Chapter VI: Carlin’s Nest (2)

In ancient times the London goldsmiths all lived in or near Cheapside, or, as it was often called, West Cheap, to distinguish it from the other Cheap Street, more to the east. “Cheap” was the same as market. Close by was the Royal Exchange, where the bullion for the coinage of the realm was received and kept, and the street in which stood this building is still called the Old Exchange. Whether by law or custom, only goldsmiths were allowed to have shops in this neighborhood; but even if the right was at first but a prescriptive one, the company soon contrived to have laws passed to forbid any other craft from encroaching on their domains. This localizing of various crafts was common all over Europe in the middle ages, and in many instances was really a convenience to purchasers, as well as a means of defence for the members of the guilds. In the case of the goldsmiths the government had an object of its own. It might have been thought that the concentration of other turbulent companies would have been rather a danger and a provocation to the royal authority; but it was obviously the policy of the king to make the services of this wealthy company as accessible as might be, in case of any sudden emergency requiring a loan or a tax. It was not politic to let any of the fraternity escape contribution by hiding himself in some obscure part of the city; so that not only were other tradesmen prohibited from opening shops among the goldsmiths, but the latter were themselves forbidden from setting up their shops elsewhere. Although neither law nor custom now interferes with them, the majority of the great jewellers have their glittering shops in Bond Street, London, while in other countries the same rule, on the whole, still prevails. The _Rue de Rivoli_ and the _Palais Royal_ are the chief emporiums for these precious goods in Paris; in Vienna they are mainly sold in the _Graben_, and one street leading out of it; Rome has its _Via Condotti_, thronged with jewelry shops and those selling objects of _virtu_; Venice has its _Procurazie_, an arcade beneath which nearly all the jewellers in the city are congregated; and in many old Italian cities the _Strada degli Orefici_ (goldsmiths’ street) still fully deserves its name. This is particularly the case at Genoa, where this old, crooked lane, bordered by the booths and dens that we moderns would take for poor cobblers’ shops, is still one of the most surprising and picturesque sights of the city. Goldsmiths’ Row is thus described in Maitland’s _History_:

“The same was built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the
sheriffs of London in the year 1491. It contained in number
ten dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame,
uniformly built, four stories high, beautified towards the
street with the goldsmith’s arms and the likeness of
_woodmen_, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous
beasts, all of which were cast in lead, richly painted over
and gilt. The said front was again new painted and gilt over
in the year 1594, Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and
keeping his mayoralty in one of them.”

The Row, however, before this embellishment, had existed in the same place, and covered adjoining parts of Cheapside, betwixt Bread Street end and the Cross in Cheap. This beautiful monument is now gone, but it stood at the west end of the street, in the middle of an open space from which St. Martin-le-Grand (still one of the London parishes) branches out on the one hand, and St. Paul’s churchyard on the other. The “churchyard,” still retaining its name, is now filled with gay shops, mostly for the sale of silks, feathers, and other female gear, and quite equal to the resplendent shops of the West End of London. The Cross in Cheap was one of a series which Edward I. built at every place where the body of his wife, Queen Eleanor, rested on the way from Herdeley in Lincolnshire to Westminster, where she was buried.

In 1629 the appearance of the goldsmiths’ shops is thus described:

“At this time the city greatly abounded in riches and
splendor, such as former ages were unacquainted with; then
it was beautiful to behold the glorious appearance of
goldsmiths’ shops in the South Row of Cheapside, which in a
continued course reached from the Old ’Change to
Bucklersbury, exclusive of four shops only of other trades
in all that space.”

Another reason that had been early alleged for the concentration of the guild was that “it might be seen that their works were good and right”; for as early as 1327 complaints were made of the substitution of paste for real gems, and of plated ware for genuine metal. Some of the fraternity were wont to hide themselves in by-lanes and obscure turnings, and buy stolen plate, melt it down, and resell it secretly to merchants about to put to sea.

“And so they made also false work of gold and silver, as
bracelets, lockets, rings, and other jewels; in which they
set glass of divers colors, counterfeiting real stones, and
put more alloy in the silver than they ought, which they
sold to such as had no skill in such things. And that the
cutlers in their workhouses covered tin with silver so
subtilly, and with such slight,[3] that the same could not
be discerned and severed from the tin; and by that means
they sold the tin so covered for fine silver, to the great
damage and deceit of the king and his people.”

All this was very distasteful to the respectable members of the company, from whose petition the above words are quoted, and henceforward the law did all it could to protect both the public from deceit and the guild from dishonor. Yet, since human law never yet reached an abuse upheld by obstinate men interested in law-breaking or law-evading, the ordinances had to be constantly renewed. As years went on the law was more and more disregarded. One order was passed in 1629 to confine the goldsmiths to Cheapside and Lombard Street; another in 1635, another in 1637, and two in 1638. Summary proceedings were taken against the intrusive shopkeepers who paraded their “mean trades” among the privileged goldsmiths. For instance, “if they should obstinately refuse and remain refractory, then to take security of them to perform the same by a certain day, or in default to commit them to prison until they conform themselves.” The arbitrary Star Chamber, whose rule under the later Stuarts became a real “Reign of Terror,” threatened that if such shops were not forthwith shut up, the alderman of the ward, or his deputy, should be committed to prison. But these were the last among the despotic threats of the terrible tribunal, which was soon after abolished, and the twenty-four common shops which were enumerated in 1638 as spoiling the fair appearance of Goldsmiths’ Row were soon reinforced by many others. The prohibitory ordinances ceased, and custom alone was not strong enough to expel intruders. Besides, the great fire soon came to sweep away almost the whole city, and the plague that preceded it did much to break up all local customs and attachments. The tide of fashion afterwards carried the jewellers with it, setting every year more and more to the west of the city, and the old landmarks and restrictions died a natural death. Lombard Street, however, originally named from the Lombard refugees who settled in London as bankers and pawnbrokers as well as jewellers, is still distinguished by the number of banks and imposing warehouses it contains, and by the comparatively stately architecture of some of its great commercial buildings.

