Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2

Independently of the interest presented by the Palais des Thermes as a survival of Roman Paris, and of the Hôtel Cluny, as a type of French architecture, these two monuments shelter a museum in which have been brought together numerous specimens of curiosities and wonders of all kinds – some only of antiquarian, others both of antiquarian and of artistic interest. In the time when Paris was a Gallo-Roman city there existed on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the island which was to be known as that of the City, a palace surrounded with immense gardens, whose green lawns sloped down even to the edge the river. The Norman invaders laid a portion of it in ruins, and the edifice was by no means in good condition as a whole when, in 1218, Philip Augustus gave it to his chamberlain, Henri. Soon afterwards the old buildings and the gardens connected with them were broken up and apportioned, and towards the end of the eighteenth century the Bishop of Bayeux sold the remains of the Palace des Thermes to Pierre de Chalus, the Abbé of Cluny. The monks of this abbey had plenty of means; and as they did not buy to sell again, they remained proprietors of the Palace of Julian up to the time of the Revolution. The ruins were then made over to private persons, who, without regard to the majesty of history, introduced houses and shops in the midst of the Roman remains. Louis, as a lettered monarch, endeavoured to save the ruins from these profanations of the infidels, and he seems even to have entertained the thought of turning the remains of the ancient edifice into a sort of museum, but he did not carry out his idea; it was not until the reign of Louis Philippe that the town of Paris regained possession of the Palais des Thermes. It ceded the relic to the State in 1843.

After the lapse of so many centuries the astonishing thing is that one stone of the ancient Roman edifice should now remain. The part of the original edifice which Time has spared is that which enclosed the Hot Baths. The large hall, with its highly-imposing vaulted roof, was the Hall of the Cold Baths: the so-called Frigidarium. The place occupied by the fish-tank can still be recognised, and the remains may be seen of the canals which brought the water into the baths. Bricks and stones have been alternately employed in the walls, whose surface has been blackened by “sluttish Time,” and impaired in all sorts of ways. This hall has had the most varied fortunes, and for a long time it served as depôt to a cooper, who here stowed away his casks and barrels.

The other portions of the edifice present a purely archæological interest. Going out of the large hall just mentioned and crossing the narrow vestibule, one enters the Tepidarium; but here the vaulted roof has disappeared, and the spectator has nothing around him but crumbling walls. A few steps further on he will come to sub-structures which are evidently the remains of the reservoirs.

The ancient ruin has become a dependence of the more modern Hôtel Cluny. It is a marvellous relic of the fourteenth century; fragments of statues, bas-reliefs, mutilated inscriptions, art relics dug up from under the earth have been collected in the great hall of the “Frigidarium.” These remains of Gallo-Roman art show the very foundations of French history. Here is the famous inscription which sets forth that the “Parisian boatmen” raised under the reign of Tiberius a statue in honour of Jupiter. Close by are enormous blocks of stone, borrowed from the pavement of primitive Lutetia. In the midst of these fragments of columns, of these empty tombs, one figure remains untouched: it is the statue of Julian the Apostate. This sculpture recalls to those who might have forgotten it the carriage and character, the origin and type, of this strange emperor. Is not his hierarchic attitude that of an Asiatic satrap? Is not the calm countenance that of an Oriental prince?

By the side of the ancient palace of the Roman emperors the Hôtel Cluny seems quite young, and we shall doubtless be more at our ease in an edifice which is not yet four hundred years old. When, in the fourteenth century, Pierre de Chalus bought the Palais des Thermes and the land surrounding it, he intended to construct, near the college of his order, a residence which might afford lodging to abbés of Cluny when they were making their frequent visits to Paris. This project does not seem to have been carried into execution; and it was under Charles VIII. that one of the successors of Pierre de Chalus, Jean de Bourbon, founded the building so much admired in the present day. He was not, however, destined to complete it; the Hôtel Cluny, after many delays, was terminated towards the end of the reign of Charles VIII. by Jacques d’Amboise, Abbé of Jumièges, and Bishop of Clermont, one of whose brothers was the famous minister of Louis XII., while the other was grand-master of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem. All the members of this family seem to get animated by the spirit of the time. Jacques d’Amboise – man of letters, collector, and, in his way, an artist – was one of the moving spirits of the French Renascence. The Hôtel Cluny belongs, indeed, to that ancient time when art becomes softer and more graceful without losing altogether the severity of the past.

