Days near Paris

Front matter

Book.

CopyngMl^?-

0OFBRIGHT DEPOSm

Preface

The following excursions are given in the order in which they encircle Paris, beginning with St. Cloud. The woodcuts are from my own sketches, transferred to wood by Mr. T. SuLMAN.

Augustus J. C. Hare.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE.

In this Edition the numerous citations from French writers of history or memoirs^ ifi illustration of the various historical edifices that still remain^ have bee^i translated into English, and contain i7iost valuable information respecting the France of pre-r evolutionary times.

Contents

PAGE

I. St. Cloud and Sevres i

II. Versailles 15

I

ST. CLOUD AND SEVRES.

THERE are four ways of reaching St. Cloud, i. The pleasantest is to drive through the Bois de Boulogne, which is very enjoyable, or (2) to take the American tramway — leaving the Place de la Concorde — which goes to Boulogne and the Pont de St. Cloud (fares, 55 c. and 35 c). 3. B)' the steamers (only in summer) — les Hirondelles parisiennes — which start every half-hour from the Quai des Tuileries opposite the Louvre (fares, weekdays, 30 c. ; Sundays, 50 c), and pass Sevres (see below). 4. By rail from the Gare St. Lazare, which is the more ordinary way, if, as is often the case, St. Cloud be visited on the way to another point of interest.

The railway-line passes —

Zk. Coiirbevoie, where Louis XV. built magnificent barracks, which still exist. Under the Empire they were used for the Imperial Guard. The plain is now full of villas and gardens.

\ok. Fiiteaux, with pretty views over the "^^ine, and rich cherry orchards.

12^. Suresnes (the ancient Surisnae), where the couronnement (ftme rosiere takes place annually on the Sunday nearest to August i, at the church in the valley on the left. Suresnes is at the base of Mo7it- Valerien, originally the site of a calvary and hermitage, now of a famous fortress. There is a splendid view across the Bois de Boulogne to

Paris. Jean Jacques Rousseau admired it with Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.

"Paris reared in the distance her towers, covered with light, and seemed to crown the wide landscape. This spectacle contrasted with the heavy, leaden clouds which succeeded each other to the west, and appeared to fill the valley. As we walked in silence, contemplating the spectacle, Rousseau said to me, * I will come, this summer, and meditate here.'" — BernardUi de St. Pierre.

\^k. St. Cloud (Hotel de la Tete Noire, Place Royale; Hotel du Chateau, at the entrance of the Avenue du Chateau and the pare : endless restaurants).

Very near the station is the Chateau de St. Cloud, set on fire by the bombs of Mont-Valerien, in the night of October 13, 1870, and now the most melancholy of ruins. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate the noble character of a building partly due to Jules Hardouin and Mansart. The chateau is more reddened than blackened by the fire, and the beautiful reliefs of its gables, its statues, and the wrought-iron grilles of its balconies are still perfect. Grass, and even trees, grow in its roofless halls, in one of which the marble pillars and sculptured decorations are seen through the gaps where windows once were. The view from the terrace is most beautiful.

The name of St. Cloud comes from a royal saint, who was buried in the collegiate church, pulled down by Marie Antoinette (which stood opposite the modern church), and to whose shrine there is an annual pilgrimage. Clodomir, King of Orleans, son of Clovis, dying in 524, had bequeathed his three sons to the guardianship of his mother Clotilde. Their barbarous uncles, Childebert and Clotaire, coveting their heritage, sent their mother a sword and a pair of scissors, asking her whether she would prefer that they should perish by the one, or that their royal

ST. CLOUD 3

locks should be shorn with the other, and that they should be shut up in a convent. " I would rather see them dead than shaven," replied Clotilde proudly. Two of the princes were then murdered by their uncles, the third, Clodowald, was hidden by some faithful servants, but fright made him cut off his hair with his own hands, and he entered a monastery at a village then called Nogent, but which derived from him the name St. Clodowald, corrupted into St. Cloud.

