The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X

SAINT-PAUL-SAINT-LOUIS

In the Rue Saint-Antoine is the old church of the Jesuits, gorgeous in marbles, gilding and stucco, as is the wont of the architects employed by those wary fathers. It was built from the designs of François Derraud from 1627-41. The remains of the conventual buildings are now occupied by the Collège Charlemagne. The expenses of the building were defrayed by Louis XIII. and Richelieu, who celebrated his maiden mass there. It was the second cupola erected in Paris, the first being that belonging to the Carmelite church. It is Italian in style, the façade being very similar to that of S. Gervais, recalling the Gesu and S. Ignacius at Rome, and is adorned with statues of S. Louis, by Lequesne; of S. Catherine, by Auguste Préault; and of S. Anne, by Etex. Bourdaloue and archbishop Huet of Avranches are buried there, and in a crypt below lie the Jesuits who have died in the convent from its foundation until the suppression of the order. The numerous monuments were swept away at the Revolution: a rich sculptured coffer for the heart of Louis XIII., and another by Coustou le jeune, containing Louis XIV.'s heart. The tabernacle was of silver gilt, but it is no more. The only contents now of any interest are a picture representing the abbey of Longchamps, attributed to Philippe de Champaigne, and a fine work by Delacroix, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Although his first known picture, it is an example of his splendid colouring and grand composition. Victor Hugo's first child was born in the parish, and baptized at S. Paul's, and to commemorate the event the poet presented two holy-water stoops, in the shape of shells, very beautiful in design.

SAINT-PHILIPPE DU ROULE

"This church presents you with a single insulated row of fluted Ionic pillars, on each side of the nave; very airy, yet consequential, and even imposing. It is much to my taste, and I wish such a plan were more generally adopted in the interiors of Grecian-constructed churches. The choir, the altar … the whole is extremely simple and elegant. Nor must the roof be omitted to be particularly mentioned. It is an arch constructed of wood, upon a plan originally invented by Philibert Delorme – so well known in the annals of art in the sixteenth century. The whole is painted in stone-colour, and may deceive the most experienced eye. This beautiful church was built after the designs of Chalgrin, about the year 1700, and is considered to be a purer resemblance of the antique than any other in Paris. Perhaps the principal front may be thought to be too close or servile a copy. It was erected upon the site of an ancient Gothic chapel, of which latter the author of the three quarto volumes of Parisian topography has given a vignette from the only known design of it, in aquatint, but very indifferent. This church, well worth your examination, is situated in a quarter rarely visited by our countrymen, in the Rue du Faubourg du Roule, not far from the barriers."118

I give this criticism of S. Philippe because it shows how taste has changed in architecture, as indeed in all else. From most persons' point of view the church is quite uninteresting; indeed the only object in going there is, except to a certain number of fashionables, to hear some celebrated preacher. It was from the pulpit of S. Philippe that Père Didon poured forth those eloquent and learned discourses, stocked with liberal ideas, which brought him into disgrace and forced retirement, until quite recently.

It is curious, too, that the quarter should have so changed. It is now the centre of the English and American colonists, and withal well filled with persons who delight in the one o'clock mass. It is so convenient; they can saunter in after déjeuner, say a few prayers, step into their carriages again, and go straight off to the races. Perhaps S. Augustin has bereft S. Philippe of some of its fashion; but it has still plenty to spare; it may be said to swarm with elegant toilettes, and not much else in the way of beauty. Let us walk on.

SAINT-PIERRE DE CHAILLOT

"Chaillot, très ancien village de la banlieue de Paris érigé en faubourg, sous le nom de la Conférence, par arrêté du conceil du mois de Juillet 1659. Le nom de ce faubourg lui fut donné à cause de la porte de la Conférence, située sur la rive droite de la Seine, vers l'extrémité de la terrasse du jardin des Tuileries."

The apse of this church is the only part that is old; the rest is Italian, and very poor of its kind, which makes the groined vault of the apse all the pleasanter to contemplate. Lately a new chapel has been added on in the Avenue Marceau, something between a Swiss châlet and a café, all ablaze with gilding and tawdry decoration.

