Part 14

Quelle matière fut jamais plus disposée à recevoir tous les ornements d'une grave et solide éloquence, que la vie et la mort de très-haut et très-puissant Prince Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de Turenne, maréchal général des camps et armées du roi et colonel général de la cavalerie légère? Où brillent avec plus d'éclat les effets glorieux de la vertu militaire: conduite d'armées, sièges de places, prises de villes, passages de rivières, attaques hardies, retraites honorables, campements bien ordonnés, combats soutenus, batailles gagnées, ennemis vaincus par la force, dissipés par l'adresse, lassés et consumés par une sage patience; où peut-on trouver tant et de si puissants exemples que dans les actions d'un homme sage, modeste, libéral, désintéressé, dévoué au service du prince et de la patrie, grand dans l'adversité par son courage, dans la prospérité par sa modestie, dans les difficultés par sa prudence, dans les périls par sa valeur, dans la religion par sa piété.

Yet another celebrated orator, Massillon, was often heard at S. Eustache, and in 1704, preaching upon the small number of the elect, so terrified were his hearers that they all rose as one man, when he pronounced the words of the Supreme Judge. A lesser man, who rose to be a Cardinal, perhaps more by intrigues than anything else, was Guillaume Dubois. He was born at Brives-la-Gaillarde in 1657, and coming to Paris, he entered, while still quite young, the service of the _curé_ of S. Eustache. Thence he obtained engagements as tutor to the great personages of the neighbourhood; entering the house of the Duc de Chartres, he managed to obtain the abbey of Saint-Just, in the diocese of Beauvais. A grand monument by Coustou was erected to his memory in the church of S. Honoré, with an epitaph composed by Couture, which seems to be a slight satire upon the worldly-minded who love the rich things of this nether world. After giving the titles of the defunct, the lines go on: "_Quid autem hi titulis nisi arcus coloratus et fumus ad modicum parens Viator, stabiliora, solidioraque bona mortuo apprecare, etc., etc. Mais que sont ces dignités? nuages brillants, fumée qui s'évapore. Passant, demande à Dieu pour ce mort des biens plus stables et plus solides._"

S. Eustache is still famous for its processions, and few churches are so fitted for grand ceremonial; but what are the functions of to-day compared with those of the 18th century? Here is an extract from the archives giving an outline of the procession upon the Fête Dieu, 20th June, 1716, during the minority of Louis XV.:--

Several lacqueys bearing torches.

Footmen of M. le duc de Charot with lights at the top of their weapons.

Sixteen footmen of M. le Comte de Toulouse.

Six pages of my lord count.

The preceptor of the pages of M. the duc d'Orléans, the Regent, in long cassock and surplice; their tutor bearing a taper; twelve pages of His Royal Highness, and two sub-tutors.

The banner of the confraternity of the Holy Sacrament.

The cross of the clergy of S. Eustache.

An officer bearing a cushion for His Royal Highness.

The _Suisses_ armed, carrying halbards upon their shoulders and torches in their hands, the officers at their head accompanied by drums and fifes.

The dais of the Holy Sacrament, borne by high personages.

The _curé_ under the dais.

Monseigneur le duc d'Orléans carrying a taper, preceded by several officers of his house, and two chaplains in surplices.

An officer bearing a bouquet of His Royal Highness.

Forty of the body-guard, the councillor of Parliament, and the churchwardens.

A coach belonging to His Royal Highness, followed by eight guards on horseback.

The archers of the town bringing up the rear.

The watchmen of Paris arranged in a line from the church door to the Hôtel de Soissons, on both sides of the Rue Coquillière, with flags and officers at their head; drums to be beaten when His Royal Highness arrives at the church in his coach, and on his return.

In 1736 the _reposoir_[70] in the Palais-Royal was constructed from the design of Servandoni, the architect of S. Sulpice; and its importance attracted multitudes of curiosity-hunters from all parts of the town.