Clodowald bequeathed the lands of St. Cloud to the bishops of Paris, who had a summer palace here, in which the body of Frangois I. lay in state after his death at RambouilJet. His son, Henri II., built a villa here in the Italian style ; and Henri III. came to live here in a villa belonging to the Gondi family, whilst, with the King of Navarre, he was besieging Paris in 1589. The city was never taken, for at St. Cloud Henri was murdered by Jacques Clement, a monk of the Jacobin convent in Paris, who fancied that an angel had urged him to the deed in a vision.

"Jacques Clement left Paris on the 31st of July, and took the road to Saint Cloud. At the outposts of the besiegers, he met the Procureur General La Guesle, who had accompanied the army, and told him that he brougly; to the king ' letters and news of the servants he had in Paris.' La Guesle took him to his lodgings, interrogated him, and was so satisfied with his replies, that he went at once to tell the king. Jacques announced that the royalists in Paris were prepared to seize one of the gates of the city. He supped gaily with La Guesle's people, and slept so soundly that he was obliged to be aroused to go to the king. Henri, after having read the passport and the forged credentials, ordered the monk to approach. Jacques declared that he had matters of importance to say to the king in secret. The captain of the Guard, Larchant, and even La Guesle, the introducer of the monk, opposed in vain a private interview between Clement and the king ; but Henri, although he had received many warnings that his life was in danger, ordered La Guesle and Bellegarde, the grand equerry, who was near him, to retire some paces, and ' lent an ear' to the Jacobin. An instant afterwards, the king uttered a great cry, * Ah, the wretched monk, he has killed me ! ' Brother Jacques had drawn a knife out of his sleeve, and plunged it into the lower part of the abdomen.

" Henri started up, plucked the dagger from the wound, from which the bowels immediately protruded, and struck the assassin on the face. La Guesle rushed at the monk, and knocked him down with a sword-cut ; the 'guard in ordinary,' the Forty-five, ran in at the king's cries, and massacred the murderer on the spot. They left to the executioners only a dead body. Henri expired on the 2d of August, 1589, between two and three in the morning, at the age of thirty-eight.

" So were avenged, at once, Coligni and Guise ; so were fulfilled the vows of popular hatred ; God had extinguished the race of Valois ! " — H. Martin, " Hist, de France."

From this time the house of the banker Jerome Gondi, one of the Italian adventurers who had followed the fortunes of Catherine de Medicis, was an habitual residence of the Court. It became the property of Hervard, Controller of Finances, from whom Louis XIV. bought it for his brother Philippe d'Orleans, enlarged the palace, and employed Lenotre to lay out the park. Monsieur married the beautiful Henriette d'Angleterre, youngest daughter of Charles I., who died here (June 30, 1670) with strong suspicion of poison ; St. Simon affirms the person employed to have confessed to Louis XIV. having used it at the instigation of the Chevalier de Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused to be exiled. One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the " nuit desastreuse, oil retentit comme un eclat de tonnerre cette etonnante nouvelle : Madame se meurt ! Madame est morte ! Au premier bruit d'un mal si etrange, on accourt a Saint- Cloud de toutes parts, on trouve tout consterne, excepte le cceur de cette princesse."

ST. CLOUD 5

In the following year Monsieur was married again to the Princess Palatine, when it was believed that his late wife appeared near a fountain in the park, where a servant, sent to fetch water, died of terror. The vision turned out to be a reality — a hideous old woman, who amused herself in this way. " Les poltrons," she said, '" f aisaient tant de grimaces, que j'en mourrais de rire. Ce plaisir nocturne me payait de la peine d'avoir porte la hotte toute la joumee."

Monsieur gave magnificent fetes to the Court at St. Cloud, added to the palace with great splendor, and caused the great cascade, which Jerome Gondi had made, to be enlarged and embellished by Mansart. It was at St. Cloud that Monsieur died of an attack of apoplexy, brought on by over-eating, after his return from a visit to the king at Marly.

''Judge what confusion and disorder was at Marly that night, and what horror at Saint Cloud, that palace of delights, Ever}^ one at Marly hastened as best they could to St. Cloud, the soonest ready the first ; and all, men and women, pressed and crowded into the carriages without ceremony or order. Monseigneur went with Madame la Duchesse. In the state in which he was, the shock was so great, that it was all that one of the Duchesse's grooms, who happened to be there, could do, to drag and carry him almost trembling into the carriage. Monsieur had not a moment of consciousness after the first attack ; not even a gleam for an instant, except when Father de Trevoux came in the morning to say mass, and even this gleam did not return.

