PARIS OF THE EARLY CAPETIANS
Never in all its many troubled days has France been more in need of a
wise head and a steady hand than it was when in 987 the lords gave to
Hugh Capet the name of King of France. He was already Count of Paris and
Duke of France, that is, of the Île de France, the district around
Paris. When he was chosen king the title meant only that a few powerful
nobles promised him their fidelity. Back of this insignificant fact,
however, loomed the _idea_ of kingship remembered from the Roman days of
centralized power. Combined with this idea was the governing principle
of the new feudalism which emphasized the duty of every man to be loyal
to his superior with obedience and support, to his inferior with
protection. Thus the title of king meant much or little in proportion as
the holders of great possessions lived up to their oaths of allegiance.
The weakness of the royal person was the foundation weakness of the
feudal system which
[Illustration: FRANCE AT TIME OF HUGH CAPET.
(At the dates indicated the provinces came under the French crown)]
nominally linked the whole of society in an inter-dependent chain, but
really fostered the strength of the individual.
Under such conditions it was only the man of unusual force who could
maintain himself at a pitch of power greater than that of subordinates
who were his equals in all but name. Hugh Capet proved himself such a
man, fighting, cajoling, buying his way through a reign of constant
disturbance, but strong enough at its end to leave his crown to his son
without opposition from the nobles.
A medieval tradition had it that Hugh was the son of a butcher of Paris.
A fourteenth century _chanson_ called “Hugh the Butcher” encouraged the
_bourgeois_ to believe in the possibility of a like elevation. Dante
refers to the story in the “Divine Comedy.” He hears a shade on the
Fifth Ledge of Purgatory say: “I was the root of the evil plant which so
overshadows all the Christian land that good fruit is rarely plucked
therefrom.... Yonder I was called Hugh Capet: of me are born the Philips
and the Lewises by whom of late times France is ruled. I was the son of
a butcher of Paris. When the ancient kings had all died out, save one
who had assumed the gray garb, I found me with the bridle of the
government of the realm fast in my hands.”
Here follows a recital of wicked deeds done by Hugh’s descendants by
reason of avarice, in the midst of which is the apostrophe, “O Avarice,
what more canst thou do with us since thou hast so drawn thy race unto
thyself that it cares not for its own flesh?”
There is no reason to suppose that the tradition concerning Hugh’s birth
rested on fact. His descent from Robert the Strong was direct and he
himself was the worthy head of a family that had given to the throne of
France one titled and two untitled kings.
The son who followed Hugh was Robert the Pious (996-1031) and he and his
successors for a hundred and fifty years labored perseveringly toward
that centralization of power in the monarch which came to definite
realization in the reign of Philip Augustus (1180-1223), and to
establishment under the single-hearted rule of Louis IX, the Saint
(1226-1270).
Within three centuries after the accession of the new dynasty Paris
attained to the position which she has held ever since--as the head of
the nation, leading by virtue of her thought and will, and as the heart
of the people, beating with impulses of generosity and love and passion.
With Hugh Capet himself her stability began, for he was the first king
to make the city his permanent home. The palace at the western end of
the Cité had been strengthened by Eudes who made of it a square fortress
with towers. Here Hugh lived when he was not in the field suppressing
the uprisings of the nobles who had elected him. That they were of a
spirit so independent as to need a constant curb is to be guessed from a
conversation reported to have occurred between Hugh and Adelbert, one of
the great lords. “Have a care,” warned Hugh. “Who made you count?” “Who
made you king?” instantly retorted the lord. Perhaps it was a wish not
to seem to glory over his subjects that impelled Hugh never to wear his
crown after the occasion of his coronation. By having his son Robert
crowned at the same time he helped secure the stability of his line.
To the west of the palace Hugh planted a garden, and he also
added stables, whose care was entrusted to a _comte de
l’étable_, or constable, the title given later and until 1627 to the
commander-in-chief of the French army. On the river side of the palace
the king rebuilt the Gallo-Roman prison on the spot where now stands the
Conciergerie. The keeper of this prison was a noble to whom was given
the title of count of the candles, _comte des cierges_ or _concierge_,
the name bestowed to-day on a janitor. His pay in the olden days
consisted of two fowls a day and the ashes from the king’s fireplace.
