The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X

L'an mil et trois cens et six ans,
Ot à Paris joie nouvele,
Car li rois mit en sa chapele,
Que S. Loys fist tele faire
Qu'a tout le monde devroit plaire,
Le chief de lui si richement
Et si très-honorablement,
Que par raison de la bel euvre
Que li dons saintuaire queuvre
Le vessel où l'en la mis prisent
Toutes personnes qui l'avisent. (Guil. Guiart.)

On the 15th May, 1843, an interesting discovery was made in the chapel. Some workmen, in removing a stone of the pavement of the apse, discovered a tin box containing the remains of a heart, and a procès-verbal, stating that it had been previously found on the 21st January, 1803. Although the position of the box (the centre of the apse) indicated that it had belonged to some distinguished person, yet there was no clue to its owner, neither inscription, nor name, nor date. The box, it is true, was in the style of the 13th century; but it seemed doubtful, that, had the heart been S. Louis', such an important relic should have been lost sight of, and no record of it given by the Benedictines at S. Denis in their inventory of the treasures which they had received from the Sainte-Chapelle. The matter was referred to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and fully discussed; but the members could arrive at no decision, and consequently the box was replaced where it had been found.

While the kings resided in the old Cité, the most brilliant ceremonies succeeded one another at the Sainte-Chapelle; it was, in fact, the chapel belonging to the adjoining palace, now the Palais de Justice. The Queens, Marie de Brabant, second wife of Philippe le Hardi; Marie de Luxembourg, second wife of Charles le Bel; Jeanne d'Evreux, third wife of the same Prince; and Isabelle de Bavière, wife of Charles VI., were all crowned there. The marriage of the Emperor, Henri VII. and Marguerite de Brabant, and the betrothal of Isabeau, eldest daughter of Charles VI. with Richard II. of England, were also solemnised in the chapel. There, in 1332, Philippe de Valois held a great assembly of prelates and barons, to announce his project of another crusade against the Infidels – a project which was never carried out. On the feast of the Epiphany, 1378, King Charles V., the Emperor Charles IV., and his son Wenceslas, King of the Romans, offered gold, frankincense and myrrh, after the manner of the three holy Magi. Every time that the sovereigns convoked an assemblage of the clergy in the palace, the prelates first went to the chapel and asked the blessing of the Holy Spirit, while prostrated before the relics. In 1483, when Louis XI. was lying ill at Tours, he hoped to prolong his life by surrounding himself with the most sacred relics of his kingdom – so reluctant was this devôt to depart from our wicked world. The Sainte Ampoule was brought by the religious of S. Remi from Reims; the canons of the Sainte-Chapelle took the Cross of Victory and the Rod of Moses out of their treasury, and a grand procession of clergy and laity was formed on the 1st of August to carry them from Paris to Plessis-les-Tours. But, alas! to no end; for on the 30th of the same month the poor creature finished his earthly career of hypocrisy.

Boileau, in his Lutrin, gives an amusing account of an unseemly squabble which took place between the canons of the chapel, and which was in this wise. On a certain Sunday in 1667, one of the precentors named Barrin found a huge lectern placed in front of his stall. He protested against the intruder, and the other canons taking his part, it was ordered to be removed. But here the treasurer stepped in with objections, and a whole month was passed in discussions, orders, and counter-orders; the dispute only being ended through the mediation of the first president, Guillaume de Lamoignon, who decreed that the precentor should remain imprisoned behind the lectern an entire morning, until the end of the High Mass, the treasurer undertaking to remove the offending piece of furniture before the hour of vespers.

It was the president who suggested this subject to the poet. Boileau had remarked to M. de Lamoignon that an epic poem could be written upon the most trivial incident, if only a poet had sufficient imagination to work it out. "Faites donc un poème sur le débat de la Sainte-Chapelle. Vous pourrez l'intituler 'Le Lutrin enlevé,' ou 'La Conquête du Lutrin."

"Pourquoi non," replied Boileau. "Il ne faut jamais défier un fou; et je le suis assez, non seulement pour entreprendre ce poème, mais encore pour le dédier à Monsieur le premier president."

The result of defying the "fool," who was withal a wit, is a series of portraits in verse, of the canons, the singers, the precentor, and the treasurer. The latter was not spared, as may be seen by the following lines: —

"Dans le réduit obscur d'une alcove enfoncée,
S'élève un lit de plume à grands frais amassée.
Quatre rideaux pompeux, par un double contour,
En défendent l'entrée à la clarté du jour.
Là, parmi les douceurs d'un tranquille silence,
Règne sur le duvet une heureuse indolence.
C'est là que le prélat, muni d'un déjeuner,
Dormant d'un léger sommeil, attendait le dîner.
La jeunesse en sa fleur brille sur son visage;
Son menton sur son sein descend à double étage,
Et son corps, ramassé dans sa courte grosseur,
Fait gémir les coussins sous sa molle épaisseur."

