I. Introductory 383
II. St. André de Bordeaux 396
III. Cathédrale de Lectoure 402
IV. Notre Dame de Bayonne 405
V. St. Jean de Bazas 411
VI. Notre Dame de Lescar 413
VII. L'Eglise de la Sède: Tarbes 417
VIII. Cathédrale de Condom 420
IX. Cathédrale de Montauban 422
X. St. Etienne de Cahors 425
XI. St. Caprias d'Agen 429
XII. Ste. Marie d'Auch 432
XIII. St. Etienne de Toulouse 439
XIV. St. Nazaire de Carcassone 449
XV. Cathédrale de Pamiers 461
XVI. St. Bertrand de Comminges 464
XVII. St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469
XVIII. Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres 471
XIX. Notre Dame de Rodez 474
XX. Ste. Cécile d'Albi 482
XXI. St. Pierre de Mende 490
XXII. Other Old-Time Cathedrals in and about the
Basin of the Garonne 495
APPENDICES
I. Sketch Map Showing the Usual Geographical
Divisions of France 503
II. A Historical Table of the Dioceses of the
South of France up to the beginning of
the nineteenth century 504
III. The Classification of Architectural Styles in
France according to De Caumont's "Abécédaire
d'Architecture Religieuse" 510
IV. A Chronology of Architectural Styles in
France 511
V. Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513
VI. The Disposition of the Parts of a Tenth-Century
Church as defined by Violet-le-Duc 514
VII. A Brief Definitive Gazetteer of the Natural
and Geological Divisions Included in the
Ancient Provinces and Present-Day Departments
of Southern France, together
with the local names by which the _pays et
pagi_ are commonly known 516
VIII. Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics
of the South of France at the
Present Day 519
IX. Dimensions and Chronology 520
Index 545
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
St. André de Bordeaux _Frontispiece_
The Concordat (From Napoleon's Tomb) 43
St. Louis de La Rochelle 82
Cathédrale de Luçon 85
St. Front de Périgueux 87
Detail of the Interior of St. Front de Périgueux 90
Poitiers 93
St. Etienne de Limoges 105
Reliquary of Thomas à Becket 111
Cathédrale de Tulle facing 118
St. Pierre d'Angoulême facing 120
Notre Dame de Moulins facing 126
Notre Dame de Le Puy facing 134
Le Puy 138
The Black Virgin, Le Puy 143
Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand facing 144
St. Vincent de Macon facing 174
St. Jean de Lyon facing 176
St. Apollinaire de Valence 190
St. Véran de Cavaillon 200
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon 205
Villeneuve-les-Avignon facing 212
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon facing 218
St. Trophime d'Arles 228
St. Trophime d'Arles facing 228
Cloisters, St. Trophime d'Arles 233
St. Castor de Nîmes 236
St. Castor de Nîmes 237
St. Théodorit d'Uzès 245
Cathédrale de Chambéry 255
Notre Dame de Grenoble 258
St. Bruno 261
Belley 265
St. Jean de Maurienne 269
St. Pierre de St. Claude facing 272
Notre Dame de Bourg 275
Notre Dame de Sisteron facing 280
St. Jerome de Digne 283
Notre Dame d'Embrun 292
The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes 320
St. Sauveur d'Aix 321
Detail of Doorway of the Archbishop's Palace, Fréjus 338
Eglise de Grasse 339
Marseilles 343
The Old Cathedral, Marseilles 345
St. Pierre de Montpellier facing 352
Cathédrale d'Agde 358
St. Nazaire de Béziers 361
St. Jean de Perpignan 368
Ste. Eulalia d'Elne 372
St. Just de Narbonne facing 374
Cloister of St. Just de Narbonne facing 378
Notre Dame de Bayonne facing 404
Eglise de la Sède, Tarbes 417
St. Etienne de Cahors facing 424
Ste. Marie d'Auch facing 432
St. Etienne de Toulouse facing 438
Nave of St. Etienne de Toulouse 445
St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 448
The Old Cité de Carcassonne before and after the Restoration 451
Two Capitals of Pillars in St. Nazaire de Carcassonne;
and the Rude Stone Carving of Carcas 454
St. Nazaire de Carcassonne facing 454
Cathédrale de Pamiers 461
St. Bertrand de Comminges facing 464
St. Jean-Baptiste d'Aire 469
Sts. Benoit et Vincent de Castres facing 470
Notre Dame de Rodez facing 474
Choir-Stalls, Rodez 480
Ste. Cécile d'Albi facing 482
St. Pierre de Mende facing 490
Sketch Map of France 503
Medallion 510
Leading Forms of Early Cathedral Constructions 513
Plan of a Tenth Century Church 514
Sketch Map of the Bishoprics and Archbishoprics of the
South of France at the Present Day 519
St. Caprias d'Agen (diagram) 520
Baptistery of St. Sauveur d'Aix (diagram) 521
Ste. Cécile d'Albi (diagram) 522
St. Pierre d'Angoulême (diagram) 523
St. Trophime d'Arles (diagram) 524
Notre Dame des Doms d'Avignon (diagram) 525
St. Etienne de Cahors (diagram) 527
St. Veran de Cavaillon (diagram) 528
Cathédrale de Chambéry (diagram) 529
Notre Dame de Clermont-Ferrand (diagram) 530
St. Bertrand de Comminges (diagram) 530
Notre Dame de Le Puy (diagram) 532
St. Etienne de Limoges (diagram) 532
St. Jean de Lyon (diagram) 533
St. Just de Narbonne (diagram) 535
Notre Dame d'Orange (diagram) 536
St. Front de Périgueux (diagram) 537
St. Jean de Perpignan (diagram) 537
St. Pierre de Poitiers (diagrams) 538
Notre Dame de Rodez (diagram) 539
St. Etienne de Toulouse (diagram) 541
St. Paul Trois Châteaux (diagram) 542
Cathédrale de Vaison (diagram) 543
[Illustration]
_The Cathedrals of Southern France_
INTRODUCTION
Too often--it is a half-acknowledged delusion, however--one meets with
what appears to be a theory: that a book of travel must necessarily be a
series of dull, discursive, and entirely uncorroborated opinions of one
who may not be even an intelligent observer. This is mere intellectual
pretence. Even a humble author--so long as he be an honest one--may well
be allowed to claim with Mr. Howells the right to be serious, or the
reverse, "with his material as he finds it;" and that "something
personally experienced can only be realized on the spot where it was
lived." This, says he, is "the prime use of travel, and the attempt to
create the reader a partner in the enterprise" ... must be the excuse,
then, for putting one's observations on paper.
He rightly says, too, that nothing of perilous adventure is to-day any
more like to happen "in Florence than in Fitchburg."
A "literary tour," a "cathedral tour," or an "architectural tour,"
requires a formula wherein the author must be wary of making
questionable estimates; but he may, with regard to generalities,--or
details, for that matter,--state his opinion plainly; but he should
state also his reasons. With respect to church architecture no average
reader, any more than the average observer, willingly enters the arena
of intellectual combat, but rather is satisfied--as he should be, unless
he is a Freeman, a Gonse, or a Corroyer--with an ampler radius which
shall command even a juster, though no less truthful, view.
Not from one book or from ten, in one year or a score can this be had.
The field is vast and the immensity of it all only dawns upon one the
deeper he gets into his subject. A dictionary of architecture, a
compendium or gazetteer of geography, or even the unwieldy mass of fact
tightly held in the fastnesses of the Encyclopædia Britannica will not
tell one--in either a long or a short while--all the facts concerning
the cathedrals of France.
Some will consider that in this book are made many apparently trifling
assertions; but it is claimed that they are pertinent and again are
expressive of an emotion which mayhap always arises of the same mood.
Notre Dame at Rodez is a "warm, mouse-coloured cathedral;" St. Cécile
d'Albi is at once "a fortress and a church," and the once royal city of
Aigues-Mortes is to-day but "a shelter for a few hundred pallid, shaking
mortals."
Such expressions are figurative, but, so far as words can put it, they
are the concentrated result of observation.
These observations do not aspire to be considered "improving," though it
is asserted that they are informative.
Description of all kinds is an art which requires considerable
forethought in order to be even readable. And of all subjects, art and
architecture are perhaps the most difficult to treat in a manner which
shall not arouse an intolerant criticism.
Perhaps some credit will be attained for the attempts herein made to
present in a pleasing manner many of the charms of the ecclesiastical
architecture of southern France, where a more elaborate and erudite work
would fail of its object. As Lady Montagu has said in her
"Letters,"--"We travellers are in very hard circumstances. If we say
nothing new, we are dull, and have observed nothing. If we tell any new
thing, we are laughed at as fabulous and romantic."
This book is intended as a contribution to travel literature--or, if the
reader like, to that special class of book which appeals largely to the
traveller.
Most lovers of art and literature are lovers of churches; indeed, the
world is yearly containing more and more of this class. The art
expression of a people, of France in particular, has most often first
found its outlet in church-building and decoration. Some other countries
have degenerated sadly from the idea.
In recent times the Anglo-Saxon has mostly built his churches,--on what
he is pleased to think are "improved lines,"--that, more than anything
else, resemble, in their interiors, playhouses, and in their exteriors,
cotton factories and breweries.
This seemingly bitter view is advanced simply because the writer
believes that it is the church-members, using the term in its broad
sense, who are responsible for the many outrageously unseemly
church-buildings which are yearly being erected; not the
architects--who have failings enough of their own to answer for.
It is said that a certain great architect of recent times was
responsible for more bad architecture than any man who had lived before
or since. Not because he produced such himself, but because his feeble
imitators, without his knowledge, his training, or his ambition, not
only sought to follow in his footsteps, but remained a long way in the
rear, and stumbled by the way.
This man built churches. He built one, Trinity Church, in Boston, U. S.
A., which will remain, as long as its stones endure, an entirely
successful transplantation of an exotic from another land. In London a
new Roman Catholic cathedral has recently been erected after the
Byzantine manner, and so unexpectedly successful was it in plan and
execution that its author was "medalled" by the Royal Academy; whatever
that dubious honour may be worth.
Both these great men are dead, and aside from these two great examples,
and possibly the Roman Catholic cathedral, and the yet unachieved
cathedral of St. John the Divine, in New York City, where, in an
English-speaking land, has there been built, in recent times, a
religious edifice of the first rank worthy to be classed with these two
old-world and new-world examples?
They do these things better in France: Viollet-le-Duc completed St. Ouen
at Rouen and the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, in most acceptable
manner. So, too, was the treatment of the cathedral at
Moulins-sur-Allier--although none of these examples are among the
noblest or the most magnificent in France. They have, however, been
completed successfully, and in the true spirit of the original.
To know the shops and boulevards of Paris does not necessarily presume a
knowledge of France. This point is mentioned here from the fact that
many have claimed a familiarity with the cathedrals of France; when to
all practical purposes, they might as well have begun and ended with the
observation that Notre Dame de Paris stands on an island in the middle
of the Seine.
The author would not carp at the critics of the first volume of this
series, which appeared last season. Far from it. They were, almost
without exception, most generous. At least they granted,
_unqualifiedly_, the reason for being for the volume which was put
forth bearing the title: "Cathedrals of Northern France."
