Royal Palaces and Parks of France Part 7

The accepted tale of the part played by the famous window of the Louvre in the drama of Saint Bartholomew's night is as follows: As the signal tolled from the belfry of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois it was answered by another peal from the great bell of the Palais de Justice, where, within a small apartment over the watergate of the Louvre, the queen and her two sons were huddled together not knowing what might happen next. The mult.i.tude streamed by on the quay before the palace, and, finally, amid all the horror of Coligny's murder, and the throwing of his body from a window of the Louvre to the street below, Charles IX stood at his window regarding the fleeing Huguenots as so much small game, shooting away at them with an arquebuse as they went by, and with an unholy glee, even boasting that he had killed a score of heretics in a quarter of an hour.

Historians of those exciting times were perhaps none too faithful chroniclers and Charles's "excellent shots" in his "royal hunt," and hideous oaths and threats such as: "We'll have them all, even the women and children," are not details as well authenticated as we would like to have them. Like Rizzio's blood stains they lack conviction.

The ambitious white-plumed Henri de Navarre, when he became Henri IV of France, set about to connect the tentacle which stretched southward from the Old Louvre with the Tuileries (a continuation of the project of Catherine de Medici), and, by the end of the sixteenth century, had built a long facade under the advice of the brothers Ducerceau. This work was added to on the courtyard side under the Second Empire, when a reconstruction, more likely a strengthening of underpinning and walls because of their proximity to the swift-flowing waters of the Seine, of the work of Henri IV was undertaken.

Joining the Tuileries and this work of Ducerceau was the celebrated Pavilion de Flore, a work of the Henri IV period rather than that of Catherine de Medici.

From the Pavilion de Flore to the Pavilion de Lesdiguieres ran this long gallery of the Ducerceau and numerous interstices and unfinished vaults and arches leading towards the Old Louvre were, at this epoch, completed by Metezeau and Dupaira. The chief apartment of this structure became known as the _Galerie Henri IV_, and was completed in 1608.

At the death of Henri IV, Richelieu, who at times builded so well, and who at others was a base destroyer of monuments, demolished that portion which remained of the edifice of Charles V. The work of Pierre Lescot was preserved, however, and to give symmetry and an additional extent of available s.p.a.ce the rectangle facing Saint Germain l'Auxerrois to-day was completed, thus enclosing in one corner of its ample courtyard the foundations of the earlier work whose outlines are plainly traced in the pavement that those who view may build anew--if they can--the old structure of Philippe Auguste. In mere magnitude the present quadrangle is something more than four times the extent of the Louvre of the time of Charles V.

This courtyard of the Louvre is perhaps that spot in all Paris which presents the greatest array of Renaissance art treasures. From ground to sky-line the facades are embroidered by the works from the magic hand of the _Siecle Italien_. Jean Goujon himself has left his brilliant souvenirs on all sides, caryatides, festoons, bas-reliefs, statues and colonnades.

Enthusiasm and devotion knew no bounds among those old craftsmen, but all is well-ordered, regular and correct. "He who mentions the Louvre to a Frenchman gives a greater pleasure than that of Mehemet-Ali when one praises the pyramids." In a way the Louvre is the most magnificent edifice in the universe; "four palaces one piled up on another, _une ville entiere_." And when the Louvre was linked with the Tuileries in the real, what a splendour it must have been for former generations to marvel at! "_La plus belle et la plus grande chose sous le soleil._"

This work of aggrandizement of the quadrangle was carried out by the architect Lemercier on the basis of a project adopted in 1642, and, to a great extent, completed before the arrival of Anne d'Autriche, twenty years later.

This queenly personage had ideas of her own as to what sort of a residence she would have in Paris, and beyond her personal needs little was done for the moment towards actually linking up the various loose ends, each more or less complete in itself, which now composed the Paris palace of the French monarchs.

Her son, the king in person if not in power, was not likely to be endowed with instincts which would put him in the rank of the traditional castle or palace builders of his race; it was literature, music and painting which more particularly flourished during his reign, and so the Austrian contented herself at first with merely putting the former apartments of Catherine de Medici into condition for her personal use and building a Salle-de-Spectacle, and--happy thought--a Salle-des-Bains.

Louis XIV, as he found time, after the war of the Fronde, actually did bethink himself of completing, in a way, the work of his elders, and charged the architect Levau to finish off the north wing, which was done in 1660. A year later the Galerie Henri IV was practically destroyed by fire and rebuilt by Levau, who gave the commission for its interior decoration to Lebrun.

Soon the south wing was completed, leaving only the gap for the eastern facade which was intended to be the chief entrance to the ma.s.s of buildings, which still bore the comprehensive name of "The Louvre."

