the view from the hill at Chanteleu is one of the best near Rouen. The
church is but of slight interest, though its flamboyant tower, with
a grand open western arch, forms a fine sort of porch, and indicates
a variety which might sometimes be introduced among ourselves with
advantage. S. Georges de Boscherville is too well known to require
description but if others have formed the same conception of it that
I had, they will thank me for saying that the chapter-house is an
exquisite example of the earliest pointed work, full of delicate and
beautiful detail. The three western arches are circular, but not
Romanesque in their character; some of their capitals have foliage,
some sculpture of figures, and the thickness of the wall is supported
by a miniature sexpartite vault. The vaulting of the chapter-house
is also sexpartite, with additional cells at the east and west end
to accommodate similar triplets. As I have before said, there is
much in the detail of parts of this building, which indicates the
same school as the early-pointed work at Rouen. The chapter-house
is a parallelogram, fifty-four feet in length by twenty-four feet
nine inches in width, and groined in three bays. Some of the western
entrance shafts are elaborately carved. The vault inside is coloured
buff, and diapered with red lines in a small regular pattern all over.
Between Rouen and Mantes, a pause of a few hours at Pont de l’Arche
enabled me to see the interesting remains of the abbey of Bonport.
The refectory is nearly perfect, and there is a great deal of simple
quadripartite vaulting remaining throughout the modern-looking
farm-house. But of the church, the bases of one or two columns, and
one respond alone remain, and these of an excellence of design which
make it very much to be regretted that it should have been destroyed.
The groined refectory, of five bays in length, is well worthy of a
visit. The side windows are of two lancet lights, with a circle above,
and at the north end is a window of four equal lancets, with small
cusped openings above. The south end and entrance from the cloister
are modernized. The pulpit staircase is perfect, and very ingeniously
contrived; but the pulpit itself is destroyed. Among the buildings,
which are of considerable extent, are some admirable examples of
domestic windows; and, to conclude, the whole is of the very best early
thirteenth-century style.
The church at Pont de l’Arche is one of those ambitious but very
picturesque buildings, of which we have no counterpart. It is
flamboyant in style, very lofty, and intended for groining throughout.
This, however, was never completed, and there is a coved wooden ceiling
in its place. A good deal of late stained glass, of _very_ poor detail,
exists in the windows, the subject of one of them being the Tree of
Jesse.
Of the ancient bridge over the Seine, at Pont de l’Arche, not a
vestige, I think, now remains.
The cathedral at Mantes is in many ways of much interest. Your readers
are, no doubt, well acquainted with Notre Dame, Paris, and with the
singular changes which have been effected in it from time to time. In
Mantes, I believe they may see almost the same kind of conception, left
with such slight alterations as do not in any way conceal the original
design. It is therefore of special value.
I have already referred to the western doors. They are much mutilated,
and the south-west door was replaced in the fourteenth century by
an immense and conceited composition of a doorway with pediment and
flanking pinnacles which is very damaging to the general effect of
the façade. The remainder of the front is uniform first-pointed, with
two steeples connected by an open screen as at Paris. The north-west
tower has been already nearly rebuilt, and the south-west tower is
now suffering from the same process, “suffering” I say, because I
believe firmly that the original design is being annihilated. In both
the belfry stage, which rises above the screen between the towers, is
now much smaller than the stage below; nothing can look much worse
than such a sudden diminution in size, and I am convinced that the
original intention must have been (as at Laon) to continue the shafts
and arcading which surround the lower stage up to the top. I made as
careful an examination of the work as was possible, and have hardly a
shadow of doubt that this was the case; but whether the authorities did
not know the glorious steeples of Laon, or whether they have a view of
their own as to what looks best, they are certainly making the upper
part of this unfortunate west front look as modern in its outline and
meagre in its character as it is new and fresh-looking in its colour.
It were better that old work perished altogether, than that it should
be scraped, re-chiselled, cleaned and modernized in this heartless
manner!
