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'œuvre 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.