In 1729 Jean-François-Robert Secousse succeeded his uncle, and was the author of a pamphlet which he gave away to his parishioners entitled: _Lettre d'un Curé à N---- au sujet des Spectacles._ His successor, Jean-Jacques Poupart, was for some time confessor to Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. When the storm arose, he took the oath to the Constitution; but, finding the lengths to which it carried him, he retracted, went into hiding, and administered to his flock in secret. During the early years of the Revolution, no church suffered more than S. Eustache. Situated in the midst of a populous district, it became the scene of untold horrors. But it was also the resting place for Mirabeau's body on its way to the Panthéon, on the 4th April, 1791; and had nothing worse than the funeral oration by Cerutti, pronounced from the _banc-d'oeuvre_,[71] taken place, the sacrilege would have been but small. Trouble was looked for in the following May, when the hairdressers' assistants caused a service to be said for the great orator; but instead of the church being invaded by 10,000 persons, as was expected, a poor 600 were all that put in an appearance, and these were well conducted. Not so the Women's Club which was held in the building, if Lamartine's _Histoire des Girondins_[72] is to be trusted:

La société révolutionnaire siégeait á Saint-Eustache; elle était composée de femmes perdues, aventurières de leur sexe, recrutées dans le vice, où dans les réduits de la misère, ou dans les cabanons de la démence. Le scandale de leurs séances, le tumulte de leurs motions, la bizarrerie de leur éloquence, l'audace de leurs pétitions importuna le Comité de Salut Public, qui ferma le club. On peut juger par là ce qu'il devait en être de la pauvre église. Près de là siégeait aussi le fameux club de la rue Mauconseil.

Another club for women, founded by an actress named Lacombe, was dissolved after a speech of Robespierre's, in which we find that "Cette réunion de vraies sans-culottes ne saurait durer plus long-temps, parce qu'elle prête au ridicule et aux propos malins."

In 1793 the Feast of Reason was celebrated with as much profanity and indecency here as at Notre-Dame, as witness Mercier's account, told in the forcible language of Carlyle:

The corresponding festival in the church of S. Eustache offered the spectacle of a great tavern. The interior of the choir represented a landscape decorated with cottages and boskets of trees. Round the choir stood tables overloaded with bottles, with sausages, pork-puddings, pasties, and other meats. The guests flowed in and out through all doors; whosoever presented himself took part of the good things; children of eight, girls as well as boys, put hand to plate, in sign of Liberty; they drank also of the bottles, and their prompt intoxication created laughter. Reason sat in azure mantle aloft, in a serene manner; cannoneers, pipe in mouth, serving her as acolytes. And out of doors (continues the exaggerative man) were mad multitudes dancing round the bonfire of chapel-balustrades, of priests' and canons' stalls; and the dancers--I exaggerate nothing--the dancers nigh bare of breeches, neck and breast naked, stockings down, went whirling and spinning, like those Dust-vortexes, forerunners of Tempest and Destruction.[73]

S. Eustache was re-opened for divine service sooner than many of the other churches, M. Poupart coming out of his hiding in June, 1795; but he had to share his church for some time with the philanthropists and the municipal councillors, who held their meetings there upon certain days. And the church was, moreover, but four walls and a roof; nearly all the contents had vanished. The altars, the bronze statues, the pulpit, the pictures, the tombs, the slabs and epitaphs, all but the _banc-d'oeuvre_, had gone to the museum of the Petits-Augustins; happily, for otherwise they would have gone into the fire.

In 1804, Pius VII., dragged to Paris by Napoleon to perform the coronation ceremony, was invited to visit S. Eustache and bless a statue of the Blessed Virgin; which he did with "_une bonté paternelle_." The occasion naturally called forth all the ceremonial of which the church was capable: _Suisses_ (beadles), vergers, _MM. les maires_, and _MM. les marguilliers_, magistrates, _juges de paix_, clergy, M. le curé Bossic, and his eminence the cardinal archbishop. His Holiness was received at the church door by the archbishop, M. de Belloy, and divers other bishops and dignitaries of church and state; who had to submit to hearing a Latin oration by the _curé_. The music was brilliantly executed by a large choir, and the ceremonial of an imposing character; peculiarly touching was the moment when the archbishop, an old man of ninety-six, who had to be supported by two prelates, mounted the steps of the altar, and presented the linen cloth to his Holiness for wiping his hands. After mass a reception took place in one of the chapels, and a number of the faithful had the honour of "kissing the papal slipper," says the account of the ceremony signed by a number of the dignitaries present.

