HELEN W. HENDERSON ■•«= w^mmm^^mm THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES A LOITERER IN PARIS i'huto Aliiiuil >'OTRE-DAME: THE GREAT PORTAIL. A LOITERER IN PARIS BY HELEN W. HENDERSON AUTHOR OF "A LOITERER IN NEW YORK," "A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND," "THE ART TREASURES OF WASHINGTON," ETC. NEW SiWW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY FRIEND TRUMAN H. BARTLETT 518667 NOTE This book makes no pretention to be a guide to Paris. It selects, rather, some few aspects of Paris which time has rendered more or less immutable in the face of a changing world, and aims to reveal to the eclectic less obvious beauties — to indicate, mereh\ the hidden wealth encompassed by those monuments of remoter time. The great fascination of Paris lies in its adapt- ability, its responsiveness, its resource. One finds there just what one seeks. The subject, therefore, however viewed, is vast; the best that one could do was to follow a chosen thread of the many that weave together in the elaborate pattern. The plan was for one book, not volumes. Helen W. Henderson. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Shifting Sands 21 II The Birth Place 31 III The Romans in Lutetia 52 IV Vistas: Under the Cathedral ... 69 V The Ancient Cite 89 VI Notre-Dame 110 VII Inside the Cathedral 149 VIII The Basilica OF Clovis : Sainte-Genevieve 164 IX The Basilica of Childebert: Saint-Ger- main-des-Pres 185 X Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois .... 217 XI Transition Churches 239 XII The Turning-Point: Saint-Martin-des- Champs 260 XIII Dagobert's Basilica: Saint-Denis . . 269 XIV The Sainte-Chapelle 291 XV Saint-Denis: The Tombs 314 XVI Renaissance : Francois I 355 s XVII The Louvre of Lescot and Goujon . . 377 xi xii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XVIII The Louvre : Development and Achieve- ment 410 XIX Foundations of the Museum .... 431 XX The Makais : Henri IV .... 447 XXI Carnavalet 474 XXII The Luxembourg : Marie de Medicis . . 485 XXIII Scattered Treasures . ^ .... 510 XXIV Etpuisapres? . 539 Schedule for Two Weeks in Paris . . 552 Schedule for One Week in Paris . . 558 Index 559 ILLUSTHATIONS Notre-Damc: the Great Portail . . . Frontispiece PAOB Henri IV on the Pont-Ncuf 39 Le Christ du Parlcmcnt. From the Grand Chanibrc of the Palais du Justice. Now in the Louvre . 45 Antique Statue of Juhan the Apostate Now in Musee de Cluny 55 The Arcature Suspended Between the Towers. De- tail, Notre-Dame 115 Monsters Amongst the Towers. Notre-Dame . 125 Death of the Virgin. Apse of Notre-Dame . . 126 Satan and the Devils. Detail from Voussoir of the Porte du Jugement, Notre-Dame . . .135 La Porte de la Vierge. Notre-Dame . . . 136 Saint-Denis Between two Angels and Constantin. Detail from Porte de la Vierge, Notre-Dame . 141 Detail from the Porte de la Vierge. Notre-Dame . 142 Tympanum of the Porte Sainte-Anne, Xllth and Xlllth Centuries. Notre-Dame . . . 142 Gothic Statue of the Virgin, XlVth Century. In- terior Notre-Dame . . . . . .157 Slaughter of the Innocents and Flight Into Egypt. Xlllth Century Sculpture. Notre-Dame . .157 The Ambulatory. Notre-Dame . . . .158 Statue of Sainte-Genevieve. Xlllth Century. From Ancient Eglise Sainte-Genevieve. Louvro 167 xui xiv ILLUSTRATIONS PAOBt Chimeras: Roman Epoch. From Old Abbey of Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre ..... 175 Marble Capital Representing Daniel in the Lions' Den. From Ancient Basilica of Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre . . . ' 176 Pedestal and Group of Four Figures : by Germain Pilon. From Church of Sainte-Genevieve. Louvre 176 Childebert. Xlllth Century Statue. From Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Louvre . . . 187 Saint-Gcrmain-des-Pres ... ... 197 Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois : Under the Porch . . 219 The Descent from the Cross: by Jean Goujon. From Rood-loft of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. Louvre 220 The Martyrdom of Saint-Denis : Attributed to Jean Maloucl, about 1400. Louvre .... 271 Interior of Cathedral of Saint-Denis : Ascent to Am- bulatory and Chapels ...... 271 Interior of Cathedral of Saint-Denis : Transept with Tomb of Fran9ois I and Claude de France . 272 La Naumachie: Pare Monceau. Constructed from Ruins of Chapelle des Valois at Saint-Denis . 281 Lower Chapel: Sainte-Chapelle .... 293 Our Mother of Sorrows. From Sainte-Chapelle. Louvre 293 Interior of the Upper Chapel. Sainte-Chapelle . 294 Dagobert's Tomb. Saint-Denis. To the Right : Vllth Century Statue of the Virg-in from Saint- Martin-des-Champs ...... 327 Tomb of Louis d'Orleans and Valentine de Milan. Saint-Denis 333 Recumbent Figures of Louis and Marguerite d'Ar- tois. Saint-Denis 333 ILLUSTRATIOXS xv PAUB Tomb of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne: by Jean Juste of Tours. Saint-Denis .... 334 Detail from the Tomb of Fran9ois I and Claude de France. Saint-Denis ...... 334 Reclining Statues of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis : by Germain Pilon. Saint-Denis . . 347 Urn Made to Contain the Heart of Fran9ois I: by Pierre Bontemps. From Abbey of Hautes- Bruyercs. Now at Saint-Denis .... 347 Recumbent Figures of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis : by Germain Pilon. Saint-Denis . . 348 Details from Tomb of Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, Saint-Denis ...... 348 Francois I a Cheval : by Francois Clouet. Louvre 357 Fran9ois I : by Jcannet Clouet. Louvre . . 358 Fran9ois I: Bronze Bust, Anonymous. Louvre . 358 Fa9ade of the Louvre of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon 379 Detail of Fa9ade of Lescot and Goujon, Called Pa- vilion Henri II. Louvre 379 Details of Fa9ade of Lescot and Goujon . . 380 Portrait of Catherine de Medicis in 1555: Anony- mous. Collection of Bibliotheque Nationale . 383 Bust of Henri II: by Germain Pilon. Louvre . 383 Fa9ade of Chateau d'Anet : Built by Henri II for Diane de Poitiers. Ecole des Beaux-Arts . . 387 Diane Chasseresse : Group Made for Chateau d'Anet by Jean Goujon. Louvre ..... 388 Detail, Head of Diane: from Group Made for Chateau d'Anet by Jean Goujon. Louvre . . 388 The Fountain of the Innocents: Reconstructed from the Original of Lescot and Goujon . . • 389 Frieze of the Fountaine des Innocents: by Jean Goujon. Original Sculpture in the Louvre . 389 xvi ILLUSTRATIONS rAoE Figures from the Fountaine des Innocents : by Jean Goujon. From Casts in the Trocaclero . . 390 Caryatids and Tribune: by Jean Goujon. Salle des Cariatidcs, Louvre ...... 395 Medallion from the Salle des Cariatidcs : by Jean Goujon. Louvre ....... 395 Marguerite de Valois (Called La Reine Margot), Bride of Henri of Navarre: Drawing by Francois Clouet. Bibliotheque Nationale .... 403 Henri of Navarre (Henri IV) : by Francois Quesnel. Bibliotheque Nationale ...... 403 Catherine de Medicis : Anonymous Drawing. Biblio- theque Nationale . . . . . . . 413 La Reine iNIargot, about 1573: Anonymous Draw- ing. Bibliotheque Nationale ..... 413 Charles IX, in 1570: Drawing by Fran9ois Clouet. Bibliotlieque Nationale ...... 417 Elisabeth d'Autrichc, about 1570, Wife of Charles IX: Painting by Fran9ois Clouet. In the Louvre 417 Henri IV: by Barthelemy Prieur. Louvre . . 421 Louise de Vaudemont, Wife of Henri III : Drawing (School of Dumoustier). Louvre . . . 421 Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel : Percier and Fon- taine, Architects. Built by Napoleon in 1805 . 427 The Window of Charles IX. Louvre . . . 427 Fragment of the Palais des Tuileries : by Philibcrt Delormc. Garden des Tuileries .... 427 La Jocondc: by Leonardo da Vinci. From the Cab- inet of Fran9ois I. Louvre .... 433 Charite : by Andrea del Sarto, Painted for Fran9ois I at Fontaincblcau. Louvre .... 434 Charles I of England : bv Anton Van Dyck, Painted for Charles I. "Cabinet du Roy "'Louis XIV, Louvre ......... 435 ILLUSTRATIONS xvii PAGB Laura de' Dianti: by Titian. "Cabinet du Roy" Louis XIV. Louvre ...... 436 Mystic Marriage of Sainte-Catlierine : by Corrcggio. " Cabinet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre . . 439 Titian's Entombment. " Cabinet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre 439 Portrait of Count Balthazar Castiglione: by Raphael. " Cabinet du Roy " Louis XIV. Louvre 443 Detail from Les Noces de Cana: by Paul Veronese. Musee Napoleon. Louvre ..... 444 Saint-Michel and the Dragon : by Raphael. " Cab- inet du Ro}' " Louis XIV. Louvre . . . 444 Jeanne de Bourbon, Wife of Charles V. From the Convent of the Celestins. Louvre . . . 449 Isabeau de Baviere. Detail from her Funeral Monu- ment at Saint-Denis 449 The Three Theological Virtues or the Three Graces, with Urn. Germain Pilon. Louvre . . . 450 Hotel de Sens, XVth Century 459 Place des Vosges : Statue of Louis XIII . . . 465 Place des Vosges : the Arcade 466 Hotel Sully: Detail from Principal Fa9ade of the Court 466 Carnavalet: Court of Honour 477 Carnavalet: Statue of Louis XIV: by Coyzevox. Formerly at the Hotel de Ville .... 478 Lion: by Jean Goujon. From the Facade of the Hotel Carnavalet 478 The Palais du Luxembourg. Marie de Medicis' Palace. Salomon de Brosse, Architect . . 487 Marriage of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis: by Rubens. Decoration for the Palais du Luxem- bourg. Louvre ....••• 4o7 xviii ILLUSTRATIONS PAOG Henri IV Confides the Kingdom to Marie dc Medicis. Decoration for the Palais du Luxembourg. Louvre ......... 487 Chambre a Coucher. Bed Chamber of Marie de Medicis. Palais du Luxembourg .... 488 Detail from Crowning of Marie de Medicis : by Rubens. Decoration for the Palais du Luxem- bourg. Louvre 488 Fontaine de Medicis : by de Brosse. Luxembourg Garden 489 Detail, Fontaine de I'Observatoire : by Carpeaux. Luxembourg Garden 490 Fontaine de I'Observatoire: by Carpeaux. Luxem- bourg Garden .... ... 490 Saint-Etienne-du-Mont 511 Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. Interior, Showing the Rood-loft 511 Hotel de Cluny, XVth Century . . . .521 Hotel de Cluny : Petite Porte d'Entree . . .522 Hotel de Cluny: a Window 523 Tomb of Mazarin : by Coyzevox. Made for the Chapel of the Institut de France. Louvre . . 524 Tomb of Richelieu : by Fran9ois Girardon, After the Design of Lebrun. Sorbonne .... 524 Val-de-Grace 533 Merechal Ney: by Rude. Carrefour de I'Observa- toire 534 La Danse: by Carpeaux. Fa9ade of the Opera . 543 Le Depart : by Unde. Arc du Triomphe de I'Etoile 544 Le Penseu.r: by Rodin. Pantheon .... 547 Lafayette: by Paul W. Bartlett .... 548 A LOITERER IN PARIS A LOITERER IN PARIS CHAPTER I SHIFTING SANDS With its fundamental setting practically intact Paris is enormously changed. Of this there can be no shadow of doubt, " no possible, probable shadow of doubt, no possible doubt whatever." What will newcomers make of it? I often ask myself. How will those who never knew it be- fore the war relate this hard, brilliant metropolis with the romantic, legendary city of Victor Hugo, of Balzac, of Du INIaurier. of that host of writers of fact and fiction who have made it their theme? The change is, of course, the result of the war; but just Avhat makes it so different is hard to define, for the change is subtle and the face of things is the same. The boulevards are there, thronged as of yore; the cafes ply the same busy industry, despite the fabulous rise in the cost of 21 22 A LOITERER IN PARIS consonnnations; the theatres are a succes fou; the streets are full of taxis, gliding hither and thither with their restless fares, though chauffeurs are be- come as capricious as society belles; the Place de r Opera presents the same confusion of vehicles all tangled up together at tense crises, and all get- ting through somehow, in defiance of all the laws of traffic. The decorative police preserve their same noble air of detachment from the vulgar exercise of law and order. Handsome and gentle, lithe of figure and slender of waist, they seem rather models of decorum than agents of discipline, walking in ab- straction, the neatly folded cloak thrown over the left shoulder, or standing solitary and aloof from scenes of violence — calm, disinterested spectators. But it is they who are right, France understands their function differently. The kiosks bloom Avith the same flowers and journals, presided over by the same brisk little women, as exquisitely coiffed as ever, with their own neat tresses, and guarded over by the same little dogs, who run about in careless freedom, ob- livious to social amenities, and with insouciance escape sudden death at every turn. During this year of quasi-peace, Paris has thrown off its shabby aspect, due to five years' SHIFTING SANDS 23 neglect of its toilette; activities long abandoned have been resumed, and the women are little by httle relaxing the strict black of their bereavement and brightening up at each change of the season, like butterflies emerging from the chrysalis. Yet somehow the old charm is missing, the joie de vivre lacks, as though the people had looked stern reality too fully in the face to be really diverted by their pastimes, or to put love into their work. Constantly shifting, like a kaleidoscope, nothing that one can say of this superficial Paris can have more than a fleeting truth. The clearing-house of the war, it has been also the theatre of all the phases of this new thing called peace. The popu- lation since before the armistice has been more than doubled, and one-half the dwellers in Paris at the moment are provincials, composed of those countless refugees from the devastated departe- ments. It is this which has made the ciise du logement more genuine and more acute here than in any other city. The easy hospitality of Paris was also in a sense abused by the tremendous inundation of foreigners throughout the war. Accustomed al- ways to a large floating population of strangers, the city had never before found itself the hostess of such armies of semi-hostile guests, guests brought 24 A LOITERER IN PARIS here by military necessity, or commercial interests, or for mere considerations of personal safety, not at all attracted hither by a love of the city, or a predisposition in its favom*, or because of its rich treasm-es of history and of art. One hesitates to say that Paris had, up to the time of the war, been fed on flattery most of its life, but at least it is true that it had been accus- tomed to a wide and intelligent appreciation. The great bulk of tourists who came annually came to learn and to admire, and even when, amongst the more crass, they couldn't quite succeed, at least they bowed to the consensus of opinion, they felt the fault to be their own. Suddenly all this is withheld. Paris is invaded by several millions of homeless persons, whose sole preoccupation is food and shelter; and by as many more foreign soldiers and " war workers," who look upon its streets, its river, its monmnents with cool indifference ; its institutions with uncomprehending intolerance; its business methods with amused in- dulgence. Paris, the beautiful, the mistress of poets, of painters, finds herself scrutinized by mul- titudes of young, crude, cruel, critical, practical, uncompromising eyes, which see in the great cathe- drals only space takers, in the old palaces useless impedimenta, in the narrow, picturesque streets SHIFTING SANDS 25 traffic obstructors; eyes which pierce the mystery of the Seine to the lost power of its waters, the romance of old neighbourhoods to defective drain- age; eyes, in fine, of foreigners and aliens. Never had Paris been looked upon so strangely. The Frenchman has fewer illusions about himself than most people. In the first shock of a victory wliich seemed to have all the disadvantages of a de- feat, these cold, clear-sighted criticisms struck home, and he felt himself in need of some readjust- ment to a world so different from that of his ances- tors, from that of yesterday. Meanwhile every- body claimed attention at once. The piper was there with his amazing compte — there were debts to pay off, pensions to be granted, workmen to be satisfied, strikes to be settled, the public to be pacified. A certain system of adjustment to the state of war had been worked out and was in suc- cessful operation, but this peace business upset everything again and the work of reconstruction was crushing. To those of us who have weathered, eye to eye, the incredible conditions of life during the period immediately succeeding the cessation of hostilities, the old Paris that we knew and loved in time of peace and plenty seemed at times to have fairly sunk out of sight. It has only been by a strong 26 A LOITERER IN PARIS grip on essential values and enduring fundamen- tals that one has been able to hold at all to the old and true idea of the Gallic city — that one has not been swept off one's feet by the tide of ma- terial considerations that have from time to time threatened to engulf us. At first, though the riding was uncommonly rough and the most that one could do was to hold hard while things in general went by the board, one had faith that a little patience and courage would see one through what was merely a tempo- rary and provisional state of things in France, not at all surprising after so great a calamity. The American press invented a phrase in which one took much comfort — that Europe would " come back," as a delirious patient might return to con- sciousness or a madman regain his senses. One thought in one's finite way of a transition period, or a period of reconstruction, as a matter of months merely — one was frantically occupied with the liand-to-hand struggle for daily exis- tence, personal existence — and in a larger way one saw Paris in the throes of a superhuman ef- fort to right itself after release from years de- voted exclusively to the absorbing passion of war. All courses had been turned to swell the one great torrent of resistance. What one now saw was the SHIFTING SANDS 27 bending back of those currents into normal chan- nels, the enormous travail multiplied by the fa- tigue of the nation — the vague de paresse of which we heard so much. Of the international politics one cannot pretend either a close observation or a profound under- standing; but it is certain that the country stood more than once upon the brink of revolution and that its leaders dreaded a repetition of the hor- rors which succeeded the war of '70, and pursued a yielding policy of mingled tact and propitiation, preferring to avert by excessive concession, rather than to attempt to crush by force, and perliaps thereby precij^itate, an all too menacing disaster. To each country its difficulties. And besides the debt of gratitude which the nation owed to the army, to a man, there was also the knowledge (as who indeed does not know?) of the limits to which the Gallic temperament will go when it has reached the point of rupture, when the last straw has been laid upon its exceedingly patient back. Certainly the wise old Cominunard knew how far to go in his dealings with a people already ereinte, to use their own forceful adjective describing their moral and physical state as the result of the five years' tension. The indefinite extension of the moratorium with 28 A LOITERER IN PARIS its attendant complications between landlord and tenant, the fabulous rise of workmen's wages, with its reaction ujjon prices in general, and the crowning disaster, the adoption of the eight-hour day, upsetting the routine of work at the very moment when work was to have been the salva- tion of the country, these have been the outstand- ing factors in the great metamorphosis that has taken place in France. I doubt if even the great Revolution itself made more drastic changes in a people. In the enveloping thick of a mighty battle against the insistence of every minor annoyance, Paris has never been more uncomfortable, it has never been more thrillingly interesting. Deprived as we have been daily of each elementary com- modity in turn, obliged to scheme and plot for the strictest necessities, forced to give up, one after another, when it is not all at the same time, the comforts and luxuries of a normal existence, the essential charm and beauty, the poetic depths of the loved city, seem to hold aloof, to be for us of this hand-to-hand conflict with the hard facts of mere physical life, forever separated by those cen- turies which have rolled between us and the builders of Paris the beautiful, by that vast gulf SHIFTING SANDS 29 of emptiness which represents for us now the in- terminable jDeriod of the war. Crossing the Pont du Carrousel frequently dur- ing daj^s sacrificed to dealings with material ob- stacles, the vision of Notre-Dame, rising there in serene majesty, in all the glow of its Gothic beauty against the eastern sky, usually piled with soft, gray, cumulus clouds, into which the towers melt, seems so remote from actuality, from strife and struggle, as to detach itself from the present, to represent a phase of belief and an ideality of vision so long ignored as to have been completely forgotten. Secure on its tiny island, the birth-place of the city of the Romans, its massive architecture domi- nates the compactness of that old, romantic sec- tion, gives the note of remoter antiquity to that boat-like isle, freighted with the treasures of an only less ancient epoch. Pointing its prow to- wards the mouth of the Seine, the ile de la Cite seems to float upon the bosom of the silver river. Its forward part is green at most seasons with the verdure of the graceful trees which screen the heavy masonry of the Pont-Neuf. To the left, the composition is held together by the heavy mass of the Conciergerie, its conical towers relievin'^ 30 A LOITERER IN PARIS the level of the roofs, while to the right the flat facade of that handsome row of XVI Ith century dwellings stands out clear, and from the middle rises high and fine the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, silhouetted against the gray sky, its line repeated in the slender fleche of Notre-Dame, above the cross. From the left-hand tower the fateful siren, whose four great mouths announced the approach of the enemy's air raids, has lately been removed, the ancient glass of the three roses has been re- stored, and the cathedral stands firm and splendid as the symbol of the faith of its builders, of the great and serious Paris, the Paris that must come back in time. CHAPTER II THE BIRTH-PLACE Enchanting as it is from all points of view, it is, perhaps, from the Pont des Arts, that simple footbridge which, thrown like a mere log across a stream, spans the Seine before the Institut, that the story of the island breathes deepest its note of inexhaustible promise. Of the shell of Henri IV houses, which encloses the Place- Dauphine, the two at the point of the island preserve, through restoration, their origi- nal character. As they are now, so was once the whole prow of the ile de la Cite. Between them one looks, as into the heart of a fire, upon an enclosed greenery, once part of the garden to the palace of the Ca?sars established in Roman times, where now is ponderously planted the Palais de Justice. The simile of the heart of the fire, a fire. rich and glowing with the embers of remoter antiquity, never fails to strike me, as I pass now almost daily in my peregrinations back and forth be- tween the Louvre and the delightful Bibliothcque 31 32 A LOITERER IN PARIS Mazarine, lodged in a wing of the Institut de France. One seems here to have that older Paris completely within the hollow of the hand. The vista thus glimpsed of a ground so rich in layers of history that one seems never to reach the first deposit, is one of the most inviting of a city that goes in largely for vistas. Henri IV himself, so proud upon his mount there at the head of the island, looks in hetween Madame Roland's house and its cheerful twin, upon the place which he preserved and embellished. The Place Dauphine remains just as Henri IV made it, a cool retreat from the gaiety of the Pont-Neuf, completed in his reign. I could wish, upon closer inspection, that there were less as- phalt, and I am sure, as Henri designed it, what- ever, if any, carriages entered between the two openings in the belt of houses came by a modest driveway in keeping with the discretion of the enclosure. The king named it in commemora- tion of the birth of Louis XIII, the then dauphin of France. The place, accommodating itself to the form of the island, is triangular, and the houses in their original state were of red brick with wide markings of white stone and steep re- naissance roofs of blue slate, all of the same struc- ture and symmetry. There were never more than THE BIRTH-PLACE 33 the two entrances, one in the middle of the base of the triangle and the other opposite in the angle upon the Pont-Neuf. The houses are shallow and have two facades of equal importance, and the two large ones upon the Rue de Harlay form acute angles with the quays. The whole scheme is amus- ing and original. There is nothing here to sug- gest the lugubrious Louis XIII, but the whole disposition of affairs exhales that charm and vi- vacity inseparable from the memory of Henri IV. Now the oldest bridge in Paris, the Pont-Neuf, finished in 1608, was then the newest — all Paris adopted it as the fashionable promenade and made it the scene of their rendezvous. As the XVI Ith century advanced it became the official passage of the royal processions going to parliament. Old maps show two little islets preceding the present ile de la Cite; they remained until the end of the XVIth century and were accredited to the abbot of Saint-Germain. The largest lay to- wards the left bank of the Seine and in various deeds and titles is called I'isle des Juifs, I'isle aux Treilles, I'isle aux Vaches, and isle de Seine. The vineyards of this island, whence the name lie aux Treilles (trellis), must have been considerable, for an old act records six hogsheads of wine from the trellises behind the Palais, given by the king 34 A LOITERER IN PARIS to the chaplain of Saint-Nicholas-du-Palais in the year 1160. The abbot and monks of Saint-Ger- main profited from the pasturage of cows there. The other island, much smaller, was called sometimes I'isle de Bussy and again I'isle du Passeur aux Vaches. These were joined to the larger island when the Pont-Neuf was projected, in the reign of Henri III, and the bridge rests upon them. When the first pier emerged from the water, at the side of the Quai des Grands-Augustins, the king accompanied by his wife, Louise de Vaude- mont, and his mother, Catherine de Medicis, rode from the Louvre in a magnificent barge, to lay the corner-stone. It bore the arms of the king, the dowager, and the city of Paris, and the date. May 30, 1578. That day Henri had seen pass, on its way to the church of Saint-Paul in the Marais, the funeral procession of Quelus and de Maugiron, his dearest minions, and out of respect for his grief the bridge bore for a time the name, Pont des Pleurs. All the history of Paris is mingled with this old and admirable Pont-Neuf. Jacques- Androuet Du Cerceau, distinguished under both Henri III and Henri IV, was the architect, and the bridge is spoken of as his chef-d'oeuvre. One of its at- THE BIRTH-PLACE 35 tractions, a tremendous innovation, was an hy- draulic pump, constructed by Lintlaer, a Flemish engineer, upon one of the piers of the bridge — the second from the right bank. Its mission was to distribute water to the Louvre and the Tuile- ries, hitherto unprovided, and it was one of the mechanical wonders of the age. " Ueau de la pompe dii Pont-Neuf est auoc Tuileries/' wrote Malherbe triumphantly, on October 3, 1608, as though the impossible had been accomplished. The Musee Carnavalet preserves the model of the little chateau d'eau in which the machine was housed. The charming little renaissance building gave piquancy to the river views; its fa9ade to- wards the promenade was ornamented with a group of sculpture representing Jesus receiving water from the woman of Samaria at Jacob's Well, from which the familiar name of the build- ing, La Samaritaine. A chiming clock with, says John Evelyn, " a very rare dyall of several mo- tions," filled the rounded space above the group, and a little wooden campanile contained the caril- lon of bells, which, playing every hour, charmed and diverted the people. Falling into decay, the Samaritaine was rebuilt in 1712, only to be again mutilated, by the Revolution, when the statues were destroyed as too reminiscent of the evangel. 36 A LOITERER IN PARIS The Roman fortress or palace, which formed the western buttress of the antique city of Julian the Apostate, became in later centuries the palace of the kings of France, culminating in importance and grandeur under Saint-Louis; and who is not familiar w^th the oft-repeated story of that sub- limely simple monarch, seated under the trees in the garden of his palace, administering a merci- ful justice to his beloved and loving subjects? Let Joinville tell it again in his archaic tongue: " Je le vis aucunefois en ete, que pour delivrer sa gent il venoit ou jardin de Paris, une cote de camelot vestue, un surcot de tyreteinne sans manche, un mantel de ceudal noir entour son col, moult bien pigne, et sans coife, et un chnpel de paon blanc sur la teste, et faisoit estendre tapis pour nous seoir entour li, et tout le peuple qui avoit a faire par devant li, estoit entour, et lors il faisoit delivrer en la maniere, que je vous ai dit devant, du bois ds Vincennes." In still earlier times a mill for minting moneys stood in this field belonging to the Palais. A street. Rue de la Monnaie, behind Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois, recalls this obscure fact, and from a similar association comes the name of the second of the three pepper-pot towers which, standing along the Quai de I'Horloge, mark the northern boundary of the ancient palace. The first mint THE BIRTH-PLACE 37 must have been this Tour d'Argent and the fa- mous mill, indicated upon the oldest maps of Paris, was probably a modern contrivance for striking coins built as an improvement upon the mint of the Tour d'Argent. The tall, square tower, the Tour de I'Horloge, rising almost to the height of the Tour Saint- Jacques, that isolated Gothic fragment, upon the right bank of the Seine, places the northeast corner of the Palais. From its summit was echoed the fateful signal for the Massacre of Saint-Bar- tholomew, first sounded from Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois. The first of the pointed towers, coupled to the Tour d'Argent, long bore the name Tour de Montgomery, in memory of the captain of the Scotch guards imprisoned therein after fatally wounding Henri II in a tournament near Place des Vosges. Place des Vosges was then a royal park attached to the palace of the Tournelles, built by Charles V as a country house. There, on July 1, 1559, Henri II, fighting under the colours of Diane de Poitiers, broke his lance against the Earl of Montgomery, and Montgomery's lance raising the visor of the king's helmet penetrated his adversary's eye. The king died of the wound ten days later at the Tournelles. 38 A LOITERER IN PARIS Ravaillac, the assassin of Henri IV, and Da- miens, who attempted the life of Louis XV, spent also their last days in this tower. The Tour Bonhec, the last and smallest, is the most perfect of the towers, since it has preserved its battle- ments. With the modern restoration of the Pa- lais, these names, which had both point and flavour, have been changed. Montgomery be- comes the Tour de Cesar; Bonbec, the Tour Saint-Louis. These four towers then, with the Sainte-Cha- pelle, determine accurately the perimeter of the Palais from the Merovingien monarchs to the first of the House of Valois. The Palais, thus simply designated from time immemorial, meant the kings' residence upon the ile de la Cite, whereas one specified Palais des Thermes, chateau du Louvre, chateau de Vincennes. The occa- sional residence, merely, of the Merovingiens, who affected the Thermes, it was in this palace that the sovereigns of France held court from the Capetiens to Charles V. The Roman building appears to have lasted until the time of the Nor- man invasions, when Count Eudes rebuilt the palace as a square fortress, defended by high towers, its facade characterized by four great round-headed arches, flanked by bastions, of which Photo X HENRI IV ON THE PONT-NEUF. THE BIRTH-PLACE 41 the remains were discovered when the Cour de Harlay was pulled down. Louis le Gros and Louis le Jeune both died within the walls of this palace, and here Philippe Auguste was married to a Danish princess. Blanche de Castille, mother of Saint-Louis, is said to have inhabited the right-hand tower. At the beginning of the XlVth century the Palais presented a reunion of buildings of which the oldest went back to the epoch of Louis IX and the most recent dated from the time of Philippe le Bel, or about 1313. The beautiful early XVIth century Gothic buildings erected by Louis XII, which sur- rounded the Cour du Mai, totally perished in the three fires of 1618, 1737, and 1776. These fires also destroyed the Hotel Isabeau, once occupied by the unfaithful wife of Charles VI; the rooms in which the Burgundians seized the Comte d'Ar- magnac, Constable of France, and Chancellor Henri de Masle, and others; the Grand' Salle, in which was held the coronation banquet of Henrj^ IV of England, when he was crowned king of France; the halls of Saint-Louis, and the room in which that king spent his bridal night, and in which thereafter the kings of France slept upon the night of their arrival in Paris. 42 A LOITERER IN PARIS The triumphal entry of the sovereigns upon their accession to the throne was feted with many- curious and beautiful customs. As the cortege advanced towards the Palais by the Grand Pont " two hundred dozens of birds " were set free by the bird market to add to the festivity of the scene. In consideration of this the bird dealers were allowed the privilege of selling their stock upon the Grand Pont on Sundays and fete days, so that the bridge in olden times came to be known as le Pont auoc Oiseauoo. By the rue de Lutece and across from the Prefecture of Police is still a market where birds of all sorts are for sale on fete days and Sundays, a survival of the ancient custom. Saint-Louis gave certain rights of the Palais to a court of justice, but Charles V was the first to abandon it to the newly created parliament, re- moving" his court to the famous Hotel Saint-Pol, under the protection of the Bastille, from which later developed the Palais des Tournelles. Mean- while the Louvre was slowly advancing from the fortress of Phihppe Auguste into a residence for the last monarchs of the House of Valois. The palace of antiquity lies buried beneath the crushing mass of the modern Palais de Justice, rebuilt after the furies of the Commune had de- stroyed most of the buildings erected after the THE BIRTH-PLACE 43 fire of 1776 (about 1874). The domain of the Caesars forms in effect the foundations, the cel- lars, of the contemporary pile. The Quai de I'Horloge covers about twenty feet of those an- tique constructions, its road-bed lies well above the beginnings of the three round towers, whose elevation, even yet of an imposing height, be- speaks a primitive structure of impressive ele- gance. Judged by them alone this palace of antiquity over which you walk in treading the floor of the immense Scdle des Pas Perdus, of the present palace, was a marvel of architec- ture. Such fragments as remain poets have woven into a fantastic fabric, which the cool judgment of archaeologists has in turn destroyed. It is all so indefinite that one may choose for belief be- tween the rich legends of the romanticists and the alleged facts of the materialists. It is true that very little of the ancient palace remains, that the towers show remorseless reconstruction, but it is equally true that the foundations have yielded from time to time some thrilling evidence of pre- historic times. The Bibliothcque Nationale preserves in its cabinet of antiquities a quadrangular cij)pe, or truncated funeral column, found very deep amongst the debris of an ancient edifice under- 44 A LOITERER IN PARIS lying a part of the Palais ruined by the fire of 1776. This cip2Je is thought to date from the Ilird century. It is five feet ten inches in height and bears no inscription, and each side is orna- mented by the standing figure of a divinity in high relief. There is Mercury with all his attri- butes; a woman holding a caduceus, possibly Maia, the mother of Mercury; Apollo with the bow and quiver; and a winged figure difficult to identify. Again in the middle of the last century excava- tions under the Palais discovered the remains of certain Gallo-Roman constructions. Beside the Tour de I'Horloge, along the quay, is a vaulted hall, built upon a quincunx of col- umns (arranged like a five-spot) with four large chimneys in the corners. This room is known as the cuisines de Saifit-Louis, though Viollet-le- Duc, who studied the question, attributes it to the period of Philippe le Bel. What remains is thought to be the lower floor of a kitchen built in two stories, the lower serving for the domestics' table and the upper for the service of the king. Situated between the twin towers of the Con- ciergerie, and opening from the Salle dcs Pas Perdus, is the Premiere Chamhre of the court. This was once the Grand' Chamhre of the parlia- fhotu A. Giraudon LE CHRIST DU PARLEMENT. FROM THt; GRAND CIIAM13RE OF THE PAI-AIS DU JUSTICE. NOW IX THE LOUVRE. THE BIRTH-PLACE 47 ment of Paris. Saint-Louis built it, together with the Sainte-Chapelle and the Grand' Salle, and Louis XII restored and ornamented it with a ceiling of golden caissons, walls hung with blue velvet and fleurs-de-lys in raised gold, high stained windows whose semi-translucency bathed the room in a rich, colourful twilight, and at the end of the room a large picture with sentences from the sacred writings under a crucifix. The history of France was enacted here. In this room Fran9ois I held his seat of justice; here the marechal de Biron was condemned to death; here, in 1614, parliament proclaimed the majority of Louis XIII; and here it was, on August 16, 1655, that Louis XIV, arriving post-haste from Vincennes, in hunting costume, booted and spurred, sprang to the dais and ordered the edicts recorded without discussion in fulfilment of his glorious assumption : '' UEtat, cest moi." In this same room, by a reversal of fortunes, the great-grandson of the autocrat presided at the seance (September 12, 1715) which broke the will of the Roi-Soleil in favour of the legitimized princes. Little Louis XV, aged five years, but described as dejd dccoratif, sat upon cushions em- broidered with the fleur-de-lys under the surveil- lance of his ffoverness, Madame de Ventadour, 48 A LOITERER IN PARIS while at his feet were the regent and the dukes and peers of parhament. Parliament perished with the advent of the Revolution. Suspended by a law of November 3, 1789, it was suppressed in August of the fol- lowing year, and in 1793 the Chamhre Dorce was transformed into a Salle cVEgalite. At the end of the room, his back to the Seine, the president of the Revolutionary tribunal was enthroned be- neath a bust of Socrates flanked by those of Murat and Lepeletier. The vaulted roof of Louis XII covered them, but its grandeur was masked and the escutcheons of royalty had been scraped from the walls. Dukes, marshals, bishops, princes, the king, the queen — all the ancient no- bility of France, the Orleanistes, Brissot, with the Girondistes, Saint-Just and the comite du salut puhlique, all the condemned of all the parties — IMarie- Antoinette and Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday and the Abbesse de Montmorency, the Dubarry and Madame Elisabeth, Hebert and his partisans, Danton and his party, Malesherbes, the marechal de Noailles, Camille Desmoulins, Robes- pierre — all, by hundreds, passed this fantastic mockery of judgment. Here was heard, on October 14, 1793, the piti- ful affaire de la veuve Capet. The trial of the THE BIRTH-PLACE 49 queen of France occupied twenty consecutive hours, while, her destiny prejudged, she was sub- jected to every insult, accused of every infamy, compared to Catherine de Medicis, Messaline, Fredegonde! The seance broke up at four o'clock in the morning of the second day and Marie- Antoinette left the salle du trihuual, to regain her cell in the Conciergerie, by the little door to the left — it still exists — and descended the tiny spiral stairway built in the Tour Montgomery. The horrors of the Revolution swallow up all minor miseries of the Conciergerie — primitively the lodge of the concierge of the ancient palace, yet here the Comte d'Armagnac was murdered, and here, below the level of the Seine, was the Souriciere, the mouse-trap, of infamous memory. Under the Reign of Terror the unique entrance to the Conciergerie was under the archway to the right of the grand stairway of the Cour clc Mai, down nine worn steps into a damp court, and through a low gray door, protected by a rusty double grill. Time has so softened the memory of the terrors of this locality that the restaurant of the Palais has had the heart to install itself in the very court of infamy, in the very anfichamhre of death. Aside from this the theatre of drama is singularly unchanged. 50 A LOITERER IN PARIS The Cour de Mai — the name derived from the maypole annually erected in the court of the Palais by the lawyers' clerks — thus became the arena for the daily spectacle of horror as the carts delivered the " suspects " and called again for the condemned, who came through the little gray door, from the dungeons, into the tiny court, and mounted the steps to be carted away to the guil- lotine. If the steps of the Palais were crammed with spectators, the top of the wall itself, over the arch, was alive with a howling and vociferating mob, which hurled filthy projectiles and insults at the unfortunates, who, their hair cut as much for the profit of wig makers as the convenience of the blade, their hands tied behind them, were made to wait in this pillory while the hourreau, clad in a long redingote and coiffed with a top hat, identified the victims with his lists before ty- ing them to the benches or sides of the cart facing the crowd which ran with the wagons to the Con- corde. With Balzac one regrets that the Conciergerie has invaded the palace of the kings; its hideous recollections overlie every other consideration. " The heart bleeds," says the romanticist, " to see how they have shaped jails, keeps, corridors, lodgings, dungeons without light or air, in this THE BIRTH-PLACE 51 magnificent composition where Byzantine, Ro- man, Gothic — these three faces of ancient art have been joined together by the architecture of the Xllth century. This palace is to the monu- mental history of France of the first epoch what the chateau of Blois is to the monumental history of the second period. Just as at Blois, in the court, you may admire the castle of the counts of Blois, of Louis XII, of Francois I, of Gaston; so in the Conciergerie you find, in the same en- closure, the character of the first dynasties and in the Sainte-Chapelle the architecture of Saint- Louis." (Scenes de la vie parisienne.) CHAPTER III THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA Of all the legends concerning the origin of Paris the most charming is that intrepid fabrica- tion of the Moyen Age which names Francus, son of Hector, father of France and founder of its principal city, called for his beautiful uncle, Paris. The story, with all its amusing detail, may be followed in the transcription by Jehan Bouchet, of Poitiers, who, writing in the early XVIth cen- tury, gives a complete genealog>^ of the descent of " Pharamond," the mythical " first Mero- vingien," from Astynax (Francus), who, thrown over the walls of Troy by Ulysses, escaped in a sack to Hungary, becoming king of the Sicam- bres, whose domain extended to the banks of the Rhine. Another version establishes the grandson of Priam as king of Gaul and founder of Troyes, in Champagne, from which he came to plant upon the island of the Seine the city of the Parisians. Whether Bouchet, the transmitter of this bur- lesque history, was a practical joker, or merely a naif chronicler, we can only surmise. At all 52 THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 53 events Ronsard takes the fable as the basis of his epic poem, La Franciade, and so it passes into literature. Leaving to the realms of fiction such pleasing fancies, such scant knowledge as we have of the primitive settlement engirdled by the Seine comes from the note-books of the Roman emperors who encountered it during the conquest of Gaul, and who made it during the subsequent years of occu- pation a place of residence. To the best of belief the Parisii, as the Romans name them, were a Celtic people of comparatively small importance who occupied a stronghold upon the Seine at the period of Roman conquest. Julius Caesar found them here upon his arrival with his conquering host from 58 to 51 B.C., so that it was in the first century before our era that the little tribe figured for the first time upon the his- toric scene. Their town, called Lutetia Parisiontm (Lutetia of the Parisians), was situated, says Caesar, "on an island of the river Sequana [Seine]." There are writers who say that Julius Ca?sar built the Grand Chatelet, the first great gateway of the island city on the north bank, but it seems fairly certain that while he conquered, pillaged, and de- stroyed extensively he built no edifice in Gaul. 54 A LOITERER IN PARIS Beside the Palais in the Cite, the successors of the greatest Roman built a country seat on the left bank of the Seine not far from the present Sorbonne, a palace of vast extent and in the Roman manner with baths, whose gardens and dependances extended from the Mont Locutitius (now Sainte-Genevieve) to the banks of the Seine. Something of the scale of magnificence of this Palais des Thermes may be judged from the great frigidarium, which stands in a state of remarkable perfection after sixteen centuries, de- voted chiefly to neglect and abuse, abutting sharply upon the Boulevard Saint-Michel. In this palace the emperors went into winter quarters. Constantius Chlorus is thought to have been the builder; he lived fourteen winters in Lutetia; while it is historically certain that Julian the Apostate lived here and that, in 306, his troops proclaimed him emperor in the camp without the Palais des Thermes. The emperor Julian, in his Misopogon, describ- ing Paris as his cara Lutetia, found it " situated on a small island entirely surrounded by the waters of a river, and reached by two wooden bridges;" from which we judge that for several centuries under the Romans the stockaded island village did not grow beyond its natural boundary. Photo A. Oiraudon ANTIQUE STATTT, OF JFLIAN THE APOSTATE, PROCLAIMED EMPEROB IN 360 A.D., IN THE PALAIS DES THERMES NOW IN THE MtJSEE DE CLUNY. THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 57 nor did it compete in importance with such Gallic towns as Aries, Nimes, Marseilles, Bordeaux, or Lyon. The name Lutetia was of unknown origin. For some it indicated the " city of crows," for others "the muddiest" city; but in any case, whatever its derivative, the name of the town was soon dis- placed by the name of the tribe, and Lutetia be- came Parisea Civitas, the city of the Parisians, and so Paris. At first the river formed the highway, then the two bridges, which Julian describes, tied the vil- lage to the mainland, one to the right, the other to the left bank of the Seine, standing where are now the Pont au Change and the Petit Pont, and these two bridges put the city into communication with the two principal roads built by the Romans, one leaving Paris for the northern provinces and the coast, the other bearing away towards Orleans and Rome. The old Route d'Orleans, upon which lay the country seat of the Caesars, lies buried under the present Rue Saint-Jacques, as was proven when, in 1842, that ancient street of old Paris was opened to a considerable depth for the laying of a sewer, and the antique Roman paving, com- posed of enormous blocks of sandstone, irregu- 58 A LOITERER IN PARIS larly laid (such as one still sees in the city of Autun) was exposed. A dozen of these blocks were taken up and deposited in the garden of the Palais des Thermes as part of its contemporary collection. That the soil of Paris covers many interesting souvenirs of the Roman occupation and conquest has been proven over and over again when, in digging foundations, laying drains, or whatever, the workman's pick has encountered fragments of edifices, portions of walls, ruins of houses, tombs, temples, altars to pagan deities, statues, inscriptions, coins. Before the XVIIth century such discoveries, if made, were unrecorded, but since that time the city has taken care to preserve such precious fragments of a remote civilization, and keeps at the Louvre, the Bibliotheque Na- tionale, the Cluny Museum, or again some few at the Musee Carnavalet, a large and growing collection of treasures found in the soil of Paris. From these discoveries it has been possible to trace the extent and disposition of the Romanized city in which Julian the Apostate loved to dwell. The Palais upon the prow of the island was bal- anced by a Temple to Jupiter raised by the boat- men of Paris, in the 1st century of our era, upon the eastern extremity of the city, where later was THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 59 raised the first Christian church. Its remains were discovered in 1711, in digging under the choir of Notre-Dame, and have been transported to the Salle des Thermes. These remains consist of nine large blocks of stone carved with reliefs and inscriptions. One of them, of which three faces are charged with reliefs, is inscribed on its fourth: TIB. CAESAEE, AUG JOVI OPTUMO MAXSUMO. . . M. NAUTAE. PARISIACI PUBLICE POSIERUNT. Traced by a clumsy hand the letters omitted were afterwards added above the words to which they belonged. The inscription is supposed to mean: Under Tiberius Caesar Augustus, the Pa- risian boatmen publicly erected this altar to the great and good Jupiter. As it was customary in the first centuries of the new faith to supplant idolatrous temples by Christian churches there is little doubt that the first church erected on the site of Notre-Dame was deliberately placed over the demolished Temple of Jupiter. In close proximity to the Palais des Thermes was the Roman camp, placed in such a manner as to protect the palace. It occupied in great part the declivity where is to-day the Luxembourg 60 A LOITERER IN PARIS Garden. Contemporary writings had indicated the existence of this camp, or barracks, near the palace of Constantius Chlorus, but it was not until the beginning of the XlXth century that its exact position was defined. The first indication of its probable location was, in 1615, when, in throwing up the earth for the foundations of the Luxembourg Palace, a bronze figure of Mercury was found; and three centuries later, when the eastern part of the garden was terraced, important researches and discoveries were made. Then cooking utensils and table im- plements were uncovered in abundance as well as a great number of vases, whole or in fragments and of all sizes and dimensions, plates, spoons, forks, and the handles of knives. Many objects strictly military in character belonging to the cos- tume of a soldier, such as hooks, buckles, or fibu- la, buttons, ornaments, harness, and scabbards, were also found. In 1836 and 1838 new discoveries were made in digging to make additions to the Luxembourg Palace for the installation of the House of Peers, and in digging the foundations of the orangerie to the west of the palace. Amongst the mass of fragments then found was a cachette made of five Roman bricks with a cover of thin silver, hand- THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 61 somely embossed. This cachette contained seven hundred large bronze medals of twenty-five Ro- man emperors from Gall)a to Mam^ea, and two hundred small silver medals from Augustus to Volusian, from which it was presumed that the hiding place was closed up about the Ilird cen- tury. Further excavations incident to the opening of the Rue Soufflot, in 1848, revealed substructures in which were recognized the remains of the castra stativa, or barracks, of the Gallo-Roman garrison which is supposed to have extended from the Luxembourg Gardens to the Rue Monge, an old street which lies well behind and below the Pan- theon. Roman tombs were found in the heights of the Saint-Jacques quarter, remains of an ancient pot- tery manufacture were identified under the foundations of the Pantheon, and in 1870-1883 excavations beyond the Rue Monge disclosed a small amphitheatre of the second or third century. " On the east side of the Mont Sainte-Gene- vieve," says Delaure, writing the history of Paris, " was a site where one sole deed of 1284 gave the name ' Clos des Arenes.' This gave rise to the opinion that an amphitheatre had existed there, but nothing remains to estabhsh the fact." The 62 A LOITERER IN PARIS historian never knew of its existence but is care- ful to record the exact location of the site, as lying between a house formerly called " La Doc- trine Chretienne " and the Rue Saint-Victor. When I first saw this arena, in 1905, about half of it only had been uncovered, while old houses built over the other half stood undisturbed, an odd and exceedingly picturesque mingling of antiquity and modernity tucked away in an old, dilapidated quarter of Paris, far from the track of the beau monde. Now the whole amphitheatre has been uncovered and so unsparingly restored as to have lost its convincing manner. On the night of the famous Fom-teenth of July, 1919, as part of the memorable peace celebration of that day, the rehabilitated and rejuvenated amphitheatre of the Romans was inaugurated by a performance of L,e Cid, by the artists of the Comedie Fran- 9aise; but whether owing to the excessive restora- tion of the place itself, or to the overdone tradi- tionalism of the French actress, in particular, or the incongruity of the audience, or the difficul- ties made about entering, or whatever, the per- formance, to me at least, failed absolutely of ef- fectiveness, and with the best of predispositions in its favour I lost completely the sense of every century but my own, with its fatigues and horrors THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 63 SO barely distanced. The unending douleur of the heroine seemed in bad taste after all we had been through, and one felt disconcerted by her lack of reticence. Nothing was spared to make the Palais des Thermes a splendid residence. A Roman aque- duct brought water from the springs of Rongis, far from the centre of Paris. Subterranean dur- ing the greater part of its course, it traversed the valley of Arcueil along a suite of high arcades of which time has respected a few piers, of fine archi- tecture. The antique aqueduct has been com- pletely recognized throughout its extent and is accompanied by a modern conduit which brings to Paris the waters of the same source. The Gallo-Roman palace was abandoned at the approach of the Norman invasion. It offered less security than the Palais of the Cite, sheltered be- hind a wall and protected by its natural moat, the two arms of the Seine. About the end of the Xllth century, however, Jean de Hauteville still speaks in pompous language of the summits of this palace " lost in the skies," while its founda- tions " invaded the empire of the dead." Philippe Auguste gave the palace to Henri, his chamberlain, in 1218; and in 1360, Pierre de Cha- ins, abbot of Cluny, acquired what still stood, for 64 A LOITERER IN PARIS the wall of Philippe Augiiste, which should have protected the Palais des Thermes, on the con- trarv diminished its extent and demolished sev- eral dependances in its path. During the interval between its ownership by kings and its purchase by the abbots of Cluny the palace underwent many changes, of which the most interesting was the erection of hanging gardens, similar to those of Babylon, established above the solid Roman arches. One of these gardens subsisted until 1820. Upon the site of the ancient palace two other abbots of Cluny, Jean de Bourbon and Jacques d'Amboise, built the sumptuous XVth century hotel, one of those rare civil edifices which bear witness to the architectural taste of its epoch. In its perfect state of preservation it offers a charm- ing specimen of the living quality in domestic architecture which expanded at the beginning of the XVth century and was far from being ex- hausted at the dawn of the Renaissance. As rep- resenting the transition between Gothic and Re- naissance feeling, this Hotel de Cluny belongs properly to later ramblings, but since the existing remnant of the Palais des Thermes cannot be visited now without passing through it, curiosity must be in part satisfied. The hotel was the town residence of the abbots THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 65 of Cluny. But as they came seldom to Paris, their palace was from time to time let to various distinguished persons: thus Marie d'Angleterre, the widowed bride of Louis XII, came here to pass her period of mourning and was here mar- ried to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. In this hotel Franc^ois I married his daughter Made- leine to James V of Scotland. The Cardinals of Lorraine, the princes of Guise, the due d'Aumale sojourned here during their trips to Paris. After- wards the hotel was lived in by actors, then by nuns of Port Royal, and under the Revolution be- came national property and served as a place of public meetings for this quarter. In the early part of the XlXth century it was bought by du Sommerard, an archaeologist, who enriched it with his precious collections, the nucleus of the present museum. Meanwliile as the Hotel de Cluny waxed glori- ous the Palais des Thermes was neglected and abandoned. Its monumental ruin, the frigida- rium, served as a storage house for a barrel maker, to which base use its architecture lent it- self marvellously. If it was not torn down it was probably because of the expense and inconven- ience of demolishing so stalwart a structure; but in order that it should not offend the eye of the 66 A LOITERER IN PARIS distinguished occupants of the Hotel de Cluny, the hanging gardens of which we have spoken were built over the roof. The Roman vaulting supported on its back a deep bed of earth divided into flower-beds and kitchen gardens, where apple trees grew six feet high, and lettuces and lilies flourished. One walked out into this garden through the rooms of the second floor of the ab- batial residence in indifference if not in ignorance of the august foundations whose robust constitu- tion alone saved them. Louis XVIII was the first monarch of France since the Merovingiens to take an interest in their fate. He was a lettered prince, capable, so says tradition, of reciting whole books of Virgil and odes of Horace,- from which perhaps came his taste for Roman antiquities. At any rate in 1819 through his intervention the Thermes was rescued, the gardens demolished, and the old monument leased by the city and a certain sum voted for the restoration of the walls. Afterwards it became the property of the municipality, and when, in 1842, upon the death of du Sommerard, the hotel of the abbots of Cluny, with the collections it con- tained, was purchased by the state, the Thermes was presented by the city, and the whole united THE ROMANS IN LUTETIA 67 in the present Musee de Cluny that forms one of the series of national museums of France. Fragments of Roman construction may be rec- ognized throughout the Hotel de Cluny, especially where it joins the Thermes; its west wing rests against the antique wall. It is through this wing that one must pass to enter the great hall of the Roman palace, now devoted to an appropriate collection of antique debris contemporary with itself or culled from the demolition of innumer- able monuments of the Moyen Age. All bare and despoiled as it is the Salle des TJierines, with its high vaultings, its archivolts, its arcades and niches, still commands admiration and respect. On the north side is the piscine, or swim- ming pool, its flooring lower down; and on the other side arcades, now walled in, communicated with other rooms, and great niches show plainly where canals brought water to the baths from the springs of Rongis. Of the tejndarium nothing remains but the ruined walls ; it was bordered with big niches and arranged as a hemicycle. Presiding over the exhibits exhumed from the soil of Lutece is a statue of Julian the Apostate, found in a marble cutter's yard in Paris at the time that the ruins of the Thermes were about to 68 A LOITERER IN PARIS be rescued from their misery and abandon. No one knew its origin, whether it dated from the Roman occupation or whether it had been brought in under Fran9ois I, who had a taste for antique sculptures and who started the collections at the Louvre; but its antiquity has never been doubted. We are here then, at last, under vaultings and within walls which date back to the time of the Cfesars, in the very oldest building of Paris, and it is here, par excellence, that the most intelligent study of the city should begin, by reason of its origin and its destiny. At first, perhaps, as one looks upon these bare stone walls and upon the fragments of primitive monuments with which the room is furnished, one feels a chill as of the abstract over all, a remote- ness too elusory to offer any point of contact. But not so. One has only to read a very little into antiquity to find how intensely human it all was. And as one learns even a little about that past which the intense vitality of the French has from time to time ruthlessly swept aside in the achievement of its ever modern purpose, this museum, thus housed within its own chief exhibit, becomes of absorbing, living interest, and con- stantly draws us by its extraordinary verity and the fecundity of its inspiration. CHAPTER IV VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL Notre-Dame, from whatever angle one may take it, reveals itself with a certain magnificent surprise to which one never grows stale. Its Gothic grandeur, rising from the smooth surface of the Parvis, presents the substantial, enduring bulk, as if in sum total, of the primary factors of the medieval city reared upon the foundations of the remoter Roman city, moulded into indomita- ble relation to the modern city, which it dwarfs and minimizes, the while protecting, and su- premely holds at bay. As characterizing Paris, compare it with what you will, it never yields a jot of its importance. The willowy Eiffel Tower, which from the west- ern extremity of the Champ de Mars spans lightly prodigious spaces and lifts its head to vertiginous heights as the emblem of a frivolous experiment, is no more marvellous a feat of engineering than are these flying buttresses which support the apse of the Xllth century construction of the cathe- dral; the M'hite towers of the basilica crowning 69 70 A LOITERER IN PARIS Moiitmartre reflect indeed a spectacular image of Paris in pretty despair over her sins; but Notre- Dame, and Notre-Dame only, clutches and holds the vitals of the past, the present, and the future, sinks its roots deep into the history of the soil, reflects the temper of the people, embodies the power, and the impotence, of kings and bishops, dominates the mob, and succours the masses. The blood of revolutions has stained its portails, profane hands have pillaged and restored its sculpture, have broken its ornaments, have cast away its glass, have sacked its sanctuary; these things are but incidents. The silhouette is main- tained; so, by a miracle, are most of the salient features, the more important details; so, by its powerful dimensions, the eloquence of its en- semble, its Gothic mystery and imagery, does the great facade inspire awe, if not a sense of terror, a terror of the gravity of life and death and eternity, an emotion as if in the awful presence of religion made manifest. And this, though, upon inspection, carried out in the literal stories of the embrasures and tympanums and piers of the great doors, not at all the effect of such puerile devices, whose quaintness touches one in quite another way, but as the sublime effect of the architecture itself. VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 71 Ah, but this first aspect of the great cathedral is a thing to conjure with. To one who loves it and who loves Paris, there are whole mornings, afternoons, and evenings to be devoted to nothing more than giving one's self the ever new thrill of coming upon it, as it were, unawares. Approach- ing it squarely from the remotest spot along the Seine from which its blunt towers and its delicate fleche are visible, until one comes full upon its glory from the Place Saint-Michel, or, crossing the Pont de la Cite, steps out upon the Place du Parvis — that is fine enough, impressive enough in all conscience. But there are twenty secret routes by which one may steal upon it, circuitous ways through shabby quarters and narrow old streets, where light scarcely filters and air is a dispensable luxury, where, suddenly, through a rift in the close-packed dwellings, the great Gothic bulk bursts upon the view. The most favourable promenade leading to such a climax is through that ancient section on the left bank of the Seine, lying between the Boule- vards Saint-Michel and