Saint-Eustache

Some of you suggested that I should now offer you a lunch or dinner at “Lipp”. I’m sorry, but immediately after Saint-Germain-des-Prés, there will be another church - Saint-Eustache, some 500 years younger; the construction started in 1532 and lasted for about 100 years. The facade was rebuilt during the 18th century and the church was restored in 1844 after a fire, by Baltard, especially known for the creation of “les Halles”, the central market place in Paris, torn down in 1972-73.
As you can see, the church is situated very close to what still is called “les Halles” and it’s also close to rue Montorgueuil (on which I recently posted), which starts at the back end of this church.

The church represents a mixture of gothic and renaissance style.

Molière was baptized and got married in this church and Louis XIV received his communion here. You can find a lot of paintings, including by Rubens. Among the tombs, you can find the one of Colbert, great statesman and minister of finance, who managed to keep the French finances more or less afloat despite big expenditures by Louis XIV for wars and for the building of Versailles.

The church’s musical tradition is very strong; Lully and Rameau performed here and the premieres of Berlioz’s “Te Deum” and Liszt’s “Messiah” took place in this church. Rameau is buried here. I don’t know if Mozart played at Saint Eustache, but he organized the funeral of his mother. A lot of concerts are still given. The organ has been completely rebuilt in recent years and is considered as one of the biggest and best in the world.In front of the church you can find a different kind of sculpture, called “l’Ecoute” (see photo bottom right on the first patchwork). If you want to know something more about it, I can refer to a recent post by Cergie.

Some of the pictures can be found on my photo blog.

I have visitors around I may not find the time to post tomorrow, nor to visit your blogs as I usually try to do, … so I wish you already now a nice weekend!

La Conciergerie

Not so much spectacular to show in images from La Conciergerie – part of the Palais de Justice - but the place is very much linked to French history.

The name of the building is related to the French word for a caretaker or door-keeper (concierge), still often found in French apartment buildings, mostly a lady living on the ground floor and checking if you have the right to enter or not. In this case, there was certainly a need for a door-keeper as this became the Paris’ first and most famous prison.

This part of the present Palais de Justice was built as a fortress 1284-1314. When by the end of the 14th century the kings moved out from was then the Royal Palace (Palais de la Cité) to the palaces of the Louvre, Vincennes and others, this part became the seat for the Parliament (Parlement de Paris), the judicial power and also a prison.

Totally you can see four towers, the first one the square Clock Tower and then the Caesar Tower, the Silver Tower (where the royal jewelry may have been kept) and the “Bon Bec” (= medieval slang for tattler) Tower, where the confessions were obtained.

In the basement is a gigantic room which originally served as the Palace refectory, but during the revolution housed the male prisoners (with an extra wooden deck to make place). Some prisoners could be better lodged, against payment.

La Conciergerie is of course especially known for its role during the Revolution, when thousands of prisoners were kept here, usually not for long. Most of them were condemned quite quickly and then brought to the guillotine. Famous prisoners here were e.g. a lot of members of the royal and noble families, but also revolutionary like Danton and Robespierre … and of course Marie-Antoinette.

The place of her cell was transformed to a chapel, known as the Expiatory Chapel a few decades later, when the royalty came back to power.

The floor and the window are still there. The window leads to the Women’s Courtyard.

Marie-Antoinette’s cell has been reconstituted just behind the wall of the chapel, but here everything is false.

You can find the list of the 2780 people who were condemned to death and guillotined during the Revolution. By a coincidence, the name of the (former) King and Queen are close to each other on this alphabetic list. La Conciergie served as prison until 1914.

Sainte Chapelle

In order to visit the Sainte Chapelle (Holy Chapel), you have first to enter the Palais de Justice and go through a security control, similar to that of today’s airports. It’s worth it!

This is in my mind one of the world’s most beautiful buildings (inside) and somehow an extreme example of gothic architecture. It was constructed in the middle of the 13th century during the reign of Louis IX, who became Saint Louis due to a number of crusades and other by the Church well appreciated actions. The chapel was built to house a number of relics, like Christ’s Crown of Thorns, a piece of the Cross… The king paid four or five times more for the relics than it cost to build the chapel.

The chapel is built in two levels, both fabulously decorated. It is difficult to get a good total view as the chapel is squeezed in between other buildings.

The lower part was the parish church for the inhabitants of the Royal Palace. (The top picture is from this lower part.)

The upper part, then with direct access from the Palace, was for the King and whoever he invited and that’s where the relics were saved.

Of course the 1789 revolution had some unfortunate consequences for the chapel as for most religious buildings. The relics disappeared and the chapel was partly dilapidated. However, during the 19th century the stained glass windows which had been dismantled were restored (most of them have the original glass), the different statues which had been saved were put back and the whole decoration was restored as close as possible to what was thought to be the original one.

I would advise you to visit the place a sunny day to see the full splendour of the windows (As you can see from the outside photos, the sky was nicely blue the day I went). An alternative is to go an evening when concerts often are given.

As usual you can find the original pictures on my photo blog.

I got a "Best Friend" award from Noushy Syah yesterday! Sincere thanks Noushy!

Palais de Justice

We have already visited the Pont Neuf and Place Dauphine, which are on the extreme western end of Ile de la Cité. Just behind Place Dauphine you will find the Palais de Justice. (I guess that all these names need no translation.)

Ile de la Cité was the original centre of Paris and where you now find the Palais de Justice were previously situated the seat of the government during the Roman times, the Royal Palace during the medieval times and then later the “Parlement de Paris” (developed out of the previous council of the Kings), a prison and a Hall of Justice. From those times remain not so much; most of the present Palais has been built during the 17th and 18th century, but there are some nice remains including the Conciergerie (prison) with its old towers and the Sainte Chapelle (Royal church). I will come back to these in some following posts.

I have made a comparison between Ile de la Cité in 1552 and today (Google). The scale on the old map is perhaps not perfect, but it gives us an image of what the island looked like those days. Pont Neuf and Place Dauphine were created only some 50 years after this map.First some general views of the Palais - which today is the seat of local and national courts of justice including the highest court of appeal. It covers some 200 thousand sq.m. (50 acres), has 24 km (15 miles) of corridors, 7000 doors… It houses some 4000 magistrates and civil servants, not mentioning the thousands of more or less voluntary daily visitors.The clock you see in the top is from 1585 (it works) and it replaces what was the oldest public clock in Paris which was put there some 200 years before. You find it on the square tower called “Tour d’Horloge”, the Clock Tower, which was built as watch tower.Tomorrow, we will visit the fabulous Sainte Chapelle.

As usual, you can find some of these pictures on my photo blog.

Grands Boulevards (3)

Time for the last part of the Grand Boulevards, including the Boulevards des Italiens, des Capucines and de la Madeleine. (See maps on previous posts.)

This boulevard changed name several times, but the present name comes from the “Opéra Italienne”, now called the “Opéra Comique”, a theatre created at the end of the 18th century and mostly used for lighter type of operas, operettas… From the boulevard you only see the back side of this theatre.

In the upper part of Boulevard des Italiens you find some bank buildings, including the headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais (LCL). The building, enormous when it was built at the end of the 19th century, was seriously damaged by fire in 1996, but restored. Among other things you can admire the clock on the façade.Another building here, today also occupied by a bank, called Maison Dorée (the Golden Building) housed during the second half of the 18th century the most exclusive and expensive Paris restaurant, visited by kings and all kinds of prominent personalities. Here was also held the last impressionist exposition in 1886 (for the first one see further down) and the first “art nouveau” exhibition in 1895.

At the end of Boulevard des Italiens and the beginning of Boulevard des Capucines, you will find a concentration of cinemas and restaurants, including one of the typical Paris brassieres which remain open all year, 7/7, 24/24, Le Grand Café des Capucines, opened in 1875. Do you feel for some nice oysters at 5 p.m. or 5 a.m.?To continue on Boulevard des Capucines we will first cross the Place de L’Opéra with a view of Opéra Garnier to the right and Rue de la Paix and Place Vendôme to the left. We will find the Grand Hôtel with Café de la Paix.Further down Boulevard Boulevard Capucines, at no. 14, downstairs, in 1895, the Lumière brothers made their first paying audience to what can be considered as the debut of the cinema and shortly later Roentgen demonstrated his invention of X-rays.

At no. 35, in 1874, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Morisot, Degas, Monet… organised their own exhibition with few visitors. The Monet painting “Impressions…” gave the name to the movement “Impressionism”.

Close to here you have also the oldest, still existing, and most famous music hall in Paris, Olympia, opened in 1889 by a Mr. Oller, who also created Moulin Rouge. Among the performers here: Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, Gilbert Bécaud, Amalia Rodrigues, Céline Dion, Judy Garland, Led Zeppelin, Petula Clark, Luciano Pavarotti, Dionne Warwick, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Jackson 5…

We have now reached the end of the Grands Boulevards and, after a short walk on Boulevard de la Madeleine, we will find the Madeleine Church with a view of Rue Royale and Place de la Concorde.

The impressionists made several paintings around the boulevards. Here you can see a Renoir from Boulevard des Italiens and a Monet from Boulevard des Capucines.

Happy walk during the weekend! See you Monday!

As usual, you will find some of these pictures on my photo blog.

Place Dauphine

When you cross the Pont Neuf (see my previous post), you are almost at Place Dauphine. It’s a calm, car free, square – actually almost a triangle – seldom overcrowded; a place to have a flat (not cheap), to have a walk, to sit down on a bench… and there are a few restaurants, cafés, shops… and a small hotel (GMG stayed there in 1969 during a hitch-hiking tour – see his comments on my pervious post). French people know in general that the couple Simone Signoret and Yves Montand used to have a flat here.

Place Dauphine was created - on the edge of Ile de la Cité - on the initiative of Henri IV about simultaneously with the Pont Neuf. It got its name in honor of the crown prince, the “dauphin”, the future Louis XIII, father of Louis XIV.

