THE HÔTEL CLUNY.
The Rue des Carmes--Comte de Mun and the Catholic Workmen’s Club--The
Place Maubert--The Palais des Thermes--The Hotel Cluny--Its History--Its
Art Treasures.
The street in which the Polytechnic School is situated bears its name,
and descending the northern slope of the so-called “mountain of
Sainte-Geneviève,” the “Street of the Seven Ways” takes, at the point
where the Rue de l’École Polytechnique crosses the Rue Saint-Hilaire,
the name of Rue des Carmes. In ancient times it contained, besides the
grand Couvent des Carmes founded in 1318, the College of Dace,
established for Danish students, the College of Soissons, where Peter
Ramus fell in the St. Bartholomew massacre, and finally the College of
the Lombards. At the end of a large courtyard, surrounded with gardens,
is seen the portico of a church with Ionic columns, whose pediment,
frightfully mutilated, has quite a tragic aspect. This is the chapel of
the ancient College of the Lombards, founded in 1334 by A. Chini of
Florence, bishop of Tournai. The college was then the “House of the poor
Italians” by the charity of the beneficent Marie. Three centuries later
it was falling into ruins when two Irish priests undertook to build it
up for the benefit of the priests and poor students of their country,
who for two centuries possessed this corner of the earth, when, on its
becoming too small, they abandoned it in 1776 and moved to the Rue
Cheval-Vert. The chapel was then for many years taken possession of by
industrial speculators, who turned it into shops and even into a stable.
It was restored to public worship through the activity of Comte de Mun.
In one part of the building is established the Catholic Workmen’s Club
of Sainte-Geneviève, which has existed since May, 1875, and which offers
to workmen and also clerks of all professions and trades a centre of
instruction and even of amusement. To this institution are due the
popular lectures (_Conférences Populaires_) delivered by M. Léon Gautier
of the Institute, Albert de Mun, Father Montsabre, M. d’Hulst, etc.
Without neglecting religious studies, the lecturers occupy themselves
with the most varied subjects, such as literature, political and social
economy, art and music. Here a certain number of workmen assemble every
evening and, above all, on Sunday, when, after hearing mass, they can
finish their day in an interesting and improving manner, reading books
and newspapers and taking part in various games.
The Workmen’s Club of Sainte-Geneviève is not the only one of the kind
in Paris; there are at least ten formed on the same plan and which reach
directly and surely, without any attempt at noisy propagandism, their
essential aim: that of depriving the dram shop and the tavern of their
prey.
The lower part of the Rue des Carmes leads to the market of the same
name and to the Place Maubert, which occupies the site of the ancient
convent. The cloister of the Couvent des Carmes was remarkable as a
masterpiece of architecture.
The Place Maubert was in the middle ages the true forum of the
University Quarter, the meeting place of the students, the boatmen of
the Seine, and market people from all parts of the country, as well as
the central academy of the language spoken by the populace. Thus it was
said of a man who was coarse in his talk that he had “learned his
compliments in the Place Maubert.” The “Compliments of the Place
Maubert” was indeed the title of a dictionary of plebeianisms. The name
of the place or square is corrupted from that of Jean Aubert, second
Abbé of Sainte-Geneviève. Receiving from all sides the outpourings of
six popular streets, the Place Maubert has witnessed many tumultuous
scenes. Here in 1418 assembled the partisans of Bourgogne who set out to
massacre the partisans of Armagnac in their prisons. Here were burnt as
heretics Alexandre d’Evreux and Jean Pointer in 1533; the mason Poille
in 1535, the goldsmith Claude Lepeintre in 1540, and finally, in 1546,
the printer Étienne Dolet, who, by his religious and political opinions
as well as by the bitterness of his polemical writings, had made for
himself implacable enemies. Across the Place Maubert was dragged the
body of Ramus, assassinated in 1572 at the College of Presles in the Rue
des Carmes. On one side of it were raised in 1588 the first barracks of
the partisans of the House of Guise against King Henri III., and sixty
years later the barricades of the Fronde.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL OF THE ANCIENT COLLEGE OF THE LOMBARDS.]