The former residence of Jacques d’Amboise is enclosed on the side of the Rue des Mathurins by a high crenelated wall. In the interior the different apartments have lost very little of their original character, but modifications have of necessity been made; and as the museum needs light the number of the windows has been increased. The chapel retains in all respects its primitive style. The picture of the two Marys weeping over the dead Christ dates from the end of the reign of Louis XII. Of the glass windows which at the time of Jacques d’Amboise adorned the chapel, one alone has remained intact – that in which the Bearing of the Cross is represented. Little enough, then, survives of the past in this building, which has sheltered, one after the other, so many different inmates, some of them sufficiently careless about matters of art. The Hôtel Cluny has been inhabited by Marie of England, widow of Louis XII., by James V., King of Scotland, by Cardinal de Lorraine, and the Duke of Guise; here, under Henry III., the Italian actors represented their pastoral love scenes. Towards the end of the eighteenth century Moutard the printer occupied the principal apartments; and a member of the Academy of Sciences, Messier, had installed above the chapel a sort of observatory. After the Revolution the hôtel passed from hand to hand, and it would perhaps have disappeared, to give place to a modern house, when a member of the Court of Accounts, M. Alexandre du Sammerard, bought, in 1833, the former residence of the Abbés de Cluny, in order to place within its walls archæological curiosities, precious furniture, and mediæval objects of art which he had made it his pleasure to collect. At his death, nine years later, the Chamber of Deputies passed, on the report of François Arrago, a resolution authorising the Government to buy in the name of the State M. de Sammerard’s collections and the edifice which held them. A credit of five hundred thousand francs having been voted for this double acquisition, the Musée des Thermes et de l’Hôtel Cluny was founded in virtue of the law of 24th July, 1843.

Since then the collection has been considerably increased, partly through liberal donations from private persons, partly through excavations undertaken by the State. The catalogue of the museum registers nearly four thousand objects of art. One of the most interesting of these is the altar-piece of the Chapel of Saint-Germer – unhappily much mutilated – in which the chisel of a master of the thirteenth century has represented the Passion of Christ and the legendary adventures of the holy patron of the Church. The heads of all the personages have been broken; the colour and the gilding which covered their vestments have partly disappeared; but in what remains of the altar-piece one sees attitudes which are full of character, and is impressed by a certain simplicity which approaches grandeur. There is more emotion in the statuettes detached from the tomb of the Duke of Burgundy at the Chartreuse of Dijon. These figures of marble date from the last days of the fourteenth century, and represent the servants of the duke, with writers and chaplains attached to his household. Monks are seen weeping beneath the hood which covers their face. The uncovered faces, full of life and expression, are evidently portraits. Close by, the spirit and grace of the Renascence may be seen in several admirable specimens: such as the Venus, partly broken, which is attributed, with more or less reason, to Jean Cousin, and the sleeping statuette of a naked woman whose head seems lost in a dream. The delicate style of the sculpture seems to reveal an Italian hand. Less perfect in execution, but equally interesting, is that Ariadne which, by a strange coincidence, was found in the Loire opposite that Château of Chaumont where another woman in despair, Diana of Poitiers, had been shut up by Catherine de Médicis after the death of Henry II. It is the same Diana, this time accompanied by her two daughters, which tradition recognises in the statue attributed to Germain Pilon.

