CHAPTER XVI. IN THE REGION OF THE SCHOOLS

THE SORBONNE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

WHEN St. Louis was on the throne of France the physician attendant upon his mother, la Reine Blanche, died bequeathing a sum of money for the institution of a college of theology. In consequence thereof Robert de Sorbon built the school for theological study, a very simple erection then, which developed into the great college adapted to studies of the most varied character, known as the Sorbonne: that was in the year 1253. Two hundred years later the first printing press in France was set up there. In another nigh upon two hundred years Richelieu, elected Grand Master of the college, built its church and rebuilt the surrounding structure. Napoleon set the college in action on a vaster scale, after its suppression at the Revolution, by making it the seat of the Academie de Paris, the "home" of the Faculties of Letters and Science, as well as of Theology. But the edifice was then again crumbling— in need of rebuilding. Time passed, ruin made headway. Plans were made, and in 1853 the first stone of a new structure was laid. It remained a first stone and a last one for many years. The modern walls we see were not built till the close of the nineteenth century, finished in 1901. In the great courtyard white lines mark the site of Richelieu's edifice. The vast building is richly decorated with statuary and frescoes. In its church Richelieu seems still to hold sway. We see his coat-of-arms on every side; over his tomb, the work of Girardon, hangs his Cardinal's hat. Another handsome monument covers the tomb of his descendant, the minister of Louis XVIII. Many generations of Richelieu lie in the vault beneath the chapel floor. The church is dismantled and partially secularized. Grand classic concerts are held there during the Sundays of term each year, but the Richelieu have still the right to be baptized, married, buried there; the altar therefore has not been undraped.

Exactly opposite the Sorbonne, on its Rue des licoles side, is the beautiful Musee de Cluny, on the site of the ancient Palais des Thermes of which the ruins are seen in the grounds bordered by the boulevard St-Germain. The palace dates from Roman days. Julian was proclaimed Emperor there. We see an altar from the time of Tiberius. The remains of Roman baths—vestiges of the frigidarium, the tepidarium, the hypocaustum, traces of the pipes through which the water flowed are still there. In the fourteenth century Pierre de Chaslun, Abbot of Cluny, bought the ruins of the ancient palace, and the exquisite Gothic mansion we see was built close up against them. Many illustrious persons found shelter within the home of the Abbots during the centuries that followed. James V of Scotland stayed there. Men of learning were made welcome there. In later times its tower was used as an observatory. The Revolution put an end to the state and prestige of the beautiful mansion. It was sold, parcelled out to a number of buyers, put to all sorts of common and commercial uses, till, in 1833, M. de Sommerard, whose name is given to the street on its northern side, acquired it and set up there his own precious collection of things beautiful, the nucleus of the Museum. The whole property was taken over later by the Beaux-Arts under State protection for conservation.

 

In the garden numerous interesting relics of ancient churches, that of St-Benoit which once stood near, and others, are carefully preserved.

Rue Jean-de-Beauvias was in bygone days inhabited entirely by printers. The Roumanian chapel there was the chapel of the famous College Dormans-Beauvais, founded in 1370. Rue de Latran—modern—runs across the site of the ancient commanderie of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

In Rue des Carmes, dating from 1250, we see at No. 15 the ancient College des Lombards, now the Cercle Catholique d'Ouvriers, founded 1334, rebuilt under Louis XIV by two Irish priests. The little chapel there, dedicated now to "Jesus Ouvrier," is paved with the gravestones of the Irish clergy who came of yore to live and study there.

Rue Basse des Carmes stretches across the site of the demolished Carmelite Convent. We are close now to the Collège de France, le Lycée Louis-le-Grand and l'École Polytechnique.

Le Collège de France, Rue des Écoles, its beautiful west façade giving on Rue St-Jacques, was founded as an institution by François I (1530); its lectures were to be given in different colleges. The edifice before us replaces this "Collège Royal," built in the early years of the seventeenth century, destroyed in the eighteenth century. It dates from 1778, the work of Chalgrin. Additions were made in the nineteenth century. The numerous finely executed busts of noted scholars andeminent professors are the work of the best sculptors of each period.

The Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Rue St-Jacques, on the site of four colleges of bygone ages, dates in its foundation from 1550, rebuilt 1814-20, restored 1861-85. In the court we see some of the ancient walls. It has borne different names characteristic of the different periods of the history of France. It began as the Collège de Clermont, from its founder, the bishop; in 1682 it took the name of the King, Louis-le-Grand. In 1792 it became Collège de l'Égalité; in 1800, Le Pyrtanée; Lycée Imperial in 1802; Collège Royal-Louis-le-Grand in 1814; Lycée Descartes in 1848, to revert to its present designation in 1849. Many of the most eminent men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were pupils there.

The Collège Ste-Barbe built in the sixteenth century was added to Louis-le-Grand in 1764. Its tower goes by the name Tour Calvin, for this was the Huguenot quarter. Here many of the persecuted Protestants were in hiding at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Yet it was at Ste-Barbe that Ignatius Loyola was educated.

Close around Lycée Louis-le-Grand and the Collège de France, we find a number of twelfth- and thirteenth-century streets condemned to demolition, some of their houses already razed, those that remain showing many interesting relics. Rue du Cimetière-St-Benoît, which bordered the cemetery erewhile there; Rue Fromantel, the name a corruption of froid mantel, or manteau, with its interesting old-world dwellings; Impasse Chartrière, where at No. 2 we see an old sign and a niche of the time of Henri IV, who was wont to visit his "belle Gabrielle" here. No. 11 was, it is said, the entrance to the King's stables. At the junction of Rue Lanneau four streets form the quadrangle where was erewhile the well "Certain," so named after the vicar of the old church St-Hilaire, once close by, discovered beneath the roadway in 1894. Roman remains of great interest were found at that time below the surface of all these streets. Rue Valette, eleventh century, was once Rue des Sept Voies, for seven thoroughfares met there. At No. 2, in the billiard-room of the old inn, we find vestiges of the church St-Hilaire, once there. No. 19 dates from the fourteenth century, and in the seventeenth century was a meeting-place of the Huguenots who hid in its Gothic two-storied cellars. In Rue Laplace lived Jean de Meung, author of Le Roman de la Rose. At No. 12 we see the entrance of a vanished college, next door to which was the Collège des Écossais.

L'École Polytechnique stands on the site of the college founded in 1304 by Jeanne de Navarre, wife of Philippe le Bel, for seventy poor scholars. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century. The last vestiges of that rebuilding, a beautiful Gothic chapel, were swept away in 1875. Traces of a Roman cemetery were found in 1906. The present structure dates from the eighteenth century, the work of Gabriel. The house of the Général-Commandant is the ancient Collège de Boncourt, founded in 1937.

In Rue Clovis, at the summit of the Montagne Ste-Geneviève stands the Lycée Henri IV, dating as a school from 1796, known for several subsequent years as Lycée-Napoléon. It recalls vividly the abbey which once stood there. Its tower, known as the "Tour de Clovis," rises from the foundations of the eleventh-century abbey tower and was for long used as the Paris Observatory. The college kitchen is one of the ancient abbey cellars—cellars in three stories. Some of the walls before us date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The library founded by Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld is the boys' dormitory. A cloister and seventeenth-century refectory are there intact. The pupils go up and down a fine eighteenth-century staircase, and study amid interesting frescoes and much beautiful woodwork. New buildings were added to the ancient ones in 1873.

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