CHAPTER I. THREE PALACES
THE LOUVRE
THE LOUVRE has existed on the selfsame site from the earliest days
of the history of Paris and of France. It began as a rough
hunting-lodge, erected in the time of the rois fainéants—the
"do-nothing" kings: a primitive hut-like construction in the dark
wolf-haunted forest to the north of the settlement on the islets of the
Seine, called Leutekia, the city of mud, on account of its marshy
situation, or Loutouchezi, the watery city, by its Gallic settlers, by
the Romans Lutetia Parisiorum—the Paris of that long-gone age.
The name Louvre, therefore, may possibly be derived from the Latin word
lupus, a wolf. More probably its origin is the old word leouare, whence lower, louvre: a habitation.
Lutetia grew in importance, and the royal hunting-lodge in its
vicinity was made into a fortress. The city of mud was soon known by
the tribe name only, Parisii-Paris, and the Louvre, freed from
surrounding forest trees, came within the city bounds. It was gradually
enlarged and strengthened. A white circle in the big court shows the
site of the famous gate between two Grosses Tours built in the time of
the warrior-king Philippe-Auguste. Twelve towers of smaller dimensions
were added by Charles V. Each tower had its own special battalion of
soldiers. The inner chambers of each had their special use. In the Tour
du Trésor, the King kept his money and portable objects of great
value. In the Tour de la Bibliothèque were stored the books of
those days, first collected by King Charles V, and which formed the
nucleus of the National Library. Charles V made many other additions
and adornments, and the first clocks known in France were placed in the
Louvre in the year 1370. About the same time a primitive stove —a
chauffe-poële—was first put up there. The grounds
surrounding the fortress were laid out with care, the chief garden
stretching towards the north. A menagerie was built and peopled;
nightingales sang in the groves. The palace became a sumptuous
residence. Sovereigns from foreign lands were received by the Kings of
France with great pomp in "Notre Chastel du Louvre, où nous nous
tenons le plus souvent quand nous sommes en notre ville de Paris."
The Louvre was the scene of two of the most important political
events of the fourteenth century. In the year 1303, when
Philippe-le-Bel was King, the second meeting of that imposing assembly
of barons, prelates and lesser magnates of the realm which formed, as a
matter of fact, the first états généraux took
place there. In 1358, at the time of the rising known as the Jacquerie,
Etienne Marcel, Prévôt des Marchands, made the Louvre his
headquarters. In the fourteenth century a King of England held his
court there: Henry V, victorious after Agincourt, kept Christmas in
great state in Paris at the Louvre.
The royal palaces of those days, like great abbeys, were fitted with
everything that was needed for their upkeep and the sustenance of their
staff. Workmen, materials, provisions were at hand, all on the
premises. A farm, a Court of Justice, a prison were among the most
essential elements of palace buildings and domains. Yet the Louvre with
its prestige and its immense accommodation was never inhabited
continuously by the Kings of France, and in the
sixteenth century the Palace was so completely abandoned as to be on
the verge of ruin. Then François I, looking forward to the state
visit
of the Emperor Charles-Quint, sent workmen in haste and in vast numbers
to the Louvre, to repair and enlarge. Pierre Lescot, the most
distinguished architect of the day, took the great task in hand. The
Grosse Tour had already been razed to the ground. The ancient walls to
the south and west were now knocked down. One wall of the Salle des
Cariatides, and the steps leading from the underground parts of the
palace to the ground floor, are all that remain of the Louvre of
Philippe-Auguste.
It is from this sixteenth-century restoration that the Old Louvre as
we know it dates in its chief lines. Much of the work of decoration was
done by Jean Goujon and by Paul Pouce, a pupil of Michael Angelo. But
the Louvre nevermore stood still. Thenceforward each successive
sovereign, at some period of his reign, took the palace in hand to
beautify, rebuild or enlarge—sometimes, however, getting little
beyond the designing of plans. Richelieu, that arch-conceiver of plans,
architectural as well as political, would fain have enlarged the old
palace on a very vast scale. His King, Louis XIII, laid the first stone
of the Tour de l'Horloge. As soon as the wars of the Fronde were over,
Louis XIV, the greatest builder of that and succeeding ages, determined
to enlarge in his own grand way. An Italian architect of repute was
summoned from Italy; but he and Louis did not agree, and the Italian
went back to his own land.
