The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X. Beale Sophia
king and had been holding "quelques discours spirituels avec la reyne et autres assistans," when he was struck down, being only twenty-eight years of age. His tomb was said to be the finest in the choir. He was regretted by all his subjects "spécialement de ses domestiques," for he was generous, magnanimous, and decorated with all kingly virtues. The queen was much afflicted, and thought she would die of grief, "demeurant deux jours et deux nuicts sans reposer ny prendre aucun aliment." Thus Dom Millet. Philippe de Commynes says the chamberlains "le feirent ensevelir fort richement, et sur l'heure luy commencea le service, qui jamais ne failloit ne jour ne nuict." For a whole month the chamberlains and others watched the corpse, the entire expense amounting to "quarante-cinq mil francs." The tomb was the work of Paganini of Modena, no doubt one of the "ouvriers excellens en plusieurs ouvraiges comme tailleurs et painctres" whom the king brought from Naples,28 together with a large collection of works of art, for the carriage of which, and for "la nourriture de XXII. hommes de mestier, de XXXIII. jours à la raison de XL. sous par jour," the king had to pay his tapissier ordinaire 1594 livres; the collection weighing 87,000 livres.
Many marble tombs were also destroyed, some canopied, some resting upon columns, others recumbent, the fragments of which were built up into a pedestal for a figure of Liberty in the Place d'armes opposite the church, a barbarous proceeding, surely; but forget not that the slabs and broken tombs in our old burial grounds are treated much in the same fashion, and piled up into pyramids to ornament the gardens. The transportation of what was saved from the wreck to Paris was no mean work. Think of the huge monument of François I., and about eighty statues! The Convention had no cash to spend upon art; with its fourteen armies defending the frontiers, it had enough expense without paying for the carriage of monuments and such like. And so Lenoir conceived the idea of stopping the military as they returned with empty waggons. Arrived in Paris the difficulties did not end. Statues were chopped about to enable them to fill certain spaces in the museum of the Petits-Augustins, recumbent figures found themselves standing upright; fragments of one tomb were taken to decorate another. But taking it all in all, the museum arranged by Lenoir must have been very imposing. The magnificent tomb of François I. stood in a chapel of the church, now occupied by casts of the works of Michael-Angelo. Louis XII. had a place of honour in another salle. But no sooner was all arranged, indeed before the huge Henri II. monument had been set up, a royal decree of 16th December, 1816, ordered the museum to be closed, the building to be turned into the École des Beaux-Arts, and all the kings and queens to be marched back to S. Denis and the other churches whence they came. So swiftly was the order carried out, that the poor old sovereigns became still more mutilated; some were stowed away in the cellars, others were re-erected upon principles of the greatest economy. If the revolutionists tore down the monuments, the restored monarchists did not take the trouble to set them up again; and those who went to study art in the new schools were enabled to see the respect with which Mediæval art was treated. Statues, canopies, columns, were tossed about anywhere; until Louis XVIII. decided that they should be reinstated at S. Denis. Then strange things occurred. The effigies were matched indiscriminately, and every king was placed by the side of a queen, whether his own or another's. Hence "singuliers incestes de pierre, et des adultères de marbre de la pire espèce. On n'imaginerait jamais ce qui se commit d'immoralités archéologiques sous les voutes obscures de Saint-Denis."29 The monuments were all arranged, museum fashion, in the crypt until our own day, when they were once again removed, and replaced in their old positions in the church, to be left, let us hope, at last in peace.
The following is a list of the monuments returned to S. Denis:
By far the most beautiful tomb is that of Louis XII. "Sur le lieu de la sépulture de Louis XII. et de la reyne Anne, le roy François leur gendre et successeur à la couronne, leur à fait dresser un très-somptueux mausolée de fin marbre blanc, à deux estages, qui est une des belles pièces de l'Europe, pour ne pas dire la plus belle."30 Dom Jacques Doublet and Germain Millet both attributed the work to Ponzio; but Félibien, reading a passage in a Latin commentary printed by Jean Brèche in 1550, discovered the true author: "Voyez le monument" (says Brèche) "de marbre consacré à Louis XII., travaillé avec un artifice admirable et plein d'élégance, dans notre très-illustre cité de Tours, par Jean Juste, statuaire du plus grand talent." The discovery of an order for payment of 400 écus to Juste in a letter from the king to Cardinal Duprat, sets the matter at rest if the date of Ponzio's arrival did not also do so.31 The tomb was taken to S. Denis in 1527; whereas Ponzio did not arrive in France until about 1530. This way of attributing all that is good in art to Italy was formerly very common. Even in our own time all branches of French art were looked upon by our fathers as frivolous and trivial. Italian Renaissance was trivial enough, but French Renaissance utterly meretricious. To the insane worshippers of the "Gothic style," it alone was pure. The sumptuous grandiosities of Louis XIV. were tolerable, because they aimed at being Classic. The portico of the Panthéon or the colonnade of the Louvre were considered fine; but the elegancies of Jean Goujon were wanting in severity. Even Watteau, though admitted to be graceful, was "meretricious"; Berlioz amongst musicians was only "noisy and claptrap;" and sculpture and architecture were criticised in like manner. And yet the designs upon the tomb of Louis XII., especially the pilasters which support the canopy, could not be surpassed in beauty by the artists of any country. Jean Juste, Philibert Delorme, Jean Goujon, Michel Colomb, Jean Cousin, and Germain Pilon formed a group of men scarcely surpassed by Sansovino, Riccio, Desiderio da Settignano and the Rossellini. The Italians led the way, but the French proved themselves very apt pupils.
It is not my intention to describe the tomb of Louis XII., or, indeed, any of the others, minutely. Descriptions without illustrations are mostly dry and dreary. Nor have I tried to illustrate the details of ornament in the churches or their contents – in a book of this size it would be impossible; my aim has rather been to give the general effect of their styles; of their everyday appearance; of the life which goes on in and around them; and of the position, especially in the case of S. Denis, of their tombs and furniture. A large photograph and a magnifying glass will show the beauty of the sculpture of the tombs far better than any drawing of mine; for such subjects photography is unique. But for artistic effect, for general impressions of buildings it mostly fails, and all artists will agree with me that, for some reason or other, photographs of buildings seem generally to have been taken from the worst point of view, and are nearly always wanting in impressiveness.
Jean Juste had a brother Antoine, and they seem together to have been the authors of the beautiful tomb of the children of Charles VIII. at Tours; of the fountain called de Beaune, also at Tours; of the two monuments of the famille Gaudin; and the tomb of the général des finances, Thomas Bohier. In 1530, one Juste de Just, tailleur en marbre, living at Tours received 102 livres 10 sous from the king for a Hercules and a Leda. This Juste was probably the same as Jean. The bas-reliefs round the base of Louis XII.'s tomb represent various campaigns of the king; the figures at the four corners are the Cardinal Virtues, those within the arcades are the twelve Apostles. Within are the king and queen, entirely nude, lying upon a mattress in the last agony of death; while above, upon the platform, they are praying before a cushioned faldstool, for their own departed souls. Such is the motive of this and the other two tombs of the same character, those of Henri II. and François Ier.
The former of these is the work of Germain Pilon, and was originally placed under the dome of Philibert Delorme's magnificent chapel erected for the Valois family. It is of marble with bronze figures. The king and queen pray upon the housetop; at each end are openings through which are to be seen the figures of the defunct in the sleep of death. The terrible side of death, which is prominent in the expression on the faces of Louis XII. and his queen, is here absent; and Catherine is represented young and beautiful as she appeared at the death of her husband, whom she survived thirty years. At the four corners are bronze figures of the Cardinal Virtues; and the kneeling figures of the sovereigns upon the canopy are also in bronze. The tomb has always been justly esteemed as a magnificent work, and even Bernini admired it. "Le cavalier Bernin," says Sauval, "a admiré le tombeau de Valois, qui voulait ne rien trouver
Philippe de Commynes.
Guilhermy.
G. Millet.
In the Cathedral of Dol the remains of a monument by Juste are signed: