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_The Story of Chartres_
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: The Rue du Bourg]
_The Story of_ CHARTRES
_by Cecil Headlam_
_Illustrated by Herbert Railton_
[Illustration]
_London: J. M. Dent & Co._
_Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street_
_Covent Garden, W.C._ 1902
‘Quae qui non vidit jam similia non videbit, non solum ibi, sed in
totá Francia.’
‘La vile esteit mult bone, de grande antiquité,
Iglise i aveit bele, de grant anctorité;
De la sainte Virge Marie mère de Dé
I esteit la kemise tenue en grant chierté.’
ROBERT WACE (_Roman du Rou_).
‘The most wonderful thing in France.’
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
‘Notre-dame de Chartres! A world to explore, as
if one explored the entire Middle Ages.’
WALTER PATER.
TO
MY FRIEND
GEORGE MONTAGU
IN MEMORY OF DAYS
IN THE
OLD WORLD AND THE NEW
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_Druids and Romans: The Crypt_ 1
CHAPTER II
_Saints and Barbarians_ 31
CHAPTER III
_Theobald-the-Trickster and Fulbert the Bishop_ 51
CHAPTER IV
_S. Ives and the Crusades_ 80
CHAPTER V
_The Cathedral and Its Builders_ 109
CHAPTER VI
_Mediæval Glass and Mediæval Guilds_ 150
CHAPTER VII
_The Cathedral_ 182
CHAPTER VIII
_The Birth of the Bourgeoisie and the English
Occupation_ 231
CHAPTER IX
_The Siege and the Breach_, 1568 263
CHAPTER X
_Mathurin Régnier and the Renaissance at
Chartres_ 285
CHAPTER XI
_The Coronation of Henri Quatre_ 302
CHAPTER XII
_The Revolution--S. Père_ 322
CHAPTER XIII
_The Prussians at Chartres_ 345
CHAPTER XIV
_Itinerary and Expeditions_ 352
_Index_ 355
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_The Cathedral from the Rue du Bourg (photogravure)_ _Frontispiece_
_The House of the Salmon (vignette)_ 1
_Tetre de S. Nicholas_ 9
_S. Modesta, South Porch (from a photograph
by C. Blin, Chartres)_ 18
_Gargoyle on South Porch_ 32
_Cathedral: South Transept_ 55
_Fulbert and His Church_ 67
_L’Étape-au-Vin_ 81
_Street Entrance to Old Hôtel de Ville_ 104
_The Spires of Chartres_ 111
_L’Âne qui vielle_ 125
_The Angel Dial_ 126
_Tympanum of the Royal Porch (from a photograph
by C. Blin, Chartres)_ 133
_Pilaster of the Royal Porch_ 136
_Pilaster of the Royal Porch_ 138
_Washing-place on the River Eure_ _facing_ 168
_Flying Buttresses of the Nave (from a photograph
by C. Blin, Chartres)_ 189
_Ambulatory, Chartres Cathedral_ _facing_ 203
_Interior North Porch_ _facing_ 221
_S. George from the South Porch (from a photograph
by C. Blin, Chartres)_ 226
_Thirteenth Century Gable of Old Hôtel de Ville_ 232
_Courtyard in the Old Hôtel de Ville_ 239
_Porte Guillaume_ 245
_Chartres in_ 1500 (_from an old engraving)_ 259
_Arms of the Town_ 262
_Queen Bertha’s Tower_ 266
_Old Dormer Window from Maison du Saumon_ 268
_Chartres Besieged by M. le Prince de Condé,
March 1568_ 275
_Tower of S. André_ 283
_Courtyard, Maison du Médecin_ 287
_Renaissance Oriel, Rue de la Corroierie_ 297
_Place de l’Hôtel de Ville_ 319
_Rue des Béguines_ 331
_Old Houses in the Rue S. Même_ 347
_Plan of Chartres_ _facing_ 354
CHARTRES is actually
86 kilometres from Paris.
71 “ from Orléans.
35 “ from Dreux.
An excellent train, leaving the Gare S. Lazare at mid-day, runs through
from Paris in one hour and a half. A good _déjeuner_ is served in the
train on starting. Returning from Chartres, most of the trains run into
the Montparnasse Station, south of the river and twenty minutes’ drive
from the Place de l’Opéra.
The road is straight and level and a favourite one with automobilists.
Chartres may also, of course, be approached from Normandy _viâ_ Rouen,
Évreux, Dreux, and, if you include Amiens to the North-west, and Caen
(whence you will visit Bayeux, Lisieux, and Falaise) to the North-east,
Chartres will be found to provide the perfect finish to a delightful and
instructive, and also economical, tour.
An itinerary for those who have but a short time to spare at Chartres is
suggested on page 352.
Hotels--Grand Monarque (Automobile Club de France); Duc de Chartres;
France.
[Illustration]
The Story of CHARTRES
CHAPTER I
_Druids and Romans: The Crypt_
Built half on the slope and half on the strath in a depression of
calcareous soil, Chartres lies along the banks of the gliding Eure,
breaking the long levels of La Beauce.
La Beauce, indeed, is still the waterless, shadeless, woodless plain
that the Bishop of Poitiers described in the sixth century, but it is
now also one immense field of corn in which man has planted a few
scattered farms and pleasure houses.[1] It is the granary of France.
