Découvrez à travers une des belles églises de France, la beauté et le raffinement de l’art liturgique et religieux français. Louis XIV posa lui-même la première pierre de l'église Saint-Roch où repose les plus grand noms des artistes français, parmi lesquels Le Nôtre, Corneille, Fragonard, etc.
De la chapelle dessinée par Jules Hardouin-Mansart, aux magnifiques chasubles brodées d’or offertes par le roi Charles X, en passant par les remarquables sculptures de Falconet, tout y est
splendeur et raffinement.
L’Abbé Thierry Laurent, Curé de l’église Saint Roch et Laurent Poultier du Mesnil, vous dévoileront les petites et grandes histoires passionnantes de cette splendide église, ainsi que ses nombreux trésors cachés.
PLUS D'INFOS :
https://www.paroissesaintroch.fr/
RÉAGISSEZ :
Hashtag #AlaFrançaise
De la chapelle dessinée par Jules Hardouin-Mansart, aux magnifiques chasubles brodées d’or offertes par le roi Charles X, en passant par les remarquables sculptures de Falconet, tout y est
splendeur et raffinement.
L’Abbé Thierry Laurent, Curé de l’église Saint Roch et Laurent Poultier du Mesnil, vous dévoileront les petites et grandes histoires passionnantes de cette splendide église, ainsi que ses nombreux trésors cachés.
PLUS D'INFOS :
https://www.paroissesaintroch.fr/
RÉAGISSEZ :
Hashtag #AlaFrançaise
Catégorie
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ÉducationTranscription
00:00 Today, I'm taking you to discover an art that I particularly appreciate,
00:07 which is the sacred art, the art of liturgy more precisely,
00:10 that we will discover in one of the most beautiful parishes in Paris.
00:13 If not for me, in my heart, the most beautiful parish,
00:17 the parish of Saroc, masterpiece of Baroque art,
00:21 masterpiece of liturgy, of liturgical art in French.
00:27 [Music]
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01:29 [Music]
01:32 Hello, Mr. Labbé.
01:35 Hello, Mr. Paul-Tinieu Menil.
01:36 Mr. Labbé, Thierry Laurent, thank you for welcoming us in your magnificent parish of Saroc.
01:40 Welcome.
01:41 We have the authors in addition.
01:42 So, Mr. Labbé.
01:43 You are the author of the organ.
01:44 Exactly. Mr. Labbé, your background.
01:46 Yes, if we go back in time, I have been here for six years.
01:49 Before that, I was at the Collège Stanislas in Paris.
01:52 Yes.
01:53 And before that, in Seine-Saint-Denis, in Saint-Louis-de-Villemont-de-Bleu.
01:56 And I retired at 42 years old.
01:59 I started 35 years ago as a lecturer, so quite late,
02:02 since before that I was a lawyer in civil life.
02:05 Lawyer.
02:07 I was a lawyer, lawyer, business law.
02:09 Business law, commercial law.
02:11 Yes.
02:12 And I am from Lorraine, where I did my studies and where I was able to practice my profession.
02:18 How do you go from lawyer to priest?
02:21 The decline, it's hard to explain, but ...
02:23 No, of course.
02:24 It's a fundamental question, I think.
02:26 But lawyer is a job, and priest is the gift of a life.
02:29 It's the same thing.
02:30 So priest is like getting married, it's like establishing your life.
02:35 And then, well, there are jobs.
02:37 If I could have remained a lawyer, I would have liked my job a lot,
02:39 I would certainly have remained a lawyer, but it's a bit of a risky choice to be a priest 24 hours a day.
02:45 And so, unfortunately, I can no longer practice my profession as a lawyer.
02:48 Well, at least you plead for us.
02:50 I hope to plead for you with the good Lord and for the good Lord in my preaching.
02:55 Mr. Alabaie, you welcome us in a absolutely magnificent place,
02:58 obviously full of history and a fascinating story.
03:01 Absolutely a magnificent place, Mr. Duminil, thank you for coming to this beautiful place of history,
03:06 which begins at the end of the 17th century.
