calculated for a particular set of opinions. Some Protestant writers
attribute to Gothic architecture a mysterious connexion with the Roman
Catholic religion, and, indeed, seem to think that all magnificent
churches have a tendency to support that system. Such an opinion does
not deserve consideration, but it is certainly true, that some buildings
are calculated to excite emotions favourable to religious impressions,
to produce a serious frame of mind, and one in which we are more
inclined to acknowledge the present existence of superior power, and
more ready to submit to the influence of this conviction. Such means of
excitement are liable to abuse, and no person can remain long in these
edifices, and observe what passes before him, without being made
sensible of the power they possess by the degree to which it is abused.
But as this abuse is by no means a necessary attendant on the use, it is
not a fair argument against it. Mankind in general, at least in France
and England, are dull and sluggish in the affairs of religion; they find
it difficult to detach their thoughts sufficiently from worldly affairs.
It is desirable, therefore, that every help should be given them, for in
this, as in every other good object, human means are to be used, when
they are put within our reach. A place of worship should, therefore, in
the first place, possess in its style and decoration, a decidedly
different appearance from a common dwelling-house: this tends to break
the associations with the every day employments of life, and gradually
to form new associations with the objects of religion, which become of
considerable importance in the government of the attention. A merchant,
on entering his counting-house, is more strongly led to think of ships
and commerce, than on coming into a dining-room. Secondly, a place of
worship should possess a decided character of power and sublimity: if
from the conditions of our nature any style of building is calculated to
induce serious feelings, that style is fitted for a church. In the third
place, if any style be already connected in our imagination with the
duties of religion, it is fitter for the purpose than one, which having
equally the two former qualifications, is deficient in the latter. These
considerations point out the Gothic architecture as preferable to every
other, for the churches of our own country; but it would not be at all
necessary, in the erection of new structures, to retain the awkward
arrangement usually found in a parish church.
I have already observed that the chapels at Amiens are not coeval with
the building, but some of them are very little posterior. They are said
to have originated from the following circumstance. In the year 1244,
Geoffroi de Milly, great bailiff of Amiens, hung five clerks, or
scholars, without any legal process, because they were accused by his
daughter of an assault on her person. It is uncertain whether they were
really guilty, or whether, having surprised her in too close conference
with her lover, she accused them in order to invalidate their testimony
against herself. The bishop, indignant at this wanton abuse of power,
after examining the circumstances, pronounced the following severe
sentence, and though it must be confessed that the bailiff had fully
merited it, yet it seems astonishing that so galling a penance could be
strictly performed, which we are told was the fact. Geoffroi was to be
conducted on the following Saturday after dinner and before vespers, _i.
e._ between one and two o’clock, with his arms and feet naked, a halter
round his neck, and his hands tied behind him, in the manner usually
practised towards felons, from the place called Malmaison to the
gallows; and after reposing there a little while he was to be
reconducted as far as the church of St. Montau, at which place his hands
being untied, the body of one of the said five clerks, with a cloth of
fine linen, was to be delivered to him, and he was to carry it to the
Mother Church, and thence to the burying ground of St. Dionysius, and
afterwards, in the four following days to carry the other four bodies in
the same manner, first to the Mother Church, and then to the Cemetery.
Moreover, he was directed to appear at the cathedral at Rheims, at the
other churches of the diocese, and at the churches of Rouen, Paris, and
Orleans, and to attend the processions on one Sunday, or feast day, at
each, with his arms and feet naked, his hands tied behind him, and
without any thing to shelter him from being fully seen, and at each
place, during the procession, the sentence of his condemnation was to be
read. Moreover, he was to swear never to hold any office conveying
jurisdiction, and to submit himself in all particulars to the sentence
of the bishop, and to perform all that it enjoined within the time
prescribed, and to bring back with him certificates from each place of
his having done so. Moreover, he was to provide five basins of silver,
each weighing five marks, in which were to be five wax candles, each
weighing three pounds. These were to be kept constantly burning in the
church at Amiens, and the criminal had to provide funds in perpetuity.
