The American in Paris; vol. 2 of 2

by John Sanderson

I believe I shall take advantage of my unusual seriousness, as it is Sunday, to tell you all I know about such divine things as French churches. Almost every saint in the Almanack has acquired the honours of at least one. There are forty-five of Roman, one of Greek, and two of Independent French Catholics; and the churches for Protestant service, are three French, and two English, besides a synagogue; and there are several places of worship in private houses and palaces.

All the Catholic churches are decorated with the most costly furniture; with saints, virgins, and angels in statuary and painting by the best masters. Why, the gold and silver expended in this old church of Notre Dame upon Virgin Marys alone, would make a railroad to the Havre.

One of the most beautiful of these churches and my next neighbour too, is St. Genevieve, now called the Pantheon, once the “abode of Gods whose shrines no longer burn.” It is now the national sepulchre for great men. It is two hundred and fifty feet high, and overtops majestically all Paris. It was designed to rival the Great St. Paul’s of London.

On one of the cupolas of the dome, which is surrounded by a colonnade of Corinthian pillars, is painted the apotheosis of St. Geneviéve. Her saintship is in the costume of a shepherdess, breathing all peace, all happiness, all immortality. Nothing of earth is in her composition. Beside her, is Louis XVIII. and little winged angels. They are very busy—the angels—in scattering flowers about the saint. Above her, is Louis XVI. and his queen, as elegant as she was upon the threshold of Versailles, and Louis XVII. all surrounded by celestial glory. Before her, are the persons the most illustrious of each race; Clovis, who looks very savage; St. Clotilde, very pretty; Charlemagne, very heroic; and St. Louis and Queen Margarite who look very pious. They are now effacing these figures for something more suitable to the occasion.

The floor of this temple, incrusted with various-coloured marble, is very remarkable, and very beautiful. It is exclusively occupied by Voltaire and Rousseau, at opposite extremities. [1]

Why did they not lay them at the side of each other, that we might all learn how vain are the jealousies, the petty competitions and animosities of men so soon to come to this appointed and unavoidable term of all human contentions. These are the only two who are buried above ground.

It was once the custom of these old countries to multiply a man by burying him piecemeal, his heart at Rouen and his legs in Kent, because the world was then on short allowance of heroes; but modern times have reversed this practice; and Bonaparte has laid up together a whole batch of them in the basement of this church, for eternity, as you lay up potatoes in your cellar for winter. Here are the names graven overhead in a catalogue, on the marble, of men famous for giving counsel to the Emperor (who never took any) in the senate, and of men who gained a great deal of celebrity by having their brains knocked out on the fields of Austerlitz and Marengo.

When Marat was deified by the Convention, he was interred here in 1793, and in 1794 he was disinterred and undeified, and then thrown into his native element, the common sewer, in the Rue Montmartre—to purify him.

I have often sat an hour in a beautiful little temple adjoining this, called St. Etienne du Mont. Its architecture is original and pretty, and it is rich in statuary and paintings. The pulpit is a splendid piece of workmanship, supported by a figure of Samson kneeling upon a dead lion; allegorical figures are hovering over, and an archangel, with two trumpets, is assembling the faithful. The painted glass, too, is brilliant with colours glowing as the rainbow. In a morning walk, I have often found an excuse for returning this way. A few persons, mostly women, are seen kneeling through the church, upon the marble, before the altar, silently—you hear but the little whispering prayers fluttering towards Heaven—the tranquillity of early morning is so favourable to devotion. It feels like giving to Heaven the first offerings of one’s heart. I have often sat here on the fine summer evenings, too, when the twilight shed its gray and glimmering rays through the windows upon the statues of the venerable saints and martyrs, and listened to the voices as they swelled in the sacred anthem, and then fell, with the departing day, into silence. It seemed to me the very romance of religion. One feels more the influence of such feelings when wandering alone in a foreign country.

In visiting a boarding-school of this quarter, a few days ago, I entered a room where the children were praying before retiring to bed; I observed one with his hands clasped, and pouring out his little soul with the fervency of a saint—an American child, of eight years, from New York—I took him in my arms at the end of his prayer, saying: “Vous aimez donc bien, le bon Dieu?”—“Ah! oui,” he replied, with a most eloquent expression, “on aime bien le bon Dieu quand on est loin de ses parens.”—It is so natural to lay hold of heaven, when cut off from one’s home and earthly affections. If I had the amiable society of your “Two Hills,” and the other comforts and consolations of the village, I should not be hovering so piously about this little church of St. Etienne du Mont.