¦ ¦ ¦ ¦

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Ibtetoric Cburcbes of pans

sunt (Bermmn tire^rts

Printed by Lemercier Paris

Downey & C° "'

Htsixrrk ® burets
of IP arts

BY
Walter F. Lonergan

fllustrated with Drawings
BY
BRINSLEY S. LE FANU
and from Photographs

NEW YORK
THOMAS WHITTAKER, 2 and 3, BIBLE HOUSE
1896

LONDON :
printed by gilbert and rivington, ld.,
st. johk's house, clerkenwell, e.c.

hide Parisiacas properant cito visere sedes,
Quo Stephanus martyr culmina summa tenet,
Quo Germane, tuum cohtur, sanctissime corpus,
Quo Gemiveffa micat, Virgo dicata Deo.
Nee tua prcpternt Dionysi culmina martyr,
Quin adiens tibimet posceret auxilium.
Ermoldus Nigellus, II., 143.
Alluding to the visits of Lewis the Pious, or Louis le Debonnaire, the
St. Louis of the 9th Century, son of Charlemagne, to the holy Parisian shrines of
St. Stephen, St. Germain, St. Genevieve, and St. Denis.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
IRotre H>ame be Paris.
i.
PAGE
A symphony in stone " — Esmeralda and Quasimodo— Historical scenes in
Notre Dame de Paris— The cloister and the hospital — The ship-shaped
island — Ham Fair — Stacking hay and oats in church — The Feast of
Fools—The University in the cloister — Devotion to the Virgin Mary
in Paris— The Dominicans and the University — Tests for the Huguenots
— Louis XIII. and his vow — Modern veneration of the Blessed Virgin —
Her name given to Voltaire and others  i
CHAPTER II.
IRotre 2)ame be parts.
ii.
Historical connections — The third crusade — Philip Augustus and Ingelburgha
of Denmark — Formal interdict against a frivolous festival — The Albi-
genses — Raymond of Toulouse flogged at the doors of Notre Dame —
Blanche of Castille and the Chapter of the Cathedral — Philip the Fair
and Boniface VIII. — Gallican liberties — On horseback in Notre Dame —
Burning of the 'Templars — A dreadful summons — The big taper of
Notre Dame — Cathedral Council re the Anti-Popes — Henry VI. of
England crowned in Notre Dame — Te Deums and thanksgivings from
Agnadel to Sebastopol — The League and the Huguenots — Paris an
archbishopric — The Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame — Coronation of
Napoleon — Marriage of the Third Napoleon — The Communists of 187 1 . 13
CHAPTER III.
IRotre Dame be parts.
111.
Gothic architecture — The mediaeval architects and sculptors — A lady sculptor
— The monastic and the lay builders — The ravages of revolution . . 29
vii

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
IRotre Dame be parts.
IV.
PAGE-
The facade — The great portals — The gallery of the kings — The Devil's
cauldron — The interior of Notre Dame — The stained glass windows —
Great festivals and famous preachers — Lacordaire, Ravignan, Monsabre,
Pere Hyacinthe, and Monseigneur d'Hulst  41

CHAPTER V.
Zhc Sainte Cbapelle.
St. Louis — His piety, and desire to become a Dominican — Fainting from
prolonged prayer — The mystic chapel — Joinville's testimony — The
Armenians and St. Louis — The Chapel and the Police Court — Boileau's
satirical poem — Imperial impecuniosity — Gibbon's version of the cost
of the Chapel — The rival architects — Exploiting the young and zealous —
Stabbing a rival — Historical events and full description of the monument 59

CHAPTER VI.
Ebe Hbbeg Gburcb of St. Denis.
1.
Saint Denis town — The Communists and the abbey church — Hatred of
kings — Unlovely surroundings — Catulliacum — Dagobert — The supposed
damnation of Charles Martel — Pepin and the Pope — The abbey and
Charlemagne — The ravages of the Northmen — Descriptions of Sir
Francis Palgrave — Abbot Suger — Famous monks — Peter Abelard — His
" Book of Calamities " — The Renan of the Middle Ages — The devotion of
Heloise — The lover's tomb . --..... 7c

CHAPTER VII.
Z\)c Hbbes Cburcb of St. Denis.
11.
Veneration of monarchs for the Shrine — Fetes and historical events — Henri
Quatre abjuring Protestantism in the abbey — New storms and sieges —
The desecration of the tombs in 1792 — The coffin of Louis XV. — The
head of St. Denis — Speech in the National Assembly — Viollet-le-Duc's
restorations — Exterior of the church — The interior and its monuments
viii

CONTENTS.
PAGE
— The crypt — The dim vault of the Bourbons — Enumeration of the
coffins in the royal charnel-house— The pictures in the sacristy — Divine
worship restored in the church by the Third Republic . . . -87

CHAPTER VIII.
St. Germain 2L'Hu$errots.
The Huguenots — Conde and Coligny — The two saints — Etienne Marcel and
Charles the Bad — Maurevert, the hired murderer — Coligny and Charles
IX. — Catherine de' Medici and Due Henri de Guise — The Bartholomew
massacre — The bell signal — " Down with the Huguenots ! " — The window
of Charles IX. — Balzac's opinion — Catherine de' Medici praised by the
novelist — Her powerful enemies — Maria de' Medici — Concino Concini
and Leonora Galigai — A skilful bird-trainer — -Murder of Concini — His
body, dragged out of the tomb— The service for the murdered Due de
Berri — Description of the church ... .... 99
CHAPTER IX.
St. <3ermain=bes=pres.
A mighty monastery— The remains of the abbey and their modern uses — The
Benedictines and the Salvation Army — The rival fairs — Privileges of the
monks — The Northern Pirates — Formation of the " Noble Faubourg " —
Disappearance of Cow Road and the Froggery — Increasing wealth and
worldliness — Reforms effected — Royal and abbatial tombs — Abbot and
king — The tombs of the Douglases — The church a powder manufactory
during the Revolution — Flandrin's frescoes — Strange career and sad end
of the artist — General description of the church — Its connection with the
French Academy ........... 109
CHAPTER X.
Ube pantbeon, formerly St. Genevieve's Gburcb, anb
St. Etienne bn /Ibont.
"A bad imitation of St. Peter's" — Quinet's view of Soufflot's work —
St. Genevieve and Attila — Treatment of the Patroness of Paris by the
Republicans — The " Temple of Renown " — Mirabeau's funeral — Voltaire,
Rousseau and Marat — Royalist revenge for the desecration of St. Denis —
In Napoleon's days — The Restoration and Baron Gros — Changes — In the
hands of the Communists — The frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes and
others — The tombs in crypt — The church of St. Etienne du Mont — Its
splendid rood-loft — Gibbon's account of the finding of St. Stephen's
remains — Miracles— The curious architectural features of St. Etienne du
Mont — The glasss by Pinagrier — The tomb of St. Genevieve . . . 119
ix

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.
St. Sulpice— St. SuUen le pauvre— St. Severin.
PAGE
St. Sulpice and its district— The " Temple of Victory," the banquet to Bona
parte — The "Clarionet" towers — The seminary of St. Sulpice — Ernest
Renan's connection with the church and the college — The Sulpicians :
Servandoni's facade — The work of Eugene Delacroix — The meridian
line — The shells— St. Julien le Pauvre and its pictured screen — A terrible
district— St. Severin — The stained glass — The daughter of Herodias
dancing — Historical operation on a criminal  133

CHAPTER XII.
ZTbe Sorbonne— Ube Dal be Grace— St. Xouis bes Snvalibes—
St. jfrancis Javier's— Ibe Cburcb of St. Sosepb bes Cannes
—St. Ubomas b'Hquin— St. Xouis=en=3L'3le— St Jacques bu
1baut pas— St, /Ibebarb's— St IRicolas bu Cbarbonnet
Richelieu's tomb — Stealing the cardinal's head — Opening of the tomb in
1 89 5 — Mignard's frescoes in the Val de Grace — St. Louis des Invalides.
The Hotel des Invalides — The Sombreuil family — The cup of blood —
Napoleon's tomb and funeral — The church of St. Francis Xavier — The
church of St. Joseph des Carmes — The massacre of the priests — The
spots of blood — The crypt — Josephine de Beauharnais in the prison
of the Carmelites — St. Thomas d'Aquin — St. Medard's . . . 143

CHAPTER XIII.
St. JEnstacbe— St. Gervais, St. protais— St. Xeu, St. Gilles
—St. /Iberri— St. IRicolas bes Cbamps— St. 3Lanrent-
Ste. ]£U3abetb— IRotre Dame bes Manes /Ibanteaui*— St.
Paul, St. Xouis— Sainte /Ibarguerite— IRotre Dame bes
Dictoires— IRotre Dame be Xorette-St. 1Rocb— IRotre Dame
be rassomption.
St. Eustache and its three patrons — Jacob the Hungarian — The butchers —
Scarron 's wife — A terrified congregation — Mirabeau — Madame Momoro,
Goddess of Reason — The Women's Club — The Communists and the
market-women — Moliere's funeral — St. Gervais — Scarron's tomb — St.
Leu — The bleeding statue — St. Merri's — St. Nicholas-in-the-Fields— -
Mademoiselle de Scude'ri's tomb — Other churches — Rabelais and the
Man of the Iron Mask — The monuments to the mignons of King
Henri III. — Cardinal Richelieu's first mass — The Dutch dauphin —
The English converts — Barras, Bonaparte, and the Venus of the
Capitol ............. 161

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIV.
Modern Churches.
PAGE
Xtbe /Ibabeleine— St. pbilippe bu IRoule— ftbe Cbapelle
Bjpiatoire— St. augustin -Ste. Clotilbe— Ube Urinite— St.
IDincent be Paul— Ube Basilica of tbe Sacre^Cceur— TLhe
Cbapel of tbe Convent of tbe Sacre=Cceur, anb tbe smaller
Cburcbes.
The fashionable church — The Madeleine and the Commune — A temple of
glory — The cemetery of the Madeleine — Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette
— Rossini's funeral — The Sacrd-Cceur and the old Church of St. Pierre
— A famous hill — The Hallelujah of the Germans — Ignatius Loyola-
Henri Quatre and the abbess — The Temple of Reason and the Mont-
martre Goddess — Montmartre in 1814, 1871, and 1895 . . . .181
CHAPTER XV.
"Ebe Protestant Cburcb of tbe ©ratorg— XTbe iRussian Cburcb
— Ube Synagogues.
French Protestants before the Reformers — "Little Geneva" — Calvin and
Cop — Abbot Briconnet and Marguerite de Navarre — Burning heretics —
The Protestant tailor — The Huguenot hedge-schools — The first
Synod — St. Bartholomew's Day — The League — The Edict of Nantes —
George Washington and the French Protestants — The " White Terror "
— The Bible Society — Jonathan, the Jew — Early persecutions of the
children of Israel — Removal of Jewish disabilities . . . . -191
CHAPTER XVI.
inscriptions anb Epitapbs.
A ghastly memorial — The "Sorrows of Death" — Eccentric epitaphs— The
Bouvines Memorial — Strange epitaph of Jean de Creil — The glory of
Louis XIII. — The tomb of Lulli — The inscription in the Scotch
College  199

Index  • ... . 209

INITIAL LETTERS

Clovis I. .
Childebert I. .
PepinLouis III.
Carloman .
Robert I.
Catherine de' Medici
Hugues Capet .
Philippe III. .
Jean I.
Jean II.
Charles V.
Charles VII. .
Louis XII.
Francois I.
Henry II.

PAGE

•' 3

. is

• 31

 43

61

77

. . . 89

. 101

. in

121

• 135

• H5

¦ • 163

. . . . 183

• 193

. 201

Xll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,

NOTRE DAME ...

To face

i

Monster .

12

Ditto. . 

36

Ditto.

37

Ditto. . ...

50
Ditto. . ...
Si
Choir stalls . ¦ . . ...
To face
29
West Front ... . .
40
THE SAINTE CHAPELLE
To face
64
, Interior . . . ...
To face
59
The Reliquary .......
72
Capitals of the Porch of the Upper Chapel
70
Figure at the top of the Chevet
74
ST. DENIS— Tomb of Marie Antoinette
To face
75
The Crypt and Tomb of Louis XVI. .
To face
83
The North Portal . . .
86
Tomb of Henry II.
Q4
The Crypt
9 5
ST. GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS .
98
Statue of Coligny — Rue de Rivoli
To face
104
ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRES
Frontispiece
Fresco by Flandrin
108
Ditto 
To face
us
ST. ETIENNE DU MONT— Interior
118
The Rood Loft
126
The Pulpit ...
129
THE PANTHEON
123
ST. SULPICE . ...
132
ST. SEVERIN
140
THE VAL DE GRACE
142
THE SORBONNE— The Tomb of Richelieu .
146
ST. LOUIS DES INVALIDES— Interior .
To face
ISO
Tomb of Napoleon
153
ST. MEDARD . . .
158
ST. EUSTACHE 
160
Parish Arms . . . .
168
ST. MERRI ....
171
ST. NICOLAS-DES-CHAMPS
i
172
ST. LAURENT ...
To face
173
ST. ROCH— The High Altar
To face
177
THE MADELEINE
180
ST. AUGUSTIN .
18S
THE TRINITE . . . . .
To face
187
ST. CLOTILDE ...
186
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH (Winter) .
190
ISRAELITE TEMPLE— Interior ....
197
Xlll
ARTIST'S NOTE.
Amongst the smaller illustrations in this book, the artist desires to acknowledge
his indebtedness to the following works : — " Les Eglises de Paris," M. l'Abbe
Pascal; "Histoire de la Sainte Chapelle," S. J. Morand ; " Itineraire Archdolo-
gique de Paris," F. de Guilhermy ; and to a work by the same author, " Mono
graphic de I'Eglise Royale St. Denis," in which copies of the small engravings of the
tombs of the Kings of France form part of the letterpieces at the commencement
of each chapter.

pl'l ' T JT, - -in  _ _ . . „ _ ._... _ . .. — ' "'" . . -  -  H

INTRODUCTION.

In a book of this kind many authorities have to be consulted and a good
deal of evidence has to be sifted. Facts and dates are frequently difficult to
verify, especially in the case of the old churches and abbeys of Paris which
have suffered from the ravages of foreign foes and civil war. The author
has done his best to reconcile conflicting testimony, and has gone a little
ahead of all writers, either French or English, who have been in the same
field before him. He has dealt at greater length than others with the
historical events happening in, or in connection with, the older churches.
This book is therefore in advance, not only of ordinary handbooks, but of
the archaeological treatises, like those of Baron F. de Guilhermy, which
have chiefly dealt with architectural or other details, and have only
touched incidentally on historical events.
Three churches — Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, and St. Denis —
stand out in greater prominence than the others. An attempt has been
made to describe them as completely as possible, in the first place, because
they are often the only edifices of the kind in which average visitors to Paris,
and even Parisians themselves, take an interest, and, secondly, because they
are the three great legacies of Gothic genius in the possession of the inhabi
tants of the French mother city. Rouen, Beauvais and Chartres have their

xv

INTROD UCTION.
own monuments to show the skill of the early French architects and
sculptors, but in Paris, the cathedral, the chapel of the Law Courts, and,
to a large extent, the elegant edifice of St. Denis, are the only structures
produced by the genius of the soil, untrammelled by the necessity of
imitating Greek temples or Roman basilicas at the bidding or command of
Royal or Imperial patrons.
The author must acknowledge his indebtedness to the " Chartularium
Ecclesiae Parisiensis," to the works of Viollet-le-Duc, to Baron F. de
Guilhermy, to Gibbon, who has written not a little about Paris churches in
his " Decline and Fall," to Sir Francis Palgrave's " History of England
and Normandy," to Abbe J. Perdreau, who has issued a little work on St.
Etienne du Mont, to Abbe" Torre, who has published a useful monograph on
the important church of Saint-Eustache, to the compilers of the literary
" Paris Guide,'' which is a valuable compendium of information to those
who know how to use whatever is not out of date in the volume, and finally
to Dubu, whose treatise on Notre Dame is the nearest approach to an
historical, as opposed to an architectural work on the subject.

xvi

IRotre Dame.

To face p. I.

CHAPTER I.

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
I.
" A symphony in stone " — Esmeralda and Quasimodo — Historical
scenes in Notre Dame de Paris — The cloister and the hospital
— The ship-shaped island — Ham Fair — Stacking hay and oats
in church — The Feast of Fools — The University in the cloister
— Devotion to the Virgin Mary in Paris — The Dominicans
and the University — Tests for the Huguenots — Louis Xfff.
and his vow— Modem veneration of the Blessed Virgin — Her
name given to Voltaire and others.

|F Architecture be "frozen music," the Cathedral of
Notre Dame de Paris well deserves the description
of Victor Hugo who called it " a symphony in stone."
This is poetical language which, however appropriate, may
be unintelligible to many a British or American tourist
who, standing on the level ground before the famous Paris
cathedral, sees nought before him save what, by the utmost
stretch of his imagination, and in the limited vocabulary at
his command, he may concede to be a " fine building."
Romantic memories of Esmeralda, Quasimodo, and Claude
Frollo, whose phantasmal figures have been familiar to
London playgoers, as well as to the readers of Hugo's
lurid pages, may, haply, flit across the minds of some
visitors from Great Britain and Ireland as they gaze on the fretted
facade, the pointed archways, the row of kings drawn across the frontage
like a belt, the quadrangular towers and all the other noted architectural
and sculptural features of the metropolitan church of Paris.
To realize in the proper spirit the grandeur and the associations of the
great Gothic pile which, in spite of alterations and defacements, notwith
standing the clumsiness of some of its restorers, like Soufflot, the fury of
revolution and the canker of time, still remains a marvellous memorial
of mediaeval workmanship, one must not depend alone on the literary or
stage effects evolved by the novelist and dramatist from the stones Of
Notre Dame de Paris.1 History must be laid under contribution in order
to enable us to realize the part which this most- famous of French
monuments has played since it was completed in the thirteenth century.
1 In the preface to his "Notre Dame de Paris," Victor Hugo states that he
conceived the idea of his romance from the inscription 'ANArKH, "fatality," written on
the wall of one of the cathedral towers. 3 B

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Notre Dame de Paris is an historical, as well as an ecclesiastical and
architectural landmark. It is eclipsed in some points of architectural
grandeur by other edifices in France and elsewhere. It disappoints, at
first sight, like St. Peter's at Rome. Its low, unfinished towers give it a
stunted appearance, and it loses by comparison with the minsters of
Cologne and Strassburg,1 whose springing spires seem to symbolize the
heavenward aspirations of those who faithfully follow a religion founded
on idealism. It was one of its ablest restorers, Viollet-ie-Duc, who said that, if the
pillars of Notre Dame had a voice, they could recount the annals of
France from the days of Philip Augustus to our own. This historical
connection is, therefore, one of the charms of the chief Paris church for
all who have not become too modern and sophisticated to lose veneration
for antiquity. Restorations and repatchings have assuredly altered the
face of the majestic building. Modern mortar, plaster of Paris, lead,
wood, and iron are calculated to spoil one's appreciation of the antique,
and to give a prosaic curb to the lively historic imagination which finds
its keenest pleasure in re-peopling the present with the phantoms of the
past. The intensely new aspect which marks much of the sculptured
imagery on the frontage of Notre Dame de Paris, disturbs recollections
and jars on the visual nerves of the archaeologist, like the propping and
cementing of the Coliseum and St. Peter's.
The restorations must perforce be effected, but one cannot help
imagining, when they are thrust aggressively in view, that one is being
duped by cunning curators and able architects who have been repatching
and rebuilding until nothing remains but a mere shell or skeleton of the
old structure, buried beneath a mass of nineteenth-century brick, stucco,
or concretionary limestone.
Enough, however, remains of Notre Dame de Paris to give a good
notion of its antiquity and to satisfy the artist, the antiquarian, and the
raiser of historical phantoms. Its lines, as the historian Michelet says,
are those of a book. It is an open record in stone, and under its
gorgeous rose-windows, whose rays empurple the floor of nave and
transept, great historical dramas were enacted, and scenes, solemn and
1 So good an authority as Freeman writes " Koln " and " Strassburg," as well as
" Trier " for Treves. " Cologne," the English as well as French form, is here preserved.
There will always be this difficulty about the names of foreign places, and if we call the
capital of Rhineland, Koln, we must call Vienna, Wien.
4

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
pompous, gay and grotesque, were often visible. It is a fane more famous
than other European monuments of the kind, with the exception of Saint
Sophia's, rebuilt by Justinian in the sixth century, in order to eclipse
Solomon's temple. It is, to some persons, more historically interesting than
St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen's of Vienna, or even St. Peter's,
for it witnessed more dramatic events than these places. It epitomizes
nearly the whole history of the strange and fascinating French nation.
Wandering amid its internal or external recesses one can hardly imagine
it to be in busy, brilliant and restless Paris, but rather in some slow, old-
world town, where steam, the telegraph, the telephone and all the complicated
contrivances of modern civilization are still unknown. It is out of the range
of feverish Bourse speculation, of the theatres, music-halls and places where
vice flaunts in gaudiest and most fascinating attire. The cries of the backers
of favourites do not trouble its tranquillity. The illusion of calmness and
antiquity is rather dispelled by the contiguity of the big, modern, barrack
like building of the Prefecture of Police, and by the equally unlovely H6tel
Dieu, whence medicinal odours are wafted on warm days towards the
cathedral towers. By confining oneself to the church, however, one can
retain the illusion, and, after all, the life that there is now-a-days around the
minster is rather slow and stagnant. There is no close on the fine old
models of English minsters — like Lichfield or Exeter, for instance — no antique
cloister as at Westminster, no God's Acre as at St. Paul's. The houses of
the Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame, in spite of a few modern additions, do not,
however, give an impression of contemporary bustle and activity. Even the
bit of river bounding the church on the south side is sluggish in its
course, and the heavy omnibuses from Batignolles to the Jardin des Plantes
rumble like old " diligences " around the venerable pile.
For all that, the island of the city on which Notre Dame de Paris stands
was once not only the busiest part of Paris, but also the kernel or cradle of
the capital of France which, like Rome, has been so important a centre in
the world's history. When St. Stephen's and St. Mary's stood where Notre
Dame is now, the island formed the chief bulwark against the inroads of the
northern pirates.1 From that small, river-girt strip of land which looks like
a leviathan ship, the great mistress and mother city of France sprouted and
1 Freeman in his " Select Historical Essays" gives a very concise and lucid account of
the rise of Paris, comparing it with London, Vienna and other capitals. The accounts of
Victor Hugo in his novel, and of Michelet in his history, are picturesque, but facts are some
times rather evasively treated by these great writers. 5 B 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
grew by degrees until it became the seat of government, after having been
an insignificant township under the predecessors of Charles the Bald. The
ship-shaped kernel which, according to heraldic writers, gave the form of the
arms of Paris, expanded in every direction, bursting its mud or brick barriers
and stretching out its hands to grasp the green hills through which the Seine
threads its way to the ocean.
In those distant days when men built such majestic edifices as Notre
Dame the- church was everything to the people, and not a mere meeting
house for prayer and thanksgiving. It was the house both of God and man,
an asylum or refuge, the place where the people often assembled to take
counsel. The Ham Fair of Eastertide, now held on the Boulevard Richard
Lenoir, near the site of the Bastille, on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday of Holy Week, was of old established on the " Parvis " or
" Paradise " of Notre Dame, that is to say, on the ground in front of the
church, and from which, as some say, steps led up to the cathedral. Each
purchaser had his pig-meat blessed by a priest as he left the Parvis. Hay
and oats were also stacked in the church. The sick were tended there, and
sometimes there were feasts and dancing. Grave canons joined in sports,
and the Feast of Fools, afterwards prohibited by a Papal Legate, was
carried out with extraordinary animation. This " Festum Fatuorum " is
dealt with in the " Chartularium Ecclesiae Parisiensis," which contains a
chapter descriptive of the " foul language " used and the deeds of blood
caused during the junketing.1 There were likewise feasts in honour of the
Ass, an animal identified with the history of the Redeemer of mankind. At
these festivals the priest, as we are told by old writers, in finishing the Mass,
brayed like a donkey. " In fine missae sacerdos versus ad populum vice : Ite.
missa est, ter hinhannabit," etc. A hymn, half Latin, half French, was sung
in which the " fine, strong " donkey was told that he would have abundant
fodder. It began, — Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus
Pulcher et fortissimus
Sarcinis aptissimus
Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez
Belle bouche rechignez,
Vous aurez du foin assez.
1 Chapter 76. " Contra facientes festum fatuorum in ecclesia." Peter of Capua, Papal
Legate, remonstrated with Bishop Eudes de Sully, and the Feast of Misrule was temporarily
discontinued. See further references to this subject later on.
6

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
This respect was paid to the ass not only as having been connected with the
history of the Saviour, but also because the animal was regarded in the
Middle Ages as a model of patience, meekness and resignation.1 The sacred
drama, too, the mystery plays, were represented in the church, and the
people joined the priests in celebrating many of the rites. Afterwards came
comparative silence and gloom ; only the priests and the choristers were heard,
and the voices of the worshipping people were subdued. The mighty edifices
raised by the mediaeval master-builders at the bidding of princes and prelates,
became little more than sacred museums. Divine Service is held in them
still, but bereft of many of the popular attractions of old, like the dove-flying
at Pentecost, or the fantastic processions around the illuminated galleries
and up the towers, which symbolized the life journey of humanity
towards the heights of the heavenly Jerusalem.
Learning, as well as religion, had its headquarters at Notre Dame de
Paris. The cradle of the university was on the Parvis near the Bishop's Palace,
and the Benedictines, in the monumental " Histoire Litteraire de la France,''
call the episcopal school the origin of all the others. The "others " became
rather numerous.. That of St. Victor 2 was the first and most celebrated of
the schools of the canons regular to which William of Champeaux trans
ferred, in 1108, the school of the Cloister of Notre Dame. Next came the
school of Sainte Genevieve where Abelard taught, and that of Jocelyn,
afterwards Bishop of Soissons. These were attended by many English
students. The scholastic institutions near Notre Dame formed what was
then called the " Academy," the title University not having been given until
the thirteenth century, when Pietro LomDarao was Bishop of Paris.3
Turning now to the origin of the cnurcn, we find that Notre Dame
replaced in the year 11 63, when it was begun by the direction of Maurice
de Sully, sixty-second Bishop of Paris, two other sacred buildings. One of
1 Carlyle refers to " Ass Processions " in his " French Revolution." Animals are still
blessed by priests in many parts of provincial France, as is shown by E. H. Barker in his
" Wanderings by Southern Waters."
2 Dante, who studied in Paris, makes several references to the Canons of St. Victor, and
the " Vico degli strami,'' (straw-littered street), or Rue du Fouarre, where scholars met, is
also mentioned.
3 Pietro Lombardo is mentioned in the tenth canto of the Paradiso, —
Quel Pietro fu che con la poverella,
Offerse a Santa Chiesa il suo tesoro,
the " Peter who, like the widow, gave his treasure to the Church." His Liber Sententiarum,
containing a system of scholastic theology, is still greatly esteemed. He was Bishop of
Paris only one year. 7

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
these was dedicated to Mary Mother of God, the other to St. Stephen.
The new church perpetuated the memory of the Mother of God alone,
that of St. Stephen being preserved elsewhere.
We may take it for granted that those who dedicated the church to the
Virgin were not influenced alone by the fact that a previous temple in her
honour stood on the banks of the island city, but by the impetus given to
what Protestants call her " worship," and Catholics her " cult," or devotion,
in the twelfth century. The Virgin had of course been venerated from the
early ages of the Church. The history of her "worship," to use the non-
Catholic term, has engaged the attention of many an able and distinguished
writer, English as well as foreign, and Henry Thomas Buckle has left us a
few pages of fragmentary notes on the subject, in the "Miscellaneous and
Posthumous Works," published in 1872. In the second century Irenaeus
attributed extraordinary powers to the Virgin, who, in ancient works, called
the " Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus," and the " Gospel of the Birth of
Mary," was hailed as " divine." Then there were the Collyridians, so called
from the Greek word meaning a kind of cake, who were chiefly women. '
These offered bread at stated intervals to the Mother of God, whom they
treated as a divinity. Their tenets were attacked by St. Epiphanius,
a.d. 310 to 403, who also denounced the sect of Antidicomarianites who held
views about the Virgin similar to those of non-Catholics of the present day.
Next came the heresy of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople in
a.d. 428, who objected to the title of " Mother of God," which had, as Gibbon
says in the " Decline and Fall," been insensibly adopted since the origin of
the Arian controversy in the preceding century. Controversies of this sort
started by Nestorius, continued long afterwards, but there grew with them side
by side, increased devotion to Mary, whose festivals were celebrated with
great pomp in the churches of the East and West. It was, however,
towards the twelfth century, when Notre Dame de Paris was founded, that
a real revival of devotion to Mary took place. Hugues, Canon regular of
St. Victor, who died in 1142, wrote a treatise maintaining the " Immacu
late Conception " theory, long afterwards to be raised to the rank of a
dogma by Pius IX. The doctrine was opposed by St. Bernard, in spite of
his known veneration for the Mother of God, and he wrote to the Canons of
Lyons, blaming them for introducing the new festival of the Conception.1
1 The learned Jesuit, P.Colonia, who wrote a literary history of Lyons, gives information on
this subject. In the " Vindicia? Ecclesise Anglicanss," London, 1826, it seems to be supposed
according to Buckle, that the Franciscans originated the Immaculate Conception theory.

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
Fleury, in his " Histoire Eccl6siastique," says that both the Greeks and the
Armenians celebrated the Conception, but not, however, the " Immaculate
Conception," in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus a vast pile of
literature arose at this period of the building or completion of Notre Dame
de Paris, around the Virgin. In the century preceding that'in which the
great Paris church was finished, King Robert of France, who died in 1031,
had written hymns and sequences for the Nativity of Our Lady. According
to Ceillier, author of the " Histoire Generale des Auteurs Sacres," it was
Robert who ordered that the festival of the Nativity of the Virgin should
be celebrated with pomp in France. Other pious writers of the period were
St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, who died in 1153 ; William of Auvergne,
Bishop of Paris, who died in 1248 ; Yves, Bishop of Chartres, Geoffroi, Abbot
of the Trinity of Vendosme ; HildeT>ert, Bishop of Mans ; Marbode, Bishop
of Rennes ; Peter de Celle, Bishop of Chartres, and several others, including
even Peter Abelard, the lover of Heloise, who died in 1142. All of these,
as well as non- French authors or homilists inspired to write about the
Virgin, are mentioned by Ceillier.
Later on, the veneration of Mary attained still more important develop
ment, and the Virgin's history furnished a themefor poets and prose-writers
of greater celebrity than most of those mentioned. Dante, when in Paris,
must have been struck by the devotion paid to Mary, when he wrote those
concluding cantos of the " Paradiso," in which he introduces the French
Saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, prominently, and after him, Francis, Benedict
Augustin, and "all the rest," who joined in the "Ave, Maria, gratia
plena ! " Bernard is notably described as the Virgin's " fedel Bernardo,"
her own faithful servant, who, if he objected to the Immaculate Conception
theory, was a fervent devotee at her shrine, and composed the fine prayer,
" Memorare, O piissima Virgo ! " It is he who points out to the poet the
" file of Hebrew dames," —
Sara, Rebecca, Judit, e Colei
Che fu bisava al Cantor, che, per doglia.
Del fallo disse : Miserere met,1

1 Gary's translation is — " Sarah next,
Judith, Rebecca, and the gleaner maid
Meek ancestress of him, who sang the songs
Of sore repentance in his sorrowful mood."
9

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
and is made to conclude the " Paradiso " with the majestic invocation
beginning : — Vergine Madre, figlia del tuo figlio
Umile ed alta piu che creatura.1
Further impetus still was given in Paris to the cult of Mary, after the foun
dation of Notre Dame, that is to say, in the fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. In 1387, for instance, Jean de Montson, a Dominican,
argued that the Virgin was not free from original sin. He was condemned
by Peter d'Orgemont, Bishop of Paris, and was excommunicated by
Clement VIE, the opposition Pope, Robert of Geneva, who was recognized
by France, and reigned at Avignon, while the real Pontiff, Urban VI., was
at Rome. The University of Paris next issued a decree ordering all its
members to take an oath condemning the opinions of Montson, and declared
that no one should receive degrees who refused to do this. The Dominicans
objected to denounce Montson, and were accordingly shut out from the
University until 1401. The same Institution formally decreed in 1496, that
all who were admitted into its body should sign an opinion in favour of the
Immaculate Conception, as is pointed out by the author of the continuation
of Fleury's " Histoire Ecclesiastique." Many instances could be drawn
from the same source in order to show to what extent the " Mater Domini,"
the "Vera Mater magni Dei ac Salvatoris Nostri," as Anastasius of Antioch
called her, was venerated in Paris. That veneration continued to increase
down to Luther's time, and to the days of the Huguenots, for whom images
of the Virgin were purposely placed in the streets of the city. If they passed
by without saluting these " tests for heretics," or refused to contribute
money for the purchase of tapers for the altar of the Holy Virgin in Notre
Dame, they were attacked by the people.
The " Mater Domini " was more glorified still in the time of Louis XIII.,
son of Henri Quatre and Maria de' Medici. This monarch was noted for
1 " O virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height, above them all."
Cary, by the way, expresses surprise that Dante should make St. Bernard act so prominent a
part, as he opposed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. See notes to Canto xxxi. of
the "Paradiso," Maclaine's Mosheim being referred to. It is clear, however, that Bernard, if
adverse to the doctrine or theory in question, was full of devotion to Mary. The biographi
cal notice of the Saint in the Roman Breviary sets forth that he was buried at Clairvaux
before the altar of the Virgin, " quam religione singulari coluerat," whom he specially
venerated. The sermons of the holy Abbot, which are quoted for the offices of the Feast of
the Assumption, are also full of tender, poetic references to the " Illustrious Virgin.''
10

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
his devotion to the Virgin, to whom he consecrated himself, his crown, his
kingdom, and his people by a special edict, beginning : " Beatissimam et glo-
riosissimam Virginem in specialem regni nostri Patronam assumentes, eidem
speciali modo nos, nostrum sceptrum nostrum coronam, nostrosque omnes sub-
ditos dicamus et consecramus." ' The solemn procession which he ordered is
still organized every year on the Festival of the Assumption, in the Cathedral
of Notre Dame de Paris, and the massive silver statue of the Virgin is then exhi
bited to the faithful. And even in these times, when a " solemn creed " is still
undergoing the process of being sapped by many a "solemn sneer," devotion
to " Notre Dame " is faithfully kept alive, not only in provincial France, but in
the heart of worldly Paris. Multitudes of French mothers still dedicate
their children to the Virgin and make them wear garments, blue or white,
in her honour. Half the women in France may be said without exaggera
tion to answer to the name "Marie," and the festivals of " Notre Dame'
are observed by the godly and the ungodly alike. What is more, even male
children are baptized at the instance of pious parents as " Marie." Voltaire
himself, who terminated his letters to the Encyclopaedists by the phrase
" Ecrasons l'infame," which was interpreted as an injunction to wipe out
superstition, was christened as Francois Marie Arouet. The late President of
the Republic, who was murdered at Lyons by an Anarchist in June, 1894, was
" Marie Francois Sadi Carnot." The devotion to Mary is, in fact, so universal
in France, even in these free-thinking days, that if Notre Dame Cathedral
were accidentally burned down, or destroyed by the fury of Revolutionists,
funds could be easily collected for the rebuilding of the church on a still larger
and more sumptuous scale. There are many thousands of Frenchmen, lay
as well as religious, who are as enthusiastic in their devotion as the directors
of the old University of Paris, and who, like the young men who give their
services to the infirm at Lourdes gratuitously, are completely uninfluenced
by the cynicism and the infidelity of the Boulevards.
1 This is set forth in the " Chartularium Ecclesiae Parisiensis," and in the " Breviarium
Parisiense." In the last-mentioned book it appears in the part prescribing the Divine office
for the day of the commemoration of the vow of the "most Christian King," Ludovicus
Decimus-tertius, Francorum Rex," which is kept on the Sunday within the Octave of the
Assumption. Viollet-le-Duc calls the edict "letters patent." The most interesting testi
mony to the revival and development of the veneration for the Virgin, begun in the twelfth
century, and carried on later, is to be found in Michelet's " History of France," a much-
criticized but fascinating work. He says : " God changed sex, so to speak. The Virgin
became the God of the world. She invaded nearly all the churches, and occupied all the
altars." From this he deduces the increase of woman's dominion in the world. Goetzius, a
Lutheran writer, was so struck by the devotion of Catholics to our Lady, as to call their
religion " womanish " — religio muliebris. II

Demon— IRotre Dame.

CHAPTER IL

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
II.
Historical connections — The third crusade — Philip Augustus and
fngelburgha of Denmark — Formal interdict against a frivolous
festival — The Albigentses — Raymond of Toulouse flogged at the
doors of Notre Dame— Blanche of Castille and the Chapter of
the Cathedral — Philip the Fair and Boniface Vlff. — Gallican
liberties — On horseback in Notre Dame — Burning of the
Templars — A dreadful summons — The big taper of Notre Dame
— Cathedral Council re the Anti- Popes — Henry Vf. of England
crowned in Notre Dame — Te Deu-ms and thanksgivings from
Agnadel to Sebastopol — The League and the Huguenots — Paris
an Archbishopric — The Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame —
Coronation of Napoleon — Marriage of the third Napoleon — The
Communists of 1871.

CHILDKBERT

dealing with the historical associations of the
cathedral of Paris, it is only possible here to touch
upon the most striking and important events. The
earliest occurrence of note with which Notre Dame was
identified was the third Crusade, in 1188, when Philip
Augustus of France joined Richard Plantagenet of England
and Frederick Barbarossa of Germany in checking the
power of the Moslem. There was a council held in Notre
Dame de Paris similar to that attended previously by
Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, when an expedition to
the Holy Land was discussed. In 1190, Isabella of Hain
ault, first wife of Philip Augustus, and who died in child
birth at the age of twenty, was buried with great pomp in
the choir of the cathedral. Six years later, when the King
wanted to divorce his second wife, Ingelburgha of Denmark, in order to
marry Agnes, daughter of the Duke of Meranie, a council assembled in
Notre Dame for the purpose of condemning the Royal claim. Philip
subsequently submitted to the Church, took back Ingelburgha, and had her
crowned in the cathedral in 1201.
In 1198 a great blow was struck at the popular and profane ceremony of
the " Festum Fatuorum," or " Feast of Fools," which was always carried
out with much ribaldry in the diocese of Paris. Notre Dame and its
vicinity formed the centre of this festival, which nearly equalled the orgies
of the Roman Saturnalia. Peter of Capua, the Pope's legate, being shocked
at the sight of one of these spectacles, directed Bishop Eudes de Sully to
discontinue the disgraceful foolery. The legate was obeyed, but the " Feast
of Fools " was not, for all that, destined to disappear until long afterwards '
1 Dulaure, and also Michelet, were disbelieved when they referred to this fete, but the
chapter in the " Chartularium," previously quoted, is explicit on the subject. M. Bourquelet
15

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
The next date of any importance in the annals of the church is 1210, when
a council condemned the works of Aristotle as dangerous to religion. We
afterwards come to the period of the Albigensian Wars.
The Albigenses, so called from the city of Albi, and the district of
Albigeois, between the Rhone and the Garonne, have been identified with
the Manichaeans, the Paulicians, and the Waldenses. Their history is
especially interesting to Englishmen, for they were the forerunners of the
Reformers. They took their tenets from the Paulicians, a sect started about
the year 660 in Armenia and Cappadocia. Its founder rejected the two
epistles of St. Peter, agreed with the Gnostics in denying the Old Testament,
disclaimed veneration of the Blessed Virgin, and pinned their faith in Christ
and the Apostle of the Gentiles. The Paulicians did not want to be classed
as Manichaeans, although they held some of the doctrines of Manes, but
they rallied to their standard all the remnants of that and other Gnostic
sects. Like their spiritual descendants, the Albigenses, the Paulicians
revolted under persecution. Their city of Tephrice, in Asia Minor, was
taken by the Greek Emperor Basil, their lands were laid waste, and many of
the Paulicians were eventually transplanted from Armenia to Thrace and
Constantinople. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, their Pope or
Primate resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia,
governing through his vicars the congregations of Italy and France, the
doctrines of the "New Manichaeans," as they have sometimes been called,
having reached these countries.1 The Paulicians were numerous in Langue
doc, and as Gibbon says, " the persecutions which had formerly taken place
on the banks of the Euphrates were resumed on the banks of the Rhone."
This necessarily succinct summary of the origin of the Albigenses will
better enable the intelligent visitor to the Paris Cathedral to realize the
historical fact of the presence of Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, bare
footed at the door of Notre Dame in 1229. The father of that nobleman
had been called upon by Pope Innocent III., to withdraw his support from
the heretics who were turning Languedoc into a battlefield of the creeds,
and banding against each other the hot-blooded descendants of Iberians,
furthermore, found in a MS. of the thirteenth century, a special " office " for the " Festum
Fatuorum," supposed to have been prepared by Peter of Corbeil, Bishop of Sens. This
feast was once also observed in England, according to Fosbrooke. — " British Monachism."
1 See Muratori, Antiquitat. Italiae, also Mosheim,. Institut. Hist. Eccles., Beausobre's
Hist. Crit. du Manicheisme, and Gibbon, who has given a summary of the history of the
Paulicians in his great work on Rome. 16

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
Gauls, Romans, Saracens and Goths Raymond at first refused, but
Innocent III. was not a man to be trifled with. He organized a crusade
against the heretics, sent forth Dominic and his preachers, used the terrible
engine of the Inquisition, and in a short time brought the bold Count to his
knees. Raymond found to his cost that he had provoked the wrath of a
man who had anathematized Philip Augustus for his attempt to divorce his
wife, and John Lackland because he refused to accept an Archbishop of
Canterbury of the Pope's choosing, and who, in the Council of the Lateran
acted as ecclesiastical and almost temporal sovereign of the East and
West. Before so powerful a Pope a Languedoc baron was of small consequence,
so Raymond VI. submitted with a bad grace to the inevitable. The war
against the Albigenses again broke out, but ended in the submission of his
son Raymond VII. to Queen Blanche of Castille, mother of Louis IX., or
St. Louis. Raymond VII. underwent the punishment of the " discipline," or
lash, before the door of Notre Dame, at the hands of the Pope's legate, gave
himself up as a prisoner, and made over large tracts of land to his foes. This
was the triumph of Blanche of Castille^ the real ruler of the kingdom during
the youth of her son. Raymond was compelled to accept the most disadvan
tageous terms. He had to dismantle the fortifications of his city, receive a
royal garrison, allow the Inquisition to be established there, ratify the
transfer of Lower Languedoc to the monarchy, and agree that, after his
death, Toulouse should serve as a dowry for his daughter, who was to marry
one of the brothers of the king. He also made over Upper Provence to the
Church, this resulting in the establishment of the Papal authority over the
district of Avignon.
Queen Blanche of Castille, backed by the Church, is credited with having
begun the reign of woman in France. She had no right or title to the regency,
but the daughter of Alphonso the Noble knew how to rule, and asserted
herself to some purpose. She not only dominated the clangour of feudal
militarism, but set her bar against priestly encroachments. Thus, when the
Canons of the Chapter of Notre Dame de Paris, a powerful body then, wanted
to impose more taxes on their serfs of Chatenay, the Queen prevented them,
and went in person with her followers in order to overcome their refusal to
obey her orders.
On his departure for the Crusades, and on his return from the East,
King Louis IX. punctually paid homage to the Holy Virgin at Notre Dame.
No great ceremonies seem to have marked these visits, but more memorable
17

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
events with which the cathedral had a connection, happened in the reign of
Philip the Fair, the fourth of his name.
This takes us to the period of the Pontificate of Boniface VIII., the
celebrated Benedetto Gaetani, a time approaching that when, as Gibbon
says, " the apostolic throne was transported as it might seem for ever from
the Tiber to the Rhone." ' The historian refers to the beginning of the
fourteenth century, when Clement V. succeeded Benedict XL, who only
reigned a short time after Boniface VIII. Benedetto Gaetani had studied in
Paris University, and on returning to Rome became Apostolic Notary.
After his election to the Papacy, he canonized Louis IX. as being the
" model of Christian monarchs.'" His next act was to consolidate the institu
tion of the Jubilee, which the first French Pope, Sylvester IL, who received
the tiara in 999, had already partly inaugurated.2 Boniface, who, as the
chroniclers say, " entered like a fox," was elected through the influence of the
House of France, and did his best to extend the power of the Capetians.
He objected, however, to the imposition of the " maltote," or some such
tax as that which the Third Republic now levies on the property of the
religious orders and congregations in France. He published a violent bull
anathematizing the cleric who should pay the tax and the laymen who should
receive it. Philip the Fair on his side took reprisals by preventing supplies
or money gifts intended for the Sovereign Pontiff, from leaving the kingdom
of France. This led to the bull " Ausculta Fili," which Philip rejected, and
even burned, then convoking the first States-General for the purpose of
appealing to his subjects against the Pope.
Clergy, nobility and burgesses were convoked in Notre Dame de Paris, and
1 Avignon. The first Pope who went to Avignon was Clement V., a Frenchman, who, as
Bertrand de Got, or Goth, had been Archbishop of Bordeaux. He transferred the Holy See
to the banks of the Rhone in 1309, some say 1307, and it remained there until 1377 or 1378.
He is the "pastor senza legge" who, with Boniface VIII., is prominently mentioned in the
" Inferno," but he is well defended by French Catholic historians against Villani, who said
that the Pope's emissary having descended- by magic into hell, found a place prepared there
for Clement. (See P. Longueval's " Histoire de I'Eglise Gallicane," vol. xiii. ; "Dissertation
historique surlePape Clement V.," by Abb6 Souiry, etc.) The Roman Cardinals who accom
panied the Pope to Avignon were the loudest in their lamentations over the " captivity '' in
the Provencal Babylon, which they called " Avenio ventosa— cum vento fastidiosa — sine vento
venenosa." The reference was to the wind called the Mistral : " Windy Avignon, with the
mistral blowing is wearisome, without it, poisonous." Yet the Popes, the Cardinals, and
Petrarch, who played a prominent part in Avignon, had a tranquil, easy-going time on the
banks of the Rhone.
2 See Chantrel's " Histoire de I'Eglise." 18

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
an initial step was taken not alone towards resenting too much intrusion on
the part of the Papacy in the affairs of the Gallican Church,' but also towards
consultations in which the advice of the people was sought. Pierre Flotte,
Vice-Chancellor of the kingdom, opened the proceedings by a powerful
speech in favour of the King, who received the full support of the States,
which declared that God was the only Master of the sovereign in temporal
affairs. In order to make his revenge more complete, Philip sent into Italy
William of Nogaret, who, with the help of Sciarra Colonna, attacked the
Pontiff in his native town of Anagni. The full and heartrending narrative of
this raid may be read in the pages of Dupuis, and in those of the Italian
chronicler Villani.
Notre Damede Paris was again, in 1304, the scene of another half- religious,
half-political ceremony, when the French monarch, after having defeated the
Flemingsat Mons-en-Puelle — uselessly it is true, for he had to give up part of
Flanders owing to the stubborn determination of its people to resist him — •
entered the Cathedral of Paris on horseback surrounded by his warriors,
courtiers and people.2 Another event which happened not in Notre Dame,
but in its vicinity, was the burning of Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of
the Templars, and others of his order, by Philip the Fair with the consent of
Pope Clement V., although this is carefully glozed over by the defenders of
that Pontiff's memory. It is recorded that the Grand Master, when dying,
summoned the King and the Pope to appear with him before the Tribunal of
God inside forty days. The two died in 1314, soon after the burning of the
Templars, and truth was thus lent to the terrible summons attributed to the
Grand Master. The cause assigned for the persecution of the Templars was
1 The " Liberty's Gallicanes," or privileges of the Church of Gaul, had been taught in the
Sorbonne from early times. In 1682, Bossuet drew up a declaration of the French clergy
which formulates " Gallican " claims as opposed to those of the Ultramontanes.
2 This is a very debateable point. Viollet-le-Duc says that the equestrian statue in Notre
Dame destroyed by the Revolutionists in 1792, was that, not of Philip le Bel, the victor of
Mons-en-Puelle, but of his successor (not immediate), Philip of Valois, sixth of the name, who,
in 1328, defeated the Flemings at Cassel, and who, on his return to Paris, rode into the
cathedral in state, and vowed his harness to the Holy Virgin. On the other hand, the
chapter of the church held that the statue was that of Philip IV. (the Fair). Viollet-le Due
is backed by the Benedictines, notably by Pere Montfaucon, by the writers who continued the
chronicle of William of Nangis, and others. Flanders played a most important part after
these reigns, when Edward III. of England was recognized as liege lord of that country.
Charles VI. had to return from the Low Countries in order to chastise the Paris " Maillotins,"
or mallet-men, who wanted to imitate the men of Ghent. As the author of the play " Philip
Van Artevelde" says, " Flanders at that time imbued all Europe with ideas of Revolution."
19

