( PDF ) Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, volume 3

Download PDF

ads:

Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

Various

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

by Various

this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project

Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the

header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the

eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is

important information about your specific rights and restrictions in

how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a

donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.

**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

Author: Various

Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8412]

[This file was first posted on July 8, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS

AUTHORS, VOLUME 3 ***

E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS, VOLUME III

FRANCE AND THE NETHERLANDS

ads:

Livros Grátis

http://www.livrosgratis.com.br

Milhares de livros grátis para download.

Selected and Edited, with Introductions, etc., by

FRANCIS W. HALSEY

Editor of "Great Epochs in American History"

Associate Editor of "The World's Famous Orations"

and of "The Best of the World's Classics," etc.

IN TEN VOLUMES

ILLUSTRATED

[Illustration: Paris: The Seine and Bridges]

Vol. III

Part One

Introduction to Volumes III and IV

France and the Netherlands

The tourist bound for France lands either at Cherbourg, Havre, or

Boulogne. At Cherbourg, he sees waters in which the "Kearsarge" sank the

"Alabama"; at Havre a shelter in which, long before Caesar came to Gaul,

ships, with home ports on the Seine, sought safety from the sea; and at

Boulogne may recall the invading expedition to England, planned by

Napoleon, but which never sailed.

From the Roman occupation, many Roman remains have survived in England,

but these are far inferior in numbers and in state of preservation to the

Roman remains found in France. Marseilles was not only an important Roman

seaport, but its earliest foundations date perhaps from Phoenician times,

and certainly do from the age when Greeks were building temples at Paestum

and Girgenti. Rome got her first foothold in Marseilles as a consequence

of the Punic wars; and in 125 B.C. acquired a province (Provincia Romana)

reaching from the Alps to the Rhone, and southward to the sea, with Aix as

its first capital and Arles its second. Caesar in 58 B.C. found on the

Seine a tribe of men called Parisii, whose chief village, Lutetia, stood

where now rises Notre Dame.

Lutetia afterward became a residence of Roman emperors. Constantius

Chlorus spent some time there, guarding the empire from Germans and

Britons, while Julian the Apostate built there for himself a palace and

ads:

extensive baths, of which remains still exist in Paris. In that palace

afterward lived Pepin le Bref ("mayor of the palace"), son of Charles

Martell, and father of the great Charles. Romans built there an

amphitheater seating ten thousand people, of which remains are still

visible.

Lyons was a great Roman city. Augustus first called it into vigorous life,

his wish being to make it "a second Rome." From Lyons a system of roads

ran out to all parts of Gaul. Claudius was born there; Caligula made it

the political and intellectual capital of Provincia; its people, under an

edict of Caracalla, were made citizens of Rome. At Nimes was born the

Emperor Antoninus. In Gaul, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian and Domitian

were made emperors. At Arles and Nimes are Roman amphitheaters still

regularly put to use for combats between men and wild beasts--but the wild

beasts, instead of lions and tigers, are bulls. At Orange is a Roman

theater of colossal proportions, in which a company from the Theatre

Francais annually presents classical dramas. The magnificent fortress city

of Carcassonne has foundation walls that were laid by Romans. Notre Dame

of Paris occupies the site of a temple to Jupiter.

As with modern England, so with modern France; its people are a mixture of

many races. To the southwest, in a remote age, came Iberians from Spain,

to Provence, Ligurians from Italy; to the northeast, Germanic tribes; to

the northwest, Scandinavians; to the central parts, from the Seine to the

Garonne, in the sixth century B.C., Gauls, who soon became the dominant

race, and so have remained until this day, masterful and fundamental. When

Caesar came, there had grown up in Gaul a martial nobility, leaders of a

warlike people, with chieftains whose names are familiar in the mouths and

ears of all schoolboys--Aricvistus and Vercingetorix. When Vercingetorix

was overthrown at Alesia, Gaul became definitely Roman. For five hundred

years it remained loyal to Rome. Within its borders, was established the

Pax Romana, and in 250 A.D., under St. Denis, Christianity. When the

disintegration of the empire set in five centuries afterward, Gaul was

among the first provinces to suffer. With the coming of the Visigoths and

Huns from the Black Sea, the Pranks and Bnrgundians from beyond the Rhine,

the Roman fall was near, but great battles were first fought in Gaul,

battles which rivaled those of Caesar five centuries before. Greatest of

all these was the one with Attila, at Chalons, in 451, where thousands

perished.

When the Roman dominion ended, Rome's one great province in Gaul became

seventeen small principalities, and power drifted fast into the hands of a

warlike aristocracy. Then a strong man rose in Clovis, who, in 508, made

Lutetia his capital, his successors enriching and adorning it. From these

beginnings, has been evolved, in twelve hundred years, the great modern

state--through Charlemagne and his empire-building, Louis XI. and his work

of consolidating feudal principalities into one strong state, through a

Hundred Years' War, fierce wars of religion, a long line of Bourbon kings,

with their chateaux-building in Touraine and Versailles, the Revolution of

1789, the Napoleonic era, the Republic. An historical land surely is this,

and a beautiful land, with her snow-capped mountains of the southeast, her

broad vineyards, unrivaled cathedrals, her Roman remains, ancient olive

groves, her art, her literature, her people.

Belgium and Holland were included in the territory known to Rome as Gaul.

Here dwelt a people called the Belgii, and another called the Nervii--that

tribal nation whom Caesar "overcame" on a summer's day, and the same

evening, "in his tent," "put on" the mantle that was pierced afterward by

daggers in the Senate House. From these lands came the skilled Batavian

cavalry, which followed Caesar in pursuit of Pompey and forced Pompey's

flight at Pharsalia. From here afterward came other Batavians, who served

as the Imperial Guard of Rome from Caasar's time to Vespasian's. In race,

as in geographical position, the Netherlands have belonged in part to

France, in part to Germany, the interior long remaining Gallic, the

frontier Teutonic. From Caesar's time down to the fifth century, the land

was Roman. Afterward, in several periods, it was in part, or in whole,

included in the domain of France--in Charlemagne's time and after; under

Louis XI., who sought, somewhat unsuccessfully, its complete submission;

under Louis XIV., who virtually conquered it; under the French Revolution,

and during Napoleon's ascendency. On Belgium soil Marlborough fought and

won Ramillies, and Wellington Waterloo.

Belgium and Holland were for long great centers of European commerce--at

Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam--rivals of English ports,

Holland an ancient adversary of England and her valiant enemy in great

wars. A still fiercer struggle came with Spain. Perhaps an even greater

conflict than these two has been her never-ending war with the sea.

Holland has been called a land enclosed in a fortress reared against the

sea. For generations her people have warred with angry waves; but, as

Motley has said, they gained an education for a struggle "with the still

more savage despotism of man." Let me not forget here Holland's great

school of art--comparable only to that of Spain, or even to that of Italy.

F. W. H.

Contents of Volume III

France and the Netherlands--Part One

INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. III AND IV--By the

Editor.

I--Paris

The City Beautiful--By Anne Warwick

Notre-Dame--By Victor Hugo

The Louvre--By Grant Allen

The Madeline and Champs Elysees--By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Hotel des Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb--By Augustus J. C. Hare

The Palais de Justice and Sainte Chapelle--By Grant Allen

The Hotel de Ville and the Conciergerie--By Augustus J. C. Hare

Pere la Chaise--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Musee de Cluny--By Grant Allen

The Place de la Bastille--By Augustus J. C. Hare

The Pantheon and St. Etienne du Mont--By Grant Allen

St. Roch--By Augustus J. C. Hare

II--The Environs of Paris

Versailles--By William Makepeace Thackeray

Versailles in 1739--By Thomas Gray

Fontainebleau--By Augustus J. C. Hare

St. Denis--By Grant Allen

Marly-Le-Roi--By Augustus J. C. Hare

The Village of Auteuil--By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Two Trianons--By Augustus J. C. Hare

Malmaison--By Augustus J. C. Hare

St. Germain--By Leitch Ritchie

St. Cloud--By Augustus J. C. Hare

III--Old Provence

The Papal Palace at Avignon--By Charles Dickens

The Building of the Great Palace--By Thomas Okey

The Walls of Avignon--By Thomas Okey

Villeneuve and the Broken Bridge--By Thomas Okey

Orange--By Henry James

Vaucluse--By Bayard Taylor

The Pont du Guard,--Aigues-Mortes--Nimes--By Henry James

Arles and Les Baux--By Henry James

IV--Cathedrals and Chateaux

Amiens--By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Rouen--By Thomas Frognall Dibdin

Chartres--By Epiphanius Wilson

Rheims--By Epiphanius Wilson

(_Cathedrals and Chateaux continued in Vol. IV_)

List of Illustrations

Volume III

Frontispiece

Paris: The Seine and Bridges

Notre Dame, Paris

Portion of the Louvre, Paris

Church of the Madeleine, Paris

Napoleon's Sarcophagus, Paris

The Burial Place of Napoleon, Paris

Column and Place Vendome, Paris

Column of July, Paris

The Pantheon, Paris

The House of the Chamber of Deputies, Paris

The Bourse, Paris

Interior of the Grand Opera House, Paris

Front of the Grand Opera House, Paris

The Arc de Triomphe, Paris

Arch Erected by Napoleon Near the Louvre, Paris

The Church of St. Vincent de Paul, Paris

The Church of St. Sulpice, Paris

The Picture Gallery of Versailles

The Bed-Room of Louis XIV., Versailles

The Grand Trianon at Versailles

The Little Trianon at Versailles

The Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont

Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles

Tours

Saint Denis

Havre

The Bridge at St. Cloud

[Illustration: Notre Dame, Paris]

[Illustration: Church of the Madeleine]

[Illustration: Portion of the Louvre]

[Illustration: Paris: Column and Place Vendome]

[Illustration: Burial Place of Napoleon]

[Illustration: Napoleon's Sarcophagus]

[Illustration: Paris: Column of July in the Place de la Bastille]

[Illustration: Pantheon, Paris]

[Illustration: House of the Chamber of Deputies]

[Illustration: Bourse, Paris]

PARIS

The City Beautiful

By Anne Warwick

[Footnote: From "The Meccas of the World." By permission of the publisher,

John Lane. Copyright, 1913.]

The most prejudiced will not deny that Paris is beautiful; or that there

is about her streets and broad, tree-lined avenues a graciousness at once

dignified and gay. Stand, as the ordinary tourist does on his first day,

in the flowering square before the Louvre; in the foreground are the

fountains and bright tulip-bordered paths of the Tuileries--here a glint

of gold, there a soft flash of marble statuary, shining through the trees;

in the center the round lake where the children sail their boats. Beyond

spreads the wide sweep of the Place de la Concorde, with its obelisk of

terrible significance, its larger fountains throwing brilliant jets of

spray; and then the trailing, upward vista of the Champs Elysees to the

great triumphal arch; yes, even to the most indifferent, Paris is

beautiful.

To the subtler of appreciation, she is more than beautiful; she is

impressive. For behind the studied elegance of architecture, the elaborate

simplicity of garden, the carefully lavish use of sculpture and delicate

spray, is visible the imagination of a race of passionate creators--the

imagination, throughout, of the great artist. One meets it at every turn

and corner, down dim passageways, up steep hills, across bridges, along

sinuous quays; the masterhand and its "infinite capacity for taking

pains." And so marvelously do its manifestations of many periods through

many ages combine to enhance one another that one is convinced that the

genius of Paris has been perennial; that St. Genevieve, her godmother,

bestowed it as an immortal gift when the city was born.

From earliest days every man seems to have caught the spirit of the man

who came before, and to have perpetuated it; by adding his own distinctive

yet always harmonious contribution to the gradual development of the

whole. One built a stately avenue; another erected a church at the end; a

third added a garden on the other side of the church, and terraces leading

up to it; a fourth and fifth cut streets that should give from the

remaining two sides into other flowery squares with their fine edifices.

And so from every viewpoint, and from every part of the entire city,

to-day we have an unbroken series of vistas--each one different and more

charming than the last.

History has lent its hand to the process, too; and romance--it is not an

insipid chain of flowerbeds we have to follow, but the holy warriors of

Saint Louis, the roistering braves of Henry the Great, the gallant

Bourbons, the ill-starred Bonapartes. These as they passed have left their

monuments; it may be only in a crumbling old chapel or ruined tower, but

there they are, eloquent of days that are dead, of a spirit that lives

forever staunch in the heart of the fervent French people.

It comes over one overwhelmingly sometimes, in the midst of the careless

gaiety of the modern city, the old, ever-burning spirit of rebellion and

savage strife that underlies it all, and that can spring to the surface

now on certain memorable days, with a vehemence that is terrifying. Look

across the Pont Alexandre, at the serene gold dome of the Invalides,

surrounded by its sleepy barracks. Suddenly you are in the fires and awful

slaughter of Napoleon's wars. The flower of France is being pitilessly cut

down for the lust of one man's ambition; and when that is spent, and the

wail of the widowed country pierces heaven with its desolation, a costly

asylum is built for the handful of soldiers who are left--and the great

Emperor has done his duty!

Or you are walking through the Cite, past the court of the Palais de

Justice. You glance in, carelessly--memory rushes upon you--and the court

flows with blood, "so that men waded through it, up to the knees!" In the

tiny stone-walled room yonder, Marie Antoinette sits disdainfully composed

before her keepers; tho her face is white with the sounds she hears, as

her friends and followers are led out to swell that hideous river of

blood.

A pretty, artificial city, Paris; good for shopping, and naughty

amusements, now and then. History? Oh yes, of course; but all that's so

dry and uninspiring, and besides it happened so long ago.

Did it? In your stroll along the Rue Royale, among the jewellers' and

milliners' shops and Maxim's, glance up at the Madeleine, down at the

obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. Little over a hundred years ago, this

was the brief distance between life and death for those who one minute

were dancing in the "Temple of Victory," the next were laying their heads

upon the block of the guillotine.

Notre-Dame

By Victor Hugo

[Footnote: From Hugo's "Notre-Dame de Paris." Translated by A.L. Alger. By

permission of Dana, Estes & Co. Copyright, 1888.]

The church of Notre-Dame at Paris is doubtless still a sublime and

majestic building. But, much beauty as it may retain in its old age, it is

not easy to repress a sigh, to restrain our anger, when we mark the

countless defacements and mutilations to which men and time have subjected

that venerable monument, without respect for Charlemagne, who laid its

first stone, or Philip Augustus, who laid its last....

Upon the face of this aged queen of French cathedrals, beside every

wrinkle we find a scar. "Tempus edax, homo edacior;" which I would fain

translate thus: "Time is blind, but man is stupid." Had we leisure to

study with the reader, one by one, the various marks of destruction graven

upon the ancient church, the work of Time would be the lesser, the worse

that of Men, especially of "men of art," since there are persons who have

styled themselves architects during the last two centuries.

And first of all, to cite but a few glaring instances, there are assuredly

few finer pages in the history of architecture than that facade where the

three receding portals with their pointed arches, the carved and

denticulated plinth with its twenty-eight royal niches, the huge central

rose-window flanked by its two lateral windows as is the priest by his

deacon and subdeacon, the lofty airy gallery of trifoliated arcades

supporting a heavy platform upon its slender columns, and lastly the two

dark and massive towers with their pent-house roofs of slate, harmonious

parts of a magnificent whole, one above the other, five gigantic stages,

unfold themselves to the eye, clearly and as a whole, with their countless

details of sculpture, statuary, and carving, powerfully contributing to

the calm grandeur of the whole; as it were, a vast symphony in stone; the

colossal work of one man and one nation, one and yet complex, like the

Iliad and the old Romance epics, to which it is akin; the tremendous sum

of the joint contributions of all the force of an entire epoch, in which

every stone reveals, in a hundred forms, the fancy of the workman

disciplined by the genius of the artist--a sort of human creation, in

brief, powerful and prolific as the Divine creation, whose double

characteristics, variety and eternity, it seems to have acquired.

And what we say of the facades, we must also say of the whole church; and

what we say of the cathedral church of Paris must be said of all the

Christian churches of the Middle Ages. Everything is harmonious which

springs from spontaneous, logical, and well-proportioned art. To measure a

toe, is to measure the giant.

Let us return to the facade of Notre-Dame as we see it at the present day,

when we make a pious pilgrimage to admire the solemn and mighty cathedral,

which, as its chroniclers declare, inspires terror. This facade now lacks

three important things: first, the eleven steps which formerly raised it

above the level of the ground; next, the lower series of statues which

filled the niches over the doors; and lastly, the upper row of the twenty-

eight most ancient kings of France, which adorned the gallery of the first

story, from Childebert down to Philip Augustus, each holding in his hand

"the imperial globe."

The stairs were destroyed by Time, which, with slow and irresistible

progress, raised the level of the city's soil; but while this flood-tide

of the pavements of Paris swallowed one by one the eleven steps which

added to the majestic height of the edifice, Time has perhaps given to the

church more than it took away, for it is Time which has painted the front

with that sober hue of centuries which makes the antiquity of churches

their greatest beauty.

But who pulled down the two rows of statues? Who left those empty niches?

Who carved that new and bastard pointed arch in the very center of the

middle door? Who dared to insert that clumsy, tasteless, wooden door,

carved in the style of Louis XV., side by side with the arabesques of

Biscornette? Who but men, architects, the artists of our day?

And if we step into the interior of the edifice, who overthrew that

colossal figure of Saint Christopher, proverbial among statues by the same

right as the great hall of the palace among halls, as the spire of

Strasburg among steeples? And those myriad statues which peopled every

space between the columns of the choir and the nave, kneeling, standing,

on horseback, men, women, children, kings, bishops, men-at-arms--of stone,

of marble, of gold, of silver, of copper, nay even of wax--who brutally

swept them away? It was not the hand of Time.

And who replaced the old Gothic altar, with its splendid burden of shrines

and reliquaries, by that heavy marble sarcophagus adorned with clouds and

cherubs, looking like a poor copy of the Val-de-Grace or the Hotel des

Invalides? Who was stupid enough to fasten that clumsy stone anachronism

into the Carlovingian pavement of Hercandus? Was it not Louis XIV.,

fulfilling the vow of Louis XIII.?

And who set cold white panes in place of that stained glass of gorgeous

hue, which led the wondering gaze of our fathers to roam uncertain 'twixt

the rose-window of the great door and the ogives of the chancel? And what

would a precentor of the sixteenth century say if he could see the fine

coat of yellow wash with which our Vandal archbishops have smeared their

cathedral? He would remember that this was the color with which the

executioner formerly painted those buildings judged "infamous;" he would

recall the hotel of the Petit-Bourbon, bedaubed with yellow in memory of

the Constable's treason; "a yellow of so fine a temper," says Sauval, "and

so well laid on, that more than a hundred years have failed to wash out

its color." He would fancy that the sacred spot had become accursed, and

would turn and flee.

And if we climb higher in the cathedral, without pausing to note a

thousand barbarous acts of every kind, what has become of that delightful

little steeple which rested upon the point of intersection of the

transept, and which, no less fragile and no less daring than its neighbor,

the spire of the Sainte-Chapelle, (also destroyed), rose yet nearer heaven

than the towers, slender, sharp, sonorous, and daintily wrought?

An architect of good taste (1787) amputated it, and thought it quite

enough to cover the wound with that large leaden plaster which looks like

the lid of a stewpan. Thus was the marvelous art of the Middle Ages

treated in almost every land, but particularly in France. We find three

sorts of injury upon its ruins, these three marring it to different

depths; first, Time, which has made insensible breaches here and there,

mildewed and rusted the surface everywhere; then, political and religious

revolutions, which, blind and fierce by nature, fell furiously upon it,

rent its rich array of sculpture and carving, shivered its rose-windows,

shattered its necklaces of arabesques and quaint figures, tore down its

statues--sometimes because of their crown; lastly, changing fashion, even

more grotesque and absurd, from the anarchic and splendid deviations of

the Renaissance down to the necessary decline of architecture.

Fashion did more than revolutions. Fashion cut into the living flesh,

attacked the very skeleton and framework of art; it chopped and hewed,

dismembered, slew the edifice, in its form as well as in its symbolism, in

its logic no less than in its beauty. But fashion restored, a thing which

neither time nor revolution ever pretended to do. Fashion, on the plea of

"good taste," impudently adapted to the wounds of Gothic architecture the

paltry gewgaws of a day,--marble ribbons, metallic plumes, a veritable

leprosy of egg-shaped moldings, of volutes, wreaths, draperies, spirals,

fringes, stone flames, bronze clouds, lusty cupids, and bloated cherubs,

which began to ravage the face of art in the oratory of Catherine de

Medici, and destroyed it, two centuries later, tortured and distorted, in

the Dubarry's boudoir.

There are thus, to sum up the points to which we have alluded, three sorts

of scars now disfiguring Gothic architecture; wrinkles and warts upon the

epidermis--these are the work of time; wounds, brutal injuries, bruises,

and fractures--these are the work of revolution, from Luther to Mirabeau;

mutilations, amputations, dislocations of the frame, "restorations,"--

these are the Greek, Roman barbaric work of professors according to

Vitruvius and Vignole. Academies have murdered the magnificent art which

the Vandals produced. To centuries, to revolutions which at least laid

waste with impartiality and grandeur, are conjoined the host of scholastic

architects, licensed and sworn, degrading all they touch with the

discernment and selection of bad taste, substituting the tinsel of Louis

XV. for Gothic lace-work, for the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is

the donkey's kick at the dying lion. It is the old oak, decaying at the

crown, pierced, bitten and devoured by caterpillars.

How different from the time when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre Dame at

Paris to the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus; "so loudly boasted by the

ancient pagans," which immortalized Herostratus, held the cathedral of the

Gauls to be "more excellent in length, breadth, height, and structure!"

Notre Dame at Paris is not, however, what can be called a complete,

definite monument, belonging to a class. It is neither a Roman nor a

Gothic church. The edifice is not a typical one. It has not, like the

abbey at Tournus, the sober massive breadth, the round expansive arch, the

icy bareness, the majestic simplicity of those buildings based on the

semicircular arch. It is not, like the cathedral at Bourges, the

magnificent, airy, multiform, bushy, sturdy, efflorescent product of the

pointed arch.

It is impossible to class it with that antique order of dark, mysterious,

low-studded churches, apparently crusht by the semicircular arch--almost

Egyptian, save for the ceiling; all hieroglyphic, all sacerdotal, all

symbolic, more loaded in their ornamentation with lozenges and zigzags

than with flowers, with flowers than with animals, with animals than with

men; less the work of the architect than of the bishop; the first

transformation of the art, bearing the deep impress of theocratic and

military discipline, taking root in the Lower Empire, and ceasing with

William the Conqueror. It is impossible to place our cathedral in that

other family of lofty, aerial churches, rich in stained glass and

sculpture; of pointed forms and daring attitudes; belonging to the

commoners and plain, citizens, as political symbols; free, capricious,

lawless, as works of art; the second transformation of architecture, no

longer hieroglyphic, unchangeable, sacerdotal, but artistic, progressive,

and popular, beginning with the close of the Crusades and ending with

Louis XI. Notre Dame at Paris is not of purely Roman race like the former,

nor of purely Arab breed like the latter.

It is a building of the transition period. The Saxon architect had just

reared the pillars of the nave, when the pointed arch, brought back from

the Crusades, planted itself as conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals

which were never meant to support anything but semicircular arches. The

pointed arch, thenceforth supreme, built the rest of the church. And

still, inexperienced and shy at first, it swelled, it widened, it

restrained itself, and dared not yet shoot up into spires and lancets, as

it did later on in so many marvelous cathedrals. It seemed sensible of the

close vicinity of the heavy Roman columns.

Moreover, these buildings of the transition from Roman to Gothic are no

less valuable studies than the pure types. They express a gradation of the

art which would otherwise be lost. They represent the ingrafting of the

pointed arch upon the semicircular.

Notre Dame at Paris, in particular, is a curious example of this variety.

Every face, every stone of the venerable monument is a page not only of

the history of the country, but also of the history of science and art.

Thus, to allude only to leading details, while the little Porte Rouge

attains the almost extreme limit of the Gothic refinement of the fifteenth

century, the pillars of the nave, in their size and gravity of style, go

back to the Carlovingian Abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres. One would say

that there was an interval of six centuries between that door and those

pillars. Even the Hermetics find among the symbols of the great door a

satisfactory epitome of their science, of which the Church of St. Jacques

de la Boucherie formed so complete a hieroglyph.

Thus, the Roman abbey, the philosopher's church, Gothic art, Saxon art,

the clumsy round pillar, which recalls Gregory VII., the hermetic

symbolism by which Nicholas Flamel paved the way for Luther, papal unity,

schism, Saint-Germain des Pres, Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, are all

confounded, combined and blended in Notre Dame. This central and

generative church is a kind of chimera among the old churches of Paris; it

has the head of one, the limbs of another, the trunk of a third, something

of all.

Considering here Christian European architecture only, that younger sister

of the grand piles of the Orient, we may say that it strikes the eye as a

vast formation divided into three very distinct zones or layers, one

resting upon the other; the Roman zone, (the same which is also known

according to place, climate, and species, as Lombard, Saxon, and

Byzantine. There are the four sister forms of architecture, each having

its peculiar character, but all springing from the same principle, the

semicircular arch,) the Gothic zone, the zone of the Renaissance, which

may be called the Greco-Roman. The Roman stratum, which is the oldest and

the lowest, is occupied by the semicircular arch, which reappears,

together with the Greek column, in the modern and uppermost stratum of the

Renaissance. The painted arch is between the two. The buildings belonging

to any one of these three strata are perfectly distinct, uniform, and

complete. Such are the Abbey of Jumieges, the Cathedral of Rheims, the

Church of the Holy Cross at Orleans. But the three zones are blended and

mingled at the edges, like the colors in the solar spectrum.

Hence, we have certain complex structures, buildings of gradation and

transition, which may be Roman at the base, Gothic in the middle, and

Greco-Roman at the top. This is caused by the fact that it took six

hundred years to build such a fabric. This variety is rare. The donjon-

keep at Etampes is a specimen. But monuments of two formations are more

frequent. Such is Notre-Dame at Paris, a structure of the pointed arch,

its earliest columns leading directly to that Roman zone, of which the

portals of Saint-Denis and the nave of Saint-Germain des Pres are perfect

specimens. Such is the charming semi-Gothic chapter-house of Boucherville,

where the Roman layer reaches midway. Such is the cathedral of Rouen,

which would be wholly Gothic if the tip of its central spire did not dip

into the zone of the Renaissance. [Footnote: This part of the spire, which

was of timber, happens to be the very part which was burned by lightning

in 1823.]

However, all these gradations and differences affect the surface only of

an edifice. Art has but changed its skin. The construction itself of the

Christian church is not affected by them. The interior arrangement, the

logical order of the parts, is still the same. Whatever may be the carved

and nicely-wrought exterior of a cathedral, we always find beneath it, if

only in a rudimentary and dormant state, the Roman basilica. It rises

forever from the ground in harmony with the same law.

There are invariably two naves intersecting each other in the form of a

cross, the upper end being rounded into a chancel or choir; there are

always side aisles, for the processions and for chapels, a sort of lateral

galleries or walks, into which the principal nave opens by means of the

spaces between the columns. This settled, the number of chapels, doors,

steeples, and spires may be modified indefinitely, according to the fancy

of the century, the people, and the art. The performance of divine service

once provided for and assured, architecture acts its own pleasure.

Statues, stained glass, rose-windows, arabesques, denticulations,

capitals, and bas-reliefs,--it combines all these flowers of the fancy

according to the logarithm that suits it best. Hence the immense variety

in the exteriors of those structures within which dwell such unity and

order. The trunk of the tree is fixt; the foliage is variable.

The Louvre

By Grant Allen

[Footnote: From "Paris."]

The Louvre is the noblest monument of the French Renaissance. From the

time of St. Louis onward, the French kings began to live more and more in

the northern suburb, the town of the merchants, which now assumed the name

of La Ville, in contradistinction to the Cite and the Universite. Two of

their chief residences here were the Bastille and the Hotel St. Paul, both

now demolished--one, on the Place so called; the other, between the Rue

St. Antoine and the Quai des Celestins. But from a very early period they

also possest a chateau on the site of the Louvre, and known by the same

name, which guarded the point where the wall of Philippe Auguste abutted

on the river. Francois I. decided to pull down this picturesque turreted

medieval castle, erected by Philippe Auguste and altered by Charles V. He

began the construction in its place of a magnificent Renaissance palace,

which has ever since been in course of erection.

