FRENCH CENTENARIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1939, Page 8

FRENCH CENTENARIES

CELEBRATIONS THIS YEAR.

PRECIOUS RELICS OF SAINT CHAPELLE.

France will be celebrating a number of centenaries in 1939, and there will be important ceremonies in connection, with most of them. The church, pfln-;, ting, poetry, literature and engineering', play their part. ", It is seven hundred years since Saint-. Louis, King Louis IX, received the crown of thorns apd a piece of the cross, sent to him from Constantinople. To shelter these precious relics in a worth'"' manner, he caused the Sainte Chapeue to be erected, a jewel of Gothic architecture, admired by the hundreds of thousands who visit it every year on the He de la Cite, in the heart of Paris. The church is celebrated particularly for its fifteen stained windows of great beauty. During the revolution, the crown of thorns and other relics of the Sainte Chapelle were transferred to the cathedral of Notre Dame, where they are shown in the treasure of that cathedral at Easter. The seventh centenary of the reception. of these relics will be celebrated July 1 and 2 in the cathedral, of Saint Etienne at Sens (Yonne), one of the most ancient Gothic cathedrals of France, and at Villeneuve. I’Archeveque, near Sens. Five hundred years ago Johannes Gutenberg, born at Mainz, invented printing by means of mobile characters while he was at Strassburg. The exxact year of the invention is not known, but papers in a legal suit brought by the heirs of a certain Andreas Dritzehen, of Strassburg, against Gutenberg have been found, dated December 12, 1439, in which the word “drucken” (print) is found for the first time.

Strassburg has honoured the memory of Gutenberg by a fine statue erected on the Place Gutenberg. The work of David d’Angers, it represents the inventor at the moment when he drew from the press the first sheet of paper bearing printed characters. An inscription on the pedestal indicates that Gutenberg set up his first printing works about 1440 at Strassburg. Jean Racine, great dramatic poet, was born at La Ferte Milon, in the Aisne, three hundred years ago. . Two of his I’greatest tragedies, "Phedre” and “Athalie” have never ceased to be played. To celebrate his tricentenary it is proposed to erect a statue to him in Paris. Stendhal’s famous novel, “La Chartreuse de Parme,” one of the novels of world-wide fame, was published exactly a hundred years ago. There will be celebrations at Grenoble, where the house in which he was born has just been purchased and added to ’the Stendhal Museum. The Eiffel Tower is fifty years old this year, having been erected in 1889 for the Universal Exhibition of that year. Since that time eighteen million visitors have made the ascent, of this thousand feet tower on the left bank of the Seine. It took two years to build, but completely paid for itself in the first year of exploitation. The proprietors of the Eiffel Tower have opened a competition for a programme of celebrations. A retrospective exhibition will be held on the second platform.