor of Paris ride down the line, at- tended by a brilliant staff, including generals of division and brigade, heads of battalions, etc. This preliminary review terminated, the Minister of War comes back with the Governor to resume their stand in front of the presidential box. The troops hitherto drawn up in order of battle prepare for the march-past. First comes the in- fantry, with the militaryschoolof StGyr at its head; they defile by companies at a quick pace, and salute the flag. The cavalry follows by squadrons, the artillery by bat- teries. This is the great moment: the dust, rising in clouds, hangs over the great plain like a pall, whose folds are lighted by an occasional glint of steel. The artillery horses are lost to sight; one seesonly a kind of stormy sea, out of which the light flashes at intervals on the white haunch of a horseor an officer'ssabre. An armyof26,ooo men thus passes before the presidential stand, to resume its position facing the Minister of War, but in wheeling the cavalry has been brought to the front ready to charge diredtly down upon the speftators' stand. Theentire mass, consistingof three brigades of cavalry, sets itself in motion, quickens its pace to a trot, then breaks into a thundering charge. The efl^edl is thrilling, and even terrifying, to those speftators on the stand to CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS whom the movement is a novel one. What can stop this formidable body ? It draws nearer and nearer, when sud- denly, at a distance of a hundred paces, the officers raise their sabres, and the horses come to a simultaneous halt with magnificent precision. This admirable manoeuvre arouses general enthusiasm; all break forth into applause, and the air resounds with cries of "Long live the Army! Long live the Republic ! Long live the President !" All is over ! The President re-enters his landau and leaves the field, preceded and followed by a squadron of cuirassiers and Republican Guards on horseback, who disperse the multitudes and open a way for the official carriages. The crowd streams back towards Paris; the soldiers then take up their line of march for their respective barracks. The cuirassiers and dragoons defile towards Versailles, and the Republican Guard re-enters Paris. On the morrow an order of the day is read to the troops, in which the President congratulates the Generals on their good organization, and the soldiers on their fine bearing. . . . This seems, therefore, an appropriate moment to inform the reader what constitutes that great system known as the military government of Paris. The troops stationed in and around Paris belong to various Army Corps — to wit, the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Corps, detailed as follows: The 1 2oth and 1 28th Infantry of the Second Corps are at St Denis; the 1 1 9th Regiment of the Third Corpsat Cour- bevoie. Of the Sixth Division, the 24th Regiment is at Nouvelle France, the 28th in the barracks of the Rue de la Pepiniere and the bastions of the fortifications, the 189 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. 1 29th at Courbevoie and Mont Valerien. A battalion of the line belonging to the Sixth Division of the Third Corps is crowded into the bastions; the 103rd and 104th Regiments in the various barracks of St Cloud, the Rue de Babylone, the Ecole Militaire, and the forts. The Colonial Army Corps sends to Paris the 2 1 st and 23rd Regiments of Infantry, which are lodged in the bas- tions and fort of Ivry. The corps-of-occupation of Tunis contributes its ist and 4th Zouaves. To these bodies of infantry must be added the Second Brigade of the First Cavalry Division, the ist and 2nd Squadron quartered at the Ecole Militaire; of the Fifth Brigade, the 27th Dragoons quartered at Versailles, the 23rd at Vincennes, the i ith Cuirassiers at St Germain, and the 12th at Rambouillet. Of the artillery, the Third Brigade details the nth and 23rd Regiments, the Nineteenth Brigade sends the 1 2th Regiment, all quartered at Versailles and Vincennes. The 1st and 3rd Regiments of Engineers are also at Ver- sailles. Such, in its general lines, is the organization of troops which is known as the garrison of Paris, although many of these regiments are actually quartered at Ver- sailles, Fontainebleau, Rambouillet, Vincennes, and St Denis. The cavalry, of which Paris disposes for current service, is drawn from the cuirassiers and dragoons of the Ecole Militaire, or else from the two legions of the Re- publican Guards and gendarmerie, which are, properly speaking, police corps, as is also the fire brigade. These special corps are the most familiar of all to the eyes of Parisians. The Municipal Guards are to be found 190 cH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS at the entrance of all theatres and halls where public performances are given. They belong to a picked body, known as the Republican Guards, whose fine band is the delight of promenaders in the Tuileriesand Luxembourg Gardens, and at the Pare Monceau. The fire brigade is a branch of the service, highly esteemed and much feted in Paris. This is doubtless owing to the fa6l of their appearance wherever a conflagration, inundation, or any serious accident takes place. Their organization has been modelled of late years on that of London. Horses are constantly kept standing ready in their stalls, with their harnesses hanging above their heads, attached at one end to the ceiling,and at the other to the shafts of the various cars which convey the steam fire-engines and hook and ladder companies, as well as the firemen, to the scene of disaster. This service is, however, being rapidly super- seded by automobiles. On the breaking out of a fire, it is only necessary to smash the glass of a signal-box, such as is to be found in every quarter of Paris ; within is a telephone, by means of which the street and number of the building on fire can be indicated, and aid summoned. Instantly the firemen are on their cars, sounding the alarm trumpet to clear the way, and hastening to the rescue. There is no exploit which these brave men do not accomplish before the eyes of the population of Paris. They rush to the assault of blazing buildings ; theyrescue women and children paralyzed with terror, and aged people surprised in their sleep. With a sure hand they direct streams of water upon the conflagration, thus arresting the progressofthe most terrible of the elements. 