Its subsequent growth, however, is best explained opposite the building

itself, where attention can be duly called to the succession of its

salient features. But a visit to the exterior fabric of the Louvre should

be preceded by one to St. Germain l'Auxerrois, the parish church, and

practically the chapel, of the old Louvre, to which it stood in somewhat

the same relation as the Ste. Chapelle to the home of St. Louis. Note,

however, that the church was situated just within the ancient wall, while

the chateau lay outside it. The visitor will doubtless be tolerably

familiar by this time with some parts at least of the exterior of the

Louvre; but he will do well to visit it now systematically, in the order

here suggested, so as to gain a clear general idea of its history and

meaning....

Begin by understanding distinctly that this court is the real and original

Louvre; the rest is mere excresence, intended to unite the main building

with the Tuileries, which lay some hundreds of yards to the west of it.

Notice, first, that the Palace as a whole, seen from the point where you

now stand, is constructed on the old principle of relatively blank

external walls, like a castle, with an interior courtyard, on which all

the apartments open, and almost all the decoration is lavished.

Reminiscences of defense lurk about the Louvre. It can best be understood

by comparison with such ornate, yet fortress-like, Italian palaces as the

Strozzi at Florence. Notice the four opposite portals, facing the cardinal

points, which can be readily shut by means of great doors; while the

actual doorways of the various suites of apartments open only into the

protected courtyard. This is the origin of the familiar French porte-

cochere.

Again, the portion of the building that directly faces you as you enter

the court from St. Germain is the oldest part, and represents the early

Renaissance spirit. It is the most primitive Louvre. Note in particular

the central elevated portion, known as a Pavilion, and graced with elegant

Caryatides. These Pavilions are lingering reminiscences of the medieval

towers. You will find them in the corners and centers of other blocks in

the Louvre. They form a peculiarly French Renaissance characteristic. The

Palace is here growing out of the Castle. The other three sides of the

square are, on the whole, more classical and later.

Now across the square directly to the Pavilion de l'Horloge, as it is

called, from the clock which adorns it. To your left, on the floor of the

court, are two circular white lines, enclosed in a square. These mark the

site of the original Chateau of the Louvre, with its keep, or donjon.

Francois I., who began the existing building, originally intended that his

palace should cover the same area. It was he who erected the left wing,

which now faces you, marked by the crown and H on its central round gable,

placed there by his successor, Henry II., under whom it was completed. To

the same king are also due the monograms of H and D (for Diane de

Poitiers, his mistress), between the columns of the ground floor. The

whole of the Pavilion de l'Horloge, and of this west wing, should be

carefully examined in detail as the finest remaining specimen of highly

decorated French Renaissance architecture. (But the upper story of the

Pavilion, with the Caryatides, is an age later.) Observe even the

decoration lavished on the beautiful chimneys. Pierre Lescot was the

architect of this earliest wing; the exquisite sculpture is by Jean

Goujon, a Frenchman, and the Italian, Paolo Ponzio. Examine much of it.

The crossed K's of certain panels stand for Catherine de Medici.

The right wing, beyond the Pavilion, was added, in the same style, under

Louis XIII., who decided to double the plan of his predecessors, and form

the existing Cour du Louvre.

The other three sides, in a more classic style, with pediments replacing

the Pavilions, and square porticos instead of rounded gables, are for the

most part later. The south side, however, as far as the central door, is

also by Pierre Lescot. It forms one of the two fronts of the original

square first contemplated. The attic story of these three sides was added

under Louis XIV., to whom, in the main, is due this Cour du Louvre. A

considerable part of Louis XIV.'s decorations bear reference to his

representation as "le roi soleil."

Now, pass through the Pavilion de l'Horloge (called on its west side

Pavilion Sully) into the second of the three courts of the Louvre. To

understand this portion of the building, again, you must remember that

shortly after the erection of the Old Louvre, Catherine de Medici began to

build her palace of the Tuileries, now destroyed, to the west of it. She

(and subsequent rulers) designed to unite the Old Louvre with the

Tuileries by a gallery which should run along the bank of the river. Of

that gallery, Catherine de Medici herself erected a considerable portion,

to be described later, and Henri IV., almost completed it. Later on,

Napoleon I. conceived the idea of extending a similar gallery along his

new Rue de Rivoli, on the north side, so as to enclose the whole space

between the Louvre and the Tuileries in one gigantic double courtyard.

Napoleon III. carried out his idea. The second court in which you now

stand is entirely flanked by buildings of this epoch--the Second Empire.

Examine it cursorily as far as the modern statue of Gambetta.

Stand or take a seat by the railing of the garden opposite the Pavilion

Sully. The part that now faces you forms a portion of the building of

Francois I, and Louis XIII., redecorated in part by Napoleon I. The

portions to your right and left are entirely of the age of Napoleon III.,

built so as to conceal the want of parallelism of the outer portions.

Observe their characteristic Pavilions, each bearing its own name

inscribed upon it. This recent square, tho quite modern in the character

of its sculpture and decoration, is Renaissance in its general

architecture, and, when looked back upon from the gardens of the

Tuileries, affords a most excellent idea of that stately style, as

developed in France under Francois I. The whole of this splendid plan,

however, has been rendered futile by the destruction of the Tuileries,

without which the enclosure becomes wholly meaningless.

Now, continue westward, pass the Monument of Gambetta, and take a seat on

the steps at the base, near the fine figure of Truth. In front of you

opens the third square of the Louvre, known as the Place du Carrousel, and

formerly enclosed on its west side by the Palace of the Tuileries, which

was unfortunately burned down in 1871, during the conflict between the

Municipal and National authorities. Its place is now occupied by a garden

terrace, the view from which in all directions is magnificent. Fronting

you, as you sit, is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, erected under

Napoleon I., by Percier and Fontaine, in imitation of the Arch of

Septimius Severus at Rome, and once crowned by the famous bronze Roman

horses from St. Mark's at Venice. The arch, designed as an approach to the

Tuileries during the period of the classical mania, is too small for its

present surroundings, since the removal of the Palace. The north wing,

visible to your right, is purely modern, of the age of the First and

Second Empire and the Third Republic. The meretricious character of the

reliefs in its extreme west portion, erected under the Emperor Napoleon

III., and restored after the Commune, is redolent of the spirit of that

gaudy period. The south wing, to your left, forms part of the connecting

gallery erected by Henri IV., but its architecture is largely obscured by

considerable alterations under Napoleon III. Its west pavilion-known as

the Pavilion de Flore--is well worth notice.

Having thus gained a first idea of the courtyard fronts of the building,

continue your walk, still westward, along the south wing as far as the

Pavilion de Flore, a remaining portion of the corner edifice which ran

into one line with the Palace of the Tuileries. Turn round the corner of

the Pavilion to examine the south or river front of the connecting

gallery--one of the finest parts of the whole building, but far less known

to ordinary visitors than the cold and uninteresting northern line along

the Rue de Rivoli. The first portion, as far as the gateways, belongs

originally to the age of Henry IV., but it was entirely reconstructed

under Napoleon III., whose obtrusive N appears in many places on the

gateways and elsewhere.

Nevertheless, it still preserves, on the whole, some reminiscence of its

graceful Renaissance architecture. Beyond the main gateway (with modern

bronze Charioteer of the Sun), flanked by the Pavilions de la Tremoille

and de Lesdiguieres, we come upon the long Southern Gallery erected by

Catherine de Medici, which still preserves almost intact its splendid

early French Renaissance decoration. This is one of the noblest portions

of the entire building. The N here gives place to H's, and the Renaissance

scroll-work and reliefs almost equal those in that portion of the old

Louvre which was erected under Francois I. Sit on a seat on the Quay and

examine the sculpture.

Notice particularly the splendid Porte Jean Goujon, conspicuous from afar

by its gilded balcony. Its crowned H's and coats-of-arms are specially

interesting examples of the decorative work of the period. Note also the

skill with which this almost flat range is relieved by sculpture and

decoration so as to make us oblivious of the want of that variety usually

given by jutting portions. The end of this long gallery is formed by two

handsome windows with balconies. We there come to the connecting Galerie

d'Apollon, of which these windows are the termination, and finally reach

once more a portion of Perrault's facade, with its double LL's, erected

under Louis XIV., and closely resembling the interior facade of the Cour

du Louvre....

The Collections in the Louvre have no such necessary organic connection

with Paris itself as Notre Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle, or even those in

the rooms at Cluny. They may, therefore, be examined by the visitor at any

period of his visit that he chooses. I would advise him, however, whenever

he takes them up, to begin with the paintings and then to go on to the

Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. The last-named, at least, he should

only examine in connection with the rest of Renaissance Paris. Also, while

it is unimportant whether he takes first Painting or Sculpture, it is very

doubtful that he should take each separately in the chronological order.

At least six days--far more, if possible--should be devoted to the Louvre

Collections--by far the most important objects to be seen in Paris. Of

these, four should be assigned to the Paintings, and one each to the

Classical and Renaissance Sculpture. If this is impossible, do not try to

see all; see a little thoroughly. Confine yourself, for Painting, to the

Salon Carre and Gallery VII., and for Sculpture to the Classical Gallery

and to the three Western rooms of the Renaissance collection.

The Madeleine and Champs Elysees

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Footnote From "French and Italian Note-Books." By special arrangement

with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton,

Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1871, 1883, 1899.]

Approaching the Madeleine, we found it a most beautiful church, that might

have been adapted from Heathenism to Catholicism; for on each side there

is a range of magnificent pillars, unequalled, except by those of the

Parthenon. A mourning coach, arrayed in black and silver, was drawn up at

the steps, and the front of the church was hung with black cloth, which

covered the whole entrance. However, seeing the people going in, we

entered along with them. Glorious and gorgeous is the Madeleine. The

entrance to the nave is beneath a most stately arch; and three arches of

equal height open from the nave to the side aisles; and at the end of the

nave is another great arch, rising, with a vaulted half-dome, over the

high altar. The pillars supporting these arches are Corinthian, with

richly sculptured capitals; and wherever gilding might adorn the church,

it is lavished like sunshine; and within the sweeps of the arches there

are fresco paintings of sacred subjects, and a beautiful picture covers

the hollow of the vault over the altar; all this, besides much sculpture;

and especially a group above and around the high altar, representing the

Magdalen smiling down upon angels and archangels, some of whom are

kneeling, and shadowing themselves with their heavy marble wings.

There is no such thing as making my page glow with the most distant idea

of the magnificence of this church, in its details and in its whole. It

was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then Bonaparte

contemplated transforming it into a Temple of Victory, or building it anew

as one. The restored Bourbon remade it into a church; but it still has a

heathenish look, and will never lose it.

When we entered we saw a crowd of people, all pressing forward toward the

high altar, before which burned a hundred wax lights, some of which were

six or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy of

stars. In the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of

wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered

with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus,

or something still more huge.

The organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with

heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young

voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. The church,

between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with

broad expanses of black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred

vestments covered with black. They looked exceedingly well; I never saw

anything half so well got up on the stage. Some of these ecclesiastical

figures were very stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore aloft

the cross, and swung the censers in a way that I liked to see.

The ceremonies of the Catholic Church were a superb work of art, or

perhaps a true growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men felt

their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. Being

of another parish, I looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad

to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was

over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part

usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a

gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the

air of a military man....

When we left the Madeleine we took our way to the Place de la Concorde,

and thence through the Elysian Fields (which, I suppose, are the French

idea of heaven) to Bonaparte's triumphal arch. The Champs Elysees may look

pretty in summer; tho I suspect they must be somewhat dry and artificial

at whatever season.--the trees being slender and scraggy, and requiring to

be renewed every few years. The soil is not genial to them. The strangest

peculiarity of this place, however, to eyes fresh from moist and verdant

England, is, that there is not one blade of grass in all the Elysian

Fields, nothing but hard clay, now covered with white dust. It gives the

whole scene the air of being a contrivance of man, in which Nature has

either not been invited to take any part, or has declined to do so.

There were merry-go-rounds, wooden horses, and other provision for

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 Vendome, 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Eugene. 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 facade is Louis XIV. on horseback. Behind the facade 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 Benedict

Masson, 1865, have much interest. In the center of the facade 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 Liberal 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 Chatelet to your right. In

front is the pretty modern fountain of the Chatelet; right, the Theatre du

Chatelet; left, the Opera 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 Cite. The square, dome-crowned building opposite you to

the left is the modern Tribunal de Commerce; beyond it leftward lie the

Marche-aux-Fleurs and the long line of the Hotel-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 Cesar 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 facade 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

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 facade 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 Cite. 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 Cite 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 Cite. 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 Chateauroux, 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 fleche 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 Genevieve. 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 naive 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 Greve, 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 Clemence 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 Hotel de Ville was begun and finished by the architect Marin

de la Vallee 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 Trone, 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 Hotel 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 Hotel 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 Hotel de Ville

connected with public fetes--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 Hotel 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 hotel 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'Hotel de Ville is so modernized that it retains nothing of

the Place de Greve 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-fe of Jacques de Povanes, student of the University,

in 1525; that of Nicholas de Salcede, 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 Hotel 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 Souriciere, 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 Cesar.

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.

Pere la Chaise

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[Footnote: From "Outre Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

The cemetery of Pere 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.

Pere la Chaise stands just beyond the Barriere d'Aulney, on a hill-side,

looking toward the city. Numerous gravel-walks, winding through shady

avenues and between marble monuments, lead up from the principal entrance

to a chapel on the summit. There is hardly a grave that has not its little

inclosure planted with shrubbery; and a thick mass of foliage half

conceals each funeral stone. The sighing of the wind, as the branches rise

and fall upon it,--the occasional note of a bird among the trees, and the

shifting of light and shade upon the tombs beneath, have a soothing effect

upon the mind; and I doubt whether any one can enter that inclosure, where

repose the dust and ashes of so many great and good men, without feeling

the religion of the place steal over him, and seeing something of the dark

and gloomy expression pass off from the stern countenance of death.

It was near the close of a bright summer afternoon that I visited this

celebrated spot for the first time. The object that arrested my attention,

on entering, was a monument in the form of a small Gothic chapel, which

stands near the entrance, in the avenue leading to the right hand. On the

marble couch within are stretched two figures, carved in stone and drest

in the antique garb of the Middle Ages. It is the tomb of Abelard and

Heloise. The history of these unfortunate lovers is too well known to need

recapitulation; but perhaps it is not so well known how often their ashes

were disturbed in the slumber of the grave. Abelard died in the monastery

of Saint Marcel, and was buried in the vaults of the church. His body was

afterward removed to the convent of the Paraclet, at the request of

Heloise, and at her death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three

centuries they reposed together; after which they were separated to

different sides of the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-

abbess of the convent. More than a century afterward, they were again

united in the same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed,

their moldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur-

Seine. They were next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris; and now

repose near the gateway of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. What a singular

destiny was theirs! that, after a life of such passionate and disastrous

love,--such sorrows, and tears, and penitence--their very dust should not

be suffered to rest quietly in the grave!--that their death should so much

resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its

meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!--that mistaken zeal should

follow them down to the very tomb--as if earthly passion could glimmer,

like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in

their ashes bum their wonted fires!"....

Leaving this interesting tomb behind me, I took a pathway to the left,

which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep shade

of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow mingled,

interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle. I now stood

in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step awakened a new

train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my eye caught the name

of some one whose glory had exalted the character of his native land, and

resounded across the waters of the Atlantic. Philosophers, historians,

musicians, warriors, and poets slept side by side around me; some beneath

the gorgeous monument, and some beneath the simple headstone. But the

political intrigue, the dream of science, the historical research, the

ravishing harmony of sound, the tried courage, the inspiration of the

lyre--where are they? With the living, and not with the dead! The right

hand has lost its cunning in the grave; but the soul, whose high volitions

it obeyed, still lives to reproduce itself in ages yet to come.

Among these graves of genius I observed here and there a splendid

monument, which had been raised by the pride of family over the dust of

men who could lay no claim either to the gratitude or remembrances of

posterity. Their presence seemed like an intrusion into the sanctuary of

genius. What had wealth to do there? Why should it crowd the dust of the

great? That was no thoroughfare of business--no mart of gain! There were

no costly banquets there; no silken garments, nor gaudy liveries, nor

obsequious attendants!....

I continued my walk through the numerous winding paths, as chance or

curiosity directed me. Now I was lost in a little green hollow, overhung

with thick-leaved shrubbery, and then came out upon an elevation, from

which, through an opening in the trees, the eye caught glimpses of the

city, and the little esplanade, at the foot of the hill, where the poor

lie buried. There poverty hires its grave, and takes but a short lease of

the narrow house. At the end of a few months, or at most of a few years,

the tenant is dislodged to give place to another, and he in turn to a

third. "Who," says Sir Thomas Browne, "knows the fate of his bones, or how

often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither

they are to be scattered?"

Yet, even in that neglected corner, the hand of affection had been busy in

decorating the hired house. Most of the graves were surrounded with a

slight wooden paling, to secure them from the passing footstep; there was

hardly one so deserted as not to be marked with its little wooden cross,

and decorated with a garland of flowers; and here and there I could

perceive a solitary mourner, clothed in black, stooping to plant a shrub

on the grave, or sitting in motionless sorrow beside it....

After rambling leisurely about for some time, reading the iscriptions on

the various monuments which attracted my curiosity, and giving way to the

different reflections they suggested, I sat down to rest myself on a

sunken tombstone. A winding gravel-walk, overshaded by an avenue of trees,

and lined on both sides with richly sculptured monuments, had gradually

conducted me to the summit of the hill, upon whose slope the cemetery

stands. Beneath me in the distance, and dim-discovered through the misty

and smoky atmosphere of evening, rose the countless roofs and spires of

the city. Beyond, throwing his level rays athwart the dusky landscape,

sank the broad red sun. The distant murmur of the city rose upon my ear;

and the toll of the evening bell came up, mingled with the rattle of the

paved street and the confused sounds of labor. What an hour for

meditation! What a contrast between the metropolis of the living and the

metropolis of the dead!....

Before I left the graveyard the shades of evening had fallen, and the

objects around me grown dim and indistinct. As I passed the gateway, I

turned to take a parting look. I could distinguish only the chapel on the

summit of the hill, and here and there a lofty obelisk of snow-white

marble, rising from the black and heavy mass of foliage around, and

pointing upward to the gleam of the departed sun, that still lingered in

the sky, and mingled with the soft starlight of a summer evening.

The Musee de Cluny

By Grant Allen

[Footnote: From "Paris."]

The primitive nucleus of the suburb on the South Side consists of the

Roman fortress palace, the "tete du pont" of the Left Bank, now known as

the Thermes, owing to the fact that its principal existing remains include

only the ruins of the bath or therma. This colossal building, probably

erected by Constantius Chlorus, the father of Constantine, covered an

enormous area south of the river. After the Frankish conquest, it still

remained the residence of the Merwing and Karling kings on the rare

occasions when they visited Paris; and it does not seem to have fallen

into utter decay till a comparatively late date in the Middle Ages.

With the Norman irruptions, however, and the rise of the real French

monarchs under Eudes and the Capets, the new sovereigns found it safest to

transfer their seat to the Palace on the Island (now the Palais de

Justice), and the Roman fortress was gradually dismantled. In 1340 the

gigantic ruins came into the hands of the powerful Benedictine Abbey of

Cluny, near Macon, in Burgundy; and about 1480, the abbots began to erect

on the spot a town mansion for themselves, which still bears the name of

the Hotel de Cluny. The letter K, the mark of Charles VIII. (1483-1498),

occurs on many parts of the existing building, and fixes its epoch. The

house was mostly built by Jaques d'Amboise, abbot, in 1490. The style is

late Gothic, with Renaissance features.

The abbots, however, seldom visited Paris, and they frequently placed

their town house accordingly at the disposition of the kings of France.

Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII., and widow of Louis XII., occupied

it thus in 1515, soon after its completion. It was usual for the queens of

France to wear white as mourning; hence her apartment is still known as

the "Chambre de la reine blanche."

At the Revolution, when the property of the monasteries was confiscated,

the Hotel de Cluny was sold, and passed at last, in 1833, into the hands

of M. du Sommerard, a zealous antiquary, who began the priceless

collection of works of art which it contains. He died in 1842, and the

Government then bought the house and museum, and united it with the Roman

ruin at its back under the title of Musee des Thermes et de l'Hotel de

Cluny. Since that time many further objects have been added to the

collection.

At Cluny the actual building forms one of the most interesting parts of

the sight, and is in itself a museum. It is a charming specimen of a late

medieval French mansion; and the works of art it contains are of the

highest artistic value.... At least two whole days should be devoted to

Cluny--one to the lower and one to the upper floor. Much more, if

possible.

The Place de la Bastille

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David

McKay. Copyright, 1880.]

The south end of the Rue des Tournelles falls into the Place de la

Bastille, containing Le Colonne de Juillet, surmounted by a statue of

Liberty, and erected 1831-1840. This marks the site of the famous castle-

prison of the Bastille, which for four centuries and a half terrified

Paris, and which has left a name to the quarter it frowned upon. Hugues

Ambriot, Mayor of Paris, built it under Charles V. to defend the suburb

which contained the royal palace of St. Paul. Unpopular from the excess of

his devotion to his royal master, Aubriot was the first prisoner in his

own prison.

Perhaps the most celebrated of the long list of after captives were the

Connetable de St. Pol and Jacques d'Armagnac, Due de Nemours, taken thence

for execution to the Place de Greve under Louis XI., Charles de Gontaut,

Due de Biron, executed within the walls of the fortress under Henri IV.,

and the "Man with the Iron Mask," brought hither mysteriously, September

18, 1698, and who died in the Bastille, November 19, 1703.

A thousand engravings show us the Bastille as it was--as a "fort-bastide"

--built on the line of the city walls just to the south of the Porte St.

Antoine, surrounded by its own moat. It consisted of eight round towers,

each bearing a characteristic name, connected by massive walls, ten feet

thick, pierced with narrow slits by which the cells were lighted. In the

early times it had entrances on three sides, but after 1580 only one, with

a drawbridge over the moat on the side toward the river, which led to

outer courts and a second drawbridge, and wound by a defended passage to

an outer entrance opposite the Rue des Tournelles.

Close beside the Bastille, to the north, rose the Porte St. Antoine,

approached over the city fosse by its own bridge, at the outer end of

which was a triumphal arch built on the return of Henri II. from Poland in

1573. Both gate and arch were restored for the triumphal entry of Louis

XIV. in 1667; but the gate (before which Etienne Marcel was killed, July,

1358), was pulled down in 1674.

The Bastille was taken by the people, July 14, 1789, and the National

Assembly decreed its demolition.... The massive circular pedestal upon

which the Colonne de Juillet now rests was intended by Napoleon I. to

support a gigantic fountain in the form of an elephant, instead of the

column which, after the destruction of the Bastille, the "tiers etat" of

Paris had asked to erect "a Louis XVI., restaurateur de la liberte

publique." It is characteristic of the Parisians that on the very same

spot the throne of Louis Philippe was publicly burned, February 24, 1848.

The model for the intended elephant existed here till the middle of the

reign of Louis Philippe, and is depicted by Victor Hugo as the lodging of

"Le petit Gavroche."

The Pantheon and St. Etienne-Du-Mont

By Grant Allen

[Footnote: From "Paris."]

The medieval church of Ste. Genevieve, having fallen into decay in the

middle of the eighteenth century, Louis XV. determined to replace it by a

sumptuous domed edifice in the style of the period. This building,

immediately secularized as the Pantheon, under circumstances to be

mentioned later. The remains of Ste. Genevieve, which had lain temporarily

meanwhile in a sumptuous chapel of St. Etienne-du-Mont (the subsidiary

church of the monastery) were taken out by the Revolutionists; the

medieval shrine, or reliquary (which replaced St. Eloy's), was ruthlessly

broken up; and the body of the patroness and preserver of Paris was

publicly burned in the Place de Greve.

This, however, strange to say, was not quite the end of Ste. Genevieve. A

few of her relics were said to have been preserved: some bones, together

with a lock of the holy shepherdess's hair, were afterward recovered, and

replaced in the sarcophagus they had once occupied. Such at least is the

official story; and these relics, now once more enclosed in a costly

shrine, still attract thousands of votaries to the chapel of the saint in

St. Etienne-du-Mont.

The Pantheon, standing in front of the original church, is now a secular

burial-place for the great men of France. The remains of Ste. Genevieve

still repose at St. Etienne. Thus it is impossible to dissociate the two

buildings, which should be visited together; and thus too it happens that

the patroness of Paris has now no church in her own city. Local saints are

always the most important; this hill and Montmartre are still the holiest

places in Paris.

Proceed, as far as the garden of the Thermes, as on the excursion to

Cluny. Then continue straight up the Boulevard St. Michel. The large

edifice visible on the right of the Rue des Ecoles to your left, is the

new building of the Sorbonne, or University. Further up, at the Place du

Sorbonne, the domed church of the same name stands before you. It is the

University church, and is noticeable as the earliest true dome erected in

Paris. The next corner shows one, right, the Luxembourg garden, and left,

the Rue Soufflot, leading up to the Pantheon.

The colossal domed temple which replaces the ancient church of Ste.

Genevieve was begun by Soufflot, under Louis XV., in imitation of St.

Peter's, at Rome. Like all architects of his time, Soufflot sought merely

to produce an effect of pagan or "classical" grandeur, peculiarly out of

place in the shrine of the shepherdess of Nanterre. Secularized almost

immediately on its completion, during the Revolution, the building was

destined as the national monument to the great men of France, and the

inscription, "Aux Grands Hommes la Patrie Reconnaissante," which it still

bears, was then first placed under the sculptures of the pediment.

Restored to worship by the Restoration, it was again secularized under the

Third Republic in order to admit the burial of Victor Hugo. The building

itself, a vast bare barn of the pseudo-classical type, very cold and

formal, is worthy of notice merely on account of its immense size and its

historic position; but it may be visited to this day with pleasure, not

only for some noble modern paintings, but also for the sake of the

reminiscences of Ste. Genevieve which it still contains. The tympanum has

a group by David d'Angers, representing France distributing wreaths to

soldiers, politicians, men of letters, men of science, and artists.

The interior is in the shape of a Greek cross (with equal arms). Follow

round the walls, beginning from the right. In the right aisle are

paintings (modern) looking like frescoes, and representing the preaching

of St. Denis, by Galand; and the history of Ste. Genevieve--her childhood,

recognition by St. Germain l'Auxerrois, miracles, etc., delicate and

elusive works, by Puvis de Chavannes. The paintings of the South Transept

represent episodes in the early history of France. Chronologically

speaking, they begin from the east central corner. Choir, Death of Ste.

Genevieve, and Miracles before her Shrine, by Laurens. Apse of the

tribune, fine modern (archaic) mosaic, by Hebert, representing Christ with

the Guardian Angel of France, the Madonna, Jean d'Arc, and Ste. Genevieve.

Stand under the dome to observe the proportions of the huge, bare,

unimpressive building. Left, or Northern Transept, east side, the history

of Jeanne d'Arc; she hears the voices; leads the assault at Orleans;

assists at the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims; and is burned at

Rouen. West side, St. Louis as a child instructed by Blanche of Castille;

administering justice in the Palace; and a captive among the Saracens.

North aisle, history of Ste. Genevieve and St. Denis. The building is thus

at once the apotheosis of patriotism, and the lasting memorial of the part

borne by Christianity in French, and especially Parisian, history.

As you descend the steps of the Pantheon, the building that faces you to

the left is the Mairie of the 5th Arrondissement; that to the right, the

Ecole de Droit. Turn to the right along the north side of the Pantheon.

The long, low building which faces you is the Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve.

Nothing now remains of the Abbey of Ste. Genevieve except the tall early

Gothic tower seen to the right near the end of the Pantheon, and rising

above the modern buildings of the Lycee Henri IV. The singularly

picturesque and strangely-mingled church across the little square is St.

Etienne-du-Mont, which we now proceed to visit.

Stand in the left-hand corner of the Place to examine the facade. The

church was begun (1517) as late Gothic; but before it was finished, the

Renaissance style had come into fashion, and the architects accordingly

jumbled the two in the most charming manner. The incongruity here only

adds to the beauty. The quaintly original Renaissance portal bears a

dedication to St. Stephen the Protomartyr, beneath which is a relief of

his martyrdom, with a Latin inscription, "Stone destroyed the temple of

the Lord," i.e., Stephen, "Stone rebuilds it." Right and left of the

portal are statues of Sts. Stephen and Genevieve, whose monograms also

appear on the doors. In the pediment is the usual representation of the

Resurrection and Last Judgment. Above it, the rose window, on either side

of which, in accordance with Italian rather than with French custom

(showing Italian Renaissance influence) are the Angel of the Annunciation

and the Madonna receiving his message. In the third story, a gable-end.

