Paris and Its Story

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                          PARIS AND ITS STORY

                         _All rights reserved_

                    [Illustration: RUE ST. ANTOINE.]




                                 PARIS
                             AND ITS STORY

                                  BY

                                T. OKEY

                        [Illustration: colophon]

                            ILLUSTRATED BY
                           KATHERINE KIMBALL
                            & O. F. M. WARD

                                 1904

                       LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.

                      NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.

     "I will not here omit, that I never rail so much against France as
     to be out of humour with _Paris_; that city has ever had my heart
     from my infancy; and it has fallen out to me, as of excellent
     things, that the more of other fine cities I have seen since, the
     more the beauty of this gains upon my affections. I love it for its
     own sake, and more for its own native being than the addition of
     foreign pomp; I love it tenderly even with all its warts and
     blemishes. I am not a Frenchman but by this great city great in
     people, great in the felicity or her situation, but above all great
     and incomparable in variety and diversity of commodities; the glory
     of France and one of the most noble ornaments of the world."

                                                 MONTAIGNE.

    "Quand Dieu eslut nonante et dix royaumes
     Tot le meillor torna en douce France."

                         COURONNEMENT LOYS.




PREFACE


The History of Paris, says Michelet, is the history of the French
monarchy. The aim of the writer in the following pages has been to
narrate the story of the capital city of France on the lines thus
indicated, dwelling, however, in the earlier chapters rather more on its
legendary aspect than perhaps an austere historical conscience would
approve. But it is precisely a familiarity with these romantic stories,
which at least are true in impression if not in fact, that the sojourner
in Paris will find most useful, translated as they are in sculpture and
in painting on the decoration of her architecture both modern and
ancient, and implicit in the nomenclature of her ways. Within the limits
of time and space allotted for the work no more than an imperfect
outline of a vast subject has been possible. The writer has essayed to
compose a story of, not a guide to, Paris. Those who desire the latter
may be referred to the excellent manuals of Murray, Bædeker and of Grant
Allen--the last named being an admirable companion for the
artistically-minded traveller. In controversial matter, such, for
instance, as the position of the ancient Grand Pont, the writer has
adopted the opinions of the most recent authorities.

The story of Paris presents a marked contrast with that of an Italian
city-state whose rise, culmination and fall may be roundly traced. Paris
is yet in the stage of lusty growth. Time after time, like a young
giantess, she has burst her cincture of walls, cast off her outworn
garments and renewed her armour and vesture. Hers are no grass-grown
squares and deserted streets; no ruined splendours telling of pride
abased and glory departed; no sad memories of waning cities once the
mistresses of sea and land; none of the tears evoked by a great historic
tragedy; none of the solemn pathos of decay and death. Paris has more
than once tasted the bitterness of humiliation; Norseman, and Briton,
Russian and German have bruised her fair body; the dire distress of
civic strife has exhausted her strength, but she has always emerged from
her trials with marvellous recuperation, more flourishing than before.

Since 1871, when the city, crushed under a two-fold calamity of foreign
invasion and of internecine war, seemed doomed to bleed away to feeble
insignificance, her prosperity has so increased that house rent has
doubled and population risen from 1,825,274 in 1870 to 2,714,068 in
1901. The growth of Paris from the settlement of an obscure Gallic tribe
to the most populous, the most cultured, the most artistic, the most
delightful and seductive of continental cities has been prodigious, yet
withal she has maintained her essential unity, her corporate sense and
peculiar individuality.