03:09 The first room was placed in this church, Saint-Roch,
03:13 in this neighborhood that is bubbling in the 17th and 18th centuries.
03:17 In this neighborhood, Saint-Roch, the first room, was placed by Louis XIV, who was 14 years old.
03:23 With his mother, who is also present.
03:25 Yes, his mother, who is present, of course, when he was young.
03:28 And then this parish will be the parish of the Tuileries,
03:32 of the garden that still exists, of the palace that was destroyed in the 19th century,
03:37 and will regularly welcome the court when it is in Paris.
03:42 How does this church eventually become the Church of the Artists?
03:45 The Church of the Artists is a much later story.
03:48 First of all, because it formalizes itself as the Church of the Artists in the 20th century,
03:54 when an artist's homonymy was established.
03:56 But in fact, it has always been more or less,
03:58 since the great French playwrights have passed through it.
04:02 The French theater is located at a very small junction,
04:05 from here, one minute's walk.
04:07 The opera house, the later one, is not far from here, at the end of the avenue of the opera house.
04:12 And so there has always been the passage of Molière, of Corneille,
04:18 and many playwrights throughout history.
04:21 And Corneille, who rests here?
04:23 And Corneille, who rests here, has absolutely been buried in this church.
04:27 And it was not, I would say, damaged at the time of the Revolution?
04:32 So at the time of the Revolution, there was a lot of movement.
04:36 Fortunately, many things were put in reserve,
04:38 in reserves, or in museums in Versailles, in particular the two large paintings of the Trancept.
04:44 And then they were reinstalled, or attributed to Saint-Roch for what had been destroyed.
04:50 We're going for a little tour?
04:52 We're going to visit this beautiful church.
04:54 By the way, towards the Baptistery,
04:56 there is the plaque that was later placed for the death of Corneille.
05:01 You see, it was erected in 1821, but of course, the death of Corneille in 1684.
05:06 He will receive an anointing here.
05:09 "I am master of myself, as of the universe, I am, I want it."
05:12 But at one point or another, you have to give your soul to God and give up.
05:16 This is what he did here, in this beautiful church in Saint-Roch.
05:19 So we arrive at the Baptistery,
05:21 since this is where we enter the church, of course, by the baptism.
05:24 And so this Baptistery, which is very beautiful, which was redecorated in the 19th century.
05:30 First, by the very object of the Baptistery, where we are baptized.
05:35 It was built in the middle of the 19th century in an octagonal way,
05:40 to recall the octagons.
05:43 It's very, very beautiful.
05:44 It looks like a cradle, of course.
05:46 It looks like a cradle, or both a ship.
05:49 And with the baptismal water that is here, from Easter,
05:53 we will soon withdraw to the Pentecost,
05:56 where we baptized the Cathycumenes of the Easter night.
05:59 In this second part of the Baptistery, we see a group of John the Baptist,
06:06 who dates from 1731, but who was attributed to the Church just after the Revolution,
06:11 at the restoration, in fact.
06:13 Magnificent marble, splendid, sublime,
06:16 the Italian contrapposto, the Christ on a knee on the rock,
06:21 and John the Baptist, the Baptist and the Christ in a movement of a great grace.
06:28 All the small chapels of Saint-Roch were furnished during the 19th century,
06:32 and this one, even during the 20th century.
06:36 There is first a pieta, which is of great beauty,
06:40 that you can admire here, which was, as you can see,
06:44 what is called the "chapel of the deported".
06:47 After the Second World War, we wanted to recall here,
06:50 in this panel, very 1950,
06:53 but which manages to fit in the decor,
06:56 the deported from concentration camps.
06:58 It is important, especially in this church,
07:00 because there is a vicar of this church,
07:02 who organized a resistance network,
07:04 and who himself was deported to a concentration camp where he died.
07:09 And this is certainly one of the reasons why it is in this church
07:12 that we wanted to recall this tragic period in history.
07:17 So this chair, absolutely magnificent,
07:20 which is a beautiful set, built of a piece,
07:22 one might think the opposite, because the bottom is very classic,
07:27 with the cariatides which represent the cardinal virtues,
07:31 and then the top seems much more baroque.