191 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [cH.viii *^othing daunt, the firemen — ^neither roaring flames, stifling smoke, nor crumbling walls— so long as there are live, and property to be saved. And how often their own lives are sacrificed to their devotion to duty, and to their ardour in rescuing strangers from a terrible death ! How often these heroes have been put to the proof in terrible conflagrations ! Who does not recall the appalling fire which destroyed the Opera Comique, when so many un- fortunate spedlators met their death, while hundreds more were saved by the exertions of the firemen who hastened to the scene from every quarter of Paris? These days of disasters are their great days ; and when they perish, the same honours are paid to them as to those they attempted to save. The entrenchments of Paris include the old girdle of antiquated forts now used as barracks, but the batteries which would be brought into adlive use in case of war are concealed with the utmost care. The old forts would be good for nothing in adtual warfare but to attraft the enemies' fire. The fortifications of Paris surround the city with a continuous wall, broken only by gates closed with iron gratings, and guarded by the funftionaries of the octroi. Will they ever come into use again ? Who can say ? It is certain that they would offer but a feeble resistance to modern artillery, though they may Constitute a sort of moral guarantee. They are also full of memories for the old Parisian, for here the bourgeois and the working man fraternized as they mounted guard together in 1 870. Now they furnish a peaceful resort for the citizens 192 CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS who come here on Sundays to picnicwith their families; football clubs find convenient grounds here, while in the moat near Vaugirard a large drum-and-fife school is held in the open air. The troops in entrenched camps are those we have spoken of above, and we have seen them in their bar- racks, which comprise the great Ecole Militaire, oc- cupying one side of the old Champs de Mars, which is now turned into a square, upon whiph stands the Eiffel Tower ; the barracks of Prince Eugene or Chateau d'Eau ; the Place de la Republique ; the Napoleon or Lobau Barracks behind the Hotel de Ville, which were the scene of frightful fusillades after the fall of the com- mune ; the Dupleix, Port Royal, and Pepiniere Bar- racks, etc. — huge buildings where the soldiers are closely packed in ordinary wards. The Invalides are also a kind of barracks forthe benefit of wounded veterans. This institution dates from the reign of Louis XIV. After these thirty years of peace there are but few pensioners remaining there; nevertheless, the veteran of the Invalides will continue to survive in the popular imagination, clad in his long blue cloak, with an old- fashioned visored cap and a wooden leg. All branches of the military government of Paris have been quartered at the Invalides at one time or another. The training-camp most familiar to Parisians is that of Issy, which rejplaced the Champ de Mars after the Exhibition of 1889. There the soldiers drill daily, and monthly reviews are held there; it is also from this camp 193 13 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [en. vill. that the Farman aeroplane accompUshed its first trip of 7,500 metres, with two tacks. Other training-camps are to be found at Bagatelle, at Longchamp (July 14), at Satory,and,finally,in the Poly- gone (ordnance-yard) at Vincennes, where all the artil- lery-firing takes place, and where the Joinville Gymnas- tic School is established for the pradtice of those exercises which are assuming more and more importance in the training of the soldier. The Joinville School practises principally the Swedish method, which is tending to supersede the Hanoverian. Many teachers of gymnastics are trained at this school. The Parisian soldier's bread is baked at the army bakehouse on the Quai Debilly, but all his other food is bought direftlyfrom the provision-dealers. Certain regi- ments do their marketing together at the Halles Cen- trales, and succeed in providing amply and satisfa£torily for themselves on their regular allowance. The bakeries of the Quai Debilly furnish more than 1 00,000 rations of bread per day, and the mills can grind 70,000 rations. The storehouses contain 58,000 quintals of wheat, while the flour-magazines suffice for 400,000 rations, or for a forty days' supply. It is easy to imagine what an immense staff this establishment employs. This bakehouse has three annexes — at Mt Valerien, St Denis, and Bic6tre. The reserve magazines hold 5,000 quintals of pro- visions of all kinds, suitable for a campaign, and the re- frigerating-rooms will contain the carcasses of 200,000 head of cattle. 194 CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS It is not sufficient, however, to provide quarters for the soldier, to drill and feed him ; he must also be cared for in illness, and for this purpose hospitals are required. The oldest and best known of these military hospitals is the Val de Grace, founded by Anne of Austria on the occasion of the birth of Louis XIV. It is conducted on the same system as other military hospitals, but there is also connefted with it a praftical school for medical do6tors, and for chemists who graduate from the Ecole de Sante Militaire at Lyons with the degree of Adjutant- Physician of the second class. The sick are under thecare of military nurses, and i i,ooo patients can be cared for in case of need. The importance of the war-machine, with all its pomp and paraphernalia, has declined in France since the disasters of 1870. We may wonder at such an anomaly when the strength of the army has been in- creased nearly tenfold by the establishment of compul- sory service, but reflection will supply us with an explanation. The army is no longer that brilliant and unique institution whose objedl was to furnish the nation with the triumphant joys of conquest. All the citizens, including the upper as well as the lower classes, form part of the army as now constituted. The members of the higher bourgeoisie and of what remains of the aristocracy had been accustomed to enter the army only with the rank of superior officers; until recently, there- fore, it was only a small minority who took up arms as a profession. But when obligatory service became uni- versal, the sons of merchants, bankers, and manufac- 195 i3« THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. turers, as well as young doftors and Bachelors of Arts, were constrained to make acquaintance with barrack- room life. Henceforth the institution appeared to them in a less brilliant light, and war ceased to be the heroic preoccupation of the people. Moreover, it must be admitted that the war of 1 870 had opened the eyes of the French to the danger of con- fiding the destinies of a nation to the force of arms alone. Growing commerce, and industry, in a country where the population does not increase greatly, soon occupied all minds. It had become the nation's newly-awakened ideal to acquire the respeft of the world by great scien- tific, literary, artistic, and industrial creations ; hence- forth the glory of arms took a secondary place. The army was no longer regarded as an instrument of conquest, but merely of defence ; Frenchmen therefore wished it to be great in numbers and strength, "without aspiring to put it to adtive use so long as peace remained possible. The officer, on his side, had ceased to be a brilliant cavalier attached to a splendid Court; he had become instead the modest servant of the nation. Other things were now required of him besides a fine figure, courage, and distinguished manners : he was obliged to add effeftiveness to appearance, to devote himself to serious study, and to accept cheerfully the rough life of pro- vincial garrisons. Officers, however, continued to be drawn from the class of well-to-do citizens, or from the old aristocratic society. The man of the people who at- tains to the superior grades is still an exception, since money is required to become a good officer. Whether a 196 CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS man is to graduate from the Polytechnic in the elite corps of the artillery or engineers, or from St Cyr in the cavalry or infantry, the preliminary studies require too much time for the working man's son to undertake them. In addition to St Cyr and the military Pry- tanasum, there exists a higher school of war whose seat is the Ecole Militaire of Paris. Only Captains are