The grand Colonnade, on the side facing the old church, St-Germain-l'Auxerrois, was built between the years 1667-80 by Claude Perrault. The facade facing the quay to the south was then added. After the death of the King's active statesman, Colbert, work at the Louvre stopped. The fine palace fell from its high estate. It may almost be said to have been let out in tenements. Artists, savants, men of letters, took rooms there— logements! The Louvre was, as a matter of fact, no longer a royal palace. Its "decease" as a king's residence dates from the death of Colbert. The Colonnade was restored in 1755 by the renowned architect, Gabriel, and King Louis XVI first put forward the proposition of using the palace as a great National Museum. It was
the King's wish that all the best-known, most highly valued works of
art in France should be collected, added to the treasures of the Cabinet du Roi, and
placed there. The Revolutionary Government put into effect the
guillotined King's idea. The names of its members may be read inscribed
on two black marble slabs up against the wall of the circular
antechamber leading to the Galerie d'Apollon, where are preserved and
shown the ancient crown jewels of France, the beautiful enamels of
Limoges and many other precious treasures once the possession of
royalty. This grand gallery, planned and begun by Lebrun in the
seventeenth century, is modern, built in the nineteenth century by
Duban.
The First Empire saw the completion of the work begun by the
Revolutionists. In the time of Napoleon I the marvellous collection of
pictures, statuary, art treasures of every description, was duly
arranged and classified. The building of the interior court was
finished in 1813.
On the establishment of the Second Empire, Napoleon III set himself
the task of completely restoring the Louvre and extending it. The
Pavilion de Flore was then rebuilt, joining the ancient palace with the
Tuileries, which for two previous centuries had been the habitation of
French monarchs.
After the disasters of 1870-71 restoration was again undertaken, but
though the Tuileries had been burnt to the ground the Louvre had
suffered comparatively little damage.
Within its walls the Louvre has undergone drastic changes since its
conversion from a royal palace to a National Museum. The Salle des
Fêtes of bygone ages has become the Salle Lacaze with its fine
collection of masterpieces. What was once the King's Cabinet,
communicating with the south wing, where in her time Marie de Medici
had her private rooms, is known as the Salle des Sept Cheminées,
filled with examples of early nineteenth-century French art.
In the Salle Carrée, where Henri IV was married, and where
the murderers of President Brisson met their fate by
hanging—swung from the beams of the ceiling now finely
vaulted—masterpieces of all the grandest epochs in art are
brought together; from among them disappeared in 1911 the now regained
Mona Lisa. Painting, sculpture, works of art of every kind, every age
and every nation fill the great halls and galleries of the Louvre. We
cannot attempt a description of its treasures here. Let all who love
things of beauty, all who take pleasure in learning the wonderful
results of patient work, go and see. (The pictures have been arranged
on a different plan since their return to the palace after the war.)
Nor can I recount here the numberless incidents, the historic
happenings of which the Louvre was the scene. It is customary to point
out the gilded balcony from which Charles IX is popularly supposed to
have fired upon the Huguenots, or to have given the signal to fire, on
that fatal night of St-Bartholemew, 1572. But the balcony was not yet
there. Nor is it probable the young King fired from any other balcony
or window. Shots were fired maybe from the palace by men less timorous.
On the Seine side of the big court is the site of the ancient Gothic
Porte Bourbon, where Admiral Coligny was first struck and Concini shot
through the heart. In our own time we have the startling theft of the
Joconde from the Salle Carrée, its astonishing return, and the
hiding away of the treasures in the days of war, of air-raids and
long-range guns and threatened invasion, to strike our imagination.
"The great black mass," which the enemy aviator saw on approaching
Paris, and knew it must be the Louvre, grand, majestic, undisturbed, is
the most notable monument of Paris and of France.
THE TUILERIES
The Palace has gone, burnt to the ground in the war year 1870-71.
The gardens alone remain, those beautiful Tuileries gardens, the
brightest spot on the right bank of the Seine. Several moss-grown
pillars, some remnants of broken arches, the pillars and frontal of the
present Jeu de Paume and of the Orangery, are all that is left to-day
of the royal dwelling that erewhile stood there. The palace was built
at the end of the sixteenth century by Catherine de' Medici to replace
the ancient palace Les Tournelles, in the Place Royale, now Place des
Vosges, where King Henri II had died at a festive tournament, his eye
and brain pierced by the sword of his great general, Comte de
Montmorency. Queen Catherine hated the sight of the palace where her
husband had died thus tragically. Its destruction was decreed; and the
Queen commanded the erection in its stead of the magnifique
bâtiment de l'Hôtel royal, dit des Tuileries des Parisiens,
parcequ'il y avait autrefois une Tuilerie au dit lieu.
