IN THE REGION OF THE SCHOOLS
THE SORBONNE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS
When St. Louis was on the throne of France the physician attendant upon
his mother, la Reine Blanche, died bequeathing a sum of money for the
institution of a college of theology. In consequence thereof Robert de
Sorbon built the school for theological study, a very simple erection
then, which developed into the great college adapted to studies of the
most varied character, known as the Sorbonne: that was in the year 1253.
Two hundred years later the first printing press in France was set up
there. In another nigh upon two hundred years Richelieu, elected Grand
Master of the college, built its church and rebuilt the surrounding
structure. Napoléon set the college in action on a vaster scale, after
its suppression at the Revolution, by making it the seat of the Académie
de Paris, the “home” of the Faculties of Letters and Science, as well as
of Theology. But the edifice was then again crumbling--in need of
rebuilding. Time passed, ruin made headway. Plans were made, and in 1853
the first stone of a new structure was laid. It remained a first stone
and a last one for many years. The modern walls we see were not built
till the close of the nineteenth century, finished in 1901. In the great
courtyard white lines mark the site of Richelieu’s edifice. The vast
building is richly decorated with statuary and frescoes. In its church
Richelieu seems still to hold sway. We see his coat-of-arms on every
side; over his tomb, the work of Girardon, hangs his Cardinal’s hat.
Another handsome monument covers the tomb of his descendant, the
minister of Louis XVIII. Many generations of Richelieu lie in the vault
beneath the chapel floor. The church is dismantled and partially
secularized. Grand classic concerts are held there during the Sundays of
term each year, but the Richelieu have still the right to be baptized,
married, buried there; the altar therefore has not been undraped.
Exactly opposite the Sorbonne, on its Rue des Écoles side, is the
beautiful Musée de Cluny, on the site of the ancient Palais des Thermes
of which the ruins are seen in the grounds bordered by the boulevard
St-Germain. The palace dates from Roman days. Julian was proclaimed
Emperor there. We see an altar from the time of Tiberius. The remains of
Roman baths--vestiges of the _frigidarium_, the _tepidarium_, the
_hypocaustum_, traces of the pipes through which the water flowed are
still there. In the fourteenth century Pierre de Chaslun, Abbot of
Cluny, bought the ruins of the ancient palace, and the exquisite Gothic
mansion we see was built close up against them. Many illustrious persons
found shelter within the home of the Abbots during the centuries that
followed. James V of Scotland stayed there. Men of learning were made
welcome there. In later times its tower was used as an observatory. The
Revolution put an end to the state and prestige of the beautiful
mansion. It was sold, parcelled out to a number of buyers, put to all
sorts of common and commercial uses, till, in 1833, M. de Sommerard,
whose name is given to the street on its northern side, acquired it
and set up there his own precious collection of things beautiful, the
nucleus of the Museum. The whole property was taken over later by the
Beaux-Arts under State protection for conservation. In the garden
numerous interesting relics of ancient churches, that of St-Benoît which
once stood near, and others, are carefully preserved.
[Illustration: LE MUSÉE DE CLUNY]
Rue Jean-de-Beauvais was in bygone days inhabited entirely by printers.
The Roumanian chapel there was the chapel of the famous College
Dormans-Beauvais, founded in 1370. Rue de Latran--modern--runs across
the site of the ancient _commanderie_ of the Knights of St. John of
Jerusalem.
In Rue des Carmes, dating from 1250, we see at No. 15 the ancient
College des Lombards, now the Cercle Catholique d’Ouvriers, founded
1334, rebuilt under Louis XIV by two Irish priests. The little chapel
there, dedicated now to “Jesus Ouvrier,” is paved with the gravestones
of the Irish clergy who came of yore to live and study there.
Rue Basse des Carmes stretches across the site of the demolished
Carmelite Convent. We are close now to the Collège de France, le Lycée
Louis-le-Grand and l’École Polytechnique.
Le Collège de France, Rue des Écoles, its beautiful west façade giving
on Rue St-Jacques, was founded as an institution by François I (1530);
its lectures were to be given in different colleges. The edifice before
us replaces this “Collège Royal,” built in the early years of the
seventeenth century, destroyed in the eighteenth century. It dates from
1778, the work of Chalgrin. Additions were made in the nineteenth
century. The numerous finely executed busts of noted scholars and
eminent professors are the work of the best sculptors of each period.
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Rue St-Jacques, on the site of four colleges
of bygone ages, dates in its foundation from 1550, rebuilt 1814-20,
restored 1861-85. In the court we see some of the ancient walls. It has
borne different names characteristic of the different periods of the
history of France. It began as the Collège de Clermont, from its
founder, the bishop; in 1682 it took the name of the King,
Louis-le-Grand. In 1792 it became Collège de l’Égalité; in 1800, Le
Pyrtanée; Lycée Imperial in 1802; Collège Royal-Louis-le-Grand in 1814;
Lycée Descartes in 1848, to revert to its present designation in 1849.
Many of the most eminent men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
were pupils there.
The Collège Ste-Barbe built in the sixteenth century was added to
Louis-le-Grand in 1764. Its tower goes by the name Tour Calvin, for this
was the Huguenot quarter. Here many of the persecuted Protestants were
in hiding at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Yet it was at Ste-Barbe
that Ignatius Loyola was educated.
Close around Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Collège de France, we find a
number of twelfth-and thirteenth-century streets condemned to
demolition, some of their houses already razed, those that remain
showing many interesting relics. Rue du Cimetière-St-Benoît, which
bordered the cemetery erewhile there; Rue Fromantel, the name a
corruption of _froid mantel_, or _manteau_, with its interesting
old-world dwellings; Impasse Chartrière, where at No. 2 we see an old
sign and a niche of the time of Henri IV, who was wont to visit his
“belle Gabrielle” here. No. 11 was, it is said, the entrance to the
King’s stables. At the junction of Rue Lanneau four streets form the
quadrangle where was erewhile the well “Certain,” so named after the
vicar of the old church St-Hilaire, once close by, discovered beneath
the roadway in 1894. Roman remains of great interest were found at that
time below the surface of all these streets. Rue Valette, eleventh
century, was once Rue des Sept Voies, for seven thoroughfares met there.
At No. 2, in the billiard-room of the old inn, we find vestiges of the
church St-Hilaire, once there. No. 19 dates from the fourteenth century,
and in the seventeenth century was a meeting-place of the Huguenots who
hid in its Gothic two-storied cellars. In Rue Laplace lived Jean de
Meung, author of _Le Roman de la Rose_. At No. 12 we see the entrance of
a vanished college, next door to which was the Collège des Écossais.
L’École Polytechnique stands on the site of the college founded in 1304
by Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, for seventy poor
scholars. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The last vestiges of
that rebuilding, a beautiful Gothic chapel, were swept away in 1875.
Traces of a Roman cemetery were found in 1906. The present structure
dates from the eighteenth century, the work of Gabriel. The house of the
Général-Commandant is the ancient Collège de Boncourt, founded in 1357.
In Rue Clovis, at the summit of the Montagne Ste-Geneviève stands the
Lycée Henri IV, dating as a school from 1796, known for several
subsequent years as Lycée-Napoléon. It recalls vividly the abbey which
once stood there. Its tower, known as the “Tour de Clovis,” rises from
the foundations of the eleventh-century abbey tower and was for long
used as the Paris Observatory. The college kitchen is one of the
ancient abbey cellars--cellars in three stories. Some of the walls
before us date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The library
founded by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld is the boys’ dormitory. A
cloister and seventeenth-century refectory are there intact. The pupils
go up and down a fine eighteenth-century staircase, and study amid
interesting frescoes and much beautiful woodwork. New buildings were
added to the ancient ones in 1873.