The seeming magnitude of the undertaking first came upon the author and
artist while preparing the first volume for the press. This was made the
more apparent when, on a certain occasion, just previous to the
appearance of the book, the author made mention thereof to a friend who
_did_ know Paris--better perhaps than most English or American writers;
at least he ought to have known it better.
When this friend heard of the inception of this book on French
cathedrals, he marvelled at the fact that there should be a demand for
such; said that the subject had already been overdone; and much more of
the same sort; and that only yesterday a certain Miss---- had sent him
an "author's copy" of a book which recounted the results of a journey
which she and her mother had recently made in what she sentimentally
called "Romantic Touraine."
Therein were treated at least a good half-dozen cathedrals; which,
supplementing the always useful Baedeker or Joanne, and a handbook of
Notre Dame at Paris and another of Rouen, covered--thought the author's
friend at least--quite a representative share of the cathedrals of
France.
This only substantiates the contention made in the foreword to the first
volume: that there were doubtless many with a true appreciation and love
for great churches who would be glad to know more of them, and have the
ways--if not the means--smoothed in order to make a visit thereto the
more simplified and agreeable. Too often--the preface continued--the
tourist, alone or personally conducted in droves, was whirled rapidly
onward by express-train to some more popularly or fashionably famous
spot, where, for a previously stipulated sum, he might partake of a more
lurid series of amusements than a mere dull round of churches.
"Cities, like individuals, have," says Arthur Symons, "a personality and
individuality quite like human beings."
This is undoubtedly true of churches as well, and the sympathetic
observer--the enthusiastic lover of churches for their peculiarities,
none the less than their general excellencies--is the only person who
will derive the maximum amount of pleasure and profit from an intimacy
therewith.
Whether a great church is interesting because of its antiquity, its
history, or its artistic beauties matters little to the enthusiast. He
will drink his fill of what offers. Occasionally, he will find a
combination of two--or possibly all--of these ingredients; when his joy
will be great.
Herein are catalogued as many of the attributes of the cathedrals of the
south of France--and the records of religious or civil life which have
surrounded them in the past--as space and opportunity for observation
have permitted.
More the most sanguine and capable of authors could not promise, and
while in no sense does the volume presume to supply exhaustive
information, it is claimed that all of the churches included within the
classification of cathedrals--those of the present and those of a past
day--are to be found mentioned herein, the chief facts of their history
recorded, and their notable features catalogued.
_PART I_
_Southern France in General_
I
THE CHARM OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
The charm of southern France is such as to compel most writers thereon
to become discursive. It could not well be otherwise. Many things go to
make up pictures of travel, which the most polished writer could not
ignore unless he confined himself to narrative pure and simple; as did
Sterne.
One who seeks knowledge of the architecture of southern France should
perforce know something of the life of town and country in addition to a
specific knowledge of, or an immeasurable enthusiasm for, the subject.
Few have given Robert Louis Stevenson any great preëminence as a writer
of topographical description; perhaps not all have admitted his ability
as an unassailable critic; but the fact is, there is no writer to whom
the lover of France can turn with more pleasure and profit than
Stevenson.
There is a wealth of description of the country-side of France in the
account of his romantic travels on donkey-back, or, as he whimsically
puts it, "beside a donkey," and his venturesome though not dangerous
"Inland Voyage." These early volumes of Stevenson, while doubtless well
known to lovers of his works, are closed books to most casual
travellers. The author and artist of this book here humbly acknowledge
an indebtedness which might not otherwise be possible to repay.
Stevenson was devout, he wrote sympathetically of churches, of
cathedrals, of monasteries, and of religion. What his predilections were
as to creed is not so certain. Sterne was more worldly, but he wrote
equally attractive prose concerning many things which English-speaking
people have come to know more of since his time. Arthur Young, "an
agriculturist," as he has been rather contemptuously called, a century
or more ago wrote of rural France after a manner, and with a
profuseness, which few have since equalled. His creed, likewise, appears
to be unknown; in that, seldom, if ever, did he mention churches, and
not at any time did he discuss religion.
In a later day Miss M. E. B. Edwards, an English lady who knows France
as few of her countrywomen do, wrote of many things more or less allied
with religion, which the ordinary "travel books" ignored--much to their
loss--altogether.
Still more recently another English lady, Madam Marie Duclaux,--though
her name would not appear to indicate her nationality,--has written a
most charming series of observations on her adopted land; wherein the
peasant, his religion, and his aims in life are dealt with more
understandingly than were perhaps possible, had the author not been
possessed of a long residence among them.
Henry James, of all latter-day writers, has given us perhaps the most
illuminating accounts of the architectural joy of great churches,
châteaux and cathedrals. Certainly his work is marvellously
appreciative, and his "Little Tour in France," with the two books of
Stevenson before mentioned, Sterne's "Sentimental Journey,"--and Mr.
Tristram Shandy, too, if the reader likes,--form a quintette of voices
which will tell more of the glories of France and her peoples than any
other five books in the English language.
When considering the literature of place, one must not overlook the fair
land of Provence or the "Midi of France"--that little-known land lying
immediately to the westward of Marseilles, which is seldom or never
even tasted by the hungry tourist.
To know what he would of these two delightful regions one should read
Thomas Janvier, Félix Gras, and Mêrimêe. He will then have far more of
an insight into the places and the peoples than if he perused whole
shelves of histories, geographies, or technical works on archæology and
fossil remains.
If he can supplement all this with travel, or, better yet, take them
hand-in-hand, he will be all the more fortunate.
At all events here is a vast subject for the sated traveller to grasp,
and _en passant_ he will absorb not a little of the spirit of other days
and of past history, and something of the attitude of reverence for
church architecture which is apparently born in every Frenchman,--at
least to a far greater degree than in any other nationality,--whatever
may be his present-day attitude of mind toward the subject of religion
in the abstract.
France, be it remembered, is not to-day as it was a century and a half
ago, when it was the fashion of English writers to condemn and revile it
as a nation of degraded serfs, a degenerate aristocracy, a corrupt
clergy, or as an enfeebled monarchy.
Since then there has arisen a Napoleon, who, whatever his faulty morals
may have been, undoubtedly welded into a united whole those widely
divergent tendencies and sentiments of the past, which otherwise would
not have survived. This was prophetic and far-seeing, no matter what the
average historian may say to the contrary; and it has in no small way
worked itself toward an ideal successfully, if not always by the most
practical and direct path.
One thing is certain, the lover of churches will make the round of the
southern cathedrals under considerably more novel and entrancing
conditions than in those cities of the north or mid-France. Many of the
places which shelter a great cathedral church in the south are of little
rank as centres of population; as, for instance, at Mende in Lozère,
where one suddenly finds oneself set down in the midst of a green basin
surrounded by mountains on all sides, with little to distract his
attention from its remarkably picturesque cathedral; or at Albi, where a
Sunday-like stillness always seems to reign, and its fortress-church,
which seems to regulate the very life of the town, stands, as it has
since its foundation, a majestic guardian of well-being.
There is but one uncomfortable feature to guard against, and that is the
_mistral_, a wind which blows down the Rhône valley at certain seasons
of the year, and, in the words of the habitant, "blows all before it."
It is not really as bad as this, but its breath is uncomfortably cold,
and it does require a firm purpose to stand against its blast.
Then, too, from October until March, south of Lyons, the nights, which
draw in so early at this season of the year, are contrastingly and
uncomfortably cold, as compared with the days, which seem always to be
blessed with bright and sunshiny weather.
It may be argued that this is not the season which appeals to most
people as being suitable for travelling. But why not? Certainly it is
the fashion to travel toward the Mediterranean during the winter months,
and the attractions, not omitting the allurements of dress clothes,
gambling-houses, and _bals masqués_ are surely not more appealing than
the chain of cities which extend from Chambéry and Grenoble in the Alps,
through Orange, Nîmes, Arles, Perpignan, Carcassonne, and the slopes of
the Pyrenees, to Bayonne.
In the departments of Lozère, Puy de Dôme, Gard and Auvergne and
Dordogne, the true, unspoiled Gallic flavour abides in all its
intensity. As Touraine, or at least Tours, claims to speak the purest
French tongue, so this region of streams and mountains, of volcanic
remains, of Protestantism, and of an--as yet--unspoiled old-worldliness,
possesses more than any other somewhat of the old-time social
independence and disregard of latter-day innovations.
Particularly is this so--though perhaps it has been remarked before--in
that territory which lies between Clermont-Ferrand and Valence in one
direction, and Vienne and Rodez in another, to extend its confines to
extreme limits.
Here life goes on gaily and in animated fashion, in a hundred dignified
and picturesque old towns, and the wise traveller will go a-hunting
after those which the guide-books complain of--not without a sneer--as
being dull and desultory. French, and for that matter the new régime of
English, historical novelists are too obstinately bent on the study of
Paris, "At all events," says Edmund Gosse, "since the days of Balzac and
George Sand, and have neglected the provincial boroughs."
They should study mid-France on the spot; and read Stevenson and Mérimée
while they are doing it. It will save them a deal of worrying out of
things--with possibly wrong deductions--for themselves.
The climatic conditions of France vary greatly. From the gray,
wind-blown shores of Brittany, where for quite three months of the
autumn one is in a perpetual drizzle, and the equally chilly and bare
country of the Pas de Calais, and the more or less sodden French
Flanders, to the brisk, sunny climate of the Loire valley, the Cevennes,
Dauphiné, and Savoie, is a wide range of contrast. Each is possessed of
its own peculiar characteristics, which the habitant alone seems to
understand in all its vagaries. At all events, there is no part of
France which actually merits the opprobrious deprecations which are
occasionally launched forth by the residents of the "garden spot of
England," who see no topographical beauties save in their own wealds and
downs.
France is distinctly a self-contained land. Its tillers of the soil, be
they mere agriculturists or workers in the vineyards, are of a race as
devoted and capable at their avocations as any alive.
They do not, to be sure, eat meat three times a day--and often not once
a week--but they thrive and gain strength on what many an
English-speaking labourer would consider but a mere snack.
Again, the French peasant is not, like the English labourer, perpetually
reminded, by the independence of the wealth surrounding him, of his own
privations and dependence. On the contrary, he enjoys contentment with a
consciousness that no human intervention embitters his condition, and
that its limits are only fixed by the bounds of nature, and somewhat by
his own industry.
Thus it is easy to inculcate in such a people somewhat more of that
spirit of "_l'amour de la patrie_," or love of the land, which in
England, at the present time, appears to be growing beautifully less.
So, too, with love and honour for their famous citizens, the French are
enthusiastic, beyond any other peoples, for their monuments, their
institutions, and above all for their own province and department.
With regard to their architectural monuments, still more are they proud
and well-informed, even the labouring classes. Seldom, if ever, has the
writer made an inquiry but what it was answered with interest, if not
with a superlative intelligence, and the Frenchman of the lower
classes--be he a labourer of the towns or cities, or a peasant of the
country-side--is a remarkably obliging person.
In what may strictly be called the south of France, that region
bordering along the Mediterranean, Provence, and the southerly portion
of Languedoc, one is manifestly environed with a mellowness and
brilliance of sky and atmosphere only to be noted in a sub-tropical
land, a feature which finds further expression in most of the attributes
of local life.
The climate and topographical features take on a contrastingly different
aspect, as does the church architecture and the mode of life of the
inhabitants here in the southland.
Here is the true romance country of all the world. Here the Provençal
tongue and its literature have preserved that which is fast fleeting
from us in these days when a nation's greatest struggle is for
commercial or political supremacy. It was different in the days of
Petrarch and of Rabelais.
But there are reminders of this glorious past yet to be seen, more
tangible than a memory alone, and more satisfying than mere written
history.
At Orange, Nîmes, and Arles are Roman remains of theatres, arenas, and
temples, often perfectly preserved, and as magnificent as in Rome
itself.
At Avignon is a splendid papal palace, to which the Holy See was
transferred by Clement V. at the time of the Italian partition, in the
early fourteenth century, while Laura's tomb, or the site of it, is also
close at hand.
At Clermont-Ferrand, in Auvergne, Pope Urban, whose monument is on the
spot, urged and instigated the Crusades.
The Christian activities of this land were as strenuous as any, and
their remains are even more numerous and interesting. Southern Gaul,
however, became modernized but slowly, and the influences of the
Christian spirit were not perhaps as rapid as in the north, where Roman
sway was more speedily annulled. Still, not even in the churches of
Lombardy or Tuscany are there more strong evidences of the inception and
growth of this great power, which sought at one time to rule the world,
and may yet.
II
THE CHURCH IN GAUL
Guizot's notable dictum, "If you are fond of romance and history," may
well be paraphrased in this wise: "If you are fond of history, read the
life histories of great churches."
Leaving dogmatic theory aside, much, if not quite all, of the life of
the times in France--up to the end of the sixteenth century--centred
more or less upon the Church, using the word in its fullest sense. Aside
from its religious significance, the influence of the Church, as is well
known and recognized by all, was variously political, social, and
perhaps economic.
So crowded and varied were the events of Church history in Gaul, it
would be impossible to include even the most important of them in a
brief chronological arrangement which should form a part of a book such
as this.
It is imperative, however, that such as are mentioned should be brought
together in some consecutive manner in a way that should indicate the
mighty ebb and flow of religious events of Church and State.
These passed rapidly and consecutively throughout Southern Gaul, which
became a part of the kingdom of the French but slowly.
Many bishoprics have been suppressed or merged into others, and again
united with these sees from which they had been separated. Whatever may
be the influences of the Church, monastic establishments, or more
particularly, the bishops and their clergy, to-day, there is no question
but that from the evangelization of Gaul to the end of the nineteenth
century, the parts played by them were factors as great as any other in
coagulating and welding together the kingdom of France.
The very large number of bishops which France has had approximates eight
thousand eminent and virtuous names; and it is to the memory of their
works in a practical way, none the less than their devotion to preaching
the Word itself, that the large number of magnificent ecclesiastical
monuments have been left as their heritage.
There is a large share of veneration and respect due these pioneers of
Christianity; far more, perhaps, than obtains for those of any other
land. Here their activities were so very great, their woes and troubles
so very oppressive, and their final achievement so splendid, that the
record is one which stands alone.
It is a glorious fact--in spite of certain lapses and influx of
fanaticism--that France has ever recognized the sterling worth to the
nation of the devotion and wise counsel of her churchmen; from the
indefatigable apostles of Gaul to her cardinals, wise and powerful in
councils of state.
The evangelization of Gaul was not an easy or a speedy process. On the
authority of Abbé Morin of Moulins, who, in _La France Pontificale_, has
undertaken to "chronologize all the bishops and archbishops of France
from the first century to our day," Christianity came first to Aix and
Marseilles with Lazare de Béthanie in 35 or 36 A. D.; followed shortly
after by Lin de Besançon, Clement de Metz, Demêtre de Gap, and Ruf
d'Avignon.
Toward the end of the reign of Claudian, and the commencement of that of
Nero (54-55 A. D.), there arrived in Gaul the seven Apostle-bishops,
the founders of the Church at Arles (St. Trophime), Narbonne (St. Paul),
Limoges (St. Martial), Clermont (St. Austremoine), Tours (St. Gatien),
Toulouse (St. Saturnin), and Trèves (St. Valère).
It was some years later that Paris received within its walls St. Denis,
its first Apostle of Christianity, its first bishop, and its first
martyr.
Others as famous were Taurin d'Evreux, Lucien de Beauvais, Eutrope de
Saintes, Aventin de Chartres, Nicaise de Rouen, Sixte de Reims, Savinien
de Sens, and St. Crescent--the disciple of St. Paul--of Vienne.
From these early labours, through the three centuries following, and
down through fifteen hundred years, have passed many traditions of these
early fathers which are well-nigh legendary and fabulous.
The Abbé Morin says further: "We have not, it is true, an entirely
complete chronology of the bishops who governed the Church in Gaul, but
the names of the great and noble army of bishops and clergy, who for
eighteen hundred years have succeeded closely one upon another, are
assuredly the most beautiful jewels in the crown of France. Their
virtues were many and great,--eloquence, love of _la patrie_,
indomitable courage in time of trial, mastery of difficult situation,
prudence, energy, patience, and charity." All these grand virtues were
practised incessantly, with some regrettable eclipses, attributable not
only to misfortune, but occasionally to fault. A churchman even is but
human.
With the accession of the third dynasty of kings,--the Capetians, in
987,--the history of the French really began, and that of the Franks,
with their Germanic tendencies and elements, became absorbed by those of
the Romanic language and character, with the attendant habits and
customs.
Only the Aquitanians, south of the Loire, and the Burgundians on the
Rhône, still preserved their distinct nationalities.
The feudal ties which bound Aquitaine to France were indeed so slight
that, when Hugh Capet, in 990, asked of Count Adelbert of Périgueux,
before the walls of the besieged city of Tours: "Who made thee count?"
he was met with the prompt and significant rejoinder, "Who made thee
king?"
At the close of the tenth century, France was ruled by close upon sixty
princes, virtually independent, and yet a still greater number of
prelates,--as powerful as any feudal lord,--who considered Hugh Capet
of Paris only as one who was first among his peers. Yet he was able to
extend his territory to such a degree that his hereditary dynasty
ultimately assured the unification of the French nation. Less than a
century later Duke William of Normandy conquered England (1066); when
began that protracted struggle between France and England which lasted
for three hundred years.
Immediately after the return of the pious Louis VII. from his disastrous
crusade, his queen, Eleanor, the heiress of Poitou and Guienne, married
the young count Henry Plantagenet of Maine and Anjou; who, when he came
to the English throne in 1153, "inherited and acquired by marriage"--as
historians subtly put it--" the better half of all France."
Until 1322 the Church in France was divided into the following dioceses:
Provincia Remensis (Reims)
Provincia Rotomagensis (All Normandy)
Provincia Turonensis (Touraine, Maine, Anjou, and Brittany)
Provincia Burdegalensis (Poitou, Saintonge,
Angumois, Périgord, and Bordelais)
Provincia Auxitana (In Gascoigne)
Provincia Bituricensis (Berri, Bourbonnais, Limosin, and Auvergne)
Provincia Senonensis (Sens)
Provincia Lugdunensis (Bourgogne and Lyonnais)
Provincia Viennensis (Vienne on the Rhône)
Provincia Narbonensis (Septimania)
Provincia Arelatensis (Arles)
Provincia Aquensis (Aix-en-Provence)
Provincia Ebredunensis (The Alpine Valleys)
The stormy days of the reign of Charles V. (late fourteenth century)
throughout France were no less stringent in Languedoc than elsewhere.
Here the people rose against the asserted domination of the Duke of
Anjou, who, "proud and greedy," was for both qualities abhorred by the
Languedocians.
He sought to restrain civic liberty with a permanent military force, and
at Nîmes levied heavy taxes, which were promptly resented by rebellion.
At Montpellier the people no less actively protested, and slew the
chancellor and seneschal.
By the end of the thirteenth century, social, political, and
ecclesiastical changes had wrought a wonderful magic with the map of
France. John Lackland (_sans terre_) had been compelled by
Philippe-Auguste to relinquish his feudal possessions in France, with
the exception of Guienne. At this time also the internal crusades
against the Waldenses and Albigenses in southern France had powerfully
extended the royal flag. Again, history tells us that it was from the
impulse and after influences of the crusading armies to the East that
France was welded, under Philippe-le-Bel, into a united whole. The
shifting fortunes of France under English rule were, however, such as to
put little stop to the progress of church-building in the provinces;
though it is to be feared that matters in that line, as most others of
the time, went rather by favour than by right of sword.
Territorial changes brought about, in due course, modified plans of the
ecclesiastical control and government, which in the first years of the
fourteenth century caused certain administrative regulations to be put
into effect by Pope John XXII. (who lies buried beneath a gorgeous
Gothic monument at Avignon) regarding the Church in the southern
provinces.
So well planned were these details that the Church remained practically
under the same administrative laws until the Revolution.
Albi was separated from Bourges (1317), and raised to the rank of a
metropolitan see; to which were added as suffragans Cahors, Rodez, and
Mende, with the newly founded bishoprics of Castres and Vabres added.
Toulouse was formed into an archbishopric in 1327; while St. Pons and
Alet, as newly founded bishoprics, were given to the ancient see of
Narbonne in indemnification for its having been robbed of Toulouse. The
ancient diocese of Poitiers was divided into three, and that of Agen
into two by the erection of suffragans at Maillezais, Luçon, Sarlat, and
Condom. By a later papal bull, issued shortly after their establishment,
these bishoprics appear to have been abolished, as no record shows that
they entered into the general scheme of the revolutionary suppression.
On August 4, 1790, all chapters of cathedral churches, other than those
of the metropoles (the mother sees), their bishops, and in turn their
respective curés, were suppressed. This ruling applied as well to all
collegiate churches, secular bodies, and abbeys and priories generally.
Many were, of course, reëstablished at a subsequent time, or, at least,
were permitted to resume their beneficent work. But it was this general
suppression, in the latter years of the eighteenth century, which led up
to the general reapportioning of dioceses in that composition of Church
and State thereafter known as the Concordat.
[Illustration: _The Concordat_ (_From Napoleon's Tomb_)]
Many causes deflected the growth of the Church from its natural
progressive pathway. The Protestant fury went nearly to fanaticism, as
did the equally fervent attempts to suppress it. The "Temples of Reason"
of the Terrorists were of short endurance, but they indicated an unrest
that has only in a measure moderated, if one is to take later political
events as an indication of anything more than a mere uncontrolled
emotion.
Whether a great future awaits Protestantism in France, or not, the
power of the Roman Church is undoubtedly waning, in attracting
congregations, at least.
Should a Wesley or a Whitfield arise, he might gain followers, as strong
men do, and they would draw unto them others, until congregations might
abound. But the faith could hardly become the avowed religion of or for
the French people. It has, however, a great champion in the powerful
newspaper, _Le Temps_, which has done, and will do, much to popularize
the movement.
