Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3
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Various
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SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS, VOLUME III
FRANCE AND THE NETHERLANDS
Selected and Edited, with Introductions, etc., by
FRANCIS W. HALSEY
Editor of "Great Epochs in American History"
Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations"
and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc.
IN TEN VOLUMES
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration: Paris: The Seine and Bridges]
Vol. III
Part One
Introduction to Volumes III and IV
France and the Netherlands
The tourist bound for France lands either at Cherbourg, Havre, or
Boulogne. At Cherbourg, he sees waters in which the "Kearsarge" sank the
"Alabama"; at Havre a shelter in which, long before Caesar came to Gaul,
ships, with home ports on the Seine, sought safety from the sea; and at
Boulogne may recall the invading expedition to England, planned by
Napoleon, but which never sailed.
From the Roman occupation, many Roman remains have survived in England,
but these are far inferior in numbers and in state of preservation to the
Roman remains found in France. Marseilles was not only an important Roman
seaport, but its earliest foundations date perhaps from Phoenician times,
and certainly do from the age when Greeks were building temples at Paestum
and Girgenti. Rome got her first foothold in Marseilles as a consequence
of the Punic wars; and in 125 B.C. acquired a province (Provincia Romana)
reaching from the Alps to the Rhone, and southward to the sea, with Aix as
its first capital and Arles its second. Caesar in 58 B.C. found on the
Seine a tribe of men called Parisii, whose chief village, Lutetia, stood
where now rises Notre Dame.
Lutetia afterward became a residence of Roman emperors. Constantius
Chlorus spent some time there, guarding the empire from Germans and
Britons, while Julian the Apostate built there for himself a palace and
extensive baths, of which remains still exist in Paris. In that palace
afterward lived Pepin le Bref ("mayor of the palace"), son of Charles
Martell, and father of the great Charles. Romans built there an
amphitheater seating ten thousand people, of which remains are still
visible.
Lyons was a great Roman city. Augustus first called it into vigorous life,
his wish being to make it "a second Rome." From Lyons a system of roads
ran out to all parts of Gaul. Claudius was born there; Caligula made it
the political and intellectual capital of Provincia; its people, under an
edict of Caracalla, were made citizens of Rome. At Nimes was born the
Emperor Antoninus. In Gaul, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian and Domitian
were made emperors. At Arles and Nimes are Roman amphitheaters still
regularly put to use for combats between men and wild beasts--but the wild
beasts, instead of lions and tigers, are bulls. At Orange is a Roman
theater of colossal proportions, in which a company from the Theatre
Francais annually presents classical dramas. The magnificent fortress city
of Carcassonne has foundation walls that were laid by Romans. Notre Dame
of Paris occupies the site of a temple to Jupiter.
As with modern England, so with modern France; its people are a mixture of
many races. To the southwest, in a remote age, came Iberians from Spain,
to Provence, Ligurians from Italy; to the northeast, Germanic tribes; to
the northwest, Scandinavians; to the central parts, from the Seine to the
Garonne, in the sixth century B.C., Gauls, who soon became the dominant
race, and so have remained until this day, masterful and fundamental. When
Caesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial nobility, leaders of a
warlike people, with chieftains whose names are familiar in the mouths and
ears of all schoolboys--Aricvistus and Vercingetorix. When Vercingetorix
was overthrown at Alesia, Gaul became definitely Roman. For five hundred
years it remained loyal to Rome. Within its borders, was established the
Pax Romana, and in 250 A.D., under St. Denis, Christianity. When the
disintegration of the empire set in five centuries afterward, Gaul was
among the first provinces to suffer. With the coming of the Visigoths and
Huns from the Black Sea, the Pranks and Bnrgundians from beyond the Rhine,
the Roman fall was near, but great battles were first fought in Gaul,
battles which rivaled those of Caesar five centuries before. Greatest of
all these was the one with Attila, at Chalons, in 451, where thousands
perished.
When the Roman dominion ended, Rome's one great province in Gaul became
seventeen small principalities, and power drifted fast into the hands of a
warlike aristocracy. Then a strong man rose in Clovis, who, in 508, made
Lutetia his capital, his successors enriching and adorning it. From these
beginnings, has been evolved, in twelve hundred years, the great modern
state--through Charlemagne and his empire-building, Louis XI. and his work
of consolidating feudal principalities into one strong state, through a
Hundred Years' War, fierce wars of religion, a long line of Bourbon kings,
with their chateaux-building in Touraine and Versailles, the Revolution of
1789, the Napoleonic era, the Republic. An historical land surely is this,
and a beautiful land, with her snow-capped mountains of the southeast, her
broad vineyards, unrivaled cathedrals, her Roman remains, ancient olive
groves, her art, her literature, her people.
Belgium and Holland were included in the territory known to Rome as Gaul.
Here dwelt a people called the Belgii, and another called the Nervii--that
tribal nation whom Caesar "overcame" on a summer's day, and the same
evening, "in his tent," "put on" the mantle that was pierced afterward by
daggers in the Senate House. From these lands came the skilled Batavian
cavalry, which followed Caesar in pursuit of Pompey and forced Pompey's
flight at Pharsalia. From here afterward came other Batavians, who served
as the Imperial Guard of Rome from Caasar's time to Vespasian's. In race,
as in geographical position, the Netherlands have belonged in part to
France, in part to Germany, the interior long remaining Gallic, the
frontier Teutonic. From Caesar's time down to the fifth century, the land
was Roman. Afterward, in several periods, it was in part, or in whole,
included in the domain of France--in Charlemagne's time and after; under
Louis XI., who sought, somewhat unsuccessfully, its complete submission;
under Louis XIV., who virtually conquered it; under the French Revolution,
and during Napoleon's ascendency. On Belgium soil Marlborough fought and
won Ramillies, and Wellington Waterloo.
Belgium and Holland were for long great centers of European commerce--at
Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam--rivals of English ports,
Holland an ancient adversary of England and her valiant enemy in great
wars. A still fiercer struggle came with Spain. Perhaps an even greater
conflict than these two has been her never-ending war with the sea.
Holland has been called a land enclosed in a fortress reared against the
sea. For generations her people have warred with angry waves; but, as
Motley has said, they gained an education for a struggle "with the still
more savage despotism of man." Let me not forget here Holland's great
school of art--comparable only to that of Spain, or even to that of Italy.
F. W. H.
Contents of Volume III
France and the Netherlands--Part One
INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. III AND IV--By the
Editor.
I--Paris
The City Beautiful--By Anne Warwick
Notre-Dame--By Victor Hugo
The Louvre--By Grant Allen
The Madeline and Champs Elysees--By Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb--By Augustus J. C. Hare
The Palais de Justice and Sainte Chapelle--By Grant Allen
The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie--By Augustus J. C. Hare
Pere la Chaise--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Musee de Cluny--By Grant Allen
The Place de la Bastille--By Augustus J. C. Hare
The Pantheon and St. Etienne du Mont--By Grant Allen
St. Roch--By Augustus J. C. Hare
II--The Environs of Paris
Versailles--By William Makepeace Thackeray
Versailles in 1739--By Thomas Gray
Fontainebleau--By Augustus J. C. Hare
St. Denis--By Grant Allen
Marly-Le-Roi--By Augustus J. C. Hare
The Village of Auteuil--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Two Trianons--By Augustus J. C. Hare
Malmaison--By Augustus J. C. Hare
St. Germain--By Leitch Ritchie
St. Cloud--By Augustus J. C. Hare
III--Old Provence
The Papal Palace at Avignon--By Charles Dickens
The Building of the Great Palace--By Thomas Okey
The Walls of Avignon--By Thomas Okey
Villeneuve and the Broken Bridge--By Thomas Okey
Orange--By Henry James
Vaucluse--By Bayard Taylor
The Pont du Guard,--Aigues-Mortes--Nimes--By Henry James
Arles and Les Baux--By Henry James
IV--Cathedrals and Chateaux
Amiens--By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rouen--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin
Chartres--By Epiphanius Wilson
Rheims--By Epiphanius Wilson
(_Cathedrals and Chateaux continued in Vol. IV_)
List of Illustrations
Volume III
Frontispiece
Paris: The Seine and Bridges
Notre Dame, Paris
Portion of the Louvre, Paris
Church of the Madeleine, Paris
Napoleon's Sarcophagus, Paris
The Burial Place of Napoleon, Paris
Column and Place Vendome, Paris
Column of July, Paris
The Pantheon, Paris
The House of the Chamber of Deputies, Paris
The Bourse, Paris
Interior of the Grand Opera House, Paris
Front of the Grand Opera House, Paris
The Arc de Triomphe, Paris
Arch Erected by Napoleon Near the Louvre, Paris
The Church of St. Vincent de Paul, Paris
The Church of St. Sulpice, Paris
The Picture Gallery of Versailles
The Bed-Room of Louis XIV., Versailles
The Grand Trianon at Versailles
The Little Trianon at Versailles
The Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont
Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles
Tours
Saint Denis
Havre
The Bridge at St. Cloud
[Illustration: Notre Dame, Paris]
[Illustration: Church of the Madeleine]
[Illustration: Portion of the Louvre]
[Illustration: Paris: Column and Place Vendome]
[Illustration: Burial Place of Napoleon]
[Illustration: Napoleon's Sarcophagus]
[Illustration: Paris: Column of July in the Place de la Bastille]
[Illustration: Pantheon, Paris]
[Illustration: House of the Chamber of Deputies]
[Illustration: Bourse, Paris]
I
PARIS
The City Beautiful
By Anne Warwick
[Footnote: From "The Meccas of the World." By permission of the publisher,
John Lane. Copyright, 1913.]
The most prejudiced will not deny that Paris is beautiful; or that there
is about her streets and broad, tree-lined avenues a graciousness at once
dignified and gay. Stand, as the ordinary tourist does on his first day,
in the flowering square before the Louvre; in the foreground are the
fountains and bright tulip-bordered paths of the Tuileries--here a glint
of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, shining through the trees;
in the center the round lake where the children sail their boats. Beyond
spreads the wide sweep of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk of
terrible significance, its larger fountains throwing brilliant jets of
spray; and then the trailing, upward vista of the Champs Elysees to the
great triumphal arch; yes, even to the most indifferent, Paris is
beautiful.