The Goldsmiths’ Company, by letters-patent of Edward III., was granted the privilege of assaying (or testing) all gold and silver plate before it could be exposed for sale. But this was probably only a renewal of a right already exercised by them; for it is mentioned in the document that all work ascertained to be of the proper fineness shall have upon it “a stamp of a puncheon with a leopard’s head, as of ancient time it hath been ordained.” The company also has the privilege of assisting at what is called “the trial of the pyx”――that is, the examination of the coinage of the realm, with a view of ascertaining whether it is of the sterling weight and purity. The pyx is the box in which the coins to be weighed and analyzed are contained. The jury of goldsmiths summoned on this occasion usually consists of twenty-five, and they meet with great formalities and ceremonies in a vaulted chamber on the east side of the cloisters at Westminster, called the Chapel of the Pyx.

Since the great fire the company has built two halls, the present one dating only from 1829, when the old one was pulled down. It stands immediately behind the new post-office, and is an Italian building, more worthy of examination inside than out. The hall which preceded the present one was celebrated for a court-room elaborately decorated and possessing a richly-sculptured marble chimney-piece and a massive bronze grate of the value of a hundred pounds, in days when that sum meant thrice as much as it does now. Like all the companies, that of the goldsmiths possessed some valuable pictures, chiefly portraits of distinguished members or protectors. Hawthorne mentions the hall of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company, in Monkwell Street, which boasted of a picture by Holbein, representing the company of barber-surgeons kneeling before Henry VIII., receiving their charter from his hands, and for which the company very rightly refused $30,000, and even $6,000 for a single head of a person of the name of Pen, which the late Sir Robert Peel wished to cut out from the canvas and replace by a copy which should rival the original in fidelity and minuteness. The heads in this picture were all portraits, and represent grave-looking personages in dark, sober costumes. The king is in scarlet. Round the banqueting-room of this hall were other valuable pictures of the distinguished men of the company, and notably one, by Vandyke, of an elderly, bearded personage, very stately in demeanor, refined in feature, and dressed in a style of almost courtly though chastened elegance. The company also treasures its old vellum manuscript book of records, all in black letter, and in which there has been no entry made for four hundred years. The hall has a lofty, carved roof of wood, and a sombre, rich appearance from its antique furniture and numerous old portraits. There is a sky-light in the roof, which may have served to cast light on bodies dissected on the great table below. In old times the barbers and surgeons formed but one company; but we believe that the latter alone now claim the possession of this hall (one of the oldest now standing in London, and the work of Inigo Jones), although, in official nomenclature, they still retain the double title of barber-surgeons. Close by Monkwell Street is shown a dilapidated Elizabethan row of almshouses, erected by a pious and charitable alderman for six poor men. Their successors and representatives still enjoy the founder’s bounty, but the almshouses are now choked up by a network of unwholesome streets, and the funds of the institution, which have enormously increased in relative value, remain in the hands of the trustees. The number of those who, under different names, belong to the fraternity of goldsmiths, is, at a rough calculation, nearly eight hundred, exclusive of watchmakers who are also jewellers. Indeed, in the country these two trades are always joined, and even many shops of this mixed kind are found in London.

The Fishmongers were the fourth of the incorporated companies, ranking just before the goldsmiths. At one time they were the wealthiest and most powerful; but although they existed and flourished as a civic association long before they obtained a regular charter, they referred the latter privilege to no earlier date than 1433. The inherent spirit of division and local jealousy which seems to animate all bodies corporate, whether political, commercial, or artistic, caused the fishmongers punctiliously to keep asunder and form two separate companies――that of the salt-fishmongers (which had the earliest charter), and that of the stock-fishmongers, whose letters-patent were not granted till 1509. In Catholic times, of course, the consumption of fish was great among all classes, and its sale a very important business. The salt-fishmongers naturally had the largest trade, and at one period so great was the influence of their company that it gave to the city six lord-mayors in the space of twenty-four years. The last and most famous of these was Sir William Walworth, who in 1381, under Richard II., slew the rebel Wat Tyler with his own hand, in the market-place at Smithfield, when that leader was at the head of thirty thousand rebels. The king knighted him for this act of prowess――a far different cause for the honor from that which is so indulgently thought sufficient now, _i.e._, the accident of a royal visit during a mayor’s term of office, irrespective of any merit in the holder of the office.

