Chapter I: Preface

In recasting _Paris and its Story_ for issue in the "Mediaeval Towns Series," opportunity has been taken of revising the whole and of adding a Second Part, wherein we have essayed the office of cicerone.

Obviously in so vast a range of study as that afforded by the city of Paris, compression and selection have been imperative: we have therefore limited our guidance to such routes and edifices as seemed to offer the more important objects of historic and artistic interest, excluding from our purview, with much regret, the works of contemporary artists. On the Louvre, as the richest Thesaurus of beautiful things in Europe, we have dwelt at some length and even so it has been possible only to deal broadly with its contents. A book has, however, this advantage over a corporeal guide; it can be curtly dismissed without fear of offence, when antipathy may impel the traveller to pass by, or sympathy invite him to linger over, the various objects indicated to his gaze. In a city where change is so constant and the housebreaker's pick so active, any work dealing with monuments of the past must needs soon become imperfect. Since the publication of _Paris and its Story_ in the autumn of 1904, a picturesque group of old houses in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, including the Hotel des Mousquetaires, the traditional lodging of Dumas' d'Artagnan, has been swept away and a monstrous mass of engineering is now reared on its site: even as we write other demolitions of historic buildings are in progress. Care has, however, been taken to bring this little work up to date and our constant desire has been to render it useful to the inexperienced visitor to Paris. Success in so complicated and difficult a task can be but partial, and in this as in so many of life's aims "our wills," as good Sir Thomas Browne says, "must be our performances, and our intents make out our actions; otherwise our pious labours shall find anxiety in our graves and our best endeavours not hope, but fear, a resurrection."

It now remains to acknowledge our indebtedness to the following, among other authorities, which are here set down to obviate the necessity for repeated footnotes, and to indicate to readers who may desire to pursue the study of the history and art of Paris in more detail, some works among the enormous mass of literature on the subject that will repay perusal.

For the general history of France, the monumental _Histoire de France_ now in course of publication, edited by E. Lavisse; Michelet's _Histoire de France_, _Recits de l'Histoire de France_, and _Proces des Templiers_; Victor Duruy, _Histoire de France_; the cheap and admirable selection of authorities in the seventeen volumes of the _Histoire de France racontee par les Contemporains_, edited by B. Zeller; _Carl Faulmann, Illustrirte Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst_; the Chronicles of Gregory of Tours, Richer, Abbo, Joinville, Villani, Froissart, De Comines; _Geographie Historique_, by A. Guerard; Froude's essay on the Templars; _Jeanne d'Arc, Maid of Orleans_, by T. Douglas Murray; _Paris sous Philip le Bel_, edited by H. Geraud.

For the later Monarchy, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, the Histories of Carlyle, Mignet, Michelet and Louis Blanc; the _Origines de la France Contemporaine_, by Taine; the _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VIII.; the Memoirs of the Duc de St. Simon, of Madame Campan, Madame Vigee-Lebrun, Camille Desmoulins, Madame Roland and Paul Louis Courier; the _Journal de Perlet_; _Histoire de la Societe Francaise pendant la Revolution_, by J. de Goncourt; Goethe's _Die Campagne in Frankreich_, 1792; _Legendes et Archives de la Bastille_, by F. Funck Brentano; Life of Napoleon I., by J. Holland Rose; _L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise_, by Albert Sorel; the periodical, _La Revolution Francaise_; _Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution_, by C.D. Hazen.

For the particular history of Paris, the exhaustive and comprehensive _Histoire de la Ville de Paris_, by Michel Felibien and Guy Alexis Lobineau; the so-called _Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris_, edited by L. Lalanne; _Paris Pendant la Domination Anglaise_, by A. Longnon; the more modern _Paris a Travers les Ages_, by M.F. Hoffbauer, E. Fournier and others; the _Topographie Historique du Vieux Paris_, by A. Berty and H. Legrand, and other works now issued or in course of publication by the Ville de Paris. Howell's _Familiar Letters_, Coryat's _Crudities_, Evelyn's _Diary_, and Sir Samuel Romilly's _Letters_, contain useful matter. For the chapters on Historical Paris, E. Fournier's _Promenade Historique dans Paris_, _Chronique des Rues de Paris_, _Enigmes des Rues de Paris_; the Marquis de Rochegude's _Guide Pratique a Travers le Vieux Paris_; the _Dictionnaire Historique de Paris_, by G. Pessard, and the excellent _Nouvel Itineraire Guide Artistique et Archeologique de Paris_, by C. Normand, published by the _Societe des Amis des Monuments Parisiens_.

For French art, Felibien's _Entretiens_; the writings of Lady Dilke; _French Painting in the Sixteenth Century_, by L. Dimier; _Histoire de l'Art, Peinture, Ecole Francaise_, by Cazes d'Aix and J. Berard; the compendious _History of Modern Painting_, by R. Muther; _The Great French Painters_, by C. Mauclair; _La Sculpture Francaise_, by L. Gonse; _Mediaeval Art_, by W.R. Lethaby; the Catalogue of the _Exposition des Primitifs Francais_ (1904); _Le Peinture en Europe, Le Louvre_, by Lafenestre and Richtenberger, and the official catalogues of the Louvre collections. All these have been largely drawn upon and supplemented by affectionate memories of an acquaintance with Paris and many of its citizens dating back for more than thirty years.

May we add a last word of practical counsel. Distances in Paris are great, and the traveller who would economise time and reduce fatigue will do well to bargain with his host to be free to take the mid-day meal wherever his journeyings may lead him.

_April, 1906._