Paris as It Was and as It Is Part 3

The centre pavilion over the princ.i.p.al gate of the _Old Louvre_, was erected under the reign of Lewis XIII. from the designs of LE MERCIER, as well as the angle of the left part of the building, parallel to that built by Henry II. The eight gigantic cariatides which are there seen, were sculptured by SARRASIN.

The facade towards the _Jardin de l'Infante_, (as it is called), that towards the _Place du Louvre_, and that over the little gate, towards the river, which were constructed under the reigns of Charles IX. and Henry III. in the midst of the civil wars of the League, partake of the taste of the time, in regard to the multiplicity of the ornaments; but the interior announces, by the majesty of its decorations, the refined taste of Lewis XIV.

NEW LOUVRE.

The part of the _Louvre_, which, with the two sides of the old building, forms the perfect square, three hundred and seventy-eight feet[2] in extent, called the _New Louvre_, consists in two double facades, which are still unfinished. LE VEAU, and after him D'ORBAY, were the architects under whose direction this augmentation was made by order of Lewis XIV.

That king at first resolved to continue the _Louvre_ on the plan begun by Francis I.: for some time he caused it to be pursued, but having conceived a more grand and magnificent design, he ordered the foundation of the superb edifice now standing, to be laid on the 17th of October 1665, under the administration of COLBERT.

Through a natural prejudice, Lewis XIV. thought that he could find no where but in Italy an artist sufficiently skilful to execute his projects of magnificence. He sent for the Cavaliere BERNINI from Rome. This artist, whose reputation was established, was received in France with all the pomp due to princes of the blood. The king ordered that, in the towns through which he might pa.s.s, he should be complimented and receive presents from the corporations, &c.

BERNINI was loaded with wealth and honours: notwithstanding the prepossession of the court in favour of this Italian architect, notwithstanding his talents, he did not succeed in his enterprise.

After having forwarded the foundation of this edifice, he made a pretext of the impossibility of spending the winter in a climate colder than that of Italy. "He was promised," says St. Foix, "three thousand louis a year if he would stay; but," he said, "he would positively go and die in his _own_ country." On the eve of his departure, the king sent him three thousand louis, with the grant of a pension of five hundred. He received the whole with great coolness.

Several celebrated architects now entered the lists to complete this grand undertaking.--MANSARD presented his plans, with which COLBERT was extremely pleased: the king also approved of them, and absolutely insisted on their being executed without any alteration. MANSARD replied that he would rather renounce the glory of building this edifice than the liberty of correcting himself, and changing his design when he thought he could improve it. Among the compet.i.tors was CLAUDE PERRAULT, that physician so defamed by Boileau, the poet. His plans were preferred, and merited the preference. Many pleasantries were circulated at the expense of the new medical architect; and PERRAULT replied to those sarcasms by producing the beautiful colonnade of the _Louvre_, the master-piece of French architecture, and the admiration of all Europe.

The facade of this colonnade, which is of the Corinthian order; is five hundred and twenty-five feet in length: it is divided into two peristyles and three avant-corps. The princ.i.p.al gate is in the centre avant-corps, which is decorated with eight double columns, crowned by a pediment, whose raking cornices are composed of two stones only, each fifty-four feet in length by eight in breadth, though no more than eighteen inches in thickness. They were taken from the quarries of Meudon, and formed but one single block, which was sawed into two.

The other two avant-corps are ornamented by six pilasters, and two columns of the same order, and disposed in the same manner. On the top, in lieu of a ridged roof, is a terrace, bordered by a stone bal.u.s.trade, the pedestals of which are intended to bear trophies intermixed with vases.

PERRAULT'S enemies disputed with him the invention of this master-piece. They maintained that it belonged to LE VEAU, the architect; but, since the discovery of the original ma.n.u.script and drawings of PERRAULT, there no longer remains a doubt respecting the real author of this beautiful production.

In front of this magnificent colonnade, a mult.i.tude of salesmen erect their stalls, and there display quant.i.ties of old clothes, rags, &c.

This contrast, as Mercier justly remarks, still speaks to the eye of the attentive observer. It is the image of all the rest, grandeur and beggary, side by side.

However, it is not on the _outside_ of these walls only, that beggary has been so nearly allied to grandeur. At least we have a solitary instance of this truth of a very sinking nature.

Cardinal de Retz tells us, that going one morning to the _Louvre_ to see the Queen of England, he found her in the chamber of her daughter, aftenwards Dutchess of Orleans, and that she said to him: "You see, I come to keep Henriette company: the poor girl could not leave her bed to-day, for want of fuel."--It is true, he adds, that, for six months past Cardinal Mazarin had not paid her pension; the tradesmen, would no longer give her credit, and she had not a piece of wood to warm her.