Saint-Germain and along the quais, taking by preference the Rue Saint- Severin, which leaves on the right hand a charming bit of architecture to be taken up later, and con- tinuing a few steps through the Rue Galande one 72 A LOITERER IN PARIS finds, on the left, a mere narrow passage leading, through the debris of recent demolition and roughly boarded through most of its length, to the Quai de Montebello, a little street of very ancient flavour called the Rue Saint-Julien-le- Pauvre. From the opening of this " ruelle " is perhaps the most striking vista in all Paris — the contrast between the poverty of the neighbour- hood and the splendour of the Gothic structure, and at the same time the affinity between them is fraught with material for reflection. We are here, suddenly, all within the epoch; there is nothing between us and the Xlllth cen- tury, while there is much that is earlier. Just here, perhaps, more than anywhere else, may one absorb the spirit of the antiquity of Paris, else- where blotted out by the intensity of its elan vital. It tells, with a conviction born of the actual visual proof, of things in a process of evolution. Through a gateway which might lead to a dis- used stable, so shabby and neglected it is, one enters a paved courtyard with an old well, the whole dilapidated and in the possession of heed- less tenants, partly enclosed by an unkempt frag- ment of the rampart of Philippe Auguste. We are here, then, on the border of the Xllth century town, before the desecrated, but still VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 73 treasured, wreck of a church contemporary with the cathedral, and probably finished first — the church Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre from which the ruelle takes its name. A church brilliant in the Middle Ages, degraded, denuded, abbreviated in the successive centuries, but still conserving an unique message for archaeologists as representing the precise moment when Gothic architecture suc- ceeded Roman. We shall come back to it after a study of Notre-Dame shall have whetted the appetite for such abstractions, but for the moment it serves as another point of vantage from which the great cathedral looms majestic. The sacristan is always ready to open the north door, in the side of the little church, which used to communi- cate with the old Hotel Dieu when Saint-Julien- le-Pauvre degenerated into a mere chapel for the inmates of that institution, and from which Notre- Dame is again superbly seen across the river — radiant as some glorious flower. The Seine widens above the ile de la Cite, and from both banks, coming back from the direction of the Gare de Lyon, the magnificent apse of the cathedral is boldly drawn against the sky. There is a viewpoint from the Pont Sully, which crosses the extreme end of the ile Saint-Louis, and forms a link between the Boulevard Saint-Germain and 74 A LOITERER IN PARIS the Boulevard Henri IV, which leads on to the Bastille, from which the full force of the choir and apse with their flying buttresses is deeply- impressive. But there is more charm in a quiet prowl along the northern side of the peaceful ile Saint-Louis, the Quai de Bourbon, and the Quai dAnjou, lost in contemplative reverie before those exquisite XVIIth century hotels — Lauzun and Lambert — when, rounding the end of the smaller island and passing along the Quai de Bethune, one comes suddenly and directly upon the round point of the apse, from the length of the Quai d'Orleans, looking across an arm of the river which sep- arates the two islands. Again there are no dis- turbing elements, there is nothing to subtract from the perfection of the presentment. But I assure you it takes the breath away. There are times of day and seasons more favourable than others to a study of effects upon the character of Notre-Dame. At mid-day by a fine summer sun, its outlines are accentuated by strong shadows, and the great western portail as- sumes the depth and vigour of a masterly litho- graph. Through the enveloping gray of an Indian summer morning the majesty of its forms VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 75 and the abundance of its detail melt and flow to- gether with the sympathy of a charcoal rendering. Or by moonlight, in the solitary Parvis, when all detail is lost and only the great general masses are discernible as deeper, softer notes in the vast sil- houette, one can best submit to the power of its architecture. Of the Gothic cathedrals of France each has its special beauty and originality. Le Mans is cele- brated for its prodigious choir, Rouen for the immense variety of its accessories, Chartres for its glass, its belfrys, its porches, and the originality of its details, Bourges for its unique crypt, Amiens for its unequalled nave, while the splen- did portails and marvellous sculpture made the reputation of Rheims and of Notre-Dame. The great cathedral, such as we see it to-day, dates in part from the reign of Louis VII, le Jeune, or what is more important, from the time of Maurice de Sully, the seventy-third bishop of Paris, or, in other words, from about the middle of the Xllth century. Pope Alexander III is said to have laid the first stone, in 1163, during the time that he was a refugee in France. To substantiate the truth of the contemporary ac- count, written by Robert of Auxerre, we know 76 A LOITERER IN PARIS that on April 21, of the same year, this pontiff consecrated the apse of Saint-Germain-des-Pres " with the assistance of twelve cardinals." As early as the IVth century, however, the Christians, before the reign of Clovis, the founder of the monarchy of the Francs, and the first of the Merovingien kings, had erected a basilica. Through the Life of Saint-Marcel we know that a church existed before the end of the Vlth cen- tury, on the banks of the Seine, near the point of the island. But the solid ground of the present lie de la Cite, one must remember, is composed of the amalgamation of three islands, for in earlier times two islets lay in the bed of the Seine, before the point of the principal island of Lutece, the cradle of Paris. The " point of the island " then, upon which existed this first cathe- dral, was, roughly speaking, at about where is now the Petit Pont. This church built, as it appears, by Prudentius, the eighth bishop of Paris, is reputed to have been restored by Childebert, the third son of Clovis, who figures in the annals of the time as the king of Paris, and the most prominent of the reigning monarchs of the Francs. The obscurity of the narrations of this period of the history of that delightful territory known to VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 77 the ancients as Gallia, the remoteness and variety of the sources of available information, leave the reader much agreeable scope for imagination — written also as are these old chronicles with a naivete altogether delicious. Bounded by the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, the country was exposed to per- petual invasions and colonized by numerous tribes and peoples. Fabulous as are the contemporary narratives, it becomes clear that amongst the usurpers who struggled for possession of Gallia, the Francs, albeit not the most civilized, became in time a powerful race, established themselves in a large territory extending from Gallia Belgica to the river Somme, and made the city of Treves their capital. Under the rule of the succession from a more or less mythical common ancestor, called Merovee — or Meerwig, or Meerwings (warrior of the sea) — the Francs had extended their conquests to the banks of the Loire at the time (about 481) that Clovis, at the age of fifteen years, became king, succeeding his father, Childeric, expulsed by his subjects, the Salic Francs camped in and about Tournai, the old Civitas Nerviorum of Caesar. Childeric upon expulsion had fled to Tliuringia, and in his place his former subjects had adopted 78 A LOITERER IN PARIS as their ruler Siagre, or Syagrius, son of Gilles, the last of the Roman governors. In the fifth year of his reign, Clovis, a youth of twenty, aided by a kinsman prince, made war upon his father's former possessions, put to death Syagrius, and conquered his people, thereby laying the corner- stone of the realm over which he was soon to be- come sole ruler. It was in thus uniting the scat- tered petty kingdoms of the Francs and making himself their king, that Clovis founded the Mero- vingien Dynasty — the name derived from that of the common ancestor. Christianity was brought into Paris in the Ilird century — or thereabouts. But until Clovis the rulers of the Francs were still pagans, or heretics, mostly Arians, who denied the consub- stantiality of Christ. Clovis, in the eyes at least of Gregoire de Tours, our chief authority, owed much of his successful domination of the Francs to the support of the clergy, who at the time held supreme moral influence over the people. The bishops preferred Clovis, who as it appears was without strong convictions, to the Arian princes, his rivals, who presented to the doctrines of Christianity an invincible opposition. Gregoire de Tours would have us believe that it was the bishops and the clergy placed under VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 79 their orders who nationalized this prince of the Sahc Francs and his family. This would explain the intimate alliance which existed between the successors of Clovis and the ministers of the church. Though the murders, pillages, and ex- actions of all kinds practised and instigated by these bellicose kings of the Merovingien Dynasty often bruised the harmony of their relations with the bishops, the damage was never irreparable. Long penances, or even the moments which pre- ceded the death of a monarch, expiated the violence and rapine of a lifetime of libertinage. Clovis' conversion to Christianity resulted from his marriage to Clotilde, a Burgundian princess. Though of a line of Arians Clotilde was a Chris- tian. She was a granddaughter of Gondioche, king of the Burgundians. At the death of this monarch, following the custom of the times by which an elder son had no material advantage over a younger, his realm was divided amongst his four sons, whereupon Gondebaud, the eldest, in order to simplify the succession and augment his own power and possessions in Burgundy, killed his brother Chilperic — Clotilde's father — drowned his wife — Clotilde's mother — and exiled the two daughters, of whom the elder, Crone, became a nun. Later Clotilde, despite the out- 80 A LOITERER IN PARIS rage she had suffered at his hands, was received into the household of Gondebaud, who, by an in- difference which seems only natural in view of what had already transpired, left her free to pur- sue the religion of her choice. It was to Gondebaud, then, that Clovis, acting upon the advices of his ambassadors, applied for the hand of his niece. This favour the king, more from fear than inclination (" plutot par crainte que par inclination") says Gregoire de Tours, granted, and the young princess, whom the am- bassadors had reported " aussi sage que belle," was escorted to the kingdom of her future hus- band, where she became his wife, notwithstanding the fact, says the chronicler, that Clovis had al- ready, by a concubine, a son, whose name was Thierry. The narrative now becomes exceedingly naive. Clotilde's sole concern in this marriage, we are told, was the conversion of her husband to the true faith. Their union was soon blessed with a son, Ingomen, whom, in defiance of all tradition to the contrary in the house of the Merovingiens, Clotilde had baptised. As the infant died soon after baptism, Clovis attributed his death to that ceremony, and reproached the queen, who never- VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 81 theless, nothing daunted, baptised their second son, Clodomir, upon his arrival on the scene. History threatened to repeat itself. The child fell ill and Clovis " groaned and cried," but the queen, " foreseeing the bad effects of a second loss of this nature " upon the cause to which she was devoted — more as a matter of pohcy than from any interest in her baby, the narration al- most implies — " prayed to God, and He reestab- lished his health." Clovis, upon this proof of Divine power, was expected to turn Christian, but he resisted and it was not until a full three years after his marriage that his conversion was accomplished. Clovis at this time (496) was engaged in a war against the Germans at Tolbiac. At first the Francs were badly beaten and there was great carnage. Clovis invoked his pagan gods in vain, and finally hav- ing proven their impotence {" ayant eprouve que ses Dieux Jiavoient nulle puissance") he, in his extremity, bethought him of Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, of whom Clotilde had so often spoken; he invoked him and asked his help, prom- ising to become a Christian if he would grant him a victory. The pact was made. Clovis had scarcely finished speaking, says the chronicler, 82 A LOITERER IN PARIS when the German king lost his life, and the soldiers of the enemy, seeing that their leader was dead, submitted to Clovis. Clovis, returning victor, related to the queen how her God had aided him in his peril, and she, profiting of the occasion, sent secretly to Remi, the bishop of Rheims, who presented himself at the court and effected the conversion. Clovis de- clared himself convinced but feared that his sub- jects would never willingly give up their idols. What was his surprise, says the narrative, when appearing before them he found that the miracle was accomplished, for they cried : " Nous abandon- nons ces Dieux mortels, o Roi pieux, 8^ nous fommes prets de fuivre ce Dieu immortel que Re?ni arinonce" The good news was carried to Remi, who, " trembling with joy," commanded that the sacred bath should be prepared. This was done with ceremony and magnificence. Clovis came to the baptismal font, and the sainted prelate said to him: " Baiffer humblejnent la tcte, 6 Sicamhre! Adorez de que vous avez hrule, et hridez ce que vous avez adore" Thus was Clovis, the founder of the Merovingien Dynasty, baptised and anointed — thus were church and state united. Besides the king more than three thousand of VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 83 his army were baptised that day as well as Albo- flede and Lantilde, the sisters of Clovis. When Clovis died at Paris, in 511, he was in- terred in the basihca of Saint-Peter and Saint- Paul, which he and Clotilde had built as a monu- ment to his victory over the Visigoths, upon the summit of a mount at whose base was the ancient palace of the Ca?sars — the Palais des Thermes. Some centuries later this church became known as Sainte-Genevieve. If Clotilde worked throughout her life with great singleness of purpose towards the establish- ment of her religion in the royal house to which she was allied, Clovis was no less constant to his dominating passion, that of becoming sole and absolute ruler of Gaul. It seems therefore al- most a tragedy that upon his death the unity which he had established should have had to be disintegrated. Clovis left four heirs: Theodoric or Thierry, the offspring of his concubine, and Clodomir, Childebert, and Clotaire, the fruit of his union with Clotilde. At this epoch, as indeed during the whole of the Middle Ages and much later, bastardy was looked upon neither as a blot nor as a reason for exclusion from inheritance. Clovis was himself a bastard, a fact which had not pre- 84 A LOITERER IN PARIS vented him from succeeding to the paternal kingly- rights. Thierry, then, shared in equal portions with his three brothers, and received, amongst other properties, Rouergue, Auvergne, Querci, " et les deux Germaniesf and was also allotted the cities of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Rheims, and Chalons- sur-Marne, choosing Metz for the capital of his estates. Clodomir established himself at Orleans, Clotaire at Soissons,. while Childebert united in his portion Senlis and Meaux and, like his father, made Paris his place of residence. It is difficult to establish the boundaries of these four divisions of Clovis' kingdom, but it is certain that the part including Paris had several prerogatives over the others. The history of these Merovingien monarchs is but war and rapine, but Childebert, mingling with his crimes a certain piety, figures not only as the founder of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres — first dedicated to Saint-Vincent and Sainte- Croix — but also, in gratitude for his recovery from an illness, as some say, rebuilt the church of Prudentius to accord witli the increase of the population of Paris and the consequent growth of the congregation. Fortunat, who lived soon after, describes with the enthusiasm of an eyewitness tlie glories of VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 85 this work of Childebert. His De Ecclesia Pari- sicica tells in poetic fashion of a basilica whose walls were splendidly supported by columns of marble, of magnificent glass in the windows, of an altar facing the east, and of the effect of Aurora creeping through those eastern windows, waking the inward fires of the floor, the walls, and the roof, which shone by their own light before being visited by the sun. And it is Fortunat who tells us that the church was the gift of the pious king Childebert to a beloved people. " Devoted with his whole soul to the service of God," his poetic fervour allows him thus to exaggerate, " he has added new riches to the inexhaustible treas- ures of the church. Veritable Melchizedek of his time, at once priest and king, he shows himself a perfect servitor of religion." We learn by a deed of the year 8G0 that the cathedral of Paris bore the name of Saint- Etienne,^ the first martyr. The Abbe Lebeuf, who has left so careful an account of the churches of Paris, is certain that this church was composed, at some time later than the reign of Childebert, of two edifices, one the Basilica of Notre-Dame and the other the Basilica of Saint-Etienne. And Gregoire de Tours in speaking of a fire which, in ' Saint-Stephen. 86 A LOITERER IN PARIS 586, reduced all the houses of the tie de Paris to ashes, says that only the churches were excepted. This plurality of churches in the Cite can only mean those which formed the cathedral, and of which Saint-Etienne was the oldest, being often in these early records referred to as the Senior Ecclesia. There is reason to believe that the Normans in their raid upon Paris, in 857, burned the church dedicated to the Virgin, but spared Saint-Etienne for its ancient dome, for the preservation of which they had been paid a sum. It was in Saint- Etienne that was held the famous Concile de Paris in 829. The companion church, Notre-Dame, which stood beside Saint-Etienne on the north side, and which had been destroyed by the Normans, was rebuilt in a grander style to accord with the lat- ter, and having thus been repaired lasted as long as the earlier edifice, which had suffered only trifling accidents. We read that Etienne de Gar- lande, an archdeacon of the Xllth century, made many restorations and that the Abbe Suger, the famous builder of Saint-Denis, gave to the church a beautiful glass window. Several bits of this stained glass given by Suger appear to have been preserved in the northern rose window of the VISTAS: UNDER THE CATHEDRAL 87 transept, and other fragments existed until the middle of the XVIIIth century, when tlie glori- ous coloured windows were taken out and replaced hy modern designs in transparent glass in order to lighten the church. (!) The kings of the Capetien Dynasty, whose palace, replacing the dwelling of Julian the Apos- tate, stood upon the site of the present Palais de Justice, went often to this church, and called it the nova ecclesia, to distinguish it from Saint- Etienne. When the bishop of Senlis came to Paris in 1041 to have confirmed a charter, he found King Henri I at the grande 7nesse of the Pentecost, and Louis le Jeune is known to have come frequently in the following century. This nova ecclesia was the first to be sacrificed to the handsome construction contemplated by the bishop Maurice de Sully, when about the year 1160 he undertook to make the two churches one. Its foundations were preserved and upon them were raised the new sanctuary and choir. The senior ecclesia was allowed to exist some fifty years longer, until standing in the way of the aisles to the south it was also demolished, having stood about six hundred years. In its destruction important relics were uncovered: among otliers " three teeth of John the Baptist, an arm of 88 A LOITERER IN PARIS Saint- Andre, and several stones from the martyr- dom of Saint-Etienne." When, in 1847, the Place du Parvis was dug up, to put down sewers, several substructures of the basilica of Childebert, buried perhaps for ten centuries, were discovered, their foundations con- fused with those of several houses of the Roman epoch, which had surely been razed to make way for the cathedral. At this time, giving substance to Fortunat's verses, parts of mosaic in small cubes of different coloured marbles, which one supposed had served as paving to the nave of Saint-Etienne, came to light, and more important still were exhumed the remains of three columns of marble from Aquitaine, a country of ancient Gaul, as well as a large Corinthian capital in white marble, which had all the character of Merovingien sculpture. These fragments have been erected in the large Salle des Thermes, joining the Hotel de Cluny, where they may be studied close at hand. The most perfect of the three columns has been finished by the placing, or perhaps the replacing of the Corinthian capital, and from this may be judged somewhat the size and importance of the ancient cathedral from which they come. CHAPTER V THE ANCIENT CITE From so clean-swejit a preface as is the present Place du Parvis of Notre-Dame, all the patine of time has been scraped away. In early days the great cathedral, hemmed in on all sides by low- built, gable-end dwellings, dominated a multitude of little churches and chapels, camped within the circumference of its great shadow. Old engravings picture the cathedral rising supreme between its cloisters on the one hand and the imposing mass of the Episcopal Palace on the other, while the ancient Pai'vis — the terrestrial paradise — an intimate narrow strip of clear space, was further hedged in by the massive structure of the original Hotel-Dieu, which occupied the strip of greenery on the right side of the Place du Parvis, now dedicated to the statue of Charle- magne, and, bridging the Seine, took root on both island and mainland. The cloisters were entered by the little Porte Rouge, which still exists, and growing close to the cathedral, forming a pro- longation of its architecture, occupied all the 89 90 A LOITERER IN PARIS space to the left; now marked by the Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame. From remotest times the bishops of Paris had for official residence a vast edifice standing between the cathedral and the southern arm of the Seine. High towers gave it the effect of a feudal castle, and extensive rooms served for great ecclesiastical assemblies. A small street or passage separated Notre-Dame from the Episcopal Palace. All about Notre-Dame was grouped a con- ventual population — monks, priests, abbots, friars, canons, capuchins, choristers, beadles, nuns — be- longing not only to the cathedral but attached to the numerous dependances and chapels. The Place du Parvis was a scene of continuous ac- tivity, of comings and goings, the atmosphere charged with the perfumes of censers, the air vibrant with the music of quaint chimes, or the hum of the great ho7irdons of Notre-Dame, all life seemingly drawing upon the big church as the source of animation, itself the pivotal point of this little universe. The priests of the fifteen parochial churches clustered about the parent edifice were in those early times obliged to come to Notre-Dame daily to read the breviary, for, according to Sauval, be- fore the invention of printing the divine office THE ANCIENT CITE 91 for each day in manuscript was to be found chained to the first pillar each side of the nave for the convenience of the priests who had not means to own such expensive books. Projecting back several centuries, one sees Paris as a small mediaeval city, having grown but little beyond Cesar's Lutetia, its churches and houses crowded upon the island, or grouped close to the right and left banks of the river, the vast bulk of Notre-Dame emphasized and exaggerated by the dwarfish proportions of its environment. Such bridges as at this early date spanned the two arms of the river, joining the island to the main- land, were so covered with shops and houses as to conceal completely their identity as bridges; they appear to be merely continuations of the streets which they unite. The Petit Pont was the first means of com- munication between the island of Paris and the mainland. It replaced one of the two older Roman bridges, and led to the then modern Rue Saint-Jacques, which followed the route of the old Roman road to Orleans. It was rebuilt of stones by the bishop Maurice de Sully, to make a firm passage to his cathedral and to the epis- copal residence, but owing to the turbulence of the river at this point, where it rushed through a 92 A LOITERER IN PARIS narrower channel, and also we are to suppose because of the famous rising of the Seine which to this day is a constant menace to the city, the bridge was over and over again carried away and rebuilt between 1206 and 1393, when a mere imsserelle of wood furnished a foot-bridge for travellers. At about this date parliament found an ingenious means of rebuilding the Petit Pont without further drain upon the public treasury. It seems that seven Jews, guilty of having tried to bring back to their faith a converted brother, were condemned: first, to be beaten with rods " on three Saturdays in three different places " ; second, to pay ten thousand livres parisis, of which nine thousand five hundred should be em- ployed in the reconstruction of the Petit Pont; third, to be kept prisoner until the entire sum was paid; fourth, to be banished from the realm; fifth, to have all their goods confiscated — ce qui eut lieu (which was done) is the laconic terminating re- mark of this vicious document. There exist in manuscript some old Latin verses by . a prior of the Abbaye Saint-Victor, called Godefroy, written during the second half of the Xllth century, and entitled " De Parvi Pontanis," which give some curious details con- cerning the Petit Pont at that time. Roughly THE ANCIENT CITE 93 translated the story which Godefroy relates is this: Some men built a bridge with their own hands and made a convenient passage over the water; each built himself thereon a house, and from this they were called Parvi Poutins, dwellers on the bridge. The materials are as handsome as the architecture. The under part is formed of piles and cut stones, and this solid structure is supported upon columns as strong as bronze. The upper part is paved with stones and decorated with devices in gold and silver, and the route is furnished on both sides with walls high enough to prevent the inexperienced from falling off, but has also exedras (such as distinguish the present Pont-Neuf) from which people may see the water and sound its hidden depths. Some come hither to enjoy l)athing, to refresh their limbs from the heat of sunmier. Here also is a school of ven- erable doctors, eminent in science as in their man- ners, who instruct the ignorant population. Happy people who have sucli masters ! '' O bca- tus populus talium rectorum." The greater j^art of the little churches and chapels of the island were suppressed at the time of the Revolution, in 1791, and many were de- stroyed soon after. Some, however, lingered on serving various secular purposes until well after 94 A LOITERER IN PARIS the middle of the XlXth century. Many ante- dated the cathedral of Maurice de Sully. The priory of Saint-Eloy was perhaps the oldest religious establishment in the Cite. The celebrated minister and companion of Dagobert, Eloy, who was artist, goldsmith, treasurer, and even diplomat — Dagobert employed him for everything — and who finally became bishop of Noyon and was ultimately canonized, having ob- tained a large estate from Dagobert, opposite the Palais, founded thereon a monastery which took his name. This monastery its founder placed under the invocation of Saint-Martial, bishop of Limoges, but it was later protected also by Saint- Eloy and Sainte-Aure, its first abbess, who died there in the plague of 666 with one hundred and sixty of her nuns. In the monastic church Phi- lippe de Villette, abbot of Saint-Denis, escaped from the massacre of the Burgundians by clinging to the altar, dressed in his pontifical robes, holding aloft the sacred Host. The enclosure of the monastery, called the Ceinture de Saint-Eloy, followed the lines of the old Rues de la Barillerie, de la Calande, aux Feves, and de la Vieille Draperie, all extinguished by the modern official buildings opposite the Palais, to the right of the Rue de Lutece. Ceded THE ANCIENT CITE 95 in the Xllth century to the Abbaye Saint-Maur- les-Fosses, this monastery, after many vicissi- tudes, fell into ruins, when Monseigneur de Gondi, the first archbishop of Paris, gave it, in 1626, to the Earnabites. The convents of the church rebuilt by this order stood until torn down to erect on their site tlie barracks of the city. The iwrtail of the church was transported stone for stone and applied to the Eglise des Blancs- Manteaux. Sainte-Croix M\as a chaj^el of obscure origin, supposed to have existed since the Vllth century as a hospital for the nuns of Saint-Eloy. It was suppressed and sold at the time of the Revolution, Saint-Germain-le-Vieux was originally a chapel dedicated to Saint-.Tean-Baptiste, built in the year 693, but several times enlarged. It took the name Saint-Germain after one of the Norman inva- sions, during which time the abbots of Saint-Ger- main-des-Pres, whose enclosure stood without the walls of the city, took refuge here, and upon re- turning to their abbey left to the church in mark of gratitude an arm, or a bone from an arm, of their patron saint. Some authorities say that the body of the saint reposed here for two years in safety while the Normans sacked the abbey; others that, in the Vlth century, Ger- 96 A LOITERER IN PARIS main, bishop of Paris, himself resided here, which explains the choice of the church as an asylum in the IXth century, by the religious order bearing his name. Saint-Martial, the choir of Saint-Eloy, stood to the left of Saint-Germain-le-Vieux. The Prefecture de Police and other municipal build- ings, the Qua'i du Marche-Neuf, and the wide Rue de Lutece have blotted out every trace of these and others of the old churches between the Palais of the early kings and the Rue de la Cite. Opposite Saint-Germain-le-VIeux, and close by tlie Petit Pont, stood until 1772 the Gothic por- tals of the two chapels of the old Hotel-Dieu, a striking feature of the edifice, added by Louis XI, who was a great benefactor of the institution. The origin of the Hotel-Dieu is somewhat ob- scure, but it is supposed to have developed from a hospital founded in the year 660 by Saint-Lan- dry, a bishop of Paris, and dedicated to Saint- Christophe. Philippe Auguste built the first structure which bore the name Hotel-Dieu and Saint-Louis augmented considerably the work of his predecessor. Philippe Auguste gave the name, Salle Saint-Denis, to the first ward. Queen Blanche of Castille added the Salle Saint-Thomas, and her son, Saint-Louis, gave the Salle Jaune THE ANCIENT CITE 97 with two attendant chapels along the banks of the river. In 1217 the chapter forbade making doors to the Hotel-Dieu for fear thieves would take refuge there. This recalls a curious act passed by the Council of Orleans under King Clovis in the year 511, which shows the importance of the place occupied by the clergy in relation to the Francs converted to Catholicism. The acts of this as- sembly throw too bright a light upon the times to wliich they refer to be passed over in silence. The first law passed by the council provided for the complete safety of any person taking refuge in any church or in the house of a bishop. The first canon of this council is perhaps worth quoting in full. It reads: ''quit est dcfendu de tirer par force, et de livrer les homicides, les adul- tcres, et les voleurs qui se seront refugics dans les asiles des eglises ou dans la maison d'un eveque. II est egalenient defendu de remettre ces coupables entre les mains de quelque personne que se soit, si, au prealahle, elle n'a proinis a Vcglise, en jurant sur les saints evangiles, que les coupahles ne seront ijoint i^unis de mort, de mutilation de 7ne?nhrcs, ni d'aucun autre jieine afflictive. Ces rnemes coupahles ne seront point remis entres les mains des plaignants avant tran- 98 A LOITERER IN PARIS saction. Si quelquun, dans les cir con stances ci- dessus enoncees, viole le. serme7it quil aurait fait a Veglise il sera tenu imur excornmunie; les clercs et les la'iques s'abstiendront d'aucune communica- tion avec lui. Enfin, si quelque coupahle, in- timide par le refus que ferait sa partie de com- poser avec lui, se sauve de Veglise oil il etait refugie, et disparait, la susdite p)artie ne pourra int enter aucune action contre les clercs de Veglise., a raison de cette meme evasion/' Now the canons of Notre-Dame owned one- half of the Hotel-Dieu and the Bishop of Paris the other, so that the hospital, by a slight stretch of the old law of Clovis, miglit have been con- sidered the house of the bishop and consequently a place of refuge for malefactors. Be that as it may, the great doors of the Petit Pont were not built until the reign of Louis XI, as was wit- nessed by the pedestrian figure of this king in one of the gables. In the reign of King Robert, about 1005, Renaud de Vendome, the presiding bishop of Paris, presented the canons with his half of the Hotel-Dieu and in 1099 Bishop Guillaume gave them also the Eglise Saint-Cln-istophe, which seems to have stood facing the Parvis to the left of the hospital. THE ANCIENT CITE 99 Though the revenues of the institution appear to have been large, its resources were so restricted that the inmates, sick and well, are described as sleej^ing together upon the insufficient beds. Ac- cordingly, the good bishop INIaurice de Sully, who was called the father of the poor, had passed a statute in the year 1168 providing that there- after the beds of each deceased bishop and canon of the chapter of Notre-Dame, with their furnishings, should become the property of the Hotel-Dieu. Under JNIaurice de Sully the clergy still lived in a state of exemplary simplicity, their beds were simply fashioned and simply furnished and were considered quite suitable for hospital service; but as luxury crept into the surroundings of the ad- ministrators of the Hotel-Dieu, it was considered sufficient that each should leave, in place of his sumptuous couch, the sum of one hundred livres, a substantial consideration for those days. This served until 1592, when the secular directors of the hospital brought to the attention of parlia- ment the fact that the poor were losing heavily by this lax application of the original statute, and claimed that '" le del, les rkleau.r, Ic loucJicr, la courtepointe, c^ autres accompagnemcnts des lifs des Chanoines" (the canopy, curtains, drap- eries, coverings, and other accompaniments of tlie 100 A LOITERER IN PARIS canons' beds), whether of silk, silver, gold, or any- other fabric or material which luxury had added to the austere customs of the century of Maurice de Sully, should be theirs. This demand was ac- corded and in consequence upon the death of Mon- sieur de Gondy, archbishop of Paris, his creditors were condemned to deliver to the Hotel-Dieu his bed and all the appurtenances thereof. The famous Salle du Legat, whose noble renais- sance gable, besides the Gothic portals of the chapels, made the chief beauty of the construction, stood near the Petit Pont, and was founded by Antoine de Prat, the ambassador of Pope Clement VII. Owing to the restrictions of space a large hall was built upon an arch spanning the river, described as a feat of engineering in its day. (Cette route est un des plus liardis Ouvragcs de cette espece.) And this hall communicated with the wing of the building which stood upon the left bank of the Seine, and whose recent demoli- tion opens up that glorious vista of the cathedral from Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. And it now be- comes clear how this little church became in times of stress the chapel for tlie Hotel-Dieu, and was thus saved from the vandalism of the Revolu- tionists. Old writers describe the original little Place du THE ANCIENT CITE 101 Parvis Notre-Dame as embellished by a fountain in the centre and planted opposite the portal of the Hotel-Dieu (until 1748) a large statue in stone, supposed by several savants to have been Esculapius, the god of medicine, by others Erchinouald, a former mayor of the Palais, in the reign of Clovis II, and who according to Fauchet etoit affectionnc a Vendroit des Ecclefiastiques (| Prctres. A tradition ran that he had not only aided Notre-Dame but that he had furnished Saint-Landry M'ith the funds for the construction of the hospital. But the scholarly Abbe Lebeuf states with great simplicity the now accepted theory, that this statue was one of those detached from one of the porticoes of the old cathedral (Saint-Etienne) and that, though greatly disfig- ured by exposure to the elements, it represented Jesus Christ holding the book of the Gospel and grafted upon the ancient Law, personified by a figure of Aaron or David, serving as a base. Behind the cathedral was the Terrain, a garden for the use of the canons of Notre-Dame, whose houses were enclosed within the cloisters by a chain of old walls. An old plan de tapisserie, preserved in the collections of the Bil)liotheque Nationale, shows Saint-Den is-du-Pas tucked in behind the cathedral and upon the border of the Terrain. 102 A LOITERER IN PARIS Sainte-Marine and Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs and Saint-Landiy occupied sites on the north side of the cathedral. Saint-Landry, founded before the Xllth century, perpetuated the pious souvenir of the bishop who founded the Hotel-Dieu; it was built upon the bank of the river where according to tradition had been the oratory of this saint. From 1171 it was apportioned to the chapter of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. Rebuilt in the XVth century, it was suppressed by the Revolutionists, sold and demolished in 1792. The ancient Rue du Chevet led under the choir of this church to the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, on the eastern side of which was a church of that name, a name commemorated in the figures of two bulls in relief which ornamented the door of the church. This was the Capella-Sancti-Petri- de-Bobus, mentioned in the bull of Innocent II (1136). The church was that in which Herman de la Fosse, converted to Paganism by his clas- sical studies, attacked the Host, in 1503, and pro- claimed the worship of Jupiter, for which his tongue was branded with a hot iron, his hand cut off, and himself finally burned alive. After the execution, so runs the tale, as an expiatory pro- cession was passing, two cows, being led to the butcher, knelt before the sacrament. The church THE ANCIENT CITE 103 was sold at the time of the Revolution, and de- graded to all sorts of secular use. It stood until 1837. Its famous door was applied to the western entrance of Saint- Sever in. Sainte-Marine, upon an impasse of the same name, was still upright, though unrecognizahle, in 1866. One of the oldest churches of the island (it dated from the Xlth century), it served as parish for the personnel of the hishops' palace and the court, and was the church in which the free unions of the people were solemnized by enforced marriage. Dubreul relates the well- known history of the straw ring with which the curate of Sainte-]\Iarine performed these cere- monies, enjoining the couples to live in peace and amity to the honour of their parents and to save their souls from the consequences of their sin and offence. Near the Pont-Neuf was Saint-Denis-de-la- Chartre, an old church built probably after the incursions of the Normans, upon the supposed site of the prison in which Saint-Denis was said to have been detained. From earliest times the cell of the martyr had been transformed into an oratory, and in the year 1015 a convent of secular canons was founded by the knight Ansolde and Rotrude, his wife, to the glory of ^Monsieur Saint- 104 A LOITERER IN PARIS Denis. The church was curious in that, according to antique usage, it had within its enclosure two distinct parishes, one in the nave and the other in the aisles. Suppressed and sold at the time of the Revolution, it was completely altered hut stood until 1866. At the end of the street — Rue de la Pelleterie — which opened opposite Saint-Denis-de-la-Chartre, stood Saint-Barthelemy, after Notre-Dame the most important religious edifice of the city. At first a simple chapel, founded and endowed by the Merovingien kings, it became the Eglise Royale, the parish church of the Palais. Hugues Capet gave to it the relics of Saint-]Magloire. At the time of the Revolution it was undergoing im- provements and in its unfinished state was seized by the mob and disposed of as a theatre and dance hall. It stood opposite the Grand' Salle of the Palais, and its remains were demolished to make way for the new Tribunal of Commerce. Philippe Auguste was baptised in the chapel of Saint- Michel, situated between the Rue de la Barillerie (Boulevard du Palais) and the court of the Sainte- Chapelle, upon which it had its entrance. It dis- appeared in the widening of the street. A door from Sainte-Magdelene when the last vestiges of this old church were demolished was THE ANCIENT CITE 105 applied to the presbytery of Saint- Sever in. Sainte-Magdelene was an ancient chapel of Saint-Nicolas, built in the reign of Louis VII, in 1140, on land formerly belonging to an old synagogue. Enlarged from time to time, the synagogue itself was transformed into a church by order of Philippe Auguste, and took the name Magdelene in 1461. From the Xlllth century the curate of this parish bore the title of Archi- pretre, which gave him certain supremacies over the other curates of the diocese, and the little church was also the seat of one of the old con- fraternities, called la grande Confrerie de Notre- Dame, mix Seigneurs, Fretres, (| Bourgeois de Paris. At the time of its demolition, 1794, it embraced the parishes of Saint-Leu, Saint- Gilles, Saint-Christophe, and Sainte-Genevieve- des-Ardents. The Revolution did its work so well that scarcely a trace remains to recall the existence of the innumerable chapels and churches which formed the surroundings of the cathedral, making of the island a completely harmonious frame for the greater edifice. What we see now is not even the first generation of buildings which replace those of antiquity. The Prefecture de Police occupies the older Caserne de la Cite, or municipal 106 A LOITERER IN PARIS barracks, rising sombre and forbidding on the west side of the Place du Parvis, facing the great facade. The modern Hotel-Dieu, on the south side of the same space, is even less agreeable to the eye. It replaces the Hopital des Enfants Trouves, whose erection cost the destruction of many picturesque churches. What the Revolution had left standing of the old regime, the insurrection of 1831 stamped out thoroughly and finally. The Episcopal Palace which had withstood the former tragedy was ruined by the later disaster, and one of the most gorgeous of spectacles, the pompous entry of a bishop into the city, was forever done away with. Under Roman dominion Paris was comprised in the fourth lyonnaise or division of imperial Gaul, whose centre was the metropolis of Sens. The first religious districts were determined by the old political boundaries, and thus the first Parisian prelates had only the title of bishop while the seat of the archbishop was at Sens. It was Louis XIII, who, in 1622, obtained from Pope Gregoire XV the establishment of an arch- bishopric at Paris. The entry of a new bishop into the diocese of Paris was accompanied by magnificent ceremonies. A distinguished delegation consisting of aldermen THE ANCIENT CITE 107 and other officers of the city, headed by the pro- vost of merchants, advanced without the walls of the city as far as the Abbaye Saint- Victor (the site now covered by the Halle aux Vins) to meet the incoming prelate. The bishop mounted a white horse and the cortege proceeded to the Eglise Sainte-Genevieve within the walls and here his prociireur fiscal called in a loud voice for the vas- sals of the bishopric, whose duty it was to carry the prelate's chair. Two of the kings of France, Philippe Auguste and Louis IX, owned certain lands by which they became vassals to the bishop under the law, were liable to officiate in this capacity, but were replaced by knights of their house. Four barons, preceded by the abbe and monks of Sainte- Genevieve, carried the bishop to the Rue Neuve Notre-Dame, before the Petite-Sainte-Genevieve — Sainte-Genevieve-des-Ardents — and here the abbe presented the prelate to the dean and canons of Notre-Dame and these conducted him to the cathedral. At the threshold of the cathedral the incumbent took the oath of office, swearing upon the Gospels to conserve the privileges, exemptions, and im- munities of the church of Paris, and upon posses- sion followed a solemn mass, after which the bishop was conducted to his palace, where he gave a ban- 108 A LOITERER IN PARIS quet to all those who had witnessed the ceremony. Little by little it was all destroyed, the pomp and grandeur disappeared, and in the upheaval of 1831 the palace was sacked by a furious mob who made short work of it and its treasures. An eyewitness ^ describes the work of destruction : " All at once they tore out the grills and ramps of the stairways, undermined the walls, split the ceilings, threw out of the windows marbles, wood- carvings, mirrors, furniture. A troop of bar- barians made a chain from the bihliotheque of the palace to the parapet of the quay, and precious books and manuscripts passed from hand to hand and were tossed into the river. This was accom- plished amidst savage chants and howls, while a sacrilegious mob formed about the enclosure a grotesque procession clad in sacerdotal habits. Thus were the archbishops of Paris despoiled of their ancient dwelling." Before the destructions of the Revolution Paris possessed at least as many churches as does Rome to-day. The city, including its faubourgs and suburbs, counting chapters, parishes, abbeys, priories, monasteries, communities, chapels, and leper hospitals, contained over three hundred eccle- siastical establishments. The XVIIIth century * M.' F. de Guilhermy: Itineraire Archeoloffique de Paris, THE ANCIENT CITE 109 commenced by the demolition of several churches in the Cite and the suppression of a number of con- vents, but under the radical measures of the Revolution churches and monasteries were alien- ated to the profit of the state or adapted to public service, while speculators parcelled off the land and cleared away the monuments of antiquity. To-day the number of religious institutions is reduced to considerably less than one-third the former number, and of these only about thirty churches antedate the XVITIth century, while not more than a dozen can be considered as be- longing to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, CHAPTER VI NOTRE-DAME It was, then, into such an already thrilling environment of narrow streets, picturesque churches, and monastic dwellings that Maurice de Sully, fired with the ambition to build for pos- terity, introduced his unrecorded architect — who erected the oldest existing parts of the great cathedral. The plan which the bishop undertook to exe- cute was scarcely inferior to what we see to-day, though most of it has been effaced, and it is only above the great arches of the choir and apse that the semi-Roman church of Maurice de Sully re- veals itself in its original purity, while the door dedicated to Sainte-Anne, despite its adaptation to a later facade than that for which it was in- tended, is an eloquent relic of the original design and serves to tie together the story of the builders. In those days the construction of such vast edifices as Notre-Dame was sometimes under- taken at the two extremities, so that the facade 110 NOTRE-DAME m was often contemporary with the apse. The cathedral at Saint-Denis was thus undertaken (an inscription once marked the point where the two ends grew together) and this seems also to have been the case with Notre-Dame, The first stone of the cathedral was laid in the reign of Louis le Jeune by Pope Alexander III during his exile in Paris, in 1163, and the build- ing was so far advanced during the first nineteen years, that shortly after Philippe Auguste be- came king (in 1182) the high altar was conse- crated, and three years later Heraclius, the patriarch of Jerusalem, come to Paris to preach the third crusade, officiated in the choir. Before the high altar Bishop Maurice had interred the bodies of Geoffrey Plantaganet, comte de Bre- tagne, son of Henry II of England, and Philippe Auguste's queen, Isabelle de Hainaut. Upon the death of this bishop, in 1196, the apse was finished and the nave well under way. His will provided a legacy of five thousand livres to make a lead roof to the choir. Except for such fragmentary traces of Roman construction of which one has spoken, the monu- ment, such as it stands, belongs to the first two periods of Gothic architecture, the lanceole of Philippe Auguste and the rayonnant of Louis 112 A L0ITERP:R in PARIS IX, while nothing in the construction antedates the second half of the Xllth century. The great western front, as it was reconceived hy the successor to Maurice's architect, was not begun until the end of the episcopacy of Pierre de Nemours (1208-1219). That the work went rapidly we know, for at about the time of the death of Philippe Auguste (1223) the great front was practically finished, while every aspect of the chef-d'oeuvre confirms the opinion that this superb portail was the conception of one mind carried through from the base of the elaborate entrances, lying closest to the eye, to the point where the severely simple towers begin to detach from the mass, under the enthusiasm of a single artistic impulse. And of the genius that con- ceived it we know, alas, nothing; but, says Victor Hugo: " Lliomme, Vartiste, Vindividu s' efface sur CCS grand es masses sans nom d'auteur, rintelli- gence humaine s'y resume ct s'y totalise. Le temps est architect, le peuple est le ma^on." His successor, with less indifference to fame, inscribed in handsome letters upon the base of the southern portail of the transept his name and date. The legend reads that in 1257, on the second day of the ides of February, Master Jehan de Chelles commenced this work in honour of the NOTRE-DAME 113 mother of Christ. Then reigned Saint-Louis, and Renaud de Corbeil occupied the episcopal chair. It has been thought that from the second half of the Xlllth century, also, dates the arcade above the Virgin's gallery of the older front, and that the north front, the Porte Rouge, of the ancient cloisters, and, within, the chapels each side of the transept are of the same epoch and perhaps by the same architect, since the style, the char- acter of the sculpture, and even the stone are the same. The side chapels of the nave were not included in the original plan — the early cathedrals, Chartres, Rheims, Saint-Denis, etc., were not de- signed to carry chapels along the nave — but Jean de Paris, archdeacon of Soissons, dying about 1270, left one hundred livres tournois ^ for the construction of the lateral chapels, which seem all to be contemporaneous. The chapels of the apse were a little later, dating from the end of the Xlllth and beginning of the XlVth cen- tury. An inscription affixed to the pedestal of a monument to Bishop Simon Matiffas de Buci, formerly at the entrance to the chapel of Saint- Nicaise, relates that this chapel with the two * The coins minted at Tours were inferior in value, and weight, to the so-called parisis, made in Paris. A livre parisis was worth about one-fourth more than a livre tournois. 114 A LOITEREK IN PARIS following was founded by that prelate in 1296, and that afterward were made successively all the others around the choir. This inscription, so precious to archaeologists, lay for years forgotten in the cellars of Saint-Denis, where so many relics saved from the vandals of the Revolution were hastily housed. Notre-Dame is in the form of a Latin cross, with two great blunt towers towards the west and a restored spire at the point of the inter- section of the branches of the cross. Impressive from all angles by the imposing vigour of its mass, it is the monumental fa9ade, the western portail, which contains the most stirring message, repre- senting, as one author has said, the Xlllth cen- tury in its most marvellous portrait. Popular tradition relates that as it first ap- peared Notre-Dame stood upon an elevation above the Parvis and that its western face was preceded by a flight of thirteen steps — the num- ber is variously stated — whose masonry made for the cathedral an admirable base, and more than one writer has described in moving language the " sea of Paris paving " rising and devouring one after another the treads of its pedestal. That this was not the case was proven by the excava- tions made in 1847 about the base of the edifice riiul'j AUnari THE ARCATURE SUSPENDED BETWEEN THE TOWERS. DETAIL. NOTEE-DAME. NOTRE-DAME 117 when nothing was discovered to bear out the tale. M. Guilhermy, whose careful description of Notre-Dame was prepared in collaboration with Viollet-le-Duc, the architect of the restoration, thinks that it is probable that these steps, of which so many authors speak without having ever seen them, existed on the side of the south tower and that they descended towards the river. The great poi'tail divides into three parts in width and five in height, the horizontal line being strongly emphasized, as is characteristic of early Gothic, the five stories graduated with utmost taste and skill from the intricate elaboration of the three grand portals to the austerity of the square towers without spires. Below, the three large Gothic doors, with their deep embrasures, pointed tympanums, columns, pillars, and piers all richly sculptured and peo- pled with symbolic and historic figures, make the first of the horizontal divisions. The statues on the niches formed ])y the buttresses between the doors and upon the ends are restored; they represent Saint-Etienne to the north, Saint-Denis to the south, and, between, two women's figures usually identified as personifying the Church and the Synagogue and readily distinguishable — the Church, proud and triumphant, holds her head 118 A LOITERER IN PARIS erect with her eyes fixed upon Christ — the Syna- gogue, humihated and vanquished, her head dropped and her eyes bandaged. The Church, coiffed with a diadem, holds u^^ the cross and the chalice — the Synagogue lets fall her crown, the tables of the law, and her broken standard. The subject is familiar to the student of Gothic churches and is found in glass and in stone at Chartres, Saint-Denis, Rheims, Bourges, Lyon, and many other churches of the Xlllth and XlVth centuries. Ornate bands of sculptured leafage frame the lower picture and separate definitely the lower portion of the fa9ade from the gallery of kings. This wide band of upright figures was demojished during the Revolution, for though the twenty- eight effigies were supposed to represent tlie kings of Israel and Judea, and as ancestors of the Virgin sacred personages,* tradition said that they were portraits as well of the early kings of France, which made them the legitimate prey of the Revolutionists, and so they were torn from their niches and destroyed. These effigies were restored under Viollet-le-Duc. Above the band of kings extends the Virgin's Gallery, a wider plane bordered at the top by a rich band of leaf moulding, which makes the NOTRE-DAME 119 finish of this earh'est portion of the fa9ade. It divides definitely into the three parts indicated by the three doors of the ground floor, and the towers with the space between of the upper stories. Here are five sculptured figures (re- stored) — in the centre a group composed of the Virgin, carrying the Infant, flanked by two an- gels holding candlesticks, to the left Adam and to the right Eve. The restorations are by Dechaume, Chenillon, and Fromanger. At the time of the mutilation of the cathedral and buildings in general, a small sane minority stood out for the preservation of works of art, and a provisional museum was installed in the convent of the Petits-Augustins as an asylum for rescued statues and monuments. The original figure of Adam, a work of the XlVth century, was amongst the rescued, and though badly mutilated, still exists, in the storerooms at Saint-Denis. The figure is entirely nude and of curious work- manship. Behind the group of the Virgin and angels the simple tracery of the early Gothic rose occupies the centre of this story, building up from the wide Porte du Jugement, its gorgeous colouring illuminating all the front part of the nave. This central window is balanced by groups at the sides 120 A LOITERER IN PARIS consisting of smaller blind roses in stone held in the opening between pairs of double-pointed win- dows, which carry the composition of the lateral entrances. Large, ornamental trefoils in stone fill the corner spaces of these divisions. We now come to the end of the work of that mysterious early architect, whose name has not come down to us, for here, in the slender arcade of pointed arches, in elaborate and beautiful carving, archaeologists see a new beginning, dat- ing from about the time that Jehan de Chelles commenced the south front. It is at this story that the two massive towers begin to disengage themselves from the general mass of the facade, tlie break being skilfully veiled by this exquisite arcature, which, suspended between the towers in a double file, continues around their four sides, tying them together by a delicate tracery of ele- gant lines, and at the same time screening the abruptness of their detachment. Where the arcature encounters a buttress, the columns and pointed arches are no longer disengaged but lie close upon the stone. A balustrade cut in open quatrefoils binds the top of the arches, and it is upon this balustrade that perch the replicas of those celebrated birds, demons, and monsters that legend has made so NOTRE-DAME 121 famous. Many of the originals in falling had left their claws gripped to the parapet. A slight difference in the width of the towers reveals itself upon attentive observation, giving them a rather interesting irregularity. Such un- important inequalities are not uncommon; whether the result of accident or design in this case is not known. Many things may have decided this difference. The towers, which are of equal height, at first appear identical, but looking closely one sees that the south tower is perceptibly more slender than its companion; the difference shows not only in the entire bulk but in the width of the pairs of pointed windows, and is more definitely stated in the gallery of the kings, where the space between the buttresses below the north tower accommodates eight of the effigies while the corresponding space below the south tower is filled by seven. The Revolutionists destroyed, as we have seen, the gallery of kings and tore from the doors and niches every symbol of royalty, meanwhile re- specting the sacred personages of the archivolts and tympanums. Now an act of the municipal council, issued in the month Brumaire, An. 2, condemned also the saints. The very portail itself trembled upon its foundations; but these 122 A LOITERER IN PARIS were droll times, and the quickest wit triumphed. In the face of so much opposition, worked valiantly a secret band of friends of the beautiful, and those who stood for the preservation of the statues resorted to clever artifices to obtain their ends. Since it was useless to appeal to the old faith of the populace (" reason " having taken the place of religious belief and sentiment) scientific argu- ments were urged, and the citizen Chaumette, the chief magistrate of the Commune, got the ears of his fanatical colleagues by telling them that the astronomer Dupuis had found his planetary sys- tem in one of the lateral doors of the cathedral. Their ignorance was as prodigious as their hate was strong and without stopping to question the probability of this statement, Dupuis was clapped upon the committee for the administra- tion of public works, with power to save the monuments worthy to be known to posterity. His intervention saved what was left. Chaumette was guillotined within the year. Since the outbreak of " our " war the ascent to the towers has been forbidden, and at present writing the little door in the north tower has a forbidding aspect as though permanently closed. But as life resumes its normal routine no doubt the revenue NOTRE-DAME 123 coming in from visitors to the towers if not less material considerations will restore the ancient privilege. Xot only is the view of Paris well worth the mount, but the impression to be gained of the colossal proportions of the building itself by a walk through the towers, the terraces, and gal- leries is not to be missed. In the upper stories are vast vaulted chambers, and in each tower at the height of the Virgin's gallery is an immense room, where light pouring through the double-pointed windows, seems to magnify the forms of the archi- tecture. In a corner of each of these rooms is a remarkable stairway, walled up in a tower of stone, pierced by narrow slits of light. The bells had formerly a great reputation ; there were seven in the north tower and six in the central tower of the transept, while the two largest, called the bourdons of Xotre-Dame, were placed in the south tower. The name of course is derived from the great resonance of such bells, whose quality resembles the droning of a bumble-bee. The smaller of the two bourdons was destroyed but Notre-Dame preserves the larger and more harmonious. It weighs thirty-two milliers. A long Latin inscription tells its history in relief on the metal. The bell was a gift of Jean de Montaigu (brother of Gerard, a bishop of Paris) , in 1400, and 124 A LOITERER IN PARIS was called by him Jacqueline after his wife, Jac- queline de La Grange. Recast in 1686 the bell was rebaptised Emmanuel-Louise-Therese d'Autriche, in honour of Louis XIV and Marie-Therese of Aus- tria, the original quantity of metal being more than doubled by the chapter. Though to the architects of the restoration it was evident that the cathedral had been designed and prepared to carry steeples of stone upon its towers, Viollet-le-Duc and his collaborator de- cided against the addition, thinking that the edifice would gain nothing by completing a design which its builders had left unachieved. As Guil- hermy points out in his treatise upon the l)uild- ing, nothing in the construction showed that means lacked to carry the work to completion, and if the architect of the Xlllth century stopped at the spires, it is likely that he himself condemned his first project. Between the towers is a large reservoir con- taining water for immediate use in case of fire. Behind the arcature, between the towers, rises the gable of the nave, upon whose point stands the figure of an angel, sounding the trumpet, which is contemporary with the facade, its shel- tered position having preserved it from all harm. Standing far enough back from the edifice one Phoin Alinari NOTRE-DAME. MONSTERS AMONGST THE TOWERS. >IO.N.STKKS AMOACiST THE TOWERS. .NOTRE-UA.VIE. Phuto Alinari DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. APSE OF KOTRE-DAME. NOTRE-DAME 127 can see the angel upon the point of the gable; and beyond, rising from the intersection of the cross, the foliated fleche, of wood covered bj^ lead, (a restoration by Viollet-le-Duc) may be seen between tlie towers, giving the aerial line which relieves the monotony of the horizontals. There are six doors to the cathedral, including the little Porte Rouge of the cloisters, the small- est but by no means the least interesting. The great central door is called the Porte du Juge- ment, that beneath the north tower the Porte de la Vierge, that under the south tower the Porte Sainte-Anne. The Porte Saint-Etienne is the entrance to the southern fa9ade; the Porte du Cloitre and the Porte Rouge open upon the Rue des Cloitres Notre Dame. Upon these doors and their embrasures we find the whole story of re- ligion, with its facts, its myths, its legends, its superstitions. In order to appreciate the spirit of the embellishment, one must put one's self back many centuries, one must remember the mis- sion of a cathedral in ancient times. The cathedral was the great popular movement of the JNIiddle Ages ; it was not only a place of prayer and the House of God, but the centre of the intellectual movement, the repository of all the traditions of art and of human consciousness. 