Chapter MCCCXX: Le DIX Septiesme Jour De Jun (3)

"L'an mil six cent trente sept, le vingt-sixième jour d'avril, deuxième dimanche d'après Pasques, cette église, ayant été rebastie de fonds en comble, a été de nouveau desdiée et consacrée avec le maistre autel d'icelle, à l'honneur de Dieu, soubs l'invocation de la bienheureuse Vierge Marie et des bienheureux martyrs sainct Eustache et saincte Agnès et de sainct Louis, confesseur, jadis roy de France, par révérendissime père en Dieu, messire Jean-François de Gondi, premier archevêque de Paris, conseiller du Roi en ses conseils, commandeur de ses ordres et grand maistre de chapelle de sa Majesté. Ce requérant, vénérable et discrète personne maistre Estienne Tonnelier, presbstre, docteur en théologie et curé de la dicte église, avec haut et puissant seigneur Mons. P. Séguier, chevalier, chancelier de France, M. Maistre Gratien Menardeau, conseiller du roi en la cour du Parlement, honorable Jean Bachelier et Charles Gourlin, marchands bourgeois de Paris, au nom et comme Marguilliers de l'oeuvre et fabrique d'icelle église. Et a ledit sieur Archevêque donné indulgence en la forme ordinaire de l'église à tous ceulx et celles qui visiteront annuellement la dicte église, le deuxième dimanche d'après Pasques, jour et feste de la dédicace d'icelle."

This chapel is decorated with the arms of the city of Paris, the ship[68]; and upon each of the others will be found the arms of the founders.

The chapel of Calvary was founded by the Counts of Castille, and was originally dedicated to S. Peter. It contains a crucifix, _souvenir_ of a mission preached in 1825, and was the burial-place of François and Nicolas de Castille, _conseillers du roi_, who died in 1630 and 1634 respectively. In the chapel of S. Cecilia may be seen a little fresco in a very good state of preservation, representing the titular Saint holding the sword of her martyrdom, and S. Leonard. Sold in 1604 to Claude de Montescot, treasurer _des parties casuelles_, it was originally known by the name of S. Claude. Buying a chapel seems to have been the custom; and we find that of the Holy Innocents costing 1,100 _livres_ to the Chantereau-Lestang family. The fresco was painted in 1850 by M. Barre, and relates to S. Joseph, to whom the chapel was dedicated some twenty years ago. The sculptures are of the time of Louis XIII.

In the chapel Des Ames du Purgatoire, founded by the Gentian family in honour of the Holy Sepulchre, reliquaries may be seen containing a portion of the Sepulchre, and of the column upon which Our Lord was bound during the flagellation--so said Cardinal Patrizzi, who has authenticated the relics. More beautiful, and at least as authentic, are the frescoes by M. Margimel, representing the _Descent into Hades_. Moses and David are seen with other Old Testament worthies, the group of Adam and Eve with their children being particularly happy in its treatment. Below, of course, are purgatorial flames and a bruised serpent, with the inscription _Ecce agnus Dei, qui tollit peccatum mundi_. The opposite picture is less satisfactory, it is a conventional reading of the Eternal Father pitying the sufferings of the Son, who is attached to the pillar between weeping Angels. The elegant Renaissance re-table, and a statue by Chartrousse of a mother clasping a cross, with the text: _Bienheureux ceux qui pleurent, parce qu'ils seront consolés_, complete the contents of this chapel. The vaulting is very graceful, and is supported by corbels. The altar is a carved wood representation of _Christ upon the Mount of Olives_. The founder of this chapel or chantry was a descendant of Jean-Jacques Gentian, who saved the life of Philippe le Bel at the battle of Mons in 1304, for which act Gentian was allowed to incorporate the lilies into his arms. He died in 1305, and was buried on this spot in the old church; his descendant, a master merchant, was buried in the chapel in 1578.

It is curious to see how these chapels have changed names, and the why and wherefore. For instance, the first one in the _chevet_ was consecrated in 1608 to the Three Kings, the original founder being Guillaume Morot, one of the king's councillors and _contrôleur des finances_. Then it passed into the hands of the Puysieux family. In 1780 it was called the chapel of S. John the Baptist, in memory of Jean-Baptiste Fleuriau, chevalier d'Armenonville, keeper of the seals, who died at Madrid, and was transported to S. Eustache for burial. Charles Fleuriau, count de Morville, a minister, was buried here in 1732. These d'Armenonvilles inhabited an hotel in the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which has been swallowed up by the post office. The hide merchants held the meetings of their guild in this chapel. In 1843 it was dedicated to the Sacred Heart, and is decorated by M. de Larivière to celebrate that article of faith, the four personages who accompany Our Lord being Pope Clement XIII., the zealous devotee of the _Sacré Coeur_; the blessed Marie-Marguerite Alacoque, of the order of the Visitation, and the discoverer of the miracle at Paray-le-Monial; the reverend father La Colombière, who defended the apparition against the unbelievers; and Monseigneur de Belzunce, bishop of Marseilles, who, in putting the city under the protection of the new dogma, saved it from the effects of a grievous pestilence, by causing the immediate retreat thereof to less favoured purlieus. In the next chapel we come upon more relics. The Rouillé family, and the Lecouteulx de Canteleu, founded it, and dedicated it to S. Margaret; but after the Revolution, S. Joseph was called in as patron, and as S. Agnes required a special altar, this was once more changed in name, and made over to her good protection in 1850. Or possibly the acquisition of her relics required a resting-place fitted specially for them. They consist of three fingers of the Saint from the abbey of S. Corentin, near Septeuil, and a pretty large portion of one of her ribs from the cemetery of S. Priscilla at Rome, given by Marie-Félix des Ursins, Duchesse de Montmorency, Supérieure de la Visitation de Moulins. The picture over the altar is attributed to Titian or Giordano; the modern frescoes are by M. Vauchelet: the _Martyrdom of S. Agnes_, in which one executioner is thrown down by the rush of flames, while the other, avenging himself upon the innocent victim, cleaves her head asunder with a sword.

When Archbishop Sibour verified the relics of S. Anne, in 1853, a chapel was dedicated to her, displacing Notre-Dame de Pitié, S. Adrien, S. Hubert, and S. Jacques. One would imagine, that is, the blasphemer might imagine, that saints would not take it well when they are deposed and supplanted, but possibly, being in higher realms than ours, they see the insignificance of such proceedings. The frescoes are by Lazerges.

It was in the west chapel, that of the Holy Angels, that the 17th century mural paintings were discovered. So completely were they enveloped in whitewash, that they escaped the vandalism of the last century. The Duval family founded the chantry. They seem to have had various posts under the government. Nicolas was a councillor in 1542; Jérôme in 1543; Jean was a receiver of taxes and the payer of members of Parliament, besides being a councillor in 1584; another Nicolas was councillor in 1585; Tristan was lord of Fontenay; François, ambassador at Rome; and Catherine's husband, Christophe Harlay, was Seigneur de Beaumont, président of the parliament, and father of the président Harlay. The fresco representing the _Triumph of S. Michael over the revolting Angels_ is by M. Cornu. Above the altar is another fresco of _Christ in Glory_, with S. Lucretia and S. Radegonde, queen of France, and afterwards a nun at Poitiers, kneeling at His feet. The Saints appear with the donors, aforesaid, clad respectively as _chevalier_, priest, and _bourgeois_. Here were buried Marguerite Duval, Jean Lesecq, and a Seigneur de Bridevalles, Nicolas Lesecq, who was the king's chafe-wax, and sealer of the chancellery, and who, worthy man, left twelve _sous_ to the organist, and three to the bellows blower. Françoise-Madeleine Lesecq, who lived in the Hôtel de Gesvres, Rue Coq-Héron, since incorporated into the Caisse d'Epargne, was also buried here.

Formerly, before Louis XIV. admitted them to the Louvre, the Guild of Painters and Sculptors held its meetings in the Rue Trainée, and its _fêtes_ and funeral masses in the chapel of S. André in S. Eustache; in consequence of which the king, to do honour to the Academy, allowed its rector, Antoine Coysevox, to add the royal lily to his arms, and to place them in this chapel, thus honouring Coysevox at the same time as his fellow sculptors and painters. The guild was founded by Lebrun, and held its meetings at the Sieur Martin de Charmois' house. This Seigneur de Lauré was secretary to Marshal Schomberg; and full of zeal for art and artists, was the author of the scheme of a guild. Signed by Lebrun, Sarazin, Perrier, Bourdon, de la Hire Corneille, Juste d'Egmont, Vanolstat, Hause, de Guernier, Errard, Van-Mol, Guillier, and Eustace Lesueur, the petition was presented to the king, and supported by chancellor Séguier and de la Veillière, it obtained the royal assent. Like our later foundation, the Academy made several moves before it was finally settled. First in Charmois' house, it migrated to the Hôtel Clisson, Rue des Deux-Boules, where it held its meetings until the squabbles of the rival artists subsided, and accommodation was found for the members at the Louvre. Most appropriately, the decoration of this chapel was given in 1850 to Isidore Pils, one of the great painters of the latter part of this century, so well known by his _Battle of the Alma_, the _Mort d'une Soeur de Charité_, and _La Prière à l'Hospice_. The subjects are from the life and death of the titular saint, Andrew; on one side, his crucifixion upon the transverse cross which bears his name; upon the other, Angels bearing him to heaven. In the latter, a more delicious little group of children, _soi-disant_ Angels, has rarely been painted, even by that master of chubby and graceful babies, Prud'hon. Pils, says M. l'abbé Koeneg[69] loved children, and he certainly painted them as none but a lover of childhood could have done. The chapel Richelieu was founded by the great cardinal, and is the burial place of the Vrillière family, whose hotel is now the Banque de France. The door close by is called the _Porte de la Miséricorde_ by reason of its paintings, which represent the _Seven Works of Mercy_. They are by M. Biennourry.

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:

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