Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a ——— ad —— = nr THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. ‘ rt and aging with Philip Augustus, | lician cathedral “more excellent in length, breadth, holding in his hand “‘t lasperial.giohe,” height, and structure.” Time, raising by 4 slow and irresistible progress the otre-Dame, however, is not what may be called a/ at the foot, Gothic in the middle, Greco-Roman at the hevel ot the city, vned the removal of the ha _ complete building, nor does it belong to any definite top. The reason is that it was six centuries in build- i with Childe 1 l structures, the transition edifices. The one is Roman but if this résing tide of the pavement of Paris _class. It is not a Roman church, neither is it a Gothic | ing. This variety is rare; the castle of Etampes is a swallowed up, one after another, those eleven 8 | church. Notre-Dame has not, like the abbey of Tour- | specimen of it. But the édifices composed of two ich added to the majestic height of the edifice, Time | nus, the heavy, massive squareness, the cold naked-' formations are frequént. Such is Notre-Dame at Paris, has given to the church more, perhaps, than it has | ness, the mraje tic simplicity, of edifices which have a building in the pointed style, the first pillars of taken away; for it is Time that has imparted to the fa- | the circular oh for their generative principle. It ‘| which belong to the Roman zone, like the porch of St. cade that sombre hue of antiquity which makes the | not, like the cathedral of Bourges, the magnificent, | Denis, and the nave ot St. Germain des Pres. Such too li ht, multiform, efflorescent; highly decorated produc- ‘is the charming semi-Gothic capitular hall of Bocher- But who has thrown down the two es of statues? | tion of the pointed arch. It cannot be classed among ville, exhibiting the Roman stratum up to half. its Who has left the niches empty’? Oo has inserted | that ancient family of churches, gloomy, mysteriouy, | heisut. Such is the Cathedral of Rouen, which would that new and bastard pointed arch in the middle of the | low, and crushed as it were by the circular arch ; quite ' be entirely Gothic, were it not for the extremity of its beautiful porch ? Who has dared to set a that taste- | hieroglyphic, sacerdotal, symbolical; exhibiting in | centralbsteeple, which penetrates into the zoneof the less and heayy door of wood, carved in the style of | their decorations more lozenges and zigzags than | revival. : Louis XV., beside the srabesques of Biscornette? The | flowers, more flowers tlian animals, more animals than | For the rest, all these shades, all these differences, men, the architects, the artist, of our days. human figures ; the work not so much of the architect ! affect only the surface of edifices; it is but art which And, if we step within the edifice, who has thrown | as of the bishop; the first transformation of the art | haschanged itsskin. The constitution itself of the down that colossal St. Christopher, proverbfal among | impressed all over with theocratic an‘| military discip- | Christian church is not affected by them. There is al- statues for the same reason as the great hall of the | line, commencing in the Lower Empire and terminat- ways the same internal arranyement, the same lovical old of buildings the period of their greatest beauty. 13 | the colors in the solar spectrum. Hence the complex palace. among halls, and the steeples of Strasburg | ing with William the Conqueror. Neither can our | disposition ofparts. Be the sculptured and embroidered among steeples? who has brutally swept away those edral be placed in that other family of churches; | outside of a cathedral what it may, we invariably tind myriads Of italiane ight, lofty, rich in painted glass and sculptures ;/ underneath at least the germ and rudiment of the es which Revple’ all the intercolum- niations of the nave and the ch kneeling, standing, on horseback; | aoldiers; of stone, marble, gol even wax? t Time most assuredly. And who has s splendidly enoumbered with shrines and reliquaries, that heavy sarcophagus of marble and ite clouds, look specimen of the Yal de Grace or the Invalids? Who has atupidly inserted that clumsy anachronism of stone stituted to the old Gothic altar, | beginning with the return from the (rusades and eud- uis XI. Notre-Dame is not of a pure Roman | th its cherubs | extraction like the former, neither is it ot pure Arab for all the world like a stray , extraction, like the latter. sharp in form, bold in attitude; free, capricious, un- | Roman basilica. It uniformly expands itself wpon the and sacerdotal, but