Treasures of the Louvre Page #2

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from the framing to

'the posture, to the direct approach

of the subject to the audience.'

So how influential was this approach

to portraiture at the time?

Well, let's go back

to the portrait of Francois.

Had its creator, Jean Clouet,

seen the Mona Lisa?

We don't actually know. But Francois

does look us straight in the eye.

His body is turned

towards the viewer

and his hands face the same way

as da Vinci's Florentine lady.

And as with her, we are drawn

towards the personality of the King.

Francois was not only a patron of

the arts but a builder of palaces.

He'd spent some time in Italy

and he wanted to emulate the

style of the Renaissance palazzi.

So the medieval tower was

pulled down.

Moats were filled in and a

courtyard built, the Cour Carree,

overlooked by this imposing

and ornamented facade.

And within, the King demanded

a makeover of gloomy

royal apartments.

This is the Salle des Caryatides.

I think it's a place that best

captures the spirit

and feeling

of the Renaissance Louvre.

It's a vision of science

and nature in harmony,

and it signals the beginning

of the French classical tradition.

You can see its expression in the

four sculptures by Jean Goujon,

which give the room its name.

These are the four caryatides.

They have a function as pillars,

but they are also

works of art in themselves -

beautifully sculpted forms,

every curve and fold capturing

a fleshy allure.

And they stand sentinel to an

elegant stairway that reveals to us

yet another treasure of the Louvre.

If we look around here, we see

images also sculpted by Jean Goujon.

And they give us pointers to the man

who commissioned this

passageway, between the first

and second floors of the palace.

He and his mistress have a

love of hunting.

And here, look at this letter H.

That's a royal monogram, a kind

of graffiti tag chiselled in stone.

And H stands for Henri II,

who succeeded Francois II.

Both within and without, every ruler

who wanted to use the Louvre

as a symbol of their power would

leave their mark in this way.

So, the walls read like an alphabet

designed for posterity.

The Renaissance Louvre

was a place of great culture

but it was also

the location for great violence

during the infamous

Saint Bartholomew's Eve massacre.

When religious war between

Catholics

and Huguenot Protestants threatened

to tear France apart,

the palace was witness to great

horror that began with

that most familiar of sounds from

the nearby church of

Saint Germain L'Auxerrois.

In the early hours

of the 24th of August 1572,

the sound of monks tolling

the bell for Matins could be

heard as usual throughout

the streets of Paris.

But this particular morning,

this normally reassuring sound was

the cue for slaughter to begin,

of Protestants by Catholics.

"Tuez-les tous!" was the battle

cry. "Kill them all!"

Writer on the Louvre, Daniel

Soulier, told me about the moment

the very heart of power in France

became a killing field.

SPEAKS FRENCH:

TRANSLATION:
'These windows were the

Queen's rooms.

'So all the key decisions surrounding

the Saint Bartholomew massacre

'would have taken place just

metres above where we are now sat.

'We know that many people were killed

here in the courtyards of the Louvre.

'They were slightly hesitant

to kill people

'in the actual royal apartments,

so we imagine that they

'dragged a lot of people out

here in order to kill them.

'There is another story

that people tell.

'The King at the time, Charles IX,

'sat in a balcony window

with a crossbow,

'firing down upon Huguenots who were

trying to escape on the River Seine.'

There was a survivor of this

terrible day in the Louvre,

a Huguenot prince of the blood,

Henri of Navarre.

Days before the massacre,

Henri had married the sister of

Charles IX, Marguerite de Valois.

20 years later, the couple

were King and Queen of France.

The last Valois king had

died childless and Henri,

next in line to the throne,

became the first ruler of a new

dynasty, the Bourbons.

But to become Henri IV for all

of France,

and crowned as such in Paris,

a deal needed to be struck.

Henri would have to convert to

Catholicism.

He passed through here,

the Rue St Honore,

which is just opposite the Louvre,

heading for Notre Dame to hear Mass,

and this was

the 22nd of March, 1594.

He did this because, as we know,

to give France peace

and unity, it was worth a Mass.

"Paris vaut bien une messe."

A statue of Henri IV is on the Pont

Neuf, which was itself completed

in his reign, to connect the right

and left banks of the Seine.

But the King was also determined

to make his mark on

the royal palace nearby.

Henri wanted to link the Louvre

to the recently built

palace of the Tuileries nearby.

So to connect the two palaces,

he ordered this built -

the Grande Galerie.

A name was now given to this

grandiose vision of expansion.

Le Grand Dessein, the great plan.

As you can see, it's all

conceived on the grandest scale.

It is half a mile from there to

there, for example.

And the idea was that this is

a place of entertainment

and magnificent spectacle.

You could come here, for example,

to watch the water pageants

on the Seine.

But it's also a mystical space,

a sacred space.

It's where Henri IV and the Bourbon

kings who came after him,

literally believed that they

had the divine touch.

They believed,

most importantly, that they

could cure people

of the disease of scrofula,

which is a really nasty kind of

tuberculosis of the neck.

What would happen is that the

King would receive people,

and say "The King touches you.

God cures you."

Either way, I hope it worked.

Now, there is a clue to Henri's

life and loves in the Louvre.

It's a painting that is not

in one of the main galleries,

where thousands gather to

look at the usual suspects.

But if you find this mysterious

and striking work of art,

you won't be disappointed.

This is Gabrielle d'Estrees

and her sister.

Gabrielle d'Estrees was

the mistress of Henri IV.

As they say, every picture tells a

story. Have a look at the gestures.

Gabrielle's sister is holding her

nipple between thumb

and finger, to indicate that she

is pregnant with the King's son,

the future Duc de Vendome.

Gabrielle is also holding

a bejewelled hand of gold.

It's not worn on her finger

to symbolise a marriage,

but it is thought to be

the King's coronation ring,

a token of his love and his loyalty.

The two women are sitting

in a bath,

perhaps filled with milk or wine,

as was the aristocratic custom.

Both are beautifully made up to show

off their white alabaster faces.

Women of the time, actually,

would crush up the innards of

swallows

and mix them with lilies,

ground pearls and camphor

and smear the paste on their faces

to get this ghostly look.

This didn't seem to dampen

the ardour of Henri,

who couldn't resist Gabrielle.

She bore him three other children

before her sudden death in 1599.

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