The glory and power of the fishmongers stirred up the envy and ill-will of their fellow-citizens, and Walworth’s successor, John of Northampton, a draper of an imperious and turbulent character, well known in his day by the popular titles of Troubletown and Cumbertown, was able to array the interest of several rival companies against the too prosperous fishmongers, and to procure from the crown leave for foreigners (meaning strangers or persons not freemen) to sell fish in London, in violation of the company’s right of monopoly. Maitland even records that he made the company acknowledge that its occupation was “no craft, and was therefore unworthy of being reckoned among the other mysteries.” It was also enacted that for the future no lord-mayor should be chosen from among the fishmongers. But the credit of the fishmongers revived as soon as John of Northampton’s term of office ended, and the company was soon restored by Parliament to all its old rights and privileges, except the right of holding courts for the trial of complaints. This was transferred to the supreme city court, that of the lord-mayor himself. In 1536 the two companies of salt and stock fishmongers were incorporated into one by Henry VIII. under the title of “The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Fishmongers.”

After the Reformation the sale of fish diminished so as to endanger the trade of the company, and a curious act of Parliament was passed in 1563, under Elizabeth, enjoining the exclusive use of fish on Wednesdays and Saturdays, “as well for the maintenance of shipping, the increase of fishermen and mariners, and the repairing of port-towns, as for the sparing and increase of the flesh victual of the realm.” The cases excepted, of course, were those of sickness, and of ability and willingness to pay for a license to eat flesh-meat on those days. The fine for disobeying the law was £3 for each offence, and the licenses of exemption cost for a peer £1 6s. and 8d., for a knight and a gentleman 13s. and 4d., for the commonalty 6s. and 8d. Even the license, however, only authorized the eating of mutton and fowl, not beef; but that there might be no mistake as to the motive of this odd, restrictive law――so like the sumptuary laws, and almost as unavailing――this clause was added:

“But because no person shall misjudge the intent of this
statute, be it enacted that whoever shall, by preaching,
teaching, writing, or open speech, notify that any eating of
fish, or forbearing of flesh, mentioned in this statute, is
of any necessity for the soul of man, or that it is the
service of God, otherwise than as other politic laws are and
be, then such persons shall be punished as spreaders of
false news ought to be.”

It is probable that this regulation failed of its effect, for a subsequent statute again renewed the prohibition, though limiting it to Saturdays only; still, the concession was but partial, for the _sale_ of flesh was forbidden on Fridays and Saturdays and during all Lent.

There were three streets in the city named after the Fishmongers’ Company――Old Fish Street, New Fish Street, and Fishmonger Row, now called Thames Street. In each of these the two original companies had each one hall, making no less than six halls for the whole guild; but on their fusion they chose one in Thames Street for their common hall, since which time there have been three successive buildings on or about the same spot. The first, a very old one, originally the gift of Sir John Cornwall, Lord Franhope, was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and soon after Sir Christopher Wren built them another, famed for a magnificent double flight of stone stairs on the wharf. According to old historians, those were the times when the Strand was an open road, bordered sparsely with pleasant houses, having large gardens down to the river’s edge. This hall was taken down about 1830 to make room for the approaches of the new London Bridge, and the present hall was built just a little to the west of the site of its predecessor. This is another of those heavy, would-be-palatial buildings which attest the bad architectural taste of the first half of the present century.

It has long been customary to enroll as honorary members of the civic companies many royal and noble personages; and when, in 1750, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was admitted as a freeman, the clerk of the Fishmongers’ Company, Mr. Tomkyns, proudly reminded him that “this company, sir, is famous for having had near threescore lord-mayors of the city of London, besides many of the most considerable merchants and eminent citizens, free of it.”

King James I. incorporated himself with the guild of cloth-workers in 1607, and Stow’s _Chronicle_, continued by Howes, gives the following description of the occurrence:

“Being in the open hall, he [the king] asked who was master
of the company, and the lord-mayor answered, ‘Sir William
Stowe,’ unto whom the king said: ‘Wilt thou make me free of
the cloth-workers?’ ‘Yea,’ quoth the master, ‘and think
myself a happy man that I live to see this day.’ Then the
king said: ‘Stowe, give me thy hand; and now I am a
cloth-worker.’”

Sir Samuel Pepys was master of the company seventy years later, and presented them with a rich loving-cup, which is still used on solemn occasions. The Winthrops, ancestors of the famous governor of the Massachusetts Company, were hereditarily connected with this cloth-workers’ guild, several of them becoming members by regular apprenticeship to the trade; and Adam Wyntrope, the governor’s grandfather, is mentioned as master of the company in 1551, having previously held all the minor offices leading to that dignity.

Intimately connected with the system of the companies was the status of the London apprentices. Both have been materially modified, and their representatives have ceased to exercise the tangible power they once possessed. But when the system was in full operation, every trade having its separate guild; and when, in order that any one might exercise a trade, it was necessary he should have the freedom of the guild, this freedom could only be obtained by serving an apprenticeship to a member of the company. In old times the apprentices were a superior class of men, and it was not permitted to every one to exercise the chief trades. Under Henry IV. an act was passed containing a clause to the effect that no one should put his son or daughter apprentice to a handicraft trade, “except he have land or rent to the value of 20s. by the year,” which in those days would be a fair competency. The regulations of the city of London forbade any to be admitted to be bound apprentice except such as were “gentlemen born,” by which was understood freeborn, and not in a state of villeinage――the son of a free-holder or a yeoman. In the days of the Tudors and Stuarts even the younger sons of gentlemen often served in the commercial establishments of rich citizens. The chronicler Stow attributes to this cause their “costly apparel, their wearing weapons, and frequenting schools of dancing, fencing, and music.”

