Louvre Palace

“ No other edifice in Europe contains so vast a treasure of things beautiful and rare as the great royal palace of the Louvre, whose growth we have traced in our story. From periods so remote that works of art sometimes termed ancient are in comparison but of yesterday to the productions of the generation of artists who have just passed away, we may study the varying phases of the manifestation through the ages of the artistic sense in man. ”

“ But if a more expensive building is attempted, it will result like the Louvre, which has never been finished. The parks are first to be considered, their boundaries determined and inclosed. I wish this new palace to be somewhat handsomer than the Elysee; and although that cost less than eight millions, it is one of the most beautiful palaces of Paris. That of the King of Rome will rank next to the Louvre, which is itself a magnificent palace. It will be, so to speak, only a country seat for one residing in Paris, for of course the winters would be passed at the Louvre or the Tuileries. ”

“ Greek, Egyptian, Assyrian, Chaldean and Persian antiquities (including the unique and magnificent frieze of the archers from the palace of Darius I.) , all are crowded with objects of interest and beauty, even to the inexpert visitor.
Of the gorgeous palace of the Tuileries, with its inharmonious but picturesque façade, stretching across the western limit of the Louvre from the Pavilion de Flore to the Pavilion de Marsan, not one stone is left on another. ”

“ 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 palace of the Louvre is an older edifice than the Tuileries; the newer portion was the work of the reign of Louis XIV. The quadrangle is very fine, and the proportions of the entire building admirable. Our business was with that part called the Musée Royal, and here are the paintings and statues which have given such a renown to Paris. You must recollect, my dear fellow, that we cannot tell you all about these pictures, for the gallery is nearly one third of a mile in length, and each side is filled up with canvas, and the rooms are lofty. ”

“ Let us draw the curtain on these scenes of horror, and pass rapidly from this period of fanaticism and cruelty, when the Louvre was stained by so many crimes to times more happy, when this palace became the quiet cradle of the arts and sciences, the school for talents, the arena for genius, and the asylum of artists and literati. ”

“ Interesting as the Louvre may be by its ancient history, the old palace is above all famous in the present day for its admirable picture {201} gallery, first thrown open to the public in the darkest, most sanguinary days of the French Revolution. The modern collection was formed by Francis I., who, during his Italian campaigns, had acquired a taste for Italian art, and who not only invited celebrated Italian artists to his court, but gave princely orders to those who, like Raphael and Michel Angelo, were unable to visit France in person. ”

“ The gallery of the Louvre was built by Henry IV. to join that palace with the Tuilleries, from which it was formerly separated, by the walls which surrounded Paris. This vast gallery is two hundred toises in length (not a great deal short of a quarter of an English mile) ; the collection of works of art here in without any parallel, as in this place are assembled most of the finest paintings and statues in the world, which the most indifferent must survey with admiration. ”

“ Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of a palace, compared with that of a soul? ”

“ Again, the portion of the building that directly faces you as you enter the court from St. Germain is the oldest part, and represents the early Renaissance spirit. It is the most primitive Louvre. Note in particular the central elevated portion, known as a Pavillon, and graced with elegant Caryatides. These Pavillons are lingering reminiscences of the mediæval towers. You will find them in the corners and centres of other blocks in the Louvre. They form a peculiarly French Renaissance characteristic. The Palace is here growing out of the Castle. ”

“ It appears certain that the ground on which the palace stands was called Louvre before anything was built upon it. A chart of the year 1215, referred to by Sanval, shows that Henri, Archbishop of Rheims, built a {194} chapel at Paris in a place called the Louvre. Whence the name? it may once more be asked. One facetious historian declares that the castle of the Louvre was one of the finest edifices that France possessed, and that Philip Augustus “called it, in the language of the time, Louvre, that is to say, l’œuvre in the sense of chef-d’œuvre.” ”

“ The old palace was still inhabited by a number of artists and their families. David had his studio there, and most of the painters who had made for themselves a tolerable reputation had apartments in the Louvre. It was reserved for Napoleon to turn them all out, and to give to the Louvre the character which it has since preserved—that of a national palace of art treasures.
The galleries of the Louvre profited greatly by the Napoleonic wars. All continental Europe was laid under contribution by the victorious French armies, but especially Italy and Spain. ”

“ The royal residences in Paris at this time are, strictly speaking, but two,—the Tuileries and the Palais Royal. The Louvre is connected with the first, and it has no finished apartments that are occupied by any of princely rank, most of its better rooms being unfinished, and are occupied as cabinets or museums. A small palace, called the Elysée Bourbon, is fitted up as a residence for the heir presumptive, the Duc de Bordeaux ”

“ The chateau of the Tuileries, built by Catherine de Medici at some distance from the Louvre, was, really speaking, only a little country-house and Trianon. The King conceived the plan of uniting this structure with his palace at the Louvre, extending it on the Saint Roch side and also on the side of the river, and this being settled, the Louvre gallery would be carried on as far as the southern angle of the new building, so as to form one whole edifice, as it now appears. ”

