Part 13

The Chapelle des Catéchismes is a very ancient foundation, having been erected in the old church by Louis d'Orléans, the brother of Charles VI., in honour of S. Michael. Two centuries later, the Orléans family sold it to Président Forget, and a chapel was built out of it to serve, first as a sacristy, and then as a room for confraternities to hold their meetings in. The staircase is very elegant, with its handsome wrought-iron _grille_ and balustrade of the time of Louis XVI. The chapel seems to be used now as a boys' vestry, and the effect of the acolytes in their red cassocks and white albs passing up or down this beautiful flight of steps is picturesque in the extreme. S. Eustache is one of the few churches in Paris which has not adopted the Roman use as regards the dress of the acolytes, who still wear the long alb plaited or trimmed with lace, and the sash, red, white, or pale blue, according to the season. Years ago, before the Parisian rite was superseded by the Roman, there were many little differences in the ritual; to wit, the two precentors sitting near the chancel _grille_, vested in copes, and at certain times during mass marching up and down the choir. Then again, on great festivals, six men holding censers stood in a row, and throwing them up, knelt upon one knee to catch them. The effect of this during Benediction was grand in the extreme; the Roman practice of two boys gently swinging the censers bearing no comparison to the Parisian. The Lady chapel, known as Notre-Dame de Bon-Secours, served in the 17th century as the assembling place of various charitable societies, and notably of the Société de Bons-Secours, which was so much patronised by the _noblesse_ and the rich tradespeople. The chapel is in the same style as the side ones, and is a mass of colour, the decorations being by M. Dénuel. The frescoes were originally undertaken by Ary Scheffer, who, perhaps fortunately for posterity, was so long working out his subject that he gave the matter up, Couture taking his place. But great artist as he was, Couture was hardly the man to decorate a church; his work and his sympathies were so eminently Classic in style, that it is difficult to feel that his paintings illustrate pages of Gospel history and legendary lore. There is no more religious sentiment in Couture's work than in the Eclectic decadence of Italy, or the 18th century French school. Many persons object to our latest group of religious painters; but the feeling expressed in the pictures of M. Lhermitte, of Bastien-Lepage, of Mr. C. Pierce, of M. Dagnan-Bouveret, and even in M. Béraud's _Crucifixion_, to say nothing of Herr Uhde's work, is far more religious than in many, one might almost say, in most of the frescoes and pictures by modern artists in the various churches. Sentimentality is not religious sentiment, and cast-up eyes do not necessarily express devotion. Again, the light is so bad in this chapel that it is very difficult to judge of Couture's work, even from the æsthetic point of view; and therefore we cannot think this picture equal to the grand _Romains de la Décadence_ in the Louvre. The altar is a handsome specimen of the reign of Louis XIII., but the statue which surmounts it, by Pigalle, has the usual sentimental character of 18th century sculpture. A _plaque_ informs the faithful that it was blessed by Pius VII. in 1804; but, unfortunately, a pope's blessing will not turn a piece of marble into a fine work of art.

The chapel of S. Louis de Gonzague was the property of the Colbert family, and contains the tomb of the great minister. The monument was executed from a design by Lebrun, and, although of the usual type of that period, it is not without a certain grandeur. A black marble sarcophagus supports the kneeling figure of Colbert, arrayed in the robes of the order of the Saint-Esprit. The hands, joined in prayer, are exquisitely modelled. The expression of the face is fine, and the flow of the draperies is well executed. At the foot of the monument are figures of Religion by Tubi and Abundance by Coysevox; the latter a good example of the sculptor's style. This was one of the monuments saved from the Vandal mob in 1792, by Lenoir, who marched it off to the museum of the Petits-Augustins, where it remained until 1801, when it was returned to S. Eustache.

