CATHOLIC ARCHIVES SOCIETY Visit to Paris, 7 11 September 2009 Introduction In their recently published history of travelling, The Smell of the Continent,* Richard Mullen and James Munson offer an interesting definition of those who journeyed from Britain to Europe: Travellers, they claim, were independent, resourceful and intelligent, while tourists go in guided parties, know little and learn nothing.(p.5) The detailed accounts that follow will prove all too clearly that the 15 participants in the Catholic Archives Society visit to Paris were indeed busy travellers, motivated by administrative and scholarly interests and guided by one who knew well the smell of the Continent in terms of its links with English Catholic history. The visit was organised by Abbot Geoffrey Scott, the Society's President. It included tours of the archives and/or libraries of the former Irish College, the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the Archives Nationales, the Police Archive in the Rue des Carmes and the University of the Sorbonne. Contextual visits were paid to St Edmund s Priory on Rue Saint Jacques, the Scots College and Chapel on Rue des Ecosses, the English Benedictine Abbey on the Champ de l Alouette and the former Stuart residence at Saint Germain en Laye. The visit was enriched with talks by Abbot Geoffrey on the exiled English religious communities in Paris and the religious and secular life of the exiled Stuart Royal Family. On the first day, we visited the former Irish, English and Scots Colleges. The Centre Culturel Irlandais was once the Irish College. It opened in 1775 as a seminary, whose primary purpose was to supply the Irish Church with an educated priesthood. It has been estimated that in 1600 1800 about a third of the clergy in Ireland were Paris educated. Other students studied not only theology but also medicine, law and general business affairs. The Library was built in 1772 5. The original collection was lost during the Revolution and present collection, from the 15 th to 18 th centuries, consists of books and manuscripts from some of the suppressed English speaking colleges in Paris, notably the Scots College and the English Seminary. It consists of about 8000 volumes on theology, philosophy, music, history and geography, which have been extensively restored in the last few years. The extensive archives, which date from 1316 to 1999, were listed in Archivium Hibericum in 1980. The chapel is dedicated to St Patrick and still used for Sunday Mass. A painting of the Assumption has one of the angels holding a shamrock! The former Benedictine monastery, St Edmund s College on the rue St Jacques, was once the English College and is now the Schola Cantorum, a private music school where we saw photographs on display of many significant names in 20 th century music. 1
The monastery was founded when the English Benedictines fled to France and established themselves under the patronage of Mary of Modena. It was home to the Stuart court after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James II s body brought was here after his death and, together with that of a daughter, it remained unburied and an object of veneration until it disappeared at the French Revolution. We saw the fine Louis XIV staircase and reception rooms and had already seen the painting of St Edmund which originally formed the altar piece of the College Chapel displayed in the Irish College. Much of the building was in disrepair but there are plans for restoration to start this year. The Scots College was founded in 1226 and in the early 14 th century a farm near Paris was bought and Scots students financed at University. The present building was completed in 1665; it was sacked in 1792, since when it has been a prison, a school, an orphanage and used by the French army. It is now a nursery school. Alexander Innes got some of the archives back, including archives of the Reformation, of James II and of Glasgow Cathedral. Other papers came to Scotland via St Omer. The Scots College archives are now in Scottish Catholic Archives. We admired both the interior and exterior of the building, noting the original entrance was now well above Street level. Inside we saw the impressive chapel, which held a portrait of James III and other reminders of the Stuarts. Later the same day we saw the courtyard of the former Convent of the English Benedictine nuns. In the 17th century, this was the Monastery of Our Lady of Good Hope, home to the English Benedictine nuns now at St. Mary's Abbey, Colwich. Seven English Benedictine nuns arrived in Paris in 1651 and lived in a succession of rented houses until in 1664 they purchased property in rue du Champ de l'alouette, henceforth known as the Couvent des Filles Anglaises. 2
The following day we visited the Bibliotheque Mazarine and were shown an extensive display of books and documents relating to the English in Paris. These included the Benedictine Constitution of the English nuns, a mediaeval parchment prayer book, a 1582 Vulgate English New Testament printed at Rheims, and Latin bible that had belonged to the exiled Stuart dynasty and other Jacobite items and works of devotion or controversy. Day 2 also saw a visit to the National Archives. The site is surrounded by impressive ramparts and the core of the buildings now on the site consist of the Hôtel de Soubise and the Hôtel de Rohan, dating from 1705 9. It was here the notorious St Bartholomew s Day massacre was planned. The origin of an organised system of French national archives dates back to immediately after the French Revolution in 1790, when most historic archives, including those relating to the King s Council, were seized by the state. The archives were open to all who wished to use them, and were housed on 400 km of shelving. This figure includes the other repositories of the National