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diff --git a/8412.txt b/8412.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c0b70f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/8412.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6016 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: September 2, 2014 [EBook #8412] +Release Date: July, 2005 +First Posted: July 8, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEING EUROPE--FAMOUS AUTHORS, VOL 3 *** + + + + +Produced by Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS, VOLUME III + + FRANCE AND THE NETHERLANDS + + Selected and Edited, with Introductions, etc., by + + FRANCIS W. HALSEY + + Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" + Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations" + and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc. + + + IN TEN VOLUMES + + ILLUSTRATED + + + + +[Illustration: Paris: The Seine and Bridges] + + + + + +Vol. III + + +Part One + + + + +Introduction to Volumes III and IV + +France and the Netherlands + + + +The tourist bound for France lands either at Cherbourg, Havre, or +Boulogne. At Cherbourg, he sees waters in which the "Kearsarge" sank +the "Alabama"; at Havre a shelter in which, long before Caesar came to +Gaul, ships, with home ports on the Seine, sought safety from the sea; +and at Boulogne may recall the invading expedition to England, planned +by Napoleon, but which never sailed. + +From the Roman occupation, many Roman remains have survived in England, +but these are far inferior in numbers and in state of preservation to +the Roman remains found in France. Marseilles was not only an important +Roman seaport, but its earliest foundations date perhaps from +Phoenician times, and certainly do from the age when Greeks were +building temples at Paestum and Girgenti. Rome got her first foothold +in Marseilles as a consequence of the Punic wars; and in 125 B.C. +acquired a province (Provincia Romana) reaching from the Alps to the +Rhone, and southward to the sea, with Aix as its first capital and +Arles its second. Caesar in 58 B.C. found on the Seine a tribe of men +called Parisii, whose chief village, Lutetia, stood where now rises +Notre Dame. + +Lutetia afterward became a residence of Roman emperors. Constantius +Chlorus spent some time there, guarding the empire from Germans and +Britons, while Julian the Apostate built there for himself a palace and +extensive baths, of which remains still exist in Paris. In that palace +afterward lived Pepin le Bref ("mayor of the palace"), son of Charles +Martell, and father of the great Charles. Romans built there an +amphitheater seating ten thousand people, of which remains are still +visible. + +Lyons was a great Roman city. Augustus first called it into vigorous +life, his wish being to make it "a second Rome." From Lyons a system of +roads ran out to all parts of Gaul. Claudius was born there; Caligula +made it the political and intellectual capital of Provincia; its +people, under an edict of Caracalla, were made citizens of Rome. At +Nimes was born the Emperor Antoninus. In Gaul, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, +Vespasian and Domitian were made emperors. At Arles and Nimes are Roman +amphitheaters still regularly put to use for combats between men and +wild beasts--but the wild beasts, instead of lions and tigers, are +bulls. At Orange is a Roman theater of colossal proportions, in which a +company from the Theatre Francais annually presents classical dramas. +The magnificent fortress city of Carcassonne has foundation walls that +were laid by Romans. Notre Dame of Paris occupies the site of a temple +to Jupiter. + +As with modern England, so with modern France; its people are a mixture +of many races. To the southwest, in a remote age, came Iberians from +Spain, to Provence, Ligurians from Italy; to the northeast, Germanic +tribes; to the northwest, Scandinavians; to the central parts, from the +Seine to the Garonne, in the sixth century B.C., Gauls, who soon became +the dominant race, and so have remained until this day, masterful and +fundamental. When Caesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial +nobility, leaders of a warlike people, with chieftains whose names are +familiar in the mouths and ears of all schoolboys--Aricvistus and +Vercingetorix. When Vercingetorix was overthrown at Alesia, Gaul became +definitely Roman. For five hundred years it remained loyal to Rome. +Within its borders, was established the Pax Romana, and in 250 A.D., +under St. Denis, Christianity. When the disintegration of the empire +set in five centuries afterward, Gaul was among the first provinces to +suffer. With the coming of the Visigoths and Huns from the Black Sea, +the Pranks and Bnrgundians from beyond the Rhine, the Roman fall was +near, but great battles were first fought in Gaul, battles which +rivaled those of Caesar five centuries before. Greatest of all these +was the one with Attila, at Chalons, in 451, where thousands perished. + +When the Roman dominion ended, Rome's one great province in Gaul became +seventeen small principalities, and power drifted fast into the hands +of a warlike aristocracy. Then a strong man rose in Clovis, who, in +508, made Lutetia his capital, his successors enriching and adorning +it. From these beginnings, has been evolved, in twelve hundred years, +the great modern state--through Charlemagne and his empire-building, +Louis XI. and his work of consolidating feudal principalities into one +strong state, through a Hundred Years' War, fierce wars of religion, a +long line of Bourbon kings, with their chateaux-building in Touraine +and Versailles, the Revolution of 1789, the Napoleonic era, the +Republic. An historical land surely is this, and a beautiful land, with +her snow-capped mountains of the southeast, her broad vineyards, +unrivaled cathedrals, her Roman remains, ancient olive groves, her art, +her literature, her people. + +Belgium and Holland were included in the territory known to Rome as +Gaul. Here dwelt a people called the Belgii, and another called the +Nervii--that tribal nation whom Caesar "overcame" on a summer's day, and +the same evening, "in his tent," "put on" the mantle that was pierced +afterward by daggers in the Senate House. From these lands came the +skilled Batavian cavalry, which followed Caesar in pursuit of Pompey +and forced Pompey's flight at Pharsalia. From here afterward came other +Batavians, who served as the Imperial Guard of Rome from Caasar's time +to Vespasian's. In race, as in geographical position, the Netherlands +have belonged in part to France, in part to Germany, the interior long +remaining Gallic, the frontier Teutonic. From Caesar's time down to the +fifth century, the land was Roman. Afterward, in several periods, it +was in part, or in whole, included in the domain of France--in +Charlemagne's time and after; under Louis XI., who sought, somewhat +unsuccessfully, its complete submission; under Louis XIV., who +virtually conquered it; under the French Revolution, and during +Napoleon's ascendency. On Belgium soil Marlborough fought and won +Ramillies, and Wellington Waterloo. + +Belgium and Holland were for long great centers of European +commerce--at Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam--rivals of +English ports, Holland an ancient adversary of England and her valiant +enemy in great wars. A still fiercer struggle came with Spain. Perhaps +an even greater conflict than these two has been her never-ending war +with the sea. Holland has been called a land enclosed in a fortress +reared against the sea. For generations her people have warred with +angry waves; but, as Motley has said, they gained an education for a +struggle "with the still more savage despotism of man." Let me not +forget here Holland's great school of art--comparable only to that of +Spain, or even to that of Italy. F. W. H. + + + + +Contents of Volume III + +France and the Netherlands--Part One + + + + +INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. III AND IV--By the Editor. + + +I--Paris + + The City Beautiful--By Anne Warwick + Notre-Dame--By Victor Hugo + The Louvre--By Grant Allen + The Madeline and Champs Elysees--By Nathaniel Hawthorne + The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb--By Augustus J. C. Hare + The Palais de Justice and Sainte Chapelle--By Grant Allen + The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie--By Augustus J. C. Hare + Pere la Chaise--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow + The Musee de Cluny--By Grant Allen + The Place de la Bastille--By Augustus J. C. Hare + The Pantheon and St. Etienne du Mont--By Grant Allen + St. Roch--By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +II--The Environs of Paris + + Versailles--By William Makepeace Thackeray + Versailles in 1739--By Thomas Gray + Fontainebleau--By Augustus J. C. Hare + St. Denis--By Grant Allen + Marly-Le-Roi--By Augustus J. C. Hare + The Village of Auteuil--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow + The Two Trianons--By Augustus J. C. Hare + Malmaison--By Augustus J. C. Hare + St. Germain--By Leitch Ritchie + St. Cloud--By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +III--Old Provence + + The Papal Palace at Avignon--By Charles Dickens + The Building of the Great Palace--By Thomas Okey + The Walls of Avignon--By Thomas Okey + Villeneuve and the Broken Bridge--By Thomas Okey + Orange--By Henry James + Vaucluse--By Bayard Taylor + The Pont du Guard,--Aigues-Mortes--Nimes--By Henry James + Arles and Les Baux--By Henry James + + +IV--Cathedrals and Chateaux + + Amiens--By Nathaniel Hawthorne + Rouen--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin + Chartres--By Epiphanius Wilson + Rheims--By Epiphanius Wilson + +(_Cathedrals and Chateaux continued in Vol. IV_) + + + + +List of Illustrations + +Volume III + + + + Frontispiece + Paris: The Seine and Bridges + + + Notre Dame, Paris + Portion of the Louvre, Paris + Church of the Madeleine, Paris + Napoleon's Sarcophagus, Paris + The Burial Place of Napoleon, Paris + Column and Place Vendome, Paris + Column of July, Paris + The Pantheon, Paris + The House of the Chamber of Deputies, Paris + The Bourse, Paris + Interior of the Grand Opera House, Paris + Front of the Grand Opera House, Paris + The Arc de Triomphe, Paris + Arch Erected by Napoleon Near the Louvre, Paris + The Church of St. Vincent de Paul, Paris + The Church of St. Sulpice, Paris + The Picture Gallery of Versailles + The Bed-Room of Louis XIV., Versailles + The Grand Trianon at Versailles + The Little Trianon at Versailles + The Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont + Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles + Tours + Saint Denis + Havre + The Bridge at St. Cloud + + + + +[Illustration: Notre Dame, Paris] + +[Illustration: Church of the Madeleine] + +[Illustration: Portion of the Louvre] + +[Illustration: Paris: Column and Place Vendome] + +[Illustration: Burial Place of Napoleon] + +[Illustration: Napoleon's Sarcophagus] + +[Illustration: Paris: Column of July in the Place de la Bastille] + +[Illustration: Pantheon, Paris] + +[Illustration: House of the Chamber of Deputies] + +[Illustration: Bourse, Paris] + + + + + +I + +PARIS + + + + +The City Beautiful + +By Anne Warwick + + +[Footnote: From "The Meccas of the World." By permission of the +publisher, John Lane. Copyright, 1913.] + + +The most prejudiced will not deny that Paris is beautiful; or that +there is about her streets and broad, tree-lined avenues a graciousness +at once dignified and gay. Stand, as the ordinary tourist does on his +first day, in the flowering square before the Louvre; in the foreground +are the fountains and bright tulip-bordered paths of the +Tuileries--here a glint of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, +shining through the trees; in the center the round lake where the +children sail their boats. Beyond spreads the wide sweep of the Place +de la Concorde, with its obelisk of terrible significance, its larger +fountains throwing brilliant jets of spray; and then the trailing, +upward vista of the Champs Elysees to the great triumphal arch; yes, +even to the most indifferent, Paris is beautiful. + +To the subtler of appreciation, she is more than beautiful; she is +impressive. For behind the studied elegance of architecture, the +elaborate simplicity of garden, the carefully lavish use of sculpture +and delicate spray, is visible the imagination of a race of passionate +creators--the imagination, throughout, of the great artist. One meets +it at every turn and corner, down dim passageways, up steep hills, +across bridges, along sinuous quays; the masterhand and its "infinite +capacity for taking pains." And so marvelously do its manifestations of +many periods through many ages combine to enhance one another that one +is convinced that the genius of Paris has been perennial; that St. +Genevieve, her godmother, bestowed it as an immortal gift when the city +was born. + +From earliest days every man seems to have caught the spirit of the man +who came before, and to have perpetuated it; by adding his own +distinctive yet always harmonious contribution to the gradual +development of the whole. One built a stately avenue; another erected a +church at the end; a third added a garden on the other side of the +church, and terraces leading up to it; a fourth and fifth cut streets +that should give from the remaining two sides into other flowery +squares with their fine edifices. And so from every viewpoint, and from +every part of the entire city, to-day we have an unbroken series of +vistas--each one different and more charming than the last. + +History has lent its hand to the process, too; and romance--it is not +an insipid chain of flowerbeds we have to follow, but the holy warriors +of Saint Louis, the roistering braves of Henry the Great, the gallant +Bourbons, the ill-starred Bonapartes. These as they passed have left +their monuments; it may be only in a crumbling old chapel or ruined +tower, but there they are, eloquent of days that are dead, of a spirit +that lives forever staunch in the heart of the fervent French people. + +It comes over one overwhelmingly sometimes, in the midst of the +careless gaiety of the modern city, the old, ever-burning spirit of +rebellion and savage strife that underlies it all, and that can spring +to the surface now on certain memorable days, with a vehemence that is +terrifying. Look across the Pont Alexandre, at the serene gold dome of +the Invalides, surrounded by its sleepy barracks. Suddenly you are in +the fires and awful slaughter of Napoleon's wars. The flower of France +is being pitilessly cut down for the lust of one man's ambition; and +when that is spent, and the wail of the widowed country pierces heaven +with its desolation, a costly asylum is built for the handful of +soldiers who are left--and the great Emperor has done his duty! + +Or you are walking through the Cite, past the court of the Palais de +Justice. You glance in, carelessly--memory rushes upon you--and the +court flows with blood, "so that men waded through it, up to the +knees!" In the tiny stone-walled room yonder, Marie Antoinette sits +disdainfully composed before her keepers; tho her face is white with +the sounds she hears, as her friends and followers are led out to swell +that hideous river of blood. + +A pretty, artificial city, Paris; good for shopping, and naughty +amusements, now and then. History? Oh yes, of course; but all that's so +dry and uninspiring, and besides it happened so long ago. + +Did it? In your stroll along the Rue Royale, among the jewellers' and +milliners' shops and Maxim's, glance up at the Madeleine, down at the +obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. Little over a hundred years ago, +this was the brief distance between life and death for those who one +minute were dancing in the "Temple of Victory," the next were laying +their heads upon the block of the guillotine. + + + + +Notre-Dame + +By Victor Hugo + + +[Footnote: From Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris." Translated by A.L. Alger. +By permission of Dana, Estes & Co. Copyright, 1888.] + + + +The church of Notre-Dame at Paris is doubtless still a sublime and +majestic building. But, much beauty as it may retain in its old age, it +is not easy to repress a sigh, to restrain our anger, when we mark the +countless defacements and mutilations to which men and time have +subjected that venerable monument, without respect for Charlemagne, who +laid its first stone, or Philip Augustus, who laid its last.... + +Upon the face of this aged queen of French cathedrals, beside every +wrinkle we find a scar. "Tempus edax, homo edacior;" which I would fain +translate thus: "Time is blind, but man is stupid." Had we leisure to +study with the reader, one by one, the various marks of destruction +graven upon the ancient church, the work of Time would be the lesser, +the worse that of Men, especially of "men of art," since there are +persons who have styled themselves architects during the last two +centuries. + +And first of all, to cite but a few glaring instances, there are +assuredly few finer pages in the history of architecture than that +facade where the three receding portals with their pointed arches, the +carved and denticulated plinth with its twenty-eight royal niches, the +huge central rose-window flanked by its two lateral windows as is the +priest by his deacon and subdeacon, the lofty airy gallery of +trifoliated arcades supporting a heavy platform upon its slender +columns, and lastly the two dark and massive towers with their +pent-house roofs of slate, harmonious parts of a magnificent whole, one +above the other, five gigantic stages, unfold themselves to the eye, +clearly and as a whole, with their countless details of sculpture, +statuary, and carving, powerfully contributing to the calm grandeur of +the whole; as it were, a vast symphony in stone; the colossal work of +one man and one nation, one and yet complex, like the Iliad and the old +Romance epics, to which it is akin; the tremendous sum of the joint +contributions of all the force of an entire epoch, in which every stone +reveals, in a hundred forms, the fancy of the workman disciplined by +the genius of the artist--a sort of human creation, in brief, powerful +and prolific as the Divine creation, whose double characteristics, +variety and eternity, it seems to have acquired. + +And what we say of the facades, we must also say of the whole church; +and what we say of the cathedral church of Paris must be said of all +the Christian churches of the Middle Ages. Everything is harmonious +which springs from spontaneous, logical, and well-proportioned art. To +measure a toe, is to measure the giant. + +Let us return to the facade of Notre-Dame as we see it at the present +day, when we make a pious pilgrimage to admire the solemn and mighty +cathedral, which, as its chroniclers declare, inspires terror. This +facade now lacks three important things: first, the eleven steps which +formerly raised it above the level of the ground; next, the lower +series of statues which filled the niches over the doors; and lastly, +the upper row of the twenty-eight most ancient kings of France, which +adorned the gallery of the first story, from Childebert down to Philip +Augustus, each holding in his hand "the imperial globe." + +The stairs were destroyed by Time, which, with slow and irresistible +progress, raised the level of the city's soil; but while this +flood-tide of the pavements of Paris swallowed one by one the eleven +steps which added to the majestic height of the edifice, Time has +perhaps given to the church more than it took away, for it is Time +which has painted the front with that sober hue of centuries which +makes the antiquity of churches their greatest beauty. + +But who pulled down the two rows of statues? Who left those empty +niches? Who carved that new and bastard pointed arch in the very center +of the middle door? Who dared to insert that clumsy, tasteless, wooden +door, carved in the style of Louis XV., side by side with the +arabesques of Biscornette? Who but men, architects, the artists of our +day? + +And if we step into the interior of the edifice, who overthrew that +colossal figure of Saint Christopher, proverbial among statues by the +same right as the great hall of the palace among halls, as the spire of +Strasburg among steeples? And those myriad statues which peopled every +space between the columns of the choir and the nave, kneeling, +standing, on horseback, men, women, children, kings, bishops, +men-at-arms--of stone, of marble, of gold, of silver, of copper, nay +even of wax--who brutally swept them away? It was not the hand of Time. + +And who replaced the old Gothic altar, with its splendid burden of +shrines and reliquaries, by that heavy marble sarcophagus adorned with +clouds and cherubs, looking like a poor copy of the Val-de-Grace or the +Hotel des Invalides? Who was stupid enough to fasten that clumsy stone +anachronism into the Carlovingian pavement of Hercandus? Was it not +Louis XIV., fulfilling the vow of Louis XIII.? + +And who set cold white panes in place of that stained glass of gorgeous +hue, which led the wondering gaze of our fathers to roam uncertain +'twixt the rose-window of the great door and the ogives of the chancel? +And what would a precentor of the sixteenth century say if he could see +the fine coat of yellow wash with which our Vandal archbishops have +smeared their cathedral? He would remember that this was the color with +which the executioner formerly painted those buildings judged +"infamous;" he would recall the hotel of the Petit-Bourbon, bedaubed +with yellow in memory of the Constable's treason; "a yellow of so fine +a temper," says Sauval, "and so well laid on, that more than a hundred +years have failed to wash out its color." He would fancy that the +sacred spot had become accursed, and would turn and flee. + +And if we climb higher in the cathedral, without pausing to note a +thousand barbarous acts of every kind, what has become of that +delightful little steeple which rested upon the point of intersection +of the transept, and which, no less fragile and no less daring than its +neighbor, the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, (also destroyed), rose yet +nearer heaven than the towers, slender, sharp, sonorous, and daintily +wrought? + +An architect of good taste (1787) amputated it, and thought it quite +enough to cover the wound with that large leaden plaster which looks +like the lid of a stewpan. Thus was the marvelous art of the Middle +Ages treated in almost every land, but particularly in France. We find +three sorts of injury upon its ruins, these three marring it to +different depths; first, Time, which has made insensible breaches here +and there, mildewed and rusted the surface everywhere; then, political +and religious revolutions, which, blind and fierce by nature, fell +furiously upon it, rent its rich array of sculpture and carving, +shivered its rose-windows, shattered its necklaces of arabesques and +quaint figures, tore down its statues--sometimes because of their +crown; lastly, changing fashion, even more grotesque and absurd, from +the anarchic and splendid deviations of the Renaissance down to the +necessary decline of architecture. + +Fashion did more than revolutions. Fashion cut into the living flesh, +attacked the very skeleton and framework of art; it chopped and hewed, +dismembered, slew the edifice, in its form as well as in its symbolism, +in its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing +which neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the +plea of "good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic +architecture the paltry gewgaws of a day,--marble ribbons, metallic +plumes, a veritable leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, +wreaths, draperies, spirals, fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, +lusty cupids, and bloated cherubs, which began to ravage the face of +art in the oratory of Catherine de Medici, and destroyed it, two +centuries later, tortured and distorted, in the Dubarry's boudoir. + +There are thus, to sum up the points to which we have alluded, three +sorts of scars now disfiguring Gothic architecture; wrinkles and warts +upon the epidermis--these are the work of time; wounds, brutal +injuries, bruises, and fractures--these are the work of revolution, +from Luther to Mirabeau; mutilations, amputations, dislocations of the +frame, "restorations,"--these are the Greek, Roman barbaric work of +professors according to Vitruvius and Vignole. Academies have murdered +the magnificent art which the Vandals produced. To centuries, to +revolutions which at least laid waste with impartiality and grandeur, +are conjoined the host of scholastic architects, licensed and sworn, +degrading all they touch with the discernment and selection of bad +taste, substituting the tinsel of Louis XV. for Gothic lace-work, for +the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is the donkey's kick at the +dying lion. It is the old oak, decaying at the crown, pierced, bitten +and devoured by caterpillars. + +How different from the time when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre Dame +at Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus; "so loudly boasted +by the ancient pagans," which immortalized Herostratus, held the +cathedral of the Gauls to be "more excellent in length, breadth, +height, and structure!" + +Notre Dame at Paris is not, however, what can be called a complete, +definite monument, belonging to a class. It is neither a Roman nor a +Gothic church. The edifice is not a typical one. It has not, like the +abbey at Tournus, the sober massive breadth, the round expansive arch, +the icy bareness, the majestic simplicity of those buildings based on +the semicircular arch. It is not, like the cathedral at Bourges, the +magnificent, airy, multiform, bushy, sturdy, efflorescent product of +the pointed arch. + +It is impossible to class it with that antique order of dark, +mysterious, low-studded churches, apparently crusht by the semicircular +arch--almost Egyptian, save for the ceiling; all hieroglyphic, all +sacerdotal, all symbolic, more loaded in their ornamentation with +lozenges and zigzags than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, +with animals than with men; less the work of the architect than of the +bishop; the first transformation of the art, bearing the deep impress +of theocratic and military discipline, taking root in the Lower Empire, +and ceasing with William the Conqueror. It is impossible to place our +cathedral in that other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in +stained glass and sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; +belonging to the commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; +free, capricious, lawless, as works of art; the second transformation +of architecture, no longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but +artistic, progressive, and popular, beginning with the close of the +Crusades and ending with Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely +Roman race like the former, nor of purely Arab breed like the latter. + +It is a building of the transition period. The Saxon architect had just +reared the pillars of the nave, when the pointed arch, brought back +from the Crusades, planted itself as conqueror upon those broad Roman +capitals which were never meant to support anything but semicircular +arches. The pointed arch, thenceforth supreme, built the rest of the +church. And still, inexperienced and shy at first, it swelled, it +widened, it restrained itself, and dared not yet shoot up into spires +and lancets, as it did later on in so many marvelous cathedrals. It +seemed sensible of the close vicinity of the heavy Roman columns. + +Moreover, these buildings of the transition from Roman to Gothic are no +less valuable studies than the pure types. They express a gradation of +the art which would otherwise be lost. They represent the ingrafting of +the pointed arch upon the semicircular. + +Notre Dame at Paris, in particular, is a curious example of this +variety. Every face, every stone of the venerable monument is a page +not only of the history of the country, but also of the history of +science and art. Thus, to allude only to leading details, while the +little Porte Rouge attains the almost extreme limit of the Gothic +refinement of the fifteenth century, the pillars of the nave, in their +size and gravity of style, go back to the Carlovingian Abbey of +Saint-Germain des Pres. One would say that there was an interval of six +centuries between that door and those pillars. Even the Hermetics find +among the symbols of the great door a satisfactory epitome of their +science, of which the Church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie formed so +complete a hieroglyph. + +Thus, the Roman abbey, the philosopher's church, Gothic art, Saxon art, +the clumsy round pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic +symbolism by which Nicholas Flamel paved the way for Luther, papal +unity, schism, Saint-Germain des Pres, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, +are all confounded, combined and blended in Notre Dame. This central +and generative church is a kind of chimera among the old churches of +Paris; it has the head of one, the limbs of another, the trunk of a +third, something of all. + +Considering here Christian European architecture only, that younger +sister of the grand piles of the Orient, we may say that it strikes the +eye as a vast formation divided into three very distinct zones or +layers, one resting upon the other; the Roman zone, (the same which is +also known according to place, climate, and species, as Lombard, Saxon, +and Byzantine. There are the four sister forms of architecture, each +having its peculiar character, but all springing from the same +principle, the semicircular arch,) the Gothic zone, the zone of the +Renaissance, which may be called the Greco-Roman. The Roman stratum, +which is the oldest and the lowest, is occupied by the semicircular +arch, which reappears, together with the Greek column, in the modern +and uppermost stratum of the Renaissance. The painted arch is between +the two. The buildings belonging to any one of these three strata are +perfectly distinct, uniform, and complete. Such are the Abbey of +Jumieges, the Cathedral of Rheims, the Church of the Holy Cross at +Orleans. But the three zones are blended and mingled at the edges, like +the colors in the solar spectrum. + +Hence, we have certain complex structures, buildings of gradation and +transition, which may be Roman at the base, Gothic in the middle, and +Greco-Roman at the top. This is caused by the fact that it took six +hundred years to build such a fabric. This variety is rare. The +donjon-keep at Etampes is a specimen. But monuments of two formations +are more frequent. Such is Notre-Dame at Paris, a structure of the +pointed arch, its earliest columns leading directly to that Roman zone, +of which the portals of Saint-Denis and the nave of Saint-Germain des +Pres are perfect specimens. Such is the charming semi-Gothic +chapter-house of Boucherville, where the Roman layer reaches midway. +Such is the cathedral of Rouen, which would be wholly Gothic if the tip +of its central spire did not dip into the zone of the Renaissance. +[Footnote: This part of the spire, which was of timber, happens to be +the very part which was burned by lightning in 1823.] + +However, all these gradations and differences affect the surface only +of an edifice. Art has but changed its skin. The construction itself of +the Christian church is not affected by them. The interior arrangement, +the logical order of the parts, is still the same. Whatever may be the +carved and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find +beneath it, if only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman +basilica. It rises forever from the ground in harmony with the same law. + +There are invariably two naves intersecting each other in the form of a +cross, the upper end being rounded into a chancel or choir; there are +always side aisles, for the processions and for chapels, a sort of +lateral galleries or walks, into which the principal nave opens by +means of the spaces between the columns. This settled, the number of +chapels, doors, steeples, and spires may be modified indefinitely, +according to the fancy of the century, the people, and the art. The +performance of divine service once provided for and assured, +architecture acts its own pleasure. Statues, stained glass, +rose-windows, arabesques, denticulations, capitals, and +bas-reliefs,--it combines all these flowers of the fancy according to +the logarithm that suits it best. Hence the immense variety in the +exteriors of those structures within which dwell such unity and order. +The trunk of the tree is fixt; the foliage is variable. + + + + + +The Louvre + +By Grant Allen + + +[Footnote: From "Paris."] + + + +The Louvre is the noblest monument of the French Renaissance. From the +time of St. Louis onward, the French kings began to live more and more +in the northern suburb, the town of the merchants, which now assumed +the name of La Ville, in contradistinction to the Cite and the +Universite. Two of their chief residences here were the Bastille and +the Hotel St. Paul, both now demolished--one, on the Place so called; +the other, between the Rue St. Antoine and the Quai des Celestins. But +from a very early period they also possest a chateau on the site of the +Louvre, and known by the same name, which guarded the point where the +wall of Philippe Auguste abutted on the river. Francois I. decided to +pull down this picturesque turreted medieval castle, erected by +Philippe Auguste and altered by Charles V. He began the construction in +its place of a magnificent Renaissance palace, which has ever since +been in course of erection. + +Its subsequent growth, however, is best explained opposite the building +itself, where attention can be duly called to the succession of its +salient features. But a visit to the exterior fabric of the Louvre +should be preceded by one to St. Germain l'Auxerrois, the parish +church, and practically the chapel, of the old Louvre, to which it +stood in somewhat the same relation as the Ste. Chapelle to the home of +St. Louis. Note, however, that the church was situated just within the +ancient wall, while the chateau lay outside it. The visitor will +doubtless be tolerably familiar by this time with some parts at least +of the exterior of the Louvre; but he will do well to visit it now +systematically, in the order here suggested, so as to gain a clear +general idea of its history and meaning.... + +Begin by understanding distinctly that this court is the real and +original Louvre; the rest is mere excresence, intended to unite the +main building with the Tuileries, which lay some hundreds of yards to +the west of it. Notice, first, that the Palace as a whole, seen from +the point where you now stand, is constructed on the old principle of +relatively blank external walls, like a castle, with an interior +courtyard, on which all the apartments open, and almost all the +decoration is lavished. Reminiscences of defense lurk about the Louvre. +It can best be understood by comparison with such ornate, yet +fortress-like, Italian palaces as the Strozzi at Florence. Notice the +four opposite portals, facing the cardinal points, which can be readily +shut by means of great doors; while the actual doorways of the various +suites of apartments open only into the protected courtyard. This is +the origin of the familiar French porte-cochere. + +Again, the portion of the building that directly faces you as you enter +the court from St. Germain is the oldest part, and represents the early +Renaissance spirit. It is the most primitive Louvre. Note in particular +the central elevated portion, known as a Pavilion, and graced with +elegant Caryatides. These Pavilions are lingering reminiscences of the +medieval towers. You will find them in the corners and centers of other +blocks in the Louvre. They form a peculiarly French Renaissance +characteristic. The Palace is here growing out of the Castle. The other +three sides of the square are, on the whole, more classical and later. + +Now across the square directly to the Pavilion de l'Horloge, as it is +called, from the clock which adorns it. To your left, on the floor of +the court, are two circular white lines, enclosed in a square. These +mark the site of the original Chateau of the Louvre, with its keep, or +donjon. Francois I., who began the existing building, originally +intended that his palace should cover the same area. It was he who +erected the left wing, which now faces you, marked by the crown and H +on its central round gable, placed there by his successor, Henry II., +under whom it was completed. To the same king are also due the +monograms of H and D (for Diane de Poitiers, his mistress), between the +columns of the ground floor. The whole of the Pavilion de l'Horloge, +and of this west wing, should be carefully examined in detail as the +finest remaining specimen of highly decorated French Renaissance +architecture. (But the upper story of the Pavilion, with the +Caryatides, is an age later.) Observe even the decoration lavished on +the beautiful chimneys. Pierre Lescot was the architect of this +earliest wing; the exquisite sculpture is by Jean Goujon, a Frenchman, +and the Italian, Paolo Ponzio. Examine much of it. The crossed K's of +certain panels stand for Catherine de Medici. + +The right wing, beyond the Pavilion, was added, in the same style, +under Louis XIII., who decided to double the plan of his predecessors, +and form the existing Cour du Louvre. + +The other three sides, in a more classic style, with pediments +replacing the Pavilions, and square porticos instead of rounded gables, +are for the most part later. The south side, however, as far as the +central door, is also by Pierre Lescot. It forms one of the two fronts +of the original square first contemplated. The attic story of these +three sides was added under Louis XIV., to whom, in the main, is due +this Cour du Louvre. A considerable part of Louis XIV.'s decorations +bear reference to his representation as "le roi soleil." + +Now, pass through the Pavilion de l'Horloge (called on its west side +Pavilion Sully) into the second of the three courts of the Louvre. To +understand this portion of the building, again, you must remember that +shortly after the erection of the Old Louvre, Catherine de Medici began +to build her palace of the Tuileries, now destroyed, to the west of it. +She (and subsequent rulers) designed to unite the Old Louvre with the +Tuileries by a gallery which should run along the