_The Siege and the Breach_, 1568
‘Le canon battait nos murailles.
La Vierge, comme un bouclier,
Au choc terrible des batailles
Opposait son blanc tablier.
Le plomb, dans sa course rapide,
Devant la Vierge se courbait,
Et l’obus, au vol homicide,
Sans bruit, dans son giron tombait.’
L. JOLLIET.
Plague and famine weighed heavily upon Chartres throughout the sixteenth
century; not less heavily the wars of François I. and of Henry IV., and
the continual contributions in money which she was called upon to make
in order to enable them to be waged. Year by year, under the three
curses of that age--plague, soldiers, and impositions--the exhaustion of
the city increased. She was able, however, to receive with sufficient
magnificence the occasional visits of kings and princes. Particularly
splendid was the reception accorded to Mary Queen of Scots, when, at the
age of six, she was brought here in state by the Constable de
Montmorency and the Duc d’Aumale. And the period in which Jean de Beauce
wrought the Clocher and the Clôture of the Cathedral cannot have been
one of abject poverty.
Royal visits to the town were not altogether wasteful. Not only did
they, in the ordinary course of things, stimulate trade, but they also
served the cause of sanitation. For on such great occasions, and on such
occasions only, the streets were cleaned. Street police was still quite
in its infancy; hygiene an art scarce beginning to be practised. We find
mention of an order in 1526 forbidding swineherds to allow the animals
in their charge (_bêtes porchines de M. S. Antoine_) to wander about the
streets. But this was an unpopular measure, and stood rather as a pious
opinion of the more enlightened than as an effective piece of
legislation. Things were but little better than they had been when the
heir of Louis-le-Gros, riding in the Rue S. Jean in Paris, was thrown
from his horse by an abbot’s pig, and died of his injuries.
The vile odour that arose from the narrow, ill-paved, uncleansed
passages called streets, filled with the rotting garbage which so
tempted the pigs, is not pleasant even to imagine. Little wonder that
here, as at Paris, where the same reign of mud and dirt obtained, the
plague broke out again and again.
In one of these outbreaks Chartres lost no less than 8000 of its
inhabitants. As in Paris, and later in London, the houses tainted by the
plague were marked with a cross, and persons who were infected by it
were obliged to carry a white wand in the streets. But people have
always been curiously slow to learn the lessons of sanitation. The open
sewer, the filthy water, the system of burial, the state of the
dwelling-houses, the tradition of personal uncleanliness, these were all
powerful friends of the pest in every mediæval town.
‘You have,’ Voltaire wrote later of Paris, ‘slaughter-houses in back
streets with no issue, which give out in summer a cadaverous odour
capable of poisoning an entire quarter.’ On this point at any rate
Chartres was superior to Paris. For in the sixteenth century public
slaughter-houses (massacre--the name still marks a section of the
river) were erected in an appropriate place. But the butchers did not
take kindly to them. In spite of frequent pains and penalties, it was
long before the inveterate habit of slaughtering animals and throwing
their blood into the streets was abandoned.
As to the streets, the authorities contented themselves for the most
part with quite platonic aspirations that they should be watered and
cleaned. But on great occasions, as I have said, cleaned they were,
along with the roads, passages and bridges. Such an occasion was the
visit of the King and Queen in 1550, with the Dauphin and his young
_fiancée_, Mary Stuart.
The masters and companions of each trade and mystery, and the pages of
honour to accompany the King on horse and foot were carefully selected;
and costumes were as nicely chosen. The Lieutenant-General de Hérouad
indeed issued an order calling upon the citizens, on pain of forfeit and
arrest, to array themselves for the ceremony in velvet, satin, taffetas,
and other rich garments. Triumphal arches were raised before the gates.
At the cross roads scaffoldings were erected and decorated with
tapestries and gilt, whereon plays and mysteries were to be performed.
These elaborate arrangements, however, ended in a lamentable fiasco. As
the _cortège_ wound its way out of the Porte Drouaise to meet the King
and Queen a violent storm burst over them, and compelled them all,
Lieutenant-General included, to seek refuge in the Church of S. Maurice
and the neighbouring houses, in order to save their gala clothes from
ruin. At the same moment, unfortunately, the King and Queen left the
road of Josaphat, which they were following, and made a short cut for
the town, where they arrived without meeting a soul to welcome them.