ad- mitted there, who, on graduation, are appointed to the general staff with brevet rank, and from that day forth can aspire to a career in the highest ranks of the service. The nation, moreover, is experiencing a certain weariness of its past, too heavily laden with glory and defeat. Under Louis XIV, France was incessantly en- gaged in European wars ; these being, however, but slight skirmishes compared with the wars into which the Revolution was about to plunge her. All Europe then hurled itself upon France; she held her own cour- ageously and vidloriously, with levies hastily raised and Generals of twenty, and she succeeded only too well. The entire nation was kindled, and to the wars of defence succeeded the wars of conquest. Out of twenty Generals of apparently equal genius, the French elefted Napoleon Bonaparte as their chief, and under his lead entered upon those famous battles of the Empire which, while gratifying the national pride, exhausted the country and drained her of her best blood. At this dazzling period Paris became possessed at last of a military regime which could satisfy its taste for martial colour, its craving for brilliant uniforms, war- trumpets,and magnificent parades. At the moment when 197 THE COLOUR OF IP ARTS [ch. viii. the little Corporal was leading his triumphant armies back to Paris from Italy and Spain,it was a far cry indeed from the days when the soldiers of the Revolution had marched away in tatters, barefooted or in sabots, and had re-entered Paris penniless, blackened with powder and stained with blood. Thepresentarmieshadbeen equipped by their young Emperor with glittering uniforms rich in gold braid, with crimson epaulettes, embroidered and befrogged pelisses, white leather breeches and plumed hats. The eagles were magnificent. The people ap- plauded with enthusiasm these splendidly -clad Generals, blazing with jewels, when suddenly, in the midst of his glittering staff, there rode by a Uttle man on a white horse, clad in a shabby grey overcqat : it was the Em- peror. It must be admitted that at this period the army had triumphed over the civil power. It was Napoleon's grenadiers who had turned out the Council of Ancients on the eighteenth Brumaire. Soldiers were therefore in the ascendant, and rose to extraordinary heights of for- tune. A son of the people like Bernadotte became King of Sweden; all the great Generals risen from the lower ranks of society, or from the smaller bourgeoisie, acquired the titles of Duke or Prince, with splendid appanages. Let us add that the descendants of these Dukes and Princes of the Empire still enjoy, under the Third Re- public, the titles and estates which Napoleon created for them. It may be said, indeed, that the entire military organization of France at the present day is an outcome of the reforms introduced by the Revolution and by 198 PONT SAINT-DENIS CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS Napoleon. We no longer, indeed, see Generals of twenty in command, but the regime of field-officers, the general administration, the commissariat, the formation of the staff, and rules of precedence, all date from the Empire. The uniforms of the army have had a diversified career, andhavesuffered continual transformations under the various Governments which have succeeded each other in France since 1 8 1 5. There is no longer any ves- tige of the grenadiers' bearskin, and the leather apron of the sappers has also vanished. Military costume tends to become more simple, the only survivals of past splen- dour being the casques and breastplates of the dragoons and cuirassiers ; while the pifturesque uniforms of the zouaves and spahis have originated from our contaft with the Arabs, The general tendency is to give to all the uniforms a neutral tint resembling the colour of the ground on which the soldiers manoeuvre in time of war; this is that khaki colour adopted by England during theTrans- vaal Campaign. It is certain that the light blue coat and bright red trousers of our line regiments do not easily permit them to escape the enemy's fire. Our dragoons and cuirassiers also continue to wear these scarlet trousers. The Minister of War, General Andre, has tried to originate a new uniform for the infantry, resembling that of the American rough- riders or of the Boer regulars. This innovation was very ill-received by the Parisian public when introduced to them on the occasion of a great rcA^iew. The Govern- ment accordingly renounced the prpjedt for the time 199 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. being, but is undoubtedly preparing another costumein which all that is left of the too-brilliant colour of the past, which serves to recall the heroic days of the Napo- leonic epic, will have disappeared for ever. After Waterloo, the nation, grown weary of war, asked nothing better than to see her military forces reduced. Under the Restoration the record of the army was not a brilliant one; for the Battle of Navarinoservedonly to re- vive the prestige of the navy, and the capture of Algiers by Bourmont at the head 0^39,000 men was but a trifl- ing skirmish compared with the great battles of the Empire. Under Louis Philippe the army resumed its lustre, although Franceshowed in general a pacific spirit. Nevertheless, the Dutch were repulsed, and the citadel of Antwerp taken, while the conquest of Algeria was completed. The army distinguished itself at this period by one extraordinary feat of arms, in which a body of 1 20 men, shut up in a small fort at Mazagran, resisted for four days the assaults of a force of thousands of Arabs. But that which contributed most effedlually to the re- organization of the army was the threatening attitude of Europe after the Treaty of London, when Louis Phil- ippe accepted resolutely the isolated position forced upon him, and refused to be driven into a war. Meanwhile he reorganized his forces, fortified Paris, and increased the efficiency of the army. This pacific Government being overthrown, the Re- public took its place, and the army merely intervened in civil strife. But in a short time the Second Empire replaced the Second Republic, and although Napoleon 200 H O CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS III formulated the programme ofhis reign in the words: "The Empire is peace," he nevertheless plunged France into frequent and formidable wars. The army, having been the instrument which brought about thecoupd'etat, naturally became the chief objeft of solicitude with the new Government. It resumed its brilliant aspedljandthe people began to cherish the Imperial army once more as recalling the great viftories of the uncle of the Emperor. The Crimean War was followed by the war in Syria, the war in China, and, finally, by the Prussian War in 1 870. The army hadmarched from victory to vidlory for twenty years amid general acclamation, when this irre- parable calamity overtook it. All the commanding offi- cers, selected through favouritism,had shown themselves thoroughly incapable, and the inexorable Germans were masters of Paris. The lustre of the army was sadly tarnished by this de- feat. The officers were bitterly reproached for too much caracoling at reviews and dancing at Court, too much time wasted in frivolity and dissipation ; and henceforth a modest existenceof labourand abnegationwas imposed upon them. The bourgeoisie and the people, who were now united in the same barrack-life, became united also in a common denunciation of former errors. Some progress had been made