The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X

The choir is raised three steps above the transepts. The two arches which separate the side aisles from the crossings show evidences of a later style. As we have seen, many sculptures were saved by the deputy Chaumette, and by Alexandre Lenoir, as works of art worthy of preservation; but unfortunately, reliquaries were of more value as metal, and most of them passed through the melting-pot into coinage for the bankrupt National treasury. The reliquaries shown at the cathedral are mostly modern imitations of those which were formerly in the Ste. Chapelle. One, however, is said to be the veritable Croix Palatine. This is a double-armed gold cross of Byzantine workmanship, formerly belonging to S. Germain-des-Prés, to which church it was left in 1684 by Anne of Cleves, princess of Mantua and of Montferrat, widow of Edouard von Baiern. The prince received it from Jean Casimir, King of Poland, when he took refuge in France; it having been given to a King of Poland in the 12th century by Manuel Comnenus, Emperor of Constantinople. The princess and her daughter, the Duchess of Brunswick, attested to having seen the cross upon one occasion encircled by flames and coming out of the fire unhurt. In 1793 the constitutional curé took the cross and preserved it until his death in 1827, when he remitted it to the archbishop of Paris. The inscription is in Greek and covers the length and the two arms: Jesus Christus cruci affixus qui exaltavit hominum naturum, scribit Comnenus Manuel coronatus. The following are some of the enormous number of valuables which formerly filled the treasury. In the inventory of 1763 there were no less than four busts and two statues in gold, silver-gilt, and jewelled; six silver reliquaries, two of gold, and five of silver-gilt; a gold cross attributed to S. Eloi, six silver-gilt crosses, and a whole closet full of silver candlesticks; besides a number of chalices, patens, ciborium, pax, censers, cruets, and other vessels for the altar; but very few were anterior to the 16th century. Of these the following remain: the Holy Crown from the S. Chapelle (imitation); the Holy Nail from S. Denis, given to Charlemagne by Constantine V., placed in the treasury of Aix-la-Chapelle, whence it was carried by Charles le Chauve to France; the golden cross of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, 12th century, which was bequeathed by the Princess Anne de Gonzague to the monks of S. Germain des Prés in 1683;115 two silver-gilt chalices of the 13th century; the relic of the True Cross sent in 1109 to Galon, bishop of Paris, by Anseau, precentor of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem;116 the crozier of Bishop Elides de Sully, of wood and copper; the crucifix belonging to S. Vincent de Paul, which he presented to Louis XIII. upon his death-bed; the "discipline" of S. Louis; portions of this king's raiment; and the soutanes of archbishops Affre, Sibour, and Darboy.

The high altar as originally arranged had brass bars at the sides from which hung draperies. Behind it was another altar, that of the Holy Trinity, or les ardents raised so that it could be seen above the first one. Steps led up to this, and between them was a depository called the conditoire, where all the sacred vessels used at mass were kept. There was no tabernacle; as in most churches in the old times, the host was enclosed in a ciborium which hung in front of the altar. A figure in alabaster of the Virgin surmounted the autel des ardents. Above all were three rows of châsses, one above the other, as it were upon shelves, containing relics of S. Gendulphe, S. Séverin, S. Germain, bishop of Paris, S. Justin, S. Lucain, S. Ursula's young friends, and other martyrs. The reliquary of S. Marcel was behind the high altar, resplendent in gold and pearls and precious stones, an elaborate and beautiful work of art, by, said tradition, S. Éloi, the bishop of Noyon; but unfortunately, it was too valuable to escape the melting-pot, and its 436 marcs worth of gold found their way into coin of the Republic.