_Le blé c’est la Beauce et la Beauce c’est Chartres._[2]
And on every side of it, spread out in the summer time like a
many-coloured carpet under the great dome of the sky, stretch the
cornfields, cut by the black lines of the railway, or by the straight,
disheartening lengths of roads which run beyond the distant horizon of
monotonous level, to Dreux, to Orléans, to Paris. The twin spires of
Chartres are the only landmark. The sole beauty in this country must be
found in its fecundity; in the fields of standing corn, which the
passing breezes curve into travelling waves, and in the endless
perspective of sameness which inspires the same emotions of mingled
pleasure and sadness as the sight of the vast and melancholy ocean. And,
like a ship for ever a-sail in the distance, everywhere the great Church
of Chartres is visible, with the passing light or shadow upon its grey,
weather-beaten surfaces, or, as it seemed to Lowell:--
‘Silent and grey as forest-leaguered cliff
Left inland by the ocean’s slow retreat.’
Chartres is no place for an Atheist.[3] The exclamation of Napoleon on
first entering the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is the keynote and summary of
the town. For from the earliest dawn of its history down to the present
day Chartres has preserved, almost unbroken, the tradition of a
religious centre. Other notes have indeed been struck here and died away
in the distance of ages. There have been discords in the score of her
worldly history. The armies of Cæsar and of Hastings have come and gone;
the armies of England, of France, of Germany, have marched through the
narrow, tortuous streets of this ancient city and left scarce a trace
behind. Mediævalism with all its charm and all its vileness has
disappeared before the excesses of that Revolution which sowed the seed
of modern French civilisation. The thick forests which were once the
glory of the Druids have vanished and given place to innumerable acres
of tillage, whilst the sound of the woodman’s axe has been replaced by
the swish of the scythe and the hum of the threshing machine. But
through all these changes Chartres has remained true to her heritage.
She has been always the first town of Our Lady, the chosen citadel of
the Virgin. The friars of the Middle Ages, who obtained the right of
coining money, stamped on their coins the legend _Prima Sedes Francie_,
and Charles-le-Chauve, when he presented to the town the Veil of the
Blessed Mary, chose the Church of Chartres as the earliest and most
august sanctuary of the cult of the Virgin. And even before the
Christian era it was so. For, by a strange coincidence, in which there
has been found something more than a coincidence, or nothing more than a
reflection of Isis worship, or, again, merely a monkish invention, but
by a strange coincidence, at any rate, the grotto, above which, in after
years, the mediæval masons were to rear the superb superstructure of
their Cathedral, was dedicated by the ancient Druids: ‘To the Virgin
who shall bear a son’--_Virgini Parituræ_.--There, upon the very spot in
the dim vast crypt which is to-day the most famous and the most
frequented shrine in the world, they worshipped an image which was the
forerunner of the statue of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre.
Were they moved by some echo of those most ancient Eastern rites which
include the cult of a virgin mother and child, or had they heard, these
wise and inscrutable priests, some echo of Isaiah’s prophecy: _A virgin
shall conceive and bear a son?_ Possibly. At any rate, we know that a
hundred years before the coming of Christ the Messianic idea had grown
familiar to the Gentile world. The works of Greek and Roman writers are
eloquent of this fact. Plato, in a passage which seems to echo the very
words of Scripture, had long ago foretold what would be the fate of the
perfectly just man upon earth; and Vergil, voicing the prevailing belief
that the world’s great age was soon to begin anew, and referring to an
oracle of the Sybil, prayed for the speedy coming of the promised
Saviour in language strikingly like that in which the prophets of the
Old Testament speak of the Messiah. The Magi, the wise men and watchful
astrologers of the East, waited impatiently for the coming of God upon
earth, till they beheld a new star which rose over Bethlehem and
announced His Nativity. And these ancient Druids also gave expression to
the yearning of all Creation. _Virgini Parituræ_--To the Virgin who
shall bear a son, they dedicated a wooden statue in the mysterious
sanctuary hidden in the depths of their sacred forest, beneath the shade
of which was the meeting-place of the Carnutes.
Thus it comes about that with the dawn of history we see, through the
mist of the ages as it were, a solemn procession winding amongst the
trees of the primeval forest.
At the head are two white bulls and the sacrificial priests, and in
their train follow bards and novices chanting anthems, and a herald clad
in white. The Druids follow. One of them is carrying bread, another a
vase full of water, the third an ivory hand, the emblem of Justice. The
high priest closes the procession, and about him cluster the other
priests of the Oak and the chiefs of the local tribes. For the oak,
Pliny tells us in his _Natural History_, is the Druid’s sacred tree, and
the mistletoe that grows thereon they regard as sent from Heaven and as
the sign of a tree chosen by God. This golden bough of mistletoe, which
they call All-Heal, the high priest is now about to cull from the chosen
oak with his golden hook. As it falls, the sacred plant is caught
beneath in a white mantle; the victims are slain, and the mistletoe is
distributed whilst God is besought to prosper His gift to them unto whom
He has vouchsafed it.
Such rites, so it may appear to the least imaginative of us as we behold
to-day the pilgrims crowding to the shrine of Our Lady, or the long
processions of priests and choristers winding their way from the
sculptured portals of the Cathedral to visit the Abbey of S. Père, or
the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Brèche, or through the crypt to the
shrine of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre,[4] are curiously prophetic of the
history of the place. So thinking, we shall look at the western towers
and note, like Gaston Latour, the bigness of the actual stones of the
masonry, contrary to the usual Gothic manner, as if in reminiscence of
those old Druidic piles amid which the Virgin of Chartres had been
adored, long before the birth of Christ, by a mystic race, possessed of
some prophetic sense of the grace in store for them.