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
the desire of Philip to obtain the money which they were supposed to have
brought from the Holy Land. Catholic writers anxious to shield the memory
of Clement V., give other reasons, such as the alleged spread of Gnosticism
among the Templars, but they wisely throw the whole blame of the burning
on the shoulders of Philip the Fair. The Templars, according to some, were
burned near the extremity of the He de la Cite, facing the great western front
of the cathedral. Michelet, however, states in a footnote to the " Eclaircisse-
ments " of his history of France, that Jacques Molay, as he calls him, was
burned on the Parvis Notre-Dame.
From the death of Philip the Fair until the accession of John the Good,
no very remarkable event occurred in Notre Dame de Paris. When John
was captured at Poitiers by Edward the Black Prince, and led a prisoner
to London, the burgesses of Paris vowed to the Virgin an annual candle as
long as the city, if she would deign to bring about the King's liberation.
Soon afterwards, a truce having been entered into by France and England,
John returned home, but subsequently, owing to the escape of his son, the
Duke of Anjou, whom he had left as a hostage with the English, he went
back to London, where he died in 1364. During the troubled period before
John's death, the Jacquerie, or revolt of the much-oppressed peasants, had
broken out, and Etienne Marcel, Provost of the Paris merchants, was tem
porarily master of the Government and the metropolis. The distracting
events of that period had influenced the burgesses in their vow. They
wanted their King back, and the big candle was accordingly built and carried
to Notre Dame. This votive offering was annually renewed until 1605, when,
as the metropolis had become larger, and was manifestly to extend more
every year, the worthy burgesses replaced the colossal taper by a handsome
lamp, which was suspended in the Virgin's chapel. The " ex- voto " was
destroyed by the Revolutionists in 1793, and like many other historical vestiges
and memorials collected in Notre Dame de Paris, has disappeared for ever.
It must also be recorded that John the Good, when freed by the English,
duly repaired to the cathedral in order to render thanks to God and the
Holy Virgin for his liberation.
In 1376, Charles V., the Wise, wanted Paris to be made an Archbishopric
independent of Sens, the metropolitan see. He accordingly sent the Bishop
of Paris to Rome in order to see the Pope on the subject. Gregory XL, a
French Pontiff, the same who proscribed Wickliff, and who, by returning
from Avignon to the Eternal City, put an end to the so-called " Captivity of
Babylon," objected to raise the "capital of France to the rank of an Arch-
20

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
bishopric, on the ground that the cathedral church was not sufficiently
endowed. He, however, sent the pallium to the Bishop of Paris. Among the
chief historic events in Notre Dame soon after this period, was the solemn
entry into Paris of Isabeau, or Isabelle de Baviere, in 1389, four years after
her marriage with Charles VI. There were, then, great rejoicings through
out Paris, a ceremony at Notre Dame, and mystery-plays were performed —
all these solemnities and functions being picturesquely recorded by that
king of chroniclers, but bad ecclesiastic, Messire Jehan Froissart : —
" Devant la dite dglise de Notre Dame, en la place, l'Eveque de Paris
etait revetu des Armes de Notre Seigneur et tout le College (Chanoin) aussi
ou moult avait grand clerge, et la descendait la Royne, et la mirent ins hors
de sa littiere les quatres dues qui la estoyent — Berry, Bourgogne, Touraine et
Bourbon." ' It was soon after these rejoicings that Charles VI. began to show
signs of lunacy, that the famous feuds between the Bourguignons and the
Armagnacs broke out under the regency of the Queen, and that the Duke of
Orleans, the King's brother, was assassinated at the instigation of the Duke
of Burgundy. About this period, too, important Councils were held in Notre
Dame de Paris with reference to the claims of the Anti- Popes, and in order
to determine the attitude of the Gallican Church towards the conflicting
aspirants to the tiara.2 There were also great thanksgiving services after
Charles VI. had been saved from burning. The King, dressed as a satyr at
a palace fete with five companions, excited the curiosity of the Duke of
Orleans, who put a torch near the masqueraders in order to see who they
were. Four of the companions of the monarch were burned to death, but
Charles was saved by the Duchess of Berri, who threw a cloak over him. The
other person was saved by flinging himself into a tub of water. There was a
•solemn procession to Notre Dame after these sinister events.
1 Froissart, tome iv., pp. 4 and 5. For those who do not read French easily, it
may be said that the passage refers to the presence of many ecclesiastics at the ceremony,
and to the fact that the Queen was helped out of her resting-place, while travelling, by the
four dukes of the places mentioned.
2 The Anti-Popes at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth,
-were : — 1378, Robert of Geneva, called Clement VII. ; 1394, Peter de Luna, or Benedict XIII. ;
1417, Mugnoz, or Clement VIII. The lawful Popes of the period were Urban VI. ; Boniface
IX. ; Innocent VII., etc. The last Anti-Pope was Amedee VIII., Duke of Savoy, who was
proclaimed Felix V.'by the Council of Basle in 1438. This prince lived in the Augustinian
monastery founded by himself at Ripaille lez Thonon. He was supposed to lead there a life
devoted to politics, piety and pleasure. Some say that he was rigidly pious, others that he
gave himself up freely to pleasures, notably to those of the table, whence originated the oft-
quoted French yhra.se— faire ripaille, to gorge, as at a feast.
21 C

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
We next come to the time of Henry V. of England, who, profiting by the
feuds between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs, defeated the French at
Agincourt, became Regent of France with right of succession to the throne,
after his marriage with Catherine, daughter of Charles VI., in 1420, and who,
on his entry into Paris, paid a solemn visit to the church of Notre Dame. After
his death at Vincennes in 1422, the Duke of Bedford governed France, and,
in 1431, had young Henry VI. crowned monarch of the kingdom in the
cathedral. The pillars of the great church were more sumptuously orna
mented in 1437, when a solemn Te Deum was sung in Notre Dame to celebrate
the entry of Charles VIE, surrounded by both Armagnacs and Bourguignons
who had joined in driving the English to Rouen, and in thus paving the way
towards freeing France from the invaders.
In the annals of Notre Dame from the days of Louis XL, the rebellious
dauphin who succeeded his father, Charles VIE, to the reign of the fourteenth
Louis, there is chiefly a long record of Te Deums after the victories of the
French army. Historic Rheims, where Clovis had been baptized by St.
Remi in 496, was the favoured city of the French monarchs since the days
of the Merovingians, who had accorded it great privileges. It appears to
have been a metropolitan see since the third century, the titular of that see
being first Duke and Peer of the realm, born legate of the Pope, Primate of
Belgic Gaul, and having the exclusive right of crowning and consecrating the
kings of France. As, therefore, all the French kings from the days of
Philip Augustus were, with the exception of Henri Quatre and Louis XVIII.,
crowned at Rheims, the Parisians were not able to see coronation cere
monies in their cathedral. After they had been crowned, however, the
sovereigns went to Notre Dame de Paris in order to join in the thanks
givings for their advent to the throne. The Parisians had the funeral
services of dead kings and queens,- who, before being laid to rest in the
Abbey of St. Denis, were placed for a while in the cathedral, where a mass
was said. This custom, too, was carried out in June, 1894, when President
Carnot's remains were taken to Notre Dame before burial in the Pantheon.
A list of the thanksgivings would mean a resume of the whole history of
France, from the days of that military monarch, Charles VIII., and of his
successor and cousin, Louis XII., to those of the Third Napoleon — the days
of the victories of the Crimea and of the campaign in Italy, when the
Imperial star shone with its most splendid lustre, long before the disaster of
Sedan arrived to pale its light for ever.
There were, for instance, the Te Deum for the victory over the Venetians
22

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
defeated at Agnadel, or, as the Italians call it, Vaila, in 1509 by Louis XII.,
who had with him the famous Chevalier Bayard, the knight " without fear
and without reproach ; " a thanksgiving for the marriage of Louis XII. with
Mary, sister of Henry VIII. of England, which ended a disastrous war. It
also brought about the King's death, for being already feeble and worn out,
he could not bear the fatigues incidental to the wedding festivities, and died in
1515. Next there were the Te Deums for the victories of Francis I.; the
visit to Notre Dame of Charles V., Emperor of Germany, when he crossed
France on his way to chastise the rebels of Ghent ; the thanksgiving of
Catherine de' Medici,1 after the accession of her husband, Henri II., to the
throne; the marriage of Mary Stuart with Francis IE, then dauphin; the
marriage of Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre, with Marguerite de Valois
outside the porch, as the Prince was a Protestant, only a few days before the
bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois rang out for the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and when the cry of " Down with the Huguenots" filled the streets of
Paris. In 1590, all the Catholic lords swore before the altar of Notre Dame to
maintain the faith of their fathers in France, and to shed the last drop of
their blood rather than obey the Bearnais, Henry of Navarre. About the
same time the cathedral was used as a sort of garrison by the troops of the
Catholic League under the " Seize," or chiefs of the sixteen divisions of the
city. In 1593, there was the great procession to the chief church of the States-
General, which had assembled in order to appoint a successor to the Catholic
King Charles X. (the Cardinal de Bourbon who of course never reigned).
The Leaguers could not agree among themselves. They were perplexed by
the prospect of the intrigues sure to arise if on the one hand the Salic law
were repealed, and the Infanta Isabella of Spain, daughter of Philip II. and
1 The marriage of Catherine, daughter of Lorenzo II., Duke of Urbino, grandson of the
great Lorenzo de' Medici, with the son of Francis I. of France, was accompanied by f&tes
which were carried out with great magnificence in Paris during more than a month. Balzac,
the novelist, has given a picturesque account of them in his " Etudes Philosophiques sur
Catherine de' Medicis.'' He introduces the anecdote to the effect that Catherine's father,
referring to a certain malformation of Henri, son of the French king, said, "Afigliad'Inganno
non manca mai figliuolanza,'' ( " a clever girl will neverlack children"'), but points out that it
was not uttered by Lorenzo, who died before Catherine was born, but by her uncle, Pope
Clement VII., Giulio de' Medici, the "offspring of illicit love," to whom historians refer the
extinction of the liberties of Florence, the alliance of the Medici family with the Royal House
of France, and the expulsion of Henry VIII. of England from the bosom of the Roman
Church. See the histories of Machiavelli and Varchi, as well as Roscoe's " Lorenzo de'
Medici." 23 C 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
of Elizabeth of France, were chosen to reign, and if, on the other, the young
Duke of Guise were selected. The Duke of Mayenne, uncle of young Guise,
opposed the abolition of the Salic law in his own interest rather than in that
of his nephew. Philip of Spain tried to bring about the repeal of the same
law, but he adopted the Machiavellian plan of pretending to favour the cause
of the Duke of Guise. The Leaguers were therefore in a quandary, and their
doubts, hesitations and difficulties gave rise to that famous " Satyre
Menippee," founded on the Greek and Latin models, and to which
" Hudibras " has been compared. The nimble ridicule of the " Satyre
Menippee," directed at. the leaders of the League — Mayenne, the Pope's
legate, the Archbishop d'Espinac, and others— was as useful to Henri
Quatre as was Butler's amusing satire to the cause of Charles II. of England.
Henry IV. gave the last blow to the Leaguers in the same year, 1593, by
abjuring Protestantism and finding " Paris worth a mass." ' He did go to
Mass, and heard a Te Deum in Notre Dame on the occasion of his accession
to the throne as the first of the Bourbons.
The next date of importance in the annals of the great cathedral is 1622,
when Henri de Gondy, Cardinal de Retz, and last Bishop of Paris, died-
Pope Gregory XV. then raised the French metropolitan see to the dignity of
an Archbishopric. In 1682, under Louis XIV., the big bell or bourdon of the
Basilica was christened Emmanuel Louis Therese, the Grand Monarque and
his wife being the sponsors. Later on, in 1699, the great changes in
the church caused in fulfilment of the vow of Louis XIII., who had
dedicated himself and his kingdom to the Virgin, were begun. Against this
restoration Victor Hugo has raised his voice emphatically in " Notre Dame
de Paris." " Who," he asks, "replaced the old Gothic altar by a heavy
marble sarcophagus, and stupidly fixed this anachronism in stone in the
Carlovingian pavement of Hercandus ? 2 Was it not Louis XIV., accom
plishing the vow of his predecessor ? " The first stone of that altar was laid
with great pomp by the Archbishop of Paris, the service used being the same
as for the consecration of a church. On the foundation slab was placed the
inscription : " Louis the Great — son of Louis the Just — after having
subdued heresy, established the true religion in his kingdom, ended gloriously
1 The expression "Paris vaut bien une messe," is attributed to Henri Quatre, but, like
many phrases of the kind, it is rather apocryphal. Another version is that attributed to the
Due de Rosny, who told Henri Quatre that the " crown was well worth a mass "" Henry is
also reported to have said that " the best of cannons was the mass," for it pu him on the
throne. 2 One of the early bishops of Paris. 24

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
several wars by land and sea, wishing to accomplish the vow of his father,
built this altar in the cathedral church of Paris and dedicated it to the God
of Arms, Master of Peace and Victory, under the invocation of the Holy
Virgin, patroness and protector of his States. The year of our Lord 1699."
The alterations made in the church at this period destroyed for ever many
of the old tombs and monuments of the past, as well as the Gothic altar
referred to by Victor Hugo. In making a crypt for the burial of prelates, in
17 1 1, the builders found two parts of old walls, on them being bas-reliefs
with inscriptions which have led to pages of learned archaeological dis
cussion. They were supposed to show that in the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
the Parisian sailors, or rather bargemen, had built on the spot an altar to
Jupiter. There is nothing else to connect Notre Dame with the reigns of Louis
XIV. and his successor, except the numerous Te Deums and thanksgiving
services for the victories of the French army in Flanders and Germany. In
1690, Marshal de Luxembourg sent one hundred flags from Fleurus to the
cathedral, and was therefore jocosely called the Tapissier, or upholsterer, of
Notre Dame.
With the approach of the Revolution, Notre Dame was destined to undergo
a desecration which might have ended in its destruction but for the good
sense and art instincts of some of the Terrorists. In November, 1790, the
troubles began when the canons were compelled to leave the church after
High Mass by order of the National Assembly, which had decreed for the
service of religion only " sworn " priests, that is to say, those who had
taken the civic oath. In July, 1792, the General Revolutionary Council of
the Commune of Paris ordered all the crucifixes and bronzes in Notre Dame
and other churches to be melted down for cannon, while the railings and
grilles or gates were to be used for pikes and gun-barrels. Leaden coffins
and some of the church bells were also utilized for military purposes. In
I793, a black flag was placed over the cathedral owing to the defeat of
Dumouriez near Liege, a reverse which neutralized the result of the previous
successes of that general in the Low Countries. In the same year the
Revolutionary General Council ordered the cordon of kings over the facade
of Notre Dame to be smashed. The fragments of the statues were thrown
into the enclosure behind the apsis of the church, and were afterwards used
for building purposes.
The next proceeding of the Terrorists was to make Gobel, the Archbishop
of Paris, abjure the faith. " Goose Gobel," Carlyle calls him, and proceeds to
25

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
describe in his picturesque boil-down of the account of the "Moniteur," and
also of the narrative of Mercier, how Gobel acknowledged no religion but
liberty, doffed his " priest-gear," and received the fraternal embrace. All this,
by the way, did not save the " Constitutional Bishop of Paris " from the guillo
tine, by which he perished at the same time as the " orator of the human
race," Baron Anacharsis Clootz of Prussia, who became a naturalized French
man only to lose his head. On the ioth November, 1793, the Cult of Reason
was decreed by the Convention ; Notre Dame was therefore transformed into
the temple of the new rite. A mock mountain was erected in the nave with
a Gothic temple on the top, by its sides being busts of famous philosophic
writers. On the capital of the temple was inscribed the dedication "A la
Philosophie," and on the declivity of the hill there was an altar surmounted
by the " torch of truth." Girls in white veils and carrying torches walked up
and down the flanks of the mount. Then the Goddess of Reason entered,
sat on the top of the hill in state, while hymns were sung and a vow of
fidelity to her was made.
The members of the Convention were too busy to assist at the first fete of
the Goddess of Reason, but Chaumette, Hebert, Momoro, and other members
of the Commune, on leaving Notre Dame, organized a similar ceremony and
introduced the Goddess of Reason to their colleagues, who fraternally
embraced her. In the evening there was another disgraceful scene in the
desecrated cathedral. Historians, by the way, differ as to the identity of the
damsel who acted as Goddess of Reason in Notre Dame. Many French
writers suppose her to have been Demoiselle Maillard, an opera dancer.
Carlyle calls her " Demoiselle Candeille, of the opera," but the actress and
authoress, not dancer, of that name, always denied that she had taken a part
in the disgraceful procession of blackguards and strumpets organized by the
Terrorists. In 1793, the Convention further decreed that the statues of
saints ornamenting Notre Dame should be smashed, that a collecting-box
for letters, protests, and all documents concerning the public weal, and
entitled the " mouth of truth," should be placed in the church or temple,
and that a register of Republicans who " had done some service to the
State" should be kept in the same edifice. There were also built two
galleries, one for elderly and feeble men, the other for " women in an
interesting condition."
A stranger use was, however, made of the cathedral in 1794, when it was
turned into a sort of " bond store " for the wine stolen from the cellars of the
proscribed or guillotined Royalists. Some of the stuff was also " bonded " in
26

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
the Church of Saint Martin-in-the- Fields. In May, 1794, the " Tample of
Reason " was made that of the " Supreme Being," by Robespierre, who also
induced the Convention to decree " the consoling principle of the Immor
tality of the Soul." Finally, in 1795, Notre Dame was restored to the
professors of the old religion, which had survived the destructive statutes
of the Convention, as well as the attacks of the Encyclopaedists.
After this, the chief events in the annals of Notre Dame may be more
briefly summarized. There were the Te Ueum for Marengo, the services for
Desaix, La Tour d'Auvergne, and others who had fallen for France, and in
Easter, 1802, the ceremony for the re-establishment of religion under the
Concordat between the First Consul and Pope Pius VII. At this sacred
function all the great administrative bodies were present. Cardinal Caprara,
the special legate of the Pope, said Mass, and the archbishops and bishops took
the prescribed oath. In the following August, the anniversary of Bonaparte's
birth was celebrated with great pomp in the church. In 1804, there was
the Te Deum for the establishment of the Empire, and at the end of the same
year Pius VII. came to Paris in order to officiate at the coronation of the
new Caesar. That scene in Notre Dame during which Napoleon took the
imperial crown from the Pope's hands and placed it on his own head, as if
to show that no one else was fit to invest the master of mighty and success
ful legions with the symbol of sovereignty, has frequently been described by
historians, so that there is no need to dwell on it here.
The next dates of any importance are 1805, when the flags taken at
Austerlitz were placed in Notre Dame; May, 1814, when Louis XVIII. and
his family attended Mass in the metropolitan church after their entry into
Paris backed by the allies ; the marriage of the Due de Berri to Caroline of
Naples in 1816 ; the baptism of the Due de Bordeaux (Comte de Cham-
bord) in 1820, after the assassination of his father, the Due de Berri, at the
opera by Louvel, in the beginning of that year ; the Te Deum for the failure
of Fieschi's attempt to blow up King Louis Philippe in 1835 1 tne funeral of
the Due d'Orldans in 1842 ; the restorations effected by Viollet-le-Duc and
Lassus in 1844 ; the service for the First Napoleon in 1840 ; that for
Archbishop Affre, shot at the barricades in 1848 ; the marriage of the
Emperor Napoleon III. with Eugenie de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, in
January, 1853 ; and the baptism of the Prince Imperial in 1857.
Mention must also be made of the service for Archbishop Sibour,
murdered by a priest in January, 1857, in the Church of Saint Etienne du
Mont, and of that for Monseigneur Darboy, shot by the Communists in 187 1.
27

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
The Terrorists of 187 1, by the way, did not do as much damage to the
church as they had intended, owing to the arrival of the Government troops.
They managed to rob the Treasury of many valuable relics, and attempted to
set fire to the building, but the flames were extinguished in time to prevent
the destruction of the great historic and arcliitectural monument which is
one of the glories of France. The cathedral founded in the twelfth century
has thus survived all shocks, like the remarkable faith which it represents.
During the Third Republic, no great ceremonies have taken place at Notre
Dame, except the funeral service in June, 1894, for President Carnot, assassin
ated by an Italian anarchist at Lyons in that year. There was also a service
in October, 1895, for Louis Pasteur, who received a State funeral as one
deserving to be honoured for his scientific labours.

28

CHAPTER III.

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
ill.
Gothic Architecture — The mediceval architects and sculptors — A lady
sculptor- — The monastic and the lay builders — The ravages of
revolution.

IjjOTRE DAME DE PARIS is, architecturally, a monu

ment of the transition period from the Romanesque
to the early Gothic. With the cathedrals of Chartres,
Rheims, Amiens and Bourges, it forms a link in the chain
of the great architectural constructions raised by the
mediaeval builders and decorated by those able sculptors
who were called " magistri de vivis lapidibus," masters of
the living stones. Who were these marvellous Gothic
architects and embroiderers, and whence did they derive
their inspiration and their style ? History gives various
accounts of them, and the records are often conflicting. An
author has yet to come forward who shall offer us a clear and
pepin. trustworthy account of these men, whose lives and labours
would undoubtedly be worthy of careful record, and prove highly interesting
to readers. Viollet-le-Duc, Bauchal, De Caumont, De Verneilh and Quicherat, have
not seriously attempted to fill up this void in dealing with the origin of
French-Gothic architecture and sculpture. M. Courajod, of the Louvre
School, in his lectures, Herr V6ge in his work " Die Anfange des Monu-
mentalen Stiles im Mittelalter," ' and to a certain extent, Mr. C. H. Moore in
his " Development and Character of Gothic Architecture,"2 have done some
thing more than the French writers referred to, but they have left a large
field open for future research.
The subject is too vast and complicated to be treated at any length here,
but interest in such monuments as Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, the
Abbey of St. Denis, may be increased by the exposition of a few points con
nected with the architectural history of cathedrals like that of Paris. In the

Strassburg, 1894.

2 London 1890. Macmillan.

31

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
first place, a summary may be given of the general form and constructive
features of a developed Gothic building. Such a summary is provided by
Mr. C. H. Moore, and it is worth transcribing here as an accurate description
of the manner in which Notre Dame is built : —
i. In Gothic buildings the plan consists of a nave the eastern portion of
which forms the choir with side aisles sometimes single, sometimes double,
and a transept generally also with aisles, the nave and choir terminating at the
east almost invariably in a semi-circle or a polygon, around which the
aisles are continued. At the west the termination is square, the aisles
at this end finishing in towers. The nave is separated from the aisles,
and the aisles when double are separated from each other, by rows of piers
which support the superstructure. The whole is enclosed on the ground
story by a thin wall beyond which, opposite the piers, are the far projecting,
and massive buttresses.
2. The vaults, whose plan and construction determine the number and
arrangement of the piers and buttresses, are furnished with a complete set of
ribs — transverse ribs, diagonal ribs, and longitudinal ribs. (These are
the constructive ribs ; the tiernes, tiercerons, etc., in the later form of vault
ing, especially in England, being mere surface ribs having no real function.)
These ribs are independent arches of which the transverse and longitudinal
ones are pointed, while the diagonals are usually rounded, and upon them
the vault masonry simply rests, the one never being incorporated with the
other. 3. The ribs spring from slender shafts compactly grouped and often
detached, although having their bases and capitals incorporated with the
great piers which arise from the pavement through the successive stories to
the nave cornice. Each one of these piers is a compound member consisting
of a central body with which are incorporated all the vaulting shafts, besides
the columns which carry the pier arches on the ground story, and those
above, which support the arches of the triforium and, finally, the buttresses of
the clerestory. Upon the piers are concentrated all the side pressure of the
vaults, but these side pressures are so neutralized by the buttressing, that the
piers require only to be massive enough to bear the weight of the vaults.
4. The clerestory * buttresses which receive the thrusts of the nave vaults,
1 Clear-story, an upper story, or row of windows in a Gothic church, rising clear above
other parts of the edifice. It is uncertain whether the epithet clear is applied to the story on
account of the light admitted through its windows, or from its being clear of the roof of the
aisles. 32

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
are reinforced by flying buttresses springing over the aisle roofs and rising
from the vast outer buttresses, which are incorporated with the respond piers
of the aisles.
5. The walls, required for enclosure only, are reduced to a minimum of
thickness and are confined to the ground story and to the spandrels of the
arcades. The apertures fill the whole spaces laterally between the piers.
This description of the characteristics of Gothic architecture, as carried
out in Notre Dame, is rather technical, but it will be intelligible, in the
main, to anyone who takes the trouble to verify it by reference to the actual
building. We now come to the originators of this system, so far as their history can
be ascertained. A few names have been preserved here and there. Sabina
of Steinbach, for instance, worked as a sculptor in Strassburg Cathedral
with her father, one of the architects of the Middle Ages. One Ingelramme
was master-builder of Notre Dame de Rouen ; Robert de Lusarche built
Amiens Cathedral in 1220 ; Pierre de Montereau built the Abbey of Long
Pont in 1227; Hugues Lebergier built Saint Nicaise of Rheims in 1229 ; and
Jehan de Chelles managed to have his name preserved on the southern
lateral portal of Notre Dame de Paris, which he constructed, together with
the north and south gables and with some of the early choir chapels, about
1257. The inscription found was as follows : — " Anno Domini M.CC.LVII.
Mense Februario. Idus Secundo. Hoc Fuit Inceptum. Christi. Genitricis
Honore. Kallensi. Lathomo. Vivente. Iohanne. Magistro." — " In the year
of our Lord, 1257, the second of the ides of February, this (portal) was
commenced in honour of the Mother of Christ during the life of John de
Chelles, Mason."
Pierre de Chelles, son or nephew of John or Jehan, has also some posthu
mous prestige, as well as Jehan Ravy, his nephew, Jehan Le Bouteiller, and
Raymond de Temple, whose names have been preserved either by Viollet-le-
Duc or by Bauchal in his " Architectes de Notre Dame de Paris."
These artists — architects and sculptors — have been represented by
different authors as working partly for the sake of religion, partly for the
glory of their country or their municipality. According to some writers who
seem to object to any idea of compulsory service, the churches of the Middle
Ages were really built by the people through pure love of God. So says
M. Choublier,1 Professor of History in the Lycee Condorcet and the College
Chaptal, in whose excellent summary it is stated that serfs and freedmen,
1 " Histoire Sommaire de la France."
33

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
prelates, lords and ladies manipulated the shovel and trowel. " The Norman
pilgrims, headed by banner-bearers, flocked to build the Cathedral of
Chartres, the direction being confided to a Master of Works, an unknown
architect with some skilled men under him, who were called ' les logeurs du
bon Dieu,' or franc-masons." When the rough work was finished, it was the
turn of the " tailleurs imagiers," or sculptors, who created a world of statues,
and of the artists in stained glass, whose painted panes flung rainbow-colours
on the floors of the churches.
Michelet has a different tale to tell, and talks of the " drudges who were
driven to work while the money for the construction of the churches was
wrung from a starving people." Referring to the punishment of some
citizens of Rheims who refused to pay a tax, and whose figures are sculp
tured on a part of the cathedral, each bearing a mark of chastisement, the
same historian says that " under the stones of the churches there were too
many tears," and " that buildings erected by corvees, or compulsorily, could
hardly please God." These differences of opinion are, however, only
recorded here in an impartial spirit. The works of the Middle Ages, whether
erected by the people, animated by religious fervour, or driven to the task
like galley-slaves, stand for all time as marvels of colossal labour and
delicate art-workmanship.
The " franc-masons," referred to by M. Choublier, were the chief work
men employed on the Gothic edifices. They were established along the
Rhine, at Cologne (or Koln), and Strassburg and in the Isle of France, a
district so-called because it was comprised within the Seine, the Marne, the
Ourcq, the Aisne and the Oise. These masons, as well as the sculptors, or
stone-cutters, to use the word in its original meaning, were undoubtedly
influenced from Cluny. The monastic or Benedictine architects and
sculptors had first shown the way in Burgundy, and many of the lay builders
and embroiderers in stone were unmistakably indebted to the Cluniac artists.
The monks in the North of France were busy, active, energetic men ; they
planned and built their own abbeys,' although M. Anthyme de St. Paul,
1 The world owes a great tribute to the Benedictines, who, in spite of what Gibbon and
Buckle have thought fit to say about them, performed a stupendous work. Gibbon, how
ever, admits that the " monuments of Greek and Latin literature were preserved and multi
plied by their independent pens." Montalembert describes in his introduction to the " Life
of St. Bernard," how the monks went to work at building, the abbots sometimes acting as
labourers. St. Bernard, by the way, like some Protestants of the present day, was no lover
of the fantastic sculpturing in the abbeys and churches, as he considered that it took the
mind from God. 34

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
contrary to what Viollet-le-Duc has advanced, denies that they created an
original architecture.
In any case they had an influence over the laymen employed by the Princes
and Bishops in the erection of the churches, and we may take it for granted
that some of the architects and sculptors of such cathedrals as Notre Dame
de Paris had originally been novices at Cluny, or, perhaps, professed monks
who threw off the yoke of conventual discipline. This, however, is one of
the points to be cleared up in any elaborate account of the mediaeval artists.
The Cluny school must meanwhile be regarded as the art nursery of the
period. The monks worked from nature, as is testified by their stone decora
tion of the church of Vezelay in the Yonne and the cathedral of Autun in
the Sa6ne-et-Loire. They were disciplined by the Greek traditions which
had arrived through Byzantine channels, and they were also, no doubt,
inspired by the illuminated miniatures of the older art craftsmen, like Alcuin,
who, with his monks, was invited to Tours by Charlemagne in 796. '
All the characteristics of the monastic sculpture appeared in the work of
the laymen. There was the same expressive character in the faces of figures.
The birds, monsters or devils were accurately carved in beak, talon and
claw, as the demons on the parapet of the west front of Notre Dame de
Paris, the grotesque creatures gambolling among the foliage of the hood-
mould of the archivolt of the Virgin's portal, and the lateral gargoyles of the
same church, amply show. The artists copied direct from field, forest and
flower, as is demonstrated by the adornment of the capitals and by the
crockets of the triforium and the nave of the Paris Cathedral, springtime
plants, such as the fern, arum, hepatica and plantain, being mostly chosen.
All these were cut out of the " liais cliquart," a finely-grained and strong
limestone found in the beds of the Seine and the Oise.2
To conclude the question of origin, as far as it has been treated, it may
be said that Gothic art grew up out of the commingling of northern and
southern blood — that is to say out of Gallo- Roman elements. The north
1 Some foundation for this hypothesis may be seen in the " Fac-Similes of the Miniatures
and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS.,'' 1868, published by Westwood. Guizot in
his " History of Civilization in France" vol. ii. p. 174, says that, when Alcuin was alive, the
" intellectual state of Ireland and England was superior to that of the Continent " He adds
that in these island countries there were then no desolating invasions to sweep away monas
teries and shelters of learning. Gothic art, after all, may have gone from the British islands
to France and the banks of the Rhine, there tolfind its highest inspiration and develop
ment. 2 Moore's " Gothic Architecture." London, Macmillan
35

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.

supplied an active
imagination and a
daring spirit of inven
tion, the south a dis
ciplined feeling for
beauty and for the
traditions of ancient
art. Herr Voge, pre
viously referred to,
inclines to believe
that the art really
began at Chartres,
whose sculptors bor
rowed from Aries —
that is to say, Pro
vence — which was
influenced by Greece
and Rome. Anyhow,
the Gothic school
had flourished long
before Niccola Pisano
and Giotto lived in
Italy, and the work
produced at so early
a period is a wonder
ful testimony of the
skill and originality
of the French artists
who conceived and
executed figures
which, according to
competent critics, for treatment of form and beauty of modelling, had not been
seen since the days of Phidias, the elder Polycletus and Myron.
Viollet-le-Duc describes at great length the changes which have taken
place in Notre Dame de Paris since its termination, which may be said to
have been effected in 1235. The purely constructive part of the cathedral
has undergone comparatively few alterations since that time, although many
modifications were made in the clerestory windows. There was a screen
36

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.

before the choir, and fragments of it were found by the restorers of 1845.
Part of it still exists with the old stone enclosure of the choir. The mutila
tions undergone by the church, and to which Victor Hugo so scathingly
refers in his romance, were begun in 1699, when Louis XIV. was carrying
out the vow of his father
referred to in a preced
ing chapter. Splendid
tombs in bronze of Isa
bella of Hainault, first
wife of Philip Augustus ;
of Geoffrey, Duke of
Brittany, son of Henry
II. of England, who was
killed in a tournament
in Paris in 1 186, -and
of several bishops, were
destroyed, and the old
stalls of the choir were
replaced by those now
visible, which are of
finished workmanship.
The Revolutionists
also effected much dam
age. They smashed
many of the exterior
statues, notably those of
the kings on the fasade,
and removed the inter
esting equestrian monu
ment of Philip of Valois,
which the Metropolitan
Chapter held, contrary
to Viollet-le-Duc and
others, to be that of
Philip the Fair." The
1 See note on this debatable I
subject in the second chapter. 37

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
three rose-windows, one over the western entrance, and those in the
transepts, remain the same as of old, but the others were transformed
by Levieil in 1741. Most of them are of grisaille, a plain sort of glass with
fleur-de-lis ornamentation.1
The shell of the great building has remained intact. The vast central aisle
was so strongly roofed in stone by the Gothic builders that it has stood the test
of seven hundred years. The vaults are of the sexpartite form, the filling in
consisting of successive courses of arched masonry reaching from rib to rib over
each triangular space of the plan. The vaulting shafts are slender, and rise
from the great capitals of cylindrical columns which constitute the piers of
the ground story. The flying buttresses, consisting of arches which clear
both aisles at a single span, are alterations of the thirteenth century. It is
thought by competent authorities that quadripartite vaults had been origin
ally intended, and that the sexpartite form was adopted .after the building
had been carried to the " naissance " or springing of the vaults.
The following are the most important dates in connection with the con
struction of the cathedral, as given by the various authors who have written
on the subject, and notably by M. Queyron, Architect and Inspector of
Diocesan buildings in Paris, who has prepared a most careful monograph
on Notre Dame.
In 1163, Pope Alexander III. laid the foundation stone. In 1182, the
fourth day after Pentecost, the high altar was consecrated by the Papal
legate. Towards 1218, the western front was begun, and in 1223, at the time
of the death of Philip Augustus, the great portal was finished as far as the
bases of the towers. In 1235 was begun the construction of the towers and
of the open gallery connecting them. Between 1225 and 1240 a fire damaged
the upper parts of the edifice, and the repairs executed were of the" less severe
Gothic style of the second half of the thirteenth century. Between 1296 and
1300, the lateral chapels of the choir and apse were built. The edifice was
1 Thesubject of stained glass would merit a whole chapter to itself. Michelet, referring to
the introduction of grisaille, says, " C'est le protestantisme entrant dans le peinture." In
Germany, where there had been great glass-artists like William of Cologne and John of
Bruges, the Reformation confined the art to heraldry. The French had acquired so much
skill in glass-painting that, in 1506 or thereabouts, Pope Julius II., the fighting Pontiff and
patron of Michael Angelo, and who laid the foundation stone of St. Peter's as designed by
Bramante, invited William of Marseilles, a Dominican.monk, to Rome in order to decorate the
windows of the Vatican. The Dominicans had distinguished themselves in this art, and the
patron of painters on glass was Giovanni da Fiesole, or Fra Angelico. He had also gone to
Rome from the Dominican convent of Fiesole in order to ornament a chapel in the Vatican
for Pope Nicholas V. See later on in chapter on the Sainte Chapelle.
38

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
thus finished about the beginning of the fourteenth century, the plan of
placing stone spires on the towers, after the manner of the old belfry of
Chartres, having been abandoned. It is said that these spires would have
doubled the elevation if carried out according to the plan of the original
architect. The defacements in 1699, and under Soufflot in 1771, as well as
the iconoclastic mischief wrought by the Revolutionists, have been already
alluded to.

39

TLbc West tfvont-
IRotre 2>ame.

CHAPTER IV.

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.

IV.

The facade — -The great portals — The gallery of the kings — The
Devil 's cauldron — The interior of Notre Dame — The stained
glass windows — Great festivals and famous preachers —
Lacordaire, Ravignan, Monsabre', Pere Hyacinthe, and
Monseigneur d'Htlst.

1 HE great fasade or west front of Notre Dame has not
been surpassed in beauty and dignity by other con
structions of the kind. The Church, which, as has
been said, is in the form of a Latin cross, has six entrances,
three on the west front, that of the judgment in the centre, of
the Virgin on the left, and St. Anne's on the right ; the cloister
portal on the north and that of St. Marcel on the south, near
the river, while the canons enter by the handsome Porte
Rouge on the northern side of the apsis. The ground story
has with the three grand portals five niches, of which four
appear in front. The four visible from the Parvis are in the
buttresses at the springings of the portal voussures, or arch
curves, and contain statues of Saint Stephen, Saint Denis,
1.UU13 1JJ. the Church and the Synagogue, the latter with head bent,
as a sign of humiliation and defeat. Around the southern corner is the
niche containing Saint Marcel, a bishop of Paris. Over the portals is the
gallery of the kings with twenty-eight arches borne by columns. In the
openings are twenty-eight statues of kings. These monarchs have been the
subject of a good deal of archaeological controversy. In the Cartulary, or
ecclesiastical record of Notre Dame, they are set down as the Kings of France.
Many foreign and English writers have taken this view, and there are, as the
author has found to his astonishment, French clerics as well as laymen
familiar with great Paris monuments, who regard the effigies in the " Galerie
des Rois " as those of the former rulers of their country. Viollet-le-Duc, on
the other hand, energetically maintains that they are the Jewish kings who
were ancestors of the Blessed Virgin, and M. Queyron in his " Histoire et
Description de I'Eglise de Notre Dame," published under the patronage of
the Public Instruction and Fine Arts departments,1 describes the statues as

1 Paris.
Cathedral .

E. Plon, Nourrit et Cie. It is based on Viollet-le-Duc's inventory of the
43 D 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
those of Israel and Judah, and gives the names, Joachas, Jehu, Joram,
Ochozias, Achab, etc. Above the Royal gallery is that of the Holy Virgin
with a pierced balustrade, and inside this five large figures dating from 1854.
They are those of Adam and Eve, nude as they were in the garden of Eden,
before the temptation and the fall ; of the Virgin carrying the infant Jesus
on her left arm, and of two angels. Immediately over these statues is seen
the great rose-window with its early Gothic tracery. It is forty-two feet in
diameter, and is flanked by twin-pointed apertures framed in an arch. These
apertures, of windows, have small roses over them. In the fourth section
from the ground is a large and bold arcade of twin-pointed arches, about
twenty-six feet high, crowned by trefoils and borne by delicate columns.
On the top of this arcade is a balustrade on which the famous birds and
devils are seen — those monsters that may have served Dante for the
description of the tormentors of the damned, like Alichino and Graffiacane.
Behind is the statue of an angel blowing a trumpet. This is on the platform
called the " Cour des Reservoir," from which rise the two unfinished square
towers, each pierced by coupled pointed openings, about fifty-four feet in
height, and surmounted by gable-like watch turrets, covering the staircases
at the sides.
This sumptuous fasade, a good deal of which was altered in detail by
Soufflot and later restorers, is perpendicularly divided by four buttresses
having an internal structure consisting of a superposed series of inclined
masses of hard masonry which conduct a large part of the weight from the
inside to the outer face of the great external props. In order to secure the
external face against yielding to the outward impetus of these props, the
bonding of the masonry is strengthened at the levels, where they find
purchase by cramps of iron. The buttress, it must be remembered, is an
important part of the structure in all Gothic buildings, as the wall frame is
not remarkable for thickness.
The fasade is also remarkable for its sculptured work, what remains of
this being the finest done by the French stone- embossers and embroiderers
of the beginning of the thirteenth century. Some of this fretwork suffered
from the ravages of the Revolution, but the main lines of the noble com
positions on the portals have been sufficiently preserved to give an idea of
early Gothic art. There is first the modern figure of Christ, by Dechaume,
on the pier of the middle door or Judgment Portal.
The Redeemer is represented in the act of giving a blessing or benediction.
Under His feet are the lion and the dragon. The pedestal of the statue is
44

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
pentagonal in form and in the lower part are seven bas-relief medallions.
Those on the left of Christ represent veiled women : —
i. Geometry, a compass in hand, with which she traces lines.
2. Dialectic Philosophy, a serpent entwined around her form.
3. Medicine, with plants, the poppy and the digitalis, at either side of
her seat. 4. Theology (on the front of the pedestal), a sceptre in one hand, an open
book in the other, and a ladder.
5. Astronomy (on the right-hand side of Christ), holding a disc.
6. Grammar, teaching a child from a book, a bundle of rods in one hand.
7. Music, striking bells with a wand. The whole central pier was
destroyed during the alterations in the reign of Louis XIV., and was
restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
Above the medallions are bas-reliefs of five prophets, and again on either
side of the statue of the Redeemer are the twelve virtues and the twelve
vices. Faith is represented holding a standard, under her being Impiety or
Idolatry — a kneeling man adoring a demon. The figure of the demon is,
however, obliterated. The second virtue, Hope, has also a standard, with
Despair, a man piercing himself with a sword, below. Next come Charity,
a lamb, and Avarice, a woman, leaning on a coffer ; Justice, with Salamander
on standard, and Injustice, with unequal scales ; Wisdom and Folly,
Humility and Pride, Courage and Cowardice, the latter being represented by
a soldier running away, letting his sword fall. He is pursued by a hare ; and
an owl, perched on a tree, adds to his fright. Patience holds a standard,
with an ox displayed thereon, while Anger tries to drive from her presence
a hofy monk. Meekness and Harshness, Peace and Discord, Obedience and
its opposite, Perseverance and Inconstancy, are also symbolized. Nearly all
these figures bear traces of mutilation. On the right and left, at the same
height as the pedestals, are St. Christopher, headless, crossing a torrent ;
Job on his dunghill, his arms and legs eaten by worms, his wife and three
friends standing near ; the Sacrifice of Abraham ; a warrior or hunter, sup
posed to be Nimrod making war on heaven. On the jambs are the large
figures of the twelve apostles, and also on the side-posts are the five wise and
the five foolish virgins. Other figures are those of angels and animals.
There is, in fact, a small wilderness of figures, and, without plans, it would
be difficult to give an idea of their respective positions.
On the tympanum, or triangular area, at the top of the portal, are, first,
the figures of the Dead rising at the angelic trumpet-blasts. These are on
45

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
the lintel or lower part,' and kings, queens, prelates, ladies, knights and
serfs, the bond and the free, the noble and the lowly, are seen wearily, yet
anxiously, shaking off the sleep of death in order to answer the summons.
Above the lintel the souls are weighed in the balance by the Archangel
Michael — a noble figure — who holds the balance with a soul on one side of
the scales, the devils being occupied with the other. On the right of the
Archangel are the Elect, joyfully glancing heavenwards, while on the left,
the grinning demons haul a row of chained souls to hell. Crowning all is
seen the Redeemer showing the wounds in His hands. Near Him are two
angels and behind the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist interceding on
their knees for sinful humanity. As a setting to this magnificent composition
are six rows of sculptured forms making a voussure, or set of curves, with
figures of prophets, doctors, martyrs, virgins, devils, toads, damned souls,
and a hideous ape with crooked toe and finger nails.
Some of the ornamentation of the six ranges of arch curves is gruesome
and terrible. It relates either to the celestial or infernal results of the last
judgment. There are among the elect, Abraham, Moses and others-
Patriarchs, Prophets, and Doctors of the Church. There is, lower down, a
boiler filled with the damned who are pitchforked into the seething cauldron
by demons. There is Death on a steed as thin as Rosinante, and repre
sented by a skeletonic woman with dishevelled hair, a sword in each hand.
On the crupper, behind her, is Hell, typified by a nude man whose entrails
are visible. Also noticeable are a figure of a knight, supposed to be Famine,
or some other depopulator of the earth as seen in the vision of St. John, a
horrible demon, with gigantic mouth, sitting on and crushing the damned,
figures of the lost ones being devoured by toads, and goaded, pricked and
hacked about by their satanic tormentors. These uncanny figures form a
sort of base to the curves or voussure, on the left of the tympanum, or of the
statue of Christ on the central pillar, or trumeau, of the door. The six ranges
or rows of figured curves are all enclosed within a foliated moulding which
extends over the whole archway, and is terminated on one side by the form
of a happy spirit, admitted to heaven, and on the other by a scowling, ape
like demon who wears drawers.
The portal under the North Tower, called the " Porte de la Sainte Vierge,"
is near the Rue du Cloitre Notre Dame, and is the earliest part of the fasade,
having been begun about 1205. The figures are noteworthy by reason of
the skilful treatment of form, and the harmony of the modelling. They are,
1 This lintel is modern and is borne up by four angels with thuribles.
46

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
therefore, considered equal to any of the plastic specimens of Greek art.
Viollet-le-Duc calls the composition the masterpiece of the French school of
statuary of the beginning of the thirteenth century. The door is different
from the other two, inasmuch as it has a sharp triangular envelopment over
the arch. On the pedestal of the central pier are bas reliefs, the first repre
senting the creation of Eve, who seems to emerge from the left rib of Adam.
The first man is asleep near a rock, and the Deity is addressing Eve as she
comes forth into the light of day. Other bas-reliefs are the " Temptation,"
with the serpent, having the head and breast of a woman, entwined around
a tree and offering the apple to Eve, who bites it and gives it to Adam ; and
the " Ejection from Paradise " of our first parents by an angel. Above, is
the Virgin, crowned, the infant Jesus on her left arm, a bouquet in her right
hand. Over Mary is a small gabled and pinnacled construction, supposed by
some to represent the Ark of the Covenant.
On the upper part of the arch, or tympanum, are, in the lower division or
compartment, three prophets and three kings. In the second the angels
hold the winding-sheet in which Mary's body reclines near the tomb, a
finely-sculptured coffin-shaped receptacle decorated with quatrefoils. Christ
stands over the tomb, His right hand raised to bless His mother and near Him
are eight apostles. The composition is bounded at either end by a tree.
The third division contains Mary, glorified as Queen of Angels and Men,
sitting at the right hand of her son. Her crown has been placed on her
head by an angel who is in a cloud, and two other members of the celestial
hierarchy are on their knees close by, with tapers in their hands. In the
voussure are the witnesses of Mary's glorification — angels, patriarchs,
kings and prophets, in all sixty figures. Prominent in the stylobate is Saint
Denis, carrying his head in his two hands. Constantine, St. John the
Baptist, St. Stephen, St. Genevieve, and St. Sylvester also figure here.
Under the large statues are medallions. Beneath, two angels, for instance,
are represented on bas-reliefs, combats between the good and the fallen
inhabitants of heaven. Under St. Derds are his two executioners ; under
St. John the Baptist, another headsman, and as is supposed, Herod; under
Constantine, a kneeling king and a bird on a beast's back; under St.
Stephen, a martyr being stoned by the Jews; under St. Genevieve, a
woman receiving the Divine blessing, and under St. Sylvester, a Pope and
a city. Thirty-seven other bas-reliefs ornament the sides and pillars. They
represent the ocean, a man on a whale's back ; Aquarius on a monster's
47