To the east of the palace on the spot where the Tribunal of Commerce now
rises, there stood in Hugh’s day a Merovingian chapel dedicated to Saint
Bartholomew. Legend has it that it was of ancient origin and had been
sacred to pagan gods. To secure their overthrow, Saint Denis, it is
said, went there to preach, and there it was that he was seized by his
enemies. King Hugh enlarged the church and dedicated it not only to
Saint Bartholomew but to Saint Magloire as well.
It was during the time of Robert the Pious that society, grown
degenerate under the generally base or incompetent kings of the
Merovingian and Carlovingian dynasties, reached its lowest ebb of
hopelessness and inaction. Modern historians deny that fear of the end
of the world when the year 1000 should open had anything to do with the
lethargy of this period. Whether they are right or wrong, it cannot be
disputed that after the year had begun there was a stirring such as had
not been known for two or three generations. Only the church seems to
have emerged triumphant in material things, for it now held rich
possessions whose deeds of gift, beginning “Because of the approaching
end of the world,” seem to hint at an attempt of former owners to be on
the safe side in the event of the possible coming of the Day of
Judgment. Whatever the cause, the givers, stripped stark, had to busy
themselves to restore their affairs, and some new constructive impulse
built noble buildings and inspired a brutalized society with ideals
which devoted force to uplifting ends--the protection of the weak and
the defense of the church.
Robert did not inherit his father’s energy or administrative ability. He
was a handsome man, fond of appearing in public wearing his crown and
flowing robes. He was something of a scholar, and so good a musician
that he led the choir at Saint Denis and composed hymns which were
accepted by the Church. The poor were his especial care and so traded on
his good nature that they even snipped the gold tassels and fringe from
his garments when he went abroad. At an open table many hundred dined
daily at his expense. He was truly pious as his name declared, and, in
the manner of the age, he sought to express his religious interest by
the building of churches and monasteries. Paris in especial profited by
his desire to win eternal favor, for he built or restored churches to
the mystic number of seven and twice that number of religious
establishments.
King Robert’s domestic life verged on tragedy. He married a distant
cousin whom he loved devotedly, but the marriage was not approved by
the pope, and when the king and queen refused to separate he
excommunicated them. To be excommunicated meant not only that the
offender was cut off from the sacraments of the Church, but that he was
forbidden all intercourse with his fellow men. Every one fled at sight
of the accursed and the few servants left to the royal pair cleansed
with fire every plate and cup that they used.
Robert and Bertha finally bowed to the papal decree. Robert then married
Constance, daughter of the Count of Toulouse, who proved a sufficient
punishment for any and all his sins of omission and commission. In her
train came troubadours and southern knights who brought to Robert’s
rebuilt and enlarged Paris palace fashions of dress that were regarded
as unseemly, manners that were all too frivolous, and characters
unworthy of dependence. The novelty caught the fancy of the Parisians,
who, according to an old chronicler, “before long reflected only too
faithfully the depravity and infamy of their models.”
Constance kept a sharp eye on her husband’s charitable disbursements,
and she brought up her sons so badly that Robert’s last years were
embittered by their brawlings and rebellions. The king died bitterly
lamented by his subjects, who knew enough of the character of his
successor to feel strong apprehension concerning their fate at his
hands.
The eleventh century, filled by the reigns of Robert, his son, Henry I
(1031-1060) and his grandson Philip I (1060-1108), was made terrible by
famines and wonderful by the opening of the great adventure of the
Crusades. The famine brought to thousands a lingering death beside which
the sudden departure attending the end of the world would have been
peaceful translation. The Crusades, begun (1096) in exaltation but in a
pitiful ignorance of ways and means, ended a hundred and seventy-five
years later in selfishness and an accession of knowledge. The ignorance
cost a waste of human life horrible to think of; the knowledge moved
western Europe to expression in all forms of art, and brought about a
feeling of unity which, in France, produced a nation bound by common
interests. Beyond any calculation was the impetus given to commerce and
to the intellectual life. The ordering of society, the institution of
chivalry, the awakening to the vividness of mental activity and of
beauty--these three influences touched life under the early Capetians
until it grew and ripened into the simple, beauty-loving, God-fearing
temper of the thirteenth century, the soul of the Middle Ages.
