In 508 A. D. the Franks under Childeric captured the city, and in 720 A.

D. Charles Martel captured it from Bishop Rigobert. Here, too, Pope

Stephen had his famous interview with Pepin, and attended the crowning

of Louis le Debonnaire in 816 A. D. In 744 it was made an archbishop's

see, with suffragans at Amiens, Beauvais, Chalons, and Soissons. It is

to-day the ecclesiastical capital of France--the Archbishop of Reims

being the metropolitan prelate.

Clovis, son of Childeric, King of the Ripuarian Franks, in 496 A. D.

conquered the last Roman stronghold at Soissons, and, having married a

Burgundian princess, Clotilda, was induced to accept Christianity. He

was accordingly baptized here by St. Remi on Christmas Day, 496 A. D.

Leo III. met Charlemagne here; a council was held in 1119 A. D. by

Calixtus II. in an attempt to reconcile Henry I. and Louis le Gros; and,

later, another, to excommunicate another Henry.

Succeeding years saw a continuity of archbishops, who achieved by their

religious works a world-wide fame and glory. In these early days they

held the temporal as well as spiritual power of the cities, and in some

instances even coined their own specie.

In spite of the changes of the times and conditions of life, the

ancient capital of Belgica Secunda still remains the chief city of the

Departments of the Marne, Ardennes, and Aisne. Its ecclesiastical and

secular monuments, headed by the grand Cathedral of Notre Dame, form an

array which is well worthy of such extended consideration as the

traveller or student can give. The Benedictine Abbey, the Church of St.

Remi, is likewise notable in all of its dimensions and details. Its

construction dates from 1162-1506, though the remains of a former

tenth-century structure are made use of therein. Its chief treasure is

the tomb of St. Remi, a wonderful Renaissance funeral monument of

imposing proportions. Another monumental feature of more than unusual

note, is the magnificent Roman arch of the former fortress of Porte

Mars. This truly majestic specimen of the work of the Roman builder is

supposed to have been erected by Agrippa in 25 B. C., in honour of

Augustus, although another authority puts it as late as the period of

Julian, 361 A. D. At any rate, it has stood the rigours of a northern

clime as well as any Roman memorial extant; indeed, has seen fall all

its contemporaries of the city, for at one time Reims was possessed of

no less than three other gateways, bearing the pagan nomenclature of

Ceres, Mars, and Venus.

The various other memorials of the city are on a no less grand scale,

but the average person will hardly have eyes and ears for more than a

contemplation of the wealth of splendour to be seen in its overpowering

cathedral. Of the glorious group of monumental churches of northern

France, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Reims, if not admittedly the most

beautiful and memorable Gothic edifice in all France, needs but little

qualifying comment. It has a preeminence which has been generally

conceded, and even elaborately endorsed, by most observers qualified to

pass opinion hereon. Contemplation of the wealth of detail, and of the

disposition of its wonderful west front, no less than of its general

excellencies, can but compel the decision that in its exterior, at

least, the Cathedral of Reims is the peer of any existing Gothic fabric.

Though less huge than Strasburg or Cologne, and lacking the doubled tier

of flying buttresses of the latter, it is altogether the most splendid

and well-proportioned Gothic mass extant. The diminishing or pyramidal

effect of the towers and gable of this west facade is an exemplification

of the true symmetry of Gothic form. Lofty, and not closely hemmed in

by surrounding structures, it looms, from any adjacent view-point, fully

two-thirds of its decorated splendour above the general skyline round

about. Aside from modern adulation we have the praise of an early

historian, who delivers himself thus:

_"Decor et majestes praeclarissime hugus structurae omnem scribendi

peritiam longe superat, ob elegantum omnibus est admirationi, at que

sibi similem non habet in tota Gallia."--Met. Rememsis Hist. Dom.

Guliol. Marlot S. Nicasii Rem. Prioris, Tom ii. p. 470._

Following the preaching of St. Remi, and the murder of St. Nicaise, who

founded a church on this site in 400 A. D., Ebo, bishop in 818 A. D.,

laid the foundations of a new church, Louis I. granting that such

material as might be needed be taken from the city wall. To assist, the

sovereign also sent his architect, Rumaldi. In 847 A. D. Archbishop

Nicman secured a renewal of the privileges, and in the presence of the

king the building was consecrated in 862 A. D. The western entrance was

ornamented with graven statues of Louis I., the patron, Pope Stephen,

and the archbishop himself.

This entire fabric succumbed to fire on the 6th of May, 1210, and the

present structure rests merely on the remains of the ancient crypt,

which in a measure survived. Few visible remains of this ancient

foundation are to-day visible. The new church reared itself rapidly

under the immediate supervision of the Archbishop Alberic de Humbert.

The choir, begun within two years of the fire, made such progress as to

allow of the high altar being ceremoniously dedicated within three

years; and, before the middle of the century, the records tell us that

the main body of the church was entirely completed. The right tower was

uncompleted at this time, but was finished by Cardinal Philastre in

1430, up to which time intermittent labour had evolved a superlative

combination of constructive and decorative excellencies. The extreme

lightness of the west front is brought more and more to impress itself

upon one by reason of the consistent disposition of the excellency and

delicacy of its sculptured ornament.

This western front, from the grand portals upward, is the _apogee_ of

French Gothic ornament,--at once the admiration and boast of all France.

Here is no mixture or confusion of style, in design or decoration. The

pointed arches of window and doorway are of the accepted "best manner,"

the heavy detail is placed low and rises gracefully to the "Gallery of

Kings," a grand succession of stone effigies of royalties from Clovis to

Charles VII., a decorative arrangement not made use of elsewhere to

anything like a similar extent, a fact which of itself stamps the

cathedral as the royal church of France. Conceived by one Gaucher, the

portals are not only superior to all others in richness, depth, and

quality of the sculpture shown in the hundreds of figures with which

they are peopled, but are of exceedingly true and appropriate

dimensions, taken in relation with the other parts of their setting.

Immediately above the gable of the central portal is a wonderful rose

window, of the spoke variety, containing thirty-four sections,--of

immense size and nearly forty feet across. This "most perfect rose,"

designed by Bernard de Soissons, may well be credited as one of the

masterworks of architectural decoration in all the world. Flanking this

great window on either side are two open lancet arches, while above is

the "Gallery of Kings" before mentioned. The twin mullioned towers on

either side rise for two hundred and sixty-seven feet. Light and airy,

they depend for their effect of grace and symmetry entirely upon

structural design, lacking sculptured ornament of any kind. Formerly

they possessed spires of a great height, which, however, were destroyed

by fire in the fifteenth century.

"Were all its original attributes complete," says Fergusson, "we should

have the _beau ideal_, externally, of a cathedral." This is probably an

adaptation of Viollet-le-Duc's estimate, which he expresses thus: "This

west facade is the most splendid conception of the thirteenth

century,--Paris, like Laon, being really a transition example, Amiens

representative of different epochs, Chartres a mere reunion of

fragments, and Bourges and Rouen a _melange_ of three centuries."

The south transept portal, which is of great breadth, contains statues

of the Archbishops of Reims, and one of Clovis. A similar doorway on the

north side, though now walled up, contains, in the tympanum, a fine

sculptured "Last Judgment," while the transept itself houses one of

those great clocks so frequently met with in Continental churches,--in

this instance said to be the oldest running time-piece in existence.

Seven flying buttresses, between the transept and the west front, flank

the nave, each holding aloft an elegantly canopied niche containing a

full-length winged figure, a further unique arrangement being a similar

figure which caps or pinnacles the outer piers, from which the

buttresses spring. Above the point of contact of the buttresses with the

main body, runs an effective balustrade of small pointed arches, while

the abside shows, again, a wonderful combination of the buttress as a

decorative and utile feature, combined.

The exterior may be summed up briefly as being the most gorgeously

peopled and decorated structure of its age--as though it were expressly

designed to show off this great throng of statues to the best possible

advantage. Taken collectively, the series forms, says one writer, "the

most complete and magnificent collection of mediaeval iconography

extant." The figures were originally perhaps as many as five thousand,

representing nearly all the families of mankind.

In size the Cathedral of Reims ranks third among the four largest in

France, being exceeded only by Amiens and Chartres, while Paris is

slightly smaller.

The interior presents by no means the awe-inspiring grandeur of the

exterior mass, and is possibly inferior to both Amiens and Chartres,

and though well disposed, lacks the lightness of Cologne or Beauvais. A

first impression rather indicates large proportions of length, breadth,

and height in the nave, though these dimensions are not actually of the

greatest. The transepts, including their aisles, are, however, of an

extreme width, but very short; and the absence of side chapels, either

here or in the nave, produces a regularity of outline unusually

convincing.

The nave piers, of which there are ten on either side, with two window

piercings, are of a manifestly heavy order, the capitals unusually so,

being very deep and weighty with carving in high relief. The triforium

is severely plain, being a mere shallow gallery of small pointed arches.

The nave itself is, moreover, somewhat gloomy, when contrasted with the

brilliant lighting of the aisles, caused by the peculiar arrangement of

plain and coloured glass, the former filling the windows of the

clerestory and the latter those of the aisles, the reverse being the

case with the opposite ranges. The aisles have no chapels between the

rather low windows, but groups of clustered columns against the walls.

The vaulting is deep, with simple ribs, coloured with a blue ground

spangled with stars and _fleurs-de-lys_. The choir is surrounded by

seven chapels.

There are ten columns in the choir, all with beautifully wrought

capitals. The pavement here is composed of marble taken from Libergier's

abbey church of St. Nicaise, from which edifice, since destroyed, was

transferred the tomb of Jovinus, the Roman prefect of Reims, who became

converted in 366 A. D. The sarcophagus consists of a huge block of

marble, nine feet by four, with a figure of Jovinus, "lion hunting on

horseback," carved in high relief. The roof of the choir is curiously

constructed of wood, of chestnut, say the authorities, as no spiders are

found. The high altar, as reconstructed by Poncelet Paroissien in 1550,

was a very beautiful affair if old prints, usually none too reliable as

to detail, are regarded. It was, however, destroyed during the middle of

the eighteenth century.

The glass of the rose window dates in part from the period of the

greatest richness (thirteenth century).

The sepulchral monuments, aside from the sarcophagus of Jovinus, are

to-day practically _nil_, having been swept away during the terrors of

the Revolution. Two interesting effigies still remain, however, near

the western doorway, a figure of a mailed knight and an abbess.

Among the real riches of the Cathedral are the remarkable and unique

tapestries; well preserved, and of the finest quality of design and

texture. Fourteen, by Lenoncourt, date from 1530-70; those in the south

aisle, the Pepersacks, the gift of Abbe Lorraine, from 1640; and the

modern Gobelins of the nineteenth century, the gift of the government.

The "Tresor," which includes the church plate, most of which appears to

have endured the ravages of invasion and wars, is truly magnificent and

intrinsically of great value. The chief of these are: the chalice of St.

Remi, of the eleventh century; a reliquary containing a thorn from the

Holy Crown; the marble font in which Clovis was baptized in 496 A. D.;

the chasuble of Louis XIII., and the _Sainte Ampoule_, which contained

the holy oil brought by a dove from heaven for use at the conversion of

Clovis, now a mere fragment enclosed in a modern setting, after having

been ruthlessly shattered by a _sans-culotte_ in 1793.

Adjoining the Cathedral, on the right, is the Episcopal Palace, which,

with its dependencies, occupies a hectare or more of ground. In the

first courtyard is the modern library building, which houses the

cathedral's rich bibliographical treasures. Further, through a gateway,

is a structure, in itself a grand building, of the time of Louis XIV.

The right wing was constructed by Le Tellier in 1690. This portion is

now occupied as a dwelling by the archbishop. At the end of the furthest

courtyard is "The House of the Kings," a truly grand establishment, so

called in the official documents because it was the _logement_ of the

monarchs who visited the city on affairs of state. This recalls to mind

not the least notable of the functions performed by the great cathedral

itself.

With four exceptions all the Kings of France, from Clovis to Charles X.,

here first entered into their kingly state. The monarchs of France were

a long and picturesque line, and the ceremonies attendant upon their

coronations were accordingly imposing and magnificent. The culmination,

for theatrical splendour and effect, was doubtless that of Charles VII.,

who, through the efforts of the "Maid," here came into his own. It was a

splendid, if gaudy, pageant, and the most memorable event among that

long series which only ended with the coronation of Charles X. in 1823.

_PART III_

_The Cathedrals of the Loire_

I

INTRODUCTORY

The Loire Valley for its whole length may, in every sense, be well

considered the dividing-line between northern and southern influences.