Nor was this all; the day after the feast of “Monsieur St. Jean
Baptiste,” he was enjoined to take a journey to the Holy Land, and never
to return to Amiens, without the consent of the bishop and chapter. Not
content with thus punishing the bailiff, the bishop issued a decree
against the mayor and aldermen (echevins) of Amiens, for having
permitted the bailiff to proceed to such extremities against the five
clerks, condemning them, under penalty of a thousand marks of silver, to
found six chapels, and to appoint to each a rent of twenty Parisian
livres, and in consequence of this decree were founded the first chapels
of this church. Before quitting the nave I must point out two monuments
too interesting to pass unnoticed, though such objects do not come
within my general plan, except as they afford examples of architecture.
They are on the right and left of the western doorway, and represent, in
brass figures of the size of life, bishop Everard, the founder of the
church, and Bertrand D’Abbeville, who completed it. They were originally
placed in the midst of the nave, but were transferred in 1762 to their
present position. On the pavement of the church is a labyrinth,
indicated by the arrangement of black and white stones which compose it.
Such an ornament occurs in many French churches. I do not know if it had
any mysterious meaning.
Finding myself very cold while making my sketches, I walked round the
church, through the galleries, and in the roof. The latter is very well
constructed, three braces resting at different heights on each side of
the king-post, exemplifies the origin of an English word for that part,
_roof-tree_.
[Illustration: Illustration of roof-tree]
The timbers are generally small, but they are well disposed and well put
together. They are said to be of chesnut, a statement still more general
in France than in England as to the timber of old buildings, but I have
no proof that it is not oak. The rafters are laid flatwise; the laying
them edgewise is an improvement of modern date in England, and has not
yet got into general use in France. The tie-beam is placed several feet
above the vaulting. The central spire is also said to be of chesnut. It
is well built, but the ornaments, which look sharp, and accurately
defined, from below, appear round and clumsy when close to the eye. One
may walk also on the outside over the roofs of the side aisles and
chapels, among the flying buttresses, and behind the statues of the
front gallery.
I found a very fine point for an external view of the cathedral in the
garden of the _Palais de Justice_, but the cold and snow interrupted me.
The palace seems now to be a school. Soon after I entered the garden,
the maid-servant came in, in order to drive out the boys. They were
quite as untractable as English boys usually are under the same
authority, but after some quarrelling she gave one as loud a box on the
ear as I ever heard; it rung through the court, and echoed from the
ruins of a neighbouring monastery. One of them hid himself behind a
tree, and after the danger was over, came out to tell me that he was
very fond of drawing, that they had a drawing-master in the school, that
they did little but draw, and that the master would not let them use
compasses, but sometimes allowed them to measure. I objected to the
latter liberty. “Ah Monsieur, vous savez que quand on commence à
dessiner, on ne peut pas juger des mesures.” “Mais pour vous,” I
replied, “qui dessinez bien?” “Ah pour moi qui dessine bien, ce n’est
pas permis, il me gronderoit bien s’il trouvoit que je mesurois quelque
chose.”
I stayed at Amiens the whole of the 13th of April, dining at the table
d’Hôte, and accustoming myself to French language and French manners.
The salle-à-manger was ornamented with a paper which seems very common
at the inns, representing the principal buildings of Paris, not badly
executed. Although the room is about forty feet long, there is no
repetition of the pattern; you may easily conceive that an immense
number of blocks must have been used. Indeed, I was once told by a
paper-hanger in London, that he had seen papers in England which were
executed by means of 150 blocks, and that he used to think that a very
great number; but going afterwards to Paris, he had there seen some
which required two thousand five hundred. My landlady conducted me into
another room, where she shewed me the representation of a chase, in
which both the forms and the colouring were really very good, and into a
third, which was adorned with the history of Cupid and Psyche. I do not
say the execution was such as you would be satisfied with in a painting,
but yet all the parts were expressed with a considerable degree of truth
and accuracy, the groups were well disposed, and the light well managed.