Who then were these Druids and who the Carnutes? From the Carnutes the
modern name of this their town is derived, and philologists assure us
that the root of the name is to be found in the word for oak, which, in
Celtic, bears some resemblance to the Latin _quercus_. Similarly Évreux
is derived from the word _ebvre_ = forest. All Central Gaul in those
days was covered with oak forests as with a garment. Hence, it is
suggested, the name of Carnutes was applied as a generic term to the
dwellers in those forests, and was specialised as the title of the
Chartrains _par excellence_ on account of the choice of this spot by the
Druids for their deliberations and their sacrifices. It may be so.
Philology is one of the most amusing diversions. It is quite as
intellectual as most other parlour games, and often much more
entertaining. Human as heraldry and more profitable than pedigree
hunting it certainly is, but somehow it is less convincing. Therefore if
anyone prefer to derive this word Carnutes from _cairn_--the stone which
formed the Druidical altar and equally with oaks seems to have played an
important part in their ceremonies, he may be as much right as anybody
else.
The condition of the Gauls at the time of the Roman conquest has been
described by their conqueror. Cæsar in his _Commentaries_ states that
the Gauls were divided into three classes--priests, nobles and nobodies.
The priests, who enjoyed complete immunity from military service,
insisted on oral tradition in the teaching of their tenets. Their object
in so doing, as Cæsar conjectured, was to prevent the memory from being
weakened and their doctrines from being vulgarised; but the result has
been that, apart from the few facts I shall mention and a vast
superstructure of theory and legend which has been built upon them, they
have faded from the ken of mankind. Chief among their tenets Cæsar
mentions the belief in the immortality and the transmigration of the
soul. The Druids were properly the highest of three orders of
priests--Bards, Soothsayers and Druids, the latter being philosophers
who, to the natural science studied by the soothsayers, added the study
of ethics. There would seem to have been much of the Pythagorean and
something also of the Brahman in these philosophers, whose teaching was
once expounded by the Arch-Druid Divitiacus, in Rome, to the sympathetic
ears of Marcus Tullius Cicero and his brother Quintus.
That teaching, alas! has not been enshrined in Cicero’s sonorous page,
but Lucan in his _Pharsalia_ corroborates Cæsar:--
‘The Druids now, while arms are heard no more,
Old mysteries and barbarous rites restore:
A tribe who singular religion love,
And haunt the lonely coverts of the grove.
If dying mortals’ doom they sing aright
No ghosts descend to dwell in dreadful night,
No parting souls to grisly Pluto go,
Nor seek the dreary silent shades below:
But forth they fly immortal in their kind
And other bodies in new worlds they find.
Thus life forever runs its endless race,
And like a line death but divides the space.
A stop which can but for a moment last,
A point between the future and the past.
Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies
Who that worst fear, the fear of death, despise!’
In another passage the same poet describes in dark colours the gloomy
rites of the barbarous priests; their rude, misshapen images, and the
scene of their ritual in the sacred wood, smeared with human blood.
But of their ritual we really know nothing, apart from the fact of
human sacrifices, which, in extreme cases, they justified by the dogma
that ‘unless for the life of a man man’s life be rendered the wrath of
the immortal gods cannot be appeased,’ and excepting their veneration
for the mistletoe.[5]
The power of this priesthood was not confined to things spiritual. The
Druids acted as a court of public arbitration, and the most important
private suits, especially cases of murder and homicide, were submitted
to their judgment. Now Britain was the headquarters of Druidism, but
once a year, it is recorded by Cæsar, a general assembly of the order
was held within the territories of the Carnutes, and there the sacred
rites were celebrated, the young priests, after a prolonged course of
training, initiated, and the Arch-Druid annually elected. It is probable
that these ceremonies took place at Chartres--although it is possible
that the claim of Dreux, of Senantes, of Alluyes, or of other
neighbouring places which can boast Druidical remains, may be as well
grounded.
But, at least, it is evident that the _Pays Chartrain_ was a stronghold
of priests rather than of fighters, and, perhaps, it was for this reason
that in the early years of the Gallic War, the Carnutes, who among the
Celtic Gauls were subject to the Remi (Reims), took but little part in
the active resistance to Cæsar’s arms. They had, in fact, welcomed
rather than resisted the Proconsul, regarding him as their champion and
liberator from the invasion of the Helvetii and the threatened dominion
of the Germans. But when he began to meddle with their institutions they
grew restive, and determined to throw off the Roman yoke. For, before
[Illustration]
Cæsar’s time, there had been, apparently, a general movement against
monarchical government throughout Gaul, with the result that most of the
tribes were free, but with a constitution decidedly aristocratical or
theocratic. Thus at Chartres--_Autricum_ was its Latin name--fifty years
before the coming of the Romans, Priscus had been reigning.
A pious legend recounts that, during the lifetime of this King the son
of one of the great chieftains was drawn lifeless from a deep well into
which he had fallen. The father took in his arms the body of his child,
already cold in death, mounted his charger, and, riding at a gallop for
twenty leagues, approached the altar of the Virgin, whom the Druids
worshipped, and laid the boy at her feet. Then life came back to the
lad, he opened his eyes and smiled at the sacred statue. King Priscus,
the legend adds, on hearing of this miracle, summoned a great assembly
of priests and nobles, and appointed the Lady of Miracles his heiress
and the Queen of his realms.
