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Show FATHER MALONE'S LETTER FROM PARIS. (Editorial Correspondence.) Paris, June S, 1!M)0. With the exception excep-tion of the annex at Vincennes, I have iisited every nook and corner of the Universal Exposition, to which people are flocking from every country in the world. To one who saw that wonderfud White City hard by Lake Michigan .n 1S!C, this latest and best effort of j Lhe people of France must prove disappointing'. dis-appointing'. But what of Paris? I hear someone say, Paris: Ah! That is a different matter mat-ter altogether. Paris is always interesting. interest-ing. Its historical monuments and associations as-sociations make it a marvellously attractive at-tractive city. No exposition of this or any future day will make the visitor iTorget the splendid achievements of the children of France in the arts of peace, the. glorious manifestation of Christian principles in progress and ilization, nor cause his interest to flag in monuments of warlike triumphs as well as the glory, long since departed, de-parted, and now enshrined in that pplendid tomb cf the emperor in the Church des Invalides. It is Paris with her present un-Simmed un-Simmed lustre as well as much of her departed glory that entrances me. And now, where shall I begin? Will it be at the Madeleine? That magnificent magnifi-cent temple, erected in honor of Saint Mary Magdalene, the foundation of which was laid by Louis XV., in 1764, or shall I go back to some of the thurches founded centuries ago, or Khali I wander over to the old "city" with its -Paint Chapelle," full of tender ten-der memories of Marie Antoinette and the location of the world famed Notre Dame? Perhaps the readers of The Intel In-tel -mountain Catholic in Colorado and Utah, in lhe respective capitals of which states new cathedrals are about 1o be built, may find some reference to this great church of peculiar interest. If Conceited, indeed, would be the I writer, who would attempt to add to I the many beautiful descriptions wiich I have already been penned of this edi- 1 lice of world-wide renown. J The Cathedral of Notre Dame was I begun in the year 1163, on the site of I a churc h which had been erected some I tim? in the fourth century, and was consecrated in 1182. In the rourse of centuries the building has been altered from time to time, but always in such a judicious manner as to add to the renown of the edifice. u""b 'e levoiuuon ;otre Dame was desecrated, and in 1703 its beautiful beau-tiful sculptures were demolished, the building itself being saved only after a decree ordering its destruction had been rescinded. This same year witnessed wit-nessed the conversion of the magnificent magnifi-cent church into a so-called "Temple of Reason," in which the statute of the Blessed Virgin was replaced by one erected in the name of liberty, and the sacred music which had resounded for centuries through its graceful 1 arches was superseded by the songs and ribald jests of the National Guard It would be difficult to describe the I If-ehngs and thoughts that came upon I rne as I stood in the choir of Notre i Dame and recalled that perhaps my feet resu-d upon the very spot in which I the alleged "Temple of Philosophy" 1 V and its "Torch of Truth" had been thrown up and adorned with busts of Voltaire, Rousseau and other devotees atheism and infidelity. I recall, too, that here on the altar before me, 'where for ages the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass had been offered up, the Revolutionists Revolution-ists had enthroned "Reason" in the person of a notorious prostitute. On the 12th of May, 1794, the church was closed as a place of 'divine worship and remained so until it was reopened by Napoleon eight years later. Seventy years after, a horde of maddened, mad-dened, frenzied Communists again desecrated des-ecrated Notre Dame. Its treasury, rich in sacred vessels, was rifled and the edifice itself was used tf5 a military depot, de-pot, in much the same manner as that in which the United States troops are occupying places of divine worship in the Philippines at the present time. At last, when the Versailles troops entered Paris victoriously, the insurgents, giving giv-ing way before them, set fire to Notre Dame, but fortunately little damage was done. Volumes might be written on the interesting in-teresting history which attaches to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, but limited time and space prevent me from doing more than indicating the most important import-ant incidents and a brief description of the building and its sacred treasures. treas-ures. The facade of Notre Dame is the earliest of its kind and was erected in the beginning of the thirteenth century. It is divided into three vertical sections sec-tions by plain buttresses, and consists of three stories, exclusive of the towers. tow-ers. The three large recessed portals are adorned with sculptures, which, so far as they have survived the ravages j of the revolution, are fine specimens of early Gothic workmanship. Those on the central portal represent the last judgment. The portal on the right is dedicated to St. Anne, and that on the left to the Blessed Virgin. The relief, representing the burial of the Blessed Virgin, is noteworthy. This story is connected with the one above it by the Gallerie des Rois, a series of niches, containing modern statues or twenty-eight twenty-eight French kings, replacing those destroyed de-stroyed in the French revolution. Above the gallery in the center rises the statue of the Blessed Virgin, with two angels bearing torches, to the right and left of which are figures of Adam and Eve. The center of the second story is occupied by a large rose window win-dow