The situation of this city is as beautiful as it is remarkable. Imagine
a long, fertile plain from which rises suddenly a great range of hills.
The plain is monotonously flat and the hills are abruptly steep, while
higher than all their heights towers the round-topped mountain of
Puy-de-Dome, which gives its name to this department of France. Nestling
just below the hills, upon the extreme western edge of the level
country, lies the vigorous and progressive city of Clermont-Ferrand,
whose activities and commerce are fed by roads leading in every
direction across the broad expanse of the fertile district of Limagne.
From the top of the cathedral tower the view is most striking and
delightful. To the east, as far as the eye can reach, stretches out a
long vista of cultivated fields, but when we turn to the west the change
is positively startling. Hill is piled on hill and mountain on mountain,
and all so near at hand as to make us feel that, with the naked eye, we
can discern figures moving on the top of the Puy-de-Dome, whose
knob-like crest towers proudly above its surrounding and supporting
heights. There are but few views like this in France, for it is rare to
find so bold a range of hills rising so sharply from so wide a plain.
After descending the many steps which take us back into the cathedral,
we shall soon be convinced that if most of the thirteenth century glass
towns had not been so accessible to Paris, a visit to this cathedral
must have been suggested in order to see the fine set of medallion
windows that in the apse chapels form a screen of gleaming sombre colour
all around the choir--a screen so complete as to produce that effect of
glistening caverns which we have found so beautiful in the glass of that
century. Clermont-Ferrand was left off the thirteenth century list
partly because of its distance from Paris, and partly because, if that
distance had been overcome, there are no other towns in its vicinity
noteworthy for their thirteenth century glass. Now that we are
considering the glass of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
distance from Paris no longer proves an argument against this visit,
because that period cannot be seen unless one is willing to go far
afield. Besides, Clermont-Ferrand fits nicely into a series of towns
rich in glass of these centuries, so we have every reason for the visit
at this juncture. The cathedral is a noble example of Gothic, the
spacious nave being separated from the choir by two transepts, each of
which possesses a fine rose window of the fourteenth century with a
gallery of small lancets below. These rose windows seem thrust too high
up against the roof; in fact, if it were not for the row of lancets
below, the effect would be unpleasant. This method of placing them in
the wall is, however, in accordance with the best traditions of that
time. The glass panels which go to make up the rose windows radiate in
distinct lines from the centre. The lancets below the south rose are
filled with diaper in rich colour, while across them, as if to bind them
together, are drawn two bands of white rosettes. The lancets under the
north rose have circles and spots of colour on a grisaille ground. Of
the glass that once adorned the nave, practically nothing remains but
the small roses at the tops of the windows, but these are quite
attractive. It is to the choir that we must turn for the greatest charm
of the interior. The sober richness of the thirteenth century panels
in the chapels below is admirably set off and accompanied by the
well-lighted clerestory above. Around this clerestory appears a row of
large fifteenth century figures in colour framed in canopies upon a
background of grisaille quarries (diamond-shaped panes). Perhaps there
is a little too much contrast between the figures and the quarries, but
the effect is good and certainly the light is admitted in a more
satisfactory way than at Chartres, where the monks, to secure more
light, replaced the rich borders of the early choir clerestory windows
by white glass. As seen from the nave or from the transepts, the choir
is most pleasing, a warm half light below and a brilliant clerestory
above. In the two easternmost panels of the latter the artist shows
us how it was sometimes possible to make one large picture by the
juxtaposition of two or more, which at first glance seem entirely
distinct. On the left is the Virgin Mary in what appears to be a large
oval frame. On the right, and facing her, is a bust of the Father
emerging from clouds. Although at first these two panels seem entirely
separate, a comparison of the subject of each indicates that taken
together they form a picture of the Annunciation. This method was not
uncommon. At Tours, three eastern medallions of the clerestory, although
seemingly distinct, really combine to form the Last Supper. We should
not fail to notice at Clermont-Ferrand how very harmoniously the styles
of different centuries assist each other in producing a well-glazed
interior. We do not find the conflict in effect which exists at Bourges.
In fact, there are but few places where glass epochs are combined in
such an attractively unobtrusive manner.