About noon, on the fourteenth, I again found a place in the cabriolet of
the diligence, and proceeded to Beauvais, snow falling almost all the
time. It was dusk when we arrived there; and the high, black mass of the
choir rising above the houses of the town, all covered with snow, did
not prepossess me in favour of the building. During the night the
thermometer sunk to 25° of Fahrenheit, and the next morning was
excessively cold, with frequent showers. Before reaching the cathedral,
I inquired at a bookseller’s shop for some account of it. He had no such
work, but shewed me a history of the town, “publiée sur la demande de
Monsieur le Maire de Beauvais, et aux frais de la ville.” On looking
over it I found little to answer my purpose, and begged permission to
copy a few lines which might perhaps be useful to me. He most politely
begged me to take the book, and keep it as long as I wanted it. I
observed an account of the church of St. Etienne, said to be of very
high antiquity, and the bookseller pointed out to me the description of
an image, which, he assured me, had been a pagan idol: “Et comment,
monsieur,” said I, “peut on s’assurer de la grande antiquité de cette
statue?” “Eh,” replied he, “vous le trouverez dans les commentaires de
César.” This was said with the greatest air of science imaginable.
On approaching the cathedral I was surprised at the richness and beauty
of the external decoration. Seen from the south-east, it is much
superior in this respect to Amiens, because the ornaments and their
disposition are more dependent on each other, and seem more connected
with the construction of the building. There are two ranges of pinnacles
on the buttresses of the choir. Those of the inner range are slender,
and carried up nearly as high as the walls of the clerestory. The outer
are lower, and of more solid proportion; both ranges are ornamented, and
their effect is very rich and magnificent. The “portal,” using this word
to include the end of the transept, is of late date, and very much
ornamented. The entrances are, you know, at the ends of the transepts,
the nave never having been erected; and here again, on entering the
church, the great window, with its splendid rose, terminating the vista,
displays all its beauties. Passing down the centre, the view of the
choir is really sublime; and the slender columns, the triple range of
windows, and the loftiness of the upper ones, have an appearance almost
supernatural. It is considerably higher than that at Amiens; and to
judge by the eye, I should say that the ridge of the vaulting does not
fall short of a hundred and sixty feet, but I do not think it on that
account to be preferred. The columns at Beauvais are too slender, the
arches between them too narrow, and the vault too high. Every quality is
carried to excess. If the nave were built, the height would not appear
so disproportionate; but it would still be too great, and the want of
proportionate width would be more conspicuous. Another important
objection is in the groining of the roof, which is too complicated. In a
common groin one vault crosses another at right angles: in this instance
two smaller vaults cross the principal one obliquely; we have therefore
three vaults crossing each other in the same point; or, perhaps it would
be better to say, that six vaults meet in one point. There are dates on
some of the arches of the transept of 1575, 1577, 1578, 1580. This mode
of construction was certainly introduced much earlier, but I do not know
precisely at what period. In England, I think we find a similar
construction in part of Canterbury Cathedral; and it is represented, but
not very clearly, in Britton’s work on that edifice, pl. 17. The pillars
of the choir are alternately larger and smaller, which renders it
probable that the disposition of the vaulting was contemplated at the
time of the foundation of the church. It has been suspected that these
intermediate piers are posterior to the design of the building, but this
does not appear to me to be the case. Whittington says that this roof
fell down in 1802; whence could have arisen such an error?
The transept is furnished with side aisles, which are not so high as
those of the choir. The choir has at its commencement a double range of
side aisles, an arrangement productive of great beauty. The pillars of
the choir are formed by small shafts, attached to a circular pier. In
those of the transept the smaller shafts are united by curved lines to
the principal shaft, so that each pillar on the plan is bounded by an
undulating line, without any angle. Even in the earlier part the bases
are more capricious than at Amiens; the pillars themselves are more
slender, the capitals less distinct: all of which are proofs of its
erection posterior to that cathedral.