The ivories of the Hôtel Cluny are among its greatest treasures. In this collection ivory work of every period and in every style may be found. The mysterious statuette of a woman crowned by two genii dates from the fourth century. It was discovered in a tomb on the borders of the Rhine. This statuette is surrounded by a number of marbles representing divinities of various kinds, and is classed, therefore, with the works styled Pantheistic. In one hand this strange figure holds a sceptre bursting into blossom; in the other an oval vase. The style recalls at once classical art and the art of Byzantium. By the side of the ancient statuette is a less ancient bas-relief, representing the marriage of the Princess Theophania with Otho II., who was Emperor of the West from 973 to 983. Here we see the art of the lower Empire: an art of stiff symmetrical forms, but full of barbaric richness. Of the same period, or nearly so, is “The Virgin holding the Infant Jesus on her knees”: a solemn hieratic group. To the eleventh century belongs the cross of Saint Anthony, found in the tomb of Morard, Abbé of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Another work of the highest value is the shrine of Saint Yved (twelfth century), from the Abbey of Braisne. This reliquary, in the form of a rectangular casket, is decorated on all sides with figures in relief of elaborate workmanship. Of the same epoch, or still earlier, are the sheets of ivory used for the binding of the Gospels, on which are painted admirable pictures in illustration of the Divine books. The ivory looking-glass frame, representing two figures, which are supposed to be those of Saint Louis and of Blanche de Castille, comes from the treasure of Saint Denis. The pastoral staff which, twice ennobled, belonged, first to the famous Debruges-Dumesnil collection, and afterwards to the collection of Prince Soltykoff, dates from the thirteenth century. The rod of ivory is crowned with a lion in boxwood, enriched with precious stones.

The little monument known as the “oratory of the Duchess of Burgundy” is an ivory on which are related, by means of numerous figures, here the history of Jesus Christ, there that of John the Baptist. It comes from the Chartreuse of Dijon; and by the memoirs of Philippe le Hardi, it would seem that the author was a certain Berthelot.

Eight crowns of massive gold, enriched with pearls and precious stones, were one day dug from the earth at Guarazzar in the neighbourhood of Toledo. They were followed soon afterwards by another crown, belonging evidently to the same hidden treasure. Until then it was scarcely suspected that the Visigoth kings knew what gold-work meant. One of the crowns, however, purchased for the Cluny Museum, bears the words: “Reccesvinthus rex offeret.” Reccesvinthus reigned in Spain from 653 to 672. On a second crown may be read, in characters struck with the hammer, the name, not yet explained, of Sonnica. The other crowns bear no inscription. Archaeologists are unable to decide whether the largest of these crowns was ever worn. But the one inscribed with the name of Reccesvinthus was used, it is held, at the coronation of that king by the Bishop of Toledo. They were, however, offered to the Virgin, and suspended in one of the chapels consecrated to her. The supposition is entertained that at the time of the Arab invasion these precious offerings of the Visigoth king were buried by the Christians. They came to light centuries afterwards, to tell of the magnificence of these almost legendary sovereigns, and of the skill possessed by their artificers for moulding and cutting gold in every style, besides enriching it with incrustations of sapphires and pearls. The gold altar given by the Emperor Henry III. to the Cathedral of Bâle at the beginning of the eleventh century is another rare and remarkable work. The character of the design, and what is known as to the origin of the monument, have caused it to be attributed to Lombard artists. From the treasury of the same church comes the Golden Rose, given to the Bishop of Bâle by Pope Clement V. at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

But in this part of the museum the glass cases contain innumerable specimens of the religious work of the Middle Ages. Among the curios of the thirteenth century may be cited a large cross adorned with filigree work and precious stones in relief. This was one of the treasures of the Soltykoff collection. Nuremberg is represented by the shrine of Saint Anne, executed in 1472 by Hans Grieff. The flesh of the figure is painted. From the same epoch may be dated the “Crossbow Prize,” an admirable piece of smith’s work in wrought silver, chased and gilt. As the works of the sixteenth century, we find a large mechanical piece, more singular than beautiful, in the form of a vessel on which, among the personages in enamelled gold, grouped around the steering apparatus, may be recognised Charles V. in the midst of a crowd of high dignitaries of the Imperial Court. A mechanism concealed within the ship makes the figure move, musical instruments play, and cannons roar. The museum possesses also, in a mixed style, belonging at once to art and science, clocks and watches of the Renascence and of the seventeenth century. Nor must the visitor pass by the famous basin of François Briot, made in pewter with an artistic taste which would not be thrown away on the finest gold. The iron-work consists chiefly of Gothic locks and bolts, once attached to the doors and gates of feudal mansions. Here, too, are the keys, finely worked, of the Château Anest, which Diana of Poitiers may well have touched with her delicate hand. The Hôtel Cluny is famous, moreover, for its collection of ancient arms: Toledo blades of tragic aspect, bearing the names of the great burnishers of the time; armour of war or of parade, carved and damasked by the artificers of Milan; helmets, pikes, muskets, shields; all the formidable instruments of attack with all the ingenious instruments of defence. In the armoury of the Hôtel Cluny may likewise be seen some fine specimens of Oriental work; though the finest creations of this special art are preserved, not at the Hôtel Cluny, but at the Museum of Artillery.

