Notre-Dame de Paris | Page 6

to burn the Palais de Justice in order to burn the clerk's
office; consequently, in short, no conflagration in 1618. The old Palais
would be standing still, with its ancient grand hall; I should be able to
say to the reader, "Go and look at it," and we should thus both escape
the necessity,--I of making, and he of reading, a description of it, such
as it is. Which demonstrates a new truth: that great events have
incalculable results.
It is true that it may be quite possible, in the first place, that Ravaillac
had no accomplices; and in the second, that if he had any, they were in

no way connected with the fire of 1618. Two other very plausible
explanations exist: First, the great flaming star, a foot broad, and a
cubit high, which fell from heaven, as every one knows, upon the law
courts, after midnight on the seventh of March; second, Théophile's
quatrain,--
"Sure, 'twas but a sorry game When at Paris, Dame Justice, Through
having eaten too much spice, Set the palace all aflame."
Whatever may be thought of this triple explanation, political, physical,
and poetical, of the burning of the law courts in 1618, the unfortunate
fact of the fire is certain. Very little to-day remains, thanks to this
catastrophe,--thanks, above all, to the successive restorations which
have completed what it spared,--very little remains of that first
dwelling of the kings of France,--of that elder palace of the Louvre,
already so old in the time of Philip the Handsome, that they sought
there for the traces of the magnificent buildings erected by King Robert
and described by Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What
has become of the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis
consummated his marriage? the garden where he administered justice,
"clad in a coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves,
and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with
Joinville?" Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and that
of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the staircase, from
which Charles VI. promulgated his edict of pardon? the slab where
Marcel cut the throats of Robert de Clermont and the Marshal of
Champagne, in the presence of the dauphin? the wicket where the bulls
of Pope Benedict were torn, and whence those who had brought them
departed decked out, in derision, in copes and mitres, and making an
apology through all Paris? and the grand hall, with its gilding, its azure,
its statues, its pointed arches, its pillars, its immense vault, all fretted
with carvings? and the gilded chamber? and the stone lion, which stood
at the door, with lowered head and tail between his legs, like the lions
on the throne of Solomon, in the humiliated attitude which befits force
in the presence of justice? and the beautiful doors? and the stained glass?
and the chased ironwork, which drove Biscornette to despair? and the
delicate woodwork of Hancy? What has time, what have men done
with these marvels? What have they given us in return for all this
Gallic history, for all this Gothic art? The heavy flattened arches of M.

de Brosse, that awkward architect of the Saint-Gervais portal. So much
for art; and, as for history, we have the gossiping reminiscences of the
great pillar, still ringing with the tattle of the Patru.
It is not much. Let us return to the veritable grand hall of the veritable
old palace. The two extremities of this gigantic parallelogram were
occupied, the one by the famous marble table, so long, so broad, and so
thick that, as the ancient land rolls--in a style that would have given
Gargantua an appetite--say, "such a slice of marble as was never beheld
in the world"; the other by the chapel where Louis XI. had himself
sculptured on his knees before the Virgin, and whither he caused to be
brought, without heeding the two gaps thus made in the row of royal
statues, the statues of Charlemagne and of Saint Louis, two saints
whom he supposed to be great in favor in heaven, as kings of France.
This chapel, quite new, having been built only six years, was entirely in
that charming taste of delicate architecture, of marvellous sculpture, of
fine and deep chasing, which marks with us the end of the Gothic era,
and which is perpetuated to about the middle of the sixteenth century in
the fairylike fancies of the Renaissance. The little open-work rose
window, pierced above the portal, was, in particular, a masterpiece of
lightness and grace; one would have pronounced it a star of lace.
In the middle of the hall, opposite the great door, a platform of gold
brocade, placed against the wall, a special entrance to which had been