PARIS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Charles VIII died without direct heirs and the crown fell to Louis XII,
a grandson of that duke of Orleans who had played so sorry a part in the
reign of Charles VI, the mad king, and who had been assassinated by the
ruffians of John the Fearless. This change threw the reigning line into
the hands of what is known as the Valois-Orleans family. Of that branch
of the Capets the most brilliant monarch was Francis I, Louis XII’s
successor, a son of his cousin, the count of Angoulême.
Three score years had passed after the fall of Constantinople when
Francis I came to the throne, young, alert, intelligent, progressive. He
was fond of literature and the arts, and the revival of ancient letters
and the importation of Italian paintings and architecture roused him to
vivid interest; he was ambitious and the discovery of America spurred
him to claim a share for France; the aspirations of Emperor Charles V,
urged him to dispute a rivalry which threatened his own career and the
integrity of his kingdom.
Louis XII had been called the “Father of his People” because of the care
with which he had nursed back to economic health the depleted forces of
France which Louis XI had begun to restore. It is even told of him that
he returned part of a tax after it had paid the demand for which it had
been levied. Such a proceeding was unknown before, and it is small
wonder that his subjects adored him. Francis reaped the benefit of his
predecessor’s social and financial intelligence.
Of united national feeling there was more at the beginning of Francis’s
reign than there ever had been, and power was more concentrated in the
king than it ever had been. Feudalism with its picturesque and brutal
individualism had been outgrown. With the disappearance of the need for
fortified dwellings the rural strongholds of the nobility were modified
into pleasant _châteaux_, while their masters, not obliged to stay at
home to be ready to fight quarrelsome neighbors, were free to join the
king in Paris or at Fontainebleau. Thus there was formed for the first
time a court consisting of more than the retinue necessary for the
conduct of the royal household. For the first time, too, the nobles
brought the women of their families to court, with the result that dress
and festivities became more brilliant than ever before, and language
developed a precision which marks this period as the beginning of the
use of Modern French.
Francis himself wrote not badly and his encouragement of writers won him
the title of “Father of French Letters.” Here is his tribute to the
intelligent favorite of Charles VII.
EPITAPH ON AGNES SOREL[3]
Here lies entombed the fairest of the fair:
To her rare beauty greater praise be given,
Than holy maids in cloistered cells may share,
Or hermits that in deserts live for heaven!
For by her charms recovered France arose,
Shook off her chains and triumphed o’er her foes.
Francis’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre, was equally enthusiastic and
talented and gathered about her a notable group of writers. Her
affection for her brother was extraordinarily tender. After his death
she wrote the following poem, translated in Longfellow’s “Poetry of
Europe.”
’Tis done, a father, mother gone,
A sister, brother torn away,
My hope is now in God alone,
Whom heaven and earth alike obey.
Above, beneath, to Him is known--
The world’s wide compass is his own.
I love--but in the world no more,
Nor in gay hall or festal bower;
Not the fair forms I prized before--
But Him, all beauty, wisdom, power,
My Savior, who has cast a chain
On sin and ill and woe and pain!
I from my memory have effaced
All former joys, all kindred, friends;
All honors that my station graced
I hold but snares that fortune sends;
Hence! joys by Christ at distance cast,
That we may be his own at last!
Francis founded the College of France in Paris for the study of
classical languages, testimony to the influence that had seized the
country after the southern expeditions of Charles VIII and Louis XII.
Francis’s establishment provided merely for the maintenance of a
faculty, and it was not until the next reign that the question of
housing separate from any of the existing schools came up. It was not
until the time of Marie de Medicis that the building really was
provided. Since that time the college has been rebuilt twice, restored
and enlarged until it is now an imposing pile rising on the Mont Sainte
Geneviève near the Sorbonne. Its lectures which are intended for adults
are free, and the institution is not a part of the University but is
under the Minister of Education.
Francis established a government printing office and permitted the use
of private presses though the books that issued from them were censored.
There was a time, indeed, when it became evident that men were thinking
for themselves and that untoward happenings were the result, when all
printing of books was forbidden. Étienne Dolet, scholar, writer and
printer, was one of those who suffered from the king’s inconstant mind.
He was charged with heresy, tortured, hung and finally burned with his
writings on the spot where his statue now stands in the Place Maubert.
This square is on the left bank, but the usual place for executions was
the Grève in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Near the Halles was a pillory
which Francis rebuilt a quarter of a century after the people had
destroyed it. It was an open octagonal tower and the victims inside were
placed on a revolving platform so that they might be exposed to the
crowd below.
The gorgeous scene that was enacted when Francis made his formal entry
into Paris after the death of Louis XII was indicative of the brilliance
and extravagance of his whole reign. It was his superior magnificence
that lost him the partisanship of Henry VIII of England whose eyes he
over-dazzled at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It was indeed well that
he fell heir to Louis XII’s savings! The procession, according to the
Austrian “special envoy,” was both “beautiful and gorgeous,” and
Francis, arrayed in glistening armor, played to the gallery by making
his handsome horse, white-and-silver decked, rear and prance so that his
royal rider might display his horsemanship.