The abbey of Sainte-Perrine de Chaillot was founded by Philippe le Bel about 1300, in the forest of Compiègne for the canonesses of the order of S. Augustin; and in 1646 it was transferred to La Villette. Later, the monastery was united to another community of the same order which was established at Chaillot in 1659. In 1760 the abbey ceased to exist, and the buildings gradually disappeared, with the exception of a few fragments belonging to some school buildings. Augustin's sisters may still be seen at Chaillot, working in the parish of S. Pierre, and observable by their quaint head-gear and their quainter clogs worn over spotless white stockings. By the way, why do Anglican sisters and nurses wear long gowns trailing about the wards of our hospitals? Are they not possibly receptacles for the germ and microbe population?

SAINT-PIERRE DE MONTMARTRE

The first church of S. Peter is said to have been founded by Louis VI. and Alix de Savoie his wife, upon the site of a still older edifice; and its most remarkable event in those early days was the presence of S. Bernard at its consecration. Little remains earlier than the 15th century, except two verd antique columns and some of the pillars of the choir. Upon a slab may be read an inscription bearing upon the martyrdom of S. Denis and his companions, who suffered here upon the mountain; and in the open ground outside is a Calvary to which the pious world resorts. A splendid new church dedicated to the Sacré Cœur is being built hard by, to which a vast number of processions and pilgrimages now industriously and toilfully wend their way.

SAINT-ROCH

Built by Jacques Lemercier, after the first-stone-laying by the Grand Monarque, this church became fashionable and much affected by the great ones of the City. Bossuet lived hard by in the Rue S. Anne, and was placed in the church he had often preached in, previously to being removed to his cathedral of Meaux. Another celebrity, Marie Anne de Bourbon, Princesse de Conti, daughter of Louis and his handmaiden La Vallière, was buried in the chapel of the Virgin; and the sculptors François and Michel Anguier also found their rest here.

The portico was commenced in 1736 from the designs of Robert de Cotte. It is in no wise beautiful; but it is celebrated as having been the scene of the terrible 13 Vendémiaire An IV. (5 October, 1795). In the "cul-de-sac Dauphin" against the church walls the "young bronze Artillery Officer" set his guns. "The firing was with sharp and sharpest shot; to all men it was plain that there was no sport."119 In a couple of hours it was all over; insurrection quelled; and the "Whiff of Grapeshot" proved so successful that it became the active power in subsequent doings of the dynasty of the "Man of bronze."

S. Roch is a vast edifice mainly conspicuous by its ugliness; but it contains much furniture that is worth noting. Over the altar is a fine crucifix by Michel Anguier, formerly in the Sorbonne. The group of the Nativity brought from Val de Grâce is by François Anguier. Saint-Jean-en-Grève has contributed the Baptism of Our Lord, by Lemoine; the Latin Fathers were sculptured for the Dome of the Invalides; the figure of S. Roch on the right of the choir is by one of the Coustou brothers; a dying Christ by Falconet. The bust of Lenôtre, by Coyzevox, was part of a monument; so was the statue of Cardinal Dubois by Guillaume Coustou. Mignard was buried here and has a memorial bust by Desjardins. Medallions also abound: the Maréchal d'Asfeld, the Duc de Lesdignières, the Comte d'Harcourt, and the Duc de Cérqui; also a monument to Maupertius, l'abbé de l'Epée; and an epitaph to Pierre Corneille. Madame de Feuquières, in white marble, was treated after the manner of the kings and queens at S. Denis. Lemoine made her kneeling at her father, Mignard's feet; some one improved upon this, and turned her into a Madeleine at the foot of the cross.