More relics are to be seen in the next chapel, those of S. Pierre l'Exorciste, a saint who suffered in the neighbourhood of Rome, having obligingly dug his own grave previously to being beheaded. The authenticity of the relics are vouched for by the sign manual of Cardinal Caprara. One requires faith to believe in the authenticity of these, or any other relics; not that one doubts their preservation by loving hands after the martyrdoms, but there is a great gulf of time which is not easily bridged over. Take, for instance, the relic of the True Cross kept at Notre-Dame. It is not at all improbable that the cross might have been preserved by the friends of Our Lord; and the same remark applies to many of the other relics with which S. Louis and others adorned the Sainte-Chapelle--the Spear, the Handcuffs, the Crown of Thorns, even the linen stained by the precious blood. That the Apostles, or S. Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus, or S. Mary and her sister Martha, would have done their best to gain possession of these relics of their dear Master, is not only possible, but probable. We are all relic-mongers at heart; our forefathers gathered together the remains of saints and martyrs; we ourselves keep locks and curls of hair, babies' teeth, bits of clothing, rings, and photographs. Where is the difference? If the lost first-born's only tooth is precious to its mother, why should not S. Holocaustus' toe-nail be equally so to those who live in the Saint's parish or commune? We have Charles I.'s hair, and Queen Elizabeth's stockings; and there is no reason why a thousand years hence they should not still be in their cases. But if a great upheavement took place, such as the siege of Jerusalem, or the first French Revolution, the saving of such relics would be difficult, although not by any means impossible. Take the finding of the True Cross by S. Helena early in the 4th century. If this be true, it is by no means impossible that it was preserved up to the time of S. Louis. Nor is it impossible that someone connected with the church of S. Denis should have secreted the relic before the desecration of the tombs in 1793. Rumours precede acts; and having a valuable relic, why not hide it away when dangers lurk in the distance? But if so, why did not this person preserve the vessels in which the relics were kept? Why not have buried all those costly chalices, crosses and reliquaries? Why have left them to be seized upon by profane hands and melted up, if there were time to save their contents? But the chief difficulty is to account reasonably for the gap between the Crucifixion and the finding of the Cross; and it requires such a long bridge of faith to traverse this space of three hundred years that one feels reluctantly obliged to take the "Invention" of the Cross in its most literal sense.

The arms over the chapel of the Sainte-Madeleine are those of France _barré_, commemorating the foundation (in the old church) by Charles, Comte de Valois, duc d'Angoulême, a natural son of Charles IX., that most excellent Christian king and zealous son of the Church, who persecuted and slaughtered heretics for the good of their souls, thereby converting them (in the next world) from the error of their ways, and so covering his own multitudinous sins and wickednesses. There is a handsome confessional of carved wood, period Louis XV., in this chapel; and in the next, the relics of S. Vincent de Paul are enclosed in a fine Louis XIV. _châsse_. Lest any reader doubts the correctness of my translation, let me give the list of these relics in the original. "Les reliques de St. Vincent de Paul se composent d'une image teinte du sang du saint prêtre retrouvée légèrement coagulé quand on a ouvert son tombeau, de deux médailles formées de sa chair et de ses os mis en pâte, d'une parcelle de sa chair, de fragments de son suaire, de la soutane qu'il portait de son vivant, de la soutane dont il a été retrouvé vêtu dans sa bière, enfin d'un morceau de cette bière. Le tout est muni du cachet de la Mission et accompagné de quatres authentiques signés par MM. les supérieurs de Saint-Lazare." This and the S. Madeleine are the oldest of the chapels, and are both architecturally fine, with wrought-iron _grilles_ of elegant and cunning workmanship. The paintings (1634), attributed to Simon Vouët or his Italian pupils, represent scenes in the life of S. Anne, to whom the chapel was originally dedicated by Anne de Monsigot, dame de Bourlon, who may be seen humbly sitting upon the stairs of the temple, with her two children standing by her side; while above, the high priest Zachariah is receiving the Blessed Virgin, who is presented by her mother and father. Very beautiful are the Angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, which are painted upon the eight compartments of the ceiling.