bank of the river. Of +that gallery, Catherine de Medici herself erected a considerable +portion, to be described later, and Henri IV., almost completed it. +Later on, Napoleon I. conceived the idea of extending a similar gallery +along his new Rue de Rivoli, on the north side, so as to enclose the +whole space between the Louvre and the Tuileries in one gigantic double +courtyard. Napoleon III. carried out his idea. The second court in +which you now stand is entirely flanked by buildings of this epoch--the +Second Empire. Examine it cursorily as far as the modern statue of +Gambetta. + +Stand or take a seat by the railing of the garden opposite the Pavilion +Sully. The part that now faces you forms a portion of the building of +Francois I, and Louis XIII., redecorated in part by Napoleon I. The +portions to your right and left are entirely of the age of Napoleon +III., built so as to conceal the want of parallelism of the outer +portions. Observe their characteristic Pavilions, each bearing its own +name inscribed upon it. This recent square, tho quite modern in the +character of its sculpture and decoration, is Renaissance in its +general architecture, and, when looked back upon from the gardens of +the Tuileries, affords a most excellent idea of that stately style, as +developed in France under Francois I. The whole of this splendid plan, +however, has been rendered futile by the destruction of the Tuileries, +without which the enclosure becomes wholly meaningless. + +Now, continue westward, pass the Monument of Gambetta, and take a seat +on the steps at the base, near the fine figure of Truth. In front of +you opens the third square of the Louvre, known as the Place du +Carrousel, and formerly enclosed on its west side by the Palace of the +Tuileries, which was unfortunately burned down in 1871, during the +conflict between the Municipal and National authorities. Its place is +now occupied by a garden terrace, the view from which in all directions +is magnificent. Fronting you, as you sit, is the Arc de Triomphe du +Carrousel, erected under Napoleon I., by Percier and Fontaine, in +imitation of the Arch of Septimius Severus at Rome, and once crowned by +the famous bronze Roman horses from St. Mark's at Venice. The arch, +designed as an approach to the Tuileries during the period of the +classical mania, is too small for its present surroundings, since the +removal of the Palace. The north wing, visible to your right, is purely +modern, of the age of the First and Second Empire and the Third +Republic. The meretricious character of the reliefs in its extreme west +portion, erected under the Emperor Napoleon III., and restored after +the Commune, is redolent of the spirit of that gaudy period. The south +wing, to your left, forms part of the connecting gallery erected by +Henri IV., but its architecture is largely obscured by considerable +alterations under Napoleon III. Its west pavilion-known as the Pavilion +de Flore--is well worth notice. + +Having thus gained a first idea of the courtyard fronts of the +building, continue your walk, still westward, along the south wing as +far as the Pavilion de Flore, a remaining portion of the corner edifice +which ran into one line with the Palace of the Tuileries. Turn round +the corner of the Pavilion to examine the south or river front of the +connecting gallery--one of the finest parts of the whole building, but +far less known to ordinary visitors than the cold and uninteresting +northern line along the Rue de Rivoli. The first portion, as far as the +gateways, belongs originally to the age of Henry IV., but it was +entirely reconstructed under Napoleon III., whose obtrusive N appears +in many places on the gateways and elsewhere. + +Nevertheless, it still preserves, on the whole, some reminiscence of +its graceful Renaissance architecture. Beyond the main gateway (with +modern bronze Charioteer of the Sun), flanked by the Pavilions de la +Tremoille and de Lesdiguieres, we come upon the long Southern Gallery +erected by Catherine de Medici, which still preserves almost intact its +splendid early French Renaissance decoration. This is one of the +noblest portions of the entire building. The N here gives place to H's, +and the Renaissance scroll-work and reliefs almost equal those in that +portion of the old Louvre which was erected under Francois I. Sit on a +seat on the Quay and examine the sculpture. + +Notice particularly the splendid Porte Jean Goujon, conspicuous from +afar by its gilded balcony. Its crowned H's and coats-of-arms are +specially interesting examples of the decorative work of the period. +Note also the skill with which this almost flat range is relieved by +sculpture and decoration so as to make us oblivious of the want of that +variety usually given by jutting portions. The end of this long gallery +is formed by two handsome windows with balconies. We there come to the +connecting Galerie d'Apollon, of which these windows are the +termination, and finally reach once more a portion of Perrault's +facade, with its double LL's, erected under Louis XIV., and closely +resembling the interior facade of the Cour du Louvre.... + +The Collections in the Louvre have no such necessary organic connection +with Paris itself as Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, or even those +in the rooms at Cluny. They may, therefore, be examined by the visitor +at any period of his visit that he chooses. I would advise him, +however, whenever he takes them up, to begin with the paintings and +then to go on to the Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. The +last-named, at least, he should only examine in connection with the +rest of Renaissance Paris. Also, while it is unimportant whether he +takes first Painting or Sculpture, it is very doubtful that he should +take each separately in the chronological order. + +At least six days--far more, if possible--should be devoted to the +Louvre Collections--by far the most important objects to be seen in +Paris. Of these, four should be assigned to the Paintings, and one each +to the Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. If this is impossible, do +not try to see all; see a little thoroughly. Confine yourself, for +Painting, to the Salon Carre and Gallery VII., and for Sculpture to the +Classical Gallery and to the three Western rooms of the Renaissance +collection. + + + +The Madeleine and Champs Elysees + +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + +[Footnote From "French and Italian Note-Books." By special arrangement +with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, +Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1899.] + + + +Approaching the Madeleine, we found it a most beautiful church, that +might have been adapted from Heathenism to Catholicism; for on each +side there is a range of magnificent pillars, unequalled, except by +those of the Parthenon. A mourning coach, arrayed in black and silver, +was drawn up at the steps, and the front of the church was hung with +black cloth, which covered the whole entrance. However, seeing the +people going in, we entered along with them. Glorious and gorgeous is +the Madeleine. The entrance to the nave is beneath a most stately arch; +and three arches of equal height open from the nave to the side aisles; +and at the end of the nave is another great arch, rising, with a +vaulted half-dome, over the high altar. The pillars supporting these +arches are Corinthian, with richly sculptured capitals; and wherever +gilding might adorn the church, it is lavished like sunshine; and +within the sweeps of the arches there are fresco paintings of sacred +subjects, and a beautiful picture covers the hollow of the vault over +the altar; all this, besides much sculpture; and especially a group +above and around the high altar, representing the Magdalen smiling down +upon angels and archangels, some of whom are kneeling, and shadowing +themselves with their heavy marble wings. + +There is no such thing as making my page glow with the most distant +idea of the magnificence of this church, in its details and in its +whole. It was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then +Bonaparte contemplated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or +building it anew as one. The restored Bourbon remade it into a church; +but it still has a heathenish look, and will never lose it. + +When we entered we saw a crowd of people, all pressing forward toward +the high altar, before which burned a hundred wax lights, some of which +were six or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy +of stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy +of wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, +embroidered with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but +a sarcophagus, or something still more huge. + +The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with +heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young +voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church, +between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with +broad expanses of black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred +vestments covered with black. They looked exceedingly well; I never saw +anything half so well got up on the stage. Some of these ecclesiastical +figures were very stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore +aloft the cross, and swung the censers in a way that I liked to see. + +The ceremonies of the Catholic Church were a superb work of art, or +perhaps a true growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men +felt their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. +Being of another parish, I looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and +was glad to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad +when it was over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed +the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the +audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, +a sword, and had the air of a military man.... + +When we left the Madeleine we took our way to the Place de la Concorde, +and thence through the Elysian Fields (which, I suppose, are the French +idea of heaven) to Bonaparte's triumphal arch. The Champs Elysees may +look pretty in summer; tho I suspect they must be somewhat dry and +artificial at whatever season.--the trees being slender and scraggy, +and requiring to be renewed every few years. The soil is not genial to +them. The strangest peculiarity of this place, however, to eyes fresh +from moist and verdant England, is, that there is not one blade of +grass in all the Elysian Fields, nothing but hard clay, now covered +with white dust. It gives the whole scene the air of being a +contrivance of man, in which Nature has either not been invited to take +any part, or has declined to do so. + +There were merry-go-rounds, wooden horses, and other provision for +children's amusements among the trees; and booths, and tables of cakes, +and candy-women; and restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very +few people there; and doubtless we can form no idea of what the scene +might become when alive with French gayety and vivacity. + +As we walked onward the Triumphal Arch began to loom up in the +distance, looking huge and massive, tho still a long way off. It was +not, however, till we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the +grandeur of this great arch, including so large a space of the blue sky +in its airy sweep. At a distance, it impresses the spectator with its +solidity; nearer, with the lofty vacancy beneath it. There is a spiral +staircase within one of its immense limbs; and, climbing steadily +upward, lighted by a lantern which the door-keeper's wife gave us, we +had a bird's eye view of Paris, much obscured by smoke or mist. Several +interminable avenues shoot with painful directness right toward it. + +On our way homeward we visited the Place Vendome, in the center of +which is a tall column, sculptured from top to bottom, all over the +pedestal, and all over the shaft, and with Napoleon himself on the +summit. The shaft is wreathed round and round about with +representations of what, as far as I could distinguish, seemed to be +the Emperor's victories. It has a very rich effect. At the foot of the +column we saw wreaths of artificial flowers, suspended there, no doubt, +by some admirer of Napoleon, still ardent enough to expend a franc or +two in this way. + + + + +The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, +David McKay. Copyright, 1880.] + + + +We emerge from the Rue de Grenelle opposite the gardens to the north of +the magnificent Hotel des Invalides, planned by Henri IV., and begun by +Louis XIV. in 1671, as a refuge for old soldiers, who, before it was +built, had to beg their bread on the streets. + +The institution is under the management of the Minister of War, and +nothing can be more comfortable than the life of its inmates. The +number of these is now small; in the time of Napoleon I., when the +institution was called the "Temple of Mars," it was enormous. + +On the terrace in front of the building are a number of cannon, +trophies taken in different campaigns. Standing before the hotel is the +statue of Prince Eugene. On either side of the entrance are statues of +Mars and Minerva by Coustou the younger. In the tympanum of the +semicircle over the center of the facade is Louis XIV. on horseback. +Behind the facade is a vast courtyard surrounded by open corridors +lined with frescoes of the history of France; those of the early +history on the left by Benedict Masson, 1865, have much interest. In +the center of the facade opposite the entrance is the statue of +Napoleon I. Beneath this is the approach to the Church of St. Louis, +built 1671-79, from designs of Liberal Bruant, and in which many +banners of victory give an effect of color to an otherwise colorless +building.... + +The Tomb of Napoleon, under the magnificent dome of the Invalides, +which was added to the original church by Jules Hardouin Mansart, and +is treated as a separate building, is entered from the Place Vauban at +the back, or by the left cloister and a court beyond. + +On entering the vast interior, a huge circular space is seen to open, +beneath the cupola painted by Charles de Lafosse and Jouvenet, and, in +it, surrounded by caryatides and groups of moldering banners, the huge +tomb of Finland granite, given by the Emperor Nicholas. Hither the +remains of the great Emperor were brought back from St. Helena by the +Prince de Joinville, in 1841, tho Louis Philippe, while adopting this +popular measure as regarded the dead, renewed the sentence of exile +against the living members of the Bonaparte family. + +Four smaller cupolas encircle the great dome. In the first, on the +right, is the tomb of Joseph Bonaparte. On the left are the tombs of +Jerome Bonaparte, with a statue, and of his eldest son and the Princess +Catherine of Wurtemberg. The other two cupolas are still empty. + +Descending the steps behind the splendid baldacchino, we find +black-marble tombs of Marshals Duroc and Bertrand guarding the approach +to that of Napoleon I. His own words, taken from his will, appear in +large letters over the entrance: "I desire my ashes to lie on the +shores of the Seine among the people of France whom I loved so deeply." + +The sentiment, the tomb, and the dome have a unique splendor. A +white-marble statue of Napoleon I. by Stuart is in a black-marble +chapel. His Austerlitz sword, the crown voted by Cherbourg, and colors +taken in his different battles, were formerly shown in a "chapelle +ardente." + + + + +The Palais de Justice and the Sainte Chapelle + +By Grant Allen + + +[Footnote: From "Paris."] + + + +Go along the Rue de Rivoli as far as the Square of the Tour St. +Jacques. If driving, alight here. Turn down the Place du Chatelet to +your right. In front is the pretty modern fountain of the Chatelet; +right, the Theatre du Chatelet; left, the Opera Comique. The bridge +which faces you is the Pont-au-Change, so-called from the +money-changers' and jewelers' booths which once flanked its wooden +predecessor (the oldest in Paris), as they still do the Rialto at +Venice, and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence. + +Stand by the right-hand corner of the bridge before crossing it. In +front is the Ile de la Cite. The square, dome-crowned building opposite +you to the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward +lie the Marche-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hotel-Dieu, above +which rise the towers and spire of Notre Dame. In front, to the right, +the vast block of buildings broken by towers forms part of the Palais +de Justice, the ancient Palace of the French kings, begun by Hugh +Capet. The square tower to the left in this block is the Tour de +l'Horloge. Next, to the right, come the two round towers of the +Conciergerie, known respectively as the Tour de Cesar and the Tour de +Montgomery. The one beyond them, with battlements, is the Tour +d'Argent. It was in the Conciergerie that Marie Antoinette, +Robespierre, and many other victims of the Revolution were imprisoned. + +These medieval towers, much altered and modernized, are now almost all +that remains of the old Palace, which, till after the reign of Louis +IX. (St. Louis), formed the residence of the Kings of France. Charles +VII. gave it in 1431 to the Parlement or Supreme Court. Ruined by fires +and re-building, it now consists for the most part of masses of +irregular recent edifices. The main modern facade fronts the Boulevard +du Palais. + +Cross the bridge. The Tour de l'Horloge on your right, at the corner of +the Boulevard du Palais, contains the oldest public clock in France +(1370). The figures of Justice and Pity by its side were originally +designed by Germain Pilon, but are now replaced by copies. Walk round +the Palais by the quay along the north branch of the Seine till you +come to the Rue de Harlay. Turn there to your left, toward the handsome +and imposing modern facade of this side of the Palais de Justice. The +interior is unworthy a visit. The Rue de Harlay forms the westernmost +end of the original Ile de la Cite. The prow-shaped extremity of the +modern island has been artificially produced by embanking the sites of +two or three minor islets. The Palace Dauphine, which occupies the +greater part of this modern extension, was built in 1608; it still +affords a characteristic example of the domestic Paris of the period +before Baron Haussmann. + +Continue along the quay as far as the Pont-Neuf, so as to gain an idea +of the extent of the Ile de la Cite in this direction. The center of +the Pont-Neuf is occupied by an equestrian statue of Henri IV., first +of the Bourbon kings. Its predecessor was erected in 1635, and was +destroyed to make cannon during the great Revolution. Louis XVIII. +re-erected it. From this point you can gain a clear idea of the two +branches of the Seine as they unite at the lower end of the Ile de la +Cite. To your right, looking westward, you also obtain a fine view of +the Colonnade of the Old Louvre, with the southwestern gallery, and the +more modern buildings of the Museum behind it. + +Now, walk along the southern quay of the island, round the remainder of +the Palais de Justice, as far as the Boulevard du Palais. There turn to +your left, and go in at the first door of the Palace on the left +(undeterred by sentries) into the court of the Sainte Chapelle, the +only important relic now remaining of the home of Saint Louis. You may +safely neglect the remainder of the building. + +The thirteenth century was a period of profound religious enthusiasm +throughout Europe. Conspicuous among its devout soldiers was Louis IX., +afterward canonized as St. Louis. The saintly king purchased from +Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, the veritable Crown of Thorns, and +a fragment of the True Cross--paying for these relics an immense sum of +money. Having become possest of such invaluable and sacred objects, +Louis desired to have them housed with suitable magnificence. He +therefore entrusted Pierre de Montereau with the task of building a +splendid chapel (within the precincts of his palace), begun in 1245, +and finished three years later, immediately after which the king set +out on his Crusade. The monument breathes throughout the ecstatic piety +of the mystic king; it was consecrated in 1248, in the name of the Holy +Crown and the Holy Cross, by Eudes de Chateauroux, Bishop of Tusculum +and papal legate. + +Three things should be noted about the Sainte Chapelle. (1) It is a +chapel, not a church; therefore it consists (practically) of a choir +alone, without nave or transepts. (2) It is the domestic Chapel of the +Royal Palace. (3) It is, above all things, the Shrine of the Crown of +Thorns. These three points must be constantly borne in mind in +examining the building. + +Erected later than Notre-Dame, it represents the pointed style of the +middle of the thirteenth century, and is singularly pure and uniform +throughout. Secularized at the Revolution, it fell somewhat into decay; +but was judiciously restored by Viollet-le-Duc and others. The "Messe +Rouge," or "Messe du St. Esprit," is still celebrated here once yearly, +on the re-opening of the courts after the autumn vacation, but no other +religious services take place in the building. The Crown of Thorns and +the piece of the True Cross are now preserved in the Treasury at Notre +Dame. + +Examine the exterior in detail from the court on the south side. More +even than most Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle is supported +entirely by its massive piers, the wall being merely used for +enclosure, and consisting for the most part of lofty windows. As in +most French Gothic buildings, the choir terminates in a round apse, +whereas English cathedrals have usually a square end. The beautiful +light fleche or spire in the center has been restored. Observe the +graceful leaden angel, holding a cross, on the summit of the chevet or +round apse. To see the facade, stand well back opposite it, where you +can observe that the chapel is built in four main stories--those, +namely, of the Lower Church or crypt, of the Upper Church, of the great +rose window (with later flamboyant tracery), and of the gable-end, +partially masked by an open parapet studded with the royal +fleurs-de-lis of France. The Crown of Thorns surrounds the two +pinnacles which flank the fourth story. + +The chapel consists of a lower and an upper church. The Lower Church is +a mere crypt, which was employed for the servants of the royal family. +Its portal has in its tympanum (or triangular space in the summit of +the arch) the Coronation of the Virgin, and on its center pillar a good +figure of the Madonna and Child. Enter the Lower Church. It is low, and +has pillars supporting the floor above. In the polychromatic decoration +of the walls and pillars, notice the frequent repetition of the royal +lilies of France, combined with the three castles of Castille, in honor +of Blanche of Castille, the Mother of St. Louis. + +Mount to the Upper Chapel (or Sainte Chapelle proper) by the small +spiral staircase in the corner. This soaring pile was the oratory where +the royal family and court attended service; its gorgeousness bespeaks +its origin and nature. It glows like a jewel. First go out of the door +and examine the exterior and doorway of the chapel. Its platform was +directly approached in early times from the Palace. The center pillar +bears a fine figure of Christ. In the tympanum (as over the principal +doorway of almost every important church in Paris and in the district) +is a relief of the Last Judgment. Below stands St. Michael with his +scales, weighing the souls; on either side is depicted the +Resurrection, with the Angels of the Last Trump. Above, in the second +tier, is Christ, holding up His hands with the marks of the nails, as a +sign of mercy to the redeemed: to right and left of Him angels display +the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, to contain which sacred relics +the chapel was built. + +On the extreme left kneels the Blessed Virgin; on the extreme right, +Sainte Genevieve. This scene of the Last Judgment was adapted with a +few alterations from that above the central west door of Notre Dame, +the Crown of Thorns in particular being here significantly substituted +for the three nails and spear. The small lozenge reliefs to right and +left of the portal are also interesting. Those to the left represent in +a very naive manner God the Father creating the world, sun and moon, +light, plants, animals, man, etc. Those to the right give the story of +Genesis, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Ark, Noah's Sacrifice, Noah's +Vine, etc., the subjects of all which the visitor can easily recognize, +and is strongly recommended to identify for himself. + +The interior consists almost entirely of large and lofty windows, with +magnificent stained glass, in large part ancient. The piers which +divide the windows and alone support the graceful vault of the roof, +are provided with statues of the twelve apostles, a few of them +original. Each bears his well-known symbol. Spell them out if possible. +Beneath the windows, in the quatrefoils of the arcade, are enamelled +glass mosaics representing the martyrdoms of the saints--followers of +Christ, each wearing his own crown of thorns: a pretty conceit wholly +in accord with St. Louis's ecstatic type of piety. Conspicuous among +them are St. Denis carrying his head, St. Sebastian pierced with +arrows, St. Stephen stoned, St. Lawrence on his gridiron, etc. The apse +(formerly separated from the body of the building by a rood-screen, now +destroyed), contains the vacant base of the high altar, behind which +stands an arcaded tabernacle, now empty, in whose shrine were once +preserved the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the True Cross, and +other relics. + +Among them in the later times was included the skull of St. Louis +himself in a golden reliquary. Two angels at the summit of the large +center arch of the arcade bear a representation of the Crown of Thorns +in their hands. Above the tabernacle rises a canopy or baldacchino, +approached by two spiral staircases; from its platform St. Louis and +his successors, the kings of France, were in the habit of exhibiting +with their own hands the actual relics themselves once a year to the +faithful. The golden reliquary in which the sacred objects were +contained was melted down in the Revolution. The small window with bars +to your right, as you face the high altar, was placed there by the +superstitious and timid Louis XI., in order that he might behold the +elevation of the Host and the sacred relics without being exposed to +the danger of assassination. The visitor should also notice the inlaid +stone pavement, with its frequent repetition of the fleur-de-lis and +the three castles. The whole breathes the mysticism of St. Louis; the +lightness of the architecture, the height of the apparently unsupported +roof, and the magnificence of the decoration, render this the most +perfect ecclesiastical building in Paris. + +In returning from the chapel, notice on the outside, from the court to +the south, the apparently empty and useless porch, supporting a small +room, which is the one through whose grated window Louis XI. used to +watch the elevation. + + + + +The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, +David McKay. Copyright, 1880.] + + + +It was Etienne Marcel, Mayor of Paris, who first established the +municipal council at the Place de Greve, at that time the only large +square in Paris. In July, 1357, he purchased as a Hostel de Ville the +Maison aux Piliers, which had been inhabited by Clemence d'Hongrie, +widow of Louis le Hutin, and which afterward took the name of Maison du +Dauphin from her nephew and heir, Guy, Dauphin de Viennois. + +In 1532 a new Hotel de Ville was begun and finished by the architect +Marin de la Vallee in the reign of Henri IV. This was so much altered +by successive restorations and revolutions that only a staircase, two +monumental chimney-pieces in the Salle du Trone, and some sculptured +doorways and other details remained from the interior decorations in +the old building at the time of its destruction. + +Till the time of Louis XVI. the history of the Hotel de Ville was +entirely local; after that it became the history of France. It was +there that Louis XVI. received the tri-colored cockade from Bailly, +Mayor of Paris, July 17, 1789; and there, in the chamber called, from +its hangings, Le Cabinet Vert, that Robespierre was arrested, in the +name of the Convention, during one of the meetings of the Commune, July +27, 1794. After the fall of Robespierre it was seriously proposed to +pull down the Hotel de Ville, because it had been his last asylum--"Le +Louvre de Robespierre." It was only saved by the common-sense of +Leonard Bourdon. + +But most of all, in the popular recollection, is the Hotel de Ville +connected with public fetes--with those on the second marriage of +Napoleon I. (1810), on the entry of Louis XVIII. (1814), on the +coronation of Charles X. (1825), on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans +(1837), on the visits of different foreign potentates to Napoleon III. +Here also was the Republic proclaimed, September 4, 1870. + +It was in one of the windows of the Hotel de Ville that Louis Philippe +embraced Lafayette (August, 1830) in sight of the people, to evince the +union of the July monarchy with the bourgeoisie. On the steps of the +building Louis Blanc proclaimed the Republic, February 24,1848. From +September 4, 1870, to February 28, 1871, the hotel was the seat of the +"government of the national defense," and from March 19 to May 22, +1871, that of the pretended "Committee of public safety" of the +Communists. On May 24 it was burned by its savage defenders, many of +whom happily perished in the flames. + +The Place de l'Hotel de Ville is so modernized that it retains nothing +of the Place de Greve but its terrible historic associations. Among the +many fearful executions here, it is only necessary to recall that of +Jean Hardi, torn to pieces by four horses (March 30, 1473) on an +accusation of trying to poison Louis XI.; that of the Comte de St. Pol +(December 19, 1475), long commemorated by a pillar; those of a long +list of Protestants, opened by the auto-de-fe of Jacques de Povanes, +student of the University, in 1525; that of Nicholas de Salcede, Sieur +d'Auvillers, torn to pieces by four horses in the presence of the king +and queens, for conspiracy to murder the Duc d'Anjou, youngest son of +Catherine de Medici. More terrible still was the execution of Ravaillac +(May 27, 1610) murderer of Henri IV. + +"The executioner cut off his hand with an ax, and threw it and the +murderous knife into the fire. His breasts, his arms and his legs were +torn with pincers, and boiling oil and melted lead poured into the open +wounds. He was then dismembered by four strong horses, which pulled for +no less than an entire hour. They dismembered only a corpse. He +expired," says L'Estoile, "at the second or third pull." When the +executioner had to throw the limbs into the fire that the ashes, +according to the sentence, might be flung to the winds, the whole crowd +rushed on to claim them. "But," adds the same chronicler, "the people +rushed on so impetuously that every mother's son had a piece, even the +children, who made fires of them at the corners of the streets." + +After the capture of the Bastille its brave governor, M. de Launay, was +beheaded on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, and his major, M. de +Losme-Salbray, was massacred under the Arcade St. Jean. These were the +first victims of the Revolution. Foulon, Intendant du Commerce, +suffered here soon afterward, hung from the cords by which a lamp was +suspended, whence the expression, which soon resounded in many a +popular refrain, of "put the aristocrats to the lantern." + + * * * * * + +Two parasite buildings, the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police, +are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its +name from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence +here, who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and +ashes of the king's chimney. + +It has always been a prison, and it was here that the Comte d'Armagnac +was murdered, June 12, 1418. Here was made, below the level of the +Seine, the prison called La Souriciere, from the rats which had the +reputation of eating the prisoners alive. The present Conciergerie +occupies the lower story of the right wing of the existing Palais de +Justice, and extends along the Quai de l'Horloge, as far as the towers +of Montgomery and Cesar. It has an entrance on the quay, before which +the guillotine-carts received the victims of the Reign of Terror, and +another to the right of the great staircase in the Cour d'Honneur. + +All other associations of the Conciergerie are lost in those which were +attached to it by the great Revolution. The cell in which Marie +Antoinette suffered her seventy-five days' agony--from August 2 till +October 15, when she was condemned--was turned into a chapel of +expiation in 1816. The lamp still exists which lighted the august +prisoner and enabled her guards to watch her through the night. The +door still exists, tho changed in position, which was cut transversely +in half and the upper part fixt that the queen might be forced to bend +in going out, because she had said that whatever indignities they might +inflict upon her they could never force her to bend the head. + +After her condemnation, Marie Antoinette was not brought back to this +chamber. It was a far more miserable cell which saw her write her last +touching farewell to Madame Elizabeth. But this was the room in which +the Girondins spent their last night, when, as Riouffe, himself in the +prison at the time, says, "all during this frightful night their songs +sounded and if they stopt singing it was but to talk about their +country." The adjoining cell, now used as a sacristy, was the prison of +Robespierre. + + + + +Pere la Chaise + +By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow + + +[Footnote: From "Outre Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + + + +The cemetery of Pere la Chaise is the Westminster Abbey of Paris. Both +are the dwellings of the dead; but in one they repose in green alleys +and beneath the open sky--in the other their resting-place is in the +shadowy aisle, and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a +temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft +melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble +of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle +visit of the sunshine and the shower; in the other, no sound but the +passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals +in through high and dusky windows; and the damps of the gloomy vault +lie heavy on the heart, and leave their stain upon the moldering +tracery of the tomb. + +Pere la Chaise stands just beyond the Barriere d'Aulney, on a +hill-side, looking toward the city. Numerous gravel-walks, winding +through shady avenues and between marble monuments, lead up from the +principal entrance to a chapel on the summit. There is hardly a grave +that has not its little inclosure planted with shrubbery; and a thick +mass of foliage half conceals each funeral stone. The sighing of the +wind, as the branches rise and fall upon it,--the occasional note of a +bird among the trees, and the shifting of light and shade upon the +tombs beneath, have a soothing effect upon the mind; and I doubt +whether any one can enter that inclosure, where repose the dust and +ashes of so many great and good men, without feeling the religion of +the place steal over him, and seeing something of the dark and gloomy +expression pass off from the stern countenance of death. + +It was near the close of a bright summer afternoon that I visited this +celebrated spot for the first time. The object that arrested my +attention, on entering, was a monument in the form of a small Gothic +chapel, which stands near the entrance, in the avenue leading to the +right hand. On the marble couch within are stretched two figures, +carved in stone and drest in the antique garb of the Middle Ages. It is +the tomb of Abelard and Heloise. The history of these unfortunate +lovers is too well known to need recapitulation; but perhaps it is not +so well known how often their ashes were disturbed in the slumber of +the grave. Abelard died in the monastery of Saint Marcel, and was +buried in the vaults of the church. His body was afterward removed to +the convent of the Paraclet, at the request of Heloise, and at her +death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three centuries they +reposed together; after which they were separated to different sides of +the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-abbess of the +convent. More than a century afterward, they were again united in the +same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed, their +moldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur-Seine. +They were next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris; and now +repose near the gateway of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. What a +singular destiny was theirs! that, after a life of such passionate and +disastrous love,--such sorrows, and tears, and penitence--their very +dust should not be suffered to rest quietly in the grave!--that their +death should so much resemble their life in its changes and +vicissitudes, its partings and its meetings, its inquietudes and its +persecutions!