children's amusements among the trees; and booths, and tables of cakes,
and candy-women; and restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very
few people there; and doubtless we can form no idea of what the scene
might become when alive with French gayety and vivacity.
As we walked onward the Triumphal Arch began to loom up in the
distance, looking huge and massive, tho still a long way off. It was
not, however, till we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the
grandeur of this great arch, including so large a space of the blue sky
in its airy sweep. At a distance, it impresses the spectator with its
solidity; nearer, with the lofty vacancy beneath it. There is a spiral
staircase within one of its immense limbs; and, climbing steadily
upward, lighted by a lantern which the door-keeper's wife gave us, we
had a bird's eye view of Paris, much obscured by smoke or mist. Several
interminable avenues shoot with painful directness right toward it.
On our way homeward we visited the Place Vendôme, in the center of
which is a tall column, sculptured from top to bottom, all over the
pedestal, and all over the shaft, and with Napoleon himself on the
summit. The shaft is wreathed round and round about with
representations of what, as far as I could distinguish, seemed to be
the Emperor's victories. It has a very rich effect. At the foot of the
column we saw wreaths of artificial flowers, suspended there, no doubt,
by some admirer of Napoleon, still ardent enough to expend a franc or
two in this way.
The Hôtel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher,
David McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
We emerge from the Rue de Grenelle opposite the gardens to the north of
the magnificent Hôtel des Invalides, planned by Henri IV., and begun by
Louis XIV. in 1671, as a refuge for old soldiers, who, before it was
built, had to beg their bread on the streets.
The institution is under the management of the Minister of War, and
nothing can be more comfortable than the life of its inmates. The
number of these is now small; in the time of Napoleon I., when the
institution was called the "Temple of Mars," it was enormous.
On the terrace in front of the building are a number of cannon,
trophies taken in different campaigns. Standing before the hotel is the
statue of Prince Eugène. On either side of the entrance are statues of
Mars and Minerva by Coustou the younger. In the tympanum of the
semicircle over the center of the façade is Louis XIV. on horseback.
Behind the façade is a vast courtyard surrounded by open corridors
lined with frescoes of the history of France; those of the early
history on the left by Bénédict Masson, 1865, have much interest. In
the center of the façade opposite the entrance is the statue of
Napoleon I. Beneath this is the approach to the Church of St. Louis,
built 1671-79, from designs of Libéral Bruant, and in which many
banners of victory give an effect of color to an otherwise colorless
building....
The Tomb of Napoleon, under the magnificent dome of the Invalides,
which was added to the original church by Jules Hardouin Mansart, and
is treated as a separate building, is entered from the Place Vauban at
the back, or by the left cloister and a court beyond.
On entering the vast interior, a huge circular space is seen to open,
beneath the cupola painted by Charles de Lafosse and Jouvenet, and, in
it, surrounded by caryatides and groups of moldering banners, the huge
tomb of Finland granite, given by the Emperor Nicholas. Hither the
remains of the great Emperor were brought back from St. Helena by the
Prince de Joinville, in 1841, tho Louis Philippe, while adopting this
popular measure as regarded the dead, renewed the sentence of exile
against the living members of the Bonaparte family.
Four smaller cupolas encircle the great dome. In the first, on the
right, is the tomb of Joseph Bonaparte. On the left are the tombs of
Jerome Bonaparte, with a statue, and of his eldest son and the Princess
Catherine of Wurtemberg. The other two cupolas are still empty.
Descending the steps behind the splendid baldacchino, we find
black-marble tombs of Marshals Duroc and Bertrand guarding the approach
to that of Napoleon I. His own words, taken from his will, appear in
large letters over the entrance: "I desire my ashes to lie on the
shores of the Seine among the people of France whom I loved so deeply."
The sentiment, the tomb, and the dome have a unique splendor. A
white-marble statue of Napoleon I. by Stuart is in a black-marble
chapel. His Austerlitz sword, the crown voted by Cherbourg, and colors
taken in his different battles, were formerly shown in a "chapelle
ardente."
The Palais de Justice and the Sainte Chapelle
By Grant Allen
[Footnote: From "Paris."]