The founder of the chapel of S. Geneviève was one Jehan Brice, a merchant, whose desire that it should be richly decorated was carried out by the widow, Guillemette de l'Arche, in 1546, who is said to have been the heroine of a tale, which has been made familiar to us through the Italian opera of _La Gazza Ladra_. It appears that an old MS. in the possession of M. Boblet gives the list of foundation masses in the parish, and amongst them is one entitled _La Pie Voleuse_, which was said daily for the poor servant unjustly accused of stealing the spoon, found later on in the roof of the church. But the unwonted hour fixed for the mass, 4 a.m., and the name thereof, seem rather to point to the magpie than to the maid. May not the mass have been for the thief rather than for the innocent damsel? And was it not made thus early to assure the attendance of all the feathered tribes (who are wont to rise betimes), and to be unto them at once a warning and a duty paid to their cousin-german, the mean and wicked magpie? A _Tobias and the Angel_, by Santi di Tito, belonging originally to Louis XV., and ascribed to Andrea del Sarto, is of a certain interest. The frescoes, taken from the life of S. Louis in the chapel bearing his name, are amongst the best in the church. M. Barrias has thrown much grandeur into his subject, _S. Louis carrying the Crown of Thorns to the Sainte-Chapelle_; but no one has so thoroughly depicted the ascetic beauty of the King, his true piety and unflinching faith, as M. Olivier-Merson in the wall-paintings of the corridor of the Cour de Cassation, in the Palais de Justice. In all the works of the latter painter the truest religious sentiment is invariably to be found; and if he errs upon the side of ugliness, is it not an infinitely smaller fault than the sentimental upturned eyes and radiant beauty of the German religious painters of the Cornelius and Hesse schools?

The tribune over the sacristy door was put up by the Duchesse d'Orléans, Adélaïde, the mother of Louis Philippe, in 1778, that she might enjoy privacy when she was present at the offices. It is a noble example of the finished style of Louis XVI.

Amongst the treasures of S. Eustache are an ivory crucifix in the sacristy: a bone of the patron Saint, from the cemetery of S. Priscilla, given in 1660 by Pope Alexander VII. to Sieur Chauvin; a tooth, formerly in the church of S. Jacques-l'Hôpital; and some bones of S. Eustache and his wife and children, said to have been formerly amongst the treasures of S. Denis; but I find no record of them in Dom Millet. The frescoes in the chapel of the patron Saint were painted by M. le Hénaff, in imitation of those found in the catacombs of Rome, the painter having copied the incorrect drawing as well as the fervent feeling of the early painters.

One or two more pictures by Vouët may be seen; and in the chapel of the Redemption are the frescoes of M. Glaize, one of the few painters who seems to have understood the spirit in which a church should be decorated.

S. Eustache was a royal parish up to the great crash at the end of the last century; its domain extended from the Chaussée des Gaillons to the Rue S. Denis, and being in the centre of the great world, it was very fashionable. Hard by were the royal palaces, and the new and "magnifique bastiment de l'hostel royal dit des Tuileries lez Paris, pour ce qu'il y avoit anciennement une tuilerie audict lieu," the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Philibert Delorme, built by order of Catherine de' Medici to outrival the Château d'Anet, erected by the same great artist for the irregular queen, the lovely Diane. Not far from the Place Royale, and in the centre of a nest of hotels belonging to great and noble personages, S. Eustache became the praying-place of the living and the burial-place of the defunct notabilities. The great ministers of Henri III., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. lived in the parish: the Duc d'Epernon, in the Rue Platrière (now Jean-Jacques-Rousseau, by reason of the sage having occupied the 4th _étage_ of No. 49, in the year 1770); Cardinal Richelieu, in the Rue St.-Honoré, au Palais-Cardinal, otherwise the modern tourist's hunting-ground, the Palais-Royal; and Mazarin, the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs. The _curés_ were naturally much in vogue as confessors and directors to these high personages and their swarms of followers and appendages--men and women. One of the rectors, preaching in 1537, before the King (François I.), the Cardinal de Lorraine, brother of the Duc de Guise, the Cardinal de Tournon, and ladies and gentlemen of the court, seems to have been shaky in his theology, according to some of his hearers, but _estonnant de vérité_, quoth others. Even the royal mind itself was unquiet for several days, but upon persuasion by the Cardinals it became reassured.

It was a time of troubles, civil and religious. The church work was stopped, and horrors were around, for in 1558 a poor student, denounced as a Lutheran by an old zealot of the weaker sex, was dragged out of the church and massacred upon the steps. But to return to Messire Jean Lecoq, the aforesaid _curé_. In the choir is his tomb, where he was buried with several of his relatives. His epitaph, bearing his arms _d'azur au coq d'or_, is as follows:

_Nobilis venerabilis D. Magister Joannes Lecoq._ _Hujus ecclesiæ pastor_--1568.

