The Churches of Paris Part 18

Although the priory ranked after all the abbeys of Paris, it was well-nigh as important, and as rich. The prior enjoyed a revenue of 45,000 _livres_, and had the right of nomination to sixty benefices, twenty-nine priories, and many curacies and chapels.

The legend of S. Martin bestowing half his cloak upon a beggar is well known, and a frequent subject for painters. But he was given to other works of mercy, and one, healing the leper, is said to have taken place upon the site of this particular convent. S. Martin is the patron of soldiers. Born in the reign of Constantine the Great, at what is now Stain, in Hungary, Martin early became a Christian, but his parents being Pagans, he was not baptized until comparatively late in life. His father was a Roman soldier and tribune, and the son was enrolled in a cavalry legion. Obliged to leave his native country for Gaul, we find him in the year 332 quartered at Amiens; and here it was that he performed the act which has made him so famous in literature and art--the cutting of his cloak in two to clothe a starving beggar. His namesake, Martin Schoen, gives him such a voluminous mantle that one feels the act of cutting it in half to have been that of a highly-practical mind--enough for you, and enough for me. But other painters, on the contrary, depict the cloak as of such very small dimensions that one can only marvel that the Saint did not give it all to the beggar; for a portion of the garment could scarcely have benefited either party. This act brought him, however, praise from Heaven, and he hastened to receive baptism, being then twenty-three years of age. At forty he left the army, and was elected Bishop of Tours; and again we read of a similar story of clothing the naked, this time with his sacerdotal vestment during the celebration of ma.s.s.

S. Martin founded several churches and monasteries, and many more were dedicated to him after his death. Marmoutier, near Nantes, was a very celebrated convent; and in England there are a great many churches of which he is the patron. S. Augustine, when he came to Britain, found a chapel in the neighbourhood of Canterbury, which had been dedicated to S. Martin as early as the 5th century, and there he baptized his first converts. The church is certainly one of the earliest in England, and the font cannot be later than the 11th century; but whether it be the identical one at which King Ethelbert stood to be baptized in the 7th century is considered doubtful. Still, though much restored from time to time, the building retains numbers of Roman bricks incorporated into its walls; and that Queen Bertha worshipped in a church upon the same spot, or close by, is certain, tradition also pointing to a stone coffin in which she lies.

To return to S. Martin, the legend relates that when he was entering Paris, as Bishop of Tours, he met a wretched leper at the gate, and, filled with compa.s.sion and love, he embraced him, and thus healed him of his leprosy. This was the act which King Henri I. commemorated by founding the priory in 1060. His son Philippe I. dedicated the church in 1067, placing the new foundation under the patronage of the abbot of Cluny, of which monastery S. Martin des Champs was the third daughter.

Its domains originally consisted of several acres of land, which, as time went on, became more and more valuable; and probably, in consequence of its great wealth, it was governed by a long succession of ill.u.s.trious men; at first regular, and subsequently, t.i.tular abbots, of which cla.s.s was his eminence the Cardinal Richelieu.

It is owing to the cession of the last of the turrets, built by prior Hugues IV. to the town in 1712, and to the erection of a fountain at its base, that we now possess this fragment of the old wall. The princ.i.p.al gate, dating 1575, and ornamented with statues of the two royal founders, was unfortunately demolished at the same time.

The church belongs to two distinct periods. The nave was built about the middle of the 13th century, and is without aisles or pillars. It is lighted by pointed windows, and covered by a pointed timber roof. The choir and apse belong to the middle of the 12th century, and are peculiar in their arrangement. The choir is raised from the nave, and round it on a lower level are double aisles, divided by cl.u.s.tered columns which support the vaulting. Thus, the choir is approached from the nave by steps in the usual manner; but to enter the apsidal chapels one has to descend three or four steps from the nave. There are a few fragments of tombs with effigies of the priors, and some mutilated stone coffins. All the rest of the contents of the church have disappeared; it is in fact, architecturally, an empty sh.e.l.l. The statue of the Blessed Virgin sculptured in wood, and held in great veneration by the faithful worshippers at S. Martin, was taken to S. Denis. The whole building has been gorgeously decorated in colour, and, if restored to its proper use, would be, after the Sainte-Chapelle, the most interesting church in Paris; but the desecration grates upon our religious sentiments, and the noise of the machinery in motion distracts one's nerves. The study of architecture is not rendered easier by the rattle of a dozen or more steam engines, compared to which the confusion of tongues must have been a very small clatter.