To the subtler of appreciation, she is more than beautiful; she is
impressive. For behind the studied elegance of architecture, the elaborate
simplicity of garden, the carefully lavish use of sculpture and delicate
spray, is visible the imagination of a race of passionate creators--the
imagination, throughout, of the great artist. One meets it at every turn
and corner, down dim passageways, up steep hills, across bridges, along
sinuous quays; the masterhand and its "infinite capacity for taking
pains." And so marvelously do its manifestations of many periods through
many ages combine to enhance one another that one is convinced that the
genius of Paris has been perennial; that St. Genevieve, her godmother,
bestowed it as an immortal gift when the city was born.
From earliest days every man seems to have caught the spirit of the man
who came before, and to have perpetuated it; by adding his own distinctive
yet always harmonious contribution to the gradual development of the
whole. One built a stately avenue; another erected a church at the end; a
third added a garden on the other side of the church, and terraces leading
up to it; a fourth and fifth cut streets that should give from the
remaining two sides into other flowery squares with their fine edifices.
And so from every viewpoint, and from every part of the entire city,
to-day we have an unbroken series of vistas--each one different and more
charming than the last.
History has lent its hand to the process, too; and romance--it is not an
insipid chain of flowerbeds we have to follow, but the holy warriors of
Saint Louis, the roistering braves of Henry the Great, the gallant
Bourbons, the ill-starred Bonapartes. These as they passed have left their
monuments; it may be only in a crumbling old chapel or ruined tower, but
there they are, eloquent of days that are dead, of a spirit that lives
forever staunch in the heart of the fervent French people.
It comes over one overwhelmingly sometimes, in the midst of the careless
gaiety of the modern city, the old, ever-burning spirit of rebellion and
savage strife that underlies it all, and that can spring to the surface
now on certain memorable days, with a vehemence that is terrifying. Look
across the Pont Alexandre, at the serene gold dome of the Invalides,
surrounded by its sleepy barracks. Suddenly you are in the fires and awful
slaughter of Napoleon's wars. The flower of France is being pitilessly cut
down for the lust of one man's ambition; and when that is spent, and the
wail of the widowed country pierces heaven with its desolation, a costly
asylum is built for the handful of soldiers who are left--and the great
Emperor has done his duty!
Or you are walking through the Cite, past the court of the Palais de
Justice. You glance in, carelessly--memory rushes upon you--and the court
flows with blood, "so that men waded through it, up to the knees!" In the
tiny stone-walled room yonder, Marie Antoinette sits disdainfully composed
before her keepers; tho her face is white with the sounds she hears, as
her friends and followers are led out to swell that hideous river of
blood.
A pretty, artificial city, Paris; good for shopping, and naughty
amusements, now and then. History? Oh yes, of course; but all that's so
dry and uninspiring, and besides it happened so long ago.
Did it? In your stroll along the Rue Royale, among the jewellers' and
milliners' shops and Maxim's, glance up at the Madeleine, down at the
obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. Little over a hundred years ago, this
was the brief distance between life and death for those who one minute
were dancing in the "Temple of Victory," the next were laying their heads
upon the block of the guillotine.
Notre-Dame
By Victor Hugo
[Footnote: From Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris." Translated by A.L. Alger. By
permission of Dana, Estes & Co. Copyright, 1888.]
The church of Notre-Dame at Paris is doubtless still a sublime and
majestic building. But, much beauty as it may retain in its old age, it is
not easy to repress a sigh, to restrain our anger, when we mark the
countless defacements and mutilations to which men and time have subjected
that venerable monument, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its
first stone, or Philip Augustus, who laid its last....
Upon the face of this aged queen of French cathedrals, beside every
wrinkle we find a scar. "Tempus edax, homo edacior;" which I would fain
translate thus: "Time is blind, but man is stupid." Had we leisure to
study with the reader, one by one, the various marks of destruction graven
upon the ancient church, the work of Time would be the lesser, the worse
that of Men, especially of "men of art," since there are persons who have
styled themselves architects during the last two centuries.
And first of all, to cite but a few glaring instances, there are assuredly
few finer pages in the history of architecture than that facade where the
three receding portals with their pointed arches, the carved and
denticulated plinth with its twenty-eight royal niches, the huge central
rose-window flanked by its two lateral windows as is the priest by his
deacon and subdeacon, the lofty airy gallery of trifoliated arcades
supporting a heavy platform upon its slender columns, and lastly the two
dark and massive towers with their pent-house roofs of slate, harmonious
parts of a magnificent whole, one above the other, five gigantic stages,
unfold themselves to the eye, clearly and as a whole, with their countless
details of sculpture, statuary, and carving, powerfully contributing to
the calm grandeur of the whole; as it were, a vast symphony in stone; the
colossal work of one man and one nation, one and yet complex, like the
Iliad and the old Romance epics, to which it is akin; the tremendous sum
of the joint contributions of all the force of an entire epoch, in which
every stone reveals, in a hundred forms, the fancy of the workman
disciplined by the genius of the artist--a sort of human creation, in
brief, powerful and prolific as the Divine creation, whose double
characteristics, variety and eternity, it seems to have acquired.
And what we say of the facades, we must also say of the whole church; and
what we say of the cathedral church of Paris must be said of all the
Christian churches of the Middle Ages. Everything is harmonious which
springs from spontaneous, logical, and well-proportioned art. To measure a
toe, is to measure the giant.
Let us return to the facade of Notre-Dame as we see it at the present day,
when we make a pious pilgrimage to admire the solemn and mighty cathedral,
which, as its chroniclers declare, inspires terror. This facade now lacks
three important things: first, the eleven steps which formerly raised it
above the level of the ground; next, the lower series of statues which
filled the niches over the doors; and lastly, the upper row of the twenty-
eight most ancient kings of France, which adorned the gallery of the first
story, from Childebert down to Philip Augustus, each holding in his hand
"the imperial globe."
The stairs were destroyed by Time, which, with slow and irresistible
progress, raised the level of the city's soil; but while this flood-tide
of the pavements of Paris swallowed one by one the eleven steps which
added to the majestic height of the edifice, Time has perhaps given to the
church more than it took away, for it is Time which has painted the front
with that sober hue of centuries which makes the antiquity of churches
their greatest beauty.
But who pulled down the two rows of statues? Who left those empty niches?
Who carved that new and bastard pointed arch in the very center of the
middle door? Who dared to insert that clumsy, tasteless, wooden door,
carved in the style of Louis XV., side by side with the arabesques of
Biscornette? Who but men, architects, the artists of our day?
And if we step into the interior of the edifice, who overthrew that
colossal figure of Saint Christopher, proverbial among statues by the same
right as the great hall of the palace among halls, as the spire of
Strasburg among steeples? And those myriad statues which peopled every
space between the columns of the choir and the nave, kneeling, standing,
on horseback, men, women, children, kings, bishops, men-at-arms--of stone,
of marble, of gold, of silver, of copper, nay even of wax--who brutally
swept them away? It was not the hand of Time.
And who replaced the old Gothic altar, with its splendid burden of shrines
and reliquaries, by that heavy marble sarcophagus adorned with clouds and
cherubs, looking like a poor copy of the Val-de-Grace or the Hotel des
Invalides? Who was stupid enough to fasten that clumsy stone anachronism
into the Carlovingian pavement of Hercandus? Was it not Louis XIV.,
fulfilling the vow of Louis XIII.?
And who set cold white panes in place of that stained glass of gorgeous
hue, which led the wondering gaze of our fathers to roam uncertain 'twixt
the rose-window of the great door and the ogives of the chancel? And what
would a precentor of the sixteenth century say if he could see the fine
coat of yellow wash with which our Vandal archbishops have smeared their
cathedral? He would remember that this was the color with which the
executioner formerly painted those buildings judged "infamous;" he would
recall the hotel of the Petit-Bourbon, bedaubed with yellow in memory of
the Constable's treason; "a yellow of so fine a temper," says Sauval, "and
so well laid on, that more than a hundred years have failed to wash out
its color." He would fancy that the sacred spot had become accursed, and
would turn and flee.
And if we climb higher in the cathedral, without pausing to note a
thousand barbarous acts of every kind, what has become of that delightful
little steeple which rested upon the point of intersection of the
transept, and which, no less fragile and no less daring than its neighbor,
the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, (also destroyed), rose yet nearer heaven
than the towers, slender, sharp, sonorous, and daintily wrought?
An architect of good taste (1787) amputated it, and thought it quite
enough to cover the wound with that large leaden plaster which looks like
the lid of a stewpan. Thus was the marvelous art of the Middle Ages
treated in almost every land, but particularly in France. We find three
sorts of injury upon its ruins, these three marring it to different
depths; first, Time, which has made insensible breaches here and there,
mildewed and rusted the surface everywhere; then, political and religious
revolutions, which, blind and fierce by nature, fell furiously upon it,
rent its rich array of sculpture and carving, shivered its rose-windows,
shattered its necklaces of arabesques and quaint figures, tore down its
statues--sometimes because of their crown; lastly, changing fashion, even
more grotesque and absurd, from the anarchic and splendid deviations of
the Renaissance down to the necessary decline of architecture.
Fashion did more than revolutions. Fashion cut into the living flesh,
attacked the very skeleton and framework of art; it chopped and hewed,
dismembered, slew the edifice, in its form as well as in its symbolism, in
its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing which
neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the plea of
"good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic architecture the
paltry gewgaws of a day,--marble ribbons, metallic plumes, a veritable
leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, wreaths, draperies, spirals,
fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, lusty cupids, and bloated cherubs,
which began to ravage the face of art in the oratory of Catherine de
Medici, and destroyed it, two centuries later, tortured and distorted, in
the Dubarry's boudoir.
There are thus, to sum up the points to which we have alluded, three sorts
of scars now disfiguring Gothic architecture; wrinkles and warts upon the
epidermis--these are the work of time; wounds, brutal injuries, bruises,
and fractures--these are the work of revolution, from Luther to Mirabeau;
mutilations, amputations, dislocations of the frame, "restorations,"--
these are the Greek, Roman barbaric work of professors according to
Vitruvius and Vignole. Academies have murdered the magnificent art which
the Vandals produced. To centuries, to revolutions which at least laid
waste with impartiality and grandeur, are conjoined the host of scholastic
architects, licensed and sworn, degrading all they touch with the
discernment and selection of bad taste, substituting the tinsel of Louis
XV. for Gothic lace-work, for the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is
the donkey's kick at the dying lion. It is the old oak, decaying at the
crown, pierced, bitten and devoured by caterpillars.
How different from the time when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre Dame at
Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus; "so loudly boasted by the
ancient pagans," which immortalized Herostratus, held the cathedral of the
Gauls to be "more excellent in length, breadth, height, and structure!"