I have still to state a few dates of this building. The foundations were
laid in 991, by Hervé, _fortieth_ bishop of Beauvais, but nothing of
this construction remains to give any character to the present work; the
roof and _vaults_ were burnt in 1225. In 1281 the great arches of the
choir fell down, and mass could not be said for forty years; and this
perhaps may give us the era of the present choir, _i. e._ about 1324.
Yet there are fragments undoubtedly of an older edifice; as, for
example, at each end of the aisles of the transept, where there is a
small wheel window. The transept was not begun till 1500. It was
finished, with a central tower which rose to the height of four hundred
and seventy-five feet. If this account be correct, it appears rather
remarkable that the transept should contain no trace of Roman
architecture. The Chateau de Gaillon, in Paris, begun in 1490, and
finished in 1500, contains ample evidence of the introduction of that
style, though it still retains much of the Gothic in the ornaments and
their arrangement. There are, however, I believe, other buildings in
France of the early part of the sixteenth century, perfectly Gothic.
My observations in the cathedral were interrupted by the _office_, and,
as it was the first opportunity I have had of witnessing these
ceremonies, I stayed to see what was going forward, paying half a sol
for my chair. Each individual crosses himself on entrance. This, the use
of holy water, and the bowing to the altar, seem very ridiculous to a
Protestant. The first and last may be thought to announce, for the
moment at least, attention to sacred things, but it would be difficult
to assign any rational motive for the introduction of the holy water.
Historically, it may, perhaps, be deduced as a symbol of purification
from sin, but in the actual practice such an application appears absurd.
I saw some water prepared and consecrated at Amiens, but the ceremony is
not very impressive; and neither there nor at Beauvais did the dress of
the officiating priests appear to me either dignified or graceful. The
kneeling of the congregation consists in this: that each person turns
the back of the chair from him; and tipping it a little, places one or
both knees against the seat. In one not previously seated, the change of
position is hardly observable.
The oldest fragment in Beauvais is a part of the ancient church of Nôtre
Dame de Basse Œuvre. The east end presents a pretty large
circular-headed window, with a flat, broad reticulated ornament round it
in low relief, and some imperfect figures above. A portion of cornice,
with the billeted moulding, also remains, and a few of the side arches,
the whole being but a portion of the ancient nave. A floor has been
inserted internally, to make it suitable for a magazine of wood, and the
whole strengthened with brick piers. I can readily believe it to have
been erected early in the eleventh century, or perhaps in the tenth,
before the full development of the Norman style of architecture; but
there is too little of it, and it is in too damaged a condition, to be
of great interest. The work already mentioned assures us that it was
erected in the third century, and that one of the existing figures was a
pagan idol, as proved by its nakedness.
The church of St. Stephen is also very ancient, and it is far more
perfect than Nôtre Dame de Basse Œuvre. It is said to have been erected
or restored by St. Firmin in 997, but I suspect that this is too early
for any part of the present design. The western front presents fragments
of about the year 1200, but sadly injured during the revolution. The
sides are adorned with a range of very little arches, forming, not an
arcade, but an ornament under the cornice; a few of them, however, rest
on slender shafts. This, I apprehend, is somewhat more ancient. The
northern end of the transept has three semicircular-headed windows: the
southern has two, and over them a fine wheel window, with figures
representing the wheel of fortune; the gable is ornamented with
interlacing rods of stone. There is also a fine Norman doorway on the
north side. Internally the nave appears to have undergone no
considerable alteration since its erection. The pillars are formed of
square piers, with four large semi-elipsoid shafts attached, and four
smaller cylindrical ones, nearly detached. The bases are attic, but of a
form which indicates the beginning of the Gothic taste in that
particular; and perhaps we may say that the whole, both inside and out,
announces an erection of about the middle of the twelfth century. There
were, I apprehend, no pointed arches in the original edifice. The
transept is of mixed architecture, and the choir is of a late style. Its
vaulting bears date 1548, but the design of this part must be attributed
to the fifteenth century.
There are several other fragments in Beauvais. Two ancient towers, at
the entrance of the episcopal palace, with high French roofs, and two
Norman towers behind. Four Saxon arches, opposite the flank of the
palace, have belonged to some richly ornamented building; and there is
some mixed construction in the ancient walls. Parts of these are said to
be of the fourth century, but internal evidence of this is wanting.