The church was rich in glass up to the year 1741, when a demon in human shape, one Levieil, the author of a treatise upon the art of glass-painting, set to work to re-adorn Notre-Dame. He describes the matter himself; what he found and what he transformed. In the choir and the apse the windows were ornamented with colossal figures 18 ft. high, representing bishops, vested and bearing pastoral staves, without the usual crook termination. A border of lozenge-shapen coloured glass framed the figures and filled up the divisions of the compartments. These windows Levieil dated no later than 1182, and he adds that there were many fragments of much older glass, probably emanating from the ancient basilicas, which preceded the present church, interspersed between the grisaille of the 12th century. In the tribune of the choir were windows given by a little personage whose effigy knelt at the bottom of one, Michel de Darency by name, chaplain of Saint-Ferréol, who died in 1358. The abbot Suger also gave some of the glass in the tribune, resembling that of his own church, S. Denis, which is so rich in resplendent sapphire blue. In some of the chapels were subjects such as the Beheading of S. John Baptist, a king and queen, possibly Philippe le Bel and Jeanne de Navarre, kneeling. All this, or most of it, was improved away, or re-arranged into floriated borders and armorial bearings upon white glass. A little remains of the 14th century: some small Angels holding the instruments of the Passion, a Pelican and its chicks, a Christ draped in red, and a little figure of the Virgin. This is all in the chevet. But the glory of the church is the glass of the rose-windows, which continue the subjects portrayed upon the sculpture of the doors over which they are placed. In the western rose the Virgin is in the central compartment, crowned and bearing a sceptre; on her left arm is the infant Christ giving the benediction. The twelve prophets surround her, and we see again the Signs of the Zodiac, and the work special to each month during the year. Virtues and Vices, Judges, Priests, Prophets, and Kings of Judah; Saints and Martyrs with the instruments of their martyrdom, or palms, decorate these exquisite windows, masterpieces of the art; equal to the windows of Metz and Strasburg, and contemporary with the stone walls which surround them.

Formerly the pavement was a mass of tombstones, erect or prostrate, bearing portraits of the defunct in brass or marble; but Louis XIV.'s architects thought well to improve many of them away, and substitute a marble pavement costing 300,000 francs. Many brass tombs had been melted up with the lectern some years previously. Among the celebrities who had formerly either effigies or epitaphs in the choir were the following. Princes and Princesses: Philippe, Archdeacon of Paris, son of Louis VI., 1161; Geoffroy, duc de Bretagne, son of Henry II. of England, 1186; Isabelle de Hainault, first wife of Philippe-Auguste, 1189; Louis, dauphin, son of Charles VI., 1415; Louise de Savoie, mother of François Ier., 1531 (only her heart was buried here); Louis XIII., 1643. Bishops of Paris: Eudes de Sully, 1208; Étienne II., called Tempier, 1279; Cardinal Aymeric de Magnac, 1384; Pierre d'Orgemont, 1409; Denis Dumoulin, patriarch of Antioch, 1447. Archbishops of Paris: Pierre de Marca, 1662; Hardouin de Péréfixe, 1671; François de Harlay, 1695; and an archbishop of Sens, who was also High Almoner of France, Renaud de Beaune, who died in 1616.

The few statues which are now in the church are modern: the marble monument by Pigalle, of the Comte d'Harcourt; of Cardinal de Belloy giving alms to a woman and child, by Deseine; and those of the three murdered archbishops, Sibour, Affre, and Darboy, who are buried in the crypt. The epitaph of Monseigneur Affre is as follows: Le bon pasteur donne sa vie pour ses brebis… Que mon sang soit le dernier versé.

The bells of Notre-Dame were justly celebrated; but of the thirteen which were formerly in the towers, only one remains, the great bourdon, heard all over the city on great occasions; as, for instance, on Holy Saturday, when at High Mass, during the Gloria, it peals forth, giving the signal for all the other church bells to break their forty-eight hours' silence. It was given by Jean de Montaigu117 in 1400, who named it Jacqueline, after his wife Jacqueline de La Grange; and in 1686 it was refoundered and re-baptised – Emmanuel-Louise-Thérèse, in honour of Louis XIV. and Marie-Thérèse of Austria.

The exterior decoration of Notre-Dame is very rich. Gargoyles, monsters of the most grotesque type, called also tarasques and magots, are there, encircling the towers, and disputing their importance with the Angel of the Judgment. The monsters stand, as they did centuries ago, gazing down upon Paris and its doings for good or for evil. Think of the events they have witnessed from the burning of fifty-four Templars in a slow fire by Philippe IV., to the horrors of the Commune. They must have seen the flaming villages and châteaux during the Jacquerie, and witnessed those useless sorties during the last war, when the Parisians vainly endeavoured to escape from the city and gain one of the outside army corps. They seem to look down in scorn upon humanity, whether in the form of the coronation of Henry VI. of England, so mean an affair that "un bourgeois qui marierait ses enfants ferait mieux les choses," or the misery of the famine of 1419-21. "Vous auriez entendu dans tout Paris des lamentations pitoyables, des petits enfants qui criaient, 'Je meurs de faim.' On voyait sur un fumier 20-30 enfants garçons, filles, qui rendaient l'âme de faim et de froid. On enterrait 100,000 personnes. Des bandes de loups courraient les campagnes et entraient même la nuit dans Paris pour enlever les cadavres." And all the ages through, the brutes have had the same expression of scorn, of spite, of diabolical ugliness, that one feels it to be a comfort that they are fixed safely to the gallery of the towers, out of the way of working mischief.