Among the celebrities buried in the church or the burial-ground hard by are the following: Bernard de Girard, Seigneur du Haillan, historian, who died in 1610; Marie Jars de Gournay, the adopted daughter of Montaigne, and the editress of his essays; Vincent Voiture, poet and wit, who died in 1650; the Academician François de la Motte-le-Vayer; the poet Isaac Benserade; another Academician Furetière; the graceful music-maker, Rameau; the painter, Lafosse; a superintendent of finance, Claude de Bullion (a curiously appropriate name); Phélippeau, duke of la Vrillière; the chancellor d'Amenonville; a peer and marshal, François d'Aubusson de la Feuillade, who worshipped his king, the fourteenth Louis, and elevated a wondrous monument to his glory, the prancing steed and man in the Place des Victoires; and a medicine man of the same king a member, too, of the Academy, Martin Cureau de la Chambre, aged seventy-five when he died in 1669. The physician is said to have been the consulter-general of the king, and they carried on a secret correspondence, in which the former thought that the sovereign would "_court grand risque de faire à l'avenir de mauvais choix de ministres_," if he survived Cureau. The last curate buried in the church was Poupart, in 1796.

What is now the market of S. Joseph was formerly the burial-ground dedicated to that Saint. It belonged to the parish of S. Eustache, and in 1630 Chancellor Séguier built a chapel therein at his own expense. Here Molière and La Fontaine were buried, but the monuments were carried off to the museum of the Petits-Augustins, where they remained until 1818, when they were re-erected at Père-la-Chaise. Molière was also born in the parish, at a house, since pulled down, which occupied the site of the corner of the rue St. Honoré and the rue du Pont Neuf, formerly de la Tonnellerie.

The following epitaphs used to be in the church, and are interesting; the two first for their quaintness; the last as a record of an architect of S. Eustache, if not the original builder:

BARTHÉLÉMI TREMBLET, SCULPTEUR DU ROY, DÉCÉDÉ A L'AGE

DE 61 ANS, EN 1629.

Louvre me donna l'être et Paris la fortune. J'eus l'honneur d'être au roy, St. Eustache a mes os; Passant, au nom de Dieu, si je ne t'importune, Durant ce mien sommeil, pries pour mon repos.

* * * * *

Le monde n'a ésté à _Françoise Gallois_ que passage à l'éternité; Elle y a demeuré comme toujours Preste d'en sortir, Les XXIII années De son âge, n'ont estées qu'innocence, Les quarte de son mariage, que paix Et concorde, les vertus furent ses Exercices, la piété son contentement, La crainte de Dieu la conduite de Sa vie qu'elle finit le XXVIIe Aoust MDCXVI. Si chrestiennement, Que _Richard Petit_, son mary, Conser secrét, du roy, M. et C. de Fr. ne console l'affliction de son Absence que par la souvenance De sa mort.

* * * * *

Cy-devant git le corps D'honorable homme _Charles David_, vivant sujet du Roy Es-oeuvres de maçonnerie, doyen des jurés et bourgeois De Paris, architecte et conducteur du bâtiment de l'Eglise De céans, lequel après avoir vescu avec _Anne Lemercier_ Sa femme l'espace de 53 ans, il décéda le quatrième jour De décembre 1650 âgé de 98 ans.