But this very pretension to “gentility” it was which Ben Jonson rebuked in his _Eastward Hoe_, a comedy, the counterpart of Hogarth’s subsequent caricatures in pencil. The old goldsmith boasts that he made his wealth by “hiring me a little shop; bought low; took small gain; kept no debt-book; garnished my shop, for want of plate, with good, wholesome, thrifty sentences, as, ‘Touchstone, keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee’; ‘Light gains make heavy purses,’ etc.”

The apprentices were very clannish, and ready to defend each other to the death, and this spirit often led to riots and serious disturbances, but a curious poem published in 1647, called _The Honor of London Apprentices_, mentions that this bravery had led them to distinguish themselves in a nobler field than a city brawl――namely, in the Crusades and on the field of Crécy.

Their duties, it seems to us, corresponded in their way to the service required from youths of good birth as pages and esquires in the house of a knight, before they themselves could aspire to the honor of knighthood. These waited at table, served the ladies, and performed many offices now termed menial; and, as a tract published in London in 1625 avers, so too did the apprentices:

“He goes bare-headed, stands bare-headed, waits bare-headed,
before his master and mistress; and while as yet he is the
youngest apprentice, he doth perhaps, for discipline’s sake,
make old leather over-night shine with blacking for the
morning; brusheth a garment, runs of errands, keeps silence
till he have leave to speak, follows his master or ushereth
his mistress, and sometimes my young mistresses their
daughters (among whom some one or other of them doth not
rarely prove the apprentice’s wife), walks not far out but
with permission, and now and then, as offences happen, he
may chance to be terribly chidden or menaced, or [for?] what
sometime must be worthily corrected.”

Stow, in his _Survey of London_, says that “when apprentices and journeymen attended upon their masters and mistresses at night, they went before them carrying a lantern and a candle in their hands, and a great long club on their necks; and many well-grown, sturdy apprentices used to wear long daggers in the daytime on their backs or sides.” All this the master in his young days had done for _his_ master, and all this the present apprentice had the prospective right of claiming for himself in the future; so in this inequality for the nonce there was no element of caste and no room for foolish murmuring. The turbulence of these young fellows was turned now against the city authorities, now against foreign or unlicensed traders and artificers, now against their masters. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century――times when all classes were turbulent enough――these occasional riots went on and were punished; but what chiefly led to their cessation was the gradual falling to pieces of the old system, and the more effectual police force which patrolled the city after 1688. But the peculiarity of the apprentices’ privileges and of the influence of the companies in England was that, no matter how low a man began, his industry and good behavior could raise him to high public honor. This was not the case in most other European countries. Wealth and domestic happiness, of course, attended virtue and application to business, but such advancement as the English Constitution offered existed nowhere, unless, perhaps, in the Low Countries. This has been significantly commented upon by Lichtenberg, an admirer and critic of Hogarth, and professor of natural history at the University of Göttingen. “In Hogarth’s country,” says he, “it is not unfrequent that the son of a weaver or a brewer may distinguish himself in the House of Commons, and his grandson or great-grandson in the House of Lords. Oh! what a land, in which no cobbler is certain that the favors of his great-grandson may not one day be solicited by kings and emperors. And yet they grumble!”

Although there are no restrictive laws as to trade in the London of our day, and though much of the state of the companies has dwindled into formalities, and is more interesting from a historical than a political point of view, still the foundations on which the system was built are unalterable. In these days, as in centuries gone by, the pride in one’s work, the personal industry, and the _esprit de corps_ of tradesmen are the real steps by which they mount to civic and political success. They were once embodied in the close system of alliance and defence encouraged by the guilds; times and customs have changed, and each man stands more or less on his own merits alone, but the underlying principle is the same. It is not every tradesman or merchant who, because he is honest and thrifty, becomes lord-mayor of London, is knighted, or elected M.P.; but these prizes are within the reach of all. The city records for the latter half of the eighteenth century, for instance, witness to the perseverance of many men born in the lowest and most hopeless circumstances, and that, too, when the ancient prestige of the companies had somewhat faded. Sir James Sanderson, sheriff and lord-mayor of London, was the son of a poor grocer of York, who died young, leaving his widow to manage the business till his son should be old enough to carry it on. The son left the shop to his mother for her support, and went to London, entered the service of a hop-merchant, and throve so well through his industry that he attained great wealth and position. He was afterwards made a baronet. Alderman Boydell came to London on foot, from Shropshire, and worked as an engraver. After great trials, he too succeeded and became lord-mayor, besides being a great patron of the arts. Skinner was apprenticed to a box-maker and undertaker, and, through obscure local influence, began a small business of auctioneering; he ended by becoming lord-mayor, and the first auctioneer of the kingdom. Sir William Plomer began life in an oil-shop in Aldgate, a dingy old part of the city. Brooke Watson, M.P. for the city of London,[4] was the son of a journeyman tailor, and served his apprenticeship to that trade. Sir John Anderson, lord-mayor and member for the city, was the son of a day laborer. Macauley was the son of a captain of a coasting vessel, who died leaving nine children unprovided for. Sir William Staines and Alderman Hamerton were both working paviors and stone-masons. Aldermen Wright and Gill were servants in a warehouse of which they afterwards became masters; they lived for sixty years in partnership as stationers, and never disagreed, although the latter married the former’s sister. Wright made £400,000. The two old friends died the same year, beloved and regretted by many who had experienced their kindness and generosity.

