It's interesting messier included things like m7,m6,m70,etc as these must be very low from Paris. My guess being that Scorpius 'sting'must scrape the horizon from Paris at around 49 degrees north.of course there would have been no light pollution then but due to the thickness of the atmosphere it'd still be hard to view objects so low.

 

My guess being that these very low objects where aspied from somewhere further south probably the south of France although travel in messiers day would not have been easy these days Paris Marseille is only about 3 hours by rail.you'd certainly see all of Scorpius from the south of France. Most European capitals are far to the north of their Asian and north American equivalents. My map tells me Europe only has three capitals under the 40th parallel, Lisbon, Valletta and Athens. I suppose you could add Gibraltar city if you count it as a country. Cyprus is geographically regarded as Asia although culturally European.