"The most terrible spectacles often present moments of ridiculous contrasts. Father de Trevoux came back and cried to Monsieur, 'Monsieur, do not you know your confessor? Do not you know good little Father de Trevoux who is talking to you ? ' and this made the less afflicted laugh indecently.

"The king appeared very much distressed; he was naturally prone to weep, and he was therefore in tears. He had never occasion except to love Monsieur tenderl)^ and although they had not been on good terms for two months, these sad mo-

^ Davs ^eAr pari^

ments recalled all his tenderness ; perhaps he reproached himself for having precipitated the death by the scene of the morning ; he was, too, two years younger, and had all his life been in as good or better health than he. The king heard mass at Saint Cloud, and, at eight in the morning, Monsieur being beyond hope, Mme de Maintenon and Mme the Duchesse de Bourgogne persuaded him not to remain longer, and returned with him in his carriage. As he was about to leave, and made some kindly remarks to M. de Chartres, both of them weeping much, the young prince took the opportunity of saying, ' Eh, Sire, what will be my fate ? ' embracing his knees ; * I lose Monsieur, and you do not love me.' The king, surprised and much touched, embraced him and made all the aflfectionate remarks he could. On his arrival at Marly, he and the Duchesse de Bourgogne went to the apartments of Mme de Maintenon. Three hours afterwards, M. Fagon, to whom the king had given orders not to quit Monsieur till he was dead or better, which could only happen by a miracle, entered, and the king, as soon as he saw him, said, ' Well, M. Fagon, my brother is dead?' 'Yes, Sire,' replied he, 'no remedy would act.' The king wept profusely. He was urged to take some food in the rooms of Mme de Maintenon, but he refused and wished to dine as usual with the ladies, and tears coursed down his cheeks often during the repast, which was short. He then shut himself up with Mme de Maintenon till seven o'clock, when he took a turn in the garden. He transacted business with Chamillart, and then with Pontchartrain respecting the ceremonies on the death of Monsieur, and then gave his order to Desgranges, the master of the ceremonies. He took supper an hour earlier than usual, and soon after went to bed. He had received at five o'clock a visit from the King and Queen of England, which lasted only for a minute.

"On the departure of the king, the crowd gradually diminished at Saint Cloud, so that Monsieur, in his dying moments, was left on a lounge in his cabinet, exposed to the scullions and lower servants, most of whom, from interest or affection, were much distressed. The high officers of the household, and others who lost their places or pensions, made the air resound with their cries, while all the ladies who were at Saint Cloud, and lost all their amusements, ran here and there, like dishevelled bacchantes.

" Madame was in her cabinet meanwhile ; she had never had any great esteem or affection for Monsieur, but felt her loss and

ST. CLOUD y

her fall ; and in the midst of her grief, cried with all her force, ' No convent ! Do not speak to me of a convent. I will not have a convent ! ' The good princess had not lost her senses. She knew that by her marriage contract, she had to choose, on becoming a widow, between a convent or the chateau of Montargis for a residence. Whether she thought she could quit one easier than the other, or whether she felt how much reason she had to fear the king, although she did not yet know all, and he treated her with the usual courtesy, she had still greater fear of a convent. When Monsieur was dead she entered her carriage with her ladies, and went to Versailles, accompanied by M. and Mme the Duchess de Chartres, and the whole of their suites.

