CHAPTER XXII

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THE HÔTEL DE VILLE AND CENTRAL PARIS.

The Hôtel de Ville--Its History--In 1848--The Communards.

If the Place de la Concorde, with the line of the Champs Élysées leading from it in one direction, and that of the Rue Royale and the line of boulevards in another, may be regarded as one of the most central points of Paris, the administrative centre is to be found in the Hôtel de Ville on the east side of that Place de l'Hôtel de Ville which was the heart of ancient Paris, or at least of so much of ancient Paris as stood on the right bank of the Seine.

The Hôtel de Ville, burnt by the Communards in 1871 as part of their general plan of incendiarism, was historically, as well as architecturally, one of the most interesting buildings in Paris. In spite of the modifications and restorations which it had undergone during the last two centuries of its existence, it never lost its original character. The Hôtel de Ville was the palace of the burgesses and merchants of the city, and there was a certain significance in its situation, just opposite the palace of the kings, with whom the representatives of the city were often, so far as they dared, in conflict. It had witnessed, moreover, many interesting scenes. It was always the head-quarters of insurrection so long as the struggle took place only between the monarchy and the middle classes. It perished in a struggle between the middle classes and the working men.

The first important part played by the Hôtel de Ville in its communal character dates from the time of Étienne Marcel--most ambitious of Paris mayors--in the fourteenth century. Long, however, before the pretensions of Étienne Marcel, under the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius, privileged corporations existed in Paris under the name of Nautæ Parisiaci, who did a nautical business on the banks of the Seine. The Maison aux Piliers, where Étienne Marcel presided over the Municipality of the period, stood on the site afterwards occupied by the Hôtel de Ville, of which the first stone was laid by Francis I. on the 15th of July, 1533. "While the stone was being laid," says the annalist Du Breuil, "fifes, drums, trumpets, and clarions were sounded, together with artillery and fifty sack-butts of the town of Paris. At the same time were rung the chimes of Saint-Jean-en-Grève, of Saint-Esprit, and of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. In the middle of the Grève wine was running, and tables were furnished with bread and wine for all comers, while cries were uttered in a loud voice by the common people: 'Vive le Roy et messieurs de la ville!'" An account of the before-mentioned ceremony has been left by Boccadoro.

In spite of the pompous proceedings by which the laying of the foundation-stone was accompanied, the building of the Hôtel de Ville was proceeded with very slowly, and during various foreign and civil wars interrupted altogether. The south wing had been erected under Henri II. The north wing was not completed until the reign of Louis XIII. The building was finished during the reign of Henri IV., whose equestrian statue by Pierre Biard marked, until the Revolution, the principal entrance. After suffering various injuries during the wars of the Fronde, the figure of the once popular king was, in 1793, overturned and destroyed, to be afterwards replaced by a statue in bronze.

Early in the eighteenth century the Hôtel de Ville had been found too small; and in 1749 it was proposed to reconstruct it on the other side of the Seine, on the site of the Hôtel Conti, where now stands the Mint. This project, however, met with a lively opposition on the part of Parisians generally; and in 1770 it was decided to enlarge the existing structure. Funds, however, were not forthcoming; and when, nineteen years afterwards, the Revolution broke out, the Hospital, or rather Hospice of the Holy Ghost, and the Church of Saint-Jean, suppressed as religious establishments, were, as buildings, annexed to the Hôtel de Ville, which they adjoined.

After the Hôtel de Ville had been destroyed in 1871 by the incendiaries of the Commune, the statues of Charlemagne, of Francis I., and of Louis XIV. were found in the ashes. They had shared the fate of the equestrian figure of Henri IV. at the time of the Revolution; and they were afterwards replaced by groups of sculpture which have no sort of connection with the building.

The Hôtel de Ville has an interesting history of its own. In 1411 Charles VI. restored to the Paris municipality, in acknowledgment of the courage shown by the Parisians against the English, several privileges which had been abolished or had fallen into abeyance. Then, during the troubles of the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the Paris Municipality broke into two hostile factions; but at length, from hatred of the Armagnac party, the municipality accepted the English domination. After the return, however, of Charles VII. and during the whole of the second half of the fifteenth century the magistrates of the capital showed themselves thoroughly loyal and absolutely devoted to the interests of the monarchy.

Louis XII. and Francis I. respected and even augmented the privileges of the Hôtel de Ville. But during the religious wars the municipality again split up into two factions. It took part, as a whole, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, believing that it was thus helping to suppress conspiracy directed against the life of the king; but it made every effort to stop bloodshed when it understood the true character of the infamous attack upon the Huguenots. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the municipal officers were chosen from among the most determined supporters of the Catholic League; in spite of which the Hôtel de Ville made every effort to bring Henri IV. to Paris. In his gratitude, this monarch made lavish promises to the burgesses; and he kept them. In 1589 Henri III. had revoked all the privileges granted by his predecessors to the burgesses of Paris. The day after his entry into the capital Henri IV. re-established the municipal body, and gave back to it the whole of its ancient liberties. Then it was that the municipality resolved to place the king's statue before the principal gate of the Hôtel de Ville.

During the reign of Louis XIII. Richelieu abolished the principle of election which constituted the very basis of the municipal authority of Paris. Various important offices, instead of being elective, were now made permanent appointments under the control of the king; and from this epoch dates the decline of the Paris municipal body. Under the ancient _régime_ Louis XIV. deprived the Town Council of all power; and communal liberty had disappeared in Paris when the great Revolution broke out. Then, however, the Hôtel de Ville became once more a centre of political

## activity; and it was at the Hôtel de Ville, on the eve of the taking of

the Bastille, that the discussions were held which led immediately to the attack on the fortress-prison. The so-called "electors" of Paris, themselves chosen the moment before from among the Paris population, had assembled under the presidency of M. de Flesselles, provost of the merchants, when a report was spread that he had concealed several barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville. This was looked upon as a reactionary measure intended to prevent the meditated attack on the hated stronghold; and people rushed to the Hôtel de Ville to distribute the powder at once and with their own hands. The Bastille had scarcely been taken when the captors, returning to the Hôtel de Ville, called out, "Down with De Flesselles," who, attacked in the Hall of Assembly, escaped by a convenient door. He had scarcely, however, got outside when he was recognised and shot dead. With the death of the Provost de Flesselles the ancient corporation of the burgesses of Paris, with their privileges of holding courts, commercial, civil, and even criminal, came to an end. On its ruins was raised the Commune of Paris, which played so terrible a part in the Revolution, and especially during the Reign of Terror. The Hôtel de Ville has been called the "palace of revolution," and during the last hundred years, ever since the era of revolutions set in, it has well deserved its name. The Hôtel de Ville served as headquarters to the Commune of Paris, and to the Committee of Public Safety. The registers of the Commune are still preserved in the Archives, and furnish the only authentic materials relating to the history of the most sanguinary period of the French Revolution. Under the Consulate and the Empire the municipal power, like the legislative power, was abolished; and the Hôtel de Ville was now only known as the scene from time to time of public entertainments. Crowds were in the habit of assembling before the Hôtel de Ville to hear the victories of Napoleon proclaimed. On the occasion of the Emperor's marriage to Marie Louise the City of Paris revived the entertainments which it had been in the habit of giving to the ancient kings. Napoleon expressed a desire to present his wife to the burgesses of Paris assembled in the rooms of the Hôtel de Ville, which from this time, as long as the Empire lasted, gave an annual ball on the 15th of August.

The Restoration did nothing for the Hôtel de Ville. In 1830, during the Revolution which placed Louis Philippe on the throne in lieu of Charles X., the Hôtel de Ville was the chief object of contention between the two parties; and it was in the Place de Grève, or Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, as it was afterwards to be called, that the most terrible conflict of the "three days" occurred. Taken and re-taken, the Hôtel de Ville at last remained in the power of the insurgents; and the tricolour flag, which for the previous fifteen years had been looked upon as an emblem of sedition, now floated once more above its walls. The provisional government, established there under the inspiration of La Fayette, offered a crown to Louis Philippe. "A throne surrounded by Republican institutions," such, in a few words, was the celebrated "programme of the Hôtel de Ville." The throne remained, but the Republican institutions disappeared; and Louis Philippe made no step towards re-establishing the very institution--the Municipal Council--which had made him king.

[Illustration: HÔTEL DE VILLE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

(_From an Engraving by Rigaud._)]

Eighteen years later another revolution was to take place; and after the flight of Louis Philippe a provisional government was again proclaimed--proclaimed itself, that is to say. Lamartine was at the head of it, and without showing any aptitude for exercising power, the celebrated writer, whose popularity had been much increased by his recently published "History of the Girondists," delivered a number of remarkable speeches at the Hôtel de Ville. Hating all government, a portion of the populace forced its way into the passages and approached the room where Lamartine was engaged with laws and proclamations, when the hero of the hour laid down his pen, rushed towards the invading crowd and called upon it to retire. No less than seven times did he repeat his adjurations to the mob, till, at last, some "man of the people," foreseeing that the republic about to be established would not be of the "red" hue desired by the extreme Revolutionists, called him a traitor and demanded his head.

[Illustration: ATTACK ON THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, 1830.]

"My head!" replied Lamartine. "Would to heaven that every one of you had it on his shoulders. You would then be calmer and more reasonable, and the Revolution would be accomplished with less difficulty." The day had been won, but the battle was to begin again on the morrow; and now once more Lamartine stilled the troubled waters by a few eloquent phrases. The question had been raised whether the tricolour flag, or the red flag of the Reign of Terror, should be adopted. Lamartine traced the history of both; and the crowd, carried away by the warmth of his oratory, decided with acclamation that the flag of the new republic must be the flag of the early days of the great Revolution, the flag under which the great battles of the Consulate and the Empire had been gained. It will be remembered that when, in 1789, a leaf torn from a tree of the Palais Royal by Camille Desmoulins was made a sign of recognition, green was on the point of being adopted for the new national flag. It was rejected, however, when someone pointed out that green was the colour of the Artois family; and thereupon blue and red, the colours of the town of Paris, were assumed, to which, out of compliment to the monarchy, favourable in the first instance to the claims of the people, white, the colour of the French kings, was added. Thus the tricolour flag became the flag of the Revolution, as, during successive changes of government, it was equally the flag of the Consulate and the Empire. At the Restoration the Monarchy committed the grave fault of re-introducing the white flag of the ancient _régime_, which Louis Philippe had the good sense to replace by the Republican and Imperial tricolour.

[Illustration: STATUE OF ÉTIENNE MARCEL ON THE QUAI HÔTEL DE VILLE.]

When in June, 1848, the insurrection of unemployed workmen broke out, demanding, in the words of certain insurgents at Lyons, "bread or bullets," the Hôtel de Ville became once more an object of contest between the opposing forces; but the supporters of the Democratic and Socialistic Republic were to be defeated, and the Hôtel de Ville did not, during the terrible days of June, change hands. As long as the Republic lasted--less than four years--the municipal institutions showed signs of vitality, which, however, were to disappear on the _coup d'état_ of December 2nd, 1851; and throughout the second Empire the Hôtel de Ville was occupied, in lieu of an independent Municipal Council, by a sort of consultative commission without mandate and without authority, attached to the Prefect in order to verify his accounts with closed eyes. By way of compensation, however, the Hôtel de Ville was encouraged to give balls, to which the chief of the State accorded his gracious patronage. It was at the Hôtel de Ville that the Prefect of the Seine, M. Berger, entertained Queen Victoria, and that his successor, Baron Haussman, received in like manner the Emperor of Russia, while proposing to extend his hospitality to the Sultan. The reception of the Emperor Alexander II. did not pass off without an incident which caused a very painful impression at the time, and which the French would, now more than ever, gladly forget; for as the Tsar was about to enter the Hôtel de Ville he was saluted with cries of "Vive la Pologne!"

If the ball given in honour of the Emperor Alexander was marred by a mere exclamation, the one which it had been proposed to offer to the Sultan of Turkey was stopped by a tragic event. News had suddenly arrived of the execution of the Emperor Maximilian. Thus was marked the failure of the Emperor Napoleon's Mexican policy; and thus disappeared for ever his fantastic dreams of a confederation of Latin, or Latinised, or Latin-influenced nations, under the patronage of France. Up to this time Napoleon III. had been marching from one success to another. The turning point in his career had been reached, and the failure in Mexico was to be followed by failures in every direction. The ball in honour of the Sultan having been abandoned, it was nevertheless thought necessary to give him some idea of what it would have been had it really taken place. Accordingly the Hôtel de Ville was lighted up, and the Commander of the Faithful was escorted through the deserted ball-rooms and saloons, the officer appointed to accompany him explaining, as he passed from one apartment to another, "Here you would have seen the high functionaries of State in their uniforms with full decorations; here most of the dancing would have taken place, and you would have been enraptured by the sight of beautiful women in the most charming dresses; here would have been the orchestra, the best in Paris, and probably in the whole world." This strange jest must have reminded the Sultan of one of the most famous books in the Mahometan world, that "Thousand and One Nights," with its tale of an honoured guest to whom a dinner without viands was offered.