To point out contrary instances would not be so easy――they are legion; but the typical idle apprentice of Hogarth is a fair specimen of those who wreck their lives through weakness of resolve and inordinate love of so-called enjoyment. These we have under our eyes every day, in every country.

[3] Sleight or skill.

[4] The members for the city have the right to wear scarlet
gowns on the first or opening day of every Parliament, and
sit all together on the right hand of the chair, next the
speaker. No other members, except the speaker and the
clerks, have the right of wearing robes.

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE OF PARIS AND THE CROWN OF THORNS.

In the very heart of Paris, to the northwest of _Notre Dame_, and as if a flower detached from her garland, or a graceful sapling from the majestic parent tree, sprang up, more than six centuries ago, the _Sainte Chapelle_.

It almost seems as if Heaven had extended a special protection to the sanctuary raised to enshrine the precious relics of the Passion of our Lord; for although injured and despoiled by evil hands in the time of the First Revolution, it was subsequently restored to all the splendor of its pristine beauty; and again, when the conflagrations kindled by the _Commune_ were raging around it, the _Sainte Chapelle_, with its fearless _flêche_, its protecting angel, and its golden crown, stood unharmed in the very midst of the flames, and so remained when they had died out, amid the heaps of ashes and the crumbling ruins left around its unscathed walls.

Since the time of St. Louis France has possessed the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is great interest in tracing the vicissitudes through which this priceless treasure has passed, and in learning the circumstances under which the saintly monarch obtained it. In the year 1204 the French and the Venetians, having captured Constantinople, established there as emperor Baldwin, Count of Flanders. On the division of the booty this prince requested for his share the sacred crown of our Saviour, which was found among the treasure of the emperors of the East, offering, if it were adjudged to him, to give to the Doge of Venice a large portion of the true cross in exchange.

His successor, Baldwin II., finding his empire, in the year 1238, threatened by the Greeks on the one side, and on the other by the Bulgarians, came into the West to seek aid and protection against his enemies. Whilst at the court of France, whither he had gone to entreat the assistance of St. Louis, tidings reached him that the nobles whom he had left at Constantinople, finding their resources completely exhausted, were on the point of pledging the holy crown to the Venetians for a sum of money. The young emperor, strongly disapproving of this measure, offered as a free gift to St. Louis the precious relic which the lords of Byzantium were wishing to sell. “For,” said he, “I greatly desire to bestow it upon you, my cousin, who are my lord and benefactor, as well as upon the realm of France, my country.”

St. Louis eagerly accepted such a gift as this, and immediately, at the same time that Baldwin despatched one of his officers with letters-patent commanding that the holy crown should be sent to him, the French monarch sent two of the Friars Preachers, named James and Andrew, to receive it in his name. Journeys in those days, however, were by no means expeditious, and on the arrival of the messengers at Constantinople they found the sacred relic gone from the treasury, and pledged to the Venetians for 13,075 hyperperia, or about £157,000 sterling. It had been deposited by their chamberlain, Pancratius Caverson, in the church of Panta Craton, that of his nation at Byzantium. On receiving the emperor’s orders the Latin lords rearranged the matter with the Venetians, and it was agreed that, if within a reasonably short time the latter did not receive the reimbursement of the sum they had paid, the sacred crown should become their undoubted property. Meanwhile, it was to be carried to Venice, accompanied by the envoys of the King of France, one of whom, Father Andrew, had formerly been guardian of the convent of his order at Constantinople, and, having on several occasions seen the crown, knew its appearance perfectly well. It was this circumstance which had determined St. Louis to send him as one of his messengers.

Every possible precaution was taken to secure the identification of the holy crown, which was enclosed in three chests, the first of gold, the second of silver, on which the Venetian lords affixed their seals, the third of wood, which was sealed by the French nobles.

The season, being Christmas, was unfavorable for the voyage by sea, but the envoys had no hesitation in embarking, secure in the conviction that the crown of Jesus would be their protection in the tempest and the perils of the wintry seas. Nor was their trust disappointed. They escaped unharmed from other dangers also; for the galleys of Vataces, the Greek pretender to the imperial throne, having started in pursuit of their vessel, were unable to overtake or even to discover them, and they reached Venice in safety.

The holy crown was at once borne to St. Mark’s, and there placed among the treasures in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, where reposed the body of the Evangelist, between the two columns of alabaster which are said to have been brought from the Temple of Solomon. At the same time one of the Dominican Fathers set out for France to acquaint St. Louis with the terms agreed upon.