Notre Dame at Paris is not, however, what can be called a complete,
definite monument, belonging to a class. It is neither a Roman nor a
Gothic church. The edifice is not a typical one. It has not, like the
abbey at Tournus, the sober massive breadth, the round expansive arch, the
icy bareness, the majestic simplicity of those buildings based on the
semicircular arch. It is not, like the cathedral at Bourges, the
magnificent, airy, multiform, bushy, sturdy, efflorescent product of the
pointed arch.
It is impossible to class it with that antique order of dark, mysterious,
low-studded churches, apparently crusht by the semicircular arch--almost
Egyptian, save for the ceiling; all hieroglyphic, all sacerdotal, all
symbolic, more loaded in their ornamentation with lozenges and zigzags
than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, with animals than with
men; less the work of the architect than of the bishop; the first
transformation of the art, bearing the deep impress of theocratic and
military discipline, taking root in the Lower Empire, and ceasing with
William the Conqueror. It is impossible to place our cathedral in that
other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and
sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the
commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious,
lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no
longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive,
and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with
Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former,
nor of purely Arab breed like the latter.
It is a building of the transition period. The Saxon architect had just
reared the pillars of the nave, when the pointed arch, brought back from
the Crusades, planted itself as conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals
which were never meant to support anything but semicircular arches. The
pointed arch, thenceforth supreme, built the rest of the church. And
still, inexperienced and shy at first, it swelled, it widened, it
restrained itself, and dared not yet shoot up into spires and lancets, as
it did later on in so many marvelous cathedrals. It seemed sensible of the
close vicinity of the heavy Roman columns.
Moreover, these buildings of the transition from Roman to Gothic are no
less valuable studies than the pure types. They express a gradation of the
art which would otherwise be lost. They represent the ingrafting of the
pointed arch upon the semicircular.
Notre Dame at Paris, in particular, is a curious example of this variety.
Every face, every stone of the venerable monument is a page not only of
the history of the country, but also of the history of science and art.
Thus, to allude only to leading details, while the little Porte Rouge
attains the almost extreme limit of the Gothic refinement of the fifteenth
century, the pillars of the nave, in their size and gravity of style, go
back to the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres. One would say
that there was an interval of six centuries between that door and those
pillars. Even the Hermetics find among the symbols of the great door a
satisfactory epitome of their science, of which the Church of St. Jacques
de la Boucherie formed so complete a hieroglyph.
Thus, the Roman abbey, the philosopher's church, Gothic art, Saxon art,
the clumsy round pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic
symbolism by which Nicholas Flamel paved the way for Luther, papal unity,
schism, Saint-Germain des Pres, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, are all
confounded, combined and blended in Notre Dame. This central and
generative church is a kind of chimera among the old churches of Paris; it
has the head of one, the limbs of another, the trunk of a third, something
of all.
Considering here Christian European architecture only, that younger sister
of the grand piles of the Orient, we may say that it strikes the eye as a
vast formation divided into three very distinct zones or layers, one
resting upon the other; the Roman zone, (the same which is also known
according to place, climate, and species, as Lombard, Saxon, and
Byzantine. There are the four sister forms of architecture, each having
its peculiar character, but all springing from the same principle, the
semicircular arch,) the Gothic zone, the zone of the Renaissance, which
may be called the Greco-Roman. The Roman stratum, which is the oldest and
the lowest, is occupied by the semicircular arch, which reappears,
together with the Greek column, in the modern and uppermost stratum of the
Renaissance. The painted arch is between the two. The buildings belonging
to any one of these three strata are perfectly distinct, uniform, and
complete. Such are the Abbey of Jumieges, the Cathedral of Rheims, the
Church of the Holy Cross at Orleans. But the three zones are blended and
mingled at the edges, like the colors in the solar spectrum.
Hence, we have certain complex structures, buildings of gradation and
transition, which may be Roman at the base, Gothic in the middle, and
Greco-Roman at the top. This is caused by the fact that it took six
hundred years to build such a fabric. This variety is rare. The donjon-
keep at Etampes is a specimen. But monuments of two formations are more
frequent. Such is Notre-Dame at Paris, a structure of the pointed arch,
its earliest columns leading directly to that Roman zone, of which the
portals of Saint-Denis and the nave of Saint-Germain des Pres are perfect
specimens. Such is the charming semi-Gothic chapter-house of Boucherville,
where the Roman layer reaches midway. Such is the cathedral of Rouen,
which would be wholly Gothic if the tip of its central spire did not dip
into the zone of the Renaissance. [Footnote: This part of the spire, which
was of timber, happens to be the very part which was burned by lightning
in 1823.]
However, all these gradations and differences affect the surface only of
an edifice. Art has but changed its skin. The construction itself of the
Christian church is not affected by them. The interior arrangement, the
logical order of the parts, is still the same. Whatever may be the carved
and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find beneath it, if
only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman basilica. It rises
forever from the ground in harmony with the same law.
There are invariably two naves intersecting each other in the form of a
cross, the upper end being rounded into a chancel or choir; there are
always side aisles, for the processions and for chapels, a sort of lateral
galleries or walks, into which the principal nave opens by means of the
spaces between the columns. This settled, the number of chapels, doors,
steeples, and spires may be modified indefinitely, according to the fancy
of the century, the people, and the art. The performance of divine service
once provided for and assured, architecture acts its own pleasure.
Statues, stained glass, rose-windows, arabesques, denticulations,
capitals, and bas-reliefs,--it combines all these flowers of the fancy
according to the logarithm that suits it best. Hence the immense variety
in the exteriors of those structures within which dwell such unity and
order. The trunk of the tree is fixt; the foliage is variable.
The Louvre
By Grant Allen
[Footnote: From "Paris."]
The Louvre is the noblest monument of the French Renaissance. From the
time of St. Louis onward, the French kings began to live more and more in
the northern suburb, the town of the merchants, which now assumed the name
of La Ville, in contradistinction to the Cite and the Universite. Two of
their chief residences here were the Bastille and the Hotel St. Paul, both
now demolished--one, on the Place so called; the other, between the Rue
St. Antoine and the Quai des Celestins. But from a very early period they
also possest a chateau on the site of the Louvre, and known by the same
name, which guarded the point where the wall of Philippe Auguste abutted
on the river. Francois I. decided to pull down this picturesque turreted
medieval castle, erected by Philippe Auguste and altered by Charles V. He
began the construction in its place of a magnificent Renaissance palace,
which has ever since been in course of erection.
Its subsequent growth, however, is best explained opposite the building
itself, where attention can be duly called to the succession of its
salient features. But a visit to the exterior fabric of the Louvre should
be preceded by one to St. Germain l'Auxerrois, the parish church, and
practically the chapel, of the old Louvre, to which it stood in somewhat
the same relation as the Ste. Chapelle to the home of St. Louis. Note,
however, that the church was situated just within the ancient wall, while
the chateau lay outside it. The visitor will doubtless be tolerably
familiar by this time with some parts at least of the exterior of the
Louvre; but he will do well to visit it now systematically, in the order
here suggested, so as to gain a clear general idea of its history and
meaning....
Begin by understanding distinctly that this court is the real and original
Louvre; the rest is mere excresence, intended to unite the main building
with the Tuileries, which lay some hundreds of yards to the west of it.
Notice, first, that the Palace as a whole, seen from the point where you
now stand, is constructed on the old principle of relatively blank
external walls, like a castle, with an interior courtyard, on which all
the apartments open, and almost all the decoration is lavished.
Reminiscences of defense lurk about the Louvre. It can best be understood
by comparison with such ornate, yet fortress-like, Italian palaces as the
Strozzi at Florence. Notice the four opposite portals, facing the cardinal
points, which can be readily shut by means of great doors; while the
actual doorways of the various suites of apartments open only into the
protected courtyard. This is the origin of the familiar French porte-
cochere.
Again, the portion of the building that directly faces you as you enter
the court from St. Germain is the oldest part, and represents the early
Renaissance spirit. It is the most primitive Louvre. Note in particular
the central elevated portion, known as a Pavilion, and graced with elegant
Caryatides. These Pavilions are lingering reminiscences of the medieval
towers. You will find them in the corners and centers of other blocks in
the Louvre. They form a peculiarly French Renaissance characteristic. The
Palace is here growing out of the Castle. The other three sides of the
square are, on the whole, more classical and later.
Now across the square directly to the Pavilion de l'Horloge, as it is
called, from the clock which adorns it. To your left, on the floor of the
court, are two circular white lines, enclosed in a square. These mark the
site of the original Chateau of the Louvre, with its keep, or donjon.
Francois I., who began the existing building, originally intended that his
palace should cover the same area. It was he who erected the left wing,
which now faces you, marked by the crown and H on its central round gable,
placed there by his successor, Henry II., under whom it was completed. To
the same king are also due the monograms of H and D (for Diane de
Poitiers, his mistress), between the columns of the ground floor. The
whole of the Pavilion de l'Horloge, and of this west wing, should be
carefully examined in detail as the finest remaining specimen of highly
decorated French Renaissance architecture. (But the upper story of the
Pavilion, with the Caryatides, is an age later.) Observe even the
decoration lavished on the beautiful chimneys. Pierre Lescot was the
architect of this earliest wing; the exquisite sculpture is by Jean
Goujon, a Frenchman, and the Italian, Paolo Ponzio. Examine much of it.
The crossed K's of certain panels stand for Catherine de Medici.
The right wing, beyond the Pavilion, was added, in the same style, under
Louis XIII., who decided to double the plan of his predecessors, and form
the existing Cour du Louvre.
The other three sides, in a more classic style, with pediments replacing
the Pavilions, and square porticos instead of rounded gables, are for the
most part later. The south side, however, as far as the central door, is
also by Pierre Lescot. It forms one of the two fronts of the original
square first contemplated. The attic story of these three sides was added
under Louis XIV., to whom, in the main, is due this Cour du Louvre. A
considerable part of Louis XIV.'s decorations bear reference to his
representation as "le roi soleil."
Now, pass through the Pavilion de l'Horloge (called on its west side
Pavilion Sully) into the second of the three courts of the Louvre. To
understand this portion of the building, again, you must remember that
shortly after the erection of the Old Louvre, Catherine de Medici began to
build her palace of the Tuileries, now destroyed, to the west of it. She
(and subsequent rulers) designed to unite the Old Louvre with the
Tuileries by a gallery which should run along the bank of the river. Of
that gallery, Catherine de Medici herself erected a considerable portion,
to be described later, and Henri IV., almost completed it. Later on,
Napoleon I. conceived the idea of extending a similar gallery along his
new Rue de Rivoli, on the north side, so as to enclose the whole space
between the Louvre and the Tuileries in one gigantic double courtyard.
