Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

V >> Various >> Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

It was in one of the private apartments, occupying the site of the ancient
Galerie des Cerfs, now destroyed, that she ordered the execution of her
chief equerry, Monaldeschi, whom she had convicted of treason. She
listened patiently to his excuses, but was utterly unmoved by them and his
entreaties for mercy. She provided a priest to confess him, after which he
was slowly butchered by blows with a sword on the head and face, as he
dragged himself along the floor, his body being defended by a coat of
mail....

Even after the creation of the palaces of Versailles and Marly, Louis XIV.
continued to make an annual "voyage de Fontainebleau." He compelled his
whole court to follow him; if any of his family were ill, and unable to
travel by road, he made them come by water; for himself, he slept on the
way, either at the house of the Duc d'Antin (son of Mme. de Montespan) or
of the Marechal de Villeroy.

It was here that the Grand Dauphin was born, in 1661. Here, also, it was
that Mme. de Maintenon first appeared at the councils, and that the king
publicly asked her advice as to whether he should accept the throne of
Spain for the Duc d' Anjou. Here, also, in 1685, he signed the revocation
of the edict of Nantes. The great Conde died in the palace. Louis XV. was
married here to Marie Leczinska in 1725; and here the Dauphin, his son,
died in 1765. Louis XIV. delighted in Fontainebleau for its hunting
facilities.

After the Revolution, Napoleon I. restored the chateau and prepared it for
Pius VII. who came to France to crown him, and was here (January 25, 1813)
induced to sign the famous Concordat de Fontainebleau, by which he abjured
his temporal sovereignty. The chateau which witnessed the abdication of
the Pope, also saw that of Napoleon I., who made his touching farewell to
the soldiers of the Vielle-Garde in the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, before
setting off for Elba.... The Cour du Cheval-Blanc, the largest of the five
courts of the palace, took its name from a plaster copy of the horse of
Marcus Aurelius at Rome, destroyed 1626. Recently it has been called the
Cour des Adieux, on account of the farewell of Napoleon I. in 1814. It was
once surrounded by buildings on all sides; one was removed in 1810, and
replaced by a grille.

The principal facade is composed of five pavilions with high roofs, united
by buildings two stories high. The beautiful twisted staircase in front of
the central pavilion was executed by Lemercier for Louis XIII., and
replaces a staircase by Philbert Delorme. Facing this pavilion, the mass
of buildings on the right is the Aile Neuve of Louis XV., built on the
site of the Galerie d'Ulysse, to the destruction of the precious works of
Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate, with which it was adorned. Below the
last pavilion, near the grille, was the Grotte du Jardin-des-pins, where
James V. of Scotland, coming over to marry Magdalen of France, daughter of
Francois I., watched her bathing with her ladies, by the aid of a
mirror....

To the west of the Cour du Cheval-Blanc, and communicating with it, is the
Cour de la Fontaine, the main front of which is formed by the Galerie de
Francois I. This faces the great tank, into which Gaston d' Orleans, at
eight years old, caused one of the courtiers to be thrown, whom he
considered to have spoken to him disrespectfully. One side of the Cour de
la Fontaine, that toward the Jardin Anglais, is terminated by a pavilion
of the time of Louis XV.; the other, formerly decorated with statues is
attributed to Serlio. The fountain from which the court takes its name has
been often changed; a poor work by Petitot now replaces the grand designs
of the time of Francois I. and Henri IV. Beyond this court we find, on the
left, the Porte Doree, which faces the Chaussee de Maintenon, between the
Etang and Parterre; it was built under Francois I., and decorated by
Primaticcio with paintings, restored in 1835. It was by this entrance that
Charles V. arrived at the palace in 1539....

A staircase now leads to the first floor, and we enter the apartments of
Napoleon I., all furnished in the style of the First Empire. The cabinet
de l'Abdication is the place where he resigned his power. His bedroom
(containing the bed of Napoleon I., the cradle of the King of Rome, and a
cabinet of Marie Louise) leads to the Salle du Conseil, which was the
Salon de Famille under Louis Philippe. Its decorations are by Boucher, and
are the best of the period. It was in leaving this room that the Marechal
de Biron was arrested under Henri IV., in a cabinet which is now thrown
into the adjoining Salle du Trone, (previously the bedroom of the Bourbon
kings), dating from Charles IV., but decorated under Louis XIII. A fine
portrait by Phillipe de Champaigne represents Louis XIII. It is
accompanied by his device in allusion to his vehemence in the
extermination of heresy.