Henry I (1031-1060), no weakling but not a man of administrative
ability, followed his father’s example as a builder. One of his
benefactions was the Priory of Saint Martin-des-Champs which was begun
in the last year of his reign on the site of a former establishment
which had been destroyed by the Normans. It lay well out of the city on
the old Roman road leading to the north and was a huge place, a
fortified village in itself and quite independent of Paris. A wall of
considerable size furnished with round towers surrounded an enclosure in
which were a church, a refectory, a cloister, a chapter-house, an
archive tower, a field for the pasturing of cattle, gardens for the
raising of vegetables, and a cemetery for the burial of the dead. The
wall has gone to-day except for one of the round towers which was
preserved and rebuilt through the intercession of Victor Hugo when the
straightening of a street called for its destruction. The field and
gardens and the cemetery are now hidden beneath houses and pavements,
but the church, whose erection lasted from the eleventh to the
thirteenth century, and the refectory, finished in the thirteenth
century, have been preserved as parts of the Conservatoire des Arts et
Métiers, established by the Convention in 1794 as a technical school and
museum of machines and scientific instruments. The church, secularized,
serves as an exhibition hall for machinery, an incongruous and somewhat
shocking combination. The refectory is put to the more suitable use of
housing the technical library. Both are exquisite examples, and the
church is the oldest existing instance in the city, of that Gothic
architecture which sprang into being in the twelfth century as if to
symbolize with its stretching height and its soaring spires, its
delicate workmanship and its brilliancy of light and coloring, the
aspiration toward the high and the beautiful which filled men’s desires
after they came in contact with the appealing mysticism and the dazzling
loveliness of the East.
Like his father Henry had trouble with his wives--there were three of
them--and the marital affairs of his son, Philip I (1060-1108), were
even more involved. Becoming violently infatuated with Bertrade, the
fourth wife of the Count of Anjou, Philip sent away his wife, Bertha,
and arranged with Bertrade during a church service that she should
submit to being kidnapped. No bishop would marry them and it was only
after long search that a priest was found sufficiently timid or
sufficiently avaricious to yield his conscience to the royal demand.
Excommunication followed promptly, and for twelve years the coming of
Philip and Bertrade to a city silenced the church bells, which rang out
joyfully again as they left. So bad was the effect upon his people of
their king’s obstinate wrong-doing that the pope at last consented to an
examination of the royal offender. All the bishops of France met in
Paris on the first day of December, 1104. The Bishop of Orleans and the
Bishop of Paris waited upon Philip and asked whether he were prepared to
change his manner of life. He said that he was and accordingly appeared
before the ecclesiastical body barefooted and seemingly penitent.
Kneeling he promised atonement and swore to put aside Bertrade. Bertrade
took a similar oath. Neither of them kept it, but so willing was
everybody to feign blindness after this form of expiation that two years
later the monks of Saint Nicholas at Angers received them both
cordially, and Bertrade’s discarded husband dined at the same table with
his successor and slept in the same room with him.
Philip never was a friend of the church though he did not in later life
carry into effect depredations such as he planned when young, a real
theft, in fact, which, through a miraculous intervention, never came to
pass. Feeling a twinge of royal poverty--which does not mean that he was
really very poor--he went with one of his officers to Saint
Germain-des-Prés to take possession of some part of its riches. As they
approached the treasury the king’s companion was stricken blind, a
circumstance that put the thieving monarch to flight in terror. Yet the
check was not lasting for he and his courtiers so corrupted some of the
nunneries and monasteries of Paris that the Bishop of Paris was obliged
to disperse the establishments. One of the largest, a convent, was on
the Cité on the site of the present Prefecture of Police.
Having all this trouble with the pope and the church on his hands it is
not to be wondered at that Philip was not stirred by Peter the Hermit’s
preaching of the First Crusade. Indeed, no great ruler went on this
first expedition, though the enlistment of many strong lords and their
feudal following, and the unwise rush of whole families--women and
children as well as men and youths--lost many lives to France in this
most French of all the crusades.
