Old and New Paris Part 16

From its very origin the Opera in France has always been regarded as an inst.i.tution of the first importance. It enjoyed special privileges from the Crown, it was managed like a department of the State, and an attack upon the Opera was punished like a treasonable offence.

"Before I tell you," wrote Rousseau towards the end of the eighteenth century, "what I think of this famous theatre, I will state what is said about it. The judgment of connoisseurs may correct mine if I am wrong. The Opera of Paris pa.s.ses in the capital for the most pompous, the most voluptuous, the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. Its admirers declare it to be the most superb monument of the magnificence of Louis XIV., and one is not so free as you may think to express an opinion on such an important subject. Here you may dispute about everything except music and the Opera; on these topics alone it is dangerous not to dissemble. French music is defended, too, by a very rigorous inquisition, and the first thing intimated as a warning to strangers who visit this country is that all foreigners admit there is nothing in this world so fine as the Opera of Paris. The fact is, discreet people hold their tongues, and dare only laugh in their sleeves."

Rousseau then, speaking in the person of St. Preuz, the hero of "La nouvelle Heloise," describes the performance as it took place at the Opera. "Imagine," he says, "an enclosure fifteen feet broad, and long in proportion; this enclosure is the theatre. On its two sides are placed at intervals screens, which are crudely painted with the objects which the scene is about to represent. At the back of the enclosure hangs a great curtain, painted in like manner and nearly always pierced and torn that it may represent at a little distance gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Everyone who pa.s.ses behind this stage or touches the curtain produces a sort of earthquake which has a double effect. The sky is made of certain bluish rags suspended from poles or cords, as linen may be seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. The sun, which is here sometimes seen, is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses are composed of four rafters squared and hung on a thick rope in the form of a swing or see-saw; between the rafters is a cross plank on which the G.o.d sits down, and in front hangs a piece of coa.r.s.e cloth, well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the magnificent car. One may see, towards the bottom of the machine, two or three stinking candles, badly snuffed, which, while the great personage dementedly presents himself swinging in his see-saw, fumigate him with an incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed of long angular arrangements of cloth and blue pasteboard strung on parallel spits, which are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy cart rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of resin thrown on a flame; and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fusee.

"The theatre is, moreover, furnished with little square traps, which, opening at need, announce that the demons are about to issue from their cave. When they have to rise into the air little imps of stuffed brown cloth are subst.i.tuted for them, or sometimes real chimney sweeps, who swing about suspended on ropes till they are majestically lost in the rags of which I have spoken. The accidents, however, which not unfrequently happen are sometimes as tragic as farcical. When the ropes break, the infernal spirits and immortal G.o.ds fall together, and lame or occasionally kill one another. Add to all this the monsters which render some scenes very pathetic, such as dragons, lizards, tortoises, crocodiles, and large toads, who promenade the theatre with a menacing air, and display at the Opera all the temptations of St. Anthony. Each of these figures is animated by a lout of a Savoyard who has not even intelligence enough to play the beast.

"Such, my cousin, is the august machinery of the Opera, as I have observed it from the pit, with the aid of my gla.s.s, for you must not imagine that all this apparatus is hidden, and produces an imposing effect. I have only described what I have seen myself, and what any other spectator may see. I am a.s.sured, however, that there are a prodigious number of machines employed to put the whole spectacle in motion, and I have been invited several times to examine them; but I have never been curious to learn how little things are performed by great means."

When our musical historian, Dr. Burney, visited Paris and heard at the Opera the works of Rameau, successor to Lulli, under whose direction the French Opera was founded, he found the music monotonous in the extreme, and without either rhythm or expression. He could admire nothing at the French Opera except the dancing and the decorations; and these alone, he says, seemed to give pleasure to the audience. It was not, at that time, the custom in France to name the singers in the programme; and throughout the eighteenth century no singer in France attained such eminence as was reached by numbers in Italy, and by not a few in England, some of Italian, some of English birth. Naturally, then, in the eighteenth century French Opera singers were not well paid; and chroniclers relate that a Mlle. Aubry and a Mlle. Verdier, being engaged in the same line of stage business, had to live in the same room and sleep in the same bed. Apart from the obscurity naturally resulting from the suppression of the names, inconvenience was caused by the uncertainty in which the public found itself of knowing which singer, on any particular evening, would appear. Shortly before the establishment of the Republic, when, for the first time, the names of singers were printed in the bills, an _habitue_ rushed out of the theatre in a high state of indignation, and began to beat one of the money-takers in the lobby. The poor man at once understood the reason of his aggressor's wrath. "How was I to know," he exclaimed, "that they would let Le Ponthieu sing to-night!"

