Moliere, the Conciergerie, and the Sainte-Chapelle

On Sunday, I hiked up to the Petit Palais, which is in the 1st arrondissement. The weather is gradually cooling (and growing wetter), and I have made the permanent switch to long pants, but the walk was still worth the fresh air. There have been posters up in Paris for some time, advertising a temporary exhibit of the Comedie-Francaise on exposition at the Petit Palais, and the depicting a painting of Moliere in the costume of Julius Caesar; this looked worth visiting.

It was. The Petit Palais has managed to put together a semi-chronological, semi-thematic exhibit in five "Acts," which tells the story of France's national theater company, which originated as the troupe of Moliere. In 1658, his troop "font irruption sur la scene parisien" [erupted onto the Parisian scene], as the exhibit put it, and people are still talking about it. I had no idea, before I arrived in Paris, just how much of a legend Moliere is here, rather comparable to Shakespeare back home. For instance, since I arrived in Paris, I have seen advertisements for seven different productions of his plays (even attending one), and 9 of the top 10 most-performed productions at the Comedie-Francaise are his works (with Corneille's El Cid as a distant #7). There is a great deal we don't know about his life, but what we do know marks him as exceptional: several of his plays (notably Tartuffe and l'Ecole des Femmes) were controversial and scandalous after their performance. Moliere was the absolute ruler of his troupe throughout his career, writing, directing, and starring in its productions, and his death threw its existence into serious jeopardy (for this reason, it fused with several other acting companies in Ile-de-France, until, in 1680, it became the Comedie-Francaise).

Moliere continued to create controversy after his death, because he was buried in hallowed ground, even though he had not renounced his acting profession (he actually died the night after playing the leading role in one of his plays, ironically, titled Le Malade Imaginaire, or The Hypochondriac). The Comedie-Francaise continued to use his armchair as a stage prop until the late 19th century, and his watch and (what might be his) cap are also on display at the Petit Palais. There are a great deal of portraits and other paintings of Moliere (most of them posthumous). My favorite was "Molière et les caractères de ses comédies," by Edmond Geffroy, a painting which included more than fifty of Moliere's characters, and the playwright thoughtfully looking on at their antics.

There is, of course, more to the exhibit than the life and legacy of Moliere. There are paintings and models of the the theater itself; a room full of busts of the great playwrights, several rooms of paintings of the troupe's greatest actors, in costume, and various stageprops, etc. There was even a full-size marble statue of one actor, Talma, commissioned after his death in 1826, because the company considered the loss such a blow from the whole company.

I had wanted to visit the Grand Palais after the Petit Palais, more because of convenience than out of any real desire to see anything particular on display there; however, there was a two-and-a-half hour line, and I decided that I had better things to do (like study for Monday's Contemporary Arab World test). On my walk back to the dorm, however, I happened to pass by the entrance to the Conciergerie, a monument hadn't yet visited. I decided that I had enough time, and that checking out this Conciergerie, whatever it was, was worth the effort.

As it turns out, it was worth the effort (and the free student-rate admission). The Conciergerie is a 700-year-old building constructed by Philippe le Bel to house the Parlement of Paris, although its site as the seat of power and authority is much older, dating back to Lutetia in the time of Julian the Apostate; in the first decade of the 6th century, Clovis began building his royal palace there, after he moved his capital to Paris (he died in 511, before he got very far). Since then, the building has been used as the king's lit de justice, where the king himself legislated, and his royal edicts were registered. Since then, it has been used as a barracks and, famously during the Revolution, a prison. There, you can visit the rooms where Maximilien Robespierre and Marie-Antoinette passed their last days, respectively, as well as learn about the conditions of 18th-century prison life. I arrived five minutes before the start of the 4:15 p.m. daily tour, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in visiting the Conciergerie. Our guide was Spanish, but spoke French flawlessly, and knew her history forwards and backwards, something I've come to expect from French tour guides.

The Gothic architecture of the older sections looked so ancient, an effect that was probably enhanced by the very low level of lighting. To me, this seems very ironic; as I continue to learn, Gothic architecture, when it was new, was truly the architecture of shining light and brilliant color; it is only with age, wear, and the elements that Gothic stones have darkened, and their once-beautiful stained-glass windows grown black with spoilage. The windows of Philippe le Bel's Conciergerie were quite large, and kept the interior very well-lighted; now, the windows have been blocked with stone. The building got it's name under Charles V (rival claimant of Edward III of England for the throne of France), who as Dauphin, saw his ministers murdered before his eyes by Etienne Marcel, leader of an armed protest against royal royal. Worried by the possibility of another urban uprising, Charles V kept his distance from Paris, and installed a Concierge, or caretaker, who was in charge of Paris. Hence the name Conciergerie, to describe the building occupied by the Concierge. Charles V went on to do a fairly decent job getting the English out of France, avoiding open battle and simply launching siege after siege on the fortresses they had seized, eventually leaving them with only a few cities along the northern coast (Calais, Cherbourg, and Brest), certain regions of Guyenne (which the Brits could claim partially thanks to Henry II's marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine two centuries before), as well as certain chateaux.

On Monday, I took a test in my Contemporary Arab World TD, and on Tuesday, I took a test in my Medieval History TD, then delivered an expose on feudalism to the professor of the CM. I really felt like visiting a museum on Tuesday afternoon, and the Louvre was closed, so I took a short walk over to the Sainte-Chapelle, which is, in fact, right next to the Conciergerie, as well as to the Paris courthouse (Palais de Justice, literally, Palace of Justice). The Sainte-Chapelle was constructed by Saint-Louis in the early 13th century, in order to house his relics, most notably (what was purportedly) the Crown of Thorns. After passing the heavy security check, and getting my (free!) ticket, I entered the Lower Chapel, in the midst of restored, and was quite impressed by the restored colors. I noticed that there was a staircase, and I investigated.

The staircase led to the Upper Chapel, which, when I entered, literally made my breath catch in my throat. I have never seen as beautiful stained-glass windows as those of the Sainte-Chapelle, which are absolutely bursting with color, thanks to the restorers' hard work. Each one of the main 14 windows depicts one or two books of the Bible, with the rose on the facade depicting the Apocalypse, and the window on the far end of the nave depicting the Passion. I peered at dozens upon dozens of panes, and had a great deal of difficulty making out what was what. People were seated in folding chairs along the walls; the room is chilly, but if one is dressed warmly enough (as I was), spending a half-hour or an hour just sitting with a friend or family member and looking at the stained glass together would be time well spent.

Before I sign off, I'll take a moment to mention my visit to the Lutetia Arenas, one of the relatively few remnants of Paris's Roman heritage (the Cluny Museum's frigidarium is another). We visited them two weeks ago; they aren't the Roman Colosseum, but they're legit, dating from the 1st century C.E. It's now a public park, more or less, and the clearing in the center is large enough for people to play pétanque, a French version of lawn-bowling, but too small for even little-league baseball. There are concerts held there occasionally, and you can still see the enclosures where animals (lions?) were kept. Nick and I had a debate over whether it would have been possible to escape; the walls are too high to leap up upon from the base of the arena, but it looks to me, anyway, to have scrabbled up the sides, if you were athletic (and desperate) enough. I'm not certain, though. In any case, the arenas are now being put to the good use of giving Parisian children a place to play.

~JD

"Les parlementaires sont donc plus indulgents que les juges de premiere instance. Mais leur attitude ne se modifie pas au cours du siecle: ils ne deviennent pas plus indulgents, a la difference de leurs collegues des juridictions sublaternes" [The members of the court of appeals were thus more indulgent then the trial judges. But their attitudes did not change in the course of the 18th century: they did not become more lenient, unlike their colleagues of subaltern jurisdictions] (Benoit Garnot, Crime et Justice aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, p. 16).

A trip to the Louvre

I spent a good six hours at the Louvre yesterday, looking at art and artifacts until I simply couldn’t bear to look at any more. All in all, though, I think that I passed through about 15% of the rooms, and probably didn’t “see” everything those rooms had to offer! Notwithstanding, I had a fantastic time, and saw some truly amazing pieces: however, not one of them was one of the items, such as da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (aka La Joconde) or the Venus de Milo, for which the Louvre is famous. The highest-profile object I saw, in fact, was the collection of crown jewels, which had almost no historical information posted -- the signs mostly just listed the number of precious stones which decorated each ornament (as with so many other institutions, it was Francois I who began the collection of “crown jewels”). So I’ve taken the trouble to name a few of the pieces which I saw which I thought were worth the trouble to find, and to which I can ascribe the highest interest-to-traffic ratio.

1) The first self-portrait: around the year 1450, Jean Foquet made a palm-sized engraving on a gold medallion of his own face. His is the first self-portrait, in all of Occidental art history, of which we know. It is well-executed, too, Fouquet having used extremely fine tools, including a needle, to scratch textured patterns on the black enamel. The birth of the self-portrait is very much associated with the Renaissance, in the spirit of the displacement of older, impersonal forms of representation: Ghiberti’s knoblike little bust appears on his famous golden doors, for instance. It is therefore surprising to find that the first self-portrait is not only found in France, and not in Italy, but appeared before the real burst of Italian influence in French art and architecture, inaugurated by Francois I. All the more reason to argue against a single monumental event, “the Renaissance,” in favor of the transitions and trends which confront the historian in nearly all lands and ages.