Like St. Paul's in London, the facade of the _Louvre_ cannot be seen to the best advantage, on account of the proximity of the surrounding buildings; and, like many other great undertakings too, will, probably, never be completed, but remain a monument of the fickleness of the nation.

Lewis XIV, after having for a long time made the _Louvre_ his residence; abandoned it for _Versailles_: "Sire," said Dufreny once to that prince, "I never look at the _New Louvre_, without exclaiming, superb monument of the magnificence of our greatest kings, you would have been finished, had you been given to one of the begging orders of friars!" From that period, the _Louvre_ was wholly consecrated to the sittings of different academies, and to the accommodation of several men of science and artists, to whom free apartments were allotted.

I much regret having, for this year at least, lost a sight here, which I should have viewed with no inconsiderable degree of attention. This is the

PUBLIC EXHIBITION OF THE PRODUCTIONS OF FRENCH INDUSTRY.

Under the directorial government, this exhibition was opened in the _Champ de Mars_; but it now takes place, annually, in the square of the _Louvre_, during the five complementary days of the republican calendar; namely, from the 18th to the 22d of September, both inclusive.

The exhibition not only includes manufactures of every sort, but also every new discovery, invention, and improvement. For the purpose of displaying these objects to advantage, temporary buildings are erected along the four interior walls of this square, each of which are subdivided into twenty-five porticoes; so that the whole square of the _Louvre_, during that period, represents a fair with a hundred booths. The resemblance, I am told, is rendered still more perfect by the prodigious crowd; persons of all ranks being indiscriminately admitted to view these productions. Precautions, however, are taken to prevent the indiscreet part of the public from rus.h.i.+ng into the porticoes, and sentinels are posted at certain intervals to preserve order.

This, undoubtedly, is a very laudable inst.i.tution, and extremely well calculated to excite emulation in the national manufactures, specimens of which being sent from all the princ.i.p.al manufacturing towns, the hundred porticoes may be said to comprise an epitome of the present state of all the flouris.h.i.+ng manufactures of France.

Indeed, none but new inventions and articles of finished workmans.h.i.+p, the fabrication of which is known, are suffered to make part of the exhibition. Even these are not admitted till after a previous examination, and on the certificate of a private jury of five members, appointed for that purpose by the prefect of each department. A new jury, composed of fifteen members, nominated by the Minister of the Interior, again examine the different articles admitted; and agreeably to their decision, the government award premiums and medals to those persons who have made the greatest improvement in any particular fabric or branch of industry, or produced any new discovery or invention. The successful candidates are presented to the Chief Consul by the Minister of the Interior, and have the honour of dining with him at his public monthly dinner.

From all that I can learn concerning this interesting exhibition, it appears, that, though the useful arts, in general, cannot at present be put in compet.i.tion here with those of a similar description among us, the object of the French government is to keep up a spirit of rivals.h.i.+p, and encourage, by every possible means, the improvement of those manufactures in which England is acknowledged to surpa.s.s other countries.

I am reminded that it is time to prepare for going out to dinner. I must therefore not leave this letter, like the _Louvre_, unfinished.

Fortunately, my good friend, the prevailing fas.h.i.+on here is to dine very late, which leaves me a long morning; but for this, I know not when I should have an opportunity of writing long letters. Restrain then your impatience, and I promise that you shall very shortly be ushered into the GALLERY OF ANTIQUES,

"Where the smooth chisel all its force has shewn, And soften'd into flesh the rugged stone."

[Footnote 1: _Essais historiques sur Paris_.]

[Footnote 2: It may be necessary to observe that, throughout these letters, we always speak of French feet. The English foot is to the French as 12 to 12.789, or as 4 to 4.263.]

LETTER VII.

_Paris, October 28, 1801._

Having, in my last letter, described to you the outside of the _Louvre_, (with the exception of the Great Gallery, of which I shall speak more at length in another place), I shall now proceed to give you an account of some of the princ.i.p.al national establishments contained within its walls.

Before the revolution, the _Louvre_ was, as I have said, the seat of different academies, such as the _French Academy_, the _Academy of Sciences_, the _Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres_, the _Academy of Painting and Sculpture_, and the _Academy of Architecture_. All these are replaced by the _National Inst.i.tute of Arts and Sciences_, of which, however, I shall postpone further mention till I conduct you to one of its public sittings.

At the period to which I revert, there existed in the _Louvre_ a hall, called the _Salle des Antiques_, where, besides, some original statues by French artists, were a.s.sembled models in plaster of the most celebrated master-pieces of sculpture in Italy, together with a small number of antiques. In another apartment, forming part of those a.s.signed to the Academy of Painting, and called the _Galerie d'Apollon_, were seen several pictures, chiefly of the French school; and it was intended that the Great Gallery should be formed into a Museum, containing a collection of the finest pictures and statues at the disposal of the crown.

