Arches in the Courtyard of the Hôtel Cluny.
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We return to the Rue des Écoles which we cross to the imposing new University buildings. The vestibule, grand staircase and amphitheatre are of noble and stately proportions and adorned with mural paintings, among which Puvis de Chavannes' great composition, The Sacred Grove, in the amphitheatre, is of chief interest.[192] We continue along the Rue de la Sorbonne and soon reach the old chapel, all that remains of Richelieu's Sorbonne, containing his tomb, a masterpiece of monumental art of the late seventeenth century, designed by Lebrun and executed by Girardon. The church of St. Benoist and its cloister, where François Villon assassinated his rival Chermoyé, has also been swept away. We proceed by the Rue Victor Cousin, a continuation of the Rue de la Sorbonne, and debouch on the broad Rue Soufflot. Turning L., an inscription on No. 14 marks the site of the Dominican monastery where the great schoolmen, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas taught. Opposite (No. 9), at the corner of the Rue St. Jacques is the site, marked by a plan, of the old Porte St. Jacques of the Philip Augustus wall. We are now on the Mount of St. Genevieve, crowned by the majestic and eminent Panthéon, whose pediment is adorned by David d'Angers' sculptures, representing La Patrie, between Liberty and History, distributing crowns to her children. Among the figures are Malesherbes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Carnot, Bonaparte, behind whom stand an old grenadier and the famous drummer-boy of Arcole.

The Panthéon has the most magnificent situation and, except the new church of the Sacré Cœur, is the most dominant building in Paris. Its dome is seen from nearly every eminence commanding the city, and has a certain stately, almost noble, aspect. But the spacious interior, despite the efforts of the artists of the third Republic, is chilling to the spectator. Swept and garnished, it has no warmth of historical or religious associations; it is devoid of human sentiment. The choice of painters to decorate the interior was an amazing act of official insensibility. The most discordant artistic temperaments were let loose on the devoted building. Puvis de Chavannes, the only painter among them who has grasped the limitation of mural art, has painted with restraint and noble simplicity incidents in the story of St. Genevieve. Jean Paul Laurens is responsible for a splendid but incongruous representation of the death of St. Genevieve. A St. Denis, scenes in the lives of Clovis, Charlemagne, St. Louis, and Jeanne d'Arc, by Bonnat, Blanc, Levy, Cabanel and Lenepveu, are all excellent work of the kind so familiar to visitors to the Salon at Paris, but lacking in harmony and in inspiration. The angel appearing to Jeanne d'Arc seems to have been modelled from a figurante at the opera. The visitor who has perused the opening chapters of this book will have no difficulty in following the subjects depicted on the walls. A more ambitious scheme of decoration was abruptly closed by the Coup d'État of Napoleon III.: Chenavard, who had been commissioned, in 1848, to decorate the interior by a series of forty cartoons, illustrating the "History of Man from his first sorrows to the French Revolution," found his gigantic project made abortive by the Prince President's treachery.

Interior of St. Étienne du Mont.
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To the L. of the Panthéon, the library of St. Genevieve stands on the site of the Collège Montaigu and behind, in the Rue Clotilde, will be seen the steep-pitched roof of the old dormitory and refectory of the monastery of St. Genevieve: to our L. stands the picturesque church of St. Étienne du Mont (p. [85]), whose interior is architecturally of much interest. The triforium, supported by round pillars and arches, in its turn supports a tournée, with another row of arches and pillars; some fine sixteenth-century coloured glass still remains. Biard's florid choir screen (p. [344]) or jubé will at once attract the visitor, and the ever-present worshippers around the rich shrine R. of the choir will tell him that there such relics of the holy patroness of Paris as survived the Revolution are preserved. Two inscriptions near by recall the historical associations of the site. Leaving by the door this side of the choir, we issue into the Rue Clovis: opposite we sight the so-called Tower of Clovis, now enclosed in the buildings of the Lycée Henri IV., and once the tower of the fine old abbey church of St. Genevieve. A closer examination from the courtyard proves it to be partly Romanesque, partly Gothic. We descend the Rue Clovis and at No. 7 find one of the best-preserved remains of the Philip Augustus wall. Proceeding to the end of the Rue Clovis, we turn R., ascend the Rue Cardinal Lemoine, and cross to the Rue Rollin, which we descend to its intersection with the Rue Monge: in the Rue de Navarre opposite will be found the ruins of the old Roman Arena (p. [13]). To return, we descend the Rue Monge, which terminates at the Place Maubert, where we find ourselves on familiar ground; or we may re-ascend the Rue Rollin, retracing our steps to the Rue Cardinal Lemoine, cross L. to the Place Contrescarpe and on our L. find the interesting Rue Mouffetard with curious old houses: 99, the site of the Palace of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, is now the Marché des Patriarchs. The street terminates at the church of St. Médard, whose notorious cemetery (p. [245]) is now a Square. We retrace our steps, noting L. the old fountain at the corner of the Rue Pot de Fer, continue to the end of the Rue Mouffetard, and descend by the Rue Descartes, where at No. 50 is an inscription marking the site of the Porte St. Marcel called Porte Bordet. We pass the École Polytechnique, on the site of the old College of Navarre, and continue down the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève to the Place Maubert.

SECTION IV

The Louvre [193]—Sculpture: Ground Floor.

No other edifice in Europe contains so vast a treasure of things beautiful and rare as the great royal palace of the Louvre, whose growth we have traced in our story. From periods so remote that works of art sometimes termed ancient are in comparison but of yesterday to the productions of the generation of artists who have just passed away, we may study the varying phases of the manifestation through the ages of the artistic sense in man. From Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria, from Persia, Phœnicia and Greece, rich and marvellous collections afford a unique opportunity for the study of comparative æsthetics. We may safely assume, however, that the traveller will be chiefly interested in the manifold examples of the plastic and pictorial arts, here exhibited, from Greece downwards. In the limited space at our disposal we can do no more than indicate the principal and choicest objects in the various rooms, praying those whose leisure and interest impel them to more thorough examination of any one department, to possess themselves of the admirable and exhaustive special catalogues issued by the Directors of the Museum.