Singular tower to the left, with an additional round turret, a relic of

the earlier Gothic building. The whole facade (17th century) represents

rather late Renaissance than transitional architecture.

The interior is the most singular, and in some ways the most picturesque,

in Paris--a Gothic church, tricked out in Renaissance finery. The nave is

flanked by aisles, which are divided from it by round pillars, capped by a

singular balustrade or gallery with low, flat arches, simulating a

triforium. The upper arches are round, and the decorations Renaissance;

but the vaulting, both of nave and aisles, with its pendant keystones,

recalls the Gothic style, as do also most of the windows. Stand near the

entrance, in the center of the nave, and look up the church.

The most striking feature is the beautiful Renaissance jube or rood-loft

(the only one now left in Paris) which divides the Choir from the body of

the building. This rood-loft still bears a crucifix, for the reception of

which it was originally intended. On the arch below are two charmingly

sculptured Renaissance angels. The rood-loft is flanked by two spiral

staircases, which are wholly unique architectural features. Notice also

the exquisite pendentive of the roof at the point of intersection of the

nave and short false transepts.

Now walk up the right aisle. The first chapel is the Baptistery,

containing the font and a modern statue of the boy Baptist. Third chapel,

St. Antony of Padua. The fourth chapel contains a curious Holy Sepulcher,

with quaint life-size terra-cotta figures of the 16th century. Fifth

chapel, a gilt chasse. Notice the transepts, reduced to short arms,

scarcely, if at all, projecting beyond the chapels. From this point

examine the exquisite Renaissance tracery of the rood-screen and

staircases. Then pass under the fine Renaissance door, with lovely

decorative work, into the ambulatory. The Choir is in large part Gothic,

with late flamboyant tracery. The apparent triforium is continued round

the ambulatory.

The splendid gilded shrine in the second choir-chapel contains the remains

of Ste. Genevieve, or what is left of them. Candles burn perpetually

around it. Hundreds of votaries here pay their devotions daily to the

Patroness of Paris. The shrine, containing what is alleged to be the

original sarcophagus of the Saint (more probably of the 13th century)

stands under a richly-gilt Gothic tabernacle, adorned with figures legibly

named on their pedestals. The stained-glass window behind it has a

representation of a processional function with the body of the Saint,

showing this church, together with a view of the original church of Ste.

Genevieve, the remaining tower, and adjacent houses, historically most

interesting. The window beyond the shrine also contains the history of

Ste. Genevieve--her childhood, first communion, miracles, distribution of

bread during the siege of Paris, conversion of Clovis, death, etc.

Indeed the long sojourn of the body of Ste. Genevieve in this church has

almost overshadowed its dedication to St. Stephen, several memorials of

whom may, however, be recognized by the attentive visitor--among them, a

picture of his martyrdom (by Abel de Pujol) near the entrance to the

choir. The Protomartyr also stands, with his deacon's robe and palm, in a

niche near the door of the sacristy, where left and right are frescoes of

his Disputation with the Doctors, and his Martyrdom. The chapel

immediately behind the high altar is, as usual, the Lady Chapel. The next

contains a good modern window of the Marriage of the Virgin.

Examine in detail all the windows; one of the mystic wine-press is very

interesting. Votive offerings of the city of Paris to Ste. Genevieve also

exist in the ambulatory. Curious frescoes of the martyrdom of the 10,000

Christians on Mount Ararat on the north side. The best view of the choir

is obtained from the north side of the ambulatory, opposite the shrine of

Ste. Genevieve. In the north aisle notice St. Louis with the Crown of

Thorns. Stand again in the center of the nave, near the entrance, and

observe the curious inclination of the choir and high altar to one side--

here particularly noticeable, and said in every case to represent the

droop of the Redeemer's head on the cross.

As you emerge from the door, observe the cold and bare side of the

Pantheon, contrasted with the internal richness of St. Etienne. Curious

view of the late Gothic portion of the church from the little Place on the

north side. Return by the Rue Cujas and Rue St. Jacques, passing the Lycee

Ste. Barbe, Lycee Louis-le-Grand, University, and other scholastic

buildings, which give a good idea of the character of the quarter.

St. Roch

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Walks in Paris." By arrangement with the publisher, David

McKay. Copyright, 1880.]

Englishmen are often specially imprest with Paris as a city of contrasts,

because one side of the principal line of hotels frequented by our

countrymen looks down upon the broad, luxurious Rue de Rivoli, all modern

gaiety and radiance, while the other side of their courtyards open upon

the busy working Rue St. Honore, lined by the tall, many-windowed houses

which have witnessed so many revolutions. They have all the

picturesqueness of innumerable balconies, high, slated roofs, with dormer

windows, window-boxes full of carnations and bright with crimson flowers

through the summer, and they overlook an ever-changing crowd, in great

part composed of men in blouses and women in white aprons and caps.

Ever since the fourteenth century the Rue St. Honore has been one of the

busiest streets in Paris. It was the gate leading into this street which

was attacked by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. It was the fact that the Cardinal de

Bourbon and the Due de Guise had been seen walking together at the Porte

St. Honore that was said to have turned half the moustache of Henri of

Navarre suddenly white, from a presentiment of the crime which has become

known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Here, in 1648, the barricade was

raised which gave the signal for all the troubles of the Fronde. It was at

No 3--then called L'Auberge des Trois Pigeons--that Ravaillac was lodging

when he was waiting to murder Henry IV.; here the first gun was fired in

the Revolution of July, 1830, which overturned Charles X.; and here, in

the Revolution of 1848, a bloody combat took place between the insurgents

and the military. Throughout this street, as Marie Antoinette was first

entering Paris, the poissardes brought her bouquets, singing:

"La rose est la reine des fleurs.

Antoinette est la reine des coeurs."

("The rose is the queen of flowers, Antoinette is the queen of hearts")

and here, as she was being taken to the scaffold, they crowded round her

execution-cart and shouted:

"Madame Veto avait promis

De faire egorger tout Paris,

Mais son coup a manque

Grace a nos canonniers;

Dansons la carmagnole

Au bruit du son

Du canon!"

("Madame Veto had promised to have the throat cut of all Paris, but her

attempt failed, thanks to our gunners. Let us dance the carmagnole to the

music of the cannon's roar!")

* * * * *

Turning east toward Old Paris, we pass, on the right of the Rue St.

Honore, the Church of St. Roch, of which Louis XIV. laid the foundation-

stone in 1633, replacing a chapel built on the site of the Hotel Gaillon.

The church was only finished, from designs of Robert de Cotte, in 1740.

The flight of steps which leads to the entrance has many associations.

"Before St. Roch," says De Goncourt, "the tumbrel in which was Marie

Antoinette, stopt in the midst of howling and hooting. A thousand insults

were hurled from the steps of the church as it were with one voice,

saluting with filth their queen about to die. She, however, serene and

majestic, pardoned the insults by disregarding them." It was from these

steps, in front of which an open space then extended to the Tuileries

gardens, that Bonaparte ordered the first cannon to be fired upon the

royalists who rose against the National Convention, and thus prevented a

counter-revolution. Traces of this cannonade of 13 Vendemiaire are still

to be seen at the angle of the church and the Rue Neuve St. Roch.

THE ENVIRONS OF PARIS

Versailles

By William Makepeace Thackeray

[Footnote: From "The Paris Sketch Book."]

You pass from the railroad station through a long, lonely suburb, with

dusty rows of stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable

beggars, idle boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees are

gaunt, moldy houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought

grace of life) the cheap defense of nations gambled, ogled, swindled,

intrigued; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in old times, to act

as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri; and mighty princes rolled away, in

gilt caroches, hot for the honor of lighting his Majesty to bed, or of

presenting his stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when he

dined.

Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers, are now

established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling

at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags are

hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun; oyster-

shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie basking in the

same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling down the wide

pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirty stones.

After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we deboucher on

the grande place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the

glories of France. In the midst of the great lonely plain this famous

residence of King Louis looks low and mean--Honored pile! Time was when

tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate.

Fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women from Paris broke through the

charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a

penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are portrayed

in pictures and marble; catalogs are written about these miles of canvas,

representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy to Waterloo--all

the triumphs of Louis XIV.--all the mistresses of his successor--and all

the great men who have flourished since the French empire began. Military

heroes are most of these--fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in

voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps; some dozens of

whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and

epaulets; some millions, death in African sands, or in icy Russian plains,

under the guidance, and for the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon.

By far the greater part of "all the glories" of France (as of most other

countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on

the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to

the virtue called courage; filling their history-books with tales about

it, and nothing but it.

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the walls

with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any family

but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has been humbled to

the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore; but it is a monument

of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter for a whole

library of sermons.

The cheap defense of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection

of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals

of their warlike labors, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers,

and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth

terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a

stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the

city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the

creator of these wonders--the Great King.

"Only God is great," said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the

prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth--

God's lieutenant-governor of the world--before whom courtiers used to fall

on their knees, and shade their eyes, as if the light of his countenance,

like the sun, which shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too

dazzling to bear.

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?--or,

rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out of

his chamber, in the midst of his super-human splendors, viz., in his

cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramon of a wig;

his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, "that

he scarcely seemed to touch;" when he came out, blazing upon the dukes and

duchesses that waited his rising--what could the latter do but cover their

eyes, and wink, and tremble? And did he not himself believe, as he stood

there, on his high heels, under his ambrosial periwig, that there was

something in him more than man--something above Fate?

This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, from

his terrace before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could catch a

glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. Denis, where his

race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a sublime

condescension, "Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am mortal."

Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that

his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that

sharp spire wounded his Majesty's eyes; and is said, by the legend, to

have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.

In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage--with guards,

cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys, Fenelons,

Molieres, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois, Colberts--

transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left for James of

England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should come. And when the

time did come, and James sought his brother's kingdom, it is on record

that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and promised to restore,

incontinently, those islands from which the canaille had turned him.

Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one

another reverently, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right

hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." There was no blasphemy in

the speech; on the contrary, it was gravely said, by a faithful believing

man, who thought it no shame to the latter to compare his Majesty with God

Almighty.

Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was

this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one which was written by

an honest Jesuit and protege of Pere la Chaise, who dedicates it to the

august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as far in print.

He calls our famous monarch "Louis le Grand: 1, l'invincible; 2, le sage;

3, le conquerant; 4, la merveille de son siecle; 5, la terreur de ses

ennemis; 6, l'amour de ses peuples; 7, l'arbitre de la paix et de la

guerre; 8, l'admiration de l'univers; 9, et digne d'en etre le maitre; 10,

le modele d'un heros acheve; 11, digne de l'immortalite, et de la

veneration de tous les siecles!"

A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good, honest judgment upon the

great king! In 30 years more: 1. The invincible had been beaten a vast

number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who

was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite

forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies (for

4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that may

apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in turn. 6.

The love of his people was as heartily detested by them as scarcely any

other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been, before or since. 7.

The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb ambassadors to kick

their heels in Dutch shopkeepers' antechambers. 8. Is again a general

term. 9. The man fit to be master of the universe was scarcely master of

his own kingdom. 10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very

commonplace and vulgar way. And, 11, the man worthy of immortality was

just at the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him;

only withered old Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking

Jesuit to prepare him, with heavens knows what wretched tricks and

mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the

other side of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable

years, he never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La

Valliere, what a sad tale is yours!...

While La Valliere's heart is breaking, the model of a finished hero is

yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero should. Let her

heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance; what right has she to

repent? Away with her to her convent! She goes, and the finished hero

never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have reached! Our

Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean people were beyond him;

his friends died, his mistresses left him; his children, one by one, were

cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is not moved in the slightest

degree! As how, indeed, should a god be moved?...

Out of the window the king's august head was one day thrust, when old

Conde was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. "Don't hurry

yourself, my cousin," cries Magnanimity; "one who has to carry so many

laurels can not walk fast." At which all the courtiers, lackeys,

mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions, clasp their hands and

burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a

century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of

Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?

"Don't hurry yourself, my cousin!" O admirable king and Christian! what a

pitch of condescension is here, that the greatest king of all the world

should go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old

gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!

What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of mankind,

that histories like these, should be found to interest and awe them. Till

the world's end, most likely, this story will have its place in the

history-books, and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly be moved

by it.

I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night, pleased and happy,

intimately convinced that he had done an action of sublime virtue, and had

easy slumbers and sweet dreams--especially if he had taken a light supper,

and not too vehemently attacked his "en cas de nuit." ...

The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much occasion

for moralizing; perhaps the neigbhboring Parc aux Cerfs would afford

better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great grandsire, the

Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis the well-beloved;

who understood that loneliness is one of the necessary conditions of

divinity, and, being of a jovial, companionable turn, aspired not beyond

manhood.

Only in the matter of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon

did David. War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him; and his simple

taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate

and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room called Laboratoire du

Roi, where, with his own hands, he made his mistress's breakfast; here is

the little door through which, from her apartments in the upper story, the

chaste Du Barri came stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble,

gloomy old man.

But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled

upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign; after having

exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his hot

youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and stale;

used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse had been

squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of

state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had

discovered the vanity of glory: indeed, it was high time that he should

die. And die he did; and round his tomb, as round that of his grandfather

before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus of curses, which

were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that were raised to his

memory....

On the 10th of May, 1774, the whole court had assembled at the chateau;

the Oeil de Boeuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as soon

as the king had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people of the

stables, with those who watched in the king's room, that a lighted candle

should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished as soon as he had

ceased to live.

The candle was put out. At that signal, guards, pages, and squires,

mounted on horseback, and everything was made ready for departure. The

Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting together for the news of the

king's demise. An immense noise, as of thunder, was heard in the next

room; it was the crowd of courtiers, who were deserting the dead king's

apartment, in order to pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI.

Madame de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute the queen by her

title of Queen of France, and begged their Majesties to quit their

apartments, to receive the princes and great lords of the court desirous

to pay their homage to the new sovereigns. Leaning on her husband's arm, a

handkerchief to her eyes, in the most touching attitude, Marie Antoinette

received these first visits.

On quitting the chamber where the dead king lay, the Due de Villequier

bade Mr. Anderville, first surgeon of the king, to open and embalm the

body: it would have been certain death to the surgeon.

"I am ready, sir," says he; "but while I am operating, you must hold the

head of the corpse; your charge demands it."

The Duke went away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor

embalmed. A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by the remains,

and performed the last offices to their master. The surgeons ordered

spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin.

They huddled the king's body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable

equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis, the Well-beloved, was

carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and then

thrown into the tombs of the kings of France!

If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roof of

the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself by

gazing upon the doings of all the towns-people below with a telescope.

Behold that balcony, where, one morning, he, his queen, and the little

Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their side, who kissed

her Majesty's hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly surrounded by

his people, the king got into a coach and came to Paris: nor did his

Majesty ride much in coaches after that....

He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith that he might,

if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have earned a

couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys. Those who will

may see the workshop where he employed many useful hours: Madame Elizabeth

was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making pleasant parties with her

ladies; Monsieur the Count d'Artois was learning to dance on the

tightrope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivating l'eloquence du billet

and studying his favorite Horace.

It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well

in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur's little notes are still cited. At a

minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivaled; and Charles, on the

tightrope, was so graceful and so gentil that Madame Saqui might envy him.

The time only was out of joint. Oh, curst spite, that ever such harmless

creatures as these were bidden to right it!

A walk to the little Trianon is both pleasing and moral; no doubt the

reader has seen the pretty, fantastical gardens which environ it; the

groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide tells

you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie Antoinette to

retire with her favorite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake and Swiss village

are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of the place does not

fail to point out the different cottages which surround the piece of

water, and tell the names of the royal masqueraders who inhabited each.

In the long cottage, close upon the lake, dwelt the Seigneur du Village,

no less a personage than Louis XV.; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, was the

Pailli; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the Count d'Artois, who

was the Miller; opposite lived the Prince de Conde, who enacted the part

of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any other role, for it does not signify much);

near him was the Prince de Rohan, who was the Aumonier; and yonder is the

pretty little dairy, which was under the charge of the fair Marie

Antoinette herself.

I forget whether Monsieur the fat Count of Provence took any share of this

royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors of the

comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had such

dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of their

prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by

the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a sudden, some

conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, and foretells

to them the woes that are about to come.

"You, Monsieur l'Aumonier, the descendant of a long line of princes, the

passionate admirer of that fair queen who sits by your side, shall be the

cause of her ruin and your own, [Footnote: In the diamond-necklace

affair.] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son of the Condes,

shall live long enough to see your royal race overthrown, and shall die by

the hands of a hangman. [Footnote: He was found hanging in his own bed-

room.] You, oldest son of St. Louis, shall perish by the executioner's ax;

that beautiful head, O Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever."

"They shall kill me first," says Lamballe, at the queen's side.

"Yes, truly," says the soothsayer, "for Fate prescribes ruin for your

mistress and all who love her."

[Footnote: Among the many lovers that rumor gave to the Queen, poor Fersen

is the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and

perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape to

Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and was

concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her rescue.

Fersen lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent death. He

was dragged from his carriage by the mob. In Stockholm, and murdered by

them.--Author's note.]

"And," cries Monsieur d'Artois, "do I not love my sister, too? I pray you

not to omit me in your prophecies."

To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, "You may look forward to

fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You shall

be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not the

worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile; you

shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and your

race; and you shall return home over half a million of human corpses, that

have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as great as the

greatest of your family. Again driven away, your bitterest enemy shall

bring you back. But the strong limbs of France are not to be chained by

such a paltry yoke as you can put on her: you shall be a tyrant, but in

will only; and shall have a scepter, but to see it robbed from your hand."

"And pray, Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber?" asked Monsieur the

Count d'Artois.

This I can not say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, I had fallen

asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de Paris, and at this

instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages and a great clattering of

national guards, lancers, and outriders, in red. His Majesty, Louis

Philippe, was going to pay a visit to the palace; which contains several

pictures of his own glorious actions, and which has been dedicated, by

him, to all the glories of France.

Versailles in 1739

By Thomas Gray

[Footnote: From a letter to his friend West.]

What a huge heap of littleness! It is composed, as it were, of three

courts, all open to the eye at once, and gradually diminishing till you

come to the royal apartments, which on this side present but half a dozen

windows and a balcony. This last is all that can be called a front, for

the rest is only great wings. The hue of all this mass is black, dirty

red, and yellow; the first proceeding from stone changed by age; the

second, from a mixture of brick; and the last, from a profusion of

tarnished gilding. You can not see a more disagreeable tout ensemble; and,

to finish the matter, it is all stuck over in many places with small busts

of a tawny hue between every two windows.

We pass through this to go into the garden, and here the case is indeed

altered; nothing can be vaster and more magnificent than the back front;

before it a very spacious terrace spreads itself, adorned with two large

basons; these are bordered and lined (as most of the others) with white

marble, with handsome statues of bronze reclined on their edges. From

hence you descend a huge flight of steps into a semi-circle formed by

woods, that are cut all around into niches, which are filled with

beautiful copies of all the famous antique statues in white marble. Just

in the midst is the bason of Latona; she and her children are standing on

the top of a rock in the middle, on the sides of which are the peasants,

some half, some totally changed into frogs, all which throw out water at

her in great plenty.

From this place runs on the great alley, which brings you into a complete

round, where is the bason of Apollo, the biggest in the gardens. He is

rising in his car out of the water, surrounded by nymphs and tritons, all

in bronze, and finely executed, and these, as they play, raise a perfect

storm about him; beyond this is the great canal, a prodigious long piece

of water, that terminates the whole. All this you have at one coup d'oeil

in entering the garden, which is truly great.

I can not say as much of the general taste of the place: everything you

behold savors too much of art; all is forced, all is constrained about

you; statues and vases sowed everywhere without distinction; sugar loaves

and minced pies of yew; scrawl work of box, and little squirting jets-

d'eau, besides a great sameness in the walks, can not help striking one at

first sight, not to mention the silliest of labyrinths, and all Aesop's

fables in water; since these were designed "in usum Delphini" only.

Here, then, we walk by moonlight, and hear the ladies and the nightingales

sing. Next morning, being Whitsunday, make ready to go to the installation

of nine Knights du Saint Esprit. Cambis is one: high mass celebrated with

music, great crowd, much incense, King, Queen, Dauphin, Mesdames,

Cardinals, and Court: Knights arrayed by his Majesty; reverences before

the altar, not bows, but curtsies; stiff hams; much tittering among the

ladies; trumpets, kettledrums, and fifes.

Fontainebleau

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The golden age of Fontainebleau came with the Renaissance and Francis I.,

who wished to make Fontainebleau the most glorious palace in the world.

"The Escurial!" says Brantome, "what of that? See how long it was of

building? Good workmen like to be quick finished. With our king it was

otherwise. Take Fontainebleau and Chambord. When they were projected, when

once the plumb-line, and the compass, and the square, and the hammer were

on the spot, then in a few years we saw the Court in residence there."

Il Rosso was first (1531) employed to carry out the ideas of Francois I.

as to painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna in

1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte de

Fontainebleau." Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil of

Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari says, "a

certain inkling of his own." Francois I. was delighted with him at first,

and made him head of all the Italian colony at Fontainebleau, where he was

known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years the king was longing to patronize

some other genius, and implored Giulio Romano, then engaged on the Palazzo

del Te at Mantua, to come to him. The great master refused to come

himself, but in his place sent the Bolognese Primaticcio, who became known

in France as Le Primatice.

The new-comer excited the furious jealousy of Il Rosso, whom he supplanted

in favor and popularity, and who, after growing daily more morose, took

poison in 1541. Then Primaticcio, who, to humor his rival had been sent

into honorable exile (on plea of collecting antiquities at Rome), was

summoned back, and destroyed most of Il Rosso's frescoes, replacing them

by his own. Those that remain are now painted over, and no works of Il

Rosso are still in existence (unless in engravings) except some of his

frescoes at Florence.

With the Italian style of buildings and decorations, the Italian system of

a Court adorned by ladies was first introduced here under Francois I., and

soon became a necessity.... Under Francois I., his beautiful mistress, the

Duchesse d'Etampes--"la plus belle des savantes, et la plus savante des

belles," directed all the fetes. In this she was succeeded, under Henry

II., by Diane de Poitiers, whose monogram, interwoven with that of the

king, appears in all the buildings of this time, and who is represented as

a goddess (Diana) in the paintings of Primaticcio.

Under Francois II., in 1560, by the advice of the queen-mother, an

assembly of notables was summoned at Fontainebleau; and here, accompanied

by her 150 beautiful maids of honor, Catherine de Medici received the

embassy of the Catholic sovereigns sent to demand the execution of the

articles of the Council of Trent, and calling for fresh persecution of the

reformers.

Much as his predecessors had accomplished, Henri IV. did more for the

embellishment of Fontainebleau, where the monogram of his mistress,

Gabrielle d'Estrees, is frequently seen mingled with that of his wife,

Marie de Medici. All the Bourbon kings had a passion for hunting, for

which Fontainebleau afforded especial facilities.

It was at Fontainebleau that Louis XIII. was born, and that the Marechal

de Biron was arrested. Louis XIII. only lived here occasionally. In the

early reign of Louis XIV., the palace was lent to Christina, of Sweden,

who had abdicated her throne.

It was in one of the private apartments, occupying the site of the ancient

Galerie des Cerfs, now destroyed, that she ordered the execution of her

chief equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she had convicted of treason. She

listened patiently to his excuses, but was utterly unmoved by them and his

entreaties for mercy. She provided a priest to confess him, after which he

was slowly butchered by blows with a sword on the head and face, as he

dragged himself along the floor, his body being defended by a coat of

mail....

Even after the creation of the palaces of Versailles and Marly, Louis XIV.

continued to make an annual "voyage de Fontainebleau." He compelled his

whole court to follow him; if any of his family were ill, and unable to

travel by road, he made them come by water; for himself, he slept on the

way, either at the house of the Duc d'Antin (son of Mme. de Montespan) or

of the Marechal de Villeroy.

It was here that the Grand Dauphin was born, in 1661. Here, also, it was

that Mme. de Maintenon first appeared at the councils, and that the king

publicly asked her advice as to whether he should accept the throne of

Spain for the Duc d' Anjou. Here, also, in 1685, he signed the revocation

of the edict of Nantes. The great Conde died in the palace. Louis XV. was

married here to Marie Leczinska in 1725; and here the Dauphin, his son,

died in 1765. Louis XIV. delighted in Fontainebleau for its hunting

facilities.

After the Revolution, Napoleon I. restored the chateau and prepared it for

Pius VII. who came to France to crown him, and was here (January 25, 1813)

induced to sign the famous Concordat de Fontainebleau, by which he abjured

his temporal sovereignty. The chateau which witnessed the abdication of

the Pope, also saw that of Napoleon I., who made his touching farewell to

the soldiers of the Vielle-Garde in the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, before

setting off for Elba.... The Cour du Cheval-Blanc, the largest of the five

courts of the palace, took its name from a plaster copy of the horse of

Marcus Aurelius at Rome, destroyed 1626. Recently it has been called the

Cour des Adieux, on account of the farewell of Napoleon I. in 1814. It was

once surrounded by buildings on all sides; one was removed in 1810, and

replaced by a grille.

The principal facade is composed of five pavilions with high roofs, united

by buildings two stories high. The beautiful twisted staircase in front of

the central pavilion was executed by Lemercier for Louis XIII., and

replaces a staircase by Philbert Delorme. Facing this pavilion, the mass

of buildings on the right is the Aile Neuve of Louis XV., built on the

site of the Galerie d'Ulysse, to the destruction of the precious works of

Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate, with which it was adorned. Below the

last pavilion, near the grille, was the Grotte du Jardin-des-pins, where

James V. of Scotland, coming over to marry Magdalen of France, daughter of

Francois I., watched her bathing with her ladies, by the aid of a

mirror....

To the west of the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, and communicating with it, is the

Cour de la Fontaine, the main front of which is formed by the Galerie de

Francois I. This faces the great tank, into which Gaston d' Orleans, at

eight years old, caused one of the courtiers to be thrown, whom he

considered to have spoken to him disrespectfully. One side of the Cour de

la Fontaine, that toward the Jardin Anglais, is terminated by a pavilion

of the time of Louis XV.; the other, formerly decorated with statues is

attributed to Serlio. The fountain from which the court takes its name has

been often changed; a poor work by Petitot now replaces the grand designs

of the time of Francois I. and Henri IV. Beyond this court we find, on the

left, the Porte Doree, which faces the Chaussee de Maintenon, between the

Etang and Parterre; it was built under Francois I., and decorated by

Primaticcio with paintings, restored in 1835. It was by this entrance that

Charles V. arrived at the palace in 1539....

A staircase now leads to the first floor, and we enter the apartments of

Napoleon I., all furnished in the style of the First Empire. The cabinet

de l'Abdication is the place where he resigned his power. His bedroom

(containing the bed of Napoleon I., the cradle of the King of Rome, and a

cabinet of Marie Louise) leads to the Salle du Conseil, which was the

Salon de Famille under Louis Philippe. Its decorations are by Boucher, and

are the best of the period. It was in leaving this room that the Marechal

de Biron was arrested under Henri IV., in a cabinet which is now thrown

into the adjoining Salle du Trone, (previously the bedroom of the Bourbon

kings), dating from Charles IV., but decorated under Louis XIII. A fine

portrait by Phillipe de Champaigne represents Louis XIII. It is

accompanied by his device in allusion to his vehemence in the

extermination of heresy.

The adjoining boudoir de Marie Antoinette is a beautiful little room,

painted by Barthelemy. The metal work of the windows is said to have been

wrought by Louis XVI. himself, who had his workshop here, as at

Versailles. The richly decorated Chambre a Coucher de la Reine was

inhabited by Marie de Medici, Marie Therese, Marie Antoinette, Marie

Louise, and Marie Amelie. The silk hangings were given by the town of

Lyons to Marie Antoinette on her marriage. The Salon de Musique was the

Salon du jeu de la Reine, under Marie Antoinette. The ancient Salon de

Clorinde, or des Dames d' Honneur, is named from its paintings by Dubois

and from the "Gerusalemme Liberata."

The Galerie de Diane, built by Napoleon I. and Louis XVIII., replaces the

famous frescoed gallery of Henri IV. It is now turned into a library for

the use of the town. In the center is a picture of Henri IV. on horseback,

by Mauzaise. The Salles des Chasses contain pictures of hunting scenes

under Louis XV. We now reach the glorious Galerie d' Henri II. (or Salle

des Fetes), built by Francois I., and decorated by Henri II. The walnut-

wood ceiling and the paneling of the walls are of marvelous richness. Over

the chimney is a gigantic H, and the initials of Henri II. are constantly

seen interlaced with those of Diane de Poitiers.... The sixty paintings on

the walls, including eight large compositions, were executed by Niccolo

Dell' Abbate, and are probably the finest decorations of the kind existing

in France.