Napoleon III. carried out his idea. The second court in which you now
stand is entirely flanked by buildings of this epoch--the Second Empire.
Examine it cursorily as far as the modern statue of Gambetta.
Stand or take a seat by the railing of the garden opposite the Pavilion
Sully. The part that now faces you forms a portion of the building of
Francois I, and Louis XIII., redecorated in part by Napoleon I. The
portions to your right and left are entirely of the age of Napoleon III.,
built so as to conceal the want of parallelism of the outer portions.
Observe their characteristic Pavilions, each bearing its own name
inscribed upon it. This recent square, tho quite modern in the character
of its sculpture and decoration, is Renaissance in its general
architecture, and, when looked back upon from the gardens of the
Tuileries, affords a most excellent idea of that stately style, as
developed in France under Francois I. The whole of this splendid plan,
however, has been rendered futile by the destruction of the Tuileries,
without which the enclosure becomes wholly meaningless.
Now, continue westward, pass the Monument of Gambetta, and take a seat on
the steps at the base, near the fine figure of Truth. In front of you
opens the third square of the Louvre, known as the Place du Carrousel, and
formerly enclosed on its west side by the Palace of the Tuileries, which
was unfortunately burned down in 1871, during the conflict between the
Municipal and National authorities. Its place is now occupied by a garden
terrace, the view from which in all directions is magnificent. Fronting
you, as you sit, is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, erected under
Napoleon I., by Percier and Fontaine, in imitation of the Arch of
Septimius Severus at Rome, and once crowned by the famous bronze Roman
horses from St. Mark's at Venice. The arch, designed as an approach to the
Tuileries during the period of the classical mania, is too small for its
present surroundings, since the removal of the Palace. The north wing,
visible to your right, is purely modern, of the age of the First and
Second Empire and the Third Republic. The meretricious character of the
reliefs in its extreme west portion, erected under the Emperor Napoleon
III., and restored after the Commune, is redolent of the spirit of that
gaudy period. The south wing, to your left, forms part of the connecting
gallery erected by Henri IV., but its architecture is largely obscured by
considerable alterations under Napoleon III. Its west pavilion-known as
the Pavilion de Flore--is well worth notice.
Having thus gained a first idea of the courtyard fronts of the building,
continue your walk, still westward, along the south wing as far as the
Pavilion de Flore, a remaining portion of the corner edifice which ran
into one line with the Palace of the Tuileries. Turn round the corner of
the Pavilion to examine the south or river front of the connecting
gallery--one of the finest parts of the whole building, but far less known
to ordinary visitors than the cold and uninteresting northern line along
the Rue de Rivoli. The first portion, as far as the gateways, belongs
originally to the age of Henry IV., but it was entirely reconstructed
under Napoleon III., whose obtrusive N appears in many places on the
gateways and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, it still preserves, on the whole, some reminiscence of its
graceful Renaissance architecture. Beyond the main gateway (with modern
bronze Charioteer of the Sun), flanked by the Pavilions de la Tremoille
and de Lesdiguieres, we come upon the long Southern Gallery erected by
Catherine de Medici, which still preserves almost intact its splendid
early French Renaissance decoration. This is one of the noblest portions
of the entire building. The N here gives place to H's, and the Renaissance
scroll-work and reliefs almost equal those in that portion of the old
Louvre which was erected under Francois I. Sit on a seat on the Quay and
examine the sculpture.
Notice particularly the splendid Porte Jean Goujon, conspicuous from afar
by its gilded balcony. Its crowned H's and coats-of-arms are specially
interesting examples of the decorative work of the period. Note also the
skill with which this almost flat range is relieved by sculpture and
decoration so as to make us oblivious of the want of that variety usually
given by jutting portions. The end of this long gallery is formed by two
handsome windows with balconies. We there come to the connecting Galerie
d'Apollon, of which these windows are the termination, and finally reach
once more a portion of Perrault's facade, with its double LL's, erected
under Louis XIV., and closely resembling the interior facade of the Cour
du Louvre....
The Collections in the Louvre have no such necessary organic connection
with Paris itself as Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, or even those in
the rooms at Cluny. They may, therefore, be examined by the visitor at any
period of his visit that he chooses. I would advise him, however, whenever
he takes them up, to begin with the paintings and then to go on to the
Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. The last-named, at least, he should
only examine in connection with the rest of Renaissance Paris. Also, while
it is unimportant whether he takes first Painting or Sculpture, it is very
doubtful that he should take each separately in the chronological order.
At least six days--far more, if possible--should be devoted to the Louvre
Collections--by far the most important objects to be seen in Paris. Of
these, four should be assigned to the Paintings, and one each to the
Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. If this is impossible, do not try to
see all; see a little thoroughly. Confine yourself, for Painting, to the
Salon Carre and Gallery VII., and for Sculpture to the Classical Gallery
and to the three Western rooms of the Renaissance collection.
The Madeleine and Champs Elysees
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
[Footnote From "French and Italian Note-Books." By special arrangement
with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton,
Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1899.]
Approaching the Madeleine, we found it a most beautiful church, that might
have been adapted from Heathenism to Catholicism; for on each side there
is a range of magnificent pillars, unequalled, except by those of the
Parthenon. A mourning coach, arrayed in black and silver, was drawn up at
the steps, and the front of the church was hung with black cloth, which
covered the whole entrance. However, seeing the people going in, we
entered along with them. Glorious and gorgeous is the Madeleine. The
entrance to the nave is beneath a most stately arch; and three arches of
equal height open from the nave to the side aisles; and at the end of the
nave is another great arch, rising, with a vaulted half-dome, over the
high altar. The pillars supporting these arches are Corinthian, with
richly sculptured capitals; and wherever gilding might adorn the church,
it is lavished like sunshine; and within the sweeps of the arches there
are fresco paintings of sacred subjects, and a beautiful picture covers
the hollow of the vault over the altar; all this, besides much sculpture;
and especially a group above and around the high altar, representing the
Magdalen smiling down upon angels and archangels, some of whom are
kneeling, and shadowing themselves with their heavy marble wings.
There is no such thing as making my page glow with the most distant idea
of the magnificence of this church, in its details and in its whole. It
was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then Bonaparte
contemplated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or building it anew
as one. The restored Bourbon remade it into a church; but it still has a
heathenish look, and will never lose it.
When we entered we saw a crowd of people, all pressing forward toward the
high altar, before which burned a hundred wax lights, some of which were
six or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy of
stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of
wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered
with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus,
or something still more huge.
The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with
heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young
voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church,
between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with
broad expanses of black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred
vestments covered with black. They looked exceedingly well; I never saw
anything half so well got up on the stage. Some of these ecclesiastical
figures were very stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore aloft
the cross, and swung the censers in a way that I liked to see.
The ceremonies of the Catholic Church were a superb work of art, or
perhaps a true growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men felt
their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. Being
of another parish, I looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad
to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was
over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part
usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a
gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the
air of a military man....
When we left the Madeleine we took our way to the Place de la Concorde,
and thence through the Elysian Fields (which, I suppose, are the French
idea of heaven) to Bonaparte's triumphal arch. The Champs Elysees may look
pretty in summer; tho I suspect they must be somewhat dry and artificial
at whatever season.--the trees being slender and scraggy, and requiring to
be renewed every few years. The soil is not genial to them. The strangest
peculiarity of this place, however, to eyes fresh from moist and verdant
England, is, that there is not one blade of grass in all the Elysian
Fields, nothing but hard clay, now covered with white dust. It gives the
whole scene the air of being a contrivance of man, in which Nature has
either not been invited to take any part, or has declined to do so.
There were merry-go-rounds, wooden horses, and other provision for
children's amusements among the trees; and booths, and tables of cakes,
and candy-women; and restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very few
people there; and doubtless we can form no idea of what the scene might
become when alive with French gayety and vivacity.
As we walked onward the Triumphal Arch began to loom up in the distance,
looking huge and massive, tho still a long way off. It was not, however,
till we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the grandeur of this
great arch, including so large a space of the blue sky in its airy sweep.
At a distance, it impresses the spectator with its solidity; nearer, with
the lofty vacancy beneath it. There is a spiral staircase within one of
its immense limbs; and, climbing steadily upward, lighted by a lantern
which the door-keeper's wife gave us, we had a bird's eye view of Paris,
much obscured by smoke or mist. Several interminable avenues shoot with
painful directness right toward it.
On our way homeward we visited the Place Vendome, in the center of which
is a tall column, sculptured from top to bottom, all over the pedestal,
and all over the shaft, and with Napoleon himself on the summit. The shaft
is wreathed round and round about with representations of what, as far as
I could distinguish, seemed to be the Emperor's victories. It has a very
rich effect. At the foot of the column we saw wreaths of artificial
flowers, suspended there, no doubt, by some admirer of Napoleon, still
ardent enough to expend a franc or two in this way.
The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David
McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
We emerge from the Rue de Grenelle opposite the gardens to the north of
the magnificent Hotel des Invalides, planned by Henri IV., and begun by
Louis XIV. in 1671, as a refuge for old soldiers, who, before it was
built, had to beg their bread on the streets.
The institution is under the management of the Minister of War, and
nothing can be more comfortable than the life of its inmates. The number
of these is now small; in the time of Napoleon I., when the institution
was called the "Temple of Mars," it was enormous.
On the terrace in front of the building are a number of cannon, trophies
taken in different campaigns. Standing before the hotel is the statue of
Prince Eugene. On either side of the entrance are statues of Mars and
Minerva by Coustou the younger. In the tympanum of the semicircle over the
center of the facade is Louis XIV. on horseback. Behind the facade is a
vast courtyard surrounded by open corridors lined with frescoes of the
history of France; those of the early history on the left by Benedict
Masson, 1865, have much interest. In the center of the facade opposite the
entrance is the statue of Napoleon I. Beneath this is the approach to the
Church of St. Louis, built 1671-79, from designs of Liberal Bruant, and in
which many banners of victory give an effect of color to an otherwise
colorless building....
The Tomb of Napoleon, under the magnificent dome of the Invalides, which
was added to the original church by Jules Hardouin Mansart, and is treated
as a separate building, is entered from the Place Vauban at the back, or
by the left cloister and a court beyond.