In the course of Francis’s prolonged contest with Charles V--a struggle
in which he was even imprisoned at Madrid--he had many opportunities to
see in Italy and Spain the art of a former time and the work of
contemporary painters and sculptors as well. Not only did he send home
many examples which were given him or which he captured or bought, but
he invited to France Leonardo da Vinci, then an old man, Andrea del
Sarto and Benvenuto Cellini. To the latter he gave a lodging in the
Hôtel de Nesle, that left bank palace of which the Tour de Nesle was a
part, on condition that he secured possession of it himself, as the king
had previously made a present of it to the provost. Cellini armed his
helpers and servants and defended his gift with such ferocity that the
provost left him alone.
The king’s influence weighed heavily on the side of the humanist
reaction against the austerities of art and life which had developed
under the influence of an all-dominant church. The pendulum swung back
and painters and sculptors chose less ascetic themes for brush and
chisel. From Francis’s time on there was also a keen interest in
portraiture.
A man of this king’s nature was not content to stay long in one place.
When war was not making its demands upon him he was visiting all parts
of his kingdom and spending no little time in the districts where
hunting was good and where he built splendid _châteaux_ so that he and
his retinue might be comfortably housed. Fontainebleau and St.
Germain-en-Laye are the two best known, while the _château de Madrid_ in
the Bois de Boulogne, adjoining the town was a charming retreat from the
noise of the city. Except for a small bit included in a restaurant this
building is no longer in existence, but in the Cours la Reine on the
right bank facing the Seine is the small “House of Francis I” which the
king built at Moret in 1572, and which an admirer bought and removed to
Paris in 1826. It is an exquisite example of Renaissance architecture.
During the peaceful moments of the reign, there was a craze for building
and Italian architects were offered handsome inducements to exercise
their talents on French soil. It was a French architect, however, Pierre
Lescot, who pulled down the Great Tower, the oldest part of the Louvre,
and designed that portion which Francis and his son, Henry II, built,
the southwestern corner of the eastern quadrangle. Henry’s initial,
combined with the “D” and crescent of Diane de Poitiers, are visible in
many places. Francis’s signature was the salamander, whose lizard-like
length fitted comfortably into many decorative schemes.
Below the Great Tower there must have been a bed of soft earth of some
sort, for it was found to be almost impossible to fill the huge hole
left when the Tower was demolished. The populace saw in the strange
sinking of the material dumped into the cavity the fulfillment of a
legendary threat that, the fortress being meant to stand forever, its
fall would be marked by untoward happenings. In fact it was nearly three
hundred years before modern engineering knowledge was able to stop the
seepage that caused the trouble.
During one of the intervals of peace with Charles V the emperor visited
Paris. Indeed it was the necessity for making elaborate preparations for
his visit that brought about the rebuilding of the Louvre whose
dilapidation had not been appreciated before. The emperor was met
outside the eastern wall and presented with the keys of the city. At the
Saint Antoine gate there was a triumphal arch and the cannon of the
Bastille roared a greeting as the monarch passed
[Illustration: THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE, FOUNDED BY FRANCIS I IN 1530.
See page 202.]
[Illustration: HOUSE OF FRANCIS I ON THE COURS-LA-REINE.]
beneath it. Farther on the procession stopped for the imperial guest to
witness an allegorical play depicting the friendship of France and
Germany. Over the Notre Dame Bridge, covered with ivy, Charles went to
the cathedral and then to the palace of the Cité, where he supped.
During his visit of a week he stayed at the Louvre, and was so
brilliantly entertained that upon his departure he exclaimed, “Other
cities are merely cities; Paris is a world in itself.”
The chief churches built in Francis’s reign were Saint Étienne-du-Mont
(on the site of an earlier edifice) in which Sainte Geneviève’s ashes
now rest, Saint Eustache, the church of the market people at the Halles,
and the flamboyant tower of Saint Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. This tower is
the last expression of the Gothic, while Saint Étienne and Saint
Eustache show the Transition combination of Gothic and Renaissance.
Étienne Marcel’s Maison aux Piliers had been but a second-hand affair.
By 1530 a new City Hall was imperative. Its corner stone was laid amid
feasting on the open square with bread and wine for all comers and cries
of “Long live the king and the city fathers!” This enthusiastic
beginning did not foretell quick work, however, for eighty years elapsed
before the building was done. Its style was the same that it is to-day
except in the development of details.
[Illustration: CELLIER’S DRAWING OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE IN 1583.]
It was the old Maison aux Piliers that had seen the dinner given to
Queen Claude by the city fathers on the occasion of her entrance into
Paris after Francis’s accession. Louis XII’s third queen, Mary, an
English princess, was the first royal lady whom the city fathers had
ventured to invite to partake of their hospitality. The occasion had not
been entirely successful, for so great a throng pressed in to the city
hall to observe the unusual guests that the waiters “hardly had room to
bring the food upon the tables.” The arrangements for Queen Claude’s
entertainment included precautions against such an invasion. When the
great day came the provost of the Merchants and the lesser officials,
clothed flamingly in red velvet and scarlet satin and followed by
representatives of the guilds of drapers, grocers, goldsmiths, dyers,
and so on, went to a suburb to meet their lady and act as her escort,
and her majesty was graciously appreciative of all their attentions.
While the Renaissance, humanism and the discovery of the New World were
exciting men to new interests they also did their part in promoting
independence of thought. With ability to read the Bible in the original
came questioning of previous interpretations. There grew up both within
and without the Church a desire to reform it, and with Calvin and Luther
there came into expression not only a protest against the present state
of affairs but a formulation of a new belief. Rabelais and Montaigne in
their vastly different ways worked toward the same end. The movement
proved to be one of those appeals which spread like a flame when the air
touches it. Rich and poor, noble and simple responded to the plea, and
Francis found himself the ruler of people ready to fly at each other’s
throats and clamoring for him to let loose the dogs of persecution.
Francis was a Catholic and condemned Protestantism in Francis, but in
Germany he allied himself to the Protestant party against the emperor.
Henry II (1547-1559), Francis’s son, did the same--and won some
territory by the manoeuver--although he had strengthened his Catholic
interests by marrying Catherine de Medicis, a niece of the Pope, and
showed himself by no means friendly to the democratic ideas which the
new religion fostered. His strength constantly was spent against the
movement even to the end of his reign when he made an alliance for
purposes of persecution with Philip II of Spain, husband of “Bloody
Mary” of England. One of the first fruits of this union with the land of
the Inquisition was the trial of a distinguished member of the
Parliament, Anne du Bourg. Henry’s death merely interrupted the
examination and du Bourg was burned on the Grève before the City Hall.
The Paris Protestants or Huguenots lived chiefly in the Faubourg Saint
Germain on the left bank.
Henry’s chief exploit was the capture of Calais which had been in the
hands of the English ever since the Hundred Years’ War, and whose loss
meant so much to Queen Mary of England that she is said to have declared
that when she died “Calais” would be found written on her heart.
The celebration in Paris of the capture of the long-lost city was one
of the greatest possible failures. The main festivity was to be in the
evening at the Maison aux Piliers. It poured in torrents sufficient to
put a literal as well as a figurative damper on any pleasure-making.
When Henry arrived at the Place de Grève the salutes of artillery
frightened his horses and he was almost thrown down as he alighted from
his carriage. At supper the crowd was so great that it was almost
impossible to get anything to eat. The main part of the program within
the hall was a play by the poet Jodelle who has left an amusing account
of the evening of “My Disaster.” There were twelve actors in his musical
sketch, he says. Of these six were so hoarse that they could not be
heard, and the remaining six did not know their parts. One of the
characters, Orpheus, was to sing a song in the king’s praise so
literally moving that the very stones followed the singer about the
stage. But, alas, the property man had misunderstood his orders and
instead of preparing two rocks (_rochers_) he had arranged two steeples
(_clochers_). When the unfortunate author, who had a part himself, saw
these unexpected constructions coming across the stage he forgot his own
lines, so utter was his amazement and misery.
Henry’s restless reign left him little time to spend in Paris or to
devote to its beautifying. Whenever he came to the city festivities of
all sorts ran high and the citizens paid for it all, though their temper
grew sullen as the demands and the power of the crown increased. Henry
expected the city fathers to meet expenses which they, quite reasonably,
classed as personal matters; for instance, a charge for the food and
shelter and care of a lion, a dromedary and a jaguar, which had been
sent to the king from Africa.
Beyond the strengthening of the right bank fortifications, some addition
to the palace of the Cité, and the continuation of the new Hôtel de
Ville and of Francis I’s Louvre Henry did practically no building. His
“H,” sometimes interlaced with his wife’s “C” and sometimes with Diane
de Poitiers’ initial topped by her crescent, is by no means so frequent
in Paris as, for example, in Fontainebleau, and other suburbs. In the
courtyard of the Palais des Beaux-Arts is the façade of the château
d’Anet which shows the monogram, and is a beautiful example of
renaissance architecture.
A needed charity was instituted by the establishment of a Foundling
Hospital. So usual was it to dispose of unwelcome infants that cradles
for their reception were placed in the porch of Notre Dame itself. The
hospital proved not an entire success, for about a century later Saint
Vincent de Paul found that sorcerers, beggars and gymnasts were buying
babies from the hospital at a franc apiece. His own foundation of a
children’s home came from a chance meeting with a beggar who was
breaking his purchase’s legs so that its wails might excite pity from
passers-by.
Henry’s death was brought about by one of those tragic happenings that
mar times of attempted gayety. Henry was marrying off his daughter and
his sister for political reasons and he arranged a double wedding. The
festivities included an elaborate supper in the Great Hall of the palace
of the City and a tournament in the rue Saint Antoine. The king himself
took part in the joust, by accident was mortally wounded by Montgomery,
the captain of the Scottish guards, and died in the near-by Hôtel des
Tournelles a few days after.