Some old tapestry, hung scantily round the choir, makes one regret the handsome iron railing, so richly wrought, by which it was inclosed, and some valuable pictures, which now figure in the grand Gallery of the CENTRAL MUSEUM OF THE ARTS.
The nave, quite as naked as the choir and the sanctuary, had been enriched, as far as the space would admit, with pictures, twelve feet high, given for a long time, on every first of May, by the Goldsmiths' company and the fraternity of St. Anne and St. Marcel.
On the last pillar of the nave, on the right, was the equestrian statue of Philip of Valois. That king was here represented on horseback, with his vizor down, sword in hand, and armed cap-à-pié, in the very manner in which he rode into the cathedral of Notre-Dame, in 1328, after the battle of Cassel. At the foot of the altar he left his horse, together with his armour, which he had worn in the battle, as an offering to the Holy Virgin, after having returned thanks to God and to her, say historians, for the victory he had obtained through her intercession.
Above the lateral alleys, as well of the choir as of the nave, are large galleries, separated by little pillars of a single piece, and bordered by iron balustrades. Here spectators place themselves to see grand ceremonies. From their balconies were formerly suspended the colours taken from the enemy: these are now displayed in the Temple of Mars at the HÔTEL DES INVALIDES.
The organ, which appears to have suffered no injury, is reckoned one of the loudest and most complete in France. It is related that Daquin, an incomparable organist, who died in 1781, once imitated the nightingale on it so perfectly, that the beadle was sent on the roof of the church, to endeavour to discover the musical bird.
Some of the stained glass is beautiful. Two roses, restored to their original state, the one on the side of the archipiscopal palace in 1726, and the other above the organ, in 1780, prove by their lustre, that the moderns are not so inferior to the ancients, in the art of painting on glass, as is commonly imagined.
Should your curiosity lead you to contemplate the house of Fulbert, the canon, the supposed uncle to the tender Héloïse, where that celebrated woman passed her youthful days, you must enter, by the cloister of Notre-Dame, into the street that leads to the Pont Rouge, since removed. It is the last house on the right under the arcade, and is easily distinguished by two medallions in stone, preserved on the façade, though it has been several times rebuilt during the space of six hundred years. All the authors who have written on the antiquities of Paris, speak of these medallions as being real portraits of Abélard and Héloïse. It is presumable that they were so originally; but, without being a connoisseur, any one may discover that the dresses of these figures are far more modern than those peculiar to the twelfth century; whence it may be concluded that the original portraits having been destroyed by time, or by the alterations which the house has undergone, these busts have been executed by some more modern sculptor of no great talents.
Leaving the cathedral, by the Rue Notre-Dame, and turning to the left, on reaching the Marché Palu, we come to the
PETIT PONT.
Like the Pont St. Michel, this bridge is situated on the south channel of the river, and stands in a direct line with the Pont Notre-Dame. It originally owed its construction to the following circumstance.