in the direction of re- form, and army affairs were believed to be in amore hope- ful condition, when the too-famous Dreyfus affair again made it evident to all that thehighestplacesin the service were filled exclusively by the Pleiad of Generals be- 201 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. queathed us by the Second Empire. New efforts at re- form were then inaugurated, and to-day there is some appearance of our possessing a homogeneous army, well commanded, and loyally devoted to the Government of the Republic, If nations are judged in heaven like individuals, France should merit recognition above for her noble attitude since 1 870. She has sincerely desired peace ; she has ac- cepted the existence of an army designed solely to defend her against invasion ; she has contented herself with the most modest r61e from a war-like point of view; and, in spite of the provocations of the turbulent and incoherent masses and of firebrand party orators, she has acknow- ledged the fa6t that the greatness of a country does not depend on the abasement of her neighbours, but solely upon her own development. To-day the Parisian who is present at a review of the Paris garrison sees with plea- sure the fine bearing of these regiments, but no longer looks forward to beholding them engaged intheconquest of Europe. He desirespeace forothers as well as for him- self, while adopting the famous dictum, "Si vis pacem, para helium." The Ministry of War, established in its vast quarters at the corner of the Boulevard St Germain and the Rue St Dominique, is the centre for all branches of the ser- vice. General Picquart, officer of the Legion of Honour and General of Division, occupies thepost of Minister of War. General Picquart is an essentially Parisian person- ality. He was only a Colonel at the time the Dreyfus case was reopened, through the instrumentality of 202 CAUMARTIN STATION OF THE " METROPOLITIAN CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS M.ScheurerKestner, the Presidentofthe Senate. Colonel Picquart ventured to take the part bf the unfortunate Dreyfus against Esterhazy, thus drawing down upon himself the animosity of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, to which he belonged". This department, having at its head a Colonel named Henry, infefted with its hostile feelings the General Staff, in the person of the Chief of Staff and his first aide. A former Minister of War having joined this alliance, the luckless Picquart soon found himself in a bad plight. Accused of having betrayed to the public secrets relating to the national defence, and, moreover, of having forged a telegram, he was thrown into the prison of Cherchi Midi. He had been there for a long time when Colonel Henry con- fessed himself guilty of the alleged forgery. Picquart was accordingly liberated, and while the famous "affair" continued to agitate the country, the disgraced Colonel became a man of consequence, a celebrity to be met with in all the leadingsalons of Paris. He also devoted himself at this time to the study of Herbert Spencer, and we pos- sess from his pen several philosophical treatises of pecu- liar interest. Meanwhile the partisans of Dreyfus had triumphed ; Picquart was appointed an officer of the Legion of Honour, and reinstated in the army with the rank of General. Singularly enough, however, when the new General was appointed Minister of War, he failed to restore the unhappy Dreyfus to the grade he would have attained if he had not been sent to Devil's Island. General Picquart is to-day the supreme head of the army ; he has created an appointment of Under-Secre- THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. taryship of War, which has been conferred upon a civi- han, M. Henri Cheron, deputy from Calvados. These two men are entrusted with the entire administration of the army. They present the WarBudget to the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, defend its articles, and reply to the questions addressed to them by members of both Houses. Questions are numerous ; numerous, also, the accusations brought againstcertain officers, of negleding their duty, and of peculation — charges which agitate the Parisian public from time to time. General Picquart's r61e is to reply with a smile that all is well, and to wind up his speech with a patriotic couplet — a course which he never fails to adopt. TheBudget of the War Office is divided into two sec- tions — the first relating to the general administration, the second to extraordinary expenditure. The general War Budget exceeds the sum of seven hundred millions of francs, and is rapidly increasing to a thousand million. To aid the Minister in those administrative func- tions which relate directly to preparation for war, there has been formed a General Army Staff. The chief of this Staff at present is General Brun,former Commandant of the Ecole Superieure de Guerre, and Commander of the Legion of Honour. It is under the direftion of this skil- ful and accomplished officer that all plans for the mobili- zation and concentration of troops have been drawn up. TheMinister of Warpresidesover the Superior Coun- cil of War, in which care has been taken toincludeall the distinguished Generals on the retired list, whose experi- ence may serve to assist the Minister. 204 CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS The work of the Ministry is carried on in four offices, in which civilians are employed. These offices come under the following heads: (i ) Organization and mobi- lization; (2) military operations and general instrudtions for the army ; (3) foreign intelligence; (4) railroads and commissariat. The military government of Paris, of which we have spoken in connexion with the review of July 14, is in- cluded in the department of the Minister of War. The Governor of Paris, General Dalstein, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, is a General of Division and former Commandant of the Sixth Army Corps. He co-operated with General Picquart in the organi- zation of the national defence. He has a staff under his orders, and is also in permanent communication with the group of Generals whose army corps are stationed in the environs of Paris, or who command divisions, brigades of which send detachments to the capital. Added to these is the group of brilliant officers who surround the Min- ister of War — Generals Dubois, Oudard, Rogue, and Pauline — directors respectively of th.e cavalry, artillery, engineers corps, and infantry, together with General Brun and his three Chiefs of Staff, Generals Manoury, Zimer, and Berthaut. There are also the Generals presiding over the various army committees and the members of the Superior Council of War. These officers are all to be seen riding in the morning in the Bois de Boulogne. In theevening they assemble at the various salons, where their social relations draw them ; they are also to be found at the leading clubs of 205 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. Paris, and especially at the Cercle Militaire on the Avenue de I'Opera, which is a club devoted alike to play and conversation. Whenever a state function, such as a reception by the President, brings the official world to- gether at the Elysee, they are sure to be present in full uniform, glittering with orders and decorations. Those who are fortunate enough to have served in a recent cam- paign will be found talking it over with their comrades; the rest gather in groups to discuss possible future