The initial step towards high melody at the French Opera was taken when, some fifteen years before the Revolution, first Gluck, then Piccini, were invited to Paris to produce adaptations of former successes, or original works, fitted in either case to French libretti. While praising the melody of the Italians as much as he condemns the solemnity of the French, Rousseau expresses the highest admiration for the genius of Gluck, the great reformer of the French operatic stage. After the arrival of Gluck in Paris Rousseau is said never to have missed a representation of _Orphee_. He said, moreover, in reference to the gratification which that work had afforded him, that "after all there was something in life worth living for, since in two hours so much genuine pleasure could be obtained."

The next great a.s.sistance to the French Opera, and this a permanent one, was given by the Republic, through the establishment of a large music-school, known as the Conservatoire, where a course of gratuitous instruction is given to all comers capable at the stipulated age of pa.s.sing the indispensable test examination. Before, however, the Conservatoire, destined to produce so many excellent vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers, had time to bear fruit, Napoleon had done much to encourage and develop French musical art. Napoleon, as a young man, was one of the first admirers of the afterwards famous Mme.

St. Huberti; and when Mme. Mara refused an engagement pressed upon her at the time of the Empire, Napoleon would have arrested her and forced her to accept it had she not fled from Paris. Then, another cause of improvement at the French Opera was the frequent visits paid, early in this century, and especially since the Peace of 1815, by foreign artists to the capital which, in former days, had set its face both against vocalists and composers from abroad. Lulli, the founder of opera in France, was an Italian by birth, though after his naturalisation he got to be looked upon as a Frenchman. His successor, Rameau, was no doubt a Frenchman. But the French tradition was so completely broken by the advent of Gluck and Piccini that the French have never since exhibited any of their ancient prejudice against foreign composers; and it is to these that for the last seventy or eighty years the Grand Opera of Paris has owed most of its success, that is to say, to Spontini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, and, above all, Meyerbeer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF THE DOMES OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]

A highly interesting account of the rehearsals of Meyerbeer's _Robert le Diable_--one of the typical works of the modern repertoire of grand opera--is given, in his "Memoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris," by Dr.

Veron, for some time manager of the Opera House. "It was not," he tells us, "until after four months of orchestral and other rehearsals that the general rehearsals were reached. These latter," he continues, "caused great fatigue and great excitement to everyone; to the composer, the singers, the chiefs of department, and the manager. When a general rehearsal takes place, with choruses, princ.i.p.al singers, and full orchestra, but without scenery, without costumes, and without full light, the musical execution gains much and produces always a great effect. In the darkness and silence of the empty and more sonorous house, without any distraction for the other senses, one is, so to say, all ears; nothing is lost of the fine shades of expression in the singing, of the delicate embroideries of the orchestration. But at the first representation the disappointment is great. In the immense, splendidly lighted theatre, filled with an excited crowd, all the rich and elegant details of the score will be lost through the stuff of the women's dresses and the diminished sonority of a building crowded in pit, boxes, and gallery. Great musical ideas, grand orchestral effects, will now alone produce an impression. Thus it happened that at the first representation of _Robert the Devil_, the public, after applauding the first two acts, was only impressed and deeply moved by the chorus of demons."

[Ill.u.s.tration: EASTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]

After describing the anxieties and perplexities which throughout the long series of rehearsals hara.s.s the unfortunate director, Dr. Veron proceeds to tell us how this gentleman's last and worst experience was this inevitable final conference, held in his own private room, at which the author of the words and the composer of the music had to be prevailed upon to accept some necessary "cuts."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PUBLIC FOYER, OPERA HOUSE.]

"The librettist maintains that to take away one phrase, one word, is to render the work unintelligible, so cunningly is it constructed. The composer resists with no less obstinacy. His score, he says, cannot be broken up into fragments. It is all combined and prepared in such a manner as to form a perfect whole. One piece serves as indispensable contrast to another. A chorus which it has perhaps been suggested to leave out is essential for the effect of the succeeding air. The discussions on such points are interminable. I had ended by showing myself impa.s.sible in presence of the storms and tempests that were raging around me; and I devoted the time during which these quarrels lasted to a polite and engaging correspondence with all the newspaper editors. I was still labouring for the success of the work. At last a conclusion was arrived at, and a general understanding established.