The soil about Beauvais is chalky, divided by small, narrow valleys,
with steep sides, which afford situations for the vines: the little hill
of Ste. Symphorienne, just out of the town, presents a very good view of
it. The stumps of the vines rise about a foot from the ground; the poles
were disposed in conical heaps, much as our hop-poles are, but the
vine-poles are shorter. In some of the orchards, which are abundant,
there are gooseberry bushes among the larger fruit trees, and these are
the only things which look green. In the evening I again found a seat in
the cabriolet of the diligence, and arrived at Paris about nine o’clock
this morning. I have established myself in a small room in the Hotel du
Phôt, Rue du Phôt; for which I am to pay forty francs per month, and two
francs per month to François, who makes the bed, cleans the room, blacks
shoes, brushes coats, and, in short, performs the united services of
valet and chambermaid. The situation is pleasant, but rather too much
out of town.
LETTER II.
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF PARIS.
_Paris, April, 1816._
IN my last I conducted you, among the intricacies of Gothic
architecture, to Paris. I have now to tell you what I have seen in this
city, and in two or three places, at no great distance, which I have
visited; but before I plunge again into the uncertainties of dates, and
the mysteries of round and pointed arches, zigzag ornaments, and
trefoils, I am disposed to send you some general observations on Paris
and its vicinity, at the risk of repeating what you have heard or read
twenty times before; and I will begin by a little of the internal
domestic architecture, exemplified in my own bedroom, which I have had
plenty of time and opportunity to examine, and which I find to
correspond with what I have generally observed elsewhere. In the first
place, the rooms are usually papered; and it is very rarely that one
sees the lower part of wainscot, or with a dado. It is indeed sometimes
papered in a different manner, and with horizontal stripes about three
feet from the floor, to indicate surbase mouldings. The floors are of
hexagonal tiles, waxed and rubbed, in order to give them a sort of
polished surface. We see no lofty double chests of drawers, but all are
of a height to serve also as tables, and they are almost universally
covered with a marble slab. This is a very handsome arrangement, as the
polished stone always looks neat and clean, and it is not injured by a
little water accidentally spilt upon it. There is frequently a column at
each front angle, and the upper drawer advancing a little before the
others, forms an architrave, the whole face of which draws out. The bed
I have before described to you. There is no shelf over the chimney, but
generally a looking-glass, and frequently a picture. The chamber which I
occupy has an open fireplace for burning wood, but a more usual
arrangement is to have a large stove, cased with glazed tiles, within
the room, which communicates a moderate but lasting warmth at a small
expense of fuel. My window looks out into a little garden, and I am
almost close to the _Boulevards_ on the one hand, and to the garden of
the Tuilleries and the Champs Elysées, on the other. The plan of these
boulevards is a noble conception, and one of the proudest monuments of
useful magnificence that Paris has to boast. They form a wide street, or
rather avenue, lined with trees, round the oldest and most thickly
inhabited parts of the town, introducing the country into the city, and
providing both for the health and pleasure of its inhabitants. They seem
to have been originally planned to surround, and not to divide the city.
Those on the north side were cleared and planted in 1660; on the south,
not till 1760. They form a pleasant promenade, though not every where
equally so, and they are within the reach of a short walk for all the
inhabitants of Paris. Places of public entertainment abound, as you may
suppose, in this circuit; theatres, coffee-houses, restaurateurs,
hotels; indeed, such places are very numerous throughout Paris. The
guide books tell you that it contains 3,000 hotels, 2,000 restaurateurs,
4,000 coffee-houses. The estaminets (pot-houses) are very frequent, and
wine and spirit shops almost without number. Add to these the traiteurs,
patissiers, confiseurs, and epiciers, and you may imagine that Paris is
not a place to starve in. In one of my rambles I amused myself, for some
distance, with counting the number of houses appropriated to these
purposes, and found more than every other applied to one or the other of
them.