opera- tions, new tafticSj or the latest thing in strategy. These officers all love their profession, which keeps them hale and hearty to an advanced age, and they enter with keen interest into all measures for ameliorating the lot of the common soldier. It is not their fault, after all, that there are no more wars, and that their trade seems to have become mere matter of routine. The officers of the German army are in a still worse plight, for the French General can at least set his hopes= on some possible colonial war, such as that of Tonquin or Tunis, or, more recently, that of Morocco; while the German, who has no colonies, has nothing for it but to fold his arms. After the lapse of acentury the minds of our Generals are still under the spell of Napoleon's military genius, and it is from him that they continue to draw their in- spiration. Immediately after the war of 1 870, they all applied themselves with ardour to the study of German military science, in the hope of finding out something new in the way of tadtics. They found nothing new, only a system of operations rationally conduced by wise and prudent 206 CH. vlii.] OF MILITARY PARIS Generals, and a well-informed and studious administra- tion. The defeats of the French army then appeared to them in their true light, as due, above all, to the inca- pacity and carelessness of the commanding officers. The art of winning battles, they argued, cannot be pradlised now, any more than in Napoleon's time, with incom- petent Generals, a bad commissariat, and undisciplined troops, yet Napoleon's system continues good. A rapid offensive attack,planned with foresight and well led, will succeed now, as infallibly as in the past, under a skilful leader who can carry his soldiers along with him. Such is thegeneralopinion. A fewprudentGenerals, however, acknowledge that our great viftories have been mostly fruitless, owing to the faftthat mere elan does not suffice. It may take the enemy by surprise, but he recovers him- self in the end and crushes you. It is a safer policy to distrust too-brilliant successes; to aim at a plan of concen- tration full of resistance, which shall harass the enemy; to retreat slowly, if it be inevitable, but in such a manner that each backward movement shall cost the enemy so dear that he will have cause to remember it ; finally, to draw him into a succession of fruitless combats which shall finally discourage any renewal of hostilities. This latter view, be it understood, is not the popular one ; it is not in accordance with the French character, which is ardent, quick, and impetuous, dreaming always of heroic, war-like achievements and winged viftories. We have seen how the citizen of Paris participates in the great army celebrations as a spedlator ; he takes part in them also as an a6lor,for he too is a soldier. From 207 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. viii. the age of twenty, the young Parisian is called upon to serve under the flag. The day when the recruiting takes place is traditionally the occasion for a prolonged drink- ing-bout. Formerly, before compulsory service was estab- lished for all, the drawing for the conscription decided a man's whole future existence. He was forced to aban- don his trade at the age of twenty, and give seven years of his life to military service. After the war of 1 870, this service was reduced to five years, then to three ; finally, quite recently, it has been further reduced to two years. Under the Second Empire, the young man in easy cir- cumstances who drew an unlucky aumber in the con- scription bought a substitute, so that the common soldiers were all drawn from the people. To-day, with compulsory service for all, this is no longer possible, and the terrible formality of drawing by lot has no longer the same consequences as of old. Nevertheless, as, until quite recently, the first drawing of numbers decided which soldiers should be attached to the marine corps for a four years' service and which should be sent to the colonies, there were still advantages in drawing a high number. On the momentous day of drawing for the conscrip- tion the young men of the humbler class flock to the Hotel de Ville, attended by their relations and friends, their caps adorned with the tricoloiired cockade, their buttonholes with streamers of ribbon. After the lots are drawn, they further decorate their caps with large labels, upon which their respective numbers are printed, and, thus decked out, they set forth on the obligatory tour of the wine-shops. They may also be seen traversing the 208 WINGED VICTORY AND STAIRCASE OF THE LOUVRE CH. viii.] OF MILITARY PARIS capital in open carriages accompanied by their friends, all singing in vinous accents. Frequently serious disturb- ances take place, and fights ending in bloodshed. This spe6tacle is not only far from agreeable, it is absolutely ignoble. Why is it that the population of Paris, which boasts of its refined manners and keen sense of honour and dignity, consents to offer such an exhibition ? Who can say ? It is probably one of those objedtionable customs transmitted from one generation to another,like ragging in barracks. Some writers see in it the vestiges of the orgy of an- tiquity ; to others it recalls the drunl^en helot of Sparta ; still others, whose opinion we share, regard it merely as a relic of the time when the recruiting sergeant enticed young men into the taverns in order to induce them to enlist. Whatever its origin, we do not hesitate to class it among those customs "more honoure,din the breach than in the observance." 209 14 CHAPTER IX Of Paris Finance Historical Sketch — The Bank of France — "La Haute Banque"— The Rothschilds and Others — Vote on the Budget — Secret Service Funds — The Bourse — Shady Finance — The Great Crachs — The Panama Company THANKS to her geographical position, France is one of the richest countries on the globe. Her aggregate wealth amounts to three hundred thousand million francs, and this she owes almost exclu- sively to the produce of her soil, for in foreign commerce she is far behind England, Germany, and America. In a country so distinguished for thrift and extensive savings, loan institutions, savings-banks and companies receiving deposits on interest must necessarily be numerous; and as Paris is the clearing-house for all the financial and com- mercial transadtions of the country, it is there that all the great banking-houses and institutions for savings and ex- change are situated. Historically, the birth of the great financial concerns is a humble one. During the feudal era, the barons wrung the revenues of their estates from the serfs by means of contributions, taxes, forced labour, and burdens of every sort, which at that period took the place of savings. The peasant handed over his economies to his feudal lord, in the form of public ^nd private labour. Having no money, he made all payments in produce of the soil, such as wheat, eggs, and milk, and in cattle, sheep, and horses. As soon as he had acquired some skill 210 PLACK VENDOME CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE in manual labour, he paid in house-building and the making of rude furniture. Finally, when money came into circulation throughout the kingdom, he began to pay in coin. Henceforth the baron became a financier, a banker, but not an economist. His expenditure on plea- sures and luxuries soon placed him in the power of those shrewder than himself He then began to borrow upon his future revenues, and to pledge