VOL. XLV

NO. 1

ACH succeeding year, as the invasion of our compatriots augments, the French capital is changing its physiognomy. Paris is fast becoming Americanized. There are now certain quarters such as Passy and the Etoile, in fact, the whole Western section, where I feel as if I were in the neighborhood of Central Park. The signs on the avenue de l'Opéra and the rue de Rivoli bear more American than French names and an old Parisian tells me that he can now hardly recognize the Grand Boulevards.

If you wish to find the Paris of olden times, the Paris of Balzac, the Paris of the Revolution, the Paris of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, you must frequent the populous quarters, at present abandoned by the gentry, and seek out the glorious mansions of the past now transformed into work-houses and factories. There are many of them, and all through the quartier Saint Merri and near the Pantheon, you will constantly come upon ancestral dwellings now the homes of hundreds of petits métiers parisiens.

But there yet remains a spot in the metropolis which, on account of its privileged situation, the ravages of time and progress have left untouched. It is the "Ile St. Louis," the tiny island back of Notre Dame. Discreet little corner, silent little province in the heart of the mighty city, it still bears its haughty mien and continues its reticent existence like those aged persons we have sometimes met, who linger so long that Death seems to have forgotten them, and whose rare conversations interest and astonish us.

VOL. XLV.-I

When we decided on Paris as a permanent place of residence, we chose our home on St. Louis Isle. As time went by, we became fonder and fonder of its history, more and more interested in its past, until at length we have come to regard it as belonging, in a measure, to us. And if today we wish to show you about the island, it is with something of the pride of a landholder who escorts his guests around his estate.

Here each house has its distinct personality, its own style of architecture and, above all, that sympathetic and attractive air possessed so often by things that have lived long and could relate much. A glance at the high colorless walls, the dingy little streets, and even the sunlit, tree-bordered quays suffices to transport me into the past. Everything seems filled with a kind of melancholy poesy; to breathe forth the perfume of history. As I pass each corner I should not be surprised to see a Sedan chair stop before one of those huge iron grills, and a charming powdered lady step out. Or farther on, from under the massive portecochère of that Louis XIV mansion, is not a gilded coach with pompous and insolent out-riders going to issue forth and clatter over the cobbles?

Unfortunately the only vestige of these "good old times" is the water-carrier, for in the interior of the island there are certain houses so old that their landlord dares not touch their masonry to install modern conveniences. So every morning the porteur d'eau of tradition, his pails suspended from a wooden shoulder-piece, mounts the stairs and supplies each apartment with sufficient water to last the day.

One of the oldest oil suspension street lamps in Paris.

But here we are at the extremity of the island.

At the point where the Quai d'Anjou and the rue St. Louis-en-l'Ile meet, the "Hôtel Lambert" rises majestically behind its high stone walls which screen a charming garden from public view. Built in 1640 for President Nicholas Lambert, it is, perhaps, one of the best examples of seventeenthcentury architecture now standing in Paris.

Its exterior decoration was entrusted to Lepautre, and the interior was admirably ornamented by a legion of famous painters. A story goes that President Lambert, an extremely cunning man, simultaneously engaged Lebrun and Lesueur to do some mural decorating. He then cleverly animated the jealousy of the two rivals, who did their best to exceed each other, and in consequence the works done by the mas

ters while in the Hôtel Lambert are now considered their chefs-d'œuvres. Lebrun painted "Les Travaux d'Hercule," Lesueur

'Some Episodes in the history of Love," consigned to a small chamber called "Le Cabinet de l'Amour." At the same time he executed his remarkable "Phaeton and Ganymede" that hangs in the Louvre gallery.

In the next century the house came into the possession of the Marquise du Châtelet, "la divine Emilie" of Voltaire, and the author of the "Encyclopædia" passed much of his time there. There are certain manuscripts of his still extant, dated from that place of residence.

Later on the La Haye family became the owners of the Hôtel Lambert (for throughout all centuries it has preserved the name of its founder). They generously gave part of the treasures it contained to Louis XVI for his collection in the Louvre. After that the place became the successive property of the Count de Montolivet, the Dowager Duchess of Orléans, and finally fell into the hands of the Czartoryski family, who still own it. Thus you see that during nearly three centuries the highest French society has frequented that sombre little corner of our island.

Just across the street stands the Hôtel de Bretonvilliers, which, if less richly decorated than its neighbor, rejoices in a more favorable situation, being well exposed to the sun and shaded by many fine trees. "This house," says a contemporary writer, "has a grand and sage allure that enables one to distinguish it at a very great distance, and gives a splendid idea of the grandeur of Paris, to persons arriving from the Charenton side."

Following the Quai d'Anjou for a short distance we come upon a dark, stately looking mansion still known by its old name, the Hôtel de Lauzun. It is here that Mademoiselle de Montpensier, la grande