which shine more in this town than in any other in the world, besides the mechanic arts and the marvellous traffic which render it very populous, rich and opulent; in such sort that the other towns
of France and all the magistrates and subjects have their eyes directed thither as to the model of their decisions and their political administrations.”
Castelnau spoke rather as a statesman and a magistrate, and did not look close enough to see that the university was beginning to decline. The progress of the sciences somewhat lessened the importance of its classes, too specially devoted to theology and literature; the eyes of men were turned towards Italy, which was then considered the great centre of intellectual advance; the colleges of the Jesuits were formidable rivals; the triumphs of Protestantism deprived it of most of the students, who used to flock to it from England, Germany and Scandinavia; and finally the unfortunate part it played in political affairs weakened its influence so much that, after the reign of Henry IV. it no longer sent its deputies to the states-general.
If the city on the left side of the river neither extended its circuit nor increased its population, it began in the 16th century to be filled with large mansions (hôtels), and its communications with the right bank were rendered easier and more direct when Henry IV. constructed across the lower end of the island of La Cité the Pont Neuf, which, though retaining its original name, is now the oldest bridge in Paris. On the right side of the river commerce and the progress of centralization continued to attract new inhabitants, and old villages become suburbs were enclosed within the line of a bastioned first enceinte, the ramparts of Étienne Marcel being, however, still left untouched. Although Louis XIII., except during his minority, rarely stayed much in Paris, he was seldom long absent from it. His mother, Mary de’ Medici, built the palace of the Luxembourg, which, after being extended under Louis Philippe, became the seat of the senate.
Louis XIII. finished, with the exception of the eastern front, the buildings enclosing the square court of the Louvre, and carried on the wing which was to join the palace to the Tuileries. Queen Anne of Austria founded the Val de Grâce, the dome of which, afterwards painted on the interior by Mignard, remains one of the finest in Paris. Richelieu built for himself the Palais Royal, since restored, and rebuilt the Sorbonne, where now stands his magnificent tomb by Girardon. The island of St Louis above La Cité, till then occupied by gardens and meadows, became a populous parish, whose streets were laid out in straight lines, and whose finest houses still date from the 17th century. Building also went on in the Quartier du Marais (quarter of the marsh); and the whole of the Place Royale (now Place des Vosges), with its curious arcaded galleries, belongs to this period. The church of St Paul and St Louis was built by the Jesuits beside the ruins of the old Hôtel St Paul; the church of St Gervais received a façade which has become in our time too famous. St Étienne du Mont and St Eustache were completed (in the latter case with the exception of the front). The beautiful Salle des Pas-Perdus (Hall of Lost Footsteps) was added to the Palais de Justice. Besides these buildings and extensions Paris was indebted to Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu for three important institutions—the royal printing press in 1620, the Jardin des Plantes in 1626, and the French Academy in 1635. The bishopric of Paris was separated from that of Sens and erected into an archbishopric in 1623.
As memorials of Mazarin Paris still possesses the Collège des Quatre-Nations, erected with one of his legacies immediately after his death, and since appropriated to the Institute, and the palace which, enlarged in the 19th century, now accommodates the national library.
The stormy minority of Louis XIV. was spent at St Germain and Paris, where the court was held at the Palais Royal. The intrigues of the prince of Condé, Cardinal de Retz, and (for a brief space) Turenne resulted in a siege of Paris, during which more epigrams than balls were fired off; but the cannon of the Bastille, discharged by order of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, enabled Condé to enter the city. Bloody riots followed, and came to an end only with the exhaustion of the populace and its voluntary submission to the king. Though Louis XIV. ceased to stay in Paris after he grew up, he did not neglect the work of embellishment. On the site of the fortifications of Étienne Marcel, which during the previous hundred years had been gradually disappearing, he laid out the line of boulevards connecting the quarter of the Bastille with that of the Madeleine. Though he no longer inhabited the Louvre (and it never was again the seat of royalty), he caused the great colonnade to be constructed after the plans of Claude Perrault. This immense and imposing façade, 548 ft. long, has the defect of being quite out of harmony with the rest of the building, which it hides instead of introducing. The same desire for effect, altogether irrespective of congruity, appears again in the observatory erected by the same Perrault, without the smallest consideration of the wise suggestions made by Cassini. The Place Vendôme, the Place des Victoires, the triumphal gates of St Denis and St Martin and several fountains, are also productions of the reign of Louis XIV. The hospital of La Salpêtrière, with its majestically simple dome, was finished by Libéral Bruant. The Hôtel des Invalides, one of the finest institutions of the grand monarque, was also erected, with its chapel, between 1671 and 1675, by Bruant; but it was reserved for the architect Hardouin Mansart to give to this imposing edifice a complement worthy of itself: it was he who raised the dome, admirable alike for its proportions, for the excellent distribution of its ornaments, and for its gilded lantern, which rises 344 ft. above the ground. “Private persons,” says Voltaire, “in imitation of their king, raised a thousand splendid edifices. The number increased so greatly that from the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal and of St Sulpice there were formed in Paris two new towns much finer than the old one.” All the aristocracy had not thought fit to take up their residence at Versailles, and the great geniuses of the century, Corneille, Racine, La Fontaine, Molière, Madame de Sévigné, had their houses in Paris; there also was the Hôtel de Rambouillet, so famous in the literary history of the 17th century.
The halls of the Palais Royal during the minority of Louis XV. were the scene of the excesses of the regency; later on the king from time to time resided at the Tuileries, which henceforward came to be customarily regarded as the official seat of the monarchy. To the reign of Louis XV. are due the rebuilding of the Palais Royal, the “Place” now called De la Concorde, the military school, the greater part of the church of Ste Geneviève, or Panthéon (a masterpiece of the architect Soufflot), the church of St Roch, the palace of the Élysée (now the residence of the president of the republic), the Palais Bourbon (with the exception of the façade), now occupied by the chamber of deputies, and the mint, a majestic and scholarly work by the architect Antoine, as well as the rebuilding of the Collège de France.
Louis XVI. finished or vigorously carried on the works begun by his grandfather. He did not come to live in Paris till compelled by the Revolution. That historical movement began indeed at Versailles on the 17th of June 1789, when the states-general were transformed into a constituent assembly; but the first act of violence which proved the starting-point of all its excesses was performed in Paris on the 14th of July 1789 when Paris inaugurated, with the capture of the Bastille, its “national guard,” organized and then commanded by the celebrated La Fayette. At the same time the assassination of the last provost of the merchants, Jacques de Flesselles, gave the opportunity of establishing, with more extended powers, the mairie (mayoralty) of Paris, which was first occupied by Bailly, and soon became, under the title of commune, a political power capable of effectively counterbalancing the central authority.[1]
Paris had at that time once more outgrown its limits. The quarter on the left side of the river had more than doubled its extent by the accession of the great monasteries, the faubourgs of St Germain and St Marceau, the Jardin des Plantes, and
- ↑ Owing to the armed and organized revolutionary elements in the assemblies of the Sections, which enabled the revolutionary commune to direct and control popular émeutes.
