Note 84 — Chapter IV · Notre Dame of Paris and Other Churches of the Capital[71]

Once the Paris churches were filled with late-Gothic windows, though the troubled history of the city has left but few. Some XVI-century glass is still to be found in St. Merri and St. Germain-l’Auxerrois, for which churches see Huysman’s Trois églises et trois primitifs (1908). St Étienne-du-Mont has in a chapel an Engrand Le Prince window, a symbolic wine press with portraits of Pope Paul II, Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII; and reset in the passage leading to the catechism chapel is the masterpiece of Pinaigrier, twelve panels that are veritable enameling on glass. In St. Gervais, where on Good Friday, 1918, a projectile from the long-distance German gun crashed through the masonry roof, killing many, are two windows, Solomon’s judgment (1531), and St. Laurence (1551), said to be by Jean Cousin, also some Pinaigrier glass. To Jean Cousin are attributed the five splendid windows of the Apocalypse in the chapel at Vincennes, whose design derives from Dürer’s woodcuts, published in 1498. They have deep shadows and are strong in color and plan. M. Mâle says that Dürer’s German has here been translated into graceful Renaissance Italian. Vincennes’ chapel had been begun by Charles V in 1378. Then came the pause of a century, and the works were finished by Henry II, still on the Gothic plan, however. Henry donated the windows and he had Diana of Poitiers pictured among the righteous souls in the fifth seal of the Apocalypse. Francis I is represented at the base of the second window. Excursions can be made from Paris to places within easy distance that posses Gothic-Renaissance glass. At Écouen, nine miles from Paris, in the church of St. Acceul, are sixteen windows due to De Montmorency patronage. Originally in Écouen’s guard hall were the forty-four panels (made for the constable, Anne de Montmorency) now in the long gallery of Chantilly, the château bequeathed to the Institute of France in 1897 by the Duc d’Aumale. The story of Cupid and Psyche is told in that camaïeu glass so suited for domestic decoration, a species of iron-red grisaille, whose only other hue is yellow stain. Chantilly’s panels were painted in the Raphaelesque style by the Flemish master, Coexyen, trained in Van Orley’s school. At Montmorency, ten miles from Paris, in St. Martin’s church, the history of France seems written in the windows, with the portraits of Francis I, Henry II, Adrian VI, and members of the houses of Montmorency, Pot, and Coligny. Three of the lights are by Engrand Le Prince. More portrait work appears in the many windows at Montfort l’Amaury, twenty-nine miles from Paris (1544-78), work not equal to the earlier XVI-century glass.

H. Havard, éd., La France artistique et monumentale, vol. 4, Écouen; vol. 5, Chantilly, Vincennes, Pierrefonds; F. de Fossa, Le château de Vincennes (Collection, Petites Monographies), (Paris, H. Laurens); E. Macon, Chantilly et le musée Condé (Paris, H. Laurens).