The Protestantism of Lot and Lot et Garonne is considerable, and it is
of very long standing. It is recorded, too, that as late as October,
1901, the Commune of Murat went over _en masse_ to Protestantism because
the Catholic bishop at Cahors desired his communicants to rise from
their beds at what they considered an inconveniently early hour, in
order to hear mass.
This movement in Languedoc was not wholly due to the tyranny of the Duke
of Anjou; it was caused in part by the confiscation or assumption of the
papal authority by France. This caused not only an internal unrest in
Italy, but a turbulence which spread throughout all the western
Mediterranean, and even unto the Rhine and Flanders. The danger which
threatened the establishment of the Church, by making the papacy a
dependence of France, aroused the Italian prelates and people alike, and
gave rise to the simultaneous existence of both a French and an Italian
Pope.
Charles V. supported the French pontiff, as was but natural, thus
fermenting a great schism; with its attendant controversies and horrors.
French and Italian politics became for a time inexplicably mingled, and
the kingdom of Naples came to be transferred to the house of Anjou.
The Revolution, following close upon the Jansenist movement at Port
Royal, and the bull Unigenitus of the Pope, resulted in such riot and
disregard for all established institutions, monarchical, political, and
religious, that the latter--quite as much as the others--suffered undue
severity.
The Church itself was at this time divided, and rascally intrigue, as
well as betrayal, was the order of the day on all sides. Bishops were
politicians, and priests were but the tools of their masters; this to no
small degree, if we are to accept the written records.
Talleyrand-Périgord, Bishop of Autun, was a member of the National
Assembly, and often presided over the sittings of that none too
deliberate body.
In the innovations of the Revolution, the Church and the clergy took,
for what was believed to be the national good, their full and abiding
share in the surrender of past privileges.
At Paris, at the instance of Mirabeau, they even acknowledged, in some
measure, the principle of religious liberty, in its widest application.
The appalling massacres of September 2, 1792, fell heavily upon the
clergy throughout France; of whom one hundred and forty were murdered at
the _Carmes_ alone.
The Archbishop of Arles on that eventful day gave utterance to the
following devoted plea:
"_Give thanks to God, gentlemen, that He calls us to seal with our blood
the faith we profess. Let us ask of Him the grace of final perseverance,
which by our own merit we could not obtain._"
The Restoration found the Church in a miserable and impoverished
condition. There was already a long list of dioceses without bishops;
of cardinals, prelates, and priests without charges, many of them in
prison.
Congregations innumerable had been suppressed and many sees had been
abolished.
The new dioceses, under the Concordat of 1801, one for each department
only, were of vast size as compared with those which had existed more
numerously before the Revolution.
In 1822 thirty new sees were added to the prelature. To-day there are
sixty-seven bishoprics and seventeen archbishoprics, not including the
colonial suffragans, but including the diocese of Corsica, whose seat is
at Ajaccio.
Church and State are thus seen to have been, from the earliest times,
indissolubly linked throughout French dominion.
The king--while there was a king--was the eldest son of the Church, and,
it is said, the Church in France remains to-day that part of the Roman
communion which possesses the greatest importance for the governing body
of that faith. This, in spite of the tendency toward what might be
called, for the want of a more expressive word, irreligion. This is a
condition, or a state, which is unquestionably making headway in the
France of to-day--as well, presumably, as in other countries--of its own
sheer weight of numbers.
One by one, since the establishment of the Church in Gaul, all who
placed any limits to their ecclesiastical allegiance have been turned
out, and so turned into enemies,--the Protestants, the Jansenists,
followers of the Bishop of Ypres, and the Constitutionalists.
Reconciliation on either side is, and ever has been, apparently, an
impossibility.
Freedom of thought and action is undoubtedly increasing its license, and
the clergy in politics, while a thing to be desired by many, is, after
all, a thing to be feared by the greater number,--for whom a popular
government is made. Hence the curtailment of the power of the monks--the
real secular propagandists--was perhaps a wise thing. We are not to-day
living under the conditions which will permit of a new Richelieu to come
upon the scene, and the recent act (1902) which suppressed so many
monastic establishments, convents, and religious houses of all ranks,
including the Alpine retreat of "La Grande Chartreuse," may be taken
rather as a natural process of curtailment than a mere vindictive
desire on the part of the State to concern itself with "things that do
not matter." On the other hand, it is hard to see just what immediate
gain is to result to the nation.
III
THE CHURCH ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
The best history of the Middle Ages is that suggested by their
architectural remains. That is, if we want tangible or ocular
demonstration, which many of us do.
Many of these remains are but indications of a grandeur that is past and
a valour and a heroism that are gone; but with the Church alone are
suggested the piety and devotion which still live, at least to a far
greater degree than many other sentiments and emotions; which in their
struggle to keep pace with progress have suffered, or become effete by
the way.
To the Church, then, or rather religion--if the word be preferred--we
are chiefly indebted for the preservation of these ancient records in
stone.
Ecclesiastical architecture led the way--there is no disputing that,
whatever opinions may otherwise be held by astute archæologists,
historians, and the antiquarians, whose food is anything and everything
so long as it reeks of antiquity.
The planning and building of a great church was no menial work. Chief
dignitaries themselves frequently engaged in it: the Abbot Suger, the
foremost architect of his time--prime minister and regent of the kingdom
as he was--at St. Denis; Archbishop Werner at Strasbourg; and William of
Wykeham in England, to apportion such honours impartially.
Gothic style appears to have turned its back on Italy, where, in
Lombardy at all events, were made exceedingly early attempts in this
style. This, perhaps, because of satisfying and enduring classical works
which allowed no rivalry; a state of affairs to some extent equally true
of the south of France. The route of expansion, therefore, was
northward, along the Rhine, into the Isle of France, to Belgium, and
finally into England.
No more true or imaginative description of Gothic forms has been put
into literature than those lines of Sir Walter Scott, which define its
characteristics thus:
"... Whose pillars with clustered shafts so trim,
With base and capital flourished 'round,
Seemed bundles of lances which garlands had bound."
In modern times, even in France, church-building neither aspired to, nor
achieved, any great distinction.
Since the Concordat what have we had? A few restorations, which in so
far as they were carried out in the spirit of the original were
excellent; a few added members, as the west front and spires of St. Ouen
at Rouen; the towers and western portal at Clermont-Ferrand; and a few
other works of like magnitude and worth. For the rest, where anything of
bulk was undertaken, it was almost invariably a copy of a Renaissance
model, and often a bad one at that; or a descent to some hybrid thing
worse even than in their own line were the frank mediocrities of the era
of the "Citizen-King," or the plush and horsehair horrors of the Second
Empire.
Most characteristic, and truly the most important of all, are the
remains of the Gallo-Roman period. These are the most notable and
forceful reminders of the relative prominence obtained by mediæval
pontiffs, prelates, and peoples.
These relations are further borne out by the frequent juxtaposition of
ecclesiastical and civic institutions of the cities
themselves,--fortifications, palaces, châteaux, cathedrals, and
churches, the former indicating no more a predominance of power than the
latter.
A consideration of one, without something more than mere mention of the
other, is not possible, and incidentally--even for the
church-lover--nothing can be more interesting than the great works of
fortification--strong, frowning, and massive--as are yet to be seen at
Béziers, Carcassonne, or Avignon. It was this latter city which
sheltered within its outer walls that monumental reminder of the papal
power which existed in this French capital of the "Church of Rome"--as
it must still be called--in the fourteenth century.
To the stranger within the gates the unconscious resemblance between a
castellated and battlemented feudal stronghold and the many
churches,--and even certain cathedrals, as at Albi, Béziers, or
Agde,--which were not unlike in their outline, will present some
confusion of ideas.
Between a crenelated battlement or the machicolations of a city wall,
as at Avignon; or of a hôtel de ville, as at Narbonne; or the same
detail surmounting an episcopal residence, as at Albi, which is a
veritable _donjon_; or the Palais des Papes, is not a difference even of
degree. It is the same thing in each case. In one instance, however, it
may have been purely for defence, and in the other used as a decorative
accessory; in the latter case it was no less useful when occasion
required. This feature throughout the south of France is far more common
than in the north, and is bound to be strongly remarked.
Two great groups or divisions of architectural style are discernible
throughout the south, even by the most casual of observers.
One is the Provençal variety, which clings somewhat closely to the lower
valley of the Rhône; and the other, the Aquitanian (with possibly the
more restricted Auvergnian).
These types possess in common the one distinctive trait, in some form or
other, of the round-arched vaulting of Roman tradition. It is hardly
more than a reminiscence, however, and while not in any way resembling
the northern Gothic, at least in the Aquitanian species, hovers on the
borderland between the sunny south and the more frigid north.
The Provençal type more nearly approximates the older Roman, and,
significantly, it has--with less interpolation of modern ideas--endured
the longest.
The Aquitanian style of the cathedrals at Périgueux and Angoulême, to
specialize but two, is supposed to--and it does truly--bridge the gulf
between the round-arched style which is _not_ Roman and the more
brilliant and graceful type of Gothic.
With this manner of construction goes, of course, a somewhat different
interior arrangement than that seen in the north.
A profound acquaintance with the subject will show that it bears a
certain resemblance to the disposition of parts in an Eastern mosque,
and to the earlier form of Christian church--the basilica.
In this regard Fergusson makes the statement without reservation that
the Eglise de Souillac more nearly resembles the Cairène type of
Mohammedan mosque than it does a Christian church--of any era.
A distinct feature of this type is the massive pointed arch, upon which
so many have built their definition of Gothic. In truth, though, it
differs somewhat from the northern Gothic arch, but is nevertheless very
ancient. It is used in early Christian churches,--at Acre and
Jaffa,--and was adopted, too, by the architects of the Eastern Empire
long before its introduction into Gaul.
The history of its transportation might be made interesting, and surely
instructive, were one able to follow its orbit with any definite
assurance that one was not wandering from the path. This does not seem
possible; most experts, real or otherwise, who have tried it seem to
flounder and finally fall in the effort to trace its history in
consecutive and logical, or even plausible, fashion.
In illustration this is well shown by that wonderful and unique church
of St. Front at Périgueux, where, in a design simple to severity, it
shows its great unsimilarity to anything in other parts of France; if we
except La Trinité at Anjou, with respect to its roofing and piers of
nave.
It has been compared in general plan and outline to St. Marc's at
Venice, "but a St. Marc's stripped of its marbles and mosaics."
In the Italian building its founders gathered their inspiration for many
of its structural details from the old Byzantine East. At this time the
Venetians were pushing their commercial enterprises to all parts.
North-western France, and ultimately the British Isles, was the end
sought. We know, too, that a colony of Venetians had established itself
as far northward as Limoges, and another at Périgueux, when, in 984,
this edifice, which might justly be called Venetian in its plan, was
begun.
No such decoration or ornamentation was presumed as in its Adriatic
prototype, but it had much beautiful carving in the capitals of its
pillars and yet other embellishments, such as pavements, monuments, and
precious altars, which once, it is said, existed more numerously than
now.
Here, then, was the foundation of a new western style, differing in
every respect from the Provençal or the Angevinian.