Archives at Fontainebleau, for modern state archives; Aix en Provence relating to the French colonies and Algeria; and the labour and business archives at Roubaix, Nord. However, from 2011 12 all the archives in Paris, apart from those relating to the former monarchy, are to be relocated at a new archive centre at Pierrefitte sur Seine. The earliest document was on papyrus, a donation to the Abbey of St Denis. A very early collection of documents were the volumes relating to the Parlement of Paris, going back to the twelfth century and it was amongst these documents that the well known drawing of Joan of Arc was recently found. We were shown documents relating to suppressed Catholic religious communities, including records of the English Benedictine monks and nuns and plans and elevations of the Benedictine convent on the Champs de l Alouette that we had located the previous day. We were additionally honoured to have opened for us the famous iron cabinet, in which various particularly valuable documents have been collected together, protected by locked multiple metal doors beneath an elaborately carved wooden outer door. Included amongst its contents were the last will and testament of the Sun King Louis XIV; the original version of the constitution of the Fifth Republic (1958) signed by the cabinet and General De Gaulle; a beautiful illuminated armorial dating from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries; a crumpled and defaced copper plate on which was recorded the Declaration of the Rights of French citizens (1789), which was quickly superseded due to the fervour of the revolutionary government; and a record card submitted in the 1920s by a French intelligence agent, presciently describing one Adolf Hitler as a shrewd demagogue! Day 3 was a Jacobite Away Day to St Germain en Laye. For British historians the two important buildings to visit are the château and the church. The church, the fourth to be 3
built on the site, was completed in 1827 and during the construction period three lead caskets were uncovered, one of them was inscribed This is a portion of the flesh and the noble parts of... Prince James Stuart, second of the name. A new mausoleum and memorial chapel were funded by the French monarchy, and the walls were decorated with royal insignia in later years at the expense of Queen Victoria. Two pairs of slabs on the outside north wall of the church inscribed in English and French are a tangible expression of rivalry. The upper slabs read: This is the shrine to the memory of JAMES II the last Stuart King of England who died in exile at the Castle of St. Germain en Laye on September 16th, 1701. The monument was erected by Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Not to be out done, the Alliance France Ecosse erected two slabs beneath reading: Here lies King JAMES VII of Scotland, II of England, 1633 1701, Loyal partner in the Franco Scottish Auld Alliance. We returned to archives on Day 4 when we visited the Sorbonne and the Police Archive. We went to the Sorbonne library to examine a volume identified in the library's catalogue as compiled by the monks of St. Edmund's. It was a commonplace book made up of a number of fasicules bound together and trimmed to size. The entries, in several hands, included a history of England, notes on the English monarchy, a short history of the world before and after the flood, a comparison of the numbers and causes of deaths in parishes in London and Paris, an 'Historia Ecclesiastica', writings on mathematics and fortifications, on apologetics, the signs of the zodiac and a great deal else, including a recipe for liquorice. The archives of the Paris police are held in a working police department. Large volumes recorded details of people imprisoned during the Revolution, though many of the offences related to common criminal activity and had nothing to do with the political situation. There were, however, entries for individuals described as 'former aristocrat' or 'former religious' and these included English people. We began to transcribe details of the English entries although to complete that work would be a major undertaking and it is not easy to discover the riches this archive contains. In addition to the arranged programme, there was opportunity for free time and individual preferences. One of the party returned to the National Archives to continue some research she had begun half a century before. Many of us visited some of the superb church buildings: La Sainte Chapelle with its magnificent stained glass windows; St. Sulpice with an interior larger than Notre Dame and its copper band meridian running S to N inlaid in the floor of the transept; St Germain des Prés the oldest church in the city; 4
Sacré Coeur the expiatory church on the Butte de Montmartre, site of artillery batteries during the Franco Prussian war; St Étienne du Mont with its unique 16 th century Rood Screen flanked by two spiral staircases and, of course, the magnificent gothic masterpiece dedicated to Notre Dame. Other attractions included a bateau mouche trip along the Seine, a lengthy trek on the Rue du Bac in search of St Catherine Labouré and St Vincent de Paul and a day trip to Chartres. Our Paris visit ended in typical French and Catholic Archives Society style with a very enjoyable dinner on the last evening at a local restaurant where we sang Happy Birthday to Father David Lannon and thanked Abbot Geoffrey for organising such a memorable and interesting week. *Richard Mullen & James Munson: The Smell of the Continent: The British Discover Europe 1814 1914, Macmillan, London, 2009, pp380. ISBN 978 0 230 74190 4 This is an abbreviated version of the report of the Visit printed in the 2009 Catholic Archives Society Bulletin and is compiled from reports prepared by members; the photograph is by Sister Mary Campion McCarren 5