Thus legend. In fact we know that after the days of Priscus monarchy no
longer obtained among the Carnutes.
But there was a certain Tasgetius, a descendant of the old royal house
of the Carnutes. As a reward for his services to the Romans Cæsar
restored him to his hereditary throne. The theocracy felt itself
attacked; the Druids roused the republican spirit of the people. The
doubtful success of Cæsar’s second expedition to Britain seemed to offer
a good opportunity for successful revolt. The people rose and
assassinated their King, who was also the Roman nominee. Cæsar
immediately ordered a legion under Lucius Plancus to advance upon
Chartres, punish the conspirators, and take up its winter quarters
there.
When the railway was being constructed in 1846, it was necessary to
remove a vast mound which lay to the west of the town between the Portes
des Épars and Porte Chastelet. Many Roman, Gallic and Carlovingian
coins[6] were found in it, and it is supposed that this mound
represented in part the material dug out when the foundations of the
crypt and of the Cathedral were sunk, and in part the remains of the
camp of Plancus.
The threatening aspect of affairs in Gaul called for prompt action on
the part of Cæsar. Before the end of the winter (53 B.C.) he made a dash
into the country of the Nervii, and then in the early spring held his
usual Council of Gaul, probably at Amiens. The Carnutes, Senones and
Treveri, omitted to send their representatives. Cæsar took this as a
declaration of war. He immediately broke up the Council and ordered it
to meet again at Paris, which was a convenient point for operating
against the Senones at Sens, and thereafter against their neighbours the
Carnutes at Chartres. The brilliant rapidity of his movements terrified
these tribes. Acco, the leader of the conspiracy, summoned his
supporters to the towns. But whilst they were endeavouring to obey the
summons, news came that the Romans were already in their midst. Through
the Ædui and Remi, who acted as mediators, the Carnutes and Senones sent
to make submission and beg for pardon. Cæsar granted it for the time,
and then devoted his energies to the destruction of Ambiorix, and the
chastisement of the Treveri and the tribes on the Rhine.
But it was only a short respite, not pardon, that they were granted.
Returning at the end of the year from his hunt for Ambiorix and taking
his revenge upon the Eburones, Cæsar brought his army back to Reims and
then convened the Council of Gaul. An inquiry was held into the
conspiracy among the Senones and Carnutes. Acco was condemned to suffer
death after the cruel old fashion of the Romans. He was stripped, his
neck was thrust into a fork, and he was then flogged to death. But the
flames of rebellion thus rudely repressed were not destroyed. They broke
out again the same winter with redoubled fury when the absence of Cæsar
in Italy afforded an opportunity. The murder of Clodius and the reported
anarchy at Rome fanned into a flame the slumbering embers of discontent.
The death of Acco was discussed by the Gallic chieftains when they held
their councils in their secret woodland retreats, perhaps, indeed, at
Chartres itself, and the bitterness of the Roman yoke began to seem
intolerable. To regain their lost liberty all were eager for a general
revolt. It was decided to begin at once in order to cut Cæsar off from
his army in Gaul. When the question rose as to who should incur the
danger of leading the way, the Carnutes undertook this duty. They first
exacted a solemn pledge of support from their countrymen by the Gallic
custom of mingling their standards, then, on the appointed day, under
the leadership of Gutruatus and Conconnetodumnus, they gave the signal
for the great revolt by murdering every Roman citizen they could find in
their chief trading town on the Loire, Orléans. With the terrible
struggle that ensued between the brilliant energy of Cæsar and the noble
patriotism of Vercingetorix we are not here concerned. Suffice it to say
that among his first acts of revenge Cæsar sacked and burned Orléans,
the town of the Carnutes. Nothing daunted, the Carnutes furnished 12,000
men to the army raised to deliver Vercingetorix, who was holding Alise
with desperate valour. On the fall of that town the Carnutes, in
obedience to the advice of their leader, Gutruatus, entered into yet
another league for their common deliverance from the yoke of their
oppressor. They joined the Bituriges and other peoples of Gaul, but when
Cæsar himself marched against them with his sixth and seventh legion
they fled with their cattle into the woods. Yet, even in the secret
retreats of their mighty forests, they were not safe from the hand of
the Roman general. They were compelled to submit and to pass under the
yoke, and their chief, Gutruatus, was beaten with rods until he died.
Thus the country of the Chartrains was absorbed into the Roman Empire,
and it remained under the domination of Rome, reaping the fruits of that
strong administration in the form of roads and good order and the
minimum of oppression, until the coming, at the end of the fifth
century, of Clovis, the Frankish hero.
Meanwhile, when Augustus gave laws to the conquests of Cæsar, he
introduced a division of Gaul equally adapted to the progress of the
legions, to the course of the rivers and to the principal national
distinctions, which had comprehended above a hundred independent states.
The Province in which Chartres (Autricum) now found itself embraced the
country between the Loire and the Seine, and was styled Celtic Gaul, or,
as it soon came to be known, Gallia Lugdunensis, borrowing its name from
the celebrated colony of Lugdunum or Lyons. The principal towns of this
Province were still Chartres, Dreux, and, above all, Orléans, to which
the Emperor Aurelian was later on to give his name when he separated it
from the territory of the Carnutes, and raised it to the rank of a city.