Examples of the northern pointed or Gothic are, in a large way, found as
far south as Bayonne in its cathedral; in the spires of the cathedral at
Bordeaux; and less grandly, though elegantly, disposed in St. Nazaire in
the old _Cité de Carcassonne_; and farther north at Clermont-Ferrand,
where its northern-pointed cathedral is in strong contrast to the
neighbouring Notre Dame du Port, a remarkable type distinctly local in
its plan and details.
From this point onward, it becomes not so much a question of defining
and placing types, as of a chronological arrangement of fact with regard
to the activities of the art of church-building.
It is doubtless true that many of the works of the ninth and tenth
centuries were but feeble imitations of the buildings of Charlemagne,
but it is also true that the period was that which was bringing about
the development of a more or less distinct style, and if the Romanesque
churches of France were not wholly Roman in spirit they were at least
not a debasement therefrom.
Sir Walter Scott has also described the Romanesque manner of
church-building most poetically, as witness the following quatrain:
"Built ere the art was known
By pointed aisle and shafted stalk
The arcades of an alleyed walk
To emulate in stone."
However, little remains in church architecture of the pre-tenth century
to compare with the grand theatres, arenas, monuments, arches, towers,
and bridges which are still left to us. Hence comparison were futile.
Furthermore, there is this patent fact to be reckoned with, that the
petty followers of the magnificent Charlemagne were not endowed with as
luxurious a taste, as large a share of riches, or so great a power; and
naturally they fell before the idea they would have emulated.
As a whole France was at this period amid great consternation and
bloodshed, and traces of advancing civilization were fast falling before
wars and cruelties unspeakable. There came a period when the intellect,
instead of pursuing its rise, was, in reality, degenerating into the
darkness of superstition.
The church architecture of this period--so hostile to the arts and
general enlightenment--was undergoing a process even more fatal to its
development than the terrors of war or devastation.
It is a commonplace perhaps to repeat that it was the superstition
aroused by the Apocalypse that the end of all things would come with the
commencement of the eleventh century. It was this, however, that
produced the stagnation in church-building which even the ardour of a
few believing churchmen could not allay. The only great religious
foundation of the time was the Abbey of Cluny in the early years of the
tenth century.
When the eleventh century actually arrived, Christians again bestirred
themselves, and the various cities and provinces vied with each other in
their enthusiastic devotion to church-building, as if to make up for
lost time.
From this time onward the art of church-building gave rise to that
higher skill and handicraft, the practice of architecture as an art, of
which ecclesiastical art, as was but natural, rose to the greatest
height.
The next century was productive of but little change in style, and,
though in the north the transition and the most primitive of Gothic were
slowly creeping in, the well-defined transition did not come until well
forward in the twelfth century, when, so soon after, the new style
bloomed forth in all its perfected glory.
The cathedrals of southern France are manifestly not as lively and
vigorous as those at Reims, Amiens, or Rouen; none have the splendour
and vast extent of old glass as at Chartres, and none of the smaller
examples equal the symmetry and delicacy of those at Noyon or Senlis.
Some there be, however, which for magnificence and impressiveness take
rank with the most notable of any land. This is true of those of Albi,
Le Puy, Périgueux, and Angoulême. Avignon, too, in the _ensemble_ of its
cathedral and the papal palace, forms an architectural grouping that is
hardly rivalled by St. Peter's and the Vatican itself.
In many of the cities of the south of France the memory of the past,
with respect to their cathedrals, is overshadowed by that of their
secular and civic monuments, the Roman arenas, theatres, and temples. At
Nîmes, Arles, Orange, and Vienne these far exceed in importance and
beauty the religious establishments.
The monasteries, abbeys, and priories of the south of France are perhaps
not more numerous, nor yet more grand, than elsewhere, but they bring
one to-day into more intimate association with their past.
The "Gallia-Monasticum" enumerates many score of these establishments as
having been situated in these parts. Many have passed away, but many
still exist.
Among the first of their kind were those founded by St. Hilaire at
Poitiers and St. Martin at Tours. The great Burgundian pride was the
Abbey of Cluny; much the largest and perhaps as grand as any erected in
any land. Its church covered over seventy thousand square feet of area,
nearly equalling in size the cathedrals at Amiens and at Bourges, and
larger than either those at Chartres, Paris, or Reims. This great church
was begun in 1089, was dedicated in 1131, and endured for more than
seven centuries. To-day but a few small fragments remain, but note
should be made of the influences which spread from this great monastic
establishment throughout all Europe; and were second only to those of
Rome itself.
The lovely cloistered remains of Provence, Auvergne, and Aquitaine, the
comparatively modern Charterhouse--called reminiscently the Escurial of
Dauphiné--near Grenoble, the communistic church of St. Bertrand de
Comminges, La Chaise Dieu, Clairvaux, and innumerable other abbeys and
monasteries will recall to mind more forcibly than aught else what their
power must once have been.
Between the seventh and tenth centuries these institutions flourished
and developed in all of the provinces which go to make up modern France.
But the eleventh and twelfth centuries were the golden days of these
institutions. They rendered unto the land and the people immense
service, and their monks studied not only the arts and sciences, but
worked with profound intelligence at all manner of utile labour. Their
architecture exerted a considerable influence on this growing art of the
nation, and many of their grand churches were but the forerunners of
cathedrals yet to be. After the twelfth century, when the arts in France
had reached the greatest heights yet attained, these religious
establishments were--to give them historical justice--the greatest
strength in the land.
In most cases where the great cathedrals were not the works of bishops,
who may at one time have been members of monastic communities
themselves, they were the results of the efforts of laymen who were
direct disciples of the architect monks.
The most prolific monastic architect was undoubtedly St. Bénigne of
Dijon, the Italian monk whose work was spread not only throughout
Brittany and Normandy, but even across the Channel to England.
One is reminded in France that the nation's first art expression was
made through church-building and decoration. This proves Ruskin's
somewhat involved dicta, that, "architecture is the art which disposes
and adorns the edifices raised by man ... a building raised to the
honour of God has surely a use to which its architectural adornment fits
it."
From whatever remote period the visible history of France has sprung, it
is surely from its architectural remains--of which religious edifices
have endured the most abundantly--that its chronicles since Gallo-Roman
times are built up.
In the south of France, from the Gallic and Roman wars and invasions, we
have a basis of tangibility, inasmuch as the remains are more numerous
and definite than the mere pillars of stone and slabs of rock to be
found in Bretagne, which apocryphally are supposed to indicate an
earlier civilization. The _menhirs_ and _dolmens_ may mean much or
little; the subject is too vague to follow here, but they are not found
east of the Rhône, so the religion of fanaticism, of whatever species of
fervour they may have resulted from, has left very little impress on
France as a nation.
After the rudest early monuments were erected in the south, became
ruined, and fell, there followed gateways, arches, aqueducts, arenas,
theatres, temples, and, finally, churches; and from these, however
minute the stones, the later civilizing and Christianizing history of
this fair land is built up.
It is not possible to ignore these secular and worldly contemporaries of
the great churches. It would be fatal to simulate blindness, and they
could not otherwise be overlooked.
After the church-building era was begun, the development of the various
styles was rapid: Gothic came, bloomed, flourished, and withered away.
Then came the Renaissance, not all of it bad, but in the main entirely
unsuitable as a type of Christian architecture.
Charles VIII. is commonly supposed to have been the introducer of the
Italian Renaissance into France, but it was to Francois I.--that great
artistic monarch and glorifier of the style in its domestic forms at
least--that its popularization was due, who shall not say far beyond its
deserts? Only in the magnificent châteaux, variously classed as Feudal,
Renaissance, and Bourbon, did it partake of details and plans which
proved glorious in their application. All had distinctly inconsistent
details grafted upon them; how could it have been otherwise with the
various fortunes of their houses?
There is little or nothing of Gothic in the château architecture of
France to distinguish it from the more pronounced type which can hardly
be expressed otherwise than as "the architecture of the French
châteaux." No single word will express it, and no one type will cover
them all, so far as defining their architectural style. The castle at
Tarascon has a machicolated battlement; Coucy and Pierrefonds are
towered and turreted as only a French château can be; the ruined and
black-belted château of Angers is aught but a fortress; and Blois is an
indescribable mixture of style which varies from the magnificent to the
sordid. This last has ever been surrounded by a sentiment which is
perhaps readily enough explained, but its architecture is of that
decidedly mixed type which classes it as a mere hybrid thing, and in
spite of the splendour of the additions by the houses of the Salamander
and the Hedgehog, it is a species which is as indescribable (though more
effective) in domestic architecture as is the Tudor of England.
With the churches the sentiments aroused are somewhat different. The
Romanesque, Provençal, Auvergnian, or Aquitanian, all bespeak the real
expression of the life of the time, regardless of whether individual
examples fall below or rise above their contemporaries elsewhere.
The assertion is here confidently made, that a great cathedral church
is, next to being a symbol of the faith, more great as a monument to its
age and environment than as the product of its individual builders;
crystallizing in stone the regard with which the mission of the Church
was held in the community. Church-building was never a fanaticism,
though it was often an enthusiasm.
There is no question but that church history in general, and church
architecture in particular, are becoming less and less the sole pursuit
of the professional. One does not need to adopt a transcendent doctrine
by merely taking an interest, or an intelligent survey, in the social
and political aspects of the Church as an institution, nor is he
becoming biassed or prejudiced by a true appreciation of the symbolism
and artistic attributes which have ever surrounded the art of
church-building of the Roman Catholic Church. All will admit that the
æsthetic aspect of the church edifice has always been the superlative
art expression of its era, race, and locality.
_PART II_
_South of the Loire_
I
INTRODUCTORY
The region immediately to the southward of the Loire valley is generally
accounted the most fertile, abundant, and prosperous section of France.
Certainly the food, drink, and shelter of all classes appear to be
arranged on a more liberal scale than elsewhere; and this, be it
understood, is a very good indication of the prosperity of a country.
Touraine, with its luxurious sentiment of châteaux, counts, and bishops,
is manifestly of the north, as also is the border province of Maine and
Anjou, which marks the progress and development of church-building from
the manifest Romanesque types of the south to the arched vaults of the
northern variety.
Immediately to the southward--if one journeys but a few leagues--in
Poitou, Saintonge, and Angoumois, or in the east, in Berri, Marche, and
Limousin, one comes upon a very different sentiment indeed. There is an
abundance for all, but without the opulence of Burgundy or the splendour
of Touraine.
Of the three regions dealt with in this section, Poitou is the most
prosperous, Auvergne the most picturesque,--though the Cevennes are
stern and sterile,--and Limousin the least appealing.
Limousin and, in some measure, Berri and Marche are purely pastoral;
and, though greatly diversified as to topography, lack, in abundance,
architectural monuments of the first rank.
Poitou, in the west, borders upon the ocean and is to a great extent
wild, rugged, and romantic. The forest region of the Bocage has ever
been a theme for poets and painters. In the extreme west of the province
is the Vendée, now the department of the same name. The struggles of its
inhabitants on behalf of the monarchical cause, in the early years of
the Revolution, is a lurid page of blood-red history that recalls one of
the most gallant struggles in the life of the monarchy.
The people here were hardy and vigorous,--a race of landlords who lived
largely upon their own estates but still retained an attachment for the
feudatories round about, a feeling which was unknown elsewhere in
France.