" After such a terrible sight, so many tears, and such displays of affection, every one expected that the three days that remained of the visit to Marly would be exceedingly melancholy. But on the very evening of Monsieur's death, when the ladies of the palace entered the apartments of Mme de Maintenon, where she was, and the king with her, and the Duchess de Bourgogne, about noon, they heard in the adjoining room were they where, the party singing some operatic airs. Shortly afterwards the king, seeing Mme the Duchess de Bourgogne very sad in the corner of the room, asked Mme de Maintenon, with surprise, what made her so melancholy, and began to cheer her up, and then to play with her and some of the ladies of the palace, whom he summoned to amuse them. Nor was this the only strange occurrence. After dinner — that is, a little after two o'clock, twenty-six hours after Monsieur's death — the Duke de Bourgogne asked the Duke de Montfort if he would like a game of cards. * Cards ! ' cried Montfort, in extreme astonishment ; ' do not you know that Monsieur is not cold yet!' 'Pardon me,' said the prince, 'I know it, but the king wishes every one at Marly to be amused, and has ordered me to set all to cards, and for fear that there should be some reluctance in beginning, to give the example myself.' They formed a party, and the salon was soon filled with card-tables." — St. Sitnon, '' M^tnoires" 1701.

The chateau continued to be occupied by Madame, daughter of the Elector, the rude, original, and satirical Princess Palatine, in whom the modern House of Orleans has its origin,^ and here she died during the regency of her son.

^ Henri Martin, xiii. 355.

g DA YS NEAR PARIS

"Madame was a princess of the olden times, attached to honor, virtue, rank and grandeur, and inexorable as to good manners. She was not deficient in intelligence, and what she saw, she saw clearly. A good and faithful friend, sure, true, upright, easy to alarm and shock, very difficult to reconvert, brusque, prone to dangerous sallies in public, very German in all her ways, frank, regardless of all delicacy or reserve for herself or for others, severe, stern, and taking fancies. She loved dogs and horses, hunting and public performances ; was always in a man's great-coat or wig, and a riding dress. For sixty )^ears, ^vell or sick, and she was seldom that, she had never used a dressing-gown." — St. Simon, '' Memoir es.''

The Regent d^Orleans, nephew of Louis XIV. ^ received Peter the Great at St. Cloud in 17 17. In 1752 his grandson^ Louis Philppe d'Orleans, gave at St. Cloud one of the most magnificent fetes ever seen in France.

"28 Sept. La fete de Saint-Cloud a ete magnifique et populaire : tout le peuple de Paris y a couru, de fa9on qu'il etait entierement dehors dimanche, et que, le lendemain, c'etait encore une procession de tout le peuple qui revenait. Toutes les vignes de la plaine vis-a-vis Saint-Cloud ont ete ravagees, et le roi a remis a ces vignerons la taille pour trois ans." — Barbier, '^Journal"

In 1785 the Due d'Orleans sold St. Cloud for six million francs to Queen Marie Antoinette, who made great alterations in the internal arrangements of the building, where she resided during the early days of the Revolution.

" One day, during a visit of the court to Saint Cloud, I was witness of a ver)-- affecting scene, which we took care not to divulge. It was four o'clock in the afternoon, the guard was not mounted, there was almost nobody that day at Saint Cloud, and I was reading to the queen, who was working at her frame, in one of the rooms that had a balcony opening on the court. The windows were closed, but we heard a dull sound from a number of voices, that seemed to speak only in suppressed tones. The queen told me to see what it was ; I raised the muslin curtain, and saw, beneath the balcony, over fifty persons. This group was composed of ladies, old and young, all dressed in the costume

. ST. CLOUD g

usual in the country, some old Chevaliers de Saint-Louis, some young Knights of Malta, and a few ecclesiastics. I told the queen that it was probably a reunion of some societies from the neighboring country districts, who wished to see her. She rose, opened the window, and appeared on the balcony, and then all this good people said to her in a low voice, ' Have courage, Madame, the French suffer for you and with you ; they pray for you, and Heaven will hear them ; we love you, we respect you, and we reverence our exemplary king.' The queen burst into tears, and raised her handkerchief to her eyes. ' Poor queen, she weeps ! ' the ladies said, but the fear of compromising her Majesty and the persons who displayed such affection, inspired me to take her Majesty's hand with an intimation that I wished her to return to the room ; then, raising my eyes, I gave the company to understand that prudence dictated my action. They judged so too, for I heard, ' She is right, that lady,' and then, ' Adieu, Madame,' uttered in accents so full of truth and sadness, that, when I recall them, after the lapse of twenty years, I am still moved." — Af??ie Campan.

