The apse has been disfigured, after the manner of S. Séverin and S. Germain l'Auxerrois, by Corinthian columns, pilasters, monograms, and trophies—the work of Lepautre. The jubé has gone, and divers other Gothic "excrescences," and the church remains a grand example of the last century barbarism. Well has Victor Hugo described those gentlemen, so-called artists, who fell down and worshipped Fashion, as set by its 18th century votaries: "Les modes ont fait plus de mal que les révolutions. Elles ont tranché dans le vif, elles ont attaqué la charpente osseuse de l'art; elles ont coupé, taillé, désorganisé l'édifice, dans la forme comme dans le symbole, dans sa logique comme dans sa beauté. Et puis, elles ont refait; prétention que n'avaient eue, du moins, ni le temps, ni les révolutions. Elles ont effrontément ajusté, de par le bon goût, sur les blessures de l'architecture Gothique leurs misérables colifichets d'un jour, leurs rubans de marbre, leurs pompons de métal: véritable lèpre d'oves, de volutes, d'entournements, de draperies, de guirlandes, de franges, de flammes, de pierre, de nuages, de bronze, d'amours replets, de chérubins bouffis, qui commence à dévorer la face de l'art dans l'oratoire de Catherine de Médicis, et le fait expirer, deux siècles après, tourmenté et grimaçant, dans le boudoir de la Dubarry."
SAINT-LEU-SAINT-GILLES.
About the year 600, the town of Sens was besieged by Clotaire's general, Blidebodes, and grievous was the pain and suffering to which the inhabitants were subjected. But the bishop, Lupus,[99] Leu, or Loup was a holy man, and while the warriors fought he passed his time in prayer. Then he bethought him of a little stratagem. Ostensibly for the object of collecting the citizens for prayer, he set to, and vigorously pulled the church bell. The crowd rushed from all parts of the town, and following the example of their spiritual father, they threw themselves on their knees. Presently came the news that the siege was raised; at the sound of the bell, the enemy had fled precipitately. This, all but miracle, may be accounted for by the fact that bells were first introduced into France about this time (615); and if Clotaire's soldiers, coming from the north and west, had never heard any before, they may have felt much the same sort of terror as was said to have been instilled into the natives during the Ashantee war by the Scottish bagpipes.
Considering that the church has two patrons, it ought surely to be in some way remarkable; but the fact is, it is a very insignificant little building, and devoid of beauty of any kind. It formerly belonged to the Abbey of S. Magloire from which it was separated by only a small space of ground; the abbey having been situated in the Rue S. Denis, and the church in what is now the Boulevard Sebastopol. The latter must have been built in the 13th century, as the abbé Lebeuf found a notice in the archives of S. Magloire to the effect that some little bells had been placed in S. Leu. The church has been so repaired, so cut about (the east end was lopped off when the new boulevard was pierced); it has been so mutilated and travestied, that little remains of the old building. Some of the bosses are elegantly and curiously carved. We see S. Giles and his hind, and S. Loup in episcopal vestments; the 17th century marble bas-reliefs illustrating the Passion; quaint emaciated bodies and large heads are the characteristics of the crowd.
In one of the chapels, the first on the south, is a curious picture commemorating a terrible event, which led to a miracle. The inscription reads thus:
CETTE IMAGE A ESTÉ FAITE L'AN 1772
EN L'HONNEUR DU SIGNALE MIRACLE ARRIVÉ À PARIS À LA RUE AUX OURS PAROISSE DE ST. LEU ST. GILLES LE 3ME JUILLET L'AN 1415 EN MEMOIRE DE QUOY.
LES BOURGEOIS DE LA DITE RUE TOUS LES ANS À PARCIL JOUR BRULENT L'EFIGIE
DU MALFAICTEUR QUI MALHEUREUSEMENT FRAPPA L'IMAGE DE LA SAINCT
VIRGE DE LA QUELLE SORTIT DU SANG ET FUT PUNI PAR ARREST DE LA
COUR DE PARLEMENT COME IL EST REPRÉSENTÉ CY DESSOUS.
The picture represents the Virgin and Child sitting under an elegant baldachino, the curtains of which are borne by Angels, who are holding, at the same time, a crown over the head of the holy mother. The following description by Père Du Breul[100] gives the story of the miracle:
"Le troisième du mois de juillet 1418, veille de sainct Martin,[101] Bouillant, un soldat ou goujat sortant d'une taverne qui estoit dès lors en la rue aux Ours, désespéré d'avoir perdu tout son argent et ses habits à jouer, jurant et blasphémant, frappa furieusement d'un couteau une image de la Vierge Marie qui estoit au coin de ladite rue. Laquelle image rendit du sang en abondance; de quoy estant advertie la justice, il fut mené par devant l'image, fut frappé d'escourgées depuis six heures du matin jusques au soir, tant que les entrailles luy sortoient, et eut la langue percée d'un fer chaud. Au mesme lieu, tous les ans et à tel jour, on fait un feu pour souvenance de ce miracle.... Audit lieu se voit encores une image de Nostre Dame enfermée d'un treillis, auprès de laquelle, contre la parvy, le jour que ce faict ledit feu, l'on attache une tapisserie où est représenté l'histoire susdite."
Horrors of this kind were common enough in the 14th and 15th centuries; indeed, when we think of Damiens' tortures, even the 18th century was no more humane or decent. In the account of the Black Death in 1348, when 500 persons were buried daily, and Jews were tortured and burnt for poisoning the people (as the populace affirmed), an order of Philippe IV. was issued that all blasphemers should have their lips or tongues cut off, as a sanitary measure to dispel the plague. It is curious that such doings should be commemorated in a church dedicated to S. Giles, that gentle hermit who screened the wounded hind from its pursuers, and gave an eternal reproof to the votaries of the hunt. One can imagine what the hermit-Saint would have thought of thus torturing a man, being not only the protector of hunted animals and woodlands, but also of those specimens of human misery, the lepers. Yet for many years the hideous cruelty described above was celebrated as a sort of Guy Fawkes festival, with fireworks, and mannikins of gigantic size, which were marched about the neighbourhood to the terror of all the youthful inhabitants.