Tradition gives Pierre de Montereau as the architect of the refectory, which is a _chef-d'uvre_ of the 13th century. It is an oblong building with seven tall, elegant, single-shaft pillars down the centre, dividing it into two equal parts longitudinally. Upon the side walls are an equal number of columns reaching about half-way down, and supported by foliated corbels to match the capitals; the vault, springing from these and the pillars, divide the length into eight bays. The windows consist of two lights surmounted by a rose; but upon one side they have been blocked up. The reading pulpit, which is built into the wall, is a beautiful specimen of its kind. It is lighted from the back by three little windows, and approached by a staircase in the wall, with open arcading to give light upon the refectory side. The building has been decorated with colour, and a painting representing S. Martin dividing his cloak, mediaevalized by M. Steinheil--the whole sufficiently harmonious.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REFECTORY.]

The rest of the buildings are modern, or have been modernized; most of the destruction having been perpetrated by the monks, who, like all authoritative Paris of the last century, had Cla.s.sicism on the brain. At S. Martin, as at S. Nicolas des Champs, S. Germain l'Auxerrois, and S.

Severin (not to mention other churches), Doric columns have taken the place of the old work--they must have been sculptured by the hundred.

The chapel of the Virgin, the chapter-house, the old cloister, which, according to Piganiol de la Force, had not the like in Paris, and the statues of divers Kings and Saints, were all swept away to make room for modern improvements; but the refectory was left intact, and having been used as the library, the transformation of the convent into a museum has affected it less than the chapel. As we pa.s.s into it from the outer world of trams and omnibuses, with all the _va-et-vient_ of a great city, we seem to be suddenly transported into the olden time--into a world which, if not a better, was certainly a more artistic and a quieter one.

SAINT-MeDARD.

The French S. Swithin shares with his brethren on the opposite bank of the Seine, _les freres Gervais et Protais_, a predilection for drenching us on and after his _fete_ day; so that, what with S. Medard's 8th of June, S. Gervais' and S. Protais' 19th June, and S. Swithin's 15th July, we who live upon our respective sides of the ditch may reckon upon a good three weeks of wet, over and above the forty days, if unhappily it rains upon the earlier of those unlucky festivals.

S'il pleut le jour de Saint-Medard, Il pleut quarante jours plus tard; S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint Protais, Il pleut quarante jours apres.

But if S. Medard was vindictive in his ways, he compensated us for his downpours by inventing that handy instrument without which life would be unbearable. The French say that an Englishman goes to bed in his hat, clutching his umbrella, which is a polite way of reproving him for his peculiar and insular practices; but how could he live without his umbrella? and kind Medard, foreseeing the state of dampness to which our northern atmosphere was leading us, turned to account an accident which befel him. In was in this wise. On a certain hot day in a certain hot summer, Medard and his friends went a picnicing, when suddenly a storm disturbed their innocent junketings. All were thoroughly soaked through from head to foot, with the exception of the host, who suddenly found himself protected from the rain by the outspread wings of an eagle which hovered over his head. This was the birth of the umbrella, which, as everyone knows, is of French, and not of oriental origin. In Belgium the rainy Saint is one G.o.delieve; in Germany the character is undertaken by the Seven Sleepers, showing the wisdom of the Teuton in slumbering through his miseries. Amongst the flowers, the moneywort is dedicated to S. Medard.

At the commencement of the last century, Jansenist pilgrimages and divers miracles took place at the little church, curing those suffering from convulsions; young girls had fits which gave them "comical twitchings of the nerves. Some would bark all night, and others leaped about like frogs. Sister Rose sipped the air with a spoon, as your babies do pap, and lived on it forty days; another swallowed a New Testament, bound in calf. Some had themselves hung, others crucified, and one, called Sister Rachel, when nailed to a cross, said she was quite happy. In their holy meetings, they beat, trampled, punctured, crucified, and burnt one another without the least sentiment of pain."