As the key and granary of Paris, Chartres began to be the favourite
garrison town of the French army, and was obliged to contribute
accordingly to the expenses of huge masses of men quartered on her.
[Illustration: Queen Berthy Tower.]
Meantime, the County of Chartres was raised to a Duchy in favour of
Rénée, daughter of the late King Louis XII. and Anne de Bretaigne, on
the occasion of her marriage with Hercules d’Éste, son of the Duke of
Ferrara. A more profitable honour befell the town a few years later,
when a judicial tribunal was set up here, a step which tended in some
degree to lessen the excessive expenses and delays of the law. This was
done in 1552, and in 1566 Charles IX. authorised the merchants and
various trades, who were groaning under the exactions of the
_procureurs_ and the ruinous procedure of the _gens du baillage_, to
choose a merchant judge and four colleagues (consuls) in the town of
Chartres. This tribunal was intended to deal with business affairs. The
bailiffs and attorneys, seeing in the creation of a Tribunal of Commerce
a severe blow to their interests, did their utmost to frustrate it. But
the Tribunal got itself established none the less in the House and
Meeting-place of the Merchants, as they then called it; the Maison des
Vieux-Consuls, as it came to be known later, after the consuls had
transferred the scene of their labours elsewhere.
The ‘House of the Old Consuls’ in the Rue des Écuyers, facing the
entrance of the Rue de la Petite-Boucherie de Bourg, is not in itself
remarkable, save as the seat and cradle of municipal justice in
Chartres. For that purpose it was well placed, being in the centre of
the steep old streets of the lower town and near the river, round which,
as we have seen, clustered numerous industries. The site was originally
just within the old walls of the ninth century, and it is possible that
the house was part of the old Tour du Roy. But it was completely rebuilt
in the seventeenth century, and were it not for the fifteenth-century
entrance, and the extremely picturesque circular staircase with its
elegant and curious carving (early sixteenth century), it would be of no
account. This staircase is known as the _Escalier de la Reine
Berthe_--Queen Bertha’s Staircase. The name apparently is quite modern,
and there is no explanation of it which can claim to be certainly
correct.
The Queen Bertha indicated may be either the wife of Eudes I., Count of
Chartres, who afterwards married King Robert, and who, when he was
forced to repudiate her, came to live in the old castle at Chartres,
where she ended her days striving to forget her ephemeral greatness and
succouring the poor; or, and this seems more likely, it may be Bertha,
sister of Count Thibault III., widow of the Duke of Aquitaine, who spent
her widowhood at Chartres in this quarter of the town, a fact which has
survived in tradition and is confirmed by a document of 1069. For there
is mention of the house of the Countess between the Tour du and the
Porte Cendreuse (_camera comitissa inter Turrim et portam Cinerosam_).
[Illustration: Old Dormer Window from Maison du Saumon]
Of other old wooden houses in Chartres the most famous for its carving
and its picturesqueness is the Maison du Saumon in the Place de la
Poissonnerie, No. 10, so called from the huge salmon which is carved
upon one of the beams, and recalls the fact that Poissonnerie means
Fish-market. And No. 49 Rue des Changes is also distinguished by its
carving. The Étape-au-vin we have already mentioned.
* * * * *
The sixteenth century in France was an epoch of confusion and distress,
but from the chaos that then prevailed modern civilisation sprang. Two
great historic facts dominate that epoch: the Renaissance of art and
letters and the religious Reformation. They were naturally not wholly
disconnected. Gutenberg was the forerunner of Luther. The revival of
interest in the intellectual treasures of antiquity introduced into a
society formed by Catholicism and feudalism a new comparison. The
languages, politics, art, philosophy and religious beliefs of Rome and
Athens were contrasted for the first time in the light of history with
those of an organisation already exhausted by the length of its duration
and the poison of its own vices. To this extent the intellectual
awakening of the sixteenth century, with its new study of things old,
led up to and aided the Reformation. But the idea of reform was not new.