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
tail ; the " ram, the bull, the heavenly twins," and other signs of the Zodiac ;
the months, with corresponding figures underneath, some of which are
amusing. Under April, for instance, is a two-headed person lying down,
one part of his body being naked and the other warmly clothed. Below
May is a man wearing light drawers, below June a nude figure about to
bathe. The summer months are additionally symbolized in the lower bas-
reliefs by persons enjoying the do Ice far niente. The signs of the Zodiac are
also accompanied by corresponding sculptures, most of which are damaged.
Labour is likewise represented by a mower, a harvester, a grape gatherer, a
sower, a pig feeder, and a pork-butcher. The figure of the'Earth,1 facing that
of the Ocean, has suffered a good deal from time or man. It represents a
big strong woman seated, one hand holding a plant, the other an oak,
bending with acorns. A girl kneels before her, holding one side of her
breast. St. Anne's portal, under the South Tower, and near the river, is in a
great measure composed of fragments of the old church on the site of which
Notre Dame de Paris now stands. The tympanum, the central pier, a sort
of square tower with turrets, part of the voussure, and the statues of the
sides are supposed to be specimens of the best twelfth-century work. The
fragments of this work were incorporated in St. Anne's portal by the archi
tects of the thirteenth century, who were manifestly desirous of preserving
them for the admiration of future ages. On the central pier stands St.
Marcel, a Parisian St. Patrick, who, when bishop of the city, told a serpent,
or dragon, which had devoured a wicked woman, to " be off to the deserts
or the sea." The bishop had evidently pitied the female although she was
sinful. Part of the winding-sheet of the woman is seen on the pier, and
from it protrudes the serpent's tail. The statues surrounding the central
lower figure are those of St. Peter, St. Paul, David, kings, queens, and
angels. The tympanum, like those of the other doors, is in three compartments,
the figures being in the Romanesque and not the Gothic style. In the first
zone are the descendants of David ; Joseph on horseback with his flowering
staff; the marriage of the Virgin Mary; the dream of Joseph, to whom the
angel reveals the mystery of the Conception, and the presentation of the
Virgin. In the second zone are the Virgin in prayer before an altar, a
thirteenth-century figure ; St. Joseph and the Angel Gabriel ; the Virgin
1 The head of the figure is represented by a spike. It is one of the most damaged bits
of sculpture existing on the fagade. 48

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
bowing to the will of God ; the Visitation ; the Nativity ; Joseph's sleep ;
the Infant Jesus in His cradle ; the ox and the ass warming Him with their
breath ; the two shepherds with their barking dogs, and Herod on his
throne, giving audience to the Magi. The third zone contains figures
larger than those of the lower compartments. They represent the Virgin
and child under a round-headed arch, borne by columns and surmounted by
a Byzantine cupola with small openings. On either side are angels, a king
and a bishop. The monarch is supposed to be Louis VIE, father of Philip
Augustus. The prelate is either Maurice de Sully or Etienne de Garlande.
The voussure has four rows and sixty figures of angels, prophets, and elders.
The St. Anne's portal, with its Romanesque work, has many points of
resemblance with parts of the frontage of the Abbey of St. Denis.1
It is supposed that the three great doors on the western front of the
cathedral, and their elaborate ornamentation, were finished within the space
of five years. The delicate work in wrought-iron of the penlures or hinges on
St. Anne's door, came from the old church of St. Stephen, and were restored
by Boulanger, who made the new hinges on the central portal. The legend
runs that the mediaeval smith, to whom the iron-work of the three doors was
entrusted, being unable to finish them in time, had recourse to the Devil,
who agreed to help him, on the usual Satanic conditions — namely, that he
should have the soul of the artificer. The demon, however, was unable to
do the central door, as the Blessed Sacrament was carried through it when
processions took place. Thus the Devil's bargain was not concluded. He
could not keep his compact, so the artificer retained his soul, and the middle
portal remained without its iron-work until more modern times.
As to the remainder of the exterior of Notre Dame de Paris, the North
Transept portal, in the Rue du Cloitre, has a fine antique statue of the
Virgin. Most of the sculptured work in the tympanum refers to the history
of the mythical monk Theophilus, who abjured Christianity for Judaism,
signed a contract with the devil, like Faust, in his own blood, but was saved
by the Blessed Virgin, whose garments the Devil is seen to pull, as if
enraged at her interference. On this side of the church is also the famous
Porte Rouge with the " Coronation of the Virgin " in the tympanum, and
scenes from the life of St. Marcel around. There are near it, under the
1 The stylobate, or continuous base under the sculptured figures, at both sides of St.
Anne's portal, is ornamented by small pointed arches with shafts and a background of lilies.
It is thoroughly modern, and looks it. The old stylobate of the thirteenth century was
damaged beyond repair. 49

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.

sacristy

windows of the choir chapels,
towards the garden, seven bas-
reliefs of the sixteenth century,
representing scenes from the
Virgin's life.
The portal of the Southern
Transept, on the river side, be- -
gun under the direction of Jean
de Chelles,1 as testified by an
inscription previously referred
to, which runs on one line, is
surmounted like the other Tran
sept door by a large rose. The
figures are those of Christ, St.
Stephen, 'St. Martin, St. John
the Baptist, St. Peter, Moses,
Aaron, St. Denis, St. Thomas,
St. Bartholomew, David, and
angels. In the tympanum is the
" Martyrdom of St. Stephen."
The saint is seen discussing
with the doctors, dragged before
the judge, stoned, and finally
put in a coffin. All the figures,
which include that of God the
Father, are good, but the de
sign is unsatisfactory. The
doorway belongs to the declin
ing period of Gothic architec
ture in France.
Notable, too, are the Gothic
on the south side, constructed by Viollet-le-Duc and Lassus ; the

1 See Chapter III. The Northern and Southern Transept facades of Notre Dame are
under a disadvantage, as, unlike the western frontage, they have no large spaces in front of
them to enable their points to be seen properly. The same may be said of the lateral
pinnacles and gargoyles. The elevated sides of the church are full of. architectural and
sculptured marvels which can only be discovered by persistent exploration. The front of the
Southern Transept portal is topped by a figure of the Redeemer, that of the other by the form
of St. Landry, a bishop of Paris. 50

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.

exterior of the chapels with mullioned windows topped by balustrades and
gables ; the exterior of the choir ; the apsis and the flying buttresses ; the
side pinnacles and grotesque lateral gargoyles, or spouts, with " figure
heads," if nautical language may be used, one of which represents the back
of a bird which seems to be entering the wall near the tower stairs ; the
demons and strange nightfowl near and around the towers, and the Fontaine
Notre Dame, a tasteful work erected in 1845 on the site of the old archi-
episcopal palace, now a public garden. The spire over the middle of the
church is made of oak cover
ed by lead, and was erected
in 1859.1 The great bell or
' bourdon," weighing sixteen
tons, is in the southern tower,
the other, brought from Se-
bastopol, not being used. The
" bourdon " breaks the silence
of Passion week, and, on the
Saturday before Easter Day,
gives the signal to the bells
of the different churches to
ring out for the Resurrection.
It was the gift of Jean de
Montaign, a Paris magnate
and brother of a metropolitan
bishop who called it after his
wife Jacqueline, but when re
cast in 1686, it was baptized
Emmanuel - Louise - Therese,

1 Oakwood and lead have been
largely used in the construction or
alterations of the edifice by the
builders and restorers. All the high
parts of the cathedral, including the
tops of the towers, are leaded over.
The old spire was destroyed in
1810, but its roots, so to speak,
were preserved. The new one
is a pyramid ornamented with
crockets.

51

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
in honour of the Grand Monarque and his consort, Maria Teresa of
Austria. The best view of the exterior of Notre Dame de Paris is obtainable from
the Quai de Montebello, on the opposite side of the river. Zola, in one of
his novels, " L'CEuvre," describes the cathedral, when seen apsewise, as
"colossal, and squatted between its flying buttresses which resemble paws
in repose, crowned by the double head of its towers above a long monster
like spine." The prospect from the towers, 223 ft. high, at the present day is
fully equal to that described by Victor Hugo in the chapter of his novel
" Paris a vol d'oiseau au quinzieme siecle." Instead of the antique Paris,
however, that of the nineteenth century looms up with its new and intensely
modern buildings, relieved here and there by the older edifices which have
escaped obliteration.1 The view may not be so picturesque as in the old
times, but it is deeply interesting, and the city, when bathed in spring or
autumnal sunshine, fascinates by the brightness and cheerfulness of its
general effect, so different to the darker and duller aspects of other northern
cities. Notre Dame de Paris should also be seen in the setting sun, when
its whole western front is ablaze with light, and each sculptured form seems
to stand forth in full relief from the gorgeous fretwork of the fasade.
Coming now to the interior, it may be remarked at the outset, that like
the external part of the cathedral the internal space if a little heavy in parts
is harmoniously designed and constructed. The church, which is in the form
of a Latin cross, consists of a nave and double aisles, the latter being con
tinued around the choir. It is 139 yards long and 52 yards broad. The vault
ing is no feet high in the nave, and is borne by seventy-five pillars, most of
which are round. All these, like the choir columns, are finely foliated, the
sculptors, as has been shown before, having worked straight from Nature
and reproduced the flowers and leaves of the fields around the city. Above
the inner aisles runs a triforium, or gallery, with pointed arches, and over
all are the high clerestory windows, retouched or altered in the thirteenth
century. Near the gallery entrance is the tomb of Etienne Yver,2 Canon
of Paris and Rouen, who died in February, 1467. The monument is in the
fifteenth-century style of French sculpture and is nearly free from mutilation.
The oak pulpit in the central nave is richly carved with bas-reliefs represent -
1 Part of the old hospital, Hotel Dieu, is still seen across the river on the left.
2 This is a gruesome monument, and repels by its charnel-house aspect. On the base the
Canon's body is seen delivered to the worms ; above, two saints help him to rise from his
coffin. 52

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
ing six apostles and angelic figures from the designs of Viollet-le-Duc, and
eight great lustres in gilt bronze hang from the vault. The chapels are
those of St. Charles Borromeo, the Holy Childhood, St. Vincent de Paul,
St. Francis Xavier, St. Landry, St. Clotilde, St. Genevieve, the Souls in
Purgatory, St. Joseph, St. Peter, St. Anne, the Sacre Coeur, the Annuncia
tion, St. Martin, St. Ferdinand, St. Germain, St. Louis, St. Marcel, St. Denis,
Mary Magdalen, St. William, St. George, and the Chapel of the Apsis, or
that of " Our Lady of the Seven Dolours." There are a few other
undedicated chapels, and the baptismal font with fine carvings and grisaille
windows. All these chapels contain appropriate statues or frescoes mostly modern ;
that of Purgatory comprising, for instance, a painting which represents
Christ releasing from limbo a soul typified by the jaws of a demon. In
St. Martin's chapel is the monument of Jean-Baptiste de Budes, Comte de
Guebriant, Marshal of France, who died in 1643, and of his wife, Renee du
Bec-Crepin. In St. Ferdinand's Chapel is the monument of Monseigneur
de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris. St. Germain's Chapel has the memorial
of another archbishop, Monseigneur de Juigne. The Chapelle St. Louis
is full of frescoes and statuettes of the saint to whom it is dedicated, of
St. Clotilde, St. Isabella, the Virgin, the Redeemer, and a large marble
figure of Cardinal de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris, who died in 1729. The
prelate is represented kneeling. The memorial to Cardinal de Belloy,
another archbishop, is in the Chapelle St. Marcel, opposite it being that of
Monseigneur de Quelen ; the tomb of Monseigneur Affre, the archbishop
who was shot at the barricades in 1848, is in the St. Denis Chapel. He is
represented falling, struck by a bullet. A crucifix is slipping from his left
hand as it rests on the ground, while with his right he holds out an olive-
branch. A bas-relief on the pedestal refers to the prelate's death in the
Faubourg St. Antoine, in June, 1848. Monseigneur Sibour, the archbishop
who was murdered by a mad priest, has a memorial in the Magdalen Chape],
where are likewise to be seen, besides mural paintings representing the con
version of the saint to whom the spot is dedicated, the arms of Archbishop
Garibaldi, Papal legate, or nuncio, who died in Paris in 1853, and whose body,
like those of the Paris prelates above referred to, is in the crypt of the
cathedral. A mausoleum to Claude-Henry d'Harcourt, Lieutenant- General
of the armies of the king, and who died in 1769, is in the St. William
Chapel. Monseigneur Darboy, shot by the Communists in 1871, is com
memorated in St. George's Chapel. He is represented giving a blessing,
53

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
as he dies, to his murderers. In this chapel are mural paintings of scenes
from the life of St. George. Decorations with a similar motive are on the
stained glass. There are also two other statues, one of St. George over
throwing the dragon, the other of Cardinal Morlot, an Archbishop of
Paris. The chapel of the apsis, dedicated to Notre Dame des Sept-Douleurs,
has bas-reliefs on the altar representing the Annunciation, the descent from
the Cross, and Christ in the tomb. There is a statue in wood of the Virgin,
and mural paintings and windows full of scenes from her life are also to be
seen here. The chapel was built by Bishop Matiffas de Buci, who has a
memorial in it.1 Nearly all the monuments visible in the church are of
Languedoc marble.
That important part of the church, the choir, is raised above the tran
septs by three steps, and on the right and left is closed by a low grille in
wrought-iron, gilt, resting on a stone foundation, and terminated towards
the entrance by two stone columns which support the central rails. The
wood carvings of the choir, done in the time of Louis XIV., in fulfilment of
his father's " vow," are famous, and are treated at great length in a mono
graph entitled " Album des boiseries sculptees du chceur de Notre Dame
de Paris, etc.," published in Paris by Chouvet in 1855. Inside the railings
are two episcopal seats, one for the Archbishop, the other for the Dean of
the Chapter. The back of the chair on the right is carved with a scene repre
senting Childebert I. being cured by St. Germain, Bishop of Paris ; on the
other seat being represented, in a similar manner, the martyrdom of St.
Denis. The panelling of the choir stalls is ornamented with episodes from
the life of the Virgin. There is also a small organ, for accompaniment
purposes, in the choir, and near it is the entrance to the burial-places of the
archbishops, which are covered over by movable flagstones.2 Noticeable
too, is the fine lectern in green bronze, with its ornamentation, such as the
angel, the lion, the eagle and the ox — symbols of the four evangelists.
At the nave entrance to the choir on the right, near the low communion
rails, is a large statue of Mary, holding the Infant Jesus, supposed to be the
original fourteenth-century statue. On the pillar, under the Virgin, is a bas-
relief representing Eve with the serpent's tail. On the opposite side is a
1 His tomb and recumbent statue are behind the high altar.
2 The crypt for the archbishops was made in 171 1, and the excavations led to the
discovery of an altar to Jupiter, which is now in the Cluny Museum. This altar dated
from the old Roman days. 54

NOIRE DAME DE PARIS.
corresponding statue of St. Denis, who, as well as the mother of the
Redeemer, is prominently commemorated in the Paris cathedral.
Four steps in Languedoc marble lead to the sanctuary, and the high
altar is approached by three additional steps of the same material. The
altar itself is of limestone or liais on which the old sculptors worked, and is
badly set off by the marble group representing the " Descent from the
Cross," ' the statues of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., and the bronze
angels carrying the instruments of the Passion. These figures are good, but
they do not harmonize with the Gothic character of the edifice. They
were placed in the church by those whom Louis XIV. employed to carry
out the " vow " of his father.
In the " Pourtour," or ambulatory of the Choir, are the curious scenes
from the life of Christ, or " histoires," carved on stone in 1351, by Jean
Ravy and Jean Lebouteiller. These are on the wall, outside the choir
enclosure, and are in relief supported by clustered columns and Gothic
arches. Some of the old reliefs were on the screen destroyed by order of
Cardinal de Noailles. The fourteen "histoires" on the north side refer
to the Visitation, the Star of Bethlehem seen by the shepherds, the Nativity,
the Adoration of the Magi, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Flight into
Egypt, the Presentation in the Temple, the Discussion with the Doctors,.
the Baptism of Christ, the Marriage in Cana, the Entry into Jerusalem, the
Last Supper, the Washing of St. Peter's feet by his Master, and the Garden
of Olives. On the south side the subjects represent Christ and Magdalen,
the Holy Women, or the three Maries kissing the Redeemer's feet, the
Apparition of Jesus to the Apostles, who are in a quaint turreted construction,
the Disciples of Emmaus with Christ between them, the Breaking of the
Bread, the Apparition to the Apostles, a repetition, with some variations, of
the other, the Doubt and Conversion of St. Thomas, the Miraculous Draught
of Fishes, and the " Mission or Message to the Apostles," who are directed
by their Master to evangelize the world. These quaint stone reliefs, of
which a cast may be seen in the Crystal Palace, were finished by Jean
Lebouteiller in 1351. Underneath them are the names of bishops and
archbishops who are buried in the crypt, and the tombs of many of whom
were cleared away by restorers. The pavement of the church is in great
squares of Grimault stone and black Bourbon marble, alternating in the
transepts with liais and Dinan stone. The choir pavement is in multi-
1 This group is also called a Pieta, after the work of Michael Angelo in the Cappella
della Pieta, dedicated to the dead, in St. Peter's at Rome.
55

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
coloured marble, and that of the sanctuary in mosaic work, part of which
represents the arms of France and a fleur-de-lis.
On the stained glass window over the organ are painted the Virgin and
Child surrounded by prophets, the signs of the Zodiac, the works of the
Months, the Virtues triumphant with lances in hand to attack the Vices.
The grand rose-window of the north transept has depicted on it the life
and miracles of Mary, with eighteen figures representing kings of France,
founders and benefactors of the church. The southern rose has groups of
apostles and bishops, to whom angels bring golden crowns. In the angles
above this rose are some curious figures : — Antichrist decapitating Enoch
and Elias, is in one corner ; and God emerging from a cloud in order to put
Antichrist to flight, is in the other. Under the rose, in the windows of the
arcades of the gallery, are the Jewish kings, ancestors of Mary. The high,
mullioned windows of the choir and the apsis have figures of the Virgin, of
angels, kings, bishops and fathers of the Church.
The organ does not call for much description. It was rebuilt and
enlarged by Thierry Lesclope in 1730, and further developed in 1785 by
Cliquot. M. Cavaille-Coll's improvements have given the instrument 5266
pipes and eighty stops, or five keyboards for the hands, and the " clavier
de pedale." The sacristy is of less historic interest than the other parts of- Notre
Dame de Paris. It comprises a large hall, the room of the Chapter above
which the treasures of the cathedral are placed, and the parish vestry,
where one of the ecclesiastics of the church is generally to be found. The
great hall has three stained glass windows on which the principal bishops of
Paris are depicted. In the central one at the top are St. Denis, St. Rustique,
St. Eleuthere ; between the mullions and underneath are the less known
saints and prelates, among the latter being Peter Lombard, the Italian,
who was only bishop of Paris for a year, and Maurice de Sully. Under
neath these is seen Monseigneur Affre, shot in 1848, who is represented on
his death-bed, near him being the inscription : " The good shepherd gives
his life for his flock ; may my blood be the last shed." .The right and left
windows are less interesting from an historical point of view. Cardinal de
Noailles, the vacillating prelate who first backed Fenelon, Quesnel and the
Quietists', and afterwards signed the bull " Unigenitus," which Pope
1 The Quietists only believed in the contemplative life and advocated utter inaction.
There were the Hesychastes or Quiescentes of Mount Athos, who lived idly, watching, as
has been said, " their noses and their navels," and the sect founded by the Spanish theo-
56

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS.
Clement XI. directed against the revival of Jansenism, is on the right
window. The hall of the Chapter, or Salle Capitulaire, " Capitulum Ecclesiae
Parisiensis," is noteworthy by reason of the archbishop's choir, the canons'
stalls, and the carven work on the great oak press on which are also
painted scenes from the life of St. Louis. The glass arcades of the cloister ¦
are composed of nine mullioned windows with roses. On these arcades are
scenes from the life of St. Genevieve, patroness of Paris, who, according to
the legend, saved the city from Attila, king of the Huns, in 451. In the
cloister and sacristies are likewise to be seen various pictures, some of
which were given to the Church from time to time as " Mai's," or offerings
from trade guilds. Most of the " Mais," however, are now in the Louvre.
Notable, too, is the cloister fountain, with its stone cross, and, above on the
buttresses, the seated figures of eight bishops of Paris.
Most of the reliquaries and relics shown in the " Treasury " are imitations
of the old ones, which were formerly in the Sainte Chapelle. The crown
of thorns was removed to Notre Dame by order of the First Napoleon,
and among other sacred or merely historic souvenirs shown, are the holy
nail given to Charlemagne by Constantine V. ; fragments of the True
Cross ; steel coffret and gold cross of St. Thomas a Becket, in English work
of the thirteenth century ; a slipper and gloves of Pope Benedict XIV. ; the
Palatine Cross in gold of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, which survived
the Revolution ; 1 a cross worn by St. Vincent de Paul, the crozier of Eudes
de Sully, and the " discipline " supposed to have been used by St. Louis.
Among the other souvenirs or gifts are the vestments sent by the First
Napoleon to the church for his coronation ; the Mitre and Missal given by
the Third Napoleon to Archbishop Sibour; the ornamental taper for the
baptism of the Prince Imperial ; Russian banners from Eupatoria : sontanes
worn by Archbishops Affre, Sibour and Darboy; the ring and cross of
Vicar-General Surat, who was also shot in 1871 by the Communists.
Little more remains to be said about Notre Dame de Paris, except that
the festival services, notably that of the Assumption, which has already been
alluded to, are conducted on a sumptuous scale. The myriads of lights, the
logian Molinos in 1675. The doctrines of this sect found their way to France, and were
supported by Fe"nelon, at least for a time, by Madame Guyon, and others.
1 It was given to a king of Poland by Manuel in the twelfth century, and passed into the
hands of Anne of Cleves, who left it in 1684 to the church of St. Germain-des-Pres. It is
idle to enter into the question of the authenticity of relics.
57 k

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
gorgeous vestments of prelates and priests, the high overarching pillars, the
organ music, the voices of choristers, and the deep, rich colours flung over
all by the great rose-windows, combine to bring home to the worshipper or
spectator the Gothic conception of heaven. Even the unbeliever is often
impressed by such scenes, and has to concede that there must be some
foundation for the mystical theory as to the existence of a world beyond the
stars. The Lenten sermons or conferences at Notre Dame are historical in
interest, inasmuch as they were begun by Lacordaire, the Dominican, who
was called " le Romantique de la Chaire." ' It was the period of Romanticism
in France, and the eloquent Friar, who had thrown off the lawyer's robes for
the black and white habit of the sons of St. Dominic, was supposed, rather
irreverently, to represent in the pulpit, what Hugo, Gautier and De Banville
represented in literature, and Delacroix, Scheffer, Horace Vernet, Ingres,
and Paul Delaroche in painting. Another historical preacher of Notre
Dame was Pere Ravignan, a Jesuit, of noble family, and in later years, the
famous pulpit has been occupied by Pere Hyacinthe, now M. Hyacinthe
Loyson, Pere Monsabre and Monseigneur d'Hulst, Rector of the Paris
Catholic University. 1 Lacordaire began his conferences in 1835.

68

Zhe Sainte=Cbapelle—
interior.

To fact p.^

CHAPTER V.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.

St. Louis — His piety, and desire to become a Dominican — Fainting
from prolonged prayer — The mystic chapel — -Joinvilles testi
mony — The Armenians and St. Louis — The Chapel and the
Police Court — Boileau' s satirical poem — fmperial impecuniosity
— Gibbon's version of the cost of the Chapel — The rival archi
tects — Exploiting the young and zealous — Stabbing a rival —
Historical events and full description of the monument.

CARLOMAN.

H HAT marvel of Gothic architecture rising above the
§g|j castellated buildings of the Conciergerie on the Quai
de l'Horloge, and known as the Sainte Chapelle,
symbolizes the mysticism of St. Louis, the pious monarch
for whom it was built. Retirement from the world, close
communion with Christ, were sought by the holy king, and
he found what he wanted in this gorgeous chapel, the
brilliant harmonies and translucent colours of whose windows
reminded him of the splendour of that heaven for which he
sighed. Men can pray on bare hill-tops or within the white
washed walls of country conventicles, but after all who shall
condemn, because St. Louis thought fit to say his orisons
surrounded by the gloriously pictured images of saints and
angels, in an edifice raised to the Creator by architects and
artists whose skill and services were nobly employed ?
We have only to glance through the chronicles of old Matthew Paris,
the English Benedictine of St. Alban's, or the memoirs of the Sire de
Joinville, the faithful follower of the Ninth Louis, and the recorder of the
saint's actions, in order to realize how far this devout monarch carried his
.zeal and piety. He did not want the crown, and would have gladly given it
up in order to bury himself in a monastery, like the Emperor Charles V.,
who retired to San Yuste, and , like his son Philip 1 1., who prepared for
death inside the walls of the gloomy Escurial.1 It was, in fact, a marvel to
1 The difference between the Escorial or Escurial, and the Sainte Chapelle, is that
t>etween the gloomiest night and the loveliest morn. The Escorial, in the graphic words of
Ford (Handbook for Spain), is "an ashy pile looming like the Palace of Death, who hence
sends forth his blasts of consumption which descend from the peeled Sierras to sweep
human and vegetable life from the desert of Madrid." The Sainte Chapelle is a place of
cheerful colour, but both edifices were used for the same purposes by their royal founders.
St. Louis also sought seclusion in the forest of Fontainebleau, where he built a hermitage.
6l E 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
find a monarch so imbued with religious sentiment as was Louis IX.,
remaining on the throne, but there is the testimony of the chaplain of Queen
Margaret (Margaret of Provence), who said that the king was eagerly
desirous of becoming a Dominican, but his wife, with great trouble,
dissuaded him from abandoning the palace for the cloister and the royal
robes for the cowl of the Preaching Friars. Louis compensated himself for
his enforced retention in the world by fasting, praying, alms-giving and
scourging his body with the " discipline." He surrounded himself with
Dominicans and Franciscans, whom he consulted in every doubt and
difficulty. The Secular Church of the Popes and prelates was not enough
for him. He even favoured the league formed against the secular clergy by
Pierre Mauclerc, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Counts of Angouleme and
Saint Pol in 1246, and whose claims against the " arrogant clerics " — " sons
of serfs who judge, according to their own law, the free and the sons of
freemen " — are formulated in a curious legal document in the " Tresor des
Chartes," and the " Preuves des libertes de I'Eglise Gallicane." Rarely
have the laymen of a Catholic country dared to attack the privileges
of the clergy in so outspoken a manner as that adopted by the lords and
lawyers who were headed by Mauclerc.
An old writer tells us that even prayer and meditation were not suffi
cient for St. Louis. He found himself unable to weep while engaged in his
devotions, and was afraid that his fervour had waned, even after he had
fainted away in his chapel owing to the prolongation of his prayers. Here
is what the ancient chronicler says in his delightfully quaint French, which
it would be a pity to translate word for word : " Li beneoiz rois desirroit
merveilleusement grace de lermes, et se compleignoit a son confesseur de
ce que lermes li defailloient, et li disoit debonnerement humblement et
priveement, que quant l'en disoit en la let:anie ces moz : Biau Sire Diex,
nous te prions que tu nous doignes fontaine de lermes, li sainz rois disoit
devotement : O Sire Diex, je n'ose requerre fontaines de lermes ainsois me
souffisissent petites goustes de lermes a arouser la secherece de mon cuer."
The king only wanted one small tear to water the aridity of his heart.
" These pious tears, these mystic ecstasies, these mysteries of divine
love are all to be found," says Michelet, " in that marvellous little church
of St. Louis, the Sainte Chapelle. Church all-mystical, Arabesque in its
architecture, which he caused to be built on returning from the Crusade, by
Eudes de Montreuil, whom he had taken with him to the Holy Land. A
world of religion and poetry, a whole Christian East are in these windows
62

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
and in these fragile and precious paintings." Michelet must not be taken
as having meant that the church is Arabesque except so far as some of the
decorative motives resemble that style, and it is to be remarked that
Viollet-le-Duc and nearly everybody else mentioned Pierre de Montereau,
and not Eudes de Montreuil, as the builder of the Sainte Chapelle.
Joinville's testimony as to the extraordinary piety of the king is also
quaint and interesting. The chronicler relates that a crowd of Armenians
wanted to see the " saint roy " — " Je alai au roy la ou il se seoit en un
paveillon, apuie a l'estache (colonne) du paveillon, et s6oit on sablon sanz
tapiz et sanz nulle autre chose dezouz li. Je li dis : ' Sire, il a la hors un
grant peuple de la grante Hermenie qui vont en Jerusalem, et me proient
Sire, que je leur face monstrer le saint roy ; mes je ne bee ja a baisier vos os
(cependant je ne desire pas encore avoir a baiser vos reliques).' Et il rist
moult clerement et me dit que je les alasse querre ; et si fis-je. Et quant
ils orent veu le roy, ils le commanderent a Dieu et le roy eulz." From this
it will be seen that Joinville was not a bad courtier, and that Louis was not
insensible to a joke about his own sanctity.
The Sainte Chapelle nowadays has strange surroundings. When it
was built for St. Louis, the present Palais de Justice was a royal residence,
and the king went from his chambers to his chapel. The gem of Gothic
architecture, with its magnificent jewelled windows, was at that time in its
proper place. The Salle des Pas Perdus, where lawyers and litigants now
congregate, was then the festival-hall of the monarchs. The Parliament also
shared the palace with the king, but in the reign of Henri II. , husband of
Catherine de' Medici, the royal residence was transferred to the Tournelles,
and the palace of the city was left to the full possession of the Parliament,
and subsequently passed into the hands of the lawyers. Boileau, who was
the son of a Parliament Registrar, and who studied both law and theology
could not find anything better to do when he became a versifier, than to
¦satirize the canons of the Sainte Chapelle in the " Lutrin." This satire
the authorjfof " The French Humorists " ascribes to the non-poetic temper
ament of a man who saw nothing else in the gorgeous Sainte Chapelle
save the squabbling of the rotund ecclesiastics. These church dignitaries do
not seem, however, to have been much annoyed by the amusing pile of verse
built around their lectern. Boileau's brother, by the way, was a canon of
the Sainte Chapelle, and when the author of the "Lutrin" died, he was
buried in the lower oratory of the edifice, his body being afterwards removed
to Saint Germain-des-Pres. There are no rubicund canons nowadays in
63

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
the Sainte Chapelle to call forth the jibes and jokes of another Boileau, no
fat sinecures, no paid deputy-clerics like those who chanted themselves
hoarse and officiated while the others sat or slumbered in " cushioned
ease," [ and only thought of comfortably killing the time between meals. The
Sainte Chapelle is now devoid of seats and stalls, and is only used for the
annual " Messe Rouge," or " Red Mass," with which the Law Courts open
in the autumn. This ceremony is still carried out, contrary to what has
been stated in some books on Paris. There was a rumour of its approaching
abolition in newspapers of anti-clerical tendencies, but it is duly celebrated
every year. The judges and lawyers with their families punctually attend it,
and the Archbishop of Paris lends to the ceremony the dignity of his
presence. It is to the law-people that the once royal chapel now practically
belongs. Its frontage faces the tribunal of Correctional Police, and almost
touching the monument of mediaeval architecture is the depot, or Bow
Street of Paris, where all the drunkards, demireps, thieves, murderers,
tramps, swindlers, pickpockets and garrotters arrested overnight by the
police are interned, while awaiting examination before a magistrate, or trial
and imprisonment. Close by, in the Rue de la Sainte Chapelle, may be
seen every day rows of black prison-vans disgorging candidates for jail, or
receiving those who have been condemned. The noise of the cursing,
swearing and coarse jokes of hardened criminals frequently reaches the
sanctuary where St. Louis sought seclusion and prayed.
The Sainte Chapelle was begun about 1242, and finished in 1248, in
order to receive the Crown of Thorns which St. Louis purchased from the
needy Emperor Baldwin II. The whole history of the affair may be read in
Gibbon, as well as in the work of Canon Morand, who has written about the
Sainte Chapelle in a voluminous manner. Baldwin, the adopted son of that
John of Brienne who was named by Philip Augustus the most worthy
champion of the Holy Land, " in armis probum, in bellis securum, in
agendis providum," 2 having become impoverished, sought the pecuniary aid
of the Western monarchs. Although Emperor of Constantinople and King
of Jerusalem, he had to beg at Courts, and was snubbed in England, where
with much difficulty he raised seven hundred marks. He was reduced to-
1 " The cushioned ease of immemorial deans." See J. A. Symonds' " Sketches in Italy
and Greece." In the essay on Perugia he talks of Salisbury Close and its clergy.
2 See Marinus Sanutus, " Secreta Fidelium Crucis," and also the English Benedictine
Matthew Paris. John of Brienne is described as " tried in arms, sure in wars, and far-seeing
in actions." Paris is also full of details about Baldwin's impecuniosity.
64

XLbc Sainte*Cbapelle.

To face p. 64.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
such straits that he leagued with the Turks and the Comans of Asia Minor,
and pawned his son and heir at Venice as the security for a debt. In these
difficulties he was reminded of the Crown of Thorns which had been long
preserved in the imperial chapel of Constantinople. Gibbon thus summarizes
the history of the sale of the Crown of Thorns to Louis IX : " In the absence
of the Emperor, the barons , borrowed the sum of thirteen thousand one
hundred and thirty-four pieces of gold on the credit of the holy crown ; they
failed in their performance of the contract, and a rich Venetian, Nicholas
Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, on condition that the
relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute property, if it were
not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons apprised their
sovereign of the hard treaty and impending loss ; and as the- empire could
not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin was anxious
to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to rest it with more honour and
emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. Yet the negotiation
was attended with some delicacy. In the purchase of relics, the saint would
have started at the guilt of Simony ; but if the mode of expression were
changed, he might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and acknowledge
the obligation. His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were despatched to
Venice, to redeem and receive the holy crown, which had escaped the dangers
of the sea and the galleys of Vataces. On opening a wooden box, they
recognized the seals of the doge and barons, which were applied on a shrine-
of silver ; and within this shrine the monument of the Passion was enclosed
in a golden vase. The reluctant Venetians yielded to justice and power ;
the Emperor Frederic granted a free and honourable passage ; the Court of
France advanced as far as Troyes, in Champagne, to meet with devotion this
inestimable relic ; it was borne in triumph through Paris by the king him
self,1 barefoot and in his shirt ; and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver
reconciled Baldwin to his loss." Having further touched upon the " remain
ing furniture " of Baldwin's chapel, which he offered to the King of France,
such as " the portion of the true cross, the baby-linen of the Son of God, the
lance, the sponge, and the chain of His Passion, the rod of Moses, and part
of the skull of St. John the Baptist," the historian of the " Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire " talks of the holy chapel of Paris " on which the
muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality." The " Lutrin " of
Boileau is more smart and cynical than " comic," and the Sainte Chapelle
1 Gibbon is not quite clear about the journey to meet the relics. King Louis, accord
ing to Michelet, only went, barefooted, to Vincennes, outside Paris.
65

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
depends for immortality on other things besides the verses of the clever
imitator of Horace and Juvenal.1
Thus the Sainte Chapelle was raised at a cost of twenty thousand
marks.2 The builder was, as has been said, Peter of Montereau; but there is
a curious mediaeval legend about its construction. King Louis issued an
appeal to all the " stone-workers " in Europe, and they flocked to Paris from
Italy, Germany, Holland, England and Spain. Two of these artificers met
in an Alpine inn, and one of them, a young, enthusiastic, confiding man,
showed to the other, who was of mature age, a plan for building the holy
chapel of King Louis IX. The older man had also a plan, but took care to
show it to nobody, nor did he tell the other that he too was on his way to
Paris. A Satanic scowl settled on his face as he scrutinized the plan of the
too trusting youth who had drawn a marvellous edifice, pure and simple in
design, its spire springing towards heaven with that elasticity of elevation
peculiar to true Gothic architecture.
While the inn was quiet, and all voices were stilled therein during the
Alpine night, a piercing cry broke the silence. The host and his wife,
aroused from slumber, listened attentively for another sound, but heard
nothing save the wind moaning outside, and the rain pattering against their
windows, so they slept again. Before daybreak the older of the two
travellers bound for Paris, set out on his way alone. He had tried to
murder his youthful rival in the night, but only succeeded in half-killing him.
The young man, fearfully injured, was nursed by the innkeepers and
recovered his health, but his plan for the construction of the holy chapel was
gone. It had been stolen by his would-be murderer, who went to Paris and,
worn and travel- stained, entered the place where the other competitors were
assembled. He showed his plan to the umpires, and it fascinated not only
these, but the architects and sculptors around, who gave way before so
formidable a rival. King Louis was enchanted with the design, and the
works were at once begun under the direction of the unknown artist who
1 Strangely enough, an almost similar phrase appears in the book on the Sainte
Chapelle by Canon Morand, which was published about the same time, or shortly after the
" Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The Canon says that the lawsuit about the
lectern was made memorable " par le poeme sublime de Boileau, qui suffiroit seul pour
immortaliser la Sainte Chapelle." Morand presented his book to the National Assembly
in 179°', an(l the last page of Gibbon's work is dated, Lausanne, June 27th, 1787. The
coincidence is curious. A completely different view of the " Lutrin " dispute will be found
in Besant's " French Humorists."
2 This is the price given by Gibbon. The mark was not of course then so low in value
as the modem German coin. Some state that the chapel cost 32,000/.
66

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
seemed to shun mankind and to nurse some secret woe in mystery and
silence. When the chapel was finished the architect disappeared. He had
buried himself in a monastery, there to do ..Eopontanco for his enormous
crime. The young architect, on recovering his health after the attack made
upon him in the dead of night, went mad. Five years after, he left the inn
where he had been carefully nursed, wandered somehow to Paris, and seeing
the realization of his plan in stone, suddenly recovered his reason, but it
was too late. The work was attributed to the other, and the young artist
remained in obscurity. This legend is related at great length in the encyclo
paedia of Larousse, and the question is asked, Could the robber have been
Pierre de Montereau ?
This is not likely, for Pierre de Montereau did not enter a monastery.
He and his wife Agnes were buried in the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres,
and his monument recorded that he was " vivens Doctor Lato Morum,"
that is to say, the doctor or teacher of architects or masons. It is also
suggested that Pierre de Montereau might have been the young artist, whose
claim to the plan of the holy chapel was successfully advanced by the priest
to whom the would-be murderer had confessed before entering the cloister.
The whole legend may, however, have its basis in the fact that somebody
had used a plan, or passed it off as his own, when it was in reality the work
of some young, poor and retiring craftsman. This often happened in the
Middle Ages, among the painters and architects, nor is it uncommon in our
own days, when even Eiffel's Tower, although by no means an artistic
monument, is said to have been designed by a young and obscure man. His
identity is, however, lost in that of the able organizer and constructor whose
name stands for ever associated with the modern Babel. In the Middle
Ages many leading " magistri de vivis lapidibus " had pupils as skilful
as themselves. In the church of St. Ouen at Rouen there is to be seen,
on the same stone, the figures of Alexandre de Berneval and the disciple or
pupil whom he stabbed to death. Berneval made the southern rose-window
of that church in 1439. His pupil made the northern rose, and was
murdered by his master for having surpassed him. For this crime Berneval
was duly and justly hanged.1 Daedalus did the same by his nephew, Talus,
in Athens, of old, because the youth promised to eclipse him in statuary,
and the story is told in stone in the churches of Caen and Rouen.
In 1248, the Sainte Chapelle was consecrated, the ceremony taking
1 Michelet " Histoire de France." The youth is represented with the rose on his
breast. 67

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
place on Quasimodo Sunday. The upper chapel with the high stained-glass
windows was dedicated to the Holy Crown and Cross, for Louis IX. had
also obtained part of the instrument of Christ's crucifixion. Eudes or Odo
of Chateauroux, Bishop of Tusculum, and legate of the Pope, officiated
at the ceremony. The lower and crypt-like chapel was dedicated to the
Holy Virgin by Philip Berruyer, Archbishop of Bourges.
The object of the foundation of the chapel is clearly set forth in a docu
ment given by Canon Morand among his " Pieces justificatives," and entitled
" Prima fundatio Sanctae Capellae, An. 1245." King Louis states for the
benefit of all whom it may concern that the chapel " was founded for the
salvation of his soul, for commemorating his father, Louis, and his mother,
Blanche of Castille, and his ancestors, in honour of God and of the holy
Crown of Thorns of Jesus Christ." The document begins: — "In nomine
Sanctae et individuae Trinitatis, amen. Ludovicus Dei Gratia Francorum
rex. Notum facimus universis tam praesentibus quam futuris praesentam
paginam inspecturis, quod nos pro salute animae nostrae, et pro remedio
animarum inclytae recordationis regis Ludovici, genitoris nostri, charissimae
Dominae et genitricis nostrae Blanchae reginae, et omnium antecessorum
nostrorum, in honorem Dei Omnipotentis, et sacrosanctae Coronae spineae
Domini nostri Jesu-Christi, fundavimus et aedificavimus infra septa domus
nostrae Parisiensis, Domino concidente, Capellam, etc."
Among the historical events with which the holy chapel was connected
soon after its foundation, was the coronation of Queen Mary of Brabant, who
had married, at Vincennes, Philip III. (le Hardi), son of St. Louis. This was
the queen who was accused by Pierre La Brosse, the barber-surgeon of St. Louis
and Lord Chamberlain under that king's successor, of having poisoned her
stepson in 1276. The youth in question was Prince Louis, son of Philip III.
and of Isabella of Aragon, his first wife, who died at Cosenza in Italy in 1271.
La Brosse was subsequently hanged for his slanderous charges and insinua
tions. The second wife of Charles le Bel, Marie de Luxembourg, daughter
of Henry VIE, Emperor of Germany, was also crowned there, as well as
Jeanne d'Evreux, her successor. In 1292, the Emperor, Henry VIE, was
married there to Margaret of Brabant, niece of the widow of Philip III.
The Bishop of Paris, Simon de Buez, officiated at the ceremony. Isabeau or
Isabelle of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI., was crowned in the chapel, and her
daughter, Isabelle, was there betrothed to Richard II. of England. In 1378,
there were great ceremonies in the chapel on the occasion of the visit of the
Emperor Charles IV., and his son Wenceslaus. 68

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
Reference must also be made to the ceremonies in connection with the
canonization of Louis IX. by Pope Boniface VIII., which led to much
division of the relics of the holy monarch, part of his body remaining at St.
Denis, while his skull was enclosed in a magnificent reliquary and placed in
the Sainte Chapelle. Pope Boniface had expressly written to the Abbot o^
Saint Denis on the subject of the king's remains, telling him to accede to
the request of the reigning monarch in every particular. The skull of St.
Louis was therefore attributed to the chapel, and a rib was given to the
Cathedral of Notre Dame. The Abbot and monks of St. Denis, however,
put a stop to all this division of relics in the reign of Charles VI. That
monarch was giving fragments of his sainted ancestor to his dukes and
others, so the monks justly resolved to close the reliquary altogether.
There were solemn requiem services in the Sainte Chapelle for all the
kings, queens, princes and princesses of France, from the death of Louis XI.
in 1483 to that of Louis XIV. in 1715. The service which was to have
taken place for Louis XV. was countermanded, owing to disputes between the
legal authorities and the canons relative to the choice of a preacher and to
the distribution of seats.
Councils, royal, parliamentary, and ecclesiastical, which assembled in
the palace were usually preceded by a mass — that of the Saint Esprit —
in the Sainte Chapelle, just as the same mass, also called " Messe Rouge,"
is now said every year before the opening of the Law Courts. The Council
called on the death of the French opposition Pope Clement VIE, was pre
ceded by this mass in 1395, the Cathedral of Notre Dame having also a
close connection with the same event. Of minor importance was the
ceremony of the angel and the " biberon," or feeding-bottle. In this
function, an angelic figure descended from the roof and projected water on
the hands of the Mass celebrant. It was repeated twice for the delectation
of Charles VIII., at Pentecost. The Sainte . Chapelle was desecrated in a
terrible manner in the year 1503. Edmond de la Fosse, a scholar, entered
the chapel one morning, and snatching the Sacred Host from the hands of
the priest who was saying Mass, carried it out into the courtyard, and there
broke it into fragments. The youth was arrested, his mother died with
grief, especially as he had manifested no anxiety to make reparation for his
act, and he was ultimately burned at the stake, the hand with which he
had seized the Host having been previously cut off. The doctors regarded
the youth as a lunatic, but that did not prevent his execution or burning.
The " Feast of Fools," " Fools' Festival," or " Festum Fatuorum," was
69

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
observed in the chapel in a peculiar manner. Choir-boys sat in the canons'
stalls on St. Innocents' Day, and aped the venerable ecclesiastics. As has
already been shown in the chapters on Notre Dame, this festival was
strongly denounced by a Papal legate, Peter of Capua, but, if it disappeared
from the cathedral, it seems to have lingered on for several centuries in the
Sainte Chapelle.
Reference has already been made to the modern surroundings of the
Sainte Chapelle. These environments prevent the whole of the splendid
edifice from standing forth prominently, and its architectural details are

CAPITALS OF THE PORCH OK THE UPPER CHAPEL (SAINTE CHAPELLE).

accordingly seen only in part. The building was thus enclosed, or rather
hemmed in, after the fire which damaged the Palace of Justice in 1776. The
builders of the new edifices around the chapel even went so far as to
destroy part of it, consisting of a three-storly ' construction added by
Peter of Montereau to the north side of the apsis. The upper storey of this
building contained the " tresor des chartes " of the Crown, and underneath
1 The spelling of this word is enigmatical. Fergusson, " History of Modern Architec
ture," and others, write " storey." Most of the dictionaries have " story." The French
word " gargouille " is also rendered in English by " gargoyle," or " gurgoyle." So, too, we
have in English " apsis •' and " apse." 7P

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
was a double sacristy. The old staircase of forty-four steps connecting the
lower and upper chapel also disappeared. The two stories of the chapel,
the upper and lower, are borne on pointed arches resting on isolated
columns. On the pier of the lower porch is a statue of the Virgin, and in
the tympanum is sculptured her coronation. A legend exists, according to
which the former or original statue of the Virgin placed on the lower porch
bowed its head to John Duns Scotus, the celebrated British theologian, as
a token of recognition for his defence of the doctrine of the Immaculate Con
ception. The upper portal is more richly sculptured, in the tympan being a
reproduction of the " Last Judgment," imitated from that on the central
door of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Over all is the grand rose-window
with flamboyant mullions, made in the fifteenth century.
It is the interior, however, of the Sainte Chapelle which offers the most
attraction, as it deserves the most attention, by reason of its wealth of
brilliant colour. The. lower chapel, with its arches and decorative work,
would stand as a marvel by itself, but it is eclipsed by the splendour of the
once royal oratory overhead. The "vitraux "here seen show the art of
painting on glass, so minutely described by the monk Theophilus in his
" Diversorum artium Schedula," l carried to perfection. There are fifteen
windows, on the walls of the chapel, so high that they seem to form
the sides of the edifice. They are forty-nine feet by thirteen, those
on the right, or south side, giving most light and colour, as the opposite
windows are rather dimmed by the contiguous Palace of Justice. Some of
the glass dates from the days of St. Louis, but, in general, the windows are
restored work due to M. Gerent, M. Steinheil, and others, who deserve all
praise for their skill and taste. On fourteen of the panes are storied the
1 Theophilus, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century, wrote chiefly about colour
ing for walls, wood, windows, parchment and mosaics. He also treated niello work, and
left a receipt for mixing colours with linseed oil. The process of glass-painting described by
him is primitive. The artists worked on sheets of glass coloured, while in a molten state,
by metallic oxide. The drawing was done by means of a pencil dipped in a neutral pigment.
The colours used were blues, yellows, reds, greens, purples, etc., of various nuances. The
designer aimed at subduing the light and producing harmonies of colour, then adding as
much pictorial work as he could accomplish within necessarily limited conditions. In cold,
northern climes, where Gothic stained-glass painting was practised, the artist had also to
produce a sense of warmth and comfort by his combinations of tints and tones. The
English styles of glass-work are divided into — Early English, from oldest specimens to 1280 ;
the Decorated, 1 280-1 380 ; Perpendicular, 1380-1530 ; and Cinquecento, 1500-1550. The
Italian styles are best known by the names, Pisan, Florentine, Sienese, Umbrian, Lucchese,
Bolognese, Lombard and Venetian. William of Marseilles, the French glass-painter,
called also Marsillat, has been referred to already in this volume.
71

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.

different episodes narrated in the Old and the New Testament. The re
maining window of the fifteen, not counting the great rose, is pictured with
the finding of the true Cross, the despatch of royal envoys for the Crown of
Thorns, their arrival in Constantinople, the return to Paris, and other scenes
connected with the origin of the chapel. On the rose is represented the weird
vision of the Apocalypse of St. John. The interior is also richly ornamented
with designs on grounds of glass enamelled in blue and gold, representing
martyrs such as St. Stephen, St. Catherine and St. Denis. On either side
of the nave, near the third bay,

are niches over which are figures
of Christ. These recesses were
used of old by the kings and their
court, while attending devotions
in the chapel. On the southern
wallis an oblique recess, supposed
to have been an oratory used by
Louis XL, that strange king who
wore medals and crosses in his
headgear, was superstitious, dis
sembling and autocratic, and who,
when dying, directed that some of
the relics from the Holy Chapel,
as well as from other places,
should be brought to him at Tours.
The altar has disappeared long
since. Behind where it stood is a
large archway, or rather, open
arcade, borne by slender shafts de
corated with mosaic work. Above
this is a platform crowned by a
pointed canopy in sculptured
wood under which the holy reliquary once stood. On great festivals the
relics were shown to the faithful, and St. Louis sometimes exhibited the
Crown of Thorns to his subjects. Two wooden staircases lead to this
platform, that now existing on the northern side, where the entrance to the
Palace of Justice lies, dating from the time of Saint Louis.
The figures of the Twelve Apostles, painted and gilt, stand against
the main pillars of the chapel on pedestals, and a few of them are antique,
72

THE RELIQUARY (SAINTE CHAPELLE).

