From this short stay in the realm of Louis the Unreal, we go to the island that bears the name of the Louis who was called a saint, but who was a very real man. All the streets along here that take us to the river, as far easterly as the one that bears the name of Cardinal Lemoine, were cut through the grounds of his college and of the Bernadins, an ancient foundation alongside. Of the buildings of this vast monastery, the refectory remains, behind the wall on the western side of Rue de Poissy. This characteristic specimen of thirteenth-century architecture, but little spoiled by modern additions, is used for the caserne of the Sapeurs-Pompiers. Here, at the foot of the street on the river-bank on our right, is the great space where Boulevard Saint-Germain comes down to the quay, and where the old wall came down to its great tower on the shore. On our left, as we cross broad Pont de la Tournelle, we get an impressive view of Notre-Dame. And now we find ourselves in a provincial town, seemingly far removed from our Paris in miles and in years, by its isolation and tranquillity and old-world atmosphere. Its long, lazy main street is named after the royal saint, and its quays keep the titles of royal princes, Bourbon, Orléans, Anjou. A great royal minister, Maximilien de Béthune, gives his name to another quay, and his great master gives his to the new boulevard crossing it. Henry often crossed his faithful Sully, but they were at one in the orders issued, in the year before the King's murder, for the sweeping away of the woodyards, that made this island the storehouse of the town's timber, and for the construction of these streets and buildings. The works planned by Henri IV. were carried out by Marie de' Medici and Louis XIII. A concession was given for the laying out of streets and for the buildings on this island, and for the construction of a new stone bridge to the Marais, to the three associates, Marie, Le Regrettier, Poultier, who gave their names to the bridge and to two of the streets. There was already a small chapel in the centre, the scene of the first preaching of the First Crusade, and this chapel has been enlarged to the present old-time parish church. Just within its entrance is the bénitier, filled with water from the mouth of a marble cherub who wears a pretty marble "bang." It came from the Carmelites of Chaillot, in souvenir of "Sister Louise."
The sites on the island's banks, newly opened in the early years of Louis XIII.'s reign, were in demand at once for the mansions of the wealthy, and a precocious city started up. Corneille's Menteur, new to Paris and the island, rhapsodizes in one of his captivating flights, this time without lying:
"J'y croyais ce matin voir une île enchantée,
Je la laissai déserte et la trouve habitée;
Quelque Amphion nouveau, sans l'aide des maçons,
En superbes palais à changé ses buissons."
We shall come hither again, in company with Voltaire to one of these palaces, with Balzac to another. In these high old houses in these old streets dwelt old families, served by old retainers devoted to their mistresses, who hugged their firesides like contented tabby-cats. They had no welcome for intruders into their "Ville-Saint-Louis" from the swell quarters on the other side of the river, and it used to be said that "l'habitant du Marais est étranger dans l'Île."
Balcony of Hôtel de Lauzan-Pimodan on Île de Saint-Louis.
Pont Louis-Philippe—an absurdly modern issue from this ancient quarter—carries us to the quay of the Hôtel de Ville, and we may turn to look in at Saint-Gervais, its precious window as brilliant as on the day it was finished by Jean Cousin. Passing in front of the imperious statue of Étienne Marcel, staring at the river that was his grave, we cross Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville, once Place de Grève, when it had in the centre its stone cross reached by high steps, and its busy gallows close at hand. We forget its horrid memories in the sight of the new Hôtel de Ville, of no memories, good or bad, to dash our delight in this most nearly perfect of modern structures; perfect in design, execution, and material, a consummate scheme carried out to the last exquisite detail by architects, sculptors, and decorators, all masters of their crafts.
Our direct road takes us through the Halles, their huge iron and glass structures the lineal descendants of those heavy stone Halles, started in the twelfth century here in the fields, when the small market on the island no longer sufficed. Their square, dumpy pillars, and those on which the houses all about were once supported, survive only in the few left from the seventeenth-century rebuilding, now on the north side of Rue de la Ferronerie. Standing in that arcade, we look out on the spot where Ravaillac waited for the coming of Henri IV. The wretched fanatic, worked on by whom we shall never know, had found Paris crowded for the Queen's coronation, and had hunted up a room in the "Three Pigeons," an inn of Rue Saint-Honoré, opposite the Church of Saint-Roch. Here or in another tavern, while prowling, he stole the knife. The narrow street was widened a little by Richelieu, and few of its ancient buildings are left. Returning through this arcade, once the entrance to the Cemetery of the Innocents, to Rue des Innocents just behind, you will find many of the old charniers absolutely unchanged. They form the low-ceilinged ground floor of nearly all these buildings between Rue Saint-Denis and Rue de la Lingerie. Perhaps the most characteristic specimen is that one used for a remise de voitures à bras, a phrase of the finest French for a push-cart shed! And under No. 15 of this street of the Innocents, you may explore two of the cemetery vaults in perfect preservation. They are come to less lugubrious usage now, and serve as a club-room for the teamsters who bring supplies to the markets over-night, and for the market attendants who wait for them. Their wagons unloaded, here they pass the night until daylight shall bring customers, drinking and singing after their harmless fashion, happily ignorant or careless of the once grisly service of these caves. The attendants in the cabaret on the entrance floor, tired as they are by day, will courteously show the cellars, one beneath the other. One must stoop to pass under the heavily vaulted low arches, and the small chambers are overcrowded with a cottage piano and with rough benches and tables; these latter cut, beyond even the unhallowed industry of schoolboys, with initials and names of the frequenters of the club, who have scarred the walls in the same vigorous style. The demure dame du comptoir above assures you that you will be welcomed between midnight and dawn, but bids you bring no prejudices along, for the guests are not apt, in their song and chatter, to "chercher la délicatesse"!
The Church of the Innocents, built by Louis "le Gros" early in the twelfth century, had on its corner at Rues Saint-Denis and aux Fers—this latter now widened into Rue Berger—a most ancient fountain, dating from 1273. This fountain was built anew in 1550, from a design of the Abbé de Clagny, not of Pierre Lescot as is claimed, and was decorated by Jean Goujon. Just before the Revolution (1785–88), when church and charnel-houses and cemetery were swept away, this fountain was removed to the centre of the markets—the centre, too, of the old cemetery—and has been placed, since then, in the middle of this dainty little square which greets us as we emerge from our cabaret. To the three arches it owned, when backed by the church corner, a fourth has been added to make a square, and the original Naiads of Goujon have been increased in number. Their fine flowing lines lift up and lend distinction to this best bit of Renaissance remaining