CHAPTER XLVI. ON THE BUTTE

ARRONDISSEMENT XVIII. (BUTTE MONTMARTRE)

WE are on supremely interesting ground here, ground at once sacred, historic and characteristic of the mundane life of the city above which it stands. At or near its summit, St-Denis and his two companions were put to death in the early days of Christianity. On the hill-side most memorable happenings have been lived through. In the old streets and houses up and down its slopes poets and artists have ever dwelt, worked and played, and in its theatres, its music-halls, cabarets, etc., Parisians of all classes have sought amusement—good and evil. In past days Paris depended on Montmartre for its daily bread, for the flour that made it was ground by the innumerable windmills of the Butte. The sails of many of those windmills worked far into the reign of Napoleon III, who did not admire their aspect and even had a scheme for levelling the Butte ! So it is said. Reaching the arrondissement by the Rue des Martyrs, which begins, as we know, in arrondissement IX, we come upon two buildings side by side of very opposite uses: the Comédie Mondaine, formerly the famous Brasserie des Martyrs and Divan Japonais, and the Asile Nationale de la Providence, an institution founded in 1804 as a retreat for aged and fallen gentlepeople. The hotel at No. 79 is on the site of the Chateau d'hiver, where the Revolutionists of Montmartre had their club. No. 88 was the dancing-saloon known as the Bossu. No. 76 that of the Marronniers. Rue Antoinette shows us points of interest of another nature. At No. 9, in the couvent des Dames Auxiliatrices du Purgatoire, we see the very spot on which there is reason to believe St. Denis and his companions suffered martyrdom. An ancient crypt is there, unearthed in the year 1611, to which we are led down rough steps, beneath a chapel built on the site in 1887; we see a rude altar and above it words in Latin to the effect that St-Denis had invoked the name of the Holy Trinity on that spot. The crypt is no doubt a vestige of the chapel built on the site by Ste-Geneviève. It was in this chapel, not as is sometimes asserted higher up the Butte, that Ignatius Loyola and his six companions, on August 15, 1574, made the solemn vow which resulted in the institution of the Order of the Jesuits. The chapel was under the jurisdiction of the "Dames de Montmartre," and after the great fire at the abbey the nuns sought refuge in the old chapel here, made it a priory. Several persons of note were buried there. At the Revolution it was knocked to pieces and remained a ruin until rebuilt by the abbé Rebours in 1887.

Leaving this interesting spot and passing through Rue Tardieu, we reach Place St-Pierre, formerly known as Place Piemontési, and go on through Rue Foyatier to the ancient Rue St-Eleuthère, once in part of its length Rue du Pressoire, a name recalling the abbey winepress on the site of the reservoir we see there now. Thus we come to Rue Mont-Cenis, the ancient Chaussée St-Denis, and in part of its course, Rue de la Procession, referring to the religious processions of those bygone days. And here we see before us the most ancient of Paris churches, St-Pierre de Montmartre. It dates from the first years of the ninth century, built on the site of an earlier chapel or several successive chapels, the first one erected over the ruins of a pagan temple. Four black marble pillars from the ruins of that temple were used for the Christian church: we see them there to-day, two at the west door, two in the chancel. We see there, too, ancient tombstones, one that of Adelaide de Savoie, foundress of the abbey, for the Choir des Dames was the abbey chapel, and there the abbesses were buried. The old church was threatened with destruction after the desecration of 1871, when it was used as a munition dépôt. Happily it has been saved and in recent years restored. The façade is eighteenth-century work, quite uninteresting as we see, but the view of the east end from without, the apse, the old tower and the simply severe Gothic interior, are strikingly characteristic. The cross we see in front of the church was brought here from an old cemetery near. The garden adjoining, with the Calvaire set up there in 1833, was in ancient days the nun's graveyard. The cemetery on the northern side dates from the time of the Merovingian kings.

Leaving the most ancient of Paris churches we come to the most remarkable among the modern churches of Paris and of France—l'Église du Vœu National, commonly known as the Sacré-Coeur. It is an impressively historic structure for it was built after the disasters of 1870-71, by "La France humiliée et repentante," a votive church erected by national subscription. To make its foundations sure on the summit of the Butte, chosen as being the site of the martyrdom of St-Denis, patron saint of the city, the hill was probed to its base, almost to the level of the Seine, and a gigantic foundation of hard rock-like stone built upwards. The huge edifice rests upon a vast crypt, with chapels and passages throughout its entire extent.