The rooms usually shown last are those formerly inhabited by Catherine de

Medici and Anne of Austria, and which, under the First Empire, were used

by Pius VII., under Louis Philippe, by the Duke and Duchess of Orleans.

The most interesting of these are the Chambre a Coucher, which bears the

oft-repeated A L (the chiffre of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria), and in

which Pius VII. daily said mass, and the Salon, with its fine tapestry

after Giulio Romano. The Galerie des Assiettes, adorned with Sevres china,

only dates from Louis Philippe. Hence, by a gallery in the Aile Neuve,

hung with indifferent pictures, we may visit the Salle du Theatre,

retaining its arrangements for the emperor, empress, and court.

The Gardens, as seen now, are mostly as they were rearranged by Lenotre

for Louis XIV. The most frequented garden is the Parterre, entered from

the Place du Cheval-Blanc. In the center of the Jardin Anglais (entered

through the Cour de la Fontaine) was the Fontaine Bleau, which is supposed

by some to have given a name to the palace. The Etang has a pavilion in

the center, where the Czar Peter got drunk. The carp in the pool, overfed

with bread by visitors, are said to be, some of them, of immense age. John

Evelyn mentions the carp of Fontainebleau, "that come familiarly to hand."

The Jardin de l' Orangerie, on the north of the palace, called Jardin des

Buis under Francois I., contains a good renaissance portal. To the east of

the parterre and the town is the park, which has no beauty, but harmonizes

well with the chateau.

Visitors should not fail to drive in the Forest, 80 kilometers in circuit,

and, if they return late, may look out for its black huntsman--"le grand

veneur." ... The forest was a favorite hunting-ground of the kings of

France to a late period. It was here that the Marquis de Tourzel, Grand

Provost of France, husband of the governess of the royal children,

fractured his skull, his horse bolting against a tree, when hunting with

Louis XVI., in November, 1786. The forest is the especial land of French

artists, who overrun and possess it in the summer. There are innumerable

direction-posts, in which all the red marks--put up by Napoleon III.,

because so few peasants could read--point to town.

St. Denis

By Grant Allen

[Footnote: From "Paris."]

About six miles north of the original Paris stands the great Basilica of

St. Denis--the only church in Paris, and I think in France, called by that

ancient name, which carries us back at once to the days of the Roman

Empire, and in itself bears evidence to the antiquity of the spot as a

place of worship. Around it, a squalid modern industrial town has slowly

grown up; but the nucleus of the whole place, as the name itself shows, is

the body and shrine of the martyred bishop, St. Denis. Among the numerous

variants of his legend, the most accepted is that in which the apostle of

Paris carries his head to this spot from Montmartre. Others say he was

beheaded in Paris and walked to Montmartre, his body being afterward

translated to the Abbey; while there are some who see in this legend a

survival of the Dionysiac festival and sacrifice of the vine-growers round

Paris--Denis--Dionysius--Dionysus.

However that may be, a chapel was erected in 275 above the grave of St.

Denis, on the spot now occupied by the great Basilica; and later, Ste.

Genevieve was instrumental in restoring it. Dagobert I., one of the few

Frankish kings who lived much in Paris, built a "basilica" in place of the

chapel (630), and instituted by its side a Benedictine Abbey. The church

and monastery which possest the actual body of the first bishop and great

martyr of Paris formed naturally the holiest site in the neighborhood of

the city; and even before Paris became the capital of a kingdom, the

abbots were persons of great importance in the Frankish state.

The desire to repose close to the grave of a saint was habitual in early

times, and even (with the obvious alteration of words) ante-dated

Christianity--every wealthy Egyptian desiring in the same way to "sleep

with Osiris." Dagobert himself was buried in the church he founded, beside

the holy martyr; and in later times this very sacred spot became for the

same reason the recognized burial place of the French kings. Dagobert's

fane was actually consecrated by the Redeemer Himself, who descended for

the purpose by night, with a great multitude of saints and angels.

The existing Basilica, tho of far later date, is the oldest church of any

importance in the neighborhood of Paris. It was begun by Suger, abbot of

the monastery, and sagacious minister of Louis VI. and VII., in 1121. As

yet, Paris itself had no great church, Notre-Dame having been commenced

some 50 years later. The earliest part of Suger's building is in the

Romanesque style; it still retains the round Roman arch and many other

Roman constructive features. During the course of the 50 years occupied in

building the Basilica, however, the Gothic style was developed; the

existing church therefore exhibits both Romanesque and Gothic work, with

transitional features between the two, which add to its interest.

Architecturally, then, bear in mind, it is in part Romanesque, passing

into Gothic. The interior is mostly pure Early Gothic.

The neighborhood to Paris, the supremacy of the great saint, and the fact

that St. Denis was especially the Royal Abbey, all combined to give it

great importance. Under Suger's influence, Louis VI. adopted the oriflamme

or standard of St. Denis as the royal banner of France. The Merovingian

and Carlovingian kings, to be sure--Germans rather than French--had

naturally been buried elsewhere, as at Aix-la-Chapelle, Rheims, and

Soissons (tho even of them a few were interred beside the great bishop

martyr). But as soon as the Parisian dynasty of the Capets came to the

throne, they were almost without exception buried at St. Denis. Hence the

abbey came to be regarded at last mainly as the mausoleum of French

royalty, and is still too often so regarded by tourists.

But tho the exquisite Renaissance tombs of the House of Valois would well

deserve a visit on their own account, they are, at St. Denis, but

accessories to the great Basilica. Besides the actual tombs, too, many

monuments were erected here, in the 13th century (by St. Louis) and

afterward, to earlier kings buried elsewhere, some relic of whom, however,

the abbey possest and thus honored. Hence several of the existing tombs

are of far later date than the kings they commemorate; those of the Valois

almost alone are truly contemporary.

At the Revolution, the Basilica suffered irreparable losses. The very

sacred reliquary containing the severed head of St. Denis was destroyed,

and the remains of the martyr and his companions desecrated. The royal

bones and bodies were also disinterred and flung into trenches

indiscriminately. The tombs of the kings were condemned to destruction,

and many (chiefly in metal) were destroyed or melted down, but not a few

were saved with difficulty by the exertions of antiquaries, and were

placed in the Museum of Monuments at Paris (now the Ecole des Beaux-Arts),

of which Alexandre Lenoir was curator. Here, they were greatly hacked

about and mutilated, in order to fit them to their new situations.

At the Restoration, however, they were sent back to St. Denis, together

with many other monuments which had no real place there; but, being housed

in the crypt, they were further clipt to suit their fresh surroundings.

Finally, when the Basilica was restored under Viollet-le-Duc, the tombs

were replaced as nearly as possible in their old positions; but several

intruders from elsewhere are still interspersed among them. Louis XVIII.

brought back the mingled bones of his ancestors from the common trench and

interred them in the crypt. As regards the tombs, again, bear in mind

these facts. All the oldest have perished; there are none here that go

back much further than the age of St. Louis, tho they often represent

personages of earlier periods or dynasties. The best are those of the

Renaissance period. These are greatly influenced by the magnificent tomb

of Giangaleazzo Visconti at the Certosa di Pavia, near Milan. Especially

is this the case with the noble monument of Louis XII., which closely

imitates the Italian work. Now, you must remember that Charles VIII. and

Louis XII. fought much in Italy, and were masters of Milan; hence this

tomb was familiar to them; and their Italian experiences had much to do

with the French Renaissance. The Cardinal d'Amboise, Louis's minister,

built the Chateau de Gaillon, and much of the artistic impulse of the time

was due to these two. Henceforth recollect that tho Francois I. is the

prince of the Renaissance, Louis XII. and his minister were no mean

forerunners....

The interior is most beautiful. The first portion of the church which we

enter is a vestibule or Galilee under the side towers and end of the Nave.

Compare Durham. It is of the age of Abbot Suger, but already exhibits

pointed arches in the upper part. The architecture is solid and massive,

but somewhat gloomy.

Descend a few steps into the Nave, which is surrounded by single aisles,

whose vaulting should be noticed. The architecture of this part, now pure

Early Gothic, is extremely lovely. The triforium is delicate and graceful.

The windows in the clerestory above it, representing kings and queens, are

almost all modern. Notice the great height of the Nave, and the unusual

extent to which the triforium and clerestory project above the noble

vaulting of the aisles. Note that the triforium itself opens directly to

the air, and is supplied with stained-glass windows, seen through its

arches. Sit awhile in this light and lofty Nave, in order to take in the

beautiful view up the church toward the choir and chevet. Then walk up to

the Barrier near the Transepts, where sit again, in order to observe the

Choir and Transepts with the staircase which leads to the raised

Ambulatory. Observe that the transepts are simple. The ugly stained glass

in the windows of their clerestory contains illustrations of the reign of

Louis Philippe, with extremely unpicturesque costumes of the period. The

architecture of the Nave and Choir, with its light and airy arches and

pillars, is of the later 13th century.

The reason for this is that Suger's building was thoroughly restored from

1230 onward, in the pure pointed style of that best period. The upper part

of the Choir, and the whole of the Nave and Transepts was then rebuilt--

which accounts for the gracefulness and airiness of its architecture when

contrasted with the dark and heavy vestibule of the age of Suger.

Note from this point the arrangement of the Choir, which, to those who do

not know Italy, will be quite unfamiliar. As at San Zeno in Verona, San

Miniato in Florence, and many other Romanesque churches, the Choir is

raised by some steps above the Nave and Transepts; while the Crypt is

slightly deprest beneath them. In the Crypt, in such cases, are the actual

bodies of the saints buried there; while the Altar stands directly over

their tombs in the Choir above it.

Marly-Le-Roi

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The tram stops close to the Abreuvoir, a large artificial tank, surrounded

by masonry for receiving the surplus water from the fountains in the

palace gardens, of which it is now the only remnant. Ascending the avenue

on the right, we shall find a road at the top which will lead us, to the

left, through delightful woods to the site of the palace. Nothing remains

but the walls supporting the wooded terrace.

It is difficult to realize the place as it was, for the quincunces of

limes which stood between the pavilions on either side of the steep avenue

leading to the royal residence, formerly dipt and kept close, are now huge

trees, marking still the design of the grounds, but obscuring the views,

and, by their great growth, making the main avenue very narrow. St. Simon

exaggerates the extravagance of Louis XIV. at Marly, who spent there four

and a half million francs between 1679 and 1690, and probably as much or

more between 1690 and 1715, perhaps in all ten or twelve millions, which

would represent fifty million francs at the present time. Nevertheless the

expense of the amusements of Louis XIV. greatly exceeded the whole revenue

of Henri IV., and those of the early years of Louis XIII.

From the central pavilion in which the flattery of Mansart placed him as

the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of the

twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the constellations,

his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his train. These

pavilions, arranged on each side of the gardens, stood in double avenues

of clipt lime-trees looking upon the garden and its fountains, and leading

up to the palace.

The device of the sun was carried out in the palace itself, where all the

smaller apartments circled round the grand salon, the king and queen

having apartments to the back, the dauphin and dauphine to the front, each

apartment consisting of an anteroom, bedroom, and sitting-room, and each

set being connected with one of the four square saloons, which opened upon

the great octagonal hall, of which four faces were occupied by chimney-

pieces and four by the doors of the smaller saloons. The central hall

occupied the whole height of the edifice, and was lighted from the upper

story.

The great ambition of every courtier was to be of the Marly circle, and

all curried favor with the king by asking to accompany him on his weekly

journey to Marly. The Court used to arrive at Marly on a Wednesday and

leave it on a Saturday; this was an invariable rule. The king always

passed his Sundays at Versailles, which was his parish. ... The leading

figure at Marly was Mme. de Maintenon, who occupied the apartments

intended for Queen Marie Therese, but who led the simplest of lives, bored

almost to extinction. She used to compare the carp languishing in the

tanks of Marly to herself--"Like me they regret their native mud." ... At

first Mme. de Maintenon dined, in the midst of the other ladies in the

square salon which separated her apartment from that of the king; but soon

she had a special table, to which a very few other ladies, her intimates,

came by invitation.

Marly was the scene of several of the most tragic events in the life of

Louis XIV. "Everything is dead here, there's no life in any thing," wrote

the Comtesse de Caylus, niece of Mme. de Maintenon, from Marly to the

Princess des Ursins, after the death of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. And, in

a few days afterward, Marly was the scene of the sudden death of the

Dauphin, Duc de Bourgogne, the beloved pupil of Fenelon. Early in the

morning after the death of his wife, he was persuaded, "ill and anguished

with the most intimate and bitterest of sorrows," to follow the king to

Marly, where he entered his own room by a window on the ground floor.

It was also at Marly--"ill-omened Marly"--that the Duc de Berry, the

younger grandson of Louis XIV., and husband of the profligate daughter of

the Duc d' Orleans--afterward Regent, died, with great suspicion of

poison, in 1714. The MS. memorials of Mary Beatrice by a sister of

Chaillot, describe how, when Louis XIV. was mourning his beloved

grandchildren, and that queen, whom he had always liked and respected, had

lost her darling daughter Louisa, she went to visit him at Marly where

"they laid aside all Court etiquette, weeping together in their common

grief, because, as the Queen said, 'We saw that the aged were left, and

that death had swept away the young.'" St. Simon depicts the last walk of

the king in the gardens at Marly on August 10, 1715. He went away that

evening to Versailles, where he died on September 1.

Marly was abandoned during the whole time of the Regency, and was only

saved from total destruction in 1717, when the Regent Philippe d'Orleans

had ordered its demolition, by the spirited remonstrance of St. Simon....

The great pavilion itself only contained, as we have seen, a very small

number of chambers. The querulous Smollett, who visited Marly in 1763,

speaks of it as "No more than a pigeon-house in respect to a palace." But

it was only intended as the residence of the king.

During the repairs necessary in the reign of Louis XV., who built Choisy

and never lived at Marly, the cascade which fell behind the great pavilion

was removed. Mme. Campan describes the later Marly of Louis XVI., under

whom the "Marly journey" had become one of the great burdens and expenses

of royal life. The Court of Louis XVI. was here for the last time on June

11, 1789, but in the latter years of Louis XVI., M. de Noailles, governor

of St. Germain, was permitted to lend the smaller pavilions furnished to

his friends for the summer months. Marly perished with the monarchy, and

was sold at the Revolution, when the statues of its gardens were removed

to the Tuileries. A cotton mill was for a time established in the royal

pavilion; then all the buildings were pulled down and the gardens sold in

lots!

Still the site is worth visiting. The Grille Royale, now a simple wooden

gate between two pillars with vases, opens on the road from St. Germain to

Versailles, at the extremity of the Aqueduct of Marly. Passing this, one

finds oneself in an immense circular enclosure, the walls of which

surround the forest on every side.

The Village of Auteuil

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[Footnote: From "Outre-Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the man

of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the

country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the movement

of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet,

the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a woodland brook.

It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in the

North of France, to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil, the

pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate vicinity

of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois de

Boulogne, a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty city

enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the morning

to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, skirted

with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads you from

the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of

this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers old chateaux amid

the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images

of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an eminence, overlooking the

windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful tho distant view of the

domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village of Passy, long the residence

of our countrymen Franklin and Count Rumford....

It was to the Bois de Boulogne that I looked for my principal recreation.

There I took my solitary walk, morning and evening; or, mounted on a

little mouse-colored donkey, paced demurely along the woodland pathway. I

had a favorite seat beneath the shadow of a venerable oak, one of the few

hoary patriarchs of the wood which had survived the bivouacs of the allied

armies. It stood upon the brink of a little glassy pool, whose tranquil

bosom was the image of a quiet and secluded life, and stretched its

parental arms over a rustic bench, that had been constructed beneath it

for the accommodation of the foot-traveler, or, perchance, some idle

dreamer like myself. It seemed to look round with a lordly air upon its

old hereditary domain, whose stillness was no longer broken by the tap of

the martial drum, nor the discordant clang of arms; and, as the breeze

whispered among its branches, it seemed to be holding friendly colloquies

with a few of its venerable contemporaries, who stooped from the opposite

bank of the pool, nodding gravely now and then, and gazing at themselves

with a sigh in the mirror below....

I entered, too, with some enthusiasm, into all the rural sports and

merrimakes of the village. The holidays were so many little eras of mirth

and good feeling; for the French have that happy and sunshine temperament

--that merry-go-mad character--which renders all their social meetings

scenes of enjoyment and hilarity. I made it a point never to miss any of

the fetes champetres, or rural dances, at the wood of Boulogne; tho I

confess it sometimes gave me a momentary uneasiness to see my rustic

throne beneath the oak usurped by a noisy group of girls, the silence and

decorum of my imaginary realm broken by music and laughter, and, in a

word, my whole kingdom turned topsy-turvy with romping, fiddling, and

dancing. But I am naturally, and from principle, too, a lover of all those

innocent amusements which cheer the laborer's toil, and, as it were, put

their shoulders to the wheel of life, and help the poor man along with his

load of cares. Hence I saw with no small delight the rustic swain astride

the wooden horse of the carrousel, and the village maiden whirling round

and round in its dizzy car; or took my stand on the rising ground that

overlooked the dance, an idle spectator in a busy throng. It was just

where the village touched the outward border of the wood. There a little

area had been leveled beneath the trees, surrounded by a painted rail,

with a row of benches inside. The music was placed in a slight balcony,

built around the trunk of a large tree in the center; and the lamps,

hanging from the branches above, gave a gay, fantastic, and fairy look to

the scene. How often in such moments did I recall the lines of Goldsmith,

describing those "kinder skies" beneath which "France displays her bright

domain," and feel how true and masterly the sketch--

"Alike all ages; dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze,

And the gray grandsire, skilled in gestic lore,

Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore."

Nor must I forget to mention the fete patronale--a kind of annual fair,

which is held at midsummer, in honor of the patron saint of Auteuil. Then

the principal street of the village is filled with booths of every

description; strolling players, and rope-dancers, and jugglers, and

giants, and dwarfs, and wild beasts, and all kinds of wonderful shows,

excite the gaping curiosity of the throng; and in dust, crowds, and

confusion, the village rivals the capital itself. Then the goodly dames of

Passy descend into the village of Auteuil; then the brewers of Billancourt

and the tanners of Sevres dance lustily under the greenwood tree; and

then, too, the sturdy fishmongers of Bretigny and Saint-Yon regale their

fat wives with an airing in a swing, and their customers with eels and

crawfish....

I found another source of amusement in observing the various personages

that daily passed and repassed beneath my window. The character which most

of all arrested my attention was a poor blind fiddler, whom I first saw

chanting a doleful ballad at the door of a small tavern near the gate of

the village. He wore a brown coat, out at elbows, the fragment of a velvet

waistcoat, and a pair of tight nankeens, so short as hardly to reach below

his calves. A little foraging cap, that had long since seen its best days,

set off an open, good-humored countenance, bronzed by sun and wind. He was

led about by a brisk, middle-aged woman, in straw hat and wooden shoes;

and a little barefooted boy, with clear, blue eyes and flaxen hair, held a

tattered hat in his hand, in which he collected eleemosynary sous. The old

fellow had a favorite song, which he used to sing with great glee to a

merry, joyous air, the burden of which ran "Chantons l'amour et le

plaisir!" I often thought it would have been a good lesson for the crabbed

and discontented rich man to have heard this remnant of humanity--poor,

blind, and in rags, and dependent upon casual charity for his daily bread,

singing in so cheerful a voice the charms of existence, and, as it were,

fiddling life away to a merry tune.

I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I

looked out and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the road,

attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction of the

church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage-festival. The procession

was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat and white dimity

bobcoat, playing on an asthmatic clarionet, from which he contrived to

blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at right angles from

his tune, and winding up with a grand flourish on the guttural notes.

Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind fiddler, his honest

features glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he

stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he made all crack again.

Then came the happy bridegroom, drest in his Sunday suit of blue, with a

large nosegay in his button-hole; and close beside him his blushing bride,

with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe and slippers, and wearing a

wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends and relatives brought up

the procession; and a troop of village urchins came shouting along in the

rear, scrambling among themselves for the largess of sous and sugar-plums

that now and then issued in large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man

in black, who seemed to officiate as master of ceremonies on the occasion.

I gazed on the procession till it was out of sight; and when the last

wheeze of the clarionet died upon my ear, I could not help thinking how

happy were they who were thus to dwell together in the peaceful bosom of

their native village, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential

vices of the town.

On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the

freshness of the air and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I

heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial-service, at first

so faint and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on

the hush of evening--died gradually away--then ceased. Then, it rose

again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession

appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest,

bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, holding long

flambeaux in their hands. Next came a double file of priests in their

surplices, with a missal in one hand and a lighted wax taper in the other,

chanting the funeral dirge at intervals--now pausing, and then again

taking up the mournful burden of their lamentation, accompanied by others,

who played upon a rude kind of bassoon, with a dismal and wailing sound.

Then followed various symbols of the church, and the bier borne on the

shoulders of four men. The coffin was covered with a velvet pall, and a

chaplet of white flowers lay upon it, indicating that the deceased was

unmarried. A few of the villagers came behind, clad in mourning robes, and

bearing lighted tapers. The procession passed slowly along the same street

that in the morning had been thronged by the gay bridal company. A

melancholy train of thought forced itself home upon my mind. The joys and

sorrows of this world are so strikingly mingled! Our mirth and grief are

brought so mournfully in contact! We laugh while others weep--and others

rejoice when we are sad! The light heart and the heavy walk side by side

and go about together! Beneath the same roof are spread the wedding-feast

and the funeral-pall! The bridal-song mingles with the burial-hymn! One

goes to the marriage-bed, another to the grave; and all is mutable,

uncertain, and transitory.

It is with sensations of pure delight that I recur to the brief period of

my existence which was passed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil. There is

one kind of wisdom which we learn from the world, and another kind which

can be acquired in solitude only. In cities we study those around us; but

in the retirement of the country we learn to know ourselves.

[Illustration: Paris: Interior of the Grand Opera House]

[Illustration: Paris Front of the Grand Opera House]

[Illustration: Arc de Triomphe]

[Illustration: Arch Erected by Napoleon, Near the Louvre]

[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Vincent de Paul]

[Illustration: Paris: Church of St. Sulpice]

[Illustration: Picture Gallery at Versailles]

[Illustration: Versailles: Bed-Room of Louis XIV]

[Illustration: The Grand Trianon at Versailles]

[Illustration: The Little Trianon at Versailles]

[Illustration: Bed-Room of Catherine de Medici at Chaumont]

[Illustration: Marie Antoinette's Dairy at Versailles]

[Illustration: Tours From Turner's "Rivers of France"]

[Illustration: Saint Denis From Turner's "Rivers of France"]

[Illustration: Havre From Turner's "Rivers of France"]

[Illustration: The Bridge of St. Cloud From Turner's "Rivers of France"]

The Two Trianons

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The Trianons may be reached in half an hour from the railway station, but

the distance is considerable, and a carriage very desirable, considering

all the walking inside of the palaces to be accomplished. Carriages take

the straight avenue from Bassin de Neptune. The pleasantest way for foot-

passengers is to follow the gardens of Versailles as far as the Bassin

d'Apollon, and then turn to the right. At the end of the right branch of

the grand canal, staircases lead to the park of the Grand Trianon; but

these staircases are railed in, and it is necessary to make a detour to

the Grille de la Grande Entree, whence an avenue leads directly to the

Grand Trianon, while the Petit Trianon lies immediately to the right,

behind the buildings of the Concierge and Corps de Garde.

The original palace of the Grand Trianon was a little chateau built by

Louis XIV., in 1670, as a refuge from the fatigues of the Court, on land

bought from the monks of St. Genevieve, and belonging to the parish of

Trianon. But in 1687 the humble chateau was pulled down, and the present

palace erected by Mansart in its place.

Louis XIV. constantly visited the Grand Trianon, with which for many years

he was much delighted. But, after 1700, he never slept at Trianon, and,

weary of his plaything here, turned all his attention to Marly. Under

Louis XV., however, the palace was again frequently inhabited.

Being entirely on one floor, the Grand Trianon continued to be a most

uncomfortable residence, till subterranean passages for service were added

under Louis Philippe, who made great use of the palace. The buildings are

without character or distinction. Visitors have to wait in the vestibule

till a large party is formed, and are then hurried full speed round the

rooms, without being allowed to linger for an instant.

The Petit Trianon was built by Gabriel for Louis XV. in the botanical

garden which Louis XIV. had formed at the instigation of the Duc d'Ayen.

It was intended as a miniature of the Grand Trianon, as that palace had

been a miniature of Versailles. The palace was often used by Louis XV.,

who was here first attacked by the smallpox, of which he died. Louis XVI.

gave it to Marie Antoinette, who made its gardens, and whose happiest days

were spent here.

The Petit Trianon is a very small and very unassuming country house. Mme.

de Maintenon describes it in June as "a palace enchanted and perfumed."

Its pretty simple rooms are only interesting from their associations. The

furniture is mostly of the times of Louis XVI. The stone stair has a

handsome iron balustrade; the salons are paneled in white.

Here Marie Antoinette st to Mme. Lebrun for the picture in which she is

represented with her children. In the dining-room is a secretaire given to

Louis XVI. by the States of Burgundy, and portraits of the King and Marie

Antoinette. The Cabinet de Travail of the queen was a cabinet given to her

on her marriage by the town of Paris; in the Salle de Reception are four

pictures by Watteau; the Boudoir has a Sevres bust of the queen; in the

Chambre-a-coucher is the queen's bed, and a portrait of the Dauphin by

Lebrun. These simple rooms are a standing defense of the queen from the

false accusations brought against her at the Revolution as to her

extravagance in the furnishing of the Petit Trianon. Speaking of her happy

domestic life, Mme. Lebrun says: "I do not believe Queen Marie Antoinette

ever allowed an occasion to pass by without saying an agreeable thing to

those who had the honor of being near her."

Malmaison

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The station is opposite a short avenue, at the end of which on the right,

is the principal entrance to Malmaison. A little higher up the road at the

right is a gate leading to the park and gardens, freely open to the

public, and being sold (1887) in lots by the Stat. There is a melancholy

charm in the old house of many recollections--grim, empty, and desolate;

approached on this side by a bridge over the dry moat. A short distance

off, rather to the left, as you look from the house, is a very pretty

little temple--the Temple of Love--with a front of columns of red Givet

marble brought from the chateau of Richelieu, and a clear stream bursting

from the rocks beneath it.

Malmaison is supposed to derive its name from having been inhabited in the

XI century by the Norman brigand Odon, and afterward by evil spirits,

exorcised by the monks of St. Denis. Josephine bought the villa with its

gardens, which had been much praised by Delille, from M. Lecouteulx de

Canteleu for 160,000 francs.... Josephine retired to Malmaison at the time

of her divorce, and seldom left it afterward.... In 1814, the unhappy

Josephine, whose heart was always with Napoleon, was forced to receive a

visit from the allied sovereigns at Malmaison, and died of a chill which

she caught in doing the honors of her grounds to the Emperor Alexander on

May 26, by a water excursion on the pool of Cucufa. After his return from

Elba, Napoleon revisited the place....

After the loss of the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon once more retired to

Malmaison, then the property of the children of Josephine, Eugene and

Hortense. There he passed June 25, 1815, a day of terrible agitation. That

evening at five o'clock he put on a brown suit of civilian clothes,

tenderly embraced Queen Hortense and the other persons present, gave a

long lingering look at the house and gardens connected with his happiest

hours, and left them for ever.

After the second Restoration Prince Eugene sold Malmaison, removing its

gallery of pictures to Munich. There is now nothing remarkable in the

desolate rooms, tho the Salle des Marechaux, the bedroom of Josephine, and

the grand salon, with a chimney-piece given by the Pope are pointed out.

In later years the house was for some time inhabited by Queen Christina of

Spain. It will be a source of European regret if at least the building

connected with so many historic souvenirs, and the immediate grounds are

not preserved.

St. Germain

By Leitch Ritchie

[Footnote: From "The Rivers of France." Pictures by J. M.

W. Turner, R.A. Text by Leitch Ritchie.]

The view from the terrace of Saint Germain is one of the finest in France.

This view, and a shady walk in the forest behind, are the only attractions

of Saint Germain; for the old palace of the kings of France presents the

appearance of nothing more than a huge, irregular, unsightly brick

building. It is true, a great portion of the walls is of cut stone; but

this is the idea which the whole conveys to the spectator. The edifice

stands on the site of a chateau built by Louis-le-Gros, which, having been

burned down by the English, was thus raised anew from its ruins. Charles

V., Francois II., Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., all exercised

their taste upon it, and all added to its general deformity.