07:34 It is a golden angel, which resounds the trumpet of truth,
07:38 and which raises the veil of error.
07:41 A magnificent stucco, and therefore,
07:44 preached under the trumpet of truth,
07:46 well, obviously, a very strong appeal to be able to pay attention to what is said.
07:51 Here are the magnificent organs of Saint-Roch,
07:53 a buffet of 18th-century organs, of a great beauty,
07:56 which is behind us.
07:57 Organs remade after the Revolution.
08:00 There are three organs in Saint-Roch.
08:03 The great organs behind us,
08:05 which date from the middle of the 18th century.
08:09 Then there is a cavaillé-cole dating from 1825,
08:14 which is in the heart, the organ of the heart.
08:17 And then, as Saint-Roch is a chapel succession,
08:20 there is also a more baroque organ,
08:23 which is more baroque in the chapel of the Virgin, which we will see next.
08:27 So we are here at the crossroads of the transept,
08:29 of this first church, in a way,
08:31 because there are four chapels, in a way,
08:33 this church is composed of four different places.
08:35 Here, on both sides of the transept,
08:38 there are two magnificent paintings,
08:40 of two different styles.
08:42 Both were made for Saint-Roch.
08:44 They both date from 1767.
08:47 On one side, Saint-Denis,
08:50 patron of the diocese of Paris,
08:53 in a classic style.
08:56 On the other side is Sainte-Geneviève,
09:00 patron of the city of Paris,
09:02 in a baroque style.
09:04 But both are exactly from the same date.
09:07 They will be put, thank God,
09:09 in safety during the Revolution.
09:11 They will be in museums, in warehouses,
09:13 and will return to Saint-Roch during the restoration.
09:17 In the rich statuary of Saint-Roch,
09:19 we have already seen Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne,
09:21 one of the great sculptors of the 18th century.
09:23 Here is a second one,
09:25 Falcone,
09:26 here is a Christ in absolute contrapposto,
09:29 here too,
09:31 in an Italian position,
09:33 defined by Italy, at least in Italian artists.
09:35 The Christ in the Garden of Olives,
09:37 resting on a rock, praying.
09:39 And at his feet are the nails,
09:41 which will serve his crucifixion,
09:43 and the crown of thorns.
09:45 It is important,
09:47 since we have here a small relic,
09:49 but so important,
09:51 of a thorn, of the Holy Crown.
09:53 And this magnificent statue
09:57 honors the heart
09:59 in an extremely powerful way.
10:02 Mr. Labe, what is funny,
10:04 is that we have foreign artists,
10:07 but who work in a spirit
10:09 quite French, in the end?
10:12 The one who commands,
10:14 and the one who orders too,
10:16 even if we look for artists
10:18 with particular styles,
10:20 many artists who work here are French.
10:22 Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne,
10:24 Michel Anguier, Falcone,
10:27 are all French artists,
10:29 even if, of course,
10:31 the spirit of the art is French.
10:33 There are many influences.
10:35 But we are really in the pure
10:37 French classicism.
10:39 We are in the pure French classicism,
10:41 which certainly produced it
10:43 the most extraordinary.
10:45 We have finally talked about the
10:47 radiance of classicism,
10:49 in France and in Europe.
10:51 We still have...
10:53 The other one,
10:55 who drew the gardens of Tuileries,
10:57 and he is buried here.
10:59 So we are really in the 17th century,
11:01 since he dies at the dawn of the 18th century.
11:04 And if he is buried here,
11:06 it's not for nothing,
11:08 he probably drew the plants of the garden
11:10 in this church,
11:12 just above.
11:14 That's why we put his bust here.
11:16 Above this cross,
11:18 there are the workshops of ours,
11:20 where I think he was more quiet
11:22 than in the courtyard,
11:24 to draw the gardens here.
11:26 We are in one of the multiple
11:28 small chapels
11:30 that all lie in a rock.
11:32 There are several things to notice.
11:34 First, the extraordinary cross path,
11:36 which is a plaster from 1805.