Go along the Rue de Rivoli as far as the Square of the Tour St.
Jacques. If driving, alight here. Turn down the Place du Châtelet to
your right. In front is the pretty modern fountain of the Châtelet;
right, the Thèâtre du Châtelet; left, the Opéra Comique. The bridge
which faces you is the Pont-au-Change, so-called from the
money-changers' and jewelers' booths which once flanked its wooden
predecessor (the oldest in Paris), as they still do the Rialto at
Venice, and the Ponte Vecchio at Florence.
Stand by the right-hand corner of the bridge before crossing it. In
front is the Ile de la Cité. The square, dome-crowned building opposite
you to the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward
lie the Marché-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hôtel-Dieu, above
which rise the towers and spire of Notre Dame. In front, to the right,
the vast block of buildings broken by towers forms part of the Palais
de Justice, the ancient Palace of the French kings, begun by Hugh
Capet. The square tower to the left in this block is the Tour de
l'Horloge. Next, to the right, come the two round towers of the
Conciergerie, known respectively as the Tour de César and the Tour de
Montgomery. The one beyond them, with battlements, is the Tour
d'Argent. It was in the Conciergerie that Marie Antoinette,
Robespierre, and many other victims of the Revolution were imprisoned.
These medieval towers, much altered and modernized, are now almost all
that remains of the old Palace, which, till after the reign of Louis
IX. (St. Louis), formed the residence of the Kings of France. Charles
VII. gave it in 1431 to the Parlement or Supreme Court. Ruined by fires
and re-building, it now consists for the most part of masses of
irregular recent edifices. The main modern façade fronts the Boulevard
du Palais.
Cross the bridge. The Tour de l'Horloge on your right, at the corner of
the Boulevard du Palais, contains the oldest public clock in France
(1370). The figures of Justice and Pity by its side were originally
designed by Germain Pilon, but are now replaced by copies. Walk round
the Palais by the quay along the north branch of the Seine till you
come to the Rue de Harlay. Turn there to your left, toward the handsome
and imposing modern façade of this side of the Palais de Justice. The
interior is unworthy a visit. The Rue de Harlay forms the westernmost
end of the original Ile de la Cité. The prow-shaped extremity of the
modern island has been artificially produced by embanking the sites of
two or three minor islets. The Palace Dauphine, which occupies the
greater part of this modern extension, was built in 1608; it still
affords a characteristic example of the domestic Paris of the period
before Baron Haussmann.
Continue along the quay as far as the Pont-Neuf, so as to gain an idea
of the extent of the Ile de la Cité in this direction. The center of
the Pont-Neuf is occupied by an equestrian statue of Henri IV., first
of the Bourbon kings. Its predecessor was erected in 1635, and was
destroyed to make cannon during the great Revolution. Louis XVIII.
re-erected it. From this point you can gain a clear idea of the two
branches of the Seine as they unite at the lower end of the Ile de la
Cité. To your right, looking westward, you also obtain a fine view of
the Colonnade of the Old Louvre, with the southwestern gallery, and the
more modern buildings of the Museum behind it.
Now, walk along the southern quay of the island, round the remainder of
the Palais de Justice, as far as the Boulevard du Palais. There turn to
your left, and go in at the first door of the Palace on the left
(undeterred by sentries) into the court of the Sainte Chapelle, the
only important relic now remaining of the home of Saint Louis. You may
safely neglect the remainder of the building.
The thirteenth century was a period of profound religious enthusiasm
throughout Europe. Conspicuous among its devout soldiers was Louis IX.,
afterward canonized as St. Louis. The saintly king purchased from
Baldwin, Emperor of Constantinople, the veritable Crown of Thorns, and
a fragment of the True Cross--paying for these relics an immense sum of
money. Having become possest of such invaluable and sacred objects,
Louis desired to have them housed with suitable magnificence. He
therefore entrusted Pierre de Montereau with the task of building a
splendid chapel (within the precincts of his palace), begun in 1245,
and finished three years later, immediately after which the king set
out on his Crusade. The monument breathes throughout the ecstatic piety
of the mystic king; it was consecrated in 1248, in the name of the Holy
Crown and the Holy Cross, by Eudes de Châteauroux, Bishop of Tusculum
and papal legate.
