Of all the great battles which have marked the world's history there are
few, if any, which so distinctly stand out from the centuries as the
Battle of Tours. It was this bloody victory which in 732 rolled back the
world-conquering Saracens and determined that Europe should be Christian
and not Moslem. On that epoch-making day, the bloody axe of Charles
Martel graved deep his name on the annals of France. But Tours has many
another claim to historic renown. Touraine, the province of which
it is the capital, is strewed with magnificent chateaux, whose very
elaboration and beauty testify to how greatly French royalty and
nobility loved its temperate climate. On our way from Poitiers to
Tours, we shall pass through several charming little valleys and find
attractive, though quiet, scenery, during most of the journey. The
immediate surroundings of Tours are not pleasing. It impresses one as a
dull, grey city seated demurely beside the sands that so ungracefully
border most of the lower part of the river Loire. There is little to
recall the echoes of the great battle and less still to remind one of
the delightful mediaeval residences which are such an attractive feature
throughout the rest of Touraine.
Although the cathedral was under construction all the way from the
twelfth century to the sixteenth, its various styles are so combined as
to make it an interesting building. It does not, however, seem to merit
the enthusiastic praise lavished upon it by Henry IV and many another of
its admirers. The chief objection to the interior is that it appears
oppressively narrow. The explanation of this cramped effect is that the
architect did not avail himself of the usual device of slightly
increasing its width as the walls rose. This was generally done
elsewhere and served to correct the contracted appearance which
perspective tends to give as one looks up from the floor. This
architectural trick is an old one, for we know that the Greeks used it
not only in shaping the sides of their columns, but also to preserve the
appearance of straightness in the chief horizontal lines of their
buildings. In the absence of this device the walls seem to crowd
together above us, thus accentuating the unpleasant narrowness of the
nave.
The fine rosaces in the ends of the transepts contain fourteenth century
glass, and the western rose with its gallery of eight lancets below,
excellent Renaissance glazing. The chief glory of the interior, however,
is the fine medallion panels all through the choir, not only in the
chapels, but also, and most unusually, in the fifteen large lights of
the clerestory. These clerestory medallions date from the latter part of
the century, and their lateness is evidenced in a number of ways, among
others, by the fact that the medallions are oval instead of round and
also that they extend to the edge of the embrasure, leaving little or no
room for the border. This can also be observed in the easternmost choir
windows of Coutances Cathedral. We have noted before that the choir
clerestory at this time was generally given over to large figures of
kings, bishops, etc., in order to secure more light than medallions
would admit. In the Tours clerestory the fifth window on the right and
the fifth on the left (just above the great altar) show an attempt to
correct the darkening effect of the medallions by alternating with them
horizontal stripes of grisaille. Notice that in the easternmost
embrasure the three medallions of the second tier, when considered
together, form a picture of The Last Supper. This is a more elaborate
exposition of the same idea exemplified by the Annunciation at the east
end of the Clermont-Ferrand clerestory. A quaint touch is observable in
the two medallions which show little figures of donors, each holding up
in his two hands a model of his gift window. One of these is in the
left-hand lower corner of the window just left of the eastern one, and
the other in the right-hand corner of the sixth on the right. Some of
the Tours choir chapels are glazed in white, which combined with the
pierced triforium, serves to correct the lack of light caused by the
unusual treatment of the clerestory.
[Illustration: 13TH CENTURY MEDALLION LANCET, TOURS.
_The shapes of the medallions vary widely. Difficult to
distinguish the little pictures, although we are near the
windows; the early glazier valued the colour effect of his
window more than the legends. Later his picture becomes larger,
and of great importance._]