At a few steps from the Place Maubert stood, at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, in the Rue de Bièvre and the Rue des Grands Degrés,
two attorneys’ offices, where were engaged two young clerks destined one
day to dazzle the world of letters and of the stage. One was Crébillon;
the other Voltaire.
All kinds of famous houses existed on or in the immediate neighbourhood
of the Place Maubert: that, for instance, of Grandjean, the celebrated
surgeon and oculist to Louis XVI., and that of Marie Antoinette. Local
tradition assigns one of the houses to Gabrielle d’Estrées--“la belle
Gabrielle” of Henri IV., and here she may really have lived, though the
hostile critics of the tradition point out that the architecture of the
house does not take us further back than the reign of Louis XV. Part of
the house in question is now let out in artisans’ lodgings. On the
ground floor, painted red, is the Château Rouge, called also--it must be
feared with more than external significance--the Guillotine. A special
chapter is devoted to the Château Rouge by M. Macé, in his volume on
the police of Paris. It is composed of two large rooms, which are filled
from morning till night with the disreputable and dangerous classes;
close by is a lodging-house, constructed in the garden of the ancient
mansion, and let out entirely to Swiss workmen, who live together in the
most economical manner, and pass the gaping mouth of the Château Rouge
ten times a day without ever going in. It was at the tavern of the
Château Rouge that, in 1887, three men proposed, accepted, and carried
out among themselves a bet to throw a woman into the Seine simply for
amusement. The victim was a drunken rag-picker, and the stake was two
sous: the price of a small glass of brandy.
[Illustration: PLACE MAUBERT, WITH THE STATUE OF ÉTIENNE DOLET.]
In the immediate neighbourhood of the University and the Sorbonne, in
the very heart of the district of the schools, are two of the most
ancient and interesting buildings in Paris: the Palais des Thermes,
which carries us back to the Lutetia of the Romans, and the Hôtel Cluny,
which recalls mediæval Paris. The Palace of the Hot Baths is in ruins,
but these ruins of a building which dates from the third century contain
monuments more ancient than themselves.
The Bath-house of the Romans was at the same time a citadel; it is said
to have been built in the reign of the Emperor Constantine Chlorus, who
inhabited Lutetia from 287 to 292. In the year 360 Julian the Apostate
was proclaimed emperor in this palace by the army and the people, and
the palace is still generally known as the Thermæ of Julian. This honour
was due to him by reason of his special predilection for his “dear
Lutetia.” After him, the Emperors Valentinian and Gratian passed at this
palace the winter of 365.
Independently of the interest presented by the Palais des Thermes as a
survival of Roman Paris, and of the Hôtel Cluny, as a type of French
architecture, these two monuments shelter a museum in which have been
brought together numerous specimens of curiosities and wonders of all
kinds--some only of antiquarian, others both of antiquarian and of
artistic interest. In the time when Paris was a Gallo-Roman city there
existed on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the island which was to
be known as that of the City, a palace surrounded with immense gardens,
whose green lawns sloped down even to the edge the river. The Norman
invaders laid a portion of it in ruins, and the edifice was by no means
in good condition as a whole when, in 1218, Philip Augustus gave it to
his chamberlain, Henri. Soon afterwards the old buildings and the
gardens connected with them were broken up and apportioned, and towards
the end of the eighteenth century the Bishop of Bayeux sold the remains
of the Palace des Thermes to Pierre de Chalus, the Abbé of Cluny. The
monks of this abbey had plenty of means; and as they did not buy to sell
again, they remained proprietors of the Palace of Julian up to the time
of the Revolution. The ruins were then made over to private persons,
who, without regard to the majesty of history, introduced houses and
shops in the midst of the Roman remains. Louis, as a lettered monarch,
endeavoured to save the ruins from these profanations of the infidels,
and he seems even to have entertained the thought of turning the remains
of the ancient edifice into a sort of museum, but he did not carry out
his idea; it was not until the reign of Louis Philippe that the town of
Paris regained possession of the Palais des Thermes. It ceded the relic
to the State in 1843.