Behind the choir is the chapel of the Virgin, with the Crucifixion lighted up after the manner of that terrible tomb at Windsor erected to the memory of the Princess Charlotte; but they vie with each other in popularity from the many sightseers who pass by. There is also an entombment which, on Good Friday, is visited by thousands of people; and in the chapel of the S. Sacrament, a reproduction of the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat and the Cherubim – about the most interesting part of the church; it is I believe, used as the tabernacle. "S. Roche is doubtless a very fine building, with a well proportioned front and a noble flight of steps; but the interior is too plain and severe for my taste. The walls are decorated with unfluted pilasters, with capitals scarcely conformable to any one order of architecture. The choir, however, is lofty, and behind it, in Our Lady's chapel, if I remember accurately, there is a striking piece of sculpture of the Crucifixion, sunk into a rock, which receives the light from an invisible aperture, as at S. Sulpice. To the right, or rather behind this chapel, there is another – called the Chapel of Calvary– in which you observe a celebrated piece of sculpture, of rather colossal dimensions, of the entombment of Christ. The dead Saviour is borne to the sepulchre by Joseph of Arimathea, St. John, and the three Maries. The name of the sculptor is Deseine. Certainly you cannot but be struck with the effect of such representations – which accounts for these two chapels being a great deal more attended in general than the choir or the nave of the church. It is, right, however, to add, that the pictures here are preferable to those of S. Sulpice, and the series of bas-reliefs, descriptive of the principal events in the life of Christ, is among the very best specimens of art, of that species, which Paris can boast of."120

The music at S. Roch gained much renown some years ago, and although it is not now in any way remarkable, its reputation is still great. People assure you that the best music in Paris is at S. Roch. True, we may hear the masses of Haydn and Mozart very fairly performed there; but neither voices nor organ equal the refinement of the Madeleine. In one respect, however, we may prefer S. Roch. The boys sit upon their little stools in the choir, and when they have to sing, group themselves with the singing men round a huge lectern, which stands out in the centre of the chancel. Thus they stand before the old noted service book, and in their picturesque costume of red cassocks, white albs, and blue or red sashes, they form a most picturesque coup-d'œil, very different from the other churches. At the Madeleine the choir sits behind the altar, and you hear the singing from invisible voices, – very charming if you did not see the boys in their collégien uniform pass round before the commencement of the service; but this gives a somewhat theatrical effect. At S. Roch the grouping of the men and boys and the double basses round the lectern gives the whole affair such a delightfully old-world appearance that it is most refreshing, and the effect of the huge service-book, with its plain-song notation up above the heads of the boys, takes one back hundreds of years. That S. Roch was much esteemed in the early years of the century our American's letter shows. His criticism of the sermon might apply very well to many a one in this year of grace, more especially here at home. The French preachers almost always speak well, and are eloquent, even if their matter be indifferent, dull, or twaddly. Englishmen unfortunately despise the manner, and think their hearers ought to be content with good matter only; and so it comes about that in a life-time only two or three great preachers stand out in one's memory – a Henry Parry Liddon and a Samuel Wilberforce. However, the "American," is of a diverse opinion. "Yesterday, being Sunday, I went to S. Roch's; I had the luck to hit upon the fashionable church; but the preacher was the god of dulness. The world, he says, is growing worse and worse; our roguish ancestors begot us bigger rogues, about to produce a worse set of rogues than ourselves. The Antichrist is already come. If he had said the antichrist of wit, anybody would have believed him, and yet this is the very pulpit from which the Bossuets and Bourdaloues used to preach. The church was filled almost entirely of women; one might think that none go to heaven in this country but the fair sex" (or perhaps the men require no help, he might have added). "The worshippers seem intent enough upon their devotions, but the wide avenues at the sides are filled with a crowd of idle, curious, and disorderly spectators. Give me a French church; one walks in here booted and spurred, looks at the pretty women and the pictures, whistles a tune if one chooses, and then walks out again. They have not spoilt the architectural beauty (!) of S. Roch's by pews and galleries. The walls are adorned splendidly with paintings; and here and there are groups of statuary, and the altar being finely gilt and illuminated, looks magnificently. When I build a church I shall decorate it somewhat in this manner. It is good to imitate nature as much as one can in all things; and she has set us the example in this. She has adorned her great temple, the world, with green fields, and fragrant flowers, and its superb dome the firmament with stars."121 The trotting about at S. Roch is the same to this day, which makes it the least restful of churches.

SAINT-SÉVERIN

The church of S. Séverin is particularly interesting as showing a gradual development from the 13th to the 16th century. Founded upon the site of an oratory by Henri I. in 1050, it was first rebuilt at the end of the 11th century.

