The Churches of Paris Part 17

The picture represents the Virgin and Child sitting under an elegant baldachino, the curtains of which are borne by Angels, who are holding, at the same time, a crown over the head of the holy mother. The following description by Pere Du Breul[100] gives the story of the miracle:

"Le troisieme du mois de juillet 1418, veille de sainct Martin,[101]

Bouillant, un soldat ou goujat sortant d'une taverne qui estoit des lors en la rue aux Ours, desespere d'avoir perdu tout son argent et ses habits a jouer, jurant et blasphemant, frappa furieus.e.m.e.nt d'un couteau une image de la Vierge Marie qui estoit au coin de ladite rue. Laquelle image rendit du sang en abondance; de quoy estant advertie la justice, il fut mene par devant l'image, fut frappe d'escourgees depuis six heures du matin jusques au soir, tant que les entrailles luy sortoient, et eut la langue percee d'un fer chaud. Au mesme lieu, tous les ans et a tel jour, on fait un feu pour souvenance de ce miracle.... Audit lieu se voit encores une image de Nostre Dame enfermee d'un treillis, aupres de laquelle, contre la parvy, le jour que ce faict ledit feu, l'on attache une tap.i.s.serie ou est represente l'histoire susdite."

Horrors of this kind were common enough in the 14th and 15th centuries; indeed, when we think of Damiens' tortures, even the 18th century was no more humane or decent. In the account of the Black Death in 1348, when 500 persons were buried daily, and Jews were tortured and burnt for poisoning the people (as the populace affirmed), an order of Philippe IV. was issued that all blasphemers should have their lips or tongues cut off, as a sanitary measure to dispel the plague. It is curious that such doings should be commemorated in a church dedicated to S. Giles, that gentle hermit who screened the wounded hind from its pursuers, and gave an eternal reproof to the votaries of the hunt. One can imagine what the hermit-Saint would have thought of thus torturing a man, being not only the protector of hunted animals and woodlands, but also of those specimens of human misery, the lepers. Yet for many years the hideous cruelty described above was celebrated as a sort of Guy Fawkes festival, with fireworks, and mannikins of gigantic size, which were marched about the neighbourhood to the terror of all the youthful inhabitants.

SAINT-LOUIS D'ANTIN.

Little need be said of the church which formerly belonged to the Capuchins who were transferred from the Faubourg S. Jacques to the new quarter of the Rue d'Antin in 1783. The church was built by Brongniard, but is of no importance whatever. It now forms a part of the Lycee for those connected therewith who do not find science and literature all that is requisite to their souls' weal.

SAINT LOUIS EN L'ILE.

This church stands upon the little island of the same name, and was commenced by Louis Levau in 1664; Gabriel Leduc continued the work, and Jacques Doucet finished it in 1726. Men are said to be happy if they are minus a history. Not so churches; without it they are anything but interesting. And so we will pa.s.s on from the second S. Louis, just noting some of the modern woodwork as respectable.

SAINT-LOUIS DES INVALIDES.

Built by Liberal Bruant from 1671 to 1679, this church has a certain grandeur, and could the dome be seen from it by taking away the intervening part.i.tion of ugly painted gla.s.s, it would be very imposing.

The latter, the burial-place of Napoleon and of some of his generals, contains also monuments and statues of other military heroes. This part, the cupola (or Tombeau as it is generally termed), was built by Jules Hardouin Mansard, and dedicated by the Cardinal de Noailles in 1706. The exterior is very fine, and, with its gilding, forms a beautiful landmark for all parts of the city and suburbs. The interior, if somewhat pompous, and over addicted to yellow gla.s.s, is nevertheless very grand; and the general effect of the magnificent baldachino over the altar (just such an arrangement as was wanted in S. Paul's), and the subdued light, make a decidedly striking _coup d'il_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LE TOMBEAU DE NAPOLeON.]

The statues of Charlemagne and of S. Louis are by Coyzevox and Nicolas Coustou; the cupola was painted by Charles de Lafosse and by Jouvenet.

The statue of Turenne, which has at last found a resting-place, after having been shunted about since its departure from S. Denis, is the work of Tuby and Marsy. In the centre, under the beautiful dome, is Napoleon's tomb, sunk some feet below the surface.