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE.
having survived Vandalism. The floor of the chapel is ornamented with
foliage, animals, and geometrical figures on stone. Formerly a rood screen
separated the nave from the chancel, but this, like the altars, the carved
stalls, and the pulpit, has disappeared. The interior of the oratory, or rather
the straight nave, without aisles or transept, looks bare now, and the whole
place is like a museum. The relics on which so much value was once set,
or what remains of them, are in Notre Dame. The " Chasse," or reliquary,
was melted down during the great Revolution.
In 1791 the Sainte Chapelle was converted into a clubhouse by the
Revolutionists. It afterwards became a flour store, and until the First
Empire the sides were lined with shelves, which seriously damaged the gild
ing, the figures, and the windows. Louis XVIII. and Charles X. intended
to have the chapel thoroughly cleaned and restored, but the work was not
begun seriously until 1837, when Duban, Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc took up
the difficult and delicate undertaking. Lassus, after a time, remained the
only architect in charge, and he carried the restoration to a successful
completion. He had the new spire in gilt lead placed on the centre.
It is the third " fleche " since the foundation- The first gave way in
the reign- of Charles VI., the next was burned in 1630, and the third,
erected in the reign of Louis XIII., was half- destroyed by the Revolutionists,
and had to be almost entirely replaced by the present spire, with its royal
lilies as crockets. Noticeable on the summit of the church is also the
great angel in lead bearing wp a cross. It is over the polygon-shaped apsis,
and on its pedestal are crowned masks, like the heads of French kings, but
supposed to represent the artists and artificers employed in restoring the
building. In 1871, when the Communists were in temporary possession of Paris,
the chapel narrowly escaped destruction. The Palace of Justice was fired
by the insurgents, but luckily the flames did not touch the superb monu-
1 Not only St. Louis, but other kings also showed the relics periodically to the people,
the English Duke of Bedford performing the ceremony for young Henry VI. of England,
who had been crowned King of France. With reference to the Crown of Thorns, bought by
King Louis IX. from Baldwin II., a transaction already alluded to, it would appear from
Racine's " History of Port Royal,'' that the crown was not complete, for the poet, dramatist
and historian describes in a naturalistic manner, eclipsing the ulcerous horrors depicted in
M. Zola's "Lourdes," how a Mademoiselle Perrier, niece of Pascal, was cured of an
ocular malady by the application of a thorn from the holy crown. Now this thorn was not
from the Sainte Chapelle. as Gibbon seems to suppose, or at least leads to suppose, in
his note on the transaction between Louis IX. and the Eastern Emperor, but was in the
possession of a priest, the Abbe de la Poterie. 73

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS,
ment which commemorates the piety and the munificence of St, Louis, and
the skill of the great artists whom he employed. The Sainte Chapelle may be
flamboyant, and lack the simple dignity of edifices built on the severer
lines of the early French-Gothic architects, but it none the less remains
a marvellous and magnificent landmark of the past — fully worthy of the
admiration of all who love antique art.

FIGURE AT THE TOP OF THE CHEVET
(SAINTE CHAPELLE).

74

Uomb of flfoarie Hntoinette—
St. Denis.

To face p. 75'

CHAPTER VI.

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
I.
Saint Denis town — The Communists and the abbey church —
Hatred of kings — Unlovely surroundings — Catulliacum —
Dagobert — The supposed Damnation of Charles M artel —
Pepin and the Pope — The abbey and Charlemagne — The
ravages of the Northmen — Descriptions of Sir Francis Palgrave
— Abbot Suger — Famous monks — Peter A be lard — His " Book
of Calamities" — The Renan of the Middle Ages — The devotion
of Heloise — The lovers' tomb.

| HE old abbey church, or basilica of Saint Denis lifts
its light and graceful pinnacles and battlements amid
the dingy streets and dreary houses of the great
manufacturing suburb of Paris. The square in front of the
abbey, and of the Hotel de Ville (which bears over its doors
the city arms and the words, " Montjoie et Saint Denys," the
rallying cry of the French knights), is fairly quiet, except on
market days. Not far away, there is the ever-whirring noise
of forge and furnace, of saw-mills and steam-engines, to
interfere with the repose which ought to reign around the
monumental tomb Of the kings, queens, and princes of the
royal families of France. The intensely modern and rather
grimy town of St. Denis, with its docks, wharves, factories
and yellow canals, seems to trouble itself little about the
royal basilica and its tombs. Red Communism stalks near the antique
abbey, and execrates those who were once carefully interred in a costly
monument, instead of in the " fosse commune," the common ditch, where
the paupers are thrown when they have come to the end of their cheerless
term in a world which has no regard for those vanquished in the struggle
for existence. There are terrible Revolutionists in the town who would
burn the basilica to-morrow if they dared. These people are imbued with
as much hatred of kings, aristocrats and priests as their predecessors of
the " Terror," who desecrated the royal tombs at St. Denis, scattered the
bones contained therein to the four winds of heaven, or buried them in a
promiscuous heap. in the general ditch.
The journey from Paris to the manufacturing suburb is not long, but it
is uninteresting while it lasts. St. Ouen, another very Revolutionist borough,
lies straight on the road thither, for those who drive out by the Avenue de
77 f

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Clichy, and it has nothing to recommend it. The place is more unlovely
than St. Denis. Its streets, and the plain around then) are monotonous in
the extreme. All this, however, is forgotten or overlooked when one
approaches the cathedral. The reality of the monotonous environment of
the splendid monument is temporarily effaced as one enters and sees the
colours from the windows making radiant altar, walls, pillars, arches and
marble tombs.
On the spot where the old abbey church now stands was the villa of a
pious lady named Catulla, by some called a Roman matron, who lived so
far back as the year 272.1 It was on her threshold that St. Denis, or
Dionysius, sought security, carrying his head in his hands, according to the
legend, and followed by the guards who had decapitated him, and the other
holy missionaries from Rome, St. Rusticus and St. Eleutherius, on the hill
of Montmartre. Catulla received the saint, made the guards intoxicated, and
then buried the holy bishop, who was by that time lifeless, in her grounds.
A chapel was afterwards built over the grave, and long enjoyed the reputa
tion of being the scene of miraculous cures.2 Dagobert ran into the holy
place one day in order to avoid the anger of his father, who wanted to
chastise him for misconduct, and while there the prince was gratified by the
vision of St. Denis, who appeared to him and promised him a place in
heaven if he would build a church in lieu of the chapel. When he became
king, Dagobert fulfilled the promise made to the saint, by building a church
and founding an abbey which he handed over to the Benedictines. Accord
ing to old chroniclers, Dagobert's church was only the size of the transept of
the existing edifice, but it was a marvel of splendour, being enriched from
floor to vault by gold, silver, and jewelled ornamentation, much of this
1 St. Denis town was once called Catulliacum.
' There is another version to the effect that St. Denis was none other than Dionysos,
or Dionysus, the Greek name for Bacchus, who was fervently worshipped of old by the
vine-cultivators around Paris. These people had their Dionysiac festival, as well as the
Athenians, and a semblance of one of these fetes is kept up every year at Argenteuil, near
St. Denis. As to the legend about the head of St. Denis, good Catholics do not see any
harm in believing in it. On the other hand, Voltaire's fair friend, Madame du Chatelet,
wittily said of the saint's expedition from Montmartre, with his head in his hands : — " Mon
Dieu, vous avez tort de plaisanter et de vous re'crier sur l'invraisemblance de cette aventure ;
moi, je ne vois Ik rien de suprenant ; en pareille circonstance, il n'y a que le premier pas
qui coute." Madame du Chatelet, who uttered this in general conversation, does not get
the credit of the phrase, for her friend Voltaire is supposed to have supplied her with it.
St. Denis is also sometimes confounded with Dionysius the Areopagite. A plaster of Paris
head of the holy bishop is shown in the sacristy of the church. It is said to have been
blown off the exterior by a Prussian shell in 1871. 78

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
work having been executed by the famous metal artificer, St. Eloi. Two
years later Dagobert I. was interred in the church. His successor,
Dagobert II. , and the Merovingian monarchs who came after him, were
equally generous towards the church and abbey. In 741, Charles Martel,
mayor of the palace, was buried there, although according to the Bishop of
Orleans, St. Euchere, who had a vision, he was condemned to eternal
damnation, for having wrung money from the prelates in order to carry on
his campaigns. Pepin the Short, son of the mayor of the palace, supposed
to be in hell, had his father's tomb opened, and was terrified to see a
" horrible and hideous serpent issue from the sepulchre, which was black
ened as if by smoke." So writes old Jacques Doublet, author of a history of
the abbey. Pepin's experiences on this occasion were used with remarkable
ability for political purposes. He added more adornment to the church of
St. Denis, and then, through his envoys, induced Pope Zachary to connive
at the dethronement of the Merovingian, Childeric III. That monarch,
accordingly, had his head shaved, and was then sent to a monastery.
Pepin le Bref, or Pippin, as he is called after the Latin form of his name,
exchanged his post as mayor of the palace for the sovereignty of the whole
Frankish realm. He was crowned at Soissons by Archbishop Boniface, and
later on, having received a visit from Pope Stephen III., who came to
implore his help, he induced that Pontiff to re-consecrate him in the
Basilica.1 According to Professor Freeman, whatever importance Paris
possessed at this period, seems to have been derived from " its neighbour
hood to the revered sanctuary of St. Denis." Pepin, when he was " sick
unto death," was carried from Saintes to Tours to ask the aid of St. Martin,
and thence to Paris to seek the assistance of St. Denis. When he died he
was buried in the Basilica, as Eginhard, Charlemagne's chronicler, tells us
1 Pippin the Short is supposed to have laid the foundation of the temporal power of the
Popes. Freeman says ( " Select Historical Essays " ), " Constantine, or Pippin, or Charles,
or Matilda, or Rudolf, gave Romagna to the Holy See ; but the sovereignty of the Holy See
was of the most unpractical kind till its rights were at last enforced by the sword of Caesar
Borgia." With reference to Pope Stephen, it must be remembered that there were three of the
name in succession, the first, who succeeded Pope Zachary, having reigned only a few days.
French writers nearly always say that it was Pope Stephen II. who consecrated Pippin, or
Pepin. Gibbon, on the other hand, distinctly says that Pepin's coronation was twice per
formed — " by St. Boniface, apostle of Germany, and by the grateful hands of Pope Stephen
the Third, who, in the monastery of St. Denys, placed the diadem on the head of his bene
factor." Michelet merely says " Pope Stephen.'' Gibbon seems to be right, according to the
" Annuario Pontifici," which gives Stephen II. as reigning only three days, his successor
being Stephen III., who sat in St. Peter's chair from 752 to 757.
79 F 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES ¦ OF PARIS.
in his annals of the French kings : — " Inde quum ad Parisios venisset, VIII.
Kal. Octobris diem obiit, cujus corpus in basilica beati Dionysii martyris
humatum est."
In 769, or thereabouts, the abbey church was rebuilt, and was com
pleted in the time of Charlemagne, or Karlmann, one of the two sons of
Pepin the Short. About 834, the Emperor Lewis, third son of Karlmann,
having been freed by his rebellious son Lothair, who had been king of the
Franks, was led to the Basilica of St. Denis, and there, as Bertiniani
describes in his annals, he was restored once more to his Imperial rank.'
The Northmen, the " Piratae Danorum " of the old chroniclers, played havoc
with Carolingian or Carlovingian Paris, its churches and monasteries.
Prudentius of Troyes thus includes St. Denis in the number of the
churches : — " Praeterque ecclesiam Sancti Dionysii, pro quibus tantummodo,
ne incenderentur, multa solidorum summa soluta est." This part of the
sentence is of course incomplete, the quibus referring to other churches
which, like St. Denis, bought their deliverance by " big sums of money," or
Danegelt. Sir Francis Palgrave, in " England and Normandy," says, how
ever, that the pirates did not keep to their contract, for the " monastery
was burnt to a shell, and a most heavy ransom paid for the liberation of
Abbot Louis, Charlemagne's grandson." St. Denis fell into bad hands
also, even when rebuilt, for the fighting abbots neglected it.2 Hugh Capet
introduced reforms into the monasteries, but the Basilica of St. Denis
remained, nevertheless, in a very neglected and dilapidated condition until
the time of Abbot Suger, Minister of France, and at one period Regent of
the kingdom. This remarkable man was, in common with many a powerful ecclesiastic
of ancient and modern times, both popes and prelates, of lowly origin. Like
numerous French archbishops and bishops from Maurice de Sully, founder
' This historical event is worthy of a quotation here from Professor Freeman, whose
objections to the titles " Emperor of Austria" and "Emperor of the French" are well
known. He says : " Once then in the course of its long history did Paris behold the inaugura
tion of a lawful Emperor. But it was the re-inauguration of an Emperor whom one Parisian
revolution had overthrown, and whom another Parisian revolution had set up again ; and
in the moment alike of his fall and of his restoration the force of loyal Germany forms at
one time a threatening, at another time an approving, background." — Select Historical
Essays. 2 An abbey in the old days was, according to Chateaubriand, the dwelling of a rich
patrician, the abbot being master and the monks his freedmen, who cultivated science,
letters and arts. He also says, in the " Genie du Christianisme," that the monks were
originally like the Greek philosophers. St. Basil was the first to introduce vows.
80

THE ABBE Y CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, to Monseigneur Dupanloup,1
the famous Bishop of Orleans during the Second Empire, he sprang
from the humblest ranks of the people. He is still to be seen, in effigy, on
the stained glass in the Lady Chapel of Notre Dame, and several portraits
of the celebrated abbot were once visible in the Basilica of St. Denis. This
is testified by the Benedictine of St. Maur, Dom Millet, who refers notably
to one in which Suger was portrayed " in his habit as he lived," a mere
monk, with nothing to distinguish him from the simplest novice of his
monastery, save the abbatial cross which he carried, as the chronicler says,
"pour marque de sa dignit6, et pour monstrer que c'est luy qui estlarepre-
sente." Suger was received by the Benedictines, who educated him, and in
their monastery he was in the same class as Louis, son of Philip E, after
wards Louis VI.2 (le Gros), the first to use the " oriflamme," or old banner
of the Abbey of St. Denis, when he marched against the Emperor Henry V.
in 1124. When Louis became king, he selected his old school-fellow as his
guide and counsellor. Uuder Louis VIE, son of Louis le Gros, Sugejf
retained his authority at Court. He protested against .that monarch's
departure for the Crusades, and also against his divorce wfek- Eleanor of
Guyenne. The abbot, in spite of his opposition to the monarch's departure
for the Holy Land, subsequently organized a Crusade himself, and was pre
paring to set out for Palestine with ten thousand men, when he died in 1152.
It was Suger who restored and embellished the abbey where he had
received his education. He adopted for his plan of restoration the pointed
arches and the ribs of the Gothic style which vies with the Romanesque
in the facade of the Basilica, but is pre-eminent inside the church. He
built the frontage between 1137 an<l T14°> an(i ornamented the windows with
splendid glass of which, unluckily, very little remains. The abbot was not
destined to see terminated the transept and nave. He left detailed instruc
tions, however, to his successor, but it was not until 1231, in the reign of
King Louis IX., that the works were actively taken up. Abbots Eudes
de Clement, and subsequently Matthieu de Vendome, carried on the
1 It is recorded that Dupanloup, when at the zenith of his power as a politician and a
prelate, while once visiting his native place, repeated the words from the Psalms,
" Suscitans a terra inopem, et de stercore erigens pauperem, etc.'' In the Protestant version
of the Bible, this is in the 113th Psalm, " He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth
the needy out of the dunghill." The Roman Catholic version runs, " Raising up the needy
from the earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill," and it appears in the 1 12th Psalm
' In his youth, he was called Louis PEveiile, the wide-awake. Suger acted as his tutor
also, having been so appointed by the abbot. 81

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
construction energetically, and the main part of the solid building which
we now see was completed, the choir and apsis not being fully finished until
1281. Before proceeding to the description of the tombs, or what remains of
them, more may be said about the abbey or monastery of St. Denis,
which played so prominent a part in the past. The second abbey, which
was built for the monks, is nowadays used as the " Maison de la Legion
d'Honneur," founded by Napoleon the First in 1811, for the education of
young ladies, daughters of poor nobles, officers and civil servants, on the
model of the famous institution of St. Cyr, over which Madame de
Maintenon ruled on the death of Louis XIV., in 1715, and where she
herself passed away, after much prayer and penance, in 1719.1 Of old, the
monks of this celebrated abbey distinguished themselves as historians and
chroniclers. Among these were Odon de Deuil, author of a " History of
the Crusade of Louis VIE," Guillaume de Nangis, writer of the " Chroni-
que," Rigord, who wrote the life of Philip Augustus, Jean Chartier,
chronicler in the reign of Charles VIE, Jean Doe, Jacques Doublet, Jacques
le Bossu, and half a dozen others.
The most celebrated man, not an abbot, who was connected with the
monastery of St. Denis, was Peter Abelard, the lover of Heloise, immortalized
in verse by old Francois Vilion : —
"Ou est la tres sage Helo'is ?
Pour qui fut chastriS et puis moyne,
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denys,'' -
and by Pope, who refers to the story as " afflicting." Abelard had succeeded
Berenger of Tours, who doubted the Eucharist, Canon Roscelin of Compiegne,
who had dared to disseminate strange ideas about the Trinity, and the others
who were so hotly opposed by Lanfranc and St. Anselm. The daring
lover of Heloise was of noble birth, and as he relates in his " Liber
Calamitatum Mearum," and as is shown in the epistles of Heloise, he was
handsome, amiable, and could compose, recite and sing amatory verses.
1 The Institution of the Legion of Honour at St. Denis is usually governed by the
widow of some distinguished general. The rules are very strict, and the pupils are taught
according to the usual modern methods in young ladies' colleges.
2 Thus rendered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the " Ballad of Dead Ladies," from
Villon :— " Where's Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake, Abeillard I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on ?
(From Love he won such dule and teen ! )''
82

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
Pope calls him "learned according to the kind of learning then in vogue,"
in the notes to the poem " Eloisa to Abelard," but Michelet, who classes
him with evident satisfaction among the free-thinkers of the period, is loud
in his praises, and says that he knew Greek and Hebrew. The same
historian, however, adds a trait of Abelard's character which does not show
him to be a model student, for he delighted in embarrassing and mocking at
William of Champeaux, whose lectures he attended, on the hill of Saint
Genevieve. " He would have done the same," adds Michelet, " to Anselm of
Laon,1 but the professor, who was a bishop, expelled him from his diocese."
One cannot help calling Abelard the Renan of the Middle Ages. The
two men attacked old, long-cherished dogmas, and both had a lingering
respect for the religion which they assailed. Abelard, in particular, wanted
to defend Christianity, when attacking it, but his arguments were feeble and
made matters worse. He maintained that original sin was chiefly an
imposed penalty or burthen, " Moins un peche qu'une peine," and if so then
the Redemption was futile. Abelard did not publicly proclaim that conclu
sion. He even denied it, but the harm was done, and he was not able to
undo it., He also condemned the terrible and gloomy asceticism of the age,
the mortification of the flesh practised by self-made martyrs and mystics,
proclaiming that God was amiable and easy-going, and did not want such
an annihilation of the body. There is no need to dwell at length on the
story of Abelard and Eloisa here. It is as old as the hills and has been
often narrated in prose and verse. Let it be sufficient to state, for the
benefit of those who are unversed in the history of the Middle Ages, that
Abelard was at the zenith of his power and prestige when he taught Heloise,
the niece of Canon Fulbert of the chapter of Notre Dame de Paris. Like
every other woman of the time who heard the young scholar speak, and
beheld his handsome face, she fell deeply in love with her tutor. Her
passionate declaration of love has been recorded in Latin by Abelard. She
preferred him "to the Emperor himself." The words are strong in the
so-called dead language '¦ : — " Tua dici meretrix, quam illius imperatrix,"
which Pope thus renders : —
1 A disciple of St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury.
2 The term " dead languages," seems rather a misnomer, considering that they live in
the English tongue, which is so largely based on the Latin, to say nothing of French,
Italian, etc. It would be more correct to say, the " transmigrated languages," since they
have undergone metempsychosis. The "strength" of Latin, alluded to above, is amusingly
referred to in Boileau's well-known line, " Le latin, dans les mots, brave l'honnetete,''
alluding to Juvenal's Satires. 83

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
" Not Caesar's empress would I deign to prove ;
No ; make me mistress to the man I love ;
If there be yet another name more free,
More fond than mistress, make me that to thee.''
Some of the other phrases written by the young lady show that she was
undoubtedly the " New Woman " of her time. Her theory of concubinage
is clearly and eloquently expressed, and her reasoning is almost word for
word like that of those young Frenchwomen of the present day who object
to the fetters of matrimony while remaining passionate partisans of Free
Love. In 1 1 19, or thereabouts, Abelard, after the punishment inflicted upon
him by Canon Fulbert, for having taken Heloise away into Brittany, where she
bore him a son called Astrolabius, became a Benedictine monk in the Abbey
of St. Denis. He did not remain long here, as the temptations of the world
were too strong. He was also pressed by his former disciples to resume
teaching, so he left the cloister, but did not prosper. His powerful
antagonists, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Archbishop of Rheims, con
demned him at the Council of Soissons, and he was nearly stoned by the
people. He again took refuge in St. Denis, but fell into greater trouble
than ever, by refusing to believe in the story of the beheaded saint. The
Court now rose against him and he had to fly. Condemned by the council,
summoned by Pope Innocent 1 1., who hated Abelard because the latter's
disciple, Arnold of Brescia, was giving trouble in Italy, the lover of Heloise
took refuge in the monastery of Cluny, where he became reconciled to the
Church, and died in 1142. Heloise was in the meantime Abbess of the
Paraclete,' where she taught theology, Greek, and Hebrew. She had not
gone to the nunnery in the true spirit of a religious. Her whole life was
devoted to the memory of her earthly lover, and she cared little for the
unseen, the mystical spouse whom she was supposed to wed when she took
the veil. It is said that, when she went to the altar to repeat the vows, she
used the words : "Tua me ad religionis habitum jussio, non divina traxit
dilectio," " Your will and not divine love has led me to assume the religious
habit." She died in 1164, and her body was buried by the side of that of
her lover in the Church of the Paraclete. The tomb was removed to Paris
in or about 1790, by the painter Alexandre Lenoir, who was empowered by
1 It was so called by Abelard, who founded it, because he was soothed or consoled
there, by the presence of his followers. It was in the department of the Aube, near Nogent-
sur-Seine. 84

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS
the National Assembly to found a museum of old monuments. The
sarcophagus with the recumbent statues of Abelard and Heloise, under a
Gothic canopy, now in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, was rebuilt from
miscellaneous fragments preserved by Lenoir.
Michelet calls it a "graceful monument," and alludes to its attractions
for lovers and sentimental people generally. Viollet-le-Duc, however, takes
us into Lenoir's manufactory of restoration, and shows us how work was
done there. The tomb of Abelard and Heloise was made out of bits of an
arch from the church of St. Denis, of bas-reliefs from the monuments in the
same abbey to the brother and son of St. Louis, of window fragments from
the demolished chapel of St. Germain-des-Pres, and of two fourteenth-
century statues of persons unknown. Lenoir, who had collected all the frag
ments of church monuments saved from the Revolutionists in the Museum
of the Petits Augustins, was imitated by the restorers of St. Denis in the
time of Louis XVIII. These people behaved in the most shame-faced
manner to the old statues, some of which they re-baptized. As the real
restorer of Gothic monuments, Viollet-le-Duc, wrote: "They had dupli
cates of Charles V. and of Jeanne de Bourbon, so they turned one seL into
a St. Louis, and a Marguerite de Provence, a matter which caused our
historical painters to make singular mistakes." This is always bound to
occur in Paris, where so many perplexing changes have been brought about
by the whirlwind of Revolution.

ZTbe IRortb portal-
St. Denis.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.

n.
Veneration of monarchs for the Shrine — Fetes and historical events —
Henri Quatre abjuring Protestantism in the abbey — New storms
and sieges — The desecration of the tombs in 1792 — The coffin of
Louis XV. — The head of St. Denis — Speech in the National
Assembly — Viollet-le-Duc s restorations — Exterior of the church —
The interior and its monuments — The crypt — The dim vault of
the Bourbons — Enumeration of the coffins in the royal charnel-
house — The pictures in the sacristy — Divine worship restored in
the church by the third Republic.

CATHERINE DE MEDICI.

LL the French monarchs venerated the famous
Basilica of St. Denis. From the days of Dagobert
to those of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III., the
abbey church was regarded as a holy and precious
place, the monumental tomb of royalty, the last
and sumptuous resting-place of the rulers of
France. St. Louis caused to be erected a number
of mausoleums to the memory of his prede
cessors. First came Dagobert who had a
mausoleum on the epistle side of the chancel,
and it still stands much restored, near the high
altar. Under the memorial were placed the remains of this prince with those
of Nanthilde, his wife, and of his son Sigebert. Then on either side of the
choir of the monks, that is to say in the transept, were effigies of kings and
queens, princes and princesses of the earlier dynasties. A bronze tomb of
Charles the Bold stood in the centre of the monks' choir. From that
time until the reign of Henri II. , husband of Catherine de' Medici, the
erection of monuments went on, but afterwards, the dead sovereigns were
placed in a large crypt. Their coffins, which rested on iron trestles, were
broken by the revolutionists, but all this must be dealt with later on.
In 1389, Charles VI. organized splendid fetes at St. Denis. They
were at first of a religious character, but degenerated into licentious diversions
which had to be stopped. Joan of Acre, whose memory, despite the sneers
of Voltaire, has recently been revived even by French Republicans, hung
up her arms in the abbey in 1429, before she was burned by the English.1
1 All French patriots h nour Joan. So do all French poets and prose-writers from
Villon to Verlaine, Voltaire being about the only exception ; Villon wrote, in his famous
ballad before quoted, — " Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine
Qu'Anglois bruslerent a Rouen,''
but not a few Frenchmen hold that she escaped the pyre, and that somebody else was burned
in her place — perhaps her understudy or deputy. 89

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
When the tombs were restored in St. Denis, a tablet was placed with some
old armour, near where her saddle and accoutrements had once been seen.
In 1436, the English sacked the abbey, before they were defeated and thrown
back on the Bastille, where they took refuge in their retreat towards Rouen.
In the year before, Isabeau or Isabelle of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI.,
died, and as she was unpopular owing to her negotiations with the English,
her body was carried to St. Denis by boat, and she was buried unmourned.
In 1589, the town surrendered to Henri Quatre, and a few years afterwards,
that monarch abjured Protestantism in the Basilica. The ceremony is thus
described by an old chronicler : — " On Sunday, between eight and nine
o'clock in the morning, when the king left for the old abbey, the princes,
officers of the crown, and other persons of the nobility formed more than a
thousand in number, and marched before him. He was also preceded by the
Swiss of the guard, with drum beating, at the head of whom, according to
an old custom, was the provost, with a lieutenant and more than fifty archers.
The streets through which his Majesty had to pass were decorated and
carpeted, and the road was covered with plants and flowers. His Majesty
wore a white satin robe, hose and doublet of white silk, white shoes, black
cloak and hat of the same colour. Having arrived at the great portal of the
church, his Majesty was accosted by the Archbishop of Bourges, who sat
there on a chair in his robes. The archbishop said to the king, ' Who are
you ? ' The monarch replied, ' I am the king.' ' What do you want ? '
' I want to be received into the Catholic and Roman Church.' The Arch
bishop of Bourges then said, ' Do you really desire it ? ' and the king
answered, ' Yes, I do so desire.' Then the archbishop gave him a book,
and his Majesty, bare-headed, and on his knees, made his profession of faith.
After this, he was admitted into the Church amid the acclamations of the
people." Many French queens, notably Mary de' Medici, wife of Henri Quatre
and mother of Louis XIII., were crowned at St. Denis. From that time
and after having passed through the stormy period of the wars between the
Armagnacs and the Bourguignons, the English Invasion, the religious
strifes between Catholics and Huguenots, and the Fronde, the Abbey was
undisturbed save by some of the Abbots themselves who are reproached
with having caused many precious relics of the past to dissappear, notably
the bronze doors given by Dagobert, the mosaics of Suger, some of the
stalls, and the altar of relics, on the pretence of restoring the church. It
was not, however, until the Revolution, that the Basilica of St. Denis was
90

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
most desecrated and damaged. The Abbey was suppressed in 1792, and in
the following year the Convention decreed, on the motion of Barrere, that
" the powerful hand of the Republic should pitilessly efface those proud
epitaphs and destroy - those mausoleums which recall the dreadful remem
brance of the kings." According to some, the first coffin opened was that
of Turenne, for many of the great warriors of France had also been buried
at St. Denis by order of their sovereigns. Marshal Turenne's body was
consigned to the care of " nos chers et amez les abbe, prieur et religieux de
PAbbaye Royale, de Saint-Denys, en France," by Louis XIV., who wrote
a long epistle on the subject. The remains, after many vicissitudes, are
now in the Hotel des Invalides. Others state that the Revolutionists first
found the body of Henri Quatre, which was in such a good state of preser
vation that the workmen hesitated before throwing it into the " common
ditch," to which it eventually came. In 'most of the coffins, dry bones,
fleshless, crumbling, were seen by the side of crowns, sceptres and other
royal ornaments. The coffin of Louis XV., who died of " confluent small
pox," ' only contained a blaOk, oozing liquid, diffusing an unbearable odour.
So at least we are told by M. Alexis Martin, author of an interesting work
entitled "Tout autour de Paris."
After the desecration of the funeral monuments, and the burial of the
bodies, or what remained of them, in two common graves, or pits, statues,
tombs and fragments of sculptured work from the church were removed to
Paris. St. Denis town was named Franciade, and a deputation went thence
to offer the National Assembly busts of saints, objects from the treasury of
the Basilica, and the supposed head of Saint-Denis. The language used on
the occasion of the presentation, by the orator of the delegates, was disgust
ing in the extreme : — " Citizens," he said, " a miracle conveyed this head
which we bring you from Montmartre to St. Denis. Another miracle,
greater and more authentic, the miracle of the regeneration of opinions,
brings back this head to Paris. There is but one difference between the
return of the skull now, and its journey from Montmartre of old. The
saint, according to the legend, embraced his head respectfully at every step,2
but we Citizens, have by no means been tempted to embrace this offensively
smelling relic ! The return journey will not be marked in the martyrology,
' Carlyle's expression. See first volume of the." French Revolution.''
2 This seems to be an expression of the " bull " order, but Frenchmen, as well as
Englishmen occasionally, are guilty of the verbal ambiguities and contradictions said to be
peculiar to Hibernians. 91

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
but registered in the annals of reason, will be doubly useful to the human
race. This skull and these consecrated rags around it, will cease at last to
be the ridiculous objects of the veneration of the people, and will no longer
feed superstition, fanaticism and falsehood. The gold and silver surround
ing them will contribute to consolidate the empire of reason and liberty.
The treasures amassed during many centuries by the pride of kings, the
stupid credulity of deceived devotees, and the Charlatanism of cajoling
priests, have been reserved by Providence for this glorious epoch. It will
soon be said of kings, priests and saints, that they have been, and are no more.
Thus, Citizens, reason is the order of the day at last, and you, ye saints,
male and female, formerly instruments of fanaticism, show yourselves to be
patriots ! Rise en masse, for the sake of the country, and start for the Mint
and may we by your assistance obtain in this life the felicity you promised
us in the next ! " This closing sentence was addressed to the enamelled
bronze, gold, and silver busts taken from the Basilica to be melted down.
The profanation of the tombs, and of the church in general, is fully set forth by
the Benedictine, Dom Poirier, once Archive-keeper of the abbey, and has
been incorporated by Baron de Guilhermy in his monograph on St. Denis.
The destruction of the tombs and the extraction of the bodies were two
distinct operations. It is said by Poirier that some of the men employed in
the work fell ill owing to the horrible stenches which assailed their nostrils.
The account of the soldier cutting off Henri Quatre's beard and sticking it
on his own face is considered apocryphal by some. Poirier makes no
allusion to it, but he mentions the opening of the coffins of Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henri Quatre and wife of Charles I. of England, and of Anne
Stuart, her daughter, the wife of the only brother of Louis XIV. Guil-
hermy's work should be consulted, however, for the full history of the
desecrated tombs and the restorations which, as he said, were effected in a
most immoral manner, archaeologicaily speaking. It was the patchwork of
Lenoir, already alluded to, which replaced the old monuments when Louis
XVIII. ordered the restoration of the church and of its tombs. This
monarch had the remains, or supposed remains, of his ancestors, including
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who had been buried near the Madeleine,
put back in the crypt, which the Revolutionists had found literally
choked with coffins, some of which were on the steps leading to the Royal
charnel-house. Louis XVIII., his son, the Due de Berri, assassinated in
1820, and others of his family, were the last of the Bourbons buried in St.
Denis. The First Napoleon also decreed that he should be interred there,
92

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.
but he is at the Invalides. The Third Napoleon issued a similar decree, but
his body rests in English soil.
Viollet-le-Duc has obtained the credit, and no doubt deserved it, of
having put the monuments from Lenoir's museum back again in as careful
a manner as was possible after the complications caused by the Revolu
tionists. Before alluding, however, to the monuments arranged by this able
architect, it will be necessary to give some description of the church itself
The western exterior, with the enclosure before it, is^highly interesting, and
equally so is the north side, the whole of which*may be seen, that of the
south being obscured by the old abbey building, now the Institution or
House of the Legion of Honour. The three western Jportals which first
strike the visitor, contain some sculptured work dating from Suger's time.
These recessed doorways are round-headed in the Romanesque style, but
the pointed Gothic arch appears in some of the smaller openings overhead.
On the tympan of the central bay is depicted the Last Judgment. Christ
holds a scroll in each hand, and on the right side of the Saviour are the
words, " Venite, Benedicti Patris Mei," and on the left, " Discedite a Me,
Maledicti ! " an invitation to heaven for the good, and consignment to hell
for the others. The story of the wise and foolish virgins is on the stylobate,
around being apostles and elders holding musical instruments and vases,
and watching the damned being taken to hell. Other Latin inscriptions,
indifferently seen, are on the bronze door and on the marble slabs overhead,
supposed to have been brought from Italy by Abbot Suger. The rose-window
over the same portal has a clock face. On the northern door is seen St.
Denis. He is supposed to be on his way to Montmartre and martyrdom,
chained with his two companions. The signs of the Zodiac are around. On
the southern portal are visible St. Denis and his colleagues in prison before
martyrdom, the Virgin appearing to them. The whole frontage bears the
marks of time and weather. On the northern transept door, which can
only be well seen, like that of the south, by special permission, are depicted
the martyrdom of St. Denis, and the statues of the ancestors of Christ, not,
as has been supposed, of the Capetian monarchs. The battlements over
the western front were erected during the fourteenth century. Behind them
is a statue of St. Denis perched on the top of the nave. The old north
tower was placed on a level with the frontage by restorers, so that only one
turreted construction now crowns the Basilica. The interior of the church
consists of a vestibule, a nave and two aisles crossed by a transept, with
seven chapels. The vestibule, which dates from Suger's time, betrays its
93

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.

antiquity, and forms a strong contrast to the newer nave with thirty-seven
large windows, on some of which episodes of Louis Philippe's reign have
been incongruously depicted. All the glass in fact in the triforium or
gallery, and in the clerestory, is modern, but in the apsis there are a few
windows dating from the twelfth century, and on one of which, in the Lady
chapel, the figure of Abbot Suger is visible. The clerestory contains four
great windows between each main archway. These are subdivided into
twin partitions with two small and one large rose over them. The high
altar, approached by steps, is a fine imitation of thirteenth-century work.
The wood carving of the stalls is of the
fifteenth century, and came from the
Abbey of St. Lucien lez Beauvais, the
marquetry decoration on the back of the
seats having been originally in the
Chateau de Gaillon, built by Cardinal
d'Amboise, Minister of Louis XII. The
entrance to the choir was formerly en
closed by a rood-screen, on which episodes
from the life of St. Denis and his martyr
dom were carved in stone. The nave was
also shut off from the choir by a great
gold cross, said to have been made by St.
Eloi. All these valuable and artistic
memorials of an early period were de
stroyed by the Huguenot soldiers, whose
chief, the Prince de Conde, justly hanged
some of the authors of the sacrilege. The
abbots also, as has been said, removed man)' old monuments and art
treasures during their injudicious restorations.
The following are the chief monuments replaced in their proper order,
after restoration, inside the church by Viollet-le-Duc. The first recumbent
figure seen on the left, on entering by the central porch, is that of Catherine
de Courtenay, a princess of the Royal house of France.1 This is in the
1 Helena de Courtenay, married to Louis de Beaufremont, was the last of the race who
bore the title of Princess of the Blood Royal of France, which was suppressed in 1737. See
Gibbon's digression on the family of Courtenay, one of the most noble in Europe. The
historian of the Roman Empire, in introducing the subject into his great work, begins : —
" Before the introduction of trade which scatters riches, and of knowledge which dispels
prejudices, the prerogative of birth is most strongly felt and most humbly acknowledged."
94

TOMB OF HKNRY

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. DENIS.

St. Hippolyte Chapel on the north side, beyond being the tomb of Louis XII.
and his wife, Anne de Bretagne. The king is represented on the top in the
attitude of prayer. The monument is in the Renaissance style, and is
surrounded by twelve arches under which are the Apostles. Reliefs on the
pedestals represent scenes from the Italian campaigns of Louis XII., in
1499, 1507 and 1509. To the right of this is a truncated column commemo
rating Henry III. From this point is shown the tomb of Dagobert I., to
the right of the chancel. It has figures representing the soul of the king
leaving earth and its entrance into heaven. Beyond the monument of
Louis XII., and also on the north side, is the splendid marble tomb of
Henry II. and Catherine de' Medici.
Another monument beyond also
commemorates this monarch and his
famous Florentine wife. Towards
the southern side, in the apsis, is the
tomb of Fredegonde, that " terrible
queen of the sixth century, of lowly
birth," who is said to have caused
Galswinthe, sister of Brunehaut, to
be strangled on her way to be mar
ried to King Chilperic I. That
monarch then married Fred6gonde.
Her tomb in St. Denis is very an
tique in appearance, and her weird
figure, curiously represented in mo
saic work, with inlaid circular orna
ments of brass, is on the top.1
The crypt, gloomy and sepulchral, cold as death, and containing the
dust of the "rois aneantis," the "annihilated kings," referred to by
Bossuet in his funeral oration over the wife of Charles I. of England,
strikes the most hardened with awe. The light of day struggles through
the windows where the statues, busts and medallions are arranged, but the
charnel-house of the Bourbons is only dimly illuminated by the feeble
flickerings of lamps placed in the apertures of the vault by the caretakers
of the church for the benefit of visitors. Looking through the openings,
one of which is protected by curved bars or rails of iron, like the gate of
a prison, one can see inside the rows of coffins with the dust thickly piled
1 The work is said by some to date from the sixth century ; others say the eleventh.
95 G

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
on their lids. Here, surely, is a place infinitely smaller than the grand and
gloomy Escurial of the Spanish kings, but equally calculated to remind
prince and plebeian alike, of the awful and stupendous reality of
Death.1 . . .
The coffins are those of Louis XVI. ; Marie Antoinette ; Louis XVIII. ;
Adelaide and Victoire de France ; the Due de Berri, father of the Comte de
Chambord, who was to be Henry Cinq, assassinated by Louvel in Paris,
February, 1820, and two of his children ; two princes of the Conde" family ;
Louis VII., formerly in the Abbey of Barbeau ; Louise of Lorraine, wife of
Henri III., from the vanished Capuchin Church of the Place Vendome.
In another vault are the remains recovered from the " fosse commune,"
in 1817, by order of Louis XVIII. Close at hand is the burial place
which Napoleon III. had intended for himself and his descendants,
according to an imperial decree of the 18th November, 1858. Opposite the
vaults, in the small chapels or recesses of the crypt, are several stone statues,
notably of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette kneeling, robed in a ball dress,
Charlemagne, Diana of France, and four gigantic figures intended to
ornament a monument to the memory of the murdered Due de Berri.
There is also on the wall of one of the recesses a curious puckered faced
portrait of old Louis XI. Few of these subterranean memorials are of
great artistic value. Many bear pompous epitaphs which remind one forcibly
of Gray's lines in the oft-quoted " Elegy."
On the south side of the church proper, over the crypt, is the
monument of Du Guesclin, the champion of France in the wars with
England, who died in the year 1380, being soon followed to the tomb
by his master, Charles V. The tombs of Louis de Sancerre, a friend of the
warrior Du Guesclin, of Renee de Longueville, daughter of the Duke of
Longueville, aged seven, of two children of St. Louis, Blanche and Jean, of
Francis I., his wife Claude, and three children, are also here. This large
memorial is attributed to Philibert Delorme, the architect, Pierre Bontemps,
master sculptor, Germain Pilon, and half a dozen other artists of the time
— 1552. Other memorials are those of Louis d'Orleans and Valentine
1 " II n'y a done plus ici," says Baron de Guilhermy, in his monograph on the abbey and
its tombs, " dans cette demeure derniere de rois, que . des souvenirs de bannissement, de
meurtre, et d'e"chafaud "—only reminiscences of exile, murder and the scaffold. The Baron
was not able to see clearly the paintings, sculptures and inscriptions on the gloomy vault, as
the coffin bars or trestles intervened. He says that the subjects treated there represent
Cain and Abel, the Ark of the Covenant, the Passage of the Red Sea, Christ in the Temple,
the Magi, Lazarus rising from his charnel-house, and the Last Judgment.
96

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST DENIS.
de Milan, erected by Louis XII., and a fourteenth-century tomb of Charles
d'Etampes, who died in the reign of Philip VI.
The sacristy contains modern paintings — the Coronation of Maria
de' Medici ; the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. in the abbey ; the
death of Louis VI. ; Philip III. presenting the relics of St. Denis ; St. Louis
receiving the Oriflamme, of which an imitation is in the chancel ; St. Louis
restoring the vaults ; Charlemagne at the consecration of the Basilica ; the
Funeral of Dagobert I. ; St. Denis evangelizing, and the discovery of the
bodies in 1817. In the treasury are seen many crosses, crucifixes, altar
vessels, mostly given by King Charles X. Some of the old treasures are
now in the National Library.
The famous Basilica has long been only a museum, with occasional
services. It is now open as a parish church, and it is to be hoped that
steps will be taken to protect the place from the iconoclasm of future
Revolutionists, as well as from any damage during the Lenten services.
The other churches in the town of the " Apostle of the Gauls " are the
scenes of free fights between the " Libre Penseurs " and the Catholics, on
Lenten evenings ; and every lover of the antique and the artistic must desire
that such quarrels shall be excluded from the historic fane of St. Denis.

97 g 2

St. ©ermain X'HujeiTois.

CHAPTER VIII.

ST. GERMAIN L'AUXERROIS.1

The Huguenots — Conde1 and Coligny — The two saints — Etienne Marcel
and Charles the Bad — Maurevert, the hired murderer — Coligny
and Charles fX. — Catherine de' Medici and Due Henri de
Guise — The Bartholomew massacre — The bell signal— -"• Down
with the Huguenots ! " — The window of Charles IX. — Balzac's
opinion— Catherine de' Medici praised by the novelist — Her
powerful enemies — Maria de' Medici — Concino Concini and
Leonora Galigai — A skilful bird-trainer — Murder of Concini —
His body dragged out of the tomb — The service for the murdered
Due de Berri — Description of the church.

' St. Germain I'Auxerrois, a right bank church, is placed here after St. Denis owing to
its historical importance.

HUGUES CAPET.

WitB ATHOLICISM and Protestantism, the two great off-
1 1 shoots and developments of the Hebraic system of
theocracy, confront each other on that historic bit of
ground between the Rue du Louvre and the Rue de Rivoli.
In one street stands the plain Oratory church with the statue
of Admiral Coligny, an open Bible at his feet, outside it ; and
on the other, St. Germain I'Auxerrois, with its symbolic
pinnacles, pointed windows and canopies of stone. The con
trast is striking for those who have time or inclination in these
busy days to meditate for a while on the bitter religious wars
of the sixteenth century, when the followers of the Due de
Guise fought against those of Conde and Coligny. For the
present, however, the Church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois must
be dealt with. This edifice, standing opposite the eastern
entrance of the Louvre Palace, replaced an older one built by Chilperic I.,
and sacked by the Normans. Archaeologists are not agreed as to whether
the older church was dedicated to St. Germain, Bishop of Paris, or to
his namesake, the Bishop of Auxerre, who died at Ravenna in 430,
and who had done some apostolic work in England before retiring to
Italy. The newer church was built by King Robert after the Norman
invasions, and in order to distinguish it from St. Germain-in-the-Fields, it
was dedicated to the holy Bishop of Auxerre, whose rather legendary life
is recounted . by the Bollandists.1 Nowadays nothing remains of King
Robert's church, owing to the numerous reconstructions undertaken since
his time. The spire belongs to the twelfth century ; the principal entrance,
the choir and apsis, to the first part of the thirteenth century ; while the
porch, the greater part of the facade, the nave and the chapels, date from
the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.