Though not of a temper to sympathize personally with a love of learning
Philip had intelligence enough and kingly pride enough to see the
advantage to Paris of a concentration of schools in his capital. He
never interfered with the teaching of the religious houses, and during
his reign and immediately after at least four schools had obtained a
more than local reputation. As the church of Saint Denis sheltered the
tombs of the kings it was fitting that the abbey should instruct the
sons of the nobles; the cathedral of Notre Dame stood in the heart of
the Cité, and there the sons of the merchants were trained, one of their
teachers being William of Champeaux whose eloquence knew no equal until
it was matched and surpassed by one of his pupils, a young man from
Brittany, Abélard. Abélard learned what many others have learned before
and since, that it is both tactless and unprofitable to outshine your
so-called “betters.” He was sent away from Paris. It was not long before
he was summoned back by general acclaim, and joined the lecturers of the
third great school of the time, the favorite of the foreign students,
that of the abbey of Sainte Geneviève. His popularity there so
displeased William of Champeaux that he severed his connection with the
school of Notre Dame and founded the school and abbey of Saint Victor,
on the south bank, east of the island. This abbey was suppressed during
the Revolution and Napoleon built on its site the Halle aux Vins where
the city’s supply of wine is stored in bond.
Of these four schools the one to which Abélard attached himself acquired
a drawing reputation throughout all Europe, and scholars from England
and Germany and Italy sought him eagerly, often enjoying the privilege
of sitting under him at the expense of a long journey on foot and of a
life of privation when Paris was reached. Abélard’s thesis was “Do not
believe what you cannot understand”--the time-honored cry of the
independent thinker. The conservatives bided their time; there was no
use contending with a man in whom youth, beauty, learning and eloquence
flowered in a magical persuasiveness.
Unfortunately for Abélard’s career he was invited by Fulbert, a canon of
the cathedral, to enter his household as tutor of his niece, Héloise. It
was a rash experiment. In a narrow street of the Cité, twisting about in
the space north of the cathedral, the section where the canons and
canonesses used to live, there is still shown the site of the garden
where tutor and pupil, soon grown lovers, met in secret and plighted a
troth that was to bring upon them both suffering and shame--for Abélard
the end of his rise in the church, for Héloise, the cloister. They were
married and lived for a time where now stands number nine on the Quai
aux Fleurs, looking across the Seine to the right bank. Fulbert
separated them, but even the conservatives were shocked at the hideous
revenge which sent Abélard away from Paris only to be reunited with
Héloise after her death in a convent twenty years after the death of her
lover. To-day their tomb in Père Lachaise is the most visited of all
the resting places of the illustrious in this famous cemetery.
Louis VI (1108-1137), called “the Wideawake” and “the Fat,” was a
monarch who did much and planned more. Tall, handsome, energetic,
serious, he was the author of policies which in later days developed
important results. His accession found his kingdom surrounded by nobles
who were nominally his subjects but really enemies of uncommon vigor
awaiting the first chance to take their liege lord by surprise. He
needed something more than his present resources to cope with the
situation, and he met it by making for his son an advantageous marriage
which won him the adherence of Poitou and Guienne, and by permitting in
his adversaries’ domains, _but not in his own_, the establishment of
communes--self-governing towns which paid for their privileges by
supporting him against the nobles who ordinarily would have received
their feudal obedience. Both these steps proved of substantial value to
the crown, the first adding a large piece of territory to the royal
possessions in the next reign, and the other developing a new social
class, the _bourgeoisie_ or town dwelling class, whose democratic spirit
grew so rapidly that Louis IX in the next century had to check its
advance if he would have his own unchecked. It has never been long
subdued, however; it smoldered until it burst into the flame of the
Revolution; it persists to-day as the genius of the Third Republic.
Paris never was a commune, but, in compensation for remaining under the
rulership of the king and his provost (who lived in the Grand Châtelet
built to defend the northern end of the bridge from the Cité as the
Petit Châtelet held the southern bank) it received certain unusual
privileges. Among them was the monopoly of water transportation between
Paris and Mantes granted by Louis VI to the Corporation of Water
Merchants. This corporation was the most powerful of the merchants’
guilds in whose hands rested the municipal administration.