In the chapel proper are rows of flags of all nations suspended from each side of the roof; but beyond these there is little that is picturesque except during the military ma.s.s on Sunday morning. Then, when the pensioners line the aisle, bearing their swords and halberds; when the drums beat at the Elevation, and the old men present arms, the effect is both grand and intensely pathetic. Formerly the military band played throughout the offices; now the duty is done by the organ.

LA SAINTE-MADELEINE.

If good materials and excellent workmanship can make a building interesting, a.s.suredly the Madeleine ought to be so. Commenced in 1764 as a church, its fate was somewhat similar to that of S. Genevieve, for, in 1806, Napoleon, then busy in Posen, sent his orders that it should be finished as a Temple of Glory. The pediment was to bear the following inscription:--"L'empereur Napoleon aux soldats de la grande armee;" and the 5th article of the decree was thus composed: "Tous les ans, aux anniversaires des batailles d'Austerlitz et d'Iena, le monument sera illumine, et il y sera donne un concert precede d'un discours sur les vertus necessaires au soldat, et d'un eloge de ceux qui perirent sur le champ de bataille dans ces journees memorables.... Dans les discours et odes, il est express.e.m.e.nt defendu de faire mention de l'empereur."

Pierre Vignon carried on the work, and the building grew into a magnificent temple, planned upon the Maison Carree of Nismes. The results of Waterloo turned it again church ways, but it was not finished until 1842. The bronze doors are perhaps the best work of Baron de Triqueti; and the group of the Magdalen over the altar may be no more mundane and meretricious than is usual in Marochetti's performances. The picture in the vault over the altar is a jumble by Ziegler of sacred and secular personages, from the Magdalen and her Master down to Napoleon the arrogant. It is supposed to be an allegory of the history of Christianity, which Clovis introduced to France, and Napoleon patted on the back by means of the Concordat. The most important position in the picture is occupied by the last-named brigand--the poor Pope even being in a secondary place, somewhat inferior to the imperial eagle. The group in the baptistry is by Rude; the one opposite, in a chapel dedicated to marriage, by Pradier. It was in the Madeleine that some of the Communards were ma.s.sacred in 1871. At the end of the struggle, about 300 of them were driven into the church; and there, before the altar where their victim, the abbe Duguerry had officiated, they were mown down in terrible retribution, with no more mercy shown them than they had accorded to the hostages.

In the interior fittings of the church, no expense has been spared, and what it lacks in beauty as regards sculpture and painting it possesses in its marble walls and its carved woodwork. The pulpit is an excellent piece of modern wood-carving; the details of the ornament are in the best style; and so are most of the worshippers; for it is one of the fashionable churches of Paris. There, especially at the lazy ma.s.s (as the old writer has it, "la messe des paresseux," which was said at "la plus haute heure du matin," at "unze heures,") you see "_des mondaines_"

by the dozen; only the lazy eleven o'clock has become one in the afternoon. What in the world would the old chronicler have said to the swarms of fashionables who just save their souls by hurrying off after a comfortable _dejeuner_ to those one o'clock ma.s.ses? But there is a mixture at the Madeleine; old ladies of the _n.o.blesse_; _nouveaux riches_; a few soldiers who like the music; half-a-dozen husbands who go as a duty to their wives; an old Bretonne gorgeous in chains and muslin, and velvet bodice; and two or three black women, charming in the yellow silk handkerchiefs which swathe their heads. It is a mixture, and what brings them? Probably the music, for at no church in Paris, and few elsewhere, do you hear such refined, soft, emotional strains as there.