It had appeared and been repressed many times and in many countries from
the twelfth century onwards. The authority of the Councils and the
rigour of the punishments directed against it had succeeded in choking
the movement hitherto, for it is one of the most inaccurate of
commonplaces which asserts that persecution only succeeds in promoting
the cause it endeavours to check. The Reformation was for hundreds of
years quite successfully checked by persecution. But it came at last
when, in the fulness of time, the minds of men were enlightened by the
new spirit of discovery, inquiry and learning, and when the authority of
the Church was weakened by the schisms and depravity of its
representatives. The country which had invented the printing press, that
powerful engine for the dissemination of ideas, sent forth also Luther.
The shock of the revolt inaugurated by him struck France at a moment
when, in the person of François I., the prerogatives of the Crown were
almost without limit, and the regal splendour in which the King
delighted dazzled every eye. François did not at first perceive the
political tendencies of the Reformation, and he allowed the Protestant
doctrines to be cherished even at his own Court. Marguerite de Valois,
his sister, openly encouraged Protestantism, and Clément Marot, his
favourite poet, translated for the use of the Reformers the Psalms into
French. That charming poet and witty epigrammatist had started in life
with the intention of never giving offence or rousing inconvenient
opposition. Like Rabelais, he was ready to espouse a cause with an
enthusiasm that was warm indeed but stopped short of burning point
(jusqu’au feu exclusivement).
‘Tant de brouillis qu’en justice on tolère
Je l’écrirois, mais je crains la colère,
L’oisiveté des prêtres et cagots
Je la dirois, _mais gare les fagots_;
Et des abus dont l’Église est fourrée,
J’en parlerois, mais gare la bourrée.’
So he had written. But his zeal or his art soon outran his discretion.
He provoked the enmity which he deprecated. Pursued by the hatred of the
Lady of Annet, Diane de Poitiers, of the poet Sagon and the inquisitor
Jean Bouchard, the satirist was imprisoned more than once, and at last
banished in poverty.
Chartres was the last place in which Calvinism was likely to be popular.
Marot, there, was as unwelcome as his Psalms. He was seized and
imprisoned in the Tour de Roy. The courts recently established in the
town were active in the suppression of heresy, and burnt their first
victims at the stake in 1553, ‘_qui ne se voulurent jamais confesser ny
reconnoistre nostre bon Dieu et sauveur Jesus, ny la benoiste vierge
Marie_.’ As time went on the inquisitions grew more exacting. Their
increasing severity drew forth increasing resistance on the part of the
Protestants. More Huguenots were burnt and hundreds were banished from
the town. A bishop, suspected of favouring their cause, was quickly
denounced and cited to Rome. He departed amidst popular execration.
Chartres remained enthusiastically Catholic of the Catholics. The Church
festivals were celebrated with renewed pomp in the Cathedral, and the
Mystery of Abraham was performed with impressive solemnity.
From the commencement of the religious wars, Louis, Prince of Condé,
head of the Protestant League, ‘for the maintenance of the pure worship
of God and the due observance of the edicts,’ turned his attention to
the country of the Orléanais in order to facilitate his communications
with the South. Hoping to avenge the catastrophe of Rouen, he made a
bold movement from Orléans upon Paris. But after meeting with a severe
check at Corbeil, he was obliged to fall back upon Normandy, devastating
and burning La Beauce on his way. He had vainly called upon Chartres to
open her gates to him. ‘Never,’ was the bold reply he received from the
governor. ‘I hold the town for the King, and if your army attacks this
place it will prove their cemetery!’ Condé continued to retire
northwards. The Royal army engaged him under the walls of Dreux, and
there the first pitched battle of the war was fought. It resulted, after
an arduous struggle, in a hard-won victory for the Catholics. Eight
thousand corpses strewed the plain, and whilst Montmorency remained
prisoner in the hands of the Protestants, Condé himself was a captive to
the Royalists. The pacific arrangement which was made shortly afterwards
was not of long duration. The fierce persecution commenced by the Duke
of Alva against their brethren in the Netherlands roused, not without
reason, the apprehension as well as the indignation of the French
Reformers. The Huguenots rose and moved upon Paris. A drawn battle was
fought in the plain of S. Denis.