All this was done under Louis XV., and attested by thousands of witnesses, until at last the archbishop, by means of a strong military guard, put an end to the folly. Thereupon some wag wrote upon a wall:

De par le roi defense a Dieu De faire miracle en ce lieu.

Large packages of the earth were exported to work miracles in the provinces and in foreign countries. One of these marvellous cures is related, scoffingly, in a song of the d.u.c.h.esse de Maine:

Un decrotteur a la royale, Du talon gauche estropie, Obtint par grace speciale D'etre boiteux de l'autre pied.[103]

The church of S. Medard is in the Rue Mouffetard, and originally the ground belonged to the abbey of S. Genevieve. At first the monks only erected a small chapel, which they placed under the protection of the great Bishop of Noyon, who was the friend and chancellor of the early Merovingian Kings. In the 12th century the chapel is designated as a church in the bulls of the popes, and up to the Revolution it was served by the regular canons of the abbey.

The church is of no importance, dating only from the 15th century. The pillars are without capitals; but, as in many of the other churches, the keystones and bosses are elaborately carved. Some of them represent the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and other Scriptural subjects, besides monsters, griffins, and garlands of foliage. In one of the chapels a little gla.s.s of the 16th century remains; and a retable, upon which a Notre-Dame de Pitie is painted, is also worthy of note.

In 1784 an architect named Pet.i.t-Radel conceived the idea of transforming S. Medard into a modern temple of Jupiter, with not much success. Doric and Corinthian columns, palms and personages, adorn the sanctuary and the _chevet_. Better are the fragments of old gla.s.s which are interspersed with the new in some of the windows; a S. Fiacre, patron of cabs and coaches, a Holy Family, S. Michael, a Calvary, and many Angels; but they are the merest sc.r.a.ps of former grandeur. The chapel of the Virgin was built by the "artist" who mutilated and distorted the choir, and is in the same grandiose style. The academician, Olivier Patru, and Pierre Nicole, the theologian, were buried at S. Medard.

SAINT-MERRI.

At the bottom of the Rue S. Martin, close to the Rue de Rivoli, is a spot which, during the ages of faith, was much reverenced for its miracle-working powers. In the 7th century, the whole district was a forest, and doubtless the King and courtiers hunted there; for are we not told that the Louvre, hard by, was in early days but a royal hunting-box. As is well known, Paris, the Lutetia of the Gauls, consisted only of the present Cite, the island upon which stands the cathedral. All around were forests, well stocked with game (animals more or less wild); and here and there, probably, small outlying settlements which we should now call villages and hamlets.

In the midst of the wood stood a little chapel dedicated to S. Peter, which was as much surrounded by trees and shrubs as the present church of S. Merri is by streets and houses. Adjoining this chapel was a cell, or hermitage, and it was there that S. Merri, and his disciple, S.

Frodulphe, sojourned when on their way from Autun to the shrines of S.

Denis and S. Germain. S. Merri was abbot of Autun, but he seems to have been glad of a change to the great city; for so it befel, that instead of returning to his abbey, he stayed in this little wooded retreat, undisturbed by aught but the singing of the birds and the sighing of the trees, for the s.p.a.ce of three years. Then, on the 29th of August, about the year 700, he died, and was buried in the chapel. Many and wondrous were the miracles wrought at his tomb; and so famous did it become that S. Peter's patronage was forgotten, and the church was looked upon by the people as being under the exclusive protection of S. Merri.

About the end of the 9th century, a redoubtable warrior, Eudes de Fauconnier, desiring to celebrate his part in the expulsion of the Normans from the neighbourhood, erected a new church on the site of the little chapel, or in its immediate neighbourhood. This was dedicated to the two saints, S. Merri being placed before S. Peter. When this church, in its turn, was demolished in the time of Francois Ier, the remains of the founder were found in a stone coffin, the bones of his legs and feet being still shod in his gilt leathern boots. The coffin was re-buried in the choir, and an inscription placed upon a white marble slab: _Hic jacet vir bonae memoriae Odo Falconarius, huius ecclesiae, ora pro eo._ In the opinion of the abbe Lebeuf, this Odo was the famous warrior who with G.o.defroi defended the city against the Normans in 886.