Three things should be noted about the Sainte Chapelle. (1) It is a
chapel, not a church; therefore it consists (practically) of a choir
alone, without nave or transepts. (2) It is the domestic Chapel of the
Royal Palace. (3) It is, above all things, the Shrine of the Crown of
Thorns. These three points must be constantly borne in mind in
examining the building.
Erected later than Notre-Dame, it represents the pointed style of the
middle of the thirteenth century, and is singularly pure and uniform
throughout. Secularized at the Revolution, it fell somewhat into decay;
but was judiciously restored by Viollet-le-Duc and others. The "Messe
Rouge," or "Messe du St. Esprit," is still celebrated here once yearly,
on the re-opening of the courts after the autumn vacation, but no other
religious services take place in the building. The Crown of Thorns and
the piece of the True Cross are now preserved in the Treasury at Notre
Dame.
Examine the exterior in detail from the court on the south side. More
even than most Gothic buildings, the Sainte Chapelle is supported
entirely by its massive piers, the wall being merely used for
enclosure, and consisting for the most part of lofty windows. As in
most French Gothic buildings, the choir terminates in a round apse,
whereas English cathedrals have usually a square end. The beautiful
light flêche or spire in the center has been restored. Observe the
graceful leaden angel, holding a cross, on the summit of the chevet or
round apse. To see the facade, stand well back opposite it, where you
can observe that the chapel is built in four main stories--those,
namely, of the Lower Church or crypt, of the Upper Church, of the great
rose window (with later flamboyant tracery), and of the gable-end,
partially masked by an open parapet studded with the royal
fleurs-de-lis of France. The Crown of Thorns surrounds the two
pinnacles which flank the fourth story.
The chapel consists of a lower and an upper church. The Lower Church is
a mere crypt, which was employed for the servants of the royal family.
Its portal has in its tympanum (or triangular space in the summit of
the arch) the Coronation of the Virgin, and on its center pillar a good
figure of the Madonna and Child. Enter the Lower Church. It is low, and
has pillars supporting the floor above. In the polychromatic decoration
of the walls and pillars, notice the frequent repetition of the royal
lilies of France, combined with the three castles of Castille, in honor
of Blanche of Castille, the Mother of St. Louis.
Mount to the Upper Chapel (or Sainte Chapelle proper) by the small
spiral staircase in the corner. This soaring pile was the oratory where
the royal family and court attended service; its gorgeousness bespeaks
its origin and nature. It glows like a jewel. First go out of the door
and examine the exterior and doorway of the chapel. Its platform was
directly approached in early times from the Palace. The center pillar
bears a fine figure of Christ. In the tympanum (as over the principal
doorway of almost every important church in Paris and in the district)
is a relief of the Last Judgment. Below stands St. Michael with his
scales, weighing the souls; on either side is depicted the
Resurrection, with the Angels of the Last Trump. Above, in the second
tier, is Christ, holding up His hands with the marks of the nails, as a
sign of mercy to the redeemed: to right and left of Him angels display
the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, to contain which sacred relics
the chapel was built.
On the extreme left kneels the Blessed Virgin; on the extreme right,
Sainte Geneviève. This scene of the Last Judgment was adapted with a
few alterations from that above the central west door of Notre Dame,
the Crown of Thorns in particular being here significantly substituted
for the three nails and spear. The small lozenge reliefs to right and
left of the portal are also interesting. Those to the left represent in
a very naïve manner God the Father creating the world, sun and moon,
light, plants, animals, man, etc. Those to the right give the story of
Genesis, Cain and Abel, the Flood, the Ark, Noah's Sacrifice, Noah's
Vine, etc., the subjects of all which the visitor can easily recognize,
and is strongly recommended to identify for himself.
The interior consists almost entirely of large and lofty windows, with
magnificent stained glass, in large part ancient. The piers which
divide the windows and alone support the graceful vault of the roof,
are provided with statues of the twelve apostles, a few of them
original. Each bears his well-known symbol. Spell them out if possible.