Originally, the place was surrounded by 32 similar buildings in red bricks. Only two buildings remain more or less as they were, the ones on each side of the small passage from Pont Neuf. All the other ones have been rebuilt or replaced but there is still a quite unique style and atmosphere.

From the comparison of the 1734 and today’s maps you can see that one side of the square used to have a number of buildings that were demolished in 1874 to open the view to the back side of the then newly built part of the Palais de Justice. When I took these photos some ten days ago, the Christmas decorations were still there. You can see Henri IV on his horse between the Christmas tree branches. You can see some of these pictures on my photo blog.

Yesterday, I got a nice “You make my day” award from SusuPetal, a very creative Finnish poet, artist…. with blogs in English, Finnish, Swedish. Sincere thanks SusuPetal!

Pont Neuf

The Pont Neuf, meaning the New Bridge, is actually the oldest remaining bridge in Paris crossing the Seine. It was opened in 1607 by one of the most popular French kings, Henri IV. It was the first Paris bridge made for traffic only; no houses built on it, which until then was the tradition. It was also paved and surprisingly wide, some 28 meters (92 feet). The bridge is still as it was from the beginning, no major alterations, and the traffic on it is still heavy.

I have tried to direct a Google map in the same angle as the “Turgot map” from 1734. We can see that one difference in the landscape is the prolongation of Ile de la Cité, where a natural sandbank developed and later was transformed into a small park or square, which has got the name of Vert Galant (the nickname for Henri IV, meaning the “green” or “lusty” gentleman; he was known for a number of love affairs).

The equestrian statue is also of Henri IV. It was ordered by Henri’s widow, Marie de Médicis, and was erected in 1618. (You can vaguely and with good eyes distinguish the statue also on the “Turgot map”.) It was destroyed during the Revolution in 1792. With the change of regimes and the monarchy being back, it was then rebuilt in 1818, exactly as it was… and, as I mentioned in a previous post, by using the bronze of the Napoleon statue of Place Vendôme (… and then the Napoleon statue had to be remade when the regime changed again).

You can find some of these pictures on my photo blog.

That was all for this week! Have a nice weekend!!

Place du Châtelet

Châtelet means “small castle”. The name of the place comes actually from a fortress which was built here in the 9th century to defend Paris from the Vikings. From the beginning built in wood, it was rebuilt in stone during the 11th century. Its military function soon disappeared and it was later rather a prison and law-court. The fortress was later surrounded by different buildings and you can only see the top of it on this illustration from 1580. … as you can also see the top of the tower of the Saint Jacques church. The tower (from 1522) is still there (under restoration, so again you can only see the top), but the church is gone.

The Châtelet fortress was destroyed in 1802 and Napoleon I (I’m sorry, it’s he again) decided to convert the place to an open place, including the construction of a column, later placed on a fountain, the one we can see today. It got the name “La Fontaine du Palmier” (The Palm Fountain) because of the palm leaves that can be seen in the top of the column, just under the statue “Victoire”. The column is full of names of different Napoleon victories (of course).

The place got its present aspect under Napoleon III. Two theatres were built, Théatre de la Ville (or Théatre Lyrique) and Théatre du Châtelet, both from 1862, and the fountain was slightly moved to be in the centre of the place. The theatres have changed names several times. Theatre de la Ville got the name of Sarah Bernhardt from 1899 to 1923, when she was in charge and regularly performed here. They now belong to the City of Paris.

The comparison between 1876 and today shows hardly any difference except for the express road (Voie Pompidou) which was built along part of the river in the 1960’s (transformed to Paris Beach in August each year).

The bridge in front is called “Pont de Change” and dates from about the same time as the renewed place (1860).

To find the place on the Paris map, I suggest you go to my previous post about Rue St. Denis. Some of the above pictures can be found on my photo blog.

Square des Innocents

The Square des Innocents was for many centuries the site of the major Paris cemetery. When it was created, it was of course outside the centre, along the road to Normandy and the north, today’s rue St. Denis (see plan in my previous post), but it was soon surrounded by the growing city.

Some wealthy people got individual graves, but most people were buried in mass graves. In 1786 it was decided - despite the walls that had been built around and some other basic precautions - that this could not last. The major Paris market place – Les Halles – was the immediate neighbour and one started to have some ideas about infections etc. The cemetery was closed and some two million skeletons were displaced to the catacombs.

Today, this has become a nice square with a beautiful fountain in the middle. The fountain, in a different form, was created in the middle of the 16th century by the architect Pierre Lescot and the sculptor Jean Goujon, who also were behind the architecture of the Louvre when the transformation from a fortress style was commenced. The fountain was in the beginning rather a relief placed along the church you can see here (the engraving is from 1550), was moved and transformed to its square fountain form in the 1780’s when the cemetery became a market place.

The declaration of the first French constitution took place here in 1791 (based on the revolutionary declarations of 1789).

The market was closed in 1858 and a real square was prepared. The fountain was again slightly displaced.

You can here get some ideas of what the place looked like in 1550 and in 1865.

… and what it looks like today. In the background you can see the St. Eustache church. You can find these pictures in their larger form on my photo blog.

See you Monday! Have a nice weekend!