Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
Pursuing our way N. by the Rue St. Denis we pass (R.) the restored
fourteenth-century church of St. Leu and St. Gilles, and on our L. two
old reliefs of St. Peter and St. Andrew embedded in the corner of a
modern house at the corner of the Rue St. Denis and the Rue Etienne
Marcel. Near by stood the Painters' Gate of the Philip Augustus wall.
We turn L. by the latter street and soon sight on our R. the massive
machicolated Tower of Jean sans Peur (p. 133). It was at the Hotel de
Bourgogne that the Confreres de la Passion de Jesus Christ were
performing in the sixteenth century, and where in 1548 they were
forbidden by royal decree to play the mystery of the Passion any
longer, and limited to profane, decent and lawful plays. From
1566-1576 the comediens of the Hotel de Bourgogne continued their
performances, which at length became so gross that complaints were
made of the _blasphemes et impudicites_ enacted there, and that not a
farce was played that was not _orde_, _sale et vilaine_. Repeated
ordinances were levelled at the actors, aiming at the purification of
the stage and preventing words of _double entente_. It was here, too,
that the most exalted and noble masterpieces of Corneille and
Racine--_Le Cid_, _Andromaque_ and _Phedre_--were first enacted. We
turn R. by the Rue Francaise, again R. by the Rue Tiquetonne, then L.
by the curious Rue Dussoubs to the new Rue Reamur, where on the
opposite side, to the L., is the narrow passage between Nos. 100 and
102 that leads to the once notorious Cour des Miracles, so vividly
portrayed in Victor Hugo's _Notre Dame_. It was here that Jean Du
Barry and his mistress, Jeanne Vaubernier, kept a gambling-hell.
Jeanne, subsequently married to Jean's brother, was the daughter of a
monk and formerly known as Mademoiselle Lange. She it was who became
the famous Du Barry, mistress of Louis XV. Here also dwelt Hebert,
editor of the foul _Pere Duchesne_. Both perished on the scaffold. We
cross the Cour and leave by the Rue Damiette (L.), turn again L. and
descend the Rue du Nil to the Rue des Petits Carreaux. This we follow
to the L., and continue down it and the busy and picturesque Rue
Montorgeuil, noting (L.) No. 78, the curious house at the sign of the
Rocher de Cancale. 72-64 were part of the roomy sixteenth-century
posting house of the Golden Compasses, and have quaint reliefs carved
on their facades. We may enter at 64, the spacious old coaching yard,
still used by market carts and waggons. The courtyard on the opposite
side, No. 47, was the office of the old sedan-chair porters. We
continue to descend, and at length sight the tall apse of the majestic
church of St. Eustache, which towers over the Halles. Begun in 1532 by
Pierre Lemercier, it was not completed until more than a century later
by Jacques Lemercier, architect of the extended Louvre. We enter, by
the side portal, the spacious, lofty and beautiful interior with its
not unpleasing mingling of Gothic and Renaissance architecture. It
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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