Louis’ methods, and those of his schoolmate and adviser, Suger, abbot of
Saint Denis, encouraged the growth of the city, for in this reign it
began once more to increase briskly on both banks of the river. As in
the earlier centuries, the pleasant country on the left bank proved more
attractive than did the rough land on the right. The south side
permitted streets to wander as widely as they willed, but on the north
the newcomers were pushed into a crowded section along the river. Marsh
and forest behind separated this compact district from Saint
Martin-des-Champs. Even at this early stage the northern settlement,
grouped around the Grève where the shipping was concentrated, was
becoming the business part of Paris. At a discreet distance outside were
the markets on exactly the spot where the Halles Centrales stand to-day,
and just within the settlement Louis built for the benefit of the market
men and women the church of Saint Jacques-la-Boucherie, now entirely
destroyed except for a sixteenth century tower which stands in ornate
dignity in a leafy square around which nineteenth century steam trams
and twentieth century automobiles hoot and whirl.
To Louis VI is attributed the building of the second city wall, piecing
out its predecessor so as to protect the suburbs on the right bank. He
was interested, too, in religious establishments. He added to the number
of the clergy of the chapel of Saint Nicholas near the palace, making
part of their emolument six hogsheads of wine apiece from his own
vineyards. He repaired Notre Dame, already five centuries old. He was a
patron of Saint Denis, where he had been educated and where he adopted
as the royal banner the _oriflamme_ of the saint. He dedicated a church
of the Cité to Sainte Geneviève in gratitude for her staying an epidemic
of fever. He had the heads of cattle carved over the door of the church
with which he honored Saint Peter--Saint Pierre-aux-Boeufs--for the
especial benefit of the butchers of the city.
On top of Montmartre, standing demurely to-day beside the glittering
basilica of the Sacred Heart, is the little church of Saint
Pierre-de-Montmartre built by Louis as the chapel of a Benedictine
abbey. Its restoration has been completed within the last decade, and
its cold, undecorated severity compels a realization of monastic
cheerlessness and of how acceptable must have been the reaction to the
colorful warmth and grace of the Gothic. Though their church was not
beautiful the Benedictines had no reason to be uncomfortable, for Louis
granted to them a whole village and sundry estates, and in addition such
eminently secular property as a monopoly of the baking privileges of
certain ovens, a slaughter-house, the confiscated house of an Italian
money-changer, and the exclusive right to fish in certain parts of the
Seine.
Up to this point the buildings mentioned have but little to show to
modern eyes beyond their ancient character and perhaps their form. A
Roman bath, a Merovingian tower on the Church of Saint Germain-des-Prés,
a rebuilt tower of Saint Martin’s Priory, two aged columns in Saint
Pierre-de-Montmartre--these are but fragments of the old constructions.
From this period on, however, it will become more and more usual to
find large portions of early buildings. One such is the church of Saint
Julien-le-Pauvre. Its date is a little later than that of the abbey
church of Saint Pierre-de-Montmartre. It is Gothic at its simplest, yet
its pointed windows and arches are prophetic of the beauty to come.
The story of Saint Julien, to whom the church is dedicated, is one of
tragic interest. A youth of noble family, he gave himself earnestly to
all the pursuits of his time and of his class, his one fault being his
love of the cruelties of the chase. One day a dying stag whose doe and
fawn he had killed prophesied that he would slay his own father and
mother. The prophecy came to pass and Julien, in horror at the
misfortune that had befallen him, left home and wife and wealth and
wandered in poverty through the world seeking whom he might help. At
last he established himself on a river bank in a hut where he sheltered
travelers through the night, and in the morning ferried them across the
stream. There he lived a life of expiation till death took him.
It was in the sixth century that a pilgrim’s hostel was built in Saint
Julien’s honor on the south side of the Seine. There Saint Gregory of
Tours lodged in 580, and there the Normans came in 886 and destroyed it.
In the twelfth century it was rebuilt as a part of the Abbey of
Longpont. Since then the unpretentious building has had a varied
history. At one time it served as the general assembly hall of the
University; again it became the chapel of the hospital, the Hôtel Dieu.