1 The Latin name of the church, as set forth in the " Chartularium," is Sanctus Germanus
Autissiodorensis Parisiensis. 101

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
The church is rich in historical associations. It was in the cloister
around it that Etienne Marcel, the Provost of the Merchants, called a
meeting and protested loudly against the spurious money circulated ' by
order of the Dauphin, son of Jean le Bon, in 1356. From this arose the
troubles between the nobles and the bourgeoisie. The former, supporting
the Dauphin, whose father was a captive in London, attacked the Parisians,
who were led by Marcel. This agitator offered the crown to Charles the
Bad of Navarre, grandson of Louis X., or Le Hutin, so called from his
quarrelsome disposition. Marcel was murdered before Paris could be given
up to Charles. It is, however, with the religious wars of the sixteenth
century that the church is chiefly identified. It was near the cloister that
Maurevel, or Maurevert, hid while waiting to murder Admiral Coligny. The
admiral, it will be remembered, was charged by the Catholic party with
having instigated the assassination of their great leader, Francois, Due de
Guise. In August, 1572, Coligny seemed to be gaining a great ascendency
over the young king, Charles IX., whose mother, Catherine de' Medici,
concerted with Due Henri de Guise on the matter. The duke, who
wanted revenge on the Huguenot admiral, was only too eager to act upon
the hints of the queen. Accordingly, the hired assassin fired a shot from
an arquebuse at Coligny as the admiral was leaving the Louvre. The
great Huguenot chief was wounded only, and his would-be murderer
escaped. The Huguenots now became exasperated and asked for justice.
The queen accordingly pressed her son to take extreme measures in order
to chastise the insolence of the Calvinists, and the memorable massacre on
St. Bartholomew's Day^th August, 1572, was decided upon. The king
is reported to have said to his mother, " God's death, Madam ! as you want
to kill the admiral, why not murder all the Huguenots in France? I do
not care ! Let none of them remain alive, so that I be not reproached
by some survivor hereafter."
The signal for the massacre was given by the bell of the Church of
St. Germain L' Auxerrois, in the small hours of Sunday morning, 24th of
August, 1572. Coligny was the first to be murdered. The deed was done
in the Hotel de Ponthieu, Rue des Fosses St. Germain L' Auxerrois, near
where his statue now stands. The assassins, who came out of the Louvre
Palace, wore white crosses in their hats and had white cloths tied around
their arms. According to Davila, an officer of the guards stood in the
courtyard of the Louvre and read out from a list the names of the
Huguenot lords and gentlemen who were the king's guests in the Palace.
102

ST. GERMAIN D AUXERROIS.
These to the number of two hundred were slain, the king looking on from a
window. In the meantime, the massacres were being carried on throughout
the city. The blood of the Catholics was up, and the cry, " Kill, kill — Down
with the Huguenots ! " resounded through Paris. The king's brother, after
wards Henri III., who was slain by the knife of Jacques Clement, stood in
the middle of the bridge of Notre Dame superintending the useless
butcheries which were carried on in the name of religion. Protestant
pastors, shopkeepers, clerks, went down before the butchers as well as the
noble Du Resnels, D'Astaracs, Montauberts, La Roches, La Forces and
De La Rochefoucaulds. Even Catholics who were the marks of private
vengeance were slain, among them being some celebrated men. Towards
seven o'clock in the morning, as is related by some writers, King Charles
IX. resolved to have a few shots at the Huguenots, but his arquebuse did
not carry far enough. The king is erroneously said to have stood at a
large window on the quay, at the end of the Apollo gallery of the Louvre.
Balzac the novelist, in his elaborate whitewashing of Catherine de' Medici
(Etudes Philosophiques), points out that this part of the Louvre did not
exist in the time of Charles IX. Balzac also denies that the monarch fired
at fugitive Huguenots as they were crossing the river in boats. Brantome,
D'Aubigne, Goulard and others maintain the contrary, and Voltaire was
told all about it by Marshal de Tesse, who knew the page, then a centenarian,
by whom the royal arquebuse was loaded. A few Huguenots were saved
from the massacre, notably the king's surgeon, Ambroise Pare, the royal
nurse, Philippe Richard, and Renee de France, daughter of Louis XII., a
zealous Calvinist who gave shelter to some of her co-religionists in her
palace on the left bank of the river. It is estimated that about one hundred
thousand Huguenots were put to death at this period in Paris and other
parts of France.1
Such was the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1572, instigated by
the Italian woman who was the wife of Henri II. Catherine's memory has
been loaded with reproach, and it is perhaps just to point out, as Balzac
does, that being a woman she could only maintain her influence by the
exercise of those arts in which her fellow-countrymen are past masters, and
1 Carlyle compares the massacre of St. Bartholomew and that of September, 1792, in the
third volume of the " French Revolution." " Kings themselves, not in desperation, but only
in difficulty, have sat hatching, for year and day, their Bartholomew business ; and then, at
the right moment, also on an autumn Sunday, this very bell (they say it is the identical
metal) of St. Germain L'Auxerrois was set a-pealing with effect."
103

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
of which Nicholas Machiavelli is the chartered exponent. Catherine had
to face the factions of the Guises and the Bourbons, of the two Cardinals
de Lorraine, the two Princes of Conde, Queen Jeanne d'Albret, Henri
Quatre, the Constable de Montmorency, Calvin, Coligny, and Theodore de
Beze. She had thus opposed to her powerful Catholic as well as Protestant
princes and commoners. She held her place proudly among all these, or,
as Balzac says, " like a great monarch." She had none of the weakness
of her sex, and "lived chaste amid the amorous intrigues of the most
gallant court in Europe, and, despite the want of money, built admirable
monuments as if to repair the losses caused by the demolitions of the
Calvinists." These are the words of Balzac, who also attempts to defend
the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew by political exigencies. The
question, however, has nothing to do with the present purpose, the object
of the author being merely to revive historical interest in a notable church.
On the 25th of April, 1617, the Church of St. Germain L'Auxerrois was
the scene of a popular tumult. Mary of Medicis, or de' Medici, according to
the Italian form, the daughter of Francis IE, Grand Duke of Florence, she
who had married Henri Quatre after his divorce from Margaret de Valois,
sister of Charles IX., was now Regent of France, during the minority of her
son, Louis XIII. One of her first acts was to depose Sully, the Minister of
Henri Quatre, a Protestant who when a youth escaped the massacre of St.
Bartholomew by going through the streets reading a Catholic prayer-book.
Sully was replaced by the Florentine, Concino Concini, husband of Leonora
Galigai, who was made Marquis of Ancre, a town in the Somme, nowadays
called Albert, and a Marshal of France. This Italian soon gained an
ascendency over Louis XIII., but he was ousted by Albert de Luynes, a
young Court gentleman from Avignon, who was as poor as a church mouse.
De Luynes captivated the young monarch by his skill as a bird-fancier. He
was especially adroit in training birds of prey, and had charge of the Royal
falcons. When the troubles began, owing to the discontent of the people
with the Government, and to the revolt of the nobles under the Prince de
Conde, De Luynes secretly joined the malcontents and persuaded his master
to blot out the Marshal D'Ancre, who was really ruling the kingdom and
usurping the place of Louis himself. Accordingly, Concini was attacked one
day as he was leaving his house for the Louvre palace, by the Baron de
Vitry, Captain of the Guards, and his men. The Florentine had scarcely
time to utter an exclamation of surprise, when he was laid low by a volley
of pistol shots. He was despatched by sword thrusts, and the Baron de Vitry
104

Statue of Bomiral Coligns-
1Rue be IRivoli.

To face p. 104.

ST. GERMAIN I'AUXERROIS.
kicked the body to make sure that the Marshal was dead. Then the house
of D'Ancre was pillaged. His wife was despoiled of all the money and jewels
which she had hidden under the mattress of her bed ; his son, aged eleven,
was stripped stark naked and left without food for a whole day. Finally,
brutal vengeance was carried so far that Leonora Galigai' was condemned
and burned as a witch, and the people broke into the Church of St. Germain
L' Auxerrois in order to drag the body of Marshal D'Ancre out of the grave
into which it had been hastily thrown, enveloped in a tattered winding-sheet.
The corpse was suspended by the feet to a gibbet on the Pont Neuf, was
afterwards cut up, and some of the pieces were sold, others burned, others
flung into the Seine. These horrible incidents were really brought about
by lackeys, who led the rabble on and incited them to dig out the body of
the Marshal from the place inside the church where it had been interred.
In 1831, a little more than two hundred years later, the church was the
scene of another tumult, after the funeral service in commemoration of the
Due de Berri, son of Charles X., who had been assassinated by Louvel,
when leaving the opera, on the 13th of February, 1820, while his uncle,
Louis XVIII., was reigning. The clergy of St. Germain L'Auxerrois were
noted for their attachment to the Legitimist or Bourbon cause, so the royal
Church which had been patronized by French monarchs since the days of
Philip Augustus, was terribly damaged both interiorly and outside. It thus
required another restoration.
The church is in the form of a cross, and looks a rather light construc
tion when compared with the Renaissance building of the Louvre opposite.
The portico is interesting, although the frescoes are in a lamentable state of
decay, and give an idea of what may be expected to happen, through the
influence of time and a cold climate, to the mural paintings under the
arcades of the Hofgarten in Munich. The frescoes of St. Germain L'Auxerrois
are indeed pitiful to contemplate. The porch has five arcades surmounted
by a balustrade. Above is a flamboyant rose-window, flanked by two
turrets. On the gable is an angel sculptured by Marochetti. The whole of
the exterior is richly and capriciously carved by the stone-workers of the
fifteenth century ; and near the pierced terraces, or galleries, are gables,
gargoyles, crockets, cornices, brackets, corbels, mullioned windows, and
pinnacled flying buttresses. The sculptors seem to have given full rein to
their fancies, and on the corbels and gargoyles have chiselled griffins,
monkeys," wolves, dogs, bears, showmen with their animals, a savage with a
club in hand issuing from the mouth of a river-horse, a man carrying a lion
105

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
on his shoulders, another with a hooded ape, a sow on its litter, the terres
trial globe gnawed by rats, to symbolize the wicked who devastate the earth,
while the devils are represented by watching cats. Two of the statues on
the exterior are said to be old. One represents St. Francis of Assisi, the
other St. Mary of Egypt, with the three loaves on which she fed when in the
desert. Other statues of saints adorn the three doors of the main entrance.
By the side of the church is the Mayor's Hall of the first arrondissement,
which is connected with the church by a species of cloister and a flamboyant
campanile or bell-tower. This construction was supposed to have been
necessitated in order to give symmetry to the church and its environments,
but it is universally condemned as useless and unlovely, or at least out of
keeping with the older building at its side.
The interior of St. Germain I'Auxerrois has suffered from so-called
" Classic " restoration, but some of the Gothic has been preserved. The
pillars have no capitals and are devoid of decoration in the nave, but in the
choir they are fluted and otherwise ornamented. The long choir was
formerly separated from the nave by a magnificent screen of the Renaissance
period, the work of Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon. In 1744 this was
removed on the ground that it prevented the congregation from seeing the
officiating priest. The old tombs were also taken away. Among these
were the tombs of Malherbe the poet, who has been so terribly satirized by
Regnier, as the founder of a pedantic milk-and-water school of versifiers, of
Guy Patin the physician, Sanson the geographer, and predecessor in that
line of M. Elis£e Reclus, of the painter Coypel, the sculptor Coysevox, and
the engraver Israel Sylvestre. These burying-places are now represented by
a few statues and inscribed flagstones.1 The great peculiarity of the
interior is the existence of a large chapel on the southern side. This is
literally a church within a church. It is called the Chapelle de Notre Dame
and also the Chapelle des Catechismes, and has its own altar, organ, jube
or screen, pulpit, lateral oratories, stained glass windows and a reredos
forming the tree of Jesse in stone which enve ops with its branches a
statue of the Virgin of antique origin, but the date is uncertain.
The windows of St. Germain L'Auxerrois give the interior of the church
the appearance of an immense illuminated missal. The eye meets deep,
rich, and mellow colours at every corner, and the place is well worthy of a
' There was formerly in this church a splendid mausoleum erected by order of
Charles V, the Wise, to his Court buffoon. Another iester had a similar monument in
St. Martin's, Senlis. 106

ST. GERMAIN L'A UXERROIS.
visit if only for its pictured panes. It is very difficult, however, to see the
figures on the upper windows, but most of those in the chapels and around
the aisles are visible enough. The two windows at the entrance of the
church are by Marechal, and of the splendid fifteenth and sixteenth century
glass there remain but the north transept rose, on which appears God the
Father, with angels, martyrs and confessors ; the opposite window, south
side, on which the Holy Ghost, or Spirit, in the form of a dove, is visible,
and six other windows — four on the north with scenes from the Passion and
the life of Christ, and two on the south depicting the Ascension, the
Assumption, the Coronation of the Virgin, and a few other scenes. Of the
modern frescoes may be noticed Quichard's " Descent from the Cross," in
the southern transept. Notable, too, are the smaller chapels, one of which,
the fourth of the choir beyond the sacristy, contains monuments of Etienne
d'Aligre and his son, who were Chancellors of France in the middle of the
seventeenth century, the woodwork of the Compassion Chapel, near the
north transept, that of the covered " banc d'oeuvre," or churchwarden's
seats, and the holy water font, with its three shells surmounted by angels,
designed by Madame de Lamartine.
The vaulting of St. Germain L'Auxerrois is low, and gives the interior
a correspondingly depressed appearance at first sight, especially after one
has seen the high-pitched Gothic roofs. This is atoned for, however, by
the harmonious blending of light and colour in the holy place. You
feel that the church is admirably fitted for the development of the
devotional faculties, and that here, if anywhere, it would be possible to
prepare for the next world. Even the materialist must feel impressed
when inside St. Germain L'Auxerrois. Exteriorly, the church is less
impressive, but few can fail to take an interest in the handsome and
historical edifice.

107

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es a
Si u
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CHAPTER IX.

ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRES.
A mighty monastery — The remains of the abbey and their modern
uses — The Benedictines and the Salvation Army — The rival
fairs — Privileges of the monks — The Northern Pirates — Forma
tion of the " Noble Faubourg" — Disappearance of Cow Roadaiid
the Froggery — Increasing wealth and worldliness — Reforms
effected — Royal and Abbatial tombs — Abbot and king — The
tombs of the Douglases — The church a powder manufactory
during the Revolution — Flandrin s frescoes — Strange career and
sad end of the artist — General description of the church — Its
connection with the French Academy.

rfeiLlppE m.

OOKING at the massive church of St. Germain-des-Pres,
one can easily realize that it was the centre of a mightyr
monastic stronghold in the days of widespread ecclesi
astical domination. The long, high-pitched roofs of the
edifice and of the existing part of the Palace of the Abbots
at the back are imposing, and give an idea of strength, power
and durability. The church vies in antiquity with Notre
Dame de Paris, and was the burial place of the Merovingian
monarchs before the shrine of St. Denis became a Basilica
and the charnel-house of royalty. In the days of its power
the great abbey stood towering aloft by itself, strongly fortified
in the midst of the meadows bordering the river, whence it
derived its name — Sanctus Germanus de Pratis.1 Nowadays
the church is the most striking building on the Boulevard
St. Germain, that broad, monotonous thoroughfare, with its lofty
houses all alike and all of the same height, which pierces part of
the old Latin country wherein many generations of poor scholars have
struggled and starved. The mighty monastery, however, is gone, and will
no longer tempt the cupidity of revolutionists as it tempted that of the
Northmen, whose ravages are described in the annals of Fulda and of
Prudentius of Troyes, and in Sir Francis Palgrave's " History of England
and Normandy." The part of the abbatial palace, with its red brick
frontage facing the modern Rue de Furstemberg, so called after a cardinal
who ruled the monastery in the seventeenth century, is now converted into
a surgical and dentistry institute, and also contains an antique furniture
store. Near the old home of the Benedictines stands a place sometimes
used by the very modern Salvation Army. General Booth's followers have
intoned their hymns over ground where the matins, lauds, and vespers of the
monks once resounded. Of the meadows no trace exists, and of the abbatial
1 See the " Chartularium Ecclesiae Parisiensis."
Ill

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
gardens there are three strips, one in the interior of the palace, another
near the main entrance to the church, and a third on the Boulevard St.
Germain side, wherein stands the statue of Bernard Palissy, the famous art
potter, who died in 1589.
Near the monastery was formerly held one of the oldest and most
celebrated fairs in Paris, which opened before Easter. The monks reaped
substantial profit from this institution, and in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries their privileges were interfered with by the kings.1 The fair was
then transferred to the Markets, but Louis XI. re-established the right of
the monks to control a "foire tranche." This was opposed by the monks
of St. Denis, who had a fair called the " Landit," but an arrangement was
eventually made by which the religious of St. Germain-des-Pres shortened
the duration of their annual bazaar. The arrangement only continued for
a brief space of time, as the fair of St. Germain soon passed the limits
assigned to it, and lasted much longer than the stipulated week. The fair
extended from the market, near the church, to the proximity of Saint
Sulpice and the Luxembourg Gardens. The booths were sheltered from
the rain by an immense wooden construction which was burned in March,
1762, and from that date the open-air bazaar continued to decline until it
disappeared altogether.
Some say that the abbey was founded in the year 543 ; others, like the
Benedictine Felibien, who was one of its monks, in 567. The church was
built on a site once consecrated to Isis, its founder being Childebert I., who
dedicated it to St. Vincent. The outside was gorgeously decorated,
probably with the spoils brought by Childebert from Spain. It was
thence called by the people St. Germain-le-Dore, and traces of the
influence of this lavish ornamentation are still to be seen inside the church.
The king also endowed the abbey with the domain of Issy, and St.
Germain, Bishop of Paris, gave the monks the right to elect their abbot
and free ownership of all their conventual property. The monks originally
came from the monastery of St. Symphorien of Autun, or Augustodunum,
the old Roman town in the department of Saone-et-Loire, whose modern
bishop, Monseigneur Perraud, is a member of the French Academy. These
brethren followed the rules of St. Antony, " the godly eremite," and of St.
'. The charter of the abbey of St. Germain, defining the jurisdiction of the monastery, is
in the Paris Cartulary. One clause, dated July, 121 1, has the ring of a modern document.
It refers to a dispute between John the Humble, Abbot of St. Germain, " ex una parte," and
the bishop and others, "ex altera parte," about parish bounds.
112

ST. GERMAIN DES PRES.
Basil, but soon afterwards they adopted the rule of St. Benoit, or Benedict.
In 754 the abbey of St. Vincent took the name of St. Germain when that
venerated bishop's body was removed from the chapel of St. Symphorien
and placed in the choir of the church. This removal was effected with
great ceremony, King Pepin, his sons and vassals leading the procession.
During the Norman invasions, the monastery was destroyed, but in the
year iooo it was rebuilt by the Abbot Morard, who was assisted in the
undertaking by the pious King Robert, son of Hugh Capet, a monarch who
frequently joined the monks in singing psalms. This period was dis
tinguished by a revival of activity and religious zeal in Italy and Gaul, and
many of the basilicas were restored or rebuilt. It is supposed that, of all
the monastery of St. Germain-des-Pres, only the great tower, still partially
existing, most resisted the fire of the pirates. The new constructions were
finished in 1163, and the abbey and church were in that year consecrated
by Pope Alexander III. On its restoration the abbey became more power
ful than ever, and around it was formed the borough, or bourg, which is
to-day the most fashionable district in Paris, namely, the Faubourg Saint
Germain. The Champs-Ehysees vies with this district by the wealth of its
residents and the magnificence of its buildings. The Champs- Elysees
district is, however, modern, and to a certain extent the locality of the mush
room nobility and of the parvenus who sprang up under the two empires.
Many of its best houses are also tenanted by the magnificent plutocrats of
the New World, Americans of the north, who have made their money in
mines and stores, and who come to spend it in the European paradise ;
and Brazilians, Peruvians and Cubans, who imitate their neighbours of the
States in their love for Paris. In the Faubourg St. Germain live the old
nobility, or those of that class who were enabled to survive the wreckage
caused by the great upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century. Here
dwell the descendants of many of those Crusaders who, as Montalembert
said on a famous occasion, would not recoil before the sons of Voltaire.
Around the old Church of the Benedictines, now only part of the parish of
St. Sulpice, live the bearers of the greatest names in French history. The
" noble Faubourg," as it is called, stands on the once marshy ground
environing the old monastery, and some of its finest streets are built on
places which were known formerly as the Chemin-aux-Vaches, or Cow Road,
the Froggery, and other unpicturesque names. It was only in 1688 that
the district was chosen by the nobles as their dwelling-place, and the
"quartier monastique," as it has been called, was soon invaded by the
H3

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Montmorencys, the De Luynes, the De Chevreuses, the Des Broglies, the
Des La Rochefoucaulds, the Des Chabrillans, the Byrons and the Maillys.
The descendants of these families, or some of them, still inhabit the " noble
Faubourg," but the glory of the old salons has departed, and the traditions
of the fashionable district are regarded as too antiquated for modern tastes.
To return, however, to the abbey and its church. St. Germain-des-
Pres was further enlarged in 1237, and in the reign of Charles V., the
monastery was so strongly fortified that it looked like a military construc
tion planned by the Vauban of the epoch. Shortly after this period the
monks seem to have fallen away from their practices of piety, either on
account of increasing wealth, or through lack of fervour. A reform was
instituted by the Abbot Briconnet, who called in some other monks.
Another reform was effected in 1631, when the religious of St. Maur intro
duced there the strict rule of St. Benedict. This, however, did not have an
effect in diminishing the power of the abbots, or the influence of the monas
tery. The monks had full jurisdiction, temporal and spiritual, over the
district. They were more than the vice-Chancellors, the Proctors and pro-
Proctors of Oxford and Cambridge nowadays. They virtually ruled the
district, and were the " Hauts justiciers et censiers " of the south bank of
the river, until they were interfered with in 1668 by an Archbishop of Paris,
and in 1674 by a Royal edict. They still, however, had judicial power
within their own property limits. Before the cessation of their jurisdiction
they had a pillory for offenders, and the prison of St. Margaret, afterwards
known as the abbey prison,1 was in their keeping, and under their control.
Among the famous persons buried in the church after the Merovingian
monarchs were Marie de Cleves, Princess of Conde, with whom Henri III.
was violently in love, 1574 ; Catherine de Bourbon, daughter of Henri de
Bourbon, Prince of Conde, who died in 1595 ; William Douglas, Earl of
Angus, who died in 161 1 ; his grandson, James Douglas, killed before Douay,
in the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. ; other members of the same
Scotch stock ; Francois de Bourbon, brother of the Cardinal ; Casimir V.,
King of Poland, who died Abbot of St. Germain-des-Pres in 1672 ; and of
many other princes and abbots. The only tombs left intact by the Revolu
tion are those of King Casimir V., of the Douglases, and of the Castellans.
In 1821, the remains of Descartes, the famous philosopher, of the great
1 For a striking description of the horrors perpetrated in the Abbaye Prison in 1792
English readers must be referred to Carlyle's third volume of the " French Revolution."
Nothing can equal the Scotchman's lucid picture 114

DOBS^

ST. GERMAIN DES PRES.
Benedictines Mabillon and Montfaucon, and of Boileau, the poet, were placed
in the choir chapels. According to some, only Boileau's heart was removed
from the Sainte Chapelle. It is generally admitted, however, that all his
body is in St. Germain-des-Pr<es, as well as that of the philosopher Descartes,
which was removed from the church of St. Genevieve. The inscription
over the tomb of Descartes sets forth that " he whose intelligence pierced the
secrets of earth and sky had to yield to fate, like any ordinary person, but
he would have lived for ever, like the divine works which he described, if his
wisdom had enabled him to emancipate himself from the bondage of death."
Having suffered from the Revolution in 1793, when it was turned into a
powder manufactory, and from an explosion in 1794, when many of the
valuable books of the abbey were destroyed, although, luckily, the bulk of
them is now in the National Library, the church was restored in the year
1845. Partial restoration had been effected between 1834 and 1836. In
1852 and the following years the interior was redecorated with much gilded
ornament and polychromatic paintings. Hippolyte Flandrin also painted
frescoes, but the artist unluckily died before he was able to complete his
important work from which St. Germain-des-Pr6s derives a good deal of the
interest attaching to it nowadays.
The principal entrance to St. Germain-des-Pr6s is in the Rue Bonaparte
and dates from the seventeenth century. Over the door are bas-reliefs,
representing the last supper, and the Romanesque tower with its round-
headed bays and slate-covered spire rises over the porch. The other towers
over the choir and the transept were destroyed in 1822, and only their
bases remain. Still, the single tower, the high-pitched roof and
massive flying buttresses, combine to make St. Germain-des-Pres one of the
most striking and interesting of the old, historic churches of Paris. The
interior of the edifice is remarkable, as it shows the early Gothic style
struggling with the Romanesque which it supplanted. The nave, with its
heavy and restored capitals, has round-headed Romanesque arcades, but the
Gothic style appears in the choir and in the arches of the roof. The upper
windows of the apsis are also pointed. Some of the columns of the triforium,
or gallery, are said to date from the time of the old church constructed by
Childebert I., but this is open to doubt. Their bases and capitals are
admitted, however, to be twelfth-century work. The polychromatic decora
tion of the church, undertaken by Baltard, is interesting, but the green
columns, red, arabesqued pilasters and gilded capitals are open to the
objections of the admirers of simpler Gothic.
H5 H

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Flandrin's much-appreciated frescoes include, in the nave, the
Preliminaries of the Last Judgment, and the Ascension, done by his
brother Paul from his designs, the Dispersion of the Apostles, the
Scattering of Men after Babel, the Resurrection of Christ, Jonas emerging
from the belly of the whale, the Death of Christ, Abraham's Sacrifice, the
Betrayal by Judas, the Sale of Joseph. These are on the right of the nave,
and on the left are the Annunciation, the Burning Bush, the Nativity, the
Promise of a Redeemer, in which is seen a beautiful female figure, that of
Eve, the Adoration of the Magi, Balaam's Prophecy, the Baptism of Christ,
the Passage of the Red Sea, a fine composition, the Institution of the
Eucharist and Melchisedech. Above these on the wall spaces, between the
windows, are figures of the Prophets and Judges of Israel. In the choir are
depicted the Carrying of the Cross, and the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem.
Flandrin's compositions, however, must be seen in order to be appre
ciated in a proper manner. No amount of bald cataloguing or verbal
description, like that indulged in by salon critics, can convey an idea of this
painter's religious compositions, and several visits must necessarily be made
to the church in order to take in every detail of the art legacy left by this
nineteenth-century imitator of Blessed Fra Angelico of Florence. Like the
great Dominican artist, Flandrin, too, was pious. His was no skin-deep
Christianity flavoured with the aestheticism so much in favour with the
cultured admirers of the traditions of Papal Rome. If any man, artist, or
prosaic workaday being deserved Heaven, Flandrin assuredly ought to
merit a place in the angelic choir, and this on two grounds. In the first
place he led a life of bitter struggle on earth, and secondly, in spite of his
trials and afflictions, he was a firm and fervent follower of the religion
whose traditions he endeavoured to depict on the walls of St. Germain-des-
Pres. Hippolyte Flandrin was a pupil of Ingres, and won the grand prize
of Rome. He died of small-pox in the Eternal City in 1864, and is buried
in Pere Lachaise cemetery. His monument stands in the north aisle of the
church which contains his frescoes. It " implores the passing tribute of a
sigh " from all who can sympathize with struggling poverty and regret the
stern decrees of a fate which unmercifully cuts down genius before it
gives the full measure of its worth.' Of his work in St. Germain-des-Pres
the finest specimen is, undoubtedly, the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem,
which is on a gold ground, after the Byzantine School, in the choir. The
1 Hippolyte Flandrin also left a good many portraits, and was called "le peintre des
honnetes femmes.'' 116

ST. GERMAIN DES PRES.
figure of the Redeemer is particularly imposing, and the composition of the
picture shows the artist at his best. The Crucifixion, or Death of Christ, in
the nave, on the right, is also noteworthy.
Other paintings in the Church are St. Germain distributing alms, by
Steuben, Baptism of a Eunuch, by Bertin, Resurrection of Lazarus, by
Verdier, the Death of Sapphira, by Le Clerc, and Scenes from the Life of St.
Peter, by Le Masurier and Jeaurat. In addition to the monuments or
memorials already mentioned there are several statues, notably one of Notre
Dame la Blanche, or Notre Dame de Consolation, which had been given to
the abbey of St. Denis in 1340 by Queen Jeanne d'Evreux, in a niche
designed by Lassus, a statue of St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies,
by the younger Couston, and one of St. Margaret, by Dourlat. The high
altar is not a remarkable construction. It replaced one made in 1408, which
was destroyed by the Revolutionists in 1792. Some of the windows are
composed of fragments of stained glass of the thirteenth century, representing
the Annunciation, the Marriage of the Virgin, St. Anne and St. Joachim,
and Works of Mercy.
The church of St. Germain-des-Pres has some connection with the
French Academy, or " Institut de France." On Wednesday, 21st October,
1895, the fete of the centenary of the five academies forming the institute,
namely, the Academie Francaise, the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-
Lettres, the Academie des Sciences, the Academie des Beaux- Arts, and the
Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, was begun by a mass in the
old abbey church, and Bishop Perraud of Autun, one of the academicians,
officiated thereat.

117 h 2

interior— St. Etienne bu /Iliont.

CHAPTER X.

THE PANTHEON, FORMERLY ST. GENEVIEVE'S
CHURCH, AND ST. ETIENNE DU MONT.
A " bad imitation of St. Peter's" — Quinet's view of Soufflot 's work —
St. Genevieve and Attila — Treatment of the Patroness of Paris
by the Republicans — The '' Temple of Renown" — Mirabeau 's
funeral — Voltaire, Rousseau and Marat — Royalist revenge for
the desecration of St. Denis — In Napoleons days — The Restora
tion and Baron Gros — Changes — In the hands of the Communists
— The frescoes of Puvis de Chavannes and others — The tombs in
crypt — The church of St. Etienne du Mont — Its splendid rood-
loft- — Gibbon 's account of the finding of St. Stephens remains —
Miracles — The curious architectural features of St. Etienne du
Mont — The glass by Pinaigrier — The tomb of St. Genevieve.

JEAN

SPpI HE Pantheon is not an antique building, nor is it now
a church. As it, however, occupies the site of the very
old edifice dedicated to St. Genevieve,1 the celestial
Patroness of Paris, and as it formerly bore the name of that
holy shepherdess, it may be treated after the historic churches
already described, and before some of the smaller, but more
antique places of worship: Much criticism has been levelled
at the Pantheon and at Soufflot, its architect. Victor Hugo
described the church as the " finest Savoy cake ever made in
stone," and called it a bad imitation of St. Peter's, unwieldy
and out of line. Soufflot in reality did not care a jot about St. Genevieve or
the legends attached to her name when he began the work. Accordingly,
there is nothing idyllic about the Pantheon, which is merely a colossal, cold
and formal temple, fit resting-place for the men who tried to pull down the old
faiths and to sneer away everything which humanity was taught to hold sacred.
The architect only wanted to do something big, to imitate the dome of Michael
Angelo, and perhaps, as Quinet imagines, to shelter under his cupola the
thought of the eighteenth century. And so it comes to pass that St.
Genevieve, once so fervently venerated, has now no church or shrine of her
own in the city for which she so often prayed, and from whose gates, as
Gibbon says, " she diverted the march of Attila." Revolutionists and
republicans have despoiled her of her rights ; her " chasse," or reliquary, is no
longer carried about in processions, her bones were burned on the Place de
Greve, and the recovered stones from her tomb had to be placed in the
church of St. Etienne Du Mont, at the back of the Pantheon, where, with
her relics, they are now daily displayed for the veneration of the faithful.-
The foundation stone of the Panthdon was laid by Louis XV., in 1764,
shortly after the death of the butcher's daughter, Madame de Pompadour
1 The French form is Sainte Genevieve.
2 This is fully dealt with further on, in the chapter on St. Etienne du Mont.
121

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
who had during her lifetime been ruling France and its king. The edifice
was completed in 1790 and elicited much admiration. Fears were, however,
entertained that the whole construction would give way. Soufflot, in his
desire to eclipse Brunelleschi, Michael Angelo, and Sir Christopher Wren,
tried to keep up his cupola by four columns only. These, it was said, were
dangerously insufficient, so another architect, Rondelet, was called in, and
erected pillars with arches to support the dome. Hardly had the first mass
been said in the church when the Constituent Assembly decreed that it should
be secularized and re-named. Count Gabriel Honore Riquetti de Mirabeau,
the man who had opened a cloth shop at Marseilles in order to ingratiate
himself with the Third Estate, had just died. His body was borne, with
great pomp, to the church of St. Genevieve, which had been turned into a
Temple of Renown, the Pantheon for the great men of the country, " Aux
grands hommes la Patrie reconnaissante," according to the inscription over
its colossal portals. This was to be the crypt of great citizens, as St. Denis
had been the burial place of the kings and princes.
Voltaire was the next to be placed in the Temple of Renown on the top
of the hill of St. Genevieve. On the 10th July, 1791, the remains of the
great cynic were taken from a country grave, in the Abbey of Scellieres, and
conveyed to the Pantheon with a solemnity greater than that marking the
funeral of Mirabeau. The procession first stopped on the ruins of the
Bastille, speeches were made there, and then the antique funeral car was
drawn, accompanied by mourners in Roman garb, to the dome built by
Soufflot. Three years later "Evangelist Jean-Jacques, too, as is most
proper, must be dug up from Ermenonville, and processioned, with pomp,
with sensibility, to the ' Pantheon of the Fatherland," as Carlyle tells us.
Rousseau ousted Mirabeau, whose body was disinterred, and placed in the
cemetery of St. Catherine, for the Revolutionists had begun to suspect that
the dead man had been a fraud during his lifetime, and that his democratic
principles were only skin-deep. Marat was likewise buried here after his
murder by Charlotte Corday, but his remains were also removed by order of
the Convention. Later on Voltaire and Rousseau were treated in a similar
manner. During the restoration the Royalists rather uselessly and
inadequately revenged the desecration of the tombs of the kings at St. Denis.
In the time of the first Napoleon, the Pantheon again became the church
of the Patroness of Paris. Marshal Lannes was buried there as well as some
of the Imperial Senators and State dignitaries. Then came the Restoration,
when Baron Gros was commissioned to emblazon the ceilings with episodes
122

THE PANTHEON.

from the life of St. Genevieve. That was after the tombs of the philosophers
and revolutionists had been broken by order of the government. After the
Revolution of July, 1830, the church again became the Pantheon and an
attempt was made to obliterate the memory of the sainted shepherdess. The
government of Louis Philippe, however, in putting back in their places the
groups and bas-reliefs of the first Revolution, added the marble monument
by Maindron, of St. Genevieve and Attila. The Republic of 1848 left the
edifice as it was, but in 1851 it again became a church. Another change was
effected in 1885, when the building was once more secularized in order to
receive the remains of Victor Hugo.
Thus the Pantheon has changed
with the different political trans
formation scenes of modern French
history. St. Paul's, Westminster
Abbey, Santa Croce in Florence,
retain the impress of consecration
from age to age, but the Pantheon
is alternately laicized or restored
to its original uses as the French
weathercock veers from Royalty to
Republicanism. In June, 1848, the
Revolutionists temporarily held the
building, and in 1871 it fell into
the hands of the Communists, who
were ousted before they could blow
it up.The Panthdon is built in the
form of a Greek cross. The
length of the edifice is 370 feet,
and the breadth 276 feet. The dome is 272 feet in height, and more
than 75 feet in diameter. The great frontage is composed of a portico
with twenty-two fluted Corinthian columns supporting an entablature. The
tympan was ornamented by David d' Angers and represents France
distributing garlands or laurel wreaths to her sons. The figure of the
Patrie is flanked by Liberty and History, and around are Malesherbes,
Mirabeau, Carnot, the " Organizer of Victory," Voltaire, Rousseau,
Napoleon Bonaparte and other famous men whose writings or deeds deserved
record in the Paris Temple of Fame. Behind Bonaparte are an old grena-
123

THE PANTHEON.

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
dier of the guard and the drummer boy of Areola. The words " Aux Grands
Hommes La Patrie Reconnaissante," are on the architrave below the
pediment. Under the portico are Maindron's marble groups, " St. Genevieve
beseeching Attila to spare Paris," and the " Baptism- of Louis by St.
Remigius." The dome of the Panthedn is topped by a big lantern, and there
is a fine view from the summit.
The interior of the Pantheon is imposing, but cold and gloomy in its
vastness. The pictures in oils and on canvas, though usually called frescoes,
are fastened to, not painted on the walls. The dome is decorated with the
frescoes by Gros, representing the Apotheosis of St. Genevieve ; around her
being Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and other French kings. The spandrels
are painted by Carvallo with allegorical subjects relating to the First Empire.
The most interesting feature in the interior is the work of Puvis de Chavannes
depicting the life-history of St. Genevieve. According to the admirers of that
painter of the vague, the ethereal and the delicate, in landscape, and of the
attenuated and even ugly, in figure work, the mural decorations of Puvis de
Chavannes are the only paintings which are in their proper place in that
framing of stone. One of the ugliest figures on these canvases is that of St.
Germain, Bishop of Auxerre, who is giving his blessing to the shepherdess.
The scenery is that of Nanterre, outside Paris, and in it the river is visible
threading its silvery way towards the sea. Other paintings are the " Death
of St. Genevieve," by J. P. Laurens ; the scenes from the life of St. Louis, by
Alexander Cabanel ; the Coronation of Charlemagne, by Levy ; the procession
of Genevieve's relics, by Maillot : a picture of the shepherdess saving Paris
from famine by Meissonier ; scenes from the life of Joan of Arc, by Lenepveu ;
the great women of France, frescoes by Humbert ; Bonnat's " Martyrdom of
St. Denis ; " the mosaics of H6bert in the apsis, and the " Battle of Tolbiac,"
by Blanc. In this work the artist has drawn Gambetta, Lockroy, Arago and
one of the Coquelins. A considerable number, in fact, of the portraits seen on
the walls of the Pantheon are those of modern Parisian celebrities in art
politics and literature. The statues in the edifice are those of St. Genevieve,
St. Gregory of Tours, St. Bernard, St. Jean de Matha, St. Vincent de Paul,
St. Martin ; and in time Victor Hugo, Renan and others who, if not saints,
were celebrated Frenchmen, will be added to the others.
In the vaults or crypt of the Panthedn are the tombs of Victor Hugo,
opposite which is an indifferent statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and another
of Voltaire ; of Soufflot, architect of the building ; of Marshal Lannes ; of
Lagrange, the scientist ; of Bougainville, the navigator ; and of functionaries
124

ST. ETIENNE DU MONT.
of the First Empire. Since 1889 there have also been placed in the crypt the
remains of Lazare Carnot, the " Organizer of Victory ; " of General Marceau ;
of La Tour d' Auvergne, the " First Grenadier of France ; " and of Baudin,
the deputy, who was killed at the barricades in December, 1851. The
remains of Carnot, Marceau and La Tour d' Auvergne were conveyed to the
Pantheon from Germany. Marceau is immortalized in the lines of" Childe
Harold," " By Coblentz on a rise of gentle ground
There is a small and simple pyramid," etc. ;
but the stanza is bereft of some of its meaning. The young soldier, whose
career was "brief, brave and glorious," and who was killed at Altenkirchen,
in 1796, now lies, it is to be hoped, in permanent rest. The body had
already been moved in 1819 from its first grave.
The last great interment in the crypt of the Pantheon was that of
President Sadi Carnot, who was murdered at Lyons by an Italian anarchist,
in June, 1894. The burial was preceded by a solemn service in the
Cathedral of Notre Dame.
St. Ettenne du Mont, at the back of the Pantheon, is one of the most
interesting churches of Paris, from the architectural point of view.1 Its
most important feature is the rood-loft, next to which comes the peculiar
triforium or gallery around the nave, supposed to have been constructed
after the model of a similar building in the Cathedral of Rouen. It also
possesses the tomb, or part of the tomb, of St. Genevieve. King Clovis
first founded a church on this site, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. It
afterwards became the Church of St. Genevieve, and nothing remains of it,
and the abbey attached thereto, but the tower rising from the quadrangle
of the Lycee Henri Quatre, close to Saint Etienne du Mont. The devotion
to the holy shepherdess increased so much that a large parish grew up
around her shrine. The monks of the Abbey, therefore, obtained leave to
build a church, or chapel, in addition to their basilica, and the new structure
was dedicated to the great martyr, St. Stephen. This was in the beginning
of the twelfth century, soon after Notre Dame had replaced the old Church
of the same martyr in the Island of the City. As the population on the
"mountain," or hill, of St. Genevieve still increased, the church of St.
Stephen was found to be as insufficient as the basilica had been before, and
1 Fergusson, " Hist. Mod. Architecture," describes St. Etienne du Mont as a " Gothic
church disguised in the trappings of classical details."
125

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
in 1517 the foundations of the existing edifice were laid. Ninety-three years
after, Marguerite de Valois, first wife of Henri Quatre, and the chief
benefactress of the church which is worthy of her artistic attentions, laid the
foundation stone of the principal portal, and the works were only finished
in 1624. St. Etienne du Mont was consecrated by Jean-Francois de Gondy,
Archbishop of Paris, in February, 1626. The event is commemorated on a
black marble slab in the church, and so, too, is the accident which occurred
during the ceremony, two girls of the parish having fallen from the choir
galleries without injury to themselves or to any of the congregation.

THE ROOD-LOFT ST. ETIENNE DU MONT

During the course of the eighteenth century the church was subjected, like
many other monuments, to restorations which were not always effected with
care and taste. An architect of this period, named Hivert, proposed to
remove the splendid rood-loft, as had been done at St. Germain I'Auxerrois,
but his suggestion was fortunately negatived.
There are few historic associations connected with this church since its
foundation. It is the shrine of St. Genevieve, whose old church has long
since disappeared, and who has been deprived of the Pantheon by the
Republicans. Thither flock thousands of the faithful every January for the
126

ST. ETIENNE DU MONT
Novena or nine days' devotion, following the fete of the canonized shepherdess
of Nanterre. It was in this church that Archbishop Silour was murdered
by a mad priest on the 3rd of January 1857, during the progress of the
Novena' of St. Genevieve. The procession had taken place around the
church and was entering the nave, when the Archbishop, who was moving
slowly towards the rood-loft, was struck down by his assassin. The prelate
died a few minutes after in the drawing-room of the presbytery, having shown
only a feeble glimmer of consciousness before he expired.
The exterior of the church is rather heavily ornamented in Renaissance
style. Over the chief portal is a bas-relief of the martyrdom of St. Stephen,
with the inscription " Lapis templum Domini destruit lapis astruit,"
alluding to the stoning of St. Stephen, who was a "temple of the Lord,"
and to the construction with stone of the real edifice. On the right and
left are statues of St. Stephen and St. Genevieve. The Resurrection is on
the pediment, and on the lintel is another Latin inscription recording the
dedication of the church to St. Stephen, the head or chief of the martyrs.
This saint is also called the Proto-martyr, or first of those who suffered for
the Christian faith, and whose remains were removed, in the reign of the
younger Theodosius in the fifth century, from Caphargamala, near Jeru
salem, to a church on Mount Sion.1 Gibbon thus relates the miracle of the
discovery of St. Stephen's body: " In the reign of the younger Theodosius
Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the
village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city, related a very
singular dream which, to remove his doubt, had been repeated on three
successive Saturdays. A venerable figure stood before him, in the silence of
the night, with a long beard, a white robe, and a gold rod ; announced
himself by the name of Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished presbyter,
that his own corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus,
and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were
secretly buried in the adjacent field. . . . The ground was opened by the
bishop, in the presence of an innumerable multitude. The coffins of
Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order, but
when the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was shown
to the light the earth trembled, and an odour, such as that of paradise, was
smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy-three of the assist
ants. ' The companions of Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of
Caphargamala : but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn
1 Gibbon, "Decline and Fall," Chapter XXVIII.
127

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
procession, to a church constructed in their honour on Mount Sion ; and the
minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone,
were acknowledged, in almost every province of the Roman world, to possess
a divine and miraculous virtue." This quotation would, of course, be a
comfort to the pious Catholics who believe firmly in miracles and the
efficacy of saintly relics, if the historian had not, in the succeeding sentences,
cast slurs on the statements in St. Augustine's great work " De Civitate
Dei," and sneered away miracles with Hume. In spite of the historians
and philosophers, however, saints continue to be venerated, and miracles
believed in. St. Stephen, in particular, has been fortunate in the perpetua
tion of his memory. Two gorgeous churches, one in Vienna,1 the other in
Paris, record the triumph of his faith over the pains of violent death.
In the interesting interior of St. Etienne du Mont, with its nave, two
aisles, triforium, pendant keystones, high vaulting, organ loft, round arches,
old stained glass, and rood-loft, the lover of the antique finds much to
admire. There is, in fact, no church in Paris which arrests the attention so
much or fascinates to so great an extent by the artistic originality of its
interior. It is one of the curiosities, and one of the best monumental or
old-time treasures of Paris, and all who love the antique must hope that the
church will always escape the ravages of war, time, and revolution. The
architectural curiosity of the church is the triforium, or gallery, supported by
round pillars with round arches between them. Over this elevated platform
or aerial passage, called also tournee as well as triforium, in this case, there
is another row of round pillars and arches. On the sides of the passage
facing the altar and nave, tourelles or round projections like bay windows,
facilitate circulation. The clerestory windows are very high and contain
some of the old glass. The jube or rood-loft attracts as much attention as
the peculiar passage over the aisles. It is the work of the elder Biart, a
seventeenth-century sculptor (1600), and is splendidly carved and embossed
with foliage, palms, garlands, corbels, modillons, or brackets, buds, thuribles
or incense-censers and figures. The word jube, used in French for rood-
loft or screen, is from the Latin "jubere," to order. At high mass the
deacon, after the gradual, asks the blessing of the celebrant according to the
formula, "Jube Domine benedicere," and then reads the gospel. The
"jube " was therefore used to designate the elevated place where the gospel
was sung. The ascent to the loft is by two handsome spiral staircases, and
1 In the Vienna Cathedral there is a high altar of black marble, on which is a representa.
tion of the stoning of St. Stephen the proto-martyr. 128

ST. ETIENNE DU MONT.

two large doors at either side of the towering crucifix placed in the centre of
the screen, make the latter extend across the whole width of the church.
These doors, or the spaces near them, are inscribed with the words " Ascende
qui evangelizas Sion," " Audiam quid loquatur Dominus meus," " Ascend
thou who evangelizest Sion," " I shall hear what my Lord God says."
These words are on the right side, and on the other are, " Quam dulcia
fancibus meis eloquia tua," and " Levavi manus meas ad mandata tua." " How
sweet are thy words to my taste," ' and " I have uplifted my hands towards
thy commandments." These words are supposed
to be uttered by the youths whose figures are
sculptured on the doors. The pulpit is another
curiosity, and the sculpture shows Samson on a
lion, the strong man of the Jews supporting the
construction. Other figures are those of the
Evangelists, the Doctors of the church, St.
Stephen, the theological and cardinal virtues,
Jesus, and on the summit an angel, a trumpet in
one hand, and a gospel in the other. The angel
is supposed to repeat the words " In omnem terram
exivit sonus eorum," " Their voice went forth to
every land."
In one of the lateral chapels, that of Purga
tory, or the Virgin's Death, as represented by a
picture, there are lists of the names of persons
buried in the church, such as Pascal, the famous author of the " Pensees,"
Racine, poet, dramatist, and historian of the Abbey of Port Royal, famous for
its Jansenism, Jean Benigne Winslow, an anatomist, converted by Bossuet,
AntOine Lemaistre and Lemaistre de Lacy, who had been buried at Port Royal,
Rollin, Rector of the Paris University, and half a dozen other men of minor
celebrity. In another chapel, thatof the Crucifix, is seen a fine glass painting by
Pinaigrier (1568). It represents the wedding feast, with the unread)- guests.
Above is the Deity and underneath the inscription, " Many are called, but
few are chosen," " Multi vocati, pauci electi," with the coat of arms of
Madame de Viole, a benefactress of the church. Next to this is a holy
sepulchre, with quaint figures, and farther up, the oratory of St. Bernard,
where there is a portrait of the saint by Latil, as well as a notable picture
1 The Hebrew and Catholic version is " palate." The phrases are translated without
reference to either Catholic or Protestant versions of the scriptures.
129

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
of the Last Judgment, dating from 1605. Close to the screen is the chapel
of St. Charles Borromeo, the Archbishop of Milan, with a painting by Varin,
whose disciple, Poussin, is better known. Racine and Pascal, whose names
are recorded in another place, have their epitaphs in the chapel of the Sacre
Cceur, their remains being buried behind the choir. In this chapel there is
also a good picture by an artist of Le Brun's school. The chapel of the
Virgin is flanked by two columns from the old Basilica, but otherwise it is
uninteresting. The finest stained glass is in or near the apsis, notably the St. Stephen's
window with scenes from the martyr's life ; the Virgin's window, over St.
Vincent de Paul's chapel ; the St. Claude's window and the Pentecost
window near the screen. The latter is attributed to Henriet, and most of
the others to Enguerrand le Prince, whose work has been supplemented in
the church by M. Filon, a modern painter. Magnificent, too, is the
Apocalypse window, which was unluckily damaged by the shells of the
Communists in 1871. Above is the Lamb before the throne, with angels,
elders, and kings, and, beneath, the donor's family. The window was the
gift of Le Juge, a rich publican, who was a churchwarden in 1614. The
high windows have on them subjects from the life of Christ, the five in the
apsis being the oldest. We see on them the apparitions of Christ to the
disciples at Emmaus, to Magdalen, to his mother, to St. Peter and St. John.
In the Chapelle des Cathechismes are windows on which is pictured the
history of the Eucharist. One of these records the miracle which happened
in i2gi in the Rue des Billettes, where the holy sacrament having been
stabbed by a Jew, blood issued from it. Another of the windows displays the
mystic " Wine Press." In the centre Christ is seen under the press, blood
issuing from His body. Around are angels, apostles, and patriarchs, who
collect the sacred liquid. The composition is by Pinaigrier, and the window,
like that of the Apocalypse, was given to the church by the publican or wine
merchant Le Juge, already referred to.1
The " Tomb " of St. Genevieve is, for pious Catholics, the great, the
unique, treasure of the church of St. Etienne du Mont. According to the
Abbe Perdreau, cure of the parish, and also to the official record of the
Moniteur, of the 24th November, 1793, all the body of the holy shepherdess
was not burned on the Place de Greve by the Revolutionists. Some bones
had previously been distributed to different churches and monasteries, and
1 This is stated by the Abbe" Perdreau in his work on the church of St. Etienne du Mont,
from which the above details are taken. 130

ST. ETIENNE DU MONT.
fragments of the relics, including a lock of the saint's hair, are now in three
reliquaries at the foot of the statue of the Patroness of Paris, in St. Etienne
du Mont. The whole is surrounded by ornamental ironwork, and is an
object of the veneration of the faithful during the devotions every year in
honour of St. Genevieve. The entire chapel, as well as the tomb, is
elaborately ornamented, and the windows record the life of the saint.
In front of the altar, in the chapel, is a monument, containing the heart of
Monseigneur Sibour, who was murdered in St. Etienne du Mont. The
flamboyant Gothic decoration of the tomb and its surroundings was begun
by the Abbede Voisins in 1802. It was carried to completion by the Abbe de
Borie, cure of the church in 1853, and who was aided by the plans and
suggestions of Pere Martin, of the Company of Jesus. Before leaving this
church a word must be said about the peculiar leaning of its choir and altar
towards the right. This slant is peculiar to many Gothic churches, and by
some is attributed to the desire of the early architects to symbolize the
position of Christ at the moment of His death on the Cross, " And He bowed
His head and gave up the ghost." 1
1 St. John xix.