--that mistaken zeal should follow them down to the very +tomb--as if earthly passion could glimmer, like a funeral lamp, amid +the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in their ashes bum their +wonted fires!".... + +Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took a pathway to the left, +which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep +shade of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow +mingled, interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle. +I now stood in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step +awakened a new train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my +eye caught the name of some one whose glory had exalted the character +of his native land, and resounded across the waters of the Atlantic. +Philosophers, historians, musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by +side around me; some beneath the gorgeous monument, and some beneath +the simple headstone. But the political intrigue, the dream of science, +the historical research, the ravishing harmony of sound, the tried +courage, the inspiration of the lyre--where are they? With the living, +and not with the dead! The right hand has lost its cunning in the +grave; but the soul, whose high volitions it obeyed, still lives to +reproduce itself in ages yet to come. + +Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid +monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of +men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrances of +posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary +of genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of +the great? That was no thoroughfare of business--no mart of gain! There +were no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, +nor obsequious attendants!.... + +I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or +curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow, +overhung with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an +elevation, from which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught +glimpses of the city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the +hill, where the poor lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and +takes but a short lease of the narrow house. At the end of a few +months, or at most of a few years, the tenant is dislodged to give +place to another, and he in turn to a third. "Who," says Sir Thomas +Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? +Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?" + +Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy +in decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with +a slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there +was hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden +cross, and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I +could perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant +a shrub on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it.... + +After rambling leisurely about for some time, reading the iscriptions +on the various monuments which attracted my curiosity, and giving way +to the different reflections they suggested, I sat down to rest myself +on a sunken tombstone. A winding gravel-walk, overshaded by an avenue +of trees, and lined on both sides with richly sculptured monuments, had +gradually conducted me to the summit of the hill, upon whose slope the +cemetery stands. Beneath me in the distance, and dim-discovered through +the misty and smoky atmosphere of evening, rose the countless roofs and +spires of the city. Beyond, throwing his level rays athwart the dusky +landscape, sank the broad red sun. The distant murmur of the city rose +upon my ear; and the toll of the evening bell came up, mingled with the +rattle of the paved street and the confused sounds of labor. What an +hour for meditation! What a contrast between the metropolis of the +living and the metropolis of the dead!.... + +Before I left the graveyard the shades of evening had fallen, and the +objects around me grown dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway, I +turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish only the chapel on +the summit of the hill, and here and there a lofty obelisk of +snow-white marble, rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage +around, and pointing upward to the gleam of the departed sun, that +still lingered in the sky, and mingled with the soft starlight of a +summer evening. + + + + +The Musee de Cluny + +By Grant Allen + + +[Footnote: From "Paris."] + + + +The primitive nucleus of the suburb on the South Side consists of the +Roman fortress palace, the "tete du pont" of the Left Bank, now known +as the Thermes, owing to the fact that its principal existing remains +include only the ruins of the bath or therma. This colossal building, +probably erected by Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, +covered an enormous area south of the river. After the Frankish +conquest, it still remained the residence of the Merwing and Karling +kings on the rare occasions when they visited Paris; and it does not +seem to have fallen into utter decay till a comparatively late date in +the Middle Ages. + +With the Norman irruptions, however, and the rise of the real French +monarchs under Eudes and the Capets, the new sovereigns found it safest +to transfer their seat to the Palace on the Island (now the Palais de +Justice), and the Roman fortress was gradually dismantled. In 1340 the +gigantic ruins came into the hands of the powerful Benedictine Abbey of +Cluny, near Macon, in Burgundy; and about 1480, the abbots began to +erect on the spot a town mansion for themselves, which still bears the +name of the Hotel de Cluny. The letter K, the mark of Charles VIII. +(1483-1498), occurs on many parts of the existing building, and fixes +its epoch. The house was mostly built by Jaques d'Amboise, abbot, in +1490. The style is late Gothic, with Renaissance features. + +The abbots, however, seldom visited Paris, and they frequently placed +their town house accordingly at the disposition of the kings of France. +Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII., and widow of Louis XII., +occupied it thus in 1515, soon after its completion. It was usual for +the queens of France to wear white as mourning; hence her apartment is +still known as the "Chambre de la reine blanche." + +At the Revolution, when the property of the monasteries was +confiscated, the Hotel de Cluny was sold, and passed at last, in 1833, +into the hands of M. du Sommerard, a zealous antiquary, who began the +priceless collection of works of art which it contains. He died in +1842, and the Government then bought the house and museum, and united +it with the Roman ruin at its back under the title of Musee des Thermes +et de l'Hotel de Cluny. Since that time many further objects have been +added to the collection. + +At Cluny the actual building forms one of the most interesting parts of +the sight, and is in itself a museum. It is a charming specimen of a +late medieval French mansion; and the works of art it contains are of +the highest artistic value.... At least two whole days should be +devoted to Cluny--one to the lower and one to the upper floor. Much +more, if possible. + + + + +The Place de la Bastille + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, +David McKay. Copyright, 1880.] + + + +The south end of the Rue des Tournelles falls into the Place de la +Bastille, containing Le Colonne de Juillet, surmounted by a statue of +Liberty, and erected 1831-1840. This marks the site of the famous +castle-prison of the Bastille, which for four centuries and a half +terrified Paris, and which has left a name to the quarter it frowned +upon. Hugues Ambriot, Mayor of Paris, built it under Charles V. to +defend the suburb which contained the royal palace of St. Paul. +Unpopular from the excess of his devotion to his royal master, Aubriot +was the first prisoner in his own prison. + +Perhaps the most celebrated of the long list of after captives were the +Connetable de St. Pol and Jacques d'Armagnac, Due de Nemours, taken +thence for execution to the Place de Greve under Louis XI., Charles de +Gontaut, Due de Biron, executed within the walls of the fortress under +Henri IV., and the "Man with the Iron Mask," brought hither +mysteriously, September 18, 1698, and who died in the Bastille, +November 19, 1703. + +A thousand engravings show us the Bastille as it was--as a +"fort-bastide"--built on the line of the city walls just to the south +of the Porte St. Antoine, surrounded by its own moat. It consisted of +eight round towers, each bearing a characteristic name, connected by +massive walls, ten feet thick, pierced with narrow slits by which the +cells were lighted. In the early times it had entrances on three sides, +but after 1580 only one, with a drawbridge over the moat on the side +toward the river, which led to outer courts and a second drawbridge, +and wound by a defended passage to an outer entrance opposite the Rue +des Tournelles. + +Close beside the Bastille, to the north, rose the Porte St. Antoine, +approached over the city fosse by its own bridge, at the outer end of +which was a triumphal arch built on the return of Henri II. from Poland +in 1573. Both gate and arch were restored for the triumphal entry of +Louis XIV. in 1667; but the gate (before which Etienne Marcel was +killed, July, 1358), was pulled down in 1674. + +The Bastille was taken by the people, July 14, 1789, and the National +Assembly decreed its demolition.... The massive circular pedestal upon +which the Colonne de Juillet now rests was intended by Napoleon I. to +support a gigantic fountain in the form of an elephant, instead of the +column which, after the destruction of the Bastille, the "tiers etat" +of Paris had asked to erect "a Louis XVI., restaurateur de la liberte +publique." It is characteristic of the Parisians that on the very same +spot the throne of Louis Philippe was publicly burned, February 24, +1848. The model for the intended elephant existed here till the middle +of the reign of Louis Philippe, and is depicted by Victor Hugo as the +lodging of "Le petit Gavroche." + + + + +The Pantheon and St. Etienne-Du-Mont + +By Grant Allen + + +[Footnote: From "Paris."] + + + +The medieval church of Ste. Genevieve, having fallen into decay in the +middle of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. determined to replace it by +a sumptuous domed edifice in the style of the period. This building, +designed by Soufflot, was not completed till the Revolution, when it +was immediately secularized as the Pantheon, under circumstances to be +mentioned later. The remains of Ste. Genevieve, which had lain +temporarily meanwhile in a sumptuous chapel of St. Etienne-du-Mont (the +subsidiary church of the monastery) were taken out by the +Revolutionists; the medieval shrine, or reliquary (which replaced St. +Eloy's), was ruthlessly broken up; and the body of the patroness and +preserver of Paris was publicly burned in the Place de Greve. + +This, however, strange to say, was not quite the end of Ste. Genevieve. +A few of her relics were said to have been preserved: some bones, +together with a lock of the holy shepherdess's hair, were afterward +recovered, and replaced in the sarcophagus they had once occupied. Such +at least is the official story; and these relics, now once more +enclosed in a costly shrine, still attract thousands of votaries to the +chapel of the saint in St. Etienne-du-Mont. + +The Pantheon, standing in front of the original church, is now a +secular burial-place for the great men of France. The remains of Ste. +Genevieve still repose at St. Etienne. Thus it is impossible to +dissociate the two buildings, which should be visited together; and +thus too it happens that the patroness of Paris has now no church in +her own city. Local saints are always the most important; this hill and +Montmartre are still the holiest places in Paris. + +Proceed, as far as the garden of the Thermes, as on the excursion to +Cluny. Then continue straight up the Boulevard St. Michel. The large +edifice visible on the right of the Rue des Ecoles to your left, is the +new building of the Sorbonne, or University. Further up, at the Place +du Sorbonne, the domed church of the same name stands before you. It is +the University church, and is noticeable as the earliest true dome +erected in Paris. The next corner shows one, right, the Luxembourg +garden, and left, the Rue Soufflot, leading up to the Pantheon. + +The colossal domed temple which replaces the ancient church of Ste. +Genevieve was begun by Soufflot, under Louis XV., in imitation of St. +Peter's, at Rome. Like all architects of his time, Soufflot sought +merely to produce an effect of pagan or "classical" grandeur, +peculiarly out of place in the shrine of the shepherdess of Nanterre. +Secularized almost immediately on its completion, during the +Revolution, the building was destined as the national monument to the +great men of France, and the inscription, "Aux Grands Hommes la Patrie +Reconnaissante," which it still bears, was then first placed under the +sculptures of the pediment. + +Restored to worship by the Restoration, it was again secularized under +the Third Republic in order to admit the burial of Victor Hugo. The +building itself, a vast bare barn of the pseudo-classical type, very +cold and formal, is worthy of notice merely on account of its immense +size and its historic position; but it may be visited to this day with +pleasure, not only for some noble modern paintings, but also for the +sake of the reminiscences of Ste. Genevieve which it still contains. +The tympanum has a group by David d'Angers, representing France +distributing wreaths to soldiers, politicians, men of letters, men of +science, and artists. + +The interior is in the shape of a Greek cross (with equal arms). Follow +round the walls, beginning from the right. In the right aisle are +paintings (modern) looking like frescoes, and representing the +preaching of St. Denis, by Galand; and the history of Ste. +Genevieve--her childhood, recognition by St. Germain l'Auxerrois, +miracles, etc., delicate and elusive works, by Puvis de Chavannes. The +paintings of the South Transept represent episodes in the early history +of France. Chronologically speaking, they begin from the east central +corner. Choir, Death of Ste. Genevieve, and Miracles before her Shrine, +by Laurens. Apse of the tribune, fine modern (archaic) mosaic, by +Hebert, representing Christ with the Guardian Angel of France, the +Madonna, Jean d'Arc, and Ste. Genevieve. Stand under the dome to +observe the proportions of the huge, bare, unimpressive building. Left, +or Northern Transept, east side, the history of Jeanne d'Arc; she hears +the voices; leads the assault at Orleans; assists at the coronation of +Charles VII. at Rheims; and is burned at Rouen. West side, St. Louis as +a child instructed by Blanche of Castille; administering justice in the +Palace; and a captive among the Saracens. North aisle, history of Ste. +Genevieve and St. Denis. The building is thus at once the apotheosis of +patriotism, and the lasting memorial of the part borne by Christianity +in French, and especially Parisian, history. + +As you descend the steps of the Pantheon, the building that faces you +to the left is the Mairie of the 5th Arrondissement; that to the right, +the Ecole de Droit. Turn to the right along the north side of the +Pantheon. The long, low building which faces you is the Bibliotheque +Ste. Genevieve. Nothing now remains of the Abbey of Ste. Genevieve +except the tall early Gothic tower seen to the right near the end of +the Pantheon, and rising above the modern buildings of the Lycee Henri +IV. The singularly picturesque and strangely-mingled church across the +little square is St. Etienne-du-Mont, which we now proceed to visit. + +Stand in the left-hand corner of the Place to examine the facade. The +church was begun (1517) as late Gothic; but before it was finished, the +Renaissance style had come into fashion, and the architects accordingly +jumbled the two in the most charming manner. The incongruity here only +adds to the beauty. The quaintly original Renaissance portal bears a +dedication to St. Stephen the Protomartyr, beneath which is a relief of +his martyrdom, with a Latin inscription, "Stone destroyed the temple of +the Lord," i.e., Stephen, "Stone rebuilds it." Right and left of the +portal are statues of Sts. Stephen and Genevieve, whose monograms also +appear on the doors. In the pediment is the usual representation of the +Resurrection and Last Judgment. Above it, the rose window, on either +side of which, in accordance with Italian rather than with French +custom (showing Italian Renaissance influence) are the Angel of the +Annunciation and the Madonna receiving his message. In the third story, +a gable-end. Singular tower to the left, with an additional round +turret, a relic of the earlier Gothic building. The whole facade (17th +century) represents rather late Renaissance than transitional +architecture. + +The interior is the most singular, and in some ways the most +picturesque, in Paris--a Gothic church, tricked out in Renaissance +finery. The nave is flanked by aisles, which are divided from it by +round pillars, capped by a singular balustrade or gallery with low, +flat arches, simulating a triforium. The upper arches are round, and +the decorations Renaissance; but the vaulting, both of nave and aisles, +with its pendant keystones, recalls the Gothic style, as do also most +of the windows. Stand near the entrance, in the center of the nave, and +look up the church. + +The most striking feature is the beautiful Renaissance jube or +rood-loft (the only one now left in Paris) which divides the Choir from +the body of the building. This rood-loft still bears a crucifix, for +the reception of which it was originally intended. On the arch below +are two charmingly sculptured Renaissance angels. The rood-loft is +flanked by two spiral staircases, which are wholly unique architectural +features. Notice also the exquisite pendentive of the roof at the point +of intersection of the nave and short false transepts. + +Now walk up the right aisle. The first chapel is the Baptistery, +containing the font and a modern statue of the boy Baptist. Third +chapel, St. Antony of Padua. The fourth chapel contains a curious Holy +Sepulcher, with quaint life-size terra-cotta figures of the 16th +century. Fifth chapel, a gilt chasse. Notice the transepts, reduced to +short arms, scarcely, if at all, projecting beyond the chapels. From +this point examine the exquisite Renaissance tracery of the rood-screen +and staircases. Then pass under the fine Renaissance door, with lovely +decorative work, into the ambulatory. The Choir is in large part +Gothic, with late flamboyant tracery. The apparent triforium is +continued round the ambulatory. + +The splendid gilded shrine in the second choir-chapel contains the +remains of Ste. Genevieve, or what is left of them. Candles burn +perpetually around it. Hundreds of votaries here pay their devotions +daily to the Patroness of Paris. The shrine, containing what is alleged +to be the original sarcophagus of the Saint (more probably of the 13th +century) stands under a richly-gilt Gothic tabernacle, adorned with +figures legibly named on their pedestals. The stained-glass window +behind it has a representation of a processional function with the body +of the Saint, showing this church, together with a view of the original +church of Ste. Genevieve, the remaining tower, and adjacent houses, +historically most interesting. The window beyond the shrine also +contains the history of Ste. Genevieve--her childhood, first communion, +miracles, distribution of bread during the siege of Paris, conversion +of Clovis, death, etc. + +Indeed the long sojourn of the body of Ste. Genevieve in this church +has almost overshadowed its dedication to St. Stephen, several +memorials of whom may, however, be recognized by the attentive +visitor--among them, a picture of his martyrdom (by Abel de Pujol) near +the entrance to the choir. The Protomartyr also stands, with his +deacon's robe and palm, in a niche near the door of the sacristy, where +left and right are frescoes of his Disputation with the Doctors, and +his Martyrdom. The chapel immediately behind the high altar is, as +usual, the Lady Chapel. The next contains a good modern window of the +Marriage of the Virgin. + +Examine in detail all the windows; one of the mystic wine-press is very +interesting. Votive offerings of the city of Paris to Ste. Genevieve +also exist in the ambulatory. Curious frescoes of the martyrdom of the +10,000 Christians on Mount Ararat on the north side. The best view of +the choir is obtained from the north side of the ambulatory, opposite +the shrine of Ste. Genevieve. In the north aisle notice St. Louis with +the Crown of Thorns. Stand again in the center of the nave, near the +entrance, and observe the curious inclination of the choir and high +altar to one side--here particularly noticeable, and said in every case +to represent the droop of the Redeemer's head on the cross. + +As you emerge from the door, observe the cold and bare side of the +Pantheon, contrasted with the internal richness of St. Etienne. Curious +view of the late Gothic portion of the church from the little Place on +the north side. Return by the Rue Cujas and Rue St. Jacques, passing +the Lycee Ste. Barbe, Lycee Louis-le-Grand, University, and other +scholastic buildings, which give a good idea of the character of the +quarter. + + + + +St. Roch + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + +[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, +David McKay. Copyright, 1880.] + + + +Englishmen are often specially imprest with Paris as a city of +contrasts, because one side of the principal line of hotels frequented +by our countrymen looks down upon the broad, luxurious Rue de Rivoli, +all modern gaiety and radiance, while the other side of their +courtyards open upon the busy working Rue St. Honore, lined by the +tall, many-windowed houses which have witnessed so many revolutions. +They have all the picturesqueness of innumerable balconies, high, +slated roofs, with dormer windows, window-boxes full of carnations and +bright with crimson flowers through the summer, and they overlook an +ever-changing crowd, in great part composed of men in blouses and women +in white aprons and caps. + +Ever since the fourteenth century the Rue St. Honore has been one of +the busiest streets in Paris. It was the gate leading into this street +which was attacked by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. It was the fact that the +Cardinal de Bourbon and the Due de Guise had been seen walking together +at the Porte St. Honore that was said to have turned half the moustache +of Henri of Navarre suddenly white, from a presentiment of the crime +which has become known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Here, in +1648, the barricade was raised which gave the signal for all the +troubles of the Fronde. It was at No 3--then called L'Auberge des Trois +Pigeons--that Ravaillac was lodging when he was waiting to murder Henry +IV.; here the first gun was fired in the Revolution of July, 1830, +which overturned Charles X.; and here, in the Revolution of 1848, a +bloody combat took place between the insurgents and the military. +Throughout this street, as Marie Antoinette was first entering Paris, +the poissardes brought her bouquets, singing: + + "La rose est la reine des fleurs. + Antoinette est la reine des coeurs." + +("The rose is the queen of flowers, Antoinette is the queen of hearts") +and here, as she was being taken to the scaffold, they crowded round +her execution-cart and shouted: + + "Madame Veto avait promis + De faire egorger tout Paris, + Mais son coup a manque + Grace a nos canonniers; + Dansons la carmagnole + Au bruit du son + Du canon!" + +("Madame Veto had promised to have the throat cut of all Paris, but her +attempt failed, thanks to our gunners. Let us dance the carmagnole to +the music of the cannon's roar!") + + * * * * * + +Turning east toward Old Paris, we pass, on the right of the Rue St. +Honore, the Church of St. Roch, of which Louis XIV. laid the +foundation-stone in 1633, replacing a chapel built on the site of the +Hotel Gaillon. The church was only finished, from designs of Robert de +Cotte, in 1740. The flight of steps which leads to the entrance has +many associations. + +"Before St. Roch," says De Goncourt, "the tumbrel in which was Marie +Antoinette, stopt in the midst of howling and hooting. A thousand +insults were hurled from the steps of the church as it were with one +voice, saluting with filth their queen about to die. She, however, +serene and majestic, pardoned the insults by disregarding them." It was +from these steps, in front of which an open space then extended to the +Tuileries gardens, that Bonaparte ordered the first cannon to be fired +upon the royalists who rose against the National Convention, and thus +prevented a counter-revolution. Traces of this cannonade of 13 +Vendemiaire are still to be seen at the angle of the church and the Rue +Neuve St. Roch. + + + + + +II + +THE ENVIRONS OF PARIS + + + + +Versailles + +By William Makepeace Thackeray + + +[Footnote: From "The Paris Sketch Book."] + + + +You pass from the railroad station through a long, lonely suburb, with +dusty rows of stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable +beggars, idle boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees +are gaunt, moldy houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the +unbought grace of life) the cheap defense of nations gambled, ogled, +swindled, intrigued; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in old +times, to act as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri; and mighty princes +rolled away, in gilt caroches, hot for the honor of lighting his +Majesty to bed, or of presenting his stockings when he rose, or of +holding his napkin when he dined. + +Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers, are +now established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are +yelling at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; +damp rags are hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the +sun; oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie +basking in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling +down the wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, +thirty stones. + +After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we deboucher on +the grande place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the +glories of France. In the midst of the great lonely plain this famous +residence of King Louis looks low and mean--Honored pile! Time was when +tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate. +Fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women from Paris broke through +the charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it +for a penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace. + +We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are +portrayed in pictures and marble; catalogs are written about these +miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy +to Waterloo--all the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the mistresses of his +successor--and all the great men who have flourished since the French +empire began. Military heroes are most of these--fierce constables in +shining steel, marshals in voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in +bearskin caps; some dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities, +dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in +African sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for +the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. + +By far the greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most +other countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it +is on the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary +homage to the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with +tales about it, and nothing but it. + +Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the +walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any +family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has been +humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore; but it +is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter +for a whole library of sermons. + +The cheap defense of nations expended a thousand millions in the +erection of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in +the intervals of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up; +to turn rivers, and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and +construct smooth terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a +wilderness, and a stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city +round the palace: the city was peopled with parasites, who daily came +to do worship before the creator of these wonders--the Great King. + +"Only God is great," said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the +prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon +earth--God's lieutenant-governor of the world--before whom courtiers +used to fall on their knees, and shade their eyes, as if the light of +his countenance, like the sun, which shone supreme in heaven, the type +of him, was too dazzling to bear. + +Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--or, +rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out +of his chamber, in the midst of his super-human splendors, viz., in his +cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramon of a wig; +his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, +"that he scarcely seemed to touch;" when he came out, blazing upon the +dukes and duchesses that waited his rising--what could the latter do +but cover their eyes, and wink, and tremble? And did he not himself +believe, as he stood there, on his high heels, under his ambrosial +periwig, that there was something in him more than man--something above +Fate? + +This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, +from his terrace before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could +catch a glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. +Denis, where his race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a +sublime condescension, "Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am +mortal." + +Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed +that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight +of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the +legend, to have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles. + +In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage--with +guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys, +Fenelons, Molieres, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois, +Colberts--transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left +for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should +come. And when the time did come, and James sought his brother's +kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened to receive and console +him, and promised to restore, incontinently, those islands from which +the canaille had turned him. + +Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to +one another reverently, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my +right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was no +blasphemy in the speech; on the contrary, it was gravely said, by a +faithful believing man, who thought it no shame to the latter to +compare his Majesty with God Almighty. + +Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general +was this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one which was +written by an honest Jesuit and protege of Pere la Chaise, who +dedicates it to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go +almost as far in print. He calls our famous monarch "Louis le Grand: 1, +l'invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquerant; 4, la merveille de son +siecle; 5, la terreur de ses ennemis; 6, l'amour de ses peuples; 7, +l'arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8, l'admiration de l'univers; 9, +et digne d'en etre le maitre; 10, le modele d'un heros acheve; 11, +digne de l'immortalite, et de la veneration de tous les siecles!" + +A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon +the great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a +vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old +woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had +quite forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his +enemies (for 4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose +term, that may apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his +enemies in turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by +them as scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has +been, before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send +superb ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers' +antechambers. 8. Is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be master +of the universe was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 10. The +finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar +way. And, 11, the man worthy of immortality was just at the point of +death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only withered old +Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking Jesuit to +prepare him, with heavens knows what wretched tricks and mummeries, for +his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the other side of +the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he +never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La Valliere, +what a sad tale is yours!... + +While La Valliere's heart is breaking, the model of a finished hero is +yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero should. Let her +heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance; what right has she +to repent? Away with her to her convent! She goes, and the finished +hero never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have +reached! Our Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean people +were beyond him; his friends died, his mistresses left him; his +children, one by one, were cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is +not moved in the slightest degree! As how, indeed, should a god be +moved?... + +Out of the window the king's august head was one day thrust, when old +Conde was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. "Don't +hurry yourself, my cousin," cries Magnanimity; "one who has to carry so +many laurels can not walk fast." At which all the courtiers, lackeys, +mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions, clasp their hands and +burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a +century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of +Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story? + +"Don't hurry yourself, my cousin!" O admirable king and Christian! what +a pitch of condescension is here, that the greatest king of all the +world should go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a +tottering old gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to +walk too fast! + +What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of +mankind, that histories like these, should be found to interest and awe +them. Till the world's end, most likely, this story will have its place +in the history-books, and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly +be moved by it. + +I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night, pleased and happy, +intimately convinced that he had done an action of sublime virtue, and +had easy slumbers and sweet dreams--especially if he had taken a light +supper, and not too vehemently attacked his "en cas de nuit." ... + +The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much +occasion for moralizing; perhaps the neigbhboring Parc aux Cerfs would +afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great +grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis +the well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the +necessary conditions of divinity, and, being of a jovial, companionable +turn, aspired not beyond manhood. + +Only in the matter of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon +did David. War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him; and his simple +taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of +chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room called +Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands, he made his mistress's +breakfast; here is the little door through which, from her apartments +in the upper story, the chaste Du Barri came stealing down to the arms +of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man. + +But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had +palled upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign; after +having exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent +for his hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was +flat and stale; used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the +national purse had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and +such brilliant ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of +pleasure, as his ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory: indeed, +it was high time that he should die. And die he did; and round his +tomb, as round that of his grandfather before him, the starving people +sang a dreadful chorus of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good +or for evil that were raised to his memory.... + +On the 10th of May, 1774, the whole court had assembled at the chateau; +the Oeil de Boeuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as +soon as the king had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people +of the stables, with those who watched in the king's room, that a +lighted candle should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished +as soon as he had ceased to live. + +The candle was put out. At that signal, guards, pages, and squires, +mounted on horseback, and everything was made ready for departure. The +Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting together for the news of the +king's demise. An immense noise, as of thunder, was heard in the next +room; it was the crowd of courtiers, who were deserting the dead king's +apartment, in order to pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI. + +Madame de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute the queen by +her title of Queen of France, and begged their Majesties to quit their +apartments, to receive the princes and great lords of the court +desirous to pay their homage to the new sovereigns. Leaning on her +husband's arm, a handkerchief to her eyes, in the most touching +attitude, Marie Antoinette received these first visits. + +On quitting the chamber where the dead king lay, the Due de Villequier +bade Mr. Anderville, first surgeon of the king, to open and embalm the +body: it would have been certain death to the surgeon. + +"I am ready, sir," says he; "but while I am operating, you must hold +the head of the corpse; your charge demands it." + +The Duke went away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor +embalmed. A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by the +remains, and performed the last offices to their master. The surgeons +ordered spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin. + +They huddled the king's body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable +equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis, the Well-beloved, +was carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and +then thrown into the tombs of the kings of France! + +If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roof +of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself +by gazing upon the doings of all the towns-people below with a +telescope. Behold that balcony, where, one morning, he, his queen, and +the little Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their +side, who kissed her Majesty's hand, and protected her; and then, +lovingly surrounded by his people, the king got into a coach and came +to Paris: nor did his Majesty ride much in coaches after that.... + +He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith that he +might, if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have +earned a couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys. +Those who will may see the workshop where he employed many useful +hours: Madame Elizabeth was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making +pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was +learning to dance on the tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was +cultivating l'eloquence du billet and studying his favorite Horace. + +It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably +well in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still +cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and +Charles, on the tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame +Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, +that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden to right it! + +A walk to the little Trianon is both pleasing and moral; no doubt the +reader has seen the pretty, fantastical gardens which environ it; the +groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide +tells you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie +Antoinette to retire with her favorite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake +and Swiss village are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of +the place does not fail to point out the different cottages which +surround the piece of water, and tell the names of the royal +masqueraders who inhabited each. + +In the long cottage, close upon the lake, dwelt the Seigneur du +Village, no less a personage than Louis XV.; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, +was the Pailli; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the Count +d'Artois, who was the Miller; opposite lived the Prince de Conde, who +enacted the part of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any other role, for it does +not signify much); near him was the Prince de Rohan, who was the +Aumonier; and yonder is the pretty little dairy, which was under the +charge of the fair Marie Antoinette herself. + +I forget whether Monsieur the fat Count of Provence took any share of +this royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors +of the comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had +such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of +their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall +poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a +sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, +and foretells to them the woes that are about to come. + +"You, Monsieur l'Aumonier, the descendant of a long line of princes, +the passionate admirer of that fair queen who sits by your side, shall +be the cause of her ruin and your own, [Footnote: In the +diamond-necklace affair.] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son +of the Condes, shall live long enough to see your royal race +overthrown, and shall die by the hands of a hangman. [Footnote: He was +found hanging in his own bed-room.] You, oldest son of St. Louis, shall +perish by the executioner's ax; that beautiful head, O Antoinette, the +same ruthless blade shall sever." + +"They shall kill me first," says Lamballe, at the queen's side. + +"Yes, truly," says the soothsayer, "for Fate prescribes ruin for your +mistress and all who love her." + +[Footnote: Among the many lovers that rumor gave to the Queen, poor +Fersen is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a +high and perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the +luckless escape to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of +her captivity; and was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were +made for her rescue. Fersen lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful +and violent death. He was dragged from his carriage by the mob. In +Stockholm, and murdered by them.--Author's note.] + +"And," cries Monsieur d'Artois, "do I not love my sister, too? I pray +you not to omit me in your prophecies." + +To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, "You may look forward to +fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You +shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not +the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile; +you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and +your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human +corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as +great as the greatest of your family. Again driven away, your bitterest +enemy shall bring you back. But the strong limbs of France are not to +be chained by such a paltry yoke as you can put on her: you shall be a +tyrant, but in will only; and shall have a scepter, but to see it +robbed from your hand." + +"And pray, Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber?" asked Monsieur the +Count d'Artois. + +This I can not say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, I had fallen +asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de Paris, and at this +instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages and a great clattering +of national guards, lancers, and outriders, in red. His Majesty, Louis +Philippe, was going to pay a visit to the palace; which contains +several pictures of his own glorious actions, and which has been +dedicated, by him, to all the glories of France. + + + + +Versailles in 1739 + +By Thomas Gray + + +[Footnote: From a letter to his friend West.] + + + +What a huge heap of littleness! It is composed, as it were, of three +courts, all open to the eye at once, and gradually diminishing till you +come to the royal apartments, which on this side present but half a +dozen windows and a balcony. This last is all that can be called a +front, for the rest is only great wings. The hue of all this mass is +black, dirty red, and yellow; the first proceeding from stone changed +by age; the second, from a mixture of brick; and the last, from a +profusion of tarnished gilding. You can not see a more disagreeable +tout ensemble; and, to finish the matter, it is all stuck over in many +places with small busts of a tawny hue between every two windows. + +We pass through this to go into the garden, and here the case is indeed +altered; nothing can be vaster and more magnificent than the back +front; before it a very spacious terrace spreads itself, adorned with +two large basons; these are bordered and lined (as most of the others) +with white marble, with handsome statues of bronze reclined on their +edges. From hence you descend a huge flight of steps into a semi-circle +formed by woods, that are cut all around into niches, which are filled +with beautiful copies of all the famous antique statues in white +marble. Just in the midst is the bason of Latona; she and her children +are standing on the top of a rock in the middle, on the sides of which +are the peasants, some half, some totally changed into frogs, all which +throw out water at her in great plenty. + +From this place runs on the great alley, which brings you into a +complete round, where is the bason of Apollo, the biggest in the +gardens. He is rising in his car out of the water, surrounded by nymphs +and tritons, all in bronze, and finely executed, and these, as they +play, raise a perfect storm about him; beyond this is the great canal, +a prodigious long piece of water, that terminates the whole. All this +you have at one coup d'oeil in entering the garden, which is truly +great. + +I can not say as much of the general taste of the place: everything you +behold savors too much of art; all is forced, all is constrained about +you; statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar +loaves and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting +jets-d'eau, besides a great sameness in the walks, can not help +striking one at first sight, not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, +and all Aesop's fables in water; since these were designed "in usum +Delphini" only. + +Here, then, we walk by moonlight, and hear the ladies and the +nightingales sing. Next morning, being Whitsunday, make ready to go to +the installation of nine Knights du Saint Esprit. Cambis is one: high +mass celebrated with music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, +Dauphin, Mesdames, Cardinals, and Court: Knights arrayed by his +Majesty; reverences before the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff +hams; much tittering among the ladies; trumpets, kettledrums, and fifes. + + + + +Fontainebleau + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."] + + + +The golden age of Fontainebleau came with the Renaissance and Francis +I., who wished to make Fontainebleau the most glorious palace in the +world. "The Escurial!" says Brantome, "what of that? See how long it +was of building? Good workmen like to be quick finished. With our king +it was otherwise. Take Fontainebleau and Chambord. When they were +projected, when once the plumb-line, and the compass, and the square, +and the hammer were on the spot, then in a few years we saw the Court +in residence there." + +Il Rosso was first (1531) employed to carry out the ideas of Francois +I. as to painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna +in 1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte +de Fontainebleau." Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil +of Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari +says, "a certain inkling of his own." Francois I. was delighted with +him at first, and made him head of all the Italian colony at +Fontainebleau, where he was known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years +the king was longing to patronize some other genius, and implored +Giulio Romano, then engaged on the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, to come to +him. The great master refused to come himself, but in his place sent +the Bolognese Primaticcio, who became known in France as Le Primatice. + +The new-comer excited the furious jealousy of Il Rosso, whom he +supplanted in favor and popularity, and who, after growing daily more +morose, took poison in 1541. Then Primaticcio, who, to humor his rival +had been sent into honorable exile (on plea of collecting antiquities +at Rome), was summoned back, and destroyed most of Il Rosso's frescoes, +replacing them by his own. Those that remain are now painted over, and +no works of Il Rosso are still in existence (unless in engravings) +except some of his frescoes at Florence. + +With the Italian style of buildings and decorations, the Italian system +of a Court adorned by ladies was first introduced here under Francois +I., and soon became a necessity.... Under Francois I., his beautiful +mistress, the Duchesse d'Etampes--"la plus belle des savantes, et la +plus savante des belles," directed all the fetes. In this she was +succeeded, under Henry II., by Diane de Poitiers, whose monogram, +interwoven with that of the king, appears in all the buildings of this +time, and who is represented as a goddess (Diana) in the paintings of +Primaticcio. + +Under Francois II., in 1560, by the advice of the queen-mother, an +assembly of notables was summoned at Fontainebleau; and here, +accompanied by her 150 beautiful maids of honor, Catherine de Medici +received the embassy of the Catholic sovereigns sent to demand the +execution of the articles of the Council of Trent, and calling for +fresh persecution of the reformers. + +Much as his predecessors had accomplished, Henri IV. did more for the +embellishment of Fontainebleau, where the monogram of his mistress, +Gabrielle d'Estrees, is frequently seen mingled with that of his wife, +Marie de Medici. All the Bourbon kings had a passion for hunting, for +which Fontainebleau afforded especial facilities. + +It was at Fontainebleau that Louis XIII. was born, and that the +Marechal de Biron was arrested. Louis XIII. only lived here +occasionally. In the early reign of Louis XIV., the palace was lent to +Christina, of Sweden, who had abdicated her throne. + +It was in one of the private apartments, occupying the site of the +ancient Galerie des Cerfs, now destroyed, that she ordered the +execution of her chief equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she had convicted of +treason. She listened patiently to his excuses, but was utterly unmoved +by them and his entreaties for mercy. She provided a priest to confess +him, after which he was slowly butchered by blows with a sword on the +head and face, as he dragged himself along the floor, his body being +defended by a coat of mail.... + +Even after the creation of the palaces of Versailles and Marly, Louis +XIV. continued to make an annual "voyage de Fontainebleau." He +compelled his whole court to follow him; if any of his family were ill, +and unable to travel by road, he made them come by water; for himself, +he slept on the way, either at the house of the Duc d'Antin (son of +Mme. de Montespan) or of the Marechal de Villeroy. + +It was here that the Grand Dauphin was born, in 1661. Here, also, it +was that Mme. de Maintenon first appeared at the councils, and that the +king publicly asked her advice as to whether he should accept the +throne of Spain for the Duc d' Anjou. Here, also, in 1685, he signed +the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The great Conde died in the +palace. Louis XV. was married here to Marie Leczinska in 1725; and here +the Dauphin, his son, died in 1765. Louis XIV. delighted in +Fontainebleau for its hunting facilities. + +After the Revolution, Napoleon I. restored the chateau and prepared it +for Pius VII. who came to France to crown him, and was here (January +25, 1813) induced to sign the famous Concordat de Fontainebleau, by +which he abjured his temporal sovereignty. The chateau which witnessed +the abdication of the Pope, also saw that of Napoleon I., who made his +touching farewell to the soldiers of the Vielle-Garde in the Cour du +Cheval-Blanc, before setting off for Elba.... The Cour du Cheval-Blanc, +the largest of the five courts of the palace, took its name from a +plaster copy of the horse of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, destroyed 1626. +Recently it has been called the Cour des Adieux, on account of the +farewell of Napoleon I. in 1814. It was once surrounded by buildings on +all sides; one was removed in 1810, and replaced by a grille. + +The principal facade is composed of five pavilions with high roofs, +united by buildings two stories high. The beautiful twisted staircase +in front of the central pavilion was executed by Lemercier for Louis +XIII., and replaces a staircase by Philbert Delorme. Facing this +pavilion, the mass of buildings on the right is the Aile Neuve of Louis +XV., built on the site of the Galerie d'Ulysse, to the destruction of +the precious works of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate, with which +it was adorned. Below the last pavilion, near the grille, was the +Grotte du Jardin-des-pins, where James V. of Scotland, coming over to +marry Magdalen of France, daughter of Francois I., watched her bathing +with her ladies, by the aid of a mirror.... + +To the west of the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, and communicating with it, is +the Cour de la Fontaine, the main front of which is formed by the +Galerie de Francois I. This faces the great tank, into which Gaston d' +Orleans, at eight years old, caused one of the courtiers to be thrown, +whom he considered to have spoken to him disrespectfully. One side of +the Cour de la Fontaine, that toward the Jardin Anglais, is terminated +by a pavilion of the time of Louis XV.; the other, formerly decorated +with statues is attributed to Serlio. The fountain from which the court +takes its name has been often changed; a poor work by Petitot now +replaces the grand designs of the time of Francois I. and Henri IV. +Beyond this court we find, on the left, the Porte Doree, which faces +the Chaussee de Maintenon, between the Etang and Parterre; it was built +under Francois I., and decorated by Primaticcio with paintings, +restored in 1835. It was by this entrance that Charles V. arrived at +the palace in 1539.... + +A staircase now leads to the first floor, and we enter the apartments +of Napoleon I., all furnished in the style of the First Empire. The +cabinet de l'Abdication is the place where he resigned his power. His +bedroom (containing the bed of Napoleon I., the cradle of the King of +Rome, and a cabinet of Marie Louise) leads to the Salle du Conseil, +which was the Salon de Famille under Louis Philippe. Its decorations +are by Boucher, and are the best of the period. It was in leaving this +room that the Marechal de Biron was arrested under Henri IV., in a +cabinet which is now thrown into the adjoining Salle du Trone, +(previously the bedroom of the Bourbon kings), dating from Charles IV., +but decorated under Louis XIII. A fine portrait by Phillipe de +Champaigne represents Louis XIII. It is accompanied by his device in +allusion to his vehemence in the extermination of heresy. + +The adjoining boudoir de Marie Antoinette is a beautiful little room, +painted by Barthelemy. The metal work of the windows is said to have +been wrought by Louis XVI. himself, who had his workshop here, as at +Versailles. The richly decorated Chambre a Coucher de la Reine was +inhabited by Marie de Medici, Marie Therese, Marie Antoinette, Marie +Louise, and Marie Amelie. The silk hangings were given by the town of +Lyons to Marie Antoinette on her marriage. The Salon de Musique was the +Salon du jeu de la Reine, under Marie Antoinette. The ancient Salon de +Clorinde, or des Dames d' Honneur, is named from its paintings by +Dubois and from the "Gerusalemme Liberata." + +The Galerie de Diane, built by Napoleon I. and Louis XVIII., replaces +the famous frescoed gallery of Henri IV. It is now turned into a +library for the use of the town. In the center is a picture of Henri +IV. on horseback, by Mauzaise. The Salles des Chasses contain pictures +of hunting scenes under Louis XV. We now reach the glorious Galerie d' +Henri II. (or Salle des Fetes), built by Francois I., and decorated by +Henri II. The walnut-wood ceiling and the paneling of the walls are of +marvelous richness. Over the chimney is a gigantic H, and the initials +of Henri II. are constantly seen interlaced with those of Diane de +Poitiers.... The sixty paintings on the walls, including eight large +compositions, were executed by Niccolo Dell' Abbate, and are probably +the finest decorations of the kind existing in France. + +The rooms usually shown last are those formerly inhabited by Catherine +de Medici and Anne of Austria, and which, under the First Empire, were +used by Pius VII., under Louis Philippe, by the Duke and Duchess of +Orleans. The most interesting of these are the Chambre a Coucher, which +bears the oft-repeated A L (the chiffre of Louis XIII. and Anne of +Austria), and in which Pius VII. daily said mass, and the Salon, with +its fine tapestry after Giulio Romano. The Galerie des Assiettes, +adorned with Sevres china, only dates from Louis Philippe. Hence, by a +gallery in the Aile Neuve, hung with indifferent pictures, we may visit +the Salle du Theatre, retaining its arrangements for the emperor, +empress, and court. + +The Gardens, as seen now, are mostly as they were rearranged by Lenotre +for Louis XIV. The most frequented garden is the Parterre, entered from +the Place du Cheval-Blanc. In the center of the Jardin Anglais (entered +through the Cour de la Fontaine) was the Fontaine Bleau, which is +supposed by some to have given a name to the palace. The Etang has a +pavilion in the center, where the Czar Peter got drunk. The carp in the +pool, overfed with bread by visitors, are said to be, some of them, of +immense age. John Evelyn mentions the carp of Fontainebleau, "that come +familiarly to hand." The Jardin de l' Orangerie, on the north of the +palace, called Jardin des Buis under Francois I., contains a good +renaissance portal. To the east of the parterre and the town is the +park, which has no beauty, but harmonizes well with the chateau. + +Visitors should not fail to drive in the Forest, 80 kilometers in +circuit, and, if they return late, may look out for its black +huntsman--"le grand veneur." ... The forest was a favorite +hunting-ground of the kings of France to a late period. It was here +that the Marquis de Tourzel, Grand Provost of France, husband of the +governess of the royal children, fractured his skull, his horse bolting +against a tree, when hunting with Louis XVI., in November, 1786. The +forest is the especial land of French artists, who overrun and possess +it in the summer. There are innumerable direction-posts, in which all +the red marks--put up by Napoleon III., because so few peasants could +read--point to town. + + + + + +St. Denis + +By Grant Allen + + +[Footnote: From "Paris."] + + + +About six miles north of the original Paris stands the great Basilica +of St. Denis--the only church in Paris, and I think in France, called +by that ancient name, which carries us back at once to the days of the +Roman Empire, and in itself bears evidence to the antiquity of the spot +as a place of worship. Around it, a squalid modern industrial town has +slowly grown up; but the nucleus of the whole place, as the name itself +shows, is the body and shrine of the martyred bishop, St. Denis. Among +the numerous variants of his legend, the most accepted is that in which +the apostle of Paris carries his head to this spot from Montmartre. +Others say he was beheaded in Paris and walked to Montmartre, his body +being afterward translated to the Abbey; while there are some who see +in this legend a survival of the Dionysiac festival and sacrifice of +the vine-growers round Paris--Denis--Dionysius--Dionysus. + +However that may be, a chapel was erected in 275 above the grave of St. +Denis, on the spot now occupied by the great Basilica; and later, Ste. +Genevieve was instrumental in restoring it. Dagobert I., one of the few +Frankish kings who lived much in Paris, built a "basilica" in place of +the chapel (630), and instituted by its side a Benedictine Abbey. The +church and monastery which possest the actual body of the first bishop +and great martyr of Paris formed naturally the holiest site in the +neighborhood of the city; and even before Paris became the capital of a +kingdom, the abbots were persons of great importance in the Frankish +state. + +The desire to repose close to the grave of a saint was habitual in +early times, and even (with the obvious alteration of words) ante-dated +Christianity--every wealthy Egyptian desiring in the same way to "sleep +with Osiris." Dagobert himself was buried in the church he founded, +beside the holy martyr; and in later times this very sacred spot became +for the same reason the recognized burial place of the French kings. +Dagobert's fane was actually consecrated by the Redeemer Himself, who +descended for the purpose by night, with a great multitude of saints +and angels. + +The existing Basilica, tho of far later date, is the oldest church of +any importance in the neighborhood of Paris. It was begun by Suger, +abbot of the monastery, and sagacious minister of Louis VI. and VII., +in 1121. As yet, Paris itself had no great church, Notre-Dame having +been commenced some 50 years later. The earliest part of Suger's +building is in the Romanesque style; it still retains the round Roman +arch and many other Roman constructive features. During the course of +the 50 years occupied in building the Basilica, however, the Gothic +style was developed; the existing church therefore exhibits both +Romanesque and Gothic work, with transitional features between the two, +which add to its interest. Architecturally, then, bear in mind, it is +in part Romanesque, passing into Gothic. The interior is mostly pure +Early Gothic. + +The neighborhood to Paris, the supremacy of the great saint, and the +fact that St. Denis was especially the Royal Abbey, all combined to +give it great importance. Under Suger's influence, Louis VI. adopted +the oriflamme or standard of St. Denis as the royal banner of France. +The Merovingian and Carlovingian kings, to be sure--Germans rather than +French--had naturally been buried elsewhere, as at Aix-la-Chapelle, +Rheims, and Soissons (tho even of them a few were interred beside the +great bishop martyr). But as soon as the Parisian dynasty of the Capets +came to the throne, they were almost without exception buried at St. +Denis. Hence the abbey came to be regarded at last mainly as the +mausoleum of French royalty, and is still too often so regarded by +tourists. + +But tho the exquisite Renaissance tombs of the House of Valois would +well deserve a visit on their own account, they are, at St. Denis, but +accessories to the great Basilica. Besides the actual tombs, too, many +monuments were erected here, in the 13th century (by St. Louis) and +afterward, to earlier kings buried elsewhere, some relic of whom, +however, the abbey possest and thus honored. Hence several of the +existing tombs are of far later date than the kings they commemorate; +those of the Valois almost alone are truly contemporary. + +At the Revolution, the Basilica suffered irreparable losses. The very +sacred reliquary containing the severed head of St. Denis was +destroyed, and the remains of the martyr and his companions desecrated. +The royal bones and bodies were also disinterred and flung into +trenches indiscriminately. The tombs of the kings were condemned to +destruction, and many (chiefly in metal) were destroyed or melted down, +but not a few were saved with difficulty by the exertions of +antiquaries, and were placed in the Museum of Monuments at Paris (now +the Ecole des Beaux-Arts), of which Alexandre Lenoir was curator. Here, +they were greatly hacked about and mutilated, in order to fit them to +their new situations. + +At the Restoration, however, they were sent back to St. Denis, together +with many other monuments which had no real place there; but, being +housed in the crypt, they were further clipt to suit their fresh +surroundings. Finally, when the Basilica was restored under +Viollet-le-Duc, the tombs were replaced as nearly as possible in their +old positions; but several intruders from elsewhere are still +interspersed among them. Louis XVIII. brought back the mingled bones of +his ancestors from the common trench and interred them in the crypt. As +regards the tombs, again, bear in mind these facts. All the oldest have +perished; there are none here that go back much further than the age of +St. Louis, tho they often represent personages of earlier periods or +dynasties. The best are those of the Renaissance period. These are +greatly influenced by the magnificent tomb of Giangaleazzo Visconti at +the Certosa di Pavia, near Milan. Especially is this the case with the +noble monument of Louis XII., which closely imitates the Italian work. +Now, you must remember that Charles VIII. and Louis XII. fought much in +Italy, and were masters of Milan; hence this tomb was familiar to them; +and their Italian experiences had much to do with the French +Renaissance. The Cardinal d'Amboise, Louis's minister, built the +Chateau de Gaillon, and much of the artistic impulse of the time was +due to these two. Henceforth recollect that tho Francois I. is the +prince of the Renaissance, Louis XII. and his minister were no mean +forerunners.... + +The interior is most beautiful. The first portion of the church which +we enter is a vestibule or Galilee under the side towers and end of the +Nave. Compare Durham. It is of the age of Abbot Suger, but already +exhibits pointed arches in the upper part. The architecture is solid +and massive, but somewhat gloomy. + +Descend a few steps into the Nave, which is surrounded by single +aisles, whose vaulting should be noticed. The architecture of this +part, now pure Early Gothic, is extremely lovely. The triforium is +delicate and graceful. The windows in the clerestory above it, +representing kings and queens, are almost all modern. Notice the great +height of the Nave, and the unusual extent to which the triforium and +clerestory project above the noble vaulting of the aisles. Note that +the triforium itself opens directly to the air, and is supplied with +stained-glass windows, seen through its arches. Sit awhile in this +light and lofty Nave, in order to take in the beautiful view up the +church toward the choir and chevet. Then walk up to the Barrier near +the Transepts, where sit again, in order to observe the Choir and +Transepts with the staircase which leads to the raised Ambulatory. +Observe that the transepts are simple. The ugly stained glass in the +windows of their clerestory contains illustrations of the reign of +Louis Philippe, with extremely unpicturesque costumes of the period. +The architecture of the Nave and Choir, with its light and airy arches +and pillars, is of the later 13th century. + +The reason for this is that Suger's building was thoroughly restored +from 1230 onward, in the pure pointed style of that best period. The +upper part of the Choir, and the whole of the Nave and Transepts was +then rebuilt--which accounts for the gracefulness and airiness of its +architecture when contrasted with the dark and heavy vestibule of the +age of Suger. + +Note from this point the arrangement of the Choir, which, to those who +do not know Italy, will be quite unfamiliar. As at San Zeno in Verona, +San Miniato in Florence, and many other Romanesque churches, the Choir +is raised by some steps above the Nave and Transepts; while the Crypt +is slightly deprest beneath them. In the Crypt, in such cases, are the +actual bodies of the saints buried there; while the Altar stands +directly over their tombs in the Choir above it. + + + + +Marly-Le-Roi + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."] + + + +The tram stops close to the Abreuvoir, a large artificial tank, +surrounded by masonry for receiving the surplus water from the +fountains in the palace gardens, of which it is now the only remnant. +Ascending the avenue on the right, we shall find a road at the top +which will lead us, to the left, through delightful woods to the site +of the palace. Nothing remains but the walls supporting the wooded +terrace. + +It is difficult to realize the place as it was, for the quincunces of +limes which stood between the pavilions on either side of the steep +avenue leading to the royal residence, formerly dipt and kept close, +are now huge trees, marking still the design of the grounds, but +obscuring the views, and, by their great growth, making the main avenue +very narrow. St. Simon exaggerates the extravagance of Louis XIV. at +Marly, who spent there four and a half million francs between 1679 and +1690, and probably as much or more between 1690 and 1715, perhaps in +all ten or twelve millions, which would represent fifty million francs +at the present time. Nevertheless the expense of the amusements of +Louis XIV. greatly exceeded the whole revenue of Henri IV., and those +of the early years of Louis XIII. + +From the central pavilion in which the flattery of Mansart placed him +as the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of +the twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the +constellations, his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his +train. These pavilions, arranged on each side of the gardens, stood in +double avenues of clipt lime-trees looking upon the garden and its +fountains, and leading up to the palace. + +The device of the sun was carried out in the palace itself, where all +the smaller apartments circled round the grand salon, the king and +queen having apartments to the back, the dauphin and dauphine to the +front, each apartment consisting of an anteroom, bedroom, and +sitting-room, and each set being connected with one of the four square +saloons, which opened upon the great octagonal hall, of which four +faces were occupied by chimney-pieces and four by the doors of the +smaller saloons. The central hall occupied the whole height of the +edifice, and was lighted from the upper story. + +The great ambition of every courtier was to be of the Marly circle, and +all curried favor with the king by asking to accompany him on his +weekly journey to Marly. The Court used to arrive at Marly on a +Wednesday and leave it on a Saturday; this was an invariable rule. The +king always passed his Sundays at Versailles, which was his parish. ... +The leading figure at Marly was Mme. de Maintenon, who occupied the +apartments intended for Queen Marie Therese, but who led the simplest +of lives, bored almost to extinction. She used to compare the carp +languishing in the tanks of Marly to herself--"Like me they regret +their native mud." ... At first Mme. de Maintenon dined, in the midst +of the other ladies in the square salon which separated her apartment +from that of the king; but soon she had a special table, to which a +very few other ladies, her intimates, came by invitation. + +Marly was the scene of several of the most tragic events in the life of +Louis XIV. "Everything is dead here, there's no life in any thing," +wrote the Comtesse de Caylus, niece of Mme. de Maintenon, from Marly to +the Princess des Ursins, after the death of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. +And, in a few days afterward, Marly was the scene of the sudden death +of the Dauphin, Duc de Bourgogne, the beloved pupil of Fenelon. Early +in the morning after the death of his wife, he was persuaded, "ill and +anguished with the most intimate and bitterest of sorrows," to follow +the king to Marly, where he entered his own room by a window on the +ground floor. + +It was also at Marly--"ill-omened Marly"--that the Duc de Berry, the +younger grandson of Louis XIV., and husband of the profligate daughter +of the Duc d' Orleans--afterward Regent, died, with great suspicion of +poison, in 1714. The MS. memorials of Mary Beatrice by a sister of +Chaillot, describe how, when Louis XIV. was mourning his beloved +grandchildren, and that queen, whom he had always liked and respected, +had lost her darling daughter Louisa, she went to visit him at Marly +where "they laid aside all Court etiquette, weeping together in their +common grief, because, as the Queen said, 'We saw that the aged were +left, and that death had swept away the young.'" St. Simon depicts the +last walk of the king in the gardens at Marly on August 10, 1715. He +went away that evening to Versailles, where he died on September 1. + +Marly was abandoned during the whole time of the Regency, and was only +saved from total destruction in 1717, when the Regent Philippe +d'Orleans had ordered its demolition, by the spirited remonstrance of +St. Simon.... The great pavilion itself only contained, as we have +seen, a very small number of chambers. The querulous Smollett, who +visited Marly in 1763, speaks of it as "No more than a pigeon-house in +respect to a palace." But it was only intended as the residence of the +king. + +During the repairs necessary in the reign of Louis XV., who built +Choisy and never lived at Marly, the cascade which fell behind the +great pavilion was removed. Mme. Campan describes the later Marly of +Louis XVI., under whom the "Marly journey" had become one of the great +burdens and expenses of royal life. The Court of Louis XVI. was here +for the last time on June 11, 1789, but in the latter years of Louis +XVI., M. de Noailles, governor of St. Germain, was permitted to lend +the smaller pavilions furnished to his friends for the summer months. +Marly perished with the monarchy, and was sold at the Revolution, when +the statues of its gardens were removed to the Tuileries. A cotton mill +was for a time established in the royal pavilion; then all the +buildings were pulled down and the gardens sold in lots! + +Still the site is worth visiting. The Grille Royale, now a simple +wooden gate between two pillars with vases, opens on the road from St. +Germain to Versailles, at the extremity of the Aqueduct of Marly. +Passing this, one finds oneself in an immense circular enclosure, the +walls of which surround the forest on every side. + + + + +The Village of Auteuil + +By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow + + +[Footnote: From "Outre-Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + + + +The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the +man of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance +of the country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the +movement of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of +the hamlet, the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a +woodland brook. + +It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in +the North of France, to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil, the +pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate +vicinity of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois +de Boulogne, a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty +city enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the +morning to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, +skirted with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads +you from the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still +retirement of this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers +old chateaux amid the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades +recall a thousand images of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an +eminence, overlooking the windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful +tho distant view of the domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village +of Passy, long the residence of our countrymen Franklin and Count +Rumford.... + +It was to the Bois de Boulogne that I looked for my principal +recreation. There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or, +mounted on a little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the +woodland pathway. I had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a +venerable oak, one of the few hoary patriarchs of the wood which had +survived the bivouacs of the allied armies. It stood upon the brink of +a little glassy pool, whose tranquil bosom was the image of a quiet and +secluded life, and stretched its parental arms over a rustic bench, +that had been constructed beneath it for the accommodation of the +foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle dreamer like myself. It seemed +to look round with a lordly air upon its old hereditary domain, whose +stillness was no longer broken by the tap of the martial drum, nor the +discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze whispered among its +branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies with a few of its +venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite bank of the +pool, nodding gravely now and then, and gazing at themselves with a +sigh in the mirror below.... + +I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and +merrimakes of the village. The holidays were so many little eras of +mirth and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine +temperament--that merry-go-mad character--which renders all their +social meetings scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point +never to miss any of the fetes champetres, or rural dances, at the wood +of Boulogne; tho I confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness +to see my rustic throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of +girls, the silence and decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music +and laughter, and, in a word, my whole kingdom turned topsy-turvy with +romping, fiddling, and dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, +too, a lover of all those innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's +toil, and, as it were, put their shoulders to the wheel of life, and +help the poor man along with his load of cares. Hence I saw with no +small delight the rustic swain astride the wooden horse of the +carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round and round in its dizzy +car; or took my stand on the rising ground that overlooked the dance, +an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just where the village +touched the outward border of the wood. There a little area had been +leveled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail, with a row of +benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony, built around +the trunk of a large tree in the center; and the lamps, hanging from +the branches above, gave a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to the scene. +How often in such moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith, +describing those "kinder skies" beneath which "France displays her +bright domain," and feel how true and masterly the sketch-- + + "Alike all ages; dames of ancient days + Have led their children through the mirthful maze, + And the gray grandsire, skilled in gestic lore, + Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore." + +Nor must I forget to mention the fete patronale--a kind of annual fair, +which is held at midsummer, in honor of the patron saint of Auteuil. +Then the principal street of the village is filled with booths of every +description; strolling players, and rope-dancers, and jugglers, and +giants, and dwarfs, and wild beasts, and all kinds of wonderful shows, +excite the gaping curiosity of the throng; and in dust, crowds, and +confusion, the village rivals the capital itself. Then the goodly dames +of Passy descend into the village of Auteuil; then the brewers of +Billancourt and the tanners of Sevres dance lustily under the greenwood +tree; and then, too, the sturdy fishmongers of Bretigny and Saint-Yon +regale their fat wives with an airing in a swing, and their customers +with eels and crawfish.... + +I found another source of amusement in observing the various personages +that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character which +most of all arrested my attention was a poor blind fiddler, whom I +first saw chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near +the gate of the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the +fragment of a velvet waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short +as hardly to reach below his calves. A little foraging cap, that had +long since seen its best days, set off an open, good-humored +countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was led about by a brisk, +middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes; and a little +barefooted boy, with clear, blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a tattered +hat in his hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous. The old +fellow had a favorite song, which he used to sing with great glee to a +merry, joyous air, the burden of which ran "Chantons l'amour et le +plaisir!" I often thought it would have been a good lesson for the +crabbed and discontented rich man to have heard this remnant of +humanity--poor, blind, and in rags, and dependent upon casual charity +for his daily bread, singing in so cheerful a voice the charms of +existence, and, as it were, fiddling life away to a merry tune. + +I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I +looked out and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the +road, attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction +of the church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage-festival. The +procession was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat and +white dimity bobcoat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he +contrived to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at +right angles from his tune, and winding up with a grand flourish on the +guttural notes. Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind +fiddler, his honest features glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic +bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he +made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom, drest in his +Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his button-hole; and close +beside him his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe +and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The +friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village +urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves +for the largess of sous and sugar-plums that now and then issued in +large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to +officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the +procession till it was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the +clarionet died upon my ear, I could not help thinking how happy were +they who were thus to dwell together in the peaceful bosom of their +native village, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential vices +of the town. + +On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying +the freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when +I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at +first so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose +mournfully on the hush of evening--died gradually away--then ceased. +Then, it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral +procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led +by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two +boys, holding long flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of +priests in their surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax +taper in the other, chanting the funeral dirge at intervals--now +pausing, and then again taking up the mournful burden of their +lamentation, accompanied by others, who played upon a rude kind of +bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound. Then followed various symbols +of the church, and the bier borne on the shoulders of four men. The +coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a chaplet of white flowers +lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was unmarried. A few of the +villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and bearing lighted +tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street that in the +morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A melancholy train +of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and sorrows of +this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are brought +so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep--and others +rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by +side and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the +wedding-feast and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the +burial-hymn! One goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and +all is mutable, uncertain, and transitory. + +It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur to the brief period +of my existence which was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil. +There is one kind of wisdom which we learn from the world, and another +kind which can be acquired in solitude only. In cities we study those +around us; but in the retirement of the country we learn to know +ourselves. + + +[Illustration: Paris: Interior of the Grand Opera House] + +[Illustration: Paris Front of the Grand Opera House] + +[Illustration: Arc de Triomphe] + +[Illustration: Arch Erected by Napoleon, Near the Louvre] + +[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Vincent de Paul] + +[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Sulpice] + +[Illustration: Picture Gallery at Versailles] + +[Illustration: Versailles: Bed-Room of Louis XIV] + +[Illustration: The Grand Trianon at Versailles] + +[Illustration: The Little Trianon at Versailles] + +[Illustration: Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont] + +[Illustration: Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles] + +[Illustration: Tours From Turner's "Rivers of France"] + +[Illustration: Saint Denis From Turner's "Rivers of France"] + +[Illustration: Havre From Turner's "Rivers of France"] + +[Illustration: The Bridge of St. Cloud From Turner's "Rivers of France"] + + + + + +The Two Trianons + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."] + + + +The Trianons may be reached in half an hour from the railway station, +but the distance is considerable, and a carriage very desirable, +considering all the walking inside of the palaces to be accomplished. +Carriages take the straight avenue from Bassin de Neptune. The +pleasantest way for foot-passengers is to follow the gardens of +Versailles as far as the Bassin d'Apollon, and then turn to the right. +At the end of the right branch of the grand canal, staircases lead to +the park of the Grand Trianon; but these staircases are railed in, and +it is necessary to make a detour to the Grille de la Grande Entree, +whence an avenue leads directly to the Grand Trianon, while the Petit +Trianon lies immediately to the right, behind the buildings of the +Concierge and Corps de Garde. + +The original palace of the Grand Trianon was a little chateau built by +Louis XIV., in 1670, as a refuge from the fatigues of the Court, on +land bought from the monks of St. Genevieve, and belonging to the +parish of Trianon. But in 1687 the humble chateau was pulled down, and +the present palace erected by Mansart in its place. + +Louis XIV. constantly visited the Grand Trianon, with which for many +years he was much delighted. But, after 1700, he never slept at +Trianon, and, weary of his plaything here, turned all his attention to +Marly. Under Louis XV., however, the palace was again frequently +inhabited. + +Being entirely on one floor, the Grand Trianon continued to be a most +uncomfortable residence, till subterranean passages for service were +added under Louis Philippe, who made great use of the palace. The +buildings are without character or distinction. Visitors have to wait +in the vestibule till a large party is formed, and are then hurried +full speed round the rooms, without being allowed to linger for an +instant. + +The Petit Trianon was built by Gabriel for Louis XV. in the botanical +garden which Louis XIV. had formed at the instigation of the Duc +d'Ayen. It was intended as a miniature of the Grand Trianon, as that +palace had been a miniature of Versailles. The palace was often used by +Louis XV., who was here first attacked by the smallpox, of which he +died. Louis XVI. gave it to Marie Antoinette, who made its gardens, and +whose happiest days were spent here. + +The Petit Trianon is a very small and very unassuming country house. +Mme. de Maintenon describes it in June as "a palace enchanted and +perfumed." Its pretty simple rooms are only interesting from their +associations. The furniture is mostly of the times of Louis XVI. The +stone stair has a handsome iron balustrade; the salons are paneled in +white. + +Here Marie Antoinette st to Mme. Lebrun for the picture in which she is +represented with her children. In the dining-room is a secretaire given +to Louis XVI. by the States of Burgundy, and portraits of the King and +Marie Antoinette. The Cabinet de Travail of the queen was a cabinet +given to her on her marriage by the town of Paris; in the Salle de +Reception are four pictures by Watteau; the Boudoir has a Sevres bust +of the queen; in the Chambre-a-coucher is the queen's bed, and a +portrait of the Dauphin by Lebrun. These simple rooms are a standing +defense of the queen from the false accusations brought against her at +the Revolution as to her extravagance in the furnishing of the Petit +Trianon. Speaking of her happy domestic life, Mme. Lebrun says: "I do +not believe Queen Marie Antoinette ever allowed an occasion to pass by +without saying an agreeable thing to those who had the honor of being +near her." + + + + +Malmaison + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."] + + + +The station is opposite a short avenue, at the end of which on the +right, is the principal entrance to Malmaison. A little higher up the +road at the right is a gate leading to the park and gardens, freely +open to the public, and being sold (1887) in lots by the Stat. There is +a melancholy charm in the old house of many recollections--grim, empty, +and desolate; approached on this side by a bridge over the dry moat. A +short distance off, rather to the left, as you look from the house, is +a very pretty little temple--the Temple of Love--with a front of +columns of red Givet marble brought from the chateau of Richelieu, and +a clear stream bursting from the rocks beneath it. + +Malmaison is supposed to derive its name from having been inhabited in +the XI century by the Norman brigand Odon, and afterward by evil +spirits, exorcised by the monks of St. Denis. Josephine bought the +villa with its gardens, which had been much praised by Delille, from M. +Lecouteulx de Canteleu for 160,000 francs.... Josephine retired to +Malmaison at the time of her divorce, and seldom left it afterward.... +In 1814, the unhappy Josephine, whose heart was always with Napoleon, +was forced to receive a visit from the allied sovereigns at Malmaison, +and died of a chill which she caught in doing the honors of her grounds +to the Emperor Alexander on May 26, by a water excursion on the pool of +Cucufa. After his return from Elba, Napoleon revisited the place.... + +After the loss of the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon once more retired to +Malmaison, then the property of the children of Josephine, Eugene and +Hortense. There he passed June 25, 1815, a day of terrible agitation. +That evening at five o'clock he put on a brown suit of civilian +clothes, tenderly embraced Queen Hortense and the other persons +present, gave a long lingering look at the house and gardens connected +with his happiest hours, and left them for ever. + +After the second Restoration Prince Eugene sold Malmaison, removing its +gallery of pictures to Munich. There is now nothing remarkable in the +desolate rooms, tho the Salle des Marechaux, the bedroom of Josephine, +and the grand salon, with a chimney-piece given by the Pope are pointed +out. In later years the house was for some time inhabited by Queen +Christina of Spain. It will be a source of European regret if at least +the building connected with so many historic souvenirs, and the +immediate grounds are not preserved. + + + + +St. Germain + +By Leitch Ritchie + + +[Footnote: From "The Rivers of France." Pictures by J. M. W. Turner, +R.A. Text by Leitch Ritchie.] + + + +The view from the terrace of Saint Germain is one of the finest in +France. This view, and a shady walk in the forest behind, are the only +attractions of Saint Germain; for the old palace of the kings of France +presents the appearance of nothing more than a huge, irregular, +unsightly brick building. It is true, a great portion of the walls is +of cut stone; but this is the idea which the whole conveys to the +spectator. The edifice stands on the site of a chateau built by +Louis-le-Gros, which, having been burned down by the English, was thus +raised anew from its ruins. Charles V., Francois II., Henry IV., Louis +XIII., and Louis XIV., all exercised their taste upon it, and all added +to its general deformity. + +Near this Henri Quatre built another chateau, which fell into ruins +forty or fifty years ago. These ruins were altogether effaced by +Charles X., who had formed the project of raising another structure +upon the spot, entirely his own. The project, however, failed, like +that of the coup d'etat, but this is of no consequence. The new chateau +exists in various books of travel, written by eye-witnesses, quite as +palpably as the enormous bulk of the ancient chateau. It is a true +"castle in Spain." Among the sights to be seen in the palace is the +chamber of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, and the trap-door by which she +was visited by Louis Quatorze. There are also the chamber and oratory +of our James II., who died at Saint Germain, on the 16th September, +1701. + +The forest of Saint Germain is seven leagues in circumference, pierced +in every direction by roads and paths, and containing various edifices +that were used as hunting-lodges. This vast wood affords no view, +except along the seemingly interminable path in which the spectator +stands, the vista of which, carried on with mathematical regularity, +terminates in a point. This is the case with all the great forests of +France except that of Fontainebleau, where nature is sometimes seen in +her most picturesque form. In the more remote and unfrequented parts of +Saint Germain, the wild boar still makes his savage lair; and still the +loiterer, in these lengthened alleys, is startled by a roebuck or a +deer springing across the path.... + +Independently of the noble satellites attached to the court, the +infinite number of official persons made its removal to Saint Germain, +or the other royal seats, seem like the emigration of a whole people. +Forty-nine physicians, thirty-eight surgeons, six apothecaries, +thirteen preachers, one hundred and forty maitres d'hotel, ninety +ladies of honor to the queen, in the sixteenth century! There were also +an usher of the kitchen, a courier de vin (who took the charge of +carrying provisions for the king when he went to the chase), a sutler +of court, a conductor of the sumpter-horse, a lackey of the chariot, a +captain of the mules, an overseer of roasts, a chair-bearer, a palmer +(to provide ananches for Easter), a valet of the firewood, a +paillassier of the Scotch guard, a yeoman of the mouth, and a hundred +more for whose offices we have no names in English. + +The grand maitre d'hotel was the chief officer of the court. The royal +orders came through him; he regulated the expenses; and was, in short, +to the rest of the functionaries, what the general is to the army. The +maitre des requetes was at the head of civil justice; the prevot de +l'hotel at the head of criminal justice.... + +When the courtiers presented themselves at the chateau, some in +chariots, some on horseback, with their wives mounted behind them (the +ladies all masked), they were subjected to the scrutiny of the captain +of the gate. The greater number he compelled to dismount; but the +princes and princesses, and a select few who had brevets of entrance, +were permitted to ride within the walls. + +At court the men wore sword and dagger; but to be found with a gun or +pistol in the palace, or even in the town, subjected them to a sentence +of death. To wear a casque or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. +The laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting +words to another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; +and the offender was obliged to solicit pardon of his majesty. If one +threatened another by clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he +was to be assomme according to the ordinance; which may either mean +knocked down, or soundly mauled--or the two together. If two men came +to blows, they were both assomme. A still more serious breach of +politeness, however, was the importunity of petitioners. + +When the king hunted he was accompanied by a hundred pages, two hundred +esquires, and often four or five hundred gentlemen; sometimes by the +queen and princesses, with their hundreds of ladies and maids of honor, +mounted on palfreys saddled with black velvet. + + + + +St. Cloud + +By Augustus J. C. Hare + + +[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."] + + + +Very near the station is the Chateau de St. Cloud, set on fire by the +bombs of Mont-Valerien, in the night of October 13, 1870, and now the +most melancholy of ruins. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate the +noble character of a building partly due to Jules Hardouin and Mansart. +The chateau is more reddened than blackened by the fire, and the +beautiful reliefs of its gables, its statues, and the wrought-iron +grilles of its balconies are still perfect. Grass, and even trees, grow +in its roofless halls, in one of which the marble pillars and +sculptured decorations are seen through the gaps where windows once +were. The view from the terrace is most beautiful. + +The name of St. Cloud comes from a royal saint, who was buried in the +collegiate church, pulled down by Marie Antoinette (which stood +opposite the modern church), and to whose shrine there is an annual +pilgrimage. Clodomir, King of Orleans, son of Clovis, dying in 524, had +bequeathed his three sons to the guardianship of his mother Clotilde. +Their barbarous uncles, Childebert and Clotaire, coveting their +heritage, sent their mother a sword and a pair of scissors, asking her +whether she would prefer that they should perish by the one, or that +their royal locks should be shorn with the other, and that they should +be shut up in a convent. + +"I would rather see them dead than shaven," replied Clotilde proudly. +Two of the princes were then murdered by their uncles, the third, +Clodowald, was hidden by some faithful servants, but fright made him +cut off his hair with his own hands, and he entered a monastery at a +village then called Nogent, but which derived from him the name of St. +Clodowald, corrupted into St. Cloud. + +Clodowald bequeathed the lands of St. Cloud to the bishops of Paris, +who had a summer palace here, in which the body of Francois I. lay in +state after his death at Rambouillet. His son, Henri II., built a villa +here in the Italian style; and Henri III. came to live here in a villa +belonging to the Gondi family, while, with the King of Navarre, he was +besieging Paris in 1589. The city was never taken, for at St. Cloud +Henri was murdered by Jacques Clement, a monk of the Jacobin convent in +Paris, who fancied that an angel had urged him to the deed in a +vision.... + +From this time the house of the banker Jerome Gondi, one of the Italian +adventurers who had followed the fortunes of Catherine de Medici, was +an habitual residence of the Court. It became the property of Hervard, +Controller of Finances, from whom Louis XIV. bought it for his brother +Philippe d'Orleans, enlarged the palace, and employed Lenotre to lay +out the park. Monsieur married the beautiful Henriette d'Angleterre, +youngest daughter of Charles I., who died here, June 30, 1670, with +strong suspicion of poison. St. Simon affirms the person employed to +have confest to Louis XIV., having used it at the instigation of the +Chevalier de Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused +to be exiled. One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the +"disastrous night on which there came as a clap of thunder the +astonishing news! 'Madame is dying! Madame is dead!' At the sound of so +strange a wo people hurried to St. Cloud from all sides to find panic +over all except the heart of the princess." + +In the following year Monsieur was married again, to the Princess +Palatine, when it was believed that his late wife appeared near a +fountain in the park, where a servant, sent to fetch water, died of +terror. The vision turned out to be a reality--a hideous old woman, who +amused herself in this way. "The cowards," she said, "made such +grimaces that I nearly died laughing. This evening pleasure paid me for +the toil of my hard day." + +Monsieur gave magnificent fetes to the Court at St. Cloud, added to the +palace with great splendor, and caused the great cascade, which Jerome +Gondi had made, to be enlarged and embellished by Mansart. It was at +St. Cloud that Monsieur died of an attack of apoplexy, brought on by +overeating after his return from a visit to the king at Marly.... The +chateau continued to be occupied by Madame, daughter of the Elector, +the rude, the original, and satirical Princess Palatine, in whom the +modern House of Orleans has its origin, and here she died during the +regency of her son.... + +The Regent d'Orleans, nephew of Louis XIV., received Peter the Great at +St. Cloud in 1717. In 1752 his grandson, Louis Philippe d'Orleans, gave +at St. Cloud one of the most magnificent fetes ever seen in France. + +In 1785 the Due d'Orleans sold St. Cloud for six million francs to +Queen Marie Antoinette, who made great alterations in the internal +arrangements of the building, where she resided during the early days +of the Revolution. + +It was at St. Cloud that the coup d'etat occurred which made Napoleon +first-consul. This led him to choose the palace of St. Cloud, which had +been the cradle of his power, as his principal residence, and, under +the first empire, it was customary to speak of "le cabinet de +Saint-Cloud," as previously of "le cabinet de Versailles," and +afterward of "le cabinet des Tuileries." Here, in 1805, Napoleon and +Josephine assisted at the baptism of the future Napoleon III.... + +It was also in the palace of St. Cloud that Napoleon I. was married to +Marie Louise, April 1, 1810. In this palace of many changes the allied +sovereigns met after the fall of the First Empire. Blucher, after his +fashion, slept booted and spurred in the bed of Napoleon; and the +capitulation of Paris was signed here July 3, 1815. + +Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both lived much at St. Cloud, and added to +it considerably; but here, where Henry IV. had been recognized as King +of France and Navarre, Charles X. was forced by the will of the people +to abdicate, July 30, 1830. Two years after, Louis Philippe established +himself with his family at St. Cloud, and his daughter Clementine was +married to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg in its chapel, April 28, 1843. +Like his uncle, Napoleon III. was devoted to St. Cloud, where--"with a +light heart"--the declaration of war with Prussia was signed in the +library, July, 17, 1870, a ceremony followed by a banquet, during which +the "Marseillaise" was played. The doom of St. Cloud was then sealed. +On the 13th of the following October the besieged Parisians beheld the +volumes of flame rising behind the Bois de Boulogne, which told that +St. Cloud, recently occupied by the Prussians, and frequently bombarded +in consequence from Mont-Valerien, had been fired by French bombs. + +The steamer for St. Cloud descends the Seine, passing under the Pont de +Solferino, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Invalides, and Pont d'Alma. +Then the Champ de Mars is seen on the left, the Palais du Trocadero on +the right. After the Pont du d'Iena, Passy is passed on the right, and +the Ile des Cygnes on the left. Then comes the Pont de Grenelle, after +which Auteuil is passed on the right and Javel on the left. After +leaving the Pont-viaduc du Point-du-Jour, the Ile de Billancourt is +seen on the left. After the Pont de Billancourt, the steamer passes +between the Iles de Billancourt and Seguin to Bas Meudon. + + + + + + +III + +OLD PROVENCE + + + + +The Papal Palace at Avignon + +By Charles Dickens + + +[Footnote: From "Pictures From Italy."] + + + +There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge of Avignon, +and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an underdone-piecrust, +battlemented wall, that never will be brown, tho it bake for centuries. + +The grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets, and the brilliant +oleander was in full bloom everywhere. The streets are old and very +narrow, but tolerably clean, and shaded by awnings stretched from house +to house. Bright stuffs and handkerchiefs, curiosities, ancient frames +of carved wood, old chairs, ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, +and staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was +very quaint and lovely. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses +one caught, through a rusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy +court-yards, having stately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It +was all very like one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The +three one-eyed Calenders might have knocked at any one of those doors +till the street rang again, and the porter who persisted in asking +questions--the man who had the delicious purchases put into his basket +in the morning--might have opened it quite naturally. + +After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Such a +delicious breeze was blowing in, from the north, as made the walk +delightful, tho the pavement-stones, and stones of the walls and +houses, were far too hot to have a hand laid on them comfortably. + +We went, first of all, up a rocky height, to the cathedral, where Mass +was performing to an auditory very like that of Lyons, namely, several +old women, a baby, and a very self-possest dog, who had marked out for +himself a little course or platform for exercise, beginning at the +altar-rails and ending at the door, up and down which constitutional +walk he trotted, during the service, as methodically and calmly, as any +old gentleman out of doors. It is a bare old church, and the paintings +in the roof are sadly defaced by time and damp weather; but the sun was +shining in, splendidly, through the red curtains of the windows, and +glittering on the altar furniture; and it looked as bright and cheerful +as need be. + +Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which +one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack; while +gloomy suites of state apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own +old state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither +went there to see state rooms, nor soldiers' quarters, nor a common +jail, tho we dropt some money into a prisoners' box outside, while the +prisoners, themselves, looked through the iron bars, high, up, and +watched us eagerly. We went to see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in +which the Inquisition used to sit. + +A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes--proof +that the world hadn't conjured down the devil within her, tho it had +had between sixty and seventy years to do it in--came out of the +Barrack Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in +her hands, and marshaled us the way that we should go. How she told us, +on the way, that she was a Government Officer (concierge du palais +apostolique), and had been, for I don't know how many years; and how +she had shown these dungeons to princes; and how she was the best of +dungeon demonstrators; and how she had resided in the palace from an +infant--had been born there, if I recollect right--I needn't relate. + +But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic she-devil I +never beheld. She was alight and flaming, all the time. Her action was +violent in the extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for +the purpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flung +herself into attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere +emphasis: now whispered as if the Inquisition were there still; now +shrieked as if she were on the rack herself; and had a mysterious, +hag-like way with her forefinger, when approaching the remains of some +new horror--looking back and walking stealthily and making horrible +grimaces--that might alone have qualified her to walk up and down a +sick man's counterpane, to the exclusion of all other figures, through +a whole fever. + +Passing through the courtyard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned +off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and +locked again behind us; and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower +by fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the mouth +of a ruined subterranean passage, that once communicated (or is said to +have done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of the river. +Close to this courtyard is a dungeon--we stood within it, in another +minute--in the dismal tower of oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, +fastened by an iron chain to the very wall that stands there now, but +shut out from the sky which now looks down into it. + +A few steps brought us to the Cachots, in which the prisoners of the +Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture, +without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even +before they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not +got in there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four +unyielding, close, hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively +doored and fastened, as of old. + +Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a +vaulted chamber, now used as a store-room; once the Chapel of the Holy +Office. The place where the tribunal sat, was plain. The platform might +have been removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good +Samaritan having been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition +chambers! But it was, and may be traced there yet. + +High up in the wall, are niches where the faltering replies of the +accused were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of +the very cell we had just looked into, so awfully; along the same stone +passage. We had trodden in their very footsteps. + +I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when +Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but +the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to +follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining--a rugged +room, with a funnel-shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the +bright day, I ask her what it is. She folds her arms,, leers hideously, +and stares. I ask again. She glances round, to see that all the little +company are there; sits down upon a mound of stones; throws up her +arms, and yells out, like a fiend, "La Salle de la Question!" + +The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle +the victim's cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile, in +silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short +legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame +out again.... A cold air, with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of +Monsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in the wall. +Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the top, of a +steep, dark lofty tower; very dismal, very dark, very cold. The +Executioner of the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging in her head to look +down also, flung those who were past all further torturing, down here. +"But look! does Monsieur see the black stains on the wall?" A glance, +over his shoulder, at Goblin's keen eye, shows Monsieur--and would +without the aid of the directing-key--where they are. "What are they?" +"Blood!" + +In October, 1791, when Revolution was at its height here, sixty +persons; men and women ("and priests," says Goblin, "priests"); were +murdered, and hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, +where a quantity of quicklime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those +ghastly tokens of the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone +of the strong building in which the deed was done, remains upon +another, there they will lie in the memories of men, as plain to see as +the splashing of their blood upon the wall is now.... Goblin's finger +is lifted; and she steals out again, into the Chapel of the Holy +Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect +is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave courier, who +is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the +largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a +little trap-door in the floor, as round as grave. + +"Voila!" she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a +crash, in her goblin energy, tho it is no light weight. "Voila les +oubliettes! Voila les oubliettes! Subterranean! Frightful! Black! +Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes de l'Inquisition!" + +My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where +these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside--of +wives, friends, children, brothers--starved to death, and made the +stones ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on +seeing the accurst wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun +shining in through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and +triumph. + +I felt exalted with the proud delight of living, in these degenerate +times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The +light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed +in, on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon! +It can not look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, +than to a traveler who sees it, calmly and majestically, treading down +the darkness of that Infernal Well. + +Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup was +struck. She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her +arms a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously. + +When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the +outer gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building. +Her cabaret, a dark low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the +thick wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its +little counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its +household implements are scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober +looking woman (she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin) +knitting at the door--looked exactly like a picture by Ostade. + +I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and yet +with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the +light, down in the vaults, had given, me the assurance. The immense +thickness and giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the +massive towers, the great extent of the building, its gigantic +proportions, frowning aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe +and wonder. + +The recollection of its opposite old uses; an impregnable fortress, a +luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of +the Inquisition; at one and the same time, a house of feasting, +fighting, religion, and blood, gives to every stone in its huge form a +fearful interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could +think of little, however, then, or long afterward, but the sun in the +dungeons. + +The palace coming down to be the lounging-place of noisy soldiers, and +being forced to echo their rough talk and common oaths, and to have +their garments fluttering from its dirty windows, was some reduction of +its state, and something to rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and +the sky for the roof of its chambers of cruelty--that was its +desolation and defeat! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to +rampart, I should have felt that not that light, nor all the light in +all the fire that burns, could waste it, like the sunbeams in its +secret council-chamber and its prisons. + + + + +The Building of the Great Palace + +By Thomas Oakey + + +[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.] + + + +It will now be convenient briefly to trace the growth of that +remarkable edifice, at once a castle and a cloister, a palace and a +prison, which constitutes the chief attraction of Avignon to-day, and +which, altho defaced by time and by modern restorers, remains in its +massive grandeur a fitting memorial of the great line of pontiffs who +have made that little city famous in the annals of Christendom. + +We have seen that Pope John XXII., having allotted a piece of land to +his nephew, Arnaud de Via, for the erection of a new episcopal palace, +was content to modify and enlarge the old one for pontifical uses, and +that Benedict XII., with characteristic straightforwardness, purchased +the new fabric from Arnaud's heirs and, having handed it over to the +diocesan authorities, proceeded to transform the old building into a +stately and spacious apostolic palace for the head of Christendom. + +He was moved to this purchase after mature reflection, for it was a +matter of urgent importance that the pontiff of the church of Rome +should possess a palace of his own at Avignon as long as it might be +necessary for him to remain there. The relation between Curia and +Episcopate being thus clearly defined, Benedict appointed a compatriot, +Pierre Poisson de Mirepoix, master of the works, and, since about +two-thirds of the existing palace dates from Benedict's reign, Pierre +Poisson may be regarded as its first architect. + +More, probably, is known of the construction of the papal palace of +Avignon than of any other relic of medieval architecture. Thanks to the +researches of Father Ehrle, Prefect of the Vatican Library, and other +scholars, the sums paid to the contractors, their names, the estimates +of quantities, the wages of the chief workmen, and the price of +materials, are before us, and we can trace day by day and month by +month the progress of the great pile. The whole of the craftsmen, with +the exception of the later master painters from Italy and some northern +sculptors, were either Avignonais, Gascons or Provencals. + +The first work undertaken by Pierre was the enlargement of the papal +chapel of John XXII. This was doubled in length, and the lavish +decorations executed by John's master painter, Friar Pierre Dupuy, were +continued on the walls of the added portion; payments for white, green, +indigo, vermilion, carmine and other pigments, and for colored tiles, +testify to the brilliancy of its interior. + +Meanwhile work was proceeding on the massy new tower, the Turris Magna, +now known as the Tour des Anges, the best preserved of all the old +towers. The foundations were laid on April 3, 1335, and it was roofed +with lead on March 18, 1337. The basement formed the papal wine-cellar; +the ground floor was the treasury, or strong room, where the specie, +the jewels, the precious vessels of gold and silver and other valuables +were stored; many payments are recorded for locks and bars and bolts +for their safe-keeping within the ten-feet-thick walls of the tower. + +The next great work put in hand was the east wing, which was raised on +a space left by John's demolished, or partially demolished, structure. +On November 20, 1337, two masons (lapiscidarios), Pierre Folcaud and +Jean Chapelier, and a carpenter, Jacques Beyran, all of Avignon, +contracted to carry out the plans of a new architect, Bernard Canello, +for the completion of Benedict's private apartments, and on the same +day Lambert Fabre and Martin Guinaud, housewreckers, were paid +eighty-three gold florins on account, for the demolition of the old +buildings. This wing, since wholly remodeled by the legates and the +modern corps of engineers, comprised the papal Garde Robe, the Garde +Meuble, the private kitchen and offices and, on the floor above, the +papal dining-room, study and private oratory. The walls were, of +course, embattlemented, and in 1337 the most exposed portions of the +new buildings were defended by a stout rampart.... + +The whole ground floor, 110 feet by 33, was occupied by a great +reception hall (Camera Paramenti), where distinguished visitors were +accorded a first welcome before being admitted to a private audience, +or accorded a solemn state reception in consistory, as the import of +their embassy demanded. The popes were also used to receive the +cardinals there, and two doorkeepers were appointed who must be +faithful, virtuous and honest men and sleep in the hall; their office +being one of great trust, was highly paid, and they were generally +laymen. It was probably in this hall that St. Catherine was received by +Clement VI. The Avignon conclaves were held there, for on December 31, +1352, four hundred and fifteen days' and nights' labor were employed in +breaking down the walls between the dining-hall and the Camera +Paramenti, clearing away the stones and making secret chambers for the +lord cardinals, in which chambers were twenty-eight cells.... + +On September 5, 1339, John's old belfry was pulled down and Jean Mauser +de Carnot, who asserted he had excavated 11,300 basketfuls of rubbish, +was paid at the rate of twelve deniers the hundred for the work. +Evidently these were good times for the basket makers as well as +builders. December 22, 1340, three contractors, Isnard and Raymond +Durand and Jacques Gasquet, received 1,273 florins for the completed +new tower, with its barbicans, battlements and machicoulis, which was +on the site and which retained the appellation of the Tour de la +Campane, or Bell Tower. The embattlemented and machicolated summit, but +not the chastelet, of this mighty tower has recently been restored; its +walls are nearly twelve feet thick.... + +Benedict's last undertaking was the erection of the Tour de Trouillas, +next the Tour des Latrines, and on April 20, 1341, sixteen rubbish +baskets were bought for the "Saracens that excavated the foundations of +the turris nova." The Tour de Trouillas, tallest and stoutest of the +keeps of the mighty fortress, is 175 feet high as compared with the 150 +feet of the Tour de la Campane, and its walls fifteen feet thick as +compared with twelve feet. It should be noted, however, that the latter +tower appears the taller owing to the elevated ground whereon, it +stands.... + +Having bought, by private agreement or by arbitration, all the houses +adjacent to the palace on the south side, Clement next proceeded to +demolish them and on the site to raise the noblest and most beautiful +wing of the great palace. This edifice, known to contemporaries as the +great new palace, comprised a spacious Chapel and Hall of Justice; and +in August 9, 1344, contracts were made for cutting away and leveling +the rock above the present Rue Peyrolerie, whereon, by October 21, +1351, the masons had raised their beautiful building. + +On that day, by order of our lord the pope, one hundred florins were +handed over by the papal chamber to Master John of Loubieres to +distribute among the masters to celebrate the placing of the keystone +in the vaulting of the new chapel of the palace and the completion of +the said chapel. On All Saints' Day of that same year Clement recited +(a month before his death) the first solemn mass in his great new +chapel and preached a most eloquent sermon, praising God for the +completion of his life's work. The lower hall, most famous of judicial +chambers in Christendom and final Court of Appeal in all questions of +international and ecclesiastical law, was later in opening. + +Among the amenities of the old palace were the spacious and lovely +gardens on the east, with their clipt hedges, avenues of trees, +flower-beds and covered and frescoed walls, all kept fresh and green by +channels of water. John maintained a menagerie of lions and other wild +and strange beasts; stately peacocks swept proudly along the green +swards, for the inventory of 1369 specifies seventeen peacocks, some +old and some young, whereof six were white. + + * * * * * + +But we have as yet dealt chiefly with the external shell of this mass +of architecture which, tall and mighty, raises its once impregnable +walls and towers against the sky. The beauty of its interior remains +briefly to be touched upon, for the fortress palace had, as Clement +left it, some analogy with the great Moorish palace of the Alhambra in +that it stood outwardly grim and strong, while within it was a shrine +of exquisite and luxurious art. + +The austere Benedict, who, his biographer tells us, left the walls of +the consistory naked, appears to have expended little on the pictorial +decorations of the halls and chambers erected during his pontificate; +but with the elevation of the luxurious and art-loving Clement VI., a +new spirit breathes over the fabric. The stern simplicity and noble +strength of his predecessor's work assume an internal vesture of +richness and beauty; the walls glow with azure and gold; a legion of +Gallic sculptors and Italian painters lavish their art on the +embellishment of the palace.... + +Such, in brief outline, was the progress of the mighty fabric and its +internal decoration which the great popes of Avignon raised to be their +dwelling-place, their fortress, and the ecclesiastical center of +Christendom. Tho shorn of all its pristine beauty and robbed of much of +its symmetry, it stands to-day in bulk and majesty, much as it stood at +the end of Clement VI.'s reign, when a contemporary writer describes it +as a quadrangular edifice, enclosed within high walls and towers and +constructed in most noble style, and tho it was all most beautiful to +look upon, there were three parts of transcendent beauty: the +Audientia, the Capella major, and the terraces: and these were so +admirably planned and contrived that peradventure no palace comparable +to it was to be found in the whole world. The terraces referred to were +those raised over the great chapel, and were formed of stone, bedded in +asphalt and laid on a staging of stout oak joists; the view from the +terraces was unparalleled for range and beauty. + +The glowing splendor of frescoed walls was enhanced by gorgeous +hangings and tapestries and by the magnificent robes and jewels of +popes and cardinals. Crowds of goldsmiths--forty were employed at the +papal court--embroiderers and silk mercers, made Avignon famous +thoughout Europe. In 1337, 318 florins were paid for eight Paris +carpets; in 1343 Clement VI. paid 213 florins for green silk hangings, +and 254 florins for carpets adorned with roses; in 1348, 400 gold and +silver vessels turned the scales at 862 marks, 5 ounces; in the +inventory of 1369, despite the fact that the most precious had been +sent to Rome, the gold vessels were weighed out at 1,434 marks, 1 +ounce; the silver at 5,525 marks 7 ounces. + +A cardinal's hat cost from 15 to 40 florins, and in 1348, 150 florins +were paid for one piece of scarlet for the pope, and 75 to 100 florins +for the garniture of a riding cloak. Clement VI. spent 1,278 florins in +the purchase of cloth of gold, woven by the Saracens of Damascus; one +payment to Jacopo Malabayla of Arti for summer and winter clothing for +the papal household amounted to 6,510 florins, and the same obviously +Hebrew merchant received 10,652 florins in 1341 for cloth and ermine +and beaver; in 1347 Clement's furrier received 1,080 ermine skins, +whereof 430 were used in one cloak, 310 for a mantle, 150 for two +hoods, and 88 for nine birettas; in 1351, 2,258 florins went to Tuscany +for silk, and 385 for brocade to Venice. + +The richness of the papal utensils beggars description; jeweled cups, +flagons of gold, knife handles of jasper and ivory, forks of +mother-of-pearl and gold. A goldsmith in 1382 was paid 14 florins for +repairing two of the last-named implements. The flabelli, or +processional feather fans, cost 14 florins; Benedict XIII., paid 300 +florins for an enameled silver bit; the Golden Roses cost from 100 to +300 florins. Presents of jewels were costly and frequent. Gregory XI. +gave 168 pearls, value 179 francs, to the citizens of Avellino; Clement +VII. presented the Duke of Burgundy with a ring of gold, worth 335 +florins; an aguiere of gold and pearls, valued at 1,000 florins, and +two tables each over 200 florins. Richer gifts were lavished on +sovereign princes. Reliquaries were of prodigious value; the gold cross +containing a piece of the true cross at the Celestins weighed fifteen +pounds. In 1375 a silver arm for the image of St. Andrew cost over +2,566 florins. + +The cardinals were equally munificent. The most striking example of +lavish splendor is afforded by the State banquet given to Clement V., +by the Cardinals Arnaud de Palegrue and Pierre Taillefer in May, 1308. +Clement, as he descended from his litter, was received by his hosts and +twenty chaplains, who conducted him to a chamber hung with richest +tapestries from floor to ceiling; he trod on velvet carpet of triple +pile; his state-bed was draped with fine crimson velvet, lined with +white ermine; the sheets of silk were embroidered with silver and gold. + +The table was served by four papal knights and twelve squires, who each +received silver girdles and purses filled with gold from the hosts. +Fifty cardinals' squires assisted them in serving the banquet, which +consisted of nine courses of three plates each--twenty-seven dishes in +all. The meats were built up in fantastic form: castles, gigantic +stags, boars, horses, etc. After the fourth service, the cardinal +offered his holiness a milk-white steed worth 400 florins; two gold +rings, jeweled with an enormous sapphire and a no less enormous topaz; +and a bowl, worth 100 florins; sixteen cardinal guests and twenty +prelates were given rings and jewels, and twelve young clerks of the +papal house and twenty-four sergeants-at-arms received purses filled +with florins. + +After the fifth service, a great tower with a font whence gushed forth +five sorts of choicest wines was carried in; and a tourney was run +during the interval between the seventh and eighth courses. Then +followed a concert of sweetest music, and dessert was furnished by two +trees--one of silver, bearing rarest fruits of all kinds, and the other +loaded with sugared fruits of many colors. Various wines were then +served, whereupon the master cooks, with thirty assistants, executed +dances before the guests. Clement, by this time, having had enough, +retired to his chamber, where, lest he might faint for lack of +refreshment during the night, wine and spices were brought to him; the +entertainment ended with dances and distractions of many kinds. + +There is no reason to believe that the Avignon popes, either in their +household expenditure or in their personal luxury, were more +extravagant than their Roman predecessors or successors. Yet amid all +this luxury, strange defects of comfort appear to the modern sense. +Windows, as we have seen, were generally covered with wax cloth or +linen, carpets were rare, and rushes were strewn on the floors of most +of the rooms. From May to November, 1349, more than 300 loads of rushes +were supplied for use in the dining-rooms and chambers of the apostolic +palace. Subsequently mats were introduced, and in 1352 Pierre de +Glotos, mat-maker to the palace of our lord and pope, was paid for 275 +cannae of matting for the palace of Avignon and for the palace beyond +the Rhone and the new chapel. + + + + +The Walls of Avignon + +By Thomas Oakey + + +[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.] + + + +Intimately associated with the history of the palace of the Popes of +Avignon is that of the unparalleled circuit of walls and towers which +defended the city from the scourge of organized robber bands during the +fourteenth century. The earliest quadrilateral fortifications embraced +a relatively small area consisting of the Rocher des Doms and the +parishes of St. Agricol, St. Didier, and St. Pierre; these walls, +demolished and rebuilt on a more extensive scale in the twelfth +century, embraced an area easily traceable on the modern map, from the +Porte du Rhone, round the Rues du Limas, Joseph Vernet, des Lices, +Philonarde, Campane, Trois Colombes, to the Rocher. + +It was these fortifications that the Cardinal St. Angelo forced the +citizens to raze in 1227. Until the acquisition of Avignon by Clement +VI., the city was an open one and only defended by a double fosse. The +origin of the papal walls has already been traced, and their subsequent +fate may now be briefly given. The assaults of the Rhone proved more +destructive than human artillery. The walls and towers having been +hastily raised, towers fell by reason of bad foundation, and the upkeep +of the fortifications was a continual drain on papal and communal +finances. + +In 1362 an irresistible flood of waters overthrew the Fortes St. Michel +and Limbert, and large breaches were often made by these recurring +inundations. Moreover, the expansion of the city of old and the need of +access to the suburbs involved frequent displacement and opening of new +gates. In 1482 the whole system of the defensive works was modified to +meet the new situation caused by the introduction of gunpowder. The +gates most exposed to attack were further defended by outworks, that of +St. Lazare having been fortified during the rule of Giuliano della +Rovere by the addition of a powerful bastide, with three round towers, +a drawbridge, a new fosse which communicated with the great fosse +before the main walls. Other modifications took place during the +Huguenot wars. + +Notwithstanding many repairs during the intervening centuries, the +fortifications had, under the second Empire, suffered sad degradation, +and at length Viollet-le-Duc was entrusted with their restoration. The +famous architect set to work on their southern side and had completed +about one-third of the restoration when the disastrous issue of the +Franco-Prussian war arrested all further progress until the Third +Republic feebly resumed the task. The walls along the Rhone, especially +useful in time of flood, were backed with stone, their battlements and +machicoulis renewed. The visitor, however, will need no reminder that +the present passive aspect of the ramparts conveys but a faint +impression of their former state, when a broad and deep fosse, seven +feet by twelve, washed their bases, above which they raised their once +impregnable curtains full thirty feet. + +Two of the old gates have been demolished--the Porte de Limbert in +1896, and the Porte de l'Oulle in 1900--the former, many times +repaired, was the only existing example of the external aspect of a +medieval gate, the latter had been rebuilt in 1786 in the Doric style. +A new gate, the Porte Petrarque, now the Porte de la Republique, was +erected by Viollet-le-Duc when the walls were pierced for the new +street; the Porte St. Dominique is also new. These noble mural +defenses, three miles in circuit, twice narrowly escaped demolition--at +the construction of the railway, when they were saved by a vigorous +protest of Prosper Merimee, and in 1902, when, on the pretext that they +blocked the development of the city, the municipality decided to +demolish the unrestored portions. Luckily the intervention of a +public-spirited Prefect of Vaucluse proved successful, and they were +again rescued from the housewrecker's pick. No visitor to Avignon +should omit to walk or drive round the famous ramparts. + +Their stones have been subjected to careful scrutiny by antiquarians +and the masons' marks (tacherons)--about 4,500--carefully examined and +reduced to about four hundred and fifty types. Opinions differ as to +the meaning of these curious signs, but there is little doubt that M. +Maire's suggestion is the correct one--the workmen were paid by the +piece, and each had his own private mark which he cut on the stones he +laid and thus enabled the foreman to check his work. + +We begin at the Porte du Rhone, and skirt the older part of the walls +on the northwest with their different style of corbels and machicoulis. +M. Maire has no hesitation in assigning this portion to the time of +Clement VI., by reason of the coarser nature of the masons' marks. +Turning southwards, we pass the Porte St. Dominique, and reach the +Porte St. Roch (formerly the Porte du Chamfleury, and only opened at +plague times) and the Porte de la Republique. We soon note the +unrestored portions, the site of the old Porte Limbert, and turn +northward to the Porte St. Lazare. + +Before we reach this gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious +memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue du Cimetiere to the +grave of John Stuart Mill, who with his wife lies buried within the +cemetery under an elder-tree on the right and toward the end of Avenue +2. A plain stone slab bears the well-known inscription to Mrs. Mill's +memory--the noblest and most eloquent epitaph ever composed by man for +woman. It is pleasant to remember that Mill has left golden opinions of +his gentleness and generosity behind him at Avignon. His house, a +charming little hermitage approached by an avenue of plane trees not +far from the cemetery, was sold in 1905, and a few relics were bought +and still are cherished by the rare friends the somewhat self-centered +philosopher made in the city. The present owner has preserved the +library and study, where the "Essay on Liberty" was written, much as it +was in Mill's days. + +To the peasants who met the tall, bent, spare figure, musing and +botanizing along the country lanes and fields, he was known as +"Monsieur Emile." Before he left the city on his periodical visits to +England, Mill was wont to leave 300 francs with M. Rey, pastor of the +Protestant Church in Avignon: two hundred for expenses of public +worship; one hundred for the poor, always charging M. Rey to write to +England if any further need arose. + +Mill, a great Englishman of European fame, to the amazement of his +French friends, was followed to his last resting-place by no more than +five mourners. As we write news comes that the civic authorities have +decided to recall to posterity the association of the great thinker +with Avignon by giving the name of Stuart Mill to a new boulevard, and +that a bust has been unveiled to his memory near the pleasant city he +loved so well. Mill was much gratified that his pamphlet on "The +Subjection of Women" converted Mistral to the movement for their +enfranchisement, and their legal equality with men. + + + + +Villeneuve and the Broken Bridge + +By Thomas Oakey + + +[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.] + + + +The royal city of Villeneuve, altho geographically and politically +sundered from Avignon and the County Venaissin, was socially and +economically bound up with the papal city. The same reason that to-day +impels the rich citizens of Avignon to dot the hills of Languedoc with +their summer villas was operative in papal times, and popes and +cardinals and prelates loved to build their summer places on the +opposite bank of the Rhone. + +How silent and neglected are the streets of this once wealthy and +important city! How degraded its monuments, how faded its glory! In the +hot, dusty afternoon, as the cranky old omnibus rattles along the +narrow High Street, it appears to awaken echoes in a city of the dead. + +Making our way northward, we pass the restored seventeenth-century +portal of the palace of the sainted Cardinal of Luxembourg; the +weather-worn, neglected, late Renaissance portal of the so-called Hotel +de Conti; the ruined Gothic portal of the palace of Cardinal Pierre de +Thury, through which we pass to the old court-yard and a chapel +subsequently restored and now used as the chapel of the Grey Penitents. + +We pass many another relic of departed grandeur, and beyond the Place +Neuve on our right come upon a great portal which opens on a vaulted +passage leading to one of the most bewildering and extraordinary +congeries of ruined monastic buildings in France, now inhabited by a +population of poor folk--two hundred families, it is said--who, since +the Revolution, have settled in the vast buildings of the once famous +and opulent Charterhouse of Villeneuve. Founded by Innocent VI., three +years after his elevation to the papal chair, and enriched by +subsequent endownments, the Charterhouse of the Val de Benediction, the +second in importance of the Order, grew in wealth and importance during +the centuries until it was sacked and sold in small lots during the +Revolution to the ancestors of the present occupants. + +The circuit of its walls was a mile in extent; its artistic treasures +were prodigious. The Coronation of the Virgin came thence; the Pieta of +Villeneuve, now in the Louvre; the founder's tomb; the high altar of +Notre Dame at Villeneuve, and a few other relics, alone survive of its +vast possessions. The scene resembles nothing so much as a city ruined +by bombardment or earthquake, but how long the wreck will remain in its +present picturesque and melancholy condition is difficult to forecast. +The state is slowly buying out the owners, and doubtless ere many years +are passed the more valuable artistic remains will have been swept and +garnished and restored. + +As we return from the Chartreuse we turn left along the Place Neuve, +and climb to the mighty fort of St. Andre, which occupies the most +venerable site in the royal new city, for on the hill where it stands +tradition relates that St. Cesarie, Bishop of Arles, was buried, and +that there, in the sixth century, the first Benedictines settled. The +primitive settlement, destroyed in the ninth century, was extensively +rebuilt in 980, and within its walls, churches were dedicated to St. +Andrew, St. Michael, and St. Martin. In the twelfth century the rich +and powerful monastery, a strongly fortified, self-sufficing community, +was held under the counts of Toulouse, and from their overlordship it +was subsequently admitted by the counts to be within the territory of +the republic of Avignon, whose consuls in 1210 compelled the abbot to +demolish his walls and promise never to rebuild them. + +In 1292 Philip the Fair was permitted to settle a small community +there, to whom he accorded in 1293 valuable privileges and the same +protection he granted to his good city of Paris. Philip, to whom the +position was valuable as a frontier post, erected a castle there, +maintained a royal garrison, and the new settlement became known as the +New Town (Villeneuve). The walls and towers then raised were rebuilt in +1352 by John the Good, who exacted a toll, known as St. Andrew's penny, +for maintenance on all merchandise that passes through the Senechaussee +of Beaucaire. + +Of these majestic ruins, restored in the sixteenth century and again in +recent times, the Tour des Masques at the west angle with its simple +battlements is the oldest portion, the massive machicolated towers that +frown over the main entrance having been raised by John the Good. The +ruined ravelin dates back to the seventeenth century. We enter and +stroll about the desolate interior, crowned by a tiny Romanesque chapel +of the twelfth century, that well deserves its name of Our Lady of the +Fair View (Notre Dame de Belvezet), with a graceful apse (restored). +From its summit, or from the tall old watch-tower of the monastery, a +marvelous view is obtained of the gaping ruins of the Charterhouse of +Avignon, the County Venaissin, the Cevennes, Mount Ventoux, and the +distant Alps. + +In the later years of the monarchy a post of artillery was stationed in +the fort, and it was from the fire of a battery planted there that a +young captain of artillery, one Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1793, overawed +the city of Avignon, which was occupied by the Marseillais federalists +who had declared against the Convention; and it was with the cannon +seized at St. Andre that Bonaparte marched to Toulon and expelled the +English from its harbor. + +The papal soldiery were ever objects of scorn to the royalists of +Villeneuve, who dubbed them "patachines" ("pestacchina," Ital. for +slipper), and taunted them with drilling under parasols--a pleasantry +repaid by the Italians who hurled the epithet "luzers" (lizards) +against the royalists, who were said to pass their time sunning +themselves against the hot rocks of Villeneuve. + +Descending the stately stairway that leads to the foot of the Rocher +des Doms, and turning to the left, we soon reach the house of the +"gardien du pont," who will admit us to all that remains of the +miraculous pontifical structure of the twelfth century. The destructive +hand of man and the assaults of the Rhone have dealt hardly with St. +Benezet's work. Ruined during the siege of 1226, it was repaired in +1234-37, and in 1349 knit to the papal fortress at the Avignon end. In +1352, when Clement VI. rebuilt four of the arches, it is described as +of stone and wood; it was cut during the siege of Benedict XIII., and +repaired, or rebuilt, in 1418 and 1430; in 1602 three arches collapsed; +in 1633 two more fell, and in 1650 the gaps were bridged by wooden +struts and planks, which were carried away in 1670 by ice-floes. + +Owing to the interminable dispute between the monarchy and the papacy +as to liability for its repair, each power claiming jurisdiction over +the Rhone, all attempts to preserve it from ruin were abandoned in +1680, when Louis XIV. refused either to allow the legates to take toll +for the necesary repairs, or to undertake them himself. + +Little is known of the original bridge, which consisted of twenty-two +semi-circular arches (Viollet-le-Duc gives eighteen), much lower than +the present elliptic ones, which date back to the thirteenth century, +according to Labaude--or to the fifteenth century, acording to other +authorities--when the bridge, having proved too low-pitched, was raised +to its present level, and the flood arches over the piles were built. +The four subsisting arches were, with the bridge chapel, restored +during the last century. The old bridge formed an elbow upstream on the +Villeneuve branch of the Rhone. + +The chapel of St. Nicholas, too, has suffered many vicissitudes. The +primitive Romanesque building was raised to the level of the new +footway by dividing the nave into two floors and building a flight of +steps, supported on a squinch arch, down to what then became the lower +chapel. Much battered during the sieges of the palace, it was restored +and reconsecrated in 1411 and a century later the Gothic upper apse was +added, whose external walls overtop the old nave. In consequence of +these modifications the lower chapel has a Gothic nave and a Romanesque +apse, whereas the upper chapel has a Gothic apse and a Romanesque nave. + +The "Pont d'Avignon" is known to every French-speaking child, and with +many variants the old "ronde" is sung and danced from the remotest +plains of Canada to the valleys of the Swiss Alps. The good folk of +Avignon, however, protest that their "rondes" were not danced +perilously on the narrow Pont St. Benezet, but under its arches on the +green meadows of the Isle de la Barthelasse, and that "Sur" in lieu of +"Sous" is due to northern misunderstanding of their sweet Provencal +tongue. + + + + +Orange + +By Henry James + + +[Footnote: From "A Little Tour In France." By special arrangement with, +and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, +1884.] + + + +I alighted at Orange to visit a collection of eminently civil +monuments. The collection consists of but two objects, but these +objects are so fine that I will let the word pass. One of them is a +triumphal arch, supposedly of the period of Marcus Aurelius; the other +is a fragment, magnificent in its ruin, of a Roman theater. But for +these fine Roman remains and for its name, Orange is a perfectly +featureless little town, without the Rhone--which, as I have mentioned, +is several miles distant--to help it to a physiognomy. It seems one of +the oddest things that this obscure French borough--obscure, I mean, in +our modern era, for the Gallo-Roman Arausio must have been, judging it +by its arches and theater, a place of some importance--should have +given its name to the heirs apparent of the throne of Holland, and been +borne by a king of England who had sovereign rights over it. During the +Middle Ages it formed part of an independent principality; but in 1531 +it fell, by the marriage of one of its princesses, who had inherited +it, into the family of Nassau. I read in my indispensable Murray that +it was made over to France by the treaty of Utrecht. + +The arch of triumph, which stands a little way out of the town, is +rather a pretty than an imposing vestige of the Romans. If it had +greater purity of style, one might say of it that it belonged to the +same family of monuments as the Maison Caree at Nimes. It has three +passages--the middle much higher than the others--and a very elevated +attic. The vaults of the passages are richly sculptured, and the whole +monument is covered with friezes and military trophies. This sculpture +is rather mixed; much of it is broken and defaced, and the rest seemed +to me ugly, tho its workmanship is praised. The arch is at once well +preserved and much injured. Its general mass is there, and as Roman +monuments go it is remarkably perfect; but it has suffered, in patches, +from the extremity of restoration. It is not, on the whole, of +absorbing interest. + +It has a charm, nevertheless, which comes partly from its soft, bright +yellow color, partly from a certain elegance of shape, of expression; +and on that well-washed Sunday morning, with its brilliant tone, +surrounded by its circle of thin poplars, with the green country lying +beyond it and a low blue horizon showing through its empty portals, it +made, very sufficiently, a picture that hangs itself to one of the +lateral hooks of the memory. I can take down the modest composition, +and place it before me as I write. I see the shallow, shining puddles +in the hard, fair French road; the pale blue sky, diluted by days of +rain; the disgarnished autumnal fields; the mild sparkle of the low +horizon; the solitary figure in sabots, with a bundle under its arm, +advancing along the "chaussee;" and in the middle I see the little +ochre-colored monument, which, in spite of its antiquity, looks bright +and gay, as everything must look in France of a fresh Sunday morning. + +It is true that this was not exactly the appearance of the Roman +theater, which lies on the other side of the town; a fact that did not +prevent me from making my way to it in less than five minutes, through +a succession of little streets concerning which I have no observations +to record. None of the Roman remains in the south of France are more +impressive than this stupendous fragment. An enormous mound rises above +the place, which was formerly occupied--I quote from Murray--first by a +citadel of the Romans, then by a castle of the princes of Nassau, razed +by Louis XIV. + +Facing this hill a mighty wall erects itself, thirty-six meters high, +and composed of massive blocks of dark brown stone, simply laid one on +the other; the whole naked, rugged surface of which suggests a natural +cliff (say of the Vaucluse order) rather than an effort of human, or +even of Roman labor. It is the biggest thing at Orange--it is bigger +than all Orange put together--and its permanent massiveness makes light +of the shrunken city. The face it presents to the town--the top of it +garnished with two rows of brackets, perforated with holes to receive +the staves of the "velarium"--bears the traces of more than one tier of +ornamental arches; tho how these flat arches were applied, or +incrusted, upon the wall, I do not profess to explain. + +You pass through a diminutive postern--which seems in proportion about +as high as the entrance of a rabbit-hutch--into the lodge of the +custodian, who introduces you to the interior of the theater. Here the +mass of the hill affronts you, which the ingenious Romans treated +simply as the material of their auditorium. They inserted their stone +seats, in a semicircle, in the slope of the hill, and planted their +colossal wall opposite to it. This wall, from the inside, is, if +possible, even more imposing. It formed the back of the stage, the +permanent scene, and its enormous face was coated with marble. It +contains three doors, the middle one being the highest, and having +above it, far aloft, a deep niche, apparently intended for an imperial +statue. A few of the benches remain on the hillside, which, however, is +mainly a confusion of fragments. There is part of a corridor built into +the hill, high up, and on the crest are the remnants of the demolished +castle. + +The whole place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any +details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This wall being the +back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the +semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather +less than one would have supposed. In other words, the stage was very +shallow, and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers +standing in a line, like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent +skeleton, however, as impressive by what it leaves you to guess and +wonder about as by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the +softness of melancholy, of the theater at Arles; but it is more +extraordinary, and one can imagine only tremendous tragedies being +enacted there-- + + "Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line." + +At either end of the stage, coming forward, is an immense wing--immense +in height, I mean, as it reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the +other dimensions are not remarkable. The division to the right, as you +face the stage, is pointed out as the green-room; its portentous +altitude and the open arches at the top give it the air of a well. The +compartment on the left is exactly similar, save that it opens into the +traces of other chambers, said to be those of a hippodrome adjacent to +the theater. Various fragments are visible which refer themselves +plausibly to such an establishment; the greater axis of the hippodrome +would appear to have been on a line with the triumphal arch. This is +all I saw, and all there was to see, of Orange, which had a very +rustic, bucolic aspect, and where I was not even called upon to demand +breakfast at the hotel. The entrance of this resort might have been +that of a stable of the Roman days. + + + + +Vaucluse + +By Bayard Taylor + + +[Footnote: From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.] + + + +This district borders on the desert of the Crau, a vast plain of stones +reaching to the mouth of the Rhone and almost entirely uninhabited. We +caught occasional glimpses of its sealike waste between the summits of +the hills. At length, after threading a high ascent, we saw the valley +of the Durance suddenly below us. The sun, breaking through the clouds, +shone on the mountain-wall which stood on the opposite side, touching +with his glow the bare and rocky precipices that frowned far above the +stream. Descending to the valley, we followed its course toward the +Rhone with the ruins of feudal "bourgs" crowning the crags above us. + +It was dusk when we reached the village of Senas tired with the day's +march. A landlord standing in his door, on the lookout for customers, +invited us to enter in a manner so polite and pressing we could not +choose but do so. This is a universal custom with the country +innkeepers. In a little village which we passed toward evening there +was a tavern with the sign "The Mother of Soldiers." A portly woman +whose face beamed with kindness and cheerfulness stood in the door and +invited us to stop there for the night. "No, mother," I answered; "we +must go much farther to-day." "Go, then," said she, "with good luck, my +children! A pleasant journey!" + +On entering the inn at Senas two or three bronzed soldiers were sitting +by the table. My French vocabulary happening to give out in the middle +of a consultation about eggs and onion-soup, one of them came to my +assistance and addrest me in German. He was from Fulda, in +Hesse-Cassel, and had served fifteen years in Africa.... + +Leaving next morning at daybreak, we walked on before breakfast to +Orgon, a little village in a corner of the cliffs which border the +Durance, and crossed the muddy river by a suspension bridge a short +distance below, to Cavaillon, where the country-people were holding a +great market. From this place a road led across the meadow-land to +L'Isle, six miles distant. This little town is so named because it is +situated on an island formed by the crystal Sorgues, which flows from +the fountains of Vaucluse. + +It is a very picturesque and pretty place. Great mill-wheels, turning +slowly and constantly, stand at intervals in the stream, whose grassy +banks are now as green as in springtime. We walked along the +Sorgues--which is quite as beautiful and worthy to be sung as the +Clitumnus--to the end of the village to take the road to Vaucluse. +Beside its banks stands the "Hotel de Petrarque et Laure." Alas that +names of the most romantic and impassioned lovers of all history should +be desecrated to a sign-post to allure gormandizing tourists! + +The bare mountain in whose heart lies the poet's solitude now rose +before us at the foot of the lofty Mount Ventoux, whose summit of snows +extended beyond. We left the river and walked over a barren plain +across which the wind blew most drearily. The sky was rainy and dark, +and completed the desolateness of the scene, which in nowise heightened +our anticipations of the renowned glen. At length we rejoined the +Sorgues and entered a little green valley running up into the mountain. +The narrowness of the entrance entirely shut out the wind, and, except +the rolling of the waters over their pebbly bed, all was still and +lonely and beautiful. The sides of the dell were covered with olive +trees, and a narrow strip of emerald meadow lay at the bottom. + +It grew more hidden and sequestered as we approached the little village +of Vaucluse. Here the mountain towers far above, and precipices of gray +rock many hundred feet high hang over the narrowing glen. On a crag +over the village are the remains of a castle; the slope below this, now +rugged and stony, was once graced by the cottage and garden of +Petrarch. All traces of them have long since vanished, but a simple +column bearing the inscription. "A Petrarque" stands beside the Sorgues. + +We ascended into the defile by a path among the rocks, overshadowed by +olives and wild fig-trees, to the celebrated fountains of Vaucluse. The +glen seems as if stuck into the mountain's depths by one blow of the +enchanter's wand, and just at the end, where the rod might have rested +in its downward sweep, is the fathomless well whose over-brimming +fulness gives birth to the Sorgues. We climbed up over the mossy rocks +and sat down in the grotto beside the dark, still pool. It was the most +absolute solitude. + +The rocks towered above and over us to the height of six hundred feet, +and the gray walls of the wild glen below shut out all appearance of +life. I leaned over the rock and drank of the blue crystal that grew +gradually darker toward the center till it became a mirror and gave +back a perfect reflection of the crags above it. There was no bubbling, +no gushing up from its deep bosom, but the wealth of sparkling waters +continually welled over as from a too-full goblet. + +It was with actual sorrow that I turned away from the silent spot. I +never visited a place to which the fancy clung more suddenly and +fondly. There is something holy in its solitude, making one envy +Petrarch the years of calm and unsullied enjoyment which blest him +there. As some persons whom we pass as strangers strike a hidden chord +in our spirits, compelling a silent sympathy with them, so some +landscapes have a character of beauty which harmonizes thrillingly with +the mood in which we look upon them, till we forget admiration in the +glow of spontaneous attachment. They seem like abodes of the beautiful +which the soul in its wanderings long ago visited and now recognizes +and loves as the home of a forgotten dream. It was thus I felt by the +fountains of Vaucluse; sadly and with weary steps I turned away, +leaving its loneliness unbroken as before. + +We returned over the plain in the wind, under the gloomy sky, passed +L'Isle at dusk, and after walking an hour with a rain following close +behind us stopt at an auberge in Le Thor, where we rested our tired +frames and broke our long day's fasting. We were greeted in the morning +with a dismal rain and wet roads as we began the march. After a time, +however, it poured down in such torrents that we were obliged to take +shelter in a remise by the roadside, where a good woman who addrest us +in the unintelligible Provencal kindled up a blazing fire. On climbing +a long hill when the storm had abated, we experienced a delightful +surprise. Below us lay the broad valley of the Rhone, with its meadows +looking fresh and spring-like after the rain. The clouds were breaking +away; clear blue sky was visible over Avignon, and a belt of sunlight +lay warmly along the mountains of Languedoc. Many villages with their +tall picturesque towers dotted the landscape, and the groves of green +olive enlivened the barrenness of winter. + + + + +The Pont du Gard--Aigues-Mortes-Nimes + +By Henry James + + +[Footnote: From "A Little Tour in France." By special arrangement with, +and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, +1884.] + + + +It was a pleasure to feel one's self in Provence again--the land where +the silver-gray earth is impregnated with the light of the sky. To +celebrate the event, as soon as I arrived at Nimes I engaged a caleche +to convey me to the Pont du Gard. The day was yet young, and it was +perfectly fair; it appeared well, for a longish drive, to take +advantage, without delay, of such security. After I had left the town I +became more intimate with that Provencal charm which I had already +enjoyed from the window of the train, and which glowed in the sweet +sunshine and the white rocks, and lurked in the smoke-puffs of the +little olives. + +The olive-trees in Provence are half the landscape. They are neither so +tall, so stout, nor so richly contorted as I have seen them beyond the +Alps; but this mild colorless bloom seems the very texture of the +country. The road from Nimes, for a distance of fifteen miles, is +superb; broad enough for an army, and as white and firm as a +dinner-table. It stretches away over undulations which suggest a kind +of harmony; and in the curves it makes through the wide, free country, +where there is never a hedge or a wall, and the detail is always +exquisite, there is something majestic, almost processional. You are +very near (the Pont du Gard) before you see it; the ravine it spans +suddenly opens and exhibits the picture. The scene at this point grows +extremely beautiful. The ravine is the valley of the Garden, which the +road from Nimes has followed some time without taking account of it, +but which, exactly at the right distance from the aqueduct, deepens and +expands, and puts on those characteristics which are best suited to +give it effect. The gorge becomes romantic, still, and solitary, and, +with its white rocks and wild shrubbery, hangs over the clear, colored +river, in whose slow course there is here and there a deeper pool. Over +the valley, from side to side, and ever so high in the air, stretch the +three tiers of the tremendous bridge. They are unspeakably imposing, +and nothing could well be more Roman. + +The hugeness, the solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental +rectitude of the whole thing leave you nothing to say--at the time--and +make you stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, +that it has the quality of greatness. A road, branching from the +highway, descends to the level of the river and passes under one of the +arches. This road has a wide margin of grass and loose stones, which +slopes upward into the bank of the ravine. You may sit here as long as +you please, staring up at the light, strong piers; the spot is +extremely natural, tho two or three stone benches have been erected on +it. + +I remained there an hour and got a complete impression; the place was +perfectly soundless, and for the time, at least, lonely; the splendid +afternoon had begun to fade, and there was a fascination in the object +I had come to see. It came to pass that at the same time I discovered +in it a certain stupidity, a vague brutality. That element is rarely +absent from great Roman work, which is wanting in the nice adaption of +the means to the end. The means are always exaggerated; the end is so +much more than attained. The Roman rigidity was apt to overshoot the +mark, and I suppose a race which could do nothing small is as defective +as a race that can do nothing great. Of this Roman rigidity the Pont du +Gard is an admirable example. + +It would be a great injustice, however, not to insist upon its +beauty--a kind of manly beauty, that of an object constructed not to +please but to serve, and impressive simply from the scale on which it +carries out this intention. The number of arches in each tier is +different; they are smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The +preservation of the thing is extraordinary; nothing has crumbled or +collapsed; every feature remains; and the huge blocks of stone, of a +brownish-yellow (as if they had been baked by the Provencal sun for +eighteen centuries), pile themselves, without mortar or cement, as +evenly as the day they were laid together. + +All this to carry the water of a couple of springs to a little +provincial city! The conduit on the top has retained its shape and +traces of the cement with which it was lined. When the vague twilight +began to gather, the lonely valley seemed to fill itself with the +shadow of the Roman name, as if the mighty empire were still as erect +as the support of the aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist, +sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has ever been, or +will ever be, as great as that, measured, as we measure the greatness +of an individual, by the push they gave to what they undertook. The +Pont du Gard is one of the three or four deepest impressions they have +left; it speaks of them in a manner with which they might have been +satisfied.... + +On my way back to the little inn where I had left my vehicle, I passed +the Pont du Gard, and took another look at it. Its great arches made +windows for the evening sky, and the rocky ravine, with its dusky +cedars and shining river, was lonelier than before. At the inn I +swallowed, or tried to swallow, a glass of horrible wine with my +coachman; after which, with my team, I drove back to Nimes in the +moonlight. It only added a more solitary whiteness to the constant +sheen of the Provencal landscape. + + * * * * * + +The weather the next day was equally fair, so that it seemed an +imprudence not to make sure of Aigues-Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; +at a pinch, I could attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that +Aigues-Mortes was a little gem, and it is natural to desire that gems +should have an opportunity to sparkle. This is an excursion of but a +few hours, and there is a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train +that will convey you, in time for a noonday breakfast, to the small +dead town where the blest Saint Louis twice embarked for the crusades. +You may get back to Nimes for dinner; the run is of about an hour. + +I found the little journey charming, and looked out of the carriage +window, on my right, at the distant Cevennes, covered with tones of +amber and blue, and, all around, at vineyards red with the touch of +October. The grapes were gone, but the plants had a color of their own. +Within a certain distance of Aigues-Mortes they give place to wide +salt-marshes, traversed by two canals; and over this expanse the train +rumbles slowly upon a narrow causeway, failing for some time, tho you +know you are near the object of your curiosity, to bring you to sight +of anything but the horizon. Suddenly it appears, the towered and +embattled mass, lying so low that the crest of its defences seems to +rise straight out of the ground; and it is not till the train stops, +close before them that you are able to take the full measure of its +walls. + +Aigues-Mortes stands on the edge of a wide etang, or shallow inlet of +the sea, the further side of which is divided by a narrow band of coast +from the Gulf of Lyons. Next after Carcassonne, to which it forms an +admirable pendant, it is the most perfect thing of the kind in France. +It has a rival in the person of Avignon, but the ramparts of Avignon +are much less effective. Like Carcassonne, it is completely surrounded +with its old fortifications; and if they are far simpler in character +(there is but one circle), they are quite as well preserved. The moat +has been filled up, and the site of the town might be figured by a +billiard-table without pockets. On this absolute level, covered with +coarse grass, Aigues-Mortes presents quite the appearance of the walled +town that a school-boy draws upon his slate, or that we see in the +background of early Flemish pictures--a simple parallelogram, of a +contour almost absurdly bare, broken at intervals by angular towers and +square holes. + +Such, literally speaking, is this delightful little city, which needs +to be seen to tell its full story. It is extraordinarily pictorial, and +if it is a very small sister of Carcassonne, it has at least the +essential features of the family. Indeed, it is even more like an image +and less like a reality than Carcassonne; for by position and prospect +it seems even more detached from the life of the present day. It is +true that Aigues-Mortes does a little business; it sees certain bags of +salt piled into barges which stand in a canal beside it, and which +carry their cargo into actual places. But nothing could well be more +drowsy and desultory than this industry as I saw it practised, with the +aid of two or three brown peasants and under the eye of a solitary +douanier who strolled on the little quay beneath the western wall. +"C'est bien plaisant, c'est bien paisible," said this worthy man, with +whom I had some conversation; and pleasant and peaceful is the place +indeed, tho the former of these epithets may suggest an element of +gayety in which Aigues-Mortes is deficient. + +The sand, the salt, the dull sea-view, surround it with a bright, quiet +melancholy. There are fifteen towers and nine gates, five of which are +on the southern side, overlooking the water. I walked all round the +place three times (it doesn't take long), but lingered most under the +southern wall, where the afternoon light slept in the dreamiest, +sweetest way. I sat down on an old stone, and looked away to the +desolate salt-marshes and still, shining surface of the etang; and, as +I did so, reflected that this was a queer little out-of-the-world +corner to have been chosen, in the great dominions of either monarch, +for that pompous interview which took place, in 1538, between Francis +I. and Charles V. It was also not easy to perceive how Louis IX., when +in 1248 and 1270 he started for the Holy Land, set his army afloat in +such very undeveloped channels. + +An hour later I purchased in the town a little pamphlet by M. Marius +Topin, who undertakes to explain this latter anomaly, and to show that +there is water enough in the port, as we may call it by courtesy, to +have sustained a fleet of crusaders. I was unable to trace the channel +that he points out, but was glad to believe that, as he contends, the +sea has not retreated from the town since the thirteenth century. It +was comfortable to think that things are not so changed as that. M. +Topin indicates that the other French ports of the Mediterranean were +not then "disponibles," and that Aigues-Mortes was the most eligible +spot for an embarkation. + +Behind the straight walls and the quiet gates the little town has not +crumbled, like the Cite of Carcassonne. It can hardly be said to be +alive; but if it is dead it has been very neatly embalmed. The hand of +the restorer rests on it constantly; but this artist has not, as at +Carcassonne, had miracles to accomplish. The interior is very still and +empty, with small stony, whitewashed streets, tenanted by a stray dog, +a stray cat, a stray old woman. In the middle is a little place, with +two or three cafes decorated by wide awnings--a little place of which +the principal feature is a very bad bronze statue of Saint Louis by +Pradier. It is almost as bad as the breakfast I had at the inn that +bears the name of that pious monarch. + +You may walk round the enceinte of Aigues-Mortes, both outside and in; +but you may not, as at Carcassonne, make a portion of this circuit on +the chemin de ronde, the little projecting footway attached to the +inner face of the battlements. This footway, wide enough only for a +single pedestrian, is in the best order, and near each of the gates a +flight of steps leads up to it; but a locked gate, at the top of the +steps, makes access impossible, or at least unlawful. Aigues-Mortes, +however, has its citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of the +others, a little detached, and standing at the northwest angle of the +town. I called upon the casernier--the custodian of the walls--and in +his absence I was conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his +wife, a very mild, meek woman, yellow with the traces of fever and +ague--a scourge which, as might be expected in a town whose name +denotes "dead waters," enters freely at the nine gates. + +The Tour de Constance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided +into three superposed circular chambers, with very fine vaults, which +are lighted by embrasures of prodigious depth, converging to windows +little larger than loop-holes. The place served for years as a prison +to many of the Protestants of the south whom the revocation of the +Edict of Nantes had exposed to atrocious penalties, and the annals of +these dreadful chambers during the first half of the last century were +written in tears and blood. Some of the record cases of long +confinement there make one marvel afresh at what man has inflicted and +endured. In a country in which a policy of extermination was to be put +into practise this horrible tower was an obvious resource. From the +battlements at the top, which is surmounted by an old disused +lighthouse, you see the little compact rectangular town, which looks +hardly bigger than a garden-patch, mapped out beneath you, and follow +the plain configuration of its defenses. You take possession of it, and +you feel that you will remember it always. + + * * * * * + +In general Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman remains, +which are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many +of its streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; +while beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the +oddest air of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland.... + +What nobler ornament can there be than the Roman baths at the foot of +Mont Cavalier, and the delightful old garden that surrounds them? All +that quarter of Nimes has every reason to be proud of itself; it has +been revealed to the world at large by copious photography. A clear, +abundant stream gushes from the foot of a high hill (covered with trees +and laid out in paths), and is distributed into basins which +sufficiently refer themselves to the period that gave them birth--the +period that has left its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we admired +at Montpellier. Here are the same terraces and steps and balustrades, +and a system of water-works less impressive, perhaps, but very +ingenious and charming. + +The whole place is a mixture of old Rome and of the French eighteenth +century; for the remains of the antique baths are in a measure +incorporated in the modern fountains. In a corner of this umbrageous +precinct stands a small Roman ruin, which is known as a temple of +Diana, but was more apparently a nymphaeum, and appears to have had a +graceful connection with the adjacent baths. I learn from Murray that +this little temple, of the period of Augustus, "was reduced to its +present state of ruin in 1577;" the moment at which the towns-people, +threatened with a siege by the troops of the crown, partly demolished +it, lest it should serve as a cover to the enemy. The remains are very +fragmentary, but they serve to show that the place was lovely. I spent +half an hour in it on a perfect Sunday morning (it is enclosed by a +high grille, carefully tended, and has a warden of its own), and with +the help of my imagination tried to reconstruct a little the aspect of +things in the Gallo-Roman days. + +I do wrong, perhaps, to say that I tried; from a flight so deliberate I +should have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of antiquity in +the air; and among the ruins of baths and temples, in the very spot +where the aqueduct that crosses the Garden in the wondrous manner I had +seen discharged itself, the picture of a splendid paganism seemed +vaguely to glow. Roman baths--Roman baths; those words alone were a +scene. + +Everything was changed; I was strolling in a jardin francais; the bosky +slope of the Mont Cavalier (a very modest mountain), hanging over the +place, is crowded with a shapeless tower, which is as likely to be of +medieval as of antique origin; and yet, as I leaned on the parapet of +one of the fountains, where a flight of curved steps (a hemicycle, as +the French say) descended into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, +where the slabs of the Roman foundations gleam through the clear green +water--as in this attitude I surrendered myself to contemplation and +reverie, it seemed to me that I touched for a moment the ancient world. +Such moments are illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, in my +memory, with the dusky greenness of the Jardin de la Fontaine. + +The fountain proper--the source of all these distributed waters--is the +prettiest thing in the world, a reduced copy of Vaucluse. It gushes up +at the foot of the Mont Cavalier, at a point where that eminence rises +with a certain cliff-like effect, and, like other springs in the same +circumstances, appears to issue from the rock with a sort of quivering +stillness. I trudge up the Mont Cavalier,--it is a matter of five +minutes,--and having committed this cockneyism enhanced it presently by +another. I ascended the stupid Tour Magne, the mysterious structure I +mentioned a moment ago. The only feature of this dateless tube, except +the inevitable collection of photographs to which you are introduced by +the doorkeeper, is the view you enjoy from its summit. This view is, of +course, remarkably fine but I am ashamed to say I have not the smallest +recollection of it; for while I looked into the brilliant spaces of the +air I seemed still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman +baths--the image, disastrously confused and vague, of a vanished world. +This world, however, has left at Nimes a far more considerable memento +than a few old stones covered with water-moss. + +The Roman arena is the rival of those of Verona and of Arles; at a +respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum. It is a small Colosseum, +if I may be allowed the expression, and is in a much better +preservation than the great circus at Rome. This is especially true of +the external walls, with their arches, pillars, cornices. I must add +that one should not speak of preservation, in regard to the arena at +Nimes, without speaking also of repair. After the great ruin ceased to +be despoiled, it began to be protected, and most of its wounds have +been drest with new material. These matters concern the archeologist; +and I felt here, as I felt afterward at Arles, that one of the profane, +in the presence of such a monument, can only admire and hold his +tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an impression of wonder +that so much should have survived. What remains at Nimes, after all +dilapidation is estimated, is astounding. + +I spent an hour in the Arenes on that same sweet Sunday morning, as I +came back from the Roman baths, and saw that the corridors, the vaults, +the staircases, the external casing, are still virtually there. Many of +these parts are wanting in the Colosseum, whose sublimity of size, +however, can afford to dispense with detail. The seats at Nimes, like +those at Verona, have been largely renewed; not that this mattered +much, as I lounged on the cool surface of one of them, and admired the +mighty concavity of the place and the elliptical sky-line, broken by +uneven blocks and forming the rim of the monstrous cup--a cup that had +been filled with horrors, and yet I made my reflections; I said to +myself that tho a Roman arena is one of the most impressive of the +works of man, it has a touch of that same stupidity which I ventured to +discover in the Pont du Gard. It is brutal; it is monotonous; it is not +at all exquisite. + +The Arenes at Nimes were arranged for a bull-fight--a form of +recreation that, as I was informed, is much dans les habitudes Nimoises +and very common throughout Provence, where (still according to my +information) it is the usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon. At Arles +and Nimes it has a characteristic setting, but in the villages the +patrons of the game make a circle of carts and barrels, on which the +spectators perch themselves. I was surprised at the prevalence, in mild +Provence, of the Iberian vice, and hardly know whether it makes the +custom more respectable that at Nimes and Arles the thing is shabbily +and imperfectly done. The bulls are rarely killed, and indeed often are +bulls only in the Irish sense of the term--being domestic and motherly +cows. Such an entertainment of course does not supply to the arena that +element of the exquisite which I spoke of as wanting. + +The exquisite at Nimes is mainly represented by the famous Maison +Carree. The first impression you receive from this delicate little +building, as you stand before it, is that you have already seen it many +times. Photographs, engravings, models, medals, have placed it +definitely in your eye, so that from the sentiment with which you +regard it curiosity and surprise are almost completely, and perhaps +deplorably absent. Admiration remains however--admiration of a familiar +and even slightly patronizing kind. The Maison Carree does not +overwhelm you; you can conceive it. It is not one of the great +sensations of antique art; but it is perfectly felicitous, and, in +spite of having been put to all sorts of incongruous uses, marvelously +preserved. Its slender columns, its delicate proportions, its charming +compactness, seemed to bring one nearer to the century that built it +than the great superpositions of arenas and bridges, and give it the +interest that vibrates from one age to another when the note of taste +is struck. + +If anything were needed to make this little toy-temple a happy +production, the service would be rendered by the second-rate boulevard +that conducts to it, adorned with inferior cafes and tobacco-shops. +Here, in a respectable recess, surrounded by vulgar habitations, and +with the theater, of a classic pretension, opposite, stands the small +"square house," so called because it is much longer than it is broad. I +saw it first in the evening, in the vague moonlight, which made it look +as if it were cast in bronze. Stendhal says, justly, that it has the +shape of a playing-card, and he expresses his admiration for it by the +singular wish that an "exact copy" of it should be erected in Paris. He +even goes as far as to say that in the year 1880 this tribute will have +been rendered to its charms; nothing would be more simple, to his mind, +than to "have" in that city "le Pantheon de Rome, quelques temples de +Grece." Stendhal found it amusing to write in the character of a +commis-voyageur, and sometimes it occurs to his reader that he really +was one. + + + + +Arles and Les Baux + +By Henry James + + +[Footnote: From "A Little Tour in France." By special arrangement with, +and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, +1884.] + + + +There are two shabby old inns at Arles, which compete closely for your +custom. I mean by this that if you elect to go to the Hotel du Forum, +the Hotel du Nord, which is placed exactly beside it (at a right +angle), watches your arrival with ill-concealed disapproval; and if you +take the chances of its neighbor, the Hotel du Forum seems to glare at +you invidiously from all its windows and doors. I forget which of these +establishments I selected; whichever it was, I wished very much that it +had been the other. + +The two stand together on the Place des Hommes, a little public square +of Arles, which somehow quite misses its effect. As a city, indeed, +Arles quite misses its effect in every way; and if it is a charming +place, as I think it is, I can hardly tell the reason why. The +straight-nosed Arlesiennes account for it in some degree; and the +remainder may be charged to the ruins of the arena and the theater. +Beyond this, I remember with affection the ill-proportioned little +Place des Hommes; not at all monumental, and given over to puddles and +to shabby cafes. I recall with tenderness the tortuous and featureless +streets, which looked like the streets of a village, and were paved +with villainous little sharp stones, making all exercise penitential. + +Consecrated by association is even a tiresome walk that I took the +evening I arrived, with the purpose of obtaining a view of the Rhone. I +had been to Arles before, years ago, and it seemed to me that I +remembered finding on the banks of the stream some sort of picture. I +think that on the evening of which I speak there was a watery moon, +which it seemed to me would light up the past as well as the present. +But I found no picture, and I scarcely found the Rhone at all. I lost +my way, and there was not a creature in the streets to whom I could +appeal. Nothing could be more provincial than the situation of Arles at +ten o'clock at night. At last I arrived at a kind of embankment, where +I could see the great mud-colored stream slipping along in the +soundless darkness. It had come on to rain, I know not what had +happened to the moon, and the whole place was anything but gay. It was +not what I had looked for; what I had looked for was in the +irrecoverable past. I groped my way back to the inn over the infernal +cailloux, feeling like a discomfited Dogberry. + +I remember now that this hotel was the one (whichever that may be) +which has the fragment of a Gallo-Roman portico inserted into one of +its angles. I had chosen it for the sake of this exceptional ornament. +It was damp and dark, and the floors felt gritty to the feet; it was an +establishment at which the dreadful "gras-double" might have appeared +at the table d'hote, as it had done at Narbonne. Nevertheless, I was +glad to get back to it; and nevertheless, too--and this is the moral of +my simple anecdote--my pointless little walk (I don't speak of the +pavement) suffuses itself, as I look back upon it, with a romantic +tone. And in relation to the inn, I suppose I had better mention that I +am well aware of the inconsistency of a person who dislikes the modern +caravansary, and yet grumbles when he finds a hotel of the +superannuated sort, one ought to choose, it would seem, and make the +best of either alternative. The two old taverns at Arles are quite +unimproved; such as they must have been in the infancy of the modern +world, when Stendhal passed that way, and the lumbering diligence +deposited him in the Place des Hommes, such in every detail they are +to-day. Vieilles auberges de France, one ought to enjoy their gritty +floors and greasy windowpanes. Let it be put on record, therefore, that +I have been, I won't say less comfortable, but at least less happy, at +better inns. + +To be really historic, I should have mentioned that before going to +look for the Rhone I had spent part of the evening on the opposite side +of the little place, and that I indulged in this recreation for two +definite reasons. One of these was that I had an opportunity of +conversing at a cafe with an attractive young Englishman, whom I had +met in the afternoon at Tarascon, and more remotely, in other years, in +London; the other was that there sat enthroned behind the counter a +splendid mature Arlesienne, whom my companion and I agreed that it was +a rare privilege to comtemplate. + +There is no rule of good manners or morals which makes it improper, at +a cafe to fix one's eyes upon the dame de comptoir; the lady is, in the +nature of things, a part of your "consommation." We were therefore free +to admire without restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen +give change for a five-franc piece. She was a large quiet woman, who +would never see forty again; of an intensely feminine type, yet +wonderfully rich and robust, and full of a certain physical nobleness. +Tho she was not really old, she was antique, and she was very grave, +even a little sad. She had the dignity of a Roman empress, and she +handled coppers as if they had been stamped with the head of Caesar. + +I have seen washerwomen in the Trastevere who were perhaps as handsome +as she; but even the head-dress of the Roman contadina contributes less +to the dignity of the person born to wear it than the sweet and stately +Arlesian cap, which sits at once aloft and on the back of the head; +which is accompanied with a wide black bow covering a considerable part +of the crown; and which, finally, accomodates itself indescribably well +to the manner in which the tresses of the front are pushed behind the +ears. + +This admirable dispenser of lumps of sugar has distracted me a little; +for I am still not sufficiently historical. Before going to the cafe I +had dined, and before dining I had found time to go and look at the +arena. Then it was that I discovered that Arles has no general +physiognomy, and, except the delightful little church of Saint +Trophimus, no architecture, and that the rugosities of its dirty lanes +affect the feet like knife-blades. It was not then, on the other hand, +that I saw the arena best. The second day of my stay at Arles I devoted +to a pilgrimage to the strange old hill town of Les Baux, the medieval +Pompeii, of which I shall give myself the pleasure of speaking. + +The evening of that day, however (my friend and I returned in time for +a late dinner), I wandered among the Roman remains of the place by the +light of a magnificent moon, and gathered an impression which has lost +little of its silvery glow. The moon of the evening before had been +aqueous and erratic; but if on the present occasion it was guilty of +any irregularity, the worst it did was only to linger beyond its time +in the heavens, in order to let us look at things comfortably. The +effect was admirable; it brought back the impression of the way, in +Rome itself, on evenings like that, the moonshine rests upon broken +shafts and slabs of antique pavement. As we sat in the theater, looking +at the two lone columns that survive--part of the decoration of the +back of the stage--and at the fragments of ruin around them, we might +have been in the Roman forum. + +The arena at Arles, with its great magnitude, is less