Peter the Great (118 page)

For two or three days, I must stay in the house for visits and other ceremonies and therefore I have as yet seen nothing. But tomorrow or the day after I shall begin sightseeing. From what I could see on the road, the misery of the common people is very great.
P.S. I have this moment received your letter full of jokes. You say that I'll be looking about for a lady, but that would not be at all becoming to my old age.

On Monday morning, King Louis XV of France arrived to greet his royal guests. The Tsar met the King as he stepped down from his carriage and, to the astonishment of the French party, he took the little boy in his arms, lifted him into the air until their faces were at the same level, and hugged and kissed him several times. Louis, although unprepared for this display, took it well and showed no fear. The French, once having overcome their shock, were struck by Peter's grace and by the tenderness he showed the boy, somehow establishing their equality of rank while at the same time recognizing the difference in their ages. After embracing Louis again, Peter returned him to the ground and escorted him into the Tsar's reception chamber. There, Louis made a short speech of welcome, filled with memorized compliments. The remainder of the conversation was furnished by the Due du Maine and Marshal de Villeroy, with Kurakin again interpreting. After fifteen minutes, Peter rose and, again taking Louis in his arms, escorted him to his carriage.

The next afternoon at four, Peter went to the Tuileries to return the King's visit. The courtyard was filled with companies of the red-coated Maison du Roi, and as the Tsar's carriage approached, a line of military drummers began to beat. Seeing little Louis waiting to meet his carriage, Peter jumped out, picked the King up in his arms and carried him up the palace steps for a meeting which also lasted only fifteen minutes. Describing these events to Catherine, Peter wrote: "Last Monday the little King visited me, who is only a finger or two taller than our Luke [a favorite dwarf]. The child is very handsome in face and build and very intelligent for his age, which is only seven." To Menshikov, Peter wrote: "The King is a mighty man and very old in years, namely seven."

Peter's formal call on the King at the Tuileries fulfilled the requirements of Protocol. At last, the Tsar was free to go out and see the great city of Paris.

50

A VISITOR IN PARIS

In
1717 as Today, Paris was the capital and the center of everything that matters in France. But Paris, with its 500,000 citizens, was only the third largest city in Europe; both London (750,000) and Amsterdam (600,000) were larger. In relaton to toal nation populations, Paris was even smaller. In Britain, one man in ten was a Londoner, in Holland one man in five was from Amsterdam, while in France only one Frenchman in forty lived
in
Paris.

To those who know it now, the Paris of 1717 seems small. The great palaces and squares which today lie in the heart of Paris— the Tuileries, the Luxemb
ourg, the Place Vendome, the In
valides—were then on the city's fringes. Beyond Montparnasse were fields and pastures. The Tuileries looked through its splendid gardens to the wilder part of the Champs-Elysees rising up to the wooded hill where the Arc de Triomphe now stands. To the north, a single road ran through the meadows up to the ridge of Montmartre.

The Seine was the heart of the city. The river was not confi
rmed by its present granite quai
s, and along its muddy banks women did their washing, oblivious to the unpleasant odors of slaughterhouse and tannery wastes poured directly into the stream. Passing through the city, the river flowed beneath five bridges. The two most recent, the magnificent Pont Royal and the Pont Neuf, were open-sided; the others were lined by four- and five-story buildings. The Paris of wide, tree-lined boulevards did not exist; the city in 1717 was a jumble of narrow streets and four- and five-story buildings with pointed roofs. The great twin towers of Notre Dame rose above the city, but the world-
famous view of the cathedral fac
ade
was unavailable because the plac
e was a cluster of tiny streets crowded with buildings. Louis XIV had begun to change the face of the medieval city. Early in his reign, he had ordered the city's fortified ramparts destroyed and boulevards planted with trees laid out where the walls had been. Only one great square, the elegant Place Royale (now Place des Vosges), had been in existence when the Sun King reached the throne.

During Louis' reign, he added the Place des Victoires, the Place Vendome and the immense church and esplanade of the Invalides.

Each section of the city had a special flavor. The Marais attracted the aristocracy and the higher bourgeoisie. Wealthy financiers built their houses at the other end of the city, around the new Place Venddme. Foreigners and foreign embassies preferred the quarter surrounding St. Germain des Pr6s, where the streets were wider and the air was said to be purer. Travelers were also advised that the best hotels were available near St. Germain des Pres. but a visitor could find a room in many private mansions; even the highest members of the aristocracy rented their top floor to a paying guest. The Latin Quarter then, as now, was for students.

During the day, the people of Paris swarmed through the streets. Pedestrians were in constant danger as horses, carriages and carts tried to thrust themselves through narrow passageways already jammed with people. The noise of iron-rimmed wheels and shouting men was deafening; the smells from human excrement dumped from the windows, from piles of manure and from the courtyards where butchers slaughtered their animals were dreadful. To reduce the noise and give traction to the wheels, as well as to maintain a modicum of cleanliness, fresh straw was laid down daily, the dirty straw being swept up and dumped in the river. To avoid the dangers and inconvience of walking in these streets, those who could afford them used private carriages which they owned or rented by the day or month. Others used closed sedan chairs carried by two men.

The Pont Neuf and the Place Dauphine
on the tip of the He de la Cite
swarmed with itinerant vendors, quack doctors, marionette shows, stilt walkers, street singers and beggars. Pickpockets waited outside the doors of fashionable hotels to brush against unwary foreigners. It was easy to find women. The most desirable, the
girls of the Opera and the Come
die, were generally reserved for the French aristocracy, but the streets were crowded with parading prostitutes. Visitors were warned, however, that they risked their health if not their lives.

At night, the streets were relatively safe until around midnight. Paris in 1717 was the best-lighted city in Europe with 6,500 candle lamps suspended over the streets. Replaced each day and lighted at dark, the fat tapers cast a murky glow over the vicinity. But at midnight, when the candles guttered out one by one and the city was plunged into darkness, all who wished to see morning were behind a door.

The Opera and Comedie were always crowded. Moliere was still the favorite, but people also wanted to see Racine, Corneille and the newly fashionable Marivaux. After the theatre, cafes and cabarets remained open until ten or eleven o'clock. Society flocked to the 300 new coffee houses cl
ustered near St. Germain des Pre
s or the Faubourg St. Honore\ to drink tea, coffee or chocolate. For many, the best recreation was a stroll in a park or garden. The most elegant strollers favored the long Cours la Reine, a walk along the right bank of the Seine which extended from the Tuileries down the river as far as the present Place de 1'Alma. This flowered walk was so popular that its use was extended into the evening by placing torches and lanterns along the path. Other gardens open to the public were the garden of the Palais Royal, the Luxembourg Gardens and the Jardin du Roi, now known as the Jardin des Plantes.

Then, as now, the most famous garden in Paris was the Jardin des Tuileries. There, in the afternoon and evening, one met the greatest personages of the kingdom, even the Regent himself, strolling along. Beyond the Tuileries lay the Champs-Elysees, flanked by symmetrical rows of trees. Here people exercised on horseback and opened the windows of their carriages to enjoy the fresh air. Still farther west, beyond the village of Passy, lay the wood later turned into the park of the Bois de Boulogne. The wood was filled with deer, which riders and dogs hunted for sport, but it was also a place where, on warm Sunday and holiday afternoons, Parisians spread themselves on the grass to picnic and sleep. The wood was also a place for love affairs, which took place inside carriages with the curtains drawn, the coachman sitting impassively atop the carriage, the reins loose, the horses peaceably munching the grass.

When the boy King left Versailles and moved back to Paris, most of the aristocracy followed, building or refurbishing its mansions
(hotels parti
culiers)
in the fashionable section of the Marais on the eastern edge of the city, or across the river in the Faubourg St. Germain. The Hotel Lesdiguieres, in which Peter was living during his six weeks in Paris, was one of the grandest of the mansions of the Marais* with gardens spreading over a large block. It's walls, filled with sheds and stables, touched the

*Many of the splendid mansions of th
e Marais still stand, but the Ho
tel Lesdiguieres has disappeared. In 1866, its grounds were pierced when the engineer Baron Georges Haussmann, then driving his broad boulevards through Paris at the command of Emperor Napoleon III, laid the Boulevard Henri IV through the hotel garden. Thereafter, the mansion survived only a few years and was torn down in 1877. Today, there remains only a plaque commemorating Peter's visit on the wall above No. 10 Rue de la Cerisaie. Across the street at No.
11
, in a house which was standing there during Peter's visit, the author lived for three of the years he was writing this book.