2) Helmet and shield of Charles IX: Created circa 1572, these gold armaments are for decoration, not for combat. The detail of the decoration of the shield is extremely fine, an example of the work of the school of Fontainebleau, and depicts the exploits of the Roman general Marius. (For those of you who don’t know, Marius was a sort of proto-Caesar, the general who professionalized the Roman army, and declared himself dictator-for-life, although he actually retired late in his career.) The cloth on the back of the shield is also very rich.

3) Napoleon’s tableware: displayed in one china closet are forty elements of one of Napoleon I’s 60-piece tableware. What is amazing about this set in particular is that the designs on the plates, each of which is unique, are based upon entries in Diderot’s Encyclopedia. There are scenes of people working, in workshops, fields, mills, smithies, and mines; there is a scene of young men swimming; there are humorous scenes depicting a schoolmaster. The set was completed by the Sevres porcelain industry, founded in 1740. Adjacent to the Encyclopedia collection is one of Napoleon I’s tea services, called the “Cabaret Egyptien,” completed 1808-1810. Each unique piece in the service depicts a person, place, or monument from General Bonaparte’s (he wasn’t yet emperor) Egyptian campaigns. There are portraits of sheiks, of beggars, of Beduins, and of a Jerusalem Jew; there are quiet oases and towering pyramids.

4) Cycladic figurines: There are galleries and galleries of fantastic Ancient Greek art, mostly pottery, which, if you have the patience to look carefully at the displays, and to listen attentively to the audio guide, will gradually walk you through the various styles, as they evolved, shifted, and went in and out of fashion, from the 3^rd millennium B.C.E. to the 4^th century BCE. One room, in six steps, shows the transition in sculpture, and contains a case of the feminine figurines, c. 2700-2300 BCE, and native to the Cyclades, most of which are just a few inches tall, but some of which achieved a height of several feet (the head still exists of one of these). Not only do these represent some of the earliest known art known in the western world, but there is a bit of a historical controversy swirling around these white clay manikins. Most of the figurines are in the shape of a standing naked woman with her arms crossed below her breasts, which has led some to claim that they were the work of a peaceful feminist society that was later displaced by hordes of the violent, misogynistic Hellenes, with the male-dominated mythology we all know and love. Regardless, the figurines have a mysterious and antique beauty, with their curving noses and rigid postures.

5) The scepter of Charles V: Charles had his golden scepter topped with a figurine of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor (crowned Christmas Day, 800), to symbolically legitimize the Capetian occupancy of the throne, with deliberate links to antiquity. The scepter is extremely well-preserved, having lost only the white enamel that covered the fleur-de-lys budding beneath Charlemagne’s throne.

6) In this series of colorful Renaissance tapestries, each piece depicts hunting in one month. There is a great deal of action, and scenes of the life of the nobility, found throughout. The artists did not hesitate to include the odd scatological element: in July, right in the foreground of the piece, is a dog doing its business.

7) Jewel cabinet of Empress Josephine: elegantly ornamented with classical scenes and a butterfly motif, this large dresser later passed on to Napoleon’s second wife, after he divorced Josephine. The piece is one of the best-preserved in the Imperial style.

8) Objets d’art from Limoges: Among the piles and piles of medieval relics and sacred objects of gold and ivory found in the Louvre are several rooms filled mostly with the products of goldsmiths’ workshops in Limoges, a region in Southwest France. The Limoges artisans had a very recognizable style, using the same colors of light blue and pale green precious stones, very shallow lines, and faces of traced characters in relief.

9) Throne of Napoleon I: The blue-and-gold seat is surprisingly modest, given the kind of pomp to which Napoleon was given in his imperial garb. Moreover, just around the corner, you can see a painting of the throne, in the background of a full-length portrait of Napoleon I. Either the chair has been well-restored, or has been well-preserved, because the colors seem not to have faded at all!

10) Tapestry of Saint Martin: I found my old friend, Saint Martin, in an Icelandic hagiographic tapestry, dating from between the 14^th and 16^th centuries. I recognized many of the scenes: the cutting of the cloak, the healing of the sick, the raising from the dead of a hanged man, and the transportation on board a ship of Saint Martin’s remains. A very good tapestry, but mostly interesting just for old times’ sake!

Thank you, Bruno, for inviting me to your apartment! I had a wonderful time with you on Sunday evening, and look forward to seeing you and your family again soon. Maybe your daughter won’t be so afraid of me next time…

~JD

“Mille pensers dormaient, chrysalides funebres/ Fremissant doucement dans les lourdes tenebres,/ Qui degagent leur aile et prennent leur essor,/ Tentes d’azure, glaces de rose, lames d’or” [A thousand thoughts slept, funereal chrysalises, softly shaking in the heavy dusk, which lift wing and take flight, tinted with azure, iced with pink, bladed with gold]. ~Beaudelaire, "XLVIII. -- Le Flacon”