Chartres had but a moment’s respite. It was employed with feverish
activity in making preparations for defence. The inhabitants were
commanded to lay in provisions for two months. The watchmen installed
in the Clocher Neuf were instructed to make the following signals:--On
the first appearance of the enemy three strokes of the bell, three more
if the enemy advanced towards the town. If they were cavalry a tapering
banner was to be flown, if infantry a square one, and if the Huguenots
tried to rush upon the suburbs the tocsin was to be rung. A bell was
placed at each gate to correspond with that of the watch, and to summon
the quarter to arms. Urgent appeals were sent to the King for aid, who
replied by despatching some troops with Jean de Bourdeilles, Baron
d’Ardelay, to superintend, in conjunction with Antoine de Linières and
his garrison, the defence of the town. They busied themselves with
placing some artillery in position, and establishing a bullet
manufactory. The church bells were melted to supply the forge.
On the approach of the enemy the bridges over the Eure outside the town
were destroyed. On the last day of February, 1568, the Huguenot army,
commanded by the gallant Condé himself, encamped at Lèves and Josaphat,
and in the suburbs about the gates Drouaise, Guillaume, Morard and S.
Michel. Their numbers are given variously at 10,000 and 45,000 men.
Their artillery consisted of only five siege pieces and four small
culverins. The first four days of March were employed by the enemy in
fortifying their positions, and by the Catholic Chartrains in
skirmishing about the environs and setting fire to the suburbs of the
town. M. de Linières, their vigorous leader, who was afterwards to meet
his death on the battlefield of Jarnac, destroyed, as a necessary
measure of war, Mainvilliers, and the monasteries of the Franciscans
(with its splendid library) and of S. John. The Huguenots, on the other
hand, endeavoured to preserve some buildings which might afford them
cover, but they destroyed the Churches of S. Chéron and S. Barthélemy,
which could be of no use to them.
These preliminaries gave the inhabitants of Chartres time to complete an
entrenchment stretching from the Monastery of S. Père to the Porte
Morard, and to construct also a platform near the convent of the
Sœurs-de-S.-Paul, on which was mounted a cannon named _La
Huguenotte_, which had been taken from the enemy at the Battle of Dreux.
This piece did such good service during the siege that it soon earned
the name of ‘The Good Catholic!’
On the 5th of March the German soldiers, the Reiters and Lanskenets of
the enemy, took up a position at the entrance of S. Maurice and at the
Filles-Dieu, and opened two batteries, one opposite the Porte Drouaise,
masked by the walls of the house _Trois-Maures_, the other in the
enclosure of the Filles-Dieu, intending to take the same gate on the
flank. The bombardment began on the following day.
The householders had watched the forces of their enemy gathering from
this side and that, and knew that at last the dreaded circle was
complete. They knew that Condé was in command, and had sworn to ruin
their Cathedral, to scatter the relics stored there, and to feed his
horse at the high altar. They knew that his soldiers were eager to ‘ruin
and annihilate the most beautiful building in France that remained as
yet undefiled by them, namely, this devout and excellent temple of the
Church of Notre-Dame de Chartres, the terror and despair of the
heretics.’[87] But in spite of this knowledge and preparation the
opening cannonade took the people of Chartres, as two hundred years
later it took the people of Paris, by surprise.[88] It was early in the
day. A crowd of worshippers filled the Church of S. Foy (S. Faith, Rue
d’Harleville), which was built partly on the ramparts. At the conclusion
of the Mass the Sacrament was to be carried to a sick person. Touched by
unusual devotion at this perilous time, the whole assembly rose to
escort the procession on its way, passing out slowly, group after group,
as if by mechanical instinct, the more reluctant led on by the general
consent. At last the church was quite emptied, when, it is said, a
shower of massy stones from the culverins or great cannon of the
besiegers fell suddenly upon it, and the entire roof of the place sank
into the empty space beneath.
The rebuilding of the little chapel rendered necessary by this disaster
accounts for the Flamboyant style of architecture which it now
represents. Originally it had been dedicated in the time of S. Fulbert,
and was enlarged and raised to the dignity of a parish church in the
days of S. Ives. It was horribly profaned during the Revolution, being
converted into a _Salle de Spectacle_ by a decree of the Municipal
Council in 1794 on the motion of one Morin, an architect. It was
not till 1857, on the same day as the Druidical Virgin,
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, was restored to the traditional place in the
crypt, that the church passed again by purchase into clerical hands and
was carefully restored.
The changes and degradations which it has undergone have left little
worth studying in what was once the parish church of the most populous
quarter in the town.
Whatever damage it did elsewhere (and a few days later a neighbouring
church was crushed like S. Foy, but with all its good people inside),
the cannonade directed against the Porte Drouaise on two sides at once
failed in its object. For the ravelin proved a sufficient protection for
the besieged. It therefore
[Illustration: CHARTRES BESIEGED BY M. LE PRINCE DE CONDE, MARCH 1568.
[_See back_
]
[Illustration:
A. M. d’Andelot’s regiment of from ten to twelve companies
preparing to advance to the assault.
B. Four guns, belonging to M. Cassimir, leader of the Germans, on a
ridge, firing as a rule into the town.
C. Regiment of Germans preparing to advance to the assault.
D. Breach of about 30 yards.
E. M. du Bordet, at the head of twenty-five or thirty soldiers and
sappers who were to undermine the ravelin, was killed by a shot
from an arquebus.
F. M. des Champs’ regiment also making ready to advance to the
assault.
G. A sortie made by the besieged against M. de Pille’s troops.
H. The gate.
]
became necessary for the Huguenots to get possession of this advanced
work. One of them, Du Bordet[89] by name, slipped with some pioneers
into the ditch and began to sap, but being perceived by the defenders
above, was shot down by an arquebus, and his men were unable to resist a
sortie with which the arquebusiers followed up this success. On the same
day the enemy were foiled in their endeavour to establish themselves
near the suburb of S. Brice. But next morning the Huguenots, after a
prolonged cannonade, effected a breach, and endeavoured to take by
assault the ravelin from which they had been repulsed the night before.
They were for a moment successful, but M. de Linières bravely recovered
this important position. ‘Incontinent,’ wrote the contemporary
historian, Simon de Gives, in his _Bref Discours du Siège mis devant la
Ville de Chartres_,[90] ‘Incontinent, the said seigneur began to pledge
the captains who were near him, boldly resolute, with a heart not sad
but joyful rather, drooping his head a little, and began to throw down
planks to take the place of the bridge which the cannon had broken by
force. These captains, wishing to show their generous courage and doing
their duty marvellous well, entered the ravelin which the enemy had
seized and held. Their own men, to recover it, engaged the Huguenots in
a hand-to-hand fight, and being thus mixed together, the enemy were
right manfully repulsed, and left many of their number dead within the
ditch.’
At the same time the enemy had made an attack upon the ravelin of the
Porte S. Michel, and were repulsed there also. But not without loss to
the Chartrains. The brave D’Ardelay, colonel of the Gascons, received
then a wound in the eye, of which he died some days later. Of his burial
in the Cathedral and its sequel we have already spoken above.[91]
The failure of their efforts against the Porte Drouaise induced the
Huguenots to direct their attention to the stretch of wall running from
that gate to the Tower des Herses de Lethinière. And here it was that
they established the breach so famous in the annals of Chartres. The
whole of the 8th of March their batteries from the Clos-l’Évêque and the
Filles-Dieu played upon the wall, and by two o’clock on the following
afternoon a breach thirty feet wide had been made. The capable and
energetic governor of the town, M. de Linières, had taken every possible
measure of precaution to forestall the ill effects of the bombardment.
As the breach widened a strong entrenchment was disclosed constructed of
earth and bags of wool. A thousand workmen, soldiers and civilians,
worked unceasingly at the task of throwing it up and strengthening it.
Under pain of cord and gibbet, the inhabitants were impressed for the
work. Night and day they toiled, and their toil was crowned with
success. The Huguenots, seeing that there was no chance of delivering an
assault with success, contented themselves with firing some salvoes on
the 10th and 11th, and then shifted their artillery opposite the Porte
Morard. There they began to endeavour, by destroying a large dam, to
divert the course of the river, which ran through the lower town, and
supplied the forces of the water-mills. This move, in spite of the
wind-mills which M. de Linières had made at once, would very likely have
been attended with serious results, had not rumours of peace begun to
reach the ears of the belligerents. A truce, preliminary to the Peace of
Longjumeau, was proclaimed. The Huguenots made haste to quit the town
they had so unsuccessfully besieged. They removed their artillery on the
14th, and next day saw the last of their battalions disappear down the
roads of Bonneval and Illiers.