These were approved of by the king, who directed the French merchants to repay the Venetians the sum they had advanced. The sacred relic was then delivered into the hands of the French envoys, who, after assuring themselves that the seals were intact, started homewards with their treasure on the road to France. No sooner had the king heard of the arrival of the holy crown at Troyes, in Champagne, than he immediately set out, with the queen-mother, Blanche of Castile, the princes his brothers, and several of the chief prelates and nobles, to receive and accompany it to the capital. The meeting took place at Villeneuve l’Archevêque, five leagues from Sens, on the 10th of August, 1239. The seals were then broken, and in the midst of an indescribable emotion the sacred relic was displayed.

The king and his brother, the Comte d’Artois, both barefooted and wearing a simple tunic of wool, taking it upon their shoulders, bore it in great pomp to the metropolitan church of Sens, where it remained exposed for the veneration of the faithful until the following day, when the march towards Paris was resumed, and they reached the capital in eight days’ time. A platform had been raised at St. Antoine des Champs, where the crown was placed; and when everyone had contemplated it with an inexpressible joy, the king and his brother, taking it, as before, upon their shoulders, carried it in procession to the palace chapel, at that time dedicated to St. Nicholas, where it was deposited.

Besides all the precautions taken to render any substitution impossible, we may add that Baldwin, on being required to examine and identify the relic, declared its authenticity in a document written on parchment, which was in existence until the Revolution of 1793, signed with his own hand in Greek characters, traced in cinnabar, and having his own seal, of lead covered with gold, affixed. On one side of this seal the emperor was represented enthroned, with the inscription: “_Balduinus Imperator Romaniæ semper Augustus_.” On the other he was on horseback, with the inscription in Greek letters: “_Baudoin, Empereur, Comte de Flandre_.” It must also be borne in mind that the Venetians, before lending so considerable a sum for such a pledge, would be certain to satisfy themselves beyond all doubt as to its authenticity, and that, even had he been so minded, Baldwin could not in this matter have imposed upon the credulity of St. Louis, as some modern writers have asserted, but that he did really receive that which the whole Christian world regarded as the crown of thorns of our Lord Jesus Christ. Still, some additional proof may be required, and for this we must go back to an earlier period. We must also consider the nature of this crown; for many churches affirm, and with good reasons, that they possess thorns or fragments of the same, and yet these portions frequently do not resemble that which is at Paris.

In the first place, it is certain that a century and a half before the reign of St. Louis, at the time of the First Crusade, all the world admitted that a very large portion of the crown was preserved at Constantinople, in the chapel of the Greek emperors. When Alexis Comnenus wished to induce the Christian princes to go to his assistance, he spoke to them of the very precious relics which they would help to save, amongst which he especially designated the crown of thorns.

Also, in the time of Charlemagne, all the West had the certainty that Constantinople possessed this treasure, of which a considerable part was equally known to be at Jerusalem. Towards the year 800, according to Aimoin, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had detached some of the thorns, which he sent to Charlemagne, who deposited them at Aix-la-Chapelle with one of the nails of the true cross, and it was these relics which were afterwards given by Charles le Chauve to the Abbey of St. Denis.

The existence of the crown is a fact constantly alluded to in the sixth century, by St. Gregory of Tours amongst others; and about the year 409 St. Paulinus of Nola knew of its preservation. He writes: “The thorns with which the Saviour was crowned, and the other relics of his Passion, recall to us the living remembrance of his presence.”

No written testimonies of an earlier date remain, but these appear to be fully sufficient, as they are the expression of an oral tradition well known to every one. As for the idea that such a relic as this could have been _invented_ in those ages of conscience and of faith, it is wholly inadmissible.

The crown was not found with the cross and nails on Mount Calvary, nor is it probable that it was there buried with them, but that, when Joseph of Arimathea took down the body of Jesus from the cross, he would have preserved it apart. That no mention of this remains to us is easily accounted for by the silence and the exceeding precautions necessary so long as the persecutions by Jews and pagans continued. During this time the relics of the Passion which had been in the custody of the Blessed Virgin, or by her entrusted to others, could not, for reasons of safety, have been distributed to the various churches, but were honorably preserved in private dwellings, to be brought forth and publicly acknowledged when peace was granted to the church by the conversion of Constantine. Then it was that St. Helena sought with pious eagerness for every memorial that could be found of the Crucifixion, and distributed them chiefly among the churches of Jerusalem, Constantinople, and Rome.[5]

An apparent difficulty still remains, which obliges us to inquire into the nature and form of the sacred crown, with respect to which ancient authors differ from one another, some asserting that it was formed of reed (_juncus palustris_), about which, however, there are no points of any great sharpness; while others maintain it to have been made from the branches of a shrub belonging to the genus _Rhamnus_, several species of which, especially the _Zizyphus Spina Christi_, or the thorn of Christ, are furnished with exceedingly long, hard, and sharply-pointed thorns, exactly similar to those venerated in several churches, but bearing no resemblance whatever to the holy crown at Paris, which is, in fact, of reed.