The masterpieces in wax-work will next demand our attention; and here Italy, which in almost every other art has the right to pass first, may perhaps be asked to give precedence to Spain. The Spanish-Moorish specimens are above all admirable. As for the Italian works, they are very numerous, and for the most part well chosen. Apart from the medallions of Lucca della Robbia, which belong to sculpture as much as to waxwork, the plates suspended on the walls, the cups enclosed beneath the glass, are all interesting, and are nearly all of Italian make. A product from the workshops of Faenza, which, in France, gives its name to crockery in general (faience), adorned with the monogram of Christ in Gothic characters, bears the date of 1475. The work is quite archaic; but Faenza can also show plates and cups which tell of the progress and also of the decadence of this centre of a special art, so active in the sixteenth century. Urbino, the birthplace of Raphael, and Pesaro, the birthplace of Rossini, are also represented, together with Rimini, Caffagiolo, Castel-Durante, and, above all, Gubbio, with the masterpieces of its illustrious potter, Giorgio Andreoli. The word seems appropriate when one contemplates the fine plate representing Dædalus, dated 1533, and the two cups relieved with gold, on which smile, from a rainbow-tinted background, two charming women: “Angela Bella,” “Dianara Bella.” These cups, which now form the admiration of artists, served formerly to receive the presents made by the lover to his mistress. Superb types of the Gubbio work in the sixteenth century are as bright and pure as if they had come yesterday from the hands of the potter. French pottery is also conspicuous at the Hôtel Cluny, both in its ancient and in its modern glory. Specimens of enamelled terracotta, dating from the thirteenth century, are first to be seen. Then one remarks a cup decorated with arabesques encrusted in brown on a whitish ground. These famous styles of pottery used to be vaguely connected with the name and period of Henry II.; but they are at present known to have been made at Oiron, in Poitou, by François Cherpentier, the humble workman of Madame de Boisy.

The Hôtel Cluny contains many of the best works of Bernard Palissy, the famous artist whose life was a long martyrdom and, for his wife, it must be feared, a long torture; for if it was noble on the part of the husband to sacrifice the household furniture to the perfection of an art to which he was devoted, it must have been painful for the perhaps less enthusiastic wife to hear it crackling within his furnaces. In seeking to determine which of the numerous alleged specimens of this artist’s work really belong to him, connoisseurs have been aided by Time, which, destroying the imitations, seems to have preserved the genuine ones alone. Even the charming little figure of the Nurse, for a long time attributed to Palissy, is now said to be from another and later hand. Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, and the various centres of French pottery, are worthily represented at the Hôtel Cluny, either by isolated pieces or by groups, and even entire collections.

The stained glass at the Hôtel Cluny is for the most part of Swiss or of German origin. The enamels are of every country and every age. Nine enamelled plates of exceptionally large dimensions were painted by Pierre Courtoys in 1559 for the Château de Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne. The figures – the largest, perhaps, that were ever executed in enamel – represent Justice, Charity, Prudence, and six other mythological divinities, more astonishing than attractive. A remarkable triptych, or picture with shutters, whose painter is unknown, but which belonged to Catherine de Médicis, represents on the central panel the queen on her knees, in widow’s dress, before a crucifix. Her initials, with those of Henry II., adorn this curious relic. Close by are enamelled cups and plates by Pierre Rémond, Nardon Penicaud, and Jean Courtoys, with many works, justly esteemed, by the great enameller Leonard Limousin, remarkable among these being a fine portrait of Eleonora of Austria, sister of Charles V. and Francis I.

The piece of Florentine mosaic in the first hall of the museum ought not to pass unnoticed. It has been described by Vasari; and the Virgin and Child which it represents are the genuine work of Ghirlandaio. Executed at Florence in 1496, it was brought to France by Jean de Ganay, President of the Parliament of Paris. The works of this famous mosaist are now very rare. The one preserved at the Hôtel Cluny is relatively in sound condition, and gives a good idea of the great mosaics which adorned the churches of Tuscany.