On entering the vast interior, a huge circular space is seen to open,
beneath the cupola painted by Charles de Lafosse and Jouvenet, and, in it,
surrounded by caryatides and groups of moldering banners, the huge tomb of
Finland granite, given by the Emperor Nicholas. Hither the remains of the
great Emperor were brought back from St. Helena by the Prince de
Joinville, in 1841, tho Louis Philippe, while adopting this popular
measure as regarded the dead, renewed the sentence of exile against the
living members of the Bonaparte family.
Four smaller cupolas encircle the great dome. In the first, on the right,
is the tomb of Joseph Bonaparte. On the left are the tombs of Jerome
Bonaparte, with a statue, and of his eldest son and the Princess Catherine
of Wurtemberg. The other two cupolas are still empty.
Descending the steps behind the splendid baldacchino, we find black-marble
tombs of Marshals Duroc and Bertrand guarding the approach to that of
Napoleon I. His own words, taken from his will, appear in large letters
over the entrance: "I desire my ashes to lie on the shores of the Seine
among the people of France whom I loved so deeply."
The sentiment, the tomb, and the dome have a unique splendor. A white-
marble statue of Napoleon I. by Stuart is in a black-marble chapel. His
Austerlitz sword, the crown voted by Cherbourg, and colors taken in his
different battles, were formerly shown in a "chapelle ardente."
The Palais de Justice and the Sainte Chapelle
By Grant Allen
[Footnote: From "Paris."]
Go along the Rue de Rivoli as far as the Square of the Tour St. Jacques.
If driving, alight here. Turn down the Place du Chatelet to your right. In
front is the pretty modern fountain of the Chatelet; right, the Theatre du
Chatelet; left, the Opera Comique. The bridge which faces you is the Pont-
au-Change, so-called from the money-changers' and jewelers' booths which
once flanked its wooden predecessor (the oldest in Paris), as they still
do the Rialto at Venice, and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence.
Stand by the right-hand corner of the bridge before crossing it. In front
is the Ile de la Cite. The square, dome-crowned building opposite you to
the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward lie the
Marche-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hotel-Dieu, above which rise
the towers and spire of Notre Dame. In front, to the right, the vast block
of buildings broken by towers forms part of the Palais de Justice, the
ancient Palace of the French kings, begun by Hugh Capet. The square tower
to the left in this block is the Tour de l'Horloge. Next, to the right,
come the two round towers of the Conciergerie, known respectively as the
Tour de Cesar and the Tour de Montgomery. The one beyond them, with
battlements, is the Tour d'Argent. It was in the Conciergerie that Marie
Antoinette, Robespierre, and many other victims of the Revolution were
imprisoned.
These medieval towers, much altered and modernized, are now almost all
that remains of the old Palace, which, till after the reign of Louis IX.
(St. Louis), formed the residence of the Kings of France. Charles VII.
gave it in 1431 to the Parlement or Supreme Court. Ruined by fires and
re-building, it now consists for the most part of masses of irregular
recent edifices. The main modern facade fronts the Boulevard du Palais.
Cross the bridge. The Tour de l'Horloge on your right, at the corner of
the Boulevard du Palais, contains the oldest public clock in France
(1370). The figures of Justice and Pity by its side were originally
designed by Germain Pilon, but are now replaced by copies. Walk round the
Palais by the quay along the north branch of the Seine till you come to
the Rue de Harlay. Turn there to your left, toward the handsome and
imposing modern facade of this side of the Palais de Justice. The interior
is unworthy a visit. The Rue de Harlay forms the westernmost end of the
original Ile de la Cite. The prow-shaped extremity of the modern island
has been artificially produced by embanking the sites of two or three
minor islets. The Palace Dauphine, which occupies the greater part of this
modern extension, was built in 1608; it still affords a characteristic
example of the domestic Paris of the period before Baron Haussmann.
Continue along the quay as far as the Pont-Neuf, so as to gain an idea of
the extent of the Ile de la Cite in this direction. The center of the
Pont-Neuf is occupied by an equestrian statue of Henri IV., first of the
Bourbon kings. Its predecessor was erected in 1635, and was destroyed to
make cannon during the great Revolution. Louis XVIII. re-erected it. From
this point you can gain a clear idea of the two branches of the Seine as
they unite at the lower end of the Ile de la Cite. To your right, looking
westward, you also obtain a fine view of the Colonnade of the Old Louvre,
with the southwestern gallery, and the more modern buildings of the Museum
behind it.
Now, walk along the southern quay of the island, round the remainder of
the Palais de Justice, as far as the Boulevard du Palais. There turn to
your left, and go in at the first door of the Palace on the left
(undeterred by sentries) into the court of the Sainte Chapelle, the only
important relic now remaining of the home of Saint Louis. You may safely
neglect the remainder of the building.
The thirteenth century was a period of profound religious enthusiasm
throughout Europe. Conspicuous among its devout soldiers was Louis IX.,
afterward canonized as St. Louis. The saintly king purchased from Baldwin,
Emperor of Constantinople, the veritable Crown of Thorns, and a fragment
of the True Cross--paying for these relics an immense sum of money. Having
become possest of such invaluable and sacred objects, Louis desired to
have them housed with suitable magnificence. He therefore entrusted Pierre
de Montereau with the task of building a splendid chapel (within the
precincts of his palace), begun in 1245, and finished three years later,
immediately after which the king set out on his Crusade. The monument
breathes throughout the ecstatic piety of the mystic king; it was
consecrated in 1248, in the name of the Holy Crown and the Holy Cross, by
Eudes de Chateauroux, Bishop of Tusculum and papal legate.
Three things should be noted about the Sainte Chapelle. (1) It is a
chapel, not a church; therefore it consists (practically) of a choir
alone, without nave or transepts. (2) It is the domestic Chapel of the
Royal Palace. (3) It is, above all things, the Shrine of the Crown of
Thorns. These three points must be constantly borne in mind in examining
the building.
Erected later than Notre-Dame, it represents the pointed style of the
middle of the thirteenth century, and is singularly pure and uniform
throughout. Secularized at the Revolution, it fell somewhat into decay;
but was judiciously restored by Viollet-le-Duc and others. The "Messe
Rouge," or "Messe du St. Esprit," is still celebrated here once yearly, on
the re-opening of the courts after the autumn vacation, but no other
religious services take place in the building. The Crown of Thorns and the
piece of the True Cross are now preserved in the Treasury at Notre Dame.
Examine the exterior in detail from the court on the south side. More even
than most Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle is supported entirely by
its massive piers, the wall being merely used for enclosure, and
consisting for the most part of lofty windows. As in most French Gothic
buildings, the choir terminates in a round apse, whereas English
cathedrals have usually a square end. The beautiful light fleche or spire
in the center has been restored. Observe the graceful leaden angel,
holding a cross, on the summit of the chevet or round apse. To see the
facade, stand well back opposite it, where you can observe that the chapel
is built in four main stories--those, namely, of the Lower Church or
crypt, of the Upper Church, of the great rose window (with later
flamboyant tracery), and of the gable-end, partially masked by an open
parapet studded with the royal fleurs-de-lis of France. The Crown of
Thorns surrounds the two pinnacles which flank the fourth story.
The chapel consists of a lower and an upper church. The Lower Church is a
mere crypt, which was employed for the servants of the royal family. Its
portal has in its tympanum (or triangular space in the summit of the arch)
the Coronation of the Virgin, and on its center pillar a good figure of
the Madonna and Child. Enter the Lower Church. It is low, and has pillars
supporting the floor above. In the polychromatic decoration of the walls
and pillars, notice the frequent repetition of the royal lilies of France,
combined with the three castles of Castille, in honor of Blanche of
Castille, the Mother of St. Louis.
Mount to the Upper Chapel (or Sainte Chapelle proper) by the small spiral
staircase in the corner. This soaring pile was the oratory where the royal
family and court attended service; its gorgeousness bespeaks its origin
and nature. It glows like a jewel. First go out of the door and examine
the exterior and doorway of the chapel. Its platform was directly
approached in early times from the Palace. The center pillar bears a fine
figure of Christ. In the tympanum (as over the principal doorway of almost
every important church in Paris and in the district) is a relief of the
Last Judgment. Below stands St. Michael with his scales, weighing the
souls; on either side is depicted the Resurrection, with the Angels of the
Last Trump. Above, in the second tier, is Christ, holding up His hands
with the marks of the nails, as a sign of mercy to the redeemed: to right
and left of Him angels display the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, to
contain which sacred relics the chapel was built.
On the extreme left kneels the Blessed Virgin; on the extreme right,
Sainte Genevieve. This scene of the Last Judgment was adapted with a few
alterations from that above the central west door of Notre Dame, the Crown
of Thorns in particular being here significantly substituted for the three
nails and spear. The small lozenge reliefs to right and left of the portal
are also interesting. Those to the left represent in a very naive manner
God the Father creating the world, sun and moon, light, plants, animals,
man, etc. Those to the right give the story of Genesis, Cain and Abel, the
Flood, the Ark, Noah's Sacrifice, Noah's Vine, etc., the subjects of all
which the visitor can easily recognize, and is strongly recommended to
identify for himself.
The interior consists almost entirely of large and lofty windows, with
magnificent stained glass, in large part ancient. The piers which divide
the windows and alone support the graceful vault of the roof, are provided
with statues of the twelve apostles, a few of them original. Each bears
his well-known symbol. Spell them out if possible. Beneath the windows, in
the quatrefoils of the arcade, are enamelled glass mosaics representing
the martyrdoms of the saints--followers of Christ, each wearing his own
crown of thorns: a pretty conceit wholly in accord with St. Louis's
ecstatic type of piety. Conspicuous among them are St. Denis carrying his
head, St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, St. Stephen stoned, St. Lawrence
on his gridiron, etc. The apse (formerly separated from the body of the
building by a rood-screen, now destroyed), contains the vacant base of the
high altar, behind which stands an arcaded tabernacle, now empty, in whose
shrine were once preserved the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the True
Cross, and other relics.
Among them in the later times was included the skull of St. Louis himself
in a golden reliquary. Two angels at the summit of the large center arch
of the arcade bear a representation of the Crown of Thorns in their hands.
Above the tabernacle rises a canopy or baldacchino, approached by two
spiral staircases; from its platform St. Louis and his successors, the
kings of France, were in the habit of exhibiting with their own hands the
actual relics themselves once a year to the faithful. The golden reliquary
in which the sacred objects were contained was melted down in the
Revolution. The small window with bars to your right, as you face the high
altar, was placed there by the superstitious and timid Louis XI., in order
that he might behold the elevation of the Host and the sacred relics
without being exposed to the danger of assassination. The visitor should
also notice the inlaid stone pavement, with its frequent repetition of the
fleur-de-lis and the three castles. The whole breathes the mysticism of
St. Louis; the lightness of the architecture, the height of the apparently
unsupported roof, and the magnificence of the decoration, render this the
most perfect ecclesiastical building in Paris.