11:38 We are still at the time
11:40 when the cross paths
11:42 are not all fixed,
11:44 and you will not find in Saint-Roch
11:46 the same cross path stations
11:48 that you will find elsewhere.
11:50 It was fixed in the middle of the 19th century.
11:52 A magnificent cross path,
11:54 a professional, of course,
11:56 which is still in use.
11:58 And you have two paintings
12:00 by Saint Charles Borromé.
12:02 We are in a really Tridentine church.
12:04 The great Marduel in the 18th century
12:06 was a priest here,
12:08 he was a senior antigenist.
12:10 We are in the Ramayana,
12:12 in France, here,
12:14 at the Jesuit school and at the Tridentine school.
12:16 We are in the most wonderful place
12:18 for me in the church.
12:20 Not only for you, because it is a sublime place.
12:22 It is Mansart.
12:24 Born in 1715, the tree Mansart,
12:26 the one who made the place Vendôme,
12:28 Versailles,
12:30 we know well
12:32 this great architect of the 18th century,
12:34 the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th.
12:36 And here,
12:38 a magnificent oval chapel
12:40 with an extraordinary sound.
12:42 Why?
12:44 Because there is a dome,
12:46 of course, above this chapel,
12:48 but it is not the dome that is there.
12:50 Here it is a stretched canvas
12:52 with a parquet on the back
12:54 to hold it.
12:56 And so,
12:58 the artist Pierre,
13:00 he is called Pierre, but he is not Pierre,
13:02 he did not make a parquet, but a stretched canvas,
13:04 a maroufled canvas,
13:06 so that it gives an incredible sound
13:08 in this chapel.
13:10 There are other things quite remarkable in this chapel,
13:12 which is first the glory of Falconet,
13:14 the one I told you about,
13:16 the sculptor of Christ
13:18 in the Garden of Olives.
13:20 And here, it is a glory with many angels,
13:22 that you see surrounded
13:24 by the unpronounceable name of God
13:26 at the top, a way of representing
13:28 the glory. These are wooden rays
13:30 covered with gold leaf.
13:32 And then, on the main altar
13:34 of this chapel,
13:36 which is called the Chapel of the Virgin,
13:38 there is a group that arrived
13:40 after the Revolution, because before there was
13:42 only a Holy Virgin.
13:44 And a group that is of Michel Anguier,
13:46 another great sculptor
13:48 of the 18th century.
13:50 So a sublime nativity,
13:52 full of strength
13:54 and delicacy,
13:56 a magnificent marble,
13:58 that you can admire here.
14:00 We are here in the succession of the chapels
14:02 of Saint-Roch, at the third.
14:04 You have to be patient,
14:06 because there is 126 meters between
14:08 the door and Christ,
14:10 which is in the fourth chapel.
14:12 And then here, everything was destroyed.
14:14 It was a chapel of worship,
14:16 but in 1840,
14:18 a new construction was made
14:20 of this extraordinary piece of furniture,
14:22 which is both a tabernacle,
14:24 but which has the shape of the Arch of the Covenant.
14:26 In the Covenant, there were the tables of the Law.
14:28 And so, it is a magnificent work,
14:30 made in collaboration with Champollion,
14:32 who lived in Rue des Bons Enfants,
14:34 and who was a parishioner here,
14:36 and who met here
14:38 an Egyptian priest, who was
14:40 in Saint-Roch. And this is the beginning
14:42 of his research on Egypt.
14:44 And he will teach him to speak,
14:46 not the hieroglyphs, he will find them later,
14:48 but he will teach him to speak
14:50 Egyptian and to discover.
14:52 And so, this...
14:54 It's funny, so what happened here?
14:56 Yes, this Arch of the Covenant, we will approach,
14:58 you will see, to an extraordinary particularity.
15:00 It is already extraordinary that we thought
15:02 to make an Arch of the Covenant to be a tabernacle,
15:04 but in addition,
15:06 it is decorated, this Arch of the Covenant is decorated,
15:08 or this tabernacle, I don't know if
15:10 it is necessary to say this or that,
15:12 is decorated with the Passion of Christ,
15:14 which is
15:16 martyred,
15:18 not by Roman soldiers,
15:20 it is the story of Christ,
15:22 but by Egyptian soldiers.