128 A LOITERER IN PARIS What we place in museums they confided to the church. Guillaume Durand, in his Rationale des Divins Offices, says that in several churches they suspended ostrich eggs and other rare and re- markable objects in order that people should be attracted to church. In the cathedrals of Laon, Rheims, Bayeux, Comminges, Saint-Denis, Saint- Beryin, and in the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, etc., were preserved skeletons of whales, stuffed croco- diles, horns of unicorns, claws of griffins, cameos, and antique vases. What we seek in books the populace of the Middle Ages read in living char- acters on the embrasures of doors, or in the glass of windows — it all comes back to that first mission of art, which was religious instruction. And that explains why side by side with religious scenes we find so many homely secular subjects, the whole forming an encyclopaedia of knowledge adapted to all and read by all. The Porte du Jugement deals, as its name im- plies, with the second advent of Christ. From the point of view of the religious terror, the emo- tional keynote of the entire port ail, this door is perhaps the most eloquent of the six, and will reward the closest study— though the consensus of opinion awards the palm of pure beauty to the NOTRE-DAME 129 Porte de la Vierge, and to the writer the Porte Sainte-Anne is by far the most interesting. The artist's conception of the Day of Judg- ment is simple and naive. The Christ against the central pillar (all restored) is represented as he was in mortal life, holding the Book of Life. At his sides range the twelve apostles accom- panied by the virtues which lead to Paradise and the vices which lead to Hell. Above, in the lower zone of the tympanum sits, in glory, the Son of God, and around him appear ranged after the rules of the mysterious hierarchy, the angels and the powers of Heaven, the glorious troop of the prophets, and the white army of mar- tyrs. Doctors and virgins complete the divine cortege. Under the feet of the Judge humanity rises from the dead at the sound of the trumpet. To the right hand of Christ the elect, guided by angels, take possession of the kingdom prepared for them, while to his left the rejected, conducted by devils, fall into the flames. The whole allegory is carried out in the immense detail of the deep soffit, or voussoir, restored after ancient documents and meriting long study. The pier, the Christ upon the pier, and the lower zone of the tympanum are restored, having 130 A LOITERER IN PARIS been torn out — not by the Revolutionists, but by one of the most famous architects of the XVIIIth century, with the consent and concurrence of the chapter. We must know that the enemies of rehgion were not the only ones to lay violent hands upon the ancient beauty of the cathedral, but that the piety, which, at great expense, pre- tended to rejuvenate the edifice for the more practical service of the cult, did perhaps the more insidious mischief. Until the XVIIIth century the ancient form of the church seems to have been respected, but Louis XIII, actuated no doubt as much by vanity as by piety, began a series of mutilations and changes which have gone on until this day. The damage which he instigated affected the in- terior, but disastrous as it was, it was slight as compared to the profanation of the central portal undertaken by Soufflot at the demand of the ecclesiastical authorities. Each of the doors of Notre-Dame is divided into two valves by a pier standing in the middle bearing an upright figure. The idea was, in 1771, when the alterations were made, that processions and ceremonies were impeded by this pillar, which obstructed the doorway, itself, also, become too NOTRE-DAME 131 low to admit of effective entrance. Accordingly Soufflot tore out the pier, with its statue of Christ, and the pedestal covered with curious reliefs. To raise the arch of the new door the whole of the lower part of the tympanum was gashed out, without respect for the beautiful sculpture of the Last Judgment. Geoffrey Dechaume, one of the ablest of the sculptors who worked under Viollet-le-Duc, re- stored the Christ of the central pillar, upon the models existing at Amiens and Rheims, and restored the second panel of the tympanum, which contains some of the original sculpture. The lower zone was replaced by Toussaint and is entirely modern. The third panel of the tympanum remains intact. Christ as the Judge sits on the tribunal, with the earth as his footstool. Two angels stand at his sides, showing the instruments of his Pas- sion, and a little behind these the Virgin and John, the Evangelist, kneel with hands joined imploring pity for sinners. The Virgin wears her crown, veil, robe, and mantle. Saint John is represented according to the tradition of the Latin church, as a youth, without a beard, wear- ing a long robe, and his feet bare. This group 132 A LOITERER IN PARIS of five figures fills the point of the tympanum and is considered one of the cliej-d'oeuvres of the Xlllth century. The voussoir of this door, in six choirs of figures, is one of the most important and beautiful now existing. To the right of Christ are the angels, the archangels, and the saints, while to the left, Satan and the devils. The demonology of Notre-Dame has seemingly exhausted the singular imagination of its creators. In certain lights and at a proper distance one can still quite clearly get the impression of the gold leaf and colour which once added charm to the doors, for we know that all this sculpture was once painted and gilded. Standing alongside the statue of Charlemagne, in the Parvis, the central tympanum still shows the warmth and glow of the effaced decoration. The Porte de la Vierge is considered the most beautiful of the entrances to the cathedral. Viollet-le-Duc describes it as a poem in stone. (" Cette porte est tout un poeme en pierre") Upon the central pier of the door is a statue of the Virgin, not the original — that was sent to Saint-Denis — but another of the XVth century, taken from the old church of Saint-Aignan and added to the door in 1818. It is dry and man- NOTRE-DAME 133 nered and cold, and one sees at once that it is out of sympathy with the rest of the sculpture here. The pedestal has also lost its original reliefs and what we see is restoration. The Virgin holds in her arms the Redeemer, and tramples under foot the serpent, with a woman's head and wings, whose tail is curled around the trunk of the tree of knowledge. Adam and Eve stand one on each side of the tree, tempted by the serpent; on the left side of the pedestal is carved the creation of Eve and on the right the dismissal from Paradise. This sculpture forms the ornate base to the statue, while above the head of the Virgin is a dais, supported by two angels with censers. Over the dais is a little building covered by a similar canopy. This little building divides into two spaces the first panel of the tympanum, in which, to the right of the Virgin, are seated three prophets, their heads covered with veils, and on the left three kings, crowned, and all six hold a banderole with a meditative air. The prophets are present for the advent of the Messiah, and the kings as ancestors of the Virgin. The sculpture is re- markable in its realism controlled by the Gothic convention. Viollet-le-Duc considers these six figures as the most beautiful of this epoch, which 134 A LOITERER IN PARIS have come down to us; the heads are expressive and lifehke. The second zone represents the entombment of the Virgin. In the central group two angels hold the extremities of the shroud and lower the body into a rich sarcophagus. The Virgin is young and full of grace, with her hands crossed upon her breast. Behind the coffin stands Christ in an atti- tude of benediction surrounded by the twelve apostles — at the head of the tomb, Peter, and at the foot, John. In the point of the tympanum Mary is glorified as the queen of angels and men. Christ shares her throne and has just placed upon her head a crown brought by an angel. Two other angels kneel to fill the angles of the space and hold towards the central group candlesticks with lights. The sculptor has exhausted his subject in order to fill the four choirs of the soffit, with historic personages and devices, all of which contribute in detail to the ensemble of the scene. A hand- some band of ornamental sculpture finishes the pointed arch of the archivolt, but in order to give special relief to the whole, a large moulding in the form of a gable outlines a depression in the stone, and this form springs from two small cokmins. fhoto Alinari SATAN AND THE DEVILS. DETAIL FROM THE VOUSSOIB OF THE PORTE DU JUGEMENT. NOTRE-DAME. Photo Alinari LA PORTE DE LA VIERGE. NOTRE-DAME. NOTRE-DAME 137 Four statues flank each side of the enirance, carrying the height and general style of the figure upon the middle pier. To the right of the Virgin is Saint-Denis between two angels, carrying his head, and then Constantin. On the opposite side, facing Constantin, is the pope, Saint-Sylvestre, next him Sainte-Genevieve, then Saint-Etienne and John the Baptist. These statues are accom- panied by little related figures which serve as pedestals, filling the triangular spaces between the arcade under the figures. Each one has its special significance and will reward close atten- tion. For example, under Saint-Denis is the figure of the executioner with his axe, under Saint-Etienne a man with a stone in his hand, under Constantin a dog and a bird to signify Christianity triumphing over the demon, etc. Against this wall, under the arches, are again little scenes in flat relief, much mutilated, which amplify the stories of the saints to which they refer. Thus, under Saint-Denis and Saint- Etienne, their martyrdom; under Sainte-Gene- vieve, the young girl, accompanied by an angel, receiving benediction from a hand which comes through a cloud, under John the Baptist, the executioner handing the head to the daughter of 138 A LOITERER IN PARIS Herodias; under the angels the conflict between good and bad sph-its; etc. The beauty and antiquity of this entrance is greatly enhanced by a quantity of little panels, sculptured in relief upon the two faces of the jambs of the door. The Earth, represented by a woman holding a plant in her hands, and Water, by a woman riding a fish and holding a boat, in line with the reliefs just described, are the keynotes of a whole composition upon these subjects. Above these the panels make an almanac in stone, figuring the signs of the zodiac together with the different occupations of the months and seasons, and trees and shrubs, carved with astonishing fidelity to nature. This feature, perhaps more than any other, makes the unique beauty of the Porte de la Vierge, of which every surface is covered with sculpture without in the least detracting from its simplicity. The few reliefs upon the side-posts of the Porte du Juge- ment are without importance, while the older Porte Sainte-Anne is austerely plain. The Porte Sainte-Anne, dedicated to the mother of the Virgin, expresses the moment of transition from Roman to Gothic architecture and has many points of interest and importance. The loiterer who has already visited the cathedral of NOTRE-DAME 139 Saint-Denis will at once recognize the analogy between the general aspect of this door and the fa9ade of the older cathedral. This third entrance is thought to date, in its essential construction, from the Xllth century, to be contemporary with the apse, to be, in fine, the door which Maurice de Sully intended for the central portal of the primitive plan; while in its details it assembles some of the features of the earlier churches. During the half-century which elapsed between the conception of the cathedral and the building of the fa9ade the Roman style ceded to Gothic, and this door is exceedingly curious as showing a deliberate transformation to agree with the new laws of the Xlllth century. The architect under Philippe Auguste appears to have taken the door designed for the axis of the nave, and, while creating for his main entrance grander forms and richer ornamentation, to have respected the work of his predecessor, to have reserved for it an honourable place. As it is narrower and more slender in all its parts than its companion, the Porte de la Vierge, it has seemed to me not impossible that this door itself decided the diminished width of the south tower and the whole of that division of the great portail. This theory I advance for what it is 140 A LOITERER IN PARIS worth. I have not seen it stated by any of the authorities on the subject of the cathedral. This Roman door became, then, one of the lateral entrances to the church, but since it was too low to accord with its companion, the Porte de la Vierge, the tympanum was raised by the introduction of another panel of sculpture — the lowest — while the round Roman arch was changed to the Gothic ogive by the simple building up of a point; while some new figures were added to the choirs of the voussoir, in order to fill the thus amplified bay. All this is done so frankly that it is a simple matter to see what parts of the door are original and which have been added. The stylobate with its ornaments was restored about 1850, the old decoration having been sadly damaged. Above this base in careful restoration one sees four statues at each side, replacing the originals of extreme antiquity, which were described by the Abbe Lebeuf, and otliers who had seen them, as having without doubt been relics from the old Saint-Etienne, the ecclesia senior. They are described as having been very flat in their modelling, as opposed to the round forms of the figures on the other doors, a char- acteristic of all the statues before the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, and are supposed to Photo Alinari DETAIL FROM THE PORTE DE LA VIERGE. SAINT-DENIS BETWEEN TWO ANGELS AND CONSTANTIN. NOTRE-DAME. I'hoLu Allnari DETAIL FROM THE PORTE DE LA VIERGE. NOTRE-UAilE. I'holo Alinafi TYMPANUM OF THE PORTE SAINTE-ANNE. XII TH AND XIII TH CENTURIES. NOTRE-DAME. NOTRE-DAME 143 have resembled in style and subject the figures of the western portail of the cathedral of Chartres. Lebeuf considered them as representing Saint Peter and Saint Paul to the left and right of the entrance, followed by Solomon and David (with the lyre), Sheba and Bathsheba as biblical symbols of the church, and two kings representing the royal genealogy of the Virgin. On the other hand, Bernard de Montfaucon, who engraves them in his Les Monuments de la Monarchie Fran^aise, considers the royal personages as portraits of the kings and queens of the Merovingien line, an argument which is much the more attractive. The four figures to the right, on coming out of the church, are Saint Peter, a king who holds a book and a sceptre, a queen, and another king. The four to the left are Saint Paul, a king hold- ing a stringed instrument, a queen, and a king holding a sceptre. Though de Montfaucon admits the difficulty of recognizing the portraits with accuracy, he conjectures that the king holding the violin could readily be Chilperic, who, according to Gregoire de Tours, made hymns and chants for the church, and who considered himself some- what of a musician. From this he divines that the first king, holding a book, could be Clotaire I, the father of Chilperic, the queen who follows 144 A LOITERER IN PARIS would then be Aregoiide, his mother, and the last king, Gontran, the king of Burgundy. The first king in the next band, opposite Gontran, would be Chilperic, followed by one of his queens, the ferocious Fredegonde (who was long a refugee from justice in the older church) , and the last, next to Saint Paul, Clotaire II, son of Chilperic and Fredegonde, in whose reign must have been built this portal. In favour of this conjec- ture, points out de Montfaucon, only the first and last of these kings carried the sceptre — Clotaire I and Clotaire II, who were kings of Paris. This writer also calls attention to the nimbi at the heads of the royal personages, as the only kings' portraits thus decorated. Others wearing the nimbus are statues of saints. The first kings of France took the nimbus in imitation of the Roman emperors, whom they also followed in the form of their money. This custom of denoting royalty died out with the first race and at the time of Pepin and Charlemagne was no longer in vogue. This door is sometimes called Porte Saint- Marcel from the long slim figure against the dividing pier (carefully recut from the original preserved in the Cluny Museum). Saint-Marcel was the ninth bishop of Paris — he died in i36. His statue dates from the Xlllth century but NOTRE-DAME 145 appears even earlier. The portraiture is helped hy the fidelity of costume and accessories; he wears the alb, the tunicle embroidered with palms, the fringed stole, the round chasuble, etc., and is further identified by his mitre, his cross, and the dragon under his feet. The story of the serpent which took up his abode in the sepul- chre of a wicked woman, and which was exorcised by Saint-Marcel, makes one of the narratives of the Golden Legend. The sculptor touches liglitly the tragedy, and aided by knowledge of the sub- ject one makes out the body of the woman hi her coffin, placed on end to fit the composition, and the monster with two claws and a serpent's tail comes out of the toml) to be crushed by the saint. The tympanum is in three zones, of which the lower belongs to tlie Xlllth century and deals not too clearly with the history of Sainte-Anne and the Virgin, while the Roman sculpture of the upper panels is perfectly clear. The mar- riage of the Virgin is the subject of the lower relief. That of the second takes in the whole story of the Annunciation, the presentation of Joseph, the Virgin and her cousin Elisabeth, the manger and the adoration of the shepherds, Herod, the magi, etc. Except for the figure of the Virgin mounting the steps of the temple. 148 A LOITERER IN PARIS which is Xlllth century, all of this panel dates from the Xllth century. The break is the more noticeable because of the difference in the stone used. The older stone is hard and gray, while the other being softer has taken a darker note. At the summit of the tympanum the Virgin sits in the middle holding her Son, enthroned between angels. The king kneeling at her left offering a scroll has been identified as Louis VII, the friend of the abbe Suger, hero of the second crusade, and father of Philippe Auguste. To the Virgin's right stands a bishop holding, like the king, an open scroll. The king kneels as a simple layman, the bishop stands in his Quality of pontiff. This prelate students of the subject identify as Maurice de Sully, the founder of the cathedral. Near the bishop a seated person writes with great attention upon a tablet the act of consecration of the church to the Virgin. Thus read, this tympanum becomes one of the most important and interesting historical documents in connection with Notre-Dame. The sculpture throughout is of a delightful ([uaintness and consistency. The soflRt, in four rows, carries out the accompaniment of the story, as in the other doors. Most of the greater cathedrals credit the devil NOTRE-DAME 147 with a hand in their construction. In this one we have him in the character of bhicksmith, for ac- cording to tradition the ironwork of these two lateral doors is the devil's handiwork. Guilhermy tells us that this devil forger was known to the quarter as Biscoruette, and that savants have made of him an artist whose soubriquet has taken gravely its place upon a list of masters of the Middle Ages. The ironwork of the end doors is of the very finest of the Xllth and Xlllth centuries. The middle door having been tampered with by SoufRot is not of the same importance or beauty. The side elevations, greatly damaged during the Revolution and later, show much restoration. The Porte du Cloitre, in the north transept, opened upon the enclosure reserved to the canonical houses. All the sculpture is to the glory of Mary and is of fine workmanship. The south side resembles the nortli, and bears the famous inscrip- tion, making one line across the portal, of which c o we have already spoken: Anno . Dni . ]M . CC . LVII . Mense . Februario . Idus . Secundo . Hoc . Fuit . Tnceptum . Christi . Genitcis . Honore . Kallensi . Lathomo . Vivente . Johanne . Magistro. The Porte Saint-Etienne, reserved to the bishops, opened upon one of the courts of the 148 A LOITERER IN PARIS episcopal palace. It is also called the Porte des Martyrs on account of the personages repre- sented. The reliefs of the tympanum refer to the martyrdom of Saint-Etienne. The small door, opening from the third chapel of the choir is known as the Porte Rouge, from the ancient colour of its valves, and is sup- posed to date from about 1257. Archaeologists have identified the figures of the Virgin and her son in the tympanum as portraits of Saint-Louis and Marguerite de Provence, possibly the only effigies of these personages sculptured in the Xlllth century which escaped the fury of the Revolutionists. CHAPTER VII INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL In its interior the cathedral is very imposing. We are to picture it, however, as much more so in the old days when the magnificent glass of the original construction glowed in the nave and choir, throwing all the vaulting of these parts into mysterious obscurity, adding a wealth of colour and of strong geometric pattern to the openings illuminated as by sacred fire. The three rose windows are all that remain to speak for the price- less treasures of former times. Until 1741 the glass was intact, and one ex- pects of course to hear that the vandals of the Revolution are to blame for its suppression, which has so completely altered the aspect of the church. iSTot so. The destruction of the ancient glass was with the concurrence of the chapter, another of those acts of despoliation undertaken by the ecclesiastical authorities with the idea of rejuvenating the monument, of making it more accessible to practical devotion; the same spirit which during the first half of the XVIIIth cen- 149 150 A LOITERER IN PARIS tury lost us one after another the ancient features of the choir, its Gothic stalls, its rood-loft, the screen of the round-point, the antique high altar, its tombs, the funeral stones of the nave, choir, and chapels, and which culminated in the desecra- tion of the Porte du Jugement, as we have seen. Pierre Levied was the maker of the modern windows, and, says Guilhermy, the " destructeur patente de vitraiix anciens." And it is to his account of the miserable business that we owe some of the precious information concerning the early glass. He recounts that he was commis- sioned to remove the glass of the nave and choir of Notre-Dame and to replace it with white glass decorated with ciphers and symbols and flowered borders. This phlegmatic Philistine relates with calmness that he thought that most of the win- dows which he took out dated not later than 1182, and that some of it resembled the glass of the chapels of the apse of Saint -Denis, and was un- doubtedly that given by the abbe Suger. But after all Notre-Dame preserves from the general disaster, by rare good fortune, the most splendid part of the glass — the three roses of the three great portails, intact still and unsurpassed. Each rose completes the story of its port ail. To the west, the full effect broken by the intru- INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 151 sion of the organ pipes, the story concerns the patron of the temple. The Virgin occupies the central compartment, and in the widening circles about her are the twelve prophets, the signs of the zodiac, etc., the whole full of symbolism and history, worthy of exhaustive study. Above the Porte du Cloitre, the window is consecrated to the life and miracles of Mary. The south rose, corresponding to the Porte des Martyrs, presents in four circles the choir of the apostles, an army of bishops, saints, and angels. The three roses are considered contemporaneous with the fa9ades which they complete and decorate. Everything proves it — their unity of style, the similarity of execution, the intimate relation in choice and composition of subject. Considered purely and simply as geometric designs, of concentric circles, in jewel-like colours, they fill the observer with profound emotion, with rich satisfaction and joy. The whole church, now so bare of historic memorials, was formerly paved with sepulchral stones, similar to the few contemporary relics to be seen at the Cluny Museum, and history was written large on the floor of nave, chapels, and choir, where one could read inscriptions and study effigies of the most illustrious personages of church and state. " It was a moving and solemn 152 A LOITERER IN PARIS spectacle," says a contemporary writer, " to see all these dead planted till the day of judgment." The architects of Louis XIV were first to dis- turb the sepulchres of the choir, to substitute for tombs of bishops and grandees of the earth a mosaic whose rich texture was without significa- tion, and merely a distraction for the eye. From 1771 to 1775 all the ground of the nave, aisles, transept, and collateral chapels of the chevet was repaved with great slabs of blue and white marble, an operation which cost more than three hundred thousand livres besides destroying innumerable stones engraved with effigies in intaglio — a floor- ing, in fact, perhaps comparable to tlie glorious paving of the cathedral of Siena to-day. Guides are never lacking to thrust upon one information regarding the superficial treasures of the sacristy and the chapels. The latter are seen with difficulty and are not particularly interesting. Some, however, are by famous sculptors. Against the pillar to the left of the choir is a statue of Saint-Denis by Nicolas Coustou, one of the great sculptors under Louis XIV. It is simple, im- pressive, and beautifully modelled. Against the opposite pillar is a Gothic statue of the Virgin, of the XlVth century, held in high veneration by the faithful. In the Chapelle Sainte-Made- INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 153 leine is a kneeling statue of Archbishop Sibour, who was murdered by an abbe in the church Saint-Etienne du Mont, by Dubois, the sculptor of a more famous Jeanne d'Arc, at Rheims. In the Chapelle Saint-Guillaume is a theatrical monument to General d'Harcourt, by Pigalle, an important sculptor of the XVIIIth century — but the composition is scattered and the group lacks unity. Great destruction was done to monuments to bishops and nobles at the time of the Revolution, and of all those of bishops, once so numerous at Notre-Dame, tliere remains but one effigy in mar- ble, that of Simon Matiffas de Buci, who died in 1304. This is a recumbent figure in full costume, with a jewelled mitre, collar, necklace, etc., and • a lion sleeping at the feet, in characteristic Gothic style, mounted upon a suitable pedestal. It lies at present directly behind the Pieta, in the ambulatory. The treasure of Notre-Dame was greatly cele- brated for its magnificence. Bishops, kings, and illustrious personages of state loaded it with precious objects. The Revolutionists fell upon it with fantastic fury and greed and its contents were swept to the four winds. When the cult was reestablished the government restored some 154 A LOITERER IN PARIS objects which had been preserved as rarities. The troubles of 1831 menaced again the little that had escaped the former havoc, but little by little it has grown again in importance. Its chief treasure is of course the crown of thorns brought here from the Sainte-Chapelle. The choir and ambulatory have kept some of the sumptuous decoration given it by Louis XIV in execution of the wish of his father, Louis XIII, who, in 1638, having put his kingdom under the protection of the Virgin, pledged him- self to reconstruct the high altar of the cathedral with an image of the Virgin holding in her arms her Son, descended from the cross, and at her feet a statue of himself offering his crown and sceptre. Louis XIII died before carrying his vow into effect, and Louis XIV undertook to accomplish it for him some fifty years later. Begun in 1699, interrupted by the preoccupations of war, and rebegun in 1708, the transformation of the choir was not completed until one year before the death of the monarch. Royal ambition and human egoism were manifestly served under the guise of filial devotion and piety. The beautiful jiihc, or rood-loft, was taken out ostensibly to open the sanctuary to a more intimate relation INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 155 with the faithful, but at the same time the mani- fest advantage was a better view of the royal gifts and portraits. The same reasoning seems to apply to the destruction of the round-point of the choir-screen, which was enclosed l)y hand- some grills. To the scheme of sculpture proposed by his father, Louis XIV added naturally a portrait statue of himself, so that the Virgin, holding the dead Christ, was flanked by figures of Louis XIII kneeling on her left, offering his crown and sceptre, and of Louis XIV on her right in identical pose without the crown and sceptre. For this work the king employed the three most celebrated sculptors of his reign, Coyzevox and his pupils, Nicolas and Guillaume Coustou. The group of the Virgin is by Coustou ahic, the statue of Louis XIII by his brother Guillaume, and for the statue of himself Louis le Grand reserved the master Coyzevox. The sculptural decoration was continued by the addition of eight bronze angels, two upon the angles of the altar and three each side of the Pieta against the pillars of the apse, modelled by Cayot, Vancleve, Poirier, Hurtrelle, Nagnier, and Anselme Flamen. The antique high altar, with its shrines and brass columns, was torn down 156 A LOITERER IN PARIS to give place to a more magnificent design, with reliefs made by Vasse. Twelve Virtues in relief above the modernized arcades of the round-point were made by Pouletier, Fremin, Le Pautre, Lemoine, Bertrand, and Thierry. Du Goulon was charged with the sculpture of the two bishops' pulpits, of beautiful woodwork and en- riched by ornaments and bas-reliefs, and of the choir-stalls, which replaced the ancient Gothic seats of the canons, their backs covered with re- liefs from the life of the Virgin and the New Testament. Above the episcopal pulpits and the stalls were placed eight large paintings in gorgeous frames, painted for the choir by Halle, Jouvenet, Fosse, Boulogne le Jeune, and An- toine Coypel. The subjects were: The Annun- ciation of the Virgin, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and the Assumption. Old writers describe the altar as of great mag- nificence. It was made of Egyptian marble, cut in the form of an antique sarcophagus, decorated on all sides by cherubim and other rich orna- ments in gilded bronze. Between the two figures of adoring angels, upon the angles, was a raised portion in white marble, carved with an oval relief by Vasse, and upon this elevation stood the Photo Alinari GOTHIC STATUE OF THE VIRGIN. INTERIOR NOTRE-DAME. XIVTH CENTURY. XinTH CENTURY SCULPTURE FROM THE CHOIR-SCREEN. NOTRE-DAME. SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS AND FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. I'liuto Alinari I'hulu Aliiiuii THE AMBUI-ATORY. NOTRE-DAME. INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 159 great crucifix and six large silver candlesticks of superior workmanship. Three circular steps of Languedoc marble preceded the altar, and the sanctuary itself was approached by four steps in similar material, bordered by a superb balus- trade in marble and gilded bronze, magnificently chiselled. The high altar, with all its accessories, was destroyed for the second time, in 1793, when the cathedral became a Temple of Reason, and Made- moiselle Maiilard, attended by her priestesses, supernumeraries of the opera, was adored as the Goddess of Reason, a la place du ci-devant sacre- ment! The altar which one sees to-day was built in 1803. Its Christ before the tomb, in gilded bronze, founded upon the design of Vancleve, comes from the Chapelle des Louvois in the old church of the Capucines of the Place Vendome. The cross and six chandeliers belonged, before the Revolution, to the cathedral of Arras. The beautifully chiselled bronze lectern dates from 1755 and is signed Duplessis, founder to the king. For many years the statues of Louis XITI and Louis XIV, rescued at the time of the Revolu- tion, were housed in the modern sculpture rooms of 160 A LOITERER IN PARIS the Louvre,, but they have been put back in the sanctuary in an effort to restore as far as possible the beauty of the choir. Amongst the many his- toric monuments which perished during the Reign of Terror was the equestrian statue of Philippe le Bel. A writer in 1736 relates that the chapel to the Virgin having just been recon- structed " with much magnificence and at the expense of the cardinal de Noailles, archbishop of Paris," one saw opposite this chapel the eques- trian statue of Philippe le Bel. " It was thus mounted," continues our scribe, " that this king came to render thanks to God and to the Virgin, for the victory which he had gained over the Flemish at Mons-en-Pevle, 18 August, 1304." A colossal statue of Saint Christopher, standing against a pillar near the western entrance, dated from 1413, and was the gift of Antoine des Es- sars, chamberlain of Charles VI. It was de- stroyed by the chapter in 1786. One finds con- stant allusions to this statue which, recalling the patron of the Hotel-Dieu, had many admirers. Coryat,' writing in 1611, says: "I could see no notable matter in the cathedrall church, saving the statue of Saint Christopher, on the right hand at the coming in of the great gate, which is ^ Crudities. INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 161 indeed very exquisitely done, all the rest being but ordinary." The zeal of Louis XIV in the embellishment of the sanctuary did not stop with the destruction of the ancient interior of the choir, but, as we have seen, tore away its picturesque rood-loft to open a view from the nave, and extended even to the partial demolition of the choir-screen, of which there remains but a remnant. The work is exceedingly curious, consisting of a frieze of stone figures, painted and gilded, and in its en- tirety told the comjilete story of Christ, before and after the Resurrection. The series was so arranged that the cycle, which began at the east — or at the centre of the round-point of the apse — passed along the north side of the choir to its western extremity, was continued on the lec- tern, where the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resur- rection were pictured in front of the congrega- tion, and concluded in a series of panels moving from west to east back to the point of departure. The handsome grills introduced by Louis' architect were erected at the sacrifice of the be- ginning and end of the series, presumably the Annunciation and the Ascension. The earlier work, on the north side of the choir, unfortu- nately at the darkest part of the ambulatory, 162 A LOITERER IN PARIS begins with the Visitation and carries the story in an unbroken chain to the Agony in the Gar- den. The latter series on the south side takes up the narrative after the Resurrection and carries it from the meeting of Christ and Mary Magdalen to the farewell to the Disciples, before the Ascension. The work evidently was a long time under way, and by artists of very different calibre. The earliest fragment is vividly conceived and exe- cuted with great force and virility, as well as surprising realism. One has no need whatever of the ministrations of the officious guide with his fatuous explanations, for nothing could be clearer than this imagery of the story of Christ. It has besides all the touching simplicity of the Gospel itself, and breathes the spirit of the Xlllth cen- tury. The exact date of execution is not known. The artist of the later scenes, however, left his name in an inscription, which has disappeared, as Jehan Ravy, who for twenty-six years conducted the building of Notre-Dame, at the end of which time the series was completed under his nephew, Jehan le Bouteiller, in 1351. There is a distinct falling off in the technique and inspiration of these later reliefs. The sculptor, departing from the continuous scheme of his distinguished prede- INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL 163 cesser, has divided his subjects into panels, sep- arated by columns, and made a more elaborate finish to the frieze, in keeping with his thinner style. Everything is to the advantage of the early, unknown sculptor. CHAPTER VIII THE BASILICA OF CLOVIS: SAINTE-GENEVIEVE When Paris was confined to the ile de la Cite it had for defence a thick wall and for moat the hed of the Seine. The Petit Pont, replacing an ancient Roman bridge, was the earliest means of exit from the Cite to the left bank of the river and led the way to the Route d'Orleans, itself a Roman road dating back to the time of Caesar. This bridge must have been in constant use by the Ro- man emperors and governors in coming and going between the primitive city of Lutece and the Palais des Thermes, without the walls. Regarding this first wall of Paris, history is obscure, but we know that the Grand and the Petit Chatelets were the development of the ancient gates of Lutece. The Grand Chatelet, or Porte de Paris, of which there now remains merely the site and the name bestowed upon a place and a theatre, was reputed to have been an old chriteau built in the time of the Romans, of which in the XVIIIth century there still remained several old 164 SAIXTE-GENEVIEVE 165 towers incorporated in a modern construction (1684) enclosing several prisons and a famous torture chamber. A vaulted j^assage under the fortress served as egress from the island to the right bank of the river. The Petit Chritelet guarded the approach to the Cite on the site now called Place du Petit Pont. It was an antique fortress composed of a massive quadrangular castle with round towers on the side towards the Seine, under Mhich passed a vaulted passage, closed by a heavy gate which served as the second Porte de Paris. Both Grand and Petit Chatelets served as official residences for the provost and vicomte of Paris, as seats of justice, and as prisons, the lat- ter, says cheerfully an old writer, ordinairement hien gariiie. The passage under the Petit Chiitelet, though dark and narrow, according to the early descriptions, was the most frequented entrance to the Ciic. Destroyed bv the Normans, it was re- built in 1369 under Charles V in the form familiar through engravings. By an old custom the clergj'' of Notre-Dame walked here in procession annually on Palm Sunday and liberated one prisoner. After the capture of Paris by the Burgundians, in 1418, there was a general massacre of the pris- oners, which included at the time the bishops of 166 A LOITERER IN PARIS Bayeux, Evreux, Constances, and Senlis. The picturesque old buildings of the Petit Chatelet were pulled down in 1782. Without the walls, on the left bank of the Seine, extended a vast prairie, on the outskirts of which stood the ancient palace of the Csesars, adopted as a royal residence by the kings of the first race in France. This palace in the course of time, instead of commanding a Roman camp, became a sort of centre between the two first faubourgs of Paris, built both on the rive gauche, the one, Saint-Pierre (later Sainte-Genevieve), upon the rise of land where now stands the Pantheon, and the other. Saint- Vincent et Sainte- Croix, nearer the river (later Saint-Germain-des- Pres). The great Clovis built the basilica of Saint- Pierre, or of the Saints-Apotres, as Gregoire de Tours usually names it, as a monument to his victory over the army of the Visigoths; Childebert, son of Clovis, second king of Paris, gave the other and grander church to enshrine the trophies of his victories in Spain. The steep and winding Rue de la Montagne- Sainte-Genevieve leads through one of the most characteristic bits of old Paris, from the Boulevard Saint-Germain at the Place Maubert, to the site Photo Alinari STATUE OF SAINTE-GENEVIEVE. XIII TH CENTURY. FROM THE ANCIENT EGLISE SAINTE-GENEVIEVE. NOW IN THE LOUVRE. SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 169 of the church of Clovis. One may approach it directly from the cathedral by crossing the Pont au Double, taking the Rue Lagrange to Place Maubert, and thence, across the boulevard, by ascending the narrow Rue de la Montagne-Sainte- Genevieve. The quarter, despite the heavy domination of the Pantheon, the modern temple to the saint, built by Louis XV, and the alien library which preserves the books of the old abbey, keeps much of its primitive tone. We shall come back to it, in a later chapter, for Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, its chief existing interest; but for the present there is still standing the tower of the old Sainte- Genevieve, with its Romanesque base, enclosed within the precincts of the Lycee Henri IV, which occupies part of the buildings of the ancient abbey, while the quiet Rues Clotilde and Clovis guard the memory of the founders. After the death of Clovis, his queen, Clotilde, finished the church, and in the sanctuary interred the bodies of Sainte-Genevieve and her consort, and, later, her two grandchildren, the sons of Clodomir, who were murdered by their uncles, Childebert and Clotaire, whose power and dominion they, as their father's heirs, menaced and diminished. Clotilde survived this tragedy twenty years, years 170 A LOITERER IN PARIS devoted to strictest piety, to numerous charities; she distributed her domains to churches, to monas- teries, in a constant effort to efface by the practice of rehgion the memory of this horrible catastrophe. The details of this murder merit perhaps a passing word as throwing light upon the extraor- dinary cruelty of this primitive race of kings. Upon the death of Clodomir, the eldest son of Clovis and Clotilde, whose heritage was the king- dom of Orleans, his widow, Gondiuque, married her brother-in-law, Clotaire, and his three male infants were confided to their grandmother. Clo- tilde showed for the young heirs such tenderness that her remaining sons, Childebert and Clotaire, were alarmed. The estates of Clodomir had not yet been divided amongst his children, and Childe- bert proposed to his brother the murder of their three nephews. Clotaire was readily persuaded and under the pretext to establish them as rulers of their father's domain, the brothers sent for them. Clotilde, filled with joy at the prospects of her grandsons, sent them forth, accompanied by a numerous suite. Immediately upon their arrival the young princes were taken prisoners and the suite dis- persed, whereupon the senator of Auvergne, Arcadius, was sent to Clotilde with orders to pre- SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 171 sent himself before her with a drawn sword in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. Now the Merovingiens wore their hair long as a sign of royalty, and Clotilde recognized at once the choice which was presented to her. In her im- petuous indignation she returned the messenger with the brusque word that she would ratlier have the children killed than shaven and deprived of their estates. Arcadius hastened to report this decision of Clotilde, whereupon Clotaire seizing the oldest of the princes threw him upon the ground and killed him with one stroke of his sword. The youngest fell upon his knees before Childebert imploring his protection, upon which this extraordinary king, says the old narrative, was touched to tears, but Clotaire, who was of sterner stuff, cried: How now! it was you who decided me to commit this crime, and you weaken! Perish yourself or deliver to me this child. ('' C'est toi qui rnas decide a com- mettre ce crime, et tu recules! Peris toi-inem.e ou abandon tie-moi cet enfant/") Childebert gave way and another victim was killed. The third prince, Clodoald, was saved by the guard, and later he himself cut off his long hair and took sacred orders. After his death he was sanctified, and his name, somewhat modified, was 172 A LOITERER IN PARIS given in his memory to the village Nogent-sur- Seine, thereafter known as Saint- Cloud. Out of such triste and inglorious beginnings, wars, massacres, murders, parricide, grew then the great and powerful abbey of Sainte-Genevieve in the suite of the church founded by Clovis and endowed by his queen. Upon her death Clotilde was interred near the sepulchre of the saint and after a thousand years (in 1539) her remains were enclosed in a silver shrine. Like Jeanne dArc, Sainte-Genevieve, the shepherdess of Nanterre, touches strongly French sentiment and patriotism; together with Saint-Denis, the apostle of Paris, she figures on most of the Gothic remnants which have come down to us, having for Paris her special local appeal. Her shrine still attracts thousands of the faithful. Tradition pictures the youthful Genevieve as a peasant girl of the environs of Paris, born in 421, and signalled out by Saint-Germain, the bishop of Auxerre, as predestined for special service in the cause of Christianity. In one of the two voyages which he made to Great Britain, Saint- Germain passed by Nanterre and consecrated to the Seigneur the Virgin Genevieve, who became the patron saint of Paris. In the strange old church of Saint-Germain-de- SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 173 Charonne, buried behind the cemetery Pere La- chaise, is a large canvas of the XVI Ith cen- tury, representing Saint-Germain standing in his pontifical robes consecrating to God the little Genevieve, led by her mother. Saint-Germain-d'Auxerre was one of the great figures of the Christian church in Gaul in the Vth century. The bishop of Auxerre, he must not be confounded with Saint-Germain, the bishop of Paris, who lived in the Vlth century. The first IS the patron saint of the churches, Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois and Saint-Germain-de-Charonne, the second is the patron of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. In the Middle Ages these two bishops with Saint- Denis, Saint-Martin, Saint-Remi, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Etienne, and Sainte-Genevieve were very popular, especially in the Paris region. • Sainte-Genevieve had rendered great service to Paris during the troublous times of the barbarian invasions. When Attila threatened to lay siege to the little city, it was Genevieve, warned of God, who addressed the people telling them not to abandon their homes and promising them the protection of Heaven. When Childeric, the father of Clovis, invested the city it was again Genevieve who to relieve the famine took command of boats sent up the river to Troyes for help. By her 174 A LOITERER IN PARIS prayers she stilled the tempests and brought back her ships, laden with provisions. The history of her pious life is pictured in the famous modern frescoes of the Pantheon, while upon early build- ings sculptors delighted to represent her accom- panied by a devil who tries vainly to blow out the flame of her lighted taper, the symbol of Chris- tianity, of which she was a devoted disciple and teacher. The early church upon the " mountain," behind the palace of the Caesars, took the name Sainte- Genevieve as early as the Vllth century, on ac- count of the miracles performed at the tomb of the saint. Ruined in the IXth century by the Normans, it was completely rebuilt at about the end of the Xllth century, upon the old founda- tions, while from time to time under different kings it was enriched and embellished. The reliquary, in the form of a church, con- taining the remains of the saint, was executed in 1242 by order of Robert de la Ferte-Milon, abbot of the monastery, by Bonnard, one of the cleverest of French goldsmiths. One hundred and ninety- three silver ma?'cs and seven and one-half marcs of gold were employed in its confection. Kings and queens of France covered it with precious stones, and Marie de Medicis gave a rich bouquet Photo A. Giraudon CHIMERAS: ROMAN EPOCH. FROM THE OLD ABBEY OF SAINTE-GENEVIE\'E. NOW IN THE LOUVRE. MARBLE CAPITA!. REPRESENTING DANIEL IX THE LIONS' DEN. FROM THE ANCIENT BASILICA OF SAINT-GENEVIEVE. NOW IN THE LOUVTBE. Photo A. Giraudon Photo A. Qiraudon PEDESTAL AND GROUP OF FOTtR FTGTTRES IN SCULPTURED WOOD, BY GERMAIN PILON, WHICH FORMERI Y HELD THE cfiaSSe CONTAINING THE RELICS OF SAINTE-0ENE\7EVE IN THE CHURCH DEDICATED TO THE SAINT. KOW IN THE LOmTJE. SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 177 of diamonds which surmounted the gable of the principal face. Four statues of women, larger than life size, carved from wood by Germain Pilon, placed upon marble columns behind the high altar, supported the shrine. The arms of the figures have disap- peared, but the fragment stands otherwise prac- tically intact and forms one of the chief orna- ments of that beautiful Salle Jean Goujon, at the Louvre, where so many rare examples of French Renaissance sculpture are preserved. The figures stand back to back in a circle, and their arms were evidently raised to hold the shrine. It is amusing to see how far one had come from the severity of the epoch of the saint in the opulent period in which the accessories to the shrine were made. The four women are beautiful, mundane creatures, the true companions to the Diana of Jean Goujon, a supposed portrait of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri II, by whose side they now stand. They are exquisitely coiffed and wear transparent, filmy draperies, which reveal the de- licious contours of their figures. The heads are elegantly poised, but seem rather insignificant, while the masterly touch of the sculptor comes out strong in the vigorous carving of the feet. From remotest times the relics of the saint had 178 A LOITERER IN PARIS been considered the safeguard of the city, and the shrine was often carried in procession to ward off calamities. In 1793 the municipahty of Paris had the relics thrown into the fire, the shrine melted in the furnace of the mint, an excess of democratic vandalism which yielded only twenty-one thousand livres to the national treasury. When, in 1755, Louis XV, in fulfilment of a vow, commenced the building of the great monu- ment, now the Pantheon, which was to supersede the antique church as a memorial to the patron of Paris, Sainte-Genevieve was condemned and allowed to fall into ruins. It was demolished in 1801-7, when the cutting through of the Rue Clovis blotted out its foundations and destroyed its souvenirs. The crypt was the largest and most venerated of all Paris. From its ruins was taken the stone sarcophagus which had for so many centuries en- closed the remains of the Saint. Covered by a modern shrine it was installed in the neigh- bouring church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, where it is still the object of many a pious pilgrimage. All day long and at all seasons of the year can- dles, placed by the devout who hope to gain the intercession of the saint, burn upon it. Something of the beautiful workmanship of the SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 179 Merovingien basilica raised by Clovis to the Saints-Apotres, may be divined by the study of a remarkable fragment preserved in a room devoted to French sculpture of the Moyen Age (Salle IX) at the Louvre. This is the capital from one of the columns, in marble of a fine grain, appear- ing to have been cut at two different times. Ac- cording to the label, the face, representing Daniel in the Lions' Den is Roman and the back, carved in the acanthus leaves of classic antiquity, is of the Vlth century. Not only is the capital highly decorative in its em- bellishment, but the biblical story is told with strik- ing conviction. Daniel is seated in the centre be- tween the lions, in a peaceful and contemplative attitude, his cheek in the palm of one hand and the other covering his knee. He has large, calm eyes which look out into illimitable space, and the expression on his face is truly delightful. The lions achieve to the utmost their purely decorative quality and show their good will by smiling broadly, and their entire submission by their tails, which are not only between their legs, but owing to their great length are curled up again over their backs, where they terminate in ornamental tassels. In the whole of this conception there is something distinctly Chinese. Daniel is Buddhistic, 180 A LOITERER IN PARIS especially in his mystic remoteness and sublimity, while the lions are surely akin to the sacred Chow. Not far from this fragment of the Merovingien basilica is an important relic of the Xlllth cen- tury restoration/ This is the large statue of the saint herself, taken from the central pier of the entrance. The figure stands against the original pillar, upon a pedestal, and is covered by a small canopy. Following the tradition, the saint holds, or rather held, a candle and a book; a demon perches on her left shoulder, an angel leans over the right. One tries to extinguish and the other defends the flame which should guide the virgin in her nocturnal pilgrimage to the tombs of the martyrs. In the general wreckage of her environ- ment Sainte-Genevieve has lost her nose and her candle, and the devil his head, so that without the key the significance of the statue is lost. The angel is quite intact and leans protectingly over the saint's shoulder. The statue dates from the beginning of the Xlllth century. Some fragmentary capitals from the nave of the old church may be discovered in the second court of the Beaux-Arts. These are in stone and of Xlth century construction, very large and clumsily executed. On one of them is the story of Adam ' Also in Salle IX. SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 181 and Eve in three episodes, making a continuous pattern upon the exposed side of the capital. In the centre, the serpent entwined about the tree offering Eve the apple in his teeth, and Adam and Eve in grotesquely unequivocal attitudes; to the left, the creation of woman, crude but unmis- takable; to the right, the expulsion from Paradise. The figures are heavy and primitive while the foliage is well cut and well preserved. The motifs on the other capitals are less clear as to their meaning, it has been thought that they represent the signs of the zodiac. All are in a deplorable state of decay. Upon the wall over the first mentioned frag- ment, is a handsome funeral stone of elaborate workmanship, representing Jean Disse, a chan- cellor of Notre-Dame of Noyon, who died in 1350. The stone has been broken, but put together care- fully, and though covered with a patine from exposure is still clearly legible, both as to decora- tion and the inscription which runs around the border. These things, we assume, were brought here at the time of the Revolution, and installed in the hastily improvised museum of French art, organ- ized by that admirable patriot Alexandre Lenoir, to whose intervention and courage we owe the 182 A LOITERER IN PARIS preservation of so many monuments which would otherwise have been destroyed. A statue of Clovis, made in the Xllth century, from the abbey of Sainte-Genevieve, forms one of the chief treasures of Saint-Denis. This statue had been discarded in the XVI Ith century, for a more imposing monument in white marble, erected in the middle of the choir of the church, by order of cardinal de la Rochefoucauld. The Revolu- tionists spent their rage upon the modern tomb, while the ancient stone effigy, whose place it had usurped, escaped their fury and was rescued by the indefatigable Lenoir for his Museum of French Monuments installed in the convent of the Petits-Augustins. The figure with all its accessories and the bed upon which it rests are cut from a solid block of stone. The workmanship is heavy and coarse, and the statue, in contradistinction to the charac- teristic style of the epoch, which exaggerated the length and elongated the forms as a rule, is short and thick. The effigy is distinguished by the long hair and beard of the Merovingien princes, and tallies in all respects with the old engravings, which may be consulted in the works of Dubreul and Montfaucon. From the vandalism of the Revolutionists these SAINTE-GENEVIEVE 183 and some other monuments were spared, including the handsome mausoleum of cardinal de La Roche- foucauld, cut in marble by Philippe Buister. The monument to Rene Descartes, though re- spectfully carried to the shelter of the Petits- Augustins, was afterwards dismembered, while the ashes of the great philosopher are interred at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Thus may one visit the scattered relics of the demolished church, while upon the site itself stands, still marking the summit of the mount, the high and beautiful tower, spared since it did not trouble the line of the Rue Clovis. Roman at its base and pierced by rounded arches, it passes in its ascent, to Gothic, and its two upper stories belong to the XlVth and XVth centuries. The Roman construction is said to date from the reign of Philippe I (1060) or at the latest from the first years of the Xllth century. A winding stairway of stone mounts through a tourelle at the northeastern angle and at each story is a door- way opening upon an elegant balcony with fine wrought-iron grills. The balustrade and four little steeples are in the flamboyant style. The convent buildings have been absorbed into the construction of the Lycee Henri IV, which after the suppression of the abbey took posses- 184 A LOITERER IN PARIS sion. The principal existing remnant is the refec- tory, a great, vaulted hall, constructed in the Xlllth century, and partially restored in 1886. This room serves as chapel for the college. The library of Sainte-Genevieve, once celebrated in the world of savants, was housed on the top floor of the abbey, and constituted one of those remote fastnesses of archaeological, scientific, and literary research which are the delight of the elect. The collections were founded by the cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, about 1624, and greatly in- creased by the addition of the library of cardinal le Tellier, archbishop of Rheims, in 1710. The library is rich in manuscripts from the IXth to the XVI Ith centuries, many beautifully illu- minated, and contains a nearly complete collection of Aldine editions as well as a famous collection of about 8000 engravings, including nearly 5000 portraits. The Revolution declared the library national property, and about the middle of the last century the long Florentine building on the north side of the Place du Pantheon was erected by the archi- tect Labrouste and became the new Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve. The ancient sanctuary of science was denuded of its treasures in 1850 when the transfer of the collections to the new building was made. CHAPTER IX THE BASILICA OF CHILDEBERT: SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES The quaint old church of Saint-Germain-des- Pres, still dominant over an interesting quarter of Paris, on the jive gauche, was the nucleus of a large and powerful ahbey, which once peopled this locality and had jurisdiction over an impor- tant section known as the Bourg Saint-Germain. The existing church, a mere fragment of the orie^inal construction, was the centre of the abbey, as the abbey was the centre of the bourg, or vil- lage, the whole having grown out of a foundation made in remote times by Childebert, the third son and immediate successor of Clovis, the second Merovingien king of Paris. In ancient times the church and abbey were known as Saint-Vincent and Sainte-Croix, the former having been built as a shrine for the sacred relics brought back by Childebert from a victori- ous expedition against the Visigoths (531-543) which included the tunic of Saint-Vincent and a rich cross of gold, studded with precious stones, 185 186 A LOITERER IN PARIS from Toledo, said to have been made for Solomon. Childebert was encouraged and supported in his pious undertaking by Germain, the good bishop of Paris, so good and holy a man that he was canonized after death. When, two centuries later, his remains were lifted from their first resting- place — the Oratory of Saint- Symphorien, attached to the right aisle of the church — and solemnly transferred to a sepulchre behind the altar of Sainte-Croix, the basilica was rededicated to Saint-Germain. Before the faubourg was inhabited, the abbey stood in the middle of a great prairie from which it took its name, des Pres — literally Saint-Germain of the Fields or Meadows — to distinguish it from Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, another church, con- temporary or earlier, across the river, founded in honour of the bishop of Auxerre. The abbey long remained isolated in the middle of these meadows, so famous in University annals that they were called the Pre auoc Clercs. Various cafes, restau- rants, an hotel, and a remnant of a street pre- serve the name. In founding the monastery, Childebert gave to the abbots his fief at Issy and the Oratory Saint- Andreol, afterwards Saint-Andre-des-Arts, with its territory, the whole comprising a vast domain Photo A. Oiniudon CHILDEHEUT. XIII TH CENTURY STATUE. FROJr THE ABBEY OF SAINT-GEBMAIN-DES-PRES. NOW IN THE LOUVRE. SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 189 extending from Sevres to the Petit Pont along the left bank of the Seine. King Pepin, who was present at the ceremony of the interment of Saint-Germain in the basilica, gave the monastery on this occasion the royal estate at Palaiseau, with its Merovingien palace, not far from Paris. The abbots exercised absolute jurisdiction both spiritual and temporal over the faubourg Saint- Germain, whose constructions occupied little by little a large part of the lands given by Childebert to the abbey, and in 1255 the inhabitants of the villa Sancti-Gervimn were enfranchized and, con- sidered as a body entirely distinct from Paris, enjoyed special immunities and made their own laws. In the Xlllth century the village was of small extent and chiefly inhabited by vassals of the abbey, mostly agriculturalists, and consisted of thatched cottages, granges, and rustic buildings; but as the taste for country life grew amongst the nobles and the rich bourgeoisie of Paris, the bourg be- came the country seat of the bishops of Rodez and Limoges, the due de Bourbon, the seigneur de Garanciere, Madame de Valance, Madame de Cassel, the seigneur de la Folic, Regnier, cardinal d'Ostie, Navarre, and Nestle. When Charles V declared war on England, in 190 A LOITERER IN PARIS 1368, he obliged Richard, the abbot of Saint- Germain-des-Pres, to fortify his monastery, to enclose it in stout walls, defended by towers and moats filled with water from the Seine, as a safe- guard to the city itself. In the XVIth century the long prosperity of the bourg commenced, and gradually its rustic character gave way to that of an opulent suburb; luxurious houses replaced the cattle sheds of the shepherds, beautiful gardens, pasture lands, streets were put through and old roads mended and made thoroughfares. The duchesse de Savoie, a prin- cess of the blood, and grand seigneurs such as the dukes of Montpensier and Luxembourg, and a number of important personages and foreign notables such as Salviati and the Gondis, illus- trious men like Clement Marot, Ambroise Pare, Jean Cousin, and Du Cerceau built sumptuous homes. In the XVIth century fashion adopted the quarter and it was considered in good taste to have a house there. The life combined the agree- able features of both city and country; tennis was the popular relaxation, and on fete days a crowd flooded the Pre aux Clercs. Meanwhile the territory of the abbey was much abridged from the time of Henri II to Louis SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 191 XIV, and little by little the power of the abbey was restricted to its actual limits. The faubourg Saint-Germain was not definitely united to Paris until under Louis XIV. As the church had been the nucleus, so the monasteiy remained the centre and pivot of the world which grew up around it. From Childebert to Dagobert the basilica had served as sepulchre for the kings and princes of the Merovingien Dynasty, all those who died in Paris or in the diocese were buried beneath the paving of the splendid monument to its founder and its patron saints. Up to 1503 the abbots were elected by the monks, but afterwards appointments were made by the crown. From its riches the chief was usually a cardinal, sometimes a king, and Hugues Capet, and Casimir V, of Poland, were amongst the abbots of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The comte du Vexin, son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, died as abbot in his eleventh year (1683) and lies buried in the church with Fran- cois, prince de Conde, who died in the abbatial palace in 1614, and his children. The hearts of cardinal Charles de Bourbon, Fran^oise d'Orleans- Longueville, princesse de Conde, and of Henri de Verneuil, bastard son of Henri IV and former 192 A LOITERER IN PARIS abbot of the monastery, were interred in the church. Next oldest church in Paris, after Notre-Dame, its origin goes back to the earhest souvenirs of France, while its founding was the result of a curious circumstance. As narrated by dom Bouillard in his Histoire (le VAhhaye royale Saint-Gennain-des-Prc::, the facts culled from Gregoire de