The chief copyist was making the necessary changes and suppressions in the score; and the public at least never found fault with the words and music that were now suppressed. But when a director has prepared, like a good general, everything necessary for the success of the work on the stage, his troubles begin with the front of the house. Everyone wants something from him on the occasion of a first representation; and that of _Robert le Diable_ was exciting public interest to the highest degree. Everything and everyone must be thought of. It is necessary, in a.s.signing places, to displease no one, and above all to avoid exciting jealousies, so as to have no irritated enemies in the house.

Such and such a journalist will never pardon you for having given his fellow-journalist a better place than himself. The author and composer, the leading artists, the _claqueurs_ must be satisfied. The care, the foresight, the conferences, the instructions, indispensable to secure the efficient working of the _claque_ at each representation, and particularly on great critical occasions, will be dealt with elsewhere.

One must remember, too, the number of the box that Madame---- would like to have, the number of the stall preferred by the friend of a minister or of the editor of some great journal. One must respect, moreover, the omnipotence of the unknown journalist, as of the journalist in vogue; and on the critical day the existence is revealed of a crowd of newspapers not previously heard of."

It was in the old theatre of the Rue Le Pelletier that Rossini's _William Tell_ and Meyerbeer's great works were brought out. Gounod, Saint-Saens, and Ma.s.senet, have all written for the New Opera, though it cannot be said that any of them has yet produced on its boards a work of the highest merit.

Opened under the Third Republic in 1875, the New Opera House must be acknowledged to owe its existence to the Emperor Napoleon III., whose Minister of Fine Arts opened a compet.i.tion for architectural designs in view of a new lyrical theatre as long ago as 1860, thirteen years before the old Opera House was burnt down, and fifteen years before the new one was completed and thrown open to the public. The successful compet.i.tor is known to have been Charles Garnier, who was almost unheard of at the time when, with rare unanimity, his design was accepted by the Commission, and approved with enthusiasm by the Press. The building of the Opera cost, from first to last, some 36,000,000 francs (nearly a million and a half sterling), 675,295 work days having been furnished, during its construction, to masons, bricklayers, carpenters, etc.

The manager of the Opera House receives from the State the free use of the building together with a subsidy of 800,000 francs (32,000) voted annually by the Chamber. Employed at the Opera are some five hundred persons, among whom may, in particular, be mentioned twelve in the administration, in connection with the archives, the library, the secretarial department, and the treasury; three orchestral conductors, four directors of singing, two directors and one a.s.sistant-director of the chorus; forty-five vocalists; and one hundred orchestral musicians.

There are about one hundred men and women in the chorus, and the same number in the various divisions of the ballet. Scene-painters, scene-s.h.i.+fters (or "carpenters," as they are technically called), dressers, call-boys, box-openers, and so on, form another hundred. The inauguration of the New Opera took place on the 5th of January, 1875, in the presence of Marshal Macmahon, Duke of Magenta, at that time President of the Republic. All the great officers of State were present, besides a number of foreign notabilities, among whom may be mentioned Queen Isabella of Spain and the young King of Spain, Alphonso II. It is remembered, too, with satisfaction, that the Lord Mayor of London, accompanied by his mace-bearers, trumpeters, and powdered footmen, gave dignity to the occasion.

One of the most interesting parts of the New Opera is the _foyer_, corresponding more or less to the refreshment room of our operatic theatres, but quite incomparable in the way of elegance and splendour.

In the accompanying ill.u.s.tration the artist has made a point of introducing, amid well-dressed persons in evening clothes, an English lady in a morning gown and a sea-side hat, accompanied by two of her countrymen in shooting coats and pot hats. It is, indeed, a standing grievance with the Parisians that, whereas at our opera house no one is admitted to the boxes or stalls unless in evening dress, we ourselves, when we visit the Paris Opera, think any description of garment good enough to wear. One of the characteristic sights of Paris has, for nearly two centuries past, been the Masked Ball of the Opera, which, though it has doubtless lost much of its gaiety since the days when it inspired Gavarni with so many subjects for his witty pencil, is still worth seeing, simply as a picturesque display. No one any longer dances there unless paid to do so. It was, in fact, the introduction of hired dancers when the public were just beginning to show a disinclination to take an active part in the revels that put an end to spontaneous dancing altogether. The antics of some of the hired dancers may interest for a time; and the music of the large orchestra, conducted successively by Musard, Tolbecque, Strauss, Metra, and Arban, has always merited a hearing. Throughout the Carnival--that is to say, from Christmas until Lent--a masked and fancy dress ball (the wearing both of masks and fancy dress being optional) is given every week at the Opera, where the great ball of the year takes place on the night of Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Lent. One other ball of the same kind is given in the middle of Lent--_la Mi-careme_ as it is called--and thenceforward there is no dancing at the Opera until Christmas has once more come and gone.