15:24 What it means, it is a theological reading,
15:26 what it means is that the author
15:28 wanted to represent
15:30 the life of the Jewish people
15:32 as being the life of Christ,
15:34 what the Jews knew in Exodus,
15:36 in Egypt, this is what Christ
15:38 knew, his Passion.
15:40 So, Mr. Labé, we are in the 4th chapel.
15:42 We have finally arrived in the 4th
15:44 chapel of Saint-Roch, the chapel of
15:46 Calvary, which was built
15:48 in 1780.
15:50 So, Saint-Roch was
15:52 built in a little over 100 years,
15:54 and it has been rebuilt a lot.
15:56 But it was the chapel of Calvary
15:58 from the start? From the start,
16:00 it was the chapel of Calvary, and the land
16:02 was bought from the beginning, so the project
16:04 was really to build this church
16:06 until the end, as it was
16:08 built.
16:10 We are in front of the
16:12 main altar of this chapel,
16:14 which is made of stucco.
16:16 In fact, there were several projects,
16:18 this one is from the 19th century,
16:20 and the magnificent Christ of Angers,
16:22 18th, Michel Angers,
16:24 like the group of the Nativity we saw
16:26 in the chapel of the Virgin,
16:28 who is enthroned, and who is seen as an
16:30 extraordinary, magnificent Christ, and who is seen
16:32 from the entrance of the church, when the
16:34 panel of the 18th century, which is there, is open,
16:36 since it can be either open or closed,
16:38 a beautiful panel of monumental wood
16:40 that allows to have
16:42 separate places in his robe.
16:44 And we are also at the end of the cross path,
16:46 since it is one of the cross path stations
16:48 of this cross of Anghius in Golgotha.
16:50 Here, the crucifixion,
16:52 which is represented
16:54 in a monumental way,
16:56 and then the
16:58 laying of the tomb on the other side.
17:00 So here you have three kinds of
17:02 treasures, you have on one side
17:04 relics, on the other side
17:06 liturgical clothes,
17:08 and then what is called the ancient parame,
17:10 so chasubles, hats,
17:12 and then
17:14 objects of worship,
17:16 which are cybors and chalices, mainly.
17:18 There are ostensoirs, there are many things.
17:20 So I already present to you
17:22 the most sacred of the most sacred,
17:24 these are the chalices that are here,
17:26 and the cybors.
17:28 All these are from the 17th century,
17:30 these are from the
17:32 very beginning of the 18th century,
17:34 and this one is later,
17:36 it is late 18th, early 19th.
17:38 These are
17:40 magnificent chalices,
17:42 which were,
17:44 which were given as a gift to this church
17:46 over time,
17:48 and history.
17:50 This one, for example,
17:52 you find inscriptions often
17:54 under the chalices,
17:56 to recall the donations that were made.
17:58 So this one, for example, was made as a donation
18:00 to a priest of Saint-Roch, who obviously left it
18:02 at the treasure of Saint-Roch.
18:04 You have other, you have relics here,
18:06 and these relics are very important in the Church,
18:08 because from the beginning of the Church,
18:10 we have become accustomed to celebrating Mass
18:12 on the tomb of the Saints, and we have kept
18:14 the habit of it in all the hotels in the world.
18:16 There is at least a small relic in a hotel room,
18:18 and that's where we celebrate
18:20 Mass. Why?
18:22 Because it is what we have left, the relics are what we have left,
18:24 "reniquere" meaning "to remain" in Latin,
18:26 and so it is what we have left of the Saints
18:28 who are in Heaven, and we who
18:30 celebrate the Liturgy of Heaven on Earth,
18:32 well, there is the link,
18:34 including material, between Heaven and Earth.