It was at St. Cloud that the coup d'etat occurred which made Napoleon first-consul. This led him to choose the palace of St. Cloud, which had been the cradle of his power, as his principal residence, and, under the first empire, it was customary to speak of " le cabinet de Saint- Cloud,'' as previously of " le cabinet de Versailles," and afterwards of " le cabinet des Tuileries." Here, in 1805, Napoleon and Josephine assisted at the baptism of the future Napoleon III.

" Dimanche, a trois heurs apres-midi, Leurs Majest^s Imperiales, suivies de la cour, se rendirent a Saint-Cloud pour le bapteme du prince Napoleon-Louis, fils de S. A. L Mgr. Louis. Cette ceremonie a ete faite avec la plus grande pompe par Sa Saintet^, L'imp^ratrice etait pr6c6d6e par les pages, les ecuyers, et les chambellans de S. M. ; a droite de I'imperatrice 6tait sa dame d'honneur et, un peu en arriere, son premier aumSnier ; a sa gauche, son premier 6cuyer, sa dame d'atours ; un page portait la queue de la robe de S. M." &c. — Le Moniteur, 27 Mars, 1805.

It was also in the palace of St. Cloud that Napoleon I. was married to Marie Louise, April i, 1810.

In this palace of many changes the allied sovereigns met after the fall of the first empire. Blucher, after his fashion, slept booted and spurred in the bed of Napoleon ; and the capitulation of Paris was signed here July 3, 18 15.

Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both lived much at St. Cloud, and added to it considerably; but here, where Henri IV. had been recognized as King of France and Navarra, Charles X. was forced by the will of the people to abdicate, July 30, 1830. Two years after, Louis Philippe established himself with his family at St. Cloud, and his daughter Clementine was married to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg in its chapel, April 28, 1843. Like his uncle, Napoleon III. was devoted to St. Cloud, where — " d'un coeur leger " — the declaration of war with Prussia was signed in the library, July 17, 1870, a ceremony followed by a banquet, during which the " Marseillaise " was played. The doom of St. Cloud was then sealed. On the 13th of the following October the besieged Parisians beheld the volumes of flame rising behind the Bois de Boulogne, which told that St. Cloud, recently occupied by the Prussians, and frequently bombarded in consequence from Mont-Valerien, had been fired by French bombs.

In the Lower Park of St. Cloud, an avenue, entered from the Place Royale, and bordered on one side by booths and shops, leads at once to the foot of the Grande Cascade.

But visitors will generally start on a (short) walk from the chateau, at the back of which they will find the gardens (Pare Reservd), the Petit Pare of Marie Antoinette, now always open to the public. The walk, between the flower-beds, facing the chateau, leads to the water called

GARDENS OF ST. CLOUD ti

Piece de la Grande Gerbe, whence in a few minutes a crossway is reached, formed by the Alices de Versailles, de la Fclicite, and de la Lantcrne, If we follow, to the left, the Allee de la Lanterne, we reach at once the terrace, where the Belvidere of Napoleon I. formerly stood, known as the Lanterne de Diogene, and destroyed during the siege of Paris in 1870. The view towards Paris is most interesting and beautiful. There is some idea of erecting a Crystal Palace, like that of Sydenham, on this site !

Following the Allee du Chateau as far as a grassy amphitheatre, a path on the right leads down to the lower walks at Le grand Jet d^Eau, or Jet de la Grande Gerbe, which (when it plays) is 42 metres in height.

" Persuadez aux yeux, que, d'un coup de baguette, Une fee, en passant, s'est fait cette retraite. Tel j'ai vu de Saint-Cloud le bocage enchanteur L'oeil de son jet hardi mesure la hauteur ; Aux eaux qui sur les eaux retombent et bondissent, Les bassins, les bosquets, les grottes applaudissent, Le gazon est plus vert, Fair plus fraix, des oiseaux Le chant s'anime au bruit de la chute des eaux ; Et les bois, inclinant leur tiges arrosees, Semblent s'epanouir a ces douces rosees." — Delille.