himself and his lands in order to dispose at once of several years' income. Thus, by degrees, the great money-lenders enriched them- selves, even the King being reduced to borrowing of them. It was they who collected the revenues of the kingdom, advancing immediate cash, and reimbursing themselves out of the rents. This system flourished while the kingdom was develop- ing and wealth increasing rapidly. The farmers of taxes increased at the same time in numbers and in riches. Thanks to them, Louis XIV could command the money required for his wars, Louvois for his canals and roads, Colbert for his fortifications. But on the outbreak of the Revolution the people decided to colledt their own rents, through the intermediary of zealous fundtionaries bearing but a remote resemblance to the farmers of taxes. They also reaped a commission on the taxes they col- lected, but not on the same exorbitant scale. The State, however, was not yet fully its own master. In the course of the nineteenth century the Govern- ment was often reduced to the same plight as the Kings of the old regime. In starting great national undertak- ings, it was not always easy to realize the amount re- 211 14a THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. quired by immediate increase of taxation. It was there- fore necessary to borrow from the great banks controlled by men of wealth, like the Lafittes, Rothschilds, and Pereires. These bankers would readily advance sixty millions to the State on condition of being authorized to issue one hundred millions in bonds to be sold to the public. But as the nation gradually became aware of its resources, it was able by degrees to drive a better bargain, until it reached the point of forfeiting only two or three francs in the hundred — in other words, ot realizing nearly the total amount of its loan. While the State was thus emancipating itself from de- pendence on the farmers of taxes and the great banking- houses, private citizens were pursuing the same course. They gradually learned to substitute the banker for the usurer, and credit for payment in kind, until they at last reached the point of carrying on commerce by simple agreements on paper, variously known as letters of ex- change, cheques, etc. Henceforth the merchant bor- rowed for three or six months, at a low rate of interest, the sums required for conducing his business, and could await his annual returns without fear of seeing them entirely absorbed by the interest on borrowed money. The Bank of France is, in a measure, an epitome of the financial organization of the country. It is almost a Government administration, since it issues a genuine coinage of its own, having a regular circulation in loo, 500, and 1,000 franc notes. It is also required to have a metallic reserve equivalent to the, notes thus issued ; 212 cH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE and, in fadt, the Bank of France possesses more gold, coined and in bullion, than any other in the world. It often comes to pass that the banks of the great European States or of the United States appeal to its aid for immediate payments in times of crisis. That it has the means of assisting them is explained by the fadt that the wealth of France is derived almost exclusively from its soil, its industries, and its home commerce. Money, not being invested in other countries, stagnates, and a plethora of coin is the result. What is here stated in regard to the Bank of France is equally true of other banks and institutions of credit throughout the country, such as the Societe Generale, the Credit Lyonnais, the Rothschild Bank, etc. These are all overflowing with hoarded capital in gold coin and bullion. Most of these banks, nbt content with re- ceiving money on current account, are also in the habit of letting safes in which investors can store their se- curities. The State itself opens a channel for this stream of gold. It receives the savings of the poor in sums not exceeding 1,500 francs, and millions are thus poured into its treasury. La Haute Banque is a term including all the great contemporary financiers known to Paris. First in order come the Rothschilds, who form a dynasty. The chief origin of their fortune was the Italian loan under the First Empire. Their latest opera- tions were the Russian loan and the first Japanese loan in France. Alphonse, the founder of the bank, was suc- ceeded by Gustave, born in 1829, and Edmond, born 213 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. in 1 849. The aftual head of the house, Edmond, is in partnership with Gustave and with Edouard, the son of Alphonse. The Rothschilds started the Chemin de Fer du Nord in France. They are virtual owners of the Tarragona and Lombard railroads, and control great petroleum works at Baku, as well as numerous shares in Rio Tinto and De Beers. The amount of Alphonse de Rothschild's fortune, as shown by the income-tax records, reached fourteen hundred millions of francs. This fortune is now divided into three parts. Gustave is reported to be a great specu- lator, and it is currently believed that he has diminished rather than increased his portion. Edmond, the wealthi- est of the family, has been a great promoter of eleftrical enterprises in France. He is a man attached to Jewish traditions, and is married to a Frankfort Rothschild, who brought him a dowry of three millions; while Gus- tave, on the other hand, married a dowerless Made- moiselle Anspach. Edmond and Gustave are both mem- bers of the Jockey Club, where they indulge in games of whist, bridge, and Japanese bezique. Edouard, the son of Alphonse, is a member of the Epatant, where he plays baccarat. He also owns a racing stud, and his horse Sans Souci was winner of the Grand Prix in 1907. All the Rothschilds are great coUedtors. Oneof them. Baron Henri, son of James, is an aftive philanthropist, well known to the Parisian world. Let us add that the Rothschilds formerly married only Rothschilds, and even at the present day continue to form only Jewish 214 CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE alliances. We know of but one exception, the daughter of Baron Salomon, who married M. Van Zuylen. M. Henri Bamberger, who has attained to the ad- vanced age of eighty, still attends a6tively to the affairs of the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas. He is an ardent collector of antiques. He adores Paris, and never fails to attend the opera and the Frangais, where he is a box- holder. Edgard Stein, one of the founders of the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas, married a Mademoiselle Fould, He is also a coUeftor and a member of the Epatant. One of his daughters married Count d'Aramont. He is pos- sessed of a large private fortune. The Pereires are a dynasty like the Rothschilds, but a fallen dynasty. They still have great investments, how- ever — Eugene in the Compagnie Transatlantique, Gus- tave in the railroads of Northern Spain. Isaac Pereire and his brother Emile were the founders of the house. Together they established the Credit Immobilier. The St Simonian opinions which they early professed were regarded as a strange novelty at that period. Count Isaac de Camando, who is of Turkish origin, is president of the gas company. He is the owner of a magnificent colle6lion of pi6lures, especially pastels, which it is rumoured that he intends to bequeath to the Louvre. He is a great musical amateur and the com- poser of an opera, "The Clown, which }ias been performed at the Theatre