Near this Henri Quatre built another chateau, which fell into ruins forty

or fifty years ago. These ruins were altogether effaced by Charles X., who

had formed the project of raising another structure upon the spot,

entirely his own. The project, however, failed, like that of the coup

d'etat, but this is of no consequence. The new chateau exists in various

books of travel, written by eye-witnesses, quite as palpably as the

enormous bulk of the ancient chateau. It is a true "castle in Spain."

Among the sights to be seen in the palace is the chamber of Mademoiselle

de la Valliere, and the trap-door by which she was visited by Louis

Quatorze. There are also the chamber and oratory of our James II., who

died at Saint Germain, on the 16th September, 1701.

The forest of Saint Germain is seven leagues in circumference, pierced in

every direction by roads and paths, and containing various edifices that

were used as hunting-lodges. This vast wood affords no view, except along

the seemingly interminable path in which the spectator stands, the vista

of which, carried on with mathematical regularity, terminates in a point.

This is the case with all the great forests of France except that of

Fontainebleau, where nature is sometimes seen in her most picturesque

form. In the more remote and unfrequented parts of Saint Germain, the wild

boar still makes his savage lair; and still the loiterer, in these

lengthened alleys, is startled by a roebuck or a deer springing across the

path....

Independently of the noble satellites attached to the court, the infinite

number of official persons made its removal to Saint Germain, or the other

royal seats, seem like the emigration of a whole people. Forty-nine

physicians, thirty-eight surgeons, six apothecaries, thirteen preachers,

one hundred and forty maitres d'hotel, ninety ladies of honor to the

queen, in the sixteenth century! There were also an usher of the kitchen,

a courier de vin (who took the charge of carrying provisions for the king

when he went to the chase), a sutler of court, a conductor of the sumpter-

horse, a lackey of the chariot, a captain of the mules, an overseer of

roasts, a chair-bearer, a palmer (to provide ananches for Easter), a valet

of the firewood, a paillassier of the Scotch guard, a yeoman of the mouth,

and a hundred more for whose offices we have no names in English.

The grand maitre d'hotel was the chief officer of the court. The royal

orders came through him; he regulated the expenses; and was, in short, to

the rest of the functionaries, what the general is to the army. The maitre

des requetes was at the head of civil justice; the prevot de l'hotel at

the head of criminal justice....

When the courtiers presented themselves at the chateau, some in chariots,

some on horseback, with their wives mounted behind them (the ladies all

masked), they were subjected to the scrutiny of the captain of the gate.

The greater number he compelled to dismount; but the princes and

princesses, and a select few who had brevets of entrance, were permitted

to ride within the walls.

At court the men wore sword and dagger; but to be found with a gun or

pistol in the palace, or even in the town, subjected them to a sentence of

death. To wear a casque or cuirass was punished with imprisonment. The

laws of politeness were equally strict. If one man used insulting words to

another, the offense was construed as being given to the king; and the

offender was obliged to solicit pardon of his majesty. If one threatened

another by clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, he was to be

assomme according to the ordinance; which may either mean knocked down, or

soundly mauled--or the two together. If two men came to blows, they were

both assomme. A still more serious breach of politeness, however, was the

importunity of petitioners.

When the king hunted he was accompanied by a hundred pages, two hundred

esquires, and often four or five hundred gentlemen; sometimes by the queen

and princesses, with their hundreds of ladies and maids of honor, mounted

on palfreys saddled with black velvet.

St. Cloud

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

Very near the station is the Chateau de St. Cloud, set on fire by the

bombs of Mont-Valerien, in the night of October 13, 1870, and now the most

melancholy of ruins. Sufficient, however, remains to indicate the noble

character of a building partly due to Jules Hardouin and Mansart. The

chateau is more reddened than blackened by the fire, and the beautiful

reliefs of its gables, its statues, and the wrought-iron grilles of its

balconies are still perfect. Grass, and even trees, grow in its roofless

halls, in one of which the marble pillars and sculptured decorations are

seen through the gaps where windows once were. The view from the terrace

is most beautiful.

The name of St. Cloud comes from a royal saint, who was buried in the

collegiate church, pulled down by Marie Antoinette (which stood opposite

the modern church), and to whose shrine there is an annual pilgrimage.

Clodomir, King of Orleans, son of Clovis, dying in 524, had bequeathed his

three sons to the guardianship of his mother Clotilde. Their barbarous

uncles, Childebert and Clotaire, coveting their heritage, sent their

mother a sword and a pair of scissors, asking her whether she would prefer

that they should perish by the one, or that their royal locks should be

shorn with the other, and that they should be shut up in a convent.

"I would rather see them dead than shaven," replied Clotilde proudly. Two

of the princes were then murdered by their uncles, the third, Clodowald,

was hidden by some faithful servants, but fright made him cut off his hair

with his own hands, and he entered a monastery at a village then called

Nogent, but which derived from him the name of St. Clodowald, corrupted

into St. Cloud.

Clodowald bequeathed the lands of St. Cloud to the bishops of Paris, who

had a summer palace here, in which the body of Francois I. lay in state

after his death at Rambouillet. His son, Henri II., built a villa here in

the Italian style; and Henri III. came to live here in a villa belonging

to the Gondi family, while, with the King of Navarre, he was besieging

Paris in 1589. The city was never taken, for at St. Cloud Henri was

murdered by Jacques Clement, a monk of the Jacobin convent in Paris, who

fancied that an angel had urged him to the deed in a vision....

From this time the house of the banker Jerome Gondi, one of the Italian

adventurers who had followed the fortunes of Catherine de Medici, was an

habitual residence of the Court. It became the property of Hervard,

Controller of Finances, from whom Louis XIV. bought it for his brother

Philippe d'Orleans, enlarged the palace, and employed Lenotre to lay out

the park. Monsieur married the beautiful Henriette d'Angleterre, youngest

daughter of Charles I., who died here, June 30, 1670, with strong

suspicion of poison. St. Simon affirms the person employed to have confest

to Louis XIV., having used it at the instigation of the Chevalier de

Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused to be exiled.

One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the "disastrous night on

which there came as a clap of thunder the astonishing news! 'Madame is

dying! Madame is dead!' At the sound of so strange a wo people hurried to

St. Cloud from all sides to find panic over all except the heart of the

princess."

In the following year Monsieur was married again, to the Princess

Palatine, when it was believed that his late wife appeared near a fountain

in the park, where a servant, sent to fetch water, died of terror. The

vision turned out to be a reality--a hideous old woman, who amused herself

in this way. "The cowards," she said, "made such grimaces that I nearly

died laughing. This evening pleasure paid me for the toil of my hard day."

Monsieur gave magnificent fetes to the Court at St. Cloud, added to the

palace with great splendor, and caused the great cascade, which Jerome

Gondi had made, to be enlarged and embellished by Mansart. It was at St.

Cloud that Monsieur died of an attack of apoplexy, brought on by

overeating after his return from a visit to the king at Marly.... The

chateau continued to be occupied by Madame, daughter of the Elector, the

rude, the original, and satirical Princess Palatine, in whom the modern

House of Orleans has its origin, and here she died during the regency of

her son....

The Regent d'Orleans, nephew of Louis XIV., received Peter the Great at

St. Cloud in 1717. In 1752 his grandson, Louis Philippe d'Orleans, gave at

St. Cloud one of the most magnificent fetes ever seen in France.

In 1785 the Due d'Orleans sold St. Cloud for six million francs to Queen

Marie Antoinette, who made great alterations in the internal arrangements

of the building, where she resided during the early days of the

Revolution.

It was at St. Cloud that the coup d'etat occurred which made Napoleon

first-consul. This led him to choose the palace of St. Cloud, which had

been the cradle of his power, as his principal residence, and, under the

first empire, it was customary to speak of "le cabinet de Saint-Cloud," as

previously of "le cabinet de Versailles," and afterward of "le cabinet des

Tuileries." Here, in 1805, Napoleon and Josephine assisted at the baptism

of the future Napoleon III....

It was also in the palace of St. Cloud that Napoleon I. was married to

Marie Louise, April 1, 1810. In this palace of many changes the allied

sovereigns met after the fall of the First Empire. Blucher, after his

fashion, slept booted and spurred in the bed of Napoleon; and the

capitulation of Paris was signed here July 3, 1815.

Louis XVIII. and Charles X. both lived much at St. Cloud, and added to it

considerably; but here, where Henry IV. had been recognized as King of

France and Navarre, Charles X. was forced by the will of the people to

abdicate, July 30, 1830. Two years after, Louis Philippe established

himself with his family at St. Cloud, and his daughter Clementine was

married to Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg in its chapel, April 28, 1843.

Like his uncle, Napoleon III. was devoted to St. Cloud, where--"with a

light heart"--the declaration of war with Prussia was signed in the

library, July, 17, 1870, a ceremony followed by a banquet, during which

the "Marseillaise" was played. The doom of St. Cloud was then sealed. On

the 13th of the following October the besieged Parisians beheld the

volumes of flame rising behind the Bois de Boulogne, which told that St.

Cloud, recently occupied by the Prussians, and frequently bombarded in

consequence from Mont-Valerien, had been fired by French bombs.

The steamer for St. Cloud descends the Seine, passing under the Pont de

Solferino, Pont de la Concorde, Pont des Invalides, and Pont d'Alma. Then

the Champ de Mars is seen on the left, the Palais du Trocadero on the

right. After the Pont du d'Iena, Passy is passed on the right, and the Ile

des Cygnes on the left. Then comes the Pont de Grenelle, after which

Auteuil is passed on the right and Javel on the left. After leaving the

Pont-viaduc du Point-du-Jour, the Ile de Billancourt is seen on the left.

After the Pont de Billancourt, the steamer passes between the Iles de

Billancourt and Seguin to Bas Meudon.

III

OLD PROVENCE

The Papal Palace at Avignon

By Charles Dickens

[Footnote: From "Pictures From Italy."]

There lay before us, that same afternoon, the broken bridge of Avignon,

and all the city baking in the sun; yet with an underdone-piecrust,

battlemented wall, that never will be brown, tho it bake for centuries.

The grapes were hanging in clusters in the streets, and the brilliant

oleander was in full bloom everywhere. The streets are old and very

narrow, but tolerably clean, and shaded by awnings stretched from house to

house. Bright stuffs and handkerchiefs, curiosities, ancient frames of

carved wood, old chairs, ghostly tables, saints, virgins, angels, and

staring daubs of portraits, being exposed for sale beneath, it was very

quaint and lovely. All this was much set off, too, by the glimpses one

caught, through a rusty gate standing ajar, of quiet sleepy court-yards,

having stately old houses within, as silent as tombs. It was all very like

one of the descriptions in the Arabian Nights. The three one-eyed

Calenders might have knocked at any one of those doors till the street

rang again, and the porter who persisted in asking questions--the man who

had the delicious purchases put into his basket in the morning--might have

opened it quite naturally.

After breakfast next morning, we sallied forth to see the lions. Such a

delicious breeze was blowing in, from the north, as made the walk

delightful, tho the pavement-stones, and stones of the walls and houses,

were far too hot to have a hand laid on them comfortably.

We went, first of all, up a rocky height, to the cathedral, where Mass was

performing to an auditory very like that of Lyons, namely, several old

women, a baby, and a very self-possest dog, who had marked out for himself

a little course or platform for exercise, beginning at the altar-rails and

ending at the door, up and down which constitutional walk he trotted,

during the service, as methodically and calmly, as any old gentleman out

of doors. It is a bare old church, and the paintings in the roof are sadly

defaced by time and damp weather; but the sun was shining in, splendidly,

through the red curtains of the windows, and glittering on the altar

furniture; and it looked as bright and cheerful as need be.

Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one

portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack; while gloomy

suites of state apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state

and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went there to

see state rooms, nor soldiers' quarters, nor a common jail, tho we dropt

some money into a prisoners' box outside, while the prisoners, themselves,

looked through the iron bars, high, up, and watched us eagerly. We went to

see the ruins of the dreadful rooms in which the Inquisition used to sit.

A little, old, swarthy woman, with a pair of flashing black eyes--proof

that the world hadn't conjured down the devil within her, tho it had had

between sixty and seventy years to do it in--came out of the Barrack

Cabaret, of which she was the keeper, with some large keys in her hands,

and marshaled us the way that we should go. How she told us, on the way,

that she was a Government Officer (concierge du palais apostolique), and

had been, for I don't know how many years; and how she had shown these

dungeons to princes; and how she was the best of dungeon demonstrators;

and how she had resided in the palace from an infant--had been born there,

if I recollect right--I needn't relate.

But such a fierce, little, rapid, sparkling, energetic she-devil I never

beheld. She was alight and flaming, all the time. Her action was violent

in the extreme. She never spoke, without stopping expressly for the

purpose. She stamped her feet, clutched us by the arms, flung herself into

attitudes, hammered against walls with her keys, for mere emphasis: now

whispered as if the Inquisition were there still; now shrieked as if she

were on the rack herself; and had a mysterious, hag-like way with her

forefinger, when approaching the remains of some new horror--looking back

and walking stealthily and making horrible grimaces--that might alone have

qualified her to walk up and down a sick man's counterpane, to the

exclusion of all other figures, through a whole fever.

Passing through the courtyard, among groups of idle soldiers, we turned

off by a gate, which this She-Goblin unlocked for our admission, and

locked again behind us; and entered a narrow court, rendered narrower by

fallen stones and heaps of rubbish; part of it choking up the mouth of a

ruined subterranean passage, that once communicated (or is said to have

done so) with another castle on the opposite bank of the river. Close to

this courtyard is a dungeon--we stood within it, in another minute--in the

dismal tower of oubliettes, where Rienzi was imprisoned, fastened by an

iron chain to the very wall that stands there now, but shut out from the

sky which now looks down into it.

A few steps brought us to the Cachots, in which the prisoners of the

Inquisition were confined for forty-eight hours after their capture,

without food or drink, that their constancy might be shaken, even before

they were confronted with their gloomy judges. The day has not got in

there yet. They are still small cells, shut in by four unyielding, close,

hard walls; still profoundly dark; still massively doored and fastened, as

of old.

Goblin, looking back as I have described, went softly on, into a vaulted

chamber, now used as a store-room; once the Chapel of the Holy Office. The

place where the tribunal sat, was plain. The platform might have been

removed but yesterday. Conceive the parable of the Good Samaritan having

been painted on the wall of one of these Inquisition chambers! But it was,

and may be traced there yet.

High up in the wall, are niches where the faltering replies of the accused

were heard and noted down. Many of them had been brought out of the very

cell we had just looked into, so awfully; along the same stone passage. We

had trodden in their very footsteps.

I am gazing round me, with the horror that the place inspires, when Goblin

clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle

of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to follow her. I do

so. She leads me out into a room adjoining--a rugged room, with a funnel-

shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day, I ask her

what it is. She folds her arms,, leers hideously, and stares. I ask again.

She glances round, to see that all the little company are there; sits down

upon a mound of stones; throws up her arms, and yells out, like a fiend,

"La Salle de la Question!"

The Chamber of Torture! And the roof was made of that shape to stifle the

victim's cries! Oh Goblin, Goblin, let us think of this awhile, in

silence. Peace, Goblin! Sit with your short arms crossed on your short

legs, upon that heap of stones, for only five minutes, and then flame out

again.... A cold air, with an earthy smell, falls upon the face of

Monsieur; for she has opened, while speaking, a trap-door in the wall.

Monsieur looks in. Downward to the bottom, upward to the top, of a steep,

dark lofty tower; very dismal, very dark, very cold. The Executioner of

the Inquisition, says Goblin, edging in her head to look down also, flung

those who were past all further torturing, down here. "But look! does

Monsieur see the black stains on the wall?" A glance, over his shoulder,

at Goblin's keen eye, shows Monsieur--and would without the aid of the

directing-key--where they are. "What are they?" "Blood!"

In October, 1791, when Revolution was at its height here, sixty persons;

men and women ("and priests," says Goblin, "priests"); were murdered, and

hurled, the dying and the dead, into this dreadful pit, where a quantity

of quicklime was tumbled down upon their bodies. Those ghastly tokens of

the massacre were soon no more; but while one stone of the strong building

in which the deed was done, remains upon another, there they will lie in

the memories of men, as plain to see as the splashing of their blood upon

the wall is now.... Goblin's finger is lifted; and she steals out again,

into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the

flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts

at the brave courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap

on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us

all, round a little trap-door in the floor, as round as grave.

"Voila!" she darts down at the ring, and flings the door open with a

crash, in her goblin energy, tho it is no light weight. "Voila les

oubliettes! Voila les oubliettes! Subterranean! Frightful! Black!

Terrible! Deadly! Les oubliettes de l'Inquisition!"

My blood ran cold, as I looked from Goblin, down into the vaults, where

these forgotten creatures, with recollections of the world outside--of

wives, friends, children, brothers--starved to death, and made the stones

ring with their unavailing groans. But, the thrill I felt on seeing the

accurst wall below, decayed and broken through, and the sun shining in

through its gaping wounds, was like a sense of victory and triumph.

I felt exalted with the proud delight of living, in these degenerate

times, to see it. As if I were the hero of some high achievement! The

light in the doleful vaults was typical of the light that has streamed in,

on all persecution in God's name, but which is not yet at its noon! It can

not look more lovely to a blind man newly restored to sight, than to a

traveler who sees it, calmly and majestically, treading down the darkness

of that Infernal Well.

Goblin, having shown les oubliettes, felt that her great coup was struck.

She let the door fall with a crash, and stood upon it with her arms

a-kimbo, sniffing prodigiously.

When we left the place, I accompanied her into her house, under the outer

gateway of the fortress, to buy a little history of the building. Her

cabaret, a dark low room, lighted by small windows, sunk in the thick

wall--in the softened light, and with its forge-like chimney; its little

counter by the door, with bottles, jars, and glasses on it; its household

implements are scraps of dress against the wall; and a sober looking woman

(she must have a congenial life of it, with Goblin) knitting at the door--

looked exactly like a picture by Ostade.

I walked round the building on the outside, in a sort of dream, and yet

with the delightful sense of having awakened from it, of which the light,

down in the vaults, had given, me the assurance. The immense thickness and

giddy height of the walls, the enormous strength of the massive towers,

the great extent of the building, its gigantic proportions, frowning

aspect, and barbarous irregularity, awaken awe and wonder.

The recollection of its opposite old uses; an impregnable fortress, a

luxurious palace, a horrible prison, a place of torture, the court of the

Inquisition; at one and the same time, a house of feasting, fighting,

religion, and blood, gives to every stone in its huge form a fearful

interest, and imparts new meaning to its incongruities. I could think of

little, however, then, or long afterward, but the sun in the dungeons.

The palace coming down to be the lounging-place of noisy soldiers, and

being forced to echo their rough talk and common oaths, and to have their

garments fluttering from its dirty windows, was some reduction of its

state, and something to rejoice at; but the day in its cells, and the sky

for the roof of its chambers of cruelty--that was its desolation and

defeat! If I had seen it in a blaze from ditch to rampart, I should have

felt that not that light, nor all the light in all the fire that burns,

could waste it, like the sunbeams in its secret council-chamber and its

prisons.

The Building of the Great Palace

By Thomas Oakey

[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.]

It will now be convenient briefly to trace the growth of that remarkable

edifice, at once a castle and a cloister, a palace and a prison, which

constitutes the chief attraction of Avignon to-day, and which, altho

defaced by time and by modern restorers, remains in its massive grandeur a

fitting memorial of the great line of pontiffs who have made that little

city famous in the annals of Christendom.

We have seen that Pope John XXII., having allotted a piece of land to his

nephew, Arnaud de Via, for the erection of a new episcopal palace, was

content to modify and enlarge the old one for pontifical uses, and that

Benedict XII., with characteristic straightforwardness, purchased the new

fabric from Arnaud's heirs and, having handed it over to the diocesan

authorities, proceeded to transform the old building into a stately and

spacious apostolic palace for the head of Christendom.

He was moved to this purchase after mature reflection, for it was a matter

of urgent importance that the pontiff of the church of Rome should possess

a palace of his own at Avignon as long as it might be necessary for him to

remain there. The relation between Curia and Episcopate being thus clearly

defined, Benedict appointed a compatriot, Pierre Poisson de Mirepoix,

master of the works, and, since about two-thirds of the existing palace

dates from Benedict's reign, Pierre Poisson may be regarded as its first

architect.

More, probably, is known of the construction of the papal palace of

Avignon than of any other relic of medieval architecture. Thanks to the

researches of Father Ehrle, Prefect of the Vatican Library, and other

scholars, the sums paid to the contractors, their names, the estimates of

quantities, the wages of the chief workmen, and the price of materials,

are before us, and we can trace day by day and month by month the progress

of the great pile. The whole of the craftsmen, with the exception of the

later master painters from Italy and some northern sculptors, were either

Avignonais, Gascons or Provencals.

The first work undertaken by Pierre was the enlargement of the papal

chapel of John XXII. This was doubled in length, and the lavish

decorations executed by John's master painter, Friar Pierre Dupuy, were

continued on the walls of the added portion; payments for white, green,

indigo, vermilion, carmine and other pigments, and for colored tiles,

testify to the brilliancy of its interior.

Meanwhile work was proceeding on the massy new tower, the Turris Magna,

now known as the Tour des Anges, the best preserved of all the old towers.

The foundations were laid on April 3, 1335, and it was roofed with lead on

March 18, 1337. The basement formed the papal wine-cellar; the ground

floor was the treasury, or strong room, where the specie, the jewels, the

precious vessels of gold and silver and other valuables were stored; many

payments are recorded for locks and bars and bolts for their safe-keeping

within the ten-feet-thick walls of the tower.

The next great work put in hand was the east wing, which was raised on a

space left by John's demolished, or partially demolished, structure. On

November 20, 1337, two masons (lapiscidarios), Pierre Folcaud and Jean

Chapelier, and a carpenter, Jacques Beyran, all of Avignon, contracted to

carry out the plans of a new architect, Bernard Canello, for the

completion of Benedict's private apartments, and on the same day Lambert

Fabre and Martin Guinaud, housewreckers, were paid eighty-three gold

florins on account, for the demolition of the old buildings. This wing,

since wholly remodeled by the legates and the modern corps of engineers,

comprised the papal Garde Robe, the Garde Meuble, the private kitchen and

offices and, on the floor above, the papal dining-room, study and private

oratory. The walls were, of course, embattlemented, and in 1337 the most

exposed portions of the new buildings were defended by a stout rampart....

The whole ground floor, 110 feet by 33, was occupied by a great reception

hall (Camera Paramenti), where distinguished visitors were accorded a

first welcome before being admitted to a private audience, or accorded a

solemn state reception in consistory, as the import of their embassy

demanded. The popes were also used to receive the cardinals there, and two

doorkeepers were appointed who must be faithful, virtuous and honest men

and sleep in the hall; their office being one of great trust, was highly

paid, and they were generally laymen. It was probably in this hall that

St. Catherine was received by Clement VI. The Avignon conclaves were held

there, for on December 31, 1352, four hundred and fifteen days' and

nights' labor were employed in breaking down the walls between the dining-

hall and the Camera Paramenti, clearing away the stones and making secret

chambers for the lord cardinals, in which chambers were twenty-eight

cells....

On September 5, 1339, John's old belfry was pulled down and Jean Mauser de

Carnot, who asserted he had excavated 11,300 basketfuls of rubbish, was

paid at the rate of twelve deniers the hundred for the work. Evidently

these were good times for the basket makers as well as builders. December

22, 1340, three contractors, Isnard and Raymond Durand and Jacques

Gasquet, received 1,273 florins for the completed new tower, with its

barbicans, battlements and machicoulis, which was on the site and which

retained the appellation of the Tour de la Campane, or Bell Tower. The

embattlemented and machicolated summit, but not the chastelet, of this

mighty tower has recently been restored; its walls are nearly twelve feet

thick....

Benedict's last undertaking was the erection of the Tour de Trouillas,

next the Tour des Latrines, and on April 20, 1341, sixteen rubbish baskets

were bought for the "Saracens that excavated the foundations of the turris

nova." The Tour de Trouillas, tallest and stoutest of the keeps of the

mighty fortress, is 175 feet high as compared with the 150 feet of the

Tour de la Campane, and its walls fifteen feet thick as compared with

twelve feet. It should be noted, however, that the latter tower appears

the taller owing to the elevated ground whereon, it stands....

Having bought, by private agreement or by arbitration, all the houses

adjacent to the palace on the south side, Clement next proceeded to

demolish them and on the site to raise the noblest and most beautiful wing

of the great palace. This edifice, known to contemporaries as the great

new palace, comprised a spacious Chapel and Hall of Justice; and in August

9, 1344, contracts were made for cutting away and leveling the rock above

the present Rue Peyrolerie, whereon, by October 21, 1351, the masons had

raised their beautiful building.

On that day, by order of our lord the pope, one hundred florins were

handed over by the papal chamber to Master John of Loubieres to distribute

among the masters to celebrate the placing of the keystone in the vaulting

of the new chapel of the palace and the completion of the said chapel. On

All Saints' Day of that same year Clement recited (a month before his

death) the first solemn mass in his great new chapel and preached a most

eloquent sermon, praising God for the completion of his life's work. The

lower hall, most famous of judicial chambers in Christendom and final

Court of Appeal in all questions of international and ecclesiastical law,

was later in opening.

Among the amenities of the old palace were the spacious and lovely gardens

on the east, with their clipt hedges, avenues of trees, flower-beds and

covered and frescoed walls, all kept fresh and green by channels of water.

John maintained a menagerie of lions and other wild and strange beasts;

stately peacocks swept proudly along the green swards, for the inventory

of 1369 specifies seventeen peacocks, some old and some young, whereof six

were white.

* * * * *

But we have as yet dealt chiefly with the external shell of this mass of

architecture which, tall and mighty, raises its once impregnable walls and

towers against the sky. The beauty of its interior remains briefly to be

touched upon, for the fortress palace had, as Clement left it, some

analogy with the great Moorish palace of the Alhambra in that it stood

outwardly grim and strong, while within it was a shrine of exquisite and

luxurious art.

The austere Benedict, who, his biographer tells us, left the walls of the

consistory naked, appears to have expended little on the pictorial

decorations of the halls and chambers erected during his pontificate; but

with the elevation of the luxurious and art-loving Clement VI., a new

spirit breathes over the fabric. The stern simplicity and noble strength

of his predecessor's work assume an internal vesture of richness and

beauty; the walls glow with azure and gold; a legion of Gallic sculptors

and Italian painters lavish their art on the embellishment of the

palace....

Such, in brief outline, was the progress of the mighty fabric and its

internal decoration which the great popes of Avignon raised to be their

dwelling-place, their fortress, and the ecclesiastical center of

Christendom. Tho shorn of all its pristine beauty and robbed of much of

its symmetry, it stands to-day in bulk and majesty, much as it stood at

the end of Clement VI.'s reign, when a contemporary writer describes it as

a quadrangular edifice, enclosed within high walls and towers and

constructed in most noble style, and tho it was all most beautiful to look

upon, there were three parts of transcendent beauty: the Audientia, the

Capella major, and the terraces: and these were so admirably planned and

contrived that peradventure no palace comparable to it was to be found in

the whole world. The terraces referred to were those raised over the great

chapel, and were formed of stone, bedded in asphalt and laid on a staging

of stout oak joists; the view from the terraces was unparalleled for range

and beauty.

The glowing splendor of frescoed walls was enhanced by gorgeous hangings

and tapestries and by the magnificent robes and jewels of popes and

cardinals. Crowds of goldsmiths--forty were employed at the papal court--

embroiderers and silk mercers, made Avignon famous thoughout Europe. In

1337, 318 florins were paid for eight Paris carpets; in 1343 Clement VI.

paid 213 florins for green silk hangings, and 254 florins for carpets

adorned with roses; in 1348, 400 gold and silver vessels turned the scales

at 862 marks, 5 ounces; in the inventory of 1369, despite the fact that

the most precious had been sent to Rome, the gold vessels were weighed out

at 1,434 marks, 1 ounce; the silver at 5,525 marks 7 ounces.

A cardinal's hat cost from 15 to 40 florins, and in 1348, 150 florins were

paid for one piece of scarlet for the pope, and 75 to 100 florins for the

garniture of a riding cloak. Clement VI. spent 1,278 florins in the

purchase of cloth of gold, woven by the Saracens of Damascus; one payment

to Jacopo Malabayla of Arti for summer and winter clothing for the papal

household amounted to 6,510 florins, and the same obviously Hebrew

merchant received 10,652 florins in 1341 for cloth and ermine and beaver;

in 1347 Clement's furrier received 1,080 ermine skins, whereof 430 were

used in one cloak, 310 for a mantle, 150 for two hoods, and 88 for nine

birettas; in 1351, 2,258 florins went to Tuscany for silk, and 385 for

brocade to Venice.