Tours and For- tunat, Childebert and his brother Clotaire joined forces in Spain against Teudis, the king of the Visigoths, the mortal enemies of the Francs. After capturing Aragon they made the siege of Saragossa, and sweeping everything before them would soon have captured the city, but for the extraordinary piety and faith of their simple opponents. Reduced to extremity and without hope of human aid, says the narrative, the in- habitants of Saragossa clothed themselves in sack- cloth and ashes, and singing psalms to the praise of the Lord, carried in procession about the walls of the city the tunic of Saint-Vincent, who had been their citizen, hoping thus to invoke miracu- lous intervention to accomplish the humanly impossible. This singular means of defence struck Childe- bert and Clotaire, drawn up in battle array with- SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 193 out the walls and at some distance from the city, with astonishment and terror. In the midst of their distress a peasant was seen to emerge from the city by one of the gates, and the kings at once had him arrested* and brought before them. When he appeared they asked him the meaning of this demonstration upon the walls, to which the peasant replied with simplicity, that the peo- ple carried in procession the tunic of their patron saint Vincent, in order to appease the wrath of God and to obtain the raising of the siege. We are constantly astonished at the incon- sistencies of character in the descendants of ]\Ierovee. We have seen Childebert soften before the grief and terror of the children of Clodomir; we now again behold the brothers, who had not scrupled to murder their nephews for their own aggrandizement, moved to tears before the spec- tacle of a people's naive faith and piety. Childe- bert and C lota ire wTre so touched, says the nar- rative, that they raised the siege and promised to leave the Visigoths in peace — upon two condi- tions: first, that Arianism be abolished in Spain; and second, that the tunic of Saint-Vincent be given them as a trophy of war. Necessity forced the Visigoths to accede to the demands, and Childebert brought the sacred vest- 194 A LOITERER IN PARIS ment to Paris with great solemnities. With the best of intentions it is doubtful whether Childe- bert's will would have held unaided in his project to raise a temple over the trophies of his victories, had not the bishop Germain kept him to his word. Saint-Germain was of Autun, a primitive city of middle France. There, as abbot of Saint- Symphorien, he had become famous as a miracle worker and a man of piety, his reputation extend- ing far and wide; so that, happening to be in Paris when the episcopal chair was vacant upon the death of the bishop Eusebe, he was appointed by Childebert to fill the place. This dignity the saint bore with humility, continuing the austerity of his life until old age. " He suffered with sweetness," says the narrative, " the cold of age — and of winter, during which he never warmed himself." His influence over the king, though great, he used only for the advantage of his people and his church, never for himself. His miracles were many, and once when Childebert was mortally ill in his chateau de Chelles, at Melun, Germain spent the night in prayer at his bedside, and the king was saved. It was in gratitude for this that Childebert built Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The church was erected in the old Roman SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 195 suburb of Locutitius, where, according to tradi- tion, still stood the vestiges of a temple to Isis, in order that the worship of God might displace that of the pagan divinity. Begun about 556 it was finished in 558. The plan of the church was cruciform, following the lines of Solomon's cross. A rich mosaic formed the paving, and sheets of gilded copper covered the roof, itself supported by great marble columns. The sides were pierced by many windows, and paintings on a background of gold embellished the walls, while a ceiling laid in gold leaf completed an ensemble so rich in this material that the basilica was some- times called Saint-Germain-le-dore, or le palms dore de Saint-Germain. Childebert invested it with the sacred trophies — the tunic, the gold cross, thirty chalices, fifteen patens, twenty caskets in- tended to hold the evangels. All this we know from the author of the life of Doctrovee, the first abbot of the monastery. At the end of each arm of the cross was an altar, the main one, to the east, dedicated to the Sainte-Croix. Besides these four altars Saint- Germain had erected, to the right of the main entrance, an oratory to Saint-Symphorien, in memory of his former charge at Autun, and this he chose as his sepulchre. Opposite was the ora- 196 A LOITERER IN PARIS tory of Saint-Pierre. These opened from the inside of the church and constituted, in a sense, chapels of the nave. Childebert, who seems at the time to have re- sided at the Palais des Thermes, walked daily through his gardens as far as the basilica, to inspect the work. This we know from the writ- ings of Fortunat. The good bishop's cure pro- longed his life only a few years, for Childebert fell ill again before the church was finished, and died upon the day of dedication, 23 December, 558. The ceremony of dedication was immediately followed by the funeral of the king; he was in- terred with pomp in the church, on the south side between the second and third pillars of the apse, in a simple stone tomb, slightly raised above the level of the paving. Clovis and Clotilde, the first king and queen of Paris, together with their two murdered grand- sons, were buried in the crypt of Sainte-Genevieve. From Childebert, their son, to Dagobert, their great-great-grandson, the builder of Saint-Denis, the kings and princes who died in Paris, or in the diocese, were buried at Saint-Germain-des-Pres. When they died elsewhere they were buried in other famous churches, as for instance, Clotaire, dying in his palace at Compiegne, was buried in ■Iioto X SAINT-GERMAIN-DKS-PRES. SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 199 the basilica of Saint-^ledard, in his old capital at Soissons. Also Sigebert his son, assassinated by the furious Fredegonde, was interred at Saint- Medard. Thus Saint-Germain-des-Pres became famous as the burial place for the Merovingien kings, as well as the shrine of Saint-Germain himself, and the sepulchre of other distinguished and notable per- sonages. The list of dignitaries interred in the church is enormous, from Childebert, 558, and Ultrogothe, his queen, with their daughters, Crot- berge and Clodesinde; the king Caribert, 562; Chilperic, 584, Fredegonde, his queen, 597, with Merovee and Clovis, his sons; Clotaire II, 628, and Bertrude, his wife; Childeric II with Bilihilde, his wife, 673, and Dagobert, their infant son, 674. These last three sepulchres were discovered in 1646, under the paving of the choir, near the north tower. The tomb of Clotaire II was a simple stone, without ornament or inscription. Chilperic and Fredegonde were buried near the wall which supports the north bell tower of the choir. The queen's tomb was covered by a slab in mosaic of a curious workmanship, the outlines of the figure and ornaments made by slender threads of gilded copper. Fredegonde is repre- sented in the middle wearing the crown of fleur- 200 A LOITERER IN PARIS de-lijs, cand the flowering sceptre in her hand. She wears royal robes, belted. Her face and hands are })lank — the flat plain stone was perhaps once painted. The whole image is surrounded by a fine ornamental border. The stone, rescued at the time of the Revolu- tion, is preserved in the cathedral at Saint-Denis, where it forms one of the most interesting of the royal collection. The Benedictines and after them antiquarians of the old school considered the monument contemporary with the queen whose ashes it covered. Should this be true, the stone, owing to the durable qualities of the mosaic., would be the only one from Saint-Germain which sur- vived the Norman invasions, when the riches of the abbey made it a first object of pillage and destruction. In this case it has been conjectured that the bare spaces in place of the face and hands, already referred to, were covered with sil- ver or even gold, engraved, and that the metal was stolen by the invaders. The baron de Guilhermy, however, who made a minute examina- tion of the stone, was convinced that it had been restored in the Xlth century, at the epoch of the first general reconstruction of the basilica under the Abbe Morard. We must remember that the Normans sacked. SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 201 burned, and almost entirely destroyed the monas- tery, descending upon it over and over again, in 845, 847, and 861. The body of the saint was the chief concern of the priests, and we have seen how it was carried to a place of safety witliin the walls of the city. Other sepulchres were dese- crated and thus the tombs of Chilperic, the hus- band of the ferocious Fredegonde, and of Childe- bert, the founder, were recut in the Xlth centuiy. The bones of Childebert and of Ultrogothe, his wife, in separate sarcophagi, were gatliered up in the year 1656 and reinterred in the centre of the choir of the basib'ca, in a new tomb of marble upon whose sides the Benedictines had engraved beautiful antique inscriptions. The new monu- ment was crowned by the ancient stone wliich had covered the primitive sepulchre of Childebert, and which seems also to have been a restoration from the Xlth century. This stone is at Saint-Denis and is distinguished by the severity and grandeur of its style. Sculptured in half-relief, the king carries in his right hand the apse of the church which he founded, and in his left a flowering scep- tre. The drapery of the figure is cut by a master, and the whole has distinction and character. The tomb of Chilperic, sculptured in relief, was similar to that of Childebert and made at the '202 A LOITERER IN PARIS same time. It was broken during the Revolution and is replaced by an inferior copy made from engravings of the older monument. The stones engraved with the portraits of Clo- taire II and Bertrude, his queen, and of Childeric II were taken from Saint-Germain-des-Pres, and are preserved at Saint-Denis. They were cut in 1656, after the ancient originals which Bernard de Montfaucon tells us were allowed to perish with- out a thought for their archaeological importance. The existing church is a mere fragment of the immense constructions that constituted the rich and powerful abbey which, royally endowed, grew up around the basilica chosen by Saint-Germain for his sepulchre. A well, known as the Puits Saint-Germain, was behind the high altar, near the tomb of the saint; its water was reputed to have miraculous curative properties. Abbon, in his poem on the siege of Paris by the Normans, mentions this well and the virtues of its waters. Most early churches had similar miraculous wells. The opening was long since closed, but in the early days so many miracles were performed there that the church became a great sanctuary. The illustrious abbots who governed it, remarkable for their piety and wisdom, contributed also to its splendour. Several were of royal blood, others SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 203 were chancellors and graiids aumoniers of France, others rose to the dignity of cardinals. The monks which Saint-Germain established in the monastery came from Saint- Symphorien of Autun, they followed the rules of Saint-Antoine and Saint-Basile; soon they embraced those of Saint-Benoit, the great legislator of the monks of the Occident. In the XVIIth century the abbey adopted the reform of Saint-^NIaur, and it is in this return to the severity of discipline that its monks by their prodigious labours became illus- trious all over Europe. The buildings erected by Childebert and his suc- cessors were devastated by the Normans, as we have said. Each time these terrible men made incursions into Paris the ab!)ev of Saint-Germain- des-Pres was the first exposed to their fury. Pil- laged, burned, demolished, it was merely a mass of ruins when King Eudes finally expelled the barbarians. These ruins had been patched up from time to time and made to serve as best they could until the time of Robert the Pious, when the abbe Morard, assisted by this prince, had the ruins torn down and rebuilt the church upon the old founda- tions. This we know from the inscription upon the sepulchre of the abbe Morard, recorded by 204 A LOITERER IN PARIS pere Dubreul (d. 1614). Roughly translated from the Latin it read: "Here lies Morard of happy nieniory, the abbot who rebuilt on the foun- dations of this church, after having destroyed the old one, which was three times burned by the Nor- mans. He also built a tower and several other things." The tomb and inscription perished when the paving of the church was renewed, but the Louvre (Salle XXXVIII) preserves the stone lid of a sarcophagus found in the course of excava- tions made under the superintendence of Alex- andre Lenoir in 1799, under the place where the high altar used to stand, and which is attributed to the tomb of the abbe Morard. It is a very hand- some piece of stone cutting, saddleback in shape, ornamented with fish-scales and palms and a vine stock growing from a vase on the sides. Lenoir describes fully the sarcophagus and its contents exhumed at the time. From the Boulevard Saint-Germain one sees distinctly the base of the old south tower of the choir, cut off square at the point of departure of the flcche, the companion of the north tower, built by the abbe Morard, less visible from the Rue de FAbbaye. Old engravings show the church as once having had three high-pointed steeples, one to the west and two rising from the intersection of SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 205 the arms of the cross. These were embelHshments added to the original plan under the reconstruc- tion. It has always been considered that the quad- rangular tower, at the main entrance, which gives the church the appearance of a fortress, belonged to the first construction. The lower part is older than the upper, which, together with the oldest parts of the nave, are thought to have been built in the Xlth century. Exceedingly bare and un- assuming, it retains, despite the drastic repara- tions and modifications it has undergone, its unmis- takably primitive character, as does in fact the whole exterior of this solemn old church with the many excrescences which have adhered to it. Walk under the dingy porch and raise the eyes to the shadowy space above the door. As the eye accustoms itself to the obscurity, quaint, rude sculpture reveals itself. First a long stone slab carved with little figures seated at a table, the folds of the cloth elaborately exaggerated — it is the Last Supper, for see, there is John lying in a somewhat absurd attitude across the knees of Jesus. The door has been clumsily changed from Roman to Gothic so that of the twelve apostles one counts but ten, the eleventh disappears into the right-hand wall, and the twelfth is completely 206 A LOITERER IN PARIS covered by the alteration of the arch. The heads of Christ and most of the disciples have been broken off, but under the regular folds of the table- cloth the feet appear in neat pairs, except where a break has been repaired. Above this panel is a still more strange human figure, in half-length, full face, the arms extended, the hands broken off above the wrists — but accord- ing td old descriptions once raised in an attitude of prayer. These two reliefs, which go back surely to earliest Christian times in Gaul, may be cited as proof of the antiquity of the tower. The pillage of this door, which destroyed the royal portraits of the porch, at the time of the Revolution, has left us some extremely interesting capitals to the restored columns. These present handsome carving of decorative birds feeding upon pomegranates, alternated with foliated de- signs. The Cluny Museum (Salle des Thermes) preserves a collection of similar capitals from the interior of the church, evidently of the same epoch and probably by the same sculptor. They are hsted as Xllth century. The eight statues which stood, four to each side of the door, and which were in place until the Revolution, also went back to the first construc- tion. Fortunately they had been engraved in sev- SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 207 eral works/ so that we know how they looked, and that they presented the forms and costumes of the Vlth century, and greatly resembled the statues of Saint Anne's porch at Notre-Dame and other originals existing at Chartres. The figures represented, it is thought, Childe- bert (the founder), his wife, his parents, his brothers, and a bishop. The bishop stood first to the right on coming out of the church, then Clovis and Clotilde and their first son, Clodomir. On the other side Thierry, Childebert, Ultrogothe (his queen) and Clotaire. Pere IMabillon thought the bishop was Saint-Germain, a natural conclu- sion, but a more thoughtful student, dom Thierry, considered the figure to have been that of Saint- Remi, who converted the Francs. He stood next to Clovis, whom he baptised, and he treads under foot the dragon, emblem of unbelief. It would seem to have been characteristic of the modesty of the bishop Germain to have ceded his place to Remi. Montfaucon, writing in 1724, describes the scrolls which the kings carried and upon which one could in his day still decipher some of the letters of their names. Clovis and Childebert only * Notably Les Monuments de la Monarchie Franqaise. Bernard de Montfaucon. 208 A LOITERER IN PARIS carried the sceptre, as kings of Paris, and Childe- bert holds also a book — the sign of the founder. Clotilde was usually represented with a web foot, and was called la reine pcdauque, or the queen with a goose's foot. The figures all wore the halo, following the example of the Roman emperors, the custom which marked the Merovingien race. The principal entrance to the church is now in the Rue Bonaparte, or rather in the Place Saint- Germain-des-Pres, an opening made by the com- paratively recent cutting through of the modern Rue de Rennes. As we see it upon the old charts the monastery was enclosed by the Rues Saint- Benoit, Sainte-Marguerite (now swallowed up in the Boulevard Saint-Germain), de FEchaude, and Colombier (now the Rue Jacob). The main entrance was from the Rue Saint-Benoit to the west, and the church stood well within the enclo- sure surrounded by the cloisters, the refectory, the famous Chapel of the Virgin, the abbatial palace, and the gaol. There were two cloisters, large and small, both to the north of the church. One of the sides of the larger cloister, that which touches the church, has been almost entirely preserved and is now dis- tributed in apartments. Its round arches, doric pilasters, and frieze with triglyphs dates from the SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 209 XVIIth centuiy. A portion of it may be well seen from the court of No. 13 Rue de I'Abbaye. The Rue de I'Abbaye cuts the site of the great cloister through the middle. The refectory, constructed in the time of the abbe Simon, by the illustrious architect of Saint- Louis, Pierre de Montereau, was considered a masterpiece. This great room was fifty feet long by thirty-two feet wide. Legendary subjects embellished with the arms of France and of Cas- tille done in gorgeous glass filled the windows. Several panels are preserved in the Chajjelle de Sainte-Genevieve, in the apse of the church, and others at Saint-Denis. The lectern was a marvel of sculpture. A statue of Childebert, in painted stone, stood at the entrance and is now taken care of in the Louvre (Salle IX) ; it dates from the middle Xlllth century, and is contemporary with the refectory itself, which was built from 1239 to 1244. Gathered together in the small park which opens from a corner of the church are fragments of the great chapel to the Virgin, the chef-d'oeuvre of Pierre de Montereau, a chapel resembling in style and disposition his existing monument, the Sainte-Chapelle. A particularly handsome frag- ment is also displayed in the garden of the Cluny 210 A LOITERER IN PARIS Museum. From this debris, constituting gar- goyles, balustrades, columns, and ornaments, found in a garden at the corner of the Rue de lAbbaye and Rue P^'urstemberg, as well as from the many contemporary descriptions one can build up some idea of the beauty of this celebrated chapel. It was begun under the abbe Hugues of Issy (d. 1247) and completed under Thomas de Mauleon, who resigned in 1255, and like the Sainte-Chapelle belongs entirely to the reign of Saint-Louis. Smaller than the chapel of the Palais, it was one hundred feet long, twenty-seven feet wide, and forty-seven feet in height. The door of the chapel, sculptured with great finesse, and the statue of the Virgin from its pier are at Saint-Denis. When Pierre de Montereau died, in 1266, the abbe Gerard de Moret raised a monument to him in the Chapelle de la Vierge. The opening of the Rue de lAbbaye cost this old quarter the refectory and the chapel. Impor- tant fragments of the latter remained, however, for many years and were inhabited by artists who found here a sympathetic environment. I have before me a letter, written by one of them, Truman H. Bartlett, dated January 21, 1920, which con- tains a description of this quarter as he knew it in the early seventies. He says : " The old num- SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 211 ber 10 Rue de I'Abbaye was my studio, in '72-3-4. It was originally the Chapel of the Virgin of the church Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The first floor was slightly below the street and its paving con- sisted of handsome stones inscribed with the names of the eminent monks buried there. Below this was another floor reached by a narrow steep stair where there was a fine well of water, and from this lower story was the door of a stone passage- way leading to a larger one that went down from the church to the Rue Bonaparte and continued to the Seine. When the city put a large sewer through the Rue de Rennes I happened to pass by and see the whole thing. The large stone pas- sage was used in early times by the monks to reach the Seine during the Norman invasions." A modern apartment house blots out every ves- tige of the building of which Mr. Bartlett speaks, but the old abbey cellars are still in existence. The Palais Abbatial still stands to the rear of the church, entered from the Rue de I'Abbaye, a handsome brick and stone edifice of the late XVIth century. A monument to the munificence of cardinal de Bourbon, who built it about 1586, it conserves in its handsome roof and graceful design, despite the general dishonour of its finer attributes, a distinguished and unmistakable air. 212 A LOITERER IN PARIS Concealed behind an ugly brick wall is the hand- some old doorway of the palace of the abbots, but within all is changed. Mere names now remain to mark once famous spots. The Rue Cardinal curved around the sta- bles of the palace and along the gardens behind and to the south of the church. The abbey was suppressed on February 13, 1792, and the church was closed. The refectory which served as a prison in 1793 was destroyed by an explosion in the following year (part of the building having been made into a factory for the manufacture of saltpetre). The monks then forgotten in their liomes were obliged to seek another shelter, and fled all with the exception of dom Poirier, who, like Cassandra on the ruins of Ilion, would not abandon the smoking ruins. Thanks to this devoted Benedictine the library, which had caught fire, was partly saved. The manuscripts were all preserved and in 1795 were brought to the Bibliotheque Nationale. The library contained nearly fifty thousand printed volumes and over seven thousand manuscripts. In 1792 the gaol of the abbey, situated at the southeastern angle of the enclosure, was a scene of horror. Priests and nobles in great number were imprisoned there. SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 213 Under the Restoration many monuments and other valuables, given temporary shelter in Lenoir's hastily improvised museum at the Beaux- Arts, were given back to the church. These in- cluded a Virgin in marble, called Notre-Dame-la- Blanche (which the Queen Jeanne d'Evreux had given in 1340 to the abbey of Saint-Denis) , a statue of Sainte-Marguerite by frere Jacques Bourlet (1705), and a figure of Saint-Fran9ois Xavier, by Coustou jeune. The mausoleum of Casimir, king of Poland, who became abbot of Saint-Germain in 1669, after having renounced his crown, was reestab- lished about 1824, in the left transept. The kneeling figure, offering his crown and sceptre, is by JNIarsy, the relief underneath is by Jean Thibaut. In the opposite transept is a similar tomb, rees- tablished at the same time, of Oliver and Louis de Castellan, killed in the service of the king in 1644 and 1669. The figures and medallions are by Girardon. In two chapels opposite each other in the apse are the tombs of William and James Douglas, while the tomb of the Douglas family was in the chapel of Saint-Christophe. William Douglas, a prince of Scotland and illustrious warrior, died 214 A LOITERER IN PARIS in 1611, in the service of Henri IV. James, his grandson, was killed in 1645, aged eighteen years, in a combat near Douai. At the time of the Revolution the remains of Nicolas Boileau, Rene Descartes, Jean Mabillon, and Bernard de Montfaucon were piously gath- ered up and placed in safety at the Musee des Petits-Augustins, and after the suppression of this museum were deposited at Saint-Germain- des-Pres. Boileau reposed formerly in the Sainte- Chapelle, Descartes at Sainte-Genevieve, while the two savants — monks of this abbey — returned to their original resting places. The ashes of Mabillon, de Montfaucon, and Descartes with their inscriptions are in the second chapel of the apse, dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Boileau's inscription has been erected in the Chapel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Chapelle Sainte-Genevieve is enriched by the two Xlllth century glass windows, recon- structed from the debris of the windows of the refectory. These represent Anne and Joachim, the Annunciation, the Marriage of the Virgin, and perhaps some of the Acts of Mercy. A panel or two has been remade. The old high altar, remade in 1704, was com- pletely destroyed. Six columns of cipolin marble S AINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRES 213 which supported the baldaquin, brought from the ruins of a Roman city in Africa, in the reign of Louis XIV, have been erected in the picture gal- leries of the Louvre. This altar with its mag- nificent decorations was still in place in 1792. A partial restoration of the church was under- taken in 1820, when ruin menaced the northern part, and at this time the belfrys of the transept were taken down. The present restoration was undertaken in 1845, when were added the poly- chrome decoration of the interior as we now see it and the Flandrin mural paintings. The whole effect strikes one as curious and in- teresting rather than good, and the ensemble lacks harmony, though in parts it is both gorgeous and effective. The wall panels throughout the nave and choir represent the greatest work of Hippolyte Flandrin and occupied the artist from 1842 to 1849. The earliest of the panels are those on the left side, as one faces the altar. The series rep- resents: Christ's entrance into Jerusalem; four symbolic figures. Faith, Hope, Charity, and Pa- tience; Saint-Germain accompanied by Doctrovee, the first abbot of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, receiv- ing from Childebert and Ultrogothe the model of this basilica. 216 A LOITERER IX PARIS In 18-1-3. before tbese panels were fimshed tbe city voted the funds for the decoration of the opposite side and these panels are: Jesus carrying his ax>ss to Calvary: Justice, Prudence, Temper- ance, and Force: and Saint-Tmcent, martyr, ac- cmnpanied by Pope Alexander III, abbe Morard, Saint-Benoit. and King Robert. THs subject refers to the consecratioQ of the second cturch in 1163. The decoratiotii ui the choir show the twelve apostles on a gold background, united by a poly- cfarome decoraticxi. At the back, upon the round- point is the Lamb of God, holding the world and '.:.± standard of triumph. About him are the four «vrnbols of the evangelists, the eaork, the nng^l, ;i_c UoD. and the winged bull. Tbe modem win- dows of tile church were also made from designs bv Flandrin. CHAPTER X SAIXT-GERMAIX-L AUXERROIS Fairly launched now upon the birth of the Gothic, Paris presents an embarrassment of riches in churches which show the transition as ■well as the full flower of this delightful period. A visit to Saint-G^miain-rAuxerrois, the most accessible, as it is the most perfect example of its type, might well be preceded by a tour of some of the smaller, fragmentary churches, of earher actual construction, such as Saint- G^rmain-de-Charonne, near the cemetery Pere Lachaise, Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre. and most beautiful of all the old priory church of Saint-Martin-des-Champs. now part of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. If one leaves these for a following chapter, it is not only because Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois antedates them in point of foundation, but also with the hope that as acquaintance with these churches grows the loiterer will have more interest in discovering such scattered relics of a richer 217 218 A LOITERER IN PARIS time, and more cleverness in detecting their gen- uine features. In Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois as it stands we see, despite much lamentable modification and restoration, a very beautiful example of Gothic architecture in its flower. The belfry belongs to the Xllth century, the main entrance, choir, and apse to the first half of the Xlllth, the greater part of the fa9ade, the nave, the transepts, and the chapels to the XVth and XVIth centuries. Restorations have been many and disastrous, the last dating from the reign of Xapoleon III, when the edifice was made part of an architectural scheme which included the erection of the town hall or Mairie of the Arrondissement du Louvre, built in imitation of the Gothic church to which it forms a pendant, and the tower, by Ballu, standing between them. The value of this arrangement, so confusing to visitors, is more than doubtful. While making rather a handsome terminus to the Louvre the imitations rob Saint-Germain of its unique im- portance, diminish its intrinsic lustre. As Saint-Germain-des-Pres relates to the good bishop of Paris, so Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois is dedicated to the still earlier bishop of Auxerre, him who consecrated Genevieve, the patron saint Flwto X saint-germain-l'atjxekeois. under the pokch. Photo A. Giraudon THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. BV JEAN GOUJO.N. PART OF THE DECORATION OF THE ANCIENT ROOD-LOFT OF SAINT-GERMAIN-L'aUXERROIS. NOW IN THE LOUVUE SAINT-GERMAIN -L'AUXERROIS 221 of Paris. Though the exact period of its founda- tion is unknown, Lebeuf thinks it was first con- structed to commemorate some miracle or act of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre during his sojourn in the city, or that it may have been erected by Saint-Germain of Paris, as a tribute to his greatly venerated predecessor. After the tradition of the diocese King Childe- bert and Ultrogothe, his queen, enriched the new church, whose importance became second only to that of the cathedral. In 866 it was sacked by the Normans and converted by them into a for- tress, after which it was called Saint-Germain-le- Rond, from its circular form. From the time of Charlemagne at least, a public school of great celebrity attracted to the cloister numerous students, its location recalled in the name of the Place de VEcole, running from behind the right side of the church to the quai, which formerly bore the same name, the name by which they were known in the Xlllth century. The life of King Robert (by Helgaud) mentions the rebuilding of the church by this prince, but that reconstruction has been wiped out by a later one done witli thoroughness and deliberation. A cloister once enclosed a part of the church and the house of the dean stood opposite the 222 A LOITERER IN PARIS porch, between the church and the Louvre; old cuts show chapels, one each side of the porch, and a steeple surmounting the tower. It was from this tower that the tocsin was rung after mid- night on the morning of August 24, 1572, by the order of Catherine de Medicis, as the signal for the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and the modern tower marks the spot where, two days before, an attempt had been made upon the life of Admiral Coligny, the first victim of the mas- sacre, as he was returning from the Louvre to his home, in the Rue de Betizy, along the Rue des Fosses Saint-Germain. The house from which the shot was fired was that of the Canon Pierre de Pille de Villemur, a former preceptor of the Duke of Guise. It stood in the Rue des Fosses Saint-Germain, contiguous to the church, into which there was an opening from it by a back door. The assassin made his escape through the cloister, mounted a horse which stood ready sad- dled for him, and fled from the city by the Porte Saint- Antoine. In the Place de I'Ecole lived in the XlVth century Etienne Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris, who as chief of the Jacquerie led the revolt of the lower classes against the nobles during the captivity of the king, Jean le Bon; SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 223 and here lived also, as a boy of fourteen, Calvin, the reformer, with his uncle Richard, a locksmith, in a little room overlooking the church, awakened each morning by the chants to attend the College de la Marche. The church, of course, antedates the Louvre, which at its most remote construction dates from the time of Philippe Auguste, but when built both the Louvre and the Tuileries became parish- ioners of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, making it the royal church of Paris, and many princes of France were baptised here. It is undoubtedly the portico which gives to the church its distinguished character and contributes its most piquant note of elegance. This porch is the work of Jean Gaussel, and dates from 1435, in the reign of Charles VII. Its pic- turesqueness is created in part by the disposition of the seven pointed arches which give free access to it, five across the front and one at each end. The vaulted ceiling, low at the sides and high in the middle, is marked by prismatic ribs converg- ing from the angles and tied together at their points of junction by a boss, or stud, or escutcheon, elaborately sculptured. The central one, bearing the arms of France, has been dis- placed, but on the two sides, under the lower 224 A LOITERER IN PARIS vaultings, one makes out readily the circular de- signs, in full relief, painted and gilded, of the Last Supper and the Adoration of Christ by the Shepherds. Where the ribs finish against the walls, there are consoles representing a fool with his bauble, grotesques, and little animals in dif- ferent attitudes, carved with relish. Of the ancient figures of the porch there re- main but that of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne, against the second pillar from the left end, and a much mutilated Saint Francis of Assisi at the other extremity. The carving of the former is vigorous, the figure lifelike and animated, obviously much earlier than the others. The sculptor had evidently filled himself with the naive history of this saint, for in the quaint figure, clothed in her long, wavy tresses, and holding piled one upon the other the three loaves of bread with which she is to be nourished during a lifetime of penitence in the desert, we seem to feel the whole touching story as told in La Legende Doree. Translated from the Latin of the most ancient manuscripts, the story runs briefly that Zozime, an abbot, having crossed the Jordan, hoping to encounter in the desert some saintly hermit, saw one day before him a bizarre creature, entirely nude, with the body burned black with the sun. SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 225 Seeing him the creature fled across the sands and Zozime ran after it " with all the force of his legs." Then it spoke surprisingly, saying: " Abbe Zozime, why do you pursue me? Pardon me that I camiot turn towards you; it is be- cause I am a woman, and quite nude. Throw me your cloak, in order that, being covered, I may look at you without shame." The abbot, stupe- fied to hear himself called by name, divined at once that he had to do with a person of super- natural powers. He threw his mantle and, pros- trating himself before her, asked her to bless him. But she said: "It is for you rather to bless me, father, you who are clothed with the dignity of priesthood." The abbot now more than ever convinced that the woman was indeed especially endowed pre- vailed upon her to bless him and afterwards to tell him her history. " I am called Marie," she begins, " and I was born in Egypt." At the age of twelve, recounts Marie, she went to Alexandria and commenced the career of public courtesan, which she continued for seventeen years, but being converted in Jerusalem, where she had gone from curiosity to see the holy cross, she had prom- ised to renounce the world and live forevermore in chastity. While she was praying before the 226 A LOITERER IN PARIS cross a stranger put three pieces of money into her hand, and with these she purchased the three loaves of bread. Obeying a voice she crossed the Jordan and took up her abode in the desert, where for forty- six years she hved without ever seeing a human face, subsisting upon the three loaves of bread, which, becoming hard as stone, still sufficed for her nourishment. Zozime comes again twice to the desert to ad- minister the holy sacrartient to Marie on Easter day. The second time he finds her lying dead near the place of their first encounter, and where, aided by a friendly lion, he digs a grave and piously inters her remains. The story, as told by the ancient narrator, is full of convincing detail, such as is demanded by children. Everything is accounted for. Having no money to pay her passage from Alexandria to Jerusalem when she wishes to make that pious pilgrimage with the other inhabitants of the city, she makes a bargain with the boatman, which, though shameful, she does not hesitate to de- scribe to Zozime, feeling, perhaps, that the end justified the means. While, as to her garments, " long ago," says she, " they fell in pieces." It seems fairly certain that originally the SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 227 spirited statue of the portico of Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois stood frankly nude according to the narrative. The bit of drapery, now hung across the arms, which may pass for the cloak of the abbe Zozime, was probably added by a prudish hand at some later date than the statue itself. Though scraped of its rich gilding and colour- ing, to accord with the modern Mairie, the portico still retains something of the warmth of its former richness, and exhales a certain delicate glow. In the statue of the Egyptian are strong traces of pigment, while the little motifs of the ceiling are full of colour, and the doors are rich in gold leaf. Three doors give access to the church; those at the sides are of XVth century make. The central one belongs to the first half of the Xlllth cen- tury, and is therefore earlier than the portico itself. During the reign of Louis XIV it lost its central upright figure, a statue of Christ, and the " Last Judgment " of the tympanum. The pier has been replaced and a statue of the Virgin, of a later epoch has been supplied. The sculpture of the tympanum has been replaced by a painting on the stone, now nearly effaced. The door preserves, however, the six statues of its embrasure and the three historic choirs of its archivolt. The study of Notre-Dame makes easy 228 A LOITERER IN PARIS the reading of the story of this portal, and one recognizes in the figures to the left Saint- Vincent (the second patron of the church), a bearded king, presumably Childebert, and a queen, proba- bly Ultrogothe — the benefactors of the original foundation; to the right, Saint-Germain dAu- xerre, in bishop's robes, Sainte-Genevieve with her candle and the traditional demon on her right shoulder trying to extinguish her light, and beside her an angel, smiling securely and holding an- other lighted taper ready to religlit the saint's candle, should the demon succeed. Each figure stands upon a grotesque support contrived to form a console. Saint-Vincent makes of the prefect who condemned him his footstool, Childebert treads upon a griffon, Ultro- gothe upon a devil; while upon the opposite side we see a stooping man, and two demons of hideous form. A Gothic inscription of the XVth or XVIth century once named the king and queen, but their identity seems plain enough in any case from the connection of Childebert and his consort with the original edifice and from the resemblance which the figure of the king bears to the statue of Childebert in the Louvre. In the archivolt are assembled thirty figures in SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 229 an excellent state of preservation relating to the Last Judgment, which, as in the central door of Notre-Dame, made the theme of the destroyed tympanum. In the first row of figin*es, to the left, sits Abraham, between two trees, holding upon his bosom, as it were, the redeemed, while upon the opposite side of the door is represented a vivid scene of Hell, with three lost souls, two demons, etc. Six angels, their eyes turned to- wards the tympanum, complete the first row of figures, and a cherub, with wings, makes the centre. The wise and foolish virgins fill the sec- ond choir, and, lest there be doubt as to which is which, the sculptor has veiled the hair of the former with scarfs and given them a modest air, their lamps upright and alight, while the foolish virgins are coiffed in a worldly manner and carry their lamps upside down. At the point of the arch two hands come through a cloud and hold a ribbon which floats to the right and left and still bears traces of lettering nearly effaced. The twelve apostles, sitting each under a little dais and carrying the instruments of their mar- tyrdom, form the third row over this door. The heads are remarkable in nobility and expression. John by exception holds the celestial palm and the vase from which the dragon issues. 230 A LOITERER IN PARIS Above the porch the fa9ade is pierced by a rose window, at each side of which rises a small tower of elegant design, while surmounting all, upon the point of the gable end of the nave, is a modern angel, by Marochetti. The exterior is rich in stone carving of the XVth century — balus- trades, gables, consoles, gargoyles, cornices em- bellished with leaves and flowers and little gro- tesques of men and beasts. The buttresses end in small foliated steeples, from which are suspended at right angles the extraordinary gargoyles of this church — fantastic birds, griffons, monkeys, wolves, dogs, bears, etc. At the southwest angle a showman strikes with a ring upon a tablet and makes a monkey go through his paces; further down a savage, armed with a club, comes grinning out of the mouth of a hippopotamus. The consoles under the gar- goyles are full of interest and reflect the lively imagination of the time. An opera glass would not be amiss for the study and thus aided one can distinguish a world of symbolism — a beggar with his dog, a fool, a sow suckling her family, the earth, represented as a globe, eaten by rats which escape across the crevasses while a cat watches the passage. Unfortunately much restoration has destroyed SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 231 a great deal and only a few of the numerous gargoyles remain. The belfry rises from the right-hand side, at the southeast angle of the cross, where the choir joins the transept. That it l)elongs to the Xlltli century, before the development of Gothic archi- tecture, is j3lain from the full arch of the bays, the cornices with modillons, the little square pil- lars, the imposts of the Roman style. The balus- trade is modern, for the XVIIIth century decapitated the tower, suppressed its high snire of stone and its four little steeples. Inside, despite many changes, the effect of this old church is impressive and beautiful. Of its rich original ornamentation the nave retains only a few escutcheons, handsomely carved and lock- ing the intersections of the ribs of the vaulting. Seated in the nave with the head turned to the roof one can make out clearly the figures of Saint Vincent, one of the patrons of the church. Saint John, Saint Landry, and Saint Christopher. The most elaborate is that of Saint-Germain in episcopal robes, painted and gilded against a rose in stone, in the Chapel to the Virgin, on the right- hand side of the iiave. This chapel occupies the entire space opening from the south aisle and constitutes a complete 232 A LOITERER IN PARIS little church in itself, with stalls, organ, pulpit, a cloister in carved wood, and an altar rich in bas-reliefs. Upon the reredos is a richly carved tree of Jesse, full of royal figures, and in the centre a XlVth century Virgin, of painted stone, brought from a church in Champagne. Such windows of value as Saint-Germain pre- serves of its former plenitude date from the XVth and XVIth centuries. These are the two roses to the north and south and six windows of the transept. Smaller and later than those of Notre-Dame, they are interesting for the beautiful shapes of the spaces into which the stonework of their construction divides them. The colour- ing is much less brilliant than that of earlier glass, but is soft and harmonious; the effect here is, unfortunately, greatly diminished by the glare in this church caused by the suppression of the win- dows of the clerestory of the nave (destroyed about 1728). When the whole church was lighted by windows similar to those of the transept the effect must have been very beautiful. In the north rose the subject begins to de- velop from the centre, where is placed the Eternal Father in the costume of a pope. Around hiin are several circles of angels, cherubs, SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 233 martyrs, and confessors. Amongst the martyrs are Saint- Vincent, Sainte-Agnes, Sainte-Mar- guerite, Sainte-Catherine, and Sainte-Marthe; amongst the confessors, Saint-Germain d'Auxerre and Saint-Louis. The south rose, especially admirahle for its effect of light and colour, develojDS the subject of the Holy Ghost, which in the form of a dove descends from the top compartment, from a sky filled with rays of glory. The Virgin and the apostles receive the first effusion of grace and light, which in diminishing brilliancy and increas- ing depth of shadow extends to a numerous choir of disciples and saints. The side windows of the north and south transept belong to the XVIth century and show even more than the roses the growth of the art from the strict conventionality of early Gothic to the vivacity and picturesque costume of the Renaissance. All these windows were taken out during the war and are only now, little by little, being returned to their places. The choir was enclosed until 1744 by a splendid rood-loft designed by Pierre Lescot and sculp- tured bv Jean Gouion, the celebrated architect and sculptor of the Renaissance portions of the 234 A LOITERER IN PARIS Louvre. This was taken out by the church war- dens and curates under the pretext of opening the sanctuary to the view of the faithful. The Entombment and Four Evangehsts, bas- reliefs in stone, are preserved amongst the treas- ures of the Renaissance sculpture in the Louvre. This lamentable bit of ecclesiastic vandalism was perpetrated upon the suppression of the chapter. The new administration was not satis- fied with the mere opening of the choir, they wished to improve the view thus presented by the creation of a modern choir, purified so far as was possible of the barbarous Gothic. The actual plan of the disfigurement which one now sees was made by an architect called Bacarit. Under his direction the solid old columns of the choir were fluted, their leafy capitals transformed into garlands, while above the pointed arches was traced a stupid pattern in the stone. Only the vaultings, which could not be touched without weakening the construction, were spared, and in these may still be read the real date of the choir and apse, written large in the general form. Saint-Germain was once rich in XVIth and XVIIth century tombs. The Louvre sent it many illustrious dead — officers of the royal house and artists whom kings had housed in the palace. SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 235 Besides chevaliers of orders, chancellors, gentle- men, secretaries of state, reposed the remains of the poet Malherbe, the savant Andre Dacier, the painters Coypel, Houasse, Stella, and Santerre; and the sculj^tors Sarazin', Desjardins, and Coyzevox. Vaults hollowed out under the nave for the burial of ordinary parishioners still exist. There the bones are ranged with symmetry like a charnel house. One cannot do better than to yield to the im- portunities of the sacristan, who is ever ready to show with care and intelligence the treasures of this church. It is he who will unlock for visitors the beautiful chapel to the Virgin, who will con- duct one to a little room built over the porch, to the right hand of the entrance, once dedicated to the archives and treasures of the chapter. There were two such rooms, to the left and right, and this one is still intact, with its old flooring, its carved wood wardrobes with iron hinges, and its old furniture. Amongst other things the room contains a triptych of the XVIth century carved and painted with the history of the Original Sin and the legend of the Virgin. The pulpit and stalls have survived the Revo- lution; and the state seat of royalty, built in 236 A LOITERER IN PARIS 1684, from designs by Lebrun, by Fran9ois Mercier, still occupies an important place in the nave. The grill of the enclosure of the choir in polished iron with bronze ornaments is classed amongst the finest wrought iron work of the XVII Ith century. The sacristan delights also in conducting visitors up the perilous ladders into the belfry, from which was rung the signal for the Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew, and to induce the unwary to ring the great bell at mid-day. This man is one of those rare creatures who knows his subject and loves it. I had a long talk with him one day soon after the declaration of the armistice when he had freshly returned from the trenches. He had " made all the front " he told me and returned unscratched, and to see him going peace- fully about his church duties one could scarcely figure him as an instrument in the recent calam- ity. He enticed me readily to the tower; we mounted stone stairways succeeded by delicately balanced ladders which bent beneath our weight like straws, and finally landed upon a platform of rough boards, which formed little more than a ledge around the stone sides, while the middle yawned open above unfathomed depths. The little man stepped about with the agility SAINT-GERMAIN-L'AUXERROIS 237 of a cat, urging upon me one folly after another until the thought struck me with force that he might readily have a touch of insanity as a result of his years of horror at the front, and I was seized with something of the panic which Henri IV experienced when he mounted the tower of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, accompanied hy a single monk, to reconnoitre during the siege of Paris in 1589. I too was afraid the temptation to fling me down that abyss might 2)rove too strong, but it was a mean thought, for the little sacristan was all kindness and jollity. We descended from the vertiginous scaffolding to the solid planks of the belfry in time to ring the angelus, and I shall never forget the little fellow clinging to the rope and letting the bell carry hhn high into space for my amusement, smiling gleefully the while like a merry gnome. He made me take hold when he had the l)ell well started and I scorched my hands with the ropes. Feeling that I had done some- thing exceptional I asked him if many ladies had made the trip to the extreme top, and, smiling with extraordinary glee, he said promptly: "Ah out, Madame, syrtout les Americai7ies." During the upheavals of 1831 this church was robbed and pillaged by the mob. For six years after this the building was closed for worship 238 A LOITERER IN PARIS and its sacristy and presbytery used as a mairie. Its demolition was decided upon in order to make a street from the Louvre to the Hotel de Ville, but the eloquence of Chateaubriand prevailed and the authorities were persuaded to spare " un des plus anciens rnonuinents de Paris, et d'une cpoque dont it ne reste presque plus rien/" CHAPTER XI TRANSITION CHURCHES At this point Paris presents a choice bouquet of quaint and ancient churches of the transition and Gothic periods. Full of points of resem- blance to those greater examples, already dealt with at length, they corroborate and amplify the subject, grow in interest with each visit, invite familiaritj" and comparison. Completely at vari- ance, for the most part, with their restored and regenerated environments, they present in each instance the vivid keynote of that Paris of which they once formed the chief ornaments, of that lie de France of which they were the perfect flowers. Bereft of all their contemporaries, they stand about Paris in the thick of modern traffic, or in odd by-ways, always a bit in the way, con- spicuous like old folk in the costume of by-gone days, eloquent in a speech that has ceased to be current, full of a quaint dignity, warm and simple of approach. They are scattered wide about the city — Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre and Saint-Severin, on the rive 23!) 240 A LOITERER IN PARIS gauche, not far from the cathedral; Saint-Martin- des-Champs, Saint-Nicolus-des-Champs, and Saint- Merri, on the rive droit e in the old Rue Saint- Martin, one of the earliest routes leaving Paris hy its northern gate; the Sainte-Chapelle, in the ile de la Cite itself, forming part of the palace of Louis IX; Saint-Medard, far away in the southeastern section behind Val-de-Grace; Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, on the hill of the martyrs for which it is named, the last vestige of a once powerful monastery; and Saint-Germain- de-Charonne, near the fortifications behind Pere Lachaise. These old churches lend themselves to leisurely investigation, to frequent, casual droppings in. To pass one by for whatever reason of haste or preoccupation seems an unpardonable omission, an unintelligent discourtesy. They are rich in an atmosphere of sincerity, of faith, of nobility, of art. Inspiring in their ensemble they are full of endless detail, are eloquent in response to sym- pathetic interest. Very often too the sacristan, busy and austere as he seems in pursuit of dust and disorder, bustling about the chapels with so forbidding an air, is a most human creature de- manding only a little intelligent interest to draw TRANSITION CHURCHES 241 out a fund of more or less reliable information and unlooked-for privileges. The charm of these sanctuaries is subtle rather than obvious, and it is only as one gets to know them well that their full value develops. The Sainte-Chapelle is, of course, so perfect a gem of its period and so admirably restored that it reveals itself at once as a masterpiece. Saint-Severin, too, though much despoiled by modernization and incautious restoration, still holds sufficiently to its original character to announce itself as of no un- common merit. Its windows alone would arrest the attention of the most casual of loiterers. But the humbler, fragmentary churches must be known well like shy people before their real worth becomes apparent. To touch the very heart of the matter let us return to that ancient ruelle, leading from the Rue Galande, at whose corner we have enjoyed so admirable a view of Notre-Dame; and passing through the old wooden gateway into the shabby court, protected by a fragment of the wall of Philippe Auguste, enter the tiny church of Saint- Julien-le-Pauvre. What we see is a strange abbreviation of a church contemporary with the cathedral aiu] 242 A LOITERER IN PARIS probably finished first. All that is authentic therein dates from the second half of the Xllth century, at the moment when Roman architecture ceded to Gothic. It was built by the monks of Sainte-Marie-de-Longpont and next to it was a priory of fifty monks. The site v/as that of a basilica of the Ilird century. Saint-Julien martyr was the first patron, and afterwards the church came also under the pro- tection of a second Saint-Julien, the bishop of Le Mans, called le Pauvre because of his great charity which led him to give to the poor all that he possessed. To these was added a third Julien, he who in expiation for an accidental crime had established a hospital on the banks of a river where the crossing was ^^t^rilous, and where, ac- companied by his devoted wife, he not only cared for travellers who suffered from exposure and cold, but served as ferryman, carrying in his bark all who wished to cross from one bank to the other. Once upon a freezing night in winter when Julien, worn out with his labours, was asleep in his bed, he was awakened by the plaintive voice of a stranger asking to be ferried across the river. Rising instantly and perceiving that the stranger was a leper, half dead with the cold, he brought TRANSITION CHURCHES 243 him into his house and lit a great fire to warm him, carrying him finally to his own bed and covering him with care. Upon this last proof of humility and devotion the leper transformed him- self into an angel shining with light, and an- nounced to Julien that he and his wife were par- doned of God. Of these patrons it is the bishop of Le Mans who survives the tradition, though in the ancient legends the stories are confounded one with another. The church was brilliant in the Middle Ages. Under its roof were held the general assemblies of the University of Paris, while the bell, still hang- ing in the little tower to the right, as the sacristan loves to tell, roused from slumber the whole of the Latin Quarter. In 1651 the ancient portail with its columns, capitals, and statues was destroyed and the first two bays of the nave were suppressed, while the tower was thrown down to its base. The frag- ment of the nave was closed at this time by the present Greek facade, which has stood for up- wards of three centuries. The Revolution menaced the remains and the church only escaped demolition by being seized upon to serve as chapel for the Hbtel-Dieu, which stood close beside it. 244 A LOITERER IN PARIS The nave is so changed as to have lost most of its archaeological interest, but the remainder of the church preserves its ancient character, its primitive arrangement. One enters through the unrelated Greek portal into an interior which at first seems crude and barren, with a simplicity touching upon poverty in keeping with the name of the church. To realize at once how the front end of the nave has been cut off, one has but to turn and see imbedded in the entrance wall the remains of two large capitals carved with the grape-vine, which must have belonged to the demolished pillars. The capitals of the small engaged columns against the walls of the aisles escaped destruction and are handsomely carved with water-lily and fern designs. The two middle columns of the nave are wholly modern, but the other four are Tuscan, remade in the XVIIth century. The sanctuary is simple and severe, showing the Gothic at its birth detaching itself from the Roman. The ornamentation is that of the first period of Gothic and presents the flora of the Xllth century in the carving of the capitals of the columns in which we find the arum, the water- lily, the fern, and the grape-vine carved with force and energy; the water-lily form predomi- TRANSITION CHURCHES 245 nates and, magnificently treated, its motifs recall those of Notre-Dame, verifying the assumption that the same sculptors worked upon the two churches. The two large capitals of the pillars of the choir are the chef-d'oeuvres of this church. The column to the right shows the acanthus leaf form- ing square capitals in whose four angles are fig- ures of harpies with women's heads, feathered bodies, spread wings, and paws armed with claws. The capital of the left-hand column is also dec- orated with the acanthus leaf, without figures, but of a bigness of composition truly remarkable. The sacristy contains an archaic little statue of Charlemagne, in terra cotta, attributed to the Xlth century and supposed to have belonged to the earlier church erected on this site. It was found in the soil under the paving during com- paratively recent excavations. The whole of this quarter between the near-by quay and the Boulevard Saint-Germain is honey- combed with small old-world streets, densely populated and inviting casual rambles. The Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre leads directly back to that larger, more important church, Saint-Severin, but it is more amusing and more refreshing, if one will see the two churches in one morning, to return by 246 A LOITERER IN PARIS a round-about way along the quays, turning in again by what has been described as a mere crack in the houses along the Seine, the Rue du Chat- qui-Peche, famous for its antiquity and named for an ancient sign, long since disappeared. By this narrow thoroughfare one comes upon the pic- turesque old Rue Zacharie, which terminates in the Rue Saint-Severin, and from this junction one gets perhaps the most delightful first view of the church itself with its fine tower, its gargoyles, and other picturesque features. Sahit-Severm The origin of Saint-Severin is obscure. The supposition is that it existed first as an oratory built in honour of a pious " solitaire," who lived in Paris in the time of Childebert I and who took Clodoald (Saint-Cloud), at the time that he es- caped murder at the hands of his uncles, as a disciple. It has been thought that this oratory was consecrated by Saint-Cloud himself in mem- ory of his master. Other authors think that the church was called for the abbot of Agaune. Be that as it may, the oratory on the site of the hermitage, having been sacked by the Nor- mans, was rebuilt in the Xlth century as the TRANSITION CHURCHES 247 " Ecclesia Sancti Severi Solitarii," and became the chief church of an immense parish, comprising nearly all of the southern part of Paris. In its actual state it dates from the XII Ith century. The clochcr, a square tower, rises from the northwest angle; the elegance of its long, pointed bays, with their pretty little columns at the embrasures, and the fineness of the workman- ship indicate the middle of the Xlllth century. The tower terminates in a sharp steeple decorated with dormer windows, capped with a lanthorn, whose point can be seen all along the quays. The main entrance, now usually closed, is under the tower, and opens from the Rue Saint-Severin. It has a good porch with columns, under which are still vestiges of an inscription, in small Gothic letters of the XII Ith century, while to the right and left, let into the walls, are two reliefs of lions, small and extremely ornamental. In the tympanum is a wretched relief replacing the contemporary destroyed panel, representing Saint-Martin sharing his coat with the beggar. The church possessed a piece of this glorious vest- ment and had also a chapel dedicated to the charitable bishop of Tours, venerated as one of the chief patrons of the parish. Saint-Martin is 248 A LOITERER IN PARIS calways represented mounted on horseback and travellers took him for their protector; when set- ting out upon voyages or upon their return it was customary to come to Saint-Severin and at- tach a horse-shoe to his image, and the door, under the image, used to be completely covered with them. When the voyage was likely to be long or hazardous the rider frequently branded his horse's hoof with the key of the church door. The west door is interesting as conserving the ancient portal from the destroyed church of Saint- Pierre-aux-Boeufs, brought here in 1837. It dates chiefly from the early XII Ith century, ex- cept for its modern tympanum. The oak panels of the door itself, ornamented with medallions of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is XVIIth century. Within, despite many changes, the church is ex- ceedingly curious and interesting still. The visitor is at once struck by the series of handsome XVth and XV Ith century windows, which, to the number of fifteen, make the unbroken series from the fourth bay of the nave in the clerestory. These were all dismounted during the war and at the moment are in process of being put back. Restoration suppressed some of the backgrounds and borders to gain light in the church, but the windows retain their beautiful shape and are em- TRANSITION CHURCHES 249 bellished with coats of arms and figures of their donors. The church is curious in that it has no transept. Its shape is that of a long parallelogram, termi- nating in a circular apse. Like Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois, Saint-Severin once had a rood-loft, erected in 1414 by a bequest of Antoine de Com- paigne and his wife Oudette. It was destroyed to open the sanctuary to the view of the faithful in the latter half of the XVI Ith century, at which time the church received also the modern decora- tion which disfigures the spaces over the pointed arches of the nave. The double ambulatory adds greatly to the pic- turesque aspect of this old church, and is inter- esting for its groined vaulting, whose complica- tions appear to proceed, in a manner, from a curious twisted pillar in the centre of the apse behind the high altar. The second aisle on the right is the earliest; it dates from the XlVth century, and contains many beautiful carved escutcheons, and Gothic consoles. In the chapel dedicated to Saint-Jean-l'Evan- geliste are some early decorations by Hippolyte Flandrin, done in 1839. These consist of four compositions full of charm and religious senti- ment. The subjects: " The Calling of the Apos- 250 A LOITERER IN PARIS ties," " The Last Supper," " The Martyrdom of Saint John," and " Saint John Writing the Apocalypse." Many other souvenirs attach to this old church. At Pentecost a flight of pigeons used to be sent down during mass through holes in the vaulting to typify the descent of the Holy Spirit. Be- tween the lions of the north porch the magis- trates of the town administered justice. In the churchyard of Saint- Severin the first operation for gall-stone was performed in public, in Janu- ary, 1474. The patient was a soldier, condemned to be hung for theft, and upon the success of the operation he was pardoned and rewarded. Samt-Pierre-de-Montmartre Leaving the ile de la Cite by the Grand Pont, from earliest times ran a road irregularly towards the north, leading to the Butte Montmartre and the Chapel of the Martyrs, called the Chemin de Montmartre. The Halles Centrales now partly cover its ancient bed, but from the Place du Chatelet, the Rue des Halles to the centre of that vast market, then across its width to the rear of Saint-Eustache, one finds again the old thorough- fare under its ancient name, and mounting that street to its end, before Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, TRAXSITION CHURCHES 251 a deviation to the right will lead up the steep Rue des Martyrs, from whose termination a choice of means of ascent presents itself for the final stage of a pilgrimage to that famous hill which over- looks the whole of Paris. The great, dazzling basilica of the Sacre Coeur, which now caps the mountain with its ostentatious piety, throws the picturesque village of that primi- tive Paris, so fast disappearing, completely out of scale. It is only by a direct effort of will that one can disregard the sense of its impending near- ness, of its oppressive insistence as tlie thing to be seen on the historic hill. From the horrid funicular which hauls the unimaginative up a final stretch of perpendicularity which the pious ancients took upon their knees, to the indis- criminate hawkers of secular and religious souvenirs and emblems, with which the environ- ment of the whole irrelevant, theatrical mass is literally infested, the utmost has been done to deprive the sacred site of its legitimate interest. That legitimate interest one takes to be pri- marily the fact of the martyrdom, upon this hill, some sundry centuries ago, of the first apostle of the Gauls, that same Saint-Denis who, sent from Rome in the beginning of the Christian Era, con- verted the Parisii, and was put to death by order 252 A LOITERER IN PARIS of the Roman governor. The epoch of Saint- Denis is uncertain, but the tradition which indi- cates the summit of Montmartre as the place of his death and which places his tomb where is now the city of Saint-Denis has never been con- tested. " After being decapitated," says Hilduin, the abbot of Saint-Denis, writing only four or five centuries after the event and with the conviction of an eyewitness, " the saint rose up on his feet, took his head in his hands, and walked about a league while angels sang about him, ' Gloria tibi Domine ' and others responded three times, ' Alle- luia.' Finally he arrived thus at the sj)ot where now stands his church." Thus the name, Mons Martis — Mons Mar- tyrmn, is in memory of the martyrdom of the first bishop of Paris and of his two companions, Rustique and Eleuthere, whose heads, according to the tradition, were cut off upon this hill. From time immemorial three streets of the summit of Montmartre recorded the names of the three martyrs. The Rue Saint-Eleuthere holding with- in its curve the remains of the old abbey, which once dominated the hill, still retains the name of the deacon who accompanied the apostle, and a narrow old street on the other side of the place before the ancient church of Saint-Pierre TRANSITION CHURCHES 253 still bears the inscription, "Rue Rustique"; but a negligence all too regrettable has allowed to lapse the name of the principal figure of the legend and the centuries-old Rue Saint-Denis is lost in the modern Rue Mont-Cenis, which follows the way that, carrying his head in his hand, the saint took down tlie northern slope of the hill, towards the stopping place upon the plain beyond which was to become his sepulchre. Rue de la Procession, without the present walls of the city, covers the route of that extraordinary march, anciently marked bv stations of the cross. Two edifices of which we have but vague in- formation preceded the present church Saint- Pierre-de-Montmartre. The existing chapel, re- stored from a state of general decay, but still preserving an authentic air of antiquity, dates from 1163, wlien Louis le Gros and his queen, Alix of Savoie, iiaving established at INIontmartre the nuns of the order of Saint-Benoit, commenced its construction. In 1147 tlie church was conse- crated by Pope Eugenius III, who was in Paris to celebrate Easter at Saint-Denis, in the pres- ence of Samt-Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, and Pierre le Venerable, abbot of Cluny. The church served as chapel to the royal Bene- dictine convent — royal because its abbesses were appointed by the king. Amongst the famous 254 A LOITERER IN PARIS women who became abbesses of the convent were Marie de Beauvilhers, the nun carried off by Henri IV, described in the Amour Philosophe, and Marguerite-Louise d'Orleans, grand-duchess of Tuscany, took up her abode here after her separation from her husband, Cosimo III, in 1675. Queen Alix was buried in the church, but her tomb was destroyed in the Revolution. There exists, however, a good Xllth century tomb of an abbess with her effigy engraved upon the stone. Louis XIV rebuilt the abbey, and from this later construction is preserved, in the garden, a Calvary with a Holy Sepulchre containing a figure of Christ at the tomb. Lamartine, in his Histoire des Girondins, de- scribes the tragic fate of this convent during the Reign of Terror, when it was suppressed and its inmates guillotined. The abbess at the time was Madame de Montmorency, the nuns included young girls and elderly women with white hair, " whose sole crimes were the will of their parents and the fidelity of their vows." Grouped about their abbess in the charrette as it rattled along through the thronged streets of Paris towards the scaffold, they sang continuously the sacred chants of their faith, chanting " to the last voice the TRANSITION CHURCHES 255 hymn of their martyrdom. Their voices troubled the hearts of the mob, and the extinction of such combined youth, beauty, and religion forced the people to turn away their eyes." The interior of the little church is of a primitive severity. One fancies one's self far from Paris, in some tiny province, as rounding the Rue Saint- Eleuthere into the ancient Rue Saint-Denis, and crossing the desolate little place before the church one enters through its modest portal. Ruin and restoration have left many fragments of the original stone carving, and a few intensely inter- esting archaeological souvenirs. Against the wall of the facade, inside, are two pillars formed of three columns each. The prin- cipal column of each group is of black and white marble from Aquitania, wnth capitals in white marble carved with the acanthus leaf. For a long time these two columns were thought to be re- mains from a pagan temple built on the hill in honour of Mars or Mercury, but modern archa- ologists ^ attribute them to Christian origin and think that they date from a Merovingien edifice raised on the summit of Montmartre. A primi- tive cross carved on the volute of one of the leaves seems to justify this theory. ' Notably Albert Lenoir. 