CHAPTER XLIII. IN NEWER PARIS

ARRONDISSEMENT XVI. (PASSY)

WE have left far behind us now Old Paris, the Paris of the Kings of France, of the upheaval of Revolution days. The 16th arrondissement, save in the remotest corners of Passy and Auteuil, suburban villages still in some respects, is the arrondissement of the "Nineteenth Century and After." Round about the Étoile the Napoleonic stamp is very evident. It is the district of the French Empire, First and Second. The Arc de Triomphe was Napoleon's conception. The broad thoroughfare stretching as Avenue des Champs-Elysées to Place de la Concorde, as Avenue de la Grande Armée to the boundary of Neuilly, was planned by Napoleon I, as were also the other eleven surrounding avenues. The erections of his day and following years were well designed, well built, solid, systematical, mathematically correct, excellent work as constructions—spacious, airy, hygienic, but devoid of architectural poetry. The buildings of the Second Empire were a little less well designed, less well built and yet more symmetrical, with a very marked utilitarian stamp and a marked lack of artistic inspiration. Those of a later date, with the exception of some few edifices on ancient models, are, alas! for the most part, utilitarian only—supremely utilitarian. Parisdwelling-houses of to-day are, save for a fine hôtel here and there, "maisons de rapport," where rapport is plainly their all-prevailing raison d'être. The new houses are one like the other, so like as to render new streets devoid of landmarks: "Où sont les jours d'Antan" when each street, each house had its distinctive feature? Only in the Paris of generations past.

Of Napoleon's avenues seven, if we include the odd-number side of Avenue des Champs-Elysées and of the Grande Armée, are in this arrondissement. The beautiful Avenue du Bois-de-Boulogne is due to Napoleon III, opened in 1854, as Avenue de l'Impératrice. Handsome mansions line it on both sides. One spot remained as it had been before the erection of all these fine hôtels until recent years—a rude cottage-dwelling stood there, owned by a coal merchant who refused to sell the territory at any price. Francs by the million were offered for the site—in vain. But it went at last. In 1909 a private mansion worthy of its neighbour edifices was built on the site.

Avenue Victor-Hugo began in 1826 as Avenue Charles X. From the short Rue du Dôme, on high ground opening out of it, we see in the distance the dôme of the Invalides. To No. 117 the first creche opened in or near Paris, at Chaillot (1844), was removed some years ago. Gambetta lived for several years and died at No. 57, in another adjoining street, Rue St-Didier. At No; 124 of the Avenue we see a bust of Victor-Hugo, who died in 1885 in the house this one replaces. Place Victor-Hugo began in 1830 as Rond-Point de Charles X. The figure of the poet set up in 1902 is by Barrias. The church St-Honoré d'Eylau dates from 1852. It was pillaged by the Fédérés in 1871. Lamartine passed the last year ofhis life in a simple chalet near the square named after him; his statue there dates from 1886.

General Boulanger lived at No. 3 Rue Yvon de Villar-ceau, opening out of Rue Copernic. Rue Dosne is along the site of the extensive grounds left by Thiers. At No. 46 Rond-Point Bugeaud we see the foundation Thiers, a handsome hôtel bequeathed by the widow of the statesman as an institution for the benefit of young students of special aptitude in science, philosophy, history.

Avenue d'Eylau, planned to be Place du Prince Impérial, possessed till recently, in a courtyard at No. 11, three bells supposed to be those of the ancient Bastille clock.

Avenue Màlakoff, began in 1826 as Avenue St-Denis. At No. 66 we see the chapel of ease of St-Honoré d'Eylau, of original style and known as the Cité Paroissiale St-Honoré.

Avenue Kléber began in 1804 as Avenue du Roi de Rome. Beneath the pavement at No. 79 there is a circular flight of steps built in 1786, to go down to the Passy quarries.

Rue Galilée, opening out of it at No. 55, began as Rue des Chemin de Versailles. Rue Belloy was formed in 1886 on the site of the ancient Chaillot reservoirs.

Avenue d'Iéna lies along the line of the ancient Rue des Batailles de Chaillot, where, in 1593, without the city bounds, Henri IV and Gabrielle d'Estrées had a house.