Nouveau. He is also a shareholder in the opera. Baron Hottinguer is a descendant of one of the 215 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. founders of the Bank of France. His bank deals in Government bonds, especially in those of Russia. He, too, belongs to the Jockey Club. Baron Mallet is a speculator and bill-discounter ; a member, also, of the Jockey Club, and a distindlly Parisian type. We must mention, also, Monsieur Vernes and the Baron de Neuflize. The latter owns a discounting bank. It may be of interest to observe that, while MM. Hottinguer, Vernes, Mallet, and Neuflize represent the leading Protestant banking interests, the others above mentioned represent the Jewish contingent. To this list may be added the name of Fillet Will, a firm of English bankers settled in France since the Restoration, and the Ephrussi, bankers of Russian origin. How does the French Government conduft its finan- cial administration and control the enormous receipts ■ and expenditures required by the constantly increasing demands of the public business ? In theory, the sovereignty emanatjngfrom the people, it is the senators and deputies who draw up and vote the Budget. Butsince it is virtually impossible that thisoffice should be performed by a body of over a thousand per- sons, it is aftually the Minister of Finance who draws up the Budget. For this purpose he obtains from his colleagues in the Ministry a summary of their resources andrequirements. This constitutes the particular Budget of each Ministry. Among these Ministries there are several which contribute nothing, such as the Depart- ment of Foreign Affairs, that of Justice and of the In- 216 CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE terior, the Colonies, Commerce, and Labour. Others bring in receipts — as,for instance, the Ministry of Public Works, thanks to the postal, telegraph, and telephone services, and that of Public Instruftion, by its examina- tion and matriculation fees. The Minister of Finance sums up all this ; when he has drawn up his report, he submits it to the Committee on the Budget, made up of members of the legislative body. There it is exposed to a critical examination, which is severe, however, only in semblance. It is the senators and deputies who sift the Budget, so to speak ; this is the most onerous duty performed by these two bodies, and the most ungrateful. All the great moneyed interests are involved in this transa<5lion ; there are privi- leges to be defended, pensions to be maintained. The Paris press also stirs up an agitation which is incompre- hensible to the general public ; an outcry is raised over the smallest details. The Opposition newspapers declaim against theGovernmentpolicy,andcomparetheadminis- tration of the great railway companies with that of the State lines, proving by incontestable statistics the in- feriority of the latter. They alternately attack and defend the stockbrokers' board and denounce the tobacco monopoly. Then the Conservative and Government organs take up the cry, and pour forth their grievances. The State, they aver, is laden with an immense debt; the finances are in a pitiable condition ; the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. These alarming reports impress the public. They are as familiar to their ears as are the griev- ances of their cooks, but they are moved nevertheless. A 217 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. little more, and all the lesser funftionaries would ofFer to surrender a portion of their salary in behalf of so im- poverished an exchequer! Then all grows calm again, and it is suddenly announced that the deputies have voted themselves an increase of salary at the rate of 6,000 francs per head, thus reducing the Budget, already so badly off, by over three millions of francs. Next the Socialist deputies make a furious attack on the Budget in the Chambers, declaring that they shall refuse to vote for such and such articles ; raising a cry of horror over the expenditures, and demanding the in- stant removal of all duties. This is in December. There- upon the entire Government press breaks forth in re- criminations. The Budget, they assert, will never be voted by January i — a delay which will be most preju- dicial to the financial interests of the country. What is the Minister to do ? Where is he to find the necessary resources ? All at once the Opposition press and the Socialist depu- ties take alarm, or feign alarm, over this prospeft, all being at bottom perfedlly content to vote the Budget, after a proper display of opposition. Both parties hedge, to use the consecrated expression, and the Minister of Finance bears off his immense dossier, provided with the votes of both Chambers, which are required to give it legality. TheMinisterof Finance, drawing a longsigh of relief, leaves tohis officials the task of applying the new Budget. If the Chambers have voted a loan, he summons the heads of the great banking-houses, and issues the loan 218 CORNER OF RUE DES HAUDRIETTES AND RUE DES ARCHIVES CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE through their instrumentality. Immediately Paris is transformed. It would seem at first sight as if this loan would sadden the French citizen, who sees the National Debt augmented thereby; but the effeft is quite the re- verse. The small fund-holder sees in it only an opportu- nity for investing his savings profitably ; the speculator plans a great stroke ; all make haste to subscribe at the Credit Lyonnais, at Rothschilds', or at the various post- offices. By daybreak there is a long line, in popular parlance a "queue," drawn up at the door of these establishments. Sometimes, even, it is formed overnight. It consists mostly of representatives of the hunibler classes, such as butchers, grocers, bakers, employes,.cooks and waiters ; there are also some working men and rent-payers, and a sprinkling of vagabonds, but these latter are only keeping places in the line, in order to sell them, for two or three francs, to late-comers. In this way the loan is subscribed, not once merely, but a dozen, a score of times over. The State asks for five millions; it is offered five thousand millions, and can only accept a small percentage ^f the subscriptions ofi^ered. Distant indeed are those terrible dayswhenthe ancient monarchy lived perpetually under the shadow of finan- cial ruin; far distant the time when Louis XIV sold his jewels and plate to pay his army in Flanders, when Louis XV trafficked upon the famine of his ownsubjeds, or the still more terrible time when the unfortunate Louis XVI, not finding the necessary funds for the ex- 219 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. penses of the State, entrusted the task to revolutionary Ministers like Necker, and finally found himself driven to summon the States General. It was not that the country was absolutely unable at that period to supply the necessary resources — it furnished them for the wars of the Revolution, and never refused advances to Napo- leon I — but it stood in constant dread of absolute ruin. The people required (and still require) from its rulers a clear statement of the financial situation in its general Unes. It has been said, and with justice, that the French people are '^he best of rate-payers. They pay without a murmur, and accept new taxes, or an increase of the old ones, provided only that these are not sprung upon them without warning, and that there is a semblance of jus- tice, plain-dealing, and honesty in the accounts sub- mitted to them. The French citizen wishes to vote his own taxes, but, this being done, he does not haggle : the money may go where it will. He says to the Govern- ment: " You want six or seven hundred millions for the army .? Here they are. One hundred millions for public instruction ? Take them. But let me know it ; let there be no mystery or underhand dealings." And this fear of the underhand and mysterious is such a nightmare with the people that they regard with genuine horror that portion of the Budget known as the Secret Service Fund. It is with difficulty that a few hundred thousand francs can be raised for the purpose of hiring agents abroad and paying the secret police at home. And what an ado is made over these few hundreds of thousands ! 