The church possesses a very curious holy-water stoop of the time of Louis XII. It is about three feet high, more like a baptismal font than a stoop in size; it is octagonal, and stands upon a pedestal with a square base. The upper part is decorated with the arms of France and of Bretagne, and the instruments of the Passion. A small amount of carved woodwork of the Renaissance period remains—fragments of sculptured columns, pilasters, children, birds, and trophies. But a most remarkable picture of the 16th century arrests the visitor's attention as he saunters round the aisles, S. Geneviève sitting in a sort of Druidical circle surrounded by her flock of sheep—a rare combination of mystic Paganism and Christian legend.
A mosaic tablet of the Virgin and Child now in the Hôtel Cluny (No. 1795) was formerly in this church. It was given by Jean de Ganay, first president of the Parliament. Piganiol de la Force gave the continuation of the inscription as "Opus magistri Davidis, Florentini, Anno M.CCCC.LXXXXVI." Jean de Ganay went to Italy with Charles VIII., and took part in the campaign of 1494 and 1495, and for some time he was chancellor of the kingdom of Naples; but as he was not first president until 1505, the mosaic must have been sent to Paris subsequently to his sojourn in Italy. His epitaph runs thus:
CY GIST LE CORPS DE NOBLE CHEVALIER
JEAN DE GANNY DE FRANCE CHANCELIER
ET ZELATEUR DE LA CHOSE PUBLIQUE.
TARDIF À NUIRE ET PREST À CONSEILLER
DU BIEN DAUTRUY CAR CESTOIT LE PILLIER,
PHILOSOPHAL VRAY ARISTOTILIQUE,
POURTANT HUMAINS UN CHACUN SE APPLIQUE
PRIER JESUS PAR MESSES ET PAR DITS
QUIL LUY PARDONNE ET DONNE PARADIS.
OBIIT ANNO 1512.
M. de Sommerard attributes this mosaic to David Ghirlandajo.
SAINT-NICOLAS DES CHAMPS.
The patron saint of children, of schoolboys, of poor maidens and travellers, of merchants, and, above all, of pawnbrokers, was popular in Paris as elsewhere, and thus we find three churches dedicated to him. S. Nicolas was a performer of stupendous miracles. Thus it happened that during a time of famine, while he was visiting his flock, he discovered that a certain disciple of the Evil One murdered little children, and, cannibal-like, feasted on them. And so audacious was this fiend in human shape, that he impudently served up the dismembered limbs of a young babe for the good bishop; who, seeing this wickedness, went to the tub where the children's remains were being salted down, and making the sign of the cross over them, the babes all stood up. This is a favourite subject in art; and not the least beautiful of all the saints and martyrs in the processional frieze in S. Vincent de Paul is Flandrin's conception of S. Nicholas.[105] Why the Saint's three balls, which seem to have been purses given to three poor maidens, should have become the sign of pawnbrokers, seems doubtful. Perhaps simply as being emblems of gold lent by merchants to impecunious customers. The story of the children is probably an allegory of the conversion of sinners, the tub being the baptismal font and the wicked host, the evil state in which all men are born. S. Nicholas is also the guardian of property, and in that form figures upon the windows of the cathedral of Chartres. The Saint's image was stolen by a Jew, and placed in guardianship over his treasures. Then came robbers, who carried off the property, which, the Jew discovering, led to the chastisement of the bishop's effigy. But S. Nicholas was equal to the occasion, and reproving the Jew, ordered the robbers to restore what they had stolen; and when the Hebrew saw the miracle, he became converted, he and his whole house. This, too, may be the reason for S. Nicholas' patronage of pawnbrokers, who are many of them, indeed most of them, Jews.
In the 12th century S. Nicolas des Champs was but a chapel built upon the domain of the priory of S. Martin. Two centuries later it was rebuilt; but in the 16th century, being too small for its parishioners, it was widened by turning the chapels of the nave into an aisle, and erecting fresh chapels outside it. Later on it was again enlarged, until it has become one of the longest of the Paris churches.
The façade in the Rue S. Martin is in the Flamboyant style, and not without some beauty, with its pinnacles and turrets, its niches and statuettes; but the most striking part of the church is the richly-sculptured doorway in the Rue Aumaire, a mass of niches, figures of Angels, and Flamboyant ornament of the most elaborate kind—birds, baskets of flowers, borne by pious little personages, and every kind of foliage, reminding us of the works of Germain Pilon.
The interior shows the change of style from shafts without capitals to the latest development in the way of Doric columns. The High Altar is ornamented with Corinthian columns, some stucco Angels by Jacques Sarazin, and a picture of the Assumption by Simon Vouet. The best picture in the church is M. Bonnat's early work of S. Vincent de Paul. An old panel of a Calvary is a very good specimen of one of the unknown artists of the 16th century.