The canons are touched off with an equal vivacity; all their failings and follies, their idleness and their gluttony, brought into the pure light of day:

"Parmi les doux plaisirs d'une paix fraternelle,
Paris voyait fleurir son antique chapelle;
Ses chanoines vermeils et brillants de santé
S'engraissaient d'une longue et sainte oisiveté;
Sans sortir de leurs lits, plus doux que leurs hermines,
Ces pieux fainéants faisaient chanter matines,
Veillaient à bien diner, et laissaient en leur lieu
A des chantres gagés le soin de leur Dieu."

And then the "machine" itself, the offending lutrin, is described:

"Aussitôt dans le chœur la machine emportée,
Est sur le banc du chantre à grand bruit remontée,
Ses ais demi-pourris, que l'âge a relâchés,
Sont à coups de maillet unis et rapprochés;
Sous les coups redoublés tous les bancs retentissent
Les murs en sont émus, les voûtes en mugissent,
Et l'orgue même en pousse un long gemissement."

The dream of the Chantre, perhaps the indirect cause of all the trouble, in making the man cantankerous, and extra liable to be rubbed up the wrong way, is no less worth quoting:

"Les cloches dans les airs, de leurs voix argentines,
Appelaient à grand bruit les chantres à matines,
Quand leur chef, agité d'un sommeil effrayant,
Encor tout en sueur, se réveille en criant:
'Pour la seconde fois (dit-il) un sommeil gracieux
Avait sous ses pavots appesenti mes yeux;
Quand, l'esprit agité d'une douce fumée,
J'ai cru remplir au chœur ma place accoutumée.
Là, triomphant aux yeux des chantres impuissants,
Je bénissais le peuple, et j'avalais l'encens:
Lorsque, du fond caché de notre sacristie,
Une épaisse nuée à grands flots est sortie,
Que s'ouvrant à mes yeux, dans son bleuâtre éclat
M'a fait voir un serpent conduit par le prélat.
Du corps de ce dragon plein de soufre et de nitre,
Une tête sortait en forme de pupitre,
Dont le triangle affreux, tout hérissé de crins,
Surpassait en grosseur nos plus épais lutrins:
Animé par son guide, en sifflant il s'élance.
J'ai crié, mais en vain; et, fuyant sa fureur
Je me suis réveillé plein de trouble et d'horreur."

An order of the Conseil d'Etat, dated March 11, 1787, sequestered all the goods of the chapel, suppressed the chaplaincies and canonries, and ordained that the services should be continued by the king's ordinary chaplains. Three years later, the chapel shared the fate of all the abbeys, chapters, and religious foundations; and soon after, S. Louis' beautiful oratory was closed. The relics were sent to S. Denis, and the other objects were dispersed to the National museums. Propriété Nationale à Vendre was written upon the building, a piece of information which has only disappeared in our own time. Under the Directoire a club held its meetings there; and later, it was converted into a warehouse for corn and flour. Towards 1800, certain ecclesiastics hired the lower chapel and celebrated mass there, but in 1803 it was further profaned; the upper chapel was turned into a depository for judicial documents, and the lower one was given for the same purpose to the Cour des Comptes. In vain Louis XVIII. and Charles X. endeavoured to restore the building to its proper use; and it was only in 1837, in the reign of Louis Philippe, that its restoration was decided upon. MM. Duban, Lassus, Viollet-le-Duc, and Boeswillwald were commissioned to undertake the work at a cost of 2,000,000 francs, a sum nearly equal to the original value of the relics and reliquaries (2,800,000 francs), while it exceeded by nearly two millions the original cost of the building, 800,000 francs. The 3rd November, 1849, the work was sufficiently advanced for the ceremony of the Institution of the Judicature, when the ancient chants were sung as in former times. Since then, until quite recently, a mass has always been celebrated in the chapel, upon the opening of the Law Courts, in the presence of the judges, barristers, and others who could gain admission. But this function has lately been abolished, and the keeper now impresses upon visitors (rather eagerly and unnecessarily), the permission to keep on their hats. "Mais couvrez vous, messieurs, ce n'est plus une chapelle, ce n'est qu'un monument"!

