How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 381 pages of information about How to Enjoy Paris in 1842.

How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 381 pages of information about How to Enjoy Paris in 1842.

On the first of January the clergy went in procession to the bishop who had been elected as the grand master of the fete, conducting him solemnly to the church with all the ecclesiastical banners usually borne on important occasions, amidst the ringing of bells; when arrived at the choir, he was placed in the episcopal seat, and mass was performed with the most extravagant gesticulations.  The priests figuring away in the most ridiculous dresses; some in the costume of buffoons, others in female attire with their faces daubed with soot, or covered with hideous masks, some dancing, others jumping, or playing different games, drinking, and eating puddings, sausages, etc., offering them to the high-priest whilst he was celebrating high mass; also burning old shoes in the chalice, instead of incense, to produce a disagreeable scent; at length, elevated by wine, their orgies began to have the appearance of those of demons, roaring, howling, singing, and laughing until the walls of the church echoed with their yells.  This was often carried on until they worked themselves up to a pitch of madness, and then they began boxing each other until the floor of the church would be smeared with blood; upon which most severe expiations were exacted from them; as, however, much has been shed in the cause of the church, it was not to be permitted that the holy sanctuary should ever be stained with aught so impure.  The ecclesiastics at last quitting the church, got into carts filled with mud and filth, amusing themselves with flinging it upon the crowds who followed them in such streets as were wide enough for a cart to pass.  It is conjectured that these festivities, with their nonsensical ceremonies, were of pagan origin, and probably the celebration of the Carnival is derived from the same source; many attempts were made to abolish so disgraceful a custom as the continuance of the Fetes des Fous, with the absurdities incidental to its revelries, but it was not until the Parisians became more enlightened that any monarch could succeed in its entire suppression.

In 1180 Philippe Auguste succeeded his father, and did more for Paris than all the works of his predecessors united; he reconstructed Notre Dame, and made it such as it now is with respect to the grand body of the building; but the variety of little chapels contained within it, and the elaborate workmanship, with the bas, mezzo and alto relievos with which it abounds, occupied two centuries.  On the exterior of the building on the south side, about three feet and a half from the ground, is an inscription in raised letters nearly two inches long, and the date being perfectly distinct is 1257 written thus, MCCLVII.  The two last characters have dropped, but the impression of them is clearly visible; the inscription itself is difficult to decypher, it is in Latin, and some of the letters are missing, others so curiously formed as to render them doubtful exactly as to their import.  The greater part of the characters are Roman, the

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How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.