The adjoining boudoir de Marie Antoinette is a beautiful little room,
painted by Barthelemy. The metal work of the windows is said to have been
wrought by Louis XVI. himself, who had his workshop here, as at
Versailles. The richly decorated Chambre a Coucher de la Reine was
inhabited by Marie de Medici, Marie Therese, Marie Antoinette, Marie
Louise, and Marie Amelie. The silk hangings were given by the town of
Lyons to Marie Antoinette on her marriage. The Salon de Musique was the
Salon du jeu de la Reine, under Marie Antoinette. The ancient Salon de
Clorinde, or des Dames d' Honneur, is named from its paintings by Dubois
and from the "Gerusalemme Liberata."

The Galerie de Diane, built by Napoleon I. and Louis XVIII., replaces the
famous frescoed gallery of Henri IV. It is now turned into a library for
the use of the town. In the center is a picture of Henri IV. on horseback,
by Mauzaise. The Salles des Chasses contain pictures of hunting scenes
under Louis XV. We now reach the glorious Galerie d' Henri II. (or Salle
des Fetes), built by Francois I., and decorated by Henri II. The walnut-
wood ceiling and the paneling of the walls are of marvelous richness. Over
the chimney is a gigantic H, and the initials of Henri II. are constantly
seen interlaced with those of Diane de Poitiers.... The sixty paintings on
the walls, including eight large compositions, were executed by Niccolo
Dell' Abbate, and are probably the finest decorations of the kind existing
in France.

The rooms usually shown last are those formerly inhabited by Catherine de
Medici and Anne of Austria, and which, under the First Empire, were used
by Pius VII., under Louis Philippe, by the Duke and Duchess of Orleans.
The most interesting of these are the Chambre a Coucher, which bears the
oft-repeated A L (the chiffre of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria), and in
which Pius VII. daily said mass, and the Salon, with its fine tapestry
after Giulio Romano. The Galerie des Assiettes, adorned with Sevres china,
only dates from Louis Philippe. Hence, by a gallery in the Aile Neuve,
hung with indifferent pictures, we may visit the Salle du Theatre,
retaining its arrangements for the emperor, empress, and court.

The Gardens, as seen now, are mostly as they were rearranged by Lenotre
for Louis XIV. The most frequented garden is the Parterre, entered from
the Place du Cheval-Blanc. In the center of the Jardin Anglais (entered
through the Cour de la Fontaine) was the Fontaine Bleau, which is supposed
by some to have given a name to the palace. The Etang has a pavilion in
the center, where the Czar Peter got drunk. The carp in the pool, overfed
with bread by visitors, are said to be, some of them, of immense age. John
Evelyn mentions the carp of Fontainebleau, "that come familiarly to hand."
The Jardin de l' Orangerie, on the north of the palace, called Jardin des
Buis under Francois I., contains a good renaissance portal. To the east of
the parterre and the town is the park, which has no beauty, but harmonizes
well with the chateau.

Visitors should not fail to drive in the Forest, 80 kilometers in circuit,
and, if they return late, may look out for its black huntsman--"le grand
veneur." ... The forest was a favorite hunting-ground of the kings of
France to a late period. It was here that the Marquis de Tourzel, Grand
Provost of France, husband of the governess of the royal children,
fractured his skull, his horse bolting against a tree, when hunting with
Louis XVI., in November, 1786. The forest is the especial land of French
artists, who overrun and possess it in the summer. There are innumerable
direction-posts, in which all the red marks--put up by Napoleon III.,
because so few peasants could read--point to town.

St. Denis

By Grant Allen

[Footnote: From "Paris."]

About six miles north of the original Paris stands the great Basilica of
St. Denis--the only church in Paris, and I think in France, called by that
ancient name, which carries us back at once to the days of the Roman
Empire, and in itself bears evidence to the antiquity of the spot as a
place of worship. Around it, a squalid modern industrial town has slowly
grown up; but the nucleus of the whole place, as the name itself shows, is
the body and shrine of the martyred bishop, St. Denis. Among the numerous
variants of his legend, the most accepted is that in which the apostle of
Paris carries his head to this spot from Montmartre. Others say he was
beheaded in Paris and walked to Montmartre, his body being afterward
translated to the Abbey; while there are some who see in this legend a
survival of the Dionysiac festival and sacrifice of the vine-growers round
Paris--Denis--Dionysius--Dionysus.

