Grant Allen - Paris. Grant Allen's Historical Guides

Room X. – Bronzes and Renaissance metal work, mostly self-explanatory. (193) Chimney-piece from a house in Troyes – French, 16th century; Plenty, surrounded by Fauns and trophies. Good collection of keys, knives, etc.

Room XI. — Goldsmith’s workand objects in the precious metals. Wall A(4988), gold altar-piece of the Emperor Henry II, of Germany, with Christ, and figures of Saints, bearing their names above them, given by the Emperor to Bâle Cathedral in the beginning of the 11th century. Central case, the Guerrazar find: votive offerings of crowns of the early Gothic kings of Spain, the largest one being that of Reccesvinthus (died 672), discovered near Toledo. The crowns are rude Byzantine work of the 7th century, inlaid with precious stones. The names inscribed below them were probably added when they were made into votive offerings. Uninteresting as works of art, these curious relics possess great value as specimens of the decadent workmanship of their period. Most of the other objects in this room derive their importance more from the material of which they are composed than from artistic beauty, or even relative antiquarian importance. Of these (4994), in the case near Wall D, represents the Last Supper, with the fish which in very early Christian work is a symbol of Christ. Near it, quaint figures of the four Evangelists, writing, with their symbols. Other symbols of the Evangelists in the same case. Quaint Nuremberg figure of St. Anne, holding on her knee the crowned Madonna, and a little box to contain a relic. (5008) Reliquary foot of a Saint, to enclose his bones; it bears his name – Alard. (4995) Curious figure of the Madonna, Limoges work, very Byzantine in aspect. Other cases contain crucifixes, monstrances, and similar articles of church furniture in the precious metals, mostly of early date. The case by Wall Bhas Gallic torques and Merovingian jewellery.

Return to Room VIII, and enter Room XII to the R. It contains bed furniture and book-bindings. (782) Fine Renaissance Flagellation, after Sebastiano del Piombo.

From this room we enter

a small apartment, with roof sustained by a single pillar. Good niches, now destitute of their saints; church furniture of the Middle Ages, much of which deserves close attention. (708) Fine wooden altar-piece, Flemish, 15th century: centre, the Mass of St. Gregory, with Christ appearing bodily in the Holy Sacrament; beneath it, adoring angels; L wing, Abraham and Melchisedek, frankly mediæval; R wing, the Last Supper; an excellent specimen. Other objects are: (726) Stiff early wooden Madonna. (723) Crucifix, Auvergne, 12th century. (727) St. John. End wall, Annunciation, with the Madonna separated, as often, from the Angel Gabriel by a vase of lilies.

The staircase in the corner leads out to the Garden, where are several fragments of stone decoration. Pass through the door, and traverse Room VI; the opposite door leads to

the remains of the old Roman palace. The scanty remnant, as its name indicates, consists entirely of the baths attached to the building. The masonry is massive. Fragments of Roman altars and other remains found in Paris are arranged round the room. The descriptive labels are sufficient for purposes of identification.

If this brief survey of Cluny has succeeded in interesting you in mediæval art, buy the official catalogue, come here often, and study it in detail.

[“High places” are always the first cemeteries and holy sites – as at Montmartre and elsewhere. But the nearest rising ground to Old Paris is the slight elevation just S. of Cluny, now crowned by the colossal dome of the Panthéon. In Frankish times, this hill lay quite outside the city; but on its summit (just behind his Palace of Les Thermes), Clovis, after his conversion by Ste. Geneviève, is said to have erected a church to St. Peter and St. Paul. Here Ste. Genevièveherself was buried in 512; and the chapel raised over her tomb grew into a church – the favourite place of pilgrimage for the inhabitants of Paris. The actual body of the patron saint was enclosed, in 550, in a magnificent shrine, executed by St. Éloy, the holy blacksmith. Throughout the Middle Ages this church and tomb of Ste. Geneviève, which occupied the site of the existing Panthéon, nearby, were the objects of the greatest devotion. St. Denis was the saint of the kings and nobles; but Ste. Geneviève was, and still remains, the saint of the people, and especially of the women. Miracles were constantly performed at her shrine, and her aid was implored at all moments of national danger or misfortune. A great (Augustin) abbey grew up in time behind the church, and was dedicated in honour of the holy shepherdess. The wall of Philippe Auguste bent abruptly southward in order to include her shrine and this powerful abbey.

In the twelfth century, when the old church of St. Stephen (in French, St. Étienne), on the site of Notre-Dame, was pulled down in order to make room for the existing cathedral, the relics of St. Stephen contained in it were transferred to a new edifice — St. Étienne-du-Mont– which was erected by the monks, close to the Abbey of Ste. Geneviève, as a parish church for their servants and dependents. In the sixteenth century this second church of St. Stephen was pulled down, with the exception of its tower, which is still standing. The existing church of St. Étienne was then begun on the same site in the Gothic style, and slowly completed with extensive Rennaissance alterations.

Later still, the mediæval church of Ste. Geneviève, hard by, 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, designed by Soufflot, was not completed till the Revolution, when it was immediately secularised as the Panthéon, under circumstances to be mentioned later. The remains of Ste. Geneviève, which had lain temporarily meanwhile in a sumptuous chapel at St. Étienne-du-Mont (the subsidiary church of the monastery) were then taken out by the Revolutionists; the mediæval shrine, or reliquary (which replaced St. Éloy’s), was ruthlessly broken up; and the body of the patroness and preserver of Paris was publicly burned in the Place de Grève. This, however, strange to say, was not quite the end of Ste. Geneviève. A few of her relics were said to have been preserved: some bones, together with a lock of the holy shepherdess’s hair, were afterwards 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. Étienne-du-Mont.

The Panthéon, standing in front of the original church, is now a secular burial-place for the great men of France. The remains of Ste. Geneviève still repose at St. Étienne. 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 R of the Rue des Écoles to your L, 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, R, the Luxembourg garden, and L, the Rue Soufflot, leading up to the Panthéon.