There were two saints of this name; one, the founder of the Abbey of Châteaulandon, who miraculously cured Clovis I. of some sickness by placing his chasuble upon him; and the other, the patron of this church, a monk, or rather a hermit, who lived during the reign of Childebert I., in a cell near Paris, and was of course much given to prayer and supplications, and other pious exercises. Considering the brutal manners and customs of the early sovereigns and their companions, it is a blessed sign that human nature, even in those dark ages, was not completely diabolical; and to find that some men and women cared for other matters than fire and sword and pillage. S. Séverin was one of these more peaceful souls; and so well did he preach his pacific faith, that S. Cloud, or Clodoaldus, the grandson of Queen Clotilde, became one of his disciples, and received the religious habit of the Benedictine order from him. S. Cloud was the youngest of the sons of Chlodomir, one of three brothers who suffered from the murderous inclinations of wicked uncles. What brigands they all were! Imagine a woman being asked in all seriousness whether she preferred death or the tonsure for her grandchildren. No wonder monasteries and convents flourished, for where else was there any culture, enlightenment, civilization, or even safety to life and limb? And yet Clotilde must have had some reason for her passionate answer, "Better they were dead than shaven monks!" for she must have foreseen that such an exclamation could only lead to assassination, and thus we find that S. Cloud alone of the brothers escaped death, and became a shaven Benedictine.

S. Séverin was probably buried near the oratory, and what would be more natural than that the disciple should consecrate the spot to the memory of his master? In 1050 Henri I. gave the patronage, which had been up to his reign in the hands of the kings, to the then Bishop of Paris, Imbert. At the end of the 11th century, it became an enormous parish, extending almost over the whole of the southern part of the city. It is now the centre of the Italian legion, models, organ-grinders, white-mice men, and plaster-image vendors; and it is a pretty sight on Sundays and fête days to see the church packed with emigrants from the sunny South decked out in all the splendour of their holiday attire. How a group of people can alter the whole aspect of a building, was once demonstrated to me in S. Paul's cathedral. Walking down that dismal and gloomy nave upon an afternoon to which the same adjectives might be appropriately applied, it seemed suddenly to become bright and light by the entrance of a group of three or four Italian women with their children, dressed in the familiar, and upon any other human beings, hideously crude violet, emerald-green, and raw-blue coloured garments; colours which are totally wanting in beauty and harmony of themselves, but allied to the snow-white chemises and trimmed with gold braid, and partially covered with silver ornaments, they seemed to drop into harmony with the church, and to completely change the general appearance of the melancholy background, as even a ray of sunshine fails to do completely. S. Paul's is so essentially Italian that its usual congregations, clad in blacks and browns, form an utterly inharmonious foreground to the architecture, and give one the idea that the building is dépaysé.

The present church of S. Séverin was re-built in the 13th century, in great part by money obtained by indulgences, which Clement VI. in 1347 accorded to the generously inclined among the faithful. In the next century this system was revived, and the churchwardens, with shrewd foresight, bought up more ground, with a view to the enlargement of the building. The first stone of the new part was laid in 1489, the chapel of S. Sebastian being built three years later. In 1490 the chapel of the Conception, which was situated near the east end, was demolished to make way for the lengthening of the north aisle. Five years later, Jean Simon, Bishop of Paris, consecrated the new portions of the church, including the high altar, and several of the chapels of the chevet. In 1498 the chapels on the south side were commenced by Micheaul le Gros; the sacristy and treasury being added in 1540, and the chapel of the Communion in 1673, to make an entrance to which the chapel of S. Sebastian had to be destroyed. Thus for four hundred years, more or less, the church was undergoing constant change and development. Then began the downward path, commencing with the destruction of the jubé and the "ornamentation" of the sanctuary to suit the taste of the devotees of Classic art. Originally, many of the Paris churches had jubés (rood-screens), but the only one now remaining is that of S. Étienne du Mont. A brass attached to one of the pillars gives the names of the donors of the screen, Antoine de Compaigne (illuminator) and his wife Oudette.

Were it not for the elegant little tower and spire, few persons would know of the existence of S. Séverin. It is out of the beaten track, beyond Notre-Dame and the "monuments" of the Faubourg S. Germain. It has to be hunted up; but it is well worth the trouble, and any one visiting the remains of the Roman amphitheatre of Lutetia, in the Rue Monge (now laid out as a public garden) can see S. Séverin at the same time.