During the Revolution it served as a storehouse for fodder. At some time
the nave was destroyed, leaving in the present courtyard a well which
once was beneath the roof of the church. The existing edifice, which is
merely the choir of the twelfth century building, is used for the Greek
service.
Thanks to his father’s prudent arrangements Louis VII, called “the
Young” and “the Pious” (1137-1180), inherited a far larger and stronger
territory than had Louis VI. He was by no means his father’s equal in
intelligence or energy and his reign was unmarked by events notable
either for Paris or for France. His happiest days were those that he
spent in the cloisters of Notre Dame, he said. His father was happiest
in the field.
A few years after Louis’ accession he became involved in a quarrel with
the pope over a candidate for a bishopric. When the Count of Champagne
sided with the Holy Father Louis invaded his domains. During the siege
of the town of Vitry no fewer than thirteen hundred people who had taken
refuge in a church were burned to death with the destruction of the
building. Remorse for this disaster for which he was responsible made
him lend a willing ear to the exhortations of Saint Bernard, an opponent
of Abélard’s heresies who was now preaching the Second Crusade, and when
Pope Eugenius came in person to France he gave the French king the
pilgrim’s equipment and the _oriflamme_ of Saint Denis in the Saint’s
own church. The crusade ended in bitter disaster, and Louis died before
the Third Crusade was under way, but his interest in the Holy Wars led
to his patronage of the order of Knights Templar, which had been founded
to protect pilgrims to the Holy Sepulcher. At the time when Pope
Eugenius went to Paris there was a mighty gathering there of Templars,
and probably it was then that King Louis granted them the land not far
from the Priory of Saint Martin on which they built a huge
establishment, part fortification, part religious house, whose
surroundings they made fair by draining the marshes and converting waste
land into fruitful fields.
The king does not seem to have been the cause of much civic improvement
of Paris in spite of his long reign. He built an oratory to Notre
Dame-de-l’Étoile near the palace. If we may judge by his usual oath--“By
the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem”--it must have been he who gave the
name to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents and its chapel, though
probably they were established before his day. The burying ground was
near the Halles, and it was laid out when that section was far beyond
the crowded part of the town. By the time of the accession of Philip
Augustus (1180), however, the population had pushed northwards from the
busy river bank, the marsh had been made habitable, and the quickly
increasing cemetery stood on the outskirts of the town, not in the
country, and needed the wall which Philip gave it.
The Pont au Change, the bridge leading from the right bank to the island
near the palace--perhaps the very line which the Grand Pont drew across
the river at the time of the siege by the Normans--received its name at
this time. There were houses built upon it from end to end, and Louis
allowed the money-changers to do business upon it along one side and
permitted the goldsmiths to establish themselves on the other. For four
centuries this was the fashionable promenade of Paris until Henry IV
finished the Pont Neuf whose open expanse across the western tip of the
Cité gave more space for display. When a new king made his formal entry
into Paris it was customary for a huge flock of birds to be let loose
from the Pont au Change that they might carry the glad news abroad.
Eleanor of Aquitaine who had brought Louis and France so handsome a
dowry proved a wife whose conduct her husband could not countenance,
though he loved her with a stern fondness. Their marriage was annulled.
Within a few months Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet who became Henry
II of England and she gave her new husband possessions in France which,
added to those which he already had as lord of Normandy, Brittany, Anjou
and Maine, made him richer in French lands than the king to whom he owed
allegiance. Then began the friction between the two countries which it
has required centuries to still. Louis was twice married after his
separation from Eleanor. His last wife was Alix or Adelaide of
Champagne, whose marriage, consecration and coronation on a November day
in 1160 were the ceremonies of the last brilliant scene enacted within
the walls of the ancient Merovingian church of Notre Dame, soon to be
replaced by the building which ennobles the Cité to-day.
After Louis’ death there came to the throne a king for whom the
bird-sellers of the Pont au Change might properly have sent forth double
the usual number of feathered messengers of gladness, for Philip the
Great was to make France understand for the first time the spirit of
nationality, and under him Paris was to develop into the brain that
ordered the members.