131

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St. Sulpice.

CHAPTER XI.

ST. SULPICE-ST. JULIEN LE PAUVRE-
ST. SEVERIN.

St. Sulpice and its district — The " Temple of Victory" the Banquet
to Bonaparte — The " Clarionet " lowers — The seminary of St.
Sulpice — Ernest Renan's connection with the church and the
college — The Sulpicians: Servandonis facade — The work of
Eugene Delacroix — The meridian line — The shells — St. Julien
le Pauvre and its pictured screen — A terrible district — St.
Sdverin — The stained glass — The daughter of Herodias dancing
— Historical operation on a criminal.

HE churches of St. Sulpice, of St. Julien le Pauvre and
of St. Severin, although of different interest and dates,
may be taken after the Pantheon and St. Etienne du
Mont, as they are in the vicinity of these buildings. None of
these churches are remarkable from the historic point of view,
with the exception, perhaps, of St. Julien le Pauvre, which was
once closely connected with the University of Paris. St.
Sulpice was begun in 1646, the foundation-stone being laid by
Anne of Austria, widow of Louis XIII., during the minority
of her son who was to be known as the Grand Monarque.1 The
parish was noted as the most wealthy in Paris before the great
Revolution. It is so still, to a certain extent. It stands in the
midst of the academical quarter of Paris, near the schools of
jean 11. theology, law, medicine, and military and civil engineering.
Around it are grouped the shops or stores which may be
said to supply the world with church furniture and ornaments of every
kind from imitation Calvaries, big crucifixes, altars and confessionals to flower
vases, paschal candles and ex-voto tapers. From these marts, too, are sent
out daily, heaps of ecclesiastical vestments, breviaries, rosaries, prayer-books,
scapulars, medals and religious pictures. In St. Sulpice take place many of
the " ordina'tions " as priests, of the students from the contiguous theological
college founded and controlled by the members of the Sulpician order. The
festival of St . Fiacre, patron of gardeners, is also celebrated there with great
pomp. During the Convention the great, wealthy church of the " Rive
Gauche," was temporarily transformed into a temple of victory. The
Revolutionists held it, or rather the Theophilanthropists or Deists founded by
La Reveillere-Lepeaux, one of the five members of the Directory, and from
1 This church is also under the patronage of St. Peter.
135 I

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
whom it received its new title. On the 5th of November, 1799, a grand
banquet was given in the church to General Bonaparte, fresh from his victories
in Egypt. Only a few days after that event, on the eighteenth Brumaire,
Bonaparte profiting by the weakness and the unpopularity of the Directory,
at the head of which were La Reveillere-Lepaux, Letourneur, Barras, Rew-
bell and Carnot, caused his grenadiers to disperse the Council of the Five
Hundred, destroyed the constitution of the year III., and made himself
master of France.
The saint to whom the church is dedicated is little known and there are
conflicting testimonies concerning him. There were two saints of the name,
first Sulpicius Severus, the " Christian Sallust," who wrote some valuable
works, including the life of St. Martin of Tours. This ecclesiastic, who was
at first a lawyer, is not in the Roman Martyrology, but there is an " office "
or service in his honour in the breviary of the Tours diocese. Alban Butler,
in his " Lives of the Saints," calls him Saint Sulpicius Severus. The other
Sulpicius, to whom the church now under consideration is dedicated, was
Bishop of Bourges in the seventh century.
Victor Hugo compared the two enormous towers of St. Sulpice to " big
clarionets." The poet is not, naturally, accepted by Catholics as an authority
in matters of any kind appertaining to their Church. It is true that the
Comte de Montalembert, the great champion of Catholicism whose mantle
has nowadays descended on the Comte de Mun, regarded the romance
" Notre Dame de Paris " as a splendid attack on the Vandals who desecrated
the works, of the middle ages by their injudicious restorations. The author
of the " Monks of the West " wrote, in fact, a letter to Victor Hugo on the
subject, but, as M. Douhaire points out in an article on the Renaissance of
Christian Art in the Correspondant of April, 1872, it is doubtful if Victor
Hugo saw anything in the art of the middle ages except a new literary mine
to be exploited. The same writer doubts if the poet had seized and penetrated
the Mediaeval spirit, but this is going too far. A man of Victor Hugo's poetic
temperament could not have treated Gothic art in an artificial manner. But
be all this as it may, the author of " Notre Dame de Paris " wrote what was
true when he called the Pantheon a bad imitation of St. Peter's, and com
pared the towers of St. Sulpice to "big clarionets." The exterior of the
church, which is neither Gothic nor mediaeval, for it was commenced in 1646
and only finished, with the exception of the south tower, about 1777, 1 is very
' Another date is 1749, but it was in 1774 that the architect Chalgrin finished his alter
ations in the north tower. 136

ST. SULPICE.
fine, so far as imposing bulk is concerned. St. Sulpice looks an enormous
building viewed from any part of Paris as well as from the fine square which
extends in front of it. This is flanked on the right side, as one enters the
church, by the monastic-looking college or seminary wherein the Sulpicians
train young men for the priesthood, and where Ernest Renan studied before
he took the step which led to his permanent separation from the religion of
his forefathers. The Sulpician order was specially founded for the education
of secular priests by Jean- Jacques Olier, usually called M. Olier, who was
cure of St. Sulpice Church in the reign of Louis XIII. This ecclesiastic
refused a bishopric in order to be able to continue his work. The first
Napoleon greatly admired the Sulpician priests, but their method of education
and rigid discipline have evoked the censure of Taine and other writers.
Renan has fully explained his connection with the great seminary in his
" Souvenirs de Jeunesse," and has left on record a description of his departure
from the gloomy walls of the big building which forms one side of the Place
St. Sulpice.1 Before his final renunciation, the author of the " Vie de Jesus "
had often assumed the surplice and taken part in the gorgeous ceremonies for
which the church of St. Sulpice is famous. Little did the priests or the
fellow-students among whom the young theologian then prayed, think that
he was afterwards destined to assail the most precious traditions of Chris
tianity in nearly as formidable a manner as Von Dollinger of Munich assailed
its history. Renan and the Bavarian canon effected between them a terrible
work. They may have been like those who, as Tennyson sings, seem to have
" reached a purer air," but they were undoubtedly responsible for having
confused with more than " shadow'd hint," many a life that led " melodious
days." : By his great renunciation, Renan, in addition to his celebrity as a
writer, gained the peculiar privilege of having a permanent place kept for him
at the table of one of the members of the Rothschild family.3
Our business, lies, however, not with the seminary of St. Sulpice and
its memories of Renan, but with the big church near which it stands.
The facade of St. Sulpice is, according to Fergusson,4 one of the grandest
in Europe. It was the work of Servandoni, and consists of a large
Doric and Ionic colonnade superimposed. The north tower, which
' The existing seminary was built in 1820. It has been compared to a barrack or
hospital, as well as to a monastery.
2 " In Memoriam," XXXIII.
3 This is related in the diary or "journal" of Edmond de Goncourt.
* History of Modern Architecture, London, J. Murray.
137 I 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
is finished, is slightly higher than the similar construction on the
cathedral of Notre Dame. The southern tower is unfinished, the work
undertaken by Chalgrin having been brought to a full stop by the great
Revolution. The interior of the church is also very stately and imposing
with its eighteen side chapels. Of it, however, Fergusson remarks, that " it
presents the defects inherent in Palladian churches where an Order of
Architecture designed for external purposes is used on the scale, and with
the simplicity which suits a large area exposed to the atmosphere, but which
becomes offensively rude when applied to internal decoration in a building
which not only pretends to, but demands elegance and richness of effect."
He adds that the absence of a dome prevents one part of the building from
overpowering the rest either by its height or its extent, and the interior
consequently looks larger and is more harmonious than is usual in churches
of this class. The unpictured windows give the church a Jansenist and
almost Protestant aspect. Few of the mural paintings are worth more than
a passing glance. The most notable are those in the first chapel of the
right aisle, " Heliodorus expelled from the temple and beaten," " Jacob
wrestling with the angel," and on the vaulting, " St. Michael," all by
Eugene Delacroix, the great Romanticist of 1830, the " Shakespeare of
painting," some of whose best work is in this very chapel of the angels, in
St. Sulpice.1 The other artists represented at St. Sulpice are Vanloo, Heim,
Abel de Pujol, Lafon, Hesse, Drolling and others. The fresco of the
Assumption, by Lemoine (1737), on the dome of the Virgin's chapel behind
the high altar, is also noteworthy, as well as the statue of Mary, by Pajou.
On the pavement of the transept is a meridian line traced in brass or
copper, with the signs of the Zodiac. The direction due north is shown by
a marble obelisk, and on the south is an opening in the transept window
through which, on fine days, the sun strikes at noon, on the line, or the
obelisk, according to the season. The meridian was traced between 1723
and 1748 by H. Sully and Lemonnier, to indicate the vernal equinox and
Easter Sunday. Among the other principal features of this majestic church
are the organ, built first by Cliquot and reconstructed by Cavaille-Coll in
1 861, and the holy water fonts, which are two big shells on rock-work designed
1 Other works by Eugene Delacroix (1799—1863) are in the Chamber of Deputies, the
Luxembourg and the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre. This painter had narrow escapes in
his youth. Once his cradle was burned, on another occasion he swallowed some verdigris,
twice he was nearly choked, and he fell into a dock at Marseilles, narrowly escaping a
watery grave, from which he was saved by a sailor.
138

ST. JULIEN LE PAUVRE.
by Pigalle. The shells were given to Francis I., by his allies the Venetians.
On the square outside the Church is a fountain on which are statues of
Bossuet, F6nelon, Massillon and Flechier, the great ecclesiastical writers and
preachers of the eighteenth century. These ornamental basins, designed by
Visconti, serve to accentuate the thoroughly ecclesiastical character of the
whole neighbourhood wherein the few inevitable wine taverns and tobacco
shops seem out of harmony with their clerical environment. Even the
very hotels and lodging-houses of the district are called after famous
ecclesiastics, and the majority of the shops with their profusion of altar-
pieces and general church ornaments look like small, exterior chapels of
the colossal edifice which towers over them and comparatively dwarfs
them by its imposing size.
The old church of Saint Julien le Pauvre is in the heart of the
genuine historic Latin quarter, near the fountain of St. Michael and not far
from Notre Dame. There are numerous St. Julians, but it is generally
admitted, from the testimony of St. Gregory, of Tours, that the martyr was
the first patron of the church and subsequently St. Julian of Mans. Around
the edifice are the haunts of some of the most notorious rascals in Paris,
but of late years this neighbourhood has been pierced with new streets which
have done a good deal to alter the reputation of the district. Some of the
old historic streets, like Dante's " Vico degli Strami," or the Rue du
Fouarre, still exist, but have nothing academic in their- aspect or environ
ment nowadays.
The existing church of St. Julien le Pauvre dates from 1170 or there
abouts, and was attached to the old hospital or Hotel Dieu. It was also
closely connected with the University of Paris. The church is a blending
of early French and Romanesque, which was the order of architecture
prevailing before the Gothic replaced it throughout the more northern and
western parts of France. The arches' in the nave are round-headed, those
in the choir being pointed. The church is small, but very interesting to
the archaeologist owing to the specimens which it still possesses of the fanciful
work of the mediaeval sculptors, notably on the capitals. There is a curious
monument in the church to Maistre Henri Rousseau, an "Advocate in
Parliament," who died in 1445, and a statue to Antoine de Montyon, founder
of the Academical " Prix de Vertu," stands in the left aisle. The edifice
is in a very dilapidated condition, without a tower or a porch. The entrance
is through a back yard in the Rue St. Julien le Pauvre, off the Rue Galande,
139

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
the main thoroughfare of a district which has much in common with the
Seven Dials, of old, or the labyrinths of Whitechapel. The walls are
crumbling, and the interior of the church is like that of a poor, out-of-the-
way, roadside chapel-of-ease in the depths of the country. There is some
brightness, however, communicated by the pictured screen drawn across
the chancel, after the manner of Greek churches. St. Julian's has, in fact,
been handed over to the Greek Catholics of Paris and is administered by
an Archimandrite, Monsignor Ignatius Homsy, who is also director of a
college for the training of young men intended to act as missionaries in the
East. Antiquity has also left its traces on the adjacent church of St. S£verin.

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ST. SEVERIN. 140

ST. SEVERIN.
This handsome edifice, with its tower, spire and sculptured portal, was begun
towards the end of the eleventh century, was reconstructed in the six
teenth, and enlarged in the eighteenth. The architecture is of the late Gothic
order. Inside the church, the gloom is greatly relieved by the fine stained
glass windows, some dating from the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries,
others being modern. On the right side of the nave is pictured the decapita
tion of St. John the Baptist. There is a realistic picture of the daughter of
Herodias in the dancing dress wherein she appeared before the King. In her
hand she has the " charger " containing the Baptist's head, around being the
" lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee." ¦ The scene is striking,
but one is rather surprised to find so theatrical a figure as that of Salome in
the holy place. The artist has arranged her drapery in a manner calculated
to arouse other thoughts than those of devotion in the minds of worshippers.
The figure is more fitted for the interior of the opera house than for that of
an edifice the very existence of which is a protest against the ensnaring
pleasures of the world.
The church is dedicated to a recluse who died in a Paris garret and was
buried in the oratory of St. Clement, which, in the sixth century, occupied
the site, of St. Severin's. The death of the holy Solitary is pictured on
one of the windows near the choir. Other interesting features in the edifice
are the arches and vaulting, and the mural paintings by the twO Flandrins,
Hippolyte and Paul, by Heim, Hesse, Gerome, Lenoir and others. One is
surprised to see so much art lavished on a church in a poor neighbourhood,
but it must be remembered that some of the best monuments and treasures
of antiquity in Paris are to be found, not in the monotonous and ultra-
fashionable Champs- Elysees, but in dilapidated, and sometimes disreputable
districts. Fashion, as a rule, does not care for antiquity, so it gathers up
its train and hastens away from its neighbourhood.
The first organ ever heard in Paris was that of St. Severin. On the
southern side of the church there is part of an old cloister, and in the garden
of the presbytery, formerly a cemetery, the operation for stone was first
performed in Paris. That Was in the year 1374, the person operated upon
being a thief who had been condemned to death. Having survived the
operation, the man was pardoned.
1 St. Mark vi. The Catholic version is " princes and tribunes, and chief men of
Galilee."

141

lt)al=&e=(Brace

CHAPTER XII

THE SORBONNE— THE VAL-DE-GRACE— ST. LOUIS
DES INVALIDES— ST. FRANCIS XAVIER'S— THE
CHURCH OF ST. JOSEPH DES CARMES— ST. THO
MAS D'AQUIN— ST. LOUIS EN LTLE— ST. JACQUES
DU HAUT PAS— ST. MEDARD'S— ST. NICOLAS DU
CHARDONNET.

Richelieu's tomb — Stealing the Cardinal ' s head — Opening of the tomb
in 1895 — Mignard's frescoes in the Val-de-Grdce — St. Louis
des Invalides. The Hotel des Invalides — The Sombreuil family
— The cup of blood — Napoleon 's tomb and funeral — The church
of St. Francis Xavier — The church of St. Joseph des Cannes —
The massacre of the priests — The spots of blood — The crypt —
Josdphine de Beauharnais in the prison of the Carmelites —
St. Thomas d'Aquin — St. MMards.

CHARLES V.

.FTER the lapse of several centuries the church of the
Sorbonne is now nearly all that remains of the old
scholastic buildings erected by the munificence of
Cardinal Richelieu between 1635 and ID59- These construc
tions, which were intended for the Theological Faculty of the
Paris University, were not finished at the time of the
Cardinal's death. The expenses of the restoration were borne
by Richelieu, who had a predilection for the famous institu
tion, founded by Canon Robert de Sorbon, in the thirteenth
century, for poor students, who, until then, had been obliged
to beg, in order to obtain food and lodging. Later on the
institution of poor scholars developed into the headquarters
of scholastic theology, and Richelieu, among other notable
men, studied there. Napoleon the First united the University
and the Sorbonne, and in the new buildings erected since 1885, but not yet
quite finished in parts, literature and science, as well as theology, are
represented. The institution is also true to its old traditions, for lectures are
given there gratuitously between December and July, and the merest man in
the street is at liberty to attend them.
Richelieu's tomb is the main feature of interest in this church which has
been called a " little St. Peter's." The Cardinal Minister of Louis XIII.,
who died in 1642, after an agitated and eventful life, during which he
strengthened the French army, routed foreign foes and virtually ruled
France, was interred near the place where he had studied in youth.
Sismondi, in his history of the French people, condemns Richelieu as the
founder of despotism in France. It was this powerful minister and
ecclesiastic who, when told that the poor should be allowed to live, as well
as other people, said that he did not see the necessity. At the approach of
death, however, he is said to have asked God to condemn him, if he had any
145

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
other motive at heart, in ruling with a rod of iron, save the welfare of his
religion and his country. His tomb was the work of Girardon, from Lebrun's
design. The Cardinal, in his ecclesiastical robes, is half raised from his
recumbent attitude and looks heavenward. He is supported by Religiom
and there is a weeping female figure at his feet. The monument is con
sidered theatrical, but the composition is fine. The memorial extends
nearly the whole length of the chapel in which it is placed.
During the great Revolution the tomb was opened under circumstances

THE TOMB OF RICHELIEU.

of a peculiar character. In December, 1793, the Revolutionists decreed
that the monuments in the Sorbonne should be demolished, or, as the
phrase is, " profaned." While the workmen engaged in opening the tombs
were at breakfast one morning, a bonnet-maker, named Cheval, entered the
Sorbonne church, and approaching the opened tomb of Richelieu, stole the
Cardinal's head and a fragment of the coffin. The tradesman soon after
gave up the ghastly relics to a priest, the Abbe Armez, who, in his turn,
transferred the head to his brother, a country mayor. In the meantime,
the body of Richelieu was flung to the winds by the Revolutionists. The
146

THE SORBONNE.
head was subsequently re-interred in or under the Sorbonne monument, the
Armez family having given it to the government. There was a ceremony
on the occasion of the re-interment of the head in 1866, when M. Duruy,
Imperial Minister of Public Instruction, Archbishop Darboy, and the Dean
of the Sorbonne were present. • The funeral oration of Richelieu was
preached by Monseigneur Perraud, Bishop of Autun, who was afterwards to
be a member of the French Academy.
This is the usual version of the recovery of Cardinal Richelieu's head.
The statements of the Armez family were accepted, but they have frequently
been challenged. A writer in the Temps of Thursday, the 5th of
September, 1895, referring to the opening of Richelieu's tomb in the
presence of the architect of the Sorbonne, M. Nenot, and of M. Hanotaux,
Minister for Foreign Affairs in the year mentioned, who is the historian of
the Cardinal, and others, stated that the head and body of the great states
man were then seen in the coffin. The spectators of this gruesome scene
were deeply moved, and at the same time surprised at the excellent state of
preservation of the Cardinal's head and face, which were exactly as Philip
de Champaigne had painted them in his portraits now in the British
National Gallery. One of those who were privileged to witness the
unsealing of the tomb with M. Hanotaux told the writer in the Temps that
the head emerged from a lace or ruffled collar much browned, that the
moustache and beard were perfect, and that the tuft of hair on the Cardinal's
chin was cut square. This was explained by M. Hanotaux on the following
ground. In his last illness Richelieu was much inconvenienced by the drops
of the syrups and tisans which he had to drink falling on his barbiche, or
small peaked beard. He accordingly told his attendants to shorten the
barbiche, so they cut it square with a scissors.
This story of " Richelieu Redivivus," as the narrator terms it, is worthy
of all respect. It appears in a serious newspaper over the nom de guerre of
" Candide," which is supposed to be the name by which M. Jules Claretie,
academician and manager of the Comedie Francaise, veils his return to the
columns of the same journal wherein of old appeared his weekly articles on
" La Vie a Paris."1 On the other hand, an equally estimable writer, M.
Georges Montorgueil, controverted " Candide " in the columns of I 'Eclair, so
that the dispute about the real contents of Richelieu's tomb in the church
of the Sorbonne still remains unsettled. There is still another account of
the peregrinations of Richelieu's head, and according to which it was sawed
' M. Claretie now contributes regularly to the Temps in his own name.
147

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
in two by the person who stole it. Archaeologists and scholars generally
cannot fail to be disappointed owing to these contending and contradictory
opinions and statements. As in the case of the Royal tombs at St. Denis,
for instance, such vandalism has to be borne with, and regret must be
expressed that there have been Frenchmen, Revolutionists, Royalists and
Imperialists, so deficient in appreciation of the great past of their country
as to deface or destroy monuments and tombs invested with deep historical
interest. There is little else to say of the small church of the Sorbonne. Its
architecture, as has been remarked, is imitative of that of St. Peter's of
Rome, with some of the improvements in the style introduced by the school
of Andrea Palladio of Vicenza, the last great architect of the Renaissance.
The pictures in the church are Timbal's " History of Theology," in which
saints and doctors such as Bernard, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas are
seen, and Hesse's " Presentation of Students to St. Louis by Robert de
Sorbon." The spandrels of the dome were done by Philippe de Champaigne,
the Belgian artist, who painted religious subjects for Marie de' Medici,
Richelieu and Louis XIII. Timbal, who died in 1880, was of the school of
Drolling and Signol.
Another notable church in the same neighbourhood, is that of the Val-
de-Grace, at the southern end of the Rue Saint Jacques, near the
Boulevard de Port Royal. The abbey, now a great military hospital for the
Paris garrison, was formerly a convent for Benedictine nuns. It was
founded, together with the church, by Anne of Austria, in thanksgiving for
the birth of her son, soon to be Louis Quatorze, at St. Germain-en-Laye in
September, 1638. Seven years after, the child, already ruler of France,
under the regency of his mother and the direction of Cardinal Mazarin, laid
the foundation stone of the Val-de-Grace. Mansard was the architect, and
his plans were carried to completion by Lemercier, Lemuet, Leduc and
Duval. The dome is imitated from that of St. Peter's, and the whole effect
of the building is fine, although a good deal of fault has been found with it,
chiefly on the ground that the aim of the designer was out of proportion
with the means at his command, or the object for which he was building.
His church was to be far smaller than the great Roman Basilica, but he
insisted on using the plan of St. Peter's for a building of minor dimensions.
At the time, however, Italian art and architecture were in fashion, and.
everything mediaeval was regarded as barbarous and obsolete. In the interior
148

VAL-DE-GRACE.
of the church there is a baldachino like that over the high altar and the
tomb of St. Peter at Rome. The ceiling is coffered, and on the dome is a
faded fresco by Pierre Mignard, called the Roman, to distinguish him from the
less celebrated Nicholas Mignard, of Avignon, his brother. Moliere, in his
poem, " La Gloire du dome du Val-de-Grace," lauds this painter to the
skies : — " Toi qui dans cette coupe, a ton vast genie,
Comme un ample theatre heureusement fournie,
Es venu deployer les pr^cieux tresors,
Que le Tibre t'a vu ramasser sur ses bords."
The comic dramatist cannot find anything better than an " amply-
furnished theatre," by way of comparison with the church. In spite of
Moliere's extravagant praise which led him to call Raphael and Michael
Angelo the Mignards of their century, the once popular painter of the Val-de-
Grace frescoes, of the " Ecce Homo," the portrait of Madame de Maintenoii
and of many other celebrities of his epoch, has now lapsed into oblivion. It
was in this church that Bossuet made a great funeral oration over the coffin
of Queen Henrietta, third daughter of Henri Quatre, and wife of Charles I.
of England. The modern military character of the Val-de-Grace is testified
to the visitor before entering the church by the bronze statue of the famous
Surgeon-General of the first Napoleon's " Grand Army," Baron Larrey, who
died in 1842.
The most important church on the left bank of the River Seine is
undoubtedly that of St. Louis des Invalides. It is a notable landmark
of visitors owing to its connection with the tomb of Napoleon and the
Hotel des Invalides. It may, therefore, be appropriate to give a brief
account of the whole cluster of buildings, which correspond to Chelsea
Hospital. Many kings of France had thought of erecting a refuge for
dilapidated old soldiers, but it was Louis XIV. who first took any practical
measures for the protection and shelter in their old age of the men who had
lost limbs, or passed the best of their lives in the service of the country.
There are statements to the effect that Louis was much moved by the fact
that many disbanded warriors not only begged, but robbed people on the
highways. In any case the old pensioners were in a sad plight, and in 1670
a royal edict appeared ordering the foundation of the Hotel des Invalides.
It was finished after Bruand's designs in 1674, and the place was opened
by Louis Quatorze himself, who arrived there in a carriage drawn by eight
149

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
white horses, and followed by a large retinue, among the persons taking
part in the royal procession being two old soldiers who had fought at
Arques and at Ivry. The garden front of the hospital is garnished, if
not defended, by some pieces of historic cannon forming what is called a
"Triumphal Battery." These comprise Austrian, German, Dutch, Venetian
and Russian guns, and near them is a statue of Prince Eugene de Beauhar-
nais. In the internal part of the building are the principal curiosities of
the place — the Artillery Museum and the dome over the ashes of Napoleon.
Before dealing with the church, it may be worth mentioning incidentally,
that the battery was drawn upon as well as the artillery museum in July,
1789, by the Revolutionists, who wanted guns to demolish the Bastille.
Penvern, cure of St. Etienne du Mont, at the head of his parishioners,
joined the rabble in clamouring for arms at the Hotel des Invalides. Under
the first Republic the place was called the " Temple of Humanity," and
also the " Temple of Mars." The Lion of St. Mark, taken from Venice by
Napoleon, once stood on the Esplanade in front of the great military refuge,
but the Austrians recovered the monument in 1815.
The church of St. Louis, which, with the dome, forms the " Eglise des
Invalides," is approached from the southern side of the imposing " Court
of Honour." It is here that the old pensioners attend mass on Sundays,
and as they pray, they see around them many memorials of battle. The
pillars of the church are inscribed with the names, on tablets, of many
notable French warriors, and overhead hang the flags captured in war, among
them being a Union Jack. Some of the old trophies of victory in the church
dated from the time of Francis I., but with the flags taken by Napoleon's
Grand Army, and the others sent to the place by Louis XIV. and his
successors, they were burned in 1814, before the entry of the allied forces
into Paris. The pensioners had previously signified their intention of dying
in defence of the Imperial standards and trophies, but the governor of the
Invalides persuaded them to burn the tattered memorials of war in the
Court of Honour. In the reign of Louis Philippe the flag collection was
re-organized, and the Senate sent to the Invalides the trophies of the
Grand Army which it possessed. The church has monuments to Marshal
Moncey, the Duke of Conegliano, to Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, to Jourdan,
Duke of Padua, and also to several governors of the Invalides. In the
vaults are buried Turenne, removed from St. Denis, Jourdan, Moncey,
Oudinot, Duroc and Bertrand, the faithful henchmen of the first Napoleon,
Mortier, Grouchy, Bugeaud, Sebastiani, Exelmans, as well as later heroes
150

Ube 3nvali£>es-
Snterior.

To face p. 150.

THE INVALIDES.
like St. Arnaud, of Crimean fame, and MacMahon. There are also in the
place the hearts of Vauban, Kleber, General Negrier, and Mademoiselle de
Sombreuil, daughter of the Governor of the Invalides, who, in August, 1792,
was arrested for having taken part in the defence of the Tuileries against the
people. There was a story to the effect that the Revolutionists made
Mademoiselle de Sombreuil, who followed her father to prison, drink a cup
of blood. This is, however, now disbelieved. Father and daughter were
acquitted by Maillard and his associates, but they were afterwards
re-arrested with the younger son of M. de Sombreuil. The Governor of the
Invalides and his son were guillotined among the fifty-four persons who
perished in the " fournee," or " batch " of the 17th of June, 1794. Among
these were Montmorency- Laval, De Rohan-Rochefort, Madame de Saint
Amaranthe with her son and daughter, as well as the faithful servitors of the
doomed aristocrats, the actress Granmaison, and the little dressmaker
Nicolle, who was barely sixteen years old. The elder son of De Sombreuil
was shot as an emigrant by a military tribunal of the First Republic, and
Mademoiselle de Sombreuil, whose heart is in the Invalides, languished in
want, and, as Carlyle says, " hid her woes from history." The father, with
the others who perished at the same time by the perfected guillotine of
" improved velocity," was buried in the cemetery of Picpus, called the
" Cimetiere des Guillotines." Through the pale-blue window over the altar
of the church the dome or tomb of Napoleon is dimly seen.
This building is also approached from the Place Vauban, on which is,
indeed, the public entrance. Here are chapels containing the tombs of
Turenne and Vauban, whose remains are in the vaults, of Joseph Napoleon I.
and Jerome Napoleon I.1 Two of the chapels are empty. The tomb of
Napoleon is circular and was designed by Visconti. The body of the
Emperor was transferred hither from St. Helena in 1840, and Thackeray
has left us a notable description of the whole affair in his " Miscellanies."
The preliminaries of the transfer were arranged between Guizot, Louis
Philippe's Minister, and Lord Palmerston. The English Government gave
orders that the body should be disinterred when the French ships arrived
at St. Helena, and that " every respect and attention should be paid to those
who came to carry back to their country the body of the famous dead
warrior and Sovereign." Then there was a debate in the French Chamber
as to where the body should be buried when it reached home. Some
1 These temporary monarchs were also known as Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples
and then of Spain, and Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia.
151

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
suggested the Place Vendome where stands the bronze column, an imitation
of that of Trajan in Rome, and erected as a memorial of Napoleon's
victories over the Russians and Austrians in 1805. 1 At last it was resolved
that the remains of the conqueror who had filled the world with his fame
should be placed under the gilded dome of the Invalides. The expedition to
St. Helena was commanded by the Prince de Joinville. The disinterment
was effected by the English, the French officers, with the exception of the
Prince de Joinville, being present. The body was in a good state of pre
servation. " The features of the face, though changed, were perfectly
recognized, and," as Doctor Guillard wrote in his account of the exhumation,
" the hands left nothing to be desired (les mains ne laissaient rien a, desirer;
nulle part la plus legere alteration)." The same authority states that
Napoleon's toe-nails had burst through his boots, that his beard had grown
after death, and that all his medals and decorations had become black,
with the exception of the gold crown of the Cross of the Legion of
Honour. The body was transferred to the Belle Poule frigate, the English
authorities of the island attending. These were General Middlemore and
Colonel Trelawney, the latter commanding the artillerymen who escorted
the funeral car. General Churchill, chief of the staff in India, was also
present, having come expressly from Bombay. Thackeray mingles the gay
with the grave in his description of the great funeral ceremony at the
Invalides when Napoleon's body was placed under the great dome on "the
banks of the Seine, among the people whom he so well loved," according to the
inscription over his tomb. "Bertrand," says the English humorist, "put
on the body the most glorious, victorious sword that has ever been forged
since the apt descendants of the first murderer learned how to hammer steel,
and the coffin was placed in the temple prepared for it. The six hundred
singers and the fiddlers now commenced the playing and the singing of a
piece of music ; and a part of the crew of the Belle Poule skipped into the
places that had been kept for them under us, and listened to the music,
1 Thackeray, in the " Miscellanies," is rather misleading when he states that the
Vendome Column was " melted out of foreign cannon.'' The monument is of stone
encrusted with bronze plates obtained from 1200 Russian and Austrian cannons. In 1814
the statue of Napoleon was taken down by the Royalists, but Louis Philippe had it replaced.
The Emperor Napoleon III. had another figure of his uncle substituted for that made by
order of the "Citizen King," and in May, 1871, the whole column was pulled down by the
Communists. It has since been restored, and remains another of the many proofs of French
fickleness in political matters. 152

THE INVALIDES.
chewing tobacco. While the actors and fiddlers were going on, most of the
spirits-of-wine lamps went out."
Napoleon's sarcophagus, which rests on a mosaic ground representing a
laurel wreath, is fourteen and a half feet high, and consists of one immense
block of Finland granite. Over the entrance to the crypt are the words
above referred to, " Je desire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la
Seine, au milieu de ce peuple Francais que j'ai tant aime." The body is
encased by no fewer than five coffins. The vast monument and the funeral

TOMB OF NAPOLEON, INVALIDES.

ceremonies cost 6,744,000 francs, or nearly £270,000. The dome rises
160 feet high over the crypt, and on its sections and compartments are
paintings by Jouvenet and Delafosse, pupils of Le Brun, the accredited
historical painter, or, it may be said, " decorator," employed by Louis XIV.,
in whose reign the. Hotel des Invalides was erected. The gilded dome of the
tomb of Napoleon is, according to Fergusson in his " History of Architec-
153 k

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
ture," one of the most elegant structures of its class, and resembles St. Paul's
in plan more than any other domical church on the Continent.
Not far from the Invalides is the church of St. Francis Xavier, dedicated
to the memory of the great apostle of the Indies, who is also the glory of the
Company of Jesus. This church was erected between 1861 and 1875, the
old church of St. Francis Xavier having been handed over to the Foreign
Missions. The architecture is pseudo- Renaissance, and the interior is
ornamented by stained glass and mural paintings by Bouguereau, Bonassieux
and others. There is a very large oratory in the apsis.
More interesting is another church in the same part of the city, namely
that of St. Joseph-des-Carmes, in the Rue de Vaugirard, a large domical
edifice approached from a court, slightly resembling a cloister. This is the
old church of the monastery of the bare-footed Carmelites, called also
" Discalced," or " Discalceated," and by the French " Dechaux," or
" Dechausses." The monastery was founded in 1611 by two Carmelites
from Italy, to whom Nicholas Vivian, a God-respecting Controller-General
of Accounts, gave the ground on which stood a hall where the Calvinists
had preached their doctrines. This hall was used by the Carmelites as
a chapel and was afterwards enlarged. Then, owing to the increase of
the popularity of the friars, the church was erected, the foundation stone
being laid by Mary de' Medici in 1613. The chief historical event with
which this church is identified was the great Revolution. In the year 1792
the monastery was suppressed and the church was used as a prison in which
royalists and priests were confined. Nearly all the ecclesiastics were
murdered by the " Septembriseurs," who massacred thirty other non-jurant
priests outside the gates of the Abbaye prison of St. Germain-des-Pres.
During these September days Sans-Culottism ran riot through Paris, and
about one thousand and eighty-nine people, including two hundred and two
priests, were butchered in the various prisons. These are the figures given
by Carlyle as quoted by him from " accurate Advocate Maton." The
butcheries were perpetrated on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th of September, 1792.
The stains of blood in or around the church of the Carmelites have been
partially preserved. They are notably to be seen in a little oratory in the
garden called the Chapel of the Martyrs. Strange to say, the Terrorists did
not molest the friars of the convent, and only attacked the arrested priests.
The murdered ecclesiastics are buried in the crypt of the church. After these
154

ST. JOSEPHDES-CARMES.
terrible events, a public dancing place was organized in the gardens of the
monastery, and was called the " Tilleuls " or " The Limes." There, on the
ground reeking with the blood of the victims of Sans-Culottism hopped and
frisked the gay nymphs of the Latin quarter and their admirers, and
probably also, some of the very men and women who had rushed shrieking
through the streets after the doomed royalists calling out for their heads.
In 1793 the monastery again became a prison. Among those tem
porarily confined there were General Hoche, Santerre the brewer, the
Marquis de Soyecourt, and notably Josephine Tascher Beauharnais, after
wards to be the wife of the first Napoleon. Josephine was first thrown into
Sainte Pelagie prison about the same time as Madame Du Barry, ex-mistress
of Louis XV., who had returned from London only to be arrested as a
suspect and to die by the guillotine.1 Josephine was recognized as she was
waiting about in the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace, also a prison, and
wherein her first husband, Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais, was confined.
Like other persons of her rank, Madame de Beauharnais, dressed shabbily,
was looking out for some fond signal from the Palace or prison windows.
At the prison of the Carmelite convent — St. Joseph-des-Carmes — Josephine
heard of her husband's death on the scaffold and swooned ; blood, it is said,
streaming from her lips. While she was ill and anxious in prison, fully
expecting that she was about to follow her husband to the guillotine, and
that her children would become penniless orphans, a hope beamed on her
and on her fellow prisoners. It is related that one morning as she sat at the
window of her jail, she saw a poor woman out in the street behaving as if
she were a lunatic. This shabbily dressed person, after having danced
frantically in the middle of the road would look long at the prison windows,
next take a stone from the ground, hold it up and finally roll it in her dress,
or robe. Then she would immediately draw her hand across her throat.
These antics were performed for the purpose of letting the prisoners in the
Carmelite convent know that Robespierre, the " sea-green tyrant," had gone
also to the guillotine. The pierre, or stone, rolled in the woman's robe, or
dress, symbolized the tyrant's name, and the hand drawn across the throat
1 Carlyle calls Dame Du Barry " unfortunate female," in the street sense of the term, and
an " ex-harlot of a whilom majesty." Vatel, in his history of the favourite of Louis XV.,
labours to prove that she had not been a " fille publique " before her connection with the
king, but only a " kept woman, in the widest sense of the word." In England, Madame
Du Barry wrote love-letters to one of the members of the Somerset or Seymour family. They
are given in the " Memoirs sur le dix-huitieme siecle " (1833-1867), edited by Barriere. See
also, as well as Vatel, the work of the brothers Goncourt, '¦ Les Maitresses de Louis XV."
155 K 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
signified his decapitation, which happened in Thermidor, year 2, or July,
1794. After 1797, the cloister and church of the Carmelites were bought by
the Marchioness de Soyecourt, daughter of the Marquis. In 1841 the Arch
bishop of Paris purchased the place and founded there a theological college,
or " school of advanced ecclesiastical studies," and in 1849 part of this
property was given to the Dominicans and their famous head in France,
Pere Lacordaire. Little else need be said of the church of St. Joseph-des-
Carmes except that it was built in 1625, has the first dome, on the St.
Peter's plan, which appeared in France, possesses good frescoes painted by
the Belgian artist, Flamael, in the cupola, and, near the entrance to the
vestry, a marble monument containing the heart of Archbishop Affre, who
was shot at the barricades in June, 1848. The chief curiosity of the church,
however, is the crypt, with its tombs and ghastly mementoes of the savage
days of September 1792.
Not a long distance from St. Joseph-les-Carmes is the small church and
cloister of the Abbaye aux Bois, near the big shop of the Bon Marche.
This place is chiefly remarkable for Madame Recamier's connection with it,
and must not be confounded with another — the older Abbaye aux Bois — by
the wood of Verrieres outside Paris. It was to the Abbaye aux Bois,
formerly a Cistercian convent, that Madame Recamier, whose rival in beauty
was Pamela, wife of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, retired in 1819, when " Son
vieil epoux," as M. Recamier has been ungraciously called, had suffered a
second reverse of fortune. The salon of Madame Recamier at the Abbaye
was moulded on that of the Marquise de Sable in the Faubourg Saint-
Jacques. The Marquise had also half-retired to a monastery, that of Port
Royal, where she died in 1678. As Sainte-Beuve says in his " Causeries de
Lundi," she had a window open on the convent and a door open on the
world. This was exactly the case of Madame R6camier, who had around
her, in the Abbaye, all the friends and admirers who remained faithful to her
in her comparative adversity.
In the same district, but nearer to the river, are the fashionable churches
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, namely, St. Thomas D'Aquin and St.
Clotilde. The building named after the Angelic Doctor of the Dominicans
must be taken first, as it is an old church. St. Clotilde's, being modern,
must take its place amongst those like it. Formerly the church of St.
Thomas, now resorted to on Sundays by members of the stately families of
156

ST. THOMAS D'AQUIN.
the aristocratic Faubourg, was attached to the Novitiate of the Dominicans
founded in 1631, under the patronage of Cardinal Richelieu. The monastery
stood in the Rue des Vaches, " Cow Street," but the name of the locality
was altered by the friars to that of their founder, St. Dominic, by which it is
nowadays known. In 1638 the Dominicans began to build a larger church,
that which now exists. The foundation stone was laid by the Archbishop of
Albi and the Duchess de Luynes, Anne de Rohan Montbazon. In the days
before the Revolution the church contained the tombs of Marshal de Navailles
and of Francis Romain, a Dominican from whose plans was constructed
the Pont Royal. Gabriel and Mansart are also mentioned as architects of
this bridge. In 1795 St. Thomas D'Aquin became the Temple of Peace
and was handed over to the Theophilanthropists. The name of Temple of
Peace was wrongfully applied, for it was here that the sect of Theophil
anthropists was first split up by internal dissensions. The church has been
restored to the Catholics since 1803. The facade of the edifice has two good
bas-reliefs of St. Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas. In the interior are
frescoes by Blondel, Lemoine's " Transfiguration " scenes on the ceiling,
Ary Scheffer's " St. Thomas Aquinas calming a Storm," Guillemot's
" Descent from the Cross," and Bertin's " Christ on the Mount of Olives."
Among the other old churches on the left bank of the river are St.
Louis-en-LTle, that is to say, on the island of St. Louis. It may be
classed, at least, as on the left bank, like Notre Dame and the Sainte
Chapelle. It was commenced in 1679 and was finished in 1725. It has not
much history, except that the poet Quinault was buried there in 1688.
There are in it pictures by Mignard, Coypel, Perron, Perrin, Vouet and
Hall6, with woodwork and stained glass lately restored and very interesting.
The church is at the end of the long, narrow and thickly-populated street
forming the nucleus or centre of the island, and called the Rue St. Louis.
It is a queer, out-of-the-way part of Paris and looks provincial, although it is
within a stone's throw of the Law Courts, and, it may be said of the Louvre
Palace. Of the other left-bank churches there is not much to say. Saint
Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, in the Rue St. Jacques, near the Luxembourg, was
begun in 1630 from Gittard's designs, the foundation stone having been laid
by a royal prince. It contains some good pictures, one of which, " Faith
157

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Hope, Charity and Religion," is attributed to the seventeenth-century
master, Lesueur.
Saint MedArd's, dedicated to the French St. Swithin, is^supposed to be
one of the poorest of Paris churches. It was once a small chapel attached
to the Abbey of St. Genevieve, but this was enlarged in the sixteenth century.
This church was the scene of a great struggle between the Huguenots and

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the Catholics in 1561. According to one version, the Protestants, who
had a meeting-house close by, were annoyed by the sounds of the Catholic
bells, and broke into St. Medard's. The Catholics showed fight, and
the conflict was only stopped by the royal archers. Another version is
that the clergy of St. Medard incited their parishioners against the Protes-
158

ST. MEDARD.
tants. The two places of worship were sacked, but St. Medard's was
restored, whereas the "Temple of the Patriarch," as the Huguenot meeting
house was called, remained closed. The cemetery of St. Medard was a
miracle-working locality in the eighteenth century, and the sect of " Convul-
sionists " had their headquarters there. Louis XV. ordered the graveyard
to be closed, and somebody accordingly wrote on the walls of the place that
" By order of the King" God had been ordered to perform no more miracles
on the spot.
Another church in this district is that of St. Nicolas-Du-Chardonnet,
Rue St. Victor, which derives its name from the thistle or " chardons '' once
abounding in the locality, and not from the Word " chardonneret," or gold
finch. In this church is a pyramid to the memory of Le Brun, the accredited
painter of Louis XIV. The monument is crowned by a bust of the famous
court artist. With this church. the minor and less interesting religious
edifices of the Latin quarter and of the left bank of the Seine must come to
a close.

159

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CHAPTER XIII.

ST. EUSTACHE— ST. GERVAIS, ST. PROTAIS— ST.
LEU, ST. GILLES— ST. MERRI— ST. NICOLAS-DES-
CHAMPS — ST. LAURENT — STE. ELIZABETH —
NOTRE DAME DES BLANCS MANTEAUX— ST.
PAUL, ST. LOUIS— STE. MARGUERITE— NOTRE
DAME DES VICTOIRES — NOTRE DAME DE
LORETTE— ST. ROCH— NOTRE DAME DE L'AS-
SOMPTION.
St. Eustache and its three patrons — -Jacob the Hungarian — The
Butchers — Scarron' s wife — A terrified congregation — Mirabeau
— Madame Momoro, Goddess of Reason — The women's club —
The Communists and the Market-women — Moliere's funeral —
St. Gervais — Scarron s tomb — St. Leu — The bleeding statue —
St. Merri's — St. Nicholas-in-the- Fields — Mademoiselle de
Scuderis tomb — Other churches — Rabelais and the man of the
Iron Mask — The monuments to the Mignons — Cardinal
Richelieu's first mass — The Dutch Dauphin — The English
converts — Barras, Bonaparte and the Venus of the Capitol.