The richness of the papal utensils beggars description; jeweled cups,

flagons of gold, knife handles of jasper and ivory, forks of mother-of-

pearl and gold. A goldsmith in 1382 was paid 14 florins for repairing two

of the last-named implements. The flabelli, or processional feather fans,

cost 14 florins; Benedict XIII., paid 300 florins for an enameled silver

bit; the Golden Roses cost from 100 to 300 florins. Presents of jewels

were costly and frequent. Gregory XI. gave 168 pearls, value 179 francs,

to the citizens of Avellino; Clement VII. presented the Duke of Burgundy

with a ring of gold, worth 335 florins; an aguiere of gold and pearls,

valued at 1,000 florins, and two tables each over 200 florins. Richer

gifts were lavished on sovereign princes. Reliquaries were of prodigious

value; the gold cross containing a piece of the true cross at the

Celestins weighed fifteen pounds. In 1375 a silver arm for the image of

St. Andrew cost over 2,566 florins.

The cardinals were equally munificent. The most striking example of lavish

splendor is afforded by the State banquet given to Clement V., by the

Cardinals Arnaud de Palegrue and Pierre Taillefer in May, 1308. Clement,

as he descended from his litter, was received by his hosts and twenty

chaplains, who conducted him to a chamber hung with richest tapestries

from floor to ceiling; he trod on velvet carpet of triple pile; his state-

bed was draped with fine crimson velvet, lined with white ermine; the

sheets of silk were embroidered with silver and gold.

The table was served by four papal knights and twelve squires, who each

received silver girdles and purses filled with gold from the hosts. Fifty

cardinals' squires assisted them in serving the banquet, which consisted

of nine courses of three plates each--twenty-seven dishes in all. The

meats were built up in fantastic form: castles, gigantic stags, boars,

horses, etc. After the fourth service, the cardinal offered his holiness a

milk-white steed worth 400 florins; two gold rings, jeweled with an

enormous sapphire and a no less enormous topaz; and a bowl, worth 100

florins; sixteen cardinal guests and twenty prelates were given rings and

jewels, and twelve young clerks of the papal house and twenty-four

sergeants-at-arms received purses filled with florins.

After the fifth service, a great tower with a font whence gushed forth

five sorts of choicest wines was carried in; and a tourney was run during

the interval between the seventh and eighth courses. Then followed a

concert of sweetest music, and dessert was furnished by two trees--one of

silver, bearing rarest fruits of all kinds, and the other loaded with

sugared fruits of many colors. Various wines were then served, whereupon

the master cooks, with thirty assistants, executed dances before the

guests. Clement, by this time, having had enough, retired to his chamber,

where, lest he might faint for lack of refreshment during the night, wine

and spices were brought to him; the entertainment ended with dances and

distractions of many kinds.

There is no reason to believe that the Avignon popes, either in their

household expenditure or in their personal luxury, were more extravagant

than their Roman predecessors or successors. Yet amid all this luxury,

strange defects of comfort appear to the modern sense. Windows, as we have

seen, were generally covered with wax cloth or linen, carpets were rare,

and rushes were strewn on the floors of most of the rooms. From May to

November, 1349, more than 300 loads of rushes were supplied for use in the

dining-rooms and chambers of the apostolic palace. Subsequently mats were

introduced, and in 1352 Pierre de Glotos, mat-maker to the palace of our

lord and pope, was paid for 275 cannae of matting for the palace of

Avignon and for the palace beyond the Rhone and the new chapel.

The Walls of Avignon

By Thomas Oakey

[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P. Dutton & Co.]

Intimately associated with the history of the palace of the Popes of

Avignon is that of the unparalleled circuit of walls and towers which

defended the city from the scourge of organized robber bands during the

fourteenth century. The earliest quadrilateral fortifications embraced a

relatively small area consisting of the Rocher des Doms and the parishes

of St. Agricol, St. Didier, and St. Pierre; these walls, demolished and

rebuilt on a more extensive scale in the twelfth century, embraced an area

easily traceable on the modern map, from the Porte du Rhone, round the

Rues du Limas, Joseph Vernet, des Lices, Philonarde, Campane, Trois

Colombes, to the Rocher.

It was these fortifications that the Cardinal St. Angelo forced the

citizens to raze in 1227. Until the acquisition of Avignon by Clement VI.,

the city was an open one and only defended by a double fosse. The origin

of the papal walls has already been traced, and their subsequent fate may

now be briefly given. The assaults of the Rhone proved more destructive

than human artillery. The walls and towers having been hastily raised,

towers fell by reason of bad foundation, and the upkeep of the

fortifications was a continual drain on papal and communal finances.

In 1362 an irresistible flood of waters overthrew the Fortes St. Michel

and Limbert, and large breaches were often made by these recurring

inundations. Moreover, the expansion of the city of old and the need of

access to the suburbs involved frequent displacement and opening of new

gates. In 1482 the whole system of the defensive works was modified to

meet the new situation caused by the introduction of gunpowder. The gates

most exposed to attack were further defended by outworks, that of St.

Lazare having been fortified during the rule of Giuliano della Rovere by

the addition of a powerful bastide, with three round towers, a drawbridge,

a new fosse which communicated with the great fosse before the main walls.

Other modifications took place during the Huguenot wars.

Notwithstanding many repairs during the intervening centuries, the

fortifications had, under the second Empire, suffered sad degradation, and

at length Viollet-le-Duc was entrusted with their restoration. The famous

architect set to work on their southern side and had completed about one-

third of the restoration when the disastrous issue of the Franco-Prussian

war arrested all further progress until the Third Republic feebly resumed

the task. The walls along the Rhone, especially useful in time of flood,

were backed with stone, their battlements and machicoulis renewed. The

visitor, however, will need no reminder that the present passive aspect of

the ramparts conveys but a faint impression of their former state, when a

broad and deep fosse, seven feet by twelve, washed their bases, above

which they raised their once impregnable curtains full thirty feet.

Two of the old gates have been demolished--the Porte de Limbert in 1896,

and the Porte de l'Oulle in 1900--the former, many times repaired, was the

only existing example of the external aspect of a medieval gate, the

latter had been rebuilt in 1786 in the Doric style. A new gate, the Porte

Petrarque, now the Porte de la Republique, was erected by Viollet-le-Duc

when the walls were pierced for the new street; the Porte St. Dominique is

also new. These noble mural defenses, three miles in circuit, twice

narrowly escaped demolition--at the construction of the railway, when they

were saved by a vigorous protest of Prosper Merimee, and in 1902, when, on

the pretext that they blocked the development of the city, the

municipality decided to demolish the unrestored portions. Luckily the

intervention of a public-spirited Prefect of Vaucluse proved successful,

and they were again rescued from the housewrecker's pick. No visitor to

Avignon should omit to walk or drive round the famous ramparts.

Their stones have been subjected to careful scrutiny by antiquarians and

the masons' marks (tacherons)--about 4,500--carefully examined and reduced

to about four hundred and fifty types. Opinions differ as to the meaning

of these curious signs, but there is little doubt that M. Maire's

suggestion is the correct one--the workmen were paid by the piece, and

each had his own private mark which he cut on the stones he laid and thus

enabled the foreman to check his work.

We begin at the Porte du Rhone, and skirt the older part of the walls on

the northwest with their different style of corbels and machicoulis. M.

Maire has no hesitation in assigning this portion to the time of Clement

VI., by reason of the coarser nature of the masons' marks. Turning

southwards, we pass the Porte St. Dominique, and reach the Porte St. Roch

(formerly the Porte du Chamfleury, and only opened at plague times) and

the Porte de la Republique. We soon note the unrestored portions, the site

of the old Porte Limbert, and turn northward to the Porte St. Lazare.

Before we reach this gate we may fitly make a digression, and in pious

memory of a great Englishman, fare along the Avenue du Cimetiere to the

grave of John Stuart Mill, who with his wife lies buried within the

cemetery under an elder-tree on the right and toward the end of Avenue 2.

A plain stone slab bears the well-known inscription to Mrs. Mill's memory

--the noblest and most eloquent epitaph ever composed by man for woman. It

is pleasant to remember that Mill has left golden opinions of his

gentleness and generosity behind him at Avignon. His house, a charming

little hermitage approached by an avenue of plane trees not far from the

cemetery, was sold in 1905, and a few relics were bought and still are

cherished by the rare friends the somewhat self-centered philosopher made

in the city. The present owner has preserved the library and study, where

the "Essay on Liberty" was written, much as it was in Mill's days.

To the peasants who met the tall, bent, spare figure, musing and

botanizing along the country lanes and fields, he was known as "Monsieur

Emile." Before he left the city on his periodical visits to England, Mill

was wont to leave 300 francs with M. Rey, pastor of the Protestant Church

in Avignon: two hundred for expenses of public worship; one hundred for

the poor, always charging M. Rey to write to England if any further need

arose.

Mill, a great Englishman of European fame, to the amazement of his French

friends, was followed to his last resting-place by no more than five

mourners. As we write news comes that the civic authorities have decided

to recall to posterity the association of the great thinker with Avignon

by giving the name of Stuart Mill to a new boulevard, and that a bust has

been unveiled to his memory near the pleasant city he loved so well. Mill

was much gratified that his pamphlet on "The Subjection of Women"

converted Mistral to the movement for their enfranchisement, and their

legal equality with men.

Villeneuve and the Broken Bridge

By Thomas Oakey

[Footnote: From "The Story of Avignon." Published by E.P.

Dutton & Co.]

The royal city of Villeneuve, altho geographically and politically

sundered from Avignon and the County Venaissin, was socially and

economically bound up with the papal city. The same reason that to-day

impels the rich citizens of Avignon to dot the hills of Languedoc with

their summer villas was operative in papal times, and popes and cardinals

and prelates loved to build their summer places on the opposite bank of

the Rhone.

How silent and neglected are the streets of this once wealthy and

important city! How degraded its monuments, how faded its glory! In the

hot, dusty afternoon, as the cranky old omnibus rattles along the narrow

High Street, it appears to awaken echoes in a city of the dead.

Making our way northward, we pass the restored seventeenth-century portal

of the palace of the sainted Cardinal of Luxembourg; the weather-worn,

neglected, late Renaissance portal of the so-called Hotel de Conti; the

ruined Gothic portal of the palace of Cardinal Pierre de Thury, through

which we pass to the old court-yard and a chapel subsequently restored and

now used as the chapel of the Grey Penitents.

We pass many another relic of departed grandeur, and beyond the Place

Neuve on our right come upon a great portal which opens on a vaulted

passage leading to one of the most bewildering and extraordinary congeries

of ruined monastic buildings in France, now inhabited by a population of

poor folk--two hundred families, it is said--who, since the Revolution,

have settled in the vast buildings of the once famous and opulent

Charterhouse of Villeneuve. Founded by Innocent VI., three years after his

elevation to the papal chair, and enriched by subsequent endownments, the

Charterhouse of the Val de Benediction, the second in importance of the

Order, grew in wealth and importance during the centuries until it was

sacked and sold in small lots during the Revolution to the ancestors of

the present occupants.

The circuit of its walls was a mile in extent; its artistic treasures were

prodigious. The Coronation of the Virgin came thence; the Pieta of

Villeneuve, now in the Louvre; the founder's tomb; the high altar of Notre

Dame at Villeneuve, and a few other relics, alone survive of its vast

possessions. The scene resembles nothing so much as a city ruined by

bombardment or earthquake, but how long the wreck will remain in its

present picturesque and melancholy condition is difficult to forecast. The

state is slowly buying out the owners, and doubtless ere many years are

passed the more valuable artistic remains will have been swept and

garnished and restored.

As we return from the Chartreuse we turn left along the Place Neuve, and

climb to the mighty fort of St. Andre, which occupies the most venerable

site in the royal new city, for on the hill where it stands tradition

relates that St. Cesarie, Bishop of Arles, was buried, and that there, in

the sixth century, the first Benedictines settled. The primitive

settlement, destroyed in the ninth century, was extensively rebuilt in

980, and within its walls, churches were dedicated to St. Andrew, St.

Michael, and St. Martin. In the twelfth century the rich and powerful

monastery, a strongly fortified, self-sufficing community, was held under

the counts of Toulouse, and from their overlordship it was subsequently

admitted by the counts to be within the territory of the republic of

Avignon, whose consuls in 1210 compelled the abbot to demolish his walls

and promise never to rebuild them.

In 1292 Philip the Fair was permitted to settle a small community there,

to whom he accorded in 1293 valuable privileges and the same protection he

granted to his good city of Paris. Philip, to whom the position was

valuable as a frontier post, erected a castle there, maintained a royal

garrison, and the new settlement became known as the New Town

(Villeneuve). The walls and towers then raised were rebuilt in 1352 by

John the Good, who exacted a toll, known as St. Andrew's penny, for

maintenance on all merchandise that passes through the Senechaussee of

Beaucaire.

Of these majestic ruins, restored in the sixteenth century and again in

recent times, the Tour des Masques at the west angle with its simple

battlements is the oldest portion, the massive machicolated towers that

frown over the main entrance having been raised by John the Good. The

ruined ravelin dates back to the seventeenth century. We enter and stroll

about the desolate interior, crowned by a tiny Romanesque chapel of the

twelfth century, that well deserves its name of Our Lady of the Fair View

(Notre Dame de Belvezet), with a graceful apse (restored). From its

summit, or from the tall old watch-tower of the monastery, a marvelous

view is obtained of the gaping ruins of the Charterhouse of Avignon, the

County Venaissin, the Cevennes, Mount Ventoux, and the distant Alps.

In the later years of the monarchy a post of artillery was stationed in

the fort, and it was from the fire of a battery planted there that a young

captain of artillery, one Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1793, overawed the city

of Avignon, which was occupied by the Marseillais federalists who had

declared against the Convention; and it was with the cannon seized at St.

Andre that Bonaparte marched to Toulon and expelled the English from its

harbor.

The papal soldiery were ever objects of scorn to the royalists of

Villeneuve, who dubbed them "patachines" ("pestacchina," Ital. for

slipper), and taunted them with drilling under parasols--a pleasantry

repaid by the Italians who hurled the epithet "luzers" (lizards) against

the royalists, who were said to pass their time sunning themselves against

the hot rocks of Villeneuve.

Descending the stately stairway that leads to the foot of the Rocher des

Doms, and turning to the left, we soon reach the house of the "gardien du

pont," who will admit us to all that remains of the miraculous pontifical

structure of the twelfth century. The destructive hand of man and the

assaults of the Rhone have dealt hardly with St. Benezet's work. Ruined

during the siege of 1226, it was repaired in 1234-37, and in 1349 knit to

the papal fortress at the Avignon end. In 1352, when Clement VI. rebuilt

four of the arches, it is described as of stone and wood; it was cut

during the siege of Benedict XIII., and repaired, or rebuilt, in 1418 and

1430; in 1602 three arches collapsed; in 1633 two more fell, and in 1650

the gaps were bridged by wooden struts and planks, which were carried away

in 1670 by ice-floes.

Owing to the interminable dispute between the monarchy and the papacy as

to liability for its repair, each power claiming jurisdiction over the

Rhone, all attempts to preserve it from ruin were abandoned in 1680, when

Louis XIV. refused either to allow the legates to take toll for the

necesary repairs, or to undertake them himself.

Little is known of the original bridge, which consisted of twenty-two

semi-circular arches (Viollet-le-Duc gives eighteen), much lower than the

present elliptic ones, which date back to the thirteenth century,

according to Labaude--or to the fifteenth century, acording to other

authorities--when the bridge, having proved too low-pitched, was raised to

its present level, and the flood arches over the piles were built. The

four subsisting arches were, with the bridge chapel, restored during the

last century. The old bridge formed an elbow upstream on the Villeneuve

branch of the Rhone.

The chapel of St. Nicholas, too, has suffered many vicissitudes. The

primitive Romanesque building was raised to the level of the new footway

by dividing the nave into two floors and building a flight of steps,

supported on a squinch arch, down to what then became the lower chapel.

Much battered during the sieges of the palace, it was restored and

reconsecrated in 1411 and a century later the Gothic upper apse was added,

whose external walls overtop the old nave. In consequence of these

modifications the lower chapel has a Gothic nave and a Romanesque apse,

whereas the upper chapel has a Gothic apse and a Romanesque nave.

The "Pont d'Avignon" is known to every French-speaking child, and with

many variants the old "ronde" is sung and danced from the remotest plains

of Canada to the valleys of the Swiss Alps. The good folk of Avignon,

however, protest that their "rondes" were not danced perilously on the

narrow Pont St. Benezet, but under its arches on the green meadows of the

Isle de la Barthelasse, and that "Sur" in lieu of "Sous" is due to

northern misunderstanding of their sweet Provencal tongue.

Orange

By Henry James

[Footnote: From "A Little Tour In France." By special arrangement with,

and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright,

1884.]

I alighted at Orange to visit a collection of eminently civil monuments.

The collection consists of but two objects, but these objects are so fine

that I will let the word pass. One of them is a triumphal arch, supposedly

of the period of Marcus Aurelius; the other is a fragment, magnificent in

its ruin, of a Roman theater. But for these fine Roman remains and for its

name, Orange is a perfectly featureless little town, without the Rhone--

which, as I have mentioned, is several miles distant--to help it to a

physiognomy. It seems one of the oddest things that this obscure French

borough--obscure, I mean, in our modern era, for the Gallo-Roman Arausio

must have been, judging it by its arches and theater, a place of some

importance--should have given its name to the heirs apparent of the throne

of Holland, and been borne by a king of England who had sovereign rights

over it. During the Middle Ages it formed part of an independent

principality; but in 1531 it fell, by the marriage of one of its

princesses, who had inherited it, into the family of Nassau. I read in my

indispensable Murray that it was made over to France by the treaty of

Utrecht.

The arch of triumph, which stands a little way out of the town, is rather

a pretty than an imposing vestige of the Romans. If it had greater purity

of style, one might say of it that it belonged to the same family of

monuments as the Maison Caree at Nimes. It has three passages--the middle

much higher than the others--and a very elevated attic. The vaults of the

passages are richly sculptured, and the whole monument is covered with

friezes and military trophies. This sculpture is rather mixed; much of it

is broken and defaced, and the rest seemed to me ugly, tho its workmanship

is praised. The arch is at once well preserved and much injured. Its

general mass is there, and as Roman monuments go it is remarkably perfect;

but it has suffered, in patches, from the extremity of restoration. It is

not, on the whole, of absorbing interest.

It has a charm, nevertheless, which comes partly from its soft, bright

yellow color, partly from a certain elegance of shape, of expression; and

on that well-washed Sunday morning, with its brilliant tone, surrounded by

its circle of thin poplars, with the green country lying beyond it and a

low blue horizon showing through its empty portals, it made, very

sufficiently, a picture that hangs itself to one of the lateral hooks of

the memory. I can take down the modest composition, and place it before me

as I write. I see the shallow, shining puddles in the hard, fair French

road; the pale blue sky, diluted by days of rain; the disgarnished

autumnal fields; the mild sparkle of the low horizon; the solitary figure

in sabots, with a bundle under its arm, advancing along the "chaussee;"

and in the middle I see the little ochre-colored monument, which, in spite

of its antiquity, looks bright and gay, as everything must look in France

of a fresh Sunday morning.

It is true that this was not exactly the appearance of the Roman theater,

which lies on the other side of the town; a fact that did not prevent me

from making my way to it in less than five minutes, through a succession

of little streets concerning which I have no observations to record. None

of the Roman remains in the south of France are more impressive than this

stupendous fragment. An enormous mound rises above the place, which was

formerly occupied--I quote from Murray--first by a citadel of the Romans,

then by a castle of the princes of Nassau, razed by Louis XIV.

Facing this hill a mighty wall erects itself, thirty-six meters high, and

composed of massive blocks of dark brown stone, simply laid one on the

other; the whole naked, rugged surface of which suggests a natural cliff

(say of the Vaucluse order) rather than an effort of human, or even of

Roman labor. It is the biggest thing at Orange--it is bigger than all

Orange put together--and its permanent massiveness makes light of the

shrunken city. The face it presents to the town--the top of it garnished

with two rows of brackets, perforated with holes to receive the staves of

the "velarium"--bears the traces of more than one tier of ornamental

arches; tho how these flat arches were applied, or incrusted, upon the

wall, I do not profess to explain.

You pass through a diminutive postern--which seems in proportion about as

high as the entrance of a rabbit-hutch--into the lodge of the custodian,

who introduces you to the interior of the theater. Here the mass of the

hill affronts you, which the ingenious Romans treated simply as the

material of their auditorium. They inserted their stone seats, in a

semicircle, in the slope of the hill, and planted their colossal wall

opposite to it. This wall, from the inside, is, if possible, even more

imposing. It formed the back of the stage, the permanent scene, and its

enormous face was coated with marble. It contains three doors, the middle

one being the highest, and having above it, far aloft, a deep niche,

apparently intended for an imperial statue. A few of the benches remain on

the hillside, which, however, is mainly a confusion of fragments. There is

part of a corridor built into the hill, high up, and on the crest are the

remnants of the demolished castle.

The whole place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any

details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. This wall being the

back of the scene, the space left between it and the chord of the

semicircle (of the auditorium) which formed the proscenium is rather less

than one would have supposed. In other words, the stage was very shallow,

and appears to have been arranged for a number of performers standing in a

line, like a company of soldiers. There stands the silent skeleton,

however, as impressive by what it leaves you to guess and wonder about as

by what it tells you. It has not the sweetness, the softness of

melancholy, of the theater at Arles; but it is more extraordinary, and one

can imagine only tremendous tragedies being enacted there--

"Presenting Thebes' or Pelops' line."

At either end of the stage, coming forward, is an immense wing--immense in

height, I mean, as it reaches to the top of the scenic wall; the other

dimensions are not remarkable. The division to the right, as you face the

stage, is pointed out as the green-room; its portentous altitude and the

open arches at the top give it the air of a well. The compartment on the

left is exactly similar, save that it opens into the traces of other

chambers, said to be those of a hippodrome adjacent to the theater.

Various fragments are visible which refer themselves plausibly to such an

establishment; the greater axis of the hippodrome would appear to have

been on a line with the triumphal arch. This is all I saw, and all there

was to see, of Orange, which had a very rustic, bucolic aspect, and where

I was not even called upon to demand breakfast at the hotel. The entrance

of this resort might have been that of a stable of the Roman days.

Vaucluse

By Bayard Taylor

[Footnote: From "Views Afoot." Published by G.P. Putnam's

Sons.]

This district borders on the desert of the Crau, a vast plain of stones

reaching to the mouth of the Rhone and almost entirely uninhabited. We

caught occasional glimpses of its sealike waste between the summits of the

hills. At length, after threading a high ascent, we saw the valley of the

Durance suddenly below us. The sun, breaking through the clouds, shone on

the mountain-wall which stood on the opposite side, touching with his glow

the bare and rocky precipices that frowned far above the stream.

Descending to the valley, we followed its course toward the Rhone with the

ruins of feudal "bourgs" crowning the crags above us.

It was dusk when we reached the village of Senas tired with the day's

march. A landlord standing in his door, on the lookout for customers,

invited us to enter in a manner so polite and pressing we could not choose

but do so. This is a universal custom with the country innkeepers. In a

little village which we passed toward evening there was a tavern with the

sign "The Mother of Soldiers." A portly woman whose face beamed with

kindness and cheerfulness stood in the door and invited us to stop there

for the night. "No, mother," I answered; "we must go much farther to-day."

"Go, then," said she, "with good luck, my children! A pleasant journey!"

On entering the inn at Senas two or three bronzed soldiers were sitting by

the table. My French vocabulary happening to give out in the middle of a

consultation about eggs and onion-soup, one of them came to my assistance

and addrest me in German. He was from Fulda, in Hesse-Cassel, and had

served fifteen years in Africa....

Leaving next morning at daybreak, we walked on before breakfast to Orgon,

a little village in a corner of the cliffs which border the Durance, and

crossed the muddy river by a suspension bridge a short distance below, to

Cavaillon, where the country-people were holding a great market. From this

place a road led across the meadow-land to L'Isle, six miles distant. This

little town is so named because it is situated on an island formed by the

crystal Sorgues, which flows from the fountains of Vaucluse.

It is a very picturesque and pretty place. Great mill-wheels, turning

slowly and constantly, stand at intervals in the stream, whose grassy

banks are now as green as in springtime. We walked along the Sorgues--

which is quite as beautiful and worthy to be sung as the Clitumnus--to the

end of the village to take the road to Vaucluse. Beside its banks stands

the "Hotel de Petrarque et Laure." Alas that names of the most romantic

and impassioned lovers of all history should be desecrated to a sign-post

to allure gormandizing tourists!

The bare mountain in whose heart lies the poet's solitude now rose before

us at the foot of the lofty Mount Ventoux, whose summit of snows extended

beyond. We left the river and walked over a barren plain across which the

wind blew most drearily. The sky was rainy and dark, and completed the

desolateness of the scene, which in nowise heightened our anticipations of

the renowned glen. At length we rejoined the Sorgues and entered a little

green valley running up into the mountain. The narrowness of the entrance

entirely shut out the wind, and, except the rolling of the waters over

their pebbly bed, all was still and lonely and beautiful. The sides of the

dell were covered with olive trees, and a narrow strip of emerald meadow

lay at the bottom.

It grew more hidden and sequestered as we approached the little village of

Vaucluse. Here the mountain towers far above, and precipices of gray rock

many hundred feet high hang over the narrowing glen. On a crag over the

village are the remains of a castle; the slope below this, now rugged and

stony, was once graced by the cottage and garden of Petrarch. All traces

of them have long since vanished, but a simple column bearing the

inscription. "A Petrarque" stands beside the Sorgues.

We ascended into the defile by a path among the rocks, overshadowed by

olives and wild fig-trees, to the celebrated fountains of Vaucluse. The

glen seems as if stuck into the mountain's depths by one blow of the

enchanter's wand, and just at the end, where the rod might have rested in

its downward sweep, is the fathomless well whose over-brimming fulness

gives birth to the Sorgues. We climbed up over the mossy rocks and sat

down in the grotto beside the dark, still pool. It was the most absolute

solitude.

The rocks towered above and over us to the height of six hundred feet, and

the gray walls of the wild glen below shut out all appearance of life. I

leaned over the rock and drank of the blue crystal that grew gradually

darker toward the center till it became a mirror and gave back a perfect

reflection of the crags above it. There was no bubbling, no gushing up

from its deep bosom, but the wealth of sparkling waters continually welled

over as from a too-full goblet.

It was with actual sorrow that I turned away from the silent spot. I never

visited a place to which the fancy clung more suddenly and fondly. There

is something holy in its solitude, making one envy Petrarch the years of

calm and unsullied enjoyment which blest him there. As some persons whom

we pass as strangers strike a hidden chord in our spirits, compelling a

silent sympathy with them, so some landscapes have a character of beauty

which harmonizes thrillingly with the mood in which we look upon them,

till we forget admiration in the glow of spontaneous attachment. They seem

like abodes of the beautiful which the soul in its wanderings long ago

visited and now recognizes and loves as the home of a forgotten dream. It

was thus I felt by the fountains of Vaucluse; sadly and with weary steps I

turned away, leaving its loneliness unbroken as before.

We returned over the plain in the wind, under the gloomy sky, passed

L'Isle at dusk, and after walking an hour with a rain following close

behind us stopt at an auberge in Le Thor, where we rested our tired frames

and broke our long day's fasting. We were greeted in the morning with a

dismal rain and wet roads as we began the march. After a time, however, it

poured down in such torrents that we were obliged to take shelter in a

remise by the roadside, where a good woman who addrest us in the

unintelligible Provencal kindled up a blazing fire. On climbing a long

hill when the storm had abated, we experienced a delightful surprise.

Below us lay the broad valley of the Rhone, with its meadows looking fresh

and spring-like after the rain. The clouds were breaking away; clear blue

sky was visible over Avignon, and a belt of sunlight lay warmly along the

mountains of Languedoc. Many villages with their tall picturesque towers

dotted the landscape, and the groves of green olive enlivened the

barrenness of winter.

The Pont du Gard--Aigues-Mortes-Nimes

By Henry James

[Footnote: From "A Little Tour in France." By special arrangement with,

and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright,

1884.]