256 A LOITERER IN PARIS The church is composed of a nave with four bays, a choir of one bay, and a circular apse. The nave is wide and has two aisles which termi- nate at the birth of the apse. The pillars of the nave are massive and formed of three stout columns. The little apse retams its primitive vaulting and its Xllth century pointed arches. The win- dows, except the middle one, have been closed up and reopened and much restored. In the choir, separating the rectangular portion from the round-point, are two granite columns with white marble capitals, of great antiquity and considered to have come from the earliest Roman temple. The little church of Saint-Jean and Saint- Francois, in the Marais, behind the Musee des Archives, contains a rarely beautiful statue of Saint-Denis by Jacques Sarazin, made by order of Anne d'Autriche for the abbey of Mont- martre. From this sumptuous statue alone, one may build up an idea of the importance of the abbey for which it was designed, and it is interesting to see how far from the original austerity of the history of the martyr one had already strayed in the XVI I th century. Sarazin presents the first TRANSITION CHURCHES 257 bishop of Paris in his pontifical robes, kneeling in graceful suppliance which suggests the cour- tier of the regency of Anne of Austria. The modelling is soft and plastic, the figure has grace, elegance, and an appealing beauty, and is clothed in voluminous draperies which fall in handsome folds and show superb handling. The little church which gathered in the relic after the Revolution, was founded in 1623, for a chapel to the convent of the Capuchins, and is therefore contemporary with the statue. The chancel is beautifully done in wood panelling of the epoch and many of the details are worthy of attention. As a pendant to the statue of Saint-Denis has been placed, the two within the chancel rail, an- other kneeling statue, of Saint Francis of Assisi, made by Germain Pilon. Saint-Gentiain-de-Charonne This old church, the worthy companion of Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, stands in a remote quarter of Paris, behind the cemetery Pere La- chaise. Situated upon the side of a hill, one approaches it by a broad flight of thirty-one steps. The edifice is well seen from the church- yard on the north side, entered by a gateway at 258 A LOITERER IN PARIS the left, at the top of the steps, and from this rambhng old garden, full of lilac bushes and ancient graves, the building presents a curious aspect. The side wall of the church seems buried in the side of the hill, while its immense roof of gray tiles piles up, in picturesque perspective, to the cock, surmounting the steeple on the opposite side. The outside of the church is very simple, the belfry, massive and low, but imposing with its buttresses and its two Roman-arched windows and its pointed roof, terminating in a cross, car- rying the cock. It is a good old French belfry. We breathe the France of old days here. The name Charonne is very old. L'abbe Lebeuf, who divined often that which modern science has since proven, said that the name was probably Gallic. The parish is said to date back to Saint-Germain, the illustrious bishop of Au- xerre, who in one of his voyages to England stopped at Charonne, and in the presence of the inhabitants performed a miracle, the memory of which was perpetuated by the erection of an oratory which became the parish church. The church has been much altered from its primitive transition period of construction. Two or three extra bays, destroyed by a fire, were TRANSITION CHURCHES 259 torn down, thus giving the nave a shortened ef- fect. The church is of two epochs. At the begin- ning of the Xlllth century the first edifice was constructed in the primitive Gothic style. In the XVth century, having become too small, it was pulled down to build a larger one. In this recon- struction the part of the nave and right aisle which form the base of the tower was preserved, and this old part is very interesting. Two old 2)illars belonging to this Xlllth century con- struction are readily recognizable, near the pres- ent entrance of the church. They bear certain points of resemblance to some of the work at Rheims, Amiens, and the first pillars of the nave at Notre-Dame. The ornamentation is of the Xlllth and XVth centuries. All this sculpture of Saint-Germain-de- Charonne, despite the mutilations it has under- gone, has lost little of its grandeur and grace. In the leafage the vine motif reigns supreme, and we sense at once the proximity of the grape country. Remnants of old glass may still be found in the end windows of the aisles. Just within the entrance is the XVI Ith century painting of the consecration of Sainte-Genevieve by Saint-Ger- main-l'Auxerrois. CHAPTER XII THE TURNING POINT: SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS Having quickened the appetite with a torn of the lesser churches of the transition period, the loiterer should now feel primed for the full en- joyment of the most perfect specimen of the epoch, in which one can hest trace the actual passing from Roman to Gothic. This is the abbatial church of Saint Martin of the Fields. Of all the ancient religious establishments of Paris, this old priory retains best its monastic aspect. Instead of the general destruction which was the fate of most of these old monasteries at the time of the Revolution, when their orders were suppressed, Saint-Martin was passed intact first to a manufactory of arms, then, in 1798, to the installation of the then newly founded Conserva- toire des Arts et Metiers, still within its protect- ing enclosure. The original idea of such an institution is at- tributed to Descartes, though not put into execu- tion until 1775, more than an hundred years later 260 SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 261 than the death of the philosopher. Vaucanson, the celebrated engineer, organized the school and bequeathed to the state his collection of machines, instruments, tools, etc., for the benefit of the work- ing classes, and, in 1794, the conservatory was founded bv a decree of the Convention. The museum is combined with a technical school, the classes in which are free. Tlie bequest and scheme for the benefit of tlie workers was so in harmony with the spirit directing the saner side of the Revolution, and the establishment so well fitted to receive the in- stallation that the transformation from monastery to technical school was effected without demoli- tion. According to the ancient tradition the original priory, of which this vast enclosure was the out- growth, was erected where Saint-Martin, arriving near the gates of Paris, cured a leper by pressing him against his breast. The priory became an abbey celebrated under the second race of French kings, but having been ruined by wars and other disorders of early days, Henri I, the grandson of Hugues Capet, rebuilt and refounded the abbey in 1060, and his son, Philippe I, confirmed and increased the donation by his chapter of 1067, placing the new foundation under the abbey 262 A LOITERER IN PARIS of Cluny, of which flourishing order it was the third off-shoot. As the monastery stood without the walls of Paris, it was enclosed hy strong, high walls of its own, battlemented and turreted, constructed by the prior Hugues IV, and of this ancient defence is left a picturesque round tower in the Rue Saint- ^lartin, at the corner of the Rue Vertbois, ceded by the monks to the city, in 1712, for the erection of a fountain, which still exists. The monks at this time themselves tore down the old wall which once ran along the line of the present Rue Saint-Martin, replacing it by domiciles for their inhabitants, and destroyed the principal entrance, which had been restored in 1575 and decorated with statues of the two royal founders. Further " improvements " undertaken by them necessitated the destruction of the old chapter house, the tower of the archives, the chapel of the Virgin, and the famous cloister, which contained stone statues of three genera- tions of kings, Henri I, Philippe I, and Louis VI, and which Piganiol de la Force describes as unequalled in Paris for its size and the number of its columns. The priory of Saint Martin of the Fields was SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 263 conceived upon a scale which destined it to be the most magnificent religious organization of France, and was governed by a long succession of illus- trious priors, of which cardinal Richelieu was one. The old church, so curiously adapted to the uses of a museum of hydraulic machinery, pre- serves its exterior intact, with certain additions, and can be seen fairly well by making a tour of the adjoining streets. It is of two epochs, the actual church being composed of a nave built in the XlVth century and a choir and apse of the Xllth century. A tower, of which we still see the base, rose from the right-hand side, and of the two tourclles on the fa9ade, the right-hand one is original, the other having been added to balance the composition during recent restora- tions. The apse of Saint-Martin's, considered to be an importation from Picardie, is thought to have been inspired by the abbe Suger, when he de- sired to build the abbey of Saint-Denis. Au- thorities fix the date between the years 1116 and 1140. This apse is a remarkable document upon the origin of Gothic architecture. It must be classed with the churches of Saint-Etienne of Beauvais, Notre-Dame of Poissy, and of Saint- 264 A LOITERER IN PARIS Maclou of Pontoise, in all of which we find the first traces of that style of which the cathedral of Saint-Denis is the point of arrival. To gain entrance to the church one must pass through the main part of the museum, stepping at length through a modest door in the left side of the nave. The nave is long, high, and wide, without aisles and without pillars. Its roof is of wood, arched and supported by beams of the simplest, frankest construction. There are six- teen side windows in pairs, surmounted each by a rosace, and the fa9ade is pierced by a large win- dow in four divisions, surmounted by six quatre- foils, and over all a pretty rose. The nave, de- nuded of all ecclesiastic suggestion and filled with airplanes and other objects of modern inven- tion, still holds a sense of tremendous power on the strength of its proportions alone. The apse, however, is the most interesting part of the edifice. It is lower than the nave by some half a dozen steps, which descend from the rear of the sanctuary. Here one steps upon large funeral stones with wliich the church was paved, and upon which may still be seen traces of nearly effaced effigies of the monks and priors interred beneath the choir. The apse is entirely of stone, very beautiful SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 265 stone, cut with precision and care, its pillars in groups and pairs not formed of monoliths but of stones of equal size and shape, cemented together. A large chapel with Roman windows at the back and windows slightly pointed at the sides, forms the centre of the round-point and a chain of smaller chapels links the apse to the nave. The construction of these chapels with their unde- cided arches in which the architect seems to have hesitated and experimented between full round- ness and varied degrees of pointing, is exceedingly curious. From this bizarre mixture and tentative design archaeologists have adjudged that the pointed arches of Saint-Martin's are the first which Paris knew, and that the edifice was one of the earliest in which the Gothic style battled against the Roman. The ornamentation of the apse is rich and varied. In the capitals of the twin columns which make the tour of the choir, the sculpture passes from something Byzantine in its elements through the Roman forms to the point where the Gothic flower begins to spring. All the carving is strong and able, indicating the hand of sculptors of the first quality. A Xllth century Virgin in wood, from this church, was transported to Saint-Denis. 266 A LOITERER IN PARIS The refectory of the priory, now converted into a library, is considered a chef-d'aeuvre of the early Xlllth century, and by its extreme light- ness and beauty justifies the tradition that it is the work of Pierre de Montereau, the talented architect of Saint-Louis. If it be indeed the work of this architect it will be a youthful pro- duction, a forerunner of the Sainte-Chapelle and the Virgin's chapel of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, yet is there nothing tentative in its handsome proportions and its rich detail. Here is indeed no longer the bizarre indecision of the apse of the church, but an art in definitive possession of its style. It was an architect of more than ordinary prowess who knew how to throw the weight of the vaulting of this high and narrow building upon the walls with their buttresses, and leave himself free to support the roof by this file of tall, slender pillars, which, passing along the middle of the length, divides the interior into two naves. Mullioned windows in pairs, surmounted by pretty rosaces, fill seven of the eight bays into which the long interior is divided, on the north side, and two more pierce the west wall. This arrangement is repeated in blind windows on the SAINT-MARTIN-DES-CHAMPS 267 opposite walls, rendering the interior perfectly symmetrical. Placed rather high on the north side of the hall and taking the place of the second pair of windows, is the reader's pulpit, one of the oldest and most beautiful refectory pulpits in existence. Built against the wall and projecting therefrom, so that the voice might be heard by the most distant of the diners, this pulpit is reached by a stairway in graceful openwork stone, enclosed in the thickness of the wall. Viollet-le-Duc, the famous restorer of Gothic architecture, allows himself a burst of professional enthusiasm for this pulpit: " On remarquera la disposition ingenieuse de Vescalier montant a cette cliaire, pratique dans Vepaisseur du mur; il n'est clos du cote de Vin- terieur que par une claire-voie; niais pour eviter que la charge du inur au-dessiis necrasdt cette claire-voie , le construct eur a pose un arc de de- charge qui vient la soidager, et afin que cet arc ne poussdt pas, les premiers pieds-droits de la claire-voie ont etc inclines de fafon a op poser une hutee a cette poussee. Aujourd'hui on de- manderait d'user d'artifices pour ohtenir ce re- sultat de hutee sans le rendre apparent; au 268 A LOITERER IN PARIS commencement du Xiii^ siecle, on n'y mettait pas autre.ment de finesses." Formerly a painting by Louis Sylvestre, repre- senting the life of Saint-Benoit, ornamented the attic of the refectory, now replaced by symbolic figures of the arts and sciences. The decoration of Saint-Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar is by Steinheil. This incident is sup- posed to have taken place at Amiens. In conclusion one cannot too much admire the masterly execution of the capitals of the columns, the consoles, the escutcheons which lock the ribs of the vaulting, and the roses above the windows. The whole spirit of this room breathes elevation and nobility. CHAPTER XIII DAGOBERT'S BASILICA: SAINT-DENIS But for a long time the loiterer, if he be at all attuned to the pitch intended, will have been long- ing to break awaj^ from the leading strings which detain him in such abstract churches as these just described, and to make his way to that dingy suburban town, situated to the north of Paris, in the valley of the Seine, and distant but a few kilometres from the fortifications, whose sole aesthetic interest is the amazing Gothic church of Saint-Denis. Though celebrated for several reasons, Saint- Denis owes its chief renown to the roj^al tombs of which it has become the repository, a truly glorious collection of medieval and renaissance sculptures. From the time of Dagobert (628), who conceived the cathedral, to Louis XVIII, who, after the despoliation of the Revolution restored the chap- ter, Saint-Denis had been the sepulchre of the kings of France. The series of tombs commenced with that of Dagobert (the last great Merovingien, great-great-grandson of Clovis), included eight 269 270 A LOITERER IN PARIS Carlovingiens, with but few exceptions the kings of the third race, from Hugues Capet to Henri II and his sons (the last of the House of Valois), and the Bourbons down to Louis XVIII. The violation of these tombs during the Revolu- tion, the transference of most of the important monuments to the shelter of the Petits-Augustins, their restitution to Saint-Denis accompanied by numerous homeless effigies, tombs, and statues torn from destroyed churches, convents, monasteries, and abbeys, placed pHe-mele in Lenoir's museum, thence chased out again by the suppression of the museum and the turning over of the convent buildings to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, all this tragic history belongs to a later survey. At the moment it is the cathedral itself which interests us, this cathedral in which, as we have said, Gothic architecture reached its point of ar- rival. The church as we see it, for it has passed through many strains of rebuilding, demolition, restoration, is still eloquent of the transition — its right-hand tower is almost pure Romanesque — but its secondary apse and its semi-circular chapels are considered as the first perfected attempt at Gothic, and carry us a step beyond the experi- ments of Saint-INIartin-des-Champs. The name and fame of the cathedral are derived Photo A. tinaadon THE MARTYRDOAf OF SAINT-DEXIS. PRIMITIVE FRENCH PAINTING, ABOUT 1400, ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN ..MAI.OUEL. LOUVRE MUSEUM. I'lioto X INTERIOR OF THE CATIIEDKAL OF SAINT-DENIS. SHOWING THE ASCENT TO THE AMBULATORY AND CHAPELS. TO THE LEFT, THE TOMB OF HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. Photo X IXTERIOB OF THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT-DENIS. THE TRANSEPT WITH THE TOMB OF FRANgOIS I AND CLAUDE DE FRANCE. SAINT-DENIS 273 from the abbey founded by Dagobert on the spot where, according to tradition, Saint-Denis halted his fateful march, from the summit of JMont- martre, and was interred. The epoch of the founder of Christianity in Paris is uncertain; ecclesiastical historians hesitate between the 1st, Ilnd, and even the IVth centuries. His origin is unknown, even, according to the sceptics, mythical. Whether he was Denis Areo- pagite, converted in Athens by the preaching of Saint Paul, commissioned to announce the doc- trine of Christ to the Parisians, or whether he was another person of the same name sent to the Gauls about the middle of the Ilird century and put to death during the persecution ordered by Decius has not been decided. His history is written in monuments and popular traditions, and this history asserts and constantly reiterates that the founder and first bishop of the church of Paris was called Denis, that he was assisted in his apostolic work by the priest Rustique, and the deacon Eleuthere, and that all three sealed their accomplished mission with their blood. Not two centuries ago there was still shown at Notre-Dame-des-Champs, at that time remote from the walls of Paris, a crypt where Saint- 274 A LOITERER IN PARIS Denis called together the first of the fcaithful; at Saint-Benoit a chapel built on the site of an oratory where Saint-Denis had first invoked the name of the Trinity ; at Saint-Denis-de-la-Chartre, the prison where Christ came himself to fortify the confessors by administering his body and blood; at Saint-Denis-du-Pas the place where the trio suffered the first tortures; and finally the summit of Montmartre where their heads fell under the sword. " The holy bishop Denis, and his two compan- ions," wrote Hilduin, abbot of Saint-Denis in the IXth century, " suffered their glorious martyrdom within view of the city of the Parisians, upon a hill previously called Mount of Mercury, in honour of a god in particular favour amongst the Gauls, but thereafter known as Mount of the Martyrs in memory of the saints who died there." The origin of the church of Saint-Denis is sub- ject to two interpretations. According to one a pious woman called Catulle, having assisted the three martyrs during their imprisonment, dared to gather up the mutilated remains and buried them in a field belonging to herself, later included in the possessions of the abbey of Saint-Denis. We know that long before the invasion of the Francs a basilica, superbly ornamented and famous for SAINT-DENIS 275 the miracles wrought there, was raised upon Catulle's field. According to another version the early church succeeded a temple erected to Bacchus, while the story of Saint-Denis himself is a legend of pagan origin, the name Denis being indeed a derivative from the Greek name of the wine god, Dionysos. The explanation is as ingenious as it is impious, and the author gives himself to its elaboration with a certain zest. Here it is: It is well known that the country known under the name of the tie de France was once a grape- growing country. All the hills near the Seine were planted with vines and no department of France bore more fruit in proportion to its extent. In such a country Bacchus was greatly re- spected. Pej' Bacco was a familiar oath and tem- ples were raised to the god of wine and offerings made in the interest of the crops. As we know, most of the early Christian churches repose upon the ruins of temples or altars dedicated in remoter centuries to pagan deities. Notre-Dame covers the foundation of an altar raised to a nautical divinity, Saint-Germain-des-Pres stands upon the site of a temple to Isis, Saint-Pierre-de-INIont- martre succeeds Mercury, and Saint-Denis dis- places Bacchus. 276 A LOITERER IN PARIS Our impious author leaves nothing unaccounted for. Rustique and Eleuthere, the companions of Saint-Denis, he figures to have been created out of the supposed legend of the temple: Dionysio Rustico Eleuthero — Dionysio Frenchified becomes Denys or Denis; Rustico, because his altar was in the country; and Eleuthero or free, one of the surnames of Bacchus. Along comes Christianity to the Gauls and the peasants receive the new faith but hold instinc- tively to the old traditions of paganism, and myths become mysteries. To form an alliance between the old beliefs — vague, effaced, but persistent, was easy to a clever pious legendary. He invents a martyr, canonizes the pagan divinity, while for the legend of Saint-Denis' miraculous march from Montmartre to the site of the cathedral, this be- comes simply the glorified history of the god over- come by wine, who loses his head yet carries it with him. Be that as it may the first edifice erected in honour of the first bishop of Paris fell into ruins in the Vth century and Sainte-Genevieve rebuilt it, while Gregoire de Tours describes the miracles worked in this temple for the cure of pilgrims and the chastisement of sinners. The magnificence with which Dagobert rebuilt SAINT-DENIS 277 and invested the church and abbey quite casts the memory of the earliest constructions into the shade. Despite his ferocity, this last powerful Merovingien had the sentiment of art, but, as founder of religious monuments or as sovereign, his penchant for rapacity always breaks out. Thus to adorn Saint-Denis he carried off innu- merable riches and ornaments from other sacred edifices, as his predecessors had done before him, contributing to the glories of the treasure his pious thefts. In spite of all his vices Fredegonde's grandson was a popular king. It is to be presumed that, in his large way, he had qualities of the heart, and his name lives in many an old song, as le bon roi Dagohert, as well as that of his companion, Saint- Eloy, the king's artistic goldsmith, who by a set of chances as curious as those which befell the naif Koko became, as we have seen, treasurer, dip- lomat, bishop, founder of monasteries, saint! From the beginning of his reign Dagobert undertook the rebuilding of the church. He deco- rated it with precious marbles, magnificent tapes- tries, bronze doors, vases of gold set with jewels. Saint-Eloy chiselled with his own hands the tomb of the martyrs and the great gold cross erected before the entrance to the choir, and, in order that 278 A LOITERER IN PARIS so handsome a monument should have a dedication worthy of it, says tradition, Jesus Christ himself, surrounded by a glorious company of saints and martyrs assisted at the celebration. In one of the chapels the place is still shown, upon request, where the divine cortege made its entrance into the basilica of Dagobert. After Dagobert there were restorations by Pepin and Charlemagne, restorations almost com- pletely obliterated, presumably by the terrible disasters following the Norman invasion and the civil wars of Charlemagne's reign, for, during the interval between Charlemagne and Louis VII the church probably shared the fate of most of the monasteries of northern France, though no actual account has been preserved. The architecture of the central part of the crypt — its round arches and historic capitals — indicate the reconstructions of the Xlth century, while of the vaunted magnificence of the church of Dagobert and the early Carlo- vingiens no material souvenirs remain except a few columns and marble capitals, standing upright against the walls of the crypt. About the year 1091 a lad of poor parentage entered the abbey of Saint-Denis. This was Suger, destined to become in his mature years abbot of the monastery and famous as ecclesiastic. SAINT-DENIS 279 statesman, and historian. Louis VI was his pupil and he was the friend and counsellor of both Louis VI and Louis VII. Immediately upon his appointment to the gov- ernment of the abbey he put into action his long cherished ambition to rebuild the cathedral upon a scale of magnificence of which we still see in the existing church many evidences. He built rapidly the portail, the tower, the choir, the nave, and finally the lower chapels of the chevet and the apse which surmounts them. This work antedated Notre-Dame by about a quarter of a century. Suger superintended everything — the quarrying of the stone, the choice of the woods, the design of the windows, the making of the cross and the sacred vessels, and composed the Latin couplets which described the objects of his concern. Under one of the three rows of arches above the main entrance runs an inscription recording the erection of the church by the abbe Suger, minister to Louis VI, with abbatial funds, and its consecra- tion, in 1140. The porch, formed by the first three bays of the church, contains some remains of the basilica of Pepin and Charlemagne, the secondary apse and its semi-circular chapels were built under Suger. The nave proper and most of the choir and 280 A LOITERER IN PARIS transepts date from the reign of Saint-Louis, and, as we have said, are considered as the first per- fected Gothic. The transepts have fine fa9ades of the Xllth and Xlllth centuries, each with two unfinished towers, and had the plan been fully carried out there would have been six towers be- sides a central spire, in lead. The facade orig- inally carried a spire on the north tower, which twice destroyed by lightning was finally done away with in the last restorations. The abbey flourished exceedingly and uninter- ruptedly until the last years of the reign of the House of Valois. Louis IX and Philippe le Hardi made extensive repairs which occupied half a century (1231-1281), and the XlVth century added the lateral chapels of the nave, one after another. The last important additions were made under Henri II and Catherine de Medicis, who constructed a sumptuous chapel, known as the Chapelle des Valois, for the tombs of the princes of their race. This chapel, in the form of a rotunda, joined the church on the northern flank of the apse. It was destroyed during the regency of Philippe d'Orleans, who transported its fine columns to the Pare Monceau, where, forming a semi-circular Corinthian colonnade behind an oval piece of water, they simulate ancient ruins. The Photo LA NAUMACHIE; PARC MONCEAU. CONSTRUCTED FROM THE RUINS OF THE CHAPEIXE DES VAEOIS AT SAINT-DENIS. SAINT^DENIS 283 connection is clear, since the Pare Monceau was a property bought, in 1778, by PhiHppe d'Orleans — Philippe Egalite — under whose direction it was laid out as a garden. This Naumachie, as it was called, built in imitation of the circular pools of Roman origin for spectacular naval combats, was a great attraction in its day, and still forms an appealing feature of the park. With Catherine de Medicis, Saint-Denis reached its zenith and the next century saw its rapid de- chne. Under the influence of Madame de Main- tenon, Louis XIV suppressed the abbey and its revenues were turned over to Saint-Cyr to enrich the king's gift to his mistress. The reign of Louis XV demolished the buildings of the old .monas- tery, after which came the Revolution with its wholesale demolition of tombs and degradation of the church, which became successively a " Temple of Reason," a depot for artillery, a warehouse for feed and flour, while awaiting threatened destruc- tion. This was a time of strong compromises and in order to save even part of the magnificent cathedral its friends were obliged to offer it as a public market. Already its roof had been taken off and the glass of its many windows broken or removed. The chapels were conveniently turned into stalls. 284 A LOITERER IN PARIS to which their shape and disposition readily rec- ommended them. From this grave peril the Con- cordat saved the church in 1806, when an imperial decree made Saint-Denis the seat of a chapter and the tomb of a new dynasty. " From Dodon, the first abbot of Saint-Denis, who lived in 627," says Guilhermy, " to Jean- Fran9ois-Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz, who was the last, seventy-three abbots governed the monastery. Amongst them were Fulrad, Hilduin, Suger, Mathieu de Vendome, Charles the Bald, the kings Eudes, Robert, Hugues Capet, the car- dinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Guise, Mazarin, and the famous coadjutor so celebrated for his exploits, his memoirs, and his penitence." The fairly thorough examination which we have made of Notre-Dame will render easy the reading of Saint-Denis to those who have, by now, de- veloped a taste for Gothic lines and ornament. The three doors which open in the west facade have undergone much restoration — the north door is wholly modern and utterly atrocious — but the curious sculptures with which Suger filled the tympanums and voussoirs of the others are readily distinguishable from the modern restorations and additions. The central door, like that of Notre-Dame, has SAINT-DENIS 285 for motive the familiar Last Judgment with its contrasts of joy and sorrow, so popular with the sculptors of the Moyen Age. The lower panel contains a particularly spirited scene of the rising of the dead upon the Day of Judgment, and in the archivolt there is, to the right, the fantastic pro- cession of the damned, scourged by the usual devils and falling into the fires of the Inferno, while to the left an animated representation of Father Abraham receiving with glee the elect upon his bosom, where he holds them within the folds of a napkin, after the manner of a benevo- lent kangaroo. The south door is given to the martyrdom of Saint-Denis and his companions. The saints and their executioners are figured in the voussoir, and in the tympanum Christ appears to Saint-Denis and his two companions in their prison. In the tympanum of the north door a poor caricature of Gothic style replaces a mosaic which Suger brought from Italy especially for the place and which disappeared in the various rebuildings of this tower. Suger made two diplomatic voyages into Italy, which fact accounts for the slight Italian influence still noticeable in the facade, such as the alternate courses of white stone and black marble in the 286 A LOITERER IN PARIS narrow, pointed bays which flank the middle rose window. At the end of the north transept is another door of interesting workmanship, which has preserved six large statues, presumably double personalities representing the first kings of the Capetien dynasty — Hugues Capet, Robert the Pious, Henri I, Philippe I, Louis VI, and Louis VII— under the guise of ancestors of Jesus Christ. In the tympanum is again the history of Saint-Denis, his condemnation and punishment. The arrangement of the interior of the church is full of character and individuality, differing con- siderably from the usual plan. We enter upon a sort of interior porch, composed of the first two bays, which, as we have said, remain from the church of the al)be Suger, strongly built to sup- port the towers and consequently more resistant than the nave. Thus we look down into the nave and across to the choir and crypt, the choir raised by a considerable number of steps. The nave, as we see it, built under Saint-Louis and Philippe le Hardi, by the abbots Eudes Clement and Mathieu de Vendome, extends eight bays, the first blind, the last seven filled their com- plete width witli immense windows. The roof of the nave has been criticized for its round arch, an SAINT-DENIS 287 uncommon fault in constructions of the period, and unsparingly revealed by the clarity of the garish modern windows, which date for the most part from the reign of Louis-Philippe. The ex- plosions at Cour Neuve in 1918 shattered some of the windows, and at the moment there are many bare spaces in the roses as well as in the windows of the clerestory. We have remarked already how Suger gave of his superfluity some glass to Notre-Dame, in which, having himself erected a similar monument, he must have taken a paternal interest. By his care the windows of Saint-Denis were filled with brilliant glass of which the few remaining frag- ments attest the extraordinary quality and beauty. During the Revolution many precious panels, hastily dismounted, were packed in the storage rooms of the Musee des Petits-Augustins — Lenoir saved what he could — but only a very little was restored to Saint-Denis and no one knows what became of the remainder. The Virgin's Chapel, in the centre of the apse, contains most of the original glass which was saved and the remainder occupies a window in the adjoining chapel on the left. The subjects de- picted in small medallions are mystical, partly inspired by the Apocalypse, partly dealing with 288 A LOITERER IN PARIS the life of Moses, and fragments of a series rep- resenting the Tree of Jesse. A careful examina- tion of them reveals the original inscriptions which Suger furnished as explanatory of the figures, and one medallion in particular shows Suger himself prostrate before the Virgin, who receives the angel of the Annunciation. Such other fragments of ancient glass as exist have been gathered from other churches and in- clude some XVI th century glass bought at Rouen and hberally restored. All that is antique has been distributed throughout the chapels of the apse interlarded with modern imitations, but the sensitive eye will have no difficulty in detecting the real and rejecting the spurious, and while much of the fragmentary assemblage is interesting, the three windows in the middle of the round-point are the only ones of complete importance. The modern glass with which the church is filled represents an enormous outlay of funds with disastrous results. Louis-Philippe is the culprit, his idea being no less than to decorate the church with a series of colossal figures of the kings and queens of France beginning with the first race. The portraits done against blood-red backgrounds with strong yellows make really a vile disturbance in this beautiful cathedral and it is difficult to com- SAINT-DENIS 289 prehend an epoch that could have countenanced them. If Louis-Phihppe wanted to compensate the church for the depredations of the Revolution- ists, he succeeds only in inspiring similar impulses. The windows of this church are unhappily many and we must see much history thus violently pre- sented, such as the life of Saint-Louis, the restora- tion of the cathedral under Napoleon, the inter- ment of Louis XVIII, etc. The Tree of Jesse again occupies the north rose, while the subject of its companion, to the south, is the Creation, the signs of the zodiac, and the months and sea- sons. The legend of Saint-Denis, his martyrdom, burial, and the various reconstructions of his church from Saint-Genevieve to Saint-Louis, oc- cupy the thirteen upper windows of the choir. Let us return a moment to the Chapel of the Virgin, to the windows placed in lloO by the abbe Suger. They are in small designs, a series of episodes in lozenges or medallions, and the part which receives the light is prepared so as to soften the passage of the sun's rays. The glass of the Sainte-Chapelle, of which the greater part has been preserved, is a full century later than that which Suger ordered for his church. We know nothing of the artists employed by the abbot in their design and execution, almost eight centuries 290 A LOITERER IN PARIS ago, yei their vigorous handling suggests strong personality and entire proficiency. Cimabue was the first known painter of windows. He lived a century later than the artists of the windows of Notre-Dame and Saint-Denis. CHAPTER XIV THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE In the Sainte-Chapelle, now irrelevantly at- tached to the Palais de Justice, but built, eight hundred years ago, to form part of the ancient palace of the kings of France, we reach the very acme of Gothic supremacy. In all the monuments which we have visited till now we have been thrilled by the evident traces of the mighty struggle which marked the transi- tion from Romanesque to Gothic — nowhere more convincingly presented than in the church of Saint-Martin. The churches and buildings finished in the XII Ith century are nearly all Romanesque at the base with a superstructure showing Gothic principles grafted on an intermediate or transi- tion style. Since the construction of an important edifice usually covered a century or more, old styles declined while others were born and de- veloped during the process. The Sainte-Chapelle, on the contrary, is one of those rare types which characterize an epoch. Its construction covered the briefest space of time, for, 291 292 A LOITERER IN PARIS begun in 1245 and finished in 1248, it was the work of one artist, done under one inspiration. Built for Saint-Louis by his gifted architect, Pierre de IMontereau, at the height of his career, and destined to contain the Crown of Thorns and a portion of the True Cross, the Sainte-Chapelle is not to be considered as an ordinary chapel, but as a glorified cliasse or shrine, a hallowed casket, upon which were lavished all the riches that art and industry could jjroduce at this time. Saint-Louis spared nothing to make the Sainte- Chapelle the most brilliant jewel of his realm. From all times this little marvel of the Moyen Age has been considered a chef-d'oeuvre. It has a lightness and fineness in its ensemble, a research in the execution of its details and accessories un- equalled in other monuments of the Xlllth cen- tury, and though classed as belonging to the first period of pointed Gothic, forms almost a style apart. Into the plans of the king, Pierre de Montereau threw himself heart and soul. The speed with which the work was conceived and executed, while astonishing, was the chief contributing fac- tor of its unity and completeness. At most, Viollet-le-Duc assures us, the erection of the chapel, from foundation to completion, did not Photo X LOWER CHAPEL. SAIXTE-CHAPELLE. OUR MOTHER OF SORROWS. TERRA COTTA PAINTED. FORMERLY IN THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE, NOW IN THE LOUVTIE. Photo A. Giraudon Photo A INTERIOR OF THE UPI'ER CHAPEL. SAINTE-CHAPEI.LE. THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 295 exceed five years. " If,'' says this distinguished authority, " one observe with scrupulous attention the archaeological character of the Sainte-Chapelle, one is forced to recognize the exactitude of these historic dates. The method of construction and ornamentation belongs to this minute fraction of the Xlllth century. During the reigns of Philippe Auguste and Saint-Louis progress in architecture was so rapid that a period of five years introduced appreciable changes; whereas in this edifice the greatest unity reigns from base to summit." To the pious haste which the king showed to enshrine appropriately the precious relics of which he had become possessed, the population, equally enthused, added its vigorous cooperation. We are to suppose that skilled workmen considered it a privilege to contribute their labour to enhance the splendour of the reliquary intended for the chief treasures of the Christian world. We know that eight hundred thousand livres touniois (something over two and a half millions of francs) were em- ployed in the construction and decoration of the chapel and in the acquisition of the relics it enclosed. And this sum, though considered of a vastness at a time when the principal chaplains were esteemed rich upon a revenue of three hun- 296 A LOITERER IN PARIS dred and sixty-eight francs, must have gone largely to the emperor of Constantinople, from whom the relics were purchased, and for the raw material employed. The walls, the pillars, the columns were overlaid with gold and illuminated with the finest and most brilliant of colours, incrusted with precious stones and embellished with choice enamels; while the light of day, itself, was admitted through the im- mense windows of which the upper story seems entirely composed, only after having been passed through precious coloured glass, designed with multiple imagery, in dominating notes of blue and red. One of these windows recounts, in a series of sixty-seven panels, the history of the treasures of the Sainte-Chapelle in detail from the time that Baudouin II, fifth Latin emperor of the Orient, decided, in 1237, to cede the sacred souvenirs of the Passion of Christ to Saint-Louis, to the mo- ment of their triumphal entry into the repository prepared for them. History, chronicles, and popular tradition tell with what demonstrations of piety Louis IX, hav- ing secured the relics for France, in 1239, brought them into Paris. It was the poverty of the impe- THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 297 rial treasury of Constantinople that induced Baudouin to sell them at a time when his country was menaced by wars on all sides. For safety the relics had been already confided to the care of the Venetians and were deposited at San Marco. There Saint-Louis sent an escort to receive them, and setting out himself with his queen, his brothers, various bishops and other dignitaries, met the procession at Villeneuve-l'Archeveque, near Sens, which was the seat of the archbishop of the diocese of Paris. Saint-Louis, aided by his brother, the comte d'Artois, carried on his shoulders the pavilion containing the Crown of Thorns, and thus charged, clad only in a tunic, he trod barefoot the streets of Sens and Paris, filled with a re- ligious enthusiasm which later he was to employ against the infidels in the Holy Wars. Later, in 1241, he carried with the same pro- found humility, his hands covered with a cloth, the cross of gold with the double branch received from the Byzantine emperor. The relics were placed provisionally in the chapel of Saint- Nicolas, which Louis le Gros had built within the walls of the Palais. It was upon the site of this chapel, Saint- 298 A LOITERER IN PARIS Nicolas, that the king, finding himself possessed of such riches, resolved to build a shrine worthy of their reception. The architect of the Sainte-Chapelle was Pierre de Montereau, the same who built the famous Virgin's Chapel of the abbey of Saint-Germain- des-Pres. The plan is simple and elegant, the two chapels, one over the other, is a character- istic of the epoch. Saint-Louis, himself, placed the corner-stone, in 1245, and on April 25, 1248, the chapels were consecrated, the upper one, re- served to the king and the royal family, by Eudes de Chiiteauroux, bishop of Tusculum, the pope's legate in France, under the title of Sainte- Couronne et Sainte-Croix; and the lower chapel by Philippe Berruier, bishop of Bourges, under the invocation of the Sainte-Vierge. The lower chapel served for officers of the second order at- tached to the palace. The church was thus divided into two floors to correspond with the divisions of the palace, the proper entrances being from the palace by means of the doubb porch. The king thus arrived on foot without going outside. When built the Sainte-Chapelle stood within a wide space and was visible in its ensemble from all sides. Now the north side of the chapel is com- 2)letely masked by the modern Palais, while its THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 299 free parts are circumscribed and encroached upon by a totally irrelevant and hostile environment. No setting could be less promising, no approach less inviting than this restricted court, with its heavy, ugly paving, yielding grudgingly the few square feet of breathing space before the master- piece. Like all the churches of the Middle Ages the apse of the Sainte-Chapelle is turned towards the east. We enter the enclosure therefore, from the Boulevard du Palais, from the rear and, walking about close to the stupid buildings which imprison the jewel, arrive by dint of much force of character and imagination to see the building a little as Pierre de Montereau intended it. As a chapel in the strict sense of the word, the edifice consists of a choir, without nave or tran- septs. The form is of an elegant simplicity, very compact, essentially a chasse, a casket on a large scale; everything in its design and in its details works out the primal thought, that we have before us the shrine of the Crown of Thorns. Though they are much more impressive from w^ithin, and one is always in haste to get inside, the windows even from without are the first thing which strikes the attention. The whole casket seems at first to be made of leaded glass, the whole 300 A LOITERER IN PARIS of this precious upper chapel, which enclosed the relics, is supported entirely by its short, massive piers, the walls with their lofty windows, just separated by slender buttresses, merely enclose the interior, which is of a lightness extraordinarily spiritual. Everything in the exterior points upwards, with an effect of remarkable elevation. The great height of the building is very striking. The but- tresses which sustain all the weight of the vaulting rise to the full height of the sides between the windows and terminate in rich, foliated pinnacles. Between them gables, richly sculptured, surmount the stupendous height of the windows. The roof is extremely sharp and from its centre rises the truly exquisite fleche, though a third restoration, which seems to carry the spirit soaring to the skies. Statues of eight angels carrying the instruments of Passion are poised between the gables of the second story of the spire, and in the bays of the lower story stand the twelve apostles. At the ridge of the apse, upon the point of the gable, is an angel of heroic size, in lead, holding the pro- cessional cross. This figure turns on its axis by means of a mechanical device and shows succes- THE SAIXTP:-CHAPELLE 301 siveh" the sjmibol of salvation to all points of the horizon. This spire is a restoration hy Lassus. The first one, jDlaced by JNIontereau, having crumbled with age was succeeded by a second, under Charles VI, made by Robert Fouchier. The second spire was consumed by fire and replaced by Louis XIIT, in 1630. The third spire was sacrificed in the Revolution, and the present erection dates from the last general restoration of the chapel under Louis-Phili2)pe. It is in the flowery style of the second half of the XVth century and recalls the design of Fouchier. Geoffroy Deschaume, who worked upon the restorations of the facade of Notre-Dame, mod- elled the figures of this fleche, and Guilhermy, in a very complete monograph on the Sainte-Chapelle, tells us that the heads of the apostles are portraits of the people who contributed to the restoration of the chapel. The principal facade shows two porches which give access to the two chapels, surmounted by a balustrade, above which is the great rose window, occupying the full width of the building. Above this again is a balustrade and two steeples which accompany the pointed gable. On the points of 302 A LOITERER IN PARIS these steeples the crown of thorns is placed over the royal crown of France. Mosl of the facade above the porches was rebuilt about the middle of the XVth century, under Charles VIII, whose device, crowned by two angels, occupies the middle of the second balustrade. The rose is handsome in the flamboyant style. The entrance to the lower chapel is below the present level of the court. Needless to say the sculpture of the doorway is modern, but the deco- ration of the stylobate, containing the towers of Castille, in honour of the mother of Saint-Louis, and tlie fieurs-de-lys of the blazon of France, is the same. The lower chapel is full of mystery and sugges- tion. Forty short, stout pillars sustain the vault- ing, of which the keys, in sculptured chestnut wood, are very remarkable. The place is full of obscurity, since but little light penetrates the handsome triangular windows. The floor is paved with thirty-four curious tombstones of the XlVth and XVth centuries, carved with the effigies of treasurers and canons of the chapel. Boileau the poet was buried amongst them — his remains after- wards removed to Saint-Germain-des-Pres — and amongst the famous tombs is that of the treasurer, Philippe de Rully, who died in 1400. THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 303 Old engravings of the building show an external stairway of forty-two steps, which mounted by a covered way to the upper chapel, though as we have said the proper entrance was through the palace. At present visitors mount by the tiny stone spiral, intended for the service, in the corner of the building near the entrance. From so unpropitious an entrance, climbing steeply, one arrives suddenly into the rear right- hand corner of the upper chapel. Perhaps the thing to do is to walk at once resolutely out upon the porch and give one's self the treat of coming upon the rich effect of the chapel as Saint-Louis saw it, coming from the palace, but this is some- thing I have scarcely ever had the courage to do. The interior so immediately grasps and holds one. I think on the whole that the effect is more in the spirit of the building when approached by means of this old medieeval stairway, this mere hatch- way, whence, debouching into the heart of the exalted chamber, dazzled by the pure transparency of the windows which gleam on all sides, enveloped in the violet radiance compounded of the dominant blue and red rays which pierce the glass, one thinks to one's self, in the words of Jean de Jandun, " rav- ished to the skies," " introduced into one of the most beautiful chambers of Paradise." 304 A LOITERER IN PARIS Never were windows more jewel-like than these. One seems to stand in a palace of rubies and sap- phires, the glass is so pure in colour, so brilliant in its perfect clarity. One is first struck by the immense extent of the windows which mount to the turn of the vaultings and are separated only by the piers. The edifice would seem to have but little solidity were it not for the vigorous tone of its glass and the firm, geometric design which give it a fictitious strength. Of these marvellous and magnificent windows which form the chief interest of the interior, there are fifteen — four, wide and high, fill as many bays each side of the big parallelogram, seven enclose its apse, the narrower bays unfolding in a half- circle like an open fan. These windows, mutilated during and after the Revolution, present a resto- ration, with original glass, so well done that Guilhermy assures us that Saint-Louis and Pierre de Montereau would find the splendour of their glass unchanged. As I write the task of remounting the windows, dismantled during the great war, has just been accomplished. As a rule statistics are boring and irrelevant, our purpose being appreciation pure and simple, but it means something, I think, to know that it took six weeks to take the windows THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 305 out and eight months to put them back. Last summer (1919) after the signing of peace, they, with many others, were exhibited at the Petit Palais. It was an opportunity that may never occur again to study them at close range and to become familiar with the processes of such expert work and the rarity of the ancient materials. Subjects barely decipherable in place were readily distinguishable and a wealth of faithful work was revealed. The series of windows begins with the first win- dow at the foot of the nave on the north side. Its ninety-one subjects cover the book of Genesis, depict the Creation, Adam and Eve, picture the first men, the Deluge, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the history of Joseph. Subjects from the Old Testament fill seven win- dows of the nave and four of the apse; the Gospel story is told in the remaining three windows of the apse; and the fifteenth Avindow, at the foot of the nave, on the south side, is devoted to a series of pictures which relate in careful detail the story of the Cross and the Crown of Thorns with their journey from Constantinople to Paris. This window, which for subject is most interest- ing, has sixty-seven panels, many containing rep- resentations of Saint-Louis, his brother Robert, 306 A LOITERER IN PARIS the comte d'Artois, and a queen, probably Blanche de Castille, figures many tunes. The drawings are the work of artists who certainly saw the re- ception of the relics and who traced the chief cir- cumstances which passed under their eyes. Who shall say that they may not be portraits of the principal characters as well? Each side of the nave, under the third windows, is a deep niche let into the wall, over which a figure of Christ in an attitude of benediction is surrounded by angels, bearing censers. These were places of honour reserved for the king, the queen, and the royal family. The oratory of the king is embellished with the fleur-de-lys; that of the queen with the towers of Castille. The altar (destroyed) was placed before the slender arcade which traverses the apse, somewhat in the manner of a rood-loft, but which, differing in intention, scarcely veils the sanctuary. Seven light, pointed arches are carried on fine, slender columns, embellished with glass mosaics and deco- rated with angels, gilded. The middle arch, wider than the others, supports a platform upon which rests the baldaquin of sculptured wood, where the relics of the chapel were exposed. The chasse, sparkling with jewels, thus dominated the whole chapel, and when, on solemn occasions, its panels THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 307 were partly opened to show the treasures of the tabernacle, it was like a radiant apparition of the celestial Jerusalem. Behind the arcade two spiral stairways in wood mount to the platform. That on the left is original. These, we are told, are the actual treads which Saint-Louis climbed piously to show to the people below the Crown of Thorns. The chasse containing the great relics was locked with three keys. The king confided one to the care of his grand chamberlain, another to the treasurer of the chapel, and the third was kept by his goldsmith. The treasurer was usually a personage of high distinction. He wore the mitre and the ring, and is named in different deeds as '^ le pape de la Sainte-Chapelle." Besides the treasurer the service of the chapel included a precentor, twelve canons, nineteen chaplains, and thirteen clerks. Volumes have been written about the treasures of the Sainte-Chapelle, with a brief for their authenticity. They included many curious things such as the robe worn by tlie infant Jesus which extended itself miraculously with his growth, the lance which pierced his side, one of the three nails, some blood of the Saviour, some milk from the Virgin, the rod of Moses. 