Rue Auguste-Vaquerie is the former Rue des Bassins. The Anglican church there dedicated to St-George dates from 1888 and is, like the French churches, always open— a friendly English church—with beautiful decorations and furnishings. The short Rue Keppler dates from 1772 and was at one time Rue Ste-Geneviève, Rue Georges-Bizet lies along the line of an ancient Ruelle des Tourniquets, a name reminiscent of country lanes and stiles; in its lower part it was of yore Rue des Blanchisseuses, where clean linen hung out freely to dry. The Greek church there, with its beautiful Iconostase and paintings by Charles Lemaire, is modern (1895). Rue de Lubeck began as a tortuous seventeenth-century road, crossing the grounds of the ancient convent of the Visitation.

The statue of Washington in the centre of Place d'Iéna, the scene of so many momentous gatherings, was given by the women of the United States "en mémoire de l'amitié et de l'aide fraternelle donnée par la France à leurs frères pendant la lutte pour l'indépendance." The Musée Guinet on the site of the hippodrome of earlier years, an oriental museum, was opened in 1888. Rue Boissiere, in the eighteenth century in part Rue de la Croix-Boissière, reminds us of the wooden crosses to which in olden days the branches of box which replace palm were fixed on Palm Sunday. Along Rue de Longchamp, then a country lane, seventeenth and eighteenth-century Parisians passed in pilgrimage to Longchamp Abbey, while at an old farm on the Rond-Point, swept away of late years, ramblers of note, Boileau and La Fontaine among the number, stopped to drink milk fresh and pure. The name of the Bouquet de Longchamp recalls the days when green trees clustered there. Rue Lauriston, a thoroughfare in the eighteenth century, was long known as Chemin du Bel-air.

Rue de Chaillot, which leads us. to Avenue Marceau, was the High Street of the village known in the eleventh century by the Roman name Colloelum. It was Crown property, and Louis XI gave it to Philippe de Commines. In 1659 the district became a Paris faubourg and in 1787 was included within the city bounds. There on the high land now the site of the Trocadéro palace and gardens, the Château de Chaillot, its name changed later to Gram-mont, was built by Catherine de' Medici. Henriette, widow of Charles I of England, back in her own land of France, made it into a convent (1651). Its first Superior was Mlle de Lafayette; its walls sheltered many women of note and rank, Louise de la Vallière is said to have fled thither twice, to be twice regained by the King. The chapel was on the site of the pond in the Trocadéro gardens. There the hearts of the Catholic Stuarts were taken for preservation. Suppressed at the Revolution, the convent was subsequently razed to the ground by Napoleon, who planned the erection of a palace there for his son the "Roi de Rome." The old street has still several old houses easily recognized: Nos. 5, 9, 19, etc. The church, on the site of an eleventh-century chapel, dates from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with a nineteenth-century chapel and presbytery.

Avenue du Trocadéro, since 4th July, 1918, Avenue Wilson, was inaugurated as Avenue de l'Empereur, (Napoleon III). The palace, now a museum and concert-hall, was built on the crest of ancient quarries, for the Exhibition of 1878, and the Place du Roi de Rome, in previous days Place Ste-Marie, became Place du Trocadéro. The Musée Galliera, a museum of industrial art, was built in 1895 by the duchess whose maiden name Brignole is recorded in the short street opened across her property in 1879. She had planned filling it with her magnificent collection of pictures, but changed the destination of her legacy when France laicised her schools.

Avenue Henri-Martin began, like Avenue du Trocadéro, as Avenue de l'Empereur (1858). The old tour we see at No. 86 Rue de le Tour is said to have formed part of the Manor of Philippe-le-Bel. It was once a prison, then served as a windmill tower, and the street, erewhile Chemin des Moines, Monk's Road, became Rue du Moulin de la Tour. Few other vestiges of the past remain along its course. We see old houses at Nos. 1, 66, 68. Rue Vineuse, crossing it, recalls the days when convent vineyards stretched there. It is, like Rue Franklin, once Rue Neuve des Minimes, of eighteenth-century date. Franklin's statue was set up there in 1906, for his centenary. We see an old-time house at No. 1 Rue Franklin, and at No. 8 the home of Clemenceau, the capable Prime Minister of France of the late war. The cemetery above the reservoir was opened in 1803.

Contents