It was a pleasure to feel one's self in Provence again--the land where the

silver-gray earth is impregnated with the light of the sky. To celebrate

the event, as soon as I arrived at Nimes I engaged a caleche to convey me

to the Pont du Gard. The day was yet young, and it was perfectly fair; it

appeared well, for a longish drive, to take advantage, without delay, of

such security. After I had left the town I became more intimate with that

Provencal charm which I had already enjoyed from the window of the train,

and which glowed in the sweet sunshine and the white rocks, and lurked in

the smoke-puffs of the little olives.

The olive-trees in Provence are half the landscape. They are neither so

tall, so stout, nor so richly contorted as I have seen them beyond the

Alps; but this mild colorless bloom seems the very texture of the country.

The road from Nimes, for a distance of fifteen miles, is superb; broad

enough for an army, and as white and firm as a dinner-table. It stretches

away over undulations which suggest a kind of harmony; and in the curves

it makes through the wide, free country, where there is never a hedge or a

wall, and the detail is always exquisite, there is something majestic,

almost processional. You are very near (the Pont du Gard) before you see

it; the ravine it spans suddenly opens and exhibits the picture. The scene

at this point grows extremely beautiful. The ravine is the valley of the

Garden, which the road from Nimes has followed some time without taking

account of it, but which, exactly at the right distance from the aqueduct,

deepens and expands, and puts on those characteristics which are best

suited to give it effect. The gorge becomes romantic, still, and solitary,

and, with its white rocks and wild shrubbery, hangs over the clear,

colored river, in whose slow course there is here and there a deeper pool.

Over the valley, from side to side, and ever so high in the air, stretch

the three tiers of the tremendous bridge. They are unspeakably imposing,

and nothing could well be more Roman.

The hugeness, the solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude

of the whole thing leave you nothing to say--at the time--and make you

stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, that it has

the quality of greatness. A road, branching from the highway, descends to

the level of the river and passes under one of the arches. This road has a

wide margin of grass and loose stones, which slopes upward into the bank

of the ravine. You may sit here as long as you please, staring up at the

light, strong piers; the spot is extremely natural, tho two or three stone

benches have been erected on it.

I remained there an hour and got a complete impression; the place was

perfectly soundless, and for the time, at least, lonely; the splendid

afternoon had begun to fade, and there was a fascination in the object I

had come to see. It came to pass that at the same time I discovered in it

a certain stupidity, a vague brutality. That element is rarely absent from

great Roman work, which is wanting in the nice adaption of the means to

the end. The means are always exaggerated; the end is so much more than

attained. The Roman rigidity was apt to overshoot the mark, and I suppose

a race which could do nothing small is as defective as a race that can do

nothing great. Of this Roman rigidity the Pont du Gard is an admirable

example.

It would be a great injustice, however, not to insist upon its beauty--a

kind of manly beauty, that of an object constructed not to please but to

serve, and impressive simply from the scale on which it carries out this

intention. The number of arches in each tier is different; they are

smaller and more numerous as they ascend. The preservation of the thing is

extraordinary; nothing has crumbled or collapsed; every feature remains;

and the huge blocks of stone, of a brownish-yellow (as if they had been

baked by the Provencal sun for eighteen centuries), pile themselves,

without mortar or cement, as evenly as the day they were laid together.

All this to carry the water of a couple of springs to a little provincial

city! The conduit on the top has retained its shape and traces of the

cement with which it was lined. When the vague twilight began to gather,

the lonely valley seemed to fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name,

as if the mighty empire were still as erect as the support of the

aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist, sitting there

sentimental, to believe that no people has ever been, or will ever be, as

great as that, measured, as we measure the greatness of an individual, by

the push they gave to what they undertook. The Pont du Gard is one of the

three or four deepest impressions they have left; it speaks of them in a

manner with which they might have been satisfied....

On my way back to the little inn where I had left my vehicle, I passed the

Pont du Gard, and took another look at it. Its great arches made windows

for the evening sky, and the rocky ravine, with its dusky cedars and

shining river, was lonelier than before. At the inn I swallowed, or tried

to swallow, a glass of horrible wine with my coachman; after which, with

my team, I drove back to Nimes in the moonlight. It only added a more

solitary whiteness to the constant sheen of the Provencal landscape.

* * * * *

The weather the next day was equally fair, so that it seemed an imprudence

not to make sure of Aigues-Mortes. Nimes itself could wait; at a pinch, I

could attend to Nimes in the rain. It was my belief that Aigues-Mortes was

a little gem, and it is natural to desire that gems should have an

opportunity to sparkle. This is an excursion of but a few hours, and there

is a little friendly, familiar, dawdling train that will convey you, in

time for a noonday breakfast, to the small dead town where the blest Saint

Louis twice embarked for the crusades. You may get back to Nimes for

dinner; the run is of about an hour.

I found the little journey charming, and looked out of the carriage

window, on my right, at the distant Cevennes, covered with tones of amber

and blue, and, all around, at vineyards red with the touch of October. The

grapes were gone, but the plants had a color of their own. Within a

certain distance of Aigues-Mortes they give place to wide salt-marshes,

traversed by two canals; and over this expanse the train rumbles slowly

upon a narrow causeway, failing for some time, tho you know you are near

the object of your curiosity, to bring you to sight of anything but the

horizon. Suddenly it appears, the towered and embattled mass, lying so low

that the crest of its defences seems to rise straight out of the ground;

and it is not till the train stops, close before them that you are able to

take the full measure of its walls.

Aigues-Mortes stands on the edge of a wide etang, or shallow inlet of the

sea, the further side of which is divided by a narrow band of coast from

the Gulf of Lyons. Next after Carcassonne, to which it forms an admirable

pendant, it is the most perfect thing of the kind in France. It has a

rival in the person of Avignon, but the ramparts of Avignon are much less

effective. Like Carcassonne, it is completely surrounded with its old

fortifications; and if they are far simpler in character (there is but one

circle), they are quite as well preserved. The moat has been filled up,

and the site of the town might be figured by a billiard-table without

pockets. On this absolute level, covered with coarse grass, Aigues-Mortes

presents quite the appearance of the walled town that a school-boy draws

upon his slate, or that we see in the background of early Flemish

pictures--a simple parallelogram, of a contour almost absurdly bare,

broken at intervals by angular towers and square holes.

Such, literally speaking, is this delightful little city, which needs to

be seen to tell its full story. It is extraordinarily pictorial, and if it

is a very small sister of Carcassonne, it has at least the essential

features of the family. Indeed, it is even more like an image and less

like a reality than Carcassonne; for by position and prospect it seems

even more detached from the life of the present day. It is true that

Aigues-Mortes does a little business; it sees certain bags of salt piled

into barges which stand in a canal beside it, and which carry their cargo

into actual places. But nothing could well be more drowsy and desultory

than this industry as I saw it practised, with the aid of two or three

brown peasants and under the eye of a solitary douanier who strolled on

the little quay beneath the western wall. "C'est bien plaisant, c'est bien

paisible," said this worthy man, with whom I had some conversation; and

pleasant and peaceful is the place indeed, tho the former of these

epithets may suggest an element of gayety in which Aigues-Mortes is

deficient.

The sand, the salt, the dull sea-view, surround it with a bright, quiet

melancholy. There are fifteen towers and nine gates, five of which are on

the southern side, overlooking the water. I walked all round the place

three times (it doesn't take long), but lingered most under the southern

wall, where the afternoon light slept in the dreamiest, sweetest way. I

sat down on an old stone, and looked away to the desolate salt-marshes and

still, shining surface of the etang; and, as I did so, reflected that this

was a queer little out-of-the-world corner to have been chosen, in the

great dominions of either monarch, for that pompous interview which took

place, in 1538, between Francis I. and Charles V. It was also not easy to

perceive how Louis IX., when in 1248 and 1270 he started for the Holy

Land, set his army afloat in such very undeveloped channels.

An hour later I purchased in the town a little pamphlet by M. Marius

Topin, who undertakes to explain this latter anomaly, and to show that

there is water enough in the port, as we may call it by courtesy, to have

sustained a fleet of crusaders. I was unable to trace the channel that he

points out, but was glad to believe that, as he contends, the sea has not

retreated from the town since the thirteenth century. It was comfortable

to think that things are not so changed as that. M. Topin indicates that

the other French ports of the Mediterranean were not then "disponibles,"

and that Aigues-Mortes was the most eligible spot for an embarkation.

Behind the straight walls and the quiet gates the little town has not

crumbled, like the Cite of Carcassonne. It can hardly be said to be alive;

but if it is dead it has been very neatly embalmed. The hand of the

restorer rests on it constantly; but this artist has not, as at

Carcassonne, had miracles to accomplish. The interior is very still and

empty, with small stony, whitewashed streets, tenanted by a stray dog, a

stray cat, a stray old woman. In the middle is a little place, with two or

three cafes decorated by wide awnings--a little place of which the

principal feature is a very bad bronze statue of Saint Louis by Pradier.

It is almost as bad as the breakfast I had at the inn that bears the name

of that pious monarch.

You may walk round the enceinte of Aigues-Mortes, both outside and in; but

you may not, as at Carcassonne, make a portion of this circuit on the

chemin de ronde, the little projecting footway attached to the inner face

of the battlements. This footway, wide enough only for a single

pedestrian, is in the best order, and near each of the gates a flight of

steps leads up to it; but a locked gate, at the top of the steps, makes

access impossible, or at least unlawful. Aigues-Mortes, however, has its

citadel, an immense tower, larger than any of the others, a little

detached, and standing at the northwest angle of the town. I called upon

the casernier--the custodian of the walls--and in his absence I was

conducted through this big Tour de Constance by his wife, a very mild,

meek woman, yellow with the traces of fever and ague--a scourge which, as

might be expected in a town whose name denotes "dead waters," enters

freely at the nine gates.

The Tour de Constance is of extraordinary girth and solidity, divided into

three superposed circular chambers, with very fine vaults, which are

lighted by embrasures of prodigious depth, converging to windows little

larger than loop-holes. The place served for years as a prison to many of

the Protestants of the south whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes

had exposed to atrocious penalties, and the annals of these dreadful

chambers during the first half of the last century were written in tears

and blood. Some of the record cases of long confinement there make one

marvel afresh at what man has inflicted and endured. In a country in which

a policy of extermination was to be put into practise this horrible tower

was an obvious resource. From the battlements at the top, which is

surmounted by an old disused lighthouse, you see the little compact

rectangular town, which looks hardly bigger than a garden-patch, mapped

out beneath you, and follow the plain configuration of its defenses. You

take possession of it, and you feel that you will remember it always.

* * * * *

In general Nimes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman remains, which

are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many of its

streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; while

beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the oddest air

of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland....

What nobler ornament can there be than the Roman baths at the foot of Mont

Cavalier, and the delightful old garden that surrounds them? All that

quarter of Nimes has every reason to be proud of itself; it has been

revealed to the world at large by copious photography. A clear, abundant

stream gushes from the foot of a high hill (covered with trees and laid

out in paths), and is distributed into basins which sufficiently refer

themselves to the period that gave them birth--the period that has left

its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we admired at Montpellier. Here are

the same terraces and steps and balustrades, and a system of water-works

less impressive, perhaps, but very ingenious and charming.

The whole place is a mixture of old Rome and of the French eighteenth

century; for the remains of the antique baths are in a measure

incorporated in the modern fountains. In a corner of this umbrageous

precinct stands a small Roman ruin, which is known as a temple of Diana,

but was more apparently a nymphaeum, and appears to have had a graceful

connection with the adjacent baths. I learn from Murray that this little

temple, of the period of Augustus, "was reduced to its present state of

ruin in 1577;" the moment at which the towns-people, threatened with a

siege by the troops of the crown, partly demolished it, lest it should

serve as a cover to the enemy. The remains are very fragmentary, but they

serve to show that the place was lovely. I spent half an hour in it on a

perfect Sunday morning (it is enclosed by a high grille, carefully tended,

and has a warden of its own), and with the help of my imagination tried to

reconstruct a little the aspect of things in the Gallo-Roman days.

I do wrong, perhaps, to say that I tried; from a flight so deliberate I

should have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of antiquity in the

air; and among the ruins of baths and temples, in the very spot where the

aqueduct that crosses the Garden in the wondrous manner I had seen

discharged itself, the picture of a splendid paganism seemed vaguely to

glow. Roman baths--Roman baths; those words alone were a scene.

Everything was changed; I was strolling in a jardin francais; the bosky

slope of the Mont Cavalier (a very modest mountain), hanging over the

place, is crowded with a shapeless tower, which is as likely to be of

medieval as of antique origin; and yet, as I leaned on the parapet of one

of the fountains, where a flight of curved steps (a hemicycle, as the

French say) descended into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, where the

slabs of the Roman foundations gleam through the clear green water--as in

this attitude I surrendered myself to contemplation and reverie, it seemed

to me that I touched for a moment the ancient world. Such moments are

illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, in my memory, with the

dusky greenness of the Jardin de la Fontaine.

The fountain proper--the source of all these distributed waters--is the

prettiest thing in the world, a reduced copy of Vaucluse. It gushes up at

the foot of the Mont Cavalier, at a point where that eminence rises with a

certain cliff-like effect, and, like other springs in the same

circumstances, appears to issue from the rock with a sort of quivering

stillness. I trudge up the Mont Cavalier,--it is a matter of five

minutes,--and having committed this cockneyism enhanced it presently by

another. I ascended the stupid Tour Magne, the mysterious structure I

mentioned a moment ago. The only feature of this dateless tube, except the

inevitable collection of photographs to which you are introduced by the

doorkeeper, is the view you enjoy from its summit. This view is, of

course, remarkably fine but I am ashamed to say I have not the smallest

recollection of it; for while I looked into the brilliant spaces of the

air I seemed still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman

baths--the image, disastrously confused and vague, of a vanished world.

This world, however, has left at Nimes a far more considerable memento

than a few old stones covered with water-moss.

The Roman arena is the rival of those of Verona and of Arles; at a

respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum. It is a small Colosseum, if

I may be allowed the expression, and is in a much better preservation than

the great circus at Rome. This is especially true of the external walls,

with their arches, pillars, cornices. I must add that one should not speak

of preservation, in regard to the arena at Nimes, without speaking also of

repair. After the great ruin ceased to be despoiled, it began to be

protected, and most of its wounds have been drest with new material. These

matters concern the archeologist; and I felt here, as I felt afterward at

Arles, that one of the profane, in the presence of such a monument, can

only admire and hold his tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an

impression of wonder that so much should have survived. What remains at

Nimes, after all dilapidation is estimated, is astounding.

I spent an hour in the Arenes on that same sweet Sunday morning, as I came

back from the Roman baths, and saw that the corridors, the vaults, the

staircases, the external casing, are still virtually there. Many of these

parts are wanting in the Colosseum, whose sublimity of size, however, can

afford to dispense with detail. The seats at Nimes, like those at Verona,

have been largely renewed; not that this mattered much, as I lounged on

the cool surface of one of them, and admired the mighty concavity of the

place and the elliptical sky-line, broken by uneven blocks and forming the

rim of the monstrous cup--a cup that had been filled with horrors, and yet

I made my reflections; I said to myself that tho a Roman arena is one of

the most impressive of the works of man, it has a touch of that same

stupidity which I ventured to discover in the Pont du Gard. It is brutal;

it is monotonous; it is not at all exquisite.

The Arenes at Nimes were arranged for a bull-fight--a form of recreation

that, as I was informed, is much dans les habitudes Nimoises and very

common throughout Provence, where (still according to my information) it

is the usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon. At Arles and Nimes it has a

characteristic setting, but in the villages the patrons of the game make a

circle of carts and barrels, on which the spectators perch themselves. I

was surprised at the prevalence, in mild Provence, of the Iberian vice,

and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at Nimes

and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls are rarely

killed, and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of the term--

being domestic and motherly cows. Such an entertainment of course does not

supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which I spoke of as

wanting.

The exquisite at Nimes is mainly represented by the famous Maison Carree.

The first impression you receive from this delicate little building, as

you stand before it, is that you have already seen it many times.

Photographs, engravings, models, medals, have placed it definitely in your

eye, so that from the sentiment with which you regard it curiosity and

surprise are almost completely, and perhaps deplorably absent. Admiration

remains however--admiration of a familiar and even slightly patronizing

kind. The Maison Carree does not overwhelm you; you can conceive it. It is

not one of the great sensations of antique art; but it is perfectly

felicitous, and, in spite of having been put to all sorts of incongruous

uses, marvelously preserved. Its slender columns, its delicate

proportions, its charming compactness, seemed to bring one nearer to the

century that built it than the great superpositions of arenas and bridges,

and give it the interest that vibrates from one age to another when the

note of taste is struck.

If anything were needed to make this little toy-temple a happy production,

the service would be rendered by the second-rate boulevard that conducts

to it, adorned with inferior cafes and tobacco-shops. Here, in a

respectable recess, surrounded by vulgar habitations, and with the

theater, of a classic pretension, opposite, stands the small "square

house," so called because it is much longer than it is broad. I saw it

first in the evening, in the vague moonlight, which made it look as if it

were cast in bronze. Stendhal says, justly, that it has the shape of a

playing-card, and he expresses his admiration for it by the singular wish

that an "exact copy" of it should be erected in Paris. He even goes as far

as to say that in the year 1880 this tribute will have been rendered to

its charms; nothing would be more simple, to his mind, than to "have" in

that city "le Pantheon de Rome, quelques temples de Grece." Stendhal found

it amusing to write in the character of a commis-voyageur, and sometimes

it occurs to his reader that he really was one.

Arles and Les Baux

By Henry James

[Footnote: From "A Little Tour in France." By special arrangement with,

and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright,

1884.]

There are two shabby old inns at Arles, which compete closely for your

custom. I mean by this that if you elect to go to the Hotel du Forum, the

Hotel du Nord, which is placed exactly beside it (at a right angle),

watches your arrival with ill-concealed disapproval; and if you take the

chances of its neighbor, the Hotel du Forum seems to glare at you

invidiously from all its windows and doors. I forget which of these

establishments I selected; whichever it was, I wished very much that it

had been the other.

The two stand together on the Place des Hommes, a little public square of

Arles, which somehow quite misses its effect. As a city, indeed, Arles

quite misses its effect in every way; and if it is a charming place, as I

think it is, I can hardly tell the reason why. The straight-nosed

Arlesiennes account for it in some degree; and the remainder may be

charged to the ruins of the arena and the theater. Beyond this, I remember

with affection the ill-proportioned little Place des Hommes; not at all

monumental, and given over to puddles and to shabby cafes. I recall with

tenderness the tortuous and featureless streets, which looked like the

streets of a village, and were paved with villainous little sharp stones,

making all exercise penitential.

Consecrated by association is even a tiresome walk that I took the evening

I arrived, with the purpose of obtaining a view of the Rhone. I had been

to Arles before, years ago, and it seemed to me that I remembered finding

on the banks of the stream some sort of picture. I think that on the

evening of which I speak there was a watery moon, which it seemed to me

would light up the past as well as the present. But I found no picture,

and I scarcely found the Rhone at all. I lost my way, and there was not a

creature in the streets to whom I could appeal. Nothing could be more

provincial than the situation of Arles at ten o'clock at night. At last I

arrived at a kind of embankment, where I could see the great mud-colored

stream slipping along in the soundless darkness. It had come on to rain, I

know not what had happened to the moon, and the whole place was anything

but gay. It was not what I had looked for; what I had looked for was in

the irrecoverable past. I groped my way back to the inn over the infernal

cailloux, feeling like a discomfited Dogberry.

I remember now that this hotel was the one (whichever that may be) which

has the fragment of a Gallo-Roman portico inserted into one of its angles.

I had chosen it for the sake of this exceptional ornament. It was damp and

dark, and the floors felt gritty to the feet; it was an establishment at

which the dreadful "gras-double" might have appeared at the table d'hote,

as it had done at Narbonne. Nevertheless, I was glad to get back to it;

and nevertheless, too--and this is the moral of my simple anecdote--my

pointless little walk (I don't speak of the pavement) suffuses itself, as

I look back upon it, with a romantic tone. And in relation to the inn, I

suppose I had better mention that I am well aware of the inconsistency of

a person who dislikes the modern caravansary, and yet grumbles when he

finds a hotel of the superannuated sort, one ought to choose, it would

seem, and make the best of either alternative. The two old taverns at

Arles are quite unimproved; such as they must have been in the infancy of

the modern world, when Stendhal passed that way, and the lumbering

diligence deposited him in the Place des Hommes, such in every detail they

are to-day. Vieilles auberges de France, one ought to enjoy their gritty

floors and greasy windowpanes. Let it be put on record, therefore, that I

have been, I won't say less comfortable, but at least less happy, at

better inns.

To be really historic, I should have mentioned that before going to look

for the Rhone I had spent part of the evening on the opposite side of the

little place, and that I indulged in this recreation for two definite

reasons. One of these was that I had an opportunity of conversing at a

cafe with an attractive young Englishman, whom I had met in the afternoon

at Tarascon, and more remotely, in other years, in London; the other was

that there sat enthroned behind the counter a splendid mature Arlesienne,

whom my companion and I agreed that it was a rare privilege to

comtemplate.

There is no rule of good manners or morals which makes it improper, at a

cafe to fix one's eyes upon the dame de comptoir; the lady is, in the

nature of things, a part of your "consommation." We were therefore free to

admire without restriction the handsomest person I had ever seen give

change for a five-franc piece. She was a large quiet woman, who would

never see forty again; of an intensely feminine type, yet wonderfully rich

and robust, and full of a certain physical nobleness. Tho she was not

really old, she was antique, and she was very grave, even a little sad.

She had the dignity of a Roman empress, and she handled coppers as if they

had been stamped with the head of Caesar.

I have seen washerwomen in the Trastevere who were perhaps as handsome as

she; but even the head-dress of the Roman contadina contributes less to

the dignity of the person born to wear it than the sweet and stately

Arlesian cap, which sits at once aloft and on the back of the head; which

is accompanied with a wide black bow covering a considerable part of the

crown; and which, finally, accomodates itself indescribably well to the

manner in which the tresses of the front are pushed behind the ears.

This admirable dispenser of lumps of sugar has distracted me a little; for

I am still not sufficiently historical. Before going to the cafe I had

dined, and before dining I had found time to go and look at the arena.

Then it was that I discovered that Arles has no general physiognomy, and,

except the delightful little church of Saint Trophimus, no architecture,

and that the rugosities of its dirty lanes affect the feet like knife-

blades. It was not then, on the other hand, that I saw the arena best. The

second day of my stay at Arles I devoted to a pilgrimage to the strange

old hill town of Les Baux, the medieval Pompeii, of which I shall give

myself the pleasure of speaking.

The evening of that day, however (my friend and I returned in time for a

late dinner), I wandered among the Roman remains of the place by the light

of a magnificent moon, and gathered an impression which has lost little of

its silvery glow. The moon of the evening before had been aqueous and

erratic; but if on the present occasion it was guilty of any irregularity,

the worst it did was only to linger beyond its time in the heavens, in

order to let us look at things comfortably. The effect was admirable; it

brought back the impression of the way, in Rome itself, on evenings like

that, the moonshine rests upon broken shafts and slabs of antique

pavement. As we sat in the theater, looking at the two lone columns that

survive--part of the decoration of the back of the stage--and at the

fragments of ruin around them, we might have been in the Roman forum.

The arena at Arles, with its great magnitude, is less complete than that

at Nimes; it has suffered even more the assaults of time and of the

children of time, and it has been less repaired. The seats are almost

wholly wanting; but the external walls, minus the topmost tier of arches,

are massively, ruggedly complete; and the vaulted corridors seem as solid

as the day they were built. The whole thing is superbly vast, and as

monumental, for a place of light amusement--what is called in America a

"variety-show"--as it entered only into the Roman mind to make such

establishments. The podium is much higher than at Nimes, and many of the

great white slabs that faced it have been recovered and put into their

places. The proconsular box has been more or less reconstructed, and the

great converging passages of approach to it are still majestically

distinct; so that, as I sat there in the moon-charm stillness, leaning my

elbows on the battered parapet of the ring, it was not impossible to

listen to the murmurs and shudders, the thick voice of the circus, that

died away fifteen hundred years ago.

The theater has a voice as well, but it lingers on the ear of time with a

different music. The Roman theater at Arles seemed to me one of the most

charming and touching ruins I had ever beheld; I took a particular fancy

to it. It is less than a skeleton--the arena may be called a skeleton; for

it consists only of half a dozen bones. The traces of the row of columns

which formed the scene--the permanent back-scene--remain; two marble

pillars--I just mentioned them--are upright, with a fragment of their

entablature. Before them is the vacant space which was filled by the

stage, with the line of the proscenium distinct, marked by a deep groove,

imprest upon slabs of stone, which looks as if the bottom of a high screen

had been intended to fit into it. The semicircle formed by the seats--half

a cup--rises opposite; some of the rows are distinctly marked. The floor,

from the bottom of the stage, in the shape of an arc of which the chord is

formed by the line of the orchestra, is covered by slabs of colored

marble--red, yellow, and green--which, tho terribly battered and cracked

to-day, give one an idea of the elegance of the interior.

Everything shows that it was on a great scale: the large sweep of its

enclosing walls, the massive corridors that passed behind the auditorium,

and of which we can still perfectly take the measure. The way in which

every seat commanded the stage is a lesson to the architects of our epoch,

as also the immense size of the place is a proof of extraordinary power of

voice on the part of the Roman actors. It was after we had spent half an

hour in the moonshine at the arena that we came on to this more ghostly

and more exquisite ruin. The principal entrance was locked, but we

effected an easy escalade, scaled a low parapet, and descended into the

place behind the scenes.

It was as light as day, and the solitude was complete. The two slim

columns, as we sat on the broken benches, stood there like a pair of

silent actors. What I called touching, just now was the thought that here

the human voice, the utterance of a great language, had been supreme. The

air was full of intonations and cadences; not of the echo of smashing

blows, of riven armor, of howling victims and roaring beasts. The spot is,

in short, one of the sweetest legacies of the ancient world; and there

seems no profanation in the fact that by day it is open to the good people

of Arles, who use it to pass, by no means, in great numbers, from one part

of the town to the other; treading the old marble floor, and brushing, if

need be, the empty benches. This familiarity does not kill the place

again; it makes it, on the contrary, live a little--makes the present and

the past touch each other.

If I called Les Baux a city, it was not that I was stretching a point in

favor of the small spot which to-day contains but a few dozen inhabitants.

The history of the place is as extraodinary as its situation. It was not

only a city, but a state; not only a state; but an empire; and on the

crest of its little mountain called itself sovereign of a territory, or at

least of scattered towns and counties, with which its present aspect is

grotesquely out of relation. The lords of Les Baux, in a word, were great

feudal proprietors; and there was a time during which the island of

Sardinia, to say nothing of places nearer home, such as Arles and

Marseilles, paid them homage.

The chronicle of this old Provencal house has been written, in a style

somewhat unctuous and flowery, by M. Jules Canonge. I purchased the little

book--a modest pamphlet--at the establishment of the good sisters, just

beside the church, in one of the highest part of Les Baux. The sisters

have a school for the hardy little Baussenques, whom I heard piping their

lessons, while I waited in the cold parlor for one of the ladies to come

and speak to me. Nothing could have been more perfect than the manner of

this excellent woman when she arrived; yet her small religious house

seemed a very out-of-the-way corner of the world. It was spotlessly neat,

and the rooms looked as if they had lately been papered and painted; in

this respect, at the medieval Pompeii, they were rather a discord. They

were, at any rate, the newest, freshest thing at Les Baux.

I remember going round to the church, after I had left the good sisters,

and to a little quiet terrace, which stands in front of it, ornamented

with a few small trees and bordered with a wall, breast-high, over which

you look down steep hillsides, off into the air and all about the

neighboring country. I remember saying to myself that this little terrace

was one of those felicitous nooks which the tourist of taste keeps in his

mind as a picture. The church was small and brown and dark, with a certain

rustic richness. All this however, is no general description of Les Baux.

I am unable to give any coherent account of the place, for the simple

reason that it is a mere confusion of ruin. It has not been preserved in

lava like Pompeii, and its streets and houses, its ramparts and castle,

have become fragmentary, not through the sudden destruction, but through

the gradual withdrawal, of a population. It is not an extinguished, but a

deserted city; more deserted far than even Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes,

where I found so much entertainment in the grass-grown element.