18:36 Here you have perhaps the most precious relic,
18:38 well, obviously all the relics
18:40 are precious, Saint Vincent de Paul,
18:42 Saint François de Sales,
18:44 who is the patron of the clergy
18:46 of Saint-Roch, and here you have
18:48 a relic, quite a sign, given
18:50 by King Louis XIV,
18:52 and it is a piece
18:54 of the crown of the
18:56 crown of the cross of Christ. The crown of the cross of
18:58 Christ, which was acquired by Saint Louis,
19:00 at a great price, by the way, at a great price,
19:02 in Constantinople,
19:04 when he brought it back to France,
19:06 it had all its thorns, and as
19:08 he traveled, well, he
19:10 cut it, gave the thorns,
19:12 which means that the Holy Thorn, which is normally
19:14 kept in Notre-Dame de Paris,
19:16 which for the moment is in another
19:18 very secret place,
19:20 on this crown there are no thorns.
19:22 The crown of thorns is
19:24 a crown of thorns, and the thorns
19:26 were spread out because of the
19:28 fervor of the Christians who wanted
19:30 to see a piece of this thorn.
19:32 And King Louis XIV gave us
19:34 a piece of thorn, which is here, which we can
19:36 venerate every first Friday of the month
19:38 in this church.
19:40 So, Mr. Labbé, we come to the three
19:42 questions, heart-to-heart. What is your
19:44 favorite period?
19:46 Oh, it's the end of the 17th century, no doubt about it.
19:48 Your favorite work?
19:50 My favorite work, I'm going to choose it
19:52 in Saint-Roch, it's
19:54 the magnificent Saint Jerome
19:56 by Sigisbert Adam.
19:58 Its vigor, its depth,
20:00 its prayer,
20:02 and its originality, because he is standing
20:04 and he puts his foot on the lion's head.
20:06 What is your favorite artist?
20:08 So, my favorite artist,
20:10 maybe
20:12 I would also choose it in
20:14 Saint-Roch, it's Falcone,
20:16 whose we saw the Christ in the Garden of
20:18 the Oliviers, and at the same time the
20:20 glory that thrones in this chapel.
20:22 Some
20:24 recommendations for people who want to know more,
20:26 Mr. Labbé?
20:28 So, for those who want to know more, they have to visit Saint-Roch,
20:30 take the time to come to these liturgies.
20:32 There are six mass on Sundays,
20:34 then there are vespers.
20:36 Six mass on Sundays?
20:38 Yes, one on Saturday night at 6.30pm.
20:40 Ah yes, if you count Saturday night, okay.
20:42 One in French, one in the morning at half past two in Latin,
20:44 one at 11 o'clock in French,
20:46 one at 3.15pm in French,
20:48 the vespers at 5.45pm
20:50 in Latin,
20:52 one in French again at 6.30pm,
20:54 and one at 8.20pm, the last mass of the day
20:56 that is held on Sundays.
20:58 And then there are works that are
21:00 published on Saint-Roch, a magnificent work
21:02 called "La Grâce de Saint-Roch"
21:04 in the great collection of cathedrals.
21:06 Well, we are honoured to have one,
21:08 one of my predecessors
21:10 who had this work,
21:12 who did this work with the parishioners.
21:14 So it's a magnificent work,
21:16 and then there is a small guide too,
21:18 with the different works that can be found.
21:20 Thank you very much, Mr. Labbé.
21:22 The minute of Professor Laurent
21:24 will be very simple today.
21:26 Quite simply, well,
21:28 it is to enter the church and attend a mass.
21:30 So I sincerely advise you to attend,
21:32 for the beauty of the liturgy,
21:34 for the side, not even of faith,
21:36 the liturgical side,
21:38 the artistic side,
21:40 to attend a mass
21:42 in a tridentine rite,
21:44 that is, the mass in Latin,
21:46 to such an extent that I have a number of friends
21:48 Buddhists,
21:50 from Asia,
21:52 or Muslims from Central Asia,
21:54 who came, who accompanied me,
21:56 who asked me if they could accompany me
21:58 to attend,
22:00 to see, to appreciate
22:02 the beauty of the liturgy,
22:04 of this sacred French art
22:06 which is at its peak here.
22:08 [Music]
22:10 (music fades)
22:13 (chime)