“ Notice, first, that the Palace as a whole, seen from the point where you now stand, is constructed on the old principle of relatively blank external walls, like a castle, with an interior courtyard, on which all the apartments open, and almost all the decoration is lavished. Reminiscences of defense lurk about the Louvre. It can best be understood by comparison with such ornate, yet fortress-like, Italian palaces as the Strozzi at Florence. Notice the four opposite portals, facing the cardinal points, which can be readily shut by means of great doors ”

“ I have already stated that the Louvre took some centuries in completion and gradually extended along the north bank of the Seine from the east to the west. To the west again of this historic palace stood at one time the scarcely less celebrated palace of the Tuilleries, but which alas! exists no more. Tuilleries.Cathrine de Medici constructed the palace in the sixteenth century and for three hundred years the palace had an eventful history. ”

“ The Hamilton Palace picture is a soulless and second-rate production, dating a good many years later than the Louvre idyll, wholly different from it in handling, and remarkable only for its beautiful golden tone. The Louvre 'Fête Champêtre'—a late example of the divine master—is one of the loveliest and most characteristic pieces produced in the early prime of Venetian painting. Should the 'Venus and Adonis' be set down to Giorgione, the misrepresentation in the National Gallery of a unique figure in art would be complete. ”

“ Passing the gilded gates of the Tuileries gardens they soon came abreast of the Louvre. Tod glanced up at the gloomy, time-discolored walls.
"That's one place I must take in before I leave Paris. Not that I know one picture from another. Ever been there?"
Mr. Cooley gave a snort of disapproval.
"Naw," he grunted. "I've no time to spend in sepulchres. I prefer the Bal Tabarin myself." [Pg 36]
CHAPTER III.
Among the extraordinary attractions which makes Paris the show place of Europe, the historic Palace of the Louvre possesses, curiously enough, the least drawing power of any. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the opposite side you see stretched out,{232} huge in length, the heavy and monotonous Louvre, which, with the Tuileries adjoining, is, they say, the most spacious and beautiful palace in the world. I have not experienced what the artists call a perception of its beauties. There is a little pet corner, the eastern colonnade raised by Louis XIV., which is called the great triumph of French architecture. It consists of a long series of apartments, decorated with superb columns, with sculpture and mosaics, and a profusion of gilding, and fanciful ornaments. ”

“ By wise council rather than by war Charles won back much of his dismembered country. He was a great builder and patron of the arts. The Louvre, being now enclosed within the new wall and no longer part of the defences of Paris, was handed over to Raymond of the Temple, Charles' "beloved mason," to transform into a sumptuous palace with apartments for himself and his queen, the princes of the blood and the officers of the royal household. The rooms were decorated with sculpture by Jean de St. Romain, tailleur d'ymages and other carvers in stone, and with paintings, by Jean d'Orléans. ”

“ Liberal and even prodigal as the kings of France have often shown themselves in connection with art, they have never given it such {200} effective encouragement as it has received from France’s Republican Governments. After the Revolution of 1848, the Provisional Government had not been more than four days in power when, February 28th, it issued a decree ordering the completion of the Louvre under the name of “The People’s Palace.” ”

“ In addition to the other numberless works of art contained in the Louvre there are some 300 antique portrait busts and statues, and an immense collection of rare cameos and medals, amongst which are many valuable portraits of antiquity, and about 200 statues and busts of great men of modern time, half of these being representations of military men, with some admirals, and about 50 portraits of sculptors and painters.
The Palace of Versailles is entirely devoted to the illustration of [II-82] the glory of France. ”

“ The conflagration lighted by the Communists had left standing and comparatively uninjured the outer walls, and therefore the general outline of the palace. But these were calmly pulled down by the “moderate” Republicans, less through considerations of art than from political prejudice.
The Louvre subsists in its entirety, and in virtue of its magnificent collection of pictures, constantly enriched through sums voted during the last hundred years by National Assemblies, it has come to be looked upon as public property. The Tuileries, however, was a palace to the last ”

“ But such romances as these are best read in the pages of Dumas.
[Pg 261] “To the French the Louvre is more than a palace; it is a sanctuary,” said an enthusiastic Frenchman. As such it is a shrine to be worshipped by itself, though it is pardonable to wish to know to-day just where and when the historic events of its career took place. ”

“ Builders toiled day and night to connect the Louvre with the main body of the Palace of the Tuileries, which itself was to disappear within so short a time. Meanwhile so great a displacement of the art treasures was undergone, that habitués knew not which way to turn for favourite pictures, with which the last fifty years had made them so familiar.
To those of our elders who knew the Paris of [Pg 185] the early fifties, the present-day aspect—in spite of all its glorious wealth of boulevards and architectural splendour—will suggest the mutability of all things. ”

“ The Louvre has been much enlarged. Under Louis XVI. it consisted of the buildings surrounding the eastern court, of a wing extending toward the river (the gallery of Apollo) , and of a long gallery, since rebuilt, running near the river bank and connecting this older palace with the Tuileries. About one-half of the space now enclosed between the two sides of the enormous edifice, and known as the Place du Carrousel, was then covered with houses and streets. The land immediately to the east of the Tuileries palace was not built upon, but part of it was enclosed by a tall iron railing. ”