Poitiers, on the river Clain, a tributary of the Vienne, is the chief
city of Poitou. Its eight magnificent churches are greater, in the
number and extent of their charms, than any similar octette elsewhere.
The valley of the Charente waters a considerable region to the southward
of Poitiers. "_Le bon Roi_" Henri IV. called the stream the most
charming in all his kingdom. The chief cities on its banks are La
Rochelle, the Huguenot stronghold; Rochefort, famed in worldly fashion
for its cheeses; and Angoulême, famed for its "_Duchesse_," who was also
worldly, and more particularly for its great domed cathedral of St.
Pierre.
With Auvergne one comes upon a topographical aspect quite different from
anything seen elsewhere.
Most things of this world are but comparative, and so with Auvergne. It
is picturesque, certainly. Le Puy has indeed been called "by one who
knows," "the most picturesque place in the world." Clermont-Ferrand is
almost equally attractive as to situation; while Puy de Dôme, Riom, and
St. Nectaire form a trio of naturally picturesque topographical
features which it would be hard to equal within so small a radius
elsewhere.
The country round about is volcanic, and the face of the landscape shows
it plainly. Clermont-Ferrand, the capital, was a populous city in Roman
times, and was the centre from which the spirit of the Church survived
and went forth anew after five consecutive centuries of devastation and
bloodshed of Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Saracens, Carlovingians and
Capetians.
Puy de Dôme, near Clermont-Ferrand, is a massive rocky mount which rises
nearly five thousand feet above the sea-level, and presents one of those
uncommon and curious sights which one can hardly realize until he comes
immediately beneath their spell.
Throughout this region are many broken volcanic craters and lava
streams. At Mont Doré-le-Bains are a few remains of a Roman thermal
establishment; an indication that these early settlers found--if they
did not seek--these warm springs of a unique quality, famous yet
throughout the world.
An alleged "Druid's altar," more probably merely a _dolmen_, is situated
near St. Nectaire, a small watering-place which is also possessed of an
impressively simple, though massive, Romanesque church.
At Issiore is the _Eglise de St. Pol_, a large and important church,
built in the eleventh century, in the Romanesque manner. Another most
interesting great church is _La Chaise Dieu_ near Le Puy, a remarkable
construction of the fourteenth century. It was originally the monastery
of the _Casa Dei_. It has been popularly supposed heretofore that its
floor was on a level with the summit of Puy de Dôme, hence its
appropriate nomenclature; latterly the assertion has been refuted, as it
may be by any one who takes the trouble to compare the respective
elevations in figures. This imposing church ranks, however, unreservedly
among the greatest of the mediæval monastic establishments of France.
The powerful feudal system of the Middle Ages, which extended from the
Atlantic and German Oceans nearly to the Neapolitan and Spanish
borders--afterward carried still farther into Naples and Britain--finds
its most important and striking monument of central France in the
Château of Polignac, only a few miles from Le Puy. This to-day is but a
ruin, but it rises boldly from a depressed valley, and suggests in every
way--ruin though it be--the mediæval stronghold that it once was.
Originally it was the seat of the distinguished family whose name it
bears. The Revolution practically destroyed it, but such as is left
shows completely the great extent of its functions both as a fortress
and a palace.
These elements were made necessary by long ages of warfare and
discord,--local in many cases, but none the less bloodthirsty for
that,--and while such institutions naturally promulgated the growth of
Feudalism which left these massive and generous memorials, it is hard to
see, even to-day, how else the end might have been obtained.
Auvergne, according to Fergusson, who in his fact has seldom been found
wanting, "has one of the most beautiful and numerous of the
'round-Gothic' styles in France ... classed among the perfected styles
of Europe."
Immediately to the southward of Le Puy is that marvellous country known
as the Cevennes. It has been commonly called sterile, bare,
unproductive, and much that is less charitable as criticism.
It is not very productive, to be sure, but a native of the land once
delivered himself of this remark: "_Le mûrier a été pendant longtemps
l'arbre d'or du Cevenol._" This is prima-facie evidence that the first
statement was a libel.
In the latter years of the eighteenth century the Protestants of the
Cevennes were a large and powerful body of dissenters.
A curious work _in English_, written by a native of Languedoc in 1703,
states "that they were at least ten to one Papist. And 'twas observed,
in many Places, the Priest said mass only for his Clerk, Himself, and
the Walls."
These people were not only valiant but industrious, and at that time
held the most considerable trade in wool of all France.
To quote again this eighteenth-century Languedocian, who aspired to be a
writer of English, we learn:
"God vouchsafed to Illuminate this People with the Truths of the Gospel,
several Ages before the Reformation.... The _Waldenses_ and _Albigenses_
fled into the Mountains to escape the violence of the Crusades against
them.... Cruel persecution did not so wholly extinguish the Sacred Light
in the _Cevennes_, but that some parts of it were preserved among its
Ashes."
As early as 1683 the Protestants in many parts of southern France drew
up a _Project_ of non-compliance with the Edicts and Declarations
against them.
The inhabitants in general, however, of the wealthy cities of
Montpellier, Nîmes and Uzès were divided much as factions are to-day,
and the Papist preference prevailing, the scheme was not put into
execution. Because of this, attempted resistance was made only in some
parts of the Cevennes and Dauphiné. Here the dissenters met with comfort
and assurance by the preachings of several ministers, and finally sought
to go out proselytizing among their outside brethren in affliction. This
brought martyrdom, oppression, and bloodshed; and finally culminated in
a long series of massacres. Children in large numbers were taken from
their parents, and put under the Romish faith, as a precaution,
presumably, that future generations should be more tractable and
faithful.
It is told of the Bishop of Alais that upon visiting the curé at Vigan,
he desired that forty children should be so put away, forthwith. The
curé could find but sixteen who were not dutiful toward the Church, but
the bishop would have none of it. Forty was his quota from that village,
and forty must be found. Forty _were_ found, the rest being made up
from those who presumably stood in no great need of the care of the
Church, beyond such as already came into their daily lives.
It seems outrageous and unfair at this late day, leaving all question of
Church and creed outside the pale, but most machination of arbitrary law
and ruling works the same way, and pity 'tis that the Church should not
have been the first to recognize this tendency. However, these
predilections on the part of the people are scarcely more than a memory
to-day, in spite of the fact that Protestantism still holds forth in
many parts. Taine was undoubtedly right when he said that it was
improbable that such a religion would ever satisfy the French
temperament.
Limousin partakes of many of the characteristics of Auvergne and Poitou.
Its architectural types favour the latter, and its topographical
features the former. The resemblance is not so very great in either
case, but it is to be remarked. Its chief city, Limoges, lies to the
northward of the _Montagnes du Limousin_, on the banks of the Vienne,
which, through the Loire, enters the Atlantic at St. Nazaire.
In a way, its topographical situation, as above noted, accounts far
more for its tendencies of life, the art expression of its churches, and
its ancient enamels and pottery of to-day, than does its climatic
situation. It is climatically of the southland, but its industry and its
influences have been greatly northern.
With the surrounding country this is not true, but with its one centre
of population--Limoges--it is.
II
L'ABBAYE DE MAILLEZAIS
Maillezais is but a memory, so far as its people and power are
concerned. It is not even a Vendean town, as many suppose, though it was
the seat of a thirteenth-century bishopric, which in the time of Louis
Quatorze was transferred to La Rochelle.
Its abbey church, the oldest portion of which dates from the tenth to
the twelfth centuries, is now but a ruin.
In the fourteenth century the establishment was greatly enlarged and
extensive buildings added.
To-day it is classed, by the Commission des Monuments Historiques, among
those treasures for which it stands sponsor as to their antiquity,
artistic worth, and future preservation. Aside from this and the record
of the fact that it became, in the fourteenth century, the seat of a
bishop's throne,--with Geoffroy I. as its first occupant,--it must be
dismissed without further comment.
[Illustration]
III
ST. LOUIS DE LA ROCHELLE
The city of La Rochelle will have more interest for the lover of history
than for the lover of churches.
Its past has been lurid, and the momentous question of the future rights
of the Protestants of France made this natural stronghold the
battle-ground where the most stubborn resistance against Church and
State was made.
The siege of 1573 was unsuccessful. But a little more than half a
century later the city, after a siege of fourteen months, gave way
before the powerful force brought against it by Cardinal Richelieu in
person, supported by Louis XIII.
For this reason, if for no other, he who would know from personal
acquaintance the ground upon which the mighty battles of the faith were
fought will not pass the Huguenot city quickly by.
The Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle naturally might not be supposed
to possess a very magnificent Roman cathedral. As a matter of fact it
does not, and it has only ranked as a cathedral city since 1665, when
the bishopric was transferred from Maillezais. The city was in the hands
of the Huguenots from 1557 until the siege of 1628-1629; and was, during
all this time, the bulwark of the Protestant cause in France.
The present cathedral of St. Louis dates only from 1735.
Its pseudo-classic features classify it as one of those structures
designated by the discerning Abbé Bourassé as being "cold-blooded and
lacking in lustre."
It surely is all of that, and the pity is that it offers no charm
whatever of either shape or feature.
It is of course more than likely that Huguenot influence was here so
great as to have strangled any ambition on the part of the mediæval
builders to have erected previously anything more imposing. And when
that time was past came also the demise of Gothic splendour. The
transition from the pointed to the superimposed classical details, which
was the distinctive Renaissance manner of church-building, was not as
sudden as many suppose, though it came into being simultaneously
throughout the land.
There is no trace, however, in the cathedral of St. Louis, of anything
but a base descent to features only too well recognized as having little
of churchly mien about them; and truly this structure is no better or
worse as an art object than many others of its class. The significant
aspect being that, though it resembles Gothic not at all, neither does
it bear any close relationship to the Romanesque.
The former parish church of St. Barthèlemy, long since destroyed, has
left behind, as a memory of its former greatness, a single lone tower,
the work of a Cluniac monk, Mognon by name. It is worth hours of
contemplation and study as compared with the minutes which could
profitably be devoted to the cathedral of St. Louis.
[Illustration]
IV
CATHÉDRALE DE LUÇON
When the see of Luçon was established in the fourteenth century it
comprehended a territory over which Poitiers had previously had
jurisdiction. A powerful abbey was here in the seventh century, but the
first bishop, Pierre de la Veyrie, did not come to the diocese until
1317. The real fame of the diocese, in modern minds, lies in the fact
that Cardinal Richelieu was made bishop of Luçon in the seventeenth
century (1606 to 1624).
The cathedral at Luçon is a remarkable structure in appearance. A hybrid
conglomerate thing, picturesque enough to the untrained eye, but
ill-proportioned, weak, effeminate, and base.
Its graceful Gothic spire, crocketed, and of true dwindling dimensions,
is superimposed on a tower which looks as though it might have been
modelled with a series of children's building-blocks. This in its turn
crowns a classical portal and colonnade in most uncanny fashion.
In the first stage of this tower, as it rises above the portal, is what,
at a distance, appears to be a diminutive _rosace_. In reality it is an
enormous clock-face, to which one's attention is invariably directed by
the native, a species of local admiration which is universal throughout
the known world wherever an ungainly clock exists.