The surname _Falconarius_ may come from Odo having been made the King's falconer, or from the kind of lance which he used, _falco_, because it was bent; just as Charles, the grandfather of Charlemagne, was known by the surname of Martel. The gilt leather boots denote a personage of the 9th century; similar _chaussures_ may be seen in miniatures of the Carlovingian period. One of the monks of S. Germain des Pres, Abbon, has celebrated the heroic deeds of Odo, and testified to the ability of the surgical instrument makers of the 9th century:--

UNA DIES ISTUM VOLUIT SIC LUDERE LUDUM, HIS DUCIBUS, G.o.dOFREDO NEC NON ET ODONE; BELLIGERI FUERANT UDDONIS CONSULIS AMBO.

IDEM ODO PRAETEREA OPPOSUIT SE SAEPUIS ILLIS ET VICIT JUGETER VICTOR. HEN! LIQUER UT ILLUM DEXTRA Ma.n.u.s BELLO QUONDAM, CUJUS LOCA CINXIT FERREA, PENE VIGORE NIHIL INFIRMIOR IPSA.[104]

S. Merri was made into a parish church in the 12th century, and in the early years of the following century it became collegiate. It was called the third daughter of Notre-Dame, a t.i.tle given to churches which were served by the clergy of the mother church, its chapter consisting of a _chefcier_, who filled the position of the _cure_, six canons, and six chaplains.

The present church was commenced in 1520 or a few years later, and finished in 1642; the architects adhering to the original plan, without any change of style, which is not often the case in churches that were so long in course of construction. The beautiful west front is a ma.s.s of rich ornamentation; its three portals, the pinnacles, corbels, niches, etc., being carved with various conceits--animals, human heads, flowers, vine-leaves, and so on, one little head having a cap such as is worn by the peasants of Auvergne. The statues, large and small, are modern, having been put in position in 1842, replacing those destroyed during the Revolution. Those round the _voussure_ are copied from one of the portals of Notre-Dame, and consequently are two centuries too early for the church. Another blunder of the modern architect is the placing of a demon in the centre at the point of the arch, where the Mediaeval artists invariably put the figure of Christ or of Our Lady. The lower part of the tower is contemporary with the church, but the upper stories have been rebuilt in the 17th century, and consist of Renaissance arches and shafts. Upon the opposite side is a little turret of open woodwork, and from the roof some old gargoyles stretch themselves out. The church is cruciform; unfortunately it is partly hidden by the Presbytery and other buildings. Indeed, like many Continental churches, it is so built about by surrounding houses that one only gets a view of it here and there. It is extraordinary that in such a city as Paris this is tolerated. At S.

Germain l'Auxerrois there is (or was, not long ago) an extraordinary little wooden hut (presumably the dwelling of the sacristan) built in between the b.u.t.tresses of the east end, and completely filling up two windows of the apse. The whole erection being in wood, it could easily be taken down; for it is only supported on great wooden piles, and approached by a sort of ladder. Such a state of things only exists in Catholic countries, and the more Catholic--as, for example, Belgium--the more complete is this sort of desecration.

The havoc made in the interior of the church by the 18th century architects is deplorable. Windows have been destroyed, piers have been stuccoed over, and pointed arches turned into round ones. The pillars are late Perpendicular, or rather Flamboyant, shafts without capitals; and round the nave, between the arches and the clerestory, runs a little frieze of foliage and quaint birds and beasts, a feature which is not common. All the bosses of the choir and apse are very richly decorated, and the vaulting is good, but both the choir and the _chevet_ have been sadly "improved." About 1753 the brothers Slodtz were commissioned to convert the thirteen pointed arches of the choir into round ones, and to encase the pillars in panellings of stucco, which was marbled and gilt, the last bay being profusely decorated with golden sun-rays. One of these unfortunate brothers, Michel-Angelo by name, designed the pulpit, a ma.s.s of palm-tree decoration, surmounted by a female figure of Religion; and to place this wondrous production, a whole bay of the nave had to be demolished. The year following three chapels were destroyed to make room for the new square, barn-like Chapel of the Communion; which, besides being beautified by the Slodtz brothers' sculptures, was further embellished with a picture by Charles Coypel. The modest sum paid to these miserable, so-called artists, for hacking the church to pieces, was 50,000 _ecus_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAINT-MERRI; NORTH-WEST DOOR.]