308 A LOITERER IN PARIS After the death of Saint-Louis the skull of that monarch was added to the collection, incased in a handsome reliquary in gilded silver made by Guillaume Juliani. This reliquary consisted of a life-size bust of the king, supported by four angels, the base resting upon the backs of four lions, and embellished with twenty-eight royal figures with their names. The souvenir itself, without the reliquary, had belonged to the treasury of Saint- Denis, but Philippe le Bel obtained permission from the pope to transfer the head to the Sainte- Chapelle. At this loss the Benedictines of the abbey of Saint-Denis felt so aggrieved that the head was divided and the lower jaw left at Saint- Denis. The transference was made on the Tues- day after Ascension Day, in the year 1306, with extraordinary pomp. At the outbreak of the Revolution the chasse was sent to the mint to be melted into bullion, its rich jewels were cashed. Notre-Dame in the course of time received the sacred relics. The Bibliothcque Nationale was accorded the celebrated antique cameo of the apotheosis of Auguste, and the bust of the emperor Titus in agate, which sur- mounted the staff of the precentor. This bust had been metamorphosed into a likeness of Saint- Louis, by reason cf a certain inherent resemblance, THE SAIXTE-CHAPELLE 309 and thus, rejoices an old writer, the Roman em- peror assisted daily at the service of the Sainte- Chapelle, holding in one hand a little cross and in the other a crown of thorns. " Certes, Ve7n- pertur Titus ne s'y atteudoit pas! " The skull of Saint-Louis was never found. After the rites of consecration of a church the officiating priest traces on the walls or columns twelve crosses to be afterwards reproduced per- manently. To conserve the memory of the con- secration of the Sainte-Chapelle these crosses are carried by statues of the twelve apostles placed on consoles adjusted to the pillars. The fourth, fifth, and sixth statues on the north and the third, fourth, and fifth on the south side are originals. Executed in hard limestone, covered with orna- ments, painted and gilded in imitation of rich stuffs, set off by borderings of precious stones, these figures prove the strength of the sculptors of the Xlllth century and by their movement and animation and the eloquence of their draperies show a distinct awakening. The great rose window of Charles VIII fills the entire west wall of the chapel, and below it is an arcade with sculptures representing the mar- tyrdoms. The rose, done towards the end of the XVth 310 A LOITERER IN PARIS century, has not the hrillinncy nor vivacity of the other windows and suffers by comparison. In common with tlie masters of his epoch the unknown author sacrifices general effect to de- tail and instead of a vigorous mosaic he pro- duces a series of compositions which must be re- garded closely if all their delicacy is to be seized. He employs tertiary colours in charming shades which are dissipated by the passage of light through them. The seventy-nine subjects herein contained re- late to the Apocalypse, and are readily followed. The vision of Saint John is pictured with grace and charm which merits close examination in de- tail, for several of the pictures of which it is composed are little masterpieces of design and execution. There is no danger that the loiterer will miss seeing the grill set obliquely in the wall on the right-hand side of the upper chapel, built by Louis XI in order that he could hear mass and see the shrine without being exposed. No guide will permit this bit of history to be overlooked, nor the fact that below this little construction was a small oratory where Saint-Louis retired to hear the office recited in the lower chapel. THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 311 In the second bay on the left is a door which communicated with an external gallery. Noth- ing is left but a corridor to show for the three- story construction built by Montereau as an annex to the apse, which had the honour to house one of the first public libraries of Europe. Geoffroy de Beaulieu, counsellor, aumonier, and confessor of Saint-Louis, recounts that when the prince was in Palestine he heard of a Saracen sultan who searched out and had translated at his own expense books of all kinds which could be useful to the savants of his country, collecting them in his library where they could be consulted without difficulty. Saint-Louis with enthusiasm set about the estab- lishment of a similar library. He had copies made of the manuscripts of the different abbeys, and placed them in a room contiguous to the chapel. When the little collection was installed he placed it at the disposition of all those who wished to study, coming frequently himself, dur- ing his hours of leisure, to the library, where, find- ing sometimes beside him subjects whose educa- tion was inferior to his own, he translated for them from the Latin what they could not make out. The library occupied the upper story of this 312 A LOITERER IN PARIS annex, the rooms below serving as sacristies. This annex was suppressed in 1776, after the fire, and was sacrificed to the extension of the Palais. The sculptures of the upper porch are restora- tions. The Last Judgment is the subject of the tympanum and the central pier of the door sup- ports the figure of Christ. The absorbingly inter- esting features of the porch are the lozenge reliefs to the right and left of the portal, which represent with a delicious naivete on one side, God the Father creating the world, the sun, the moon, light, planets, animals, man, etc., and, on the other, the story of Genesis, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Ark, Noah's sacrifice, Noah's vine, etc. Immediately upon the outbreak of the Revolu- tion the Sainte-Chapelle was seized and made to serve as a club and later as a granary, then as a repository for the archives of the Palais. At this time the most unpardonable mutilations of the monument occurred when three metres of the windows were taken out in order to place the cases. Mutilated within and without, its painting and gilding worn off or obliterated or buried under mould, its sculpture broken, deprived of its spire, its gables, its pinnacles, balustrades, and steeples, the building was so far gone that it was long a THE SAINTE-CHAPELLE 313 question of demolition. Louis XVIII and Charles X had wished vainly to restore the chapel of their ancestors, and finally, in 1837, in the reign of Louis-Philippe, the long contemplated reconstruction was begun. The work was first confided to Duban, then Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc were added. After the execution of the most press- ing work Lassus carried the work to completion. The Louvre retains a beautiful statue in terra cotta by Germain Pilon, made for the Sainte- Chapelle during the Renaissance. It is a seated Virgin, the head veiled, the hands crossed, in an attitude of prayer. It still bears traces of a colouring that must have been in harmony with the chapel, though its style is of a so much later epoch. CHAPTER XV SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS The beauties of Saint-Denis are not to be grasped in a single visit. A preliminary trip, to take the keen edge off curiosity, followed by leisurely promenades, armed with a permission from the Beaux-Arts, which enables a visitor to prowl about without the annoyance of a guide, ^vill develop the amazing interest of the tombs. It is interesting to discriminate between the tombs built for the church, to cover the remains of royalties actually interred here, and that greater mass of recumbent figures, funeral stones, and monuments brought here from demolished churches after the disorders of the Revolution. The tombs have been arranged and rearranged many times, carried back and forth, mutilated and restored, until most of the sentiment concerning them has been lost and they seem to have little connection with the illustrious dead, so shamefully desecrated. The statues and monuments have now the air of exhibits in a museum. The Revolution, in permitting any of them to stand, after its first 314 SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 315 rage was appeased, expressly stipulated that it should he as works of art and not ohjects of pious veneration, and notwithstanding the regret of suc- ceeding generations for events which made this church the theatre of orgiastic revel and macahre festival, the spirit of the Revolutionary mandate has stood. Imj^ressive and glorious as are the tombs, even in their present arrangement, the imagination needs the spur of much reading-up of the subject if one is to feel the true import of the royal sepulchre in the face of actualities so strongly antipathetic. Great labels are affixed to each quiet, mediaeval effigy, rendering useless but not silencing the rigmarole of the guide; they stand out boldly against the exquisite sculpture, and to add to the disillusionment are alternated with similar placards inviting the public to refrain from various disgusting practices; and these with the elaborate fencings-off to keep one at bay, the intrusive guards with their unique preoccupation — the lavish pourhoirc — make a constant irritation which it is difficult to rise above. It is a thousand pities that it must be so. We must understand, of course, that what we see at Saint-Denis is only a part, though in truth the greater part, of the original marvellous collec- 316 A LOITERER IN PARIS tion of royal tombs, and that it has been greatly augmented by the numerous monuments brought here from the abbeys of Sainte-Genevieve, Saint- Germain-des-Pres, and Royaumont; from the con- vents of the Cordeliers, Jacobins, Celestins, and other religious orders, saved by the individual de- votion and energy of Alexandre Lenoir, a single private citizen, who removed them personally to the museum improvised in the convent of the Petits-Augustins for safe keeping during the Reign of Terror. The Revolution came down heavily upon Saint- Denis, as the sepulchre of that royalty which it had determined to extirpate. Much has been written of the orgies which accompanied the viola- tion of the royal tombs, of which not one was spared, every grave having been opened, every vault searched, every casket emptied, every body rifled. The thing was done with hellish thorough- ness, at first cursorily, for the mere pleasure of wanton destruction, then with diabolic system. During the seance of July 31, 1793, Barrere presented a report, in the name of the redoubtable " committee on public safety," recommending, in cele])ration of the anniversary of August 10, 1792, the day when the monarchy was overthrown, the annihilation of the " ostentatious mausoleums of SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 317 Saint-Denis," whose beauty constituted " a form of flattery to royal pride." The report was sanctioned by a decree of the National Convention, and the real fete appears to have been held, as ordered, on the anniversary of the storming of the Tuileries, when the cream of the statues and monuments was cleared out of the church, when the " powerful hand of the Re- public," to use Barrere's phrases, " effaced inex- orably the superb epitaphs and demolished the monuments which recalled the frightful souvenir of the kings." But time pressed and there was much similar work to be done, so it was not until after Lequinio addressed the national tribune, more than a month later, denouncing the faihn'e to execute the decree which ordered the entire demolition of the tombs of " our tyrants at Saint-Denis," that the job was finished. In the meantime some protests against the vandalism must have reached the ears of the directors, for, continues Lequinio, " without doubt in destroying these remains of despotism one should preserve the artistic monuments; but these, instead of being made objects of idolatry, must serve only to foster admiration and emulation of the genius of the artists." In October, 1793, the undertaking was put into 318 A LOITERER IN PARIS the hands of a commttee of conscientious persons who spared neither time nor pains to search every grave and every vault, overlooking nothing, and leaving a careful report of their proceedings made by a no less competent person than dom Poirier, the former keeper of the archives of Saint-Denis, and one of the dignitaries of the abbey. This old Benedictine has left a cold, colourless account of the affair, but one that has all the value and au- thenticity of a report made by an eyewitness. The document has of course immense historic value. The work began on October 12, 1793, and occu- pied exactly a month, proceeding as we have said with much system. As gold crowns, jewels, orna- ments, or whatever were discovered they were turned over to swell the national treasury; lead and bronze coffins were melted into arms and ammunition for defence — the nation " being in peril " — while the bodies of the kings, queens, princes, and princesses — the " tyrans, frappcs jusque dans leurs tomheaujc" — were thrown into trenches of quicklime and destroyed to the last vestige. On the first day the vault of the Bourbons was opened, in one of the chapels of the crypt, and the first casket withdrawn was that of Henri IV. SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 319 Dom Poirier notes the fact, adds the date of the king's death, INIay 16, 1610, and his age, 57 years, and then adds that the body was in excellent pres- ervation, his features perfectly recognizable, and that he was exposed to public view for two days, in the choir at the foot of the steps which lead up to the sanctuary. Lamartine has left a vivid picture of this gro- tesque fete during which the people raging upon the tombs seemed to exhume their own history and throw it to the winds. " The axe l)roke the bronze doors, the gift of Charlemagne to the basilica. Grills, roof, statues, all fell in debris under the hammer. They tore up the stones, violated the vaults, and broke open the caskets. A mocking curiosity scrutinized, under the shrouds and wrap- pings, the embalmed bodies, the dried flesh, the whitened bones, the empty skulls of kings, queens, princes, ministers, bishops, whose names had re- sounded in the past of France. Pepin, the founder of the Carlovingien dynasty and the father of Charlemagne, was nothing })ut a pinch of gray ashes which blew away in the wind. The mutilated heads of Turenne, Duguesclin, Louis XII, Fran- cois I, rolled upon the paving of the parvis. His- toric and religious emblems and attributes — sceptres, crowns, crosses, were trodden underfoot. 320 A LOITERER IN PARIS An immense trench lined with quicklime to con- smne the cadavers was opened in one of the exterior cemeteries, called the chnitiere des Valois. Perfumes burned in the subterranean passages to purify the air. After each blow of the axe were heard the acclamations of the grave diggers who, uncovering the remains of a king, played with his bones. . . ." " Henri IV, embalmed by the art of the Italians, conserved his historic physiognomy. His uncov- ered chest still showed the two wounds which cost him his life. His beard, perfumed and spread like a fan, as in his portraits, attested the care which this voluptuous king had for his person. His memory, dear to his people, protected him a mo- ment against profanation. During two days the crowd filed past this popular cadaver. Placed in the choir at the foot of the altar he received in death the respectful homage of these mutilators of royalty. Javogues, representing the people, was indignant at this posthumous superstition. He tried to show in a few words that this king, brave and amorous, had been rather the seducer than the servitor of his people. ' II a tro7n2)c,' said Javogues, ' Dieu, ses mnHr esses, et son peuple; qu'il lie l7'ompe pas la posterite et voire justice.' SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 321 They threw the cadaver of Henri IV into the common trench." His son, Louis XIII, and his grandson, Louis XIV, followed. Louis XIII was nothing more than a mummy, Louis XIV an unrecognizable black mass of aromatics. Louis XV was the last drawn from the vault of the Bourbons. This, as it happened, was at eleven o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, 16 October, 1793, at the moment that Marie-Antoinette lost her head. Dom Poirier notes the coincidence and remarks that the coffin of Louis XV occupied the niche at the entrance of the vault where it was customary to deposit the body of the last king while awaiting the arrival of his successor, when he was carried to his j)roper resting place in the vault. Louis XV died of small-pox and had lain some- thing short of twenty years in the vault of the Bourbons. His casket was opened on the edge of the trench in the cemetery. " The infection of his reign seemed to come out of his sepulchre," says Lamartine, and he was quickly thrown into the trench and covered with quicklime and earth, Avhile they burned powder and, says dom Poirier, fired a few shots from a gun to purify the air. Turenne's body, mutilated bv shots, was ven- 322 A LOITERER IN PARIS erated by the people. They stole it and it lay hidden for nine years at the Jardin des Plantes, amongst the remains of stuffed animals. Napo- leon gave him a military burial at the Invalides. But Duguesclin, Suger, Vendome, heroes, abbots, ministers of the monarchy, were precipitated pcle- mcle into the common trench. The monuments in metal were almost all melted down, although they included the precious recum- bent statues of Charles le Chauve, the tomb of Marguerite de Provence, the mausoleum of Charles VIII, and the effigy of the sire de Barbazan, signed by Morant. What Lenoir had saved from the holocaust he carted with enormous difficulty into Paris. The monastery of the Petits-Augustins, which had been founded in 1609, by Marguerite de Valois, the first and divorced wife of Henri IV, was chosen by the Constitutional Assembly at the moment of the suppression of monastic orders and the sale of religious houses, as a place of deposit for monu- ments otherwise without shelter, whose preserva- tion might present an interesting study of art or history. A special committee was charged to designate what works of painting and sculpture should be gathered up, and Alexandre Lenoir, an artist full SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 323 of zeal and devotion, who had pushed the measure through the Assembly, was commissioned to hunt up the monuments and to take charge of their transportation. As we know, he spared neither trouble nor fatigue, and several times risked his life for the menaced monuments. He received a bayonet stroke when he flung himself before the tomb of cardinal Richelieu (now at the Sorbonne) when the furious mob rushed upon it. The convent comprised within its enclosure a church, a cloister, two large courts, and an im- mense garden. The largest monuments and those of the more remote epochs were put in the church, and the others ranged according to their centuries were installed in a number of rooms decorated in the style of their period by means of frag- ments of architecture gathered up from the ruins of famous ])uildings, and contemporary stained glass. Chapels, sepulchres, columns, fountains, sarcophagi, containing the remains of illustrious personages stood about the garden, while entire facades brought from Anet, from Gaillon, and other chateaux came to be adjusted on the sides of the principal court, where some are still to be seen. But large and commodious as was this monas- tery, it was much too small to display all the 324 A LOITERER IN PARIS treasures poured into it, and a mass of debris was packed provisionally in the cellars. The opening of this Musee National des Petits- Augustins was the "15 fructidor, An. III." The grandeur of the ensemble made a profound impression upon the public, people began to de- plore the ruin of so many treasures of antiquity, and soon the tide turned against the iconoclasts of 1793. Lenoir's work served a double purpose and from it dates the revival of appreciation of the art of the Moyen Age. More than twelve hundred objects in all passed through the collection; some made only a short stop in the museum and were quickly restored to their original places. After the restoration of the cult the sacred images were almost all reinstated in the churches from which they had been taken. All that we most admire to-day at Saint-Denis, in the Louvre, in the rooms of French sculpture at Versailles, in many churches, first found refuge at the Petits-Augustins. A royal ordonnance of December, 1816, ordered the closing of the museum and the restitution of the exhibits at the government's expense. Either by indifference or parsimony the churches did not hurry their claims and many of the old families of France, whose chateaux had been ruined, SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 325 showed a similar negligence and failed to reclaim the tombs of their ancestors. Thus mausoleums of kings and princes were transported to Saint- Denis together with a mass of unrelated material, while the court of the Beaux- Arts, which institu- tion succeeded the museum in the reign of Louis XVIII, is still rich in historic souvenirs of this fateful time, precious fragments having been em- ployed in the decoration of the new buildings of the Ecole. Under Yiollet-le-Duc the tombs of Saint-Denis were arranged somewhat after the plan of their original disposition. Nothing indigenous to the cathedral is earlier than the time of Louis IX, who had many of the statues of his predecessors made at the time that he rebuilt the church. The famous tomb of Dagobert, usually attributed to Suger, is now generally accepted as a century too late in workmanship to have been done under his direction. Of the authentic antiquities we have the tomb of Clovis, brought from the destroyed abbey of Sainte-Genevieve; it lies at present in the left transept, one looks down upon it as one mounts the steps to the ambulatory, and beside it lies the funercil stone of Childebert, from Saint-Germain- des-Pres, of whose dignity and character we have 326 A LOITERER IN PARIS already spoken. The figure has a style and vivacity lacking in the heavier effigy of Clovis, and, holding in his right hand the apse of the church which he built, Childebert seems to point to it, with his sceptre, with a gesture full of regal authority. His draperies are well managed, so ar- ranged as to reveal his figure, the lines of which are indicated with masterly precision. The funeral stone of the intrepid Fredegonde, the most wicked of her race, also from Saint- Germain-des-Pres, occupies a sheltered position on the right-hand side of the sanctuary, an honour due to its great antiquity and its value as a work of art. The longer one examines this beautiful relic the more possible does it seem that it does indeed date from the epoch of the queen herself, which would place it as early as the beginning of the Vllth century and make it older by some five centuries than the statue of Clovis, made in the Xllth century, and otherwise the dean of the collection. No description yet written has done justice to it, no drawing suggests its venerable mystery. The stone mosaic is exceedingly fine and hard, while the expressive outlines in gilded copper, the elaborate embellishments of the robe and the border of the stone, indicate an affinity with the antiquities of Persia. DAGOBERT'S TOAIB. SAINT-DENIS. TO THE RIGHT THE VII TH CENTURY STATUE OF THE VIRGIN FROM SAINT- JIARTIN-DESCHAMPS. Photo A. Giraudon SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 329 The beautiful tomb of Dagobert, exiled upon its return to Saint-Denis to the porch of the nave, has been put back in its place of honour to the south of the high altar. Viollet-le-Duc has re- paired so far as was possible the vandalism of the architect of the restitution, and restored the tomb to its original form, that of an ogival chapel with a double face, graceful and elegant in shape and solidly constructed in sand-stone. When the monument was first brought back to Saint-Denis it was cut in two and its two faces set in opposing ends of the porch to balance one another as the tombs of Dagobert and his wife Nantilde. Dagobert died in the abbey of Saint-Denis, in 638, and his body, carefully embalmed, was in- terred in the church. We know nothing of the manner of the first tomb which covered the re- mains. The present monument has been re- mounted upon the original sarcophagus in gray marble, decorated with sixteen jleurs-de-lys, upon which lies a modern effigy of the king, supported on the two sides by modern statues of Nantilde and one of the two princes, probably Clovis II. The tall, pointed bay above the recumbent figure is filled with lively sculpture based upon the vision of a hermit, called John, and consid- ered in the IXth century as a veritable revela- 330 A LOITERER IN PARIS tion. The vision came to the hermit on the day of Dagobert's death. At this time John, sleep- ing in his hut, on the sea-coast, was approached in his dream by a man of imposing aspect — a bishop, some say Saint-Denis — who bade him rise quickly and pray for the soul of the king Dago- bert just dead. Scarcely had the hermit responded when he saw upon the sea the king maltreated by a group of demons who had tied him in a barque, and were conducting him to the cave of Vulcan. In the relief the soul of Dagobert is represented as a nude figure, wearing a crown. Dagobert in his distress invokes the assistance of Saint-Denis, Saint-Maurice, and Saint-Martin, whom he had particularly loved, and the three saints, in the midst of a mighty tempest, rush at once to rescue the soul of the king from the demons. The bay is divided into three panels. The first represents the hermit asleep in his cave with the bishop bending over him. An oak tree separates this picture from the rest, in which we see Dago- bert standing in the boat upon the waves, receiving a flogging from the hands of the devils, while others row and push and pull the boat towards Vulcan's cave. The second panel shows the demons frustrated while Dagobert is received by SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 331 the saints accompanied by angels with censers. In the third panel the three saints hold Dagobert upon a sheet by which they lift him to celestial spheres, while the hand of God appears through a cloud surrounded by angels. The sculpture is crisp and full of vivacity, and except for the three modern figures the monument is one of the handsomest of its epoch. Close by this tomb is the seated figure of the Virgin with the Christ upon her knees, from the church of Saint-]Martin-des-Champs. The statue is in wood and we see traces of painting upon it. Its character is unusual and its antiquity con- vincing. Its epoch is unknown, but Lenoir, who saved it and who mentions it in the catalogue of his museum, thinks it may be as early as 600. Amongst the many recumbent figures that of the Countess INIarguerite d'Artois is considered a fine example of grace and elegance of the Moyen Age; " le XIV^ siecle na jamais He'mieux inspire, et 71 a jamais produit une plus ravissante statue de femme," was Guilhermy's verdict. The effigy lies side by side with that of Louis, comte d'Artois, son of Philippe le Hardi, buried in the church of the Jacobins in Paris, and the statues came to Saint-Denis by the usual route. That the two statues are not by the same hand 332 A LOITERER IN PARIS is evident; there is a dulness about that of the count, as in many of these recumbent figures, made from memory or data after death. But the effisv of Marguerite has none of that perfunc- toriness; the sculptor has been moved by his sub- ject and presents the woman as she must have been in hfe, yet with all the mystery of death. Not only is the face, partially enveloped in its veils, an exquisite bit of modelhng, not only is the charming form revealed with the most perfect art, though these are the essential points, her very clothes express the fineness and charm of this woman and the love which the sculptor put into his work. She rests in a simple pose, the hands joined as if in prayer. The chin is supported in a veil which, carried to the brim of the coif, falls aw-ain in straii^ht lines to her shoulders. The coif bears a discreet coronet and under this a few locks of hair soften the face. The robe is very plain across the chest but falls in ample folds about the feet; one cannot too much admire the art with which the sculptor has handled this sumptuous drapery. At her feet two sprightly little dogs play upon a tuft of oak leaves. The three great monuments of Saint-Denis are the Renaissance tombs of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, rran9ois I and Claude de France, EECUMBENT FIGURES OF LOUIS AND IIAKGUERITE D'ARTOIS. KAIM-UENIS AFTER A PEN DRAWING. Photo A. Giraudan riioto A. Giruudon TOMB OF I.OUIS XII AND ANXE Dli IJUIOTAGNP:. BY JEAN JUSTE OF TOUKS. SAINT-DEMS. DETAIL FROM THE TOMB OF FRAXgOIS I AND CLAUDE DE FRANCE AT SAINT-DENIS. Photo X SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 835 and Henri II and Catherine de Medicis. With these three magnificent monuments, made for the cathedral, may be classed the tomb of the House of Orleans and the column of Fran9ois II brought from the Church of the Celestins; the column of Henri III from Saint-Cloud; the urn made to contain the heart of Francois I, from the abbey of Hautes-Bruyeres, and the sumptuous effigies of Henri II and Catherine de ]\Iedicis by Germain Pilon, from the estate of the sculptor. In these monuments we may trace the birth of French Renaissance from its roots, in the art of Italy, until its ultimate fruition under Francois I and Henri II in the work of such a glorious group as the sculptors Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, Pierre Bontemps and the celebrated architect, Philibert Delorme, Examining these monuments in chronological order the first to command attention is the elabo- rate and beautiful tomb erected by Louis XII, the son of Charles, due d'Orleans, to his grand- parents, Louis de France and Valentine de Milan, to his father, and to his uncle, Philippe comte de Vertus. In addition to its artistic importance this monument is of great historic value as immortaliz- ing the memory of the Orleans from whom were descended the great kings of the period of French 336 A LOITERER IN PARIS Renaissance, for from Louis XII onward we pass to a time of rich artistic development, shown as well in sculpture as in architecture, not only in Paris but better preserved in the chateaux of France. Louis IX was a builder, he has left us at least one great masterpiece — the Sainte-Chapelle. After him Charles V figures brilliantly as a builder of royal residences — it was he who erected the Hotel Saint-Pol, and it was he who first adopted the Louvre as a royal residence. Now Louis, due d'Orleans, was the second son of Charles V. He built the chateaux of Pierrefonds and la Ferte- Milon. His history was full of incident and ended in tragedy. While his brother, Charles VI, occu- pied the throne of France, Louis, due d'Orleans, iachoit de desennuyer the queen, Isabeau de Baviere, in her house in the Marais, the Hotel Barbette. On the evening of November 23, 1407, while Queen Isabeau, magnificently gowned and wear- ing a headdress en comes merveilleuses, liautcs et longues enchasses de pierries, was dining inti- mately with her brother-in-law, a royal valet entered and announced that the king desired the duke to come to him at once as he wished to speak to him on matters of utmost importance. The SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 337 queen was full of fears, but the duke smis chaperon apres avoir mis sa houppelande de damas noir fourre, hurried out, playing with his glove as he went, and mounted his mule, accompanied by two squires mounted on the same horse, a page, and three running footmen with torches. Raoul d'Octouville, former treasurer, who had been dis- missed from his post by the duke, was waiting in the shadow, accompanied by seventeen armed men, and instantly rushed upon him with cries of '' A mort! a mort! " By the first blow of his axe Raoul d'Octouville cut off the hand with which the duke guided his mule, a second blow split his head. The duke cried vainly, " Je suis le due d'Orlcans " ; no help was proffered and he soon tottered and fell. One of his servants fell upon the prostrate body and was killed on the sj^ot. As the death was accomplished a hooded figure emerged from the neighbouring Hotel Notre-Dame, and cried: "Extinguish your lights and escape." At the funeral of the duke the next day in his chapel at the Celestins the same figure was recognized; it was the due de Bourgogne, Louis's first cousin. The body of the due d'Orleans reposed, without a monument, under the altar of the chapel at the Celestins, which he had founded and richly en- 338 A LOITERER IN PARIS dowed, until his grandson, Louis XII, in 1504, erected the superb mausoleum, of which what we see at Saint-Denis is the reassemblage. This tomb stood in the centre of the Ckapelle d'Orleans, sur- rounded by a number of other funeral monuments, forming in their ensemble one of the most precious museums of the world. These included the statue of the admiral Philippe de Chabot, by Jean Cousin; the group of the Three Graces (the urn which they support intended to contain the heart of Henri II), the work of Germain Pilon; the columns of Anne de Montmorency, of Francois II, and of Timoleon de Brissac; the Longueville obelisk, chiselled with reliefs and surrounded by statues; the tomb of Rene d'Orleans, of which Saint-Denis treasures the fragments, and that of Henri, due de Rohan, sculptured by Michel Anguier. The dispersal of this sculpture and the destruction of the chapel which enclosed it were among the most wanton acts of vandalism of the past century. The whole was sacrificed to the cutting through of the Boulevard Henri IV in 1847-48. The convent of the Celestins was founded by Charles V, who laid the corner-stone in 1365. This stone is now at the Musee de Cluny. Charles V and his son loaded the foundation with SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 339 riches, and after the abbey church of Saint-Denis none other in France was so rich in wonderful monuments to the ilkistrious dead. Of the identity of the sculptor who achieved the noble tomb of the House of Orleans, nothing is known. It antedates the tomb of Louis XII by about fifteen years, but since its style is even more advanced than that of the later monument it has been thought that Louis XII commissioned some able Italian sculptor to design and model it. The design is original and logical. Upon a large, square platform supported by short columns between which are niches with figures of apostles and martyrs, lie the effigies of the brothers, Charles and Philippe. Between these stands a sar- cophagus upon which lie the recumbent figures of the grandparents, Louis and Valentine. Charles, due d'Orleans, the father of Louis XII, was the poet who languished a prisoner at Windsor for twenty-five years after the battle of Agincourt. All four statues show the ablest of sculpture and much charm of historic detail; that of Charles, except for the hands, which are restored, is of unusual beauty and elegance. At his feet the little porcupine, cut with spirit and full of character, recalls the order founded by Charles d'Orleans, of which this little animal was 340 A LOITERER IN PARIS the emblem. It figures frequently upon the monu- ments of his son Louis XII. The Orleans monument undoubtedly inspired a style of which the magnificent tomb of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne was the development, and the still more sumptuous tombs of Francois I and Henri II the arrival. It was Franc^ois I, the suc- cessor of Louis XII, who erected, at Saint-Denis, this handsome mausoleum to his father-in-law. (Francois I married Claude de France, daughter of Louis XII.) Its authorship, after much un- certainty, has been established and Jean Juste, of Tours, sculptor-in-ordinary to the king, is credited with the work, aided by his brother Antoine. These two sculptors, locally famous in the be- ginning of the Renaissance, worked for the car- dinal dAmboise upon the sculptures of the chateau de Gaillon and have left, in the cathedral of Tours, a charming souvenir of their talent in the tomb of the children of Charles VIII and Anne de Bretagne. The little boy and girl lie side by side on a slab of black marble, and two pairs of small kneeling angels, at their heads and their feet, watch over them. The tomb is embossed with symbolic dolphins and exquisite arabesques. So little is definitely known of these early sculptors that one can only conjecture. The SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMES 341 Justes are thought to have been of Florentine origin (Giusto) and the monument in the details of its sculpture shows strongly the influence of the Italian Renaissance, as well as reminiscences of the antique. Its architecture, however, shows the superiority of the French architecture of the j)eriod. The tomb is in the form of a sizable edifice, in the style of a temple, open on the four sides, and covered by a roof. Within the edifice is the sarcophagus, upon which lie the effigies of the king and queen, entirely nude; while upon the roof, or platform raised upon twelve arches, are kneeling statues of the pair in ceremonial robes. The twelve arches are divided by sixteen pilasters, the two faces entirely covered with arabesques of exquisite chiselling and worthy of thorough exam- ination. Amongst vases and horns of abundance, leafage, heads of angels, winged figures, griffons, serpents, swans, sphinxes, birds, bulls' heads, in- struments of music, arms and funereal attributes, one deciphers the monogram of Louis and Aime, the arms of France, and the salamander of Francois I. Under each of the twelve bays formed by the arcade is seated the statue of an apostle, very much restored from the mutilations of the Revo- 342 A LOITERER IN PARIS lution; and at the angles sit the four cardinal vir- tues, readily recognized by their ordinary symbols. Between these figures the base of the monument is decorated with four bas-reliefs, the subjects drawn from the history of the wars of Louis XII in Italy, worked out with considerable fidelity to fact, and extremely beautiful in their surfaces, modelled w^ith great fluency. One can see here influences, perfected in the reliefs upon the monu- ment to Henri II, which have spread to our own day. The arcade carries a platform, under which is the ceiling of the mortuary chamber, a ceiling in handsome caissons, ornamented each with a dif- ferent rose. This shelters the sarcophagus upon which lie the forms, rigid as in death, of Louis XII and his consort, Anne of Brittany, done with much realism. The king's face presents the pain- ful alterations characteristic of dead faces, the con- traction of the lips, the prominence of the bones, the dryness of the flesh. The queen, her head thrown back upon her pillow, keeps more grace and charm. The figures posed upon the top of the monu- ment kneel on cushions before pric-Dieu. Each wears the ermine mantle of royalty and the two SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 343 statues are considered to have been faithful por- traits. The tomb of Fran9ois I, which forms a more than worthy companion monument to that of Louis XII, stands on the opposite side of the cathedral, and of the three similar Renaissance tombs is the largest and most elaborate. Its architect was Philibert Delorme, the royal effigies have been attributed to Jean Goujon, the reliefs to Pierre Bontemps, and the other sculptural de- tails to Germain Pilon, Ambroise Perret, Jacques Chantrel, Pierre Bigoine, Bastien Galles, and Jean de Bourges. Thus the monument combines the work of the most illustrious group of sculptors of the French Renaissance, directed by the cele- brated architect of the Tuileries. The general disposition of the monument cor- responds to that of its prototype and its details are even richer and more splendid. The base is ornamented with a similar relief, in four panels, representing the military achievement of Francois I, including the campaign of Marignan in twenty- one reliefs, the triumphal entry of Francois into INIilan, the Battle of Cerisoles with the events which preceded it and those which followed. These panels in very low relief, containing a mul- M4> A LOITERER IN PARIS titiide of figures, are extraordinary in their elo- quent flatness. They have the quahty of paintings. A vaulted chamber, the ceiling in caissons, rounded, like a canopy, occupies the principal part of the monument, and contains the two sarcophagi, upon which, side by side, lie the nude figures of the king and his consort. The XVI th century has produced no more noble sculpture than these impressive, naturalistic figures, worthy in- deed of their supposed author, Jean Goujon. Francois I is represented in all the majesty of death, the head nobly conceived, the body modelled with great distinction and elegance. Beside him the sculptor has carved a more tender, subtle figure of Claude de France, who died in the flower of her youth (at twenty-five years, in 1524). Five figures, kneeling upon the platform which covers the tomb, represent the king and queen in ceremonial robes, the dauphin Fran9ois, Charles, due d'Orleans, and Charlotte de France, who died at eight years. The king and queen kneel before prie-Dieu ornamented with their initials, F and C, under crowns. The dauphin and the due d'Orleans are the work of Pierre Bontemps. Immediately behind this monument stands the magnificent marble urn brought here after the Revolution and made for the abbey of Hautes- SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 345 Bruyeres, by Pierre Bontemps. Fran9ois I died at the chateau of Rambouillet and, according to the custom, his heart and intestines were taken to the abbey of Hautes-Bruyeres, which is near Ram- bouillet, the intestines buried and the heart placed in a cliasse, upon a column of alabaster. The vase with its pedestal was saved by Alexandre Lenoir, and is considered one of the most remarkable works of renaissance sculpture. The tomb of Henri II and Catherine de INIedicis, which to the writer has always appealed as the ripest and richest of the Renaissance tombs under consideration, is the work of one hand. Germain Pilon designed it and directed its execution, him- self making the most important parts. The tomb was designed to stand isolated in a chapel of its own constructed by Philibert De- lorme under the direction of Catherine de Medicis. It was removed to the north transept of the cathedral in 1719, when the chapelle des Valois was destroyed. . Following the type of the Louis XII tomb, the monument contains kneeling figures of the king and queen upon its roof, while underneath the nude forms of the same lie upon their shrouds in attitudes of sleep rather than death. By the time that this statue was made every trace of 346 A LOITERER IN PARIS Gothic feeling had died out. In the effigy of Louis XII, full of the horror of death, we feel still something of the Gothic spirit which dwelt upon the ugly facts, the punishments, and supersti- tions of the faith. But with the accomplishment of the Renaissance all was beauty, and Germain Pilon, who was the most suave of the sculptors of his epoch, has robbed death of all sting. The king is modelled with extraordinary skill and grace. The figure sleeps peacefully upon the bed of death free from all trace of suffering or terror, the head thrown back upon the cushion which suj^ports it, in an attitude full of charm and nobility. The young queen, in a pose almost voluptuous, slumbers beside him. Pilon represents her as she was when Henri II was killed, though she survived him thirty years. This is one of the loveliest nudes in existence. What is so surprising and so admirable in these two figures especially, though it is scarcely less true of the nudes upon the other two tombs, is the dignity of these un- draped figures; though deprived of every insignia of royalty, thej^ are none the less essentially ma- jestic and regal. Catherine, like her successor and khiswoman, Marie de Medicis, knew how to direct an artist and was keenly alive to the importance of leaving Photo A. Oiraudon KECLINING STATUES OF HENBI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. BY GERMAIN PH-ON. FROM THEIR TOMB AT SAINT-DENIS. THE UEN MADE TO CONTAIN THE HEART OF FBANgOIS I. FROM THE ABBEY OF UAUTES-BRUYERES. BY PIERRE BONTEMPS. NOW AT SAINT-DENIS. Photo X Photo X RECU>fBENT FIGURES OF HEXRI II AND CATHERIXE DE MEDICIS. BY GERMAIN PILOX. IN THE CATHEDRAI- OF SAI.M DEM8 Photo A. Oiraudon DETAILS FROM THE TOMB OF HENRI II AND CATHERINE DE MEDICIS AT SAINT-DENIS. FBOM CAST IN THE TROCADERO. Photo A. Oiraudon SAINT-UENIS: THE TOMBS 349 behind her, as she wished her name to live, works of art and architecture whose superiority alone would make them, and her as the subject, im- mortal. How wise they were, these daughters of the Florentine merchant princes. Marie de Medicis insured the immortality of her name through the Rubens paintings of her life. Cath- erine no doubt thought to create, in the Chapelle des Valois, with this tomb and incidentally herself as the central interest, a marvel which would com- pare with the famous tomb of her ancestors at San Lorenzo. Though frustrated of her full desire, Catherine would live through the ])eauty of this figure of Pilon's alone, and in this sumptuous tomb, and the magnificent chapel designed to contain it, we feel the pride of race, the projection of an ego centuries beyond the grave. The crypt of Saint-Denis has suffered many modifications. Originally it consisted of a central part (corresponding to the sanctuary of the upper church), of an ambulatory, and seven chapels. In it are still two columns of JDink marble with white marble capitals, cut after the antique traditions, Avhich date from the church of Charlemagne, if not from that of Dagobert. The central part, now altogether walled up and 350 A LOITERER IN PARIS inaccessible to the public, was the sepulchre of the three holy martyrs and contained the relics of the abbey. As a sanctuary it seems to have been abandoned at an early epoch, and since the XVIth century no religious ceremonies have been held there. In the XVI Ith century it became the Royal Vault. Previous to Henri IV the kings and queens and others buried at Saint-Denis reposed in the sarcophagi which constituted their tombs. Henri II, Catherine, and their three sons, Francois II, Charles IX, and Henri III were laid in the Chapelle des Valois. On the day of the inter- ment of a sovereign it was customary to place the body of the deceased king provisionally in the ceremonial vault, under the south transept, and here it lay, in state, upon a grill before a marble statue of the Virgin, for one year, during which the permanent resting place, chosen by the de- ceased, was prepared. At the end of the year the body was carried to its final tomb. Henri IV was the first king of the House of Bourbon; he began a new line. When he died his body was put in the usual place in the cere- monial vault, but as he himself had chosen no sepulchre and INIarie de Medicis took no action in the matter and he could not be laid in the SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 851 Cliapelle des Valois, since it belonged to another branch of royalty, his body was allowed to remain in the receiving vault, and as his descendants died it became the custom to place their caskets there. This tomb, however, was small, so upon the death of jNIarie-Therese, Louis XIV ordered an enlargement. This enlargement consisted merely of oj^ening a narrow passage between the cere- monial chamber and the old sanctuary of the crypt. Marie-Therese died on July 30, 1683, and the new sepulchre was blessed on the last day of the following month, and was thereafter known as the Royal Vault. The access to the Royal Vault was by a stone stairway, under the transept, which communi- cated with the ceremonial vault from which the new chamber was reached by means of a long, narrow, and crooked passage. As soon as the new vault was ready all the caskets of the Bour- bons were transferred to it except that of Louis XIII, the last king dead, who was left on the last step of the stairway, where he was to wait until the next king should take his place. This, then, became the custom, and was followed in the burials of Louis XIV and Louis XV. This last monarch was still in his place upon the steps when the Revolution broke. 352 A LOITERER IN PARIS The hasty rage of the Revolutionists could not brook the inconvenience of the ordinary entrance to the Royal Vault when it came to carrying out the bodies of the despised monarchs. In order to facilitate and expedite matters the authorities broke into the wall of the larger vault, from the other end, between the two columns opposite the end chapel of the crypt. This accounts for the fact, already noted, that Henri IV was the first king taken out and Louis XV the last. Napoleon repaired the Bourbon vault for the reception of the imperial family, making the en- trance where the violators of 1793 had effected their entrv. When the Bourbons regained the throne this opening, through which had passed in violence all their illustrious ancestors, was walled up and the entrance restored as originally in the south transept, through the ceremonial vault. The opening still exists, covered by three stones, under which the stone stairway leads down, com- posed of fourteen steps. At the foot of the steps, on the right, reposes, upon a heavy iron grill, the body of Louis XVIII, the last king interred in Saint-Denis. An old account describes the casket, covered with a black velvet cloth, bearing a silver cross, while above a vase of copper holds the SAINT-DENIS: THE TOMBS 353 entrails. Thus Louis XVIII awaits upon the steps of the ceremonial chamber a successor who never replaced him. Rich still in tombs, Saint-Denis contains only a pitiful handful of royal remains, walled up in the Royal Vault. Two caskets enclose what was thought to be the remains of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, gathered up from the Cimi- tiere de la Madeleine, where their mutilated corpses were thrown into a deep trench between beds of quicklime. Opposite them in other coffins, rest Victoire and Adelaide de France, the two princesses who died in exile, and Charles-Ferdinand dArtois, due de Berry, who fell under the sword. Beside their murdered father in two tiny coffins, like cradles, lie two poor children who lived only a few hours. One of them. Mademoiselle d'Artois, was destined to become a princess. The last of the Bourbons, Charles X and his son, died in exile and were buried on foreign soil. Louis-Philippe and the two Napoleons were not more fortunate. At the back of the Royal Vault is a little stone arvioire supported on two antique colonnettes. This contains some supposed remnants of the bodies of Henri IV and INIarie de ^Sledicis and of Louis XIV; two hearts from the old Jesuit 354 A LOITERER IN PARIS church of Saint-Louis, in the Marais, considered to be those of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, and some unidentified bones. These remains, enclosed in enamelled lead boxes, were deposited in July, 1846. Some bones, found in 1817, in the trenches of the Cour de Valois, where the Revolutionists threw the despoiled corpses of their kings, have been added to them. CHAPTER XVI RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I Gothic art had scarcely reached its zenith when, exhausted, as it were, by its great flower- ing, it began to cast an eye upon Italy, where the Renaissance had been in progress for a century, and to submit itself in part to this warm, ex- pansive influence. There was undoubtedly more than the exhaus- tion of the Gothic theme to account for the change which came gradually over the face of things. The religious movement of which Gothic art was born had also, with Saint-Louis and the glorious enshrinement of the relics of the Pas- sion, reached its climax and a decline was slowly setting in. Little by little the love of ideal beauty, which the austerity of the early Chris- tians had banished as pagan in feeling, was creep- ing back with the riches and luxuries of the court, of the ecclesiastics, and of the church itself. We have only to compare the bald simplicity of the Gothic statues of Saint-Denis, affixed to the portails of Notre-Dame and of the saint's 355 356 A LOITERER IN PARIS cathedral, the spirituality of the various paintings of the hisliop of the XVth century, with that smooth prelate from Sarazin's chisel, from the royal abbey of Montmartre, to see how tastes in martyrs had changed with the lapse of centuries. Gothic sculpture was kept strictly to its mis- sion — to its mission architectural as well as spiritual. Essentially monumental in c.iaracter, these Madonnas, Christs, Saints, and Apostles, with their unworldly expression, their simple yet significant gestures, tlieir naif symbols, are as marvellously adapted to the architecture of which they are a part as to the understanding of the unlettered public who read in them all the essen- tials of the Holy Writ. Clinging close to the constructive line the angels and devices of the voussoirs and consoles, niches and stylobates, seem, even when most elaborate and fantastic, but the natural flowering of the forms they ornament but whose contour they never disturb. The sculptors of the "Death of the Virgin," in the apse of Notre-Dame, of the figures on the facade of Chartres, of the " Beau Dieu " of Amiens knew none but arbitrary limitations to their genius and could have advanced to the most transcendent forms of ideal beauty and even to the frankest study of the nude, had that been Photo A. Giraudon FRANCOIS I A CHEVAL. BY FRANCOIS CLOUET, I,OUVRK. Photo A. Giraudon FRANQOIS I. BY JEAJS'XET CLOUET. LOUVKE. p,;^|pK^r^ Photo A. Oiraudon FRANCOIS I. BRONZE BUST. AXO:^YMOUS. LOUVRE. RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 359 the purpose of their time; but, says the Marquis de Laborde, " the desire then was for typical forms of searching truth, suffering and mystic in aspect, chid with tlie conventual shyness that was the fashion of the time." Standing, in point of time, between the opu- lent works of the antique and the voluptuous beauty of the Renaissance, these archaic figures draw apart, unrelated to either, and are not readily understood by those who approach them from any other than a direct standpoint. One must lose one's self in contemplating them before they will begin to speak; then the fascination of their simplicity, the pure directness of their mes- sage, unclouded by any sophistry, seems to carry them beyond the achievement of anj^ other age. As the French Renaissance, in its debut, cast many a regretful look behind, hesitated to cast off the worn Gothic raiment until sure of a worthy garment to replace it, so do we part with re- luctance from so sweet a tradition. One thinks of such quiet cities as Rouen, Amiens, Beauvais, Chartres, Le Mans, Auxerre, Autun, Bourges, and the immortal Rheims as presided over each by its great Gothic flower. One seems to see them, with that inward eye, standing stalwart, though venerable, reaching their spires, their 360 A LOITERER IN PARIS towers, heavenward with a determination to lift humanity by the sheer force of architectural im- pulse to supramundane thoughts and lives. Their vastness, from the distant approach, is overwhelming; whole towns are swallowed in their shadows, the landscape itself is dwarfed by the magnitude of their proportions. The sun seems to shine but to throw into relief the thrill- ing passages of these cathedrals, so indigenous to the soil, so truly born of the great movement of Christianity across the heart of France. Not again in our loiterings shall we encounter such pure epics in stone. As the Gothic movement found its expression in churches and in spiritual revelations, so the Renaissance displayed its charms in civil archi- tecture; as Gothic architecture and sculpture glorified God, so Renaissance art and architecture glorified man ; and so leaving the great cathedrals of France we must turn now to the famous chateaux and palaces, for the ego is developing rapidly and temporal things are the order of the day. It was at about the end of the XVth century and at the beginning of the XVIth century that Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francois I, aware and envious of what was being done in Italy, REXAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 361 attracted to their courts certain distinguished architects from Lombardy and Florence; while at the same time French art came rapidly under the influence of the Renaissance. At first the transition, working tentatively, was quite obvious; French architecture merely bor- rowed something from the Italians, while holding to the native construction and disposition of the ensemble, producing in the XVIth century a style full of character and peculiar to France. The form of the old French chateau was retained long after its round towers, built for defence, had ceased to function, while the Gothic survived in the general details of decoration. But little by little the round towers gave way to square pa- vilions and every decorative element even re- motely deri^^ed from the ogival family disap- peared. Though entered upon the path of imitation the French architect knew how to keep an orig- inal face, which was the more meritorious since the Italian colony installed at Fontainebleau ex- ercised a considerable influence; and at this junc- ture France produced some valiant architects such as Pierre Lescot, Jean Bullant, and Philibert Delorme, who built the more renowned portions of the Louvre and the Tuileries, and whose 362 A LOITERER IN PARIS genius was sufficient to counterbalance the Italian influences which appear in their work. So handsome are the works of this epoch that the mind is diverted from the dangers of the classic revival, which two centuries later was to inflict even Paris with those slavish imitations of Greek and Roman temples adapted to all sorts of irrelevant buildings. For the moment the transi- tion produced that " fine and delicate marvel of French art," the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, built between 1517 and 1626, which has been well described as a Gothic church disguised in the trappings of classical details. " L'art reli- gieux vient mourir daris Saint-Etieime-du-Mont" said Henri Martin, and if this be true its last moments are of a transcendent loveliness. The west facade of the court of the Louvre is considered one of the finest bits of Renaissance of the period of Francois I, and in the Luxem- bourg Palace, built by Marie de Medicis, at the height of the movement, we see with how little slavery to his model— the Pitti Palace — Salomon de Brosses, the architect of the dowager queen, adapted its general physiognomy while subordi- nating it to the current French traditions and the demands of the French climate. We have already seen, at Saint-Denis, the RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 363 Italian influence as well as the Italian hand itself at work upon the beautiful Renaissance tombs. The sculpture of this period in France, like the civil architecture, had an original and charming character. Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, Pierre Bontemjis, Barthelemy Prieur, Jean Cousin, in submitting to the influence of the antique, kept nevertheless to a quality fundamentally French. In painting, however, the Italian tradition was disastrous to that delicate French art which had scarcely begun to bloom in the revealing portraits of Jean and Jehannet Clouet and Jean Fouquet. Primaticcio and Rosso, established at Fontaine- bleau, discredited completely these old masters of the XVth century, and though the XVIIIth cen- tury gave France some independent talents — Watteau, Chardin, Greuze, La Tour — the style which these two autocratic Italians imposed lay heavy upon native painters, and they dragged along in imitation and pastiche until the birth of the Romantic school delivered them from the Italian tradition. To feel the full swmg of the movement there is nothing more exhilarating than to take, at this juncture, the famous tour of the chateaux of the Loire, for while Paris itself is not particularly convincing upon the subject of the Renaissance, 364 A LOITERER IN PARIS to visit Touraine is to get at the very heart of the matter, to see the Renaissance draw its first breath at Chambord and rise to its finest heights at Blois or Chenonceau; to dig back into its ancestry at Plessis, to witness its conception at Amboise, to be carried to its purest expression at Azay-le-Rideau, to bathe one's self, in fine, in all the richness of French history, to take in once and for all that fact so freely overlooked bv the casual tourist that though France may be Paris, Paris is not France. In these mediaeval strongholds we see strange metamorphoses — feudal castles changing into pleasure palaces for kings' mistresses; dungeons, keeps, moats standing as mute souvenirs of dra- matic intensity, or, " renovated in the renaissance style," mocking at former horrors; great round towers attached from mere force of habit to build- ings erected after the days of defence, to buildings which proclaim their peaceful character in multi- tudinous embroideries and cupolas. All the pleasures, the griefs, the vanities, the sorrows, the jealousies, the wickedness, the follies, the ignominies of all the French princes from Louis XI to Henry V are enacted here. Here kings were born and died; here queens passed painful periods of mourning or dreary months of banish- REXAISSAXCE: FRANCOIS I 365 ment; here, at Amhoise, Francois I passed much of his hectic youth, with his ambitious mother, waiting for the throne of France, while Anne of Brittany in the royal chateau, but a few miles distant, tried desperately to give Louis XII an heir. The history of the chateau of Blois in the XVIth century is to a great extent the history of the whole of France. Chenonceau, Henri II's princely gift to Diane de Poitiers, is eloquent of the struggle for supremacy between the king's favourite and the queen. Catherine triumphs in the end, snatching the chateau from her rival upon the death of the sovereign, completing, with strange indifference to sentiment, constructions conceived by Diane, and stamping the royal mono- gram over the slender device of the favourite as though to take to herself by brutal force all memory of her lord's romantic passion. The chtiteau of Chambord is one of the most curious products of the epoch of reluctant detach- ment from the purely French form. The archi- tect, who was said to be Primaticcio, but w^ho is now thought to have been a French master of distinction, if obscurity, tried to fuse together in this edifice the fortified castle of the Moyen Age with the pleasure palace of the Renaissance. In the result there is nothing Italian, either in 366 A LOITERER IN PARIS thought or form. The exterior of this splendid dwelling presents to the hewildered eye a multi- tude of conical summits, terminating in lanthorns, rising on prodigious round towers, of dormer windows in stone, of belfries, of immense chim- neys richly sculptured and incrusted with slates, a forest of points, the last pinnacle tipped with a huge stone fleur-de-lys — the only one that es- caped the Revolution — and the salamander of Fran9ois I the otherwise constant motive. With all its fabulous extravagance of extrava- gance, so closely does it cling to the type of the old French chateau that one takes it to be the nearest thing, from many points of view, to that old historic Louvre, of which we read so much, and whose foundations, still partly buried under the west wing, are traced upon the paving of the inner court. As at Chambord the castle is in the form of a larger structure enclosing a smaller one, so the old Louvre formed a large square about a court in whose middle rose a big tower which served as dungeon to the chateau. As at Chambord the great central tower of the court seems to fling its shadow over the whole place, so we read that Francois I began his reconstruction of the old Louvre by the demolition of tlie grosse tour of RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 367 Philippe Auguste, because it made the palace dark and gave it the look of a prison. There is no doubt that one gets one's bearings best by seeing first Chambord and the older chateaux of the Loire. With these in mind the plan traced upon the court of the Louvre becomes perfectly explicit. These lines, done in white marble and in gres, outline with exact accuracy the foundations of the fortress of Philippe Auguste, with its towers, its quadrangle, and all its interior arrangement laid bare in 1866, by the excavations undertaken by the municipality. During several months, at this time, Paris could see this exhumation of an epoch so remote, and read in the half-opened earth one of the most curious pages of its history. About one thousand cubic metres of this sub- structure were uncovered. The Louvre, as we see it to-day, comprises a vast agglomeration of more or less related archi- tecture of which the earliest portions date from Fran9ois I and the latest touches from the first years of the Third Republic. Everything previous to the actual construction undertaken under Fran9ois I had been legendary until the excavations of 1866, which clearly dis- closed the Louvre of Philippe Auguste. But 368 A LOITERER IX PARIS Philippe Aiigiiste himself was but a rebuilder and tradition carries the ancient palace of this site back to remotest times, possibly to Childebert, certainly to Louis le Gros. Whether it was a royal hunting-lodge, situated in the wood bor- dering the Seine, or whether it was a fort com- manding the river, we do not know, but that it had towers, or at any rate a tower, is fairly cer- tain from the fact that writers of the time of Philij^pe Auguste speak always of his big tower, built in 1204, as the tour neuve, the new tower, which seems to indicate the existence of other towers of more ancient construction. The Louvre of Philippe Auguste would have been a somewhat newer building than the apse of Notre-Dame, and a few years earlier than the fa9ade of the great cathedral. It was built as part of the wall of Paris, constructed by PhilijDpe Auguste, of which there remain many traces, and constituting the principal work of fortification, became a sort of citadel. The old chateau, as one can plainly see by examining the outlines of the foundations, formed a square about one-fourth the size of the actual court, its middle well taken up by the huge round tower of the dungeon. Amongst the celebrated guests of this tower were Ferrand, comte de RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 369 Flandre, whom Philippe Auguste imprisoned here, in 1214, after the victory of Bouvines; Enguerrand de Coucy; Guy and Louis de Flandre in 1299 and 1322; Enguerrand de Ma- rigny; Jean IV, due de Bretagne; Charles II, king of Navarre; le captal de Buch, Jean de Grailly; and Jean II, due d'Alen^on. From this great tower (after the imprisonment of the comte de Flandre sometimes called the tour Ferrand, from its dominating quality often called the tour de Paris) all the great fiefs of France had their source. When the vassals came to take or to renew the feudal oath, it was there that the ceremony took place. In the Salle des Cariatides, buried in the wall, is a fragment of the old fortress, and to the left of the window concealed by a door, is a spiral stairway of the original building. We know vaguely of a room in the left wing, long known as the Chamhre de Saint-Louis, but Saint-Louis resided in the Palais, and it was not until the reign of Henri II that the Louvre be- came the actual residence of royalty. Charles V was the first to attempt serious occupancy and when he built the third wall of Paris he enclosed the palace within the new limits of the city. He enlarged and embellished the Louvre and in- mo A LOITERER IN PARIS stalled in one of the towers his library of nine hundred books, and added gardens to the chateau, which, though small, were the admiration of con- temporary writers. But Charles V did not confine his interest to the Louvre; he built also the Hotel Saint-Pol, which became the royal residence until Charles VII abandoned it for the neighbouring Hotel des Tournelles, the official residence of Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francois I, when these kings had occasion to be in Paris. But the Tournelles is never spoken of with enthusiasm, Francois I did not think it fit to receive his rival, Charles-Quint, when a ceremonial visit from the emperor was impending, and this was his reason for deciding to j^atch up the old Louvre for the occasion and to make it the royal palace. His mother, Louise de Savoie, found it unhealthy on account of the marshes of the Marais, and obtained the Tuileries from her son with the neiohbourinar villa of Nicolas de Neufville, secretary of the finances. Finally, when Henri II was wounded in a joust, near this palace, and died in the Tournelles, Catherine de Medicis, his wife, conceived a super- stitious horror of the place and had it pulled down, establishing herself and her children at the Louvre and commencing at once her dowager palace, the RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 371 Tiiileries, u2:)on an extension of the villa of Louise de Savoie, whose domain she had greatly enlarged. The great movement which resulted in the palace of the Louvre, once under way, moved rapidly and it is difficult not to anticipate one's story. We must go back now to Louis XII, that good and simple sovereign, whose tomb we have seen at Saint-Denis, and upon which we may read so much of the history of France and of the wars with Italy, which, futile and extravagant as they had been from the political point of view, had fostered in the French a keen appreciation of the marvels of the Renaissance. Upon this tomb Louis XII is represented in the company of his second wife, Anne de Bre- tagne, the widow of his predecessor, Charles VIII, whom he espoused in order to continue the union of France and Brittany. Anne de Bretagne was his chief companion, his other marriages having been but brief. His first wife was Joan, second daughter of Louis XI, for whom he never cared, and when he became king he persuaded Alexander VI to grant him the dispensation for a divorce. In acknowledgment of this favour he presented to the pope's son, Cfi^sar Borgia, the Duchy of Valentinois. His third wife was the beautiful young girl, Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII, whose affections 372 A LOITERER IX PARIS were already engaged by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, but who was forced into this union by her brother. But Anne de Bretagne was the domi- nating factor of Louis's wedded life and she seems to have ruled him with an iron hand. Under Louis XII much rivalry existed between the two most prominent young princes of the day, Fran9ois d'Angouleme, heir-presumptive to the throne of France, and Charles of Luxembourg, who afterwards became the celebrated Charles V or Charles-Quint, king of Spain and emperor of Germany. Louis had only daughters, and his eldest child, Claude de France, was affianced first to Charles-Quint by her mother and married to Fran9ois only after the death of that tyrannical lady. Anne de Bretagne opposed this most logical and inevitable marriage with all the force of her dominating character. History records her bit- ter jealousy against Louise de Savoie and her brilliant son. She kept them hidden at Amboise, where, however, the duchesse d'Angouleme con- trived to hold a rival court and to surround her son, whom she idolized, with every social advan- tage — and disadvantage. When Anne was too furious she exiled them to the simple Maison d'Angouleme, at Cognac, where Francois was RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 373 born; but wherever they were Anne hated her rival with a suj)erstitious hatred, and felt her presence, like a bad fairy, at each confinement, when the queen was delivered of a stillborn. On the other hand, Louise's thoughts for the queen were no more friendly and she waited in silence but with murderous wishes, as long as Anne de Bretagne lived, to achieve the ambitions of her life. These ambitions were placed in her son; she loved him, say the chronicles, like a fils de Vaviour and many thought indeed that so god- like a creature could not have been the fruit of her union with her mediocre husband. The marriage between Claude de France and Francois was ardently desired by the people, but Louis dared not go against the wishes of his queen, and she taking advantage of a moment of weakness obtained his consent to the betrothal of their daughter to Charles-Quint, making a dis- graceful marriage contract by which Milan, Brit- tany, and Burgundy were to be given up as Claude's marriage portion. This meant the aliena- tion of half the kingdom of France and Louis could not have consented had he been in posses- sion of his faculties. Fortunately the king recov- ered and the States-General, assembling at Tours, besought him to revoke the rash engagement and 374 A LOITERER IN PARIS betroth his daughter to the comte d'Angouleme. Louis recognized the justice of this petition and, breaking the former treaty, celebrated the new betrothal with great splendour. This was in 1505. In 1514 Louis lost his consort and immediately celebrated the marriage against which Anne had successfully protested until the day of her death. The king, breaking loose from his long fetters, lost no time in consummating his own remarriage with the sister of Henri VIII, a young girl of but sixteen years; and two months after the celebra- tion of these noces nefastes, Louis XII was laid in his tomb. The chevalier Bayard tells of the king's infatuation for his young bride which caused him to break up all the habits of his old age — to dine at eight instead of at noon, to retire at midnight instead of six as had been his former custom. These excesses hastened the end of the monarch, and released Marie d'Angleterre, who after a short period of mourning, at the Hotel de Cluny, was free to marry the Duke of Suffolk and return to England. A monarchy loves a decorative figurehead. Louis XII died lamented by the middle and lower classes, whose protector and friend he had been, but the nobles, who had looked upon his prudence and moderation in public and private RENAISSANCE: FRANCOIS I 375 expenditure as the frugality of a plebeian king, welcomed with joy the advent of a lavish, brilliant, and aristocratic sovereign, who was to make the court the centre of all the splendours of chivalry and learning. The new king was fully alive to every phase of the awakening that was affecting the world, and his accession began a new era for France. He was borne in upon the crest of the Renaissance. In such a movement Francois I had all the qualities of a leader. Gallant, brave, generous, gay, possessed of the attractions of youth, beauty, and high breeding, he fascinated all classes of his subjects, and, spending in his large, royal way, there was no danger that his will should be curbed. In Italy the great houses of Medicis, of Este, of Visconti, of Sforzi, patronized the talent and promoted the research of the age. Fran9ois I could not do less. Under him native talent was discovered and flourished, while the king also brought into France, from Italy, such masters as could be lured away by rich opportunity and princely reward, attracting to his court builders, painters, sculptors, who worked upon his palaces and lived upon his bounty. Leonardo da Vinci was his honoured guest and died in the service of the king, near Amboise. Primaticcio and II Rosso 376 A LOITERER IN PARIS were installed at Fontainebleau and directed the decoration of tlie palace. Fran9ois I not only commenced the building of the present Louvre, he collected the nucleus of tlie exhibits it contains, assembling them at Fon- tainebleau. He purchased with prodigality, from all parts of Europe, paintings, sculptures, an- tiques, bronzes, medals, jewels, cameos, and other objects of art for his collections. The Italian artists of the time clustered around his court like bees about the honey pot, and Benvenuto Cellini gives a hint of the jealousies that existed between them in his lament over Primaticcio's purchase of one hundred and twenty-four antique statues, and many busts, for the king, as injurious to the market for modern works, and his rage against his powerful rival is great. France has known three such wholesale patrons of art — Francois I, Louis XIV, and Napoleon; between them they made the Louvre, but of the three it is Francois who stands preeminent, it is of Fran9ois that we treasure the choicest memo- ries. In his superb encouragement of art, in his munificent donations to colleges and schools, in the liberality of his invitations to scholars and poets, he stands unique amidst the sovereigns of history. CHAPTER XVII THE LOUVRE OF LESCOT AND GOUJON It was a desire to make an effect before his old rival, Charles-Quint, that caused Fran9ois I to rebuild the Louvre. The emperor was about to make a ceremonial visit to Paris, and the king resolved not to receive him in the old Tournelles, but in the ancient, historic palace of his ancestors, on the Seine. The Louvre was falling into decay and, in order to hide its decrepitude, vast sums were spent upon repainting and regilding and upon the hanging of tapestries to hide the crum- bling walls. But when all was ready Fran9ois, finding the palace still far from worthy of him- self or of his illustrious guest, decided to throw down the whole structure and to rebuild, within the same limits, but on an entirely new plan. The demolition of the grosse tour alone took five months and cost a prodigious amount of money. The tower was regretted by the popu- lace, who missed the excitement of seeing nobles imprisoned there, and its disappearance marked 377 378 A LOITERER IN PARIS an epoch in the history of France. " C'etait demoUr I'liistoire elle-meme," says Martin in his Histoire de France, " c'etait la monarchie de la renaissance abhatant la vielle royaute feodale." We are used to thinking of the approach to the Louvre as from the Place du Carrousel, from the old court of the Tuileries, now transformed into a garden. In order to see the Louvre as Francois I conceived it and to follow its growth through the centuries of its development we must quite reverse the usual process of thinking and approach the Louvre from Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois, remembering that the Cite was the centre of Paris in those days, and that neither the Tuileries, nor the garden, nor the Concorde, nor the Champs Elysees, nor the Etoile existed for Fran9ois I and that in his day Paris was a little place and that all behind the crumbling chateau of Philippe Auguste was without the walls and open country. This oldest part of the Louvre, this so greatly admired Renaissance facade, lies before us to the left of the central Pavilion de I'Horloge. Con- ceived by Fran(^ois I and completed by his son, Henri II, it is still the handsomest piece of archi- tecture that the Louvre has to show, and it ranks as the most perfect monument of Fran9ois' time. Photo A. Giraudon FAgADE OF THE LOUVRE OF PIEKRE LESCOT AND JEAN GODJON. I'htitii .1. (liniiidon DETAIL OF FACADE OF LESCOT AND G0l>dO?«-- LOU\ HK. CALLED PAVILION HENRI II. KtT Photo V. Z. DETAIL OF FAgADE OF LESCOT AND GOUJOX. CALLED PAVILION HENRI II. LOUVRE. DETAIL OF FAgADE OF LESCOT AND GOUJON. LOUVRE. CALLED PA\^LION HENRI II. Photo A. Giraudon THE LOUVRE 381 The king was so pleased with it that he rewarded his architect by making him a canon of Notre- Dame, abbot of Clermont, and court counsellor. The king's architect was Pierre Lescot, a Frenchman of Italian origin. Lescot had trav- elled in Italy when Fran9ois I engaged him. The chief sculptor was Jean Goujon, a genius whom Lescot had discovered, it was said, at work upon the doors of Saint-Maclou, at Rouen. Henri II confirmed this excellent choice and the two artists share the honours of the original wing. From 1540 to 1559 were erected the buildings of the southwest angle of the court with the Pavilion de I'Horloge, which Lemercier finished fifty years later. This pavilion marked the limit* of Lescot's plan and joined the new palace to the remaining walls of the mediaeval chateau of Philippe Auguste, which seem to have stood until Richelieu pulled them down after deciding to quadruple the original plan. Lescot's work consisted of two buildings, form- ing two angles, with a principal entrance facing the river. The elaborate fa9ade of the main build- ing faced the court of honour; the other side of the building, which is quite plain in comparison, belonged to the court of service. The second building formed a long wing which runs out to 382 A LOITERER IN PARIS the quay and terminates in the two ornate bal- conies with grills. Lescot planned it, but Pierre Chambige carried it out, under Charles IX and Catherine de Medicis, and it is to their epoch that belongs the facade with its allegorical figures due to the chisel of Barthelemy Prieur. The clief-d'ceuvre, then, of Lescot and Goujon is the facade of the court facing the east, in the left-hand angle of the square. It formed the model and gave the scale of the Louvre as orig- inally planned. What Goujon modelled is worthy of close attention. He made the figures in half- relief of Mercury and Abundance, and the central group of two geniuses supporting the arms of the king, and the groups of chained slaves and the panels filled with trophies which separate the pilasters of the attic. He made the immense frieze of graceful festoons held by laughing babies, full of elegance and exquisite grace. In this facade mag- nificent order vies with rich decoration, Lescot seems not to have had the heart to stop the flow of the sculptor's genius which borders on the sumptuous, but the lines of the architecture which surround and frame these different morceaux from Goujon's chisel complete them so happily that one is tempted to believe that Jean Goujon was the author of the whole plan and ensemble. > i i > '6 f ■ 1 X I'lioto A. Giraudow PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE DE MEDICIS IX 1555. ANONYMOUS. COLLECTION OF THE BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALS. I'hoio A. Oiraudon BUST OF HENRI II. BY GERMAIN PILOX. LOUVRE. THE LOUVRE 385 If this fa9ade of the Louvre is Lescot's master- piece, it was on this palace also that Goujon dis- played his greatest genius. The two continued their work throughout the reign of Fran9ois I and during the twelve years' reign of Henri II, making the Louvre as beautiful within as it was without. In the Salle des Cent Suisses, where Francois I installed the antiques brought by Primaticcio, is the beautiful tribune with its orna- ments, held up by four caryatids about thirteen feet high, considered one of the greatest works of Goujon. He decorated the Escalier Henri II, just without this fine room, with the chiffre. the arms, and the emblems of the king. Everywhere it is the device of Henri II and not that of his father which we see — the H with the two slender crescents in honour of Diane de Poitiers, the king's mistress. As Henri finished his father's work he stamped it with his mark. Goujon is the great figure of the sculpture of the French Renaissance. The facts of his life are vague, but he seems to have been born in Paris in the first year of the reign of Francois I, to have studied in France and to have travelled in Italy, and his art is the most direct reflection of the opulent age which gave him birth. The work attributed to him upon the exquisite 386 A LOITERER IN PARIS Saint-Maclou, at Rouen, makes largely the sculptural distinction of that edifice. If Goujon did it, it would be his earliest known sculpture. His best-known work is his allegorical portrait of Diane de Poitiers, the favourite of two genera- tions of kings, for the story goes that Francois loved her before Henri chose her for his favourite. Henri not only gave her Chenonceau, the most beautiful of the chateaux of the Loire, he built for her the Chateau d'Anet, whose beautiful fa9ade is one of the cherished exhibits of the court of the Beaux- Arts, another object saved by Lenoir from the madness of the Revolution. This portrait statue was one of a pair made by Goujon for the court of the Chateau d'Anet. Lenoir brought it to Paris and it is now in the Louvre (Salle Jean Goujon). It shows Diana, the huntress, reclining upon her stag, while her favourite dogs, Procion and Syrius, play about her. The urn upon which she lies stood, in its original setting, upon a pedestal flanked by four bronze dogs, and occupied the middle of a basin from which a fountain sprang. Since the Greeks no sculptor had treated the nude with such science, such refinement, such souplesse. The head alone inspires a great eulogium. The arrangement of the beautiful hair, i'h'jt'j A. Uiraudon FACADE OF THE CHATEAU d'aXET. BUII.T BY HENRI II FOR DIANE DE POITIERS. IN THE COURT OF THE KCOI.E DES BEAUX-ARTS. Photo A. Giniudon DIANE CHASSERESSE. GROUP MADE FOR THE CHATEAU D'ANET. BY JEAN GOUJON. LOUVRE. DETAIL: HEAD OF DIANE. RY JEAN GOUJON. FROM THE GROUP AIADE FOR THE CHATEAU D'ANET. LOUVRE. HP "\ 1 1 1 ^B^' -( \ 1 1 ^^^H|' i.'" i 1 1 W" ■i 1 1 1 Photo A. Giraudon THE FOUNTAIN OF THE INNOCENTS. RECONSTRUCTED. FROM THE ORIGINAL OF LESCOT AND GOUJON. Photo A. Qiraudon FRIEZE OF THE FONTAINE DES INNOCENTS. ORIGINAL SCULPTURE BY JEAN GOUJON. LOUVRE. 1 '/# FIGURES FROM THE FONTAINE DES INNOCENTS. BY JEAN GOUJON. FKOM CASTiS IN THE TROCADEUO. .?t Photos A. Giraudon THE LOUVRE 391 the finely chiselled profile, the expressive eyes, the ravishing drawing of the mouth and chin, and the delicately cut ear, all hespeak the utmost art. The body is distinctly that of a goddess — smooth, lithe, and long-limbed, it seems like that of some slender faun, alert and graceful, fitted for the fleetest chase, gifted with supernatural sense of the approach of quarry. Does she not even re- semble her companion the stag? One must not seek in this statue the portrait of the mistress of the chateau — flattery cannot be pushed so far. The Duchess of Valentinois, whose face even in youth was not attractive, must at this time have passed her fiftieth year. In the same room in the Louvre are the panels — the Descent from the Cross, and the Evan- gelists, from the rood-loft of Saint-Germain- I'Auxerrois, destroyed in the XVIIIth century; and a bust of Henri 11. Goujon decorated the Chateau d'Ecouen, the Hotel Carnavalet, the Hotel de Ville, and the Porte Saint-Antoine, which contained the four rehefs representing la Seine, la Marne, FOise, and Venus born of the waves. These reliefs, after having figured for a time on Beaumarchais' house, are now in the Louvre. The Louvre also contains the original sculpture 392 A LOITERER IN PARIS from the celebrated Fountain of the Innocents, in which we see again the combined genius of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon. Originally placed against the Church of the Innocents, it formed a sort of tribune to celebrate the entrance of Henri II into Paris, upon his accession to the throne. It had then but three arcades, between which were the six familiar panels with the low reliefs of water nymphs to whom the fountain was dedicated. Each arcade was surmounted by a frieze in relief, while under the whole the water flowed in a thin sheet over another band of sculp- ture composed of tritons and genies of the sea. It is this under frieze which the Louvre treas- ures, together with the panels of the original nymphs, for when the fountain was changed to its present form the reliefs were found to be men- aced by the humidity and were taken to the museum. Modified in the form of a square pavilion or loggia, the fountain still stands in the centre of the Square des Innocents, in the Rue Saint-Denis. Pajou made the fourth face. The great beauty of the panels popularized the name of Goujon and established his supremacy in the art of low relief. The movement of the mythical figures of the frieze is joyous and abandoned, the THE LOUVRE 393 composition is elegant and the drawing and modelling at once virile and suave. The fountain itself stands in a shabby neighbour- hood, off the beaten track of tourists, and is often overlooked, but is so fine that one feels well rewarded for the effort to look it up. Time and exposure have given to the stone a warm patine which adds greatly to its charm. The environment gains also in significant mem- ory as having been the scene of the assassination of Henri IV, who was killed by Ravaillac, while driving in an open carriage through the Rue de la Feronnerie, in the immediate vicinity, and the cemetery, upon the site of the present square, formed a sort of Campo-Santo, where, during six centuries, more than half the population of Paris was interred. Rich and poor seem to have been buried here, the rich in monumental tombs above ground but the poor were carried into deep vaults underground, sometimes twenty-five feet in depth and containing as many as fifteen hundred ca- davers. La Fontaine was interred in this place, and here Madame de Pompadour's body was laid for a time. When the cemetery was suppressed, in the interest of the public health, the coffin of Louis XV's mistress was found and her family 394 A LOITERER IN PARIS removed it to the new cemetery without the walls — the catacombs — where, says Soulavie, elle fut con fondue avec tous les 7norts. We are constantly filled with admiration for the French spirit of reconnaissance — the word seems stronger than its English equivalents, which are not wholly equivalent — whereby old memories are conserved in the names of the streets. A church dedicated to the Holy Inno- cents, built under Louis le Gros, and torn down just previous to the Revolution, gives the clue to the name of the square and the street which runs along its southern boundary. The cemetery had existed from before the time of Philippe Auguste. The church and the cemetery with its cloisters, which served as charnel houses, pre- sented a bizarre combination of Gothic arcades, chantry chapels, crosses, tombs, monumental tab- lets and frescoes. The church was closed in 1786 and the Marche aux Innocents camped upon the site of the cemetery, adapting the charnel houses as market stalls. Some of them still exist as taverns and stables. The Marche is now blotted out by the vast buildings of the modern Halles Centrales. The Rue Pierre Lescot runs past the west side of the Square des Innocents. The name ties together the association of the architect with the Photo A. Giraudon CARYATIDS A>'D TRIBUNE. SALLE DES CARIATIDES : LOUVRE. SCULPTURE BY JEAN GOUJON. MEDALLION FROM THE SALLE DES CARIATIDES. BY JEAN GOUJON. LOUVRE. Photo A. GiniuiliiH THE LOUVRE 397 old fountain, the sole tangible survivor of the past. The chevalier Bernin considered the fountain the most beautiful morcedu in France, as much for its true proportions, the relation between architecture and figures, as for the delicacy of its- abandoned naiads. We have seen at Saint-Germain-rAuxerrois the Gothic choir modernized by the vandal architect, Bacarit, in 1715. At this time the noble rood- loft, designed by Pierre Lescot and sculptured by Jean Goujon was removed. Nothing remains of it but the panels contained in the museum of the Louvre. The two artists worked together with singular felicity. After Fran9ois I died, Henri II kept them on continuing the building and embellish- ment of the Louvre, and in 1548 the palace was so advanced that Henri II adopted it as the resi- dence of the court. The palace was still small; it consisted of the original angle on the court, carried to its full height, and of the wing which runs out to the Seine, which had only one storey — the Galerie d'Apolloii over it was added by Henri IV. There is an entrance under the Pavilion de I'Horloge which conducts the visitor at once into the oldest part of the building. It stands unique 398 A LOITERER IN PARIS and apart and commends itself as a complete little visit. Through a vestibule devoted to the inevitable checking of sticks and umbrellas, one passes at once into the famous Salle des Caria- tides, in which Fran9ois I installed the antiques which Primaticcio brought him from Italy. Francois intended it as a great low-ceiled room after the style of the ancients. It was begun about 1546 by Pierre Lescot on the site of the chapel and grand' salle of Saint- Louis, where this prince condemned Euguerrand de Coucy to pay a penalty of twelve thousand litres jmrisis. The caryatids from which the room takes its name were ordered from Goujon in 1550, and were completed before the work on the room was abandoned, for this room was not car- ried out as first planned, but left unfinished until 1806, when Napoleon's architects, Percier and Fontaine, developed it into the highly ornate apartment it has now become. It is very grand and very consistent, but possibly Lescot's design gave more relief to the caryatids, which are clearly the feature. During the reign of Henri II and the regency of Catherine de Medicis it served as anticliamhre to the queen's apartments and from its size and magnificence was the scene of many important THE LOUVRE 399 events. Here, on August 19, 1572, Marguerite de Valois, daughter of Henri II and Catherine, was married to the young Protestant king, Henri of Navarre, afterwards Henri IV. Admiral Coligny and many other Huguenot leaders were present at the ceremony. This marriage, Catherine j)i'^tended, was to crown and consummate the reconcilement of the two religions, hut there is too much reason to helieve that the king and his mother had from the first suggested this union with no other ohject than that of drowning the day of its celehration in the hlood of their unsuspecting suhjects. As the day on which the marriage was to take pLace approached, the Huguenot gentlemen, and even numhers of the humhler orders who ])e- longed to that persuasion, flocked to Paris from all quarters; and hy the middle of August the capital had collected within its walls nearly all the persons of consequence in France attached to the new faith. On the evening of Sunday the 17th the es- pousals of the royal pair were celebrated with becoming festivities in the ante-room of the apart- ments of the dowager queen; and on the follow- ing morning the marriage ceremony was per- formed on an elevated platform erected before 400 A LOITERER IN PARIS the great central door of Notre-Dame, in the presence of a splendid company composed of both Catholics and Protestants. The celebrated De Thou, who was then a young man of nineteen and had come to Paris in the suite of the king of Xavarre, was present on this occasion, as he has mentioned both in his Life and in his great his- torical work. After the ceremony the bride and those of the company who were Catholics advanced to the high altar to hear mass, while Henri, Coligny, and the rest of the Protestants retired into the choir. On leaving the church the party repaired to the bishop's palace, beside the cathedral, where they dined and in the evening a supper and masked ball again collected the revellers in the grand hall of the Louvre, though most of the Protestants were restrained by the severity of their religious principles from attending this festivity. Five days later, on the eve of Saint Bartholo- mew, the storm broke with the assassination of Admiral Coligny and at midnight on the 23rd Catherine precipitated the massacre by ordering the signal to be sounded from the belfry of Saint- Germain-l'Auxerrois. The order was given in this room. THE LOUVRE 401 After the death of Henri IV his effigy in wax, then his body enclosed in its coffin, was exposed in the Salle des Cariatides. Under Louis XIII comedians, coming to France from Florence, gave performances and ballets in this room; here also during the regency of Anne d'Autriche a theatre was installed and, on October 24, 16.58, Nicomede of Corneille, and Le Docteur Amoureux, of Mo- liere, a piece never printed and to-day lost, were presented. Moliere played the role of the doctor. After this performance Louis XIV authorized Moliere's troupe to take the name troupe de Mon- sieur, and to play in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon alternately with the Italian comedians. After the death of Henri II, Catherine de Medicis conceived a horror of the old Tournelles, near which the king had been wounded, and in which he had breathed his last. The Tournelles apjDcars to have been the alternative residence of the reigning monarch and would have been the logical dwelling of the dowager, a state of dubious importance to which the proud daughter of Lo- renzo de jNIedicis looked forward as of probable long duration, since she was only forty years old at the time of the tragedy. She at once set about providing herself with a palace which should vie with the splendours of the palace of the reigning 402 A LOITERER IN PARIS monarch, and in the meantime established herself with her children — there were seven living — in the Louvre. rran9ois II, a frail youth of sixteen years, was made the official king, while Catherine became the power behind the throne, exercising it the more mercilessly because of her long years of insignificance as the consort of a monarch whose whole life was bound up in his infatuation for another. During the twenty-six years of her marriage with Henri II Catherine lived abandoned in the midst of the court. Finding no place in the heart of her spouse, which was completely dominated by the Duchess of Valentinois, she hoped as mother to gain her just ascendency; but during ten years she hoped in vain, in complete sterility; then she gave in rapid succession ten children to the king, without exercising the least influence over him. Her position was deplorable, in the constant presence of her rival, of whom the king made a third at their table. The queen suffered this indignity in silence. She had, on the other hand, a powerful adversary in jNIontmorency, the old high constable. So long as she had no children he urged Henri to repudiate her; when she be- came a mother he tried to rouse suspicions in the king as to her fidelity. •v^f~-'- > ' w >: •~d\ . Photo A JIARGL'i:iUTE DE VALOIS ( CAI.I.KD LA liEl.Xli MARGOT) liRIDE OF IIEXRI OF NAVARRE. lUBEIOTIIKQUE NATION A I.E. FROM A DRAWING BY FRAX^OIS CLOUET. aiidon HENRI OP NAVARRE (HENRI IV) BY FRANCOIS QUESKEL. BIBLIOTHEQUE KATIONALE. riiutu A. Oiruiidoii. THE LOUVRE 405 The death of the king opened to his widow a career of vengeance, but she knew how to restrain herself to the advantage of her ultimate interests. Diane de Poitiers was still an important figure, as mother-in-law to one of the princes of Lor- raine, and Catherine wished to be at peace with this powerful family, allied to her own by the marriage of the reigning king, Fran9ois II, with Mary Stuart, a niece of the Guises. Catherine contented herself for the moment with merely demanding of her old rival the choice chateau of Chenonceau on the Cher, giving her Chaumont in exchange. Towards ^lontmorency she pre- served the same temperate attitude, biding her time. While awaiting the construction of the Tuil- eries, which was to furnish her an abode whose dignity should express her own, the queen mother proceeded to enlarge the Louvre in a style com- mensurate with the large family it now contained. During the reign of her second son, Charles IX, the work was pushed actively by Pierre Chambige. It was at this epoch that was commenced the fa9ade with the sculptures by Prieur, as well as the Petite Galerie (to-day the Galerie d'ApoUon) and the Grande Gcderie, parallel to the Seine, which is attributed to Thibaut ^Nletezeau. Cham- 406 A LOITERER IN PARIS bige erected a portico with rooms above it along the quay, connected with the original buildings by means of the one-storey wing which Lescot had planned. This wing served as a communica- tion between the old logis de la reine and the new apartments of Catherine, under the Grande Galerie. At the extremity of this wing opens the fa- mous so-called balcony of Charles IX, facing the quay, where tradition says he fired upon the Huguenots, who, refusing to believe in the com- plicity of the king, were about to cross the river and offer him their aid. The balcony bears the monogram of Louis XIII and Anne dAutriche, and did not exist at the time of the massacre, but with its beautiful grills, its sculptured arch, its gen- eral air of antiquity, it will never shed completely the tradition of this horror. The palace seems to have been filled with con- fusion and terror. Marguerite de Valois has given us in her memoirs an account of so much of the tragedy as fell under her own observation. While she lay asleep in her apartment, she was awakened by a violent knocking at the door, and a voice crying out, " Navarre! Navarre! " " My nurse," says the queen, " thinking it was the king, THE LOUVRE 407 my husband, ran quickly to the door. Upon open- ing it a gentleman rushed into the room, bleeding from wounds in different parts of his person, and pursued by four soldiers. Seeking fran- tically a place of refuge, he threw himself on the bed where I lay. I, feeling myself caught hold of by the man, threw myself out of the bed on the floor, he falling with me and continuing to clasp me around the body. I knew not whether it was he or I that the soldiers wished to kill; we both cried out, and the one was as much frightened as the other. At last, by the mercy of God, M. de Nancy, the captain of the guards, made his appearance, and finding me in this condition, even while he had compassion on me, could not restrain himself from laughing. He reproved the soldiers for their violence, made them leave the apartment, and upon my entreaties granted the life of the poor man who had hold of me and whom I caused to be put to bed and taken care of in my closet. For myself, having changed my chemise, which was covered with blood, and put on a nightgown, I passed more dead than alive into the apartment of my sister, Madame de Lorraine. While I was entering the ante- chamber, the doors of which were thrown open, a 408 A LOITERER IN PARIS gentlenian named Bourse, running from the sol- diers who pursued him, was pierced by a halbert three paces from me." Lescot seems to have dropped out of the work on the Louvre under Catherine de Medicis, but Jean Goujon continued his embellishments until tlie day of his death, which occurred on the fate- ful day of the massacre. The fact alone comes down to us, with no reliable account of the affair. One tradition makes the sculptor die of a shot from an arquebus upon the scaffolding of the Grande Galerie, chisel in hand; another in the Cimitiere des Innocents, retouching the sculpture of his fountain. But the fountain had been finished years before, and it seems unlikely that Goujon, who was a Huguenot, would have ex- posed himself upon the Louvre, which men of his religion were fleeing for their lives, while others were being cut down under the eye of the king himself, and so the manner of his end remains a mystery. Of this first great flowering of the Renaissance, in France, Jean Goujon stands out as the most expressive figure. We have said that he sub- mitted his art to the taste of the reign wliich brought him into prominence. As the great un- known Gothic sculptors reflected the mystery and THE LOUVRE 409 spiritual influences of their time, so Jean Goujon was caught up with the growing opulence and power of the court. His individuality seems merged with that of Francois I, of Henri II, of Diane de Poitiers. He had an exquisite sentiment of elegance and of feminine grace, of the luxuriant forms of in- fants, and of the allure of youth. His instinct was strong for monumental decoration, which he con- ceives in his own way. His work has character^ poetry, sentiment, sumptuous beauty, appealing charm. In it is no trace of definite influence. He had no master, followed no tradition, be- longed to no school. CHAPTER XVIII THE LOUVRE: DEVELOPMENT AND ACHIEVEMENT Under the reign of Henri II the Louvre oc- cupied about 30,000 square metres of space. But Catherine de Medicis found it still small for the large royal family clustered about her. Under the reign of her third son, Henri III, four queens had their suites there — the reigning queen, Louise de Vaudemont; the dowager, Catherine de Medicis; Marguerite de Valois, queen of Na- varre; and Elisabeth d'Autriche, widow of Charles IX. Meanwhile Catherine had provided for herself the magnificent palace of the Tuileries, built at some distance from the then existing parts of the Louvre, and without the walls of the city. The palace, which took its name from a manufactory of tiles which had formerly occupied the site, succeeded to a villa which Louise de Savoie had o])tained from her son, Francois I, with the old tile works, as a place of residence during his reign. After her death, in 1531, her villa con- 410 ITS DEVELOPMENT 411 tinued to be a property at the disposal of royal favourites until Catherine took it, and, adding con- siderably to the domain, employed Philibert De- lorme to erect for her a palace in keeping with her illustrious ancestry and her own ambitions. The Tuileries stood first as a detached build- ing, whose chief facade lay upon the present Rue des Tuileries. It was approached from the Cour des Tuileries, where now stands the Arc de Tri- omphe du Carrousel, and in the rear stretched the beautiful garden of the palace. The stones for the building were brought from the quarries of Vaugirard and Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and in order to cross the river, where is now situated the Pont Royal, a ferry, or hac, was established, leased to the communit}^ in 1564. A road was opened up on the jive gauclie for the carting of stones for the palace, and, since it led directly to the ferry became the Rue du Bac. The palace consisted of a central body with a tower and wings terminating in square pavilions. The grand avant-corps du milieu was erected by Delorme — he built the fa9ade towards the garden ■ — and the ends bv Jean Bullant, who continued the work after the death of his predecessor. The palace was noble in form and of a picturesqueness not attained by other portions of the long ram- 412 A LOITERER IN PARIS bling buildings of the Louvre itself, than which, having been done under one inspiration, it had more comj^leteness and unity. It gave point and climax to the now rather meaningless gardens, designed as a foil to the majestic fa9ade of the palace. The gardens were completely done over by Lenotre, under Louis XIV, and as Paris grew towards the west, Delorme's facade became the familiar one and was magnificently approached from the Place de la Concorde through the long gardens laid out in groves of chestnut trees and handsomely terraced. The palace was destroyed by the Commune in 1871. When Marie de Medicis came to Paris to re- place the divorced Marguerite de Valois as queen of France, she is said to have regarded with dis- dainful amusement the proportions of the Louvre,, which to her eye, accustomed to measure palaces by the Pitti and the Vatican, seemed a little place in comparison with its destiny. Henri IV, piqued perhaps by his scornful bride, now planned an immense extension of the Louvre which should unite the palace with the Tuileries. Du Cerceau, who built the Pont-Neuf, and Louis Metezeau were his architects. He first extended the Tuileries of Delorme and Bul- lant from the southern pavilion out towards the CATHERINE DE MEDICIS. VROM a DKAWING : AXONYMOUS. IN THE lilBLlOTHEQUE NATIOXALE. Photo A. Girau(]on ''/ if - Photo A. Oiraudon LA REINE MARGOT, ABOUT 1573. ANONV.MOrs DRAWING AT THE BIBLIOTHKQUE NATIONAI.E. ITS DEVELOPMENT 415 Seine and continued the galeries du hord de I'eau from where Catherine de Medicis had left off, about opposite the present Pont du Carrousel, along the Quai des Tuileries to their junction with the newer palace and here he planted an immense pavilion — the Pavilion de Flore — of which we see to-day a conscientious reproduction. The por- ticos of Catherine de Medicis were then enclosed and a new fa9ade added to the whole of the Grande Galerie, to make it harmonise with the later constructions. In 1618 this immense gallery was completed and bound the Louvre and Tuil- eries together. , The fa9ade of the long gallery, extending along the Quai du Louvre, from the balcony of Charles IX to the Pavilion de Lesdiguieres, is full of interesting ornament and sculpture in relief, of the time of Henri IV. We see his initial with a multitude of devices signifying royalty and power, trophies of war, as well as shells and tridents in allusion to the situation of the facade bordering the Seine. The Porte Jean Goujon, which opens in about the middle of this exten- sion, is a rich monument of renaissance architec- ture. Over the wing containing the balcony of Charles IX, Henri IV now completed the cele- 416 A LOITERER IN PARIS brated Gale He d'Apollon as a link between the upper storej^ of the Louvre of his predecessors and his additions. The Galerie d'Apollon was burned out under Louis XIV in 1661, and re- built from designs by Charles Le Brun, who directed the decorations at Versailles. Le Brun left the mural paintings unfinished; he had in- tended a figure of Apollo to be the central point of his scheme in honour of the Eoi-Soleil. The cele})rated ceiling, representing Apollo's victory over Python, is the work of Eugene Delacroix, one of the two greatest masters of his epoch. It was done under the Second Republic, in 1849. The Galerie d'Apollon is now the most beau- tiful hall in the Louvre and ranks with the finest in the world. An interesting and appropriate feature of the decoration is the series of portraits of the builders of the Louvre — the kings, the architects, the sculptors, and the painters who worked upon it at different periods, done in Gobelins tapestries. It is a gallery of distin- guished men, and the whole decoration makes one of those charming bits of association and recogni- tion for which France is famous. Three rooms installed in the wing of the court which overlooks Saint-Germain-lAuxerrois and known as Les Anciennes Salles du 31 usee des ■Hi ■^.4 4* CHARLES IX, IN 1570. FROM A DRAWING BY FRANgOIS CLOUET. IN THE BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE. ELISABETH D'aUTRICHE, ABOUT 1570, WIFE OF CHARLES IX. FROM A PAINTING BY FRANCOIS CLOUET. IN THE LOUVRE. •."^ Ph-jto A. Oiraudon Photo A. Giraudon ITS DEVELOPMENT 419 Souveraius are amongst the most beautiful which the Louvre has to show and contain much that relates to the early history of the building. En- tering by the stairway of the Egyptian Museum, the first room is panelled from the apartments which Louis XIII prepared for Anne of Austria in the chateau of Vincennes. The second room, called the Chamhre a VAl- cove, is panelled with handsome wood carving from the Salle des Sept Cheminees erected under Fran- 9ois I and Henri 11. This specimen and that in the room adjoining are the only carvings of the royal apartments now extant. The doors are rich in the devices of these kings, and the panelling shows the letters of Henri and Diane interlaced. The alcove is historic as the body of Henri IV was laid there after his murder, and the four cherubs which sustain the canopy are by Gilles Guerin. In the third room — La Chamhre de la Parade — the panelling is again from the older part of the Louvre, while the faded tapestries belonged to cardinal Mazarin. These rooms have been much despoiled of their former installation, chiefly due to the energy and historic interest of the Empress Eugenie. Though they merely reassem- ble parts of the older building, they have never- 420 A LOITERER IN PARIS theless a convincing air of antiquity and are of the finest of their day. After Henri IV, Marie de Medicis abandoned the Louvre and turned her entire attention to the erection of her dowager palace, the Luxem- bourg, to which after the conclusion of the minor- ity of Louis XIII, she expected to retire in glory. The first kings which came after Henri IV occu- pied themselves with completing the square around the original court, making it four times the size of the old chateau of Philippe Auguste. The new buildings of Francois I had merely replaced the original walls on the two sides of the quadrangle which formed the court of the mediaeval fortress; but Louis XIII and Richelieu quadrupled the plan. As one regards attentively the famous fa9ade of Lescot it becomes more and more evident that it belongs to a small, compact building and that it loses considerably in being thinned out to cover the four sides of a so greatly enlarged court. Under Louis XIII the last vestiges of the medieval chateau were thrown down. Jacques Lemercier was now the court architect; he com- pleted the facade of the Pavilion de I'Horloge which became the centre of the west side of the court. It is adorned in a style flamboyant as com- Plioto A. Girauaon HENBI IV. BY BARTHELEMY PBIEUK. LOUXTJE. WWnk DilOWlKEFUllDtCOMnLOE LOUISE DE VAUDEMONT, WIFE OF HENRI III. FROM A DRAWING (SCHOOL OF DUMOUSTIER) IN THE LOUVRE I'lmtij A. Giraudon ITS DEVELOPMENT 423 pared to the fa9ade of Lescot and Goujon, and bears eight caryatids by Sarazin and other sculp- tures by Guerin, Poissant, etc. Lemercier com- menced at the same time the ground floor of the north wing, on the side of the Rue de Rivoh. Marie de iNIedicis and Anne d'Autriche apphed themselves to the embellishment of the interior, sec- onded by the talents of Ambroise Dubois, de Biard, and Michel Anguier. Lemercier repeated in a general way the facade of Lescot, and the frieze of garlands and babies so happily conceived by Goujon was copied for the whole of the four sides of the enlarged court. Louis XIV completed the court, employing as his architect, his physician, Claude Perrault, to whom we owe the colonnade which bears his name (1667-1670). This colonnade has a certain style and character, though it may be taken as a clear indication of the point at which the French Renaissance in its decline began to follow slavishly the models of antique architecture, and it bears little relation to the original plan or to the magnificent facade of Henri IV, to which one returns with always increasing interest and pleas- ure. After this great eff'ort Louis XIV lost interest in the Louvre in devoting himself 424 A LOITERER IN PARIS tirely to the building of Versailles, his great architectural monument. Louis XV spent some few years of his minority at the Tuileries, but Versailles was his favourite residence and Louis XVI lived either at Ver- sailles or Saint-Cloud until he was brought to Paris as a prisoner and condemned to live at the Tuileries from 1789 to 1792. Meanwhile the Louvre remained an unfinished pile until Napoleon came to the throne. It was in the year 1800 that Bonaparte first came to reside at the Tuileries. The palace still bore the placards inscribed with the decree of August 10, 1792: " La royaute en France est abolie et ne se relevera jamais." Soon after the fleur-de-lys was picked out of the furniture of the Tuileries to be replaced by the bee of the Bonapartes. •The Tuileries after so much tragedy now entered upon its most thrilling times. In the chapel Napoleon was married to Josephine, who had long been his wife by the civil law. Berthier and Talleyrand were the witnesses and cardinal Fesch performed the ceremony. Here also the emperor received Pius VII (the pope was lodged in the Pavilion de Flore) ; thence he went to his corona- tion, here he married his different brothers and ITS DEVELOPMENT 425 sisters, and here the divorce of Josephine was pronounced. Napoleon commanded the completion of the Louvre upon a large scale in 1805, recommend- ing his architects, Percier and Fontaine, in con- structing the north connecting gallery between the Louvre and the Tuileries, to provide vast apartments for the vassal sovereigns whom he should lead back from his triumphant campaign in Russia! This wing had been completed as far as the Pavilion de Rohan when the emperor was deposed. Napoleon also built the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel to commemorate his victories in 1805. Percier and Fontaine were the architects and built it in imitation of the Arch of Septimus Severus, at Rome. Napoleon brought from Venice the famous bronze horses of the cathe- dral, in 1797, and they graced this arch until 1815, when they were restored to Venice, and to their noble situation over the portal of San Marco. Forming once part of an ancient quadriga these horses were amongst the most valuable of the loot which Napoleon brought from Italy. The pres- ent quadriga was designed by Bosio. The marble reliefs on the sides represent the Battle of Aus- 426 A LOITERER IN PARIS terlitz, the capitulation of Ulm, the peace of Tilsit, and the entry into Munich. On the north end is the entry into Vienna, and on the south end the conclusion of peace at Pressburg. The unity of the Louvre and Tuileries was finally achieved by Napoleon III, to whom we owe the ponderous fa9ades with their projecting domed pavilions, their Corinthian columns, their porticos and caryatids, their eighty-six statues of celebrated Frenchmen, and their sixty-three groups of allegorical statues. Visconti and Lefuel were the architects, and the most admirable part of their work is the restoration of the Pavilion de Flore and the fa9ade along the Quai des Tuileries, which had been destroyed or damaged by the fire of 1871. It is interesting to compare the details of the ornament and to note that the bee of the Bonapartes replaces the fleur-de-lys and the im- perial eagle the winged rod and the entwined ser- pents of the Bourbons. The Second Empire executed merely what the republic had planned in 1848. From 1848 to 1853 Duban restored, from the designs of Le Brun, the Galerie d'Apollori, which had been ruined by the fire of 1661. In 1857 Napoleon III inaugurated the noiiveau Louvre built by Lefuel upon the plans of Visconti. We owe to Lefuel aw Pli'itd A Girniidon ARC DE TRIOMPHE DU CARROrSEL. PERCIER AND FONTAINE, ARCHITECTS. BUILT BY XAPOLEON IN 1805. I'hoto A. Giraudon THE WINDOW OF CHARLES IX. LOUVRE. I'liulij A. Giraudon FRAGMENT OF THE PAI.AIS DES TUILERIES. BY PHILIBERT DELORME. GARDEN DES TUILERIES. ITS DEVELOPMENT 429 the actual buildings which border the Seine from the Pavilion Lesdiguieres to the Pavilion de Flore inclusive, and which replace the original constructions of. Du Cerceau. The three large arches which open upon the Place du Carrousel were part of Visconti's plan. An army of sculptors was now employed in the decoration. Amongst the most notable were Barye, Simart, Duret, Foyatier, Jaley, Auguste Dumont, Rude, Carpeaux, Perraud, Cavelier, Eugene Guillaume, Aime Millet, and Jouffroy. A high-relief in bronze by Antonin Mercie — the Genius of the Arts astride Pegasus — crowns the whole. In 1900 the great Salle Rubens was opened in the former salle des Etats, with the chain of small rooms which surround it, and with the installa- tion of the magnificent series of decorations from the Luxembourg Palace the work on the Louvre was terminated. After more than three centuries of activity the Louvre was now finished. In its older parts the Louvre unites some of the finest work of that group of valiant architects produced by the first period of the French Renais- sance — Pierre Lescot, Philibert Delorme, Jean Bullant, Pierre Chambige, Jacques-Androuet Du Cerceau — whose genius was sufficient to counter- 430 A i^OlTERER IN PARIS balance the influences of the Italians quartered at Fontainebleau. Thanks to them the second period of the Renaissance, the period frankly classic, far from descending as one might have feared to the level of rank imitation, opened a new route and became an occasion if not for great creations like those of the Xlllth century, at least for original combinations and dispositions at once elegant, picturesque, delicate, and rich. The chateaux of Blois, Gaillon (part of its fa9ade is at the Beaux-Arts), Azay-le-Rideau, Chenonceau, Amboise, Usse, Tanlay, Ancy-le- Franc, Verneuil, Vaux, Maisons, the old chateaux of Versailles, the Tuileries, the Louvre, Fontaine- bleau, etc., are amongst the most brilliant and richest productions of the French Renaissance in its divers periods. In these dwelhngs there exists nothing of the feudal castle, — no more dungeons, towers, turrets, winding passages; these are large open palaces, easy of access, surrounded by mag- nificent gardens, decorated inside with paintings, offering an application of antique forms if you like, but full of taste and preserving a character essentially original and French. CHAPTER XIX FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM The Louvre as a museum dates from the Revo- lution. Its chief splendours are due to the three kings we have already mentioned — Francois I, Louis XIV, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Fran9ois was the genuine amateur, Louis the rapacious collector, and Napoleon the prodigious robber, whose magnificent appropriations make the crowning feature of the collections. To these three chief figures it is oidy fair to add that rare altruist, Alexandre Lenoir, of whom we have talked so much, the artist who risked even his life to save for France and for posterity the treasures which the Revolutionists were doing their utmost to destroy. When the Tuileries became the uneasy seat of the royal family during the Reign of Terror, the Louvre was turned over as a storage house for the royal collections which the government was seizing and making national property. To the riches of the Cabinet du Hoy pouring in from Versailles were added in a short time those of 431 432 A LOITERER IN PARIS the Convent of the Petits-Augustins. On Au- gust 10, 1793, the Convention decreed the founda- tion of the national museum. As Francois dominates as the first genuine patron of the arts, so the pictures which remain from his collection at Fontainebleau speak from the walls of the present museum with a special appeal, as paintings bought not solely for the aggrandizement of a monarch, but selected by a man of taste because of their intrinsic merits. That Francois was innately an artistic personality seems evident from his portraits alone, but that his natural tastes were stimulated by his wars in Italy there can be no question. Amongst the painters and sculptors invited to his court were Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Benvenuto Cellini, Primaticcio, and Nicola del Abbate. In his enthusiasm he had cast a bronze reproduction of Trajan's column, and even, with something of Napoleon's greed, strove to remove from the walls of the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, at Milan, Leonardo's famous Last Supper, only desisting for fear of injury to the fresco. The famous Joconde of Leonardo da Vinci formed the dou of the collection at Fontaine- bleau; to this the king added the Saint-Jean- Pliittu Biuun et Cie. LA JOCOXDE. BY LEOXARDO DA VIXCI. FROM THE CABINET OF FRANQOIS I. LOUVRE. Photo Braun et Vie. Charite. by andrea del sarto, painted for francois i at fontainebleau. LOtTVRE. Photo Alinari CHARLES I OF EXGLAND. BY ANTON VAN DYCK. PAINTED FOR CHARLES I. " CABINET X)U ROY " LOUIS XIV, LOUVRE. Photo X L>AURA DE DIA.N'TI BY TITIAN. ORIGINALLY FORMING PART OF CHARLES l"S COLLECTION. " CABINET I)U ROY " LOLLS XIV, LOUVRE. FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 437 Baptiste, found at the chateau of Cloux in the painter's atelier after his death, La Vierge an^ Bochers, and the large canvas depicting the Vir- gin with the Infant Jesus and Sainte-Anne, as well as the portrait commonly known as the Belle Ferronniere, but now thought to be Lucrezia Crevelli, the favourite of Ludovic le More. Leonardo is also thought to have painted the smaller canvas, which is now labelled La Belle Ferronniere, but in which some experts have thought to trace the features of Marguerite de Valois, the sister of P^ran^ois I. This came to the royal collections under Louis XIV. La Belle Ferronniere was a mistress of Francois I, a woman of some importance, since the untimely death of the gallant monarch was attributed in- directly to her. To Francois I we owe also the supremely beau- tiful Charite, by Andrea del Sarto, painted for the king in 1518. This lovely madonna is one of the glories of the Louvre and in harmony of colour and elegance of composition exemplifies Renaissance painting at its most detached from all religious inspiration. The hues of the little nude bodies of the children seem to flow together, so charming are the poses, so freely childlike their abandon. The head of Charity is noble; the drap- 438 A LOITERER IN PARIS ery is painted with Greek feeling. In colour and quality this picture seems to stand apart; and had Fran9ois given us nothing else this con- tribution would still have been great and memor- able. But from Fontainebleau came also the great Visitation, of Sebastiano del Piombo (Luciani), acquired by the king, in 1521, a work of power and dramatic intensity; the Belle Jardiniere of Raphael and by the same master the large Saint Michel and the Dragon and the Holt/ Family given by Lorenzo de Medicis to Francois and the queen of France. Francois' collection contained the cele- brated portrait of the king, said to have been painted after a medal, by Titian, and the two more delightful portraits of the monarch by the contem- porary French painter Jehannet Clouet. The Nymph of Fontainebleau, a lunette in relief, was modelled by Benvenuto Cellini for the entrance of the palace, but never placed; Diane de Poitiers begged it of Henri II for her Chateau d'Anet. It hangs amongst the Italian sculpture of its epoch in the Louvre. As early as the beginning of the XVIIth cen- tury the royal collections numbered about two hundred works and formed, in the Palace of Fon- tainebleau, a museum which was the chief source Phntu A. Otruudou MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF SAINTE-CATHERIXE. BY CORREGGIO. ORIGINALLY FOR^rI^G PART OF MAZARIN'S COLLECTION. " CABINET DU ROY " LOUIS XIV, L'OUVRE. TITIAN'S ENTOMBMENT. ORIGINALLY FORMING I'ART OF CHARLES I'S COLLECTION. " CABINET VU ROY " LOUIS XIV, LOUVRE. Photo A. Oiratidon FOUNDATIONS OF THE MUSEUM 441 of inspiration and study for the young French painters of the day. Under Louis XIV the general collections were assembled and enriched by the king's enterprising minister, Colbert, who brought to the completion of the royal cabinet the energy which characterized all his undertakings. But this was no longer the labour of love that Francois had commenced. One suspects Louis XIV of having but mediocre artistic judgment, if by no other proof than his making Le Brun supreme at Versailles. Colbert had the real collector's passion, as we now under- stand it — time, trouble, and expense were not spared. Ready-made collections had also already begun to change hands, and the minister was able to add, in 1661, with one gesture the splendid collection left by the death of cardinal Mazarin, who was a real connoisseur; and ten years later he purchased the magnificent collection of the banker, Jabach, of Cologne, rich in great works bought at the sale of the collections of Charles I, of England. Colbert systematized the business of making Louis XIV's cabinet one of the most notable of all time, and posted agents in all the chief cities with instructions to miss nothing avail- able. Naturally the royal collection grew apace. When all was ready the pictures were carried 442 A LOITERER IX PARIS to Paris and installed for the first time in the old palace of the Louvre. The Mercure Galant of December, 1681, gives an account of the affair from which we learn that the exhibition occupied seven very large and very high halls of the Louvre itself and four others in the " old hostel de Grammont," adjoining. The pictures were hung solid to the cornices and the Mercure notices sixteen by Raphael, ten by Leonardo, eight by Giorgione, four by Palma Vecchio, twenty-three by Titian, eighteen by Paolo Veronese, fourteen bv Van Dyck, etc. An inventory enumerates 2403 paintings. Louis XIV made an official visit. One can see him with his curled wig, his long coat, his silk hose, his frills and furbelows, walking grandly through the rooms, with that Vetat-c'est-moi ex- pression and the pompous air of a connoisseur. He seems to have made one memorable remark to Colbert, who accompanied him : " Otez-moi ces magots la " was the royal comment upon the mar- vellous collection of Teniers upon which his min- ister particularly prided himself. But Colbert knew better and they now form one of the chief boasts of the ffallerv. How England must regret the rash dispersal of Charles I's treasures! From his collections fiiolo AJiiinri PORTRAIT OF COUNT BALTHAZAR CASTIGLIOXE. BY RAPHAEL. ORIGIXALLY FORMING PART OF MAZARIX'S COLLECTIOX. " CALJIXET I)U ROY" LOUIS XIV, LOUVRE. Photo Alinari DETAIL FROM LES NOCES DE CANA. BY PAUL VERONESE. MUSEE NAPOLEON, LOUVRE. SAINT-MICHEL AND THE DRAGON. liY RAPHAEL. originally forming part of mazarin's collection. •' cabinet du roy " louis xiv, LOUVRE. J'ltolo liraun et Cie. FOUXDATIOXS OF THE MUSEUM 445 came to the Louvre such masterly canvases as the portrait of himself with his horse, by Van Dyck ; the Jupiter and Aiitiope, the Entombment, the exquisite Laura de' Dianti, with Al2}honse de Far- rare, of Titian; the Antioj)e of Correggio; the Fete ChampHre and Holy Family, of Giorgione. From Mazarin's collection came Correggio's beautiful Mystic Marriage of Sainte-Catherine of Alexandria; Raphael's portrait of the Count Bal- thazar Castiglione and the two tiny pictures of Saint-Michel and Saint-Georges with the dragons. Lenoir's contributions to the museum were mostly sculpture and one finds the rooms devoted to Renaissance and XVIIIth century monuments filled with the treasures which his intervention secured. Under the Directorate, the Consulate, and the First Empire the Louvre was a scene of great activity. Each armistice and treaty of peace was followed by the arrival in Paris of numerous precious objects, which, hastily installed in the Louvre, became the ]\Iusee Napoleon. The Act of Restitution of 1815 restored most of this val- uable loot to its various owners, but a catalogue of Napoleon's museum has preserved the memory of that remarkable assemblage. Amongst the more noteworthv souvenirs of the affair is 446 A LOITERER IN PARIS Veronese's Marriage of Cana, from the refectory of the Convent of the Benedictines of San Giorgio Maggiore, of Venice. This canvas, despite its enormous proportions, Napoleon had brought to Paris, in 1799. In 1815 on account of the difficul- ties and dangers of transport the Austrian repre- sentative consented to leave the painting at the Louvre and to take in its place a large canvas of Le Brun. CHAPTER XX THE MARAIS: HENRI IV In the days when the Bastille Saint- Antoine was a fort-bastide — built on the line of the city walls just to the south of the Porte Saint- Antoine, and surrounded by its own moat, the ]Marais was the favoured residence of the nobility. The fortress commanded the river and its approaches, and furnished protection to the Hotel Saint-Pol, to which Charles V removed the court when he came to the throne. Whilst Jean le Bon was a prisoner in England, his son, the dauphin, afterwards Charles V, was alarmed by the growing power of the Confrerie des Bourgeois, the municipal