CHARLES VII.

TS enormous size is the chief characteristic of St.
Eustache. The church of the market-women, situated
near the combined Billingsgate and Smithfield of Paris,
is a colossal and lofty edifice. It comes next to the Cathedral
in vastness, and is one of those churches which every one
must see. The edifice occupies the site of a chapel once
dedicated to St. Agnes. The chapel had taken the place of
a Roman Temple to Cybele, and was attached to the parish
of St. Germain L'Auxerrois. It was built with the money of
one Jean Alais, manager or director of the mystery-players.
The whole parish was originally under the patronage of
St. Eustatius, a Roman captain of the time of Trajan, who
became a Christian, of St. Agnes, whose memory Tennyson
has enshrined in undying verse, and of St. Louis of France.
It was while the latter was absent at the crusades that the old
church of St. Eustache was invaded by the Pastoureaux or peasants, who,
under the leadership of the ex-monk Jacob the Hungarian, gave much
trouble in Paris in 1255, by fighting against the nobles and priests. In
1414 the church was the meeting-place of the butchers who, just before the
domination of the English, vowed vengeance against the Armagnac party
and, instigated by the Duke of Burgundy, were nearly masters of Paris.
The existing church was begun in 1532 on the plans of Lemercier of
Pontoise, and it was only in 1642 that it was all finished save the portal and
one of the towers. It was in the church of St. Eustache that Francoise
d'Aubigne, afterwards Madame de Maintenon, wife of Scarron and then of
Louis XIV., used to say her prayers when she quitted Calvinism for
Catholicism. The ecclesiastical chroniclers of the parish relate that for
a long time before she met the cripple Scarron, Francoise d'Aubigne was
befriended, pecuniarily, by a charitable lady who was one of the regular
163

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
worshippers in the church. It is said that the young woman in her first
fervour rose at midnight in order to attend matins at St. Eustache.
Louis XIV. made his first communion in St. Eustache, as he was then
living not far away, in the Palais Royal, under the tutelage of his mother,
the Regent Anne of Austria. In 1676 Flechier, Bishop of Nimes, preached
there before Louis XIV., the funeral oration of Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne,
Vicomte de Turenne and Marshal of France, who was killed by a bullet at
Salzbach, like Wolfe, in the moment of victory. A more famous sermon
was heard at St. Eustache in 1704, when Massillon terrified the audience by
his references to the day of judgment, so much so that they rose from their
seats. In 1791 the Cure of the church had to hide from the Revolutionists,
and with his vicars conducted the work of the parish by stealth. In the
same year the body of Mirabeau was carried to St. Eustache by the Revolu
tionists, and a funeral oration was made by Cerutti, the ex-Jesuit from
Piedmont, who subscribed to the opinions of 1789 and became a member of
the Legislative Assembly. The ceremony was concluded by the discharge
of firearms which, as Carlyle says, " brought down pieces of plaster." In
the evening Mirabeau's body was carried to the Pantheon. In the May
following, the barbers' assistants in Paris had a service in St. Eustache for
Mirabeau. The church was next given over to the Women's Revolutionary
Club or Society which was composed of abandoned and profligate
adventuresses who alarmed the Committee of Public Safety by their conduct,
attitude, discussions, and the bold extravagance of their petitions.
Then followed the Feast of the Goddess of Reason, which was carried
out here as well as in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Mercier has left a
picture of the desecration of the church, which is quoted by Carlyle, who
is inclined to look upon the statements of the Frenchman as extravagant.
Enough happened, however, to give so lively a chronicler as the author of
the " Tableau de Paris " full scope for his pen. The church was converted
into a vast tavern and eating house. Sausages, poultry, vegetables, were
brought in there from the adjacent markets. " Reason sat in azure mantle
aloft, in a serene manner; Cannoneers, pipe in mouth, serving her as
acolytes." Out of doors the drunken crowd danced around " a bonfire of
chapel-balustrades, of priests' and canons' stalls." The Goddess of Reason
s at St. Eustache was Madame Momoro, wife of one of the Antiaristocrats. He
was a bookseller by trade. Carlyle calls him a Bibliopolic and Bibliopolist who
" knew something of Agrarian law." Momoro was guillotined with the Heber-
tists in March, 1794. His wife, according to the great Scotchman, " made one
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ST. EUSTACHE.
of the best goddesses of Reason, though her teeth were a little defective." Abbe
Torre, quoting from the book on St. Eustache by M. Goudreau, Cure of the
parish in 1855, says that, during the feast of Reason, the interior of the
choir of the church was turned into a mock-rural place with thatched huts
or cabins and rocks, between which there were paths leading to mysterious
grottoes. The viands and drinks were piled on tables around the choir, and
everybody who entered had a right to eat and swill, and then to join in the
orgies. In the " charnier " of the building, the women had their club
founded by an actress named Lacombe, who wore a red bonnet or Phrygian
cap while she was in the chair. The club was dissolved as ridiculous by
Robespierre, just before he abolished the cult of Reason, and officiated as
the high priest of the Supreme Being. Abbe Poupart was at last allowed
to return to his cure in June 1795, St. Eustache having been opened in
advance of other religious places. He had, however, to share the vast
building with the Theophilanthropists and the town councillors who held
their meetings there. In 1801 the Abbe Bossu obtained full possession of
the church, restored it after the ravages of the Revolutionists, who as usual
had done much damage, received pictures for the embellishment of the
chapels and was substantially aided by the pious people of his extensive
parish in preparing the edifice for divine worship. In 1844 the parish priest
of St. Eustache was the Abbe Deguerry, during whose term of office a fire
broke out in the church and destroyed the organ. The damage was soon
repaired by the proceeds of a lottery. The Abbe Deguerry was removed to
the Madeleine in 1848, and was shot by the Communists in 1871 with
Archbishop Darboy. It was at this period, too, that the attention of the
Communists was particularly directed to the great church of the " Dames
de la Halle." The market-women had always been proud of St. Eustache,
and once had a voice in the nomination of the Cures. The " nomination "
was, of course, only a joke, but it did happen that Abb6 Marlin, Cure in 1645,
really owed his place to the intervention of the market ladies, who insisted
that he should succeed his uncle.
On Holy Thursday, April, 1871, the Communists ordered the arrest of
Abbe Simon, the Cure of St. Eustache. Six guards and a sergeant took him
to the Prefecture of Police where he was locked up. His parishioners, old
and new, immediately set to work in order to effect his release. The
butchers of the parish of St. Eustache held a meeting of protest, the people
of the parishes of St. Margaret and of Petit-Rouge', where M. Simon had
been before, signed petitions, and the " Dames de la Halle " sent a delegation
165

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
to the Prefecture of Police to ask for the release of their popular priest.
The following conversation ensued between one of the women and the
Communist chief :
" Citoyenne, what do you want ? "
" I want my Cure, M. Simon of St. Eustache. I am not here to ask
a pardon from you, you understand. I want my Cure."
" Your Cure is like all the others."
" I have nothing to do with the others. I want my Cure. Tell me, I
beg of you, why you arrested him ? "
" Because it has pleased us to do so."
Just then, somebody whispered into the ear of the Communist chief, and
the market-woman overheard the terrible word " Mazas." This aroused her
anger and she shouted out, " No, he shall not, must not go to Mazas. I am
going to take him back with me, and if I don't you had better look out, for
you will get a hot reception in the markets, I can assure you." This threat
had some effect, and the "Dame de la Halle " was told that she would have her
Cure safe and sound on Easter Saturday. M. Simon was in fact released.
Accounts of his benevolence and charity, petitions for his release, were so
numerous and emanated from such humble quarters that the Communists
had to give in. Felix Pyat, Beslay, and the redoubtable Raoult Rigault, who
was one of the first insurgents to be shot when the Versailles troops entered
Paris, befriended the priest. M. Simon was released on Easter Sunday,
much to his surprise. It was half-past three o'clock in the morning when
his warder opened his cell door, and shouted out in stentorian tones,
" No. 115, get up, make haste, take your traps and go down in the court
yard.'' " Where am I going to ? "asked the Cure in painful doubt. " I don't
know," was the reply. " Perhaps you are going to be discharged, or perhaps
you are going to be shot. Life, you know, is full of ups and downs. Any
how, look alive and get down." M. Simon did as he was desired, and on
reaching the courtyard was conducted by guards to the presence of a mock
magistrate of the Commune who was in a room filled with tobacco smoke,
around him being his friends or assistants. After having been questioned, the
" Citizen Simon " was told that, owing to his good reputation in his district,
he was at liberty to leave the prison, which he did, with a safe-permit from
Raoult Rigault. The Cure at once went to his church, celebrated his Easter
Sunday mass, offered the usual consecrated bread to his parishioners,
according to an old custom in the Paris diocese, and made a short address
to his congregation in which he thanked them for their solicitude on his
166

ST. EUSTACHE.
behalf. Thus M. Simon escaped the fate of the hostages of the Com
mune. His troubles, however, were not all over. A few days after his return to
his flock the church was invaded by a band of Communists who wanted to
hold a meeting there. M. Simon managed to have his own way. He told
the men quietly that the place was a house of prayer, and that they had no
right to smoke, spit, harangue, argue and keep their hats on there. The
insurgents accordingly retired, but the Curd had again some trouble with
them as the Versailles army was advancing through Paris. The Communists
ordered that the bells of St. Eustache should ring out as a tocsin of alarm,
the city being in danger. The bell-ringer, in his haste, or fear, gave forth a
jubilant peal, the " grande vol6e des fetes," and a crowd soon burst into the
church crying out for the Cur6. M. Simon parleyed with the lunatics, but
was dragged off to the police station, where, having explained the mistake
of the bell-ringer, he was liberated amid the frantic acclamations of his
parishioners. According to the Abbe Coullie, vicar of the parish during the Commune,
and subsequently Bishop of Orleans, the " Dames de la Halle " armed them
selves with big knives on this occasion and were ready to fight the Com
munists if the Cure had not been discharged from custody. Joined by the
butchers, the ladies of the market would no doubt have made blood flow
copiously around St. Eustache on that occasion if their wishes had not been
wisely taken into account by the insurgent chiefs. The " Dame de la
Halle " who had distinguished herself in obtaining the liberation of the
Cur6 from prison, died some years after the Commune, and there was a
splendid funeral for her in the church of the markets. It may here be
remarked that the names of the hostages who were shot by the Communists
are inscribed on a wall in the south transept of St. Eustache.
The church of the Paris markets was built twenty-six years after St.
Peter's of Rome, and is a mixture of late Gothic and Renaissance. Accord
ing to Fergusson it is in reality a Gothic five-aisled church, and it is only in
details that an experienced eye sees the linfluence of classical architecture.
The arches are round and the pillars are of different orders. The frontage
has a Doric great door, and a gallery above in the Corinthian style. The
other doors, like the rest of the building, suffered a good deal in 1870-71, but
the restorations have been effective and a good deal of the old Renaissance
sculpture has been well reproduced or repatched. St. Eustache, although
surrounded by lofty houses, appears a vast edifice, and its colossal size is
167

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.

further realized when one stands inside, in the middle of the nave, and follows
the lines of the tall pillars and arches until they lose themselves or merge
into the lofty vaulting which is the highest of any church in Paris. A
curious motive in the external decoration of St.
Eustache is the stag's head and crucifix, which may
be seen over one of the smaller rose-windows.
The stag's head and crucifix — the arms of the
parish — symbolize the legend of Placidus, the
Roman soldier who became St. Eustace or
Eustatius. Placidus was out hunting one day
when a stag which he was about to kill revealed
itself as Christ and a crucifix appeared between
its horns. The statue of St. Eustache is seen in
the central pier of the north door. The patron of the church is arrayed
in the garb of a Roman officer.
This vast edifice is 348 feet long, 144 feet wide, and 108 feet in height.
Its chapels are full of fine frescoes by Signol, Lariviere, Vaugelet and others.
The stained glass in the clerestory windows is by Cartaux, and there is a fine
statue of the Virgin by Pigalle over the high altar. Other features are the
boss which hangs from the centre of the transept with its large angelic
figures supporting a cross ; the ornamentation of the pillars, the exquisitely
carved pulpit, the organ-case surmounted by figures of Saul and David, and
also of St. Cecilia, the " banc d'ceuvre," or space reserved for magnates of the
parish, churchwardens, etc., with its woodwork representing carven scenes
from the life of St. Agnes, and the tomb of Colbert, the Finance Minister of
Louis XIV. This is a sarcophagus in black marble, the effigy of the states
man being in white. Several notable Frenchmen, such as Voiture and
Benserade, the society poets, rivals and friends of Madame de Rambouillet,
in the seventeenth century, Rameau the musician, were buried in St.
Eustache or in the cemetery of St. Joseph near it. When Moliere died in
1673, the Cure of St. Eustache refused Christian burial to the dramatist on the
ground that he had not been reconciled to Mother Church. The king,
however, was approached by the playwright's widow, and the Archbishop of
Paris consequently allowed the body to be buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery,
but on condition that it should not enter the church. Moliere was accom
panied to his last home by two hundred mourners bearing torches. Among
these were two priests who said prayers over his grave and sprinkled it with
holy water, so that he did not, after all, depart without benefit of clergy.

ST. GER VAIS AND ST. PROTAIS.
Before taking leave of this highly interesting church of the markets, it
must be mentioned that it is the favourite place of worship of the musicians of
Paris. Here are given oratorios and sacred concerts in Holy Week, and on
St. Cecilia's Day, November 22nd. The music of the services is always
fine, the organ being one of the best in Paris. The relics of St. Cecily,
authenticated by Papal rescript dated November 28th, 1853, are in the chapel
dedicated to the patroness of music. The same chapel contains the tomb of
the musician Rameau, and on the altar-wood is painted the body of St.
Cecily just as it was discovered in the catacombs by Pope Pascal I. in 822,
and afterwards by Clement VIII., in 1599. Another chapel worth seeing is
that of St. Louis, which is pictured with episodes from the life of that
monarch. St. Eustache is full of relics, among them being bones of the
patron, and of his wife and children, a fragment of the Holy Sepulchre, and
bits of St. Vincent de Paul's body and clothes.
Next in importance to St. Eustache comes the Church of Saint
Gervais and Saint Protais, at the end of the Place de l'H6tel-de-Ville,
formerly known as the Place de Greve. The locality is one of the most
historical in Paris. It was on the Place de Greve that Count Montgomery,
of the Scottish Guard, was put to death by order of Catherine de' Medici,
who made him responsible for the fatal accident which befell her husband,
Henry IE, during a tournament in the court of the neighbouring Palais des
Tournelles, now the Place des Vosges. The church of St. Gervais and St.
Protais was erected towards the end of the fifteenth century on the site of
an older building. It was dedicated to the two martyrs Gervasius and
Protarius who had suffered death in the persecution ordered by Nero. In
1616 the existing portal was erected, the foundation stone having been laid
by Louis XIII.
Madame de Sevigne was married in this church, and in it were buried
Scarron, the cripple and husband of Madame de Maintenon, the painter
Philip of Champaigne, the poet and dramatist Crdbillon, and Chancellor Le
Tellier, whose mausoleum exists. In 1795 the church was known as the
" Temple of Youth." The architecture is a combination of the Flamboyant
and the Renaissance. The interior is Gothic, and the portal of 1616 is
composed of the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. The frescoes are
notable as well as the stained glass, two of the windows being old. One in
the Lady Chapel is by Cousin, the other, in the chapel on the right-hand
side of the choir, by R. Pinaigrier (sixteenth century). Notable, too, are the
169

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
altar ornaments, the carven stalls, the organ loft, and the pendentive or
sculptured boss which hangs in the Lady Chapel. This chapel is a splendid
specimen of Flamboyant Gothic, but it was disfigured about twenty years
since with ornamentation out of harmony with the architecture. The five
stained glass windows showing the history of the Virgin are the work of
Pinaigrier, ably restored in 1846 by Gsell.
Almost midway between St. Eustache and St. Gervais is the church of
St.Leu-St.Gilles, and below this is another old church, that of St.
Merri in the Rue St. Martin. The church of St. Leu-St. Gilles was raised
on the site of an old chapel which was enlarged in 1320, and became a
parish in 1617. The apsis of the church had to be reduced in proportions
in order to preserve the alignment of the Boulevard de Sebastopol. One of
the patrons of the church was a saintly French bishop, Lupus or Loup, the
other was the gentle hermit St. Giles who sheltered a hind from the hunters.
The exterior has a belfry with a spire which has openings. Among the
pictures is one representing an incident said to have happened in June, 1418,
when a Swiss soldier, having struck with his sword a street statue of the
Virgin, it bled. The statue was then removed to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields,
the Swiss was executed, and every year afterwards, until the Revolution, a
dummy figure representing him was burned like a Guy Fawkes at the corner
of the Rue-aux-Ours, where the effigy of the Virgin had stood. The event
is described in an inscription in one of the chapels.
The Gothic church of St. Merri was begun in 1520 and finished in 1612.
The patron was St. Medericus or Mederic, of Autun, who lived on the spot
when in Paris. Odo, the Falconer, built a church in the ninth century on
the site which was subsequently replaced by the existing edifice. In spite of
the transformations which it has undergone, the church interests by its
sculptured bosses, its stained glass with fragments of sixteenth-century
work, and its arches. The three painted windows over the apsis give that
part of the church and the chancel a bright cheerful appearance, and
favourably impress the entering worshipper or visitor. The high altar is
surmounted by a large marble crucifix by Dubois. There is also a curious
crypt which fills the place once occupied by the tomb of the patron saint.
Before the Revolution the church contained the tombs of the poet Chapelain
and of the Marquis de Pomponne, one of the Ministers of the Grand
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ST. MERRI.
Monarque. The church suffered a good deal at the hands of the Revolu
tionists, and the exterior ornamentation is all restored work.
St. Merri's church is towards the river end of the Rue St. Martin.

ST. MERRI.

Another old and interesting church is that of St. Nicolas-des-Champs,
which is near the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, the Gaite Theatre and
the main boulevard, and in the same street of St. Martin. This edifice,
which is Gothic, with a fine Renaissance portal on the southern side, was
originally a chapel for the use of the servants of the priory of St. Martin-des-
Champs and people of the district. The priory is now the Conservatoire des
Arts et Metiers, a trade museum and educational institution which contains
the old abbey church of St. Martin and the refectory of the monks.
The chapel of St. Nicholas, the patron of pawnbrokers as well as of boys,
maidens, and merchants, was enlarged at different periods between 1399
and 1576. The lower part of the nave has pointed arches of the fifteenth
century, with round pillars, but towards the altar the columns are Doric or
Ionic. It is one of the longest churches in Paris, and its interior, although
171 L

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
full of pictures by Vouet, Sebastien Bourdon, Landelle, Caminade and
others, looks rather Calvinistic when compared to the internal part of its
neighbour, St. Merri's church. One of its most interesting features is the
varied and delicate workmanship on- the woodwork of the organ, which is
by Cliquot. The privilege of seeing this is granted to whoever cares to
apply to M. le Cure.
In 1797 the Theophilanthropists took over the church of St. Nicolas-
des-Champs and called it the Temple of Hymen. It contained the tomb of

ST. NICOLAS-DES-CHAM I'h.

Gassendi, the philosopher and professor who taught Moliere, Chapelle,
Bernier and Cyrano de Bergerac, only to mention a few of his notable pupils.
This monument has, however, disappeared like that erected over the last
resting-place of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, who has been called the " Richard
son of France," and was bitterly satirized by Moliere and Boileau. Her
memory has been, however, eloquently defended by an English authoress.1
' " French Women of Letters," by Julia Kavanagh. In Besant's " French Humourists,"
172

St. Xaurent.

To face p. 173-

ST. LAURENT.
Proceeding in a northerly direction from St. Nicolas-des-Champs,
another old church, that of St. Laurent, is to be found near the Eastern or
Strassburg Railway Station. It dates from the fifteenth century, and is on
the site of an older church which was attached to an abbey of the sixth
century. This monastic place was swept away in one of the invasions of
the Northmen, and its exact site is difficult to determine. The patron is the
Holy Deacon of Rome who, in the third century, was roasted on a gridiron,
and who, during the terrible process, told his tyrants to turn him over, as
one of his sides was already done enough. The Communists, who seriously
damaged the church in 1871, pretended that they had discovered in the
crypt the dead bodies of women who had been murdered, and then buried
pell-mell under the building. Fragments of the skeletons of the victims
were exhibited during the Commune, but according to Messrs. Virmaitre
and Buguet in their " Paris Croque-mort," a doctor who saw the exhibition
described it as a " put-up job," designed for the purpose of throwing discredit
on the priests and of drawing money from the pockets of the credulous. St.
Laurent's church has a fine Gothic frontage and spire. The tympan over
the portal is ornamented with a painting representing the life history of the
patron saint. The bright colours of this fresco give the exterior of the
edifice a rather Italian appearance in spite of the Gothic architecture. The
interior of the church lacks decoration, except for the bosses and the stained
glass in the choir windows. The inevitable Theophilanthropists had charge
of the church in 1795, and called it the " Temple of Old Age."
In the more eastern part of Paris is the church dedicated to St.
Elizabeth of Hungary. This is situated in the Rue du Temple, and the
first stone was laid by Maria de' Medici, in 1628. St. Elizabeth's has little
to recommend it save the baptismal font in white marble of the sixteenth
century and the exquisite fourteenth-century wood carving.
Near the Rue du Temple also, is the old church of Notre-Dame-des-
Blancs-Manteaux. It stands in the street of the same name, and close to
the great pawn-office, or Mont de Pi6te. The title was derived from the
" Servants of Holy Mary," who wore white mantles, and had a convent in the
locality founded by St. Louis, King of France, in 1258. The name remained
in spite of the suppression of the " Servants of Holy Mary," in 1274, an(l
the authoress of " Clelia '' is compared to Richardson, whose vigour, however, she lacked, as
is stated in Sir W. Besant's book. 173 L 2

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
their replacement by the " Hermits of St. William," or " Guillemites," who
wore black and were merged with the Benedictines of Saint-Maur, in 1648.
The first stone of the existing church was laid by Chancellor Le Tellier, in
1685. It was in the former church that the body of the Due d'Orleans,
assassinated by order of Jean-sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, was brought
from the neighbouring Hotel Barbette, in 1407. The place is also interesting
as it was in the monastery of the " Blancs Manteaux," to use the popular
name, that the Benedictines of St. Maur began their splendid historical
records, which are nowadays carried on by the Academie des Inscriptions et
Belles Lettres. When the monastery was closed by the early Revolutionists,
the Benedictines were authorized by the Constituent Assembly to remove
the books of which they had need for their historical work.
Also in the east end is the church of St.-Paul-St.-Louis, Rue St.
Antoine. It occupies the site of a chapel dedicated to the Apostle of the
Gentiles by St. Eloi, and enlarged in the reign of Charles V. Being the
church nearest to the H6tel St. Paul and the Royal palace of the Tournelles,
many princes were baptized there. Near this church and connected with it
by a passage was a cemetery in which were buried Rabelais and the
mysterious prisoner called the " man of the iron mask." In the old church
were buried Marshal de Biron, Nicot and the two Mansards. There were
also in it mausoleums, erected by Henri III. to his mignons, Maugiron, Saint
Megrin, Quelus and Caussade, who fell by the hands of the followers of the
Due de Guise. These monuments were destroyed by the people during the
uprising against King Henri III., in 1589. A few years before these tragic
events, Cardinal de Bourbon gave the property over to the Jesuits, who
established a novitiate there and laid the foundations of the present church,
in 1627. The novitiate now belongs to the Lycee Charlemagne. Under
the church were buried many famous Jesuits like Tournemine, Bourdaloue
and La Chaise. The hearts of Louis XIII. and of Louis XIV. were once
placed in the choir, and before the Revolution were transferred to the Val-
de-Grace. Later on, the first Napoleon ordered the ornamental urns which
had contained the royal viscera to be removed to Fontainebleau palace, and
there placed in the private chapel of the captive pope. Georges Cadoudal,
chief of the Chouans of La Vendee, defeated by General Hoche in 1796, was
buried at St. -Paul-St. -Louis, but under the Restoration his body was
removed to loyal Brittany. Another memory connected with this church
is that of Cardinal Richelieu, who said his first mass here.
174

NOTRE-DAME-DES- VICTOIRES.
The edifice was planned by the Jesuit Francois Derrand, and is an
example of the style of Maderno, Borromini and the others who with them
introduced elaborate ornamentation. The general effect of this — the Jesuit
style— is rich and picturesque, although it is objected to as rococo and
meaningless. The interior of St. -Paul-St. -Louis is elegant, with its square
pillars on each side of the nave, the triforium with round-headed arches, the
cornice with railed gallery, and the paintings, one of which, " Christ in the
Garden," is by Eugene Delacroix.
In the Rue St. Bernard, Faubourg St. Antoine, is the church of Ste.
Marguerite, formerly a chapel, built in 1625, and enlarged in 1736 and
1765. In its cemetery was buried in June, 1795, the body of the Dauphin,
son of Louis XVE, who died in the Temple, although there are those who
maintain that the young prince escaped from Paris and went to Holland,
where he lived under the name of Nauendorff. This church contains some
pictures and works of sculpture of fair merit, but otherwise it is completely
devoid of interest.
Turning now to the west, the first important church requiring notice is
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, which is a permanent protest against the
long-vanished power of the Huguenots. It stands in the busiest part of
Paris, although the Place de Petits-Peres around it is quiet enough. The
Bourse, however, is not far away, and the bustling Rue Montmartre is close
by. It was formerly the abbey church of the Discalced or Bare-footed
Augustinians, who were first invited to Paris by Margaret of Valois. These
friars were called the " Little Fathers," on account of their poverty ; others
say to distinguish them from the Grands Augustins, or non-reformed
Augustinians, while it is also alleged that Henri Quatre bestowed the name
on them in allusion to their diminutive size. The " Little Fathers " began
to build the church in 1628, and in the following year Louis XIII. directed
that the edifice should be called Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in commemora
tion of the defeat of the Huguenots at La Rochelle. The king himself,
attended by all his court and by the notables of Paris, laid the foundation
stone, which was of black marble, and bore in letters of gold a pompous
inscription declaring the " Most Christian King of France and Navarre,"
" invictus et ubique victor."
This church has not much history. After the Terror it was used as a
Bourse by order of the Directory (Eighteenth Nivose, Year IV. of the
175

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Republic, or 8th of January, 1796). In 1803 it was restored to the clergy,
and is nowadays a place of pilgrimage and the church wherein young
ecclesiastics who are called upon to serve in the army hear mass before their
departure to their regiments.
The church was constructed in Ionic style, the portal being like those
peculiar to churches of the Jesuits. The interior has only one nave, also
Ionic, and surrounded by chapels. On the cupola is painted an Assump
tion. The transept chapels are ornamented by windows painted by
Perrault, and the woodwork around the choir is of fine finish. Lulli, the
musician, is buried in this church. Notre-Dame-des-Victoires contains many
votive offerings from pious Catholics. Among these ex-voto gifts is one from
three English converts. It is numbered 2631 and the inscription runs :
THANK ¦ OFFERING
FROM ' THREE • ENGLISH CONVERTS.
A. R. LA. I. G.
4. May. 1. June. 2. July.
1864.
Under this is an inscription recording gratitude to Our Lady of Victories
" at whose feet so many prayers had been made for the conversion of
England at the demand of the Hon. and Rev. George Spencer, recently con
verted, and known since under the name of Father Ignatius of St. Paul, of
the Order of Passionists, died October 1st, 1864."
Before 1871, when the church was plundered by the Communists, the
crowns on the heads of the Virgin and child were very valuable. They were
shown on fete days. Some of the ornaments had been presented by the
Marchioness of Wellesley, others by Pope Pius IX. Abbe V. Dumax, by
the way, who wrote a small book on the church,1 makes a curious mistake
about the Marchioness of Wellesley, an American lady, Miss Caroll, whom
he talks of as ascending the throne of Ireland, of which country her husband
was Lord Lieutenant. The excellent Abbe was evidenty misled by the title
" Viceroy." Miss Caroll first married Mr. Patterson, brother-in-law of
Prince Jerome Bonaparte. The Abbe further states that when the
Marchioness left the Court she set apart some of her jewels to form with
them a crown for Our Lady of Victory. The memorandum of the gift
is on parchment, and is preserved among the archives of the church.
1 " Le Pelerin a Notre Dame des Victoires. Paris, 1881." After the plundering of the
church by the Communists, the parishioners and others subscribed for the purchase of new
crowns for the Virgin and child. These were consecrated by the Papal Nuncio in 1876.
176

Zhc ibfgb Hltar-
Saint IRocb.

To face p. 177.

ST. ROCH.
Northward of the Church of Victories is that of Our Lady of Loretto,
" Beatse Mariee Virgini Lauretanse," according to the inscription on the
entablature over the portico with its four Corinthian columns. The church
is very modern, but it replaced an old edifice dedicated to Notre-Dame-
des-Porcherons, built in 1645. Notre Dame de Lorette calls for little
treatment. It was built between 1823 and 1836 from the plans of Lebas,
in the style of a Roman basilica. The interior is elaborately ornamented.
Painting and gilding unite to give the church a gay, rather than a devotional
appearance. It has been called the Church of the Demi-monde, or of the
" Lorettes," for whom its marble, stucco and gold would seem to have been
intended. The Demi-mondaines, however, when they do go to church,
which often happens, are to be seen in the Madeleine, the Trinite, and St.
Augustin, as well as in Notre Dame de Lorette. This church is also used
by the artists of various categories, who dwell in the streets leading to
Montmartre on one side, or in those verging towards the Conservatoire of
Music and the main boulevards on the other. The best frescoes are those
in the nave and choir, which deal with episodes from the Virgin's life.
To the south of the district in which this edifice stands, is the Church
of St. Roch, a rococo, Renaissance edifice which has been subjected to
much criticism for its elaborate ornamentation. The whole neighbourhood
around it is full of historic associations. The church itself dates from
March, 1653, when Louis Quatorze and his mother, Anne of Austria, laid
the foundation stone. Its history is rather uninteresting until the year of
the Republic, 1795, when it was a " Temple of Genius " in the hands of the
Theophilanthropists. In that year a young and obscure artillery officer was
selected by Barras to help in putting down the opponents of the Convention,
who were Royalists endeavouring to incite the electors of Paris against
the Republic. Bonaparte, who had been recommended to Barras by
Madame Tallien, the lovely and clever T6rezia Cabarrus, known as the
"Venus of the Capitol," the " Egeria of the Mountain," and by other
classical appellations common in those days, had already gained a little
prestige at Toulon. It was at the Church of St. Roch, however, that he first
showed the Parisians that he was made of the iron stuff from which Nature
fabricates great commanders and famous figures in history. He had only
5000 men against 20,000, but he did not hesitate to act with promptitude
and decision in spite of the odds. The Royalists held the ground fronting
the Church of St. Roch, then extending to the Tuileries gardens. They
177

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
were also strong on the other side of the river. Bonaparte directed Murat
to bring up the guns from the- artillery park of Sablons, placed them on the
quays from the Pont Neuf to the Pont Royal and around the church of St.
Roch. On the 5th October, 1795, the " Sectionnaires," as they were Called,
began to advance, when Bonaparte ordered them to receive the famous
" whiff of grape-shot." The whole episode must be read in the penulti
mate chapter1 of Carlyle's " French Revolution." There it is enshrined in
immortal prose, which no French or English chronicler of the dramatic
events of the end of the eighteenth century has equalled. There we are
told that the "firing was with sharp and sharpest shot ; to all men it was
plain that here was no sport : the rabbets and plinths of St. Roch Church
show splintered by it to this hour," and that by the historic whiff which
" blew to air some two hundred men, mainly about the Church of St. Roch,"
the event called French Revolution was whirled into space and became a
thing of the past.
These brief extracts will serve to show what an important part St. Roch
played in modern history. Its architectural features may be out of
harmony with its historical associations, but it remains a highly interesting
church. Some of the paintings by Schneiz; " Christ blessing the Children,"
"Christ driving out the Money-changers," by Thomas; the " Daughter of
Jairus," by Delorme ; the " Triumph oi Mordecai," etc., are good. The
marble monuments are likewise notable. Most of these were sent to the
church, after the restoration of the monarchy, from the Museum of French
Monuments. Among these are the mausoleums of Maupertius, of Cardinal
Dubois, and of the painter Mignard. From Mignard's monument some
ingenious person detached the figure of his daughter, Madame de Feuquieres,
and placed it as that of Mary Magdalen, at the foot of the Cross of the
Calvary. This Calvary is behind the high altar and has three groups of
statuary, lighted from above. It is much visited by the faithful, especially
in Holy Week. Among the other monuments or memorials worth noting
are those of the Abbe de l'Epee, founder of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum,
the bust of Lenotre, the great landscape gardener, who designed Versailles
and other places, by the elder Coysevox, and on the left pillar of the
principal door a medallion portrait of Pierre Corneille, the dramatist, who
died in 1684 and was buried in the church. His Bi-Centenary was
solemnized by a Requiem Mass at St. Roch in 1884. The venerable cure
1 Carlyle's words are " The thing we specifically call French Revolution is blown into
space by it, and becomes a thing that was." 178

.. NOTRE-DAME-DE-L'ASSOMPTION.
invited to it the actors and actresses of the Comedie Francaise, the leading
playhouse being in his parish, and its company being the only one which
keeps up the classical drama of which Corneille is the chief exponent.
The church was crowded on the occasion, not only by the players of the
great Th6atre Francais, but by ladies and gentlemen of the dramatic
profession generally.
Not far off, down the Rue St. Honor6, is the Church of Notre Dame de
l'Assomption, with its heavy dome and environing cloister. It was built in
the seventeenth century for the nuns called the " Filles de l'Assomption,"
or " Haudriettes," from Jean Haudry, their founder. The cupola was
painted by Lafosse, with the scene of the Assumption of Mary into heaven.

179

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/^MM)W£?5^

Pi -

CHAPTER XIV.

fIDofcent Cburcbes.
THE MADELEINE— ST. PHILIPPE DU ROULE— THE
CHAPELLE EXPIATOIRE— ST. AUGUSTIN — ST.
CLOTILDE — THE TRINITE— ST. VINCENT DE
PAUL— THE BASILICA OF THE SACRE-CCEUR—
THE CHAPEL ' OF THE CONVENT OF THE
SACRE-CCEUR AND THE SMALLER CHURCHES.
The fashionable church — The Madeleine and the Commune — A
Temple of Glory — The cemetery of the Madeleine — Louis
XVI. and Marie Antoinette — Rossini's funeral — The Sacrd-
Coeur and the old Church of St. Pierre — A famous hill — The
Hallelujah of the Germans — Ignatius Loyola — Henri Quatre
and the Abbess — The Temple of Reason and the Montmartre
Goddess — Montmartre in 1814, 1871 and 1895.

ARY MAGDALEN'S memory is enshrined in
one of the finest of modern churches. For the
Madeleine is undoubtedly modern, as, although
its foundations were laid in 1764, during the reign of the
Fifteenth Louis, it was not finished and consecrated until
1842. Unlike other edifices of the kind, even including,
'''\{Jh$Eirfll IrP to a certain extent, Notre Dame, it stands out alone,
s^,Je^/i=^" unhidden by surrounding buildings. All its noble propor-
louis xii. tions are visible, it raises itself proudly and prominently in
one of the finest parts of Paris, and eclipses its environ
ment by its stateliness and its size. Here come to pray all the
fashionable devotees of Paris. It is as great a centre of the latest modes
in dress and finery as the Grand Stand at Longchamp, or the annual
Horse Show in the Champs Elysees. Do the dainty devotees pray ? The
answer is difficult to give. There are many, no doubt, who are touched
by the semi-celestial music, the gorgeous processions of priests and acolytes,
and the fascinating eloquence of the favourite and fashionable preachers.
A large proportion of the well-dressed congregation are there, however,
mainly for the purpose of meeting each other, of seeing and being seen,
and of fulfilling the duty of attending mass. It is not good form in the real
fashionable society of Paris to be an atheist or a cynic in religious matters.
There was undoubted atheism among the frequenters of the Salons of the
old regime, but the modern descendants of the Crusaders, the Leaguers and
the ancient noblesse generally are, or appear to be, good Catholics. The
Madeleine is also a church for fashionable marriages, and it lends itself
admirably, exteriorly and inside, to lavish display on the occasion of
weddings. Its cure, the Abbe' Deguerry, was one of the victims of the
Communists, and, in order to avenge his death, the Government troops are
said to have driven a whole crowd of insurgents into the church, and to
have slaughtered them there. 183

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Contant d'lvry was the first architect of the Madeleine, and intended to
build a church like the Pantheon. His successor Couture adopted other
designs, and was erecting a new construction when he was brought to a full
stop by the outbreak of the Great Revolution. In 1806 Napoleon issued a
decree, while he was at Posen, ordering the work to be continued, and the
edifice to be prepared as a " Temple of Glory " for his soldiers. Vignon
carried out the new designs, and the construction assumed the appearance
of a Greek temple, with fluted Corinthian columns, a colonnade all round
the body surmounted by a sculptured frieze. The facade was done by
Lemaire, with its inscription "D.O.M. Sub Invocatione Sanctae Magda-
lense," its pediment with bas-relief representing the Last Judgment, and
its frieze and cornice. The composition lacks life, and, perhaps, the bronze
doors sculptured with subjects from the Ten Commandments by Triqueti,
form the most interesting features of the exterior.
Gilding is abundant in the interior of the splendid church, which is
lighted from the top. The most important feature is the high altar, on
which is a marble work by Marochetti representing Mary Magdalen being
carried to Paradise by Angels. On the vaulted top of the choir is a fresco
by Ziegler on which the history of Christianity is depicted. It is not a
great work of art, but it answers its purpose well and includes figures of
Constantine, Clovis, Barbarossa, Dante, Joan of Arc, the Wandering Jew,
Napoleon, Pius VIE, in fact, nearly every remarkable historical personage
who has been connected with the Christian Church in a special manner.
There is not much, to be said of the Church of St. Philippe du Roule in
the Faubourg St. Honore, except that it stands on the site of an old leper's
hospital, that it was built in the Greek style by Chalgrin between 1760 and
1784, and that it contains a " Descent from the Cross " painted by
Chasserian. Not far from this edifice is the small church of St. Pierre-de-
Chaillot, which, like St. Philippe du Roule, is in the parochial district of
the Madeleine. The Chapelle Expiatoire, in the Boulevard Haussmann, which has
a connection with the Madeleine, was built by order of Louis XVIII.,
over the place where the remains of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette
were supposed to have been for twenty-one years, before their
removal to St. Denis. This place was formerly the cemetery of the
Madeleine, and other victims of the Revolution were buried there. The
184

MODERN CHURCHES.
monument is in the form of a Greek cross with dome and portico. Under
the chapel is a crypt marking the spot where the bodies of the murdered
king and queen were supposed to have lain. Inside the chapel are two
marble groups. On the right is Bosio's figure of Louis XVI., his will
inscribed beneath. On the left are the queen and a figure supposed to be
that of Madame Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI., who was also guillotined.

3rfcj5$**c;

^/UJOJJTIN

The more modern churches of Paris call for little notice in these pages.
St. Augustin's, on the Boulevard Malesherbes, is a much-criticized edifice
which was erected between i860 and 1868. It is a modern blending of
Romanesque and Gothic. The nave has an arched roof on arcades of open
ironwork, and over the altar is a gilt baldacchino. 185

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Another modern and fashionable church is that of Ste. Clotilde, on
the left side of the Seine, and close to the War Office and the Chamber of
Deputies. Its Gothic spires with crockets and openings appear above the
thick cluster of houses marking the most aristocratic and the most tranquil
part of the Faubourg St. Germain. The church was built between 1846
and 1859. The interior is interesting, although it lacks light, and the

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excellent paintings cannot, therefore, be seen to advantage. The altar, the
carven stalls of the choir, and the stained glass are notable features in this
fashionable house of prayer.

The Church of the TrinitF was built on Ballu's plans between 1861
and 1867. It stands in the Rue St. Lazare, in front of it being a garden
186

Ube Urinite.

To face p. 187.

MODERN CHURCHES.
ornamented with fountains and statues of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Like
St. Augustin's, the Trinite has fallen in for much censure owing to its
elaborate decoration. Everything is florid, perhaps even theatrical.
It was one of the churches built during the Second Empire, and shows the
taste of that gilded and grandiose period.
The most important event in the history of the Trinite was the funeral
service for Rossini in November, 1868. The new church, as it was then,
was crowded with celebrities. The music was the finest ever heard out of
St. Peter's. Nilsson was there, and the duet between Alboni and Patti, the
" Quis est Homo," from Rossini's own " Stabat Mater," set strong men, as
well as sentimental women, weeping until their eyes were red. Rossini's
coffin was covered with Parma violets, his favourite flower, and with ivy.
Then the remains were transferred to Pere La Chaise, where they were
disinterred a few years ago to be placed beside " Angelo's, Alfieri's bones "
in the Santa Croce at Florence.
One more important church is that of St. Vincent de Paul, which is
towards the north of Paris, and was built between 1824 and J844 in the
basilica style. The exterior is made specially imposing by the wide semi
circular steps leading to the doors. These form a sort of amphitheatre at
the foot of the facade, with its portico of fluted Ionic columns supporting
a heavy entablature on the pediment of which there is a relief representing
that firm friend of the poor and the foundling, St. Vincent de Paul. The
interior is especially interesting, owing to the stained glass, the statuary,
and the paintings. In the nave is a fresco by Hippolyte Flandrin represent
ing early Christians. The painter took suggestions from the mosaics of the
Church of St. ApolHnare Nuovo of Ravenna, which have inspired many other
artists, and writers as well. The Chapel of the Virgin contains a fine
group by Carrier- Belleuse and paintings by Bouguereau. The bronze
Crucifixion by Rude, over the high altar, is a masterpiece.
Towering still farther to the north is the newest of modern churches in
Paris — the Basilica of the Sacr£-Co3UR. This edifice, still unfinished, is
on the historic hill of Montmartre, now one of the poorest parts of Paris.
Near it is the old church of St. Pierre de Montmartre. The two
buildings, the new and the old, occupy the site of a rich abbey. Towards
the end of the tenth century this hill was invaded by the forces of Otto the
Second, who wanted to take some revenge for the entry of his cousin
187

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Lothair's troops into Germany, and their excesses at Aix-la-Chapelle. Otto
sent a proud message to the Duke of Paris to say that his men would sing
on the Mount of the Martyrs a Hallelujah such as the city and its rulers
had never heard before : " Parvenu sur les hauteurs de Montmartre, il fait
chanter a ses soldats un Alleluia si bruyant, qu'il pouvait s'entendre de
Notre-Dame de Paris." There is also a picture of it in Latin, by one of the
old chroniclers, who tells us that the clergy gathered on the hill, and the
German legions sang in so loud a voice their Alleluia to the Martyrs " ut
attonitis auribus ipse Hugo et omnis Parisiorum plebs miraretur." All
the events of this fighting period are inaccurately chronicled, but there are
other historic memories connected with Montmartre which can be vouched
for. In 1534, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier and Peter Faber started
singing from Notre Dame all the way up to Montmartre. This is more than
the Salvationists have ever attempted to do in our days. Arrived on the
hill, the three holy men made their vows there and practically laid the
foundations of the great and powerful Company of Jesus. In 1590, Henry
Quatre, while besieging Paris, made Montmartre his headquarters and
visited the Nunnery or Abbey where the young and beautiful Marie de
Beauvilliers was Abbess. The convent, which was called a royal" abbey
because the Abbesses were appointed by the king, was always full of noble
ladies. In 1760, Marie Louise de Laval, Duchesse de Montmorency, was
Mother Abbess. She was guillotined1 with all her nuns in 1793, the old
¦convent was turned into a Temple of Reason, and a young Montmartre girl
was elected Goddess. Soon afterwards the abbey was demolished, and the
Church of St. Peter, originally founded by Louis VI. about 1135,1 like the
monastery itself, is all , that remains of the antique edifices once crowning
the hill. Montmartre also played an important part in 1814, when it held
out against the Allies for a time. In 1871 it was the headquarters of the
Communists who murdered Generals Lecomte and Clement-Thomas, and
then, after some firing, retired to the Buttes-Chaumont and Pere La Chaise.
The Church of St. Pierre is frequently visited by archaeologists, as it contains
some columns and capitals supposed to have come from the older church
and the abbey. The Calvary, or cemetery, hard by contains some tombs,
and there is also the old graveyard of Montmartre.
The Church of the Sacre-Cceur was built from Abadie's designs in
the Romanesque-Byzantine style. Its history is elaborately set forth in the
book written by Pere Jonquiere, a priest of the Order of Oblates of Mary
1 The date is very dubious. 1147, given by Baedeker, is altogether wrong.
188

MODERN CHURCHES.
Immaculate. It was decreed as a work of public utility by the National
Assembly in July, 1873, and it has been raised by subscriptions amounting to
nearly twenty-nine millions of francs. The strengthening of the foundations
alone cost ^140,000. Impressive services are periodically held in this
church, and it is also a place of pilgrimage visited by pious Catholics from
all parts of the world. The lower part of Montmartre is full of Communistic
memories. It is likewise the abode of Parisian frivolity, the centre of
dancing-halls, and night-houses, but over all these towers the holy citadel of
prayer founded by the pious Cardinal Guibert in atonement for the excesses
of Revolution and the sins of Paris.
Here must end the series of important historical churches destined for
Catholic worship in Paris. There have been few religious edifices omitted
from the list, for nearly all the churches have had a history. Buildings like
St. Louis d'Antin, St. Pierre-du-Petit-Montrouge, St. Ambroise, St. Bernard,
St. Eugene, near the Conservatoire of Music, Notre Dame des Champs,
St. Ferdinand of the Ternes, and the handsome church for English-speaking
Catholics in the Avenue Hoche, directed by the Passionists of the British
province of their Order, must be unavoidably excluded. Their time for a
place in a book of this kind has not yet arrived. Before concluding the
series, however, it will be necessary to direct the attention of readers of the
volume to the fourteenth -century chapel of the Chateau of Vincennes, with its
splendid glass, and to the more modern chapel of the Chateau of Versailles.
Noteworthy, too, is the chapel of the great Convent of the Sacre-Cceur in
the Rue de Varennes, near the Hotel des Invalides. This famous institution
was founded by Madame Barat, who was of plebeian origin, and has since
been succeeded by Mother Superiors of patrician birth. The present head
of the Order is an Englishwoman of the noble house of Digby. Nearly all
the titled ladies of France have been educated in this extensive establishment,
which possesses a vast garden wherein once wandered and studied the
daughters of Queen Isabella of Spain, the Duchesse de Rohan, the Duchesse
de Brissac, and a host of others.

189 M

*-l kfc u u ssidn. f K urck .

BJ/^--*

Ibe IRussian Cburcb
(Winter .

CHAPTER XV.

THE PROTESTANT CHURCH OF THE ORATORY—
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH— THE SYNAGOGUES.
French Protestants before the Reformers — " Little Geneva " —
Calvin and Cop — Abbot Briqonnet and Marguerite de Navarre
— Burning heretics — The Protestant tailor — The Huguenot
hedge-schools — The first Synod — St. Bartholomew' s Day — The
League — The Edict of Nantes — George Washington and the
French Protestants — The " White Terror" — The Bible Society
— Jonathan the Jew — Early persecutions of the Children of
fsrael — Removal of Jewish disabilities.