For the rest, there were a great number of villages and strongholds even
in Cæsar’s day scattered about in the clearings of the forest. These
would increase in size and importance as the great Roman roads running
from Dieppe to Dreux, from Rouen to Paris, and from Paris to Autun, were
built, and as the country grew more settled. For Druidism, which had
long shown itself a disturbing influence and an irreconcilable factor,
was at length proscribed by Tiberius and Claudius, and thereafter, Dion
Cassius assures us, the Loire could be navigated in as much security as
the Po or Rhone. ‘The blue waters of the fair-haired Carnutan’ grew
familiar, not only to the Roman merchant and official, but also to the
Roman poet and traveller.[7]
But if the legend of the Druidical Virgin be indeed true, it would
appear that the Druids, equally with the Romans, had done something to
prepare the soil for the seed of Christianity. As to the first sowers of
that seed there is some dispute, and also as to the first sowing, which
some date from the first century, others from the third.
Whether Celtic Gaul was evangelised in the days of the Apostles or not,
it is at least historically certain that as early as the middle of the
second century the country was sufficiently provided with churches to
form the principle theatre of the great persecution under Marcus
Aurelius. And as Gaul was notoriously evangelised only piecemeal and
slowly, and not by a sudden outburst of religious fervour, it is quite
possible that the foundation of the Church of Chartres dates back from
the first century. If this is so, it accords well with local traditions
drawn from various sources, but agreeing in substance. For it is said[8]
that S. Peter sent forth S. Savinian, S. Potentian and S. Albin to
preach the Gospel to the Gallic nation. In the course of their mission
they came to Sens and converted many virtuous heathen, amongst whom
were Sérotin and Eodald. To these two, together with Potentian and
Altin, Savinian, warned by a mysterious vision, gave this charge:--‘Take
unto you,’ he said, ‘the shield of an unconquerable faith; go through
the other towns of Gaul and banish all false superstition by preaching
everywhere the truth of the Gospel.’ Leaving him, therefore, to organise
the church at Sens, they set forth to Orléans, and thence, coming down
that Roman road which is still known as the _Chemin de César_, they
arrived at Chartres. There, perhaps, they found the altar of the Druids
and the statue to the Virgin who should bear the Unknown God. Him
declared they unto the people. As the word of the missionaries was
supported by the miracles they wrought, and the saintly lives they led,
a great part of the inhabitants believed on Christ. ‘When they saw this,
the holy men of God consecrated a church dedicated to the glory of Mary,
Mother of God, and _built just within the walls of the town_.’
The northern walls of Chartres, under the Romans, ran along the street
_du Cheval Blanc_, where now the houses of the cloister stand. The site
of the Church of S. Potentian may therefore be identified, as on other
grounds we naturally should identify it, with that of the Chapel of
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre in the crypt of the Cathedral. To that
impressive underchurch we will pay a visit at the end of this chapter,
and endeavour to describe the various stages through which it has
passed. But first we will trace the tragic history of these Christian
pioneers.
The rapid advance of Christianity soon brought it into conflict with the
Roman administration. Domitian decided to check it when it was observed
to be spreading among the subject races in opposition to the State
religion. It became the duty of governors in the Provinces to treat the
refusal to worship the Emperor’s image as an act of sacrilege. There was
a governor, Quirinus by name, who proceeded to execute his duty with
truly Roman thoroughness and impartiality. He summoned the missionaries
of what Tacitus called ‘that pernicious religion’ to his presence and
demanded why they had brought hither the ignominy of their absurd
doctrine. They answered him boldly, and bade him cease from the worship
of idols and embrace the true faith. But Quirinus hardened his heart. He
scourged and threw into prison three men ‘hated for their abominations,
and known to the vulgar as Christians’; notorious, according to the
great Roman historian, ‘for their hatred of the human race.’ Such cases
of persecution as this, it should be remembered, were but occasional
exceptions to the general tolerance of Roman administration. The
Christians were punished, according to the Roman view, for their
inflexible obstinacy, their unsocial habits and indiscreet enthusiasm,
rather than for the mere holding of their peculiar religious notions.
In the present instance crowds of believers collected about the doors of
the prison into which the martyrs had been thrown, and by their
continual prayers for the deliverance of their teachers roused Quirinus
to savage action. He surrounded them with his soldiers when they were
met together to pray and sing hymns to the Lord, and falling upon them
suddenly put them to the sword. Amongst those who had been foremost in
the faith was a young girl by name Modesta, whom popular tradition
asserts to have been the daughter of Quirinus himself. She, it is said,
was seized upon this occasion and brought before her father. His fury
was increased to madness when he learned that she, his only daughter,
had joined the sect and had been baptized. She must abjure, he declared,
or she must die.
‘Strike,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am a Christian!’[9] She was brutally
tortured, and her body was then thrown along with the bodies of the
other martyrs into a deep well, ‘which was situated within the Church of
the Mother of God.’
‘The sober discretion of the present age,’ wrote Gibbon, ‘will more
readily censure than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate the
fervour of the first Christians who, according to the lively expression
of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his own
contemporaries solicited a bishopric.’
[Illustration: S. MODESTA (SOUTH PORCH)]
The blood of martyrs became here, as elsewhere, the seed of the Church.
Quirinus was struck down by sudden death in the midst of his
persecutions. His persecutions had only increased the number of the
faithful. S. Aventin became the first Bishop of Chartres, and, profiting
by the calm which followed Quirinus’s death, rebuilt above the ancient
altar of the Druids the church which Potentian had consecrated and the
Roman governor destroyed. This building may well have lasted down to the
final persecution of the Christians under Diocletian. For in the
meantime the indifference of some princes and the indulgence of others
permitted the Christians to enjoy though not perhaps a legal yet an
actual and public toleration of their religion.
The courage and constancy of these first Christians were not forgotten.
The well down which their corpses were thrown came to be known as the
_Lieu-Fort_,[10] and later as the _Puits des Saints Forts_, in memory of
them.
LE PUITS DES SAINTS FORTS.
It is in connection with this well that one of the most beautiful of the
legends of Chartres is told.
‘A ceremony is still observed in the Cathedral’ (wrote Sébastien
Rouillard) ‘which surprises many people. The reason of it deserves to be
known. When the bishop officiating chants the _Pax Vobis_ or a priest
the _Dominus Vobiscum_, whether at Mass, Vespers or Matins, the choir
does not respond in full, but only the nearest priest in a low voice.
Some say that this is a perpetual memorial of the first Christian
martyrs, in accordance with the saying of the venerable Fulbert in his
third epistle, that the divine service which in times of liberty is
celebrated with joy and gladness becometh mute during the days of
tyranny and oppression. Others say that the custom arose when the crowds
of pilgrims and worshippers in the Cathedral were so large and the
resulting noise so great that those who were in the choir and at the
altar could not easily hear each other so as to sing the responses.’
But there is another explanation. When Godfrey, founder of the Abbey of
Josaphat, was Bishop of Chartres (1116), the usual devout and solemn
procession to the grottoes and holy places was being made on the eve of
All Saints.
Now among the choristers who bore candles in their hands, chanting in
this procession, was one beautiful lad, blue-eyed and golden-haired, the
only son of his mother, and she was a widow. It was the one joy of her
life to listen to the flute-like notes of his glorious treble, and in
spirit to join in those praises of the Most High to which her son gave
heartfelt, wonderful utterance. And on this occasion she, as ever, was
among the crowd of worshippers, hearing only--a mother’s ear is so fond
and so fine--amidst the whole chorus of those soaring voices the voice
of her beloved son. Suddenly, though the chant had not ceased, there
was, for her, silence. She listened and listened in vain for the voice
of her boy. Mad with anxiety, she pushed her way through the crowd, only
to find a group of grieving priests standing round the Well of the
Constant Saints. The boy, all unheeding in the ecstasy of his song, had
stepped over the dim unguarded edge and fallen into the fathomless
depths.
For days distraught the mother haunted the holy grottoes, ever praying
and waiting for her son to be given back to her. At last, on the octave
of the feast, the solemn procession wound its way once more through the
crypt. The mother listened, dazed with grief, to the chant as it came.
But for her there was no music in the sweet harmonies that were sung.
Then suddenly there struck upon her astonished ear the silver notes of
that well-known voice, how musical! She raised her eyes, half in hope
and half in fear, and beheld, walking in his accustomed place and
carrying in his hand a golden candlestick, her lost darling. And his
face as he sang was as it had been the face of an angel.
They asked the boy what had happened to him at the bottom of the well,
and he told them that he had heard the angels rejoicing and singing in
response to the prayers that were being offered in the Church of
Chartres. And since that day the choir does not make response aloud to
the _Pax Vobis_. For so men hope that they may hear the angels singing.
That this holy well of the martyrs was near the spot where is now the
altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre we are assured by the repeated
testimony of old writers. Numerous efforts were made during the
nineteenth century to locate it, and made in vain. But in the year 1901
it was at last discovered behind the wall of that altar. Let us take the
present opportunity in our history then to visit the crypt,[11] to
behold the first beginnings of the Cathedral, the statue of
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre and the new-found ancient well of the martyrs.
‘The crypt,’ says Raoul Boutrais, in his Latin poem in praise of
Chartres (1624), ‘lies darkling in a hollow of the earth, resting on
many an arch, as long and as wide as is the whole church above it. A dim
religious light struggles through the deep-set windows. Enter and behold
a sacred altar. Your being is filled with a mysterious awe as you
descend. Then by the light of a thousand torches the sacred place
becomes visible. The smoke of fragrant incense rises from the altar.
Priests move to and fro performing their sacred office before the image
of the Virgin. Many offerings of gold and silver, in token of granted
prayers, hang at the shrines.
‘We pass into recesses dug deep within the earth, and are conscious of a
strange emotion. Here was the first origin of the church, when the early
Christians sang their hymns in these dark places to escape the cruel
punishments of the Prefect Quirinus, and yet undaunted by the cross, the
sword, the fire of his mad rage. He snatched this heroic band from their
Christ, and flung their mangled bodies into the deeps of a well. Still
may be seen the well, fenced about that none may fall therein; for, ’tis
said, that some have fallen. And it was not only to sing their hymns
that the Christians assembled here, but here they passed their lives for
fear of persecution. Therefore in their hiding they dug a well that they
might have to drink.’
It is evident from this and other passages that the famous well was in
existence in the first half of the seventeenth century; but shortly
afterwards ‘it was covered up by reason of the vapours with which it
filled these subterranean places.’[12] It was covered up, and the site
of it deliberately falsified when the sanctuary of the Virgin was
decorated and the transverse wall between the real site of the well and
the altar was built. After the alterations which were then made were
completed (1671), the public was informed that the well was now under
the step of the new altar, so that those who knelt there, and had a
particular devotion to the Martyrs’ Well, appeared to be rendering
homage to the Virgin. The statements of the historians to the effect
that the well was behind the altar were explained away by the very canon
who had superintended the filling up of the well, for he made the
misleading assertion that the altar itself had been moved back in the
course of the alterations. He was believed. When in the nineteenth
century efforts were made again and again to find this well, they were
always made on the assumption that the altar had been so moved. The
cynical precept which warns us to be on our guard against the occasional
untrustworthiness of those who never lie was forgotten. It was not till
M. René Merlet’s pamphlet, _L’Ancienne Chapelle de
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre_, appeared in 1900 that investigations, based
on historical research and archæological acumen, began to be prosecuted,
and were before long crowned with success. Boutrais’s words are now once
more true, and ‘the well may still be seen’ behind the altar of the
Virgin.
