Several celebrated personages have been interred in this church. Among them, I shall particularize one only; but that one will long live in the memory of every convivial British seaman. Who has not heard the lay which records the defeat of Tourville? Yes—
He who "on the main triumphant rode
To meet the gallant Russel in combat o'er the deep;"
Who "led his noble troops of heroes bold
To sink the English admiral and his fleet."
Though considered by his countrymen, as one of the most eminent seamen that France ever produced, and enjoying at the time of his death the dignity of Marshal, together with that of Vice-admiral of the kingdom, Tourville never had an epitaph. He died on the 28th of May 1701, aged 59.
Some of the monuments which existed here have been transferred to the Museum in the Rue des Petits Augustins, where may be seen the sarcophagus of Colbert, Minister to Lewis XIV, and the medallion of Cureau de la Chambre, physician to that king, and also his physiognomist, whom he is said to have constantly consulted in the selection of his ministers. Among the papers of that physician there still exists, in an unpublished correspondence with Lewis XIV, this curious memorandum: "Should I die before his majesty, he would run a great risk of making, in future, many a bad choice."
It is impossible to enter one of these sanctuaries without reflecting on the rapid progress of irreligion among a people who, six months before, were, on their knees, adoring the effigies which, at that period, they were eager to mutilate and destroy. Iron crows and sledge-hammers were almost in a state of requisition. In the beginning, it was a contest who should first aim a blow at the nose of the Virgin Mary, or break the leg of her son. In one day, contracts were entered into with masons for defacing images which for centuries, had been partly concealed under the dusty webs of generations of spiders.
As for the statues within reach of swords and pikes, it was a continual scene of amusement to the licentious to knock off the ear of one angel, and scratch the face of another. Not an epitaph was left to retrace the patriotic deeds of an upright statesman, or the more brilliant exploits of a heroic warrior; not a memento, to record conjugal affection, filial piety, or grateful friendship. The iconoclasts proceeded not with the impetuous fury of fanatics, but with the extravagant foolery of atheistical buffoons.
All the gold and silver ornaments disappeared: a great part of them were dissolved in the crucibles of the mint, after having been presented as a homage to the Convention, some of whose members danced the carmagnole with those who presented them at their bar, loaded on the back of mules and asses, bedecked with all the emblems of catholic worship; while several of the rubies, emeralds, &c. which had formerly decorated the glory, beaming round the head of a Christ, were afterwards seen glittering on the finger of the revolutionary committee-men.
Chaumette, an attorney, was the man who proclaimed atheism, and his example had many imitators. It seemed the wish of that impious being to exile God himself from nature. He it was who imagined those orgies, termed the festivals of reason. One of the most remarkable of these festivals was celebrated in this very church of St. Eustache.
Although Mademoiselle Maillard, the singing heroine of the French opera, figured more than once as the goddess of reason, that divinity was generally personified by some shameless female, who, if not a notorious prostitute, was frequently little better. Her throne occupied the place of the altar; her supporters were chiefly drunken soldiers, smoking their pipe; and before her, were a set of half-naked vagabonds, singing and dancing the carmagnole.
"In this church," says an eye-witness, "the interior of the choir represented a landscape, decorated with cottages and clumps of trees. In the distance were mysterious bowers, to which narrow paths led, through declivities formed of masses of artificial rock.