LA CHAPELLE DU CHÂTEAU DE VINCENNES.
Reading edition
The beautiful chapel attached to the castle of Vincennes was begun in 1379, by Charles V., but was only finished by Henri II., who adorned the interior, and especially the glass, with the interlaced H. and D., which figure upon everything of the period, without the slightest shame. The apse contains glass by Jean Cousin, an exquisite Last Judgment.
At once a royal residence and a prison, the Château de Vincennes has a long history to recount. It was much beloved by S. Louis; he lived there, and delivered his judgments sitting under an oak in the forest. It was there also that he received those precious relics from the Emperor Baldwin, deposited for a time at the convent of the Minimes; and from Vincennes also the departure for those unhappy Crusades took place.
Louis X., Philippe V., Charles IV., and our own Henry V. died there; Charles IX. and Mazarin died there; and Henry IV. was imprisoned there. So was Mirabeau, who passed his time in composing L'Essai sur les lettres de cachet et les prisons d'Etat. Diderot was also a prisoner; and the Duc d'Enghien was shot within its precincts. Like the Bastille it had its lettres de cachets, and although less notorious, it was probably no less dark in its tales of legal and regal crimes. But for all that its woods were favourite hunting-grounds, a part having been enclosed by Philippe-Auguste to receive the stags and roebucks sent by Henry II. of England to his most Christian majesty.
Vincennes was also the birthplace of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, started by one Charles Adam in 1745: but this is guide-book information, with no bearing upon the Paris churches. Let no one, however, visit the Chapel at Vincennes without sauntering into the wood, which is quite the equal, if not prettier than the Bois de Boulogne. You may pick violets and enjoy a splendid view of the Seine and the Marne meandering among the valleys; but you will not enjoy le monde, which does not venture so far east of the Champs Elysées. If you require fashion, go not east of the Louvre.
THE CHAPEL OF THE CHÂTEAU DE VINCENNES.
