The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-26 00:00:00

PARIS IMPROVEZEIY

Demolition, reconstruction, and embellishment in.the
capital and its environs seem to proceed at an accelerated
rate, and, under existing circumstances, it is natural that
it should do so—as one leg of mutton is said to drive down
another, so may one house or one street be said to pull
down another, and as the demand for employment has
naturally grown with the thing upon which it lives, there
appears no chance of the improvements or alterations of
Paris coming to an end until every inconvenient street and
almost every inelegant house is done away with orreplaced.
For the builder and architect Paris is at present, and is
likely to remain for some time, the widest area for the study
of demolition and construction, and it presents the oppor-
tunity of seeing what to emulate and what to avoid in
almost an equal degree. If a student desire to see rapid
and solid building, exquisitely worked details, with archi-
tecture of every kind, good, bad, and indifferent, let him
come to Paris, for here he will find all those features on a
grand scale.
Notre Dame begins to issue forth from its long endured
coat of hoarding and dirt, and to exhibit its beauties in
something like a satisfactory manner. The scaffolding is
all removed from the choir and transept, the former has
been paved with marble, the stalls have just been placed in
position, and the grand altar, which was described in the
Building News some time since, now exhibits all its beau-
ties, and all its glaring defects too, to the public eye.
The next thing to be taken in hand, or rather to be com-
pleted, for all the preparations have been made, is the com-
plete restoration of the great rose window in the western
front. This window, which was repaired in 1726, threat-
ened to fall to pieces; a new window has, therefore, been
made, which is an exact fee-simile of the old one, and the
preparations are now being made for substituting the one
for the other. The magnitude and delicacy of the operation
will be evident to all practical men when it is stated that
the window in question is 42ft. in diameter, and that the
whole façade itself is in a most ticklish condition. This
atter will, of course, be thoroughly restored at the same
This facade was entirely the work of Jean de
C h elles.

time.

The plumbers are now at work placing a crenellated
ornament along the ridge of the roof.
The Cathedral of St. Denis is also proceeding rapidly to
completion, and presents many interesting features. The
original building, which was erected on the site of the
present cathedral, was raised over the tomb of St. Denis
before the invasion of the Franks ; this is spoken of by
Gregory of Tours, who bears witness to its magnificence—a
term which must of course be accepted conditionally. This
original church was reconstructed by St. Genevieve, the
Patroness of Paris; and again by Dagobert, with increased
splendour, about the year 630. In the next century Pepin
commenced the rebuilding of it once more, and took great
pains to obliterate all recollection of the work of the Mero-
vingian prince ; the work commenced by Pepin was finished
by Charlemagne in 775. Again in the twelfth century the
church was entirely rebuilt by the Abbe Segur, who, how-
ever, preserVed beneath the choir the greater portion of
the crypt of the Carlovingian edifice. The abbe's work was
ill-executed, and in the following century it threatened to
fall to pieces. St. Louis caused nearly the whole of the
choir, the nave, and the transepts, to be rebuilt; in fact,
nothing of the former structure remained but the facade,
the chapels around the choir, and a door at the base of the
north transept. - •
At the time of the revolution, the Cathedral of St. Denis
was terribly mutilated, and, although Napoleon twice
started the idea of. its renovation, nothing was done till
1816, when all kinds of strange alterations were made with-
out any evident reason, and continued till 1846, when they
were stopped by the dangerous condition of •ne of the
towers, which was obliged to be pulled down. In the latter
year, the work was taken in hand in a methodical manner
by M. Viollet-le-Duc, then appointed architect of the
cathedral; the remains which presented any artistic value
were carefully classified, and the repairs were enabled to be
carried out according to the original designs of Percier
and others, in the Gaignieres collection in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford. . .

During the recent repairs the crypt of the Carlovingian
kings was brought to light, surrounded by portions of the
Abbe Segues construction, including the monuments,
pavement, and chapels in the apsis. The painted windows
of these chapels are said to be, with the single exception of
those of Notre Dame de Chartres, the only examples that
France possesses of the 12th century ; and the composition
of the subjects, and the harmony of the colours, aro con-
sidered far superior to anything executed in the succeeding
period.
The present Emperor determined to make St. Denis the
burial. place of his dynasty ; the choir and transept have
been restored to their original state, the foundations have
been underpinned, the floors have been reduced to the
ancient level, after having been most capriciously altered,
no one seems to know why, and shortly the tombs of the
kings will be all re-established. The Napoleon Mausoleum
has bees excavated under the nave and immediately west
of the Carlovingian crypt, in which are placed the remains
of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette the Duke de Berry, on
of his children, the aunt of Louis XVI., the Prince den
Conde, and Louis XVIII.
The resting place of the new dynasty is not very large,
but it is divided into a main body and two side aisles,
formed by solid monolithic.pillars supporting the vaultings
of the roof ; at the eastern end of the central aisle is a small
altar, or rather the place for it, which will be illuminated
by a floor-light placed in the rear of the great altar in the
choir. The entrance to the Mausoleum will be closed with
large flag-stones.
In making the excavations for this new crypt a number
of stone tombs of the Merovingian period were discovered,

but they contained, it is said, nothing of any interest; a few
amber beads, the remains of other ornaments and of cloth-
ing, and a little dust, were all that had not perished of the
kings or heroes of that remote period. These tombs were all
under the floor of the apsis of the Church of Dagobert, of
which the extent was quite distinctly traced ; on the walls
of the basement were found some remnants of coarse paint-

ing, representing drapery. The edifice built by Dagobert
was constructed entirely out of the materials of the pre-
vious Gallo •Roman Basilica, so that the present cathedral
includes the vestiges of five successive edifices—one of the
third or fourth century, that of Dagobert, of Charlemagne,
of the Abbe Segur, and of Saint Louis.
The facade of the church is in a very bad condition, and
it is not considered safe to re-erect the spire which used
to crown the northern tower ; a plan for the complete re=
storation of the whole of this portion of the building is
now under consideration; the project is to build two
towers to flank the grand entrance, which into be pierced
with three doers, richly decorated with sculpture, and se-
parated by two prominent socles supporting four equestrian
Statues, in memory of those sovereigns who retired from the
cares of power to the silence and solitude of the cloisters of
the Abbey of Saint Denis.
The most remarkable edifice now under the hands of Pa-
risian workmen is the new Russian church, which is being
erected in the Rue de la Croix, near the park of Monceau'.
This novel structure is in the style of the Kremlin—
namely, semi-Byzantine and semi-Tartar.. It consists of
five towers grouped together, that in the centre being
much higher than the other four. Each of the towers is
crowned with the well-known pOinted dome or rather bulb
of copper gilt, surmounted by a cross also gilt, and from
which depend chains to correspond. The door in the
northern facade is under a bold porch with four pillars and
a hemispherical dome, and approached by 12 handsome
steps. Over the porch is the-pediment of the door, and in