However that may be, a chapel was erected in 275 above the grave of St.
Denis, on the spot now occupied by the great Basilica; and later, Ste.
Genevieve was instrumental in restoring it. Dagobert I., one of the few
Frankish kings who lived much in Paris, built a "basilica" in place of the
chapel (630), and instituted by its side a Benedictine Abbey. The church
and monastery which possest the actual body of the first bishop and great
martyr of Paris formed naturally the holiest site in the neighborhood of
the city; and even before Paris became the capital of a kingdom, the
abbots were persons of great importance in the Frankish state.

The desire to repose close to the grave of a saint was habitual in early
times, and even (with the obvious alteration of words) ante-dated
Christianity--every wealthy Egyptian desiring in the same way to "sleep
with Osiris." Dagobert himself was buried in the church he founded, beside
the holy martyr; and in later times this very sacred spot became for the
same reason the recognized burial place of the French kings. Dagobert's
fane was actually consecrated by the Redeemer Himself, who descended for
the purpose by night, with a great multitude of saints and angels.

The existing Basilica, tho of far later date, is the oldest church of any
importance in the neighborhood of Paris. It was begun by Suger, abbot of
the monastery, and sagacious minister of Louis VI. and VII., in 1121. As
yet, Paris itself had no great church, Notre-Dame having been commenced
some 50 years later. The earliest part of Suger's building is in the
Romanesque style; it still retains the round Roman arch and many other
Roman constructive features. During the course of the 50 years occupied in
building the Basilica, however, the Gothic style was developed; the
existing church therefore exhibits both Romanesque and Gothic work, with
transitional features between the two, which add to its interest.
Architecturally, then, bear in mind, it is in part Romanesque, passing
into Gothic. The interior is mostly pure Early Gothic.

The neighborhood to Paris, the supremacy of the great saint, and the fact
that St. Denis was especially the Royal Abbey, all combined to give it
great importance. Under Suger's influence, Louis VI. adopted the oriflamme
or standard of St. Denis as the royal banner of France. The Merovingian
and Carlovingian kings, to be sure--Germans rather than French--had
naturally been buried elsewhere, as at Aix-la-Chapelle, Rheims, and
Soissons (tho even of them a few were interred beside the great bishop
martyr). But as soon as the Parisian dynasty of the Capets came to the
throne, they were almost without exception buried at St. Denis. Hence the
abbey came to be regarded at last mainly as the mausoleum of French
royalty, and is still too often so regarded by tourists.

But tho the exquisite Renaissance tombs of the House of Valois would well
deserve a visit on their own account, they are, at St. Denis, but
accessories to the great Basilica. Besides the actual tombs, too, many
monuments were erected here, in the 13th century (by St. Louis) and
afterward, to earlier kings buried elsewhere, some relic of whom, however,
the abbey possest and thus honored. Hence several of the existing tombs
are of far later date than the kings they commemorate; those of the Valois
almost alone are truly contemporary.

At the Revolution, the Basilica suffered irreparable losses. The very
sacred reliquary containing the severed head of St. Denis was destroyed,
and the remains of the martyr and his companions desecrated. The royal
bones and bodies were also disinterred and flung into trenches
indiscriminately. The tombs of the kings were condemned to destruction,
and many (chiefly in metal) were destroyed or melted down, but not a few
were saved with difficulty by the exertions of antiquaries, and were
placed in the Museum of Monuments at Paris (now the Ecole des Beaux-Arts),
of which Alexandre Lenoir was curator. Here, they were greatly hacked
about and mutilated, in order to fit them to their new situations.

At the Restoration, however, they were sent back to St. Denis, together
with many other monuments which had no real place there; but, being housed
in the crypt, they were further clipt to suit their fresh surroundings.
Finally, when the Basilica was restored under Viollet-le-Duc, the tombs
were replaced as nearly as possible in their old positions; but several
intruders from elsewhere are still interspersed among them. Louis XVIII.
brought back the mingled bones of his ancestors from the common trench and
interred them in the crypt. As regards the tombs, again, bear in mind
these facts. All the oldest have perished; there are none here that go
back much further than the age of St. Louis, tho they often represent
personages of earlier periods or dynasties. The best are those of the
Renaissance period. These are greatly influenced by the magnificent tomb
of Giangaleazzo Visconti at the Certosa di Pavia, near Milan. Especially
is this the case with the noble monument of Louis XII., which closely
imitates the Italian work. Now, you must remember that Charles VIII. and
Louis XII. fought much in Italy, and were masters of Milan; hence this
tomb was familiar to them; and their Italian experiences had much to do
with the French Renaissance. The Cardinal d'Amboise, Louis's minister,
built the Chateau de Gaillon, and much of the artistic impulse of the time
was due to these two. Henceforth recollect that tho Francois I. is the
prince of the Renaissance, Louis XII. and his minister were no mean
forerunners....