After the lapse of so many centuries the astonishing thing is that one
stone of the ancient Roman edifice should now remain. The part of the
original edifice which Time has spared is that which enclosed the Hot
Baths. The large hall, with its highly-imposing vaulted roof, was the
Hall of the Cold Baths: the so-called Frigidarium. The place occupied by
the fish-tank can still be recognised, and the remains may be seen of
the canals which brought the water into the baths. Bricks and stones
have been alternately employed in the walls, whose surface has been
blackened by “sluttish Time,” and impaired in all sorts of ways. This
hall has had the most varied fortunes, and for a long time it served as
depôt to a cooper, who here stowed away his casks and barrels.
The other portions of the edifice present a purely archæological
interest. Going out of the large hall just mentioned and crossing the
narrow vestibule, one enters the Tepidarium; but here the vaulted roof
has disappeared, and the spectator has nothing around him but crumbling
walls. A few steps further on he will come to sub-structures which are
evidently the remains of the reservoirs.
The ancient ruin has become a dependence of the more modern Hôtel Cluny.
It is a marvellous relic of the fourteenth century; fragments of
statues, bas-reliefs, mutilated inscriptions, art relics dug up from
under the earth have been collected in the great hall of the
“Frigidarium.” These remains of Gallo-Roman art show the very
foundations of French history. Here is the famous inscription which sets
forth that the “Parisian boatmen” raised under the reign of Tiberius a
statue in honour of Jupiter. Close by are enormous blocks of stone,
borrowed from the pavement of primitive Lutetia. In the midst of these
fragments of columns, of these empty tombs, one figure remains
untouched: it is the statue of Julian the Apostate. This sculpture
recalls to those who might have forgotten it the carriage and character,
the origin and type, of this strange emperor. Is not his hierarchic
attitude that of an Asiatic satrap? Is not the calm countenance that of
an Oriental prince?
By the side of the ancient palace of the Roman emperors the Hôtel Cluny
seems quite young, and we shall doubtless be more at our ease in an
edifice which is not yet four hundred years old. When, in the fourteenth
century, Pierre de Chalus bought the Palais des Thermes and the land
surrounding it, he intended to construct, near the college of his order,
a residence which might afford lodging to abbés of Cluny when they were
making their frequent visits to Paris. This project does not seem to
have been carried into execution; and it was under Charles VIII. that
one of the successors of Pierre de Chalus, Jean de Bourbon, founded the
building so much admired in the present day. He was not, however,
destined to complete it; the Hôtel Cluny, after many delays, was
terminated towards the end of the reign of Charles VIII. by Jacques
d’Amboise, Abbé of Jumièges, and Bishop of Clermont, one of whose
brothers was the famous minister of Louis XII., while the other was
grand-master of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem. All the members of
this family seem to get animated by the spirit of the time. Jacques
d’Amboise--man of letters, collector, and, in his way, an artist--was
one of the moving spirits of the French Renascence. The Hôtel Cluny
belongs, indeed, to that ancient time when art becomes softer and more
graceful without losing altogether the severity of the past.
[Illustration: PATRONS OF THE CHÂTEAU ROUGE.]
[Illustration: RUE DE BIÈVRE.]
The former residence of Jacques d’Amboise is enclosed on the side of the
Rue des Mathurins by a high crenelated wall. In the interior the
different apartments have lost very little of their original character,
but modifications have of necessity been made; and as the museum needs
light the number of the windows has been increased. The chapel retains
in all respects its primitive style. The picture of the two Marys
weeping over the dead Christ dates from the end of the reign of Louis
XII. Of the glass windows which at the time of Jacques d’Amboise adorned
the chapel, one alone has remained intact--that in which the Bearing of
the Cross is represented. Little enough, then, survives of the past in
this building, which has sheltered, one after the other, so many
different inmates, some of them sufficiently careless about matters of
art. The Hôtel Cluny has been inhabited by Marie of England, widow of
Louis XII., by James V., King of Scotland, by Cardinal de Lorraine, and
the Duke of Guise; here, under Henry III., the Italian actors
represented their pastoral love scenes. Towards the end of the
eighteenth century Moutard the printer occupied the principal
apartments; and a member of the Academy of Sciences, Messier, had
installed above the chapel a sort of observatory. After the Revolution
the hôtel passed from hand to hand, and it would perhaps have
disappeared, to give place to a modern house, when a member of the Court
of Accounts, M. Alexandre du Sammerard, bought, in 1833, the former
residence of the Abbés de Cluny, in order to place within its walls
archæological curiosities, precious furniture, and mediæval objects of
art which he had made it his pleasure to collect. At his death, nine
years later, the Chamber of Deputies passed, on the report of François
Arrago, a resolution authorising the Government to buy in the name of
the State M. de Sammerard’s collections and the edifice which held them.
