Though the streets of Paris were narrow and winding, yet both city and faubourgs had many large gardens and enclosures, or _clos_, as they were called, which belonged to the abbeys, convents, palaces, and hotels of the King and nobles. First, there was the famous _Prè aux clercs_, renowned in romance, mentioned several times in this and a former volume, which was so large that De Sauval says: “_Il se va perdu bien loin dans la campagne_,” and which only began to be built upon in 1630. The _clos des Jacobins_ was nine acres, where now are the streets of la Madeleine, St. Thomas, St. Dominique, &c., and it was said that before part of it was cut through to make the moats and fortifications in the reign of Jean, it went up to the walls of the university.[182] The _clos des Cordeliers_ was also enormous, and in fact the great enclosures, gardens, vineyards, meadows, and even preserves for rabbits and other game, were so numerous as to form an important feature in the ancient capital.
For those who care for the history of Paris there still remain in the byeways antique houses, picturesque corners, and old streets, around which cling the historic memories dear to their hearts, but to the great majority to whom it appears as nothing but an endless succession of broad streets and boulevards lined with trees, superb, monotonous, uninteresting houses copied from the Italian, and splendid shops; it would be impossible to picture to themselves mediæval Paris as it existed at the time of which this book treats.
Mr. Harrison, in an interesting essay on the transformation of Paris, says: “The modern streets, to which our tourists confine their walks, form after all only a gigantic screen, behind which much of old Paris still remains untouched.”
Until 1789 Paris remained a mediæval city. It would, of course, be out of the question in a work like this to attempt to give any real account of it, but it is possible to catch just a glimpse of what the aspect and life of the city must then have been by careful researches into the many splendid works in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the British Museum, and other places, which are filled with pictures and descriptions of it.
With its lofty walls, towers, gates, and moats, old Paris looked, as it was, a fortress. Inside it was a dense, tangled network of dark lanes, narrow, crooked streets, huge palaces, mediæval fortresses and conventual enclosures. Here and there came a tower or Gothic portal, churches, bridges, and quays crowded with confused piles of lofty wooden houses, walled gardens with terraces, courts, and colonnades; while those great royal and feudal castles, the _Châtelet_, the _Bastille_, the _Temple_, and the _Louvre_, frowned over the city.