Rheims and the Battles for its Possession Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROYAL APARTMENTS IN THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE]

=The Royal Apartments=

From the Kings' Hall, access was obtained to five royal saloons with windows looking on the gardens and adorned with portraits of archbishops.

It was in the archbishop's palace that the Kings stayed at the time of their consecration or when pa.s.sing through Rheims. Henry IV. lived there during his two sojourns at Rheims. He washed the feet of the poor on Holy Thursday in the great hall and listened to the sermon of Father Cotton. Louis XIII. and Richelieu stayed there in 1641, Louis XIV. in 1680, Peter the Great in 1717, Louis XV. in 1722 and 1744, the Queen in 1765, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette in 1774, and Charles X. in 1825.

From year VI. (Revolution Calendar) to 1824 it was occupied by the tribunals. The archbishops formerly held many Councils and Synods there, but lived there only rarely. In the Middle Ages they preferred living in their fortified castle of Porte Mars (_see p._ 6). In the 17th and 18th centuries they lived mostly outside Rheims.

_After visiting the ruins of the Archbishop's Palace return to the Place du Parvis. Take the Rue Libergier, opposite the Cathedral, turning into the first street on the right (Rue Chanzy). The Museum is soon reached (see Itinerary, p. 61)._

=The Museum=, formerly =The Grand Seminaire=

This fine 18th century building was erected by Nicolas Bonhomme in 1743-1752. The carved entrance-door and terraced central pavilion, bordered with a fine bal.u.s.trade (damaged by sh.e.l.l splinters), are the remains of the ancient Abbey of St. Denis, the church of which was destroyed at the time of the Revolution. The right wing was rebuilt in the 19th century, by order of Cardinal Thomas Gousset. The ground-floor of the left wing is old, but the other floors are modern. These buildings were comparatively little damaged by the bombardments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE COURTYARD OF THE OLD GRAND SeMINAIRE (18th century)]

Successively occupied since 1790 by the District Council, a free secondary school, and by the Russians in 1814-1815, the buildings were handed over to the Grand Seminaire in 1822. Since the separation of the Church and State in 1905, they have been fitted up as a Museum.

The Museum was struck at the beginning of the bombardment on September 4, 1914, several pictures in the Modern Gallery being destroyed. Later, it was again hit by sh.e.l.ls, but the greater part of the collections had already been removed to a place of safety.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD GRAND SeMINAIRE (MUSEUM)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BED IN WHICH NAPOLEON SLEPT IN 1814 (_In ruined house at No. 18 Rue de Vesle._)]

_Continue along the Rue Chanzy, which skirts the_ =Theatre= (1873), of which only the walls remain. _Take the Rue de Vesle (first street on the left. See Itinerary, p. 61)._

Among the ruins of this street, in the yard of No. 18 on the left, is a building of which only the ground-floor and front with large windows and s.p.a.cious dormers remain.

It was there that Napoleon I. slept after his return to Rheims. His room had been preserved exactly as it was in 1814 (_see p. 8_).

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PARIS GATE]

At No. 27 are vestiges of the old =Hotel Levesque de Pouilly=. Inside the court there was a 16th century house, the residence of a family which furnished Rheims with some remarkable administrators, chief among whom was _Levesque de Pouilly_, "lieutenant of the inhabitants." Among the celebrated guests received by him were Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet (1749). In a letter to him, Lord Bolingbroke wrote: "_I know but three men who are worthy of governing the nation: You, Pope and myself._"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VAULTING AND BELFRY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES (_Cliche LL._)]

_On the right, between Nos. 44 and 46, is the Rue St. Jacques._

_Follow the Rue de Vesle to the end, where the_ =Paris Gate= _stands, about 1 km. from the entrance to the Rue St. Jacques._

This Gate replaced the Vesle Gate which formerly ab.u.t.ted on the river.

In consequence of the growth of the city it was built in the _faubourg_ about 1845. Its beautiful wrought-iron work (_photo opposite_), by the local master-locksmiths Lecoq and Revel, was erected by the City in 1774, at the time of the consecration of Louis XVI.

_From the Paris Gate, return by the Rue de Vesle to the Rue St. Jacques, on the right of which stands the_ Church of St. Jacques.