For the accomplishment of this facade, the demolition of certain dwellings of the n.o.bility which had cl.u.s.tered around the royal fabric was necessary, and the Hotels du Pet.i.t Bourbon, de Villequier, de Chaumont, La Force, De Crequy, de Longueville, and de Choisy fell before the picks of the house-breakers. Levau commenced work on the facade at once, and made rapid progress until 1664, when an abrupt order came for him to stop all work. Political conspiracy, graft, if you like, was at work, and Colbert, little favourable towards Levau, made a proposition to the king to open a compet.i.tion for the design and execution of the facade. Willingly enough, his mind doubtless more occupied with other things, Louis XIV agreed, and a general call was sent out to all French architects to enter the lists. Confusion reigned, and Levau was about to be recalled when Colbert spied an unrolled parchment in the corner and pounced upon it eagerly as the means of saving him from the dubious efforts of the former inc.u.mbent.

It was the "non-professional" plan submitted by a doctor in medicine, one Charles Perrault. Jealous compet.i.tors made all sorts of criticisms and objections, the chief contention being that if by any chance an architectural design by a "pill-roller" proved pleasing to the eye it was bound to be impracticable from an economic or constructive point of view, or both. This is often enough true, and it proved to be so in this case, for in spite of a certain amount of advice from an expert Italian builder, who had come to Paris to help the good doctor with his difficult task (for he actually received a commission for the work and completed it in 1674), the facade did not fit the rest of the fabric with which it was intended to join up, and to-day it may be observed by the curious as being several feet out of line with the structure which faces on the Rue de Rivoli.

Louis XIV practically had no regard for the Louvre and its architectural traditions; his palatial garden-city idea, worked out at Versailles, shows what an innovator he was. He allowed the Louvre to be filled up with all sorts of riffraff, who were often given a lodging there in place of a money payment for some service rendered. The Louvre thus became a sort of genteel poor-house, while king and court spent their time in the more ample country-house behind the Meudon hills.

By 1750 the Louvre had become little more than an immense ruin, humbled and desecrated; a veritable orphan. The Marquis de Marigny, Surintendant des Batiments Royaux, obtained the authorization to chase out the parasites and clean up the Augean stable and put things in order as best pleased his esthetic fancy, but only with the early years of the nineteenth century did the Louvre become a real palace again and worthy of its traditions.

From 1803 to 1813 the architects Fontaine and Percier were constantly engaged in the work of repairs and additions, and built (for Napoleon I) the gallery which extends from what is now the Place Jeanne d'Arc to the Pavillon de Rohan, along the Rue de Rivoli. This detached portion (bound only to the Tuileries) was finally joined to the seventeenth century work of Lemercier under Louis Napoleon in 1852. This gallery, the work of "moderns," is no mean example of palace-building, either. It was the work of Visconti and Lefuel, and with the adoption of this plan was finally accomplished the interpolation of that range of pavilions which gives the architecture of the Louvre one of its princ.i.p.al distinctions.

Named after the princ.i.p.al ministers of former administrations--Donon, Mollien, Daru, Richelieu, Colbert, Turgot, etc., these pavilions break up what would otherwise be monotonous, elongated facades.

The inauguration of this last built portion of the palace was held on August 14, 1857, the occasion being celebrated by a banquet given by Napoleon III to all the architects, artists and labourers who had been engaged upon the work. In the same Salle, two years later, which took the name of Salle des etats, the emperor gave a _diner de gala_ to the generals returning from the Italian campaign.

Still further resume of fact with regard to the main body of the Louvre, as well as with respect to its individual components, will open never-ending vistas and pageants. It is not possible in a chapter, a book or a five-foot shelf to limn all that is even of cursory interest.

The well-known, the little-known and the comparatively unknown mingle in varying proportions, according to the individual mood or att.i.tude. To some the appeal will lie in the vastness of the fabric, to others in the varied casts of characters which have played upon its stage, still others will be impressed with the dramatic incidents, and many more will retain only present-day memories of what they have themselves seen. The Louvre is a study of a lifetime.

To resume a none too complete chronology, it is easy to recall the following important events which have taken place in the Louvre since the days of Henri III, the period at which only the barest beginnings of the present structure had been projected.

In 1591 a ghastly procedure took place when four members of the Conseil des Seize were hung in the Salle des Caryatides by orders of the Duc de Mayenne.

Like the horoscope which foretold the death of Henri III, another royal prophecy was cast in 1610 that reminds one of that which perhaps had not a little to do with the making away with the last of the Valois princes.

The Duc de Vendome, the son of Henri IV by Gabrielle d'Estrees, handed the king a doc.u.mentary horoscope signed by an astrologer calling himself La Brosse, which warned the king that he would run a great danger on May 14 in case he went abroad.

"La Brosse is an a.s.s," cried the king, and crumpled the paper beneath his feet.