It has taken more than forty years to build; the north tower was finished just before the outbreak of the war, now advancing to a triumphal end, for which grand services of thanksgiving will ere long be held in this church built after defeat. The interior is still uncompleted. Looking at it from close at hand, the immense Byzantine structure with its numerous domes, seems to us aesthetically somewhat unsatisfying, but from a distance dominating Paris, seen as it often is through a feathery haze, or with the sun shining on it, the vast white edifice makes an imposing effect. Its great bell, laSavoyarde, given by the diocese of Chambéry, weighs more than 26,000 kilogrammes, and its sound reaches many miles.

Rue Chevalier de la Barre, bordering the church on the north, was formerly in part of its length Rue des Rosiers, in part Rue de la Fontenelle, referring to a spring in the vicinity.

In a wall of the Abri St-Joseph at No. 26, we see the bullet-holes made by the Communards who shot there two French Generals in March, 1871. Going up Rue Mont-Cenis we see interesting old houses at every step. No. 22 was the home of the musician Berlioz and his English wife Constance Smithson.

 

Crossing this long street from east to west at this point, the winding hillside Rue St-Vincent with its ancient walls, its trees, its grassy roadway, makes us feel very far removed from the city lying in the plain below. At No. 40 is the little cemetery St-Vincent. Returning to Rue Mont-Cenis we find at No. 53 a girls' college amid vestiges of the ancient, famous porcelaine factory, the factory of "Monsieur" under the patronage of the comte de Province, brother of Louis XV. The tower we see there was that of the windmill which ground the silex. At No. 61 we come upon a farm dating from 1782, la Vacherie de la Tourelle. At No. 67 an old inn once the Chapelle de la Trinité (sixteenth century).

Returning to the vicinity of St-Pierre and the Sacré-Cœur, we find numerous short streets, generally narrow and tortuous, which retain their old-world aspect. Rue St-Eleuthère is one of the most ancient. Rue St-Rustique formerly Rue des Dames, Rue Ravignan once Rue du Vieux-Chemin, Rue Cortot, Rue Norvins, Rue des Saules, are all seventeenth-century thoroughfares. Rue Norvins was Rue des Moulins in bygone days. No. 23 was a far-famed folie, then, in 1820, the celebrated Dr. Blanche founded there his first asylum for the insane, many of whom he cured. At No. 9 welcome to an old house and alley, the impasse Trainée, a name recalling the days when Montmartre was, in wintry weather, a wolf-haunted district: a trainée is a wolf-trap. The inn at No. 6 was in the past a resort of singers in search of an engagement: the impecunious could bring food to eat there. On the Place du Tertre two trees of liberty were planted in 1848, felled in 1871. No. 3 is the site of the first Mairie of Montmartre. Passing along Rue du Calvaire we come to the rustic Place du Calvaire, erewhile Place Ste-Marie.

A very chief interest at Montmartre is the view. It is best obtained from the Belvedere built by baron de Vaux at No. 39 Rue Gabrielle, and from the Moulin de la Galette reached through Rue des Trois-Freres. Rue de la Mire was in olden days Petite Rue des Moulins. The steps we see are said to have been put there for the passage of cattle.

The cellars of the house at No. 7, Rue la Vieuville are vestiges of the ancient abbey. Place des Abbesses was erewhile Rue de l'Abbaye. On the ancient place we find the most modern and most modern-style church in Paris, St-Jean l'Evangeliste, built of concrete. The Passage des Abbesses leads by an old flight of steps to Rue des Trois-Freres, a modern street. Rue Lepic, for some years after its formation Rue de l'Empereur (Napoleon III), was renamed in memory of the General who defended the district in 1814. Numerous old streets are connected with it. Avenue des Tilleuls recalls the days when lime-trees flourished there, the lime-trees memorized in Alphonse Karr's novel Sous les Tilleuls. In the Square where it ends is an eighteenth-century house where François Coppée dwelt as a boy. The severely wall-enclosed hôtel at No. 72 was the home of the artist Ziem. Close here is the entrance to the Moulin de la Galette. At the top of the house No. 100 there is an astronomical observatory set up under Napoleon III. The Rue Girardon, a rural pathway in the seventeenth century, was known later as Rue des Brouillards, the point no doubt from which the city lying below was to be seen fog-enveloped, as is not unfrequently the case. The old house No. 13 goes by the name le Château des Brouillards. In the impasse at No. 5 stood in ancient days the Fontaine St-Denis. Its waters were of great repute, assuring, it was said, in women who drank them, the virtue of conjugal fidelity. And here through the short street Rue des Deux-Frères we reach the historic Moulin de la Galette. It dates from the twelfth century and has seen tragic days. Its owners defended it with frantic courage in 1814, whereupon one of them, taken by the attacking Cosaques, was roped to the whirling wheel. It was again assailed in 1871. The property was owned by the same family from the year 1640, a private property, a farm, a country inn, where dancing often went on as a mere private pastime till, in 1833, its landlord, an expert in the art of dancing, decided to turn his talent to pecuniary account and opened there the famous public dancing-hall. Rue Caulaincourt, erewhile quaint and rural, has lost of late years almost all its old-time characteristics. Rue Lamarck has become quite modern in its aspect. Rue Marcadet was known in the seventeenth century as Rue des Bœufs—Ox Street. At No. 71 we find a fine seventeenth-century hôtel, now a girls' school, hôtel Labat, and another good old house, also a girls' school, at No. 75; at No. 91 yet another.

The modern structures at No. 101 are on the site of the ancient manor-house of Clignancourt. The turret at No. 103 is probably the relic of an old windmill. Rue de la Fontaine du But records the name of a drinking fountain, demolished some forty years ago, said to have been set up there by the Romans. Tradition has it the word but was once buc, and referred to the Roman rite of the sacrifice of a buck to Mercury. According to another legend, "but," i.e. aim, referred to the English archers who when in France made that spot their practising-ground. Rue du Ruisseau owes its name to the stream of water which flowed through it on the demolition of the ancient fountain. The seventeenth-century Rue de Maistre, bordering the northern cemetery, is the ancient Chemin des Dames. Rue Eugène-Carrière, opening out of it, was till quite recently Rue des Grandes Carrières, memorizing the big quarries whence from time immemorial has been obtained the white stone, so marked a feature of Paris buildings, and the world-famed plaster of Paris.

Rue Damrémont is modern; in the little Rue des Cloys opening out of it at No. 102 we see vestiges of a curious old cité of wooden dwellings. Rue Neuve de la Chardon-nière recalls the days when it was a thistle-grown road. Rue du Poteau reminds us of the gallows of the St-Ouen road. The Avenue de Clichy and the Avenue St-Ouen which form the boundary of the arrondissement, both date back as important roads to the seventeenth century. Along them we find here and there traces of ancient buildings, none of special interest. To the east of the boulevards Ornano and Barbes, which run through the arrondissement from north to south, we find numerous ancient streets, mostly short. The street of chief importance is Rue des Poissonniers, its lower end merged in boulevard Barbes. We see several unimportant old houses along its course. The impasse du Cimetière and the schools we see there are on the site of an old graveyard. In Rue Affre, bearing the name of the archbishop of Paris slain on the barricades in 1848, we find the modern church St-Bernard, of pure fifteenth-century Gothic as to style, but far inferior in workmanship to the Gothic structures of ages past. Rue de la Chapelle, known in Napoleon's time as Faubourg de la Gloire, began as the Calais Road, then became the Grande Rue de la Chapelle. La Chapelle is a spot of remarkable historic memories. It began as the Village des Roses—in days when roses, wild and cultivated, grew in abundance in what is now a Paris slum. Then the population, remembering that Ste-Geneviève had stopped to rest and pray in the church on her way to St-Denis, called their village La Chapelle-Ste-Geneviève. Later it was named la Chapelle-St-Denis. To the church at la Chapelle went Jeanne d'Arc in the fateful year 1425. We find ancient houses all along the course of this old thoroughfare, and at No. 96 the church dedicated to St-Denis, built by Maurice de Sully, the chancel of that thirteenth-century structure still intact, after going through two disastrous fires and suffering damage in times of war. It has been enlarged in recent years. The statue of Jeanne d'Arc there dates from the reign of Louis XVI.

A popular fair, la Foire de Lendit, instituted by Dagobert, was held during centuries at the extreme end of the ancient thoroughfare. No. 122, built, tradition tells us, by Henri IV and given to his minister Sully, became in the seventeenth century the Cabaret de la Rose Blanche. At No. 1 Rue Boucry we see an ancient chapel now used as a public hall.

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