The romance and sentiment which cradled itself here could only have

emanated from the more languid south, and from vastly differing

conditions to those of the colder north. The admiration usually bestowed

upon the attractions of its domestic architectural forms is, no doubt,

fully merited; albeit that the cathedrals of these wealthy and powerful

communities are, no one can possibly deny, if not of a mongrel type, at

least of a degenerate one. It is perhaps hardly fair to note such an

expression without qualification where it is applied to St. Gatien at

Tours, which is really a delightfully picturesque structure; or to St.

Maurice, at Angers, which is unique as to its charm of situation, and

one of the most interesting churches anywhere to be found. But the fact

is that the general plan and design is not only open here to much just

criticism, but is not of the order of consistency which alone entitles

an architectural monument to rank as truly great. In no instance, from

Orleans to Nantes, are the cathedrals of these cities possessed of the

consistent array of charms which would entitle them to a proportionate

share of the admiration which is usually accorded to the great domestic

establishments, the Chateaux of Blois, Chenonceau, Chambord, Langeais,

or Loches.

The climatic conditions of this region hardly more than intimate the

suggestion of the southland, but there is to be seen in the vineyards,

and indeed in things that grow, generally, a notable tendency toward a

luxuriance that is not found northward of this valley. Productive,

prosperous, influential, and possessed of historical and sentimental

associations as a touring ground far beyond any other section of France,

the Valley of the Loire at once takes rank as the land _par excellence_

where the traveller can be sure of a maximum of pleasure and profit; and

one worthy in every way of as prolonged study and sojourn as one's

possibilities and circumstances will allow.

The towns group themselves naturally _en suite_ in the following order:

Orleans, Blois, Tours, Angers, and Nantes, and are so considered in the

pages that follow.

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of Ste CROIX ORLEANS_]

II

ST. CROIX D'ORLEANS

The association of Orleans, in English minds, mostly rests upon the

events connected with the siege. Its history in the past has been mainly

that of bloody warfare and massacre. As the Genabum of Gallia, it was

burned by Caesar in 52 B. C. in revenge for a previous massacre of the

Romans. By Aurelian it was rebuilt and named Aurelianum, the progenitor

of its present nomenclature. St. Aignan in 451 secured the safety of the

city to the cause of Christianity by warding off Attila's attack.

Clovis captured it in 498, but at his death it became the capital of an

independent kingdom which was afterward, in 613, united with that of

Paris. Activities no less extensive or vivid followed, till the English

besieged the city in 1429, only retiring before the conquering hosts led

by the Maid of Orleans on the 7th of May; the Huguenots held it as a

stronghold under Coligny; and latterly the Germans occupied it, were

driven out, and again reoccupied it as a base in 1870-71. Such, in

brief, is a partial record of its troubles and trials, with scarce a

reference to a Christian or religious motive, if we except Attila's

unsuccessful attack and Coligny's Protestant fervour.

The almost legendary part played by Jeanne d'Arc should suffice to

impress indelibly upon the mind the chief event in connection with any

city with which her name and fame were associated.

In the third century seven bishops were sent out from Rome, to extend

the influence of the Church, to Tours, Orleans, Toulouse, Narbonne,

Paris, Limoges, and Auvergne; though, in spite of the success with which

they met, and the zeal with which they worked, their meetings were

chiefly held in the houses of their more opulent converts, and church

building at the time appears not to have been so much desired as the

dissemination of the Word itself. Since its occupation by the Germans in

"'71," great contrasting elements have sprung up. Nowhere, not even in

the "up-to-date" Rhine cities of Germany, is better exemplified the

trend of the age in which we live. There are notable indications of its

modernity in the architecture of public and private buildings, many

streets and boulevards of the city being laid out anew and bisecting the

older portions.

The Cathedral of St. Croix, of widely contrasting styles and eras, forms

a pleasing enough key-note to it all, in spite of its garish crudities.

At its best, when viewed from the bridge which spans the well-nigh dry

bed of the Loire, it composes well with what is at all times a pleasing

prospect, and is set off to great advantage by the fringe of green

boulevard along the river bank,--a fine enough setting for an

architectural monument of whatever rank, be it new or old, consistent or

conglomerate. As for the classification of the architectural style of

the cathedral itself, it is an unprincipled mixture of components, but

little related to each other. The southern influence is apparent, alike

in the scanty remains of the Romanesque, and the restored Renaissance

portions, while Gothic peeps out here and there, in no mean proportions,

as though it were misplaced and out of its true environment. The

cathedral, which was destroyed in 1567 by the Huguenots, in spite of the

admonitions of the Condes, is still visible in the fragments of the

choir aisles, the fourteenth-century chapels appearing to have been

uninjured. This much remains of the Gothic of Henry IV.'s time. The late

seventeenth-century work is a manifest expression of the debasement of

Gothic, and such other additions as were made in the reigns of the Louis

carry the vulgarities still further, the acme being reached in the

pseudo-classical north and south porches, which are sepulchral-looking

of themselves, and not even of the most admired variety of the species.

The most that can be remarked, considering all the distinctive features,

is the fact that this cathedral is the only Gothic church, so ranking,

that is not of Mediaeval growth, a fact which may well account for its

unsatisfactory style.

The facade follows the usual enough arrangement of three portals, though

very ugly ones, flanked by rising towers on either side. In this case

these doorways are of the nondescript variety commonly accepted as base

Gothic, but hardly warranting even such a term of endearment. They are

in fact flamboyant as to their lines, though of a remarkable poverty as

to further embellishment, if we bar a series of misplaced armorial

blazonings.

Topping the gables of the portals are a series of circular apertures,

with framing of a sort, but without glass,--a poor imitation of what a

rose window might be at its worst. Above is an arcaded gallery of nine

graceful arches, the first really attractive ornament of this debased

facade. The towers, finished so late as 1789 by M. Paris, the king's

architect, rise loftily some two hundred and eighty feet, with ranges of

slight columns and perpendicular lines, which give the grand and

imposing effect of height of which the cathedral is undeniably

possessed, and which, when viewed from down the Rue Jeanne d'Arc, is

without doubt impressive,--far more so than greater intimacy will

sustain.

The nave, of a height of one hundred feet, is flanked by double aisles,

and in appearance is every way superior to the exterior.

No remarkable art treasures are to be seen, if we except a series of

sculptured Stations of the Cross beneath the windows, and the Gothic

altars of the transepts.

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. LOUIS BLOIS_]

III

ST. LOUIS DE BLOIS

Regardless of the sentiment which attaches itself to Blois by reason of

its magnificent chateau, and in spite of its undeniably picturesque and

interesting environment, it hardly takes sufficient rank as a cathedral

city to warrant more than a passing consideration. As it is, one cannot

get from under the shadow of its overpowering attraction, and, in spite

of the poverty and depressing qualities of the Cathedral of St. Louis,

perhaps no place in the Loire valley has more claim upon the attention

of the enthusiastic tourist. The wonderful chateau is all that has been

said of it, and more. The picturesqueness of the city's streets of

stairs, and its general up and down hill situation, offering charming

vistas, unique in a city of the north, are, except for its size, really

more suggestive of Genoa or Naples. In the general ensemble of the city,

the Loire is an attraction of itself, when viewed from across that

wonderful stone bridge, the first public work endowed by Louis XV. But

even then, the awkward and uninteresting cathedral does not enter into

the view with that liveliness and impressiveness which we are wont to

associate with such an environment. In short, it must be set down that

in the lack of pleasing qualities in its cathedral, is found Blois'

greatest disappointment.

The tourist _pur sang_ will care little about this. He usually rushes in

and out during the daylight, and recalls but little except the

fascinating staircase of the chateau attributed, as to its spiral

formation, to Da Vinci; the ornamental chimney-pieces; and the fact that

historical events of the past have intermingled inextricably the

gruesome stories of the royal houses which bore respectively the arms of

hedgehog and salamander. This only, with perhaps the memory that at one

time or another a certain event took place involving the use of some

forty odd daggers.

Perhaps, after all, it would be an embarrassment of riches did the town

possess a cathedral, or even other monuments, to vie with this

spectacular attraction which, from every view-point realizes the ideal

of our imagination, as to just what a chateau and its history might be.

From near or far the cathedral shows no charm of outline. Its ridgepole

is marred by three unusually obtrusive "lightning conductors," which

could hardly have been more offensive had they been turned into those

lath-like crosses which are seen elsewhere. Its tower is a monstrosity,

with an egg-shaped protuberance which is neither shapely nor impressive,

while the southern range of the nave and aisle, when viewed laterally,

shows a bareness and poverty of design unusual and painful. The

ensemble, from this point, is one of a certain impressiveness. It could

hardly be otherwise, with the situation which it commands, even were it

the grossest thing that ever took shape in architecture. Its

irregularities and inconsistencies, and the great variety of outline

shown by the roof-tops of the town, perhaps, make up in a measure for

the lack of individual beauties in the church itself.

There is this much to be said, however, for the functions which this

church performs. If all were as much made use of by the market-day

peasants, streaming in from the surrounding country, who, with their

jugs, market-baskets, and what not, in their hands, enter the building,

say a short prayer or two, and toddle out again, there would doubtless

be fewer churches with a poverty-stricken air and more of a better and

more prosperous class.

The greater part of the cathedral which originally stood on this site

was destroyed during the Revolution, and that which was afterward reared

here was merely a restoration by Mansard, who, it is to be presumed,

made such use as was possible of what remained.

The interior, most will agree, is no more remarkable than the exterior

adornments; in fact the same paucity of plan and of detail appears from

one end to the other, inside and out. The aisles are astonishingly low;

the choir and nave, each unusually short. There are no transepts, and

there is no triforium whatever, no chapels of any remarkable beauty, and

little glass that is even passable. On the walls of the nave, beneath

the low clerestory windows, are a series of four carven Renaissance

marble panels, with other blanks suggesting the ultimate addition of

similar sepulchral-looking ornaments. Such, in brief, is a resume of the

attractions, or rather the lack of them, as it will strike the average

person. It is perhaps no small wonder that the traveller who desires to

study architectural forms, or to sketch them, should prefer the less

holy precincts of the chateau, where every facility is offered for the

pursuance thereof, to that more "blessed ground," covered by the

cathedral, which offers little enough in itself, and that little under a

surveillance which makes one regret that the feudal times are not still

with us,--when we might vent our spleen and anger upon any who offend

us.

[Illustration: _St. Gatien de Tours_]

IV

ST. GATIEN DE TOURS

The _soi-disant_ provincial metropolis of Mr. James' appreciative

favour, the capital of old Touraine, is possessed of great and many

charms for the seeker after new things. He may be passionately fond of

churches; if so, the trinity here to be seen, and the history of their

founders and prelates, and the important part which they played in

church affairs, will edify him greatly. If romance fills his or her

mind, there is no more convenient centre than Tours from which to "_do_"

the chateaux of the Loire. If it be French history, or the study of

modern economic or commercial conditions, the past activities and

present prosperity of the city will give much food for thought. If to

literature one's mind turns, there is the association with Balzac's

birth in the Rue Royale, and his delightful picturings of the city's

environment in the "Cure de Tours," "Le Lys dans la Vallee," and "La

Grenadiere." Says Balzac of the habitant: "...He is a listless and

unobliging individual." But the sojourner for a day will probably not

notice this, and, if he should, must simply make allowance, and think

with Henry James of the other memories of "this land of Rabelais,

Descartes, and Balzac; of good dinners, good company, and good houses."

To link the city still closer with letters, the first printing-press in

Touraine was set up here in 1496. Nicolas Jensen, famed as the foremost

Venetian printer of his time, was born in the neighbourhood and was at

one time "Master of the Mint" at Tours. Christopher Plantin, the head of

the famous Antwerp family of printers, likewise was born in the near-by

suburb of St. Avertin pres Tours.

Climatically, Touraine appears to linger between the rigours of the

north and the mildness of the southland; at least we are conscious of

another atmosphere, made apparent by such evidences as palms and prunes

growing in the open.

Tours, says her historian, has ever employed the pure French in her

spoken and written word; "patois and provincialisms have no place

here."

St. Martin of Tours erected a church here, in honour of St. Peter and

Paul, as a sort of antidote to the many pagan temples which he had

caused to be destroyed. His successors built several others round about

the city, but they appear to have been all of small size until, in the

fifth century, Perpetus, Bishop of Tours in the reign of Childeric,

caused to be built a more splendid church to replace that which Briceius

had erected over the tomb of St. Martin. This, in turn, was rebuilt by

the celebrated Gregory of Tours, or so ordered by him; until finally in

the seventh century the abbey church of St. Martin of Tours became a

place of pilgrimage for all the Turones. To-day, nought remains of this

great church but the two towers, which have been bisected by the running

of a street throughout the old nave of the church; and thus they stand

as silent sentinels of the means through which Tours arose to its

ecclesiastical dignity. The Tour St. Martin or "de l'Horloge" is of the

twelfth century, and the other, called the Tour de Charlemagne, being

the burial-place of his wife Luitgarde, is, in its lower portions, of

the eleventh century.

The Cathedral of St. Gatien, which should be greatly endeared to the

English people, was commenced by Henry II. in 1170, the choir being the

earliest portion. The transepts followed in the next century, and the

facade as late as the fifteenth, or the beginning of the sixteenth,

century. Of manifestly Renaissance tendency, this facade for sheer charm

and picturesqueness must rank with the best, with the qualifying

statement added that it offends against many consistent artistic and

architectural principles. It is certainly an effective type, although

perhaps not warranting the statement of a certain monarch, whose art

training may to some degree have been wanting, that it was a "jewel in a

gemmed setting." An exceedingly picturesque and attractive pair of

towers rise, through no less than three different styles, to the

inverted egg-cups, which in a purer example might perhaps prove less

pleasing, but which in the present case seem at least to be imbued with

something of the Oriental or Mediterranean influence, not yet fallen

before the actual decadence. Another peculiarity of this charmingly

toned west front is that the rose window is of a peculiar lozenge shape,

"neither square nor round," as one authority puts it. This, of itself,

is decidedly not a graceful arrangement; but the proportions are ample

and the glass is good, so its deficiencies may in a measure be said to

be overbalanced by its merits; and, for that matter, as it is only seen

in its minutia of detail from the inside, where the excellent coloured

glass is seen at its best, it hardly detracts from the general fine

effect of the exterior facade. The western doorways are thoroughly

Renaissance, both inside and out, while the portals themselves offer a

livid suggestion as to what they might have been, were all the bare

niches and blocks filled and mounted with worthy statues. The effect

would have been an undeniable approach to the best matured Gothic, and

would have enhanced greatly this already highly interesting facade. The

buttresses of the choir follow the accepted forms of grace and

effectiveness, and, while not numerous or remarkable as to size, each

springs to a supporting pier gracefully pinnacled and gargoyled. One

instance of the functions of this valuable adjunct to the towering forms

taken by most Gothic structures, is a buttress which springs,

unsymmetrically enough, from the north transept. This rather ungainly

limb flies out like the tentacles of an octopus, grasps a small building

on the opposite side of a narrow roadway, and forms a support to the

irregular construction of the north transept. This was perhaps

necessary as a means of bracing the transept wall, which it might not

have been possible to accomplish otherwise.

The interior presents the unusual feature of the omission of the organ

case from over the western doorway, the organ being in this instance in

the south transept, as at Le Mans. The wall space centered upon the nave

proper is entirely given over to the lozenge-shaped "rose," which, in

spite of its rather heavy framing and kaleidoscopic and patchworky

glass, is withal effective beyond many more gracefully formed openings,

where the glass is either too severely plain, or worked into a supposed

design, which, by reason of its minute particles, is undecipherable. The

design and arrangement of a series of lancets supporting the lozenge

would be remarkable, were it in company with the best glass of the

middle ages. It depicts an "Adoration" in which kings, saints, and

bishops are modelled brilliantly, and with evidence of much good

drawing, a detail often wanting in old, or, for that matter, modern

glass.

The glass of the choir, on the other hand, is far better in arrangement,

and shows deep, rich particles which are only at their best in the work

of the early period here shown. In this glass are depicted the arms of

St. Louis, Blanche of Castile, and of the City of Tours. The choir

itself widens out from the crossing of the transept, causing that

deviation between the piers of nave and choir which made necessary the

ungainly flying buttress of the north wall.

The aisles of the nave are of no great width and are fringed with a

series of chapels of which only one, that of the Sacred Heart, is in any

way remarkable. The radiating chapels of the choir are more interesting,

notably the lady-chapel, which contains old glass removed thither from

the church of St. Julien, the subject of one of Turner's rhapsodies in

his "Seine and Loire."

The clerestory of the nave consists of plain glass only; and on the

triforium alone, of exceedingly graceful arcaded columns, depends the

beauty of the upper ranges.

The chief treasure of artistic value and moment is unquestionably the

tomb of the children of Charles VIII. and Anne of Brittany, by whose

early deaths the throne passed to the Valois branch of the Orleans

family. This remarkable monument is of the early sixteenth century and,

according to the report of the _Commission des Monuments Historiques_,

is the work of Guillaume Regnault, a statement which is much more likely

to be correct than the usual guide-book information, which in some

instances credits it to Goujon, and in others to a local apprentice of

his, named Juste. On a Renaissance sarcophagus lie the two tiny

effigies, in white marble, surrounded by guardian angels and other

symbolical figures. The base bears escutcheons of the Dauphins of

France, the arms and two inscriptions referring to the princes and their

birth.

[Illustration: _Flying Buttress, St. Gatien de Tours_]

[Illustration: _St. Maurice d'Angers_]

V

ST. MAURICE D'ANGERS

Historically and romantically, Angers, the former capital of Anjou, is

possessed of a past (which may be said to have actively commenced in

989) that cannot fail to arrest and hold one's attention. Capital of the

Dukes of Anjou, and the home of Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Rene, who

married Henry VI. of England; likewise the cradle of the first

Plantagenets; and immortalized by Shakespeare's King John, who

soliloquizes anent "The flinty ribs of this contemptuous town." With all

this, Angers has perhaps a supreme claim for English consideration. In

spite of all this, and the added attraction of a "real castle," such as

is seldom found outside the children's fairy-tale books, not to mention

the Cathedral of St. Maurice,--of which more anon,--Angers leaves one

with the impression that very much is wanting in order to merit

preeminence in the classification of those memories which a traveller

is wont to store up as a result of his travels and observations. Perhaps

it is the city's pitiful attempt to be gay, to be modern, to undertake

pretentious improvements,--all of which appear to fail utterly in their

purpose. These things cannot be unless they are of a spontaneous growth,

which here they apparently are not. Not that the city still merits the

opprobrious (_sic_) term of "Black Angers" with which most writers and

all makers of guide-books are pleased to refer to it,--it hardly does.

In fact it is doubtful as to just what the term originally meant.

Perhaps it was merely a reference to the gloom caused by the extensive

use in the construction of its buildings of the black slate in which the

neighbourhood abounds;--at any rate the expression is one of undoubted

antiquity.

The two chief attractions are the cathedral and the castle, both

"historical monuments." The latter, as before noted, is the ideal

military stronghold of our early imagination; and if age, magnitude, and

the general air of good preservation, count for anything, it must be one

of the most impressive monuments of its class still to be seen.

Originally its wall, now minus battlements, fronted close upon the

river. It is surrounded by a dry yawning _fosse_, formerly a moat, and

possesses no less than seventeen enormous and perfectly formed towers,

each perhaps eighty feet in height, banded near the top in white and

black stripes. Hardly more than a circling wall to-day, it has stood

well the test of time since it was erected by Philip Augustus and

completed under St. Louis in 1180. Little remains of the Renaissance

portion originally occupied by the Counts of Anjou. Its charm lies

rather in its exterior, the interior confines resembling more a

lumber-yard than anything else,--not worth spending one's time upon,

under the present facilities which are offered for its inspection. One

small structure within the walls is notable as being that in which King

Rene was born. It is recorded that Wellington received a part of his

military education in Angers. If so, it is probable that he studied this

military defence with some care and minuteness. To us, at least, who

have not been educated with respect to military fortification, it seems

to fill all demands that are likely to be made upon a building of its

class. Doubtless it could have been besieged successfully, and even

battered through to the extent of allowing the outside foe to enter, but

it would probably have been at a fearful cost, and it is possible that

the attempt would be given up before any surrender took place. Such

would appear to an outsider to be the lines on which these magnificent

works of feudal times were built.

One should not speak slightingly of the Cathedral of St. Maurice, though

it comes upon one who journeys from the north, as a thing apart from

anything he has met before; so much so that he is hardly likely to be

able to judge it dispassionately until he has turned his impressions of

it many times over in his mind.

The Angevine style, seen here, is representative of but a very

restricted area. The _Societe des Monuments Historiques_ defined it as

"a small district on both sides of the Loire between Normandy and

Acquitaine." It is suggestive of the Roman manner, far more than the

Gothic; though the primitiveness shown in the long, upright lines of the

west front of this cathedral marks it at once as something different

from either Romanesque or Transition,--though Transition it must be,

unless we delimit the confines of that useful term. In any case, it

points unto heaven in a truly devout manner, is not debased in any

particular, and, if not a consistent style, has many of the good

qualities of both. The Cathedral of St. Maurice is best seen from a

point of view which will exaggerate its height, its slimness, and its

straight and upright lines; but even this does not appear to work out to

its disadvantage, in spite of the new note it strikes. It is an

interesting work when viewed from any distance sufficient to throw its

outline well into the air. From across the Maine, it is charming; from

the foot of the stairwayed street which runs downwards from its western

portal, it is picturesque and irresistible, while from any other

view-point in the town, it is grand.

The easterly end is dwarfed by close-lying houses, picturesque enough in

themselves; but the gracefulness of the buttress is wanting. The south

side is, here and there, broken into by additions and interpolations,

none apparently of a contemporary era. It offers a grand effect for an

artist who would study gray walls and crumbling roofs, but the lack of

uniformity will offend most people.

The facade of the west is the most effective feature, so far as

genuineness is concerned. It towers to the sky, its needle-pointed

spires overtopping a crooked street which rises sharply from the river.

There is but one portal, and that is centred with a curious Romanesque

arch half-way across its height, above which is a bas-relief of great

size. The sculpture of this portal, while not as excellent as that seen

in the Isle of France, is of an unusual richness and execution. The next

range is unique among west fronts, being a large central window, but

slightly pointed and little removed from the Romanesque. It is bare of

coloured glass, and is decidedly not an attractive feature. On each side

of this great window are a series of blunt pointed lancets, which form a

sort of arcade which otherwise relieves the bareness which would exist.

Immediately above is a row of niches which hold eight armour-clad

knights of the fifteenth century, inferior perhaps, in execution, to the

sculpture of the portal, but producing an effect, when viewed from the

ground, undeniably fine. It is a detail as interesting, in its way, as

the long "Gallery of the Kings" at Reims. Above rise the slim spires,

with an octagonal cupola superimposed over a central structure, which

looks to this day as though it were originally intended as one of a

battery of three uniform spires. The general plan of this facade is the

masterpiece of design of the building, and, except for the ludicrously

diminutive clock-face, could withstand nobly the cavil of the most

exacting pedant who ever read or studied architectural forms, solely out

of books. In the immediate foreground falls the before mentioned street

of steps. Many old tumble-down houses have recently been cleared away,

and, at the present writing, the view from this point is one which has

apparently not previously existed, and one which it is to be hoped will

not be marred by the erection of any so-called modern improvements.

The interior fills no accepted formula of architectural expression, save

that it is of the manner common to Anjou, the borderland between the

Gothic aisled and the great and aisle-less southern naves, but it holds

one's interest none the less. Perhaps, after all, it is the quality to

interest, quite as much as that to please, which is the standard by

which one makes estimates and forms opinions. There is a not very long

nor very wide nave and choir, neither with aisles, and both with a

vaulting which gives the appearance of being much lower than it really

is, quite the contrary impression to that received from contemplation of

the exterior. The bishop's throne sets midway on the right of the nave.

Each bay of the side walls of the nave is composed of a wide pointed

arch resting immediately upon the ground and filled with stone instead

of glass; reminiscent of a similar effect in the Church of Notre Dame de

la Cloture at Le Mans. The true windows of the nave rise in pairs above

this arch, and contain rich, though somewhat fragmentary, glass of the

thirteenth century. As characteristic of the Angevine style, there is no

triforium or clerestory, and hence, it is claimed, no necessity for

flying buttresses, the support being accomplished by less graceful, if

as effective, heavy square piers built into the outer wall.

The transepts are not pronounced as to length or breadth, their chief

beauty being their rose windows.

The choir, of the twelfth century, shows an interpolated and elaborately

flamboyant doorway of a much later period.

An ornate oaken pulpit of none too good Renaissance carving is in the

nave, and the organ case over the western doorway is supported on the

shoulders of a series of huge, grotesque, but monstrously human, wooden

caryatides. This, with the gigantic, high canopied carven wood pulpit,

one of the most extraordinary in the country, forms a relief to coldly

chiselled stone, certainly;--but few will consider their charms such as

would warrant counting them amongst ecclesiastical treasures.

The fourteenth-century tapestries from Arras (or Paris) were made for

King Rene and by him given to the cathedral. They represent scenes from

the Apocalypse, and, though having suffered somewhat from the

depredations of the Revolution, still exhibit evidences of rare

qualities of workmanship in their design and colouring.

The _benitier_ of _verd-antico_ marble supported by figures of lions is

a Byzantine work of the eastern empire, given to the cathedral by King

Rene.

The Dukes of Anjou and Margaret of Anjou were buried here, but the tomb

of the latter was desecrated and destroyed during the Revolution. Aside

from these, no other monuments of note are to be seen.

The Bishop's Palace, of the twelfth century, standing high beside the

cathedral, was restored by Viollet-le-Duc and reflects a mediaeval

splendour unseen elsewhere in the city, with respect to any great or

small domestic establishment.

The Maison Barrault in the Logis Barrault, built by a former mayor of

the city, one time Chancellor of Brittany, was the scene of the

magnificent entertainment offered Caesar Borgia in 1497. Afterwards it

became the residence of Marie de Medicis; later, a monastic

establishment, then a seminary, and lately simply an ordinary private

school. Says one writer, "No wonder its remains should be so scanty and

ill preserved."

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of St. PIERRE NANTES_]

VI

ST. PIERRE DE NANTES

As a city of commercial and strategic importance, no one will deny that

Nantes is supreme in the Loire valley; that its relations with the

affairs of Church and State are equally important, is a debatable point.

True, the edict in favour of Protestant worship, fathered by Henry IV.,

was a momentous and significant event; but the revocation, and the

subsequent massacres of the rascally Carrier, well-nigh wiped that out.

The history of the city is one long record of warfare and bloodshed.

Though holding the command of the Loire, the city has ever been more

closely identified with Brittany. Here, in its frowning tenth-century

castle, which fronts upon the river immediately in the foreground of the

Cathedral of St. Pierre, with which it forms an unusual grouping of

ecclesiastical and military architecture (M. H.), lived at one time or

another, most of the Kings of France, from Charles VIII. downward. Here,

too, Anne of Brittany was born, and here she married Charles VIII., thus

uniting the Duchy of Brittany with the crown of France. Her subsequent

marriage, in the chapel of the castle, with Louis XII., made for ever

impossible the future independence of the city.

Following the edict came the Revolution; and, as if the preliminary

horrors of massacres and atrocities, which spread to Orange in Vaucluse

and to Arras in Picardy, were not of sufficient stringency, the

"Noyades," or drownings, carried off the poor unfortunates, a boatload

at a time, until it is estimated that perhaps nine thousand were thus

cruelly murdered,--women, children, royalty, and the clergy alike. The

wrath which spent itself seemed to know no rank. The guillotine,

disease, and famine finished the work, so that the population of the

city was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, immeasurably

inferior in numbers to what it had been a decade before. The details of

these significant events are recounted quite fully enough by historians

generally; but, in reality, it has little to do with the aspect of the

city as it exists to-day, which, if not one of great splendour, partakes

in no small measure of the attributes of a large metropolis, amply

planned, beautifully laid out, and possessing, in addition to the

characteristics of Brittany with which it has been so long identified,

not a little of the influences and attributes of the south.

Immediately to the rear of the chateau is the Cathedral of St. Pierre,

ancient as to its foundation, and grand as to its general effect, both

inside and out, though its exterior is marred by its uncompleted towers.

Lofty, but of heavy proportions, St. Pierre de Nantes would, at first

sight, appear to offer much that goes to make a satisfying

ecclesiastical building. As a matter of fact, it fails in many

particulars to realize any ideal which we have come to admire. The

western facade is more indebted to the rich and reasonably ornate

portals for its undeniable impressiveness, than to the gable of towers,

which have crumbled exceedingly from the effects of wind and weather,

rather than of great age, since they date only from the fifteenth

century.

The choir rests on the remains of an older church, hardly to be seen

to-day in any appreciable evidence, in that restoration and rebuilding

have been so extensively carried on.

The windows throughout are but weak decorative elements, and lack

tracery and glass of a decorative quality, an obvious detraction in any

great architectural work. The south transept shows indications of four

successive periods of construction, and contains the best glass in the

church; otherwise it is severely plain.

The interior is by no means as incoherent as the exterior, the height of

the nave, one hundred and thirty feet, giving an otherwise

unapproachable grandeur; though this admirable dimension is qualified to

no small degree by a triforium of a luxurious florid growth, little in

keeping with the other attributes of firmness and strength.

The chapels throughout are bare and uninteresting so far as their altars

or decorative embellishments are concerned,--what they may be at some

future time, if the _Art Nouveau_ gets a foothold in church decoration,

is fearful to contemplate. Paintings, none too common in French

churches, are here somewhat in excess of customary numbers, though, as

to quality or interest, in no church in France can they vie with those

of the great churches of Italy or Flanders.

Like the neighbouring city of Tours, Nantes has in its cathedral, for

its _piece de resistance_, a magnificent sepulchral monument, the tomb

of Francois II., the last Duc de Bretagne, and Marguerite de Foix, his

second wife, erected to their memory by their daughter Anne. This

remarkable mausoleum was executed in 1502-07, after designs of Jehan

Perreal, by Michel Colomb and his pupils, Regnault and Jean de Chartres,

with the assistance of Jerome de Fiesole, who contributed the ornamental

portion. It fortunately escaped demolition at the Revolution, and was

brought hither and placed in the south transept from the Eglise des

Carmes in 1817. It is a wonderful exemplification of the very best

quality of Renaissance. The main portion of the tomb is of marble, with

black mouldings somewhat shattered in places, but not so much so as to

affect the contour or design. The effigies lie recumbent upon a slab,

their feet resting on a lion and a greyhound, upheld by a series of

miniature figures of the twelve apostles in niches of red marble. At

the corners are four nearly life-size figures, depicting Justice, with

sword and scales, said to be a portrait of the Duchess Anne; Power,

strangling the dragon of Heresy; Prudence, a double face, showing also

Wisdom, with mirror and compass; and Temperance, bearing a curb-bit and

a lantern. A tablet at the head bears the figures of St. Louis and

Charlemagne, and one at the foot, those of St. Francis of Assisi and

Ste. Marguerite, the patrons of the duke and duchess.

_PART IV

Central France_

[Illustration: ST. ETIENNE _d'AUXERRE_]

I

ST. ETIENNE D'AUXERRE

The entrance to the Burgundian city of Auxerre is more or less confused

if one would, at the first glance, attempt to recognize its cathedral

from among the three fine churches which in true mediaeval fashion loom

up over the river Yonne; not that the entrance is not pleasing: the

reverse is actually the case, though one's way into the town lies

through newly made roads. However, upon contemplation of the pleasant

prospect of town and river, he would be an uninspired person indeed who

would not be able to pick out the Cathedral of St. Etienne, with its

singular reddish brown roof, from among its less imposing neighbours. It

is the central building of the three, and it rises majestically above

all, enhanced by the fine grouping of its one lone tower.

As a type to admire, the cathedral, be it said, is not of a superlative

quality; but as a thing of beauty in many of its details and because of

its aforesaid commanding situation, it is one not to be ignored when the

really fine gems of mediaeval treasures are catalogued. It is another of

those types, so far as its choir is concerned, which rise to a loftiness

of soaring height, which, in later days, degenerated, or were lost

altogether in the fabric of the transepts and nave. The height of the

choir is perhaps not so great as it really appears, when gauged by its

sheer rise from the river level; but such is the suggestion, at least,

which, after all, is what the eye and certain other of our senses

admire, quite as much as a professed expert classification.

The western front is of unusual appearance in that the southern tower

glances off into the angle of the gable in most curious fashion; not

beautiful, nor as originally intended to remain, but so it is, and

offers at least a comparison of how a lofty gable looks when it lacks

towers of an appropriate height. At the right of this low tower of the

facade, hidden behind a wall, is a thoroughly Pagan doorway, which might

well pass unobserved, did one not actually stumble upon it unawares. It

is a curious reminder of other days and other ways, and how it became an

adjunct of this mediaeval church the local records fail to state. The

three main portals of the facade, as that of the transept, are somewhat

bare of ornament, though the main tympanum and the spring of the arch

are fairly filled. These portals are of the late thirteenth century, and

exhibit no traces of the debasement which subsequently entered into the

upper ranges of the tower and lateral portals.

Both the transepts and the west front contain rose windows of good,

though not remarkable design, and each is exceedingly generous in size.

The interior, generally, does not give the effect of the great height

suggested from the rear view of the choir overhanging the river front;

but both nave and choir are of unusual width, and so also is the

clerestory, which is lofty, and set with rare old glass of the most

splendid and valuable quality, in the main the gift of Bishop de

Villeneuve in 1220.

The choir terminates with the usual apse, which is further elongated by

the far-reaching lady-chapel, which adjoins the main fabric in a

graceful and unusual manner. The north tower was completed as late as

the sixteenth century, and that of the south was left unfinished,--as it

is to-day. The gable and its portals are highly decorated with statues,

niches, and crockets.

Around the aisles of nave and choir is a curiously suggested arcade with

an overhanging balustrade ornamented with a series of indifferently

sculptured heads. The bosses of many of the intersecting groins of the

vaults are coloured with questionable effect. There are also many

visible evidences of coloured wall decorations, which might perhaps as

well have been left covered, inasmuch as they have suffered exceedingly

in the attempted restoration; so much so, that it is impossible to say

whether they ever approached acceptable perfection; possibly not, as

they are supposed to date only from the period when much of this class

of work was of none too good a quality.

The triforium of the nave is gracefully balustraded, and the choir

stands apart from the nave, separated by an elaborate eighteenth century

iron _grille_. The ambulatory of the choir sets three steps lower than

the nave, though the platform is on the same level. The crypt beneath

the choir, so often the only existing remains of an earlier church, is

here grandly in evidence, and dates from the eleventh century at least.

There are a few interesting tombs of former Bishops of Auxerre and

others of local celebrity.

On the whole the charm of Auxerre and its cathedral must be admitted to

lie in its general surroundings and immediate environment, quite as much

as because of any remarkably distinctive features of a superlative

quality in the cathedral itself, though an undeniable wealth of

picturesque detail exists.

The conventional guides speak of it as "highly interesting," and so it

is, with its Romanesque remains, its ungainly facade, its three fine but

weather-worn doorways, and its charming river view.

Beside the cathedral stands the old-time Episcopal Palace with its fine

arcaded Romanesque gallery overlooking the river, where the prelates

took their "constitutionals," safely guarded from wind and weather.

To-day this grand building represents the officialdom of the local

Prefecture.

Two other noble ecclesiastical monuments are to be seen here, the Church

of St. Germain, or rather, the fragment which was spared by the

Huguenots, now being used as an adjunct to a hospital; and the Church of

St. Pierre. The latter is the most appalling example of a Renaissance

building which one is likely to meet with, and shows in its remarkable

facade, in sheer perversion of misdirected labour, the grossness of

pseudo-classicism, which quite entitles it to rank with that other

equally abominable example in Paris, St. Eustache.

The _portail_ of this remarkable church, locally so called, though in

reality it is only a detached gateway, far from the church building

itself, is a wonderful Italian suggestion, now mellowed and weathered

and undeniably charming in colour in spite of its being so manifestly

out of its environment.

[Illustration: _St. Etienne de Bourges_]

II

ST. ETIENNE DE BOURGES

The Cathedral of St. Etienne de Bourges partakes of the same honours

which are accorded to the premier quartette of the Isle of France.

Nearly contemporary with Paris and Laon, this cathedral steps into its

rank with a grandeur and firmness that in a less stolid or more ornate

edifice is often wanting. It retains certain of its Romanesque features,

perhaps unduly pronounced; likewise it has certain attributes of

Burgundian luxuriance; but withal it presents the highly developed

Gothic tendency to a far greater degree than either. Although not far to

the south of Paris, Bourges is thoroughly of another climatic

environment, which not only shows itself in the changed conditions of

life, but in the manner of building as well.

The great transeptless church of St. Etienne is another of those soaring

monuments which rise skyward and hold the eye whenever one is in its

vicinity. Standing on an eminence of not very great height, it

dominates, from every point of view, the plain which surrounds the city

and reminds one of Noyon or Laon in its comparative isolation. Not

because its domicile is not a place of some magnitude, but rather

because the neighbouring houses lie so huddled in a valley or plain,

does the city give the impression of being of less size than it really

is.

The view from the railway on entering the town is, as it has been called

by some imaginative Frenchman, "but the _hors d'oeuvre_ of the

architectural feast to follow," and on drawing still closer, it composes

grandly with the swift-flowing little river lined with the tall slim

trees which are so distinguished a feature of a French landscape.

Like Beauvais, Amiens, and, in only a slightly lesser degree, Le Mans,

the sheer fall of the nave and choir from ridge to ground startles one

by its exaggeration of perpendicular lines. Though by no means of the

great height of these other examples, its great size first impresses one

as its distinguishing feature. It sits, too, on the edge of a beautiful

wooded park which, in conjunction with the modern Episcopal Palace,

forms an ensemble of stone and verdure not often to be seen as the

environment of a French cathedral. The gardens are quite open to the

public and are set forth with clipped hedges, trees, and monumental

stone work of no mean order.

Bourges is another of those ancient foundations of mid-France where

Romish influences died hard, and Gothic, as a perfected type, never, as

it were, attained its majority. Here, the mixture of style is notable;

pointed and rounded arches intermingled, apparently indiscriminately,

with thoroughly Gothic supports, mullions, and piers. These, with the

characteristically Renaissance north and south porches, with their

carven doorways, all go to complete a series of typically fashioned

details, each true to its own age. Such a combination of varying virtues

should give the student, or the seeker after new sensations, something

more to think about than a mere catalogue of consistent charms; for it

cannot be denied that this church, standing aloof from any other single

type, is a marvel of grandeur and impressiveness, whatever may be its

failings when dessicated by the theorist or the archaeologist.

It is unlikely that Saracen or even Moorish influences were ever at work

so far north as this; but there is an unquestionable tendency in much

of the debased decoration of this church to more than suggest a

similarity to both. It is, of course, not Gothic, as we know it, nor

Byzantine, _pur sang_, and it is certainly not Italian, but something

quite different. It is, perhaps, worthy of record that the inverted

horseshoe arch more nearly approximates what is commonly considered the

Moorish form; or, to give it a wider _locale_, Mediterranean, at least.

The polygonal turrets which flank the towers and the chapels of the

abside look, too, not unlike a sub-tropical feature, possibly Saracen.

Such details are markedly noticeable here, and it is because of features

such as these that one is minded to consider the church as something

quite different from anything seen elsewhere.

To carry the argument still farther, if these details are to be

considered in any sense Gothic, or any outgrowth thereof, it certainly

augurs much for the possibility of this style having come originally

from the East, or at least the Mediterranean countries. It has been

claimed before now by English and French writers alike, that it may have

developed from the arts of the Moors of Spain, or that it may have grown

up from a primitive style in vogue in the Far East. The comment is given

without further elaboration; but here, at least, we see some basis for

the claim that Gothic is but a transplanted flower after all, and that

it developed so boldly only from the seed's having been blown hither

from some other land, and finding a favourable soil in which to take

root and flourish.

Without transepts, the long flank of the nave and choir is singularly

beautiful, broken into at regular intervals by buttresses which, if not

remarkable examples, are at least graceful, though so light that they

have been visibly stayed by iron rods, as is frequently the case

elsewhere, at Beauvais particularly, where the whole fabric appears to

be hung together by wires.

The actual inception of the cathedral is attributed to Rudolphe de

Turenne, forty-sixth Archbishop of Bourges. Of his known work only the

round-arched crypt remains, upon which foundation the present grand pile

was reared.

The west front possesses a quintette of portals, deeply recessed, but of

a decidedly mixed Gothic and Renaissance treatment as to decoration.

Such a range of elaborated doorways is hardly to be found in such

luxuriance elsewhere, though the fact that there are five in all,

standing grandly in a row, is perhaps not unique of itself. They are

profusely decorated with sculptured forms of angels, saints, and kings.

The tympanum of the central portal contains a "Last Judgment,"

remarkable alike for its magnitude and workmanship. Throughout, these

portals vary in date of their construction, their treatment, and their

excellencies, but in general they are homogeneous and convincing. In the

gables of three are circular piercings which open into a sort of

vestibule or porch; but these are entirely without glass. Another unique

feature of this western front is a curious lofty double-storied

structure, a chapel-like building, of whose functions most will remain

in ignorance. It is connected with the main body of the church by a long

tentacle-like ligature through which, says Henry James, "the groaning of

the organ or the pealing of bells must be transmitted with distressing

clearness."

The hybrid tower on the extreme left, with many round-arched windows and

much florid ornament, is familiarly called the "Tour de Beurre," and, as

its compeer at Rouen, was built from the contributions of those who were

willing to forego themselves the luxury of butter. To the right is a

much less imposing tower, but one that is much more true as to its

style. It rises scarcely above the central gable, and helps to

exaggerate the lack of uniformity of the facade, a condition much

deplored by the true Gothic builder, though whether such varying detail

does not after all make a more interesting, and perhaps as edifying a

work for pleasurable contemplation, is an open question. There is, in

any event, a marvellous power in this massive west front to confirm

one's opinion that it is a comprehensive and yet varied thing. Another

curious feature of this front is a pair of overlying buttresses of no

apparent purpose as to staying power, since the wall space which they

flank is of no inordinate height. The window space, though, is ample;

and, though mostly in blank to-day, at a future time those blanks might

be broken out; hence the necessity for these extra props.

The interior gives, likewise, a grand impression, one of vaster

magnitude than in reality exists. The length is probably exaggerated by

reason of the lack of transepts; but its breadth, including nave and

aisle, is unusually great, and the height is further magnified by the

fact that the aisles themselves have three ranges of openings, above

which, in the nave, rise the triforium and clerestory,--surely alone a

sufficiently unusual arrangement to account the church as of remarkable

planning. Its great beauty may be said to be the magnificent proportions

throughout, rather than the preeminent intrinsic value of any specific

detail.

The rose window of the west end, though of grand proportions, appears to

fail utterly as a supreme effort because of the flatness and depression

given to its circumferential outline. Like that of St. Gatien at Tours

it is of an uncertain lozenge shape, while the effect is further

lessened by the mediocrity of its glass and framing.

The general appearance of the interior is one of symmetrical grandeur,

wherein the effect of each dimension is probably enlarged, but with a

fine and consistent proportion. Its conventional embellishments are not

unduly ornate; though, for that matter, they do not give the impression

of being wanting to any great degree either in quality or quantity. In

no particular, however, is the sculptured form of figure or foliage of

that excellence and magnitude of that of the cathedral at Reims or at

Amiens.

The magnificent proportions of the choir well merit the term of

"Burgundian opulence." Its termination opens with an amplitude often

wanting in even a larger building, the piers being wide apart, without

screening, which heightens still more its generous proportions.

The two picturesque cardinal's hats, with cord and tassels, have long

been pendant from the vault of the choir, and are now dimmed in colour

and thick deep with dust, seemingly destined to fall of sheer old age

and decrepitude. Further particulars concerning this picturesque detail

are wanting only from the lack of any one in attendance from whom one

might get this information,--perhaps some reader of these lines may be

more fortunate.

On the pavement of the nave is a brass rule, inlaid diagonally from the

north to the south wall. Its original use appears to be clothed in some

obscurity, one informative person stating that it is the line of

departmental division, and another that it marks the meridian of Paris,

which is shown on all French navigation charts. Its real purpose is

evidently topographical rather than of religious or symbolical

significance.

An ardent French writer deplores the fact that there is no monument

here to show respect for Louis XI., who was born at Bourges and baptized

in the cathedral; a pity, perhaps, and certainly a subject worthy of the

consideration of "the powers that be."

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. CYR & Ste. JULIETTE NEVERS_]

III

ST. CYR AND ST. JULIETTE DE NEVERS

A unique experience is one's first contemplation of the "gay little city

of Nevers" from the Pont du Loire, with the none too large Cathedral of

St. Cyr and St. Juliette crowning, as it were, the apex of a series of

steep rises from the Loire, which, even at this distance from the sea,

still retains its ample breadth. Said Arthur Young in his plain and bald

phraseology, "Nevers makes a fine appearance." Here, on the very

threshold of the southland, it is something of a shock to be brought at

once into intimate association with Italian influences and types of

architecture; for, be it recalled, Nevers has been truly "an Italian

stronghold in the midst of France," with little to remind one, but its

speech, that it is merely a provincial French market-town. Nevers was

the seat of the Italian Dukes and Counts of Nievre, who built the ducal

palace, the _ci-devant_ chateau, now the Palace of Justice. Here, later,

dwelt the nephew of the great Mazarin, who said his king "had a heart

more French than his speech." Through his efforts the Nivernais was

incorporated with the French crown in 1669.

This fine turreted, towered, and decorated building, with its sculpture

attributed to Goujon, is to-day, in appearance at least, what it was in

the past,--the typical urban domestic establishment of grand proportions

and splendid appointments; though it may hardly be said to vie with such

masterpieces as Chambord, Chenonceau, or Blois. Nor, for that matter, is

the town itself entitled to rank, as to its events of historical

importance or the fame or personality of its bishops or counts, with

either Chartres or Le Mans, both of which it somewhat approaches in

point of size.

Aside from its many and varied charms, which have been duly set forth

by most writers on the French provinces who have had anything whatever

to say about it, Nevers should be doubly endeared to all makers of

guide-books and students of ecclesiastical architecture, from the fact

that the Abbe Bourasse, Honorary Canon of Nevers, here wrote and

dedicated to his bishop, Mgr. Dufetre, a work treating of the French

cathedrals which will ever rank as one of the most delightfully written

and useful books of its class. This fact perhaps is hardly to be

reckoned as of historical moment, but pertinent to the plan of the

present work nevertheless.

Nowhere, not even in Provence or Acquitaine, are to be noted more

significant tendencies toward a southern influence in the matter of

civil and ecclesiastical building. True, many of the minor structures

have to-day descended unto base uses, and many of their perfections and

beauties are therefore sunk below the surface. For instance, where a

palace has become a warehouse, or a church been turned into a stable, or

been given over to the uses of a wine factor.

Before even considering the cathedral itself,--dedicated to the hero of

the legendary tale concerning St. Cyrus, who, depicted as a naked child

riding astride a wild boar, was able to turn the infuriated beast from a

certain King Charles (further designation not given) and preserve him

from danger,--it is well to know that most authorities agree in giving

habitation here to one of the most perfect Romanesque churches in all

northern Europe, that of St. Etienne, built in 1063-96, and consecrated

in the latter year by Ivor, Bishop of Chartres. Of the century

contemporary with this fine work, as yet hardly spoiled by any offensive

restorations, are two columns, in the easterly portion of the Cathedral

of St. Cyr, which bear the date of 1024. From this foundation the lover

of churches will rear for himself an exceedingly interesting and

uncommon type.

Not of the first rank, St. Cyr has the power to hold one's attention far

more closely and interestingly than many of greater worth and magnitude;

and its environment, from every point of view, composes itself into a

picture which it would be hard to duplicate. The grouping of the chevet

of the choir with the low roofs of the town lying at its base, and the

gardens of the ducal chateau in the immediate foreground, forms an

unusually varied combination of the picturesque.

The wealth of Nevers in architectural monuments would be notable in a

town many times its size. The Port de Paris, a not especially attractive

Renaissance gateway, guards the northerly, and the Port du Croux the

westerly, end of the town. This latter groups nobly with the west end

and tower of the cathedral, and is of itself a monument of the first

rank, being so designated by the _Commission des Monumentes

Historiques_. A feudal defence, square, broad-based, turreted, flanked

with circular watch-towers, and still further strengthened by a barbican

which once held a portcullis, this wonderfully effective barrier more

than suggests the mediaeval stronghold. Two other towers of the ancient

_enceinte_ still remain, the Tour Gougin, and the Tour St. Eloi.

Intimate acquaintance with the cathedral shows a blending, not

offensive, but in no slight manner, of the Romanesque, early and late

Gothic, and finally Renaissance styles. Nevertheless there is an

apparent cohesiveness often lacking in a larger work, or in one built

within a shorter period of time. One distinctly northern feature there

is; namely, the singular effect given by the double apse of the nave and

choir, reminiscent mainly of the Rhine builders, that of the eastern

end being much the older. The half-obliterated frescoes of the domed

vaulting of the western apse indicate that it was completed after the

pure Italian manner at a considerably later time than the opposite end.

It is hardly a beautiful or even a necessary feature to either the

exterior or interior of a great church, and, fortunately, is unusual in

France, though common enough in Germany, notably at Mainz, Worms, and

Treves. The most remarkable interior effect, aside from this western

apse, is that of the lofty Gothic arches, springing high above the

Romanesque arches of the nave, and naturally of a much later date.

Certainly this must be, so far as the respective proportions of each are

concerned, an entirely unique feature. Notable evidences are to be seen

of frescoes, probably the work of some Italian hand, both on the screen

and in the domed apse. They have apparently been whitewashed over many

times, but remorse, if tardily, has evidently come lately, and such

restoration or renovation as has been possible, has been undertaken.

A dainty and diminutive spiral stairway, suggestive of having been

modelled on the lines of the grand spirals at Chambord or Blois, and

half enclosed in the surrounding wall, leads to the Chapter Room above.

The eastern apse, and the crypt beneath, are the earliest parts readily

to be observed and are probably the remains of the Romanesque structure

built by Hugh II. early in the eleventh century, after the common type

of the Auvergnat and Angevine churches.

Perhaps the best workmanship to be noted is that of the

thirteenth-century chapels surrounding the choir. Reclus, a French

authority, has declared that the ornamental foliage here is not only

really admirable as to itself, but is the "perfection of imitation," and

extends this commendation also to the work on the pillars and capitals

of the north doorway by which the church is usually entered.

The interior generally is brilliant and pleasing, though good glass is

mostly wanting, and the uninterrupted flood of light detracts measurably

from the warmth and geniality suggested by the memory of Bourges,

Chartres, or Auxerre. The rose window over the western apse is pitifully

weak and quite lacking in effectiveness.

A canopied _baldacchino_ rises above the altar and, being of stone

treated in a graceful Gothic manner, is an ornament much more in good

taste than the hideous mahogany or oaken serpentine atrocities which are

often erected.

It is impossible to come into close contact with the exterior of this

cathedral except by approaching it from the eastern end. West front

there is none. As one has said, "It possesses merely a western end." The

western tower, of two non-contemporary orders of Gothic (fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries), whether viewed from near or far, is far more

pleasing than any other general exterior feature. The chevet of the

choir extends, as it were, well into the nave, there being no transepts.

This is evidently a local custom, recalling the neighbouring cathedrals

at Bourges and Auxerre.

The sculptured decoration of the later portion is exceedingly well

disposed, and of such magnitude and numbers as to lack that poverty in

the ensemble often apparent in a more pretentious work.

The Church of St. Etienne in Nevers, so thoroughly Roman in inception of

design and execution of detail, indicates more vividly than any other

example that might possibly be taken, the shortness of time in which the

Gothic development actually took place. With Notre Dame at Paris full

in mind, it is well to recall that these accepted perfect examples of

two contrasting types are scarce a hundred and fifty miles apart, and,

in point of time, but sixty years. What an exemplification this surely

is of the transition which came to the art of church building in the

twelfth century; what extraordinary rapidity of conception and

development, and how narrow were the confines of the true Gothic spirit,

indigenous only to the royal domain, which alone produced the churches

which fully merit the concisely expressed definition of Gothic: "A

manner of building maintained (sustained) by a system of thrust and

counter thrust."

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. MAMMES LANGRES_]

IV

ST. MAMMES DE LANGRES

Langres is reminiscent of but one other cathedral city in the north of

France; like Laon, it occupies and fortifies the crest of a long drawn

out hill, or, to give it dignity, it had perhaps best be called in the

language of the native "de la montagne de Langres," since from its apex,

it is truly dominant of a wide expanse of horizon.

Of the Burgundian transition type, the Cathedral at Langres, dedicated

to St. Jean the Evangel and St. Mammes, is in many ways a remarkable

architectural work, but contaminated beyond cure by two overbearing

Greco-Roman towers and a portal of the mid-eighteenth century. As a

relief, there adjoins the main body of the church, on the southeast, one

of those masterworks of the supreme Gothic era,--a canon's cloister of

an exceeding thirteenth-century beauty. In other respects, the exterior

is of little note except as to its wonderful degree of prominence in the

general grouping of the roofs of the town, when the city is viewed from

below.

The interior spreads itself out in severe and imposing lines with hardly

a remarkable feature in either transepts or nave. The organ-loft, a

Calvary, and a marble statue of the Virgin, by Lescornel, a sculptor of

Langres, and a few modern sculptured monuments, are the only decorative

attributes to be seen, if we except the Renaissance Chapelle des Fonts

Baptismaux with its sculptured vaulting on the left.

The symmetrical choir is in itself the true charm of St. Mammes. It has

a fine ambulatory, and a range of eight monolithic columns, removed,

says tradition, from an ancient Pagan temple. Their capitals are

ornamented with carven foliage, grimacing heads, and fantastic animals.

A sixteenth-century screen surrounds the choir, but is more like unto a

triumphal arch than a churchly accessory.

The high altar is a comparatively modern work, as may be supposed, and

dates only from 1810.

On the right of the choir is an elaborate Roman doorway, and preserved

in the Chapter Room are five paintings depicting the "Chaste Susanne." A

remarkable collection of reliques is shown by the sacristan, in the

Chapelle des Reliques.

V

NOTRE DAME D'AUXONNE

The small town of Auxonne, lying between Dijon and Besancon, is seldom

thought of in connection with a cathedral church. There is little there

to compel one's attention beyond the fact that the Church of Notre Dame,

of the fourteenth-sixteenth century, is an interesting enough example of

a minor edifice which at one time was classed as a cathedral.

The church is mainly Gothic and has the unusual arrangement of a

Romanesque tower rising above the transept.

_PART V

East of Paris_

I

INTRODUCTORY

No arbitrary territorial arrangement can be made to include with

exactness each and every ecclesiastical division, but, since the Royal

Domain and the immediately adjacent territory includes the major portion

of what are commonly accepted as the Grand Cathedrals, it has been

thought permissible, in the present case, to make a further subdivision

which shall include Boulogne and St. Omer, north of Paris; eastward to

the Rhine and southward to include Dijon and Besancon. A topographer

might not make such a division or arrangement of territory; but no other

seems possible which shall include the region lying between the extremes

of Besancon and Boulogne.

The local characteristics or architectural types differ widely within

these limits, both as to style and excellence. In one way, only, have

they advanced under conditions of unity, that of the establishment of a

Christian church, but, otherwise, now favouring the northern influence

and now the southern. The frontier provinces have, as a natural course,

been subject to many retarding influences which have been wanting

elsewhere; for invasion from without may be depended upon to be as

baneful for the preservation of a nation's art treasures as a revolution

from within. The Christian element early forced its way among the

Franks, and Clovis, at the solicitation of his Christian queen and her

bishop, was not averse to adopting what he might otherwise have regarded

as a superstition. His conversion at Reims not only fostered and

propagated Christianity, but gave an impetus to the foundation and

building of churches in a most generous fashion.

The region to the eastward of Paris, which has played no unimportant

part in the history of France, while prolific as to varied types of

church building, possesses but one example of the very first rank,--and

that, as a style which typifies Gothic art, may be said to rank supreme

over all others,--Notre Dame de Reims. As the seat of the Metropolitain,

and the City of Coronations, it was allied closely with early affairs of

Church and State.

The principles and manner adopted by Guillaume of Sens in his great

works early affected the style here, as seen by the many transition

examples, just as the influence of the Monk of St. Benigne of Dijon

caused the round-arched species of the west of France. At all events the

primitive Gothic influences were early at work and in a measure absorbed

the Romanesque tendencies which had flourished previously.

The most notable exception, an example of the distinctly southern type,

is at Besancon, which has a remarkable array of contrasting style, with

the Romanesque, though not of the best, predominating.

With the cathedrals in the extreme northerly section we have little to

do,--in fact there is little that can be said. St. Omer is possessed of

a wonderful old church which at one time ranked as a cathedral, and

which has glimpses here and there of very good Gothic. There are also,

in this otherwise not very interesting city, two other church buildings

worthy of more than an ordinary amount of attention, the ruins of the

Abbey of St. Bertin and the Church of St. Denis.

Boulogne-sur-Mer has a modern pseudo-classical structure built well into

the nineteenth century. It is more notable as a monument to the

industry of the man who brought about its erection, taking the place of

a former structure burnt during the Revolution, than as a satisfactory

example of a great church. The same may be said with equal truth of the

atrocious Renaissance and Pagan structures to be seen at Cambrai and

Arras, though the conditions under which they were built differ. At

Cambrai, however, the present building replaces a former structure

levelled by fire.

Chalons-sur-Marne,--dear to every French patriot as being renowned for

the manufacture of flags, a suffragan of Reims, has a remarkable

cathedral of Romanesque foundation of the fifth to the seventh

centuries. Its warlike record, from 273 A. D., when Aurelian vanquished

Tetricus, to the occupation by the Germans in 1871, is one long

succession of military affairs. To-day the city is the domicile of the

most important army corps of France.

These towns, with Nancy, Toul, and St. Die in the valley of the Moselle,

complete the list of those cities which by any stretch of territorial

boundaries could be classed under the head of "East of Paris."

It may be a debatable point as to whether Strasbourg and Metz might not

have been included; the writer is inclined to think that they might have

been, though their interests and influences have always been more

Teutonic than Gallic,--still, they are thoroughly Germanized to-day,

and, as we cannot interrupt the march of time, and the present volume

will otherwise approach the limits originally set out for it, they must

perforce be omitted.

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL NANCY_]

[Illustration: _BOULOGNE_]

[Illustration: _St. OMER_]

[Illustration: _ARRAS_]

II

NOTRE DAME DE BOULOGNE-SUR-MER

Boulogne-sur-Mer is one of those neglected tourist points through which

the much travelled person usually rushes en route to some other place.

It perhaps hardly warrants further consideration except for the history

of its past, and its intimate association with certain events which

might seriously have affected the history of England. It is, however, an

interesting enough place to-day, if one cares for the bustle and rush of

a seaport and fishing town,--not very cleanly, and overrun with

tea-shops and various establishments which cater only to the cockney

abroad, who gathers here in shoals during the summer months. There is,

too, a large colony of resident English, probably attracted by its

nearness to London, and possibly for purposes of retrenchment, for there

is no question but that the franc, of twenty per cent. less value than

the shilling, accomplishes quite as much as a purchasing power. This

must be quite a consideration with _pater-familias_ with a limited

income derived from Consols or some other traditionally "excellent

investment."

Most travellers are familiar with what attractions Boulogne really does

offer, but few if any would consider its very modern and ugly cathedral

one of them.

Perched in the centre of the _Haute-Ville_, overlooking the city and

port, the Cathedral of Notre Dame exists to-day more as a monument to

the energy and devotion of its founder than as a notable architectural

work. It follows no particular style, except that it is Italian of the

most debased general type, though no doubt parts of it meet the

dimensions and formulas laid down by accepted good examples in its

native land. There is no doubt but that its domed cupola is manifestly

out of place, though this detail is the only feature which gives the

cathedral any distinction.

A Gothic church stood here up to the Revolution, and the building of the

present structure was devotedly undertaken to replace its loss by a

doubtless earnest man, who, in his zeal, sought to build after what he

considered a newer if not a better style. Parts of the crypt are of the

ancient twelfth century church; but the structure above dates from

1827-66.

Its facade, of a poor classical order, is flanked by two slight cupola

towers equally meaningless and insignificant. Surmounting the central

dome is a colossal statue of the Virgin.

The interior is in no way remarkable or interesting. There are a few

monuments and a gorgeous high altar of precious marbles, mosaic, and

bronze, the gift of Prince Alex Torlonia. The lady-chapel is still

resorted to as a place of pilgrimage by the seafaring and fisher folk of

the neighbourhood.

A modern reproduction of a sarcophagus from the catacombs at Rome forms

the tomb of Mgr. Haffreingue (1871).

III

NOTRE DAME DE CAMBRAI

Cambrai is one of that quartette of cathedral cities of northern France

which in no sense take rank as ecclesiastical shrines of even ordinarily

interesting, much less beautiful, attributes. Of the other three, Arras,

St. Omer, and Boulogne, St. Omer alone is possessed to-day of anything

approaching the great Gothic churches which were spread broadcast

throughout France during the five centuries of church building in the

middle ages.

In manners and customs, and indeed in speech to some extent, these

cities all partake somewhat of the _locale_ of those of the Low

Countries. These attributes, which have retained their original

identities across the borders, were for many centuries, and even so late

as the seventeenth century, existent in French Flanders. Curiously

enough, in none of these cities are any of the primitive Gothic types to

be noted in the cathedral churches, though many possess their

olden-time belfries and watch towers, preserved to-day with something of

the local pride which evinces itself elsewhere with respect to

cathedrals. It is possible that this is due to the fact that this great

industrial centre of northern France is more given to the arts of

manufacture than to the devotion of church-going or even of church

building. Another notable and almost universal feature of these cities

are the Renaissance or Romanesque gateways,--silent reminders to-day of

the mediaeval communities which they once protected, and of the warlike

invasions of the past.

The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Cambrai is on the site of an older abbey

church, which was of the same ugly style as the present edifice itself,

but which dated, however, only from the early eighteenth century. The

present building is said to furnish a replica, of the vintage of 1859,

of the tasteless and crude style of the earlier building. There are

statues therein of Fenelon, Bishop Belmas, by David d'Angers, and of

Cardinal Regnier; and a series of grisaille windows, after originals by

Rubens, by Geeraerts of Anvers.

The chimes of Cambrai rank among the most noted in Europe. They are

composed of thirty-nine bells and produce a carillon, "very agreeable,"

says a French authority. They certainly do,--the author can endorse this

from a personal knowledge,--and they have not as yet descended to such

banalities as popular military marches. The largest bell, given by

Fenelon in 1786, weighs 7,500 kilos.

[Illustration: Notre Dame de Cambrai]

IV

NOTRE DAME DE ST. OMER

Under Baldwin of Hainault, Artois, including St. Omer, was ceded to the

kingdom of France as late as the mid-seventeenth century. Few minor

churches are possessed of the galaxy of charms and attractions of the

_ci-devant_ Cathedral of Notre Dame at St. Omer. Hardly in the accepted

forms of good taste are the Byzantine slabs of marble stuck upon the

walls here and there, as in a museum; the Renaissance screens; the

overpowering organ case; the votive offerings and tablets without

number; and the alleged wonderful astronomical clock, with its colossal

wooden figures of the sixteenth century,--all of which go to compose a

heterogeneous mass more interesting as to occasional detail than as a

thorough expression of saintly temperament.

The decorative scheme is carried still further by the large number of

paintings with which the church is hung; a tribute none too common in

France, and more usually associated with the Flemish churches of nearly

every rank. A reflection of their preeminence in this respect is

naturally enough visible in French Flanders.

"The Descent from the Cross," attributed to Rubens, appears likely

enough to be a genuine master, but it has been so roughly restored by

overpainting, that it is to-day of impaired value.

St. Omer, among all the group of northeast France, presents a true

Gothic example in its great Basilique de Notre Dame, and it is a pity

that its further development was along lines which indicate a trend, at

least, toward debasement. This is plainly to be noted in the tracery of

the lower and clerestory windows of nave and aisles.

Its enormous tower covers nearly the entire western end of nave and

aisles, in much the same way as those of some of the fortified churches

of the south. Its Gothic is of the true perpendicular style, however,

and, with the general grand proportions of the building, gives that

immensity and massiveness which is associated only with a church of the

first rank. The _arcs-boutant_ of the nave are hardly deserving of

mention as such, though they are manifestly sturdy props which perform

their functions in perhaps as efficacious a manner as many more graceful

and delicate specimens elsewhere. There is just a suggestion of a

central tower, which, as is often the case in France, has dwindled to a

mere cupola, if it had ever previously grown to a greater height. The

transepts are of imposing dimensions, that on the south having an

enormous rose of perhaps thirty-five feet in diameter, with an

elaborately carved portal below, which contains a "Last Judgment" in the

tympanum. The choir, chevet, and chapels, while existent to a visible

and very beautiful degree, are somewhat overshadowed by the great size

of the transepts. There is this to be said, however: that the choir, a

restoration of our own day, presents, as to style, the type of Gothic

purity at its height. It has five radiating chapels, not including that

of Notre Dame des Miracles, which adjoins the south transept and

contains innumerable votive tablets. For the rest, except for the fact

that the interior partakes of a mere collection of curios and relics, it

is in general no less imposing in its proportions than the exterior. The

clerestory windows, however, are of ill proportions for so grand a

structure, being short and squat; and here, as elsewhere throughout the

building, is to be found only modern glass.

The great bell of the western tower weighs 8,500 kilos.

Chief among the notable accessories and reliques is the monolithic tomb

of St. Erkembode, bishop of the one-time see of Therouanne, period

725-37. The sarcophagus itself, dating from the same century, was

brought here from the original site. The tomb of St. Omer was restored

in the thirteenth century and shows a remarkable sculptured group of

Christ, the Virgin, and St. John, called the "Great God of Therouanne."

It was saved from the ruin of the church at Therouanne, which was

destroyed with the greater part of the town in 1533 by Charles V., in

revenge for the "loss of three bishoprics," as history states. At this

time the sees of St. Omer and Boulogne were founded.

The near-by Palace of Justice, built by Mansart in 1680 and enlarged for

its present use in 1840, was the former Episcopal Palace.

St. Omer has also two other grand churches, St. Sepulchre, of the

fourteenth century, and the ruins of St. Bertin (1326-1520), which,

before the Revolution, with St. Ouen at Rouen, and the collegiate church

at San Quentin, was reckoned as one of the most beautiful Gothic abbeys

in France. To-day it is a magnificent ruin, its huge tower (built in

1431) and portions of the nave and crossing being all that remain. It

was considered the finest church in the Low Countries, and for size,

purity, and uniformity of style it ranked with the best of its

contemporaries.

V

ST. VAAST D'ARRAS

The capital of ancient Flanders was removed from Arras to Ghent when

Artois was ceded to France, and thus it was that the city became French,

as it were, but slowly, its Low Country traditions and customs clinging

closely to it until a late day. The former Cathedral of Notre Dame

ranked as a grand example of the ogival style of the fourteenth century,

in which it was built, and gave to the city of the "tapestry makers" the

distinction of possessing a church composed of much that was best of the

architecture of a fast growing art. Such was the mediaeval rank to which

the cathedral at Arras had attained. The new Cathedral of St. Vaast,

dating from 1755 to 1833, is of the Grecian style of temple building,

little suited to the needs of a Christian church. The crucial plan

consecrated by catholic usages of centuries is not however wholly

abandoned. There is something of a suggestion of the Latin cross in its

design, but its abside faces toward the southeast rather than due south,

with its principal entrance to the northwest, a sufficiently unusual

arrangement, where most French churches are duly orientated, to be

remarked, particularly as there is little that can be said in praise of

the structure. The interior follows the general plan of the Corinthian

order; the windows, neither numerous nor of sufficiently ample

dimensions to well serve their purpose, number nine only in the choir,

and five on each side of the nave.

There are, to the abside, seven collateral chapels, some of which

contain passable sculptured monuments, removed from the old abbey of St.

Vaast, a foundation erected in the sixth century and reconstructed by

Cardinal de Rohan in 1754. The remains of the old abbey buildings have

been built around and incorporated in the present Episcopal Palace, the

extensive Musee, and Bibliotheque; and are situated immediately to the

right of the facade of the cathedral.

The grisaille glass seen in the interior is unusual, but mediocre in the

extreme.

There are, however, some good statues in white marble in the Chapelle de

St. Vaast, while in another chapel, given by Cardinal de la Tour

d'Auvergne, is one equally good of Charles Borromee.

There are four great statues at the extremities of the transepts,

representing the four evangelists; and three others in the choir, of

Faith, Hope, and Charity.

In the north transept, also, are two triptychs of the Flemish school, by

Bellegambe, a native of Douai (1528).

The Abbe Bourasse, in his charming work on the cathedrals of France,

says, plainly, and without fear or favour: "We have tried to speak

impartially of all species of architecture--but why do we not admire the

Cathedral of Arras? It is against all traditions of '_notre art

catholique_.' We contend that this is not good. What, say you, can we

praise? It is a great work--of the stone-mason; you should study it from

some distance. It is without life, without movement, without dignity."

Whatever may be the faults of its cathedral, Arras is, nevertheless, an

interesting city,--modernized, to be sure, by boulevards laid out along

the old fortifications. The Citadel of Vauban (1670), called ironically

"_la belle inutile_," may be classed as a worthless, if not wholly

unpicturesque, ruin, though ranking, when built, as among the most

wonderful fortifications of the times. The wave of Renaissance which

swept northward has left its ineradicable marks here. The Hotel de Ville

is a remarkable specimen of that art of overloading ornament upon a

square hulk, and making it look like a wedding-cake; though, truth to

tell, coming upon it after the chilliness of the cathedral itself, it is

a cheerful antidote. Dating from 1510, at which time was built the

curious Gothic facade of seven arches, each different as to size and

spring. The added wings in elaborate Renaissance are of the late

sixteenth century and rank among the most effective examples of the

style in France. A belfry surmounts all, 240 feet in height, the

"_joyeuse_" of which weighs nearly nine tons.

Arras may perhaps be most revered for its tapestries, its workers taking

rank with those of the famous manufactories at Paris and Beauvais.

Indeed, it would appear as though experts knew not to which of these

three centres to assign precedence, both Arras and Paris claiming the

honour of having set up the first looms. It is an ancient art, as the

work of craftsmen goes, and more than one writer who has studied deeply

the fascinating intricacies of _haute_ and _basse lisse_, of colour,

texture, design, and what not, has not hesitated to proclaim the city as

having been the grandest centre of tapestry-making which the world has

ever known; and regret can but be universal that it came to an end when

its citizens were put to the sword by Louis XI.

[Illustration: _TOUL_]

VI

ST. ETIENNE DE TOUL

Annexed to France, in company with Metz and Verdun, in 1556, Toul,

situated on the left bank of the Moselle, is to-day ranked as a fortress

of the first order. "Can be seen in two hours"--such is the description

usually given by the guide-books to the city which contains, in its

one-time Cathedral St. Etienne, an example which, with respect to the

decorative tracery of its facade savants have declared the equal even of

Reims.

One of the three former bishoprics of Lorraine, Toul is none too ample

to merit the cognomen of a large town. It once held within its walls,

beside the Cathedral, the Church of St. Gengoult, and several parish

churches and monasteries. Shorn to-day of some of these dignities, with

its bishopric removed to Nancy, it ranks as a military and strategic

stronghold rather than a centre of churchly domination. Since Metz and

Strasbourg were given over to the Germans, Toul's former fortress has

been greatly strengthened.

The cathedral itself may truly be said to bear the characteristics of

both the German and French manner of building, the western or later end

being a superb front, after the French manner, and the easterly or

earlier end having a simple apse and long narrow windows, in the German

fashion. A comparison has been made by Professor Freeman between the

western facade of this church and Notre Dame de Reims. He says, "We are

daring enough to think that, simply as a design, the west front of Toul

outdoes that of Reims; though it will be hardly needful to prove that,

as a whole, Reims far outdoes that of Toul." Quite non-committal, to be

sure, as was this charming writer's way; but, of itself, a sort of

preparation to the observer for the beauties which he is to behold. Here

is the case of a superb richness having been added to a plainer body,

and by no means inharmoniously done. The gable is nearly perfect as to

its juxtaposition. The towers are higher in proportion than at Reims,

giving the effect of being the finished thing as they stand, though

lacking spires or pinnacles. The walls are of those just proportions in

relation to the window piercings which is again French, as contrasted

with a neighbouring example at Metz, where the reverse is the case.

The city was the seat of a bishop as early as the sixth century, and its

government was under his control until 1261, when it became a free

commune. Finally it was conquered by Henry II., and its future assured

to France by the Treaty of Westphalia.

The cathedral dates in part from Romanesque remains of the tenth

century, but its entire interior arrangements were much battered during

the Revolution.

The choir and transept are of the best of thirteenth-century building,

while the nave and side aisles are of the century following. Two towers,

which flank the magnificent facade, rise for nearly two hundred and

fifty feet, and are the work of Jacquemin de Commercy in the fifteenth

century. Adjoining the right aisles are the very beautiful Gothic

cloisters of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They form a

rectangular enclosure, 225 feet by 165 feet, and are made up of

twenty-four sections of four arches, each with clustered columns.

A fine sculptured altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Shepherds," is in

the Chapelle de la Creche, entered from the cloister.

The present Hotel-de-Ville was formerly the bishop's palace.

[Illustration: _North Portal Cathedral Chalons-sur-Marne_]

VII

ST. ETIENNE, CHALONS-SUR-MARNE

Chalons is perhaps first of all famed as the scene of Attila's great

defeat in the fifth century, one of the world's fifteen decisive

battles.

The Cathedral of St. Etienne is not usually considered to be a

remarkable structure; but it is thoroughly typical and characteristic of

a _locale_, which stamps it at once with a mark of genuineness and

sincerity. Of early primitive Gothic in the main, it shares interest

to-day with the four other churches of the city, not overlooking Notre

Dame de l'Epine, some five miles distant to the northward, one of the

most perfectly designed and appointed late Gothic churches which the

world has ever known. It has been called a "miniature cathedral," using

the term, it may be supposed, in the sense of referring only to a

magnificently ornate church. It is indeed worth a pilgrimage thither to

see this true gem of architecture in a wholly undefiled countrified

setting.

The Cathedral at Chalons-sur-Marne follows somewhat the traditions of

the German manner of building, at least so far as a certain plainness

and lack of ornate decoration in the main body of the church is

concerned; likewise in the arrangement of its towers, which lie to the

eastward of the transepts; and further with respect to its decidedly

Teutonic arrangement of the rounded columns, or, more properly, pillars,

of its nave.

In general this thirteenth-century church is in the best style of its

era; but the west front presents an incongruous seventeenth-century

addition in the whilom classical style of that day, bad as to its art,

and apparently badly welded into conjunction with the older portion. The

aisles and clerestory windows are of the later decorated period of

Gothic, and present, whether viewed from without or from within, an

exceedingly fine appearance.

Probably the finest and most pleasing impression of the whole structure

is that obtained of the interior, with its pillars of nave and choir, of

the massive order made familiar in the Rhine churches. A reasonable

share of twelfth to sixteenth century glass is still left as its

portion, and the general arrangement of the choir, prolonged, as it is,

well into the nave, gives a certain majesty to this portion of the

church which is perhaps not warranted when we take into consideration

that it must perforce dwarf the nave itself. The arrangement, though not

common, is by no means an unusual one, and it is recalled also, that it

is so employed at Reims.

Situated near the frontier, Chalons-sur-Marne has ever been subject to

that inquietude which usually befalls a border city. German influences

have ever been noticeable, and, even to-day, the significant fact is to

be noted that a cure will hear confessions in German, and that services

are held in that tongue on "Saturdays in St. Joseph's Chapel."

The Episcopal Palace, behind the cathedral, contains a collection of

some sixty paintings, the gift, in 1864, of the Abbe Joannes.

[Illustration: _S. DIE_]

VIII

ST. DIE

St. Die gets its name, by the corruption of Dieudonne, from St.

Deodatus, who founded a monastery here in the seventh century. It was

built, as was many another great cathedral, in accordance with the

custom of erecting a church over the body or relic of a saint whom it

was especially desired to honour; usually one of local importance, a

patron or a devotee.

The town is perhaps the most inaccessible and "out-of-the-way" place

which harbours a cathedral in all northern France. We might perhaps

except St. Pol-de-Leon and Treguier in Brittany, neither of which is on

a railway, whereas St. Die is, but at the very end. When you get there

and want to go on, not back, you simply journey on foot, or awheel if

you can find a conveyance, and take up with another "loose end" of

railway some fifteen miles away, which will take you southward, should

you be going that way. If not, there appears to be nothing for it, but

to retrace your steps whence you came.

The cathedral (locally "La Grande Eglise," it only having been made a

cathedral so recently as 1777) has a fine Romanesque nave of the

eleventh century, with choir and aisles of good Gothic, after the

accepted Rhine manner of building.

The portal, of red sandstone, is of inferior thirteenth-century

workmanship, with statues of Faith and Charity on either side. The

facade is flanked by two square towers.

The interior is curiously arranged with a cordon of sculpture, high in

the vaulting. The capitals of the pillars are likewise ornamented with

highly interesting and ornately sculptured capitals. The choir, as is

most usual, is the masterpiece of the collection, the windows, in

particular, being of the purest ogival style.

In the first chapel, on the right, is a painting, "The Martyrdom of St.

Sebastian," and behind the choir is an ancient work commemorative of

"_Le Peste de St. Die_."

[Illustration: ST. LAZARE _d'AUTUN_]

IX

ST. LAZARE D'AUTUN

This ancient episcopal city has ever been devoted to the cause of

Christianity. "Nowhere," says a French historian, "has the Church

enjoyed more repute than here." The Dukes of Burgundy, its bishops and

people alike, joined in a fervour of labour and zeal to assure its

permanence and progress. In addition, the Gallo-Roman remains point to a

former city of proud attainments. The fine Roman walls, beautifully

jointed, _sans_ cement, are distinctly traceable for a circuit of

perhaps three miles around the city. Other interesting remains are two

fine gateways, commonly referred to as triumphal arches, which they

probably were not, the Porte d'Arroux and the Porte St. Andre; the ruins

of an amphitheatre; and a tower assigned to a former temple of Minerva.

All these, and more, are found inside the old walls; while, without, are

remains of an aqueduct, of a tower dedicated to Janus, and a Roman

bridge crossing the river Torenai. It may be interesting for an

Englishman to recall that the Bishop of Autun, who often presided over

the National Assembly, pleaded in vain with George III. for the

adoption, in England, of the French metric system.

During the destruction of a former building, St. Nazaire, which at one

time performed the functions of a cathedral, the bishops held their

offices in the chapel of the chateau of the Dukes of Burgundy; but, upon

the removal of the residence of the house of Burgundy to Dijon,

transferred their services to the present edifice, which had by that

time been completed.

The Cathedral of St. Lazare is a charmingly graceful, though not great,

structure, mainly of the style "_ogivale premier_," its early Lombard

work of the nave and west front being of the foundation of Robert I.,

Duke of Burgundy. This vast western portal is encased in a great

projective porch, a feature indigenous apparently to Burgundy, and

commonly referred to as the "Burgundian narthex." Following come the

chapels and spires, of exceeding grace and beauty, of the third

_ogivale_ style.

The interior enrichments, like the western doorway, with its Romanesque

sculptures, take rank with the best in Burgundy. The delicately carved

rood-loft, or jube, the small sculptures of the choir and nave, and the

flamboyant chapels of the fifteenth to seventeenth century, challenge

minute attention from those who would study decorative detail _in

extenso_. The capitals of certain columns in the nave have fluted

pilasters in imitation of the antique, but are most curiously ornamented

with grotesque and fantastic human figures on a background of foliage.

The choir, of early pointed style, in its actual disposition and

arrangement, may be included in that classification which comprehends

some of its more important northern compeers, though, as a matter of

fact, it lacks their magnitude. Indeed, the building is one of the

smallest cathedrals in all France. The exterior offers an imposing and

picturesque ensemble, with its crocketed spire rising some two hundred

and fifty or more feet above the roof-tops of the ancient city.

Nearer inspection shows a certain incoherence of construction,

particularly in reference to the evidences of garish crudities in the

work done under Robert I. in 1031-76, in contrast to the later pointed

work.

The doorway of the lateral southern wing is ornamented with a series of

grossly exaggerated columns, in imitation of the antique, with the

addition of an apse, which contrastingly shows work of a late flamboyant

order.

The spire itself is the masterwork of the entire structure, and, unlike

those which surmount many another church, appears not to have suffered

the dangers of fire. As a fifteenth-century work, it merits special

mention. Rising abruptly from a heavy square base, the pyramid is very

acute, and is ornamented at the angles with foliaged crockets, basely

called stone cauliflowers by unimaginative persons. One might say, with

the gentle Abbe Bourasse, that the "ornamentation breaks into sky and

cloud with an exceedingly agreeable effect, far beyond that of a

straight line." The inconsistency lies only in the juxtaposition of the

two western transition towers, which have hardly enough of the Gothic in

them to merit the name.

The lower windows of the nave are of good flamboyant style, with a sort

of Romanesque triforium, and a simple round-headed window in each bay of

the clerestory, which is the more poor in treatment and effect in that

it holds no notable glass. There are none of those distinctly northern

accessories, the great rose windows, and the whole reeks of distinctly a

milder atmosphere. There is a luxuriance of decoration in the many

chapels of different epochs.

The exterior, in general, is of excessive simplicity; but, if it is not

to be placed among those cathedrals and churches accredited the most

notable and most beautiful, it will, at least, take rank as one of the

most ancient to be seen to-day, and has the further benefit of a

glorious environment and association with the past.

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of S. BENIGNE DIJON_]

X

ST. BENIGNE DE DIJON

The power and wealth of the Dukes of Burgundy, whose influence extended

northward to the Netherlands, where they often held court at Ghent and

Bruges, were, in a way, responsible for the opulence and splendour of

the life of the day. So, too, Burgundian architecture became a term

synonymous for the amplitude and grandeur with which many of its

institutions were endowed.

The reign of Philippe le Bon, with that of Charles the Bold, the most

ambitious prince who ever graced his line, was the Augustan age of

Burgundian art. It was the dream of the latter to reincarnate the old

Burgundian kingdom by annexing Lorraine and subduing the advancing Swiss

Confederacy, an ambition which failed, like many others as, or more,

worthy. The conquered duke was killed at Nancy, and was finally buried

in Notre Dame at Bruges.

The Cathedral of St. Benigne is an outgrowth from the old abbey church,

from which the Italian monk, Guillaume, set forth to found that

remarkable series of monasteries in Normandy and Brittany. It is said,

too, that he crossed the Channel, and had a large share in the works

which were erected at that period in the south of England. The bishop's

throne has been established in this church only since the Revolution,

caused by the destruction of his former cathedral. The early foundations

of the old abbey date far back into antiquity, but the present cathedral

dates only from the thirteenth century. Commonly considered as of Gothic

style, it is in every way more suggestive of the late Romano-Byzantine

type, or at least of the early transition. There is, to be sure, no

poverty of style; but there is an air of stability and firmness of

purpose on the part of its builders, rather than any attempt to either

launch off into something new or untried, or even to consistently remain

in an old groove.

As a fact, it is not a very grand building. Its choir is small, and its

transepts short. In its plan, at least, it resembles the Byzantine form

much more than the elongated Gothic, where every proportion seems to

reach out to its utmost extent.

The west facade is truly fine in the disposition of its parts and

arrangements. It suggests, more than anything, a traditional local

style, favouring nothing else to any remarkable degree except the German

solidity so often to be noted in eastern France. The towers are firmly

set with unfrequent pointed openings. The central portal and vestibule

are deep, and rich with a sculptured "Martyrdom of St. Peter" and a

delightfully graceful arcade just above the portal arch, and another

crossing the gable and joining the towers in a singularly effective

manner. A somewhat heavy but rich pointed window of three lights,

surmounted by a quatrefoil rose, with a slight needle-like spire which

rises just above the gable, completes the ensemble.

The earlier work, seen at its best in the interior, is that of the choir

and transepts, where again the distinguishing features are local. In

the transepts the arches open directly on the side chapels, the southern

arm being gorgeous with brilliant glass. The windows of choir and

transepts throughout are richly traceried and set. The choir itself is

destitute of either ambulatory or chapels.

A lantern is placed at the crossing, supported by gracefully foliaged

shafts.

The nave is of a much later period, and is not of the richness of the

portion lying to the eastward. The windows of the clerestory, in

particular, will not be considered of the excellence of those of either

transept or choir.

The south tower encloses the tombs of Jean sans Peur and Philippe le

Hardi. The crypt contains the tomb of St. Benignus.

[Illustration: _CATHEDRAL of NOTRE DAME SENLIS_]

XI

NOTRE DAME DE SENLIS

"Truly rural" is a term which may well be applied to the situation of

Senlis, the ancient Civitas Sylvanectensium of the Romans. Quaint and

attractive to the eye is the entrance to the town from the railway, with

its low-lying roofs, over which tower the spires of the ancient

Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Church of St. Pierre. It forms a

heterogeneous mass of stone, to be sure, and one which looks little

enough, at first glance, like the delicate and graceful cathedral which

makes up the mass in part. It is, in reality, a confused jumble of

towers and turrets which meets the eye, and it takes some little

acquaintance with the details thereof to separate the cathedral from the

adjacent church.

The proximity of the sees of Beauvais, Amiens, and Paris perhaps

accounts for the lack of importance attached to this cathedral. As for

the structure itself, among the minor cathedrals of France, Senlis, with

Seez and Coutances, must ever rank as the peers of that order, with

respect to the grace and beauty of their spires. It may be doubted if

even the spires of Chartres are to be considered as more beautiful than

the diminutive single example to be seen here, particularly when grouped

with its surrounding environment. Individually, as well, its grace and

beauty might even take that rank. The demarcation between the base of

the tower and the gently dwindling spire is almost entirely eliminated,

without the slightest tendency toward debasement in the steeple, which

too often is merely a series of superimposed, meaningless, and

unbeautiful details. Latter-day builders, who want a model for the spire

of a moderate-sized Gothic church, could, it would seem, hardly do

better than to make a replica of this graceful example.

In its facade, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Senlis partakes largely of

the characteristics of the primitive lowland types, reminiscent, at

least, of Noyon or Soissons, and, as such, it may properly be considered

and compared with them.

The transepts of the north and south are not grand members, but they are

compact and graceful, and the facade of the southern arm is of a highly

ornate character, bespeaking a wealth of ambition, if not of ability, on

the part of the architect.

The interior, in spite of the lack of sculptured ornament, shows no

paucity of style, and, except that it is of the bijou variety, might

take rank at once as representative of Gothic style at its best. Under

these conditions, the nave is naturally confined, and lacks a certain

grandeur both as to width and height.

The choir is of true, though not lofty, proportions, the aisles

appearing perhaps too low, if anything, for the height of the nave,

which otherwise appears exceedingly generous with respect to the extent

of its triforium and clerestory.

The transepts, though shallow, are possessed of unusually amplified

aisles, there being, as a matter of fact, two in that portion which

adjoins the nave on the west, a sufficiently unusual arrangement to

warrant comment. The rose windows of the transepts have graceful design

and good framing, though the glass is not of the splendour which we

associate with the most pleasing examples seen elsewhere.

XII

ST. ETIENNE DE MEAUX