Rue St. Antoine, and behind lay the Cerisaie, the King's cherry orchard with rows of handsome little trees.

The Bastille stood directly adjacent to the hotel, and its eight thin gray stone towers towered directly over the garden wall. While strolling, the Tsar had only to raise his eyes to see the legendary stronghold. In fact, the fourteenth-century fortress has been the most unjustly maligned of all the castles of France. Depicted as a grim, gigantic symbol of the oppression of the French monarchy, it was actually rather small: seventy yards long and thirty yards wide (although a dry moat with drawbridges and an outer courtyard surrounded by guard buildings made the space it occupied seem larger). The furious Paris mob which tore it down on July 14, 1789, and the happy crowds of Frenchmen who still celebrate Bastille Day every July 14, have imagined the Bastille as a mournful den where a tyrant wreaked his will on the suffering people of France. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bastille was the most luxurious prison which has ever existed. Imprisonment there carried no dishonor. With rare exceptions, its occupants were aristocrats or gentlemen who were received and treated according to their rank. The King could order troublesome nobles put there until he or they changed an opinion. Fathers could send unruly sons to the Bastille for several months to cool their foolishness. Rooms were furnished, heated and lighted according to the means and tastes of the prisoners. A servant could be kept, and guests could be invited for dinner— Cardinal de Rohan once gave a banquet for twenty. There was competition for the more favorable rooms; those at the tops of the towers were the least desirable, being coldest in winter and hottest in summer. Nothing was required of the prisoner. He could play his guitar, read poetry, exercise in the governor's garden and plan menus to please his guests.

Many a famous man spent time in the Bastille. The most mysterious was the Man in the Iron Mask, whose identity was ornamented by Alexandre Dumas into a twin brother of Louis XIV. Like most stories about the Bastille, this one was mostly imaginary; the famous mask was not of iron, but of black velvet, although even the governor of the Bastille was not allowed to lift it, and the prisoner died, still unknown, in 1703. During the weeks Peter spent in Paris, another famous Frenchman was locked in the Bastille, and it is possible that this prisoner looked down from a tower window into the gardens of the Hotel Lesdiguieres to see the Tsar strolling among the trees. This was twenty-three-year-old Francois-Marie Arouet, a waspish young epigrammist whose suggestive verses about the relations between the Regent and his daughter the Duchesse de Berri had inspired the Regent to lock him up. Forty years later, using the name Voltaire, the prisoner would write a
History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great.

Before coming to Paris, Peter had made a list of everything he wanted to see, and the list was long. Once the welcoming ceremonies were over, he asked the Regent that all protocol be dispensed with; he wanted to be free to visit whatever he liked. Subject to his insistence that the Tsar be always
escorted by the Marshal de Tesse
or some other member of the court, and that Peter allow himself to be accompanied by a bodyguard of eight soldiers of the royal guard whenever he went out, the Regent agreed.

Peter began his sightseeing by rising at four a.m. on May 12 and walking in the early light down the Rue St. Antoine to visit the Place Royale and see the sun reflected in the great windows which looked down on the royal parade ground. That same day, he visited the Place des Victoires and the Place Vendome. The next day, he crossed to the Left Bank and visited the Observatory, the factory of the Gobelins, famous for tapestries, and the Jardin des Plantes, which had over 2,500 species. In the days that followed, he visited the shops of artisans of every kind, examining everything and asking questions. One morning at six a.m. he was in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, where the Marshal de Villars showed him the enormous models of Vauban's great fortresses which guarded the frontiers of France.* Then, leaving the Louvre, he walked in the Tuileries Garden, where the usual crowd of strollers had been asked to leave.