S. Eustache has suffered much of late years by fire and the doings of wicked men. In 1844 fire attacked the organ, and smoke and water destroyed a great portion of the church. L'abbé Duguerry, who was shot in 1871 by the Communists, was _curé_ at the time of the conflagration; and in order to rebuild the organ, he instituted a lottery, and appealed for aid to the whole country. Ten years later the new organ was built, and inaugurated under a new _curé_, Gaudereau, Duguerry having been appointed to the Madeleine. It was an exquisite instrument, of delicious tone and with a large number of stops. But alas! during the Commune it suffered again, several bombs having exploded in the church. Glass was smashed, organ pipes pierced, and a great deal of damage done to the roof; and it was several years before the church was restored to its pristine beauty. In 1879 the organ was finished, having been reconstructed and very much enlarged by J. Merklin, under a committee of organists and musicians; other instruments may be larger, but few are so beautiful in tone. Several of the Paris organs are fine, and the French school of organists is of all the least conventional. One is not bored by Rinck and his fellows; one does not hear choruses by Handel intended to be sung, or solos by the same master upon flute and clarionet stops with a poor tum-tum accompaniment, or sonatas written for the pianoforte or violin. That, to some of us, peculiarly irritating form of composition, the fugue, is rarely heard (except at the Madeleine), and Batiste, I think, must have held them in holy horror as did Berlioz, and, was it Chopin? Many a time for years I heard Batiste "touch" the S. Eustache organ, and surely no more divine sounds (if organ notes can be divine?) have ever been drawn from an instrument than when he played some soft, tender, pathetic melody upon the _voix céleste_ or _vox humana_ with accompaniment upon the far-off stops and tremolo; it was, in effect, what one might conceive a chorus of Angels accompanying some beautiful human voice. I know all the principal Paris organs, and most of them have been played upon by distinguished musicians; I also heard Lefebure-Wély frequently in former days; but no one seemed to equal or to excel Batiste in taste. His soft passages were perfection; and when he made the instrument thunder forth in all its _fortissimo_, it was grand in the extreme. Such an admiration had I for the musician, that I looked upon him as an invisible master, and my enthusiasm led me one day to waylay him as he came down the stairs. Query, if one admires an artist or an author, a poet or a musician, is it wise to see him in the flesh? Some painters and pianists, some violinists or singers, have been appropriately built, so to speak. Nature, sometimes unassisted, more often aided and pruned, has turned out bodies which are fitted to become the cases of distinguished minds. But everyone knows instances of actors and actresses who are nought minus their war-paint; of painters who might be grocers, and of poets as un-ideal in appearance as any publican or butterman. On the other hand, there are exquisites behind the counters, ethereal-looking butchers, and poetic vendors of cooked ham and beef. It is as if nature had made a number of bodies and minds, and shuffling them like a pack of cards, had tossed them together without any thought or heeding. Such seemed to have been the case with Batiste, for he was the exact model of the French Mossoo so dear to _Punch_--the Mossoo one so rarely sees out of that sportive periodical. Nevertheless, the soul within that commonplace body was able to peal forth in most sublime sounds which touched the hearts of all who heard them. Batiste's was essentially emotional playing of the highest order. Never shall I forget the thrill which went through the crowd when he played Chopin's "Funeral March" at the funeral of the dear old _curé_, l'abbé Simon--the very type of the courteous, fine-gentleman priests of other days, without their vices. When, years ago, the abbé Simon and Duguerry his friend, sat side by side, their finely chiselled features and longish hair, their elegant manner, and courteous bearing, reminded one of the portraits of Fléchier, Massillon and Bossuet.

It may interest musicians to know the composition of the S. Eustache organ, and as many of the stops are French, I may as well give them in their original names. It has four manuals, and 72 stops; 4356 pipes and 20 pedals.

Grand Orgue 54 notes, 16 stops. Positif 54 " 14 " Récit expressif 54 " 16 " Clavier Bombarde 54 " 11 " Pédales 30 " 15 " ---- TOTAL 72

1ST MANUAL.--GREAT ORGAN. ft. ft. 1 Montre 16 10 Nasard 2 2 Montre 8 11 Doublette 2 3 Flûte à pavilion 8 COMBINATION STOPS. 4 Bourdon 8 12 Furniture et Cymbale 3 5 Flûte harmonique 8 13 Cornet 8 6 Viole de Gambe 8 14 Trompette 8 7 Gemshorn 8 15 Clarinette 8 8 Rohrflûte 4 16 Clairon 4 9 Prestant 4

2ND MANUAL.--CHOIR ORGAN. ft. ft. 1 Montre 8 9 Clochette 1 2 Bourdon 8 COMBINATION STOPS. 3 Keraulophone 8 10 Plein jeu 2 4 Flûte harmonique 8 11 Clarinette 16 5 Bourdon 16 12 Cromhorn 8 6 Flûte harmonique 4 13 Trompette 8 7 Fugara 4 14 Clairon 4 8 Doublette 2

3RD MANUAL.--SWELL ORGAN.