ANT. LECOQ, SEIG. D'ESGRENAY ET DE CORBEUIL (frère du curé), 1566. F. PAJOT, SEIGNEUR DE BURY, mari D'ESTIENNETTE LECOQ, 1563 F. PAJOT, SEIG. D'AUTEUIL, LEUR FILS, 1583.

A story is told of this reverend _curé_ by Bonaventure Déperriers, in his _Joyeux Devis_, which, if not authentic, is characteristic of the times. A certain popular actor and head of a wandering dramatic company, one Jean de l'Espine, called _Pont-Allais_, was one day beating his drum near the church, to announce the commencement of his entertainment. Within the church the _curé_ was preaching, but alas, his voice could not be heard above the rattle outside. Exit the preacher from his pulpit. He hurries out, and addresses the comedian upon the stage of his booth: "How can you dare to strum while I am preaching?" "And how can you dare to preach while I am drumming?" retorted the actor. The _curé_, enraged at this impudent reply, broke the drum; but Jean _Pont-Allais_, with the swiftness of a man of action, seized the priest, and popping the drum upon his head, pushed him into the church. Whether the discourse was continued, with or without the _coiffure_, history does not relate. Jean Lecoq died in 1568.

René Benoist, born at Angers, and a member of the school of theologians calling itself the Société Royale de Navarre, was, when quite young, the confessor of Marie Stuart, whom he followed to Scotland. Upon the death of the queen he became _curé_ of St. Pierre-des-Arcis, and afterwards of S. Eustache. At the commencement of his career he was a _Ligueur_, and by reason of his great influence was nicknamed _le roi des Halles_. In 1588 he pronounced a funeral oration upon the assassinated Guises at Blois:

Escouté, peuple, dit-il, par Isaïe: _Auferam a vobis fortem et virum bellatorem, judicem et prophetam._ Quand Dieu veut punir un peuple, il oste les personnes généreux et le conseil, car comme disait Cicéron en son premier des Offices: _Non valent arma foris nisi sit consilium domi._ Nous avions tous les deux en ce bon prince le duc de Guise: il était fort comme un Samson, prudent et advisé comme un Salomon.... Les anciens disaient un exercite estre plus fort quand le chef est lion que quand les soldats sont lions et le chef cerf.... Cette balafre qu'il portait, c'était en conservant la religion et l'état en France qu'il l'avait endurée. Cela devait faire peur aux méchants, _non est vulnus aversum sed adversum_. Faut des hommes vaillants, balafrés, qui ne fuient pas et ainsi que Notre Seigneur a porté ses cicatrices au ciel pour montrer ce qu'il avait enduré ainsi il a porté sa balafre pour le témoignage de sa vertu. II ne faut pas perdre courage, la maison en est seulement escornée. (Then he concluded thus:) Prions Dieu pour les échevins d'icelle, qu'ils aient la crainte de Dieu et une bonne prudence. Ce mot d'échevins veut dire chefs de la ville, _sicut capita Urbis_. Je les compare aux quatre parties qui conservent la santé de l'homme et aux quatre éléments qui sont les choses les plus nécessaires au monde. Paris a pour ses armes un navire qu'est _Mare populi_, ceux là sont les pilotes; ils quéront à Dieu qu'il leur donne son saint Spérit, mais surtout à eux et à nous l'union, faut que Civitas soit Civium unitas.

However, going over to the enemy, like many a better man, Benoist became the butt of l'Estoile:

_De trois B B B garder se doit on,_ _De Bourges, Benoist et Bourbon._ _Bourges croit Dieu piteusement,_ _Benoist le prêche finement,_ _Mais Dieu nous gard' de la finesse_ _Et de Bourbon et de sa messe._

Another preacher of the time, Master Rose, gave Benoist the nickname of _le Diable des Halles_; but nevertheless he remained faithful to the king's party, and controverted those who refused to receive the royal heretic, even if he were to be converted. These views of the _curé_, coming to the ears of the Duc de Mayenne, caused Benoist to be sent for when the time came for Henri to abjure Protestantism, and he was present at S. Denis on the memorable 25th of July, 1592, when the king heard the mass which he bargained for the city of Paris.