Sometimes the boys' voices are not of the best; but the artistic taste with which they sing is always there. S. Roch has a reputation for its choir, gained many years ago by its execution of the ma.s.ses of Mozart and Haydn; but it no longer deserves it. S. Eustache also is celebrated for its music. But there is a special tone about that of the Madeleine one meets with nowhere else; it aims at raising one's soul from the earth upon which it is supposed to grovel; it certainly never interrupts prayer or disturbs thought. Even on Good Friday, when the old _Pa.s.sione_ by Haydn, or the new one by Dubois, is performed, refinement, not clatter, is the distinguishing characteristic. If only some of our London organists would take a leaf out of the Madeleine music-book! Just think of the noise at a certain West-end church, which is the model of all that ritual should be. From its foundation, what we all loved was the refinement of its music; it was the exponent of Gregorian chants and Plain song. Now the most elaborate compositions are performed for the edification and vanity of the choir. Church music ought certainly to be an aid to prayer, not a disturbing force; but what else can it be, when organ and choir are all shrieking Haydn's Imperial Ma.s.s, or Beethoven in C, and each man or boy is trying to get the mastery? It is a bitter duel between organ and voices. All the great masters' ma.s.ses are sung at the Madeleine; but you can devote yourself to your own prayers all through them without being disturbed, if you so wish. Moreover, one hour suffices in Paris for what in London endures an hour and a half, or more. And is not the long, elaborate _credo_ answerable for the objectionable Roman practice of sitting through the greater part of it?

Of course church music should be of the most perfect kind; but perfection is sure to be greater where less is attempted; and the mere repet.i.tions of words, and the placing of the accent upon the wrong note in the English translation, make these elaborate ma.s.ses unsuitable in our churches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PeRE HYACINTH PREACHING AT THE MADELEINE.]

The ceremonial at the Madeleine always gives strangers the impression of having been over-rehea.r.s.ed. The black-clothed beadles walk about with measured steps, particularly the frog faced one; the _Suisses_ in their c.o.c.ked hats leisurely saunter about with their halberds looking the essence of flunkeyism, and never issue from their stereotyped expression of importance and unmixed boredom, except upon occasions when a foreigner fails to kneel at solemn moments. Why need the good Protestant remain sitting when the bell rings, feigning a kneeling posture by a sort of zigzag att.i.tude? Up comes the _Suisse_, and shaking the back of his chair, tries to jerk him out of it. Why not stand, if rags of popery and scarlet women prevent you kneeling? Or why go at all, if you cannot do at Rome as Rome does? I confess to feeling a sensation of distress, and am much upset when that chair-tipping begins. And the worst of if is that, although the victim is innocent of what lies in store for him, we, who know the ways of the _Suisses_, anxiously antic.i.p.ate the fatal moment. Sometimes, too, the British-born struggles to look pious, while he furtively reads his Baedeker, never dreaming that the benighted foreigner knows that Cla.s.sic by its blood-red exterior. We are a great people, and are justly proud of our inst.i.tutions; but we should be no less great if we had a little more respect for other folks, and other folks' manners and customs.

It is curious how the church beadle varies. At the Madeleine he is pure flunkey. His c.o.c.ked hat is high and broad, like the old b.u.mble of our childhood; he is whiskered, but not bearded; he has an arrogant way with him as he precedes the priest who makes the collection; and as he carries the bag into which the alms are emptied from time to time, he looks the essence of important officialism. Likewise, when he demands, in a commanding voice, "Pour les pauvres, _s'il_ vous _plait_!" few persons would say him nay. Not so the _Suisses_ of S. Eustache; they have the military air; the c.o.c.ked hat is low, and worn as by the Marshals of France. Such are they also at S. Roch, and at both churches they salute at the Elevation, _a la militaire_.

It has always seemed to me that the author of _Monsieur, Madame et Bebe_, pictured the Madeleine in his scenes of Madame at church; at all events I have often seen the like. She kneels on her velvet-covered _prie-Dieu_, and tells her beads; and then, between a _Pater Noster_ and a new batch of _Ave Marias_, she turns round to a neighbour, "Ah! chere madame, comment allez vous? et monsieur votre mari? Et la chere pet.i.te Bebe?" "Merci, chere baronne, mon mari ne va pas trop mal; il a la migraine, voila tout. Et Bebe, c'est un ange; elle est ravissante, le pet.i.t chou. Mais moi, je souffre, oh, comme je souffre! je suis tellement ereintee que.... Je vous salue Marie, pleine de grace."....

"How adorable is the Madeleine," said Dibden; but he meant its exterior at twilight, when the lights spring up on the neighbouring boulevards.

And so it is in its way; but its way is to some of us not the most beautiful way.