ROTESTANTISM, according to some French writers,
was heard of in France before the Reformers. Its cradle
and nursing-place was the left bank of the Seine, among
the schools where the daring Peter Abelard, the remarkable
predecessor of Martin Luther, taught and preached. The
" Gallic Liberties," which have also been regarded in the form
of protests against the domination of Rome, dated, too, from
the early days of the Paris University, and the uncompro
mising enemies of the Papacy go so far as to claim St. Louis
fran?ois i. himself as the first of the French Protesters or Protestants,
because he is supposed to have signed a Concordat in 1268, and to have firmly
resisted the intrusion of the Sovereign Pontiff in temporal affairs. Without
going back, however, to the thirteenth century for proofs of nascent
Protestantism in France, it will be sufficient to note for present purposes
that in"i5i2 a professor named Lefevre d'Etaples published a commentary
on St. Paul, in which, five years before Luther, he explained the essential
doctrines of the Reformation. The book was actually dedicated to the
Abbot of St. Germain-des-Pres, Briconnet, who thought highly of it, and
endorsed its teachings. So, too, did many in the district of the monastery
until that part of the Faubourg St. Germain became known as " Little
Geneva." One of the pupils of the professor was burned for heresy in 1524,
and he is supposed to be the first Huguenot who was put to death in France.
Calvin was in Paris soon after this, and was directed by Cop, Rector of the
University, to write an address for the opening of the schools. He did so,
and his daring theories were condemned by the monks. He and Cop had
narrow escapes. The latter succeeded in reaching Basle, while Calvin hid
in Paris. Briconnet, the abbot above-mentioned, induced Margaret of Navarre,
sister of Francis I., to hearken to the new doctrines, and she became
unpopular thereby. In 1535, Francis I. attended the burnings of heretics
on the Place Maubert, as well as outside St. Germain L'Auxerrois, or other
localities. Henri II. did likewise, but was so frightened at seeing a
193

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Protestant tailor burned alive, that he desisted from witnessing the
executions. At that time the Protestants of Paris had neither pastors nor
churches. They had, however, schools which were called buissonnieres, that
is to say " hedge-schools," as they were once called in Ireland, where they
were common. One of the most notable Protestants at this epoch was the
poet and translator of the Psalms into French verse, Clement Marot,
who was once befriended by Francis L, but had to fly for his life in 1537.
In 1559 the Protestants first assembled in Synod in Paris, and re-united
all the Reformed Churches of France into one. Then followed the terrible
persecutions which culminated in the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day.
In spite of opposition and dangers which they incurred, the Protestants
began to meet for prayer, secretly, in different parts of the environs
of the city, and among their pastors was Beze, who preached
regularly. At last, after the horrors of St. Bartholomew's Day and the wars
of the League, came the Edict of Nantes in 1598, and the two religions
were recognized by the State. The Protestants, however, had to meet five
leagues from Paris, but later on they were allowed to assemble at Ablon on
the Seine, and then at Charenton, which is at the gates of the city. The death
of Henri Quatre, who had been a Protestant, was a severe blow to the
Huguenots. The " temple," as Protestant churches are called in France,
was burned, as well as houses near it at Charenton. A new place of
worship was erected in 1624, and among its congregation were Conrart, who
is called the real founder of the French Academy, and Theophraste
Renaudot, the creator of journalism in France. Among the noble
Protestants were the Bouillons, the Turennes, the La Tr6mouilles and the
De Rohans. The Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, and the Protestants were
again proscribed. Bossuet, in spite of his Gallicanism, which makes him so
great a favourite with some Protestant writers, was one of the first to applaud
the proscriptions, and he was followed by Madame de Sevigne, La Bruyere,
La Fontaine, and thousands of others in Paris. The light of Protestantism
was not quenched, however. Its followers were long sheltered by the represen
tatives of England, Holland and Denmark. George Washington also made
La Fayette promise, on leaving freed America, to do his best to obtain
liberty for the descendants of the Huguenots. Matters, however, did not
improve much until 1789, when liberty of conscience was proclaimed by the
Convention. Then the Protestants, protected by La Fayette, were able to
worship openly and without molestation. The First Napoleon afterwards
194

THE ORATORY.
recognized them, gave three of their preachers Crosses of the Legion of
Honour, and allowed them three " temples."
The chief church accorded was the Oratory, still existing in the Rue de
Rivoli, and against the apsis of which stands the monument to Admiral
Coligny, with the open Bible at his feet. This church was built by the
French Oratorians, or priests of the Oratory founded by Cardinal de Berulle,
in 1630, on the site where Gabrielle d'Estrees, the friend of Henri Quatre,
had lived. It was to the Oratory that the utterly bad man, Philip of
Orleans, Regent during the minority of Louis XV., used to go " on retreat,"
in order to prepare for his Easter Communion. The Order had many
illustrious men like Massillon, Malebranche and Daunou, and from it also
stepped forth the Jacobin Fouche, Duke of Otranto, Minister of Police
under the First Napoleon and Louis XVIII., and whose remarkable
personality, revived by Sardou in the play of " Madame Sans-Gene,"
creates as much interest, almost, as that of his master. The Protestants
of Paris were not troubled during the Restoration, although their brethren
in the South of France suffered during what was called the " White Terror."
The Bourbons, however, were less friendly towards the descendants of the
Huguenots than Napoleon, who had invited three Protestant pastors to his
coronation in Notre Dame, and had promised them that he would respect
and support their religion. It is needless to dwell here on the disruptions
which occurred among the followers of the Reformers in France after they
had obtained freedom. They were supposed to have lost their orthodoxy,
and the English Protestants, after the peace of Amiens, and especially after
the downfall of Napoleon, undertook to bring them back to it. The
language of the English Revivalists, however, often offended the ears of the
French Protestants, who were patriots, and many of whom had taken part
in the Revolution. It was to English example, however, that the French
Protestants owed the foundation of a Bible Society which strengthened
their hands.
The Oratory, in the Louvre district, is still the great headquarters of
the Reformed Church in Paris. It is a heavy and rather gloomy building iii
Corinthian style, and, as has been already pointed out, offers a striking
contrast to the lighter and more elegant church of St. Germain L'Auxerrois,
its near neighbour. Other Reformed Churches are the Temple du Saint-
Esprit in the Rue Roquepine ; the Eglise de l'Etoile, Avenue de la
Grande Armee, both new buildings ; the older " Temple de Sainte-Marie,"
Faubourg St. Antoine, formerly attached to a Convent of Nuns of the
195

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Visitation, and built by Mansart in 1632 on the lines of the Roman
Pantheon. It was sadly damaged by the Communists in 1871, and was
restored by Varcollier. Another fairly old church is that of the Lutheran
section of the Protestants of France, in the Rue des Billettes. It was
formerly a Catholic place of worship, constructed from the plans of a
Dominican monk and built over an old chapel, on the portal of which were
the words, " Here God was boiled." This was in allusion to the miracle
recorded in the Chronicles of St. Denis, which happened in 1290. A Jew,
vaguely named Jonathan, was said to have stabbed a Host and then to have
boiled it. A Gothic cloister of the old chapel still remains.
The Russian Church in Paris, which is in the Rue Daru, was built between
1859 and 1861 in a Byzantine-Muscovite style. Its form is that of a Greek
cross with slightly irregular branches or arms, and a porch in front. In
the centre is a tower with open bays and a gilded pyramid above.
The spire is surmounted by a six-branched Russian cross. On the
" iconostasis," or screen, in the interior, are paintings representing Christ,
the Virgin, St. Michael, St. Stephen, St. Alexander Newsky, patron of the
church, St. Nicolas, etc. These and the frescoes are by the Sorokines,
Bronnikoff and Wassilieff.
The chief synagogue is in the Rue de la Victoire, not far from the bank
of the Rothschilds. It is constructed in a style analogous to the Roman.
The exterior comprises a porch of large dimensions, a principal nave and
two aisles surmounted by galleries. In front of the choir is the Theba, or
place for the officiating Rabbi, with marble balustrade. On either side of
the choir are the stalls for the members of the Consistories of Paris and
France. There are three other synagogues in Paris — those of the Rue
Notre Dame de Nazareth, the Rue des Tournelles, with frontage on the
old and picturesque Place des Vosges, and the Rue Buffault, where Jews of
the Portuguese rite assemble for prayer on their Sabbath.
Since the Revolution, when the Constituent Assembly decreed liberty of
conscience, the Israelites have been unmolested in Paris and France,
although in these days a vigorous campaign has been conducted against
them by the so-called Anti-Semites, of whom M. Edouard Drumont is the
chief champion. The Napoleonic Concordat, which brought the churches
under State control, established the legal right of the Jews to have
synagogues, and gave them full civic rights. In previous ages those pro
fessing the Hebrew religion in Paris were energetically persecuted and
frequently hunted out of their dwellings, their property being then
196

Israelite temple.

THE SYNAGOGUES.
confiscated by their Christian tormentors. Episodes of this sort occurred
under Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Charles VI. During the reign of
Henri Quatre, the Israelites, or some of them, returned to Paris. Louis
XIII. banished them again in 1615, but with the dawn of new ideas in the
eighteenth century came the era of their emancipation.

198

CHAPTER XVI.

INSCRIPTIONS AND EPITAPHS.
A ghastly memorial — The " Sorrows of Death" — Eccentric epitaphs
— The B olivines memorial — Strange epitaph of Jean de Creil —
The glory of Louis XIII. — The tomb of Lulli — The Inscrip
tions in the Scotch College.

HENRY II.

)EAN DE CHELLES, who has been alluded to in the
chapters on Notre Dame de Paris, left one of the
most remarkable of the inscriptions recorded on the
stones of the cathedral. It perpetuates his name at
the foot of the southern portal in Gothic capitals
which are the finest specimens of their kind extant.
The inscription, which is on one line, has already
been quoted, and is terminated by the figure of a
dragon. Some of the other antique inscriptions, like
that recording the money gifts for stained glass
offered by Pierre de Fayet, in 1303, were taken out of the church. That of
Fayet is to be seen in the Louvre Museum.
One of the most curious memorials in the cathedral is the " pierre
tombale " of Etienne Yver on the left wall, entering by the Virgin's door.
This gruesome as well as curious memorial was formerly in the Chapel
of St. Nicolas near the cloister. It dates from 1467, and was put in its
present position in September, 1762.
At the bottom of the memorial are inscribed the following words, which
are undecipherable owing to lack of light. One has, in fact, to use a lamp
or a candle in order to read them, and hence they are liecessarily overlooked
by the average visitor :¦ — ¦
Ante hanc ymaginem jacet Stephanus Yuer injure canonico
licentiatus huius Parisiensis Rothomagensis ecclesiarum canonicus
Archidjaconus magnj caletj Dominj nostrj Regis in sua parlamentj
Curia Consiliarius Oriundus de perona Nouiomensis diocesis
habeat deus quam creauit animam ejus habet natura quod suum est
Expectans Resurrectionem et utriusque vitam aeternam. Opporte enim
corruptibile hoc induere incorruptionem et mortale hoc induere immortali-
tatem. Obiit anno dominj millesimo CCCC°. LX°. VIJO. mensis februarij
die vero vicesima quarta Orate pro eo.
201

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
All this sets forth that " In front of this image lies Stephen" Yver, licen
tiate in canon law, Canon of this church and of Rouen, Archdeacon of
Grand Caux, Counsellor of the King in his court of Parliament, native of
Peronne, diocese of Noyon. May his soul return to God who created it.
May nature take what belongs to it, in awaiting the promised Resurrection,
that both then may enjoy life eternal. For this body must become incorrup
tible and put on immortality, as being mortal. He died in the year of our
Lord 1467, twenty-fourth of February. Pray for him."
The device on either side of this inscription is " la mercj Dieu," and on
the sarcophagus are the words : —
Preocupauerunt me dolores mortis torrentes iniquitatis conturbauerunt
me. Nunc sum vermis et non homo induta est caro meaputridine et
sordibus pulueris cutis mea aruit et contracta est. Deus, Deus, meus
Respice in me et miserere mej quia tibi pecauj et malum coram te fecj.
The first line is from the 18th Psalm, " The sorrows of death com
passed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid." In the Catholic
version of the Bible this is in the 17th Psalm, " The sorrows of death
surrounded me ; and the torrents of iniquity troubled me." The second line
is in the 21st Psalm, Catholic version, and in the 22nd in the Protestant
Bible, " But I am a worm and no man." The third line is from Job,
chapter vii., fifth verse, " My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of
dust ; my skin is broken and become loathsome," but the Latin words of the
inscription are more closely rendered in the Catholic Testament : " My flesh
is clothed with rottenness and the filth of dust, my skin is withered and drawn
together." The last line is the invocation for mercy, " Look upon me," etc.,
from the 85th Psalm of the Catholic version, and the " Miserere."
In the scroll held by the defunct are the words, " Non intres in judicium
cum servo tuo, Domine, sed miserere mej. Nam imperfectum meum viderunt
oculj tuj et in libro tuo omnes scribentur " — " Enter not into judgment with
thy servant," and " Thy eyes did see my imperfect being, and in thy book all
shall be written." These quotations are from the 142nd and 138th Psalms of
the Catholic Bible. They are in the 143rd and the 139th in the other
version. On the book held by the Redeemer are the words : —
Miserebor quem michi
cuj voluero placuerit
et clemens Exodj
ero in XXXIIJ".
202

INSCRIPTIONS AND EPITAPHS.
" I will have mercy on whom I will, and I will be merciful to whom it
shall please me ; " or, as in Protestant version, " I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy " (Exod.
xxxiii) .
On the summit of the memorial, above the head of Christ, are the words :
" Clamabant alter ad alterum. Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus."
Yver's memorial, as has before been shown, represents the canon's body,
on the lower part, being devoured by worms, and above, the priest is assisted
out of his tomb by St. Stephen and St. John the Evangelist. The Redeemer,
crowned with thorns, is over all. He has two swords in his mouth, and is
represented as " God in Majesty." The work was executed in accordance
with a fifteenth- century custom, and other specimens of the style are on the
tombs of Louis XII., Francis I., and Henri IE, at St. Denis. The concep
tion is ghastly and realistic.
In the Sainte Chapelle the epitaphs are mostly those of canons buried
beneath the church. One of the most curious is that of Guillaume Belier,
canon in 1428. The stone is a sort of mosaic with a cross on it, and the
canon's initials, as well as a kneeling figure of the defunct. Above is this
inscription in Latin : —
Qui teritis tritis similes eritis bene scitis
quos pedibus premitis precibus releuare velitis,
which is of the "As I am now, so will you be" order of epitaph, common
enough in the graveyards of Great Britain. " Help with your prayers those
on whom you walk," is the concluding invocation. The remaining inscrip
tion is in French, and refers to the deceased canon, who died in 1428. He
is an obscure man, unknown save for this eccentric epitaph, composed,
perhaps, by himself or one of his colleagues.
Here is an example of one of the epitaphs at St. Denis : —
CY GIST LA ROYNE ISABEL DE BAUIERE ESPOUSE DU ROY
CHARLES VIe. ET FILLE DE TRES PUISSANT PRINCE ESTIENNE DUC
DE BAUIERE COTE PALATIN DU RH1N QUI REGNA AUEC SOND
EPOUSE ET TRESPASSA L'AN M . CCCC ET XXXV LE DERNIER JOUR
DE SEPTEMBRE. PRIES DIEU POUR ELLE.
This, as will be seen, is the epitaph of Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of
Charles VI. Another interesting inscription is that on the memorial of the
battle of Bouvines, formerly in the Church of St. Catherine of the Students'
203

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
Vale, in Paris. The valiant sergeants made a vow to found a church in
honour of " Madame Sainte Katherine," if they gained the victory. They
did so, for the Flemings were defeated, and King Philip Augustus was not
only triumphant, but was able, through his victory, to consolidate the
French monarchy, in spite of Otho of Germany, and John Lackland, the
monarch of England. Charles V. founded a confraternity or guild of the
" sergents d'armes," and had the following inscription engraved on the
memorial of Bouvines : —
A LA PRIERE DES SERGENS DARMES
MONR. SAINT LOYS FONDA CESTE EGLISE ET Y MIST LA. PREMIERE
PIERRE ET FU POUR LA JOIE DE LA VICTOIRE
QUI FU AV PONT DE BOUINES L'AN MIL. CC ET XIII.
LES SERGENS DARMES POUR LE TEMPS
GARDOIENT LE DIT PONT ET VOUERENT QUE SI DIEU LEUR DONNOIT
VITTOIRE ILS FONDEROIENT
UNE EGLISE EN L'HONNEUR DE MADAME SAINTE KATHARINE
ET AINSU FU IL.
Bouvines is between French Lille and Belgian Tournay, and the battle
was fought in 1213, according to this inscription, but in some of the histories
the*date is 1214.
St. Germain L'Auxerrois is full of epitaphs, but they are mostly those
of obscure persons or of donors to the church. In St. Germain-des-Pres are
epitaphs to Boileau and Descartes. Of the latter, it is recorded on his
tombstone that he " took the scales from the eyes of blind mortals, and
guarding the respect due to altars, showed them the structure of the
world." There is a long epitaph on Racine's memorial in St. Etienne du Mont,
and in it the social and professional gifts of the poet are extolled to the
skies. Another inscription - records the existence and death of " Blasius
Pascal Claromontanus Stephani Pascal in suprema apud Avernos sub-
sidiorum curia prssidiis filius" — " Blaise Pascal, son of Stephen, President
of the Court of Clermont in Auvergne."
St. Nicolas-des-Champs, in the Rue St. Martin, is another church full
of quaint tombstone or tablet inscriptions. There is one to a worthy named
Jean de Creil, who was a counsellor of King Henri Quatre, and whose life-
history is recorded amid a jumble of Christian and Pagan references and
reminiscences. He was, for instance, born " under favour of Hercules,"
everything went so well with him that he " seemed to have discovered the
204

INSCRIPTIONS AND EPITAPHS.
secret of appeasing Nemesis," and, in fact, Jean would not have died at all
but for " the anger of the Fates." There is added to this remarkable
inscription an anagram establishing Jean de Creil's right to enter heaven.
This inscription has been much injured, and is now on the floor of the
Chapel of St. Vincent de Paul in this Church of St. Nicholas.
The Church of Notre Dame des Victoires is another of the sacred edifices
of Paris where inscriptions abound. The foundation stone was inscribed
with one of those pompous compositions common- in the reigns of Louis
XIII. and of his successor Louis XIV., and often imitated by the
recorders of the victories of the First Napoleon. The full text was this : —
Ludovicus XIII., Dei gratia, Francorum et Navarrae rex christianissimus, invictus
et ubique victor, tot victoriarum coelitus 'partarum profligataeque haereseos non immemor,
in insigne pietatis monumentum FF. Augustineanis discalceatis, Conventiis Parisiensis, hoc
Templum erexit, Deiparaeque Virgini Marias, sub titulo de Victorias dicavit, Anno Domini
MDCXXIX die IX monis Decembris, regno vero XX.
Translation : —
Louis XIII., by the grace of God, most Christian King of France and Navarre, every
where and always victorious, in memory of all the victories with which Heaven favoured
him, and mindful especially of the triumph gained over heresy, hath constructed this
remarkable monument of pious gratitude for the bare-footed Augustinian Friars of the
Paris monastery, and hath dedicated it to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, under the title
of Our Lady of Victories, the year of our Lord 1629, the 9th of December, and the 20th
year of his reign.
Another stone was found in the church in 1863, inscribed with
a record of the munificence of the founder, and the month of his death :—
XIV0 Maio Anniversarium
Triumphantis Memoriae Ludovici XIII.
Regis Francorum et Navarrae
Hujus Conventus Fundatoris Munificentissimi.
Another notable inscription which is still to be seen is that on the tomb
of M. Des Genettes, cure of the parish for twenty-eight years, and who died
in i860. The epitaph was composed at. Rome by Commendatore Rossi
and Monsignor Lacroix, Apostolic Protonotary. The conclusion seems to
foretell the events which happened in France in 1870-71.
Ave anima fortis pietissima
Huic fatiscenti aevo plurimos tibi similes
Coelitus donandos praecibus impetra.
Translation : —
Hail strong and pious soul ! May you obtain for us from heaven, io this century of
unrest and ruin, many men like yourself ! 205

HISTORIC CHURCHES OF PARIS.
The ex-votos, or votive tablets, to the Virgin abound in this church.
They remind one of the similar offerings or memorials in the churches of
Munich, Innspruck, Vienna, and other towns in Catholic Bavaria and
Austria, wherein one reads so often on scrolls, wreaths or tablets the words
"Maria hilf," and "Maria hat geholfen." Similar records of successful
appeals for help to the Virgin are in St. Germain L'Auxerrois, but especially
in Notre Dame des Victoires. In this latter church there is also a tablet
recording the fact that the people of the parish of St. Laurence made a
pilgrimage there in May, 1871, in order to ask the Virgin to " preserve
their church from the impious and to obtain for them the return of their
exiled priests." The prayers were heard, and a tablet was accordingly
offered to Notre Dame des Victoires.
In 1855 the exiled Poles in Paris placed a fine tablet near the choir of
Notre Dame des Victoires, in commemoration of the twenty-fifth year of
their banishment and of the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception. The conclusion of the inscription is peculiar : —
Hi in Curribus et hi in equis ; nos autem
In nomine Marias invocabimus.
Translation : —
Some trust in chariots, others in horses, but we confide in the name of Mary which
we have invoked.
The other inscriptions in this church comprise a long one, in Latin,
recording the foundation. There is another, to the same effect, in French,
and both are in the Chapel of St. Augustin.
There is also the tomb of Lulli, the composer, which is largely
inscribed in French and Latin. The Latin epitaph is interesting, and
reproaches Death with being deaf and with having robbed the king and the
people of Lulli's music.
Perfida mors, inimica, audax, temeraria et excors,
Crudelisque et cceca, probris te absolvimus istis ;
Non de te querimur, tua sint has munia magna.
Sed quando per te, populi Regisque voluptas,
Non ante auditis rapuit qui cantibus orbem,
LULLIUS eripitur ; querimur modo ; surda fuisti.
There must also be recorded the Greek inscription over the holy-water
fonts, which reads both ways : —
VLyjsov avofMrj^-ara fir] povav ntyiv
ABLUE PECCATA NON SOLAM FACIEM.
206

INSCRIPTIONS AND EPITAPHS.
The Greek text is taken from the Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople.
It is graven in red characters on a ground of white marble, and the letters
join together. Pere Lefebre, of the Company of Jesus, thus rendered it : —
Cest l'ame et non le corps qu'il faut purifier.
The Scotch College, near the Sorbonne and the Pitie hospital, now
devoted to other purposes, has many inscriptions of a historical character.
This establishment was founded in 1325 by Bishop Murray for Catholic
students. It contains the tombs and epitaphs of James II. , the Duchess of
Tyrconnell, Patrick Menteith, a knight, Robert Barclay, priest, Marianus
O'Cruoly, John Caryl, James Drummond, and a few others.
Fuller information on the subject of epitaphs in Paris churches,
convents, and colleges, may be found in F. de Guilhermy's " Inscriptions,"
where they are treated in a detailed manner.

FINIS.

207

INDEX.

Abbaye aux Bois, 156.
Abelard, Peter, 7, 9, 82 sq., 193.
Ablon, 194.
Affre, Archbishop, 27, 53, 56.
Agnadel (Vaila), 23.
Albert de Luynes, 104.
Albi, Archbishop of, 157.
Albigenses, 16.
Alboni, 186.
Alcuin, 33.
Alexander III., 38, 43, 113.
Amiens, Peace of, 195.
Anaqui, 19.
AngoulSme, Count of, 62.
Angus, Earl of, 114.
Anjou, Duke of, 20.
Anne de Bretagne, 95.
Anne of Austria, 135, 148, 177.
Anselm, 82.
Antiaristocrats, 164.
Arago, 124.
Armagnacs, 21, 22, 163.
Armez, Abbe", 146.
Army, the Grand (trophies), 1 50.
Arnold of Brescia, 84.
Astrolabius, 84.
Attila, 57, 123.
Augustinians, 175.
Austerlitz, 27.
Autun Cathedral, 35.

Baldwin II., 64.
Baltard, 115.
Balzac, 103.
Barat, Madame, 189.
Barbarossa, Frederick, 15.
Barclay, Robert, 207.
Barras, 136.
Bauchal, 31.
Bayard, 23.
Bedford, Duke of, 22.
Belier, Guillaume, 203.
Belle Poule (frigate), 152.

Benserade, 168.
Be"renger of Tours, 82.
Berneval, Alexandre de, 67.
Bernier, 172.
Berri, Due de, 21, 92, 96, 105.
Berruger, Philip, 68.
Bertin, 117, 157.
Bertrand, 150
Berulle, 195.
Beslay, 166.
Beze, Theodore de, 104, 194.
" biberon," 69.
Biron, Marshal de, 174.
Black Prince, 20.
Blanc, 124.
Blanche of Castile, 17,68.
" Blancs Manteaux," 174.
Blondel, 157.
Boileau, 63, 65, 172.
 (epitaph), 204.
Bonaparte, 136, 177.
Boniface VIII., 18.
Boniface, Pope, 69.
Booth, General, m.
Bordeaux, Due de, 27.
Borie, Abbe de, 131.
Borromini, 175.
Bosio, 185.
Bossu, Abbe, 165.
Bossuet, 129, 194.
 (statue), 139.
Bougainville, 124.
Bouguereau, 187.
Bouillons, the, 194.
Bourbon, Cardinal de, 174.
Bourdaloue, 174.
Bourdon, 172.
Bourguignons and Armagnacs, 21, 22.
Bouvines, Battle of, 203.
Briconnet, Abbot, 114, 193.
Bronnikoff, 126.
Bruand, 149.
Buci, Bishop Matiffas de, 54.
Buckle, H. T., 8.

209

N

INDEX.

Bugeaud, 150.
Buguet, 173.
buissonnieres, 194.
Burgundy, Duke of, 62, 163.
Butler, Alban, 136.

Cabanel, Alexander, 124.
Cabarrus, Tdre"zia, 177.
Cadoudal, Georges, 174.
Calvin, 104, 193.
Caminade, 172.
Candeille, Demoiselle, 26.
"Candide,'' 147.
Carlyle, 178.
Carmelites (De"chaux), 154.
Carnot, Lazare, 123, 125, 136.
Carnot, President, 11, 22, 28, 125.
Caroll, Miss, 176.
Carrier-Belleuse, 187.
Cartaux, 168.
Carvallo, 124.
Caryl, John, 207.
Casimir V., 1 14.
Castellans, 114.
Catherine de Bourbon, 114.
Catherine de Courtenay, 94.
Catherine de' Medici, 23, 103 sq., 169.
 (tomb), 95.
Catulla, 78.
Caussade, 174.
Cavaille-Coll, 56, 138.
Cerutti, 164.
Chalgrin, 138.
Champs Elysdes, 113.
Chapel of the Martyrs, 1 54.
Chapelain, 170.
Chapelle, 172.
Chapelle des Catechismes (St. Germain
I'Auxerrois), 106.
Chapelle Expiatoire, 184.
Charenton, 194.
Charlemagne (statue), 96.
Charles d'Etampes, 97.
Charles the Bad, 102.
Charles the Bold (tomb), 89.
Charles IV., Emperor, 68.
Charles V., the Wise, 20, 61.
Charles VI., 89.
Charles X., 23.
Chartier, Jean, 82.
" Chasse" (Saint Chapelle), 73.
Chavannes, Puvis de, 124.
Cheval, 146.
Childebert I., 54, 112.
Childeric III., 79.
Chilperic I., 95.
Chouans, 174.
Choublier, M., 33.

Churchill, General, 152.
Claretie, M. Jules, 147.
Clement, Jacques, 103.
Clernent, Thomas, 188.
Clement V, 19, 20.
Clement VIII., 169.
Cliquet, 56, 138.
Clootz, Baron Anacharsis, 26.
Clovis, 22, 125.
Cluny, 34, 35, 84. ,
Colbert (tomb), 168.
Coligny, 101, 102 sq.
Compassion Chapel (St. Germain I'Auxer
rois), 107.
Concino Concini, 104.
Conde, Prince de, 94, 101 sq.
Conegliano, Duke of, 150.
Conrart, 194.
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, 171.
Constant d'lvry, 184. :
Convulsionists, 159,
Cop, 193.
Coquelin, 124.
Corday, Charlotte, 122.
Corneille, Pierre, 178.
Couillie", Abbe, 167.
Cour des Reservoir, 44.
Cousin, 169.
Couston, 117.
Couture, 184.
Coy pel, 106, 157.
Coysevox, 106, 178.
Crebillon, 169.
Crown of Thorns, 64, etc., 72.
Cyrano de Bergerac, 172.

Dagobert I., 78, 95.
 (tomb), 89.
Dagobert II., 79.
D'Aligre, Etienne, 107.
D'Amboise, Cardinal, 94.
" Dames de la Halle," 165.
D'Ancre, Marshal, 104.,
Danegelt, 80.
D' Angers, David, 123.
Dante, 9.
Darboy, Monseigneur, 27, 53, 147, 165.
D'Aubigne^ Francoise, 163.
Daunon, 195.
De Caumont, 31.
Dechaume, 44.
De Feuquieres, Madame, 178.
Deguerry, A bbe", 165, 183.
Deists, 135.
Delacroix, Eugene, 138, 175.
Delafosse, 153.
De l'Epde, Abbe", 178.
Delorme, 178.

210

INDEX.

De Rohans, the, 194.
Derrand, Francois, 175.
Desaix, 27.
Descartes, 114, 115.
 (epitaph), 204.
Des Genettes, M., 205.
D'Etaples, Lefevre, 193.
De Verneilh, 31.
D'Harcourt, Claude Henry, 53.
D'Hulst, Monseigneur, 58.
Diana of France, 96.
Dominicans, 156, 157.
Dom Millet, 81.
Doublet, Jacques, 79.
Douglas, James, 114.
Douglas, William, 114.
Douhaire, M., 136.
Dourlat, 117.
Drolling, 138.
Drummond, James, 207.
Drumont, M. Edouard, 196.
Duban, 73.
Du Barry, Madame, 155.
Dubois, 170.
Dubois, Cardinal (mausoleum), 178.
Du Guesclin, 96.
Dumax, Abbe- V., 176.
Dumouriez, 25.
Duns Scotus, John, 71.
Dupanloup, Monseigneur, 81.
Dupuis, 19.
Duroc, 150.
Duruy, M., 147.
Duval, 148.
EGINHARD, 79.
Eleanor of Guyenne, 81.
Elizabeth of France, 24.
Enguerrand le Prince, 130.
Escurial, the, 61.
Etienne de Garlande, 49.
Etienne Marcel, 20.
Eudes de Clement, 81.
Eudes of Chateauroux, 68.
Eugene de Beauharnais (statue), 1 50.
Exelmans, 150.

Faber, Peter, 188.
Facade (Notre Dame), 45 etc.
Felibien, 112.
Fe'ne'lon, 56.
 (statue), 139.
Fieschi, 27.
Filon, M., 130.
Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 156.
Flamael, 156.
Flandrin, Hippolyte, 115, 116, 141, i«7-
FIe"chier, Bishop, 164.

Fldchier (statue), 139.
Fleurus, 25.
Fools, Feast of, 6, 15, 69.
Fosse, Edmond de la, 69.
Fouche", 195.
Franc-macons, 34.
Francis II., 23.
Francois de Bourbon, 114.
Frddegonde, 95.
Froissart, 21.
Fronde, the, 90.
Fulda, 111.

Gabriel, 157.
Gabrielle d'Estrdes, 195.
Galigal, Leonora, 104.
Gambetta, 124.
Garibaldi, Archbishop, 53.
. Gassendi, 172.
Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, 37.
Gerent, M., 71.
Ge"rome, 141.
Gibbon, 8, 18.
Gittard, 157.
Gobel, Archbishop, 25, 26.
Goddess of Reason, 164.
Gondy, Jean- Francois de, 126.
Gothic architecture, 32.
Goudreau, M., 165.
Goujon, Jean, 166.
Granmaison, 151.
Gregory, XI., 20.
Gros, 124.
Grouchy, 150.
Gsell, 170.
Gudbriant, Comte de, 53.
Guibert, Cardinal, 189.
Guillard, Doctor, 152.
Guillaume de Nangis, 82.
"Guillemites," 174.
Guillemot, 157.
Guise, Due de, 24, 101.
Guizot, 151.

HalliS, 157.
Ham Fair, 6. ,
Hanotaux, M., 147.
" Haudriettes," 179.
Hdbertists, 164.
Heim, 138, 141.
Heloise, 82 sq.
Henri II., 63, 169.
 (tomb), 95.
Henri III., 95, 174.
Henri IV., 10, 22, 23, 90, 91 \l
Henriet, 130.
Henrietta, Maria, 92.
Henry V. of England, 22.

211

N 2

INDEX.

Henry VI. of England, 22.
Hesse, 138, 141, 148.
Hi vert, 126.
Hoche, General, 155, 174.
Homsy, Monseigneur Ignatius, 140.
" Hudibras," 24.
Hugh Capet, 80.
Hugo, Victor, 52.
Huguenots, 10, 23, 90, 101 sq., 158,
193 sq.
Hugues, Canon of St. Victor, 8.
Hyacinthe, Pere, 58.

Immaculate Conception, 8, etc.
Ingelburgha of Denmark, 15.
Ingres, 116.
Innocent II., 84.
Isabella, Infanta of Spain, 23.
Isabella of Bavaria, 21, 68, 90, 203.
Isabella of Hainault, 15, 37.

Jacob the Hungarian, 163.
Jacques de Molay, 19.
Jansenism, 57.
Jean de Chelles, 201.
Jean de Creil, 204.
Jeanne d' Albert, Queen, 103.
Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen, 117.
Jean-sans-Peur, 174.
Jeaurat, 117.
Jehan de Chelles, 33, 50.
Jerome Napoleon I., 151, 176.
Jews, 196.
Joan of Acre, 89.
Jocelyn, Bishop of Soissons, 7.
Joinville, Sire de, 61, 63, 152.
Jonquiere, Pere, 188.
Joseph Napoleon I., 151.
Josephine Beauharnais, 155.
Jourdan, 150.
Jouvenet, 153.

Klbber, 151.

La Brosse, Pierre, 68.
La Bruyere, 194.
La Chaise, 174.
La Fayette, 194.
Lacordaire, 58, 156.
Lacombe, 165.
Lacroix, Monsignor, 205.
Lacy, Lemaistre de, 129.
Lafosse, 179.
Lagrange, 124.

Lamartine, Madame de, 107.
Landelle, 172.
"Landit" Fair, 112.
Lanfranc, 82.
Lannes, Marshal, 122, 124.
Larivisre, 168.
Larrey, Baron, 149.
Lassus, 27, 50, 73, 117.
175, Latil, 129.
La Tremouilles, the, 194.
La Vendee, 174.
Laurens, J. P., 124.
Lebouteiller, 55.
Le Brun, 153, 159.
Le Clerc, 117.
Lecomte, General, 188.
Leduc, 148.
Lefebre, Pere, 207.
Le Juge, 130.
Lemaistre, Antoine, 129.
Le Masurier, 117.
Lemercier, 148, 163.
Lemoine, 138, 157, 184.
Lemonnier, 138.
Lemuet, 148.
Lenepveu, 124.
Lenoir, Alexandre, 84, 92 sq., 141.
Lend ire, 75.
Le Reveillere-Lepeaux, 135, 136.
Lesclope, Thierry, 56.
Lescot, Pierre, 106.
Le Tellier, Chancellor, 169, 174.
L'Etoile, Eglise de, 195.
Letournier, 136.
Levy, 124.
Lewis, Emperor, 80.
"Little Fathers," 175.
" Little Geneva," 193.
Lockroy, 124.
Lombard, Peter, 7.
Lorraine, Cardinals de, 103.
Lothair, 80, 188.
Louis VI. (le Gros), 81.
Louis IX., 17, 18, 61, 62, 66.
Louis XL, 69, 72.
 (portrait), 96.
Louis XII. (tomb), 95.
Louis XIII., 10, 55, 175.
Louis XIV., 55, 69, 149, 164, 177.
Louis XV., 69.
Louis XVI., 124.
 (statue), 96.
Louis XVIII., 22, 27, 92, 96, 124.
Louis de Sancerre, 96.
Louis d'Orleans, 96.
Lourdes, 11.
Loyola, Ignatius, 188.
Lulli, 206.
Lupus, Bishop, 170.
" Lutrin," 63, 65.
212

INDEX.

Luxembourg, Marshal de, 25.
Luynes, Duchesse de, 157.

Mabillon, 115.
MacMahon, 151.
Maderno, 175.
Maillard, 151.
Maillard, Demoiselle, 26.
Maillot, 124.
Maindron, 123.
Maintenon, Madame de, 82, 149, 163.
" Mais," 57.
Malherbe, 106.
Malebranche, 195.
Malesherbes, 123.
"Man of the iron mask," 174.
Manichaeans, 16.
Mansard, 148.
Mansards, the, 174.
Marat, 122.
Marceau, General, 125.
Marcel, Etienne, 101, 102.
Marengo, 27.
Margaret of Navarre, 193.
Margaret of Provence, 62.
Marguerite de Valois, 23, 156.
Maria de' Medici, 10, 90, 104, 154.
Marie Antoinette, 92, 96.
Marie de Beau villiers, 188.
Marie de Cleves, 1 14.
Marie de Luxembourg, 68.
Marochetti, 104, 184.
Marot, Clement, 194.
Martel, Charles, 79.
Martin, Pere, 131, 165.
Mary of Brabant, 68.
Mary Stuart, 23.
Massillon, 195.
 (statue), 139.
Maton, Advocate, 154.
Matthieu de Vendome, 81.
Mauclerc, Pere, 62.
Maugiron, 174.
Maupertius (mausoleum), 178.
Maurevel, 102.
Mausart, 157, 196.
Mayenne, Duke of, 24.
Mazarin, Cardinal, 148.
" Mazas," 166.
Meissonier, 124.
Menteith, Patrick, 207.
Mercier, 164.
" Messe Rouge," 64, 69.
Middlemore, General, 152.
Mignard, 157.
 (mausoleum), 178.
Mignard, Nicholas, 149.
Mignard, Pierre, 149.

Mirabeau, 121, 123.
 (funeral), 164.
Moliere, 149, 172.
 (funeral, etc.), 168.
Momoro, Madame, 164,
Moncey, Marshal, 150.
Mons-en-Puelle, Battle of, 19.
Montaign, Jean de, 51.
Montalembert, Comte de, 113, 136.
Montereau, Pierre de, 63, 66, 67, 70.
Montfaucon, 115.
Montgomery, Count, 169.
Montmorency, Constable de, 104.
Montmorency, Duchesse de, 188.
Montmorency- Laval, 151.
Montorgueil, M. Georges, 147.
Montreuil, Eudes de, 62, 63.
Montson, Jean de, 10.
Montyon, Antoine de, 139.
Morand, Canon, 68.
Morard, Abbot, 113.
Morlot, Cardinal, 54.
Mortier, 150.
Mun, Comte de, 136.
Murat, 178.
Murray, Bishop, 207.

Nanterne, 124.
Nantes, Edict of, 194.
Nanthilde, 89.
Napoleon I., 27, 124 sqq., 104.
 (sarcophagus), 153.
 (tomb, etc.), 151 sqq.
Nauendorff, 175.
Negrier, General, 151.
Ne"not, M. 147.
Nestorius, 8.
Nicolle, 151.
Nicot, 174.
Nilsson, 186.
Noailles, Cardinal de, 53, 55, 56.
Northmen, 80, in.
Notre Dame des Champs, 189.
Notre Dame, Chapels, 53, etc.
 Relics, 57.
Novena, the, 127.

O'Cruoly, Marianus, 207.
Odo of Chateauroux, 68.
Odon de Deuil, 82.
Olier, M. 137.
Oratory, the, 194.
"Oriflamme," 81.
Orleans, Due d\ 21, 174.
Otto II., 187 sq.
Oudinot, 150.

213

INDEX.

Palissy, Bernard, 112.
Palmerston, Lord, 151.
Pame'a, 156.
Pare", Ambroise, 103.
Pascal, 129, 130.
 (epitaph), 204.
Pascal I., 169.
Pasteur, Louis, 28.
Patin, Guy, 106.
Patterson, Mr., 176.
Patti, 186.
Paulicians, 16.
Penvern, Curd, 150.
Pepin, 113.
Pepin the Short, 79.
Perdreau, Abbe", 130.
Perraud, Monseigneur, 112, 147.
Perrin, 157.
Perron, 157.
Peter of Capua, 70.
Philip Augustus, 15, 204.
Philip II., 61.
Philip III. (le Hardi), 68.
Philip the Fair, 18, 19, 47.
Philip of Orleans (Regent), 195.
Philip of Valois, 37.
Philippe de Champagne, 148, 169.
Pierre de Fayet, 201.
Pigalle, 138, 168.
Pinaigrier, 129, 130, 169, 170.
Pitie Hospital, 207.
Pius VII., 27.
Pius IX., 8, 176.
Placidus, 168.
Poirier, Dom, 92.
Holes, 206.
Pompadour, Madame de, 121.
Pomponne, Marquis de, 170.
Portals (Notre Dame), 46, etc.
Porte de la Sainte-Vierge, 46.
Porte Rouge (Notre Dame), 43, 49.
Poupart, Abb£, 165.
Prudentius of Troyes, 80, in.
Pujol, Abel de, 138.
Pyat, Felix, 166.

Quelus, 174.
Ouerini, Nicholas, 65.
Quesnel, 56.
Queynon, M. 38.
Quichard, 107.
Quicherat, 31.
Quietists, 56.
Quinault, 157.
Quinet, 121.

Rabelais, 174.

Racine, 129, 130.
Rambouillet, Madame de, 168.
Rameau, 168, 169.
Ravignan, Pere, 58.
Ravy, Jean, 55.
Raymond VI., 17.
Raymond VII. of Toulouse, 16, 17.
Reason, Goddess of, 26.
 Temple of, 27.
Recamier, Madame, 156.
Reggio, Duke of, 1 50.
Regnier, 106.
Renan, Ernest, 137.
Renaudet, Theophraste, 194.
Renee de France, 103.
Retz, Cardinal de, 24.
Rewbell, 136.
Richard 1 1. of England, 68.
Richard Philippe, 103.
Richard Plantagenet, 15.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 157, 174.
 (tomb, etc.), 145.
Rigault, Raoul, 166.
Rigord, 82.
Robert, King of France, 9, 113.
Robespierre, 27, 155, 165.
Rollin, 129.
Romain, Francis, 157.
Rondelet, 121.
Roscelin of Compiegne, 82.
Rossi, Commendatore, 205.
Rossini (funeral), 186.
Rothschild, 137.
Rousseau, 122, 123, 124.
Rousseau, Maistre Henri, 132.
Russian Church, 196.

Sacre-Coiur, Convent, 189.
St. Agnes, 163.
Saint Amaranthe, Madame de, 151.
St. Anne's Portal (N.D.), 48.
St. Antony, 112.
St. Arnaud, 151.
St. Bartholomew, 23.
St. Bartholomew's Day, 102, 194.
St. Benoit, 113.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 8, 9, 84, \i
St. Cecilia, 168, 169.
St. Charles Borromeo, 129.
St. Denis, 54, 55, 69, jy sq.
St. Dionysius (St. Denis), 78.
St. Eleutherius, 78.
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 173.
St. Eloi, 79, 94, 174-
St. Epiphanius, 8.
Saint-Esprit, Temple de, 195.
St. Euchlre, 79.
St.,Eugene, 189.

214

INDEX.

St. Ferdinand of the Ternes, 189.
St. Fiacre, 135.
St. Francis of Assisi, 106.
St. Francis Xavier, 117.
St. Germain, 54.
St. Germain I'Auxerrois, 23.
St. Gregory of Tours, 139.
St. Julian of Mans, 139.
St. Louis, 61, 69.
St. Louis d'Antin, 189.
St. Lucien lez Beauvais, 94.
St. Marcel, 48.
St. Marcel Portal (Notre Dame), 43.
St. Martin, 79.
St. Mary of Egypt, 106.
St. Medard, 158.
St. Medericus, 170.
Saint Megrin, 174
St. Nicholas, 171.
St. Nicolas, Chapel of, 201.
St. Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, 159.
St. Ouen, Borough of, 77.
St. Ouen (Rouen), 67.
St. Pierre-du-Petit-Montrouge, 189.
Saint Pol, Count of, 62.
St. Remi, 22.
St. Rusticus, 78.
St. Stephen (body), 127.
St. Stephen's and St. Mary's, 5.
St. Symphorien of Autun (monastery), 112.
St. Victor, 7.
St. Vincent, 112.
Sainte-Beuve, 156.
Ste. Genevieve, 7, 57, 121 sqq.
 (tomb), 130.
Ste. Marguerite, 175.
Sainte-Marie, Temple de, 195.
Salle des Pas Perdus, 63.
San Guste, 61.
Sans-G£ne, Madame, 195.
Sanson, 106.
Santerre, 155.
Sarden, 195.
" Satyre Mdnippee," 24.
Scarron, 163, 169.
Scellieres, Abbey of, 122.
Scheffer, Ary, 157.
Schneiz, 178.
Sciarra Colonna, 19.
Scuderi, Mademoiselle de, 172.
Sebastiani, 150.
Sefjastien, 172.
" Septembriseurs," 154.
Servandoni, 137.
Sevigne, Madame de, 169, 194.
Sibour, Monseigneur, 53, 131.
Sigebert, 89.
Signol, 168.
Simon, Abbe, 165.
Soissons, Council of, 84.

Sombreuil, Mademoiselle de, 157.
Sorbon, Canon Robert de, 145 sq.
Sorokines, 196.
Soufflot, 3, 121 sqq.
Soyecourt, Marchioness de, 156.
Spencer, Hon. and Rev. George, 176.
Steinheil, M., 71.
Stephen III., Pope, 79.
Steuben, 117.
Suger, Abbot, 80 sqq., 90, 94, etc.
Sully, H., 138.
Sully, Maurice de, 7, 49, 104.
Su'picius Severus, 136.
Sylvester II., 18.
Sylvestre, Israel, 106.
Synagogues, 196.

Tallien, Madame, 177.
Templars, 19, 20.
Temple of Genius, 177.
Temple of Glory, 184.
Temple of Hymen, 172.
Temple of Old Age, 173.
Temple of Peace, 157.
Temple of Reason, 188.
Temple of the Patriarch, 159.
Temple of Youth, 169.
Tennyson, 163.
Tesse, Marshal de, 103.
Thackeray, 152.
Theba, the, 196.
Theophilanthropists, 135, 157, 172, 173.
Theophilus, 49, 71.
Thomas, 178.
Timbal, 148.
" Tilleuls," the, 155.
Torre, Abbe, 165.
Tournelles, the, 63.
Tournemine, 174.
Trelawney, Colonel, 152.
Triqueti, 184.
Turenne, Marshal, 90, 150, 164.
Turennes, the, 194.
Tyrconnell, Duchess of, 207.

" Unigenitus," Bull, 56.

Valentine de Milan.
Vanloo, 138.
Varcollier, 196.
Vauban, 151.
Vaugelet, 168.
Verdier, 117.
Vezelay Church, 35.
Victor Hugo, 3, 24, 25, 121, 136.
 (tomb), 124.
Vignon, 184.

215

INDEX.

Villani, 19.
Vincennes, Chapel of the Chateau, 189.
Viole, Madame de, 129.
Viollet-le-Duc, 4, ?-7, 3r> 3°. 43, 45, 47, 63, 73-
Virmaitre, M., 173.
Visconti, 151.
Visitation, Nuns of the, 195.
Vitry, Baron de, 104.
Vbge, Herr, 36.
Voisins, Abbe de, 131.
Voiture, 168.
Voltaire, 11, 122, 123.
Von Dollinger, 137.
Votive tablets, 206.
Vouet, 157, 172.

Waldenses, 16.
Washington, George, 194.

Wassilieff, 196.
Wellesley, Marchioness of, 176.
Wickliff, 20.
William of Champeaux, 7, 83.
William of Nogaret, 19.
Winslow, Jean Benigne, 129.

Xavier, Francis, 188.

Yver, Etienne, 52, 201.

Zachary, Pope, 79.
Ziegler, 184.
Zola, 52.

PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED, ST. JOHN S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL, E.C.

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