This, of course, angered the Ligueurs yet more, and one said publicly that Benoist deserved to be hanged; and a poor woman of the parish (one of the forerunners of the celebrated "Dames de la Halle" who more than once defended their _curés_ at all costs) was mauled and mangled by a Spanish soldier for having stood up for her parish priest and pronounced him a worthy man. Later on, being named bishop of Troyes by the king (whose confessor he became), the Ligue refused him obedience. Benoist was not only a fervent politician; he was also a writer of no mean merit, a learned preacher, an erudite theologian, and, above all, a friend beloved of his parishioners. He left his mark upon the church, embellishing the great door with a representation of his patron S. René, and composing an anthem, which was performed upon his _fête_ day. Some authorities, Launoy to wit, give the number of his works as 154, Niceron 159. He was forty years at S. Eustache, and ten years dean of the Faculty of Theology. He died on the 7th March, 1608, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven, and just two years before the assassination of Henri, which took place at the very doors, one may say, of S. Eustache, in the Rue de la Ferronnerie.

After the death of René, Benoist's successor, we find the "Dames de la Halle" coming to the fore and asserting their importance. It appears that the appointment by the archbishop of a new curate (I use this term in its proper sense: the occupier of a cure) to succeed M. Tonnellier, led to a three day's revolt. The nephew of the latter, having been promised the cure by his uncle, opposed the new appointment, and, assisted by the market women, repulsed the soldiers--sent them flying, says tradition. However that may be, there was a vast commotion, which lasted three days, and was only ended by a species of armistice. "Les Dames de la Halle" consented to send a deputation to the queen (although it is not very apparent what her majesty could do in the matter), and after giving an account of the cause of the trouble, the envoy went on as follows:--

Notre curé qui est mort était si bon, si humain que nous l'avons tous pleuré. En mourant il a désigné son neveu pour son successeur et l'on a voulu nous en donner un autre. Ce n'est pas juste, n'est-ce pas, madame la Reine? Les Marlin, voyez-vous, depuis bien longtemps, sont curés de Saint-Eustache, _de père en fils_, et les paroissiens n'en souffriront pas d'autre.

The curious argument advanced by the deputy in favour of Marlin no doubt amused the queen, and she promised to do what she could. But "Les Dames" would have no evasive answers; they wanted their curate and intended to have him; and so, on their return, chains were put across the streets, barricades were commenced, and the revolt waxed stronger. At this juncture, the archbishop gave way, and the nephew was installed amidst enthusiastic cries of _Vive l'archevêque! Vive la reine!_ While upon the church some wag placarded a notice: _Avis. Le curé de Saint-Eustache est à la nomination des Dames de la Halle._

This little tale seems to have been the origin of the romantic story trumped up in 1783, in which Marie Antoinette is said to have given a flower-girl her bracelet in recognition of some interview between them; which story was added to and amended later on, to the effect that the queen, upon her way to the guillotine, recognising the girl by her bracelet, betrayed her, and thus inadvertently caused her arrest and execution.

This Marlin was curate when Louis XIV. made his first communion at S. Eustache, that being his parish church at the time he was living in the Palais-Royal with his mother. Louis' last wife was also a parishioner of S. Eustache before her marriage with Scarron. As Frances d'Aubigné she seems to have been as much of a _dévote_ as in her later days, for she arose at midnight, and attended matins at two of the clock. At that time she was in receipt of alms from a charitable lady of the parish, and her extraordinary career had scarcely commenced.

Funeral orations abounded at S. Eustache. In 1666 Anne of Austria was eulogised by a celebrated preacher, père Sénault, in no mild terms:--

Souffrez que je vous dise que si elle a vaincu la douleur et la mort, si elle a procuré la paix à l'Europe, si elle a heureusement gouverné l'Etat pendant sa régence, si elle a obtenu des enfants du Ciel, ce n'a été que parce qu'elle se confiait en Dieu et qu'elle l'a obligé de faire cent miracles en sa faveur parce qu'elle espérait en sa bonté, _spera in eo et ipse faciet_.

Ten years later a greater preacher, the eloquent Fléchier, was called upon to sing the praises of Turenne, all the world following in the train of the king to hear him: