Church of St. Gervais And St. Protais

We had just finished lunch at a favorite restaurant, Louis Philippe, and were walking toward the Hotel de Ville when we noticed this unusual church. There are quite a few churches in the center of Paris, and we have been to most of them. But not St. Gervais. We decided to have a look at it, and, as with nearly all these old buildings, there was plenty to look at. St. Gervais is a very late Medieval structure, built in the 15th and 16th centuries mostly. But with plenty of updates. 

The facade was built last and is the first example of French
Baroque--the best example is perhaps St. Paul's down the
street a bit,* built somewhat later; the rest of St. Gervais
is Flamoyant Gothic; note the column capitals, from the
bottom up: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian!

We'll see more of the glass later...a mixture of 16th and 21st century

Nave view; note the little stools...no pews or such

More glass...in 1918 a German artillery shell hit the roof,
causing it to collapse, killing nearly a hundred people 
celebrating mass, injuring many more; much of the 16th
century glass, by Jean Chastellain, was destroyed; most
of the 21st century glass is by Sylvie Gaudin and Claude
Courageux

Altar, etc.

Chancel up high

Half the choir, notable for...

Some bawdy misericords...some had to be altered to suit Baroque tastes;
here, a couple conserves water, bathing together...thanks, Wikipedia

More glass, notable for the melange

This chapel available...your favorite saint/demi-god here...

Several parts of the church were cordoned-off like this..."possible fall
of broken stained glass windows"; we theorize the damage came from the
massive thunder- and hail-storm that hit Spain and France May 3rd...some
areas received petanque ball-sized hail...in Paris it was mostly golf ball- and
egg-sized hail, doing great damage, disruption; personally, I fear for the
Chablis region, southeast of Paris; thank goodness we had already shorted
our Chablis futures

In the windows above, you can see holes where the glass
has fallen

Ditto; interesting factoid department...on Easter Monday,
April 13th, 1360, one of the more devastating hailstorms
ever recorded hit near Chartres, grapefruit-sized stones,
killing more than 1,000 men and 6,000 horses from Edward III's
army, which had begun a siege of the cathedral city; Edward
took it as a sign from God, and quickly signed an armistice 
ending the first phase of the Hundred Years' War; other phases
went better, for a time; something other blogs don't tell you...

Sort of a Mary hall/chapel

High quality if not famous sculpture laying all around

More contemporary glass, undamaged

If you know your history of organ music, you know of
the Couperin family, responsible for several great organists
and composers; they did their work at St. Gervais, on this
organ

The church even provided them with housing, next
door to the church

Because of the odd trapezoidal shape of the block, St. Gervais can
hardly been seen for all the buildings surrounding it; except the facade

Voltaire remarked that it was a beautiful church, whose
only flaw was that it couldn't be seen...

PS...*St. Paul's, Saturday evening, in the Marais, as we waited
for a bus to take us home from the Eurovision broadcast 
at the Bastille...strictly Corinthian capitals....hmmm...