Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
Of the three streets made by the mercantile-minded duc d’Orléans the
walls of two still stand undisturbed. In Rue de Valois we see, at No. 1,
the ancient pavilion and passage leading from the Place de Valois,
formerly the Cour des Fontaines, where the inhabitants of Palais-Royal
drew their water; at 6-8 the restaurant, Bœuf à la mode, built by
Richelieu as hôtel Mélusine; at 10, the façade of hôtel de la
Chancellerie d’Orléans; at 20, hôtel de la Fontaine-Martel, inhabited
for a year by Voltaire, 1732-33. In Rue de Beaujolais we find the
theatre which began as Théâtre des Beaujolais, was for several years
towards the close of the eighteenth century a theatre of Marionnettes,
and is now Théâtre Palais-Royal. Then Rue de Montpensier--1784--shows us
interesting old windows, ironwork, etc.; Rue Montesquieu--1802--runs
where the Collège des Bons-Enfants once stood. The Mother-house of the
Restaurants Duval, so well known in every quarter of Paris, at No. 6, is
on the site of the ancient Salle Montesquieu, once a popular dancing
saloon, then a draper’s shop with the sign of “Le Pauvre Diable” where
the founder of the world-known Bon Marché was in his youth a salesman.
Three notable churches stand in the immediate vicinity of these three
palaces. The ancient St-Germain-l’Auxerrois, St-Roch, erewhile its
chapel of ease, and the Oratoire. St-Germain opposite the Louvre was the
Chapel Royal of past ages. Its bells pealed for royal weddings,
announced the birth of princes, tolled for royal deaths, rang on every
other occasion of great national importance. Its biggest bell sounded
the death-knell of the Protestants on the fatal eve of St-Bartholomew’s
Day, 1572. No part of the fine old church as its stands to-day dates
back as a whole beyond the fifteenth century, but a chapel stood on the
site as early as the year 560. A baptistery and a school were built
close to the chapel about a century later, and this early foundation was
the eldest daughter of Notre-Dame--the Paris Cathedral. After its
destruction by the invading Normans, it was rebuilt as a fine church by
Robert le Pieux, in the first years of the eleventh century, and no
doubt many of its ancient stones found a place in the walls of
successive rebuildings and restorations. The beautiful Gothic edifice is
rich in ancient glass, marvellous woodwork, pictures, statuary and
historic memorials.
[Illustration: L’ÉGLISE ST-GERMAIN-L’AUXERROIS]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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