We come at length to the part played by the cathedral during the Revolution. We need say nothing of the fate of the fabric itself, for that has already been alluded to. Its escape is little short of marvellous. The result of the sack of the treasuries of the churches of Paris is best told in Carlyle’s vivid translation of Mercier: “This, accordingly, is what the streets of Paris saw: Most of these persons were still drunk, with the brandy they had swallowed out of chalices;—eating mackerel on the patenas! Mounted on Asses, which were housed with Priests’ cloaks, they reined them with Priests’ stoles; they held clutched with the same hand communion-cup and sacred wafer. They stopped at the doors of Dramshops; held out ciboriums: and the landlord, stoup in hand, had to fill them thrice. Next came Mules high laden with crosses, chandeliers, censers, holy-water vessels, hyssops;—recalling to mind the Priests of Cybele, whose panniers, filled with the instruments of their worship, served at once as storehouse, sacristy and temple.” On November 10th, 1793, the Cult of Reason was decreed by the Convention, and Notre Dame converted into the temple of the new religion. To quote Carlyle again: “For the same day, while this brave Carmagnole-dance has hardly jigged itself out, there arrive Procureur Chaumette and Municipals and Departmentals, and with them the strangest freightage: a New Religion! Demoiselle Candeille, of the Opera; a woman fair to look upon, when well rouged; she borne on palanquin shoulder high; with red woollen nightcap; in azure mantle; garlanded with oak; holding in her hand the Pike of the Jupiter-Peuple, sails in: heralded by white young women girt in tricolor. Let the world consider it! This, O National Convention, wonder of the universe, is our New Divinity; Goddess of Reason, worthy, and alone worthy of revering. Her henceforth we adore. Nay, were it too much of an august National Representation that it also went with us to the ci-devant Cathedral called of Notre Dame, and executed a few strophes in worship of her?... And now after due pause and flourishes of oratory, the Convention, gathering its limbs, does get under way in the required procession towards Notre Dame;—Reason, again in her litter, sitting in the van of them, borne, as one judges, by men in the Roman costume; escorted by wind-music, red nightcaps, and the madness of the world. And so, straightway, Reason taking seat on the high-altar of Notre Dame, the requisite worship or quasi-worship is, say the Newspapers, executed; National Convention chanting ‘the Hymn to Liberty, words by Chénier, music by Gossec.’ It is the first of the Feasts of Reason; first communion-service of the New Religion of Chaumette.” The real heroine of this orgy was probably an opera dancer called Maillard. ‘Demoiselle Candeille’ was an actress and writer of some repute, who strenuously denied that she ever had anything to do with the Feast of Reason. An imitation “mountain” was erected in the nave for the “fête,” on which was built a Gothic temple inscribed A la Philosophie. Around were busts of famous philosophers, and below an altar surmounted with the so-called Torch of Truth. The goddess sat on the hill, hymns were sung in her honour and vows of fidelity to her were taken. In 1794 the church was used as a bonded store for the wine seized in the cellars of guillotined or outlawed Royalists. The month of May in the same year saw the “Temple of Reason” turned into that of the “Supreme Being,” for Robespierre persuaded the Convention to sign a decree recognising “the consoling principle of the Immortality of the Soul.” In 1795 Christian worship was once more restored at Notre Dame. Nothing of great importance happened to the church until the star of Napoleon rose—until, indeed, the first Consul had become Emperor.
Of all the magnificent ceremonies of which Notre Dame has been the scene, the most splendid was the joint coronation of Napoleon and Josephine in the winter of 1804. A full account of it will be found in the Mémoires de la Duchesse d’Abrantès, of which I quote a part, purposely leaving it in the original French, as any translation would be comparatively colourless and unpicturesque: “Le pape arriva le premier. Au moment où il entra dans la basilique, le clergé entonna Tu es Petrus, etc.; et ce chant grave et religieux fit une profonde impression sur les assistants. Pie VII. avançait du fond de cette église, avec un air à la fois majestueux et humble.... L’instant qui réunit peut-être le plus de regards sur les marches de l’autel, fut celui où Joséphine reçut de l’empereur la couronne et fut sacrée solennellement impératrice des Français. Lorsqu’il fut temps pour elle de paraître activement dans le grand drame, l’impératrice descendit du trône et s’avança vers l’autel, où l’attendait l’empereur, suivie de ses dames du palais et de tout son service d’honneur, et ayant son manteau porté par la princesse Caroline, la princesse Julie, la princesse Elisa et la princesse Louis.... Je vis tout ce que je viens de dire dans les yeux de Napoléon. Il jouissait en regardant l’impératrice s’avancer vers lui; et lorsqu’elle s’agenouilla ... lorsque les larmes qu’elle ne pouvait retenir, roulèrent sur ses mains jointes qu’elle élevait bien plus vers lui que vers Dieu, dans ce moment où Napoléon, ou plutôt Bonaparte, était pour elle sa véritable providence, alors il y eut entre ces deux êtres une de ces minutes fugitives, unique dans toute une vie, et qui comblent le vide de bien des années. L’empereur mit une grâce parfaite à la moindre des actions qu’il devait faire pour accomplir la cérémonie. Mais ce fut surtout lorsqu’il s’agit de couronner l’impératrice. Cette action devait être accompli par l’empereur, qui, après avoir reçu la petite couronne fermée et surmontée de la croix, qu’il fallait placer sur la tête de Joséphine, devait la poser sur sa propre tête, puis la mettre sur celle de l’impératrice. Il mit à ces deux mouvements une lenteur gracieuse qui était remarquable. Mais lorsqu’il en fut au moment de couronner enfin celle qui était pour lui, selon un préjugé, son étoile heureuse il fut coquet pour elle, si je puis dire le mot. Il arrangeait cette petite couronne qui surmontait la diadème, en diamant, la plaçait, la déplaçait, la remettait encore, il semblait qu’il voulût lui promettre que cette couronne lui serait douce et légère.”
Napoleon, on this occasion, hastily took his crown from the Pope’s hands and placed it haughtily on his own head—a proceeding which doubtless startled his Holiness. In May 1814 Louis XVIII. and his family attended mass at Notre Dame after their entry into Paris. A great service was held there in 1840, to celebrate the restoration of the remains of Napoleon I. to French soil, while Archbishops Affre, Sibour and Darboy, who died violent deaths, were commemorated with fitting solemnities.
The marriage of Napoleon III. to Eugénie de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, on January 29th, 1853, was the occasion of a great display of gorgeous pageantry at Notre Dame, as was the baptism of the ill-fated Prince Imperial in 1857. The Terrorists of 1871 robbed the treasury of the cathedral of many valuable relics, but their intention to injure the fabric itself was prevented by the timely arrival of troops. The most notable ceremonies during the existence of the present Republic have been the funeral service, in June 1894, for President Carnot, assassinated in that year at Lyons, and the splendid State funeral of Louis Pasteur in October 1895.
The great festivals of the Church are celebrated at Notre Dame on a scale of almost unrivalled magnificence. On Assumption Day, in particular, splendid music, wedded to the most ornate ritual, produces an effect never to be forgotten. The pulpit of the metropolitan cathedral has been occupied by a succession of great preachers, amongst them Bossuet and Bourdaloue, and the services and conferences are noted throughout the Roman Catholic world. The Dominican Lacordaire began in 1835 a series of majestic and picturesque discourses, which earned for him the title le Romantique de la Chaire, and he has been described as filling as a preacher the place occupied in literature by Victor Hugo and in painting by Delacroix, H. Vernet, and Delaroche. In recent times among the most popular pulpit orators have been the fiery Jesuit Père Ravignan, Monseigneur d’Hulst, Père Monsabré, and M. Hyacinthe Loyson, better known to fame as Père Hyacinthe.
Needless to say, this is the merest outline of the wonderful history of the Cathedral Church of Paris. If the columns of Notre Dame could speak, they would—to adapt a phrase of Viollet-le-Duc—be able to recount the history of France from the time of Philip Augustus to our own day. It is therefore natural that the whole French nation has for Notre Dame a feeling of veneration and affection similar to that which is called forth in English hearts by the Abbey Church of Westminster.
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[Ed. Hautecœur, Paris.