Paris: Grant Allen's Historical GuidesAllen, Grant
History
Paris: Grant Allen's Historical Guides
Allen, Grant
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Guidebooks
and disappointed demons, fleeing from the consecrated water. The next
chapel contains the =relics of St. Eustace= and his children, martyrs.
It is, perhaps, a little characteristic of modern feeling that the
half-mythical namesake saint of the church should thus be relegated to a
subordinate chapel in the edifice originally erected to his honour. The
pictures are imitated from those in the Catacombs at Rome. Notice, in
particular, the fresco of St. Eustace kneeling before the stag, which
displays between its horns the miraculous image; also, the subsequent
scenes of his legend (for which, see Mrs. Jameson). Beautiful view from
this point of the choir and ambulatory.
Do not leave this interesting building without having examined all its
details. It contains enough to occupy you for several hours, and is rich
in illustrations of modern Catholic sentiment. Even the most tawdry bits
of its modern church furniture become of interest when examined as parts
of a consistent whole, falling into their due place in a great system of
belief and the government of conduct. You have not really understood a
church till you have grasped this connection between its various
members. Ask yourself always, “Why is this here?” and though you may not
always be able to see, the longer you proceed to investigate in this
spirit, the more will the meaning of the whole come home to you. For
example, return to the S Transept and observe the figure of St. Gregory:
he is the musical Father from whom the Gregorian chants take their name,
and as such deserves commemoration in the musical church.
Quitting St. Eustache, you can continue westward a few steps, and then
turn down a short street on the left, which leads you obliquely to a
curious circular building, the Bourse de Commerce. Skirt round this till
you come to its ugly _façade_, and then continue your way into the Rue
du Louvre.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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