The site of that big tile-yard was in those days outside the city
boundary. The architect, Philibert Delorme, set to work with great
ardour. A rough road was made leading from the bac, i.e. the ford across the Seine, now spanned near the spot by the Pont Royal, to the quarries
in the neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Vaugirard, whence
stone was brought. Thus was born the well-known Rue du Bac. The palace
was from the first surrounded by a fine garden, separated until the
time of Louis XIV from the Seine on the one side, from the palace on
the other, by a ruelle; i.e. a narrow street, a lane.
Catherine took up her abode at the new palace as soon as it was
habitable; but the Queen-Mother was restless
and oppressed, haunted by presentiments of evil. An astrologer had told
her she would meet her death beneath the ruins of a mansion in the
vicinity of the church, St-Germain-l'Auxerrois. She left her new
palace, therefore, bought the site of several houses, appropriated the
ground and buildings of an old convent in the neighbourhood of
St-Eustache, had erected on the spot a fine dwelling: l'hotel de la
Reine, known later as l'hotel de Soissons, where we see to-day the
Bourse de Commerce. One column of the Queen's palace still stands
there, within it a narrow staircase up which she was wont to climb with
her Italian astrologer.
Meanwhile, the Tuileries palace showed no signs of ruin —quite
the reverse. Catherine's son, Charles IX, had a bastion erected in the
garden on the Seine side; a small dwelling-house, a pond, an aviary, a
theatre, an echo, a labyrinth, an orangery, a shrubbery were soon
added. Henri IV began a gallery to join the new palace to the Louvre, a
work accomplished only under Louis XIV. Under Henri's son, Louis XIII,
the Tuileries was the centre of the smart life of the day; visitors of
distinction, but not of royal rank, were often entertained in royal
style in the pavilion in the garden. Under Louis XIV the King's
renowned garden-planner, Le Nôtre, took in hand the spacious
grounds and made of them the Jardin des Tuileries, so famous ever
since. The fine statues by Coustou, Perrault, Bosi, etc., were soon set
up there. The manège was built—a club and
riding-school stretching from what is now the Rue de Rivoli from the
then Rue Dauphine, now Rue St-Roch, to Rue Castiglione. There the jeunesse dorée of
the day learned to hold in hand their fiery thoroughbreds. The cost of
subscription was 4000 francs—£160—a year, a vast sum
then. Each member was bound to have his personal servant, duly paid and
fed. A swing-bridge was set across the moat on the side of the waste
land, soon to become Place Louis XV, now Place de la Concorde.
The Garden was not accessible to the public in those days. Until the outbreak of the Revolution, the noblesse or
their privileged associates alone had the right to pace its alleys.
Soldiers were never permitted to walk there. Once a year only, a great
occasion, its gates were thrown open to the peuple.
A period of neglect followed upon the fine work done under Louis XIV.
His successor cared nothing for the Tuileries palace and grounds. They
fell into a most lamentable state; and, when in the troublous days of
the year 1789, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their little son took up
their abode at the Tuileries, the Dauphin looked round in disgust.
"Everything is very ugly here, maman" he said. It was the Paris
home of the unhappy royal family thenceforth until they were led from
the shelter of its walls to the Temple prison. It was from the
Tuileries they made the unfortunate attempt to fly from France. Stopped
at Varennes, the would-be fugitives were led back to the palace across
the swing-bridge on the south-western side. Beneath the stately trees
of the garden the Swiss Guards were massacred soon afterwards. The
Revolutionary authorities had taken possession of the Riding-School, a
band of tricolour ribbon was stretched along its frontage and the
Assemblée Nationale, which had sat first in the old church,
St-Pol, then at the archevêché, installed itself
there. There, under successive governments, were decreed the division
of France into departments, the suppression of monastic orders, the
suspension of the King's royal power after his flight. And there, in
1792, Louis XVI was tried, and after a sitting lasting thirty-seven
hours condemned to death. The Terrace was nicknamed the Jardin
National; sometimes it was called the Terre de Coblentz, a sarcastic
reference to emigrated nobles who erewhile had disported there. In
1793, potatoes and other vegetables—food for the population of
Paris—grew on Le Nôtre's flower-beds, replacing the gay
blossoms of happier times, even as in our own dire war days beans,
etc., are grown in the park at Versailles, and the government of the
day sat in the Salle des Machines within the Palace walls.