artistical, progressive and popular, ing with It is a transition edifice. The Saxon archirect had set up the first pillars of the nave, when the pointed style, n, women, ch idren, kings, bishops‘ | ruly, as works of art; the second transformation of | ground according to the same law. There are without ad, silver, copper, and | architecture, no longer hieroglyphi¢, unchangeable, viation two naves, intersecting each otherin the form of across, and the upper extremity of which rounded into an apsis, forms the chancel and two aisles for pro- cessions and for chapels, asort of lateral walking-places, into which the principal nave disgorges itself by the intercolumniations. These poin beihg settled, the number of the chapels, porches, towers, pinnacles, is varied to infinity, according to the caprice of the age, * in the tite pavement of Hercandis? Is it not | brought back from the Crusades, seated itself like a| the nation, and theart. Accomodation forthe exercises Louis . fulfilling the vow of Louis XITII.? conqueror upon those broad Roman capitals designed | of religion once provided and secured, archi I And who has put cold, white glasa instead of those | to support circular arches only. The pointed style, | just what it pleases, Asfor statues, windows, deeply colored panes, which caused the astonished | thenceforward mistress, constructed the rest of the | mullions, arabesques, open-work, capita basso-re- eyes of our ancestors to pause between the rose of the | church; but, unpractised and timid at its outset, it lievos--it combines all these devices agreeably to the great porch a oy pointed arches, of the chancel? | displays a breadth, a flatness, and dares not yet shoot | system which best suits itself. Hence the p ous ‘What would a sub- horister of the sixteenth centuary | up into steeples and pinnacles, as it has sinee done in | external yariety in those edifices, within which de say on beholding the yellow plaster with which our Vandal archbishops have pedstinat their cathedral ? He would recollect that this was the color with which the executioner washed over the houses of criminals; he would recollect the Hotel of the Petit-Bourbon, thus beplas with yellow on account of the treason of the Con e, “and a yellow of 80 good quality,” gaith Sauyal, “and so well laid on, that more than a century hath not yet faded its color,” he would rp that the sacred fane has become infamous, and flee from it as fast as he could. And if we go up into the cathedral without pausing over the thousand barbarisms of all kinds, what hag | tails, while the litt been done with that charming little belfry, which so many wonderful cathedrals. You would say that it is affected by the vicinity of the heavy Roman pillars. For the rest, those edifices of the transition from the | Roman to the Gothic style are not less valuable as studies than the pure type : shade of the art Nea ped ie: be aaa but ca on on the engrafting of the pointed upon the circular style. Notre-Dame at Paris is r men of this variety. Every fuce, every stone, of the venerable structure is a page not only of the history of the country, but also of the history = art and science. Thus, to grate merely at the principal de- e the Gothic delicacy of the fifteenth century, the pillars f either. They express a! particularly curions speci- | | , WE have just attempted to repair for the reader the | admirable Church of Notre-Dame at Paris. We have | briefly totched upon most of the beauties which it had oe Porte Rouge attains almost to | sesses; but we have omitted the principal, such order and unity. The trunk of the tree is un- changeable, the.toliage capricious. CHAPTER II. BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF PARIS. in the fifteeuth century, and. which it no longer pos- stood over the point of intersection of the transept, and | of the nave, by their bulk and heaviness, carry you | view of Paris then enjoyed from the top of tas tebvetes which, neither less light nor less bold than its neigh- |‘back to the date of the Carlovingian Abbey of St. Ger- | bor, the steeple of the Holy Chapel (likewise destroyed); rose, light, elegant, and sonorous, into the air, over- topping the towers? It was amputated (1787) by an architect of taste, who Geemed it sufficient to cover: the wound with that large plaster of lead, which looks, for all the world, like the lid of a saucepan. , It is thus that the wonderful art of the Middle Ages” has been treated in almost every country, espécially in France. In its ruins we may distinguish three kinds of injuries, which have affected in different degrees; in the first place Time, which has here and there chapped and