The most noticeable feature of the interior is the treatment of the
triforium of the eastern portion of the church. This is groined with a
succession of transverse barrel-vaults, the effect of which is to give
an immense addition of strength to the main walls. They spring from the
capitals of a succession of detached shafts which are placed across
the triforium, so that the perspective of its interior is singularly
picturesque. It was not very long after the erection of the church
that the western portion of the triforium was altered, a quadripartite
vault being substituted for the barrel vaulting, and wherever this has
been done, the thrust has been too great for the principal groining
shafts, which have bulged considerably, and are now held in place by
iron ties. In the apse, the bays being of necessity much wider on one
side than on the other, the ridge of the barrel-vault rises rapidly
towards the external wall: and the triforium is lighted by a succession
of immense simple circular windows. The internal elevation of one bay
of this cathedral is nearly identical with the original design of that
of Paris, though simple and (I fancy) rather earlier in date; but from
the shortness of the church and the absence of transepts (in which one
point it reminds me of the fine church of S. Leu d’Esserent) it has
both inside and outside the effect rather of a choir only than of a
complete cathedral. There are various additions to the church of later
date, which add much to its picturesque character, especially a chapel
on the south side, the chapels round the apse, and the sacristies on
the north side. The stone roof above the groining of one of these is
remarkable. The arrangement of coloured tiles on the roof is one of
the best I have seen. The pattern is rather complicated, and is formed
with dark tiles (green and black used indiscriminately) on a ground of
yellowish tiles.
The church from the apse to the western towers consists of but three
bays of sexpartite vaulting, each bay covering two bays of the main
arcades. Between the towers is one bay of quadripartite vaulting.
Walking from Mantes across the river to the suburb of Limay, a fine
view is obtained of the town and cathedral, which shows here the whole
picturesque exaggeration of height as compared with length which
distinguishes it. Limay church boasts of nothing save a tower and
spire on the south side, of late Romanesque character throughout. The
surface of the spire is covered with scalloping, and has spire-lights
and fine pinnacles at its base. Some attached shafts against the face
of the belfry stage, which seem to serve no purpose, are curious as
being probably the type from which some similarly placed shafts in the
steeples of the cathedral were derived. Here too, as in the cathedral,
a most effective form of label is used, the section of which is a
square cut out into diamonds like unpierced dogteeth. We see the same
thing in England, and among other examples there is a good one at
Lanercost. Its effect is singularly bold and piquant.
A mile on the other side of Mantes is the little village of
Gassiecourt, whose cross church is of much interest. The glass in the
three chancel windows is fine, and of late thirteenth-century date.
The east window of four lights with twenty-five subjects has been
restored, and two of the subjects--the thirteenth and eighteenth--have
been quite wrongly placed. The window represents the whole Passion of
our Lord. The side windows of two lights contain large figures under
canopies of the early part of the thirteenth century, in a sad state,
but of very considerable value. The east window of the south transept
has subjects from the lives of S. Laurence and another. The internal
arrangement is remarkable; the fifteenth century stalls, with subsellae
and returns, being placed in the two eastern bays of the nave, leaving
three bays to the west. The old altar remains in the east wall of the
north transept. The walls and roof of the south transept are covered
with painting; on the roof are four angels with the instruments of the
Passion, one in each division of the groining; the west wall has a
painting of the Last Judgement, and the east large figures on each side
of the east window; on the soffit of the arch into the tower are angels
playing on musical instruments. The whole appears to have been painted
in the fifteenth century, and, though of no great artistic merit, is
of value in France, where, as in England, such things are very rare.
A grand Romanesque west doorway, and a simple gabled central tower
with a good belfry stage are the principal external features of this
interesting village church.