On June 7th, 1794, the Tuileries palace and gardens were the scene
of a great Revolutionary fête. A few months later the body of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was laid out in state in the dry bassins before
being carried to the Pantheon. Revolutionary fêtes were a great
feature of the day, and Robespierre, in the intervals of directing the
deadly work of the Guillotine, devised the semicircular flower-beds
surrounded by stone benches for the benefit of the weak and aged who
gathered at those merry-makings.
Then it was Napoleon's turn. The Tuileries became an Imperial
palace. For Marie Louise awaiting the birth of the son it was her
mission to bear, a subterranean passage was made in order that the
Empress might pass unnoticed from the palace to the terrace-walk on the
banks of the Seine. The birth took place at the Tuileries, and a year
or two later a pavilion was built for the special use of the young "Roi
de Rome." At the Tuileries, in the decisive year 1815, the chiefs of
the Armies allied against the Emperor met and camped.
Louis XVIII died there in 1824. In 1848, Louis-Philippe, flying
before the people in revolt, made his escape along the hidden passage
cut in 1811 for Marie-Louise. The palace was then used as an ambulance
for the wounded and for persons who fell fainting in the Paris streets
during the tumults of that year. Its last royal master was Napoleon
III. The new Emperor set himself at once to restore, beautify and
enlarge. The great iron railing and the gates on the side of the
Orangery were put up in 1853. A buvette for officers was built in the garden. The Prince Imperial was born at
the Tuileries in 1854. During the twenty years of Napoleon's reign, the
Tuileries was the scene of gay, smart life. The crash of 1870 was its
doom. The Empress Eugenie fled from its shelter after Sedan. The
Commune set fire to its walls. Crumbling arches, blackened pillars
remained on the site of the palace until 1883. Then they were razed,
cleared away and flower-beds laid out, where grand halls erewhile had
stood. The big-clock had been saved from destruction. It was placed
among the historic souvenirs of the Musée Carnavalet. The
Pavilion de Marsan of the Louvre, built by Louis XIV, and the Pavilion
de Flore joining the Tuileries, were rebuilt in 1874.
THE PALAIS-ROYAL
Crossing the Rue de Rivoli in the vicinity of the Louvre, we come to
another palace—the Palais-Royal— of less ancient origin
than the Louvre or the Tuileries, and never, strictly speaking, a royal
palace. Built in the earlier years of the seventeenth century by Louis
XIII's powerful statesman, Cardinal Richelieu, it was known until 1643
as the Palais-Cardinal. Richelieu had lived at 20 and 23 of the
Place-Royale, now Place des Vosges, and at the mansion known as the
Petit Luxembourg, Rue de Vaugirard. The great man determined to erect
for himself a more splendid residence, and made choice of the
triangular site formed by the Rue des Bons-Enfants, Rue
St-Honoré and the city wall of Charles V, whereon to build.
Several big mansions encumbered the spot. Richelieu bought them all,
had their walls razed, gave the work of construction into the hands of
Jacques de Merrier. That was in the year 1629. Thecentral mansion was
ready for habitation four years later; additions were made, more hôtels bought
and razed during succeeding years. Not content with mere courts and
gardens around his palace, the Cardinal acquired yet another mansion,
the hôtel Sillery, in order to make upon its site a fine square
in front of his sumptuous dwelling. He did not live to see its walls
knocked down. A few days after the completion of this purchase the
famous statesman lay dead. It was then— a month or two
later—that the Palais-Cardinal became the Palais-Royal. By his
will, Richelieu bequeathed his palace to his King, Louis XIII, who died
a few months later. Anne d'Autriche, mother of the young Louis XIV, was
living at the Louvre which, in a continual state of reparation and
enlargement, was not a comfortable home. Richelieu's fine new mansion
tempted her. It was truly of royal aspect and dimensions, and was
fitted with all "the modern conveniences and comforts" of that day. To
quote the words of a versifier of the time :
"Non, l'Univers ne peut rien voir d'égal. Aux superbes dehors
du Palais Cardinal. Toute une ville entière avec pompe
bâtie; Semble d'un vieux fossé par miracle sortie. Et nous
fait présumer à ses superbes toits Que tous ses habitants
sont des Dieux ou des Rois."