The crypt is most interesting, and is said to have been a reproduction of the original one which contained the tomb of S. Merri. It was used for some time as a workshop by the cleaners of the church, and was the depository of brooms, brushes and lamps. It has a stumpy central column, from which spring the ribs of the vault, the capital being ornamented with vine-leaves. It is square, and divided into four parts. A few remains of rec.u.mbent tombs can be seen in the pavement; but of the monuments of Arnaud de Pomponne, amba.s.sador of Louis XIV., and of Jean Chapelain, the author of _La Pucelle_, nothing remains. The crypt, with its solid central pillar, resembles that in the Louvre of the time of Philippe Auguste, which has lately been brought to light.

Much of the old gla.s.s has gone, the central portion of each window having been taken away, to throw more light upon the marbled stucco.

What remains is in good 16th century style, the work, probably, of Heron, Jacques de Paroy, Chamu, and Jean Nogare, whom Levieil records to have been the artists employed. The subjects are from the history of SS.

Peter, Joseph, John the Baptist, and Francis of a.s.sisi; but it is most difficult to follow the designs, as not only are there the gaps of plain gla.s.s, but what was taken out has been used for repairing the other windows. Still a few subjects can be traced; the Raising of Lazarus; an Angel bringing food to the Virgin as she works in the temple; the Magdalen preaching to the people from a pulpit; the Beheading of S.

John. In one of the chapels the history of Susannah figures--also Joseph and Jacob, and other Old Testament worthies. Three persons, identical in form and features, represent the Holy Trinity; they hold each other's hands in a circle, upon which is inscribed, _Ego sum alpha et omega, primus et novissimus_. On another window are the Sybils carrying the emblems of the Nativity and the Pa.s.sion, the Cradle, a lantern, the Scourge, and the Cross.

The church possesses a very curious holy-water stoop of the time of Louis XII. It is about three feet high, more like a baptismal font than a stoop in size; it is octagonal, and stands upon a pedestal with a square base. The upper part is decorated with the arms of France and of Bretagne, and the instruments of the Pa.s.sion. A small amount of carved woodwork of the Renaissance period remains--fragments of sculptured columns, pilasters, children, birds, and trophies. But a most remarkable picture of the 16th century arrests the visitor's attention as he saunters round the aisles, _S. Genevieve_ sitting in a sort of Druidical circle surrounded by her flock of sheep--a rare combination of mystic Paganism and Christian legend.

A mosaic tablet of the _Virgin and Child_ now in the Hotel Cluny (No.

1795) was formerly in this church. It was given by Jean de Ganay, first president of the Parliament. Piganiol de la Force gave the continuation of the inscription as "_Opus magistri Davidis_, Florentini, Anno M.CCCC.Lx.x.xXVI." Jean de Ganay went to Italy with Charles VIII., and took part in the campaign of 1494 and 1495, and for some time he was chancellor of the kingdom of Naples; but as he was not first president until 1505, the mosaic must have been sent to Paris subsequently to his sojourn in Italy. His epitaph runs thus:

CY GIST LE CORPS DE n.o.bLE CHEVALIER JEAN DE GANNY DE FRANCE CHANCELIER ET ZELATEUR DE LA CHOSE PUBLIQUE.

TARDIF a NUIRE ET PREST a CONSEILLER DU BIEN DAUTRUY CAR CESTOIT LE PILLIER, PHILOSOPHAL VRAY ARISTOTILIQUE, POURTANT HUMAINS UN CHACUN SE APPLIQUE PRIER JESUS PAR MESSES ET PAR DITS QUIL LUY PARDONNE ET DONNE PARADIS.

OBIIT ANNO 1512.

M. de Sommerard attributes this mosaic to David Ghirlandajo.

SAINT-NICOLAS DES CHAMPS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORCH OF SAINT-NICOLAS.]