CRYPT: NOTRE-DAME-DE-SOUS-TERRE.
The oldest portions of the crypt, and therefore of the Cathedral, that
remain to us are to be found in the Martyrium or Chapel of S. Lubin. The
crypt, it must be understood, was not in origin a crypt or a martyrium
or a meeting-house of prayer dug beneath the level of the soil, but a
tiny church set on the crest of the hill, and raised above the surface
of the earth. It only became a crypt properly so-called when it had been
covered up and the surrounding soil raised by the _débris_ and deposits
of succeeding years; so that when the new church was built it was
erected naturally upon the top of the old. The spade of the archæologist
has proved that the soil of a mediæval European town was raised by the
accumulation of dust and rubble as much as one or two feet per century.
And at Chartres excavations have revealed Gallo-Roman sub-structures at
a depth of some eighteen feet. When we reach the Martyrium or Chapel of
S. Lubin we shall find there a piece of the Gallo-Roman walls of the
fourth century. This probably is part of the apsidal wall of the church
of that date. As the church, with the vicissitudes of the town which we
have yet to recount, was alternately built and burnt, destroyed and
rebuilt, the crypt was developed until it is now the largest in France,
and next to that of S. Peter’s at Rome, and that of Canterbury, the
largest in the world. It consists of two lateral galleries which run
from the western towers under the aisles of the upper church, and form a
horse-shoe curve beneath the choir and sanctuary 366 feet long, and
seventeen to eighteen feet broad; of two transepts, seven apsidal
chapels, and the _martyrium_ which is under the choir of the upper
church.
The successive developments of the crypt may be summarised as follows:--
Against the fourth century apsidal wall, of which traces are found in
the martyrium, were built in 858 two large columns to support the new
choir above. At the same time the circular wall of the apse was pierced
with windows. In order to support the apse of the upper church other two
large isolated piers were built in 962, whilst the windows in the
circular apse were blocked by a second strengthening wall. The same year
saw the addition of a double transept at the commencement of the apse.
Fulbert, in 1020, developed these transepts by carrying them out
westwards almost to their present extent, and by so doing he left the
altar dedicated to the Virgin, though unmoved, no longer before a thick
wall, but stranded as it were in a corridor--a situation which aided,
and still aids, the progress of the pilgrims past the shrine. The great
bishop also extended the crypt by piercing the wall which closed the
transepts towards the east, and making the ambulatory out of which
opened the three large chapels with deep, round-headed windows (S.
Joseph, S. John the Baptist, and S. Anne). To support the vaulting of
this ambulatory a new wall was built round the martyrium.
In the twelfth century, when the two western towers were constructed,
Fulbert’s long galleries were extended and connected with them. The
windows were raised and enlarged with the exception of those which were
blinded by the porches of the upper church. Four smaller chapels, with
pointed windows, were inserted between the large apsidal chapels of
Fulbert, and these still exhibit traces of early thirteenth-century
painting. At the same period, the transepts being now prolonged, it was
found necessary to make two new flights of steps by which they might be
entered.
The beautiful doorway of the south staircase dates from this time.
Lastly, when the porches of the Cathedral were completed, the transepts
were connected therewith by means of vaulted passages, of which the one
on the north side is near the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, and
the other southern one was turned into the Chapel of S. Nicholas in
1681.
Entering the crypt by the south-eastern door, after noticing the windows
of its apsidal chapels, you descend a stone staircase, and by the dim
candlelight perceive on your left the long south gallery begun by
Fulbert in 1020, and extended in the following century right up to the
western tower.
You are now in the original south transept of the crypt, and much of the
masonry dates obviously from the tenth century. Turning to the left, the
first chapel on the left is now dedicated to S. Martin. It was not
originally a chapel, but in the twelfth century was used as an entrance
to the crypt. Altered in the seventeenth century, as the windows and
vaulting show, it was converted into a chapel in the nineteenth. It
contains a few fragments of the original choir screen of the Cathedral
destroyed by seventeenth-century vandals.
These fragments, which represent some scenes from the Birth of Our Lord,
are very beautiful. Above them, fixed to the wall, are some admirable
keystones of the vaulting, and two bas-reliefs with signs of the Zodiac,
which still retain some of their original thirteenth-century colouring.
Opposite the wooden nineteenth-century _grille_ is a stone from the
Church of S. Martin-le-Viandier, which was destroyed during the
Revolution. Upon this stone are represented S. Eustace hunting, and on
his knees before Christ, who appears to him between the horns of a stag;
S. Martin giving his cloak to a poor man; the Virgin and Child between
S. Louis and S. John.
Below is a fine early stoup from the Cathedral and, in the corner, the
sarcophagus of S. Calétric (_see_ p. 36). The date inscribed upon it has
been changed to suit the date of the translation and festival of this
saint, who was Bishop of Chartres, and died 557.