Before I conclude, I must say a few words as to the evidence of popular
feeling in regard to pointed architecture in France. It is partly,
doubtless, owing to the fact that all the great churches are national
property, and entirely sustained by the State, that we miss so entirely
any of that evidence of personal and widely spread interest in them,
which so honourably distinguishes most people in our own country. But
descending to the second and inferior classes of churches, we find
unfortunately the same apathy, the same neglect: so that a tour among
French village churches would leave an impression on the mind of any
Englishman that the clergy and laity are alike careless of their fate
and ignorant of their value. One of the very few village churches which
I have seen in process of restoration was being done by order of the
Emperor, and by a rate imposed upon the _commune_, aided by an imperial
grant; but there, as elsewhere, the repair was entirely confined to
the fabric; and pews, pavements, altars,--all remain still in their old
state, ugly, dirty, and uncared for. I must make honourable exception
in favour of one large parish church, Notre Dame, Châlons-sur-Marne,
where, with the greatest care and love for the building committed to
his charge, the excellent curé is carrying on a restoration which
appears to me to be by very far the best and most faithful that I
have seen on the Continent. I have seen, I grieve to say, but little
evidence of any practical love on the part of the people or the clergy
for their glorious churches, but I will let M. Viollet-le-Duc--than
whom who can be a better judge?--say what can be said as to the real
impression which they produce:--
“Dépouillés aujourd’hui, mutilées par le temps et la main des hommes,
méconnues pendant plusieurs siècles par les successeurs de ceux qui
les avaient élevées, nos cathédrales apparaissent au milieu de nos
villes populeuses, comme de grands cercueils; cependant elles inspirent
toujours aux populations un sentiment de respect inaltérable; à
certains jours de solemnités publiques, elles reprennent leur voix, une
nouvelle jeunesse, et ceux mêmes qui répétaient, la veille, sous leurs
voûtes, que ce sont là des monuments d’un autre âge sans signification
aujourd’hui, sans raison d’exister, les trouvent belles encore dans
leur vieillesse et leur pauvreté.”
II
Leaving Paris for Beauvais, the first station at which I stopped was
l’Isle Adam, from whence a walk of two or three miles by the banks
of the Oise brought me to the fine village church of Champagne. This
is very unlike an English village church in its general scheme, but
full of interest. In plan it consists of a groined nave and aisles,
of six bays, a central tower with a square chancel of one bay, and
transepts with apsidal projections from their eastern walls. The date
of the whole church (with the exception of the tower arches, which
must have been either rebuilt or very much altered in the fifteenth
century) is about the end of the twelfth century. It is now undergoing
repair at the joint expense of the Emperor and the commune, but this is
being done in so careless a manner that it is to be hoped it will not
proceed further than is absolutely necessary for the security of the
fabric. The western façade has a very singular doorway, the tympanum
of which is pierced with a window of six cusps, whilst the abacus of
the capitals is carried across the tympanum, and a square-headed door
pierced below. Above is a large wheel window of twelve lights. The
aisles are lighted with lancets, whilst the clerestory has a succession
of circular windows, which internally form part of the same composition
as the triforium, the lower part being an unpierced arcade. The chancel
is lighted at the east with a circular window enclosed within a pointed
arch and on either side with early geometrical windows of two lights.
The finest feature is the steeple, which rises in two stages above
the roofs. The belfry stage is excessively lofty and elegant in its
proportions, having two windows of two lights in each face divided by
a cluster of shafts, whilst other clusters of shafts at the angles of
the tower run up to a rich corbel-table and cornice, under the eaves of
the roof. The finish is a hipped saddle-back roof of steep pitch and
covered with slate.
Internally the most rare feature is a very light cusped stone arch of
flamboyant character, with pierced spandrils, which spans the western
arch of the tower, and no doubt originally carried the Rood. The
capitals in the nave are boldly carved, and carry the groining shafts,
which are clusters of three. At the west end of the north aisle, and
projecting beyond the façade of the church, is the ruin of a small
gabled chapel, the object of which I did not understand.
Altogether this church, owing to its fine character, and the retention
of almost all its original features and proportions unaltered, deserves
to be known and visited by all ecclesiologists, who travel along the
north-of-France railway to Paris. A few miles farther on the left
rises the fine church of S. Leu, which I have known for a long time,
and which deserves, as I think, very much more notice and study than
it appears to have received. The plan, situation, details, and style
(early first-pointed) are all alike of the best, and I know few,
even among French churches, which impress me more strongly with the
thorough goodness and nobility of their style. The east end of the
church rises from the precipitous edge of a rock, which elevates the
whole building finely above the level of the _riant_ valley of the
Oise. It was attached, I believe, to a Benedictine abbey, the other
buildings of which are all in a most advanced state of decay. The
church fortunately, though much out of repair, and in some points
altered into flamboyant, is nevertheless sufficiently perfect for all
purposes of study. It consists in plan of two western towers (the
north-west tower being only in part built) then six bays of nave and
aisles, three bays of choir, and an apse (circular on plan) of seven
bays; round the apse is the procession path, and four chapels, also
circular on plan, lighted by two windows, so that one of the groining
shafts is placed opposite the centre of the arch into each, and over
the altars. In place of the fifth chapel on the north side, a circular
recess is formed in the external wall of the procession path, so as to
make space for an altar without forming a distinct chapel. I should
be disposed to say that this was the original scheme of the church,
afterwards altered and much improved by the substitution of larger and
distinct chapels.[16] The central chapel of the apse has the unusual
feature of another chapel above it, on a level with the triforium,
adding much to the picturesque effect of the east end. In addition
to the western steeples there are gabled towers which rise above
the aisles on each side of the choir, and the church is remarkable,
like the church at Mantes, for the absence of transepts. Perhaps, as
the internal length is not quite two hundred feet, this is of some
advantage to the general effect. A considerable change has at some
time been effected in the external appearance of the east end, for on
examination I found that each bay of the triforium was formerly lighted
by two lancet windows between the clerestory and the roof over the
aisles. My impression is, that this must have been altered when the
chapels round the apse were erected and within a very short time of
the original construction of the church; but whatever the reason, the
church has lost much by the alteration. The six bays of the nave appear
to have been built after the west end and the choir. The latter has a
noble very early-pointed doorway, rich in chevron ornament, and this
seems to have had a porch gabled north and south between the towers so
as not to interfere with the window in the west wall of the nave. The
south-west tower and spire, though small in proportion to the height
of the nave, are of elaborate character. All the arches are round, and
there are two nearly similar stages for the belfry. The spire has large
rolls at the angles and in the centre of each face (an arrangement seen
at Chartres and Vendôme) but in addition it has the peculiarity of
detached shafts, standing clear of the rolls on the spire and held by
occasional bands. They have a certain kind of quaint picturesqueness
of effect, but were never, I think, imitated elsewhere. The whole face
of the spire is notched over with lines of chevroned scalloping. On
entering the church the first thing that is remarked is the excessive
width of the nave (thirty-six feet between the columns) compared to
that of the aisles (about twelve feet). The result is, that a grand
unbroken area is obtained for worshippers, whilst the aisles appear
to be simply passage-ways. The general proportion of the building is,
however, rather too low in proportion for its great width. Almost all
the arches throughout the church are, more or less, stilted, and with
the best possible effect. When the eye is thoroughly accustomed to this
it is curious to notice how unsatisfactory any other form of arch is.
The fact is, that a curve which commences immediately from its marked
point of support is never so fine as where it rises even a few inches
perpendicularly before it springs. The capitals throughout the church
are finely carved, and those round the apse are of immense size, and
crown circular shafts of very delicate proportions, much as at Mantes,
and (though on a heavier scale) at Notre Dame, Paris. The construction
of this part is of the very boldest character, and exemplifies in a
very striking manner the extreme skill in construction to which the
architects of the day had arrived.
Great effect is produced by the profusion of chevron and nail-head
ornament used on the exterior of the church; a double course of the
former of the very simplest kind forms the cornice under all the eaves,
and is also used down the edges of all the flying buttresses. On the
north side of the nave there still remains a portion of the cloisters,
of fine early character; two sides only remain, with a room of the same
date with groining resting on detached shafts. Some remains of gateways
in the old walls of the abbey are worth noticing, as also the old walls
which surround the church, built for the most part against the rock on
which it stands, with here and there very small openings, which make
them look as though they were intended for defence. Whilst I was in the
church some boys came to toll the passing-bell. They said that they
always did so on Fridays, at three o’clock.[17]
I saw nothing between S. Leu and Beauvais, though in the part of France
bordering on the Oise, I believe that every village would afford
something worth seeing in its church. My time, however, was limited.
As you reach Beauvais, the country changes; there is a great deal of
wood, a very scattered population, and but few churches. Of course the
first object of every one at Beauvais is the cathedral; a building
from the study of which I derived less satisfaction than might be
expected. It is unpleasant to find an artist striving after more than
he is really able to attain, and this was conspicuously the case with
the architect of Beauvais. The church was consecrated in A.D. 1272 and
fell in A.D. 1284. In order to repair its defects the arches of the
choir were subdivided, and from the great size of the columns, and
the narrow span of the arches, the present effect is that of a church
in which the arches have but little to do, and in which everything
has been sacrificed to keep the building from falling again. Then
when the roofs and passages about the building are mounted it is seen
that the great object of the architect has been simply to obtain one
grand effect--that of height and airiness, and that to this everything
has been sacrificed, the details throughout being poor, coarse, and
slovenly in their mode of execution. The whole gave me the impression
of being the work of an unsatisfactory architect, though at the same
time it is impossible to deny the excessive grandeur of the vast
dimensions of the interior so far as it is completed, or the beauty
of arrangement which marked the original scheme of the ground-plan,
unpractical and unstable as it was. It may be right, however, to
attribute some of the failures, with M. Viollet-le-Duc, to the
carelessness of workmen; though no good architect allows himself to be
so excused.
It seems very like presumption to criticise such a building, yet
I know not the use of architectural study if it is to be pursued
with that blind faith which obliges one to admire indiscriminately
everything that was built in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.
The mere fact that the main intention of the people of Beauvais was
to build something finer than their neighbours at Amiens is in itself
suggestive; and I am not surprised that a building erected on such
terms is unworthy of its age. It is one of the very few buildings
of the kind which impresses me in this way; for usually the feeling
derived from the study of mediaeval churches is one of respect for
the absence of anything but the most thoroughly artistic feeling on
the part of their builders. No doubt the architect of Amiens did his
work in the best way he could, with little reference to what was being
done by his neighbours; and it is curious that the grand success which
he achieved should have led, both at Beauvais and (I think also) at
Cologne, to unworthy and unsuccessful attempts at rivalry. I can quite
see that a claim may be made for the architect of Beauvais, as a man of
genius who was not quite so safe a constructor as his contemporaries,
but who nevertheless conceived the grandest idea of his age, as far as
size and height were concerned. I can only answer that this is not the
character of a great architect, and would lead me to class him with
the architect of the abbey of Fonthill, rather than with the architect
of Amiens or Chartres. The first architect of Beauvais was, however, a
better architect, in some respects, than his successor; for though his
details (seen in the apse only) were not of the first order, those of
the latter are about the worst I have ever met with in a French church
of such pretensions.
The glass in the clerestory windows has a band of figures and canopies
crossing them at mid-height, with light glass above and below: this
is an arrangement often met with, and generally productive of good
effect, especially in windows of such great height. A museum attached
to the west side of the north transept contains a few antiquities; but
the feature of most interest is a late, but good cloister, noticeable
for the extreme delicacy of the shafts and piers between the trefoiled
openings. In the museum is a fair embroidered mitre, which belonged to
F. de Rochefoucald, Bishop of Beauvais, in 1792.