authorities of Paris. The climax was reached when their formidable provost, Etienne Marcel, at the head of two or three thousand men, wearing the colours of the revolt, marched to the Louvre, broke into the apartments of the dauphin, and in the presence of the prince assassinated Robert de Clermont, mar- shal of France, and Jean de Conflans, marshal of Champagne, his two favourite ministers. The 447 448 A LOITERER IN PARIS dauphin, himself, escaped inerelj' hy consenting to wear the red and green cap of the repubhcan leader. The prince regent at first took flight, but re- turning to Paris after Etienne Marcel had been put to death by his order, determined to seek a more secure residence with the Association de la Marchandise de I'Eau, which had always been de- voted to the king. So, forsaking the Palais and the Louvre, Charles now bought, near the Porte de Saint-Pol, the hotel of the comte d'Etampes, adding later to his purchase the hotel of the Archbishop of Sens with its gardens, and the smaller hotels d'Estomesnil and Pute-y-Muce and the estate of the abbots of Saint-Maur. When he came to the throne Charles V declared the Hotel Saint-Pol the property of the crown. It was a group of palaces, rather than a single build- ing, surrounded by high walls, which enclosed meadows, gardens, galleries, and courts. Charles VI, the son and successor of Charles V, occupied the Hotel Saint-Pol during the greater part of his life. Its gardens were shaded by trellises, covered with vines, which yielded annually a goodly supply of vin de I'hotel. After Charles VI became insane he amused himself by keeping a menagerie under the shade of the trellises, pay- I'hoto A.. Giraudon JKANXE DE rjOURHOX. WIFE OE CHARLES V. FROM THE CONVENT OF THE CELESTINS. ^'OW I.N THE LOUVRE. ISABEAU DE BAVIERE. DETAIL FROM HER FUNERAL MONUMENT AT SAINT-DENIS. FROM A CAST OF THE ORIGINAL. IN THE TROCADERO. Photo A. Giraudon Photo A. Oiraudon THE THREE THEOrOGICAL VrRTlES OR THE THREE GRACES, JIADE BY (JERMAIX PILOX TO HOLD THE HEARTS OF HENRI 11 AM) ( ATHERINE DE MED1CI8 IX THE i:GHSE OF THE CELESTIX^. NOW IN THE lOrVRE THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 451 ing fabulous sums for rare animals. At the Hotel Saint-Pol were born the king's twelve children, by Isabeau de Baviere; and here in later years, abandoned by the queen, he died, attended only by his mistress, Odette de Champdivers, la petite reine, who was faithful to him to the end, while the queen gave herself up to her passion for her brother-in-law, the due d'Orleans, in the Hotel Barbette. After the murder of her lover and the death of her husband, Isabeau de Baviere passed also the last miserable vears of her life at the Hotel Saint- Pol — the Tournelles had become the residence of the reigning monarch — shut away from the eyes of a populace which hated her. Brantome de- scribes her funeral: she was carried out of the hotel and conveyed in a little boat on the Seine without pomp or ceremony, to her tomb at Saint- Denis, " as though she had been a simple de- moiselle." At the angle of the Rue Vieille du Temple and the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois stands a beautiful old house with an overhanging tourelle, orna- mented with niches and pinnacles in the Gothic style. Under the general restoration remains something of the original Hotel Barbette, this petit sejour of the unfaithful Queen Isabeau, in 452 A LOITERER IN PARIS which the due d'Orleans dined upon the fatal night of his assassination. Etienne Barbette, master of the mint and con- fidential friend of Philippe le Bel, built a house here, in 1298, and it is his name which has survived its colourful history. But here, under the tenancy of Isabeau de Baviere, the queen and her lover decided all the affairs of state, for the duke was at this time the only rampart of fallen monarchy and the logical protector of the future king against the plots of the Duke of Burgundy. We have already seen how the Duke of Burgundy revenged himself, by the murder of his cousin. The scene of the tragedy was a few steps from the Hotel Barbette in the Rue des Francs- Bourgeois. As for the house itself it again became interest- ing in 1521, as the residence of the old comte de Breze, husband of the famous Diane de Poitiers. One day as Diane stood at a window, doubtless a window of the tourelle, Fran9ois I riding through the street caught sight of her and at once fell a victim to her charms, an incident that launched her upon her career. We are told repeatedly that she was not beautiful, but her spell over both Fran9ois and his son was not less potent. We have seen at Saint-Denis the tomb which THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 453 Louis XII raised to the memory of his grand- parents, the murdered due d'Orleans and his wife, Valentine de Milan. The tomb was saved from the monumental chapel which the duke built, in 1393, in gratitude for his escape from the famous fire in the old hotel of Blanche de Castille during a masquerade, called the ballet dcs ardcfits. The Chapelle d'Orleans formed part of the old convent of the Celestins which had occupied the Quartier Saint-Pol since 1352, when the monks of this order were established there under the patron- age of the dauphin, Charles, during the captivity of his father, Jean le Bon, in I^ondon. The Caserne des Celestins marks the site of this cele- brated convent, and the Boulevard Henri IV, when cut through in recent times, swept a wide path through the middle of the estate, destroying many associations. After the dauphin became Charles V he built the Celestins a beautiful church, whose portail bore statues of himself and the queen, Jeanne de Bourbon. These are now at Saint-Denis. The Celestins, then, became the special foundation of royalty, liberally endowed and protected by Charles V, Charles VI, and the due d'Orleans. The church was paved with sepulchral stones carved with the effigies of the benefactors of the 454 A LOITERER IN PARIS convent, garbed in the habit of the Celestins in which they were dressed before receiving the last sacrament. The choir contained the tombs of Jeanne de Bourbon and of Leon de Lustigan, last king of Armenia — both now at Saint-Denis — and of Anne de Bourgogne, Duchess of Bedford — now at the Louvre. Annexed to the church was a chapel, given by the confederation of the ten thousand martyrs in the XVth century, wherein were buried the families of Gesvres and Beaune under magnificent monu- ments. Three little chapels, communicating with the Chapelle des Gesvres, belonged to the Roche- forts, the Zamets, and to Charles de INIaigne, gen- tleman of the chamber to Henri II, with a beau- tiful statue by Paul Ponce, now in the Louvre. The more magnificent Chapelle d'Orleans rose attached to the Celestins and contained the assem- blage of sculptured monuments of which we have already spoken, and of which many were destroyed and others distributed between Saint-Denis and the Louvre. Naturally so regal a church was pillaged during the Revolution, but the greater sacrifice was made in the middle of the last century when the whole of the chapel was razed to make way for the Boulevard Henri IV. THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 455 Behind the Hotel de Ville, between the river and the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Paris is honey- combed with ancient streets, filled with historic souvenirs of other times. The Hotel de Ville itself, a modern restoration of the original, which was burned in the Commune of 1871, sounds a bit too loudly the note of the quarter. The Place de Greve, with its hideous historical associations, preceded the modernized Place de I'Hotel de Ville. Here, in 1473, was Jean Hardi torn to pieces by four horses on the accusation of liaving tried to poison Louis XI; here Nicolas de Salcede, sieur d'Auvillers, suffered the same fantastic punishment, in the presence of the king and the queens of the court, for having conspired against the life of Catherine de Medicis' youngest son, the due d'Anjou. Here, on May 27, 1610, was Ravaillac executed for the murder of Henri IV; and in 1757 Damiens, the fanatic who tried to kill Louis XV, was put to death with all the savagery of an ingenious people. These are but a few of the horrid associations of this place. Immediately behind the Hotel de Ville lies the Church of Saint-Gervais, brought into promi- nence by the bomb dropped upon it on the Good Friday of 1918, during the celebration of high mass. Many people were killed and the interior 456 A LOITERER IN PARIS of the church was badly damaged. Though as a parish Saint-Gervais dates from the time of Childebert, the present edifice shows nothing earher than the remains of a Gothic church erected in the Xlllth century and entirely remod- elled in the XVIth century. De Brosse, Marie de Medicis' architect, added a Greek portico in 1616. The interior, remarkable for its height, is consid- ered a fine specimen of Gothic architecture. Most of its treasures of painting have been carried to the Louvre and there is little doubt that for future generations Saint-Gervais will stand more promi- nently as the martyr church of Paris than for its artistic qualities. The church stands at the parting of the ways, both leading into the heart of the old Paris of Charles V and VI. One has only to wander at random through this network of narrow byways to become lost in the Paris of the XVth century, of which there remain many fragments, as well as a few entire houses, crumbling with decay or de- based by unworthy occupation, but eloquent of the magnificence of their time. The Rue de I'Hotel de Ville, which runs parallel to the quay of the same name, has preserved its provincial character. Following it through its file of dark dwellings from which exhale the THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 457 odours of many centuries of dampness, the street at its base takes a short curve to the left and comes out, at its junction with the Rue du Figuier, into a small place before an ancient house, whose pointed tower, overhanging the street, has already intrigued us. This is the Hotel de Sens, once interwoven with the group of dwellings which made the royal residence of Charles VI. This noble house, admirable even in its decay, remains, with the Hotel de Cluny, one of the most remarkable specimens of XVth century French architecture. Happy are those who have seen it in its ruin, for restoration is in the air, and the house, the property of the city since 1911, is destined to become a museum of relics of Jeanne d'Arc. The original house served as a Paris residence for the archbishops of Sens, from which mediaeval city Paris, as a simple bishopric, depended until 1622. Its importance therefore was considerable when Jean le Bon, returning from his captivity in England, resided here for a time as guest of the archbishop. Charles V bought the house from Guillaume de Melun and it became the chief of the buildings which constituted the Hotel Saint- Pol. When the latter was abandoned for the Tournelles, under Charles VII, the estate which had belonged to the archbishops was restored to 458 A LOITERER IN PARIS them. The present building goes back to Tristan de Sahizar, archbishop of Sens, who erected it from 1474 to 1519, and is about contemporary with the Hotel de Cluny, the only other specimen in Paris of the domestic architecture of this date. This old hotel has known all the grandeurs, the vicissitudes, the decadence of the quarter itself. Inhabited by the clergy — archbishops, bishops, car- dinals — by royalty, there is also a tradition that it offered its hospitality to Jeanne d'Arc when she entered Paris victorious. Under Henri IV it was for a short time famous as the residence of his divorced wife, Marguerite de Valois — la reine Margot — who brought scandal to its threshold, for one day returning from mass at the Celestins, her page and favourite, Julien, was shot dead at the door of her carriage, by her jealous former lover, Vermond. The queen swore that she would neither eat nor drink until his death was avenged, and she had the assassin beheaded in her presence two days later in the place before the hotel. It was in this house that the former queen slept in a bed with black satin sheets to show off the white- ness of her skin. After Paris was accorded an archbishop the Hotel de Sens was deserted by its owners, who, however, were not dispossessed until the Revolu- Photi) X HoTFJ. nE SEXS, XVTTI CKXTURY. THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 4G1 tionists took possession of the property. Its de- cline was then rapid. For a time it served as a diligence office, and under the Directoire the fa- mous " Courrier de Lyon " is said to have started from its court. Planted in the facade is a ball from the revolution of 1830. Little by little speculators robbed it of its garden, its chapel, and in 1891 the house was despoiled of its chimney- pieces and carved woodwork, sold to collectors; but the square dungeon with its tower at the back of the court and the winding stair of the tourelle remain intact. The Hotel Saint-Pol yielded as royal residence to the Tournelles, which came to the crown during the reign of Charles VI. It was a palace of in- numerable turrets, first built by Pierre d'Orge- mont, chancellor of France, in 1380. His son, bishop of Paris, sold it to the due de Berry, uncle of Charles VI, from whom it passed to his nej^hew the due d'Orleans, and from him to the king. The duke of Bedford, regent of France after the death of Henry V, lived at the Tournelles. Charles VII was the first monarch to adopt the Tournelles as a residence and after him it was occupied on occasions by Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francois I. Henri II found the palace mesquin, insalubre, and nauseabond and 462 A LOITERER IN PARIS made only short stops there during tournaments held in the park which surrounded the chateau, on the site of the present Place des Vosges. The Rue du Pare Royal marks one of the boundaries of this park. It was in such a tournament, held in honour of the marriage of Elisabeth of France with Philip II of Spain, that Henri II, tilting with the Earl of Montgomery, was fatally wounded. The king was hastily carried to the Tournelles, where he expired ten days later, and Catherine de Medicis conceiving a superstitious horror of the place ob- tamed from her son, Charles IX, authority to throw it down. The Rue des Tournelles occupies the line of the fa9ade of the palace, the Place des Vosges marks the site of the royal garden. The Place des Vosges, in its present form, dates from Henri IV, who determined to make the Marais the handsomest quarter of Paris and the Place Royale (Place des Vosges) the brilliant centre from which wide streets radiating in all directions should bear the names of all the prov- inces of France — the Rues Saintonge, de Beam, de Bretagne are survivals of the original intention. The plans adopted for the place were designed by the king's favourite architect, Jacques-Androuet du Cerceau and the king built the side towards THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 463 the Rue Saint-Antoine at his own expense and then ceded plots of ground on the other sides of the square to his courtiers, on condition that thej^ erect houses at once according to the accepted plan, in order that the whole enclosure should be uniform. Thirty-six pavilions surrounded the square. Four new streets were opened leading to the jjlace and the king erected the two central pa- vilions on the south and north, which were called the Pavilion du Roi and the Pavilion de la Reine. The king came daily while in Paris to direct and speed-up the work and during his absences at Fontainebleau he wTote constantly to Sully beg- ging him to do the same. " Je vous recommande la Place Rojfale " was his admonition, added to letters to his minister on other subjects. Henri meant to live in the Pavilion du Roi, but the square was unfinished at the time of his death and it was not until the commencement of the reign of Louis XIII that the Place Royale was inaugurated. The occasion was made brilliant as part of the festivities attending the marriage of the young king's sister, Elisabeth, with the Infant of Spain. This fete established the favour of the place with the aristocracy and it remained a centre of fashion until the commercial world in- 464 A LOITERER IN PARIS vaded it at the end of the XVI Ith century. Though under Louis XIII duelling was for- bidden, the Place Royale was a favourite ren- dezvous for duellists, and the balconies and windows of the square used to be filled with spectators, which gave such affairs almost the pub- licity of gladiatorial combats. As a warning to duellists Richelieu raised in the centre of the square an equestrian statue of the king. It was destroyed by the Revolutionists, who melted the bronze into cannons, and the pres- ent statue, by Dupaty and Cortot, was erected in 1825. It presides over desolation, solitude, abandon. The setting is intact — strangely unchanged and more perfect in its preservation than its contem- porary, the Place Dauphine, of which we have spoken. But every vestige of former splendour has vanished. Where once was all gaiety, life, anima- tion ; where sedan chairs and carriages deposited the beauties of the court of a gallant monarch, where elegant cavaliers pirouetted under the eyes of their divinities, where nobles fought and played, where was the rendezvous of fashion, where court and pub- lic found their choicest distractions and pleasures, is now a vast emptiness pervaded by a touching melancholy. We seem far from Paris in this Photo Moreau Frires PLACE DES VOSGES: STATUE OF LOUIS XIII. Photo A. Giraudon I'LACE DES VOSGES: THE ARCADE. Photo Monuments Historiques HOTEL SULI.Y. DETAIL FROH PRINCIPAL FACADE OF THE COURT. THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 467 complete picture of a dead past, this empty theatre of departed glories. In the poetic beauty of its decline the Place des Vosges is like some exquisite discarded mistress. It has something of the tragedy of old Edinburgh. The vogue of the Place Royale persisted under Louis XIV; then the heau monde emigrated to the vicinity of the Tuileries, or the Palais Royal, while many of the aristocracy had already crossed the river to the faubourg Saint-Germain. The cannons of the Bastille drove out the remaining faithful — shops were shut up and homes aban- doned. The Place Royale became the " Place de ITndivisibilite " and an armory was installed. The present name is in honour of the first depart- ment of France to forward patriot-contributions to Paris. The disposition of the ijJace is fine. Tlie brick houses with their wide, white markings in stone, their picturesque, high-pitched, slate roofs, de- scribe a large square upon which open one hun- dred and forty-four arcades; long galleries are reserved to promenaders; and four wide roads to horsemen and carriages. In the centre the garden was formerly enclosed by a handsome grill dating from Louis XIV. This grill, torn out for no ap- parent reason, is replaced by an inferior railing, 468 A LOITERER IN PARIS but a fragment of it encloses the magnificent hotel of cardinal Mazarin in the Rue Vivienne. (Now j^art of the Bihliotheque Nationale.) INIadame de Sevigne was born in No. 1 Place Royale; Richelieu lived in No. 21. Under Louis- Philippe artists and men of letters replaced the grands seigneurs. Rachel, the tragedienne, died in No. 13; and, in 1832, Victor Hugo occupied an apartment in No. 6, the former dwelling of Marion Delorme, which has now become a na- tional museum of the effects of the poet. Reentering the Marais by the picturesque Rue Fran9ois INIiron, on the left hand of Saint-Gervais, we find again some ancient dwellings. The Hotel de Beauvais (No. 62) is readily distinguishable for its agreeable fa(;ade with balconies and its imposing entrance leading into a fine court. The house was built about the middle of the XVIIth century for Pierre de Beauvais, whose wife, Cath- erine Bellier, was first lady in waiting to Anne of Austria. In the decorations of the court the heads of rams {helier) which alternate with those of lions are in allusion to the mistress of the house. The queen so favoured her that it used to be said that her house was built with stones from the Louvre. There is a rich vestibule with Doric columns sustaining trophies; an oval court with THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 469 pilasters and masks; a stairway with Corinthian columns, reliefs, and a rich balustrade leading to the chief rooms on the first floor. From one of these rooms, on August 26, 1660, Anne of Austria and Henrietta Maria, of England, watched the triumj^hal entry of Louis XIV and Marie- Therese into the capital. The Rue Fran9ois Miron was formerly part of the Rue Saint-Antoine, into which it leads, at the widening of the thoroughfare where the modern Rue de Rivoli starts. We are now in the heart of the JNIarais and seem far from Paris. Two churches, dating from Louis XIII, give the note of antiquity and rise above the general squalour into which the neighbourhood has fallen. That nearest the Rue Francois Miron is the Church of Saint Paul and Saint Louis, built for Louis XIII, in 1627-41, by Francois Derand, upon the site of a Jesuit church, built in 1580, in which Ravaillac, according to his own testimony, was instructed by the Jesuit d'Aubigne to murder Llenri IV. The site of the church was first occu- pied by the hotel of the cardinal de Bourbon. The present church imitates the Italian style of the XVIth centurv; it is cruciform and its hand- some dome is one of the earliest erected in Paris. Richelieu added the portal, from designs by the 470 A LOITERER IN PARIS Jesuit, Marcel Ange, and he celebrated the first mass. Louis XIII made a liberal endowment and the church, before its treasures were despoiled and dispersed by the Revolution, contained many interesting monuments. The sculptor, Sarazin, who carried on the traditions of Germain Pilon, made for it the statues of the grand Conde and his father, Henri de Bourbon; while Pilon's statue of the cruel chancellor, Rene de Birague, (now in the Louvre) was one of the more famous monuments. Sarazin made for the church a golden urn, supported by silver angels, to contain the heart of Louis XIII, and the heart of Louis XIV was brought here, in 1715, enclosed in a case designed by Coustou Jeune. The pulpit was given by Gaston de France, brother of the king. The church still retains a few of its treasures, amongst which the most famous is the Christ in the Garden of Olives by Eugene Delacroix. There is a Madonna in marble by Germain Pilon, a replica of the terra-cotta from the Sainte-Chapelle, now in the Louvre. The crucifix in the sacristy comes from the old chapel of the Bastille and the shells which serve as vessels for the holy water were given by Victor Hugo when his first child was baptised. The Temple Sainte-Marie, which carries the THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 471 picturesqueness of the street well down towards the Place de la Bastille, was built as the Church of the Visitation, by Francois Mansart, in 1632. In the convent of the Visitandines Louise de la Fayette, the virtuous and beautiful friend of Louis XIII, preferring a life of seclusion to the scandals and temptations of the court, took the veil in 1637, to escape from the insults of Richelieu and the queen, who feared her influence. She became superior of the convent under the name Mere Angelique. Louis saw her there and held a long conversation with her through the grill of the parloir, and it was during this con- versation that she persuaded him to consecrate the kingdom to the Virgin. We have seen, in the choir of Xotre-Dame, the statue of Louis XIII off^ering his crown and sceptre to the Virgin, and we know that his son, Louis XIV, executed the vow which his father died too soon to accomplish. Upon the site of this church stood formerly the Hotel de Boissy, in which died Quelus, the favour- ite of Henri III, who had been mortally wounded in the great duel of April 27, 1578. For thirty- three days Henri watched at the bedside of his dying " mignon," offering one hundred thousand francs to the surgeon who could save the life of one to whom he bore uiie merveilleuse amitie. 472 A LOITERER IN PARIS Quelus died calling upon the king and it was Henri himself who cut his long chestnut locks and took from his ears the earrings he had given him. Close by the Church of the Visitation is the Hotel de Mavenne, or d'Ormesson, or du Petit- Muse, a handsome house built by Du Cerceau for the due de Mavenne. But of all the ancient hotels which still remain of those which clustered around the neighbour- hood of the Place Royale the most interesting is that built by Sully, the minister who superin- tended its erection. Du Cerceau was again the architect, building upon part of the site of the old Tournelles this handsome residence for Maxi- milian de Bethune, due de Sully, who had made a fortune in the service of Henri IV. The rich fa9ade of the hotel still looks down upon the rue Saint-Antoine, the lower 2:)art de- stroyed by commercial disfigurement, but the upper stories still full of character. There are two massive corner pavilions with the high-pitched Renaissance roof, connected by a simpler face of which the upper part is obviously modern, but under which is the original imposing entrance to the statel}^ court. This court is richly sculptured with reliefs of the four Seasons, in the Goujon THE MARAIS: HENRI IV 473 style, with armour, with masques and foliage above the windows. Two sphynxes guard the stone steps which lead into the central building at the back and the whole court is opulent in carved stonework of the period. Inside a noble salon shows the proportions of the apartments and here and there a trace of the monogram of Sullv. Another room preserves its ancient mosaic pave- ment. CHAPTER XXI CARNAVALET Directly before the Church of Saint Paul and Saint Louis the Rue de Sevigne leads through to the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois where at the angle of the two streets stands the chief treasure of the Marais, the famous house of Madame de Sevigne, the Hotel Carnavalet. The perfection of the type of private dwellings, of which the Hotel de Sully is a later and more ostentatious development, the Hotel Carnavalet, having been taken early by the city for the installation of its municipal museum, has escaped all the misfortunes of degenerating private occupation and ownership. Lodged in its own chief exhibit, the museum is one of the most thrilling which Paris offers. It deals with the history of the city, especially in the parts which the average visitor knows best — the Revolution and Napoleon. It has all the charm of the sou- venir of that delightful letter writer, its most fa- mous occupant. The fame of Carnavalet covers many genera- tions. The original part of the hotel, which had 474 CARAAVALET 475 been largely added to accommodate the growing collections without disturbing the effect of the authentic portion, is contemporary with the fa- mous fa9ade of the court of the Louvre, upon which we have dwelt at such length, and it also presents the work of the same architect and sculptor. Begun by Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, in 1544, it was completed when two years later these two were called to the Louvre, by Jean Bullant assisted by several students of Goujon, who did not want to abandon entirely its sculp- tures. The house has had many occupants. It was built for Jacques des Ligneris, president of the parliament of Paris and representative of France in the Council of Trente. The next important owner was the widow of Fran9ois de Kernevenoy, a grand seigneur of Brittany, first equerry to Henri II and preceptor of the due d'Anjou, later Henri HI. At the court the rude Brittany " Kernevenoy " became " Carnavalet," the name which above all others has survived as the title of the property. The original house, as one can readily see, consisted of a square of buildings surrounding a small open court. At the time of its first owners it comprised a main structure whose handsome 476 A LOITERER IN PARIS facade with reliefs, if not by Goujon himself, at least of his school, faces us as we stand at the grill under the archway of the entrance. The wings were of one story only and the court was closed across the front by a fa9ade of which the feature was a sort of triumphal arch, embellished with sculptures by Goujon. Madame Carnavalet died at a great age, in 1608, and her successor, Florent d'Argouges, treasurer of Marie de JNIedicis, made the first changes in the house, building as it is thought the upper stories of the wings. In 1654 under another occupant Francois Mansart entirely transformed the hotel, respecting, however, in the main, the work of Lescot and Goujon. Standing in the old court of the hotel, the main facade is decorated by four large reliefs of the Seasons, each accompanied by its appropriate sign of the zodiac — Spring with the ram. Summer with the crab. Autumn with the scales, and Winter with the goat. Except for the Ceres, which is much the most lovely, these reliefs are too evi- dently inferior to the nymphs of the Fountain of the Innocents to be from the same chisel, and three of them were probably executed by another hand, from Goujon's design. Of the sides or wings of the court, the lower floor only dates from Phnfn Ti. Pnmard OAENavalet: court of honour. Photo L. Pamard CARNAVALET : STATUE OF LOUIS XIV. BY COYZEVOX. FORMERLY AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE. LION BY JEAN GOU.TOX. FROM THE FACADE OF THE HOTEL CARNAVALET. ,™^- ULW. . yjLi ^W^aM I'liiito 1 iiumiiliiu CARNAVALET 479 the Renaissance and the handsome heads or masks, fauns and satyrs, of the keystones of the arches are attributed to Paul Ponce. For the decoration of the new fa9ades ^lansart employed two sculptors of unequal talent. The more than mediocre reliefs of the ujjper storey of the right wing, representing Juno, Hebe, Diana, and Flora, with their attributes, are by an unknown sculptor. The reliefs on the opposite side, repre- senting the four elements — Earth, Water, Air, and Fire — surmounted by their attributes, are thought to be the work of Gerard van Obstal, a Flemish sculptor brought to Paris by cardinal Richelieu to work upon the Louvre. Above the entrance door to the main stairway are beautiful reliefs of Jean Goujon representing two geniuses reclining and holding lighted torches, symbolical of the vigilance of Justice even when she seems to repose. Upon the arch of the porte- cochere are admirable figures of Jean Goujon in his best manner. The figure of the keystone, Authority standing upon a globe, is supported by two figures of Fame lying on the extrados of the &rch, holding palms and laurels. The two sub- missive lions which now form part of the decora- tion of the street facade were originally placed over the two little side doors of the court and 480 A LOITERER IN PARIS completed the symbolism of this ensemble, which recalls that this hotel was built for a president of parliament. In the centre of the com-t is the bronze statue of Louis XIV, by Antoine Coyzevox, formerly at the Hotel de Ville. The king is represented standing, wearing the Roman costume of a war- rior. On the pedestal are two reliefs by the same sculptor; to the right France annihilating heresy, a souvenir of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; to the left Royal jNIunificence distributing food to the starving poor, in souvenir of the or- ganized charity after the terrible famine of 1662. This statue was erected in the court of the Hotel de Ville on July 14, 1689, a century to the day before the storming of the Bastille. It com- memorated the reconciliation of Louis XIV with the city of Paris, after the troubles of the Fronde, which the king was long in pardoning, and since which he had never been willing to appear at the Hotel de Ville. Finally, on January 30, 1687, he accepted an invitation to be present there at a festin given in his honour. Upon entering the court he saw the marble statue of Gilles Guerin, erected in 1654, which represented the king as a Roman trampling under foot the rebel Parisian. " Take away that figure," said Louis, " it is no CARNAVALET 481 longer in season." The same night it was re- moved and now decorates the interior court of the chateau of Chantilly. In memory of this solemn banquet Coyzevox was asked to make the statue erected two years after. Somehow it escaped the Revolutionary storm and before 1871 was again in the court of the Hotel de Ville and in 1890 was transported to its present place at Carnavalet. The fa9ade of the building on the Rue de Sevigne dates from the Mansart constructions in the XVI Ith century, but preserves the sculptures of the original entrance, attributed to Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon. To the right and left of the door are the two square reliefs, first placed inside the court, of the subdued lions against a back- ground of war trophies. These reliefs are by Goujon, and are thought to have been inspired by a famous morceau in the Grand' Salle of the Palais. " On the door of the Chainhre Doree, where parliament sat," says Corrozet, " there was a large, gilded lion, having the head lowered to the ground and the tail between his legs, signify- ing that every person, of whatever rank in the realm, should obey and humble himself under the laws and judgment of the court." The lion of the Palais gave the sculptor the motif for those 482 A LOITERER IN PARIS which he carved for the hotel of Ligneris, the president of parliament. Opening upon the garden of the museum, in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, is an arch, called the Arc de Nazareth, which once traversed a street of that name in the Cite, near the Palais de Jus- tice, and established a means of communication between the old Chambre des Comptes and its archives. When the Palais de Justice was ex- tended this street was suppressed and its arch taken down and transported stone for stone to Carnavalet. The fragment undoubtedly dates from the time of Henri II for we see upon the eight consoles sup- porting the arch and its archivolts, the monogram and device of this king several times repeated amongst the heads of satyrs and women. The excellence of its style and the vigour of its sculp- ture also would indicate that Goujon, if not Lescot, worked upon it, or that it is at least of their epoch. The grill which closes the arch is part of the restoration. We find the same device and monogram, com- monly accepted as a direct and official allusion to the amours of Henri II and Diane de Poitiers, on the Louvre, at Fontainebleau, in the chapel of the chateau at Vincennes, in the church of Gous- CARNAVALET 483 sainville, etc., surmounted by the royal crown. We know that Catherine de ]\Iedicis was forced to accept the presence of her powerful rival even in the menage and so with that indomitable will which enabled her to endure humiliation without appearing to accept it, she did her utmost to live down the scandal by accepting the device of the monogram and the crescent as her own. After the death of Henri II, Catherine continued piously to use the symbol, marking, however, distinctly the ends of the crescent to form the letter C, as we see it engraved on the tombs at Saint-Denis and on the astronomical column, which she had built during her M-idowhood and which still stands against the old Halle au Ble (now the Bourse du Conmierce). We have been able tq touch but lightly upon the treasures of the ]\Iarais, than which no quarter in Paris is more rich in historic relics. Carnavalet is in many respects its chief jewel as it is the last monument of civil architecture of the Renaissance which modern Paris offers to the admiration of artists. Of its many occupants it is Madame de Sevigne who has left the most potent souvenir of her passage. She adored Carnavalet and lived there nearlv nineteen years, from 1677 to 1696, up to within a short time of her death. She did 484 A LOITERER IN PARIS not, however, die in the house, but at the Chateau de Grignan. The property was seized by the state under the Revolution and in 1866 Paris bought it for its historieal museum. At this time the name of the street which passes before the house was changed from the Rue Culture Sainte-Catherine to Rue Sevigne, which adds nothing to the glory of the letter writer, but by which Paris loses the last trace of an old monastery which existed here be- fore the Xlllth century. CHAPTER XXII THE LUXEMBOURG: MARIE DE MEDICTS The Palace of the Luxembourg, whose majestic facade forms the imposing vista of the broad Rue de Tournon, is the ancient residence of Marie de JNIedicis, the powerful widow of Henri IV, the first monarch of the House of Bourbon. When Marie decided to build a palace without the walls of Philippe Auguste, ujion a slope of the plateau of Sainte-Genevieve, she followed the example which half a century before her com- patriot and relative, Catherine de jNIedicis, had set when she replaced her old residence, the Tour- nelles, by the new palace of the Tuileries, situated outside the fortified walls of Charles V. The buildings of the Tuileries though not yet finished promised a sumptuous dwelling when ]VIarie de INIedicis became regent, but the haughty widow of Henri IV, though she found herself in- conveniently lodged in the Louvre, felt no interest in terminating the work on the Tuileries, and would not, in fine, occupy a palace commenced by 483 486 A LOITERER IX PARIS another. The royal habitation which she visualized must be her very own. Daughter of a grand-duke of Tuscany and of an archduchess of Austria, niece of a pope, a superb egoism was her natural heritage, as it was also the dominant note of the Italian Renaissance, of which Marie de Medicis was preeminently a product. Furthermore despotic tendencies in her character were fostered and developed by her early widowhood, which left her, at thirty-seven years of age, regent and sole ruler of France. At the time of his father's death Louis XIII was a lad of nine years, and his mother, while enjoying to the full the power of the regency, looked forward none the less with reluctance to the time when she would be forced to relinquish the reins of government to the boy, whom she despised as an ineffectual rival, and upon whom she bestowed little of a mother's tenderness. The position of dowager queen, to which the approaching majority of her son would soon rele- gate her, Marie de Medicis found distasteful and humiliating. She sought to ameliorate its horrors by the construction of a vast private palace, a monument to her name and race, an expression of her own vital personality, to which she might retire, nominally, when the time came, in consid- Photo X THE PALAIS DTJ LUXEMBOURG. MARIE DE MEDICIS PALACE. SALOMON DE BROSSE, ARCHITECT. mfmr^mmrnmammm I'luilo Alinari MARRIAGE OF HENRI IV A>D MARIE DE MEDICIS. BY RUBENS. DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG. KOW IN THE LOUVRE. I'liolo Alinari HENRI IV CONFIDES THE KINGDOM TO MARIE DE MEDICIS. DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG. NOW IN THE LOUVRE. CHAMBRE A COUCHER. BED CHAMBER OF MARIE DE MEDICIS. PALAIS DU LUXEJIBOURG. Photo Braun ct Cie. DETAIL FROM THE CROWNING OF MARIE DE MEDICIS. BY RtTBENS. DECORATION FOR THE PALAIS DU LUXEJIBOURG. LOUVRE. Photo Alinari Plioto X FONTAINE DE MEDICIS. BY DE BROSSE IX'XEMBOURG GARDEN. DETAIL. FONTAINE DE L'OBSERVATOIRE, LUXEMBOURG GARDEN. BY CARPEAUX. Photo X FONTAINE DE L'OBSERVATOIRE. BY CARPEAUX. LUXEMBOURG GARDEN. Photo E. Fiorelli THE LUXEMBOURG 491 erable splendour and without sacrificing appear- ances or yielding more than the letter of her supremacy. Renouncing, therefore, the two large residences of the rive droite, ^Nlarie de ]Medicis selected the calm and spacious faubourg Saint-Germain as the site of her palace. She purchased, in 1612, the estate of Fran9ois de Luxembourg, due de Piney, increasing the property during the following year by a number of acquisitions and exchanges. At last, in 1615, having cleared the united properties of all the existing buildings, the palace was begun. Salomon de Brosse was the architect. History is doubtful as to his identity, his origin, and his birth. He is styled both nephew and student of Du Cerceau, as both son and brother of Jean de Brosse, architect to JNIarguerite de Valois. At the time of which we speak he had done none of his great work — the portail of Saint-Gervais, the aqueduct of Arceuil, the temple of Charenton, the Salle des Pas Perdus of the Pedals, the chateaux of JVIonceaux and of Coulommiers are all posterior to the ^Nledicis palace by several years. He was a Huguenot, yet he inspired jNlarie de Medicis, who was a fervent Catholic, with absolute confi- dence in his ability. The palace was commenced in 1615 and finished 492 A LOITERER IN PARIS in 1620. The plan is based upon a study of the Pitti Palace, in Florence, Marie de ^Nledicis' birth- place, to which the palace bears indeed a certain resemblance. De Brosse was too talented a man to follow blindly his distinguished model; he adapted its general physiognomy, subordinating it to the current French traditions, introducing the long galleries and high corner pavilions, unknown to Italy, but demanded by the French climate. It was the queen's idea that her palace should be reminiscent of the Florentine masterpiece, and de Brosse succeeded so well that his plan found uni- versal favour. In its original form the general mass of the structure formed a parallelogram of almost exact symmetry. The architectural decoration of the principal fa9ade, on the Rue de Vaugirard, and in the grand court, was practically what one sees to-day. But the sides of the palace were length- ened in 1836-40 by the addition of a third section which pushed the facade towards the garden out a considerable distance. This alteration was the most important of the many changes made in the original plan and provided the necessary space for the housing of the senate chamber. The principal entrance to the palace was through a court of honour built within the present THE LUXEMBOURG 493 couit, raised about three feet above the main court and reached by a row of semi-circular steps. Three doors opened from this court of Iionour above which were placed busts of Henri IV, Marie de Medicis, and Louis XIII. The original stairway of honour was within these doors, where now stands the colonnade. Within, the ground floor was composed of great halls and vaulted chambers, reserved for the different functions of the guard. The first floor contained the reception and cere- monial apartments and the living rooms of the queen. These faced the western exposure and communicated with the long, west gallery, a splen- did room with windows on the garden and on the court, designed to hold the decorations by Rubens, now in the Louvre. The magnificence of the gardens corresponded to that of the palace. The parterre was originally larger but not so deep as now; it was bordered on each side by flat bands of flowers and enclosed within a double wall. The terraces followed the mode of the day and were planted with yew and box trees cut into bizarre shapes. The fountains were fed by abundant waters from the springs of Rongis carried through the village of Arceuil, where had been found the re- 494 A LOITERER IX PARIS mains of the Roman aqueduct which transported the waters for the baths of the Palais des Thermes. The first stone in its reconstruction was laid by the queen regent and Louis XIII in 1613. It was finished in 1624 and proved a blessing to the city, for the demands of the palace and gardens were amply satisfied with but a third of the supply of water and the remainder was turned over to pub- lic use. Sauval described the parterre as the largest and most magnificent of Europe, and John Evelyn, writing in 1644, says: " The parterre is indeed of box, but so rarely design'd and accurately kept cut, that the embroidery makes a wonderful effect to the lodgings which front it. 'Tis divided into four squares, and as many circular knots, having in ye centre a noble basin of marble neere thirty feet in diameter, in which a triton of brasse holds a dolphine that casts a girandola of water neere thirty foote high, playing perpetually, the water being convey 'd from Arceuil by an aqueduct of stone, built after ye old Roman magnificence." Marie de Medicis occupied her palace during a tempestuous period following the young king's accession to the throne. Devoured by love of power, she was incapable of directing anything alone and obeyed blindly the will of her favourites. THE LUXEMBOURG 495 Concini and Eleanore Galigai, his wife, who had accompanied her to France. Directed by • these two the queen exerted her fitful influence, worked her stubborn will, now through the weakness of the king, now through her mouthpiece, Richelieu, whose power at first was of her making and whom she regarded as her creation and tool. Desiring to have her coadjutor at hand the queen gave him a portion of her land upon which to erect a house, adjacent to her own. This was the Hotel du Petit Luxembourg and here Richelieu resided until the Palais Royal was built. One can measure his growth by these buildings alone. When he had attained the dignity of the latter he repaid the generosity of the queen mother by abandoning his estate to his niece, the duchesse d'Aiguillon, whom INIarie de ^Nledicis bitterly de- tested and desired to have banished from the court. The Petit Luxembourg is now the official resi- dence of the president of the senate. Meanwhile in the miast of everything the queen became embroiled in political quarrels and court jealousies. Her violent and dominating nature tended to push all things to excess, both friend- ships and hatreds. She excited against herself, and her favourite Concini, the enmity of the court, and after many painful scenes Richelieu, who was 496 A LOITERER IX PARIS now hand in glove with the king, had her banished from Paris. The chateau of Blois was the scene of her cap- tivity from 1617 to 1620, and her escape forms one of the subjects of the series of panels which Rubens painted for the palace. Balls, fetes, and a round of gaieties followed her return and cele- brated her restoration to favour and power. jNIarie, in the intoxication of the moment, thought her fortunes assured forever, and abandoned her- self once again to the beautification of her palace, calling to Paris the greatest painter of the day, then in the height of his power and renown. The fame of Rubens, at this time, filled the ears of the civilized world. Pie was in demand at all the courts of Europe as ambassador as well as painter. His familiarity with diplomatic circles rendered the Flemish painter eminently the artist to cope with the difficult task which Marie de Medicis' vanity imposed upon him. It was indeed a delicate matter to satisfy the colossal conceit of the queen without incurring the displeasure of the king and of Gaston d'Orleans, to say nothing of that of the more formidable Richelieu. Rubens chose the allegorical style of subject, then in vogue, as the most neutral mode of expres- sion, as well as that best adapted to the purpose THE LUXEMBOURG 497 of decoration. He remained in Paris, on his first visit to the court, about a month, planning the work with the queen and familiarising himself with the political situation and the tempers of his clients. The preliminary sketches were finished within about two months after his departure, and in ]May, 1622, were submitted to the queen to- gether with a general plan of the west gallery. All of his compositions were approved with the exception of one which depicted the queen being sent into exile at Blois, conducted by Rage, Calumny, and Hate, and portraits of the queen's parents, the Grand-Duke Francis of Tuscany and Johanna of Austria, were substituted for this can- vas. These sketches, to the artist much more valuable and interesting than the finished decora- tions, are preserved in the Alte Pinakothek, at jSIunich. One year later Rubens again visited Paris, bringing with him nine finished canvases. The queen, who was at Fontainebleau, came up to Paris expressly to see them and was delighted. On his return to Antwerp Rubens continued the work with great rapidity, partly because he must have seen the unstable position of Marie de Medicis, and have been anxious to deliver the work, for which the recompense was a considera- 408 A LOITERER IN PARIS tion, and partly also to accomplish its installation in time for the wedding of Henriette de France with Charles I, of England. He brought the whole series to Paris in January, 1625, and installed himself in the east gallery of the palace, which, having the same exposure and arrangement as the room for which they were intended, served as the best of studios for the pur- pose. Here he put the final touches to the can- vases, and here he painted the coronation of the queen, by the cardinal de Joyeuse, at Saint-Denis, for which the queen and notables of the court, figuring in the composition, posed, and here he made the queen's own portrait, as Bellona. Finally, on May 1, 1625, all was in place and the king, the queen mother, and the court gave it an enthusiastic approval. The west gallery, as has been said, was lighted by windows on both sides and the pictures occupied the piers between the windows and at the ends of the room. At one end was the portrait of the queen in the character of Bellona, the goddess of war, placed over a monumental chimney-piece. This portrait w^as flanked by portraits of the grand-duke and grand- duchess of Tuscany, in spaces above the two doors. The ceiling was richly ornamented by caissons and THE LUXEMBOURG 499 paintings of the twelve signs of the zodiac, by Jacques Jordaens, Rubens' pupil and friend. It has become fashionable to decry this pro- digious work of the Flemish painter, as not only inferior in quality to his great achievements, but as the mere hast}'^ output of his school. So great a genius as Rubens rides easily over this unmerited criticism and the canvases themselves show too much mastery of composition, too much fluency of painting, too much joy of colour to have been done by apprentices, however clever. The panels were not hastily done, they were done with a rapidity born of enthusiasm and carried through, as one can see, with one inspiration; the work really gains in consequence. It is true that his students helped; they were accustomed to throw the composition roughly upon the large canvases from the small sketches, to pre- pare the work for the master, and it might even be easy to say to which canvases Jordaens put his brush. Rubens' atelier was a strong one including with Jordaens, who was to become a master him- self, such capable painters as Diepenbeck, Van Thulden, Van Egmont, C. Schut, and Simon de Vos. But we know that Rubens made the sketches, and that he worked upon the canvases 500 A LOITERER IN PARIS in Paris and that he j^ainted the coronation scene and the portraits in the pahice itself. As for the jjainting the pictures are not the equal of such outstanding masterpieces as the Descent from the Cross, of Antwerp, nor of the marvellous RajJe of the Sabine Wo7Jie7i nor the Inferno of Munich, nor of the great treasures of the Prado, but they show nevertheless an inex- haustible strength and fertility of invention, an infinite variety, a knowledge and a virtuosity evi- dent to every thoughtful observer. The Marriage of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis at Lyon, is one of the most striking of the collection and the head of Henri IV is per- haps the most perfect existing portrait of the king. The Coronation of Marie de 3Iedicis at Saint-Denis is regarded as the most successful of the historical series and it is classed amongst Rubens' most important works. The series is composed of twenty-one allegorical flatteries, under which one reads easily the char- acter of the haughty, obstinate, and false Marie, this princess of weak character, of violent pas- sions, proud in prosperity, humble and suppliant in adversity, who by her detestable character be- came insufferable to her husband and her son, and who alienated her very favourites. Under the THE LUXEMBOURG 501 pure painting is the revelation of Rubens' complete sizing up of the situation which his bravura scarcely takes the trouble to conceal. He seems to have known that with Marie 'de jNIedicis there was no fear of going too far, that she would accept avidl}^ flattery however fulsomely presented — the great point was that there should be " sufficiently enough." Rubens hands it to her strong, as the phrase is, in such a picture as that which depicts Henri IV receiving her portrait with an imbecile smile of rapture — " Quelle femme! " he seems to be saying to himself of this smug, self-satisfied face. But she was far from being as beautiful as Henri thought from her portrait. " Grande, grosse, avec des yeiuc ronds et fixes, elle navait rien de cares- sant dans les manieresr says Sismondi, "" aucune galete dans Vesprit." How he exposes her in such a picture as that in which with an air of false humility and self- effacement she leaves the helm of France to the inexpert Louis XIH; or in that where, upon the apotheosis of Henri IV, she sinks at last upon the throne urged by the insistence of every factor of the kingdom; or again where, having given birth to the puny Louis, she occupies the centre of an admiring group of goddesses; or in the fabulous 502 A LOITERER IN PARIS exaggeration of the Fclicite de la Regence — that regency which as we know brought disaster to France and to Marie the hatred of her subjects. The queen planned that Rubens should decorate the east gallery of the palace with the events of the life of Henri IV, but this wing was unfinished in her lifetime, and in any case, the political in- trigues and discords, which led to the final banish- ment of the queen mother, forced her to renounce the project. It was characteristic of her that she took the precaution to secure her own series first. The story of her undoing is pitiful in its com- pleteness. Her last years were a succession of exiles. They first wished to send her back to Florence, but she, shrinking with all the strength of her racial pride against humiliation before her own people, urged the king to send her only to Compiegne. Later she was banished to Brussels, then to Ghent, and finally she fled to the court of her son-in-law, Charles I, under whose protec- tion she spent two years. At last the poor lady, bereft of all power and reduced to a state border- ing upon indigence, was obliged to retire to Cologne, where, stripped of all insignia of royalty, she died, in 1642, an old woman of sixty-nine years. THE LUXEMBOURG 503 Amongst her colossal faults one virtue shines out strong, a virtue hereditary in her family, that of protecting the arts and letters. She gave pen- sions to Malherbe, and to Marin; named Philippe de Champaigne court painter, commanded of Rubens this series of decorations; constructed the Luxembourg Palace, built the aqueduct of Arceuil, and founded the Hopital de la Charite. The old palace of Marie de Medicis has not played a role so considerable in history as has the Louvre or the Tuileries, but its part has neverthe- less been brilliant and colourful. On her exile from France the queen gave the estate to her favourite son, Gaston d'Orleans, under whom it became the scene of the revels of a wild and dis- sipated society of which he was the leader. When the duke died the palace was inherited by his two daughters, the grande 3Iademoiselle, and the pious duchesse de Guise. It was here that 3Iade- moiselle received the visits of M. de Lauzun, to whom, to the amazement and incredulity of the court, she was briefly betrothed. Lauzun was endowed with the titles, the names, the ornaments necessary to be named in such a contract of mar- riage, the prospective bride herself gave him four duchies of France and the name of jNIontpensier. The estate was estimated at twenty-two millions. 504 A LOITERER IN PARIS The contract was prepared but at the last moment Louis XIV withdrew his consent. Mademoiselle was one of the gaiest figures of the XVIIth cen- tury. She inherited the intelligence, the lack of scruple, and the spirit of intrigue of her father, and though she never married was proposed suc- cessively for the hands of Louis XIV, Philij) IV of Spain, the Prince of Wales (later Charles II of England), and the emperor Ferdinand III. Voltaire writes of her : " Lorsqiton porta le deuil de Cromwell a la cour de France, Mademoiselle fut la S]eul qui ne rendit point cet hommage a la me- moir e du meurtrier d'un roi so7i jjarentf' The last royal owner of the Luxembourg was the comte de Provence, known familiarly as Mon- sieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. When he fled from Paris at the time of Napoleon's return from Elba, his goods were confiscated and the Luxem- bourg became national property. During the Reign of Terror, when the ordinary prisons were insufficient to hold the victims of the Revolution, the Luxembourg Palace was converted into a house of detention where were imprisoned, pele-mele, without distinction of rank or fortune, numerous suspects. The list of unfortunates in- cluded Alexandre de Beauharnais and his wife, Josephine de la Pagerie, Camille Desmoulins, THE LUXEMBOURG 505 Danton, Philippeaux, Robespierre, and David, the painter. Upon the estabhshment of the constitution of 1795 the palace became the seat of government and was consecrated to the use of the five direc- tors. The Consulat followed the Directoire, with Napoleon as first consul in recognition of his magnificent victories in Egypt and Syria, and the Luxembourg became the Palais du Consulat. In 1801 Napoleon created the senate which three years later was to declare him emperor. The palace became the seat of the new government and was known as the Palais du Senat. We know the garden to have been the site of the Roman camp which protected the palace of the Ceesars until the time of Eonorius. The his- tory of the gardens then becomes that of the romantic old Chateau Vauvert, a maiso7i de plaisance, said to have been built by Robert the Pious, and to have stood where now begins the allce of the Observatoire. Tradition said that the house was haunted, that it was the abode of the devil himself, and brave men hesitated to pass along the road at night because of the dreadful noises which issued from the manor and the fre- quent evils which befell nocturnal ramblers in the vicinity. 506 A LOITERER IN PARIS The monks of Chartreuse begged the estate from Saint-Louis and established themselves there in 1257. The court, the two cloisters, the church, and the cells, composed each of a distinct pavilion, following the usages of the order, covered a space large enough to contain a city. The church con- tained a number of illustrious sepulchres and from the cloister were taken the series of pictures, rep- resenting the Life of Saint-Bruno, by Lesueur, now in the Louvre. For her garden, Marie de Medicis exchanged a large tract of land lying on the other side of the monastery, towards the Observatoire, for a con- siderable portion of their property. She en- croached also upon the domain of another religious order, the Filles du Calvaire. A charming souvenir of this scattered order is preserved in the pretty Renaissance chapel, which can be seen from the Rue de Vaugirard, west of the Petit Luxem- bourg. It was built by the queen and presented to the nuns in recompense for the ground taken for the garden. The Revolution swept away royalties and made wholesale havoc of the estates of the many reli- gious bodies, which occupied one-third of the area of Paris. The Filles du Calvaire were put to flight. The monastery of the Peres Chartreux THE LUXEMBOURG 507 was completely destroyed. The pepiniere of the Luxembourg, the allce of the Observatoire, the botanical gardens, houses and streets now cover the site. Aside from its rich past, the garden gains pe- culiar significance from its situation in the heart of the intellectual quarter of Paris. Most of the institutions of learning surround it — it is the gar- den of the University — and artists have estab- lished their general quarter in the adjoining streets. The museum of modern painters, the palace of the senate, and the national theatre of the Odeon mark its northern boundary. At its southern ex- tremity rises the silhouette of the Observatoire, while its eastern length faces at every opening a series of historic institutions. The main eastern gateway opens upon the broad Rue Soufflot, closed by the imposing vista of the Pantheon. To the left lie the law school, the Sorbonne, the Uni- versity of Paris, the Cluny Museum, the School of Medicine, etc.; and to the right, the Ecole des Mines. Not in Paris, nor in any city of France, nor, perhaps, in the whole world exists a garden of nobler aspect, more graceful design, of projjor- tions more perfect and harmonious. While the 508 A LOITERER IN PARIS Tuileries were made over, by Lenotre, the Luxem- bourg retains its old Renaissance form. A foun- tain, by de Brosse, contemporary with the palace, lies towards the Rue de Medicis; another, by Car- peaux, a chef-d'oeuvre of the XlXth century, makes glorious the allee of the Observatoire. The charm of this old garden is of a subtlety, a simplicity, which does not arrest superficial atten- tion, but sinks in more and more profoundly as acquaintance with its varied aspect grows. One must know it bleak and bare in winter. One must have watched its gradual transformation in the early spring. One must have idled away there dreamy, summer twilights and walked through the rustling, russet carpet in the autumn, when, especially towards the Pantheon, the great trees have turned to glowing masses of rust and the terraces are vivid with the bright bloom of the late flowering plants. The noble dignity of the palace, the elegance of the formal garden appeal to every esthetic sense, are to feed upon and live into. As one gives up to the charm of the exquisite whole every finer instinct is stirred and satisfied. What poem, what picture, Avhat music is more elevating than the spectacle of the garden on a sunny morning, its fundamental setting decked with flowers, nested in THE LUXEMBOURG 509 by birds, and peopled with the gay French life smiling out its destiny before one? It exhales the very essence of happiness. It slips with even closer sympathy into one's minor moods when, wrapj)ed in the first cool, close mist of those rare, unrelated days of late Septem- ber, a penetrating tristesse pervades and tempers the joy of living. Then it is like a great cathedral, full of mystery and quiet. But most sensitive and tender it becomes in early October, when the birds and the foreigners have taken wing and the marroniers, having shaken free of their crackling russet, unfold confidingly again into flower and the more sheltered trees show rifts of high-green leaves, their last touch- ing protest against the inroads of winter. Then it is delicious to linger late in the open, to take all one can of this sweet parting. CHAPTER XXIII SCATTERED TREASURES There are amongst the monuments of Paris those which astound by their grandeur, like Notre- Dame and the Louvre; those which satisfy by the perfection of their setting, hke the Luxem- bourg, the Concorde, and the Place des Vosges; those which act as great architectural axes, like the Sacre-Coeur, the Pantheon, the Madeleine, and Saint-Sulpice; those which serve a more inti- mate purpose of decoration, like the Sorbonne, Val de Grace, the Institut, and the Invalides; and those which stand apart and unique, scattered like jewels through the city — I'Auxerrois, Carna- valet, Cluny, the Sainte-Chapelle, the Triumphal Arch of the Carrousel, and Saint-Etienne-du- Mont. Of these last, each so perfect in its way, it is, perhaps, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont which rests closest upon the heart — this hijou of the Renais- sance, this delicious flower of architecture, so perverse, so quaint, so exquisite, which, though 510 P/iOfo Z SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-MONT. Photo ^ SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-MONT : I.NTERIOK. SHOWIKG THE- RO0D-IX)PT. SCATTERED TREASURES 513 half hidden bv the Pantheon, makes of that vast monument its background. Irregular and capricious in its construction, it charms by its coquetry and its movement, by its variety and its grace. From the peak of its exceedingly pointed gable to the base of its quasi- classic portico; from the vaulted north porch with its period doors to the tip of the lanthorn sur- mounting the tall, slim tower; from the urns and statues of the lower facade, to the oval rosace of the gable with its expressive symbol of eternity, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont charms. Nothing more indigenous could possibly gi'ow out of that wayward old Rue de la Montagne- Sainte-Genevieve, of which it seems the ultimate expression — the ultimate expression of that old Paris, of which this street, for those whose vision can pierce the shabbiness of its decline, was the very essence and character. Clovis himself might have blazed the trail over the virgin soil of the mountain, when he picked its summit for his re- nowned basilica. ' The antiquated north porch, with its semi- circular flight of stone steps, which continue the upward slope of the hill, set in strangely under the slender belfry, is all in keeping with the old neighbourhood and the oddly precipitous ^;/flC