In 1643 the Queen moved across to it with her family. When the King
left it in 1652, Henriette of England, widow of Charles I, lived there
for a time. In 1672 Louis XIV made it over to his brother the due
d'Orléans, who did some rebuilding, but the most drastic changes were
made in the vast construction close upon Revolutionary days. Then, in
1784, Philippe-Égalité, finding himself in an impecunious condition, conceived
a fine plan for making money. Round three sides of the extensive garden
of his palace he built galleries lined with premises to
let—shops, etc.—and opened out around them three public
thoroughfares: Rue de Valois, Rue Beaujolais, Rue Montpensier. The
garden thus truncated is the Jardin du Palais-Royal as we know it
to-day. It was even in those days semi-public. Parisians from all time
have loved a fine garden, and the population of the city resented this
curtailment. They resented more especially the mercantile spirit which
had prompted it.
It was in the year 1787 that the theatre known subsequently as the
Comédie Française, more familiarly the "Français,"
was built. The artistes of the Variétés Amusantes played
there then, and for several succeeding years. The theatre Palais-Royal
had already been built, bore many successive different names and became
for a time the Théâtre Montansier, later
Théâtre de la Montagne. The fourth side of the palace had
been left unfinished. The duc d'Orléans had planned its
completion in magnificent style. The outbreak of the Revolution put a
stop to all such plans. Temporary wooden galleries had been built in
1784. They were burnt down in 1828 and replaced by the Galerie
d'Orléans, now let out in flats.
Richelieu was titular Superintendent-General of the Marine: some of
the friezes and bas-reliefs illustrative of this office, decorating the
Galerie des Proues, are still to be seen there. But of the great
statesman's original palace comparatively little remains. The due
d'Orléans, Regent for Louis XV, razed a great part of
Richelieu's construction; many of the walls of the palace as we know it
date from his time—1702-23.
Disastrous fires wrought havoc in 1763 and 1781. The financially
inspired transformations of Philippe-Égalité made in
1786, and finally the incendiary work of the Commune in 1871, changed
the whole aspect of the palace. It went through many phases also during
the Revolution. Seized as national property, it was known for a time as
Palais-Égalité. Revolutionary meetings took place in its
gardens. Revolutionary clubs were organized in its galleries. The
statue of Camille Desmoulins, set up in recent
years—1905—records that decisive day, July 12th, 1789, when
Demoulins, haranguing the crowd, hoisted a green cocarde in sign of
hope. That garden was thenceforth through many years the meeting-place
of successive political agitators. In our own day the Camelots du Roi
met and agitated there.
Under Napoleon as Premier Consul, the Tribunat was established there
in a hall since razed. The Bourse de Commerce succeeded the Tribunat.
Then the Orléans regained possession of the palace and Prince
Louis-Philippe went thence to the hôtel de Ville, to return Roi
des Français.
The galleries and the façade of the portico of the second
court date from the first half of the nineteenth century. The upheaval
of 1848 and the reign of Napoleon III resulted in further changes for
the Palais-Royal. It became for a time Palais-National, and was
subsequently put to military uses. Then King Jerome took up his abode
there, and was succeeded by his son Prince Napoléon. The little
Gothic Chapel where Princess Clothilde was wont to pray serves now as a
lumber-room. Prince Victor, the husband of Princess Clémentine
of Belgium, was born at the Palais-Royal in 1862.
The galleries surrounding the garden are brimful of historic
associations. Besides the clubs, noted Revolutionary clubs which met in
the cafés, notorious gambling-houses existed there:
Galerie Montpensier, Nos. 7-12, is the ancient Café Corazza,
the famous rendezvous of the Jacobins, frequented later by Buonaparte,
Talma, etc.; 36, once Café des Mille Colonnes, was so named from
the multiple reflection in surrounding mirrors of its twenty pillars.
At 50 we see the former Café Hollandais, which had as its sign a
guillotine; at 57-60 the Café Foy, before the doors of which
Desmoulins harangued the people crowding there.
Galerie Beaujolais, No. 103—now a bar and dancing-hall—is the ancient Café des Aveugles, where in the sous-sol an
orchestra played, formed entirely of blind men from the Quinze-Vingts,
the hospital at first close by then removed to Rue Charenton, while the
SansCulottes met and plotted. The mural portraits of notable
Revolutionists seen there is modern work.
Galerie de Valois, Nos. 119, 120, 121, Ombres Chinoises de
Séraphin (1784-1855) and Café Mécanique formed
practically the first Express-Bar. At 177, was formerly the cutler's
shop where Charlotte Corday bought the knife to slay Marat.
Of the three streets made by the mercantile-minded due
d'Orléans the walls of two still stand undisturbed. In Rue de
Valois we see, at No. 1, the ancient pavilion and passage leading from
the Place de Valois, formerly the Cour des Fontaines, where the
inhabitants of Palais-Royal drew their water; at 6-8 the restaurant,
Boeuf à la mode, built by Richelieu as hôtel
Mélusine; at 10, the façade of hôtel de la
Chancellerie d'Orleans; at 20, hôtel de la Fontaine-Martel,
inhabited for a year by Voltaire, 1732-33. In Rue de Beaujolais we find
the theatre which began as Théâtre des Beaujolais, was for
several years towards the close of the eighteenth century a theatre of
Marionnettes, and is now Théâtre Palais-Royal. Then Rue de
Montpensier—1784—shows us interesting old windows,
ironwork, etc.; Rue Montesquieu—1802—runs where the
Collège des Bons-Enfants once stood. The Mother-house of the
Restaurants Duval, so well known in every quarter of Paris, at No. 6,
is on the site of the ancient Salle Montesquieu, — once a popular
dancing saloon, then a draper's shop with the sign of "Le Pauvre
Diable" where the founder of the world-known Bon Marché was in
his youth a salesman.
Three notable churches stand in the immediate vicinity of these
three palaces. The ancient St-Germain-l'Auxerrois, St-Roch, erewhile
its chapel of ease, and the Oratoire. St-Germain opposite the Louvre
was the Chapel Royal of past ages. Its bells pealed for royal weddings,
announced the birth of princes, tolled for royal deaths, rang on every
other occasion of great national importance. Its biggest bell sounded
the death-knell of the Protestants on the fatal eve of St-Bartholomew's
Day, 1572. No part of the fine old church as its stands to-day dates
back as a whole beyond the fifteenth century, but a chapel stood on the
site as early as the year 560. A baptistery and a school were built
close to the chapel about a century later, and this early foundation
was the eldest daughter of Notre-Dame —the Paris Cathedral. After
its destruction by the invading Normans, it was rebuilt as a fine
church by Robert le Pieux, in the first years of the eleventh century,
and no doubt many of its ancient stones found a place in the walls of
successive rebuildings and restorations. The beautiful Gothic edifice
is rich in ancient glass, marvellous woodwork, pictures, statuary and
historic memorials.
The first stone of St-Roch, in the Rue St-Honoré,
The first stone of St-Roch, in the Rue St-Honoré, was laid by
Louis XIV, in 1653, but the church was not. finished till nearly a
century later. In the walls of its Renaissance facade we see marks of
the grape-shot— the first ever used—that poured from the
guns of the soldiers of the young Corsican officer, Napoleon
Buonaparte, in the year 1795. Buonaparte had taken up his position
opposite the church, facing the insurgent sectionnaires grouped
on its broad steps. The fight that, followed was the turning-point in
the early career of the young officer fated to become for a time master
of the city and of France. St-Roch is especially interesting on account
of its many monuments of notable persons, of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries and its groups of statuary. The Calvary of the
Catechists' Chapel, as seen through the opened shutters over the altar
in the Chapel of the Adoration, is of striking effect.
The Oratory, Rue de Rivoli and Rue St-Honoré, was built
during the early years of the seventeenth century as the mother-church
of the Society of the Oratorians, founded in 1611, and served at times
as the Chapel Royal. The Revolution broke up the Society of the
Oratorians, their church was desecrated, secularized. In 1810, it was
given to the Protestants and has been ever since the principal French
Protestant Church of Paris. The statue of Coligny on the Rue de Rivoli
side is modern—1889.
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