The portal is profusely carved and bears an inscription upon the stylobate (the letters of which are of the 13th century), giving the various duties of the grave-diggers, amongst others the cleansing of the vaults of the roof as well as the lower part of the church on the feast of S. Martin, in order to be tidy for the dedication festival which fell two days later. As in many other churches, there are two lions on each side of the arch, probably the supports formerly of some heraldic shields. This, no doubt, is the origin of the formula, which terminates certain ecclesiastical judgments pronounced at the threshold of the temple, Datum inter duos leones. The tympanum bas-relief has been restored. It represents the charity of S. Martin, who is one of the patrons of the church, and whose mutilated mantle, or a portion of it, has been one of the cherished relics of S. Séverin since the 14th century. There is also a chapel dedicated to the venerable bishop of Tours, which was formerly completely covered with ex voto horse-shoes, the gifts of thankful travellers; for S. Martin having been on horseback when he divided his cloak, became the patron of the travelling community. The western façade is composed of portions of the portal of S. Pierre-aux-Bœufs in the Cité, which was demolished in 1837, and is, the little which has been left unrestored, of the 13th century. S. Pierre was situated in the Rue d'Arcole; the only fragment remaining being a bas-relief fixed against the wall of the house which occupies the site of the church, representing an Ecce Homo surrounded with the emblems of the Passion. Above the porch of S. Séverin are an open work gallery, a rose window and a cornice upon which a party of little animals are playing among some foliage, all in Flamboyant style. The statue of the Virgin is quite modern. The whole of the chapels, as well as the greater part of the nave, are of the 15th and 16th centuries; but the first three bays of the nave are of a totally different style; the form of the arches and of the windows shows the craftsmanship of the 13th century artists. Birds and beasts, natural and grotesque, form gargoyles, shooting the rainwater from their open mouths. At the north-west end of the chapels, an elegantly carved canopied niche encloses the patron Saint, and near him is an inscription inviting the passers-by to pray for the souls of the departed

Bonnes gens qui p cy passesPries Dieu pour les trespasses.

The last word has been mutilated.

The interior consists of a nave and double aisles. The triforium is very similar to that of Westminster Abbey church; but at the commencement of the apse, the 13th century arches were filled in with round-headed ones, Cupid-like Cherubs being placed between the two to "ornament" the intervening space, and the pillars converted into marbled pilasters.

Some of the capitals and corbels of the south aisle are most droll – prophets, flying Angels, and divers kinds of animals, all more or less grotesque, after the manner of the miserere seats at Wells cathedral. During the reign of Henri IV. Sibyls, and Prophets, Patriarchs and Apostles, were painted by one Jacques Bunel on a gold ground above the arches of the nave; but happily they have disappeared. It was Mlle. de Montpensier who caused the marbling of the choir to be undertaken in 1684, and who also bore the expense of the baldachino of the altar, employing the sculptor Tubi to carry out the designs of Lebrun.

In the side aisle, on the south, is a little door leading through a garden, formerly the graveyard, to the presbytère. This, in summer, forms a charming little picture. In one of the side chapels (Notre-Dame de l'Espérance) is a 15th century wall-painting of The Resurrection of the Dead; and in the chapel of the chevet a Preaching of John the Baptist, also in fresco. In the apse are a series of fluted and spiral columns. The bosses are many of them ornamented with figures – the Annunciation, S. Anne and S. Joachim at the golden gate, a Holy Face, and a chalice surmounted by the host.

A number of distinguished persons were buried at S. Séverin: Étienne Pasquier, an eloquent Avocat-Général under Henri III. who was mainly instrumental in causing the exclusion of the Jesuits from the University, and who died in 1615; the brothers Saint-Martre, celebrated men of letters living at the beginning of the 17th century; and Moreri, the author of the Dictionnaire Historique, who died in 1680.

There are only three ancient epitaphs remaining – that of Nicolas de Bomont, who died in 1540; Guillaume Fusée, president of the Parliament of Paris, and of his wife, Jeanne Desportes, who made several pious foundations in 1521; and Jean Baptiste Altin, conseilleur au Châtelet, who died in 1640. The first, Nicolas Bomont, his wife, and fifteen children, are represented as pigmy personages praying at the foot of the Crucified. The emblems upon the Altin slab have been borrowed from the Roman catacombs; and the epitaph is as follows: