The Churches of Paris, from Clovis to Charles X. Beale Sophia
the weight of the vaulting rests, therefore, upon the exterior buttresses, but not the slightest inflection has ever taken place. The church is built truly east and west, the entrance to each chapel being by separate portals. The only modification the exterior of the building has sustained since S. Louis' time is the addition of a little oratory attributed to Louis XI., and the rebuilding of a part of the façade in the 15th century.
The porch of the lower chapel is divided into two bays by a pier, on which is a statue of the Blessed Virgin, while above in the tympanum, is a representation of the Coronation of the Virgin. The restoration of this and the entire ornament of the doorway is the work of M. Geoffroy-Dechaume. The original statue had the reputation of working miracles; and it is related that when, towards 1304, Jean Duns Scotus, a celebrated theologian of the University of Paris, was praying at its feet, it bent its head in approval of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which that learned doctor was teaching. It has since always remained in the same position. The portal of the upper chapel is of the same character as the lower one, but richer in its decoration. It is nearly all new, for the old ornament had not only been mutilated, but had been completely chiselled off. The voussure is a mass of sculptures – single figures, groups, and ornament. The figures are forty-four in number: Angels carrying the elect to heaven, Angels censing and bearing crowns, martyrs with the instruments of their sufferings, and the lost souls surrounded by the flames of hell, the whole forming a framework to the central subject in the tympanum, the Last Judgement; the work is a marvel of patient study, modelled upon the portals of Notre-Dame and S. Germain l'Auxerrois, each figure having been fitted into its place upon the lines of the original wherever any traces of the old sculptures had been preserved.
The plan of the church is a parallelogram, terminating in a polygonal apse. The buttresses reach to the parapet, and terminate in pinnacles surrounded by gargoyles ornamented with the most grotesque birds and beasts. The windows of the nave are divided into four lights, with foliated circles in the heads very similar to those of the Chapter House at Salisbury. Several flèches have preceded the present one; the first fell in the reign of Charles VI., the second was burnt in the great fire of 16th July, 1630; the third was erected by Louis XIII. in the ogival style of that period, and remained until the 17th century. When it was destroyed, in 1791, it contained five bells, which had been cast in 1738; the Dauphin, the Duc d'Orléans, the Duc de Chartres, and the first President of the Chambre des Comptes being their sponsors. The present flèche was erected in 1853, and is in the style of the 15th century. It is of wood, covered with lead, and consists of three octagonal storeys supporting the spire.
On the lower storey are colossal statues of the twelve Apostles, most of them portraits, the S. Thomas being that of the sculptor Lassus. The gables of the upper storey support Angels with the instruments of the Passion. The crockets of the spire are fleurs-de-lys, and the whole is resplendent with gilding. The summit of the chevet is surmounted by a huge Angel, in lead, holding a processional cross. There was an idea, never carried out, of making this statue turn round mechanically upon a pivot during the twenty-four hours, that it might present the symbol of salvation successively to all quarters of the city. The masks upon the pedestal of this figure are all portraits of the artists and workmen engaged upon the restoration of the chapel, posing as the Kings of France. The oratory, erected by Louis XI., between the two buttresses of the fourth bay, upon the south side, is decorated with niches and corbels of human heads.
The vaulting of the lower chapel is supported by fourteen single-shaft pillars, surrounded by foliated capitals of various designs. The walls are decorated with arcading, terminated at the east end by an apse. The two columns without capitals were added at the same time as the apsidal tribune in the upper chapel. The decoration is in imitation of the original 13th century work, some of which, a fragment of an Annunciation, was discovered in removing the remains of some later work in a style utterly at variance with the architecture, by Martin Fréminet, painter to Henri IV. and Louis XIII. In 1691 the tracery of the windows and the stained glass were destroyed and replaced by white in order to give extra light. Formerly there were seven altars and a font in the lower chapel, Boileau, whose father had a house in the court of the palace, being amongst those who were baptised there.
The upper chapel is one of those buildings which one never tires of admiring. When we wend our way up the turret stairs, and enter it from the semi-darkness of the crypt, it strikes us as the most exquisite scheme of colour imaginable. Add to the beauty of the chapel all the associations which crowd upon the memory – S. Louis' beautiful faith and noble life, his enthusiasm for God's work and man's welfare; all the ceremonies and the processions which have taken place there, with the lights, the flowers, and the incense, and our imagination forms a picture that no hand could adequately paint. The chapel is composed of four bays for the nave, and seven smaller for the apse. The vault is groined and is supported by clustered columns and capitals ornamented with foliage. The windows occupy the entire space between the supporting pillars, and are filled with most beautiful stained glass;7 while below is an arcade rising from a stone seat. The capitals of the columns are most exquisitely carved in imitation of the flora of France, and the quatrefoils between the arches are filled with a kind of decoration which is as rare as it is effective. The designs were drawn upon the stone, and the backgrounds filled in with incrustations of blue glass and gold, the subjects being taken from the lives of the martyrs. Most of them have been restored; but, very wisely, two or three have been left in the state in which they were discovered. Between the arches of the arcades are Angels with outstretched arms, who seem to be crowning the martyrs in the quatrefoils. At the third bay of the nave on each side are recesses which formed reserved places for some privileged persons during Mass; and it is thought that they were probably occupied by the king and queen, the former on the Gospel, the latter on the Epistle side. On the south wall is a slanting recess, which formerly must have served as a chapel, as there was an altar at the end of it having a painted reredos representing the interior of the great châsse, with all its contents ranged in proper order, and S. Louis praying before it. It is supposed that Louis XI. may have used this niche as a place where he could pray without being seen, but in sight of the altar and the relics.
It has always been the custom at the consecration of a church to place a cross wherever the sign of the cross had been made by the bishop. The architect of the Sainte-Chapelle conceived the happy idea of placing the twelve Apostles as pillars of the Church, supporting these crosses, which are in the form of monstrances. The pedestals on which the figures stand are affixed to the pillars, and the statues, like the rest of the church, are painted and gilt, those of the 13th century being marvellous examples of the sculpture of that period. After the closing of the chapel these statues were sent to the Musée des Monuments Français; but when the Museum was suppressed they were dispersed or broken up. S. Peter was discovered in fragments at S. Denis, another was given to the church at Creteil, where it passed as S. Louis, and four were given to the missionaries for their Calvary at Mt. Valerien. The latter were in perfect preservation, and the colour had not disappeared. They remained at the entrance of one of the chapels of the Way of the Cross until 1830, when some senseless vandals threw them down and broke them; but the fragments were preserved, and are now in the garden of the Hôtel Cluny, a museum of fragments. The rest were replaced in the chapel, and are the fourth and fifth on each side facing the altar; all the others are new.
The pavement is modern incised stone, with incrustations of colour, representing geometrical patterns, animals, and flowers. In the apse are subjects – the Four rivers of Paradise, and the Seven Sacraments in the form of rivers. The altar is an exact copy of the original one. Above it is the tribune and canopy where the relics were exposed, with a spiral staircase leading up to it;8 the northern one is ancient, and was found by Alexandre Lenoir, in the Musée des Petits-Augustins, where for half a century it had been attached to the façade of the Château de Gaillon, a 16th century work, now in the court of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. On one side of the apse is a very beautiful piscina. Part of the baldachino is ancient, and the rest has been restored from old drawings.
Formerly several statues occupied places in the chapel; one, a terra-cotta Notre-Dame de Pitié, by Germain Pilon, which is now in the chapel of the military school of St. Cyr. A 16th century jubé, with altars attached to it, marked
"Vin de la couleur des vitres de la Sainte-Chapelle." – (