Vincennes was also the birthplace of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, started by one Charles Adam in 1745: but this is guide-book information, with no bearing upon the Paris churches. Let no one, however, visit the Chapel at Vincennes without sauntering into the wood, which is quite the equal, if not prettier than the Bois de Boulogne. You may pick violets and enjoy a splendid view of the Seine and the Marne meandering among the valleys; but you will not enjoy le monde, which does not venture so far east of the Champs Elysées. If you require fashion, go not east of the Louvre.
SAINT-VINCENT DE PAUL.
Whether we consider this church from the architectural or the decorative point of view, it is quite worthy of its titular Saint, and is one of the grandest of modern churches to be seen anywhere. It is built on the plan of the early Roman basilicas. Begun by Lepère in 1824, it was finished from designs by Hittorf. The situation is fine, and the step and slopes leading up to it are at once grand and original. The subject in the tympanum is by Nanteuil, representing S. Vincent de Paul surrounded by Sisters of Charity and Angels.
S. Vincent de Paul was the founder of the picturesque grey Sisters we all know so well by their pretty flapping headgear, and of foundling hospitals in France. He was born in 1576 at Puy in Gascony, and being of a contemplative disposition, full of piety and sweetness, was fitted, his father thought, for the religious life; and so he was sent to a convent of the Cordeliers near by, and assumed the Franciscan frock at the age of twenty. For ten years he studied, and then an incident occurred which settled his destiny. Going to Marseilles to transact some business, and returning by sea, the bark was attacked by African pirates, and S. Vincent, with the others on board, was bound and sent into slavery at Tunis. Vincent spent two years in captivity, passing from one owner to another, when, one day, being asked by his master's wife to sing to her, he burst into tears, chanting, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept," and "Salve Regina." But the songs or the preaching converted the woman, and then her husband; which being so, they all escaped and landed at Aiguesmortes. Vincent went to Rome, and then to Paris, where he pleaded the cause of the wretched galley-slaves of Marseilles. We all remember the grand picture by Bonnat, of S. Vincent taking the place of a slave and having the fetters put upon him. I forget its exact name; it was exhibited, in London some years ago, and is now in one of the churches. The Saint began his good work by visiting the prisons or dépôts, whence the criminals were forwarded to the galleys. There he saw "des malheureux renfermés dans de profondes et obscures cavernes, mangés de vermines, atténués de langueur et de pauvreté, et entièrement negligés pour le corps et pour l'âme." S. Vincent then took up the cause of the street girls, and finally he instituted the Order of Sisters of Charity, nuns "qui n'ont point de monastères que les maisons des malades, pour cellules qu'une chambre de louage, pour chapelle que l'église de leur paroisse, pour cloître que les rues de la ville et les salles des hôspitaux, pour clôture que l'obéissance, pour grille que la crainte de Dieu, et pour voile qu'une Sainte et exacte modestie, et cependant elles se préservent de la contagion du vice, elles font germer partout sur leurs pas la vertu." Such was S. Vincent's idea when founding the Sisterhood, and such the Sisters are to this day, eminently practical, whether in their work or their quaint costume, which is short enough to clear the muddy street pavements, a model to most nurses in or out of hospital. They move with the world, but are not of it.
S. Vincent is generally represented carrying one babe and holding another by the hand, typical of his founding la Maison des Enfants Trouvés, which was the outcome of his first plan of gathering up children in the streets and placing them with his Sisters. Such an accumulation of little outcasts did he obtain that a special house had soon to be founded.
Nor was S. Vincent out of his element at Court, for he was friendly with Cardinal Richelieu, and attended Louis XIII. in his last moments. He died, in 1660, at S. Lazare, and was canonized in 1747; but, in the words of the people, he was "l'Intendant de la Providence et Père des Pauvres." When the fine new church, dedicated to S. Vincent de Paul, was built, Hippolyte Flandrin was at the height of his reputation. He had decorated S. Germain-des-Prés with exquisite pictures, telling the whole story of the Redemption from the Old and New Testament; the churches of S. Paul at Nismes and S. Martin of Lyons were no less great successes. But the frescoes of S. Vincent were to be the painter's crowning work. The church has a feature in common with S. Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, namely, a long flat wall space on each side of the nave and the west end, supported by pillars, and, in the case of the Paris church, forming a gallery. This it was that Flandrin was commissioned to cover with frescoes; and just as he had gone to the Roman catacombs for his inspiration for the Romanesque church at Lyons, so he looked to Ravenna for his designs for the Paris basilica. There is great similarity of idea in the two processions, and if S. Apollinare carries off the palm for its gorgeous mosaic, it must give way to S. Vincent in beauty of form and spirituality of design. Few, if any, churches can show pictures so full of beauty as this procession to Paradise (the "Christian Panathenæa" it has been called), a magnificent army of sufferers who have gained the crown. There they walk with stately steps, a hundred and fifty men and women, carrying their emblems and their palms; and yet there is no repetition; each one has his own individuality, his own idiosyncrasy.
M. Ingres was the first artist invited to undertake the work, then Delaroche; but happily, both of them declined, and Picot accepted the commission. The 1848 Revolution broke out and interrupted the work; then the new administration, struck with the beauty of the frescoes of S. Germain, wished to give over the decoration of S. Vincent to Flandrin. Naturally this great artist did not relish ousting a brother brush, and so a compromise was arranged; Picot chose the choir, and the frieze of the nave was left for Flandrin.