Hence, a few steps bring us to La Grande Cascade, the most magnificent of the " grandes-eaux," which plays from 4 to 5 P.M. on the second Sunday of every month in summer, and on the three Sundays of the fete de St. Cloud, which lasts from three to five weeks from the first Sunday in September. The upper part of the cascade is due to Lepautre, by whom it was constructed for Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV. ; the lower to Mansart. The two cascades are completely harmonious, though separated by the walk called Allee de Tillet, from a house which once occupied the site. True Parisians of the middle classes have no greater pleasure than a day spent at St. Cloud — "pour voir jouer les eaux."

At the end of one of the principal avenues, Allee de Breteuil, below the Alle'e du Chateau, is the Pavilion de Breteuil^ built by the Bailli de Breteuil, Chancellor of the Duke of Orleans.

Joining the park of St. Cloud is that of Villeneuve VEtang^ which belonged to the Duchesse d'Angouleme,

LA GRANDE CASCADE, ST. CLOUD.

who frequently resided there as Dauphine, during the reign of Charles X., devoting herself to the education of her nephew, afterwards Comte de Chambord. It was here that, a fortnight before the revolution of 1830, which drove her from France, she received a visit — accompanied by vehement demonstrations of loyalty and affection — from Louis Philippe.

The favorite summer retreat of Napoleon III. — where the garden still retains the seat of the Empress Eugenie,

SEVRES 13

and the swing and miniature railway of the Prince Imperial — is now occupied by the dog-kennels and experiments of M. Pasteur.

Between St. Cloud and Versailles, with a station on the railway, is Ville d^Avray (Restaurant de la Chaumiere), with pools surrounded by wood, constantly painted by Corot, to whom a monument (by Dechaune) has been erected, near the house which he occupied. Marc Antoine Thierry, first valet de chambre of Louis XVI., built a chateau here, below which was a (still existing) fountain, whose pure waters, exclusively reserved for the king's table, were daily sent for from Versailles.

The steamer descends the Seine, passing under the Pont de Solferino, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Invalides, and Pont d'Alma. Then the Champ de Mars is seen on the left, the Palais du Trocad^ro on the right. After the Pont d'lena, Passy is passed on the right, and the He des Cygnes on the left. Then comes the Pont de Crenelle, after which Auteuil is passed on the right and Javel on the left. After leaving the Pont-viaduc du Point-du-Jour, the He de Billancourt is seen on the left. After the Pont de Billancourt, the steamer passes between the lies de Billancourt and Seguin to Bas Meudon. Hence, skirting the heights of Bellevue, it reaches its sixth station —

Sevres (Severa). — Here, very near the river, at the end of the bridge, is the famous Manufacture de Porcelaine, open daily to visitors from 12 to 4 from October i to March 31, and from 12 to 5 from April i to September 30. The workshops are only supposed to be visible on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with an order from the administration, but strangers are generally admitted.

A china manufactory, which had already existed at St. Cloud, Chantilly, and Vincennes, was first established here in 1756, and having been bought from its owners in 1760, at the instigation of Mme de Pompadour, by Louis XV., became thenceforth a royal manufacture.

"The manufactory of Sevres had no competition to fear ; for the decree of the Council of 1780 forbade any private enterprise, under pain of fine and confiscation, for the manufacture of ' all sorts of articles or pieces of porcelain, painted or unpainted, gilt or ungilt, flat or in relief, in sculpture, flowers and figures.'" — Paul Lacroix, Dix-huitieme siecle.

The collections shown are divided into the Exposition des produits de Sevres and the Miisee Cera?nique. In the ateliers, visitors are shown the three processes of le Tournage, le Cotilage, and la Ctiisson des pates et des emaux.

The village of Sevres clusters round the church of .5"/. domain, which dates from the XIII. c, but has been much altered at different times. In the cemetery is the tomb of Senancour — the poet of the first Revolution — with the words of his choice (from his ''Libres Meditations"), '* Eternite, deviens mon asyle ! "

If the traveller enters the park of St. Cloud by the Sevres gate, a few minutes bring him to an avenue leading to the extremity of a piece of water which ends in the Grande Cascade.