LITMIR.BIZ

      [PARIS, which spread rapidly Southward at first, was somewhat slower in its Northward development. Nevertheless, by the time of Philippe Auguste, the Town La Ville– the commercial portion N of the river – more than equalled the learned district on the S side. This central northern region, however, containing the Hôtel de Ville, St. Eustache, and some other important buildings, I purposely postpone to the consideration of the Louvre and its neighbourhood, which, though later in date, form the heart and core of Renaissance Paris – the Paris of François Ier and his splendour-loving successors.

      Most of the buildings we have hitherto considered are mediæval and Gothic. The Louvre introduces us at once to a new world – the world of the Renaissance. The transition is abrupt. In Italy, and especially in Florence, the Renaissance was a natural growth; in France it was a fashion. It came in, full-fledged, without history or antecedents. To trace its evolution, one must follow it out in detail in Florence and Venice. There, it grows of itself, organically, by gradual stages. But in France, Gothic churches and mediæval châteaux give place at once, with a bound, to developed Renaissance temples and palaces. The reason for this fact is, that the French kings, from Charles VIII onward to Henri IV, were thoroughly Italianate. They fought, travelled, and married in Italy, to parts of which they laid claim; and being closely allied with the Medici and other Italian families, – husbands of Medici wives, sons of Medici mothers, – they introduced at once into France the developed products of the Italian Renaissance. At the same time the increased and centralized power of the Crown enabled them to build magnificent palaces, like the Louvre and Fontainebleau; and to this artificial impulse is mainly due the sudden outburst of art in France under François Ier and his immediate successors.

      It is impossible to characterize the Renaissance in a few short sentences. In one aspect, it was a return from Gothicism to Classical usage, somewhat altered by the new conditions of life. At first you will probably only notice that in architecture it substituted round arches for pointed, and introduced square doors and windows; while in other arts it replaced sacred and Christian subjects and treatment by mythological and secular. But, in contrast with mediævalism, it will reveal itself to you by degrees as essentially the dawn of the modern spirit.

      The Louvre is the noblest monument of the French Renaissance. From the time of St. Louis onward, the French kings began to live more and more in the northern suburb, the town of the merchants, which now assumed the name of La Ville, in contradistinction to the Cité and the Université. Two of their chief residences here were the Bastille and the Hôtel St. Paul, both now demolished – one, on the Place so called, the other, between the Rue St. Antoine and the Quai des Célestins. But from a very early period they also possessed a château on the site of the Louvre, and known by the same name, which guarded the point where the wall of Philippe Auguste abutted on the river. François Ier decided to pull down this picturesque turreted mediæval castle, erected by Philippe Auguste and altered by Charles V. He began the construction in its place of a magnificent Renaissance palace, which has ever since been in course of erection. Its subsequent growth, however, is best explained opposite the building itself, where attention can be duly called to the succession of its salient features. But a visit to the exterior fabric of the Louvre should be preceded by one to St. Germain l’Auxerrois, the parish church, and practically the chapel, of the old Louvre, to which it stood in somewhat the same relation as the Ste. Chapelle to the home of St. Louis. Note, however, that the church was situated just within the ancient wall, while the château lay outside it. The visitor will doubtless be tolerably familiar by this time with some parts at least of the exterior of the Louvre; but he will do well to visit it now systematically, in the order here suggested, so as to gain a clear general idea of its history and meaning.]