The Opera Ball dates, like the Opera itself, from the reign of Louis XIV. But the license for musico-dramatic performances had been issued forty years before it occurred to the Chevalier de Bouillon to apply to the King for permission to give masked b.a.l.l.s. The King hastened to grant the Chevalier's request; and was indeed so pleased with it that he a.s.signed to him a pension of 6,000 livres (francs) for the idea, which had simply been borrowed. What is still more remarkable is the fact that an Augustine monk, Nicholas Bourgeois, invented the mechanism by which, in half an hour, the floor of the auditorium could be raised to the level of the stage boards. Although the privilege or patent was given to the Chevalier de Bouillon at the beginning of January, 1713, it was not until January, 1716, that the first opera ball took place. From that year until 1830 no masked or fancy dress ball could be given at any other theatre. On the accession, however, of Louis Philippe, the Opera lost its dancing monopoly, and there are now numbers of Paris theatres at which, during the Carnival, masked b.a.l.l.s occur. The receipts at an Opera Ball are said to average 50,000 francs (2,000).

Close to the Opera lie all the fas.h.i.+onable clubs of Paris, beginning with the Jockey Club at the corner of the Boulevard de La Madeleine.

The English Jockey Club is known to be an a.s.sociation of horse-owners and others interested in racing, who frame regulations and decide cases in connection with the Turf. The Jockey Club of Paris, while founded on much the same basis as the English inst.i.tution of the same name, is also a club in the ordinary sense of the word, and an exceedingly good one. The Jockey Club, which boasts of numbering on its books members of all the reigning families of Europe, is, by its formal t.i.tle, a "Society of Encouragement for the Amelioration of Breeds of Horses in France." It was originated in 1833, under the auspices of the Duke of Orleans, eldest son of Louis Philippe, in order to popularise racing, regulate it, and obtain for it subsidies from the State and the Munic.i.p.alities. A committee of thirteen members is exclusively entrusted with the organisation and superintendence of races. The code of the Jockey Club is adopted as a basis of regulations by nearly all the other racing societies of France. The Jockey Club itself directs the racing of only three courses, those of the Bois de Boulogne, Fontainebleau, and Chantilly. This club, first established at the corner of the Rue du Helder, and then transferred to the Hotel de Lange on the Boulevard Montmartre, moved in 1857 to the corner of the Rue de Grammont, where the Cercle des Deux Mondes now has its headquarters, and finally, in 1860, to its present abode, for which it pays an annual rental of 100,000 francs. Not one of the Paris clubs seems, like the princ.i.p.al London clubs, to possess its own house. As a rule the annual subscription to the Paris club is high, amounting in some cases to 500 francs. On the other hand, the large sums charged for entrance to the London clubs, ranging from 30 to 40 guineas, are unknown at the clubs of Paris, which consequently find themselves without much available capital.

Close to the Opera, on the Boulevard des Italiens, at the corner of the Rue de Grammont, is Le Cercle des Deux Mondes; at the corner of the Rue de la Michodiere, the Railway Club, or Cercle des Chemins de Fer; on the Boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of the Rue Louis le Grand, the Yacht Club. Just opposite the Yacht Club "Le Cercle de la Presse," celebrated for its literary and artistic evenings, suggests in the first place that no like inst.i.tution exists in England, where the newspaper world, though less sharply broken up by political and personal animosities than that of France, is bound together by no such _esprit de corps_ as that which animates the authors and journalists of France. In England not only are we without a Press Club worthy of the name; we have no Societe des Gens de Lettres, or Societe des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. Close to the Cercle de la Presse is the Sporting Club, with its English name. On the Place de l'Opera is the Franco-American Club called the Was.h.i.+ngton Club, or Cercle Was.h.i.+ngton, and at the other corner of the square, the Cercle des eclaireurs, or Scouts' Club, a survival from the war of 1870. On the Place de l'Opera are the offices (as staring t.i.tles sufficiently proclaim) of the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Daily News_, and the _New York Herald_. The corner house, separating the Avenue of the Opera from the Rue de la Paix, has been occupied since 1886 by the Naval and Military Club, known as the Cercle des Armees de Terre et de Mer, and founded under the auspices of General Boulanger in the days when he was War Minister, with the eyes of all Europe upon him. Advancing towards the Madeleine, we come first to the Racing Club (Salon des Courses), then to the Union Club (Cercle de l'Union), the most artistic and most exclusive of all these inst.i.tutions. Close by is the new Cercle de la Rue Royale, formerly known under the familiar name of "Cercle des Moutards;" whilst a little further on we find the Cercle des Mirlitons and Cercle Imperial, now combined, and the Cercle Artistique et Litteraire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WESTERN PAVILION, OPERA HOUSE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STAIRCASE OF THE OPERA HOUSE.]