The Cluny Museum has no claim to be considered a picture-gallery. It contains, however, a certain number of canvases, illustrating the manners, the costumes, or the furniture of particular periods. The best critics deny that the Jesus in the Garden of Olives is the work of Gentile di Fabriano, to whom the catalogue attributes it. Nor, according to competent judges, is the hand of Primaticcio to be recognised in that Venus who, standing by the side of Love, faces the spectator smiling, and with an arrow in her hand. The painting is marked by delicacy and refinement; but the style is not that of Primaticcio, nor does the face of Venus reproduce the features of Diana of Poitiers, who, according to some keen-sighted observers, is everywhere to be seen. A more genuine interest is inspired by a few pictures of the fifteenth century, some of Flemish, others of French origin. Very curious is the Mary Magdalen attributed to King René. The repentant sinner is grieving in the midst of a landscape whose background represents the city of Marseilles. Another picture well worthy of notice is one which represents two pictures in the same frame; on the one is represented the coronation of David, on the other the coronation of Louis XII. The author of this work is unknown, but the period is marked by the date of Louis XII.’s coronation (1498); and it is presumable that the painter was some artist of distinction attached to the Court. He was in any case a man of ability, with a certain feeling for colour.

French painting of the sixteenth century is represented by the school of Janet and his successors, but the true house decoration in those luxurious days, when art was mixed up with every detail of life, was tapestry. It was scarcely possible to feel dull in those vast halls, whose walls were covered, and, so to say, animated by a number of life-sized figures, now chasing the stag in picturesque woods, now sitting down to sumptuous feasts, now breaking lances in tournaments and jousts.

Many of these ancient tapestries have become worn out, less through the action of Time – for they were admirably woven – than through the carelessness of their possessors. The Hôtel Cluny preserves some of the best that were ever produced. Take, for example, the Deliverance of St. Peter, executed at Beauvais in the fifteenth century, or the ten embroidered pictures which tell the history of David and Bathsheba, done in Flanders under Louis XII. The biblical personages who figure in this illustrated story are dressed, of course, in the latest fashion of the year 1500; and the costumes are more interesting inasmuch as the artist who furnished the cartoons for these pictures was undeniably, with all his naïveté, an excellent draughtsman. Of another epoch, when art was already on the decline, are the tapestries taken from the arsenal, in which Henry IV. is represented as Apollo, Jeanne d’Albert as Venus, and Marie de Médicis as Juno. The painter, in his passion for allegory, has transformed into Saturn the king’s father, Antoine de Bourbon. Many other tapestries, in various states of preservation, and of which the colours have, in many cases, faded beneath the effect of sunlight, possess both artistic and historic interest. The vestments once worn by the Bishop of Bayonne were found in a tomb, and belong to the twelfth century. All kinds of strange contrivances worn by women in past ages (often, it must be supposed, against their will) are to be seen in the Hôtel Cluny: collars, collarettes, baskets, farthingales, girdles, and even high-heeled pattens, all made of iron.

The furniture preserved in the Hôtel Cluny is particularly fine, and is as historical as it is artistically beautiful. Remarkable among the examples of church furniture is the great sideboard of the Cathedral of St. Paul, carved by a Cellini of the fifteenth century. He must have spent his whole life at the work. Nor is the house furniture less magnificent. Witness the delicate sculpture of the benches, the high chairs with emblazoned backs, the chests for marriage gifts, the bed which is said to have belonged to Francis I., the cabinets of all times and of every shape, the harpsichords, the spinets, the gala carriages, covered with gildings, the sledges, the sedan chairs, and a hundred other objects of luxury: reminiscences of a time when between the workman and the artist there was scarcely any distinction, and when objects destined for the most common use were fashioned and adorned with an elegance and grace which told of true artistic feeling.

In the ancient mansion of Jacques d’Amboise, innumerable other objects might be pointed out either marvellous as works of art or deeply interesting, as illustrating the daily life of past ages, which they reproduce more vividly, perhaps, than any books could do.