Some months later the Hôtel de Ville was the scene of a grand dinner given in honour of the Emperor of Austria, brother of the unfortunate Maximilian. Here, for the first time in modern history, privileged guests were admitted by invitation cards to galleries, from which the spectacle of two sovereigns dining together could be enjoyed. Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," recommends the sight of two kings engaged in single combat as a cure for atrabiliousness. It was probably as an improvement on Burton's remedy, so difficult to procure, that a private view of two Emperors sitting together at table was offered to a favoured few.

After the breakdown of the Second Empire and the flight of the Empress from Paris, the Government of National Defence, consisting of all the Paris Deputies, had its head-quarters at the Hôtel de Ville; and here, when the so-called government had given place to the Central Committee, and the Central Committee to the Commune, the last-named body held its deliberations. In 1875 the Hôtel de Ville was reconstructed, with certain modifications and amplifications, on the lines of the ancient one, burned down by the Communards. The new edifice contains either in niches, or on external pinnacles, rather more than 100 statues, reproducing the features of all kinds of celebrities, the whole of them belonging to France, with the single exception of Cortone, born in Italy. The collection includes the architects of the original building, some of the most famous merchant-provosts, mayors of Paris, prefects of the Seine, and municipal councillors, among whom may be mentioned Michel Lallier, who delivered Paris from the English, François Miron, and Pierre Viole. Literature, the stage, and music are largely represented in the effigies of Beaumarchais, Béranger, Boileau, F. Halévy, Hérold, Marivaux, Molière, Picard, Alfred de Musset, Charles Perrault, Quinault, Regnard, George Sand, Scribe, etc.; nor have architecture, sculpture, painting, and the industrial arts been forgotten in this spacious Walhalla, where are found the statues of Boucher, Boulle (known among Englishmen, in connection with various kinds of inlaid work, as "Bühl,") Chardin, Corot, Daubigny, Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Decamps, Firmin Didot, the well-known printer, Jean Goujon, Gros, Lancret, Le Brun, Le Nôtre, Pierre Lescot, Lesueur, Mansard, Germain Pilon, Henri Regnault, Théodore Rousseau, Horace Vernet, etc. Mingled with the writers, composers, painters, sculptors, and architects, are statesmen and historians such as Cardinal de Richelieu, the Marquis d'Argenson, the Duke de Saint-Simon, De Thou, Pierre de l'Estoile, and Michelet. Two illustrious tragedians figure in this chosen company, Lekain and Talma.

The new Hôtel de Ville has been furnished with magnificence and good taste. The staircases are very fine, but the essentially modern character of the internal arrangements is sufficiently shown by the lifts which work between the basement and the upper storeys.

[Illustration: THE MUNICIPAL COUNCIL CHAMBER, HÔTEL DE VILLE.]

On the side of the Hôtel de Ville looking towards the river are the private apartments of the Prefect of the Seine, who performs the functions of Mayor of Paris. In the left wing sit the clerks, engaged in duties as complicated as those of a Ministerial bureau, and here also is the hall in which the sittings of the Municipal Council are held. The prefectorial functions are divided between two prefects: the Prefect of the Seine, whose duties are exclusively administrative; and the Prefect of Police, who attends not only to the Police of Paris, but, in a general way, to Police matters throughout the country. The finances of the city or town of Paris ("ville de Paris" is its traditional, historic name) are regulated, under the authority of the Prefect of the Seine, by a Municipal Council composed of eighty members elected on universal suffrage, four members for each _arrondissement_, or one for each _quartier_. These eighty councillors form the Council-General of the Seine, whose principal duty it is to prepare the budget of the department. They are forbidden to occupy themselves in any manner with politics. Though the prefects of the various departments are not supposed in France to exercise political functions, they are really political officers--that is to say, they are appointed by the Central Government, and frequently, though in many cases secretly, do the work of political agents. During the invasion of 1870 they were regarded as political officers, and everywhere retired as the invaders advanced; the mayors meanwhile, as municipal officers, everywhere remaining. It has been said that the duties of the Prefecture of Paris are shared by the Prefect of the Seine and the Prefect of Police, and that the former conducts his business at the Hôtel de Ville. His associate, though connected with the Hôtel de Ville, has his establishment, with its various bureaux, at the Palais de Justice in the "Cité."

The island of the Cité, the ancient Lutetia, the cradle of modern Paris, has possessed from time immemorial, and certainly from the first years of the Roman conquest, a religious edifice, first a Pagan temple and afterwards a Christian church, on the western extremity of the Parisian island; while the eastern extremity has been always occupied by a palace reserved for the Government, and for the administration of justice.

[Illustration: ÎLE ST. LOUIS.]

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