Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/89

 PARIS been extracted from the now exhausted quar- ries, which underlie about one eighth of the surface of the city, and have been used as cat- acombs since 1784. (See CATACOMBS.) The Seine, approaching from the south, receives the Marne little more than a mile outside the enceinte, enters the city at its S. E. corner, flows N. W. and then S. W., leaves the en- ceinte at its S. W. extremity, and passes in great bends, like the letter S, across the fer- tile plain between Paris and the forest of St. Germain, 10 m. N. W. The steep hills of Montmartre and the Buttes Chaumont, both within the city limits, and both hollowed by constant quarrying for gypsum, form the only other noteworthy natural features of the city's site. Paris is surrounded by a complete belt (enceinte) of fortifications, broken by 57 gates, besides the entrances of railways. It consists of a bastioned and terraced wall, 21 m. in cir- cuit, presenting 94 bastions, designated by their numbers in order, proceeding N., W., S., and E. around the circuit from the entrance of the Seine back to that point. The whole is sur- rounded by a continuous ditch 22 m. in circuit and 49 ft. wide. The wall has 34 ft. of escarp- ment, faced with stone 11 ft. thick. This inte- rior system of defence is supplemented by the following 16 outlying forts, named in their or- der from the Seine in the direction described above in the case of the bastions, and the dis- tance from the enceinte being given in each case : Charenton, 3,600 yards ; Vincennes, 2,290; Nogent, 5,342.; Eosny, 5,069; Noisy, 3,270 ; Romainville, 1,570 ; Aubervilliers, 2,071 ; Est, 3,815 ; Double Couronne du Nord, 5,450 ; La Briche, 5,560 ; Mont Valerien, 4,360 ; Issy, 2,400; Vanves, 2,290; Montrouge, 1,690; Bicetre, 1,635; Ivry, 2,725. Forts de No- gent, Rosny, and Noisy are beyond the east- ern limit of the plan given with this arti- cle. According to the census of 1872, the city of Paris contained 3,619 streets, places, courts, squares, quays, and other places of pub- lic right of way ; 300 isolated public edifices, besides public buildings included in blocks or groups with other structures; and 63,963 houses, of which 61,622 were inhabited, 1,947 uninhabited, and 394 in process of construc- tion. Of the inhabited houses, 694 were oc- cupied by public establishments, and 60,928 by private citizens. In these houses were 851,513 locations, or arrangements for separate dwell- ings (as these are usually arranged in continen- tal cities, a considerable number in each house), f these, 694,095 were occupied by private citizens. 05,257 were vacant, and 92,161 were occupied by industrial and commercial estab- lishments, &c. The most noteworthy of the thoroughfares are the boulevards (from the German Bollwerk, bulwark or rampart; the great thoroughfares passing round the bor- f many French towns are so designated from their having generally taken the place of old fortifications). The most famous and the oldest of these are the boulevards interieurs, 636 VOL. XIIL 6 on the site of the old walls destroyed about 1670, and extending from the Madeleine to the place de la Bastille. Beginning at the church of the Madeleine, and going east, the succes- sive portions of their extent are called the boulevards de la Madeleine, des Capucines, des Italiens, Montmartre, Poissoniere, Bonne Nou- velle, St. Denis, St. Martin, du Temple, des Filles du Calvaire, and Beaumarchais ; lead- ing from the place de la Bastille to the Seine are the boulevards de 1' Arsenal and de Bour- don. The name boulevards is also applied to the following new and beautiful streets which were among the public works completed under Napoleon III. : boulevard du Prince Eugene, from the chateau d'Eau to the place du Trone ; Malesherbes, from the Madeleine to the place Wagram ; de la Reine Hortense, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Jardin Monceaux ; Hauss- mann, from the avenue de Friedland to the boulevard Montmartre ; Richard Lenoir, from the place de la Bastille to the Douane ; de Stras- bourg, continued by the boulevard de Sebasto- pol, from the Strasburg railway station to the Seine. The boulevards exterieurs form a line of broad and continuous road on the site of the old octroi wall. Distinctive names are also ap- plied to their various portions. The boulevards inter ieurs, and especially those of Montmartre, the Italiens, and the Capucines, are the very centre of the brighter part of the life of Paris. Along them, or near by, in the streets opening from them, such as the rue de la Paix, chaussee d'Antin, boulevards Malesherbes and Hauss- mann, the ruesLamtte, Vivienne, and Richelieu, are shops with the costliest silks, rarest jewels, and finest works of art ; restaurants and cafes wainscoted with mirrors, where the latest news and rumors of the day are reported or invented ; the great banking houses ; the best opera houses and theatres; the most fashion- able or otherwise noted loungers and celebrities of the town. " France is the centre of civil- ized nations, Paris is the centre of France, the boulevard des Italiens is the centre of Paris," says an enthusiastic modern Parisian. Besides the boulevards, there are in Paris a great number of other streets having, like the rue de Rivoli, rue Royale, rue Castiglione, &c., an almost world-wide fame for their beauty or the activity and life prevailing in them ; but what gives to the city its especial attraction is the multitude of beautiful and universally frequented promenades, places, gardens, and squares. The most noteworthy succession of these is the remarkable series which begins with the exterior gardens of the Louvre. From these lofty colonnaded archways give en- trance to the beautiful court of that palace ; beyond is the place Napoleon with its garden, surrounded by the ornate inner facades of the new Louvre, except on one side, that opens on the place du Carrousel. This is an immense palace court, the chief ornament of which is a triumphal arch, designed after the arch of Septimius Severus at Rome, adorned by eight