Legendary history records an assemblage of the first Christians of Lutetia in the fields where now runs the Rue S. Jacques, listening to the preaching of S. Denis, and strengthening themselves against the persecution which loomed in the distance. And legend further relates that a chapel was built upon this spot. But leaving the realms of tradition, we find an authentic account of a church in the 8th century which, in the next hundred years, was served by the Benedictine monks of Marmoutier. This remained the headquarters of a priory for about six hundred years. In 1604, Cardinal Bérulle introduced the Carmelite order as reformed by S. Theresa, and the nuns began to rebuild. The church they left intact with its 13th century porch, and its great statues of S. Denis, Moses, Aaron, David, and Solomon. This building disappeared, and a modern one arose in its stead, more to the West; but the crypt is supposed to be under the level of the street; and according to the abbé Lebœuf, a second subterraneous burial-ground of Gallo-Roman origin was discovered still lower down, with fragments of tombstones, slabs, pottery, and the like. The present church contains a few débris of its former grandeur, a statue by Sarazin, of Cardinal de Bérulle, being the principal one.
The monastery was celebrated, during the 17th century, as the asylum of many distinguished ladies who sought a refuge from their troubles; amongst others, of the blessed Sœur Louise de la Miséricorde, who died there in 1710, in the odour of sanctity. In her mundane career this Madeleine da la Cour was Mdlle. de la Vallière, and she is said to have posed to Le Brun for his terrible picture of La Madeleine pénitente renonce à toutes les vanités de la vie, which was painted for M. de Camus as an adornment of this Carmelite church. It is now in the Louvre, which it in nowise adorns. Lebrun, as a decorative artist, painting allegories and battles, is bearable; but his religious pictures are only gross exaggerations of the Italian Eclectics. This Madeleine de la Vallière is in a tortuous state of agony at the thought of the vanities she enjoyed. With eyes turned up, with her flowing locks, and swathed in rich satin garments, which are blown by a gust of wind coming in at the open casement on the top of a cloud, she looks thunder-struck; it is astonishment at the discovery of her sinfulness, revealed by the heavens opening, and the Divine voice addressing her. Surely the moderns, the Bérauds, the Lhermites, the Dagnan-Bouverets, Uhde, Hitchcock, Pierce, and their followers, have far more religious feeling, although they clothe their personages as Parisian workpeople, and paint their Madeleines, like Henner, in the pastures (apparently) of the Bois de Boulogne—backgrounds, considering the subject, not altogether inappropriate.
NOTRE-DAME DE LORETTE.
An utterly uninteresting exterior encloses some good mural paintings by Orsel, Périn, and Roger. The church was completed in 1836 by Lebas, and were the weather always bright, the interior would not fail to impress the visitor; but it is too dark for a Northern clime, and it is therefore difficult fully to appreciate the frescoes. That over the altar is by Picot; the subjects from the life of the Virgin are by Dubois, Langlois, Vinchon, and Hesse; the choir is the work of Delorme; the Presentation in the Temple, and Christ disputing with the Doctors, are by Heim and Drolling. They are all inspired by a reverent feeling for the subjects, and are resplendent with gold.
NOTRE-DAME DES VICTOIRES.
Louis XIII. laid the first stone of this church in 1629, and dedicated it to Our Lady of Victory, in memory of the famous battle of La Rochelle. It was part of the convent of barefooted Augustins, who were nicknamed the Little Fathers, by Henri IV., on account of the diminutive stature of some of the friars, and consequently the church was as often called Notre-Dame des Petits Pères as Notre-Dame des Victoires. Pierre Lemut was its original architect; and before it was completed, in 1740, by Cartaud, two other architects, Libéral Bruant and Gabriel Leduc, lent their aid. The cupola is decorated with an Assumption; pictures by Vanloo adorn the choir, and other chapels contain some by Perrault. Those by Vanloo represent the thanksgiving of the King and the Cardinal for the mighty victory aforesaid, the taking of La Rochelle. But the interest of, or the objections to, the church, according to the point of view from which we start, consists in the innumerable ex-voto tablets which cover the walls, and proclaim the answers to prayers by mothers, wives, husbands, sons, fathers, and daughters. They are emblems of the faith which saves. But would not the same earnest prayers, put up on other spots, produce the same results? Is it not a narrow notion that we are more likely to be heard in the Place des Victoires than in the Halles? Such is not the view of the dévots and dévotes, as the statue of the Virgin proclaims, for it is hung all over with costly jewels and ornaments; and whatever time of the day we may enter the church, we find it almost filled with troubled souls who come to gain an indulgence at its privileged altars, which are to those of a different sort of mind examples of what to avoid. For those persons having leanings to superstition, let me commend this church as an antidote; to others, it is neither æsthetically interesting nor, from a religious point of view, particularly edifying. To musicians it has one attraction, as being the burial-place of Jean-Baptiste Lulli, the charming fiddler, who died in 1687, and whose bronze statue by Cotton is in the transept.
L'ORATOIRE.
Built for the Oratorians, this elegant circular church is now given over to Protestant gloom of the least decorative order. It was constructed by François Mansard, and dedicated to Notre-Dame-des-Anges in 1634, upon the site, some authorities say, of the Hôtel of Gabrielle d'Estrèes; it may therefore be said to have passed from the good Gabrielle, through the better fathers, to the best Protestants; or, contrariwise, from the bad Demoiselle to the worse Catholics, and, worst of all, Calvinists. However, now all is calm, and passions have subsided; and a fine statue of Admiral Coligny is fixed to its wall, facing the scene of his murder on that fearful feast of bloodshed which S. Bartholemew must have been scandalized to find attached to his name.
SAINT-PAUL-SAINT-LOUIS.
In the Rue Saint-Antoine is the old church of the Jesuits, gorgeous in marbles, gilding and stucco, as is the wont of the architects employed by those wary fathers. It was built from the designs of François Derraud from 1627-41. The remains of the conventual buildings are now occupied by the Collège Charlemagne. The expenses of the building were defrayed by Louis XIII. and Richelieu, who celebrated his maiden mass there. It was the second cupola erected in Paris, the first being that belonging to the Carmelite church. It is Italian in style, the façade being very similar to that of S. Gervais, recalling the Gesu and S. Ignacius at Rome, and is adorned with statues of S. Louis, by Lequesne; of S. Catherine, by Auguste Préault; and of S. Anne, by Etex. Bourdaloue and archbishop Huet of Avranches are buried there, and in a crypt below lie the Jesuits who have died in the convent from its foundation until the suppression of the order. The numerous monuments were swept away at the Revolution: a rich sculptured coffer for the heart of Louis XIII., and another by Coustou le jeune, containing Louis XIV.'s heart. The tabernacle was of silver gilt, but it is no more. The only contents now of any interest are a picture representing the abbey of Longchamps, attributed to Philippe de Champaigne, and a fine work by Delacroix, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Although his first known picture, it is an example of his splendid colouring and grand composition. Victor Hugo's first child was born in the parish, and baptized at S. Paul's, and to commemorate the event the poet presented two holy-water stoops, in the shape of shells, very beautiful in design.