A credit of five hundred thousand francs having been voted for this
double acquisition, the Musée des Thermes et de l’Hôtel Cluny was
founded in virtue of the law of 24th July, 1843.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE PALAIS DES THERMES.]
Since then the collection has been considerably increased, partly
through liberal donations from private persons, partly through
excavations undertaken by the State. The catalogue of the museum
registers nearly four thousand objects of art. One of the most
interesting of these is the altar-piece of the Chapel of
Saint-Germer--unhappily much mutilated--in which the chisel of a master
of the thirteenth century has represented the Passion of Christ and the
legendary adventures of the holy patron of the Church. The heads of all
the personages have been broken; the colour and the gilding which
covered their vestments have partly disappeared; but in what remains of
the altar-piece one sees attitudes which are full of character, and is
impressed by a certain simplicity which approaches grandeur. There is
more emotion in the statuettes detached from the tomb of the Duke of
Burgundy at the Chartreuse of Dijon. These figures of marble date from
the last days of the fourteenth century, and represent the servants of
the duke, with writers and chaplains attached to his household. Monks
are seen weeping beneath the hood which covers their face. The uncovered
faces, full of life and expression, are evidently portraits. Close by,
the spirit and grace of the Renascence may be seen in several admirable
specimens: such as the Venus, partly broken, which is attributed, with
more or less reason, to Jean Cousin, and the sleeping statuette of a
naked woman whose head seems lost in a dream. The delicate style of the
sculpture seems to reveal an Italian hand. Less perfect in execution,
but equally interesting, is that Ariadne which, by a strange
coincidence, was found in the Loire opposite that Château of Chaumont
where another woman in despair, Diana of Poitiers, had been shut up by
Catherine de Médicis after the death of Henry II. It is the same Diana,
this time accompanied by her two daughters, which tradition recognises
in the statue attributed to Germain Pilon.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CLUNY MUSEUM, RUE DU SAMMERARD.]
The ivories of the Hôtel Cluny are among its greatest treasures. In this
collection ivory work of every period and in every style may be found.
The mysterious statuette of a woman crowned by two genii dates from the
fourth century. It was discovered in a tomb on the borders of the Rhine.
This statuette is surrounded by a number of marbles representing
divinities of various kinds, and is classed, therefore, with the works
styled Pantheistic. In one hand this strange figure holds a sceptre
bursting into blossom; in the other an oval vase. The style recalls at
once classical art and the art of Byzantium. By the side of the ancient
statuette is a less ancient bas-relief, representing the marriage of the
Princess Theophania with Otho II., who was Emperor of the West from 973
to 983. Here we see the art of the lower Empire: an art of stiff
symmetrical forms, but full of barbaric richness. Of the same period, or
nearly so, is “The Virgin holding the Infant Jesus on her knees”: a
solemn hieratic group. To the eleventh century belongs the cross of
Saint Anthony, found in the tomb of Morard, Abbé of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
Another work of the highest value is the shrine of Saint Yved (twelfth
century), from the Abbey of Braisne. This reliquary, in the form of a
rectangular casket, is decorated on all sides with figures in relief
of elaborate workmanship. Of the same epoch, or still earlier, are
the sheets of ivory used for the binding of the Gospels, on which
are painted admirable pictures in illustration of the Divine books.
The ivory looking-glass frame, representing two figures, which are
supposed to be those of Saint Louis and of Blanche de Castille, comes
from the treasure of Saint Denis. The pastoral staff which, twice
ennobled, belonged, first to the famous Debruges-Dumesnil collection,
and afterwards to the collection of Prince Soltykoff, dates from the
thirteenth century. The rod of ivory is crowned with a lion in boxwood,
enriched with precious stones.
The little monument known as the “oratory of the Duchess of Burgundy” is
an ivory on which are related, by means of numerous figures, here the
history of Jesus Christ, there that of John the Baptist. It comes from
the Chartreuse of Dijon; and by the memoirs of Philippe le Hardi, it
would seem that the author was a certain Berthelot.
Eight crowns of massive gold, enriched with pearls and precious stones,
were one day dug from the earth at Guarazzar in the neighbourhood of
Toledo. They were followed soon afterwards by another crown, belonging
evidently to the same hidden treasure. Until then it was scarcely
suspected that the Visigoth kings knew what gold-work meant. One of the
crowns, however, purchased for the Cluny Museum, bears the words:
“Reccesvinthus rex offeret.” Reccesvinthus reigned in Spain from 653 to
672. On a second crown may be read, in characters struck with the
hammer, the name, not yet explained, of Sonnica. The other crowns bear
no inscription. Archaeologists are unable to decide whether the largest
of these crowns was ever worn. But the one inscribed with the name of
Reccesvinthus was used, it is held, at the coronation of that king by
the Bishop of Toledo. They were, however, offered to the Virgin, and
suspended in one of the chapels consecrated to her. The supposition is
entertained that at the time of the Arab invasion these precious
offerings of the Visigoth king were buried by the Christians. They came
to light centuries afterwards, to tell of the magnificence of these
almost legendary sovereigns, and of the skill possessed by their
artificers for moulding and cutting gold in every style, besides
enriching it with incrustations of sapphires and pearls. The gold altar
given by the Emperor Henry III. to the Cathedral of Bâle at the
beginning of the eleventh century is another rare and remarkable work.
The character of the design, and what is known as to the origin of the
monument, have caused it to be attributed to Lombard artists. From the
treasury of the same church comes the Golden Rose, given to the Bishop
of Bâle by Pope Clement V. at the beginning of the fourteenth century.
But in this part of the museum the glass cases contain innumerable
specimens of the religious work of the Middle Ages. Among the curios of
the thirteenth century may be cited a large cross adorned with filigree
work and precious stones in relief. This was one of the treasures of the
Soltykoff collection. Nuremberg is represented by the shrine of Saint
Anne, executed in 1472 by Hans Grieff. The flesh of the figure is
painted. From the same epoch may be dated the “Crossbow Prize,” an
admirable piece of smith’s work in wrought silver, chased and gilt. As
the works of the sixteenth century, we find a large mechanical piece,
more singular than beautiful, in the form of a vessel on which, among
the personages in enamelled gold, grouped around the steering apparatus,
may be recognised Charles V. in the midst of a crowd of high dignitaries
of the Imperial Court. A mechanism concealed within the ship makes the
figure move, musical instruments play, and cannons roar. The museum
possesses also, in a mixed style, belonging at once to art and science,
clocks and watches of the Renascence and of the seventeenth century. Nor
must the visitor pass by the famous basin of François Briot, made in
pewter with an artistic taste which would not be thrown away on the
finest gold. The iron-work consists chiefly of Gothic locks and bolts,
once attached to the doors and gates of feudal mansions. Here, too, are
the keys, finely worked, of the Château Anest, which Diana of Poitiers
may well have touched with her delicate hand. The Hôtel Cluny is famous,
moreover, for its collection of ancient arms: Toledo blades of tragic
aspect, bearing the names of the great burnishers of the time; armour of
war or of parade, carved and damasked by the artificers of Milan;
helmets, pikes, muskets, shields; all the formidable instruments of
attack with all the ingenious instruments of defence. In the armoury of
the Hôtel Cluny may likewise be seen some fine specimens of Oriental
work; though the finest creations of this special art are preserved, not
at the Hôtel Cluny, but at the Museum of Artillery.
The masterpieces in wax-work will next demand our attention; and here
Italy, which in almost every other art has the right to pass first, may
perhaps be asked to give precedence to Spain. The Spanish-Moorish
specimens are above all admirable. As for the Italian works, they are
very numerous, and for the most part well chosen. Apart from the
medallions of Lucca della Robbia, which belong to sculpture as much as
to waxwork, the plates suspended on the walls, the cups enclosed beneath
the glass, are all interesting, and are nearly all of Italian make. A
product from the workshops of Faenza, which, in France, gives its name
to crockery in general (_faience_), adorned with the monogram of Christ
in Gothic characters, bears the date of 1475. The work is quite archaic;
but Faenza can also show plates and cups which tell of the progress and
also of the decadence of this centre of a special art, so active in the
sixteenth century. Urbino, the birthplace of Raphael, and Pesaro, the
birthplace of Rossini, are also represented, together with Rimini,
Caffagiolo, Castel-Durante, and, above all, Gubbio, with the
masterpieces of its illustrious potter, Giorgio Andreoli. The word seems
appropriate when one contemplates the fine plate representing Dædalus,
dated 1533, and the two cups relieved with gold, on which smile, from a
rainbow-tinted background, two charming women: “Angela Bella,” “Dianara
Bella.” These cups, which now form the admiration of artists, served
formerly to receive the presents made by the lover to his mistress.
Superb types of the Gubbio work in the sixteenth century are as bright
and pure as if they had come yesterday from the hands of the potter.
French pottery is also conspicuous at the Hôtel Cluny, both in its
ancient and in its modern glory. Specimens of enamelled terracotta,
dating from the thirteenth century, are first to be seen. Then one
remarks a cup decorated with arabesques encrusted in brown on a whitish
ground. These famous styles of pottery used to be vaguely connected with
the name and period of Henry II.; but they are at present known to have
been made at Oiron, in Poitou, by François Cherpentier, the humble
workman of Madame de Boisy.
The Hôtel Cluny contains many of the best works of Bernard Palissy, the
famous artist whose life was a long martyrdom and, for his wife, it must
be feared, a long torture; for if it was noble on the part of the
husband to sacrifice the household furniture to the perfection of an art
to which he was devoted, it must have been painful for the perhaps less
enthusiastic wife to hear it crackling within his furnaces. In seeking
to determine which of the numerous alleged specimens of this artist’s
work really belong to him, connoisseurs have been aided by Time, which,
destroying the imitations, seems to have preserved the genuine ones
alone. Even the charming little figure of the Nurse, for a long time
attributed to Palissy, is now said to be from another and later hand.
Nevers, Rouen, Moustiers, and the various centres of French pottery, are
worthily represented at the Hôtel Cluny, either by isolated pieces or by
groups, and even entire collections.
The stained glass at the Hôtel Cluny is for the most part of Swiss or of
German origin. The enamels are of every country and every age. Nine
enamelled plates of exceptionally large dimensions were painted by
Pierre Courtoys in 1559 for the Château de Madrid, in the Bois de
Boulogne. The figures--the largest, perhaps, that were ever executed in
enamel--represent Justice, Charity, Prudence, and six other mythological
divinities, more astonishing than attractive. A remarkable triptych, or
picture with shutters, whose painter is unknown, but which belonged to
Catherine de Médicis, represents on the central panel the queen on her
knees, in widow’s dress, before a crucifix. Her initials, with those of
Henry II., adorn this curious relic. Close by are enamelled cups and
plates by Pierre Rémond, Nardon Penicaud, and Jean Courtoys, with many
works, justly esteemed, by the great enameller Leonard Limousin,
remarkable among these being a fine portrait of Eleonora of Austria,
sister of Charles V. and Francis I.
The piece of Florentine mosaic in the first hall of the museum ought not
to pass unnoticed. It has been described by Vasari; and the Virgin and
Child which it represents are the genuine work of Ghirlandaio. Executed
at Florence in 1496, it was brought to France by Jean de Ganay,
President of the Parliament of Paris. The works of this famous mosaist
are now very rare. The one preserved at the Hôtel Cluny is relatively in
sound condition, and gives a good idea of the great mosaics which
adorned the churches of Tuscany.
The Cluny Museum has no claim to be considered a picture-gallery. It
contains, however, a certain number of canvases, illustrating the
manners, the costumes, or the furniture of particular periods. The best
critics deny that the Jesus in the Garden of Olives is the work of
Gentile di Fabriano, to whom the catalogue attributes it. Nor, according
to competent judges, is the hand of Primaticcio to be recognised in
that Venus who, standing by the side of Love, faces the spectator
smiling, and with an arrow in her hand. The painting is marked by
delicacy and refinement; but the style is not that of Primaticcio, nor
does the face of Venus reproduce the features of Diana of Poitiers, who,
according to some keen-sighted observers, is everywhere to be seen. A
more genuine interest is inspired by a few pictures of the fifteenth
century, some of Flemish, others of French origin. Very curious is the
Mary Magdalen attributed to King René. The repentant sinner is grieving
in the midst of a landscape whose background represents the city of
Marseilles. Another picture well worthy of notice is one which
represents two pictures in the same frame; on the one is represented the
coronation of David, on the other the coronation of Louis XII. The
author of this work is unknown, but the period is marked by the date of
Louis XII.’s coronation (1498); and it is presumable that the painter
was some artist of distinction attached to the Court. He was in any case
a man of ability, with a certain feeling for colour.
[Illustration: STAIRCASE, CLUNY MUSEUM.]
French painting of the sixteenth century is represented by the school of
Janet and his successors, but the true house decoration in those
luxurious days, when art was mixed up with every detail of life, was
tapestry. It was scarcely possible to feel dull in those vast halls,
whose walls were covered, and, so to say, animated by a number of
life-sized figures, now chasing the stag in picturesque woods, now
sitting down to sumptuous feasts, now breaking lances in tournaments and
jousts.
[Illustration: DORMER WINDOWS AT THE CLUNY MUSEUM.]
Many of these ancient tapestries have become worn out, less through the
action of Time--for they were admirably woven--than through the
carelessness of their possessors. The Hôtel Cluny preserves some of the
best that were ever produced. Take, for example, the Deliverance of St.
Peter, executed at Beauvais in the fifteenth century, or the ten
embroidered pictures which tell the history of David and Bathsheba, done
in Flanders under Louis XII. The biblical personages who figure in this
illustrated story are dressed, of course, in the latest fashion of the
year 1500; and the costumes are more interesting inasmuch as the
artist who furnished the cartoons for these pictures was undeniably,
with all his _naïveté_, an excellent draughtsman. Of another epoch, when
art was already on the decline, are the tapestries taken from the
arsenal, in which Henry IV. is represented as Apollo, Jeanne d’Albert as
Venus, and Marie de Médicis as Juno. The painter, in his passion for
allegory, has transformed into Saturn the king’s father, Antoine de
Bourbon. Many other tapestries, in various states of preservation, and
of which the colours have, in many cases, faded beneath the effect of
sunlight, possess both artistic and historic interest. The vestments
once worn by the Bishop of Bayonne were found in a tomb, and belong to
the twelfth century. All kinds of strange contrivances worn by women in
past ages (often, it must be supposed, against their will) are to be
seen in the Hôtel Cluny: collars, collarettes, baskets, farthingales,
girdles, and even high-heeled pattens, all made of iron.
The furniture preserved in the Hôtel Cluny is particularly fine, and is
as historical as it is artistically beautiful. Remarkable among the
examples of church furniture is the great sideboard of the Cathedral of
St. Paul, carved by a Cellini of the fifteenth century. He must have
spent his whole life at the work. Nor is the house furniture less
magnificent. Witness the delicate sculpture of the benches, the high
chairs with emblazoned backs, the chests for marriage gifts, the bed
which is said to have belonged to Francis I., the cabinets of all times
and of every shape, the harpsichords, the spinets, the gala carriages,
covered with gildings, the sledges, the sedan chairs, and a hundred
other objects of luxury: reminiscences of a time when between the
workman and the artist there was scarcely any distinction, and when
objects destined for the most common use were fashioned and adorned with
an elegance and grace which told of true artistic feeling.
In the ancient mansion of Jacques d’Amboise, innumerable other objects
might be pointed out either marvellous as works of art or deeply
interesting, as illustrating the daily life of past ages, which they
reproduce more vividly, perhaps, than any books could do.
Strange as it will appear to Englishmen, the Hôtel Cluny is not only
open to the public on Sundays, but is open to the public on Sundays
only. On other days permission to visit the museum must be obtained from
the Minister of Fine Arts. Exceptions are made in favour of foreigners
exhibiting their passports.