The =Church of St. Jacques=, whose fine tower contributed to the charm of the general appearance of the city, was destroyed by the bombardments of 1918. Begun in the 12th century, it was finished in the 16th. Before the war, it was the only parish church in Rheims which had been preserved intact.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST. JACQUES (_Cliche LL._)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON, BEFORE THE WAR _On the right: Belfry of the Church of St. Jacques._]

_The Rue St. Jacques leads to the long_ Place Drouet d'Erlon, which was much damaged by the bombardments of 1918 (_photo opposite_).

Formerly known as _Place de la Couture_, this square, like the old streets with picturesque names: _Rue des Telliers_, _Rue du Clou-dans-le-Fer_, _Rue de la Belle Image_, _Rue de la Grosse-Ecritoire_, _Rue du Cadran St. Pierre_, formed part of the _Quartier des Loges_, built in the 12th century by Cardinal Guillaume-aux-blanches-mains for the wood and iron workers. The house-fronts above the first storey rested mostly on wooden pillars, leaving recesses or covered galleries on the ground floor.

In the centre of the square stood a statue of Marshal Drouet d'Erlon, afterwards removed to the crossing of the Boulevards Gerbert and Victor Hugo, and replaced by a =monumental fountain=, the gift of M. Sube.

_Follow the Place Drouet d'Erlon to the Boulevard de la Republique, which skirts_ =The Promenades=.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON, AFTER THE WAR _The Belfry of the Church of St. Jacques no longer exists._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SUBe FOUNTAIN, IN THE PLACE DROUET D'ERLON _Seen from the Rue Buirette (in ruins)._]

The Promenades, greatly damaged by the war, have sometimes been wrongly attributed to Le Notre. Their designer was a Rheims gardener, Jean le Roux. Commenced in 1731, they were finished and extended in 1787. They were formerly reached by the Gates of Mars and Vesles, but preferably by the Promenade Gate specially opened in the ramparts in 1740 and inaugurated by Louis XV. in 1744, on his return from Flanders. The Promenades were first called _Cours Le Pelletier_ (the name of the _Intendant of Champagne_, who approved the plans), then _Cours Royal_, after the pa.s.sage of Louis XV. They were encroached upon by the railway station, built in 1860.

In the centre of the Promenades, opposite the station, in the _Square Colbert_, laid out by the landscape gardener Vare in 1860, is a statue of Colbert.

_Take the Rue Thiers, which begins at the Square Colbert and leads to the_ =Hotel-de-Ville=.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "SQUARE COLBERT" IN THE MIDDLE OF THE "PROMENADES"

_The Entrance to the Station is just opposite this "Square."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOWN HALL IN 1918]

=The Hotel-de-Ville=

This building, which was destroyed by sh.e.l.l-fire on May 13, 1917, was similar in many respects to the old Hotel-de-Ville in Paris, burnt in 1871.

Commenced in 1627, from plans by the Rheims architect, Jean Bonhomme, it was completed in stages, at long intervals. Only the central _pavilion_ and the left-hand portion were 17th century.

The building was a beautiful specimen of the architecture of the Louis XIII. period. Seventy-eight columns, Doric on the ground-floor and Corinthian on the first storey, framed the windows of the facade, whose bases on the first floor carried trophies in bas-relief and a graceful frieze. The niches in the central portico were empty, but the pediment on twisted columns enclosed an equestrian statue of Louis XIII.

In the interior, in the great vestibule, a staircase with a remarkable wrought-iron bal.u.s.trade led to the City Library, which was destroyed by the fire of 1917 (_photo, p. 73_).

On the right, the room where the Munic.i.p.al Council meetings were held, contained rich panelling alternated with paintings by Lamatte, commemorating episodes in the history of Rheims. On the left, the mayor's office contained magnificent Louis XVI. woodwork.

On the other side of the courtyard, in the centre of which is a statue of "La Vigne," by St. Marceaux, was the great marriage-hall, containing a Gallo-Roman mosaic, framed with rosettes and an interlaced border, representing a gladiatorial fight.

A number of the pictures and works of art in the Hotel-de-Ville were saved by the firemen and soldiers. The mosaic in the marriage-hall was protected by sand-bags and is intact.

_In the Place de l'Hotel-de-Ville, between the Rue Thiers and the Banque de France, are two small streets: the Rue Salin and the Rue de Pouilly._

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GRAND STAIRCASE OF THE TOWN HALL]

At No. 5 of the Rue Salin, the old 17th century _Hotel Coquebert_, which was destroyed by the sh.e.l.ls, used to be the headquarters of the _Society of Friends of Old Rheims_. Several of the ill.u.s.trations in this Guide are taken from the collections of this Society.