How is this diversity to be accounted for? Thanks to the learned researches of M. Rohault de Fleury,[6] it is fully explained. The crown at Paris is a circle formed of small reeds bound together, and from which only a small number of particles have been taken. The opening is large enough to encircle the head and to fall rather low over the brow. But this circle is only the support or foundation, so to speak, of the painful crown of our Lord. The branches of those thorns of which we have been speaking were twined alternately within and without, and twisted across in such a manner as to form of these sharp spines not only a _circlet_ but a _cap_, as it were, of torture, which covered the Redeemer’s head.

The year 1241 added new treasures to those already acquired by St. Louis. These were also from Constantinople, and sent as expressions of the homage paid by the Emperor Baldwin to the “Most Christian King.” These relics were accompanied by a parchment document to establish their authenticity, and which especially designated three remarkable portions of the true cross: the first and largest, _Crucem Sanctam_; the second, _Magnam partem Crucis_; and the third, which was smaller, and known as the Cross of Victory, because it had been borne before the armies of Constantine and his successors, _Aliam crucem mediocrem quam Crucem Triumphalem veteres appellabant_. With these was sent also the point of the lance which had pierced our Saviour’s side, and which, from the beginning of the seventh century, had been kept in the chapel of the _Martyrion_, raised by Constantine on Mount Calvary over the very place of the Crucifixion. Heraclius, fearing lest the lance should fall into the hands of the Persians, sent it to Constantinople, from which the greater part of it was later taken to Antioch, where the Crusaders found it in 1097, but the point had been retained in the former city, and was sent from thence to Paris.

It was also in the palace of the _Bucoleon_ at Byzantium that were for a long period preserved a portion of the purple robe, the reed, and the sponge of the Passion. Baldwin I., by means of certain concessions made to the other crusading princes, obtained that the chapel in this palace should remain undisturbed, and thus secured for himself the greater part of its treasures, which were so largely drawn upon by his successor for the benefit of St. Louis and of France.

On their arrival the king immediately prepared to erect an edifice that should be as worthy as possible to receive relics so precious; nor were there wanting at that time great artists well able to furnish the design. The middle of the thirteenth century was perhaps the best and purest period of religious architecture. Churches and cathedrals then arose the majesty of whose beauty has never been surpassed or even equalled. For the execution of his work Louis chose his own architect, Pierre de Montereau, the most renowned master-worker in stone of the great school of Philippe Auguste, whom he charged to construct, in place of the chapel of St. Nicholas, which was old and ruinous, another which should be not so much a church as a delicate reliquary in stone, with open-worked carving like a filigree of gold, paved with enamel, and lighted by windows filled with richly-colored glass.

The artist was no less ready to enter into the ideas of the king than he was competent to realize them. A plan, wonderful in the beauty of its proportions and the gracefulness of its design, was soon ready and submitted to the monarch’s approval, who found it so excellent that his one desire was to see it carried out as expeditiously as possible.

The legendary spirit of the middle ages, which did not easily allow that a too perfect work could be the result of a man’s own thought and labor, has, as usual, embroidered facts with fancies, and attributed the conception of so exquisite a design to supernatural and magical means. It is not difficult to understand that the simple imagination of the people may have had some scope in the colossal construction of the ancient cathedrals, which required centuries for their completion, and which often left no name of the master who conceived the design or of those who executed it; but the _Sainte Chapelle_ was not to have such dimensions as to require time and labor either very great or prolonged, and, moreover, he who cut this jewel would engrave on it his name.[7]

It is evident that the chief intention of the architect was to give to his work as spiritual a character as it is possible to impress upon matter, and to translate into stone the _sursum corda_ of religious aspiration.

The first stone was laid by the king in the year 1245. The proportions of the plan are considered perfect by competent judges. It forms a lengthened parallelogram, terminated at the east end by an apse, and formed of two chapels, one above the other, without aisles or transepts. The edifice measures outside 36 metres 33 centimetres in length, by 17 in width; the exterior elevation from the ground of the lower chapel to the front gable is 42m. 50cm.; the spire[8] rises 33m. 25cm. above the roof. The interior elevation measures 6m. 60cm. in the lower chapel, and from 20m. to 50m. in the upper. The king’s desire for the speedy completion of the building was so great that, notwithstanding the conscientious care bestowed upon every detail, the work went on with such rapidity that in three years the whole was finished, and the fairy-like beauty of the edifice excited the most enthusiastic admiration, tempered, however, by serious apprehensions as to the stability of the fabric――apprehensions which raised a tempest of reproaches against the daring architect. Pierre de Montereau was himself for a time dismayed at the possible consequences of his boldness. How could he be certain that a church so slight, so delicate, and, in comparison with its area, so lofty, would stand securely, almost in defiance of possibilities?

Sebastien Rouillard declares that scarcely was the _Sainte Chapelle_ erected when it was seen to oscillate in the wind, and the spire to sway to and fro in the air when its bells were rung. Thus, _Quasimodo_ or “Low” Sunday of the year of grace 1248, on which the church was consecrated, far from being a festival or triumph for the hapless architect, was to him a day of anguish. So effectually had he hidden himself that, though everywhere sought for, he could nowhere be found; and, to quote the words of Paul de St. Victor, “The very workmen had all fled, fearing that they might be taught the laws of equilibrium from the top of a gibbet. But time has proved that the seeming rashness of the mediæval master was well reasoned, and that this fair flower of his planting has the roots of an oak.”