The workmanship of the building as a whole is of every century from the
twelfth to the seventeenth, with a complete "restoration" in 1853. In
the episcopal palace is a cloistered arcade, the remains of a
fifteenth-century work.
A rather pleasing situation sets off this pretentious but unworthy
cathedral in a manner superior to that which it deserves.
[Illustration]
V
ST. FRONT DE PÉRIGUEUX
The grandest and most notable tenth-century church yet remaining in
France is unquestionably that of St. Front at Périgueux.
From the records of its history and a study of its distinctive
constructive elements has been traced the development of the transition
period which ultimately produced the Gothic splendours of the Isle of
France.
It is more than reminiscent of St. Marc's at Venice, and is the most
notable exponent of that type of roofing which employed the cupola in
groups, to sustain the thrust and counterthrust, which was afterward
accomplished by the ogival arch in conjunction with the flying
buttress.
Here are comparatively slight sustaining walls, and accordingly no great
roofed-over chambers such as we get in the later Gothic, but the whole
mass is, in spite of this, suggestive of a massiveness which many more
heavily walled churches do not possess. Paradoxically, too, a view over
its roof-top, with its ranges of egg-like domes, suggests a frailty
which but for its scientifically disposed strains would doubtless have
collapsed ere now.
This ancient abbatial church succeeded an earlier _basilique_ on the
same site. Viollet-le-Duc says of it: "It is an importation from a
foreign country; the most remarkable example of church-building in Gaul
since the barbaric invasion."
The plan of the cathedral follows not only the form of St. Marc's, but
also approximates its dimensions. The remains of the ancient basilica
are only to be remarked in the portion which precedes the foremost
cupola.
St. Front has the unusual attribute of an _avant-porch_,--a sort of
primitive narthen, as was a feature of tenth-century buildings (see plan
and descriptions of a tenth-century church in appendix), behind which is
a second porch,--a vestibule beneath the tower,--and finally the first
of the group, of five central cupolas.
The _clocher_ or belfry of St. Front is accredited as being one of the
most remarkable eleventh-century erections of its kind in any land. It
is made up of square stages, each smaller than the other, and crowned
finally by a conic cupola.
Its early inception and erection here are supposed to account for the
similarity of others--not so magnificent, but like to a marked
degree--in the neighbouring provinces.
Here is no trace of the piled-up tabouret style of later centuries, and
it is far removed from the mosque-like minarets which were the undoubted
prototypes of the mediæval clochers. So, too, it is different, quite,
from the Italian _campanile_ or the _beffroi_ which crept into civic
architecture in the north; but whose sole example in the south of France
is believed to be that curious structure which still holds forth in the
papal city of Avignon.
Says Bourassé: "The cathedral of St. Front at Périgueux is unique." Its
foundation dates with certitude from between 1010 and 1047, and is
therefore contemporary with that of St. Marc's at Venice--which it so
greatly resembles--which was rebuilt after a fire between 977 and 1071.
[Illustration: _Detail of the Interior of St. Front de Périgueux_]
The general effect of the interior is as impressive as it is unusual,
with its lofty cupolas, its weighty and gross pillars, and its massive
arches between the cupolas; all of which are purely constructive
elements.
There are few really ornamental details, and such as exist are of a
severe and unprogressive type, being merely reminiscent of the antique.
In its general plan, St. Front follows that of a Grecian cross, its
twelve wall-faces crowned by continuous pediments. Eight massive
pillars, whose functions are those of the later developed buttress,
flank the extremities of the cross, and are crowned by pyramidal cupolas
which, with the main roofing, combine to give that distinctive character
to this unusual and "foreign" cathedral of mid-France.
St. Front, from whom the cathedral takes its name, became the first
bishop of Périgueux when the see was founded in the second century.
VI
ST. PIERRE DE POITIERS
IN 1317 the diocese of Poitiers was divided, and parts apportioned to
the newly founded bishoprics of Maillezais and Luçon. The first bishop
of Poitiers was St. Nectaire, in the third century. By virtue of the
Concordat of 1801 the diocese now comprehends the Departments of Vienne
and Deux-Sèvres.
The cathedral of St. Pierre de Poitiers has been baldly and tersely
described as a "mere Lombard shell with a Gothic porch." This hardly
does it justice, even as to preciseness. The easterly portion is
Lombard, without question, and the nave is of the northern pointed
variety; a not unusual admixture of feature, but one which can but
suggest that still more, much more, is behind it.
The pointed nave is of great beauty, and, in the westerly end, contains
an elaborate _rosace_--an infrequent attribute in these parts.
[Illustration: Poitiers]
The aisles are of great breadth, and are quite as lofty in
proportion. This produces an effect of great amplitude, nearly as much
so as of the great halled churches at Albi or the aisleless St. André at
Bordeaux, and contrasts forcibly in majesty with the usual Gothic
conception of great height, as against extreme width.
Of Poitiers Professor Freeman says: "It is no less a city of counts than
Angers; and if Counts of Anjou grew into Kings of England, one Countess
of Poitiers grew no less into a Queen of England; and when the young
Henry took her to wife, he took all Poitou with her, and Aquitaine and
Gascogne, too, so great was his desire for lands and power." Leaving
that aspect apart--to the historians and apologists--it is the churches
of Poitiers which have for the traveller the greatest and all-pervading
interest.
Poitiers is justly famed for its noble and numerous mediæval church
edifices. Five of them rank as a unique series of Romanesque types--the
most precious in all France. In importance they are perhaps best ranked
as follows: St. Hilaire, of the tenth and eleventh centuries; the
Baptistère, or the Temple St. Jean, of the fourth to twelfth centuries;
Notre Dame de la Grande and St. Radegonde, of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries; and La Cathédrale, dating from the end of the Romanesque
period. Together they present a unique series of magnificent churches,
as is truly claimed.
When one crosses the Loire, he crosses the boundary not only into
southern Gaul but into southern Europe as well; where the very aspects
of life, as well as climatic and topographical conditions and features,
are far different from those of the northern French provinces.
Looking backward from the Middle Ages--from the fourteenth century to
the fourth--one finds the city less a city of counts than of bishops.
Another aspect which places Poitiers at the very head of ecclesiastical
foundations is that it sustained, and still sustains, a separate
religious edifice known as the Baptistère. It is here a structure of
Christian-Roman times, and is a feature seldom seen north of the Alps,
or even out of Italy. There is, however, another example at Le Puy and
another at Aix-en-Provence. This Baptistère de St. Jean was founded
during the reign of St. Hilaire as bishop of Poitiers, a prelate whose
name still lives in the Église St. Hilaire-le-Grand.
The cathedral of St. Pierre is commonly classed under the generic style
of Romanesque; more particularly it is of the Lombard variety, if such a
distinction can be made between the two species with surety. At all
events it marks the dividing-line--or period, when the process of
evolution becomes most marked--between the almost pagan plan of many
early Christian churches and the coming of Gothic.
In spite of its prominence and its beauty with regard to its
accessories, St. Pierre de Poitiers does not immediately take rank as
the most beautiful, nor yet the most interesting, among the churches of
the city: neither has it the commanding situation of certain other
cathedrals of the neighbouring provinces, such as Notre Dame at Le Puy,
St. Maurice at Angers, or St. Front at Périgueux. In short, as to
situation, it just misses what otherwise might have been a commanding
location.
St. Radegonde overhangs the river Clain, but is yet far below the
cathedral, which stands upon the eastern flank of an eminence, and from
many points is lost entirely to view. From certain distant
vantage-ground, the composition is, however, as complete and imposing an
ensemble as might be desired, but decidedly the nearer view is not so
pleasing, and somewhat mitigates the former estimate.
There is a certain uncouthness in the outlines of this church that does
not bring it into competition with that class of the great churches of
France known as _les grandes cathédrales_.
The general outline of the roof--omitting of course the scanty
transepts--is very reminiscent of Bourges; and again of Albi. The
ridge-pole is broken, however, by a slight differentiation of height
between the choir and the nave, and the westerly towers scarcely rise
above the roof itself.
The easterly termination is decidedly unusual, even unto peculiarity. It
is not, after the English manner, of the squared east-end variety, nor
yet does it possess an apse of conventional form, but rather is a
combination of the two widely differing styles, with considerably more
than a suggested apse when viewed from the interior, and merely a flat
bare wall when seen from the outside. In addition three diminutive
separate apses are attached thereto, and present in the completed
arrangement a variation or species which is distinctly local.
The present edifice dates from 1162, its construction being largely due
to the Countess Eleanor, queen to the young Earl Henry.
The high altar was dedicated in 1199, but the choir itself was not
finished until a half-century later.
There is no triforium or clerestory, and, but for the aisles, the
cathedral would approximate the dimensions and interior outlines of that
great chambered church at Albi; as it is, it comes well within the
classification called by the Germans _hallenkirche_.
Professor Freeman has said that a church that has aisles can hardly be
called a typical Angevin church; but St. Pierre de Poitiers is
distinctly Angevin in spite of the loftiness of its walls and pillars.
The west front is the most elaborate constructive element and is an
addition of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with flanking towers
of the same period which stand well forward and to one side, as at
Rouen, and at Wells, in England.
The western doorway is decorated with sculptures of the fifteenth
century, in a manner which somewhat suggests the work of the northern
builders; who, says Fergusson, "were aiding the bishops of the southern
dioceses to emulate in some degree the ambitious works of the Isle of
France."
The ground-plan of this cathedral is curious, and shows, in its interior
arrangements, a narrowing or drawing in of parts toward the east. This
is caused mostly by the decreasing effect of height between the nave and
choir, and the fact that the attenuated transepts are hardly more than
suggestions--occupying but the width of one bay.
The nave of eight bays and the aisles are of nearly equal height, which
again tends to produce an effect of length.
There is painted glass of the thirteenth century in small quantity, and
a much larger amount of an eighteenth-century product, which shows--as
always--the decadence of the art. Of this glass, that of the _rosace_ at
the westerly end is perhaps the best, judging from the minute portions
which can be seen peeping out from behind the organ-case.
The present high altar is a modern work, as also--comparatively--are the
tombs of various churchmen which are scattered throughout the nave and
choir. In the sacristy, access to which is gained by some mystic rite
not always made clear to the visitor, are supposed to be a series of
painted portraits of all the former bishops of Poitiers, from the
fourteenth century onward. It must be an interesting collection if the
outsider could but judge for himself; as things now are, it has to be
taken on faith.
A detail of distinct value, and a feature which shows a due regard for
the abilities of the master workman who built the cathedral, though his
name is unknown, is to be seen in the tympana of the canopies which
overhang the stalls of the choir. Here is an acknowledgment--in a
tangible if not a specific form--of the architectural genius who was
responsible for the construction of this church. It consists of a
sculptured figure in stone, which bears in its arms a compass and a T
square. This suggests the possible connection between the Masonic craft
and church-building of the Middle Ages; a subject which has ever been a
vexed question among antiquaries, and one which doubtless ever will be.
The episcopal residence adjoins the cathedral on the right, and the
charming Baptistère St. Jean is also close to the walls of, but quite
separate from, the main building of the cathedral.
The other architectural attractions of Poitiers are nearly as great as
its array of churches.
The Musée is exceedingly rich in archæological treasures. The
present-day Palais de Justice was the former palace of the Counts of
Poitou. It has a grand chamber in its _Salle des Pas-perdus_, which
dates from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries as to its decorations.
The ramparts of the city are exceedingly interesting and extensive. In
the modern hôtel de ville are a series of wall decorations by Puvis de
Chavannes. The Hôtel d'Aquitaine (sixteenth century), in the Grand Rue,
was the former residence of the Priors of St. John of Jerusalem.
The _Chronique de Maillezais_ tells of a former bishop of Poitiers who,
about the year 1114, sought to excommunicate that gay prince and poet,
William, the ninth Count of Poitiers, the earliest of that race of poets
known as the troubadours. Coming into the count's presence to repeat the
formula of excommunication, he was threatened with the sword of that gay
prince. Thinking better, however, the count admonished him thus: "No, I
will not. I do not love you well enough to send you to paradise." He
took upon himself, though, to exercise his royal prerogative; and
henceforth, for his rash edict, the bishop of Poitiers was banished for
ever, and the see descended unto other hands.
The generally recognized reputation of William being that of a "_grand
trompeur des dames_," this action was but a duty which the honest
prelate was bound to perform, disastrous though the consequences might
be. Still he thought not of that, and was not willing to accept
palliation for the count's venial sins in the shape of that nobleman's
capacities as the first chanter of his time,--poetic measures of
doubtful morality.
VII
ST. ETIENNE DE LIMOGES
"_Les Limosinats_ leave their cities poor, and they return
poor, after long years of labour."
--DE LA BÉDOLLIERE.
Limoges was the capital around which centred the life and activities of
the _pays du Limousin_ when that land marked the limits of the domain of
the Kings of France. (Guienne then being under other domination.)
The most ancient inhabitants of the province were known as _Lemovices_,
but the transition and evolution of the vocable are easily followed to
that borne by the present city of Limoges, perhaps best known of art
lovers as the home of that school of fifteenth century artists who
produced the beautiful works called _Emaux de Limoges_.
[Illustration: _St. Etienne de Limoges_]
The earliest specimens of what has come to be popularly known as Limoges
enamel date from the twelfth century; and the last of the great
masters in the splendid art died in 1765.
The real history of this truly great art, which may be said to have
taken its highest forms in ecclesiology,--of which examples are
frequently met with in the sacristies of the cathedral churches of
France and elsewhere--is vague to the point of obscurity. A study of the
subject, deep and profound, is the only process by which one can acquire
even a nodding acquaintance with all its various aspects.
It reached its greatest heights in the reign of that artistic monarch,
François I. To-day the memory and suggestion of the art of the
enamelists of Limoges are perpetuated by, and, through those cursory
mentors, the guide-books and popular histories, often confounded with,
the production of porcelain. This industry not only flourishes here, but
the famous porcelain earth of the country round about is supplied even
to the one-time royal factory of Sèvres.
St. Martial was the first prelate at Limoges, in the third century. The
diocese is to-day a suffragan of Bourges, and its cathedral of St.
Etienne, while not a very ancient structure, is most interesting as to
its storied past and varied and lively composition.
Beneath the western tower are the remains of a Romanesque portal which
must have belonged to an older church; but to all intents and purposes
St. Etienne is to-day a Gothic church after the true northern manner.
It was begun in 1273 under the direct influence of the impetus given to
the Gothic development by the erection of Notre Dame d'Amiens, and in
all its parts,--choir, transept, and nave,--its development and growth
have been most pleasing.
From the point of view of situation this cathedral is more attractively
placed than many another which is located in a city which perforce must
be ranked as a purely commercial and manufacturing town. From the Pont
Neuf, which crosses the Vienne, the view over the gardens of the
bishop's palace and the Quai de l'Evêché is indeed grand and imposing.
Chronologically the parts of this imposing church run nearly the gamut
of the Gothic note--from the choir of the thirteenth, the transepts of
the fourteenth and fifteenth, to the nave of the early sixteenth
centuries. This nave has only latterly been completed, and is preceded
by the elegant octagonal tower before mentioned. This _clocher_ is a
thirteenth-century work, and rises something over two hundred and four
feet above the pavement.
In the north transept is a grand rose window after the true French
mediæval excellence and magnitude, showing once again the northern
spirit under which the cathedral-builders of Limoges worked.
In reality the façade of this north transept might be called the true
front of the cathedral. The design of its portal is elaborate and
elegant. A series of carved figures in stone are set against the wall of
the choir just beyond the transept. They depict the martyrdom of St.
Etienne.
The interior will first of all be remarked for its abundant and
splendidly coloured glass. This glass is indeed of the quality which in
a later day has often been lacking. It dates from the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, except a part, readily discernible, which is of the
nineteenth.
The remains of a precious choir-screen are yet very beautiful. It has
been removed from its original position and its stones arranged in much
disorder. Still it is a manifestly satisfying example of the art of the
stone-carver of the Renaissance period. It dates from 1543. Bishop
Langeac (d. 1541), who caused it to be originally erected, is buried
close by, beneath a contemporary monument. Bishops Bernard Brun (d.
1349) and Raynaud de la Porte (d. 1325) have also Renaissance monuments
which will be remarked for their excess of ornament and elaboration.
In the crypt of the eleventh century, presumably the remains of the
Romanesque church whose portal is beneath the western tower, are some
remarkable wall paintings thought to be of a contemporary era. If so,
they must rank among the very earliest works of their class.
The chief treasures of the cathedral are a series of enamels which are
set into a reredos (the canon's altar in the sacristy). They are the
work of the master, Noel Loudin, in the seventeenth century.
In the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville is a monumental fountain in bronze and
porcelain, further enriched after the manner of the mediæval enamel
workers.
The _collection de ceramique_ in the Musée is unique in France, or for
that matter in all the world.
The _ateliers de Limoges_ were first established in the thirteenth
century by the monks of the Abbey of Solignac.
A remarkable example of the work of the _émailleurs limousins_ is the
twelfth-century reliquary of Thomas à Becket, one-time Archbishop of
Canterbury.
[Illustration: _Reliquary of Thomas à Becket_]
At the rear of the cathedral the Vienne is crossed by the
thirteenth-century bridge of St. Etienne. Like the cathedrals, châteaux,
and city walls, the old bridges of France, where they still remain, are
masterworks of their kind. To connect them more closely with the cause
of religion, it is significant that they mostly bore the name of, and
were dedicated to, some local saint.
VIII
ST. ODILON DE ST. FLOUR
Though an ancient Christianizing centre, St. Flour is not possessed of a
cathedral which gives it any great rank as a "cathedral town."
The bishopric was founded in 1318, by Raimond de Vehens, and the present
cathedral of St. Odilon is on the site of an ancient basilica. It was
begun in 1375, dedicated in 1496, and finished--so far as a great church
ever comes to its completion--in 1556.
Its exterior is strong and massive, but harmonious throughout. Its
façade has three portals, flanked by two square towers, which are capped
with modern _couronnes_.
The interior shows five small naves; that is, the nave proper, with two
aisles on either side.
Beside the western doorway are somewhat scanty traces of mediæval mural
paintings depicting Purgatory, while above is the conventionally
disposed organ _buffet_.
A fine painting of the late French school is in one of the side chapels,
and represents an incident from the life of St. Vincent de Paul. In
another chapel is a bas-relief in stone of "The Last Judgment,"
reproduced from that which is yet to be seen in the north portal of
Notre Dame de Reims. In the chapel of St. Anthony of Padua is a painting
of the "Holy Family," and in another--that of Ste. Anne--a remarkable
work depicting the "Martyred St. Symphorien at Autun."
In the lower ranges of the choir is some fine modern glass by Thévenot,
while high above the second range is a venerated statue of _Le Christ
Noir_.
From this catalogue it will be inferred that the great attractions of
the cathedral at St. Flour are mainly the artistic accessories with
which it has been embellished.
There are no remarkably beautiful or striking constructive elements,
though the plan is hardy and not unbeautiful. It ranks among cathedrals
well down in the second class, but it is a highly interesting church
nevertheless.
A chapel in the nave gives entrance to the eighteenth-century episcopal
palace, which is in no way notable except for its beautifully laid-out
gardens and terraces. The sacristy was built in 1382 of the remains of
the ancient Château de St. Flour, called De Brezons, which was itself
originally built in the year 1000.
IX
ST. PIERRE DE SAINTES
The chief architectural feature of this ancient town--the _Mediolanum
Santonum_, chief town of the Santoni--is not its rather uninspiring
cathedral (rebuilt in 1585), nor yet the church of St. Eutrope
(1081--96) with its underground crypt--the largest in France.
As a historical monument of rank far more interest centres around the
Arc de Triomphe of Germanicus, which originally formed a part of the
bridge which spans the Charente at this point. It was erected in the
reign of Nero by Caius Julius Rufus, a priest of Roma and Augustus, in
memory of Germanicus, Tiberius, his uncle, and his father, Drusus.
The bridge itself, or what was left of it, was razed in the nineteenth
century, which is of course to be regretted. A monument which could have
endured a matter of eighteen hundred years might well have been left
alone to takes its further chances with Father Time. Since then the
bridge has been rebuilt on its former site, a procedure which makes the
hiatus and the false position of the arch the more apparent. The
cloister of the cathedral, in spite of the anachronism, is in the early
Gothic manner, and the campanile is of the fifteenth century.
Saintes became a bishopric, in the province of Bordeaux, in the third
century. St. Eutrope--whose name is perpetuated in a fine Romanesque
church of the city--was the first bishop. The year 1793 saw the
suppression of the diocesan seat here, in favour of Angoulême.
In the main, the edifice is of a late date, in that it was entirely
rebuilt in the latter years of the sixteenth century, after having
suffered practical devastation in the religious wars of that time.
The first mention of a cathedral church here is of a structure which
took form in 1117--the progenitor of the present edifice. Such
considerable repairs as were necessary were undertaken in the fifteenth
century, but the church seen to-day is almost entirely of the century
following.
The most remarkable feature of note, in connection with this
_ci-devant_ cathedral, is unquestionably the luxurious flamboyant tower
of the fifteenth century.
This really fine tower is detached from the main structure and occupies
the site of the church erected by Charlemagne in fulfilment of his vow
to Pepin, his father, after defeating Gaiffre, Duc d'Aquitaine.
In the interior two of the bays of the transepts--which will be readily
noted--date from the twelfth century, while the nave is of the
fifteenth, and the vaulting of nave and choir--hardy and strong in every
detail--is, in part, as late as the mid-eighteenth century.
The Église de St. Eutrope, before mentioned, is chiefly of the twelfth
century, though its crypt, reputedly the largest in all France, is of a
century earlier.
Saintes is renowned to lovers of ceramics as being the birthplace of
Bernard Pallisy, the inventor of the pottery glaze; and is the scene of
many of his early experiments. A statue to his memory adorns the Place
Bassompierre near the Arc de Triomphe.
X
CATHÉDRALE DE TULLE
The charm of Tulle's cathedral is in its imposing and dominant
character, rather than in any inherent grace or beauty which it
possesses.