In returning from the chapel, notice on the outside, from the court to the
south, the apparently empty and useless porch, supporting a small room,
which is the one through whose grated window Louis XI. used to watch the
elevation.
The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the
publisher, David McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
It was Etienne Marcel, Mayor of Paris, who first established the municipal
council at the Place de Greve, at that time the only large square in
Paris. In July, 1357, he purchased as a Hostel de Ville the Maison aux
Piliers, which had been inhabited by Clemence d'Hongrie, widow of Louis le
Hutin, and which afterward took the name of Maison du Dauphin from her
nephew and heir, Guy, Dauphin de Viennois.
In 1532 a new Hotel de Ville was begun and finished by the architect Marin
de la Vallee in the reign of Henri IV. This was so much altered by
successive restorations and revolutions that only a staircase, two
monumental chimney-pieces in the Salle du Trone, and some sculptured
doorways and other details remained from the interior decorations in the
old building at the time of its destruction.
Till the time of Louis XVI. the history of the Hotel de Ville was entirely
local; after that it became the history of France. It was there that Louis
XVI. received the tri-colored cockade from Bailly, Mayor of Paris, July
17, 1789; and there, in the chamber called, from its hangings, Le Cabinet
Vert, that Robespierre was arrested, in the name of the Convention, during
one of the meetings of the Commune, July 27, 1794. After the fall of
Robespierre it was seriously proposed to pull down the Hotel de Ville,
because it had been his last asylum--"Le Louvre de Robespierre." It was
only saved by the common-sense of Leonard Bourdon.
But most of all, in the popular recollection, is the Hotel de Ville
connected with public fetes--with those on the second marriage of Napoleon
I. (1810), on the entry of Louis XVIII. (1814), on the coronation of
Charles X. (1825), on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans (1837), on the
visits of different foreign potentates to Napoleon III. Here also was the
Republic proclaimed, September 4, 1870.
It was in one of the windows of the Hotel de Ville that Louis Philippe
embraced Lafayette (August, 1830) in sight of the people, to evince the
union of the July monarchy with the bourgeoisie. On the steps of the
building Louis Blanc proclaimed the Republic, February 24,1848. From
September 4, 1870, to February 28, 1871, the hotel was the seat of the
"government of the national defense," and from March 19 to May 22, 1871,
that of the pretended "Committee of public safety" of the Communists. On
May 24 it was burned by its savage defenders, many of whom happily
perished in the flames.
The Place de l'Hotel de Ville is so modernized that it retains nothing of
the Place de Greve but its terrible historic associations. Among the many
fearful executions here, it is only necessary to recall that of Jean
Hardi, torn to pieces by four horses (March 30, 1473) on an accusation of
trying to poison Louis XI.; that of the Comte de St. Pol (December 19,
1475), long commemorated by a pillar; those of a long list of Protestants,
opened by the auto-de-fe of Jacques de Povanes, student of the University,
in 1525; that of Nicholas de Salcede, Sieur d'Auvillers, torn to pieces by
four horses in the presence of the king and queens, for conspiracy to
murder the Duc d'Anjou, youngest son of Catherine de Medici. More terrible
still was the execution of Ravaillac (May 27, 1610) murderer of Henri IV.
"The executioner cut off his hand with an ax, and threw it and the
murderous knife into the fire. His breasts, his arms and his legs were
torn with pincers, and boiling oil and melted lead poured into the open
wounds. He was then dismembered by four strong horses, which pulled for no
less than an entire hour. They dismembered only a corpse. He expired,"
says L'Estoile, "at the second or third pull." When the executioner had to
throw the limbs into the fire that the ashes, according to the sentence,
might be flung to the winds, the whole crowd rushed on to claim them.
"But," adds the same chronicler, "the people rushed on so impetuously that
every mother's son had a piece, even the children, who made fires of them
at the corners of the streets."
After the capture of the Bastille its brave governor, M. de Launay, was
beheaded on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, and his major, M. de Losme-
Salbray, was massacred under the Arcade St. Jean. These were the first
victims of the Revolution. Foulon, Intendant du Commerce, suffered here
soon afterward, hung from the cords by which a lamp was suspended, whence
the expression, which soon resounded in many a popular refrain, of "put
the aristocrats to the lantern."
* * * * *
Two parasite buildings, the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police,
are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its name
from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence here,
who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and ashes of the
king's chimney.
It has always been a prison, and it was here that the Comte d'Armagnac was
murdered, June 12, 1418. Here was made, below the level of the Seine, the
prison called La Souriciere, from the rats which had the reputation of
eating the prisoners alive. The present Conciergerie occupies the lower
story of the right wing of the existing Palais de Justice, and extends
along the Quai de l'Horloge, as far as the towers of Montgomery and Cesar.
It has an entrance on the quay, before which the guillotine-carts received
the victims of the Reign of Terror, and another to the right of the great
staircase in the Cour d'Honneur.
All other associations of the Conciergerie are lost in those which were
attached to it by the great Revolution. The cell in which Marie Antoinette
suffered her seventy-five days' agony--from August 2 till October 15, when
she was condemned--was turned into a chapel of expiation in 1816. The lamp
still exists which lighted the august prisoner and enabled her guards to
watch her through the night. The door still exists, tho changed in
position, which was cut transversely in half and the upper part fixt that
the queen might be forced to bend in going out, because she had said that
whatever indignities they might inflict upon her they could never force
her to bend the head.
After her condemnation, Marie Antoinette was not brought back to this
chamber. It was a far more miserable cell which saw her write her last
touching farewell to Madame Elizabeth. But this was the room in which the
Girondins spent their last night, when, as Riouffe, himself in the prison
at the time, says, "all during this frightful night their songs sounded
and if they stopt singing it was but to talk about their country." The
adjoining cell, now used as a sacristy, was the prison of Robespierre.
Pere la Chaise
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[Footnote: From "Outre Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]
The cemetery of Pere la Chaise is the Westminster Abbey of Paris. Both are
the dwellings of the dead; but in one they repose in green alleys and
beneath the open sky--in the other their resting-place is in the shadowy
aisle, and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of
nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft melancholy of the
scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade
of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the
shower; in the other, no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence
of the place; the twilight steals in through high and dusky windows; and
the damps of the gloomy vault lie heavy on the heart, and leave their
stain upon the moldering tracery of the tomb.
Pere la Chaise stands just beyond the Barriere d'Aulney, on a hill-side,
looking toward the city. Numerous gravel-walks, winding through shady
avenues and between marble monuments, lead up from the principal entrance
to a chapel on the summit. There is hardly a grave that has not its little
inclosure planted with shrubbery; and a thick mass of foliage half
conceals each funeral stone. The sighing of the wind, as the branches rise
and fall upon it,--the occasional note of a bird among the trees, and the
shifting of light and shade upon the tombs beneath, have a soothing effect
upon the mind; and I doubt whether any one can enter that inclosure, where
repose the dust and ashes of so many great and good men, without feeling
the religion of the place steal over him, and seeing something of the dark
and gloomy expression pass off from the stern countenance of death.
It was near the close of a bright summer afternoon that I visited this
celebrated spot for the first time. The object that arrested my attention,
on entering, was a monument in the form of a small Gothic chapel, which
stands near the entrance, in the avenue leading to the right hand. On the
marble couch within are stretched two figures, carved in stone and drest
in the antique garb of the Middle Ages. It is the tomb of Abelard and
Heloise. The history of these unfortunate lovers is too well known to need
recapitulation; but perhaps it is not so well known how often their ashes
were disturbed in the slumber of the grave. Abelard died in the monastery
of Saint Marcel, and was buried in the vaults of the church. His body was
afterward removed to the convent of the Paraclet, at the request of
Heloise, and at her death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three
centuries they reposed together; after which they were separated to
different sides of the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-
abbess of the convent. More than a century afterward, they were again
united in the same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed,
their moldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur-
Seine. They were next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris; and now
repose near the gateway of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. What a singular
destiny was theirs! that, after a life of such passionate and disastrous
love,--such sorrows, and tears, and penitence--their very dust should not
be suffered to rest quietly in the grave!--that their death should so much
resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its
meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!--that mistaken zeal should
follow them down to the very tomb--as if earthly passion could glimmer,
like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in
their ashes bum their wonted fires!"....
Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took a pathway to the left,
which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep shade
of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow mingled,
interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle. I now stood
in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step awakened a new
train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my eye caught the name
of some one whose glory had exalted the character of his native land, and
resounded across the waters of the Atlantic. Philosophers, historians,
musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath
the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the
political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the
ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the
lyre--where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right
hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions
it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself in ages yet to come.
Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid
monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of
men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrances of
posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary of
genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of the
great? That was no thoroughfare of business--no mart of gain! There were
no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor
obsequious attendants!....
I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or
curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow, overhung
with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an elevation, from
which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught glimpses of the
city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the hill, where the poor
lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and takes but a short lease of
the narrow house. At the end of a few months, or at most of a few years,
the tenant is dislodged to give place to another, and he in turn to a
third. "Who," says Sir Thomas Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how
often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither
they are to be scattered?"
Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy in
decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with a
slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was
hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross,
and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could
perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a shrub
on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it....
After rambling leisurely about for some time, reading the iscriptions on
the various monuments which attracted my curiosity, and giving way to the
different reflections they suggested, I sat down to rest myself on a
sunken tombstone. A winding gravel-walk, overshaded by an avenue of trees,
and lined on both sides with richly sculptured monuments, had gradually
conducted me to the summit of the hill, upon whose slope the cemetery
stands. Beneath me in the distance, and dim-discovered through the misty
and smoky atmosphere of evening, rose the countless roofs and spires of
the city. Beyond, throwing his level rays athwart the dusky landscape,
sank the broad red sun. The distant murmur of the city rose upon my ear;
and the toll of the evening bell came up, mingled with the rattle of the
paved street and the confused sounds of labor. What an hour for
meditation! What a contrast between the metropolis of the living and the
metropolis of the dead!....
Before I left the graveyard the shades of evening had fallen, and the
objects around me grown dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway, I
turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish only the chapel on the
summit of the hill, and here and there a lofty obelisk of snow-white
marble, rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage around, and
pointing upward to the gleam of the departed sun, that still lingered in
the sky, and mingled with the soft starlight of a summer evening.