The next chapel on the left is that of S. Nicholas (recently restored by
M. Durand). We have already spoken of it. Opposite it is the Chapel of
S. Clement, where are some mural decorations of the twelfth century. The
figures, beginning from the right, are recognisable as those of S.
Nicholas, S. James, S. Giles, and of a King kneeling.
The wooden screen which here crosses the crypt was put up in 1687:
behind it on the left is a thirteenth-century piscina, above which is a
partly-obliterated twelfth-century fresco of the Nativity. Several
windows are blocked by the Cathedral porch; and the lowest and narrowest
of these is one of Fulbert’s original windows, which was not enlarged
like the rest in the twelfth century, because it was blocked at that
time by a porch erected in the eleventh century. At the end of the
gallery is a large monolithic font, intended for complete baptismal
immersion. It belongs to the eleventh century. The capitals of the four
columns which flank it are curious and noteworthy.
The plinths and abaci of the last bay of this gallery betray the fact
that it was added in the twelfth century, when the old south-western
tower (Clocher Vieux), with which a flight of steps connects it, was
built. The walls of this gallery, like that of the northern one, are
decorated with modern mural paintings illustrative of events in the
history of Chartres, or of the saints who have been connected with the
diocese. They are already in a bad state, and even at their best they
must always have displayed more science than art.
Turning now and retracing our steps we pass the staircase by which we
descended and make our way round the horse-shoe curve of the apse. On
our right we perceive the seven apsidal chapels, of which the first,
third, fifth and seventh are the Chapels of S. Mary Magdalene, S. Ives
(_see_ pp. 91 _ff._), S. Fulbert (_see_ pp. 69 _ff._), and the Sacristy.
They were added in 1194; whilst the second, fourth and sixth are the
Chapels of S. Anne, S. John the Baptist, and S. Joseph, and they date
from 1020. The window of the Chapel of S. Anne should be noted. S. Anne
is represented carrying the Blessed Mary. When we examine the upper
church we shall be struck by the importance of the position allotted to
S. Anne in glass and statuary--as, for instance, in the great window of
the north transept. The explanation is that Louis, Count of Chartres,
who died on the fourth Crusade, sent to the Chapter from Constantinople
the head of that saint.
Opposite the Sacristy is the entrance to the _Martyrium_ or Chapel of S.
Lubin (_see_ p. 36), which is immediately under the sanctuary. Of this
chapel enough has been or will be said.[13] At this point it will
suffice to call attention to the architectural features which serve to
illustrate its history. First, the fact that you descend into it by a
modern entrance, which has replaced the old staircase and doorway; and
secondly, the depth of the base of the round column on the right,
indicating the original level of the primitive church floor; thirdly,
the hiding place for the treasure; next, the fourth-century wall, with
its layers of thin horizontal Roman bricks; and lastly, the circular
wall and the ninth and tenth-century piers. The Gallo-Roman wall on the
west is probably a portion of the old _enceinte_ of the town.
Going westwards on leaving the martyrium, we pass a staircase on our
right and the Puits des Saints Forts on the left, behind the wall of the
altar of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre. When this wall was built and the well
concealed in the seventeenth century, the circular passage by which the
chapel could be approached had also to be made, and the masonry was so
treated as to suggest the natural rocks of the old Druidical ‘grotto.’
The chapel is at the end of the northern gallery (eleventh and twelfth
century), which runs from the base of the _Clocher Neuf_. It is lit by
two long rows of pendant lamps. Here, then, is that mysterious shrine
which Boutrais has so well described. Here is that famous statue which
for a thousand years has drawn countless myriads of pilgrims from all
parts of the earth.[14] Kings and commons, rich and poor, scholars and
Crusaders, sinners and saints unnumbered have knelt at this shrine
since the day when Fulbert, having completed his crypt, left, it is
said, the ‘Statue of the Druids’ in the same place as that in which the
Gallic priests had held their assemblies _in finibus Carnutum_, on
Carnutan territory. That statue was held in honour till the year 1793,
when it was burnt by the Revolutionists before the _Porche Royal_. The
present Madonna was made on the model of the old, and erected in 1857,
after the crypt, which for sixty years had been used as a cooper’s
warehouse, was restored to its sacred uses. On the north wall may be
seen the traces of three twelfth-century windows, which were blocked
when the north porch was built; on the south wall traces of
twelfth-century frescoes. Other frescoes in the chapel are recent
symbolic work by M. Paul Durand. The vaulting was painted in the
seventeenth century.
Whether the statue which was destroyed in 1793 was older than the
eleventh century is a doubtful point. Some suppose that the previous
Druidical statue ‘_Virgini Parituræ_’ was burnt in the fire of 1020, and
that Fulbert had a new one carved and set up then. Others, arguing from
the colour of the wood, believe that it dated from the days of the
Druids. For the face of the Madonna was ‘black, but comely,’[15] like
that of the Vierge Noire, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, in the Cathedral proper.
But whether this blackness arose from the action of time upon the wood,
or whether it was another instance of that tendency to represent Eastern
types and colouring and design, which seems to me very noticeable in the
glass and statuary of the Cathedral, cannot be definitely decided.
One other curious point remains to be noted. We are told that the eyes
of the Child were open, but those of the Mother who held Him on her
knees were shut. The Druids, it is said, intended by this device to
signify that faith was still in darkness, and that she whom they
worshipped was not yet born. But the eyes of the Child, whom she in the
fulness of time should supernaturally conceive and bear, were open; for
He was without beginning and without end, the Spectator of all time and
all existence.