Notre-Dame de Paris
were so old that they would seem new.
With the reader’s consent, we will endeavor to retrace in
thought, the impression which he would have experienced in
company with us on crossing the threshold of that grand hall, in
the midst of that tumultuous crowd in surcoats, short, sleeveless
jackets, and doublets.
And, first of all, there is a buzzing in the ears, a dazzlement
in the eyes. Above our heads is a double ogive vault, panelled
with wood carving, painted azure, and sown with golden
fleurs-de-lis; beneath our feet a pavement of black and white
marble, alternating. A few paces distant, an enormous pillar,
then another, then another; seven pillars in all, down the length
of the hall, sustaining the spring of the arches of the double
vault, in the centre of its width. Around four of the pillars,
stalls of merchants, all sparkling with glass and tinsel; around
the last three, benches of oak, worn and polished by the trunk
hose of the litigants, and the robes of the attorneys. Around the
hall, along the lofty wall, between the doors, between the
windows, between the pillars, the interminable row of all the
kings of France, from Pharamond down: the lazy kings, with
pendent arms and downcast eyes; the valiant and combative kings,
with heads and arms raised boldly heavenward. Then in the long,
pointed windows, glass of a thousand hues; at the wide entrances
to the hall, rich doors, finely sculptured; and all, the vaults,
pillars, walls, jambs, panelling, doors, statues, covered from
top to bottom with a splendid blue and gold illumination, which,
a trifle tarnished at the epoch when we behold it, had almost
entirely disappeared beneath dust and spiders in the year of
grace, 1549, when du Breul still admired it from tradition.
Let the reader picture to himself now, this immense, oblong hall,
illuminated by the pallid light of a January day, invaded by a
motley and noisy throng which drifts along the walls, and eddies
round the seven pillars, and he will have a confused idea of the
whole effect of the picture, whose curious details we shall make
an effort to indicate with more precision.
It is certain, that if Ravaillac had not assassinated Henri IV.,
there would have been no documents in the trial of Ravaillac
deposited in the clerk’s office of the Palais de Justice, no
accomplices interested in causing the said documents to
disappear; hence, no incendiaries obliged, for lack of better
means, to burn the clerk’s office in order to burn the documents,
and to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk’s
office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old
Palais would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I
should be able to say to the reader, “Go and look at it,” and we
should thus both escape the necessity,—I of making, and he of
reading, a description of it, such as it is. Which demonstrates a
new truth: that great events have incalculable results.
It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place,
that Ravaillac had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he
had any, they were in no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two
other very plausible explanations exist: First, the great flaming
star, a foot broad, and a cubit high, which fell from heaven, as
every one knows, upon the law courts, after midnight on the
seventh of March; second, Théophile’s quatrain,—
“Sure, ’twas but a sorry game
When at Paris, Dame Justice,
Through having eaten too much spice,
Set the palace all aflame.”
Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political,
physical, and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618,
the unfortunate fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day
remains, thanks to this catastrophe,—thanks, above all, to the
successive restorations which have completed what it spared,—very
little remains of that first dwelling of the kings of France,—of
that elder palace of the Louvre, already so old in the time of
Philip the Handsome, that they sought there for the traces of the
magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by
Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What has become of
the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his
marriage? the garden where he administered justice, “clad in a
coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves,
and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with
Joinville?” Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and
that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the
staircase, from which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of
pardon? the slab where Marcel cut the throats of Robert de
Clermont and the Marshal of Champagne, in the presence of the
dauphin? the wicket where the bulls of Pope Benedict were torn,
and whence those who had brought them departed decked out, in
derision, in copes and mitres, and making an apology through all
Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure, its
statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all
fretted with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone
lion, which stood at the door, with lowered head and tail between
his legs, like the lions on the throne of Solomon, in the
humiliated attitude which befits force in the presence of
justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass? and the
chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the
delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done
with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all
this Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened
arches of M. de Brosse, that awkward architect of the
Saint-Gervais portal. So much for art; and, as for history, we
have the gossiping reminiscences of the great pillar, still
ringing with the tattle of the Patru.
It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the
veritable old palace. The two extremities of this gigantic
parallelogram were occupied, the one by the famous marble table,
so long, so broad, and so thick that, as the ancient land
rolls—in a style that would have given Gargantua an appetite—say,
“such a slice of marble as was never beheld in the world”; the
other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself sculptured on his
knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be brought,
without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal
statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two
saints whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings
of France. This chapel, quite new, having been built only six
years, was entirely in that charming taste of delicate
architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of fine and deep chasing,
which marks with us the end of the Gothic era, and which is
perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in the
fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose
window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a
masterpiece of lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it
a star of lace.
In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of
gold brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to
which had been effected through a window in the corridor of the
gold chamber, had been erected for the Flemish emissaries and the
other great personages invited to the presentation of the mystery
play.
It was upon the marble table that the mystery was to be enacted,
as usual. It had been arranged for the purpose, early in the
morning; its rich slabs of marble, all scratched by the heels of
law clerks, supported a cage of carpenter’s work of considerable
height, the upper surface of which, within view of the whole
hall, was to serve as the theatre, and whose interior, masked by
tapestries, was to take the place of dressing-rooms for the
personages of the piece. A ladder, naively placed on the outside,
was to serve as means of communication between the dressing-room
and the stage, and lend its rude rungs to entrances as well as to
exits. There was no personage, however unexpected, no sudden
change, no theatrical effect, which was not obliged to mount that
ladder. Innocent and venerable infancy of art and contrivances!
Four of the bailiff of the palace’s sergeants, perfunctory
guardians of all the pleasures of the people, on days of festival
as well as on days of execution, stood at the four corners of the
marble table.
The piece was only to begin with the twelfth stroke of the great
palace clock sounding midday. It was very late, no doubt, for a
theatrical representation, but they had been obliged to fix the
hour to suit the convenience of the ambassadors.
Now, this whole multitude had been waiting since morning. A
goodly number of curious, good people had been shivering since
daybreak before the grand staircase of the palace; some even
affirmed that they had passed the night across the threshold of
the great door, in order to make sure that they should be the
first to pass in. The crowd grew more dense every moment, and,
like water, which rises above its normal level, began to mount
along the walls, to swell around the pillars, to spread out on
the entablatures, on the cornices, on the window-sills, on all
the salient points of the architecture, on all the reliefs of the
sculpture. Hence, discomfort, impatience, weariness, the liberty
of a day of cynicism and folly, the quarrels which break forth
for all sorts of causes—a pointed elbow, an iron-shod shoe, the
fatigue of long waiting—had already, long before the hour
appointed for the arrival of the ambassadors, imparted a harsh
and bitter accent to the clamor of these people who were shut in,
fitted into each other, pressed, trampled upon, stifled. Nothing
was to be heard but imprecations on the Flemish, the provost of
the merchants, the Cardinal de Bourbon, the bailiff of the
courts, Madame Marguerite of Austria, the sergeants with their
rods, the cold, the heat, the bad weather, the Bishop of Paris,
the Pope of the Fools, the pillars, the statues, that closed
door, that open window; all to the vast amusement of a band of
scholars and lackeys scattered through the mass, who mingled with
all this discontent their teasing remarks, and their malicious
suggestions, and pricked the general bad temper with a pin, so to
speak.
Among the rest there was a group of those merry imps, who, after
smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on
the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and
their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the
hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from
their parodied gestures, their ringing laughter, the bantering
appeals which they exchanged with their comrades, from one end of