Many are the functions which take place there; marriages and funerals by the score. At the latter, it affords ample room under its portico for that terrible French custom which forces all the family of the deceased to stand by the door and receive the condolences of their friends and acquaintances. How do they ever survive it? And why do they not rebel against the conventionality, and give it up? Because they are at once the most conventional of nations, added to the most revolutionary. The funeral terror is greater in France that here at home; it is one of the few things in which we are ahead of our neighbours. We do not waste quite so much upon putting our friends underground, although we too are compelled to pay twice as much as we ought. But in some respects the French are far more decent. Men raise their hats at pa.s.sing funerals, and I have never seen the undertakers sitting in the open car when returning from the cemetery; an indecent proceeding like the one immortalized in _Figaro_. "Mon Dieu! What strange people, ces Anglais!

When they return from a funeral, the friends of the deceased ride upon the top of the hea.r.s.e with their legs hanging over it!"

One of the beauties of the Madeleine is the flower-garden at its feet, and the tree-planted boulevards which surround it. How pleasant it is to be able to sit down in the air upon a warm evening; would that we could do likewise! Here, sunset is the last moment when we can breathe the air of most of the parks, without perpetually tramping round and round upon our weary legs. But in Paris we may sit and gaze upon the buildings by moonlight if we like; and certainly, that is the most flattering time for the Madeleine. Its portico, lighted up by the moon with the dark shadows thrown behind it, has a decidedly grand appearance.

SAINTE-MARGUERITE.

The church, dedicated to

_Mild Margarete, that was G.o.d's maid;_ _Maid Margarete, that was so meke and mild,_

is not of much importance. The popularity of S. Margaret was so great in the Middle Ages that it seems strange so little notice has been taken of her in Paris. Only think what a lovely dragon the sculptor of the monsters upon the towers of Notre-Dame would have contrived! We have only to look upon them to picture to ourselves the dreadful worm.

Maiden Margrete tho (_then_) Loked her beside, And sees a loathly dragon Out of an hirn (_corner_) glide: His eyen were ful griesly, His mouth opened wide, And Margrete might no where flee, There she must abide.

Maiden Margrete Stood still as any stone, And that loathly worm, To her-ward gan gone, Took her in his foul mouth, And swallowed her flesh and bone.

Anon he brast--(_burst_) Damage hath she none!

Maiden Margrete, Upon the dragon stood; Blyth was her harte, And joyful was her mood.[102]

The church of S. Marguerite is in the Rue S. Bernard, Faubourg S.

Antoine. The chapel of the Souls in Purgatory is a curious composition by Louis, dated 1765; and still more curious was the burying, in 1737, of the tomb of Antoine Fayet, one of the _cures_, because of the indecent nudity of the white marble Angels, a piece of astounding prudery in that peculiarly indecent period of French history. Some pictures ill.u.s.trative of the life of S. Vincent de Paul are remarkable from the truthfulness of the portraiture; they were formerly in the Lazarists' Church. A marble _Descent from the Cross_, designed by Girardon, and sculptured by his pupils Le Lorrain and Nourrisson for the church of S. Landry, found its way to S. Marguerite in 1817, where it accompanies another _Descent_ painted upon wood, and very excellent in its way.

SAINT-MARTIN DES CHAMPS.

Situated upon the east side of a square which lies between the Rue S.

Martin and the Boulevard Sabastopol is the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, formerly the rich priory of S. Martin. As its name indicates, it used to be surrounded by fields and gardens; now it is an oasis of antiquity, built up upon every side but the square with huge modern houses. Its old walls enclose a museum; its chapel contains hydraulic machines, and its refectory is a public library. One of the twenty or more turrets which surmounted the wall at intervals still remains; but the chapel of S. Michel, which old Nicolas Arrade founded in the 13th century as a tomb-house for himself and his descendants, the chapter-house, the tower, the Lady-Chapel, and several statues of royal personages, have all been demolished--not by Revolutionists, but by the latter-day monks, who also saw fit to rebuild their cloisters, and ornament them with handsome Doric columns. These acts of barbarism were perpetrated some hundred and fifty years ago. But in spite of adversity, S. Martin still gives us some idea of a conventual foundation, and in Paris it is the only one which has survived improvements by friend and foe. It still has its gate leading into a large courtyard, with church, refectory, and a portion of the cloisters.