Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2. Edwards Henry Sutherland

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Paris hackney vehicle largely excited at this time the ridicule of wits and song-writers, although, irrespectively of its condition, it has always figured almost exclusively in literature. In a great city like Paris the cab is the witness, the auxiliary, or the accomplice in nearly every event which takes place – it is a mute confidant in most of the scenes of human life. The song-writer, Desaugiers, has left in verse a curious history of a cab, supposed to be written by itself, and in which it relates how one day it conveyed a widow to the altar, another day a husband to Chantilly without his wife, and a third day the wife to Gros-Bois without her husband.

      Coming to modern times, we find the driver of the fiacre as interesting a personage as he must frequently find his fare to be. The question whether, as is asserted, ruined aristocrats are at present earning their bread as cab-drivers has already been discussed. But it is unquestionable that many members of what are called the “better” classes turn to the cab as their last resource, even as Dr. Johnson’s “scoundrel” was said to turn to politics. Priests, devoid in two senses of a living, bachelors of arts and sciences, old professors and worn-out notaries, may be seen plying the whip of the “cocher” in the Paris streets.

      That the London cab – of which the name, as probably everyone knows, is simply a contraction of “cabriolet” – surpasses the cab of Paris is admitted even by patriotic Frenchmen. One able writer on the subject of the French capital says that “the London cabs, which we have vainly tried to acclimatise in Paris, are, if not comfortable, at least rapid and well-managed. Our neighbours can boast two elements of incontestable superiority. These are the drivers and the horses. Despite these causes, it is probable that the English ‘cab’ would be found less attractive if, instead of being paid by the mile, it were taken by the journey or by the hour.” This writer, it should be explained, complains bitterly that the Parisian cabman, engaged by the hour, proceeds at a crawl, knowing that he will be paid just as much as if he drove with the celerity of his London brother, who simply wants to get to his journey’s end and receive his fare – or as much beyond it as he possibly can.

      As regards the omnibuses of Paris, they resemble in many respects those of London. For instance, they are painted different colours according to their particular route. When the vehicle is quite full a board or card announcing the fact is fixed up over the door; and each vehicle is numbered so that in case of complaint it can be identified by the passenger.

      The private carriages let out on hire – those which can be taken by the month or for the season – are not permitted to ply in the streets of Paris like the fiacre. They take up their passenger at his own door, and can be hired by the year, month, day, or half-day. The form of these vehicles varies, according to the caprices or the fortune of the hirer, from plain to magnificent. In France, as in England, rich families accustomed to winter in the capital leave their own carriages in the country and hire others by the month. Even wealthy Frenchmen, who reside altogether in the capital, have of late years shown themselves more and more disposed to escape in this way the trouble and annoyance connected with the maintenance of personal equipages. Nor do those Englishmen who have tried both methods feel a less marked preference for that of hire, which relieves them from the numerous anxieties associated with the stable. It will be remembered how Henry J. Byron’s coachman came to that comedy-writer one day and said that the mare was ill. “What’s to be done?” asked Byron. “I shall have to give her a ball, sir,” was the reply. “Very well,” said Byron with a sigh of resignation, “but don’t ask too many people.”

      CHAPTER VII.

      THE SEINE AND ITS BRIDGES. – THE MORGUE

The Various Bridges over the Seine – Their Histories – The Morgue – Some Statistics

      OF all the Paris thoroughfares the most important, in a commercial sense, is the Seine, which enters the city from the east to flow out in the direction of the south-west. The Seine, however, does not play in connection with Paris the part of the Thames in connection with London. On the Seine no large ships are to be seen above or below bridge; and until a few years ago the attempts periodically made to establish a service of passenger steamers, such as we have on the Thames at London, were usually discontinued after a brief experimental season. Wine, wood, stone, and other merchandise is sent down the Seine towards Havre at the mouth. But the Parisians, as a body, make little use of the Seine, except for bathing purposes, and then only during the warm weather, when the numerous swimming baths established on the river are largely frequented.

      The Seine enters Paris after receiving at Conflans the waters of the Marne. The first bridge beneath which it passes, beyond Bercy, is continued on either side as a viaduct, and is connected with the external or girdle railway known as the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture. Constructed in 1858, when the Second Empire was at the height of its popularity it received the name of “Napoleon III.”

      The next bridge, the Pont de Bercy, which dates from 1835, was originally a suspension bridge. In 1863 it was replaced by the present bridge, constructed in stone, with five elliptical and very graceful arches. To the bridge of Bercy succeeds the bridge of Austerlitz, whose name connects it with one of the greatest battles of the First Empire. Begun in 1802, it was finished in 1807, and was called the bridge of Austerlitz in memory of the important victory gained on the 2nd of December, 1805, by Napoleon, over the arms of Austria and Russia. When in 1814 the allied armies were in possession of Paris, some observation was made to the Emperor Alexander of Russia by a time-serving French official as to the name of the bridge, which, it was suggested, might be changed. “I do not mind the name,” replied Alexander, “now that I have crossed the bridge at the head of my troops.” More sensitive, or at least more irritable than the Russian emperor, Blucher took umbrage at another of the Paris bridges being called, in commemoration of the great Prussian defeat, bridge of Jena, and really wished to blow it up. He was dissuaded from this project by the Russian emperor, who, according to an anecdote more or less veracious, said that if the Prussian marshal thought seriously of carrying his project into execution, the emperor would take up his position on the bridge and perish with it.

      Under the Restoration the name of the bridge of Austerlitz was really changed. It was hence officially designated Bridge of the King’s Garden, but continued in general parlance to be called by its original name. A little below the bridge of Austerlitz the Saint-Martin canal pours its waters into the river; and not many yards lower down the Seine met formerly the island of Louviers, on which there were no habitations, but only warehouses for wood. The narrow channel which separated this island from the right bank of the river was filled up in 1847, when, in a geographical sense, the island ceased to exist.

      At a short distance from what was formerly the Île Louviers, the Seine throws out on the right an arm, which, before rejoining the main stream, forms the island of Saint-Louis. In the seventeenth century this island was augmented by being joined to two smaller ones; the island of Cows on the east, and the island of Notre Dame (the property of the cathedral) on the west; and the triple island received the name of Île Saint-Louis in honour of the great king. The island of Saint-Louis communicates with the left bank, from which the main stream separates it, by the foot bridge of Constantine and the bridge of Latournelle. The bridge of Constantine owes its name to the town taken by the French in 1836. It is only available for pedestrians. The ancient bridge of Latournelle, constructed in 1614 on the site of a still older one, was in wood. After being several times destroyed in this form, it was in 1656 reconstructed in stone. In 1831 a band of thieves who had robbed the royal library of many valuable medals, threw their booty from the Pont de Latournelle into the Seine, whence the greater part of it was recovered by divers.

      Close to the Pont de Latournelle is the Pont Marie, of which the first stone was laid in 1614 by Louis XIII. and Marie de Medicis. The bridge, however, is said, according to a somewhat improbable statement, generally accepted by the historians of Paris, to owe its name, not to the queen, but to Marie, a well-known builder of the time. The next bridge, as we continue to descend the stream, is the Pont Louis Philippe, the date of which is indicated approximately by the reign under which it was built. Begun in 1833, it was finished in 1834, but since then has undergone many restorations СКАЧАТЬ