‘Thus, after fourteen days of struggle and vain assault,’ exclaims our
triumphant chronicler Rouillard, ‘the enemy were compelled to retire
with great loss and slaughter, and to give once more occasion for the
name _des Reculés_ (_see_ p. 47), to the quarter in the midst of which
they had proudly raised their accursed tents.’ Disappointed of the
plunder of the Cathedral treasure and of the pillage of the town upon
which they had counted--for Condé himself had sold beforehand the lead
of the Cathedral roof--they retired discomfited, to conclude the Peace
of Longjumeau--_La Paix boiteuse et mal assise_, as it was called,
because one of the negotiators was named Malassise, and the other was
lame.
In memory of this deliverance it was decreed at Chartres that a solemn
annual procession should take place on the 15th of March; that part of
the street S. André should take the name of Rue de la Brèche, and that a
commemorative inscription should be graven on the reconstructed wall.
In connection with the procession referred to we must mention the _Tour
de Ville_, as it is called, or _La Chandelle du Tour_, or _Le Tour de
cire_. This was a huge yellow wax candle, rolled on a wooden cylinder,
and weighing as much as 220 pounds. ‘From time immemorial,’ the archives
record, ‘the town of Chartres has been wont to maintain this candle
before the Black Virgin of the pillar in front of the jubé. It was
instituted originally by the community of the said town as an oblation
for the safety of the town, and was to burn before the said image.’
Every day a piece was cut off and burnt on the town candlestick. For
many years the _Tour de la Ville_ was presented at one or other of the
Church festivals indifferently, very often on the 17th of October, the
Feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral. But in the seventeenth century
it was decided that the presentation should take place on the 15th of
March, the anniversary of the deliverance of the town from the siege of
the Huguenots. The ceremony was very popular. All the officials of the
town attended. Before the procession started the Mayor (for he had come
into existence by that time), or, occasionally, some great man who
happened to be the guest of the town at the time, lit the first candle
before the shrine of the Black Virgin. Thereafter the _Tour de Ville_
was carried in the procession to the breach. This custom lasted on to
the days of the Revolution.
You can imagine the procession winding its way from the Cathedral down
the steep curves of the Rue Muret towards the Place Drouaise and the
Pont Neuf where once was the Porte Drouaise. Those who took part in it
would pause, perhaps, and read the inscription let into the ramparts and
engraved on two stones six feet long by three high which recorded the
events of the siege in the Latin tongue for the instruction and example
of posterity. One of the stones is, I gather, still preserved in the
garden belonging to Madame Tillionbois de Valeuil and may be seen from
the Pont Neuf. Pursuing their way up the Rue de la Brèche, the
procession would next arrive at the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Brèche on
their left. Let the reader enter this tiny chapel, after noticing the
arms sculptured above the window, and he will find himself face to face
with a statue of the Virgin which rests on the keystone of the old
chapel erected in 1599 in memory of this event, and near the site of the
famous breach.
About the altar are numerous cannon-balls of stone which are relics of
the siege. Entering the large annex on the right the visitor will now
perceive a still more curious relic of the siege--the fourteenth or
fifteenth-century statue of Notre-Dame-de-la-Brèche, whose name was
graven on the keystone above mentioned. And if he inquire how that name
was earned he will be told that this is the very statue which was set
over the Porte Drouaise and, by a miraculous intervention, saved the
town. For the contemporary chronicler Duparc informs us that ‘For all
that the chiefs of the Huguenot army were esteemed the greatest soldiers
in Europe, yet were they miraculously blinded by a manifest miracle. And
the miracle was on this wise. There was on the Porte Drouaise an image
of Our Lady against which the enemy fired many shots from cannon and
arquebus alike, but without being able to hit it. And to show that many
shots were fired at the said gate on which was the said image, the
bridge of that gate was broken and cut in twain by the cannon-balls, and
all round the image up to a few inches of it the marks of many bullets
may still be seen. But it was hit by never a one, and it remained
therefore whole and intact; in spite of the efforts of the enemy to
destroy that image, it was never struck by a single shot. I know well,’
he adds, ‘that the heretics and some others laugh at this, but Herod
also mocked at Christ when he beheld Him.’