The proportions had been so carefully drawn, and the laws of mathematics so exactly observed, the materials so well chosen and shaped with such precision, that the aerial structure could not fail to consolidate itself in settling firmly upon its foundation. “One cannot conceive,” writes M. Viollet-le-Duc, “how a work so wonderful in the multiplicity and variety of its details, its purity of execution, its richness of ornamentation, could have been executed in so short a time. From the base to the roof-ridge it is built entirely of hard freestone, every layer of which, cramped together by iron hooks run into the lead, is cut and placed with perfect exactness; the composition and carving of the sculpture likewise give evidence of the utmost care. Nowhere can one find the least indication of negligence or hurry!”[9]

Nor was it the _Sainte Chapelle_ alone that was completed by the end of these three years, but also the beautiful sacristy adjoining, which was in itself a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, with a touch of peculiar refinement about it suggestive of some influence from the East.

The upper and lower chapels corresponded with the two divisions of the palace. The lower one, which is less a crypt than a splendid church, with its sparkling windows, its paintings, its slender pillars with sculptured capitals, was destined for the officers and domestics of the royal household. Over the principal door was placed the image of the Blessed Virgin, which, according to a graceful legend, bent its head to Duns Scotus, in sign of thanks to that learned theologian, who had defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and which ever afterwards retained this attitude. The upper chapel was reserved for the king and court, and the cell which was the oratory of St. Louis, may still be seen adjacent to the southern wall.

This church was his especial delight. He had it solemnly consecrated by two illustrious prelates on the same day; the lower chapel to the Blessed Virgin, by Philippe de Berruyer, Archbishop of Bourges, and the upper dedicated to our Lord’s Crown of Thorns, by Eudes de Châteauroux, Bishop of Tusculum and legate of the Holy See. The sacred treasures which the king had received from Constantinople were placed in reliquaries of marvellous richness, wrought in gold and enamel, adorned with carbuncles and pearls. These again were enclosed in what was called _La Grande Châsse_, or “The Great Shrine,” which was in the form of an arch of bronze, gilt, and adorned with figures in the front. It was raised on a kind of Gothic pedestal behind the high altar, and closed with ten keys, each fitting a different lock, six of which secured the two exterior doors, and the four others an inner trellis-work or grating. The relics themselves were in frames or vases of gold and crystal. There the holy crown was placed, in the centre, between the largest portion of the true cross on the one side and the lance on the other. Thanks to the luxury of locks and to the six archers who every night kept guard within the _Sainte Chapelle_, its riches were safe from all possibility of robbery or fraud.

All these things could not be accomplished without enormous outlay. The cost of the _Sainte Chapelle_ amounted to more than £800,000. The sums sent to the Emperor of Constantinople, and those spent upon the reliquaries, amounted to two millions; and when it was suggested to the king that this lavish expenditure, even upon holy things, was somewhat excessive, he replied: “Diex m’a donné tout ce que possède; ce que dépenserai pour lui et pour les nécessiteux sera tousiours le mieux placé.”[10]

He did not wait until the completion of the church before establishing there a college of seventeen ecclesiastics, amply endowed. The clergy of the _Sainte Chapelle_, in virtue of certain privileges and exemptions granted by Pope Innocent IV., were under the immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. The same pope, at the prayer of the king, enriched the relics with numerous indulgences, and at the same time granted to St. Louis and his successors the privilege of making the exposition of them every Shrove Tuesday. On this day, therefore, the court of the palace was filled, from the hour of seven in the morning, by the inhabitants of the twelve parishes of Paris, who there waited, as it was impossible for the chapel to contain the multitude. Then the king, taking the cross, elevated it, whilst the people sang _Ecce Crux Domini_; after which he exposed it before the central window of the apse in such a manner that through the open portal of the church the crowds could behold and venerate it from the court outside.

Those days were occasions of exceeding happiness to the saintly monarch, who, besides, took delight in everything connected with the sanctuary he had raised, whether in the pomp of its religious solemnities or in the solitude of the holy place. There he devoutly followed the divine Office, and there he was wont to pass long hours, alone, in prayer, kneeling in his oratory, or prostrate on the pavement near the altar. He had there created for himself something of that East towards which the thoughts and desires of his heart were ever turning, and around this glorified Calvary which he had raised to the honor of God he seemed to behold an ideal representation of the Holy Land. All the neighboring streets had taken the names of towns or villages of Palestine: Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, etc. But the pious illusion did not satisfy a soul so in love with the cross as that of St. Louis; his knightly heart bounded at the story of the misfortunes in the East, and on the 25th of May, 1270, he again enrolled himself among the Crusaders; his sons and barons did the same. He first directed his operations against Tunis in Africa, but before he reached that place he died near it, in August, 1270.

Great was the mourning in France when tidings came of the death of the king. The _Sainte Chapelle_ seemed plunged, as it were, into widowhood, and the poet Rutebeuf, in his _Regrets au Roy Loeys_, has not forgotten the desolation which seemed to be shed over it:

“Chapèle de Paris, bien êres maintenue,
La mort, ce m’est advis, t’a fest desconvenue,
Du miex de tes amys, t’a laissé toute nue.
De la mort sont plaintifs et grant gent et menue.”[11]