On the day in question the king started out to visit his minister, Sully, at the a.r.s.enal. It was then in turning from the Rue Saint Honore into the Rue de la Ferroniere that the royal coach, frequently blocked by crowds, offered the opportunity to the a.s.sa.s.sin Ravaillac, who, jumping upon the footboard, stabbed the king twice in the breast.

After having been wounded the king was brought dying to the Louvre. His royal coach drew up beneath the vault through which throngs all Paris to-day searching for a "short cut" from the river to Saint Honore. It was but a short, brief journey to the royal apartments above in the Pavilion de l'Horloge, but it must have been an interminable calvary to the gallant Henri de Navarre. The body was received by Marie de Medici in tears, and the Ducs de Guise and d'Epernon clattered out the courtyard on horseback to spread the false news that the king had suffered no harm. Fearing the results of too precipitate publis.h.i.+ng of the disaster no other course was open.

A gruesome memory is that the Swiss Guard at the Louvre surrept.i.tiously acquired a "_quartier_" of the dismembered body of the regicide and roasted it in a fire set alight beneath the balcony of Marie de Medici as an indication of their faithfulness and loyalty.

It was Sully, the king's minister, who ran first up the stairs to acquaint the queen of the tragedy--faithful ever to the interests of his royal master. In spite of this, one of the first acts of Marie de Medici as regent was to drive the Baron de Rosny and Duc de Sully away. Such is virtue's reward--sometimes.

"Lying on his bed, his face uncovered, clad in white satin and a bonnet of red velvet embroidered with gold, was all that remained of Henri IV of France and Navarre. Around the bed were nuns and monks from all the monasteries of Paris to keep vigil of his soul."

So ends the chronicle closing the chapter of the relations of Henri IV with his Paris palace.

No particularly tragic event took place here for some years. Henriette de France, widow of Charles I of England, taking refuge in France from the troublous revolt at home, lived in the Louvre in 1644. She had at first been graciously received by Mazarin, but was finally accorded only the most strict necessities of life, a mere lodging in the Louvre, a modest budget and a restricted entourage.

In 1662, under Louis XIV, Moliere and his troup, in a theatre installed in the Salle des Caryatides, gave the first "command" performance on record. The plays produced were, "Nicodeme" and "Le Docteur Amoureux."

An "art note" of interest is that Sylvain Bailly, the first curator of the Musee du Louvre, was born within its precincts in 1736.

In the dark days of July, 1830, the populace attempted to pillage and sack the palace, but after a b.l.o.o.d.y reprisal retired, leaving hundreds of dead on the field. The _parterre_ beneath the famous colonnade was their burial place, though a decade later the bodies were exhumed and again interred under the Colonne de Juillet in the Place de la Bastille.

Le Notre, the gardener of kings, laid out the first horticultural embellishments of the palace surroundings under Louis XIV, and with little change his scheme of decoration lasted until the time of Louis Philippe, who made away with much that was distinctive and excellent.

Napoleon III came to the front with an improved decorative scheme, but the hard flags of to-day, the dusty gravel and the too spa.r.s.e architectural embellishments do not mark the gardens of the Louvre as being anything remarkable save as a desirable breathing spot for Paris nursemaids and their charges.

The iron gates of the north, south and east sides were put into place only in 1855, and at the Commune served their purpose fairly well in holding the rabble at bay, a rabble to whose credit is the fact that it respected the artistic inheritance enclosed by the Louvre's walls. No work of art in the museums was stolen or destroyed, though the library disappeared.

CHAPTER VII

THE TUILERIES AND ITS GARDENS

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIGINAL PLAN of the TUILERIES]

No more sentimental interest ever attached itself to a royal French palace than that which surrounded the Tuileries from its inception by Charles IX in the mid-sixteenth century to its extinction by the Commune in 1871.

The Palace of the Tuileries is no more, the Commune did for it as it did for the Hotel de Ville and many another n.o.ble monument of the capital, and all that remains are the gardens set about with a few marble columns and gilt b.a.l.l.s--themselves fragments of former decorative elements of the palace--to suggest what once was the heritage bequeathed the French by the Medici who was the queen of Saint Bartholomew's night.

It was a palace of giddy gayety that drew its devotees to it only to destroy them. "Crowned fools who wished to be called kings, and others."

Even its stones were chiselled as if with a certain malignancy and fatalism, for they have all disappeared, and their history, even, has not been written as large as that of those of many contemporary structures.

Of the last five kings to which the Tuileries gave shelter--not counting the Second Emperor--only one went straightway to the tomb; one went to the scaffold and three others to exile. A sorry dowry, this, for an inheritor of a palace at once so n.o.ble and admirable in spite of its unluckiness.

With the court followers and the n.o.bility of the last days of the monarchy it was the same thing; the Tuileries was but a temporary shelter. The scaffold accounted for many and banishment engulfed others to forgetfulness.