Another version of this miracle is given by Chaline (b. 1596) in his old
_Histoire de Chartres_. ‘The Huguenots,’ he says, ‘having drawn near on
the 9th of March to enter the town by the breach which they had made, it
happened that there appeared on the said breach opposite to them a tall
lady holding a child in her arms, against whom they fell to firing and
to hurling volleys of abuse, without being able to reach or strike her
in any way _terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata_. On the contrary,
the bullets which they fired fell harmless, without effect or force, at
the foot of the wall, and they, thinking to enter, found themselves
repulsed. The Chartrains perceiving this, and knowing that it was the
Holy Virgin who, with her Son, was thus visibly taking the defence of
the town into her own hands, the ecclesiastics and women turned to pray,
and the men of war and all capable of bearing arms made a sortie upon
the besiegers and vigorously repelled them.’
By a further development, the popular tradition of the country, so
prettily expressed in the verses of M. Jolliet which I have put at the
head of this chapter, now maintains that the Virgin caught the bullets
in the folds of her mantle.
The chapel founded in 1599 was destroyed during the Revolution and
rebuilt in 1843. Leaving this chapel and pursuing its way along the
street, the procession would next arrive at the Parish Church of S.
André and the adjoining Chapel of S. Nicholas, and then, after singing
an anthem there before the bas-relief which commemorated events of the
siege, would make its way up the steep ascents back to the Cathedral.
The Church of S. André, as seen in its ruins and desecration to-day,
presents one of the most offensive examples of callous profanation in
France. When you have mastered your disgust with the disastrous and
discreditable fact that this once magnificent building is used as a
municipal lumber-room, you begin to perceive that its remains are still
beautiful, and you regret the more keenly the fire which, when it was an
army forage store in 1865, completed the damage begun by the
Revolutionists. Take first the extremely beautiful and interesting west
front, which presents, as it were, an epitome of mediæval
architecture--the Norman or Romanesque arch, the Gothic beginning and
the Flamboyant decadence are all represented. For the lower portion is
composed of three round-headed arches, the soffits of which are
ornamented with round mouldings and zigzag work, and rest on columns
with curious capitals formed of acanthus leaves from which grotesque
heads peep out. Above these three round arches are three pointed
windows. The transition character of these is emphasised by the
mouldings in the soffits being continuations of those in the side piers.
The windows rest on a simple cornice, carried by corbels, also
grotesque. Above them was a Flamboyant rose, demolished after the fire
in 1865.
[Illustration: Tower of S^t André]
The church was founded in 1108 by the great Bishop of Chartres, S. Ives,
and was at once a collegiate and parochial institution in one of the
most populous parishes of Chartres. A massive square tower flanks the
south side of the transept; the spire which it once supported was
destroyed during the Revolution. At the east end there was a curious
feature. An arch was thrown out into the Eure in the thirteenth century,
and was made to carry the annexed choir and sanctuary. This portion of
the church was rebuilt in the Flamboyant style by Jehan de Beauce in
the sixteenth century; and in 1612 a second arch, in continuation of the
earlier one, completed the span of the river and connected the church
with the right bank. The apsidal chapel built thereon was dedicated to
the Holy Virgin. Vauban called the attention of Louis Quatorze to the
excellence of these arches, but some picturesque traces only of them can
be seen from the riverside to-day, for the arches collapsed and were
removed in 1805.
The interior is in the simple Romanesque manner, and, in spite of base
uses to which the place is now put, it remains impressive by virtue of
the sixteen massive piers which support the nave and aisles, which have
been simple always, and remain grand in their ruin.
Two early square crypts under the transepts are worth seeing. For the
rest, of what once was, I need only mention the wooden jubé, carved by
P. Courtier, on which Jehan de Beauce had also done some work. Among the
carvings, it is said, was one which represented a pig churning
butter--an epigram in stone against notorious heretics, for Calvin is
frequently treated as a pig in this sort of imagery.