The Musee de Cluny
By Grant Allen
[Footnote: From "Paris."]
The primitive nucleus of the suburb on the South Side consists of the
Roman fortress palace, the "tete du pont" of the Left Bank, now known as
the Thermes, owing to the fact that its principal existing remains include
only the ruins of the bath or therma. This colossal building, probably
erected by Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, covered an
enormous area south of the river. After the Frankish conquest, it still
remained the residence of the Merwing and Karling kings on the rare
occasions when they visited Paris; and it does not seem to have fallen
into utter decay till a comparatively late date in the Middle Ages.
With the Norman irruptions, however, and the rise of the real French
monarchs under Eudes and the Capets, the new sovereigns found it safest to
transfer their seat to the Palace on the Island (now the Palais de
Justice), and the Roman fortress was gradually dismantled. In 1340 the
gigantic ruins came into the hands of the powerful Benedictine Abbey of
Cluny, near Macon, in Burgundy; and about 1480, the abbots began to erect
on the spot a town mansion for themselves, which still bears the name of
the Hotel de Cluny. The letter K, the mark of Charles VIII. (1483-1498),
occurs on many parts of the existing building, and fixes its epoch. The
house was mostly built by Jaques d'Amboise, abbot, in 1490. The style is
late Gothic, with Renaissance features.
The abbots, however, seldom visited Paris, and they frequently placed
their town house accordingly at the disposition of the kings of France.
Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII., and widow of Louis XII., occupied
it thus in 1515, soon after its completion. It was usual for the queens of
France to wear white as mourning; hence her apartment is still known as
the "Chambre de la reine blanche."
At the Revolution, when the property of the monasteries was confiscated,
the Hotel de Cluny was sold, and passed at last, in 1833, into the hands
of M. du Sommerard, a zealous antiquary, who began the priceless
collection of works of art which it contains. He died in 1842, and the
Government then bought the house and museum, and united it with the Roman
ruin at its back under the title of Musee des Thermes et de l'Hotel de
Cluny. Since that time many further objects have been added to the
collection.
At Cluny the actual building forms one of the most interesting parts of
the sight, and is in itself a museum. It is a charming specimen of a late
medieval French mansion; and the works of art it contains are of the
highest artistic value.... At least two whole days should be devoted to
Cluny--one to the lower and one to the upper floor. Much more, if
possible.
The Place de la Bastille
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David
McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
The south end of the Rue des Tournelles falls into the Place de la
Bastille, containing Le Colonne de Juillet, surmounted by a statue of
Liberty, and erected 1831-1840. This marks the site of the famous castle-
prison of the Bastille, which for four centuries and a half terrified
Paris, and which has left a name to the quarter it frowned upon. Hugues
Ambriot, Mayor of Paris, built it under Charles V. to defend the suburb
which contained the royal palace of St. Paul. Unpopular from the excess of
his devotion to his royal master, Aubriot was the first prisoner in his
own prison.
Perhaps the most celebrated of the long list of after captives were the
Connetable de St. Pol and Jacques d'Armagnac, Due de Nemours, taken thence
for execution to the Place de Greve under Louis XI., Charles de Gontaut,
Due de Biron, executed within the walls of the fortress under Henri IV.,
and the "Man with the Iron Mask," brought hither mysteriously, September
18, 1698, and who died in the Bastille, November 19, 1703.
A thousand engravings show us the Bastille as it was--as a "fort-bastide"
--built on the line of the city walls just to the south of the Porte St.
Antoine, surrounded by its own moat. It consisted of eight round towers,
each bearing a characteristic name, connected by massive walls, ten feet
thick, pierced with narrow slits by which the cells were lighted. In the
early times it had entrances on three sides, but after 1580 only one, with
a drawbridge over the moat on the side toward the river, which led to
outer courts and a second drawbridge, and wound by a defended passage to
an outer entrance opposite the Rue des Tournelles.
Close beside the Bastille, to the north, rose the Porte St. Antoine,
approached over the city fosse by its own bridge, at the outer end of
which was a triumphal arch built on the return of Henri II. from Poland in
1573. Both gate and arch were restored for the triumphal entry of Louis
XIV. in 1667; but the gate (before which Etienne Marcel was killed, July,
1358), was pulled down in 1674.
The Bastille was taken by the people, July 14, 1789, and the National
Assembly decreed its demolition.... The massive circular pedestal upon
which the Colonne de Juillet now rests was intended by Napoleon I. to
support a gigantic fountain in the form of an elephant, instead of the
column which, after the destruction of the Bastille, the "tiers etat" of
Paris had asked to erect "a Louis XVI., restaurateur de la liberte
publique." It is characteristic of the Parisians that on the very same
spot the throne of Louis Philippe was publicly burned, February 24, 1848.
The model for the intended elephant existed here till the middle of the
reign of Louis Philippe, and is depicted by Victor Hugo as the lodging of
"Le petit Gavroche."
The Pantheon and St. Etienne-Du-Mont
By Grant Allen
[Footnote: From "Paris."]
The medieval church of Ste. Genevieve, having fallen into decay in the
middle of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. determined to replace it by a
sumptuous domed edifice in the style of the period. This building,
designed by Soufflot, was not completed till the Revolution, when it was
immediately secularized as the Pantheon, under circumstances to be
mentioned later. The remains of Ste. Genevieve, which had lain temporarily
meanwhile in a sumptuous chapel of St. Etienne-du-Mont (the subsidiary
church of the monastery) were taken out by the Revolutionists; the
medieval shrine, or reliquary (which replaced St. Eloy's), was ruthlessly
broken up; and the body of the patroness and preserver of Paris was
publicly burned in the Place de Greve.
This, however, strange to say, was not quite the end of Ste. Genevieve. A
few of her relics were said to have been preserved: some bones, together
with a lock of the holy shepherdess's hair, were afterward recovered, and
replaced in the sarcophagus they had once occupied. Such at least is the
official story; and these relics, now once more enclosed in a costly
shrine, still attract thousands of votaries to the chapel of the saint in
St. Etienne-du-Mont.
The Pantheon, standing in front of the original church, is now a secular
burial-place for the great men of France. The remains of Ste. Genevieve
still repose at St. Etienne. Thus it is impossible to dissociate the two
buildings, which should be visited together; and thus too it happens that
the patroness of Paris has now no church in her own city. Local saints are
always the most important; this hill and Montmartre are still the holiest
places in Paris.
Proceed, as far as the garden of the Thermes, as on the excursion to
Cluny. Then continue straight up the Boulevard St. Michel. The large
edifice visible on the right of the Rue des Ecoles to your left, is the
new building of the Sorbonne, or University. Further up, at the Place du
Sorbonne, the domed church of the same name stands before you. It is the
University church, and is noticeable as the earliest true dome erected in
Paris. The next corner shows one, right, the Luxembourg garden, and left,
the Rue Soufflot, leading up to the Pantheon.
The colossal domed temple which replaces the ancient church of Ste.
Genevieve was begun by Soufflot, under Louis XV., in imitation of St.
Peter's, at Rome. Like all architects of his time, Soufflot sought merely
to produce an effect of pagan or "classical" grandeur, peculiarly out of
place in the shrine of the shepherdess of Nanterre. Secularized almost
immediately on its completion, during the Revolution, the building was
destined as the national monument to the great men of France, and the
inscription, "Aux Grands Hommes la Patrie Reconnaissante," which it still
bears, was then first placed under the sculptures of the pediment.
Restored to worship by the Restoration, it was again secularized under the
Third Republic in order to admit the burial of Victor Hugo. The building
itself, a vast bare barn of the pseudo-classical type, very cold and
formal, is worthy of notice merely on account of its immense size and its
historic position; but it may be visited to this day with pleasure, not
only for some noble modern paintings, but also for the sake of the
reminiscences of Ste. Genevieve which it still contains. The tympanum has
a group by David d'Angers, representing France distributing wreaths to
soldiers, politicians, men of letters, men of science, and artists.
The interior is in the shape of a Greek cross (with equal arms). Follow
round the walls, beginning from the right. In the right aisle are
paintings (modern) looking like frescoes, and representing the preaching
of St. Denis, by Galand; and the history of Ste. Genevieve--her childhood,
recognition by St. Germain l'Auxerrois, miracles, etc., delicate and
elusive works, by Puvis de Chavannes. The paintings of the South Transept
represent episodes in the early history of France. Chronologically
speaking, they begin from the east central corner. Choir, Death of Ste.
Genevieve, and Miracles before her Shrine, by Laurens. Apse of the
tribune, fine modern (archaic) mosaic, by Hebert, representing Christ with
the Guardian Angel of France, the Madonna, Jean d'Arc, and Ste. Genevieve.
Stand under the dome to observe the proportions of the huge, bare,
unimpressive building. Left, or Northern Transept, east side, the history
of Jeanne d'Arc; she hears the voices; leads the assault at Orleans;
assists at the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims; and is burned at
Rouen. West side, St. Louis as a child instructed by Blanche of Castille;
administering justice in the Palace; and a captive among the Saracens.
North aisle, history of Ste. Genevieve and St. Denis. The building is thus
at once the apotheosis of patriotism, and the lasting memorial of the part
borne by Christianity in French, and especially Parisian, history.
As you descend the steps of the Pantheon, the building that faces you to
the left is the Mairie of the 5th Arrondissement; that to the right, the
Ecole de Droit. Turn to the right along the north side of the Pantheon.
The long, low building which faces you is the Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve.
Nothing now remains of the Abbey of Ste. Genevieve except the tall early
Gothic tower seen to the right near the end of the Pantheon, and rising
above the modern buildings of the Lycee Henri IV. The singularly
picturesque and strangely-mingled church across the little square is St.
Etienne-du-Mont, which we now proceed to visit.
Stand in the left-hand corner of the Place to examine the facade. The
church was begun (1517) as late Gothic; but before it was finished, the
Renaissance style had come into fashion, and the architects accordingly
jumbled the two in the most charming manner. The incongruity here only
adds to the beauty. The quaintly original Renaissance portal bears a
dedication to St. Stephen the Protomartyr, beneath which is a relief of
his martyrdom, with a Latin inscription, "Stone destroyed the temple of
the Lord," i.e., Stephen, "Stone rebuilds it." Right and left of the
portal are statues of Sts. Stephen and Genevieve, whose monograms also
appear on the doors. In the pediment is the usual representation of the
Resurrection and Last Judgment. Above it, the rose window, on either side
of which, in accordance with Italian rather than with French custom
(showing Italian Renaissance influence) are the Angel of the Annunciation
and the Madonna receiving his message. In the third story, a gable-end.
Singular tower to the left, with an additional round turret, a relic of
the earlier Gothic building. The whole facade (17th century) represents
rather late Renaissance than transitional architecture.
The interior is the most singular, and in some ways the most picturesque,
in Paris--a Gothic church, tricked out in Renaissance finery. The nave is
flanked by aisles, which are divided from it by round pillars, capped by a
singular balustrade or gallery with low, flat arches, simulating a
triforium. The upper arches are round, and the decorations Renaissance;
but the vaulting, both of nave and aisles, with its pendant keystones,
recalls the Gothic style, as do also most of the windows. Stand near the
entrance, in the center of the nave, and look up the church.
The most striking feature is the beautiful Renaissance jube or rood-loft
(the only one now left in Paris) which divides the Choir from the body of
the building. This rood-loft still bears a crucifix, for the reception of
which it was originally intended. On the arch below are two charmingly
sculptured Renaissance angels. The rood-loft is flanked by two spiral
staircases, which are wholly unique architectural features. Notice also
the exquisite pendentive of the roof at the point of intersection of the
nave and short false transepts.
Now walk up the right aisle. The first chapel is the Baptistery,
containing the font and a modern statue of the boy Baptist. Third chapel,
St. Antony of Padua. The fourth chapel contains a curious Holy Sepulcher,
with quaint life-size terra-cotta figures of the 16th century. Fifth
chapel, a gilt chasse. Notice the transepts, reduced to short arms,
scarcely, if at all, projecting beyond the chapels. From this point
examine the exquisite Renaissance tracery of the rood-screen and
staircases. Then pass under the fine Renaissance door, with lovely
decorative work, into the ambulatory. The Choir is in large part Gothic,
with late flamboyant tracery. The apparent triforium is continued round
the ambulatory.
The splendid gilded shrine in the second choir-chapel contains the remains
of Ste. Genevieve, or what is left of them. Candles burn perpetually
around it. Hundreds of votaries here pay their devotions daily to the
Patroness of Paris. The shrine, containing what is alleged to be the
original sarcophagus of the Saint (more probably of the 13th century)
stands under a richly-gilt Gothic tabernacle, adorned with figures legibly
named on their pedestals. The stained-glass window behind it has a
representation of a processional function with the body of the Saint,
showing this church, together with a view of the original church of Ste.
Genevieve, the remaining tower, and adjacent houses, historically most
interesting. The window beyond the shrine also contains the history of
Ste. Genevieve--her childhood, first communion, miracles, distribution of
bread during the siege of Paris, conversion of Clovis, death, etc.
Indeed the long sojourn of the body of Ste. Genevieve in this church has
almost overshadowed its dedication to St. Stephen, several memorials of
whom may, however, be recognized by the attentive visitor--among them, a
picture of his martyrdom (by Abel de Pujol) near the entrance to the
choir. The Protomartyr also stands, with his deacon's robe and palm, in a
niche near the door of the sacristy, where left and right are frescoes of
his Disputation with the Doctors, and his Martyrdom. The chapel
immediately behind the high altar is, as usual, the Lady Chapel. The next
contains a good modern window of the Marriage of the Virgin.
Examine in detail all the windows; one of the mystic wine-press is very
interesting. Votive offerings of the city of Paris to Ste. Genevieve also
exist in the ambulatory. Curious frescoes of the martyrdom of the 10,000
Christians on Mount Ararat on the north side. The best view of the choir
is obtained from the north side of the ambulatory, opposite the shrine of
Ste. Genevieve. In the north aisle notice St. Louis with the Crown of
Thorns. Stand again in the center of the nave, near the entrance, and
observe the curious inclination of the choir and high altar to one side--
here particularly noticeable, and said in every case to represent the
droop of the Redeemer's head on the cross.
As you emerge from the door, observe the cold and bare side of the
Pantheon, contrasted with the internal richness of St. Etienne. Curious
view of the late Gothic portion of the church from the little Place on the
north side. Return by the Rue Cujas and Rue St. Jacques, passing the Lycee
Ste. Barbe, Lycee Louis-le-Grand, University, and other scholastic
buildings, which give a good idea of the character of the quarter.
St. Roch
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David
McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
Englishmen are often specially imprest with Paris as a city of contrasts,
because one side of the principal line of hotels frequented by our
countrymen looks down upon the broad, luxurious Rue de Rivoli, all modern
gaiety and radiance, while the other side of their courtyards open upon
the busy working Rue St. Honore, lined by the tall, many-windowed houses
which have witnessed so many revolutions. They have all the
picturesqueness of innumerable balconies, high, slated roofs, with dormer
windows, window-boxes full of carnations and bright with crimson flowers
through the summer, and they overlook an ever-changing crowd, in great
part composed of men in blouses and women in white aprons and caps.
Ever since the fourteenth century the Rue St. Honore has been one of the
busiest streets in Paris. It was the gate leading into this street which
was attacked by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. It was the fact that the Cardinal de
Bourbon and the Due de Guise had been seen walking together at the Porte
St. Honore that was said to have turned half the moustache of Henri of
Navarre suddenly white, from a presentiment of the crime which has become
known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Here, in 1648, the barricade was
raised which gave the signal for all the troubles of the Fronde. It was at
No 3--then called L'Auberge des Trois Pigeons--that Ravaillac was lodging
when he was waiting to murder Henry IV.; here the first gun was fired in
the Revolution of July, 1830, which overturned Charles X.; and here, in
the Revolution of 1848, a bloody combat took place between the insurgents
and the military. Throughout this street, as Marie Antoinette was first
entering Paris, the poissardes brought her bouquets, singing:
"La rose est la reine des fleurs.
Antoinette est la reine des coeurs."
("The rose is the queen of flowers, Antoinette is the queen of hearts")
and here, as she was being taken to the scaffold, they crowded round her
execution-cart and shouted:
"Madame Veto avait promis
De faire egorger tout Paris,
Mais son coup a manque
Grace a nos canonniers;
Dansons la carmagnole
Au bruit du son
Du canon!"
("Madame Veto had promised to have the throat cut of all Paris, but her
attempt failed, thanks to our gunners. Let us dance the carmagnole to the
music of the cannon's roar!")
* * * * *
Turning east toward Old Paris, we pass, on the right of the Rue St.
Honore, the Church of St. Roch, of which Louis XIV. laid the foundation-
stone in 1633, replacing a chapel built on the site of the Hotel Gaillon.
The church was only finished, from designs of Robert de Cotte, in 1740.
The flight of steps which leads to the entrance has many associations.
"Before St. Roch," says De Goncourt, "the tumbrel in which was Marie
Antoinette, stopt in the midst of howling and hooting. A thousand insults
were hurled from the steps of the church as it were with one voice,
saluting with filth their queen about to die. She, however, serene and
majestic, pardoned the insults by disregarding them." It was from these
steps, in front of which an open space then extended to the Tuileries
gardens, that Bonaparte ordered the first cannon to be fired upon the
royalists who rose against the National Convention, and thus prevented a
counter-revolution. Traces of this cannonade of 13 Vendemiaire are still
to be seen at the angle of the church and the Rue Neuve St. Roch.
II
THE ENVIRONS OF PARIS
Versailles
By William Makepeace Thackeray
[Footnote: From "The Paris Sketch Book."]
You pass from the railroad station through a long, lonely suburb, with
dusty rows of stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable
beggars, idle boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees are
gaunt, moldy houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought
grace of life) the cheap defense of nations gambled, ogled, swindled,
intrigued; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in old times, to act
as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri; and mighty princes rolled away, in
gilt caroches, hot for the honor of lighting his Majesty to bed, or of
presenting his stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when he
dined.
Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers, are now
established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling
at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags are
hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun; oyster-
shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie basking in the
same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling down the wide
pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirty stones.
After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we deboucher on
the grande place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the
glories of France. In the midst of the great lonely plain this famous
residence of King Louis looks low and mean--Honored pile! Time was when
tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate.
Fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women from Paris broke through the
charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a
penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.
We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are portrayed
in pictures and marble; catalogs are written about these miles of canvas,
representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy to Waterloo--all
the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the mistresses of his successor--and all
the great men who have flourished since the French empire began. Military
heroes are most of these--fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in
voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps; some dozens of
whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and
epaulets; some millions, death in African sands, or in icy Russian plains,
under the guidance, and for the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon.
By far the greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most other
countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on
the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to
the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about
it, and nothing but it.
Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the walls
with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any family
but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has been humbled to
the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore; but it is a monument
of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter for a whole
library of sermons.
The cheap defense of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection
of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals
of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers,
and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth
terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a
stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the
city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the
creator of these wonders--the Great King.
"Only God is great," said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the
prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth--
God's lieutenant-governor of the world--before whom courtiers used to fall
on their knees, and shade their eyes, as if the light of his countenance,
like the sun, which shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too
dazzling to bear.
Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--or,
rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out of
his chamber, in the midst of his super-human splendors, viz., in his
cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramon of a wig;
his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, "that
he scarcely seemed to touch;" when he came out, blazing upon the dukes and
duchesses that waited his rising--what could the latter do but cover their
eyes, and wink, and tremble? And did he not himself believe, as he stood
there, on his high heels, under his ambrosial periwig, that there was
something in him more than man--something above Fate?
This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, from
his terrace before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could catch a
glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. Denis, where his
race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a sublime
condescension, "Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am mortal."
Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that
his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that
sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to
have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.
In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage--with guards,
cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys, Fenelons,
Molieres, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois, Colberts--
transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left for James of
England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should come. And when the
time did come, and James sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record
that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and promised to restore,
incontinently, those islands from which the canaille had turned him.
Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one
another reverently, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was no blasphemy in
the speech; on the contrary, it was gravely said, by a faithful believing
man, who thought it no shame to the latter to compare his Majesty with God
Almighty.
Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was
this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one which was written by
an honest Jesuit and protege of Pere la Chaise, who dedicates it to the
august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as far in print.
He calls our famous monarch "Louis le Grand: 1, l'invincible; 2, le sage;
3, le conquerant; 4, la merveille de son siecle; 5, la terreur de ses
ennemis; 6, l'amour de ses peuples; 7, l'arbitre de la paix et de la
guerre; 8, l'admiration de l'univers; 9, et digne d'en etre le maitre; 10,
le modele d'un heros acheve; 11, digne de l'immortalite, et de la
veneration de tous les siecles!"
A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon the
great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a vast
number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who
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