forty-two feet in diameter, with the simple tracery of the early Gothic style. At the sides are double pointed windows. The third story is a gallery composed of pointed arches in pairs twenty-six feet in height, borne by very slender columns, each double arch being crowned with an open trefoil. Above this gallery runs a balustrade, surmounted with figures of monsters and animals, and the facade then terminates ter-minates in two uncompleted square towers, each pierced by a pair of pointed point-ed windows fifty-four feet in height. The south door of the transept is embellished em-bellished with fine iron work, restored by Boulanger. The spire above the cross, 144 feet in height, was erected in 1859. The church, which consists of a niave and double aisles, crossed by a single transept, is 417 feet long and 156 feet broad. The double aisles are continued around the choir, affording the earliest earli-est examples of this construction. As in most of the early Gothic churches the choir is circular in form. The chapels introduced into the spaces between be-tween the buttresses of the aisles and choir are in a late Gothic style. The vaulting, 110 feet high, in the niave, is borne by seventy-five pillars, many of which, unlike those in other Gothic buildings, are round. Above the inner aisles runs a triforum, borne by 108 small columns, and the clerestory is pierced by thirty-seven large windows. The ancient stained glass of the roses over the principal and lateral portals is worthy of the closest inspection. To the right of the south portal are two marble slabs in memory of seventy-five victims of the commune. The organ was built in 1750, and restored and enlarged en-larged in 186S. It is a fine instrument with 5,240 pipes and eighty-six stops. The pulpit is a masterpiece of modern wood carving. It was'designed by Violet Vio-let le Due and executed by Mergen. The choir and sanctuary both are separated sep-arated from the ambulatory and the niave by very handsome railings. The choir stalls and the reliefs in wood represent scenes from the history of Our Saviour and the Blessed Virgin.. In the sanctuary, to the right and the left, are statues of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The choir chapels contain a number of monuments of former Archbishops of Paris, from Cardinal Noilles, who died in 1729, down to the lamented Archbishop Darboy, who was sacrificed by the fiends of the Commune in 1S71. The wall outside the enclosure of the choir is adorned with twenty-three reliefs re-liefs in stone, representing scenes in the life of Our Savior, which were completed in 1351. We next pass into the new Sacristy, erected in 1S46-48 by Violet le Due. In the same style as the Cathedral. This sacristy contains thousands of objects of far more than passing interest; indeed in-deed I may say that to a priest they are. of absorbing and intense interest. The vestments of all colors surpass in royal I magnificence anything which I had ever I seen. There are twenty sets of each iuhu, iiiiuy ui mem emDroidered in gold, silver, jewels and silk. Among them were vestments presented to Notre Dame by former kings and queens of France, the chief of whom was St. Louis, of blessed memory. I can never describe my feelings as I placed my hand upon a vestment which had been embroidered by the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, who herself presented present-ed to Notre Dame, whose towers now-cast now-cast their shadows over the Place de la Concorde, the scene of the unfortunate unfor-tunate queen's tragic execution. Here, too, are silver busts of St. Louis and St. Denis; a Greek cross enameled in the twelfth century; also innumerable chalices and reliquaries from the thirteenth thir-teenth to - the sixteenth centuries. Among the objects of historical interest inter-est which are preserved in the new-sacristy new-sacristy are the coronation robes of Napoleon the First, and the bipod-stained bipod-stained garments of Archbishop Affre, Archbishop Sibour and Archbishop Darboy. On the 25th of June. 184S, during- the revolution of that year. Archbishop Affre, whilst exhorting the people in the Place de la Bastile, was killed by an insurgent's ball. At the northeast corner of the Tlace du Pantheon stands the church of St Etienne du Mont, which contains the tomb of St. Genevieve. Near by this tomb, on the 3rd of January, 1S57, Arch bishop Sibour was assassinated by an ex-priest. But the most touching memento me-mento of all that are, enshrined in Notre Not-re Dame's new sacristy is the bloodstained blood-stained cassock rent by .the. communist's commun-ist's bullet that stilled forever the heart of Archbishop Darboy. This sad event recalls to mind the prison de la Roquette, which, during the communist commu-nist reign of terror, was the scene of Archbishop Darboy's assassination, which event occurred on the 24th of May in 1871. At the same time three other priests who had been seized by the communists as hostages were put to death. What a strange, strange people peo-ple are these! Truly among them are the best, as evidenced by the countless temples and shrines erected in honor of the living God. Assuredly, too, there are among them the worst, as is obvious ob-vious from the history of such places and times as the Bastile and the revo lution, La Roquette and the Commune. Notre Dame is situated in what is known as the Cite, which is the most ancient part of Paris. It has long since ceased to be the center of Parisian life, but for me it had an interest unsurpassed unsur-passed by anything I have yet seen in this wonderful city. I The impressions made upon me during dur-ing the day I spent at Notre Dame will be cherished as the most memorable that I have experienced. THOMAS H. MALONE. |