The celebration of the Fête des Fous was one of the customs of the Middle Ages which was very tenacious of life. Although forbidden by the legate in 1198, it flourished for another 250 years. The Council of Paris, held in 1212, endeavoured to put it down; but it was only in 1435 that the Council of Basle succeeded in suppressing it, together with stage plays and other profanities. It was the custom at the Sainte-Chapelle, upon the Holy Innocents' day, for the boy acolytes[4 - The enfants de chœur of the S. Chapelle seem to have been employed in singing elsewhere for the divertissement of the King: "Les Enfans de Chœur de la Sainte-Chapelle illec disoient de beaux virelets, Chansons et autres Bergerettes, moult mélodieusement."] to deck themselves in the canons' copes and vestments, and to sit in their stalls, one boy bearing the mace carried by the precentor as an attribute of his dignity. They were also exempted, during a certain time, from doing homage to anyone. A curious custom prevailed at Easter. At three o'clock in the morning, the clergy, carrying the Host, went in procession round the interior of the palace; and by reason of a foundation of one of the canons, Eustache Picot, under-master of music during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., only his own compositions could be sung on the occasion. On Easter day a chronological table of the principal events and festivals connected with the chapel, with the date and the age of the King, was attached to the Paschal candle. Other customs were peculiar to the chapel, as, for instance, on Whit Sunday, when, during mass, while the Gospel was chanted, an Angel descended from the vault, holding a silver cruet, from which he poured water upon the hands of the celebrant. Flowers, roses, wafers, a white pigeon, a quantity of small birds, and flax for burning, had to be provided by the Chevecier[5 - The Chevecier, or Chefcier, was the official who had charge of the altar, the linen, the vases, the ornaments, &c., and who took care of the sacristy and its contents. The treasurer usually held the two offices.] in memory of the tongues of fire which descended upon the apostles at Pentecost.

On the Good Fridays of each year the chapel scarcely sufficed to contain the crowds of sick persons who flocked to it from all parts of the city. All maladies were supposed to be curable through the virtues of the holy relics, but specially that known formerly as le mal caduc. At midnight the relic of the True Cross was exposed, and at the same moment the chapel was filled by the most fearful shrieks of these poor epileptics. The afflicted threw themselves about, foamed at the mouth, and fell into convulsions, invoking the aid especially of S. John the Baptist and S. Spire. The people were convinced every year that some wondrous miracle had been wrought; but the abuses connected with this nocturnal exposition were so great that, in 1781, Louis XVI. ordered it to be discontinued. The relics now shown in the Treasury of Notre-Dame, and exposed there during Holy Week, are said to be the veritable ones belonging to the Sainte-Chapelle; but the account of their preservation after the desecration of S. Denis is so miraculous (almost as much so as the original finding of the True Cross by S. Helena) that it requires a large amount of faith to believe in them. The reliquaries were of course all melted up, even Alexandre Lenoir could not save them. Those at Notre-Dame are quite modern, although somewhat of the same form.

Another custom peculiar to the chapel was the singing upon Christmas-day of the hymn "Noël," in place of "O Salutaris Hostia." The former had been originally a joy-song, welcoming the kings upon their entry into Paris; and thus, when our Henry V. entered the capital in 1420, and likewise Henry VI. in 1431, they were greeted with this exclamation.