220 CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE " You live upon the secret funds!" cry the journals of the Opposition, addressing the Government organs. " There are secret funds behind that move," declares the popular voice whenever a deputy changes his taftics. If all the money thus gratuitously ascribed to the Secret Service Fund could be collected together, it would far exceed that of the entire Budget. Before proceeding further, it may be well to inquire what means the State has at its disposal to augment its receipts. We are not speaking of loans, which are for emergencies. There remain, then, the taxes, direft and indirecS, rates, customs, and Government monopolies. Direft taxation comprises an annual land -rent payable to the State, taxes on real estate and personal property, to which must be added the door and window tax and commercial patents. These are the chief resources which the State derives from direfl; taxation. Indiredl taxation includes the duties on sugar, salt, coffee, alcohol, candles, petroleum, playing-cards, raw material, and articles of consumption indispensable for all, for which the con- sumer pays in proportion to his rate of consumption. To these must be added the stamp and registry tax, and State monopolies, such as matches aJnd tobacco, which are manufaftured and sold direftly by the Government. All these burdens fall heavily on the Parisians, but they bear them cheerfully, as well as the still heavier burden of the Patent Office. Nor is this all, for Paris has also its own special Budget, which reaches the sum of half a billion francs. Paris must meet the entire amount of these obligations. The Parisian grumbles, and pays, 221 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. for, as we have said, he is an excellent rate-payer. When the city issues a loan, he rushes to the brokers, and bids for shares as eagerly as he bids for State bonds. These securities are a safe and profitable investment, and, in spite of being liable to be called irr at par, are always worth more than their face-value. And now, by way of bringing our readers in touch with the vital centre of Paris financial life, we must devote a few words to the Bourse. The Bourse is the Stock Exchange of Paris. Here are bought and sold all the securities current in the Paris market and many others besides. The rule is that any French or foreign stock can be quoted on the ofiEicial list, provided a regular call has been made for it, and that it ranks as a good security. Praftically all transa6lions are carried on by a board of brokers, membership of which body commandsahigh price, and is transferable only by consent of the board. The brokers at the Bourse take their stand in a large hall, divided by a railing from the public. This is known as the Corbeille (stock-brokers' ring), and those brokers entitled to a seatat the Bourse are called the ring, or Cor- beille. Around this inner sanftum circulate, amid the general public, a throng of financiers, called coulis- siers. A few years ago more business was carried on in the coulisse, or " side-walks," than in the ring, so that it became necessary to pass a law forbidding the coU" lissiers to do any business except through the regular brokers. The mechanism of the transactions on the Paris 222 CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE Bourse is simple. In a cash sale, the seller engages to de- liver, and the buyer to receive, the stock in the course of the day. In time purchases, the siller disposes of the stock under agreement to deliver at a fixed date. This latter transaction always relates, in practice, to fidtitious values, and is the equivalent of buying " on a margin." Such combinations are customary in the stock-market all over the world. In Paris the custom is that no broker shall take such an order to buy unless he have in hand assets amounting to not less than 1,500 francs — a sum fixed as covering a possible variation of three points on a transaftion of 50,000 francs. The aspedt of the Bourse is highly pidluresque, and redolent of the local colour of Paris. In the inner circle, where the " ring " and the coulisse are busy taking and transmitting orders, the greatest animation prevails. Under the peristyle giving on the Rue Vivienne hun- dreds of people come and go, jostling each other in their eagerness, and shouting out orders and bids for stock. The uproar is deafening, rising at times, on days of crisis, to a frenzied height. When would-be purchasers are to be encouraged on the one hand, or a panic is to be created on the other, there is a tumultuous interchange of bids and offers, and two camps are formed, between which the unlucky speculator strives in vain to divine whether the "bulls" or " bears " will carry the day. He consults the " ticker." The news is contradictory. The coulis- siers hustle and shout, the bulls endeavouring to domi- nate the bears, and vice versa. For a brief moment the bears triumph, and it seems as if all were over. Sud- 223 THE COLOUR OF PARIS [ch. ix. denly there is a readlion, and the tide flows back. New figures are quoted, a telegram is announced, and a pur- chase by Rothschild sends the stock up with a bound. How will it all end ? This will be known only at the closing of the Bourse, when the final quotations are posted. It is a problem for the uninitiated spedlator to under- stand how bids and offers of stock are exchanged. A few eager words pronounced by one gentleman, a hasty note jotted down by another gentleman with a pencil, and the business is settled. The looker-on asks himself what prevents the buyer, in case of loss, from repudiating his purchase or the broker his sale. This, however, never happens. In the first place, the speculators know each other, and when a man calls out " "Je prends !" everyone notices him. An attempt to back out of a bargain would entail disqualification, and the stock-gambler enjoys the game too well to run the risk of seeirtg the Bourse closed against him. Moreover, there is a sense of professional honour which forces a man who might repudiate other debts to respedl these. But what is this strange group of interlopers who gather at the foot of the stairway or under the trees near the monument? Strange types indeed! Shabby old men and dowdy old women exchanging securities which have no ofiicial currency — the most singular valeurs, in fadt, some of which may be said to have no value at all. This is called the " Bourse des Pieds humides," and brings us to that realm of shady finance which flourishes so ex- tensively in Paris under varied forms. 224 CH. ix.] OF PARIS FINANCE The proceedings of the shady financier do not vary greatly. He always begins his career by opening a bank- ing-house. He sele