More recently established than the best London clubs, the clubs of Paris possess some slight advantages over ours. There is but one London club at which a member can get shaved or have his hair cut, but at many of the fas.h.i.+onable Paris clubs the hair-cutter and barber play as important a part as at an American hotel. The best Paris clubs have private carriages always in readiness. At a London club members who have not their own private carriage content themselves with a hansom, or, if infirm, with a humble four-wheeler. The Paris clubs, moreover, are in constant communication with the theatres; and each club can command so many tickets for a first representation, which are distributed among the members according to the order of application. Some of the Paris clubs, too, have a box at the Opera or at the Comedie Francaise. One strange characteristic of the Paris clubs--strange at least to Englishmen--is that every member is supposed to know, more or less intimately, every other member. In Paris the newly-elected member of a club is formally introduced to the other members by his proposer and seconder. Nothing of the kind takes place in London; though a new member of a London club is allowed, if not expected, to invite his proposer and seconder with a few friends to dinner. Though there are still famous restaurants in Paris, dining-houses and cafes have alike suffered by the introduction of clubs, which, though fewer as yet than in London, are yearly increasing their number.

The last of the boulevards on the western side is that of the Madeleine, with the Church of the Madeleine as its princ.i.p.al edifice. The Place de la Madeleine, in the centre of which stands the beautiful but most unecclesiastical church, becomes twice every week, on Tuesday and Friday, a large flower-market, the finest in Paris. Standing by itself in the place named after it, is the beautiful Greek temple, of which the first stone was laid, in one of his pious moods, by Louis XV. in 1764.

But the building was not proceeded with until after a delay of some years. It was begun in its present form only twelve years before the Revolution; and when Napoleon became emperor it was still unfinished.

Judging, no doubt, from the character of the architecture, that the edifice could scarcely have been intended for a place of Christian wors.h.i.+p, Napoleon had it finished as a Temple of Glory under the direction of the celebrated architect Pierre Vignon. Like the Pantheon, however, which has sometimes been thus named, and at other times called the Church of Sainte-Genevieve, Napoleon's Temple of Glory was only for a time to be known in that character. Under the Restoration, in 1814, Louis XVIII. determined to restore the building to the Church; and, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, it was duly consecrated. La Madeleine, as it is called, was, however, still uncompleted when, in 1830, Louis Philippe came to the throne; and it was under his reign that, in 1842, it was opened for public wors.h.i.+p in the precise form and with the elaborate ornamentation now belonging to it. The architecture of the Madeleine is partly Roman, partly Greek; or rather it is Greek with Roman adaptations. It is surrounded by Corinthian columns, of which there are eighteen on each side. Sixteen, moreover, enclose the southern portion, and eight the northern. The building is without windows, and is entirely of stone. The niches in the colonnade are occupied by thirty-four statues representing the most venerated martyrs and saints. On the princ.i.p.al facade will be remarked a high-relief of huge dimensions by Lemaire, representing our Lord as Judge of the world.

The figure of the Saviour is seventeen feet high. On His right are the Angel of Salvation and the saved; on His left the Angel of Punishment and the condemned, with Mary Magdalene interceding on their behalf. The interior is brilliant with gold and colour. The sanctuary, with its vaulted roof, exhibits a vast fres...o...b.. Zugler, representing the history of Christianity. Mary Magdalene, receiving Christ's forgiveness, is surrounded by the Apostles and Evangelists; and among the ill.u.s.trious men who in successive ages have protected the Christian Church may be recognised Constantine, G.o.defroi de Bouillon, Clovis, Joan of Arc, Dante, and Napoleon. The princ.i.p.al altar supports an enormous group in white marble, generally known as the a.s.sumption, though the central figure is that of Mary Magdalene. The a.s.sumption in this case is that of Mary Magdalene into Paradise, whither she is being borne by two angels.