Beneath the windows, in the quatrefoils of the arcade, are enamelled
glass mosaics representing the martyrdoms of the saints--followers of
Christ, each wearing his own crown of thorns: a pretty conceit wholly
in accord with St. Louis's ecstatic type of piety. Conspicuous among
them are St. Denis carrying his head, St. Sebastian pierced with
arrows, St. Stephen stoned, St. Lawrence on his gridiron, etc. The apse
(formerly separated from the body of the building by a rood-screen, now
destroyed), contains the vacant base of the high altar, behind which
stands an arcaded tabernacle, now empty, in whose shrine were once
preserved the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the True Cross, and
other relics.
Among them in the later times was included the skull of St. Louis
himself in a golden reliquary. Two angels at the summit of the large
center arch of the arcade bear a representation of the Crown of Thorns
in their hands. Above the tabernacle rises a canopy or baldacchino,
approached by two spiral staircases; from its platform St. Louis and
his successors, the kings of France, were in the habit of exhibiting
with their own hands the actual relics themselves once a year to the
faithful. The golden reliquary in which the sacred objects were
contained was melted down in the Revolution. The small window with bars
to your right, as you face the high altar, was placed there by the
superstitious and timid Louis XI., in order that he might behold the
elevation of the Host and the sacred relics without being exposed to
the danger of assassination. The visitor should also notice the inlaid
stone pavement, with its frequent repetition of the fleur-de-lis and
the three castles. The whole breathes the mysticism of St. Louis; the
lightness of the architecture, the height of the apparently unsupported
roof, and the magnificence of the decoration, render this the most
perfect ecclesiastical building in Paris.
In returning from the chapel, notice on the outside, from the court to
the south, the apparently empty and useless porch, supporting a small
room, which is the one through whose grated window Louis XI. used to
watch the elevation.
The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie
By Augustus J. C. Hare
[Footnote: From "Walks In Paris." By arrangement with the publisher,
David McKay. Copyright, 1880.]
It was Etienne Marcel, Mayor of Paris, who first established the
municipal council at the Place de Grève, at that time the only large
square in Paris. In July, 1357, he purchased as a Hostel de Ville the
Maison aux Piliers, which had been inhabited by Clémence d'Hongrie,
widow of Louis le Hutin, and which afterward took the name of Maison du
Dauphin from her nephew and heir, Guy, Dauphin de Viennois.
In 1532 a new Hôtel de Ville was begun and finished by the architect
Marin de la Vallée in the reign of Henri IV. This was so much altered
by successive restorations and revolutions that only a staircase, two
monumental chimney-pieces in the Salle du Trône, and some sculptured
doorways and other details remained from the interior decorations in
the old building at the time of its destruction.
Till the time of Louis XVI. the history of the Hôtel de Ville was
entirely local; after that it became the history of France. It was
there that Louis XVI. received the tri-colored cockade from Bailly,
Mayor of Paris, July 17, 1789; and there, in the chamber called, from
its hangings, Le Cabinet Vert, that Robespierre was arrested, in the
name of the Convention, during one of the meetings of the Commune, July
27, 1794. After the fall of Robespierre it was seriously proposed to
pull down the Hôtel de Ville, because it had been his last asylum--"Le
Louvre de Robespierre." It was only saved by the common-sense of
Leonard Bourdon.
But most of all, in the popular recollection, is the Hôtel de Ville
connected with public fêtes--with those on the second marriage of
Napoleon I. (1810), on the entry of Louis XVIII. (1814), on the
coronation of Charles X. (1825), on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans
(1837), on the visits of different foreign potentates to Napoleon III.
Here also was the Republic proclaimed, September 4, 1870.
It was in one of the windows of the Hôtel de Ville that Louis Philippe
embraced Lafayette (August, 1830) in sight of the people, to evince the
union of the July monarchy with the bourgeoisie. On the steps of the
building Louis Blanc proclaimed the Republic, February 24,1848. From
September 4, 1870, to February 28, 1871, the hôtel was the seat of the
"government of the national defense," and from March 19 to May 22,
1871, that of the pretended "Committee of public safety" of the
Communists. On May 24 it was burned by its savage defenders, many of
whom happily perished in the flames.
The Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is so modernized that it retains nothing
of the Place de Grève but its terrible historic associations. Among the
many fearful executions here, it is only necessary to recall that of
Jean Hardi, torn to pieces by four horses (March 30, 1473) on an
accusation of trying to poison Louis XI.; that of the Comte de St. Pol
(December 19, 1475), long commemorated by a pillar; those of a long
list of Protestants, opened by the auto-de-fé of Jacques de Povanes,
student of the University, in 1525; that of Nicholas de Salcède, Sieur
d'Auvillers, torn to pieces by four horses in the presence of the king
and queens, for conspiracy to murder the Duc d'Anjou, youngest son of
Catherine de Medici. More terrible still was the execution of Ravaillac
(May 27, 1610) murderer of Henri IV.
"The executioner cut off his hand with an ax, and threw it and the
murderous knife into the fire. His breasts, his arms and his legs were
torn with pincers, and boiling oil and melted lead poured into the open
wounds. He was then dismembered by four strong horses, which pulled for
no less than an entire hour. They dismembered only a corpse. He
expired," says L'Estoile, "at the second or third pull." When the
executioner had to throw the limbs into the fire that the ashes,
according to the sentence, might be flung to the winds, the whole crowd
rushed on to claim them. "But," adds the same chronicler, "the people
rushed on so impetuously that every mother's son had a piece, even the
children, who made fires of them at the corners of the streets."
After the capture of the Bastille its brave governor, M. de Launay, was
beheaded on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, and his major, M. de
Losme-Salbray, was massacred under the Arcade St. Jean. These were the
first victims of the Revolution. Foulon, Intendant du Commerce,
suffered here soon afterward, hung from the cords by which a lamp was
suspended, whence the expression, which soon resounded in many a
popular refrain, of "put the aristocrats to the lantern."
* * * * *
Two parasite buildings, the Conciergerie, and the Prefecture of Police,
are now annexed to the Palais de Justice. The Conciergerie takes its
name from the house of the concierge in the time of the royal residence
here, who had a right to two chickens a day and to the cinders and
ashes of the king's chimney.
It has always been a prison, and it was here that the Comte d'Armagnac
was murdered, June 12, 1418. Here was made, below the level of the
Seine, the prison called La Souricière, from the rats which had the
reputation of eating the prisoners alive. The present Conciergerie
occupies the lower story of the right wing of the existing Palais de
Justice, and extends along the Quai de l'Horloge, as far as the towers
of Montgomery and César. It has an entrance on the quay, before which
the guillotine-carts received the victims of the Reign of Terror, and
another to the right of the great staircase in the Cour d'Honneur.
All other associations of the Conciergerie are lost in those which were
attached to it by the great Revolution. The cell in which Marie
Antoinette suffered her seventy-five days' agony--from August 2 till
October 15, when she was condemned--was turned into a chapel of
expiation in 1816. The lamp still exists which lighted the august
prisoner and enabled her guards to watch her through the night. The
door still exists, tho changed in position, which was cut transversely
in half and the upper part fixt that the queen might be forced to bend
in going out, because she had said that whatever indignities they might
inflict upon her they could never force her to bend the head.
After her condemnation, Marie Antoinette was not brought back to this
chamber. It was a far more miserable cell which saw her write her last
touching farewell to Madame Elizabeth. But this was the room in which
the Girondins spent their last night, when, as Riouffe, himself in the
prison at the time, says, "all during this frightful night their songs
sounded and if they stopt singing it was but to talk about their
country." The adjoining cell, now used as a sacristy, was the prison of
Robespierre.
Père la Chaise
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[Footnote: From "Outre Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]
The cemetery of Père la Chaise is the Westminster Abbey of Paris. Both
are the dwellings of the dead; but in one they repose in green alleys
and beneath the open sky--in the other their resting-place is in the
shadowy aisle, and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a
temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft
melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble
of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle
visit of the sunshine and the shower; in the other, no sound but the
passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals
in through high and dusky windows; and the damps of the gloomy vault
lie heavy on the heart, and leave their stain upon the moldering
tracery of the tomb.