complete than +that at Nimes; it has suffered even more the assaults of time and of +the children of time, and it has been less repaired. The seats are +almost wholly wanting; but the external walls, minus the topmost tier +of arches, are massively, ruggedly complete; and the vaulted corridors +seem as solid as the day they were built. The whole thing is superbly +vast, and as monumental, for a place of light amusement--what is called +in America a "variety-show"--as it entered only into the Roman mind to +make such establishments. The podium is much higher than at Nimes, and +many of the great white slabs that faced it have been recovered and put +into their places. The proconsular box has been more or less +reconstructed, and the great converging passages of approach to it are +still majestically distinct; so that, as I sat there in the moon-charm +stillness, leaning my elbows on the battered parapet of the ring, it +was not impossible to listen to the murmurs and shudders, the thick +voice of the circus, that died away fifteen hundred years ago. + +The theater has a voice as well, but it lingers on the ear of time with +a different music. The Roman theater at Arles seemed to me one of the +most charming and touching ruins I had ever beheld; I took a particular +fancy to it. It is less than a skeleton--the arena may be called a +skeleton; for it consists only of half a dozen bones. The traces of the +row of columns which formed the scene--the permanent +back-scene--remain; two marble pillars--I just mentioned them--are +upright, with a fragment of their entablature. Before them is the +vacant space which was filled by the stage, with the line of the +proscenium distinct, marked by a deep groove, imprest upon slabs of +stone, which looks as if the bottom of a high screen had been intended +to fit into it. The semicircle formed by the seats--half a cup--rises +opposite; some of the rows are distinctly marked. The floor, from the +bottom of the stage, in the shape of an arc of which the chord is +formed by the line of the orchestra, is covered by slabs of colored +marble--red, yellow, and green--which, tho terribly battered and +cracked to-day, give one an idea of the elegance of the interior. + +Everything shows that it was on a great scale: the large sweep of its +enclosing walls, the massive corridors that passed behind the +auditorium, and of which we can still perfectly take the measure. The +way in which every seat commanded the stage is a lesson to the +architects of our epoch, as also the immense size of the place is a +proof of extraordinary power of voice on the part of the Roman actors. +It was after we had spent half an hour in the moonshine at the arena +that we came on to this more ghostly and more exquisite ruin. The +principal entrance was locked, but we effected an easy escalade, scaled +a low parapet, and descended into the place behind the scenes. + +It was as light as day, and the solitude was complete. The two slim +columns, as we sat on the broken benches, stood there like a pair of +silent actors. What I called touching, just now was the thought that +here the human voice, the utterance of a great language, had been +supreme. The air was full of intonations and cadences; not of the echo +of smashing blows, of riven armor, of howling victims and roaring +beasts. The spot is, in short, one of the sweetest legacies of the +ancient world; and there seems no profanation in the fact that by day +it is open to the good people of Arles, who use it to pass, by no +means, in great numbers, from one part of the town to the other; +treading the old marble floor, and brushing, if need be, the empty +benches. This familiarity does not kill the place again; it makes it, +on the contrary, live a little--makes the present and the past touch +each other. + +If I called Les Baux a city, it was not that I was stretching a point +in favor of the small spot which to-day contains but a few dozen +inhabitants. The history of the place is as extraodinary as its +situation. It was not only a city, but a state; not only a state; but +an empire; and on the crest of its little mountain called itself +sovereign of a territory, or at least of scattered towns and counties, +with which its present aspect is grotesquely out of relation. The lords +of Les Baux, in a word, were great feudal proprietors; and there was a +time during which the island of Sardinia, to say nothing of places +nearer home, such as Arles and Marseilles, paid them homage. + +The chronicle of this old Provencal house has been written, in a style +somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the +little book--a modest pamphlet--at the establishment of the good +sisters, just beside the church, in one of the highest part of Les +Baux. The sisters have a school for the hardy little Baussenques, whom +I heard piping their lessons, while I waited in the cold parlor for one +of the ladies to come and speak to me. Nothing could have been more +perfect than the manner of this excellent woman when she arrived; yet +her small religious house seemed a very out-of-the-way corner of the +world. It was spotlessly neat, and the rooms looked as if they had +lately been papered and painted; in this respect, at the medieval +Pompeii, they were rather a discord. They were, at any rate, the +newest, freshest thing at Les Baux. + +I remember going round to the church, after I had left the good +sisters, and to a little quiet terrace, which stands in front of it, +ornamented with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, +breast-high, over which you look down steep hillsides, off into the air +and all about the neighboring country. I remember saying to myself that +this little terrace was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist +of taste keeps in his mind as a picture. The church was small and brown +and dark, with a certain rustic richness. All this however, is no +general description of Les Baux. + +I am unable to give any coherent account of the place, for the simple +reason that it is a mere confusion of ruin. It has not been preserved +in lava like Pompeii, and its streets and houses, its ramparts and +castle, have become fragmentary, not through the sudden destruction, +but through the gradual withdrawal, of a population. It is not an +extinguished, but a deserted city; more deserted far than even +Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes, where I found so much entertainment in +the grass-grown element. + +It is of very small extent, and even in the days of its greatness, when +its lords entitled themselves counts of Cephalonia and Neophantis, +kings of Arles and Vienne, princes of Achaia, and emperors of +Constantinople--even at this flourishing period, when, as M. Jules +Canonge remarks, "they were able to depress the balance in which the +fate of peoples and kings is weighed," the plucky little city contained +at the most no more than thirty-six hundred souls. Yet its lords (who, +however, as I have said, were able to present a long list of subject +towns, most of them, tho a few are renowned, unknown to fame) were +seneschals and captains-general of Piedmont and Lombardy, grand +admirals of the kingdom of Naples, and its ladies were sought in +marriage by half the first princes in Europe. + +A considerable part of the little narrative of M. Canonge is taken up +with the great alliances of the House of Baux, whose fortunes, +matrimonial and other, he traces from the eleventh century down to the +sixteenth. The empty shells of a considerable number of old houses, +many of which must have been superb, the lines of certain steep little +streets, the foundations of a castle, and ever so many splendid views, +are all that remains to-day of these great titles. + +To such a list I may add a dozen very polite and sympathetic people, +who emerged from the interstices of the desultory little town to gaze +at the two foreigners who had driven over from Arles, and whose horses +were being baited at the modest inn. The resources of this +establishment we did not venture otherwise to test, in spite of the +seductive fact that the sign over the door was in the Provencal tongue. +This little group included the baker, a rather melancholy young man, in +high boots and a cloak, with whom and his companions we had a good deal +of conversation. + +The Baussenques of to-day struck me as a very mild and agreeable race, +with a good deal of the natural amenity which, on occasions like this +one, the traveler, who is waiting for his horses to be put in or his +dinner to be prepared, observes in the charming people who lend +themselves to conversation in the hilltowns of Tuscany. The spot where +our entertainers at Les Baux congregated was naturally the most +inhabited portion of the town; as I say, there were at least a dozen +human figures within sight. Presently we wandered away from them, +scaled the higher places, seated ourselves among the ruins of the +castle, and looked down from the cliff overhanging that portion of the +road which I have mentioned as approaching Les Baux from behind. + +I was unable to trace the configuration of the castle as plainly as the +writers who have described it in the guide-books, and I am ashamed to +say that I did not even perceive the three great figures of stone (the +three Marys, as they are called; the two Marys of Scripture, with +Martha), which constitute one of the curiosities of the place, and of +which M. Jules Canonge speaks with almost hyperbolical admiration. A +brisk shower, lasting some ten minutes, led us to take refuge in a +cavity, of mysterious origin, where the melancholy baker presently +discovered us, having had the bonne pensee of coming up for us with an +umbrella which certainly belonged, in former ages, to one of the +Stephanettes or Berangeres commemorated by M. Canonge. His oven, I am +afraid, was cold so long as our visit lasted. + +When the rain was over we wandered down to the little disencumbered +space before the inn, through a small labyrinth of obliterated things. +They took the form of narrow, precipitous streets, bordered by empty +houses, with gaping windows and absent doors, through which we had +glimpses of sculptured chimney-pieces and fragments of stately arch and +vault. Some of the houses are still inhabited; but most of them are +open to the air and weather. Some of them have completely collapsed; +others present to the street a front which enables one to judge of the +physiognomy of Les Baux in the days of its importance. This importance +had pretty well passed away in the early part of the sixteenth century, +when the place ceased to be an independent principality, It became--by +request of one of its lords, Bernardin des Baux, a great captain of his +time--part of the appanage of the kings of France, by whom it was +placed under the protection of Arles, which had formerly occupied with +regard to it a different position. I know not whether the Arlesians +neglected their trust; but the extinction of the sturdy little +stronghold is too complete not to have begun long ago. Its memories are +buried under its ponderous stones. + +As ve drove away from it in the gloaming, my friend and I agreed that +the two or three hours we had spent there were among the happiest +impressions of a pair of tourists very curious in the picturesque. We +almost forgot that we were bound to regret that the shortened day left +us no time to drive five miles further, above a pass in the little +mountains--it had beckoned to us in the morning, when we came in sight +of it, almost irresistibly--to see the Roman arch and mausoleum of +Saint Remy. To compass this larger excursion (including the visit to +Les Baux) you must start from Arles very early in the morning; but I +can imagine no more delightful day. + + + + + +IV + +Cathedrals and Chateaux + + + + +Amiens + +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + +[Footnote: From "French and Italian Note Books." By special arrangement +with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. +Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1889.] + + + +The aspect of the old French town was very different from anything +English; whiter, infinitely cleaner; higher and narrower houses, the +entrance to most of which seeming to be through a great gateway +affording admission into a central court-yard; a public square, with a +statue in the middle, and another statue in a neighboring street. We +met priests in three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and +knee-breeches; also soldiers and gendarmes, and peasants and children, +clattering over the pavements in wooden shoes. + +It makes a great impression of outlandishness to see the signs over the +shop doors in a foreign tongue. If the cold had not been such as to +dull my sense of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, I should +have taken in a set of new impressions, and enjoyed them very much. As +it was, I cared little for what I saw, but yet had life enough left to +enjoy the Cathedral of Amiens, which has many features unlike those of +English cathedrals. + +It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a +high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of +England, which cover a great space of ground in proportion to their +height. The impression the latter give is of magnitude and mass; this +French Cathedral strikes one as lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho +but little time-worn by the action of the atmosphere; and statues still +keep their places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first +placed there in the thirteenth century. The principal doors are deep, +elaborately wrought, pointed arches; and the interior seemed to us, at +the moment, as grand as any that we had seen, and to afford as vast an +idea of included space; it being of such an airy height, and with no +screen between the chancel and nave, as in all the English cathedrals. + +We saw the differences, too, betwixt a church in which the same form of +worship for which it was originally built is still kept up, and those +of England, where it has been superseded for centuries; for here, in +the recess of every arch of the side-aisles, beneath each lofty window, +there was a chapel dedicated to some saint, and adorned with great +marble sculptures of the crucifixion, and with pictures, execrably bad, +in all cases, and various kinds of gilding and ornamentation. Immensely +tall wax candles stand upon the altars of these chapels, and before one +sat a woman, with a great supply of tapers, one of which was burning. I +suppose these were to be lighted as offerings to the saints, by the +true believers. Artificial flowers were hung at some of the shrines, or +placed under glass. + +In every chapel, moreover, there was a confessional--a little oaken +structure, about as big as a sentry-box, with a closed part for the +priest to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at, and +speak through the open-work of the priest's closet. Monuments, mural +and others, to long-departed worthies, and images of the Savior, the +Virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in +the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, +fencing in the Holy of Holies, where the high altar stands. There is +not much painted glass; one or two very rich and beautiful +rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and the great eastern +window, which, I think, is modern. The pavement has, probably, never +been renewed, as one piece of work, since the structure was erected, +and is foot-worn by the successive generations, tho still in excellent +repair. I saw one of the small, square stones in it, bearing the date +of 1597, and no doubt there are a thousand older ones. + + + + +Rouen + +By Thomas Frognall Dibdin + + +[Footnote: From "A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany."] + + + +The approach to Rouen is indeed magnificent. I speak of the immediate +approach, after you reach the top of a considerable rise, and are stopt +by the barriers. You then look down a straight, broad, and strongly +paved road, lined with a double row of trees on each side. As the +foliage was not thickly set, we could discern, through the delicately +clothed branches, the tapering spire of the cathedral, and the more +picturesque tower of the Abbaye St. Ouen--with hanging gardens, and +white houses, to the left--covering a richly cultivated ridge of hills, +which sink, as it were, into the Boulevards, and which is called the +Faubourg Cauchoise. To the right, through the trees, you see the River +Seine (here of no despicable depth or breadth), covered with boats and +vessels in motion, the voice of commerce, and the stir of industry, +cheering and animating you as you approach the town. I was told that +almost every vessel which I saw (some of them of two hundred, and even +of three hundred tons burden) was filled with brandy and wine.... + +First for the cathedral, for what traveler of taste does not doff his +bonnet to the mother-church of the town through which he happens to be +traveling, or in which he takes a temporary abode? The west front, +always the forte of the architects's skill, strikes you as you go down, +or come up, the principal street--La Rue des Carmes--which seems to +bisect the town into equal parts. A small open space, which, however, +has been miserably encroached upon by petty shops, called the Flower +Gardens, is before this western front; so that it has some little +breathing room in which to expand its beauties to the wondering eyes of +the beholder. In my poor judgment, this western front has very few +elevations comparable with it--including even those of Lincoln and +York. The ornaments, especially upon the three porches, between the two +towers, are numerous, rich, and for the greater part entire, in spite +of the Calvinists, the French Revolution, and time. + +As you enter the cathedral, at the center door, by descending two +steps, you are struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and +with the lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of +it. Perhaps the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the +central large tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported +by four massive clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference; +but by casting your eye downward, you are shocked at the tasteless +division of the choir from the nave by what is called a Grecian screen; +and the interior of the transepts has undergone a like preposterous +restoration. + +The rose windows of the transepts, and that at the west end of the +nave, merit your attention and commendation. I could not avoid +noticing, to the right, upon entrance, perhaps the oldest side chapel +in the cathedral, of a date less ancient than that of the northern +tower, and perhaps of the end of the twelfth century. It contains by +much the finest specimens of stained glass--of the early part of the +sixteenth century. There is also some beautiful stained glass on each +side of the chapel of the Virgin, behind the choir; but altho very +ancient, it is the less interesting, as not being composed of groups, +or of historical subjects. Yet, in this as in almost all the churches +which I have seen, frightful devastations have been made among the +stained glass windows by the fury of the Revolutionists.... + +On gazing at this splendid monument of ancient piety and +liberality--and with one's mind deeply intent upon the characters of +the deceased--let us fancy we hear the sound of the great bell from the +southwest tower--called the Amboise Tower--erected, both the bell and +the tower, by the uncle and minister of Amboise. Know, my dear friend, +that there was once a bell (and the largest in Europe, save one), which +used to send forth its sound for three successive centuries from the +said tower. This bell was broken about thirty years ago, and destroyed +in the ravages of the immediately succeeding years. The southwest tower +remains, and the upper part of the central tower, with the whole of the +lofty wooden spire--the fruits of the liberality of the excellent men +of whom such honorable mention has been made. Considering that this +spire is very lofty, and composed of wood, it is surprising that it has +not been destroyed by tempest or by lightning. + +Leaving the cathedral, you pass a beautifully sculptured fountain, of +the early time of Francis I., which stands at the corner of the street, +to the right; and which, from its central situation, is visited the +livelong day for the sake of its limpid waters. Push on a little +further, then, turning to the right, you get into a sort of square, and +observe the abbey--or rather the west front of it--full in face of you. +You gaze, and are first struck with its matchless window: call it rose, +or marigold, as you please. + +I think, for delicacy and richness of ornament, this window is +perfectly unrivaled. There is a play of line in the mullions, which, +considering their size and strength, may be pronounced quite a +masterpiece of art. You approach, regretting the neglected state of the +lateral towers, and enter through the large and completely opened +center doors, the nave of the abbey. It was toward sunset when we made +our first entrance. The evening was beautiful; and the variegated tints +of sunbeam, admitted through the stained glass of the window, just +noticed, were perfectly enchanting. The window itself, as you look +upward, or rather as you fix your eye upon the center of it, from the +remote end of the abbey, or the Lady's Chapel, was a perfect blaze of +dazzling light; and nave, choir, and side aisles seemed magically +illumined. We declared instinctively that the Abbey of St. Ouen could +hardly have a rival--certainly not a superior. + +Let me, however, put in a word for the organ. It is immense, and +perhaps larger than that belonging to the cathedral. The tin pipes +(like those of the organ in the cathedral) are of their natural color. +I paced the pavement beneath, and think that this organ can not be +short of forty English feet in length. Indeed, in all the churches +which I have yet seen, the organs strike me as being of magnificent +dimensions. + +You should be informed, however, that the extreme length of the +interior, from the further end of the chapel of the Virgin, to its +opposite western extremity, is about four hundred and fifty English +feet; while the height, from the pavement to the roof of the nave, or +the choir, is one hundred and eight English feet. The transepts are +about one hundred and forty feet in length. The central tower, upon the +whole, is not only the grandest tower in Rouen, but there is nothing +for its size in our own country that can compare with it. It rises +upward of one hundred feet above the roof of the church; and is +supported below, or rather within, by four magnificent cluster-pillared +bases, each about thirty-two feet in circumference. Its area, at +bottom, can hardly be less than thirty-six feet square. The choir is +flanked by flying buttresses, which have a double tier of small arches, +altogether "marvelous and curious to behold." + +I could not resist stealing quietly round to the porch of the south +transept, and witnessing, in that porch, one of the most chaste, light, +and lovely specimens of Gothic architecture which can be contemplated. +Indeed, I hardly know anything like it. The leaves of the poplar and +ash were beginning to mantle the exterior; and, seen through their +green and gay lattice work, the traceries of the porch seemed to assume +a more interesting aspect. They are now mending the upper part of the +facade with new stone of peculiar excellence--but it does not harmonize +with the old work. They merit our thanks, however, for the preservation +of what remains of this precious pile. I should remark to you that the +eastern and northeastern sides of the abbey of St. Ouen are surrounded +with promenades and trees: so that, occasionally, either when walking +or sitting upon the benches, within these gardens, you catch one of the +finest views imaginable of the abbey. + + + + +Chartres + +By Epiphanius Wilson + + +[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission of the +author. Copyright, 1900.] + + + +For many a mile over the rich cornfields of Beauce, of which ancient +district Chartres was once the capital, the spires of Chartres are +visible. The river and the hill constitute at Chartres the basis of its +strength in long-forgotten warfare; its walls in piping times of peace +have been leveled into leafy boulevards, but it may still be entered +through one of the antique gates that survive as memorials of its +former fortifications. + +The cathedral itself is one of that group to which belong Amiens, +Rheims, Bourges and Notre Dame de Paris. It is noted for its size, +magnificence and completeness, and contains in itself, from its crypt +to its highest stone, an exemplification of architectural history in +France from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. We may suppose +that Christianity was first published in the Beauce province by the +same apostles, Savinienus and Potentienius, who had evangelized Sens +and the Senones. Their disciple, Aventin (Aventinus), is recognized as +the first Bishop of Chartres, and as the builder of the first cathedral +which stood on the site of the present building.... + +The naves, the north and south transept portals, and the choir belong +to the thirteenth century, the north tower to the fifteenth, and the +magnificent jube, or screen, which runs round the choir, is evidently +sixteenth century style, being an example of that Renaissance +employment of Gothic details, of which we find such glorious +counterparts at Rouen and Albi. The western facade of Chartres is plain +in comparison with those of Amiens or Rheims. The voussures of the +three central portals are comparatively shallow. Above them are three +lancet windows which resemble windows of the Early English Style. The +rose-window, beneath which the lancets are placed, is of great +dimensions and effective tracery. The highest story of the front +between the towers is screened by a rich arcade, over which rises the +gable point. + +This arcade, or gallery, is intended to break the abruptness with which +the pointed roof rises between the two spires. These spires are +different in design, the southern tower being much earlier than that at +the north. The southern spire, in its austere simplicity and exquisite +proportions, is certainly the finest I have seen in France, and can +only be paralleled elsewhere by that which rises like a flower-bud +almost ready to burst over Salisbury plain. The northern tower is very +much more elaborate, and reminded me of those examples with which the +traveler becomes so familiar in the many churches of Rouen. The richly +crocketed gables, the flying buttresses and pinnacles which run half +way up this spire, while they adorn it, seem to stunt the profile and +rob it of its towering altitude, just as is the case with the western +spires of St. Ouen. Yet this northern tower is considerably higher than +the ancient one at the south, being 374 feet high, while the more +ancient spire is only 348. The other dimensions of the church are as +follows: It is 420 feet long; 110 feet wide; its height from ceiling +vault to pavement is 115 feet. The modern tower was built by Louis XII. +in 1514, the architect being an inhabitant of Beauce, a certain Jean +Texier. + +The carvings in the west front of the cathedral are examples of the +beginning of French sculpture, as it emerges from the severity and +rigidity of Byzantine types. The human figures are long, slender, and +swathed almost like mummies in their drapery. The faces are strongly +individualized and seem to be portraits. While these statues must be +attributed to a period previous to the middle of the twelfth century, +we see in them the originality of French genius struggling to break +away from the fetters of Eastern precedent. + +Viollet-de-Duc thinks that these faces belong to the type of the +ancient Gaul; the flat forehead and raised arch of the eyebrows, the +projecting eyes, the long jaws, the peaked and drooping nose, the long +upper lip, the wide, closed mouth, the square chin, the long wavy hair +are neither German, Roman, or French. There is a blending of firmness, +grandeur and refinement in these wonderful countenances, each of them +apparently copied from a different model. They are crowned and nimbused +as the kings and saints of antique France. A more impressive gallery of +illustrious personages is nowhere else to be found. + + + + +Rheims + +By Epiphanius Wilson + + +[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission of the +author. Copyright, 1900.] + + + +French cathedrals have, as it were, a royal character, and this is +emphasized especially in the history and architecture of Rheims +cathedral, which became, from the time of Philippe Auguste, the church +at whose altar the kings of France were crowned. + +The origin of the Church at Rheims dates from the third century; when +we are told Pope Fabian sent into Gaul a band of bishops and teachers. +Rheims was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in +the church built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was +baptized and crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple +Roman proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in +822, when Ebon was archbishop. + +It was completed with a magnificence which vied with the churches of +Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome. It was considered in its day the most +splendid church in France. Its roof and walls blazed with gilding and +many-tinted paintings. Its floors were of marble mosaic. Rich +tapestries hung round the choir, and its treasury was filled with +masterpieces of the goldsmith and the jeweler. This church continued to +be the wonder of Gallic Christianity until the beginning of the +thirteenth century, when it was destroyed by fire. It is remarkable to +notice in the history of French cathedrals how many of them were +rebuilt just at the time when the pointed style, which may be called +preeminently the Christian style of architecture, had come to birth +almost simultaneously in various countries of Europe. + +We are obliged to come to the conclusion that the pointed arch was +introduced in Germany, France and England by the Crusaders, who had +seen it used in the East, and had considered it best fitted for +buildings that enshrined the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith. +It was in the pointed style, therefore, that the new cathedral of +Rheims was built. The name of its architect is not known, but his plan +shows that he must have been a man of profound genius. Archbishop +Alberic Humbert laid the foundation stone in 1212. The whole province +contributed liberally to the work, and in 1242 the building was +sufficiently advanced for the celebration of divine service in the +choir. + +The Church of Notre Dame of Rheims would require a volume to describe +it completely. The front is perhaps the most elaborate to be found in +France. The three vast portals, peopled with statues of colossal size, +their arched vaulting covered with saintly and angelic figures, the +mighty rose-windows, flanked with pointed openings, crowned with carved +tabernacle work, and the great gallery of kings crossing the whole +front, just below the peak of the gable, and above all, the two towers +pierced by majestic windows and supported at each corner by niches with +three open faces, give an impression of richness and brightness and +grace, mingled with that indefinable majesty, which is due partly to +the vast dimensions, partly to the harmonious proportions of the whole +structure. + +The divisions of the front facade resemble somewhat the same part of +the edifice at Amiens, excepting that it is far more florid, and less +strict and severe in its main divisions. At Amiens the details are kept +in strictest subservience to the structural lines of the edifice. At +Rheims it is the magnificent wealth of details that crowds upon the +view, the walls and arches are surcharged with statues, with niches, +with brackets, pinnacles, tracery, foliage, finials and turrets. The +sides of the entrances of the three portals are crowded with colossal +statues, thirty-nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets, +kings, bishops, virgins and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate +is a fine statue of the Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are +bas-reliefs representing the Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary +should be the instrument. + +It is quite characteristic of a medieval church that we should find, on +the lintels and side-posts of these doorways, emblems of agricultural +work in the various seasons of the year, as well as different symbols +of arts and handicrafts. Amid the carvings of these doorways are the +heroes and saints of the Old Testament, types and forerunners of the +Messiah, as well as historic scenes, representing the Redemption of the +World, the Conversion of the Gentiles, the Resurrection of the Dead, +the Last Judgment, the Condemnation of the Wicked, the Reception of the +Just into the habitations of the blest. Finally, the Assumption and +Coronation of the Blessed Virgin sums up, with an imaginative legend, +this series of Christian dogma perpetuated in stone. + +But the medieval genius is many-sided, and never satisfied with that +which is beautiful alone; and this magnificent array of Christian +carving would not be complete to the mind of the medieval artist unless +he had crowned the angles of his buildings with a series of grotesque +gargoyles and allegoric statues, representing the streams that watered +the earthly paradise, while at the summit of the roof are niched angles +bearing instruments of music. As the rose is a peculiarity of Gothic +churches, and from its remarkable shape gives ample room for sculpture +in stone, and color in glass, so the rose at Rheims is among the most +beautiful examples of the kind, and illustrates the principle that the +rose is intended to light up high, remote and shadowy spaces in a long +nave or aisle. + +Above the great rose-window is a pointed arch in whose voussures are +ten statues, relating the history of David, while over this arch runs a +band of niches, forty-two in number, in which are colossal statues of +the kings of France from Clovis to Charles VI. + +The two portals of the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with +the style of the western facade. A graceful spire rises from the +eastern part of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the +fact that poised upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and +holding aloft a cross. This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the +church. The church itself is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting +of the roof to the pavement is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high. +I noticed the church is built in the form of a cross, but the transept +is very close to the apse, so that the choir being too confined for the +great ceremonies, such as that of royal coronations, which used to take +place there, has been extended westward across the transept so as to +take up three bays of the nave. + +There are seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found +in the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate +character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness +detracts nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its +towering roof, the noble lines which rise from the ground and support, +as it were, on slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The +rose-windows, four in number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth +century, and the tall windows of the chevet and clerestory contain a +many colored mosaic of a similar sort. I was particularly struck with +the rose-window over the western portal. It represents the Beautiful +Vision; the Eternal Father is throned in the central ring of the +window, and in the radiating panes is the Hierarchy of Paradise, angels +and archangels and all the company of Heaven, while in a wider +circumference are grouped the redeemed, contemplating in adoration the +majesty of God. + +I noticed two very interesting tombs in Rheims cathedral. The first was +the sarcophagus of Jovinus, the Christian prefect of Rheims, in the +fourth century, who protected the church and was originally buried in +the Abbey of St. Nicaise, from whence his tomb was brought to the +cathedral. It consists of a single block of snowy marble, nine feet +long, and four feet high, on which the consular general is represented +in a spirited bas-relief mounted on horseback and saving the life of a +man from the lion, in whose flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very +fine indeed is the workmanship of this monument. The figures which +surround Jovinus are men of handsome countenance, evidently portraits, +their dress and arms being finished with the utmost nicety of detail. +The figures are about half life-size. + +The other tomb is that of St. Remigius, a Renaissance work erected by +Cardinal Delenoncourt in 1533. It is sumptuous and gaudy rather than +beautiful. Twelve statues, full life-size, represent the twelve peers +of France, six are the prelates of Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais, +Chalons, and Noyon; the six lay peers are the dukes of Burgundy, +Normandy and Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and +Toulouse. The white marble of these somewhat stagey figures is +beautifully worked and the effect is imposing. + +The western wall of the interior is faced with niches, in which the +statues seem to emerge from a cloud of gloom. At one time tombs of the +most magnificent sort crowded the aisles, enshrining the relics of +saints and bishops, but during the raging of the Terror the +Revolutionists violated these tombs, seizing their treasures, breaking +down with ax and hammer their carvings. But, after all, the church of +Notre Dame of Rheims does not seem to have suffered very much loss from +the clearing away of these obstructions to the vista of her arcades, +which now depend for their solemn beauty upon the simplicity and +dignity of their lines and proportions, the effect of their windows, +and the religious gloom which lingers in their lofty recesses. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, +Volume 3, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEING EUROPE--FAMOUS AUTHORS, VOL 3 *** + +***** This file should be named 8412.txt or 8412.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/4/1/8412/ + +Produced by Online Distributed Proofreading Team +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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