The interior is most beautiful. The first portion of the church which we
enter is a vestibule or Galilee under the side towers and end of the Nave.
Compare Durham. It is of the age of Abbot Suger, but already exhibits
pointed arches in the upper part. The architecture is solid and massive,
but somewhat gloomy.

Descend a few steps into the Nave, which is surrounded by single aisles,
whose vaulting should be noticed. The architecture of this part, now pure
Early Gothic, is extremely lovely. The triforium is delicate and graceful.
The windows in the clerestory above it, representing kings and queens, are
almost all modern. Notice the great height of the Nave, and the unusual
extent to which the triforium and clerestory project above the noble
vaulting of the aisles. Note that the triforium itself opens directly to
the air, and is supplied with stained-glass windows, seen through its
arches. Sit awhile in this light and lofty Nave, in order to take in the
beautiful view up the church toward the choir and chevet. Then walk up to
the Barrier near the Transepts, where sit again, in order to observe the
Choir and Transepts with the staircase which leads to the raised
Ambulatory. Observe that the transepts are simple. The ugly stained glass
in the windows of their clerestory contains illustrations of the reign of
Louis Philippe, with extremely unpicturesque costumes of the period. The
architecture of the Nave and Choir, with its light and airy arches and
pillars, is of the later 13th century.

The reason for this is that Suger's building was thoroughly restored from
1230 onward, in the pure pointed style of that best period. The upper part
of the Choir, and the whole of the Nave and Transepts was then rebuilt--
which accounts for the gracefulness and airiness of its architecture when
contrasted with the dark and heavy vestibule of the age of Suger.

Note from this point the arrangement of the Choir, which, to those who do
not know Italy, will be quite unfamiliar. As at San Zeno in Verona, San
Miniato in Florence, and many other Romanesque churches, the Choir is
raised by some steps above the Nave and Transepts; while the Crypt is
slightly deprest beneath them. In the Crypt, in such cases, are the actual
bodies of the saints buried there; while the Altar stands directly over
their tombs in the Choir above it.

Marly-Le-Roi

By Augustus J. C. Hare

[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]

The tram stops close to the Abreuvoir, a large artificial tank, surrounded
by masonry for receiving the surplus water from the fountains in the
palace gardens, of which it is now the only remnant. Ascending the avenue
on the right, we shall find a road at the top which will lead us, to the
left, through delightful woods to the site of the palace. Nothing remains
but the walls supporting the wooded terrace.

It is difficult to realize the place as it was, for the quincunces of
limes which stood between the pavilions on either side of the steep avenue
leading to the royal residence, formerly dipt and kept close, are now huge
trees, marking still the design of the grounds, but obscuring the views,
and, by their great growth, making the main avenue very narrow. St. Simon
exaggerates the extravagance of Louis XIV. at Marly, who spent there four
and a half million francs between 1679 and 1690, and probably as much or
more between 1690 and 1715, perhaps in all ten or twelve millions, which
would represent fifty million francs at the present time. Nevertheless the
expense of the amusements of Louis XIV. greatly exceeded the whole revenue
of Henri IV., and those of the early years of Louis XIII.

From the central pavilion in which the flattery of Mansart placed him as
the sun, Louis XIV. emerged every morning to visit the occupiers of the
twelve smaller pavilions, Les Pavilions des Seigneurs, the constellations,
his courtiers, who came out to meet him and swelled his train. These
pavilions, arranged on each side of the gardens, stood in double avenues
of clipt lime-trees looking upon the garden and its fountains, and leading
up to the palace.

The device of the sun was carried out in the palace itself, where all the
smaller apartments circled round the grand salon, the king and queen
having apartments to the back, the dauphin and dauphine to the front, each
apartment consisting of an anteroom, bedroom, and sitting-room, and each
set being connected with one of the four square saloons, which opened upon
the great octagonal hall, of which four faces were occupied by chimney-
pieces and four by the doors of the smaller saloons. The central hall
occupied the whole height of the edifice, and was lighted from the upper
story.

The great ambition of every courtier was to be of the Marly circle, and
all curried favor with the king by asking to accompany him on his weekly
journey to Marly. The Court used to arrive at Marly on a Wednesday and
leave it on a Saturday; this was an invariable rule. The king always
passed his Sundays at Versailles, which was his parish. ... The leading
figure at Marly was Mme. de Maintenon, who occupied the apartments
intended for Queen Marie Therese, but who led the simplest of lives, bored
almost to extinction. She used to compare the carp languishing in the
tanks of Marly to herself--"Like me they regret their native mud." ... At
first Mme. de Maintenon dined, in the midst of the other ladies in the
square salon which separated her apartment from that of the king; but soon
she had a special table, to which a very few other ladies, her intimates,
came by invitation.

Marly was the scene of several of the most tragic events in the life of
Louis XIV. "Everything is dead here, there's no life in any thing," wrote
the Comtesse de Caylus, niece of Mme. de Maintenon, from Marly to the
Princess des Ursins, after the death of the Duchesse de Bourgogne. And, in
a few days afterward, Marly was the scene of the sudden death of the
Dauphin, Duc de Bourgogne, the beloved pupil of Fenelon. Early in the
morning after the death of his wife, he was persuaded, "ill and anguished
with the most intimate and bitterest of sorrows," to follow the king to
Marly, where he entered his own room by a window on the ground floor.

It was also at Marly--"ill-omened Marly"--that the Duc de Berry, the
younger grandson of Louis XIV., and husband of the profligate daughter of
the Duc d' Orleans--afterward Regent, died, with great suspicion of
poison, in 1714. The MS. memorials of Mary Beatrice by a sister of
Chaillot, describe how, when Louis XIV. was mourning his beloved
grandchildren, and that queen, whom he had always liked and respected, had
lost her darling daughter Louisa, she went to visit him at Marly where
"they laid aside all Court etiquette, weeping together in their common
grief, because, as the Queen said, 'We saw that the aged were left, and
that death had swept away the young.'" St. Simon depicts the last walk of
the king in the gardens at Marly on August 10, 1715. He went away that
evening to Versailles, where he died on September 1.

Marly was abandoned during the whole time of the Regency, and was only
saved from total destruction in 1717, when the Regent Philippe d'Orleans
had ordered its demolition, by the spirited remonstrance of St. Simon....
The great pavilion itself only contained, as we have seen, a very small
number of chambers. The querulous Smollett, who visited Marly in 1763,
speaks of it as "No more than a pigeon-house in respect to a palace." But
it was only intended as the residence of the king.

During the repairs necessary in the reign of Louis XV., who built Choisy
and never lived at Marly, the cascade which fell behind the great pavilion
was removed. Mme. Campan describes the later Marly of Louis XVI., under
whom the "Marly journey" had become one of the great burdens and expenses
of royal life. The Court of Louis XVI. was here for the last time on June
11, 1789, but in the latter years of Louis XVI., M. de Noailles, governor
of St. Germain, was permitted to lend the smaller pavilions furnished to
his friends for the summer months. Marly perished with the monarchy, and
was sold at the Revolution, when the statues of its gardens were removed
to the Tuileries. A cotton mill was for a time established in the royal
pavilion; then all the buildings were pulled down and the gardens sold in
lots!

Still the site is worth visiting. The Grille Royale, now a simple wooden
gate between two pillars with vases, opens on the road from St. Germain to
Versailles, at the extremity of the Aqueduct of Marly. Passing this, one
finds oneself in an immense circular enclosure, the walls of which
surround the forest on every side.

The Village of Auteuil

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[Footnote: From "Outre-Mer." Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]

The sultry heat of summer always brings with it, to the idler and the man
of leisure, a longing for the leafy shade and the green luxuriance of the
country. It is pleasant to interchange the din of the city, the movement
of the crowd, and the gossip of society, with the silence of the hamlet,
the quiet seclusion of the grove, and the gossip of a woodland brook.

It was a feeling of this kind that prompted me, during my residence in the
North of France, to pass one of the summer months at Auteuil, the
pleasantest of the many little villages that lie in the immediate vicinity
of the metropolis. It is situated on the outskirts of the Bois de
Boulogne, a wood of some extent, in whose green alleys the dusty city
enjoys the luxury of an evening drive, and gentlemen meet in the morning
to give each other satisfaction in the usual way. A cross-road, skirted
with green hedge-rows, and overshadowed by tall poplars, leads you from
the noisy highway of St. Cloud and Versailles to the still retirement of
this suburban hamlet. On either side the eye discovers old chateaux amid
the trees, and green parks, whose pleasant shades recall a thousand images
of La Fontaine, Racine, and Moliere; and on an eminence, overlooking the
windings of the Seine, and giving a beautiful tho distant view of the
domes and gardens of Paris, rises the village of Passy, long the residence
of our countrymen Franklin and Count Rumford....

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13