Amongst the great ceremonies which have taken place in the cathedral are: The marriage of Marie Stuart with François II., of France, in 1552; the marriage of Henri of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois upon a platform erected outside the great porch, to prevent Protestant contamination of the church. This was upon the eve of S. Bartholomew, the 18th August, just six days before the great work of massacre on the 24th. The coronation of Napoléon by Pope Pius VII., in 1804; the marriage of the Duc du Berry, and the baptism of the Duc du Bordeaux (Comte de Chambord) in 1816; the funeral of the Duc d'Orléans, son of Louis Philippe, in 1853; the marriage of Louis-Napoléon in 1853; the baptism of his son in 1857, and a certain number of episcopal consecrations.

There was a great procession organized in 1590, during the siege of Paris by Henri IV. Sermons were preached against "Le Béarnais," the clergy took up arms, and the pope's legate promised the palm of martyrdom to all who fell in the holy cause. The day after the first assault, the procession took place. The principal heroes of the League, after shaving head and face, marched first, vested in "camail and rochet," and bearing sword and "partisan." Then came a number of monks in order of battle, shouldering their axes and arquebuses, "dans un accoutrement moitié religieux et moitié militaire qui avait quelque chose de burlesque et de terrible à la fois. L'Eglise militante chantant des hymnes entremêlées de salves de mousqueterie. Ils défilèrent devant le legat, qui les traita de vrais Machabées; pour que quelques-uns mériterent à la défense des remparts." But it did not save them from starvation.

There was at one time a mass said for the idle at "la plus haute heure du matin. Ainsi qu'en d'aucunes paroisses de Paris, il y a la messe d'unze heures." This was suppressed in 1722 by the Cardinal de Noailles, archbishop of Paris. It was founded by the kindly regular canon, Jean Le Moyne, and its revenues were applied to the bénéficiers machicots and clercs du matins. The machicots were officers of the church of Notre-Dame inferior to the bénéficiers, and superior to the simple wage-singers. The word machicotage "se dit de certaines additions des notes, suivant une merche diatonique avec lesquelles on remplessait dans le plain chant les intervalles du tierces et autres." A number of corona hang from the vault, and in the crossing of the transepts is a huge one recalling that of Hildesheim. When lighted during the services of Holy Week, just giving a gentle diffused glimmer, the effect is very fine; never, indeed, are these great churches so grand as at the evening services. The mass of men sitting in the nave (it is reserved for them), the deep roar of their voices as they sing the Miserere, the intense silence during the eloquent discourses of Père Monsabré or some other Dominican, the procession, dimly lighted, of old canons in every stage of decrepitude, the small boys, followed by a crowd of the most unharmonious specimens of humanity, carrying tapers, are elements forming a picture which is uniquely picturesque. In the old days before the war, the graceful, sweet-expressioned archbishop, bending to this side and that, while the faithful kissed his episcopal ring and received his blessing, added to the beauty of the scene. Had we known what was in store for him, it would have added also to the pathos.

NOTRE-DAME DE L'ASSOMPTION

This building may be described as a dome and a portico, built from 1670 to 1676, by Charles Erard, director of the Academy of France at Rome, and decorated by Charles de la Fosse. The cupola is graceful, and if it were as well decorated as the Allerheiligen church of the palace at München, or the Apollinarus-Kirche at Remagen on the Rhine, it would be an imposing edifice; as it is, it seems under a cloud, and is only used as a succursale or dépendance of the Madeleine. It belonged to the convent of Augustinian nuns, now turned into barracks, but still showing a few remains of the cloister. It is strange that no one in these days should desire to build a round church under a dome ablaze with mosaic decoration. It might have a sanctuary as at Aix-la-Chapelle for the Divine offices, with a pulpit in the dome, which would have the advantage of being placed so that all the congregation could see the preacher. I am thinking at this moment of the beautiful Russian church in Paris, which is gorgeous with colour and gilding. Such a building upon a large scale, built in the sumptuous style of the Brompton Oratory, of marbles and mosaic, and in the form of the church of the Assumption, would be a refreshing change from red brick and Doulton tiles, which seem to be inseparately mixed up with elaborate ritual, and are as infallibly correct as clothing for an Anglo-Catholic service as is chocolate colour for dressing up pseudo-Grecian temples surmounted by pepper-box turrets, which delighted the architects at the beginning of this styleless century.

NOTRE-DAME DE L'ABBAYE AUX BOIS

If I say that the little church and cloister, which are all that remain of a monastery of Cistercian nuns, built in 1718, are situated in the Rue de Sèvres, hard by the Bon Marché, my readers will immediately picture their whereabouts. At the beginning of this century, the Abbaye became a genteel boarding-house for fashionable ladies who played at being weary of the world; but, although they retired into a monastic building, their monde followed them; and thus we find Madame Recamier receiving her admirers in her cloistered salon, and listening to their philosophical sophistries while she elegantly reclines upon a satin sofa with straight legs and curling arms.

NOTRE-DAME DES BLANCS-MANTEAUX

When the white-mantled religious, the servants of Mary, came to Paris about the year 1258, they set up housekeeping in the street which is now named after them, the Rue des Blancs-Manteaux. Everyone who has been to Florence knows the chapel of the Annunziata, where during mass one day, the general of the Servites, Filippo Benozzi, saw a vision of the Virgin sitting in a chariot, and heard her voice calling upon him to draw near, and join himself to her servants, who, some fifteen years earlier, had banded themselves together. There were seven of them, all of noble family, and they gained their name from their especial devotion to the Virgin. As they wandered out to the church of the Annunciation to sing their Angelus, the women and children used to point at them and cry out, "Guardate i Servi di Maria"; and so, when they formed themselves into a community, they became known as the "Servi" or "Serviti." Benozzi was a medicine man of benevolent disposition, who, tired of witnessing suffering (perhaps of operations performed without anæsthetics), gave up his work, and retired, like another S. Benedict, to Monte Senario. His power in smoothing down the ruffled-up backs of the Tuscans in their many family squabbles was so great that he became a renowned moral healer; and in 1285, when he died, his order was flourishing all over Italy and France. It was soon after his beatification, about 1671, that Andrea del Sarto was called upon to decorate part of the cloisters of the Annunziata; and, as a result, we have the lovely Madonna del Sacco. At the end of the 13th century the hermits of Saint-Guillaume replaced the Servites at the monastery of the Blancs-Manteaux, and in 1618 the house was united to the Reformed Benedictines who erected a new church. The habit of the monks was then changed to black, but as the name of Blancs-Manteaux was still retained, the people called the fathers les mal nommés. The conventual buildings are now occupied by the Mont-de-Piété, another kind of service of the poor, in the shape of official and honest pawnbroking. If anyone wishes to study character, let him go into the great hall, and look at those rows and rows of physiognomies sitting upon the benches awaiting their turn to be served. Young, old, poor, and, apparently, rich, all go there for loans upon their goods; and you may pile upon the mountain anything you like, from a bundle of rags to a diamond butterfly.

NOTRE-DAME DES CHAMPS

Legendary history records an assemblage of the first Christians of Lutetia in the fields where now runs the Rue S. Jacques, listening to the preaching of S. Denis, and strengthening themselves against the persecution which loomed in the distance. And legend further relates that a chapel was built upon this spot. But leaving the realms of tradition, we find an authentic account of a church in the 8th century which, in the next hundred years, was served by the Benedictine monks of Marmoutier. This remained the headquarters of a priory for about six hundred years. In 1604, Cardinal Bérulle introduced the Carmelite order as reformed by S. Theresa, and the nuns began to rebuild. The church they left intact with its 13th century porch, and its great statues of S. Denis, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon. This building disappeared, and a modern one arose in its stead, more to the West; but the crypt is supposed to be under the level of the street; and according to the abbé Lebœuf, a second subterraneous burial-ground of Gallo-Roman origin was discovered still lower down, with fragments of tombstones, slabs, pottery, and the like. The present church contains a few débris of its former grandeur, a statue by Sarazin, of Cardinal de Bérulle, being the principal one.

The monastery was celebrated, during the 17th century, as the asylum of many distinguished ladies who sought a refuge from their troubles; amongst others, of the blessed Sœur Louise de la Miséricorde, who died there in 1710, in the odour of sanctity. In her mundane career this Madeleine da la Cour was Mdlle. de la Vallière, and she is said to have posed to Le Brun for his terrible picture of La Madeleine pénitente renonce à toutes les vanités de la vie, which was painted for M. de Camus as an adornment of this Carmelite church. It is now in the Louvre, which it in nowise adorns. Lebrun, as a decorative artist, painting allegories and battles, is bearable; but his religious pictures are only gross exaggerations of the Italian Eclectics. This Madeleine de la Vallière is in a tortuous state of agony at the thought of the vanities she enjoyed. With eyes turned up, with her flowing locks, and swathed in rich satin garments, which are blown by a gust of wind coming in at the open casement on the top of a cloud, she looks thunder-struck; it is astonishment at the discovery of her sinfulness, revealed by the heavens opening, and the Divine voice addressing her. Surely the moderns, the Bérauds, the Lhermites, the Dagnan-Bouverets, Uhde, Hitchcock, Pierce, and their followers, have far more religious feeling, although they clothe their personages as Parisian workpeople, and paint their Madeleines, like Henner, in the pastures (apparently) of the Bois de Boulogne – backgrounds, considering the subject, not altogether inappropriate.

NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE

An utterly uninteresting exterior encloses some good mural paintings by Orsel, Périn, and Roger. The church was completed in 1836 by Lebas, and were the weather always bright, the interior would not fail to impress the visitor; but it is too dark for a Northern clime, and it is therefore difficult fully to appreciate the frescoes. That over the altar is by Picot; the subjects from the life of the Virgin are by Dubois, Langlois, Vinchon, and Hesse; the choir is the work of Delorme; the Presentation in the Temple, and Christ disputing with the Doctors, are by Heim and Drolling. They are all inspired by a reverent feeling for the subjects, and are resplendent with gold.

NOTRE-DAME DES VICTOIRES

Louis XIII. laid the first stone of this church in 1629, and dedicated it to Our Lady of Victory, in memory of the famous battle of La Rochelle. It was part of the convent of barefooted Augustins, who were nicknamed the Little Fathers, by Henri IV., on account of the diminutive stature of some of the friars, and consequently the church was as often called Notre-Dame des Petits Pères as Notre-Dame des Victoires. Pierre Lemut was its original architect; and before it was completed, in 1740, by Cartaud, two other architects, Libéral Bruant and Gabriel Leduc, lent their aid. The cupola is decorated with an Assumption; pictures by Vanloo adorn the choir, and other chapels contain some by Perrault. Those by Vanloo represent the thanksgiving of the King and the Cardinal for the mighty victory aforesaid, the taking of La Rochelle. But the interest of, or the objections to, the church, according to the point of view from which we start, consists in the innumerable ex-voto tablets which cover the walls, and proclaim the answers to prayers by mothers, wives, husbands, sons, fathers, and daughters. They are emblems of the faith which saves. But would not the same earnest prayers, put up on other spots, produce the same results? Is it not a narrow notion that we are more likely to be heard in the Place des Victoires than in the Halles? Such is not the view of the dévots and dévotes, as the statue of the Virgin proclaims, for it is hung all over with costly jewels and ornaments; and whatever time of the day we may enter the church, we find it almost filled with troubled souls who come to gain an indulgence at its privileged altars, which are to those of a different sort of mind examples of what to avoid. For those persons having leanings to superstition, let me commend this church as an antidote; to others, it is neither æsthetically interesting nor, from a religious point of view, particularly edifying. To musicians it has one attraction, as being the burial-place of Jean-Baptiste Lulli, the charming fiddler, who died in 1687, and whose bronze statue by Cotton is in the transept.

L'ORATOIRE

Built for the Oratorians, this elegant circular church is now given over to Protestant gloom of the least decorative order. It was constructed by François Mansard, and dedicated to Notre-Dame-des-Anges in 1634, upon the site, some authorities say, of the Hôtel of Gabrielle d'Estrèes; it may therefore be said to have passed from the good Gabrielle, through the better fathers, to the best Protestants; or, contrariwise, from the bad Demoiselle to the worse Catholics, and, worst of all, Calvinists. However, now all is calm, and passions have subsided; and a fine statue of Admiral Coligny is fixed to its wall, facing the scene of his murder on that fearful feast of bloodshed which S. Bartholemew must have been scandalized to find attached to his name.