The kings were not the only persons who profited by the virtues of the relics; the first president of the parlement was so far privileged that he could have them brought to him on his death-bed; and on Quinquagesima Sunday they were exposed at the central window of the chevet for the good of the public in the street. The châsse containing the relics had no less than ten locks, the keys thereof being in the custody of the kings until the reign of Louis XIII.; but while that monarch was at Lyons, a fire broke out in the chapel (26th July, 1630), and the doors of the châsse had to be broken open, a disaster which led to a change in the custodian, the president of the Chambre des Comptes being substituted for the sovereign. This worthy lived opposite; and it was also his duty to keep the relics clean, assisted of course by a vast number of other presidents and officials. It was the duty, or the privilege, of the kings to mount the little winding staircase at the side of the altar, and to exhibit the relics to the people gathered in the chapel below. S. Louis probably ofttimes walked up the steps on the left for this purpose (the right-hand staircase is modern); and on Good Friday, 1423, the Duke of Bedford, as regent of France for Henry VI., gave the blessing with the relics. In 1575, on the 10th July, a great theft took place of a portion of the cross which was frequently shown to the people (not the piece in the principal châsse), and this in spite of six guards who "allans et venans toute nuict par icelle, tant pour la garde des sainctes reliques comme du lieu." This was looked upon as a great calamity by many people; but by some of the incredulous was thought to be a feint of Henri III., who had permitted the relic to be sent to Italy as security for some money borrowed by that good daughter of the Church, the Queen-mother, Catherine de'Medici. In 1793 the destruction of the châsses and the dispersion of the relics was ordered by the Convention, and carried out by the notorious constitutional bishop Gobel. We cannot but lament the loss to art of these reliquaries; whether, reading over the list in full of the relics given by Canon Morand, we need sigh over their destruction, is another matter. They had swollen in number since S. Louis' time, and besides a portion of the true cross, the crown of thorns, and the lance, there was the rod of Moses, the cross of victory borne by the Emperors of the East, part of the purple mantle, the reed, and other instruments of the Passion, the linen with which Our Lord wiped the Apostles' feet, the sponge, the handcuffs, the holy blood, the Virgin's veil and a piece of her hair, an imprint of the face of Our Lord, a piece of the Holy Sepulchre, and the upper part of the head of S. John Baptist. All these objects, and one or two others which it is needless to mention, were enclosed in the reliquaries which either stood or hung in the great châsse. But other valuables were kept elsewhere. There existed up to the reign of Louis XVI. an elegant little sacristy upon the north-east side, having two storeys, in which were deposited deeds, charters, and gold and silver vessels for the use of the altar. In it was kept the splendid agate, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, representing the Apotheosis of Augustus, which was absolutely presented to the people as a pax upon great festivals, until de Peiresc, Councillor of the Parlement of Provence, about 1619, discovered the mistake, and the so-called "Triumph of Joseph" became acknowledged to be the "Apotheosis of Augustus." A careful drawing of the cameo was made by de Peiresc's friend Rubens, which was engraved by Luc Vosterman of Antwerpen. It was called in the inventory of the chapel le Grand Camahieu and the Agate de Tibère; it is, indeed, the largest known, and is of most exquisite workmanship. The whole family of the Cæsars is represented; some on earth, some in Heaven. The cracks in it are mentioned in the inventory of 1480, and it is described as: Item unum pulcherrimum camaut in cujus circuitu sunt plures reliquiæ. The cameo is supposed to have been one of the treasures brought by S. Louis from Constantinople. In 1343, Philippe VI. sent it to the Pope who had desired to see it, but Charles V. restored it to the chapel in 1379, and then the chapter made their possession certain, by engraving upon the socle: ce camaieu bailla à la Sainte-Chapelle du Palais, Charles cinquième de ce nom, roi de France, qui fut fils du roi Jean, l'an MCCCLXXIX. The Byzantine mounting, described by Tristan de Saint-Amant, was melted up when the cameo was stolen, in 1804: Car les quatres évangélistes sont représentés de part et d'autre du châssis ou tableau d'or, dans lequel cette pierre est enchâssée.

Another antique, an agate bust of Valentinian III.,[6 - It has also been designated as Titus, and Constantine the Great. It is without doubt of the 4th century (Chabouillet).] was metamorphosed into a S. Louis, and formed the crowning point of the precentor's mace. The clothing of this bust in silver-gilt drapery, the placing of a crown of thorns in the right-hand and a cross in the left, show the manner in which objects of Pagan art were adapted to Christian uses. That S. Louis should appear as a fat middle-aged man with a clean shaven face and cropped hair, was an anomaly of no consequence to the Mediæval artists. Another instance of the same naïveté is the bust of Caracalla which formerly figured as a S. Peter upon the cover of a book of the Gospels, now in the department of manuscripts. The cover is of silver-gilt, Christ crucified with the Virgin and S. John upon either side, the amethyst bust being placed at the foot of the cross. Upon the other side is Christ enthroned, and an imitation emerald which no doubt represents some precious gem that has since disappeared.

Some idea of the richness of the contents of the treasury may be formed by stating that the list of the images, vessels, reliquaries, crosses, &c., in the last inventory, taken in 1784, occupies twenty pages of Morand's book. Besides the objects already mentioned we read of a silver-gilt statue of S. Louis d'Anjou; a fragment of the cup of S. Martin; a portion of the tunic of S. Louis; an ivory Virgin, and thirty reliquaries of the 13th and 14th centuries. These were all conveyed to S. Denis on the 12th March, 1791, in a coach drawn by eight horses, and guarded by a chaplain and an officer of the king's household, who gave them over to the Benedictines, then still at the Abbey. In 1793 the relics trundled back to Paris in a procession which mimicked the former one, and after being taken to the Convention, they were melted up at the mint.

The Royal archives were stowed away in two great rooms above the sacristy of the upper church. When they were first installed there, is not known; but in 1615, when an inventory was drawn up by Pierre Dupuy and Theodore Godefroy, there were three hundred and fifty drawers, two hundred and sixty registers, fifty-two sacks, forty-two shelves, and fifteen coffers. This inventory consists of eight volumes of manuscripts in folio. In 1783 the sacristry was sacrificed to the love of symmetry in the new Cour d'honneur, and the archives were removed to the Chancellerie du Palais. At the present time some of them are in the Bibliothèque, but the greater part are at the Archives Nationale in the Rue Rambuteau.

The state of dilapidation into which the chapel had fallen when the restoration was commenced, was terrible. The tracery of the windows was destroyed, the glass was broken and filled up with plaster, the flèche and gargoyles had disappeared, and the interior was filled with shelves and woodwork for the storage of the archives. But the beautiful Renaissance staircase of forty-four steps (the scene of Boileau's poem, the Lutrin) had disappeared long before.