SOLO STOPS. ft. ft. 1 Viole de Gambe 8 9 Trompette harmonique. 8 2 Voix céleste 8 10 Clairon 4 3 Bourdon 8 JEUX DE FOND. 4 Piccolo 1 11 Bourdon 16 5 Basson-Hautbois 8 12 Principal 8 6 Voix humaine 8 13 Flûte harmonique 8 COMBINATION STOPS. 14 Flûte octaviante 4 7 Cornet 8 15 Prestant 4 8 Trombone 16 16 Flageolet 2

4TH MANUAL.--SOLO ORGAN.

ft. COMBINATION STOPS. 1 Bourdon 16 ft. 2 Gambe 16 7 Cornet 16 3 Gambe 8 8 Bombarde 16 4 Salicional 8 9 Trompette 8 5º Quintaton 8 10 Cor anglais 8 6º Dulciana 4 11 Clairon 4

PEDALS. ft. ft. 1 Principal 32 9 Flûte 4 2 Flûte 16 COMBINATION STOPS. 3 Sous-Basse 16 10 Bombarde 32 4 Contrebasse 16 11 Bombarde 16 5 Grosse Flûte 8 12 Basson 16 6 Quinte 12 13 Basson 8 7º Violoncelle 8 14 Trompette 8 8º Bourdon 8 15 Clairon 4

COMBINATION STOPS FOR THE SWELL.

SOLO | ANCHES | FONDS

TREMOLO | TREMOLO | TREMOLO

COMBINATION PEDALS.

1 Tonnerre.

2 Tirasse du 1er clavier sur le pédalier.

3 Tirasse du 2me clavier sur le pédalier.

4 Tirasse du 3me clavier sur le pédalier.

5 Tirasse du 4me clavier sur le pédalier.

6 Réunion du mécanisme des jeux du 1er clavier sur le levier pneumatique.

7 Accouplement du 2me clavier sur le 1er.

8 Accouplement du 3me clavier sur le 1er, à l'unisson.

9 Accouplement du 4me clavier sur le 1er.

10 Accouplement du 4me clavier sur le 3me.

11 Accouplement du 3me clavier à l'octave grave sur le 1er clavier.

12 Forte général.

13 Introduction des jeux de combinaisons du pédalier.

14 Introduction des jeux de combinaisons du 1er clavier.

15 Introduction des jeux de combinaisons du 2me clavier.

16 Introduction des jeux de combinaisons du 4me clavier.

17 Expression sur le 3me clavier récit.

No one should omit visiting S. Eustache on S. Cecilia's day (November 22), when a grand mass is always performed, with full orchestra, in aid of the Society of Musicians; and indeed, any Sunday the music is quite well worth hearing, and the ceremonial is the finest in Paris. At the same time much has been lost by the substitution of the Roman for the Parisian rite, which took place in 1876. In the former, two acolytes swing the censers; in the latter, four or six acolytes standing in a row threw them up on high six times, the last time catching them while kneeling on one knee. As has been said, the grand effect of this use can never be forgotten by those who saw it.

The church owes the new marble pavement to its good _curé_ l'abbé Simon, one of the heroes of the Commune, and, almost, one of its victims. So much has been related (and with justice) against the _Communards_, that an incident connected with S. Eustache ought not to be forgotten. The day the abbé Simon was arrested he had three thousand _francs_ in his pocket, which were destined to pay for the pavement of the choir. Of course upon his arrival at the prison they were given up to the police, and were not restored when the _curé_ was released through the intervention of his _chères paroissiennes, les Dames de la Halle_, who went _en masse_ to demand his freedom. On Easter Monday, however, Raoul Rigault's secretary went to the sacristry, asked M. Simon if the money had been returned, and finding that it had not, he left the church, to return in an hour's time, with the three thousand _francs_ intact.

In the south transept is a little Gothic statue of S. John, and on the wall is a sad memorial of the names of all the hostages who suffered death under the Commune, headed by the archbishop (Darboy) and the _curé_ of the Madeleine, Duguerry, who was formerly _curé_ of S. Eustache.

S. Eustache, like most large churches, looks grandest in the evening, when the altar is ablaze with lights, and long vistas fade away into the darkness; but under all conditions it is a splendid church, a mass of harmonious colouring from floor to ceiling. At the evening services during Lent, it is seen to advantage; or again on Christmas Day at vespers, when it is resplendent with lights; those curious and unchurchlike glass chandeliers filled with candles, and clusters of gas jets round the walls.