LA MONTAGNE STE-GENEVIÈVE
Rue de la Montagne Ste-Geneviève, leading to the hill-top from Boulevard
St-Germain, went in twelfth-century days by the unæsthetic name Rue des
Boucheries. Nearly every wall, every stone is ancient. In past ages
three colleges at different positions stood on its incline. The sign at
No. 40 dates from the time of the Directoire. A statuette of the saint
there in Revolution days was labelled, “A la ci-devant Geneviève;
Rendez-vous des Sans-Culottes.” And now we have before us the beautiful
old church St-Etienne-du-Mont. The _place_, in very early times a
graveyard, was laid out as a square in the fourteenth century and the
church burial ground was on the north-western side. The present church
dates as a whole from the early years of the seventeenth century, built
on the site of a thirteenth-century chapel dedicated to St-Etienne. The
_abside_ and the choir were built in early sixteenth-century years,
close up against the old basilic of the abbey Ste-Geneviève. Among the
people the church is still often referred to as l’Église Ste-Geneviève,
chiefly, no doubt, because the tomb of the patron saint of Paris is
there. The original _châsse_--a richly jewel-studded shrine--was
destroyed at the Revolution, melted down, its gems confiscated, the
bones of the Saint burnt. The stone coffin cast aside as valueless was
recovered, filled with such relics of Ste-Geneviève as could be
collected from far and near, and is now in the sumptuous shrine to which
pilgrimages are continually made. A smaller _châsse_ is solemnly carried
round the aisles of the church each year during the “neuvaine” following
January 3rd, the revered Saint’s fête day, when services are held all
day long, while on the _place_ without a religious fair goes on ...
souvenirs of Ste-Geneviève and objects of piety of every description are
offered for sale on the stalls set up upon the _place_ from end to end.
The church, showing three distinct styles of architecture, Romanesque,
Gothic, Renaissance, is especially remarkable for its rood-screen--the
only one left in a Paris church. It is rich, too, in exquisite stained
glass, beautiful woodwork, fine statuary. We see inscriptions and
epitaphs referring to Pascal, Rollin and many other men of note, buried
in the church crypt or in the graveyard of past days.
[Illustration: ST-ÉTIENNE-DU-MONT]
The Panthéon, the most conspicuous if not the most ancient or most
seductive building of this hill-top, was begun as a new church
Ste-Geneviève. Louis XV, lying dangerously ill at Metz, made a vow to
build on his recovery a church dedicated to the patron saint of Paris.
It was not begun till 1755, not solidly constructed then; slips followed
the erection of its walls, threatening collapse, and Soufflot, the
architect, died of grief thereat. The catastrophe feared did not happen;
the building was consolidated. Instead, however, of remaining a church
it was declared, in the Revolutionary year 1791, the Panthéon, with the
inscription, “Aux Grands Hommes de France, la Patrie reconnaissante.”
Napoléon restored it to the ecclesiastical authorities at the Concordat.
In 1830 it became again the Panthéon; was once more a church in
1851--then the Panthéon for good--so far--in 1885, when the body of
Victor Hugo was carried there in great state. Its façade is copied from
the Panthéon of Agrippa at Rome. It is noted for its frescoes
illustrative of the life of Ste-Geneviève, by Gros, Chavannes, Laurens
and other nineteenth-century artists. Rodin’s “Penseur” below the
peristyle was put there in 1906.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST-ÉTIENNE-DU-MONT (JUBÉ)]
The Faculté de Droit, No. 10, is Soufflot’s work (1772-1823). The
Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève, quite modern (1884), covers the site of the
demolished Collège Montaigu, founded in 1314. Ignatius Loyola, Erasmus
and Calvin were pupils there. All the surrounding streets stretch along
the site of ancient buildings, convents, monasteries, etc., swept away
but leaving here and there interesting traces. In Rue Lhomond débris of
the potteries once there have been unearthed. Michelet lived for a time
at the ancient hôtel de Flavacourt. No. 10, incorporated later in the
École Ste-Geneviève, of which the chief entrance door is a vestige of
the hôtel de Juigné, was the private abode of the Archbishop of Paris in
pre-Revolution days. Another part of the school was the home of Abbé
Edgeworth, confessor to Louis XVI in his last days. Yet another was the
Séminaire des Anglais, founded under Louis XIV. We find a fine façade
and balconies in the courtyard at No. 29, once the abode of a religious
community, now the lay “Institution Lhomond.”
The Séminaire des Missions des Colonies Françaises at No. 30 dates from
the time of Louis XIV. Fine staircase and chapel. The cellars of the
modern houses from No. 48 to No. 54 are those of the convent which
erewhile stood above them.
In Rue des Irlandais we see the college founded in 1755 for Irish,
Scottish and English priest-students. In Rue Rataud, once Rue des
Vignes, which led to a cemetery for persons who had died of the plague,
is, at No. 3, the orphanage of l’Enfant Jésus, formerly “Les Cent
Filles,” where the duchesse d’Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI, had
fifty young orphan girls educated yearly at her own expense.