Under the organ is the Chapelle des Mariages, with a marble group by Pradier, representing the marriage of the Virgin; and the Chapelle des Fonts, with a group by Rude, the subject being the Baptism of Christ.

To the right of the altar we see ill.u.s.trated the spread of Christianity in the East during the early centuries and the Crusades; and again, in modern times, through the uprising of the Greeks against the Turks. As leading Crusaders, Richard Coeur-de-Lion and G.o.defroi de Bouillon occupy places. The personages exhibited as having greatly contributed towards the progress of Christianity in the West are the early martyrs, Charlemagne, Pope Alexander III., Joan of Arc, Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Dante. In the centre of the picture stands Henri IV., who, after uttering his celebrated exclamation, "Paris is well worth a ma.s.s,"

goes over to the dominant religion. Then come Louis XIII., Richelieu, and finally Napoleon I., who not only was crowned by Pope Pius VII. in Notre-Dame, but really deserves credit for having restored Christian wors.h.i.+p in France.

In the first chapel, on the right as one enters the church, is a pillar bearing an inscription to the memory of the Abbe du Guerry, cure of the Madeleine, a man of remarkable piety and benevolence, who, with other hostages taken by the Communists, was shot on the 24th of May, 1871, in retaliation for the execution of Communist prisoners by the troops of Versailles.

The Church of the Madeleine is famous for the eloquence of its preachers, the taste in dress of the fas.h.i.+onable ladies whom these preachers attract, and the excellence of the music. At the organ of the Madeleine a sound musician and a perfect player is always to be found.

CHAPTER XIII.

PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

Its History--Louis XV.--Fireworks--The Catastrophe in 1770--Place de la Revolution--Louis XVI.--The Directory.

The Rue Royale, a continuation of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, leading to the Place de la Concorde, was the scene of some of the most violent outrages on the part of the Communists in May, 1871. Here, as in the neighbouring Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, a number of houses were deliberately set on fire, when some thirty persons perished in the flames. It was said, at the time, that the firemen employed to extinguish the conflagration were bribed by members of the Commune to replace the water in their pumps by petroleum.

The Place de la Concorde, the finest of the many fine squares and open s.p.a.ces in Paris, covers an area of 400 yards in length, by 235 yards in width. It is bounded on the south by the Seine, on the west by the Champs elysees, on the north by the Rue de Rivoli (at right angles with the Rue Royale), and on the east by the Tuileries Gardens. From the centre of the Place may be seen the Madeleine at the further end of the Rue Royale; the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies just across the river, which is here traversed by the Pont de la Concorde; the Louvre on the one hand, and on the other, at the end of the Champs elysees, the Triumphal Arch (Arc de Triomphe de l'etoile).

At night the views from the Place de la Concorde are more striking even than by day; the Avenue of the Champs elysees, more than a mile in length, leading in a straight line from the Place de la Concorde to the Triumphal Arch, presenting, with its seemingly interminable rows of lamps, a fairy-like spectacle.

The history of the Place de la Concorde is quite modern. Its present name dates only from the Revolution; its creation from no further back than the year 1748.

Louis XV., called _le bien-aime_, had fallen ill at Metz, and the people regarding him, after the ruinously extravagant reign of his predecessor, Louis XIV., as a merciful sovereign, hurried in crowds to the churches, imploring heaven for the King's recovery. "What have I done to be thus beloved?" asked the young monarch, with astonishment; and his eyes moistened with tears--"the only ones," says an apparently well-informed historian, "he ever let fall."

Louis XV. recovered and came back to Paris; and it was then that the Town Council voted with enthusiasm an equestrian statue to the sovereign whom it had pleased heaven to spare. The King, on his side, presented to the city a large open piece of ground at the end of the Tuileries Gardens, and in the centre of this plain the first stone was laid of the monument which was to celebrate the virtues of Louis the Well-beloved.

This statue, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the time, represented the King in Roman costume with a crown of laurels on his head; and, among other devices, personifications of Strength, Wisdom, Justice, and Peace were made to figure at the corners of the pedestal, which gave rise to the following epigram:--

"Oh! la belle statue! oh! le beau piedestal!

Les vertus sont a pied, le vice est a cheval;"

which may be thus turned into English:--

"Fit statue, fitter pedestal! with laughter burst your sides, The virtues all below on foot, while vice triumphant rides!"

Another satirist wrote:--

"Il est ici comme a Versailles; Il est sans coeur et sans entrailles."