owns Ware worn its surface ; in the next, revolutions, political and religious, which, blind ; a furious by ure, have rushed tumultu- ously upon it, str ped i ofits rich garb of sculptures and carvings; broken ie ope work and its chains of arabesque’ and fancifu , torn down its statues, 3ometimes on account of their mitres, at others on main des Pres. You would imagine that there were six centuries between that doorway and those pillars. There are none, down to the alchymists themselves, but findin the symbols of the grand porch a sutisfac- tory compendium for their science, of which the Church of St. Jacques de la Boucherie was so complete a hier- oglyphic. Thus the Roman abbey and the philosoph- ical church, Gothic art and Saxoh art, the heavy round pillar, which reminds you of Gregory VIL, papal unity and schism, St. Germain des Pres and St. Jacques de la Boucherie—are all blended, combihed, amalgamated, in Notre-Dame. This Gentral mother-church is a sort of chimera‘among the ancient churches of Paris; it has the head of one, the limbs of third, and something of them all. These hybrid structures, as we have observed, are | not the less interesting to the artist, the antiquary, and the historian. They show how far architecture isa prim-_ account of their crowns ; lastly, the fashions, more afid | itive art, inasmuch as they demonstrate (what is also | oe the trunk of a. more silly and grotesque, which since the splendid | demonstrated by the Cyclh pean remains, the pyramids | deviations of the regeneration have succeeded each | of Egypt, the gigantic Hindvo Pagodas) that the grand- | other in the necessary decline of architecture. The | est productions of architecture ure not so much indi-| fashions have, in fact, done more mischief than revo- lutions. They have cut into the quick; they have at- tacked the uss of theart; they have hacked, hewn, mangled, murdered tbe building, in the form as well as the symbol, in its logic not less than in its beauty, And then, they have renewed—a presumption from which at least time and revolutions have been exempt. In the name of good taste, forsooth, they haye impudently clapped upon the wounds of Gothic archii- tecture their paltry gew-gaws of a yf their ribbons of marble, their pompoons of metal, a downrfght leprosy of eggs, volutes, spirals, draperies, garlands, fri ‘ fames of stone, clonds of bronze, plethoric samba. = grim! cherubs, which begins to eat into the face of art in the oratory of Catheripe de Medicis, and puts it to death two ee later, writhing and grinning in the boudoir of the Dubarry. ' Thus, to sum up the points to which we have directed | attention, three kinds of ravages nowadays disfignre | Gothic architecture; wrinkles and warts on the epi- dermis—these are the work of Time; wounds, con- tusions, fractures, from. brutal violence—these are the work of revolutions from Luther to Mirabedau; muti- lations, amputations, dislocations of members, restora- tions—this is the napagrals Greek and Roman work of professors, according to Vitruvius and Vignole, ‘Bhat inagnificent art which the Vandals produced academies have murdered. With Time and revolutions, ravages at any rate marked by impartiality and grand- eur, has been associated a host of architects, duly bred, | duly patented, and duly sworn, despoiling with the discernment of bad taste, substituting thé chicories of Louis XV. to the Gothic lace-work, for the greater glory of the Parthenon. This is truly the ass’s kick to the expiring lion ; the old oak throwing out its leafy crown, to be bittén, gnawed, and torn by caterpillars, How widely different this from the period when Robert Cenalis, comparing Notre-Dame at Paris with the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, “so highly vidual as social works, rather the offspring of nations in labor than the inventions of genius; the d lett bya people; the accumulations, formed by ages; the residuum of the successive evaporations of human so- ciety—im short, a species of formations. Every wave of time superinduces its allnvion, every generation de- posits its stratum upon the structure, every individual brings his stone. such that of the bees, such that of men. emblem of architecture, Babel, is a bee-hive. Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of ages. It is frequently the case that art changes while they are Still in progress. The new art takes the strue- ture as it finds it, incrusts itself upon it, assimilates it- self to it, proceeds with it according to its own faney and completes it if it can. The thing is accomplished withont disturbance without effort, without reaction, various styles at various heights upon te same struc- ture. The man, the artist, the individual, are lost in these vast masses without any anthers name; while human skill is condensed and concentrated in them. Time is the architect, the nation is the mason. Such is the process of the beayers, | P@8tY. finding herself straitened in her The great | -away and overflowed this inclosure. | tus surrounded Paris with new ramparts, ayreeably to a natural and quiet law. Certes, there is prisoned the city within a circular cain matter for very thick books, and often for the universal | history of mankind;in those successive inoculations of | obtain a little fresh air. It was, in fact, when, after groping your. in the dark spiral staircase with whlek! the thick wail of the towers is perpendicularly perforated, and landing ab- ruptly ou one of thetwo lofty platforms deluged with lightand air, that a delightful spectacle bursts at once upon the view—a ctacle sui generis, of which some — conception may easily be formed by such of ourreaders as have had the good fortune to see one ot the few Gothic towns still left entire, complete, homoyeneous, such as | Nuremberg in Bavaria, Vittoria in Spain or even smaller specimens, provided they are in good preser- vation, as Vitre, in Bretagne, and Nordhausen, in » nssia. The Paris of three hundred and fifty years ago, the Paris of the fifteenth century, was already ag tic city. We modern Parisians in general are much mis- taken in regard to the ground which we tees it has gained. Since the time ot Louis XI. Paris has not increased above one-third: and, certes, it has lost much more in beauty than it has acquired in m ude. | ‘The infant Paris was born, as every knows, in that ancient island in the shape of a cradle, which is now Called the OCity.. The banks of that island were its first inclosures; the Seine was its first ditch. For Bev centuries Puris was confined to the island, having two bridges, the one on the north, the other on the south, and the two (ctes-de-ponts, which were at ones its gates and its fortresses—the Grand Chatelet on the right bank and the Petit Chatelet on the left. In process of time, under the kings of the first dy- land and unable to turn herself about, she crossed the water. A first inclosure of wall and towers then began to en- croach upon either bank of the Seine beyoud the two Chatelets. Of this ancient inclosure some vestiges were still remaining in the past century; no is now left of it but the memory and here and there a tradition. By degrees the flood of houses, always propelled from the heart to the extremities, wore Philip Augus- He im- of large, lofty, and massive towers. For more than acentury . the houses, crowding closer and closer, raised their level iu this basin, iike water in a reservoir. Fhey began to prow higher: story was piled upon story; they shot up, like any compressed liquid and each tried to hold its head above its neighbor's, in order to The streets became deeper To confine our view here to Christian European arch- | and deeper, and narrower and narrower; every va- itecture, that younyer sister of the grand style of the into three totally distinct zones laid one upon another; the Roman zone, the Gothic, and fhe zone of the revival, which we would fain call the Greco-Roman. The Roman stratum, whichis the most ancient and the lowest, is occupied by the circular arch, which again appears, «up- ported by the Greek column in the modern and upper- t stratum of the revival. The pointed style is De- | mos P Paris is perpetually increasing. _ that became eapitals of countries. tween both. The edifices belonging exclusively to one of these three strata are absolutely distinct, one, and com- plete. Such are the Abbey of Jumieges, the Cathedral of Rheims, the Holy Cross at Orleans. But the three extolled by the ancient heathen,” pronounced the Gal-' zones blend and amalgamate at their borders, like cant place was covered and disappeared. The houses whose | Kast, it appears to us like 4n immense formation diyided | at length overleaped the wall of Philip Augustus, and merrily Seattered themselves at random over the plain, like prisoners who had made their escape. There they sat themselves down at their ease and carved themselves gardens out of the fields. §8So early as 1967 the suburbs of the city had spread so far as to need a fresh inclosure, especiallyon the right bank; this was built for it by Charles V. But a place like It is such cities alone They are reser- voirs, into which all the geographical, political, moral, and intellectual channels of a country, all the natural inclined planes of its population, discharge them- 0)(0\(6) ecoim A a (E(o)