It is of very small extent, and even in the days of its greatness, when

its lords entitled themselves counts of Cephalonia and Neophantis, kings

of Arles and Vienne, princes of Achaia, and emperors of Constantinople--

even at this flourishing period, when, as M. Jules Canonge remarks, "they

were able to depress the balance in which the fate of peoples and kings is

weighed," the plucky little city contained at the most no more than

thirty-six hundred souls. Yet its lords (who, however, as I have said,

were able to present a long list of subject towns, most of them, tho a few

are renowned, unknown to fame) were seneschals and captains-general of

Piedmont and Lombardy, grand admirals of the kingdom of Naples, and its

ladies were sought in marriage by half the first princes in Europe.

A considerable part of the little narrative of M. Canonge is taken up with

the great alliances of the House of Baux, whose fortunes, matrimonial and

other, he traces from the eleventh century down to the sixteenth. The

empty shells of a considerable number of old houses, many of which must

have been superb, the lines of certain steep little streets, the

foundations of a castle, and ever so many splendid views, are all that

remains to-day of these great titles.

To such a list I may add a dozen very polite and sympathetic people, who

emerged from the interstices of the desultory little town to gaze at the

two foreigners who had driven over from Arles, and whose horses were being

baited at the modest inn. The resources of this establishment we did not

venture otherwise to test, in spite of the seductive fact that the sign

over the door was in the Provencal tongue. This little group included the

baker, a rather melancholy young man, in high boots and a cloak, with whom

and his companions we had a good deal of conversation.

The Baussenques of to-day struck me as a very mild and agreeable race,

with a good deal of the natural amenity which, on occasions like this one,

the traveler, who is waiting for his horses to be put in or his dinner to

be prepared, observes in the charming people who lend themselves to

conversation in the hilltowns of Tuscany. The spot where our entertainers

at Les Baux congregated was naturally the most inhabited portion of the

town; as I say, there were at least a dozen human figures within sight.

Presently we wandered away from them, scaled the higher places, seated

ourselves among the ruins of the castle, and looked down from the cliff

overhanging that portion of the road which I have mentioned as approaching

Les Baux from behind.

I was unable to trace the configuration of the castle as plainly as the

writers who have described it in the guide-books, and I am ashamed to say

that I did not even perceive the three great figures of stone (the three

Marys, as they are called; the two Marys of Scripture, with Martha), which

constitute one of the curiosities of the place, and of which M. Jules

Canonge speaks with almost hyperbolical admiration. A brisk shower,

lasting some ten minutes, led us to take refuge in a cavity, of mysterious

origin, where the melancholy baker presently discovered us, having had the

bonne pensee of coming up for us with an umbrella which certainly

belonged, in former ages, to one of the Stephanettes or Berangeres

commemorated by M. Canonge. His oven, I am afraid, was cold so long as our

visit lasted.

When the rain was over we wandered down to the little disencumbered space

before the inn, through a small labyrinth of obliterated things. They took

the form of narrow, precipitous streets, bordered by empty houses, with

gaping windows and absent doors, through which we had glimpses of

sculptured chimney-pieces and fragments of stately arch and vault. Some of

the houses are still inhabited; but most of them are open to the air and

weather. Some of them have completely collapsed; others present to the

street a front which enables one to judge of the physiognomy of Les Baux

in the days of its importance. This importance had pretty well passed away

in the early part of the sixteenth century, when the place ceased to be an

independent principality, It became--by request of one of its lords,

Bernardin des Baux, a great captain of his time--part of the appanage of

the kings of France, by whom it was placed under the protection of Arles,

which had formerly occupied with regard to it a different position. I know

not whether the Arlesians neglected their trust; but the extinction of the

sturdy little stronghold is too complete not to have begun long ago. Its

memories are buried under its ponderous stones.

As ve drove away from it in the gloaming, my friend and I agreed that the

two or three hours we had spent there were among the happiest impressions

of a pair of tourists very curious in the picturesque. We almost forgot

that we were bound to regret that the shortened day left us no time to

drive five miles further, above a pass in the little mountains--it had

beckoned to us in the morning, when we came in sight of it, almost

irresistibly--to see the Roman arch and mausoleum of Saint Remy. To

compass this larger excursion (including the visit to Les Baux) you must

start from Arles very early in the morning; but I can imagine no more

delightful day.

Cathedrals and Chateaux

Amiens

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Footnote: From "French and Italian Note Books." By special arrangement

with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co.

The aspect of the old French town was very different from anything

English; whiter, infinitely cleaner; higher and narrower houses, the

entrance to most of which seeming to be through a great gateway affording

admission into a central court-yard; a public square, with a statue in the

middle, and another statue in a neighboring street. We met priests in

three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and knee-breeches; also soldiers

and gendarmes, and peasants and children, clattering over the pavements in

wooden shoes.

It makes a great impression of outlandishness to see the signs over the

shop doors in a foreign tongue. If the cold had not been such as to dull

my sense of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, I should have

taken in a set of new impressions, and enjoyed them very much. As it was,

I cared little for what I saw, but yet had life enough left to enjoy the

Cathedral of Amiens, which has many features unlike those of English

cathedrals.

It stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered

look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of England, which cover a

great space of ground in proportion to their height. The impression the

latter give is of magnitude and mass; this French Cathedral strikes one as

lofty. The exterior is venerable, tho but little time-worn by the action

of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches,

almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century.

The principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches; and the

interior seemed to us, at the moment, as grand as any that we had seen,

and to afford as vast an idea of included space; it being of such an airy

height, and with no screen between the chancel and nave, as in all the

English cathedrals.

We saw the differences, too, betwixt a church in which the same form of

worship for which it was originally built is still kept up, and those of

England, where it has been superseded for centuries; for here, in the

recess of every arch of the side-aisles, beneath each lofty window, there

was a chapel dedicated to some saint, and adorned with great marble

sculptures of the crucifixion, and with pictures, execrably bad, in all

cases, and various kinds of gilding and ornamentation. Immensely tall wax

candles stand upon the altars of these chapels, and before one sat a

woman, with a great supply of tapers, one of which was burning. I suppose

these were to be lighted as offerings to the saints, by the true

believers. Artificial flowers were hung at some of the shrines, or placed

under glass.

In every chapel, moreover, there was a confessional--a little oaken

structure, about as big as a sentry-box, with a closed part for the priest

to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at, and speak through

the open-work of the priest's closet. Monuments, mural and others, to

long-departed worthies, and images of the Savior, the Virgin, and saints,

were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a

great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the Holy of Holies,

where the high altar stands. There is not much painted glass; one or two

very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and

the great eastern window, which, I think, is modern. The pavement has,

probably, never been renewed, as one piece of work, since the structure

was erected, and is foot-worn by the successive generations, tho still in

excellent repair. I saw one of the small, square stones in it, bearing the

date of 1597, and no doubt there are a thousand older ones.

Rouen

By Thomas Frognall Dibdin

[Footnote: From "A Bibliographical Tour in France and Germany."]

The approach to Rouen is indeed magnificent. I speak of the immediate

approach, after you reach the top of a considerable rise, and are stopt by

the barriers. You then look down a straight, broad, and strongly paved

road, lined with a double row of trees on each side. As the foliage was

not thickly set, we could discern, through the delicately clothed

branches, the tapering spire of the cathedral, and the more picturesque

tower of the Abbaye St. Ouen--with hanging gardens, and white houses, to

the left--covering a richly cultivated ridge of hills, which sink, as it

were, into the Boulevards, and which is called the Faubourg Cauchoise. To

the right, through the trees, you see the River Seine (here of no

despicable depth or breadth), covered with boats and vessels in motion,

the voice of commerce, and the stir of industry, cheering and animating

you as you approach the town. I was told that almost every vessel which I

saw (some of them of two hundred, and even of three hundred tons burden)

was filled with brandy and wine....

First for the cathedral, for what traveler of taste does not doff his

bonnet to the mother-church of the town through which he happens to be

traveling, or in which he takes a temporary abode? The west front, always

the forte of the architects's skill, strikes you as you go down, or come

up, the principal street--La Rue des Carmes--which seems to bisect the

town into equal parts. A small open space, which, however, has been

miserably encroached upon by petty shops, called the Flower Gardens, is

before this western front; so that it has some little breathing room in

which to expand its beauties to the wondering eyes of the beholder. In my

poor judgment, this western front has very few elevations comparable with

it--including even those of Lincoln and York. The ornaments, especially

upon the three porches, between the two towers, are numerous, rich, and

for the greater part entire, in spite of the Calvinists, the French

Revolution, and time.

As you enter the cathedral, at the center door, by descending two steps,

you are struck with the length and loftiness of the nave, and with the

lightness of the gallery which runs along the upper part of it. Perhaps

the nave is too narrow for its length. The lantern of the central large

tower is beautifully light and striking. It is supported by four massive

clustered pillars, about forty feet in circumference; but by casting your

eye downward, you are shocked at the tasteless division of the choir from

the nave by what is called a Grecian screen; and the interior of the

transepts has undergone a like preposterous restoration.

The rose windows of the transepts, and that at the west end of the nave,

merit your attention and commendation. I could not avoid noticing, to the

right, upon entrance, perhaps the oldest side chapel in the cathedral, of

a date less ancient than that of the northern tower, and perhaps of the

end of the twelfth century. It contains by much the finest specimens of

stained glass--of the early part of the sixteenth century. There is also

some beautiful stained glass on each side of the chapel of the Virgin,

behind the choir; but altho very ancient, it is the less interesting, as

not being composed of groups, or of historical subjects. Yet, in this as

in almost all the churches which I have seen, frightful devastations have

been made among the stained glass windows by the fury of the

Revolutionists....

On gazing at this splendid monument of ancient piety and liberality--and

with one's mind deeply intent upon the characters of the deceased--let us

fancy we hear the sound of the great bell from the southwest tower--called

the Amboise Tower--erected, both the bell and the tower, by the uncle and

minister of Amboise. Know, my dear friend, that there was once a bell (and

the largest in Europe, save one), which used to send forth its sound for

three successive centuries from the said tower. This bell was broken about

thirty years ago, and destroyed in the ravages of the immediately

succeeding years. The southwest tower remains, and the upper part of the

central tower, with the whole of the lofty wooden spire--the fruits of the

liberality of the excellent men of whom such honorable mention has been

made. Considering that this spire is very lofty, and composed of wood, it

is surprising that it has not been destroyed by tempest or by lightning.

Leaving the cathedral, you pass a beautifully sculptured fountain, of the

early time of Francis I., which stands at the corner of the street, to the

right; and which, from its central situation, is visited the livelong day

for the sake of its limpid waters. Push on a little further, then, turning

to the right, you get into a sort of square, and observe the abbey--or

rather the west front of it--full in face of you. You gaze, and are first

struck with its matchless window: call it rose, or marigold, as you

please.

I think, for delicacy and richness of ornament, this window is perfectly

unrivaled. There is a play of line in the mullions, which, considering

their size and strength, may be pronounced quite a masterpiece of art. You

approach, regretting the neglected state of the lateral towers, and enter

through the large and completely opened center doors, the nave of the

abbey. It was toward sunset when we made our first entrance. The evening

was beautiful; and the variegated tints of sunbeam, admitted through the

stained glass of the window, just noticed, were perfectly enchanting. The

window itself, as you look upward, or rather as you fix your eye upon the

center of it, from the remote end of the abbey, or the Lady's Chapel, was

a perfect blaze of dazzling light; and nave, choir, and side aisles seemed

magically illumined. We declared instinctively that the Abbey of St. Ouen

could hardly have a rival--certainly not a superior.

Let me, however, put in a word for the organ. It is immense, and perhaps

larger than that belonging to the cathedral. The tin pipes (like those of

the organ in the cathedral) are of their natural color. I paced the

pavement beneath, and think that this organ can not be short of forty

English feet in length. Indeed, in all the churches which I have yet seen,

the organs strike me as being of magnificent dimensions.

You should be informed, however, that the extreme length of the interior,

from the further end of the chapel of the Virgin, to its opposite western

extremity, is about four hundred and fifty English feet; while the height,

from the pavement to the roof of the nave, or the choir, is one hundred

and eight English feet. The transepts are about one hundred and forty feet

in length. The central tower, upon the whole, is not only the grandest

tower in Rouen, but there is nothing for its size in our own country that

can compare with it. It rises upward of one hundred feet above the roof of

the church; and is supported below, or rather within, by four magnificent

cluster-pillared bases, each about thirty-two feet in circumference. Its

area, at bottom, can hardly be less than thirty-six feet square. The choir

is flanked by flying buttresses, which have a double tier of small arches,

altogether "marvelous and curious to behold."

I could not resist stealing quietly round to the porch of the south

transept, and witnessing, in that porch, one of the most chaste, light,

and lovely specimens of Gothic architecture which can be contemplated.

Indeed, I hardly know anything like it. The leaves of the poplar and ash

were beginning to mantle the exterior; and, seen through their green and

gay lattice work, the traceries of the porch seemed to assume a more

interesting aspect. They are now mending the upper part of the facade with

new stone of peculiar excellence--but it does not harmonize with the old

work. They merit our thanks, however, for the preservation of what remains

of this precious pile. I should remark to you that the eastern and

northeastern sides of the abbey of St. Ouen are surrounded with promenades

and trees: so that, occasionally, either when walking or sitting upon the

benches, within these gardens, you catch one of the finest views

imaginable of the abbey.

Chartres

By Epiphanius Wilson

[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission

of the author. Copyright, 1900.]

For many a mile over the rich cornfields of Beauce, of which ancient

district Chartres was once the capital, the spires of Chartres are

visible. The river and the hill constitute at Chartres the basis of its

strength in long-forgotten warfare; its walls in piping times of peace

have been leveled into leafy boulevards, but it may still be entered

through one of the antique gates that survive as memorials of its former

fortifications.

The cathedral itself is one of that group to which belong Amiens, Rheims,

Bourges and Notre Dame de Paris. It is noted for its size, magnificence

and completeness, and contains in itself, from its crypt to its highest

stone, an exemplification of architectural history in France from the

eleventh to the fourteenth centuries. We may suppose that Christianity was

first published in the Beauce province by the same apostles, Savinienus

and Potentienius, who had evangelized Sens and the Senones. Their

disciple, Aventin (Aventinus), is recognized as the first Bishop of

Chartres, and as the builder of the first cathedral which stood on the

site of the present building....

The naves, the north and south transept portals, and the choir belong to

the thirteenth century, the north tower to the fifteenth, and the

magnificent jube, or screen, which runs round the choir, is evidently

sixteenth century style, being an example of that Renaissance employment

of Gothic details, of which we find such glorious counterparts at Rouen

and Albi. The western facade of Chartres is plain in comparison with those

of Amiens or Rheims. The voussures of the three central portals are

comparatively shallow. Above them are three lancet windows which resemble

windows of the Early English Style. The rose-window, beneath which the

lancets are placed, is of great dimensions and effective tracery. The

highest story of the front between the towers is screened by a rich

arcade, over which rises the gable point.

This arcade, or gallery, is intended to break the abruptness with which

the pointed roof rises between the two spires. These spires are different

in design, the southern tower being much earlier than that at the north.

The southern spire, in its austere simplicity and exquisite proportions,

is certainly the finest I have seen in France, and can only be paralleled

elsewhere by that which rises like a flower-bud almost ready to burst over

Salisbury plain. The northern tower is very much more elaborate, and

reminded me of those examples with which the traveler becomes so familiar

in the many churches of Rouen. The richly crocketed gables, the flying

buttresses and pinnacles which run half way up this spire, while they

adorn it, seem to stunt the profile and rob it of its towering altitude,

just as is the case with the western spires of St. Ouen. Yet this northern

tower is considerably higher than the ancient one at the south, being 374

feet high, while the more ancient spire is only 348. The other dimensions

of the church are as follows: It is 420 feet long; 110 feet wide; its

height from ceiling vault to pavement is 115 feet. The modern tower was

built by Louis XII. in 1514, the architect being an inhabitant of Beauce,

a certain Jean Texier.

The carvings in the west front of the cathedral are examples of the

beginning of French sculpture, as it emerges from the severity and

rigidity of Byzantine types. The human figures are long, slender, and

swathed almost like mummies in their drapery. The faces are strongly

individualized and seem to be portraits. While these statues must be

attributed to a period previous to the middle of the twelfth century, we

see in them the originality of French genius struggling to break away from

the fetters of Eastern precedent.

Viollet-de-Duc thinks that these faces belong to the type of the ancient

Gaul; the flat forehead and raised arch of the eyebrows, the projecting

eyes, the long jaws, the peaked and drooping nose, the long upper lip, the

wide, closed mouth, the square chin, the long wavy hair are neither

German, Roman, or French. There is a blending of firmness, grandeur and

refinement in these wonderful countenances, each of them apparently copied

from a different model. They are crowned and nimbused as the kings and

saints of antique France. A more impressive gallery of illustrious

personages is nowhere else to be found.

Rheims

By Epiphanius Wilson

[Footnote: From "The Cathedrals of France." By permission

of the author. Copyright, 1900.]

French cathedrals have, as it were, a royal character, and this is

emphasized especially in the history and architecture of Rheims cathedral,

which became, from the time of Philippe Auguste, the church at whose altar

the kings of France were crowned.

The origin of the Church at Rheims dates from the third century; when we

are told Pope Fabian sent into Gaul a band of bishops and teachers. Rheims

was chosen as the seat of an episcopal primacy, and it was in the church

built by St. Nicaise, or Nicasius, in 401, that Clovis was baptized and

crowned in 496. This ancient building, doubtless of simple Roman

proportions, was rebuilt in the reign of Louis the Debonair in 822, when

Ebon was archbishop.

It was completed with a magnificence which vied with the churches of

Constantinople, Ravenna and Rome. It was considered in its day the most

splendid church in France. Its roof and walls blazed with gilding and

many-tinted paintings. Its floors were of marble mosaic. Rich tapestries

hung round the choir, and its treasury was filled with masterpieces of the

goldsmith and the jeweler. This church continued to be the wonder of

Gallic Christianity until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it

was destroyed by fire. It is remarkable to notice in the history of French

cathedrals how many of them were rebuilt just at the time when the pointed

style, which may be called preeminently the Christian style of

architecture, had come to birth almost simultaneously in various countries

of Europe.

We are obliged to come to the conclusion that the pointed arch was

introduced in Germany, France and England by the Crusaders, who had seen

it used in the East, and had considered it best fitted for buildings that

enshrined the sublime mysteries of the Christian faith. It was in the

pointed style, therefore, that the new cathedral of Rheims was built. The

name of its architect is not known, but his plan shows that he must have

been a man of profound genius. Archbishop Alberic Humbert laid the

foundation stone in 1212. The whole province contributed liberally to the

work, and in 1242 the building was sufficiently advanced for the

celebration of divine service in the choir.

The Church of Notre Dame of Rheims would require a volume to describe it

completely. The front is perhaps the most elaborate to be found in France.

The three vast portals, peopled with statues of colossal size, their

arched vaulting covered with saintly and angelic figures, the mighty rose-

windows, flanked with pointed openings, crowned with carved tabernacle

work, and the great gallery of kings crossing the whole front, just below

the peak of the gable, and above all, the two towers pierced by majestic

windows and supported at each corner by niches with three open faces, give

an impression of richness and brightness and grace, mingled with that

indefinable majesty, which is due partly to the vast dimensions, partly to

the harmonious proportions of the whole structure.

The divisions of the front facade resemble somewhat the same part of the

edifice at Amiens, excepting that it is far more florid, and less strict

and severe in its main divisions. At Amiens the details are kept in

strictest subservience to the structural lines of the edifice. At Rheims

it is the magnificent wealth of details that crowds upon the view, the

walls and arches are surcharged with statues, with niches, with brackets,

pinnacles, tracery, foliage, finials and turrets. The sides of the

entrances of the three portals are crowded with colossal statues, thirty-

nine in number, representing patriarchs, prophets, kings, bishops, virgins

and martyrs. On the trumeau of the central gate is a fine statue of the

Virgin Mary; on the sides of this trumeau are bas-reliefs representing the

Fall of Man, of whose restoration Mary should be the instrument.

It is quite characteristic of a medieval church that we should find, on

the lintels and side-posts of these doorways, emblems of agricultural work

in the various seasons of the year, as well as different symbols of arts

and handicrafts. Amid the carvings of these doorways are the heroes and

saints of the Old Testament, types and forerunners of the Messiah, as well

as historic scenes, representing the Redemption of the World, the

Conversion of the Gentiles, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Last

Judgment, the Condemnation of the Wicked, the Reception of the Just into

the habitations of the blest. Finally, the Assumption and Coronation of

the Blessed Virgin sums up, with an imaginative legend, this series of

Christian dogma perpetuated in stone.

But the medieval genius is many-sided, and never satisfied with that which

is beautiful alone; and this magnificent array of Christian carving would

not be complete to the mind of the medieval artist unless he had crowned

the angles of his buildings with a series of grotesque gargoyles and

allegoric statues, representing the streams that watered the earthly

paradise, while at the summit of the roof are niched angles bearing

instruments of music. As the rose is a peculiarity of Gothic churches, and

from its remarkable shape gives ample room for sculpture in stone, and

color in glass, so the rose at Rheims is among the most beautiful examples

of the kind, and illustrates the principle that the rose is intended to

light up high, remote and shadowy spaces in a long nave or aisle.

Above the great rose-window is a pointed arch in whose voussures are ten

statues, relating the history of David, while over this arch runs a band

of niches, forty-two in number, in which are colossal statues of the kings

of France from Clovis to Charles VI.

The two portals of the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with the

style of the western facade. A graceful spire rises from the eastern part

of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the fact that poised

upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and holding aloft a cross.

This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the church. The church itself

is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting of the roof to the pavement

is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high. I noticed the church is built

in the form of a cross, but the transept is very close to the apse, so

that the choir being too confined for the great ceremonies, such as that

of royal coronations, which used to take place there, has been extended

westward across the transept so as to take up three bays of the nave.

There are seven chapels at the east of the church, but none are found in

the naves. The plainness of the nave, in comparison with the ornate

character of the exterior, is very remarkable, but this plainness detracts

nothing from the impressiveness of its long arcades, its towering roof,

the noble lines which rise from the ground and support, as it were, on

slender sinews of stone, the shadowy ceiling. The rose-windows, four in

number, are filled with glass of the thirteenth century, and the tall

windows of the chevet and clerestory contain a many colored mosaic of a

similar sort. I was particularly struck with the rose-window over the

western portal. It represents the Beautiful Vision; the Eternal Father is

throned in the central ring of the window, and in the radiating panes is

the Hierarchy of Paradise, angels and archangels and all the company of

Heaven, while in a wider circumference are grouped the redeemed,

contemplating in adoration the majesty of God.

I noticed two very interesting tombs in Rheims cathedral. The first was

the sarcophagus of Jovinus, the Christian prefect of Rheims, in the fourth

century, who protected the church and was originally buried in the Abbey

of St. Nicaise, from whence his tomb was brought to the cathedral. It

consists of a single block of snowy marble, nine feet long, and four feet

high, on which the consular general is represented in a spirited bas-

relief mounted on horseback and saving the life of a man from the lion, in

whose flank Jovinus has launched his spear. Very fine indeed is the

workmanship of this monument. The figures which surround Jovinus are men

of handsome countenance, evidently portraits, their dress and arms being

finished with the utmost nicety of detail. The figures are about half

life-size.

The other tomb is that of St. Remigius, a Renaissance work erected by

Cardinal Delenoncourt in 1533. It is sumptuous and gaudy rather than

beautiful. Twelve statues, full life-size, represent the twelve peers of

France, six are the prelates of Rheims, Laon, Langres, Beauvais, Chalons,

and Noyon; the six lay peers are the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy and

Aquitaine, and the counts of Flanders, Champagne, and Toulouse. The white

marble of these somewhat stagey figures is beautifully worked and the

effect is imposing.

The western wall of the interior is faced with niches, in which the

statues seem to emerge from a cloud of gloom. At one time tombs of the

most magnificent sort crowded the aisles, enshrining the relics of saints

and bishops, but during the raging of the Terror the Revolutionists

violated these tombs, seizing their treasures, breaking down with ax and

hammer their carvings. But, after all, the church of Notre Dame of Rheims

does not seem to have suffered very much loss from the clearing away of

these obstructions to the vista of her arcades, which now depend for their

solemn beauty upon the simplicity and dignity of their lines and

proportions, the effect of their windows, and the religious gloom which

lingers in their lofty recesses.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS

AUTHORS, VOLUME 3 ***

This file should be named 7eur310.txt or 7eur310.zip

Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7eur311.txt

VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7eur310a.txt

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US

unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not

keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance

of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.

Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,

even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til

midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.

The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at

Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A

preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment

and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:

http://gutenberg.net or

http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project

Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new

eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement

can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is

also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the

indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an

announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext05 or

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05

Or /etext04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92,

91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,

as it appears in our Newsletters.

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The

time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours

to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright

searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our

projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value

per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2

million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text

files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+

We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002

If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total

will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!

This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,

which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

1 1971 July

10 1991 January

100 1994 January

1000 1997 August

1500 1998 October

2000 1999 December

2500 2000 December

3000 2001 November

4000 2001 October/November

6000 2002 December*

9000 2003 November*

10000 2004 January*

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created

to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people

and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,

Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,

Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,

Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New

Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,

Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South

Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West

Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones

that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list

will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.

Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally

request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and

you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,

just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are

not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting

donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to

donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about

how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made

deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are

ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION

809 North 1500 West

Salt Lake City, UT 84116

method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by

the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN

[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are

tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising

requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be

made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html

***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,

you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <[email protected]>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.

**The Legal Small Print**

(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***

Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.

They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with

your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from

someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our

fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement

disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how

you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK

By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm

eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept

this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive

a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by

sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person

you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical

medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS

This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,

is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart

through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").

Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright

on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and

distribute it in the United States without permission and

without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth

below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook

under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market

any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable

efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain

works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any

medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other

things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or

corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other

intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged

disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer

codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES

But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,

[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may

receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims

all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including

legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR

UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,

INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE

OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE

POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of

receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)

you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that

time to the person you received it from. If you received it

on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and

such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement

copy. If you received it electronically, such person may

choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to

receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER

WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS

TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT

LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A

PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or

the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the

above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you

may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY

You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,

and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated

with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm

texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including

legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the

following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook,

[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,

or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"

You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by

disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this

"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,

or:

[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this

requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the

eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however,

if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable

binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,

including any form resulting from conversion by word

processing or hypertext software, but only so long as

*EITHER*:

[*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and

does *not* contain characters other than those

intended by the author of the work, although tilde

(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may

be used to convey punctuation intended by the

author, and additional characters may be used to

indicate hypertext links; OR

[*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at

no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent

form by the program that displays the eBook (as is

the case, for instance, with most word processors);

[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at

no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the

eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC

or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this

"Small Print!" statement.

[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the

gross profits you derive calculated using the method you

already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you

don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are

payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"

the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were

legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent

periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to

let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?

Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of

public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed

in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,

public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.

Money should be paid to the:

"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or

software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:

[email protected]

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only

Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be

used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be

they hardware or software or any other related product without

express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*

Livros Grátis
( http://www.livrosgratis.com.br )
 
Milhares de Livros para Download:
 
Baixar livros de Administração
Baixar livros de Agronomia
Baixar livros de Arquitetura
Baixar livros de Artes
Baixar livros de Astronomia
Baixar livros de Biologia Geral
Baixar livros de Ciência da Computação
Baixar livros de Ciência da Informação
Baixar livros de Ciência Política
Baixar livros de Ciências da Saúde
Baixar livros de Comunicação
Baixar livros do Conselho Nacional de Educação - CNE
Baixar livros de Defesa civil
Baixar livros de Direito
Baixar livros de Direitos humanos
Baixar livros de Economia
Baixar livros de Economia Doméstica
Baixar livros de Educação
Baixar livros de Educação - Trânsito
Baixar livros de Educação Física
Baixar livros de Engenharia Aeroespacial
Baixar livros de Farmácia
Baixar livros de Filosofia
Baixar livros de Física
Baixar livros de Geociências
Baixar livros de Geografia
Baixar livros de História
Baixar livros de Línguas

Baixar livros de Literatura
Baixar livros de Literatura de Cordel
Baixar livros de Literatura Infantil
Baixar livros de Matemática
Baixar livros de Medicina
Baixar livros de Medicina Veterinária
Baixar livros de Meio Ambiente
Baixar livros de Meteorologia
Baixar Monografias e TCC
Baixar livros Multidisciplinar
Baixar livros de Música
Baixar livros de Psicologia
Baixar livros de Química
Baixar livros de Saúde Coletiva
Baixar livros de Serviço Social
Baixar livros de Sociologia
Baixar livros de Teologia
Baixar livros de Trabalho
Baixar livros de Turismo
 
 