This plan, which had partly been carried into execution under the old _regime_, is now completed, but in a manner infinitely more magnificent than could possibly have been effected without the advantages of conquest. The _Great Gallery_ and _Saloon_ of the _Louvre_ are solely appropriated to the exhibition of pictures of the old masters of the Italian, Flemish, and French schools; and the _Gallery of Apollo_ to that of their drawings; while a suite of lofty apartments has been purposely fitted up in this palace for the reception of original antiques, in lieu of those copies of them before-mentioned. In other rooms, adjoining to the Great Gallery, are exhibited, as formerly, that is during one month every year, the productions of living painters, sculptors, architects, and draughtsmen.

These different exhibitions are placed under the superintendance of a board of management, or an administration, (as the French term it), composed of a number of antiquaries, artists, and men of science, inferior to none in Europe in skill, judgment, taste, or erudition.

The whole of this grand establishment bears the general t.i.tle of

CENTRAL MUSEUM OF THE ARTS.

The treasures of painting and sculpture which the French nation have acquired by the success of their arms, or by express conditions in treaties of alliance or neutrality, are so immense as to enable them, not only to render this CENTRAL MUSEUM the grandest collection of master-pieces in the world, but also to establish fifteen departmental Museums in fifteen of the princ.i.p.al towns of France.

This measure, evidently intended to favour the progress of the fine arts, will case Paris of a great number of the pictures, statues, &c.

ama.s.sed here from different parts of France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Piedmont, Savoy, and the States of. Venice.

If you cast your eye on the annexed _Plan of Paris_, and suppose yourself near the exterior south-west angle of the _Louvre_, or, as it is more emphatically styled, the NATIONAL PALACE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, you will be in the right-hand corner of the _Place du Vieux Louvre_, in which quarter is the present entrance to the CENTRAL MUSEUM OF THE ARTS. Here, after pa.s.sing through a court, you enter a vestibule, on the left of which is the Hall of the Administration of the Museum. On the ground-floor, facing the door of this vestibule, is the entrance to the

GALLERY OF ANTIQUES.

In this gallery, which was, for the first time, opened to the public on the 18th of Brumaire, year ix. of the French republic, (9th of November 1800), are now distributed no less than one hundred and forty-six statues, busts, and bas-reliefs. It consists of several handsome apartments, bearing appropriate denominations, according to the princ.i.p.al subjects which each contains. Six only are at present completely arranged for public inspection: but many others are in a state of preparation.

The greater part of the statues here exhibited, are the fruit of the conquests of the army of Italy. Conformably to the treaty of Tolentino, they were selected at Rome, from the Capitol and the Vatican, by BARTHeLEMY, BERTHOLET, MOITTE, MONGE, THOUIN, and TINET, who were appointed, by the French government, commissioners for the research of objects appertaining to the Arts and Sciences.

In the vestibule, for the moderate price of fifteen _sous_, is sold a catalogue, which is not merely a barren index, but a perspicuous and satisfactory explanation of the different objects that strike the eye of the admiring spectator as he traverses the GALLERY OF ANTIQUES. It is by no means my intention to transcribe this catalogue, or to mention every statue; but, a.s.sisted by the valuable observations with which I was favoured by the learned antiquary, VISCONTI, long distinguished for his profound knowledge of the fine arts, I shall describe the most remarkable only, and such as would fix the attention of the connoisseur.

On entering the gallery, you might, perhaps, be tempted to stop in the first hall; but we will visit them all in regular succession, and proceed to that which is now the furthest on the left hand. The ceiling of this apartment, painted by ROMANELLI, represents the four seasons; whence it is called the

HALL OF THE SEASONS.

In consequence, among other antiques, here are placed the statues of the rustic divinities, and those relating to the Seasons. Of the whole, I shall distinguish the following:

N 210. DIANA.

Diana, habited as a huntress, in a short tunic without sleeves, is holding her bow in one hand; while, with the other, she is drawing an arrow from her quiver, which is suspended at her shoulder. Her legs are bare, and her feet are adorned with rich sandals. The G.o.ddess, with a look expressive of indignation, appears to be defending the fabulous hind from the pursuit of Hercules, who, in obedience to the oracle of Apollo, was pursuing it, in order to carry it alive to Eurystheus; a task imposed on him by the latter as one of his twelve labours.

To say that, in the opinion of the first-rate connoisseurs, this statue might serve as a companion to the _Apollo of Belvedere_, is sufficient to convey an idea of its perfection; and, in fact, it is reckoned the finest representation of Diana in existence. It is of Parian marble, and, according to historians, has been in France ever since the reign of Henry IV. It was the most perfect of the antiques which adorned the Gallery of Versailles. The parts wanting have been recently restored with such skill as to claim particular admiration.